A bill to approve the Keystone XL pipeline project and provide for environmental protection and government oversight.

Would the Senator yield for a unanimous consent request?

I do not want to change the Senator's line of thought. It was beautiful and I want to hear every word. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that after the conclusion of the remarks of the Senator from Tennessee, that there will be 10 minutes given to the Senator from Wyoming, Mr. Barrasso, and that I have the remainder of the Republican time.

First of all, Madam President, let me say we are very fortunate to have the Senator from Wyoming, with his background, come and give us his second opinion. The ratings are very high on his second opinion, and I am very glad of that.

I am also very pleased we had the Senator from Tennessee talking about the big issue of today. There is no one--having been the Secretary of Education in a previous administration--who is more qualified to talk about student loans than the Senator from Tennessee. So I am very appreciative.

Ironically, we have talked about two subjects, and I am here to talk about one totally unrelated that I think is equally critical--and I have to be critical--of this administration. I am going to state something that hasn't been stated before. I am going to release something that hasn't been released before, and I think it is very significant that people really listen.

You know, this President has had a war on fossil fuels--and when we talk about fossil fuels, we are talking about oil, gas, and coal--ever since before he was in office. He is very clever because what he has attempted to do is to kill oil, gas, and coal when we had the huge supply of it here and yet do it in a way that the American people won't be aware over it. How many people in America, I ask the Chair, know what hydraulic fracturing is? I daresay more people know about it today than knew about it a short while ago.

So today I wish to address for the first time ever the questionable actions recently taken by the Obama administration's Environmental Protection Agency to stop domestic energy production, particularly doing so by using hydraulic fracturing.

Today I wish to draw attention to a little-known video from 2010 which shows a top EPA official, region 6 Administrator Al Armendairiz, using the vivid metaphor of crucifixion to explain EPA's enforcement tactics over oil and gas producers.

This is a long quote, and I am going to ask everyone to bear with me because it is all a quote by Armendairiz. He is, as I said, the Administrator of region 6, and he is instructing at this time people who are working for them in what their behavior should be. So this is an actual quote I am going to use. It is a long quote. Bear with me.

I was in a meeting once and I gave an analogy to my staff

about my philosophy of enforcement, and I think it was

probably a little crude and maybe not appropriate for the

meeting but I'll go ahead and tell you what I said. It was

kind of like how the Romans used to conquer little villages

in the Mediterranean. They would go into a little Turkish

town somewhere, they'd find the first five guys they saw and

they would crucify them. And then you know that town was

really easy to manage for the next few years. And so you make

examples out of people who are in this case not compliant

with the law. Find people who are not compliant with the law,

and you hit them as hard as you can and you make examples out

of them, and there is a great deterrent effect there. And,

companies that are smart see that, they don't want to play

that game, and they decide at that point that it's time to

clean up. And, that won't happen unless you have somebody out

there making examples of people. So you go out, you look at

the industry, you find the people violating the law, you go

aggressively after them. And we do have some pretty effective

enforcement tools. Compliance can get very high, very, very

quickly. That's what these companies respond to, is both

their public image but also financial pressure. So you put

some financial pressure on a company, you get other people in

that industry to clean up very quickly. So, that's our

general philosophy.

Again, that is a quote from the EPA Administrator of region 6. He actually said: You know, it is kind of like the Romans, when they used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean. They would go into a little Turkish town and find the first five guys they saw and crucify them. That is how you get their attention.

I remember a few years ago a lumber company in my State of Oklahoma called me up and said: I am not sure what to do. The EPA is putting us out of business.

I said: What do you mean, putting you out of business?

This was a lumber company in Tulsa, OK--Mill Creek Lumber. The man who was calling me was the president.

He said: We have been disposing of our used crankcase oil in the same legal, licensed depository for 10 years now, and they have traced some of this oil to a Superfund site, and they say they are now going to fine me $5,000 a day for that violation. Now, that is what the letter said.

I said: Send the letter to me. That is a typical threat by the EPA to try to make you voluntarily go out of business.

So he sent it to me, and sure enough that is what it said. Any concerned reader would look at that and say: They are going to put us out of business. He said they could stay in business maybe another 30 days and that would be the end.

Well, that was a threat. That is what they do to intimidate people. It is not

quite to the level of a crucifixion, but nonetheless times have changed and things have gotten worse over the past few years. So, yes, they have the enforcement tools, and they are able to scare people, intimidate people. And these are the very people who are working and hiring people and doing what is necessary to run this machine we call America.

So according to Administrator Armendairiz, EPA's general philosophy is to crucify and make examples of domestic energy producers so that other companies will fall in line with EPA's regulatory whims. His comments give us a rare glimpse into the Obama administration's true agenda. No matter how much President Obama may pretend to be a friend of oil, gas, and coal, his green team constantly betrays the truth that the Obama administration is fully engaged in an all-out war on hydraulic fracturing, thinking people won't know that if you kill hydraulic fracturing, you kill oil and gas production in America.

Not long after Armendairiz made his stunning admission, the EPA, apparently, began to zero in on the first crucifixion victims. The Agency targeted U.S. natural gas producers in Pennsylvania, in Texas, and in Wyoming, and in all three of these cases, before these investigations were complete, EPA made headline-grabbing statements either insinuating or proclaiming that hydraulic fracturing was the cause of water contamination. But in each of these three cases, the EPA's comments were contrived, and despite their best efforts they have been unable to find any science to back up their accusations.

Of course, this administration has a propensity for making embarrassing announcements on days when they hope no one will notice. During the past 2-week recess, while Congress was out of town, the EPA released several late-Friday-night statements reversing their earlier assertions in these cases. Still, the problem is people are walking around believing these things are true.

The Agency hopes they can admit they were wrong quietly, but we are not going to let that happen. We are not going to let them get away with it. The American people deserve to know exactly why the EPA is pushing ahead with such intensity to capture alarmist headlines, and then, when no one is looking and when their investigation shows they were wrong, quietly backing away from it.

The EPA, in Texas, Wyoming, and Pennsylvania, not only reversed their assertions but did so with a stunning lack of transparency, strategically attempting to make these announcements as quietly as possible, at times they know Congress won't be looking. Let me quickly highlight a few of these examples. In Parker County, TX, the Agency's major announcement--the withdrawal of their administrative order--was announced at a time they knew Congress was adjourning for Easter recess. In Dimock, PA, the EPA made two announcements, and the same thing happened there. In Pavillion, WY, the EPA announced their reversal as Congress was wrapping up that week.

So the same thing was happening. The EPA's general philosophy is to crucify domestic energy producers. Let's look at the three of their crucifixions.

Parker County, TX. I think this could be the most outrageous of all the examples we will be talking about today. I will not have time to hit them all, but I will go back and make the complete statement I was going to make. Unfortunately, there isn't time to finish it now.

But what happened in Parker County, TX, took place in region 6, where my State of Oklahoma is located. Despite Texas State regulators actively investigating the issue, EPA region 6 issued a December 7, 2010, Emergency Administration Order, which determined--I use the word ``determined'' because that is the word they used--determined that State and local authorities had not taken sufficient action and ordered a company called Range Resources to provide clean drinking water to affected residents and begin taking steps to resolve the problem.

