A resolution amending the Standing Rules of the Senate.

Mr. President, I think we are going to have a cloture vote in the early afternoon, and I wish to share a few thoughts. The nominee, Gina McCarthy, is a fine person.

I have been on the Environment and Public Works Committee since I came to the Senate in 1994. In fact, when the Republicans were in the majority, I chaired that committee, and then, as a minority, I was the ranking minority member. So I was there when Lisa Jackson was the Administrator of the EPA--someone I had a great deal of respect for. In fact, some of my Republican friends criticized me. I was the only one who really liked her because, in spite of the fact we disagreed with each other philosophically, she always answered honestly, even when it was uncomfortable for her to do so.

I remember one time I asked her a question during a hearing that was live on TV, as our hearings were at that time. We were talking about one of the cap-and-trade bills that had come up. I don't know how many we have had--10 or so in the last 12 years. I asked her: If you really believe--which I don't--that CO2 is bad, it is a pollutant and all that--if we were to pass this cap-and-trade bill, which is going to cost in the range of between $300 billion to $400 billion-- with a ``b''--would that reduce worldwide emissions of CO2? She said: No, it wouldn't.

The reason is very obvious. People hide from this. They are not honest, as she is. Obviously, if we just do this in the United States, where we already have emission controls on a lot of pollutants, but they don't do it in China and India, they don't do it in Mexico, then it is not going to reduce CO2. In fact, the reverse would be true. It would have the effect--if we only had limitations on CO2 in this country--of causing an increase in CO2 worldwide because our manufacturing base and others would go where the energy is and that would be to countries such as China where they don't have any controls on anything.

A lot of people say: Oh, well, they are waiting for us. They are going to follow our example. That is garbage. What the Chinese want to do, they are waiting, anticipating, hoping, and praying we will start having restrictions on our emissions because they know our manufacturing base will end up going over there.

Here is another thing I can remember also. One of the problems I have with the United Nations is they are trying to become independent. It just kills them every time they have to say or do something because we threaten to withhold our contributions to the United Nations. So they have been attempting for a long period of time to get themselves in a position where they are self-supporting and they do not have to be answerable to anyone or accountable to anyone. Consequently, they are the ones who started this whole global warming matter.

If you follow through, going all the way from the Kyoto convention of 12 years ago and up through all these bills, all these pieces of legislation, they are the ones, if that becomes a reality, we will have to turn to. All of a sudden they will have a source of income, so they will not have to be dependent upon the United States, which pays 25 percent of their bills, or any of the other countries.

One of the things the United Nations does and has been doing for 10 years or so--I guess longer than that--is they have the biggest party of the year in the most exotic places in the world they can find to have these parties, and they invite all the countries--192 countries-- to come to it. When they have these big conventions, the only price of entering is to agree with the concept of global warming and that you are going to start restricting your CO2. Obviously, these countries are not going to do it, but it is worth lying to be able to go to the party.

The biggest one of those parties was held in Copenhagen in 2009. At that time, Lisa Jackson was the Administrator at the EPA. Quite frankly, I don't wish to be disrespectful, but all those who attended from the United States--and I am talking about John Kerry, the President, Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, and all of them--had said: Yes, the United States of America is going to pass cap and trade. We will be right there with you.

That wasn't true and they knew it wasn't true. So I decided to go there. In fact, I went all the way there, stayed 3 hours, and came all the way back, as the one-man truth squad.

I can recall right before I left to go to Copenhagen we had a hearing and Lisa Jackson was a witness at the hearing, and I said to her: It is my feeling, as I leave to go to Copenhagen as the one-man truth squad, to let them know we are not going to pass anything over here, and since you know we can't get this done legislatively, that you are going to have an endangerment finding in the United States and then use that as an excuse to pass with regulation what you couldn't do with legislation. She kind of smiled. I could tell that was going to happen. I said: When this happens--when I leave town and you come out with an endangerment finding--it has to be based on science. So what science will you use?

She said: The IPCC. The IPCC is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the United Nations. They were formed by the United Nations. They were formed and stacked with scientists who were all preprogrammed to believe all this garbage, and they did.

Then something happened, and it couldn't have happened at a better time because it wasn't but a few days after Lisa Jackson had said we were going to be depending upon the IPCC. Here we were, preparing to pass the largest tax increase in the history of America, and doing it through regulations, which was the same thing as cap and trade, only more expensive, and it was going to be based on science and that science was the IPCC. It wasn't but hours after that when climategate came in--and all of a sudden the things we had been saying for 10 years on the floor in talking about the scientists who had been shut out of the process at the United Nations--and they were totally discredited. They had cooked their science, cooked the numbers, and climategate was the result. It was so bad the major newspapers in London characterized it as the greatest single scientific scandal in the history of the world. Now, that is a big deal.

Anyway, that went on, and then they started working on doing this through regulation since they couldn't get it done through legislation. The reason I bring that up is because during that timeframe, while Lisa Jackson was the Administrator of the EPA, Gina McCarthy, the one who is coming up for a cloture vote in maybe an hour or so, was the Assistant Administrator of the EPA in charge of air issues. What went on during that time were these huge punitive things.

We can forget about the greenhouse gases or the cap and trade they are going to be coming up with, even though that is the largest of all of them, they passed Utility MACT. MACT means maximum achievable control technology. What Utility MACT does is ask the question: What technology is out there to restrict and to reduce emissions? What technology? So what they have done in Utility MACT is put a restriction on emissions--and this was impossible technologically to achieve, but the whole idea was to run coal out of business. Quite frankly, they were able to get it through.

