I-Squared Act of 2013

Madam President, on January 29, 2009, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay

Act. It was a proud day and I was there for that. A critical law, the first legislation signed into law by President Obama after his first election, reversed the outrageous Supreme Court decision in Ledbetter v Goodyear and made clear that a worker such as Lilly Ledbetter, who does not learn of her pay inequities for years, still had recourse to challenge her wage discrimination.

Today we celebrate the anniversary of the enactment of this important law, but at the same time we must recognize it was only a first step. We need to do much more to ensure that all workers in our society are paid fairly for their work and are not shortchanged because of the their gender, race or other personal characteristic. That is why, 4 years after enactment of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, I am proud to introduce once again the Fair Pay Act, a bill I have introduced in every Congress since 1996.

Let me give some background. In 1963, Congress enacted the Equal Pay Act to end unfair discrimination against women in the workplace. At that time, 25 million female workers earned just 60 percent of the average pay for men. While we have made progress toward the goal of true pay equity fully a half century later, too many women still do not get paid what men do for the same or nearly the same work. Let's be clear about this. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 has to do with women doing the same jobs as men. But still, on average, as we know, for every $1 a full-time male worker earns, a woman earns just 77 cents. So we have gone from 60 cents, in all those 60 years, to 77 cents for every $1 a man makes.

What does that translate into? You might say, OK, 7 cents is that a big deal? Yes, it is. Over a lifetime of work it means an average of $400,000 that a woman loses because of the unequal pay practices.

I will say that again later on, but that $400,000 is not just the pay she loses during her lifetime. Think about the retirement benefits that woman loses because she has been underpaid all those years. That is why we have a system in America, when a woman retires, a man retires, they had the same kind of work, a man gets a lot more retirement than a woman because they paid in more because they were paid more during their lifetime.

This system is wrong, it is unjust, and it threatens the economic security of our families. The fact is millions of American families are dependent on a woman's paycheck just to get by, to put food on the table, to pay for childcare, to deal with rising health care costs.

In today's economy, few families have a stay-at-home mother. In fact, 71 percent of mothers are in the labor force. They are a major contributor to their familie's income. Two-thirds of mothers bring home at least one-quarter of their familie's earnings and in more than 4 of 10 families with children, a woman is the majority or sole breadwinner.

That means in today's economy, when a mother earns less than her male colleagues, her family must sacrifice basic necessities, as well as face greater difficulty for these kids to save for college, afford a home, live the American dream. The lifetime of earning losses all women face, including those who are without children or whose children are grown, affects not only their well-being during their working lives, as I said earlier, but it affects their ability to save and have a decent retirement.

The evidence shows that discrimination accounts for much of the pay gap. In fact, according to one study, when we look at all the reasons there is a wage gap--we have race, 2.4 percent; 3.5 percent union status; labor force experience; industry category; occupational category--41 percent unexplained. They cannot explain why it is. The fact is, that is because of discrimination. It is because our laws have not done enough to prevent this discrimination from occurring. That is why the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was a critical first step. That is why it is important to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act.

That bill was introduced last week by Senator Mikulski. I am proud to be an original cosponsor. She has always championed that. What that does is start to close a lot of the loopholes and barriers to effective enforcement in our existing law to close that 41 percent unexplained gap. We need to strengthen penalties and give women the tools they need to confront discrimination.

It is outrageous that the Senate has not yet passed the Paycheck Fairness Act. In the last two Congresses this bill got more than a majority of support. In 2010 58 United States Senators, a large majority, voted to pass this legislation. If we had 58 votes, why didn't we get it? Because of Republican obstructionism, we could not even proceed to debate the bill. This was a filibuster on a motion to proceed to the bill. We got 58 votes, but we could not even debate it.

Since we just went through a recent debate on rules reform, I want the American people to understand this. The Republicans, the minority party has continuously prevented the Senate from even considering the issue of unequal wages and gender discrimination. Millions of women and their families are concerned about the fact that they get paid less than their male colleagues. It is unfair; it is unjust. Nevertheless, repeatedly, the Republicans have filibustered even debating the issue.

Just last week we had a vote in the Senate to change the rules. We made some modifications of the rules. I truly hope those modifications which were made will now enable us to get over this hurdle so we can bring up the Paycheck Fairness Act and debate it. If they want to offer amendments, that is fine, but let's debate it. Let's have amendments and then let's vote to pass the bill. I hope the changes in the rules last week will enable us to do so.

As I said, the Lilly Ledbetter bill was a first step. The Paycheck Fairness Act will start to close some of the loopholes and make sure the penalties will be enforced. But there is one more step which needs to be taken, and I think it is the most critical one of all--equal pay, yes. We have had that since 1963; that is, women and men doing the same job. The Lilly Ledbetter Act allows us to go back and get the back wages that were due, but that is sort of after the fact.

The Paycheck Fairness Act will make sure we have penalties and enforceability. However, there is one other huge, glaring discrimination that is ongoing in our society today against women; that is, as a nation we unjustly devalue jobs traditionally performed by women even when they require comparable skills to the jobs traditionally performed by men.

