A joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to contributions and expenditures intended to affect elections.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, at a time of extraordinary challenges across the globe and here at home, we are not gathered in the Senate to discuss how to confront the threat of ISIS. We are not gathered in the Senate to discuss how to prevent Putin's Russia from invading its neighbors. We are not gathered in the Senate today to discuss how to solve the humanitarian crisis at the border with some 90,000 unaccompanied children coming into the country this year. We are not gathered in the Senate today to discuss how to bring back jobs and economic growth, or how to correct the fact that the Obama economy has produced the lowest labor force participation since 1978--92 million Americans not working today. And we are not gathered in the Senate to discuss how to stop the disaster that has been ObamaCare, which has caused millions of Americans to lose their jobs, to be forced into part-time work, to lose their health insurance, to lose their doctors, and to see their premiums skyrocket. No.

Instead, we are gathered today in the Senate for a very different topic. The majority leader and the Democratic majority in this Senate have determined that the most important priority this Senate has, which we are spending the entire week addressing, is the proposal of 49 Democrats to repeal the free speech provisions of the First Amendment. That is not hyperbole. Typically, when Americans hear that Members of the Senate are proposing repealing the free speech protections of the First Amendment, the usual reaction is a gasp of disbelief. Could we really have entered a world so extreme that our common ground no longer even includes the First Amendment of the Constitution?

The First Amendment protects our most foundational rights. Yet, under the amendment we are debating today that 49 Democrats have signed their name to, the First Amendment would, in effect, have crossed out freedom of speech. Why? Because 49 Democrats have cosponsored a constitutional amendment that is currently on the floor of the Senate, being voted on this week, that would give Congress blanket authority to regulate political speech.

From the dawn of our Republic we have respected the rights of citizens to express their views. It is the right upon which every other civil liberty is predicated. But in the Democratic Senate of 2014, citizens' free speech rights are tools for partisan warfare.

This proposal before the Senate is, bar none, the most radical proposal that has been considered by the Senate in the time I have served. If this proposal were to pass, its effects would be breathtaking. It would be the most massive intrusion on civil liberties and expansion of Federal Government power in modern times.

Let's talk about how and why that is the case. The text of the amendment that is currently in the Bill of Rights

says, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech. So right now we operate under a First Amendment that says Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech--not some laws; not laws that some politicians think would help them politically; but no law abridging the freedom of speech is what our First Amendment says.

What would the new First Amendment say? Well, according to our Democratic friends, the new First Amendment would have two sections. The first section says, Congress and States may regulate and set reasonable limits on the raising and spending of money by candidates and others to influence elections. Now, ``reasonable.'' Who could oppose reasonable limits? Isn't that the essence of reasonableness? Perhaps I have forgotten my spectacles, but I don't see in the current First Amendment, Congress can make reasonable restrictions on the freedom of speech. It doesn't say that. It says Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.

What is the difference? The First Amendment is not about reasonable speech. The First Amendment was enacted to protect unreasonable speech. I, for one, certainly don't want our speech limited to speech that elected politicians in Washington think is reasonable.

There was a time this body thought the Alien and Sedition Acts prohibiting criticizing the government were reasonable. There is a reason the Constitution doesn't say let's trust politicians to determine what speech is reasonable and what isn't.

I would note the Supreme Court has long made clear the First Amendment is all about unreasonable speech. For example, when the Nazis wanted to march on Skokie, IL--Nazi speeches, the paradigm example of unreasonable speech; it is hateful, bigoted, ignorant speech--the Supreme Court said the Nazis have a constitutional right to march down the street in Skokie, IL, with their hateful, bigoted, ignorant speech. Now every one of us then has a moral obligation to condemn it as hateful and bigoted and ignorant. But the First Amendment is all about saying government doesn't get to decide what you say is reasonable and what you say is not.

The First Amendment is all about saying we will not censor American citizens. What is this amendment about? Saying the Federal Government now has the power to censor each and every American who dares speak about politics. So if a person has a political view at home, they better hope politicians in Washington think that view is reasonable. I will tell my colleagues that very little of what we do in this town is reasonable and the idea that elected politicians would seek to arrogate power to themselves to censor the citizens is anathema to who we are as a country.

This bill, if adopted, raises three simple questions--questions I raised at three hearings in the Judiciary Committee and in the Constitution subcommittee, and I am the ranking member on the Constitution subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee. We have had extensive debates on this amendment. I wish to pose three simple questions that I would ask every Democrat who has put his name to this--and I notice, sadly, my friend, the Presiding Officer, is one of them, but he didn't serve on the committee. So I would ask him to consider these questions, and I would hope every Democrat who has put his name to this, upon thinking about it, will have second thoughts and pull his name off.

So here are three questions every one of us should ask. No. 1, should Congress have the constitutional authority to ban movies?

No. 2, should Congress have the constitutional authority to ban books?

And No. 3, should Congress have the constitutional authority to ban the NAACP from speaking about politics?

My answer to these three questions is unequivocally, unquestionably no. Yet every single Democrat who has put his name on this amendment has no choice but to answer yes to all three of these questions.

I posed these questions in the Constitution subcommittee. When I posed them to the committee, the chairman of the committee, Senator Durbin, gaveled the hearing shut because he could not answer those questions. But at the full Judiciary Committee hearing, I was told by my Democratic friends: This is hyperbole. This is exaggeration. We don't intend to ban movies or books or the NAACP. My response in those hearings was that this is the Senate. Forty-nine Senators are proposing an amendment to the Bill of Rights. The inchoate intentions that may be buried in the hearts of each and every Senator are utterly irrelevant to the question. The question is, What is the language that would be inserted into the Bill of Rights of our Constitution?

Let's look to the language. Section 2 of this amendment says Congress and the States shall have the power to implement and enforce this article by appropriate legislation and may distinguish between natural persons and corporations or other artificial entities created by law, including by prohibiting such entities from spending money to influence elections.

That is very specific language that would now become part of our Bill of Rights. It is breathtaking. It is staggering in its scope.

I wish to take these one at a time because the Democrats, I am sure-- all 49 Democrats--say, We don't intend to ban movies, books, or ban the NAACP. Well, let's look to the language they put their names to.

No. 1, let's start with movies. We have all heard a lot about the Citizens United case. In fact, we remember President Obama during the State of the Union hectoring the Supreme Court of the United States for the Citizens United case.

Relatively few people know the facts that underlie the Citizens United case. The facts in those circumstances are that a nonprofit corporation made a movie critical of Hillary Clinton, and for making a movie critical of Hillary Clinton the Obama administration tried to impose massive fines on them. Citizens United, which President Obama and the Senate Democrats decry as the most pernicious thing in modern times, it seems, was all about the government trying to fine a movie maker for daring to make a movie about Hillary Clinton.

Listen, let me be very clear. There are movie makers--Michael Moore's movies I think are complete nonsense. To quote the bard, they are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Michael Moore has a right to keep making those movies over and over again and spewing his nonsense as long as he likes. The First Amendment protects his right to be wrong.

And as a simple legal matter, would this amendment give Congress the constitutional authority to ban movies?

Paramount Pictures is a corporation. Under the text of the amendment, what could Congress do to a corporation? It can prohibit--and that is the language in the amendment--it can prohibit the corporation from spending money to influence elections. So if a movie talks about politics, Congress can make it a criminal offense. Go down to Hollywood, take the producers, the directors, the actors and everyone involved in the movie and put them in handcuffs. That is breathtaking.

Now, again, the Democratic Senators say, We don't intend to do that. Then why did they submit a constitutional amendment to the Bill of Rights that says Congress can prohibit Paramount Pictures from speaking about politics? That means Congress can ban movies.

How about the second question: Should Congress be able to ban books? That is an extreme question by anyone's measure. Surely, nobody in Washington is talking about banning books. Well, if we assumed that, our assumption would be wrong. Indeed, during the oral argument in Citizens United, the Supreme Court asked the Obama administration: Your position is that under the Constitution, the sale for the book itself could be prohibited. The answer from the Obama administration: Yes, if the book contained the functional equivalent of express advocacy. The Obama administration went in front of the Supreme Court and argued: We have the power to ban books.

This is in the record. This is in the official transcript. People can go and listen to this argument, listen to the Obama administration say they believe the Federal Government has the ability to ban books from your house. That is breathtaking.

I recognize in today's partisan society there are some people who may be

watching these remarks who aren't inclined to believe me. They might say: Listen, you are a Republican. You are a conservative. And coming from the spot in the political aisle that I do, I don't tend to trust Republicans or conservatives.

I understand that. I would tell you that if you don't believe me, perhaps you would believe that famed rightwing organization, the ACLU. The ACLU said this amendment, to which 49 Democrats have signed their names--what would it do? It would ``fundamentally `break' the Constitution and endanger civil rights and civil liberties for generations.'' I said a few minutes ago that this was the most radical legislation that has been put before this body. Why is that? Because it is legislation the ACLU says would ``fundamentally `break' the Constitution.'' Breaking the Constitution is no minor matter, and endangering civil rights and civil liberties for generations ought to concern every Member of this body.

One still might say: Surely banning books is hyperbole.

Well, if you don't believe me, the ACLU in writing told the Senate this amendment--to which 49 Democrats have put their names--would give Congress the power to ban Hillary Clinton's new book, ``Hard Choices.'' I want that to sink in for a moment. Forty-nine Democrats have just put their names to a constitutional amendment, and the ACLU rightly tells us that the express language of the amendment gives the government the power to ban Hillary Clinton's new book, ``Hard Choices.''

I have that letter from the ACLU. I also have a subsequent letter from the ACLU doing something which they haven't done before and which I don't know they will do again--thanking me and thanking all of us who have been fighting against this amendment for standing up for civil liberties. It is truly a shame the Democratic Party is not among them.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record both of the letters from the ACLU I referred to earlier.

The third question every Senator who has put his name to this amendment must answer is this: Should Congress have the constitutional authority to ban the NAACP from speaking about politics? Well, why is that? Because the NAACP is a corporation. We hear the word ``corporation,'' and we tend to think of ExxonMobil, Walmart, or what have you, but the NAACP is a corporation. What could Congress do under this amendment, under the explicit language of this amendment? Congress could prohibit the NAACP from speaking about politics.

Let me state some other corporations Congress would have the constitutional authority to silence. The ACLU is a corporation. The AARP--the American Association of Retired Persons--is a corporation. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is a corporation. Amnesty International is a corporation. Americans United for Separation of Church and State is a corporation. The Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders is a corporation. The National Organization for Women is a corporation. The Center for Reproductive Rights is a corporation. The Sierra Club is a corporation. La Raza is a corporation. NARAL is a corporation. Planned Parenthood is a corporation. Moveon.org is a corporation. The Human Rights Campaign is a corporation. Greenpeace is a corporation.

People will note that every one I listed is a group that in our political discourse is often associated with being on the left. Many of those groups are not particular fans of mine as an elected official, and that is their right. Indeed, it is their right to scream from the mountaintops their criticism of my political positions. I will defend their right to criticize me or any other Member of this body all day long because the Bill of Rights says Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.

Forty-nine Democrats just said that every organization I read--that it should be constitutional for Congress to prohibit them from speaking about politics.

It seems to me that when we return to our home States, every Senate Democrat who put his or her name to this amendment should expect to answer questions from citizens: Senator, why did you vote for a constitutional amendment to silence my free speech rights? That is a question we should all expect.

I would like to address a couple of red herrings in this debate because there are arguments put forth by the Democrats who say: No, no, no. Pay no attention to the text of the amendment we have introduced. Pay no attention to the fact that it would give Congress the power to ban movies, books, and to silence the NAACP. Pay no attention to any of that. It is something else.

There are three red herrings that are tossed forward.

First, money is not speech. How many times have we heard that over and over in floor speeches? Yesterday and today Democrats have stood and said: Money is not speech. Money is not speech. It has been repeated over and over. It is a good talking point. It is simply, on its face, demonstrably false. It is certainly true that all money is not speech.

If you go out and buy a Ferrari, that is not speech, but if you go out and erect a billboard and pay money to put up a billboard that says ``Senator Joe Manchin is a terrific guy,'' that is speech. It takes money to do that. They don't put up billboards with pixie dust. It actually takes some dollars to erect that billboard and to express that speech.

If you decide you want to run a radio ad saying that Senator so-and- so is terrible or wonderful, they don't run radio ads just because you asked ``pretty please.'' It takes money.

