Floor Statements

No, not at all. Please proceed.

Mr. President, I would like to take my time off the general debate time; is that appropriate?

I thank the Chair. I am so pleased to be on the floor because the Senate has to be heard on this issue of the highway trust fund and our whole transportation system for that matter. I do wish to praise Senators Wyden and Hatch for coming together across party lines and making some real improvements in the pay-fors that are associated with this extension. I am very much in favor of the way they handled this bill, and I am also very much in favor of the way the pension smoothing was handled in the Carper-Corker-Boxer amendment because that does away with it altogether, because we shorten the timeframe so we don't need any pension smoothing in there.

Before I speak specifically about the wisdom of what the Finance Committee did and my hope that we can get it over the finish line today, I want to give kind of an overview of where we are in general.

For 2 years we have known that our Transportation bill expired September 30. We have known this for 2 years. Yet, and still, here we are at the 11th hour with an extension.

This is probably, I think, the 12th extension in a few years. I think that is so unfair to the people of this great country who rely on their bridges and their highways and their transportation systems. It is so unfair to the thousands of businesses that work to rebuild our infrastructure, and it is very unfair to the millions of workers who work in construction.

We still have 700,000 unemployed construction workers. When we do a piecemeal bill like this, of course, it is better than doing nothing-- there is no doubt about that; I would not argue that--but it still sends a message of indecision and, frankly, I think of incompetence on our part, and I step to the plate on that.

But I am very proud to say that my committee--100 percent bipartisan; we did not have a dissenting vote--passed the 6-year transportation bill. When we did that, I went to my colleagues and said: I know you have the hard job. You have to figure out the long-term funding. I want to help you. I came forward and I said: Why don't we look at several proposals. One is what they are doing in Virginia. This was a Republican idea. It is to do away with the gas tax completely and replace it with a fee at the refinery level. That would be a more broad-based tax. We would do away with the gas tax. No more Federal gas tax at the pump. That would solve our problems. You set it at a rate where it floats, and we would have 100 percent certainty. Senator Wyden was quite open to it. He took a look at it. I know he floated it. Clearly, we did not have the type of support we would need.

Then the Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO said: Do you know what. We have not raised the gas tax in 21 years. Mr. President, we have not raised the gas tax in 21 years. I did a little reading and found out the first President to initiate the gas tax--and I say to Senator Hatch, he might be interested in this--the first President to formulate a gas tax--and it came in at a penny--was Herbert Hoover. The next President who raised it was President Eisenhower, who had that great vision to then put it into a trust fund for highways, and he raised it a couple of cents. So it was about 3 cents. The next President to raise it was President Reagan. And the next President to raise it was George Herbert Walker Bush. They were all Republican Presidents. Then President Clinton raised it.

Clearly the Congress supported it each and every time because it is a user fee. So that is an alternative. There are many other ideas. I know Senator Wyden and Senator Hatch have a number of ideas, and I know Senator Hatch prefers a user fee. It makes sense. But because of the time crunch--because of, because of, because of--we did not get it done.

I am proud. Senator Vitter is proud. We got it out of our committee, a 6-year bill. It is not a great, massive bill. It just takes the current program, adds inflation, and extends it for 6 years. I can tell you, if Senator Vitter and I can agree, if Senator Carper and Senator Barrasso can agree, if Senator Cardin can agree with Senator Sessions, and Senator Sanders with Senator Fischer--I could go on. Our committee goes from left to right, and everybody agreed we should have the 6-year bill.

So as I stand here today, I am distressed that we do not have that before us, but I am still grateful to my friends for doing what they could politically do. But I feel it is a sad day for us, and I know and I hope we pass this Wyden-Hatch substitute. It is a much-improved way to pay for the extension. But we are extending all the way to May, right up against the next construction season. Now, if you are a State--whether it is Utah or California or West Virginia or Maryland or Oregon; it does not matter--you are not going to enter into any agreement. No businessperson is going to take this on where you do not know what the future holds.

So we are putting it off again, and it is sad we are doing it, and we have 60, 70, 80 groups out there, which I will list later, that are supporting our shortening the timeframe.

Now, my friend says artificial deadlines are bad. But let's face it. Their bill raises--I think it is $11 billion. Am I right on that? So we know it takes it to May 31. That is their deadline. Our bill, in the Carper-Corker-Boxer rewrite, takes it to December. We cut it back. We totally eliminate pension smoothing--totally eliminate it--and we take it back to $8 billion, and that forces us to do the job in December.

Look, this Congress has to do its work. The trust fund expires during this Congress. Now we are kicking it down the road to the next Congress.

Whatever the Senate wishes, I will go along with it. If the Senate says, no, we are going to go with that longer term extension, so be it. I will fight just as hard to move forward with a 6-year bill, I say to my colleagues, when we get back or in a lameduck.

I want to close by talking a little bit about pension smoothing for just a minute because I so agree with Senator Hatch when he says this is not his favorite thing. It is not my favorite thing either, and we come from different sides of the aisle.

So just to be clear, what we are saying to companies is, you can set aside less money for your pension requirements to your employees. Now, I have to admit in the light of day, I voted for that the last time when Senator Baucus brought that forward. I did. But it also was a company buy, an increase in the amount of money companies had to pay into the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. If a company goes broke and they cannot pay their pensions because they have not set aside enough--and with our help they are not having to set aside enough--what happens then? The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp kicks in, and that is funded by the companies. But if that does not have enough--and my information is it is short $34 billion, as we speak--the taxpayers will have to bail it out. So this pension smoothing is really, really dangerous. It is an offset that is not a good one.

Now, the Wyden-Hatch proposal is much, much better than the House proposal because it cuts it basically in half. The Carper-Corker bill cuts it out completely. So we just have to step to the plate. I think Senator Wyden is right. Here we are bailing out--if I could use those terms--the highway trust fund until May, while we set up another potential weakness in our pension system. It is not smart. It should not be done. We had 2 years to figure this out.

But no question--no question--the Wyden-Hatch proposal is a far better proposal. Just making sure people pay their taxes, that is something we should all believe in, and, for the first time, the two Senators brought that issue forward to a successful conclusion. I am very, very grateful to them for that. So I very strongly support this.

I hope we will see a lot of support for the amendment that Senators Carper,

Corker, and I brought forward because we do away with pension smoothing. So if you do not like pension smoothing, vote for that one; and we cut back the money so we can take this whole thing up in December and give some certainty to all the groups out there, whether it is the Chamber of Commerce or the general contractors or the cement people or the gravel people or the AFL-CIO or the laborers. All these folks want to make sure we are not just doing a little cut and paste and get us up against the next thing.

I keep saying ``in closing,'' but I really mean it now. What you are dealing with here, if you want to use an analogy, is: You find a house you really like, so you go to the bank, and the bank looks at you and says: Well, you are a good risk. Yes, we will definitely give you a mortgage, but it is only for 9 months. Nobody is going to take that mortgage. Our States are not going to enter into 3-year contracts when they know they only are going to get the funding for 9 months. We have an amendment by Senator Lee which would cut the Federal Government's ability to help the States and wind up with an 80-percent cut in funding. So it is very risky moving out with all these things hanging over our head.

But I am still pleased with what the Finance Committee did. I thank Senators Reid and McConnell for allowing us to have this time on the floor and all of my colleagues for agreeing, because this is a debate that has to start somewhere. So it is starting today. We know whatever happens, we are just doing a patch, and we are going to have to sit down together with good will and good ideas and solve this problem for the good of our country.

Would the Senator yield for a question?

I thank my friend. I wanted to ask him a question. Because I think the way the Senator responded to the Toomey amendment was exactly right on point. It was almost a deja vu as I listened to my friend from Pennsylvania, because he is not on the committee of jurisdiction. But we had this debate, as my friend pointed out. As a matter of fact, I started to get a little stressed as he related what we went through to get to the point where we have an expedited procedure that takes care of the problems my friend from Pennsylvania talks about.

But we do not throw out every landmark environmental law. That would be a disaster. I can give you an example and ask my friend if he agrees with this example.

I also want to point out the American Public Health Association strongly opposes Senator Toomey's amendment, because they know the health of the people is at stake.

But let's say you had a situation where you brought in a contractor to clean up after there was a disaster, collapse, let's say, of a highway. There was a body of water nearby. The contractor came in. Instead of having a good clean operation, he started dumping his fuel and chemicals and everything else into this waterway. Mind you, under our law he has already got an expedited permit, he is ready to roll. But he or she, they have to be good citizens and not make matters worse.

Does my friend not agree that these landmark laws, such as the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, should be respected, and the Toomey amendment throws them out the window, and we can endanger the health of the people?

Mr. President, it is really almost hard to know where to start in my opposition to this amendment, but let me say that some people call it devolution, meaning you devolve all responsibility for the highways and transits to the States. I call it not devolution but complete and utter destruction of a system that has been in place that the States have grown to count on. That is why the States that my friend speaks from, the States' point of view--they oppose this amendment strongly. AASHTO--they represent not one State but every single State.

There are so many things my friend said that we can't refute--that a State should have the right to spend whatever they want. Sure, they can. They can spend anything they want right now. But they count on the basic bread and butter of these grants.

If we look at history, it has been Republican Presidents who have stepped to the plate on this all through history. That is why I think this is so radical. It is shocking to me. It is shocking to me because some of the biggest proponents of the Interstate Highway System and aid to the States have been Republican Presidents.

Let's be clear. If, God forbid, this were to become the law, immediately the States would see a cut in their transportation funding of 80 percent. That is my friend's answer to gridlock--cut the funding to the States by 80 percent.

The last time I heard and listened, we were one nation under God, indivisible. That is why the visionary Dwight Eisenhower saw this. He knew we had to be able to move equipment. He knew logistics because he was a general. He knew we were one Nation, sea to shining sea. And my friend would have us lose that.

I really wish my colleague Senator Inhofe would come to the floor because I think he has a voting record that is as conservative as any, and he feels transportation is a basic function, along with defense.

I think it is important to note that counties and cities and States depend on this program, and they have for years. Again, this is a national interest, to have this one Nation.

If we really want to see Republicans and Democrats united around the country, look at who is opposing the Lee amendment: the American Trucking Association, the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Highway Users Alliance, the National Stone, Sand, and Gravel Association, the general contractors, the Associated Equipment Distributors, and the Association of Equipment Manufacturers. And if they agreed with Senator Lee--set us free; set us free; we are going to build so much--I don't know what he is talking about, set us free. Set us free with 80 percent less money? That is really great. What are we going to build? Nothing. We are going to have to raise taxes. I was a county supervisor. That doesn't work.

