A resolution expressing the sense of the Senate regarding the need for reconciliation in Indonesia and disclosure by the United States Government of events surrounding the mass killings during 1965-66.

Madam President, many people think that Congress is irrelevant, unimportant, and wastes time with the floor speeches that go nowhere. Yesterday on the floor of the Senate something historic occurred. Standing right back here, the senior Senator from California, Senator Dianne Feinstein, delivered to Congress and to the Nation a report on the use of torture by the United States of America. Seated on this side was Senator Jay Rockefeller who, as the predecessor and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, initiated this investigation into the use of torture. Her speech, which lasted about an hour, was followed by Senator John McCain, who stood up and applauded her for releasing this report.

It is worthy of note that what happened on the floor of this Senate yesterday was an assertion of constitutional principles that goes back to the founding of this country. It was an assertion of the three branches of government and their authority, and the authority of Congress to oversee the executive branch of government, and it got down to basics. Let's remember how we reached the point where this report was put together and delivered to the American people.

I will say at the outset that before I came to this job, I used to practice law and occasionally I would go into a courtroom. I really waited for that moment when I could turn to the jury and say: I want to let you know that my opponent in this case destroyed evidence, and I want to let you know why my opponent destroyed evidence--because what was in that evidence was so terrible they would rather leave it to your speculation of how bad it was than actually to let you read it. That is what started this debate which led to

the report. What happened was the Central Intelligence Agency destroyed videotapes of the interrogation of prisoners. After it was discovered that they destroyed them, the Senate Intelligence Committee asked: Why did you destroy those videotapes? They said: Because Congress never asked for them. The Intelligence Committee said: We didn't know they existed.

At that point the Central Intelligence Agency said to the Senate Intelligence Committee: We did nothing wrong, and we invite you, through your staff and members of the committee, to review the cables and emails within the Central Intelligence Agency which prove our case. It proves we did nothing wrong.

I think the CIA was surprised and shocked when the Senate Intelligence Committee took up their invitation. It meant, I understand, 5 years of work. They reviewed some 6 million pages of information. Two staffers from the Senate Intelligence Committee sat in what they call the cave day after day after day, poring through emails and cables to try to reconstruct what happened after 9/11 when the Central Intelligence Agency was interrogating prisoners. It wasn't an easy task. It was made even more difficult when we came to learn that the Central Intelligence Agency hacked into the computers of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was a tough confrontation between two branches of government, and it is one that resulted, I think, in the right ending when Senator Feinstein, and the Senate Intelligence Committee, following the lead of Senator Rockefeller, stepped forward and produced this report.

I will reflect for a minute on how we reached this point, but first I will tell you that this report concluded that the CIA repeatedly misled senior officials in the Bush and Obama White Houses about detention and interrogation programs. The report said the CIA falsely told the Justice Department that techniques such as waterboarding helped to obtain lifesaving information that kept our country safe.

The report said the CIA detained more individuals and subjected more individuals to abusive interrogation techniques than it ever disclosed to Congress or the President. The CIA did not disclose the use of brutal interrogation techniques that went way beyond what even the torture memo of the previous administration had authorized.

It is worth noting what brought us to this point, and of course, it was the tragic, horrible events of September 11. After that occurrence, the Bush administration unilaterally decided to set aside treaties and laws that have served us in the past. President Bush's then-White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales, recommended to President Bush that the President ignore the requirements of the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Conventions were treaties that grew out of World War II and established rules of warfare to protect soldiers and civilians. These treaties were ratified by the United States of America. They are and were the law of the land.

Colin Powell, who was Secretary of State under President Bush, objected to Alberto Gonzales's recommendation. He argued that we could comply with the Geneva Conventions, fight terrorism, and still keep America safe.

Here is what Secretary Powell said at the time about setting aside the Geneva Conventions. This ``will reverse over a century of U.S. policy and practice . . . undermine the protections of the law of war for our own troops. . . . It will undermine public support among critical allies, making military cooperation more difficult to maintain.''

Today, Secretary Powell's words seem prophetic. Unfortunately, President Bush rejected Secretary Powell's advice and instead followed Alberto Gonzales's recommendations to set aside the Geneva Conventions.

Then in August 2002, the Department of Justice issued the infamous torture memo. The memo said abuse only rises to the level of torture if it causes pain equivalent to organ failure or death. The memo also concluded the President has the authority to order the use of torture even though that torture would be a crime under U.S. law.

The Justice Department of the United States also signed off on the use of torture techniques such as waterboarding. This was in August of 2002. Thanks to the Intelligence Committee report, we now know that the Justice Department's legal advice was based on false information given to them by the CIA.

I have a long history with this issue. It was almost 10 years ago that I stood at this very desk and read into the Record a graphic description of an FBI agent's record of abuse of interrogation that she witnessed at Guantanamo Bay. At the time I was criticized by members of the Bush-Cheney administration, but we now know that the description by this FBI agent was accurate, and what she described was authorized by the Bush administration based on false information provided by the CIA.

It was 10 years ago when I first authored legislation to ban cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of detainees. In June of 2004 America was shocked by the revelations about what had occurred at Abu Ghraib prison. The Bush administration told us these were rogue actions of a few bad players. I introduced my torture legislation in 2004. I wanted to make it clear that America condemned the abuses at Abu Ghraib and stood by our commitment to the humane treatment of prisoners. But what we didn't know was that the administration had approved the use of abusive interrogation techniques in CIA facilities and at Guantanamo Bay. A Defense Department investigation later concluded that these techniques migrated to Abu Ghraib.

I offered my legislation as an amendment to the defense authorization bill. I expected it to be noncontroversial. It was adopted unanimously here in the Senate; however, the Bush administration had it removed in conference.

In the fall of 2004, I tried again. I offered the same amendment to the 9/11 commission intelligence reform legislation. Again, my amendment was adopted unanimously by the Senate, and again in conference negotiations the Bush administration removed it. I didn't understand their opposition to my amendment because the United States ratified the torture convention, a treaty that prohibits cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, the same thing my amendment said.

A few months later, I had an opportunity to get to the bottom of this. Alberto Gonzales, President Bush's White House counsel, was nominated to be Attorney General. During his confirmation hearings in January 2005, Mr. Gonzales told me the administration believed they had legal authority to subject detainees to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. That was the first time that a Bush administration official had acknowledged this legal loophole. The Washington Post called that testimony ``a gross distortion of the law'' and cited it as a key reason for opposing the Gonzales nomination to be Attorney General.

After this revelation, Senator McCain asked me if he could take the lead on legislation that I had written to ban cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. I agreed. There was no better person than John McCain, who in service to the United States of America was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for more than 5 years. He had been subjected to torture because of his service on behalf of our Nation. It became known as the McCain torture amendment. Despite a veto threat from President Bush, the Senate passed the McCain torture amendment in December of 2005 by an overwhelming bipartisan 90-to-9 vote. When the President signed the amendment into law, he issued a signing statement reserving the right to ignore it if he chose.

In June 2006, in the Hamdan decision, the Supreme Court held that the administration was required to follow the Geneva Conventions in its treatment of detainees. The Court took the same position as Secretary Colin Powell had argued years before when President Bush had first decided to disregard the Geneva Conventions.

In September 2006 President Bush publicly acknowledged the CIA detention and interrogation program for the very first time.

In July 2007 President Bush signed an Executive order stating the CIA's detention and interrogation program ``fully complies with the obligations of the United States'' under the Geneva Conventions and authorizing the use of certain interrogation techniques. Again, the administration twisted the law to justify the use of abusive tactics

based on false information provided by the CIA.

In October 2007 the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on the nomination of Michael Mukasey to be Attorney General. The hearings were going smoothly until I asked Mr. Mukasey to condemn waterboarding as torture. He refused. That became the focal point of the debate on his confirmation.

On December 6, 2007, the New York Times reported that in November 2005 the CIA had destroyed videotapes showing the CIA's use of abusive interrogation techniques. The next day I sent a letter to Attorney General Mukasey asking the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into the destruction of CIA interrogation video evidence. I was the only Member of Congress to call for that investigation. In January the Attorney General opened the investigation. The CIA's destruction of these videotapes is what led to this Intelligence Committee report.

Then-CIA Director Hayden suggested that the Intelligence Committee staff review the operational cables and emails. The Intelligence Committee study was authorized by an overwhelming 14-to-1 bipartisan vote after the SSCI, the Select Committee on Intelligence, found that the cables detailed detention conditions and interrogations far worse than what the CIA had previously described to the committee.

The investigation led to the production of a report that is more than 6,700 pages long, including nearly 38,000 footnotes. It is based on a review of more than 6 million pages of CIA records.

In December 2012 the Intelligence Committee approved this report with a 9-to-6 bipartisan vote. Two months later, in February 2013, I received a briefing on this report before it was redacted. I was so disturbed by what I heard that I personally spoke with the President, then-Secretary of Defense Panetta, and John Brennan, to urge each of them to do everything possible to be briefed on its findings and support its declassification.

In March 2014 I sent a letter to CIA Director Brennan raising serious concerns about the CIA's hacking of Senate Select Committee on Intelligence computers and again urging declassification of the report.

In April 2014 the Intelligence Committee approved the declassification and the public release by an 11-to-3 bipartisan vote.

It is critically important that this has been declassified so the American people can understand what has been done in their name. It was inconsistent with American values. It didn't make us safer, and it must never be repeated again.

Yesterday Senator McCain came to the floor to support Senator Feinstein's disclosure. During the course of his statement on the floor, he said: Our enemies are acting without conscience. America cannot act without conscience. We are called to a higher standard than some because we believe in basic human values and in basic principles, and it may mean that some of the tactics used by our worst enemies are out of bounds for us, as they should be.

What happened with this disclosure is an important reaffirmation of our separation of powers and our constitutional responsibility.

I wish to congratulate Senator Feinstein, Senator Rockefeller, and every member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, but particularly those who voted to go forward time and time again. They were under immense pressure not to do so.

