merkley: i rise to speak to amendment 1884. specifically this is the crowd funding amendment, and that might be a term that is new to many. so let me explain. that the internet provides new opportunities for capital to reach small businesses and startup entrepreneurs. and that what this crowd funding amendment does is says when the crowd, that is, all of those who are surfing the internet, go to a funding portal on the internet, a web site, to seek to support a company, to invest in a company, that there is an orderly process that adequately facilitates this type of opportunity while providing fundamental investor protections so that this will be an effective instrument of capital formation. because indeed, if crowd funding becomes a situation where inaccurate information is put forward, where there is no accountability, where there are pump-and-dump schemes, the reputation of crowd funding will be damaged and the opportunity for capital formation equally affected. this follows on a model already on the internet in some other c

merkley: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: i ask unanimous consent that my intern andy heckbirth bein be allowed privis of the floor. the presiding officer: without objection. perk america you rise tmr. merkk about the senate's constitutional responsibility to advice and consent. senators on both sides of the aisle have taken that duty very seriously, because if they do not honor that, the judiciary does not function. we talk about the three branches of government, but in no possible way did the writers of our constitution envision that the senate could use the advise and consent power to undermine the ability of the other two branches to do their jobs. the presiding officer: senator, morning business is closed. under the previous order, the senate will resume consideration of s. 1813, which the clerk will report. under the previous order, the time until 11:30 a.m. will be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees. under the previous order -- until 11:30 a.m., the time will be equal

merkley: mr. president, i have 11 unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the pproval of the majority and minority leaders. irask unanimous consent that these requests be agreed to and that these requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. merkley: thank you, mr. president. i rise today to ask my colleagues to give serious consideration to a major piece of loalings thaof legislation ta crowdfunding amendment introduced by senator ben.net and myself and with the support of senators landrieu and senator brown and a number of others. i want to thank senator landrieu for the points that she has been making in her fierce advocacy that we need to create a highway for minerfor americans to buildh without creating avenues that send people into either blind alleys or over a cliff. that's what this conversation is all about today. we want to enable aspiring entrepreneurs to access capital and to do so

i'm hopeful that the good work done by senators merkley, warner, bennet and others will -- i hope the minority will wrap their arms around this and pass it. i hope that they will agree to pass the reid amendment. we'll soon know about that. but the bill's going to be gone, sent to the president real soon if the house agrees to help us with the legislation. mr. president, two years ago tomorrow president obama signed a patient protection and affordable care act into law. it was the greatest single step in generations toward insuring access toward affordable quality health care for every american regardless of where they lived or how much money they make. millions and millions of americans have already felt the benefit of this law. seniors are saving money, millions and millions of dollars, on their prescriptions and their free checkups. the doughnut hole is rapidly disappearing because of this bill. this law, i should say. insurance companies can no longer set arbitrary lifetime caps on benefits. mr. president, what they would do is you thought you were in good shape. you had an insura

merkley: thank you, madam president. i rise to address the baucus amendment that maintains the core federal commitment to our timber counties through the secure rural schools and the payment in lieu of taxes programs. let me give you a sense of what this is all about. this is equivalent to a farmer who is told by the federal government, we have a new set of rules and you can't grow crops on your farm any longer but we are going to substitute payments that you would otherwise recei receive. well, the farmer doesn't like it, he'd rather grow crops, but what can he do? then along comes the government a few years later and says, you know what? you can't grow crops and you're not going to get compensated for our rules that tell you, you can't grow crops. and, of course, that's outrageous. that's like a taking of proper property. and yet that is exactly, exactly the situation that exists for our timber counties in terms of the lands effected by the secure rural schools program. the timber harvest cannot proceed in its original

merkley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to speak for about five minutes. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. merkley: thank you, mr. president. this is a tough time for americans. we all know families who are sitting around the kitchen tables struggling to figure out how to make ends meet. but those tough time have not extended to the boardrooms of the big five oil companies. in 2011 alone, those companies saw more than $100 billion in profits, a sum that's difficult to get your hands around, difficult to understand. what is $1 billion, let alone $100 billion not in revenue, but in profits. exxon is sitting on $8 billion that it has not reinvested. shell is sitting on $13 billion cash in hand. the five-largest companies together -- b.p., exxon, chevron, conocophillips and shell -- have cash resources of $59 billion and have made nearly $1 trillion in profits over the last decade. meanwhile american taxpayers are not only being forced to hand over l

