Metal Theft Prevention Act of 2013

Madam President, as the ranking member of the Rules Committee, I take no pleasure in making these remarks, but the circumstances have given me absolutely no choice.

Our distinguished majority leader recently came to this floor and declared that his minority colleagues--that would be us on this side of the aisle, Republicans--were ``addicted to Koch.''

To those who regularly watch our proceedings, however, it is clear who is suffering from this addiction.

Practically every morning our leader starts our session by giving a speech personally attacking David and Charles Koch and their families. The only thing he seems to do more often than block Republican amendments is attack the Kochs.

As distasteful as that is, it is apparently no longer sufficient. The problem with addiction, of course, is that as a tolerance develops, more and more of the drug is needed to satisfy the craving.

So now we have learned that not only does the majority leader spend his mornings attacking the Kochs, but he spends his evenings doing so as well.

Last night, the majority leader attended an event in the Capitol Visitor Center--the CVC in the Capitol building--to promote a movie attacking the Kochs. Never mind that the regulations prohibit-- prohibit--the use of the CVC space for any ``campaign, commercial, promotional or profit-making purpose.''

As House Administration Committee Chairman Candice Miller said:

We cannot hold partisan political rallies or fundraisers on

the grounds of the Capitol, or within its walls. Our work in

this hallowed building must solely be in the interests of the

American people and not in the interest of any political

cause.

This event is just the latest demonstration of an apparent belief that the rules do not apply to the Democratic leadership. We now have another new precedent: a majority leader appearing in and then promoting a movie in the Capitol.

It also further demonstrates the hypocrisy of the majority's quest to stifle dissent. They celebrate and promote films that attack their opponents but want to outlaw films that criticize the majority Members and their agenda.

The irony of promoting a film to advance their campaign to restrict speech is apparently lost on the majority. So it is worth reminding them what the Citizens United case was really all about. It was about a movie--``Hillary: The Movie,'' to be precise. ``Hillary: The Movie'' was made in the wake of ``Fahrenheit 9/11.'' Anyone who saw ``Fahrenheit 9/11'' knows that the purpose of the film was to convince people that George W. Bush was not worthy of the Presidency and should not be given a second term.

Anyone who saw ``Hillary: The Movie'' knows the purpose was to convince people that Hillary Clinton should not be elected President of the United States. I suspect that many of the people who went to see the movie in the CVC last night thought that ``Fahrenheit 9/11'' was great and ``Hillary: The Movie'' was terrible.

The point of the Citizens United case was that it really doesn't matter. It doesn't matter which film a majority in Congress might prefer. The producers have the right to make and distribute either one, and they can raise the money necessary to do so as they see fit, not subject to any restrictions or limitations imposed by the Congress. They are guaranteed that right by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. This Congress cannot take that away.

Is that too difficult a concept to grasp? Isn't it obvious? Of course it is.

Yet the majority has spent the last 4 years misrepresenting it, and now it even wants to amend the Constitution to reverse it. That is just incredible.

In a press release announcing an upcoming hearing on the majority's amendment to the First Amendment, it was declared that it was necessary to ``build support for amending the Constitution to ensure that all Americans can exercise their First Amendment rights.''

It is not necessary to amend the First Amendment to ensure that all Americans can exercise their First Amendment rights. Those rights are already guaranteed by the First Amendment as written. The amendment the majority wants to impose would allow them to once again curtail those rights. Why can't we just be honest about this. Because of the Citizens United decision, people of all points of view now have the opportunity to make their views widely known. Even people who disagree with the majority in the Senate have that right, and we should all be very grateful.

I know the majority preferred a system where those who wished to criticize them were restrained in their ability to do so. They want to reimpose those restraints. I do not think they will succeed, but we should make clear what they want to do.

In their view, a corporation that happens to own a network, such as NBC or CNN, should be able to broadcast the movie they promoted last night as much as they want. If the networks wanted to show the movie every night of the week for 2 hours, that would be just fine with the majority.

But if somebody wanted to buy a 30-second ad during the airing of the movie to present an alternative point of view, that would be unacceptable. A 2-hour movie? No problem. A 30-second ad? Terrible. It can't be allowed.

That is simply absurd, but that was the reality before the Citizens United decision. Media corporations could do or say whatever they wanted. Other corporations, however, could not. Citizens United ended that ridiculous distinction and the majority has been trying to reinstate it ever since.

