Comprehensive Student Loan Protection Act

Mr. President, I somewhat associate myself with the remarks of the Senator from Louisiana. We have unwound because we don't want to have real debates and real votes. We just fixed the flood insurance program. We didn't fix it well enough, and if Senator Landrieu is allowed her amendment, I will vote against it, but I think she ought to be able to have her amendment.

The reason the Senate isn't working is because we want to use a procedure that has never before been used except in the last 2 or 3 years in this body, and that is to limit the rights of Senators to offer amendments.

The fact is that Senator Landrieu may, in fact, win her amendment, but there is another chance. The House may not go along with it. There will be a conference committee. It may not go anywhere. She didn't win this when we fixed the flood insurance. She wasn't for us raising it to the extent we did. We didn't raise it nearly enough to make it healthy yet. And delaying the 3 years will markedly hurt the Flood Insurance Program, which is operated through FEMA, and I am the ranking member on that subcommittee. But the fact is that she ought to be able to offer her amendment. I agree with that.

So what I am going to do is painfully go through and talk about every amendment I have for the farm bill. I understand there will be objections. If there are objections to mine--and even if the Landrieu amendment gets cleared, I am going to object to everybody else's until mine are cleared.

So we can either keep going around in this circle or we can start acting like grownups and have debate. Even if a Member doesn't like an amendment, we can vote on it. And if a Member is not capable of defending their vote on any issue, they don't have any business being here in the first place.

But to not vote, to not allow the managers of the bill to operate the bill the way they want to operate it and put it on the table--because the majority leader is going to file cloture, and so all of these amendments are going to fall, which may be pleasing to the managers--I don't know--and only the germane amendments are going to be available, and they are going to be under a time constraint. So the American people are actually going to get cheated out of a full and rigorous debate on what ought to be changed in this bill.

So I am going to act as though the amendments are approved even though they are not, and I am going to debate the amendments. I am going to propose every one of them, and I am going to let the Senator from Louisiana object, and then she can explain to her constituents the dysfunction of the Senate. It does not just happen on the Republican side, I would remind my colleague from Louisiana. There are plenty of unilateral objections on the other side. And if we are going to operate this way, then nothing is going to happen in the Senate.

With that, I will begin.

I will be happy to yield for a question.

I agree.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and Coburn amendment No. 1003 be called up.

Mr. President, I am going to talk about this amendment. This is an amendment that prohibits--let me set the stage for it. We are going to have somewhere between a $500 billion and $700 billion deficit. We have $17.5 trillion worth of debt today. What this amendment does is it prohibits people who are tax evaders from receiving government assistance, including grants, contracts, loans, and tax credits provided in the farm bill, with the exception of SNAP. So we are still going to take care of the food provision. Even if they refuse to pay their taxes, we are going to still provide them food. But we are not going to allow them, with this amendment, to take advantage of other programs within the farm bill or any other area that is associated with direct grants or associated with the Agriculture bill.

The most critical issues facing our country today--and everybody knows how to solve it. We know what has to be done to save Medicare. We know what has to be done to save Social Security. We know we need to reform the Tax Code so we generate more jobs, we generate more income to the Federal Government. We know all that. But we have billions of dollars that are owed--it is not being contested; it is owed--and then we turn around to those same people who owe us billions of dollars and give them programs and benefits. Whether it be conservation payments or whether it be crop insurance or whatever it is, we turn around and give them money. I think the average tax-paying American does not agree with that.

Part of being a responsible citizen is paying the taxes you owe. We are not talking about things that are in dispute. We are talking about settled agreements that are not paid, and they continue to not be paid, and it is billions of dollars.

This provision would not apply if the individual is currently paying the taxes, interest, and penalties that are owed to the IRS: if the individual and the IRS have worked out a compromise on the amount of taxes, interest, and penalties and it is in the process of being repaid; if the individual has not exhausted his or her right to due process under the law; if the individual has filed a joint return and successfully contends that he or she should not be fully liable for the taxes in a joint return because of something the other party to the return did or did not do. Further, this provision would not apply to SNAP payments provided in the bill.

Farm income is subject to very little scrutiny and reporting requirements. In fact, there was a 78-percent reporting gap in farm income reported to the IRS just last year--a 78-percent gap. This is by far the largest gap in individual income reporting to the IRS.

In a time of strict budgets and when many in Washington are calling for an increase in revenue, it is inappropriate for us to continue to provide funding to individuals who owe back taxes and are not in compliance with their obligations. Total taxes owed in the United States in 2006 were $2.66 trillion. The gross tax gap for that year-- taxes owed but not collected--was $450 billion. The net tax gap in 2006--taxes still not paid after late payments enforced--was still $385 billion. Now the President wants another $600 billion or $800 billion. What we have to do is start figuring out ways to collect the taxes that are owed.

According to the Internal Revenue Service, the difference between the amount legally owed in taxes and the amount actually collected was this $385 billion. That is the most recent year the IRS can give us--5-year- old data. Mr. President, $28 billion that was owed was because people failed to file. Underpayment was $46 billion, and intentional underreporting of income was $376 billion.

So what this amendment does is it just puts a prohibition in place. It says: You cannot have this money if you owe X money and it is settled, it is not under dispute. So it is not about not giving people their rights. It has already been adjudicated. Why would we not want to do that with the farm bill? Can you think of a reason why we would not want the people who owe taxes, who already have agreed they owe the taxes--that we are going to give them money, and they are not going to pay the taxes they owe the Federal Government?

It is a commonsense amendment. We are not going to get a vote on that, and we are not going to get a vote on it because we have cowardly Members of the Senate--and I am not talking about the Senator from Louisiana--who refuse to come down here and voice their objections to bills and refuse to debate why they will not allow an amendment that does something for the future, that actually will make a difference in a kid's life in the future, that will actually increase some income so we can afford the Flood Insurance Program we have. They will not come down and debate it and express an opinion why they will not allow a vote on it. It dishonors the Senate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and amendment No. 1004 be called up.

Mr. President, this amendment ends conservation payments to millionaires--people who make a million bucks a year.

We have a rule at the USDA that says people making $1 million a year are not supposed to get these payments. But guess what the USDA does. They waive the rule. What this amendment would do is say you cannot waive the rule.

If you, again, are talking about our debt, the very well-heeled, the very well-connected are getting a majority of the conservation payments in this country. They are the ones most capable of doing conservation on their own land, and do, but now they do it with the assistance of my or the President pro tempore's grandchildren because what we are actually doing is paying them dollars that our grandkids are going to have to pay back. What we are doing with this program is incentivizing people to do what they are already going to do in their best interests.

All I am saying is, enforce the rule, the law today. Do not give the Department of Agriculture the ability to waive. If somebody is making $1 million a year, they do not need our help right now. Our kids need that help, our grandkids need that help, our schools need that help. They do not need that help.

Absolutely.

Well, Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the committee. I will double-check that with my staff. This excludes something that was in the bill, so I will have to look at what the old bill said to be able to concur with that. If that is the case, then there should not be any problem with accepting this amendment if, in fact, it is not complete because it is the intent of the authors--both the chair and the ranking member--that this limitation be a part of this farm bill.

I thank the chairman of the committee.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and amendment No. 1005 be called up.

Mr. President, 3\1/2\ years ago, with the debt limit increase, my colleagues and I overwhelmingly voted to ask the GAO to study duplicative programs in the Federal Government. This last April they gave the third in what will be a continuing rollout of the programs in the Federal Government.

I will say that the Director of the OMB followed another amendment that I offered directing that all the programs of the Federal Government be published. They made their first stab at that. This was last week. Director Burwell, in whom I have the utmost confidence at OMB--a stellar individual--made the first attempt. The problem is, what is a program in the Federal Government? There is no definition. So we have a rough start in an attempt to do that.

But what the GAO has done--and they are magnificent employees--over the last 3\1/2\ years is identified at least $250 billion of waste and duplication that we ought to be getting rid of.

Here is an amendment that is not highly prescriptive but recognizes what GAO told us about food assistance programs--domestic food assistance programs. We did not make any attempt in this bill to streamline those or consolidate them or put metrics on them. So this amendment tries to bring that together through the USDA to put, No. 1, metrics on them; and, No. 2, combine the ones that are duplicative so we can actually be effective in what we intend them to be, but also be efficient.

Those are two words that hardly ever happen in Washington, ``efficiency'' and ``effectiveness.'' GAO found signs of overlap and inefficient use of the resources within the 18 different programs. Now, we have 18 different programs. Three of them are outside of the Department of Agriculture. One of them is in Homeland Security.

First of all, there should not be a food assistance program in the Department of Homeland Security. Two of them are at HHS. We should not have duplicative bureaucracies in those other two departments when we have a bureaucracy in Agriculture. But of those 18 programs, what they found was the following: In 11 of the 18 programs, there was not enough research to even determine whether the programs were effective.

We do not know if what we are doing is working because never when we pass these programs do we require a metric or some type of method to assess their effectiveness. So that is one of the things this amendment will do. It allows the Department of Agriculture to do that. As a matter of fact, it mandates it. Is it effective? What parameters are you using to say it is effective? In other words, if the American taxpayers are going to spend money on this program, ought they to know whether it works? I mean, only in Washington do we do programs and not know whether they work and not ask whether they work.

So in 11 of the 18 programs there is not enough knowledge even at the Department of Agriculture to know whether they are working. This amendment requires the Department of Agriculture to evaluate the following 10 programs: Child and Adult Care Food Program, the Community Food Projects Competitive Grant Program, the Emergency Food and Shelter National Board Program, the Grants to the American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian Program, the Organizations for Nutrition and Support Services Program, the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations, the Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Program, the Senior Farmer Market Nutrition Program, the Summer Food Service Program, the Emergency Food Assistance Program, and the WIC Farmers Nutritional Program.

Now, let me just mention one of these. The Summer Food Service Program, as announced by KOTV in Tulsa, OK, just last night, no matter who you are they are going to feed you two meals a day in the summer, whether you make $100,000 a year or whether you are in need of a meal. So, first of all, we have a problem with that program. We ought to be supplying food for people who need food, not for people who do not need food. Smart people are going to take advantage of that and say: Man, I can get two meals a day. I am not in need, but since it is free I am going to take it.

Last summer we served 180,000 meals in Tulsa. A large proportion of those were not people in need. So I have no objection to helping people who have need, but here is a program that has no limits on it and no metrics on it. It is a wide open program--well intentioned, but there is not a metric and there is not a limitation.

So here is all we are saying with this amendment: Here are 10 programs, Department of Agriculture. Determine whether they are effective. And, by the way, how did you determine that? What were the parameters you used to do that?

That is just common sense. Why would we not want to know if the programs are working? Why would we not want to know if they are efficient and

effective? Why shouldn't we look at it when we are running--we are down to 24 cents on the dollar that we are just borrowing against our kids' future from 48. That is because of the economy growing last year to the tune of $360 billion coming in, and $620 billion over the next 10 years in tax increases on the very wealthy in this country. So we are down to 24 cents, but we are still borrowing 24 cents out of every dollar we spend. Why would we not want to spend the time to make sure these programs are effective and efficient?

