Floor Statements

Thank you, Mr. President.

I rise today to talk about the growing problem of student debt and the college affordability crisis that is gripping our Nation. I also rise to talk about one of the things we need to do

to address this crisis; that is, to pass the Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act, which I was proud to join Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts in introducing yesterday.

We have to take action on student debt because it is a huge problem in this country. The total amount of student loan debt held by Americans is more than $1.2 trillion today--surpassing the total amount of credit card debt in our Nation. More and more Americans are becoming saddled with large amounts of student debt and that limits their ability to buy homes, save for retirement, and make other purchases that will help keep our economy growing.

My State--Minnesota--has the unfortunate distinction of being the State with the fourth highest average debt for students graduating from a 4-year college, at over $30,000 per student. Over the last several years, I have held college affordability roundtables in Minnesota to hear from students and families about the challenges they face in paying for college and to talk about ways to make the situation better. Let me tell you about one of the stories I heard.

Last month, at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, I met Joelle Stangler, a sophomore who is the incoming student class president. With a 4.12 GPA, Joelle graduated from Rogers High School in Minnesota as their valedictorian. She was also senior class president and the captain of her volleyball team. Joelle does not lack motivation when it comes to school.

Both of Joelle's parents were teachers, and, in fact, she comes from a long line of educators going back six generations. But a couple years ago, Joelle's mom Cassie Stangler made the difficult decision to quit her job as a fifth grade teacher to go to work in the private sector, where she could get more money, so she could help send her four kids to college.

Among the fifth grade classes in her school district, Mrs. Stangler's students showed some of the highest rates of improvement on test scores. We lost a great teacher because of how expensive post-secondary education is.

Not only that, even with her mom's sacrifice, Joelle, who is only in her second year of college, already has $12,000 in student loans. She estimates that her total debt will be around $30,000 by the time she graduates. Again, that is even with her mom leaving the job she loves, the job as a society we would want her to be in and that she is so great at.

At the roundtables I have around the State of Minnesota, I always hear about students working multiple jobs, sometimes even putting in 40 hours a week while going to school full time. Working and school is good. It is not bad necessarily. Some work can help students manage their time, become more productive, and of course help pay for college, but evidence shows that when a student starts to work more than 15 hours a week, it becomes harder for the student to maintain good grades in school and to graduate from school on time. Students are working more because college is becoming less and less affordable and they are still taking out more and more student loans and graduating with more and more debt, despite having worked while they were in school.

I do not think that is right. I do not think it is productive for our country. One student at the last roundtable I did told me: I can work 40 hours a week and have less debt or I can work 20 hours a week and be more involved in school. That is not the kind of choice students should have to face in America. I have talked to students who work full time while going to school and actually sell their blood every once in a while to help pay maybe their rent or their housing.

Recently, some encouraging things have happened in Minnesota. Thanks to the work of Gov. Mark Dayton and the State legislature, our State's public colleges and universities received an increase in funding from the State. Last year, after more than a decade of spending cuts to higher education and tuition increases in Minnesota, the State increased higher education funding for this academic year and next academic year by 10 percent, including a 15-percent increase in need- based State grants.

This much needed funding has allowed the public universities and colleges in Minnesota to hold their tuition steady, instead of passing on higher costs to Minnesota's students. This has been a significant victory for Minnesota students and families, but students are still facing daunting costs in paying for college and they are still graduating with far too much debt.

In the Senate I have been working on a number of solutions to the college affordability problem. I have two bipartisan bills with Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa that would help students and families understand college costs and compare the costs of different colleges as they go through the process of selecting a school. Our Net Price Calculator Improvement Act makes these online tools more user friendly in order to give students and their families a better estimate of college costs before they decide where to apply to college.

Senator Grassley and I have another bill that will require schools to use a universal financial aid letter. Right now these letters are incredibly confusing. They do often clearly indicate what is a grant and what is a loan. A lot of people do not think--they say ``award letters'' on them sometimes and they include loans. A lot of people do not consider a loan an award. They use different terminology. If you get a Stafford subsidized loan in one letter, it might say ``Stafford subsidized loan,'' this amount.

Another, it might have a code number, an X5382. When we put out this bill, I got all kinds of calls from college counselors and from high school counselors, saying thank you. Our bill would make sure students and their families and their counselors get clear and uniform information so they can make apples-to-apples comparisons between what the different schools are offering.

Another part of the college affordability problem which is often overlooked is the price of textbooks. Students in Minnesota are spending an average of $1,400 per year on textbooks, $200 more than the national average. One Minnesotan I have heard from, Kari Cooper at Bemidji State, has to choose between paying for her textbooks and paying her rent. She ends up putting her textbook costs on her credit card.

I introduced a bill with Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois called the Affordable College Textbook Act that would address this problem. Our bill would expand the use of free, online, open-source college textbooks, which are a great alternative to the traditional expensive kind. This is a great way to reduce the overall cost of going to college.

College students such as Kari, Joelle, and countless others are working incredibly hard when they are still taking on significant amounts of debt. Part of the reason this debt will stay with them for a good portion of their lives is that they are paying such high interest rates.

Many college graduates are locked into loans with interest rates as high as 10 percent, which makes it all the more difficult to pay off your student loan. The last thing our students need is to be saddled with high interest rates on student loans that continue to burden them long after graduation. There is a clear commonsense solution. That solution is contained in the bill I am proud to have joined Senator Warren in introducing, the Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act.

Students and graduates should be able to take advantage of lower interest rates and refinance their loans. When interest rates are low, homeowners, businesses, and even local governments regularly refinance their debt. Yet despite being the biggest student lender by far, the Federal Government offers no refinancing options to student borrowers.

Once a person graduates, if they have a high interest rate on their student loans, they are stuck with that high interest rate forever. That is not right for our students and families and it is damaging to the long-term well-being of our country because it holds people back from making decisions that help drive economic growth: the decision to buy a home, to start a family, start a new business, to purchase big- ticket items such as a car.

Our new bill would allow students and graduates who have existing private and public student loan debt from

their undergraduate education to refinance these loans at less than 4 percent. Last summer we came together in Congress to prevent the interest rate on new student loans from doubling. Thanks to that effort, undergraduate students taking out new loans now have a rate of 3.86 percent. The bill we introduced yesterday would enable students and graduates who are saddled with higher interest rates on their undergraduate loans to refinance at the same 3.86 percent rate.

There are nearly 40 million Americans with outstanding student loans. Many of them face interest rates higher than 3.86 percent, some of them much higher. This legislation will give them a chance to cut down their debt and keep more of their hard-earned paychecks. It will help thousands of students in Minnesota who, similar to Joelle and Kari, are doing everything they can to get their college degree.

So many Minnesotans in schools across the State show tremendous perseverance and grit in getting a college education and in cobbling together the resources to pay for it. They should not end up with crushing debt and be unable to take advantage of lower interest rates to reduce that debt, when so many other kinds of debt--almost every other kind of debt you are able to refinance.

We have a lot to do and a long way to go to reduce student debt for our students and make college more affordable. Doing that will help more Americans find jobs to support their families, help more employers find qualified workers for their businesses, and help our economy prosper. Passing this bill will be one important step we can and we should take.

I yield the floor.

I thank my colleague for his words on the minimum wage. There were very important points raised in terms of that letter from those economists and the American Academy of Pediatrics. It adds wonderfully to the debate.

I rise to support, similar to my colleague from Pennsylvania, an increase in the Federal minimum wage. I am a proud cosponsor of the Minimum Wage Fairness Act, which would give 16.5 million Americans a much deserved raise.

I am incredibly proud of the important step Minnesota took to raise the minimum wage earlier this week. Just a few weeks ago or earlier this month the Governor and the Minnesota State legislature took this big step for workers and families. Because of this, hundreds of thousands of hard-working Minnesotans will themselves receive a raise.

This is a big deal. Before this increase, the Minnesota State minimum wage was actually lower than the Federal minimum wage.

I would like to talk a little bit about why Minnesota has taken this important step. Minnesotans believe that if someone works full time, 52 weeks a year, they should be able to put food on the table and a roof over their family's head. They believe that if someone works in America, they should have a chance to work their way up into the middle class. As I have traveled around Minnesota, I have heard from people all over the State who have been working long hours and yet still struggle to support their families, to work their way to the middle class and provide a brighter future for their children.

As a State, we recognized that there were too many people working very hard at one, two, and sometimes three jobs and were still struggling to get by. Parents have been wondering how they are going to be able to pay for their kids' college or even how to make the next car payment. Instead, they have been working 60-hour weeks and missing out on spending precious time with their children.

That is why I am proud that Minnesota has now joined 21 other States with minimum wages higher than the Federal minimum. In Washington, I am going to keep doing my part to help Minnesota workers.

Recent research confirms that what we see in Minnesota is happening across America. In a survey last year of workers earning less than $10 an hour, two-thirds of these workers said they are not meeting or are just meeting their basic living expenses. Two-thirds of these workers report needing public assistance. Two in five said they can't afford additional education and training. With wages too low, these workers are trapped. They are trapped in poverty.

The economy is getting better, but raising the minimum wage is about doing everything we can to make sure it gets better for everyone. Last year our Nation's largest businesses saw record profits. The market finished last year up over 26 percent, its best return since the 1990s. Raising the minimum wage is about making sure Minnesotans and workers across the country get to be a part of this improving economy.

That is why Minnesota has taken this important step. We know a strong minimum wage and a strong middle class go hand in hand. That is why I support raising the Federal minimum wage to a level that allows people to work their way to a better life.