I remember at that time there was this little provision that isn't very often successfully used, but it is called the CRA--the Congressional Review Act. That provision says if an unelected bureaucracy that is not accountable to anyone comes out with regulations that are so onerous, so bad that it is going to be very costly and is something that doesn't make any sense, then we in the Senate and House can do a CRA--a Congressional Review Act. We have to get 30 cosponsors--30--and then we have to get a majority--51 in the case of the Senate--to pass it. I did a Congressional Review Act on the Utility MACT, which was to cost us $100 billion and 1.65 million jobs. These numbers, by the way, are not denied by anyone, to my knowledge.

So there we were, in a position to get this through. I got my 30 cosponsors and we came within 2 votes of getting it done. So the CRA is something where it does inject something to reflect the will of the people, because we

are elected by the people, and we came very close to doing it. Nonetheless, that is now a law, and there are millions of people out there--right now in excess of 1 million people--who have already lost their jobs because of that.

Boiler MACT is the same thing--maximum achievable control technology--for a boiler. Every manufacturer has a boiler. So this would do the same thing to manufacturers as Utility MACT did to coal. That involved $63.3 billion and 800,000 jobs lost.

The next was cement MACT. That would have been--here they are on the chart. Cement MACT is one that would cost $3.5 billion and 80,000 jobs. That is already implemented.

If ozone, the next one, should come up, that would perhaps be even more serious than the top 3--second only to greenhouse gases--and that would mean 2,800 counties in the United States would be out of attainment. In my State of Oklahoma, we have 77 counties. All 77 counties would be out of attainment.

I can remember when I was mayor of Tulsa, Tulsa County was out of attainment. That meant we couldn't recruit jobs, we couldn't start new industries, and we had to fire a lot of people who were working there because we were out of attainment in ozone emissions.

That had been delayed until after the election. Now that the election is over, they can go ahead with some of these they hadn't done before.

Hydraulic fracturing. I have talked from this podium I don't know how many times about the President's war on fossil fuels. It is critical. Here we are in a position in the United States where we can be totally independent of any country--the Middle East or anybody else--if we only will use our own resources, but we don't do that. We are in a position right now where we have, in the last 4 years, increased our production by 40 percent because of getting into the shale areas and the tight formations and using hydraulic fracturing to extract the oil and gas. But that is all on either State or on private land. On Federal land, because the Obama administration will not let us drill on Federal land, it has actually decreased by 7 percent. Is that possible, to increase all of our production by 40 percent except that part which is on Federal lands? Yes. In fact, that is exactly what has happened.

When they talk about hydraulic fracturing, this is something that has been regulated by the States, and there is a reason for that, by the way. The reason is my State of Oklahoma has different formations than Alaska, for example, or now with the Marcellus, going through Pennsylvania and New York. That is different--different depths. So the regulation has been very successful. The first hydraulic fracturing job was done in my State of Oklahoma in 1949, and there has never been a case of groundwater contamination in over 1 million applications of it.

Again, this gets back to Lisa Jackson. I asked her that question, when I asked: Has there ever been a confirmed case of groundwater contamination from hydraulic fracturing? She said: No, there hasn't been.

That is the kind of honesty I like in the answers we get. The only reason I bring that up is the President is trying to use hydraulic fracturing. He will stand, as he did in the joint session, and say: We have an abundance of good, clean, cheap natural gas, and that is what we need to be turning to, but we have to do something about hydraulic fracturing. We can't get to the natural gases necessary without using this technique called hydraulic fracturing. So they are trying to kill it that way.

I could go on and on--this is on this chart behind me--but the only reason I bring this up is we do have a vote coming up on a very fine lady, Gina McCarthy. But we have to keep in mind when all these air regulations were conceived, they were done when she was the Assistant Administrator of the EPA for air. These are all air regulations. So she is certainly more than just partially responsible for that. She was the engineer of all these regulations.

If we add up all of these regulations, the total figure we had--do we have it on the chart? It was the NAM that did a study that no one has challenged, where they say we now, just because of these air regulations--what we have done already exclusive of cap and trade--have lost $630 billion from our GDP and 9 million jobs have been lost.

That is how critical this is to our economy. That is how expensive it is. All these things translate into taxes. I do a calculation every year. In my State of Oklahoma, the $300 billion to $400 billion would cost the average taxpayer in Oklahoma $3,000. Yet, by their own admission, the greenhouse gas cap-and-trading CO2 would not reduce CO2 emissions at all. I am sure a lot of people have been notified by their manufacturers and businesses back home: We can't allow the increase of cost of all these regulations, so we want you to oppose it.

Two votes are going to take place today. The first is the cloture vote. It takes 60 to pass a cloture vote. The next vote, if they should be successful to have cloture, will be the vote to put her into office. That would be only 51 votes.

I hate to say this about my fellow Senators, but I know there are going to be some Senators out there who say, I will fool the people back home; I will vote against her confirmation, but I will go ahead and vote for cloture, because they have to have my vote to reach 60. So they vote for cloture, and then, to make the people at home think they are against all these regulations, they will vote against her. I am predicting that is going to happen. We will know in a couple of hours.

The second vote is not important. The only important vote is the cloture vote. The cloture vote would be the first one that comes at 2:30 today. So you are going to see a lot of people voting for cloture and then end up voting against her. That is what there is to look for.

