Retirement Security Act of 2014

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside so I may call up amendment No. 2706.

Madam President, I wish to say a few words about this amendment which I hope we can pass. I think it is an amendment that will find strong bipartisan support.

I am from New England and across New England--and I suspect in Wisconsin and across the country as well--communities are trying to restore old rivers to their healthy state. What we see in New England, particularly in Rhode Island with our history of the Industrial Revolution, is that our early industrial history was powered by hydropower. It was powered by damming rivers and then diverting some of the flow through a wheel that then drove the engines of industry--the mills, for instance, that were so important to Rhode Island's industrial history. That is not true just of Rhode Island; it is true across New England, and I suspect it is true in a lot of places across the country.

As local communities are restoring these old rivers--they tend to be small rivers, particularly in New England, and these tend to be old dams--what we want to do is remove the old dams so the original flow is restored or we want to rebuild or maybe even redesign culverts so the flow of the river through the culvert permits the passage of fish. In some cases, we want to fully keep the dam but build a fish passage, so the fish that are working their way upstream to their traditional breeding grounds find a passage and aren't blocked by dams. Again, this is part of bringing these old rivers back to life. When we do that, in my State, it is usually towns--small towns often--and local community organizations that have to apply in order to make those changes.

Part of the application process is a flood map revision to show what a change--removing the dam or changing the culvert or adding the fish ladder--will make on downstream conditions and so the flood map gets redone. The flood map gets filed with FEMA, and FEMA requires a processing fee of more than $5,000 in order to review and accept the flood map revision.

What actually happens in practice is that the town or the local organization that is filing the flood map revision, because they are repairing or replacing the dam or providing fish passage for it, will apply to waive that fee. Virtually always--at least in Rhode Island, and I think around the country--FEMA is willing to waive that fee.

But the problem is, these are small organizations and these are small towns, and it takes actually a considerable effort to put together the fee waiver application. So you may save $5,500 in the form of the FEMA fee, but you will spend maybe close to that much on your lawyers and engineers and on time and trouble in working together to get that application done.

So since these fees usually get waived anyway, this amendment would just cut to the chase and say there is no fee. And because there is no fee, now you do not have to apply for a fee waiver. That will help the small towns and the small organizations that are often behind these small projects; and I mean dams that are only just 4 or 5 feet tall sometimes. The redesign of a culvert is not a major effort. It is very important to local communities, very important to local fishermen, very important to local canoers and outdoorsmen, but not a terrifically big deal.

I hope we can agree to eliminate that bureaucratic requirement. Neither NOAA nor FEMA have expressed any objection whatsoever to this amendment.

If I can close, I will read a statement by Chris Fox, who is executive director of the Wood-Pawcatuck Watershed Association. The Wood River and Pawcatuck River run through western Rhode Island, and they are wonderful rivers. I have actually canoed and kayaked them both and enjoyed it immensely. He had to go through this fee waiver process for a set of projects on the Upper Pawcatuck River, and he writes:

This Amendment will avert lengthy project delays and reduce

the cost of these environmentally beneficial projects

nationwide. . . . On behalf of the wildlife, water, and

people who reside in, and depend upon the health of the Wood-

Pawcatuck Watershed, I thank you and all those who support

this Amendment.

I hope all my colleagues will join together to earn Chris Fox's thanks for this, I hope, noncontroversial and beneficial amendment.

I thank the Presiding Officer.

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

Mr. President, I hope my colleagues will vote enthusiastically for this amendment. Across the country, communities and local organizations are trying to revive rivers that have been dammed and blocked. When they go forward to remove a dam, when they go forward to put in a fish ladder, when they redesign a culvert to allow for water passage, they have to file a flood plan.

FEMA requires them to pay a fee to have that flood plan assessed. The fee is almost always waived. But they still have to go through the waiver process, which costs money and frankly can be as burdensome as simply paying the fee. This eliminates that fee. It eliminates that part of the process and allows towns and small organizations more readily to come to the aid of our old small rivers.

I think this is something we should be able to agree on with great strength. It is noncontroversial. I urge my colleagues to vote yea.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 15 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. President, this is the 56th time, the 56th consecutive week that we have been in session in the Senate that I have come to the floor to sound an alarm about carbon pollution and the harm it is causing to our oceans and to our coastal communities--the 56th time. Frankly, I am getting a little sick of it. I am getting sick of the Republican Party being completely the tool of the polluters. I am sick of the phony denial and of not getting anything done. I am sick of what it is going to say about American democracy if we keep failing at this.

But I am going to keep pounding away because it is so vital to my ocean State. We are a little State with a lot of coast. Our sea level is rising, driven by faraway melting glaciers and everywhere expanding sea water. As oceans warm, the water expands. That is what liquids do. Deniers look up thermal expansion of liquids and deny that.

The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report projected that sea level will likely rise 1\1/2\ to 3 feet by 2100 if we do what the polluters prefer and ignore the clear scientific evidence. By the way, that is a conservative number.

These rising sea levels hit coasts hard, particularly when storms beat those seas against our shores. It is not just me saying that, we are supposed to listen to the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office around here. A 2013 GAO report on climate change effects said this:

Storm surge, combined with sea level rise, is projected to

generate a wide range of negative impacts on roads and

bridges. For example, storm surges are projected to

increasingly inundate coastal roads, cause more frequent or

severe flooding of low lying infrastructure, erode road

bases, and ``scour'' bridges by eroding riverbeds and

exposing bridge foundations.

People from polluting States may think that is funny, may think that does not matter, but to a coastal State such as mine this is a serious threat. This chart shows the worldwide measured change in sea level. This is not some theory--measured change in sea level--as well as a number of different models projecting future sea levels.

We can see that sea level has been steadily rising over the past 130 years, generally consistent with human fossil fuel use. Between 1901 and 2010, sea level rise was estimated at 1.7 millimeters per year. Recently updated satellite measurements from the University of Colorado Sea Level Research Group show a rise of 3.2 millimeters per year from 1993 to 2013.

The rate of increase has already nearly doubled. According to the IPCC, that rate is likely to accelerate. In Rhode Island, our tide gauge in Newport shows an increase in average sea level of nearly 10 inches since 1930. Consistent with the global trends, measurements at our Newport tide gauge show that the rate of sea level rise has also increased in the past two decades.

Local coastal erosion rates have doubled from 1990 to 2006, and some freshwater coastal wetlands are already transitioning to salt marsh from freshwater as they are inundated by the sea.

Our Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council has documented 160 feet of shoreline lost to erosion in the town of South Kingstown since 1951, a rate of 3 feet per year. A steady 3 feet per year is one thing, add a storm and surges can wipe up whole swaths of land at once, as we saw with Superstorm Sandy.

We can see the erosion here. Back in 1994, this beach pavilion was set back a good way from the water. By 2012, here, the ocean was just a few feet from the structure. This is the roof that is here. This is the framing that is here. This is the very beginning of this walkway back here. There is the ocean. The ocean has moved from here essentially to there. Roads and other infrastructure that were once a safe distance from the shoreline were also battered by this terrible storm surge and wind.

The small, vibrant coastal town of Matunuck, RI, is under siege from the advancing ocean. This chart shows how far the shoreline has shifted since 1951. Here is the 1951 shoreline. This is the 2012 photo, showing how much the sea has risen and eaten against the shores. In the last dozen years, beaches have eroded 20 feet.

The community now faces difficult decisions. The only road connecting Matunuck to neighboring towns is protected by only about 10 feet of sand now. The road provides access for emergency vehicles residents may need. Underneath it lies their water main. If carbon dioxide emissions continue unchecked, another 5 feet of projected sea level rise is a real possibility after the year 2100.

Matunuck's projected coastline with 5 feet of sea level rise can be seen in red. These are all houses. This is Roy Carpenter's Beach. These houses have been here in some cases for generations and they are tumbling into the sea as the ocean encroaches on them.

This is famous Newport Harbor. In Newport, 5 feet of sea level rise would inundate large portions of our vibrant downtown area, including America's Cup Avenue, right here; including the Long Wharf Shopping Center, which would be about here; and including the famous and historic Cardines Field, a great old baseball field.

