Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I would like to talk for a moment about religious freedom. Our country was founded on the belief that all Americans should have the right to practice their religious beliefs as long as their faith does not infringe on the rights of others. This concept, which is, I have the freedom to stretch out my hand as far as I can unless I punch Hannah here in the face--I do not have the freedom to do that; that is impinging on Hannah's rights--actually pertains to more than just freedom of religion but our basic concepts of what people's rights are, and this is an idea that is woven through our Constitution and our Bill of Rights. I have the right to choose my profession, where I live, and I have a right to choose my doctor according to my own faith, but I do not have the right to choose yours.

When we wrote the health reform bill, we made sure to account for this balance. The health reform law required insurance companies to cover preventive health benefits without copays, and we asked the Institute of Medicine to study which preventive health benefits should be included. Last summer, the IOM--the Institute of Medicine-- recommended to the Department of Health and Human Services that contraceptives should be covered, along with cancer screening, screening for domestic violence, and many other services that have been shown to improve women's health.

A number of religious institutions objected to being required to cover contraceptive services as a preventive health benefit for their employees. President Obama heeded their concerns, and he created an exception for churches and other religious institutions. The President went even further by saying that religiously affiliated organizations will not have to pay for contraceptive coverage for their employees. I will say that again. A religiously affiliated, nonprofit employer will not have to pay for contraceptives for their employees--and that was applauded by a lot of Catholic groups, for example--but the employees would have the right to contraception, to exercise their religious rights. And very often, contraception is used as a medical preventive-- I think 15 percent of all use of contraception is to prevent maladies women have.

I believe all Americans should be able to freely and fully practice their religious beliefs to the extent their practice does not infringe on the freedom of others. I believe this freedom is at the heart of our society in America.

I applaud the President for finding a solution that protects religious freedoms while also providing health care to nearly all women. However, my friend Senator Blunt, with whom I am actually working on a separate transportation amendment, has filed a nongermane amendment that goes much further than the President's accommodation of religious employers.

His amendment says that any employer or health insurer could opt out of any essential benefit or preventive service required by the Affordable Care Act. All they have to do is say that their objection is on religious or moral grounds. This amendment would upend how our entire insurance system works. It would allow any employer to opt out of covering any health care service guaranteed to Americans by the Affordable Care Act. This is an unprecedented proposal, one that could change the structure of health care in our country much for the worse.

The President found a balanced approach that maintains women's access to health care, while allowing religiously affiliated organizations to opt out of paying for it. On the other hand, Senator Blunt's amendment would allow employers to prohibit health plans from providing preventive health services guaranteed by the Affordable Care Act. For example, under this amendment, an employer could object to covering vaccines for children. There are people in this country--I am sure many of them are employers--who have a moral objection to vaccines, so the plan would not be required to cover it or an employer could choose not to allow an insurer to cover maternity care for a single woman. There are people with moral objections to people having children outside marriage. So the woman would have to pay for her prenatal care and her maternity care out of pocket, if the employer just says: Oh, nope. I have a moral problem with that.

Of course, Senator Blunt's amendment ignores the religious freedom of women to be able to access contraceptives. The President's accommodation a couple weeks ago protected the religious freedom of religious organizations, while also protecting the religious freedom of the women who are their employees. Remember, the employees have religious freedom too.

The Blunt amendment violates the freedom of women to receive the kind of scientifically proven health care that she chooses--she chooses. This proposal does not simply put women's access to birth control in the hands of their employers, it does not simply allow politics to get between women and their doctors, it changes the way health care is provided in our country. It violates a core belief in our society that our religious decisions are our own and that each of us, every woman and man in our society, has the right to make decisions about our own health for ourselves and for our families.

Over the last decade, we have seen proposal after proposal that would politicize the decisions that women make with their doctors. Now we are seeing an all-out attack on women's rights to protect their health by using contraceptives, something that almost all women in this country use at some point in their lives. These women choose to do that. It conforms with their own beliefs about what is best for them.

I think we all believe, or almost all of us believe that women should have that right. This seems to be a clear case of one person's religious beliefs impinging on the rights of others. It is a deeply worrying case of one person's hand meeting another's face.

I rise to urge my colleagues to fight back against these assaults. I urge my friends on both sides of the aisle to think about this, to respect the decisions that each woman makes about her health care, to protect each woman's religious freedom, her liberty, and to oppose Senator Blunt's amendment to undermine this basic freedom.

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

I thank the Senator from Vermont and also the Presiding Officer and the Senator from Rhode Island for engaging in this colloquy that is so important.

Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues in the Senate to support an extension of the renewable energy production tax credit. This tax credit, slated to expire at the end of this year, has created thousands of jobs for the wind industry, has reduced our dependence on foreign oil, and is hugely important to Minnesota and to the Nation. But because it takes a lot of time to order and manufacture new wind turbines, investors need to know the credit will exist in 2013 or else they will not invest. That is why the credit must be extended now, along with the payroll tax extension and unemployment benefits.

If Congress lets the renewable energy production tax credit expire, we will let down the 80,000 people working on wind farms and manufacturing facilities across the Nation, and we may cost this country $10 billion in lost investment. Already, because of uncertainty about the fate of the production tax credit, investment in the wind industry is drying up. America cannot afford to wait any longer. Congress must act now to extend this important measure for American business and manufacturing and, indeed, for the future of our planet.

Just a few weeks ago, I received a letter from Terry and Janet Carlson, who run a family farm in Parkers Prairie, MN, and are developing a wind project in their community. They write:

Our family believes in renewable energy and the benefits it

can provide to our local community. Besides being

environmentally friendly, wind energy has proved to be a

great economic benefit to the State of Minnesota and small

communities such as ours. But the 2012 expiration of the

production tax credit has created a high level of uncertainty

in the wind industry. . . . We have a significant amount of

time and money invested in this project and the production

tax credit expiration has a significant impact on our project

moving forward. It also has a significant impact on the

thousands of renewable energy related jobs in America and the

economic boon it would provide to our community.

Terry and Janet have good reasons to be concerned. A Navigant Consulting study found that if the tax production credit is not extended, construction of wind turbines will drop by 75 percent in 2013. That means a lot fewer manufacturing jobs and construction jobs. And, in fact, if Congress fails to extend the production tax credit, the wind industry will lose half of its jobs, dropping from 80,000 in 2012 to 41,000 in 2013. That means 39,000 well-paying construction and manufacturing jobs will evaporate if Congress fails to extend this tax credit.

What a shame that would be. We have had this discussion. We have had a colloquy before on global warming. As the Senator from Vermont said in his opening remarks, the world community knows this exists. The world scientific community knows where this is going. And so China is doing wind, Germany is doing wind, and Denmark is doing wind. This is the future of our energy. If we stop producing wind energy, we are going to cede this to the rest of the world. If we don't act now, and renew the production tax credit, we are going to lose 40,000 jobs right now, but we are also going to lose the future.

On the other hand, this tax policy has major potential for the American

economy now and in the future. With a 4-year extension, the production tax credit will continue to support growth in the wind industry, boosting construction of wind farms by 25 percent, and instead of losing 39,000 jobs, an extension of the wind production credit will create 15,000 additional well-paying construction and manufacturing jobs.

With the help of the renewable energy production tax credit, the wind industry has been a bright spot in these tough economic times. There are over 400 facilities across 43 States manufacturing for the wind energy industry. Sixteen of these facilities are in Minnesota and support about 3,000 jobs. Currently, a majority of wind industry parts are produced here in America.

