Medicaid Flexibility for States Act

Mr. President, I wish to speak on the Cybersecurity Act of 2012. I assume that bill is in order and on the floor.

Mr. President, I come to the floor as the chairman of the Intelligence Committee to, in my own way, indicate the seriousness of the job we are about to begin. I know there is controversy. I know there are differences of opinion. But what people have to understand is that we have breach after breach now, and they have become far more numerous, much more sophisticated, and much more insidious in recent years.

I want to give a number of examples of what is happening out there in the real world, and let me begin by going back to 2008, when the Pentagon's classified military computer networks suffered a ``significant compromise.'' That is according to former Deputy Secretary Bill Lynn in 2010. These breaches are usually classified at the time they happen; therefore, people don't know about them. So all I am going to do is run through unclassified breaches, and even that is beyond comprehension. Former Secretary Lynn also detailed that foreign hackers stole 24,000 U.S. military files in a single attack on a defense contractor in March 2011.

In the 5 months from October 2011 through February 2012, over 50,000 cyber attacks were reported on private and governmental networks, with 86 of those attacks taking place on critical infrastructure networks. Now, that is according to the bipartisan Policy Center's Cybersecurity Task Force. Fifty thousand incidents were the ones that were reported to the Department of Homeland Security, so they represent only a small fraction of the cyber attacks carried out against the United States.

In December 2011, press reports revealed that the networks of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce were completely penetrated for more than a year by hackers. The hackers apparently had access to everything in Chamber computers, including member company communications and industry positions on U.S. trade policies.

In March 2011, NASA's Inspector General reported that cyber attacks successfully compromised NASA computers. In one attack, intruders stole 150 user credentials that could be used to gain unauthorized access to NASA systems.

Another attack at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that involved China- based Internet Protocol addresses let the intruders gain full access to key JPL systems and sensitive user accounts.

Forty-eight companies in the chemical, defense, and other industries were penetrated during 2011 for at least 6 months by a hacker looking for intellectual property. The cybersecurity company Symantec attributes some of these attacks to computers in Hebei, China.

It became worldwide news when Google alleged in April of 2011 that China had compromised hundreds of Gmail passwords for e-mail accounts of prominent people, including senior U.S. officials.

On March 17, 2011, RSA publicly disclosed that it had detected a very sophisticated cyber attack on its systems in an attempt to obtain data that would compromise RSA's authenticated log-in technology. The data acquired was then used in an attempt to penetrate Lockheed Martin's networks.

Between March 2010 and April 2011, the FBI identified 20 incidents in which the online banking credentials of small to medium-sized U.S. businesses were compromised and used to initiate wire transfers to Chinese economic and trade companies. As of April 2011, the total attempted fraud amounts to approximately $20 million, and the actual victim losses are $11 million.

In October 2010, hackers penetrated the systems of NASDAQ, which sparked concerns about the severity of the cyber threat facing the financial industry.

In January 2011, a hacker extracted $6.7 million from South Africa's Postbank over the New Year's holiday.

In January 2011, hackers penetrated the European Union's carbon trading market, which allows organizations to buy and sell their carbon emissions quotas, and stole more than $7 million in credits, forcing the market to shut down temporarily.

An international computer-crime ring, broken up in October 2010, siphoned about $70 million in a hacking operation targeting bank accounts of small businesses, municipalities, and churches, according to the FBI.

In November 2008, hackers breached networks at Royal Bank of Scotland's WorldPay, allowing them to clone 100 ATM cards and withdraw over $9 million from machines in 49 cities.

In December 2008, retail giant TJX was hacked. The one hacker captured and convicted, named Maksym Yastremskiy, is said to have made $11 million from the hack.

In August 2008, computer networks in Georgia were hacked by unknown foreign intruders, most likely at the behest of the Russian Government because they were coordinated with Russian military actions against Georgia.

In May 2007, Estonian Government networks were harassed by a denial- of-service attack by unknown foreign intruders, most likely again at the behest of the Russian Government because they were part of the worst dispute between the two countries since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

So, as you can see from some of the examples above, for years now, the United States and other countries have been at the receiving end of multiple, concerted efforts by nation-states and non-state actors to hack into our networks. These bad actors are infiltrating our communications, accessing our secrets, and sapping our economic health by stealing intellectual property. They may also be building a capability, if necessary in the future, to wage cyber war. We may not even know until the attack has been launched.

These attacks are sophisticated, and involve hacking techniques that we unfortunately now see quite often. Cyber attacks can come in the form of viruses and worms, malicious backdoors, logic bombs, and denial-of-service attacks, just to name a few.

A groundbreaking unclassified report from November of last year published by the Intelligence Community said cyber intrusions against U.S. companies cost billions of dollars annually. The report named China and Russia as aggressive cyber thieves.

On China, the report said: ``Chinese actors are the world's most active and persistent perpetrators of economic espionage.'' We know that sophisticated attacks from China against financial and technology companies, such as Google, resulted in property theft on a massive scale. Billions of dollars of trade secrets, technology, and intellectual property are being siphoned each year from the United States to benefit the economies of China and other countries.

On Russia, the report said: ``Russia's intelligence services are conducting a

range of activities to collect economic information and technology from U.S. targets.'' I can assure everyone that the classified assessments are far more descriptive and far more devastating.

The examples above are bad enough, but cyber threats are evolving, and I am very concerned that the next wave will come in the form of crippling intrusions against the computers that control powerplants, dams, transportation hubs, and financial networks in these United States.

We have already seen the use of cyber attacks in warfare, when hackers inside Russia reportedly took down the command and control systems in Estonia in 2007. That was 5 years ago, roughly a lifetime in the realm of cyber attack capability.

Senior national security experts from across the political spectrum have sounded the alarm about this threat. For Example, Leon Panetta, at his confirmation hearing to be Secretary of Defense, said:

The next Pearl Harbor we confront could very well be a

cyber attack that cripples our power system, our grid, our

security systems, our financial systems, our governmental

systems.

Bob Mueller, Director of the FBI, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee that ``the cyber threat, which cuts across all programs, will be the number one threat to our country.'' We are dealing with the No. 1 threat to the country.

I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 with Senators Lieberman, Collins, Rockefeller, and Carper. I wish to thank them for their tireless work on this legislation over the past several years.

This act has seven titles. Each of them addresses a key gap in our Nation's cyber laws. I wish to take a moment to describe the critical infrastructure provisions in Title I, but I wish to focus most of my remarks on the information-sharing part of the bill, which makes up Title VII.

Title I covers Critical Infrastructure Protection, which means protecting the public and private infrastructure that underpin our economy and our way of life--a big deal. A cyber attack against these networks could open a dam, crash our financial system, or disable the electric grid. It could stop all planes and interrupt the FAA--on and on and on.

Although some critical infrastructure companies have taken action to protect their networks, too many of them have not. It appears that market forces are insufficient for many critical infrastructure companies to adopt adequate cybersecurity practices. Thus, Title I of this bill would create strong incentives for companies to work with the Federal Government to establish standards for critical infrastructure protection.

Let me be candid. Even though the bill makes cybersecurity standards voluntary, I know many Senators still resist this idea. I do not. I would have preferred that this bill include its original critical infrastructure provisions, which would have mandated baseline standards for cybersecurity. But I recognize we have to compromise. I recognize this legislation is a necessary first step to provide some security, and that compromise to the voluntary measures in this bill was necessary. So we have done it. I hope if and when we see a major cyber attack against the power grid, or Wall Street, or a major dam, we won't see this compromise as a mistake.

