mr. whitehouse: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: mr. president i am here now for i guess the 87th consecutive week that the senate has been in session to urge action on climate change. we've had an interesting couple of weeks on the keystone pipeline but from a climate change and carbon pollution point of view this would obviously not be helpful; indeed it would be a disaster leading to as much as 27 million 27 million -- 27 million -- metric tons of additional carbon dioxide emitted per year. to put that number into some perspective that is the equivalent of adding 6 million cars and trucks to our roads for 50 years. so it's a very very considerable carbon price to pay. we have seen a poster used on the senate floor that says it will have no environmental effect. that is not precisely true. indeed precisely the opposite is true. this is the environmental effect it will have and it is considerable. what the report then went on to say was that it would be offset by the fact that this fuel would go out by rail anyway but th

mr. whitehouse: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent we lay aside the pending amendment so i may call up my amendment numbered 29. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. the clerk will call the amendment. the clerk: the senator from rhode island, mr. whitehouse, proposes an amendment numbered 29 to amendment numbered 2. on page 3, between lines 19 and 20 insert the following -- section, sense of the senate regarding climate change. it is the sense of the senate that climate change is real and not a hoax. mr. whitehouse: mr. president i first would like to thank the distinguished chairman of the energy committee and her ranking member for allowing this process to go forward to the point where i'm able to call up this amendment. it is a convention here when amendments are called up to ask unanimous consent that the reading be dispensed with, but in this, the effective language is only eight words -- c

mr. whitehouse: thank you mr. president. mr. president, this week marks a somewhat dark milestone, which is the five-year anniversary of the supreme court's in my view, reprehensible decision in citizens united vs. federal election commission. this was some feat of activism by the conservative bloc of the supreme court. it overturned the laws of congress. it overturned the will of the american people, and it gave wildly outsized influence over our elections to corporations and big money interests creating what one newspaper in kentucky called a tsunami of slime. well five years on, the evidence is in. the evidence is in our elections where this dam burst of outside cash has wiped out previous campaign spending records and the evidence is in this chamber where we once had a thriving bipartisan conversation on climate change. and instead of that, we have now been reduced to this keystone x.l. pipeline bill a show of force what the fossil fuel industry and virtual silence from the other side of the aisle on climate change. i will s

mr. whitehouse: happily. ms. cantwell: thank you. ms. murkowski: point of inquiry.nderstand the senator from rhode island wishes to make his amendment pending or just speak to the amendment? mr. whitehouse: i simply wish to make my amendment pending and at an convenient time i would like to do that. there was a bit of an aura of good feeling on the floor when the distinguished chairman of the energy committee and the distinguished senator from north dakota were discussing an orderly approach for getting bills pending. since then we've heard a good deal about frustration and anger and a bad mood so i'm not sure maybe a little time to revert to that previous aura might not be in order but i'm only seeking to get my amendment pending. ms. murkowski: mr. president i do know that the senator from washington and i were hoping to get a plan and a proposal for colleagues so that they would better understand how we might proceed tomorrow and because we haven't had that opportunity to do that as of yet i would like just the chance to consult with senator cantwell here. my con

mr. president i ask unanimous consent that i be added as a cosponsor to the whitehouse amendment. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. inhofe: mr. president. mr. president, climate is changing and climate has always changed and always will. there is archaeological evidence of that, there is biblical evidence of that, there is historical evidence of that. it will always change. the hopes is that there are some people who are so arrogant to think they are so powerful they can change climate. man can't change climate. i ask my colleagues to vote for the whitehouse-inhofe i'm concerned that the chinese may feel that they cannot surpass us in the nuclear area. and note very very significant nuclear restraint in terms of nuclear deployments, the hardly any nuclear weapons. we have many times over nuclear weapons targeted on china. but the cyber issue may pose at least at this stage theoretically, but at some point really, the possibility of paralyzing an opponent and highly without killing anybody. and that could be a very tempting solution for a nation which is of c

