Student Loan Affordability Act

Mr. President, I somewhat associate myself with the remarks of the Senator from Louisiana. We have unwound because we don't want to have real debates and real votes. We just fixed the flood insurance program. We didn't fix it well enough, and if Senator Landrieu is allowed her amendment, I will vote against it, but I think she ought to be able to have her amendment.

The reason the Senate isn't working is because we want to use a procedure that has never before been used except in the last 2 or 3 years in this body, and that is to limit the rights of Senators to offer amendments.

The fact is that Senator Landrieu may, in fact, win her amendment, but there is another chance. The House may not go along with it. There will be a conference committee. It may not go anywhere. She didn't win this when we fixed the flood insurance. She wasn't for us raising it to the extent we did. We didn't raise it nearly enough to make it healthy yet. And delaying the 3 years will markedly hurt the Flood Insurance Program, which is operated through FEMA, and I am the ranking member on that subcommittee. But the fact is that she ought to be able to offer her amendment. I agree with that.

So what I am going to do is painfully go through and talk about every amendment I have for the farm bill. I understand there will be objections. If there are objections to mine--and even if the Landrieu amendment gets cleared, I am going to object to everybody else's until mine are cleared.

So we can either keep going around in this circle or we can start acting like grownups and have debate. Even if a Member doesn't like an amendment, we can vote on it. And if a Member is not capable of defending their vote on any issue, they don't have any business being here in the first place.

But to not vote, to not allow the managers of the bill to operate the bill the way they want to operate it and put it on the table--because the majority leader is going to file cloture, and so all of these amendments are going to fall, which may be pleasing to the managers--I don't know--and only the germane amendments are going to be available, and they are going to be under a time constraint. So the American people are actually going to get cheated out of a full and rigorous debate on what ought to be changed in this bill.

So I am going to act as though the amendments are approved even though they are not, and I am going to debate the amendments. I am going to propose every one of them, and I am going to let the Senator from Louisiana object, and then she can explain to her constituents the dysfunction of the Senate. It does not just happen on the Republican side, I would remind my colleague from Louisiana. There are plenty of unilateral objections on the other side. And if we are going to operate this way, then nothing is going to happen in the Senate.

With that, I will begin.

I will be happy to yield for a question.

I agree.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and Coburn amendment No. 1003 be called up.

Mr. President, I am going to talk about this amendment. This is an amendment that prohibits--let me set the stage for it. We are going to have somewhere between a $500 billion and $700 billion deficit. We have $17.5 trillion worth of debt today. What this amendment does is it prohibits people who are tax evaders from receiving government assistance, including grants, contracts, loans, and tax credits provided in the farm bill, with the exception of SNAP. So we are still going to take care of the food provision. Even if they refuse to pay their taxes, we are going to still provide them food. But we are not going to allow them, with this amendment, to take advantage of other programs within the farm bill or any other area that is associated with direct grants or associated with the Agriculture bill.

The most critical issues facing our country today--and everybody knows how to solve it. We know what has to be done to save Medicare. We know what has to be done to save Social Security. We know we need to reform the Tax Code so we generate more jobs, we generate more income to the Federal Government. We know all that. But we have billions of dollars that are owed--it is not being contested; it is owed--and then we turn around to those same people who owe us billions of dollars and give them programs and benefits. Whether it be conservation payments or whether it be crop insurance or whatever it is, we turn around and give them money. I think the average tax-paying American does not agree with that.

Part of being a responsible citizen is paying the taxes you owe. We are not talking about things that are in dispute. We are talking about settled agreements that are not paid, and they continue to not be paid, and it is billions of dollars.

This provision would not apply if the individual is currently paying the taxes, interest, and penalties that are owed to the IRS: if the individual and the IRS have worked out a compromise on the amount of taxes, interest, and penalties and it is in the process of being repaid; if the individual has not exhausted his or her right to due process under the law; if the individual has filed a joint return and successfully contends that he or she should not be fully liable for the taxes in a joint return because of something the other party to the return did or did not do. Further, this provision would not apply to SNAP payments provided in the bill.

Farm income is subject to very little scrutiny and reporting requirements. In fact, there was a 78-percent reporting gap in farm income reported to the IRS just last year--a 78-percent gap. This is by far the largest gap in individual income reporting to the IRS.

In a time of strict budgets and when many in Washington are calling for an increase in revenue, it is inappropriate for us to continue to provide funding to individuals who owe back taxes and are not in compliance with their obligations. Total taxes owed in the United States in 2006 were $2.66 trillion. The gross tax gap for that year-- taxes owed but not collected--was $450 billion. The net tax gap in 2006--taxes still not paid after late payments enforced--was still $385 billion. Now the President wants another $600 billion or $800 billion. What we have to do is start figuring out ways to collect the taxes that are owed.

According to the Internal Revenue Service, the difference between the amount legally owed in taxes and the amount actually collected was this $385 billion. That is the most recent year the IRS can give us--5-year- old data. Mr. President, $28 billion that was owed was because people failed to file. Underpayment was $46 billion, and intentional underreporting of income was $376 billion.

So what this amendment does is it just puts a prohibition in place. It says: You cannot have this money if you owe X money and it is settled, it is not under dispute. So it is not about not giving people their rights. It has already been adjudicated. Why would we not want to do that with the farm bill? Can you think of a reason why we would not want the people who owe taxes, who already have agreed they owe the taxes--that we are going to give them money, and they are not going to pay the taxes they owe the Federal Government?

It is a commonsense amendment. We are not going to get a vote on that, and we are not going to get a vote on it because we have cowardly Members of the Senate--and I am not talking about the Senator from Louisiana--who refuse to come down here and voice their objections to bills and refuse to debate why they will not allow an amendment that does something for the future, that actually will make a difference in a kid's life in the future, that will actually increase some income so we can afford the Flood Insurance Program we have. They will not come down and debate it and express an opinion why they will not allow a vote on it. It dishonors the Senate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and amendment No. 1004 be called up.

Mr. President, this amendment ends conservation payments to millionaires--people who make a million bucks a year.

We have a rule at the USDA that says people making $1 million a year are not supposed to get these payments. But guess what the USDA does. They waive the rule. What this amendment would do is say you cannot waive the rule.

If you, again, are talking about our debt, the very well-heeled, the very well-connected are getting a majority of the conservation payments in this country. They are the ones most capable of doing conservation on their own land, and do, but now they do it with the assistance of my or the President pro tempore's grandchildren because what we are actually doing is paying them dollars that our grandkids are going to have to pay back. What we are doing with this program is incentivizing people to do what they are already going to do in their best interests.

All I am saying is, enforce the rule, the law today. Do not give the Department of Agriculture the ability to waive. If somebody is making $1 million a year, they do not need our help right now. Our kids need that help, our grandkids need that help, our schools need that help. They do not need that help.

Absolutely.

Well, Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the committee. I will double-check that with my staff. This excludes something that was in the bill, so I will have to look at what the old bill said to be able to concur with that. If that is the case, then there should not be any problem with accepting this amendment if, in fact, it is not complete because it is the intent of the authors--both the chair and the ranking member--that this limitation be a part of this farm bill.

I thank the chairman of the committee.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and amendment No. 1005 be called up.

Mr. President, 3\1/2\ years ago, with the debt limit increase, my colleagues and I overwhelmingly voted to ask the GAO to study duplicative programs in the Federal Government. This last April they gave the third in what will be a continuing rollout of the programs in the Federal Government.

I will say that the Director of the OMB followed another amendment that I offered directing that all the programs of the Federal Government be published. They made their first stab at that. This was last week. Director Burwell, in whom I have the utmost confidence at OMB--a stellar individual--made the first attempt. The problem is, what is a program in the Federal Government? There is no definition. So we have a rough start in an attempt to do that.

But what the GAO has done--and they are magnificent employees--over the last 3\1/2\ years is identified at least $250 billion of waste and duplication that we ought to be getting rid of.

Here is an amendment that is not highly prescriptive but recognizes what GAO told us about food assistance programs--domestic food assistance programs. We did not make any attempt in this bill to streamline those or consolidate them or put metrics on them. So this amendment tries to bring that together through the USDA to put, No. 1, metrics on them; and, No. 2, combine the ones that are duplicative so we can actually be effective in what we intend them to be, but also be efficient.

Those are two words that hardly ever happen in Washington, ``efficiency'' and ``effectiveness.'' GAO found signs of overlap and inefficient use of the resources within the 18 different programs. Now, we have 18 different programs. Three of them are outside of the Department of Agriculture. One of them is in Homeland Security.

First of all, there should not be a food assistance program in the Department of Homeland Security. Two of them are at HHS. We should not have duplicative bureaucracies in those other two departments when we have a bureaucracy in Agriculture. But of those 18 programs, what they found was the following: In 11 of the 18 programs, there was not enough research to even determine whether the programs were effective.

We do not know if what we are doing is working because never when we pass these programs do we require a metric or some type of method to assess their effectiveness. So that is one of the things this amendment will do. It allows the Department of Agriculture to do that. As a matter of fact, it mandates it. Is it effective? What parameters are you using to say it is effective? In other words, if the American taxpayers are going to spend money on this program, ought they to know whether it works? I mean, only in Washington do we do programs and not know whether they work and not ask whether they work.

So in 11 of the 18 programs there is not enough knowledge even at the Department of Agriculture to know whether they are working. This amendment requires the Department of Agriculture to evaluate the following 10 programs: Child and Adult Care Food Program, the Community Food Projects Competitive Grant Program, the Emergency Food and Shelter National Board Program, the Grants to the American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian Program, the Organizations for Nutrition and Support Services Program, the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations, the Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Program, the Senior Farmer Market Nutrition Program, the Summer Food Service Program, the Emergency Food Assistance Program, and the WIC Farmers Nutritional Program.

Now, let me just mention one of these. The Summer Food Service Program, as announced by KOTV in Tulsa, OK, just last night, no matter who you are they are going to feed you two meals a day in the summer, whether you make $100,000 a year or whether you are in need of a meal. So, first of all, we have a problem with that program. We ought to be supplying food for people who need food, not for people who do not need food. Smart people are going to take advantage of that and say: Man, I can get two meals a day. I am not in need, but since it is free I am going to take it.

Last summer we served 180,000 meals in Tulsa. A large proportion of those were not people in need. So I have no objection to helping people who have need, but here is a program that has no limits on it and no metrics on it. It is a wide open program--well intentioned, but there is not a metric and there is not a limitation.

So here is all we are saying with this amendment: Here are 10 programs, Department of Agriculture. Determine whether they are effective. And, by the way, how did you determine that? What were the parameters you used to do that?

That is just common sense. Why would we not want to know if the programs are working? Why would we not want to know if they are efficient and

effective? Why shouldn't we look at it when we are running--we are down to 24 cents on the dollar that we are just borrowing against our kids' future from 48. That is because of the economy growing last year to the tune of $360 billion coming in, and $620 billion over the next 10 years in tax increases on the very wealthy in this country. So we are down to 24 cents, but we are still borrowing 24 cents out of every dollar we spend. Why would we not want to spend the time to make sure these programs are effective and efficient?