Let's say you want to run a television ad. It takes money.

Let's say you want to launch a Web site. Have you ever launched a Web site for free?

Let's say you are a little old lady who wants to put a yard sign on your front yard, and it is going to take $5 to buy some poster board and a stick and some crayons and markers and write: I love the First Amendment; I love free speech. That takes money.

The Federalist Papers were the essence of speech, and it took money to print them. Thomas Paine's ``Common Sense''--it took money to print it. It took money to print pamphlets.

Everyone in the tech community--and I would note that all of our Democratic friends and sponsors of this amendment almost to a person go routinely to the tech community and say: Give us money. Give us campaign contributions.

Every Senate Democrat should expect the tech community to say: Wait a second. Why did you vote for a constitutional amendment to give Congress the power to regulate every Web site in America?

If a Web site talks about politics, this amendment gives Congress the power to regulate that Web site.

Listen, I understand there are Members in this body on both sides of the aisle who find it really pesky when citizens dare criticize us. If you don't want to be criticized, don't run for office. Democracy is messy.

I guarantee there is no one in this country who truly believes money is not speech. It is a talking point, but those examples are unquestionably speech, and they have been from the very first days of our Republic.

A second canard is that corporations are not people. That is often said. Citizens United said that corporations are people.

Of course corporations are not people, but that is not the right question. It never was the question. Nobody thinks corporations are people. They don't breathe, they don't walk, and they are not human beings. The question is, Do corporations have rights under our Constitution? Again, I guarantee that every person in this Chamber and every person in the gallery believes the answer to that question is yes. If they don't, the New York Times is a corporation. Do we really think the New York Times has no First Amendment rights?

If the canard were true--corporations are not people, so they don't have rights--Congress could pass a law tomorrow that says the New York Times can never again criticize any Republican Member of Congress. I think the paper would probably go out of publication if it had to remove that from its content.

But it, of course, cannot. Why can't it? Because corporations have rights. Every one of us knows that. We would be horrified. That legislation would be blatantly unconstitutional. Why? Because the New York Times has a First Amendment right to speak about politics however it likes, whether wrongheaded or right-headed.

The groups I mentioned before--the NAACP is a corporation. I challenge any Senator to stand and say the NAACP has no First Amendment rights. But every Senator who has said on this Senate floor that corporations

aren't people, that they have no rights, has said the NAACP has no constitutional rights--if you were a first-year law student and put that answer in any constitutional law class in the country, you would get an F. It wouldn't be a D-plus or a D-minus; it would be an F. It is an obviously blatantly false statement. Yet 49 Democrats rely on it to justify trying to gut the First Amendment.

The third red herring the Democrats in this body point to is they paint a specter of evil billionaires coming to steal our democracy.

We have all heard of our friends the Koch brothers--in part because the majority leader has launched an unprecedented slander campaign on two private citizens. Almost on a daily basis the majority leader stands and demagogues two private citizens who have committed the sin of creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, being successful in the private sector, and then exercising their First Amendment rights to speak out about the grave challenges facing this country.

If one Member of this body impugns the integrity of another Member of this body, we can rise on a point of personal privilege. I ask the Presiding Officer, where is the point of personal privilege for a private citizen when the majority leader drags his name through the mud day after day?

What Senator Reid is doing to two private citizens who are fighting to exercise their free speech rights is reprehensible. It is an embarrassment to this institution. Yet perhaps one might say there is some truth to the matter. We are told these nefarious brothers are responsible for almost everything bad in the world, so it must be that they are playing a huge role in our body politic.

Well, if you go look at OpenSecrets, which compiles campaign giving from 1989 to 2014, so for the past 25 years--and it compiles them from the biggest givers down to the smallest givers--if you look at first 16 names on that list--I have heard what our Democratic Members of this body have said: There are evil, nefarious Republicans trying to steal our democracy. And the implication is that they are backing Republicans. So my assumption is, as I look at the list of the top donors, the top 16--how many of them give predominantly to Republicans? Well, one would assume, given how great the magnitude is, that it has to be a lot of them, probably all of them, or if not all of them, most of them--at least half of them.

Mr. President, do you know how many of the top 16 groups give predominantly to Republicans? Zero. The top 16 political donors in this country all give either overwhelmingly to Democrats or at best evenly between the two parties. You have to fall to No. 17 to find a group that gives more heavily to Republicans than to Democrats. Now, that is curious given the story that is being told by our Democratic friends about these evil Republican billionaires stealing democracy. Gosh, the top 16 donors are not Republicans.

And how about the Koch brothers who we are told are somewhat like the Grinch who stole Christmas? Where do they fall? We have to go down to No. 59 on the list to find Koch Industries.

But perhaps you believe there is something to this claim of secret money. That too is a red herring. The Federal Election Commission estimates that over $7 billion was spent in the 2012 election cycle. We have heard from Democrat after Democrat after Democrat that secret money--money where the donors are not disclosed--is this enormous problem in our democracy that justifies gutting the First Amendment. So of that $7 billion, I assume a lot of that is secret money. Well, if you were to assume that, you would be wrong. The Center for Responsive Politics estimates that in 2012 about $315 million was spent by groups that do not disclose all of their donors. That is less than 4.5 percent of all the political speech in 2012.

So this entire effort to gut the First Amendment, to give Congress the power to ban movies, books, and the NAACP from speaking about politics is justified because of 4.5 percent of political spending, a whole bunch of which is being spent to help Democrats. Those are the facts. As John Adams famously said: Facts are stubborn things.

(Ms. WARREN assumed the Chair.)

So it raises the question: If the problems they are telling us about are not real, why are the Democrats doing this? Why are we spending a week debating this constitutional amendment, the most radical constitutional amendment this body has ever considered, particularly because every single Member of this body knows the outcome? There are not sufficient votes to adopt this amendment. The Democrats all know this. The Republicans all know this. Then why would they be doing it?

Well, if you are a Democrat running for reelection in 2014, you cannot run on the economy. The Obama economy is a disaster. Millions of people are out of work. The people who have been hurt the most by the Obama economy are the most vulnerable among us--young people, Hispanics, African Americans, single moms. We have not seen such a low labor force participation since 1978, since the stagnation and misery and malaise under Jimmy Carter. The Obama economy has recreated that. So if you are a Democrat, you cannot run on the disastrous economic record of the Obama administration.

If you are a Democrat, you certainly cannot run on ObamaCare--the most harmful social services legislation in modern times that has cost millions of Americans their jobs, their health care, their doctors. If you do not believe me, take a look at how the Democrats are running in their States. You do not see Democrats running saying: We passed ObamaCare. When you take away millions of people's health care and doctors, and when you look in the TV camera and repeatedly state falsehoods: If you like your health insurance plan, you can keep it, if you like your doctor, you can keep them, you do not really want to remind the American people that you deliberately lied to them.

And the Democrats certainly cannot run on the Obama-Clinton foreign policy--a policy about which we heard last week the President has no strategy for dealing with the great threats facing this country. Leading from behind is not a strategy, and we can see the consequences of the Obama-Clinton foreign policy, which is that the entire world is on fire.

If you are a Democratic Senator running for reelection in 2014, you have a problem. You cannot run on your record because the record is abysmal. So what is done instead? It is smoke and mirrors. It is distraction.

The only explanation I can come up with for why we are spending a week--with all the challenges in the world--a week debating an amendment that will never ever pass is this is designed to fuel a bunch of TV commercials for Democratic Senators, to paint the picture of nefarious billionaires coming to steal our democracy. Facts do not get in the way of their story. But yet the breadth of this is rather enormous.

I serve on the constitution subcommittee with the Senator from Minnesota, who before being a Senator was a very talented comedic actor and comedic writer on ``Saturday Night Live.'' I grew up watching ``Saturday Night Live.'' I love ``Saturday Night Live.''

``Saturday Night Live'' over the years has had some of the most tremendous political satire--for decades. Who can forget Chevy Chase tripping and falling over just about everything? Who can forget portrayals--Dana Carvey's George Herbert Walker Bush: ``Not going to do it.'' Who can forget Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Al Gore? Who can forget in 2008 the ``Saturday Night Live'' wickedly funny characterization of the Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin? It was wickedly funny and also had a profoundly powerful effect on people's assessment of Governor Palin, who is a friend of mine.

When I asked the Senator from Minnesota in the Senate Judiciary Committee: Do you believe that Congress should have the constitutional authority to prohibit ``Saturday Night Live'' from making fun of politicians, the good Senator promptly reassured me he had no intention of doing any such thing. But what we are debating is not the intentions of 100 Senators. What we are debating is a constitutional amendment that 49 Democrats are proposing to be inserted into the Bill of Rights.

The only question--it is not the intention of those Senators--but, rather, what would that amendment say? What the amendment says is for any corporation Congress would have the constitutional authority to prohibit it from engaging in political speech.

Well, NBC, which airs ``Saturday Night Live,'' is a corporation. Under this amendment 49 Democrats have signed their name to, Congress would have the power to make it a criminal offense. Lorne Michaels could be put in jail under this amendment for making fun of any politician. That is extraordinary, it is breathtaking, and it is dangerous.

The idea of banning books is not new. Advocates of government power, statists, have long favored silencing the citizenry. It is why our First Amendment was such a revolutionary concept, the idea that the individual citizen has the authority to challenge any elected official, from local magistrate all the way up to the President of the United States.

But if you are an advocate of governmental power, the citizens having the liberty to speak out is inconvenient; it can lead to inconvenient truths. So on some level it should not be surprising that the modern Democratic Party, which has become the party of government power over every aspect of our lives, would take it to the final conclusion of giving government the power to silence our political speech and to ban books.

I am reminded, in Ray Bradbury's immortal book ``Fahrenheit 451,'' of the words of Captain Beatty: ``If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none.'' That was, of course, the chief fireman in charge of burning books in ``Fahrenheit 451.'' In the book that is the temperature at which book paper ignites. It breaks my heart that today we are seeing the Fahrenheit 451 Democrats. Today we have seen 49 Democrats put their name to a constitutional amendment that would give Congress the power to ban books.

Some might dismiss it and say: What does it matter? It is an exercise in politics. They do not really believe it. They know it is not going to pass. Politicians will be politicians. No wonder the American people are cynical. I would be embarrassed if one Senator put his or her name to an amendment repealing the free speech protections of the First Amendment. Instead of one, it is 49. And much like with Sherlock Holmes and ``the dog that didn't bark,'' every bit as troubling as the 49 names of the Senators who are willing to repeal the free speech protections of the First Amendment are the Senators who are not speaking out. In particular, we have not seen a single Democrat have the courage to speak out against this abominable provision.

It was not always so. There was a time not long ago when there was bipartisan agreement on questions of civil liberties. There was a time when you could find Democrats for whom the First Amendment meant something.

In 1997, Democrats attempted a similar amendment to give Congress the power to regulate free speech, and that lion of the left Ted Kennedy stood up and said: ``In the entire history of the Constitution, we have never amended the Bill of Rights, and now is no time to start.''

Where are the Ted Kennedys? Where are the Democrats? Where are the liberals?

Also in 1997, Senator Russ Feingold, another passionate liberal, stood up and said:

. . . the Constitution of this country was not a rough

draft. We must stop treating it as such. The First Amendment

is the bedrock of the Bill of Rights. It has as its

underpinnings that each individual has a natural and

fundamental right to disagree with their elected leaders.

I agree with Ted Kennedy, I agree with Russ Feingold, and I will tell you, privately I have urged Democratic colleagues to come and join me in defense of the First Amendment--the handful who have not put their names to this amendment--and all I can surmise is that the partisan pressures of Washington are too much.

This amendment is not going to pass, but it is profoundly dangerous that in the U.S. Senate not a single Democratic Senator will come to the floor in defense of the First Amendment. It is profoundly dangerous that the modern Democratic Party now thinks it is good politics to campaign on repealing the First Amendment. The hashtag #don'trepeal1A has echoed through twitter as individual citizens are amazed.

Earlier this year we saw all 55 Democrats stand together against religious liberty, supporting an amendment that would gut the Religious Freedom Restoration Act which was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and signed into law by Bill Clinton.

It used to be on religious liberty there was a bipartisan consensus. The same used to be true on free speech. When did Democrats abandon the Bill of Rights? When did Democrats abandon civil liberties? I assure you, if it were my party proposing this egregious amendment, I would be standing on the floor of this Senate giving the very same speech trying to hold my party to account. Because at the end of the day, when we take our oath of office, it is not to a Democratic Party or the Republican Party, it is to represent the citizens of our State--in my case, 26 million Texans--to fight for their rights and to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States.

