Veterans Small Business Protection Act of 2012

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that for the next half hour, myself, Senator Mikulski, Senator Blumenthal, Senator Coons, and Senator Blunt, and also, should they come, Senator Graham and Senator Kyl be allowed to engage in a colloquy.

Our topic is the urgency of the need to protect our privately held critical infrastructure--the power grid, the machines that process our financial transactions, and the communications networks that connect our BlackBerrys and our phones.

In this area, no one is more expert than Senator Mikulski, who is a senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, helped draft the Senate intelligence report on cyber, and has the pen as the cardinal for the budgets of most of the agencies that are relevant to this discussion. So let me lead immediately to Senator Mikulski, who has been enormously helpful in this arrangement.

Let me welcome Senator Blunt to the discussion and invite him to chime in now. He has been a very important voice in the bipartisan discussions on how we can find a proper way to protect American privately owned critical infrastructure. He is a consummately experienced legislator from the House and has been a great addition to the Senate, and we welcome him to the discussion.

I agree with Senator Coons, and more important than me agreeing with him, the Secretary of Defense of the United States of America agrees with him. He has said, ``The next Pearl Harbor we confront could very well be a cyberattack,'' and that is an exact quote.

I wish to turn back to Senator Mikulski for a moment, as the person who is in charge of the appropriations for these key agencies, because there is a sense in some quarters that if you leave the private sector on its own to do this, they will be fine. I think the evidence we have heard in a series of hearings that Senator Mikulski, Senator Blunt, myself, and Senator Kyl cochaired, bipartisan hearings--Senator Coons came to virtually all of them, and to their great credit Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins came to virtually all of them--the testimony we heard was that was not the case.

Some of the public commentary, our Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter says:

There is a market failure at work here . . . companies are

not willing to admit vulnerabilities to themselves, or

publicly to shareholders, in such a way as to support the

necessary investments or lead their peers down a certain path

of investment and all that would follow.

That is a bipartisan sentiment. Mike Chertoff, who is the former head of DHS, said:

The marketplace is likely to fail in allocating the correct

amount of investment to manage risk across the breadth of the

networks on which our society relies.

Senator Coons pointed out 9 out of 10 of the companies contacted by the NCI JTF, when they became aware they were attacked, had no idea they had been attacked.

I will turn to Senator Mikulski to make her comment on this. It is a public-private partnership here.

Senator Blunt.

I thank the Senator from Missouri. I will wrap up by making three points and I will make them briefly. I have given remarks at greater length in these areas before so I think my position on this is pretty clear.

One is, protecting our critical infrastructure, the privately owned systems our way of life depends on, is the weak point we need to address. We do well with dot-mil, we do well with dot-gov. The government has the authority to provide all of its resources to protect those. We don't particularly care about ordinary Web sites, about chat rooms--we do not want to interfere with those anyway. It is just the critical infrastructure that is important, the privately held infrastructure. We really need to work on that. The warnings from our national security leaders are across the board: Secretary of Defense Panetta, NSA Cyber Command and Director Keith Alexander, Director of National Intelligence Clapper, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, Attorney General Holder, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Dempsey have all clearly expressed the danger of this threat.

The second point, it is bipartisan. The former Director of National Intelligence and NSA Director Mike McConnell has said:

The United States is fighting a cyber-war today, and we are

losing. It's that simple. As the most wired nation on Earth,

we offer the most targets of significance, yet our cyber-

defenses are woefully lacking. . . . [W]ith cybersecurity,

the time to start was yesterday.

Former Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Homeland Security Baker said:

We must begin now to protect our critical infrastructure

from attack.

A great number of national security officials, bipartisan, wrote a letter to us in the Senate and said:

The threat is only going to get worse. Inaction is not an

acceptable option.

Protection of our critical infrastructure is essential in

order to effectively protect our national and economic

security from the growing cyber threat.

As I said earlier in introducing Senator Mikulski, there is indeed a market failure that has been identified in a bipartisan fashion. The facts prove it because so often when public or private sector folks respond to an intrusion, they find 90 percent of the time the company had no idea it was hacked.

Even the Chamber of Commerce was hacked and had Chinese infiltrators with access to all of their computers for months. When the Aurora bug hit Google and others, only 3 out of 30 companies were aware of it. So the private sector does need a supportive government. We, in turn, from the government side have to make sure the burden is not unreasonable and make sure we are doing this in as light, as sensible, and voluntary as is possible and consistent with the mission of actually protecting our cybersecurity.

In the Bush administration, the Assistant Attorney General was Jack Goldsmith, who is now at the Harvard Law School. He has written about this very issue. He wrote:

[T]he government is the only institution with the resources

and the incentives to ensure that the [critical

infrastructure] on which we all depend is secure, and we must

find a way for it to meet its responsibilities.

I thank Senator Mikulski, Senator Blunt, Senator Blumenthal, and Senator Coons for participating in this colloquy today. I thank our group and the group I just mentioned. In addition I would like to thank Senator Kyl, Senator Graham, and Senator Coats for the bipartisan work that has been done to try to find a way forward to protect critical infrastructure.

Again, I thank Senator Blunt, Senator Kyl, and Senator Mikulski for the series of private briefs and classified briefings that have helped build the momentum toward this effort.

I think we can get this done. It is essential we do. I appreciate the work of my colleagues in making this happen.

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

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

Mr. President, I come to the floor most every week to discuss the issue that I think is the one that Members of Congress in this era are most likely to be judged on in the future; that is, the relentless carbon pollution of our atmosphere that we are engaged in and the changes in our climate and in our oceans that are very visibly happening as a result.

I know there are many interests in Washington that would prefer us to ignore this issue, but just because they ignore it and just because they want us to ignore it doesn't mean it is going anywhere. The country, as we have heard in the last few weeks, has baked in record heat. I think it was Bloomberg News that described the Midwest farmers as farming in hell. It has been scorched by drought, driven by unprecedented wildfires, and that has resulted in an increasing amount of chatter in the news and even some conversation on the Senate floor about climate change.

Some have tried to say there is no relation, but I want to talk a little bit about the science of what we see happening around our country and around the world.

There is an interesting report that I would mention. I am not going to put it in the Record because it is too large. It is called ``The State of the Climate in 2011,'' a special supplement to the bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

What we see is that 2012 is shaping up to look a lot like 2011, which Deputy NOAA Administrator Kathryn Sullivan called ``a year of extreme events, both in the United States and around the world.'' The report I just showed is a peer-reviewed report. It was compiled by 37 scientists from 48 countries.

As explained by Dr. Sullivan, and I quote her:

Every weather event that happens now takes place in the

context of a changing global environment. This annual report

provides scientists and citizens alike with an analysis of

what has happened so we can all prepare for what is to come.

Here are some of the highlights from the American Meteorological Society report. The first generally is that

warm temperature trends are continuing. Four independent datasets show 2011 was one of the 15 warmest years since recordkeeping began in the late 19th century, and yet one of the coolest since 2008. The average temperature for 2011 was higher than the 30-year annual average temperature. The Arctic continued to warm at about twice the rate compared with lower latitudes.

On the opposite pole, the South Pole Station recorded its all-time highest temperature of 9.9 degrees Fahrenheit on December 25, Christmas Day, breaking the previous record for warm weather around the South Pole by more than 2 degrees.

So the warm temperature trends continue. The other major finding of the report is that greenhouse gases continue to climb. Major greenhouse gas concentrations like carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide continued to rise. Carbon dioxide steadily increased in 2011, and the yearly global average exceeded 390 parts per million for the first time since instrumental records began. This represents an increase of 2.10 parts per million over the previous year.

I would note that the Arctic sampling stations have for the first time in history recorded concentrations over 400 parts per million. That is an ominous number because the Arctic tends to be the leading edge for these indicators. There is no evidence that natural emissions of methane in the Arctic have increased significantly during the last decade, so they have not yet contributed to this steady increase. But there could be significant increases of methane in the future as the tundra thaws and as methane captured under the permafrost is released.

Arctic sea ice is decreasing. Arctic sea ice extent was below average for all of 2011 and has been since June of 2001. It is a span of 127 consecutive months through December of 2011. Both the maximum ice extent, which was 5.67 million square miles on March 7, and the minimum extent, 1.67 square miles on September 9, were the second smallest measurements for maximum and for minimum of the satellite era.