The majority claims they are concerned about wealthy donors. No, they are not. They are concerned about wealthy conservative donors.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the very film they promoted last night received financing from foundations and large individual donations. But those donations were OK, I suppose, because they went to promote a cause the majority supports--attacking the Koch family.

Likewise, billionaires who support the causes of the majority are not targeted. Billionaire former hedge fund manager Tom Steyer has indicated he intends to spend over $100 million to influence the midterm elections.

Does the majority have any problem with that? Of course not.

Spending huge amounts of money in politics only concerns them if it is spent against them or on behalf of their opponents, but if it is spent to promote the majority and their agenda--no problem.

The majority leader has convinced himself, however, and seeks to convince the rest of us, that the Kochs are somehow unique, that the Koch brothers present some kind of evil threat, if you will, that other billionaires with different points of view do not pose. He seems to think that for everything bad that happens the Kochs are to blame.

Recently he claimed that they were one of the main causes of climate change. He said: ``Not a cause, one of the main causes.''

What do we make of such a statement? Could anything be more absurd? There are over 7 billion people on Earth, but our majority leader believes two men, Charles and David Koch, are a main cause of climate change.

What is that all about?

Just yesterday, the majority leader blamed the Kochs for the wildfires in California. What is next? Maybe the Kochs are to blame for the planes lost in the Bermuda Triangle? How about the volcanic eruption at Pompeii years ago or even the futility of the Chicago Cubs? That has to be the Koch family.

The majority leader convinces himself that his Koch obsession is justified because he believes their political involvement is motivated only by their own financial interest.

It is inconceivable to him that people might exist who simply disagree with him and his agenda and want to see the country take a different path. The reality is that there are millions of Americans who want to see this country take a different path, and the Koch family proudly supports that goal and has made donations to help achieve just that.

You will never hear it from the majority leader, but it is time someone presented the rest of the story about the Koch family. This family has pledged or contributed more than $1 billion to cancer research, medical centers, education, the arts, and to assist public policy organizations--$1 billion. Is that the act of a family motivated solely by financial interests? I don't think so. Of course not.

Consider a few of these gifts: $100 million as a prime contributor for cancer research at MIT; $100 million to the New York-Presbyterian Hospital to build a new ambulatory care center, plus $28 million to other research causes; $20 million to Johns Hopkins University for a cancer research center; $30 million to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York; $26 million to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston; $26 million to the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City for the Building on Success campaign and other causes; and $35 million to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History to renovate what is called dinosaur hall, which will include one of the largest and most complete T. rex specimens in the world; $20 million to the Museum of Natural History; and $65 million to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Likewise, the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation gave $100 million for the preservation and renovation of Lincoln Center, home to the New York City Ballet and the New York City Opera.

All these acts of extraordinary generosity are completely ignored by the majority leader. They are ignored because the Koch family has committed one unforgivable sin: They have opposed him and the Democratic majority and President Obama. They present a threat to the Democrats' hold on power. That is why they are being demonized. That is why they are being attacked. That is why they are being vilified. That is why they have become his obsession.

They have had the temerity to challenge the agenda of this majority and its leader, and the leader is not happy about it and he wants it to stop. And it looks as if he will do anything he can to make it stop, up to and including amending the Constitution of the United States. I think that is a disgrace. It has demeaned this institution. It should stop. The first amendment doesn't exist to protect those of us in this body. It exists to protect the people. It is there to prevent us from silencing our critics. And thank God for that.

I wish the majority would recognize that they do not have the power to silence their critics. The first amendment denies them that power. I wish the majority leader would stop engaging in character assassination against citizens who choose to exercise their first amendment rights. And I wish he would stop acting as though he is the only person on Earth who can say whatever he wants. He isn't. We all have the right to express ourselves--all of us--from Michael Moore to Citizens United, from Tom Steyer to the Koch family. All of us have that right. All of us. Let's stop trying to deny it. Let's stop trying to change it. It is beneath us. It demeans this body, and it is wrong.

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

I would be happy to yield.

Madam President, I am honored to represent the 12.5 million people living in the State of Illinois, and it is a special honor to represent 745,000 veterans who live in my State. These men and women have served their country honorably. Many of them are leading great lives and making great contributions to our State. Some are struggling, returning from war with wounds--visible and invisible.