There is nothing the United States has done in the just under 2 years that I have been in this body that I find more disturbing and more dangerous than the fact that 49 Democrats would put their name to a proposal to repeal the First Amendment.

When my daughters Caroline, 6, and Catherine, 3, came up from Texas to Washington for a weekend to visit, I took them to the Newseum. It is a terrific museum. The front facade of the Newseum has in gigantic letters the text of the First Amendment carved in granite.

If the Democratic Party has its way, the Bill of Rights will be forever altered. We will have to send up workmen to that facade to carve with jackhammers the words of the First Amendment out of the granite in the front of the Newseum.

In the Senate Judiciary Committee I introduced a substitute amendment. It was an amendment to replace every word of this extraordinarily dangerous amendment with the following words:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of

religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or

abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the

right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition

the Government for a redress of grievances.

It was word-for-word verbatim the text of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, and I am sorry to tell you every single Senate Democrat on the Judiciary Committee voted against the text of the First Amendment. It was a straight party-line vote.

Going back to Senator Kennedy, Senator Kennedy and I would have agreed on very little. On matters of policy, he was a big government man and I most assuredly am not. On matters of foreign policy, he supported a far weaker military than do I and a far weaker defense of our Nation. But on the question of the First Amendment, I am proud to stand side by side with Ted Kennedy.

What does it say about the modern Democratic Party that not a single Democrat is willing to honor Senator Kennedy's legacy? His words are every bit as true now as they were in 1997.

In the entire history of the Constitution, we have never

amended the Bill of Rights, and now is no time to start.

It is my plea to the Democratic Members of this body that they reconsider the decision of putting their name on this amendment. It may seem like harmless election-year politicking that will help in political campaigns, but it is dangerous when 49 Senators come together and say: We no longer support the First Amendment.

We have a two-party system--a two-party system on which there should be robust debate. It is even more dangerous when one of the two parties becomes so extreme and so radical that it becomes seen as good politics to campaign against the First Amendment.

This will not pass this week, but I hope my Democratic colleagues will have second thoughts. I hope we can return to the day where there is a bipartisan consensus in favor of civil liberties, in favor of protecting the free speech rights of every American.

I hope we will listen to the wise counsel of Senator Kennedy, and I hope we will recognize, as Senator Kennedy and Senator Finegold observed, that there are no James Madisons or Thomas Jeffersons serving in this body today.

The Bill of Rights is not a rough draft, and the U.S. Senate should not

be proposing to repeal the First Amendment.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I come to the floor to speak about the unconscionable way in which the Drug Enforcement Administration treated Daniel Chong, a San Diego college student, back in 2012. Unfortunately, the American people still do not know all the facts. They do not know what lasting changes are being made to make sure something like this never happens again. And they do not know what is being done to hold the DEA agents involved accountable because if people are not held accountable, there are not going to be any changes made. Most of the time, for people to be held accountable, heads have to roll, and there is no evidence that is the case in this particular case. But here is what we do know. It is a story that you might expect to hear set in some Third World country but never in the United States of America. So here it is.

Back in April 2012, Daniel Chong, a college student at the University of California, San Diego, was arrested by law enforcement conducting a sweep for drugs at a college party. He was taken into custody by the DEA and transported to the local DEA field office. He was questioned by the agents who had arrested him, and the agents apparently concluded that there was no basis to charge him with a crime. The young man may well have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The agents told him he was going to be released. But Daniel Chong was not

released. Instead, he was taken back to a holding cell in handcuffs, and he was left there for dead for 5 days--5 days without food, 5 days without water, 5 days without sunlight, 5 days without any basic necessities of life, in a holding cell not much larger than a bathroom stall. He cried out for help. He kicked and banged on the door of the cell but to no avail. He became so desperate and dehydrated that he even drank his own urine in an effort to survive. Incredibly, the one thing Daniel Chong found in his cell that he tried to live on turned out to be some methamphetamine. That is right, he found an illegal drug in the DEA's own holding cell. Apparently, it was never searched before Mr. Chong was tossed inside. It got so bad that this young man tried to kill himself. He tried to carve the words ``sorry Mom'' into his own skin. He intended it to be the last message for anyone to pass on who might one day discover his lifeless body in that DEA holding cell.

After 5 days someone finally responded to Daniel Chong's call for help. He was taken immediately to the hospital. He was found to be suffering from extreme dehydration, hypothermia, kidney failure, and cuts and bruises on his wrists. It took 4 days to nurse him back to health.

This all occurred in April 2012. Soon after I learned of it, I sent a letter to the DEA Administrator demanding to know what could have led to such a calamity. I asked how, in a modern age of computers and surveillance cameras, it was possible that an innocent person could be left for dead in a DEA holding cell. I asked about the DEA policies and procedures in place to help prevent this from ever happening again. And I asked whether those responsible for what happened to Mr. Chong were going to be held accountable.

It took the DEA more than a year to respond to my questions--more than a year. In June 2013 the DEA trotted out the familiar response we so often hear from bureaucrats when they do not want to tell you what really happened. They said at that time the DEA could not comment on many aspects of the matter because the Department of Justice's own inspector general was conducting a review. The DEA assured me that, in their words, an ``interim'' policy had been adopted to make sure no other innocent people would be abandoned in a prison cell and left for dead. But the American people would have to wait for a permanent policy change and a full accounting until after the inspector general finished its investigation.

Just a month later, in July 2013, the DEA announced it would be handing over $4.1 million to Daniel Chong to settle his lawsuit. Mr. President, $4.1 million of taxpayer money--almost $1 million for each day he spent forgotten and also ignored in that dark and drug-infested DEA holding cell.

Now, up to date, finally, just this month and more than 2 years after this debacle, the Department of Justice's inspector general finally issued its report of the investigation. We still do not know the full truth about what happened to Daniel Chong. In many ways the inspector general's report raises more questions than it answers, and what the report does tell us is quite disturbing.

According to the report, Daniel Chong was not just forgotten by the agents who arrested him; he was ignored by other DEA employees who knew he was there but assumed he was somebody else's problem.

And the report suggests the DEA may have tried to cover up the whole event.

According to the report, there were three DEA agents and a supervisor directly responsible for making sure this young man was not abandoned in that holding cell. So it is obvious these four agents failed miserably in their responsibilities. But it gets even worse. According to the report, at least four other agents passed in and out of the holding cell area during the 5 days Daniel Chong was imprisoned. These four agents admitted they had either seen or heard Chong in his cell, but they simply assumed someone else was going to take care of him--in other words, he was somebody else's problem.

Daniel Chong was arrested on a Saturday. One of those agents saw him in the cell on Sunday, and one saw him there on Monday, and another two agents either saw him or heard him on Wednesday, but nothing compelled these law enforcement officers to address his plight because they did not believe anything was amiss.

I hope to all my colleagues that what I just told you is very difficult to believe.

In addition, Daniel Chong's holding cell was near a workspace area used by dozens of DEA personnel. According to the report, anyone in that workspace could have clearly heard banging and yelling from inside the cell.

But not a single one of the 25 DEA employees interviewed by the inspector general who worked this area could recall hearing any unusual noises during the time Daniel Chong was imprisoned there. So this is very difficult to believe. It defies all common sense. It contradicts what Daniel Chong says he did by crying out for help and banging on his holding cell door. It contradicts what his injuries tell us he did. It contradicts what anyone left in a holding cell without the basic necessities of life for days would do.

Why did no one respond to Daniel Chong's cries for help? The report does not even attempt to answer that question.

These eight DEA agents were in some way responsible for this young man's wrongful captivity. The report does not say what happened to these agents. This is where you get into accountability. Who is responsible? Are heads going to roll so this behavior changes? Are these agents still working for the DEA? Have they been disciplined? Are they still arresting other people, tossing them behind bars and leaving them for dead?

The problem does not stop here. According to the report, the DEA may have tried to cover up this entire event. The inspector general learned about what happened to Daniel Chong from an anonymous whistleblower who called one of its field offices.

This is another example of the value of whistleblowers, heroes who stand up for what is right, sometimes at great personal risk. According to the IG's report, the whistleblower indicated that the DEA ``was trying to contain this matter locally.'' That is another way of saying, essentially, that a coverup could be in the works.

Incredibly, as it turns out the DEA office in San Diego assigned the very agents who were responsible for Daniel Chong's captivity to process the holding cell area where Chong was held for days. That is right. The agents who left Chong behind bars for 5 days were assigned to investigate their own egregious mistakes--kind of like the fox guarding the chicken house.

DEA management also decided that it was going to conduct its own internal management review of the incident; that is, it would conduct it is own interviews and investigations before DEA notified anybody else. DEA management justified this decision by telling the inspector general that it assumed the conduct ``which resulted in Chong's detention did not amount to misconduct and was not criminal.'' But, of course, as the inspector general found, it should have been readily apparent to DEA management that this was not true. Of course, DEA management may have calculated that undertaking its own investigation could head off an independent outside review; indeed, perhaps the investigation could even be contained ``locally.'' How many other DEA misdeeds have been similarly contained?

So it is obvious what happened. It is outrageous. How it was handled is outrageous. We need to know more about why the inspector general was not called in immediately--that is, even as DEA policy requires--rather than having people who conducted the wrongdoing investigating, in a sense, themselves. We need to know if indeed this was a deliberate attempt to sweep this dereliction of duty under the rug.

The DEA is entrusted with a lot of responsibility and authority. We ask the DEA to enforce our drug laws. We ask the DEA to protect our communities. The DEA has a very tough job. The Obama administration is not making that job any easier because this administration is undermining the DEA by turning a blind eye to illegal marijuana trafficking. It is trying to release convicted drug dealers from our prisons. It is trying to reduce the criminal penalties and minimum mandatory sentences for drug dealers who are still on the streets peddling death in our communities. So I understand

these are very challenging times for the DEA.

When the DEA or any law enforcement agency neglects its responsibilities and then possibly even covers up wrongdoing, then those who are responsible must be held accountable. So I have to ask, if the employees at DEA are not held accountable, what needs to happen in order for action to be taken? Do we need to wait until someone dies?

The DEA's conduct in this case is inexcusable. After 2 years and more than $4 million of taxpayer money, the DEA owes the American people more answers. The American people deserve answers to the questions I posed in my letter to the DEA back in May of 2012, so, not getting a proper answer, I will be writing to the DEA again this week to pose additional questions, including about the possibility of a coverup.

Most importantly, the American people deserve to know that those responsible for the detention and the mistreatment of Daniel Chong will be held accountable for this horrendous event.

Constitutional Amendment

I come to the floor also to discuss a constitutional amendment the Judiciary Committee has just reported to the Senate. The amendment would amend the Bill of Rights for the first time. Let me repeat that. The amendment would amend the Bill of Rights for the first time. I think that is a slippery slope. It would amend one of the most important of those rights--the right of free speech.

The first amendment provides that Congress shall make no laws abridging freedom of speech. The proposed amendment would give Congress and the States the power to abridge free speech. It would allow them to impose reasonable limits--whatever the word ``reasonable'' might mean at a particular time--on contributions and expenditures. By so doing, that has to be putting limits on speech, particularly speech that is very valuable in this country--political speech; in other words, trying to influence the direction of our country through elections. It would allow speech by corporations that would influence the elections to be banned altogether.

This amendment is as dangerous as anything Congress could pass. Were it to be adopted--I believe it will not be adopted--the damage done could be reversed only if two-thirds of both Houses of Congress voted to repeal it through a new constitutional amendment. Then, of course, three-fourths of the States ratify that new amendment.

I would like to start with some basic first principles. The Declaration of Independence states that everyone is endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights that governments are created to protect. Those preexisting rights include the right to liberty.

The Constitution was adopted to secure the blessings of liberty to Americans. Americans rejected the view that the structural limits on government power contained in the original Constitution would adequately protect the liberties they had fought the Revolution to preserve. So when the people came to the conclusion that the original Constitution would not protect their liberties, the people living in the States at that time insisted on the adoption of this very important Bill of Rights.

