Floor Statements

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Inouye be able to make a UC and then I be granted the floor to speak in favor of the Murray amendment and for the waiver she will need.

I have not asked for a specific time. I would take 15 minutes.

Mr. President, I rise as the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee in favor of the Murray-Feinstein amendment, and I hope we will vote to waive this budget point of order. I want to tell you why.

Senator Inhofe is correct that I will be working with him very proudly on a couple of amendments which will all be offset. But in general, we are in such a crisis in this country that we need to look at three things in this package: jobs, jobs, jobs. This package falls short. Once we get to the conference, I think some things will fall away. I do. But we need to boost the spending, it seems to me, on the most efficient programs that create jobs, and not just any type of job but good jobs--jobs in the construction industry where we have seen devastation hit our families.

In my State of California, we have a 9.2-percent unemployment rate. Let me reiterate. In my State of California, we have a 9.2-percent unemployment rate. Were it not for our environmental laws which are putting people to work, putting solar rooftops on and the rest, I hate to think of where we would be because housing construction has literally stopped in its tracks.

The importance of the Murray-Feinstein amendment is this: jobs, jobs, jobs. That is what the people want us to invest in. We know very well that when we invest money in the type of infrastructure we are talking about--highways, water systems, sewer systems--the jobs come along with it.

We also know a lot of our physical infrastructure is failing. We can never get out of our minds the tragic collapse of the bridge in Minnesota. And when we look at the condition of our bridges across this great Nation of ours, we find there are way too many--maybe a quarter of them--in need of repair. So when we talk about this amendment, we are talking about adding funding

for roads, for bridges, for transit, for rail, for ports, for drinking and wastewater infrastructure, which are the most efficient job creators.

I think it is fair to ask, are our States and localities ready to spend these dollars or will they go there only to sit? The answer is, our States are more than ready. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, the backlog of needed improvements to simply maintain the current bridge and highway network is $495 billion. That is the backlog. This amendment is $25 billion, and as I understand it, that is being added to $27 billion. So we are at least adding more funding that is real.

To me, it is not enough. That is why Senator Inhofe and I are going to have an amendment that says if the rest of the funds in this bill are not committed by a time certain, we are going to put up to $50 billion more into these accounts. I hope that passes, but this is a very important amendment. I hope we will pass it on a bipartisan vote, but the first step is to allow the budget act to be waived.

The Department of Transportation also told us something else. They said that for every $1 billion invested in highways and bridges at the Federal level--and if that funding is matched--we could create and maintain 34,800 jobs. That is 34,800 jobs for $1 billion invested at the Federal level. I want to sort of shake my friends, in a nice way, and remind them that a million jobs were lost in this great Nation in the last couple of months--a half million in December and a half million in January. By the way, a half million also in November. I want you to think about your States and how many families that is. The number of jobs that have been lost is bigger than some States--bigger than some States. Close your eyes and imagine the whole State of Delaware with every person unemployed. That is what has happened so far, and worse.

We need to get ahead of ourselves here. What worries me about the Senate is that we are kind of chasing after this tiger called recession. It took the Bush administration forever to call it a recession. Then they finally called it a recession and said, well, hopefully, we will get over it quickly. But we keep chasing it, trying to grab it by the tail. We have to get in front of this recession or it will become a depression. You get in front of it by doing the things you know will create jobs.

Now, is every single item in this bill something I support? No. But I support the infrastructure part, I support the help to the energy sector so we can get off foreign oil, I support building a smart grid, I support making sure people who are long-term unemployed get the chance to feed their families, and I support doing more about housing. But I surely know this, as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, a dollar invested in the physical infrastructure, in rebuilding it, is a dollar that will create jobs--thousands and thousands and thousands of jobs. This amendment is a good amendment. It doesn't overreach. It underreaches. But it is a start.

The next question might be: Well, Senator, I agree with you that this investment will create jobs, but have the States identified projects that will qualify? The State departments of transportation, according to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, have identified over 5,000 projects of over $64 billion in value which could create nearly 1.8 million jobs. We could restore the jobs that have been lost in the last 2 months with this amendment. Our committee, the Committee on Environment and Public Works--and I have my good staff here--has surveyed many of these States and we have determined these projects are shovel ready.

So let me say it again: $64 billion of shovel-ready projects, ready to go--1.8 million jobs. And the underlying bill falls short. The underlying bill falls short. If we pass the Murray-Feinstein-Boxer, et cetera, amendment, we will in fact move toward equaling that shovel- ready number we have.

The American Public Transportation Association tells us that States have identified 787 ready-to-go public transit projects totaling $15.9 billion that would sustain thousands of jobs. The U.S. Conference of Mayors tells us there is a total of 15,000 ready-to-go infrastructure projects in 641 cities. So you have the States telling us they are ready, you have the transit districts saying they are ready, and you have the U.S. Conference of Mayors saying they are ready. And when I look at the underlying bill, I believe it didn't fund these projects to the tune they should have.

This amendment also increases investments in drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. We are so far behind on those programs. If our kids can't drink the water, that is trouble. We need to make sure the drinking water is safe. If we have a sewer spill, that is a disaster. We need to get out ahead of that. A recent EPA study--and, Mr. President, you will be interested in this--found that failure to increase investment in water and wastewater infrastructure could result in a $500 billion water infrastructure gap in the next 20 years. That EPA study was done under George Bush. Okay, George Bush's EPA told us we could have an infrastructure gap of $500 billion in the next 20 years. So let's invest in water infrastructure. It will replace aging water pipes, expand treatment facilities, reduce pollution flowing into our Nation's rivers and streams and allow for implementation of projects to improve water efficiency.

The Murray-Feinstein amendment, my friends, is critical. We don't do enough in the underlying bill. And for those who worry about an offset, we will find those in conference. We are going to keep this bill where President Obama wants it. We know that. But let's walk down the bipartisan lane on this one. We all know our States and our localities are crying out. We all know our people are hurting because they are not working. With this amendment, we create jobs in areas that we have to pay attention to anyway. Are we going to wait for our sewers to overflow into the streets? Are we going to wait for more bridges to collapse? I say that is ridiculous. You can't be a great economy when bridges are collapsing all around you, and our bridges are in trouble.

So to say you won't vote for this amendment because it is $25 billion in an $800-plus billion, almost $900-plus billion bill, is shortsighted. I commit to working with my friends on the other side to find the offsets in this bill. It is not going to be that hard. I agree with Senator Inhofe, they are not in this bill, but we can work to get some offsets in the conference.

Local people are saying to us, please, Senators, do something to help us get out there, spend the money on these shovel-ready projects--the highways, the bridges, the transit systems, the sewer systems, the safe drinking water issues. Help us do it. We can make this a far better bill. Private industry wants this, and these are private sector jobs. These are contracts that will be let for local contractors, small business, big business, union members, and nonunion members. This is what we should be doing in this bill.

I signed a letter with Chairman Baucus on this very topic and, guess what, Senator Inhofe signed it, Senator Bond signed it, and we said we need to do more building of the infrastructure of our great country. The unemployment rate for construction workers is double the national unemployment rate. Listen to this: The unemployment rate for construction workers is 15.3 percent--15.3 percent in December-- compared to a 7.1-percent national unemployment. There are plenty of workers available. They are ready and they are excited to get to work. They have to support their families. They are suffering, they are worried, and they do not want to be on the Federal dole. They do not want to get food stamps. They do not want it. They want to work. They want to work.

This is an important test of whether the Senate has a heart, frankly, and a brain, because I think this is where your brain and your heart come together with a yes vote. Because with our heart we know people are suffering. With our heart we know construction workers are suffering. With our brain we know that when they go to work and they pay taxes, we all benefit. With our brain we know when we rebuild the physical infrastructure our country is stronger and we set the predicate for a very strong economic recovery into the future.

So I feel very strongly, as I am sure you can tell from the sound of my voice. I just hope we don't have a partisan vote. I think this is one where we

should come together. We will find new offsets. President Obama is going to have a cap. He is going to say we don't want to spend more than X. We will make this work, but let's have a good vote on this motion to waive the budget act. I think our country will be better for it, and the people out there who are watching this debate will feel good that we know our construction workers are suffering and our construction companies are suffering, and this would go a long way to boost their confidence.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield for a question on this point?

Thank you. I will stay on the floor.

Would the Senator yield for a question?