The fact they have held the CIA accountable to the American people, to Congress, and to the President is part of our constitutional responsibility. It reminds people that in a democracy the people govern and the people have a right to know what this government is doing in their name.

There has been a lot of debate since the release of this report, and I assume it will continue. But if it ends with the report in the press, we have not done enough. We have to reform our processes, and let me start with Congress.

I served on the Senate Intelligence Committee for 4 years. It was a daunting assignment. Virtually every hearing is behind closed doors and classified. No one knows here even at the Select Committee on Intelligence unless you tell them afterwards. Testimony before us isn't available to the public. Most of the time, the professionals from the intelligence agencies come before us and speak in the acronyms of their agencies to the point you can't even follow what they are saying. It took me 2 years of sitting there puzzling over what they were saying to finally get an insight into what the committee and its responsibility were all about. That is not right.

We need to make sure that congressional oversight of our intelligence function is up to the job and up to the Constitution. That means more resources put in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. When I served, members of the committee shared a staffer. We each shared a staffer. We didn't even have one staff person working for each of us on these subjects. The amount of money that is being spent, tens of millions of dollars in covert activities and the like, needs to be carefully monitored. As the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, I have that responsibility to look at the overall budget on intelligence. There is not enough oversight. We need to make certain that our branch of government is up to that challenge so we can guarantee to the American people that we are doing our job, so that we can be held accountable as we hold the intelligence agencies accountable as well.

I think what happened yesterday is going to be part of the history of the Senate, an important, positive part. I hope it is just the beginning where both political parties come together and accept their constitutional responsibility.

Tributes to Departing Senators

I have some tributes here for my colleagues who are retiring, leaving the Senate. It is a lengthy list of tributes.

Tom Harkin

To Senator Tom Harkin, neighboring State of Iowa, whom I worked with over many years on so many important topics, I want to salute him for his service. The highlights of his service include the Americans With Disabilities Act and, of course, the Affordable Care Act. His work on education and medical research is legendary. There was a time when Tom Harkin and Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania at that time, set out to double the medical research budget at the National Institutes of Health and they did it. Lives have been saved, people have been spared suffering because they had the political determination and courage to achieve it. I am going to miss Tom Harkin.

I have served in Congress for a number of years and I have heard an awful lot of speeches. One of the most powerful speeches I ever witnessed in this Senate was delivered by Tom Harkin in 1990. He gave his speech without uttering a single word. He delivered it entirely in American Sign Language--a language he knows from years of communicating with his brother Frank, who was deaf. In that historic speech in sign language--a first for this body--Tom Harkin was urging the United States Senate to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The ADA is one of the great civil rights laws of the 20th century. It is often called ``the Emancipation Proclamation for Americans with disabilities.'' It is a landmark achievement in America's ongoing efforts to create a more perfect union. No one worked harder for its passage than the senior Senator from Iowa, Tom Harkin. He is often and rightly referred to as ``the father of the ADA.''

That speech in 1990 was unique in its use of sign language. In another way, however, it was like nearly every speech Tom Harkin has given because he was speaking for people whose voices too often are not heard in Congress.

In his 40 years in Congress, Tom Harkin has been a passionate, often fiery and relentless voice for good people who have often been dealt a bad hand by life. He has been a champion for men like his father, a coal miner with black lung disease, and others who desperately need health care. He has been a champion for people with disabilities--in America and around the world. He has been a champion of children in foreign lands who are trapped in the worst forms of forced labor.

Tom Harkin has been a champion of working men and women in this country--and of their constitutionally protected right to organize and bargain for decent pay and safe working conditions.

Tom Harkin has been a leader in safeguarding Medicare and Social Security, and moving people from welfare to work.

The senior Senator from Iowa and I were both very lucky. We are first-generation Americans. Senator Harkin's mother came to this country from Slovenia; my mother came from Lithuania.

He knows from his own family's experience the love and gratitude that so many immigrants feel for the freedoms and opportunities America has given them and their children. So he has fought for immigration laws that protect America's security at the same time they honor our heritage as a nation of immigrants.

I want him to know that we will continue our efforts to pass such laws until we succeed--just as we will continue to push for adoption by this Senate of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities until we pass that important treaty.

As are so many others, Tom Harkin was inspired to public service by the example of President John Kennedy. After working his way through college, Senator Harkin spent 5 years as a Navy pilot in the 1960s. He had applied to become a pilot for a commercial airline when he received a more compelling offer. In 1969, an Iowa Congressman invited Tom Harkin to join his Washington, DC staff. He said yes. He also used his GI Bill benefits to earn a law degree from Catholic University.

Tom went back home to Iowa--and then he returned to Washington in 1974, not as a staffer, but as a Member of the House of Representatives. A decade later, Iowa voters elected him to the U.S. Senate. And in 1990 he became the first Democrat ever to be re-elected to the U.S. Senate by Iowa voters. They must have thought that was a good idea because they re-elected him three more times after that.

Today, 40 years after his first election, Tom Harkin is grayer and wiser. But he has never forgotten where he came from. He is a proud Midwestern progressive who has never forgotten the hope and dignity that smart, compassionate government gave his family when they needed it. And he has never tired of working to make sure that other families have the same chances his family had.

I wish Tom and Ruth, their daughters and grandchildren all the best.

Tom Harkin leaves a legacy of achievement and compassion. I will miss his presence in this Senate but he and Ruth will always be a part of our Senate family.

Kay Hagan

Kay Hagan, my colleague from North Carolina, has done an amazing job. In her one term in the Senate, she really made a name for herself when it came to public service. She stepped up time and again and took tough votes. I know it because as whip I asked her to take on some important issues that would made this a better and stronger nation.

When Kay entered the Senate in those perilous days, America was in crisis. The economy was in freefall. Millions had lost their homes to foreclosure. America was fighting two wars--and though our military is the finest in the world, many of its members were exhausted from multiple deployments.

Six years later, we have made progress in all of these areas. Historians will record that Senator Kay Hagan helped to make America stronger and better.

Senator Kay Hagan comes from a family that knows a great deal about serving and sacrificing for America. Her maternal uncle, Lawton Chiles, was a Korean War veteran who represented Florida in the U.S. House and Senate and served as Florida's governor. Her father-in-law was a two- star Marine general, her brother and father both served in the Navy, and her husband is a Vietnam veteran who used the GI Bill to help pay for law school.

Senator Hagan first learned the ups-and-downs of Congress-- literally--by operating the Senators-only elevator while interning for her uncle.

Senator Hagan is a former ballet dancer--a discipline that demands great discipline and hard work. As a Senator, she has used those same qualities to benefit her State and our Nation.

She served 10 years in the North Carolina State Senate and in those 10 years, she earned a reputation as a commonsense hard-worker interested in results, not partisan fighting. As co-chair of the State Budget Committee, she increased the State's ``Rainy Day'' fund and balanced five straight budgets. You heard that right--five straight budgets. She also helped make record investments in education, raised teacher pay, and increased the minimum wage.

Here in the U.S. Senate, she has continued to be a leader on education issues, most notably helping to lead a group of Senators to start fixing No Child Left Behind. With her family's military background, it is no surprise that Senator Hagan has fought hard for military families and veterans. She introduced another bill that is close to my heart and that I will continue to work for. It would prohibit for-profit colleges from using the phrase ``GI Bill'' in aggressive marketing efforts aimed at separating veterans and servicemembers from their hard-earned education benefits. And she led the successful effort to provide health care to those affected by water contamination at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, the largest Marine Corps base on the East Coast.

Kay Hagan will leave this Senate with a proud record of dauntless accomplishment and I am proud to have had the privilege to call her colleague. I thank her for her friendship and service, and I wish her the best in all her future endeavors.

Mark Begich

I can't imagine how the Senator from Alaska handles that commute back and forth, but he did it. I said the other day when we spoke about his service that many people don't realize his father was a Congressman before him and he died in a plane crash with Hale Boggs when they were flying back to Alaska to appear at an event. That plane was lost and never recovered. When Mark Begich came from Alaska to serve the United States, he completed the journey his father never could complete. His 6 years of service to Alaska have been extraordinary.

Before he got into politics, though, Mark was a whiz kid entrepreneur. When he was just 16 years old, he got a business license and he and his brother opened two businesses: a nightclub for teens and a vending-machine operation. The business world's loss was our gain.

Senator Begich started his political career working as an aide to then-Anchorage Mayor Tony Knowles. At 26, he was elected to the Anchorage Assembly, or city council. And in 2003, he became the first native-born Alaskan to serve as mayor of Anchorage.

In 2008, he dared to take on an Alaska legend: Senator Ted Stevens. When the votes were counted, Mark had become the first Democrat since Mike Gravel in 1981 to represent Alaska in the U.S. Senate.

As a Senator, Mark Begich has been a voice for working families in Alaska and across America. He has diligently and doggedly pursued common-sense, bipartisan solutions to big challenges. In all things, Mark's heart is always with Alaska. He has helped to protect Alaska fisheries, promoted renewable energy development in the State, and made sure Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson remains strong and active.

Here is something about Mark my colleagues may not know. In 2011 he was part of a four-man team in the Hotline's live annual trivia contest. His teammates were three House members: Dennis Ross, Tom Davis, and Martin Frost. They were up against a formidable team that included Chuck Todd and Amy Walters. No one gave Mark's team a prayer of winning. But once again, Mark Begich scored an upset victory. He is to DC political trivia what Ken Jennings is to Jeopardy: A memorable champion.

But the actions for which he will be remembered are very far from trivial. When Mark Begich and others in the Class of 2008 arrived in the Senate America's economy was in freefall. Millions of families had lost their homes to foreclosure--the worst foreclosure crisis in America since the Great Depression. America was fighting two wars. Our military is the finest in the world. Many of its members were

exhausted from multiple deployments. On top of that, an outdated policy of ``don't ask, don't tell'' forced some servicemembers to lie about who they were in order to serve the Nation they love. Time after time, Senator Mark Begich took brave and principled votes that have made America better and stronger--militarily, economically, and socially.