The Bill of Rights protects individual rights regardless of whether the government or the majority approve of their use. The first amendment in the Bill of Rights protects freedom of speech. That freedom is basic to self-government. Other parts of the Constitution foster equality or justice or representative government, but it is the Bill of Rights--that Bill of Rights is only about individual freedom. Free speech creates a marketplace of ideas in which citizens can learn, debate, persuade fellow citizens on the issues of the day. At its core it enables the citizenry to be educated, to cast votes, to elect our leaders.

Today freedom of speech is threatened as it has not been in many decades. Too many people will not listen and debate and persuade. Instead, they want to punish, intimidate, and silence those with whom they might disagree.

A corporate executive who opposes same-sex marriage--the same position that President Obama held at the very time--is to be fired. Universities that are supposed to foster academic freedom cancel graduation speeches by speakers some students find offensive. Government officials order other government officials not to deviate from the party line concerning proposed legislation.

This resolution filed by the Judiciary Committee, S.J. Res. 19, is cut from the same cloth. It would amend the Constitution for the first time to diminish an important right of Americans; that is, a right contained in the Bill of Rights. In fact, it would cut back on the most important of these rights--core free speech about who should be elected to govern us.

The proposed constitutional amendment would enable government to limit funds contributed to candidates and funds spent influencing the election. That would give the government the ability to limit speech. The amendment would allow the government to set the limit at low levels. There could be little in the way of contributions or election spending. There could be restrictions on public debate on who should be elected. Incumbents would find that outcome--well, you guessed it--to be very successful because it protects incumbents. They would know that no challengers could run an effective campaign against them.

What precedent would this amendment create? Suppose Congress passed limits on what people could spend on abortions or what doctors or hospitals could spend to perform them? What if Congress limited the amount of money people could spend on guns or limited how much people could spend of their own money on health care?

Under this amendment Congress could do what the Citizens United decision rightfully said it could not--make it a criminal offense for the Sierra Club to run an ad urging the public to defeat a Congressman who favors logging in the national forest or for the National Rifle Association to publish a book seeking public support for a challenger to a Senator who favors a handgun ban or for the ACLU to post on its Web site a plea for voters to support a Presidential candidate because of his stance on free speech. That should, for everybody, be a frightening prospect.

Under this amendment, Congress and the States could limit campaign contributions and expenditures without even complying with the existing constitutional provisions. Congress could pass a law limiting expenditures by Democrats, but not by Republicans--by opponents of ObamaCare, but not by its supporters.

What does the amendment mean when it says that Congress can limit funds spent to influence elections? If an elected official says he or she plans to run again, long before any election, Congress, under this amendment, could criminalize criticism of that official as spending to influence the elections.

A Senator on the Senate floor appearing on C-SPAN, free of charge could, with immunity, defame a private citizen. The Member could say that the citizen was buying the elections. If the citizen spent what Congress has said was too much money to rebut the charge, he could go to jail. We would be back to the days when criticism of elected officials was a criminal offense during the Alien and Sedition Acts. Yet its supporters say that this amendment is necessary to preserve democracy.

The only existing right that the amendment says it will not harm is freedom of the press. So Congress and the States could limit the speech of anyone except corporations that control the media. That would produce an Orwellian world in which every speaker is equal but some speakers are more equal than others.

Freedom in the press has never been understood to give the media special constitutional rights denied to others. Even though the amendment by its terms would not affect freedom of the press, I was heartened to read that the largest newspaper in my State, the Des Moines Register, editorialized against this amendment amending the Bill of Rights. They cited testimony from our hearing, and they recognize the threat that the proposed amendment poses to freedom.

But in light of recent Supreme Court decisions, an amendment soon may not be needed at all. Four Justices right now would allow core political speech to be restricted. Were a fifth Justice with this view to be appointed, there would be no need to amend the Constitution to cut back on the freedom.

Justice Breyer's dissent for these four Justices in the McCutcheon decision does not view freedom of speech as an end in itself the same way that our Founding Fathers did. He thinks free political speech is about advancing ``the public's interest in preserving a democratic order in which collective speech matters.''

To be sure, individual rights often advance socially desired goals, but our constitutional rights do not depend on whether unelected judges believe they advance democracy as they conceive it. Our constitutional rights are individual, not collective, as Justice Breyer says. Never in 225 years has any Supreme Court opinion described our rights as collective. Our rights come from God and not from the government or the public. At least that is what the writers of the Declaration of Independence said.

Consider the history of the past 100 years. Freedom has flourished where rights belong to individuals that governments were bound to respect. Where rights are collective and existed only at the whim of a government that determines when they serve socially desirable purposes, the results have been literally horrific: no freedom, no democracy.

We should not move even 1 inch in that direction that the liberal Justices did and that simultaneously this amendment would take us. The stakes could not be higher for all Americans who value their rights and freedoms. Speech concerning who the people's elected representative should be, speech setting the agenda for public discourse, speech designed to open and change the minds of our fellow citizens, speech criticizing politicians, and speech challenging government and its policies are all vital rights. This amendment puts all of them in jeopardy upon the penalty of imprisonment. It would make America no longer America.

Contrary to the arguments of its supporters, the amendment would not advance self-government against corruption and the drowning out of voices of ordinary citizens. No, just the opposite. It would harm the rights of ordinary citizens--individually, as well as in free associations--to advance their political views and to elect candidates who support their views.

By limiting campaign speech, it would limit the information that voters receive in deciding how to vote. It would limit the amount that people can spend on advancing what they consider to be the best political ideas. Its restrictions on speech apply to individuals. Politicians could apply the same rules to individuals who govern corporations. Perhaps individuals cannot be totally prohibited from speaking, but the word ``reasonable'' is in the amendment but that word limits can mean anything. Incumbents likely would set a low limit on how much an individual can spend to criticize them; that is, incumbents protecting their office. Then the individual would have to risk criminal prosecution in deciding whether to speak, hoping that a court would later find that the limit he or she exceeded was unreasonable.

This would create not a chilling effect on speech, but, in fact, a very freezing effect.

This does not further democratic self-government. The amendment would apply to some campaign speech that cannot give rise to corruption.

For instance, under current law, an individual could spend any amount of his or her own money to run for office. An individual could not corrupt himself with his own money and could not be bought by others if he or she did not rely on outside money, but the amendment would allow Congress and the States to strictly limit what even an individual could contribute to or spend on his or her own campaign. That would make beating the incumbent, who would benefit from the new powers to restrict speech, much more difficult.

In practice, individuals seeking to elect candidates in the democratic process must exercise their First Amendment freedom of association to work together with others. This amendment could prohibit that altogether.

It would permit Congress and the States to prohibit ``corporations or artificial entities . . . from spending money to influence elections.'' Now, that even means labor unions. That means nonprofit corporations such as the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. That means political parties.

The amendment will allow Congress to prohibit political parties from spending money to influence elections. If they can't spend money on elections, then they would be rendered as a mere social club.

The prohibition on political spending by for-profit corporations also does not advance democracy.

Were this amendment to take effect, a company that wanted to advertise beer or deodorant would be given more constitutional protection than a corporation of any kind that wanted to influence an election.

The philosophy of the amendment is very elitist. It says the ordinary citizen cannot be trusted to listen to political arguments and evaluate which ones are persuasive.

Instead, incumbent politicians interested in securing their own reelections are trusted to be high-minded. Surely, they would not use this new power to develop rules that could silence not only their actual opposing candidates, but associations of ordinary citizens who have the nerve to want to vote them out of office.

As First Amendment luminary Floyd Abrams told our committee: ``[P]ermitting unlimited expenditures from virtually all parties leads to more speech from more candidates for longer time periods, and ultimately more competitive elections.''

Isn't that the goal that we should seek through the political process? Having parties led to more speech from more candidates for longer periods of time and ultimately more competitive elections.

Incumbents are unlikely to use this new power to welcome that competition.

In fact, the committee report indicates that State and Federal legislators are not the only people who would have the ability to limit campaign speech under this amendment.

It says that the States and the Federal Government can promulgate regulations to enforce the amendment. So you have unelected State and Federal bureaucrats, who do not answer to anyone, being empowered to regulate what is now the freedom of speech of individuals and entities that for 230 years has been protected by the Bill of Rights. That all makes a mockery of the idea that this proposed amendment would advance democracy and that argument is used by its proponents.

Another argument for the amendment--some voices should not drown out others--also runs counter to free speech. It also is elitist. It assumes that voters will be manipulated into voting against their interests because large sums will produce so much speech as to drown out others and blind them to the voters' true interests.

Tell that to the voters in Virginia's Seventh Congressional District. That incumbent Congressman outspent his opponent 26 to 1. Newspaper reports state that large sums were spent on independent expenditures on the incumbent's behalf, many by corporations. No independent expenditures were made for their opponent, but yet his opponent won.

That doesn't seem to be drowning out people making their own decisions in the ballot box, and it is not some undue influence that proponents of this amendment want you to believe that this constitutional amendment can do away with undue influence. Just think, 26 to 1, trying to convince people to vote for an incumbent Congressman, and he loses.

Let me say this. The exact amount of money that the winner of that primary spent was just over $200,000 to win 55 percent of that vote.

Since a limit that allowed a challenger to win would presumably be reasonable under the amendment, Congress or the States could limit spending on House primaries to as little as $200,000, all by the candidate with no obviously unnecessary outside spending allowed.

The second set of unpersuasive arguments concerns the Supreme Court decision Citizens United. That case has been mischaracterized as activist.

Again, I wish to say what Mr. Abrams testified before the committee. He said that case continues a view of free speech rights by unions and corporations that was expressed by President Truman and by liberal Justices in the 1950s.

What the Citizens United overruled was the departure from precedent. And Citizens United did not give rise to unfettered campaign spending.

The Supreme Court case in 1976, in Buckley v. Valeo, ruled that independent expenditures could not be limited. That decision was not the work of a supposed conservative judicial activist. Wealthy individuals have been able to spend unlimited amounts since then. And corporations and others have been able to make unlimited donations to 501(c)(4) corporations since then as well.

As Mr. Abrams wrote to the Judiciary Committee in questions for the record:

What Citizens United did do, however, is permit

corporations to contribute to PACs that are required to

disclose all donors and engage only in independent

expenditures.

If anything, Citizens United is a pro-disclosure ruling

which brought corporate money further into the light.

And it is this amendment, not Citizens United, that fails to respect precedent. It does not simply overturn one case. As Mr. Abrams responded, it overturns 12 cases, some of which date back almost 40 years. As the amendment has been redrafted, it may be 11\1/2\ now, depending upon what the word ``reasonable'' means.

Justice Stevens, whom the committee Democrats relied on at length in support of the amendment, voted with the majority in three of the cases the amendment would overturn. Some members of the committee may not like the long-established broad protections for free speech that the Supreme Court has reaffirmed, but that does not mean there are five activists on the Supreme Court. The Court ruled unanimously in more cases this year than it has in 60 or 75 years, depending on whose figures you use. Its unanimity was frequently demonstrated by rejecting arguments of the Obama administration.

I have made clear that this amendment abridges fundamental freedoms that are the birthright of Americans. The arguments made to support it are unconvincing. The amendment will weaken, not strengthen, democracy. It will not reduce corruption, but will open the door for elected officials to bend democracy's rules to benefit themselves.

The fact that the committee reported this amendment is a very great testimony to the wisdom of our Founding Fathers in insisting on and adopting the Bill of Rights in the first place. As Justice Jackson famously wrote:

The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw

certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political

controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and

officials and to establish them as legal principles to be

applied by the courts.

One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech,

a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other

fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend

on the outcome of no elections.

We must preserve our Bill of Rights, including our rights to free speech. We must not allow officials to diminish and ration any one of the Bill of Rights, but especially the first one, which is so important. We must not let the proposal become the supreme law of the land.

I yield the floor.

I am going to give a brief statement about corporate inversion, but before I do I wish to respond to the Senator from Texas, who is my friend, and we have served together for many years. He has taken the floor for a period of time and spoken about some of the problems facing this Nation at home and abroad and has been largely been critical of the President in both categories. I didn't arrive early enough to hear his parade of horribles when it came to domestic policy; I just caught the end of it when he suggested there was something wrong with this President because America's labor force, its workforce, is shrinking. People are giving up looking for work. Well, that is a serious concern, and we ought to ask a question: Why are they giving up looking for work? It turns out it has, perhaps, something to do with the policy of our government, but it also has something to do with the life expectancy of Americans.

I am a little older than the Presiding Officer, and I just barely missed what we call baby boomers. Baby boomers are those born after World War II when the returning soldiers and their wives and spouses sat down and said: We are going to build a family. And they did. A lot of kids were born in America. It was called a baby boom.