Other Senators have spoken at length about critical infrastructure and other parts of the bill, so let me move to Title VII, regarding information sharing. This is the part the Intelligence Committee has had something to do with. This title--at least 40 pages of the bill-- covers authorities and protections for sharing information about threats to cybersecurity. The information-sharing title addresses one of the main problems I heard from both the private sector and the government about existing laws and business practices when it comes to cyber: that private sector companies and the government know a lot about the cyber attacks against their networks, but this information is so stovepiped that no one is as well protected as they could be if the information were shared. That, I believe, is fact.

As the Bipartisan Policy Center's Cyber Security Task Force recently found:

Despite general agreement that we need to do it, cyber

information sharing is not meeting our needs today.

Title VII addresses this problem. It reduces the legal barriers that hamper a private entity's ability to work with others and the Federal Government to share cybersecurity threat information.

How do we do this? What does that title do specifically? First, it explicitly authorizes companies to monitor and defend their own networks.

Many companies monitor and defend their own networks today in order to protect themselves and their customers. But we have heard from numerous companies that the law in this area is unclear, and that sometimes it is less risky, from a liability perspective, for them to allow attacks to happen than to take additional steps to defend themselves. Can you imagine that? So we make the law clear by giving companies explicit authority to monitor and defend their own networks.

Secondly, the bill authorizes the sharing of cyber threat information among private companies. There have been concerns that anti-trust laws prevent companies from cooperating on cyber defense. This bill, in section 702, clearly says:

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any private

entity may disclose lawfully obtained cybersecurity threat

indicators to any other private entity in accordance with

this section.

Third, the bill authorizes the government, which will largely mean (in practice) the Intelligence Community--I hope the DNI--to share classified information about cyber threats with appropriately cleared organizations outside of the government.

Traditionally, only government employees and contractors have been eligible to receive security clearances, and therefore to gain access to national secrets. To put it another way, those with a valid ``need to know'' most security secrets are within the government.

That isn't true, though, for cybersecurity. In this case, we cannot restrict classified information tightly within government--the companies that underpin our Nation's economy and way of life have a ``need to know'' about the nature of cyber attacks so they can better secure their systems.

It is not sufficient for the government to be able to defend itself against an attack. It is also necessary for companies such as Google, or an institution such as NASDAQ, to be able to protect themselves and to use all possible defenses that we can help provide to them.

Under this bill, companies are able to qualify to receive classified information. They will be certified and then able to obtain classified information about what cyber threats to look out for.

Fourth, the bill establishes a system through which any private sector entity--whether a power utility, a defense contractor, a telecom company, or others--can share cyber threat information with the government.

When it comes to cyber, information sharing must be a two-way street. Oftentimes, the private sector has important information about cyber intrusions that the government doesn't possess. After all, the private sector is the one on the frontlines of incoming cyber assault, so companies are often best able to understand the attack.

The private sector should be able to share that information with the government so that the government can protect itself and fulfill its responsibility to warn others about the threat. So let me describe how this bill allows for and encourages that information sharing, and most importantly, let me describe the liability protections that companies receive for doing so.

The Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Attorney General, the Secretary of Defense, and the Director of National Intelligence, would designate one or more Federal cybersecurity exchanges. We envision that these exchanges would be an existing entity, such as one of the existing Federal cybersecurity centers.

Private companies would share cyber threat information with these exchanges directly. These exchanges must be civilian entities, which is important to a number of Senators. They will have procedures in place to share that information as quickly as possible

with other parts of the government. The information is protected from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. It cannot be used in a regulatory enforcement action.

This exchange would serve as a focal point for information sharing with the government. Having a single focal point would establish a single point of contact for the private sector. Otherwise we would have chaos. Some people want multiple points. It is difficult to do and still maintain the security that is necessary.

We think this approach solves the problem. Having a single focal point is also more efficient for the government. It would help eliminate stovepipes, because right now there are dozens of different parts of the government receiving information from the private sector about cyber threats they are encountering. It is all over the map. It would also make privacy and civil liberties oversight easier, which I know interests you, Mr. President. I will describe that in a moment.

Finally, it should save taxpayers money, because it is more efficient to manage--and that has to be a concern--and oversee the operation of one entity versus many entities.

Let me now describe the all-important liability protections that are such a critical part of this.

Section 706 of the bill provides liability protection for the voluntary sharing of cyber threat information with the Federal exchange.

The bill reads:

No civil or criminal cause of action shall lie or be

maintained in any Federal or State court against any entity

[that means a company] acting as authorized by this title,

and any such action shall be dismissed promptly for . . . the

voluntary disclosure of a lawfully obtained cybersecurity

threat indicator to a cybersecurity exchange.

That is section 706(a). It is clear as a bell. In other words, a company is immune from lawsuit over sharing cyber threat information with a Federal exchange. The same immunity applies to the following: companies that monitor their own networks; cybersecurity companies that share threat information with their customers; companies that share information with a critical infrastructure owner or operator; and companies that share threat information with other companies, as long as they also share that information with the Federal exchange within a reasonable time. This ``reasonable, good faith'' defense is also available for the use of defensive countermeasures.

If a company shared information in a way other than the five ways I have just mentioned, it still receives a legal defense under this bill from suit if the company can make a reasonable, good-faith showing that the information-sharing provisions permitted that sharing.

Further, no civil or criminal cause of action can be brought against a company, an officer, an employee, or an agency of a company for the reasonable failure to act on information received through information- sharing mechanisms set up by this bill.

Basically--and this is important; please listen--the only way anyone participating in the information-sharing system can be held liable is if they were found to have knowingly violated a provision of the bill or acted in gross negligence.

So there are very strong liability protections for anyone who shares information about cyber threats--which is completely voluntary--under this bill.

Now, what information will be shared with the exchange? Information that should be shared includes--but is not limited to--malware threat signatures, known malicious Internet Protocol, or IP, addresses, and immediate cyber attack incident details.

The exchanges would be able to share this information in as close to real time as possible over networks. That is the only way for the private sector and the government to stay a step ahead of our cyber adversaries.

What kind of information can they share? We define this information in our bill as ``cybersecurity threat indicators.'' We define this term to include only information that is ``reasonably necessary'' to describe the technical attributes of cyber attacks. This is not a license for the government to take in and distribute private citizens' information. Rather, it is narrowly tailored to cover information that relates specifically to a cyber attack.

In addition to narrowly defining what information can be shared with an exchange, our bill also requires the Federal Government to adopt a very robust privacy and civil liberties oversight regime for information shared under this title. There are multiple layers of oversight from different parts of the Executive Branch, including the Department of Justice, the independent Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, as well as the Congress. I wish to direct Members to the privacy and civil liberties protections on pages 185 through 192 of this bill for the litany of procedures, reviews, and reports that are required.

We have worked closely with several Senators, including the Presiding Officer, Senator Franken, and Senators Durbin, Coons, Akaka, Blumenthal, and Sanders on these protections, and I really thank them all for their efforts in that regard. I think my colleagues have really helped the bill become a better bill.

I would also be remiss if I didn't show my great appreciation of the work and leadership of the majority leader for his unrelenting focus on getting this bill to the floor and making time to have this debate. It is infinitely better having this debate now rather than after a major cyber attack. My greatest worry is that we wouldn't pass something.

The perfect cannot be the enemy of the good. This legislation is unprecedented. It will take some steps. We will find other steps we will need to take. We will need to come back to it and come back to it because technology is moving so quickly.

I think this is as important a bill as I have seen in my 20 years in the Senate. I know what is out there. I know what some other countries are doing. I know what some bad actors are doing. The time has come to protect ourselves and take some action.

I hope we will have the support, and I urge my colleagues to vote for this bill.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I have had an opportunity to listen to a few moments of the comments from my colleague from Rhode Island. I clearly share his passion and concern for the oceans. We have been working together as the cochairmen of the Oceans Caucus in the Senate and have had the opportunity to learn from one another on both ends of the country about the significant responsibilities we have, also the great challenges we have, whether it is ocean acidification, whether it is the opportunities we have to ensure that we are good stewards of our water, our land, our air.

