mr. grassley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: today the senate will vote on the nomination of j. paul oetken to be united states district judge for southern district new york. today's vote marks the 28th judicial confirmation this year and i'm pleased that we're moving forward with filling another vacancy. when i became ranking member of the judiciary committee earlier this year, the court had 103 vacancies. i've worked with the chairman and other members of the committee to reduce vacancies by confirming consensus nominees. we have brought the vacancies down now to 89. based upon media stories and other exaggerated statements that i hear from time to time, you would think that the republicans are blocking every judicial nominee. the records show something quite and very different. in total, 60% of the president's judicial nominees have been confirmed. 33% of the nominees have been confirmed during this congress. we continue to achieve great progress in committee. 73% of the judicial nominees submitted this congress have

mr. grassley: i ask that the calling of the quorumming suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: at least two times in the last couple months i've come to the floor to tell my colleagues about some work i'm doing on an investigation of waste, fraud, and abuse in the defense department and primarily to focus on the work of the inspector general's office in regard to how they do audits. soy come to the floor today -- so i come to the floor today to renew my call for better audit reports. as a senator dedicated to watchdogging the taxpayers' money, audits are a primary instrument in my toolbox. they're like a hammer and a wrench. they're the tools of the trade. but like other members of congress conducting oversight, i can't do audits. we don't have staff for that, so we must rely on inspectors general of the various departments to do the independent audits of the work of those departments. so today i speak about the defense department inspector general. the audit should be the inspector general's primary weapon for rooting out

mr. grassley: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: i don't intend to use the one minute because i spoke yesterday on this nomination, but i urge my colleagues to support the nomination of paul a. engelmayer to be district judge. he's very well qualified, so i would encourage a yes vote. i yield back the balance of my time. mr. durbin: i yield back our time on this side. mr. grassley: i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote: vote: the presiding officer: are there any senators wishing to vote or to change their vote? seeing none, the vote on the question of the confirmation of paul engelmayer of new york to be united states district jrk the votes are 98 -- district judge, the votes are 98 aye, 0 nay, the nomination is confirmed. the question is now on the nomination of ramona manglona to the judge for the district court of the northern mariana islands. all those in favor please signify by saying aye. those opposed? the ayes app

mr. grassley: mr. president, i wanted to extend on some remarks that i made on the senate on june the 6th, the report that i was reporting on on june the 6th evaluated audits produced by the department of defense office of inspector general in fiscal year 2010. i called that report a report card because that's exactly what it was. each of the 113 unclassified reports published in fiscal year 2010 was reviewed and evaluated and graded in five categories my report was produced by the department of defense office of inspector general in fiscal year 2010. after each report was graded individually, all the scores for each report in each category were added up and averaged to create a composite score for all 113 reports. although 15 top-quality audits were highlighted in the report, the overall score awarded to the 113 was basically d minus. that's low, i know. maybe the score should have been a little higher. clearly none reflected any of the reforms that inspector general haddell put in place in 2010 as al

grassley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa is recognized. mr. grassley: mr. president, i'm very pleased to support the renomination of robert mueller to be director of the f.b.i. director mueller has served as director since days immediately preceding the terrorist attacks, september 11, 2010. in the wake of that tragedy he has overseen a top-to-bottom transformation of the f.b.i. from a domestic law enforcement agency to a national security agency and with a necessary global presence to combat terrorism. director mueller has led the charge to ensure that the f.b.i.'s transformation is successful. this includes upgrading workforce from an agent-driven agency to one that includes an ever-increasing number of intelligence analysts. i applaud the hard work that has been done, and i also applaud the leadership of director mueller. but more work remains. despite the recent successes, the f.b.i. also has its share of black marks and skeletons in the closet. i've been an outspok

mr. grassley: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa is recognized. mr. grassley: now you hear the other side of the story. madam president, it's a privilege for me to come to the united states senate floor to speak on the issue of the resolution that's before us, which is a sense of the senate resolution, which means basically the senate is debating something that's not shooting with real bullets. in other words, it's -- it just expresses the senate. it doesn't change any laws. it really doesn't amount to much. as the president and congressional leaders continue to debate how best to reduce the deficit, it seems that my friends on the other side of the aisle and my president continue to demand a tax increase as part of any deal. for sure, any discussion of reducing the deficit should include a discussion of tax reform. tax reform is different than tax increases. and you heard the previous speaker speak about republican plans that deal with just reducing expenditures and that's right because we feel that the deficit problem in this country isn't because th

mr. grassley: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa is recognized. mr. rassley: i come to the senate floor to tell my colleagues why i support the issue of cap and cut and balance. on august 2, our nation will be unable to borrow money to meet our current obligations. we've known for awhile that this was coming. our annual deficits have been near $1.5 trillion for the past two years, and it's going to be that large this year as well. with deficits of that size, no one should be surprised that we've hit the debt ceiling, which raises the question then: what has the president offered to confront this looming crisis? i ask that question because people expect a president to lead, and we have an executive budget and an executive budget law since i think the 1920's has put the president in lead on these issues. so i ask another question: what has the senate democratic majority done to address our deficit crisis, because it is the responsibility of a majority to present a budget to the congress of the united states, and we have not had a budget resolution for

