Floor Statements

Mr. President, California and the Nation are mourning the loss of seven courageous and dedicated marines who died last week in a midair helicopter collision during a routine training exercise in a remote mountain area in Imperial County, CA.

This is a tragic loss for our military and our Nation. It is also a reminder of the sacrifices that all our servicemembers make each and every day. These brave men and women put themselves in harm's way to keep us safe--whether they are engaged in combat, conducting humanitarian missions, or taking part in training exercises here at home.

I ask my colleagues to join me in paying tribute to these marines: Maj.

Thomas A. Budrejko of Montville, Connecticut; Capt. Michael M. Quin of Purcellville, Virginia; Capt. Benjamin N. Cerniglia of Montgomery, Alabama; Capt. Nathan W. Anderson of Amarillo, Texas; Sgt. Justin A. Everett of Clovis, California; LCpl Corey A. Little of Marietta, Georgia; and LCpl Nickoulas H. Elliott of Spokane, Washington.

Six of the victims were stationed at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County. The seventh was stationed at Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, AZ.

At this time of great sorrow, my thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of these seven marines. Nothing can fully account for the tremendous loss they have suffered, but I hope they can take comfort in knowing that their loved ones will be forever remembered and honored by a grateful nation.

Mr. President, could the Presiding Officer tell me what the pending business is? Are we on the Transportation bill at this time?

All right. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

As the senior Senator from New York relinquishes the chair to his colleague from New York, I want to thank both of them for their amazing leadership in every issue we turn to today.

Senator Schumer's work to help us bring this transportation bill to the floor is exemplary. And Senator Schumer knows, as Senator Gillibrand

knows and every one of us knows, we cannot have a strong economy if we cannot move goods, if we cannot move people, if commerce comes to a halt. So we have to pass a transportation bill to make sure our highways are adequate, our bridges are safe, our commerce can move, and our transit systems can carry people from one place to another.

I want to say to my colleague who is now sitting in the chair, Senator Gillibrand, that I listened to her remarks. I am very touched by them. She talked about women's voices, and she is dedicated to ensuring they are heard. Let me assure my friend that her voice has been heard on this and so many other important issues. And it is an effective voice. She was the one who came to me when the Republicans started to say they did not think it was necessary for women to have access to birth control with no copay through their insurance, and said: Barbara, do you understand that a full 15 percent of women are prescribed birth control pills because they want to avoid ovarian cancer, they want to make sure that a cyst on an ovary does not get out of control, they want to avoid debilitating monthly pain, and even it is used for terrible skin conditions?

So when we hear our colleagues talk about birth control as if it is some unnecessary prescription--although you never hear them say it when it comes to Viagra, I would note--let me point out it is necessary. We will be on our feet day after day, month after month, hour after hour, and minute after minute, because we are not going to let them take away medicine from women. Oh, no. They are not. They will not. And the women of this country will not have it. They are engaged in this debate. They understand it. My friend from New York has been an incredible voice.

So here we are. We are on the highway bill. You may wonder, why is it that the Senator from New York came and talked about the issue of birth control and women's health when we are on a highway bill? Well, here is the news: My Republican colleagues are so intent on taking away women's rights, rights to health care, that they insisted on having a vote to take away these rights before they would allow the highway bill to move forward. Can you imagine?

I think it appropriate that at this point I pay tribute to my colleague, Senator Olympia Snowe, who has been an amazing colleague, who has been a voice of reason, a voice of progress, over the many years she has served. I have served with her in the House and the Senate, I do not know, decades. I will miss Olympia Snowe. But let's listen to what she said. She said: This place has become so polarized, so partisan we cannot move forward.

I would submit to you that the situation we find ourselves in at this moment is exhibit A on why someone such as Olympia Snowe is saying this has been a privilege and a wonderful thing, but I think I am going to move on. Because here we have a highway bill that is completely bipartisan. And again, my colleague in the chair from New York, Senator Gillibrand, is a very important member of the Environment and Public Works Committee. We passed a bill out of our committee with a vote of 18 to 0. We had 100 percent support in a polarized time because everybody understands we have to make sure we have a No. 1 transportation system, a class A transportation system in this great country of ours, a vision that was first brought to us by Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s when he said, we have to be able to have a network of national highways.

So here is a bill that comes out of the EPW Committee 100 percent bipartisan. The section that dealt with banking comes out of the Banking Committee 100 percent bipartisan. It comes out of the Finance Committee very bipartisan, not 100 percent but very. And in Commerce it had a problem, which we have rectified, and it is now bipartisan.

So four committees have done their work on the transportation highway bill, and all of them have been bipartisan. So we come to the floor--I think this is now the third week or the second week on the bill--the second week on the bill--and we have gone nowhere, because in order for us to move forward, the Republicans are insisting on a vote to take away women's health care. So Senator Reid said to them: Fine. We will vote on it Thursday morning. But let it be known throughout this land what is going on.

Sometimes people tune in and they say: Oh, it is so complicated, I cannot follow it. It is not complicated. Here is where we are: We have a bipartisan bill, 2.8 million jobs are at stake. We have to do it. The transportation bill is going to expire, the authorization, so we will not have any program in place March 31. We have to do this work, and we cannot move forward unless we have a vote on a polarizing amendment--a polarizing amendment.

How did it come about, this polarizing amendment? It came about because we passed the health care law that made some incredible breakthroughs. Two of the biggest breakthroughs, I think, in that bill is that we for the first time said to insurance companies and employers: When you provide insurance for your people, it must include a list of essential health care benefits and preventive health care benefits.

Let me read you the list of essential health care benefits that people of America are going to have unless the Blunt amendment passes and takes this away. This is the list of essential benefits the Blunt amendment would take away: Emergency services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health treatment, preventive and wellness services, pediatric services, prescription drugs, ambulatory patient services, rehabilitative services and devices, and laboratory services.

These are categories of services that health insurance plans must cover under health care reform. But if the Blunt amendment passes--and we know it started because of birth control, but it has reached beyond that to every single essential health benefit that any employer in this Nation, if Blunt passes, could say: I do not want to do any of these. I do not want to do some of these, because I have a moral objection.

So if you worked for an employer who believes that prayer is what we need to cure illness--and by the way, that is their right. I would fight for their right to believe that. They would be able, however, to tell you that that is your alternative, and they do not have to provide any of those essential health benefits in their insurance plan.

The other thing the Blunt amendment does is it says that no more preventive health benefits will be required. Under the law, these are the preventive health benefits that are required to be offered to you. You do not have to take them if you are an employee who has an objection to any of these things. You do not have to do it, but they have to be offered to you: Breast cancer screenings, cervical cancer screenings, hepatitis A and B vaccines, measles and mumps vaccine, colorectal cancer screening, diabetes screening, cholesterol screening, blood pressure screening, obesity screening, tobacco cessation, autism screening, hearing screening for newborns, sickle cell screening, fluoride supplements, tuberculosis testing for children, depression screening, osteoporosis screening, flu vaccines for children and the elderly, contraception.

Contraception is a preventive health benefit because we know it prevents unintended pregnancies and prevents abortion and prevents illness. Fifteen percent of people take it to prevent illness. Also, well-woman visits, HPV testing, STD screening, HIV screening, breast feeding support, domestic violence screening, and gestational diabetes screening--all of these have to be provided. But if you don't want to take contraception, you can say, no; I am not interested in that. If you don't want to have your child to have a vaccine--personally, I think that is terrible--but you don't have to. But that is what is required.

Under the Blunt amendment, let's be clear. Any employer who simply says they have a moral objection can say: Sorry, see this list. We are not going to do 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 things here. For example, obesity screening, we believe that is your problem, and we have a moral objection to that. Colorectal cancer screening, I have an objection to that because, again, my religion says it doesn't do any good.

This is why Blunt is so dangerous. It is about denying women the absolute right to have contraception offered to them--it does that, but it does a lot

more than that. Again, we are on a highway transportation bill. It is 2.8 million jobs. It came out of four committees, and it is bipartisan. It will keep this country moving. It will keep this economy going.

Madam President, I want you to imagine one Super Bowl stadium filled with people. Think about what that looks like in your mind's eye. Every seat in that stadium is filled. Now imagine 15 of those stadiums filled. That is how many unemployed construction workers there are in this great country today.

Yes, we are making progress. Yes, President Obama took us out of the worst recession since the Great Depression that he inherited. Yes, he turned it around. But he and we say, we have to do more. We cannot just say, because we are creating jobs now, it is enough. The President knows it; we know it. We were bleeding 800,000 jobs when he took over, and now we have stemmed it and we are creating a couple hundred jobs a month--100,000, 200,000--thank goodness. We have created, in the last 6 months or so, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Here is the point: Why on Earth would we take a U-turn as we are on the road to economic recovery, as we are on the road to a bill that is absolutely necessary, and take up the issue of women's health? I am telling you, I believe it is radical. I believe it is taking us backward. I believe it is hurtful to women. I call on every woman, regardless of political party, to make your voice heard against the Blunt amendment. You are being attacked.

What the President did in dealing with the issue of contraception showed the wisdom of Solomon. He basically said: If you are a religious institution and you have an objection to offering contraception, you don't have to do it. So 335,000 churches are exempt. I feel sorry for the employees who may not agree with the church, but they work for the church and therefore that is the rule.

Religiously affiliated hospitals and universities raised a question-- you know, they serve a broad array of people. They hire a broad array of people, not just people of one faith but of many faiths and of many points of view. They raised the question, saying: We don't feel comfortable. The President came up with a compromise that has been embraced by Catholic Charities, Catholics United, and the Catholic Health Association. The only group that doesn't support him are the bishops.

If I could respectfully say to them, they don't deliver the health care services; Catholic Charities does, and the Catholic Health Association does. They represent thousands of providers. So they have embraced the President's compromise. But not my Republican friends. They didn't. They want to cause trouble and take away the ability for women to have access to contraception, without a copay--while they support supplying Viagra to men. It is stunning.

I think this is rippling across the land. I don't know if we have the photo--I don't think we have it on the floor--of the last panel that was held in the House, and my friend from New York talked about it. We do have it.

This is a picture. A picture is worth 1,000 words. This is a panel on women's health focused on contraception. Where are the women? Where are the women? One, two, three, four, five men; they are talking about women's health care. Not one of them ever had a baby. Not one of them ever had a monthly cramp. They are talking about women's health care like they know all about it.

The chairman, Chairman Issa, didn't see immediately that there was a problem. There was a woman sitting there, and she asked to be heard. She said, ``I have a story to tell this panel.'' Oh, no, he didn't want to hear from her. He said she wasn't qualified. Do you know what her story was? It was about how a friend of hers who was denied the contraceptive pill and instead developed a terrible tumor on her ovary. He didn't think that was worthy of discussion.

This issue is rippling through the land. It says everything to me. We women in the Senate are not going to allow this to go unnoticed. That is a symbol of what is happening to women in this country. In the very States that are passing legislation that some have dubbed ``State rape,'' because it would require a woman to be subjected to an invasive vaginal probe without her consent, now they are backing off. That was the bill that almost passed in the Virginia Legislature. Now they have said: OK, it is a sonogram. There is another way to do it. It took women crying out and saying: Wait a minute. Are you kidding? And they are backing off.

Well, they better back up overall because this is the 21st century. Women should be trusted and respected and honored and believed. When you tell a woman she needs to be lectured by some stranger on her own personal decisions, right away you are questioning her worth. So the issue goes so far beyond the ability to obtain birth control pills. The issue goes so far beyond that. It really does. You can stand up here and say it is not about women's health, it is really about religious freedom, but as Patty Murray, my colleague from Washington, has said: When they say it is not about contraception, it is about contraception.