Today millions of what we call female-dominated jobs, such as social workers, teachers, childcare workers, nurses, those who care for our elderly in assisted living care or in nursing homes--most of these jobs are equivalent in skills and working conditions to male-dominated jobs, but the female-dominated jobs pay significantly less. This is unfair and unjust discrimination.

Why is a housekeeper worth less than a janitor? Why is a maid worth less than a janitor? Eighty-nine percent of maids are female; 67 percent of janitors are male. While the jobs are equivalent in skills, effort, responsibility, and working conditions, the median weekly earnings for a maid are $387 and for a janitor it is $463. Computer- support workers--a job that is 72 percent male--have median weekly earnings of $949. In contrast, secretaries and administrative assistants, which is 96 percent female, have median weekly earnings of $659. Why do we value someone who helps with computers more than someone who makes the entire office function? That is not to say the men are overpaid, it is just to say that jobs we have long considered in our country as ``women's work'' or ``women's jobs'' are grossly underpaid.

Now to address this more subtle, deep-rooted discrimination, today I introduced the Fair Pay Act. As I said, this is a bill I have introduced--along with Congresswoman Norton--every year since 1996. The bill will ensure that employers provide equal pay for jobs that are equivalent in skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions.

People have asked: How do we do that? Well, we have some history. In 1982 the State of Minnesota implemented a pay equity plan for its State, and I think, also, municipal employees. The State found that women were segregated into historically female-dominated jobs and that women's jobs paid 20 percent less than male-dominated jobs. Pay equity wage adjustments

were phased in over 4 years, leading to an average pay increase of $200 per month for women in female-dominated jobs.

In 1983, in my home State of Iowa, the Iowa Legislature--a Republican legislature and a Republican Governor, I might add--passed a bill stipulating that the State shall not discriminate in compensation between predominately male and female jobs deemed to be of comparable worth. That was in 1983. I am proud of Iowa. I just want to say this was passed by a Republican legislature and signed by a Republican Governor.

Toward that end, the State engaged a professional accounting firm to evaluate the value of 800 job classifications in State government. The final recommendations, which were made in April of 1984, proposed that 10,751 employees should be given a pay increase. After being implemented in March 1985, female employees' pay had increased at that time by about 1.5 percent. Think of what that means from 1985 to now and how much more those women are paid over all those years. This can be done as well for the women in this country who are currently being paid less, not because of their skills or education but simply because they are in undervalued ``female jobs.'' Making sure they receive their real worth will make a real difference for them and the family who rely on their wages.

Again, many of these jobs are jobs that we don't know what we would do without them. Have you ever visited someone in your family who was in a nursing home? Who is taking care of those people? Women. If we take someone who is in a situation like that, they have to lift and move heavy people. They have to be strong, and they care for people. Then we look at truckdrivers. Most truckdrivers are men. Truckdrivers have power steering and power brakes. A person doesn't have to be strong to drive a truck. They are making a lot more money than that woman who is working in a nursing home and taking care of our grandparents. Why? Skills, effort, responsibility, and working conditions are about the same.

What my bill would do would be very simple. It would require employers to publicly disclose their job categories and their pay scales. Got it? Employers would publicly disclose their job categories and pay scales without requiring specific information on individual employees. I am not asking anyone to say what they are paying an individual employee. We just want to know job categories and pay scales. If we give women information about what their male colleagues are earning, they can insist on a better deal for themselves in the workplace.

Right now women who believe they are the victim of pay discrimination must file a lawsuit and endure a drawn-out legal discovery process to find out whether they make less than the man working beside them. With pay statistics readily available, this process could be avoided. In fact, I remember when Lilly Ledbetter first testified before our committee--the committee I now chair and the committee on which the distinguished occupant of the chair is proud to serve.

I had provided Lilly Ledbetter information on the Fair Pay Act--the one I am talking about. I asked her if the Fair Pay Act had been law, would it have averted her wage discrimination case. She made it very clear that had she had the information about pay scales, which our bill provides, this would have given her the information she needed to insist on being paid a fair salary from the beginning rather than having to resort to litigation years after the discrimination began.

Four years after President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, let's make sure what happened to Lilly never happens again by recommitting ourselves to eliminating discrimination in the workplace and making equal pay for equivalent work a reality.

I have introduced this bill in every Congress since 1996. We get focused on Lilly Ledbetter, and that is important. We are focused on paycheck fairness as well. Let's think about the millions of American women out there who are in these traditional women's jobs which require the skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions that are similar to a man and yet they are grossly underpaid.

If Minnesota and Iowa--and there may be some other States I don't know about; I just know about those two. If they can do it--and they did this in the 1980s for State employees as well as municipal employees in Minnesota--surely we can do this nationwide. If we really want to stop the discrimination in pay in this country between women and men, the Fair Pay Act is the one that will do it.

I am going to continue to push for this as long as I am here. Hopefully, we can have some hearings on it again, which I will, and hopefully we can begin to move on it.

