Stop Child Summer Hunger Act of 2014

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to give this speech in full.

Mr. President, I want to take a few moments this afternoon to correct the record on something very important.

In his opening remarks this morning, the distinguished Senate majority leader made a number of claims and accusations relating to the tax extenders legislation.

As you will recall, last week the Senate voted not to invoke cloture on the substitute amendment to the tax extenders bill. Since that time, the Senate majority leader has been accusing Republicans of voting against tax relief. He said we are obstructionists and that we ``work so hard to do nothing.'' This is, as we know, par for the course.

When the majority leader is not calling out American citizens by name and attacking them for getting involved in the political process, he is usually accusing Senate Republicans of one thing or another, and doing it so unjustifiably.

Today, he attacked me personally for my vote against cloture on the tax extenders substitute, saying: ``The primary Republican who negotiated this, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, voted against his own bill.''

It is true that I negotiated. It is true that I helped to get it through the committee. It is true that I got our side to agree to a voice vote.

Needless to say, I cannot let this go unanswered. I am here now to set the record straight.

First and foremost, I want to make clear that I support the tax extenders legislation, and everybody in this body knows it, and if they do not, then they better go take an IQ test. I want to see that bill passed, and I believe we should pass it sooner rather than later.

I do not want speak for anyone else, but I suspect that the majority of Senate Republicans feel the same way. But there are serious and legitimate process issues at stake here.

At the time of last week's cloture vote, the substitute amendment had been available to the full Senate for little more than a day. Although there were 167 amendments filed--including about 70 Democratic Party amendments--the distinguished majority leader blocked the consideration of any and all amendments.

This, unfortunately, has become the norm here in the Senate, where we have voted for a grand total of 9 Republican amendments in the past 10 months--9. By contrast, in the House of Representatives, where the Republicans are in complete control, where the Rules Committee is 9 to 4 in favor of Republicans--the committee that decides what comes to the floor--the Democrats, who are in the minority, have had votes on 242 of their amendments in that same timeframe.

Sheila Jackson Lee, for instance, a single Democratic House Member, has received votes on 22 separate amendments in the same timeframe that all Republican Senators have, combined, received votes on only 9.

So, yes, I, along with almost all of my Republican colleagues, voted against cloture--in fact, all but one voted against cloture--on the tax extenders substitute. But I made it clear before and after the vote that my vote against cloture was a vote to allow Senators--both Republicans and Democrats, especially those who do not serve on the Senate Finance Committee--an opportunity to amend the tax extenders legislation, something you would think every Senator in this body would want to justify and would want to support.

As I said, at the time of the cloture vote, there were a total of 167 amendments filed. Yet the Senate majority attempted to close off debate on the bill without considering or voting on a single amendment--on a bill costing $85 billion so far. That is no way to operate the Senate, particularly on a bill as broad and as consequential as the tax extenders bill.

There are a lot of interests at stake with the expired or expiring tax provisions, a number of voices that deserve to be heard. Why, then, would we want to rush through the debate without considering a single solitary amendment? It does not make sense.

My vote against cloture was never intended to kill this legislation, as the majority leader claimed this morning. As I made clear last week, my vote was for a fair, open, and cooperative process--a bipartisan process, if you will, something we have not had much of around here lately. I would have thought the majority leader would have been listening last week when Republicans, including myself, made it very clear why we were voting against cloture. But either he was not listening or he forgot everything we said because this morning he came to the floor to attack us, once again, claiming that somehow our votes against cloture on the tax extenders legislation were related to President Obama.

So let me make it clear for our distinguished majority leader and anyone else who may be misunderstanding what is going on with the tax extenders bill. This has nothing to do with President Obama. There is only one person who is stopping the tax extenders bill from moving forward. It is not me. It is not the minority leader. It is not anyone on the Republican side or caucus.

The distinguished majority leader could solve this impasse today if he would simply allow the Senate to operate in a way it always has. He knows--and he knew then when he made these comments because we chatted the day before--he knew that my job is to try and winnow down the total number of amendments on this bill, approaching almost 100 for each side, and get it to where we basically could pass this bill.

He can come to the floor as often as he wants to attack Republican Senators or anyone else, but that does not change the fact that he is the one in control here. He is the one who will decide if the Senate will live up to its legacy of being the greatest deliberative body in the world or if it will continue to be what it has become--a graveyard of ideas.

Once again, I stand willing and able to work with the Democrats to get this bill across the finish line. I do want this legislation to pass. It is important legislation. But I do think we ought to have the Senate operate as it always has in the past, where each side has at least a reasonable opportunity to bring up amendments that they consider to be important. It is important that the Senate operate in that way, and not in the way it is currently being operated. As I said, it is not up to me.

California Drought Relief

I would like to take a moment to address the California drought relief bill Senator Feinstein has been working so hard on for the past several months. There is no question that we are facing some very serious conditions across the West. We need to be doing all we can to provide relief to the farmers in California and elsewhere. But it does not make any sense that this drought has gotten to the point that it has when it could have been avoided. This is a manmade crisis. The water that should have been and could have been stored behind the dams in California's Central Valley during the past several years has instead been flushed downstream to create fish habitat for the endangered delta smelt. Now, do not get me wrong, protecting our natural resources is important. But there is a problem with our system when we put the needs of fish--and especially this fish--ahead of the needs of people.

This is happening in other States too. We are seeing the needs of people made secondary to the regulatory requirements that may or may not even be benefiting the species they are designed to help.

I think we have some of the stupidest people in the environmental movement that you can possibly imagine. They consistently place these trumped-up situations against human beings and humankind. It is getting real old to me.

Senator Barrasso has an amendment to Senator Feinstein's bill that would bring some common sense into this situation by allowing for some flexibility for communities that are facing dire situations as the result of Federal regulatory requirements.