It is very straightforward. This amendment also eliminates one program, the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, and moves any incomplete or ongoing projects to the appropriate USDA programs. USDA proposed eliminating this program which targets low-income pregnant women, children, persons age 60 or over, but Congress continued to fund the program. The reason they wanted to get rid of it is because there are already programs that duplicate this one. Yet here we find it is still going to get funded. It is going to get authorized. Even USDA says we do not need this program.

It is the only program we have--in 2012, the program was funded at $177 million, and it duplicates SNAP, Grants to Native Americans, the Home Delivered Nutrition Program. In other words, USDA already recognizes it is a duplicative program. They have asked for it to be eliminated. We did not eliminate it. So this amendment would eliminate it.

This amendment also eliminates the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program and moves the nonduplicate function to the WIC Farmers Nutrition Program. Both of these programs do exactly the same thing. They provide grants to participating States to offer vouchers and coupons and electronic benefit cards to low-income participants that may be used in farmers' markets, roadside stands, and other approved venues to purchase fresh produce.

They provide exactly the same assistance to women, children, and seniors and should be combined. GAO says they should be combined. USDA says they should be combined. But they are not combined in the bill. All cost savings from the elimination of those consolidations and three eliminations are directed toward providing food assistance. In other words, none of the money comes back out. It goes back into programs that have proven to be effective.

This amendment also directs the USDA to coordinate with the Health and Human Services Administration on Aging to identify and address fragmentation, overlap, and duplication between the programs providing food services on Indian reservations where we have a real need. So we are not just looking for duplication, we are looking for gaps in service.

It also requires them to report their recommendations back to Congress. Since I do not want to use my big slides today I will use my small slides.

Here are the food assistance programs, all 18 of them. Fifteen are run at the Department of Agriculture, two are run through HHS, and one through Homeland Security. Yet GAO says we can collapse these 18 into 10 and be more effective and get better nutrition to the people in at- risk groups. We have not done it. So it is like we asked GAO to do all of this work, and then we did not pay any attention to it.

I ask that the pending amendment be set aside and amendment No. 1006 be called up.

I will yield for a question, but I will not yield the floor. I will be happy to yield for a question.

I would respond to the Senator from Louisiana, I have no ill will toward her objection. I stated it plainly before. I believe the Senate ought to have any and all amendments prior to cloture. I think Senators have the right to offer anything they think is pertinent to this country on any bill that is going through here. I used that tactic for the first 3 years I was in the Senate. Nobody objected. Now that we have become so partisan and so cowardly that we are afraid to vote on issues, and that we abuse the rights in the Senate to the detriment of the whole body, I hold no ill will against the Senator for objecting.

The point is, is the country worse off for it? I am sure some of my colleagues do not want to have to vote on some of my amendments. I understand that. There are amendments I do not like voting on either, but I have no problem going home and taking a stand. The fact is we can figure out what we are for and what we are against. You know, the fact is, when it goes through here it does not mean it is law. What it means is it has to be conferenced with the House. We ought to let it roll. We ought to open the spigot and let things roll in the Senate, have the votes.

We used to have 10 and 12 votes at a time. We used to do bills. Come down and all morning long we would be offering amendments. We would have committee hearings and other things in the afternoon. At 4 o'clock we would come down and vote, 9, 10, 8 amendments. The next day we would do the same thing. The next day we would do the same thing.

So the fact is, if we really want to get our country back, if we really want the confidence of the American people to return to those who represent them in Washington, we have to start saying, you know, you cannot win everything. I am going to try. If I lose, I lose. But I tried hard. That is how we ought to play the game.

The fact that we have people abusing the process on both sides, not just one side--I will never forget, former Senator Akaka, one of the loveliest men I have ever met in my life, when I first came to the Senate and offered an amendment that was not germane, he objected to it. One of my colleagues stood up and said: Senator Akaka, do you really mean that? You have to understand where that starts. If you object to his amendment, that means in the future I am going to be objecting to your amendment, and we have not done that. What we actually want is a free-wheeling, open amendment process so people can be heard.

The fact is I represent 4 million people. The Senators from California represent 37 million. Everybody's voice ought to be heard. We each ought to be able to have our voice heard. We each ought to be able to offer amendments. We ought to be able to get votes on those amendments. What are we afraid of? Is the next election really that important that we do not want to allow people to offer their ideas, in what used to be the greatest deliberative body? It certainly is not now. It is not anywhere close. Do we really not want ideas to be offered and debated and the American people to understand what is at stake?

I mean, what I have offered today maybe not everybody would agree with, but you cannot disagree that it does not make sense; that it is not common sense; that we should not be more efficient and more effective; that we should worry about the future as we worry about the present; that we ought not to be spending 24 cents out of every dollar by borrowing it from other people in the world or having Ben Bernanke print it at the Federal Reserve.

We can solve these problems. The grown-ups need to stand and say we are going to have debate, we are going to have amendments, even if we do not like them.

So I have no ill will toward the Senator from Louisiana. I have ill will for the process that has devolved. I think the shame is that the American people are being shortchanged by the lack of debate and lack of votes.

I think this amendment, even though objected to, is another critical area where we do not have our eye on the ball. This is an amendment that relates to the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program. What it does is in this bill it has been increased, the amount of money has been increased to $70 million a year. It was at $55 million in 2012. There is nothing wrong with having this block grant program, but I want to show you how we can save $75 million over the next 5 years. And $75 million is not chump change, it is $75 million.

The amendment freezes spending for the specialty crop block grant at $55 million authorized by the bill. The amendment prioritizes food safety and access to affordable foods for schoolchildren and low-income families. One-third of the projects funded by the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program last year were for marketing and promotion. They were not for kids, they were not for seniors, they were spending money to promote.

Let me show you who got the money. Let's see. We spent money to promote the emotional benefits of real flowers and plants in the home. That has to be a priority right now; is it not? We are going to borrow $500 billion this year. We are going to spend money to make sure everyone in America knows the emotional value of having real flowers and plants in the home. That is a priority right now. How about grant funds for floats that travel to fairs and festivals and encourage people to eat more fruits and vegetables? That has to be a priority. We are going to pay for a float that goes around to all these festivals so we can promote eating. People know about eating properly. Could we spend that dollar in a better way and get a better effect?

How about wine receptions and tasting? By the way, the Market Access Program already covers it, but we take money from this block grant program and promote wines in China and in Taiwan. We do it also with the Market Access Program. Here is an absolute direct duplication. We are spending millions of dollars promoting something that another program is designed to promote, and we didn't do anything about that.

How about a short video showcasing pear growers and promoting State wines in Mexico and in India? Again, duplication of what the Market Access Program does, but we take from the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program. We have one program for market access and promotion and then we take a different program and use it for exactly the same thing.

Specifically, the amendment requires that no less than 80 percent of the total funding appropriated for the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program be spent on the following: increasing access, availability and affordability of specialty crops for children, youth, families and others at risk, including but not limited to specialty crops for meals served at schools and food banks; ensuring food safety; protecting crops from plant pests and disease; and production of specialty crops.

That is what it was originally set up for, by the way. It wasn't set up to promote wines in India or China or Taiwan or Brazil or Mexico. So part of it is the way we wrote the bill that allows USDA to give grants that go outside the original purposes of it. Funds could still be spent on marketing promotion but not at the expense of crops and consumers.

I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and Coburn amendment No. 1007 be called up.

I would be happy to yield a limited time for the Senator to ask for unanimous consent.

I yield to the chairman of the committee.

Mr. President, I think I am starting to hear the Senate starting to work the way it should, and so I am going to offer a unanimous consent request that the list she presently has, with the ranking member, the Senator from Mississippi, of a large number of amendments be considered as read and in order; that the list the Senator proffered, which went through both cloakrooms this afternoon, I ask unanimous consent that be agreed to and those be filed and considered.

Since objection is heard, it was my understanding the Senator from Michigan had an agreed-upon list that was sent to both cloakrooms.

Failing that, what I would propose, based on what I have heard out here this afternoon, is that the chairman put it together and let's try it and let's ask unanimous consent.

The fact is the chairman and ranking member of this committee have worked hard to get this bill. We can do this bill. But one thing the Senator said in her statement is she wants a finite list. That is fine. What we want to do is have an open amendment process. So as the Senator considers that, let's move it.

Here is what will happen, and here is what used to happen in the Senate, for my colleagues who are new. People file all sorts of amendments, including me, and about half of them we wouldn't bring up. So we don't know in this universe of 150 how many are truly serious, how many are done filing an amendment and made a statement, such as I did on one amendment changing the name of SNAP. I have no intention of calling that up, but I wished to make a statement about whether it is really nutrition--the Supplemental Nutrition Access Program. So I would suggest the chairman and ranking member put that out there. Give it to me and let me offer a unanimous consent request on the floor live. We have had a great debate. We understand what the problems are. Let's start voting. Let's start debating and voting.

When we consider all the time huddled in a group of staffers, we don't do anything. We don't debate the bill, we don't vote the bill, and so, consequently, the American people get shortchanged. So I will offer that unanimous consent request. I will not even participate in what is in the mix. I believe the process ought to move forward, whether I win or not. The fact is it is selfishness on the part of our colleagues, because they do not want to vote on something, that keeps us from doing the country's work.

I believe we are at a seminal moment right now in the Senate where we can change what is happening in this body if, in fact, we will lead in doing that. I know the President pro tempore wants to see that happen. I believe my colleague from Michigan wants to see that happen. I know the ranking member has had that philosophy for years in the Senate. He taught it to me. I learned that from him.

I offered a lot of amendments that he opposed and didn't like, some of them affecting Mississippi, and he beat me every time. But he never said, You can't offer the amendment.

I think we are at a seminal moment. Let's start moving things. What I will do is call on the ranking member and the chairman: Give me that list. Let me go fight for it. Let's break this beaver dam in the Senate, and let's start acting like grownups here.

I would be willing to yield for a question.

I know there is a question in there somewhere.

That is correct.

Mr. President, I have a unanimous consent, and I want to preface this unanimous consent. There are 150 amendments, I think the chairman said, or thereabouts. A lot of those aren't going to require votes; some are. I ask unanimous consent that every amendment that has been filed at this point be considered as read and considered debatable and votable.

If an objection is heard--I retain my time.

I would appreciate my time.

Let me make this point. If the Senator from Michigan wouldn't have objected, we could start voting tonight, we could vote tomorrow, we could get through those. Half of those will be pulled, and we would be almost to the same number of votes you would have had, that you did have, the last time the bill came to the floor. So do we really want to break this logjam? Let me offer it again. We can move this thing. Let's just do it. Let's go out and vote. Let's take the tough votes. Some of us are going to get bruised. Big deal. We are all grownups. Let's have the votes. Let's move amendments. Let's debate in the Senate. Let's do the country's business. Instead, we are not going to do it.

There is a compromise. More than half of those will be withdrawn. My colleagues know that. Let's put them all in order. Let's vote them, let's take care of it, and let's be grown up and get the Senate back to where it is supposed to be.

I am going to offer my unanimous consent one more time, that every amendment that has been filed today as of now be considered as read and pending.