I came to speak to the issue involving the so-called VA scandal at the Arizona Hospital. What I have been told is troubling. What I have been told is that there were secret waiting lists of veterans who were being unnecessarily delayed when they needed critical medical care. The allegations suggest that some of them may have died while on the waiting list. That is as cruel an allegation as anyone could make about anybody and particularly cruel when it applies to our veterans.

We are trying to investigate this, as we should. The President sent his Deputy Chief Rob Nabors, a person I know, to Arizona today, but we are not going to stop with that. We are going to do everything we can to make sure every veterans facility across America is serving our veterans in a timely and professional way. That includes, of course, those in the State of Illinois.

Tomorrow I will be meeting with General Shinseki in my office. He is the head of the Veterans' Administration. We are going to focus on Illinois, because in Illinois we have five VA medical centers, 30 outpatient clinics, and 11 veterans centers. I want to make certain there are no secret waiting lists at any of those facilities, and I want to make certain we are doing everything in our power to serve our veterans in a timely professional way.

We know the stories--the stories that have come out of these wars we are concluding now. The war in Afghanistan is winding down to a close. Iraq was over just a few months, maybe 1 year ago, but despite the end of these wars, it is not the end of the war for many veterans. They come home with needs--serious needs: post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, amputations, serious problems that will haunt them for some time.

We promised these men and women, if they would volunteer to serve our Nation, if they were willing to serve and even die for our Nation, we would never quit on them; that when they came home, we would stand by them.

We passed a GI bill on the floor of the Senate several years ago. Jim Webb was the Senator from Virginia, a Marine Corps veteran himself of the Vietnam war. He brought in a modern GI bill for those men and women currently serving, and it passed overwhelmingly with both political parties supporting it, as they should. In a place where we don't agree on much, we sure agreed on that. When it comes to veterans and the GI bill, we stood together. We have to do it again on a bipartisan basis.

I read the comments from President Obama this morning. I thought they were unsparing in terms of his personal concern over what has been reported.

I know we all honor the contribution made to America by General Shinseki, a disabled veteran himself from the Vietnam war. He is an extraordinarily good man. The question is whether he can fix this problem if one exists.

I don't know about the Arizona situation. We will wait until those facts come together. But this much I do know: Our Veterans' Administration has been overwhelmed by disability claims coming in at rates that surpass this country's experience in any previous war. Almost half, almost 50 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are filing for disability benefits when they come home.

The backlog at the VA is 300,000 cases--applications for disability. They have been pending for more than 125 days--4 months. Some have been in the process for more than 1 year. It is an improvement--300,000 from 611,000, which was the case last year--but not good enough.

Illinois has cut its backlog in half as well. But when I read some of the delay times in making a decision at the VA, we will understand why we find this still unacceptable.

Seven years ago the average processing time for an Illinois veteran claim was 1 year, maybe 18 months. Appeals sometimes took 2 years. Today veterans tell us the claim will easily take 2 years to process, maybe longer, and an appeal may take 3 or 4 years. Compared to the numbers of 7 years ago, the numbers are much worse today. I understand there are more veterans who are applying, but it just means we need to put the resources in place to serve this surge of veterans looking for help.

The veterans who call my office are just asking for updates and accurate information about the claims and medical care. They want to know if somebody--anybody--at the VA is taking a look at their application. They get conflicting information from the VA.

Sometimes the VA calls them back and says: You have to send such and such a document.

The veteran says: I have already sent it.

That kind of frustration for someone who is coping with illness or problems is unacceptable, and it is certainly unacceptable when it comes to our veterans.

Even when claims are processed, there are cases of mistaken identity. A bad address leads to canceled benefits and checks, and it takes months to fix it. I am trying to help. As chair of the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, I put $3.6 million in the Defense Department to speed up the program that allows servicemembers' records to be transferred to the VA electronically so we can have at least a quicker response from the VA. I directed the DOD inspector general in my bill to work with the VA inspector general to streamline the transfer of records between the Departments.