Along with this order, the EPA went on a publicity barrage in an attempt to publicize its premature and unjustified conclusions. The day of the order, EPA issued a press release in which it mentioned hydraulic fracturing--not once, not twice but four times--in trying to tie that to problems with groundwater contamination.

The Agency claimed they also had ``determined''--again, they used that word--that natural gas drilling near the homes by Range Resources in Parker County, TX, had caused the contamination of at least two residential drinking water wells.

Regional administrator Al Armendariz was quoted in a press story posted online, prior to him even notifying the State of Texas, that EPA was making their order--and the e-mails have been obtained from the day the order was released--showing him gleefully sharing information with rabid antifracking advocates--and this is a quote by this EPA regional administrator: ``We're about to make a lot of news . . . time to Tivo channel 8.'' He was rejoicing.

In subsequent interviews, Armendariz made comments specifically intending to incite fear and sway public opinion against hydraulic fracturing, citing multiple times a danger of fire or explosion. When State regulators were made aware of EPA's action, they made it clear they felt the Agency was proceeding prematurely, to which Armendariz forwarded their reply calling it ``stunning.''

What was ``stunning,'' to quote Armendariz, were revelations about the way in which the EPA acted in this particular case, which led me to send a letter, at that time, to the EPA inspector general requesting him to preserve all records of communication in connection with the emergency order issued by the EPA region 6 administrator.

Subsequent to the EPA's December 7, 2010, administrative order, on January 18, 2011, EPA followed through on Regional Administrator Armendariz's promise to ``make examples of people'' and filed a complaint in Federal district court, requesting penalties against Range Resources of $16,500 a day for each violation they alleged took place-- for each violation. I don't know how many violations there are. I think there are three or four.

Again, this goes back to the same thing that happened in my State of Oklahoma with the EPA trying to put a lumber company out of business by EPA, except this is a larger company so there are larger fines.

So $16,500 a day in order to align with Armendariz's pursuit of fines which ``can get very high very, very quickly.''

If these actions alone didn't create an appearance of impropriety and call into serious question the ability of Regional Administrator Armendariz to conduct unbiased investigations and fairly enforce the law, just 7 months prior to the region's actions in Parker County, Regional Administrator Armendariz laid the groundwork of how he planned to reign over his region.

In a townhall meeting in Dish, TX, he ``gave an analogy'' of his ``philosophy of enforcement.'' Again, we have already talked about that analogy.

This is a quote I highlighted at the beginning of my speech:

It was kind of like the Romans used to conquer little

villages in the Mediterranean. They'd go into a little

Turkish town somewhere, they'd find the first five guys they

saw and they would crucify them. And then you know that town

was really easy to manage.

Let me go back and be clear about this. This is President Obama's appointed regional administrator for the States of Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma comparing his philosophy of enforcement over the oil and gas industries to Roman crucifixions, where they would ``just grab the first five guys they saw'' in order to set the policy and to scare everybody else and crucify them.

Fast forward to late Friday afternoon, March 30 of this year, just a few hours after Congress left town for the Easter recess. The Wall Street Journal reported that:

EPA told a federal judge it withdrew an administrative

order that alleged Range Resources had polluted water wells

in a rural Texas county west of Fort Worth. Under an

agreement filed by U.S. district court in Dallas, the EPA

will also drop the lawsuit it filed in January 2011 against

Range, and Range will end its appeal of the administrative

order.

Listen to this. A few weeks prior to EPA's withdrawal, a judge also concluded that one of the residents involved in the investigation worked

with environmental activists to create a ``deceptive video'' that was ``calculated to alarm the public into believing the water was burning''--water that was the result of the hydraulic fracturing--when it appears the resident attached a hose to the water well's gas vent, not the water, and of course lit it on fire.

I was on a TV show the other night by someone whom I will not mention their name--she happens to be one of my three favorite liberals--and she mentioned: ``This water is so bad it is burning.'' That judge showed what it was and of course made them cease from doing that.

Remember, this is only one of the three recent high-profile instances of backtracking on behalf of the Agency, after they have already scared everybody into thinking it is a serious problem.

Next we go into Wyoming--Pavillion, WY. Last December, EPA publicized and released nonpeer-reviewed draft findings which pointed to hydraulic fracturing as the cause of groundwater contamination. Again, the culprit is always hydraulic fracturing because we all know we can't get any large oil and gas out of tight formations without hydraulic fracturing.

Here again, the EPA stepped in over the actions of the State and made a press announcement designed to capture headlines where definitive evidence linking the act of hydraulic fracturing to water contamination simply didn't exist.

The announcement came in December, despite as late as November of 2011 EPA regional administrator James Martin saying the results of the last round of testing in Pavillion were not significantly different from the first two rounds of testing which showed no link between the hydraulic fracturing and contamination. That is three rounds of testing which showed no contamination from hydraulic fracturing. Yet only a few weeks later EPA announced the opposite.

In another reversal by the EPA in the past few weeks, the EPA stepped back and quietly agreed to take more water samples and postpone a peer review of the findings, something the State of Wyoming had been requesting for quite some time.

Again, the damage was done. They didn't do anything wrong. There was no water groundwater contamination at all. This is hydraulic fracturing.

As I have mentioned so many times before, I know a little bit about this because the first hydraulic fracturing took place in my State of Oklahoma in 1949. There has never been a documented case of groundwater contamination as a result of it. Yet this administration is doing everything they can to destroy hydraulic fracturing.

Dimock, PA, is the third site of the EPA's recent backtracking of its publicized attempts to link hydraulic fracturing to groundwater contamination. In this instance, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection had taken substantial action to and including working out an agreement with an oil and gas company ensuring residents clean drinking water.

In line with the State's Department of Environmental Protection, on December 2, 2011, the EPA declared that water in Dimock was safe to drink. Just over a month later, EPA reversed that position.

So they go back and forth. What do people remember? They remember this process of hydraulic fracturing is the culprit and is creating serious environmental problems.

What is maybe more egregious was--to quote Pennsylvania DEP secretary Michael Krancer--EPA's ``rudimentary'' understanding of the facts and history of the region's water: Independent geologists and water consultants such as Brian Oram have been puzzled by the Agency's rationale for their involvement in Dimock because the substances of greatest concern by EPA are naturally occurring and commonly found in this area of Pennsylvania. Yet EPA has chosen this area to attack because of the presence of hydraulic fracturing.

In other words, this has been going on for years, long before hydraulic fracturing.

By the way, I have to say they used to attack oil and gas, but it was always out West in the Western States. The chair knows something about that. This is different now because we have these huge reserves that are in places such as New York and Pennsylvania. All that time there has not been hydraulic fracturing, but as soon as hydraulic fracturing came in, they said this is the result of hydraulic fracturing when it has been there all the time.

Of course, this is part of the strategy to try to convince Americans we don't have the vast supply of natural resources we clearly have.

I was redeemed by this. I have seen saying all along that of all the untruths this President has been saying, the one he says more than any other is that we only have 2 percent of the reserves of gas and oil and we use 25 percent. It is not true. I don't want to use the ``L'' word. I don't want to get everybody mad, but it is just not true.