This will be the last time I say this; tThat is if you really want to do something about the regulations and you feel she has demonstrated she will not be helpful in this respect, the one important vote is going to be the cloture vote that takes place at 2:30 this afternoon.

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

Mr. President, over the last few weeks many of my colleagues have been engaged in a very serious, very deliberate, very thoughtful attempt to deal with the issue of student loan interest rates, which doubled July 1 for subsidized loans. They have contributed significantly in terms of trying to move this issue forward to reach a thoughtful and appropriate conclusion.

From what I have heard, under their approach--the Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act of 2013--I don't think, despite the good efforts and good intentions, that they have reached the objective, which is to make college affordable for all of our students and to somehow try to prevent this tidal wave of student financial debt, which is in some cases overwhelming to so many students and families across the country. Instead of emphasizing the students, I think what they have done is just tried to shield the government from investing in those students.

The clear impact of the legislation that is being proposed is that it will increase the cost of education for students. We were in a position where we legislatively reduced the rate to 3.4 percent. We had an extension for 1 year to this July. It doubled to the previous rate in existing law of 6.8 percent.

What this proposal does is to keep the rate relatively low at first-- although it goes up a bit higher than the 3.4 percent--but invariably, mathematically, it gets very high. They have placed some caps there-- and that is something for which I salute the authors, their efforts to put caps on the different programs--but those caps are very high also.

The inevitability is that the one sure thing is that over the course of the next few years, students will pay more for higher education at a time when they can afford it less and less and at a time when we need more fully qualified graduates to take the jobs of this new century to be competitive internationally.

I think we have before us, despite all these great efforts, legislation that will shift more and more costs to students. Instead of preventing the doubling of these rates to 6.8 percent, it would gradually raise these rates above 6.8 percent. We might see 1, 2, or 3 years of rates that are relatively below that number, but inevitably, mathematically, those rates will go beyond 6.8 percent, and the caps are rather high.

High school students of today will be paying a lot more for their student loans, and their families will be paying a lot more. It will add to the debt of these students and their families. It will restrict their ability to become not only qualified workers in our economy but also the people who drive the economy, young people who buy homes, buy automobiles, and who are able, because of their skills, to earn enough to contribute not just to the productivity of the country but their own ability to make purchases and keep that engine of the economy moving forward.

There is no real guess as to what level it would go up to because now we are moving away from fixed rates and moving toward an adjustable- rate. The rates have been pegged to a 10-year Treasury bill--a rate that we know is going up. It has gone up nearly 1 percent since just May, and in this environment it is likely to continue to go up. The rate students could pay could rise much more quickly than the projections even that CBO is suggesting. It could rise because of Federal Reserve policy. If they decide to unwind quantitative easing, and in such a way that rates shoot up, then those rates could spike very dramatically.

Students and advocates have raised their voices loud and clear urging us not to take this kind of action. They have said that no deal is better than a bad deal. The people we are trying to

help are actually saying: No, that is not the kind of help we need.

With deep regret, I believe this is not the right approach going forward. What the students and advocates have asked us to do is to keep it at 3.4 percent. I have proposed legislation to do that for a year so that we could work on some of the fundamental issues that are driving costs, such as the incentives and disincentives in colleges for tuition; the issue of--which is separate but very important--how we not only provide reasonable interest rates but how we refinance all those students who are overwhelmed by debt, how they take advantage of the historically low rates of today. All of those difficult issues are being put off. I think they should be engaged, and I think we need the time to engage on those issues.

Unlike the approach of at least another year of 3.4 percent, the proposal before us would lock in about $184 billion in student loan revenue. That is in the current CBO baseline. Then there is an additional $715 million that this proposal would generate. All of that is coming out of the pockets of students and families.

Paying for college is tough. This legislation, unfortunately, could make it tougher because it would put in a permanent structure for setting student loan interest rates that could quickly result in students and parents paying more for student loans. This is not a temporary fix to get us to a better place in terms of incentives for tuition, in terms of refinancing, in terms of letting students more actively and more affordably pursue college education; this is the long term.

It is simple math. In a zero budget environment--and that is one of the principles incorporated in this legislation--reducing what students pay today means that students will have to pay more tomorrow. If we are assuming a 6.8-percent fixed rate over 10 years and we lower that rate, as this legislation does, then just do the math--it is going to have to be higher to keep it zero or neutral with respect to the budget, and that is what is going to happen. So we are going to have some relief today, but it will be followed inevitably by students who will pay more and individually have a much larger burden to bear.

I think we are in the position of taking steps that are going to make college more expensive at a time when we have to make it more affordable not only for individual families and students but for the future and success of our economy.

We are also departing from our past experience with market-based interest rates in the Federal student loan programs. This proposal also locks in historically high surcharges on top of basing the loans on a higher cost instrument. Previously we were using the 91-day T-bill, and because it was a short-term note, the interest rates were lower relative to the 10-year note. Now we are using a much higher baseline, and then we are adding historically higher premiums to that baseline for graduate students and parents. So the legislation builds in additional costs that we haven't used even when we had rates that were based on market conditions.

Under the market-based rates that were in effect from 1998 to 2006, students benefited from historically low interest rates. These rates were indexed, as I said, at the lower 91-day Treasury bill rate rather than the 10-year Treasury bill rate. As I mentioned before, we already know this 10-year Treasury bill rate is moving up.

