mr. merkley: thank you, mr. president. i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to a period of morning business with snored permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule 2, at 12:00 noon tuesday, november 8, 2011, the senate proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 405 under the previous order. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 465, the nomination be confirmed with no intervening action or debate, that no further motionses be in order to the nomination, that any statements related to the nomination 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. merkley: i ask unanimous consent that the senate now proceed to the consideration of senate resolution 312

mr. merkley: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and that i call up en bloc 1239, 1256, 1257, and 1258. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from oregon, mr. merkley, proposes en bloc amendments 1239, 1256, 1257, and 1258. mr. merkley: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendments be set aside. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: thank you. and i call for the regular order. the presiding officer: the amendment's now pending. mr. merkley: mr. president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call mr. levin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. mr. levin: i would ask further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. levin: mr. president, in a short while i hope that we will have and expect that we will have some amendments th

mr. merkley: mr. president, i ask further reading of the amendment be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: mr. president, i introduced this amendment with several original cosponsors, senator mike lee, senator rand paul, tom udall and senator sherrod brown and by like to thank them for joining in this effort to address our military presence in afghanistan. and the fact that our military forces have done such an excellent job of completing the original missions of destroying al qaeda training camps and bringing to justice those responsible for 9/11. but over this past decade, our mission has changed to one of nation building, a mission that is obstructed by vast corruption, by extraordinary traditional cultural resistance to a strong central government, and by very high illiteracy rate. these factors should have us rethinking how to have the most effective use of our military forces, our intelligence assets, in taking on the war on terror. and that we should be engaging in cou

mr. merkley: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: madam president, i call up amendment 1257 under the unanimous consent agreement and -- as modified and rise to speak to him. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: thank you, madam president. the presiding officer: excuse me. under the previous order, the amendment numbered 1257, as modified, is now the pending question. mr. merkley: madam president, this amendment requires the president of the united states to develop a plan to expedite the reduction in u.s. combat troops in afghanistan and to accelerate the transfer of responsibility for military and security operations to the government of afghanistan. before i speak to some of the details of this, i want to thank the original cosponsors who have worked hard on this amendment, senator mike lee, senator tom udall of new mexico, senator rand paul, and senator sherrod brown. the united states went to afghanistan with two main goals that were laid out by president bush: to destroy al qaeda training camps and to

mr. merkley: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: thank you. i rise today to address our nation's job crisis and to share some thoughts about why it's important that we proceed to debate on the rebuild america jobs act. it may come as a surprise to some across the nation that at this point this chamber is not debating the rebuild america jobs act but that we're debating whether to debate it. only in the senate could we be engaged in that type of question when across america millions of folks want to see us act, want to see us create jobs. it was only a few weeks ago we had a similar debate, and that debate was over the america jobs act, a broad portfolio of measures to put our economy back on track and create jobs for americans. and to get the closure on whether to debate, we had to get a supermajority under the rules of the senate. and my colleagues across the aisle opposed that, and we could not get to the debate of the bill on how to create jobs. now we have before us a smaller segment of that bill, one that focuses on the

mr. merkley: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: mr. president, i rise in support of senator paul's amendment to revoke the war authority. we have heard on this floor that the consequences of revoking authority are vague and uncertain. indeed, my team has been seeking a reply from the department of defense for quite some time now as to whether there were any conditions that we should be alerted to where this would create a problem, and here at the last minute, we appear to have a memo, a memo that has not come to my office, that says there are possible complications. well, let's be clear. the executive branch never wants to hand back authority it has been granted. it always wants to retain the maximum flexibility. with you as my colleague has pointed out, this is an issue of constitutional authority. we had a constitutional discussion about authorizing action in iraq and certainly contrary to my opinion this body supported that action. but now the president is bringing this war to an end. and doesn't it make sense then that we end the a

