High School Sports Information Collection Act of 2009

Mr. President, I rise to speak about legislation that I am introducing today, the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act of 2009. This legislation takes important steps to confront the growing problem of organized criminal activity involving stolen and resold retail goods. This organized retail crime costs retailers billions of dollars per year and creates significant health and safety risks for consumers. My legislation will toughen criminal laws and put in place effective regulatory and information-sharing measures to help retailers, secondary marketplaces, and law enforcement agencies work together to stop this crime. I am pleased that my colleague Senator Klobuchar is joining me in introducing this important legislation, and I look forward to working with her and all my colleagues to see it passed into law.

I recently became Chairman of the Senate Crime and Drugs Subcommittee and I hope to hold a hearing in the Subcommittee on the problem of organized retail crime and the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act. I also want to acknowledge that Congressman Bobby Scott, the Chairman of the House Crime Subcommittee, and Congressman Brad Ellsworth are each introducing bills to crack down on organized retail crime. I look forward to working with them and all of my colleagues to enact legislation that will address this growing problem in a comprehensive and effective manner.

Organized retail crime rings currently operate across the Nation and internationally. Their criminal activity begins with the coordinated theft of large amounts of items from retail stores with the intent to resell those items. The foot soldiers in these organized retail crime rings are professional shoplifters, called ``boosters,'' who steal from retail stores such items as over-the-counter drugs, baby formula, medical diagnostic tests, health and beauty aids, clothing, razor blades, and electronic devices. These boosters often use sophisticated means for evading retailer anti-theft safeguards, and occasionally dishonest retail employees are complicit in the theft. Each booster routinely steals thousands of dollars worth of items from multiple stores, and delivers the items to a ``fence,'' or a person who buys stolen products from boosters for a fee that is frequently paid in cash or drugs.

Today, organized retail crime rings often enlist numerous fences to deliver stolen retail goods to processing and storage warehouses operated by the rings. At these warehouse locations, teams of workers sort the stolen items, disable anti-theft tracking devices, and remove labels that identify the items with a particular retailer. In some instances, they alter items' expiration dates, replace labels with those of more expensive products, or dilute products and repackage the modified contents in seemingly-authentic packaging. Often, the conditions in which these stolen goods are transported, handled and stored are substandard, leading to the deterioration or contamination of the goods.

Organized retail crime rings typically resell their stolen merchandise in physical marketplaces, such as flea markets and swap- meets, or on Internet auction sites. Internet sites are particularly tempting avenues for these sales, since the Internet reaches a worldwide market and allows sellers to operate anonymously and maximize return.

Organized retail crime has a variety of harmful effects. Retailers and the FBI estimate that this crime costs retailers approximately $30 billion per year and deprives states of hundreds of millions of dollars in lost sales tax revenues. The proceeds of organized retail crime can be used to finance other forms of criminal behavior, including gang activity, drug trafficking and international terrorism. Further, organized retail crime often involves the resale of consumable goods like baby formula or medical diagnostic tests like diabetic strips, which can cause significant harm to consumers when stored improperly or sold past their expiration date.

Although the problem of organized retail crime predates the economic crisis facing our nation, the current recession has lent more urgency to the need to curb organized retail crime. In recent months theft and shoplifting from retailers has increased and retailers' revenues have decreased, thus enlarging the bite that organized retail crime has taken out of retailers' balance sheets. A December 2008 survey by the Retail Industry Leaders Association found that 80 percent of the retailers surveyed reported experiencing an increase in organized retail crime since the start of the current economic downturn. In a 2008 survey of loss prevention executives performed by the National Retail Federation, 85 percent of the 114 retailers surveyed indicated that their company had been a victim of organized retail crime in the past 12 months. Many law enforcement officials predict that organized retail crime will continue to increase during these troubled economic times.

After I introduced legislation on this subject last Congress, I listened to the views of stakeholders from law enforcement, the retail community, and the Internet marketplace community, and have made several revisions to my legislation in response to their suggestions. The legislation I am introducing today, the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act of 2009, would do the following:

First, it would toughen the criminal code's treatment of organized retail crime. It would refine certain offenses, such as the crimes of interstate transport and sale of stolen goods, to capture conduct that is being committed by individuals engaged in organized retail crime. It would also require the U.S. Sentencing Commission to consider relevant sentencing guideline enhancements.