I think that is so important. We talk about the future of our economy. We talk about all the time here, or at least should be talking about all the time here, the future of our economy. Think about that. Over half of wind energy parts are now produced here in America, whereas in 2005, a quarter of components were made in this country. That is what we have to continue to do. That is the story we want to hear.

Instead of exporting manufacturing jobs to other countries, the wind industry has been bringing well-paying, high-tech jobs back to America, where the technology was first invented, and that is thanks to the renewable energy tax credit. If we don't extend this tax credit, we will fail these facilities and the people whose jobs are at stake. As uncertainty about the tax credit deepens, we have already seen that orders to wind manufacturing facilities are slowing down and companies are making layoffs.

This is our fault, here in Congress, and it is unacceptable. The longer we wait, the worse the layoffs and shutdowns will become. In fact, if we don't extend the tax credit this month, it will be too late for the wind industry to build any turbines in 2013. Wind turbines are big, and wind farms need to plan and order parts a year in advance. If the wind farms can't depend on the tax credit of 2013, they can't make plans to build for the next year, which means they can't make orders to 400 manufacturing facilities across the country for parts.

Because of the uncertainty of the tax credit in 2013, production now in 2012 has already come to a halt. That is why we need to extend this tax credit now, immediately, in the payroll tax package.

For the past several months, we have been celebrating reports that the unemployment rate is improving. This is fantastic news. But we can't rest on our laurels yet. We must be sure to enact smart policies that promote businesses and job growth in the parts of the economy that need it most and which are the future. The renewable energy tax credit does just that. It will promote growth in manufacturing and construction--industries that deserve our help the most.

America has tremendous wind resources, most of which are still untapped. Take Minnesota, for example. We are ranked fifth in the country for the most installed wind capacity. Yet our wind resources could still provide 25 times more energy. This is a huge opportunity for this country--an opportunity that we can't afford to dismiss.

Wind blows all over this Nation. It blows in red States and in blue States alike. It is an abundant, cheap, clean energy resource that is proving to be a boon to our economy. We cannot stop developing it now. I urge my colleagues to extend the renewable energy production tax credit immediately, at the same time we extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits.

I want to thank the Presiding Officer for his leadership, and I want to thank the Senator from Vermont and the Senator from Rhode Island, and so many others, who are leading this fight. This is smart on an economic basis, but we are facing a crisis that scientists around the world agree on.

I yield to the Senator from Vermont. I have said what I wanted to say about the wind production tax credit and the other renewable energy tax credits. I thank the Senator from Vermont for his leadership.

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

I thank the Chair.

(The remarks of Mr. Franken pertaining to the introduction on S. 2076 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that morning business be extended until 6 p.m., with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each with the Republicans controlling the time from 4 to 5 p.m. and the majority controlling the time from 5 to 6 p.m.; further, that the majority leader be recognized at 6 p.m.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, Sue Lantto is an advocate of victims of domestic violence. She often visits a local courthouse in suburban Minneapolis to help her clients obtain protective orders. Last month, she wrote an editorial in which she acknowledged that ``[m]ost of us who work at the courthouse have had moments when we were frightened'' because cases sometimes ``become volatile.''

Patricia Buss handles family court matters in Dakota County, MN. She says she ``personally think[s] of the risks every time [she] walk[s] into the courthouses.''

John Baker is an attorney in Maplewood, MN. He is also a retired marine. He concurs with Sue and Patricia. He says:

I am not saying that we need to create fortresses in our

courthouses, but basic security screening and training can go

a long way. That is not being done.

The local courthouse is a workplace for many people, for secretaries, custodians, and clerks who clock in and clock out every day. It is also where justice is administered. It is where we report for jury duty and fight traffic tickets. It is where adoptions are processed, divorces are finalized, and misdemeanors are adjudicated. But as Sue, Patricia and John explained, local courthouses can be dangerous places--stakes are high, tempers flare, victims confront their assailants, defendants confront their accusers, prosecutors argue with defense lawyers. A rash of incidents in late 2011 raised concerns about security at local courthouses, especially in rural and suburban communities.

In September, a defendant opened fire in the Crawford County Courthouse in Arkansas, shooting a judge's secretary. Authorities reported the gunman entered the courthouse unopposed, wearing tactical gear, armed with semiautomatic weapons. The local newspaper later noted the shooting ``highlighted the vulnerability of the state's many small, rural courthouses where the guards, armed police and metal detectors common in large cities are often too expensive.''

Two days later, there was a shooting in the Adams County Superior Court in Indiana. According to media accounts, that courthouse did not have a metal detector either. A local judge observed that there were ``a lot of security problems here that need to be corrected'' and that the shooting ``really drove home the point that things need to change.''

Then, in December, a defendant retrieved a gun from his car and walked into the Cook County Courthouse in Grand Marais, MN. The courthouse did not have a metal detector and the gunman was not screened. He shot and wounded the prosecuting attorney and a witness. The bailiff also was injured during the encounter. After the shooting, a Minnesota judge wrote to his colleagues expressing concerns about courthouse security. He put the issue very well. He said: ``I'm no longer willing to risk my life, the life of court staff, the life of the public who have no choice about going to court.'' He said he was worried about being ``carried out in a body bag.''

These are not isolated incidents. The Center for Judicial and Executive Security in St. Paul tracks court-targeted acts of violence across the Nation and estimates there were 23 such incidents at local courthouses in 2010 and 2011 or about 1 per month. This is not the first time we have confronted this issue in Minnesota. A few years ago, a man took hostages at the courthouse in Morrison County. After the shooting in Grand Marais, in December, a local sheriff recalled that ``[t]here were a lot of heroes who really averted something much more serious.''

I am grateful for those heroes. Minnesota's sheriffs and law enforcement personnel across our Nation are among them. These brave men and women have many duties, including the daunting task of keeping our local courthouses safe. In fact, the National Sheriffs Association sent me a letter last week. I think it is worth noting, so let me read it.

Sheriffs are typically responsible for the safety and

security of the local courthouses in their counties--along

with performing traditional law enforcement duties and

operating the local jails. Sadly, in recent years, there has

been a spike in violent incidents in courthouses across the

country. This violence places law enforcement, judicial

personnel, and the general public in harm's way. As such, it

is imperative that sheriffs have the resources, particularly

in rural areas where resources are extremely limited, to

ensure courthouses have the appropriate equipment and tools

necessary to improve security, enabling for the protection of

courthouses throughout the United States.

Our sheriffs need support, and we should not wait for the next courthouse shooting before we give it to them. That is why today I am introducing the bipartisan Local Courthouse Safety Act. It does three simple, commonsense things.

First, the bill cuts through bureaucratic redtape, giving local courts direct access to security equipment that Federal agencies no longer are using. This provision is modeled after a Defense Department program that allows the Pentagon to give its excess equipment to local police and firefighters. The Local Courthouse Safety Act would do the same thing for local courts. It would give them direct access to the Federal Government's excess metal detectors, wands, and baggage screening machines.

Second, the Local Courthouse Safety Act gives States the flexibility they need to make investments in courthouse security. It clarifies that States may use their Byrne Justice Assistance grants, the Byrne JAG grants, and State Homeland Security grants to improve safety at local courthouses. The bill does not require any new spending, and it does not impose any new mandates on anyone. It simply says that States can use existing Federal resources for courthouse security upgrades if they so choose.

Finally, the Local Courthouse Safety Act provides statutory authorization for the Justice Department's VALOR Initiative, which provides training and technical assistance to local law enforcement officers teaching them how to anticipate and survive violent encounters.