Another way we tried to step up support for veterans is by creating the Caregiver Program at the Veterans' Administration. I will be the first to tell you this was not my idea. It was the idea of Senator Hillary Clinton of New York. She used to sit back there, and she came up with an idea: If members of a disabled veteran's family will stay home with them and help them get through, we ought to help those members of the family. She called it

the caregivers act. It didn't pass while she was here, but when she left I liked it enough to call her and say to the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton: Do you mind if I steal your idea and try to pass it? She invited me to be her guest, and I did. With the support of Senator Danny Akaka, Senator Patty Murray, and others, we made the caregivers act the law of the land, and now across America hundreds of spouses and parents who care for disabled veterans are getting a helping hand. We provide them medical training, nurses training so they can take care of their veteran. We give them respite care of up to 2 weeks a year so they can have some time off, a vacation to recharge their batteries. If they have a financial hardship, we provide a modest amount of money to help them get by. It is the right thing to do. These veterans get to stay home with families who love them. That is where they want to be. From our point of view as a government, just to put it down to dollars and cents, it is a lot cheaper when they stay home. So we do well and the veterans do well. That is a great outcome.

We have to expand the reach of caregivers assistance through the VA so at every veterans center there is a source of information to tell that veteran and the veteran's family: The Caregiver Program is there if you want to stay home. We want to help you stay home and be healthy as you do.

I think that is a good thing to offer the veterans. The ones I have met, there are some amazing stories in Chicago that truly warm your heart to know that those veterans, after what they have been through, can stay home with their families and be there with the people they love and who love them too.

There is another area I wish to mention. Our committee has pushed the Veterans' Administration to focus on the sustainability of orthotics and prosthetics. We are worried about the professional workforce that deals with these important parts of restoring a veteran's life.

Twenty percent of the orthotics and prosthetics workforce, about 7,000 clinicians, will retire over the next 5 years. We have never needed these specialists more than we need them today: 1,715 servicemembers lost limbs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many have lost multiple limbs. The United States has 5 quadruple amputees and 40 triple amputees from these wars. The VA serves 40,000 people with limb loss every year. That is why I am focused on this--to get the professionals in the orthotics and prosthetics fields of medicine to be trained and ready to help these veterans in the years to come while others are retiring.

There are 745,000 veterans in my State, and not a single one of them should be deceived about what they can receive for their service nor delayed when it comes to seeing a doctor or having their claims processed. Not one of them should wait 2 years before they start getting disability benefits. We have 5 VA Medical Centers, 30 outpatient clinics, and 11 Veterans Centers across Illinois, and we have to be there to serve them in a timely way.

None of these facilities has the right to mislead or lie to the veterans about what doctors they can see or what services they can receive. The Senate just added $5 million to the budget of the inspector general at the Veterans Administration, and the Inspector General is now investigating 26 facilities.

One of the toughest votes that a Member of Congress is called on to cast is whether we should go to war. It has happened a few times in my career. You don't sleep well the night before, wondering how you are going to vote, and knowing that at the end of the day, even if this is a just and necessary war, innocent people will die, including innocent Americans. What I have come to learn over the years is that it is not just a matter of that simple decision to go to war, but it is the cost of war--the cost in human lives. Over 4,000 died in the war in Iraq, and over 2,000 have died in the war in Afghanistan. There are thousands and thousands who come home with injuries, and, of course, there are the expenses and budget costs that come along with each and every one these conflicts.

It really helps when you make these decisions and reflect on them to also be aware and honest about the real cost of war. The real cost of war in human life and human suffering can't be calculated, but we did make a promise that those who would stand for our country in those wars would have our help when they came home.

The scandal that has been reported in Arizona--the problems at the VA centers--is unacceptable in a Nation as great as America, and we owe it to these veterans and their families to stand by them. I promise I will, not just for veterans facilities in Illinois, which is my first priority, but for those across the United States.

I yield the floor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

California Drought Relief

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I will consider some of the arguments.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I yield the floor.

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

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

IRS Overreach

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. President, I would like to speak for several minutes, principally about the two judicial nominees.

I think I could wrap this up in less than 10 minutes.

Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

I do want to speak principally about the two nominees from Pennsylvania, both of whom I strongly support, and I am delighted they are going to get their votes today. But before I do that, I do want to put just a little bit of context on judicial nominations and confirmations as a general matter because I think it is important that we understand this.

In my own experience in the 2\1/2\ years I have been in the Senate, I know I have voted to confirm the vast majority of judicial nominees whom President Obama has proposed for us. In fact, since President Obama became President, the Senate has confirmed 193 district court nominees and blocked 2. That is a confirmation rate of about 99 percent. In the last Congress, the 112th Congress confirmed more judges than any Congress in 20 years. So by any reasonable measure, we are confirming judges at a terrific rate. Republicans are cooperating and confirming the nominees of a Democratic President, and this is as it should be when the nominees are competent, as they have been.

