Iran Nuclear Negotiations Act of 2014

I thank my colleagues for allowing a 10-minute discussion today by unanimous consent on an important issue the Congress is taking up today.

On the House side, debate on the Keystone Pipeline is starting, and I understand there could potentially be a vote as early as tomorrow. I am so pleased to have been one of the spark plugs that helped to get us moving not in the next Congress but in this lameduck session of this Congress.

The American people spoke loudly and clearly not only in my State of Louisiana but around the country, wanting us to work together to get the job done.

I was very pleased that the Republican leadership brought to the floor the early childhood education bill that Senator Lamar Alexander has been leading. It is a very important bill. I, frankly, don't think it is more important than the Keystone Pipeline, however. So I was pleased yesterday to come to the floor and offer, as chair of the energy committee, my own priority list of what I think is most important. I say that with sincerity because I actually support both very strongly.

I have several amendments to Senator Lamar Alexander's bill which have not been adopted and which I understand, unfortunately, will not be allowed for debate. So I don't know if I will be able to vote for cloture on his bill, although I strongly support it. My record is as strong as anyone's in this Chamber. So I will be interested to see if amendments to the Lamar Alexander bill will be allowed on the floor. I am hoping they will. If I can get at least a vote on the amendments I have pending to that bill, I will absolutely--whether my amendments pass or fail--vote for it because it is the will of the body and we must do something. We must invest more money. We must have more quality programs for early childhood education. It is an absolute cornerstone of strengthening and building the middle class.

In my State, that is what we are focused on, and I can't go anywhere without people telling me: Senator, thank you for your fight for education. Senator, thank you for your fight for early childhood education. Senator, thank you for fighting to take student loans down from 11 percent--the rate on student loans--to 3 percent.

On almost every day of this last election cycle, that is what I was talking about at home, and I know Members who were in elections or even not in elections heard clearly from the American people, during the time we were home working, how much what we do in Congress can matter, can make a difference in their lives. They don't want government intrusion, but they do want government to function so they can get a good college education, so they can get good job training, so they can start businesses that can grow profits for themselves and their communities.

I look forward to that debate, and I am very happy the Republican leadership rushed to the floor to put down a bill on early childhood education because I think they heard from the American people that just talking about tax cuts for the wealthy, tax cuts for people making over $1 million a year, and tax policy--yes, it is important, but what is very important is fighting for the middle class.

I say congratulations to Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. That is the first bill the Republicans have put down in this lameduck, and I look forward to working with him.

But the first bill that we put down and I put down as chair of the energy committee--unusual for Democrats because we don't have our whole caucus supporting it, but we have a good strong part of our caucus supporting it--is a bill that is going to actually create immediate high-impact jobs for this country today, soon, as it is being built. As soon as this bill passes and as soon as the President signs it into law, there will be an immediate, dramatic push from the oil and gas industry and

from the energy industry broadly--alternative energies, wind, solar, coal, and clean coal technologies--because the vote on Keystone and the President's signature on Keystone is a signal, a strong signal, it is a green light that America is ready to go, that we are following the science, that we are following our process, that we are respecting private property rights. And, yes, we are respecting States in their views of where these pipelines should be sited. No State--not Nebraska, not West Virginia, and not Louisiana--wants to be told by the Federal Government where pipelines are coming through on private property. No State. So Nebraska does have an issue that has to be resolved. They have an issue that has to be resolved about where that pipeline should be laid, and the Republican Party should most certainly respect States rights on where that pipeline should be laid.

The bill Senator Hoeven and I have acknowledges that process. It also acknowledges private property rights, and it says it is time to build the Keystone Pipeline.

This was not a last-week election wake-up call; I have been working on passing the Keystone Pipeline before I was the chairman, all during my chairmanship, years ago, as a senior member of the committee, and now as chair. I have not stopped and came very close to getting a vote on this floor before the election. Frankly--and the reporters should know this--it was really held up by the politics of both sides. That is not what is said, but that is the actual truth--the politics of both sides. I see Senator Manchin on the floor, who is a strong supporter, and he might talk a little bit about that. Both sides have some blame as to why we couldn't get to a vote, but I will let the record speak for itself.

This is the pipeline. This is what has to be built. As you can see, it doesn't come into Louisiana, but it most certainly impacts my State. It impacts the entire country.

These are already pipelines that we have in America. This is just another important pipeline because it connects Canada--our greatest ally and our great economic partner--with the refining strength of America, which is not only in Louisiana and Texas but primarily in Louisiana and Texas. It begins to move a great product, produced with the highest environmental standards in the world, approved by this administration's environmental department saying it meets the environmental standards of transportation, et cetera, and it meets the standards of this administration's State Department when it comes to, is it in America's interests. They said yes, it is in America's interests. That standard has been met. So let's build the pipeline.

I came to the floor yesterday. The Republicans brought their early childhood education bill to the floor. I am so proud they did. I brought Keystone Pipeline. Because I did, it seemed to have moved lots of things, which I am pleased about, and I think the Senator from West Virginia may wish to comment. But it seemed to have shaken up a few things and moved a few things, and that is good because Senators who are energetic and motivated and can build coalitions--like Senator Manchin and I do every day when we are here--can actually get things done.

I yield to the Senator from West Virginia for a question.

Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

I ask unanimous consent for 1 minute to close.

I think the Senator pointed out some key points--not only how important this pipeline is for the middle of America but for the economy of the whole country.

The pipeline and the supplies that are coming and the workers to build this pipeline come from all over the country. The businesses that supply the gadgets, the widgets, the steel, the trucks, the forklifts, the equipment, the cranes that come to build this pipeline come from all over the country.

But more important than the pipeline itself, which is going to move hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil from Canada--which we would much prefer to deal with and trade with, than, let's say, Venezuela or some other countries that don't share our values. More importantly than that, it is going to transport it in the safest way.

Without this pipeline, this oil will be produced. We cannot stop Canada from producing it. They are going to produce it, and it is going to be moved east and west by rail or moved south by truck. We cannot put any more trucks on our highways, and we can't crowd our rails.

I know there are people, like my good friend from Massachusetts, Senator Markey, who is going to surely speak against this pipeline and why, from his perspective, it is not the right thing to

do. And I respect those views. I strongly disagree with him, but I respect him. I strongly disagree with his arguments--and we will have this debate in the coming days--and I respect him.

But the point is this. Whether you support the Senator from Massachusetts' or you support the Senator from Louisiana's views, the point is we need to vote. That is the process. I believe we have the 60 votes on this floor to pass this bill. I believe we have always had the votes to pass this bill, if we can just get it to a vote.

Now, as is the process, the Senate has to pass the bill, it has to go to the House, and then it has to go to the President. He can sign it or he can veto it. I do not have at this date any indication that he will veto this bill. He could issue a veto warning on it in an hour, he could do it tomorrow, he could do it next week. That is not the point.

The point is the Senate must begin to be the Senate again. Let the President worry about being the President. Let the House worry about being the House. Let the Senate be the Senate.

I ask unanimous consent for 30 more seconds.

Let the Senate be the Senate. That is what my voters said. I think that is what voters in Tennessee said. I think that is what voters in North Carolina said, and I think that is what the voters in Massachusetts said. Let the Senate be the Senate.

We are the greatest deliberative body in the world. Let's debate. Let's vote. Let's get the work done. Let the chips fall where they may. The public can accept that. They cannot accept--and they should not have to accept--gridlock, game playing, and raw politics on the great floor of this Senate.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded and that I be allowed to speak for up to 5 minutes.

Mr. President, as you know--and many know--I have come to the floor now on several occasions since we arrived back here at 2 p.m. yesterday to talk about an important piece of legislation I have cosponsored with Senator Hoeven. I understand Senator Hoeven is going to be speaking about the Keystone Pipeline in a few moments, and the Republicans have reserved some time to speak this afternoon. I will only take 5 minutes and will stay as the discussion on the Keystone Pipeline goes forward.

Yesterday at 2 o'clock I came to the floor of the Senate when the Senate opened to say how important I thought it was that we listen and hear what the voters said not only in my State but in Kentucky, Texas, South Dakota, North Dakota, and all over the country. Regardless of whether the people were Democrats, Republicans, left or right or center, they want us to get our job done.

I think one of the most important jobs we have as Senators is to vote, and I have been frustrated, along with many Members on both sides of the aisle, about why we have not been able to vote on some very important pieces of legislation.

This is one of the most important pieces of legislation, and that is why I came down at 2 o'clock to claim time at my seat. I have been here for 18 years. This is Louisiana's seat. One of the things we have to talk about right now--not next year or not next week--is the Keystone Pipeline.

I know the Presiding Officer and other Members of this body, mostly on the Democratic side, are not strong supporters and have expressed that view. I understand it, I respect it, but I don't agree with it. It is time for us to have a vote.

Because of the advocacy yesterday when the Senator from West Virginia and the Senator from North Dakota, Senator Heitkamp--she has been a very strong and effective advocate. I wish to give a shout-out to both of my colleagues from West Virginia and North Dakota. They have been tireless in their effort to try and build a 60-vote margin.

In the old days we could pass bills with just 51 votes, and some people want to go back to that. I have mixed feelings about it, but it would be great if we could pass things by a simple majority. But the rules of the Senate which we operate under--and have not requested to change, and I don't believe will change any time in the near future-- requires us to have 60 votes.

We worked and worked and worked to try to get 60 votes. Since May, if we could just get this vote to the floor, I believe we have the 60 votes to pass it. It looks like that is going to happen, and I could not be happier. I could not be more grateful to the House of Representatives for taking up not their bill but Senator Hoeven's bill and my bill. They are debating it right now, and I believe we will pass it.

I don't know how many Democrats will vote for that bill, but I think there will be some Members who will vote for that bill. I don't know how many, but I believe there are 60 votes in this Senate to pass the Keystone Pipeline bill and send it to the President's desk.

What President Obama does with it, I don't know. I am urging him to sign it. Seventy-five percent of the people in our country want this Keystone Pipeline built. There are jobs at stake. It is

a signal that America is ready to be energy independent.

When I say ``energy independent''--to my good friend, the Presiding Officer from Massachusetts--I, of course, mean more oil and gas. I am from an oil-and-gas State. We have coal States, but we also have States that have solar and wind and drop-in fuels and new technologies.

This pipeline is a symbol that America is ready to do what it takes to become energy independent and to use our resources so we can create jobs for the middle class.