For decades the Federal minimum wage has lost its value. If the Federal

minimum wage had kept pace with inflation since its peak value in the 1960s, today it would be worth over $10.50 an hour. Today the Federal minimum wage is just $7.25 an hour.

When families have had to pay more for food, rent, utilities, childcare, and education, the minimum wage not only hasn't kept up, it has gone down. It is not only minimum wage workers who haven't seen an increase in wages. Since the 1970s we have seen worker productivity grow by 135 percent while the average wages for middle-class workers have not changed. Americans are working harder than ever but average wages are stuck and the minimum wage actually has been declining.

Let me tell you about what raising the minimum wage would mean to one Minnesotan. Her name is Misrak. She is the mother of two and works at the airport as a cleaner, where she makes a low wage. Because she couldn't make ends meet, she had to take a second job assisting passengers in wheelchairs who need help. She has been doing this for 4 years, and during that time she has received only one raise worth just 80 cents an hour. She doesn't get vacation days or sick days or time off with her children. She wants to help her children finish college, and they want to finish college so they can be sure that if they work hard, that will be a path out of poverty and into the middle class. For Misrak, even though she works over 60 hours per week, she and her family are just barely scraping by.

Bringing the minimum wage back to a level that can support a family is the first step in restoring the promise that if someone works hard, they can build a better life for themselves and their family. Sometimes people ask why raise the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour as we did in Minnesota or $10.10 as we want to do. They say why not leave minimum wage workers alone to figure out things for themselves.

I don't believe raising the minimum wage is going to solve all the problems working families face. They need more than a minimum wage. They need good jobs, good schools, and good roads to provide a better future for themselves and for their children, but I support raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour because it is a wage that says Americans value work. It is a minimum guarantee that anyone who shows up 40 hours a week and ready to work should be able to provide food and shelter for themselves and their children and should not live in poverty.

Other people say we don't need to raise the minimum wage because it is not working families who earn the minimum wage. Instead they say it is mainly teenagers in their first job who earn the minimum wage. In fact, the vast majority of workers who would get a raise under this bill are working adults, including approximately 350,000 adults in Minnesota. One-quarter are parents, including over 85,000 parents in our State. Parents who would see a raise from the bill we are considering are the parents of 14 million children, an estimated 150,000 of them in Minnesota. These are kids. The American Academy of Pediatrics says do this. We know that kids who have deprivation have trauma. There are different kinds of deprivation, and we know it makes it harder for them to learn. It changes their brain chemistry to be under that much stress, so let's do it for these kids.

The majority--56 percent--of Minnesotans who would be affected by an increase are women. Nationwide, one in five working mothers would see a raise under this bill, and 6.8 million workers and their families would be lifted out of poverty.

Raising the minimum wage is good for working families and it is good for the economy. It boosts economic activity and helps local businesses. A study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago found that increasing the Federal minimum wage to $10 an hour could boost GDP by up to 0.3 percentage points. In a recent analysis of State employment data, Goldman Sachs noted that based on their analysis of States that increased their minimum wage at the start of 2014, the employment impact, if any, from a higher Federal minimum wage would be small relative to the normal volatility in the market. A higher minimum wage--

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 2 minutes or 1\1/2\ minutes.

In that case, 2 minutes.

A higher minimum wage also helps our economy because increasing the minimum wage boosts the purchasing power of consumers and creates more customers for local businesses. People earning minimum wage spend the money they are earning. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that the increased economic activity from an increase to $10.10 could create 85,000 new jobs and boost GDP by $22.2 billion over the 3 years of implementation. Increasing the minimum wage helps businesses in another way too. Workers who are better paid are also more productive and less likely to quit. That means businesses save on recruiting and training costs. It also means they have better, more loyal, and harder working employees.

Businesses in Minnesota understand this. I spoke with Danny Schwartzman, the owner of Common Roots Cafe and Catering in Minneapolis. Danny pays his employees a minimum of $11 per hour, plus benefits, such as paid time off and health insurance. Danny has written:

Over time, other businesses will see what I have seen--that

paying people more yields more for the bottom line. It's

easier to recruit and retain people. Happier employees are

more likely to provide better customer service. Lower

turnover means dramatically lower training costs and better

employee performance.

Danny understands that his business will do better if his workers are doing better.

It is time that Congress follow Minnesota's example. The minimum wage is about making sure that work pays. It is about the American dream. If you work hard and take responsibility, you can put a roof over your head, provide a decent life for your children, and help them get ready for the future. It has been too long since the Federal minimum wage kept that promise to America's workers and their children, and that is why we need to raise it today.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, recently the Senate failed to permanently repeal the current system of automatic payment cuts for physicians who treat Medicare patients and to replace it with a more sensible system for reimbursing physicians. Instead, the Senate voted--yet again--to pass a short-term patch to this broken system, which postponed these payment cuts for one more year.

After talking with Medicare providers in my State, I decided to oppose this legislation since it provides only a bandaid for a wholly broken system. I believe that an enduring solution is possible and absolutely necessary, and I will continue to fight for a more sustainable replacement that rewards physicians for the high-quality care they deliver.

Minnesota is No. 1 in the Nation when it comes to the quality of the health care that we provide. If our system of reimbursement could reward providers for their efficiency and quality--rather than the quantity of the services they administer--we could improve the value of the care that our seniors receive while rewarding providers who keep patients healthy. We can do that by overhauling the Medicare physician payment formula and implementing a system that rewards health care value over volume, and there has never been a better moment to do that than now. Over the past 10 years, Congress has spent $150 billion on short-term fixes; the Congressional Budget Office estimated earlier this year that the cost of permanently repealing the formula and replacing it with a more sustainable program now would be even lower than that total so far. For the first time since the passage of our current formula, there was bipartisan, bicameral legislation to fully repeal the Medicare physician payment formula and replace it with a payment system that would better reward physicians for providing high- value care.

We have a unique opportunity to permanently solve this problem. Temporary patches--like the one just passed--only perpetuate the instability created by the annual threat of payment reductions. This instability is bad for patients and bad for providers. Take, for example, the young physician from Rogers, MN who recently called my office to discuss how proposed payment cuts would affect his practice and his future. As a father and a new surgeon, this doctor described the challenges of paying off high levels of debt and starting a new practice in a time of financial uncertainty. Temporary fixes will not help this young doctor to establish a practice and provide the best possible care to his patients. Stopgap measures fail to address the underlying problem with the way Medicare pays for physician services, and I am tired of postponing good policies that help support high- quality providers in Minnesota.

It is clear that now is time to permanently repeal and replace the Medicare physician payment formula. That is why I did not support the legislation to temporarily patch our provider payment system and why I am committed to working towards a permanent solution that would put in place a payment system to reward high-value care.

My goal is to make sure that Medicare beneficiaries, now and in the future, have access to high-quality, affordable health care services. To achieve this, Medicare must be on sound financial footing and be prepared to meet the needs of an aging baby boomer generation.

Replacing Medicare's broken system of provider payments with a system to promote high-value care is a critical step in this direction. I remain committed to helping to take this step.

Madam President, I ask to speak in morning business for up to 20 minutes.

Madam President, this morning the Supreme Court announced its decision in the McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, the latest in a series of rulings that have done away with any meaningful limits on money in politics. Since the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Citizens United in 2010, we have witnessed the systematic unraveling of our Nation's campaign finance laws.

I am sure this is a cause for celebration for some--the superwealthy and well-funded corporate interests--because, after all, these rulings give them more influence, more access, and more power, as if they need it. Then there is everybody else--the everyday folks in Minnesota and around the country who don't have the luxury of pouring millions of dollars into political campaigns.

There is the senior on a fixed income who gives $25 to a candidate she likes--maybe someone fighting to contain the cost of prescription drugs. That $25 donation is real money for that senior, but it is nothing compared to the $25 million the pharmaceutical industry can now spend to elect the other candidate.

There is the middle-class mom who has just enough money to buy her kids' school clothes, but surely doesn't have enough money left over to buy an election too.

There is the small business owner in the suburbs who is so concerned about making payroll that she cannot even begin to think about making a huge campaign contribution.

Our democracy can't function the way it is supposed to when these voices are drowned out by a flood of corporate money, so for those who believe the measure of democracy's strength is in votes cast, not dollars spent, well, for us there is nothing to celebrate today.

Citizens United was, in my view, one of the worst decisions in the history of the Supreme Court. By a 5-4 margin, the Court ruled that corporations have a constitutional right to spend as much money as they want to influence elections. If Big Oil wants to spend millions of dollars to attack the guy who is advocating for more renewable fuels, the Supreme Court says: Sure. Go ahead. If huge corporations want to run endless radio ads against a candidate who promises to raise the minimum wage, the Supreme Court says: Fine. Go ahead. If the Wall Street banks want to pour money into a campaign to undo consumer protection laws, the Supreme Court says that is their constitutional right so there is not much you can do about it. That is the way the Court sees it, but it is not the way I see it and it is not the way most Minnesotans see it either.

I think we should be able to say: Enough is enough. There is too much corporate money in politics and some reasonable limits on campaign spending are not just appropriate, they are necessary. Really, that is what Citizens United is all about--the case that got us into this mess. It sort of came down to the question: Can we, the people, place any real limit on the amount of money corporations can spend on elections? The answer should have been, yes, of course we can, but five Supreme Court Justices said: No, we can't. Their logic was literally unprecedented.