The U.S. Geological Survey revealed just a few days ago that President Obama's favorite talking point, that we only have 2 percent of the world's proven oil, is less than honest. The 2 percent the President quotes is proven reserves, but he ignores our recoverable reserves. This is coming from the USGS. Our recoverable reserves are some of the largest in the world.

According to information gleaned from the USGS report, America has 26 percent of the world's recoverable conventional oil reserves. That doesn't begin to include our enormous oil shale, tight oil and heavy oil deposits. That is just a fraction of it. But that is 26 percent of the world's recoverable oil.

Our problem is our politicians will not allow us--and particularly the Obama administration--to drill on public lands and to be able to capture that.

We also hold almost 30 percent of the world's technically recoverable conventional natural gas.

In other words, to put it in a way that I think is more understandable: Just from our own resources and at our own consumption level, we could run this country for 90 years on natural gas at our current level of consumption and for 60 years on oil. That is what we have. That is the answer to the problem. It is called supply and demand. There is not a person listening now who would not remember back in the elementary school days that the supply and demand is real.

But we all know he remains fully committed to his cap-and-trade, global warming, green energy agenda--a plan that is to severely restrict domestic development of natural gas, oil, and coal, to drive up the price of fossil fuels so their favorite forms of green energy can compete. It is, quite simply, a war on affordable energy--and, at that time, they weren't afraid to admit it.

Now they are backtracking a little bit--such as using hydraulic fracturing and not saying they are opposed to oil and gas.

Do you remember Steven Chu, the Secretary of Energy, President Obama's man? He told the Wall Street Journal that ``[s]omehow we have to figure out a way to boost the price of gasoline to levels in Europe.''

We all know the infamous quote from President Obama. He said that, under his cap-and-trade plan, ``electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket.''

The President himself has been on record supporting an increase in gas prices. Although, according to him, he would ``have preferred a gradual adjustment'' increasing the average family's pain at the pump. But this isn't a plan that gets you reelected. So the gas prices have skyrocketed, and with the utter failure of Solyndra, President Obama's dream of green energy economy is in shambles. We can be sure we won't be talking about this plan to raise energy costs until after the election.

I would have to say the President's own Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Poneman last month made a statement, and I appreciate it, because he said we have a very strong belief that the laws of supply and demand are real.

They have been saying that the laws of supply and demand are not real. Gary Becker--I quoted this the other day. He is a Nobel Prize- winning economist, professor at the University of Chicago. He has said ``supply and demand are the cause of the vast majority of large fluctuations in oil prices, and it is hard to believe that speculation has played a major role in causing a large swing in oil prices.''

The President tried to say it is not supply and demand. We do not need to

develop our own resources to bring down the price of gas at the pumps. It is speculation. Here is a Nobel Prize winner saying that just flat is not true.

The President's budget proposal this year alone--I want to get back to how he has made this attempt to tax oil and gas out of business. The President's budget proposal this year alone amounts to a $38.6 billion tax increase on oil and gas companies, which would hit my own State of Oklahoma where 70,000 people are employed in oil and gas development especially hard. His proposal specifically would either modify or outright cancel section 199--that is the manufacturers' tax deduction that is something all other manufacturers would be able to enjoy--for the intangible drilling costs, IDCs: percentage depreciation, tertiary injections. All of these were in his budget--not just this year, not just last year, but every year since his budget 4 years ago--to try to tax the oil and gas companies out of business.

His actions have not slowed his rhetoric. In fact, President Obama has become so desperate to run from his antifossil fuel record that he ran all the way to Cushing, OK. That is my State. We have a major intersection of the pipeline down there. This President, in his attack on fossil fuels, stopped the XL Pipeline that goes from Canada down through my State of Oklahoma. He came all the way to Oklahoma to say: I am in support of the pipeline that goes south out of Oklahoma into Texas.

Wait a minute, that is because he cannot stop it. He could only stop the other one because it crossed the line from Canada to the United States. So he came all the way to Oklahoma to say he was not going to stop something that he could not stop anyway.

President Obama is trying to take credit for the increase in oil and gas. I have to get this out because I think so many people do not understand this. The increase that is taking place in production is all on private lands. It is not increasing on public lands. It is decreasing on public lands, but on private lands he has no control. In the report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, since 2007, quoting now from the CRS:

About 96 percent of the [oil production] increase took

place on non-federal lands.

According to the Obama Energy Information Administration, total fossil fuel sales of production from Federal lands are down since 2008--they are down, not up--and during a time of a natural gas boom throughout the country. In other words we have gone through the biggest boom on private land, but he will not allow us to do it on public land, and that is where these tremendous reserves are. Gas sales from production on Federal lands are down 17 percent since 2008.

Finally, according to PFC Energy, which is a global consulting firm specializing in the oil and gas industry, 93 percent of shale oil and gas wells in the United States are located on private and State lands, hardly the Federal Government triumph that the President falsely attempts to take credit for when you put all the pieces together.

President Obama's election strategy is clear: Say great things about oil and gas, say great things about coal and the virtues of domestic energy production, but under the surface try hard to manufacture something wrong with hydraulic fracturing. Remember, not 1 cubic foot of natural gas can be retrieved in tight shale formations without using hydraulic fracturing.

As I said before, that was started in my State of Oklahoma. We are going to make sure we are the truth squad that tells the truth about how we can bring down the price of gas at the pump. It gets right back to supply and demand.

I am going to come back at a later date and give the long version of what I have just given in the last 45 minutes, but I see my friend from Tennessee is here. So I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Madam President, next month students all over the United States will begin graduating from college. There is a lot of pride in that experience. Family and friends will gather and celebrate. These young graduates are going to be filled with hope and expectation, and gratitude to those who helped them reach this milestone in their lives. But they are also going to be graduating with debt--in some cases massive amounts of debt.

Ninety-six percent of for-profit college students will graduate with a debt of $33,000. Fifteen percent of them--one out of six--will default on their loans within 2 years. There is now more than $1 trillion in outstanding student loan debt. As I have mentioned on the Senate floor several times, a little over a year ago, for the first time in history, student loan debt in America surpassed credit card debt.

One of the reasons there has been such a huge influx is that college costs continue to rise at unsustainable rates. Tuition fees at 4-year schools have rocketed up 300 percent from 1990 through 2011. Over the same period, broad inflation was just 75 percent. Even health care costs rose at half the rate of the cost of higher education.

The average for-profit college costs $30,900 a year in tuition and fees. Private nonprofit institutions are not too far behind. The average tuition and fees run about $26,600. Schools with larger endowments charge even more--upwards of $50,000 to $57,000 in total fees. They use their endowment to give students large financial aid packages, which is admirable, but it has consequences. The elevated sticker price for these schools provides for-profit colleges the cover to raise their prices to similar levels.

Let me remind you, for-profit schools, for-profit colleges in America get up to and more than 90 percent of their revenue directly from the Federal Government. They are 10 percent away from being Federal agencies.

Students graduating this year have one advantage: If they took out Federal subsidized loans, their interest rate is low. In 2007, Congress set interest rates on subsidized Federal student loans for the last several years. Current graduates have low, affordable interest rates on their Federal loans, ranging from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent, depending on the year they took out the loan.