Others have said: When they say it is not really about the money, it is really about the money. When they say it is not really about politics, it is about politics.

This is about contraception, making it difficult for women who don't have the means to have some sense of control over their reproductive lives and to be able to access a pill that could help them live a healthier life and live longer and free of pain.

So they will come and say: Oh, Senator Boxer, this isn't about contraception; it is about religious freedom. The President has taken care of the religious objection. I described how he did it, and I will say it again. He said if you are a religious institution, you don't have to provide contraception. If you are a religiously affiliated institution, there will be a way for a third party to deal with it. The Catholic health organizations support it, Catholic Charities. He has come up with a compromise. There is no reason to have this polarizing debate. Everybody should have religious freedom, including the employees, including the boss, including everybody. So no one under the President's plan is forced to do something they don't want to do. We just want to make sure when the Institute of Medicine tells us that availability to contraception saves lives and protects health, women get a chance to get it if they want. If they don't want it, they don't have to get it. Of course not.

Again, I will end where I started, talking about my colleague Olympia Snowe, who is retiring, not running again, because she said we are so polarized. This is exhibit 1. We are on a transportation bill that is bipartisan, but the other side can't let it rest, cannot move forward on it, and cannot move to make sure our businesses and our workers have a brighter future. Oh, no, they have to delay it.

By the way, it is not only with this birth control amendment and women's health amendment but with other amendments that have nothing to do with the subject. It is what makes the American people wonder what we are doing here.

I want to show some charts that deal with transportation issues right now. I will continue talking about Olympia Snowe for a minute. I went through some of the issues that I worked on with her. I want to talk about them. She and I wrote the Airline Passenger Bill of Rights Act. We were very strong because we knew our constituents were getting stuck on aircraft hour after hour, stuck on the tarmac, with no food, kids screaming, nightmare scenarios, 9, 10 hours on the runway. We thought passengers deserved a bill of rights.

We worked with outside groups, some wonderful people. Lo and behold, it passed as part of the FAA bill that finally got enacted. We didn't get 100 percent of what we wanted, but we got 90 percent. I was proud to work with her.

In 2009, following a tragic Buffalo commuter plane crash, which I know the occupant of the chair remembers, Senator Olympia Snowe wrote a bill to implement the recommendations of the National Transportation Safety Board to make sure these pilots get enough rest and that they are well-trained. We were very pleased that moved forward. We worked together--Olympia and I--on the Purple Heart for POWs to make

sure the Purple Heart included prisoners of war who died in captivity and they could get that to bless their memory.

We worked together against the global gag rule.

We worked together and wrote a letter to the President--President Obama--asking him to appoint a woman to replace Justice David Souter.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record this letter I will be quoting from.

I am so proud of this letter we wrote together. In the letter, we said:

The most important thing is to nominate an exceptionally

well-qualified, intelligent person to replace Justice Souter.

. . . Women make up more than half of our population, but

right now hold only one seat out of nine. . . . This is out

of balance. In order for the Court to be relevant, it needs

to be diverse and better reflect America.

Then, of course, the President nominated Sonia Sotomayor and we were very excited about that.

So it was wonderful to work with her on that, and we worked together on respecting human rights in Tibet and led 27 Senators in a letter to Chinese leader Hu Jintao asking that Tibetans be respected. Regarding women in Afghanistan, we worked together to ask Afghan leaders to revise a law that would legalize marital rape and impose other Taliban restrictions on Shiite women in Afghanistan.

This is just a partial list of issues I have worked on with Olympia Snowe, and I will do a longer tribute for the record at a later time.

But, again, as I heard this news, I was first filled with worry about her health, and I hoped she was OK. But she has clarified she absolutely is. So I wish her nothing but the best. I know she will always work on issues because she is so good at looking at a problem and solving it and not thinking first whether it is Democratic or it is Republican or where it falls on the political scales. So I have appreciated working with her on so many of these important issues that have come before us.

I think the Senate should take a minute to think about this in relation to this bill. The whole world is watching us. When I say that, I don't mean the whole world literally, but I think the country is watching us. Why do I say that? Because 1,000 groups have endorsed our moving ahead with this bill--a coalition of 1,075 organizations from all 50 States. Here is what they said about this Transportation bill:

There are few Federal efforts that rival the potential of

critical transportation infrastructure investments for

sustaining and creating jobs and economic activity.

This is what they wrote. So they know this is the way to sustain and revive economic activity. This is what is at stake: Right now, 1.8 million jobs are created because we have a transportation bill. That bill ends March 31. So 1.8 million jobs are at stake if we don't act. Because of the way we wrote our bill, we leveraged funding, and this gained great bipartisan support. We have greatly increased the TIFIA Program, which is the transportation infrastructure financing program, which leverages funds by 30 times. Because of this, we believe we will see another 1 million jobs created. So we are talking 2.8 million jobs that are at stake. Yet we have an amendment on women's health. I just keep coming back to how insane that is.

I also wish to note again the many unemployed construction workers. Remember, I said 15 stadiums could be filled with unemployed construction workers. This is the number: 1.48 million construction industry workers unemployed. The unemployment rate is 17.7 percent among construction industry workers; whereas, the national unemployment rate is 8.3 percent. We know the housing sector is still having major problems getting out of the funk it is in. It is tough. So we have to do this bill.

I have a picture, just in case your mind's eye wasn't able to conjure it up. Here is a picture of a stadium filled with about 100,000 people. So 15 of these stadiums would basically reflect all the unemployed construction workers.

Which are the groups that are supporting us and are they bipartisan? Oh, my goodness. I don't think I could share with everyone a more bipartisan list of organizations than the AAA, the American Association of State Highway and Transit Officials, the American Bus Association, the American Concrete Pavement Association, the American Council of Engineering Companies, the American Highway Users Alliance, the American Moving & Storage Association, the American Public Transportation Association, the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, the American Society of Civil Engineers--and it goes on and on--the trucking association, the Metropolitan Transportation Organizations, Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, Governors Highway Safety Association, International Union of Operating Engineers, Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association, National Asphalt Pavement Association, National Association of Development Organizations, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association, National Construction Alliance.

Oh, it goes on. That is just a partial list of those 1,000-plus organizations.

When we started our bill the Presiding Officer will remember we made history because we had Richard Trumka, the head of the AFL CIO, sitting next to Tom Donohue, the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Donohue and Trumka, the odd couple. They are fighting and arguing on everything. Yet they came together in front of our committee because they know we will all benefit. All of America benefits when we do a bill such as this.

I think I have shared a lot, but there is one more point. If we allow this bill to go away, and we are stuck with an extension because the transportation fund is not collecting enough gas tax revenues--and there is a good-news reason for that, which is we are getting better fuel economy and we are using public transit a lot more, so the gas tax is not coming in at the rate it normally does--we will be down 35 percent in the fund. So right away--right away--631,000 jobs are gone. But what is so great about our bill is that four committees, including the Finance Committee, filled the gap in a way that was bipartisan.

Our story is a great story to tell. If I had to tell my grandkids a story, I would say: Once upon a time in America, we didn't have a national road system. But a Republican President named Dwight Eisenhower had a vision. He was a general. He knew it was important to move things in a reliable way, and he had a vision of a national transportation system, and everybody in the country said: What a great idea. So we started to have a bill every few years to authorize a highway fund. Then somebody came up with the notion of it being funded by the users, so that the gas tax would go--part of it--to this fund and we would have enough in that fund to build our highways and our bridges, and then, later on, our transit systems. People said: We have a lot of wear and tear on the roads. What if a lot of people took public transit and got out of their cars? It would be better for the air quality. It would be better for everybody and for the state of the roads, and so they were married up, highways and transit and bridges.

Now we have to live up to that legacy and not bog this bill down with birth control amendments and women's health amendments and amendments

about Egypt or anything else. There is time for that. We don't mind those battles but not on this bill. Infrastructure is the name of the game. We all know it--Republicans and Democrats.

So I say, let's stop playing games with this bill, please. Let's dispose of this birth control amendment, this women's health amendment. It doesn't belong on here. But if that is what it takes to get us off dead center, fine, let's go. To coin Olympia Snowe's phrase, it will be polarizing. It will not be pretty, but we will dispose of that and then we will move on and dispose of this bill.

I hope we will not have to face 5, 10, 20, 30 unrelated amendments. I hope we can get it down to a small number and move on. Let's pass this bill, lift the workers and lift our businesses. Every dollar, almost-- most of the dollars--goes straight to the private sector through our States, through our local entities.

Then let's hold our head up high when we go home. So when I go to the supermarket I don't have people coming to me and saying: What is going on over there? Birth control on a highway bill. What, are you kidding? I don't want to have those conversations every time I go to the supermarket. What are these guys thinking, they say. I say: I don't know. I can't speak for them. I think it is an agenda that appeals to the far right of this Nation. It is not a mainstream way to go.

In closing now, for those who say Republicans and Democrats never work together, that is not true. Senator Inhofe and I are as far away from each other politically as two human beings can get, but we teamed up and put aside our ideologies, put aside our pet peeves, put aside things that, perhaps in our hearts, we truly wanted to do on this bill, and we met in the middle. He was over here and I was over here and we ended up right in the middle. We said: We can do this, and we proved we could do it. It was a challenge that was put to us by the leadership of both our parties and we met that test and other committees met that test.

So here we are. Are we now to say to committee chairs and ranking members, Republicans and Democrats alike, forget about it? It is not worth it. Work your heart out.

I pay tribute to my staff, my Democratic staff, and to Senator Inhofe's Republican staff. They worked night after night after night to come together on this bill. Then we were given an assignment 2 weeks ago to resolve the germane amendments and they have come together and they have resolved I don't know how many but dozens of amendments. So is the message, work your little hearts out, have your staff give up their nights with their families and come up with a bipartisan bill and all of a sudden have it subjected to some polarizing amendments that have nothing to do with the subject?

Please, let's not see this bill go down. Because if this bill goes down, let me tell you, I, for one, will go to as many cities as I can and counties in this country and tell the truth about what happened. There is no reason for us not to get this done, especially when we have the Chamber of Commerce working with the AFL CIO, we have Republican- leaning business organizations working with Democratic-leaning worker organizations all throughout this country--over 1,000 of them. I talk to them every week to say thank you to them for keeping the pressure on all of us to keep moving forward. When we have that kind of bipartisanship in our committees, when we have that type of bipartisan bill on the floor, when we have that type of bipartisan support in the country, it is time to move forward and get the job done for the American people.

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

Mr. President, do we have a specific order here for speaking?

Mr. President, I am on the floor here today, as I was earlier, to talk about the dangers of this Blunt amendment.

Senator Blunt says it has nothing to do with providing health care to women; it has nothing to do with that. It is just about freedom of religion, he says. Well, as many people say, when someone comes up to you and says it is not about the money, it is about the money. And when someone says it is not about access to women's health, it is about religious freedom, it is about access to women's health care. Why do I say that? Because that is what this debate is all about. And we see it all over the country with rightwing Republicans trying to take away women's health care. Why are they trying to do this? You would have to ask them. But we are here to say no.

The thing about the Blunt amendment is, it would not only say that any insurer or any employer for any reason could stop women from getting access to contraception; it could also stop all of our families from getting access to essential health care services and preventive health care services.

Why do I say that? Let's take a look at the Blunt amendment. Enough of this chatter. Let's take a look at it. Here is what it says: A health care plan shall not be considered to have failed to provide the essential health care benefits package described in our law or preventive health care services described in our law if they exercise what they call a moral objection.