mr. whitehouse: thank you mr. president.i'm here to say a few words about my amendment 29, which we will be voting on shortly after 3:00 i'm told. that is the simple amendment that says it is the sense of the senate that climate change is real and not a hoax. it is perhaps a telling coincidence that we're having this conversation on the floor of the senate now on the fifth anniversary of the citizens united decision. because before citizens united came along, there was actually a pretty robust conversation between democrats and republicans about carbon pollution and climate change and what needed to be done about it. for instance, senator john mccain ran for president on a robust platform of addressing the carbon pollution that causes climate change. senator collins worked with the current energy ranking member senator cantwell on a very robust climate bill that would have put a cap on carbon pollution and paid a dividend back to the american people. senator mark kirk voted for waxman-markey when that bill was up on the floo

mr. whitehouse: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: madam president first may i say it's nice to he see you in the chair. and second, may i ask unanimous consent that we set aside the pending amendments and call up my amendment whitehouse number 148. the presiding officer: is there an objection? withoutwithout objection, the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from rhode island, mr. whitehouse, for himself and others, proposes an amendment numbered 148. mr. whitehouse: i ask reading be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: i want to speak briefly to this amendment which i hope might help answer the mystery as to why the first order of business of the new majority in the senate its senate bill 1 is a bill that allows a foreign corporation to run a pipeline across our country seizing american farms and ranches along the way. that would not ordinarily seem to be our country's first and highest order of business given all of the issues that we face. we have seen news reports just today t

mr. whitehouse: thank you. mr. president, with all of the issues that our country faces here we are debating a canadian pipeline. what are we doing here? a new majority has taken over the senate, and their first bill their opening gambit, is the keystone pipeline. what is going on? is it about jobs? there has been an awful lot of talk about jobs in the last few days but this opening gambit both obviously and demonstrably, has nothing to do with jobs. if this were about jobs, bring up instead the shaheen-portman energy efficiency bill, the bipartisan bill that the republicans spiked last year. that bill has been estimated to produce nearly 200,000 jobs, more than quadruple the 42,000 jobs supported by the construction of the pipeline. if this were about jobs, bring up the highway bill which came out of e.p.w. unanimously last year. that bill was estimated to support three million jobs a year. 70 7-0, 70 times the number of jobs from keystone. 42,000 is a pittance compared to that. right now the economy is adding ove

mr. nixon's council? >> here you can call me john please. july of 1970 when i was 30 years of age i became whitehouse council. i wasn't part of the nixon campaign. i had been in washington for a while working as the chief minority of the house judicial committee and i was a secretary deputy general and while at justice i had meetings with the whitehouse staff and when the assistant of the president for domestic affairs the chair was empty for a while and then the president invited me to come over and serve as whitehouse council. >> how often would you meet with the president? >> very seldom is the best description of my job. alex butterfield, who worked for the chief of staff, had a good overview of the management of the whitehouse. and he said i had two masters, i actually had three -- the chief of staff who i reported to and the assistant to the president for domestic affair never gave up the council's job and nixon turned had time him for a lot and i did the work and when the president started calling on me that was the third master >> how often did you meet with bob hope? >> regularly. he had reg

carper, senator leahy, senator menendez, senator murphy senator warren and senator whitehouse for cosponsoring this amendment. mr. president, this amendment is extremely simple. it's about one page and i'll read it in a moment. but it raises a very, very profound issue as to how we do public policy not just on issues related to climate but on issues in general. and that is as we go forward tackling the very difficult problems facing our country and the world whom do we listen to? whose advice do we take as we proceed? and i would argue that historically and appropriately what we do as a nation is we listen to the experts. that is what we do. and i think that in this debate when we deal with the keystone pipeline when we deal with the issue of climate change, it is absolutely appropriate that we listen to what the overwhelming percentage of scientists are telling us. you know, mr. president i hear some of my colleagues say you know, this is complicated and i'm not a scientist. i don't know. but let me be very, very frank. i am not a scientist and i did not do terribly well in biology and physics in college but i