Mr. President, I have been coming to the Senate floor just about every day that we have been in session so far this year, and I am going to continue to do so to talk about what I believe is our most pressing crisis that this body faces and that our country faces; that is, the uncontrolled runaway Federal spending and accumulated debt and how it is dragging our economy down and how it threatens to provoke a major economic disaster if it is not addressed.

In previous remarks I have made on this floor, I tried to make the point that if we fail to get Federal spending under control in the short term, our economy will continue to remain in the doldrums because of this cloud of economic uncertainty that hangs over investors, businesspeople, and consumers. But I don't want my colleagues to just take my word for it. A host of experts, commentators, businesspeople, and investors around the country--and, frankly, around the world-- people from both sides of the political spectrum have been and will continue to make this same point.

The message is this: Unless Washington stops punting this problem and begins to demonstrate the will to cut spending in serious ways to reduce our long-term debt, the economy will continue to limp along; investors will continue to remain on the sidelines; business owners will continue not to hire new employees; and, we will hasten the day when investors lose confidence in the United States as a worthy credit risk.

I know the market has responded in a favorable way recently. I hope that continues. But the fundamentals underlying our current economy don't justify that continuing far into the future.

So today I would like to quote from what others are saying, not just what a Senator from Indiana believes and has been saying on this floor. I want to talk about what they are saying about our debt and spending crisis.

First, I believe we can all--or most of us can--agree with this fact: that the first and the most essential function of the U.S. Government is to defend and protect its citizens from threats to their national security. As our national debt continues to rise unrestrained, we are putting our children's future and our country's future in a very vulnerable state.

Perhaps the most dire and frightening warning has come from one of our Nation's highest ranking officials, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, who said:

The continually increasing debt is the biggest threat we

have to our national security.

Not al-Qaida, not suicide bombers, not Islamic fundamentalists. According to the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, someone who has made a career leading our country through tumultuous battles of war, the largest threat to our national security is our very own red ink.

Erskine Bowles, former White House Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton, also recognizes the imperative need to address our spending and debt crisis. As we all know, Bowles was tapped by President Obama to lead a bipartisan deficit commission with former Republican Senator Alan Simpson. The two

men, along with the commission, proposed recommendations for a big and bold plan to reduce our long-term debt. Rather than heed some of these recommendations and build off of this bipartisan momentum several years ago, the President ignored it completely and since has done nothing and offered no plan of his own to fix our dire fiscal plight other than to propose new taxes.

As I mentioned in previous remarks, the President got his tax increases on millionaires and billionaires, but no one should be fooled into thinking this solves our fiscal crisis. Recently, in an interview, former Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles rightfully criticized the administration and the Congress for not striking a significant budget deal and called that failure, ``The most disappointing thing in my life.'' He went on to say:

They're bouncing from one crisis to another. . . . It's

nuts. We have an enormous fiscal problem in this country. . .

. We've got to put our big boy and big girl pants on and go

to work.

He also added:

. . . the problems are real, the solutions painful, and

there's no easy way out.

Finally, he said:

We got to do stuff that's real. I mean there's no sense in,

you know, just working at the edges. . . . If we don't slow

the rate of growth in healthcare programs, it's going to eat

up the entire budget and virtually bankrupt the country.

The warning signs and the calls for action are coming from all sectors.

From the business sector, Gary Loveman, chairman of the Business Roundtable's Health and Retirement Committee, said the following:

Keeping the U.S. economy from careening over the fiscal

cliff was the first step, but our elected leaders must not

stop there. Although economic recovery has been stalled,

renewed expansion is possible if conditions are set in a

comprehensive budget agreement that includes entitlement

reform and long-term changes to reduce deficits. In this way

we will ensure the viability health and retirement safety net

for future generations of Americans.

John Mauldin, president of Millennium Wave Advisors, an investment advisory firm, publisher of Mauldin Economics, and author of ``End Game,'' a book many of us have heard about and read, said this:

The real issue is the deficit. The leaders of both parties

recognize that the current path spelled out on our fiscal

balance sheet is unsustainable. The deficit must be brought

under control . . . or we will find ourselves all too soon in

the situation now facing much of Europe and Japan. The

options at that point become far more dire.

Business owners in my home State of Indiana also recognize these dangers. Reflecting the sentiment of virtually every businessperson I have talked to over the past 2 years, Rick Zehr, a business owner in Fort Wayne, IN, said:

We all need to manage our income and not borrow beyond what

we can afford. I look at our country's deficit spending and

it's so far beyond what the rest of us have to live like

every day. As a business owner, it makes me nervous. Everyone

is paying for deficit spending.

Economists are sounding the alarm as well. Kenneth Rogoff, a respected Harvard economist, said:

The idea that one should just ignore all these problems and

apply crude Keynesian stimulus is a dangerous one. It matters

a great deal how the government taxes and spends, not just

how much. The U.S. debt level is a constraint. A growing

number of empirical studies, including my own joint work with

Carmen Reinhart, suggests that the U.S. has already reached a

debt level that has been associated with slower growth in

advanced countries.

Our own Treasury Department and some credit rating agencies have also weighed in. These warnings alone should be enough to urge Congress and the administration to act.