It is very straightforward. This amendment also eliminates one program, the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, and moves any incomplete or ongoing projects to the appropriate USDA programs. USDA proposed eliminating this program which targets low-income pregnant women, children, persons age 60 or over, but Congress continued to fund the program. The reason they wanted to get rid of it is because there are already programs that duplicate this one. Yet here we find it is still going to get funded. It is going to get authorized. Even USDA says we do not need this program.

It is the only program we have--in 2012, the program was funded at $177 million, and it duplicates SNAP, Grants to Native Americans, the Home Delivered Nutrition Program. In other words, USDA already recognizes it is a duplicative program. They have asked for it to be eliminated. We did not eliminate it. So this amendment would eliminate it.

This amendment also eliminates the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program and moves the nonduplicate function to the WIC Farmers Nutrition Program. Both of these programs do exactly the same thing. They provide grants to participating States to offer vouchers and coupons and electronic benefit cards to low-income participants that may be used in farmers' markets, roadside stands, and other approved venues to purchase fresh produce.

They provide exactly the same assistance to women, children, and seniors and should be combined. GAO says they should be combined. USDA says they should be combined. But they are not combined in the bill. All cost savings from the elimination of those consolidations and three eliminations are directed toward providing food assistance. In other words, none of the money comes back out. It goes back into programs that have proven to be effective.

This amendment also directs the USDA to coordinate with the Health and Human Services Administration on Aging to identify and address fragmentation, overlap, and duplication between the programs providing food services on Indian reservations where we have a real need. So we are not just looking for duplication, we are looking for gaps in service.

It also requires them to report their recommendations back to Congress. Since I do not want to use my big slides today I will use my small slides.

Here are the food assistance programs, all 18 of them. Fifteen are run at the Department of Agriculture, two are run through HHS, and one through Homeland Security. Yet GAO says we can collapse these 18 into 10 and be more effective and get better nutrition to the people in at- risk groups. We have not done it. So it is like we asked GAO to do all of this work, and then we did not pay any attention to it.

I ask that the pending amendment be set aside and amendment No. 1006 be called up.

I will yield for a question, but I will not yield the floor. I will be happy to yield for a question.

I would respond to the Senator from Louisiana, I have no ill will toward her objection. I stated it plainly before. I believe the Senate ought to have any and all amendments prior to cloture. I think Senators have the right to offer anything they think is pertinent to this country on any bill that is going through here. I used that tactic for the first 3 years I was in the Senate. Nobody objected. Now that we have become so partisan and so cowardly that we are afraid to vote on issues, and that we abuse the rights in the Senate to the detriment of the whole body, I hold no ill will against the Senator for objecting.

The point is, is the country worse off for it? I am sure some of my colleagues do not want to have to vote on some of my amendments. I understand that. There are amendments I do not like voting on either, but I have no problem going home and taking a stand. The fact is we can figure out what we are for and what we are against. You know, the fact is, when it goes through here it does not mean it is law. What it means is it has to be conferenced with the House. We ought to let it roll. We ought to open the spigot and let things roll in the Senate, have the votes.

We used to have 10 and 12 votes at a time. We used to do bills. Come down and all morning long we would be offering amendments. We would have committee hearings and other things in the afternoon. At 4 o'clock we would come down and vote, 9, 10, 8 amendments. The next day we would do the same thing. The next day we would do the same thing.

So the fact is, if we really want to get our country back, if we really want the confidence of the American people to return to those who represent them in Washington, we have to start saying, you know, you cannot win everything. I am going to try. If I lose, I lose. But I tried hard. That is how we ought to play the game.

The fact that we have people abusing the process on both sides, not just one side--I will never forget, former Senator Akaka, one of the loveliest men I have ever met in my life, when I first came to the Senate and offered an amendment that was not germane, he objected to it. One of my colleagues stood up and said: Senator Akaka, do you really mean that? You have to understand where that starts. If you object to his amendment, that means in the future I am going to be objecting to your amendment, and we have not done that. What we actually want is a free-wheeling, open amendment process so people can be heard.

The fact is I represent 4 million people. The Senators from California represent 37 million. Everybody's voice ought to be heard. We each ought to be able to have our voice heard. We each ought to be able to offer amendments. We ought to be able to get votes on those amendments. What are we afraid of? Is the next election really that important that we do not want to allow people to offer their ideas, in what used to be the greatest deliberative body? It certainly is not now. It is not anywhere close. Do we really not want ideas to be offered and debated and the American people to understand what is at stake?

I mean, what I have offered today maybe not everybody would agree with, but you cannot disagree that it does not make sense; that it is not common sense; that we should not be more efficient and more effective; that we should worry about the future as we worry about the present; that we ought not to be spending 24 cents out of every dollar by borrowing it from other people in the world or having Ben Bernanke print it at the Federal Reserve.

We can solve these problems. The grown-ups need to stand and say we are going to have debate, we are going to have amendments, even if we do not like them.

So I have no ill will toward the Senator from Louisiana. I have ill will for the process that has devolved. I think the shame is that the American people are being shortchanged by the lack of debate and lack of votes.

I think this amendment, even though objected to, is another critical area where we do not have our eye on the ball. This is an amendment that relates to the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program. What it does is in this bill it has been increased, the amount of money has been increased to $70 million a year. It was at $55 million in 2012. There is nothing wrong with having this block grant program, but I want to show you how we can save $75 million over the next 5 years. And $75 million is not chump change, it is $75 million.

The amendment freezes spending for the specialty crop block grant at $55 million authorized by the bill. The amendment prioritizes food safety and access to affordable foods for schoolchildren and low-income families. One-third of the projects funded by the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program last year were for marketing and promotion. They were not for kids, they were not for seniors, they were spending money to promote.

Let me show you who got the money. Let's see. We spent money to promote the emotional benefits of real flowers and plants in the home. That has to be a priority right now; is it not? We are going to borrow $500 billion this year. We are going to spend money to make sure everyone in America knows the emotional value of having real flowers and plants in the home. That is a priority right now. How about grant funds for floats that travel to fairs and festivals and encourage people to eat more fruits and vegetables? That has to be a priority. We are going to pay for a float that goes around to all these festivals so we can promote eating. People know about eating properly. Could we spend that dollar in a better way and get a better effect?

How about wine receptions and tasting? By the way, the Market Access Program already covers it, but we take money from this block grant program and promote wines in China and in Taiwan. We do it also with the Market Access Program. Here is an absolute direct duplication. We are spending millions of dollars promoting something that another program is designed to promote, and we didn't do anything about that.

How about a short video showcasing pear growers and promoting State wines in Mexico and in India? Again, duplication of what the Market Access Program does, but we take from the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program. We have one program for market access and promotion and then we take a different program and use it for exactly the same thing.

Specifically, the amendment requires that no less than 80 percent of the total funding appropriated for the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program be spent on the following: increasing access, availability and affordability of specialty crops for children, youth, families and others at risk, including but not limited to specialty crops for meals served at schools and food banks; ensuring food safety; protecting crops from plant pests and disease; and production of specialty crops.

That is what it was originally set up for, by the way. It wasn't set up to promote wines in India or China or Taiwan or Brazil or Mexico. So part of it is the way we wrote the bill that allows USDA to give grants that go outside the original purposes of it. Funds could still be spent on marketing promotion but not at the expense of crops and consumers.

I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and Coburn amendment No. 1007 be called up.

I would be happy to yield a limited time for the Senator to ask for unanimous consent.

I yield to the chairman of the committee.

Mr. President, I think I am starting to hear the Senate starting to work the way it should, and so I am going to offer a unanimous consent request that the list she presently has, with the ranking member, the Senator from Mississippi, of a large number of amendments be considered as read and in order; that the list the Senator proffered, which went through both cloakrooms this afternoon, I ask unanimous consent that be agreed to and those be filed and considered.

Since objection is heard, it was my understanding the Senator from Michigan had an agreed-upon list that was sent to both cloakrooms.

Failing that, what I would propose, based on what I have heard out here this afternoon, is that the chairman put it together and let's try it and let's ask unanimous consent.

The fact is the chairman and ranking member of this committee have worked hard to get this bill. We can do this bill. But one thing the Senator said in her statement is she wants a finite list. That is fine. What we want to do is have an open amendment process. So as the Senator considers that, let's move it.

Here is what will happen, and here is what used to happen in the Senate, for my colleagues who are new. People file all sorts of amendments, including me, and about half of them we wouldn't bring up. So we don't know in this universe of 150 how many are truly serious, how many are done filing an amendment and made a statement, such as I did on one amendment changing the name of SNAP. I have no intention of calling that up, but I wished to make a statement about whether it is really nutrition--the Supplemental Nutrition Access Program. So I would suggest the chairman and ranking member put that out there. Give it to me and let me offer a unanimous consent request on the floor live. We have had a great debate. We understand what the problems are. Let's start voting. Let's start debating and voting.

When we consider all the time huddled in a group of staffers, we don't do anything. We don't debate the bill, we don't vote the bill, and so, consequently, the American people get shortchanged. So I will offer that unanimous consent request. I will not even participate in what is in the mix. I believe the process ought to move forward, whether I win or not. The fact is it is selfishness on the part of our colleagues, because they do not want to vote on something, that keeps us from doing the country's work.

I believe we are at a seminal moment right now in the Senate where we can change what is happening in this body if, in fact, we will lead in doing that. I know the President pro tempore wants to see that happen. I believe my colleague from Michigan wants to see that happen. I know the ranking member has had that philosophy for years in the Senate. He taught it to me. I learned that from him.

I offered a lot of amendments that he opposed and didn't like, some of them affecting Mississippi, and he beat me every time. But he never said, You can't offer the amendment.

I think we are at a seminal moment. Let's start moving things. What I will do is call on the ranking member and the chairman: Give me that list. Let me go fight for it. Let's break this beaver dam in the Senate, and let's start acting like grownups here.

I would be willing to yield for a question.

I know there is a question in there somewhere.

That is correct.

Mr. President, I have a unanimous consent, and I want to preface this unanimous consent. There are 150 amendments, I think the chairman said, or thereabouts. A lot of those aren't going to require votes; some are. I ask unanimous consent that every amendment that has been filed at this point be considered as read and considered debatable and votable.

If an objection is heard--I retain my time.

I would appreciate my time.

Let me make this point. If the Senator from Michigan wouldn't have objected, we could start voting tonight, we could vote tomorrow, we could get through those. Half of those will be pulled, and we would be almost to the same number of votes you would have had, that you did have, the last time the bill came to the floor. So do we really want to break this logjam? Let me offer it again. We can move this thing. Let's just do it. Let's go out and vote. Let's take the tough votes. Some of us are going to get bruised. Big deal. We are all grownups. Let's have the votes. Let's move amendments. Let's debate in the Senate. Let's do the country's business. Instead, we are not going to do it.

There is a compromise. More than half of those will be withdrawn. My colleagues know that. Let's put them all in order. Let's vote them, let's take care of it, and let's be grown up and get the Senate back to where it is supposed to be.

I am going to offer my unanimous consent one more time, that every amendment that has been filed today as of now be considered as read and pending.

Mr. President, fair and balanced consideration to our colleagues is allowing them to have amendments, and the Senator just objected to that. So that is where we are. That doesn't keep her from managing the bill. The Senator still gets to set the priorities of what comes up when. But here lies the problem in the Senate: There are obviously some amendments in there they don't want to vote on; otherwise, we would not have heard an objection. So it is not just Senator Toomey, who has now said he would not object to Senator Landrieu's amendment, it is other objections of people who won't come down here to the floor and show their constituency what they are objecting to. In other words, it is darkness. It is not light, it is not transparency, it is not of good character, it is not of good moral fiber. What it is, is the least of these, the lowest of these, who refuse to participate in an open and honest debate about what is going to happen in our country.