A fourth finding is that sea surface temperature and ocean heat content continue to rise. Even with La Nina conditions occurring during most of the year, the 2011 global sea surface temperature was among the 12 highest years on record. Ocean heat content measured from the surface down to 2,300 feet deep continued to rise since records again being taken in 1993, and ocean heat content was at a record high.

In addition to putting 2011 into the context of these longer trends and timelines, the researchers from NOAA and the U.K. Meteorological Office also examined the link between climate change and extreme weather events that occurred in 2011. Here is what they say:

In the past it was often stated that it simply was not

possible to make an attribution statement about an individual

weather or climate event. However, scientific thinking on

this issue has moved on and now it is widely accepted--

Widely accepted--

that attribution statements about individual weather or

climate events are possible, provided proper account is taken

of the probabilistic nature of attribution.

So let me be clear. It is still not correct to say that any weather event specifically is or is not directly caused by climate change. However, what these researchers have done is evaluate methods to see if the probability of this event occurring has changed by a particular percentage given the changing climate. Have we, in effect, loaded the dice in our atmosphere to make extreme weather events more likely? And not only have we loaded the dice, but how loaded are the dice? How are the odds changing?

This paper evaluated six events from last year, and here are some of those findings:

La Nina-related heat waves such as that experienced in Texas in 2011 are now 20 times more likely to occur during La Nina today than during La Nina years 50 years ago. So we have loaded the dice for these events to happen during the La Nina years by a factor of 20. That is a pretty heavy increase.

Researchers evaluated a very warm November that the United Kingdom experienced in 2011. They found that warm Novembers are now 62 times more likely for the region. Again, not only are the dice loaded for unusual weather events, they are loaded with big numbers.

The next month, December 2011, was very cold. Researchers found that cold Decembers were 50 percent less likely to occur now versus 50 years ago.

Moving on to 2012, I wish to mention another event that happened this week. On Monday, researchers at the University of Delaware and the Canadian Ice Service reported that a 46-square-mile chunk of ice broke off from the Petermann Glacier on the northwest coast of Greenland. This piece of ice is two times the size of Manhattan. In August 2010, a piece four times the size of Manhattan separated from the glacier. This most recent breakoff of the Petermann Glacier puts the glacier's end point where it has not been for 150 years.

Andreas Muenchow, a researcher at the University of Delaware, said:

The Greenland ice sheet as a whole is shrinking, melting

and reducing in size as a result of globally changing air and

ocean temperatures and associated changes in circulation

patterns in both the ocean and the atmosphere.

When we change the temperature, we change the circulation patterns. Those go hand in hand.

Relatedly, an article published in Science magazine examined data from not the Arctic areas but the tropic areas from coral reefs around the world. The researchers concluded that sea levels during the last warming period, which is most similar to today's climate, were roughly 18 to 30 feet higher than today. That is about 6 to 10 feet higher than previous estimates had projected. The likely culprit: more melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets than was previously assumed.

All of this evidence, these changing trends and emerging science evaluating increased probability of extreme weather events, ought to be enough for us to consider limiting our greenhouse gas emissions. It ought to be enough of a warning for us to stop what is presently an uncontrolled experiment that we are conducting on our planet. We should do this while we still can.

Yet, unfortunately, there are special interests in Washington who deny that carbon pollution causes global temperatures to rise; deny that melting icecaps destabilize our climate so that regions face extreme drought or outsized precipitation events; deny that they have any responsibility to do anything about this. These special interests have a strong grip on Washington and on Congress. They pretend to us and to the American public that the jury is actually still out on climate change caused by carbon pollution, that we should wait, we should let them continue with business as usual and wait for the verdict to come in. Well, they are wrong. The jury is not still out. The verdict is, indeed, in, and their claims to the contrary are, frankly, outright false.

This is a pattern, actually, that has manifested itself with other industries in the past. The lead paint industry, the tobacco industry, and others have all had legions of scientists who have been willing to manufacture enough doubt about the danger of the product--tobacco is safe to smoke, lead paint won't hurt children, that sort of thing--so as to delay public safety action that would protect the public from their product. They obviously have a motive in doing that because they want to keep selling their product and keep making profits, but the cost has been terribly high to the public when we have listened to that kind of science. Unfortunately, we are listening to that now again. We should not be fooled. The vast overwhelming bulk of scientists agree that climate change is happening and that human activities are the driving cause of this change.

When I give these talks, I often refer to a paragraph from a letter we received in Congress in October of 2009. The letter was very powerfully stated, particularly when we consider the cautious way in which scientists ordinarily couch their findings. Here is what the letter said:

Observations throughout the world make it clear--

Clear is the word they use--

that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific

research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by

human activities are the primary driver. These conclusions

are based on multiple independent lines of evidence--

And they close with this--

and contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective

assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science.

In other words, if we look at the peer-reviewed science, the body of science, objectively, one cannot reach those conclusions. Those contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment. Clearly, subjective assessments are different, but subjective assessments we should discount because of the motives that lie behind them.

The letter I just quoted was signed by an enormous number of very prestigious scientific organizations, from the American Association of the Advancement of Science, to the American Chemical Society, the Geophysical Union, Institute of Biological Science, Meteorological Society, Society of Agronomy, American Plant Biologists, the Ecological Society of America, the Organization of Biological Field Stations, Soil Science Society of America, and an immense group of very respectable organizations not gathered together for the purposes of argument about climate change but who have a responsibility to their scientific communities to be accurate. These are highly esteemed scientific organizations. They know the jury is not still out. They know that the verdict is, in fact, in and that it is time we did something about it. It is really irresponsible and nonsensical for us not to.

The science on this goes back to the Civil War. It was a scientist named John Tyndall, an Irish scientist practicing in England, who determined that carbon dioxide and water, when they were trapped in the atmosphere, had a blanketing effect and would trap heat in the atmosphere--the basic principle of global warming.

In 1955, the year I was born, a textbook called ``Our Astonishing Atmosphere'' said the following:

Nearly a century ago, 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.

If that was century-old information the year I was born, then I think it is entitled to some credence around here.

Of course, we are observing these changes. Let me put one into context, and then I will yield the floor. That one is that 390-parts- per-million figure I alluded to earlier. For the last 8,000 centuries-- 800,000 years--we have been able to measure what the range was of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere, and for all that period, 800,000 years, it has been between 170 parts per million and 300 parts per million. So 170 to 300 is the range. So when we are out of that not by a little bit but by a lot--we are already to 390, and in the Arctic we have hit 400--this is measurement, by the way, not theory--that is something to be worried about because when we look back at history, before 800,000 years ago, back into previous geological events, we find that these high carbon concentrations are associated with really dramatic die-offs, very hostile environments for human occupation.

Of course, we have never had that experience because we have really only been around on this planet for probably less than 200,000 years. We only started scratching the soil, planting things and developing agriculture, 10,000 years ago. So 800,000 years ago is a long time, and the safe bandwidths our species has developed within during that 800,000 years is something that we should not be so frivolous about flying outside of to the tune of now hitting 390 parts per million. There will be consequences that will be grave.

We are already seeing consequences that are grave. Our ocean is acidifying in unprecedented ways. If we are looking for a first catastrophe to ensue, it is as likely to be through the acidification of our oceans as it is through climate and through the damage that an acidic ocean can do to small creatures, particularly those at the very bottom of the food chain, the ones all the others eat. Let me put it this way: It is a hard thing for an animal to succeed and survive in a physical environment in which it is soluble.

So I see a colleague on the floor, and I will yield to him. I appreciate the attention of the Senate to this issue, and I hope the day will come soon when we can wrench ourselves free of the grip of the special interests and do something serious about this looming threat.

I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Kohl) is necessarily absent.

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

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

Mr. President, there was a troubling report recently released by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. It is entitled ``The Campus Debit Card Trap.'' The report from PIRG documents how colleges and universities across the country have signed deals with financial service companies to provide campus debit cards and prepaid credit cards to students.

Sometimes these debit cards are linked to a student checking account, and many times the school's name will appear on the card. In some cases, the student ID card is turned into a bank debit card. We are also seeing colleges and universities make deals in which banks issue prepaid debit cards to make financial aid disbursements to students.

When they are managed appropriately, debit and prepaid cards can be a good thing for students. It can give them an effective way to conduct transactions and receive their student aid payments. But, unfortunately, as the PIRG research found, some of these campus debit card arrangements raise some serious questions.