According to the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Report of the U.S. Government for Fiscal Year 2012:

While these projections are subject to considerable

uncertainty, the debt-to-GDP ratio would continue to rise

unsustainably under current policy.

Can I state that again? Our own U.S. Treasury report said that while these projections are subject to considerable uncertainty, the debt-to- GDP ratio will continue to rise unsustainably under current policy.

Does that not suggest to us that current policy is not working when the U.S. Treasury puts out a report saying: What the administration and Congress are doing is unsustainable? Unless we grasp the reality of what is happening with our spending and our debt, we are headed for a crisis if we are not in one already.

When Standard & Poor's downgraded the U.S. Federal Government debt in August 2011, they said:

Our lowering of the rating was prompted by our view on the

rising public debt and our perception of greater policymaking

uncertainty.

There is that word again, ``uncertainty.'' There is that implication again: failure to take action. The time to act is now. We can no longer sit back and hope this problem is going to go away. Too many people want to just think, well, if we just sort of stumble along the way we are stumbling along, it is all going to work itself out.

We can no longer, and should no longer, accept double-digit unemployment. Yes, I said double-digit. While the official number is hovering around 8 percent, we all know millions of Americans have given up looking for work, and millions of others have dropped out of the employment lines or settled for jobs below their qualifications. The real numbers are far higher, and the distress is far greater than what is admitted.

This is not a new problem. It has been long recognized even by the President. In February 2009, 4 years ago, President Obama held a fiscal responsibility summit, and here is what he said:

And that's why today I'm pledging to cut the deficit we

inherited in half by the end of my first term in office. This

will not be easy. It will require us to make difficult

decisions and face challenges we've long neglected. But I

refuse to leave our children with a debt that they cannot

repay--and that means taking responsibility right now, in

this administration, for getting our spending under control.

Here we are, 4 years from those remarks where the President's own budget and bipartisan deficit commission was dismissed, 4 years from the time when he pledged to the American people that he would cut the deficit in half, 4 years from the time when he said responsibility needs to be taken now.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 3 more minutes.

It has been 4 years since the President made those statements, and here we are where we have added trillions of dollars of new debt--the greatest increase in the history of America, and we have ignored and pushed spending down the road without a real budget proposal or a long-term deficit plan. Experts and economists from both sides of the aisle agree that spending reductions must be a part of the equation to address our dangerous debt. The President has called for a balanced approach but is showing no signs of leadership on restructuring mandatory runaway spending.

Even the Washington Post editorial board, which is not necessarily conservative, acknowledged this in a piece just recently on November 27, and I quote:

Elections do have consequences, and Mr. Obama ran on a

clear platform of increasing taxes on the wealthy. But he was

clear on something else, too: Deficit reduction must be

``balanced,'' including spending cuts as well as tax

increases. Since 60 percent of the federal budget goes to

entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social

Security, there's no way to achieve balance without slowing

the rate of growth in those programs.

In conclusion, let me say this: There is a widespread consensus about the seriousness of this problem and the fact that we must take significant measures to rein in our deficit spending and do it now. We need a bold plan that will reduce spending, reform and simplify our tax system, and, most of all, restructure Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security to preserve those benefits for future generations. In subsequent remarks, I intend to address how Congress can get with it and become part of the solution instead of part of the problem. We need to create a long-term deficit reduction plan that begins by fulfilling our constitutional obligation to pass a budget, which this body has not done in more than 1,300 days. Let's be honest with ourselves--this will only happen if we, the Senate, summon the political courage and the will to engage in direct, good-faith, bipartisan efforts to deal with our Nation's No. 1 challenge.

Perhaps Alice Rivlin, budget director under President Bill Clinton, summed it up best:

There's no mystery about what we ought to do, we just need

to get on with it.

Mr. President, Senate colleagues--Republicans and Democrats--let's get on with it.

With that, I yield the floor.

I thank the Senator.

Mr. President, there has been a lot in the news over the last 24 hours about immigration as an issue that confronts our country. I wanted to put this in the context of that and then talk specifically about the details that are within this.

First of all, in the context of immigration reform, there are things I think the vast majority of Americans would agree. One is this: We have a legal immigration system that is not working for the country. I think that despite the debate which exists about illegal immigration and how to deal with that reality--and that is a real debate that needs to happen--one of the things everyone agrees on is that legal immigration is good for this country. It is an important part of our history and critical part of our future. The legal immigration system we have in place right now does not work for America, and it really does not work for the 21st century.

Let me be clear about one thing: I support family-based immigration. That is how my parents came to this country. I don't want us to do anything that undermines it. I also know that in the 21st century, we can no longer afford to have an immigration system where literally less than 10 percent of the people who come here do so based on the skills they bring to this country.