mr. grassley: today, the senate will vote on the nomination of paul engelmayer to be u.s. district judge southern district new york, and ramona manglona to be judge for the district court of the northern mariana islands. the seat to which mr. engelmayer is being considered has been deemed a judicial emergency. with this vote, we will have confirmed 29 article 3 judicial nominees, 18 having been for judicial emergencies. miss manglona's confirmation vote marks the second article 4 judicial confirmation this year, and i'm pleased that we're moving forward to bill these two vacancies. we continue to make good progress in processing president obama's judicial nominees. as of today, the senate has confirmed 60% of president obama's nominees since the beginning of his presidency, and this does not include the two supreme court justices nominated by president obama. as i'm sure my colleagues recall, those nominations consumed a considerable amount of time in the committee and on the senate floor as you would expect for people being nominated to the supreme court. during this cong

senator grassley. >> mr. chairman, thank you for respecting my lateness of arrival. the bill before us today is entitled the respect for marriage act. george would have marveled at the name. a bill to restore marriage would restore marriage as it's been nope between one man and one woman. that's the view of marriage that i support. this bill would undermind, not restore marriage by repealing the defense of marge act. the defense of marriage act was enacted in 1996 and just think of the vote by which is passed the united states senate, 85-14. we don't often get votes of 85-14 in the united states on controversial pieces of legislation. unlike a bill in which one member of a party supports a partisan bill of the other party, which sometimes passes for bipartisanship around here, this was trily a bipartisan bill as evidence by the 85-14 vote. president clinton signed it into law and president obama ran on election platform of support for traditional marriage until yesterday. he was then a supporter of doma as we

improve the work we do and be more efficient. >> thank you, madame chair. >> thank you, senator grassley. overall, mrdkins, how would you describe the level of fraud that seems to have occurred i think senator grassley was talking about it with respect to the recovery act funds, and where do you see the level is it as much as people anticipate given how much money is at stake? >> it's always hard to know in , but certainly there has been hundreds of millions of dollars in the recovery act on this that have gone out and in my view the level for what is very low in relation to that has to say there won't be any, but i think that great credit is deserving for the recovery accountability transparency board as the chairman detainee but also for the ayachi around the country but training effort that's taken place you never can say whether a fraud would have occurred but for the training. it's hard to measure but i believe it has a great affect and i believe that that working group has brought in -- there was a four year effort you're probably familiar, the national procurement fraud task force the was rece

mr. harrigan, what are dea's plans for continued operations should military forces draw down to levels that would not allow adequate support for your operations? >> well, again, co-chairman grassley, i have been in discussions really for the last 18 months with my counter part at the podium here, mr. wechsler, as well as our regional director in afghanistan with the u.s. military and si isaf forces. dea has no intention of drawing down any of our 81 personnel. it would be a bit premature to see right now how the drawdown will impact dea but let me assure you we continue to work with the u.s. military, isaf and counter parts in afghanistan so when the day comes that the military does draw down, that dea will still be able to operate effectively and most importantly safely. because we do need the u.s. military assistance and security that they do provide us but we continue to work that through. but again, we have absolutely no intention of drawing down our personnel, again, as the chairman indicated as long as the funding is available. >> okay. let me ask all of you starting with you, mr. harrigaharrigan, n the other two jump in. what efforts are under way to coordinate and deconfl

mr. harrigan, what are dea's plans for continued operations should military forces draw down to levels that would not allow adequate support for your operations? >> well, again, co-chairman grassley, i have been in discussions really for the last 18 months with my counter part at the podium here, mr. wechsler, as well as our regional director in afghanistan with the u.s. military and si isaf forces. dea has no intention of drawing down any of our 81 personnel. it would be a bit premature to see right now how the drawdown will impact dea but let me assure you we continue to work with the u.s. milita, isaf and counter parts in afghanistan so when the day comes that the military does draw down, that dea will still be able to operate effectively and most importantly safely. because we do need the u.s. military assistance and security that they do provide us but we continue to work that through. but again, we have absolutely no intention of drawing down our personnel, again, as the chairman indicated as long as the funding is available. >> okay. let me ask all of you starting with you, mr. harrigaharrigan, n the other two jump in. what efforts are under way to coordinatend deconflict