It is a challenge I think we face on a daily basis. But I think as we rise to meet these challenges, we recognize that oftentimes within the laws that we have put in place to provide for that level of protection, for that level of oversight and that stewardship, that we may encounter conflict, conflict with the obligation we also have to ensure that the people we represent have an opportunity for good jobs, for a livelihood in a region they call home, that there is a level of balance that we find between our obligation to care for the land, the air, the water, as well as caring for one another.

It is in that vein that I would like to address my comments this afternoon. I would like to speak about certain aspects of what we see within the Environmental Protection Agency and speak specifically to an issue that is

unfolding in my State of Alaska. Clearly, the EPA has important responsibilities to set and also enforce environmental standards. I think we would all agree with that. In the 40 years since EPA was established, our Nation has made dramatic progress in restoring and preserving our environmental resources. I am grateful. I am proud to live in a nation with high environmental standards for the benefit of the land and for the people.

But the process for setting Federal environmental standards, I would suggest, is broken. We are seeing things present themselves not only in my State but around the country. We see in Alaska, day in and day out, that things are not working perhaps as they were designed. So many Alaskans feel the EPA does not ``get'' Alaska.

But the challenges I think we see up North are just examples of many of the problems we see repeated all over the Nation. I would suggest that what we need to see is balance, balance restored at the EPA. There has always been a recognition that the EPA must go about its work in a balanced way.

Back in 1970, there was a memo called the Ash memo, and it listed the origin of the EPA. They stated it this way:

Sound environmental administration must reconcile divergent

interests and serve the total public constituency. It must

appreciate and take fully into account competing social and

economic claims.

In recent years, EPA has not adequately, let alone fully, taken into account these so-called competing claims such as the genuine welfare of our people and their economic needs. EPA says--and I have had many a conversation with Administrator Jackson in person and before committee, where the statements are made that there is a concern about environmental justice for communities that are historically underrepresented in EPA decisionmaking. The fact is, many of these communities are very frequently the ones that bear the brunt of regressive increases in, for instance in my State, energy and in living costs that are caused by some of these rules we are facing.

When I go home, when I meet with people from around the country, I hear more complaints, more concerns expressed about the EPA than any other Federal agency, bar none. Again and again, I am told the benefits of many of the EPA requirements are uncertain at best but that the cost of the regulations are very real, and they are detrimental to the human welfare.

Today, EPA often seems too eager to impose requirements that are dubious in their health or their environmental benefits but whose main effect may be to penalize or to perhaps even stop commerce or development. So restoring an appropriate equilibrium is vital if we want to have a healthy people, if we want to have a healthy economy.

Today, I would like to speak to one example from my State. There is as it relates to ECA. ECA is a reference to the Emissions Control Area. The EPA was a major proponent of including the ocean off southern and southeastern Alaska in an international emissions control area. This was an effort to reduce emissions from marine vessels through lowering sulfur standards within the fuel.

The purpose of the emissions control areas is to require ships-- which, to be very fair, certainly have significant emissions--to do their part to curb pollution. This is absolutely reasonable. The problem we are seeing up north is that EPA never gathered any air modeling data to support the claim that we have a problem from ships that travel up to Alaska. There has been no air modeling data whatsoever. We have requested. There has been none. Moreover, one of the proposals advanced to work with the EPA--and we need to be working with our agencies, as we need our agencies to be working with us--was an offer for an equivalent method to comply with the ECA requirements in North America. We are the only State in the country that is not accessible by road. Folks come and visit us by air and they come in by ship in the summertime. Tourism is big business in Alaska. In Juneau, the ships that are tied up at the docks are utilizing shoreside services so there are no emissions when they are in the community. So one of the proposals that was out there--this equivalency method--would essentially ask for a tradeoff. If we have cruise ships emitting nothing when they are in dock or at shore, offset that against those that would be emitted from vessels out at sea, essentially an averaging. That was rejected by the EPA.

What has made this particularly disconcerting for many Alaskans is that in the EPA's justification they cite a U.S. Forest Service study that purportedly found some evidence that emissions from cruise ships in southeast Alaska could impact the lichen in the mountains above Juneau. We can see the mountains up here in this chart. They are pretty high. There is lichen up on the top. It is kind of a short, mossy, green plant. The report went on to worry that if we have impacted lichen growth in Juneau, it could somehow or other harm the caribou.

Never mind the link that lichen and cruise ship emissions may be very tenuous, there is a bigger problem with EPA's reasoning, and anybody from Alaska would know the problem, which is there are no caribou in Juneau, AK. There are no caribou anywhere in southeastern Alaska. Everyone has seen my pictures before. Alaska is a pretty big State. If we are sitting in Juneau, AK, the caribou herd this report was apparently concerned about is over 1,000 miles away. There are about 1,000 miles between Juneau and where the southern Alaska Peninsula caribou herd cited in the EPA study live--1,000 miles. It would be as if we would make the assertion a cruise ship sitting in Miami might somehow affect the food supply for bears up in the Pocono Mountains north of Philadelphia, PA.

I think we need to look at this and recognize we have a pretty flawed study to begin with, if the suggestion is we need to ensure there are no emissions coming from a cruise ship in Juneau because that is going to impact the lichen which will impact the caribou that don't happen to live anywhere near Juneau--no closer than 1,000 miles away. So applying these new fuel standards to save the lichen in Juneau to feed caribou 1,000 miles from here will mean vessels plying the waters of southeast and south central Alaska--whether they are freight vessels that move just about all our goods or cruise ships that are the lifeblood of our tourist economy--will have to meet the requirement they now burn low- sulfur diesel at levels suggested that are, perhaps, not attainable.

The question I think is fair to ask is: What is the problem with requiring these cruise ships and these vessels bringing goods north to Alaska to meet these standards? What is the problem with this requirement?

The problem is while these ECA requirements may not have a measurable positive effect on human health--or caribou food, for that matter--they will have a material impact on our cost of living. Look at the State of Alaska and the way we get our materials in, the way we get our foodstuffs, our hardware, our lumber. It comes to us over the water. There is some, yes, that comes in by airplane, but guaranteed that is going to cost much more. There are some that can come up from the lower 48 across through Canada and into Alaska that way. But if we want to talk about increased emissions, that is surely one way to do it, to put it on a truck and haul it all the way up here.

So much of our goods come to the State by water. About 85 percent of the goods that come to the State of Alaska come into the Port of Anchorage, which is sitting right there.

What we see with these ECA regs is that ships coming out of a port such as Los Angeles or Long Beach--where my colleague from California hails from, and she is here on the floor now--have hundreds of ships coming in and out every day, but they are not subject to this same emissions control area. They only need to burn this expensive low- sulfur fuel for a very short time until they are out of the ECA. The problem is, when traveling along Alaska's coast to bring those goods up to our State, you are in an area where our air is pretty clean--our air is very pristine--but the entire voyage is within this ECA region. It is all within this emissions control area. So throughout that entire journey they are required to burn the lower sulfur, more expensive fuel.

If this were just going to result in an increase in cost to the cruise lines or to the freight haulers that come up to the State, that might be one thing, but

I think we recognize the economic reality that every dime that is added to the cost of doing business in Alaska is ultimately going to be a dime passed on and shared by consumers.

The State of Alaska recently cited an estimate that these new requirements will increase the shipping costs to the State of Alaska by 8 percent. One might say: Eight percent, that is not that bad. We can live with that. But the problem we face is that in 2015, just around the corner, we will see an even higher standard these vessels will be held to. At that point in time, the suggestion is that costs could be increased by as much as 25 percent. That may be on the high margin, but let's say somewhere between 8 and 25 percent. Again, almost every commodity consumed in our State is transported either by ship or by ship and plane, with the cost of freight adding a significant increase to every item out there.

