you.ank i want to apologize to senator wyden. i should have called on him right away, but we will call on him at this time. sen. wyden:. my apologies that i have been delayed. teelszt oking overcapacity. we care a lot about enforcing trade laws on this committee. familyd really cost us wage jobs in oregon and across the country. we worked on this in a bipartisan way. i was at the u.s. pr's proceeding to make sure they are enforced the law. now we turn to cyber security. it is obvious that hackers and crooks, including many who work for foreign crime syndicates, are jumping at every opportunity to steal hard-earned money and sensitive personal data from american taxpayers. it happens online, and it happens in the real world. in my view, taxpayers have been failed by the agencies, companies, and policymakers here in congress, that they are counting on to protect them. it was unacceptable for the irs to leave the front door open to eakkers by using a wee authentication process for its get transcripts system. it's meant that feeds it

wyden: thank you very much, mr. chairman. commissioner koskinen, it seems to me that you do not fight the ripoff artists by osmosis. you do it by having the right kind of talent to take them on. many of those experts were hired using streamlined pay, including the head of the irs i.t. official who is sitting next to you. but the authority expired in 2013, and the irs lost many of these experts. i think it would be helpful if you laid out for the committee, what are going to be the consequences of the congress failing to renew this key tool, the streamlined clinical pay authority, so you can go out there and get people who know how to beat the crooks? comm. koskinen: we are concerned about it. it is why i have been talking about it for the last two point a half years. what it gives us is the ability to find top-notch i.t. people and higher than what suitable back run checks -- higher them with suitable background checks without going through the whole process. these are all solid people. when you tell these people we are going

with that i will turn it over to senator wyden for his opening remarks and then will hear from the two cochairs from business tax working group will give brief opening remarks. we'll start. >> thank you very much. i very much look forward to working with you and our colleagues and i to want to commend senator soon cardin for their outstanding work. we had just three people headed in that part of the working group and i appreciated. if you small business of america today, often you go to bed at night believing you are in danger of being ensnared by an outdated, overgrown tax code that americans spend 6,100,000,000 hours and more than $100 billion complying with each year. that tax system is punishing to those who don't have a fleet of accountants and the luxury in time to plan investments around taxes. the american tax code tells small businesses that their dollar is worth less to sophisticated firms who can afford to make the rules work for them. that is why today i have released the cost recovery reform and simplification act of 2016. this proposal is all about making the tax code mor

i mentioned senator bide -- wyden is delayed. he is asking i proceed without him and we will be happy to have him participate when he comes. good morning. it is a pleasure to welcome everyone to today hearing entitled quote cybersecurity and protecting taxpayer information end quote. these are important issues the finance committee has been working n for some time. in june of last year we had a hearing on the theft of the internal revenue data. much has happened since that time. the irs revenue commissioners and leaders in the tax preparation industry came together to convene a security summit that resulted in new information sharing agreements to help identify suspicious activity in the tax filing and refund process. we look forward to hearing more about that effort today. but in face of this process, we have also scene unprecedented growth in the scope and scale of cyber attacks aimed at stealing personal information and billions from our taxpayers. last year alone, cyber criminals obtained access to sensitive personal informat

i want to thank you wyden for pulling this together.nk our witnesses for joining us from across the country. in the past four years, this committee has attempted not once but twice to reform our outdated and inefficient settlements. i don't think we should give up. i think we should thank my colleague to my right, senator cardin, and senator thune, for their leadership on the business tax reform initiative for the last year. one thing that this process has made clear is the eenormity and the structural obstacles to reform. if we're going to lower business tax rates, and i think most of us on both sides of the aisle are interested in doing that, then we would need to find enough permanent revenue to offset the cost of permanent rate reduction. that leaves us with the choice between base broadening or identifying an alternative source of revenue such as value added tax. both courses are i believe worth pursuing. neither are easy. even my persistent optimism is tested when i try to fathom the likelihood of a tax overhaul within the next ye

ask, ranking member wyden, cochairs of the business income bipartisan tax working group and members of finance committee. i would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify today.my name is gail, i am a fourth-generation farmer. i'm here today to represent gosche farms incorporated our family farm has a staff of 80 full-time and seasonal employees. our customers include breweries located in multiple states throughout the country. some of which you would be representing here today. we also grow wine grapes for three organ companies. as you all know, the business of farming is fraught with uncertainty. a growing season can turn from it economic gain to an economic loss overnight. a change in the weather, product prices, labor supply or our customers needs can have an extreme, often unforeseen impact on our business. the agricultural, the agriculture industry has many uncertainties. taxes should not be one of them. taxes influence how we invest in our business. tax rates affect the equipment we buy and when we buy it. the type of crops we grow and our hiring and labor deci