Think about this for a moment: If I said to my colleagues that the NBA should be a collection of the best basketball players in the world, who would disagree with that? If I said Major League Baseball should be a collection of the best baseball players in the world, who would disagree with that? How, then, can we disagree about that when it comes to our economy? How can we disagree that we should want the smartest, hardest working, most talented people on this planet to come here? I, for one, have no fear our country is going to be overrun by Ph.Ds. I have no fear this country is going to be overrun by nuclear physicists and inventors and entrepreneurs. We have to create a system where that can happen in a rational, organized, and legal way. That is what we are attempting to do because that is not what we have right now in the United States.

What we have, in fact, is a system--and Senator Hatch has discussed this. It was startling when I heard this. Yearly, our Nation has a demand for 120,000 computer science engineers, but our universities only produce 40,000 people a year. This is an indictment of our educational system. We need to fix that. We need to get to a point in this country where we have 120,000 people graduating to meet the demand. But in the short term--right now--we have to deal with the fact that if those 80,000 graduates for those jobs are not created here, those jobs are still going to exist; they are just not going to exist here. Those companies are not going to wait for us to produce more graduates. These countries are not going to wait for us to fix our immigration system. They have a business to run. If they can't find the people they need to fill these jobs, they will send those jobs to another country.

What that means in practical terms is these high-paying jobs in these industries will be paying the taxes in some other country, will be stimulating the economy in some other country, will be laying down roots in some other nation. Do people want to know why one of the reasons America is special? Because for over 200 years we have been a collection of the world's best and brightest, a magnet that attracts people here. Now we have an immigration system that in the 21st century is making that very difficult to achieve. That is what this effort does.

The other concern I have heard is what about the folks in this country now. This is a legitimate concern.

When people raise it, I don't get upset because it is a very legitimate concern: The kids who are born here and raised here and go into these industries, will they be hurt? As we have seen, the need far exceeds what we are producing, so that is not an immediate concern. But here is the other, and that is the startling figure that was used earlier; that for every 100 foreign-born STEM workers, we are creating 260-some-odd jobs. It is indisputable that these jobs create jobs for people right down the line in this process. If someone is an entrepreneur who is an immigrant, they create jobs for all kinds of people, and most of them were born here. If someone creates some new technology or develops it, they create jobs and opportunities for people who work here, live here, and were born here. This is a net positive for our economy. That is why this issue is so critical to be confronted.

By the way, as we talk about meeting the demand with our entire immigration system, we can't modernize America's legal immigration system if we don't have a way to get the world's best and brightest to come here in a way that is expedient and in a way that is cost- effective, in a way that is safe, and in a way that is legal. That is what we are attempting to do.

This bill is not in competition with any other effort; it compliments it. In fact, it is an indispensable part of it. We cannot comprehensively reform America's legal immigration system if it does not include VISA provisions for graduates in science, technology, engineering, and math.

My final point: It makes no sense to invite people to come to the United States, to study at our universities, to become the best and brightest in the world at their subject matter, and then ask them to leave. Think about that for a moment. We tell people: Come to America. We are going to let you go to our best schools and teach you everything we know and then we want you to go somewhere else and use the knowledge you gained here. That is crazy. That is not just nonsensical, it is crazy. We can't keep doing that. Hopefully, we will begin to change it now.

It has been a pleasure to work with all the folks involved with this effort. The leadership of Senator Hatch has been extraordinary, as well as that of Senator Klobuchar. We have a good group working together. Our final colleague who has been a part of this, and an indispensable one, who has also worked in the context of another piece of legislation which we are hopeful to get moving soon--startup 2.0--which is an issue for another day, we are obviously interested in hearing from Senator Coons from Delaware about this issue.

Mr. President, let the Record reflect I did not mean to offend hockey fans. On the contrary, we have two hockey teams, the Florida Panthers and the Lightning in the Tampa Bay area, which actually has won the Stanley Cup before, and the Florida Panthers were in the playoffs last year. So we like hockey too. We cannot play it outdoors in Florida. But in any event, I think the point is well taken that we do want the best and brightest.

The one point I wish to make is the one point I have picked up on, on the immigration issue, in general, over the last 24 to 48 hours; that is, how important it is that accurate information reach the American people about what it is we are working on and what it is we are not working on.

Immigration is a complicated issue. We hear a lot of discussion about immigration. I will have more to say about it later today. But immigration is a complicated process. The one we have now is complicated. It is important for people to understand what it is we are trying to do and what it is not. I think that is true for the entire issue of immigration but particularly important for this one.

To that end, I guess I wish to issue a public challenge to the companies that in the past have gotten engaged in the public discourse and in the public debate on issues that involve the issues of technology.

Just a few months ago--and it is a sore spot in some places, I imagine--we had this issue of SOPA and PIPA and all these other things that were going to impact the freedom of the Internet and the freedom of communicating online, and a lot of groups got involved to speak about that and to try to clear up the record about what they were for and what they were against.

I hope they will do the same thing on this. I hope they will use the platforms on this to openly discuss what this is about.

I guess this is a challenge to the Facebooks and the Googles and the Twitters of the world: Get engaged in letting people know what is at stake. If we like these innovations that have radically changed the way we live in this country--just think about this for a moment. If a decade ago we would tell someone we are going to Google them, they would be offended because that did not mean anything a decade ago. Now it means something. If we were to say a decade ago that we were going to tweet something, people would look at us funny. Now it actually means something.