We are already one of the most expensive places to live in America, and rural Alaska is even more expensive. I check on a weekly basis to find out what Alaskans are paying for their fuel, whether it is in the city of Anchorage or up in Fairbanks or out in Kwethluk or in the villages. I monitor that regularly to see how our villages are faring. In Kotzebue, for instance, this week they are paying about $7.15 for a gallon of gas. I asked that we put a link on our Web site to get some pricing on what we are seeing in our communities as it relates to foodstuffs, things you and I would use in our home here. Here is a package most of us recognize. A 10-pound bag of sugar in Kwethluk is going for $17.25. There is no other store in Kwethluk, other than the Native store, so it is not as if they can go to the Safeway and comparison shop. It is not as if they can get in their car and drive to the city or go to Costco. It just doesn't happen. There are no roads in and out of Kwethluk. You might be able to take an airplane.

A gallon of whole milk costs $30 in Ambler, that is if you can find whole milk or any kind of fresh milk. As a mom who has boys who go through laundry, I am always looking to see what people are paying for laundry detergent. In Venetie, a 100-ounce bottle of Tide goes for $43.50. I had my interns do a little price comparison on Tide. Powdered Tide, 56 ounces, in Anchorage we are paying $9.98. That is a little higher than here in Washington. Washington is about nine bucks. But in Angoon that same box of Tide is $18.33. In Barrow it is $22. In McGrath it is $21. In Bethel it is $21.

So when we talk about increasing the prices in Alaska by 8 percent, 10 percent, 12 percent, possibly 25 percent and you are a mom buying a box of Tide and you are already paying $43, believe me, 8 percent starts to add up real quick. When you are trying to buy a bag of sugar so you can make the food, put up the jam for the winter, and you are paying $17.25 in Kwethluk, I think it is fair to say we are paying attention to what happens when there are cost increases.

EPA mandated low-sulfur fuel is estimated to add $100 million in additional cost to the summer cruise traffic in Alaska. So one might say, if you can afford the price of a cruise, that is not that big of a deal. You increase the price of the ticket and people will live. But what happens is that puts Alaska at a competitive disadvantage when we are talking about where these businesses are going to operate. Fourteen percent of all employment in the State is directly tied to the tourism industry. So if the cruise lines can't fully pass on these increased costs, what they are going to do is move their ships. They will take them to other parts of the world where air quality standards are different, and we will have the loss of seasonal visitors. The money they bring to southeastern Alaska is a huge part of the local economy and also to year-round institutions. In Juneau, our regional hospital is actually able to provide for a higher standard of care, in part, because of the high influx of patients it serves during the summertime.

I would suggest the EPA's one-size-fits-all approach to environmental regulation doesn't always work. We can't quite shoehorn that into in all situations, and we need to be aware of that. Again, when we talk about the concept of environmental justice, we need to make sure when regulations and rules are imposed, we are not hurting the most vulnerable. I would suggest the people in Kwethluk, who are looking at the impact of these regulations and what it is going to mean to them and their village, they are asking: How do we survive? How do we live? The answer isn't for them to move to Washington, DC. That is not the answer. We need to get back to balance.

What is happening now is the State of Alaska has sued the EPA Administrator in Federal Court to stop the new requirements from taking effect. Given the immediacy of the threat these requirements pose to my State, I think the State's move to advance the litigation was the right one. But we shouldn't have to sue our own government in order to get balanced regulation.

Administrator Lisa Jackson has recently acknowledged that applying ECA to Alaska has posed a problem. She recognized that. Unfortunately, we haven't seen anything more beyond those words, and we are still no closer to a solution. These new requirements are set to take effect next week, the initial threshold. I have been raising this issue with EPA for several years, but again we are still working and we have not yet resolved it. I have called on the President himself to marshal the State Department to see if ECA can be amended or some other relief can be found to eliminate at least this one burden.

This is something that is touching Alaskans in a very immediate and a very direct way. Again, we want to ensure our air is clean, that our water is clean. We want to be the good custodians and stewards of our land, and we are. But we need to be able to work with our Federal regulators. I have asked the Administrator and I have asked the President to work with us on this.

Ted Stevens Day

Mr. President, I know my colleague from California is here to speak, but I would like the indulgence of the body for just 2 more minutes to speak on a little bit of a happy occasion.

Ted Stevens Day

Mr. President, the day after tomorrow, on Saturday, Alaskans are going to be celebrating Ted Stevens Day. As I travel around the State, whether I am in Fairbanks or down on the Kenai River or up in Bethel, down in Ketchikan, everywhere I go, I am reminded of my good friend and a friend to so many in this body, Senator Ted Stevens.

It was nearly 2 years ago now that we lost Uncle Ted to the tragic plane crash in southwest Alaska. But as tragic as that was, I always stop to remember that that tragedy struck while Ted was doing what he loved to do most, which was enjoying Alaska's great outdoors and going fishing, just being outdoors. His passion for Alaska's unique wilderness, his love for fishing, and his immense affection for the outdoors really embodies the spirit we are now advancing in Ted Stevens Day, and the motto of this day is ``Get Out and Play.''

On the fourth Saturday of July, we join together to celebrate the life and the legacy of a man who was really dedicated to public service, whether it was his days as a pilot in World War II, to the four decades he served with us here in the Senate.

He began working in Alaska long before statehood. When he came here to Washington, DC, to represent us in the Senate, he began a battle for our State that lasted for 40 years. He fought for roads, for buildings, and for infrastructure that new, young States need, as well as many of the programs that are in place today that continue on. He worked to transform not only Alaska but really the rest of the country as well.

It is somewhat coincidental that this Ted Stevens Day coincides with the beginning of the 2012 summer Olympic games in London. So as Alaskans get together to get out and play this weekend under the midnight sun, there are going to be 530 American athletes who will begin to embark on a 17-day Olympic journey Senator Stevens helped to pioneer. It is because of legislation he championed that the Olympic movement in the United States exists as it does today.

Back in 1978, he fought for the passage of the Olympic and Amateur Sports Act. This was later renamed the ``Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act'' in his honor and declared

the U.S. Olympic Committee the centralized body of all Olympic activities in the country and ultimately led to the creation of national governing bodies responsible for the oversight of each individual Olympic sport--a structure that is still in place now. He really was so much an inspiration to the progress and to the development of the Olympic movement here in the United States. Earlier this month, the U.S. Olympic Committee honored Senator Stevens as a special contributor in the Class of 2012 U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame.

We all know Senator Stevens was also a huge proponent of title IX. I think he would be very proud that for the first time in American history, Team USA is comprised of more women than men. I think that would give him a smile. But this feat was made possible by the landmark legislation passed 40 years ago that opened gymnasium doors and leveled the playing field for women and girls across the country.

In Alaska, we very often say that Ted Stevens was larger than life. Today, in discussing this and bringing this up, we recognize that on Saturday we are going to continue a tradition of remembering a man who loved Alaska with a passion. As we go out and bike and hike and fish, I think many will share good memories of an amazing Alaskan, an amazing man, and truly an amazing American.

I thank the Presiding Officer for the opportunity to speak a few minutes about a subject which should, hopefully, bring a smile to many of us.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I return to the floor today to give voice once again to the issue I feel will most significantly define this generation of leadership in the United States and around the globe. I rise to discuss the notable, evident changes taking place in our Earth's climate, the relationship between our own activities and the change and the rate of change being observed, and our, so far, forsaken responsibility to address climate change head on and with purpose.

Last month, representatives from world governments, the private sector, NGOs, and other major stakeholders gathered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. Marking the 20th anniversary of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, this year's conference was nicknamed ``Rio+20.''