I support the Barrasso amendment and would have liked to have seen it included in the California drought relief bill. I also recognize that the farmers and farm workers in California cannot afford to have Congress playing games with their livelihood. For that reason, I am not going to object to this bill.

To have California, where some of the greatest, most productive farmlands in the world are, basically shut down for really what are stupid approaches when there could be an accommodation to help both sides on those issues is hard for me to understand.

When the members of the California delegation sit down with the committees of jurisdiction to work out the differences between the Feinstein bill and the bill that has already passed the House, I would urge them to implement Senator Barrasso's proposal into the final bill. This will help rural communities across America avoid getting into potentially disastrous situations that are caused by out-of-date, out- of-touch regulations.

The economy and job creation do not have to be at odds with conservation. This is the perfect opportunity to create some badly needed flexibility to make sure they are not. I, for one, would like to see that for a change in the Senate.

I sure would like to see us depoliticize this place so we can work together again. I have been here only 38 years, but I have to tell you, there were many times in that 38 years where we worked together, we solved the problems of America together, and we had the country running well. Frankly, we all walked out of here feeling pretty good.

Most people in the Senate right now do not feel all that good--first of all, because of the way it is being run; secondly, because there is a partisan divide that exists--on both sides, by the way; thirdly, because we have a rough time getting people together in a bipartisan way; and last but not least, because we do not spend much time together anymore. It used to be that Senators got together and cared more for each other and cared less about attacking each other and cared less about some of the ridiculous, stupid things that have been going on over the last few years.

I would suggest to my Democratic friends that they start thinking this over because the Senate has really gone downhill. We have to stop it and start working together for the best interests of our country.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today I rise to introduce a bill that would authorize the implementation of the landmark agreements that settle some of our country's most complex and contentious water allocation and species preservation issues. Water management crises this century have made the Klamath Basin nationally known, with all interests having experienced devastating water years. Overcoming that adversity, the parties in the basin have spent years coming together to hammer out solutions--essentially giving up their right to obstruct in the name of the greater good. With this bill the basin should now be known for the dedicated and enduring collaborative efforts that have honed in on a sustainable and more economically certain future for the basin--an example that other regions can emulate for their watershed challenges. It is time for Congress to place its seal of approval and set about implementing these agreements to restore the basin by passing the Klamath Water Recovery and Economic Restoration Act of 2014.

I am pleased to be joined by three colleagues on this bill. Senator Merkley has tirelessly worked to support the collaborative approach undertaken by two states, four Tribes, multiple Federal agencies, and countless stakeholders. Senators Feinstein and Boxer have answered the call for communities reeling from unprecedented drought, and the Klamath Basin--spanning Oregon and California--is yet another illustration of their efforts to assist communities in need while supporting fish and wildlife. Together, we are committed to working with our colleagues in the Senate and House to advance this bill and get it signed by the President.

The story of the Klamath Basin revolves around water. Congress authorized a federal irrigation project for the basin in 1905. Now the Klamath Project provides water service to roughly 210,000 acres of productive farmland--producing such crops as potatoes, cereal grains, sugar beets, alfalfa and other hay, and irrigated pastures for beef cattle. The Klamath Hydroelectric Project supports power needs in the basin with seven dams, the last of which was built more than 50 years ago. Water needs for irrigation have increasingly come into conflict with the needs of fish and wildlife. In 1908, President Teddy Roosevelt established the nation's first waterfowl refuge, Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge. The importance of the basin for migratory birds along the Pacific Flyway saw the later creation of the Clear Lake, Tule Lake, Upper Klamath, Bear Valley, and Klamath Marsh National Wildlife Refuges. The basin is also home to 13 species of anadromous fish. Three of these species are listed under the Endangered Species Act, including the endangered listing of the Lost River and shortnose suckers in 1988, the threatened listing of coho salmon in 1997, and the threatened listing of bull trout in 1999. These fisheries--particularly salmon and suckers--are important to the six federally recognized tribes in the basin. Water demand often far exceeds the amount of water in a given year, setting up a situation ripe for conflict.

That conflict grew to a head in the early 2000s. In 2001, biological opinions about the water necessary for endangered fish resulted in the Bureau of Reclamation of the Department of the Interior withholding much of the water that would have normally gone to Klamath Project irrigators. Researchers for Oregon State estimated that the water curtailment would have, in the absence of public and private emergency mitigation efforts, reduced agricultural output in the Upper Basin by $82 million, about 20 percent, and regional employment by almost 2,000 jobs. Then in 2002, low water flows and poor water health caused the death of as many as 70,000 fall chinook before they could navigate up the Klamath and spawn, in an event known as the ``2002 fish kill.'' The rancor and legal conflicts only intensified with these events, creating uncertainty in the basin that has impeded overall growth and prosperity.

Instead of accepting a future determined by acrimonious and costly legal battles over the water, stakeholders in the basin came together to chart a different path. They recognized that their respective interests could be better met through cooperative efforts designed to enhance species recovery, the certainty of agricultural operations, and stability in the basin for economic growth and civic relations. Years of complex and challenging work culminated in two historic agreements in 2010--the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement, KBRA, and the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement, KHSA. The KBRA settles water disputes in exchange for greater water certainty for farmers and ranchers, water for fish and wildlife needs, reduced power costs for irrigators, and restoration efforts for fisheries. The KHSA sets out a process whereby four hydroelectric dams may be removed, at no federal cost, should removal be in interest of fish restoration and the public interest considering local community impacts. Together these cooperative efforts can achieve more for the basin than asserting individual interests could. The collective efforts will promote economic stability and growth, while ensure a full suite of restoration efforts are in place for the recovery of listed fish species.

