susan collins talked about tax cuts for small businesses. the type of changes i would like to see. there is great room to come together in to get the people posey business done. if the last election was about anything the american people wanted congress to come to washington and do the hard work of coming up with solutions. solutions that create jobs. i think the senate is poised to do that well. i think we can agree. we can create an economic agenda that focuses on the middle class and small businesses. they create 70% of new jobs. we want to make sure we are investing in small business whether it is access to capital, they can get loans so they can create jobs or tax policy to give them deductions. there is other priorities i have. young veterans. 20% are unemployed. the guys and the men and women coming back from iraq and afghanistan. i want to make sure our businesses have tools to hire them. tax cuts to hire them. i want to make sure that veteran-owned businesses can have special help. we have so many opportunities with women and minority-owned businesses. they are the fastest

susan collins has stolen him from our staff to make him staff director at homeland security, and we never argue when people are promoted and we will miss him very much because he has been an invaluable member of the commerce committee staff and he'll do a great job running the homeland security committee republican side of that committee staff. patrick mulane is going to be moving over to the budget committee. he was a great help. he knows transportation backward and forward. and todd burdeson is a great member of our team who is staying with us and will continue to contribute so much with his expertise in marine and ocean, which is another part of our commerce committee jurisdiction. so i am very pleased that we have been able to achieve a great bill that i know is taking us the next step toward the reauthorization bill that is going to put the f.a.a., our air traffic control system, our consumer protections and our safety in the place where it ought to be. and, mr. chairman, thank you for your leadership. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. rockefeller: mr. president? the presiding of

ranking member susan collins presented their findings earlier today. this is 40 minutes. >> this is a copy of the report which i believe has been distributed to you. we're very proud of the report and grateful to our bipartisan staff that carried out the report which we embrace today. the staff was led my mike alexander and his team led by gordon letterman, there were full partners in this endeavor and i think senator collins will name others in her statement. they worked long and hard on this investigation. the product of their labor, this report, presents, i believe, the most comprehensive understanding yet of the massacre at fort hood, and enables us to make recommendations particularly to the department of defense and the fbi about how they and we can work together to better combat radicalization for violent islamist extremism among people like the accused killer inside america, and to prevent anything like the murders at fort hood from happening again. throughout our investigation, the victims of this attack, their families and their families, hav

chairman joseph lieberman and susan collins prevent -- present the findings. this is 35 minutes. >> thanks to everyone for coming. senator collins and i are releasing a report on the fort hood terrorist attack that killed 13 people and injured 32 others. this is a copy of the report, which i believe has been distributed. we are proud of the report and grateful to our bipartisan staff that carried out the report, which we embrace today. the staff was led by mike alexander and his team. the minority staff director was a full partner in this endeavor. senator collins will name others in her statement. they all worked long and hard. the most important point is the product of their labor is the most comprehensive understanding yet of the massacre at fort hood and enables us to make massive -- recommendations for the fbi about how they and we can work together to better combat radicalization of violent extremism from people like the $inside america and to prevent anything like the murders at fort hood from happening again. throughout our investigation, the victims o