So-called sustainable development principles consist of a set of principles and strategies that, when acted upon by the global community, will balance strong economic growth, expansion of just civic and government structures, and environmental protection. Another way to view sustainable development is in the balance of the needs of the present with those of future generations through the fair use of resources.

As Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said:

In the 21st century, the only viable development is

sustainable development. The only way to deliver lasting

progress for everyone is by preserving our resources and

protecting our common environment.

One positive aspect of this Rio+20 conference was discussion of the power of economic forces in promoting sustainability. The official Outcome Document adopted by the conference participants entitled ``The Future We Want'' highlights the role of private companies, the private sector--and their close collaboration with governments--in driving sustainable development. It reads in part:

We acknowledge that the implementation of sustainable

development will depend on active engagement of both the

public and private sectors. We recognize that the active

participation of the private sector can contribute to the

achievement of sustainable development, including through the

important tool of public-private partnerships.

A number of Rio+20's corporate participants have stepped forward to accept this challenge. Many of those global businesses are recognizing that greening their operations is not just good for the environment, it is good for their business as well.

Dell, for example, has committed to reducing its worldwide facilities' greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2015. Dell is a computer technology corporation based in Texas that ranks 44th on the Fortune 500 and employs over 106,000 people. I doubt they made that decision rashly.

Bank of America, based in Charlotte, NC, is number 13 on the 2012 Fortune 500 list and was the first bank to offer coast-to-coast operations in the United States. They have committed $50 billion over 10 years to finance Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy and Energy Access, and other activities that advance the low-carbon economy.

Marriott has displayed both internal and external efforts by committing to build 10 Fairfield by Marriott hotels constructed to sustainable building standards; as well, pledging $500,000 to help preserve 1.4 million acres of rainforest in the Juma Reserve in the state of Amazonas, Brazil. Marriott ranks first on the Fortune 500 list in the category of the hotel-casinos-resorts industry.

Microsoft has committed to going completely carbon neutral, and will be factoring the costs of carbon output into the company's business operations in over 100 countries.

These companies are just a few examples from the effort that is being undertaken in the private sector to meet our responsibilities to address climate change. As leaders in government, we must recognize that the private sector will not, however, be able to halt climate change on its own. But these commitments do signify that action on climate change does not need to come at the expense of economic growth.

Governments can--and must--provide incentives for sustainable production and consumption. Indeed, the Rio+20 Outcome Document goes on to say: ``We support national regulatory and policy frameworks that enable business and industry to advance sustainable development initiatives taking into account the importance of corporate social responsibility.''

As leaders in the public sector, we have the capacity to establish those effective incentives that can leverage billions in private sector investment into sustainable products and services that support environmental and social improvements. The constructive role that government can play is being recognized not just in capitals around the world but in boardrooms around the world.

Yet, unfortunately, here in Washington, the special interests that deny carbon pollution causes global temperatures to rise, that deny melting icecaps destabilize our climate so that, for instance, regions face extreme drought--as the Senator from Colorado discussed earlier-- or outsized precipitation events--that we have seen in my home State of Rhode Island--those special interests in Washington still have a strong hold, and they pretend the jury is still out on climate changes caused by carbon pollution. This is, to be perfectly blunt about it, an outright falsehood.

The fact that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere absorbs heat from the Sun was discovered at the time of the Civil War--1863. Mr. President, 1863 was when the Irish scientist John Tyndall determined that carbon dioxide and also water vapor trapped more heat in the atmosphere as their concentrations increased.

The 1955 textbook, ``Our Astonishing Atmosphere''--from the year I was born--notes that ``Nearly a century ago''--in 1955--``the scientist John Tyndall suggested that a fall in the atmospheric carbon dioxide could allow the earth to cool, whereas a rise in carbon dioxide would make it warmer.''

So this is not something new. This is not something unusual or extraordinary. This is solidly established science.

In the early 1900s, it became clear that changes in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can account for significant increases and decreases in the Earth's annual average temperatures, and that carbon dioxide, released primarily by the burning of coal, would contribute to these changes. Again, this is not new stuff. These are well-established scientific principles.

Let's look at the changes we observe in our changing planet. Over the last 800,000 years, until very recently, the atmosphere has stayed within a bandwidth of 170 to 300 parts per million of carbon dioxide-- 170 to 300 parts per million. That has been the range for 8,000 centuries. By the way, that is a measurement, not a theory. Scientists measure historic carbon dioxide concentrations by locating trapped air bubbles in the ice of ancient glaciers. So we know by measurement over time what the range has been of our carbon dioxide concentration.

What else do we know? Well, we know since the Industrial Revolution, we have burned carbon-rich fuels in measurable and ever-increasing amounts, and that we are now up to 7 to 8 gigatons each year going into our atmosphere. A gigaton, by the way, is a billion--with a ``B''-- metric tons. Releasing all this carbon into the atmosphere has, predictably, increased the carbon concentration in our atmosphere. That should not be a difficult proposition, that when you are dumping 7 to 8 billion metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year, it raises the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere.

We now measure those carbon concentrations in the atmosphere. We measure them climbing. Again, this is a measurement, not a theory. The present concentration exceeds 390 parts per million. Mr. President, 8,000 centuries between 170 to 300 parts per million, and now we are out over that range, as far as 390 parts per million. In the Arctic, we have actually clipped over into 400 parts per million.

Here is what the Christian Science Monitor said about this:

The Arctic is the leading indicator in global warming, both

in carbon dioxide in the air and effects, said Pieter Tans, a

senior NOAA scientist.

The Arctic is our leading indicator in global warming, both in terms of the carbon dioxide concentration in the air and the effects of that carbon dioxide concentration.

``This is the first time the entire Arctic is that high,''

he said.

Tans called reaching the 400 number ``depressing,'' and

[his colleague Jim] Butler--

Who is the global monitoring director at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Lab in Boulder, CO--

said it was ``a troubling milestone.''

``It's an important threshold,'' said Carnegie Institution

ecologist Chris Field, a scientist who helps lead the Nobel

Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. ``It

is an indication that we're in a different world.''

``It is an indication that we're in a different world.''

In this article, they make the same point I made a moment ago. I quote the article:

It's been at least 800,000 years--probably more--since

Earth saw carbon dioxide levels in the 400s, Butler and other

climate scientists said.

So another thing we do pretty regularly around here in business, in the military, in science, is plotting trajectories. It is something that, frankly, scientists, businesspeople, and military folks do every day. There is nothing new here.

When you plot the trajectory for our carbon concentration, the trajectory for our carbon pollution predicts 688 parts per million in the year 2095 and 1,097 parts per million in the year 2195. Mr. President, 688 parts per million in the year 2095, when for 8,000 centuries it has been between 170 and 300 parts per million. So 8,000 centuries at 170 to 300 parts per million, and by the end of this century: 688 parts per million.

To put that 800,000-year figure in perspective, mankind has engaged in agriculture for maybe 10,000 years, maybe a little more. Mr. President, 800,000 years ago, it is not clear we had yet figured out how to make a fire. Millions of years ago goes back into geologic time. Those carbon concentrations--688 parts per million, 1,097 parts per million--those are carbon concentrations that we have not seen in millions of years on the surface of the Earth. And we are headed for them in just a century and a half--two centuries.

As Tyndall determined at the time of the Civil War, increasing carbon concentrations will absorb more of the Sun's heat and raise global temperatures, and experience around the world is proving that is taking place in front of our faces in undeniable ways.

We think often of climate change as happening to our atmosphere, and we think of its effects on our lands because we are land-based creatures. But let me talk for a moment about our oceans.

In April of this year, a group of scientific experts came together to discuss the current state of our oceans. Their workshop report stated this:

Human actions have resulted in warming and acidification of

the oceans and are now causing increased hypoxia.

Hypoxia is when there is not enough oxygen trapped in the ocean to sustain life of the creatures that live in the ocean.