Second, the bill would establish a reporting system through which evidence of organized retail crime can be effectively shared between the victimized retailers, the marketplaces where items are being resold, and the Justice Department. The bill would create a form that retailers could use to describe suspected illegal sales activity involving goods that were stolen from that retailer. The retailer would sign and submit this form to both the Justice Department and to the operator of a physical or online marketplace where

the stolen goods are suspected of being offered for resale. Upon receiving the form, the marketplace operator would be required to conduct an account review of the suspected sellers and provide the results of that account review to the Justice Department. This reporting system would ensure that the Justice Department receives information from both retailers and marketplaces in order to piece together organized retail crime investigations and prosecutions.

Third, the bill would require that when a marketplace operator is presented with clear and convincing evidence that a seller on that marketplace is selling stolen goods, the operator must terminate that seller's activities unless the seller can produce exculpatory evidence. The bill would also require that when a marketplace operator is presented with evidence of criminal activity involving a seller who offers consumable goods or medical diagnostic tests on that marketplace, the operator must immediately suspend the ability of that seller to sell such goods because of the potentially imminent danger to public safety.

Additionally, the bill would require high-volume sellers on Internet marketplace sites to provide a physical address to the marketplace operator. This address would be shared with the Justice Department and with retailers who attest and provide evidence that the high-volume seller is suspected of reselling goods stolen from that retailer. This address-sharing regime will permit appropriate inquiries to determine whether high-volume Internet sellers are legitimate operations, and is similar to address-sharing regimes that permit inquiries into possible copyright violations by online sellers.

In sum, the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act of 2009 is targeted legislation that aims to deter organized retail crime and facilitate the identification and prosecution of those who participate in it. The bill heightens the penalties for organized retail crime, shuts down criminals who are selling stolen goods, and places valuable information about illegal activity into the hands of law enforcement. This legislation has broad support in the retail industry in my home state of Illinois and nationwide. It is supported by the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, the National Retail Federation, the Retail Industry Leaders Association, the Food Marketing Institute, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, and the Coalition to Stop Organized Retail Crime, whose members include such retail chains as Walgreens, Home Depot, Target, Wal-Mart, Safeway, and Macy's.

Organized retail crime is a growing problem nationwide. There is a pressing need to address it, particularly in light of the weakening economy and the risks such crime creates for unknowing consumers. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation so we can effectively combat this crime.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to reintroduce the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act.

This year marks the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth. We will spend this bicentennial year reflecting on Lincoln's legacy, a legacy that extends far beyond the Civil War. President Lincoln strove to democratize higher education. He enacted the Morrill Act, establishing public land grant universities and opening the doors to a college education to more Americans.

As we recognize Lincoln's legacy this year, we can again transform higher education. Today with Senator Wicker I am introducing the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act, which has the potential to equip a new generation of Americans with the skills to live in a globalized world.

The bill is named after the late Senator Paul Simon, a man whose passion for the public good remains an inspiration to all who knew him. Shortly before his death in late 2003, Senator Simon came back to Washington to talk to his former colleagues about the need to strengthen American security. He wondered how the United States could lead the world to stability, peace, and harmony when so many Americans are ignorant of the world. He envisioned a United States populated by a generation of Americans with greater international understanding--an understanding arrived at not by just studying the world, but by living in it. He believed this study abroad initiative would be as transformative as Lincoln's work to expand access to college.

Paul's tireless efforts led to Congress' establishment of the Abraham Lincoln Study Abroad Commission. I was honored to serve on this bipartisan Lincoln Commission, and it was a privilege for me to introduce legislation in the past two Congresses to

bring Paul Simon's dream closer to reality. The bill is based on the Commission's recommendations for a study abroad program for undergraduate students that will help build global awareness and international understanding. In the last Congress, this bill was supported by 50 bipartisan cosponsors.

The Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act has big goals. It declares our intention to send one million students abroad per year within the next decade. More of those students will study in the developing world and the students we send will be more diverse in terms of race, socioeconomic background, and field of study. To accomplish these goals, a small public-private entity, the Senator Paul Simon Foundation, will award grants to students and institutions of higher education. The goal of the program is to make study abroad in high- quality programs in diverse locations around the world more common for all college students. Grants to colleges and universities will be used to encourage tearing down institutional barriers to study abroad. By leveraging change at the institution level, the Foundation will create opportunities for countless students--far more than possible through direct student grants alone.