we're supporting the merkley-bennet approach which is in this bill. so launch it, we hear you, and we're trying to respond. and finally, motavi, i guess is the way, again a crowd funder advocate, people very entrepreneurial coming up with these ideas saying the same thing. could i have those into the record. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. landrieu: again just to recap so people can see on this chart, aarp has written us against the house bill. consumer federation of america against the house bill. the afl-cio against the house bill. yes, those are some of the left-leaning organizations. but we also have central -- centrist and right-leaning organizations. talking about the former security and exchange commissioner's chief accountant. this is what they say. there are always paths to improvement for, the stock exchange included. how quickly congressmen seem to have forgotten why many such regulations were enacted in the first place. last month marked the tenth anniversary of the collapse of enron. madam president, it hasn't been ten years

merkley: i rise to address the surface transportation bill that is on the floor today.it has been a mark of the challenges that this body faces in deliberation that we've now been on this bill for three weeks. we haven't had a debate over transportation amendment, but hope does spring eternal. and in the spirit of that, i wanted to come to the floor and share some thinking about amendments that we should be debating and should be approving in this process. certainly the underlying transportation bill is a great step toward our number-one goal of passing legislation that would create jobs. put people back to work in the hardest-hit sectors of our economy. building and repairing our transportation infrastructure will create or save two million jobs nationwide, good-paying jobs that will provide a huge boost to our struggling construction industry, their families, to the workers and to our economy. you know, this infrastructure that we would be building is a down payment for the success of our future economy. china is spending 10% of its g.d.p. on infrastructure. they're p

12:30 the postcloture time be considered spired and the senate proceed to vote on the following, merkley number 1844 as amended if amended and passage of h.r. 3606 if amended. there be two minutes equally eqy divided and controlled by in the usual form, that upon digs position of h.r. 3606 the senate proceed to consideration of the house message to accompany s. 2038, the stock act that there be four minutes of debate equally divided and controlled by in the usual form prior to the motion to invoke cloture in the house message to instur s. 2038, if cloture is invoked all postcloture time be yielded back, the amendment be withdrawn and the motion to concur agreed to. the motions relative to the above items be laid and laid upon the table and after all after the first vote be ten-minute votes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein are up to minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: mr. durbin: i ask te following the disposition of the

i want to commend senator bennet and senator merkley and senator brown for working hard on that. but there are other pieces of this legislation if we are going to compete and win in this global competition for talent and ideas and have these jobs created in america that we've got to take on. that's why i was so proud to work with senator moran in our start-up legislation that says attracting capital is one part of making a company successful. another part of making a company successful is winning the worldwide competition for talent. unfortunately, time and again what we are doing in this country is we are losing that competition for the best talent. there are literally tens of thousands of jobs that are going unfilled right now because we do not have enough american-born scientists, engineers, mathematicians with graduate degrees. we in our country, because we have the world's best system of higher education, we train many of the world's best and brightest. but under our current immigration policies, we train those folks at the virginia techs, university of new mexico's, give th

and these house provisions i think are corrected by the approach taken by my colleagues, senator merkleythat the senate bill that they have proposed addresses many of the concerns expressed by professor john coffee of the columbia school of law. he called the house proposal in this regard the boiler room legalization act, a reference to the bad old days when people gathered in what was called boiler rooms and made cold calls to try to enlist investors into dubious schemes. there is another section of our bill that will help small and medium sized companies access large amounts of money, up to $50 million to infuse businesses with much-needed capital. we have proposed a few but very important improvements to the work of senators tester and toomey in their legislation and similar language in the house bill. let me talk about the improvements to the so-called regulation a or mini offering section of the bill to achieve a better balance between investor protections and access to capital. like the house bill, our bill raises the amount of money that can be raised in a mini offering process. h