These are innovations that happened in America that have not only changed the way we live and made our lives

more interesting and in some ways more productive but are transforming the world.

Think about the political movements here and around the world. There was a time when one could not even engage in public discourse in America if they did not have an organization to back them. Now any single individual can become the leader of a movement fairly quickly by using the platforms that have been created by innovators.

A disproportionate number of the people who develop this stuff are immigrants or the children of immigrants or children or people we have trained in this country who, thank God, we did not send back home.

We have a chance to do that, and I hope those who have a vested interest in this issue passing will use the platforms they own and operate to clearly inform the American people about what is at stake on the issue of immigration as a whole but in particular on this issue of high-skill immigration.

I guess for some additional thoughts, I wish to turn it over to Senator Coons, who has a unique insight into innovation. We worked on the Startup 2.0. I will plug it again because it is an important piece of legislation we would like to get done fairly soon. A lot of it is based on investor visas and things of that nature.

I think Senator Coons has more to add about our effort here today.

I thank the Senator.

Mr. President, there has been a lot in the news over the last 24 hours about immigration as an issue that confronts our country. I wanted to put this in the context of that and then talk specifically about the details that are within this.

First of all, in the context of immigration reform, there are things I think the vast majority of Americans would agree. One is this: We have a legal immigration system that is not working for the country. I think that despite the debate which exists about illegal immigration and how to deal with that reality--and that is a real debate that needs to happen--one of the things everyone agrees on is that legal immigration is good for this country. It is an important part of our history and critical part of our future. The legal immigration system we have in place right now does not work for America, and it really does not work for the 21st century.

Let me be clear about one thing: I support family-based immigration. That is how my parents came to this country. I don't want us to do anything that undermines it. I also know that in the 21st century, we can no longer afford to have an immigration system where literally less than 10 percent of the people who come here do so based on the skills they bring to this country.

Think about this for a moment: If I said to my colleagues that the NBA should be a collection of the best basketball players in the world, who would disagree with that? If I said Major League Baseball should be a collection of the best baseball players in the world, who would disagree with that? How, then, can we disagree about that when it comes to our economy? How can we disagree that we should want the smartest, hardest working, most talented people on this planet to come here? I, for one, have no fear our country is going to be overrun by Ph.Ds. I have no fear this country is going to be overrun by nuclear physicists and inventors and entrepreneurs. We have to create a system where that can happen in a rational, organized, and legal way. That is what we are attempting to do because that is not what we have right now in the United States.

What we have, in fact, is a system--and Senator Hatch has discussed this. It was startling when I heard this. Yearly, our Nation has a demand for 120,000 computer science engineers, but our universities only produce 40,000 people a year. This is an indictment of our educational system. We need to fix that. We need to get to a point in this country where we have 120,000 people graduating to meet the demand. But in the short term--right now--we have to deal with the fact that if those 80,000 graduates for those jobs are not created here, those jobs are still going to exist; they are just not going to exist here. Those companies are not going to wait for us to produce more graduates. These countries are not going to wait for us to fix our immigration system. They have a business to run. If they can't find the people they need to fill these jobs, they will send those jobs to another country.

What that means in practical terms is these high-paying jobs in these industries will be paying the taxes in some other country, will be stimulating the economy in some other country, will be laying down roots in some other nation. Do people want to know why one of the reasons America is special? Because for over 200 years we have been a collection of the world's best and brightest, a magnet that attracts people here. Now we have an immigration system that in the 21st century is making that very difficult to achieve. That is what this effort does.

The other concern I have heard is what about the folks in this country now. This is a legitimate concern.

When people raise it, I don't get upset because it is a very legitimate concern: The kids who are born here and raised here and go into these industries, will they be hurt? As we have seen, the need far exceeds what we are producing, so that is not an immediate concern. But here is the other, and that is the startling figure that was used earlier; that for every 100 foreign-born STEM workers, we are creating 260-some-odd jobs. It is indisputable that these jobs create jobs for people right down the line in this process. If someone is an entrepreneur who is an immigrant, they create jobs for all kinds of people, and most of them were born here. If someone creates some new technology or develops it, they create jobs and opportunities for people who work here, live here, and were born here. This is a net positive for our economy. That is why this issue is so critical to be confronted.

By the way, as we talk about meeting the demand with our entire immigration system, we can't modernize America's legal immigration system if we don't have a way to get the world's best and brightest to come here in a way that is expedient and in a way that is cost- effective, in a way that is safe, and in a way that is legal. That is what we are attempting to do.

This bill is not in competition with any other effort; it compliments it. In fact, it is an indispensable part of it. We cannot comprehensively reform America's legal immigration system if it does not include VISA provisions for graduates in science, technology, engineering, and math.

My final point: It makes no sense to invite people to come to the United States, to study at our universities, to become the best and brightest in the world at their subject matter, and then ask them to leave. Think about that for a moment. We tell people: Come to America. We are going to let you go to our best schools and teach you everything we know and then we want you to go somewhere else and use the knowledge you gained here. That is crazy. That is not just nonsensical, it is crazy. We can't keep doing that. Hopefully, we will begin to change it now.

