klobuchar: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: the senate is currently in a quorum call. ms. klobuchar: i ask the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. klobuchar: i'm here to talk on behalf of commerce secretary nominee john bryson. mr. bryson testified before our commerce committee. i was impressed by his background and by his ability to answer the questions, by his understanding of business. i think everyone knows we are facing difficult economic times in this country, and we need someone in that job that understands business. mr. bryson has strong and broad support within the business community and his nomination has been endorsed by such groups as the u.s. chamber of commerce, the business round table and the national association of manufacturers. six former commerce secretaries from george w. bush, bill clinton, george h.w. bush, nixon administrations, those commerce secretaries from those presidential administrations have also joined in strongly supporting his confirmat

. >> your colleague from minnesota, senator klobuchar. >> thank you, madame secretary, for the work you are doing every day. i want to mention two things i did not know have been discussed. i have been here for most of the questions, but, first, the good work you have done in our area on flooding issues, that fema has done in the red river valley and the administrator's assistance with the floods was very much appreciated. >> great. >> and then, the second piece of this is the work that i don't think many people focused on that you do, adoption. when things come up in helping parents adopt children from issues. i wanted to know, the last -- i did want you to know that at the last hearing i ask you about a family from the philippines, senator sessions and senator inhofe and i worked to pass a bill to allow older siblings if they turn 16 or 17 to still be adopted if they have a younger sibling adopted. this literally allowed 10,000 kids retroactively to come into loving homes in our country. one of them was a family that i brought up. thanks to the help of your agency -- they were going t

it is again for senator klobuchar. you will always have a place back at the fcc, particularly if you keep a positive eye on our budget. [laughter] and we have the headcount available. so we are counting on you and we wish you well. with that, madam secretary, can you please announce the date of the next meeting? >> it will be wednesday november 30, 2011. >> thank you very much. we are adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> after yesterday's meeting, julius genachowski took questions from reporters for about 15 minutes. >> i will call and people. that's the rule. we have new faces today. we will start on the left. >> ask him want to mention one thing which i meant to say during the bureau which is we planned on moving to decisions on those sometimes in the spring. high, chairman. paul. on issue of contributions, do you expect any slow down given the election year we are headed into? >> i think you are asking when we're going to do contributions reform? we haven't announced the schedule yet. we

senator klobuchar. >> thank you, mr. chairman. again, i heard about this, really, for the first time -- you had heard stories in my state, but at this big dinner that they have in minnesota. an athlete came and spoke about the research and i just walked away from that sort of blown away about the facts that are out there and the need for more education. i then held up an alzheimer's forum this summer. one of the things that i learned was, just as early diagnosis this summer and what i learned is that a lot of the players are donating their brains, those that it dementia, to research. and early diagnosis could really help us, not just the patient, but could help us potentially develop a cure. the mayo clinic was able to do more because they have these advanced ways to recognize early diagnosis. you cannot practice different kinds of solutions and medications and things without knowing the early on. if you wait too long when someone is to advance, you cannot actually tell if something is working or not. do you want to comment on tha

senator klobuchar. >> thank you, mr. chairman. again, i heard about this, really, for the first time -- you had heard stories in my state, but at this big dinner that they have in minnesota. an athlete came and spoke about the research and i just walked away from that sort of blown away about the facts that are out there and the need for more education. i then held up an alzheimer's forum this summer. one of the things that i learned was, just as early diagnosis this summer and what i learned is that a lot of the players are donating their brains, those that it dementia, to research. and early diagnosis could really help us, not just the patient, but could help us potentially develop a cure. the mayo clinic was able to do more because they have these advanced ways to recognize early diagnosis. you cannot practice different kinds of solutions and medications and things without knowing the early on. if you wait too long when someone is to advance, you cannot actually tell if something is working or not. do you want to comment on tha

picking up on what senator klobuchar just said a brief commercial, the food and drug administration ishorization process next year, it will be tough because it's a political year as well, but it's critical, our ability for the approval of new medical devices is something where we're severely insufficient to this country, we're driving that business overseas, that investment overseas, at the same time, under the affordable care kt a, we'll be taxing that segment of our intellectual capital and i think it's unconscionable the way we behave. we hear a lot of talk about the $1 trillion sitting on the sidelines that corporations have, $1 trillion they're waiting to see what's going to happen is that accurate? >> i think it's more like $2 trillion. >> what is it they're waiting to see? >> well, partly it's liquidity preference from the crisis, you know, where they want to make sure they have enough cash on hand in case there are more financial issues. >> are those capital rirptes you have imposed? ? i'm talking about corporations, not about banks. corporations, i remain very, i think, uncert

among them, senators franken, begich, klobuchar, pryor, tester, and mccaskill. they're all cosponsors of senator scott brown's bill. what this bill does, it repeals any an existing requirement that government agencies at the state, federal, and local level withhold 3% of every payment to any contractor they do business with. this is money contractors may very well end up getting back from the i.r.s. at some point long after the job is done. but, in the meantime, the government gets to hold onto it instead of allowing the businesses to invest it in jobs and the economy. this is money these companies could be putting toward hiring workers and growing their businesses, but it's going to the i.r.s. instead. basically as a zero-interest loan to the federal government here in washington. now, i know that members on both sides of the aisle are hearing from constituents about how burdensome this legislation is. that's why president obama himself already embraced delaying its implementation in his first stimulus bill and proposed delaying it again in his latest stimulus

introduced a couple of weeks ago along with senators leahy, gillibrand, men ne menendez, frn and klobuchar it is called the s.s.i. extension of 2011. the has just held a voice vote and passed this bill and i believe that's because it is a truly worthy piece of legislation tsm accomplishes three incredibly important objectives at the same time. first, the bill ensures that approximately 5,600 disabled refugees will not lose their life-sustaining benefits that are their only safety net protecting them from homelessness, illness and other effects of extreme poverty. many of the disabled refugees of this bill are people who aided american troops overseas in iraq and afghanistan and have risked their lives for american causes, for the american cause. others are victims of torture, or human trafficking. the bill continues the bush administration policy of making sure that this vulnerable group does not lose its only lifeline to stay afloat. but unlike past legislation, the second fact about the bill is that it's fully paid for. it's paid for by imposing a $30 fee on individuals applying for the