I am astounded by this new-found fiscal responsibility I hear from the other side of the aisle. I wish to ask my friend a question: Do you know what the debt was when Bill Clinton left office and George Bush took over and there was a Republican Congress? Do you know what it was at that time?

The debt was $5.7 trillion when George Bush and the Republicans took over. I will say to my friend, not to ask him a question, the debt today is $10.1 trillion; a doubling of the debt was brought to you courtesy of the Republicans.

Does my friend know--I am sure he does--that when Bill Clinton left office, we had a surplus in our budget. We not only did not have a deficit, we had a surplus. My friend knows what George Bush left us with--hundreds of billions of dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars of debt.

So for him to stand up now that the people are suffering and struggling and they need jobs and become the Herbert Hoover of current day times, I think it is hurtful to the American people. I say to my friend: Why is it that my friend now is suddenly talking about debt and did not discuss it when the Republicans were in charge?

Mr. President, may I have 60 seconds?

And I ask unanimous consent to extend that for 1\1/2\ minutes.

I want to take 60 seconds to respond to Senator Thune. He says he doesn't want to point fingers. He is pointing fingers all over the place. He says we are here today talking about a trillion dollars. Let me tell

my colleagues what we are talking about: the deepest recession since the Great Depression, jobs being lost at 500,000 and 600,000 a month. All of a sudden some of our Republican friends have said: Whoops. Now that we can't give tax breaks to the people who are earning over a million and now that the Iraq war is winding down, we are not that interested in spending money.

Democrats, when we were in control, had our priorities straight. We said: Put families first. We balanced the budget, and we will do it again. But we must restore this economy. When I use the phrase ``Herbert Hoover,'' which has become kind of a symbol for doing nothing in the face of the middle class crumbling, I know what I am saying. I hope we will vote for the Murray amendment. It will create thousands of jobs.

I yield the floor.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I am not going to speak about the amendment I plan to offer in the next hour or so. But I really have to respond to my friend, Senator Ensign. Ironically, he and I are offering an amendment together.

I have heard now several of my Republican friends come to the floor with the same comments over and over and over again: Don't rush this bill. Well, if you came from my State--and I was a little shocked to hear Senator Ensign because his State is going through a terrible time--where we have a 9.2-percent unemployment rate and jobs being lost every minute, maybe you should look inside yourself and roll up your sleeves and get to work with us.

I find it extraordinary that after 8 long years of Republican rule around here, where we saw the debt go from $5 trillion to $10 trillion, and not a word from the other side about fiscal responsibility, with tax cut after tax cut to the wealthiest few, an unlimited checkbook for Iraq--no problem then. We did not hear speeches about the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren. Oh, no. All of a sudden, when the middle class is hurting, when the working poor are hurting, when people are losing their homes--not the richest of the rich; they are fine; they do not have mortgages--average families, suddenly my friends on the other side come out with their charts: Oh, my goodness, a trillion dollars of spending.

Well, we had a Presidential election about this issue, and I think it is safe to say the reason the results were as they were is because of this economy. I do not think there is any pundit or even anyone in the Senate who would argue otherwise. Remember the turning point, when the Republicans said: The fundamentals of our economy are strong? Well, maybe they still feel that way. Why don't they come out and say that? They do not want to say that because it is so obviously ridiculous when we are losing 500,000 jobs a month. We have lost more jobs in the last 2 months than there are people who live in the State of Delaware. This is where we are. So instead of working together, our friends on the other side come out, one after the other, with the same talking points: The Democrats are irresponsible. Well, I ask: Who is irresponsible? People who want to work to ease the pain of what is happening in our country or people who brought us to this point, giving tax cuts to the millionaires and the billionaires, and a war we never should have fought, and now they find their fiscal soul.

I am so disappointed. We have a President who has reached out to the other side, and all we get are speeches from talking points about why we shouldn't act now. I will tell my colleagues, if this gets away from us, if we can't get the votes we need--we just need a couple of our friends on the other side of the aisle--then this is going to be the party of Herbert Hoover over there all over again, and people will come out in the streets, as they did during the Great Depression and said things about Herbert Hoover that I can't repeat on this floor. People are hurting. They are two paychecks away from losing their homes. In some communities in my State, one in four homes is underwater and is being foreclosed.

Now, is this bill perfect? Absolutely not. There are things in this bill I

would vote to take out; there are a handful of things, a small percentage I would vote to take out. So if you want to work with us on that, fine. But to come down to this floor and suggest that we are rushing through an emergency bill and that is wrong--it seems to me to be coming from a list of talking points that don't mesh with reality. So I hope we can change the tone of this debate.

The American people spoke out in November, and my friends on the other side are becoming the party of no: No, we can't do anything. No. And what do they come up with? Tax cuts for the wealthy again. That is what got us in this fiscal mess in the first place. We want to give tax cuts, as we do in this bill, to the middle class, to the working poor.

At this point, I would just say to my friends, look into your heart, look into your soul, and look at reality.

I wish to say to my friend Senator Mikulski that I am proud to support her amendment.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk, amendment No. 112, and I ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be considered as read.

Mr. President, I am pleased to offer this amendment on behalf of myself and Senator Ensign. We

have a number of cosponsors, so this is truly a bipartisan amendment, and I think it is worthy of everyone's consideration.

It is pretty simple what this amendment would accomplish. It provides an incentive for companies to bring back foreign earnings into the United States, and those foreign earnings must be invested in our U.S. economic recovery.

Right now there is about $800 billion sitting offshore because companies do not want to bring it in because it would be taxed at a 35- percent rate. This means, first and foremost, if you think about it, that our banks do not have any of these funds at a time when they are desperate for capital. This means that at a time that we want to inject dollars into this economy, those dollars are sitting offshore.

Now, we tried this once before. You are going to hear Senator Levin and others attack us for that last attempt. So to preempt that attack-- I will have more to say about it later--I wish to show you what actually occurred last time that we did this.

We saw in 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, before we passed our repatriation, all of these dollars, almost more than $350 billion, sitting offshore, not doing the American economy any good. When we passed this, those funds came back.

Now, what you are going to hear from some of my colleagues is that some of the companies did not live up to the spirit of the amendment. The spirit of the amendment was to bring the money home and invest it here at home in job-producing activity.

It is true. That is why, in this amendment we are offering, we have tightened the strings of what the companies can do, and we have required an audit of each and every company that takes this particular tax break. We have said that you only can use these funds to create or retain jobs, to make capital improvements in your business, to buy other businesses that will otherwise fail, to invest in clean technology.

We do not allow these companies to use any of these funds for golden parachutes or high CEO pay. We do not allow these funds to be used for dividends. We do not allow these funds to be used to buy stocks. Now, I can tell you a lot of the companies would like to see fewer strings. But Senator Ensign and I have agreed, in order to pass this, we are going to put some tough strings on it. That is what we have done.

Now, I do not have to go through the litany of job losses we have seen in our great Nation. Last month, there were 500,000 jobs lost. Laura Tyson, former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton, says:

In the current crisis, even credit-worthy and profitable

companies face liquidity and credit constraints.

And she said, in essence, that the repatriation policies provide a short-run stimulus.

People, if you vote against this, know you are voting against a stimulus because those funds will be available to support the domestic operations of U.S. companies. If you do not want to listen to Laura Tyson, listen to Robert Shapiro, chairman of Sonecon, former Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs under Bill Clinton. See what he says:

$421 billion in foreign-sourced income currently held

abroad could be repatriated. We project that nearly $97

billion of the $421 billion would go to retaining or creating

employment.

And he goes on to say:

Additional funds used for employment could save or create

an estimated 2.6 million jobs, including 2.1 million jobs in

manufacturing.

That is a Democratic economist. Now, last time, everyone said: Oh, nothing is going to come back in. No taxes will be paid to the Government. That was wrong. As a result of this repatriation in 2004, $18 billion in revenue was received by the U.S. Treasury, six times what some experts predicted.

Now, 62 percent of the funds were spent on worker hiring and training, R&D, and capital investments. You are going to hear horror stories, and I say to my cosponsor from Nevada, you are going to hear a litany of horror stories.

Well, I am going to tell some of the good stories. Oracle, a California high-tech company, used the funds repatriated in 2004 to outbid foreign competitors to acquire two U.S. companies--one in California, the other in Minnesota, and to keep the companies and their intellectual property in the United States. Oracle has increased jobs at both firms.