This son of one of Alaska's great families has well earned--and will always hold--a place in our Senate family.

Tim Johnson

Tim Johnson and I came to the Senate together, Tim from South Dakota. He eventually became chairman of the banking committee after he faced one of the toughest physical challenges any Senator has ever faced, a debilitating brain injury that left him physically limited but never limited in spirit and intelligence. Thank God, with Barb at his side, he continued in public service to serve the State of South Dakota.

I am going to miss my great friend Tim Johnson.

He and I go back quite a ways. We served together in the House--and we came to the Senate together in 1996. That year, Tim Johnson was the only Senate candidate to defeat an incumbent U.S. Senator in a general election.

He won that first Senate election the old-fashioned way--with dedication, hard work, and a lot of shoe leather. I think he knocked on every door in South Dakota--twice. Dedication, humility, and unbelievable hard work--those are the values Tim learned as a fourth- generation South Dakotan. And they are the values that have exemplified his entire career.

In 1986, Tim Johnson was a semi-obscure state legislator from Vermillion, SD when he decided to run for his State's only seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Tim might have been the only person who thought he had a chance of winning that race, but he surprised people. He did win--and he has never lost an election since. Eight consecutive statewide victories and zero losses. That is quite an accomplishment.

Here is another interesting fact about Tim Johnson: During his first term in the House, he was responsible for passing more legislation than any of the other 50 first-term Members.

In his 36 years of public service, Tim Johnson has been a strong voice for family farmers and ranchers in South Dakota and across America. He is a longtime advocate of Federal support for renewable energy--especially ethanol and wind energy. He helped lead the effort to pass the Country of Origin Label Act--the COOL Act, for short--to let consumers know if the meat they feed their families was raised in America.

Senator Johnson has been a leading advocate for Native Americans. He has fought especially hard for the members of the Lakota and Dakota tribes--descendants of the legendary Indian leaders Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse--who call South Dakota home.

Tim Johnson has fought for a livable minimum wage. He helped strengthen America's health safety net by voting to create the Children's Health Insurance Program and to expand Medicaid to those who need it. He voted for the Affordable Care Act, which passed this Senate without a vote to spare. That was a difficult vote for many but I believe that history will show it was the right vote for America, and Tim Johnson was on the right side of history.

As chairman of the Senate Banking Committee these last 3 years, Tim Johnson has played an historic role in helping to implement the Dodd- Frank Wall Street reform law and prevent a repeat of the kinds of abuses that nearly crashed our economy in 2008. He has moved forward despite intense opposition to reform from both inside and outside of Congress.

One of the most important of the Dodd-Frank reforms was the creation of a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Chairman Johnson pressed successfully for Senate confirmation of Richard Cordray to head that new bureau so it would have a strong leader at the helm.

While he is justifiably proud of the legislative victories that bear his imprint, Tim Johnson may be even more proud of the constituent services he and his staff have given the people of South Dakota. Helping a veteran secure a proper disability rating or helping a senior citizen receive the Social Security and Medicare coverage he or she is due may not make headlines, but it makes a huge difference in the lives of individuals. Tim Johnson and his staff understand that.

I will never forget seeing Tim Johnson walk onto the Senate floor on September 5, 2007--less than a year after a brain hemorrhage nearly killed him. The courage and strength it took to come back from such a trauma is hard to imagine. Senator Mark Kirk, my partner from Illinois, told me that during his own recovery from a stroke, if he ever felt like giving up, he would ask himself: ``What would Tim Johnson do?''

Dedication to public service is a family trait in the Johnson Family. Barb's work on behalf of children and families has made life better for so many. Kelsey is an advocate for breast cancer awareness and research. Brendan is the U.S. Attorney for the District of South Dakota. And Brooks is in the National Guard following Army service in Bosnia, Kosovo, South Korea, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

Some time ago, the chief and people of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe honored Senator Johnson by bestowing on him a Lakota name. His Lakota name is Wacante Ognake. In English, it means ``holds the people in his heart.''

That is the spirit that has guided Tim Johnson throughout his public life.

I wish Tim and Barb the very best in all their future endeavors.

Saxby Chambliss, Tom Coburn, and Mike Johanns

I want to say a word about three others on the other side of the aisle who are retiring: Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, and Mike Johanns of Nebraska. I got to know them when I gathered with one of these gangs, as they call them around here, to talk about deficit reduction. We spent more time together trying to explore the Federal budget in ways to reduce our deficit in a thoughtful manner so that we really got to know one another and respect one another.

There is a world of difference in our political values and philosophies, but each of them in their own way made a positive contribution toward making this a stronger nation.

I remember well the day Senator Chambliss announced that he would not let Grover Norquist and Grover's ``no tax increases ever'' demand dictate the terms of a deficit-reduction plan. That needed to be said, and it took political courage. Although Senator Chambliss will not be with us when the Senate convenes in January, I hope his example will be with us. And I wish him the best in his future endeavors.

Senator Tom Coburn and I come from different parts of the country and different ends of the political spectrum, but we found there is a lot we agree on. I have always believed, as Senators Paul Douglas and Paul Simon said, that being a liberal doesn't mean you have to be a ``wastrel.'' Senator Coburn knows that being a conservative and protecting America's economy demands more than blind budget-cutting. His nickname is ``Doctor No,'' but when it comes to wishing him well as he steps down from the Senate, my colleagues join me in a resounding ``yes.''

Finally, here is a suggestion for when you have watched all of the ``shouting head'' political TV talk shows you can take: Listen to Senator Mike Johanns. Mike's quiet, reasonable approach was a real asset not only to the Gang of Eight negotiations, but to the entire Senate. We will miss his calm demeanor and his good-faith efforts to find smart, fair solutions to tough challenges.

None of them is running for re-election so I can't hurt them politically by saying that I regard each of these Senators as friends. They showed political courage when partisanship would have been easier.

I wish them the best in all their future endeavors.

Carl Levin

Last night it was my honor to salute Carl Levin of Michigan for his 36 years of service in the U.S. Senate. He has done so many things so well. As chairman of the Armed Services Committee, he has produced this contentious and challenging bill year after year, both as ranking member and as chairman. As chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, he really raised that subcommittee to a new

level. He tackled some of the most complex issues of our day, particularly when it came to corporate abuse. He spent the time to get the facts right. When he had a hearing, he made an extraordinary contribution to the public dialogue about reforming our law and making this a better nation.

When I was first elected to the Senate, people back home said to me: Well, now that you have been in the Senate a year or two, which Senators do you respect the most?

I said then, and I will repeat it today, if I had a tough, important decision, one I was wrestling over, an issue or a vote, and I could only reach out to a couple of Senators at the time, one would be Paul Sarbanes of Maryland, now retired, and the other is Carl Levin. That is still a fact.

Long before Carl Levin was elected to the U.S. Senate it was clear that he had a gift for politics. Picture this--true story: At Central High School in Detroit, Carl Levin was elected class president. He won that race after, as he tells it, ``running around with a piece of matzoh telling other students: `This is what happens to bread without Levin.' ``How's that for a slogan?

As much as I hate to think about it, soon we will have a United States Senate without Levin--for the first time in 36 years. Our only consolation is that Carl Levin leaves a legacy of good and important laws. He also leaves a powerful example of what can be achieved when we choose integrity over ideology . . . and our common good over confrontation.

A Jewish publication in Detroit wrote a while back that Carl Levin and his brother, Congressman Sandy Levin, both deserve ``honorable menschen awards''--with the accent on ``mensch''--for their historic service to our Nation. I agree wholeheartedly. Senator Levin's keen intellect, honesty and fair-mindedness--his decency and unfailing civility--have earned him the respect of Senators on both sides of the aisle.

Many years ago I was an intern for a great Senator, Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois. Every year now, the University of Illinois presents a ``Paul Douglas Ethics in Government Award'' to an elected leader who shares Senator Douglas' deep commitment to social and economic justice, and efficient government. The recipient of the Paul Douglas Ethics in Government Award in 2006 was Senator Carl Levin. Paul Douglas would have approved that choice heartily.

As was Paul Douglas, Carl Levin has been a foot soldier for justice. Paul Douglas was a leader in the effort to pass a strong Federal Civil Rights Act. In 1964, the year that law finally passed, Carl Levin was appointed the first general counsel for the Michigan Civil Rights Commission.

Paul Douglas believed in government and he hated government waste. He used to say: ``You don't have to be a wastrel to be a liberal.'' Carl Levin reminds us that: ``There are some things that only government can do, so we need government. But we don't need an inefficient, wasteful, arrogant government.''

Carl Levin was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1978. Before that, he was active for 15 years in Detroit and Michigan State politics. He taught law before he entered politics. He also held some other interesting jobs--including driving a cab in Detroit and working on a DeSoto assembly line.

He showed up in Washington in 1979 driving a 1974 Dodge Dart with a hole in the floorboard. He was still driving that same car to the Capitol 10 years later. That tells us something about Carl Levin's devotion to the US auto industry, its workers and unions.

When General Motors and Chrysler faced potential collapse in 2008, he pressed Congress and a new president to support the companies with billions of dollars in loans.

Those loans have since been repaid and Chrysler and GM are not only solvent, they are making a profit. The U.S. auto industry is in the midst of its fastest expansion since 1950.

Carl Levin is a champion as well of America's military, military families and veterans. He has served on the Armed Services Committee since coming to the Senate 36 years ago. He is one of Congress's most respected voices on national security and military issues.

Some years back he used his power on the Armed Services Committee to question the procurement practices of the military. He asked: Why was the Pentagon spending thousands of dollars apiece for things like toilet seats and hammers? He said: We need more money for soldiers and less wasteful spending for contractors. With the world growing more volatile and complex and increasing pressure to reduce defense budgets, those are questions we must all be willing to ask.