Guess what. Baby boomers are facing retirement age. The workforce is shrinking because they are retiring. I would like to blame Barack Obama for that, but I think maybe that is a stretch. I don't think you can blame him for the baby boom. He wasn't even around after World War II, and he certainly can't be blamed because people decide to retire. Longevity kind of suggests when that might happen.

But still in all, it is another one of the things that is ticked off: The shrinking labor pool is an indication of the failure of the Obama labor policy. No. It is an indication of the shrinking baby boomers, who are aging out and retiring--and God bless them; they are entitled to it. Folks ought to think twice about that particular criticism.

I would like to address the foreign policy side, and I do wish to put in perspective what the Senator from Texas had to say, which was a long list--going all across the world--of problems this President has either failed to fix or has created.

I listened carefully, and I always do, because critics of the President have every right to do that. That is part of democracy. But they also bear some responsibility to suggest what we should do as an alternative. Many of them said we have to be more manly, we have to stand up, and we have to show the world we are assertive. What does that mean? What are they saying?

What the President is saying is that we have to be careful that we invest American lives, American treasure, and the American military in this world in places where we can make a difference and take care not to do, as they said inartfully, stupid stuff by sending our military into places where they cannot achieve their goal and reasonably come home in a short period of time. That is the President's position.

I have not heard those on the other side be more specific when they say we have to be more assertive in America.

The date was October 11, 2002, on the floor of the Senate--and I was here. It was 12 years ago, and it was the night we voted on giving President George W. Bush the authority to invade Iraq. The rollcall took place late at night, and I stuck around afterward. There were about three or four of us left on the floor. In the final rollcall there were 23 Senators who voted no on the invasion of Iraq. I was one of them. There was 1 Republican, and the rest were Democrats--1 Independent and 21 Democrats, I should say. Twenty-three of us voted no on invading Iraq. Twenty-three of us questioned whether being assertive at that moment in history was the right thing to do. Remember, we were told about weapons of mass destruction and threats to the United States. Some of us were skeptical. The case had not been made. But we went forward.

I would like to make a note as well that even though there was a difference of opinion about the policy of Iraq under President George W. Bush after the decision was made to go forward, many of us who voted no joined in with those who voted yes to say: Now that we have made the decision, we stand together as a nation. We are going to provide for President George W. Bush the resources for these men and women in uniform so they can accomplish their mission and come home safely.

In other words, partisanship ended at the water's edge after we had made our decision. I still think that is the right course in foreign policy. Even though I voted against that war, I voted for the resources for the troop to execute it.

I thought: What if it were your son, Senator? What if it were someone you loved? Do you want them to have everything they need to get them home safely?

Of course.

I wish that longstanding tradition in Congress would return. Wouldn't it be healthy and inspiring if after a heated debate over a foreign policy issue we said: Now we stand together. The decision has been made. We are going to stand as a nation.

But instead what I hear from the other side when it comes to foreign policy issues: We are going to be critical

of whatever he does, whenever he does it, wherever he does it.

I don't think that is constructive. I don't think it speaks well of the United States. The debate is important. The debate is part of us, part of who we are as a democracy. But after the debate, let's get on with working together.

Do you remember that it wasn't that long ago when they discovered chemical weapons in Syria? The President said: This isn't just a threat to Syria; this is a threat to the Middle East and beyond. I am going to make a stand to dismantle those chemical weapons in Syria, and I ask Congress for the authority not to send in troops but, if necessary, a missile, a bomber, a fighter plane to support our efforts to eradicate this chemical weapons stockpile.

Do you remember what happened? I do. What happened was we had a debate in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a vote--a bipartisan vote--which supported the President. Then we couldn't bring it to the floor because there was not adequate support from the other side of the aisle to stand by the President when it came to dismantling chemical weapons in Syria. He went forward, working then with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and basically all of those weapons have been dismantled. When the President asked for the authority to dismantle those weapons, he couldn't get the support of the other party. That was the reality.

Now we face a new challenge, and there are those who say that if we had just been bold and assertive--and I wonder if what they are saying is if we had just shown the strength we showed with the invasion of Iraq, this might not have occurred.

Make no mistake. I am honored to chair the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. It is the biggest. Our budget is just under $600 billion a year. It is almost half of domestic discretionary spending. I have come to learn that our military is really the best in the world, starting with the men and women who serve but way beyond that--our technology, our intelligence. We have the very best, but we have learned the hard way that even the best military in the world can run into obstacles they did not anticipate.

The first time I went to Walter Reed, I visited with a disabled Iraqi veteran. He was a sergeant from Ohio who had his right leg blown off below the knee.

I said: What happened?

He said: It was an IED.

I said: What is that?

He said: Well, it is an explosive device, roadside bomb. And we were in the best military equipment in the world, and this crude roadside bomb went off and blew off my leg.

I thought to myself: I wonder, if the greatest military in the world with the greatest technology in the world can be brought to a stop by a crude roadside bomb, if we are properly evaluating war today, fighting terrorism today.

What the President is trying to do is to find effective ways to stop this onset of terrorism in the Middle East, this new round of terrorism in the Middle East, this group called Islamic State.

Why are we picking this group out of all the other terrorist groups-- and there are many of them. They are quantitatively, qualitatively different. They are the first terrorist group we know that has taken and held territory. Usually terrorist groups set off a bomb in the marketplace and they are gone. No, they take and hold territory. They capture banks--go inside and take all the resources out--so they have a treasury. Some people think they earn as much as $1 million a week off the oil wells they are controlling in Iraq. They use American equipment that has been left behind or stolen, and they engage in the worst level of savagery we have seen in modern times. The beheading of those two innocent Americans was heartbreaking--heartbreaking in one respect as I thought about their poor families and what they face, but it also enraged me to think that this group, the Islamic State, would do that to two innocent Americans, defying us and saying to us: This is just the beginning. It is a serious threat, and it is a threat to the stability in Iraq.

Here we are 12 years after we invaded Iraq, after we have lost 4,476 American lives in Iraq, after 30,000 of our troops have come home seriously injured, after we put $1 trillion more on our national debt to pay for the Iraqi struggle, and the country is virtually in chaos.

The President is saying to the American people: I want to fight terrorism, I want to do it effectively, and I want to do it smartly. I want to do it in a way where we are not sending in troops who are there for long periods of time to just be targets for terrorists. Let's use our resources and our forces in a thoughtful way.

I am awaiting a speech tomorrow night because I want to hear, as he lays this out, what he hopes to accomplish, how long we are going to be there, where we are going to be, and by what authority he is moving forward and using these military resources. Those are all legitimate questions, and it is right for the loyal opposition to raise questions about where he is going, why he is going, and what he wants to do. But for the time being, I think the American people want the President to present his case and then make their judgment as to what is fair to bring stability to this critical part of the world.

Corporate Inversion

Mr. President, when a company moves its corporate headquarters overseas, but only on paper so it can avoid paying its fair share of U.S. taxes, these companies , are called corporate inverters. But let's call them what they really are: corporate deserters.

These companies profit using roads and bridges built with American tax dollars to deliver goods to U.S. customers. They benefit from access to America's educated workforce . . . American investments in basic research . . . and American patent protections. And some have even made millions, if not billions, of dollars from taxpayer-funded government contracts and programs like Medicare.

But when it comes time to pay their fair share of U.S. taxes--the very taxes that pay America's roads and bridges . . . our colleges and universities . . . basic research . . . patent protections . . . Medicare . . . and other competitive advantages--these companies do everything they can to dodge U.S. taxes. And they have gotten very good at shirking their fair share.

Let me tell you how this corporate ``Three Card Monte'' works. First, a company in the U.S. purchases a company in Switzerland, Ireland or another country with a lower corporate tax rate. The U.S. company then files papers saying it is relocating overseas.

In many cases, almost nothing changes. The CEO and other senior executives stay in the U.S., no new headquarters are opened overseas, and up to 80 percent of the shareholders are the same, but suddenly the company gets a huge tax break.

But this is only the beginning of the story. Next, the new parent company--headquartered overseas--shifts the debts off its own books and onto the books of its U.S. subsidiary. Abracadabra: Another huge tax break, because the company can write off its debt and interests on that debt. This is called ``earnings stripping.''

Now, here is the third card in the Three Card Monte: the hopscotch loophole. U.S. corporations currently have nearly $2 trillion in foreign earnings stashed overseas. As long as they keep that money parked overseas, they can defer paying taxes on it.

But when a company ``inverts,'' the inverted company--the corporate deserter--can access the millions--sometimes billions--of dollars they I have parked overseas without paying US taxes on the money. So the ``hopscotch loophole'' gives these corporations another massive tax break. The inverted company can use the money it had parked overseas to pay back the loans it used to finance the inversion . . . or to pay dividends to U.S. investors--and pay little to no taxes.

Let me give you an example. Let's say a U.S. company wants a big tax break by inverting and purchasing an overseas company.

It doesn't have enough cash in the U.S. to buy the overseas company and it doesn't want to use the money it has stashed overseas--because once the money comes home, it is subject to U.S. taxes. So what does the corporation do?

First, it gets a short-term loan from a bank to fund the inversion. Once that transaction is complete, the company can use the money it has stashed overseas to pay off the short-term loan while dodging U.S. taxes on those overseas profits.

The result of this corporate Three Card Monte? Corporate deserters are able to avoid billions in U.S. taxes--and other folks--families and companies that are working hard to make it in America--have to pay more taxes. To add insult to injury, some of these corporate deserters have made their millions and billions off of federal contracts paid for by U.S. taxpayers--the very taxpayers who will have to pay for their tax dodging.

I'm not the only person who thinks this is wrong. Mark Cuban is a billionaire investor. Listen to this warning he tweeted to corporate deserters--quote: ``If I own stock in your company and you move offshore for tax reasons I'm selling your stock.''

Why did he say that? Because when companies move off shore to save on taxes, American workers and companies that stay in America, that believe in America, have to make up the shortfall.

That's not right, it's not fair, and we should take action to stop these corporations from dodging taxes and taking advantage of earning stripping and hopscotch loopholes.

Reducing Corporate Tax Rates Not A Solution

Many of our Republicans colleagues point to our broken tax code and say if we just reduce the corporate tax rate, it will stop companies from inverting.

They are wrong, plain and simple. Absolutely, our tax code is broken and Congress should reform it. We should close loopholes that allow some to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. We should fix the tax system so it works for hard-working Americans and for companies that want to help America succeed.

But let's not try to fool people into thinking that if we just lower our corporate tax rate the deficit will disappear and all of our economic challenges will be solved. There is no realistic tax reform proposal that would reduce U.S. tax rates to compete with Ireland, which has a tax rate of 12.5 percent, or Switzerland, with its 17 percent corporate tax rate.

This is a race to the bottom the United States can't win and should not be lured into entering.

Instead, we should immediately act to stop companies from inverting and then we should get to work on reforming our tax code. Before a doctor can perform heart surgery, she or he first has to stop the bleeding and that is what we need to do.

There are at least a dozen companies that have announced they are inverting or are considering inversion. We should act now--either through Congressional or executive action--to close the tax loopholes that allow inverters--these corporate deserters--to avoid their fair share of taxes and push their tax obligations off onto the rest of us. Once we stop the bleeding, we can turn our attention to real tax reform where and a long-term, comprehensive solution.

Senator Levin's bill would stop the bleeding by placing a 2-year moratorium on many inversions. Only inversions where no more than 50 percent of the shareholders remain the same after the inversion would be allowed to go forward.

We should also limit the damage caused by inversions by limiting the practice of ``earnings stripping''--that's the tax-lawyer's trick where you load all the debt onto the U.S. subsidiary and then write off the debt and the interest payments as a tax deduction.

That is the purpose of a bill I am introducing tomorrow (Wednesday) with Senator Schumer. Our proposal would prevent certain corporations from taking excessive interest deductions and sticking U.S. taxpayers with the tab.

Our bill would reduce the cap on interest deductions from 50 percent of adjusted taxable income to 25 percent. It would eliminate the ability of a company to carry forward any excluded interest.

It would also require the IRS to pre-approve related-party transactions for up to 10 years after these companies move their headquarters overseas to ensure greater transparency.

This bill is a targeted approach to a serious problem.

I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

There's more we need to do. I plan to work with my colleagues to develop a more comprehensive proposal to address both earnings stripping by foreign corporations and the hopscotch rule.