Goat Island will be only a few specks of land. This is what 3 feet of sea-level rise would look like in Newport. Perrotti Park is gone. The Ann Street Pier is gone, not to mention the Newport Harbor Master's office. He will be a lot closer to the harbor when it is pouring through his windows than he is right now. Wherever Rhode Island meets the sea, our homes, communities, and our very economy are at stake.

Yet in Congress we sleepwalk, lulled by the narcotic influence of the polluting special interests. No wonder I am frustrated.

When my colleagues say they are worried about job loss in the polluting coal and oil industries, I am willing to listen. I am even willing to help, but I am not willing to stand by while this is happening in my home State and have us pretend it is not even real.

Rhode Island, of course, is not the only region experiencing sea- level rise, coastal erosion, and economic disruption. Rising seas concern coastal regions across the country. With over 1,000 miles of coastline, Florida is at grave risk from sea-level rise.

According to the World Resources Institute and an article published in ``Environmental Research Letters,'' of all the people and housing in America threatened by sea-level rise, 40 percent is in Florida. That is because in Florida the flooding won't just be along the coast; low- lying inland areas are also at risk. That is because Florida is built on porous limestone.

In New England, on our rocky shores, we could perhaps build levees and dams in some places to hold the oceans back. In Miami, they would be building those structures on geological sponge. The water will seep right under. Using the best available science, the Southeast

Florida Regional Climate Change Compact assessed the risk to four south Florida counties of sea-level rise. In those counties, 1 foot of sea- level rise would endanger approximately $4 billion in property. In Monroe County, three of the four hospitals, two-thirds of the schools, and 71 percent of emergency shelters are endangered by a 1-foot sea- level rise.

Go to 3 feet of sea-level rise in these counties. That would endanger approximately $31 billion worth of property. That is a lot of infrastructure at risk.

This map shows 3 feet of sea-level rise in Miami-Dade County. The map on the left shows current elevation in southern Miami-Dade compared to 3 feet of sea-level rise on the right. These blue regions go underwater. They have lost acres upon acres of that city.

This nuclear power station, Turkey Point, and this sewage treatment plant are virtually cut off from dry land. Yet what do we hear from our Republican colleague from Florida? Denial, right along the polluter party line.

Louisiana is teed up for the worst storm surge by the warming, rising waters of the Gulf of Mexico. According to a U.S. Geological Survey-led study, between 1985 and 2010, Louisiana lost a football field an hour of land and wetlands to coastal erosion.

A recent poll shows that Louisiana voters understand and want action on climate change. Seventy-two percent of Louisianans believe climate change is a serious problem that threatens everyone. It is hitting their lives and yet our Republican colleague from Louisiana offers streams of denial.

The State with the most coastline is Alaska. Another U.S. Geological Survey study shows that coastal erosion of a 40-mile stretch along the Beaufort Sea has climbed from 20 feet per year between the mid-fifties and late seventies to 28 feet per year between the late seventies and two thousands and now has doubled to more than 45 feet per year between 2002 and 2007.

Climate change is one of several factors at play and is contributing to this accelerating loss.

Earlier this month our Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change, which I lead with Chairman Waxman, welcomed Alaskans from the town of Shishmaref, an Inupiat Eskimo village located on a small barrier island 5 miles from mainland Alaska, to hear from them how climate change is affecting their homes. Their houses are literally falling into the sea thanks to sea-level rise and coastal erosion. Their centuries-old culture is crumbling away with each wave. This is a house in Shishmaref. This is a house at Roy Carpenter's Beach in Rhode Island. We can see how we sympathize with the town of Shishmaref.

In Alaska, Shishmaref is not alone. A recent GAO report showed that 31 Alaskan villages are at risk. The 12 red dots shown are villages that are now considering relocating completely. According to the U.S. Corps of Engineers, relocation costs are estimated at $100 million to $200 million for Shishmaref, and other villages could face similar costs.

Stanley Tocktoo is the former mayor of Shishmaref. He came to our hearing and said:

No matter your politics, you can't ignore the facts. The

facts are that our village is being impacted by climate

change on a daily basis. And we need you to do something

about it.

He said:

No matter your politics, you can't ignore facts.

The painful truth, Mayor Tocktoo, is that in Congress, if you have certain politics, you are actually obliged to ignore the facts. You are required to ignore the facts. Your big-money people--the big polluters, the Koch brothers--insist on it. They demand that you ignore the facts.

Citizens United, that God-awful Supreme Court decision, means that the big polluters' big money can drown out in elections--particularly in Republican primary elections--every reasonable person, Republican, Independent, or Democrat, who understands that we need to act. The party on the other side is stuck, trapped by the campaign finance rules and the big money of the big polluters.

We could, in Congress, be awake, helping and meeting the call of duty. We could be working with the President to implement his climate action plan.

The Environment and Public Works Committee, under the strong leadership of Chairman Barbara Boxer, recently held an oversight hearing on the President's climate action plan. What did we get in that hearing from our Republican colleagues? Denial, quarreling, and obfuscation--the polluter party line.

They actually brought in, as a Republican witness, a person whose organization took money from the Koch brothers, Exxon, and from other far-right and denier foundations, including the notorious Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, which launders money from big donors who want to remain anonymous.

If people have not heard of this Donors Trust and Donors Capital group, a recent report out of Drexel University described this group as the ``black box that conceals the identity of contributors,'' the ``central component,'' and ``dominant funder'' of the denier apparatus. This was who they chose as their witness.

We could, in Congress, be figuring out how a carbon pollution fee-- one that returns all of its proceeds back to the American people--could best boost our economy, as some prominent Republicans have suggested. But I sent a letter to my Republican colleagues summarizing the Republican case for a carbon fee and not one responded.

The polluters have the Republican Party at their heels. It is a tragic state of affairs for a great political party.

Carbon pollution from the burning of fossil fuels is altering the atmosphere and oceans. It is changing our climate. The scientific consensus around this fact is overwhelming. Denial at this point is propped-up polluter-paid nonsense. Where carbon pollution hits the oceans, denial requires people not only to reject science but to reject measurement. We measure sea-level rise. We measure ocean warming. We measure ocean acidification. It is not complicated. We measure sea- level rise, more or less, with a yardstick. We measure ocean warming with a thermometer; we measure ocean acidification with simple litmus tests that everyone with an aquarium is familiar with.

Yet despite that incontrovertible evidence from our oceans, we sleepwalk on in Congress, thanks to a great political party's captivity by polluters. It is a disgrace. It will go down in history as a disgrace.

We could strengthen our economy, we could save our great coastal cities and our age-old island villages, and we can leave things better, not worse, for the generations that will follow us, but we have to pay attention to reality. We have to pay attention to the real evidence. We can't be swept up in the toxic polluter-paid politics that infect Washington.

This matters immensely to Alaska. It matters immensely to the citizens of Shishmaref. It matters immensely to the residents of Florida who are looking at their cities; and it matters immensely to Rhode Island, the Ocean State, because the undeniable changes from sea- level rise and warming are upon us and will only worsen. For once and for all, it is time for us to wake up.

I yield to the Senator.

Fifty-six.

One of the most prominent ones is George Shultz, who served with great distinction, I believe, under three Republican Presidents.

I ran into him in the last 10 days and I said: Thank you for your work on carbon. It is important. He said: It is important. I said: We have to do a carbon fee. He said: Revenue neutral. I said: Yes, we have to do a revenue-neutral carbon fee.

Revenue-neutral carbon fee means that the money that is generated by the polluters pays for the harm they do to do to all the rest of us, which they otherwise get away with for free, and it goes back to the American people. It is revenue neutral. It doesn't go into the government and raise the size of government. It goes right back. We could do it by lowering taxes, by paying off every student loan in the country. We could do it by giving seniors on Social Security a raise. What a good discussion that would be, to be having right here. But we can't have that discussion because the other party is trapped by the polluters--trapped in their politics, trapped by their money.

They have erected a barricade of lies, Madam Chairman. They have erected a barricade of lies, and it is supported by an avalanche of money. If you go outside that barricade, you see enormous support for getting something done about climate.