I call on all my colleagues, Republican and Democrat alike. We know what has to happen to open the Senate. Let's vote. Let's vote. For my colleagues on the Republican side objecting, I disagree. Go ahead and vote. For my colleagues on the Democratic side, let's vote. Let the chips fall. The American people decide who is to come up here. Gaming this system by hiding behind an anonymous objection, putting it through the chairman--I am proud to see the Senator from Louisiana. She came down here, she showed courage and said, Here is why I am doing it. She spoke honestly to her constituents back home and also to the Members of this body. We don't have enough of that.

We had an opportunity just then to move this bill, restore the Senate to the way it should function, and we chose not to do it. The American people have got to be shaking their head right now in disgust, because had the time been spent, instead of figuring out what is OK and what is not OK, actually debating and then voting amendments, we could have voted 30 or 40 amendments by now on this bill. But we chose not to do it. Some of us chose not to do it.

Kindergarten is out around most of the rest of the country, except in the Senate, and it is still in session here. We ought to be disgusted with ourselves, and the American people ought to be disgusted with us as well, because we are not allowing this body to do what our Founders intended it to do. I am going to spend a minute talking about that.

This place is very different than the House. No matter who is in charge, the tendency is to overuse the power of the majority. But what our Founders intended was the Senate to be totally different than the House. The reason 6-year terms were put there was so you wouldn't be susceptible to the political influence of reelection, so you would become a long-term thinker, and that your motivation would be primarily a motivation for the best will of this country and not your State or your political career.

The assessment of the Senate today is that we have lost our focus. It is about politics, not our country. It is about the short term, not the long term. It is about anything but the best interests of the country.

Here we have commonsense amendments. I appreciate the fact that the chairman and ranking member have included some of mine in what they were proffering, but let's include them all. What is so bad about voting on a stupid amendment? If it is really stupid, they are either going to withdraw it or lose big. If it is really controversial, the American people want to see us debate and vote on controversial topics. They do not want to see us duck our responsibilities.

We have met the enemy. The enemy is us.

Mr. President, since I have an objection to that amendment 1007, I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 1008 be called up.

Mr. President, even though the amendment has been objected to, I am going to talk about it.

The amendment is to require the Rural Utilities Service of the Department of Agriculture to ensure that the grants and loans it makes to provide access to broadband telecommunications services in rural areas are made to rural areas that don't already have access to broadband.

Wait a minute. Why would we want an amendment to do that? This is an amendment to tell them to do what they are supposed to be doing.

Over the years, the rural broadband program has seen a large amount of Federal funding. In 2009, the Department of Agriculture broadband program received $2.5 billion from the stimulus bill. The inspector general examined the Rural Utilities Service broadband loan and guarantee program, and what he found was that a large majority of the funds went to areas that already had broadband services. In other words, they didn't spend the money where we don't have broadband; they spent the money where we already do.

Specifically, this inspector general found that 148 communities that received broadband service funded by this program were within 30 miles of cities with more than 200,000 people--including the cities of Chicago and Las Vegas.

Some of the Federal funds going to broadband programs originate from the Department of Commerce as well. So we have the Department of Agriculture

and the Department of Commerce both doing the same thing.

The issue is highlighted by the problems with the broadband program that occurred in West Virginia, the President pro tempore's State. Specifically, the State could not handle nor had the use for the routers that were delivered to them. Put simply, the libraries and schools didn't have the need for the powerful stuff that was sent to them. So we wasted the money. It was a $24 million error.

You get to $1 billion $1 million at a time, and you get to $1 trillion $1 billion at a time.

What this amendment does is make them spend the money where we don't have broadband, not where we do. In other words, it prioritizes--which most of us would agree to--that broadband funds through this grant program go to areas that don't have broadband rather than areas that already do. So let's wire the whole country first before we upgrade everybody else.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside, and amendment No. 1010 be brought up.

Mr. President, this amendment is very controversial, I know, amongst my colleagues. But I have practiced medicine for 25 years, and before that I ran a pretty successful business.

The Department of Health and Human Services delayed the implementation of ICD-10. Let me explain what that is. ICD-10 is a new diagnostic code book. Why is that important? Well, we use ICD-9 now, which helps us write the diagnostic codes. Whether you are in a hospital, a clinic, a doctor's office, an outpatient surgery center, a home health, whatever it is, those diagnostic codes categorize what we actually did for you. Well-intentioned public health experts thought we aren't broad enough in what we do with the ICD-9, International Classification of Diseases, so as a part of the Affordable Care Act, ICD-10 was implemented.

There is nothing wrong with updating it, but let me explain to you what we did. We went from 18,000 codes of diseases to 140,000 codes, the cost of which, at a minimum, in the health care system under various studies will be at least $5 billion a year in added costs.

Will there be some benefit? Yes, to the public health experts who study disease patterns there will be some limited benefit. The question we have to ask is, What is our biggest problem with health care? Our biggest problem with health care is it costs too much. What we have done with ICD-10 is, just the implementation--I am talking $5 billion a year from here on. The implementation is going to cost $10 to $15 billion to put it in. What this amendment would do is make a significant delay in the implementation of ICD-10.

The implementation of the Affordable Care Act is going to cost enough as it is. This would refocus us on what is important. It is important that providers spend time with patients, not spend time trying to figure out how they fill out a disease code. For any of you who doubt the significance of this now, if there are 18,000 codes now--most doctors write the disease code. They don't have a staff to do that. When you go from 18,000 to 140,000, what are your doctors going to be doing? They are not going to take care of you, they are going to be spending time looking at a book that has 140,000 diagnostic codes and listing that. So we are going to take time away from patient care.

Why is it important that the doctors get it right? Because the penalties under Medicare for mislabeling are severe and the sanctions are severe--penalties of 1 percent to 2 percent payment per year on your total billing to Medicare or Medicaid. So the costs associated with ICD-10 are enormous. So it is not only hard and costly to implement it, but it takes people away, the very doctors we want spending time with patients. It limits that because they are going to be spending more time filling out paperwork for the Federal Government.

The other thing it will do is it will not improve health care outcomes at all. It does nothing to improve health care outcomes. It will not improve the first patient, so there is no positive benefit in the short run or medium term to the patient. The only limited benefit would be to long-term studies of public health.

Let me give some diagnostic codes to think about how foolish this is.

The new codes account for injury sites ranging from opera houses to chicken coops to squash courts. Not only do you have to list what an injury was, you then have to go through this book and find out where it was. Was it on a ranch? Was it in the coral? Was it in the chicken coop? If you mislabel it, you are under threat of penalty from CMS.

How about nine different codes where you got hurt around a mobile home? How about a burn due to water skis? How about walking into a lamp post? If you hit your head it is important for public health officials to know that you walked into a lamp post.

It includes 300 different codes related to every different animal. So if you got a bite from a rat or a chipmunk or a squirrel, there are 312 different codes around each one of those animals.

It has 72 codes pertaining to birds. You got pooped on, you got pecked at, you got bit--72 separate codes.

How about bitten by a turtle or, the second one, struck by a turtle? Or walked on a turtle? Or kicked a turtle? That is how much foolishness is in ICD-10. We are going to ask our doctors to spend time figuring out 160,000 different codes, disease related, when 18,000 does it just fine right now. What this would do would forego the implementation of

I understand the objection. I have no ill will toward my chairman or ranking member for their objection.

What this amendment does is during sequester, it prohibits performance awards in the Senior Executive Service. We are paying performance bonuses right now during sequester. The Office of Management and Budget has ordered a freeze on most bonuses for Federal workers during sequestration, but the current law provides an exemption for members of the Senior Executive Service who are among the most highly paid Federal Government employees. This amendment closes that exemption loophole. If we are all going to suffer, everybody is going to suffer. Just because you work in the Senior Executive Service doesn't mean you should not have to participate and lead on the sacrifice this country is going to have to be making and is making. This treats SES personnel just like every other Federal employee.

I ask the pending amendment be set aside--actually, I think I will stop with that--one other.

Mr. President, I ask amendment No. 1152 be called up.

I have not made that decision.

I will tell you how I go through looking at the farm bill. I believe farmers ought to farm. I don't believe they ought to farm the government. I think you all, over the last few years, have done a good job changing that scenario.

I believe food security is an important part of what America can do for both our country and our world. I also know our farmers are some of our hardest working people.

Having said all of that, there are a ton of programs in here that do not directly benefit food security in this country or the American public. When we still have the well-heeled, well-connected in this country taking advantage of farm programs, from pro athletes to everything else, who use the

farm program as a method, as a tax hedge, and use the supplemental systems, by eliminating direct payments, you have done a great deal.

I am all for crop insurance. I think it ought to be a little more costly and spread around. I think crop insurance in terms of the commissions paid to the people who sell it are a little too rich. There are a lot of people who would like to have that book of business for a whole lot less money. We have not done that. It will be a balance to me as I look at improvements.

I congratulate the chairman and ranking member for making progress on the farm bill. We have a long way to go. This amendment relates to one of those, which is how do we I make sure, if we are going to take taxpayer money and help people with their needs under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, how do we make sure we are doing it in a way that actually gives them nutritious food?

As a physician who has cared for obesity and heart disease and cancer and high blood pressure for years, diet is a big factor on that. Senator Harkin and I have an amendment together, this amendment, which would create a pilot project in two States to allow States to use a nutrition assessment for setting what can be brought with SNAP. That is what this amendment does.

A lot of the companies do not like it. A lot of people say: How can you do that? But I remind our colleagues, for many of the people who do not buy nutritious food when we are helping them, we are paying for it twice. That is because when they make poor choices with our money to buy their food, they are creating disease categories that we are going to pay for in the future, with our money, for their disease.

So the idea of trying a pilot project in two States where they use nutritional value to make a determination of what food products are eligible and what are not for the SNAP program, this is a try that most people out in the country would like to see.

Most Americans want to help anybody who needs help, but I hear it all the time when people say: I see people buying stuff I don't buy or I can't afford to buy with their SNAP card.

There is no good way to do that other than do it on a nutritional basis. That is the only way we should look at that. If we are going to help somebody we ought to help them.

There is a great book by Marvin Olasky. It is called ``The Tragedy of American Compassion.'' He talks about how to help people. You do not help people by giving them a blank check. You help people in short term. You help them as long as they have a need. But you help them in a way that they get to help themselves and by that they get to help themselves and get their dignity back.

Senator Harkin and I have agreed that this is a pilot project that will have to be evaluated at the end of 2 years. All the costs of it have to be borne by the States. We have checked out all the computer companies. There is no problem in putting limitations on UPC codes or anything on all the checkout items. It is not an issue. We have done all the homework on it.

It would be interesting to see, once we do a nutritional evaluation and a limitation on SNAP products, what would happen to the health of the people we are helping. That is the amendment he and I have worked on together. We would love to see it go. We think it is time for that to happen. It certainty will be good.

The key is, can we help people get back to being self-reliant? I don't want us to be a big brother, but I also want to make sure the money we are stealing from our kids, from their future, actually does help somebody and doesn't hurt them.