This is a bipartisan issue, and this should be legislation we can pass even in this divided Congress. I am proud to introduce this legislation with Senator Boozman, my Republican colleague from Arkansas, and a champion for law enforcement personnel in his State and across the country. I encourage my colleagues from both sides of the aisle to join Senator Boozman and me in advancing this bill. In doing so, they will join a long and growing list of groups who support it, including the National Sheriffs Association, the Conference of Chief Justices, and the Conference of State Court Administrators.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, Sue Lantto is an advocate of victims of domestic violence. She often visits a local courthouse in suburban Minneapolis to help her clients obtain protective orders. Last month, she wrote an editorial in which she acknowledged that ``[m]ost of us who work at the courthouse have had moments when we were frightened'' because cases sometimes ``become volatile.''

Patricia Buss handles family court matters in Dakota County, MN. She says she ``personally think[s] of the risks every time [she] walk[s] into the courthouses.''

John Baker is an attorney in Maplewood, MN. He is also a retired marine. He concurs with Sue and Patricia. He says:

I am not saying that we need to create fortresses in our

courthouses, but basic security screening and training can go

a long way. That is not being done.

The local courthouse is a workplace for many people, for secretaries, custodians, and clerks who clock in and clock out every day. It is also where justice is administered. It is where we report for jury duty and fight traffic tickets. It is where adoptions are processed, divorces are finalized, and misdemeanors are adjudicated. But as Sue, Patricia and John explained, local courthouses can be dangerous places--stakes are high, tempers flare, victims confront their assailants, defendants confront their accusers, prosecutors argue with defense lawyers. A rash of incidents in late 2011 raised concerns about security at local courthouses, especially in rural and suburban communities.

In September, a defendant opened fire in the Crawford County Courthouse in Arkansas, shooting a judge's secretary. Authorities reported the gunman entered the courthouse unopposed, wearing tactical gear, armed with semiautomatic weapons. The local newspaper later noted the shooting ``highlighted the vulnerability of the state's many small, rural courthouses where the guards, armed police and metal detectors common in large cities are often too expensive.''

Two days later, there was a shooting in the Adams County Superior Court in Indiana. According to media accounts, that courthouse did not have a metal detector either. A local judge observed that there were ``a lot of security problems here that need to be corrected'' and that the shooting ``really drove home the point that things need to change.''

Then, in December, a defendant retrieved a gun from his car and walked into the Cook County Courthouse in Grand Marais, MN. The courthouse did not have a metal detector and the gunman was not screened. He shot and wounded the prosecuting attorney and a witness. The bailiff also was injured during the encounter. After the shooting, a Minnesota judge wrote to his colleagues expressing concerns about courthouse security. He put the issue very well. He said: ``I'm no longer willing to risk my life, the life of court staff, the life of the public who have no choice about going to court.'' He said he was worried about being ``carried out in a body bag.''

These are not isolated incidents. The Center for Judicial and Executive Security in St. Paul tracks court-targeted acts of violence across the Nation and estimates there were 23 such incidents at local courthouses in 2010 and 2011 or about 1 per month. This is not the first time we have confronted this issue in Minnesota. A few years ago, a man took hostages at the courthouse in Morrison County. After the shooting in Grand Marais, in December, a local sheriff recalled that ``[t]here were a lot of heroes who really averted something much more serious.''

I am grateful for those heroes. Minnesota's sheriffs and law enforcement personnel across our Nation are among them. These brave men and women have many duties, including the daunting task of keeping our local courthouses safe. In fact, the National Sheriffs Association sent me a letter last week. I think it is worth noting, so let me read it.

Sheriffs are typically responsible for the safety and

security of the local courthouses in their counties--along

with performing traditional law enforcement duties and

operating the local jails. Sadly, in recent years, there has

been a spike in violent incidents in courthouses across the

country. This violence places law enforcement, judicial

personnel, and the general public in harm's way. As such, it

is imperative that sheriffs have the resources, particularly

in rural areas where resources are extremely limited, to

ensure courthouses have the appropriate equipment and tools

necessary to improve security, enabling for the protection of

courthouses throughout the United States.

Our sheriffs need support, and we should not wait for the next courthouse shooting before we give it to them. That is why today I am introducing the bipartisan Local Courthouse Safety Act. It does three simple, commonsense things.

First, the bill cuts through bureaucratic redtape, giving local courts direct access to security equipment that Federal agencies no longer are using. This provision is modeled after a Defense Department program that allows the Pentagon to give its excess equipment to local police and firefighters. The Local Courthouse Safety Act would do the same thing for local courts. It would give them direct access to the Federal Government's excess metal detectors, wands, and baggage screening machines.

Second, the Local Courthouse Safety Act gives States the flexibility they need to make investments in courthouse security. It clarifies that States may use their Byrne Justice Assistance grants, the Byrne JAG grants, and State Homeland Security grants to improve safety at local courthouses. The bill does not require any new spending, and it does not impose any new mandates on anyone. It simply says that States can use existing Federal resources for courthouse security upgrades if they so choose.

Finally, the Local Courthouse Safety Act provides statutory authorization for the Justice Department's VALOR Initiative, which provides training and technical assistance to local law enforcement officers teaching them how to anticipate and survive violent encounters.

This is a bipartisan issue, and this should be legislation we can pass even in this divided Congress. I am proud to introduce this legislation with Senator Boozman, my Republican colleague from Arkansas, and a champion for law enforcement personnel in his State and across the country. I encourage my colleagues from both sides of the aisle to join Senator Boozman and me in advancing this bill. In doing so, they will join a long and growing list of groups who support it, including the National Sheriffs Association, the Conference of Chief Justices, and the Conference of State Court Administrators.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on February 7, 2012, at 3 p.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to consider a Chairman's Mark entitled, ``The Highway Investment, Job Creation and Economic Growth Act of 2012.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on February 7, 2012, at 10 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on February 7, 2012, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet, during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing entitled ``The Promise of Accessible Technology: Challenges and Opportunities'' on February 7, 2012, at 2:30 p.m., in room G-50 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on February 7, 2012, at 2:30 p.m.

Madam President, I rise today to talk about one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in the history of the Court. Two years ago the Supreme Court handed down the landmark decision Citizens United, and with it they gave corporations a blank check to utterly destroy our political system. I wish to take a few minutes this afternoon to tell my colleagues about the practical impact of this decision and how it threatens our democracy and why we need to do something about it.

Let me start with the punch line. In Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruled for the first time that corporations are guaranteed the same free speech rights as real people to influence elections. I didn't say it was a funny punch line. The Court had previously held that money or campaign contributions are speech, so functionally that means the corporations are now able to spend as much money as they want, whenever they want, in any election in this country.

Let me tell my colleagues how.

My colleagues may have heard a lot about PACs. ``PAC'' is short for political action committee, and it is an entity that is separate from a campaign that can run political ads on issues or support or oppose a candidate. They can also give a limited amount of money directly to campaigns. The idea behind them is that if a number of citizens share views on issues, say, the environment, they can pool their resources, make their views known, and influence an election. They can run ads to call for the election of a candidate who supports those shared beliefs. But a PAC cannot coordinate with that candidate's campaign. It is not supposed to be an extension of that campaign.

Prior to Citizens United, corporations could get involved in the political process, but there were special protections in place. They couldn't use their money to make a direct contribution to a campaign, and they couldn't buy political ads to directly influence elections. Instead, they had to give money to a PAC, and how much they could give was very tightly restricted. Corporations could only use their treasury funds to pay to set up and administer a PAC and could not use any money to expressly advocate for the election or defeat of any candidate. Their executives, like all other individuals, could only write checks of up to $5,000 to these PACs.