Just to give the example of our corporate community--Coke and Pepsi, the Mars corporation, which makes M&Ms and Mars bars, Ford and GM, Apple, Nike, Walmart, on and on--we can go through the signal American corporations, the heraldry of the American corporate world, and they are ready to get something done. But there is enough money that gets thrown by the polluters and enough threats made by them in Republican primaries that our colleagues are trapped. Unless we build a coalition that gets them a way out, that barricade will continue to inhibit progress on this issue in this building.

My colleague's point, that this used to be a bipartisan issue, is actually illustrated by this photograph. This is Roy Carpenter's Beach. It is a beach that got probably hit the hardest. There were some bigger, older houses that got washed away down the shore, but this has a lot of these smaller houses that families have held onto for generations. After Sandy, with the sea level rise and then the storm, together, they knocked them into the water this way.

This individual right here is Lincoln Chafee. That is Governor Chafee. He served in this body as a Republican, and he was one of the staunchest environmentalists in this body. If you go back further, his father John Chafee served as the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. He was one of my colleague's predecessors, and he helped lead the passage of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, a Republican, and he was proud of it. He didn't hide from it.

It wasn't something the Republican Party had to run away from in those days. Try to find that in the modern Republican Party. It is embarrassing what has happened to a great political party.

If the underlying problem weren't so serious, it would be laughable that they are already challenging a rule that has not even been promulgated yet. They are sort of prechallenging it. It just shows what a pell-mell tumble our Republican colleagues will subject themselves to in order to keep in the good graces of the polluting industries. Again, it is embarrassing. It ought to be embarrassing.

But I think there is hope. One of the signs of hope is the polling information among young Republican voters. Young Republican voters under the age of 35--not very young but young Republican voters under the age of 35--when asked about climate denial and asked what their view is of people who espouse climate denial say they think they are ignorant, out of touch or crazy. That is the young cohort of the Republican Party. That is what it believes.

So time, obviously, is on the side of reason and science and the plain evidence people see in front of their noses across this country, whether they are farmers, fishermen, hikers or skiers. Anybody who has contact with the outdoors understands this is absolutely real. It is only people in this little hot house of polluter-paid intrigue that the denial strategy still stands up, and it is our job to knock it back down.

Absolutely. Indeed, years ago one expert in this area wrote that, in terms of the experience that people would have--yes, the planet is warming--but the experience that people would have wouldn't be just of warming. It would be of weirding weather--weird weather--and truly the better name would be not global warming, but it would be global weirding. That is because, very simply, when you add energy-- heat energy in this case--to a closed system by trapping it with more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, you speed things up. You make storms stronger, you change weather patterns, and you see things that you have not seen before.

So the things people are seeing now--not specifically and not that storm, but the patterns that people would see more extreme weather of various kinds--were indeed predicted. The fact that it is happening is exactly consistent with what the scientists have been warning us about.

John Warner.

I thank the chair for her staunch leadership. She is such an ally and leader for us. It really is very exciting, and, yes, you will see considerably more activity.

I will close by telling one personal story because very often you are dealing with statistics, and you are dealing with figures, and you are dealing with things that are happening on a large scale when you talk about climate change.

I remember this day. I remember this day, walking along and meeting with these homeowners whose houses these were. I remember talking to the lady whose house--I think this one was right here--the Governor is looking into.

She remembers, as a child, being in that house. In front of this house she had a lawn, a lawn where they could throw Frisbees and play Wiffle ball.

On the other side of the lawn was a road that gave access along the shoreline, a sand road. On the other side of the road was a parking lot where people would come and bring their cars, and on the other side of the parking lot was the beach that was so long down to the water, and she could remember running as a kid. You know, when the summer Sun beats down on the beach and the sand gets so hot that it hurts your feet, and you have to dash to get your feet into the water because they are hot, hot, hot as you run when you are a little kid? And she would make that long run and think what a long run it was to get down that hot sand and into the cool, clear waters of Narragansett Bay.

That beach is gone. That parking lot is gone. That road is gone. Her lawn is gone, and this is what has happened to her house.

If people want to know why we are not going to give up--yes, I am sick of it. I am sick of having to come here and do this. It is tiresome to have no progress and have people not listen and have it be because of, frankly, scandalous polluter-paid interference and influence in this building. Yes, I am

sick of it. But I am not going to stop, not while this is happening to my home State of Rhode Island.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following leader remarks on Thursday, January 30, the Senate resume consideration of S. 1926, with the time until 11:15 a.m. equally divided between the two leaders or their designees, with the final 10 minutes equally divided between Senator Menendez or his designee, and Senator Toomey or his designee, with Senator Toomey controlling the final 5 minutes; that at 11:15 a.m., the Senate proceed to votes in relation to the following amendments: Toomey amendment No. 2707, as modified; Coburn amendment No. 2697; Merkley amendment No. 2709, as modified; and Heller amendment No. 2700; further, that upon disposition of the Heller amendment, the Senate recess until 2 p.m.; at 2 p.m. when the Senate reconvenes, the Senate proceed to vote on passage of the bill, as amended; finally, there be 2 minutes of debate prior to each vote, equally divided in the usual form; and that all after the first vote be 10-minute votes.

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

Mr. President, last night during the President's State of the Union speech, I felt as though I was watching another rerun of one of my favorite movies, ``Groundhog Day'' with Bill Murray. Of course, we all remember that movie. Bill Murray, the principal character, relives exactly the same 24 hours over and over and over again.

Of course, that is what the President's State of the Union reminded me of, because what we heard is a replay of a lot of the ideas we have heard in previous State of the Union speeches. But, unfortunately, the President's speech and his claims in many respects did not reflect reality for most people.

It is apparent the President has not changed in this respect. He still thinks slow economic growth and high unemployment, that the answer to that is

more government spending and more government control over the economy. I would say in the debates we have had in this Chamber and elsewhere and that Americans have had throughout the course of our history since our country's founding about the size and the role of the Federal Government, usually we end up debating philosophy, ideology, and theory.

But the last 5 years have given us the proof we need that big government does not work; not to deny that people do not have the best of intentions, but we know promise after promise has been made, whether it is for the trillion-dollar stimulus--what it would do to unemployment. The President later said, in a moment of candor: Well, I guess shovel ready was not all that shovel ready. Nancy Pelosi talked about timely, targeted, and temporary stimulus. Again, this was borrowed money. This is money we did not have which was added to our debt, which simply did not work. Then of course there is the example of ObamaCare. But let's just review. For the last 5 years, the President pushed through this trillion-dollar stimulus, a $1.8 trillion dollar health care law, a $1.7 trillion increase in new taxes, and about one- half trillion dollars in new regulations.

That is what happens, for example, when I go home to Texas. My community bankers and credit unions say: We have hired new people, but the people we have hired are the ones to fill out the paperwork that is required by the new regulations that are the result of Dodd-Frank.

This is another example of where Wall Street perhaps was the target but Main Street was the collateral damage. So all these new regulations have a cost to them because businesses, if they are going to be in business, are going to have to hire people to comply with those regulations, but that doesn't help grow the economy. That doesn't help make us more productive, and it doesn't put as many people back to work as we would hope would be going back to work in productive jobs.

Let us consider some of the results of some of these items: the stimulus, the health care bill, the new regulations, and new taxes.

Between 2009 and 2013, we have seen median household income fall by more than $2,500, so that is $2,500 less than an average family has to spend on everything from their food to their heating or air- conditioning bill--$2,500 less.

Then we know that the labor participation rate--that is a fancy name for the percentage of people actually in the workforce--has fallen to a three-decade low. It has fallen by 3 percentage points since 2009, meaning that many fewer people are actually in the workforce looking for work. If they were still in the workforce looking for work, the employment rate would actually be much higher, but they aren't counted once they drop out of the workforce. Then we know that long-term unemployment has increased dramatically as a total share of unemployment.

Of course, all of this happened after the recession was over. The technical definition of a recession, I believe, is two consecutive terms of negative economic growth. But amazingly a poll conducted only last week reflected that 74 percent of the respondents thought we were still in a recession. Whether it is a technical recession, people still feel as if we are in one. That is a remarkable number, an unfortunate but yet scathing indictment of the President's economic policies which have not delivered what he had hoped and had promised to deliver.