The latest agreement in the basin became final just this year, the Upper Basin Comprehensive Agreement, UBA. I am especially proud of the work that produced the UBA, having helped convene the special task force that worked mightily to find agreement on the key remaining issues in the basin. The task force came about after a June 2013 Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on water issues in the basin that I chaired. The Committee heard from 17 diverse witnesses and received roughly 4,000 comments via email prior to the hearing. Most acknowledged the clear impetus for a comprehensive solution given that the Oregon Water Resources Department found in March 2013 that the Klamath Tribes held a time immemorial water right, making them the most senior water right holder in the basin. And after months of arduous work on the task force, members including irrigators, environmentalists, and tribes found common ground on habitat protection and restoration and swallowed hard to reduce the federal expenditures needed as I had called for in the Senate. The UBA lays out specific water management and restoration measures for the Upper Basin, including 30,000 acre feet of increased stream flows into Upper Klamath Lake. The agreement provides crucial economic certainty to small business in the basin who sell equipment to farmers growing the crops, certainty for the cattle ranchers who manage their herds, certainty for the tribes who want to pursue promising opportunities in forestry, like biomass and other economic development.

The Klamath Basin Water Recovery and Economic Restoration Act of 2014 authorizes these historic agreements and paves the way for the restoration work needed to achieve their goals. In so doing, it sets out a new cooperative management plan that the Bureau of Reclamation will administer. For the first time, the Klamath Reclamation Project will include fish, wildlife, and National Wildlife Refuges as authorized purposes for the project. This will allow water managers to increase in-stream flows and lake levels. Private landowners and others will undertake permanent protections for riparian areas and other enhancements that will help restore hundreds of miles of fish habitat. Fish biologists estimate that these efforts will boost annual production of adult Chinook salmon by 80 percent. Additional water and flexible releases for the National Wildlife refuges means greater numbers of migratory waterfowl, non-game water birds, wintering bald eagles, and other sensitive species.

Achieving these benefits for fish and wildlife correspond to economic benefits to the basin. The restoration efforts will also produce jobs. The Department of the Interior calculates that more than 4,000 farming, ranching, commercial and recreational fishing, construction, and other jobs will be created or preserved. The water management plan provides for more predictable water for farmers and ranchers to ensure irrigated agriculture continues in the basin. A drought management plan assists in navigating the challenges created by drought and climate change in the basin. To deal with the escalating electric costs faced by irrigators, the bill lays out a path to

affordable power including renewable energy development. There are also economic benefits to tribes, beyond what a water right alone can achieve. The legislation sets up an economic development fund for the Klamath Tribes so they can create tribal jobs while sustainably managing their natural resources. By modifying some parties' interests for the greater good, the basin can move beyond years of polarizing debate and create a stable future from which to plan and prosper.

These historic agreements didn't happen by osmosis. They represent years of hard work among parties who have stood up to incredible pressures and made very real sacrifices to better their communities and the associations they represent. I have thanked many parties for their dedication over the course of these agreements and want to again express my deepest thanks to the members of the task force and those who went before them to tee up the work for Congress. With this bill, it is now time for Congress to step up and deliver on this package of agreements. The spirit of compromise on these thorny water issues has a message for not just Congress, but provides an example of how other vexing water situations across the Nation can sit down to work out their differences.

Mr. President, there has been a great deal of talk lately about earmarks. Some Members are even talking about bringing them back.

I grew up earmarking. I grew up on a ranch, where we earmarked cattle. That is where earmarking gets its name. I didn't think much of the practice then. We already had a brand on the critter. An earmark seemed to be redundant. After a while, we didn't do it any more.

Then I came to Congress--first in the House and now in the Senate-- and I had hoped not to be earmarking any more. But when I got to the House I found out the practice was not just prolific but rampant, so I come here today, after hearing some people want to bring the practice back--after we had the moratorium placed a couple years ago--and urge caution. Let me explain a few reasons why.

One reason we lamented the absence of earmarks was the saying: Earmarks are the glue that helps legislation get passed.

I would say it is a little more accurate to say: Earmarks usually represent the lard that allows earmarks to squeeze through the door and get through to the President's desk.

Senator Tom Coburn has spoken often about earmarks. I think he at one point said the best statement ever made about earmarks: They are the gateway drug to spending addiction.

Earmarks are usually small items, but they lead to massive spending overall. They leverage greater spending. Once you get an earmark in a bill, you usually vote for that bill no matter how big it becomes. We had years and years of that, and we shouldn't return to it.

But now earmark fans have a new argument--spending oversight. They say we can provide better oversight when we earmark; we will keep better track of that spending.

They argue that Congress is derelict in its article 1 constitutional responsibilities, the power-of-the-purse argument: By not allowing earmarks, we are somehow derelict in our duty. That is an interesting argument which we ought to explore for a minute.

The same people who will defend earmarking as a constitutional right and responsibility will also note: Don't worry, it is only 1 percent or less than 1 percent of all Federal spending.

But think about that for a minute. If it is our constitutional responsibility, why would we stop at 1 percent? That is not a valid argument at all. If it is constitutional, for our constitutional responsibility, shouldn't more than 1 percent be earmarked?

When we look at when earmarks were here, they were never evenly spaced. Every Member of Congress in the House and the Senate has the same constitutional right, I would assume. But with earmarks, committee chairs or those on the appropriate committees get the lion's share of the earmarks when rank-and-file members get far fewer. So the constitutional argument is specious at best.

I do share a concern that Congress has ceded to agency bureaucrats and administration officials much of our discretion over spending decisions. The culprit is not a lack of earmarks but the lack of oversight opportunities. The problem is we haven't gone through regular order for a long time.

Right here in the Senate is the perfect example. We have only had nine votes on Republican amendments in this Senate Chamber since July. Nine votes. This is the most deliberative body in the world. The hallmark of this body is an open amendment process, open debate-- unlimited debate. Yet we have only had nine Republican amendments rollcalled in the Senate Chamber since last July. That is no way to provide oversight. We have to get back to regular order if we want to have oversight.