Graduates next year may not be so lucky. The interest rate goes up to 6.8 percent for all unless Congress acts. That is because these interest rates are set to double for 740 million students across the country on July 1 and will only be changed if Congress acts. That is going to affect 365,000-plus borrowers in my State of Illinois. Each borrower in Illinois will save $1,000-plus over the lifetime of their loan if current interest rates of 3.4 percent continue. Across the State, borrowers will save a total of $387,000.

Every week in my office we hear from students who would be directly affected by interest rate increases. One of them is George Jacobs, a constituent of mine and a graduate of the International Academy of Design and Technology in Chicago, a for-profit college owned by the Career Education Corporation.

Every day of his life, George Jacobs regrets that he ever attended this school. He is 29 years old. His current private student loan balance has ballooned to $107,000. The original loan was $60,000. But with a variable interest rate, George has been paying anywhere from 7 percent to 13.9 percent. Combine that with his Federal loan balance, and his total outstanding student loan debt is $142,000. George is not even 30 years old, and he already has the debt the size of some people's mortgages on their homes. Unlike a lot of his peers who attend for-profit colleges, George has a job in his field of study. His annual salary is $45,000, but since his lender will not let him consolidate his loans, his monthly payment is $1,364. Half of his income goes to pay his loan.

Unfortunately, because of high interest rates, very little of his payment reduces the principal. He does not know when he will possibly pay off this loan. When asked if he has tried to work out a plan with his lender, he says: They won't talk to me. They just don't care.

George was the first in his immediate family to attend college. He did not ask people for advice on financial matters. He trusted the school. George was subjected to high-pressure sales that some for- profit colleges use.

Reflecting on that experience now, George believes the school took advantage of him. He believes the school's primary focus is to identify people they can make money off of. George owes about $29,000 in Federal loans. With low interest rates, his monthly payment is $230 a month on the Federal loans--an amount he says is not a real problem.

He is married, and although he and his wife own a car, he does not think they will ever qualify for a mortgage. He is 29 years old.

George is not the only one affected by the private student loans. His parents are in their fifties. To help George, they cosigned his private student loans. They cannot refinance the mortgage on their home because of George's outstanding debt.

There was a story in the Washington Post about 2 weeks ago of a woman--a grandmother--who now has her Social Security check garnished because she was kind enough to cosign her granddaughter's college loan. Her granddaughter has defaulted. Her grandmother is watching her Social Security check reduced.

Making college affordable should not be partisan. It affects everybody. Just this week, during a news conference in Pennsylvania, Gov. Mitt Romney acknowledged the tough job market new graduates face and expressed support for keeping interest rates low. He said:

I fully support the effort to extend the low interest rate

on student loans . . . . temporary relief on interest rates

for students . . . in part because of the extraordinarily

poor conditions in the job market.

Higher education is not a luxury anymore. It is part of the American dream that many of us bought into and invested in. An educated workforce will make us a stronger nation. By 2018, 63 percent of jobs will require postsecondary education. Keeping debt levels low and manageable for college graduates is essential.

George Jacobs, like so many other students I have spoken about on this floor, is going to spend the rest of his young adult life paying for student loans. There has always been a lot of talk around here about mortgage crises--and rightly so--but think about the 17- and 18- and 19-year-old students signing away their income for the next 30 years before they can even dream of owning a home.

When we get back from the break in about 10 days, we are going to consider legislation on making sure student loan interest rates are manageable. There is more to this issue. We have to deal with the reality the President raised in his State of the Union Address. This spiraling cost of higher education is unsustainable and unfair-- fundamentally unfair.

We say to the young people: Get educated for your future.

They follow our advice and walk into the student loan trap. Unfortunately, many for-profit schools are the worst offenders. These schools have enrollment that has grown 225 percent over the past 10 years. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the enrollment of for-profit colleges in my State has grown 556 percent over the last 10 years. They enrolled 1.2 million students in 2009. In the 2008 2009 academic year, the GAO found for-profit colleges took in $24 billion in title IV aid; 4-year for-profit schools an average of $27,900 a year before aid, as compared to $16,900 for public 4-year universities.

The chief executives at most of the for-profit schools--parent companies--make many times more than their counterparts in nonprofit schools. Remember, 90 percent-plus of their revenue comes directly from the Federal Government. These are not great entrepreneurs; these are folks who have

managed to tap into one of the most generous Federal subsidies in the law.

Five years ago, we gave them a break. In the bankruptcy bill, we said private for-profit schools will be the only private loans in America that are not dischargeable in bankruptcy, which means you carry them to the grave. So the for-profit schools give these private loans to students, and their parents sign up for them. When it is all said and done, they end up saddled with this impossible debt for a lifetime. That is not even to go to the question about whether they are receiving any kind of valuable education in the process.

For-profits, incidentally, spent 21 percent-plus of their expenses on instruction--21 percent on instruction. It was 29.5 percent at public institutions, 32.7 percent at private nonprofit institutions.

USA Today reported that for-profits educate fewer than 10 percent of students, take in 25 percent of all Federal aid to education, and account for 44 percent of defaults among borrowers. Remember those numbers: 10, 25, and 44. They are taking in 10 percent of the students, taking in 25 percent of all the Federal aid to education, and 44 percent of the defaults on student loans are attributable to these for- profit schools.

According to the Project on Student Debt, 96 percent of for-profit college students graduate with some debt, compared to 72 percent of private nonprofit grads, 62 percent of public school grads. The Project on Student Debt also reported that borrowers who graduated from for- profit 4-year programs have an average debt of $33,000, compared to $27,600 at private nonprofits, $20,000 at public schools.

Last year, the Department of Education released a report showing that for-profit schools have a student loan default rate overall of 15 percent, compared with 7.2 percent at public schools, 4.6 percent at private nonprofit schools. If I were to stand before you and talk about any other business in America, heavily subsidized by the Federal Government--beyond 90 percent of all the revenues they take in--that is luring students and their families into unmanageable debt, I would hope both sides of the aisle would stand and say that is unacceptable. How can we subsidize an operation that is causing such hardship on students and their families--a hardship they are going to carry for a lifetime.

George Jacobs, at age 29, is writing off the possibility of ever owning a home because he signed up at one of those for-profit schools in my State.

The Senate HELP Committee also discovered that out of $640 million in post-9/11 GI benefits, a bill we were all proud to vote for, out of the $640 million that flowed to for-profit schools in the last academic year, $439 million went to the largest 15 publicly traded companies. For-profit colleges are receiving $1 out of every $2 in military tuition assistance, according to the Department of Defense, and more than 60 percent of education benefits available to military spouses go to for-profit schools.

This is significant. We capped Federal aid to for-profit schools at 90 percent of their revenue, but we created an exception for the GI bill. So some of them are up to 95 percent Federal subsidy and still we have these terrible results and terrible indebtedness.

Students at for-profit colleges have lower success rates than similar students in public and nonprofit colleges, including graduation rates, employment outcomes, debt levels, and loan default rates. Yet the Department of Defense is paying more to for-profit schools for the GI bill than public and nonprofit institutions.

I wish to have printed in the Record, along with my remarks, an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, April 18. It tells the story of Jodi Romine, who between the ages of 18 and 22 took out $74,000 in students loans. She attended Kent State University, a public university in Ohio. It seemed like a good investment at the time. But now it is going to delay her career, her marriage, and her decision to have children.