i mentioned senator bide -- wyden is delayed. he is asking i proceed without him and we will be happy to have him participate when he comes. good morning. it is a pleasure to welcome everyone to today hearing entitled quote cybersecurity and protecting taxpayer information end quote. these are important issues the finance committee has been working n for some time. in june of last year we had a

senator wyden. i've recommended that, that congress give the irs the authority to prepare tax preparers. we did an undercover investigation, sent teams out to 19 paid tax preparers. only two of the paid tax preparers gave us correct answers. some were very wrong. we also looked at three years of data back at that time. and found that paid tax preparers made errors, 60% of the time versus 50% of the time. that taxpayers who filed their own files made that. irs found that paid tax preparers filed about 68% of earned income tax credit returns in a year or two-year period of time and about 48 to 53% overclaimed the tax credit, based on paid tax preparer. so i definitely think there needs to be authority given irs to set minimum standards for paid tax preparers. i would also comment that we think the irs should have more monitoring and oversight of the security and privacy standards, that paid tax preparers agree to do. we've had an open recommendation in this area. since 2009. >> thank you for your prof

that is why last year senator wyden and i asked members of our committee to work on various tax reform working groups to help identify issues and develop consensus if possible around tax policy proposals. today we will focus our attention on business tax reform issues, including topics that were covered in the report issued by the bipartisan business income tax working group. i want to thank the co-chairs of that working group, senator soon and cardin as well as other members of the working group, senators roberts, burr, toomey, coats, stabenow, carper, casey, warner, menendez and nelson. a lot of time and effort went into examining these issues and compiling this report. i appreciate everyone's willingness to help advance this cause. tom barthold, the chief of staff for the joint committee on taxation, is with us today to provide background on business tax reform issues and highlight some of the major topics reviewed in the working group's report. we appreciate his work, and we appreciate him being with us. we have a great group of additional witnesses here today as well that will pro

senator wyden. i've recommended that, that congress give the irs the authority to prepare tax preparers. we did an undercover investigation, sent teams out to 19 paid tax preparers. only two of the paid tax preparers gave us correct answers. some were very wrong. we also looked at three years of data back at that time. and found that paid tax preparers made errors, 60% of the time versus 50% of the time. that taxpayers who filed their own files made that. irs found that paid tax preparers filed about 68% of earned income tax credit returns in a year or two-year period of time and about 48 to 53% overclaimed the tax credit, based on paid tax preparer. so i definitely think there needs to be authority given irs to set minimum standards for paid tax preparers. i would also comment that we think the irs should have more monitoring and oversight of the security and privacy standards, that paid tax preparers agree to do. we've had an open recommendation in this area since 2009. >> thank you for your profe

wyden: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: mr. president, i rise today to warn of a gathering threat to americans' most fundamental constitutional right, and that is the right to vote. 51 years ago president johnson urged the congress to pass the voting rights act, and in the face of implacable opposition from southern states, president johnson laid out to states, he said -- and i quote -- "every american must have an equal right to vote. there is no excuse which can excuse the denial of that right. there is no duty which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we have to ensure that right." sadly half a century after that law began to remove the most offensive obstacles to voting, americans now face new barriers to exercising their fundamental right to vote. across our land there are stories of long lines, inexplicable purges of voter rolls and new requirements that make it still harder for our people to vote. there is absolutely no excuse for accepting this sorry state of affairs. there is no excuse for citizens in arizona to wa

wyden: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: i ask unanimous consent to vacate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. wyden: over the last few decades, china has used market-distorting subsidies and industrial policies to repeatedly drop up -- prop up their own industries and rip off american jobs: steel, tires, solar panels. the story plays out again and again and again. too often china's economy is not run by the markets. it's run by government committee. so even though its own state council has called out the problem of severe excess capacities, china clings to the same, old tired and destructive policies. and today i want to address what's happening now with china's huge overcapacity of aluminum. the amount of aluminum chinese smelters are churning out has gone up by more than 1,200 nuclear a decade and a half -- in a decade and a half. in 2000, they produced 2.5 million metric tons. in 2015, china produced 32 million metric tons. when you create a glut of aluminum production the way china has,