I see the Republican leader, and I appreciate that signal. So I will just conclude with my statement, but I do wish to be a part of this colloquy today, if allowed, so I may continue to talk about the importance of this issue.

I am happy the House has taken up the Hoeven-Landrieu bill--the exact language of the bill. We can call it whatever they want. They can put any name they want on the bill as long as it gets passed because that is what we need to do for the American people.

I yield the floor.

I have a question, if I could ask the Republican leader.

Madam President, I most certainly have enjoyed this colloquy and have been down on the floor most of the day. I am extremely disappointed I could not get any Member of the other side to recognize me for questions. I see the minority leader leaving the floor now, although he knows I have many questions for him that he does not want to answer. But that is his prerogative. You know, I thought we came here to work together. I am standing here. I have worked with Senator Hoeven on this bill. Before Senator Hoeven leaves the floor or Senator Barrasso or Senator Murkowski, if they would stay, I would like to thank Senator Hoeven for his extraordinary leadership on this bill.

Although the other side does not acknowledge any of the leaders over here, such as the Presiding Officer or Senator Manchin or Senator Baucus, who is no longer here but was a strong voice for Keystone many years ago, or some of the other Democratic Senators, I want to personally thank Senator Hoeven for his leadership and thank Senator Murkowski for her extraordinary leadership on this issue.

The Senator has been a real partner to me in the truest sense of the word and in the greatest spirit of bipartisanship. Of course, she had an experience that not many Senators have. She was defeated by her own party in her own State. They chose someone else and ran against the Senator, which is unusual, and did not support her in her reelection, even though the Senator and her father have chaired, on and off, the energy committee for years. I have been a strong partner not only with Lisa, the Senator from Alaska, but with her father Frank.

But the Republican Party did not support the Senator in her last election. So the Senator had to sign in on an Independent ticket. I was one of the first people to call her and say: Go, girl. Let's get it done. She did. So I have the utmost respect for Senator Murkowski. I have the utmost respect for the Senator's father. I have the utmost respect for Ted Stevens. I stood with Ted Stevens until the end, even though my party went against him. I would fight for him to this day if he were here, because some of us actually believe in bipartisanship. Lots of people around here talk about it, but that is really it.

The evidence I am going to give--I am sorry the Senator from Kentucky is not here to defend himself. I want the quote he wrote down. He might come back to the floor when he hears what I am going to say. I am going to speak for 1 hour.

The Senator from Kentucky, who will be the majority leader, has not left his partisanship in Kentucky because you just saw it on display here. He cannot help himself. He cannot speak for 3 minutes without mentioning the President. He had his back turned the whole time, would not even acknowledge anyone over here. So he does a lot of talking about bipartisanship. But his statement just yesterday was, ``I am confident Dr. Cassidy will use his position to succeed where Senator Landrieu failed.''

I do not necessarily think this is failure to get a vote on the Keystone Pipeline. I think this is a great victory. I want to share this victory with Senator Hoeven who is a leader. I also want to have printed in the Record--the Senator from Kentucky had a lot to say about everybody else not doing their job. I want to say that on at least one occasion, he did not do his either. On March 16, there were 15 Senators--March 16 of 2011, not 2012. I mean not 2014, not 2013, not 2012, but 2011. I think that was before the Presiding Officer was here. On March 16, 2011, when Secretary Clinton was still the Secretary of State, there were 16 Members of the Senate who signed a letter to her asking her to approve the Keystone Pipeline. I am going to read those names because I think it is important. My name is first, amazingly. I am very proud of that, didn't even remember it. Mary Landrieu. Orrin Hatch circulated a letter with me. Max Baucus. Kay Bailey Hutchison, my dear friend from Texas. Pat Roberts from Kansas, another dear friend. Mike Enzi from Wyoming. Lisa Murkowski--of course her name would be on here--from Alaska. Senator John Cornyn from Texas. John Barrasso from Wyoming. Mark Begich from Alaska who just unfortunately lost his race because of several reasons, one of which is that people talk a lot about bipartisanship who do not really honor it. Nobody better than Mark Begich has shown a willingness to work across party lines. He is no longer with us, but he signed this letter. Roy Blunt from Missouri. John Hoeven from North Dakota, and Ron Johnson.

But you know a signature that is not on this letter is Mitch McConnell's. Maybe Mitch McConnell was too busy to sign this letter. But his name is not on here. Now am I saying Mitch McConnell has not been a supporter of the Keystone Pipeline? Absolutely not. Senator McConnell has supported this project. But what I am saying is that Senator McConnell has not been truthful with the American people about actually how this has always evolved. To support that claim, which is a strong one, on May 7, 2014, Senator Reid offered a vote on the XL Pipeline. Senator McConnell objected. On May 12, 2014, Senator Reid offered a vote on the Keystone Pipeline. Senator McConnell objected. On May 12, I offered a vote on the Keystone Pipeline. Senator Flake objected for Senator McConnell. On June 24, Senator Shaheen offered a vote on the XL Pipeline. That, of course, I believe, was connected with the energy efficiency bill with Senator Portman. Senator Inhofe objected. Senator McConnell did nothing to help. Then on June 25, Senator Reid offered a vote on the XL Pipeline. Senator McConnell objected.

I want to underscore this. I am not saying Senator Reid is a supporter of the pipeline. He has never been. He is not a supporter of the pipeline, but he has asked for a vote on Keystone a number of times and Senator McConnell has objected.

Senator McConnell will come to the floor and show a list such as this when he has asked for votes on the Keystone Pipeline and Senator Reid has objected. That is the truth of the Congress. The saddest thing about this is I have believed for over 1 year that if we could actually get a vote, we have the 60 votes to pass it.

I have said that on any number of occasions. I believe we have the 60 votes to pass Keystone. I believe the coalition of oil and gas and energy and manufacturing companies that are very strong, with the coalition of the strongest labor unions and organizations that represent working people, and with the vote in this last election, and with the people of the United States--mostly because of the people of the United States asking us to do our jobs, I, on faith, and with strong evidence that I have--but on faith in what is right, what is true, and what is best--we have the 60 votes on this floor. That is why I came to the floor yesterday--on that faith.

I said that I believed that it was time to vote on the Keystone Pipeline now. The most important reason is to show the American people that we are willing to put partisanship aside. I called Senator Hoeven--the first thing I did.

The Senator has left the floor because I am not really sure anyone wants to debate me on this. But that is OK. I am used to it. I don't have anybody to debate at home in my election because my opponent won't show up. So I am very used to debating all by myself. So they have all left the floor.

But when I arrived in Washington, the first thing I did was to call Senator Hoeven. I spoke to him because I have done that on any number of occasions. I said to him: John, I think this is a very good time, and there are several reasons why. I think the politics are cleared up. I think the people spoke--cleared up, not meaning me. It is not about my politics, but it is about the politics of some people who lost and won.

Some people who were opposing the vote have lost. Some people who supported having the vote are here. I have said it looks to me as if this is a perfect opportunity to do two things--to get done something that you and I have wanted to do now for over 1 year.

This letter most certainly suggests that there were a number of us-- not many. There were only 15 of us who signed the letter to Secretary Clinton asking her to push forward on the pipeline. Other people were either too busy to sign it or didn't think--whatever--but it is a bipartisan letter and it was very good.

So I called the Senator, and he said that he didn't think that it would happen until the next Congress.

So I said: Well, let's try. Maybe we could get it done. He said that he would talk to his leadership, and that was the last conversation I have had with him.

I came down to the floor yesterday just thinking: Well, maybe I will just kick it up a little bit, and sure enough, I did. It got kicked up pretty high. I was actually here around 2 o'clock because I have been around here enough to know that if you show up early you actually might get something done. Don't show up late; don't be late. My dad taught me to be on time, so I was here at 2 o'clock.

I was very interested to see what Majority Leader Reid would say and Minority Leader McConnell would say, and the Senator from Texas, who is usually always with the Senator from Kentucky, what they would say about what we should do.

I sat here fully expecting the minority leader from Kentucky--soon to be the majority leader--to say OK, the people have spoken; let's get on with a bill that is very important. Everyone in the country--not everyone, but many people--many people in this country, in all regions, support the Keystone Pipeline--not everyone. There are strong feelings against it, but every poll I have seen shows people from many different areas of the country, many different political persuasions. This is not as if only Democrats are against it and only Republicans are for it. There are many Democrats in my State that have supported it--poor people, rich people, black people, white people--Democrats who support the Keystone Pipeline. I am certain that is true in the State of the Presiding Officer, North Dakota. I am sure that it is not even a party issue in the State of North Dakota. This is just a commonsense issue to get the Keystone Pipeline bill.

At approximately 2:15 yesterday I sat on the floor, ready to go. I had called my leader and John Hoeven. His name is first on this bill. I could have asked for my name to be first on the bill because I actually chair the committee, but I was trying to be bipartisan, gracious, and a team member. It hasn't gotten me very far, but I just used it as an example.

I said: John, this means the world to you, although it means the world to me, put your name first. So it is called the Hoeven-Landrieu bill. I called him since it is his bill and asked him what he thought. He said he thought we could do it in the next Congress. I said, I actually think we can do it now. He said he didn't think so. So I just came to the floor.

I waited for Mitch McConnell to say something. This is what he said:

Mr. President, last week the American people sent a strong

message to Washington. They voted for a new direction. They

called for a change in the way we do things in the Senate,

and they sent a new team to Washington to carry their wishes

forward, and we plan to do just that.

But several items remain for the outgoing Congress to

consider and that is our immediate focus.

So I am sitting in my chair thinking OK, here we go. I am ready. I have been ready since we started, but definitely my staff can't find anything before that which I can show for any evidence, other than this letter. So I can just say I think I was for it since I heard about it. But since I can't prove it, let's go back to March 16, 2011, because my signature is the lead on this letter. So that is some indication that I have been leading at least since then.

I get a tremendous amount of credit, of course, from my own caucus because they understand that even though most of my caucus doesn't agree with me and thinks I have been--and I have really pushed them on this issue and will continue to, because that is what good Senators do. We don't represent our caucuses. We represent our States, and we fight hard for what we believe is right. I have, for the longest time, felt this was the right thing to do. So that was that letter.