With that, I again congratulate both the chairman and ranking member for the bill they brought. It has marked improvements. I thank them for their patience dealing with me today on the floor. I very much regret that you have objected to a way to move this bill forward because it doesn't just have implications for this bill. The courage to stand up and say let's do that will have great implications for how this body functions for the next 16 months. I think we are going to miss a big opportunity if we do not do that.

I would love to see the Senate go back to operating the way it did when I first came here. My hopes were dashed, however, with that objection.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I would like to yield 5 minutes to my friend Senator Blunt and then reclaim the floor.

Madam President, American summertime is when we celebrate and commemorate the patriots who fought to establish and protect this great Republic. From Memorial Day through Independence Day and on to Veterans Day, communities across this country turn out star- spangled bunting and gather for parades, cookouts, and wreath layings to reflect on the heroes and events that embody our Nation's great spirit.

June in Rhode Island is marked by the annual celebration of Gaspee Days, when we recognize and celebrate one of the earliest acts of defiance against the British Crown in our American struggle for independence. Most Americans remember and I know the Presiding Senator from Massachusetts certainly is well aware of the Boston Tea Party when, in fact, literally spirited Bostonians clamored onto the decks of the East India Company's ships and dumped tea bags into Boston Harbor to protest British taxation without representation.

I am sure throwing tea bags into the harbor is a very big deal, but there was another milestone in the path to the Revolutionary War that is too often overlooked. It is the story of 60 brave Rhode Islanders who, more than a year before the Tea Party in Boston, risked their lives in defiance of oppression more than 240 years ago and drew the first blood in what became the revolutionary conflict.

In the years before the Revolutionary War, one of the most notorious of the armed customs vessels patrolling Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay, imposing the authority of the British Crown, was Her Majesty's ship Gaspee. The ship and its captain, Lieutenant William Dudingston, were known for destroying fishing vessels, seizing cargo, and flagging down ships only to harass, humiliate, and interrogate the colonials.

A 100-year-old report says:

This unprincipled ruffian had ruthlessly ravaged the Rhode

Island coast for several months, destroying unoffending

fishing vessels, and confiscating everything he could lay

hands on. The attack on the ``Gaspe' '' caused the first

bloodshed in the struggle for American independence, and was

the first resistance to the British navy.

How did it come about? Well, on June 9, 1772, Rhode Island ship captain Benjamin Lindsey was en route to Providence from Newport, sailing in his packet sloop the Hannah, when he was accosted and ordered to yield for inspection by the Gaspee. Captain Lindsey had had enough of the Gaspee. He ignored the command and raced up Narragansett Bay, ignoring warning shots fired at him by the Gaspee. As the Gaspee gave chase, Captain Lindsey--who was a wily Rhode Island ship captain-- realized that his ship was lighter and drew less water than the Gaspee, so he sped north toward Pawtuxet Cove, toward the shallows off of Namquid Point. The Hannah shot over these shallows, but the heavier Gaspee grounded and stuck firm. The British ship and her crew were caught stranded in a falling tide and would need to wait many hours for a rising tide to free the hulking Gaspee.

Captain Lindsey continued on his way to Providence and rallied a group of Rhode Island patriots at Sabin's Tavern. Together, the group resolved to put an end to the Gaspee's menace to Rhode Island waters. They may have shared one thing with their Boston compatriots: They may have been spirited themselves.

That night the men embarked down Narragansett Bay in eight longboats with muffled oars. They encircled the stranded Gaspee and called on Lieutenant Dudingston to surrender his ship. Dudingston refused and ordered his men to fire on anyone who tried to board. The Rhode Islanders forced their way onto the Gaspee's deck, and in the struggle Lieutenant Dudingston was wounded, shot with a musket ball. Right there in the waters off Warwick, RI, the very first blood in the conflict that was to become the American Revolution thus was drawn.

The brave patriots took the captive Englishmen ashore and returned to the Gaspee to rid Narragansett Bay of her noxious presence once and for all. Near daylight on June 10, they set her afire. The blaze spread to the ship's powder magazine, and the resulting blast echoed across Narragansett Bay as airborne fragments of this former ship splashed down into the water.

The incident prompted a special commission instructed by King George III to deliver any persons indicted in the burning of the Gaspee to the Royal Navy for transport to England for trial and execution.

Samuel Adams, in a letter published in the Newport Mercury on December 21, 1772, and reprinted in the Providence Gazette on December 26, called it ``a court of inquisition, more horrid than that of Spain or Portugal. The persons who are the commissioners of this new-fangled court are vested with most exorbitant and unconstitutional power.'' A few days later he wrote that ``an Attack upon the Liberties of one Colony is an Attack upon the Liberties of all; and therefore in this Instance all should be ready to yield Assistance to Rhode Island.''

In a letter to a friend in Rhode Island, John Adams, the future President, summed up the tension felt across the Colonies:

``We are all in a fury here about . . . the Commission for

trying the Rhode Islanders for Burning the Gaspee. I wonder

how your Colony happens to sleep so securely in a whole skin,

when her sisters are so worried and tormented.''

King George III offered a handsome reward for information leading to the arrest of those responsible for the burning and destruction of his revenue cutter. But Rhode Islanders are a loyal bunch--the reward went unclaimed.

The site of Rhode Island's opening salvo in the American Revolution is now named Gaspee Point. The annual Gaspee Days celebration has grown to span several weeks each June and includes an arts and crafts festival, a walking tour with students playing the roles of Colonialists, an encampment of local militia, a parade down Narragansett Parkway in Warwick, and, of

course, a mock burning of the HMS Gaspee.

My friend, State Representative Joe McNamara, and the Gaspee Days Committee work each year to make these events the best they can be and to remind our State and Nation of the bravery of those few dozen souls. Indeed, this year another Rhode Islander Mark Tracy, a pediatric neurologist at Hasbro Children's Hospital, was able to acquire original news stories from 1772 that related this incident and gave them to the Gaspee Committee. I will note that he was able to get them rather inexpensively because ``the auction house concentrated on describing the batches of newspapers--from the estate of an unnamed Providence collector--in terms of the coming Boston Tea Party and other events,'' paying no attention to the fact that Rhode Island's greater act and prior act was actually enclosed and described in these newspapers.

This summer will also mark another historic anniversary for Rhode Island because it was in July of 1663--350 years ago this summer--that King Charles II granted a royal charter establishing the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

``To hold forth a lively experiment,'' it declared ``that a most flourishing civil state may stand and best be maintained . . . with a full liberty in religious concernments.''

This charter provided in Rhode Island the world's first formal establishment of freedom of religion, distinguishing us from the rigid theocracy of Massachusetts, I am sorry to say, where ideological conformity was enforced by the gallows and the lash.

This charter has been called America's Magna Carta, for it is the first formal document in all of history granting the separation of church and state, along with extraordinary freedoms of speech, to a political entity. This ``lively experiment'' in Rhode Island blazed a path for American freedom of religion, one of our greatest national blessings. And, more practically, this liberty also allowed trading networks of Quakers and Baptists and Jews to connect in Newport and created their abundant wealth and commerce.

That freedom of religion, that freedom of conscience was the great legacy of Rhode Island's founder Roger Williams, who had been banished from Massachusetts for his beliefs about religious tolerance. Williams established his new colony as ``a shelter for persons,'' as he said, ``distressed for conscience.'' His battle for freedom of conscience, won and reflected in the King Charles Charter, is the reason his statue stands right out there, outside the Chamber of the Senate.

I know these events and the patriots whose efforts allowed for their success are not forgotten in my home State. This summer we will gather in these ways to celebrate Rhode Island's independent streak. We will recall the courage and zeal of these men and women who embodied those most American values--freedom of conscience and freedom from tyranny, values that ignited a revolution in the summer of 1776.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes as in morning business.

Madam President, the last week we were here, I gave my weekly ``Time To Wake Up'' speech, as usual. It is a speech I wrote well earlier. In a truly and, unfortunately, almost eerie coincidence, in my speech last week I spoke about a variety of natural disasters, including--and I will quote my own speech--``cyclones in Oklahoma.'' I said that in the same hour the cyclone touched down in Moore, OK.

When people are suffering in the wake of a calamity such as that, they need to hear one thing from Washington; that is, how can we help. That is all they need to hear. No one likes to be chided when what they need is help and comfort.

J.E. Reynolds of the Daily Oklahoman wrote: ``Victims and survivors need help, not a sermon in the first hours following a storm.'' I agree. I agree very much. My thoughts are with the victims of those Oklahoma storms and with everyone who is working to pick up the pieces.

Far from seeking to exploit their tragedy, I had no idea of the weather in Oklahoma that was happening virtually at the time I gave the speech, mentioning Oklahoma cyclones among other examples of extreme weather. But the eerie timing was what it was, and it did not send that single simple message: How can we help? So I am sorry. I have apologized to my Oklahoma colleagues for the unfortunate coincidence of timing of my earlier remarks, and I, of course, stand ready to help them speed relief to their State.

It is, of course, impossible to say that any single weather event is caused by climate change, and that is not something I have ever said. What is true is that climate change is altering weather patterns. Scientists have studied these changes in weather patterns, and they have modeled what is to come. Most are convinced that increases in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather will be a result of the megatons of carbon pollution we continue to emit.

The way I have described it is that climate change ``loads the dice'' for extreme weather. We might not know which roll is caused by the loaded dice. We are going to get a 6 or a 7 or a 12 or a 2 sooner or later anyway, but the extreme weather will come more often because of this. We cannot pretend this isn't happening. We just hit 400 parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere, measured at the NOAA observatory on Mauna Loa in Hawaii.

What does 400 parts per million mean? Well, look at it this way: For at least 800,000 years, and perhaps millions, we have been in a range on Earth between 170 and 300 parts per million of carbon in our atmosphere--800,000 years, minimum. Homo sapiens as a species have only been around for about 200,000 years, but just since the industrial revolution and the ``Great Carbon Dump'' began, we have blown out of the 170- to 300-parts-per-million range and have now hit 400.

This is very serious. We already see the effects. In Alaska, permafrost is melting and native villages once protected by winter ice are being eroded into the sea. In the Carolinas, roads to the Outer Banks have to be raised as seas rise and storms worsen. Coral reefs are fading off in Florida and in the Caribbean. In Rhode Island, we have measured almost 10 inches of sea level rise since the 1930s. Rhode Island fishermen going out to sea from Point Judith are reporting ``real anomalies . . . things just aren't making sense.''

All of these effects from climate change hit our farmers too. Since before the founding of this Republic, our farmers have relied on the Sun, the rain, and the land to provide us their bounty. In 2011, farming and the industries that rely directly on agriculture accounted for almost 5 percent of the entire U.S. economy. But growing conditions in the United States are changing. More and more of our rainfall is coming in heavy downpours. Since 1991, the amount of rain falling in what scientists call ``extreme precipitation events''--the amount of rain falling in extreme precipitation events has been above the 1901- to-1960 average in every region of the country.

In the Northeast where I am from extreme precipitation has increased 74 percent just between 1958 and 2010. That matters to our farmers. The very seasons are shifting. During the last two decades, the average frost-free season was about 10 days longer than during that period between 1901 and 1960. In the Southwest it is an astonishing 3 weeks longer. That matters to our farmers.