We have a pretty dismal record lately on appropriations bills. We have become addicted to continuing resolutions, so-called CRs.

According to the Congressional Research Service, between fiscal year 1977 and fiscal year 2014, in all that 30-year period there were only 4 years where all appropriations bills were enacted on time, and in only one other year were more than half of them completed on time. The last year Congress actually moved through all the appropriations bills and did it on time was 1997. That is the problem we are having with oversight: When we don't authorize and pass appropriations bills one by one, we lose the ability to conduct oversight over the Federal agencies and over Federal spending in general. Since then, there has been an average of six CRs per year. This year will be no different.

I will consider some of the arguments.

We are often told this is a way we can have a check on the agencies. But what we have seen in the past is that when we earmark, the bulk of the time spent by the Appropriations Committee is not spent in doing oversight but is spent in doling out earmarks.

The last year we had earmarks, 2009, there were 9,000 earmarks in 1 Omnibus appropriations bill. What was the Appropriations Committee doing for months prior to that? Most of their time and staff's time-- time that should have been spent on the other 99 percent of Federal spending--was spent securing that 1 percent of Federal spending that constituted earmarks for the Members. So we are not exercising oversight with earmarks. We are abdicating our responsibility and spending far too much time on these earmarks.

There are 43 Members of the Senate who are in their first 6 years in this body, myself included. I happened to have spent some time in the House, so I have some perspective there. For those who haven't seen the appropriations process with earmarks, I think it is useful to take a little walk down memory lane and see what it was like in years past.

Jack Abramoff, who spent some time in prison for working the appropriations process pretty well, called the Appropriations Committee the earmark favor factory. That I don't think has been seriously refuted by anyone. That is what the Appropriations Committees became during that time--earmark favor factories.

It is worth remembering some of the earmarks that finally galvanized the country against them: the Bridge to Nowhere; the indoor rainforest in Iowa. We could go on and on. I went to the House floor myself several hundred times over the period of a couple of years to challenge these individual spending projects.

In 2008, there was a lobbying firm founded by a former Appropriations Committee staffer that specialized in getting particularly defense earmarks from the Appropriations Committee. The FBI finally got wind of some of this and started to investigate. Politico reported that sources within the FBI indicated they were ``conducting research on earmarks and campaign contributions.'' While they did so, this investigation commenced and within weeks the firm imploded.

According to analysis by Taxpayers for Common Sense, clients of the firm received at least $299 million in earmarks. The firm or individuals from the firm made campaign contributions of more than $3 million to nearly 300 elected officials.

ABC News said at the time of the firm's operation: Millions out to lawmakers, hundreds of millions back in the form of earmarks for clients, have made it for many observers the poster child for tacit pay-to-play politics.

I don't think we want to go back to that time. News reports every day were looking at the link between earmarks and campaign contributions. There was a smack of corruption there.

As I said, as soon as the FBI turned its attention to this firm doing a lot of this earmarking, it imploded almost overnight and went away. There was great public distrust in the process, and well there should have been.

At that time I remember going to the House floor and offering over a series of weeks nine separate privileged resolutions asking for the Ethics Committee to look at that relationship between campaign contributions and earmarks.

Let me take this time to say this is not a partisan issue. Republicans as well as Democrats over years past participated in this process of earmarking with equal abandon. I am not pointing the finger at either party. There are Members of both parties who seek to return to the practice. But we ought to remember that it wasn't good for this institution. For those who say we ought to go back to it, I don't understand. I would argue it doesn't give us any better oversight because we spend all of our time actually earmarking projects rather than providing oversight over the other 99 percent of government funding.

There is no constitutional requirement. And, frankly, if it is just 1 percent of all spending, how can we argue it is our constitutional responsibility? Why wouldn't we be earmarking more of it? I don't know how the corruption that comes with it is avoided.

Members may say it will be better now than it was before--names will be attached to earmarks. We will have total transparency. The investigation of this firm and others happened when there was transparency, when names were attached to earmarks. That didn't help. The corruption continued. There is no way to police this process adequately when we earmark in that way.

I encourage my colleagues, when we hear Members pining for the old days when we earmarked, remember that Congress went for decades and decades with maybe one here or one there on the margins. It was only in those last couple of decades, the 1990s through about 2010, where we had a rampant corrupt process which I would argue we wouldn't want to return to. So let's think twice before doing that.

Mr. President, I have come directly to the Senate floor from a terrific event in the Dirksen building where hundreds of people who are concerned about what the carbon pollution is doing to our atmosphere and oceans gathered to wake up Congress. At 5 o'clock a whole bunch of alarms went off down there, and it was a very exciting, very enthusiastic moment with more than 40 members of Congress showing up to reflect our commitment to getting this done.

One of the things I told people at the rally was that we are close to turning this issue around. The barricade of special interest propaganda that has surrounded Congress is eroding. The denial castle is built on sand and the sand is eroding the foundations for that propaganda, washing out from underneath it, and it will collapse soon. Why do I say that? I say that for several reasons.

The first reason that I believe we are close to a win is that for a long time the big polluters have had a free shot at the atmosphere and oceans. Pollution costs them nothing, and that has created a mindset of entitlement and it created a mindset in which pollution was viewed as of no consequence. Thankfully, the President of the United States has required the EPA to promulgate regulations that will for the first time put a price on the carbon pollution that is emitted from our biggest power plants, and the 50 biggest power plants in America put out more carbon than Korea. They put out more carbon than Canada. So this is a very serious situation. When they are faced with the regulation, I think that is not just going to reduce their emissions, but it is going to change the way they see the problem, and they will be motivated in a new way to think: ``Wait a minute; what is the best way to solve this problem?'' Once they are no longer free to pollute, once the advantage is taken away, the whole equation changes for them, and I suspect that it will not take long between a polluter change in point of view and a change in point of view on the other side of the aisle in the Senate.