Studies of the Earth's past indicate that these are the

three symptoms--

Warming, acidification and increased hypoxia--

associated with each of previous five mass extinctions on

Earth.

We experienced two mass ocean extinctions 55 million years ago and 251 million years ago. Last year, a paleobiologist at Brown University, whose name is Jessica Whiteside, published a study demonstrating that it took 8 million years after that earlier extinction--the one 251 million years ago--it took 8 million years after that for plant and animal diversity to return to preextinction levels. So that was a pretty heavy-duty wipeout if it took 8 millions years to recover.

Here is the tough part. In the lead-up to these past mass ocean extinctions, scientists have estimated that the Earth was emitting carbon into the atmosphere at a rate of 2.2 gigatons per year for the earlier extinction, and somewhere between 1 and 2 gigatons per year for the second extinction over several thousand years.

Remember how much are we releasing now--7 to 8 gigatons a year. So 2.2 and somewhere between 1 and 2 were the levels that led to those mass extinctions in geologic time, and we are now at 7 to 8 gigatons a year.

As the group of Oxford scientists noted, both of these estimates, the ones for how much was being released in those geologic times, are dwarfed in comparison to today's emission. Our oceans are indeed changing before our very eyes, and anyone who spends time on the oceans or who studies the oceans knows this. The oceans are rising. The oceans are swept by more violent storms. The oceans are getting more acid, affecting already the creatures at the bottom of the food chain, upon which ocean life depends.

It is very hard for a creature to succeed in an environment in which it is becoming soluble. That is what is happening as our oceans acidify, and the small basic creatures at the very bottom of the food chain that live by making their shells can no longer make shells successfully because the water is too acidic.

In the Arctic, we see unprecedented icemelt. The caps are shrinking. Every day it seems we hear about a new record being broken, a new loss of ice cover in the Arctic. In the tropics, we see coral dying. In some places, 80 percent of the coral is gone. I have been to places I can remember live and lively coral reefs, and now we go back and the coral is still there, but it is dead. It is like an abandoned building. Fish can swim around in it, but it is not the fountain of life that a coral reef is supposed to be.

There is a garbage gyre in the Pacific that is estimated to be larger than the size of the State of Texas in which enormous amounts of the plastics we discard are being swept and floating.

We have whales that are poisoned to the point where if they come ashore in Rhode Island on a summer day, if they are hurt or get washed ashore because they are injured, we often end up with whale cadavers in the summers on our coast. When that happens, it is reasonably likely that whale is toxic waste; that if we towed the body back out to the ocean to let it sink and let nature take its course, we would be violating our clean water laws by disposing of toxic waste. If we cranked that whale's body up into the back of a truck and took it to the town dump and chucked it, we would be violating the hazardous waste disposal laws of the State of Rhode Island because we have put so much poison into the ocean that creatures such as whales that live at the top of the food chain have now become so infiltrated with these poisons that they are now swimming toxic waste.

Around here we like to think pretty highly of ourselves. But the laws of physics, the laws of chemistry, the laws of science, these are laws of nature. These are laws of God's Earth. We can repeal some laws around here; we cannot repeal those. Senators are used to our opinions mattering around here. These laws are not affected by our opinions. For these laws of nature, because we can neither repeal them nor influence them, we bear a duty of stewardship, of responsibility to future generations to see and respond to the facts that are before our faces and to see and respond to those facts according to nature's laws.

There is no lobbyist so powerful, there is no secret special interest so wealthy that it can change the operation of those laws. What they have done is to change the operation of our laws, inhibited our ability to meet our duty to respond to the laws of our God-given Earth. We do indeed bear a duty to make the right decisions for our children and grandchildren and our God-given Earth. right now we are failing, shamefully failing, in that duty. We are deluded if we think that somehow we will be spared the plain and foreseeable consequences of our failure to act. Some may hope they will find a wizard's hat and wand with which to wish all this away. That is not rational thinking. If we have a simple obligation to our children and to future generations, it is to be rational human beings and to make rational decisions based on the evidence and the laws of nature. These laws of nature are known. Earth's message to us is clear. Our failure is blameworthy. Its consequences are profound, and the costs will be very high.

I see the distinguished Senator from Alaska who actually brought a wonderful scientist from the University of Alaska who gave one of the better presentations on ocean acidification that I have ever seen as part of our Oceans Caucus.

I yield the floor to Senator Murkowski.

I didn't come to the floor to speak about the farm bill because I did that yesterday. I want to assure the Senator from Colorado that I listened to everything he said, and I agree with him. That was my plea in maybe a little broader context yesterday in asking that the House of Representatives take up the bill. Also, the House brags, legitimately so, about being fiscally conservative, so I agree with what the Senator from Colorado said. This may be the only opportunity--presumably the only opportunity--to pass a farm bill or any bill that saves money from previous programs of previous years. I compliment the Senator from Colorado.

Freedom of Speech

Mr. President, I come to the floor to discuss what I consider a disturbing trend that is occurring in this country. A vicious attack is underway on the right to freedom of speech that is protected by the first amendment. It needs to be highlighted, and hopefully it will stop. Free speech is one of the most important rights that Americans enjoy.

Speech on public issues is the way democracy discusses and debates the important questions of the day. Many great political movements in this country's history depended upon this first amendment right, freedom of speech. Even when Martin Luther King was jailed and his supporters subjected to violence, free speech enabled him to change the views and practices of an entire nation. Today too many government officials seek to shut up people who disagree with them rather than debate those people and debate those issues.

There have been a series of recent incidents to which I want to refer. Consider recently that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary in the past month has held two hearings that prove my point. A hearing was held on a bill that would criminalize supposedly deceptive statements in advance of elections. It would allow the government to criminalize political speech based on its content. It would risk government selectively choosing to prosecute its political opponents. t would allow political candidates to make accusations against their political opponents. So it would chill candidates from speaking.

A few days after our hearing, the Supreme Court's ruling in the Alvarez case confirmed all the free speech problems with that bill. But even after that decision, the Justice Department, to my disappointment, issued a letter in support of the bill. That letter made no mention of any first amendment considerations. I have heard no indication that the committee will not mark up this bill which represents a grave threat to freedom of speech.

This week, the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution held a hearing on the legislative responses to the Citizens United case. In that decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the first amendment's free speech guarantee protects the rights of corporations and unions to make independent expenditures in support of candidates or on any particular policy issue that they want to speak out on. The ruling has no effect on campaign contributions. There are proposals in this body to amend the Bill of Rights, the first amendment, for the very first time, to allow the government to limit how much candidates can spend on speech and, therefore, the amount of speech that the government will permit. And there are proposed constitutional amendments to prevent corporations and labor unions from spending in elections. To me, this is very serious business that we ought to be raising a red flag about.

It is worth remembering what rule the Obama administration asked the Supreme Court to adopt in Citizens United. The Justice Department argued that the government should be able to ban books that contained even one sentence that expressly advocated the election or defeat of a candidate if those books were published or distributed by a corporation or a union. This administration argued in favor of banning books. In light of the practice of totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, this administration's position on free speech is very astonishing. The Supreme Court quite rightly rejected the argument of the administration on that particular point.

It reminded the news media, which is organized in corporate form for the most part, that the exemption from campaign finance laws is by statute, and one which Congress could remove at any time, threatening freedom of the press. If that were to happen and the Constitution were to allow restrictions on corporate independent expenditures, the guarantee of freedom of the press would be as threatened as freedom of speech.

Then there is another situation, and this deals with the restaurant chain of Chick-fil-A. The owner of that chain is a Christian who has spoken in favor of the value of traditional marriage. The chain has not discriminated against anyone so far as has been reported. The restaurant seeks to expand in Boston and Chicago where presumably it would create new jobs, and in order to get there, it has to meet the permit requirements. However, Mayor Menino of Boston wrote a letter to the company president. He said that because of the owner's ``prejudice statements,'' there would be no place in Boston for the discrimination the company represented. The mayor notified the property owners where the restaurant was to open of his views.