Average temperature in the contiguous United States has increased by about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since records began in 1895. Most of that increase occurred since the 1980s, and 2012 was the warmest year ever. That matters to our farmers.

This chart shows the extent of the U.S. drought in August of 2012. The red and the dark areas indicate extreme and exceptional drought. These conditions lasted most of the year. That matters to our farmers.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Chief Economist Joseph Glauber testified before the Agriculture Committee that ``the heat and rainfall deficit conditions that characterized the summer of 2012 were well outside the range of normal weather variation.'' That is precisely what scientists mean when they say climate change ``loads the dice'' for extreme weather.

Climate change doesn't cause specific heat waves but the average temperature shifts to warmer weather and the extremes move with it.

The New York Botanical Garden has seen apricot trees blossom in February. The Audubon Society of Rhode Island has reported cherry trees in Providence blooming as early as December. This could affect farmers too.

Jeff Send, a Michigan cherry farmer, explained to the Agriculture Committee that the record warm March temperatures brought his region's cherry trees out of dormancy early and exposed them to later freezes. In Michigan he said:

We have the capacity to produce 275 million pounds of tart

cherries. In 2012, our total was 11.6 million pounds.

A potential of 275 million pounds; actual crop, 11.6 million pounds, less than one-twentieth, all because of that early warming and that early bloom and the freezes that then killed them.

These changes I keep speaking about will continue if we go on polluting our atmosphere with greenhouse gases. As the harmful effects of climate change become more prevalent, our agricultural policies should reflect the threat

posed to farming and food production by these changes. Yet in the farm bill climate change and extreme weather are not mentioned once.

Well, let me correct myself. They are mentioned once. The bill makes reference to an earlier law from 1990, and in the title of that 1990 law the words ``climate change'' appear. So by referring to the 1990 law, the farm bill once mentions climate change. But with all of this going on, that is the only reference. And the reason is that our Republican colleagues will oppose legislation if it even mentions the words ``climate change.''

We can't get around using the name of a statute that passed 20-plus years ago, if ``climate change'' is in the name, so that one had to go in. But, otherwise, climate change is not mentioned in the farm bill, despite all of this activity and effect on farming.

It is not that there aren't things we could do. The Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change, which I cochair with Representative Waxman, Senator Cardin, and Representative Markey, asked stakeholders in the agriculture economy about carbon pollution and our resiliency to climate change.

The National Farmers Union, which represents more than 200,000 family farmers, ranchers, and rural members, responded--this is the National Farmers Union:

Mitigating and adapting to climate change is of significant

concern to our membership and will be a defining trend that

shapes the world.

That is the National Farmers Union on climate change. It will be ``a defining trend that shapes the world.''

Cap-and-trade legislation, the Farmers Union said, would provide a boon to farming and forest lands that take the lead on reducing greenhouse gases. The National Sustainable Agricultural Coalition encouraged a comprehensive approach. An effective policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, wrote the group, ``should have as its cornerstone the support and promotion of sustainable organic cultural systems throughout USDA's programs and initiatives.''

Even the American Farm Bureau Federation, which has at times opposed climate change legislation, expressed clear support for farming practices that keep carbon out of the atmosphere and for investments in biofuels and in renewable energy.

We are grateful to all of the scientific and industry leaders who have shared their ideas with the Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change. We need active and willing partners in the effort to ensure our farms can meet the needs of a strong nation.

They are not alone. Responsible people across the spectrum want us to act on carbon and climate. Responsible people such as the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States of America, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and dozens of major scientific societies--virtually every major one--and the folks in the corporate sector who run Apple and Ford and Nike and Coca Cola--get it. Republicans such as Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State George Schultz, former House Science Committee chair Sherry Boehlert, former Utah Governor and GOP Presidential candidate John Huntsman--responsible people across the spectrum get it. The scientists at NASA get it, and they are telling us to get serious. They are the ones who took a robot the size of an SUV and sent it millions of miles to Mars where they landed it safely on the surface of Mars and now they are driving it around. Do we think they might know what they are talking about? They get it. All across the spectrum, people get it. They are on one side getting something done about climate change.

On the other side are the polluters with their familiar retinue of cranks, extremists, and front organizations. That is basically it. And for some reason, the Republican Party--the great American Republican Party--has chosen to hitch its wagon to the polluters. I do not get it. I do not see how that works out for them.

Every day the pollution gets worse, and every day the evidence that this is serious gets stronger. I do not know why the Republican Party of Theodore Roosevelt wants to paint itself as the party that went with the polluters and not the scientists; that went with the fringe extreme against the responsible center. It has to be a bad bet. It is a crazy bet.

To make that bet you have to believe God will intervene and perform some magic, in violation of His own laws of physics and chemistry. Is that a bet you want to take? You have to believe that the market will work, even though the market is flagrantly skewed. Is that a bet you want to make? And you have to believe the people who have a vested interest to lie and disbelieve the people who have no conflict of interest, unless you are prepared to think that the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Catholic bishops and all the major scientific organizations all have a conflict of interest. Does that sound very sensible? Does that sound like where you want to hitch the wagon of one of America's great political parties?

Let me close, as we talk about climate change in the context of the farm bill, by quoting our friend Senator Tester, who recently spelled out the crisis facing our farmers in an op-ed in USA Today.

I ask unanimous consent that op-ed be printed at the conclusion of my remarks.

Senator Tester and his wife Sharla have been farming for almost 40 years--the same land that his grandparents homesteaded. This is how our friend from Montana described the changes he sees:

When I was younger, frequent bone-chilling winds whipped

snow off the Rocky Mountain Front and brought bitterly cold

days that reached -30 degrees. Today, we have only a handful

of days that even reach 0 degrees. Changes in the weather are

forcing Sharla and I to change how we operate our farm. It's

now more difficult to know when to plant to take advantage of

the rains.

Some might say the end of bitter winters will be a boon for

Montana's economy. But with milder winters, we've seen the

sawfly come out earlier to destroy our crops before they can

be harvested. Montana's deep freezes also used to kill off

the pine bark beetle, which today kills millions of acres of

trees across the American West.

He writes:

Montanans already understand that climate change is

affecting our daily lives. The argument isn't whether the

world is changing, it's how to respond.

I will say, once again, it is time--it is well past time--for us in Congress to wake up to the urgent challenge of our time. There is a lot at stake. There is a lot at stake for all of us. There is a lot at stake for every State, and there is a lot at stake for every generation, particularly for the generations that are to follow.

So often I hear my Republican colleagues expressing concern about what our debt will do to future generations. Fine. What will a ruined climate do to future generations? What will acidified seas do to future generations? What will worse extreme weather and rising seas do to future generations?

There is indeed a lot at stake, and it is time to wake up. It is time to take action.

I yield the floor.

I thank the majority leader.

Cloture Motion

Madam President, let me first recognize the incredible work of the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee who worked through a very open, transparent, fair process that led to 130- some-odd amendments being considered and voted upon, in many cases adopted, and almost all of them adopted, from what I understand, many of them bipartisan.

I think even those who oppose immigration reform acknowledge the chairman's evenhandedness and his willingness to have an open and free debate. That got us to where we are today. So he has my appreciation and my admiration for the way in which he conducted that process that brings us to today.

As a member of the Senate bipartisan Gang of 8, I believe we come to this floor if not in complete harmony, at least on the same sheet of music with a very solid legislative process. Let me take this opportunity to thank our staffs who have worked extraordinarily hard to put all of the pieces of this bill together and make this day possible.

You know, Senator Schumer calls Leon Fresco his genius. I like to think of my counsel, Kerri Talbot, as the conscience of the Gang of 8. I want to thank Kerri for her dedication, for always believing that if we put our heads in the yoke and pull hard enough we could pull our plow all of the way to a workable compromise, and we have.

I want to thank all of those other staffers who put in so many hours and who will no doubt put in many more until this bill is passed and put on the President's desk.

This bill before us is the essence of compromise. During this long process, no one in the Gang of 8 got everything they wanted. But everyone got a workable bill worthy of support. That is the very definition in my mind of compromise. We did what we were elected to do. That is democracy in action. We may not all agree all the time, but all of us were elected to govern, and the hard work of compromise is the only way to get things done in a democracy.

We all bring certain core principles to our job. Those are the things we should not compromise. But there is a difference between compromising your principles and compromising on issues. It is not about holding out for political or ideological gain but letting your core principles guide you to a compromise that benefits the Nation. We were all elected. It is up to all of us to govern together.

So I urge my colleagues to stand with us on this comprehensive reform package that is so critical to the national security of the United States, to the national economy of the United States, and to preserve our values as a nation of immigrants. Let's come together as we have in the Gang of 8 and give every American what they have been asking for, which is a way to fix our broken immigration system.

Now, we need to know who is here to pursue the American dream versus who is here to do it harm. That is what immigration reform will do. It will bring people out of the shadows, into the light, and they will have to register with the government, go through a criminal background check, pay taxes, learn English, and go to the back of the line after all of those who are waiting under the existing system so that they would be processed first. So they are not going to break into the line and get to the top of the line.

It is not only in the national security interests of the United States, it is in the economic interests of the United States to harness the economic power of millions of new Americans. Let's be honest with ourselves about who these new Americans are. If you had fruit for breakfast this morning, it was probably picked in the hot Sun by an immigrant worker with a bent back and sunburned skin.

If you had chicken for dinner last night, it was probably plucked by the calloused, cut-up hands of an immigrant worker. If you have someone in your family who is infirm and needs constant care, chances are, it is an immigrant worker who works the third shift to attend to their needs with a warm heart and steady hand.

If you are wondering who is spurring American innovation, chances are it is an immigrant high-tech, startup entrepreneur who, according to the National Venture Capital Association, has started 25 percent of public U.S. companies backed by venture capital investors. In fact, as of 2010 nearly one-fifth, 18 percent, of all Fortune 500 companies had at least one founder who was an immigrant. That is who the new Americans are. You know it, I know it. Immigrant workers have been there every day working hard, providing services, an integral part of our economy in tourism and farming and the restaurant industry, in small businesses and high-tech startups. The simple fact is immigration reform is good for our economy.

We want to be sure every American who wants to work hard at any job has the opportunity in America to do it first. We also do not want to exploit an underclass in America that would suppress all wages of workers in the economy. And if, in fact, you have an underclass of undocumented individuals who can be exploited, and very often are very much exploited, you create a system in which you suppress the wages of all workers. Eliminating that is an opportunity to ensure that wages rise.

The fact is that immigration reform will increase tax revenue. As we can see from this chart, as a direct result of this legislation, we will increase tax revenues over 10 years by $109 billion. That is $69 billion in Federal revenue and $40 billion in badly needed increases in revenue to the States.

Our second chart shows cumulative economic gains over 10 years after passage of this legislation. Look at these numbers. Just look at them. Fixing the broken immigration system would increase America's GDP, its gross domestic product, by $832 billion over the next 10 years.

It will increase wages of all Americans by $470 billion over 10 years, and it will increase the number of jobs created in America by 121,000 per year. Immigrants will start small businesses, and they will create jobs for all American workers. In fact, small businesses owned by immigrants employed an estimated 4.7 million people in 2007 and created more than $776 billion in revenue annually.