As a ranking member and then chair of the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Senator Levin's piercing intellect and his patient mastery of complex issues helped, over and over, to expose and correct serious wrongdoing.

As PSI chairman in 2002, he led a probe of the activities of Enron Corp; the investigation resulted in legislation to improve the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures.

From white collar crime, to money laundering, abusive tax shelters, and gasoline and crude oil price-gouging, he has pursued the subjects of every investigation with nonpartisan vigor, seeking results, not spotlights.

The list of laws bearing his imprint is long and historic: The Competition in Contracting Act of 1984; Social Security Disability Benefits Reform, 1984; The Anti-Kickback Enforcement Act, 1986; The Whistleblower Protection Act, 1989; The Ethics Reform Act in 1989; The Lobbying Disclosure Act in 1995--the first major lobbying reform in 50 years.

The list goes on and on. Senator Levin voted: To repeal ``Don't Ask, Don't Tell''; to protect voting rights; and to limit the influence of private-interest money in elections.

He has voted to support American manufacturing--and stop giving tax breaks to corporations to ship American jobs overseas.

He supported my efforts to change bankruptcy laws to allow deserving homeowners to save their homes in foreclosures.

He voted to regulate tobacco as a drug--another issue that is personal for me.

I will always remember Senator Levin's vote on the Iraq war resolution. For years before 9/11, he warned anyone who would listen that America was threatened by terrorism. When the horrific attacks came, he supported pursuing the attackers in Afghanistan.

A year later, he and I were among just 23 Senators to vote against the Iraq War. He voted no, even though he was then chair of the Armed Services Committee. That took extraordinary moral and political courage, and history has shown he was right.

Carl Levin is the longest-serving Senator in Michigan history, surpassing another Senate legend, Arthur Vandenberg. As he proved long ago when he was elected president of his high school council, he is a natural-born politician. But like Senator Vandenberg, he is more than a politician; he is a statesman.

I will miss his presence in this Senate and I wish him, and his wife Barbara, all the best in the future.

Mark Udall

Mark Udall, my friend from Colorado and the Presiding Officer's colleague. As I said last night, I served with his dad. His dad may have been the funniest public servant I ever served with. What a wit, what a sense of humor. He once said: If you have politics in your bloodstream, only embalming fluid will replace it.

Thank goodness the Udalls have politics in their bloodstream. Mo Udall served in the House of Representatives, candidate for President; Mark Udall's uncle, Stewart Udall, who was Secretary of Interior under President John Kennedy; Tom Udall, Mark's cousin, the son of Stewart Udall, serves as Senator of New Mexico; Mark Udall himself, what a great person.

I can remember so many things about his public service, but I remembered, especially last night, when he lost his brother and came before our caucus lunch and talked about the love he had for that man and what that loss meant to him. It touched the heart of everyone in the room. It gave us an insight into the heart of Mark Udall as a person.

He was committed to a number of causes. His wife Maggie and he have given so much time to the environment and preserving our national heritage, but he also showed great courage when it came to his service on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Even as a new

member of that committee, he stepped up for principles and values, and I am glad he did, preserving our rights and liberties as American citizens and fully supporting the disclosure that Senator Feinstein made yesterday with her report.

Mark has fought to protect Americans' privacy rights with thoughtful reforms of the NSA and the PATRIOT Act.

In keeping with his family's tradition, he has made protecting our environment and our precious natural resources a top priority. He has been a leader in addressing climate change as a growing threat to our national security. He organized support in the Senate for legislation that would require 15 percent of electricity to be generated from renewable sources by 2021.

And in the 2013 Defense Authorization Act, Mark Udall led the effort to allow the Pentagon to continue to develop and use renewable energy

During his one term, Mark Udall made more dauntless decisions and achieved more good for America than many Senators who have served far longer.

He supported a recovery act that helped turn the tide against the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. He voted for the most far-reaching financial reform since the Great Depression and he supported one of the biggest investments in college affordability since the GI Bill. Millions of Americans are back at work and millions of Americans know the security that comes with affordable health care, in part, because of his courage.

The famed explorer Edmund Hillary once said, ``Human life is far more important than just getting to the top of a mountain.''

For Mark Udall, being a U.S. Senator has been about something more important than acquiring power. It has been about using that power to preserve our precious natural treasures and make life better for others.

Mo Udall would be proud of the U.S. Senator his son has become, and I am certainly proud to have worked with him.

I have been in the Senate now for 18 years, and I have seen many come and go. But we have lost, sadly, in this departure of these Members some of our best.

Mary Landrieu

I will close by mentioning the one whose fate was determined the last, and that was Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. She has been a great Senator for Louisiana. She worked harder and achieved more for that State than, obviously, the people of that State realized. There wasn't an issue that came before us that Mary didn't stand up and say: Now let me tell you how that affects Louisiana, and usually make an ask which was fulfilled.

Let me add one other grace note when it comes to her personal and public life. Mary and her husband have adopted two children. They are the light of their lives. Her dedication to the cause of adopted children has really made a difference not just to the United States but in the world. I am sure she didn't get a lot of political reward for it, but thank goodness she put a big part of her life and her public life into standing up for the rights of adopted children and adoptive parents, encouraging more and more, so the kids would have a loving home as part of their lives. It was just one of the things that Mary worked on, but it was one of the things I will remember. I am going to miss her and her service to the U.S. Senate.

Mary bleeds Louisiana. Her father is the legendary statesmen Moon Landrieu, former New Orleans mayor, HUD Secretary under President Jimmy Carter, and Judge of Louisiana's 4th Circuit Court. Her brother, Mitch, is the current Mayor of New Orleans.

Mary--the eldest of the eight siblings--learned important political lessons early. She was taunted in early grade school about her father's pro civil rights stands in the 1960s. Those experiences taught her that taking the right position sometimes makes you unpopular--but you do it anyway.

Mary was only 23 when she entered the Louisiana House of Representatives in 1980. She went on to serve as a member of her State's senate.

Mary is a formidable fighter for Louisiana. In her State's darkest hours, during Hurricane Katrina and in the aftermath of that terrible catastrophe, she stood strong. She was exactly the right person for Louisiana. More than any other single official, she deserves the credit for directing billions of dollars in relief and rebuilding money to her hometown and home State.

Governor Bobby Jindal's Secretary of Administration had this to say about Mary Landrieu: ``She's relentless; once she starts, she will not stop. And once she's on your side, she's on your side.''

This is what St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain remembers about Katrina: ``The very first federal representative we had on the ground after Katrina was Mary Landrieu . . . when water was still in our houses and neighborhoods. . . . She spoke to my deputies and offered assistance to them.''

Perhaps the best description of Mary Landrieu was offered by her mentor, former Senator John Breaux, who calls her ``a pit bull with Louisiana charm.''

In 2009, when Hurricane Katrina was just a dim, bad memory for some, Senator Landrieu made sure the stimulus bill included a provision that ended up allowing the state to rebuild Charity Hospital, the cornerstone of health care for many low-income New Orleans families.

Senator Landrieu has been a champion of the energy industry--so crucial to the economy of her State and her Nation. She has fought to preserve Social Security and Medicare and other safety net programs that provide dignity and security for so many. She has fought to defend voting rights, women's right, and children's right. She has earned a spot in heaven with her work to promote adoption. She provided a crucial vote to pass the Affordable Care Act, knowing full well that it would cost her politically. If that doesn't earn her a spot in heaven, it will at least earn her a place in history as a profile in courage.

With her political genes and determination, I know that Mary Landrieu will continue to be a force in Louisiana and American politics for years to come. And while I will miss seeing her every day in this Senate, I look forward to seeing her fight for what is right for many, many more years. It has been an honor to serve with her.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, the American people must make some very fundamental decisions in the coming years, and the most important of them is whether we continue the status quo of American society, and that is in terms of our economics and our politics which includes a 40- year decline of our middle class. Let me repeat that.

We are not just talking about what is happening today. We are not talking about the Wall Street crash of 2008. We are talking about a 40- year decline of the American middle class and an ongoing and growing gap between the very wealthy and everybody else. That is the reality of America now.

We can continue the same old, same old, or we can develop a bold economic agenda that begins the process of creating the millions of jobs we desperately need, an agenda which raises wages so that most of the new jobs being created are not low wage or part time, an agenda which protects our environment, and an agenda which enables us to join the rest of the industrialized world and guarantee health care to all people as a right. That is the issue of our time. Do we continue the status quo, continue the disappearance of the middle class, continue the growing gap between the very rich and everybody else, or do we have the courage to come up with an agenda that stands for working families and raises wages and provides for our kids and our seniors?

As part of that decision in my view is the reality that we cannot go forward unless we deal with another very important question, and that is, do we as a nation have the courage to take on the enormous economic and political power of the billionaire class? I know many of my colleagues don't like to talk about it. We talk about this and we talk about that, but most Americans in their gut understand that our economic and political life are controlled by a small number of very wealthy people and institutions, including but not limited to Wall Street, the oil companies, the insurance companies, the drug companies, the military-industrial complex, et cetera, and all of their lobbyists who flood Capitol Hill--trying to get this or that provision in tax bills and everyplace else--and, of course, their power in terms of campaign contributions, and especially since this disastrous Supreme Court Citizens United decision. It means the billionaire class can put unlimited sums of money into electing candidates who represent their interests.

Those are the most important questions of our time. Do we have the courage to take on the handful of billionaire special interests who wield so much economic and political power? Do we have the will to push forward an economic agenda that works for working families and not just for the very wealthy?