mr. merkley. >> thank you, mr. chair, and thank you to all of you for bringing your expertise here to the capitol. i'll follow up on the computerized adaptive testing. oregon was an early adopter of this, and folks can't imagine any other way of doing it. if schools out there are still using paper tests, and the results come back months later, that is crazy. if you're trying to have teachers be able to utilize the results in order to understand how their students are progressing. and the cost of the technology has come down so much that i certainly would encourage folks to explore it. i wanted to note a different -- another issue, which is we're replacing the current requirements for adequate yearly progress for college and career ready standards. and the goal of developing statewide accountability systems in order to receive federal funding by 2014 and 2015. states vary in terms of the progress that they have made, and will be making to develop this new accountability system based on college and career ready. and

mr. merkley: i ask that the quorum call be sended. -- be ended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: i am pleased to rise to support adoption of the consumer price index for social security that would accurately reflect the costs that our senior citizens actually face. i am delighted to join senator brown of ohio, who is presiding in this effort along with senator mikulski of maryland. social security is a promise, a bond between our government and our senior citizens. our senior citizens have worked hard their whole life and paid into social security every step of the way. they expect that social security will be there for them when they retire. over the past few years, i've heard from many oregon seniors who are making ends meet on a fixed income, and they tell me, why is it that we're not getting a cost-of-living adjustment, a cola, because our costs are rising? they've been deeply disturbed to know that with these fixed incomes and these rising costs, that they're being squeezed in the middle. and i explained to them in these

mr. merkley. >> thank you, mr. chair, and thank you to all of you for bringing your expertise here to the capitol. i'll follow up on the computerized adaptive testing. oregon was an early adopter of this, and folks can't imagine any other way of doing it. if schools out there are still using paper tests, and the results come back months later, that is crazy. if you're trying to have teachers be able to utilize the results in order to understand how their students are progressing. and the cost of the technology has come down so much that i certainly would encourage folks to explore it. i wanted to note a different -- another issue, which is we're replacing the current requirements for adequate yearly progress for college and career ready standards. and the goal of developing statewide accountability systems in order to receive federal funding by 2014 and 2015. states vary in terms of the progress that they have made, and will be making to develop this new accountability system based on college and career ready. and

merkley. >> thank you very much, mr. chair, and thank you, mr. elmendorf. i appreciate the work here to analyze strategies for increasing economic growth and unemployment. i was looking through to see if there was any specific analysis of addressing energy-saving retrofits. i don't believe that it is there. i have a memory of a previous cbo product which looked at various strategies for creating jobs. and my name is that energy-saving retrofits was at the top of the list, and if i recall by the analysis of what like this. there isn't a long time lag that you have for major infrastructure, that the construction industry is flat on its back and ready to be put back to work, that the labor cannot be outsourced so the dollars that occur here in the united states, that virtually all the materials that are necessary for energy-saving retrofits are manufactured in the u.s. so there's extraordinarily low leakage. i thought all this was analysis that was behind cbo's analysis of this, this piece of the puzzle. i didn't see that in here. maybe i'm misremembering that

but they recognize senator merkley for his questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. it in a statement, but i do have questions about appropriate. i wanted to start to get anyone's opinion on congressman defazio's proposal on high frequency trading, which goes back to kind of thinking a little bit about the flash crash. i believe what he had in his most recent proposal is a three basis points see that discourages, if you will, the multitudinous high-speed trains for having very little impact on great other investors. and he put about that? >> mr. cook. >> thank you a senator. i am not familiar with the details of that, but i think the proposal or versions of it have been raised several times anything fair number of interesting issues that it raises. obviously there are concerns about the extent to which the traffic that is generated by high-frequency traders is that it's so interfering with the effective functioning of the markets and to some extent, some type of fee whether it is a message the, order cancellation fee, various versions this might take. that might be h

merkley. >> thank you very much, mr. chair. i wanted to turn to mf global, which if i understand, mf global was for dealers was regulated by the cftc i believe is on the future decide that the issue of client accounts is the question that their accounts in a proprietary trading or hedge fund style operation and violation of the sanctity of this individual accounts. it is very confusing to the public, certainly to s., but recognizing to sec to do things wrong on the broker-dealer siders are broker-dealers i deeply impacted if you will by which the future decide -- how is the cftc coordinate this type of conflict firm? >> senator, as you noted, the firm wasn't duly registered as both a broker-dealer and futures commission merchant. but that means is those agencies and the self-regulatory organizations under them have oversight over the firm. in some respects, our oversight about certain activities with focus on securities and the cftc under the future is that dvds. we both have rules of wealth that would apply to the end of fable