mr. henderson and senator casey. senator whitehouse. >> thank you, chairman. my experience with the education universe is that there are really two worlds in it. one is a world of contractors and consultants and academics and experts and plenty of officials at the federal, state and local level and the other is a world of principals and classroom teachers who are actually providing education to students. and what i'm hearing from my principals and teachers' world is that the footprint of that first world has become way too big in their lives to the point where it's inhibiting their ability to actually do the jobs they're entrusted to do. so i understand that there are lots of concerns, and i share those concerns about making sure that the benefit of education is spread evenly across the children of this country and the people who don't have a voice don't also lose out on their choice to join the ranks of economic success where they will have more of a voice. but i don't -- i went through the park tests a week ago for mathematics and for something that they cal

mr. chairman. >> thank you. senator whitehouse and we are trying to confine her questions. >> thank you chairman. these will certainly beat governor oriented questions. in rhode island and what we are seeing we are saying and if this sounds familiar to governors let me know. we are seeing the federal formula highway funds increasingly subscribe overtime and we are seeing static revenue from that. we are not seeing big federal increases that are funding growth of the highway program. we are also seeing maintenance costs for the existing infrastructure climbing and that eats into the static federal revenues. we are seeing debt service on our garvey bonds eat a chunk of what would otherwise be going out into roads and bridges and we are seeing uncertainty in the out-years about whether that federal funding is really going to be there. what we get from all of that is a distinction between little projects that you know you can fund that could run for a year or two and you can get it done and that you can fit into the shrinking remainin

mr. chairman, thank you for holding this hearing. >> thank you senator isakson. we have senator baldwin senator casey, senator whitehouse senator murphy and unless some randompub wanders into the room. and there should be time for all of you to have a fullfy minutes. then we'll be close to the noon the noon hour when we want to conclude the hearing. senator baldwin. >> thank you mr. chairman. and i very grateful to you and the ranking member for getting us off to a great start with a bipartisan dialogue how we can address the shortcomings of the no child left behind law and i'm hopeful we can find a thoughtful path forward to fixing this law for all students parents, teachers administrators, policymakers. we need we need this information. also a great panel, thank you to the witnesses. a well-designed standardized test is one important tool among many that can help all of the stakeholders i just listed understand how well individual students are doing as well as how our nation's schools are serving all of our nation's children. and as such, we should know if the tests given, those required by federal law as well as thos

mr. president, on a separate topic, late last night i returned from havana, cuba, with senator patrick leahy senator stabenow senator whitehouse, congressman van hollen and congressman welsh of vermont. it was a whirlwind trip. in a matter of two days, we had a number of visits with a variety of different people in havana. they included government officials. bruno rodriguez who is the foreign minister of the cuban government. had a lengthy meeting with him yesterday. we had a meeting with about ten different ambassadors from foreign countries to cuba. we met as well with about a dozen reformers or dissidents, opponents of the current castro regime in cuba and had individual meetings with ministries. this was a productive and important delegation trip, important because starting tomorrow, we are going to have face-to-face negotiations in havana between the united states and cuba pursuant to president obama's december 17 announcement. we are setting out to change the foreign policy of the united states as it regards cuba. it's time for a change. for over 50 years, we have been committed to a policy of exclusion, believing that i

mr. sanders: thank you. madam president i rise today to speak on behalf of my amendment to the proposed keystone x.l. pipeline bill, and i want to thank senators bennet, carper, leahy, menendez, warren, and whitehouse for cosponsoring this amendment. madam president my amendment is extremely simple. it is about a page and a half, and i think it is easy understood by anyone who reads it. and this is what it says: simple straightforward. quote -- "it is the sense of congress that congress is in agreement with the opinion of virtually the entire worldwide scientific community that, one climate change is real; two climate change is caused by human activities; three, climate change has already caused devastating problems in the united states and around the world; four, a brief window of opportunity exists before the united states and the entire planet suffer irreparable harm; ans, five, it is imperative that the united states transform its energy system away from fossil fuels and toward energy efficiency and sustainable energy as rapidly as possible." madam president that's it. that is the entire amendment. and what this amendment does is simply ask the members of the united states senate whether or not