The second reason is the politics on this. We have seen a recent poll that I have talked about on the floor before that points out that Republican voters--self-identified Republican voters--if they are under the age of 35 think that climate denial is--not my words, but in the words in the poll--ignorant, out of touch or crazy.

So if you are a modern political party and you have built your climate change policy on a theory of denial that your own youth cohort, your own young voters under 35 think is ignorant, out of touch, or crazy, that is what I mean by a castle that is built on sand and that is doomed to fall.

The third reason I want to mention here is there is a very significant role for America's corporations because what you get in this body from the so-

called self-appointed corporate mouthpieces--the Wall Street Journal editorial page, the so-called U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers--what you get from all of them is flat out climate denial, the absolute hard stuff--just complete denial, absolute ignorance and ignoring of the science, totally in the tank with the polluters and the oil and coal industry. What is interesting is that actually doesn't represent the views of America's corporate community, and it doesn't represent them by a lot.

If you look at big brand name American corporations, if you look at Coke and Pepsi, if you look at Apple and Google, if you look at WalMart and Target, if you look at Mars and Nestle, UPS and Federal Express, GM and Ford, look at the entire casualty property insurance industry, look at the bulk of the electric utility industry, look at the entire green energy sector, all of them know that climate change is a real problem, understand the undeniable science of what carbon pollution does to the Earth's atmosphere and to our oceans, and they are doing things about it.

They have sustainability policies. They have climate policies. WalMart has probably done more to get rid of the incandescent bulb than any other force on the planet. They are very strong on this issue. But within those great corporations, it tends to be cabined into their corporate business and sustainability divisions. It hasn't really influenced yet the way they communicate with the public, and it certainly hasn't influenced much their government relations. So there is a huge mismatch between the so-called voice of the corporate community, which is really a polluter-paid propaganda effort coming through the Wall Street Journal, coming through the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and coming through the National Association of Manufacturers--a huge difference between that and what the underlying leaders of what regular Americans think of as the American corporate community believe. That difference is eventually--like these other forces--going to tear apart the foundation of the denial castle.

We have the chance to make this happen and to make this happen soon, and we need to. We absolutely need to. The Presiding Officer is the senior Senator from Connecticut, a State which borders mine. Connecticut and Rhode Island share a critical factor, which is coastline. If you follow the logic, such logic as exists in the denial machinery, they will take you off into distant and complex computer models of what the temperature is going to be and what the atmosphere is going to be like 30 or 40 years from now. And yes, that is complicated. In that area there is room to sow confusion.

Come to the coast. At the coastline you see sea levels rising because of an immutable law of nature called the law of thermal expansion. The ocean is warming because it has caught more than 90 percent of the excess heat that the carbon has trapped, and when it warms, it expands.

It is as simple as that. That means when you go to my State to the Newport tide gauge off the Naval Station Newport, you see it is 10 inches higher than it was in the 1930s. That is a big deal because in the 1930s we had the hurricane of 1938. And if you look back at the devastation that hurricane caused to our coastline and you adjust for what 10 additional inches of sea would do and adjust again for stacking up that 10 inches in what a storm surge would do, you end up with a truly apocalyptic vision of the Rhode Island shore, and it is not deniable.

You cannot quarrel about a tide gauge. It is in effect a yardstick nailed to a dock, and the water has gone up 10 inches. To deny that is not just to deny science; it is to deny measurement. I think it is a bit of a stretch for even the most ardent of my denier colleagues to deny measurement. With a thermometer you measure that Narragansett Bay is nearly 4 degrees warmer in mean winter water temperature, and that means a lot for fishermen who used to fish for winter flounder. It doesn't take a very complicated test to determine what the acidity of the ocean is and to measure just the way you would measure the acidity in an aquarium. Our oceans are acidifying at the fastest rate that has been measured in 50 million years.

Remember we are a species that has been on this planet as Homo sapiens for a little over 200,000 years. So when you are talking about the steepest rate of acidification in millions of years, that is a dramatic shift in the habitability of our planet. If you want to know who that matters to, go to the west coast, go to the oyster fisheries and look at the wipe-out of young oyster species that took place when acidified ocean water got into the growing oysters and killed them all off. It was simply too acidic for their little shells to survive.

These are the harbingers of things to come. These are the undeniable facts. These are the truths the oceans tell us and our coastlines tell us. For all those reasons, I am confident that we will be at serious business to address climate change a lot sooner than the deniers think. The American public simply is not going to put up with a Congress that has become the prisoner to a barricade of special interest propaganda when they know better. Now the American people do, indeed, know better.

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

I rise to discuss the growing problem with U.S.-China relations.

Earlier their week we saw another example of how the Chinese Communist government will do everything it can--anything--to get ahead. The United States of America, in something that rarely happens, charged five Chinese military officers and accused them of hacking into American nuclear, metal, and solar companies to steal trade secrets.

This is not only a national security concern, it is an economic concern. Two who were allegedly hacked are U.S. Steel and the United Steelworkers union--organizations with which I have helped to file unfair trade practice cases against Chinese state-owned companies. It is not only a cause-and-effect, but these two entities, a steel company and a steelworkers union, filed unfair trade practices against China, and now the U.S. Government is filing legal charges against them for going after these two companies--against the Chinese.

We won these trade cases because we held China's feet to the fire and used our trade laws to level the playing field for our steel companies and our steelworkers. Jobs were saved and factories stayed open because of these trade cases, and that is precisely why China is targeting these companies.

We know the Chinese will do just about anything to get ahead economically. Fair enough. We also know that China will cheat and spy. The best example is currency manipulation, which makes Chinese exports more competitive.