Expanding study abroad should be a national priority. The future of the country depends on globally literate citizens who are at ease in the world. In his troubled time, Lincoln said, ``The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.'' Today, our Nation also faces an occasion piled high with difficulty. By passing the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act, we will send the next generation of Americans out into the world with open minds and they will come back able to think anew and act anew. I ask my colleagues to join Senator Wicker and me in support of this important legislation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today I will once again introduce with the senior Senator from Mississippi, Mr. Cochran, the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act, a bill to require that Senate candidates file their campaign finance disclosure reports electronically and that those reports be promptly made available to the public. This step is long overdue; indeed I first introduced this bill in 2003. I hope that the Senate will act quickly on this legislation this year.

A series of reports by the Campaign Finance Institute has highlighted the anomaly in the election laws that makes it nearly impossible for the public to get access to Senate campaign finance reports while most other reports are available on the Internet within 24 hours of their filing with the Federal Election Commission, FEC. The Campaign Finance Institute asks a rhetorical question: ``What makes the Senate so special that it exempts itself from a key requirement of campaign finance disclosure that applies to everyone else, including candidates for the House of Representatives and Political Action Committees?''

The answer, of course, is nothing. The U.S. Senate is special in many ways. I am proud to serve here. But there is no excuse for keeping our campaign finance information inaccessible to the public when the information filed by House candidates or others is readily available.

My bill amends the section of the election laws dealing with electronic filing to require reports filed with the Secretary of the Senate to be filed electronically and forwarded to the FEC within 24 hours. The FEC is required to make available on the Internet within 24 hours any filing it receives electronically. So if this bill is enacted, electronic versions of Senate reports should be available to the public within 48 hours of their filing. That will be a vast improvement over the current situation, which, according to the Campaign Finance Institute, requires journalists and interested members of the public to review computer images of paper-filed copies of reports, and involves a completely wasteful expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars to re-enter information into databases that almost every campaign has available in electronic format.

The current filing system also means that the detailed coding that the FEC does, which allows for more sophisticated searches and analysis, is completed over a week later for Senate reports than for House reports. This means that the final disclosure reports covering the first two weeks of October are often not susceptible to detailed scrutiny before the election. According to the Campaign Finance Institute, in the 2006 election, ``[v]oters in six of the hottest Senate races were out of luck the week before the November 7 election if they did Web searches for information on general election contributions since June 30. . . . In all ten of the most closely followed Senate races voters were unable to search through any candidate reports for information on pre-general election (October 1- 18) donations.'' And a September 18, 2006, column by Jeffery H. Birnbaum in the Washington Post noted that ``When the polls opened in November 2004, voters were in the dark about $53 million in individual Senate contributions of $200 or more dating all the way back to July. . . .''

Because the Senate failed to pass this bill last Congress, even though we had 48 bipartisan cosponsors and no known opposition, and even though the Senate Rules Committee reported the bill by voice vote, the same problem existed for Senate elections in the 2008 cycle. In addition, because of the expense, when the FEC puts information from the paper filings in its electronic database, it only enters contributions, not expenditures. So anyone interested in how a Senate campaign is spending its money has to consult the paper forms.

As Roll Call said in its recent editorial in favor of the bill, ``[i]t's time for this nonsense to come to an end.'' It is time for the Senate to at long last relinquish its backward attitude toward campaign finance disclosure. I urge the enactment of this simple bill that will make our reports subject to the same prompt, public scrutiny as those filed by PACs, House and Presidential candidates, and even 527 organizations. I close with another question from the Campaign Finance Institute: ``Isn't it time that the Senate join the 21st century and allow itself to vote on a simple legislative fix that could significantly improve our democracy?'' This Congress, let us finally answer that question in the affirmative.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and the Roll Call editorial be printed in the Record.

[From Roll Call, Feb. 11, 2009]

Outrageous

In this year when ``transparency'' is all the rage, it

would be appropriate for the Senate--at long last--to join

the House and every federal political committee in filing

campaign finance reports electronically.