Intel, another California company, used repatriated funds to help build new fabrication plants. Now, some of the things you are going to hear I do not like to hear. I do not like that some companies did not act in the spirit of the amendment. But the amendment was not tightly drawn.

Let me say, loudly and clearly, if any company or any individual in the United States of America does not live up to the law, they should be gone after by the IRS and have to pay their back taxes. That is what is going to happen to companies that disobey this law. That is clear in our amendment.

I tell you what we do, we guarantee that there will be an audit of these companies. Now, I would say to any of my colleagues who oppose it, show another case where we pass a tax break and we require every company that takes advantage of it to get audited. As a matter of fact, I think it is a fantastic precedent to set around here, so maybe Chairman Levin does not have to hold hearings if the IRS did its job and go after the bad apples.

We address the issue of fungibility. We require that foreign funds must be spent in addition to the current spending level, not to displace money. We require that. We assure transparency and accountability.

I am proud that Senators Ensign, Bayh, Specter and Inhofe and I have come together across party lines. I am proud. This is a good amendment. I would ask my friends, where we have an opportunity such as this in the current environment, to inject $300, $400, $500, $600, up to $800 billion into this economy.

Now, people are going to say it costs money. Joint Tax says it is a few billion dollars over the first couple of years. Let me say, only in the Government would there be a cost of something that actually increases revenue. Those revenues were not coming in. We have proven it. These revenues sat out there all these years until we passed the bill. Then they came home and they paid their taxes.

I believe it brought in 16 billion--between 16 and 18 billion came into the Federal Government. So this amendment means job creation, it means funding for the banks that need capital injection. I am tired of voting for public money to fund banks. I did it. It was tough. Taxpayer money. I wish to see some of this money that is sitting out there get injected into the banks.

You are going to hear horror stories, you are going to hear populist arguments. I would put my populism to the test. I do not stand here every day and endorse tax breaks. I am very cautious. But common sense says, you have hundreds of billions of dollars sitting offshore, we are not being paid taxes on the money.

They will pay taxes on the money when it comes in. We have heavy strings attached. We require an audit. We have transparency attached. We have support from the National Taxpayers Union, from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, we have support from industry. They very much would like to bring this back but do not want to bring it back in a circumstance where they are so heavily taxed.

So we have a choice: We can walk away from this amendment and we can let $800 billion sit offshore or we can learn from our experience the last time, where we did take in $18 billion into the Treasury.

But no question, we could have had some tighter strings. Senator Ensign, I have to thank him, because I am sure he had some other ideas for some of the uses, and I prevailed upon him. I said: Let's allow for a few uses.

I see that the Senator from New Hampshire is here. I wanted to close right now in this argument by telling you the uses that would be allowed because I think those are very important.

Here is the chart, folks. I ask Senator Shaheen to take a look at this: These are the sole permitted uses of repatriated funds. I hope my colleagues who stand and bash this tell me why these are not good.

Why is it not good to hire workers and train them? Why is it not good to do more research and development? Why is it not good to do capital improvements which will put people to

work? Why is it not good to acquire distressed businesses to avoid layoffs, shutdowns or bankruptcy? Why is not good to allow these funds to be used for clean energy initiatives?

Now, I ask that rhetorically. Maybe the answer comes back, we do not trust these companies. Well, let me tell you, we have added an audit. Every company that does this has to be audited by the IRS. It is automatic. So I am very pleased to present this admendment tonight. I am looking forward to hearing from Senator Ensign. I know we have a debate for which we will stick around, but at this point I will yield the floor.

Will my colleague yield?

I have been advised by my staff that Joint Tax today told us that in the first 2 years we will get revenues of $5 billion. Then they go off and speculate as to what is going to happen in 2017. So we can tell our friends here, in the first 2 years, Joint Tax tells us we are going to gain $5 billion. Obviously, they are off on that. We got $16 billion the last time. But even they are saying in the early years we gain revenue. I wanted to make sure my friend knew that.

Before the distinguished chairman of the committee might leave the floor, he said some things that are not true, so I wish to point out to him that I am holding in my hand a report done by Robert J. Shapiro and Aparna Mathur. Robert Shapiro was a former Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs under Bill Clinton. He says that almost 2 million jobs were created the last time we brought the money home.

Let's take a look at that chart again, because I think it is worth looking at. He shows where they were created. Job creation or retention: 1.6 million manufacturing. They either retained it or created it. He goes through how many of them were food industry, paper, chemical.

I can tell you about Oracle, which was stated by my distinguished cosponsor, that Oracle went in and bought companies that were going downhill and were going to be bought up by a foreign company and saved those jobs. I can tell you, because we have the list of things that were done. We will take a look at Cisco.

And then my friend, the chairman of the committee, talks about these companies as if they are some terrible people. Cisco Systems, we should be proud of Cisco Systems. Intel, we should be proud of these companies. Cisco brought back $1.2 billion in 2004. They were right here. And it was used to create 1,200 R&D engineering jobs in the United States. Cisco says they have added 8,500 jobs in the United States, excluding employees added through acquisitions.

So my friends who are opposing this are going to stand up and throw out the horror stories and numbers. We have the studies. It doesn't take a degree--although I have one--in economics to understand that if money is sitting offshore and it isn't coming in in 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and then in 2005, it jumps up and comes in, gives $18 billion to the Treasury, and according to Robert Shapiro and Laura Tyson, we see millions of jobs saved, then you can stand up and demagog this thing to death. I could do it. They are going to demagog this to death. But I have the facts.

I also want to say that there were abuses the last time. The spirit of the law was not followed. The law was weak. That is why this is a very strong amendment. We tie down what they can spend. They have to have maintenance of effort. And any company that does this must be audited. It is in there. You show me another amendment that gives a tax break that does that kind of due diligence.

My friend can stand up there and say it didn't work the last time and it won't work this time. We have evidence to the contrary. We know what happened. Even Joint Tax says in the first 2 years we are going to make $5 billion. The whole notion that these companies are going to bring the money in out of the goodness of their hearts, I wish they would. Believe me, I wish they would. So you will hear more of this attack, and I hope you will put it into perspective, because the facts are otherwise.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I love this debate and I love my colleague from North Dakota. I am going to start off by saying I have a 9.2- percent unemployment rate in my State. People are struggling and suffering. That is why I support this amendment, which I was proud to work on with Senator Ensign, Senator Bayh, and Senator Specter.

First, my friend has it wrong. He has it absolutely wrong. We are bringing money home to America. We are not sending money out. It is already gone. Look what happened the last time we did this. The money came home. Now, you can argue theoretically in any way you want, but we have the proof. Here it is. We passed a law in 2004 and this money came home. I say to my friend from Michigan, eloquent on the point of defending the Joint Tax Committee--and I ask my friend from Nevada to back me up on this point. I say to my friend from Michigan, if I can get his attention, that we can worship at the altar of the Joint Tax Committee. I don't. I don't because they were wrong. They were wrong. It is not a theoretical argument. They were wrong.

Yes.

I was aware. The Senator is absolutely right. They said it would cost $3 billion from the Treasury and, in essence, $16 billion was added to the Treasury, and even now they are saying over the first 2 years there will be $5 billion added to the Treasury. My friends don't talk about that; they talk about the long range.

I also say to my friends who oppose us so vociferously, on the other side of this, you will find very respected economists who believe that the Boxer-Ensign-Bayh-Specter amendment

makes sense. They are Alan Sinai--I don't know how my friend says he backtracked. He said this in December. Maybe he backtracked in the last 2 weeks. In December, he said that repatriation has spurred $280 billion in capital investments over a 5-year period, increased R&D development by $7 billion a year for 5 years, increased Federal revenue by $82 billion, and will create or save up to 425,000 jobs by 2012.

Yes.

Joint Tax ought to backtrack. They were flat wrong. They said maybe $200 billion will come back, and $360 billion came back. They said we would lose money. We wound up with $16 billion added to the Treasury. So it is very easy to demagog. It is very easy. But my friend has it wrong.

Then my friend says that effectively the corporate rate is only 17 percent. Well, if that is true, then this is less of a tax break than he is making it out to be. You cannot have it both ways and say, look at this giant tax break and then say the effective rate is 17 percent. I suggest to my friend, as he went through the phone book in his State, thank goodness, because of the work of this Congress, people in the $40,000 to $50,000 range don't pay any taxes.