What is the big idea that the President has to solve this problem or to address these concerns of average hard-working American families? The big idea is let's raise the minimum wage. Superficially, I admit raising the minimum wage has some appeal, but the fact is, when employers have to pay more for their workers, overall that is less money to hire new people. One study estimated that raising the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour--that is less than the $10.10 the President has proposed--would destroy no fewer than 468,000 jobs. Think about it. There is some money with which to hire people, but rather than hire more people, the government sets the wages, meaning they can't hire these other people. That is how it has an either/or effect in terms of jobs. One study calculated that raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour could potentially destroy as many as 2.3 million jobs.

The President chose to ignore this reality last night in his speech. He was eloquent, as always, and gives a great speech. But he said once again--or reiterated once again--if he can't get what he wants from Congress, he is prepared to go it alone.

Last night he said he was going to issue an executive order giving a 40-percent pay raise to Federal contractors, even though the White House cannot tell us how many workers would actually be affected because they don't know.

But who will end up paying more? The Federal Government.

We are talking about raising spending by the Federal Government by 40 percent for these Federal contractors. Somebody has to pay that money, so it is either going to be the taxpayers or it is going to be added to our deficits and debt.

I don't want to be a wet blanket, so let me end on a more positive note, something we could actually do together that would actually make a difference on those long-term unemployed, on people stuck in jobs that are dead end or which they are frustrated with because they are not able to earn the income they want for their family and to live their dream.

One of the debates we should have had earlier but for the majority leader denying us an opportunity to offer any amendments, debate, and vote on the unemployment insurance extension--but I believe we will see that again--is how could we help people learn the skills they need to qualify for the good, high-paying jobs that exist. But there is not enough trained workforce with the skills they need in order to pay for those good, high-paying jobs.

We know there are a lot of workforce training initiatives. Our friend and colleague from Oklahoma tells us there are some 40 different worker training programs, and he has proposed they ought to be consolidated and perhaps streamlined so more of that money could be focused on giving people the education and the tools they need in order to qualify for these good jobs.

I saw a glimpse of what could happen, and thankfully is happening back in Houston, TX, at San Jacinto College, where I had the opportunity to meet some of these inspiring Texans, people who are pursuing their dream.

I met an Iraq war veteran named Jordan Chauvette, who went back to school with the help of the Hazlewood Act. The Hazlewood Act is a State law that provides tuition benefits to veterans and their families. His goal was to learn the skills he would need in order to live a better life and earn a better income for his wife and family.

He recently graduated from San Jacinto College and now is working at an engineering and construction company based in the city of La Porte. If I might interject, one of the reasons there is so much construction, manufacturing--an economic boom taking place in this part of our State--is because of the shale gas revolution. This is one of the brightest spots in our economy, our energy sector, domestic production producing cleaner natural gas. The President talked about that a little bit last night. It is creating these manufacturing jobs because natural gas happens to be feedstock necessary for the petrochemical industry.

Many of the jobs that exist that need these technical skills are the sorts of jobs these young men and women are training for at San Jacinto College. Everything is connected to everything else, but this is how domestic energy production--some of which the President talked about last night--is so important in terms of bringing that manufacturing back on shore. Then we need to have the job training in order to teach people the skills they need in order to qualify for these good, high- paying jobs.

Let's look at the case of Deanna Harper, who received a cosmetology degree from San Jacinto and then went back to school and earned a degree in something called process technology. I don't pretend to understand everything that process technology involves, but all I know is she is a wife, a mother, and she is earning a six-figure salary working in the energy industry. It is a terrific story.

I remember a few years ago in Amarillo, TX, meeting a young Hispanic

woman, a single mother, who had been working as a prison guard--a dangerous, tough job. But thanks to the degree she received from Amarillo College, she was able to go to work on the B-22 Osprey assembly line making in excess of, I believe, $25 an hour and with a great career ahead of her.

What it took was the opportunity for her to go back to school, learn those skills, match those skills with the job, and lift herself up by her own bootstraps.

So many other Texans--Jordan, Deanna, and this young woman I mentioned from Amarillo--have benefited from the recent surge of private investment into petrochemicals and manufacturing, which I mentioned a moment ago. The skills they acquired and the job training they had at San Jacinto prepared them not only for a good job but for an upwardly mobile career in a fast-growing industry.

At a time of stubbornly high national unemployment and people giving up and dropping out of the workforce, we should be doing everything we possibly can to ensure that such jobs and careers are available to all Americans who want them. In that sense we should be doing everything possible to bring this sort of example to Washington, DC, and to spread it nationally.

The truth is there are stories such as this occurring everywhere, but there is more we could do. Certainly, one is take up one of the suggestions of our friend from Oklahoma when he talks about the duplication, the waste, the inefficiency built into our job-training programs--to make them more efficient, to deliver it more streamlined, and to deliver better value to the people who need that training so they can qualify for these kinds of good, high-paying jobs.

That is a much better idea than the Federal Government trying to make a political fix by fixing wages between an employer and a worker that artificially elevates those wages beyond what the market will bear and, in the process, limit the number of new people whom that employer can hire.

These are only some of the ideas I think any reasonable person would say are not completely over the top, are not a crazy ideas, that kind of make sense. But that is exactly the sort of debate we are not having as a result of the restrictive way under which the majority leader is letting us take up consideration of some of this legislation such as the unemployment insurance bill.

Soon, I predict, he will bring a minimum-wage increase bill to the floor. The question is, Is he going to allow amendments from this side of the aisle and the Democratic side of the aisle too? When he cuts off amendments from the floor of the Senate, it doesn't only hurt the minority. We don't like it, but it doesn't only hurt us. It hurts our friends on the other side of the aisle because they are not allowed to offer their constructive suggestions for what could improve the legislation. I thought that is why we are in the Senate, to try to produce the best product we can for the American people.

We don't do it by writing bills in the majority leader's conference room, bringing them out here, and then trying to shove them on through. That is why we have the debate, the checks, the balances, and the deliberative process we have in the Senate. That is what we have not been having.

I wished to raise a few examples of what we could be doing that would be enormously constructive and would help a lot of these struggling workers during a time of high unemployment and low labor participation to help them get back on track.

I came away from that experience at San Jacinto College rejuvenated and encouraged that there is a lot we can do. We do know that people don't want to collect unemployment--maybe some do, but most people, the vast majority of people, want a job.

Again, to repeat what the President talked about last night, he talked about the dignity of work. That is what the vast majority of people want; they want a good job. If we give them the opportunity to learn the skills and we give them a growing economy that is creating jobs, not fewer jobs, then they will be able to find that. I came away even more committed to adopting progrowth economic policies that will make it easier for all Americans to find work when they finish school.

I close on this note. The press leading into the President's speech last night sounded as if it was going to be a whole lot more like he was going to go it alone. But he did at least offer an olive branch of trying to do things more constructively in the legislative branch, recognizing that our Constitution doesn't authorize the executive to do this all by himself. That is what checks and balances are all about, and that is what doesn't happen when he tries to ``go it alone.'' There is danger in trying to go it alone when things are poorly thought out and rammed through without adequate legislation.

But there is one area where that President can use that phone and pen he talked about. He could use that pen to sign the authorization for the Keystone XL Pipeline and connect the pipeline to Canadian oil reserves that would extend from Canada all the way through the United States down to Port Arthur, TX, into what we call the Golden Triangle, where we have a lot of refineries that would turn that crude oil into jet fuel and gasoline. In the process a lot of jobs would be created.

For those of my friends who say: Oh my gosh, we can't build another pipeline, I would invite them to go on Google or Bing or any other search engine and just type in oil and gas pipelines and see what they get. You will be astonished at the number of pipelines that crisscross this country and that safely transmit their product without our even knowing about it, by and large.

I realize occasionally there are accidents, and those are to be deplored and regretted, and we should try to prevent those. But the idea should not be to cut our nose off to spite our face and deny ourselves this safe source of energy from a friendly country such as Canada, so we don't have to get it from dangerous volatile regions of the world and also take with it the jobs that are created as a result of this great renaissance in American and North American energy.