I ask my colleagues, knowing we have a broken immigration system, knowing millions of families are in the shadows, knowing we have to address this problem now, can we, in good conscience, afford not to pass a bill that would increase GDP over 10 years by $832 billion? Really, can we? Can we afford not to pass a bill that will increase wages of all Americans by $470 billion? Can we afford not to pass a bill that will create 121,000 jobs every year for the next 10 years, 1.2 million more jobs in the next decade, because we had the wisdom and the will to act?

Immigrants have been a silent force on this economy, working in the shadows. It is time to bring them into the light. It is time to harness that economic power. They are working hard providing services, working in every industry at every level, even sacrificing their lives to serve in our military.

In wave after wave, season after season, immigrants have been the backbone of the agricultural industry, willing to work the fields and pull the crops that feed our families. That work is being done by immigrant workers, and God bless them for their willingness to do it.

God bless men such as LCpl Jose Gutierrez, who was not even a citizen of the United States when he became the first American soldier to die in Iraq. He wore the uniform of this Nation. He was willing to do battle for this Nation. He died on behalf of the country. He was not, although he aspired to be, even a citizen of the United States.

Let's send a message to every American to stand with us on immigration reform in memory of LCpl Jose Gutierrez and every soldier like him. Let's send a message that no longer will immigrant families be separated from loved ones. No longer will U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents be caught up in immigration raids and detained unlawfully in violation of their constitutional rights simply because of the way they look, the way they speak, or the color of their skin.

We have many cases of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents who have been unlawfully detained in immigration raids until their citizenship was established or their permanent residency was established. Who among us in this Chamber would be willing to be a second-class citizen in this country? I don't know about others, but right now I have nothing in my possession that says I am a U.S. citizen. I am not carrying my passport. I was born in the United States, but I don't carry my birth certificate. I certainly don't expect to be stopped because, as some said in this Chamber in 2007, I am one of those people--one of those people--that I am different, that I am somehow not American.

We know the history of this Nation. History has taught us when there is a story of one group of people becoming a suspect class, when one group of people is blamed for all the ills of the Nation, that story always has a sad ending. We cannot let that happen again in the greatest country on the face of the Earth.

As the son of Cuban-American immigrants growing up in Union City, I understand too many families have waited too long for commonsense immigration reform, too long to have the chance to raise their hands, take the oath, and say they ``will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic,'' and ``bear true faith and allegiance to the same.''

Too many have waited too long to say those words that will change their lives. They changed my mother's life and, in turn, changed mine, giving me the chance to stand here today, one of 100 U.S. Senators, one of eight who has spent months negotiating a very tough

but fair proposal to fix our broken immigration system.

I know what is at stake. We know what is at stake. We have lived it, and we see it every day. I believe we can finally say today there is some light at the end of the long dark tunnel that has been before us.

This bill represents a lot of hard work. It is the essence of compromise. We have come a long way in the Gang of 8, but there is still a long way to go.

Are there legitimate amendments that can improve this bill? Of course. Are there still those who would amend this bill solely to undermine immigration reform? Absolutely. They may cloak their words in suggesting they want to see reform, but the reality is they are dead set against it. Are there those who still decry this as amnesty? We hear it every day. We have already heard it in this debate. Some of these roles are being reprised from 2007. Every day they are still wrong and could not be more wrong.

Amnesty means you did something wrong and are forgiven without having to make yourself right. This bill is certainly not amnesty. This bill says you must make yourself right by registering with the government, going through criminal background checks, and if you are a criminal, or you are found to be a criminal under that background check, you will get deported, as you should. It says you have to pay taxes, you have to learn English, and you have to wait your turn and go to the back of the line.

Are there those who think we have not done enough to control the border? Yes, there are those voices, even though we have included $6.5 billion to increase technology and finish the job. We have already started to secure our borders, even though the border provisions of this bill were largely written by Senators representing border States. They live it with every day. They had some of the biggest input in the Gang of 8 to say this is what we feel we need to deal with border security--so much so, on these provisions and with these dollars, that the New York Times reported on Friday that defense contractors favor immigration reform because of what we have included for border security. The facts are clear. The truth is here for all to see.

Let me show you our next chart.

Since 1986, spending on border security has increased. As you can see from this chart, immigration enforcement spending, adjusted to 2012 dollars, has dramatically increased over the last 26 years, over two decades. Border spending has gone from $1.2 billion in 1986 to $6.2 billion in the year 2002, peaking in 2009 at $20 billion annually. We are increasing it again in this legislation by over $6.5 billion. That is more than four times as much as 2002 and more than 20 times as much border spending as in 1986. No one can say we have neglected border security in this bill.

Here is another chart to put it in a different context. Let's put this in this context. When we look at spending, as you can see from this chart, we now spend more on immigration enforcement than all other criminal enforcement agencies combined--all of them combined.

In 2012 we spent almost $18 billion on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Patrol, and US-VISIT, $18 billion, compared to about $14 billion, $4 billion less on all other principal law enforcement agencies such as the FBI.

As I said, we are adding over $6.5 billion to the immigration and enforcement side of the ledger in this bill. That will put us in the position of spending twice as much on border security as we do on all other law enforcement agencies in this country.

It is not only the money we spend but how we spend it.

The fact is border enforcement is at an all-time high. We are enacting a strategy to have 100 percent surveillance and prevent at least 90 percent of all illegal border crossings across the highest risk areas of our southern border, but there are still those who say it is not enough.

We are investing in new technologies to secure the borders. The number of Border Patrol agents has doubled over the past 8 years, but there are still those who say not enough.

Let's be clear, we are making significant additional investments in border security and technology to make sure at least 90 percent of all illegal border crossings are prevented. There are some who say: Oh, we have to have 100 percent. I don't know anything the Federal Government does 100 percent. Do we catch 100 percent of all the criminals? Do we collect 100 percent of all taxes? Do we do 100 percent of anything? No. Those who try to invoke that type of standard are simply trying to undermine the pathway toward citizenship.

Let's be clear. We are making very significant strides and this is very tough in all of the border provisions. I have only mentioned a few. There are a lot more.

On the flip side, there are those who believe we have done all we can on border security in this legislation but have not gone far enough in other areas, that there are too many obstacles to citizenship and a 13- year path is too long. A 13-year path--certainly not an easy road or anything anyone could call amnesty--is a compromise I am willing to accept so we can finally bring 11 million people out of the shadows and give them a chance for better lives for themselves, their families, to earn their way here in America to fulfill their hopes, dreams, and aspirations, as well as our hopes, dreams, and aspirations as a country.

The fact is, at the end of the day, when all of the political posturing has subsided, we have an obligation to govern. We have met, in this proposal, that obligation. We have come up with a good, solid, bipartisan product. The time has come and the moment is here. The opportunity is before us to make history, and I hope we don't miss that opportunity.

Let me urge my colleagues, let's not begin this debate with toxic amendments that would test the basic values and principles of those on one side or the other, force us all to our respective corners, no lines in the sand. Let's get the job done. We don't need amendments that would establish manipulable border security benchmarks before we could even bring one person out of the shadows. This is not finding a way to govern, that is about killing the bill.

We do not need to retreat to lines drawn in the sand on every issue covered by this legislation. We can either come together, both sides, both parties, and govern, as the American people want to see us do, or once again blow it up and do nothing.

I believe we have come too far and the demands of the American people in poll after poll are rather clear: It is time to fix our broken immigration system. Join us and make history.

Eleven million people live in the shadows of fear and hope they will one day--if they do all the right things--have a chance, however difficult it will be, to become American citizens. This bill would give them that chance. Citizenship will not be easy, but the rules are clear: It will take up to 13 years to complete after background checks, fines, penalties, paying taxes, working, and learning English.

They want to reunite their families, and this bill will finally-- finally--do what we should have done long ago to keep families together under a provision to allow immediate reunification of green card holders with their spouses and minor children. How can we in good conscience not support the reunification of families who have been separated for far too long? For those who come to this floor and proclaim their commitment to family values, this is the time to show it.

This bill will clear the current backlog for those already waiting in line--those who have been patient and waiting in line--and put the additional 11 million at the back of that line. It is a long line indeed. Let no one come to this floor and misrepresent this compromise language as amnesty. It clearly isn't amnesty. This is not a free ride but a pathway for undocumented individuals to earn; for those who have been here contributing to America's economy while living in constant fear of deportation, constant fear of exploitation, constant fear of waking up in the morning and wondering if they will see their family at night.

The bill provides a simple, fair opportunity for DREAMers. These are young people who, through no fault of their own, came to America because their parents brought them here. The only country they know is that of the United States. The only flag they have ever pledged allegiance to is the American flag. The only national anthem

they know is the ``Star-Spangled Banner.'' How can we not give them a chance, when they were brought here by their families and they want to belong to the only country they have ever known?

Madam President, this has been a hard road to compromise, with months of hard work and hard negotiations. But the hard work of trying to achieve comprehensive immigration reform has paid off with the support of the broadest spectrum of groups and organizations I have seen in my nearly 20 years between the House and the Senate. From the U.S. Chamber of Commerce representing business in this country, to the AFL-CIO representing labor; from agro-growers to farm workers, from high-tech entrepreneurs to restaurant owners and every religious sector--the evangelical community is strongly supportive of this, as are Christians and Jews and everything in between. People on all sides of every issue are finding common ground to say this is the right legislation for America.

We have a chance to make history, but we cannot make history without uniting behind a deep and abiding belief in the need to govern, the need to fulfill our responsibilities to the people we represent. The time has come. If we cannot come together on comprehensive immigration reform at a time when the American people have clearly spoken, if we cannot push back against the extremes that will always prevent us from ever finding the center, if we choose only to obstruct and not solve, destroy and not build, then we will have lost a perfect chance not only to make history but to do what is right by our country.

This is a good bill. It is a fair compromise, a chance for us to come together and govern and do what a majority of the American people are demanding we do. Last year's national election evidenced a new American demographic, and the new America spoke resoundingly about who they will support and not support based on how they vote on comprehensive immigration reform. Let's listen to what that new America had to say and do the right thing.

I am confident we can get this bill passed, and I hope--I sincerely hope--our colleagues in the House will take our lead and pass comprehensive immigration reform this year. I hope they will join us in realizing the time has come.

Si, se puede--yes, we can.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 1183, which is at the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I note that amendment is on behalf of Senator Hatch and myself.

I will yield for that purpose.

Mr. President, I believe I still have the floor.

Mr. President, I will yield to the Senator for that purpose without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. President, on amendment No. 1183, I ask unanimous consent that the distinguished senior Senator from Utah, Mr. Hatch, be a cosponsor.

Mr. President, I will speak on this amendment at greater length just before the vote. It makes a small but important improvement in the processing of visas that are required by foreign performing artists before performing in American orchestras and other arts organizations. It has to be processed in a timely way.

We have had instances where orchestras, for example, in this country have had the privilege of having a visiting artist, maybe the best in their field--violinist, pianist, or whatever else--but the process of getting a visa is slowed up. Yet they plan performances on a certain date. This measure was included in the comprehensive immigration bills of 2006 and 2007 but not enacted. This would not give an automatic visa to these artists but simply says their application, instead of being in the bottom of the pile, would be considered in a timely fashion.