We are making these changes from the perspective of interest rates at exactly the wrong time--at the bottom of the interest rate curve as it starts its climb up. That argues, to me--and, frankly, I think most people, if they were going to make a choice on a loan today, would try to pick a fixed rate, even if it was a little higher than the introductory rate on a variable loan, because of the experience of the last several years and because of what they are seeing all around them--rising interest rates over time.

This year, borrowers who are repaying these loans--I am talking about the loans that were made in that period of time, 1998 through 2006-- have an interest rate of 2.35 percent, and over the last 5 years their rate averaged 2.41 percent. They have benefited from the declining rate. They have benefited from the huge expansion of Federal Reserve quantitative easing. They have benefited from an economy that slowed down, ironically, so that interest rates were falling. Now we are on the other side of that curve, and students won't benefit from the market rates. They will actually see higher rates as we go forward.

We offered these rates in the context of the old program where we had to also subsidize banks. Today, I would think, with the banks out of the picture and with the government, through direct lending, doing the lending, we should be able to find a solution where we can actually lock in much lower rates for students. This is the kind of solution that will take time--the time, I believe, that we could have spent and should spend by extending the 3.4 percent rate another year and looking creatively and thoughtfully at a whole spectrum of issues but with the goal of trying to give students and families the assurances that they can afford college and also that college will be affordable in the sense that the cost of college will start coming under some type of control. That takes a lot of work, and we are not doing that work today. Instead, under this proposal, we are adopting a rate structure permanently that, because of where we are in the economy, will invariably mean that students will pay more and more each year.

I have mentioned before that because of the great effort of some of my colleagues--Senator Manchin, Senator King, Senator Alexander, Senator Burr, Senator Durbin, and Chairman Harkin, I could go on and on--there have been some improvements made in the initial version of this legislation, particularly caps on individual loan programs. Those caps are very high. Under the new proposal, the cap for the undergraduate loans is 8.25 percent, and then there are caps that go all the way up to 10.5 percent. Again, let's step back here. We are putting a cap at those levels because there is a reasonable expectation that we will reach those levels. As a result, we are going from the current law, which is 6.8 percent, to as high as--in some cases for parent loans--10.5 percent. This is a huge swing not in favor of the students but to their disadvantage.

This is why I am working on an amendment, which I hope to offer, that would put the cap at 6.8 percent for all Stafford loans and at 7.9 percent for the parent PLUS loan.

Again, if we are looking at a fixed rate of 6.8 percent and we can't do better than that 2, 3, 4, 5 years from now, we have to ask ourselves whether we really need to make these changes or whether we should make these changes.

If we adopt the amendment I propose, at least we are telling parents they won't be worse off than current law and they will be better off-- because of interest rates at the moment--in the next several years. I hope we can do that.

We are looking at Federal student loan debt that is over $1 trillion. This can only mathematically increase that debt. We should be investing in our students, giving them the benefit of relatively low-cost loans so they can go to school, get on with their lives, and get our economy moving again.

This is also an issue that goes to one of the core issues we face as a country, and indeed it is a core issue across the globe--the growing inequality of income and, in a sense, opportunity in our country and countries across the globe.

In the United States, the great engine for opportunity has always been education. If we make it more expensive, then fewer people can take advantage of it. If fewer people take advantage of it, the inequality will grow because they won't have the chance for the good- paying jobs. By the way, in a competitive global economy, we could see our position slip because we don't have these talented people.

So this is an issue that strikes not only at the technical aspects of a program, this goes to the heart of what it is that gives opportunity to America, and I believe it is education. I believe that if we make it expensive, fewer opportunities will be available. If we make it expensive, we will be less productive and less competitive.

I believe that despite the efforts of extraordinarily talented and dedicated colleagues, we can do better and we should do better. As such, I reluctantly

oppose the underlying legislation. I would at least hope we could cap it if the amendment I offered would be accepted.

I yield the floor.

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

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

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the need to invest in research to fight pancreatic cancer.

Just six percent of Americans diagnosed with pancreatic cancer live more than 5 years--6 percent.

Sixty-five percent of folks with colon cancer survive that long; 90 percent live 5 years with breast cancer and nearly every man diagnosed with prostate cancer is still living after half a decade.

Why is pancreatic cancer a different story? It is because we do not have a reliable way to detect this deadly disease in its earliest stages.

As a result, nearly 40,000 Americans will die from pancreatic cancer in 2013. But despite being a leading cause of cancer death, pancreatic cancer receives far less support--and far fewer research dollars--than other forms of cancer.

This must change because support for cancer research saves lives.

Supporting pancreatic cancer research will lead to breakthroughs in treatment. It will lead to needed advances in early detection. And it will show the American people that we are serious about saving the lives of their closest family and friends.

For Leigh Enselman, it will make it clear that we are standing with her and her mother.

Leigh lives in Bozeman, MT while her mother, who suffers with pancreatic cancer, lives in Seattle.

Leigh works hard to support her mom during chemotherapy and radiation treatments. She also volunteers her time to support pancreatic cancer patients and raise awareness about the disease.

But Leigh worries what is in store for her and her mom. She prays every day that her mom will be among the 6 percent of pancreatic cancer patients who survive.

Myra and Ed Pottratz from Great Falls, MT know what Leigh and her mom are going through. Together, they are fighting Ed's cancer. Ed recently had surgery, but the tumor spread to his liver. He now faces painful chemotherapy treatments, something far too many cancer patients experience.

Supporting pancreatic cancer research will also honor the life of Lanny Duffy of Darby, MT.