I was sitting and thinking: Here we go. But this is what the minority leader went on to say:

In the weeks that remain in this Congress, we should work

to accomplish the essential task [not of building the

Keystone Pipeline] of funding the Congress and preventing

retroactive tax increases.

I thought he could say the essential task of funding Congress--which I will put first, although a lot of people don't think we should fund ourselves because we are not doing a very good job--but I will give him that.

The second I would put--and let's show the people that we mean business by passing a bipartisan bill, the Keystone Pipeline, and moving it to the President's desk. But he said:

. . . preventing retroactive tax increases. We must address

the expiring authority passed earlier this session for the

Department of Defense to train and equip a moderate, vetted

Syrian opposition [I agree that is very important] and we

must continue to support the efforts to address the Ebola

crisis [equally important].

But then something interesting happened. They brought to the floor a childhood bill--the majority and minority together. The leadership brought a bill that has bipartisan support--but so does Keystone. But the majority leader and the minority leader didn't think Keystone could get votes or couldn't pass or maybe they didn't want to pass it.

But as long as I am a Senator--I hope to be for many years to come--I am going to continue to fight for what is right and do it in as gracious a manner as possible to give credit where credit is due, to honor the Members on the other side and on my side who work very hard and just don't talk about bipartisanship but actually work at it every day.

I am sorry that it doesn't seem possible for the minority leader-- soon to be majority leader--to do that. When he finished speaking, I just sat here because I can't get leader time because I am not the leader of the caucus. Then I thought well, maybe Senator Cornyn will say something.

Senator Cornyn spoke at approximately 2:30, the record says. He spoke longer than the majority leader. He also talked about dysfunction, but he never called for a Keystone vote either. So I thought that was strange.

He said: ``We will pass a budget next year--something our friends across the aisle have failed to do . . . ''

He said: ``I know Republicans and Democrats will continue to have policy disagreements.''

He also said:

So last week's election will not change some of the

fundamental policy differences we have between political

parties on ObamaCare, on what we need to do to preserve and

protect Social Security and Medicare and the like . . . but

it will give us a chance to make some steady incremental

progress on issues where we do agree.

He talked about Ted Kennedy, the lion of the Senate. He talked about Mike Enzi and how Mike Enzi, who is a wonderful Senator--someone I have worked with very closely--said: Let's work on the 80-20 rule.

He said: What is that? He said: Let's work on the 80 percent that we can agree on and the 20 percent we cannot.

Then he went on to say:

That strikes me as eminently practical and a way for us to

begin to get back to work again.

When I talk about the easy stuff we can do, I am referring

to the bipartisan majority

that supports things such as the Keystone XL Pipeline

authorization . . .

I want to repeat that:

When I talk about the easy stuff we can do, I am referring

to the bipartisan majority that supports things such as the

Keystone XL Pipeline authorization . . .

So I thought he would call for us to see what we could do in this lame duck. We are going to vote on an early childhood education bill. Most certainly we would have the time to vote on a jobs bill.

Now I believe early childhood education in the long term is the best jobs bill we can do. I have said that over and over, and my life has been committed to early childhood education, good schools, excellence in education, and accountability. I am not saying this to diminish the bill the Senate is poised to pass, which is for early childhood education. But if we started today with 2 year olds, it will literally take us 20 years until they are 22, and the American people want jobs yesterday. They want jobs now. They don't want jobs in 22 years.

So I was hoping the majority would see that there is a clear path for the Keystone Pipeline to pass--a clear path. You can see it. You don't need a magnifying glass. You just need a brain in your head, an understanding of what happened in the election, and the votes that are here. It is--yes, what happened in the election, not only that the American people spoke, but that some Members who were opposed to it and who didn't want to vote have lost their elections.

The votes are here to pass this bill. It was clear to me; I thought it should be clear to the majority leader. So people are going to have to go ask the majority leader. He left the floor, and he will not answer this question, but I am going to continue to ask it until I get an answer from him because I think the people of the United States deserve it. Why didn't he? He has been talking about it incessantly every day, not only beating up on Democrats, even though about 15 of us--maybe more--will vote for it, but he has been beating up on the President incessantly, every day. And when he had the microphone, when he had the chance, when he was elected overwhelmingly in his State, he walked to the floor and didn't say a word about the Keystone Pipeline. Not a word. He didn't even refer to it.

Then the Senator from Texas, who I thought, well--because they do their scripts together, they coordinate them very well. I thought maybe the Senator from Texas was going to give the signal. The Senator from Texas didn't give the signal, either.

So as all Senators here who are elected have the right to stand up at their desk and ask for recognition--it is about as simple as that. I didn't even have a script. I was just sort of thinking that they were going to do it. That is why I was here, because I thought at least I would like to say I agree with it, and I am prepared to do what I have done to rally our side to get the votes.

So neither one of them said anything. And we can read it for ourselves. It is very clear. The Senator from Texas said we should do easy stuff like the Keystone Pipeline. We will do that. Next time we will work on workforce training. He said: No. 4, we can work on infrastructure; No. 5, he said we should discourage abusive, costly litigation; No. 6, we are going to repeal ObamaCare, particularly restore the 40-hour workweek; repeal the medical device tax; and No. 8, we are going to abolish the Independent Payment Advisory Board under Medicare. Each of these things I have mentioned has bipartisan support. If we can pass these measures, we will send them to the President for his signature. So starting with the easy stuff we have already identified that has bipartisan support.

Well, I lead the bipartisan effort on the Democratic side, and I am proud to say that I lead it with the Senator from North Dakota who is presiding, who has been an equally ferocious and sometimes more effective, I will admit, champion than I have been, and the Senator from West Virginia, who has also been an absolute bulldog on the issue.

There are other Senators. Max Baucus was a strong supporter of Keystone. Senator Tester. Is it impossible for Republicans to utter the words? Senator Tester. Senator Heitkamp. They don't have to say my name. I am clear about why they are not doing that, but they could at least be gracious enough to recognize the leadership of the other Senators here who have worked hard.

When we start this next Congress--and I am going to do everything I can to be a part of it--I really hope the reporters in this Chamber and people who are following this will start reporting what really happens here instead of what happens at press conferences, instead of what people say in press releases, instead of what people say when they buy staged television ads. If the reporters would actually just report what happened, I think that would be a good start.

Sometimes they are going to say: This is what Senator Landrieu did, and I disagree with her. This is what Mitch McConnell did, and I disagree with him. But at least they would report what actually happens.

So when they finished speaking, I stood up and said I think the votes are there. I have reason to believe they are. I worked for a couple of days last week just calling around because I am the chair of the committee, and my job is to pass legislation. I passed some significant pieces of legislation even before I was the chair of the energy committee, although you would not believe that listening to some people. We passed the RESTORE Act. I led the pushback against Biggert- Waters, although I didn't put my name on it because I knew if I did, it would never pass because they wouldn't have allowed it under any circumstance. So Senator Menendez and Senator Isakson were gracious to step up, and they led the effort, and I just kind of organized behind the scenes--it is clear that happened--and we passed it. I am grateful to this day that I didn't put my name as the lead because they never would have passed it in an election year, and we would have had 5 million people in this country literally turning their homes back to the banks or telling their children: The home that I built and that we built together that has $300,000 or $400,000 of equity--I am just telling you we are bankrupt.

I am so glad that didn't happen. I am thrilled.

So we did that bill. We did the RESTORE Act. I passed early in my career a revenue-sharing bill that is going to serve the State of Louisiana and the gulf coast beautifully for years to come.

Harry Truman offered us a portion of offshore oil and gas revenues even before I was born. When I got through college and read about it, I thought: Geez, that was a good idea. I liked Harry Truman's idea, and so I filed a bill and passed it as a junior member of the committee--I remind people, over the objection of my own chairman, who was a Democrat at the time, the Senator from New Mexico, Jeff Bingaman, who was adamantly opposed, adamantly fought every day, not just voted against me but lobbied against me, fought against me, spoke against it--not me personally but the bill. He just didn't believe in it--not me personally but the bill. I passed it over his objection, which is a very hard thing, for a junior member of the committee to pass it over the objection of their own chairman. But the reason I did it is because I figured out the votes, and we drafted it in a way that could secure the votes and passed it. That is the truth.

So I am happy tonight. I am not sad. I am happy tonight that the House of Representatives is again--because this is like the third time this has happened in my career. It is a great honor for a House that I haven't spent 2 minutes on the floor of--I mean, I know my delegation, but I haven't spent any time in the House. I wasn't even a Member of the House. This is the third time in my career that the House of Representatives has actually taken a Hoeven-Landrieu, Landrieu-Hoeven bill, stripped their bill--and I didn't even ask them to do it--and put my bill over there and passed it, and then they are going to move it over here. I could not be happier because we need to get the Keystone Pipeline done. They did sort of the same thing with revenue sharing, the RESTORE Act--well, four times--and the Biggert-Waters bill.

So I could not be happier that I was here at 2:00, that I listened to my father, who is listening now--he should be happy to say: Show up on time. You might not ever figure out what could happen if you aren't there on time.

So I was, thinking absolutely they wouldn't put the early childhood vote

on the floor, they would put Keystone on the floor because they talked about it every single day--every single day in my State, in Alaska, in North Carolina, in Georgia, and in Kentucky. Every single day.

What was wrong with yesterday? What was wrong with yesterday? It was a good day. I am going to let that question sit because there are a lot of people around here who know the answer; I don't have to tell it to them. What was wrong with Tuesday? So when they didn't mention it, I thought that I would because, as is the truth, I have been leading it since 2011. I am not going to stop until we get a vote on the Senate floor, for as long as I am here as chair, as ranking member--which I will be, and not as happy as being chair but thrilled to be able to work with the Senator from Alaska. If I had to pick one person in this body on that side of the aisle to work with, it would be Lisa Murkowski without a doubt, not only because she is a woman but because she is an independent woman. She is strong. And since I was raised by one, I cotton to them.

So I am a happy camper. It does not bother me because, as I have said, I have now worked here long enough to have worked in the majority and in the minority. I have worked with Republicans. I have worked with Democrats. I have worked with three Presidents of different parties and six Governors. Why would I be sad? This is kind of like somebody said to me: This is the gig you signed up for. Yes, it is. It is strange to many people, and I don't blame our constituents for getting aggravated, but it is a gig I signed up for because my dad signed up for it, my brother signed up for it, and my sister signed up for it because it is what we do, and we do it well. And every single member of my family-- and my husband signed up for it, and his mother signed up for it. I think it is worth signing up for, is why I am here.