Fundraising and spending reports for the end of 2008 were

due on Jan. 31. Reports for House Members and candidates and

the Republican and Democratic parties and their campaign

committees all were instantly available to the media,

watchdog groups and the public on the Federal Election

Commission's Web site.

But Senate reports take weeks from the filing deadline to

make it into the public realm. And when they are made

available, it's at the conclusion of a circuitous process

that costs taxpayers an estimated $250,000 a year that could

be far better spent elsewhere--almost anywhere else--or

simply used to narrow the federal deficit.

Moreover, because of the expense, the FEC does not

electronically post Senate campaign expenditures, only

contributions--a gap that Steve Weissman of the Campaign

Finance Institute correctly calls ``outrageous.''

Senators use FEC-approved software to compile their

reports, but then they snail-mail paper copies to the office

of the Secretary of the Senate, which then scans some 27,000

pages and sends them electronically to the FEC.

They can be then combed through page by page on the FEC Web

site, but not digitally manipulated or matched. The FEC hires

a contractor to key the data into digital form. Only then, a

month or more after the filing deadline, can the data be

searched and connections made, if any, between money

collected and votes or positions Senators or their opponents

have taken.

But it still takes page-by-page searching to review

candidates' spending--to determine, for instance, if

candidates' relatives are on the campaign payroll.

All this ridiculous complexity is necessary because in 2000

the Senate exempted itself from an electronic filing

requirement written into the FEC's appropriation. Legislation

to correct the situation has been regularly introduced by

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), and it's regularly had dozens of

co-sponsors.

But it's never passed. Change was resisted at first by Sen.

Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), who wanted to maintain a fusty Senate

``prerogative,'' and then by various Republican Senators who

wanted to attach amendments that amounted to ``poison

pills.''

Last year, the Senate Rules and Administration Committee

approved the bill for floor action, but it was blocked by

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) who sought to add a provision

requiring disclosure of the donors to any organization filing

ethics complaints against a Senator. The bill never was voted

on.

It's time for this nonsense to come to an end. Feingold is

planning to re-introduce the measure soon. It ought to be

processed promptly by the Rules Committee, now chaired by

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), and pushed to the floor for

passage as early in the year as possible so if it's subject

to more shenanigans, they can be exposed and resolved.

Mr. President, I have sought recognition to introduce the Stem Cell Research Advancement Act of 2010 on behalf of Senator Boxer, Senator Feinstein, and myself.

Some 21 days ago, in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, in an opinion by Chief Judge Lamberth, the expenditures made by the National Institutes of Health for embryonic stem cell research under an Executive order issued by President Obama on March 9, 2009, was overturned under a declaration that the Executive order violated the Dickey-Wicker amendment enacted by Congress.

Even though on its face it is pretty clear-cut that the embryonic stem cell research was not precluded by that amendment, that has had the effect of tying up very important ongoing research. For example, some $546 million has already been spent on human embryonic stem cell research and some very noteworthy progress has been made. For example, the Food and Drug Administration has approved a clinical trial for patients with spinal cord injury, and human embryonic stem cell research has been successfully used to develop new therapeutic drugs for a number of diseases including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and muscular dystrophy, and those are just a couple of the illustrations.

The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has stayed the lower court's order until September 20, but there is very substantial doubt as what the future will be. Meanwhile, although the district court order has been stayed, there is great uncertainty in the research community as to what will happen. This research is vital for moving against the maladies of our society.

The background on this issue is that in November of 1998, the disclosure was made about the potential for embryonic stem cell research. At the time I chaired the appropriations subcommittee which funded Health and Human Services. It seemed to me that was a tremendous opportunity and I scheduled a hearing within a few days, held on December 2 of 1998. Since that time, there have been some 20 hearings.

As we all know, the funding for the National Institutes of Health has had a tremendous increase. When I joined the committee after my election in 1980, the funding was $3.6 billion. When I became chairman of the committee in the mid-1990s, the funding was $12 billion. With the concurrence of the then-ranking member, Senator Harkin, we took the lead in increasing funding from some $12 billion to $30 billion. Regrettably, with budget constraints, the funding did not keep pace, starting in the year 2003. But in the stimulus package there was an additional $10 billion added which has reawakened a whole generation of research scientists, with that $10 billion providing funding for some 15,000 grants.