Citizens United began the process of unraveling these protections when it was found that companies could give unlimited money to PACs for the purposes of running ads directly advocating for or against a candidate. This kind of activity is called ``independent expenditures.''

There is one line from the Supreme Court's opinion that I think is worth sharing with my colleagues, as Senator Whitehouse did as well, because it highlights for me and for him just how absurd the thinking of the Court was on this case. It said:

[I]ndependent expenditures, including those made by

corporations, do not give rise

to corruption or the appearance of corruption.

I added the emphasis.

This one line that is so flawed and so out of touch with reality is what has spawned the complete unraveling of our campaign finance system, and it has opened the floodgates for political spending.

A subsequent case, FreeSpeechNow.org v. FEC, continued what Citizens United started by finding the contribution caps--the limits on what corporations and wealthy individuals can give to PACs--to be unconstitutional.

The combination of these two court cases is what gave rise to what is now known as a super PAC, and as a result many regular PACs have now given way to these super PACs. What does this mean in practice? It means that corporations can now give an unlimited amount of funds directly from their general treasuries to PACs and that those funds can be used to run ads supporting a candidate or running attack ads against their opponents. And because the cap on contributions to PACs was eliminated for individuals as well, now CEOs and other superwealthy individuals can write multimillion-dollar checks to influence elections. This entirely undermines the restrictions that were put in place on how much an individual or corporation can give to a candidate running for office. A person just gives however much they want to the candidate's super PAC, and they buy ads that support the candidate's election or, as we have seen a lot of lately, they run negative ads that smear another candidate.

A super PAC is not a new legal entity; it is just a PAC that started to bundle together these unlimited corporate donations with unlimited donations from super-rich individuals with the goal of supporting or defeating certain candidates. Let's be clear. These super PACs aren't about issues, they are about campaigning for candidates--even though they ostensibly can't coordinate with the official campaign and legally a candidate can't even force them to stop.

As so many people have noted, in this new political reality it would be unilateral disarmament--and ultimately electoral defeat--for elected officials to run away from super PACs. That is why the system needs to be changed.

But it gets even worse. In a post-Citizens United world, one often cannot even find out where the money is coming from. PACs and super PACs have to disclose several times a year where they get their money from, but companies often don't want us to know they are giving lots of money to elect or defeat someone, so they do something that looks like money laundering, except that it is legal. They might create and give money to a shell corporation which in turn donates to a super PAC. When you look at the records of the super PAC, which are published only about quarterly, you will see the shell corporation but not the original source of the money. A company might give money to one shell corporation which, in turn, could give money to another PAC, and so on, until it finally reaches the ultimate super PAC. With records published so infrequently, it is nearly impossible to trace back to the original corporation.

To make matters even worse, many super PACs have been able to get permission from the Federal Election Commission to delay their disclosure statements, rendering all of these supposed disclosures completely useless.

So back to the punch line. Corporations can now spend an unlimited sum of money to buy elections, and the American people generally won't even know about it. Corporations and superwealthy individuals no longer have to play by any sensible rules when it comes to the checks they write for campaigns. Citizens United ushered in the wild, wild west of political spending. But don't take my word for it. Let's look at some of the numbers.

In the 2010 election, outside groups spent over $280 million on political ads and other campaign expenses. This is more than double the amount spent by outside groups in 2008 before the decision, and it is more than five times the amount spent by these groups in 2006. The chamber of commerce alone spent more than $32 million on campaigns in 2010, which is more than any other single outside group, and it is nearly double the amount it spent in 2008. Outside groups spent more on political advertising in 2010 than the official Democratic and Republican Party committees.

But that was 2010, when corporations and the superwealthy were just beginning to understand the utility of this amazingly misguided decision. The last several months have given us example after example of what big money can do to control the political process.

Now, I may not agree with the views of all of the Republican primary candidates--or any of them, for that matter; some of them individually, maybe, but not as a whole--but I do believe that everyone deserves a fair shake when they run for office. And a fair election is just not possible when corporations and wealthy individuals can swoop in and drown out the voices of hundreds of thousands of Americans with a single fat check.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for 4 more minutes.

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich pulled off a surprise win in South Carolina. But I would venture to guess it wouldn't have happened if Mr. Gingrich's super PAC hadn't received a $5 million check from one guy, a multibillionaire from Las Vegas. This super PAC, also known as the group Winning Our Future, used the money to pay for attack ads against former Governor Mitt Romney. Just a few days ago, it was announced that the wife of this same billionaire wrote another $5 million check to Mr. Gingrich's super PAC to help him out in Florida. Now, I wish I could offer an example of a company writing a similar check, but as I mentioned before, there is just no way of knowing if they did or didn't because they don't have to disclose it and they can take steps to hide it. But this example of two $5 million checks from one couple who just happened to be willing to talk about their donations should show just how big we are talking about. This is very, very big money, and it is happening now.

To be fair, Mr. Romney has his own super PAC called Restore Our Future, and it is currently outspending every other PAC in Florida by 20 to 1. I wish I could tell my colleagues how this is possible, but the first disclosure statement for this campaign season won't be out until the end of this month, and even then it will be hard to trace it back to individual companies or people through all the shell corporations and other PACs.

This is only the beginning. Hold on to your hats. Over the next 10 months, I predict we will not just see a flood, but we will see a tidal wave of political spending by corporations and the wealthiest of the wealthiest Americans, the vast majority of whom are also running these corporations. And what will this mean? It means it will be hard for $25 individual contributions to make any impact when compared to a single $5 million check from a superwealthy and super-self-interested individual. Your voice and the voice of millions of Americans like you will be overwhelmed by the voice of a corporation or ``uber'' wealthy individual who can write multimillion-dollar checks without blinking an eye. All of this is going to happen under a shroud of secrecy.

We may not know who is bankrolling these groups, but we do know who is hurt by them, and it is all of us--Democrats and Republicans alike. No matter where one's ideology falls or with what political party one associates, I think people will agree with me that this process isn't fair. It isn't right, and it is something we need to change.

Congress tried to do something about this a little over a year ago when we took up Chuck Schumer's DISCLOSE Act. Despite overwhelming public support for disclosure laws, this tremendous piece of legislation did not pass. It failed in the Senate by one vote. I am sad to say that every Democrat voted for it and every Republican voted against it. That is a very disappointing outcome because this is an issue that affects candidates of both parties. It is one we should all be able to get behind.

We are all hurt by corporations that can write enormous checks to their favorite politician, and we are all hurt when wealthy individuals can shield their contributions from the public by donating to shell groups and phony organizations that do nothing but pass

those dollars on to help the candidate of their choice. This is a matter of transparency and accountability and fairness which should cut across the entire political spectrum.

Although we may not agree on everything, I do think we can all agree we need to do more to bring greater transparency to the election process. A number of my Republican colleagues agree with me--and had agreed for years before the Supreme Court further unraveled restrictions on corporate spending.

I will read one of the quotes. A good friend of mine, Senator Jeff Sessions, said:

I don't like it when a large source of money is out there

funding ads and is unaccountable. . . . To the extent we can,

I tend to favor disclosure.

I could go for minute upon minute upon minute reading these quotes. I will not in the interest of time.