I will tell you something. I am rarely standing up here and saying a tax cut to the business community is stimulative. But this one is, because it was stimulative. We have it right here from Robert Shapiro, who worked for Bill Clinton. He said that jobs saved or created were 1.6 million from the last tax break. So my friends come here and quote Joint Tax as if we have to say they are right, when they were wrong-- just wrong--wrong on estimating what would come back, wrong on estimating what would come into the Treasury. If you read these economists, whom I have heard colleagues on this side quote constantly--Laura Tyson, Alan Sinai, and Robert Shapiro--they are saying how to stimulate the economy, and this is one way to do it. To stand up here and be against it is fine. I don't mind that one bit. But to stand up here and be against it because you were for the fact that there are corporations that have earnings offshore, I abhor that, too. I want to bring them home. No matter what my colleagues say, guess what. This is a free marketplace, and they don't have to and they won't unless they have an incentive. That is a fact. We may wish it to be another way.

Look at this chart. Year after year after year, very little came back. When we took action, all of this came back. The reports are in from these economists--and most happen to be Democrats--that it worked.

My friend is so right to ask that. Sometimes debates are difficult to follow. They are confusing and complicated. This is not complicated. We know the way the corporations were acting before, and we know what happened when we took this chance. We got arguments from people here that money won't come back and it will not be spent here. By the way, this is a tight bill. My friend from Michigan argues that we don't force the companies to spend the money. We don't force them to spend the money. I don't even think that is constitutional. But I have to tell you this: Even if the money sat in American banks, I say to my friend from Nevada, who is my pal on this one, wouldn't that be in and of itself a reason to do this? We are breaking the backs of taxpayers to take $770 billion, I think it is, through TARP to capitalize our banks. As my friend says, if they don't spend the money right away, they let it sit in these banks that need this capital and, hopefully, they will start lending, which we hope will happen so we can get back to an orderly market. It will make the banks healthier.

My view is that this year there is more of a reason to do it than ever before--the terrible recession. We have a tight bill that will only allow this tax break to be utilized if the money is used to create jobs, where they bring the money home. That is it. Otherwise, they cannot get the break. We have a forced audit in here, and I defy my friends to find another piece of legislation that has such an audit--a forced audit.

I am happy to, yes.

Mr. President, that is right. My understanding is they were way off by more than $100 billion. So for us to say: Oh, my God, don't vote for the Boxer-Ensign amendment because Joint Tax says A, B, and C, I say to my friend, Joint Tax has been so out to lunch on this. They didn't even come close to what happened.

We can have lots of arguments, but I can tell you this: Nobody gains in America when that money sits offshore. They did not gain in 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004. We had Oracle buying companies that were failing. We had Cisco Systems expanding. Yes, we know there were job layoffs. Of course, we know that. If Pfizer has a problem-- let's just say they have a drug on the market that is causing a problem, they are going to lay off people. They are going to have problems.

We do not allow funds to be used for dividends. We do not allow funds to be used for any kind of golden parachutes or CEO pay. We do not allow buybacks of stock. We tighten it up very much.

I hope we can get to the 60 votes. I am very confident we will get a majority. I hope we get to the 60 votes. It sends a good message. The message is we do not like money sitting offshore. We want to bring it home and help the banks. We want to bring it home and help the workers. We want to bring it home and invest it in America. That is why it is called repatriation. You can get up and you can make every argument in the book, but when you do, I think you have to explain to people why economists such as Laura Tyson, Allen Sinai, Robert Shapiro are very clear, why they say that Joint Tax was off, why they say that even the last bill that was not as strong as this actually created and saved jobs, and why they predict that if we do this, it will stimulate the economy.

I know my friends would like to have a time agreement. I have no problem with that whatsoever. If there is to be a time agreement, Senator Ensign and I are very happy to agree to it as long as we have full measure to respond to speakers.

Reserving the right to object, I don't understand what we are doing.

I would agree to that, happily, if we can have 1 minute prior to the vote to restate.

I yield to Senator Ensign for as much time as he may consume.

Mr. President, can you tell me how much time remains on each side?

Mr. President, if you could tell me when I use 5 minutes, please.

Mr. President, people stand and argue against this amendment, and they say things that are not factual. They have every right to say it. I protect and defend their right to say it, but they are not factual.

Now, Senator Kerry said there is no proof that any jobs were created. Well, Allen Sinai, Robert Schapiro, and Laura Tyson have all said jobs were created and jobs will be created. Senator Kerry said, in his forceful argument against this amendment, that companies simply didn't do anything, and now if they do R&D it will simply replace what R&D they were going to do. We don't allow this to happen. It has to be new spending, maintenance of effort must continue.

I want to call to my colleagues' attention to the report that was issued by Robert Schapiro, Under Secretary of Commerce under Bill Clinton, in which he points out that 1.6 million jobs were in fact created or retained, just in manufacturing; 102,000 jobs in wholesale and retail; in transportation he goes on and shows all the different jobs that were created for a total of 2.1 million jobs. Now, does that mean every company added jobs? No, some didn't, but it has nothing to do with this.

So the fact is, when my colleagues stand up and say, why are we doing this when it was such an utter failure, well, take your argument to Laura Tyson, take your argument to Allen Sinai, take your argument to Robert Schapiro and show them where they are wrong.

Then we are told Joint Tax has to be paid attention to. They were dead wrong the last time. I mean, they said maybe we would have $100 billion come in, maybe up to $200 billion. Well, $360 billion came in. They were way off on the revenues. The revenues they said would come in--it was $16 billion that came into Treasury. They said it would cost $3 billion. So they were wrong. So how can we stand here and try to defeat this measure?

Now, my friend from Massachusetts says this isn't the time or the place or the bill and so forth. This is a moment we can respond to this recession. We are going to do it in many other ways, and I will be supporting things and opposing things, but let me just read to you from Robert Schapiro's report--remember, a Bill Clinton Commerce Under Secretary.

As President Obama and Congress expand the catalogue of

measures to help stabilize the financial system and address

the economic decline, a major untapped resource sits on the

balance sheets of the foreign subsidiaries of U.S.

multinational corporations. These subsidiaries hold up to $1

trillion in past earnings because current U.S. law defers

U.S. corporate tax on those profits until they repatriate. If

those earnings were transferred to the parent companies in

the United States, they could find substantial new capital

investment and employment and provide additional liquidity to

the strapped U.S. financial system as companies reduce their

domestic debt. In principal, the earnings currently held

abroad would provide significant economic stimulus and

financial market liquidity if a change in government policy

could induce U.S. multinationals to promptly repatriate them

and use them for designated purposes.

So my friends stand here and make an argument about how horrible it is that these companies have money abroad, and I agree. I am upset about it. I was upset in 1997 about it. I was upset in 1998 about it. I was upset in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003. Finally, in 2004, Senator Ensign and I got together and we said: Let's see if we can get that money home. So for my colleagues who are lamenting the fact that this money is abroad, we say: Join with us; bring it home.

If you are saying the effective rate is 17 percent, if we can bring it in at 5.25 percent, that is less of a loss to the Treasury.

I will take 1 more minute. Then I will retain.

So I love a debate, but I would like to debate on the facts. The facts are that this is what happened until we had the tax holiday. Now there is a new hue and cry: You did it in 2004; never do it again. Well, I think it is a good thing that Oracle bought up two or three companies that were going to go belly up and that were going to be bought out by a foreign competitor. I think that was good. I think it was good that Cisco Systems added so many jobs--more than 1,000 new jobs.

So when my friends stand and they lament the loss of jobs, I lament every job loss in this country. And I say to Cisco Systems: Good for you. You brought the money in and you did the right thing. Did every company do that? No. That is why we have tightened up this bill.

I thank the Chair, and I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, how much time remains?

We will call it 4, and I will take 2 and yield 2 to my friend, and we will close.

First of all, this isn't a shop-worn argument. This is an argument that is going to create jobs, if we win it. Who says it? Laura Tyson:

Repatriation policy provides a short-run stimulus and would

make funds available to support the domestic operations of

U.S. companies quickly.

Robert Schapiro, Under Secretary of Commerce under Bill Clinton:

The earnings currently held abroad would provide

significant economic stimulus and financial market liquidity

if a change in government policy could induce U.S.

multinationals to promptly repatriate them and use them for

certain purposes.

You know, here it is. If you want to get the break, these are the things you have to do. You have to hire workers. You have to use it for research and development, for capital improvements. You have to acquire distressed companies and clean energy investments.