Lanny and his wife Deborah were not born and raised in Montana. They came west from Chicago so in retirement Lanny could be closer to his beloved fly fishing. But Lanny was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and he only got to enjoy the State he loved for a year before the disease took his life.

Congress took a big step forward last year to support folks such as Leigh, Ed and Lanny. We passed the Recalcitrant Cancer Research Act. This bill--supported by a bipartisan majority--increased research into pancreatic cancer. It gave the National Cancer Institute the tools it needs to tackle this lethal disease.

But the sequester is taking back our promise. The sequester cut funding to the National Institutes of Health--which does most of our country's research into this form of cancer--by 5 percent.

That 5 percent cut eliminated 250 million dollars-worth of funding for cancer research.

Talk about sending mixed messages. One moment, we are telling Leigh and her mom that we're fighting cancer with them. The next moment, we are telling them they are on their own.

Just last week, the Senate Appropriations Committee restored the funding that was cut by sequestration so NIH could beat pancreatic cancer. This is my first year as a member of the subcommittee that funds the NIH. It has been an honor to work with Chairman Harkin to ensure that the NIH and medical research all over the country is well funded by this bill.

But this measure--which I wholeheartedly support--has a long way to go before becoming law.

We need to rein in our spending. We need to get our budget in order. But we cannot hurt our neighbors in the process. We owe that to people like Leigh, and Ed and Deborah. For their sake, we need to find a responsible solution to our budget problems.

Folks around the country are skeptical right now in Congress' ability to make smart, responsible decisions.

And cutting funding to fight deadly diseases like pancreatic cancer only adds to their frustration. That is because they know it will slow down the progress we have made toward detecting pancreatic cancer early on and saving lives.

This disease touches me and my office personally. Two members of my office have lost relatives to pancreatic cancer. Chances are I am not alone in this regard. Chances are each of my Senate colleagues knows a Leigh, an Ed, or a Deborah.

In support of those we know, those we've met, and those we love, I urge my colleagues to support increased research into pancreatic cancer, to support the Appropriations Committee's recent NIH budget plan, and to stand for smart and responsible measures to balance our budget.

Government Surveillance

I also want to talk about the need to protect our civil liberties and our Constitutional rights. When I joined the Senate in 2007, I was a bit of an outlier. But I am not referring to my status as the only working farmer in the Senate or to my haircut.

I am referring to my opposition to the Patriot Act.

Montanans elected me to the U.S. Senate after I made it clear that I didn't just want to fix the Patriot Act, I wanted to repeal it. I still do. But recent events have focused many of us in the Senate on my concerns with the Patriot Act and some parts of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or FISA.

A recent national survey reveals Americans are shifting in favor of reining in government surveillance programs. In fact, since 2010, nearly twice as many Americans say government spying is going too far and restricting our civil liberties.

Folks like me are now mainstream. Support for repeal--or at least changes--to the Patriot Act is up among both Democrats and Republicans.

As a result, more Members of Congress are expressing their concerns about the extent of the government's spying programs, and the Nation is finally talking about how to fundamentally balance our civil liberties with our national security.

Of course, the recent NSA scandal is at the heart of Washington's newfound interest in standing up for our civil liberties. And lawmakers should be outraged, because the secret collection of our phone and internet records is a perfect example for what happens when government ignores our Constitutional rights. We didn't need Edward Snowden to tell us the Federal Government is circumventing our Constitutional rights.

Whatever one thinks of Edward Snowden--and I think what he did was wrong and hurt our country--the reality is that he was not blowing the whistle on illegal activities. He disclosed information about programs that were perfectly legal.

And that is the problem. The NSA is using bad laws to undertake massive data collection on American citizens.

Just over 2 years ago--here on the Senate floor--I said the Patriot Act is compromising the very liberties and rights that make our Nation great and respected around the world.

At that time I said the Patriot Act gives our government full authority to dig through our private records and tap our phones-- without even having to get a judge's warrant.

It did not take rocket science to figure it out, it is in the law.

And now it is time to have a full, open debate about the Patriot Act and the FISA amendments.

The Patriot Act is an invasion of privacy. The FISA Amendments Act is no better.

Both are an affront to our freedoms, and--to me--they raise constitutional questions. I am not a lawyer, so I do not know if they are unconstitutional. But I can tell you that they do not represent the values and the privacy rights of law-abiding Americans.

That is why I have voted to repeal it. And it is why I voted against extending the FISA Act in December.

But we can not go back in time. We can only move forward and take action now to better balance our civil liberties with our national security.

To get our intelligence policy back on track in a way that is true to our values, here is what we need to do:

First, we have to fix our laws. We need to do more than just put the government's spying programs under the microscope and we need to rein them in.

That is why I am also supporting a bill that makes it harder for the government to obtain phone call records and forces Federal officials to prove that sought-after records can be linked to a foreign terrorist or group.

The Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote this bill. I certainly would not call the senior Senator from Vermont an outlier.

We must have increased transparency and accountability about how these programs are being implemented and why they are being run the way they are.

That is why I joined with one-quarter of the Senate to call on the Director of National Intelligence to justify the collection of Americans' phone and personal information. It has been 3 weeks, and we have not gotten a response yet.

We need answers, and they need to be truthful.

That is also why a bipartisan group of Senators has once again introduced legislation to declassify important Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinions.

Americans deserve to know what legal arguments the government is using to spy on them, and this bill will do just that.

We need a functioning Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Board is charged with making sure national security measures do not violate the rights of law-abiding Americans. For years, seats on the panel sat empty.

But soon after I called on the panel to investigate the NSA, board members found themselves at the White House meeting with the President.