or if the gap wydens or whatever, i think that's very big for ted cruz.i think it shows donald trump is problematic. obviously the math is still in his favor over anybody else right now. but it could show, you know, greta, this is. >> any favors in the last 24 or 48 hours. terrible week. his interview with chris matthews last night or two nights ago was damaging to say the least, particularly on the issue of abortion. that's not an issue that conservatives are like how do i feel? they know how they feel. and donald trump really went far afield on that topic. >> trump is going to do a town hall with us on sunday. 10 points is a big lead for cruz, assuming that these two polls are correct polls and not like they are close. those two polls. do you think that this could have any impact at town hall with wisconsin voters? i mean, this is a chance to reach them. >>h with, right. i think is he going to have some tough questions from them and howúbwp he handles those questions and what answers he gives to these people because he doesn't know what they're going to

they were given in turkey -- a large margin in terms of wyden's. -- if you look at the share prices, the last few months unchanged. this is no great calamity or positive, it is in line with expectations from that point. francine: are we expecting more selloff after this? >> there is an expectation to sell off another 20%, literal and. -- later on. peter:, when you look at global m&a, we were talking about tax inversion, what does that -- what does this piece of m&a tell us? m&a as the more commodity space -- we were involved in the transaction so i will talk in generalities. you are right that the commodity related companies are under a great deal of duress and for all the reasons we understand in terms of the downdraft and the underlying pricing environment. the need to do letter is something that is primary in the boardrooms of all the large commodity players. that need is translating into the on sale of assets and a transaction like this one is a good example. i think the other thing that is see theing is to pension fund stepping forward as an acquirer of that asset. thatis a pool

wyden: madam president, according to the forest service, and we checked with them this morning, there is right thousand an 11,000-acre fire burning in the shenandoah national park in virginia. now, of course this is just april, not the time when one normally thinks you're going to have fires when the fire season is on. but there's a fire according to the forest service burning in thehenandoah national park in virginia that has already cost more than $3 million. this is the second largest fire in shenandoah national park history. and i've come to the floor this afternoon to once again make the case for the senate on a bipartisan basis, democrats and republicans coming together to fix this dysfunctional system of fighting fire in america. and i'm going to describe it but let me just talk first a little bit about the consequences. in the american west, mr. president, we used to talk about the seasons in a way that americans had done for decades and decades, harvesting crops in the fall, skiing in the winter, fishing during the spring salmon runs, camping in the summers, and we fought fir

and i know senator wyden is as well, and senator carper, senator warner, senator brown, people who were part of our tax reform international, to get something done, even if we could get it done this year. i'm game to do it, because i think it's really important for american competitiveness. and my advice would be, let's do the international side first, then we can deal with all the complicated issues elsewhere. with that, mr. chairman, i'll yield that my time because i know we have a vote coming up. >> thank you, senator schumer. i know of your hard work in this area and i intend to work with you. i want to just thank all of you for being here. mr. barthold, i had questions for you, and we've run out of time. we'll get those separately. this has been a very interesting hearing from my left to the right here. and i really personally appreciate the time that you've given. i just wish we had more time. but we have three votes on and i guess we're going to have to recess until further notice. thanks so much for being here. . >>> former virginia senator macdonnell is facing penalties. the ca

president, i ask unanimous consent that the following amendments be called up and reported by number: wyden number 3499, as poddified, collins number 3508, tester number 3505. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. the clerk will report. by number. the clerk: the senator from south dakota, mr. thune, proposes for other senators amendments number 3499 as modified, 350 and 3505. mr. thune: i also ask unanimous consent that the senate now vote on these amendments as well as the heller amendment 3495 and the casey-toomey amendment number 3458 as modified, en bloc. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. thune: i know of no further debate on these amendments. the presiding officer: is there further debate? if not, all in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the amendments are agreed to en bloc. mr. thune: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes eemp. the presiding officer: without objection.

senator wyden, particularly, for his focus on renewable energy technologies like marine and hydro kinetic and geothermal. these are important provisions because they're going to help us gain a foot hold in very important areas of this development. and so i thank him for his contribution. i mentioned earlier about energy storage. in committee our colleagues dealt a lot with this, but senators franken and heinrich, hirono and king all made significant contributions in what are really modernization of the grid, grid storage, as my colleague from alaska knows, on how to plan for microgrid activity. and senator hirono because she has a very unique state that she represents of hawaii, and having the integration of those activities into the grid, all very important. so i thank them for their contributions on making our electricity grid more distributed and integrating in some of the renewable energies and making sure our grid has the flexibility to do that. senator king has worked hard to make sure the distributed generation gets a fair shake in the marketplace and to make sure that consumers