So I would say to the President, in conclusion, after listening to him last night, and really trying to listen to his words: Look at the States that actually are the successful laboratories of democracy. That is the phrase Louis Brandeis coined. That is the great thing about our Federal system, where we have 50 States that are sovereign. They conduct their own business, subject to those matters that are delegated to the Federal Government under the Constitution. But the States are a great place to see what works and what doesn't work. I might add that the two lowest unemployment rates in the United States are Bismark, ND, and Midland, TX, and not unrelated to the shale gas renaissance I mentioned a moment ago.

We should look at what works, from the Tax Code--making it less burdensome, more logical and more conducive to economic growth--to how we address the unkept promises of things such as ObamaCare, which has created uncertainty, increased cost, and caused a lot of disruption in the lives of Americans, and replacing it with patient-centered reforms that actually reduce the cost, expand quality coverage, and improve access to care.

I believe that is the kind of debate we should be having, and that is the type of agenda the American people are asking for and the type of agenda they deserve.

Mr. President, I yield floor.

The following Senator is necessarily absent: The Senator from Indiana (Mr. Coats).

Madam President, I rise to address the amendment I have. I will formally ask to call it up in a few moments, but I wish to say a few words about it. I would like to start with a little bit of background and a reminder of how we got here and the circumstances that brought us to this point.

It all started, of course, with a completely unsustainable National Flood Insurance Program. I don't think there is any dispute that this program is massively in debt, it has been completely under water, it was insolvent, and there was no prospect for this to right itself because of the massive subsidies for homeowners of all stripes.

By the way, in addition to being fiscally insolvent and therefore a huge drain for taxpayers, it has a lot of very bad incentives. When you subsidize homes built in dangerous places, you subsidize and encourage homes to be rebuilt there, homes to be bought in places that are dangerous and costly. So there are problems inherent. The CBO was very clear about this. This program was not going to be able to honor its commitments. That is what happens when a program like this is insolvent and is unreformed: People who think they have insurance for their home end up discovering one day that they don't because of its insolvency.

So along came the Biggert-Waters approach to reform the National Flood Insurance Program and to put it in a position where it would actually be solvent and would actually be able to honor the policies people are paying for.

It was September of 2011 that the Senate banking committee took up the reforms, and they passed it with a voice vote. In other words, there was no dissent. There was no objection to the Biggert-Waters reforms. That was, of course, after many hearings. This had been discussed at length for many years before we got to that point. But we did. We passed it in the banking committee.

In June of 2012--so less than 2 years ago--Biggert-Waters, the flood insurance reform program--was wrapped into another bill. It was wrapped into the MAP-21 Transportation bill and it passed--and it passed with overwhelming support. As a matter of fact, as it happens, every single Democratic Senator who was in the Chamber voted in favor of the Biggert-Waters reforms I think in part because they understood this program needed to be reformed, and I think we all believe this program needs to be in a fiscally sustainable place.

So the final passage of that bill less than 2 years ago required the reforms of Biggert-Waters, which includes as central to those reforms that over time everybody who participates in the National Flood Insurance Program will eventually be paying actuarially sound rates-- rates that actually reflect the risk of their home, so taxpayers wouldn't be on the hook and they wouldn't be subject to the worry about whether this program is going to go away altogether.

That is where we were when, lo and behold, we start to discover that for some people premium increases are going to be very dramatic. I have heard a lot from Pennsylvanians. This is a problem with the Biggert- Waters reform.

One of the problems I suspect a lot of folks did not anticipate was that the premium spikes would be quite substantial and happen over a pretty short period of time. There is a phase-in under the Biggert- Waters reforms, but it is quick, and it is very problematic for that relatively small handful of people who would be adversely affected, because it turns out that the remapping determines that they are in a higher risk profile than had previously been understood or, if they had built their home prior to the initial mappings, they wouldn't be subject to the premium increase. But upon sale of their homes, the premium increase would go into effect, and it would go into effect immediately. And that of course can have a devastating impact on the value of a person's home.

I want to be very clear. There is no question in my mind that if we don't do anything, if we simply leave Biggert-Waters alone, that has an unacceptable impact on people who are adversely affected in the form of premium increases that are way too big way too quickly. And that is not the right outcome. We shouldn't settle for that.

I know cases in Pennsylvania where people are facing thousands of dollars in increase. In some cases it is immediate. In a case where they are going to be selling their home, the new buyer would face that immediately. In other cases, it is phased in quickly.

The Menendez approach--the underlying bill we are debating today-- deals with this, but it deals with this in the wrong way. It deals with this by completely suspending all the reforms. It completely dispenses with the idea that we should move toward an actuarially sound program. It says for 4 years there will be no change in premiums.

It is hard not to see this as a measure designed to kill the reform. I understand it is painful to have any premium increase, but to say that the response should be to abandon any effort to move to a fiscally sound, actuarially based program can't be right. To do that is to completely throw out the reforms that took so many years to get.

And, by the way, it doesn't provide any certainty for the homeowners it is meant to protect--where for 4 years nothing happens, and after the fourth year nobody knows what happens. I know it is the intent of some to continue indefinitely without making any changes, but that is not a solution. This is an insolvent program.

What that means is we will get to the day--relatively soon, according to CBO--when the National Flood Insurance Program will simply be unable to honor the commitments it has made. It will not have the resources. It will not have the borrowing authority. It will run out of money. And people who then get their homes flooded will find it of little comfort that their premium was a little lower when it turns out there is no benefit to be paid, there are no resources for them to rebuild.

So this doesn't work. And it is not just me who observes this problem with the underlying Menendez bill. As a matter of fact, the President of the United States has weighed in on this. I have a quote here from a Statement of Administrative Policy they put out 2 days ago directly referring to this bill, identifying it by number. This is the bill they are talking about, the Menendez bill. One of the things they say is:

Delaying implementation of these reforms would further

erode the financial position of the NFIP, which is already

$24 billion in debt. This delay would also reduce FEMA's

ability to pay future claims made by all policyholders.

This is the President of the United States. His administration has looked at the Menendez bill, and this is their conclusion: This doesn't work. This doesn't work for the policyholders. It doesn't work for taxpayers. It doesn't work for anybody.

There is another problem I would point out with the Menendez bill: It wouldn't work if it were to become law for these reasons, but it is not going to become law. The administration has made it clear they don't support it. The Speaker of the House has made it abundantly clear he will not put a bill on the House floor that guts the reforms of Biggert-Waters. The House chairman of the banking committee, who has jurisdiction over this, has made it abundantly clear: He is not going to move a bill that does away with these fiscal reforms.

If your goal is to do something to help homeowners who are facing premium increases, a vote for the Menendez bill does nothing, because that bill is going nowhere. The administration doesn't support it. They have said so. The House is not even going to take it up. So if your goal is to do something for constituents who are facing a big premium increase--and, frankly, that is a big part of my goal--the Menendez bill doesn't cut it. That is going nowhere.

What the administration said would work and what House leadership is willing to work with us on would be to phase in these premium increases more gradually, because everybody acknowledges the premium increases are occurring too quickly, and that needs to change.

This is another quote from that same Statement of Administration Policy on the same bill. What they said was:

The administration strongly supports a phased transition to

actuarially sound flood insurance rates.

They didn't refer to my amendment, but this is exactly what my amendment does. It phases this in gradually so as to minimize the pain, allow people an opportunity to adjust, allow people the time to maybe mitigate the risk and still maintain the integrity--the fiscal integrity--of the program so it actually can pay the claims that surely will be submitted.

Let me run through quickly exactly what the amendment does and doesn't do, because there has been some confusion about this.

Our amendment actually retains very significant portions of the underlying Menendez bill because parts of it made a lot of sense. Section 1 is the title. Section 2, definitions. Unchanged. Section 3 is where we phased the premium increases in gradually rather than suspending them altogether. That is the big difference. Section 4 of the Menendez bill is an affordability study and report, requires FEMA to complete this study--as Biggert-Waters does--within 2 years of the enactment of the bill. We leave that intact. I think that is a good idea. We need that. My amendment would not affect that whatsoever.

The Mendendez bill also provides some additional funding for the affordability study. It lifts the cap that was set before. My amendment wouldn't change that. I think we need to lift that cap.