Look, my friends. The world is the way the world is. I think Senator Ensign and I, Senator Bayh, and Senator Specter are realists. Yes, in many ways I would like to think I am an idealist. I don't like the fact that these companies are keeping their money abroad. But guess what. They are not going to bring the money back because Byron Dorgan or Barbara Boxer comes on the floor of the Senate and says: Please be good. Please be good. We need the capital in our banks. We need the capital to create jobs.

We need to make it profitable for them, and that is what we are doing. We did it before.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a chart that was done by Mr. Schapiro proving that 2.1 million jobs the last time were either created or saved.

Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time to my colleague, Senator Ensign.

Mr. President, I move to waive the relevant section and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the 2008 Annual Report of the Select Committee on Ethics.

Mr. President, with great respect for my friend from Utah, I rise to oppose his amendment, not only as a Senator but as a mom and a grandmother. What the Senator is seeking to do essentially is separate the woman from the child she is carrying, separate her from her pregnancy. I think I can speak with authority here. I know my friend is a grandpa and a dad and has a magnificently beautiful family, but I gave birth to two kids. I can assure my friend that when you cover the pregnant woman, you are covering that child from the time that child is a fetus to the time that child is born.

I would just say that it appears to me as if this amendment is a diversionary amendment from this very important bill to expand and improve the health of our children, including the health of our moms who are pregnant, a diversion to a debate about when does life begin-- let's fight about abortion. You know what, we will have many opportunities to have that argument. When we have that argument over Roe v. Wade, I think pro-choice will prevail. But this is not the place to have that argument. This is a place where my friend from Utah and I should walk down this aisle being very happy that under this law that is before us, this bill that is before us, States absolutely can choose to cover a pregnant woman. This is a big step forward, and this is very important.

Again, I think the idea behind this amendment is to divert us from this

very important bill. In my State, it will expand coverage to more than half a million kids and many pregnant women.

The debate over when life begins and all of that is a very philosophical debate. My religion may teach something other than my friend's. I totally respect every view on that subject. I also respect the women of this country and the view they bring through their moral code and their religion and whatever else they bring to the table as human beings. On the day we debate that, I will be out here debating it, but I am not going to get into this debate with my friend today over when life begins. Today is a day where we are going to work on making sure that our children are covered with health insurance and that our pregnant women are covered with health insurance. The good news I bring to the Senate today is that under this bill, pregnant women will be covered by this. This is very important.

Again, to try to separate the woman from the child she is carrying, from the fetus in her womb, is nonsensical. Maybe my friend sees it another way. But when you take care of a pregnant woman, you are taking care of her fetus, you are taking care of her pregnancy, you are working hard to make sure that baby is healthy.

I just became a grandma 3 weeks ago, and my daughter had excellent health care. I want to assure my friends on the other side of the aisle that as she was being treated, so was the child she was carrying, my beautiful grandson.

Let's not take a beautiful bill and start fighting over an issue that has been a philosophical argument forever--what is the point at which life begins? My religion teaches me one thing. My friend's religion may teach him another. Who is right? Who is wrong? All we, as humankind, can do is to give our best effort to figure that out. But in this bill, what we are trying to do is bring health insurance to pregnant women, bring health insurance to our kids. To divert it with this subject is a disservice to the bill that is before us.

I know my friend is passionate on this point. I totally respect him for that. But I hope we will defeat this amendment because it is a diversion. It is a fight about Roe v. Wade. It is a fight about whether a woman has a right to choose, and it does not belong on this bill.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, my friend from Utah says he wants an honest debate, and then he says, and I am quoting him--not word for word--he says, pregnant women are not covered in this bill. That is a dishonest debate.

States have the option to cover pregnant women, just as under the Bush regulation they have the option to cover the unborn child. Okay? So let's straighten it out.

My colleague has mentioned my State several times. My State was so anxious to cover pregnant women that they did cover them under the unborn child regulation which was put into place by George Bush, because he injected the whole abortion debate into the CHIP program.

What we do is we get away from that. In this bill we talk about covering pregnant women. So for anyone to stand up here and suggest that the only way to cover pregnant women is by codifying George Bush's regulation that, by the way, this Chamber voted down twice--let's be clear.

My colleague says that this is a left-right issue. This is not a left-right issue at all. When my colleagues voted on this a couple of times before, it was bipartisan to reject the Allard amendment, which was to codify the very law that my friend is suggesting we do today. I will predict we will defeat this by a much bigger margin, because of the elections that were just held.

I say again, with all respect, anyone who in their heart wants to cover pregnant women, which means covering the child they are carrying, should be very proud of this bill. Because that is what we do. So to stand up here and say we have to codify George Bush's wording on this, which was ``unborn child,'' saying if we do not pass this amendment, pregnant women and their babies are not covered, this is a straw man or a straw person. Pregnant women are covered. The fetus is covered from the minute that woman goes to the doctor until the minute she gives birth, and through all of those times in between. It is the ability of the States to do it. But we refuse in this bill, and I hope we will continue this, to put forward such a divisive issue and an argument that does not belong on this bill.

If my friend was right, if he stood up here and said, right now pregnant women are not covered, I would go over there and say, well, let's work out some wording to make sure they are covered. But we do not have to do that. They are covered.

What my friend wants is to codify what George Bush put into play, a political decision to inject abortion politics into a children's health bill. I think it is a sad day for the children of this country to be drawn into a debate. And, again, mentioning my State several times, when my State had no choice. If they wanted to cover pregnant women, they had to cover them under this. Guess what. Now they will not have to do it, because this bill corrects the problem.

So I have to say, when my friend says it is a left-right debate, it has nothing do with left-right, and he knows it. In my State, some of the strongest pro-choice constituents are Republicans, and some of the strongest pro-life constituents are Democrats. This is not a left-right issue. It is an issue we all address in our own way using our own logic, our religion, our moral values, and we come to a conclusion.

Do not inject it into this bill. I hope we reject this, because this is now the second abortion-related amendment my Republican friends have offered in as many days. If that is what they think this election was about, I think they are missing something. People want our kids to have health care. They want our families to have health care. They want to solve the economic problems.

Today we learned there are even more jobless claims. Millions of people are unemployed. And we are having our second abortion-related vote. I think if this party, this Grand Old Party does that, I see several colleagues who may say, well, it is your right, it is your privilege, I will debate you. I think we will prevail today.

But if every single bill we bring forward turns into an abortion- related debate, I do not know where my colleagues are coming from. Because let me reiterate, every pregnant woman has the right to have this health care option should their State choose it.

We do not need to change the language and codify a very divisive amendment which was a regulation under George Bush. It should be a new day around here. We should not have to have this division. But I have already heard they may offer more abortion-related amendments on this children's bill.

Who knows what is to come? But you know what, I think my leader, Harry Reid, is right. Let them come at us with these amendments. Let the American people see the priorities, when everyone knows every pregnant woman is eligible for coverage. To now indicate they are not unless my friend's amendment passes is simply, if I could say, an out and out falsehood. It is not true. It is not true.

I have the bill. I will read the section, if my friend needs me to.

I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record the last two votes we had on this very same subject where those trying to inject the abortion issue failed.

Again, I want my colleagues to understand, we are debating a children's health care bill. Happily, I can say every pregnant woman in this country is eligible for health care. It is a wonderful thing. We avoid the divisive language of my friend's amendment which is codifying something George Bush put into place. It was not supported in the Senate. It was not supported twice. I respect his right to offer it as many times as he wants and let the American people see what we are debating. My State wanted so much to cover pregnant women, they said: We will go along with this language. But now they will not have to. They don't have to get engaged in an abortion debate, when you are serving children. I view this, frankly, as a needless debate. If the issue is covering pregnant women and their children, we have taken care of it. If this amendment is about injecting abortion and when life begins, it definitely succeeds.

I hope the Senate will speak loudly and clearly, regardless of how one feels about when life begins because that is not a partisan issue. Everybody comes

to their own conclusion. This is an attempt to inject the abortion debate into a children's health care bill. It is diversionary. It is unnecessary. We should be so proud this bill covers every pregnant woman. It is one of those moments we could walk down the aisle together saying isn't it wonderful because pregnant women will get health care. That will lead to healthier children. We all know that.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the reason I want to respond to this, my friend is so eloquent, and he is such a great debater, but I have to bring us back to reality. If you are standing here today because you care about kids and you want to make sure pregnant women get all the health care they need so if there is trouble in the pregnancy, if there is a problem--there are so many miraculous things that can be done, and I have seen some of those in my own family, the things they can do to make sure a child is healthy. If the purpose of my friend, out of his love for his children and all children, which I know he has--if my purpose in supporting this bill is to make sure children are healthy, if that is our purpose, we could be very proud of this bill.