Why did the U.S. PIRG title its report, ``The Campus Debit Card Trap''? You guessed it. Many students are being charged unreasonable fees that are costing them millions of dollars. According to the U.S. PIRG report, 15 financial institutions have debit or prepaid card contracts with 878 campuses that serve more than 9 million students. It is a big business. Forty-two percent of all students nationwide go to school on these 878 campuses.

It is a lucrative business for financial institutions. There is a lot of money to be paid from fees on college debit cards, especially when they start charging fees on the billions of dollars disbursed each year in Federal student aid. So the Federal money is passing through these cards to the students. The financial institutions are making money in the process.

As the U.S. PIRG report shows, some of the fees being charged are clearly unreasonable. One of the most egregious fees is a per- transaction fee on students for using a PIN number on debit purchases instead of a signature. One of the largest campus debit card companies, Higher One, currently charges students 50 cents every time the student enters his PIN number at a checkout. PIN-based transactions are supposed to be more secure than signature transactions. But this deal actually penalizes the students for using PIN numbers which are supposed to be more secure.

Another unacceptable fee is the ATM balance inquiry fee that some banks charge. This penalizes students who check on their balances to make sure they do not overdraw their accounts or incur an overdraft fee. Why would you discourage a student from checking on their balance so they do not overdraw their account?

Some banks charge inactivity fees, when a student is charged $10 a month if they are not using the account after 6 months. In other words, if the student is not using the card, racking up fees by making purchases, the financial institution still charges $10 each month. So it is going to get the money either way.

Of course, there are mysterious fees such as Higher One's $50 lack of documentation fee. That is what they call it. They recently abandoned this. And not to mention the obscure and unreasonable overdraft fees that some institutions charge.

Not only do those fees eat away at the limited money these students have for books, food, and living expenses, but these fees also cut into taxpayer-subsidized student aid dollars.

Student aid should be used to aid students, period, not banks. We should not allow financial institutions to take a slice off a taxpayer- subsidized student aid disbursement through unreasonable fees. We should not have debit card deals between financial institutions and colleges that leave students holding the bag.

Colleges and universities should negotiate for the students, for the best deal for them; the lowest fees, the best consumer protection. We need these deals to be fully transparent. Students often think: Wait a minute. If the university is recommending this bank or this school ID or this debit card, then it must be approved by the school.

The terms of the deal ought to be clear to the student so they can make the right choice. In addition, if the school receives incentives or kickbacks for providing exclusive access to the students, there is an inherent conflict of interest that at least ought to be disclosed.

I wrote a letter, along with Senator Jack Reed and Congressman Peter Welch, calling on the 15 financial institutions mentioned in the PIRG report to immediately discontinue several of the worst fees that were highlighted and disclose their contracts with colleges and universities. I am pleased that some financial institutions are responding to this PIRG report, but more needs to be done.

Fortunately, there are colleges and universities out there that are ready to step up. Soon after the PIRG report came out, I met the with the president of a university in Illinois that uses prepaid Visa debit cards to disburse title IV student aid. Students at this school were being charged some of the fees that were mentioned in the PIRG report, such as the inactivity fee and a fee for checking on the balance on their account.

When I alerted the president of the university to these fees, he immediately responded and agreed that he thought that was unreasonable. He said he will work to promptly address this issue for the benefit of the students.

I hope other leaders of colleges and universities who try to convince students and their families that they are truly their friends will be their friends when it comes to these debit cards. In the days to come, I am going to work with the regulators at the Department of Education and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and with the higher education and financial communities to take the tricks and traps out of the campus debit card programs.

Let's give our college students who are already borrowing money, deep in debt, struggling to pay their bills a break. Let's not increase the debt they are going to carry out of school, trying to enter into the job market. I thank my colleagues who are already working with me on this. I urge others to join me.

VA Caregiver Program

Mr. President, since last July, the Veterans' Administration's Caregivers Program has been providing the families of severely disabled Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with the support they deserve to care for their loved ones. I would like to mark the 1-year anniversary of this program by taking a few minutes to talk about its impact on families across America.

The Caregivers Program was originally conceived by then-Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. She came up with this notion to help those caregivers who were staying at home with disabled veterans, many of them parents and spouses, who make considerable sacrifices to make sure their disabled vet has the very best love and care in the place they want to be, right in their home.

Sometimes it is a hardship, not just the medical requirements but sometimes the financial requirements. So we passed the Caregivers Program, originally conceived by Senator Clinton. With the assistance of Senator Akaka, it became the law of the land. Here is what it said: For the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who came home with a disability and needed a caregiver to make sure they could go about their daily routine, we would say first to the caregiver, we are going to provide you with the medical training you need so you can take care of this vet in terms of their personal needs.

Secondly, we will provide you with a respite. If you need time off to go spend a few days somewhere to rest and relax and recharge your batteries, we will find a nurse or someone to come in and take care of that vet so you can have a little time to yourself.

Third, if there is a final need, an economic hardship, we pay up to $3,000 a month--not a huge sum of money--but up to $3,000 a month to the caregivers who are willing to help. I just had a group of wounded warriors in my office the other day. They talked about what this meant to some of these families. It meant whether their homes would be foreclosed upon. So when you think about it, the alternative is institutional care for these veterans, not nearly the level we want, the kind of care we would want to have. Instead, they are home with someone they love at a fraction of the cost of institutional care. We are just giving a helping hand to the caregivers.

So let me show a couple of photographs because these are some stories that I think are important for everyone to know about. This is a family I know pretty well. They are from North Carolina. Eric Edmundson served in the U.S. Army. Eric is shown with his wife Stephanie, his daughter Gracie, 7 years old, and his baby son Hunter, who is almost 2 years old. Eric served in the Army and was injured, and during the course of surgery, there were complications. He ended up a quadriplegic, unable to speak. They almost gave up on him. They talked to his father about sending him, at the age of about 24, into a nursing home. His dad blew his stack and said: You are not going to do that to my boy. He got on the Internet and started asking questions and ended up with Eric being admitted to the Rehab Institute in Chicago. That is where I met them, this North Carolina family. His dad said: My son will get the best care no matter what. Because he worked so hard and pushed so hard, Eric got the care he needed.

I can remember visiting him in his hospital room and saying that I want to come back from time to time to see how he is doing in Chicago. I came back a few weeks later, and his mom said Eric had a gift for me.

I said: For me, a gift? What is it?

She said: I will show you.

His mom and dad walked to the side of his wheelchair, lifted him up, and he took three steps. There wasn't a dry eye in that room. There were tears of joy all the way around. This man who had been given up on was taking steps. His mom and dad said: He is supposed to check out on Memorial Day, and he will walk out of the front door of this hospital in his full dress uniform. Can you be there?

I said I wouldn't be anywhere else. So I came, as did the mayor of Chicago and a lot of press, and watched Eric walk out of that hospital. It was one of the happiest days I can ever remember. His wife Stephanie was waiting with his daughter Gracie, and they moved back to North Carolina. His mom and dad gave up their business and devoted their lives to him. They are living with this family to make sure Eric has a life. They have a brandnew baby boy.

I have visited at their home. It is one of those stories where local vets and good people said: We will build you a home at no expense so you can get around in your wheelchair.

It is a terrific, wonderful story of a brave family who worked hard to give Eric a life, and all the neighbors and friends have helped sustain him.

I can tell you that Eric's story went a chapter further. His dad came to me and said: Have you ever heard of the caregivers bill Hillary Clinton had introduced?

I said no.

He said: She is leaving the Senate to be Secretary of State, so would you take a look at it?

I said I would. As a result of that, I worked with Senators Akaka and Inouye and the President, who signed it into law. As a result, families just like the Edmundsons will get the helping hand they need, like Eric got the kind of care he needed. The Iraq war is over, but his struggle will continue. We want to make sure he has the loving care he needs throughout his life.

Let me tell you about another family from Clinton, IL. I don't have a photo. It is Nathan Florey and his caregiver mother Deanna.

Nathan was a military police officer in Iraq, and he suffered an aneurysm while on duty in 2008. His recovery took 15 months. At one point it was suggested that Nathan should go to a group home. His mother refused to allow that to happen and said: No, send him home with me. She has taken care of him ever since. They were told that Nathan might never wake up, regain consciousness, but he exceeded everyone's expectations. He has received an associate's degree and is working on a bachelor's degree. Deanna says the caregiver program gives her a support system so that she doesn't feel like she is caring for Nathan alone.