Foreign corporations should not be allowed to load up the U.S. subsidiaries with debt and expect U.S. taxpayers to pay their debts. Inverted corporations should not be rewarded with additional tax breaks by dodging taxes on their profits earned overseas.

These two proposals, along with Senator Levin's Stop Corporate Inversion Act, must be part of any comprehensive tax reform proposal.

Before I close, let me mention one other issue.

Some of the very companies that move their headquarters overseas in order to avoid paying their fair share of U.S. taxes then have the nerve to come back to the U.S. with their hand out asking to profit from U.S. government contracts.

Yes, that is right. Over the past 5 years, these corporate deserters have received $1 billion in federal contracts paid for by U.S. taxpayers, while avoiding U.S. taxes. This has to stop.

That is why I introduced a bill with Senators Levin and Jack Reed to ban federal contracts for these corporate deserters. There is a companion bill in the House that is sponsored by Representatives DeLauro, Doggett and Sander Levin.

This isn't a new idea. In 2008, Congress prohibited inverted corporations from obtaining any Federal contract under the annual appropriations bills, and for the most part this ban has worked.

But these companies found a loophole. That is why they pay their tax attorneys and advisors the big bucks--to find the little loopholes worth billions of dollars. We need to close this loophole so that corporate deserters aren't able to profit from taxpayer-funded government contracts.

About 50 companies have inverted in the last decade. Another dozen companies--including three headquartered in my State of Illinois--have announced that they are planning or considering inversion. If these companies want to renounce their corporate citizenship, that is their choice. I think It is a bad choice, but it is their choice.

But they should not expect American workers and other American companies to pick up the tab for them while they take advantage of all that America offers. That is not a free market. That is freeloading.

This isn't a partisan issue. Every inversion increases the burden on you and me to make up for the lost tax revenue.

I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and the President to address this important issue.

It was about 2 weeks ago that I was in central Illinois and I was heading to a forum for Senate candidates. It was put on by the farmers in downstate Illinois. I have a lot of friends there. We went off to a farm, and before we arrived I had an extra 45 minutes. I hadn't had lunch. So we were driving around Bloomington-Normal, IL, in McLean County.

I said: Let's stop and get a sandwich somewhere.

My driver said: Well, there is a Burger King.

I said: No, thanks. There is a Steak 'n Shake--which happens to be a franchise we are very proud of in the Midwest and in Illinois.

I consciously decided not to stop at Burger King. Why? Because in the past several weeks Burger King has consciously decided they are leaving the United States. This iconic hamburger chain--second largest in the world--has bought a doughnut chain in Canada, and now they want to move their headquarters to Canada from Miami, FL. Why would they move their corporate headquarters out of the United States of America, where they have most of their restaurants? To cut their taxes. It is called inversion.

If you can pick up and on paper move your corporation to Switzerland, Ireland, the island of Jersey, Canada--you name it--there are ways that accountants and lawyers have figured out how to reduce your tax burden. But, of course, as companies decide to do that, they are also making conscious decisions to stop paying U.S. taxes or avoid paying U.S. taxes--at least some part of them.

We have seen a lot of companies announce this. AbbVie, which is a pharmaceutical company in the northern

suburbs of Chicago, used to be Abbott Laboratories. AbbVie has decided they want to move overseas.

I took a look at it and thought for a moment: Interesting. A pharmaceutical company wants to move overseas.

How important was the United States to the success of a pharmaceutical company such as AbbVie, to the fact they developed drugs and products that were profitable? How important was this country to that company? I would say critically important. Companies don't usually come up with all the ideas for new drugs. They rely on the National Institutes of Health, the premier biomedical research agency in the world. The annual budget is in the range of $31 billion, and they do research which they then turn over free of charge to pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs to make money. The National Institutes of Health is supported by American taxpayers.

If a pharmaceutical company develops a new drug they think has the potential to be a blockbuster and sell a lot, there is another step. They have to go to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the FDA tests it.

If at the end of testing they come up with the conclusion that it is not only safe but effective for what it is being used for, they give it a seal of approval. It is the gold standard of safety of pharmaceuticals. The Food and Drug Administration is supported by the U.S. Government and American taxpayers. Then it is not over. There is at least one last stop. You go to the patent office to make sure you protect your intellectual property, this pharmaceutical formula. The U.S. patent office is supported by the government and U.S. taxpayers.

So here is a pharmaceutical company using research, using testing, and using protections of patents from our government that says: Incidentally, we are leaving. We don't want to pay taxes to this government. We want to reduce our tax burden to this government.

There is something wrong with this picture. Mr. President, 49 or 50 corporations have done it, and more are threatening. Take Burger King. The sale of hamburgers does not involve a great deal of research, but the product that you are cooking at your store has been inspected for safety by the U.S. Federal Government. And the place where your store is located probably is on a highway or street supported by our government.

But then there is one other element. The people who work in fast food in America are not usually paid a lot of money. Their income is supplemented by government programs such as food stamps. It turns out to the tune of about $7 billion a year. That is what taxpayers in America pay to subsidize the income of workers in fast food restaurants. So here is Burger King that is using the largess, protection, rule of law in the United States to do their business, counting on our government to step in and supplement the income of the person frying the hamburgers and serving it, and saying: Incidentally, we are leaving; we don't have any obligation to this country to pay taxes; we are going to Canada--on paper.

There is something wrong with this picture. To me, if you are going to desert this country as a corporation, consumers first ought to be aware of it. That is why I drove past Burger King. I do not care to do business with a company that does not think it owes its fair share of taxes. Because if they do not pay their fair share of taxes, other good American companies will be forced to pay more and other individuals will too.

So it is right for us to speak up now about this process of inversion and bringing it to an end. It is not just a matter of escaping taxes. There are accounting techniques. There are countless techniques which these inverted corporations can use to even reduce their corporate taxation more.

Some people say the U.S. corporate income tax is too high. The nominal rate is 35 percent. The effective rate is closer to 25 percent, and the major corporations pay in the range of 10 to 15 percent. When you look at the countries they are going to--Ireland, I believe their corporate income tax rate is 12.5 percent; the Cayman Islands, zero. So we cannot play it to the lowest denominator, play to the bottom line, the bottom corporate income tax. It is a lose-lose situation.

What we have to do is to make sure that the inversion comes with a price. I am joined with Senator Schumer. We will put in a bill later this week to talk about this whole question of inversion as it relates to the Tax Code. It is a technical bill Senator Schumer has largely written as a member of the Senate Finance Committee and asked me to join him on because of my interest on the subject. It limits the practice of ``earnings stripping''--a tax lawyer's trick where you load all the debt on to the U.S. subsidiary and then write off the debt and the interest payments as a tax deduction. The bill which I will introduce with Senator Schumer is designed to prevent corporations from taking excessive interest deductions and sticking U.S. taxpayers with the tab. There are other parts of that bill.

I believe the Tax Code should be written in a positive fashion. It is not positive in our Tax Code to set the stage for corporations to move their jobs and headquarters overseas. In fact, we allow under our Tax Code for these corporations to deduct their moving expenses if they are going overseas. What are we thinking? Why would we create an incentive, a deduction, for taking jobs out of America? I think there is a better approach. When the time comes for tax reform--and I hope it is soon--I am going to propose that we have something called the patriot employer tax credit. Here is what it says. It is pretty simple. If your headquarters for your corporation are in the United States; if you have kept your jobs here in the United States; if at least 90 percent of your employees are paid at least $15 an hour; if you have good health insurance, according to the standards of the Affordable Care Act; if you will contribute at least 5 percent of your employees' earnings toward their retirement; and if you will give a veterans preference, we will give you a tax credit.

We want to reward--we should reward--and incentivize companies that build their future in America, companies that believe in America, companies that pay a decent wage in benefits to the people who work for them.

That is what should be in the Tax Code. Let's start incentivizing job building and job expansion here in the United States. Let's stop these deductions for moving jobs overseas. And let's put an end to this corporate inversion.

These folks have to realize we are not going to stand still for them gaming the Tax Code to avoid their responsibility to the country which, by and large, created the success of most of their corporations.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, this is an uneasy time in our world. There is no shortage of crises that demand our attention and our action. The President called on us last night to step up to the very real challenge posed by the terrorist group ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Russian aggression against Ukraine demands our attention. A fragile cease-fire continues between Hamas and Gaza. There is the Central American exodus to our southern border that riveted the attention of many this summer; and there is continuing negotiations to seek an end to Iran's illicit nuclear weapons program.

Behind all of this there is another and equally important challenge I wanted to draw this body's attention to for a few minutes today--the spread of a quiet and vicious virus throughout West Africa. While the Nation's attention today for good reason is on remembering the tragic events of 9/11, and the President's strategy for combating ISIS today, I would like to speak to another urgent challenge to our country and world, and that is the need to dramatically increase our support as communities across West Africa struggle to confront and combat Ebola.

I met and have spoken with Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. She is a Nobel Prize winner and impressive leader who has brought her country back from a terrible civil war and was making huge progress toward the development of Liberia. I had the honor of meeting with her here and visiting her country. In my role as the chair of the African Affairs Subcommittee, I have met few others who have impressed me as much as President Johnson-Sirleaf.

Leaders throughout this region are doing everything they can to save lives, but in my most recent communications with President Johnson- Sirleaf it is clear that Ebola is rapidly getting beyond the capacity and ability of these communities and countries to contain it and to recover from it. They need our action.

Individuals on the ground from groups such as Doctors Without Borders and Samaritan's Purse have done remarkable, heroic, and extraordinary work by putting their own lives on the line to help others, and they have borne the overwhelming majority of the risks, service, and sacrifice so far.

The news has just been announced that the Gates Foundation will contribute $50 million to this fight, which is critical, as public funds alone will not be enough to end this crisis.

Our own people, through the U.S. Government, can and must do more. It need not be the role of the United States alone to resolve this problem, but it is our responsibility to stand side by side with those working tirelessly to stop it. It is our responsibility to not just lend a hand but to help lead in ways that only we can and to use our unique capabilities to address this crisis. If Ebola's spread reveals one thing it is that we are more interconnected today than we have ever been in our human history and that disease truly knows and respects no borders. We need to continue to act, not only because we are morally compelled to help the tens of thousands who are facing an immediate threat, but also because we have a direct stake in the resolution of this crisis.

This is a manageable public health crisis that we know how to solve, but doing so requires our focus, our attention, our resolve, and our resources, tools that only the United States has.

Let me briefly outline five specific steps I believe we should take now.

First, I think it is critical the United States has one leadership point--that the White House designate a coordinator to oversee the U.S. whole-of-government emergency response. There are many ways the United States is currently helping across many agencies from the Department of Defense to the Centers for Disease Control to the State Department and USAID. Those agencies are doing great work as part of the disaster assistance response team on the ground.

At a time when the U.S. Government is also facing and addressing crises in Iraq, Ukraine, and elsewhere, I think we need one organizer, one coordinator, one responsible figure addressing this crisis who is appointed by the White House to coordinate all of our resources and all the people necessary from the U.S. Government for this growing effort. President Obama should designate an official to manage our country's response both overseas and here in the United States, including preparing us for the remote chance this virus might reach American soil.

Our ambassadors on the ground in the three most affected countries are playing the primary role in coordination right now, and they are doing remarkable work, but I will remind my colleagues in this body that in Sierra Leone there is no currently confirmed U.S. Ambassador. The nominee, John Hoover, has been waiting almost 8 months to be confirmed. This is just one painful reminder that the dysfunction of this body has prevented us from confirming nominated ambassadors to dozens of countries around the world. To be effective we need to coordinate our U.S.-based and our field-based efforts through ambassadors on the ground.

Second, we must begin to deploy U.S. military support to the maximum extent possible. Let me be clear: I don't mean combat capabilities, I mean the unique logistical capabilities of the U.S. military, their ability to deploy through their logistical capabilities. We have resources that no other country can bring to bear as quickly and as successfully as we can.

I was encouraged to hear an announcement this past week from the administration that they plan to use our military to establish a new hospital facility in Liberia to distribute equipment, to provide infrastructure and transportation support. I will admit I am concerned it will take weeks to deploy.

On my visit to Liberia last August, I was struck at how poor and underdeveloped this nation of brave and inspiring people currently is and how paved roads and the ability to move at any speed rapidly ends just a few miles from the capital, and how strained the infrastructure and the public health systems are by this rapidly growing crisis.