Other people can have their opinions about the people who are here. I think they are some of the best people in the world. Maybe the institution is dysfunctional--it is. It is dysfunctional at this moment, but the people are not. The individual people who are here on both sides are not dysfunctional individuals; they are some of the most extraordinary people on this planet. I know I am going to get criticized for that statement because people will say: There she goes, just talking about politicians. But I have served long enough to know there are really some extraordinary human beings who serve in this Senate--smart, capable, caring--on both sides of the aisle, and I am proud to be a part of it.

I was not proud of the minority leader from Kentucky on Tuesday. I was not proud of him today. I was not proud of the Senator from Texas today. I was very disappointed in the Senator from North Dakota. But they are my friends. We will get through it, and we will work forward together.

I am glad the House is debating and voting. I look forward to being back here on next Tuesday, where our vote will occur, and I am very hopeful we will have and I believe we will have not 60 but probably 61 votes for the Keystone Pipeline. What the President does is a different matter, and I would like to challenge the Senators on Tuesday to just focus on the Senate.

Let the Senate's will work. Let us pass this bill. We will then send it to the President, and under the Constitution--which is read to us on a frequent basis--the President has the right to sign it or to veto it. If he vetoes it, it is going to take 67 votes to override his veto. Mine will be one of them if he vetoes this bill. If I am here, my vote will be there to override his veto. I don't believe there are 67 other votes in the Senate to do that. There might be. I don't know what mindset people will have, but let's cross that bridge when we get there.

Stop talking about the White House and talk about the Senate. If the Senate can function, then maybe the House will do a little bit better, maybe the White House will do a little bit better. My mother taught me if you want to criticize others, start with yourself first. Get yourself straight before you start criticizing everybody else. All I hear around here is what this one didn't do and what that one didn't do and what the President didn't do. Let us work as a Senate. Let us show the American people how the Senate works.

The House is going to do their job on Keystone. We are going to do our job on Keystone, and that will break the gridlock, which we desperately need on a significant--not an easy bill, not an easy bill-- but easier, such as early childhood education. Who could be opposed to that? But let's break the gridlock on a tough bill that is hard on our Members to vote on. There are Members here who think it is the worst thing in the world. I understand that. I think there are things that have passed here that I thought were the worst things in the world and I didn't like them, but voting is important. Senator Durbin has said this and others have said this over and over again; Senator Leahy, who has been here a long time. Let us vote and let us stop criticizing everyone else, and do our job, and I am proud that I helped to get us moving in that direction.

I am going to ask--Senator Carper is seeking to speak on another matter. I understand my hour of postcloture is about to expire. I don't need any additional time. I note that Senator Carper is here, but before that, Senator Heitkamp, I would respectfully say to the Chair, I think may have some comments she would like to make, and I yield the floor, but if Senator Heitkamp could go now.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to speak immediately following the remarks of the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania.

Mr. President, I am pleased to be in the same Senate with this wonderful Senator from Pennsylvania who does a very good job on the Senate Finance Committee and is, frankly, one of the brighter lights in the Senate. I appreciate him. I appreciate his efforts. I appreciate his leadership. I appreciate what he just got through saying.

Mr. President, soon we will begin debate on the so-called Bring Jobs Home Act. There are a number of serious problems facing our country. For example, our national debt currently exceeds $17.5 trillion. That is trillion with a T. Our economy continues to struggle. In fact, the economy shrunk last quarter. We have an entitlement crisis that threatens to swallow our government and take the country down with it.

Of course, as has been widely discussed, we are seeing a parade of U.S. multinationals opting to move their legal domiciles to countries outside of our country, outside of the United States. During these difficult times what we are hearing from my friends on the other side of the aisle is not very good.

What are we hearing from these friends on the other side of the aisle? We are hearing talk about ``economic patriotism.'' I did not make up that term. It is the latest catchphrase coming from the Obama administration as they try to malign business models and investments they do not like during an election year.

Last week I received a letter from the Treasury Secretary calling for ``a new sense of economic patriotism'' as the administration pushed for legislation that would punitively and retroactively seek to limit corporate inversions. The President has repeated the line in some of his recent speeches. Of course, ``economic patriotism'' is not a new catchphrase. It was trotted out by the President during the 2012 election campaign. Now it appears to be making a comeback. Not surprisingly, this comeback is taking place in the midst of another election year. Apparently, as part of this recycled campaign, we are going to have to once again debate and vote on the Bring Jobs Home Act, the same bill the Senate rejected during the last election cycle.

If enacted, this legislation would deny the deduction for ordinary and necessary business expenses to the extent that such expenses were incurred for offshore outsourcing. That is, to the extent an employer incurred costs in relocating a business unit from somewhere inside the United States to somewhere outside the United States,

the employer would be disallowed a deduction for any of the associated business expenses. Wow. How antibusiness can you be? There are other ways of solving this problem.

The bill would also create a new tax credit for insourcing. That is, if a company relocated a business unit from outside the United States to inside the United States, the business would be allowed a tax credit equal to 20 percent of the costs associated with that relocation. As I said, this is a recycled bill.

The political talking points surrounding the bill are also recycled. This bill and the related talking points are based on the oft-repeated lie that there are special incentives or loopholes in the Tax Code that encourage businesses to move jobs overseas. No such loopholes exist.

As the Joint Committee on Taxation noted in its recent analysis of this bill:

Under present law, there are no targeted tax credits or

disallowances of deductions related to relocating business

units inside or outside the United States. Deductions

generally are allowed for all ordinary and necessary expenses

paid or incurred by the taxpayer during the taxable year in

carrying on any trade or business. These ordinary and

necessary expenses may include expenditures for the

relocation of a business unit.

The truth could not be plainer. Yet the supporters of this bill still talk as though this legislation will end some kind of special tax treatment or deduction for companies that outsource. There is no special treatment. Under our Tax Code, relocation expenses are treated the same whether a company is relocating from a high-tax State in the United States to a lower tax State or if a company relocates some operations offshore.

As the nonpartisan congressional scorekeeper has made clear, there are no targeted tax benefits related to relocating business units outside of the United States. No credits. None. Zero.

As the Joint Committee on Taxation said:

There has always been a deduction allowed for a business's

ordinary and necessary expenses. Expenses associated with

moving have always been regarded as deductible business

expenses.

That being the case, allowing a deduction for these expenses is not all that remarkable. It is the general rule. Disallowing or putting exceptions on this deduction, on the other hand, would be an extraordinary deviation from long-standing tax policy and would needlessly add yet another level of complexity to our already overly complex Tax Code.

Still, let's pretend for a moment this deviation is, in terms of tax policy, justified. It is not, but there is no harm in pretending, I guess. Even if we were justified, in terms of policy, the revenue generated by this proposal is minuscule.

According to JCT, the Joint Committee on Taxation, preventing businesses from deducting expenses relating to outsourcing would raise about $140 million over 10 years. That is about $14 million a year--not $14 billion with a ``b,'' but $14 million with an ``m.''

To put the puny amount of this proposal in context, we should compare this revenue number against the volume of business U.S. companies conduct overseas.

According to the latest available IRS statistics of income, in 2010 U.S. companies conducted about $1.085 trillion in business abroad, and that is probably low, given the sluggishness of the economy at that time. On an annualized basis, the Bring Jobs Home Act would curtail deductions representing about $40 million in expenses.

That represents four-thousandths of 1 percent of all overseas business conducted by American companies. Let me repeat that, four- thousandths of 1 percent--hardly perceptible.

As I said, we are talking about minuscule sums here. We are also talking about politics as usual in the Senate. Instead of facing these problems and facing them realistically, some prefer to play politics with it, and it is total BS.

Yet over the last few years we have heard countless claims from my friends on the other side of the aisle that ``closing loopholes for businesses that move jobs overseas'' will pay for all kinds of things.

Earlier this month, for example, President Obama claimed that part of his infrastructure plan could be paid for by making sure corporations shipping jobs overseas ``pay their fair share of taxes.''

Well, if this bill is representative of this particular effort, the President doesn't plan on paying for very much. I would bet the $14 million wouldn't even be enough to pay for a single high-speed rail car or a round of IRS bonuses. It is amazing to me what people will do for political advantage that is shameless. They should be ashamed.

Of course, all of this discussion only focuses on one section of the bill. When you add in the other part of the bill--the 20 percent credit for expenses associated with insourcing--the Bring Jobs Home Act actually loses revenue--loses revenue--adding $214 million to the deficit over 10 years.

So why are we debating this bill? It is obviously not about raising revenue to pay for anything. It is clearly not about impacting business economic decisionmaking, and it is not about improving or simplifying our Tax Code.

Instead, this bill is about politics, pure and simple. It was all about politics the last time we debated this bill in 2012, and it is about politics this time around.

I, for one, am getting sick of it. I am so sick of this body not doing its job.

The Democrats, both in the Senate and the White House, think they gain some traction by talking about ``economic patriotism'' and trying to paint Republicans as the party of outsourcing. Give me a break. The bill is yet another election-year gimmick, pure and simple, and they ought to be ashamed.

Quite frankly, the American people are tired of gimmicks.

What they want are serious solutions to the problems ailing our country. Sadly, they are not getting that from the Senate majority leadership these days.

If we are serious about bringing jobs home, we should try working on legislation that will actually make the United States a better place to do business. Let's make our country more attractive to do business.

We should try working on legislation that will actually grow our economy. But we don't do much of that in the Senate these days. In fact, we don't do much of anything in the Senate these days other than to continue to overbalance the Federal courts with this administration's suggestions.

Yes, we don't do much of that in the Senate these days. Instead, what we are seeing is an endless series of showboats designed to highlight whatever Democratic campaign theme is popular that week.

We have seen votes designed to highlight the supposed ``war on women.'' We have seen votes designed to make it appear the Republicans are indifferent to the plight of the middle class. Give me a break. Now we are seeing votes designed to demonize Republicans for their supposed lack of ``economic patriotism.''

What a fraud. When does it end? From the looks of things, not any time soon.

I suspect as we debate the so-called Bring Jobs Home Act, the Republicans will offer a number of amendments that, unlike this bill, will actually create jobs in the United States. I plan to offer some amendments along those lines, and I am sure many of my colleagues will do the same.