Proponents of this amendment weakly claim that with the completion of the interstate system, we don't need a Federal role in transportation. Well, guess what. We have to maintain our Federal highways even though they have been built. We have to maintain our bridges even though they have been built.

I said on a TV show the other day: I know I have gotten a little older. I need more maintenance. That is just the way it is. I am not happy about it.

Stop laughing. But that is a fact of life.

So don't tell me ``we are free at last; do away with this'' and then think the States are going to be happy when the very States my friend says he speaks for are totally against his amendment. We would be massively cutting transportation infrastructure spending.

Let's talk about the impact on thousands of businesses and millions of workers. I don't know if we have the picture of the stadium. I wish to show my friend--when he comes here and makes an ideological speech, I like to talk about the real world. Here is the real world. This is a Super Bowl game. This is a stadium that holds 100,000 people. We have seven stadiums full of unemployed construction workers. He wants to cut the Federal involvement by 80 percent. Just don't see some of these workers. It started out that we filled 20 of these stadiums in the height of the recession. Now we have got it down to seven, and we still don't have enough work.

And this isn't make work. This is work our American businesspeople want. This is work our American workers want. This is work that can't be outsourced. This is work that pays a good wage. What a time to cut back our investment by 80 percent and sock it to the workers.

The same people who vote for this amendment won't raise the minimum wage--support this pension smoothing that is taking away dollars from our employees' pensions.

So I am at my wit's end to understand. My friend is a nice man, and I know he believes this. But don't come on the floor and say let's forget about Eisenhower's vision and have a new vision, which is that there is no more Federal role.

Some will get up and say: Maybe it is better to do this than to do nothing. Maybe this is better.

No. We have to do our job around here, and that is a multiyear bill. We are faced with a short-term extension because we haven't done our work.

Senators Carper and Corker and I are going to put forward an amendment that is going to force us to do our work in December if we are lucky enough to have it passed. We hope it will pass because if we vote for that amendment, we are cutting back the short-term money we have to pay, and we are cutting back the time. And that is good. But we are not walking away from the responsibility we have as a nation, one nation under God, indivisible, from sea to shining sea, a vision of America that my friend's amendment would destroy. It is not devolution, it is destruction, and I hope we will vote no.

I thank my colleagues, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I will be very brief. I know my colleagues want to present the Carper-Corker-Boxer amendment. I will just say that we just did the math. The Senator cuts the gas tax to such a degree that the States would get an 80-percent cut. The Senator can do the math himself, but I am happy to work with the Senator on it.

It is not convenient--it is not right to speak about another Member when they are not here, but my understanding is Senator Inhofe does not currently support this. I could be wrong. We will find out in a couple hours. One of us can apologize. But I will apologize if I misstated his objection to this.

I yield the floor.

Amendment No. 3583

Mr. President, I wish to thank Senator Corker for his remarks because I have been here a while, and I haven't heard a more honest speech in my life on the Senate floor. I haven't heard a more passionate speech, a speech in which the Senator just spoke from his heart and with his brain, which is quite competent. I thank the Senator for it because there are some times when you do feel like shouting. I guess that was a movie, ``I Can't Take It Anymore.''

It is ridiculous that we are where we are. We knew for 2 years--2 years--that the highway trust fund was going to run out of money. We knew it for 2 years. That is why in May Senator Vitter and I, Senator Carper, Senator Barrasso, and others on both sides of the aisle passed a 6-year bill. We knew it was coming. We wanted to wake up our colleagues. And we did wake them up but, sadly, to a short-term fix instead of a long-term fix, a multiyear bill.

I so agree with my friend. It is the political will that is lacking. There is always an excuse followed by an excuse. The next thing we know they will say: The dog ate my homework. We have heard every excuse. And the Senator is so right. We will be in Presidential races, and then we will start with more Senate races and more congressional races, and people won't want to take a tough vote again.

This is the greatest Nation on Earth, but we have to reflect the greatness in our work here, and we are not.

The one thing I disagree with my friend on--he said we are only doing one thing in this amendment. We are actually doing two things in this amendment. One is we are getting rid of that gimmick called pension smoothing. I have kind of studied it over the last few weeks to really understand what we are doing, which is when you use this pension smoothing, you are saying to companies: Don't put any money into your pension obligations. And through some smoke and mirrors--because then it means they get to pay a little more income taxes--by the way, some don't pay more income taxes--it comes out a plus. The fact is, it is in essence telling companies they don't have to set aside money for their workers' pensions. That is not something that is good, especially since the pension guaranty corporation is short $34 billion.

I don't know if my friend knows this. The last time we used pension smoothing for a short-term fix, at least we had in the committee a comparable measure that ensured that companies gave more to the pension guaranty corp. So although they had a chance not to put the money into the pensions, they did have to pay more to the pension guaranty corp. If the pension guaranty corp. isn't there--the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. is broke--the taxpayers have to pick up the tab. I am looking at my friend in the Presiding Officer's chair, the Senator from Massachusetts, Ms. Warren, who knows what happens when everybody is broke and the Federal Government says: Oh my God. That is too big to fail.

So this attack that you make on smoothing as a gimmick--it is worse than a gimmick because it has real-life impacts, and those real-life impacts are that the companies aren't putting aside enough money. So let's think about what we are saying. We are saying the highway trust fund is going broke, so to fix it we are going to endanger another fund, the pension funds of our workers. That is terrible.

That is why I love the Carper-Corker-Boxer amendment, and I thank my friends for their leadership on the pay-for. It does two things, this good amendment. It says we are not going to use the smoothing; we are going to protect our pensions. Secondly, we are going to attack the long-term issues of the highway trust fund in December, in the lameduck, after the elections, and everybody knows that is the best time to do it.

So I stand proudly with my friends. I hope we pass this. I don't know what happens or what the House will do, but my dad used to say you can only control what you can control. We can't control them, but we can control us.

So I hope anyone listening to this debate--I am going to support the Wyden amendment because it does strip some of the pension smoothing. I am going to oppose the Toomey amendment and the Lee amendment because I think they are dangerous, and I am going to strongly support the Carper-Corker-Boxer amendment.

I thank my colleagues. I know there is some very important business about to come to the floor, so I will yield the floor at this time.

Madam President, I know my friends Senator Mikulski and Senator Shelby are doing everything they can to work the will of the Senate. I know how they both want to get something done on this appropriations bill.

I simply want to say that I looked at the modification of my Republican friend--and he is my friend--that he offered, and I think for the good of America, who could be watching, I want to make a couple of points that will take me 30 seconds.

First of all, there is no limit on the number of amendments. We do not know if it will be 5, 10, 20 or 1,000 or 2,000 or 1 million. We have no idea. They would not even have to be related to the bill at hand, and they will not tell us what this list of amendments is.

I have looked back at some recent requests, and I want to be very honest with my friend. The recent requests I have seen before have been attacks on the Clean Air Act, attacks on the Clean Water Act, attacks on the Safe Drinking Water Act, attacks on women's health care. Frankly, that is not something I can agree to.

So I just want to say I am so saddened that we cannot seem to take up the most popular bill. I know how hard everybody has worked on MILCON- VA, and my friend, Senator Shelby, said: Our side is eager to schedule floor consideration of appropriations bills. Well, if they are really eager, they should work together with Senator Mikulski. You could not find anyone more fair. Get a finite list of amendments. If they are controversial, we have the 60-vote threshold. We know how to do our work around here.

So I am sorry it has come to this, and I appreciate the leadership of both Senators.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, will we still have 2 minutes before each amendment then? It will be in between?

I thank the Chair.

Parliamentary inquiry.

Have the votes been set for a certain time?

Madam President, if Senator Wyden would like this time, I think that would be really appropriate to sum it up in the 1 minute we have. If there is an opposition person, they can speak. I think the Senator should sum it up in 1 minute.

Madam President, I wish to speak to Senators for a minute and tell Members this amendment is the end of the Federal highway system. The States oppose it.

My friend from Utah gave a very impassioned speech earlier in which he essentially said: Free the States. Let them be free. But the States oppose this amendment. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials strongly oppose it and so does the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Trucking Associations, American Society of Civil Engineers, the National Stone, Sand, and Gravel Association. The fact is it would result in an immediate 80-percent cut to our States at a time when we still have 700,000 unemployed construction workers and thousands of businesses that are waiting--just waiting--to rebuild the infrastructure.

I hope Members will vote no on this radical amendment.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Klobuchar from the bottom of my heart for writing such a sensible resolution. People who do not know Amy Klobuchar, as I know her, may not know that she is terrific at bringing both sides together. She does it every day of the week. I could list all of the issues, but I will not take the time to do that. The record speaks for itself.

But on this one, on this simple statement of fact, our Republican friends will not even let that go. This is amazing. This is not a document that says this is how we should fix climate change or this is how we should address it. She does not get into that. She stays away from that because there are legitimate differences.

Some people say: Let's keep on making more electric cars. Some people say: Let's focus on energy efficiency in our homes. Some people say: Shut down the old coal powerplants. It is dangerous to breathe that air. They are adding to the problem.

She does not get into that. All she does in this beautifully elegant and simple resolution is state the facts. First, the resolution acknowledges that the National Climate Assessment report, which is congressionally required--the Congress set it up--states that serious impacts are happening all around us. That report was drafted by more than 300 experts. Guess what it shows? This is what she points out. There are more frequent heat waves, wildfires, and droughts. Coming from California, I can tell you, we are in a terrible fire season. We go to bed at night not knowing what we are going to hear in the morning when we wake up about the raging wildfires in our great State.

We see them in all of our neighboring States as well, whether it is Washington, or Oregon or Arizona. The least we can do is acknowledge we have more frequent fires, that we have a terrible drought in the West, and that this is a fact in evidence. It is not a fact not in evidence.

Second, the resolution acknowledges that our top military leaders at the Pentagon have concluded the impacts of climate change are a growing concern. Sometimes when the military makes a statement it is hard to understand it. This one is really clear. Do you know what they say? They say that climate change is moving from a threat multiplier to a catalyst for conflict. Let me say that again. They used to think it was a threat multiplier. So if there was a problem, say, in Syria, where there is a horrific drought--and some people think that whole conflict has a lot of roots in that drought--where it used to be a multiplier, now they are saying it could actually be the reason why there are conflicts.