Mr. President, fair and balanced consideration to our colleagues is allowing them to have amendments, and the Senator just objected to that. So that is where we are. That doesn't keep her from managing the bill. The Senator still gets to set the priorities of what comes up when. But here lies the problem in the Senate: There are obviously some amendments in there they don't want to vote on; otherwise, we would not have heard an objection. So it is not just Senator Toomey, who has now said he would not object to Senator Landrieu's amendment, it is other objections of people who won't come down here to the floor and show their constituency what they are objecting to. In other words, it is darkness. It is not light, it is not transparency, it is not of good character, it is not of good moral fiber. What it is, is the least of these, the lowest of these, who refuse to participate in an open and honest debate about what is going to happen in our country.

I call on all my colleagues, Republican and Democrat alike. We know what has to happen to open the Senate. Let's vote. Let's vote. For my colleagues on the Republican side objecting, I disagree. Go ahead and vote. For my colleagues on the Democratic side, let's vote. Let the chips fall. The American people decide who is to come up here. Gaming this system by hiding behind an anonymous objection, putting it through the chairman--I am proud to see the Senator from Louisiana. She came down here, she showed courage and said, Here is why I am doing it. She spoke honestly to her constituents back home and also to the Members of this body. We don't have enough of that.

We had an opportunity just then to move this bill, restore the Senate to the way it should function, and we chose not to do it. The American people have got to be shaking their head right now in disgust, because had the time been spent, instead of figuring out what is OK and what is not OK, actually debating and then voting amendments, we could have voted 30 or 40 amendments by now on this bill. But we chose not to do it. Some of us chose not to do it.

Kindergarten is out around most of the rest of the country, except in the Senate, and it is still in session here. We ought to be disgusted with ourselves, and the American people ought to be disgusted with us as well, because we are not allowing this body to do what our Founders intended it to do. I am going to spend a minute talking about that.

This place is very different than the House. No matter who is in charge, the tendency is to overuse the power of the majority. But what our Founders intended was the Senate to be totally different than the House. The reason 6-year terms were put there was so you wouldn't be susceptible to the political influence of reelection, so you would become a long-term thinker, and that your motivation would be primarily a motivation for the best will of this country and not your State or your political career.

The assessment of the Senate today is that we have lost our focus. It is about politics, not our country. It is about the short term, not the long term. It is about anything but the best interests of the country.

Here we have commonsense amendments. I appreciate the fact that the chairman and ranking member have included some of mine in what they were proffering, but let's include them all. What is so bad about voting on a stupid amendment? If it is really stupid, they are either going to withdraw it or lose big. If it is really controversial, the American people want to see us debate and vote on controversial topics. They do not want to see us duck our responsibilities.

We have met the enemy. The enemy is us.

Mr. President, since I have an objection to that amendment 1007, I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 1008 be called up.

Mr. President, even though the amendment has been objected to, I am going to talk about it.

The amendment is to require the Rural Utilities Service of the Department of Agriculture to ensure that the grants and loans it makes to provide access to broadband telecommunications services in rural areas are made to rural areas that don't already have access to broadband.

Wait a minute. Why would we want an amendment to do that? This is an amendment to tell them to do what they are supposed to be doing.

Over the years, the rural broadband program has seen a large amount of Federal funding. In 2009, the Department of Agriculture broadband program received $2.5 billion from the stimulus bill. The inspector general examined the Rural Utilities Service broadband loan and guarantee program, and what he found was that a large majority of the funds went to areas that already had broadband services. In other words, they didn't spend the money where we don't have broadband; they spent the money where we already do.

Specifically, this inspector general found that 148 communities that received broadband service funded by this program were within 30 miles of cities with more than 200,000 people--including the cities of Chicago and Las Vegas.

Some of the Federal funds going to broadband programs originate from the Department of Commerce as well. So we have the Department of Agriculture

and the Department of Commerce both doing the same thing.

The issue is highlighted by the problems with the broadband program that occurred in West Virginia, the President pro tempore's State. Specifically, the State could not handle nor had the use for the routers that were delivered to them. Put simply, the libraries and schools didn't have the need for the powerful stuff that was sent to them. So we wasted the money. It was a $24 million error.

You get to $1 billion $1 million at a time, and you get to $1 trillion $1 billion at a time.

What this amendment does is make them spend the money where we don't have broadband, not where we do. In other words, it prioritizes--which most of us would agree to--that broadband funds through this grant program go to areas that don't have broadband rather than areas that already do. So let's wire the whole country first before we upgrade everybody else.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside, and amendment No. 1010 be brought up.

Mr. President, this amendment is very controversial, I know, amongst my colleagues. But I have practiced medicine for 25 years, and before that I ran a pretty successful business.

The Department of Health and Human Services delayed the implementation of ICD-10. Let me explain what that is. ICD-10 is a new diagnostic code book. Why is that important? Well, we use ICD-9 now, which helps us write the diagnostic codes. Whether you are in a hospital, a clinic, a doctor's office, an outpatient surgery center, a home health, whatever it is, those diagnostic codes categorize what we actually did for you. Well-intentioned public health experts thought we aren't broad enough in what we do with the ICD-9, International Classification of Diseases, so as a part of the Affordable Care Act, ICD-10 was implemented.

There is nothing wrong with updating it, but let me explain to you what we did. We went from 18,000 codes of diseases to 140,000 codes, the cost of which, at a minimum, in the health care system under various studies will be at least $5 billion a year in added costs.

Will there be some benefit? Yes, to the public health experts who study disease patterns there will be some limited benefit. The question we have to ask is, What is our biggest problem with health care? Our biggest problem with health care is it costs too much. What we have done with ICD-10 is, just the implementation--I am talking $5 billion a year from here on. The implementation is going to cost $10 to $15 billion to put it in. What this amendment would do is make a significant delay in the implementation of ICD-10.

The implementation of the Affordable Care Act is going to cost enough as it is. This would refocus us on what is important. It is important that providers spend time with patients, not spend time trying to figure out how they fill out a disease code. For any of you who doubt the significance of this now, if there are 18,000 codes now--most doctors write the disease code. They don't have a staff to do that. When you go from 18,000 to 140,000, what are your doctors going to be doing? They are not going to take care of you, they are going to be spending time looking at a book that has 140,000 diagnostic codes and listing that. So we are going to take time away from patient care.

Why is it important that the doctors get it right? Because the penalties under Medicare for mislabeling are severe and the sanctions are severe--penalties of 1 percent to 2 percent payment per year on your total billing to Medicare or Medicaid. So the costs associated with ICD-10 are enormous. So it is not only hard and costly to implement it, but it takes people away, the very doctors we want spending time with patients. It limits that because they are going to be spending more time filling out paperwork for the Federal Government.

The other thing it will do is it will not improve health care outcomes at all. It does nothing to improve health care outcomes. It will not improve the first patient, so there is no positive benefit in the short run or medium term to the patient. The only limited benefit would be to long-term studies of public health.

Let me give some diagnostic codes to think about how foolish this is.

The new codes account for injury sites ranging from opera houses to chicken coops to squash courts. Not only do you have to list what an injury was, you then have to go through this book and find out where it was. Was it on a ranch? Was it in the coral? Was it in the chicken coop? If you mislabel it, you are under threat of penalty from CMS.

How about nine different codes where you got hurt around a mobile home? How about a burn due to water skis? How about walking into a lamp post? If you hit your head it is important for public health officials to know that you walked into a lamp post.

It includes 300 different codes related to every different animal. So if you got a bite from a rat or a chipmunk or a squirrel, there are 312 different codes around each one of those animals.

It has 72 codes pertaining to birds. You got pooped on, you got pecked at, you got bit--72 separate codes.

How about bitten by a turtle or, the second one, struck by a turtle? Or walked on a turtle? Or kicked a turtle? That is how much foolishness is in ICD-10. We are going to ask our doctors to spend time figuring out 160,000 different codes, disease related, when 18,000 does it just fine right now. What this would do would forego the implementation of

I understand the objection. I have no ill will toward my chairman or ranking member for their objection.

What this amendment does is during sequester, it prohibits performance awards in the Senior Executive Service. We are paying performance bonuses right now during sequester. The Office of Management and Budget has ordered a freeze on most bonuses for Federal workers during sequestration, but the current law provides an exemption for members of the Senior Executive Service who are among the most highly paid Federal Government employees. This amendment closes that exemption loophole. If we are all going to suffer, everybody is going to suffer. Just because you work in the Senior Executive Service doesn't mean you should not have to participate and lead on the sacrifice this country is going to have to be making and is making. This treats SES personnel just like every other Federal employee.

I ask the pending amendment be set aside--actually, I think I will stop with that--one other.

Mr. President, I ask amendment No. 1152 be called up.

I have not made that decision.

I will tell you how I go through looking at the farm bill. I believe farmers ought to farm. I don't believe they ought to farm the government. I think you all, over the last few years, have done a good job changing that scenario.

I believe food security is an important part of what America can do for both our country and our world. I also know our farmers are some of our hardest working people.

Having said all of that, there are a ton of programs in here that do not directly benefit food security in this country or the American public. When we still have the well-heeled, well-connected in this country taking advantage of farm programs, from pro athletes to everything else, who use the

farm program as a method, as a tax hedge, and use the supplemental systems, by eliminating direct payments, you have done a great deal.

I am all for crop insurance. I think it ought to be a little more costly and spread around. I think crop insurance in terms of the commissions paid to the people who sell it are a little too rich. There are a lot of people who would like to have that book of business for a whole lot less money. We have not done that. It will be a balance to me as I look at improvements.

I congratulate the chairman and ranking member for making progress on the farm bill. We have a long way to go. This amendment relates to one of those, which is how do we I make sure, if we are going to take taxpayer money and help people with their needs under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, how do we make sure we are doing it in a way that actually gives them nutritious food?

As a physician who has cared for obesity and heart disease and cancer and high blood pressure for years, diet is a big factor on that. Senator Harkin and I have an amendment together, this amendment, which would create a pilot project in two States to allow States to use a nutrition assessment for setting what can be brought with SNAP. That is what this amendment does.

A lot of the companies do not like it. A lot of people say: How can you do that? But I remind our colleagues, for many of the people who do not buy nutritious food when we are helping them, we are paying for it twice. That is because when they make poor choices with our money to buy their food, they are creating disease categories that we are going to pay for in the future, with our money, for their disease.

So the idea of trying a pilot project in two States where they use nutritional value to make a determination of what food products are eligible and what are not for the SNAP program, this is a try that most people out in the country would like to see.

Most Americans want to help anybody who needs help, but I hear it all the time when people say: I see people buying stuff I don't buy or I can't afford to buy with their SNAP card.

There is no good way to do that other than do it on a nutritional basis. That is the only way we should look at that. If we are going to help somebody we ought to help them.

There is a great book by Marvin Olasky. It is called ``The Tragedy of American Compassion.'' He talks about how to help people. You do not help people by giving them a blank check. You help people in short term. You help them as long as they have a need. But you help them in a way that they get to help themselves and by that they get to help themselves and get their dignity back.

Senator Harkin and I have agreed that this is a pilot project that will have to be evaluated at the end of 2 years. All the costs of it have to be borne by the States. We have checked out all the computer companies. There is no problem in putting limitations on UPC codes or anything on all the checkout items. It is not an issue. We have done all the homework on it.

It would be interesting to see, once we do a nutritional evaluation and a limitation on SNAP products, what would happen to the health of the people we are helping. That is the amendment he and I have worked on together. We would love to see it go. We think it is time for that to happen. It certainty will be good.