This bill says--and I will reiterate this as long as I have to--every single poor pregnant woman in America today is eligible for health care during her pregnancy, from the first day to the last day. Then, of course, a poor child would continue to get that health care. So anyone else who says that isn't true simply hasn't read the bill.

I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record, so my friend can't say something that is without rebuttal, page 50 of the bill, section 2112, which talks about low-income pregnant women to be covered through a State plan amendment.

Let no one stand and say that unless we support the amendment of the Senator from Utah, a pregnant woman and the child she is carrying will not get coverage. That is false. What my friend wants is to codify George Bush's regulation that he correctly pointed out my State adopted. Why did my State adopt it? They were forced to adopt it if they wanted to cover pregnant women. They had to use that language of the unborn child. This is all about the abortion debate. It has to be. Under this bill I support, every pregnant woman is covered or is eligible for coverage. Under the amendment my friend is offering today, every pregnant woman would be eligible. So it is just about the language. That is the fact.

Let me repeat that. Under the bill, every pregnant poor woman is eligible for coverage. Under the amendment of my friend, every poor pregnant woman is eligible for coverage. What he insists on is that you have to separate the woman from the child she is carrying in order to make a political point about when life begins. This is not the appropriate time to have that debate. Believe me, I look forward to the debate. We have had it on the Senate floor. Tom Harkin had an amendment a couple of times to say that Roe v. Wade ought to be codified. It should not be overturned. We had votes on that. By the way, we did win that vote. But that is not what this is about. This is about making sure every pregnant woman gets coverage. Instead of being happy about it, my friend is agitated about the language and wants to write it in his way so we can then get into a debate about when life begins.

How you would ever separate a pregnant woman from the child she is carrying goes against nature. I have had two kids. I know. It is all about health care to the pregnant woman. When the child is born, it is about health care to the woman and, yes, the baby. My friend can stand here all he wants and say I am the one who is injecting abortion into this debate. I am not the one offering a divisive amendment. I am not the one raising the subject matter of when a fetus is a separate life from the mother. That is for another time. We have work to do. We have people struggling in this country. My friend attacked the stimulus bill.

By the way, that debate is coming as well. But the one area I know we should be able to work together on is making sure our kids are healthy. We should walk down the aisle together being very pleased we have taken care of that in this bill. Believe me, the more people lose their jobs and they can't get another one, the more this program is going to be necessary.

I hope we can have a vote on this in the near future. I guess I would like to ask my friend if he wants to continue this debate. I can stay all day. But I didn't know what his plan was.

I yield the floor at this time and retain my right to respond.

Mr. President, if I might have a moment before Senator Bunning speaks.

Thank you, Mr. President. Because some of the things that are said around here--and, by the way, we will have a whole list of Republicans helping us to defeat this, so I am

not going to name people. But let me say this: To stand up and say we are pitting a woman against her child when we support this bill that makes eligible for coverage every pregnant woman is simply a hurtful and untrue remark, especially to say it to someone who adores her children and her grandkids, and I take great offense. It is the opposite.

This amendment separates a woman from her child because instead of saying you are going to cover a pregnant women, you are saying you are covering the unborn child. And what about the woman? She is not even mentioned. I take offense at that line of attack.

We say when you cover a pregnant woman, you cover her child, you cover that fetus from the moment that woman goes to get health care. What my friend does is separate the woman from her child by saying we are going to give the child health care while the child is in the womb and do not even mention the woman--do not even mention the woman. So who is separating the woman from her child?

Again, it is very clear that this is about the abortion debate. And as many times as my friend says it--and he raises my State again, so let me say again, yes, many States did provide health care under this definition of unborn child. They had no choice because President Bush put a regulation in place, and if my State wanted to help pregnant women, they had no choice but to help them under that particular regulation.

Well, what we are doing today is saying to States: You do not have to get into the abortion debate. If a woman is poor and she is eligible for Medicaid, and she is pregnant, she gets the health care as well as the baby she is carrying.

So do not say that those of us who vote against this amendment are separating women and children. It is the total opposite. For whatever reason, under that old regulation, the child was mentioned and not the woman. That defies science. That defies reality. You treat the woman and the child she is carrying.

So, again, I take offense at this. I do not want to be jumping up every time, but I will if there is something said here that is not true. I have total respect for the other side on the abortion debate-- complete respect for them. And that is what this is about, and they know it. Because if they only cared about the pregnant woman and her child, they are taken care of in this bill.

Mr. President, I thank you very much, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the Hatch amendment would codify the divisive Bush regulation that only covers the unborn child but not the mother. In other words, they separate the two. What we do in the underlying bill is we cover both. We cover the pregnant woman and the child she is carrying. There is no reason to have this amendment. Look at page 50 of the bill. It clearly states that prenatal care will be delivered to that pregnant woman. This is about adding abortion to this debate. It doesn't belong in this debate. It is not necessary. We have already voted this down twice. I trust we will vote it down now.

I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Amendment No. 86

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I am pleased that today the Senate voted to reauthorize and expand the Children's Health Insurance Program, which will extend health care to millions of children across the Nation.

Right now, our Nation faces one of the gravest economic crises in our history, and more and more Americans are having difficulty making ends

meet--especially when it comes to the rising costs of health care. All too often it is children who pay the price.

For almost 12 years, the Children's Health Insurance Program has provided health care for millions of children from working families that do not qualify for Medicaid but cannot afford private insurance. These are the children of working families.

Millions of Americans have found that as the cost of health insurance rises an increasing number of employers are unable or unwilling to provide health insurance to their employees and their families. Approximately 45 million Americans, including nearly nine million children, are living without health insurance, and the number of families who do not have health insurance has continued to rise.

Currently, the Children's Health Insurance Program provides coverage for 6.7 million children nationwide. This reauthorization provides health care coverage for an additional 4.1 million children who are uninsured today.

This bill is largely based on legislation that was twice vetoed by President Bush. This legislation includes several improvements to the Children's Health Insurance Program that would fund outreach and enrollment efforts, allow States to use information from food stamp programs and other initiatives for low-income families to find and enroll eligible children, and give States the option to cover pregnant women for prenatal care vital to healthy newborn children.

I also support a provision in this bill that gives States the option to cover legal immigrant children and pregnant women under Medicaid and CHIP with no waiting period. Under current law, lawfully present pregnant women and children who entered the country after August 22, 1996 are barred from Medicaid and CHIP for the first 5 years they are in the country. These restrictions have severely undermined the health status of immigrant families across the Nation.

My home State of California has a higher cost of living than most others, a lower rate of employer sponsored coverage, and a higher rate of the uninsured. In California, CHIP funds cover approximately 1.4 million children and pregnant women. Currently, there are approximately 1.2 million children in California who do not have health insurance, and about 694,000 of these children are eligible for CHIP coverage.

This legislation not only extends this essential program, but gives States like California the flexibility they need to design a program that best fits the needs of their children.

I would like to thank Senators Baucus and Rockefeller and the other members of the Finance Committee who worked so tirelessly to keep the focus of this bill where it should be--on the children.

There is not a man or woman in this chamber who wouldn't do everything within their power to ensure the health of their own children--we should do no less for the children of our Nation.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Community Choice In Real Estate Act of 2009. I am pleased to have Senator Burr join me in introducing this bill. In previous Congresses, this bill was introduced by former Senators Allard and Clinton, and I am happy to continue their efforts.

The Community Choice in Real Estate Act of 2003 would clarify Congressional intent that real estate brokerage and management are not financial activities and would therefore retain the separation of commerce and banking that was intended during consideration of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act got many things wrong when it repealed the firewall between the activities of banks and those of the stock market, bonds and insurance and allowed these institutions to engage in riskier activities. But one thing that it did get right was maintaining the firewalls separating the financial and commercial sectors.

We already have seen the damage to our economy and real estate market caused when banks began to engage in certain previously prohibited activities. If the firewall separating banking and commerce also were to be torn down, it would further undermine banks' ability to be neutral arbiters of capital and lend based on financial principles and without bias. The S&L crisis of the 1980's has already shown us what can happen when federal rules keeping financial services separate from commercial activities are weakened.