The results for health have been really overwhelming. Here are a few illustrations. In the 1950s, cardiovascular disease caused half of the United States deaths. Today, the rate for coronary heart disease is more than 60 percent lower. Over the past 25 years, the 5-year survival rate for prostate cancer has increased from 69 percent to almost 99 percent for diagnosed patients. For childhood cancers, the 5-year survival rate has improved markedly over the past 3 decades, from less than 50 percent before the 1970s to 80 percent today. Those are only illustrative statistics. The opportunities for embryonic stem cell research are overwhelming.

The Specter-Harkin bill was passed by the Senate in 2006 by a vote of 63 to 37, a very healthy margin for an issue which has raised some controversy. The House of Representatives passed the legislation but regrettably President Bush vetoed it in 2006, and the effort to override the veto in the House failed. There was a vote of 235 to 193, short of the two-thirds necessary to override the veto. But that shows enormous Congressional support.

Then President Obama issued the Executive order that Federal funds could be used on embryonic stem cell research on lines where the embryo had been donated. This is in line with the policy adopted by President Bush in August of 2001, when he allowed the use of quite a number of stem cell lines where the embryos had been donated. Later it was found there were only 21 lines, and those were insufficient, which has led to the effort for legislation and then led to President Obama's Executive order. The fact is, there are some 400,000 of these embryos which are frozen and which will ultimately be discarded. So it is use them for medical research to save lives or throw them away. Some have contended that we are destroying lives but the reality is they will not be utilized.

In response to the issue as to whether there might be adoption of these embryos, the subcommittee took the lead in appropriating substantial funds, which is more than $4 million a year, actually $4.2 million, but relatively few people have come forward for its use on adopting the embryos to turn them into life. If these embryos could be turned into human life I would not under any circumstance advocate scientific research on these embryos--if they could produce life. But they cannot. The facts are plain. The adoption line has been in effect now since 2002. Only a few hundred have been adopted. President Bush invited the ``snowflake'' children to the White House during his tenure, about 150 of them.

Now we have a situation where the court has intervened, even though more than a year and a half had elapsed since President Obama issued the Executive order, a clear indication of congressional intent not to deal with it or not to overturn it. I think it is a fair legal analysis that the order issued by the district court is not a sound order. Some indication of that is found in the fact that the circuit court stayed the order--not conclusive, but when they stay an order it looks as though they are not favorably inclined toward it. But who knows what the circuit court will do? Who knows what the Supreme Court of the United States, with their ideological bent, would do? This has become a theological issue in part, very emotional, with people arguing that it is akin to abortion. Of course it is nowhere near that kind.

It seems to me Congress ought to act. That is why on the first order of business after we convened here this afternoon, our first day back and our first hour in the Senate session, I am introducing this legislation. I have discussed it with sponsors on the House side and I think we are in a position to move rapidly. Certainly the previous vote of 63 to 37 in 2006 shows substantial support in this body, and the 235-to-193 vote to override President Bush's veto shows the same in the House of Representatives. I hope my colleagues will join me in this effort so this important scientific research may be continued.

I ask unanimous consent that the full text of my printed statement be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise to talk about a bill I introduced today with Senator Cornyn as a cosponsor. It is S. 3768. When Congress passed and the President signed the education jobs fund bill in August, every State in America had the same requirements and every State in America was treated fairly--or equally, anyway--except for one and that State is Texas. That is why Senator Cornyn and I are introducing a bill that would only allow Texas to be equal with every other State in the Federal funding opportunity in this education bill.

The House of Representatives--not the Senate but the House--put in an amendment that singled out Texas in two ways. It said that Texas, unlike every other State in the bill, would have to guarantee 3 years of a commitment for education funding to be level in order to get the funds for 1 year that were allocated in the bill. Every other State in America is required to make such a commitment for 1 year.

Our constitution in Texas, similar to many State constitutions, does not allow one legislature to pass legislation that will require acts of another legislature, so appropriations cannot go over a 3-year period. Our legislature can only appropriate and spend Texas money for itself. It cannot obligate future legislatures. So the House provision would require Texas to violate its Constitution in order to receive the Federal money that every other State has as an allocation.