Now, I cannot believe my Republican friends would cast away the words of our military leaders and stand up here and object to this resolution. All it says is: Climate change is happening. These are the people who say it is happening. It is a risk to the American people if we do not address it.

Now, I will close with this. In our committee Senator Whitehouse had an incredible hearing he organized. It was amazing. I sat through the entire hearing. He invited four former Republican EPA Administrators who served under the last four Republican Presidents: Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush, and George W. Bush. Now, listen to this. Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush, and George W. Bush--all of these former administrators said: Climate change requires action now, and it should not be a partisan issue. I ask rhetorically: When did the environment become a partisan issue? When I first got into politics--it was a while ago--but it was completely bipartisan.

We addressed this issue together because the health of the American people, the ability to go to work and breathe clean air and not have an asthma attack or a heart attack, the desire to make sure our kids are swimming in safe, clean water and drinking clean water. This wasn't partisan.

The latest thing we know--and this is critical to put in the Record at this time--is that when we clean up dirty, filthy carbon pollution, we also make sure the air is cleaner to breathe. This is critical. That is why the administration's plan is going to lead to healthier communities. We can't afford to sit around here debating whether climate change is real. We can't afford that.

All we wanted to say in this resolution and all Senator Klobuchar says is that climate change is happening. The experts are telling us. The peer review scientists are telling us. The military is telling us. Everybody is telling us.

Yes, as Senator Whitehouse said, there is a small group of people-- there always has been and there always will be--but we didn't wait before we protected our people from tobacco smoke because 10 percent of the scientists said: No, no, no, it doesn't cause cancer.

I would love to be able to bring back the lives of those lost when the tobacco companies put their dirty money all around the Capitol and stopped us from acting.

I am proud to stand with my friends.

When history is written--trust me on this one--they are going to look at us and say: What did they do? What did they do to step to the plate?

President Obama did, and we are protecting his rules here. But we have a job to do. It all starts with acknowledging that there is a problem. If you don't acknowledge that there is a problem, you will never fix it.

I thank my friend Senator Klobuchar for her leadership, and I hope she will not be deterred because I want to be back on this floor with her, Senator Whitehouse, and others as many times as she is willing to put this forward because it is that important.

I yield the floor.

I agree and also commit to providing Senator Paul an opportunity to offer and get a vote on his repatriation amendment when the Senate considers a long-term highway bill.

Mr. President, I am very proud to be on the floor this evening with colleagues for whom I have a great deal of respect. We have been working so hard across party lines to call the Nation's attention to the problems we are facing funding our transportation system. We all know there are many things in the world we cannot control and many things that are causing tremendous frustration.

I went home this weekend and my constituents came up to me and said: Senator, we cannot even look at our television sets with the tragedies that are unfolding. They feel, as I do and I know our President does, that the tragedies we are witnessing have been born out of historic animosities, and it is very difficult. If we could wave our wand and make things better in all of these areas, we would do so. We will try, and we will push. We are having a meeting with the Foreign Relations Committee, and we are going to move to speak sanity to the world. There is a crisis we can avert and there is a problem we can solve, and that is fixing the highway trust fund shortfall.

For those who don't know, the highway trust fund was created by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1956. He created the trust fund, and it was a brilliant move because he realized and said that we are developing an Interstate Highway System. He said, this is one country, and we have to be united, a physically united country, so we can move goods and people and make this country work. Since then, we have always had bipartisan support for the trust fund.

Why is it in trouble? The trust fund is in trouble because the Federal tax gas receipts have not kept pace with inflation and the rising cost of keeping highways and bridges safe. Some of our bridges are well over 50 years old. I have lived a while, and I can tell you that when you get a little older, you need a little attention, and the fact is our infrastructure is aging and we have to pay attention to it. This is not the time to walk away from this crisis.

Some may wonder why Senator Boxer is showing a photo of a football stadium. This is actually a picture of one of the Super Bowls. There are 100,000 people in this photograph. Do you know there are 700,000 unemployed construction workers? They would fill seven of these stadiums. The good news is there used to be 2 million unemployed construction workers at the height of the recession. We have gotten it down to 700,000, but we still cannot afford this.

What is the economic impact of the failure to act? It is pretty simple--millions of jobs. Because you have the construction jobs, and then you have all the benefits to communities when we have the workers around there--whether it is our cities, being able to have restaurants that are filled, and all the kinds of things which happen when you put people to work in a community.

Millions of jobs and thousands of businesses depend on the highway trust fund and those businesses and those workers are counting on us. You may say: Is there really a problem? Well, 70,000 of our bridges are structurally deficient. Keep these numbers in mind in case you are asked about it at a party--70,000 bridges are deficient and 700,000 construction workers are unemployed and 50 percent of our highways are in less than good condition.

Is this a frivolous issue we are talking about here? The 2012 Urban Mobility Report from Texas A&M said the financial cost of traffic congestion in 2011 was $121 billion, or about $818 per commuter. Of that total, about $27 billion was wasted time and diesel fuel from trucks moving goods on the system.

A 2013 survey by the National Association of Manufacturers says 65 percent answered that our infrastructure is insufficient.

I will tell you some of the ideas to fix it. I am not just out here saying words. I have ideas on how to fix it. One of the ideas was put forth by Senators Murphy and Corker. We will hear from Senator Corker in a moment.

One of their suggestions was to modify the gas tax to meet current needs, and that is pretty straightforward. We have been doing this forever. It is very simple and supported by the Chamber of Commerce and supported by just about everybody.

There is another way to do it that was thought of by the Republican Governor of Virginia. I support this. Let me be clear, I will support all of these measures.

The second suggestion is to replace the existing cents-per-gallon gas tax with a fee on the wholesale price of gasoline from the refinery. I like that because it is a broader way to pay for it.

I drive an electric hybrid, and as a result, I don't fill my car very often. In 2 years we filled it up 4 times. I am not paying my fair share. This would be a more broad-based fee.

The third suggestion is repatriation, which is a very interesting concept, and I know Senator Paul supports it. It is complicated in terms of the way it scores, but the fact is it would bring in $23 billion over the first couple of years, and it would give a break to some of our businesses.

So many of my colleagues spent so much time on this. I will not go on except to read the names of the supporters of this legislation.

The supporters of the proposal that Senators Murphy and Corker have

proposed are the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, AAA, the American Trucking Association. This is huge.

Also, we have received letters from so many people.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have a letter I received today from Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and 11 of his predecessors who served 7 Republican and Democratic Presidents-- Johnson, Ford, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama--printed in the Record. They all wrote an open letter saying that we need to pass a long-term transportation bill.

We did it in the Environment and Public Works Committee. Senator Carper and I led the charge with Senators Vitter and Barrasso. We did our job. We were able to come together with Senator Sessions, Senator Vitter, Senator Whitehouse, and Senator Sanders--left to right--in our committee. They came together to agree on a 6-year bill.

So what is the problem? It is ridiculous. Unfortunately, the House-- and this is not good--decided to kick the can down the road--I know it is a cliche, but it is true--until the end of May. Do you know what it means? It means we will not do anything until then, and it will be right up against the new construction season. Nobody will enter into a long-term contract between now and then. And so we are hoping we can change the way the House and the Finance Committee thought about it, and my colleagues have been leading on this issue.

I am on the Carper-Corker-Boxer amendment that would say: Instead of funding this highway bill through next year, get our work done this year. Who is supporting getting it done this year? The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, National Association of Manufacturers, Associated General Contractors, American Trucking Associations, International Union of Operating Engineers, and LiUNA.

If anybody knows politics, they know these groups hardly ever agree on a darn thing, and they agree we should act this year.

I am proud of my friend here, for whom I will yield shortly.

I support their efforts wholeheartedly and will do everything I can to ensure we don't just do smoke-and-mirrors. Explain to me when you do the smoke-and-mirrors--taking the pension and controlling how people get coverage through their pensions--how that has anything to do with transportation.

The gas tax? Yes. A tax on oil? Yes.

Let's think about this. Let's step to the plate and do what is right.

I am very proud to be in concert with my friend, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the division of Cyprus, which began on July 20, 1974.

On July 20, 1974, Turkey began its brutal invasion of the island of Cyprus. By August 25, 1974, Turkish forces controlled more than one- third of the island. To this day, Cyprus remains divided.

Forty years later, it is long past time for a permanent solution that results in a free and unified Cyprus.

For decades, numerous rounds of negotiations have attempted to achieve a settlement. For too long, these efforts have failed to yield meaningful progress. However, a new round of talks began in February of this year. I am deeply hopeful that these negotiations will result in a fair and durable solution for all Cypriots.

A secure and stable Republic of Cyprus will strengthen the friendship and alliance between the United States and Cyprus. This relationship is based on our long history and our mutual goals and values, including a commitment to democracy, opportunity for all, and human rights.

Lasting peace in Cyprus will also reinforce Cyprus's role as a force for peace, prosperity, and stability in the region.

That is why we must continue to do everything possible to help Cyprus resolve the decades-long illegal occupation of Northern Cyprus by Turkey.

As Vice President Biden said in May during his historic visit to Cyprus, ``For the sake of the boys and girls born on this island who deserve the possibility that only peace can bring, let's finally make hope and history rhyme together.''

I am proud to follow my colleague from New Jersey, and I am proud to say I am a cosponsor of Senator Murray's bill and Senator Udall's bill, the Udall-Murray bill, that is going to make sure we protect the health of our families.

I am going to put up a beautiful photograph of the Supreme Court where above the portico these words are inscribed: ``Equal Justice Under Law.'' We have reprinted them here. I am going to keep this for the remainder of my remarks, because I think that is the essential issue before us. Those four words are the promise of our country that every American should be treated equally, should be respected, should be honored.

I wish to note that these words don't say: Equal justice under law except for women. They don't say: Equal justice under law except for birth control. And they don't say: Equal justice under law as long as it is OK with your boss.

The beauty of this Nation is we respect each other's rights and freedoms, and we have shed blood to make sure those freedoms are protected.

Yet with this Hobby Lobby ruling, five men, who happen to be appointed by Republicans, decided that a corporation has the power to deny me or to deny you coverage of critical health care for us and for our families.

What is very upsetting to me is that they have seized on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 to justify giving for-profit companies the sweeping power to deny their employees access to affordable birth control, and we believe it will prove to be other health care benefits required under Federal law.