This will be an opportunity to show whether the Senate Democratic leadership is serious about creating jobs and helping American workers and businesses as they claim to be. If, in fact, that is the aim of this legislation, then we should have a full and fair debate on it, including an open amendment process that will allow the Senate to explore alternative approaches and to discuss different ideas and how best to create jobs in this country. But I wouldn't hold my breath, watching how this Senate is being run these days.

Let's talk about actually fixing our Tax Code. Let's talk about growing our economy. Let's talk about real solutions to the real problems facing our Nation.

I hope that is the kind of conversation we will have on this bill. Of course, I am not naive. I know how the Senate operates these days. I have come to the floor numerous times--only yesterday, in fact--to lament the deterioration of this body under the current leadership. I am not under any illusions that things are simply going to change overnight.

I might add that the Senate leadership--these are friends of mine. I am just disappointed in the way they are running the place, and I think my disappointments are correct and accurate. But make no mistake, things need to change. For the good of our country, things need to be done differently around here.

Like I said, the American people are tired of political gimmicks. They are tired of the endless campaign. They want to see the Senate act in a way that will produce results.

Sadly, with this legislation before us this week, it looks as if we are in for yet another round of partisan gamesmanship.

We can do things differently and, once again, I hope we will. But as I have said many times before, I am not going to hold my breath. I just wish we could get together and work in the best interests of not only this body but our country.

I don't see the leadership at the White House either, nor do I think Secretary Lew's letter on this issue was a justifiable letter. In fact, I think it was pathetic, and I am very disappointed in him as a person and as a leader in this country for that letter.

Of course, I wrote one back to him, certainly, expressing my viewpoint.

U.N. Disability Treaty

Yesterday the Foreign Relations Committee voted 12 to 6 again to report the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

This was similar to the committee vote 2 years ago. On December 4, 2012, the Senate voted 61 to 38 on the treaty, less than the two-thirds the Constitution requires for ratification.

I expect a similar result if the Senate takes up the treaty again. Yesterday afternoon the senior Senator from Iowa--a friend of mine, and a person for whom I have a lot of regard--spoke on the floor about the treaty, and as he has done many times, urged its ratification. I don't doubt his sincerity at all, and I admire him personally for the long service he has given to this country.

He called the concern that this treaty would undermine American sovereignty and self-government imaginary, hypothetical, and unreal. In fact he said:

Anyone who is hiding behind that issue does not want to

vote for this treaty for some other reason. But it can't be

the reason of sovereignty.

I will not speculate about what the Senator from Iowa meant by some other reason. He and I have worked hard together to promote the rights and opportunities of all persons with disabilities. I feel deeply about that issue. I feel as deeply as he does.

We were partners in the development and passage of both the original Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 and the ADA Amendments Act in 2008.

I take a back seat to no one when it comes to legislation to help persons with disabilities.

But since I gave a speech on the floor 1 year ago explaining my concerns about this treaty's effect on American sovereignty and self- government, I have to respond to the charges by my friend from Iowa. I can only speak for myself, of course, but I am not hiding behind anything, including the sovereignty issue.

That issue is neither imaginary nor hypothetical, and it is certainly not cover for some hidden, unexpressed reason for opposing this treaty.

As I explained on July 10, 2013, this is a treaty not with other nations but instead with the United Nations itself. Ratifying it would create obligations across at least 25 different areas of social, economic, cultural and even political life. Article 8, for example, would even regulate the United States to ``raise awareness throughout society, including at the family level, regarding persons with disabilities.''

If this is all the treaty did, if it simply stated obligations, I might support it. It would then be generally similar to the treaty regarding child labor the Senate ratified in 1999. That treaty states that ratifying nations shall ``take immediate and effective measures to secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labor.''

But these two treaties are radically different and the difference is the very reason why the disability treaty threatens American sovereignty and self-government and the child labor treaty does not.

The difference between these treaties is who has authority to determine whether ratifying nations are in compliance. The child labor treaty leaves that up to the ratifying nations themselves.

The disability treaty, however, gives authority to determine whether ratifying nations were meeting their treaty obligations to the United Nations. That is considerably different and very dangerous. Each nation must submit compliance reports to a U.N. committee of experts which uses its own criteria and standards to determine compliance and makes whatever recommendations it chooses.

Treaty advocates say this U.N. committee will not have actual legal authority to require changes to domestic laws and that even if it did, we would not have to change a thing.

I have three responses to that. First, as I explained in my speech last year, American sovereignty and self-government are not so narrow they can only be undermined by the United Nations literally assuming legal and political control of our country. America is a republic under a written constitution, and in this system of government the people must have the last word on everything because the people are sovereign over everything.

The American people and their elected representatives, not a U.N. committee, must have the last word not only on our laws and regulations but also on our priorities, our values, and our standards.

Ratifying this treaty would endorse a formal, ongoing role for the United Nations in evaluating virtually every aspect of American life. It would say that the U.N.--not the American people--has the last word about whether the United States is meeting its obligations in these many areas.

That undermines American sovereignty and self-government. The United Nations hardly needs a legally binding treaty to opine on aspects of American life and public policy. It does so all the time. Ratifying this treaty, however, would formally endorse the right of the United Nations to do so and, even worse, subject ourselves to their evaluation. That is serious. We should think twice before we allow something like that to happen.

Second, we may already have the world's most expansive disability laws and regulations--and I know because I helped bring them about--but this treaty goes far beyond that.

The U.N. Web site says this treaty legally binds any nation ratifying it to adhere to its principles, and the treaty spells out what that adherence will require. Ratifying nations agree to enact, modify, or abolish laws and regulations at all levels of government--federal, state, and local--that are inconsistent with the treaty's principles, but the treaty also requires evaluating and changing any social customs and cultural practices that are inconsistent with those principles. Anyone who has followed the United Nations knows that a U.N. committee is not likely to look as favorably on American customs and practices as it might on our laws and regulations.

Third, even though the U.N. disability treaty appears to have been modeled after the Americans with Disabilities Act, it utilizes a very different concept of disability.

For more than four decades, American laws in this area have defined a disability as an impairment that substantially limits a major life activity. The disability treaty, however, states that ``disability is an evolving concept'' involving barriers that hinder ``full and effective participation on an equal basis with others.'' In other words, the U.N. committee would use a subjective fluid concept of disability to evaluate compliance with the treaty of U.S. laws that utilize an objective, functional definition of ``disability.''

I am pleased to note that, even without U.S. ratification, no less than 34 nations have ratified the U.N. disability treaty since it was sent to the Senate on May 17, 2012--15 of them since I last spoke here on the treaty a year ago.

Yesterday the senior Senator from Iowa asked for someone to explain to him why the disability treaty before us today raises concerns about sovereignty but the 1999 child labor treaty did not. Well, I think I have done that here today. The disability treaty gives

the last word on whether a nation is in compliance to the U.N.; the child labor treaty leaves that entirely up to each nation.

I understand Senators have different understandings or concepts about such things as American sovereignty and self-government, but it is wrong to say that if I take a different view on that than the senior Senator from Iowa, I must somehow be hiding my real reason for opposing this treaty. In our system of government, legislation and treaties are profoundly different ways of addressing public policy issues with profoundly different effects on sovereignty and self-government.

I will continue to be a champion for disability legislation, but I cannot support this disability treaty. I will support those who have disabilities, who have difficult times, as I did back then.

Frankly, I still remember my great friend from Iowa and myself walking off the floor to a whole reception room filled with persons with disabilities, all of whom were crying and happy that we had done this in America.

America leads the world in our quest toward disabilities issues. In all honesty, I don't want to lose our sovereignty in this issue, nor do I want to turn over our rights and our own self-interests to the United Nations, as good as it may be from time to time. But I have also seen where it hasn't been so good from time to time as well.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I did not come to the floor to praise Senator Landrieu, but while I am at it, I would like to say a few words.

I have the privilege of chairing the committee on governmental affairs. Senator Landrieu chairs the appropriations subcommittee that deals with Homeland Security. She is also a member of the authorizing committee. So she works both vineyards. She is as tenacious and tireless in her defense of our country against cyber attacks, against terrorist attacks, against all kinds of ills that would otherwise be visited on our country. She still finds time as chairman of the energy committee to focus not only on issues that are important to her State-- and this is one of them--but also issues that are incredibly important to our country.

I said to my wife the other night--we were talking about Senator Landrieu and her tenacity. That word has been used tonight a couple times about her, as an unrelenting advocate for her State and the causes she believes in. Others have mentioned that she is a tireless advocate not only for Louisiana but for the causes that she sees that are just.

There is no quit in this one, as I said to my wife this week. She said, ``How is Mary?'' I would never want to run against this woman, and fortunately I would never have to. And for those who have to, good luck and God bless. But I am proud to be here with Mary, and with Senator Heidi Heitkamp as well.

The reason I come here tonight is to discuss a number of nominations that have been considered and approved by the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that both Senator Landrieu and Senator Heitkamp and I serve on. Senator Coburn, our colleague from Oklahoma, is the ranking Republican on that committee, and we have worked tirelessly ourselves for the better part of the last 2 years to try to make sure there is a full complement of leadership in the Department of Homeland Security to provide the leadership for one of the most important agencies in our government. I have spoken with people on this floor and wherever else I could find a venue about the large and very troubling backlog of nominations in this Senate. I call it executive branch Swiss cheese. Executive branch Swiss cheese.

There are a couple of ways you can cripple an administration. No. 1, you can refuse to provide appropriations and funding. Another way to cripple an administration is to not approve the nominations of people who fill key leadership positions. The most important ingredient I found in any organization--I don't care if it is a legislative body such as this, a State such as Minnesota or Delaware or Louisiana or North Dakota--I don't care if it is a college or a business, a church. The most critical factor in all of those is leadership.

When we deny a President or a Governor or a mayor, for that matter, the ability to put his or her leadership team together--even when they are nominating well-qualified, competent people, people of integrity-- we do not do just a disservice to that person who has been nominated and has gone through the process, but to the State or the county or the country in which they have been nominated to serve.

I think it is every Senator's constitutional role to provide advice and consent on the President's nominations in a thorough and timely manner as part of the Senate confirmation process. I have exercised that constitutional role and our right and our obligation. I think we do our country no service and do ourselves no honor when we leave critical agencies--and Homeland Security is certainly one of those-- without proper leadership and leave honorable men and women who are willing to serve in the government twisting in the wind.

