harkin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the. the presiding officer: from iowa. mr. harkin: mr. president, i ask that my short comments here appear immediately after the vote on the final passage of the f.d.a. bill and prior to the remarks just made by the distinguished majority leader. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. harkin: mr. president, today with final passage of the f.d.a. safety and innovation act and the reauthorization of the f.d.a. user fee agreements, we have helped both the f.d.a. and the biomedical industry. this legislation is now headed to the president for his signature and will ensure that the f.d.a. can approve drugs and medical devices, protect patient access to new therapies and preserve america's global leadership in biomedical innovation. it will keep patients safer but modernizing the f.d.a.'s inspection process for foreign manufacturing facilities. while also improving access to new and innovative medicines and devices. it will reduce drug of the dos for

mr. harkin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. harkin: mr.resident, i ask further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. harkin: i ask unanimous consent that bill mcconhad a, lindley love, tiffany monrel of my staff be granted floor privileges for the duration of today's ppropriation. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. harkin: after many months of bipartisan negotiation, i have high hopes that the senate will vote to invoke cloture on the house message to accompany the food and drug administration safety and innovation act of 2012. i am pleased to report that it is the product of excellent bipartisan collaboration on the health, education, labor, and pensions committee which i chair. the house passes the f.d.a. safety and innovation act unanimously last week. now it is our turn to do our part. the backbone of this legislation is the user fee agreements that f.d.a. has negotiated with the industry. i might just add, mr. president, that this bill passed this chamber about th

mr. harkin: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. dam president, we're about to move to a vote on the f.d.a. reauthorization bill, a bill which i said earlier we have spent more than a year working on in committee. it's had a lot of input from senators on all sides, and industry stakeholders, consumer groups, and this is the result of a -- of a wide collaboration on all these issues. i just wanted to respond to a couple of things that my friend -- and he is my friend from north carolina -- said earlier about the bill and about the amendment that he was concerned about on the track and trace amendment. the senator from north carolina talked about speed. he said that we were rushing this through. well, madam president, the vote in the senate was 96-1. the house vote was unanimous. that doesn't happen if a bill is tried to be rushed through. anybody tries to rush a bill through is not going to get 96 votes in the senate or a unanimous vote in the house. now, again, my friend questioned how hard i -- questioned how hard we really tried to

mr. harkin: i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call: mr. vitter: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. vitter: thank you, madam president. madam president, if next i ask unanimous consent to vitiate any quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. vitter: tugs madam president. madam president, i come to the floor, aes many of our colleagues have done, to talk about this very significant and for me at least really stunning u.s. supreme court decision on obamacare. first of all, i use the word "stunning" not particularly because of the outcome; i really wouldn't have been shocked at either outcome, upholding the law or striking down the law. i really considered both of those clear possibilities. i am stunned and shocked, somewhat confused, by the decision, by the nature of the decision, by the nature of the majority, and by the reasoning. i'm not going to dwell on that. it's not my or other senators' role to second-guess it or to claim we have some authority to rewri

mr. harkin: thank you, mr. president, and i want to thank the chairman of the committee for so much. she sha' has focused laser-like attention on this issue for so long smed i would hope that we could get to the bill and debate the bill and have amendments on the bill, but i am afraid that our republican colleagues are not going to let us do that. i ask unanimous consent that sean robinson and shannon smith of my staff be granted floor privileges. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. harkin: i want to applaud the senior nor from maryland for introducing and fighting so hard for so long for the paycheck fairness act. again just to repeat what has been said here before, but i think needs to be repeated time and time again, in 1963 congress responded to wage disparities between men and women passing the equal pay act. at that time, 29 million female workers earned just 60% of the average pay for men. so now nearly half a century after the passage of that landmark law, we have made some progress towards eliminating this gross inequality. but it's not enough. there should be no g