I speak as someone who voted for the Kennedy bill, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, that if anybody thinks Ted Kennedy wanted to deny access for birth control, then they didn't know Ted Kennedy and they didn't read at all the Record as we debated that bill.

I voted for the Religious Freedom Restoration Act because it was written to protect an individual's freedom of religion so that if I, as a religious individual working for a corporation, don't want to use the birth control coverage, I don't have to. But if I want to, I make that choice. If I, as an independent individual, want to vaccinate my child, it is covered under law, under the insurance. I can if I want to. No one can force me to do that.

The idea behind the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was to protect the individual, and I quote: ``Government shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion.''

Let me repeat: ``a person's exercise of religion.'' It doesn't say a corporation's exercise of religion, your boss's exercise of his religion. It was about protecting the individual.

What the conservative majority of the Court did 2 weeks ago turned the Religious Freedom Restoration Act on its head. As someone who supported that act, it made me angry, sad--put in the adjective. It is wrong to reinterpret what a law meant. It stood the Religious Freedom Restoration Act on its head when they ruled a corporation can put its own ideology ahead of the religious freedom and health care needs of its employees.

A female employee should be able to decide whether to use birth control. And that is not all that is at stake after the Hobby Lobby decision, because we know if you follow their logic that if a corporation can deny birth control because of a religious objection, what if they object to a blood transfusion? There are certain religions that do. Then the employee can't get a blood transfusion. And what if they object to a vaccine or HIV treatment? Then, in order for employees to have access to those treatments, they wouldn't have the insurance. We all know, from looking at the real world, if you don't have insurance, these treatments become very expensive and you may not be able to avail yourselves of them.

Chief Justice John Roberts, during oral arguments in the Hobby Lobby case, made it clear that Congress can fix this and override the Court's decision, and I agree. That is why I am so thankful to Senator Murray and Senator Udall for working so hard and so fast so we can have the remedy right now. It is important that we act fast. People are very confused out there as to what they can count on in their insurance coverage.

We are going to have a vote on this tomorrow. It is a cloture vote to end debate so we can actually get to a vote on the substance. Sadly, it means we need 60 votes, a supermajority. But I hope and frankly pray that we get those 60 votes because we need to protect women's health.

The Murray-Udall bill is called the Protect Women's Health from Corporate Interference Act, but they have nicknamed it Not My Boss's Business Act, which I like. It is not my boss's business what I decide to do.

It would require employers to follow the Federal law when offering health insurance to their employees, notwithstanding the Religious Freedom Restoration Act which, as I said, I believe the Court stood on its head. It was meant to protect individuals, not corporations, not your boss.

The bill says corporations cannot hide behind the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to deny their workers coverage to the benefits we have in law. More than 180 House and Senate lawmakers have cosponsored this bill so far, and I hope our colleagues will vote for it.

I was saying we need to act fast because there is confusion out there. Virtually so many women rely on birth control at some point in their lives, it is amazing. Sixty percent of women who take birth control, 6.5 million American women, do so in whole or in part to treat painful and difficult medical conditions.

Let me say that again. One may take a birth control pill for birth control, but there are many other uses for that pill; 1.5 million women out of the 6.5 million who use it, at least in part for other conditions, use it solely as a medication to treat those painful and difficult conditions.

By allowing employers to deny coverage for contraception, the Court is depriving many women and families of health care. Surveys have shown that 55 percent of young women, aged 18 to 34, struggle to afford birth control, which can cost as much as $600 per year. Maybe the Supreme Court Justices in their ivory tower think that is not a lot of money, but let me state, for women working the minimum wage, even for women earning more than the minimum wage, it is quite a hit to their pocketbooks.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg pointed out in her dissent that a woman earning the minimum wage would spend nearly an entire month's wage to get an IUD, $1,000. Imagine. This case has unjustly singled out women's health services.

I have to make a note here. I do not know of any employer that is dropping coverage for Viagra. I don't. I have

asked around. I have been on TV, I have invited folks to let me know. Oh, no, Viagra is fine; birth control is not fine. Just put the pieces together yourself. I think this decision discriminates against women, and in the slippery slope argument you are going to see it affect everyone. And we need to listen to the women who rely on birth control to improve their health and the health of their families. Let me tell you a few stories. Raquel from Sacramento was diagnosed with non- Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2010. After her treatment her doctors told her she needed to use birth control to ensure she did not become pregnant for the next 3 years because she was really sick. Luckily, her employer covers birth control and now, happily, 4 years later she is pregnant with her first child. What could have happened to her if she had gone through an unintended pregnancy? It could have been pretty devastating. What if she had worked for a different employer who refused to offer her that birth control? Her health and the health of her child would have been at risk and that would have been tragic. So let's listen to her.

Let's listen to Katherine from Pleasant Hill, CA, who relies on birth control after having her first child.

Both my husband and I want to be the best possible parents

for our son, and having another child so soon would hurt our

ability to do that. A variety of affordable birth control

options are crucial for me and for all first-time moms like

me!

Many years ago I was on the board of Planned Parenthood, and what we said all the time was that our dream was that every child be a wanted child--a wanted child. As a parent myself and as a grandparent I tell you right now it takes a lot to raise a child. Hillary Clinton said it takes a village. It certainly takes loving parents, and it takes a loving family. It certainly costs money, and it certainly takes energy.

We want our families to be healthy. We want our families to be productive, and birth control is a success story. It breaks my heart that women just like Katherine who work at Hobby Lobby and other for- profit corporations now could be denied access to affordable health care unless we fix this.

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act was not about giving your boss the power over you like this. It was about giving you the right to make your own choices and decisions. We need to listen to women like Ariana in Redding, CA, who wrote:

I am a recent college graduate trying to make ends meet and

pay off my student loans. It is a great relief to know I can

get the birth control I need without a copay.

These are real stories. If the boss doesn't like that you choose birth control, that is his right. If he wants to sit down with his daughter and tell her his religious objection, and if she agrees with him, that is fine. I mean, that is what America is about. But don't take your religious beliefs, your ideology, your biases, your prejudices, and your opinions and foist them on your employees. That is not this country. That is not what we are about.

Shouldn't we care more about the rights of women and their families than the rights of a few employers who can exercise that in their families? This bill we are going to vote on is critical, and I hope it won't die as a result of partisanship. We have to rise above partisanship around here.

``Equal justice under law''--that is what it says over the portico. And frankly, there is another issue. If you look at what has happened to the rates of abortion since we have seen more use of birth control, they are going down. There has been a study in one of our Nation's big cities that proved that because there was broad use of birth control, abortions went down by 50 percent. Imagine. So if that is our concern regardless of whether we are pro-choice or not, we shouldn't be embracing decisions that make it more difficult for women to get access to birth control.

So equal justice under the law doesn't say: ``except for women.'' It doesn't say: ``except if my boss disagrees with me.'' It is pretty beautiful. It is pretty clear. It is something that we have to respect. It is for the ages, and tomorrow we are going to see if our colleagues agree. Every Senator must take a stand tomorrow for individual liberty. When we vote tomorrow, let's be reminded: Women are watching. The American people will hold each of us accountable if we fail to protect their rights and their ability to decide what is best for their families.

I have been around a while. I was around when one of the Bushes was actually on the board of Planned Parenthood--George Herbert Walker Bush. Suddenly this issue is back--birth control--and suddenly we are arguing over it again.

So I say this. I may be wearing a white jacket, but it is not a white doctor's coat. I am not a doctor, and I don't want to put myself, as a politician, in between a woman and her doctor or in between a family and their doctor. Let's leave important health care choices where they belong: with women, with families, with doctors, and not with politicians, in the Senate or Justices sitting in a courtroom.

Thank you very much. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I have a number of topics to go over, and I will do this as briefly as I can because I know colleagues want to put forward a unanimous consent request.

In our work every day something happens, and I feel compelled to talk about a few of these things. But before I begin my remarks, I wish to send a message of condolence to all those parents who have lost their children to violence in our country, in the Middle East, and all over the world. Children and all innocents must be protected in a truly civilized world. We need to work toward that day, we have to pray for that day, and it is going to take people who care in order to make that happen.

When somebody said you have to walk and chew gum at the same time when you are a Senator, they were more than right. There are so many issues coming at us, and I am going to speak about a few of them.

I will start off with the crisis we face in the highway trust fund. I wish to call attention to a transportation government shutdown which will happen in 25 days unless we save the highway trust fund. In August we have a slowdown in payments to the States, and it is very serious. Unless Congress takes action, billions of dollars in transportation funding to the States will be delayed or stopped.

I see Senator Corker is here and I know he is here on another topic, but I thank him for his courage in working across the aisle and saying: We need to pay for our roads and our bridges.

I see Senator Klobuchar is on the floor. She knows what it means when a bridge collapses, for goodness sake. You have to be able to pay for certain things in this country. We could argue about frills around the edges, but I don't think anyone would disagree with you if you went out on the street and asked whether the United States of America should have a grade A transportation system.

DOT, the Department of Transportation, sent out letters to all of our States warning that the fund is in a dire situation and we have to act. In 74 days the trust fund goes completely bankrupt if we don't come up with the additional revenue. Here is where we are. In 85 days, we actually have to reauthorize the whole program, and in 25 days, the payments slow down.

Why is this happening? It is because Federal gas tax receipts that are paid into the trust fund have not kept pace with inflation or the rising cost of building our bridges and highways. There are thousands of businesses and millions of jobs at risk if we do not act, and that is why we have so many people supporting the reauthorization of the trust fund and figuring out a way to pay for that.

We have the Chamber of Commerce, and they are aligned with the AFL- CIO. This is a rarity. Usually those groups are fighting each other, but we have unanimity here: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, Associated General Contractors. As I said, the AFL-CIO. The Associated Equipment Distributors, the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association, the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the International Unions of Operating Engineers.

We have 70,000 bridges in disrepair, which are called structurally deficient. We have 50 percent of our highways which are not up to par. What are we doing? I can tell my colleagues what we are not doing. We are not doing our job.

Now, I can brag just for a minute. Senator Vitter and I were able to get a bill unanimously through the Environment and Public Works Committee--not one dissenting vote. I have to say to my colleagues who are listening, that committee is an object in the diversity we bring here. We have Bernie Sanders. We have Jim Inhofe. We have Barbara Boxer. We have David Vitter. We have John Barrasso. We have Sheldon Whitehouse. We have Ben Cardin and we have Senator Fischer. So we have a broad diversity. I have to mention Senator Sessions and Senator Gillibrand and Senator Booker. This is a committee that represents the ideological spectrum of the Senate.