In Chicago, an alderman seeks to deny Chick-fil-A from opening in his ward for the same reason. It is reported that President Obama's former Chief of Staff, now Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, is sympathetic to the alderman's point of view.

Once again, this is a gross violation of first amendment free speech. Government cannot deny a benefit to someone because it disagrees with the applicant's views. This is the fundamental principle of our constitutional democracy.

Voicing support for traditional marriage is not discrimination. That speech is not hate speech. Even if it were, the first amendment protects speech that is unpopular with the government. There is no constitutional speech code that allows banning a hate speech any more than government can ban speech in books.

Finally, the Alvarez decision a few weeks ago affects another first amendment issue pending before this body right now. In the Alvarez case, the Supreme Court struck down the Stolen Valor Act which criminalizes lies concerning winning military medals. It did

so on free speech grounds. I know many of my colleagues desire to pass a new law that will accomplish that goal, and if that law is constitutional, I will probably join them in that effort.

Two bills on this subject are now pending in the Senate. Senator Brown of Massachusetts introduced the first bill and then Senator Webb did so after the Alvarez decision. There have been efforts to pass both bills by voice vote.

When the Republicans were asked to move the Webb bill, we were told that all Democrats supported the bill. This is a problem. The Webb bill is clearly unconstitutional based upon the Alvarez decision. It criminalizes some lies about medals that the Supreme Court says Congress cannot criminalize.

For instance, it would prohibit lies in campaigns and in employment, even when those lies would not produce the tangible, material benefit that is necessary to punish them. Yet no Democrat objected to passing the bill without debate. Of course, Republicans could not agree to such a request.

Since he did not have the benefit of the Supreme Court decision when Senator Brown wrote the bill, right now, because of the decision, and he didn't know about it, Senator Brown's bill is also unconstitutional. The difference between his bill and Senator Webb's bill, however, is that Senator Brown now has a substitute amendment that seems to address the problem in a fully constitutional way. But although Democrats want to pass without debate a clearly unconstitutional bill, somehow they object to a clearly constitutional Brown bill.

These games should stop. I am sure all the Members of this body should be willing to support a single constitutional bill that would reenact the prohibition on lying about whether one is entitled to certain military medals.

In short, this country is facing a disturbing increase in government actions that violate the freedom of speech. That is a vital right of our democracy.

Anyone can stand up for speech with which they agree. The test for government officials and the test for free speech is whether they will allow speech with which they might disagree. They may criticize speech, debate the speech, and seek to change minds. But shutting people up, denying them benefits, passing bills that would put people in jail for exercising free speech rights--these are never allowable under our Constitution. It is time for elected officials to pay greater heed to the oath to support the Constitution.

Report by Former FBI Director William Webster on Fort Hood Attack

Recently, former FBI Director William Webster was asked to investigate how the FBI performed regarding the attack at Fort Hood by MAJ Nidal Hasan.

Major Hasan's attack killed 12 U.S. soldiers, a Defense Department employee, and wounded 42 others. Following the attack, the FBI conducted an internal review and determined that it had information on Major Hasan prior to that attack. As a result, the FBI Director asked Judge Webster to conduct an independent review and investigation of the FBI's handling of the matter. In short, Judge Webster's commission found that the FBI made mistakes that resulted from a number of problems--some operational, some technological.

Some of these mistakes are extremely concerning given that they are basic management failures. For example, the unclassified report states:

Many agents and most [task force officers] did not receive

training on [FBI computer systems] and other FBI databases

until after the FBI's internal investigation of the Fort Hood

shootings.

This is clearly unacceptable.

Other problems highlighted include failing to issue Intelligence Information Reports on Major Hasan to the Defense Department; confusion about which FBI office was investigating the lead; failure to interview Major Hasan; along with information technology limitations.

All in all, the Webster report paints a disturbing picture of the FBI. It shows lack of training, failure to follow leads, and continued computer problems. These are the types of problems that, quite frankly, we thought were corrected following the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Ultimately, Judge Webster issued 18 recommendations for the FBI to implement to prevent future problems such as these. The FBI agreed with these recommendations and has stated they will take action to implement those recommendations.

That is good news, of course. The FBI must implement these recommendations and do it immediately. However, we have a duty to make sure the FBI implements these recommendations and holds people accountable--in fact, hold the FBI accountable--if they don't. The FBI's failure in this case is inexcusable and shakes public confidence in the FBI's ability to combat homegrown terrorism. Basic management problems and investigative failures can't happen, particularly if national security is at stake. If failures of this magnitude occur on high profile national security cases, it makes one wonder what the FBI is doing on other investigations.

Those responsible for these failures should be held accountable. I intend to follow up with Director Mueller to determine what action was taken against those people who didn't do the job in the right and correct way.

Justice Department Inspector General Report

One more report that can't go ignored is a report released this morning by the Justice Department Office of Inspector General. This report examined improper hiring practices within the Justice Department's Justice Management Division. Shockingly, the inspector general found the Justice Department employees openly and flagrantly violated Federal law.

Let me repeat that these employees violated Federal law and the Department of Justice regulations prohibiting employment of relatives, granting illegal preferences in employment, conflict of interest, and misuse of position. Further, employees who were interviewed by the Office of Inspector General were also found to have made false statements to investigators.

This is an example of the Justice Department run wild. It is troubling to me how employees within the Department colluded and schemed to hire one another's relatives in order to avoid rules against nepotism. It is inexcusable, and I can assure my colleagues that we will be looking into this matter.

This wasn't a one-time event, by the way. In fact, the Office of Inspector General pointed out that similar problems existed in 2008. Despite what the Department called ``aggressive action'' to stop this type of behavior back in 2008, it appears nothing has changed.

At the very least, the Attorney General needs to hold these employees accountable with more than just disciplinary action. Laws were broken and false statements were made. The Department can't simply sweep this under the rug. Employees need to be punished because in this town, if heads don't roll, nothing changes.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I, like everyone else in America, have followed the terrible tragedy in Aurora, CO. Just awful. I was particularly moved when I read in one of our local papers the bios of the 12 who had died. So many of them were young, in the prime of life, in their late teens and early twenties. So many of them were brave, protecting others--a child, a girlfriend, a friend. I was so upset on reading this, seeing these people's lives snuffed out, just as they had great futures ahead of them--for nothing.

It was the same kind of feeling I had after the World Trade Center-- of course, magnified by much more because so many more people died, and I actually knew some of the people who died. But the same senseless killing of innocent people occurred.

Of course, in the days after the tragedy, and as the dust settled--it will never settle for the families whom my heart goes out to--we began our usual discussion about guns in America, and there were many voices on all different sides.

As somebody who has been very involved in these issues, I gave it some thought and wanted to share with my colleagues and with my constituents and my country some thoughts about this.

The question that comes up is: Can we do anything about guns in society? Of course, many would ask: Should we do anything about guns in society? Even the very thoughtful and erudite member of my own party, the Governor of Colorado, said a ban on weapons would not have stopped this tragedy from occurring, in all likelihood.

So I wish to share some of my thoughts briefly.

The bottom line is, maybe we can come together once and for all on the issue of guns if each side gave some. I have thought about this for a while.

As you know, Mr. President, I was the House author--the leader, of course, was my colleague from California--of the assault weapons ban. I am even prouder of the Brady law, where I was probably the leader, and that has saved so many lives.

So the question is: When we were able to pass those kinds of groundbreaking laws, why are we so paralyzed now?