mr. dingell among many involved house colleagues, but also with our senate colleagues, senator harkin and insy. -- enzi. when we began this process there were divergent views on the various issues contained in this bill, but we work together and we found ways to bridge our differences in a fashion that protects patients and fossers innovation. this -- fosters innovation. this legislation contains many provisions crit critical to the funding of major parts of the f.d.a. we re-authorize the f.d.a. drug and medical device user fee program which will provide resources to enable the efficient review of applications and give patients rapid access to new therapies. we also re-authorizing two pediatric programs which foster the development and safe use of prescription drugs in children. this year we are establishing two new programs to help f.d.a. speed up their review of new generics and biosimilars. these provisions have a bipartisan commitment to ensuring a vibrant generic marketplace and all of us will see the benefits when more low-cost generics are on the market. one of the most important i

mr. chairman. thank you, chairman harkin and ranking member lindsey -- distinguished senators. title ix expresses the nation's commented -- collected at aspiration of relief that girls and boys deserve equal educational experiences and opportunities. today's world is almost unrecognizable from the 1972 lands, except for perhaps trump razors -- trailblazers like billie jean king. i speak as a direct beneficiary of title ix, also as a professor of law and the senior director of advocacy for the women's sports foundation. also is apparent, of both a son and twin daughters. -- as a parent of a son and twin daughters. i'm so proud of being able to represent my country in the 1984 olympics. i'm so proud of earning a full scholarship. make no mistake, i earned it. getting up before clarke 40 5:00 a.m. from seventh grade into graduating from high school -- 04 o'clock 45 in the morning from seventh grade until the end of high school. if you ever doubt whether a work that you do impact people, look at my life and the lives of millions of girls and women who have been able to not only as

mr. chairman. >> thank you for being here and senator harkin and senator enzi it is just exciting to me that 40 years ago a mere 37 threw open the doors to athletics for education it is pretty simple. title ix is powerful and has some amazing results of the statistics back in the 1972. it's 42% and has made a lot of progress. it isn't just about statistics, it's about real people and i've seen it in my own family when i went to college, the university there really was maybe one or two opportunities for women coming in really the scholarships were just unheard of, and 15 years later watching my own daughter go to watch her classmates compete in high school basketball championships in the entire state in the state convention and my daughter playing soccer and all of her friends that succeeded, it is just really great to watch so i am proud of the progress that we have made. but i also know that the work is not yet done and you've talked a little bit about that today, and we can't let up because we need to keep expanding opportunities. so my granddaughter one day will be able to say now here's where we

followed, reid of nevada, harkin, whitehouse, conrad, reed of rhode island, coons, begich, kerry, schumer, mikulski, cardin, menendez, lieberman, landrieu, blumenthal, murray, carper. mr. reid: i move to concur in the house amendment to s. 3187 with an amendment. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from nevada mr. reid moves to concur in the house amendment to s. 3187 with an amendment numbered 2461. mr. reid: on that i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be a sufficient second. the yeas and nays are ordered. mr. reid: you now have a second-degree amendment at the desk i wish to be reported. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: is noter from nevada, mr. reid, proposes an anytime numbered 2462 to amendment number 2461. mr. reid: i have a motion to refer to the house -- i have a motion, mr. president, to refer to the house message to the health, education, labor, and pensions committee with instructions to report back forthwith with an amendment. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, moves to refer the ho

under the control of senator harkin, four hours under the control of senator burr and 15 minutes under the control of senator paul. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: under the previous order, the senate will proceed to executive session at 11:30 a.m. tomorrow and vote on confirmation of the rosenbaum nomination at noon. we hope to complete action on the f.d.a. bill. 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 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. the supreme court issued a number of decisions today, though it did not announce its ruling on the health care law. that decision is expected thursday, the courts last day of the term. today the court struck down much of arizona's immigration law, allowing one particular forward that requires police check the status of someone they stop for another reason and who they suspect is in the country illegally. and in another ruling today the justices overturned fontanez law that limited corporate spending on political campaigns. and we heard about the arizona law earlier today on the senate floor

