mrs. shaheen: thank you, mr. president. since the supreme court's decision two years ago in citizens united, we've seen a new system of campaign finance emerge. without limits on donations or limits on spending by outside groups like super pacs, we have been inundated with mostly negative political advertisements while candidates from both sides of the aisle struggle to raise more and more money just to keep up. nearly $170 million has been spent so far in this election cycle by outside groups and that doesn't include how much the candidates themselves have spe spent. just think what good we could do with that $170 million. the rising influence of donors and corporations is a problem, but the larger issue and the one that we're here to talk about today -- and i want to recognize the leadership of senator whitehouse from rhode island, who has done such a great job of raising the importance of this issue -- the larger issue is the prevalence of secret money that is increasingly making its way into our campaigns. millions of d

mrs. shaheen: that's fine. mr. reid: it's my understanding that senator coburn's been waiting around for awhile to talk. you're okay? okay. the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: thank you, madam president. i come to the floor this evening to talk about an amendment that i filed to the cybersecurity act, s. 3414. now, this is the fourth time i filed this amendment, and it's not on the cybersecurity act per se, although it does address energy use which is one of the critical challenges we face as we're trying to address cybersecurity in this country. this is an amendment that is the substance of s. 1000, the energy savings and industrial competitiveness act, which is sponsored -- the other cosponsor, senator rob portman, and he's a cosponsor on this amendment. and what the energy savings and industrial competitiveness act and the amendment that i filed does is create a national energy-efficiency strategy for the united states. so this amendment is the same language that senator portman

mrs. shaheen: i ask that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. shaheen: today the senate is considering legislation to end tax breaks included in our own internal revenue code that actually help companies that want to ship jobs overseas. the bring the jobs home act provides not only a tax credit to encourage companies to move jobs back to the united states, but it would end those tax breaks that help companies ship jobs overseas. offshoring of american jobs has hurt the middle class and it continues to be a real problem. there's no good reason we should continue giving companies an incentive to offshore good american jobs. we can address high unemployment by encouraging companies to bring jobs back to the united states, and the tax credit in this bill will help to reverse the trend and put americans back to work. in fact, this incentive could help bring 2 million to 3 million jobs back to the united states, according to some economic estimates. so i hope that all of our colleagues will support this bill, but i also want to take a few minutes to ta

mrs. shaheen: mr. president, before i speak, i have six unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders, and i ask unanimous consent that these requests be agreed to and these requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. shaheen: thank you, mr. president. i am proud to join my colleagues on the floor today. i thank senator boxer and senator harkin for their leadership. just as i was proud back in december of 2009 to join senator mikulski in sponsoring the women's health amendment to the affordable care act. we are here today celebrating the fact that tomorrow, august 1, women will have access to important health services at no cost. and senator boxer showed very clearly what a number of those preventive services are. thanks to the provisions of the affordable care act that go into effect this week, women will have access to a wide range of preventive services from wel

mr. chairman, thank you. >> thank you very much. senator shaheen, do you have any second-round questions? >> i do have a couple, mr. chairman, and i know that one of the issues that has been raised about the treaty, and i heard some of that debate today, has been what is the real authority of the international seabed authority and how -- how would our participation play in that? and i wonder if you all have looked at the authority to the extent that it's operated today and whether you have any views about countries like russia and china and what their actions have been on the authority in our absence and whether -- whether they are in fact taking advantage of our inability to ratify the treaty and participate on the authority. what impact has it had to have the u.s. not be part of that body? >> i'll try it, senator. first is to us that's very significant. as senator chairman kerry mentioned earlier, the '94 changes, the amendments, were very significant in giving us additional power, a permanent seat on that council in the seabed authority. the rea

mrs. shaheen: mr. president, i rise today to join my colleagues who have been to the floor earlier this afternoon to emphasize the importance of getting the house to act to pass the violence against women act. we passed a bipartisan reauthorization in the senate and now it's time for the house to do the same. there are provisions in the senate version of the bill that offer critical protections for survivors, for native americans, for immigrants, for the lgbt community and for students, for young women who are on college campuses and it's that importance of protecting those victims on college campuses that i want to specifically address this afternoon. according to the department of justice, 25% of college women, that's one in four, 25% of college women will be victims of rape or attempted rape before they graduate within their four-year college period. the rape, abuse and incest national network reports that college-age women are four times more likely than any other age group to face sexual assault.

mrs. shaheen: thank you, madam president. i'm pleased to come to the floor this afternoon to join my colleagues, senator landrieu and senator casey, in talking about the importance of addressing some of the concerns that face small business. and senator casey said something that i think is very important. he said when he goes around pennsylvania, one of the things that he hears from his constituents is that they expect us to work together here in washington, in the senate, in congress to get things done for the people of this country. i hear that from my constituents. i'm sure the presiding officer hears that from her constituents. people throughout the country expect us to work together, and they want to see us address the economic challenges that we're facing in the country. well, one of the best ways to address the fiscal issues that we're facing is to be able to grow this economy, and nothing is more important to growing the economy, to creating jobs than small businesses. senator casey talked about the recent report that