The long-term deterioration of the middle class, accelerated by the Wall Street crash of 2008, has not been a pretty sight. Today we have more wealth and income inequality than any major country on Earth and the gap between the very rich and everybody else is growing wider. The top 1 percent now owns about 41 percent of the financial wealth of our country, while the bottom 60 percent owns all of 1.7 percent. The top 1 percent owns 41 percent of the financial wealth, the bottom 60 percent owns 1.7 percent. In fact, amazingly enough, the top one-tenth of 1 percent now owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent of the American people. Does anyone believe that is what America is supposed to be about, where the top one-tenth of 1 percent owns as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent?

Today we have the absurd situation, the obscene situation, where one family, the Walton family, the owners of Walmart, are worth about $148 billion. That is more wealth in that one family than the bottom 40 percent of the American people.

Today in the United States we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on Earth. About one-quarter of our kids get nutrition through food stamps, and we are the only industrialized country--major country--that does not guarantee health care to all people as a right.

We once led the world in terms of the percentage of our people who graduated college, but today in a highly competitive global economy we are now in 12th place.

In terms of infrastructure, the United States used to have the finest, most envied infrastructure in the world. Today, as I think every citizen of this country knows, our infrastructure, our roads, our bridges, rail, water systems, airports, dams are virtually collapsing. The American Society of Civil Engineers tells us that we need to spend $3 trillion just to bring our infrastructure up to par. But with infrastructure spending now at its lowest level since 1947, we rank 16th in the world in terms of infrastructure according to the World Economic Forum.

So once we led the world in terms of the numbers of percentages of people graduating college; today we are 12th. Once we led the world in terms of the strength of our infrastructure; today we are the 16th. But we do have the dubious distinction of being first in terms of childhood poverty of any major country.

Real unemployment today is not what the official unemployment states of 5.8 percent; it is over 11 percent when you include those people who have given up looking for work or are working part time. Youth unemployment is over 18 percent.

We hear a lot about Ferguson, MO, and that is a very important issue, but we don't hear enough about the reality that African-American youth unemployment is over 30 percent.

Today in this country millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages. In inflation-adjusted-for dollars, the median male worker--listen to this; this is really quite unbelievable and it tells us a little bit as to why the American people are angry. The median male worker--that worker right in the middle of the economy--last year earned $783 less than he made 41 years ago--$783 less than he made 41 years ago in inflation-accounted-for dollars. In the explosion of technology, the great global economy, all of the great free trade agreements, and that male worker today is earning over $700 less than he made in real dollars 41 years ago. The median female worker made $1337 less last year than she earned in 2007.

Since 1999, the median middle-class family has seen its income go down by

almost $5,000 after adjusting for inflation, now earning less this year than a family earned 25 years ago. Are we better off today than we were 6 years ago when Bush left office and we were hemorrhaging 700,000 jobs a month and the financial system was on the verge of collapse with a $1.3 trillion deficit? Of course we are. But if you look at the trends over the last 40 years, the reality is, the middle class in this country is disappearing and almost all new income and wealth is going to the people on top.

The American people must demand that Congress and the White House start protecting the interests of working families, not just wealthy campaign contributors. We need Federal legislation to put the unemployed back to work, raise wages, and make certain that all Americans have health care and education in order to live healthy and productive lives.

We can spend hours dissecting and analyzing the problems of American society, and in my view, they are worse today than at any time since the Great Depression, and if you throw in the planetary crisis of climate change, we may have more problems today facing our Nation than at any time in a very long period.

But what I wish to do today is very briefly throw out and discuss 12 initiatives that I believe, if enacted by the Congress, could begin to address the collapse of the middle class and rebuild our economy. I will just touch on them briefly.

No. 1, as I mentioned earlier, our infrastructure is collapsing--our roads, bridges, water systems, wastewater plants, airports, railroads, and older schools. We spent $3 trillion--or when we take care of the last veteran, we have spent $3 trillion fighting a war in Iraq that we never should have fought in the first place.

If over a period of years we were to invest $1 trillion in rebuilding our infrastructure, we could create 13 million decent-paying jobs, and that is exactly what we have to do. Think of what America would look like if you went around the country and saw work being done on roads, bridges, and cutting-edge technology for our water plants and wastewater plants. We would become more productive and efficient. We would put people back to work.

No. 2, in my view--and I know many of my Republican colleagues don't agree, but the scientific community is united when they say climate change is real, it is caused by human activity, and if we do not reverse and substantially cut back carbon emissions, this planet will become increasingly uninhabitable for our kids and our grandchildren. In my view, we must transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and into energy efficiency and sustainable energy, such as wind, solar, geothermal, et cetera.

When we address energy efficiency and sustainable energy, not only do we lead the world in transforming our energy system and reversing climate change, but we also create a significant number of meaningful and important jobs.

No. 3, in my view, instead of giving tax breaks to large corporations which shut down in America and go to China, we want to invest in new economic models to increase job creation and productivity, and that is giving workers the opportunity to own their own businesses. We have some of that in Vermont, and I know in Ohio there are worker-owned businesses where workers are more productive and feel better about their jobs. I would rather invest in that than in corporations that will shut down in this country and move abroad.

No. 4, I think most people understand that when you have a union to negotiate and engage in collective bargaining, wages are higher and working conditions are better. Today corporate opposition to union organizing makes it extremely difficult for workers to join a union. We need legislation which makes it clear that when a majority of workers signs cards in support of a union, they can have that union.

No. 5, the Federal minimum wage today is a starvation wage of $7.25 an hour. We need to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. People who work 40 hours a week should not live in poverty.

No. 6, women workers today earn about 78 cents on the dollar to what their male counterparts earn doing the same work. That is not acceptable. We need equal pay for equal work. We need pay equity in our country, and we have to pass that legislation.

No. 7, an issue that we don't talk about enough, and, in fact, has had bipartisan support for many decades, is our disastrous trade policy, NAFTA, CAFTA, and permanent normal trade relations with China. The simple fact is these trade policies have been a disaster for the American worker. Since 2001, we have lost more than 60,000 factories in this country and more than 4.9 million decent-paying manufacturing jobs. Not all of that is attributable to bad trade policies, but a lot of it is. We need to rethink our trade policies and demand that corporate America invest in the United States of America and not in China.

I know that is a radical idea. Imagine going shopping in a department store where we can actually purchase products made in America and not in China, but I think we should be doing that.

No. 8, we are not going to be a successful economy unless our young people have the ability to get the college education they need regardless of the income of their families. Right now it is increasingly difficult for working families to afford college. Many of our young people are coming out of college deeply in debt. In this area we are moving in exactly the wrong direction. Forty, fifty years ago, tuition was virtually free at some of the great public universities in America, such as the University of California, New York City, and State colleges around country. Today it is unaffordable.

We need to radically rethink higher education in this country. Our goal is that everyone, regardless of income, should be able to get a quality college education and not come out in debt.

No. 9, I think everybody understands the enormous stranglehold that Wall Street has on our economy. Banking is supposed to be the facilitator to get money out in the productive economy where companies are producing products and services and not see Wall Street or financial institutions as an end in itself, but that is exactly what we have right now. We have six financial institutions in this country that have assets equivalent to over 60 percent of the GDP of the United States of America. That is too big, and it gives them too much economic and political power. In my view, they must be broken up and we must bring about a more competitive financial system where money is getting out to the real economy so businesses can create real jobs.

No. 10, and many people don't know this, but the United States is the only major country on Earth that doesn't guarantee health care to all people as a right. Yet we end up spending almost twice as much per capita on health care as any other Nation. In my strong opinion, if we want health care for all and we want to do it in a cost-effective way, we need to move toward a Medicare for all, single-payer system.

No. 11, today in this great Nation, millions of seniors are living in poverty, and that number is growing, and we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country. We must strengthen the social safety net, not weaken it. Instead of talking about cutting Social Security or cutting Medicare or cutting Medicaid or cutting nutrition programs, we should be expanding those programs. This is a great country, and we should not have millions of people wondering how they are going to be able to buy medicine for their illness or heat their homes in the wintertime. We have to expand the social safety net for our kids, our seniors, and our vulnerable populations.

Last, but certainly not least, at a time of massive wealth and income inequality, we need a progressive tax system in this country which is based on ability to pay. It is not acceptable that major profitable corporations have paid nothing in recent years in Federal income taxes and that corporate CEOs in this country often enjoy an effective tax rate which is lower than their secretaries'.

We are losing about $100 billion a year from companies that stash their profits in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and other tax havens. We need real tax reform. We need to end all of these corporate tax loopholes so we have the revenue we need to do the important tasks in front of us to rebuild this country.

With that, I think the American people have some fundamental choices to make. Do we continue the status quo from an economic perspective and political perspective or do we demand that Congress start listening to the pain of the middle class and working families of this country and start producing legislation which rebuilds our crumbling middle class?

With that, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, there was an opportunity this session to work together in a bipartisan way to provide certainty around the Tax Code for families and farmers and businesses, at least for 2014 and 2015. There may still be a small window of opportunity to get things done. I certainly support doing that, if we can. But I want to speak to the importance of having some certainty, at least through the end of 2015, as it relates to our tax policy for investing, for the economy, and for homeowners to make decisions.

Back in April, thanks to the leadership of Chairman Wyden and Ranking Member Hatch, those of us on the Senate Finance Committee worked together closely and passed the EXPIRE Act, a bipartisan bill that would renew tax provisions for 2014 and 2015 so that again people could plan, businesses, and farmers, at least through that 2-year period. It would give businesses and families across the country the certainty they desperately need.

Unbelievably, back at the time when we brought it to the floor, after a bipartisan effort, Republicans in the Senate filibustered it and we could not move it forward. So we have been trying to get this 2-year bill done as the first year has been ticking away. We are now at the end of the first year of the tax bill, and, unfortunately, instead of having a 2-year bill, we now have a bill from the House that contains what we call tax extenders--extending tax policy for the economy, from research and development to homeowners to depreciation for investments and jobs. We have something that is only extended to the end of this year. As our chairman has said, it is a 3-week bill. By the time we get done, it will probably be a 2-week bill.