why i'm on the floor today, madam president, to talk about a bipartisan bill, a bill that senator merkleyand senator brown and i have worked on on crowd funding. and it's an amendment that i hope will come to the floor, and i hope we can get to a vote. over the past months we've worked together in a bipartisan way on crowd funding, a proposal that would allow crowd funding to thrive but would also contain an appropriate level of oversight and investor protections. we've done something very unusual in this town. we took time to listen to people, and we listened to crowd funding platforms, entrepreneurs and investor protection advocates, many of whom support this bill and have endorsed this bill. we worked hard to incorporate their ideas. and as a result, we've got a bipartisan amendment that has the support of both businesses and consumer advocates. that's something that doesn't happen that frequently in this town, and i hope that we have the chance to vote on it. and i would urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to see this as a real opportunity to take one step -- not a huge step

i thank senator boxer and senator durbin, senator graham from south carolina and senator merkley for their help on this legislation. american -- today president obama signed into but a trade enforcement measure that last week passed this chamber by unanimous consent. a bipartisan legislation which i cosponsored with senators baucus and thune primarily, gives the commerce department authority to impose what are called counterveiling duties on imports from countries that are nonmarket economies. that means countries more sort of command and control economies like the people's republic of china. federal appeals court last year viewed shiewd a ruling that hamstrings our nation's ability to fight back against illegal trade practices. here's why congress passed this bill. we know china doesn't play by the rules from direct export subsidies to currency manipulation, china does things that our country doesn't and many other countries don't. it gives its exporters an unfair advantage. american industries fight back by physicianing the commerce department to investigate these subsidies. 16 ohi

merkley: thank you, mr. president. i reserve the right to object. i'm going to explain my concerns. let me start by quoting george w. bush. george w. bush said free markets are not a jungle in which only the unscrupulous survive, or a financial free for all guided only by greed. then he continued, tricking an investor into taking a risk is theft by another name. what we're in the process of considering is taking a house bill related to the production of capital for small and emerging businesses and considering it on the floor of this senate without due process by a senate banking committee. now, we need that process because the house bill is full of problems for investors that will create a marketplace where investors can be deeply damaged. it is our responsibility in this body to make sure that as we produce a streamlined system for small companies and start-up companies to access capital, we don't create basically a scheme for pump and dump operators seeking to defraud american citizens. that's why we need due consideration in committee. now, i can't speak to the challenges with a

senator merkley, welcome. >> thank you madam chair. is it my turn for questions?i wanted to ask a couple of things. particularly around the venting of gases because one of your orders requires improvement replacement -- >> senator this is your time for an opening statement. >> i went past the opening statement. >> that is fair enough. we will turn to our esteemed panel now and we will start off with her honorable chairman, jaczko and he will have five minutes and each member will have three. go ahead mr. chairman. >> chairman carper ranking member barrasso and member of of the committee on behalf of the commission i appreciate the opportunity to appear before you to provide an update on the nrc's implementation of safety enhancement based on our review of the fukushima daiichi nuclear accident. i stress the commission continues to believe there is no imminent risk from continuing operations of power plants in the united states. at the same time however, our assessment of the event of fukushima daiichi leads us to conclude additional requirement should be imposed o

senator merkley, welcome. >> thank you, madam chair. is it my turn? >> it certainly is. >> great. i wanted to ask a couple things. particularly around the venting of gases, because one of your orders, third order requires improvement or replacement -- >> senator, this is your time for opening statement. >> ok. i want to pass on the opening statement so we can get to your testimony. >> that's fair enough. ok. we will turn to our esteemed panel now. we will start off with our honorable chairman, jaczko, he's going to have five minutes as chair and each member will have three. go ahead, chairman. >> chairman boxer, chairman carper, ranking member barrasso, members of the committee, on behalf of the commission i appreciate the opportunity to appear before you to provide an update on the n.r.c.'s implementation of safety enhancements based on our review of the fukushima daiichi nuclear accident. i stress that the commission continues to believe there is no imminent risk from continued operation of nuclear power plants in the united states. at the same time, however, our assessment of t

senator merkley. welcome. >> thank you, madame share. is it my turn to -- >> it certainly is. >> i wanted to ask a couple things. particularly around the venting of gases because one of your orders requires improvement -- >> this is your time for an opening statement. i'm going to pass on the opening statement. >> welcome that's fair enough. we will turn to our panel now who will start off with our honorable sharon and he's going to have five minutes and each member will have three. go ahead, chairman. >> chairman boxer, german carper, ranking member barrasso and members of the committee on behalf of the commission i appreciate the opportunity to appear before you to provide an update on the implementation safety enhancement space in the review at the fukushima accident. i stress the commission continues to believe that there is no imminent risk from continued operations in the power plant in the united states. at the same time, however, our assessment fukushima leads us to conclude that additional requirements should be imposed on the l