Ms. Romine's $900-a-month loan payments eats up 60 percent of the paycheck she earns as a bank teller in South Carolina, the best job she could get after graduating from college.

Her fiance spends 40 percent of his paycheck on student loans. They each work more than 60 hours a week and volunteer where they can to help the local high school's football and basketball teams. Ms. Romine works a second job as a waitress, making all her loan payments on time. She cannot buy a house. They cannot visit their families in Ohio as often as they would like or spend money to even go out.

Plans to marry or have children are on hold, says Ms. Romine, ``I am just looking for some way to manage my finances.'' This is an indication of a debt crisis that is coming. It is different, I would agree, than the mortgage debt crisis we faced. Smaller in magnitude, perhaps, but no less insidious and no less of a problem for us when it comes to the growth of our economy.

I have a couple bills pending. One of them goes to a very basic question: Should any college, public, private, profit, nonprofit, be allowed to lure a student into a private student loan when they are still eligible for government loans? In other words, should that not be one of the causes for a discharge in bankruptcy? It is fraud. It is fraud to say to that student: You have to take out this private student loan, even though the school knows that student is still eligible for low-interest rate accommodating Federal loans. They are luring them into a debt that is unnecessary and a debt which is crushing, in some circumstances.

At the very minimum, that should be considered fraud in a bankruptcy court, and that debt should be dischargeable in bankruptcy because of the failure of the school to disclose that the student still has eligibility for a Federal loan.

Secondly, I know I am probably crying in the wilderness, but I still find it inconceivable that the only private sector business loan in America that is not dischargeable in bankruptcy goes to these heavily subsidized for-profit schools. First, we lured them with Federal money--90 percent-plus--and then we turn around and say: And we will protect you. When the student who is likely to default ends up defaulting, we will make sure they still have the debt, carrying it to the grave. What were we thinking to give this one business this kind of fantastic Federal subsidy and this kind of amazing support in the Bankruptcy Code?

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record, along with that article from the Wall Street Journal, a recent article from Barron's of April 16.

They identified those who were offering these private student loans. The major players in the private nongovernment-backed student loan market: SLM let me translate--formerly known as Sallie Mae, Discover Financial Services, Wells Fargo, and PNC Financial Services. Even with the defaults, if there are defaults on these loans, these loans are protected because they continue forever.

I do not know if my colleagues will join me in this, but all I ask them to do is go home and please talk to some of

the families in their States, and they will find this student loan crisis is not just something manufactured by politicians; it is real, and we are complicit in it. When we allow low-performing and worthless schools to receive Federal aid to education, students and their families are lured into believing these are real schools.

Go to the Internet and put in the words ``college'' or ``university,'' click the mouse and watch what happens. You will be inundated with ads from for-profit schools. Some of them will tell you: Go to school online. One of them ran a television ad here in Washington--I think they have taken it off the air now--that showed this lovely young girl who was in her bedroom in her pajamas with her laptop computer on the bed. The purpose of the ad was: You can graduate from college at home in your pajamas. It is a ruse. It is a farce. It is a fraud.

Many times these schools offer nothing but debt for these students. The students who drop out get the worst of the circumstances. They do not even get the worthless diploma from the for-profit schools; all they get is the debt. That is not fair. If we have a responsibility-- and I think we do--to families across America, for goodness' sake, on a bipartisan basis, we should step up and deal with the student debt crisis and the for-profit schools that are exploiting it.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I know we have not yet concluded the postal reform bill, but I come to the floor to speak on an amendment I intend to offer on the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. The amendment I intend to offer is one that enjoys bipartisan support, and I hope as more Senators learn about the content of this amendment and how it will strengthen the Violence Against Women Act, they will join me and Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois, Senator Bennet of Colorado, as well as Senator Vitter from Louisiana. I believe it will strengthen the Violence Against Women Act we will vote on, presumably later today, but probably tomorrow.

I am also happy to have the support of the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network--RAINN--PROTECT, and the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault, as well as Bexar County District Attorney Susan Reed, whose office is in San Antonio, TX. She has worked with us on this amendment, and we have benefited from her counsel and that of her staff. We have the support as well of San Antonio Police Chief William McManus.

At its core, this amendment would help end the nationwide rape kit backlog while improving law enforcement tools to crack down on violent criminals who target women and children for sexual assault.

To give a little context, in the course of an investigation, law enforcement officials will collect DNA evidence in something called a rape kit. These are generally bodily fluids that can be tested, because of their DNA signature, against a bank of DNA evidence for a match. In fact, this is a very powerful tool for law enforcement because it will literally identify someone from this DNA match in a way nothing else can. This DNA evidence can also, for those who care, as we all do, about making sure the innocent are not held in suspicion or convicted for crimes they didn't commit, be so powerful as to literally exclude, in some instances, suspects of criminal conduct.

The nationwide rape kit backlog is a national scandal--one that many people don't know very much about--and it has serious consequences for sexual assault victims. The truth is we don't know about the full scope of the problem, but one estimate is there are as many as 400,000 untested rape kits currently sitting in labs and on police station shelves across the Nation, each one of them holding within itself the potential to help solve a serious crime and, in the process, take a rapist off the streets and provide a victim with the justice they deserve.

Take, for example, the case of Carol Bart. Carol is from Dallas, TX. In 1984, Ms. Bart was kidnapped and raped at knife point outside her Dallas apartment. Although she submitted herself for rape kit testing immediately following the crime, her kit was not tested until 2008--24 years later. When it was tested 24 years after the rape kit specimens were collected, it yielded a match for a serial sex offender who had attempted to rape another woman only 4 months later after he raped Ms. Bart.

This is one of the most important reasons why this evidence is important, because the fact is people who commit sexual assaults are not one-time offenders. They do it many times, and often they do it until they are caught. But because the rape kit in Ms. Bart's case was not tested for 24 years after the crime, the statute of limitations had run, meaning that her attacker could not be brought to justice for that particular crime.

Statutes of limitations serve a worthwhile purpose under ordinary circumstances. They are designed to make sure charges are brought on a timely basis, while witnesses' memories are fresh and they can identify the perpetrator and the like. But in this instance, what it concealed was an injustice because, in fact, this late testing--24 years after the fact--meant her attacker could not be brought to justice for that particular crime.

Take also the case of Helena Lazaro, who was raped outside of Los Angeles in 1996 when she was just a teenager. Ms. Lazaro's rape kit sat untested for more than 13 years after her assault. When it was finally tested in 2009, it yielded a match to a repeat offender who had raped several women at knifepoint in Indiana and Ohio.

There are countless, I am sorry to say, examples of similar tragedies across the country, only a handful of which are actually reported on the front pages of our major newspapers. And some of these victims, of course, have merely suffered in silence in towns and communities across our country.

One thing is clear: While DNA evidence is powerful evidence, we have not yet adapted our administration of testing nor the capacity to inventory these kits in a way to make sure they are tested on a timely basis, and we have not kept up with that. But that is what this amendment hopes to do.

According to a 2011 report by the National Institute of Justice:

[c]urrent Federal programs to reduce backlogs in crime

laboratories are not designed to address untested evidence

stored in law enforcement agencies.