So say someone has a moral objection to someone who has smoked, and the person wants to give up smoking and they want to get a smoking cessation program as part of their insurance. If the insurer says, That is your fault, you are not getting it; or someone may have diabetes and the employer or the insurer says, You know what? That was your problem. You ate too much sugar as a kid. Too bad.

That is what the Blunt amendment does and that is a fact. Here it is. I placed it here because this is the amendment. That is what it says.

I wish to show a list of preventive services and essential health care services that the Blunt amendment threatens. Remember, the Blunt amendment says there is a new clause that now says any insurer or any employer can deny any one of these benefits: emergency services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health treatment, pediatric services, rehabilitative services--that is just some.

Here is the list of the preventive health care benefits that any insurer or any employer could deny: breast cancer screenings, cervical cancer, hepatitis A and B vaccines, yes--contraception, HIV screening, autism screening, hearing screening for newborns.

This is the list. Why do I show this list? Particularly because I know the Senator served on the HELP Committee and helped put this together. This is the list of services that was put together by the expert physicians in the Institute of Medicine, this list, preventive health care, and this list, essential health benefits.

I was stunned to come on the floor and hear Senator Ayotte invoke the name of our dear colleague and our dearly missed colleague, Ted Kennedy. She tried to imply that he would support the Blunt amendment.

She is not the first Republican to do it. I am calling on my Republican friends to stop right now because there are several reasons why they are wrong to do that. First of all, Ted Kennedy, in one of his last acts, voted for the health care bill. He voted for the health care bill that came out of the HELP Committee. He helped to write the preventive section. He helped to write the essential health benefits section. He would never ever--as his son has said--support the Blunt amendment that would say to every employer in this country if they don't feel like offering any of these, they don't have to.

He fought hard for these. He wouldn't give an exception to an insurance company or a nonreligious employer, never.

How else do I know that to be the case? I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a list of bills that Senator Kennedy cosponsored.

What are these bills? These are bills that called for equity for women to get contraceptive coverage. If they were given other coverage, they had the right to get contraceptive coverage. Ted Kennedy was a leader. He is a cosponsor on all these bills. Do you know for how many years? Thirteen years. For thirteen years, Ted Kennedy fought for women to get access to contraceptive coverage in their insurance.

I say to my Republican friends, don't come to the floor and invoke the name of our dear colleague. I was so proud that the first thing I did when I came to the Senate, he asked me if I would help him work on a bill to protect people who were going to clinics, women's clinics, who were being harassed at the clinic door. You know what. I worked it for him. I helped him on the floor, and I was so proud we won that. Now there is a safety zone for women when they go to a clinic for their health care, their reproductive health care. That was Ted Kennedy.

Yes, Ted Kennedy supported a conscience clause--we all do, and President Obama has taken care of that. He has stated clearly in his compromise that if you are a religious institution, you do not have to offer birth control coverage. If you are a religiously affiliated institution, you don't have to cover it directly but you do indirectly. That was a Solomon-like decision by our President. But that is not enough for my Republican colleagues. They have to fight about everything.

I ask unanimous consent also to have printed in the Record the letter Patrick Kennedy wrote to Senator Brown.

In that letter, he said: ``You are entitled to your own opinions but I ask that, moving forward, you do not confuse my father's position with your own.''

He said: ``I appreciate the past respect you have expressed for his legacy, but misstating his positions is no way to honor his life's work.''

I ask my colleagues in this debate, come and state their own views, but don't misstate the views of a dear departed colleague who for 13 years supported a woman's right to have access to contraception.

I think people watching this today have to be a bit confused because when they look up at the screen it says we are on a transportation bill. Indeed we are. Indeed we have been on it for almost 3 weeks now. I say to my colleagues who know the importance of this bill: Please, let us get to it. Let us get to the heart of the matter. We have a huge unemployment rate among construction workers. The unemployed construction workers could fill 15 Super Bowl stadiums. That is how many are unemployed. We need to get to this bill.

It is important to our businesses. It is important to our workers. It is important to our communities. It is important for our safety. It is important to fix the bridges and the highways. It is important to carry out the vision of Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, who said it was key that we be able to move people and goods through our great Nation.

When Olympia Snowe, our very respected colleague from Maine, told us yesterday she would not seek reelection, she said it was because there is so much polarization here. I said this morning, this bill is exhibit 1. Here we have an underlying bill that came out of four committees in a bipartisan way. It means we can save 1.8 million jobs, create up to 1 million new jobs, and guess what. The first amendment is birth control, women's health, an attack on women's health. We have to come to the floor and stand on our feet and fight back.

You know what. I am proud to do it. I am proud of the men and women who have stood on this floor and have come to press conferences and been on conference calls fighting for women's rights. But this issue was decided a long time ago. We know access to contraception is critical for people. A full 15 percent of women who use it use it to fight debilitating monthly pain or to make sure tumors do not grow any larger or for severe skin conditions, and the rest use it to plan their families.

When families are planned do you know what happens? The babies are healthier. The families are ready. Abortions go down in number. It is a win-win. We all know that and I always thought we could reach across the aisle and work together to make sure there was family planning. But today just proves the opposite, our colleagues on the other side, the Republicans, are bound and determined to go after women's health.

I stand opposing the Blunt amendment, thanking my colleagues for their eloquence, and hoping we can dispose of it, defeat it, and get back to our Transportation bill.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, before the Senator from Maryland leaves the floor, I think it is an opportunity to thank her so much for speaking the truth today on the floor of the Senate--just the facts-- and what the Blunt amendment is about and isn't about. Also, I watched her recite the history of trying to bring preventive care and essential health care benefits to our people, realizing that she was in that pivotal position in the HELP Committee.

I remember her looking at me one day--because we are very close friends; we are not on that particular committee together--and she said to me: Senator Kennedy asked me--I just get the chills when I think of it--to take on this issue of prevention and work with Tom Harkin and Chris Dodd and step to the plate on these essential benefits and on preventive benefits. She literally raised this issue, particularly on the prevention side--I don't know if the Presiding Officer remembers-- in caucuses, on the floor, in the committee, at press conferences, that we could have a new day in health care in this country because although we spend more than any country in the world, we are not getting the same results because we haven't invested in prevention.

As she said, it is not up to politicians to decide what prevention should look like; it is up to the doctors. Under the Senator's leadership and that of Senators Harkin and Dodd and all the wonderful members of the HELP Committee, as well as the Finance Committee--and, yes, Ted Kennedy in the background because he was quite ill, but he sent his messages, and his staff helped--they came up with a list of essential health care services that nobody could ever quarrel with. They also came up with a list of preventive health care services that were so critical to all of us, particularly to women. The great news: Proving to us that when we invest in prevention, we save so much down the line. We all know this is a fact.

Access to contraception, by the way, was put on the list not by politicians but by the Institute of Medicine because it is known that if the individual chooses that route to plan their families, that means we have fewer abortions and it means we will have healthier families, healthier babies. And many people take the birth control pill as medicine to prevent debilitating monthly pain. It is prescribed for skin diseases. It is prescribed to make sure cysts on ovaries do not keep growing and growing and possibly lose an ovary.

But what has happened--and I guess I want to ask my friend one question before she leaves--is that the Blunt amendment would say that anybody, for any reason, any day, could cancel out that whole list of preventive and essential health care services that she fought so hard for.

So when they say this is about religious freedom, no, no, no; that has been taken care of by our President. In terms of any provider that is religious or religiously affiliated, they do not have to provide contraception directly. Even Catholic Charities' response was ``We are hopeful that this is a step in the right direction . . . '', the Catholic Health Association supports the compromise, and so on. So I want to ask my friend, is she aware that when Congressman Issa held a hearing on women's health care, there was not one woman on the panel, on that first panel? Did she see those photos of that panel that was called to speak on women's health?

Yes, I do.

Absolutely.

Madam President, I just want to thank my colleague from Maryland for her eloquence and for her fighting spirit. The year I came here was following on the Anita Hill issue, when the world saw and this country saw we had no women on the Judiciary Committee. Now, our Presiding Officer sits on that committee. Senator Feinstein and Senator Moseley-Braun were the two women to serve on that committee after we saw there were no women, and they paved the way for my good friend to bring her fabulous background and expertise to the table.

But when Congressman Issa, the chairman of the committee that had no women on a panel talking about women's health--imagine, no women. Do we have that photo, Cerin? Do we have the photo of the five men testifying about women's health, talking about women's access to contraception, talking about birth control? Not one of those men ever gave birth as far as I know, unless they are a medical miracle. This photo I have in the Chamber I think is changing this country this year because a picture is worth thousands of words. Look at this picture, and we see over on the House side on that Republican side, that is who they want to hear from. When a woman in the audience said to the chair of that committee: Can I speak? I think I have some important information, he said she was not qualified. So I suppose if a person wants to be qualified to speak about women's health, they have to be a man. Her story she wanted to share was of a friend who was unable to get access to birth control because her employer did not offer it, and she was too financially strapped to purchase it. As a result, a cyst on an ovary became so large and so complicated she lost her ovary.

Now, I just want to say to my colleagues, we are on a highway bill. We have to be kidding that we have now wasted 3 weeks because we are so consumed with attacking women's health. Get over it. We are not going to go back. The women of this country will not allow it.

Look what happened in Virginia. They had a plan. They were going to

mandate an invasive procedure, a humiliating procedure, a medically unnecessary procedure to women. In Virginia the women said: What? And the Governor said: Whoops, I have some ambitions to do more than this. I better change.

I just want to say to my colleagues: Vote this down. Table this amendment, this Blunt amendment. This is not going to get us anywhere. What does it do to create one job--except new jobs for attorneys, as it sets up a whole no right of action. I am sure the trial lawyers are going to love the Republicans for this bill. It sets up a whole new right of action because somebody is going to say: I have a moral objection against giving cancer treatment to a child because I think prayer is the answer. Somebody will sue, and that employer will sue, and they will sue and they will sue and there will be money, money, money going to lawyers. Great. What did that do to help one child? What did that do to make somebody feel better? What did that do to create one job?

I know the leaders on both sides are trying to figure out a pathway forward on this highway bill. I am just saying, we better have a pathway forward. I want to say to the Presiding Officer sitting in the chair, who was a proud member of the Environment and Public Works Committee--and I hated to lose her, but everybody wanted her on their committee, so I lost her--she knows how it is. She lives in a State where a bridge collapsed. She fought hard to get that bridge rebuilt in record time. She knows how important it is to protect people by making sure our bridges are safe, that we have safe roads to schools, that we have good transit alternatives, that we fix our roads and our highways.

Madam President, 70,000 of our bridges are deficient, 50 percent of our roads are not up to standard, and we are voting on birth control? Come on. What is next? Egypt? They have a whole list of things that have nothing to do with the highway bill. Bring it on. Let the people see who is stopping progress, who is stopping this bill because at the end of March do you know what happens. We run out on the authorization of the highway bill. We run out on the authorization of the Transportation bill. We run out, and we will lose 630,000 jobs right then and there.

Instead, we can get this bill done. It is terrifically bipartisan. It came out of the committee 18 to 0. It came out of other committees with a bipartisan vote. We can get on with it, protect 1.8 million jobs, and create up to another 1 million jobs. Madam President, 2.8 million jobs are at stake, and we are debating birth control.

I think this is resonating in the country. All of a sudden, people wake up and they say: What are they doing there? What is happening there? When they see this, it is going to be very clear we have a bill that has been stuck on the floor for 3 weeks because the Republicans are demanding votes on matters that have nothing to do with the highway bill. The first one is on birth control. They are talking about something on Egypt. They are talking about something on--oh, this is a good one--repealing an environmental law that is keeping arsenic, lead, and mercury out of the air. They want to repeal that law. Great. That is great. That will really do something to make us safe.