I will tell my colleagues we passed a bill out for 6 years. We know it has to be paid for, but I think we were very reasonable in what we said. We said, look, this isn't the time for a giant new increase. We kept it at current levels of spending, plus inflation. God bless Senator Wyden and Senator Hatch. They are working on a plan to pay for this bill. We have colleagues, as I mentioned, including Senator Murphy and Senator Corker, who came together and said: Look, the Chamber of Commerce makes a good point. We haven't raised the gas tax in a very long time. If we do a few cents a year, we will be able to patch up this trust fund--and more than patch it up--get it going for 6 years.

Today, leading groups representing bipartisan State and local officials sent a letter urging Congressional leaders to find a fix for the Highway Trust Fund and to pass a long-term surface transportation bill. The organizations include the National Governors Association, the National Association of Counties, the National League of Cities, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

The Nation's surface transportation system is in a critical condition and significant funding is needed to simply maintain the current system. Nationwide there are 70,000 bridges that are structurally deficient, and 50 percent of our Nation's roads are in less than good condition.

Delaying a long-term bill just prolongs uncertainty. An extension into 2015 would create another crisis, just before the next construction season. To allow the Trust Fund to become insolvent would be unprecedented and further delay simply extends the uncertainty. We need a long-term bill no later than December and a short-term

patch for the Trust Fund now. Failure is not an option.

I will say this: The clock is ticking, however we look at it. One more time: The clock is ticking. There are 25 days until a slowdown of payments to the States. In 25 days our States are going to be howling because they won't be able to pay for work that has already been done. The way it works is they do the work and then we repay them for, in many cases, 75 percent of the work; in some cases, 50 percent of the work.

So I call on all of my colleagues: Let's set politics aside.

Supreme Court Decision on Birth Control

I wish to speak briefly about two other issues. One of them has to do with the Supreme Court decision on birth control. I hope every woman in America is paying attention to what this Court did. Five men, all Republican appointees, basically said a corporation can put its religion above all of its employees. It is just astounding.

I voted for the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and I know why I voted for it. It was a very important piece of legislation which said that individuals can't have their freedom of religion stepped upon. It didn't say corporations. So here we have a situation where one family doesn't believe in birth control, and now they are telling every woman who works there: Sorry, you are out of luck. It is really unbelievable. To me, the Court siding with the corporation over the thousands of people who work there is just shocking. What happened to individual freedom here?

We are going to try our best to fix it.

Let's remember this: 99 percent of women have used birth control at some point in their lifetime. Let me say that again: 99 percent of women have used birth control at some point in their lifetime, and 1.5 million women take birth control solely for a painful condition. Sixty percent of the women on birth control take it in part for painful and difficult conditions.

So the Supreme Court, in an ideological, political decision, in my view, said to the women of America: Corporations are more important than you.

We are going to try to fix this. We are going to do everything we can. I hope we can reach across the aisle. I have hopes that we can, to fix this.

Political Blame Game

Now I will conclude my remarks on another topic. The week we were away I was working in the State. I went to some highway projects. I went to a national park. But all through the time I was working in the State, I was hearing a continuum of the blame game going toward our President.

Republicans blame President Obama for every single thing that happens. Not enough jobs? They blame the President, even though since his policies have been in place, we have had 52 straight months of job growth. Last month alone, 288,000 jobs were created. Remember, at the end of George Bush's time in office, we were bleeding 700,000 jobs a month. The unemployment rate has dropped from 10 percent to 6.1 percent, and we could be doing even better if Republicans hadn't blocked the President's jobs bills.

The Obama recovery even includes a record-breaking stock market which helps everybody. Everybody has a 401(k), a retirement account. When the President took office, the Dow Jones average was under $8,000. Now it has more than doubled, and the Dow hit 17,000 for the first time last week. Yet and still the President is to blame for not enough jobs.

Deficits. Republicans blame the President, even though since he took office, the deficit has been cut by more than half, and deficits would be lower still if our friends on the other side stopped fighting with us when we try to close tax loopholes such as ending the tax policy that rewards companies for shipping jobs overseas or passing more equitable income tax rules which would allow people such as Warren Buffett to pay the same effective tax rate as his secretary--not a bad idea--and would really help us. We would get rid of that deficit. Remember when Bill Clinton was President. We wound up not only not having a deficit, we had a surplus. When George Bush came in, he started a couple of wars, put them on the credit card; tax cuts to the rich, put that on the credit card, and we have been battling it ever since.

Now we have an influx of immigrants from Central America. Republicans blame the President, even though it is House Republicans who are blocking immigration reform the Senate already passed in a bipartisan way which will greatly enhance border protections, spends tens of billions of dollars on that, and sets out clear and fair rules for immigrants. And they blame President Obama even though the guidelines for how we treat unaccompanied immigrant children from countries such as Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, those guidelines were sent to and signed by George W. Bush.

Then we have the civil war in Iraq. Republicans blame President Obama even though he opposed the disastrous Iraq war. I have to say that Senator Paul is not in that category, and I appreciate that. For the most part, Republicans blame President Obama, even though he opposed the disastrous Iraq war which sowed the seeds for the sectarian warfare we are seeing today. How proud I was to vote with then Senator Biden, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and along with 74 of my colleagues, we voted to say there ought to be a federation in Iraq-- semi-autonomous regions--the Kurds, the Shias, the Sunnis. Seventy-four of us voted for that, and the Bush administration laughed it off, including Condi Rice and Dick Cheney. We have them all on record. Now this thing happens and who gets the blame? The President gets the blame from the Republicans.

How about Benghazi. We have heard about Benghazi. Republicans blame the President and they continue to politicize this tragedy, even though under President Obama's leadership the United States has captured the suspected terrorist who is believed to be one of the masterminds behind the killing of these four extremely brave Americans. Benghazi is a tragedy. It is not about a scandal.

Now, how about the release of Sergeant Bergdahl. Republicans cried foul when the President got him released, even though many of them right in this Chamber--and they are on videotape--were calling for Sergeant Bergdahl's release. And they also have insisted that no soldier ever be left behind.

I have to say, it is just getting old. Republicans blame the President for everything, including issuing Executive orders. The Speaker of the House is suing the President for abusing his Executive power. President Obama has issued the fewest Executive orders per year of any President since Grover Cleveland. It is just getting to be too much.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Republicans blame President Obama for America's recent loss in the World Cup or even for their own six consecutive losses in the annual congressional baseball game.

Enough. We all need to work together. Stop the finger pointing. The people need us to work together, not to play the blame game. I am very hopeful that we will have a little introspection around here. It might be a little too much to ask for. But I think if we did it--there are so many good people here on both sides of the aisle, and if we just decided once and for all to put politics aside--the President won election twice. It wasn't even contested. So deal with it. Work with him.

I have served with five Presidents--a couple of Republicans, several. I battled with them, didn't agree with them. I remember Ronald Reagan, if we beat him in the conversation, would say, OK, let's move on. So, yes, sometimes Democrats win; sometimes Republicans win. We have to work together and move forward and solve the problems of this great Nation because the people expect it of us.

I thank my colleagues very much, and I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object.

What time do we have the vote?

That is the reason we were very careful with the time. And we gave my good friends--and they are my good friends--a lot of extra time.

I will allow the Senator to proceed for 1 minute. But after that, we need equal time on this. So I give 1 minute.

I ask for 1 minute.

Let me think it over. OK.

Reserving the right to object, I wish to explain how I come to my conclusion at the end by saying a couple of things.

I see that my dear friend--and these are all my friends whom I particularly enjoy working with--I say to my friend from Oklahoma, he said Tom Steyer is from California. This is correct. So is Justice Kennedy, and so is Richard Nixon, who signed the Clean Air Act. Richard Nixon signed the Clean Air Act, and I was a cosponsor of that act. And Republican Herbert Walker Bush signed the Clear Air Act Amendments.

I will not yield.

The fact is that Republican objections to controlling carbon pollution took that all the way to the Supreme Court.

Another thing on which I need to correct the record is my friend Senator Barrasso talked about our President as if our President doesn't care about our being energy self-sufficient. The United States is producing more oil at home than it is buying from the rest of the world for the first time in nearly two decades. Let me repeat that. The United States is producing more oil at home than it is buying from the rest of the world for the first time in nearly two decades. And PolitiFact marked that as true and accurate.

I want to say to my friend who has left the floor, Senator Murkowski--another good friend of mine--we offered a vote on Keystone as part of Senator Shaheen and Senator Portman's bill on energy efficiency, and we said we would treat it the way Mitch McConnell recommends treating controversial amendments. We offered a 60-vote threshold. Now they come to the floor decrying the fact that we didn't offer a vote, but we did.

Here is the point: Whenever America considers building a major infrastructure project, we make sure there is a process in place, and we have done that since 1968. It is a well-established process, and that process was updated by George W. Bush in 2004. So this unanimous consent request that would approve the pipeline would bypass the entire process we have set up in this country for these kinds of major infrastructure projects that has been in place since 1968.

We need to know whether the building of this pipeline is in the national interest, and it is critical that the process not be circumvented because there are major issues on behalf of America's families. Frankly, the request that is before us would cut short the process that protects our families. So rhetorically I ask, why would anyone want to do that? They talk about a lot of jobs. That is in great dispute. The permanent jobs are like 35. So let's be clear. It is about other things. It is about special interests. That is what it is about. There is a lot of money that follows this pipeline.

Now I want to talk about the human health impacts. Tar sands is one of the filthiest kinds of oil on the planet--filthy dirty oil. That is why Senator Whitehouse and I called on the State Department to conduct a comprehensive health impact study--because the pipeline itself is one thing; it is the type of oil that is going through the pipeline, this dirty, filthy tar sands oil.

If you don't believe me, ask our health professionals. A Gallup Poll found 12 years in a row that the most trusted profession is America's nurses. National Nurses United--the Nation's largest professional association of registered nurses, with 185,000 nurses--also called for a health impact study of Keystone because we know if this pipeline is built, immediately we will see a 45-percent increase in the tar sands coming in. Eventually we will see a 300-percent increase in the filthiest, dirtiest of oils coming into our country. We also know this oil has higher levels of dangerous oil pollutants and carcinogens because we documented that in our own country where they burn tar sands oil.