I am a big believer in the Golden Rule, as our Presiding Officer knows: treat other people the way we want to be treated. How would we like it if we were nominated, and we have a job--maybe it is an important job, maybe it is a job that pays a lot more than what they have been nominated to do in service to our country. All too often people are asked to put their lives and their family on hold. They don't know if they are going to be uprooted from wherever they are in the country to come here and live or for their spouse or father or mother to work. It is not fair.

In some cases, it is just to put people before committees and berate them

publicly for sins of omission or commission that may be fabricated. No wonder it is hard to get good people to serve.

In this case, I have several people that I will talk about tonight. These people deserve not just our consideration but our strong support.

During my 2 years as chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, I have made it one of my top priorities to work closely with our ranking Republican, Dr. Tom Coburn, who is a physician and also a Senator, and to vet the President's nominees that we have jurisdiction over and move them in a timely manner when they meet muster, scrub them good, make sure we have drilled down on what they believe in, their credentials and competency for serving, and when they do pass muster, try to move them along and bring them through our committee--almost every time--with a bipartisan vote and then bring the nomination to the floor.

Tom Coburn and I try to do that religiously with respect to our nominees. We try to do the same kind of bipartisan approach with our legislation. We have had a lot of success and we are grateful to our colleagues for supporting what we have done in our committee. We are grateful to Majority Leader Reid and Senator McConnell and their staffs. They have been valuable partners in this effort. Gary Myrick, who works on the floor for the Democratic side, and Laura Dove, who works on the Republican side for Senator McConnell, have been terrific to work with, and we thank them for their stewardship.

Just yesterday our committee reported out three more outstanding nominees, one of them, Sarah Saldana, to be head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Department of Homeland Security. It is a big job, it is an important job, and it is a tough job. Russell Deyo has been nominated to be the top management official at the Department of Homeland Security. Mickey Barnett has been nominated by the President to serve another term on the Postal Services Board of Governors.

I believe Ms. Saldana and Mr. Deyo will almost certainly be confirmed in short order. I urge my colleagues to review their qualifications and work with Dr. Coburn and me to fill these two vacancies at the Department of Homeland Security in the coming days.

I wish to spend a few minutes of my time tonight discussing the nomination of Mickey Barnett, who is already serving on the Postal Board of Governors. He is a Republican and nominated again by the President. I will then talk about a couple of lower profile nominees that I think we urgently need to confirm as quickly as we can-- certainly this year during this lameduck session.

Mickey Barnett is among a group of five partisan nominees to the Postal Board of Governors. His nomination was submitted by a Democratic President. Two of the nominees are Republicans, and Mickey is one of those, and three of them are Democrats.

If we don't confirm Mr. Barnett and his colleagues by December 8--a little more than 4 weeks from now--Mr. Barnett, who is currently the Board's chair, will be forced to leave the Board. If that happens, the Postal Board of Governors will no longer have enough members to achieve a quorum and will not be able to conduct business.

At a time when the Postal Service is struggling to address a number of financial challenges and adapt to the digital age and the Internet world we live in, being unable to conduct business would not be good for the Postal Service. In fact, it would be very bad. We need to avoid that from happening. I think if it does happen, we will be inviting a disaster.

Today, because of our inability in Congress to come to a consensus on postal reform legislation--and they are actually creeping closer--the good work by Dr. Coburn and a number of other people to actually develop a bipartisan consensus around the legislation that was reported out of our committee--I believe in a 9-to-1 vote earlier this year--the Postal Service will continue to twist in the wind, able to only do so much to address the financial challenges they face and to transfer themselves in a digital age. They need to figure out how to make themselves relevant--a 200-some-year-old establishment--in delivering that work that goes to every business and every residence in this country, for the most part, 6 days a week.

How do we enable the Postal Service to make money? They are figuring it out, and we can help them with our legislation.

Meanwhile, the customers of the Postal Service are left with uncertainty about what the future holds for the Postal Service. Are they going to be around? Are they going to be able to do the job? Are they ever going to modernize their fleet? Are they ever going to modernize their processing centers and the post offices themselves? We can answer that question and enable them to be financially viable once again. We would make that uncertainty that surrounds the Postal Service even worse if December 8 comes and goes and our five Postal Board nominees are still waiting for us to act.

The same goes for our nominees to fill vacancies, not on the Postal Board of Governors, but on something called the Postal Regulatory Commission. It is a five-member commission. It is the regulator, if you will, for the Postal Service. The two people who have been nominated by this President are Nanci Langley and Tony Hammond. They have been waiting since the spring of 2013 to be confirmed. As a result, the commission has been working with only three commissioners out of five. We need to do something about that as well, and waiting for another year--waiting for another month is foolhardy.

These people deserve a vote. We ought to vote them up or down. They have been unanimously approved and confirmed by our committee, and I think they need a vote. When they get a vote, I am sure they will be confirmed.

Also pending before the Senate are two nominations to the District of Columbia Superior Court, Judge William Nooter and Judge Steven Wellner. They are both well-qualified nominees who, like the Homeland Security and Postal nominees I have discussed, won bipartisan support in the committee and are needed to fill vacancies on the District of Columbia's very busy trial court.

Judge Nooter and Judge Wellner were reported out of our committee with unanimous bipartisan support months ago. In Judge Nooter's case, it was more than a year ago.

As I have discussed, these men are not alone in waiting so long for confirmation, but the problem is particularly unfair when it comes to the District of Columbia's court system. Earlier this fall during the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Hearing on DC statehood, the current vacancies on the DC Superior Court were included as just one of many injustices the District faces simply because it serves our Nation's capital.

The District of Columbia already suffers from not having control over its laws or even its own local dollars. The citizens of this city should not have to face a compromised legal system as well. While we in Congress may not be able to fix everything, I do think this is one of the few issues we can and must address now.

The DC Circuit Court is a local court. It hears primarily local matters. Most nominees are entirely uncontroversial and used to go through the Senate without a recorded floor vote. But because these local judges go through Senate confirmation, they have been caught up in a broader political stalemate of the Senate floor. I hope that is going to come to an end.

Meanwhile, no other local or State jurisdiction must have its non- Federal judges approved by the Congress. If we are talking about Federal District judges or Circuit Court of Appeal judges or Supreme Court Justices, of course they should come through and be debated and approved here. These are local judges, and it is only by a quirk in the law that they have to come here for a confirmation at all. They are local judges in the District of Columbia.

How would we like it if we had been nominated and held up for over a year--particularly in courts where there are huge backlogs. We are talking about caseloads of tens of thousands of people, and they don't have a full complement of judges because of us. How fair is that? Well, it is not.

No other local or State jurisdiction must have its non-Federal judges approved by Congress, and no other State

or locality is without a vote in the Senate to help push for action on nominations of concern to that community.

The DC Superior Court is operated by the Federal Government and its judges are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate for 15-year terms. It is important to note that although this court is operated by the Federal Government, it is separate from the Federal Government. Instead, the Superior Court is the local trial court for the District of Columbia. It handles matters such as local crime and domestic and civil disputes.

Nevertheless, because this court is operated by the Federal Government, the President nominates candidates for judicial vacancies from a slate prepared by a nonpartisan nomination commission and the Senate must confirm the nominees.

Currently, there are four vacancies on the Superior Court. Due to planned retirement and medical leave, this number will rise by the end of the year, and it is going to get worse. These vacancies hinder the Superior Court's ability to administer justice for DC residents. The Superior Court judges already carry, as I said earlier, enormous caseloads. The existing vacancies--the majority of which are in the family court division--threaten to undermine the judge's ability to give proper attention to each case, including those cases in family courts that affect the welfare of families, and particularly the welfare of children.

Recently the chief judge of the Superior Court and the Bar Association in the District of Columbia sent to both Senate leaders and Dr. Coburn and myself a letter raising these concerns and ultimately seeking a Senate vote on Judges Nooter and Wellner. They are preaching to the choir.

Judge Nooter is currently the presiding magistrate judge on the Superior Court and has served as a magistrate judge for the past 14 years. As presiding magistrate judge, he manages 23 fellow magistrate judges and serves on the leadership team of the chief judge of the Superior Court.

Meanwhile, Judge Wellner currently serves as an administrative law judge for the District of Columbia Office of Administrative Hearings. Since 2011, he has led the unemployment insurance division, and by all accounts skillfully coordinates a team of 10 administrative law judges and support staff to adjudicate over 3,000 unemployment insurance cases per year.

Given the caliber of these nominees, the lack of controversy over their nomination, and the unanimous bipartisan support they have received from the committee of jurisdiction, I urge--and I am sure I urge with the full support of Dr. Coburn, our ranking Republican member of the committee--this body to move their confirmations forward as soon as possible. Justice delayed is still justice denied. It has been that way for centuries and these delays are insufferable.

I will close by saying that what we are doing is not just bad judgment, it is not just bad form, I think it is shameful, and we need to fix it.

With that, I am finished, and I am looking around to see if there is anybody else seeking recognition. I don't see anyone, so with that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I also rise on the floor together with my colleagues from New Mexico and Florida to talk about the refugee crisis at our Nation's border. I appreciate Senator Heinrich's leadership on this issue and his comments, and I am looking forward to hearing from Senator Nelson as well.

I would like to share a little bit of a personal story and amplify a few comments I made on the floor last Thursday about this challenge. I feel very personally connected to this issue and to the children who are coming to the border, children such as Alejandro, whose picture was such a stark reminder that we are dealing with little kids.

In 1980 and 1981, I was a student in law school, and I decided that I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life and I needed to figure it out. So what I did was I took a year off from law school and went to work with Jesuit missionaries in the town of El Progreso, Honduras. El Progreso, Honduras, was at that point a small community at the edge of banana plantations in a large agricultural valley in that country. I worked there as the principal of a school that taught kids to be plumbers and carpenters. I was dealing with youngsters in that neighborhood. Well, today El Progreso is in the epicenter of this problem. There have been many hundreds of kids from El Progreso who have come to the border this year.

San Pedro Sula--a nearby large city--is thought to be the murder capital of Honduras, which is now the murder capital of the world.

When I was in Honduras in 1980 and 1981, it was not an overly violent place. It was under military dictatorship. There were problems and challenges, and there was poverty, but refugees were coming into Honduras back then from El Salvador and Guatemala. They weren't leaving because there wasn't the everyday violence we see today. Honduras was a great ally of the United States, a great partner. Honduras was one of the original countries to which we sent Peace Corps volunteers, and I could see their influence all around the country.