The key is, can we help people get back to being self-reliant? I don't want us to be a big brother, but I also want to make sure the money we are stealing from our kids, from their future, actually does help somebody and doesn't hurt them.

With that, I again congratulate both the chairman and ranking member for the bill they brought. It has marked improvements. I thank them for their patience dealing with me today on the floor. I very much regret that you have objected to a way to move this bill forward because it doesn't just have implications for this bill. The courage to stand up and say let's do that will have great implications for how this body functions for the next 16 months. I think we are going to miss a big opportunity if we do not do that.

I would love to see the Senate go back to operating the way it did when I first came here. My hopes were dashed, however, with that objection.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I take the floor today to follow up on what my good friend and colleague Senator Reed from Rhode Island just spoke about; that is, the looming interest rate hike on student loans that is confronting us in this country.

To recap a little bit, in 2002 the Congress passed a fixed rate. We had variable rates before, but it passed a fixed rate on student loans of 6.8 percent. In 2007 it was lowered. That lasted for about 5 years, and then it was going to go back up to the fixed rate of 6.8 percent last year. The Congress passed a 1-year extension of that at 3.4 percent. It is that 1-year extension which expired on July 1 of this year. So if the Congress does nothing, the interest rates go back up to 6.8 percent.

In the midst of all of this, a lot of ideas have been floating around about what to do on student loans and the interest rates. Well, I think we have to keep in mind that if we go from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent, that is a doubling. More than 7.2 million college students will be required to pay an average of $1,000 more in interest per loan if we let it go back to 6.8 percent. Again, that is real money for our Nation's students.

Student loan debt currently exceeds $1 trillion. It is second only to mortgage debt in the United States, and it is higher than credit card debt. The average student now graduates with more than $26,000 in student loan debt. So now is really not the time to make them pay even more.

Now, luckily, we again have a window of time to act before the doubling causes any real harm. It doubled on July 1, but we had the Fourth of July week, so if we were to again extend the 3.4 percent for another year, it would do no harm. It would do no harm to anyone.

That is why I am urging my colleagues to support S. 1238, the Keep Student Loans Affordable Act of 2013. This responsible, fully paid for legislation, introduced by Senator Reed of Rhode Island, Senator Hagan, Senator Franken, myself, and many others, is a viable solution to keeping student loan rates affordable for our middle-class students and families struggling to afford college.

I might add that this bill is supported by 49 student, youth, consumer, civil rights, and educational organizations across the country. Here is a letter they sent to Leader Reid and Senator McConnell dated June 28 to support S. 1238. They said:

We applaud this bill, which creates a workable solution to

maintaining current low rates while Congress seeks to

reauthorize the Higher Education Act to reach a comprehensive

solution to the student loan crisis that is good for

students. We expect a vote on S. 1238 on July 10, 2013,

allowing the proposal to take effect in time to protect

incoming and returning students this fall.

That is what is happening tomorrow. Tomorrow we will vote on cloture on this bill--cloture, so that then we can get an up-or-down vote on whether we are going to extend the 3.4-percent interest rates until next July. I will in a moment say why that is so important.

The letter goes on to say:

Many of the other proposals being discussed would result in

even higher costs to students than if interest rates were

simply allowed to double.

That is, to go to 6.8 percent.

The bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act put forth by

Senators Manchin, Burr, Coburn, Alexander, King and Carper

would drive up borrower costs by $1 billion and tie interest

rates to the market without a cap to protect students. This

proposal would pay down the deficit on the backs of students,

trading national debt for student debt. It is unacceptable to

use student loans as a vehicle for deficit reduction,

especially when the Federal Government is projected to make

$51 billion on student loans just this year.

So that will be the vote tomorrow.

I ask unanimous consent that this letter, along with the list of the organizations supporting the 1-year extension, be printed at this point in the Record.

That is really the vote tomorrow. Are we going to keep 3.4 percent or are we going to allow it to double? That is the essence of the vote tomorrow.

There are a lot of different ideas floating around here about what to do and how to do this, but in just about every single case, every one of those bills, if you project out over the next couple of years, will raise interest rates higher than 6.8 percent. So, again, that is why extending it for 1 year is so important.

The proper place to address this issue is in the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. That expires this year. Our committee will be having hearings. We have had some already. We are going to have more this fall. We expect to be able to put together a reauthorization bill for early next year. This is where it belongs. This is where the student loan provision belongs--in the Higher Education Act. Here is why. College affordability is more than just what your loans are costing you; college affordability also has to do with the tuitions being charged by colleges. Why are the tuitions what they are? It also has to do with the lack of transparency from one college to another. What do courses here cost? What do courses there cost?

What is built into that cost per course hour, for study hour at this college compared to this other college?

There are a lot of other costs that go into college affordability other than just the cost of student loans. So to separate out a student loan and treat it as some kind of a separate entity is to kind of ignore all of the other things that affect the cost of college education. That is why it really needs to be part of a comprehensive solution, including Pell grants. Maybe we want to change some of the structure of Pell grants. Maybe we want to take a look at exactly what it is that we as a society want to do in terms of making college more affordable. What kind of interest rate base do we want? Do we want a rate based on the 91-day T-bill, which we have had in the past, or, as others are proposing now, do we want to go to a 10-year T-note rate? What does that mean? That has never been fully fleshed out. That only comes out through hearings conducted by the committee. Should it be based on the 3-month Treasury note? There are all kinds of different ideas floating around, and no one really knows what is the best solution.

I pointed out the necessity for a cap on these loans. I think about my own experience when I started college in 1958 when there wasn't such a program. But in 1959 and after that we had what was called the Eisenhower loan program, the National Defense Education Act. I went to a window at Iowa State University and I borrowed money. I borrowed money at 2 percent. I recently looked up the interest rate during that period of time, the 10-year Treasury note at that time, in 1959, 4.43 percent, 4.12 percent, 3.88, 3.95--all the years I was in college. Yet I borrowed money at 2 percent. So our government, our representatives, decided it was worth it for America to subsidize the loans I had, not charging the 10-year Treasury note but actually half of that--almost half of that. Think about that.

Not only did our society, our government, say: We want to have a fixed rate of 2 percent no matter what the market rate is, all the time I was in college--when I was a sophomore, junior, senior--there were no interest charges. The interest rate clock did not run. Well, then I went in the military for 5 years. During the 5 years I spent in the military, there was no interest rate clock. I then got out of the military and went to law school. I spent 3 years in law school--no interest rate clock. Then after I got out of law school, I had a 1-year grace period of no interest rate. So add it up--almost 10 to 12 years that I had no interest rate charges. Not until after I was out of law school for 1 year did the interest rate clock start to run. Then I had to pay back the loans.

That is what our society, our government, our people decided to do for me and for students of our generation in the late fifties and sixties and seventies. That is what they decided to do. Now we hear, well, no, now we have to go to a market rate. We have to go to a Treasury note of 10 years plus something.

I only talk about this to show the contrast between what our country was willing to do for students of my generation and what we are trying to do for students of this generation. We are going to sock them with higher interest rates. That is why student debt is so high. That is why it exceeds credit card debt in this country--because we got away from understanding that subsidized rate was an investment in the future of our country. It was an investment in getting kids through college and not putting a mountain of debt on their heads so that when they got out, they could get married and raise families, start to make money and buy good consumer items such as cars and homes and all kinds of things rather than paying back their debts for the next 10 to 20 years. So we have gotten away from that.

These are the kinds of things we have to kind of think about as we reauthorize the Higher Education Act. What is it that we are willing to do to invest in this new generation of students in terms of getting them an affordable college education?

In moving forward, I appreciate the efforts of others who have come forward with ideas, but there is still a divide here. Here is the divide. I think those of us in our caucus, in the Democratic caucus, have said we have two key principles we want to uphold: Any deal on interest rates should not reduce the deficit on the backs of students. We should not trade national debt for student debt. No. 2, we need to keep in place an interest rate cap--an interest rate cap--as a key consumer protection to shield students from exorbitant rates in the future.

I have the highest respect for our President. I served with him here; he was on our committee. I only wish that perhaps they had talked to us a little bit before they came out with their proposal, but President Obama came out with a proposal on student loans. He was the first President--not Democratic, but the first President, Democrat or Republican--to propose going from a 91-day T-bill rate to a 10-year Treasury note. No other President ever suggested doing that.

Secondly, no President since 1958 has advocated removing the cap. President Obama, in his proposal, proposed removing the cap.

I believe it is safe to say our caucus has said no, we are not going to do that. We are not going to lift this key consumer protection of having an interest rate cap. If we are going to go to a 10-year Treasury note, then what is it that we do? Do we do it as they did for me where they subsidize it below it? Do we add something onto it, and how much do we add onto it?

Again, we have, as I said, two key items. Interest rates should not reduce the deficit on the backs of students, and we need to keep in place an interest rate cap as a key consumer protection.

I might point out, this has happened before. We had an interest rate cap in the 1990s when we had a variable rate. The cap was at 8.25 percent. Five times in the 1990s interest rates went above that. The cap protected students five times.

That is why the bill that has been put up by the Republican side, S. 1241, fails to meet both those principles. Their bill, like the House GOP bill and S. 1003, is worse for students over the long term than if we let rates double. S. 1241 would raise nearly $1 trillion by charging students higher interest rates over 10 years, using net revenue for deficit reduction. This bill lacks an interest rate cap, an essential protection for students, as I said, that has been in place since 1958.

According to the CBO projections of the 10-year Treasury note--and that is what we have to live with, the CBO projections--under the proposal of S. 1241, which I think Senator Alexander

and others have put forward, graduate students relying on Stafford and PLUS loans will see higher interest rates starting in 2016, right here.

I saw a card about this that said under this bill the graduate student loans would be 5.21 percent. That is true here. Then it goes up in 2014, 2015, and then in 2016 it goes above the fixed rate of 6.8 percent and keeps going up to 8.6 percent from then on.

Students understand this. They looked at this and said: Well, gee, here, this is kind of like bait and switch. We get a couple, 3 years here where they are lower, and from then on everything is higher for us. We don't want this.

By 2018, on the undergraduate loans, subsidized and unsubsidized loans, it is at 7.1 percent. It is even more than the 6.8 percent that is in permanent law.

Again, I repeat, we have always had an interest rate cap. For as long as we have had student loans, we have had an interest rate cap. Even when we had a variable interest rate from 1992 to 2006, as I pointed out, five times we bumped up against that cap, so students were protected.

I have read in S. 1241 the authors stated there is a cap. Does this plan have a cap? It says yes.

There is a consolidation cap which we already have in law, by the way. We already have a consolidation cap in law. They keep it. But a consolidation cap is not a substitute for an interest rate cap. It is apples and oranges. One is a repayment mechanism. That is a consolidation cap. The other is a consumer protection called an interest rate cap. A consolidation cap is not a real cap.

Look at it this way. Let's say interest rates go to 10 percent, 11 percent, 12 percent. It is not unheard of. We have had that in the recent past. A student is in college, and that student takes out loans at 10 percent, 11 percent, or 12 percent when they are a freshman, a sophomore, junior, or senior. During the time they are in school, interest is accruing on their loan at 10 percent, 11 percent, or 12 percent. They can't consolidate until after they graduate. Then they say they can consolidate all of their loans at an interest rate that is equal to 8.25 percent or the weighted interest rate of their loans, whichever is lower.