So I am ready for these amendments. Come on to the floor. Give us a time agreement. Let's get on with it. Let's then allow the germane amendments to be offered.

The last comment I will close with is this because it is haunting me: The picture of 15 football stadiums, with every seat filled, would equal the number of unemployed construction workers we have out there today. Well over 1 million suffering because they cannot find construction work.

So I can only say, it is time to get this birth control amendment behind us. Let's beat it. Let's beat the Blunt amendment. It is a disaster. It is dangerous. It is hurtful. It is irrelevant to this bill, and it is dangerous for the country. Stop invoking the name of a departed colleague. Respect his family. Respect his memory. Let's get this vote over with. Let's go to the business at hand and create the jobs the American people are crying for.

I am very pleased to see a colleague has arrived, so I yield the floor.

Madam President, I thank Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island for his words. Also, he is an exceptional member of the Environment and Public Works committee. First and foremost, he brings us the point of view of his State and he fights on every issue every day. He brings national leadership to the floor on the issue of infrastructure and the need to keep up with our incredible failing infrastructure--the fact that we have to fix these bridges, 70,000 of which are insufficient, and 50 percent of the roads that are not up to par. In Rhode Island, we have serious problems, and the Senator has brought those to the floor. He is a leader on a clean and healthy environment, protecting the air and water for his people.

The Senator could not be more eloquent. He is making a point that we could come up with very difficult amendments and slow things up and gum up the works, et cetera, but doesn't my friend think that with so many construction workers out of work--they have well over 15 percent unemployment in the construction industry, which is about twice the national rate, which is too high as it is--we have a chance to protect 1.8 million jobs and create another million jobs, and isn't it time to say that birth control was an issue that was resolved decades ago and let's move on to the task at hand and put people back to work?

I know my colleague worked very hard on the health care bill, am I right on that?

I remember him being so proud of the prevention piece he brought to us. He made the case to us publicly, and privately in caucus, that it would save so much money for the American people. Right now, we know, for example--and I just read this--if you have colorectal screening, you are 50 percent less likely to die of colorectal cancer. This is a screening test.

We certainly know about mammography and all of this. Is my colleague aware that what the Blunt amendment says is that any employer, religious or not, any insurance company, religious or not, can withhold any one of those preventive services from being offered to employees if they had some kind of vague moral objection? Is my colleague aware that all the work he put in on making sure that insurers cover our people for preventive services, such as mammography, colorectal screening, HIV screening, and all of these important benefits, plus a list of essential benefits just as important, that all of that could come to nothing if the Blunt amendment passed and an employer woke up and said: I know how to save money, I will have a moral objection and not offer anything? Is my friend aware of how deep this Blunt amendment reaches into health care reform?

Exactly.

Right.

I thank my friend. When I looked at him, I thought, He is one of the few people who have such a personal stake in two issues that have been merged together, unfortunately: the Blunt amendment, which would allow anyone to opt out from providing so many of the services my friend worked to make sure the American people have, plus 3 weeks we are now delayed on a bill my friend helped me with so strongly and so powerfully. So I wanted to make sure people in his State understood that he has worked so hard to make sure people have access to health care, and the Blunt amendment would drive a big Mack truck through this--not to use a kind of funny analogy on the highway bill, but that is what it would do, in the meantime stopping us from getting on to our work in creating all these jobs.

My feeling is we will defeat the Blunt amendment tomorrow. I am very hopeful. But with that in mind, Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a number of letters speaking to the Blunt amendment.

Madam President, the first letter is from the Cancer Action Network asking us to vote no on the Blunt amendment.

On behalf of millions of cancer patients, survivors and

their families, we write to express our opposition to the

amendment proposed by Senator Roy Blunt.

They talk about the fact that it would permit employers to refuse employees insurance coverage for any health care benefit guaranteed by health reform. And they are very strong on this issue. They say:

The implications of this provision could result in coverage

denials of lifesaving preventive services such as mammograms

or tobacco cessation based on employer discretion.

That is a new letter, dated today.

Then we got a letter from the Trust for America's Health. They say:

The Blunt amendment would allow any health insurance plan

or employer, religious or not, to exclude any preventive ser-

vice. . . .

The SEIU--Service Employees International--calls the Blunt amendment ``an extreme proposal that turns back the clock.''

The Human Rights Campaign Letter:

. . . The Blunt amendment would place the moral objections of

any employer over the health of millions of Americans. . . .

Eighty organizations signed a letter, and, referring to the Blunt amendment, part of that letter says:

That means employers and insurance companies can not only

deny access to birth control, they can deny access to health

care service. . . .

That is signed by Advocates for Youth, America Votes, the AIDS Institute, American Association of University Women, American College of Nurses and Midwives, American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Medical Students, Black Women's Health Imperative, Catholics for Choice, Reproductive Rights Center, Center for Women Policy Studies, Coalition of Labor Union Women, Choice USA, Concerned Clergy for Choice, Doctors for America, EQUAL Health Network--I mean, this goes on and on--the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, Planned Parenthood, Population Connection, Progressive Majority, Society of Adolescent Health and Medicine, National Alliance to Advance Adolescent Health, National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, Trust Women/Silver Ribbon Campaign, Union for Reformed Judaism, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. This is a long list of organizations that oppose the Blunt amendment.

This letter came in from the Academic Pediatric Association and a number of other youth organizations. They urge us to oppose the Blunt amendment because it doesn't protect children's access to preventive services.

This is another letter signed by many more organizations, including the Spina Bifida Association, Voices for America's Children, Children's Healthcare Is a Legal Duty, Easter Seals, Family Voices, First Focus Campaign for Children--it goes on and on--American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, American Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs, Association of University Centers on Disabilities, CHILD, Inc. All these organizations have come together, and they say:

As organizations committed to the health and well-being of

infants, children, adolescents, and pregnant women, we urge

you to oppose the amendment offered by Senator Roy Blunt. . .

.

So all you are going to hear from the other side is misstatements about how the Blunt amendment is nothing more than what we have always done. Then why are you doing it? It is because it reaches so far.

We all support an exemption for religious providers. We all support that. We do not support the ability of any insurance company, nonreligious, or any employer, nonreligious, to stand up and say: You know what, I don't believe vaccines work; therefore, I don't think they should be made available to my people. And when you ask why, they say: I have a moral conviction. I have a moral conviction that people should have known better before they took that first cigarette when they were 11 or 12; therefore, I am not going to give any treatment. Too bad. They will just get lung cancer.

I mean, seriously. That is what the Blunt amendment will do. It will allow anyone--nonreligious--to say they have an objection and not offer a host of preventive and essential health care services, including contraception.

So tomorrow is our time. We are going to defeat the Blunt amendment, and when we defeat the Blunt amendment, we are going to move on to the highway bill. Hooray. And maybe, just maybe people will listen to Senator Olympia Snowe, who said we should not get tied up in knots over these controversial things and we should do what is right for the American people. I certainly support that.

There is just one more thing I want to put in the Record.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the testimony of a woman who tried very hard to be allowed to speak with a panel of men at a congressional hearing.

Madam President, this is a panel of men who were called by House Republican Chairman Issa to testify about women's health--not one woman there, but they were the experts. They denied this woman the chance to speak. If she had been allowed to speak, this is what she wanted to say:

She had a friend who went to the doctor, and the friend had a cyst on her ovary. The doctor said: You have to take birth control. That is going to help. Those pills are going to help reduce the size of that cyst.

She couldn't afford the birth control pills and her employer wouldn't cover them, so she couldn't take them. She is a student. She wrote her friend saying that the cyst ``was so painful, I woke up thinking I'd been shot.''

I will quote part of the friend's testimony relaying what her friend told her.

Without taking the birth control, a massive cyst the size

of a tennis ball had grown on her ovary. She had to have

surgery to remove her entire ovary. She's not here this

morning. She's in a doctor's office right now. Since last

year's surgery, she has been experiencing night sweats,

weight gain, and other symptoms of early menopause as a

result of the removal of her ovary. She's 32 years old. As

she put it, ``If my body is indeed in early menopause, no

fertility specialist in the world will be able to help me

have my own children. I will have no chance of giving my

mother her desperately desired grandbabies, simply because

the insurance policy that I paid for totally unsubsidized by

my school wouldn't cover my prescription for birth control

when I needed it.''

And so her friend says:

Now, in addition to facing the health complications that

come with having menopause at an early age--increased risk of

cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis--she may never be able to

be a mom.

So when we talk about the Blunt amendment, we are not talking about some obtuse issue, we are not talking about some philosophical issue. What we are talking about when we talk about the Blunt amendment is a young woman, a student at law school who couldn't afford to pay for the birth control pills which would have saved her fertility, which would have saved her horrific pain--a painful operation where she lost her ovary simply because she couldn't have access to her birth control pills.

This is not about some argument that doesn't have real consequences for our people. The Presiding Officer's constituents and my constituents deserve

to have access to preventive care. They deserve to have access to essential health care. The Blunt amendment will take that away from them. It will take that away from them. And all on a highway bill. All on a highway bill.

So let's keep the Blunt amendment away from this highway bill. This highway bill is a product of strong bipartisanship, as the Presiding Officer has told the Senate. Let's keep it clean. Let's keep out these extraneous amendments that will roll back environmental laws that are cleaning up the air, that will keep the arsenic and the mercury out of the air and the lead out of the air. Let's not roll back these laws on a highway bill. Let's get the highway bill done. When we have other arguments about other issues, let's put those issues on a relevant bill.

This is the time now for us to pull together, not pull apart. The Nation needs us to work together. It is an election year, and it is a difficult time. There is a lot of name-calling going on out there on the campaign trail, but we are still here, last I checked, and we are supposed to be doing our work for the American people. We have a chance to do it on this highway bill. Let's defeat the Blunt amendment in the morning.

I thank my friends for coming over to the floor and speaking so eloquently today against this dangerous, precedent-setting Blunt amendment that will turn back the clock on women's health and on our families' health.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on February 29, 2012, at 11 a.m., to hold a briefing entitled, ``Update on the Crisis in Syria.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet, during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Dental Crisis in America: The Need to Expand Access'' on February 29, 2012, at 10 a.m., in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on February 29, 2012, at 10 a.m., in room SD 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``The Due Process Guarantee Act: Banning Indefinite Detention of Americans.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session on February 29, 2012, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Nominations.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session on February 29, 2012. The Committee will meet in room 418 of the Senate Russell Office Building beginning at 10 a.m.

If my friend would yield for a question and keep the floor--and I ask unanimous consent that the time for this colloquy not be taken off his time, or does he have unlimited time?

Well, let me say thank you to my friend. I know he is here to talk about judges, which is a critical issue. I am very happy he is going to do that. The lack of action on these qualified nominees is hurting our people.

But I wanted to thank him for his comments. The Senator from Maryland, Mr. Cardin, is a senior member of the Environment and Public Works Committee and has worked so hard, along with our invaluable staff, and provided an invaluable contribution to the Transportation bill. I guess the question I will get to is this one: With 2.8 million jobs on the line--that is 1.8 million jobs we have currently attached to a highway bill and then an additional 1 million jobs which will be created because of some of the work we did on TIFIA to leverage the jobs--does not my friend believe this is the time to move a jobs bill, when we are in the process of seeing this economy finally turn around? The turnaround is not as fast as we want, but does my friend believe the timing of this couldn't be better; and that if we pass this bill, which is so bipartisan, it will kick this economic recovery into higher gear?