This is not everything we can and should be doing. We need to build more field hospitals for civilians in Liberia and beyond so there are facilities for health workers and civilians fighting the disease. We also can and should provide airlift of supplies from private donors.

I have heard from organizations that have worked at the transportation facility and have donated supplies that can fill cargo plane after cargo plane, but they are having difficulty getting it from here to West Africa. We need to deepen our coordination with foreign militaries. Other Nations possess similar advance capabilities, as we do, and we will be able to combat this crisis more effectively if we all work together.

I appreciate Ghana's efforts and partnership as it allows us to use some of their facilities as an air bridge for logistics. As more air resources are poured into this fight against Ebola, we need other countries in the region to lend a similarly open hand.

My third point is directed to our private sector, to international organizations, to the American people, and to citizens of other developed nations. We need your support and your generosity and we need it now.

This is a letter that Liberia's President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf sent to President Obama this week, and I wish to read from it briefly.

Mr. President, as you know, the outbreak has overwhelmed

the containment and treatment measures we have attempted thus

far.

Our already limited resources have been stretched to the

breaking point and, up to now, only a private charity,

Medecins Sans Frontiers, has responded robustly in all the

affected countries. But they, too, have reached their limits.

My friend President Sirleaf is right: It is time for the rest of us to step up.

The World Health Organization has issued an Ebola Response Roadmap that calls for $490 million and more than 10,000 additional health workers, and we are far short of reaching those goals today.

So far the U.S. Government has contributed more than $100 million and has announced a commitment of another $88 million that we in this body will hopefully approve before we end this session.

The Gates Foundation, as I mentioned, has also made an impressive and incredible addition of $50 million, but the fact remains we need more.

I have heard from many in my State and across the country eager to give support. If you have the means, I urge you to go to usaid.gov/ ebola for links to some of the impressive nongovernmental organizations that are doing what they can on the ground to stem this humanitarian crisis.

As much as this crisis needs money and equipment and supplies, it most importantly needs nurses and doctors, paramedics, and other medical professionals--literally thousands of them. The health systems of these countries, which were already among the least well resourced in the world, are overwhelmed, and so I am asking today for your help. We are asking for you to save lives. If you are a trained medical professional and willing to help, I urge you to please go to usaid.gov/ ebola and consider how you might serve to help in this crisis.

Fourth, we need to develop and deploy a treatment and vaccine as rapidly as possible. Here is where in some ways America's unique gifts, our talents, and our strength in terms of the development and discovery of new pharmaceuticals, of new treatments, and of a new vaccine are a unique contribution we can make.

American scientists are making progress on both fronts, but the reality is it will be hard to confront and ultimately end this disease in the long term without either. Much of the $88 million President Obama has requested from Congress will go toward this most important goal. It is critical we support that funding in this Chamber on a bipartisan basis and prepare for the reality that this is only the first investment we will need to make to quickly develop and deploy these lifesaving drugs and these critically preventive vaccines.

Lastly, we need to invest in the governing and economic institutions in the countries that have been so devastated by this disease.

It is not a coincidence that this outbreak has emerged in countries with some of the weakest health care systems on Earth--countries that face severe shortages of health care workers, labs essential for testing and diagnosis, clinics and hospitals required for treatment, and the medical supplies and protective gear such as latex gloves and face masks that are commonly available in the United States but are now completely exhausted in the countries of Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia.

We know how to combat this disease with practices such as isolation, meticulous infection control, good public health and burial practices, case investigation, and contact training. But all of these things require trained personnel and many more resources than are currently available.

In the short term we absolutely can fill many of these gaps with the additional resources I have just outlined but we need to act quickly. In the long term we need to think more deeply about why investing in local health care systems and institutions in the developing world is so critical, why a little preventive investment can go a long way toward making the country more resilient in a crisis such as this.

As we act now to do what we must to stop Ebola, we also must consider the actions we can and should take together to prevent the next public health crisis.

To that end, yesterday I introduced a resolution in the Senate with my colleagues Senators Menendez, Flake, Durbin, and Corker, outlining some of these very steps and recognizing the severe and real threat the Ebola outbreak poses to West Africa and, if not properly contained, to other regions across the globe.

Here is the bottom line: We have what it takes to halt the spread of Ebola in West Africa and to save tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of lives in the process. Unlike other foreign interventions, doing so will take neither bullets nor bombs but rather our willingness, our compassion, our generosity, and our determination to act. The lives of thousands and the stability of entire countries is at stake. It is my hope and prayer that we will rise to this occasion with everything we have.

ISIS Strategy

Mr. President, I have come to the floor this morning to speak about our military's critical mission to defeat and degrade the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, a terrorist organization that threatens the stability and security of tens of thousands across these two nations.

As we consider more deeply involving the U.S. military into a new combat mission, I am reminded of the brave young men and women who will carry out that mission with unparalleled courage and professionalism.

This past Saturday I had the opportunity to join hundreds of fellow Delawareans to welcome home and celebrate 70 men and women of the 3rd Battalion of the 238th Army National Guard Aviation Regiment who were returning from 1 year of service in Kuwait. Many of them were returning not just from one tour of duty but from what was their second or third deployment, having previously served in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet these volunteer citizen soldiers were and remain willing to continue serving. I have had the honor of knowing several current and former members of this unit, and my heart was heavy this weekend, thinking about how many more units such as these, how many soldiers and airmen and their families will be asked to continue serving in combat or in distant and difficult places supporting combat missions in the years ahead.

After more than a decade of conflict in the exactly 13 years since September 11, 2001, I know Americans are tired of war. I know we are weary of war. As the President spoke last night, it was clear he is as well, as am I.

But I would challenge my colleagues and my friends, as I challenge myself, that though we are weary, we cannot ignore the very real threats we face today. We cannot ignore the brutal events that have taken place in northwestern Iraq and in eastern Syria. We cannot ignore the threat that brutality poses to America and our allies. ISIS is a brutal terrorist organization. It has killed innocent Americans, such as the two brave journalists, James Foley and Steven Sotloff, whom they beheaded. Thousands of innocent Iraqis and Syrians have perished at their hands, and it will continue to do so unless the world comes together to stop it.

Let us not forget, one of the biggest reasons we first acted against ISIS militarily in Iraq this summer was to prevent the imminent genocide of a religious minority, the Yazidi people in Iraq. Images of tens of thousands of Yazidis and Christians who were being hounded and persecuted and threatened by ISIS and who then ultimately retreated to the top of a mountain I think transfixed the American people this August, and the action our President took and our military executed, to allow them to safely flee, encouraged all of us to know there are times and places when American military might can and should be used for good.

Just as the ISIS terrorists threaten the Yazidis, they too threaten the very survival of Christians, Kurds, Turkmen, and other ethnic and religious minorities in the region.

Last night, with my Republican colleague Senator Kirk, I cochaired the first meeting of the Senate Human Rights Caucus. We heard from representatives from Iraq's minority communities in a conversation that focused on ISIS's atrocities against innocent civilians simply because of who they are or how they worship. As we expand our campaign against ISIS, we must continue to engage with the people of Iraq and Syria and the region to learn from the past and continue to prevent massacres of innocent men, women, and children. ISIS is a group

bent on the destruction of all people, of whatever background or religion, who do not subscribe to their hateful ideology.

Our President is right. What makes the United States a global force for good is that we are still willing to do what is hard because we know it is right. That is the responsibility that comes from being a nation uniquely founded on principles of freedom, of liberty, of justice, and of having built one of the most capable and powerful militaries in the world, of being a nation and a people born of immigrants who came from all over this world and who remain connected to it and touched by the things that happen in the far reaches of our globe.

Last night President Obama addressed our Nation to make the case for expanding military action against ISIS. Already, sadly, today there are critics of his strategy, just as there have been over the past few weeks. In fact, in the 4 years I have served here, I have rarely seen a day in the Senate when the President isn't challenged, criticized, blocked, and harried by his opponents. There is always some way he could have acted more quickly or with more strength. Critics claim we would be better served by a sterner tone or a more eager finger on the trigger. I must say I was struck when former Vice President Cheney this past week criticized President Obama's restraint, as he has throughout President Obama's tenure. I remind my friends we can do better--we could do better--than to listen to the voices of those who misled this country into war in Iraq a decade ago, especially when it is clear they have learned none of the lessons of that tragic strategic blunder. Surely, as we consider carefully taking expanded military action now, we should applaud our President for proceeding with caution and humility.

Critical to our current strategy and what sets it apart from some past actions is this fact: We are not going alone. Seeking to lead a multilateral coalition is not leading from behind. It is not weakness. A muscular multilateralism is recognizing we are an indispensable nation, we are a leading nation, but we are not the only Nation that should take on and tackle the challenge ISIS presents. Much of the allure of ISIS is the illusion they have created that the Muslim world is at war with the West, when the truth is ISIS does not reflect or represent Islam and ISIS has killed more Muslims than any other people. The President's strategy of building a broad coalition of support, including across the Arab and Muslim world, is crucial to our success.

This is not just an American problem, it is a regional and global problem, and it will not be solved without the hard work of those living in the communities and countries most at risk, most affected, most harmed by ISIS.

We cannot and should not do this alone. That is the only way this works. It is a critical reason I support the President's strategy for expanded action.

Central to this strategy's success is our military action as well as diplomatic resources and pressure. Let's remember one of the reasons this has even happened is because of the abject failure of Prime Minister Maliki and his Iraqi Government to act in a pluralistic, inclusive way, as he had pledged he would, and has instead acted more as a Shia warlord over the last few years, sewing the seeds of dissent and of disconnection with his Sunni citizens that created the very vacuum into which ISIS has charged.

That is why this administration's diplomatic efforts to build an inclusive Iraqi Government--to demand an inclusive Iraqi Government-- have been so important. We cannot defeat ISIS without Iraqis working hand in hand on the ground, and that requires a united Iraq whose future every Iraqi has a stake in preserving.

As we deepen our involvement, it is also necessary that we broaden our strategy. The fact is we cannot defeat ISIS by attacking it in Iraq alone. As we hit ISIS from the air, we also need to be cognizant of the fact that most of its strength and support is in Syria and that the boundary line dividing Iraq from Syria is today on the ground largely a fiction. So we need in Syria a strong and a moderate and an armed and a trained Syrian opposition ready, willing, and able to fight ISIS on the ground.

The President referred last night to our successful counterterrorism strategy in several places in the world. Let me, as the cochair of the African Affairs Subcommittee, briefly mention ways in which this strategy in Syria is similar to what our strategy has been in Somalia in combating al-Shabaab, a deadly Al Qaeda affiliate, which has governed, ruled, and terrorized much of Somalia over the past decade. There has been a similar strategy to the one articulated last night, where the United States has combined training, equipment, logistics, and tactical support with an African ground force drawn from Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia, where those troops have done the hard work of retaking and holding territory while the Somali Government and security forces get reestablished.

In the case of Syria, Saudi Arabia has just stepped up and agreed to provide the facilities, the funding, and the space to train and equip Syrian coalition fighters.

In Congress, we must act swiftly and decisively to support that training and equipment mission that the President has asked us to support by granting our President the authority and funding he needs.

Air strikes could happen soon, and we cannot make the mistake of taking out ISIS while giving Bashar al-Assad, the dictator who still terrorizes Syria, the opportunity to rush in. By helping build a cohesive, trained, and equipped moderate Syrian opposition, we can help prevent the expansion of ISIS and the Assad regime.

In the long run, in Syria and in Iraq, it is Syrians--moderate Syrians--who must retake their country from ISIS and undertake the very difficult and daunting challenge of rebuilding a stable and inclusive and hopefully someday peaceful society, after decades of dictatorship and more than 3 years of a withering civil war. The United States and Syria's neighbors and the entire international community need to be invested and engaged to help them along this difficult path.

We need to be direct with the American people. This is not going to be easy and it is not going to be swift. We must ensure our military has the resources it needs to carry out this mission. As President Obama said last night, the lives of brave American pilots and servicemembers will be put at risk. But we must also be clear. In their courage and service, they will be part of an important effort to eradicate from this Earth one of the greatest threats currently walking the planet.