When you manipulate the currency--when China sells products into the United States, the price is less, basically subsidizing Chinese exports into the United States, putting American workers out of jobs. When U.S. companies export to China, because China has manipulated the currency, it means that the prices are higher for these American goods, making them significantly less than competitive, if you will, in China. So when China cheats on currency, our workers at U.S. Steel in Lorain, Wheatland Tube in Warren, Vallourec Star in Youngstown, and TMK IPSCO in Brookfield lose out, and when our workers suffer, our economy suffers.

A December 2012 report by the Peterson Institute--a conservative think tank--found that currency manipulation by foreign governments costs the government between--quite a range--1 million and 5 million jobs, increasing

the U.S. trade deficit by $200 to $500 billion a year. These are manufacturing jobs that are about export or competing with imports. They are almost always pretty good-paying jobs.

In 2012 our trade deficit with China broke $300 billion for the first time, and then in 2013 for the second time it broke $300 billion.

An Economic Policy Institute report notes that ``addressing currency manipulation is the single most important policy change for U.S. workers.'' EPI argues that up to 5.8 million American jobs--40 percent of them in manufacturing--would be created if currency manipulation were eliminated by next year. It would reduce the goods deficit by at least $200 billion. For my home State of Ohio, EPI found that eliminating global currency manipulation by next year would create 254,000 jobs--up to 75,900 in manufacturing; reduce Ohio's unemployment rate by nearly 3 percentage points; increase Ohio's GDP by up to $17.4 billion; and improve the fiscal position of Ohio's State and local governments altogether by up to $3.7 billion. That is only Ohio. It doesn't count Connecticut; it doesn't count Arizona; it doesn't count the other 47 States. That is why we are urging the administration to be more aggressive and level the playing field for American workers and businesses.

We should pass my bipartisan legislation with Senators Sessions, Graham, Stabenow, Hagan, and others, which would treat currency manipulation as an unfair trade subsidy and require the Commerce Department to investigate currency manipulation.

It is also why we must urge China to comply with the World Trade Organization commitments and fully and faithfully implement all the WTO rulings against it.

The U.S. Trade Representative's report paints a sobering picture of the Chinese state's efforts to intervene in the economy and unfairly help China's businesses despite its WTO commitments that it wouldn't do that. China still has not agreed to the procurement agreement from WTO. By not doing so, our businesses miss out on the opportunity to compete for potentially $100 billion a year in contracts. In other words, China won't let us sell into their country in many cases because they don't follow the WTO procurement agreement.

Another issue noted by the USTR is China's imposition of retaliatory duties against countries bringing WTO cases against it. One case involving grain-oriented electrical steel--and I was speaking to an executive at AK Steel, David Horn, an executive at AK Steel in southwest Ohio--China not only lost in a WTO challenge but now appears to not comply with the ruling. The continued imposition of these duties even after WTO ruled against it has caused significant harm to companies such as AK Steel, as I mentioned, which is based in West Chester, OH.

The issue of retaliation figured prominently in the latest cyber espionage cases brought by the Department of Justice. Several American companies and the steelworkers union that were targeted were taking part in trade cases to challenge China's unfair trade practices.

China tries to intimidate our companies and they try to intimidate the U.S. Government from holding them accountable to international and U.S. laws. Living up to their trade obligations and promoting the rule of law in China not only benefits American companies, American workers, and American local communities, it also benefits the Chinese people.

There are already examples of Chinese companies willing to play by the rules. I applaud the announcement that Fuyao Glass Industry Group, a Chinese producer of auto safety items, has finalized its agreement to buy the former General Motors plant in Moraine, OH, a Dayton suburb. It is an example of how fair trade and foreign direct investment going both ways can benefit the Chinese, a Chinese company, and create 800 new jobs in Ohio. But to truly have a fair trading relationship, there must be a level playing field. That means playing by international rules.

This brings me to my final point. If China continues to manipulate its currency, cheating American workers, cheating American businesses, refuses to abide by WTO rules, is now accused of stealing trade secrets from American companies and unions, why in the world would this Senate even consider and why would the President consider entering into a bilateral investment treaty with China? Have we not learned?

In 1999, the year 2000, we passed permanent normal trade relations with China. Many of these issues were aired then. China said they would follow the rule of law. China said they would do it right. China hasn't followed the rule of law. China hasn't done it right. China hasn't played fair. So we are considering entering into a bilateral investment treaty with China? I don't think so.

I yield the floor.

I wish to speak as if in morning business to talk about one issue, IRS overreach.

Before I do that, I do want to say to my friend who just spoke, I am one of those who loves biennial budgets. I think it is a great idea and one we should continue to work toward. It makes work a little bit better and we also get a little bit longer planning horizon.

IRS Overreach

Mr. President, I come to the floor because there has been a lot of talk recently in different areas about the IRS, and virtually none of it is good. Let me be clear. The IRS going after taxpayers for debts allegedly incurred by their dead relatives is shocking. Tax-delinquent employees with IRS bonuses are offensive. Targeting individuals or groups for their political beliefs is unacceptable. But today I want to talk about a different issue: a vital industry in my State crushed by overbearing IRS enforcement of their own incomprehensible regulations.

Folks who have been to Alaska know we have some of the most beautiful terrain in the world. Most of the best sights, however, are off the road system. What does that mean? That means you cannot drive to them. That means if you want to visit a remote part of the Denali National Park or try to spot some bears or go to a great fishing area, the easiest way to do that is by airplane.