My very last question. I hope my friend is aware that right now the leadership is working very hard to take this very unwieldy list of amendments and get it down to some responsible number so we can begin, finally, in earnest. I have to point out that I don't understand how my Republican friends think it is appropriate to add to a highway bill the issue of birth control. I don't know how my friends on the other side think it is appropriate to repeal environmental laws on this highway bill. I don't understand, as my friend from Maryland pointed out, how they can say they can see a connection between a highway bill and what is happening in Egypt.

We care about all these issues, and the Senate will address these issues, but this is a jobs bill, a bipartisan jobs bill. So I want to end by thanking my friend for yielding to me, and I look forward to his remarks on judges, and I look forward to getting back to our transportation bill, which I am hopeful will happen at some point today.

Mr. President, as the majority leader is leaving the floor, I wish to say I am pleased he has decided to take us forward on this highway bill.

So where do we stand? We are in a situation, here in the 21st century, where in order to move forward on a highway bill--a bill that funds our highways, our roads, our bridges, and our transit systems--in order to move forward on a jobs bill--where 2.8 million jobs are at stake in this great Nation--we have to have a vote on birth control. I want to say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, What are you thinking? But if this is what you want to do, fine.

I want to make it clear to the people who are listening that the Blunt amendment would say that any insurance company and any employer for any reason could deny coverage to their employees. But it is not just about birth control; it is any service.

Now, Mr. President, you serve proudly on the HELP Committee, and you were very instrumental in working through the essential services that are covered, the preventive services that are covered. It is very important that we note what those are. We have a list of the essential services and the preventive services, and what I am going to do is to read them. As I read them, I want people who are listening to this to think about whether these services are important, and to understand that under the Blunt amendment any one of these services can be denied by any employer, any insurance company, for any reason.

So I am going to list these services: Emergency services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health treatment, preventive and wellness services, pediatric services, prescription drugs, ambulatory patient services, rehabilitative services and devices, and laboratory services.

Those are the categories of essential health benefits this Senate voted to make sure are covered under insurance plans. That is the law. The Blunt amendment would allow any insurer and any employer to deny any of these services for any reason. All they have to say is they have a moral objection.

Let's take maternity and newborn care. If somebody works for you, and they are not married and they are pregnant and are having this child, you can say: From now on, I am not covering anybody who works for me who isn't married because I have a moral objection.

Mental health treatment. You could say: I don't consider this a disease. I think if God decided that somebody has mental health problems, that is just the way it is. I deny that.

It goes on and on.

Emergency services. If some employer believes if you have a heart attack it is God's will, that is their moral belief. That is it. They can deny that kind of coverage.

Now we go to preventive health, and I am going to read these. The Blunt amendment would also say any employer, any insurance company can deny any of these benefits to anybody at any time.

So listen to these services which came, again, out of your committee. Breast cancer screenings. Maybe an employer doesn't believe that is necessary. They could deny it. Cervical cancer screenings, hepatitis A and B vaccines, measles, mumps vaccine--there is some controversy over vaccines. Somebody could say: Well, I have a moral problem. I am not going to offer these vaccines in my plan.

Colorectal cancer screenings. We found out those save lives, a huge number of lives. They say the death rates are going down, because of colorectal cancer screenings, by 50 percent. An employer or an insurance company could deny that kind of screening.

Diabetes screening, cholesterol screening, blood pressure screening, obesity screening, tobacco cessation, autism screening, hearing screening for newborns, sickle cell screening for newborns, fluoride supplements, tuberculosis testing, depression screening, osteoporosis screening, flu vaccines for children and the elderly, contraception-- there. That is what started all of this, contraception.

By the way, 15 percent of women who take contraceptives take them to prevent cancer, to prevent debilitating monthly pain, and it is even taken to prevent serious skin problems that are very debilitating. But there is no mention of that in the Blunt amendment. No, no.

HIV screening, STD screening, HPV testing, well woman visits, breast feeding support, domestic violence screening, and gestational diabetes screening, which is the kind of diabetes some women get when they are pregnant.

So here is where we are. The Blunt amendment would take this list of preventive health benefits, this list of essential health benefits, and send a very clear, unequivocal message to every insurer in this country and every employer that regardless of any other laws, if they decide they have a moral objection or religious objection, they do not have to offer this coverage.

Remember what we are talking about. We are talking about coverage. We are not saying people have to do all of these things. If I have an objection to doing any of these things, as an employee I don't have to do it. But I have coverage if I decide to do it. That is the beauty of the health care bill we passed. It says: Here are essential health benefits; here are preventive health benefits. Employers and insurers, you have to offer this coverage. If people want to take it, they can, and what will happen is good.

Now, when we hear the other side describe the Blunt amendment, they will not tell you what it is. But I have a very clear take on what it is because I printed it out, and it says: A health plan shall not be considered to have failed to provide the essential health benefits package described in subsection (a) or preventive health services described in section 2713 if they decide they have a moral or religious objection.

That is the basis of it. So we take that and say: OK, here are the essential health benefits. They no longer have any meaning. Here is the list of preventive health benefits. Those are at the whim of the employer, the whim of the insurance company, and it is really disturbing.

Mr. President, you have some great career in your life, and you are a great Senator now. Before that you told a lot of great stories and a lot of great jokes. I have to tell you that Jon Stewart took this issue on and said: Well, I will tell you something. I love the Blunt amendment because I am an employer and I believe humor is the best medicine. Humor is the best medicine, he said.

So he said: So that is what I am going to do. I have an example.

Then this guy comes on to the stage with a very bad cold and flu and he is sneezing. He says: Mr. Stewart, do I have to have another treatment now?

He says: Yes. And he takes a seltzer bottle and sprays it all over the guy. That was his treatment because it was funny, and he was supposed to laugh and that was supposed to cure this person.

He said: Not another treatment.

So in the darkest moments one finds consolation in humor. But just think, there are people who believe and have a strong moral and religious conviction that they don't want to take medicine. They just believe they are in the hands of God. I personally respect it 100 percent, and people die for their right to have that view, and I think that is appropriate. We should respect religion, everybody's religion. So the way to deal with that is if that individual doesn't want to ever be treated, that is their choice. But, frankly, if they put at risk a child who has cancer--and we have had cases like this in America where a parent said they didn't believe in medicine--a child could be cured with some cancer treatment, people have stepped in and said: We are going to make sure the child gets treatment.

So all we are saying in our health care bill is, here is a list of essential health services and preventive health services that scientists and doctors have told us will save our families pain and suffering and cost and all the rest, and we make them available through the insurer and the employer. That is all. People don't have to take them, but they are available.

Under the Blunt amendment, if your boss happens to be a person who doesn't believe in medicine, he can just say: Sorry, I am not a believer. You can have an insurance plan that may have nothing behind it--no services, none of these services that we worked so hard to put into law.

So it is stunning that in this year we would be on a highway bill anticipating a vote on Thursday on an amendment that has to do with women's health. There is a lot of concern out there because we saw when this whole thing started there was a hearing in the House of Representatives where they had a panel on women's health that dealt with, especially, access to birth control. Not one woman was on that panel, and the men decided it was wrong that women should have access to birth control without a copay even when the doctors and the scientists have said it is so important.

When our families are planned, what happens? There are fewer abortions. It is not even arguable. Fewer abortions. I would think we could be in agreement on that. Fewer problems for our families, fewer economic problems when they plan their families.

Now, if you don't want to plan your family, that is just fine. You don't have to take that coverage. You don't have to take that contraception.

So the President, in his decision, I thought, struck a great compromise. What he said was, because the experts, the medical experts--the Institute of Medicine told us contraception is a very important choice for people because 15 percent of them use it not just for birth control but to fight disease, cancer, and cysts on their ovaries and such. Because that is important, we put it in this list of essential benefits, preventive benefits. But if you are a church, you don't have to offer it to your employees. That is what the President said.

There are 335,000 religious institutions that are exempted from having to offer this through insurance. The religious-affiliated hospitals and universities were uncomfortable because they wanted to be able to not be directly connected to the contraception, and the President struck what I thought was a good compromise. He said to those institutions: OK. It will be offered to your people, but it will be done by a third party.

Almost everyone applauded it. Catholic Charities applauded it, the Catholic Health Association applauded it. They represent thousands of providers. Catholics United applauded it, and the bishops were still unhappy. But the institutions that provide the service felt the President struck a good bargain.

So we were all pleased. We thought this was fine because everybody's religious freedom should be respected, and that is what the President did. But now we have the Blunt amendment. Not only does this open a Pandora's box, it opens a very dangerous policy. It allows insurers and employers to simply say they have a moral problem with something and they don't have to offer a list of services. Maybe they will do it because they really have a moral conviction, but you can't really prove it. Maybe they will do it because they want to save some money. We don't know. But it opens a very bad situation. We have to table or beat this Blunt amendment. It is very dangerous.

How about having it on a highway bill? I still can't get over it. When I first heard about it, I thought: What does it have to do with highways? Maybe it says you can't take a birth control pill when you are driving on a highway. I mean, there was no connection, and there is no connection.

But the majority leader is right to get a vote. I will tell you why: It is holding up our highway bill. We can't get off dead center. We have been on this bill days and we can't get off dead center because my Republican friends want to vote on contraception and women's health care on a highway bill.

So we are going to do it and, hopefully, that will signal our goodwill to move forward with this bill. There are 2.8 million jobs at stake. Our bridges are in desperate need of fixing. We have 70,000 bridges that are in very bad condition, and 50 percent of our roads are not up to standard. We have had stories of bridges crumbling, and we have had stories of highways in trouble. So we shouldn't be stuck on this bill.

I could proudly say that Senator Inhofe and I worked in the most remarkable bipartisan way to get a great bill out of our committee. The Banking Committee did the same, Senators Johnson and Shelby. The Commerce Committee got a little stuck, but they are getting unstuck, and we are moving forward on that piece. Finance has done an excellent job of finding the funds for us to fill the trust fund.

I want you to think in your mind's eye of a football stadium that hosts the Super Bowl. Think of what it looks like when it is jam packed with people. It is about 100,000 seats. Fifteen of those stadiums could be filled with unemployed construction workers. So think about what that would look like, 15 Super Bowl stadiums sold out, every seat filled. That is how many unemployed construction workers we have because of the housing crisis.

This bill will put them back to work. In a bipartisan fashion we have protected the 1.8 million jobs, and we create up to another 1 million jobs. So I can't believe we are discussing birth control on a highway bill, but such is life. That is the way it is. If that is what we need to move this bill forward, I am happy.

If we have to move on some other issues that are not germane to the bill, I am even willing to do that, because that is really what is at stake. What is at stake is construction jobs. What is at stake is falling bridges. I do not have to tell my friend the effect of a falling bridge. We know it happens. Senator Inhofe is eloquent on the point. He lost a constituent who was taking a walk and a huge piece of a bridge fell and killed her. This is not the way to run a country that is the No. 1 economic power in the world.

I tell you, if we want to stay the No. 1 economic power in the world, we cannot be stuck in traffic and have all that congestion. Billions of hours and billions of dollars are lost because we are not keeping up with the image that was painted for us by Dwight Eisenhower way back when I was a kid when he said we need to have a network of highways that run seamlessly across our Nation and connect us, one to the other--a national highway system. We cannot lose that vision.

There are some people who say: Why do we need a national system? Let's just have the States do it.