So President Obama is enjoying a rate of confirmation of judges that is far greater than the rate President Bush, for instance, enjoyed or most other previous recent Presidents, which is part of the reason why I am concerned when I hear persistent rumors that the majority leader is considering invoking the nuclear option and breaking the rules so he can change the rules as to how nominees get confirmed. I do not understand why there is a problem that would require this. If he were to do this, this would be in direct contradiction to a commitment he made to all of us very publicly that he would not do this. So I really hope that Senator Reid will keep his word and that he will not break the rules in order to change the rules.

He stated very clearly in January of 2011 that--I will quote Senator Reid:

I agree that the proper way to change Senate rules is

through the procedures established in those rules, and I will

oppose any effort in this Congress or the next to change the

Senate's rules other than through the regular order.

I would remind my colleagues that earlier this year Republicans went along with a rule change about which I had real reservations. I personally could not support it, but most Republicans did. It changed the rules, forfeiting some of the power we have as a minority, granting the majority greater flexibility to go to a bill without assuring us we would be able to offer the amendments we would like. We granted that to the majority in part because we got another explicit commitment that there would be no nuclear rule change if we made that agreement. Well, we did, at least as a party and as a body.

So, again, I certainly hope Senator Reid will honor the promise he made that was part of that understanding, where he said in January of this year, in an exchange with Senator McConnell--Senator Reid said:

Any other resolutions related to Senate procedure would be

subject to a regular order process including consideration by

the Rules Committee.

I would add, that means a 67-vote majority in the Senate because that is the way you change the rules in accordance with the rules.

Sarah Murnaghan

Having said that, I want to also make a brief mention of some terrific news we got in Pennsylvania; that is, the opportunity for a little girl named Sarah Murnaghan to have a lung transplant she had been waiting for. I have spoken about this on the Senate floor. A Federal judge in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania issued a temporary restraining order forbidding a rule that was keeping her off the transplant list to be a potential recipient of a donor lung transplant. Fortunately, by virtue of that restraining order, she was able to go on the list and receive the lung transplant. She had an emergency surgery just yesterday that seems to have gone very well, and we are all delighted for that and wishing for her speedy and full recovery.

Having said that, as I indicated to the chairman, I wanted to come down principally to say how pleased I am that we are going to vote today and I believe confirm both Judge Jeffrey Schmehl and Judge Nitza Quinones, who are two nominees for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Both are eminently qualified, terrific individuals who come highly recommended.

I commend Senator Casey. He and I have worked together since I have been here. He has been terrific to work with. We have looked to identify some of the most capable and talented people. I would like to mention a couple of the things I know Senator Casey mentioned.

Judge Schmehl is a terrific guy. He is the president judge of the Berks County Court of Common Pleas. His candidacy was approved by a voice vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee. He is a graduate of Dickinson College. He has his J.D. from the University of Toledo School of Law. He has served as a public defender. He has served in private practice. After 9 years at a law firm, he was elected to the Berks County Court of Common Pleas, where his colleagues made him the president judge. He is a very bright individual. He has a keen intellect, a great judicial temperament. He has done a great job on the Berks County court, and he will make a great Federal judge. I hope my colleagues will support his candidacy.

Nitza Quinones is a native of Puerto Rico. She is a graduate of the University of Puerto Rico School of Business Administration. At the University of Puerto Rico, she got her J.D. She has demonstrated a terrific commitment to the legal community and beyond that in Philadelphia. She has been very active mentoring young people--law students in particular--and is a great advocate of civic education for high school students. She has served on the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas since 1991, presiding over a very large number of very diverse cases. She has extensive experience in the courtroom. She has demonstrated her ability, her commitment, her judicial temperament. Yet, as it happens, she will be the first Latino judge on the Eastern District of Pennsylvania court.

I think it is terrific that we are able to vote today to confirm both of these judges. I look forward to continuing to work with Senator Casey to fill the remaining vacancies across Pennsylvania. I thank Chairman Leahy for his work in advancing these nominees. I urge my colleagues to support their confirmation.

I yield the floor.