So this is a problem we all need to recognize, we all need to deal with. Republican Presidential candidates are dealing with it now, but soon it will be the Democrats' turn. So I have teamed up with a number of my colleagues, many of whom will be speaking today, to see that Congress can take up legislation where we disclose, where we have greater transparency for this out-of-control spending. We are going to work hard to bring our Republican colleagues to the table and get their agreement on a path forward. Disclosure will not fix all the evils of Citizens United, but it certainly will be a step forward. I hope my colleagues will join with us in this effort, and I hope to be back on the floor many times on this issue.

Madam President, I thank you for your indulgence because I have run out of time.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Whitehouse and I be permitted to engage in a colloquy.

Mr. President, I rise today to address an alarming trend that I see in our national discourse. As legislators, our decisions need to be rooted in facts. Science driven by data and rigorous analysis needs to inform our policymaking.

Scientists are the ones who made the United States the world's innovator in the last century. Scientists are the people who gave us antibiotics, for example. Do you like being able to use antibiotics? Well, then, thank scientists.

Scientists put a man on the Moon--several men, actually--and got him back safely. These are rocket scientists.

Scientists made it possible for Americans to watch this speech on C- SPAN--that is C-SPAN, the Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network--also rocket scientists.

Scientists also came up with such useful things as the Internet.

A scientist from the University of Minnesota, a Noble Price-winning agronomist named Norman Borlaug, is credited with saving over 1 billion lives worldwide. He did this by using science to develop a high-yield, disease-resistant wheat that was planted in Pakistan, India, and elsewhere around the world.

By engineering our next-generation weapons systems, scientists ensure that our military will continue to be the most powerful in the world.

We rely on science and scientists, and if we are to progress as a country, if we and future generations of Americans are to be healthy and prosperous and safe, we better put science right at the center of our decisionmaking. Yet, right now, foundations and think tanks funded by the fossil fuel industry are spreading misinformation about the integrity of climate science, much as think tanks paid by the tobacco industry used misinformation to cast doubt about the health hazards of smoking.

Ignoring or flatout contradicting what climate scientists are telling us about the warming climate and the warming planet can lead to really bad decisions on natural energy and environmental policies here in Congress. So today Senator Whitehouse and I want to take some time to talk about climate science and about the fact that a scientific consensus on climate change has been reached. Climate change is happening and is being driven by human activities.

From the National Academy of Sciences, to the American Meteorological Society, to the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, all of the preeminent scientific institutions agree that manmade greenhouse gas emissions are warming the planet and are a threat to our economy, to our security, and to our health, and so do the overwhelming majority of actively publishing climatologists.

This graph, taken from a study published by the National Academy of Sciences, shows responses to the survey question: Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?

What you see here is that as climate expertise goes up, so does the affirmation that climate change is real and is caused by human beings. Among the most expert pool of respondents, climatologists who are actively publishing on climate change, represented by this bar right here, the rightmost bar, 97 percent of that category of scientists answered yes. Of course, there are a few articles published by climate skeptics in peer-reviewed journals, but the vast majority--97 percent-- of the peer-reviewed literature supports the notion that people are causing the Earth's climate to change.

What are peer-reviewed articles? Well, they are articles scientists write after conducting experiments. The experimentation is designed to test a hypothesis. If the hypothesis holds up, the scientist writes a paper describing the experiment and sends to it a professional journal. The journal then sends to it other experts in the field--peer reviewers--who see if they can tear any holes in the theory. They question the methodology. They check the math. Very often, they send the paper back with questions. And the researchers will make changes to satisfy the reviewers' inquires. If in the end the peer reviewers think the work is sound, they recommend the paper for publication. Then, after publication, other scientists in the field are free to read the paper and plug away and disprove it if they can. That is a peer- reviewed paper.

I repeat, the vast majority of peer-reviewed literature supports the notion that people are causing the Earth's climate to change, and 97 percent of published climatologists say yes when asked: Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?

Yet, in spite of all of this--and these are all new reports on top of this 97 percent number that was established. Yet the conservative media and some of my colleagues in Congress seem to think it is just fine to ignore what these scientists are saying.

Let me illustrate this with an analogy. Say you went to a doctor and the doctor told you: You better start eating more sensibly and start exercising, because you are tremendously overweight. I see that you have a family history of heart disease, and your father died of a heart attack at an early age. You have to go on a diet and start working out a little bit.

You say: You know what. I want a second opinion. So you go to a second doctor and he says: OK, you have a family history of heart disease. Your father died of a heart attack at a young age, and you weigh over 300 pounds. You smoke three packs a day. Your cholesterol is out of control, your blood pressure is through the roof. It would be irresponsible of me as a doctor not to immediately send you to this place at the Mayo Clinic that I know. I think you have to go there.

You say: Thanks, doctor, but I want a third opinion. So you go to the third doctor and the third doctor reads the chart and looks at you and goes: Wow, I am amazed that you are still alive.

You say: You know what. I want a fourth opinion. And then you go to the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh doctors. They are all saying the same thing. But you keep asking for more opinions.

Finally, you go to the 25th doctor. The 25th doctor says: It is a good thing you came to me, because all this diet and exercise would have been a complete waste. You are doing fine. Those other doctors are in the pockets of the fresh fruit and vegetable people. He says: Enjoy life, eat whatever you want, keep smoking, and watch a lot of TV. That is my advice.

Then you learn the doctor was paid a salary by the makers of Twinkies, which, don't get me wrong, are a delicious snack food and should be eaten in moderation. Am I making sense here?

Was he part of a foundation?

This is actually an interesting area. There is a well- established link between the scientists who have worked for think tanks such as George C. Marshall Institute, Heartland Institute, and other foundations, which were funded at first by tobacco money and, since then, by the fossil fuel industry. These scientists have been paid to spread misinformation in order to cast doubt. That is all they have to do--on a whole host of scientific issues--first, tobacco and acid rain, the hole in the ozone layer, and now climate change.

Take tobacco, for example. Scientists were paid to testify in court that there was no proof that smoking caused cancer or was addictive, even after the industry scientists knew darn well that cigarettes were addictive and did cause cancer and heart disease. In fact, the tobacco industry was found guilty in 2004 of plotting to conceal the health risks and addictiveness of cigarettes from the public. The judge found that the tobacco industry had ``devised and executed a scheme to defraud consumers and potential consumers about the hazards of cigarettes--hazards that their own internal company documents proved they had known since the 1950s.''

The whole purpose of this scheme was to provide misinformation, to confuse the public, to manufacture doubt, and that is what is happening right now with climate change. Public data from the Security and Exchange Commission and from charitable organization reports to the IRS report showed that between 2005 and 2008, ExxonMobil gave about $9 million to groups linked to climate change denial, while foundations associated with the private oil company Koch Industries gave nearly $25 million. The third major funder was the American Petroleum Institute. All in all, the energy industry spent hundreds of millions of dollars, even billions of dollars, on lobbying against climate change legislation between 1999 and 2010, including a large spike in spending from 2008 to 2010.

Climategate. Sometimes the Senator and I refer to it as ``Climategate-gate.''

I thank my colleague for bringing this up. Let's talk about that. This is the leak of thousands of e-mails from scientists at the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit back in 2009. It was done right before the Copenhagen conference, right?

OK. The conservative media--remember, this doubt is amplified in the conservative echo chamber, talk radio, et cetera. You know what it is, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, Fox News, et cetera. Conservative media pounced, taking quotes out of context to sensational lies like this ``scandal.'' Most of the attacks were directed at an e-mail by Phil Jones, a climate scientist working with the East Anglia Climate Research Unit, in which in this e-mail he referred to using ``Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years to hide the decline.'' That sounds very bad, ``trick'' and ``hide the decline.'' That went viral in the conservative media--evidence that the scientific consensus on climate change was a giant hoax. We had a Member of this body who said the science behind this consensus ``is the same science that, through climategate, has been totally rebuffed and no longer legitimate, either in reality or in the eyes of the American people and the people around the world.''