It has been a pleasure to work with all the folks involved with this effort. The leadership of Senator Hatch has been extraordinary, as well as that of Senator Klobuchar. We have a good group working together. Our final colleague who has been a part of this, and an indispensable one, who has also worked in the context of another piece of legislation which we are hopeful to get moving soon--startup 2.0--which is an issue for another day, we are obviously interested in hearing from Senator Coons from Delaware about this issue.

Mr. President, let the Record reflect I did not mean to offend hockey fans. On the contrary, we have two hockey teams, the Florida Panthers and the Lightning in the Tampa Bay area, which actually has won the Stanley Cup before, and the Florida Panthers were in the playoffs last year. So we like hockey too. We cannot play it outdoors in Florida. But in any event, I think the point is well taken that we do want the best and brightest.

The one point I wish to make is the one point I have picked up on, on the immigration issue, in general, over the last 24 to 48 hours; that is, how important it is that accurate information reach the American people about what it is we are working on and what it is we are not working on.

Immigration is a complicated issue. We hear a lot of discussion about immigration. I will have more to say about it later today. But immigration is a complicated process. The one we have now is complicated. It is important for people to understand what it is we are trying to do and what it is not. I think that is true for the entire issue of immigration but particularly important for this one.

To that end, I guess I wish to issue a public challenge to the companies that in the past have gotten engaged in the public discourse and in the public debate on issues that involve the issues of technology.

Just a few months ago--and it is a sore spot in some places, I imagine--we had this issue of SOPA and PIPA and all these other things that were going to impact the freedom of the Internet and the freedom of communicating online, and a lot of groups got involved to speak about that and to try to clear up the record about what they were for and what they were against.

I hope they will do the same thing on this. I hope they will use the platforms on this to openly discuss what this is about.

I guess this is a challenge to the Facebooks and the Googles and the Twitters of the world: Get engaged in letting people know what is at stake. If we like these innovations that have radically changed the way we live in this country--just think about this for a moment. If a decade ago we would tell someone we are going to Google them, they would be offended because that did not mean anything a decade ago. Now it means something. If we were to say a decade ago that we were going to tweet something, people would look at us funny. Now it actually means something.

These are innovations that happened in America that have not only changed the way we live and made our lives

more interesting and in some ways more productive but are transforming the world.

Think about the political movements here and around the world. There was a time when one could not even engage in public discourse in America if they did not have an organization to back them. Now any single individual can become the leader of a movement fairly quickly by using the platforms that have been created by innovators.

A disproportionate number of the people who develop this stuff are immigrants or the children of immigrants or children or people we have trained in this country who, thank God, we did not send back home.

We have a chance to do that, and I hope those who have a vested interest in this issue passing will use the platforms they own and operate to clearly inform the American people about what is at stake on the issue of immigration as a whole but in particular on this issue of high-skill immigration.

I guess for some additional thoughts, I wish to turn it over to Senator Coons, who has a unique insight into innovation. We worked on the Startup 2.0. I will plug it again because it is an important piece of legislation we would like to get done fairly soon. A lot of it is based on investor visas and things of that nature.

I think Senator Coons has more to add about our effort here today.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Immigration Innovation--or I-Squared--Act of 2013. I am pleased to be joined by my colleagues Senator Amy Klobuchar, Senator Marco Rubio, and Senator Chris Coons, without whom this bill would not have materialized. All four of us worked very closely together, and each one of us deserves total credit for this bill. Together, we have crafted one of the first bipartisan immigration bills in this Congress, one that is designed to address the shortage of high-skilled labor we face in this country. This shortage has reached a crisis level. For too long, our country has been unable to meet the ever-increasing demand for workers trained in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics--or STEM--fields. As a result, some of our Nation's top technology markets, such as Silicon Valley, Seattle, Boston, New York, and Salt Lake City, are in desperate need for qualified STEM workers.

It is critical that we not only recognize this shortage of high- skilled workers but also understand why it exists. Increasingly, enrollment in U.S. universities in the STEM fields comes from foreign students, and despite our urgent need for workers in these fields, we continue to send these foreign students--potential high-skilled workers trained at American universities--back to their home countries after graduation.

Recently I was in a meeting with several leaders in the technology industry where it was mentioned that between 2010 and 2020, the American economy will annually create more than 120,000 additional computer science jobs that will require at least a bachelor's degree, and that is just mentioning one aspect of this. This is great news for many of our computer science students. Unfortunately, that is the end of the good news. Each year only about 40,000 American students received bachelor's degrees in computer science. In other words, there are approximately 80,000 new computer science positions every year in the United States that cannot be filled by the available American workforce. I might add that these are positions which need to be filled so that our technology industry can continue to thrive. Simply put, U.S.-based companies have a great need for those trained in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics field, but at least right now, there are not enough Americans trained and ready to fill these jobs.