The second thing that only Texas is required to do under this bill is to distribute the funds under the title I distribution formula. Every other State gives its Governor and its State Department of Education the discretion for the money to be used where it is most needed within its State. After all, education is generally a State and local issue. In this case, you do have Federal funding, and it is provided for every State by giving it to the Governor for the distribution within the State. Only in Texas, however, under the legislation that was passed, would the requirement be that title I provides the formula, not the State of Texas and its appropriations, Governor and Lieutenant Governor.

It is puzzling, to say the least, that Texas was singled out in this way. But I am going to do everything I can to assure that does not continue. The Commissioner of Education asked for the Texas allocation of $830 million in the normal way, met all the Federal requirements and the time guidelines for submitting the grant request for an estimated $830 million. The request was turned down because, of course, the Governor could not certify 3 years of level spending because the legislature cannot obligate future legislatures in our Constitution. So Texas has just been turned down.

If we can pass the legislation Senator Cornyn and I are introducing today or if we can amend the bill that is before us, which we are going to try to do--we perfected the process today by offering this as an amendment on the bill that is before this body, and I am going to try to get this as an amendment on every bill that is going through--that will just create a level playing field.

We are certainly not asking for special favors, but again we are also asking that we not be penalized just because a House Member decided Texas should have a different standard.

We all understand politics in the usual sense. But having an argument between a Member of the House and the Governor is not a reason to penalize every schoolchild in Texas, every school district in Texas, every teacher in Texas, every administrator in Texas. It is not right. I think any person who puts the politics aside would agree that reasonableness would dictate that every State should be treated the same. In the bill that was passed, we are spending Texas tax dollars just like we are spending the tax dollars of every taxpayer in America. Texas would be putting the dollars into the Federal coffers but being penalized from receiving its fair share, as we certainly described happens in the bill.

The Hutchison-Cornyn bill is now going through the processes, and we are going to ask for support from all our colleagues to have that level playing field. Senator Cornyn and I have been working, along with Congressman Michael Burgess on the House side and the Texas delegation in the House. Many in the House delegation are certainly going to want to see this corrected, I hope. I do hope we can get prompt action. We need to do it before the end of this fiscal year in order to qualify in our rightful way.

We are not asking for special favors, most certainly. We expect to meet all the tests any State would meet. We expect to have our grant application looked at and scrutinized and determined if it is eligible in every way. But we do not expect to have a different standard from every other State in America.

Senator Cornyn and I are very hopeful we can get prompt action from the Senate to send this to the House. I hope the House will also see that was not meant to be--at least I am sure every Member voting on this bill did not know Texas was being treated differently. I do not think this is a time for any State to start a war with another State. That is not the way we ought to do business. I do not wish to be starting that kind of precedent even--I wouldn't do it to any other State, and I certainly do not expect it to be done to mine.

Senator Cornyn and I have introduced the Hutchison-Cornyn legislation. We hope we can level the playing field. All we ask is that we be judged like every State, that we have the requirement of 1 year of level funding, just as every other State is required to do and which I know our Texas Education Agency will certainly agree to do; then, second, that we be able to distribute according to the State requirements and the State priorities rather than a Federal funding formula done when no one has come to Texas to look at our formula and our needs for this particular bill. If we can correct those two things and put Texas on a level playing field with any other State, then I think it will be the right thing to do.

Sometimes we have little tiffs here, politically, but I don't think anyone can argue that a retribution against one person in Texas by one Member of Congress is a good reason to make a public policy decision that is disastrous for our State--that is hurting, just like every State, in not having enough dollars. We have a deficit right now of about $20 billion facing the next legislature in Texas.

If we can have what has passed, what is going through this Congress and what has been signed by the President, it would help alleviate some of the concerns our educators and education leaders in Texas are now saddled with; that is, a lot more expenses than revenue coming in. I hope we can right this wrong.

Mr. President, I come to introduce another bill as part of my Accountability in Government Week. Yesterday I introduced the False Claims Act Clarification Act to help restore the original intent of the most successful law the Government utilizes to protect taxpayers' dollars from fraud, waste, and abuse.

One key component I added to the False Claims Act when it was amended in 1986 was allowing whistleblowers to file cases on behalf of the Government when they are aware of fraud or abuse of taxpayers' funds. Whistleblowers are the key to unlocking the secrets of wrongdoing because they have access to information about how the frauds were perpetrated and can help lead authorities in the right direction to uncover the fraud. However, for their brave efforts whistleblowers are often the victims of retaliation and are removed from their jobs by supervisors who do not want the wrongdoing uncovered.