mr. brown: i thank the democratic leader for -- the whip for his comments. i was part of a group with senator leahy and senator whitehouse and senator flake to work on this, the credit overwhelmingly goes to congressman been hollen and senator durbin and senator leahy, and the negotiations and the discussions that the administration did. i also appreciate the opportunity to be a cosponsor of senator durbin's bill. i mentioned to him that one of the most intriguing and most admirable things that pope francis said was talking to -- as he travels the world and ministers to the poor and talks to his flock that he exhorted one day he exhorted his parish priest, he said go out and smell like the flock. he said make sure that you -- pretty much -- a good admonition the to all of us that you make sure you go out and make sure you know how people live their lives and minister to them and govern this country better if we do. i appreciate senator durbin's words. mr. durbin: i failed to mention congressman jim mcgovern. congressman van hollen and jim mcgovern who were committed to alan gross' release. mr. brown: madam president i as

mr. whitehouse: mr. president thank you. colleagues i almost hate to use my minute because i am so eager to hear what is said during the minute that our energy chairman will follow me with, but i'm hoping that after many years of darkness and blockade, this vote can be a first little beam of light through the wall that will allow us to at least start having an honest conversation about what carbon pollution is doing to our climate and to our oceans. this is a matter of vital consequence to my home state the ocean state my home, rhode island and to many of yours as well. i hope this is a place where we can get together and have a strong positive vote that sends a signal that this senate at this time in our history is ready to deal with reality. thank you very much. ms. murkowski: mr. president mr. president, i would yield the minute on our side to the senator from oklahoma. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: mr. president i ask for order in the senate. the presiding officer: the senate will be in or

mr. whitehouse: mr. president? the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? mr. whitehouse: unanimous consent for just one minute to defend my amendment. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? mr. whitehouse: unanimous consent for just one minute to defend my amendment. the presiding officer: there is a sufficient second. mr. whitehouse: may i ask unanimous consent -- the senator from rhode island. is there objection to the request? mr. mcconnell: i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote: the presiding officer: are there any senators wishing to vote or change their vote? if not the ayes are 52 and the nays are 43. the motion to table is agreed to. mr. mcconnell: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i call for regular order with respect to the leahy -- the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. the amendment is now pending. mr. mcconnell: i call for the regular order with respect to the leahy amendment number 30. the presiding officer: the amendment is n

mr. whitehouse: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: may i ask unanimous consent that the pending amendments be set aside and that i may call up my own amendment number 28. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. the clerk will report the amendment. the clerk: the senator from rhode island, mr. whitehouse, proposes an amendment numbered 28. mr. whitehouse: may i ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: mr. president this is a measure that will allow a needed beam of daylight to be shown on the politics that are behind this bill that we're on. as everybody knows it's a little bit unusual to some that the opening measure of the new republican majority would be a project that advantages a foreign oil company. and this measure would require the disclosure of political donations made by companies that stand to earn more than a million dollars from this project. this is the kind of information that the united states

mr. whitehouse: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: mr. president the measure before us, the keystone pipeline, the underlying measure -- a senator: the senate is not order. the presiding officer: order in the chamber. the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: mr. president the underlying measure benefits specific investors specific corporations pushes regulatory approval of a specific project and in that sense it has all the earmarks of the biggest earmark ever and we have learned from other history with earmarks that when you have a project that benefits specific investors and specific corporations and specific entities, there is a valuable premium on having the public know about the campaign contributions relative to that project. this bill requires disclosure over $10,000 of campaign contributions from entities that will make more than a million dollars off this project. it is the type of transparency that many of my republican colleagues have bee