But it turns out that the trick being referred to in the e-mail is actually a technique to use the most accurate data available. Pre-1960, temperature data would include measurements from thermometers, tree rings, and other so-called temperature proxies. Post-1960--this is the trick--they excluded tree ring data from some specific kinds of trees that were widely recognized by the scientific community to be unreliable after 1960. So the decline refers--they refer to it as--it isn't a decline in global temperatures, as the deniers claim.

Since 1960, we have had pretty good measurement of temperatures around the world with things such as thermometers. They knew this tree ring gave an apparent decline in temperature, as measured by these specific kinds of trees that were known to be inaccurate compared to all the sensors we have for measuring--and there are thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of measurements of the temperature around the Earth every minute, every day.

So this was the ``trick''--a technique to use the most accurate data available of global temperatures from things, again, called thermometers, and one that excluded data widely known to the scientific community to be inaccurate. That is what the ``trick'' was. That is all. That is what Phil Jones referred to in his e-mail. Ironically, he was trying to be precise.

The university could be biased.

Now, let's make a distinction between people who are climate skeptics and people who are climate deniers. This is kind of an important distinction. There is nothing wrong with skepticism. In fact, we love skeptics. Scientists are, by nature, skeptical. If someone has a new idea, they need to prove conclusively they are right before 97 percent of scientists will believe them. This has already happened for an overwhelming majority of climate scientists who have concluded, again, that global warming is happening and that it is caused by mankind. But there are a small number of them who still have questions.

On the other hand, a climate denier is someone who would not be convinced no matter how overwhelming the evidence. And, as I pointed out, a lot of these deniers are being paid by polluters to say what they want.

Now, shortly after climategate, or climategate-gate, a physicist at the University of California Berkeley, Richard Muller, who was skeptical of the prevailing views on climate science, decided to test the temperature records. Muller, a skeptic, started the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study to reevaluate the record and weed out scientific biases. This was gold to climate deniers. In fact, among the funders for the Muller study was the Charles Koch Foundation. But things didn't work out the way the deniers had hoped.

In late March, Dr. Muller testified before the House Science and Technology Committee with his initial findings on temperature increases since the late 1950s. This is what he said:

Our result is very similar to that reported by the prior

groups--a rise of about .7 degrees Celsius since 1957. This

agreement with the prior analysis surprised us.

Because, as I say, they were skeptics. Muller basically recreated the blade of the so-called hockey stick graph, or the temperature graph, that had come under attack in climategate.

This graph shows Muller's estimates against the previous estimates. Muller's Berkeley is black. You will see it is just identical, pretty much. This past October Dr. Muller's group released its findings, and to the dismay of skeptics and deniers these findings further confirmed the prevailing science behind climate change and the work of the scientists attacked during climategate-gate.

We can see the results on the chart. This gray band indicates a 95- percent statistical spacial uncertainty. But it is exactly--and his line is the black line--exactly what the other scientists measured.

The summary of the findings begins by saying, bluntly, ``global warming is real,'' and goes on to say:

Our biggest surprise was that the new results agreed so

closely with the warming values published previously by other

teams in the U.S. and U.K.

Including East Anglia.

This confirms these studies were done carefully and that

potential biases identified by climate change skeptics did

not seriously affect their conclusion.

So even though these claims that the consensus on global warming is a hoax have been refuted so convincingly--by a skeptic no less; funded by Charles Koch, no less--some of the deniers keep repeating it. The science is settled and climategate, or climategate-gate, was just a big distraction. So now let's move on and figure out how we are going to attack the challenge of climate change.

Explain why the bark beetle is doing this. What is happening and how does that relates to climate change?

I am glad the Senator brings up the phony-baloney doubt, especially with this extreme weather we have been experiencing. Some of my colleagues on the other side have pointed to the extreme snowstorms--at least one of my colleagues has--in the Northeast over the last several winters as evidence that global warming is a hoax. Again, this is completely misleading. Intensifying blizzards aren't due to the Earth getting cooler, they are due to increased moisture content in the air. Warmer air holds more moisture.

Now, basically, it doesn't have to be that cold for it to snow. It just has to be 32 degrees or below. What is snow? It is frozen water. So it is about water. The atmosphere is now holding more water because it is warmer. Warmer air holds more water than colder air. The main point is that these increased natural disasters have real costs.

A few months ago we had a hearing in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee on the Forest Service's management of the intense forest fires we had out West this year. In that hearing, Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell told me he is seeing longer forest fire seasons out West-- more than 30 days longer than what we used to have even a decade ago. Forest Service climate experts--and these are scientists--have said that a major contributing factor to these longer fire seasons and more intense fires is climate change.

The cost of these fires, passed on to all levels of government and to society as a whole, is huge. It is something that Members on both sides of the aisle recognize and are concerned about. Several of my Republican colleagues in that hearing expressed their concerns about the cost.

They referred to a report from the Western Forestry Leadership Coalition, which estimates that the combined direct and indirect costs of forest fires can be as much as 30 times the cost of fire suppression alone. We need to factor in the cost of forest rehabilitation, the loss of tax revenues for local governments, loss of businesses that depend on forest resources from property losses, not to mention the immeasurable cost of lives which are lost due to the fires.

I wish to underscore for Members of this body that when we have discussions about important issues such as cost of wildfire response, we are talking about the cost of responding to climate change. If forestry specialists at the U.S. Forest Service tell us these fires are getting worse due to climate change, we should be listening to them.

There are folks who get the cost of inaction, and that includes the Department of Defense.

In its 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review--or QDR--the DOD identified climate and energy as among the major national security challenges that America faces now and in the future.

To give you a perspective on the significance of this, ``Crafting a Strategic Approach to Climate and Energy'' was alongside other priorities laid out in the QDR with titles like, ``Succeed in Counterinsurgency, Stability and Counterterrorism Operations,'' and ``Prevent Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction.''

This is serious stuff. It matters for DOD because climate change is predicted to increase food and water scarcity, increase the spread of disease, and spur mass migration and environmental refugees due to more intense storms, floods, and droughts.

OK. Well, the Pope--I mean, didn't the Catholic Church go after Galileo?

Look, between the science supporting climate change and the reality of the dangers that climate change brings, we have to ramp up our efforts to master this challenge, and that means wise investments in clean energy R&D and deployment. They are just a good place to start. Plus, these investments encourage the growth of domestic clean energy-- a domestic clean energy economy which would create jobs--and has created jobs--grow our manufacturing base, and keep us competitive in global energy markets. That is so important because Germany, China, Denmark, and countries all over the world are winning this race.

One of the great parts about this job is spending half the time here and half the time home in Minnesota. Minnesota is a national leader in clean energy.

In 2007, Minnesota passed the highest renewable energy standard in the country at the time, and all our utilities are on track to meet the goal of 25 percent renewable by 2025.

Our largest utility, Xcel Energy, is on its way to 30 percent by 2020. We have universities such as the University of Minnesota Morris which is pushing the frontiers of innovation in greening its campus through a biomass gasification system which provides heating and cooling and electricity, wind turbines that produce power, and LEED- certified buildings. Our farmers have led the country in biofuels, and our universities are leading R&D efforts for the transitions to cellulosic and other advanced biofuels.