harkin and others. jack reed, of course, has led the charge on that for some time. i've talked about the highway bill; we need to get that done. mr. president, the remaining issue is flood insurance. and we are doing fine on flood insurance except i'm told last night that one of the republican senators wants to offer an amendment -- listen to this one -- wants to offer an amendment on when life begins. i think some of this stuff is just -- i have been very patient working with my republican colleagues in allowing relevant amendments on issues, and sometimes we even do nonrelevant amendments. but really on flood insurance? are we going to have to start dealing as we did with the highway bill for weeks and weeks with contraception? now we have another person wants to deal with when life begins. i don't understand what this is all about, but i want everyone to know this flood insurance bill is extremely important. the big pushers of this bill are republican senators, veteran republican senators, and they had better work on their side of the aisle because i am not going to put up with that on the flood insurance. i can be condemned b

mr. chairman, i want to thank you for this opportunity. and i look forward to hearing your question. >> now we turn to doctor mae jemison. please proceed. chairman harkin, senator lindsey, senator mikulski, i really want to thank you for allowing me to testify today on the 40th anniversary of title ix. as we have heard, from each person who has spoken before this landmark legislation has really changed our lives here in the united states. what i'm going to do in addition to really thinking some of the people who have continued to make it happen, i would like to thank the american association of university of women for bringing me here this week and making sure this stays at the forefront. what i want to do is to just jump right into things and talk about something that is very important to me. it is how title ix has affected transport programs, science, technology, engineering and mathematics. i also want to use that in a lens as the space program and other things that have happened over the past years. i was really honored to have the opportunity to be the first woman of color in the world to have flown above the space shuttle endeavor. dismissing bet

introduced by senator harkin, i fought for the mentoring and outreach provisions for new farmers and planning and credit building, skills they need to succeed and stay on the land. mr. president, homegrown renewable fuels helped us reduce or dependence on liquid fuels. i believe that we can continue this trend. as i mentioned we've seen an enormous shift in our dependence on foreign oils. much of that has to do with biofuels, now 10% of our fuel supply in this country, as we work to make it more and more fuel efficient, use less water, transition to cellulosic. what we do know is we should be focusing on the workers and farmers of the midwest and not the cartels of the mideast. that is what helped reduce our foreign oil dependence is i in these last few years as well as the drilling i mentioned before. i also cosponsored amendments to provide funding for the energy title. this is key in this farm bill. i know we've all heard from farmers and ranchers in our states about the importance of passing a five-year farm bill. you think about the work that's done in congress. what every business says is we need a longer time period. we need consistency for our tax credit. w

mr. harkin: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. harkin: madam president, as chair of the health, education, labor, and pensions committee in the senate, the committee that drafted large portions of the affordable care act, and looking back at all of the hearings we had, the long markup sessions, working across the aisle with republicans, working with the administration, finally getting it passed, signed into law, this is a great day. there has been a cloud hanging over because of those who don't want to reform the health care system. they wanted to keep the insurance companies in charge. well, we said, no, we're going to change the system. we're going to reform the system and make it work for people, not just for insurance companies. well, there were those out there that didn't want to change, didn't want to reform the system. and so they brought cases in courts and, as we know, it wound obstacles way through the courts, some deciding yes, some deciding no. and it went to the supreme court. i remember being there this spring for the

mr. harkin: madam president, this amendment is a solution in search of a problem. i don't know any colleague, any of my colleagues here who have had unionized businesses to have come to them complaining that they can't give a raise. have you ever heard of a -- complain they can't give a raise? the fact is, collective bargaining agreements already provide and many of them for merit-based performance increases. that's part and parcel of a lot of agreements today. so what this amendment basically does is it undercuts the national labor relations act, that's exactly what it does. if you think we ought to do away with the national labor relations act and all the benefits and protections it has both for businesses and workers, this is your amendment right here. quite frankly, i can't think of anything that would be more disruptive of a womp not -- workplace than this amendment. when a business and workers have agreed on a collective bargaining agreement, this would destroy that kind of comity in the workplace. the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. the se