As a matter of fact, one of the problems in requiring an inventory of these untested rape kits is often the National Institute of Justice and law enforcement personnel don't even categorize a rape kit as untested until it actually is in the hands of the laboratory. So many of them sit in evidence lockers, never making their way to the labs, and are not identified as backlogged. So there are two distinct types of rape kit backlogs: the well-known backlog of untested rape kits that have already been submitted for testing and the hidden backlog of kits in law enforcement storage that have not been submitted for testing, as you can see, sometimes over a span of 13 years in one case and 24 years in the next. This amendment would help us learn more about this hidden backlog and ultimately help State and local law enforcement officials to end it.

One of my experiences during the 4 years I was attorney general of Texas was that many local jurisdictions simply did not have the expertise or experience or the knowledge to deal with new technology, whether it is Internet crimes or whether it is this new, powerful DNA tool. It is not so new now, and in urban areas it is not as big of a problem. In New York City, for example, I am sure they are quite sophisticated when dealing with this sort of evidence but less so in smaller towns and communities across the country.

The justice for victims amendment would reserve 7 percent of existing Debbie Smith Act grant funding for the purpose of helping State and local governments to conduct audits of their rape kit backlogs. In my hometown of San Antonio, the police department recently conducted such an audit of their evidence storage facilities using similar grant funding from the State of Texas. They identified more than 5,000--and that is just in San Antonio alone--untested sexual assault kits, of which 2,000 they determined should be submitted promptly for testing. My amendment would use existing appropriations to encourage more audits like this.

The amendment would also add accountability to the audit process by requiring grantees of these funds to upload critical information about the

size, scope, and status of their backlog into a new sexual assault evidence forensic registry. This valuable information would also help the National Institute of Justice better target the approximately $100 million of existing appropriations already available for this type of testing. In the spirit of open government, the amendment would also require the Department of Justice to publish aggregate, non-personally identifying information about the rape kit backlog on an appropriate Internet Web site.

To ensure that these audit grants do not take resources away from actual testing, my amendment would increase the amount of Debbie Smith Act appropriations required to be spent directly on laboratory testing from the 40 percent currently in the underlying Leahy bill, which will be the base bill, to 75 percent. So what it will do is it will actually take more of the funding that Congress intended be used to process rape kits and do actual testing and return it to that core function.

A comprehensive approach to crime prevention and victims' rights also requires updated tools for Federal law enforcement officials to target fugitives and repeat offenders. My amendment addresses this need by including bipartisan language authored by Senator Jeff Sessions that would authorize the U.S. Marshals Service to issue administrative subpoenas for the purpose of investigating unregistered sex offenders and would actually be limited to that narrow purpose. This provision would allow the Marshals Service to swiftly obtain time-sensitive tracking information, such as rent records and credit card statements, without having to go through the grand jury process, which may or may not be necessary depending on the circumstances. Such authority is urgently needed given the long and complicated paper trail that fugitive sex offender investigations often entail.

My amendment would also guarantee that we hand down tough punishments--appropriately so--to some of the worst crimes against women and children. For example, it includes enhanced sentencing provisions for aggravated domestic violence resulting in death or life- threatening bodily injury to the victim, aggravated sexual abuse, and child sex trafficking. I think preventing these horrible crimes is at the heart of the purpose of the Violence Against Women Act, and we should take the opportunity to improve the underlying bill by adopting this amendment and send a message to would-be perpetrators and child sex traffickers. If you commit some of the worst crimes imaginable in the United States, you should have the certain knowledge that you will be tracked down and that you will receive tough and appropriate punishment.

Finally, thanks to the great work of Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois, my amendment would further shed light on one of the greatest scourges of our time; that is, child prostitution and the trafficking that goes along with it.

The so-called adult entertainment section of the popular online classified Web site backpage.com is nothing more than a front for pimps and child sex traffickers. A lot has been written in the New York Times on this topic. On this Web site, young children and coerced women are openly advertised for sale in the sex trade. In fact, this Web site has been affirmatively linked to dozens of cases of child sex trafficking. Let me give a few recent examples.

Last month, Ronnie Leon Tramble was sentenced to 15 years in prison for interstate sex trafficking through force, fraud, and coercion. Tramble forced more than five young women and minors into prostitution over a period of at least 5 years throughout the State of Washington. He repeatedly subjected his victims to brutal physical and emotional abuse during this time, while using backpage.com to facilitate their prostitution.

In February of this year, Leighton Martin Curtis was sentenced to 30 years in prison for sex trafficking of a minor and production of child pornography. Curtis pimped a 15-year-old girl throughout Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina. He prostituted the girl to approximately 20 to 35 customers per week for more than a year and used backpage.com to facilitate these crimes.

According to human trafficking experts, a casual review of the backpage.com adult entertainment Web site reveals literally hundreds of children being sold for sex every day. This is absolutely sickening and should be stopped with all the tools available to us. We should no longer stand idle while thousands of children and trafficked women are raped, abused, and sold like chattel in modern-day slavery on the Internet. My amendment would therefore join all 50 State attorneys general in calling on backpage.com to remove the adult entertainment section of its Web site. Again, I would like to thank Senator Kirk for his leadership on this issue. Every case of sex trafficking or forced prostitution is modern-day slavery--nothing more, nothing less--and we should do everything in our power to ensure this practice is eradicated in the United States of America.

I believe the justice for victims amendment would reduce the rape kit backlog, take serial perpetrators off the street, and ultimately reduce the number of victims of sex violence. I ask my colleagues to join me in considering this amendment, which already enjoys bipartisan support, and I hope it will get much broader bipartisan support. I hope my colleagues will join with me in strengthening the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act by cosponsoring and supporting this amendment. Our constituents and victims of these heinous crimes deserve nothing less.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to express my support for the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act. Specifically, I want to talk about how crucial the tribal provisions in this bill are for Native American women. For the past 18 years, this historic legislation has helped protect women from domestic violence, from sexual assault, from stalking. It has strengthened the prosecution of these crimes and has provided critical support to the victims of these crimes.

It has been a bipartisan effort. Democrats, Republicans, and law enforcement officers, prosecutors, judges, health professionals--all have supported this Federal effort to protect women. Why? Because it has worked.

Since its passage in 1994, domestic violence has decreased by over 50 percent. The victims of these crimes have been more willing to come forward knowing that they are not alone, knowing that they will get the support they need, knowing that crimes against women will not be tolerated.

Unfortunately, not all women have seen the benefits of the Violence Against Women Act. That is why the tribal provisions in the reauthorization are so important. Native women are 2\1/2\ times more likely than other U.S. women to be raped. One in three will be sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. It is estimated three out of five Native women will experience domestic violence in their lifetimes. Those numbers are tragic. Those numbers tell a story of great human suffering, of women in desperate situations, desperate for support, and too often we have failed to provide that support.

But the frequency of violence against Native women is only part of the tragedy. To make matters worse, many of these crimes go unprosecuted and unpunished. Here is the problem: The tribes have no authority to prosecute non-Indians for domestic violence crimes against their Native American spouses or partners within the boundaries of their own tribal lands. And yet over 50 percent of Native women are married to non-Indians; 76 percent of the overall population living on tribal lands is non-Indian. Instead, under existing law, these crimes fall exclusively under Federal jurisdiction. But Federal prosecutors have limited resources. They may be located hours away from tribal communities. As a result, non-Indian perpetrators often go unpunished. The cycle of violence continues and often escalates at the expense of Native American victims.