This is a common refrain. Another caregiver named Beth, whom I spoke with this spring in downstate Illinois near Marion, pointed out that this support from the caregivers program gave her the flexibility to be able to care for her husband full time.

These are the kinds of families we want to help with this program. When we started, we thought a few thousand Iraq and Afghanistan families might qualify. As it turns out, these signature wounds that lead to this type of

care are more prevalent than we thought and families' hearts are even bigger than we imagined. So far, 5,153 families have qualified for the caregivers program. Think about that. They have taken the training to provide quality care for their loved ones in the comfort of their own homes. This includes Deanna and Beth and 129 other families in my State, and I will bet there are some families in Minnesota.

This is an interesting and amazing story as well. This is a family from Oak Lawn, IL. This is Yuriy and Aimee Zmysly in the center of the photo. I was connected with the Zmyslys several years ago after I read about them in a Chicago newspaper. They became strong advocates for the caregivers program, spreading the word about it in Illinois, including at this event in Chicago last fall.

Yuriy was a marine serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2006, he came back to the United States for surgery at the military hospital, where he suffered complications from a burst appendix and was left with a severe brain injury. When she got the news, Aimee drove to the hospital and put her whole heart and life into caring for Yuriy. At the time, they weren't married, but Aimee said she made her commitment to him before this. They got married after he suffered this grievous injury. The Zmyslys qualified for the caregiver program last summer. As Aimee told the Sun Times in an update to their story, ``It's good to be recognized for what I've been doing and other people have been doing for years.''

Let me close with a brief update on Eric Edmundson, whom I started talking about. His father Ed tells me in a recent note that enrollment in the program went smoothly--the caregivers program. His wife Beth, who gave up her health insurance when she left her job to care for her son, now has her health insurance back thanks to the program. And Eric is doing great as well. He is back hunting and fishing. He can literally go hunting. He loves it so much. And he can also fish with his dad. He recently completed a multistate hunting trip sponsored by the Wounded Warrior Project. Eric also received the 2011 Pathfinder Award from Safari Club International in recognition of the way he has explored life undeterred by his injuries. As part of the award, he is going to head to South Africa in September to hunt big game. Who would have imagined that this young man, abandoned by our system, which said he would virtually spend the rest of his life alone in a nursing home, now has such a full life?

His father said in his note to me, ``Eric works through his challenges. He will not be disabled by them--always a warrior.''

I am pleased that the caregivers program has been able to help veterans in America--over 5,000 in Illinois, North Carolina, and everywhere. I encourage anybody who is following this statement on the floor of the Senate and knows of an Iraq or Afghanistan veteran who may qualify for the caregivers program to get more information at www.caregiver.va.gov.

Crop Insurance

Mr. President, last Sunday I went to Gardner Township outside of Springfield and met with a group of farmers to talk about the drought. We were across the street from a cornfield, and I have seen these since I was a little kid. If you looked at it driving by, you would think it was just another cornfield. The farmers took me into the cornfield, and we started looking at the corn and stalks. It is a disaster.

The drought has really taken its toll. As of last week, my entire State is suffering through at least a moderate drought, and 33 counties have been declared to be in severe drought. They have joined 1,000 other counties in 26 States that have already been declared disaster areas by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Some people think it is the worst drought we have had in 25 years. I am afraid they could be right. Nobody knows better than our farmers, which I learned when I made this visit. Some of this corn crop is going to be flatout lost. They chop it off at ground level and let it dry out and try to feed it to the livestock. But it will get worse if the drought continues. We need rain and need it desperately--not just a little rain but a level of consistent, meaningful accumulation.

The primary tool available to producers to help them get through this is crop insurance. Taxpayers help the Crop Insurance Program by subsidizing about 62 percent of the premiums, but it is a better deal than disaster payments, which are unfortunately massive in amount and don't reward good conduct. The basic Crop Insurance Program rewards those producers who are trying to protect themselves from these outcomes.

I talked to Secretary Vilsack with the Department of Agriculture last week. I know they are watching this disastrous situation across Illinois and the Nation as, unfortunately, it increases. The benefits that are available to local farmers are low-interest loans they can take out to get through this while waiting for the crop insurance payout. These farmers don't want a handout, but they have no choice. They have to get through this year so they can get into next year. The loans are not going to solve the problem, but they will help address them.

There is a political thing we can do. I wish we would pass a bill to create rain, but we obviously can't. We did pass a farm bill. Sixty- four Senators, Democrats and Republicans, voted for the farm bill. Senator Stabenow of Michigan and Senator Roberts of Kansas, a Democrat and a Republican, worked through a bipartisan bill when most people said they didn't have a chance. They did it and did a great job. They sent it to the House. The House, unfortunately, has not been able to move the farm bill.

This is like the story we heard on the Transportation bill. Here is a bill that is critically important for farmers, many of whom are facing disasters like the drought now, and the House needs to get moving. I hate to put pressure on the House, but that is what Senators do to House Members, and they try to do the same to us. If they fail to pass a farm bill, it will reduce the opportunities to help our farmers through this drought.

So I am encouraging all Members of the House of Representatives, Democrats and Republicans, to at least vote on the Senate bipartisan bill if you can't come up with a bill. It will give us a chance to help producers in rural America facing a natural disaster. As they face these natural disasters, we should not create political disasters to make it worse.

I call on the House of Representatives, before you leave for the August recess, pass a farm bill, get to conference, and get the job done.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to speak as the chair of the Agriculture Committee about what is happening on the droughts across the country.

First, I want to take a moment as the author of the Bring Jobs Home Act to say that this afternoon we are going to have an opportunity to come together--as we did on the farm bill when we came together on a bipartisan basis--to focus on growing things in America and the need to strengthen our economy, provide economic certainty around agriculture and the food industry in America. It was a wonderful opportunity for us to get something done.

This afternoon, we are going to have the same kind of opportunity to come together and recommit ourselves to making things in America. The Bring Jobs Home Act is a very simple, straightforward way to eliminate a subsidy that should have been gone a long time ago, and that is the tax writeoff for shipping jobs overseas.

When someone is losing their job because a plant is closing to go overseas, to add insult to injury, as a taxpayer, they get to pay the cost of the moving. It is outrageous. What we want to do is stop that. That is what the bill does. It gives a business tax deduction for the cost of bringing jobs home and then adds another 20-percent tax deduction on top of it to encourage businesses to do that. We will be talking more about that later, but it is very important and I hope my colleagues will come together and send a very strong message about American jobs. Let's bring those jobs home.

Drought Conditions

Mr. President, I also want to talk today about the terrible weather conditions across the country. It started with an early spring and then a returning frost and snow in Michigan. Areas around the country have orchards and fruit crops that have gone from frost to an extension of a drought situation that is absolutely terrible. It is a very serious crisis around the country.

Not since the days of the Dust Bowl have we seen this lethal combination of scorching heat and bone-dry weather in the production regions across our country. As I speak, 80 percent of the country is suffering from abnormal dry or drought conditions; 64 percent is suffering from moderate or severe drought. That is the highest percentage in 56 years.

As we can see on the map, any area that is in color here has had some kind of a drought. The black areas are the worst. Either it is from abnormally dry, moderate, severe, or exceptional drought in almost every area of the country. This is extremely severe, and we need to take action to support our growers and ranchers.

We have almost 1,300 counties across the country rated as drought disaster areas, and that is one-third of all the counties in the United States. Every day it seems the Secretary of Agriculture is adding more to the list. More than 75 percent of the Nation's corn and soybean crops are in drought-affected areas and more than one-third of those crops are now rated poor to very poor. This is devastating our crops and our livestock producers.

Only one-third of our soybean crop is considered good to excellent right now, which is down by about 30 percent from last year.

According to the Department of Agriculture's weekly progress report, less than one-third of the Nation's corn crop is in good or excellent condition. Nearly 40 percent is rated poor or very poor. So we are talking about a massive effect on farmers, on livestock producers, and ultimately on consumers in America.

Facing higher food and feed costs and pastures that are withering due to the heat, our ranchers and livestock producers could see significant losses. I had an opportunity a number of months ago with Senator Roberts to be in Kansas and to see what was happening then, even before all of this. I understand how very serious this is for our livestock producers. The livestock sector could face significant declines in margins, and we could see a sharp increase in consumer prices for meat and eggs and dairy.