We need to do more. The chairman, ranking member, and many of us are still trying to do everything we can to get the House to agree to something with more certainty than 2 or 3 weeks. I think it is an embarrassment for the Congress that we are not able to come together and pass the EXPIRE Act to be able to give more certainty.

There is a glimmer of hope though on a piece of tax reform I wish to mention. Frankly, there is disagreement on this on our side of the aisle, and I respectfully disagree with those in the White House on this as well. But there is a bill I hope will move on the suspension calendar in the House around charitable giving.

I can't imagine at this time of year of charitable giving, as we come up to the end of the year and people are making decisions about where to place their dollars, what kinds of causes and so on, that we couldn't come together on a bipartisan bill to deal with donations to food banks and conservation easements that protect our land for the future, that make sure we are not plowing up our land and putting more CO2 into the air right at the time we are trying to deal with climate issues--land protection, forestry protection for the future; dealing with investments in our research institutions, dealing with investments in important areas near and dear to my heart--such as the city of Detroit, where our foundations are playing such a critical role in making the investments, whether it is in transportation infrastructure, whether it is job training, whether it is rebuilding the neighborhoods to be able to turn Detroit around. I believe we are going to be able to do that. I know we are going to be able to do that. But a major reason has been the foundations--the Kresge Foundation, the Keller Foundation. There are so many that have been there.

So we have an opportunity prior to going into a larger debate on tax reform to actually take a piece of this, which normally would be, on its substance, very bipartisan, and actually be able to get that done. I am hopeful we will be able to do that before the end of the year because of the important provisions in it.

I go back to though the broader tax bill being sent as a 1-year renewal from the House of Representatives and, as I said, at most is a 3-week bill. By the time it is done, it may end up being a 2-week bill at this point in time. I can't believe people honestly, with a straight face, are calling this tax policy to be able to do this.

There are homeowners who lost their job during the recession and can no longer afford their mortgage payments. They have had their homes foreclosed on or maybe they have been able to do a short sale with their mortgage lender or the bank. For the past year--11 months and 10 days--these families have had no way to know whether we were going to renew the mortgage forgiveness tax relief bill, which I was proud to author as a bipartisan bill back in 2007, which we have continued to renew because we still have families

struggling from the recession in terms of their loan.

If we can renew this bill, it will spare families from having to pay income tax on the difference between their mortgage and the value of their home. So if in fact they get loan forgiveness or can work something out with the bank--and if in fact $20,000 is forgiven on the mortgage or $30,000 or $40,000--they don't end up paying taxes on that as income, which is what will happen if we don't get something done.

But we are looking at the fact that these folks, going into 2015, at a time when they are trying to decide what to do on their homes-- whether they can keep their mortgage--will be right back in the same situation of not knowing whether they are going to owe thousands of dollars' worth of tax going into next year.

We are seeing a lot of folks trying to keep their homes who had to cut corners in every which way--parents stopped paying toward their kids' college fund or they put off buying new clothes or they canceled vacations or plans to visit their relatives while they are trying to figure out how to keep a roof over their head. Obviously there are many things that need to be done to support families, but one piece of tax policy that has given them some ability to plan has been this mortgage tax forgiveness bill.

What we are saying is: OK. For 2 weeks you can know that you can refinance with the bank--not next year. We kept you hanging for all of 2014, but for 2 weeks or 3 weeks we will give you some certainty.

So next year more families are going to be stuck with the same wrenching decisions they have this year if we can't at least get a 2- year bill.

When we look at other areas where folks will be left hanging, we have a very important area of the economy creating jobs every day in wind energy. There is a huge supply chain--as the Presiding Officer knows, as someone who cares deeply about manufacturing--from the making of turbines to the installation in the field, to the operations, to the maintenance, all of these are connected to American jobs, good-paying jobs. In fact, one of the big turbines has 8,000 parts in it. Somebody is making those parts. I would suggest to everyone that we can make every one of those in Michigan. I am sure we can make them in other places as well, although we would love to make them in Michigan. But what the industry doesn't know is whether the production tax credit which they depend on will be renewed for more than 3 weeks at the end of the year.

In fact, what the House did say is: You have 3 weeks to make business decisions about hiring new people, growing your business, building more parts for the winter. You have 3 weeks. Go get them--in 3 weeks. So they can't make business decisions, and they are going to have to cut.

In the meantime, that means layoffs, similar to the 30,000 workers who were laid off when Congress waited to the very last minute in 2012; 30,000 people were laid off when the same thing happened in 2012 when the production tax credit renewed at the last minute. Even if this bill passes, extending the production tax credit this week through the end of the year may be too late for 30,000 people, right before the holidays. Merry Christmas. Thirty thousand people not being able to have their job extended, people who could help us lead the world in clean energy production, who could help us develop energy here to be less dependent on foreign oil, but because we don't have the fortitude to extend this even after we had a bipartisan bill--the EXPIRE Act-- come out of the Finance Committee last spring, they are looking at job losses.

So 30,000 families are putting holiday gifts on their credit card not knowing whether they are going to be able to make payments when the bills arrive.

Businesses in the wind power industry make investment decisions on what their taxes will be, similar to any other business, 5 years, 10 years, 15 years into the future.

There have been, by the way, tax breaks for Big Oil for almost 100 years; the first one in 1916 embedded in the Tax Code, never having to be renewed so long-term business decisions can be made. But for their competitors to create jobs and bring prices down through things such as wind or solar or biofuel, it is a slog every year, every 2 years to try to keep these industries going.

Is that fair? It is absolutely not fair. We ought to have the same kind of tax policy. If we are embedding the Tax Code provisions to support oil production, we should be doing the same for wind, the same for solar, the same for biofuels.

What Republicans are doing when they force us into a situation where it is only a 3-week extension is they are basically telling Americans businesses: Don't invest. Don't hire people. We don't want competition to bring prices down on gasoline or prices in electricity. We don't want you to do that. We are unwilling to commit to something that will create jobs beyond somebody we have been fighting to protect for almost 100 years.

So this is a great concern to me. In the process, Americans deserve better. Our businesses and our innovators deserve better. We go out and say we want new innovation to create new kinds of jobs. That is happening. Then the doors are shut over and over again or it takes forever to pry open the door: You have 3 weeks, the door is open, and then it shuts.

Let me talk about another area I am deeply concerned about where people will be hurt if we do not pass the 2-year EXPIRE Act that we put together in the Finance Committee in a bipartisan way; that is, salaried workers such as those at Delphi auto parts manufacturer--which used to be a part of General Motors. During the 2008 rescue of the auto industry, somehow the salaried workers slipped through the cracks in terms of losing portions of their pensions, their health care coverage, and their insurance, and it is not fair.

One woman who worked at Delphi for over 30 years lost nearly half her pension and all of her health care coverage, which she needed for her husband who suffers from chronic pain.

A manager who worked at a Delphi facility in Michigan was so devoted to the people he supervised that he volunteered to retire rather than lay off some workers. Then 4 months after his retirement, he found out he was losing 40 percent of his pension and all of his health care coverage. Most of what was left out of his pension will go toward paying the cost of his health care, and it was devastating to him and his family.

So we have in this extenders bill, this EXPIRE Act, the health coverage tax credit which was created for people such as these people. I am proud to be a coauthor with Senator Brown, who has been a real leader on this for people who have lost their benefits that were supposedly guaranteed to them. It does not restore their pension, but this credit pays 72.5 percent of their health care premiums, making it possible for retirees to afford coverage similar to what they could have earned when they were working. It frankly helps people who can't get help in other ways, who fell through the cracks.

The credit expired at the end of 2013, and the bipartisan bill we passed in the spring, in April, renewed that credit. I was very pleased we were able to put this in the bill and thought we were on our way again to help people throughout this year who have been waiting and waiting.

Again, when we passed this in April it was filibustered on the floor by the Republicans. Now we are at 3 weeks left before the end of the year and what we get from the House is a bill that is retroactive for 2014, but it does not even include the health coverage tax credit. So even though this is retroactive for 2014, the people involved--the salaried workers who lost pensions who have been getting some help for their health care at least--will not even get that for this year. There are 20,000 Delphi retirees not only in Michigan and Ohio, but Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin and Illinois, all who are watching right now this process in the Senate and the House to see what will happen, and are reaching out to their House Members and Senate Members--Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Illinois.

To renew all the other tax provisions but cancel the HCTC is a cruel trick to play on families and certainly is underscored in terms of the holiday season we are getting into now. It is time for our colleagues across the aisle to stop forcing Americans to play a guessing game about their future taxes or their health care.

I regret that the clock has been ticking and running out and left us with no time at this point to get the fairness in the Tax Code that we need. There is still time if we wanted to to pass this EXPIRE Act and send it back to the House, and I am all for it, and I know our chairman, Senator Wyden, has been working night and day with colleagues across the aisle to try to make that happen. If it is too late for this year, if the clock runs out, shamefully, and we return next year with our Republican colleagues in the majority, I would suggest a New Year's resolution to stop doing retroactive extensions--stop doing retroactive extensions when it involves investments that people have to make that they are not going to be able to do retroactively or decisions about health care or decisions about a home. Start getting serious about making long-term economic decisions.

I know the Presiding Officer agrees with me on this and has spoken with me frequently on this.

Whether it is tax policy, health care policy, infrastructure policy, we need to make long-term decisions and support policies so that businesses can make long-term decisions.

Finally, we need to deliver certainty for families, for small businesses, for manufacturers, for those in alternative energy, for all who are working hard to invest in America across this country. Stop doing retroactive extensions, start working seriously on long-term tax policy and deliver certainty for families and businesses across the country. I think there is still time, if we wanted, to at least give the certainty of next year. Shame on the Congress if that does not happen. But I hope that we will at least commit ourselves that this is the last time this is done this way.

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

Madam President, I rise today to discuss an issue that I believe should be discussed and worked on so much more in Congress. It demands an urgency of action, a dedication, and a focus to address our shortfalls as a nation to live up to our ideals, liberty and justice for all. Equal justice under the law is written on the Supreme Court, and is a theme of our Nation.