Section 6. This is a measure that provides funds to reimburse homeowners when they challenge the redraw. So when a new map comes out and someone's house is deemed to be in a more risky place and therefore the premium is higher, a homeowner can challenge that. If the homeowner wins, under the Menendez language--which I support and stays in this bill under my amendment--the homeowner would be reimbursed the cost of that challenge.

Senator King from Maine had a very good suggestion, which is: If a community chooses to challenge the mapping because they think there was a mistake made, they think it was inaccurate and it adversely affects them, that community too would be reimbursed for its costs if it turns out to be successful in its challenge. I agree with that. We have incorporated that into our amendment.

Section 7 addresses the flood protection system. This is a very important part of what the Menendez bill does and I fully support it, and that is this: Under current law, one of the problems is in order for a community or a homeowner to fully benefit from risk mitigation that they may have done--a levee that may have been built or a dam or some other risk mitigation. In order to fully benefit from that, the Federal Government has to have paid for some portion of it. That is ridiculous. What difference does it make who paid for it? If it has been built and it is providing protection, that is all that should matter. This language would achieve that, the Menendez bill achieves that, and my amendment incorporates that. We keep that intact as well.

Section 8 addresses floodproofed residential basements, addresses that. Our amendment doesn't change that.

Section 9 creates a designation of a flood insurance advocate. Again, my amendment makes no change to that.

Section 10. Senator Blunt had an amendment that would change the remodeling trigger for loss subsidies from 30 percent to 50 percent of a home's value. We incorporate Senator Blunt's amendment into our own, so that is there.

Senator Hagan had an amendment to exempt escrow requirements for flood insurance payments. We fully incorporate that into my amendment as well.

Senator Rubio had an amendment also that was accepted by the managers. It is in ours.

What it comes down to, the difference between my amendment and the Menendez approach is one keeps us on a path of reform, keeps us on a path to an actuarially sound, fiscally responsible flood insurance program, whereby the flood insurance program is actually able to pay its claims, and the Menendez bill dispenses with it. It dispenses with the most important, most fundamental reform. The other part that we do is we soften the blow. If your concern is with these homeowners who are facing these huge premiums, my amendment is the only way we are actually going to achieve that help for those folks because this is the only legislative approach that has a chance of actually legislatively becoming law.

By the way, in addition to its problems with the other body and the administration, the Menendez bill is subject to a budget point of order because it increases our deficit and forces more government borrowing. It is subject to a point of order. I don't know that it can sustain that. I don't know it can defeat a budget point of order and that is an important issue.

Because our approach is fiscally sound, we are not subject to a budget point of order. What we do is we say the longer delay in the phase-in of the premium increases costs the flood insurance program some money until you get to the point where people have reached the level where they are paying actuarially sound rates, but we fully offset that with a very modest surcharge on all flood insurance policies in the country. It is about $40 per year in the first year, the most expensive year, unless your income is over one-half million dollars a year, in which case it is about $80, and that is it. It goes down after that because over time, when the higher premiums phase in, the loss to the program is diminished and therefore the surcharge goes down with it.

But let's be very clear. The maximum that anybody would be paying is about $40 a year unless their income is over one-half million dollars a year, in which case it would be $80 a year.

I will wrap up. I think we cannot continue to ignore all of the fundamental mandatory spending problems we have. When we actually go through a long and painful and deliberative systematic process to reform a program, for us to then walk away within 2 years and say never mind, we are not going to have any reform, is just so disappointing and irresponsible. We have bigger challenges facing us. If we cannot deal with this, I don't know what we are going to do.

I fully acknowledge we have to soften the blow for people who are going to face much higher premiums and my amendment does that. The way we do that is by ensuring nobody's premium could go up by more than 25 percent. In the case of people who would face a big increase, under my approach it will take many years of gradual phasing in before they would actually be forced to pay that higher actuarially sound rate. If they think the rate is unfairly high, they can challenge it or they can leave the program and buy private insurance. They can do that. But to suggest we are going to just do nothing after having put the reforms in place I think would be a big mistake.

There are a lot of groups that are supporting my amendment. I have a list I am going to run through quickly:

Natural Resources Defense Council, National Wildlife Federation, The Nature Conservancy, Taxpayers for Common Sense, National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, Reinsurance Association of America, American Rivers, National Fire Protection Association, National Leased Housing Association, the R Street Institute, American Consumer Institute, Americans for Prosperity, Americans for Tax Reform, the Coalition to Reduce Spending, the Cost of Government Center, Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, Freedom Works, National Taxpayers Union, Taxpayers for Common Sense, Taxpayers Protection Alliance.

You can see there is a combination of fiscal watchdogs, folks who are very concerned about fiscal prudence, as well as people who are concerned about environmental integrity. There are other groups coming on continuously.

As I mentioned, every Democrat who voted on the Biggert-Waters reform voted in favor of it. What my amendment does is it preserves the integrity of the reform while softening the blow for the people who will be affected by it.

I think this is a very important, although modest, step in doing these two things.

Amendment No. 2707, as Modified

I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment so I may call up my amendment, No. 2707, with the modification at the desk.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I come to the floor of the Senate today to speak on the importance of passing the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act. I am a cosponsor of this legislation because without it millions of homeowners across the country will see significant increases in their flood insurance premiums.

Homeowner insurance protects a family's investments from damages and losses that come as a result of accidents or tornadoes or burglaries, but that same homeowner policy, as we all know, does not cover damage resulting from floods. Sadly, too many Americans learn of this gap in their policy after it is too late.

In recognition of this major gap in coverage, Congress created the National Flood Insurance Program in 1968 to give homeowners and businesses protection in the event of a flood, and this program has helped them to protect their property, their families, and their livelihoods.

All regions of America are susceptible to flooding. We see it with seasonal rains, hurricanes, and thunderstorms, and it is a powerful force of nature we cannot escape. When you have flood insurance, you have the peace of mind that the tools to help you rebuild will be there for you. For Minnesotans who live in areas susceptible to flooding, the flood insurance program is absolutely vital.

Each spring in northwestern Minnesota, we know the Red River of the North will top its banks and the flood waters will threaten Moorhead, MN, and Fargo, ND. Leading up to the flood event last spring, I visited the region twice to watch the flood preparations, to urge on our volunteers, and to ensure the residents were receiving the Federal assistance and cooperation they needed. Just as I have seen each and every year since 2007, I saw once again how hard friends and neighbors work to prepare for the potential flood.

These people aren't idly sitting by. In fact, I would bet that if towns and other areas of the country saw the kind of floods these folks have faced in certain years of the last decade, I am not sure they would have been saved. In this case, the residents of Moorhead and Fargo incessantly would create sandbags. They have huge warehouses filled with volunteers. Everyone from teenagers to seniors to inmates would be stuffing those bags full of sand. Residents fought heroically to save not only their homes but their businesses and their families.

Across the Red River, we always say the rising river doesn't divide the two States of Minnesota and North Dakota, it unites us. This is not the first time the Red River has risen, and it certainly won't be the last. As honorable, tireless, and commendable as these efforts are, homeowners can't do it alone, and they deserve our help. That is why we need a National Flood Insurance Program that offers affordable premiums for homeowners who are trying to do the right thing.

I would say that on the Minnesota side, many homeowners have relocated--dozens and dozens. In fact, across our State, hundreds of houses have literally been moved or been destroyed because they are too close to flooded areas, but still the need for flood insurance remains.

So what are these people seeing? FEMA is increasing premiums to levels that do not fairly reflect the risks associated with the flood coverage that is being provided, and the consequences of these increases can't be understated. There are 1.1 million homes and businesses across the country that were built before FEMA published a flood map of their community, and now they might not be able to sell their property. Another 2.9 million homes and business owners across the country who have followed the rules but were remapped into a higher-risk area are now seeing significant spikes in their premiums.

Rate increases are not just numbers. They can have a substantial impact on real families and even price them out of their homes. Sharp increases in premiums are devastating for a place such as Roseau, MN, where 75 percent of the homes are located in the floodplain. One Roseau resident who recently wanted to purchase flood insurance for a home valued at $75,000, was shocked with the changes in the premiums. This individual's new annual policy would cost $3,726, not the $985 it had been previously. That is nearly four times as much, and that is sticker shock. When calculated for 30 years, the length of a typical home loan, the flood policy on that $75,000 home would cost more than $110,000-- more than the value of the home itself.