On some tribal lands the homicide rate for Native women is up to 10 times the national average. But this starts with small crimes, small acts of violence that may not rise to the attention of the Federal prosecutor. In 2006 and 2007, U.S. attorneys prosecuted only 45 misdemeanor crimes on tribal lands.

For perspective, the Salt River Reservation in Arizona--which is a relatively small reservation--reported more than 450 domestic violence cases in 2006 alone. Those numbers are appalling. Native women should not be abandoned to a jurisdictional loophole. In effect, we have a prosecution-free zone.

The tribal provisions in the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act provide a remedy. The bill allows tribal courts to prosecute non- Indians in a narrow set of cases that meet the following specific conditions: The crime must have occurred in Indian Country; it must be a domestic violence or dating violence offense or a violation of a protection order; and the non-Indian defendant must reside in Indian Country, be employed in Indian Country, or be the spouse or intimate partner of a member of the prosecuting tribe.

This bill does not--and I emphasize does not--extend tribal jurisdiction to include general crimes of violence by non-Indians or crimes between two non-Indians or crimes between persons with no ties to the tribe. Nothing in this provision diminishes or alters the jurisdiction of any Federal or State court.

I know some of my colleagues question if a tribal court can provide the same protections to defendants that are guaranteed in a Federal or State court. The bill addresses this concern. It provides comprehensive protections to all criminal defendants who are prosecuted in tribal courts whether or not the defendant is a Native American. Defendants would essentially have the same rights in tribal court as in State court. These include, among many others, right to counsel, to a speedy trial, to due process, the right against unreasonable search and seizure, double jeopardy, and self-incrimination. In fact, a tribe that does not provide these protections cannot prosecute non-Indians under this provision.

Some have also questioned whether Congress has the authority to expand tribal criminal jurisdiction to cover non-Indians. This issue was carefully considered in drafting the tribal jurisdiction provision. The Indian Affairs and Judiciary Committees worked closely with the Department of Justice to ensure that the legislation is constitutional.

In fact, last week 50 prominent law professors sent a letter to the Senate and House Judiciary Committees expressing their ``full confidence in the constitutionality of the legislation, and its necessity to protect the safety of Native women.''

Their letter provides a detailed analysis of the jurisdictional provision. It concludes that ``the expansion of tribal jurisdiction by Congress, as proposed in Section 904 of S. 1925, is constitutional.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the letter to which I have referred.

Mr. President, I respect my colleagues' concerns about the tribal provisions of this bill, and I am willing to work with any Senator who may have concerns about these provisions. Native American law can be daunting, but I want to stress how much effort, research, and consultation went into drafting the tribal provisions in the Violence Against Women Act. Title 9 is taken almost entirely from S. 1763, the Stand Against Violence and Empower Native Women Act, the SAVE Native Women Act. This bill was passed on a Department of Justice proposal submitted to Congress last July. That proposal was the product of extensive multiyear consultations with tribal leaders about public safety generally and violence against women specifically. It builds on the foundation laid by the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010.

The SAVE Native Women Act was cleared by the Indian Affairs Committee in a unanimous voice vote. The Presiding Officer serves on that committee and knows that this is a committee--the Senate Indian Affairs Committee--that works in a bipartisan way. This passed by a unanimous voice vote through the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.

Shortly thereafter, its core provisions were again vetted and incorporated in the Judiciary Committee's Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization as title 9. In short, the Safety for Indian Women title has been vetted extensively and enjoys wide and bipartisan support. The tribal provisions in this bill are fundamentally about fairness and clarity and affording Native women the protections they deserve.

As a former Federal prosecutor and attorney general of a State with a large Native American population, I know firsthand how difficult the jurisdictional maze can be for tribal communities. One result of this maze is unchecked crime. Personnel and funding run thin, distance is a major prohibitive factor, and the violence goes unpunished. Title 9 will create a local solution for a local problem by allowing tribes to prosecute the crime occurring in their own communities. They will be equipped to stop the escalation of domestic violence. Tribes have already proven to be effective in combating crimes of domestic violence committed by Native Americans.

Let me reiterate this very important point: Without an act of Congress, tribes cannot prosecute a non-Indian even if he lives on the reservation, even if he is married to a tribal member. Without this act of Congress, tribes will continue to lack authority to protect the women who are members of their own tribes. With this bill, we can close a dark and desperate loophole in criminal jurisdiction.

Beyond extending the jurisdiction of tribes within specific constraints, the bill will also promote other efforts to protect Native women from an epidemic of domestic violence by increasing grants for tribal programs to address violence and for research on violence against Native women and also by allowing Federal prosecutors to seek tougher sentences for perpetrators who strangle or suffocate their spouses or partners.

All of these provisions are about justice. Right now Native women don't get the justice they deserve, but these are strong women. They rightly demand to be heard. They have identified a desperate need and support logical and effective solutions. That is why Native women and tribal leaders across the Nation support the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act and the proposed tribal provisions. Let us work with these women to create as many tools as possible for confronting domestic violence.

There are far too many stories of desperation that illustrate why the provisions protecting Native women are in this bill, and I want to share one story now. This is the story of a young Native American woman married to a non-Indian. He began abusing her 2 days after their wedding. They lived on her reservation. In great danger, she filed for an order of protection as well as a divorce within the first year of marriage. The brutality only increased. It ended with the woman's abuser going to her place of work--which was located on the reservation--and attempting to kill her with a gun. A coworker, trying to protect her, took the bullet. Before that awful day, this young woman had nowhere to turn for help. She said:

After a year of abuse and more than 100 incidents of being

slapped, kicked, punched and living in horrific terror, I

left for good. During the year of marriage I lived in

constant fear of attack. I called many times for help, but no

one could help me.

The tribal police did not have jurisdiction over the daily abuse because the abuser was a non-Indian. The Federal Government had jurisdiction but chose not to exercise it because the abuse was only misdemeanor level prior to the attempted murder. The State did not have jurisdiction because the abuse was on tribal land and the victim was Native American.

Her abuser, at one point after an incident of abuse, actually called the county sheriff himself to prove that he was untouchable. The deputy sheriff came to the home on tribal land but left saying he did not have jurisdiction. This is just one of the daily, even hourly, stories of abuse, stories that should outrage us all. These stories could end through local intervention and local authority that will only be made possible through an act of Congress. We have the opportunity to support such an act in the tribal provisions of VAWA.

I encourage my colleagues to fully support the tribal provisions in this very important bill.

I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about legislation I am introducing. I am pleased to introduce this legislation, along with 43 cosponsors, making that 44 Members of the Senate sponsoring legislation to improve the Keystone XL project.

This legislation would approve Keystone XL under article 1, section 8 of the Constitution. That provision, the commerce clause, gives Congress the authority to regulate commerce with foreign countries, and that is the authority Congress needs to use, just as Congress used that authority in 1973 to approve the Alaskan Pipeline.