to acknowledge the important contributions of finance committee chairman hatch and ranking member wyden and their staffs without the finance committee provisions that they provided for revenue and expenditure authority, we would not have an f.a.a. bill. i also want to thank leader mcconnell as lead liaison to the commerce committee scott rabb and leader reid for helping us get this bill passed. i appreciate the senators and staff members who worked with us so we could include so many amendments here on the floor. finally, mr. president, it goes without saying, i want to thank my own staff for their great work on this bill. especially nick rossi, adrian arnakas, bailey edwards, michael reynolds, susan gillan, jackie keshan, rebecca sydell, andrew tim, frederick him, and lauren hammer. long hours and even a few all nighters have been put into this bill over a course of many months, and i am the first to say that nothing consequential or substantial gets done around this place, mr. president, without the important work, hard work of a very talented and skilled staff. and i am blessed on th

i want to apologize to senator wyden. i should have called on him right away. we're going to call on him at this time. >> mr. chairman, thank you. to colleagues, my apologies for being late as well. i was at the public proceeding to look at steel overcapacity. we care a great deal about enforcing the trade laws on this committee, particularly the force act, level the playing field act. dealing with the steel overcapacity that could really cost us family wage jobs, family wage jobs in oregon and around the country. we worked on this in a bipartisan way. i was at the ustr's proceeding to make sure they move aggressively to enforce the law. now we turn to the question of irs cybersecurity. it's pretty obvious hackers and crooks, including many who work for foreign crime syndicates, are jumping at every opportunity to steal hard-earned money and sensitive personal data from american taxpayers. it happens online and it happens in the real world. in my view, taxpayers have been failed to by the agencies, the companies and the policymakers here in the congress that th

mikulski: i ask, wyden, baldwin, man dtion chin and peters. i want to thank each and every one of them for standing up with me for the inspector general and for the principles of good governance. in december we attempted to pass this bipartisan bill by unanimous consent. the bill cleared the republican side with no objection, but the bill was objected to on the democratic side. so let's do the math. none of the 54 republican senators objected. there are seven democrat cosponsors. that's at least 61 votes, at least. if this bill came up for a vote, it would certainly pass easily. it was developed hand in hand over many months with both democrat and republicans in the house of representatives when is ready to move an identical bill as soon as we act here in the united states senate. so on december 15, senator mccaskill, senator johnson and i attempted to pass this bill by a process known as live unanimous consent. our goal was to pass the bill right then and there, and we could have had a -- and we could have if a senator had not objected. howev

wyden: throughout her 66-year career, she had written more than 30 children's books selling over 90 million copies by enchanting readers of all ages with the escapades of roman romana henry ralph s. mouse and so many enduring characters with relate able themes of adventure in adolescence and friendship. miss cleary's novels have with stood the test of time and have established their place in the pains of oregon's cultural her -- heritage. beverly clean airidge. at an early age she moved to portland where she developed a passion for oregon that shines throughout the pages of her stories. for years beverly clery's characters have called portland home and for the countless children who grew up with her writing, ms. clery's stories have been their heyday. her book series are both set in portland and continue to serve as important threads throughout oregon's literary fabric. ms. cleary's impact on the state of oregon and the city of portland have not gone unnoticed. her honors include a public k-8 school in portland. that's the beverly cleary school that some of my staff actually attended. a pub

my good friend from oregon, senator ron wyden, on december december 18 last year upset the apple cart. he placed a hold on pending nomination for the new under secretary of the navy, dr. davidson. his hold was not directed at dr. instead, it was directed at admiral losey's pending promotion. he had grave concerns about revelations in these inspector generals reports. his hold restored much-needed leverage lost when the senate confirmed the admiral's promotion in december, 2011. he wanted the secretary of the navy to reconsider the promotion, so i commend my friend from oregon for taking this action because it was an immediate game changer. fourth, on january 14, 2016, there came a bolt out of the blue. the senate armed services committee fired a shot across the bow that stopped the navy dead in the water. the committee letter to the secretary of the navy began with damaging assessment. after reviewing the investigative report, we, meaning the committee, maintained deep reservations about admiral losey's ability to successfully perform as a two-star admiral. this was the death knell, b

sanders, senator patti murray, dick durbin, dick blumenthal, elizabeth warren, tommy baldwin, rong wyden, and senator cory booker. so thank you to all my colleagues who care a lot about ending predatory financial transactions that strip billions of dollars out of hardworking americans' accounts. we have a lot of work to do on this. we've accomplished some. much more to be done. certainly when james truswell adams said each generation individuals have to stand up and fight against practices designed to destroy the american dream, he's talking about things like this: practices that proceed to undermine the success of america's working families. let's stop those predatory practices in their tracks and pass the safe lending act. thank you, mr. president. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington. ms. cantwell: i call up my amendment in my judgment 3490. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the amendment. the clerk: the senator from washington, ms. cantwell proposes amendment number 3490 to -l amendment number 3464. ms. cantwell: i ask the reading be