ms. stabenow: thank you. let me just indicate there is a in just the first four months of this year 90% of all outside money being spent in this coming november presidential election was secret. 90% of what was spent in just the first four months of this year. 90% was secret. this is about openness. this is about transparency. this is about whether or not everyone in our country is going to have the opportunity to have information to make their own judgments. we need to be allowed to pass this bill. we need an up-or-down vote on this issue. we need to stop the filibuster, that's happening by republicans on the other side of the aisle. stop blocking the bill. let us vote on it. we have the votes to get it passed. the american people deserve to have this passed. i yield the floor. mr. whitehouse: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, i know we have senator hagan and senator bennet to say one more thing, and senator franken here all waiting, but i'd l

ms. stabenow: thank you, mr. president. in just a couple of minutes, we're going to be voting on a very important policy, a very important bill i'm proud to cosponsor -- sponsor with a number of cosponsors, a number of colleagues, called the bring jobs home act. and it goes to the heart of what has been happening in a global economy when we haven't been paying attention to our tax code or other things we ought to be doing to be able to bring jobs home and other countries are aggressively working to take our manufacturing base, to take our middle class because they know that when they look at our country, you have a middle class because we make things and grow things. and so they're rushing to be able to make things and to innovate and so on and to create incentives for our jobs to be shipped overseas. now, we know we're in a global economy. we know our companies are competing with countries and we have a whole range of things that we've been working to do to be able to able to support, incentivize and help manufacturers and

ms. stabenow: thank you, mr. president. first, mr. president, i have five 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 that these requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. stabenow: thank you, mr. president. i do want to speak as chair of the agriculture committee about what is happening on the droughts across the country, but let me first take a moment as the author of the bring jobs home act to say that this afternoon we're going to have an opportunity to come together as we did on the farm bill, when we came together on a bipartisan basis to focus on growing things in america and the need to strengthen our economy, provide economic certainty around agriculture and the food industry in america. it really was a wonderful opportunity for us to get something done. this afternoon we're going to have the same kind of oppor

ms. stabenow: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: thank you, mr. president. i rise today to urge my colleagues to support the motion we have before us, to begin consideration of my bill, the bring jobs home act. i want to thank our leader for making this a priority and thank the president of the united states for also making this a priority as we move forward. and let me first start on process to say it is true, of course, as the leader indicated, we could be simply on this bill and working to complete it and to pass it. but unfortunately, as happens on everything now, when the leader attempts to move to a bill, there is an objection to do th that. when there is, it puts us into a situation where we have to spend several days trying to overcome a potential filibuster to be able to move to the bill. so that's process-wise where we are. but from a substance standpoint, it is absolutely critical that we move to this bill and that we pass it. the great recession and the financial collapse of 2008 were absolutely devastating to o

ms. stabenow: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from michigan is recognized. ms. stabenow: thank you, madam president. i first want to thank my friend and colleague from connecticut for his commitment and compassion and passion on this issue, and i appreciate very much his joining with me and others to come together to put forward what i think is a commonsense bill that focuses on closing a major loophole that is requiring basically taxpayers' help with the bill when jobs are shipped overseas. so i want to thank the senator from connecticut for his efforts and commitment, and i know that he shares my belief that we need to be bringing jobs home. and that's what we intend to do. so, mr. president, i do want to speak today about the legislation that's in front of us. we will have the opportunity tomorrow morning, unless we can come together and agree that we don't have to go forward and have this vote to stop a filibuster, if we could agree just to bring up the bill and discuss it and pass it, it would be terrific. we know we have a majority to support this bill and

ms. stabenow: thank you, mr. president. i'd like to take a few moments just to update folks about what's happening as relates to the very important effort to pass a five-year farm bill for our country, for our ranchers, for our farmers, for those who care deeply about nutrition and conservation policy for the country. we have over 16 million people, somewhere between 16 million and 20 million people that work in this country because of agriculture, the farm bill, food policy, and we came together -- and i'm very proud of all the work that we did together, to pass a bipartisan farm bill. and in doing that, we sent a very strong message on a number of fronts, that we were committed to certainty for our growers, economic certainty that we understand -- that we understand the need to have long-term policies in place, and we also sent a message about disaster assistance. there's no question, i've spoken on the floor before as my colleagues have, that we have a very serious situation happening all across our country related to li