To reach the result it did, the Supreme Court had to overturn the case Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce. The decision had been on the books for 20 years. Overturning Austin wasn't some minor technical change to the law; it was a radical shift, an exercise in pro-corporate judicial activism. Just compare what the Court said about campaign expenditures in Austin to what it said 20 years later in Citizens United. In Austin, the Court refused to strike down a Michigan law that limited corporate spending on elections. The Court explained that the lawsuit served a ``compelling interest''--namely, preventing corporations from gaining an unfair advantage in the political system. The Austin Court said that ``corporate wealth can unfairly influence elections.'' Those were the Supreme Court's words in 1990, that ``corporate wealth can unfairly influence elections.'' The Court explained that campaign finance laws prevent ``the corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth that are accumulated with the help of the corporate form.'' In other words, there is good reason--no, a compelling reason--to be worried about unlimited corporate money in politics.

Had today's Supreme Court followed the precedent, Citizens United would have been an easy case. I mean, I would have written the opinion in a couple of minutes. It would have gone something like this: Laws limiting corporate campaign expenditures are constitutional. See Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce. The end.

Of course, that is not the opinion the Court wrote in Citizens United. The Court's opinion was a lot longer and a lot worse.

Here is the one phrase that sums up the Citizens United decision: ``We now conclude that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.'' The majority of the Court told us that there is no reason at all to be worried about unlimited corporate money in politics anymore, that it does not give rise even to the appearance of corruption. And, the logic goes, since there is no reason to be concerned about it, there is no constitutional basis to regulate it. That is what the Court tells us, but we know better. The Court's analysis not only is disconnected from precedent, it is disconnected from reality.

The Minnesota League of Women Voters recently issued a report in which it concluded that ``the influence of money in politics represents a dangerous threat to the health of our democracy in Minnesota and nationally.'' That is the Minnesota League of Women Voters. That sounds right to me because here is the thing: In our democracy, everyone is supposed to have an equal say regardless of his or her wealth. The guy in the assembly line gets as many votes as the CEO--one. You don't get extra votes just because you have extra money or greater say because of greater wealth. It doesn't work that way--or shouldn't.

Citizens United turned the whole thing on its head and basically said that those among us with the most money get the most influence, and not only that, there is no limit to the amount of money the wealthy can spend or the amount of influence they can buy. I think that is inherently corrupting.

Unfortunately, Citizens United was just the beginning of the story, and in the years since we have seen courts across the country strike down campaign finance laws, ushering in what are known as super PACs-- wealthy groups that can raise and spend unlimited money to influence elections.

Today, in McCutcheon, the Court took Citizens United a step further, striking down a law that limited the amount of money people could give directly to candidates and political parties. In doing so, the Court overturned a key holding from Buckley v. Valeo, a case from 1976. Until today, the law said that direct contributions to candidates, parties, and certain PACs

could not exceed about $125,000 in the aggregate per election cycle. The law was intended to stem the tide of money in politics and maintain the integrity of our public institutions. But as of this morning, that law has been taken off the books at the Supreme Court's direction.

As Justice Breyer explained in his dissenting opinion in McCutcheon today, ``Taken together with Citizens United, today's decision eviscerates our Nation's campaign finance laws, leaving a remnant incapable of dealing with the grave problems of democratic legitimacy that those laws were intended to resolve.'' He is right.

Changing law has real consequences. What happens when we get rid of the speed limit? People with fast cars drive faster--as fast as they want to drive. What happens when we get rid of campaign finance limits? Well, special interests with a lot of money spend more of it on politics--as much as they want to spend. That is not a theory; it is empirical fact. According to data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics, spending by outside groups more than tripled from 2008 to 2012, with overall outside spending topping $1 billion--billion with a ``b''--for the first time in history. Where is the new money coming from? Well, in most cases we don't know. More on that a little later. What we do know is pretty much what one would expect. According to one study, 60 percent of super PACS' funding in the 2012 election cycle came from just 132 donors, each donating at least $1 million. So we have a relatively small group of superwealthy people accounting for most of the money.

Remember when the Citizens United court decision assured us that all of this new money in politics is OK, that we shouldn't be worried about it, that it ``will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy''? Wow, were they wrong. People are losing faith in our democracy, and can we blame them?

The system is broken, and we need to fix it. There are a number of good proposals out there, and I wish to use this opportunity to mention three of them: disclosure, public financing, and a constitutional amendment.

First, we need greater disclosure. The problem in the post-Citizens United world isn't just that there is now unlimited money in politics, it is also that we have no idea where that money is coming from. Billionaires and big corporations want to influence elections by giving unlimited money to super PACs, but they don't want anyone to know they are the ones pulling the strings, so they do something that looks a lot like money laundering--except that it is perfectly legal.

Let's say there are a bunch of corporations and billionaires out there who want to preserve indefensible tax loopholes that really only help their bottom lines. Their allies form a super PAC with a mission to do just that--preserve their big tax breaks. Now, a super PAC needs a name. ``Americans for Indefensible Tax Loopholes'' probably doesn't achieve their end, so the super PAC decides to go with something such as ``Americans for a Better Tax Code.'' After all, who could be against that? Remember, the corporations or the billionaires who are behind this whole thing don't want their fingerprints on this, so they pass their money through shell corporations before it ends up in the super PAC. That way the actual donors don't show up on the Federal disclosure forms. So now the TV is flooded with attack ads and something like ``paid for by Americans for a Better Tax Code,'' but nobody has any idea who is actually behind the advertisement and there is no good way to find out.

But hang on. It gets worse. In addition to all of the secret money being spent by these super PACs, there are a bunch of nonprofit organizations that are using a glitch in the Tax Code to keep all of their campaign activities secret. These groups, liberal or conservative, don't have to disclose a single penny. Combine them with the super PACs, and we have a lot of money and very little information. Voters aren't just being flooded, they are being blindfolded too.

We have a bill called the DISCLOSE Act that would go a long way toward fixing this problem. It would put in place a clear set of rules requiring disclosure whenever anyone spends more than $10,000 to influence an election, even when that money is being funneled through back channels. The idea is pretty simple: If someone is going to spend that kind of money to influence elections, people should know about it so they can make informed decisions and effectively evaluate what a candidate has to say. This is all about transparency and accountability.

All of us should be able to get behind that. Indeed, most of us already have. The last version of the DISCLOSE Act had support from a majority of Senators, and I am proud to have been one of the bill's cosponsors. Several of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have spoken enthusiastically about greater disclosure. They have said things such as ``sunshine is the greatest disinfectant.'' Even the Supreme Court has endorsed disclosure laws in both Citizens United and in today's decision. Poll after poll shows that the vast majority of Americans support greater transparency in campaign financing.

This is a basic step we should be able to take pretty easily--or one would think so. It turns out that one would be wrong. In July 2012 we brought the DISCLOSE Act to the Senate floor and Republicans blocked it. The bill died before it could get an up-or-down vote. But we are not going to give up on it. I will continue to work with my colleagues to make the campaign finance system more transparent.

Here is another thing we can do: Fundamentally change the way candidates finance their campaigns. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois recently reintroduced the Fair Elections Now Act, which basically says that candidates who refuse to accept contributions of more than $150 will be eligible for public financing of their campaigns. This would level the playing field. Instead of campaigns that are funded by a handful of wealthy donors, we will have citizen-funded grassroots campaigns where candidates focus their attention on people who donate $5, $10, $50, up to $150. We will restore power to that senior who makes the $25 donation.

I have cosponsored the Fair Elections Now Act in the past, and I am proud to cosponsor it again in this Congress. This isn't going to solve all of the problems created by Citizens United and McCutcheon, but it is a step in the right direction.

Finally, there is something else we can do, and honestly it is the one thing we most need to do if we are going to repair all the damage the Supreme Court has done; that is, amend the Constitution to reverse the Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions.

Let me be clear. Amending the Constitution is not something I take lightly. I think it should be done only in extraordinary circumstances. But the Supreme Court's decisions present us with one of those situations because they erode the very foundation of our democracy.

I know what my colleagues are thinking: Constitutional amendments are really hard to come by. They require agreement by two-thirds of both Chambers of Congress, and they have to be ratified by at least three- quarters of the States.

It is no wonder that constitutional amendments have been so rare in our history.

Just because a constitutional amendment takes a long time to accomplish doesn't mean it is not worth trying. It took a long time-- much longer than it should have--to enshrine women's suffrage into the Constitution, but it got done because it would have been an affront to our democracy had it been otherwise.

These things take time and patience and persistence and perseverance, but they happen. In fact, there is already momentum building. I am proud to cosponsor a constitutional amendment that has been proposed here in the Senate that would restore legal authority to the people to regulate campaign finance. The States are moving in the right direction too. According to Public Citizen, 16 States have already called for a constitutional amendment. I believe it is time for us to answer the call.

Mr. President, thank you. I yield the floor for the Senator from Connecticut.

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

Thank you.

Amendment No. 2822

I rise in strong support of the child care development and block grant, or CCDBG, and to urge my colleagues to support the amendment Senator Murkowski and I put forward.

Our amendment would help strengthen CCDBG by making sure we are addressing some of our Nation's communities that will benefit most from it, the people who are members of tribes or tribal organizations all over this Nation. American Indians experience exceptionally high unemployment levels compared with the rest of the Nation. Furthermore, American Indian children and youth experience some of the poorest educational outcomes in America. These are exactly the sort of challenges CCDBG is designed to address. Our amendment would lift the current ceiling on tribal childcare funding so CCDBG can go to where the funds are needed most. This would enable more funds to flow to tribes and tribal organizations but without reducing the amount that goes to States. The amendment specifies that the amount of CCDBG funds reserved for tribes only rises if the overall funding level for CCDBG goes above its current levels.