Real estate brokerage and management have always been considered by Congress to be commercial transactions, and not financial matters. This was further reflected when Congress specifically chose not to include real estate activities as one of the powers given to national banks and financial holding companies as part of Gramm-Leach-Bliley.

However, following the passage of that Act, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department proposed rules in response to a petition by some financial services entities that would have allowed them to own and operate local real estate brokerage and property management companies.

Since fiscal year 2003, Congress has included language in the annual appropriations bill for the Treasury Department to prevent the use of funds to implement these regulations. These have only been temporary fixes, however, and we ought to resolve this issue once and for all in the 111th Congress.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Community Choice In Real Estate Act of 2009. I am pleased to have Senator Burr join me in introducing this bill. In previous Congresses, this bill was introduced by former Senators Allard and Clinton, and I am happy to continue their efforts.

The Community Choice in Real Estate Act of 2003 would clarify Congressional intent that real estate brokerage and management are not financial activities and would therefore retain the separation of commerce and banking that was intended during consideration of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act got many things wrong when it repealed the firewall between the activities of banks and those of the stock market, bonds and insurance and allowed these institutions to engage in riskier activities. But one thing that it did get right was maintaining the firewalls separating the financial and commercial sectors.

We already have seen the damage to our economy and real estate market caused when banks began to engage in certain previously prohibited activities. If the firewall separating banking and commerce also were to be torn down, it would further undermine banks' ability to be neutral arbiters of capital and lend based on financial principles and without bias. The S&L crisis of the 1980's has already shown us what can happen when federal rules keeping financial services separate from commercial activities are weakened.

Real estate brokerage and management have always been considered by Congress to be commercial transactions, and not financial matters. This was further reflected when Congress specifically chose not to include real estate activities as one of the powers given to national banks and financial holding companies as part of Gramm-Leach-Bliley.

However, following the passage of that Act, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department proposed rules in response to a petition by some financial services entities that would have allowed them to own and operate local real estate brokerage and property management companies.

Since fiscal year 2003, Congress has included language in the annual appropriations bill for the Treasury Department to prevent the use of funds to implement these regulations. These have only been temporary fixes, however, and we ought to resolve this issue once and for all in the 111th Congress.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. President, is Senator Brownback next?

Mr. President, I say to Senators, if you want to save the lives of women around the world and you want to cut down on abortions, vote against the Martinez-Brownback amendment.

I say to my friend who is asking for bipartisanship, this vote will be bipartisan. We will have more than 60 people in this Senate, I believe, who will vote against this amendment and affirm the action of our new President, President Barack Obama, who very wisely understands that with a stroke of a pen, undoing what the Bush-Cheney administration did will indeed save the lives of women.

I could talk quite a bit about generalities and the thousands of women who are waiting to have reproductive health care who cannot get it because of this Mexico City gag rule which says to nongovernmental organizations who work overseas: You cannot get U.S. funding if you even speak about the possibility that abortion is an option; all of your funds will be cut off. So many of these groups gave up the funds so as not to be gagged.

If this was done in this country, it would be unconstitutional on its face because what the gag rule says to international nongovernmental organizations is: If you do not do what the Bush administration wants, you cannot use your own money to provide health care which could include, for example, counseling when there is an unintended pregnancy.

Let me tell you the story of a 13-year-old girl named Min Min because I think it is important to put a face on this issue. She is from Nepal. She was raped by a male relative. A relative helped her get an abortion, and Min Min was sentenced to 20 years in jail while the male relative walked. In Nepal at that time, abortion was illegal, even in the cases of rape or incest. Because of the gag rule, organizations in Nepal that wanted to help girls like Min Min and change the laws and get children out of jail were told: You will lose all your U.S. funding if you even talk about it. So you know what one particular organization did? They gave up the money and they struggled, and then they did not have funding for family planning or for reproductive health care.

That is the kind of cruel policy that is called the Mexico City gag rule. That is the kind of cruel policy that my colleagues, Senator Martinez and Senator Brownback, want to put back into place. And they do it in the name of life? How is that being done in the name of life when you put a 13-year-old child in prison because she was raped, the relative who did this to her walks, and an organization that is seeking justice is shut out of U.S. support? That is not life-affirming.

I applaud our President for doing this. Again, a lot of these issues are difficult. This was a stroke of a pen. This is a reflection of a bipartisan majority in this country who thinks that it is cruel and wrong to tell these organizations they have to dance to the tune of politics, the politics of America, before they get any funding from us to prevent abortion, to promote family planning, to help a little child such as Min Min get out of jail.

I am proud today to stand in front of you, Mr. President, and say that with President Obama, this is just the start of the changes he will bring that will help women, that will help families, that will help children. I hope we will defeat this amendment with an overwhelming vote, and I predict we will.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield for a moment?

Well, first, I thank the Senator so much for adding those numbers. We are talking about saving women's lives and we are talking about stopping thousands of abortions. That is why it is so inexplicable to me that this amendment is coming from the other side.

I wanted to ask a couple of questions of my friend. Senator Brownback asked for us to find common ground, and I want to find common ground, and I said we are going to find common ground with this vote. But further, wouldn't my friend agree that family planning is the common ground between those of us who support a woman's right to choose and those who oppose it? Isn't family planning finding common ground?

I have one last question to ask through the Chair.

I ask unanimous consent for 1 more minute, and to give Senator McCain an extra minute if he wishes.

Mr. President, I also wanted to make the point that this denial of funds to these nongovernmental organizations--which the Senator is absolutely right to stress--is far-reaching. Even if they tell a woman what her options are, and as long as they know these options are legal, it should be fine and they shouldn't be punished. But does my friend know, because I wasn't clear until recently, that this punishment of this gag rule goes beyond this?

In the case of Nepal, where a nongovernmental group wanted to simply change the law so that abortion could be legal if a child was raped, they were denied the funds because they wanted to go in front of their government and say, sir and madam, let us have compassion for those like this 13-year-old child. She is in jail for 20 years; she was raped. So is my friend aware that is how far this global gag rule went?

Mr. President, I want to have an up-or-down vote on this amendment. I am not going to make a motion to table. I think this is a very bad amendment, an amendment that would consign women all over the world to desperate situations because what Senator Martinez wants to do is restore the gag rule. That means that nongovernmental organizations overseas who help women get reproductive health care and tell them what their legal options are and make birth control available to them so they can plan their families will lose every dollar of American support if they even try to do those things.

President Obama, like President Clinton, did the right thing. With the stroke of a pen, he stood for the lives of women and for family planning and for the health of women all over the world. We have statistics that are very clear. Senator Durbin read them. Tens of thousands of abortions will be avoided because of the actions of our new President. For the life of me, I do not understand how someone who is against abortion could offer such an amendment which in essence will consign women to back-alley abortions and death.

If you really want to vote to promote life and health, vote against the Martinez amendment and stand with President Obama on what I know will be an overwhelming majority of Senators from both sides of the aisle in favor of doing away with this global gag rule.

If it were tried in America, it would be unconstitutional. Stand for freedom. Stand for women. Let's definitely vote this down.

I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

I move to reconsider the vote.

The Senator from California, not Texas.

You got it.

Thank you so much, I say to Senator Mikulski.

The bill Senator Mikulski is urging us to vote for simply restores the law to what it was in almost every State in the country before the Supreme Court dealt us a very serious blow and said, in fact, you had to move from the minute the discrimination started.

Well, what if you had no clue you were being discriminated against, just like Lilly Ledbetter, who did not know until an anonymous note appeared from a male colleague, and he told her: The men who are doing the same work as you are getting paid far more. Well, she did not know that for years and years and years. Although the lower courts acted in the right fashion, the Supreme Court, in the tightest of decisions, destroyed what I consider to be the ability to recover damages when you have been blatantly and unabashedly discriminated against simply because you are a woman.

Now, I urge my colleagues to defeat these pernicious amendments that are coming. As to the one from my friend, Senator Hutchison, believe me, it is a wolf in sheep's clothing. If we adopt the Hutchison amendment, people such as Lilly Ledbetter simply would not be helped. The Hutchison amendment essentially adopts the flawed decision by the Supreme Court in the Ledbetter case. It creates a confusing new standard for employees. Let's not take my word for it or Senator Mikulski's word for it. Let's take the words of the National Women's Law Center. Their whole life has been spent fighting for women's rights.

What do they say? They say: Under the Hutchison amendment--and I am quoting--``employees are left without any remedy against present, continuing pay discrimination if they do not file a complaint within 180 days of the first day when they `have or should have expected to have' enough information to suspect discrimination.''