I pointed out that under S. 1241, the Republicans' bill, if you took out a basic loan under the basic program we have had for 10 years, at the maximum, under present law, you would pay back about $21,000 in interest and payments. Under S. 1241 you would pay back $28,000, $7,000 more. Get this--for the same loan under consolidation you pay back $69,000.

Consolidation--and that is why a lot of students aren't consolidating, because they know they are going to pay a lot more in interest charges for a longer period of time. Think about a 15-year mortgage versus a 30-year mortgage on your house.

Maybe a student would say: OK, I will consolidate. My monthly payments will be lower, but the total amount I pay back will be three, four, five times more than what it would be if I don't consolidate.

Consolidation may be useful to some students as a repayment mechanism, but it is not the same as a cap on interest rates.

The bottom line is that an interest rate cap is the only way to ensure all borrowers are shielded from exorbitant rates in the future, and consolidation is simply not a substitute.

Let's take a look at the base rate in S. 1241. That is the 10-year Treasury note. I asked my staff to take the provisions of the Alexander bill, S. 1241, and let's go back in time. What would students have been paying in interest rates? I looked at 1980, 1990, and 2000, every 10 years. Under S. 1241, undergraduate Stafford is 13.31, graduate Stafford is 14.86, and 15.86 on the PLUS loans. For 1990, undergraduate Stafford is 10.4, graduate Stafford is 11.9, and PLUS loans are 12.9. In 2000, undergraduate Stafford is 7.88, graduate Stafford is 9.43, and PLUS loans are 10.43. All of them are above the 6.8 percent that is permanent law right now, permanent in every single case because there is no cap. We have seen in the past 10-year Treasury notes as high as 14 percent.

There is no cap, so you take the 10-year Treasury note plus 1.85 percent or 2 percent, and you can see where students without a cap are going to be paying a lot more money. The 10-year Treasury note is already on the rise as the economy gets stronger. We know those interest rates are going up and that is what CBO tells us. Without a cap in place, students are highly vulnerable to this.

Again, I want to go back to this chart here. This is why consolidation is something students need to think about. This is $41,000 in Stafford loans borrowed over 2 years by a graduate student enrolling in 2018. Under current law, they would pay back $21,716 in interest payments. Under S. 1241, they would pay more, $28,607.

But then they say: Well, you can consolidate. If you consolidate, you are going to pay $69,185. Look at the difference.

As I say, a consolidation cap is just a way to stretch out your repayments, which means you are going to pay a lot more money over time. I am not certain that is what we wish to do to students over the next 20 to 30 years, burden them with even more debt for over 20 to 30 years.

Again, as I have said before, I think S. 1241 is not good for our students, it is not good for the middle class, and for America's competitiveness in the future. I think we ought to take the time to do it right.

People say: Well, gee, we had an extension of this last year until this year and you didn't do anything, so we should not extend it again. There are probably a lot of reasons why Congress didn't do it. Last year was an election year. We were gone a lot of time in the fall for people to campaign for reelection for both the House and the Senate, and it was a Presidential election year. Nothing was done, basically, from October on.

Then there was the whole deficit reduction measure that had everybody tied up in knots, and the sequester. We were trying to work that out the first of the year, and the budget bill, getting that done. There are a lot of reasons why this was not high on the agenda. There was a lot of significant legislation going on here, plus, as I said, last year was an election year and a campaign year.

What is different about next year is this: The Higher Education Act expires this year. We need to reauthorize it. We need to reauthorize it in a timely fashion.

As I said, this whole issue of student loans is only one part of it. There are a lot of other parts, such as college accountability. What are their graduation rates? What is their charge for per-course study hour? How do they figure that amount of money? What are colleges doing to keep tuition rates low? What are States doing to support higher education?

We have had a number of hearings in our committee already on the increasing cost of college education and what is causing it. There are a lot of different factors, but the one factor that overrode them all, the one consistent, overriding factor of why college costs are going up, Federal costs--why Federal costs of college education are going up--is because over the last 20 to 30 years States were reducing their support for higher education.

State legislatures have figured this out. They figured out that if our State government doesn't put more money into higher education, students are going to get Pell grants. They will get these loans. The Federal Government will back them up. What has happened is States have reduced their support for higher education and shifted it to the Federal Government.

What should be the States' responsibility in higher education? What should be our partnership with the States in supporting higher education? That is, again, an issue for the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, and what we are going to do about student loans in the future is a part of that.

That is why I argued for an extension for 1 year, because we can look at it in a comprehensive, systemic way as to what we ought to do about college affordability. This is why I say the best course of action to follow right now, both for students, for middle-class families, and for our country, for getting a better higher education bill that addresses all of this--the best thing to do is a 1-year-more extension.

As Senator Reed said earlier, there is a loophole in the law that deals with individual retirement accounts. IRAs were meant for retirement, but now

there is a loophole in the law that allows millionaires and billionaires to take IRAs and give them to a younger generation, which they then take over a period of years--and a lot of times escape paying taxes for years and maybe even for decades. Everyone agrees it is a loophole. It was never intended to be there for IRAs. By closing that loophole, we can pay for the 1-year extension at 3.4 percent. It seems to me the students need this loophole in IRAs more economic-wise than the top one-tenth of 1 percent in our country. So that is why I think we just need to take a deep breath and quit trying to rush to judgment.

There has been more bad legislation in my 39 years here that has happened because we wanted to rush to judgment on a deadline rather than taking the time to go through the committee structure, having the hearings, working things out on both sides of the aisle through our committee, and then bringing decent legislation to the floor.

Quite frankly, I think we can point to the immigration bill. That is what was done there. This immigration bill didn't just pop up on the floor. It went through a long process in committee, with hearings and witnesses and debate and amendments.

That is what we need to do here. Don't rush to judgment. I am afraid if we rush to judgment the losers will be the students and middle-class families and, quite frankly, our economy in the future if we move to a system that is going to cause higher and higher interest rates way out into the future for students just entering college.

So I plead with my colleagues to support the cloture vote tomorrow to give us this 1-year extension. Let the committee do its work properly and bring a proper bill to the floor that will be open for amendment. People will be able to amend it at that time. I believe that is the deliberate, thoughtful, and the responsible way to address this issue-- not just to vote something out that is separate and apart from everything else that adds to the burden of student debt in this country.

So I plead with my colleagues to do the responsible thing and extend the 3.4 percent for 1 year, and we will address this next year in the Higher Education Act.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I would like to yield 5 minutes to my friend Senator Blunt and then reclaim the floor.

Madam President, American summertime is when we celebrate and commemorate the patriots who fought to establish and protect this great Republic. From Memorial Day through Independence Day and on to Veterans Day, communities across this country turn out star- spangled bunting and gather for parades, cookouts, and wreath layings to reflect on the heroes and events that embody our Nation's great spirit.

June in Rhode Island is marked by the annual celebration of Gaspee Days, when we recognize and celebrate one of the earliest acts of defiance against the British Crown in our American struggle for independence. Most Americans remember and I know the Presiding Senator from Massachusetts certainly is well aware of the Boston Tea Party when, in fact, literally spirited Bostonians clamored onto the decks of the East India Company's ships and dumped tea bags into Boston Harbor to protest British taxation without representation.

I am sure throwing tea bags into the harbor is a very big deal, but there was another milestone in the path to the Revolutionary War that is too often overlooked. It is the story of 60 brave Rhode Islanders who, more than a year before the Tea Party in Boston, risked their lives in defiance of oppression more than 240 years ago and drew the first blood in what became the revolutionary conflict.

In the years before the Revolutionary War, one of the most notorious of the armed customs vessels patrolling Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay, imposing the authority of the British Crown, was Her Majesty's ship Gaspee. The ship and its captain, Lieutenant William Dudingston, were known for destroying fishing vessels, seizing cargo, and flagging down ships only to harass, humiliate, and interrogate the colonials.

A 100-year-old report says:

This unprincipled ruffian had ruthlessly ravaged the Rhode

Island coast for several months, destroying unoffending

fishing vessels, and confiscating everything he could lay

hands on. The attack on the ``Gaspe' '' caused the first

bloodshed in the struggle for American independence, and was

the first resistance to the British navy.

How did it come about? Well, on June 9, 1772, Rhode Island ship captain Benjamin Lindsey was en route to Providence from Newport, sailing in his packet sloop the Hannah, when he was accosted and ordered to yield for inspection by the Gaspee. Captain Lindsey had had enough of the Gaspee. He ignored the command and raced up Narragansett Bay, ignoring warning shots fired at him by the Gaspee. As the Gaspee gave chase, Captain Lindsey--who was a wily Rhode Island ship captain-- realized that his ship was lighter and drew less water than the Gaspee, so he sped north toward Pawtuxet Cove, toward the shallows off of Namquid Point. The Hannah shot over these shallows, but the heavier Gaspee grounded and stuck firm. The British ship and her crew were caught stranded in a falling tide and would need to wait many hours for a rising tide to free the hulking Gaspee.

Captain Lindsey continued on his way to Providence and rallied a group of Rhode Island patriots at Sabin's Tavern. Together, the group resolved to put an end to the Gaspee's menace to Rhode Island waters. They may have shared one thing with their Boston compatriots: They may have been spirited themselves.

That night the men embarked down Narragansett Bay in eight longboats with muffled oars. They encircled the stranded Gaspee and called on Lieutenant Dudingston to surrender his ship. Dudingston refused and ordered his men to fire on anyone who tried to board. The Rhode Islanders forced their way onto the Gaspee's deck, and in the struggle Lieutenant Dudingston was wounded, shot with a musket ball. Right there in the waters off Warwick, RI, the very first blood in the conflict that was to become the American Revolution thus was drawn.

The brave patriots took the captive Englishmen ashore and returned to the Gaspee to rid Narragansett Bay of her noxious presence once and for all. Near daylight on June 10, they set her afire. The blaze spread to the ship's powder magazine, and the resulting blast echoed across Narragansett Bay as airborne fragments of this former ship splashed down into the water.

The incident prompted a special commission instructed by King George III to deliver any persons indicted in the burning of the Gaspee to the Royal Navy for transport to England for trial and execution.

Samuel Adams, in a letter published in the Newport Mercury on December 21, 1772, and reprinted in the Providence Gazette on December 26, called it ``a court of inquisition, more horrid than that of Spain or Portugal. The persons who are the commissioners of this new-fangled court are vested with most exorbitant and unconstitutional power.'' A few days later he wrote that ``an Attack upon the Liberties of one Colony is an Attack upon the Liberties of all; and therefore in this Instance all should be ready to yield Assistance to Rhode Island.''

In a letter to a friend in Rhode Island, John Adams, the future President, summed up the tension felt across the Colonies:

``We are all in a fury here about . . . the Commission for

trying the Rhode Islanders for Burning the Gaspee. I wonder

how your Colony happens to sleep so securely in a whole skin,

when her sisters are so worried and tormented.''

King George III offered a handsome reward for information leading to the arrest of those responsible for the burning and destruction of his revenue cutter. But Rhode Islanders are a loyal bunch--the reward went unclaimed.

The site of Rhode Island's opening salvo in the American Revolution is now named Gaspee Point. The annual Gaspee Days celebration has grown to span several weeks each June and includes an arts and crafts festival, a walking tour with students playing the roles of Colonialists, an encampment of local militia, a parade down Narragansett Parkway in Warwick, and, of

course, a mock burning of the HMS Gaspee.