mr. jones, if you would like to begin. >> thank you. good morning, madam chair, senator grassley, a troubled and doll. it's a privileged to be with you today here. the financial crisis has impacted virtually every american across the country in some way. the underlying cause of the financial fraud enforcement task force is to address that crisis with an equally comprehensive response. senator klobuchar you have party spoke about and i know you understand about you of collaboration. 12 years ago when we worked together on a number of issues of mutual concern including fraud,, when you were the county attorney and i had the privilege of serving as the u.s. attorney, the importance of collaboration was always at the forefront. as we learned then and we know now, different partners, law- enforcement partners, have different resources. they have different tools in their box. the overall goal of effective law enforcement is to bring everything we have collectively to bear on the issues at hand. that is what this multi agency task force is about. operational traditional task force. we have task force like th

mr. president, i want to extend my appreciation to senators leahy and grassley for working together to get this matter done. he's done a wonderful job for ten years and the country feels they need him for two more years and he's agreed to take that and i appreciate that very much. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the foregoing actions as -- with respect to the bill are dplishe accomplish. the clerk will read the bill for the third time. the clerk: calendar number 76, s. 1103, a bill to extend the term of the incumbent director of the federal bureau of investigationinvestigation. the presiding officer: the question is on the passage of the bill, as amended. all those in favor say aye. those opposed, nay. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the bill, as amended, is passed. mr. kyl: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. kyl: thank you, mr. president. i want to speak on behalf of the resolution before us, this so-called cut, cap and balance resolution, and explain briefly why it represents a better approach to resolving the financial c

those whistleblowers when, senator grassley, tbs didn't investigation, this travesty would still be going on today. that is my big objection. who did you tell? did mrnelson know about this? >> about the investigation? >> yes. >> i briefed him -- >> when did he know about it? when you started it come on you can see their? >> i'm not sure when he was aware of the investigation. >> or did you make aware of this investigation? >> when the investigation first initiated and i believe in november we sent -- we sent a briefing of the first part of december. >> to whom? >> to my supervisor. >> mr. mcmahon, what did you do? >> when i was briefed on the investigation i passed up the chain. this was an investigation. we had pretty early on what the title "operation fast and furious" came on with a large amount of people who are buying guns in the short amount of time and having recovered in mexico. but we had was purchased in the u.s., recoveries in mexico. we didn't have what was in between and that's what the agents in phoenix are trying to prove. >> so you all thought this was a great idea? this particular investigation of finding gunstock in mexico. >> we

mr. at respond to this question about your reaction to professor hart's testimony. and i want you to be very specific. >> it seems to me senator grassley that a key part of professor hart's testimony is where she says about the wal-mart's case, it's hard to tell what the contours of the decision will turn out to be as interpreted in other cases. and to me that's a key question as i mentioned in my statement with all of these cases we just don't know how they're going to be interpreted. i think wal-mart is perceived by many an as extreme case because of the size of the class and the nature of the evidence relevant -- relative to if large number of decision makers that were involved. and i think there's just a real question about how it's going to play out as the lower courts get ahold of it. >> mr. at. >> i would build on mr. pink cuss' statement and simply say i think part of the difficulty associated with the determinening how what impact it will have is recognizing that it does not foreclose class actions against wal-mart. it simply foreclosed this single omnibus class action, if you will. and so you can continue to have class action

mr. whalen earned his undergraduate and law degrees from harvard university. you may proceed. >> my thanks to senator layly and senator grassley for allowing me to testify. s. 598 is misleadingly titled the respect for marriage act. far from respecting marriage, this bill will empty the term of any core content. it would redefine marriage for purposes of federal law to include anything that any state now in the future recognizes as a marriage. the effect and the evidence purpose of the bill is how the federal government validates so-called same-sex marriage by requiring marriage for purposes of federal law any such union recognized as a marriage under state law. the bill would require taxpayers in the state that maintains traditional marriage laws to subsidize provision of federal benefits to same-sex unions in other states. further, the principles in both advocates of same-sex marriage and their ongoing attack on traditional marriage pave the way for polygamist and other polyamorist unions. under the bill, any polyamorist union recognizes that a marriage under state law would have to be recognized by federal government for pu

those whistleblowers when, senator grassley, tbs didn't investigation, this travesty would still be going on today. that is my big objection. who did you tell? did mron know about this? >> about the investigation? >> yes. >> i briefed him -- >> when did he know about it? when you started it come on you can see their? >> i'm not sure when he was aware of the investigation. >> or did you make aware of this investigation? >> when the investigation first initiated and i believe in november we sent -- we sent a briefing of the first part of december. >> to whom? >> to my supervisor. >> mr. mcmahon, what did you do? >> when i was briefed on the investigation i passed up the chain. this was an investigation. we had pretty early on what the title "operation fast and furious" came on with a large amount of people who are buying guns in the short amount of time and having recovered in mexico. but we had was purchased in the u.s., recoveries in mexico. we didn't have what was in between and that's what the agents in phoenix are trying to prove. >> so you all thought this was a great idea? this particular investigation of finding gunstock in mexico. >> we didn

mr. grassley: mr. president, i would ask to speak for 20 thnutes.