That is a good thing. And they need to continue to have the access and the ear of the President to do their job effectively on behalf of the American people.

It is a new day. Times are changing. The American people are taking a hard look at what Federal officials are doing in the name of national security, and what it means for them and their families. The question is whether this body will live up to the American people's new expectations.

After the attacks of September 11, Congress approved the PATRIOT Act and our Nation went to war. We stamped out Al Qaeda cells and put terror on its heels around the world.

Then and now, our military and intelligence communities performed bravely. They are better trained, stronger, smarter, and more effective than any other force on the planet. I thank them for their service. From top to bottom, I thank each and every one of them for doing their difficult jobs each and every day.

Congress did not give our intelligence community a blank check to walk all over the constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans and Montanans. I am confident American citizens can be kept safe without snooping around in our private lives.

Americans and Montanans are concerned about the government right now. They have seen the recent news about the government missteps, overreach and scandals and wonder where Washington's priorities lie. They wonder whether anyone is looking down the road to see where this country is going.

Every measure I have outlined today will help restore the balance between national security and privacy, and every one of them has strong bipartisan support.

I will keep working with Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and anyone else to defend our civil liberties and for the ideals of our Founding Fathers. Freedom, privacy, and a government controlled by the people are the principles on which our forefathers founded our Nation, and they are the principles that led Montanans to send me to Washington and represent them.

Our constitutional rights are what make us the greatest country in the world, and we cannot let them be taken away one new law at a time.

Pancreatic Cancer

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that after my remarks, Senator Reed be recognized for up to 15 minutes.

Madam President, I would like to talk about the nomination of Gina McCarthy to serve as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. I had the pleasure of meeting with her earlier in the confirmation process and talking with her at length about many important issues. She is experienced. I believe she is a good person. She has given her assurance that EPA would become more responsive--at least my interpretation of her response would be that-- and her management has been encouraging.

However, the Environmental Protection Agency appointment is no small matter. The job of EPA Administrator has the potential to impact the life of every American in both positive and negative ways. For example, in the 1970s, Congress passed the Clean Air Act. It focused on pollutants. We were talking about NOX and SOX, sulphur oxide, nitrogen oxide, particulates, things that adversely affect the health of Americans.

At that point in time, we had no dream in our mind of a problem-- global warming--that might arise and become a big issue in the future, nor did Congress have any inclination that carbon dioxide, plant food, that product in the atmosphere that plants take in and breathe out oxygen--we breathe in oxygen and out CO2--would be declared a pollutant.

By a 5-to-4 decision, the Supreme Court seemed to declare that, although it was not absolutely mandatory, EPA could regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act. EPA has seized that authority. They say that, for example, CO2 is a pollutant. Congress has never voted to declare CO2 a pollutant. I believe it is a stretch and an abuse of the Supreme Court's authority to interpret the law we passed in the 1970s as including that.

If CO2 is a pollutant, as the EPA now assumes and asserts it is, every backyard barbecue, every lawnmower as well as every factory and plant in America is subject to their control because they are required to limit and control pollutants. This is how things happen in America.

So we have an unelected bureaucracy, the Environmental Protection Agency, virtually unaccountable to the public, often refusing steadfastly to produce reasonable answers to inquiries put to them by the Congress. They dictate matters that impact every person in America. It is an awesome power. It is something too little discussed in America.

I am going to talk about another subject briefly. I understand Ms. McCarthy and her experience. She is going to be elevated now from EPA's Air Office, where they have been hammering coal, hammering natural gas, and other fuels, carbon fuels, in their regulations to a degree that it is driving up the cost for every American to obtain energy, their electricity, their automobiles, and the heating in their homes.

I wish to focus for a few minutes on a central problem at the EPA: its disregard for Congress, the law as written, and the use of unlawful agency guidance.

Agency guidance. These are documents they issue to effectively rewrite the law in a way that favors the administration's policies and political agenda. That is what we are seeing too much of. People say: Oh, they just do not like the EPA. All of these complaints from farmers and businesses, it is all just overreaction. Those are guys who want to pollute the atmosphere and the farmlands and do all of these things. They are not reasonable people.

Most Americans are not dealing face-to-face with the guidance, the regulations of the EPA officials who attempt to dictate so much of what they do. There is perhaps no better illustration of the dynamic than in the context of the administration's effort to grasp control over every ditch, stream and creek and pond in the country.

We actually had a vote on this issue in May during the debate on the Water Resources Development Act. I joined with my colleague Senator Barrasso in introducing an amendment, the Barrasso-Sessions amendment No. 868 to the Water Resources Development Act. A clear majority of the Senate, 52 Members, voted for our amendment that would stop EPA from implementing an agency guidance document that would vastly expand the Agency's jurisdiction over the Clean Water Act.

So they issue a guidance, direct it to all of their subordinates, and tell them how the law is to be enforced. So actually it becomes a new law; it becomes the effect of an actual statute. First, the problem with what they have been doing is it is contrary to the plain reading of the statute, the Clean Water Act.

This law, enacted in 1972, requires a Federal permit for activities impacting navigable waters--navigable waters. That is what is in the statute, which Congress has defined as waters of the United States. EPA's guidance document broadly interprets this term--broadly interprets it and would give Agency employees throughout the country the authority to make case-by-case determinations with virtually no jurisdictional limits whatsoever.

I recently asked Ms. McCarthy about this issue. She did not detail her views. She would not answer specific questions.