No. This is one Nation under God, indivisible. We need to be connected. When the imports come in from all the various countries, from the Asian nations into Los Angeles--and 40 percent of our imports come in there--we take those, we put them on trains and trucks, and they get shipped out all across America to every State in the Union. That is commerce. That is called commerce, interstate commerce. We need the roads to be ready and able to take that kind of traffic and not have a situation where so much is added to the cost of transport because there is so much congestion that we begin to lose our effectiveness as an economic power. That, frankly, is where we are. Not only do we import, we export, so we have to take the exports to the coasts, the east coast and west coast. We have a lot of opportunity to go to the gulf coast. If we do not keep up with this national system of highways, we are in trouble.

This is a great bill. This bill is a reform bill. You take it down from a lot of titles to just a couple dozen titles. We do not overspend. We keep spending at current levels. The Finance Committee has done its job to help us build a trust fund for 2 years.

The last point I would make before yielding the floor because I know my friend from Georgia is here, and he is my very good friend--I know he has some remarks he might have on this subject or another subject, and he is going to talk to me as the chairman. We have some work we want to do, so I am going to close it here.

What I want to say is that this is really close to an emergency, and I do not overstate it. The entire transportation program expires on March 31. That means all of our States are going to be hit with the end of a program that is essential to their people, to their businesses. That is why we have 1,000 organizations representing millions of people--from the chambers of commerce, to the AFL CIO, to the granite people, to the cement people, to the general contractors; seriously, the AAA--it goes on and on from A to Z, 1,000 organizations that are behind our bill. They are not going to look kindly on a situation we could come to, which is that we do not have a bill. You cannot just extend this bill because the money is not in the trust fund anymore. It is not like past years where you could extend it. The money is not in the trust fund. If we have to cut one-

third, we are talking about hundreds of thousands of workers who would be laid off.

I again thank the majority leader, Senator Reid, because he is getting us off center here. He is getting us off that line. We are moving forward.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be no motions in order other than a motion to table prior to the vote in relation to amendment No. 1520.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following staff of the Finance Committee be allowed the privilege of the floor for the duration of the debate on S. 1813: Harun Dogo, Avital Barnea, Elizabeth Snyder, Christopher Tausanovitch, Andrea Chapman, Amanda Bartmann, and Claire Green.

Mr. President, I wish to associate myself with the remarks of my fellow colleagues this morning. They are eloquent. When I looked at this scene that Senator Murray and Senator Shaheen had up here and looked at this picture of this panel that is supposed to be speaking about women's health--in particular, birth control--obviously I was stunned. It brought back a memory from 20 years ago when all of America looked at the Senate and saw there was not one woman on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and they realized that year, in 1991, that there were only two women in the entire Senate. It sent shockwaves through the country. Whether one agreed with Anita Hill or Clarence Thomas, that was not the point. We had very strong feelings about that on both sides.

The point of this is that on an issue so critical to this Nation, the next Supreme Court Justice, there was not one woman on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and we had the ``Year of the Woman,'' and we tripled the number of women in the Senate. It wasn't much, 2 to 6, but it was a start, and now we are at 17, and we are going higher because yesterday this is what America saw, a Republican House of Representatives that is so hostile to women's health that they didn't even think about having a person on there who was a female, nor did they have anyone on there that agreed it is important that women have access to birth control knowing that for many women birth control is medicine, knowing that 99 percent of women, sometime in her lifetime, utilized birth control.

So this picture is worth a thousand words. I have a 16-year-old grandson. I came home, I had this picture in my hand. I went up to him--he's not particularly political--and I said: Zach, what do you notice about this? He said: ``It's all dudes.'' This does not take a degree in political science to see what is going on here. When we come back, we are going to be on the highway bill. There will be some bumps in the road along the way, but at one point we will probably have an amendment to vote on called the Blunt amendment. As we get to that later, I will talk about it.

But Senator Blunt, a Republican Senator from Missouri, has put forward an amendment that would allow any single employer--regardless of how large or small their operation--to deny essential health care to their employees and preventive health care if they simply say it is a matter of conscience. It is right there. Senator Blunt says: Oh, no. I heard Senator Brown defending Senator Blunt saying: No, no. Oh, yes. Just read it and look at the list of lifesaving and health-saving services that would be denied.

So women of America and the men who care about you, get ready because there is an assault on women, and stand with us.

Thank you very much.

I would yield the floor.

Would the Senator yield? And I ask unanimous consent that she have an additional 60 seconds.

I just wanted to make the point that I think Senator Hutchison has been probably one of the most productive members of the Commerce Committee I have ever seen. I have been on that committee for a very long time. Her relationship with Senator Rockefeller is stellar. I too believe she makes a point when she says they have continued to work together since the bill was reported out and they have come to agreement.

So I guess my question is, as someone who has given flesh, blood, sweat, and tears on this highway bill, knowing that we have a couple of these bumps in the road, should we not invoke cloture today--I personally hope we do, and we can fix the bill, but if we don't--and if Senator Rockefeller and Senator Hutchison are able to take their work and put that in as a substitute, would my friend be back on board here working toward completion of this bill?

I thank the Senator.

Cloture Motion

Very briefly, I just want to thank my friend so much. He has a lot of ties to the environment and public works community, and we know every State in the Union is watching us. They want to know that we are going to get our job done on the highway bill. I see Senator Thune is on the floor. He has been extraordinarily helpful as we have worked our way through this in the most bipartisan fashion.

For people who might be confused with the vote that took place, I just wanted to point out that in the package that was on the floor, what happened was there was a problem in the Commerce Committee. There was a bipartisan problem there which has now been worked out.

So what my colleague has done now is--I ask unanimous consent that I can control the floor for the next 5 minutes.

So what my colleague has done by offering this amendment is to offer now the agreed-upon Commerce package and the agreed-upon bill so that we can finally get started and not have us torn asunder.

It was wonderful to interact with Senator Hutchison today because she made her point that she is quite satisfied with the compromise that has been worked out between herself and Senator Rockefeller on the new compromised Commerce piece.

So when we come back, here is where we will be: Senator Reid has offered that new package, which is 100 percent bipartisan. I have talked with Senator Inhofe. His staff and my staff are going to be working literally--I don't want to say 24/7; that is an exaggeration, but they are going to be working every day, including the weekends, over this work period to take probably 200 amendments--that is usually what happens in these bills--and try to get a few that are simple, that are not controversial, get those agreed upon on a staff level, and bring them back to a lot of principals. We have a lot of principals in this because we have four committees--all working in good faith, I might add.

So I am excited. I know Senator Landrieu is on the Senate floor, and she has been doing a wonderful job with Senator Nelson, Senator Shelby, Senator Wicker, Senator Carper, and others, on a bipartisan basis on the RESTORE Act. It is an amendment that has been filed, and I am very hopeful that is the type of thing we can get done with good will here, people willing to not filibuster but agree to 60-vote thresholds, if they have to, with time agreements.

Here is the deal, and I will close. Senator Reid was exactly right. If we don't do this bill, our entire transportation program expires at the end of March. That is 1.8 million jobs directly impacted by this bill. In the bipartisan bill we have worked out, we not only protect those jobs, but we create up to 1 million new jobs because we have added a very important piece, the TIFIA piece. So we have made that a major program which has cost very little because the way money is leveraged, it will leverage local funds, State funds, private funds. That means we could see up to 1 million new jobs.

As we leave here today, the good news is that we have made sure that millions of working Americans will be able to count on the payroll tax cut. That is good. We make sure that so many of our unemployed workers can know they will continue to receive unemployment and that our senior citizens know their doctors will not run away from them when they come in with their Medicare card. We have done a good thing on that.

There are things in that bill I don't like. Certainly it was a compromise. We met each other halfway. In the highway bill, we have done that as well. So I am ever so grateful to the leadership in the Senate because they could easily have said: Well, we had a cloture vote, and it went down. Let's forget the bill.

But we are all working together. We knew we had to take this step to get to the next step. So we are at that step. We will come back, and we will begin in earnest to dispose of amendments. I hope we will have a list from the staff of maybe 15, 20 amendments that are not controversial that we can move forward on and then get to some of the difficult issues.

In closing, I urge my colleagues on both side of the aisle--why do we need to have a birth control amendment on a highway bill? Why do we have to have foreign relations amendments? I serve on that committee, Foreign Relations, and I am proud of it, but we shouldn't be bringing controversial, unrelated amendments to the highway bill because 2.8 million jobs are hanging in the balance.

But I leave here with great optimism. A couple of days ago I said I didn't see a path forward for the highway bill and the transit bill. Today I see a very clear path forward. If we all continue to work together, we are going to be proud and we are going to make everyone, from the Chamber of Commerce to the AFL CIO and every group in between that has joined in a coalition of 1,000 organizations--they are going to be happy, and, most of all, the American people will be happy, because we have to fix those bridges and those highways, and we have to make sure our people have alternatives so they can get into transit.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, we have on the floor of the Senate the Transportation bill. You might wonder why a bill that is the No. 1 jobs bill that we can do here is moving so slowly. You might wonder. Any normal person would wonder why a bill that is so popular that it has everyone from the AFL CIO to the Chamber of Commerce supporting it is moving so slowly. You might wonder why it is moving so slowly, since the transportation authorization for all of our highway and transit projects expires in about 1 month. You might wonder why it is moving so slowly. Why isn't anyone here? What is going on?

Yesterday, I came here and said I didn't see a clear path forward for this bill. It is very disturbing, and I will tell you why it is so disturbing. And that is that when you look at the construction area of our economy, it is still down. We have 1.5 million unemployed construction workers. If you think in your mind's eye what that is, I have a picture here of a stadium during the Super Bowl. You could see this stadium. I want you to picture everyone sitting in this stadium as an unemployed construction worker and think about 15 stadiums full. Yesterday, I said it was 10; that was incorrect. I stand corrected today. It is 15 stadiums full of unemployed construction workers praying that we pass this bill, because they are unemployed and this bill will create or save up to 2.8 million jobs. It will create or save 1.8 million jobs and create up to 1 million jobs.

Yesterday, I said I didn't see a clear path forward. Today, I see a path forward. I really do. There has been some progress overnight. But it isn't as clear as it should be. We asked both sides of the aisle, we said, Can you come up with amendments that you feel compelled to offer to this bill? And try to keep them related to transportation. Well, the bad news is there are a lot of extraneous amendments that were filed.

First and foremost, birth control. The Blunt amendment. Not only does it say that any employer could say they have a moral objection, it doesn't even have to be a religious objection. Any employer. So if I am an employer and I employ 100 people, and let's say I believe in prayer over medicine, I can then deny health care to all my employees. This makes no sense at all. Senator Blunt says, well, you could

take it to court. Oh, sure. Some low-paid employee is going to take it to court.

So we have to deal with this birth control amendment and health care amendment on a highway bill. As I said yesterday, first when I saw the birth control amendment, I thought maybe it says you can't take your birth control pills when you are on a Federal highway. What is going on here? There is no relation. It is bizarre to offer these unrelated amendments.

Then we have an amendment on Egypt. Now, frankly, I am ready to vote on the birth control. I am happy to vote on an Egypt amendment, although I believe--this is my own view as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee--that when we have such delicate negotiations going on over the safety of our citizens who are being held there, we have to be very careful not to interfere in that important backdoor diplomacy that is going on. But we have one Senator who is holding up everything because he insists that we have to take a stand on Egypt even though we have Americans in danger over there.

My Republican friends have to understand what is at stake. The business community, the labor community, everyone is in favor of this transportation bill, and we are going to have to face votes that are unrelated.