Mr. President, may I complete my remarks before I make a decision on the pending request.

I didn't understand what the Chair said.

All right. Then I would ask unanimous consent that I complete my remarks--the other side had many minutes--and then object.

And I would also ask the Chair, do we not have time on our side at this point in the debate?

OK. Well, just to allay my friend's concern and his excitement about whether or not I will object, I will absolutely object. I do object because we know that misery----

Misery follows the tar stands from extraction, to transportation, to refining, to waste storage.

We are going to show you some pictures, folks, in case you don't know what it looks like when you refine this oil. We are going to show you photos from Port Arthur, TX.

This is what it looks like. There is a playground where this filthy, dirty stuff is burned. This is not a good place to be. We had people at a press conference with the nurses from Port Arthur, TX, and they brought us these pictures and said this is what it is like when they burn the tar sands.

Now let's talk about the types of cancers that are linked to these toxic chemicals, including leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Why would anyone want to short-circuit a process? Just because the oil companies want it? We have to think about our people. Tar sands oil from the Keystone Pipeline will flow to our gulf refineries, increasing this toxic air pollution that already plagues communities such as Port Arthur, TX. I ask you to meet with some of those kids, meet with some of their parents, meet with some of those health professionals, and they will tell you the asthma rates that are happening, the respiratory illnesses, the skin irritations, the cancer. All they talk about is the pipeline. What about what flows through it? What about the toxins that get burned into our air?

We know a pipeline does burst. We know a pipeline does burst. We have seen many of those incidents, and we know one did burst with tar sands oil in Kalamazoo, MI. They still haven't cleaned up the river--3 years, they still haven't cleaned it up. And we know that the pipeline goes through communities and environmentally sensitive areas in six States.

Why would my friends want to bypass a process that is going to look at the potential damage to the health of our citizens, to the safety of our drinking water, and the effect on kids and asthma and cancer?

And let's not forget the tar sands waste, by the way. Here is a picture of that, in case my friends don't know what it looks like. This is called petcoke, petroleum coke. Already, because we have increased tar sands importation, it is lining up around our cities--in Chicago, in Detroit--massive open piles of tar sands, waste products known as petcoke, billowing black clouds containing heavy metals. There was a story that was told to our committee. Children playing baseball have been forced off the field to seek cover from the clouds of black dust that pelt homes and cars.

So you have problems when you extract, you have problems when you transport, you have problems when you refine, and you have problems when you store the waste. Why do my colleagues want to bypass a process that has been put in place since 1968 so we can look at the impact on our people? Petcoke dust is particulate matter. It is among the most harmful of all air pollutants. When inhaled, these particles can increase the number and severity of asthma attacks, cause or aggravate bronchitis and other lung diseases, and reduce the body's ability to fight infections.

Do you know the Federal Government has said that asthma is a national epidemic? I am quoting. It affects 1 of every 12 people or 26 million Americans. I know if I asked people in this Chamber--which I cannot do because it is against the rules of the Senate--to raise their hands if they have asthma or they know someone who has asthma, I guarantee half of the people in the room would raise their hands.

We don't need more asthma. We have a very important system in place to look at the effects of tar sands oil, and I don't think we should be pushing this project forward. Exposing Americans to pollutants linked to cancer and respiratory illness is not in the national interest.

Lastly I want to talk about the climate change impacts. For those people who are listening to the news, they must be surprised to see how many former Republican Environmental Protection Agency officials have come out and said to their colleagues who are here now: Wake up. Climate change is here, it is real, and human activity is adding to it.

The planet is in trouble. Tar sands oil has at least 17 percent more carbon pollution than domestic oil. The State Department concluded even in their flawed study that the annual carbon pollution from just the daily operation of the pipeline, should it be built, will be the equivalent of adding 300,000 new cars on our roads.

So why do we want to short-circuit a process which has been in place since 1968 and which was then renewed by George W. Bush in 2004 to protect our people from just this kind of a project?

If you walk up to an average American and say ``Should we build the Keystone Pipeline?'' they will say ``Pipeline? A pipeline is a pipeline.'' But when you explain the kind of oil you are putting through the pipeline, that is a different situation because this is the filthiest, dirtiest oil--more carbon intensive. The oil is linked to all kinds of illness.

I stood next to people from Canada, doctors who were so glad I was raising these issues. Even the newspapers in Alberta have called for a much better study on health impact.

So outside of this Chamber more and more Republicans are coming out in support of doing something serious about climate change.

My friend showed a picture of Tom Steyer. Let me thank him from the bottom of my heart. This is someone who is a very successful businessperson who realized he has to step up to the plate and preserve the planet for his kids and his grandkids. Thank you, Tom Steyer.

Just last week four former Republican EPA Administrators who served under Presidents Nixon, Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush, and George W. Bush spoke out on the need to address climate change.

I thank Senator Whitehouse, my subcommittee chair on the committee, who called these four incredible--it was an iconic moment, frankly. Let's see if I remember them all. There was Ruckelshaus, who started off with Nixon. There was Christie Todd Whitman, who worked for George W. Bush. There was William Reilly, who worked for George Herbert Walker Bush. Then there was Mr. Thomas, who worked for Ronald Reagan--Ronald Reagan. There they sat, and there they spoke, and there they said very clearly: Wake up, Republicans. This is a serious matter.

Now today a bipartisan group of former Treasury Secretaries released a report showing that the U.S. economy is already feeling the negative financial impacts of climate change. These respected leaders say climate change is real and we must act.

So why would we want to short-circuit a critical review process when approval of the Keystone Pipeline would be a major step in the wrong direction? It is the equivalent of 300,000 cars added back on our roads after we struggled so hard to clean up carbon pollution.

Another concern that remains to be addressed is the Keystone Pipeline's impact on national security. I met with a former SEAL Team 6 leader, and he was involved in the assessment of the Keystone tar sands pipeline and the risk of that pipeline becoming a high-profile target vulnerable to attack. They concluded it absolutely was a high-profile target, and it would be vulnerable to an attack that could trigger a catastrophic tar sand spill.

As I said, the last tar sand spill 3 years ago in Michigan has still not been cleaned up. This stuff is filthy, dirty oil--the dirtiest. Why on Earth would we want to see an eventual 300-percent increase in the importation? The nurses don't want it and the public health doctors don't want it. They came to the press conference with us. We cannot afford to take a shortcut in the Keystone tar sands pipeline review project when so much is at stake--the health of our communities and the impact on climate change.

Finally, I have a picture that I show a lot these days, and it is a picture of what it looks like when you throw the environment under the bus. This is a picture of a province in China where the people walk out with masks over their faces because everybody says: Who cares? We can just do anything we want. Who cares?

I recently went to China. Over the course of 2 weeks, I never saw the Sun. I did not see the Sun. On one day when we had a little bit of Sun peeking through--I mean barely at all--the people there got so excited. The people who work in our embassy there get hazardous duty pay because it is so dangerous for their families. They can't go out and breathe the air because they can get sick.

We can have economic growth and a clean environment. You know why? We did it in the 1970s when everybody objected to the Clean Air Act. You should have seen the folks come to the Senate floor. You should have heard the Chamber of Commerce railing against the Clean Air Act. You know what happened since then? Tens of millions of jobs have been created. The air is clean. Thousands and millions of lives over time have been saved. Heart attacks, asthma attacks, and cancer have reduced. We can quantify it.

When colleagues come here and try to do something to bypass a procedure to protect human health and the environment, you can count on me standing right here. I am proud to do it.

I can report that California--under the great leadership of our Governor Jerry Brown--is moving to clean energy. We are moving to thousands and millions of new jobs. We have added more jobs over the last couple of reporting periods than any other State. We are balancing our budget. We have a surplus because we are moving to energy efficiency, and that means people are going to work.

I understand that my friend from New Hampshire is interested in making a few remarks, so at this time I wish to say to my Republican friends that it is with great respect and friendship, truly, that we see the world differently, and that is OK. That is what makes this the greatest country on Earth. We can come here and speak out.

I wish to say to the American people today that this rush to build the pipeline before the process is completed is dangerous to the health of people and to the health of the planet and to the importance of our national security.

I yield the floor.

Parliamentary inquiry, please.

My understanding is the Senator is using the time of the Senators on this side of the aisle to make a speech before he objects. Am I correct? Is it our time?

I ask that the Senator object, and then Senator Shaheen have the rest of the time because we are running out of time.

Will the Senator yield.

I wish to say through the Chair, I spoke for quite a while on why I feel it is not good governance to come to the floor and ask unanimous consent to move to a bill and to short circuit a process that is in place and has been in place since 1968. The process was renewed by President George W. Bush to make sure when we build an American infrastructure project that it is safe, that it is in our national security interests, that public health is considered, and all the rest.

I have said all along on an amendment of controversy--I am ready to vote on the Keystone Pipeline, and I support Senator Shaheen and Senator Portman's bill. What a great bill. What a win-win. Senator Shaheen is willing to take a 60-vote threshold for that, and those of us who worry about the pipeline are willing to vote with a 60-vote threshold. That is the way to go.

The minority leader, the Republican leader Senator McConnell, said it over the years over and over. Whenever there is controversy, if people feel it is controversial, have a 60-vote threshold. He said that I don't know how many times, but I have the quotes. All of a sudden, when it comes to repealing President Obama's Climate Action Plan or Keystone, somehow that doesn't qualify as controversial from his point of view, but the thing about ``controversial'' is it is in the eye of the beholder. I don't think it is controversial to raise the minimum wage. It hasn't been raised in years, but my friends on the other side don't like it. They demand 60 votes. So we had a 60-vote threshold.

That is where we are, and that is why we are in this mess.

I thank the Chair.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, I want to say to my friend from Tennessee that the majority leader has offered a way forward, and he has taken a page out of the book of the Republican leader, and he quoted him, and I have those quotes here: ``Matters of controversy always require 60 votes.'' And my friend knows. He knows.

I stand here as the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. I am so grateful I have moved some bills through here-- highway bills, water bills--but my friend knows that the two big amendments that his side wants to offer don't deal with ordinary matters. They deal with matters that have jurisdiction in the environment committee, and they deal with a repeal of parts of the Clean Air Act and a repeal of parts of the Clean Water Act.

So my friend wants to move forward. I am sure he would agree that to repeal

parts of landmark laws on an appropriations bill is legislating on appropriations and ought to require 60 votes. It is wrong.