The Supreme Court has ruled several times on the meaning of this jurisdictional term, most recently in its 2006 decision, just a few years ago, Rapanos

v. United States. That 4-1-4 decision--which, I think the Chair did not often see in her State when she was attorney general, not often did I see that, a 4-1-4 decision. The Supreme Court held that the Army Corps of Engineers overreached by asserting jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act over nonnavigable wetlands in that case.

On behalf of the four-member plurality comprised of Justices Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, Justice Scalia wrote that ``waters of the United States'' include nonnavigable wetlands only if there is an ``adjacent channel [that] contains a . . . relatively permanent body of water connected to traditional interstate navigable waters.'' That is stretching it pretty far, is it not?

So at least there is a stream that is supposed to be connected to some navigable water. Further, Justice Scalia concluded ``the wetland has a continuous surface connection with that water . . . '' So there is at least some continuous connection to the water. It does not just dry up for most of the year and only have water in it when it rains heavily. The opinion of Justice Scalia is, to me, in line with the Clean Water Act's original meaning of the term ``navigable waters.'' The key swing vote was provided by Justice Kennedy, who joined Justice Alito, making five votes and remanding the Army Corp's decision in that case but under a different interpretation of ``waters of the United States.''

With Justice Kennedy's concurrence, five of the nine Justices rejected the idea that the EPA and the Army Corps have unlimited jurisdiction over anything wet in the United States. As a result, in 2008, EPA, under the Bush administration, issued a guidance document explaining the Agency interpretation of ``waters of the United States'' in light of the Supreme Court decision. That document did not seek to expand the Agency's decision or change existing regulations.

Rather, in that guidance document, the Agency adopted a reasonable view that recognizes the need for a significant nexus to traditional navigable water, so a connection at least to navigable water. We call them branches in Alabama. Sometimes they dry up. They are not a navigable stream. However, soon after entering office, the Obama administration sought to replace that 2008 guidance document, expanding their power with a guidance document, even though there had been no intervening Supreme Court case. They submitted a guidance document that would vastly expand the Agency's assertion of jurisdiction and power.

A second problem with EPA's approach is that their approach is contrary to the principle of cooperative federalism, which was foundational to the enactment of the Clean Water Act from the beginning. That principle recognizes that there must be a strong partnership between the Federal Government and the States if we are to address environmental challenges.

One way the law recognizes this approach is through giving a limited role for the Environmental Protection Agency. The States have the primary responsibility for protecting water quality, not the EPA. Water is primarily to be protected by the States. This was contemplated in the Clean Water Act.

But EPA's guidance document would seek to involve EPA in a wide range of permitting actions that should otherwise be left to the States. I believe this guidance is based on a false premise that water quality is protected only by EPA--only they can be trusted, not the people who live in the States where the water is. So, finally, EPA is circumventing Congress by using a guidance document to rewrite the law.

For those reasons, I will be continuing to work on this issue. It is very important in our EPW Committee. I would urge the Senate to act to stop the power grab by EPA. As I noted, a majority of the Senate has voted for that but did not receive the 60 votes required for passage.

I am disappointed, to date, that Ms. McCarthy has not agreed to push back and back down from the aggressive bureaucratic power grab that has come to define this administration's use of EPA. There are many more problems within the Environmental Protection Agency. They are unelected. They have used powers Congress has never explicitly given them to regulate virtually every aspect of the American economy.

I hope Ms. McCarthy will do a good job if she is given this position, but she serves at the pleasure of the President. She will take her lead from him. It is quite clear he has no intention of constricting the expansion of EPA power but indeed is behind expanding it to the fullest extent he can achieve. That is very troubling.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask that the Senate resume consideration of Calendar No. 98, the nomination of Regina McCarthy to be Administrator of the EPA.

Madam President, as chairman of the EPW Committee, this is a day I have longed for for a long time. This has been the longest time the EPA has been without an Administrator in all of history. We could not have a more qualified nominee. We could not have a more bipartisan nominee.

The bottom line is Gina McCarthy has worked for five Republican Governors. She is a beloved individual. I wish to thank so many outside of this body who have weighed in on her behalf, including Christine Todd Whitman, the former Republican Administrator of the EPA, and Gov. Jodi Rell. It has meant a lot to Gina McCarthy. It has meant a lot to us who know that the EPA deserves a leader, and this woman Gina McCarthy deserves a promotion.

I will be back on the floor in about an hour or so just to make some more brief comments. But I wish to thank my colleagues from both sides of the aisle. We did avert a tough challenge for both parties. We averted that. I am very happy we did. One of the benefits of that agreement is we are having votes on people as qualified as Gina McCarthy.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, this is a very important day for the American people. We are beginning to give President Obama the team he wants to work with. I am not suggesting everyone here likes his choices, but he won the Presidency. Every President, whether I agree with him or disagree with him, or whether I agree with her or disagree with her, or whether it is a Republican or Democrat, every President deserves a team in place.

If I were to ask people how important clean air is to them or how important it is that when children breathe the air they don't wind up with asthma, I will tell my colleagues that 80 percent of them will say it is very important. If I were to ask them how important clean water is, the quality of our lakes and streams and oceans, I would say they would think it over and they would say it is pretty important. That is where we get our fish. That is where we go to recreate. That is a legacy we want preserved.

If I were to say: How about safe drinking water, do you think you ought to be nervous when you or your child drinks your water out of the tap--and, sadly, fewer and fewer people are drinking water out of the tap--I would suggest to my colleagues, knowing what the American people know and seeing how smart they are about what bacteria could be in the water, I would say they would think it very important--at least 80 percent.