There is an idea to repeal a very important environmental regulation that will clean up the pollution from boilers, pollution that is dangerous. It is mercury. It causes brain damage. It is arsenic. It is lead. And as I said yesterday--and I don't know whether you have had this experience. I have never in the history of my electoral career, which spans a long time, had anyone come up to me and say, Please, Barbara, we really need more arsenic in our air, we need arsenic in our water, we need more lead, we need more mercury. People don't want it. Why on Earth would they now come forward in a highway bill and repeal a very important rule that will make our families healthier? That is what my Republican friends are putting out there. They want to drill off our coast, even though it might interfere with the fishing industry, the tourism industry, the recreation industry.

I would say to my colleagues with a hand of friendship, we are happy to look at transportation-related amendments. We can work those through. My staff and Senator Inhofe's staff have a very close working relationship, and we can take these relevant amendments and sit down and work through them. But obviously, if there is going to be a series of amendments on birth control and foreign policy matters and extraneous matters, it makes it very difficult. It diverts our attention from what is at stake. The clock is ticking on us. This transportation authorization we have expires in March.

Here is where we are: We are going to have a cloture vote on the various titles to the bill, the Finance title, the Banking title, the Commerce Committee title. I want to praise all of the committees. They have done their work. Four committees, including ours, the EPW, the Environment and Public Works Committee, we have all done our work. We have done our jobs. We did what we had to do. We passed out the legislation. Now let's marry all the pieces and get going with legitimate amendments and get this done. Get this done.

I urge colleagues to vote yes on cloture. I know some have problems with one of the titles, and we can amend that. If you don't like something in that title, we can amend it. And if we don't make cloture on the first round, we will come up with a path forward after that. But, please, it won't work if we have all of these bizarre, extraneous amendments. I am not saying the amendments are bizarre. Some are. But they are extraneous and they don't belong on this bill.

I want to take a minute to remind my colleagues how popular the transportation authorization is. We are going to show you the ad that is being run. But President Reagan was very clear on why it was so important to pass a transportation bill. Here is what he said:

The state of our transportation system affects our

commerce, our economy, and our future.

He said, clearly, this program is an investment in tomorrow that we must make today. And there is a very good coalition out there, a broad coalition taking out ads on the radio. After they quote Ronald Reagan, they say:

It's time for leadership again, for new investments in

transportation, to keep America moving and jobs growing. Call

Congress. Tell them to pass the highway and transit bill and,

once again, make transportation job number one.

This is out on the radio airwaves. I am very grateful that it is happening. I really, really am. Also, we have ads in the various newspapers. Then there is another one that marries up two Presidents' statements, President Reagan and President Clinton. They quote President Clinton by saying:

By modernizing and building roads, bridges, transit

systems, and railroads, we can usher in two decades of

unparalleled growth.

Then they also quote Ronald Reagan again. He says:

A network of highways and mass transit has enabled our

commerce to thrive.

At the end it says:

Tell Congress to pass the highway and transit bill and make

transportation job number one.

So here we sit--and I want to show you. I don't know if people can see this. I hope you can see this. This is an ad that is running all over today: President Reagan stood up for public transportation. Will you? Then they quote him and they say: A recovering economy is exactly the time to rebuild America. President Reagan knew it in 1983 when he signed into law dedicating motor fuel revenues to public transportation for years to come. But now the House--and they talk about the problem with the House bill and they tell the House to fix their proposal, which we hope they are doing as we speak.

This is a very important endeavor. Again, I have been around a long time. I have never seen the likes of the coalition we have seen. We have a coalition--it is the broadest coalition I have ever seen in my life in every single State, whether it is Ohio or California or New York or Alabama or Nevada or Kentucky. I am telling you, this is a strong coalition. And this is what they wrote to us:

In 2011, political leaders--Republican and Democrat, House,

Senate, and the administration--stated a multi-year surface

transportation bill is important for job creation and

economic recovery. We urge you to follow words with action:

Make Transportation Job #1 and move legislation immediately

in the House and Senate to invest in the roads, bridges, and

transit systems that are the backbone of the U.S. economy,

its businesses large and small, and communities of all sizes.

That is basically from the letter signed by over 1,000 organizations.

I see my friend from California is here. She may be speaking on this topic or another topic, and I am going to yield to her momentarily.

I think it is important to take a look at the organizations I talked about to give you a sense of it. First of all, every State in the Union is listed on this letter.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a copy of the letter from over 1,000 organizations.

Madam President, I am going to name a few of them: the American Composite Manufacturers Association, American Concrete Pavement Association, American Hotel and Lodging Association, American Nursery and Landscape Association, American Society of Civil Engineers, Associated General Contractors of America, National Society of Professional Engineers, National Resources Defense Council, North American Die Casting Association, Pacific Northwest Waterways Association, Reconnecting America, Retail Industry Leaders Association, Transportation for America, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, U.S. Travel Association, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, Laborers International, International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association-- it goes on and on, a thousand groups representing Democrats, Republicans, Independents.

I am so grateful to them. I speak to them, frankly, a couple of times a week to tell them what we are doing here to move this important bill forward. I told them yesterday they needed to contact every single Senator in this Chamber to let them know what is at stake in their State.

In closing, I will say this: Sometimes when we act we not only do something good, which this bill will do--it is a reform bill, it is a great bill, and it adds to the TIFIA Program, an idea that came out of Los Angeles and is going to create up to 1 million new jobs while protecting 1.8 million jobs--we do many good things. But also when we do this, we stop bad things from happening. What will happen if we fail to act by March 31 and there is no action to fill that trust fund, which our bill does? There will be over 600,000 jobs lost.

Later today, at a time when others are not here, I will go State by State. Here it is. ``Estimated jobs lost.'' There would be a 35-percent cut in transportation funding if we do not pass this bill and the finance title that raises the funds necessary. We will break this down. Let me tell you, it is an ugly picture for us to have to go home and face the music at home and tell construction workers that even though we have 1.5 million unemployed construction workers, that is going to go up by 600,000 jobs.

We cannot afford to let this bill stop. I will not let this bill go away. I will assert every right I have as a Senator from California, where we have 63,000 of these jobs at stake. I am going to be here on the Senate floor. We are going to get this bill done one way or another. We stand ready to work with our colleagues, to work with our Republican friends, to go through these amendments that are relevant and urge them to backtrack on these very unrelated amendments.

I yield the floor.

I thank the Senator, and we are working on that too.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, I want to be very clear here that Members on both sides of the aisle, Republicans and Democrats, have very strong feelings that this amendment should not be brought up at this time. We need to be smart and strategic when we have people in harm's way in other countries.

Further, I think it is important to note what Senator Leahy has said several times, which is already in law--we have certain conditions placed upon aid to Egypt, and I think that needs to be understood and explored.

So because there is so much objection to this amendment being brought up at this time, I will object.

Would the Senator yield for a question?

I thank the leader.

First, I just want to thank the Leader so much for his remarks this morning. They are so close to my heart. Frankly, they are close to the hearts of the members of the Environment and Public Works Committee and all the committees that have done their work in a bipartisan way. It is a unique moment when we have four committees complete their work and here we sit.

Before I ask my question, I think the people of this country need to understand what is going on. We are wasting, as my friend said, minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day because Republican Senators, for whatever their reasons, want to bring progress in this country to a halt, to a stop. We have to wonder, is this politically motivated?

As my friend said, 2 million jobs are at stake. I would say to my friend, it is actually up to 2.8 million because there are 1.8 million jobs we protect, and up to 1 million new jobs we would create because of the bipartisan cooperation we have had across the board in the Senate on the highway bill. So I thank my friend.

My question is, Is my friend aware we have more than 1,000 organizations representing millions of Americans who are Republicans and Democrats and Independents, who work out there on the roads or who are the business leaders from the Chamber of Commerce to the AFL CIO, to the general contractors or the granite people--it goes on and on-- the cement people, to the coal ash people, and the fact is a thousand groups are out there and they are watching us, minute after minute?

I hope this is an opportunity to tell them to activate their people and let them know why we are not passing a bill that will save or create 2.8 million jobs and help our businesses across the board and help our States. When we talk about safety, as my friend pointed out, Senator Inhofe tells an eloquent story of a woman killed in Oklahoma walking with her child under a bridge and concrete falls on her. She is gone, and he is so motivated by that.

So I hope my friend will address whether he is aware of the broad support in America for this bill regardless of party label.

Mr. President, I want to follow on to the comments made by the majority leader about the importance of the bill we are trying desperately to move forward here today and we tried to move forward yesterday. We had a good vote when we came back here on Monday night. Eighty-five of us said, Let's go do this highway bill. This is a key and important matter for the country.

In the 1950s, it was President Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican President, who said, We need an interstate highway system. We cannot move people, we cannot move commerce, we cannot be a great power. We have a great military, but we don't have a good road system. He moved forward not only with that but with the very first aid to schools at that time; because before he made the point that we needed to have a Federal program to help our schools, it was strictly a State matter. So we owe President Eisenhower a lot. And I will tell you, the way we are acting around here, if he were watching, he would be shocked. The first amendment to a highway bill is birth control. The second amendment the Republicans want after birth control is to talk about Egypt. It goes on and on, controversial drilling off our coast, and all of this list they came up with.

It is very clear we have a bipartisan bill. It will make sure that we build our roads, we fix our roads, we fix our freeways, we make sure our bridges are safe. Right now, we have a horrible situation with tens of thousands of bridges that are unsafe. Do we need to have another tragedy before we pass this highway bill?

Every committee has done its work, including the Finance Committee, to come up with the funds to fill the Highway Trust Fund so we can keep going at current levels plus inflation, and we have leveraged one program called TIFIA which leverages 30 times. So by putting $1 billion into the TIFIA Program--and you know about it because you are a proud member of the EPW Committee--by putting $1 billion into the TIFIA Program, it means $30 billion out there, because the States and the localities will apply for this funding, they will match this funding, the private sector will match it, and we will create up to 1 million more jobs in addition to the 1.8 million we are protecting with the rest of the programs.

We are talking about a real shot in the arm to our economy. I am proud that Senator Inhofe--who is the mirror opposite of me in most issues. We do not agree on most issues. We do agree on this, the need to have a class-A infrastructure. We agree on that. We think it is critical. Yet here we sit, minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, because Republican Senators do not want us to move forward on this bill. You have to ask why. Why? We are willing to take these amendments. We are willing to work on several of them. We cannot do 100 unrelated amendments. Come to us with a list that makes sense. But do not tell the people in your State you are working to get a highway bill done because I am here to put in the Record that the fact is, you are not helping. You are hurting us. You are hurting the hundreds of thousands of construction workers who need these good-paying jobs. You are hurting the tens of thousands of businesses that need to get back to work making the cement, laying the pavement, fixing the bridges, building the houses.

It is very distressing. When I go home and people say: What is happening, well, they have to have a vote on birth control. It is hard to find the words except to say: What are you thinking when we have a bill that is so important?

My Republican friends stand here, minute after minute and hour after hour--they are not here now--all day criticizing President Obama, who has turned this economy around--no thanks to them. When he took over, 800,000 jobs a month--bleeding. There was a contraction in economic growth. It was way down in the final quarter of the Bush years. There were huge deficits he inherited from Bush. He's turned it around. He said we need to save the auto industry, and we did. A lot of our friends on the other side said: Oh, don't do it. They were wrong. The President was right. We are recovering. Month after month we are adding jobs, after loss after loss of jobs. We have turned it around.

But I will tell you that this bill is, as the chamber of commerce and the AFL CIO agree, the No. 1 jobs bill we can do. There is not much we do

around here that can have an impact on 2.8 million jobs. I cannot think of anything that tops that. They are mostly private sector jobs. There are some jobs in the public sector in the transit areas, but they are mostly private sector, private business jobs.