I thank our cosponsors, Senators Murray, Thune, Hirono, Baldwin, and Heitkamp, for their support of this amendment. I thank Senators Harkin and Alexander and Senators Mikulski and Burr for working together to bring this bill to the floor.

Thank you very much.

I would yield for my colleague from North Carolina.

Thank you, Mr. President. I thank Senator Boxer and Senator Schatz and Senator Whitehouse for organizing this.

I rise tonight to talk about climate change, along with 25 to 30 of my colleagues who will be speaking through the night.

The recent extreme weather events we have experienced across the United States are our call to action. We in this body need not just to talk about climate change but to take action to address it. If we fail to act, the extreme weather events we have seen will only grow more extreme in the future.

This winter has been exceptionally cold in many areas of the United States, including Minnesota. Some deniers have taken this as a sign that climate change isn't happening. They have pointed to the cold weather as evidence that global warming is not occurring. But they are missing the point. We already know that on average the Earth is warming. This isn't complicated. We have been using thermometers to make measurements around the globe for a long time. We know average temperatures have gone up significantly in recent years.

But climate change isn't just about the average temperature. As the average temperature continues to rise, most experts agree we will see ever more frequent extreme weather events, including drought, storms, floods, and other extreme events. It is important to remember that we are not attributing any one event to climate change, but we can say there will be more extreme weather events as the Earth grows warmer.

As the Presiding Officer knows, we have seen the polar vortex bring Arctic weather to much of the United States during this winter. According to White House Science Adviser Dr. John Holdren, we can expect to see more of this kind of extreme cold as global warming continues. This is going to have serious consequences--it already has.

In my home State of Minnesota, the extreme cold has contributed to very serious propane shortages. Many rural residents are unable to properly heat their homes. Turkey growers are finding it difficult to heat their barns and, therefore, their turkeys. This is not just a problem in Minnesota. Other areas of the country have been affected. We in the Senate have to talk about what is happening and start taking action in the face of climate change threats.

The ongoing drought in California and other States is another example. The situation is particularly grave in California where vast regions have been classified as D4, which is the most severe drought category. This has cost farmers their crops and livestock and created severe water shortages for residents and businesses. Farmers have had to stop farming half a million acres of what normally is irrigated land. That is about 6 percent of the entire State of California. According to the California Farm Water Coalition, it is already costing that State $5 billion. These costs get passed on to every American. As a result of this drought, Americans have to pay more and will continue to pay more for groceries this winter.

Unfortunately, droughts such as this are becoming commonplace. In 2012, drought caused more than 70 percent of U.S. counties to be declared disaster areas. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimated the economic impact of droughts to be $30 billion. The droughts destroyed or damaged major crops all over this country, making corn and soybeans more expensive and increasing animal feed costs. Again, Americans pay more for meats and other animal-based products because of drought.

In the Midwest, the 2012 drought dramatically lowered water levels in the Mississippi River, seriously interfering with our ability to transport our agricultural goods to market to compete with those from other countries. So that barges wouldn't run aground, shippers sent them down the Mississippi only half full with, say, soybeans. This made Minnesota soybeans less competitive with Brazilian soybeans.

Climate change is also exacerbating our Nation's wildfires, as we heard Senator Wyden from Oregon describe about his State. When Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell testified in 2012 before the Senate Energy Committee, I asked him about the link between climate change and forest fires. He told us that throughout the country we are seeing longer fire seasons--more than 2 months longer--compared to fire seasons in the 1970s. Wildfires are also larger and more intense. I asked Chief Tidwell whether scientists at the Forest Service thought climate change was causing this increase in the size and intensity of wildfires and extending their season, and without hesitation he said yes. The Forest Service is spending more and more fighting wildfires--now about half of its entire budget.

Longer fires and larger, more intense fires are going to eat up more and more of that budget. In addition, these wildfires--especially ones that occur at the wildland-urban interface--are increasingly threatening homes and property. Most importantly, more intense fires are costing lives. The 19 brave firefighters who perished in Arizona last June should be a reminder of the gravity of this issue.

Of course, we cannot talk about climate change without talking about sea level rise. As I said, I serve on the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. In 2012, I attended a hearing on sea level rise and heard testimony about how rising sea levels are increasing the size of flood zones and increasing damage from storm surges. One example they used--they said this is a possibility--is that a few inches of sea level rise could result in a storm surge that could flood the New York City subway system. It sounded like something out of science fiction. Yet 6 months later, that is exactly what happened when Hurricane Sandy hit New York City and flooded the subways. My colleagues do not need to be reminded of the cost of Hurricane Sandy. It cost taxpayers a staggering $60 billion.

So when people talk about the harmful consequences of climate change and its costs in terms of homes and dollars and lives, they are not talking about some far-off future problem. Climate change is already hurting us.

Unfortunately, only one of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle--the ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Senator Murkowski from Alaska--attended that hearing. This has been pretty much the case whenever we have a hearing that even tangentially relates to climate change.

A number of my colleagues in Congress don't believe human activity is contributing to climate change. Many others, I suspect, don't talk about climate change because addressing it requires that we make some difficult choices.

This is despite the fact that even some of the major fossil fuel companies that previously funded anti-climate change efforts have turned the page on this issue. ExxonMobil used to fund the Heartland Institute, one of the leading organizations spreading climate change denial propaganda. But if we go to ExxonMobil's Web site today, it states: ``Rising greenhouse gas emissions pose significant risks to society and ecosystems.'' That is ExxonMobil.

Shell Oil states on its Web site: ``CO2 emissions must be reduced to avoid serious climate change.'' That is Shell Oil.

So even the major oil and gas companies have begun to acknowledge that climate change is real. I would respectfully suggest that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle here in Congress also need to engage in a serious conversation on climate change.

At a time when Americans are dealing with record droughts and other extreme weather events, the Senate cannot afford to simply ignore climate change. Ultimately, we have to come together to start addressing climate change before its damage and costs to society get out of control.

I know this is not going to be easy. Some will point out that climate change is a global problem--sometimes called global climate change--and that we can't solve it alone. They are right. Emissions in the developing world are on the rise. China now surpasses the U.S. in total greenhouse gas emissions. But China is also starting to wake up to its serious pollution problem. In fact, at the opening of the annual meeting of its parliament last week, the Chinese Premier stated that his country is declaring a war on pollution. Overcoming pollution challenges will require China to invest heavily in renewable and other environmentally friendly technologies. It is going to make the global clean energy race even more competitive. If we are going to

win this race and create good-paying jobs for Americans, we have to invest in clean energy.

We know that government investment in energy can pay off. Take the example of natural gas. We are currently experiencing a natural gas boom in this country. Sometimes my colleagues forget that this boom happened in large part because of years of Federal support to develop hydraulic fracturing technology. The Eastern Gas Shales Project was an initiative the Federal Government began back in 1976, before hydraulic fracturing was a mature industry. The project set up and funded dozens of pilot demonstration projects with universities and private gas companies that tested drilling and fracturing methods. This investment by the Federal Government was instrumental in the development of the commercial extraction of natural gas from shale. In fact, microseismic imaging--a critical tool used in fracking--was originally developed by Sandia National Laboratory, a Federal energy laboratory.

The industry was also supported through tax breaks and subsidies. In fact, Mitchell Energy Vice President Dan Stewart said in an interview that Mitchell Energy's first horizontal well was subsidized by the Federal Government. Mr. Mitchell said:

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Samuel Bockenhauer, a fellow in my office, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the 113th Congress.

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

Madam President, I rise today to join my colleagues in calling on the Senate to pass an extension of emergency unemployment insurance. I am deeply disappointed and frustrated that millions of hard-working Americans are now wondering how they will put food on their family's table and a roof over their heads because Washington has been unable to extend critical unemployment insurance.

A few weeks ago we had a bipartisan vote to move forward with debate on the extension of what is called emergency unemployment compensation. I hope we can build on that vote and move forward as quickly as possible to restore this vital lifeline before more Americans who have worked hard and followed the rules their entire lives slip from middle class into poverty.

The expiration of emergency unemployment insurance is an urgent problem for tens of thousands of Minnesotans and for millions of Americans. At the end of this past year, unemployment insurance expired for 1.3 million Americans, including 8,500 Minnesotans. If we don't renew that unemployment insurance over the next year, this lifeline will run out for another 3.6 million Americans, including 65,500 Minnesotans. These are real people. These are fathers and mothers. They are people whose families and local communities are struggling.

As I have traveled around Minnesota, I have had the chance to speak with many of the Minnesotans who are affected by the expiration of unemployment insurance. It is not the fault of these people or these workers who have lost their jobs.

Very often, these workers were just unlucky enough to be working in the wrong sector of the economy at the wrong time. Sometimes they were from communities that lost a large employer.

A few weeks ago I held a roundtable with unemployed workers who have been helped by unemployment insurance. These are long-term unemployed. There were also some workforce professionals who are helping these folks and others find jobs in today's recovering economy. The unemployed women I spoke with--Ann, Amy, and Robin--had been working and paying taxes for unemployment insurance for decades. One of them is in her forties, a mom with two kids, one a 3-year-old. The other two women are older workers, one in her fifties, the other in her early sixties. The one in her fifties was a meeting planner. When the recession hit, businesses cut costs by holding fewer meetings, and she couldn't find a job in her field but is trying to find a job in any field. These women had all been skilling up, getting the skills they could to try to get an office job and be more conversant in Excel or some computer program.