. >> colleague from minnesota, senator klobuchar. >> thank you for the work you do every day. i want to mention two things. i have been here for most of the questions but the good work that you have done in our area of funding issues that fema has done in the red river valley and administrator fewa during his assistants and the second piece of that is something on a down thing many people focus on that you do with adoption when things come up in helping parents adopt children from other countries and some of the issues that come up. the last hearing asked about a family from the philippines. senator sessions and i worked together to pass a bill allowing older siblings to still be adopted. if they have a younger sibling that is adopted this literally allowed 10,000 kids retroactively to come into loving homes in our country. one of them is the mccord family. thanks to your agency they going to have to leave the two older kids that held the family of 9 together and thanks to the work of your agency the two older kids were able to get on a plane with a family. imac all nine child

klobuchar: mr. president, i rise today to speak in support of the american jobs act.arely is our economy discussed these days without mention of the 14 million americans that are currently out of work and searching for a job, but as you know from your home state, this isn't just a statistic. it's real people, people who are struggling, people who have had their hours cut, people who may have worked at a job for a very long time and poof, it's gone away. that's what this is about. two years after the recession officially ended by the accounts, unemployment is still stubbornly high at 9.1%, 9.1%. when you factor those that are working full time because they can't find a full-time job, those numbers go much higher, up toward 16%. now, my home state, the state of minnesota, is much better. we have an unemployment rate of 7.2%, but there are still too many people out of work or who are struggling with reduced hours at their jobs. while no group of workers has been spared by the high rates of long-term unemployment, the hardest hit have been older workers, those with a high

klobuchar: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms.buchar: i rise today to talk about a serious public health crisis facing our nation and to highlight some of the important progress that we have made today. we are currently kopbl fronting unpress -- we are currently confronting shortages of critical medications. these drug shortages impacted people across our country forcing some patients to delay their lifesaving treatments or use unproven, less effective alternatives. in some cases drug shortages have resulted in patients not being able to get the kind of treatment that they've gotten in giving slow in getting their treatment and getting left behind. i've been working to address this problem for over a year since i first heard from hospitals, pharmacists and patients in minnesota that they were facing shortages of essential medications, particularly chemotherapy drugs. their urgency led me to send a letter to f.d.a. commission hamburg to take actions to address this public crisis. over the next few months i continued to receive call

. >> your colleague from minnesota, senator klobuchar. >> thank you, madame secretary, for the work you are doing every day. i want to mention two things i did not know have been discussed. first, the good work you have done in our area on flooding issues, that fema has done in the red river valley and the administrator's assistance with the floods was very much appreciated. the second piece of this is the work that i don't think many people focused on that you do, adoption. when things come up in helping parents adopt children from other countries and some of the issues. i wanted to know, the last hearing i ask you about a family from the philippines, senator sessions and senator inhofe and i worked to pass a bill to allow older siblings if they turn 16 or 17 to still be adopted if they have a younger sibling adopted. this literally allowed 10,000 kids retroactively to come into loving homes in our country. one of them was a family that i brought up. thanks to the help of your agency -- they were going to have to leave the older kids that held this family together when the mother died

. >> your colleague from minnesota, senator klobuchar. >> thank you, madame secretary, for the work you are doing every day. i want to mention two things i did not know have been discussed. first, the good work you have done in our area on flooding issues, that fema has done in the red river valley and the administrator's assistance with the floods was very much appreciated. the second piece of this is the work that i don't think many people focused on that you do, adoption. when things come up in helping parents adopt children from other countries and some of the issues. i wanted to know, the last hearing i ask you about a family from the philippines, senator sessions and senator inhofe and i worked to pass a bill to allow older siblings if they turn 16 or 17 to still be adopted if they have a younger sibling adopted. this literally allowed 10,000 kids retroactively to come into loving homes in our country. one of them was a family that i brought up. thanks to the help of your agency -- they were going to have to leave the older kids that held this family together when the mother died

in support of a bill that i'll be introducing along with senators leahy, gillibrand, franken and klobucharo passing today by unanimous consent is truly unique because it accomplishes three incredibly important objectives at the same time. it ensures that approximately 5,600 disabled refugees will not lose critical life-sustaining benefits that is their only safety net, protecting them from homelessness, illness and other effects of extreme poverty. some of the disabled refugees this bill helps are people who aided american troops overseas in aircraft or afghanistan and -- in iraq or afghanistan. others are victims of torture or human trafficking whose injuries are so severe that they're now unable to sustain themselves without these benefits. the bill continues the bush administration policy of making sure that this vulnerable group does not lose their benefits, but unlike past bills the second key fact about this bill is that it's fully paid for. it's paid for by imposing a $30 fee on individuals applying to enter the country through the diversity visa lottery program. each year hundreds