If I asked them: How important is it that Superfund sites that had dangerous toxins on them be cleaned up? How important is it to clean up Superfund sites that are dangerous to the health of our children and dangerous to the health of our families? Brownfield sites that are dangerous to our families, how important is it that those responsible for making that mess clean up their mess so those sites can be restored and they can be, in fact, built upon again? I would say vast majorities would say it is very important.

If the Presiding Officer ever goes to visit a school and talks to the kids and asks them to raise their hands if they have asthma or someone they know has asthma, I guarantee too many kids will raise their hands. We know asthma is the greatest cause of school absences.

So why am I starting off discussing the EPA by raising these issues of clean air, clean water, safe drinking water, Superfund sites, brownfield sites? Because the Administrator of the EPA will be carrying out the laws that make sure our air is safe, our water is safe, our drinking water is safe, and the Superfund sites are cleaned up. That is what the Administrator of the EPA does.

For the longest time, we have had a holdup of Gina McCarthy, who was nominated by our President, not because people don't respect her and not because people don't like her. The woman served five Republican Governors, one Democratic President. She got a unanimous vote in her current position as Deputy Administrator. They did it because, frankly, I don't think they like the Clean Air Act. I don't think they like the Safe Drinking Water Act. I don't think they like the Clean Water Act. I don't think they like the Superfund Act. So instead of

going at it head on, because they know they don't have a chance to repeal those laws because the American people revere those laws, they go about it in a roundabout way: Oh, I didn't get the papers I wanted. I didn't get the questions answered. Well, how about 1,000 questions being submitted to Gina McCarthy and she answered every one.

So all of this holdup--stopping this woman from getting the promotion she deserves--isn't about her--it isn't about her. It is about the fact that they don't like the Environmental Protection Agency, even though it was created by a Republican President named Richard Nixon and supported by every President, Democratic and Republican.

Then, of course, there is the issue of climate change. There is the issue of too much carbon pollution in the air, which we are seeing the results of almost every day. The Administrator of the EPA will be carrying out the President's vision for how to get that carbon pollution out of the air, and she will be good at it.

When 98 percent of scientists tell us climate change is real, it is real. I guess 2 percent of scientists are still saying tobacco doesn't cause cancer. Well, bless their hearts, that is their right, but I am not following them, nor are the American people following the 2 percent of scientists who say tobacco isn't linked to lung cancer. And, thank God, we are seeing more and more Americans walk away from smoking. But I have to tell my colleagues, for years we had doctors paid by the tobacco industry and scientists paid by the tobacco industry to say, under oath: We don't see the connection. The tobacco officials themselves actually said that. I will never forget the sight of one after the other: We swear to tell the truth. There is no connection.

Today we had a hearing in the environment committee. It was a terrific hearing about the science of climate change. The Republicans brought forward two witnesses. They were not scientists; they were economists. They said doing anything about climate is terrible for the economy.

I have to tell my colleagues, I looked at the organizations they represented: funded by the Koch Brothers, funded by ExxonMobil. That is a fact. So this isn't about Gina McCarthy, this whole holdup where we had an agency with an acting head--a very good guy, but we need someone in this position who is going to have the gravitas of this confirmation to head the agency.

If we look at the lives that have been saved because of the Clean Air Act, and if we look at the economic prosperity that came about because of the Clean Air Act, it would shake people up. Over a 200-percent increase in the GDP as the Clean Air Act was being carried out; jobs and jobs and jobs created after the special interests told us it would be calamitous.

Do my colleagues know what we found? And we will find it out, as President Clinton just said yesterday at a ceremony where I was proud to be present. When we clean up the environment and we do it in a good way, a wise way, a way that Gina McCarthy will lead us toward, we will create hundreds of thousands of good jobs. We will bring alternative clean energies to the table that will wind up saving money for the American people.

I drive an electric hybrid car, and I hardly ever go to the gas station. It cost a little bit more in the beginning, but after a few years I had it paid for, and after that our family is saving money. I was able to put a solar rooftop on my home. Granted, it is in California where the Sun shines a lot. The fact is, in a few years, I will be reaping the benefits of it because I do not pay for electricity.

So we can reap the benefits. Instead of telling people it is going to hurt them, the truth is it is going to help them.

I will never forget when the wall came down in Eastern Europe. I visited that wall in Germany. When that wall came down, the first thing Eastern European countries did was clean up the air. People could not see. The truth is, if a person can't breathe, they can't work, period. In China, they can barely see, and they are going to undertake a huge cleanup of their environment.

So this battle about Gina McCarthy is not about Gina McCarthy; it is about the fact that a lot of our colleagues simply believe we would be better off without an EPA. If my colleagues look back at the lives saved because of the EPA, if they look at the jobs created because of the EPA, my colleagues would think, I believe--if they really looked at it without a prejudice--they would agree with the American people who support the Environmental Protection Agency in numbers that are 70 percent, 80 percent.

So to say that I am relieved we are having this vote is an understatement. I am so happy to see this moment come, when we will put in place an Administrator for the EPA who will do us all proud, who will be fair to all sides, and who will move our Nation forward in both cleaning up the environment and creating good jobs in the process.

I thank the Chair very much. I don't see anyone else here, so I note the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, I yield back all remaining time.

I understand the Republican side has yielded all time, and I would like to see us get to a vote.

I ask for the yeas and nays.