Crookston, MN, residents are similarly seeing premiums they can't afford. One resident, who recently purchased a home for around $100,000, was stunned to learn his annual flood insurance program would be $5,800, not the $800 he had anticipated based on the past.

This isn't the way the National Flood Insurance Program is supposed to work. Our National Flood Insurance Program should provide peace of mind, but, instead, these changes create a disincentive for families and businesses in flood-prone areas to do the right thing.

Roseau recovered from a flood in 2002 that caused widespread damage and is working on permanent flood protection to reduce the flood stages in the city. Once complete, the project will include a restriction structure to the city from the 100-year regulatory flood plain and reduce future flood damages by nearly 86 percent.

It makes no sense that FEMA would be pushing these premium increases on consumers before the congressionally required study on affordability has even begun. The bill the Senate is considering today, and which I support, supports these priorities. It stops the proposed rate increases until the affordability study is done and the flood maps being used are verified as being accurate. Only after all of this critical information is reviewed should FEMA move forward and consider the cost of premiums that encourage participation in the flood insurance program while ensuring its long-term stability.

The National Flood Insurance Program has given protection to homeowners and businesses from catastrophic flood losses for more than 45 years. We shouldn't hit them now with an outrageous premium increase.

I commend Senators Menendez, Isakson, and Landrieu on their great work on this legislation and urge my colleagues to support it.

The Farm Bill

Now, Mr. President, I would like to discuss another critical priority for my home State of Minnesota, and that is the farm bill.

I rise today to speak in support of the farm bill conference agreement. I was a member of the conference committee. This bill is good for farmers, it is good for rural economies, and it is good for taxpayers, which the House recognized earlier today when they voted to pass the farm bill by a strong vote of 251 to 166. Now it is the Senate's turn to pass this critical legislation and get it to the President's desk as soon as possible.

I thank Chairwoman Stabenow for her determination to get us to this point. She has been tireless in her advocacy for America's farmers and ranchers and has made it a priority to work in a bipartisan way with Ranking Member Cochran to put together a farm bill that strengthens the safety net for our Nation's family farmers, ranchers, and preserves critical food and nutrition programs and brings down the deficit. Senator Stabenow couldn't have been a better partner in this effort, and the same goes for Senator Cochran. I greatly appreciate the expertise they both bring to agricultural policy, and I thank them for their leadership.

I thank the ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, Collin Peterson. No one knows more about agriculture than Collin Peterson, who serves as a representative from my State. He has the longest district in the United States of America, stretching literally from the Canadian border nearly down to the Iowa border. I guess that is why he flies his own plane when he visits the towns. There is no other way to visit many places in one day. It has been a privilege for me to work with Congressman Peterson on this issue. It is the second farm bill we have worked on together.

I also want to thank my other Congressman Tim Walz for his service on the conference committee. We worked hard to make sure this bill is strong for our country, for our State, and for the people of America.

Farmers, ranchers, and rural communities in Minnesota have been waiting for this farm bill for more than 2 years. It is a good bill for our State, and it is a good bill for the country. It provides the certainty family farmers need to succeed and thrive, and that is why it has the strong support of both the National Farmers Union and the American Farm Bureau.

That is not to say everyone got everything they wanted in this bill. Some concerns remain about potentially retaliatory actions regarding exports. As the Senator from the State that is first in turkey, second in pork, and sixth in agricultural exports, I will continue to work with the administration and producers to ensure our agricultural policies are implemented in a manner that avoids potential disruptions and ensures agricultural exports remain an American success story.

As a member of the conference committee, I worked with colleagues on both sides of the aisle in the House and the Senate to build on the strong farm bill the Senate passed last year. In the

conference report, we first of all eliminated direct payments and transitioned to crop insurance to help manage risk. We provided $880 million in mandatory funding to promote homegrown energy. We maintained the successful sugar program that is so important to the sugar beet producers in the Red River Valley. We reduced the deficit by $23 billion, making this an important bill for all Americans. We kept nutrition programs strong for Minnesota families. We provided permanent disaster relief for our Nation's livestock producers. We streamlined the conservation programs and still managed to come out with a proconservation bill that is supported by environmental and conservation groups across the country.

I wanted to focus on the disaster provisions of the bill. The disaster provisions are all the more critical when we consider just how much our farmers and ranchers have been through recently--the worst drought since 1956, a devastating blizzard that killed thousands of cattle in my neighboring State of South Dakota, and a wet spring that led to a shortage of alfalfa that hurt beef and dairy producers in Minnesota.

In this farm bill, we ensure that permanent disaster relief will be there for livestock producers that were left stranded when the farm bill expired last September. This assistance will be there for producers when they face the next disaster.

The farm bill also includes an amendment that I led with Senators Hoeven and Heitkamp that addresses critical priorities by providing an additional $300 million. This came out of our committee in the Senate before we passed it in the Senate. This $300 million will boost agricultural research, address the backlog of water and wastewater projects, and support energy projects in rural areas.

The amendment also supported funding for conservation projects that can help reduce flooding while protecting wildlife habitat.

The farm bill authorizes a joint study by the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Transportation to examine rural transportation issues, including captive shipping, something I pushed for--seeing what I am seeing with some of our producers, with our agricultural producers, with our manufacturers that are at the end of the line and are finding they don't have a lot of choice over what rail rates are for that last leg. They many times are being charged outrageously high rates, which makes it difficult for them to produce goods.

Today families and farmers are facing a severe propane shortage in my State. I believe it is more important than ever that we understand the vulnerabilities and shortcomings of our transportation infrastructure so we can ensure that the fuels we need to keep our homes and barns warm are available and affordable.

I fought to include each of these provisions because I believe that if we want to recruit a new generation of farmers and ranchers, then we must take action to improve the quality of life in rural communities. That is why I authored a number of the provisions specifically to recruit beginning farmers and ranchers.

The first would reduce the cost of crop insurance for beginning farmers by 10 percent. The second would make it easier for beginning producers to graze livestock on Conservation Reserve Program acres.

In this bill we put in place a new dairy program that helps dairy farmers in Minnesota and across the country who have struggled with low milk prices and high feed costs. We have probably seen that sector of the agriculture community hit harder than any other. Crops have had their droughts. We have seen wet springs that have hurt many of our farmers. We have seen the blizzard I mentioned in South Dakota which killed our cattle. We have seen trade barriers put up in other countries which shut down the markets. But I would still say the hardest hit of any sector of our agricultural economy in the last few years has been our dairy producers, specifically our small dairy producers. Anyone who has driven through the backroads of Minnesota or Wisconsin understands how important that is to our economy and our way of life.

While this compromise wasn't exactly the deal we had reached in the Senate, it is still a strong deal. It still contains new protections for dairy farmers. I specifically thank Collin Peterson for his leadership in being the architect of this change, as well as the work in the Senate by specifically Senator Leahy and Senator Stabenow.

The farm bill also streamlines conservation programs from 23 to 13, including the provisions I worked on to help communities in the Red River Valley address flooding. It extends conservation compliance rules to the Crop Insurance Program--something that came out of the Senate bill--and also includes the sodsaver provision that I worked on with Senator Thune in South Dakota for five or six States--really, the Prairie Pothole States. It protects native lands, native prairie, and helps to preserve our conservation efforts for hunting and for our way of life, particularly in the upper Midwest.

These critical provisions, with the conservation compliance and our sodsaver amendment, are the reason the bill is supported by wildlife organizations including Ducks Unlimited and Pheasants Forever, and environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council and The Nature Conservancy.

I believe we do right by ourselves when we work to strengthen the farms and rural communities which sustain us every day. Our prosperity depends on it, and this farm bill helps us to do just that. I urge my colleagues to support this very bipartisan farm bill.

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

Mr. President, I rise to speak about a bill introduced today--a bipartisan bill--a bill that will strengthen America's innovation economy.