On another matter, as we get into this debate, I have defended the First Amendment, American's right to speak. I have done it even when people have said things about me that I wish they didn't. But I also have a right as a Senator to comment on such speech. I saw a couple of paid political advertisements today in Politico, one that personally attacks Senator Rubio and the other directly attacks the Senators who drafted the legislative proposal before us, four Republicans and four Democrats. The attacks are so far off the mark. They have a right to make the attacks, and certainly the publication has the right to print them. I would suggest that something this far out of line, this completely unfair type of attack, doesn't do anything to help the public debate we are having.

We had a debate with the 18 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and had before us some 300 amendments, passed 141, including second- degree amendments, and we did it in a respectful way. Both Republican and Democratic amendments came up. In some areas we had major disagreements among the members, but we did it respectfully and did not impugn the motives of people on either side. I would say this kind of personal insult, this level of discourse, is not conducive to real debate. It helps neither side. It helps neither side.

I don't think this is a time for name-calling. Let's work together. We know the immigration system we now have in this country is not adequate for the needs of the country or the people in this country. So let's stop the name calling. Let's stop the false accusations. I say this in defense of Senator Rubio, as well as all members of the Gang of 8, the four Republicans and four Democrats named in these ads. Let's work together to have a better debate.

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

Madam President, I appreciate the words of my friend of decades, the Senator from Iowa. He and I worked very closely to have an open and transparent process. Whether we agreed or disagreed on an issue, we tried to move it on. After all, it worked better that way because of the 18 members of the committee, we were the two who had to spend the most time during it.

All the time. I appreciate working with him. We were able to pretty well decide when matters would come up and make sure that both Republicans and Democrats had a chance to bring up all their amendments, and we adopted 136 or so amendments, including second- degree amendments, and all but one or two of them were bipartisan votes. I appreciate what he said and I enjoyed working with him on that.

I will have more to say at another time about his amendment. But I just note for the past several days Senators have been discussing the immigration bill, and I am glad the Senate has now turned to actually consider it. We have had a lot of talk about getting to it, including, of course, the time spent in the Judiciary Committee.

I intend to file a handful of amendments to the bill today, and I would encourage others to do the same so we can get to work without further delay.

The bipartisan immigration bill is a measure the Senate should come together on to pass. We should send to the House the best bill we can, and I think the large majority of Senators want to do that.

We should do what is right, what is fair, and what is just. The House has to consider comprehensive immigration reform legislation without any further delay.

This year one of the most important bills we enacted into law was the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act. From the outset I worked with my Republican colleague Senator Crapo to develop that legislation in a bipartisan way. We called in Senators from both sides of the aisle. We had cosponsors from both parties. We took suggestions and amendments from both Democrats and Republicans. Then we built a majority of Senators in support.

I worked very hard to keep that as a bipartisan issue when, frankly, we had

some on both sides of the aisle who wanted to make it a partisan issue.

Last year we were able to have our bill considered. It passed the Senate with 68 votes--obviously, a bipartisan majority. Parenthetically, I would note that yesterday we passed the farm bill with fewer votes than that, but the New York Times described that farm bill, and rightly so, as having ``overwhelming bipartisan support.''

In fact, last fall, when the House of Representatives would not take up our VAWA legislation--the violence against women legislation--we redoubled our efforts during the lameduck session. We had many meetings in my office between Republicans and Democrats to find where we could go. We then reintroduced our bill with some modifications at the beginning of this year.

I sought to make it our first legislative priority of the new Congress. With the strong support and leadership of the majority leader Senator Reid, the Senate turned to it, we considered it, and we passed it as one of our very first legislative matters in February. We actually passed it with an even stronger bipartisan majority this year than last, although many of those who now oppose immigration reform continued voting against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act. But we passed a strong, principled, bipartisan bill.

I had people urge me to abandon my efforts in the Violence Against Women Act to protect all victims. I was glad to see they were proven wrong. I was told repeatedly that the House of Representatives would never consider, let alone pass, our bill that provided fairness for gay and lesbian victims and that we would never be able to provide meaningful protections for Native American women being brutalized by non-Indians on reservations.

But I said from my own experience early as a prosecutor and since as chairman of the Judiciary Committee: A victim is a victim is a victim. When I would go to crime scenes, I never heard a police officer, who would see a victim of violence against women, say: Wait a minute. Before we can get involved, is this victim gay or straight? Is this victim Native American? They said a victim is a victim is a victim, and let us see what we can do to protect not only this person but others.

In spite of all the dire predictions and political naysayers, our bipartisan group of Senators stuck to our principles. The Senate stood firm. We did the right thing.

What happened then? How were we able to enact this bill into law?

The American people spoke up. They supported our bill. They demanded action. There were some Republican Members of the House, such as Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who knew the right thing to do and were willing to say they wanted to do it. Then more and more House Republicans came around to our view.

The House, to its credit, changed its stance and considered our bill. They passed it with no changes whatsoever--exactly as it came out of the Senate--and it is now law.

I was proud to stand with President Obama on March 7 in an emotional ceremony in which he thanked legislators from both sides of the aisle for protecting all victims of domestic violence and human trafficking.

Relevant to the pending immigration bill, there was one piece of the original Leahy-Crapo VAWA bill that was requested by law enforcement to help immigrant victims of violence. We sought to increase U visas for abused immigrant women so they could be protected and help law enforcement go after their abusers.

So often immigrant women are afraid to go and report their abusers because they think they themselves may be deported. In fact, we have had evidence and testimony that people are being abused. If they are immigrants, they are told: If you report what I am doing to you, I will get you deported.

That provision had a technical budget affect that last year the House used as an excuse not to consider our bill.

I promised at the beginning of this year that I would continue fighting to enact that measure. We would take it out of the VAWA bill to avoid the technicality of having it blocked by the House, but I never forgot that. I never forgot my promise to those immigrant women. I am happy to report that these important U visas are now part of comprehensive immigration reform legislation before us.

I tell this history because some have argued the Senate immigration reform bill has to be undermined from what we brought out of committee. We have to do that to conform to demands intended to appease some in the House Republican majority. I disagree. I disagree. Just as we did not back off on VAWA, I say: Do not do it now. Let's consider not a partisan reason, but let's consider America. The Senate should pass the best bill for the economy, for our families, and for our Nation. We should do what we think is right.

The House of Representatives is clearly in a different place than those who support the Senate bill. Just last Thursday House Republicans voted to end President Obama's administrative program to help DREAMers, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, until such time as we can pass the DREAM Act.

The DREAM Act is in our Senate immigration reform bill. It recognizes that young people here without fault of their own, who are in school or in the military, and in good standing should not be deported because they are undocumented. They are Americans. They should be part of this Nation's future.

Senator Durbin--I am so proud of him for this--has been right to fight for them, as he has for years. He is a national voice for those who want the DREAM Act to pass. Senator Durbin has insisted on the DREAM Act being included in our legislation, and President Obama was right today to highlight the achievements and contributions these young people make to our country and will continue to make if the bill becomes law.

Should we now abandon them? Should we say let's just strike those measures from the Senate bill because Representative King of Iowa and other House Republicans do not like them? Of course not. The Senate is a separate body--100 people to represent over 300 million Americans-- and we should be the conscience of our Nation. That means the Senate should do what is right if we are to reflect the conscience of the Nation.

I am inspired by the young DREAMers I have met over the last several years and by the courageous testimony of Juan Antonio Vargas and Gaby Pacheco during our hearings this year.

Our bill should include the DREAM Act, just as we should protect and include the fair but tough pathway to citizenship included in the bill reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

These provisions are the core of our bill. Let's not start negotiating against ourselves. Let's not start backing off what we came together to pass. The vote by the Republicans in the House of Representatives to prevent DREAMers from being able to stay in the United States is not the example that the Senate should follow, especially if we really want to be the conscience of the Nation.

A few days ago the New York Times had a lead editorial that accurately describes where we are. It cautions against making bad modifications to the bill. It urges bipartisanship and courage and that we stand up to bad politics and bad policy. I hope the Senate will heed this call.

I ask unanimous consent that a copy of this past Sunday's editorial be printed in the Record.

Madam President, over the past weekend, I was happy to hear from my neighboring State of New Hampshire that Senator Ayotte pledged her support to this bipartisan legislation. I know how much I appreciated working with her and Senator Shaheen earlier this year to get the Leahy-Crapo Violence Against Women Act reauthorized. Senator Ayotte, of course, was an important leader in her caucus on that bipartisan bill. I hope and expect she will be on the bipartisan immigration bill as well, especially since it also contains several protections for victims of domestic violence and human trafficking.

Just this morning the President of the United States spoke to all of us in this country, to all of America, about the need for Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform. He called our commonsense bipartisan bill the best chance we have had in years to fix the broken immigration system. He urged us to do the right thing and do it now. He was joined by a cross-section of distinguished Americans, Democrats and Republicans alike, from DREAMers to former President Bush administration officials to business leaders and law enforcement representatives and clergy and laymen. It was interesting to see the coalition that oftentimes will not stand together on an issue or be opposed to each other standing together in unity on this issue.

I know I am meeting later this week with the President along with a bipartisan group of Senators so we can work together to pass comprehensive immigration reform. I would encourage him to keep on speaking about this because there are Senators in both parties who want real immigration reform.

Because it is an important economic issue, it is also a civil rights issue. It is an issue of fundamental fairness. It speaks to where we are as a nation. The other day when I was speaking about this bill, and they referenced the fact that--something I never expected when I came to the Senate--I have become the President pro tempore of the Senate. It means I have been here a long time.

The distinguished Presiding Officer that day, the Acting President pro tempore, a colleague of ours, she herself is an immigrant. She came to this country with her mother. She has explained that they had all of their possessions in one suitcase. Her mother was fleeing an abusive spouse and came to this country. Now that mother's daughter is a Senator.

I think of my wife. She was born in this country, but her parents came here from Canada speaking a different language and became very successful in their careers, helped employ a lot of people in our State of Vermont. My maternal grandparents came from Italy not speaking the language, had a business, employed a lot of people, became a very important part of our country. Their children, one became the highest decorated pilot in World War II, other distinguished careers, one, of course, I am closest to is my mother.

I remember her pride and my father's pride when they saw their son, one generation removed, become a Senator. Well, there is going to be success stories all over this country if we stand for true immigration reform, if we make it possible for people of different backgrounds and different races, different cultures to come here and make this country a better country. They speak of us as being the melting pot but the melting pot that brings about a wonderful combination. We see that in a nation--not a nation of such unity of thought and religion and politics and appearance that becomes bland and not vibrant. Instead, we are a country of different cultures and languages and backgrounds, and we all become Americans. The sum of the whole is greater than the parts. We are a better country for it.

So if we stand together, if we stay true to our values and agreements, I believe we can pass legislation that will be a continuing renewal of our spirit, our creativity, our vitality as a nation, which upholds our great traditions and compassion in humanity as a welcoming nation. That is what I believe the Senate should do, what I believe our ancestors should have done, I believe generations before us that made this a great country should have done, and I believe we will be a better country if we will because of the people who have become citizens in this country.

I look forward to the day when we come together, we 100 Senators come together and pass a bill that reflects the conscience of our Nation, the conscience of the Senate, a bill that will make us all proud and America proud.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I rise this afternoon to say a few words about the immigration reform bill that, as I understand it, we will begin discussing next week. As the son of an immigrant, somebody who came to this country at the age of 17 without a nickel in his pocket and who was able to send his two kids to college, needless to say I support immigration. Our country is unique in the world. Our country is great because we are the sons and daughters of immigrants. I think we should all be very proud of that.