It is the source of anguish that I believe is driving protests all over our country right now. From Ferguson to Staten Island, from New Jersey to Oakland, citizens of all races and all backgrounds--Americans are joining together to call for change, and to have this idea that our legal system really should be a justice system.

Now this is an anguish that is not simply the result and the reaction to specific incidents. Yes, there is much discussion about those specific incidents in places such as Staten Island, but it is a reflection of a deeper anguish, an unfinished American business that has lasted for decades.

I feel in my own personal life this sense of gratitude for my unique upbringing. As a young man in 1969, my parents literally had to get a white couple to pose as them to buy the house I grew up in in New Jersey. They literally had to go through the indignity of trying to break barriers of race to move into a town that was all white at the time.

I stand here to tell you I grew up in the greatest place. The citizens of Harrington Park, NJ, are why I am standing here right now. The love and caring that exists in my State is remarkable.

I am also here today because of a city that is a majority Black city, Newark, NJ, that embraced me as a young professional, and where I eventually became mayor.

Through my unique position, I have to say I am able to understand all corners of this country. In an intimate way, I see this anguish that I speak of with so many of my friends and colleagues. I heard it here in the Senate. I have had security guards pull me aside to talk to me about their anguish and frustrations about the criminal justice system. I have had the people who do the work in this body--those who clean our floors or tend to the needs of our Senators--and they feel this frustration about an American legal system that is falling short of American ideals and is not a justice system.

I saw it with my own parents who, with agony and pain, talked to me about not having a margin of error when it comes to dealing with police officers. They would coach me on how I should speak and talk and what I should do with my hands because of the fears they had of the treatment I might have that would be different than other Americans.

I stand today because this cannot simply be reduced to a racial issue. This is the larger questions of justice in our country. This calls to the consciousness of all Americans, and it is sourced by the realities we face in this country where we lead the globe in areas that no American who believes in freedom and liberty should want to lead.

We have had over the last decades of my lifetime an explosion in incarceration that belies the truth of who we are. This Nation has seen this country have an 800-percent increase in the Federal prison population over the last 30 years. Think about that--an 800-percent increase. We now have the very ignominious distinction on the globe for leading the planet Earth in a country that incarcerates its own citizens. In fact, America is just 5 percent of the globe's population, but we have 25 percent of the world's imprisoned people, and I tell you that is not because Americans have a greater proclivity for criminality, it is because our legal system is not a justice system.

This overincarceration and overcriminality anguishes this Nation, aggravates divisions, undermines freedom and liberty and costs taxpayers so much more money. It is an unnecessary burden and expense that is a self-inflicted wound in this Nation that undermines our prosperity and our success. We spend $\1/4\ trillion a year locking people up, and the majority of those people are nonviolent offenders.

In fact, over the last decade, right now in America there are more people in prison for drug offenses than all of the people in prison in the 1970s. It is an extraordinary fact. Whether you are Black or White, if you get arrested and charged with a felony crime for doing some things that the last three Presidents of the United States admitted to doing, and then tried and convicted--I say ``tried'' with hesitancy because the majority of them are plea bargains. As the President knows, if you get convicted of that felony offense, the nondrug violent offense, the collateral consequences to your life are horrendous.

We now live in a nation where the collateral consequences are profound. We now know that time behind bars, even for these nonviolent offenders, reduces people's hourly wages by 11 percent, their annual employment by 9 weeks, their annual earnings by 40 percent. It has a powerful economic impact.

If a person is convicted for possession of controlled substances use, they become ineligible for so many benefits that we would often think we would want these very people to have. They

can't get Federal education grants such as a Pell grant. They can't get loans or work assistance. They become ineligible for business licenses, outrageously so. A person convicted of a felony will be denied public housing, even the ability to visit their family in public housing. They could be kicked out of their current housing arrangements. Former inmates can't get jobs, shelter, or loans. They often feel that no option exists other than going back to that slippery slope toward more crime. That is for all the people within the criminal system.

But what is anguishing so many is the clear and undeniable applications of this criminal justice system and the applications of this legal system in unequal ways to different portions of our population.

In my life I have seen that firsthand--how the usage of drugs in different communities where there is no difference between Blacks and Whites is treated differently based upon their race or their socioeconomic status.

Let me be clear. These issues are American issues, not simply race issues. They affect us all because we are a nation with a profound declaration of independence, but the truth of our country speaks also to an interdependence. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

I point out these facts to let you understand why we have to have such an urgency. African Americans and Whites have no difference in drug usage whatsoever, but an African American who chooses to use marijuana is 3.7 times more likely to be arrested for that usage than someone who is White.

In fact, between 2007 and 2009, drug sentences for African-American men were 13.1 percent longer than those for White men. Usage has no difference, but arrest rates are dramatically higher for African- American men. In fact, for all crimes, when you start breaking the actual data down, you see patterns of discriminatory impact that are unacceptable in a nation this great.

Even for police violence, we have to understand that today nearly 2.5 times more Whites are arrested than Blacks for crimes that are violent and nonviolent--2.5 times more arrests for Whites than Blacks, but somehow African Americans are 21 more times more likely to be shot dead by a police officer.

This is data that should not shock us along racial lines but shock us along American lines. We are the Nation of liberty and justice for all. We are the country of equal protection under the law. African Americans make up just 13 percent of our population but 40 percent of the prison population.

In New Jersey, African Americans are 13.7 percent of New Jersey's population but 62 percent of New Jersey's prison population. Much of that, as clearly the data shows, has come about through the persecution of the American drug policy that is applied to different groups and different effects. The reality for minorities is punishing. By the age of 23, 44 percent of Latino youth will be arrested. We know the sad reality that 1 in 3 black males born in America today can expect, if we make no changes, to be incarcerated at some point in their lives compared to 1 in 87 White males, ages 18 to 64, incarcerated, while 1 in every 12 Blacks is.

I struggled with these issues my whole life. As a mayor of a city constantly working to fight to protect citizens, I know how complicated these problems can be. My police department, ourselves, we dug into the data. We saw that our practices had to be changed, that we had to find better ways of keeping our community safe, but we also knew something deeper. I will never forget when I sat with the head of the FBI in Newark, and I asked him about the violent crime problem: How are we going to solve this problem?

He looked at me and said: You don't understand, Mayor. We--meaning law enforcement--are not going to solve this problem. What has to be done are changes greater than this.

I watched how young kids get arrested for breaking the law, for smoking marijuana or being caught with possession. Teenagers find themselves--because they have marijuana on them of a certain amount and weight so the charges increase, to being in a school zone which is every place in many cities--now facing mandatory minimums of upwards of 5 years. These teenagers are scared, afraid, knowing they broke the law, but other folks like the last three Presidents have gotten away with it. They get offered it by the prosecutor, overworked, trying hard to serve the public and keep people safe. The prosecutor doesn't give them the mandatory minimum, they give them a deal: Just take time served or a month or 6 months, but they find themselves with a felony conviction. Now they find themselves in a world where they think they have no options. They can't get jobs. They can't get education grants. They can't get hope.

Hopelessness is a toxic state of being, and those kids then often get caught up again into the underground economy, back into the world of drugs.

What we saw in my time as mayor is that so many of the people who ultimately end up being violent criminals started as kids who felt all their options closed in on them because they got caught up in this world of drugs.

One of the worst collateral consequences of the way we are going about prosecuting our criminal legal system is the violence we are seeing from people who think they have no options but to do what they are doing.

I say this all to simply say we must find a way out. If we are America, a system that believes in elevating human potential and believes in ideas of liberty and freedom and deplores this concept that government should take people's liberty for no good means, we have to do something about this issue.

We who believe in freedom, who tell the world to look at our light and our torch and our promise, should evidence something better than leading the globe in incarcerating our own citizens. We, this country, where generation after generation has conquered discrimination against Irish, has conquered discrimination against Italians, has beat back discrimination against Catholics, has stood up to discrimination against Jews, has fought against Jim Crow and slavery; advancing not toward Black ideals or Jewish ideals or Irish ideals, but the common ideals that bind us as brothers and sisters of justice, of freedom, of equality--we have to do better than lead the globe in incarceration, to have a legal system that subjects more of its people and minorities toward search and scrutiny than seizure and arrest. This we cannot tolerate.

Why I stand so confidently with a faith in my Nation that we can do better does not just stem from this hallowed history. It also stems from the President. Right now in America there are States doing incredible things, incredible things, to change away this reality.

I am proud of my State. We have gone far but not far enough. In New Jersey, between 1999 and 2012, we reduced our prison population 26 percent. Guess what. During that same period of time, New Jersey saw a 30-percent reduction in violent crime. We showed to America that we are better than this. We can give more liberty to people, lowering our prison population, having a disproportionate effect on minorities, and actually drive down crime as well.

We are not the only State. New York's prison population is down 24 percent from the late 1990s. This is due almost entirely to reforms of the Rockefeller drug laws, policies that sent thousands of people to prison often serving sentences for low-level crimes. Over that same period, New York reduced its crime by more than half, lowering prison populations, disproportionately affecting African Americans and Latinos and lowering crimes.

Texas reduced its prison population in 2013 dramatically and has seen decreases in both crime and recidivism rates. All of these States can do more, but why has the Federal Government done little to nothing to follow suit?

I am proud of what is going on in the Senate with many of my colleagues. I came and joined this body when people pulled together to begin legislation such as the Smarter Sentencing Act or, more recently, the REDEEM Act I did in partnership with Rand Paul.

I am so proud that this issue cuts across political sides, that we have Democrats and Republicans, red States and blue States, all beginning to say we can do better. I am here today to end my remarks with that call to the consciousness of our country. If we

have an injustice in our midst with a legal system that is so far away from the justice system to which we should aspire, we have to do better.