Over the last 60 years our national laboratories have served as leading centers of research and discovery in America. Today we have 17 DOE labs charged with three broad research missions: science, energy, and national security. Although they have grown and changed since their founding to encompass much broader ranges of work and are successful in carrying out their primary missions, labs are not fully optimized to take part in today's innovation culture. That is a problem, because in this century of rapid change, America's best competitive advantage remains our capacity to innovate.

Over the coming months, I will be talking more about a few things Congress can do to streamline and jumpstart our Nation's hubs of discovery so that we can thrive as a 21st-century innovation economy.

At the top level, it will mean reauthorizing the America COMPETES Act to reaffirm our commitment to the robust national strategy for science and technology programs that will continue to be a critical underpinning of American prosperity.

And one part of that is how our national labs operate, which is why today Senator Rubio and I have introduced the America INNOVATES Act.

Already, our labs have incubated many groundbreaking innovations.

Their research has led to breakthroughs from new Melanoma and HIV/ AIDS treatments to IED detonators that can save the lives of our troops in combat. And that research is critical because although the private sector will continue to be a key source of innovation, the Federal Government has and will continue to play a central role in advancing innovation.

Why is that? Private markets, historically speaking, tend to underinvest in R&D relative to the potential benefits to society. This is especially true in the energy sector.

But, if there is a problem that I have heard since coming to Congress, It is that too often, the great work of our scientists doesn't translate to the marketplace.

Right now, too much groundbreaking science and too many innovative ideas never leave the walls of our national labs, squandering enormous potential in the commercial market.

Now, in our bill, we continue to support our labs' core mission. We are

not proposing anything drastic. What we are doing is modernizing the labs for the 21st century--so ideas in the lab can more effectively become innovations in the market. Luckily, we need only look to the labs themselves for inspiration on how to do this.

We make two broad proposals.

First we are integrating the management of the Department of Energy's science and energy programs to improve the linkages between basic and applied sciences. This will allow the early stages of research and development to be translated more efficiently, and it is something that Secretary Moniz has signaled he supports and is moving forward on.

Second we are giving the national labs more power to work with the private sector to ensure that more scientific discoveries can turn into commercial breakthroughs.

Together, these steps would allow us to streamline the labs' work so it can more quickly and effectively translate into the transformative innovations that can create jobs and grow our economy.

Now, to explain what our proposals intend to achieve, I will walk through what is known as the innovation pipeline, which shows how basic science research can become a world-changing innovation.

First, I will use the example of the great work that scientists at the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, CO, are doing to advance cellulosic ethanol technologies.

One of our country's big challenges today is reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and to do that we need new fuel options that we can create here in America.

Cellulosic ethanol is an advanced biofuel with a lot of promise because it is produced from abundant materials like grasses and wood chips as well as other types of biomass and waste. And because these materials are so abundant, cellulosic ethanol has the potential to replace a significant portion of our Nation's petroleum consumption.

The challenge comes, however, because, unlike corn, these cellulosic materials are made of complex starches that are harder to break down into ethanol.

To make the promise of cellulosic ethanol a reality, we needed to develop the enzymes and micro-organisms that could break down and then ferment those complex starches.

That is where the innovation pipeline comes in. At the NREL in Colorado, scientists started at this first step here--basic science. Basic science is very fundamental, it is the study of the elementary principles of the universe--really discovery level science.

Enzymes are large biological molecules that are nature's catalysts-- accelerating metabolic processes that sustain life.

To develop enzymes and micro-organisms capable of converting starchy biomass into cellulosic ethanol, you need to start at the fundamentals of biology and biochemistry. This includes studying the intricate details of the relevant biochemical processes, as well as probing the proteins and amino-acids that form the building blocks of enzymes down to the submolecular level.

At this point, scientists can move into the applied science stage of the pipeline. Applied research generally concerns translating those basic, fundamental principles into an application.

In this example, scientists apply the insights gained from the fundamental basic science stage to develop new enzymes with desired performance traits such as high selectivity, specificity, and stability to enable effective and efficient conversion of the complex starches into ethanol.

Applied research can also include controlled lab-scale demonstrations to test how effectively these newly developed enzymes and micro- organisms can turrijsay, wood chips, into fuel.

Still in the lab and far from full commercial scale production, the kinds of small discoveries that happen at the applied science level act as an early demonstration that something new is possible.

At the applied research stage, we are still far away from creating something ready for the market, but between these two stages our scientists have gone from the basic science of how an idea may work to actually demonstrating that it could work in practice.

At this point now, the private sector is more likely to see its potential value. Our scientists have shown that the technology is possible, and next we move to the commercialization and scaling and deployment phases, where private investors and companies take the technology our lab scientists have developed and make it a product that can succeed in the market.

During the applied research stage at NREL, scientists were hard at work showing that they really could produce cellulosic ethanol efficiently and cheaply--eventually meeting their goal to make it price competitive with conventional fuels in today's commercial market.

That is where we are right now with cellulosic ethanol. Companies across the country, such as DuPont, Poet, and others, are currently building plants to produce cellulosic ethanol at large scale and at competitive prices.

So that is one model of public-private partnerships for innovation-- where the basic and applied science research can begin in the lab and then be transferred to private sector companies who can create a commercial product.

I had the opportunity last year to witness another model of public- private partnerships for innovation at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, which is home to the Advanced Light Source, or ALS. The ALS serves thousands of researchers--from private sector scientists to university researchers--who use light sources such as soft xrays, ultraviolet light, and infrared light to conduct a wide range of scientific experiments. Experiments at the ALS are performed at nearly 40 beam lines that can operate simultaneously around the clock and year-round.

The facility's resources would be too expensive for any one company to invest in alone, but by building a public facility that then is partly sustained by fees and targeted infrastructure investments by users, the ALS becomes a place where many different partners can come to test new ideas and approaches.

In terms of the innovation pipeline, what the Berkeley Lab and its ALS do is allow a diverse range of researchers to engage in various stages of research under one roof. The unique capabilities offered at the ALS also attract many industry partners and encourages productive public-private collaboration.

A good example of this is the partnership between the lab and the semiconductor industry.

Semiconductor technology is one of the most transformative scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century. Semiconductors are at the heart of what makes a computer work. Their constant advancement is what allows us today to hold the computing power of last generation's supercomputer in our pockets.

However, the manufacturing techniques previously used to produce new, smaller, and more powerful semiconductor products aren't adequate to build the next generation of nano-electronic devices.

So what has happened is a consortium of companies including Intel, IBM, HP, and Dow Chemical--called SEMATECH--came together to leverage the unique capabilities at the lab to advance semiconductor manufacturing technology for next-generation electronics.

As the lab reports, ``[By] tapping into the Center's long term expertise in short wavelength optics and the unique properties of the ALS Synchotron facility, SEMATECH funded the development of the world's highest resolution projection lithography tool and highest performance [extreme-ultraviolet] microscope''--developments that were only possible because of the facilities and expertise at the lab.

Having then developed new tools capable of manufacturing the next generation of semiconductor devices, a company like Intel can take the new technology and scale it up in their own plants.

Of course, there are many variations of public private partnerships that our labs can and have utilized to take ideas from the lab to the market. These two examples--cellulosic ethanol and the advancement of semiconductor manufacturing technology--show us what is really possible by working in partnership with our national labs.

In our bill Senator Rubio and I are trying to expand the flexibility and freedom of all our labs to innovate and build productive partnerships so that every research project has the potential and opportunity to eventually enter the market.

As we see here on the innovation pipeline, the payoff for all this work doesn't come until the very end, so one of the best things we can do is focus our policies to make the movement of ideas through the pipeline as efficient as possible.

While there are plenty of areas where Senator Rubio and I disagree, we have come together on the America INNOVATES Act because we both agree that government has a role to play investing in the early scientific research that can lead to innovations that change our world.

In this bill, we aren't talking about expanding government or calling for new spending or regulation, we are talking about the early science work that only government can fund because there isn't yet a clear payoff for the private sector and finding out how to connect the national labs and the private sector along this innovation pipeline in a better and stronger way to deliver more products to the American marketplace and the world markets.

Once again, I thank my Republican colleague Senator Marco Rubio. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join us in supporting this bipartisan innovation jobs bill.