My friend, State Representative Joe McNamara, and the Gaspee Days Committee work each year to make these events the best they can be and to remind our State and Nation of the bravery of those few dozen souls. Indeed, this year another Rhode Islander Mark Tracy, a pediatric neurologist at Hasbro Children's Hospital, was able to acquire original news stories from 1772 that related this incident and gave them to the Gaspee Committee. I will note that he was able to get them rather inexpensively because ``the auction house concentrated on describing the batches of newspapers--from the estate of an unnamed Providence collector--in terms of the coming Boston Tea Party and other events,'' paying no attention to the fact that Rhode Island's greater act and prior act was actually enclosed and described in these newspapers.

This summer will also mark another historic anniversary for Rhode Island because it was in July of 1663--350 years ago this summer--that King Charles II granted a royal charter establishing the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

``To hold forth a lively experiment,'' it declared ``that a most flourishing civil state may stand and best be maintained . . . with a full liberty in religious concernments.''

This charter provided in Rhode Island the world's first formal establishment of freedom of religion, distinguishing us from the rigid theocracy of Massachusetts, I am sorry to say, where ideological conformity was enforced by the gallows and the lash.

This charter has been called America's Magna Carta, for it is the first formal document in all of history granting the separation of church and state, along with extraordinary freedoms of speech, to a political entity. This ``lively experiment'' in Rhode Island blazed a path for American freedom of religion, one of our greatest national blessings. And, more practically, this liberty also allowed trading networks of Quakers and Baptists and Jews to connect in Newport and created their abundant wealth and commerce.

That freedom of religion, that freedom of conscience was the great legacy of Rhode Island's founder Roger Williams, who had been banished from Massachusetts for his beliefs about religious tolerance. Williams established his new colony as ``a shelter for persons,'' as he said, ``distressed for conscience.'' His battle for freedom of conscience, won and reflected in the King Charles Charter, is the reason his statue stands right out there, outside the Chamber of the Senate.

I know these events and the patriots whose efforts allowed for their success are not forgotten in my home State. This summer we will gather in these ways to celebrate Rhode Island's independent streak. We will recall the courage and zeal of these men and women who embodied those most American values--freedom of conscience and freedom from tyranny, values that ignited a revolution in the summer of 1776.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes as in morning business.

Madam President, the last week we were here, I gave my weekly ``Time To Wake Up'' speech, as usual. It is a speech I wrote well earlier. In a truly and, unfortunately, almost eerie coincidence, in my speech last week I spoke about a variety of natural disasters, including--and I will quote my own speech--``cyclones in Oklahoma.'' I said that in the same hour the cyclone touched down in Moore, OK.

When people are suffering in the wake of a calamity such as that, they need to hear one thing from Washington; that is, how can we help. That is all they need to hear. No one likes to be chided when what they need is help and comfort.

J.E. Reynolds of the Daily Oklahoman wrote: ``Victims and survivors need help, not a sermon in the first hours following a storm.'' I agree. I agree very much. My thoughts are with the victims of those Oklahoma storms and with everyone who is working to pick up the pieces.

Far from seeking to exploit their tragedy, I had no idea of the weather in Oklahoma that was happening virtually at the time I gave the speech, mentioning Oklahoma cyclones among other examples of extreme weather. But the eerie timing was what it was, and it did not send that single simple message: How can we help? So I am sorry. I have apologized to my Oklahoma colleagues for the unfortunate coincidence of timing of my earlier remarks, and I, of course, stand ready to help them speed relief to their State.

It is, of course, impossible to say that any single weather event is caused by climate change, and that is not something I have ever said. What is true is that climate change is altering weather patterns. Scientists have studied these changes in weather patterns, and they have modeled what is to come. Most are convinced that increases in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather will be a result of the megatons of carbon pollution we continue to emit.

The way I have described it is that climate change ``loads the dice'' for extreme weather. We might not know which roll is caused by the loaded dice. We are going to get a 6 or a 7 or a 12 or a 2 sooner or later anyway, but the extreme weather will come more often because of this. We cannot pretend this isn't happening. We just hit 400 parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere, measured at the NOAA observatory on Mauna Loa in Hawaii.

What does 400 parts per million mean? Well, look at it this way: For at least 800,000 years, and perhaps millions, we have been in a range on Earth between 170 and 300 parts per million of carbon in our atmosphere--800,000 years, minimum. Homo sapiens as a species have only been around for about 200,000 years, but just since the industrial revolution and the ``Great Carbon Dump'' began, we have blown out of the 170- to 300-parts-per-million range and have now hit 400.

This is very serious. We already see the effects. In Alaska, permafrost is melting and native villages once protected by winter ice are being eroded into the sea. In the Carolinas, roads to the Outer Banks have to be raised as seas rise and storms worsen. Coral reefs are fading off in Florida and in the Caribbean. In Rhode Island, we have measured almost 10 inches of sea level rise since the 1930s. Rhode Island fishermen going out to sea from Point Judith are reporting ``real anomalies . . . things just aren't making sense.''

All of these effects from climate change hit our farmers too. Since before the founding of this Republic, our farmers have relied on the Sun, the rain, and the land to provide us their bounty. In 2011, farming and the industries that rely directly on agriculture accounted for almost 5 percent of the entire U.S. economy. But growing conditions in the United States are changing. More and more of our rainfall is coming in heavy downpours. Since 1991, the amount of rain falling in what scientists call ``extreme precipitation events''--the amount of rain falling in extreme precipitation events has been above the 1901- to-1960 average in every region of the country.

In the Northeast where I am from extreme precipitation has increased 74 percent just between 1958 and 2010. That matters to our farmers. The very seasons are shifting. During the last two decades, the average frost-free season was about 10 days longer than during that period between 1901 and 1960. In the Southwest it is an astonishing 3 weeks longer. That matters to our farmers.

Average temperature in the contiguous United States has increased by about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since records began in 1895. Most of that increase occurred since the 1980s, and 2012 was the warmest year ever. That matters to our farmers.

This chart shows the extent of the U.S. drought in August of 2012. The red and the dark areas indicate extreme and exceptional drought. These conditions lasted most of the year. That matters to our farmers.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Chief Economist Joseph Glauber testified before the Agriculture Committee that ``the heat and rainfall deficit conditions that characterized the summer of 2012 were well outside the range of normal weather variation.'' That is precisely what scientists mean when they say climate change ``loads the dice'' for extreme weather.

Climate change doesn't cause specific heat waves but the average temperature shifts to warmer weather and the extremes move with it.

The New York Botanical Garden has seen apricot trees blossom in February. The Audubon Society of Rhode Island has reported cherry trees in Providence blooming as early as December. This could affect farmers too.

Jeff Send, a Michigan cherry farmer, explained to the Agriculture Committee that the record warm March temperatures brought his region's cherry trees out of dormancy early and exposed them to later freezes. In Michigan he said:

We have the capacity to produce 275 million pounds of tart

cherries. In 2012, our total was 11.6 million pounds.

A potential of 275 million pounds; actual crop, 11.6 million pounds, less than one-twentieth, all because of that early warming and that early bloom and the freezes that then killed them.

These changes I keep speaking about will continue if we go on polluting our atmosphere with greenhouse gases. As the harmful effects of climate change become more prevalent, our agricultural policies should reflect the threat

posed to farming and food production by these changes. Yet in the farm bill climate change and extreme weather are not mentioned once.

Well, let me correct myself. They are mentioned once. The bill makes reference to an earlier law from 1990, and in the title of that 1990 law the words ``climate change'' appear. So by referring to the 1990 law, the farm bill once mentions climate change. But with all of this going on, that is the only reference. And the reason is that our Republican colleagues will oppose legislation if it even mentions the words ``climate change.''

We can't get around using the name of a statute that passed 20-plus years ago, if ``climate change'' is in the name, so that one had to go in. But, otherwise, climate change is not mentioned in the farm bill, despite all of this activity and effect on farming.

It is not that there aren't things we could do. The Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change, which I cochair with Representative Waxman, Senator Cardin, and Representative Markey, asked stakeholders in the agriculture economy about carbon pollution and our resiliency to climate change.

The National Farmers Union, which represents more than 200,000 family farmers, ranchers, and rural members, responded--this is the National Farmers Union:

Mitigating and adapting to climate change is of significant

concern to our membership and will be a defining trend that

shapes the world.

That is the National Farmers Union on climate change. It will be ``a defining trend that shapes the world.''

Cap-and-trade legislation, the Farmers Union said, would provide a boon to farming and forest lands that take the lead on reducing greenhouse gases. The National Sustainable Agricultural Coalition encouraged a comprehensive approach. An effective policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, wrote the group, ``should have as its cornerstone the support and promotion of sustainable organic cultural systems throughout USDA's programs and initiatives.''

Even the American Farm Bureau Federation, which has at times opposed climate change legislation, expressed clear support for farming practices that keep carbon out of the atmosphere and for investments in biofuels and in renewable energy.

We are grateful to all of the scientific and industry leaders who have shared their ideas with the Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change. We need active and willing partners in the effort to ensure our farms can meet the needs of a strong nation.

They are not alone. Responsible people across the spectrum want us to act on carbon and climate. Responsible people such as the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States of America, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and dozens of major scientific societies--virtually every major one--and the folks in the corporate sector who run Apple and Ford and Nike and Coca Cola--get it. Republicans such as Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State George Schultz, former House Science Committee chair Sherry Boehlert, former Utah Governor and GOP Presidential candidate John Huntsman--responsible people across the spectrum get it. The scientists at NASA get it, and they are telling us to get serious. They are the ones who took a robot the size of an SUV and sent it millions of miles to Mars where they landed it safely on the surface of Mars and now they are driving it around. Do we think they might know what they are talking about? They get it. All across the spectrum, people get it. They are on one side getting something done about climate change.

On the other side are the polluters with their familiar retinue of cranks, extremists, and front organizations. That is basically it. And for some reason, the Republican Party--the great American Republican Party--has chosen to hitch its wagon to the polluters. I do not get it. I do not see how that works out for them.

Every day the pollution gets worse, and every day the evidence that this is serious gets stronger. I do not know why the Republican Party of Theodore Roosevelt wants to paint itself as the party that went with the polluters and not the scientists; that went with the fringe extreme against the responsible center. It has to be a bad bet. It is a crazy bet.

To make that bet you have to believe God will intervene and perform some magic, in violation of His own laws of physics and chemistry. Is that a bet you want to take? You have to believe that the market will work, even though the market is flagrantly skewed. Is that a bet you want to make? And you have to believe the people who have a vested interest to lie and disbelieve the people who have no conflict of interest, unless you are prepared to think that the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Catholic bishops and all the major scientific organizations all have a conflict of interest. Does that sound very sensible? Does that sound like where you want to hitch the wagon of one of America's great political parties?

Let me close, as we talk about climate change in the context of the farm bill, by quoting our friend Senator Tester, who recently spelled out the crisis facing our farmers in an op-ed in USA Today.

I ask unanimous consent that op-ed be printed at the conclusion of my remarks.