Companies that provide these sightseeing services are overwhelmingly small businesses, mom-and-pop operators. They aren't tax attorneys. They aren't CPAs. They are pilots. They live to fly. As you can see right here, this is an incredible view right outside of a glacier where a small plane has just landed. That is why it is so devastating that at least one of these businesses had to sell its plane to pay the IRS and close up shop forever. Countless others live under the cloud of uncertainty because the IRS goes to extraordinary lengths to find them liable for taxes. In fact, one company received this massive tax bill, including penalties, even after they had negotiated with the IRS and received a favorable resolution. In other words, this bill came after they had agreed with the IRS to get rid of these penalties and these interest charges and everything else. The IRS said there was a little mixup, and maybe for them that is all it was, but for a small business it could mean financial ruin. Also, getting a bill like this would drive you crazy after you just had a conversation with the IRS and resolved this.

Let me give a little history. Air transportation is usually subject to excise taxes, which go to a trust fund for airports, much like the gas tax pays for the highway trust fund. But since 1970 Congress has made it crystal clear that these excise taxes shouldn't apply to small aircraft, the type shown in the first photo.

Here is another example. These types of planes have not been subject to excise taxes since 1970, unless they are flying regularly scheduled routes, such as the route I take going back home to Alaska. I fly from the airport in Washington, DC, to Seattle and then to Anchorage. Those are regularly scheduled flights.

But the IRS brought down the enforcement hammer on some businesses in Nevada and Alaska. Those companies sued the IRS and eventually lost. So Congress came back again in 2005 and said, look, we meant what we said in 1970. Small aircraft used for sightseeing are supposed to be exempt from excise tax--pretty simple, pretty clear, not complicated.

But the IRS doesn't get it. The IRS still won't listen to Congress. The IRS still thinks it can ignore the plain meaning of the law backed by clear congressional intent. A lot of folks around here talk about Federal overreach. This is a perfect example of Federal overreach. Congress told the IRS not once but twice: Small aircraft offering sightseeing services should not have to collect excise taxes, and still the IRS thumbed its nose at Congress and says, ``We'll do whatever we like,'' in clear contradiction to the plain meaning of the statute that was supposed to be upheld.

That is not the way this country is supposed to work. Agencies such as the IRS don't get to go it alone. They are bound by the Constitution to enforce and follow the laws that Congress writes.

I was pleased about a recent letter that was written to the Alaska Air Carriers Association in which the IRS acknowledged their guidance was unclear and inappropriately enforced. They offered to give refunds to companies flying small aircraft on sightseeing tours. While it is a step in the right direction to recognize they got it wrong, they refused to back down completely. The IRS is still reserving the right to go after these same companies in the future.

That is why I called the IRS Commissioner into my office last week and that is why I am here today, to make it clear to the IRS that I will not stand idly by while they send Alaskan small businesses into bankruptcy. I will keep coming here as long as I have to, until the IRS lets Alaskan small businesses do what they do best: Fly and share all of the beautiful sights my great State of Alaska has to offer to all Alaskans and all Americans.

It is happening in Alaska. It is starting to happen in other States. My guess is this will go anywhere there are sightseeing planes to be determined from the IRS perspective that they know what is best. The law is clear. The IRS in their letter made it clear that their interpretation of the law may be unclear and inappropriately enforced. Well, if it is wrong, don't enforce it, or enforce it the way it was set out in 1970 and 2005. If you put someone in a plane and take them out for sightseeing, they are exempt. There is no rate or schedule.

Here is what is also amazing about this. I will go to this first photo again, the one with the glacier. They are restricted as to where they can go. So when the IRS says they flew from point A to point B on a regular basis, that is because they are regulated by the Federal Government to go to that location. I think this visitor would love to fly all around the glaciers, but they are not allowed to by Federal law. So they are sightseeing, and the law is clear about this. But, once again, the IRS has determined what they think the

law is. The FAA, which regulates the air industry, makes it clear who is sightseeing and who is regularly scheduled. So I would plead with the IRS to do the right thing here, settle this issue once and for all and make it crystal clear. The law has been passed by Congress--not once but twice. It is time to get off the backs of these small businesses, small business people, not only in my State but across this country. Ensure they can do their business, and make sure the great sights of Alaska can be seen by anybody anytime through these great tour operators who operate in my State and the operators all around the country.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business, followed by the Senator from Georgia.

Madam President, I came to the floor today to take a few minutes and talk about a piece of legislation I have been working on, along with seven of my colleagues from this Chamber and from the House of Representatives. That legislation is called the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. This is a long-overdue bill

that will reauthorize and improve the Workforce Investment Act--or WIA, as we call it--which includes dozens of critical workforce development programs in all 50 of our States.

This is an issue I have been working on for more than a decade. For several years now I have been very proud to work here in the Senate to reauthorize WIA, so I am very glad we are finally on a strong bipartisan path to get this done for families and businesses in Washington State and across the country who have been telling me how important effective workforce programs are for them and their communities.

The reason we were able to introduce such a strong bill this morning--and a bill that I think has a real chance to become law--is the incredible bipartisan process we have had over the last few months to reach a compromise between both parties and both Chambers. So I would like to thank each of the Members who helped me introduce the legislation this morning by name: in the House of Representatives, Representative John Kline, Republican from Minnesota; Representative George Miller, Democrat from California; Representative Virginia Foxx, Republican from North Carolina; and Representative Rubeen Hinojosa, Democrat from Texas; and here in the Senate, Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat from Iowa and the great chairman of our HELP Committee; Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican from Tennessee; and finally my close partner and cohort in this process, who is here with me today, Senator Johnny Isakson from Georgia.

None of us got everything we wanted in the bill we introduced this morning, but all of us got legislation we believe in. It is a bill that will help our workers, and it will help our businesses and the economy for years to come.

I am as strong a supporter of our Federal workforce development program as anyone. I have seen firsthand in my home State of Washington workers who were laid off and who were able to get new training and new skills and new jobs. I have seen many of our Washington State businesses, from aerospace companies to video game design firms, that were able to access workers with the new skills they needed to grow and compete.