Part of the reason--and this has not been mentioned--is that crime has actually decreased dramatically in America for a whole lot of reasons. I probably do not share the views of some of my colleagues on this side of the aisle as to why it happened. I am a pretty-tough-on- crime guy. But when crime went down, the broad middle that wanted to do whatever it took to stop crime--I remember how it ravaged my city-- stopped caring as much because they were safer. That is logical. So they sort of exited the field. Law enforcement, which had been some of our best allies in supporting the assault weapons ban and the Brady law, sort of left the debate. The debate was simply left to those who cared the most, a very small number on the side of more active laws against gun control and a much larger number on the side of those who were opposed.

I know you read in the newspapers: the power of money and the NRA. I have to say this, as somebody who has opposed the NRA and has been written up regularly in their magazines in not the most flattering way, the NRA's main strength is because they have 2, 3, 4 million people who care passionately about this issue, who may not care about other issues, and who are mobilized at the drop of a hat. So when there is a bill on the floor of the Senate which a majority of Americans may support--a majority of Americans support the ban on assault weapons-- even people in my State like New York hear much more from the people who are opposed to the assault weapons ban than the people who are for it. Now, 20 years ago, that would not have happened, again, because I think, more than any other reason, crime was so ravaging our communities that average folks would call and complain and worry about too many guns in society, which I think there still are now.

In any case, given that situation, which exists, that the activists, the people who care about this issue the most--not the majority of people--are on the side of no limitations or few limitations on guns, how can we address that balance?

I think there can be a balance. Those on my side who believe strongly in some controls on guns have to acknowledge that there is a right to bear arms. It perplexed many in the pro-gun movement how liberals would read the first, third, fourth, fifth, sixth amendments as broadly as possible, but when it came to the second amendment, they saw it through a pinhole--it only related to militias, which, frankly, is a narrow, narrow, narrow reading of the second amendment.

There were many back then in the 1980s and 1990s in the pro-gun control movement who basically felt there was no right to bear arms. I think in part, because of that, those on the other side of the issue became kind of extreme themselves. Their worry was that the

real goal of the left was not simply to have rational, if you will, laws that might limit the use of guns--what guns could be had, how many clips, who could have them; criminals, the mentally infirm--but, rather, that was just a smokescreen to get rid of guns. And there was enough evidence back in the 1980s and 1990s that people actually wanted to do that.

So if you look at the ads from the NRA and the groups even farther over, the gun owners of America, their basic complaint is that the Chuck Schumers of the world want to take away your gun, even if it is the hunting rifle your Uncle Willie gave you when you were 14.

I think it would be very important for those of us who are for gun control--some rational laws on guns--to make it clear once and for all that is not our goal, to make it clear that the belief is that the second amendment does matter, that there is a right to bear arms, just like there is a right to free speech and others, and if you are an average, normal American citizen, you have the right to bear arms.

I think if the people who are pro-gun and from the more rural areas, and different than Brooklyn, the city I am from, were convinced that there was a broad consensus even in the pro-gun control movement that there was a right to bear arms, they might get off their haunches a little bit. I think that is important for this part of the compromise. So the Heller decision, which basically said that--and now is the law of the land, but was not until a few years ago--should not be something that is opposed by those who are for rational laws on guns.

I saw that even the Brady organization, that I have worked very closely with--Jim and Sarah Brady helped us pass the assault weapons ban and the Brady law; I have worked with them closely and have known them for decades--but even the Brady organization, which in the past had not had that position, is now beginning to embrace it. I think that is for the good, and I think people should know that.

Once we establish that it is in the Constitution, it is part of the American way of life--even though some do not like that--but once we establish that basic paradigm: that no one wants to abolish guns for everybody or only allow a limited few to have them under the most limited circumstances--this is on a national level--then maybe we can begin the other side of the dialog.

The other side of the dialog is, once you know no one is going to take away your gun, if you are not a felon--your shotgun that you like to go hunting with or a sidearm if you are a store owner in a crime- ridden area--we can then say to those on the other side: OK. We understand that it is unfair to read the second amendment so narrowly and read all the other amendments so broadly, and you have seen us as doing that. But, in response, we would say, and I would say, that no amendment is absolute, and whether it is in reaction to what happened in the 1980s and the 1990s or because of fanaticism, or for maybe fundraising reasons, it seems that too many on the pro-gun side believe the second amendment is as absolute, or more absolute, than all the other amendments. They are taking the converse position to what I mentioned before--the left seeing the second amendment as minuscule, but the right seeing the second amendment as broader than every other amendment.

Certainly, the right believes in antipornography laws. That is a limitation on the first amendment. Certainly, most people in America believe what--I think it was Oliver Wendell Holmes or Louis D. Brandeis who said: You cannot falsely scream ``fire'' in a crowded theater. That, too, was a limitation on the first amendment.

Every amendment is a balancing test. That is what the Constitution has said.

No amendment is absolute or our society would be tied in a complete knot. And so we say to our colleagues, this is not a partisan issue completely. There are some Republicans who are for gun control and some Democrats who oppose it completely. It seems to be more of a regional issue than almost an ideological issue. But we would say to our colleagues from the pro-gun side of things, look, there is a right to bear arms. We are not trying to take guns away from people we do not have any reason to take them away from. But you have to then admit that you cannot be so rigid, so doctrinaire that there should be no limitation on the second amendment.

The Brady law is a reasonable limitation on the second amendment, saying that felons or the mentally infirm or spousal abusers should not have a gun. The Heller decision acknowledged that those kinds of reasonable limitations did not violate the second amendment, just as the Court has recognized they are limitations that do not violate the first amendment, all because it is a balancing test.

So I would argue--and we can all find the balance in different ways-- not only is the Brady law a reasonable limitation on the second amendment, it is not interfering with the average person's right to bear arms, but neither are the assault weapons. I know there was an argument between my colleague from California, with whom I agree, and my colleague from Wisconsin, with whom I do not agree: An AR-15 is used for hunting. But I have heard people say you should be able to buy a bazooka or a tank. My view is, the assault weapons ban that was passed, which was a rather modest bill, was less important in saving lives than the Brady law by many degrees. But I would argue it is a reasonable thing to do. A limitation that says you should not be able buy a magazine that holds 1,000 rounds, that is a reasonable thing to do. Rules that say we should be able to trace where a gun originated so we can find those who are violating some of these limitations such as the Brady law--gun shops that do not check your background even though they are required to by law--is a reasonable thing to do. Again, we can debate where to draw the line of reasonableness.

But we might, might, might--and I do not want to be too optimistic here, having years and years of having gone through this--but we might be able to come to an agreement in the middle where we say, yes, there is a right to bear arms, and, yes, there can be reasonable limitations on the second amendment just as there can be on others.

That is the place I suggest we try to go. Maybe, maybe, we can break through the hard ideological lines that have been drawn on this issue. Maybe, maybe, maybe we can tell those who are at the extremes on the far right and the far left that we disagree with you. And maybe, maybe, maybe we could pass some laws that might, might, might stop some of the unnecessary tragedies that have occurred, or, at the very least, when you have someone who is mentally infirm, such as the shooter in Aurora, limit the damage they are able to do. Maybe.

But I would suggest the place to start here is for us to admit there is a right to bear arms, admit the Heller decision has a place in the Constitution, just like decisions that supported the other amendments, and at the same time say that does not mean that right is absolute. That is just a suggestion. I have been thinking about this since I read those horrible articles about those young men and women being killed. I would welcome comments, particularly from my colleagues on the other side of this issue, whether they be Democrat or Republican, on those thoughts.

Just as we have fought over and over and over again on so many issues, and we have gotten into our corners--there may be none that we have gotten into our corners on more than on gun control. Maybe it is time, as on those other issues, to come out of the corners and try, people of good will, who will disagree and come from different parts of the country with different needs, maybe there is a way we can come together and try and try to break through the logjam and make the country a better place.

I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.