At a time when middle-class families are still trying to recover from the great recession, paying more at the grocery store is not going to help. In fact, it is going to hurt a lot.

The USDA has opened their Conservation Reserve Program so that land will be there for grazing, but we know it is not going to be enough for producers. There is no crop insurance equivalent for livestock. More producers may lose their ranches because of this drought. Livestock disaster assistance expired last year. We need the farm bill to become law so we can make this help available again because in the farm bill we extend the livestock disaster assistance program permanently, and we make it available for this year.

This drought is a serious problem, devastating all of our farmers, and will come home to families here and around the world, unfortunately, all too soon. We can't control the weather. We know that. In fact, farming and ranching are the riskiest businesses in the world. I should say even though they are the riskiest businesses, we have the safest, most affordable food supply in the world, and it is part of our national security. We can't control the weather and the risks the farmers face, but this drought underscores the need for improved risk management tools and better crop insurance. It underscores the need for a farm bill.

We need to get a farm bill done now more than ever. We have 16 million people who work in this country because of the agriculture and food industries--almost one out of four in Michigan. We came together-- and it was a lot of work, a lot of bipartisan effort, and I am very proud of what we did together in the Senate a couple of weeks ago--to pass a farm bill.

We now have the House having acted in committee and passed a strong bipartisan farm bill. It is different. There are some things, certainly, we need to work out in our conference committee. Our bill has more reforms in it, and we certainly are concerned about the nutrition cuts. But I will say this: We need the House to pass their farm bill so we can come together in conference committee and find the right balance that is good for families, consumers, farmers, ranchers, and businesspeople across the country. I am very confident we can do that, but we need the House to act to be able to make that happen. Weather disasters are getting worse every day, which makes it even more important that we have our legislation and, frankly, that we work together to add some pieces to it in a conference committee so we can address what is happening.

In our bill that passed, as I said, we extended a livestock disaster assistance program and made it retroactive to this year. We also included a provision for fruit commodities that don't currently have crop insurance to allow them to be able to buy into a program that is in law. We actually strengthened it, made it better. For those who don't have crop insurance, we also said they could get help this year. So we do have some things in the bill we passed, and we can work together to strengthen that even more.

Senator Baucus, the chairman of the Finance Committee, is working, and we are working closely with him, on something that would be a more comprehensive disaster assistance program. In order to be able to do that, we have to have a farm bill.

This is not, as we know, a partisan issue. We came together across the aisle. Consumers, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, people who vote, and who don't vote--people across this country--care about a safe, reliable, and affordable food system, and that certainly goes for our farmers and ranchers and their families in communities all across America who were hit so hard by the drought.

This drought is evidence that we need to come together and act. When we look at this kind of weather map and what is happening and the fact that the majority of communities in our country are facing disaster as a result of the droughts and other things that happened relating to the weather,

we need to act. We need to act in a responsible bipartisan manner. We can do that. We did that in the Senate. The House committee did it, and I commend them for that. We need the support and help of the leadership in the House to be able to get this to the floor and get it passed so we can get it done.

Thank you very much, Mr. President.

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

Mr. President, in just a couple minutes we are going to be voting on a very important policy, a very important bill I am proud to sponsor with a number of cosponsors, a number of colleagues, called the Bring Jobs Home Act. It goes to the heart of what has been happening in a global economy when we have not been paying attention to our Tax Code or other things that we ought to be doing to be able to bring jobs home and other countries are aggressively working to take our manufacturing base, to take our middle class. They know when they look at our country we have a middle class because we make products and grow products, so they are rushing to be able to make products and to innovate and so on and to create incentives for our jobs to be shipped overseas.

We know we are in a global economy. We know our companies are competing with countries. We have a whole range of things we have been working to do to be able to support and incentivize and help manufacturers and other businesses here to innovate, expand advanced manufacturing, IT services, among others. But what we have not been paying attention to is how our own Tax Code actually is incentivizing or supporting--at the very least supporting and helping companies ship jobs overseas.

There is a very important, very basic policy we will be voting on today. If a company decides to pack up and move overseas, should they be able to write that off their taxes and you and I--all of us as American taxpayers--pay for it? I do not think there are too many people in the country who would say yes to that. In fact, I can't imagine why anybody would say yes to that. The reality is, if somebody loses their job at a plant and then they find out they get the privilege, as an American taxpayer, to help pay for the move, folks say: Are you kidding me or they say a whole lot of other things.

This bill, the Bring Jobs Home Act, is very straightforward. It simply says we are not going to pay for that anymore. That loophole will be gone. However, if they want to bring jobs back, we will be happy to let them deduct those costs as a business expense, for bringing a job home. In fact, we will give them another 20-percent tax credit for 20 percent of their costs on top of it. So we are happy to incentivize coming home and to support their efforts to come home, but we are not paying for them to leave. That is basically what this is about.

We are going to have a vote on whether to proceed to this bill. As we know around here, unfortunately, we have seen the process that used to be used rarely now used on every bill, to where we cannot even get to the bill to vote on that with a majority vote without going through a supermajority to be able to stop a filibuster, which is right now what basically has been happening. There is an objection. We have to get 60 votes to overcome it; otherwise, the filibuster continues.

We will need to do that today. We need bipartisan support to do that. I hope we will have that. A couple weeks ago we came together in strong bipartisan support. We worked together very hard, long hours, to pass a farm bill. That is about growing products in America. Now we have an opportunity to work together, come together in a bipartisan basis to support making products in America.

We do not have a middle class unless we make products and grow products. It is not going to make any sense if we continue to have a tax policy that actually encourages or helps you to leave America.

What we have seen now is that we are actually losing jobs. We know in the last decade 2.4 million jobs were shipped overseas. Those are just the ones they are able to count at this point. So 2.4 million jobs have been shipped overseas, at a minimum, and we help to pay for it. The good news is we have a lot of companies now, for a lot of reasons--the fact that we have the most productive, the smartest, most talented workforce in the world, we have high productivity in our country--we have companies now bringing jobs back and we want to accelerate that, to support that effort.

I am proud that in our automobile industry we are seeing jobs come back with support and help from policies that allowed loans to retool older plants. Ford Motor Company has taken their largest plant in Wayne, MI, and retooled it, along within investment in advanced batteries. Jobs are coming back from Mexico. Some are coming from other countries as well. GM is doing the same kind of thing, Chrysler--I am sure other companies as well. We know many companies, large and small, are looking at this.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to have in a businessman from Michigan who is the CEO of a company called GalaxE.Solutions. He actually lives in New Jersey but is now having a major

presence in Michigan, in Detroit, hiring 500 people in IT, information technology. Those are jobs coming back from India, Brazil, China.

One of the things I heard, as he was talking yesterday, is when we look at the bottom line, costs matter. If we have a Tax Code that helps him bring jobs back rather than supporting him to take jobs away, to ship them overseas, it makes a difference. It matters. It matters not only for the cost but for the signal it sends about how serious we are in creating jobs in America.

I cannot imagine anybody who doesn't want to see ``Made in America'' again on everything. We are not going to get there if we do not start with the basics. That is what this is. I know you have talked about this so many times as well. This is about the basic premise of saying we are going to stop loopholes in the Tax Code that reward companies that are shipping jobs overseas and we are instead going to support and incentivize jobs coming back.

We know there are many other things, in addition to this, that we need to do. We need comprehensive tax reform in a global economy. There is no question about that. That is something I am confident we will be doing in the months ahead and into the next year. We need to do that. We need to do it on a bipartisan basis. But that is not a reason not to close this loophole, to stop this policy that makes no sense.

We have a lot more to do. We know that. We need to come together around policies that focus on innovation and education and rebuilding America and supporting the great entrepreneurs of the country--small businesses, large businesses. We know that. There is much to do. But today we have a chance to do something. We have a chance to do something. This is very straightforward. We have a chance to simply say the Tax Code in America is not going to reward or pay for the costs of American jobs being shipped overseas. It is as basic as that. No other country in the world would do this. They think we are crazy to have this kind of policy in place. So today is a chance to say: No, we are not crazy. We get it.

We know there is a lot to do, but let's come together on this issue and then we can come together on the next and the next and continue to build and rebuild our economy for the future.