Senator Tester and his wife Sharla have been farming for almost 40 years--the same land that his grandparents homesteaded. This is how our friend from Montana described the changes he sees:

When I was younger, frequent bone-chilling winds whipped

snow off the Rocky Mountain Front and brought bitterly cold

days that reached -30 degrees. Today, we have only a handful

of days that even reach 0 degrees. Changes in the weather are

forcing Sharla and I to change how we operate our farm. It's

now more difficult to know when to plant to take advantage of

the rains.

Some might say the end of bitter winters will be a boon for

Montana's economy. But with milder winters, we've seen the

sawfly come out earlier to destroy our crops before they can

be harvested. Montana's deep freezes also used to kill off

the pine bark beetle, which today kills millions of acres of

trees across the American West.

He writes:

Montanans already understand that climate change is

affecting our daily lives. The argument isn't whether the

world is changing, it's how to respond.

I will say, once again, it is time--it is well past time--for us in Congress to wake up to the urgent challenge of our time. There is a lot at stake. There is a lot at stake for all of us. There is a lot at stake for every State, and there is a lot at stake for every generation, particularly for the generations that are to follow.

So often I hear my Republican colleagues expressing concern about what our debt will do to future generations. Fine. What will a ruined climate do to future generations? What will acidified seas do to future generations? What will worse extreme weather and rising seas do to future generations?

There is indeed a lot at stake, and it is time to wake up. It is time to take action.

I yield the floor.

I thank the majority leader.

Cloture Motion

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

Madam President, I rise this afternoon to say a few words about the immigration reform bill that, as I understand it, we will begin discussing next week. As the son of an immigrant, somebody who came to this country at the age of 17 without a nickel in his pocket and who was able to send his two kids to college, needless to say I support immigration. Our country is unique in the world. Our country is great because we are the sons and daughters of immigrants. I think we should all be very proud of that.

I also commend the Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy and Senator Schumer and Senator Durbin--all of those people who have been working very hard on what I consider to be a good and strong immigration reform bill. Here are some of the very strong components of that bill that I hope every Member of the Senate would support: That is the need for a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country. Bringing undocumented workers out of the shadows and giving them legal status will make it more difficult for employers to undercut the wages and benefits of all workers and, in my view, will be good for the entire economy.

I have always--and continue to--strongly support the DREAM Act part of the immigration reform bill, which is to make sure that children of illegal immigrants who are brought into this country by their parents years and years ago are allowed to become citizens.

I strongly support a number of the provisions that deal with agriculture. Some years ago I was in Immokalee, FL, a place that I suspect has some of the most exploited workers in America. They pick the tomatoes which go to the fast-food restaurants throughout this country. I can tell everyone that in the State of Vermont, we have dairy farms that are now dependent on foreign labor, and it is important that we treat those workers with dignity and give them legal status. It is extremely important to have an approach which provides legal status for agricultural workers.

I obviously support making sure our borders are strong and that we stop illegal immigration as best we can, and I applaud the committee for including all of those provisions in the immigration bill that is going to come to the Senate I expect next week.

What I worry about very much, and have deep concerns about in terms of the current legislation, is that while we have made a good step forward in terms of improving our economy as to where it was in the midst of the financial crisis, we still have a long way to go. The real unemployment rate in America is not 7.5 percent. That is the official unemployment rate. The real unemployment rate is closer to 14 percent. If we include those people who have given up looking for work in high- unemployment areas and people who are working part time and want to work full time, the real unemployment rate is closer to 14 percent. In other words, if we include unemployment among minorities as well as the young people in this country, we continue to have a very serious unemployment problem in the United States of America, and it is an issue with which we have to deal. I have a number of ideas on how to deal with it. One thing we sure as heck do not want to do is make a bad situation worse.

It seems to me that in a moment when our middle class continues to disappear, when millions of workers are working longer hours for lower wages, when median-family income has gone down by $5,000 since 1999, it does not make a lot of sense to me that we have an immigration reform bill which includes a massive increase in temporary guest worker programs that will allow large multinational corporations to import hundreds of thousands of temporary blue-collar and white-collar guest workers.

One of my major concerns is that corporate America is sort of using immigration reform as a means to continue their effort to lower wages in the United States of America, and we must not allow that to happen.

We all know we have a serious crisis in terms of the high cost of a college education, which is another issue we are going to be dealing with soon on the floor. One thing I can say--and I suspect I speak for a number of other Members in Congress--is if we didn't come from a family with a lot of money and we needed to get some financial help in order to pay for college, we worked in the summertime. I find it alarming that within this bill we are looking at a situation in which we are importing a lot of young people from Europe and elsewhere to fill jobs which young people in this country need in the summertime to allow them to get going in terms of their careers and allow them to make a few bucks in order to help them with their college education.

I understand that jobs such as a waiter, waitress, or busboy--and I did some of that when I was a kid--are not glamorous jobs. But you know what. They help a little bit as far as paying for college. I know it is not glamorous to work as a lifeguard, at the front desk of a hotel or resort, as a ski instructor, as a cook or chef in a kitchen, as a chambermaid, or as a landscaper. The jobs I just mentioned will not pay huge amounts of money, but for someone who needs to figure out how to pay for college in the fall, those jobs help. For someone who needs some experience in order to get their career off the ground, those jobs help. I am concerned that kids in this country are going to be looking for jobs and employers are going to say: Well, actually we don't have any jobs; the job has been filled by some young person from Eastern Europe. So I want us to take that issue into account.

Theoretically the J-1 Program is supposed to bring young people into this country so they can learn about our culture. It is a program to expose young people from around the world to American culture, and that is a good thing. I believe in that. I believe young people in America should have the opportunity to go abroad, and young people from around the world should have the opportunity to learn about America. It is a good thing.

I fear this J-1 Program is being exploited by corporations such as Hershey's and McDonald's in an effort to simply bring students from abroad to work at low-paying jobs in the United States.

Supporters of the temporary H-2B Guest Worker Program claim there are not enough Americans willing to do these types of jobs; that in essence what they are saying is the young American people are too lazy to work at these jobs. I do not accept that. I truly do not accept it. I think it is a slap in the face not only to our young people but to the many working people who do not have much in the way of an education and want to work so they can earn some money. It is a slap in the face to say to those people: No, we are going to have to bring people in from abroad to do those jobs, such as being a waiter, waitress, chambermaid, or lifeguard. These are not high-tech skilled jobs; these are jobs our young people can do and need to do.

I have a great concern about the transformation of the J-1 Program from being a program dealing with American culture to being one where corporations are exploiting young people from abroad to work in low- paying jobs in the United States.

I also find it interesting that instead of raising wages in this country to attract workers, what many of these companies are doing is bringing in people from abroad. We know what supply and demand is about. What we learned in economics 101 in college is that if an employer cannot find a certain type of worker, the way to entice that worker is to raise wages. Instead of raising wages, what employers are saying is: We have huge amounts of cheap labor all over the world. Instead of raising wages for American workers, we are going to bring in cheap labor from around the world, and I think that is wrong. I think as we deal with this legislation, this is an issue we have to address front and center.

When we talk about H-2B jobs, what we are talking about is people who may be working as a landscaper, amusement park worker, housekeeper, waiter, or waitress. Further, during the summer, businesses are using guest worker programs to hire young people from other countries to be lifeguards.

Maybe I am mistaken, but I kind of think there are young people in this country who can work as lifeguards and hold other positions in some of the resorts all over this country. We are talking jobs such as being a ski instructor in Vermont. I can tell everyone that in the State of Vermont, we have a whole lot of young people who are very good at skiing and can teach skiing. We don't need people from Europe to take those jobs away from young Americans.

Let me be clear--and I find this to be interesting, if not ironic-- the same corporations and businesses that support a massive expansion in guest worker programs coincidentally happen to be the same exact corporations that are opposed to raising the minimum wage. These are the same corporations that support the outsourcing of American jobs, not to mention the same corporations which in some cases have reduced wages and benefits for American workers at a time when corporate America is making record-breaking profits.

In too many cases the H-2B Program for lower skilled guest workers, as well as the H-1B Program for high-skilled guest workers, is being used by employers to drive down the wages and benefits of American workers and to replace American workers with cheap labor from abroad.

Here is what it comes down to: supply and demand. If the employers of this country need labor, let them start raising wages for American workers rather than bringing in cheap labor from all over this world. The immigration reform bill that passed the Senate Judiciary Committee could increase the number of low-skilled--I hear speeches here that we are going to have these genius high-tech guys who are going to start companies and create all kinds of jobs. Great. That is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about an immigration reform bill from the Judiciary Committee that could increase the number of low- skilled guest workers by as much as 800 percent over the next 5 years and could more than triple the number of temporary white-collar guest workers coming into this country. During the next 5 years, H-1B high- skilled visas could go from 85,000 to as many as 230,000. The number of H-2B low-skilled visas could go from 65,000 to as many as 325,000. The new W visa program for low-skilled workers could go as high as 200,000.

The first question the American people and Members have to ask is, is unemployment throughout America in States such as Arizona, Oklahoma, Vermont, Michigan so low right now that we desperately need more and more foreign workers to fill jobs Americans cannot fill?

The high-tech industry tells us they need the H-1B Program so they can hire the best and the brightest science, technology, engineering, and math workers in the world, and that there are not qualified American workers in these fields. Let me be the first to admit that in some cases I believe that is true. I have spoken to employers in Vermont. I suspect it is true all over this country, that there are areas where companies cannot find the skilled workers they need so they need employees from abroad, and to the degree that is true, let us address that issue. But let's also give some facts which suggest that may not be quite as true as some of the employers and corporations are saying.

In 2010, 54 percent of H-1B guest workers were employed in entry- level jobs. So the argument is: Hey, we need all of these brilliant guys who are going to start companies and create jobs. In 2010, 54 percent of the H-1B guest workers were employed in entry-level jobs and performed ``routine tasks requiring limited judgment'' according to the Government Accountability Office.

In 2010 the official U.S. unemployment rate averaged more than 9.6 percent per month. Why couldn't these types of jobs be performed by Americans?

So, again, the point is--I know some of my friends say: Every one of these guys is some genius who is going to start a company. I wish that were the case. Many of these are lower wage, entry-level jobs that certainly American workers could do.

Further, only 6 percent of H-1B visas were given to workers with highly specialized skills in 2010. That is the issue I keep hearing about, highly specialized skills, but only 6 percent of H-1B visas went to those folks. More than 80 percent of H-1B guest workers are paid wages that are less than American workers in comparable positions, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Over 9 million Americans have degrees in a STEM-related field, but only about 3 million have a job in that area.

Last year the top 10 employers of H-1B guest workers were all offshore outsourcing companies. Let me repeat that. One of the great crises we have faced in the last 30 years is that companies have shut down in America, moved abroad, and gotten cheap labor abroad. The top 10 employers of H-1B guest workers were all offshore outsourcing companies. These firms are responsible for shifting huge numbers of American information technology jobs to India and other countries. Nearly half of all H-1B visas go to offshore outsourcing firms, while less than 3 percent of them apply to become permanent residents.

Further, half of all recent college graduates majoring in computer and information science did not receive jobs in the information technology sector. In other words, we have large numbers of Americans who are graduating with degrees who can handle these jobs. Yet we are bringing in large numbers of people from abroad to do them. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

Not only would the Senate immigration bill greatly expand the number of H-1B guest workers, it also would provide an unlimited number of green cards to foreign graduates who receive a master's degree or a Ph.D. in a STEM-related field. If we are going to provide green cards to every foreign student with an advanced STEM degree, what purpose does the H-1B program serve other than to suppress the wages of American workers who are already struggling? At the very least I believe we should prohibit offshore outsourcing firms from hiring temporary guest workers.