All the Minnesotans I have spoken with have been working hard to find jobs, but they face a tough situation in our economy. In November the Labor Department reported that for every job opening there are almost three people seeking jobs. That doesn't mean you will get a job if you apply for three jobs. A few weeks ago a job counselor in Minnesota told me that there are often hundreds of applicants for every good job posting and that these jobs are often filled internally. I am glad businesses are hiring from within or promoting from within, but it is stories such as these that highlight why we need emergency unemployment--to help those workers who were working in a sector that has experienced a major downturn or live in a community where it is particularly hard to find a job and particularly if they are of a certain age.

One of the women I met at the roundtable, Ann from Eden Prairie, had also written me. What she told me really illustrates the situation so many Minnesotans are facing. Ann wrote:

I have been extremely active in my job search, but have

regrettably not found new employment. My Minnesota

Unemployment Insurance ran out last week and I applied for

Federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation just this past

week . . . I ask you to please ask yourself what you would do

to provide for your family. I have a 9 year old daughter . .

. and a 3 year old son. I am the sole provider for my family

. . . I am not looking for a handout, nor do I believe that

staying on unemployment insurance is in my best interest. But

the $483 a week it provides will at least allow me to make my

mortgage payment.

Ann is remarkably articulate. She volunteers at her son's school, partly because she wants to be involved in her son's life but also to network. One of the counselors there said: The hardest job there is is looking for a job.

Minnesotans such as Ann and the millions of Americans around the country in the same situation have worked for decades. Every one of these women had worked and been paying into unemployment insurance for decades. They don't deserve to be punished or to lose their homes because they are unable to find a job within 26 weeks. Often, they need unemployment insurance so they can put gas in the car to look for a job or so they can keep their phone.

The economy is recovering, but things are still tough for many people. Now is not the time to cut off unemployment insurance. Not only is unemployment still above average, but the long-term unemployed-- workers who have been looking for work for at least 6 months--make up 37 percent of today's unemployed. Congress has never allowed extended unemployment insurance to expire when the long-term unemployment rate is as high as it is today. Today the 2.5-percent long-term unemployment rate is nearly double the level it was when previous emergency benefits were allowed to expire, and the current unemployment rate of 6.7 percent is 1.1 percentage points higher than when George W. Bush signed the current round of emergency unemployment compensation into law.

We know the unemployment crisis is not over. It remains a significant issue for workers, especially older workers, who experience longer periods of unemployment than younger workers when they lose their jobs.

Extending unemployment insurance also makes economic sense. In 2011 the Congressional Budget Office stated that aid to the unemployed is among the policies with ``the largest effects on output and employment per dollar of budgetary costs.'' CBO estimates that extending benefits through 2014 would help expand the economy and contribute to the creation of an additional 200,000 jobs. The Council of Economic Advisers estimates that without a full-year extension, the economy will generate 240,000 fewer jobs by the end of 2014.

Unemployment insurance has been shown to help people stay in the workforce, allowing them to contribute to our economic recovery rather than slip into poverty. The Census Bureau estimates that unemployment benefits have kept 2.5 million people who are trying to stay in the workforce out of poverty in 2012 alone and have kept 11 million unemployed workers out of poverty since 2008.

Extending unemployment insurance for those who need it is far from the only thing we should be doing to help people get back to work. I have spoken many times about one of my highest priorities in this area--addressing the skills gap by supporting workforce training partnerships between businesses and community and technical colleges. There are other things we should be doing, such as rebuilding our infrastructure. But it would be a tremendous mistake to fail to renew the unemployment insurance that has lapsed.

People such as Ann and Robin and all those I meet around the State of Minnesota, and the millions of others around the country, when they are

looking really hard for work, are spending hours a day looking for work, almost 24 hours a day because they keep their phones on. They are thinking about it constantly. Let's not pull the rug out from under them now. They are trying to catch up in an economy that is recovering but still has a long way to go. We shouldn't be jeopardizing their families' economic security and we shouldn't be jeopardizing our Nation's economic recovery with a shortsighted decision like letting this critical safety net expire.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I am very pleased that we were able to vote on and pass a badly needed and long-overdue 5-year farm bill today and that we are finally on the verge of enacting the legislation into law with the President's signature.

With one in five jobs in Minnesota connected to agriculture, passing this bill has been a top priority of mine. I have been working on it for over 2\1/2\ years, along with a large number of my colleagues, and I have gone all around Minnesota talking to farmers and businesses. They tell me not only did they want a 5-year farm bill, but they needed a 5-year farm bill so they could plan for the future. Well, we finally have gotten it done.

There are so many important pieces to this bill, and I want to speak about a few of them today.

When I meet with farm leaders and visit farms all across Minnesota, I hear over and over about the importance of providing farmers with a strong safety net. There is a lot of uncertainty when it comes to farming. Once a farmer puts his crop into the ground, the crops are vulnerable to drought, to too much rain, to disease, and different kinds of pests and to other natural disasters. In 2012, for example, we witnessed a terrible drought that devastated the Nation's corn and soybean crops and forced ranchers to cull their livestock.

All of these safety net programs in the bill are important because they protect our farmers and ranchers, and they also protect American consumers by making sure families have a reliable, domestically produced supply of food.

The bill provides disaster assurances for livestock producers. It contains a dairy program so our dairy producers have the certainty they need. It contains a sugar program to help protect our sugar growers, American sugar growers.

Minnesota is home to a large number of beet sugar growers, and the sugar industry provides thousands of good-paying jobs, American jobs, and billions of dollars to the economy of our region. I fought to make sure we kept this vital program in place.

This bill also includes crop insurance so farmers have certainty with respect to their planting decisions.

One of the things the farm bill does, which was very important to me and to so many people, is to link the crop insurance program to conservation. Minnesota farmers are good stewards of the land and understand how critical conservation is, and so do our hunters and our anglers. With this provision in the farm bill, when our farmers receive the crop insurance benefits, they also agree to implement conservation practices that are good for our land and for our water.

In addition to a strong safety net in the conservation provisions, the bill also contains many provisions that are very important to Minnesota agriculture. For example, I pushed to include provisions to support beginning farmers. With the average age of farmers in Minnesota approaching 60, we need to invest in a new generation of farmers and ranchers. That is why the beginning farmer and rancher program has been a priority of mine. This important program will support training and education for beginning farmers, and it will help new farmers overcome the steep financial hurdles they often face when starting.

I am also very proud of the comprehensive energy title of the bill, which I helped to author. The energy sector in agriculture produces jobs and supports rural communities in Minnesota and across the country. The energy title includes programs such as the Rural Energy for America Program--or REAP--which provides farmers and rural business services with loans and grants so they can invest in energy efficiency and renewable energy to reduce their energy bills.

It also includes programs to help rural America develop advanced biofuels that will help wean the Nation off of foreign oil. It also includes programs to help move the Nation away from a foreign petroleum economy, the way products are increasingly made out of homegrown renewable biomass. Those are only some of what I fought for in the bill. The bill does all of these critically important things while also reducing the deficit by billions of dollars.

Like all bipartisan compromises, the bill is not perfect. In particular, I am not happy with the cuts to the nutrition program on which so many low-income families rely. I am somewhat relieved in the end these cuts were closer to what was in the original Senate bill than the draconian cuts the House of Representatives had called for and passed in their bill. I appreciate the tough job, though, my colleagues had on their hands to arrive at a final compromise.

At the end of the day, this is an incredibly important piece of legislation that I and many colleagues on both sides of the aisle have been working to get over the finish line. I am pleased we have finally come together to pass a bipartisan 5-year farm bill that will make needed reforms and give farmers the certainty they need to plan for the future. The bill we passed will not only support rural America but our entire Nation.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise in support of the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension Act.

I am pleased a 3-month extension of unemployment insurance for millions in Minnesota and across the country was able to clear its first hurdle in the Senate, but our work of course is not finished.

I urge my colleagues in the House and the Senate to pass an extension to renew these critical benefits so hard-pressed families in Minnesota and across our Nation can keep their heads above water while they search for work.

As I have traveled around Minnesota, I have heard from a lot of Minnesotans who wish to work. On Friday I had a roundtable conference. There were three women and some workforce professionals. These women are looking hard and have been looking. They are part of the long-term unemployed. These are women who were working: one is in her forties with two kids--one little kid, a 3-year-old child, a single mom; one was in her fifties; and one was about my age, in her early sixties.

While they are looking for jobs--and we had a professional there who said one of the hardest jobs is looking for a job. They need the unemployment insurance to stay in their homes and to put food on the table for their families.

In the wake of the worst recession since the Great Depression, too many people had good jobs and worked their entire lives--all of these women who had worked their entire lives had 20-, 30-, and 40-year careers and now they are out of work and remain out of work.

Unemployment remains high, and the long-term unemployment rate among workers who have been looking for work for at least 6 months has weighed down our economy. Today more then 4 million Americans, 37 percent of the unemployed, have been out of work for 6 months. This is the worst long-term unemployment since the Great Recession. That is why we need to extend the emergency unemployment compensation. These workers, the millions throughout the country, are worried they will lose their ability to pay for a roof over their heads and put food on the table for their families, for their children.

For most Americans, State-funded unemployment insurance runs out after 26 weeks. Yet the average unemployment spell now lasts over 2\1/ 2\ months longer. Emergency unemployment benefits provide for up to an additional 47 weeks of unemployment insurance for those Americans who need it while they are looking for a job.