But today is very simple. Today is the day to say no to American taxpayers helping to pay the costs for American jobs being shipped overseas. It is a day to say yes to supporting, through tax deductions, jobs coming back and additional incentives on top of that. I hope my colleagues will come together and very strongly vote yes on this measure so we can proceed to debate and to pass something that I know is strongly supported across our country.

Cloture Motion

Thank you, Mr. President. I wish to take a moment to speak about what just happened and my deep concern about what just happened with this vote.

On the one hand, we have 56 Members, a majority--a substantial majority of Members who voted yes, that they want to bring jobs home, that they want to stop paying for jobs that have been shipped overseas, and that we want to support and provide assistance through the Tax Code to bring jobs home. Fifty-six Members--that is a majority. What we didn't have is a supermajority to stop a filibuster.

So this is basically what has been happening here. We have a situation where, despite the will of the majority of the people here, the majority of Senators who want to move forward to this legislation and pass it, because we have 56 votes to pass it, we don't have a supermajority. This is what has been happening over and over in the Senate despite the fact that people want us to work together and get things done.

What we are trying to do--and we are going to continue to push forward--is to say very clearly to businesses that if they are going to close shop and ship jobs overseas, it is on their dime, not the American taxpayers' dime. We are not going to help pay for it. If they want to bring jobs back, we are happy to have our Tax Code allow businesses to write off those costs. In fact, we will give businesses an extra 20 percent toward those costs.

This is deeply concerning to me today. I think those watching around the country are probably scratching their heads or saying things that we probably can't say on the Senate floor about what in the world is going on when we can't come together on the simple premise that Americans should not be paying for jobs shipped overseas.

So we are going to keep at it until we get it done. What we ought to be unified around is having the words ``Made in America'' on everything again in this country. We are going to keep fighting until we can get that done.

Thank you, Mr. President.

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

Madam President, today we are debating a bill called the Bring Jobs Home Act. We live in serious times. We have a debt fast approaching $16 trillion, millions remain out of work, and economic and job growth has slowed to a crawl. Times such as these demand serious economic answers. So it is important that we all understand the utter lack of seriousness of this proposal. The only things serious about the Bring Jobs Home Act are its flaws.

The Bring Jobs Home Act would deny the deduction for ordinary and necessary business expenses to the extent that such expenses were incurred for outsourcing; that is, to the extent an employer incurred costs in relocating a business unit from the United States to outside the United States, the employer would be disallowed a deduction for any of the business expenses associated with such outsourcing.

The Bring Jobs Home Act would also create a new tax credit for insourcing; that is, if a company relocated a business unit from outside the United States to inside the United States, the business would be allowed a tax credit equal to 20 percent of the costs associated with such insourcing.

On the surface, this proposal might sound reasonable. As sound bites go, the President's reelection campaign and the Senate Democratic leadership have apparently decided they can make some political hay with this proposal, but as substantive tax policy goes, this proposal is a joke.

First of all, the amount of money involved is trifling. According to the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, this bill's deduction disallowance provision will only raise about $14 million per year. That is $14 million, not billion with a ``b,'' it is million with an ``m.'' Let's put that in perspective. This bill is supposedly a critical tax incentive to create jobs here in the United States. Yet, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, a nonpartisan committee, it will only raise about $14 million per year in this multitrillion-dollar economy. Meanwhile, President Obama's campaign has now spent $24 million on ads attacking his opponent and attacking what he considers to be outsourcing, which his opponent has not done.

The American people want us to address our fiscal situation and to create the conditions for robust economic and job growth. And how are the President and Senate Democrats spending their time? Advancing a proposal that raises less money in 1 year than the amount the President's campaign has spent attacking Republicans on this topic on television. If Democrats meant this as a serious revenue raiser for the government, we would all be better off if the Obama campaign had simply sent its $24 million to the Treasury Department for disbursement to insourcers rather than spend it on ads attacking American global businesses. And I think the President might get more credit for that.

Simply put, this bill is misleading. Its supporters would have you believe that under current law there is some special deduction that exists for moving jobs outside of the United States of America. That is simply false. Rather, there has always been a deduction allowed for a business's ordinary and necessary expenses, and expenses associated with moving have always been regarded as deductible business expenses. So allowing a deduction for these expenses is not a special thing, it is the rule. Disallowing this deduction would be the exception, an extraordinary deviation from current tax policy.

Yesterday I heard my friends from the other side say we need to end a tax deduction for jobs that a business sends overseas.

I have a letter from the Joint Committee on Taxation, addressed to the bill's authors, that includes an analysis of their bill and a score. I ask unanimous consent to have a copy of the letter printed in the Record.

Paragraph two of the letter says, and I quote:

Under present law, there are no specific tax credits or

disallowances of deductions solely for locating jobs in the

United States or overseas. Deductions generally are allowed

for all ordinary and necessary expenses paid or incurred by

the taxpayer during the taxable year in carrying on any trade

or business, which includes the relocation of business units.

Now, perhaps my friends on the other side take issue with a description of tax policy from Congress's nonpartisan official scorekeeper. Well, if they do, I invite them--or the President, for that matter--to show me the provision of the Internal Revenue Code that contains a special deduction for shipping jobs overseas.

Let me just mention that this is the Internal Revenue Code I have in my hand. It is getting so big you can hardly handle it. Maybe Joint Tax and I are wrong, so I will keep the Tax Code right at my desk, and if one of my friends wants to leaf through the Code and show me the section that provides a special deduction for shipping jobs overseas, I will stand corrected.

They cannot. It is not in here, this huge conglomerated mess that we would like to reform, which will not be reformed until there is a change in administration.

This administration is in the habit of pointing fingers every which way, blaming everyone but themselves for our weak economy and pathetic job growth. Just the other day the Treasury Secretary blamed Europe and rising oil prices for our economic slowdown. Yet he did not discuss the pall of uncertainty that Democratic politicians, including his boss, are putting over the economy with their refusal to extend the 2001 and 2003 tax relief unless they get their way on tax increases for small businesses.

According to an analysis by the American Action Forum, the fiscal cliff facing American taxpayers is now twice the size of total GDP growth this year. If we drive over this fiscal cliff, as the President and Senate Democratic leadership are now threatening, the likelihood that small businesses will hire will decrease by 18 percent, and the effective marginal tax rate for many workers and small businesses will go over 50 percent.

At least in part, and I would say in significant part, is the complete failure to provide certainty and progrowth tax policies to America's families and businesses that is dragging our economy down. Proposals such as the one before the Senate today are not helping either. They increase uncertainty for the businesses that will grow our economy and hire new workers.

It is another example of the Obama administration's ``Washington- knows-best philosophy.'' Disallowing the business expense deduction means income will now be measured less accurately. Gross receipts minus business expenses equals income. That is what both accountants and economists tell us. But even through economists, accountants and businesses all measure income one way, Washington will now measure it another way. Not only is this bad for business, but by disallowing deductions for certain business expenses, this proposal would measure income less accurately.

When the government's main source of revenue is income tax, it is rather important to measure income accurately. Ultimately, we know this bill is devoid of serious content because it is the product of political, not economic necessity. This bill is a sound bite, not sound tax policy. There really are not a lot of dots to connect.

Really, the genesis of this bill's prioritization can be traced in a straight line from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to the President's reelection headquarters in Chicago. This bill is called the Bring Jobs Home Act, but its Democratic proponents have not presented any evidence of the number of jobs, if any, that will return to America if the proposal becomes law.

During comments in support of the bill, the sponsor referred to a chart that said, ``[i]n the last decade, 2.4 million jobs were shipped overseas.'' But the sponsor tellingly did not say the bill will bring 2.4 million jobs back to America. The proponents of this bill have not even told us that jobs will return to America if this bill becomes law, much less how many jobs. The answer is probably none.

That is exactly the sort of question we would have explored had this bill been produced by the Senate Finance Committee rather than by some campaign consultant in Chicago. The Senate Finance Committee would have held hearings, we would have talked to the experts, and we would have looked at comments on both sides of the issue. Then we would probably have had a markup. It could have been brought to the floor with full Finance Committee support--except we would never pass a bill such as this in the Finance Committee, in my eyes. Well, not with any real good intent.