We cannot continue to simply hope American companies do not move operations to countries where they have greater access to individuals trained in these STEM fields. We cannot continue to ignore this problem; it is that simple. Continued inaction causes us to miss out on an important opportunity, especially since, as the American Enterprise Institute has confirmed, 100 foreign-born workers with STEM degrees create an average of 262 additional jobs for native-born workers. Those countries would love to have their American-educated Ph.D.s and other highly educated individuals return and boost their economy--not only from their acquired skills but also by creating these new jobs as well. An updated, high-skilled immigration system is directly tied to creating jobs

and spurring growth across all sectors of our economy. We cannot afford any further inaction on this issue.

The I-Squared Act of 2013 addresses the immediate short-term need to provide American employers with greater access to high-skilled workers while also addressing the long-term need to invest in America's STEM education. I am confident that this two-step approach will enable our country to thrive and help us compete in today's global economy.

I mentioned my three prime cosponsors on this bill, each one of whom deserves credit for this bill, each one of whom has been a pleasure to work with, each one of whom adds a great deal to getting this bill passed. I personally thank the Senators for working with me on this issue and allowing me the privilege of working with them on this issue.

Let me turn some time over to Senator Klobuchar, who, along with Senators Coons and Rubio, has been a prime mover on this piece of legislation.

Mr. President, I wish to thank Senator Coons, Senator Klobuchar, and Senator Rubio. As my colleagues can see, it is a real pleasure to work with these three partners and others as well. I particularly wish to thank each of my colleagues for the helpful overview they have given on this bill. It has been a real pleasure for me to work with these three very innovative leaders in the Senate.

As a number of my colleagues have mentioned, by eliminating per- country

limits for employment-based green cards, recapturing lost employment- based immigrant visas, exempting certain classes of immigrants from the annual green card limit, and creating a new and sustainable funding stream to enhance the U.S. STEM education pipeline, we will help America's innovative industries recruit and retain high-skilled talent to more effectively compete in today's global marketplace, and it will make us more competitive.

We have heard from many industry stakeholders that support the I- Squared Act of 2013. To date, we have received letters of support from the following organizations that support this bill: Microsoft, Oracle, Intel, IBM, Hewlett-Packard Company, Facebook, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, BSA The Software Alliance, Compete America, the Semiconductor Industry Association, TechNet, the Technology Association of America, the Consumer Electronics Association, the Software and Information Industry Association, the Internet Association, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, the Information Technology Industry Council, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, TechServe Alliance, the Association for Competitive Technology, the Telecommunications Industry Association, CTIA--The Wireless Association, Sabre Holdings, the Council of Chief State School Officers, and just to mention one other, Immigration Voice.

Mr. President, working with Senators Klobuchar, Rubio, and Coons, I have to say is a real privilege for me. These are three very fine additions to the Senate. In the case of Senator Klobuchar and Senator Coons, they are two respected members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senator Rubio, in my view, is one of the most knowledgeable Senators we have on immigration policy and, as we can see, a terrific leader in so many other ways. We send a strong message that both sides of the aisle can come together to craft bipartisan legislation to address one of our country's most urgent economic needs.

Yesterday, eight of our colleagues unveiled a framework to overhaul our Nation's immigration system. I am proud of them. I commend them for their willingness to work in a bipartisan way to reform our immigration laws. It is very much needed. One of the leaders is, of course, our own Senator Rubio, as well as Senator Schumer and Senator McCain, and others as well whom I hate to not mention, but I think my colleagues get the point. Similarly, the work of Senators Klobuchar, Rubio, Coons, and I have done in crafting the I-Squared Act of 2013 was no easy task and represents hours of negotiations with interested stakeholders and has garnered, as my colleagues can see, widespread industry support.

The I-Squared Act makes sense. I hope our language to reform the high-skilled immigration system is considered by this body in the immediate future. I would surely like to hear a little bit more from Senator Klobuchar, if she would care to make some additional points. I don't mean to take all the time.

Mr. President, I wish to particularly thank my colleagues--Senator Coons and Senator Rubio and Senator Klobuchar--for their work on this bill. It is obvious from their statements here today they have a great deal of commitment to these important issues.

I-squared is a commonsense approach to ensuring that those who have come to be educated in our American universities have the ability to stay with their families and contribute to our economy and our society.

This bill is good for workers, it is good for businesses trying to grow, and it is good for our economy.

I am pleased with the momentum we already have seen on this bill through industry support and within the Senate itself.

I am pleased to announce that Senators Flake, Shaheen, Heller, Blumenthal, Hoeven, Nelson, and Warner have agreed to be original cosponsors of the I-Squared Act, and I encourage many more of my colleagues to support and help pass this bill. It is long overdue. It is well thought out. We have run it by the top people in this country. Frankly, it has a lot of support so far. We have not even gone out and tried to get cosponsors, and they are starting to come naturally. I hope we can get the Senate to call up this bill. Of course, I think we are all interested in going beyond this bill too, in doing true immigration reform that will help our country to continue to maintain itself as the greatest country in the world.

I wish to thank my colleagues. This has been a real privilege to serve with them on the floor today.

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