When I talk about high long-term employment, these women, every one of them I talked to, were working very hard every day. One woman described it as saying: I am looking 24 hours a day. I have my smartphone, and I am hoping 24 hours a day that I get something, a response, an interview.

Right now we have three people looking for every job opening, but that doesn't mean that when someone applies for a job, there are only two other people looking. These women were telling me every time they applied for a job there were several hundred people looking. Very often they will apply for a job that a company announces, and the company will hire someone from

inside the company, which is great for that person.

But this is not about people waiting for their unemployment to run out and then look for a job. That is not what it is about.

After Christmas, 1.3 million Americans lost their jobs and who are looking for work, including 8,500 Minnesotans. They lost this critical lifeline of unemployment compensation.

Remember, these women I talked about paid in. I am talking about 20 years of working, 30 years of working, 40 years in the workforce. If we don't renew these benefits over the next year, that lifeline will run out for another 3.6 million people, including 65,000-plus Minnesotans.

While Minnesota has been fortunate to have a lower unemployment rate than other States, I believe the 65,000 Minnesotans who will lose benefits without an extension deserve our support as they are looking for work.

Congress has never allowed special extended unemployment benefits to expire when the long-term unemployment rate is as high as it is today. In fact, at 2.5 percent, the long-term unemployment rate is nearly double the level when previous emergency benefits were allowed to expire. The current unemployment rate of 6.7 percent is far above nearly all previous rates seen at expiration and is 1.1 percent higher than when President George W. Bush signed the current round of benefits into law.

As I said, on Friday I met with several unemployed Minnesotans. Two out of the three were affected by our not extending the emergency unemployment insurance.

I wish to share a little bit of their stories but also people who have written in, Minnesotans who have reached out to me about how failing to extend unemployment insurance will affect them.

John from Cushing, MN, wrote in December:

I am a 58 year old sales and marketing professional that

was laid off due to a force reduction and have been

unemployed for a year. I have not been able to find even part

time work. I have exhausted my severance package and most of

my liquid savings just to cover financial obligations and

essentials such as food and utilities. Additionally, I do not

have any health care coverage as my income has been limited

to unemployment compensation. Now that the Federal Extension

is about to expire, beginning next week I will have zero

income and no job offer pending. I would appreciate your

support in doing what you can to re-instate the Federal

Unemployment Extension in Minnesota as for me personally, it

is of extreme need and I would expect many others around the

country may also be in such dire straits.

Almost half--I believe it is the majority of Americans--sometime in their lives hit a hard patch and our job is to be there for them.

Debbie from White Bear Lake wrote:

There are many of us out here who will run out of benefits

next year and are still unable to find a decent job. I have

been out of work for over 4 months and am spending at least

5-6 hours a day (EVERY day) looking for a job. While this may

not seem that long, I am already concerned about my state

unemployment running out and having nothing. . . . The people

that actually work are the ones that spend money to help the

economy.

She is right. We know from CBO that if we extend unemployment insurance these people spend the money and it goes immediately out in the economy and actually the CBO says this will sustain about 200,000 additional jobs. If we don't do this, we will create 200,000 less jobs over the next year.

On Friday I met with Ann from Eden Prairie, who wrote:

I have unfortunately been unemployed since being downsized

from a small consulting organization in April, 2013. . . . I

have been extremely active in my job search--

Boy, has she. I will say all of these women were upgrading their skills. Some of them had gone back to school to upgrade their skills and are still not being successful in finding work.

She continues:

--but have regrettably not found new unemployment. My

Minnesota Unemployment Insurance ran out last week and I

applied for Federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation just

this past week. I understand it's going to expire at the end

of the month.

She wrote to me in December.

I ask you to please ask yourself what you would do to

provide for your family. I have a 9 year old daughter . . .

and a three year old son. I am the sole provider for my

family. I volunteer extensively at the school and elsewhere

in my community. . . .

She is a volunteer. She does that, but she also volunteers looking for a job. She is networking in her volunteer work. She is volunteering for her kids' school, for her 9-year-old's school.

She told me the 3-year-old went to preschool 5 days a week, then 4 days, then 3 days, then 2 days, and now 1 day a week--and how hard is it to look for a job with a 3-year-old.

She continues: ``I am not looking for a handout, nor do I believe that staying on unemployment insurance is in my best interest.''

But she says it ``will at least allow me to make my mortgage payment.''

Doug, from Bloomington, wrote that he and his family will lose their home if we allow benefits to expire.

He says:

I unfortunately lost my job due to the economy last March .

. . each position that I apply for has at least 500

candidates applying for the same position. If the Federal

unemployment extension is not approved, my family and I will

be homeless within a month! I have even tried to apply for

``temporary positions,'' however, they always reply that I am

overly qualified!

We talked about this in the roundtable. We also had professionals there who are professional workforce people and are counselors. These people are working it. There was a woman in her fifties who said: They will not take me at McDonald's because they figure if I get some other job I will leave and it costs to train them.

It truly troubles me that those who have worked and contributed to our society the longest, I am saying 20, 30, 40 years, have been particularly hit hard by long-term unemployment; in other words, older workers who lose their jobs have experienced longer periods of unemployment than younger workers. Part of that is age discrimination. That age discrimination has made it more difficult for older workers to bounce back when they lose their jobs. According to AARP, 34 percent of older workers seeking work reported they had experienced, or know someone who has experienced, age discrimination in the past 4 years. This was the experience of all three of the women I talked to.

Extending unemployment insurance isn't just the right thing to do to help our fellow Americans who are out of work and searching for a job, it is also the smart thing to do for our economy. As I said, in 2011, the Congressional Budget Office said that aid to the unemployed is among the policies with ``the largest effects on output and employment per dollar of budgetary cost.'' CBO estimates that extending benefits through 2014 will help expand the economy and contribute to the creation of an additional 200,000 jobs. The Council of Economic Advisers estimates without a full-year extension, the economy will generate 240,000 fewer jobs by the end of 2014.

We know unemployment benefits work. The Census Bureau estimates that unemployment benefits kept 2.5 million people who are trying to stay in the workforce out of poverty in 2012 alone and have kept over 11 million unemployed workers out of poverty since 2008. Countless local businesses feel the positive effects when the unemployed are able to keep buying their basic necessities--food, utilities, gas, so they can drive to look for a job.

Unemployment insurance isn't the only thing we should be doing to help the unemployed either. There are lots of things we can and should be doing. There are more than 3 million jobs in this country that could be filled today if there were workers who had the right skills. With too many Americans unemployed, we have to find a way to fill those jobs, to train those workers. We should be helping workers get the training they need to fill the high-tech jobs that are growing in Minnesota and across the country--in Maine, in Alabama, in the State of every Senator I talk to in this Chamber when I talk about the skills gap and manufacturing returning to this country--but we don't have the skilled workers, and this at a time of such high long-term unemployment. We need to be training a workforce for the 21st century.

Sometimes these jobs are in advanced manufacturing. Sometimes this training takes 2 years, but we need to do it. We should be helping connect these people to educational programs that link them with employers, and that is why I have introduced the Community College to Career Fund Act. Under this program, businesses and

community colleges would apply for grants based on how many jobs that partnership would create, the value of the jobs to those hired and to the community, and how much skin the businesses have in the game.

There is a lot we should be doing to create jobs. We should be addressing our infrastructure deficit. You know, when you don't repair our infrastructure, when you don't create new infrastructure, that is a deficit too, and we need to get people into work that we need to be doing. But failing to extend emergency unemployment doesn't make sense. We shouldn't be punishing people such as John and Debbie and Ann and Doug who are looking for work and can't find jobs. We shouldn't be pulling the rug out from under them and millions of others who support the small businesses and local retailers in our cities and our towns. Extending these benefits is something we should do now to jump-start and to continue this recovery.

But we shouldn't stop there. I will continue to press this Congress to work to create jobs through investments in infrastructure, in innovation and education so that the unemployed can get back to work at good jobs that sustain long-term economic growth.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet in executive session on Monday, January 13, 2014, at 5:30 p.m. in room S-214.

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

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

Mr. President, I rise to speak about some of the important work we can be doing to help strengthen our economic recovery and to get more Minnesotans and more Americans across the country into jobs.

During the government shutdown in October, I came to the floor to talk about how the shutdown was preventing us from doing the work that people sent us here to do. Every day we spent on the shutdown was a day we weren't working together to create jobs and to rebuild the middle class. The budget deal we passed this week is far from perfect, but it is my hope it will enable us to stop lurching from crisis to crisis and focus on the work we were sent to do.

This agreement means businesses will have the stability and certainty they need to create jobs and strengthen our economy, and it allows us to focus on educating our kids, creating a 21st century workforce, and putting people back to work.

As I said, this budget deal is far from perfect; it is a compromise and, as with any compromise, it has elements I like, elements I don't like, and elements others like and don't like that may be different. In addition to providing some budgetary certainty for the next 2 years, the budget deal undoes some of the extreme across-the-board cuts of the sequester that will enable us to make more of the critical investments we need to make in education, research and development, and infrastructure. We will make those investments while replacing the irrational cuts of the sequester with more responsible debt and deficit reduction. In fact, the bill ultimately reduces the debt by about $20 billion more than under the previous budget that included the full sequester.

At the same time, I am very troubled by the fact that the bill pays for undoing some of the extreme, across-the-board cuts of the sequester in part by reducing some military pensions. That was something pushed for by the lead Republican negotiator, and I am not happy about it. I believe there are cuts we can make to defense spending, but cutting military pensions is not one of them. That is why I am cosponsoring a bill authored by Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire that would replace those cuts to military pensions by closing an indefensible and wasteful corporate tax loophole, and I hope we can get that done before the cut to military pensions goes into effect.