I have often said whistleblowers were as welcome as skunks at a picnic, despite the fact that all they do is bring forward the truth. This is wrong. That is why I have supported strong whistleblower protection laws during my time in the Congress.

The landmark whistleblower law is the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989--I believe is the year it was passed--providing rights and remedies to executive branch whistleblowers who are the victims of retaliation. I proudly cosponsored that bill. But like many laws that are 20 years old, it needs to be updated. So I have cosponsored legislation introduced by Democratic Senator Akaka to do just that. However, that law also needs to be extended to employees of the legislative and judicial branches of Government. So I come today to start the discussion and to introduce legislation that will provide the same whistleblower protection rights currently extended to executive branch employees to the legislative branch.

I am pleased to be joined by Senator McCaskill in introducing the Congressional Whistleblower Protection Act of 2009. This important legislation simply adds whistleblower protections to the legislative branch by incorporating the Whistleblower Protection Act into the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995, a law that I authored to bring Congress in line with many labor and workplace practices that affected businesses around the country because I have long believed Congress should practice what it preaches. This legislation will do just that.

You might remember the Congressional Accountability Act was passed because, going back to the 1930s, Congress had exempted itself from a lot of employment laws because we individual Senators are employers, the Congress is an employer, but we exempted ourselves from, I think, 18, 19 different laws at that particular time.

So in 1995 I wanted to end the proposition of why we had two sets of laws in this country--one for Capitol Hill and one for the rest of the country. Now, since 1995, we have one set of laws, but we do not have the whistleblower protections that ought to be in it.

A theme that has dominated this new Congress, as well as dominated the campaign of last fall, is accountability and responsibility in Washington. In most instances, the only reason we discovered waste or fraud is because employees were brave enough to stand up to the wrongdoers and to expose the offenses. Without these whistleblowers, the American taxpayer would continue to foot a bill that might be a violation of law, might be fraudulent use of taxpayers' money, might just be a waste of taxpayer money. Either way, taxpayers are hurt.

This bill is long overdue. I have previously introduced similar legislation, but, unfortunately, those bills were never brought out of committee. I hope the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, of which the chairman is on the Senate floor--I did not know the Senator would be so available for me to preach to him. I hope the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will examine this legislation and will closely and expeditiously report it to the full Senate so we can ensure employees of the legislative branch that they are protected from any reprisals relating to protected whistleblowing the same way as executive branch employees.

Now, it has been a number of years since the Congressional Accountability Act was signed into law. So I would like to remind my colleagues why we passed that law. It was a time very similar to today. The American people were demanding more from their elected officials in Washington and wanted accountability and transparency in all branches of Government. I believed then, as I do now, that Congress needs to put its money where its mouth is and apply the various labor and employment laws that were enforced on other branches of Government and businesses all across the country.

That is what the Congressional Accountability Act did. It applied a number of important laws to Congress, including the Fair Labor Standards Act, title VII, the Civil Rights Act, the Americans With Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, Family Medical Leave Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, Employee Polygraph Protection Act, Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, the Rehabilitation Act, as well as some provisions of title V relating to Federal service labor-management relations. It also created the Office of Compliance of the legislative branch that oversees the application of these important laws to this branch of Government and ensures that employees' rights under these laws are protected.

While the Congressional Accountability Act was a good start, the Office of Compliance has recommended additional laws be applied to the legislative branch, including the purpose of my bill, the Whistleblower Protection Act.

We have already taken the steps to protect whistleblowers in the executive branch, so it does not make sense not to extend those same protections to whistleblowers working right here in our own backyard on Capitol Hill. My bill will, very simply, give congressional employees the same protections that workers of other branches of Government have. It does this by simply adding the Whistleblower Protection Act to the preexisting list of statutes that are applied to the legislative branch by the Congressional Accountability Act.

This is a straightforward and simple solution to ensuring that employees of the legislative branch are not without vital whistleblower protections. So I ask, in closing, that my colleagues join me and Senator McCaskill in supporting this bill to ensure that those who help us in the fight to hold Government accountable are not punished for those efforts.