By the way, the first commercial cellulosic plant that is scaled up to commercial levels is being built right now. St. Paul has the largest district energy system in North America. It is heating and cooling all of downtown St. Paul with woody biomass. SAGE Electrochromics is a manufacturing plant in Minnesota that has cutting-edge window glass technology that uses a little photovoltaic cell to control and turn these--these windows turn completely opaque and block out all UV during the summer. During the winter, they are these beautiful, huge windows that let in all the light. It isn't like a Polaroid. It is an incredible technology.

The University of Minnesota has just received two grants from the Advanced Research Projects Agency at the Department of Energy, ARPA-E, that was patterned after DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency that created the Internet. Across the State, businesses and cities are working together to make our buildings more energy efficient, using Minnesota-made technologies such as Marvin and Anderson windows. Minnesota, by the way, is the Silicon Valley of windows. We have 3M window films or McQuay heating and air-conditioning systems.

Just last month, I partnered with our cities and counties to launch the Back to Work Minnesota Initiative, aiming to break down barriers in financing retrofits, retrofitting public and commercial buildings across Minnesota. What is great about that, this pays for itself. You finance this and you retrofit a building; it puts people in the building trades to work who are in a depression, and it puts manufacturers that build energy-efficient materials and equipment, geothermal furnace systems and furnaces, heat exchange furnaces, pumps, and you save energy.

The energy efficiency pays for the retrofit in 4 or 5 years and you can capitalize this and we are finding innovative ways to do that. It pays for itself and you lower our carbon footprint. You use less energy, create jobs, save money. It is win-win-win-win. This is something we have to do. It is insane not to.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Whitehouse for his leadership. Algal--by the way, algal is the pronunciation of this. Algal energy is amazing. We are fueling jet fighters with jet fuel made from algae.

Both the President and Energy Secretary Chu have said we are in America's Sputnik moment. They are absolutely right. Fifty years ago we were in a global space race. Today we are in a global clean energy race. Whichever country takes the most action today to develop and make clean energy technologies will dominate the global economy in this century.

That means supporting financing for clean energy and energy efficiency projects. It means tax credits for clean energy manufacturing, providing incentives for retrofitting residential and public and commercial buildings. It means supporting basic research and keeping alive initiatives that support clean energy technology innovation. These need to be our priorities as we make energy policy and budget decisions.

We can pay for these investments by cutting expensive, outdated subsidies for oil companies that are making record profits. There is a lot more to be done if we are going to win this global clean energy race, but it is not going to be easy. It means unifying as a country and starting to do things differently than we have been doing them.

Albert Einstein said:

We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking

we used when we created them.

I am convinced we can win this race. No other country is better positioned. But first people need to understand the stakes. Climate change is real, and failure to address it is bad for our standing in the global economy, bad for the Federal budget, and bad for our national security. We can do better than that for our children and our grandchildren and posterity.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Whitehouse and I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I take that back.

Mr. President, I want to take this opportunity to honor the 125th Anniversary of the incorporation of Golden Valley, MN. As a child growing up in St. Louis Park, I have many fond memories of time spent in my neighboring town to the north, Golden Valley. As next-door neighbors, our cities shared a commitment to civic engagement, strong families, and a tight-knit community that worked for the wellbeing of all its citizens. We can see the results of those values today.

On its 125th birthday, Golden Valley has much to be proud of, a high quality education system, high living standards, and model businesses ranging from Fortune 500 companies to family-owned small businesses. Clearly, Golden Valley is doing something right.

As a representative of the great people of Minnesota, I can see that it's cities like Golden Valley make my State the best place to live in the country. My colleagues here might get tired of hearing how our State consistently does things better, but I will never get tired of telling those stories. Congratulations to the residents of Golden Valley.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my legislative fellows, Erin Boyd and Sharon Hessney, be given the privileges of the floor for the duration of today's session.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to strongly support Richard Cordray, the President's nominee to be Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Three years ago our economy was tumbling into the deepest recession since the Great Depression. In the fall of 2008, the stock market was plummeting, unemployment was skyrocketing, and there were daily reports of yet another financial institution crumbling. Our economy was in a chaotic tailspin. That was only 3 years ago.

Today we are in a slow and tenuous recovery. Unemployment is still way too high. Millions of Americans are out of work and have been for some time. Long-term unemployment is staggeringly high. Retirement accounts are still reeling. Yet in the Halls of Congress we are dominated by discussions of our Nation's debt and deficit. In fact, we are doing little else. These discussions are necessary. We need to tackle our deficits and our long-term debt. But as we do, we shouldn't lose sight of how we got here.

The lessons we learned in the aftermath of the 2008 crash shouldn't be so quickly forgotten. The crash of 2008 was driven in no small part by unfair practices in the mortgage industry which led to many consumers being trapped in loans they didn't understand and couldn't afford. It should come as no surprise that this was as a result of increasing deregulation of the banking industry.

So in response, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Dodd-Frank, which was passed into law last year, sought to rein in abusive practices, protect American consumers, and prevent future meltdowns. One of the bill's centerpieces was the establishment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB is the first Federal financial regulator devoted solely to looking out for the best interests of American consumers and to do so before a crash and before any taxpayer-funded bailouts are necessary.

The CFPB's mission is a commonsense one. The CFPB is tasked with ensuring that consumer financial markets are fair and competitive; that consumers have clear information about financial products; that financial practices are not unfair, deceptive, or abusive; and that consumer financial regulations are improved and streamlined. The CFPB seeks to empower American consumers to make the best financial decisions for their families, and that can only help out our Nation as a whole.

Several months ago, on the 1-year anniversary of the enactment of Dodd-Frank, there was good news and bad news. The good news was that the CFPB officially opened its doors. It has already hired staff and begun some of its work. In fact, a while back I met with Mrs. Holly Petraeus, who is heading up the Office for Service Member Affairs at CFPB. She wanted to discuss a few problems that disproportionately harm members of our armed services.

We talked about ways to educate servicemembers about the potential downfalls of certain types of loans. This is exactly the type of work I am so happy that the CFPB has begun. That would be the good news.

The bad news is the CFPB still does not have a Director. Under Dodd- Frank, the CFPB cannot fully do its job until a Director is in place. It can do some things, but it will be limited until the Senate confirms a nominee. President Obama has nominated Richard Cordray. Rich is an impressive figure, and he has my full support.

Rich Cordray has been on the front lines protecting homeowners from

risky and sometimes illegal practices of mortgage servicers. In 2009 he was the first State attorney general to take on a mortgage servicer for violating consumer laws.

Last year, he continued his strong record of standing up for homeowners when he represented the people of Ohio against GMAC Mortgage for signing thousands and thousands of affidavits allowing foreclosures to proceed despite the fact that nobody at the company had any knowledge of these cases. So I want Rich Cordray at CFPB to put his previous expertise to work.

During his tenure as attorney general, he also took on the credit rating agencies on behalf of Ohio's pensioners. Because of the rating agencies' reckless behavior, hard-working Ohioans lost over $450 million from their pensions. Rich Cordray is exactly the kind of strong consumer advocate that CFPB needs.

Further compounding the bad news is that most of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have vowed to oppose any nominee until the CFPB is substantially altered--literally any nominee. They claim that changes to the CFPB need to be made before they will even look at a nominee. The proposed changes supposedly rectify the unprecedented authority--unprecedented authority--granted to the CFPB and impose real checks on that authority. In fact, the CFPB is subject to unprecedented limitations. It is the only banking regulator with rules that are subject to veto power by a group of other regulators, the only banking regulator subject to Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act panels, and the only banking regulator with a budgetary cap.