I am also very troubled that the budget deal does not include an extension of critical emergency unemployment insurance. Extending this unemployment insurance is one of the things we need to be doing for the economy. Too many Americans remain unemployed, and those who have been unemployed the longest are facing the expiration of their unemployment insurance when they need it the most. There are 65,000 workers in Minnesota and millions throughout our country who may need this extended unemployment insurance in 2014. These folks are struggling. They are struggling to find jobs and to support their families.

Not extending unemployment insurance will also put the brakes on our economic recovery. In 2011, the CBO wrote that aid to the unemployed is among the policies with ``the largest effects on output and employment per dollar of budgetary cost.'' Without an extension the Council of Economic Advisers estimates the economy will generate 240,000 fewer jobs by the end of 2014. That is why I have been working to continue the extension of unemployment insurance and I will keep pushing for the Senate to take up and pass an extension when we return in the new year.

Another thing we should do to strengthen the economy and help working Americans is to raise the minimum wage. We established a minimum wage because we believed that no one should work full-time, contributing to society, and live in poverty. Americans value work. We work more hours on average than citizens in other developed countries. The minimum wage is supposed to help guarantee that if a person works hard and plays by the rules, they at least will have a roof over their head and be able to put food on the table.

This year marks 75 years with a Federal minimum wage. However, today, because the minimum wage is too low, it is not doing what it is supposed to do. Today, a minimum wage worker making $7.25 an hour or about $15,000 per year falls below the poverty line, even though they work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. Inflation has eroded the value of the minimum wage. If the minimum wage had simply kept pace with inflation since 1968--not raised in real terms but just kept pace with inflation--it would be at $10.75 an hour today. That is a wage that would at least keep a family of three above the poverty line.

What has happened to the minimum wage is part of a larger trend for American workers. Over the past 50 years, American workers have increased their productivity by 135 percent--a 135-percent increase. But the value of their wages has not changed, and the real value of the minimum wage has dropped by 33 percent over that same time. Over just the past few years, costs have climbed. Americans are paying more for electricity, rent, auto repair, food, childcare, and many others things. Yet most wages for workers have stagnated and the minimum wage has fallen.

That is why I think one of the most important ways we can boost our economy and help workers and families is to increase the minimum wage. Americans agree. Americans strongly favor boosting the Federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. In a recent survey, 63 percent supported raising the minimum wage to $10.10 from the current $7.25 rate. Moreover, the support for increasing the minimum wage is broad-based: The rich, the poor, Republicans and Democrats all believe we should raise the minimum wage.

Increasing the minimum wage will be good for Minnesota, and there is a parallel effort at the State level to increase the State minimum wage. If we increase the Federal minimum wage to $10.10, it will affect 462,000 Minnesota workers over 3 years. That is 18 percent of Minnesota's workforce. It will increase our State's GDP by $400 million. That is something we must fight for.

Extending unemployment benefits and increasing the minimum wage are crucial things we can be doing to support the American value that if you work hard, you should be able to support yourself and your family.

There is more we can be doing. I am part of the Manufacturing Jobs for America initiative that several of my colleagues in the Senate, and headed by the Presiding Officer, have undertaken. As part of that initiative, I wish to speak about an issue I have spoken about on the floor before--an issue I hear about from manufacturers all over Minnesota--the skills gap. What is the skills gap? Recent studies have shown that between one-third and one-half of manufacturers in my State of Minnesota have at least one job they can't fill because they can't find a worker with the right skills to fill that job. That is the skills gap in Minnesota, but it is not just Minnesota. This is a nationwide phenomenon. As I roam this

floor to talk to my colleagues, every one of them knows of this phenomenon in their State. A 2011 survey by Deloitte found that there were 600,000 manufacturing jobs nationwide that were unfilled because of a skills shortage.

It is not just manufacturers either. There is a skills gap in information technology, in health care, and in other sectors that have jobs sitting there waiting for skilled workers to fill them. There are more than 3 million jobs in this country that could be filled today if there were workers who had the right skills. With too many Americans unemployed, we have to find a way to fill those jobs.

The thing is we know how to solve this problem. We are taking steps to solve it in communities in Minnesota and around the country through partnerships between businesses and community and technical colleges that are training up workers and getting them into high-demand jobs right away.

Let me talk briefly about an innovative program to bridge the skills gap in Minnesota. I recently visited the Right Skills Now Program at the Dunwoody College of Technology in Minneapolis and the South Central Community and Technical College in Mankato. Those two institutions are working on this together.

At South Central I sat with about 8 to 10 manufacturers who had helped fund and design their program that gives workers the skills they need to operate a computer numerical control, or CNC, machine. They told me that between 8 or 10 of them they had more than 50 job openings they could fill that instant. At Dunwoody, their current placement rate from the Right Skills Now Program is 91 percent. You will have a hard time finding a more effective program.

Dunwoody likes to emphasize that its students often come into the program after having just been laid off or that they are the long-term unemployed we hear about. After going through the program, they are placing 91 percent of them into good jobs in a growing industry here in this country.

They told me about a student who had a successful career as a massage therapist. He was doing just fine until he began to experience pain from pre-arthritic symptoms. That spells trouble for a massage therapist. So he researched technical programs and joined Right Skills Now, and after going through the program he relaunched his career as a machinist.

Careers are different from what they were a generation ago. Very few people stay working in one job for one company for their entire life anymore. Whether it is because of changing life circumstances such as the massage therapist turned machinist, or because of new technologies, most workers have many different jobs over the course of their working life now, and those jobs require many different skills. We need a workforce development system that is agile enough to keep up with those changing demands.

That is essential not just so workers will be able to get the different skills they need over the course of their working lives; it is also going to be one of the keys to the United States remaining globally competitive. If our workers cannot adapt to the new industries that are constantly forming, we will lose those jobs to our global competitors. There is no better way to anticipate and to react to these changes than to connect businesses directly with our schools to get workers exactly what they need.

This is also about college affordability. I have talked before about Erick Ajax, the CEO of EJ Ajax and Sons, a metal stamping and sheet metal fabrication company in Fridley, MN, that was founded by Erick's grandfather in 1945. Erick and other manufacturers partnered with Hennepin Technical College in Hennepin County to set up M-Powered, a fast-track training program to get workers what they need for entry- level advanced manufacturing jobs.

Erick gave me an example of one of his workers that I found exciting. This is what excites me, and not because it is extraordinary; it is because it is something we can duplicate over and over in this country. When he hires employees from these business-technical college partnerships, the way he looks at it is that they are on a career ladder that would otherwise not be available. He told me about one such hire, who was really good at his job. So Erick sent him back to school to get his associate's degree. The guy came back to work, continued to be a star, and a few years later Erick paid for him to go to the University of Minnesota, where he got his bachelor's degree. The guy is now head of quality control for EJ Ajax, an incredibly high-skilled job at an advanced manufacturing company.

Now, understand, this guy graduated from college with no debt--zero debt--with a great job. When I think about college affordability, I think about that story.

As I have said, we have a skills gap problem in manufacturing and other industries, and we have these partnerships that are successfully working to close that gap. So where do we come here in Congress? Well, I have gone around to Minnesota's community and technical colleges and talked to businesses, I have had roundtables, and I have talked to national experts in our State and from around the country, and the fact is we are not doing this fast enough. Sometimes these partnerships could do a lot more, train up a lot more people, with some extra funding--maybe to buy a really sophisticated machine or to hire an instructor with very specialized skills.

So what I am proposing is a competitive grant program in a bill called the Community College to Career Fund Act. Under this program, businesses and community colleges would apply for grants based on how many jobs their partnership would create, what the value of those jobs would be to those hired, to their company, to the community, and how much skin do the businesses have in the game or maybe how much the community colleges and the businesses and the State have in the game.

We have millions of open jobs that cannot be filled because of a skills shortage, and we know these partnerships are the most direct way to fill those jobs. We know that existing partnerships are not doing enough and cannot do enough, and they need more resources in order to truly meet the need that exists. So that is exactly what my bill would address.

As we move forward with this budget deal, let's build on the progress it represents and set our sights a little higher. Let's support working families and help people who are struggling to find a job in today's slowly recovering economy. Let's help students and young people who have been held back by slow job growth get a foothold in the economy. Let's support partnerships between businesses and community and technical colleges to fill the jobs that are out there. Let's make this coming year the year that Congress works for Americans and puts Americans back to work.

Thank you.

It is an honor for me to acknowledge that the Senator has stolen my idea.

I thank the Senator. And in Illinois the Senator is free to say it is his idea.

Madam President, I would like to talk for a few minutes about a subject that will affect all of us at some point in our lives; that is, the safety of our medicine.

If my child or wife urgently needed medicine, I would have a number of questions: Will my loved one get well? What is going to happen? But I should never have to ask a question about whether the medicine my family takes is safe and whether it is what the doctor says it should be.

More than 1,000 patients and their families across Minnesota found it necessary to ask that question last year during the meningitis outbreak. They had to ask that question because the contaminated medicine they received could have caused them enormous harm. More than 700 patients across the country got sick and more than 60 died after receiving these contaminated injections produced by a large-scale compounding pharmacy in Massachusetts that was essentially an unregulated drug manufacturer.