But the fact is that we have been relying on Federal workforce development programs that were written in the 1990s, and with millions of new jobs that will require postsecondary education and advanced skills in the coming years, we will fall behind in the world if we do not modernize our workforce development now. We have to make sure that when high-tech jobs of the 21st century are created, Americans are ready to fill them. That is what we have done in this bill. We have doubled down on the programs that work, we have improved the programs that have become outdated, and we have created a workforce system that is more nimble and adaptable and better aligned with what businesses need and more accountable so we can continue to make it better. That is what we were sent here to do--work with our colleagues across the aisle for the American people. We had a House proposal and we had a Senate proposal and we met in the middle.

I can't count how many times Senator Isakson, my Republican colleague, and I have talked about the importance of getting this done. His office happens to be right next door to mine. So whether we were at a committee hearing or on a train to the Capitol, we were always focused on how we could work together and find a path to a deal.

We are not done yet. I am going to be working with my colleagues in the Senate--Democrats and Republicans--to get their support for this compromise, and our colleagues will be doing the same in the House of Representatives.

This is an all-too-rare opportunity for all of us to get behind a strong, bipartisan, bicameral bill that will help our workers and get our economy back on track. I am very proud of the work that went into this.

I yield to my colleague, Senator Isakson. This would not be on the floor today without his tremendous work and his work ethic and his willingness to work across the aisle to get this done. I sincerely thank him.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I would like to extend a gracious thank you to staff from my office, senior advisor Scott Cheney; my chief of staff Mike Spahn; my Budget Committee staff director Evan Schatz; Stacy Rich and Emma Fulkerson from my floor and leadership staff; my communications team, especially Eli Zupnick and Sean Coit; and everyone else from my team, who have all worked very hard to move this bill forward.

I would like to thank the wonderful staff from Senator Isakson's office: Tommy Nguyen, staff director of the HELP Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety; as well as Brett Layson and Michael Black.

I thank Chairman Harkin's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee team: senior education policy advisor Crystal Bridgeman; chief education counsel Mildred Otero; disability policy staff director Michael Gamel-McCormick; disability policy advisor Lee Perselay; Derek Miller, staff director of the HELP Committee; deputy staff director of the HELP committee Lauren McFerren; and labor policy advisor Liz Weiss; and many more who have helped.

I also thank the staff for Senator Alexander: senior education policy advisor Patrick Murray; education policy director Peter Oppenheim; Bill Knudsen; and HELP Committee staff director David Cleary.

Finally I would be remiss if I didn't thank the professionals in the Senate Legislative Counsel's office, specially Liz King, Amy Gaynor, Kristin Romero, and Katie Grendon.

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. President, I rise today in support of the 2013 Water Resources Reform and Development Act conference report. I agree with my colleagues who have spoken about this and who believe that passing this conference report is important for our communities. As ranking member of the Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure and as one of the members of the conference committee that came out with this report, I believe the agreement we have today addresses the issues facing the Army Corps of Engineers and facing our country.

We have problems in this country with aging infrastructure, we have problems with a lack of transparency, and we have problems with fiscal accountability--all of which impact public health, public safety, as well as the environmental welfare of our communities. As a conferee, I and my staff have worked with our colleagues on both sides of the aisle and both sides of the building, House and Senate, to create a bipartisan product to address these real concerns. We may have our differences on some key issues, but the bulk of what we have accomplished is about protecting our States. It is about protecting our constituents. It is not about partisan politics.

For example, issues such as flood mitigation are very important to my home State of Wyoming. Predicting floods and being able and better prepared for them is a major component in keeping Wyoming and other western communities safe. That is why we have successfully included language in this bill for the authorization of the Upper Missouri Basin flood and drought monitoring. This program will restore the stream gauges and the snowpack monitors through the Upper Missouri Basin at all elevations. These gauges are used to monitor snow depth and soil moisture to help inform agencies such as the Corps of Engineers as to potential flooding as well as drought in the future. This type of monitoring will help protect communities and will save lives.

We also included language in this bill for technical assistance to help rural communities comply with environmental regulations. Rural communities often don't have the expertise or the funding to make important upgrades to their water systems. Dedicated professionals, such as the folks at the Wyoming Rural Water Association, use this funding to go into those communities and provide the critical assistance these people need.

We also secured an agreement that establishes a 5-year pilot program known as the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act. This program will allow the Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency to provide loans and loan guarantees for flood control, for community water systems, for aging water distribution facilities, and for wastewater infrastructure projects. It also includes language that makes tribes eligible for the loans.

As I mentioned, transparency and fiscal responsibility are also important components to tackling the issues that need to be addressed with the Army Corps of Engineers. That is why we have included language in the conference report to create an Army Corps project deauthorization process. Under this process, the Army Corps would identify projects for deauthorization based on established criteria. Then, after taking public input, they would submit those projects as a single package for an up-or-down vote in the Congress.

Many of these projects are on the books and have been on the books for extended periods of time, and they authorize the expenditure of millions of taxpayer dollars. Yet these are projects that are going nowhere. Under this conference report, the Corps would have to propose a list of the projects to cut. The list would total $18 billion and would be sent to Congress for this up-or-down vote. And $18 billion is more than enough to offset the entire total authorization of this piece of legislation.

It truly is time for the Corps of Engineers and for Congress to clean the books, cut the waste, and bring fiscal responsibility to this WRDA process.

I wish to thank my colleagues, including Chairman Boxer, Ranking Member Vitter, and former Senator and subcommittee ranking member Max Baucus for the bipartisan process under which this bill was considered.

The conference report is not perfect, but I believe we have achieved a product that is substantive, effective, and in the public interests. It is a product that will save lives, maintain the flow of commerce, and protect communities for years to come. Therefore, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this conference report.

Once again, I thank the Presiding Officer and my committee colleagues for their willingness to work together on this bill.

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