Now, I would say to my friend, why is the other side so determined to repeal two laws--one dealing with the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act, and then the other one is this Clean Air Act--why are my friends on the other side continuing to go against these landmark laws--which, by the way, were signed into law by a Republican President? He has to explain, because I don't understand why people want to put children at risk and families at risk, pollute our rivers and streams, and suspend a plan that the President has announced is going to save thousands of lives, going after carbon pollution, making sure we don't go back to the days of smog and ozone. And we know these are the riders that my Republican friends want to offer. There is no secret.

The Republican leader defined the 60-vote threshold for controversial amendments. I can assure my friend that if there was a tweak or two that was going to be made and Senator Mikulski and Senator Shelby agreed with it, I would not demand 60 votes.

We are talking about repealing basic, important landmark provisions of environmental laws, and that is exactly what this is about.

I would be happy to yield, yes.

To a 60-vote threshold, no.

Yes. I would say----

I would go with the Mitch McConnell rule, which he has stated seven times, which is that on controversial amendments we have to have 60 votes. I am not going to stand here----

I just want to answer my friend.

My friend said we are trying to spare people tough votes. That is ridiculous. Members on your side, Members on our side--we are grownup Senators. We know how to win elections, cast tough votes. I want to protect the American people, and so do a lot of folks on our side of the aisle. And we don't want to see majority rule to repeal landmark environmental laws. We are not going to stand for it, and neither would the minority leader in the way he describes it. He said over and over that on amendments of controversy we have to have a 60- vote threshold.

So my friend, if he is sincere about this--he is sincere about this. But if the two chairmen can come up with a plan where amendments like this, controversial amendments, require 60 but amendments that both sides feel are not controversial can go to a voice vote, I will be a happy person. I have gotten bills through here before. I wasn't born yesterday, as you can probably tell, and we know a controversial amendment from a noncontroversial amendment.

So I will close with this: I know my friend Senator Mikulski is an incredible chairman, and with Richard Shelby working with her, they are quite the duo. And I have seen their work--because every single Member cares about the work they do--and it is stellar. But I am not going to sit here and see amendments come to the floor that would repeal clean air, clean water, safe drinking water, and just nod approval and say: Oh yeah, just take it away. No big deal. That is it.

And that is why I feel the majority leader was right when he said let's move forward with a 60-vote threshold. That makes a lot of sense. I am sorry the Republicans objected.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I was unable to attend the rollcall votes on the following nominations: Crystal Nix-Hines to be Ambassador to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization; Lael Brainard to be a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; Jerome H. Powell to be a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; and Stanley Fischer to be Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Had I been present for these votes, I would have voted aye.

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

As a Senator from a Western State, as is my friend from Texas, I hope the American people understand the only thing the Republicans can do for whatever happens is blame President Obama: Oh, it rained today--it is President Obama.

How about the most obvious point--that the Republican House has failed to take up an immigration bill. The Senate did it in a bipartisan way. I applaud that bipartisanship. We did it a long time ago. The fact that the Republican House refuses to do it never passes the lips of my Republican friends in the Senate.

If we want to correct our immigration system, we have to sit down and do the hard work, as we did in the Senate. There is no question that we are facing a crisis with children from Central America running away from gangs, violence, rape, and deprivation. There is no doubt about it. The fact is we can deal with that, but we have to look at the laws, and that is why we want to set the rules in a bill.

There is lawlessness because we haven't updated our laws. For example, we have to make sure these short-term holding facilities have humane conditions. We can do that by law.

I want to say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, because it is cloudy one day, don't blame the President. Because it rains the next day, don't blame the President. If you wake up with a sore throat, don't blame the President. When you have trouble at the border, look at your own party, which has held up immigration reform. If we can do it over here, they can do it over there. The whole world is watching.

It is the same way with the veterans. I am hoping and praying that this new effort by Senator Sanders and Senator McCain will bear fruit in the Senate on a VA bill. But remember that the Republicans filibustered the last Bernie Sanders bill, which would have added clinics, which would have addressed the problems. They filibustered it.

Keep your ear open here. We have a chance to address so many issues.

I talked about immigration. I talked about veterans. We have a chance now to deal with the student loan crisis, and it is a crisis.

The student loan debt is $1.2 trillion. That is more than credit card debt.

In my home State, the average amount owed by a borrower in 2012 was more than $25,000--a 65-percent increase from 2004. In the same time period, the number of Californians with outstanding student loan debt increased by 60 percent.

In addition, in 2012 there were 641,000 Californians over the age of 50 who were still paying down their student loans and more than 6.8 million people over 50 nationwide still paying off their student loans.

This is a crisis that must be addressed. It is important to our Nation's economy. It is important to the future of our families, to our children, and our grandchildren. It is time to act.

I have to say, Senator Warren has been a tremendous leader. We can take an important step toward addressing this dire situation by passing Senator Warren's Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act. It would help millions of Americans refinance their loans at lower interest rates, put more money in their pockets. I have to say, it is kind of a no-brainer. When you have more money in your pocket than you had before, you are going to spend it in your communities.

I am so proud to be an original cosponsor of this legislation.

Sadly, even though the Federal Government is the biggest student loan lender, and it is making billions of dollars in profits each year, it doesn't allow its borrowers to refinance their existing student loans when rates are low. That is wrong. Our middle class is hurting.

The New York Federal Reserve Bank and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have been warning us that student loans are acting like an anchor on our economy.

When our President took office, there was a crisis. We were losing 700,000 jobs a month. He has turned it around, and now month after month we are creating over 200,000 jobs, and we have restored all those jobs we lost. But why would we keep this anchor of student loan debt on our economy?

For example, students can't buy cars because they have so much in student loan debt. They can't buy houses.

Andrea from San Francisco writes:

My boyfriend and I both have student debt. He started with

$90,000 and has finally gotten it down to $50,000 after 10

years of paying. I recently finished my MFA and now have

$56,000 in debt. This has kept us from saving for a house,

purchasing a car, and doing things day to day that would

boost the economy, like shopping and going out to eat.

Patrick from Thousand Oaks wrote to me and said:

I pay half of my monthly wages to cover the interest alone

on my loan.

Worse still, many young Americans wrestling with student debt cannot save enough to start a family.

Stefanie from Pacific Grove wrote:

We are finally starting a family in our late 30s. My

husband has been paying off his student loans for ten years.

This loan will cost him twice as much as he borrowed--

doubling the cost of his college education. That is simply

not fair. If the Fed sets interest rates low for everyone

else, why not for students?

As Stefanie's story illustrates, student debt is not only a drag on the American economy, it is tearing at the fabric of our American dream.

I read last week that for the first time a majority of people don't really believe the dream will be there for them as it was for us. When 40 million people in America are struggling with a combined $1.2 trillion in student debt, it is no wonder the American dream is elusive.

I have 3.7 million Californians dealing with $97 billion in student loans, and many of these loans are stuck at outrageously high interest rates--7, 8, 9 percent. With interest rates this high, it is hard for anyone to pay off their debt, and it is really hard for recent graduates who are just launching their careers.

In order to help the nearly 40 million Americans with student debt, Senate Democrats have introduced this plan, with the leadership of Senator Warren. It is a simple plan. The idea is to let borrowers refinance their outstanding student loan debt.

We are at a time of record-low interest. I am asking rhetorically whether it is fair to charge 7, 8, 9 percent interest when the Federal Government lends money to banks at less than 1 percent. The people who have borrowed money to pay for college or send their children to college are trapped with these exorbitant interest rates. And the private student loans can be even worse. I have seen 10 percent and 11 percent.

The Senate Democratic proposal would allow borrowers of both Federal and private student loans to refinance from their high rates into much lower rates. The rates would be 3.86 percent for undergraduates, 5.41 percent for graduates, and 6.41 for the parents who

have helped their kids. Those are the rates Democrats and Republicans agreed on last year, and those are the rates new borrowers received this past school year. But the older borrowers are stuck with these exorbitant rates, and they can't refinance. If those lower rates are good for new borrowers, why wouldn't we allow them for those who have been stuck in this vicious cycle of these high rates?

These young people are not saddled with this debt because they went to the mall and bought a lot of clothes. They worked hard to learn new skills that will benefit our Nation and help keep us strong. They deserve a fair shot at saving and building a career and having a family.

Matthew from Antelope, CA, wrote to me and said:

I have never worked harder on one single goal than to be

the first in my family to gain a degree in higher education.

I've been on the Dean's List every semester in college. [But]

the ever-present fear of paying off the thousands of dollars

of interest I have gained is overwhelming and I am struggling

to see past it.

If big banks, which collapsed our financial system, are

able to borrow at a rate of nearly zero percent, I don't see

why students who will ultimately grow our economy and grow

our nation cannot borrow at the same rates.

Matt from Newport Beach, CA, said:

I am grateful for my college education. As a son of middle-

class parents, I knew [college] was an investment in my

future, despite the need to take out loans. I even graduated

in three years and served as a Resident Adviser to keep costs

down. However, my student loan debt is now a major expense

that hangs over me as a working adult. It affects my ability

to achieve certain life milestones--buy a house, finance a

wedding, and save for retirement.

I support efforts to refinance loans at low interest

rates--rates comparable to those in the real estate market.

Please take action! With more affordable student loans, my

generation can grow this economy.

Matt, Matthew, and their classmates who worked so hard to achieve their dreams deserve a fair shot. Tomorrow morning we will have a chance to make achieving the American dream a little easier for Matt, Matthew, and all our struggling college students. So I stand with Matt, Matthew, Patrick, Stefanie, Andrea, and the 40 other million Americans with student loans.

What we are saying is very simple: We want to give students who are trapped in those high interest rates a chance to refinance. We pay for it by saying that those billionaires who aren't paying at least as much as their secretaries pay at least as much as that. It is called the Buffett rule. I can't imagine a better way to pay for this than that.

I urge my colleagues--Democrats and Republicans--to stand with my constituents and their own constituents by voting to let us move forward to consider the bank on students act.

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

I thank the Presiding Officer, and I also want to thank my friend Senator Whitehouse, such a great leader on this issue.

I am really glad that Senator Inhofe, my good friend, came down to the floor. He deserves a thank you because he has laid out why he denies the obvious, and that is that this planet is warming and it is due to human activity. Frankly, it is his right to turn his back on 97 percent of the scientists just like the deniers did when we learned that it was, in fact, smoking that was causing an epidemic of lung cancer. I respect Senator Inhofe. I am glad he came. But I have to say, I am sad that we haven't seen any Republicans come here except for Senator Inhofe who has written a whole book on this--and we know his views--but we don't see anybody else.