In Minnesota we specialize in medical innovation. We have some of the best doctors and health care systems and biomedical pioneers anywhere in the world. Our Nation has an incredible capacity for innovation and development in this field. There is no possible explanation that can justify the fact that more than 17,000 vials of contaminated medicine were shipped to providers throughout the country. That should simply not be happening. That is why the legislation we are set to pass, which I helped to write, is so important. It will go a long way toward making compounded medication safer and preventing another outbreak like the one we had a little over a year ago.

Many people don't know what pharmacy compounding is--including many patients who have received compounded medicine. Compounding is a traditional practice of a pharmacy where a pharmacist makes a new drug or takes an existing one and changes it based on a particular patient's needs. If a patient needs a drug and is allergic to one ingredient in it, the pharmacy can remake the drug, or compound it, without that ingredient based on a doctor's prescription. Pharmacists and pharmacies are regulated by the States.

This practice of tailoring medications for individual people is incredibly important, and it has always been a part of practicing pharmacy. It will continue under the bill we have written. But that is not what happened in Massachusetts last year; instead, a facility exploited a legal loophole to make thousands of doses of a product that was not FDA approved and sold it to hospitals and clinics across the country without receiving a prescription. As I said, more than 700 patients got sick after receiving that medicine and 64 people died. That is why my colleagues and I have worked so hard over the past year to develop the bill before us today, the Drug Quality and Security Act, which takes important steps for preventing this kind of outbreak in the future.

I would like to take a moment to thank my friends on both sides of the aisle and in both the Senate and the House who have worked so hard on this legislation.

I thank chairman Tom Harkin for his leadership and for the bipartisan HELP Committee staff process that was crucial to producing this legislation.

I thank ranking member Lamar Alexander and Senator Pat Roberts for their commitment to getting this bill right.

I thank the staff who worked so hard on this bill. Specifically, I thank members of Senator Harkin's staff: Jenelle Krishnamoorthy, Elizabeth Jungman, and Nathan Brown. I also thank Senator Alexander's staff: Mary Sumpter-Lapinski and Grace Stuntz, as well as Jennifer Boyer, who works for Senator Roberts. Their hard work and dedication helped to develop this important legislation.

I also thank Hannah Katch, a member of my staff, who has worked tirelessly on this bill.

I thank Chairman Upton and Ranking Member Waxman and their colleagues in the House for their work, as

well as the many stakeholders who have worked productively with us to develop and improve this proposal. In particular, I counted on input from the Minnesota Board of Pharmacy, the Minnesota Pharmacist Association, Thrifty White Pharmacy, and many other experts and pharmacists in Minnesota who helped us get this bill right.

Is our legislation perfect? No. There were a number of provisions in the bill that we passed out of the HELP Committee that would have provided additional safety and quality assurances for patients, but in order to come to a compromise with the House of Representatives, our legislation changed. Although the final bill does not include everything I would have liked, the bill before us today will take an enormous step forward for patient safety.

The bill will reinstate the law that allows the Food and Drug Administration to regulate large-scale compounders that have exploited a loophole in the law in order to act effectively as unregulated drug manufacturers. It will also give hospitals and health systems the option of buying compounded products from facilities that are inspected by the FDA and are complying with the FDA's quality standards. And it will do all of that without changing the rules for traditional pharmacies, which will continue to be regulated by their State boards of pharmacy.

Specifically, our bill creates a new option for facilities that want to provide compounded drugs to hospitals and health centers. These entities, called ``outsourcing facilities,'' will be inspected by the FDA and will have high quality standards. The hospitals that buy from these facilities will be able to trust that the compounded medicine they buy from outsourcing facilities is safe.

If a compounder chooses not to be either a traditional pharmacy or an outsourcing facility, the FDA will be responsible for making sure that compounder complies with the normal requirements for pharmaceutical manufacturers. Those are the options. Unlike what we saw in Massachusetts, these facilities will no longer be able to occupy an unregulated no man's land. So under the new law, there will be traditional pharmacies, which will continue to be regulated at the State level; outsourcing facilities, which the FDA will oversee; and pharmaceutical manufacturers, which will be regulated by the FDA, as they have been.

I am also pleased that the bill we wrote on compounding is paired today with another bill on the drug supply chain, which is aimed at making sure that the FDA-approved medicine that patients receive is safe and has not been tampered with. By creating a national system to track drugs from the time they leave the manufacturer until they are dispensed to patients, this legislation will provide certainty that our medicines are what they say they are.

My colleagues, Senators Bennet and Burr, have been working on this proposal for more than 2 years, and I thank them for their work and congratulate them on this important achievement.

My home State of Minnesota is a model for pharmacy practice nationwide. Not only does our State have important protections for compounding pharmacies that have kept the medicine made in Minnesota safe, but Minnesota pharmacists have also led the Nation in developing innovative new ways of helping their patients get the right medicine at the right time.

For example, pharmacists at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis found that when a pharmacist reviewed the prescriptions for patients with complex conditions before they were discharged from the hospital, those patients had fewer problems related to their medicine and were 50 percent less likely to be readmitted to the hospital. So it saved a lot of money. It cost HCMC about $112,000 for pharmacists to provide this service, and it saved the hospital nearly $600,000. This is exactly--exactly--the kind of innovation that we are known for in Minnesota, and our pharmacists are on the front lines of this kind of reform and discovery.

The pharmacists at HCMC, and those around Minnesota, do incredibly important work. They provide access to needed medicine for thousands of patients every day. Those pharmacists and their patients must be able to trust that the medicine is safe and it will work. The Drug Quality and Security Act will take an important step toward preventing another outbreak like the one we saw last year, and I urge my colleagues to join me in passing the Drug Quality and Security Act into law.

Thank you, and I yield the floor.

I can see my colleague from Indiana.

Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

In many towns, cities, and States across our country, it is still perfectly legal to fire someone simply because they are gay. One can be a hard worker who shows up on time and gets exemplary performance reviews, but if a person's boss discovers that he or she is gay or transgender or suspects it, he can fire a person for being who they are or for whom they love, and there is nothing the person can do about it.

That is a terrible injustice for Americans who happen to be LGBT. It violates the principle that we are all equal under the law. We all deserve the chance to work hard and to prove ourselves, regardless of our race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, age, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

Many Americans do not realize it remains legal to discriminate against LGBT Americans in the workplace. In one recent poll, eight in ten Americans believe it is already illegal under Federal law to fire or refuse to hire someone because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Doesn't that tell us something about how obviously right ENDA is?

The debate we are having in the Senate today is about whether we should ensure LGBT Americans don't suffer discrimination in the workplace. I have long been a supporter of ENDA, and enacting it into law is something we should have done a long time ago. In fact, 17 years ago, it came within one vote of passing in the Senate.

Making ENDA law will be the next significant step in the fight for equality for LGBT Americans. After decades of struggle, we have achieved a number of huge victories in rapid succession: ending don't ask, don't tell; overturning the Federal ban on same-sex marriage recognition; the achievement of marriage equality in more and more of our States, including my home State of Minnesota.

While we are debating ENDA in the Senate today, equality in the workplace is, in fact, something we achieved in Minnesota over two decades ago. In 1993, the Minnesota State legislature amended our State's human rights act to protect Minnesota's workers from discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. At the time only a few States prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation, and Minnesota was the first State to include protections for transgender workers.

We have had this law in effect now for over 20 years in Minnesota, and what has been the result? Well, for LGBT Minnesotans it has meant they do not have to live in fear of being fired or discriminated against in hiring just because of who they are or because of whom they love. That is a big deal.

But if you are not an LGBT Minnesotan, very little has changed. Some people, including House Speaker Boehner, are opposing ENDA because they claim it will cause frivolous lawsuits and be bad for business. The Minnesota experience shows these fears are unfounded. There has not been a flood of lawsuits because the rights of LGBT Minnesotans are wisely respected. And with 19 Fortune 500 companies, Minnesota has become an ever better place to work and do business. Minnesota is basically the same as it was before this law was passed, except that it is better because LGBT Minnesotans are free from discrimination at work.

Let me give you one example. Last year, a vice president from General Mills--the Minnesota-based company

that is one of the world's largest food companies and which currently employs 35,000 people and makes Cheerios--spoke at a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing about General Mills' support for making sure that the same legal protections people have in Minnesota are extended to workers all across the United States.

The General Mills vice president spoke about how the company's policy of inclusion has contributed to its innovation and growth. He said:

Employees who are members of the GLBT community are

incredible contributors to our enterprise. Absent their

unique perspectives, talents, and gifts, we would be less

competitive and successful. Simply said, talent matters. Now

more than ever, American business needs to leverage the

ingenuity of all sectors for our nation. Discriminatory

barriers to top talent just don't make business sense.

And there are many other large employers headquartered in Minnesota-- Target, Supervalu, U.S. Bancorp, Xcel Energy, Medtronic, 3M, Cargill, Best Buy, and many others--who have put in place companywide policies against discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation wherever their other factories or businesses or stores may be.

Minnesota's small businesses have also reported on the positive effects of Minnesota's human rights law. For instance, Nancy Lyons is the owner of a small 70-person Minneapolis business that develops software. Nancy says the protections and peace of mind her employees get from not living in fear positively impact every aspect of their lives, from their productivity at work to their family lives.

It is long past time that LGBT employees around the country be guaranteed the same rights they have had in Minnesota for 20 years. In Minnesota, our law has given LGBT Minnesotans peace of mind and freedom from discrimination at work and improved the overall climate in our State for those individuals, for families, and for businesses. I look forward to the Senate passing this bill, and I hope the House will take it up and pass it as well.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I yield the floor.