Last night President Obama asked for the support of the American people as our Armed Forces and our partners begin in combination to carry out this mission. Let me say, he has mine. I am committed to working with my colleagues as later today all Senators attend a classified briefing, an update on ISIS, and as next week committees in this Senate hear testimony from Secretary of State Kerry and Secretary of Defense Hagel. I am committed to working with my colleagues and with Chairman Menendez on the Foreign Relations Committee to review, consider, draft, and approve an authorization for the use of military force when submitted to us by the President that gives Congress an appropriate role in oversight and the President the authorization he needs.

We need to do everything we can together to ensure that ISIS will be stopped. It has already shown itself, demonstrating its capability to commit unspeakable crimes. If left unchecked, these terrorists will spread their reach beyond our ability to stop them. We cannot let that happen. As my colleagues discuss and debate this mission, I only ask that we leave the politics of the moment out of it. With an election soon upon us, the temptation is strong to use every opportunity to achieve any short-term partisan advantage. But this is too important. Too much is at stake.

Today all over this country we call to mind and honor the sacrifices of Americans who served and those who lost their lives 13 years ago today. We must consider this new mission with the utmost gravity, humility, and caution. I am eager then to work with my colleagues here in the Senate and with the administration in a bipartisan way as we move forward to take on the difficult task of defeating ISIS and strengthening the forces of inclusion

and moderation in Iraq and Syria. I urge my colleagues to work together to support this mission every step of the way.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin.) The clerk will call the roll.

Madam President, may I ask that at the conclusion of Senator Walsh's remarks I be recognized?

Madam President, before I given my ``Time to Wake Up'' speech, I want to react to something that was said on the Senate floor about this joint resolution to correct the error of Citizens United. What was said on the floor was that the position of those of us who support this joint resolution and who think Citizens United was wrongly decided, that our position is an attack on the First Amendment, that we are attacking the First Amendment. That may have some rhetorical utility, but it is simply not accurate.

The very question we are here to answer is whether the First Amendment properly allows unlimited corporate spending. It never did. It never did until Citizens United came along. So the question before this body is, Was Citizens United correctly decided?

To say we are attacking the First Amendment is to presume that Citizens United was correctly decided. You don't win an argument by presuming you are right; you win an argument by making the case why you are right.

Frankly, I have great reverence for the First Amendment, and I think it is extremely unfortunate that an argument would be made that is really nothing more than a rhetorical trick and does not respond to the gravamen of the dispute, which is whether the First Amendment should protect unlimited corporate spending when in the history of this country--until the decision by Citizens United--it never had.

Tribute to Aaron Goldner

Before I continue, I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. Aaron Goldner. He has been instrumental in helping me research and prepare the ``Time to Wake Up'' speeches, and his fellowship in my office came to an end yesterday.

Aaron earned his Ph.D. in Earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences at Purdue University. He came to my office as an American member of the Geophysical Union Congressional Science Fellow, whose research specialty was the development of sophisticated models to help build greater understanding of the past, present, and future effects of carbon pollution on our climate.

He lent his considerable scientific expertise and analysis to these floor speeches. He also did research for legislation and prepared for hearings in the Environment and Public Works Committee. Since we apparently somehow were not keeping him busy enough, he managed to find the time to publish a peer-reviewed article over the summer in the prestigious journal Nature on the climatic conditions surrounding the origination of the Antarctic ice cap.

Aaron said this week as he left that he gained a sense of humor working here, which is probably fitting for a scientist having to deal with this body in its present state.

I gained the benefit of Aaron's hard work and gracious spirit, and the Senate and the American people gained the benefit of Aaron's passion for bringing the best scientific thinking to address our greatest challenges.

Aaron is now taking his talents to the Department of Energy, where he will continue to help our government tackle these important questions. I am grateful for his service in my office and wish him the best success.

Climate Change

The 113th Congress is now winding down, an election is upon us that will decide the makeup of the next Congress, and I am here for the 77th time to say it is time for my Republican colleagues to wake up to the threat of climate change both for the good of our country and our world and ultimately for the good of their own party. No political party can long remain a credible force in our democracy if their position on one of the defining threats of our time is to deny its existence or to plead total ignorance about it. ``I am not a scientist,'' some have begun to say. Well, when it comes to interfering with women's rights, they don't say, ``I am not a gynecologist.'' But when it is carbon pollution, they say, ``I am not a scientist.'' Some would say that if you are not a scientist, all the more reason to listen to the scientists.

Look at what the scientists are saying today. The top person at the World Meteorological Organization, which knows a little bit about this area, just said:

We know without any doubt that our climate is changing and

our weather is becoming more extreme due to human activities

such as the burning of fossil fuels.

Here is the point: ``I am not a scientist'' is not the stance of a party that is ready to lead; it is the stance of a party that is beholden to polluting interests, petrified of losing the millions in polluter campaign spending supporting their candidates.

We have heard over and over during the last 6 years that Republicans want President Obama to lead. It is a familiar chorus: ``It is time to lead.'' ``Where is the leadership?'' ``Why isn't America leading?''

One of my Republican Senate colleagues put it this way:

Every American can agree that the light of peace and

liberty would benefit our world. But who will spread it if

not America? There is no other Nation that can, and that is

why, despite the challenges we face here at home, America

must continue to hold this torch. America must continue to

lead the way.

Well, on climate change we are finally leading the way thanks in large part to President Obama's Climate Action Plan and Secretary Kerry's passionate efforts. Yet they criticize the Obama administration's leadership on climate change because other countries, such as China and India, are also big carbon emitters. So Republicans want America to lead except on climate change. On this one issue they would prefer to await leadership from China or India. How convenient that is when you think of all the polluter money funding the Republicans and how badly out of step with America. Just look at the numbers. A recent Wall Street Journal poll showed--notwithstanding years of relentless polluter propaganda--that 61 percent of Americans agree that climate change is occurring and that action should be taken, and 67 percent of Americans support the administration's proposed rule to limit carbon pollution from powerplants.

Here is my personal favorite: A survey conducted for the League of Conservation Voters found that more than half of young Republican voters--to be specific, 53 percent of Republicans under the age of 35-- would describe a politician who denies climate change is happening as ``ignorant,'' ``out of touch,'' or ``crazy.'' That is the young Republican view of the Republican position on climate change.

On September 21 thousands of concerned Americans will converge on New York City for what will be known as the People's Climate March. Organizers expect that as many as half a million people will take part in this historic citizen action to call attention to the global crisis of climate change.

However you look at it, the American people are sending a message loud and clear: They want responsible leadership on carbon pollution. What is the Republican answer? Well, look at the House. Given control of the House, Republicans have already forced over 100 votes to undermine the EPA. That is even more times than they have voted to repeal ObamaCare.

Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, said last week that the Republican strategy next year will be to send the President bills they know he will veto, including approval of the Keystone XL tar sands crude pipeline, and thereby create ``shutdown by veto.''

Over here in the Senate, our Republican leader already threatens--if the Republicans win the Senate--to force onto key legislation what he called ``a lot of restrictions on the activities of the bureaucracy.'' Gee, what agency could he possibly mean? The threat is plain: Give the Republicans polluter-backed, anti-environment legislation or they will shut down the government. Again. This is the Republican version of leadership.

What about out on the campaign trail? Republicans in Congress ignore the public's call for climate action, but

are Republican candidates out there listening to the people or are they listening to the polluters led by the infamous Koch brothers? Look at how much money the polluters are spending on Republicans and take a wild guess. News flash: They are not listening to the people.

The Republican nominee for Senate in Iowa has said of climate change: ``I'm skeptical. It's been changing since the dawn of time. I'm not going to blame it . . . on the human race.''

In New Hampshire the leading Republican Senate candidate recently said that he does not believe manmade climate change has been scientifically proven. Never mind that the underlying science was first measured back when Abraham Lincoln was President.

In North Carolina the Republican nominee has referred to climate change as ``false science.''

Well, in the last year I visited Iowa and New Hampshire and North Carolina, and I saw firsthand how climate change is already affecting those States. I heard over and over deep concern about climate change. I heard about cold-weather sports and tourism threatened by warming temperatures in New Hampshire. I heard about crops threatened by shifting weather patterns and about how a booming wind power industry has emerged in Iowa. In North Carolina I heard about homes and businesses and even air bases threatened by rising seas.

If you doubt me, go to the State universities in Iowa and New Hampshire and North Carolina. They are not denying it. They are actively working on and warning about climate change. Iowa State has an entire climate science program and wants to be a ``leader in the science of regional climate change.'' The University of New Hampshire scientists told me about the danger to New Hampshire's iconic moose from tick infestations because of climate change. Researchers from the University of North Carolina, Duke University, and North Carolina State took me out on a research vessel to see firsthand the effects of climate change on North Carolina's shoreline. The home State universities are clear; it is just the polluter-funded candidates who are denying.

It is the same story across the country. Republicans running for the Senate, from Alaska to Georgia, from Colorado to West Virginia, question or outright deny the established climate science. Figure it out. Do the math. There is overwhelming consensus among knowledgeable scientists that climate change is real and being caused by humans. Denying that fact serves the economic interest of a narrow group of big-spending polluters, and the polluters are spending vast fortunes to support climate deniers.

Senate Republican candidates even attended a secret retreat organized by the Koch brothers earlier this year and praised the Kochs' political network for helping to support their campaign--the polluter political lifeline to the Republican Party.

A lot of blame here attaches to the Republicans' confederates on the Supreme Court--the five Republican-appointed Justices who kicked open the floodgates of corporate special interest spending for Republicans in the disastrous Citizens United decision in January of 2010. With Citizens United in their pocket, the polluters went right to work.

By the 2012 election cycle, the Washington Post and the Center for Responsive Politics determined that a donor network organized by the Koch brothers spent $400 million to influence that election. This graphic shows the complex apparatus the Koch brothers used to pull those political strings.

In the 2014 election cycle, the government accountability group Common Cause has tallied over $34 million in political donations already from 30 of the country's largest oil, gas, coal, and utility corporations. That does not include the dark money fossil fuel corporations have given to political groups which do not disclose their donors--groups such as the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Koch brothers own so-called Americans for Prosperity organization, or the secretive identity-laundering machine known as the Donors Trust. We don't know how much these groups have actually raised or spent on election activities, but the Koch network is expected to spend nearly $300 million on the 2014 midterm elections.

The Center for Public Integrity reported last week that the Koch brothers are sponsoring 10 percent of all ads in competitive Senate races. That is more than 43,900 Senate ads between January 2013 and last month. Americans for Prosperity alone--that Koch brothers organization--sponsored 27,000 ads. That is one in every 16 ads in all Senate races this cycle. And, of course, those polluter-funded ads make up way more than 10 percent of just the Republican ads. Why is that? Because the focus of this apparatus is on Republicans, on buying and co-opting the Republican Party as the polluters' political instrument.

The numbers are staggering. Let's be clear about one thing: Their intention is not to add to constructive debate on carbon pollution and climate change. The polluters are determined to silence meaningful debate on the catastrophic effects of their carbon pollution, and it is working. There was a lot of Republican activity on climate change until January of 2010 when Citizens United was brought down. And after that, we can't find carbon pollution activity on the Republican side. They have been buried in the threats and the promises of that polluter funding.

Well, climate denial may work for Republicans in the short run if it keeps wide open that spigot of polluter money that is funding Republican candidates. We will see how that works out. But no matter how much money the polluters pour into the Republican Party, even a Republican Senate cannot repeal the laws of science--of physics, of chemistry, of oceanography.

If they win the Senate, it is not just going to be time for them to wake up, it is going to be time for them to grow up. Being in the majority means responsibility, not just obstruction and mischief. Being in the majority means answering your country and the world, not just your polluter funding base. Being in the majority means hearing the vast majority of Americans who want U.S. leadership on climate change, not telling voters the problem doesn't exist or that America should abdicate any responsibility for forging an international solution.

Our Republican colleagues will discover, if they don't know it already--and many do know it already--that former Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was right when she recently called climate change the ``most consequential, urgent, sweeping collection of challenges we face as a nation and a world.''

Secretary Clinton went on to say:

The data is unforgiving no matter what the deniers try to

assert. . . . If we come together to make the hard choices,

the smart investment in infrastructure, technology and

environmental protection, America can be the clean energy

superpower of the 21st century. . . . This is about our

strategic position in the world, this is about our

competitiveness, our job creation, our economic growth as

well as dealing with a challenge that we ignore at our

detriment and our peril.

So the choice for Republicans stands before them: America as a clean energy superpower, leading the world, or America bedeviled with polluter-fueled political gridlock and climate denial. Their choice so far is obvious.

I yield the floor.