Under the Senate immigration bill, the number of college-educated H- 1B guest workers and STEM green card holders who are under 30 years of age will exceed the number of jobs that are available for young information technology graduates. What message does that send to young people in our country who are interested in pursuing careers in information technology?

Making matters even worse, I am very concerned that Senator Hatch was able to gut the very modest reforms to the H-1B program designed to prevent companies from replacing American workers with H-1B guest workers. At a minimum it is essential that these proworker reforms be put back into the bill before it is passed by the full Senate.

This country was built by immigrants. I am a son of an immigrant, and many of us are. I believe we are a nation that wants to see comprehensive immigration reform passed. I certainly do.

Again, I wish to congratulate all of those people who have worked on this bill because there are a lot of very important and positive provisions in the bill. But I think we have to improve the bill as it leaves committee and as it comes to the floor of the Senate. What we want to make certain of is

that at a time when this country continues to struggle economically, when millions of people are working longer hours for lower wages, when minority unemployment is extraordinarily high, we do not take any action that lowers wages or increases unemployment for American workers.

Again, my congratulations to those who worked on this bill, but we have a whole lot of work to do as the bill reaches the floor, and I intend to be working with my colleagues to make those improvements.

With that, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I wonder if I might ask, through the Chair, the Senator from Michigan a question. I notice her chart on 7 million students, and I wonder which 7 million students she is talking about.

My understanding is there are 11 million students who will take out new student loans this year, I believe that 2 million of them are low- income students who get subsidized loans, and that the Democratic Senator's proposal would help those 2 million students by keeping their rate at 3.4 percent instead of 6.8 percent. So who are the 7 million students the Senator from Michigan is talking about?

I thank the Senator from Michigan.

It could be my numbers are wrong. I think the 7 million student figure is actually a very good billboard for why not to support the Democratic proposal but to support the bipartisan proposal because what the proposal of the Senator from Michigan will do is keep rates high for 7 million middle-income students whom her proposal does not help.

There are 11 million students across this country who are going to college this fall. They will take 18 million loans out. They will borrow over $100 billion. What happened on July 1 was that the rate went back up to 6.8 percent for the loans that are for the lower income students--only those. For the loans that go to the middle-income students--and my understanding is there are about 7 million of those-- it stays right where it is: 6.8 percent.

Under the bipartisan proposal, their rates would be 3.66 percent. In other words, the bipartisan proposal would not only create a permanent solution, but it would lower rates--it would lower rates almost half-- for the 7 million middle-income students who otherwise would be twisting in the wind for the next 10 years paying higher rates-- hundreds of millions of dollars of higher rates.

So the number 7 million, I believe, is correct, I would say to the Senator from Michigan, but that is the number of middle-income students who are going to be paying higher interest rates under her proposal. I am glad she brought up the number. If I am mistaken about that, I need to know it before tomorrow's vote because I believe there are 2 million students with subsidized loans. That is who the Senator seeks to help. There are 7 million students who are undergraduates who have loans that are unsubsidized. Those are middle-income undergraduates. They are going to be paying 6.8 percent under the Senator's proposal. They are going to be paying 3.66 percent under the bipartisan proposal.

I would be happy to, Madam President.

It is a fixed rate for the students who borrow the money this year.

Well, if you are 1 of the 11 million students who borrow money under the bipartisan proposal--let's say you are an undergraduate, and that is two-thirds of the loans--your rate would be 3.66 percent this year, next year, and for the next 10 years.

Next year it will be whatever it costs the government to borrow money. The government will loan it to the student, without overcharging the student, in order to reduce the debt to pay for government programs or any other reason. So the formula would be that we would not add any cost to the taxpayers, but we would not overcharge the students to reduce the debt or to pay for a program. Next year the interest rate might be higher. The next year it might be higher. But those would be for new loans.

Then, of course, there are already two caps in the law that would be continued under the bipartisan proposal. One says that any student at any time can consolidate his or her loan at 8.25 percent. So the loan cannot go higher than that.

The second says while you are paying off your loan, you will not pay more than about 10 percent of your income. If after 20 years or so you have not paid off your loan, it is forgiven. So these are two caps that are already in the law.

I would say to the Senator through the Chair, she is correct. The idea of this is instead of Congress playing political ``fix it'' during every election, we have turned this into a sort of doc fix where we are treating students the same way we treat doctors who serve Medicare patients. We run in here and have a big political fight about what we should be paying. Instead of doing that, we have a permanent solution that is based on what the market rate actually is. We say whatever it costs the government, whatever it costs the taxpayer, we loan it to the students at that level.

The Senator is correct; if it costs the government more to borrow the money because the rates are higher that year, the rate will be higher that year. But there is the 8.25-percent cap. Throughout the history of the student loan program, there have been caps in the past. There was a 10-percent cap for about 15 years. There was a 9-percent cap for about 20 years. If the Senator is suggesting there be a cap on the loan at a lower level than that, then the Senator will have to raise a lot of money.

For example, if we had a 6.8-percent cap on all loans going forward, my guess would be that it would cost $50 billion or $60 billion over a 10-year period of time. I do not know where we will get that money. So the President made the proposal that we have a permanent solution. He suggested that we take the amount of money--ask the Congressional Budget Office. This is not some Republican or Democratic figure. Ask the Congressional Budget Office: What does it cost to borrow the money and to make the loans? Let's then loan it to the students. Let's not overcharge them for any purpose. That is the proposal.

So my question would be, why would we do a short-term fix for 1 year that

benefits a small percent of students, and leave 7 million middle-income students twisting in the wind, paying an interest rate that is nearly twice as much as they would pay under the bipartisan permanent solution that is based on the very same idea the President proposed, that the House of Representatives has passed, and that a bipartisan group here has proposed?

I think the more Senators look into this and understand the cost of it, they will agree the goal is to say, we do not want to add any cost to the taxpayers, and we certainly do not want to overcharge the students on a loan, that they will come out with something about like what the bipartisan proposal is and what the House passed and what the President proposed.

If I could make one other comment, the Senator from Michigan was talking about large loans for students. I agree that is a problem. I am a former university president. I am a former Education Secretary. I have watched this for a long time. I think a lot of students are borrowing too much money. We need to think about ways to change that. Right now, they are entitled to borrow certain amounts, even if the college thinks it is unwise for them to do that. Maybe we need to change that. Maybe colleges need to have some skin in the game when they make a loan, whether they are a public, or nonprofit or a for- profit college. That is something we ought to look into.

But what we are debating this week is a simple question of what is a fair rate? What is a fair rate? The bipartisan proposal is an 8-page bill that says: Let's take what it costs the government to borrow the money, that is whatever the Congressional Budget Office says it is, let's loan it to the students without any profit, and let's have two caps on it going forward. One would be 8.25 percent. Any student could consolidate any loans at that level if it goes higher. The other would be a cap on how much you have to pay each year as you pay your loan back. I hope my friends on the other side recognize that unless I am mistaken, their proposal does help, for 1 year, 2 million low-income students who already have their interest paid by subsidy by the taxpayers, who also are eligible, for the most part, for Pell grants. But it does nothing for 7 million middle-income undergraduates whose rates on new loans will stay at 6.8 percent.

The bipartisan proposal would lower those rates to nearly half that level. Why would we leave those middle-income students--those 7 million middle-income students--twisting in the wind, paying twice as much in interest rates as they need to pay? That is the question. I hope after the vote tomorrow that we can sit down, talk this through, and come to a result. We should not be having political gamesmanship about this. We are talking about 11 million families here, 18 million loans, over $100 billion. We are talking about people who are making their plans to go to college. It is not easy to go. Many Senators have talked about that.

People might have $100,000 in loans, but they cannot get it through the subsidized loan program. You can only receive up to $23,000 that way. We can look at all of that at some point. But we need to pass this 8-page bill, set a fair rate, spare the taxpayers, spare the students. There is no need to deal with ``some of the loans,'' when we can lower rates for ``all of the loans'' and put it on a permanent fair basis, very much in the way the President recommended in his budget, very much in the way the House of Representatives passed it, and very much in the way the bipartisan group has suggested.

I yield the floor.

I thank the Senator from New York. I understand he has a previous meeting. I don't want to make him late because maybe it will produce some result. I hope it will produce a result--I don't see an issue that benefits either political party or any Senator.

The questions we who have been working on this have asked the Congressional Budget Office are very simple. We have said our goal is to create a permanent solution along the lines the President recommended, that the House of Representatives has now passed, that neither costs the taxpayers additional money or overcharges the student. Please give us what the interest rates would be and what the type of loan should be.

The Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, goes through all of this and they suggest a variety of options that we have.

What they have told us is that the proposal of the bipartisan group comes as close to being equal as one can get. It is about nearly $1 billion over 10 years which, when you are loaning $100 billion a year, is sort of a rounding error.

The intention is to loan it to the students for what it costs the government to borrow the money, but we are not going to overcharge the students and we are not going to ask the taxpayers to pay an additional subsidy.

Within that, if you accepted that idea, then you could say there are a variety of ways to do that. You could do it as the bipartisan group has suggested or you could try to put a cap on it. Whenever you put a cap on, it costs a lot more to students. A cap at 10 doesn't cost very much because the interest rates aren't estimated to be that high for undergraduates especially. But as you go down to 9, 8, 7 or 6.8, it balloons very rapidly. We could meet that principle, fair to taxpayers and fair to students, but we are going to have to raise a lot of money to do it. I haven't heard anybody suggest where $50 or $60 million more is going to come from.

I think it is better to go ahead and amend the House bill, get a better bill, put the Senate's imprint on it, and send it to the President. Let's let all of today's students take advantage of today's low rates and pass a permanent solution that would reflect what the actual cost is. It may go up; it may go down. That is the reality.

As we know, with low-income students, those eligible for subsidized loans, the taxpayer already pays the interest on those loans while the student is in college. That is about $50 billion over 10 years. Those students are also eligible for Pell grants, most of them are, and that is about $350 billion over 10 years. This is a substantial subsidy.

The Senator mentioned the Federal Credit Reform Act. The Federal Credit Reform Act is the way the Congress has said the CBO should count when it is making these computations, so it does that. It also does it according to a fair value method of accounting. Maybe the simplest way to explain it is to say the Federal Credit Reform Act actually favors students pretty heavily in this computation. The fair market value accounting is more realistic, and favors the taxpayers' point of view. We are using the accounting system--or the CBO is--for this bill that is more generous to students.

I still, after listening respectfully to all I have heard, don't see why in the world we are going to insist that for the next year several million middle-income students are going to have to pay 6.8 percent when they could be paying 3.66. This is what I can't understand. I hope we continue this debate and tomorrow we will have at least one vote on it. I hope after that we have more discussion and that we come to a result because there are a lot of families waiting for us to make a decision.

The President has weighed in. The House of Representatives has passed a bill. We have a bipartisan bill on the floor. We need to come to a result, send it to the President so families can make their decisions about how they are going to pay the college bills.

I yield the floor.