I was raised to believe that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. In the words of Langston Hughes: ``There's a dream in this land with its back against the wall; to save the dream for one, we must save the dream for all.''

I know in my heart that with anguish of millions of Americans being punished by a legal system that has gone way out of control, affecting Blacks and Whites, young people of all backgrounds, a legal system that patently has a discriminatory impact on minorities, a legal system that steals the people's liberty, we can do better than this. We can save taxpayer money. We can lower our prison incarceration rates. We can elevate the promise of so many now denied their promise, and we can celebrate our American ideals. We need to lead this globe, not in incarceration, by telling the truth of who we are; that America is a land of freedom, of justice, where there truly is liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

Madam President, I want to talk a little bit about regulation today. We end this Congress failing once again for the Congress to take more responsibility for regulation. Items such as the REINS Act, which I have sponsored with Senator Paul and others and which would require Members of Congress to vote on regulations that had significant economic impact did not get done.

A bill that I introduced with Senator King from Maine that would create a regulatory review process that got great reviews in every economic and many other papers and magazines did not get done. But what I am seeing in Missouri and around the country is more and more concern that begins to focus on the Congress not doing what it needs to do to keep the regulators under control--legislation that would routinely put an end date on every regulation so that regulation has to be reviewed and regulation has to come up again and be looked at. Frankly, if you combined that with the requirement for the Senate and the House to vote on that regulation, it would be very unlikely that regulations that no longer made sense would be presented another time--having to look at this in a way that makes sense for our economy.

One of the generally used estimates is that $2 trillion is spent every year in the United States complying with regulations. Well, let's assume that maybe as much as half of that--it could be more--is either duplicative or simply unnecessary. What would happen in our economy if we had $1 trillion chasing the future rather than trying to needlessly comply with things that no longer make sense.

We have to take more responsibility for that because frankly there is no other way to get our hands on the regulators. The regulators are often out of control and almost always unaccountable. Frankly, they are more unaccountable in the second term of a President than they are in the first term because nobody in the chain of command ever has to go back and answer to the people we work for about the cost of these regulations.

I know in my State of Missouri, people are really concerned about a couple of regulations out there now that are dealing with energy policy and water policy, regulations the EPA has imposed that really do not make sense when you look at the cost of those regulations versus what would be gained by the regulations if they were even possible to comply with.

I think a clear message was sent in November to the next Congress that people want the government to be more responsive, that people want the government to--when you have a cost-benefit analysis of something the government has done, make it a realistic analysis, make it an analysis that would stand the straight-face test, when you say, oh, this is not the emotional cost of worrying about some societal problem that you really cannot quite define, this is what it really costs American families in terms of, for instance, their utility bill.

We look at these regulations that frankly go beyond the capacity of the regulators. I am not suggesting that the Congress is the right place to draft most regulations. I would say that the process of passing a law and saying that we want this agency to figure out how to implement the law is, in fact, the right way to do that. But I would also suggest that then that agency has to come back to the Congress and say: Here is the regulation that we think is the proper implementation. Now you have to vote yes or no. This regulation is the way to go forward with this law.

I think often the regulators now are well beyond what the law allows them to do. There is a case in point I am going to talk about in a minute, the water rule that is out there, where a navigable water was used as a definition of where the EPA had some jurisdiction. Well, I think their view right now is well beyond ``navigable.'' So what would we do about that? There is the ENFORCE the Law Act that I introduced in the Senate and that the House passed months ago with a bipartisan vote, where the Congress would have standing in court to be able to go to court if either House of the Congress thought the President was not enforcing the law as intended, so that the Congress--which now cannot go to court and say that we want a third party to step in right now and define this principle--could go to court and say that we want to know right now what ``navigable'' meant in 1972 when it was put into law, in the early 1970s, what it meant in 1899 when it was used for the first time, and what it means today.

There is no reason to have a couple of years of trying to comply with a regulation when eventually the Supreme Court will say, as they did a handful of times last year, that the Federal Government does not have jurisdiction to do this or that people were appointed illegally to a board or commission and that all of the actions they took had to be set aside. This is not a hypothetical case. This is what the Court decided just last year. The ENFORCE the Law Act would give us the capacity not to require a citizen to have to bear the burden of looking at a regulation that is outside the law or does not make sense and would allow the Congress to actually participate in that process at a much earlier time. So I hope in the next Congress we will do in the Senate what the House did and pass something like the ENFORCE the Law Act. I certainly intend to introduce that legislation again, put it on the President's desk, and have that discussion.

The administration recently took the opportunity to roll out a new rule on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. This was an estimate of-- this was a rule on air matter, ozone. A new ozone rule came out the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Believe me, if you have a rule that you think people are going to like, you do not put it out the Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving. This is like the--we always watch late Friday afternoon what comes out because that is what whoever is announcing it did not want to announce on Monday. Even a bigger day is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. We have an air rule now that we have not achieved. We have made great strides in the right direction, but looking at where we are now on this rule and mercury in the air and the quality of the air, we would have to have at least 75- to 85-percent attainment in counties all over America before you could then raise the bar one more time.

This would take the 75-percent standard, or the 75 standard that we have now for particulate matter--the so-called MACT Standards--and reduce it even further. We are not in attainment with the first rule yet. In fact, the EPA just recently, years after the rule, put out the guidelines you would need that were helpful to try to achieve the rule. But as soon as you get the guidelines for the last rule, the EPA wants to say: Oh, here we want to talk about the next rule, even though we just now told you how to begin to think about complying with the last rule. Even though there are nonattainment areas all over the country, we want to move right beyond that and go to the next rule.

That is the kind of thing that should not be allowed to happen. People are still looking for good-paying jobs. They are still looking at a utility bill they want to make sense of. I hope the Congress can be a part of that. The EPA has another rule they have been asking

for comment on, the so-called clean powerplant. Well now, who is opposed to that? Nobody. There is nobody who does not want clean power. In fact, the standards for utility powerplants have moved in a very positive direction in the last 10 years.

We have made great gains. The question is, are the next gains worth the economic cost, if the next gains are worth people having utility bills they cannot pay or if the next gains are worth people not having jobs they would otherwise have. That is a discussion we need to have. You know, the wrong utility policies produce an absolute lose-lose. A utility bill goes up, we lose jobs that we otherwise would have, and they go to places that care a whole lot less about what comes out of the smokestack than we do.

So the problem gets better, we lose jobs, and the country that has made the most positive strides in recent years is the country that pays the price for rules that no longer make sense. The rule that is out now--our State is largely coal dependent. We are the fifth most coal- dependent State. We are about 82-percent coal dependent. Of the 1 million comments that have been made on the rule, 305,000 of them came from Missouri families.

There are 1 million comments of people talking about why this rule does not make sense for them. We need to be sure that we do the things that not only meet the legal standard but also meet the commonsense standard as we move forward. The Wall Street Journal recently ran an op-ed--an opinion editorial piece--by Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe, who happened to be one of President Obama's law school professors and who is more often a witness for the left side of an argument than for the right side of an argument.

He joined the world's largest private coal company, Peabody Energy, to criticize the executive overreach in what the EPA is proposing as they propose to regulate carbon emissions from existing powerplants. There is a big difference if you have a rule that talks about what you do in the future for the utility companies than regulating what people have previously decided to do under the old rules.

There is a bill out there that I am a cosponsor of that really tries to use the great resource we have through coal in a most effective way. We do not produce any coal in Missouri any more, but we used to. We do not have any coal mines left in our State. But we have coal-fueled power plants. It is not really a war on coal as far as Missourians are concerned; it is a war on coal-fired plants.

If you built a plant under the old rules and, in fact, it has better air quality than any powerplant has ever had up until this time, as all of our recent plants have had, and you still have life in that plant, but the EPA comes in and says that now you have to meet a new standard with the plant you just built or you built 5 years ago, somebody has to pay that bill.

There is this mythical view that well, it is big industry or it is manufacturing. The most laughable of all is that somehow the utility companies are going to pay the bill. The utility companies do not pay the bill. People that get a utility bill pay the bill. The people that are most impacted by that are the people who are having a hard time paying their utility bill now.

These are bad policies. I am committed that as a Congress we should do more than we have been doing to accept responsibility for these agencies we fund, for some overall law, that no matter how much they are abusing it by stretching it beyond what the Congress intended, the Congress would have passed--nobody is out there issuing a rule and saying: By the way, we do not have any legal authority to do this. So defining that authority, being sure the rules make sense is important.

On the power rule, on December 2 I filed comments urging that this rule be withdrawn and we think more carefully about the impact it has on jobs that have good take-home pay and about families who have a hard time paying their utility bill now--our retired individuals, our single moms or others who have a hard time paying their utility bill now. We need to continue to look at that.

One other rule I want to talk about, as my time comes to a conclusion here, is the so-called waters of the United States rule. The EPA was given the authority under the Clean Water Act, as I said earlier, to have some authority over navigable waters. Navigable water, beginning in the 1890s, was used in Federal law as a constitutional explanation of why the Federal Government would be involved in water policy, because the Federal Government under the Constitution is involved in commerce.

Navigable and commerce come together. Navigable actually means you can navigate with some sort of vessel that can carry a commercial load. Well, the EPA has now decided, or is in the process of proposing, at least, that navigable waters means any water that can run into any water that could run into any water that can be navigable. I am confident that is not what the Congress intended.

Now, if they want to propose that, that is fine. Through the President and the administration, the EPA can come to Congress and say: We think we ought to control all the water everywhere; let's have a debate about that. And the Congress would not give the EPA that authority.

I hope the next Congress sets as a priority taking responsibility for what the Federal Government does, taking responsibility for these regulators and regulations, being sure we have regulations where we need them that make sense, and that we push back and don't have regulations where all they do is hurt families, hurt jobs, and don't solve the bigger problem. I hope we see that happen, and I hope the next Congress will be more focused on doing that job than this Congress was.

I yield the floor.