I also commend the Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy and Senator Schumer and Senator Durbin--all of those people who have been working very hard on what I consider to be a good and strong immigration reform bill. Here are some of the very strong components of that bill that I hope every Member of the Senate would support: That is the need for a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country. Bringing undocumented workers out of the shadows and giving them legal status will make it more difficult for employers to undercut the wages and benefits of all workers and, in my view, will be good for the entire economy.

I have always--and continue to--strongly support the DREAM Act part of the immigration reform bill, which is to make sure that children of illegal immigrants who are brought into this country by their parents years and years ago are allowed to become citizens.

I strongly support a number of the provisions that deal with agriculture. Some years ago I was in Immokalee, FL, a place that I suspect has some of the most exploited workers in America. They pick the tomatoes which go to the fast-food restaurants throughout this country. I can tell everyone that in the State of Vermont, we have dairy farms that are now dependent on foreign labor, and it is important that we treat those workers with dignity and give them legal status. It is extremely important to have an approach which provides legal status for agricultural workers.

I obviously support making sure our borders are strong and that we stop illegal immigration as best we can, and I applaud the committee for including all of those provisions in the immigration bill that is going to come to the Senate I expect next week.

What I worry about very much, and have deep concerns about in terms of the current legislation, is that while we have made a good step forward in terms of improving our economy as to where it was in the midst of the financial crisis, we still have a long way to go. The real unemployment rate in America is not 7.5 percent. That is the official unemployment rate. The real unemployment rate is closer to 14 percent. If we include those people who have given up looking for work in high- unemployment areas and people who are working part time and want to work full time, the real unemployment rate is closer to 14 percent. In other words, if we include unemployment among minorities as well as the young people in this country, we continue to have a very serious unemployment problem in the United States of America, and it is an issue with which we have to deal. I have a number of ideas on how to deal with it. One thing we sure as heck do not want to do is make a bad situation worse.

It seems to me that in a moment when our middle class continues to disappear, when millions of workers are working longer hours for lower wages, when median-family income has gone down by $5,000 since 1999, it does not make a lot of sense to me that we have an immigration reform bill which includes a massive increase in temporary guest worker programs that will allow large multinational corporations to import hundreds of thousands of temporary blue-collar and white-collar guest workers.

One of my major concerns is that corporate America is sort of using immigration reform as a means to continue their effort to lower wages in the United States of America, and we must not allow that to happen.

We all know we have a serious crisis in terms of the high cost of a college education, which is another issue we are going to be dealing with soon on the floor. One thing I can say--and I suspect I speak for a number of other Members in Congress--is if we didn't come from a family with a lot of money and we needed to get some financial help in order to pay for college, we worked in the summertime. I find it alarming that within this bill we are looking at a situation in which we are importing a lot of young people from Europe and elsewhere to fill jobs which young people in this country need in the summertime to allow them to get going in terms of their careers and allow them to make a few bucks in order to help them with their college education.

I understand that jobs such as a waiter, waitress, or busboy--and I did some of that when I was a kid--are not glamorous jobs. But you know what. They help a little bit as far as paying for college. I know it is not glamorous to work as a lifeguard, at the front desk of a hotel or resort, as a ski instructor, as a cook or chef in a kitchen, as a chambermaid, or as a landscaper. The jobs I just mentioned will not pay huge amounts of money, but for someone who needs to figure out how to pay for college in the fall, those jobs help. For someone who needs some experience in order to get their career off the ground, those jobs help. I am concerned that kids in this country are going to be looking for jobs and employers are going to say: Well, actually we don't have any jobs; the job has been filled by some young person from Eastern Europe. So I want us to take that issue into account.

Theoretically the J-1 Program is supposed to bring young people into this country so they can learn about our culture. It is a program to expose young people from around the world to American culture, and that is a good thing. I believe in that. I believe young people in America should have the opportunity to go abroad, and young people from around the world should have the opportunity to learn about America. It is a good thing.

I fear this J-1 Program is being exploited by corporations such as Hershey's and McDonald's in an effort to simply bring students from abroad to work at low-paying jobs in the United States.

Supporters of the temporary H-2B Guest Worker Program claim there are not enough Americans willing to do these types of jobs; that in essence what they are saying is the young American people are too lazy to work at these jobs. I do not accept that. I truly do not accept it. I think it is a slap in the face not only to our young people but to the many working people who do not have much in the way of an education and want to work so they can earn some money. It is a slap in the face to say to those people: No, we are going to have to bring people in from abroad to do those jobs, such as being a waiter, waitress, chambermaid, or lifeguard. These are not high-tech skilled jobs; these are jobs our young people can do and need to do.

I have a great concern about the transformation of the J-1 Program from being a program dealing with American culture to being one where corporations are exploiting young people from abroad to work in low- paying jobs in the United States.

I also find it interesting that instead of raising wages in this country to attract workers, what many of these companies are doing is bringing in people from abroad. We know what supply and demand is about. What we learned in economics 101 in college is that if an employer cannot find a certain type of worker, the way to entice that worker is to raise wages. Instead of raising wages, what employers are saying is: We have huge amounts of cheap labor all over the world. Instead of raising wages for American workers, we are going to bring in cheap labor from around the world, and I think that is wrong. I think as we deal with this legislation, this is an issue we have to address front and center.

When we talk about H-2B jobs, what we are talking about is people who may be working as a landscaper, amusement park worker, housekeeper, waiter, or waitress. Further, during the summer, businesses are using guest worker programs to hire young people from other countries to be lifeguards.

Maybe I am mistaken, but I kind of think there are young people in this country who can work as lifeguards and hold other positions in some of the resorts all over this country. We are talking jobs such as being a ski instructor in Vermont. I can tell everyone that in the State of Vermont, we have a whole lot of young people who are very good at skiing and can teach skiing. We don't need people from Europe to take those jobs away from young Americans.

Let me be clear--and I find this to be interesting, if not ironic-- the same corporations and businesses that support a massive expansion in guest worker programs coincidentally happen to be the same exact corporations that are opposed to raising the minimum wage. These are the same corporations that support the outsourcing of American jobs, not to mention the same corporations which in some cases have reduced wages and benefits for American workers at a time when corporate America is making record-breaking profits.

In too many cases the H-2B Program for lower skilled guest workers, as well as the H-1B Program for high-skilled guest workers, is being used by employers to drive down the wages and benefits of American workers and to replace American workers with cheap labor from abroad.

Here is what it comes down to: supply and demand. If the employers of this country need labor, let them start raising wages for American workers rather than bringing in cheap labor from all over this world. The immigration reform bill that passed the Senate Judiciary Committee could increase the number of low-skilled--I hear speeches here that we are going to have these genius high-tech guys who are going to start companies and create all kinds of jobs. Great. That is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about an immigration reform bill from the Judiciary Committee that could increase the number of low- skilled guest workers by as much as 800 percent over the next 5 years and could more than triple the number of temporary white-collar guest workers coming into this country. During the next 5 years, H-1B high- skilled visas could go from 85,000 to as many as 230,000. The number of H-2B low-skilled visas could go from 65,000 to as many as 325,000. The new W visa program for low-skilled workers could go as high as 200,000.

The first question the American people and Members have to ask is, is unemployment throughout America in States such as Arizona, Oklahoma, Vermont, Michigan so low right now that we desperately need more and more foreign workers to fill jobs Americans cannot fill?

The high-tech industry tells us they need the H-1B Program so they can hire the best and the brightest science, technology, engineering, and math workers in the world, and that there are not qualified American workers in these fields. Let me be the first to admit that in some cases I believe that is true. I have spoken to employers in Vermont. I suspect it is true all over this country, that there are areas where companies cannot find the skilled workers they need so they need employees from abroad, and to the degree that is true, let us address that issue. But let's also give some facts which suggest that may not be quite as true as some of the employers and corporations are saying.

In 2010, 54 percent of H-1B guest workers were employed in entry- level jobs. So the argument is: Hey, we need all of these brilliant guys who are going to start companies and create jobs. In 2010, 54 percent of the H-1B guest workers were employed in entry-level jobs and performed ``routine tasks requiring limited judgment'' according to the Government Accountability Office.

In 2010 the official U.S. unemployment rate averaged more than 9.6 percent per month. Why couldn't these types of jobs be performed by Americans?

So, again, the point is--I know some of my friends say: Every one of these guys is some genius who is going to start a company. I wish that were the case. Many of these are lower wage, entry-level jobs that certainly American workers could do.

Further, only 6 percent of H-1B visas were given to workers with highly specialized skills in 2010. That is the issue I keep hearing about, highly specialized skills, but only 6 percent of H-1B visas went to those folks. More than 80 percent of H-1B guest workers are paid wages that are less than American workers in comparable positions, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Over 9 million Americans have degrees in a STEM-related field, but only about 3 million have a job in that area.

Last year the top 10 employers of H-1B guest workers were all offshore outsourcing companies. Let me repeat that. One of the great crises we have faced in the last 30 years is that companies have shut down in America, moved abroad, and gotten cheap labor abroad. The top 10 employers of H-1B guest workers were all offshore outsourcing companies. These firms are responsible for shifting huge numbers of American information technology jobs to India and other countries. Nearly half of all H-1B visas go to offshore outsourcing firms, while less than 3 percent of them apply to become permanent residents.

Further, half of all recent college graduates majoring in computer and information science did not receive jobs in the information technology sector. In other words, we have large numbers of Americans who are graduating with degrees who can handle these jobs. Yet we are bringing in large numbers of people from abroad to do them. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

Not only would the Senate immigration bill greatly expand the number of H-1B guest workers, it also would provide an unlimited number of green cards to foreign graduates who receive a master's degree or a Ph.D. in a STEM-related field. If we are going to provide green cards to every foreign student with an advanced STEM degree, what purpose does the H-1B program serve other than to suppress the wages of American workers who are already struggling? At the very least I believe we should prohibit offshore outsourcing firms from hiring temporary guest workers.

Under the Senate immigration bill, the number of college-educated H- 1B guest workers and STEM green card holders who are under 30 years of age will exceed the number of jobs that are available for young information technology graduates. What message does that send to young people in our country who are interested in pursuing careers in information technology?

Making matters even worse, I am very concerned that Senator Hatch was able to gut the very modest reforms to the H-1B program designed to prevent companies from replacing American workers with H-1B guest workers. At a minimum it is essential that these proworker reforms be put back into the bill before it is passed by the full Senate.

This country was built by immigrants. I am a son of an immigrant, and many of us are. I believe we are a nation that wants to see comprehensive immigration reform passed. I certainly do.

Again, I wish to congratulate all of those people who have worked on this bill because there are a lot of very important and positive provisions in the bill. But I think we have to improve the bill as it leaves committee and as it comes to the floor of the Senate. What we want to make certain of is

that at a time when this country continues to struggle economically, when millions of people are working longer hours for lower wages, when minority unemployment is extraordinarily high, we do not take any action that lowers wages or increases unemployment for American workers.

Again, my congratulations to those who worked on this bill, but we have a whole lot of work to do as the bill reaches the floor, and I intend to be working with my colleagues to make those improvements.

With that, I yield the floor.