Moving forward with the Keystone project will create tens of thousands of jobs--tens of thousands of jobs at a time when our country badly needs those jobs, at a time when we have more than 13 million people out of work, or 8\1/2\ percent unemployment. It will create those jobs without spending one Federal taxpayer dollar. Not one. This is private sector investment--more than $7 billion that will help generate tens of thousands of jobs at a time when our economy badly needs them and when we need to get people back to work.

Also, this will reduce our dependence on oil from the Middle East-- 830,000 barrels a day. The Keystone XL Pipeline will move 830,000 barrels of oil a day from Canada and from States such as my own, the State of North Dakota. That is 830,000 barrels of oil a day we don't have to get from the Middle East at a time when we have rising tensions in the Middle East, at a time when Iran is threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, at a time when we could see gas prices going to $4, maybe even $5 a gallon.

The reality is, even if we don't build the project, the oil will still be produced. The oil in Canada will still be produced. It is just that it would not come to the United States. It will go to China, and we will have worse environmental stewardship, not better. Building the project will actually help us provide better environmental stewardship because we don't need to haul that oil overseas, around the world. We would not need to continue bringing in oil from the Middle East. That 830,000 barrels a day will go to our refineries where there are higher standards with better environmental stewardship.

President Obama recently turned down this project. He turned down the project because he said he couldn't make a decision in 60 days. He said he couldn't make a decision on the project in 60 days. That was too soon. But the project has been under review for more than 3 years. Let me repeat that. This project has been under review by the administration for more than 3 years. The EPA and the State Department have been reviewing the project.

In our legislation we simply say this has been under review for more than 3 years, and it is time to make a decision. It is time to move forward. Furthermore, for the one portion of the route that was contested, the Nebraska portion, we say: Take as much time as you need to reroute in Nebraska--after 3 years--to make sure we provide enough time for the decision.

I have a chart here that shows this timeline. Let's take a minute and go through it.

The application was originally submitted in September of 2008. September of 2008 is when the process started. So as you can see, it has been under review in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011.

The State Department itself, EPA through the NEPA process and the State Department, has responsibility to make a decision on the project and, as you can see, on their own timeline they had planned to render a decision before the end of last year. As a matter of fact, I received a letter from Secretary of State Clinton indicating they intended to have a final decision before the end of the year. Yet, when we passed our earlier legislation, the President said, Well, we can't make a decision in 60 days.

Do you mean 3 years and 60 days? How long does it take to study this process and make a decision--particularly when in the last bill which we passed 89-10 by this body, and now in this legislation again we say, as to the only contested portion of the rule where you may want to reroute through Nebraska due to the Oglala aquifer, we provide as much time as needed to do the rerouting. But at some point we have got to make a decision to move forward with the project.

So maybe you say, Well, okay, it has been studied for 3 years, but more time is needed somehow because it is a unique project. Actually, it is not a unique project.

Before coming to the Senate last year, I was the Governor of North Dakota for 10 years. While I was Governor, TransCanada built a very similar project. The red line here is the Keystone project. It goes from Calgary down to Patoka, IL, much the same route, bringing oil from Canada into our refineries. That was permitted, not in 3 years, that was permitted in 2 years. In 2 years, that was permitted. We have been studying Keystone XL, a sister pipeline--very similar. It goes down to Cushing into the refineries along the gulf coast. We have been studying for 3 years a very similar project already approved in 2.

You may say, Well, I don't know. Still, you only have one kind of project there and maybe there is some new or challenging thing you have to take into account. So, yes, we have been studying it for 3 years and you need that kind of time because somehow we are recreating the wheel or doing something new and different. Well, that is not quite the case, either.

Let's go to my third chart. These are the oil and gas pipelines in the United States. All these red lines show oil and gas pipelines throughout our country, already existing, already in place, already moving oil and gas around the country. So now we are going to bring another one through here with all these pipelines, with the latest technology, the latest safeguards. And you mean to say that, after 3 years, that is not time to figure out whether we can approve another pipeline when we have hundreds of pipelines all over this country that people count on every day for their supply of oil? For their supply of gas? That is the situation.

Clearly, we can make this decision. Clearly, after more than 3 years of study, it doesn't make sense to not move forward, particularly when we are talking about tens of thousands of jobs that we need. Not only will it not cost our Federal Government revenue, it will generate hundreds of millions in revenue back to local, State, and Federal Government.

In addition to creating jobs, it reduces our dependence on Middle East oil. And if we don't do it, the oil goes to China. It is still produced, but it goes to China. So, actually, we have better environmental stewardship with the project.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce last year did a study. In that study, they cited 351 infrastructure projects that are being held up in the country right now--351 infrastructure projects that are being held up in the country right now due to regulations and bureaucratic delays. If we can get those projects going, based on the study the U.S. Chamber did, that would generate almost $1.1 trillion in gross domestic product for our country. It would generate--their estimate--1.9 million jobs,

not with more government spending, but enabling the private investment to go forward by taking the bureaucratic delays out of the way, by reducing the regulatory burden, by green-lighting projects like Keystone XL, which has been under study for more than 3 years.

Back to one of these earlier charts. In my home State of North Dakota, we now produce more than 500,000 barrels of oil a day. We need to put 100,000 barrels a day into this pipeline so we can get it to market, so we can get it to consumers and companies throughout this country. That is 100,000 barrels a day right now that we have to move through other means, such as truck or rail. That is equal to 500 truckloads a day, or 17 million truck miles a year. Think of the toll on our roads, think of the traffic fatalities that result when that product should be going through pipeline. And at the same time that we have less traffic safety, tremendous wear and tear on our roads, we suffer a discount. Our companies, our mineral owners, our people suffer a discount because it is more expensive to transport that product by rail and by truck. Those are the realities of getting our economy going.

Again, I go back to the national security concern: 830,000 barrels a day that we have got to get from the Middle East.

With these kinds of developments, with this kind of infrastructure, together with Canada and some oil that we get from Mexico, by building Keystone XL Pipeline we can produce more than 80 percent of the oil we consume right here in our country. That means we don't have to get it from the Middle East. And look what is going on in the Middle East. Look at Iran, threatening to blockade the Strait of Hormuz. That is a fundamental national security issue.

Unions across this country have said, Hey, we need these jobs. We support this project. We want to move forward with this and other infrastructure projects. But it is not just about the jobs and the economy, although that is vitally important to all the people who are out of work; it is a vital and national security issue, and it is going to continue to be a more important national security issue as we continue to see gas prices rise and as we continue to see instability in the Middle East.

Again, back to the environmental issues. This oil will be produced. It is either going to China or it is coming here. If we bring it here, we have better environmental stewardship because it goes in a pipeline to refineries that have the lowest emission standards. If we don't, the pipeline goes to the west coast. They load it on tankers. You have to haul it to places such as China where it is refined in refineries with higher emissions. And then, guess what. We have to ship oil from the Middle East--generating more emissions--to bring to our refineries. Again, it makes no sense. It is time to move forward.

There is clear precedence and clear authority. Article 1, section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the constitutional authority to act under the commerce clause. Congress exercised that authority in 1973 for the Alaskan pipeline. It is time for Congress to exercise its authority again for the good of our economy and for the good of our country.