We already have had this debate. During the consideration of Dodd- Frank last year, there were attempts to weaken the CFPB, and those attempts were defeated. Now the people who lost that debate are taking a second crack at consumers and trying to bring down this Bureau. Only this time, instead of debating on the Senate floor, they are hijacking the advice-and-consent function of the Senate. Is that a precedent that we want to set? I do not believe that is what the Founders of this great Nation conceived when they gave this function to the Senate.

I urge my colleagues instead to consider this nominee on his merits. Rich Cordray has demonstrated he is looking out for middle-class families. He is looking out for homeowners who have been scammed by mortgage servicers. He is looking out for pensioners who have lost their pensions at the hands of Wall Street recklessness. He has been endorsed by former Republican Senator and current Ohio attorney general Mike DeWine. He is exactly--exactly--the type of person we need at the helm of this critical Bureau, and this Bureau cannot do its job until he is confirmed.

I hope my colleagues will reconsider their position and instead do what is right for American consumers. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting Rich Cordray to be the first Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

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

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

Mr. President, I have filed two amendments that I will offer at some time, and I will talk about them now.

I am strongly opposed to the detention provisions in the Defense bill before us. I am disappointed that Senator Udall's amendment did not pass. Taken together, sections 1031 and 1032 would fundamentally alter how we investigate, arrest, and detain individuals suspected of terrorism.

Before I get into the details of why I oppose these detainee provisions, I think it is important to recognize that September 11 irrevocably and unalterably changed our lives. I was in Minnesota on that terrible day. A number of Minnesotans died in the towers, in the air, and at the Pentagon. In New York, in the months following the attacks, I attended the funerals of brave firefighters and law enforcement officers who sacrificed their lives to help rescue folks from the towers. I cannot shake those images from my mind, and I am guessing, like many of you, I will never be able to erase the horrors of September 11 from my mind.

September 11 reminded us that we are vulnerable and that we are fighting an unusual enemy. It forced us to reassess our approach to counterterrorism, and it forced us to redouble our efforts to track down the people who aim to do us harm. But it is exactly in these difficult moments, in these periods of war when our country is under attack, that we must be doubly vigilant about projecting what makes us Americans.

The Founders who drafted our Constitution and Bill of Rights were careful to draft a Constitution of limited powers--one that would protect Americans' freedom and liberty at all times, both in war and in peace.

Today, as we contemplate fundamentally altering the criminal justice system our Founders developed in order to create a military detention system--a system that would permit the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens and lawful residents of the United States for acts committed in the United States--I think it is important to pause and remember some of the mistakes this country has made when we have been fearful of enemy attack.

Most notably, we made a grave and indefensible mistake during World War II when President Roosevelt ordered the incarceration of more than 110,000 people of Japanese origin, as well as approximately 11,000 German Americans and 3,000 Italian Americans. There is a memorial right across the street from the Capitol that should remind us all of this terrible mistake.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon signed into law the Nondetention Act to make sure the U.S. Government would never again subject any Americans to the unnecessary and unjustifiable imprisonment that so many Japanese Americans, German Americans, and Italian Americans had to endure.

It wasn't until 1988--46 years after the internment--that President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act, that the government formally acknowledged and apologized for the grave injustice that was done to citizens and permanent residents of Japanese ancestry.

These were dark periods in American history, and it is easy standing here today to think that is all behind us, that it is a distant memory. But I fear that the detention provisions in this bill forget the lessons we learned from the mistakes we made when we interned thousands of innocent Japanese, Germans, and Italians or when we destroyed the lives of supposed Communist sympathizers with nary a shred of evidence of guilt.

In the weeks following September 11, the Justice Department made extraordinary use of its powers to arrest and detain individuals. We arrested hundreds of people for alleged immigration violations and dozens more under a material witness statute. None of these individuals were charged with a crime. All of this happened without the military detention scheme envisioned in this bill. This was also a mistake and one that should not be repeated.

But if we pass the Defense authorization bill with section 1031, Congress

will, according to the arguments that were made on the floor last week, for the first time in 60 years, authorize the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without charge or trial. This would be the first time Congress has deviated from President Nixon's Nondetention Act. What we are talking about is that Americans could be subjected to life imprisonment--think about that for just a moment--life imprisonment without ever being charged, tried, or convicted of a crime, without ever having an opportunity to prove your innocence to a judge and a jury of your peers, and without the government ever having to prove your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. I believe that denigrates the very foundation of this country. It denigrates the Bill of Rights and what our Founders intended when they created a civilian, nonmilitary justice system for trying and punishing people for crimes committed on U.S. soil. Our Founders were fearful of the military, and they purposely created a system of checks and balances to ensure that we did not become a country under military rule. If this bill passes, the Supreme Court should find these detention provisions unconstitutional.

Let's put that aside for now and focus on what we are currently doing right to fight terrorism. We are doing a heck of a lot of great things when it comes to national security. I think we actually need to remember that, and we need to remember that we are winning the fight against terrorists without trampling on our constitutional rights.

Just last May, under the tremendous leadership of President Obama and Secretary Panetta, head of the CIA, we hunted down and killed Osama bin Laden. A few days ago, the Washington Post reported that the al-Qaida core has contracted and weakened since then, and its leadership ranks have been reduced to two members. To be sure, that does not mean that al-Qaida is no longer a threat, particularly coming from groups outside the core, but it is a remarkable achievement. Our current counterterrorism strategy is not broken. Indeed, just the opposite is true. We are winning the war against al-Qaida. There is no indication-- none--that we need to fundamentally alter our approach to locating terrorists here or overseas.

Under Director Mueller's leadership, the FBI has turned itself inside out, and over the last 10 years, since September 11, it has become an intelligence-gathering counterterrorism machine. I can't say I have always agreed with 100 percent of the FBI's tactics, and there are times when I worry they may be overstepping, but make no mistake, if our goal is hunting down the bad guys, the FBI knows what they are doing. There is no reason to think we need to change course and create an entirely new system that would completely supplant the resources and expertise of the FBI.

For those who would argue that we need to shift these people out of our civilian criminal justice system and away from article III courts and into a military system, I have to ask why. Where is the sign that we have a problem that needs fixing? There is no reason to think we need to create an entirely different framework for a problem we have been dealing with for centuries. This enemy is not so different that we need to upend our criminal justice system.

I think this is a solution in search of a problem. There is no need to go down this path. We should be focused on doing what is best for this Nation and what is best for protecting Americans. We should be working together on this, not coming up with additional ways to divide and polarize this country. That is why, when the Secretary of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Director of the FBI express serious concerns about these provisions and when the President's top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, complains that these provisions will make it even harder for them to locate and detain terrorists in the United States and overseas, we should probably listen to them.

Section 1031 runs the risk of authorizing the indefinite detention without trial of Americans. Section 1032 is unnecessary and complicates our counterterrorism policy. They are bad policy.

In short, these provisions should not be passed. They are not well- considered terrorism policy, and they would authorize poorly understood and deeply troubling policies. That is why I have put forward amendments that would strike each of these two sections. That is why I cosponsored Senator Mark Udall's amendment, the cousin of our Presiding Officer. That is why I cosponsored his amendment, and I would be happy to cosponsor amendments from our Presiding Officer as well, but that is why I cosponsored Senator Mark Udall's amendment that would have sent these matters back to the administration and the relevant committees of Congress for the full consideration, discussion, and debate they deserve. Our national security and our freedom require nothing less.

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