But Honduras is a very different nation today. Honduras is now the murder capital of the world, has the highest homicide rate, which is about 40 times the homicide rate of the United States. This area, El Progreso and San Pedro Sula, is the epicenter of that. The United States had to pull Peace Corps volunteers out of the country a few years ago because it got too violent. The friends I have stayed in touch with over the years have informed me about what has been happening in their neighborhoods as the violence has increased.

We had a hearing last week where we had witnesses before us in the Foreign Relations Committee. We asked: Why are the kids leaving Honduras? Is it because their parents don't love them?

I mean, you think about family members. What would it take for a family to let a child take a trip of the kind Alejandro took? I can tell you from living in Honduras that parents love their kids just as much as people love their kids here in the United States. They are no different. To send your child thousands of miles--you would only do it for the most extreme reasons, and living in the murder capital of the world is that extreme reason. These kids are fleeing to the border because they are not safe.

What is the cause of the violence? I talked about this a little bit last week. The violence in Honduras, which is the murder capital of the world; El Salvador, which has the fourth highest homicide rate in the world; and Guatemala, which has the fifth highest homicide rate in the world--the violence is overwhelmingly driven by the drug trade. That was the evidence from our hearing last week as well.

Drug cartels have moved into Honduras and into these Central American countries. They get drugs from South America. They are shipping them to the United States because of the U.S. demand for illegal drugs, especially cocaine. The drug rate in Honduras is not about Hondurans using drugs. Hondurans don't use drugs to any significant degree at all. It is the illegal demand for drugs by people in the United States, largely, and the dollars we are sending down to buy drugs that have turned Honduras--that have turned San Pedro Sula and El Progreso into a massive drug cartel area where the combination of dollars and violence and fights between drug cartels puts little kids in harm's way. And then the gangs want them to join--we want to be the most powerful gangs because we want the money, and the way we do that is we recruit more kids.

So the root of this problem--the root of these refugees--is violence in their neighborhoods that is created by a drug trade that is driven by, sadly, U.S. demand for illegal drugs. That is what is happening. That is what is happening.

It has been heartbreaking to see a country that I care about and love and people whom I care about and love live in what is now the murder capital of the world largely because of the demand for illegal drugs coming from this Nation. So we are going to blame these kids? We are going to call them names or stand out in protest against them? Why? Because they live in a violent neighborhood? Because they want a better future? Because they look at the United States and think we may be a better and safer place for them? We shouldn't be blaming them. We shouldn't be blaming them because they are doing what any of us would do if we lived in a neighborhood where the violence was this extreme. If you have no other way to protect yourself, you are going to leave. We leave neighborhoods and we leave situations that are this bad.

The good news is--and Senator Heinrich has laid this out--we don't have to stand by and say there is nothing we can do. There are solutions. We had a meeting with the three Ambassadors today, and the Foreign Relations Committee is going to have a meeting with the three Presidents of these Nations tomorrow, and we are going to talk about solutions. Let me run through six things we can do, and I will talk briefly about some of them. My colleagues have already dealt with some of them, and Senator Nelson will, but first let's start off with, how about not blaming the kids, No. 1. Let's not blame the kids. Let's not pretend they are crooks or criminals. Might there be some who are coming across the border who have criminal records? Sure. We can do a criminal record check and we can figure that out, and if that is the case, then we can deal with that. But these kids are leaving to stay alive.

My wife is a juvenile court judge. She used to say: I sometimes put a kid in jail to keep him alive.

The need to remain alive sometimes leads you to do extreme things, even to travel thousands of miles to come to a country where you think you might be more safe.

Let's begin by not blaming these kids. That is No. 1.

No. 2, we do need to implement the law. Senator Heinrich talked about this law which was passed by a unanimous Congress, which was signed by President Bush, which was named after William Wilberforce. Do you know who William Wilberforce was? William Wilberforce was a great abolitionist English preacher who had interaction with the slave trade when he was in England and then came to realize that the slave trade was wrong and that religions had promoted the slave trade. He turned his life around and became a crusader against human trafficking, a crusader against the slave trade. That is what this law is that was put in place.

Let's not willy-nilly change the law. Let's implement the law. The law was a good law. In order to implement the law, we do need funding. Senator Heinrich talked about the supplemental request that would be before the Senate. We have had some good discussions about it. I think we have put it in a place where it is now solid. We do need to support that supplemental request so that there will be ample services where these children can be evaluated. If they qualify for asylum, they should be able to stay, just as other refugees stay. If they have committed criminal activities, they can be sent back in order to enforce the law. It seems that is what folks are always saying around here--we should enforce the immigration laws. Let's enforce the William Wilberforce law and make sure there are funds in place to do it.

The third thing we should do is get our priorities right about how we spend money. We are spending the money the wrong way in Central America. It is kind of amazing what we are doing. You would think we ought to be investing a little bit in the security of Central America just as we invest in rebuilding infrastructure in Afghanistan, just as we invest in things all around the world, and we should especially be doing it in Central America because it is the U.S. demand for illegal drugs that is creating the conditions of violence there. Doesn't that create some obligation to take a little bit of responsibility for helping Central American nations with security?

Well, we do spend money on the security in Central American nations, but the money has been dwindling every year--dropping, dropping, dropping. For 2015 the President's budget submission for the Central American Regional Security Initiative was $130 million, which is about $40 million each for the three countries. Compare that to what we will spend on border security in 2015, which is $17 billion. So $130 million for regional security in the nations these refugees are coming from and we are spending $17 billion on the border.

Instead of having to catch all these kids as they are coming across the border and spend time and expense on the legal processes, wouldn't it be a little better to try to take some of that money and spend more in Central America to help these three nations have stronger police forces, stronger judiciary systems? If we could deal with and reduce violence in the neighborhoods--and we have to do it in partnership with these nations. They have responsibilities as well. If we could do that, we could dramatically reduce the number of kids who are coming to the border. We are spending money the wrong way.

I am happy this supplemental has some significant funding to increase our security efforts in Central America. That is very critical. We have to work with the Central American governments to prosecute the coyotes. The coyotes are the smugglers who bring these kids to the border, and they often perpetrate violence and tell these kids: Hey, look, we can get you to the border, and you can stay forever. They will spin false messages about American law, and they do it because they are making money off these poor families.

Honduras is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. For a parent to pay $4,000 or $5,000 to one of these smugglers for their kids to come here--that is usually more than their combined assets. They have to gather up money from all kinds of places to be able to do it. We need to prosecute the coyotes and these smugglers in Central America, and our effort is going to help these countries do that.

We need to make sure these countries spread the message that once the kids get here, they are not going to come and stay automatically. That work is being done, but more can be done.

I think probably the most important thing we can do here is to spend more money helping to solve the cause of the violence and the drug cartels in Central America. If we do that, we will see the number of kids who are fleeing neighborhoods such as the ones I lived in dramatically reduced.

The fourth thing we can do--and Senator Nelson is going to talk about this, so I will not get into it--is interdict more drugs. If you want to do something tough, why send the National Guard to the border? These kids are not sneaking across the border. They are turning themselves in to the first person they see. They know if they see someone with a U.S. uniform on, they won't be killed. They feel safe. We don't need more National Guard at the border because the kids are already turning themselves in. But if you want to be tough, how about more funds for the American military so they can interdict more drugs before they get to Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador? Senator Nelson will go over that.

Fifth, we need to do immigration reform, and Senator Heinrich mentioned that. We passed immigration reform in this Chamber 13 months ago. There were all kinds of stories about it. There has been no action in the House--not even bills out of committee, much less from the House floor--on immigration reform.

This morning the ambassadors told us the uncertain status of whether there is going to be immigration reform is an issue. What is going to happen? Something passed, but maybe it won't pass in the other House. When there is uncertainty, it enables these coyotes to go in and kind of market and say something is going to happen. They will say: We can get you to the United States, and you can stay.

The faster we pass immigration reform and create certainty, the easier it will be to deliver a message that everybody in Central America will understand about what our rules are and what they are not and who is allowed to come in and who is not.

Finally--and this is the hardest one of all--we have to figure out better strategies to reduce the illegal use of drugs, especially cocaine, in the United States. As long as there is this massive demand for illegal drugs such as cocaine in countries such as Honduras that have poor budgets, there will be powerful drug cartels that will use them as staging grounds to try to supply the United States drug demand.

We sometimes hear people talk about drug and cocaine use as a victimless crime. They say: It is a victimless crime; I am not hurting anybody. I may use drugs, but I am not hurting anybody.

This is not a victimless crime. The ones who are using recreational, illegal drugs transited through the Americas are the ones who are creating victims. They are creating the murder capital of the world, and they are the reason kids are fleeing their homes and trying to find safety in the arms of a Border Patrol agent on the border of the United States.

We need new strategies to tackle a huge and overwhelming demand for illegal drugs in the United States. Two weeks ago the President's drug control policy key administrator, Michael Botticelli, went to Roanoke, VA, to roll out the national drug control strategy. He chose Roanoke because Virginia, like a lot of States, has had significant problems-- whether it is heroin or prescription drugs. He also chose Roanoke because it has been a place where there have been strong efforts to come together to tackle illegal drug use.

Last Friday I went to Roanoke and spoke at a drug court graduation-- people who were addicted to drugs but worked with social workers and folks from local courts to break the bonds of that addiction, the bonds that, just as they are addicted to them, also put people in chains in countries such as Honduras by turning their neighborhoods into violent drug-controlled shooting galleries.

We have to be creative and strategic in dealing with the demands for illegal drugs. It is sad that these kids are fleeing their country because of the violence that in some ways has its roots here. The drug demand in this country

is at the origin of the violence that is chasing these kids out of their neighborhoods, and that gives us a moral responsibility to try and tackle this problem and solve it.

I thank my colleagues for their strong support for the supplemental appropriation we will take up. I look forward to working with them. We can solve this problem. We can solve it if we do the right things.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from the Dakotas for yielding the floor to me. Before he leaves, I wish to say something about what the Senator just said. In fact, I was sitting here listening to him. I am going to prove I was actually listening to his speech. I don't think we always do--sometimes I think we don't--but I did that because he was right on target.