we've worked very closely with senator merkley and senator bennet and senator brown of massachusetts to include a crowd funding provision which is much superior. if we do not achieve cloture, we will see, by default, a bad house bill on its way to become law. the presiding officer: the senator has used two minutes. the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. ms. landrieu: thank you. madam president, following up on the leadership of the good senator from rhode island, let me say that there are many reasons -- many reasons -- to vote against cloture on the house bill, and i'll get to that in a minute. but i am urging my colleagues to vote "yes" on cloture for the reed-landrieu-levin substitute. we have tried to address the many, many concerns raised by the house bill in our substitu substitute. if we vote "yes" on cloture for our substitute, we can then go into some more meaningful debate on the senate floor, and this bill needs some additional debate. mary shapiro from the s.e.c. said clearly that the house bill goes too far. the chamber of commerce even says there are concern

senator merkley, welcome. >> thank you, madam chair. is it my turn? >> it certainly is. >> great. i wanted to ask a couple things. particularly around the venting of gases, because one of your orders, third order requires improvement or replacement -- >> senator, this is your time for opening statement. >> ok. i want to pass on the opening statement so we can get to your testimony. >> that's fair enough. ok. we will turn to our esteemed panel now. we will start off with our honorable chairman, jaczko, he's going to have five minutes as chair and each member will have three. go ahead, chairman. >> chairman boxer, chairman carper, ranking member barrasso, members of the committee, on behalf of the commission i appreciate the opportunity to appear before you to provide an update on the n.r.c.'s implementation of safety enhancements based on our review of the fukushima daiichi nuclear accident. i stress that the commission continues to believe there is no imminent risk from continued operation of nuclear power plants in the united states. at the same time, however, our assessment of t

merkley: plant. mr. merkley madam president i want to encourage to you adopt amendment 1884. the house bill as it came to us on crowdfunding is a pathway to predatory scams. if the company provides information, it requires no responsibility or accountability for the accuracy of that information. it allows companies to hire people to pump the stocks, which is exactly what we all know from pumping-and-dump schemes is very devastating to any solid financial foundation for capital aggregation, capital formation. i wasn't to -- i want to applaud my colleagues, senator bennet, senator landrieu, senator brown, who have worked together to bring this bipartisan amendment forward that provides the right amount of streamlining for the companies, the right amount of streamlining for portals on the internet and the right set of investor protections, information, and accountability necessary to make crowdfunding crowdfunding -- the exciting -- fulfill the exciting potential it has. thank you. the presiding officer: who yields time in opposition? the time is yielded back. the question is on

merkley: thank you, mr. president. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call: quorum call: mr. reid: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the call of the quorum be terminated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: first of all, i don't think apologies are in order, we've been doing the best he would can on this for several days now and we have a typical agreement, one that is not -- one that either side jumps for joi joy, but i think we are going to jump for joy in the fact we're going to be able in the near future to be able to finish this very important piece of legislation, we've known that from the beginning. mr. president, i appreciate everyone's patience here. i ask unanimous consent that the motion to recommit be withdrawn, the pending second-degree amendment be withdrawn, that the reid of nevada amendment number 1761 be agreed to, the bill be considered as original text for purpose of further amendment and

i yield the remainder of my time to senator merkley, a cosponsor. mr. merkley: thank you. madam president, transportation projects financed by american taxpayers should, to the maximum extent possible, be built using american materials and american workers. but all too often, loopholes have crept in that have resulted in american transportation projects, paid with american taxpayer money being built by chinese firms with chinese workers and chinese deals. it's wrong. please support this amendment. the presiding officer: the senator's time as that expired. mr. yields time in opposition? -- who yields time in opposition? the time is yielded back. the question is on the amendment. all those in favor say aye. opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes have it. the amendment is agreed to. the presiding officer: there will now be two minutes of debate equally divided on amendment number 1540, offered by the senator from missouri, senator blunt. mr. blunt: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. blunt: madam president, this amendment would ju