Let me tell you what we know from our other colleagues. Let's just take the Speaker--the Republican Speaker of the House, who said when asked about climate change--he kind of has a different view than Senator Inhofe, as does Senator Rubio. This is what they said when asked what they think about climate change. Their answer is: Well, I am not a scientist. What do I know?

Well, right. They are not. Why don't you listen, then, to 97 percent of the scientists, if you admit that you are not a scientist?

What are Speaker Boehner or Senator Rubio or the others who are these deniers saying? They are now saying they are not a scientist. Let's say they went to the doctor and the doctor said: Look, you have a serious liver condition, and I have a new drug that has been created to cure your disease. I don't think we should wait, and let's go.

And you didn't say: Well, I want a second opinion; I want to go to another doctor. You said: You know what. I am not a doctor. I don't think so.

Does that make sense?

What if you went to a dentist and the dentist said: Senator, you have an abscess. It is pretty straightforward. I can fix it. If you let it go, you are going to get an infection. I don't know what can happen.

Now, if I said to the dentist that I am going to check with a couple other people, then that is fine. But no, if I said: Oh, I am not a dentist, but I don't think so. As my friend told me before, you take your car in for repair, and they say: You know, there is something wrong with the brakes here, and we have to tighten those brakes. Can you leave the car here?

Well, I am not a repairman.

Ninety-seven percent of the scientists--they are all peer reviewed and are telling us what is happening to our planet.

Here is the thing about these deniers. If they want to jump off the climate change cliff and just go by themselves, that is their choice, but they are going to take everybody with them; OK? My grandkids, your grandkids, and their kids--and we are not going to let it happen. Senator Whitehouse isn't going to let it happen. I am not going to let it happen. The President isn't going to let it happen.

Climate change is all around us. We must take action to reduce harmful carbon pollution, which 97 percent of scientists agree is leading to dangerous climate change that threatens our families. We cannot be bullied by those who have their heads in the sand, and whose obstruction is leading us off the climate change cliff.

One week ago the President released his new proposal to control dangerous carbon pollution from existing power plants, and it is a win- win-win for the American people. Power plants are the largest source of the Nation's harmful carbon pollution accounting for nearly 40 percent of all carbon released into the air. Unlike other pollutants, right now there are no limits to the amount of carbon pollution that can be released into the air for power plants. The President's carbon pollution reduction plan will protect public health and save thousands of lives. It will avoid up to 6,600 premature deaths, 150,000 asthma attacks, 3,300 heart attacks, 2,800 hospital admissions, and 490,000 missed days at school and work.

The President's plan to reduce harmful carbon pollution will also create thousands of jobs. By reducing carbon pollution we can avert the most calamitous impacts of climate change--such as rising sea levels, dangerous heat waves, and economic disruption.

As the recent Congressionally-required National Climate Assessment report tells us, we could see a 10 degree Fahrenheit rise in temperature if we do not act to limit dangerous carbon pollution now.

The President's proposal is respectful of the States' roles and allows major flexibility, while ensuring that big polluters reduce their significant contributions to climate change. The plan will allow the States to work with the EPA to analyze costs, and ensure carbon pollution standards continue to promote innovation and continue America's leadership in pollution control technology.

By cutting carbon emissions from power plants by 30 percent nationwide from 2005 levels, the President's plan will also help American families and businesses. The President's plan is projected to shrink electricity bills roughly 8 percent by increasing energy efficiency and reducing demand in the electricity system.

The American public wants action. According to a Washington Post-ABC poll released today, a bipartisan majority of the American people want Federal limits on carbon pollution. Approximately 70 percent say the Federal Government should require limits to carbon pollution from existing power plans, and 70 percent--57 percent of Republicans, 76 percent of Independents, and 79 percent of Democrats--support requiring States to limit the amount of carbon pollution within their borders.

The President's proposed carbon pollution standards for existing power plants is supported by the Clean Air Act. Congress gave the President the ability to control air pollution in the Clean Air Act. In 1990, revisions to the

Act overwhelming passed by a vote of 89-11 in the Senate and 401-21 in the House. In 2007, the Supreme Court confirmed in Massachusetts v. EPA that as passed by Congress, the Clean Air Act in no uncertain terms gave the Environmental Protection Agency authority to control carbon pollution. Four years later, the Supreme Court in American Electric Power v. Connecticut, specifically found that the Clean Air Act has provisions in place to limit carbon pollution from power plants--the very provisions the President is using in his proposed power plant carbon standards.

We have long known that air pollution contributes to climate change. During the debate on the 1970 Clean Air Act Amendments, Senator Boggs introduced into the record a White House Report stating that: ``Air pollution alters climate and may produce global changes in temperature. . . . [T]he addition of particulates and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could have dramatic and long-term effects on world climate.'' And the Clean Air Act has a proven track record.

The U.S. has shown we can continue to protect the environment and grow the economy. Over the last 40 years since the passage of the Clean Air Act, air pollution has dropped 68 percent and America's GDP has grown 212 percent. Total private sector jobs increased by 88 percent. Between 1980 and 2012, gross domestic product increased 133 percent, vehicle miles traveled increased 92 percent, energy consumption increased 27 percent, and U.S. population grew by 38 percent. During the same time period, total emissions of the six principal air pollutants dropped by 67 percent.

It is in America's DNA to turn a problem into an opportunity, and that is what we have done by being a pioneer in the green technology industry. These new carbon pollution standards are no different. Landmark environmental laws have bolstered an environmental technology and services sector that employs an estimated 3.4 million people, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And many of these jobs, like installing solar roofs and wind turbines cannot be outsourced.

We must take action to protect families and communities from the mounting impacts of climate change. Just look at China, which has hazardous levels of air pollution and toxic emissions. According to a scientific study from the Health Effect Institute on leading causes of death worldwide, outdoor air pollution contributed to 1.2 million premature deaths in China in 2010, which is nearly 40 percent of the global total. Officials in China have recently suggested that they plan to take steps to address their carbon pollution, but the U.S. cannot wait for China to act. The President's new power plant standards are a major step forward. They show that America will finally lead on a path to averting the most dangerous impacts of climate change.

On Friday the White House released a report on the harmful health impacts of climate change, especially on our most vulnerable populations like children, the elderly and low-income Americans. The report cited impacts like increased ground level ozone which could worsen respiratory illnesses like asthma, increased air pollutants from wildfires, and more heat-related and flood-related deaths. The first line in this new report sums up why we must take action to reduce carbon pollution:

We have a moral obligation to leave our children a planet

that's not irrevocably polluted or damaged.

The American people want us to protect their children and families from dangerous climate change. We must safeguard our children, our grandchildren, and generations to come.

The people of my home State of California and the American people deserve these new protections, and the President should be lauded for moving forward and tackling one of our Nation's greatest challenges.

I am going to spend the rest of my time summing it up by refuting some of the things Senator Inhofe said.

I have to say the President deserves a lot of credit for his plan. What is really interesting is it is supported by 70 percent of the American people, who ``think the Federal Government should limit the release of greenhouse gasses from existing power plants in an effort to reduce global warming.''

That includes amazingly 57 percent of Republicans, 79 percent of Democrats, and 76 percent of Independents who support the President's plan. They are not stupid. They are smart.

Look what happens when you throw the environment under the bus. People walk around in air that you can see. You don't want to see the air. You don't want to wear a mask when you go outside. The American people get it.

Then my colleague says: They are going to scare you. They are going to scare you. There is no problem with carbon in the air. There is no problem at all.

Well, let me tell you who disagrees with Senator Inhofe, who disagrees with the Republicans: the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Thoracic Society, the American Public Health Association, the American Lung Association, the National Nurses Union. They all have statements that say climate change is a threat to public health.

Who are the people going to listen to? Us politicians or people who spend every day of their life waking up in the morning and thinking of ways to protect our health? Yes, if the deniers want to jump off the cliff and they only hurt themselves, I suppose that is their option. But they are taking my kids, and they are taking all the kids of our American families, and we are not going to let that happen.

I will close with this. The Senator from Oklahoma started to say: This is going to kill you. It is going to raise your prices of electricity. Jobs are going to be lost. He cited a U.S. Chamber of Commerce study that has been so rebuffed that the Washington Post gave it their most Pinocchios--in other words, four Pinocchios for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because they were responding to something that never came about.

This plan of the President's makes a whole lot of sense. He has courage to do it. We are going to stand behind it. And, yes, the Republicans are going to try to repeal it. Let me give them the bad news from their perspective. They have sent over dozens and dozens of environmental riders. I want to say over 90--over 90--and we have beaten back every single one of them. For colleagues to stand there and say Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and I are doing this because it is an election year is a joke. We have been doing this for years.

I daresay Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has made more speeches on the floor than anyone on this subject. When I had the gavel for the first time in 2007, I had to fight to keep it in my hand because, guess what. We had Al Gore before the committee. Remember? Senator Inhofe was so stressed he tried to grab the gavel. We have kind of a funny picture in our office in which I said: ``Elections have consequences.'' And they do. But to say that we are doing this because there is some donor is the most absurd thing I have ever heard.

I will put in the record a statement by Lyndon Johnson. This shows how far back Democrats have warned about this. This is amazing. My staff discovered this. He said this in 1965.

In his ``Special Message to the Congress on Conservation and Restoration of Natural Beauty'' President Lyndon B. Johnson stated that, ``The Clean Air Act should be improved to permit [EPA] to investigate potential air pollution problems before pollution happens, rather than having to wait until the damage occurs, as is now the case, and to make recommendations leading to the prevention of such pollution.''

``Air pollution is no longer confined to isolated places. This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through radioactive materials and a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.''

So don't come on this floor and say suddenly the Democrats care about this because it is an election year. It is ridiculous. We have known about this for years. We have been trying to get the attention of our colleagues.

I thank Senator Whitehouse. He and I signed a letter with several others inviting our colleagues to the floor. All we got was Senator Inhofe--not that we don't love him, and we appreciate he came over here, but we have to now assume he speaks for everybody on that side, which is scary, because they have turned their backs on the doctors.

They have turned their backs on the scientists, and they have turned their backs on the American people.

Thank you, Senator Whitehouse, and I would yield back to the Senator.