But my thought process went back to the 1970s. In the 1970s, OPEC and the Arab oil embargo basically held the United States of America hostage. I remember lines where we would wait for an hour and a half to get $10 worth of gasoline because we had a limited supply.

Now we sit here in a country, some 40 years later, that has unlimited resources available to us if we will just take the political moves and the regulatory moves and the practical moves to exhibit our power and extract those resources.

For example, the Keystone Pipeline that the Senator talked about--not a single molecule of carbon will be generated by bringing that petroleum underground through a pipeline from Canada to Houston. We will refine it more soundly and more environmentally than the Chinese would or anybody else would, and then we will have an almost infinite supply to take care of our own country internally and also use it as a part of our soft power around the world.

The Senator is absolutely correct about Germany and about the Ukraine and about Russia. If we become the surrogate and we replace Russia in terms of supply of natural gas to that part of the world, we take away the only asset Russia has. As Senator McCain has so often said, Russia has relegated itself to being a gas station with a flag. If we become the competitive gas station down the line, we can lower our price by nine-tenths of a cent, we can sell more gas than they can, and we can use the soft power of our natural resources to bring back what we need in terms of peace and stability in that part of the world. The byproduct of doing that is not just energy security, it is not just better diplomatic and international policy, but it is jobs for Americans--jobs to build the pipeline, jobs to operate the pipeline, jobs to extract or frack the natural gas out of Haynesville and Marcellus.

We are sitting on a ham sandwich, starving to death as a country with our assets because governmental policy will not let us do some of what we ought to do.

So I came to the floor to talk a little bit about job creating and bringing

jobs home. The bringing jobs home bill is a $214 million bill, which is a rounding error in terms of the way we do business around here, and will do nothing except penalize companies for doing what they have to do and offer a reward that is not a carrot at all to bring jobs back.

I thank the Senator from the Dakotas for his speech and for his continuing and persistent emphasis on our energy and our energy power and our energy independence. It is voices such as his that need to be heard more and more in this Chamber so we can create jobs for the American people and solve the economic problems we have.

I commend the Senator from South Dakota--thank you--from North Dakota.

I apologize. I am a southerner, so I slipped up on that.

Mr. President, I rise to talk for a minute about the issue of the day that is before us, the bring jobs home bill. I appreciate any effort to bring jobs home and to create new jobs at home, but I want to talk about how we are making a false promise and giving idle hope to people about bringing jobs back because we are not doing the things we should be doing.

If you ask me to make my choice, what should we do in the Senate, on the floor of the Senate, in this body as legislators to create as many jobs as we can as fast as we can, a tax credit for bringing jobs home will not do it and a tax penalty for taking jobs overseas will not do it, but approving the Keystone Pipeline will do it and giving the President of the United States trade promotion authority will do it. Both of those are pending on the floor of the Senate right now before us. We could take them up tomorrow. If we did, we could make a massive impact on job creation in America and further empower our economy.

I happen to be the ranking Republican on the Finance Committee's subcommittee on trade. We have two major trade agreements pending in the United States of America that we are a part of current negotiations--one of them is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, one is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, called TTIP.

Those two trade agreements are free-trade agreements with our biggest trading partners--Asia and Europe and Scandinavia--but the Asians and the Scandinavians both ask me, when I talk to them in meetings discussing trade: When are you going to give your President trade promotion authority? Because we know until the U.S. Congress gives the President that authority, you are not serious about negotiating trade deals.

I first came to the Congress of the United States in 1999, 1 year after we gave President Bill Clinton trade promotion authority. Then we had a plethora of free-trade agreements that passed at that time because of the negotiation power we gave the President. Trade promotion authority just means we give the President the authority to negotiate the trade agreement, and then the Senate gets an up-or-down vote on the agreement. But we do not get to vote on amendment after amendment after amendment, we get a vote on the totality of the agreement. In other words, we give sincerity to our foreign trading partners that what we say is what we mean and that we are going to give our President the authority to negotiate those deals, and we will make them subject to our ratification in the Senate. Trade promotion authority is important for America, for jobs, for our economy, and it is, quite frankly, important for bringing jobs home to the United States of America.

The Keystone Pipeline, which I mentioned a minute ago in talking about Senator Hoeven's remarks, is a job creator. The unions are for it. Business is for it. Most Americans are for it. It only takes the signature of the President to let it go. The State Department has signed off on it. There is only one reason, I suppose, we are not building the Keystone Pipeline; that is, because of environmental fear of the Keystone Pipeline generating some kind of an environmental problem.

Think about it for a second. If we do not put it in a pipe and bring it underground, we can put it on a truck that burns gasoline or diesel fuel and bring it to Texas and create a whole lot of carbon molecules. We are trying to reduce carbon in the air, so building a pipeline is environmentally friendly. It is safer than putting it on the roads or railcars or trucks or tractors. It is the way to do it. I do not understand why the President will not do it. But I think we need to continue to talk about it because the energy independence Senator Hoeven talked about is exactly what America is on the cusp of having. We suffered when we were energy dependent in the 1970s and 1980s. We paid a big price for it. We paid the price of inflation, reduced authority around the world, and we lost our position and stature in business. We now have a chance to secure it not just for this decade but for this century in the United States of America, and I hope the President will reconsider his unwillingness to sign the Keystone Pipeline and do so.

On the jobs issue and on the inversion issue, which has brought about this entire discussion--and for those who might be listening and watching, inversion is where American corporations decide to acquire a foreign company and invert to where their headquarters are in the foreign country rather than in the United States of America to take advantage of a better corporate tax rate.

We have now the highest corporate tax rate in the world--the highest in the world. Japan, which used to be up there above us or right with us, has now lowered theirs. Canada has lowered theirs. Ireland has lowered theirs.

Jobs are going offshore because the cost of taxes is lower, because it is a tax code that promotes growth, promotes business, and promotes development.

We need a progrowth tax policy in the United States. We need a simpler tax code. We need a fairer rate of taxation. We need to get rid of corporate welfare. A lot of my friends on the other side are always talking about corporate welfare. They are right. We did it on ethanol subsidies when we were subsidizing people to make ethanol. That was an intent, through a tax incentive, to cause something we thought would be the right thing to happen for the environment, which did not work. Those are the types of things we ought to stop doing--those types of corporate welfare. But what we should do is give a progrowth tax code to the American businesspeople, whether they are C corps or S corps-- and I am going to talk about that for a second--so they know what kind of tax rate they can count on, they know it is simple, they know it is fair, and they know it is predictable for the future.

I find it interesting, when the old Soviet Union fell, when the Soviet satellite states such as Estonia and Latvia became independent countries, if you go back and study that--and that was not too long ago--if you go back and study what they did to separate themselves from the Soviet Union--take Estonia, for example. The new President of Estonia, after they became independent, did three things. He gave the state-owned apartments to each person who rented them and let them own them as a home and then created a housing market instantaneously.

That was No. 1. No. 2, they cut the tax rate from 50 percent to 25 percent and revenues went up and not down, because people thought 25 percent was a fair rate and they did not cheat--because there was a lot of cheating going on under the 50-percent rate. Then on the corporate taxes in Estonia, they went to businesses and said: We are not going to tax your profits as long as you reinvest those profits in jobs or in research and development. The rest of it will be taxes. So they incentivized research and development. They incentivized employment. They made corporate Estonia feel as though they had a fair tax system.

What happened? If you fly into a town in Estonia today, it is similar to flying into Dallas or Atlanta. There are cranes everywhere. There is economic development and improvement everywhere. Why? Because they have what people perceive to be a fair code. They do not have a junk code. They have a good tax code, and they incentivize people to do business and make money.

You raise revenue in America by raising prosperity, not by raising rates of taxation. We have proved that every time we have lowered the capital gains tax. Every year following the lowering of the capital gains tax, revenues from capital gains went up and not down.

Why? Because people who had a mature investment were incentivized to pay the lower tax rate, sell the investment, and reinvest in a maturing, developing investment rather than just hold onto it because they did not want to pay what they considered was a confiscatory tax. Tax policy drives economic decisions. There is not one of us in this room who does not make decisions every single day on our own personal finances where we do not consider--in some part or in whole--the tax consequence of it.

That is why you have a tax code. But we all look at fair and equitable corporate tax relief. We ought to do it for S corporations and for C corporations. I want to talk about that part for just a minute. C corporations are the major corporations and dividend-paying companies in America. Their tax rate is 35 percent. S corporations are corporations where they file as partners. The profits of the company flow through on what is known as a K-1 statement. It flows through as ordinary income.

Today the ordinary income tax rates for people making more than $450,000 can go up to 39 percent. It is already higher than the 35 percent C corporations have. If we lower the C corporation rate from 35 to 28 percent through comprehensive tax reform, then there will be a big disparity between the S corporations and the C corporations. The S corporations employ a lot of Americans. They are the mom and pop Main Street businesses. They are 72 percent of the jobs that are created in America. So we ought to take the whole enchilada. We ought to reform both the corporate tax rate, the C corporation rate, the S corporation rate, and the individual tax rate and modernize them together and make them fair, equitable, less complex, and more productive.

If we incentivized American business to invest and to grow, we will raise revenues, we will raise prosperity, and we will raise hope. If we continue to pass bills that say: If you doing something, we are going to tax you or if you do something, we are going to give you a benefit-- if we think that is going to cause people to bring jobs back to the United States of America, we are dead wrong.

What would cause them to bring jobs back to America is a fair tax code and to take our strong investments and our strong assets, such as petroleum and liquid natural gas, which we were talking about, and use them to our advantage through the soft power of economic power. So my message today is very simple. If you want to create jobs, build the Keystone Pipeline and give the President Trade Promotion Authority and do it now.

If you want to really stop corporate inversions, just modernize the American Tax Code like every other country in the world has done. There are a lot of people who are talking about offshore profits who are stranded in the Cayman Islands in these secret bank accounts because they do not come back to America. We created the Cayman Islands secret bank accounts when we passed a tax code that was confiscatory in nature.

When it is better off for your company and your stockholders to keep the money you make offshore--somewhere else offshore--so it is not subject the second time to taxes, we created those Cayman Islands tax havens. We will do it again if we do not get our Tax Code fixed. So my message is simple: Build Keystone, explore our natural resources, give the President Trade Promotion Authority, and make a fair equitable change in S corporations, our C corporations, and our individual rate. Let's incentivize prosperity and hope and not penalize and punish Americans for doing business.

I yield the floor.