It is disappointing that even though the sponsor of this bill is a member of the Senate Finance Committee, the bill's sponsor chose to bypass that committee. This bill has come straight to the Senate floor without being vetted by the committee. Her colleagues on the committee would likely have had some valuable feedback for her. Both staffs on the committee would likely have had valuable expertise they could have brought to bear on this proposal. That is why I anticipate moving to commit this bill to the Senate Finance Committee.

How does this bill fit with tax reform? Many on the other side say they want tax reform. I think it is fair to say there is a consensus that tax reform means getting rid of tax expenditures so as to decrease tax rates. The mantra is broaden the base and lower the rates, but this proposal would create new tax expenditures. It would narrow the base.

Another major goal of tax reform is simplification, but this proposal would make the tax laws even more complicated. This proposal is the antithesis of true tax reform. Rather than coming up with more sticks to punish American businesses that compete globally, as this proposal does, we should be coming up with more carrots to encourage American businesses as well as foreign businesses to make America a more attractive place to expand, hire, and invest. Of course, the best way to do that, consistent with free-market principles, would be to lower the corporate tax rate.

By creating new tax expenditures, as this act would do, it becomes all the more difficult to lower the corporate tax rate. If we want businesses to locate and hire in the United States, then we need to do what we can to make sure they are glad they are incorporated in the United States and that their headquarters is in the United States.

As it stands right now, because of our worldwide tax regime, many global corporations have their parent company in the United States as a matter of historical accident. If they had to do it all over again, they very well might decide to incorporate elsewhere in the world. The way to address that, the way to make sure the United States is the place that global businesses want to incorporate is to transition our current worldwide system of taxation to a territorial tax system.

A territorial tax system would only tax businesses on the profits they make in the United States. This way businesses would not be discouraged from incorporating in the United States. If a business incorporates in the United States, all of its worldwide profits are subject to U.S. tax. It is certainly true that a territorial tax regime must be done right and that the devil is in the details, but it is also clear that territorial tax regime proposals could lead to greater investment in the United States and more headquarters jobs in the United States.

A territorial tax regime would put American businesses at a more competitive position when competing internationally. A territorial tax system would make us more consistent with major developed countries. So it is amazing that President Obama has decided to demagogue this issue as well, undermining the future jobs prospects of millions of Americans for years to come in order to secure his own job for another 4 years.

Not content to grossly misrepresent the issue of outsourcing, he is now doing the same with territorial taxation; that is, in spite of the fact that his own agencies have been for it.

And it's really quite strange. President Obama's Export Council, his Council on Jobs Competitiveness, his National commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, and his Steering Committee on Advanced Manufacturing have all recommended that make the U.S. more competitive it shift to taking income on a territorial basis. For a person who claimed last week that he just cares so darn much about policy, he has an odd way of showing it when he campaigns.

In the 2008 election, he fundamentally misled the American people about key aspects of the health care proposal put forward by my friend and colleague from Arizona, Senator McCain. In doing so, he kicked the legs out from a reasonable and growing consensus about how best to reform the Nation's health care system, and he did so only for his own political gain.

His selfish acts on a territorial tax system have a similar flavor, and they promise to make tax reform much more difficult in the future. It is hard to see how this President could lead the country on tax reform. He attacks territorial tax regimes with a $4.5 trillion tax increase looming at the end of the year, essentially freezing job creation and economic growth. His allies in the Senate are debating this effectively useless bill on outsourcing.

His administration called for the so-called Buffett tax, essentially creating a new alternative minimum tax that would provide trivial revenues and tax capital gains at higher rates than even President Carter wanted. Some say it would have given us maybe 8 days' of spending in Washington.

After waiting years for a corporate tax reform proposal, this past February President Obama's administration put out a series of bullet points, the so-called framework for corporate tax reform--all fluff and no details.

Tax reform is critical if we want our economy to grow and if we are going to get out of our current jobs deficit. But given this mediocre track record, I do not think the President can be relied upon to lead this Nation on this issue--not in 2012 and not in a second term either.

To the extent the President's tax agenda is not attributable to politics, it can be blamed on his odd view of our economy and the businesses that grow it. I think it is fair to say the President's world view is fundamentally out of step with that of ordinary American taxpayers. Just the other day, while campaigning in Virginia, the President laid out his economic vision, channeling the economic know- how of Harvard Law's faculty lounge. He told the crowd, ``If you've got a business--you didn't build that, somebody else made that happen.'' As Charles Krauthammer put it, spoken by a man who never created or ran so much as a candy store.

I do not want to demean candy stores, but that is a fact. The President made clear for all to see just what he thinks of all the hard-working, risk-taking entrepreneurs who sacrifice daily to build their businesses. His perception is that the hard work and sacrifice of those business owners and their families has nothing to do with their success. Any success they have is owing to good luck and big government, the fact that we have built some roads and so forth.

My guess is that not only American business owners, but most Americans disagree fundamentally with this assessment. The President clearly does not understand or deliberately ignores economic incentives and the way they lead to business growth and job creation. This is certainly on display in the policy that will forever define this President, ObamaCare. Good intentions are not enough, and ObamaCare's small business tax credit is a case in point.

This credit was designed to encourage small employers to offer health insurance. The promise was that over 4 million employers would claim $2 tax in credits to help pay for health insurance. In reality, only 309,000 taxpayers claimed the credit for a total of less than $466 million.

Why was the credit such a failure at achieving its well-intentioned goal? Well, a picture is worth 1,000 words. So please look at this chart.

Can you imagine what a business owner must think when they encounter an administrative nightmare like all of this? The ObamaCare tax credit for small businesses gives redtape a bad name. Talk about a bureaucratic straightjacket. No wonder the business community has failed to embrace ObamaCare.

This issue of ObamaCare's manipulation of the Tax Code and its historic tax increases are deserving of extended remarks. For now, let me just say we should be pursuing laws that will help not harm businesses and middle-class taxpayers. The bill we are discussing on the floor today, like ObamaCare, is not going to help.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to enter into a colloquy with my colleagues.

Mr. President, I rise to talk about an issue that is of deep concern to our country, one of the greatest national security threats facing our country right now; that is, what is called sequestration.

To bring that down to plain terms for the American people, our Department of Defense is facing an additional $500 billion across-the- board meat ax in cuts in addition to the already planned $487 billion in reduction over the next 10 years if we do not act as a Senate, as a Congress, and if the Commander in Chief does not act to come up with more responsible ways to cut spending.

We all know we have a nearly $16 trillion debt. We all know debt threatens our country not only as a national security threat but also as a threat to the quality of life of my children--I am the mother of a 7-year-old and a 4-year-old--and future generations in this country. However, what we did last August was a kick-the-can exercise, where we left it to a supercommittee to come up with $1.2 trillion in savings, rather than sitting down and coming up with the savings we should have at the time.

So where we are left is with a meat-ax, across-the-board approach, instead of prioritizing our spending, and we are putting at risk the most fundamental constitutional responsibility we have to the American people; that is, to keep them safe.

Daniel Webster, who was born in New Hampshire, served as a Senator from Massachusetts, was a great statesman, said in 1834: ``God grants liberty only to those who love it and are always ready to guard and defend it.''

We know from our men and women in uniform that they have been there for us to guard and defend this great Nation--not only the current men and women who serve but generations of brave men and women have served our country. Where we are right now, we do a disservice to them not to resolve this sequestration, these across-the-board cuts, by coming up with alternative spending reductions, which we can do.

To put it in perspective, 1 year of sequestration is about $109 billion, and that also covers nondefense. If we could live within our means for 1 month with this government, we could come up with the spending reductions. We need to do that on behalf of our Department of Defense and for the American people.

Some of the things that have been said about the impact of these across-the-board cuts:

Our Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has said we will face the potential for increased conflict. He also said: ``We are living in the most dangerous times in my lifetime, right now''--meaning, right now. ``I think sequestration would be completely oblivious to that, and counterproductive.''

We also know every leader of our military from every branch has spoken to both the House Armed Services Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee. What they have said is shocking and should be a wakeup call to Members of both sides of the aisle, that we owe it to our military and to the American people to address it.

Just some of the things that have been said about sequestration:

The Chief of Naval Operations has said: We will do ``irreversible damage'' to our Navy. ``It will hollow out the military, and we will be out of balance in manpower, both military and civilian, procurement and modernization.''

The Chief of Staff of the Army has said: It ``would be catastrophic to the military . . . '' and we will ``reduce our capability and capacity to assure our partners abroad, respond to crises, and deter our potential adversaries,'' while threatening our readiness.