mr. shaheen and mr. zogby had some persuasive statements. this is based on the peculiar demonization that jews space under christianity and its specific relationship between jews and christians this are -- in certain historical periods. there is also a post-9/11 context for those arabs who are molal or are perceived as being moslems. -- these arabs who are muslim or are perceived as being a muslim. while i enjoy the notion that we need to fight all kinds of bigotry, i think it's a important that we do not act as though we have solved once and for all any sorts of discrimination because we certainly have not. yes, we will sometimes react when bad things are done to this group for the other. we find we are continually facing persecution against a whole range of groups including arabs, jews, and muslims. i do not want to lump these two under the same name. the most important thing is to identify, when we see it, and to try to join forces in opposing it. [applause] >> it's a very compelling argument and i would agree in joining forces. i must sa

mrs. shaheen: mr. president, tomorrow the attention of the world will turn to london as we witness the opening of the 2012 summer olympics. over 10,000 athletes representing 204 nations from around the world will be competing in hundreds of sporting events at the games of the 30th olympiad. here in the united states, we'll be cheering on the 529 u.s. athletes as they look to bring home the gold for the united states of america. the olympics no doubt will have countless stories of triumph and disappointment, competition and camaraderie. i rise today to share the remarkable story of one particular athlete who will be competing this year. his story is one of inspiring triumph of character and spirit, but until just days ago, this olympian had no flag to compete under. this story is about a talented young runner named gore marial whose mere survival in southern sudan defied the odds. having escaped the bloodshed and violence in war-torn sudan, gore found his way to my home state of new hampshire as a teena

mr. donohue's made it clear, that he made the request for us to be here at this time initially and that's what got us going. senator shaheen? >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you all for being here. i apologize for missing your testimony. i was in an energy hearing, so i'm actually going to start with that, mr. gerard. energy. and i wonder if you could talk about why this treaty is important to the energy security of the united states. in your letter to the committee you stated that accession will provide great energy security by securing the united states exclusive rights for oil and gas production. so could you elaborate on that and why -- talk about why it's important? >> surely. it gives us expanded opportunity with the extended outer continental shelf, the extended resource to develop those resources under the guise and direction of the united states and u.s. law. when we're focused on more specifically right now which is a talked about regularly as the arctic. it's estimated the arctic has one quarter of the world's oil and gas reserves. that is a big number. and right now, as we look at it, we will be limited i

mr. president. senator shaheen, senator bennet. so many people on the task force did a very, very good job. senator udall as well. and so did so many of our colleagues. the fact that we have been on the floor now for close to five hours and there hasn't been a moment's pause says something. it says -- it talks about the broad support that this modest but powerful act has on our side of the aisle. the fact that no one unfortunately on the other side of the aisle has come to debate this issue says something as well. the only debate, in fact, we heard was the republican leader in a brief speech in an argument that was sort of almost 1984-ish, that the reason we shouldn't disclose that people who give would be harassed. well, by that, we should probably have everything be in secret, because of course in an open democracy when you do things in the political arena, you're subject to criticism. that is what freedom is about. and now to come up with this inside-out argument that we shouldn't disclose because people might be criticized for

mr. chairman thank you. >> thank you very much. senator shaheen and you have anymore questions? ouple mr. chairman. i know that a couple of the issues that have been raised about the treaty and i heard some of that debate today, has been what is the real authority of the international seabed authority and how would our participation play in that? and i wonder if you all have looked at the authority to the extent that it has operated today, and whether you have any views about country like russia and china and what their actions have been on the authority in our absence, and whether, whether they are in fact taking advantage of our inability to ratify the treaty and participate on the authority, what impact has it had to have the u.s. not be part of that body? >> i will try it, senator. first, it's very significant as senator kerry mentioned earlier. the 94 changes to the amendment were very significant in giving us additional power on that council and the seabed authority. the reason we say that is twofold. number one any other decisions that come out out of there we essentially

shaheen after that. is that acceptable to everyone? mr. sessions: madam president, if you could make that ten minutes, that would be fine? ms. landrieu: i would amend that to ten minutes, in the order senator casey, senator sessions, and senator shaheen. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from pennsylvania is recognized. mr. casey: thank you, madam president. i want to commend the work of the senator from louisiana, the senior senator, for her work on this legislation but for her many years laboring in the vineyards, so to speak, on job-creation strategies to help our small business owners across the united states. i rise to speak about this legislation as well because when i go to pennsylvania and travel across our state, i get two basic messages from the people of our state. and they're very clear about this. they say two things: work on job creation, put your time into putting in place ways to create and incentivize the creation of jobs. that's the first message. the second message is, work together, get things done, w

of ohio, blumeening that will, merkley, coons, casey, cardin, shaheen, gillibrand, schumer, reed of rhode island, mikulski, rockefeller. mr. reid: i ask that the mandatory quorum required under rule 22 be waived. fer if without objection, so ordered. mr. reid: once again, i'm disappointed, as i think most people in the country are, on an issue as timely as this, outsourcsourcing jobs, that we e again are being sometime mid into -- stymied into moving to that legislation. we're going to have a rule on this -- we can't have a vote on this until two days go by, so that's a vote on thursday. and if cloture is i voked on that, then we're only on the bill. and then to get off of it, take another series of days. i mean, get final action on this is going it take a week. that's so unfortunate. that's so unfortunate that we have to go through this, and we've gone through this so many times. and there's, i repeat, not an issue more timely than this, outsourcing jobs. whether it's the olympic uniforms or the many other jobs that have been lost around this country, the american people are tired of this. and i think it's unfortunate th