mr. henderson. okay, go ahead. >> senator merkley, i think the -- i think your question is a really important one. and i think there is a risk -- there's many good elements in the bill. i have some reservations, significant ones, about the incentives that i mentioned before and on teacher evaluation and around the press for accountability and transparency. and i think there's a risk without more steps being taken that you won't in this bill drive the crucial transparency needed to look at performance across the whole system. and in the effort to provide flexibility i think your question got at this risk that we may not actually give the public the transparency at how well the states and schools are doing at educating kids at all levels and i think flexibility is good but i think there's some important improvements that need to be in this area or otherwise what you suggested may become a real downfall of this law but i hope it can be addressed in this legislative process. >> senator -- >> senator grier? >> yes, i want to come back real quickly about the issue of comparability. this is really a seri

mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that an intern from senator merkley's office, jeff whitmore, be granted floor privileges for the balance of the day. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. murray: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i have come to the floor this afternoon to discuss the vow to hire heroes act, which is an amendment to help put our nation's veterans back to work, that we will be voting on tomorrow on the eve of veterans day. the real meaning of veterans day is to remind ourselves to take care of service-connected veterans and their families. that's what this amendment does. now we all realize, of course, that this chamber has had its share of disagreements and discord lately, and it's no secret that we are sharply divided on any number of economic and political issues that are facing average americans right now. but this is one issue that we should never be divided on. i've served on the senate veterans' affairs committee for over 16 years, and i can tell that you veterans have never been a partisan issue. we have all made a promise to those who signed up to

mr. levin: and after senator paul calls up an amendment and after senator merkley just calls up an amendmentand then lays it aside? the presiding officer: is there objection? as modified. mr. levin: would that be acceptable? mr. reid: i would accept the modification with pleasure. the presiding officer: without objection. it is so moved. mr. reid: finally, we get somebody to start offering some amendments. mr. levin: if i could just comment very quickly to my friend from illinois -- mr. reid: did we get the consent? mr. levin: i think he ordered that. mr. reid: the senator from south carolina has the floor. mr. graham: i want to make this go further, faster. mr. levin: is the senator aware -- the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i yielded -- my friend from south carolina yielded to me for a unanimous consent request. the presiding officer: the senator from south carolina has the floor. mr. graham: if i may, if i may respond to my friend from illinois. hamdi was an american citizen captured in afghanistan. he had joined al qaeda, the taliban i guess in that case. we captured

mr. merkley. >> thank you, mr. chair, and thank you to all of you for bringing your expertise here to the capitol. i'll follow up on the computerized adaptive testing. oregon was an early adopter of this, and folks can't imagine any other way of doing it. if schools out there are still using paper tests, and the results come back months later, that is crazy. if you're trying to have teachers be able to utilize the results in order to understand how their students are progressing. and the cost of the technology has come down so much that i certainly would encourage folks to explore it. i wanted to note a different -- another issue, which is we're replacing the current requirements for adequate yearly progress for college and career ready standards. and the goal of developing statewide accountability systems in order to receive federal funding by 2014 and 2015. states vary in terms of the progress that they have made, and will be making to develop this new accountability system based on college and career ready. and

but they recognize senator merkley for his questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. it in a statement, but i do have questions about appropriate. i wanted to start to get anyone's opinion on congressman defazio's proposal on high frequency trading, which goes back to kind of thinking a little bit about the flash crash. i believe what he had in his most recent proposal is a three basis points see that discourages, if you will, the multitudinous high-speed trains for having very little impact on great other investors. and he put about that? >> mr. cook. >> thank you a senator. i am not familiar with the details of that, but i think the proposal or versions of it have been raised several times anything fair number of interesting issues that it raises. obviously there are concerns about the extent to which the traffic that is generated by high-frequency traders is that it's so interfering with the effective functioning of the markets and to some extent, some type of fee whether it is a message the, order cancellation fee, various versions this might take. that might be h