The Air Force Chief of Staff has said:

We will be left with a military with aging equipment,

extremely stressed human resources with less than adequate

training and ultimately declining readiness and

effectiveness.

As I said yesterday on this floor, the Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps has said that the Marine Corps will be unable to respond to one major conflict on behalf of this country.

There are many things we can predict. One of the things we know we can predict is what is going to happen with sequestration. We know that if we do not address our debt now, we will be facing the fate of Europe. But one thing we have been very bad at predicting is where the next conflict will come from for our country, where the next threat our country will face will come from. If our Marine Corps is unprepared to respond to one major contingency, our country is at risk. That is why we need to address this.

It is not only the impact on our men and women in uniform--from the Chief of Staff, from the Commandant of the Marine Corps, of all the branches that have spoken--but I had the chance to participate in a panel yesterday, to hear the concerns of our enlisted about this. I heard from the former head, the top enlisted person in the Marine Corps, Sergeant Major Kent. He expressed deep concern that we would be breaking faith with our troops. Our military leaders have expressed real concerns that we will not only undermine our national security, but we will fail to keep faith with those who have sacrificed so much for our country and to whom we owe everything.

In addition to the dire national security impacts of allowing this irresponsible across-the-board approach to occur in January, we also know there are nearly 1 million jobs at issue. In fact, yesterday, before the House Armed Services Committee, the CEOs of some of our major defense employers testified. In fact, the CEO of Lockheed Martin Bob Stevens said:

I have spent decades of my professional working life in the

national security arena and I have never been as concerned

over the risk to the health of our industry and our

Government [as now].

He said:

The effects of sequestration are being felt, right now,

throughout our industry. Every month that goes by without a

solution is a month of additional uncertainty, deferred

investment, lost talent and ultimately increased cost.

You see, it is not just our service men and women who keep our country safe, it is those who work to make sure we have the right equipment, that we have the best technology, that we have the best capability of gathering intelligence to prevent future attacks against our country.

Our defense industrial base is incredibly important--not to mention 1 million jobs at issue.

Yesterday, Dave Hess, president of Pratt & Whitney and chairman of the Aerospace Industries Association, said:

As an industry, we are already seeing the impact of

potential sequestration budget cuts today. Companies are

limiting hiring and halting investments--largely due to the

uncertainty about how sequestration cuts would be applied.

A small business owner, Della Williams--it is not just our large employers, a lot of small businesses make parts for our weapons systems, for our equipment for our military. They cannot take this uncertainty we have created for them in Congress, and these cuts, and many of them will be forced to go out of business.

Della Williams said:

What is being billed as a stop-gap budget fix will have

lasting effects on our defense capabilities for years to

come. The switch will not just get flipped back on to reverse

that trend.

Moreover, the deep personnel and program cuts will threaten

our national security. Indeed, the United States could lose

our technological and strategic advantage and never get it

back.

This is why this is so important.

By the way, yesterday the CEO of Lockheed Martin had to issue-- believed he had to issue a memo to his employees. In that memo his employees will receive, he said:

We believe sequestration is the single greatest challenge

facing our company and our industry. Defense Secretary Leon

Panetta has said sequestration will have catastrophic

consequences for our nation's defense. . . . With little

guidance from the government on the specifics of

sequestration, it is difficult to determine the impact . . .

on our employees.

He said: We do know that we have a responsibility to tell you that you could potentially be laid off and that we have a duty to issue what are called Warn Act notices now.

Under Federal law, these defense employers are going to have to, 60 days before January 1, issue potential layoff notices to their employees. Of course, that will also create lots of uncertainty and consternation in many American families, which is unnecessary if we would come to the table right now and address this issue.

We can find spending reductions that do not threaten our national security. Just to put a couple of numbers in perspective, some States just had in job losses on this: Virginia, according to AIA--there was a new report issued this week done by George Mason University--Virginia: 136,000 defense industrial base jobs; Florida, 41,000; Pennsylvania, 39,000; my home State of New Hampshire, just on the defense end, 3,600 jobs.

We owe it to the American people to act now. This is too important to be used as a bargaining chip in December because people want to use it to put our national security at risk because of other issues they want addressed. We have always treated national security as a bipartisan issue in this Chamber. I hope we will not use our Department of Defense and put our men and women in uniform in this uncertain position. We need to let them know we have their back. As Members of Congress, we should be together right now, sitting at the table, resolving this, coming up with alternative spending reductions.

I also call on the President as Commander in Chief of this country to lead that effort, to stop sitting on the sidelines. This is too important to the security of the United States of America.

I see my colleague from South Dakota here today, John Thune, who is a leader in our conference, someone who I know has been very focused on this issue.

I ask Senator Thune, yesterday the House was focusing on this issue. We know there were hearings before the House Armed Services Committee. In fact, we should point out that the House, through reconciliation, has already passed a bill to address sequestration, to make sure our national security is protected. They have done that. It has not been taken up in the Senate yet, unfortunately. I call on the majority leader of the Senate to act now because the House has passed something.

Yesterday, they also held a hearing. The House passed another measure by 414 to 2 that is called the Sequestration Transparency Act. It is a companion bill to one Senator Thune introduced in this Chamber. I know how focused he has been on this issue. The Senate passed a similar amendment to the farm bill.

One of the issues we saw from the CEOs who testified yesterday, from our defense industrial bases, the Department of Defense, OMB--they have gotten no guidance on where these cuts will be implemented. Therefore, I know that yesterday the House actually passed this act to address that piece of it.

I ask, does the Senator from South Dakota agree that the Senate should immediately pass the legislation he introduced, this bipartisan House bill that is coming over, a version, so that we, the American people, can know right away--have the agencies tell them specifically what the impacts of sequestration are? Of course, most important, we need to address this before the elections because we should not play political football with this.

With that, I ask the Senator from South Dakota what he thinks we should do here in the Senate right now.

I would say my colleague from South Dakota is absolutely right. If we had done a budget for this country and the Senate Budget Committee functioned in the way it was intended to function, then we would not be in this situation in the first place. If we did regular budgeting and if we did the responsible thing for our country--as every business does, as every family does; on an annual basis we are supposed to do it as opposed to it being over 3 years since we have had a budget--then we would not be in this situation right now where our Department of Defense is at risk. I know the Senator from South Dakota voted for a budget the House passed, and I did as well. Had that budget passed, then the House did its job. Had we done that, we wouldn't be here with sequestration today. We are doing what we owe to the American people. If we can't do a budget for this country, how are we going to get the trillion dollar deficit in check?

Unfortunately, we know why we don't have a budget. The majority leader of the Senate has not shown the

leadership he should because he said it would be foolish for us to pass a budget and has not allowed the Senate Budget Committee--the Senator is right, I am not sure why we have that committee. I have been on there for a year and half. We have not marked up a budget. We have not done it, and that is because the majority leader of the Senate has said it would be foolish for us to do a budget. Why? Because when we do a budget, we do have to make choices, as families and businesses do, and prioritize where we are going to spend the money and the taxpayer dollars that are sent to Washington by our constituents, the American people. Where we are today is unfortunate. Had we done that, then I don't think we would be in the position we are with sequestration.

I thank my colleague from South Dakota for his leadership on this issue, and I too hope we will get that passed immediately in the Senate, and that we have clarity from our Department of Defense as well as the nondefense agencies so the American people can know what the real impact is; also, so we can act immediately. I can't emphasize enough that this needs to be done before the elections. We need to do it before the elections because we have already--I talked about some of the testimony from the CEOs from our defense industrial base, and there will be, unfortunately, layoff notices which will have to be issued because of responsibilities they have under Federal law. Let's face it, we should not have this cloud of uncertainty for our men and women in uniform, many of whom have served multiple tours for us and defended our country so admirably and so courageously. That is why I think this is an issue that deserves action now and should not be used as a bargaining chip for other issues. This is an area we have always, on a bipartisan basis, been able to do. For example, I serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee. We voted out the Defense authorization bill unanimously. Well, this is an issue I hope we would be unanimous on and that we are not

going to break faith with our men and women in uniform, we are not going to put our country in jeopardy, and I am hopeful we will also see leadership.

I call upon the President again to be a leader here, to be the Commander in Chief of this country and to call us to action to resolve this before the election.