So anyone who tells you they are for jobs and anyone who tells you they are for economic recovery, the first thing you should say is, Are you helping Senators Boxer and Inhofe in a bipartisan way to move the highway bill, because that is 2.8 million jobs. If they give you an answer like: Oh, sure, but we have to have a few important amendments first, you ask them what those amendments are. If they are honest with you, they will tell you birth control, a woman's right to choose, health care, offshore oil drilling.

They have one they want to offer that would hurt our people's health. It would allow dangerous arsenic and lead and other toxins to go into the air from boilers. They want to repeal a protective rule we have that will clean up the pollution from boilers, even though the biggest boiler manufacturers support the rule. Go figure. The last thing I hear people in my State tell me is, oh, I want more arsenic in my air and, oh, I would love to have more lead. I need more mercury.

Please. This is the 21st century. We have made so much progress on the environment. We are making progress on health care. We are making progress on infrastructure. Don't stop it all. Step back, let this bill go forward.

Senator Reid has set up a vote, a first test vote after the vote to proceed. I know some people have some problems with a couple of the titles, and we are working on fixing that, but I hope we will get 60 votes to proceed. If we do not, we are going to try again. Believe me, we are going to try and try again because, as one Senator, I am not going to agree to do anything else until will we get this bill done, period. One thousand organizations are at work trying to push this bill forward, organizations from business, to labor, to government. We have the general contractors, the cement makers, the AFL CIO and a number of unions, the chamber of commerce, the granite people, we have Portland Cement, and we have a group that represents America, AAA.

We have to do this bill. I will not, as one Senator, give up my right and go to anything else. That is how strongly I feel about it, and I do not believe I am being selfish. I think I am representing the people of this country who want to see a jobs bill pass, who want to see a bipartisan bill pass, who want to make sure our States do not suddenly start laying people off at a time when we are finally turning this economy around.

I guess I am laying down a marker here as one Senator from one State, albeit the largest State in the Union, 38 million people strong, with a high unemployment rate, traffic congestion. We take 40 percent of the goods through California that are being imported into our country. It goes on our roads, all throughout America. Do you think we need better roads? Oh, yes, we do. Do you know what happens when those trucks sit and stall on the 10 freeway? It is ugly, it is dirty, it is wasting money, it is wasting time, it is hurting people's lungs, and it cannot stand.

I lay down the marker today. I ask my friends to please come to the table. I am ready, willing, and able, as the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. We will meet with you. We will listen to you. If you want to have a certain amendment offered and we can help you get it done and it makes sense, it is relevant, we will help.

But other than that, let me be clear, there are a few things we do around here that are bread and butter, basic. The highway bill that got started under Dwight Eisenhower is basic. You should hear what Ronald Reagan said about the importance of a highway bill, the importance of a transit bill. You should hear it. It is on the radio. People are taking out ads to talk about it. Bill Clinton is eloquent on the point. This is a bipartisan issue, and it will be voted on in this Senate. It will be voted on because I cannot in good faith as the chairman of this committee just give in and say: OK, we are done. We tried for 4 days, it did not happen.

But I hope everyone watching in America--if we have anyone watching-- will understand that it is 3:20 on a workday. This Chamber is empty because people are playing games and maybe they don't want this economy to go forward. Maybe they don't want to see President Obama succeed. Maybe they don't care about jobs, for all their talk, because that is the only thing I can say.

When you have a bill on the floor that came out of a committee unanimously--it came out of two committees unanimously: Senator Inhofe and I agreed; Senators Johnson and Shelby agreed--and then you have the Finance Committee reaching out to the Republicans--they worked together, and they had a tremendous vote, which I think was 17 to 6 with one voting present, for their title, and that is about 90 percent of this bill--and then you see nothing here going on because people want to offer amendments about birth control, it is beyond me.

I hope, as you see this floor quiet today, if it bothers you the way it bothers me, you will call the Capitol and leave a message for the leaders on both sides of the aisle and say: For the good of the people, put aside your differences and get this job done.

This is a bipartisan bill. This is not a Democratic bill. It is not a Republican bill. It is a bipartisan bill. Surely if the committees could set aside unbelievable differences, then we can do the same and get to work on this.

I am embarrassed--embarrassed for the people of this country. They are out there working and there is an empty Chamber here when we have the most important bill we could possibly have on the floor.

I am going to fight for this bill. I am going to fight hard. I am going to make the case. I am going to fight for the 2.8 million jobs it could produce. I am going to fight for the thousands of businesses that need this lift. I am going to fight for the people who need to have safe roads and safe routes to school so they do not have to worry. I am going to do it in the name of the people who never made it because they were on some unsafe road. Senator Inhofe talks about a mother and a child who went under a bridge in Oklahoma, and a big sheet of concrete fell down and she is gone. She died. I am going to do it in the name of all these things because this bill is about motherhood and apple pie.

There is no partisanship to this--none. Republicans use the roads and Democrats use the roads. Independents use the roads. We all use the roads. We want our children safe. We want our families safe. We want our roads usable. We do not want to be caught in congestion. Every part of the transportation system is addressed by the four committees that have come together on this bill.

As I leave the floor--and I do not see anybody else--I hope people will watch. In 5 or 10 minutes, if nobody is here, pick up your phone and call the leaders of Congress and tell them to get to work on the Transportation bill and don't offer ridiculously unrelated amendments. We do not have to do that. Come together and sit down together and make a path forward because right now there is no path forward. I do not see it. I do not see it. It is one of those things where people just say: I don't care; we are not going to this bill.

Everyone in America is going to know this is happening because I am going to tell everyone in America it is happening. I will not be listened to the first few times, but maybe by the 20th time somebody will notice what is happening here. We are in morning business, meaning we are just yakking, we are not doing any real work. But I will be back in a little while to give a report on the progress we are making--or lack of same.

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

Madam President, do we have a unanimous consent request pending after the vote?

Madam President, I rise because I want to point out to the people of this country who may be watching this proceeding that what has happened tonight on the Senate floor is just ridiculous. Senator Bill Nelson--I think he was restrained, frankly. I know him. He is a very close friend--was restrained in his comments.

One Senator is stopping us from being able to ensure that justice is done, getting a great judge on the bench. It is sad. It is a historic nominee. It is a bipartisan situation with Senators Nelson and Rubio together, but it goes beyond this.

In addition to holding up the Senate and wasting time here--because we can't vote on the judge now; we have to wait until hours and hours go by--what happens after? We are supposed to be on a highway bill, a bill that will protect 1.8 million jobs and create an additional million jobs. Mr. President, 2.8 million jobs are hanging in the balance.

We have obstruction from my friends on the Republican side--and they are my friends. I don't know what they are doing. I don't know whom they think they are helping, but it is not the American people. Whether it is standing in the way of this judge or whether it is stopping this highway bill, they are hurting America. I want to tell them to wake up and smell the roses--we are trying to get out of this recession. This is a jobs bill that is just waiting to happen. We have myself and Senator Inhofe as partners in this effort. We have Senator Baucus working with the Republicans in the Finance Committee. We have Senator Johnson working in concert with Senator Shelby on the Banking Committee. On the Commerce Committee, we have a few bumps in the road, but we are going to straighten those out because Senators Hutchison and Rockefeller are working together.

Why is it that we are doing nothing? Is it because Senators on the other side do not want us to move ahead? It is no wonder we have 13 percent approval from the American people. I will tell you, if they did not let our families vote, it would be less. How low can it go? We are going to know.

I have to say we want to get to this highway bill. It also had an 85- to-11 vote to move forward--an 85-to-11 vote to move forward--and guess what the first amendment is. It is not about making sure our highways keep up with the demand. It is not about how we can make sure our transit systems are functional. It is not about how we make our bridges safer. It is about birth control. Excuse me, the first amendment my friends on the other side want to offer is about birth control? I honor my friends' views on birth control. I personally believe, as the vast majority of Americans believe, that it is important women have the ability to have their insurance cover contraception. It saves money, it saves lives, and it reduces abortions by the tens of thousands. It saves insurance companies 15 percent because it avoids so many problems. Fifteen percent of the women who use birth control use it for non-birth-control reasons, such as helping prevent an ovarian cyst from turning into a dangerous situation. They use it to prevent endometriosis. They use it to prevent debilitating pain.

It is a highway bill. I am interested to see what Senator--I have to read again what he is offering. I think it is so broad, it says that anybody in America--any employer can refuse to offer any part of insurance they want if they say it is a religious objection. So let's say you are a Christian Scientist and you run a big organization and don't believe children should get chemotherapy--and we have had those cases. Under the Blunt amendment, I guess you don't have to do it. You just say it is a religious objection. It is so sweeping. My point tonight is to say that such an amendment does not belong on a highway bill. To that end, and I will stop here, we received a letter today: ``To the Members of the United States Senate.'' This is one of the clearest letters I have ever seen. Here is what it says:

The time is now to pass S. 1813, Moving Ahead for Progress

in the 21st Century, the bipartisan highway bill crafted by

the Environment and Public Works Committee. Last Thursday 85

Senators voted to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to

S. 1813, clearly demonstrating bipartisan support for passing

the highway and transit bill. While we are encouraged by the

show of support, the undersigned organizations are concerned

that progress may be impeded if non-germane amendments are

offered as part of the deliberations on this bill.

I love this letter. Listen to what they say.

The organizations that we represent may hold diverse views

on social, energy, and fiscal issues, but we are united in

our desire to see immediate action on the Senate's bipartisan

highway and transit reauthorization measures.

This is to every Senator.

Senators, please listen carefully.

Therefore, we strongly urge you to abstain from offering

nongermane amendments that would impede the passage of this

legislation, which is essential to job creation, economic

growth and to the long-term stability of vital transportation

programs.

I will read who signed this:

AAA, the American Association of State Highway and Transit Officials, the American Bus Association, American Concrete Association, American Council of Engineering Companies, American Highway Users Alliance, American Moving and Storage Association, American Public Transportation Association, American Road and Transportation Builders Association, American Society of Civil Engineers, American Traffic Safety Services Association, American Trucking Associations, Associated General Contractors of America, Associated Equipment Distributors, Association of Equipment Manufacturers, Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations, Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, Governors Highway Safety Association, Intelligent Transportation Society, International Union of Operating Engineers, Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association, the National Asphalt Pavement Association, the National Association of Development Organizations, the National Construction Alliance II, National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association, Portland Cement Association, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Listen, we have to put aside these wedge issues, these ``gotcha'' issues. We have the equivalent of 10 Super Bowl stadiums filled with unemployed construction workers. We have business after business that is struggling.

This is a bipartisan bill. This will save 1.8 million jobs and create an additional 1 million jobs, and we are talking about birth control amendments, line-item veto amendments, amendments about foreign policy. I have to say to those colleagues of mine, whatever side of the aisle they are on--at this time I only know Republican amendments, but anyone who comes forward with a nongermane amendment and tries to put it on this important bill--let me say this as best I can, either they don't care a hoot about jobs for our people or they just want this economy to tank for political reasons. Because if we don't pass a highway bill-- and the authorization ends at the end of March--I am going to be blunt with you. What is going to happen? Our States are going to start shutting down these projects and people will be unemployed and we will see reversal in this very delicate economic recovery.

This is a critical bill, and I am going to be on this floor every single day and I am going to be going on my Facebook and I am going to be going on Twitter and TV and radio everywhere. Why? To say a very simple thing to my colleagues--get out of the way of this jobs bill. Get out of the way. All of America supports it, from the left to the right, to the center and everything in between.

I yield the floor. I thank the Chair.