Well, take Lilly Ledbetter. If you never met her, she is the most hard-working, direct individual I have ever met. She worked so hard for Goodyear Tire. She had no clue, no time to think about whether she was getting equal pay. She got up in the morning, she got dressed for work, and she worked hard, never suspecting her work would not be rewarded in an equal fashion to her male counterparts.

Under the Hutchison amendment, she is left out in the cold, and all those other women who have no clue. Sometimes discrimination is carried out in a way that you have no way of knowing that it is happening.

Now, in the Senate, we have open books. Everybody can see what I make, what my staff makes. It is clear. If there is any discrimination going on, you can ferret it out, figure it out, and, by the way, you have a cause to seek recompense. We do not have a situation as they do in the private sector where it is a totally private situation. So it could be you could be working for years and years and years and never know.

This bill on which Senator Mikulski is leading us is so important because it says every time you get a paycheck, that 180 days runs, so you have a chance to make up for this discrimination. So I say to my friends, you are going to see these amendments coming at you. Do not fall for them. Do not fall for them because they actually undermine, undercut, and destroy what we are trying to do for the women of America.

I say to my friend, Senator Mikulski, how proud I am to stand with her. She feels this issue in her heart of hearts. She is a working woman. She comes from a working-class family. I have to say, I came from a family where my mother never even went to high school. She could not graduate because she was forced to go to the workplace to support her parents. The thought of my mother working so hard every day and having someone in the workplace say: Don't worry about that little lady over there, she has no power, no clout; we can pay her less than we pay a man--and I am sure that occurred because this was a long time ago-- the thought of my mother in the workplace being discriminated against and not having the opportunity to do anything about it really sets me off.

I think about all the moms out there in the workplace and I think about the grandmas in the workplace. I think about single women in the workplace. They have a right to be protected.

Vote no on Hutchison; vote no on Specter; vote yes on the underlying Mikulski bill.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

As we begin our work this Congress to address the greatest economic challenge our nation has faced in a generation, the solutions we consider must focus on strengthening the middle class.

Last month the economy lost 524,000 jobs, and in 2008, 2.6 million jobs were lost--the most in one year since 1945.

Unemployment continues to climb--in some areas of my State of California, the unemployment rate is over twelve percent. Wages for many in the middle class have actually decreased over the last 8 years.

And 46 years after passage of the Equal Pay Act, workers throughout the nation still suffer pay discrimination based on gender, race, religion, national origin, disability and age.

When it comes to achieving the principle of equal pay for equal work, we still have a long way to go.

Women workers today earn only 78 cents for every dollar men earn. The pay disparity is still so great that it takes a woman 16 months to earn what a man earns in 12 months.

In 2006, an average college-educated woman working full time earned $15,000 less than a college-educated male.

According to the American Association of University Women, working families lose $200 billion in income per

year due to the wage gap between men and women.

To put it simply, pay discrimination is hurting our middle class families and hurting our economy.

Unfortunately there is no easy solution that will eliminate all pay discrimination.

But what this bill will do is ensure that when an employer discriminates based on gender or race or other factors, the employee can have his or her day in court.

With its 2007 Ledbetter v. Goodyear decision, the Supreme Court reversed decades of legal precedent in the courts of appeals and long- standing Equal Employment Opportunity Commission policies, and effectively undercut a commonsense, fundamental protection against pay discrimination.

With its decision, the Court imposed significant obstacles for workers by requiring them to file a pay discrimination claim within 180 days of when their employer FIRST starts discriminating--an almost impossible standard.

This bill simply restores the law to what it was prior to the Court's decision in a workable and fair way that will protect people like Lilly Ledbetter from discrimination.

Mr. President, the story of Lilly Ledbetter makes it clear why this legislation is necessary.

The discrimination she suffered is not unfamiliar to many female and minority employees in manufacturing plants and office parks across the country.

Ms. Ledbetter was a female manager at an Alabama Goodyear Tire plant when she discovered after 19 years of service that she was earning 20 to 40 percent less than her male counterparts for doing the exact same job.

As Justice Ginsburg noted in her dissenting opinion, ``the pay discrepancy between Ledbetter and her 15 male counterparts was stark.''

In 1997, her last year of employment at Goodyear, after 19 years of service, Ms. Ledbetter earned $5,608 less than her lowest-paid male coworker. She earned over $18,000 less than her highest-paid male coworker.

Evidence submitted in her trial showed that Ms. Ledbetter was denied raises despite receiving performance awards, her supervisors were biased against female employees, and that in some cases, female supervisors at the plant were paid less than the male employees they supervised.

When Ms. Ledbetter discovered this, she took Goodyear to court and a jury awarded her full damages.

But Goodyear appealed the jury's decision, and in 2007, the Supreme Court overturned the verdict and said that Ms. Ledbetter could not sue for back pay despite overwhelming evidence that her employer had intentionally discriminated against her because of her gender.

The Supreme Court threw out the case because it took her longer than six months to determine that she had been the victim of years of pay discrimination.

This is an unfair standard.

In most situations, if an employee suspects pay discrimination, it takes significant time to determine the facts.

As Justice Ginsburg pointed out, ``compensation disparities are often hidden from sight for a number of reasons.''

Ginsburg's point underscores the unreasonableness of the standard created by the Supreme Court.

Many employers do not publish employee salaries and employees are often not eager to discuss their wages with other employees.

Earlier this month the New York Times reported that ``in the last 19 months, Federal judges have cited the Ledbetter decision in more than 300 cases . . .''

This decision has had significant impacts on the employees alleging pay discrimination, severely limiting their rights to equal pay. Some courts are also using the decision to limit rights in other areas of the law, like equal housing, equal education, and civil rights cases.

The Ledbetter decision was a giant step backward in the fight for equal opportunities and equal rights.

Goodyear engaged in chronic discrimination against female employees, but because of this decision, the courts must treat intentional, ongoing pay discrimination as lawful conduct.

Employers who can conceal their pay discrimination for 180 days are free to continue to discriminate with no redress for the employee.

We must ask ourselves: Is this a standard that Congress should support?

This bill simply restores the law to what it was in almost every state in the country before the Ledbetter case was decided. That law basically said you had 180 days to seek justice on equal pay for equal work each time that you were discriminated against.

It does so by eliminating the unreasonable barrier created by the Supreme Court and allows workers to file a pay discrimination claim within 180 days of each discriminatory paycheck.

For the Nation's working families and middle class to succeed and grow, the principle of equal pay for equal work must have teeth, it must have meaning, and this bill restores meaning to the equal pay principle.

Justice Ginsburg told us, ``Congress, the ball is in your court.''

The time is now to restore decades of legal precedent and prevent the narrow Ledbetter decision from impacting more Americans facing discrimination.

We must restore this important protection and return the law to its intended meaning.

I urge my colleagues to vote for this bill.

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

The Presiding Officer and I have discussed this issue that is on the floor before us now, the next tranche of funds for the TARP program. All one has to do is listen to what TARP stands for: Toxic Assets--T-A--and your first instinct is: I don't want to go near it; I don't want to touch it; I don't want to have anything to do with it. I can tell my colleagues from the bottom of my heart that on 99 percent of issues here, I know what I am going to do pretty much immediately, because it is a clear path for me. I find it not that difficult to make that decision. However, the first vote we had on TARP after a phone call with Secretary Paulson and Ben Bernanke where they said: Our system is on the verge of economic collapse and if we don't get them the 700-plus billion dollars, our Nation would face economic ruin--I remember I was on that phone call with about 30 other Senators, and we were asked for a blank check by Henry Paulson. He wanted 700- plus billion dollars, he wanted it then, that minute, that second. He wanted no strings. He didn't want to tell the bankers they couldn't take a bonus payment. He didn't want to tell them executive pay had to be reasonable. He didn't want to tell them they would have to lend. He didn't want to use it for housing. It was a horrible conversation. We said: You are not getting a blank check and we are not going to do this until we put some strings on this.

Well, we put a few strings on it. We set up a commission to oversee it. I wish to say that Mr. Paulson, in my view, did not live up to the spirit of what this Senate and this Congress wanted him to live up to. What they did was not transparent. What they did did not ease the credit crisis. What they did was to kind of ignore the problem of the housing crisis which got us into this mess in the first place.

So let me be clear. Let me be clear to my constituents. If Henry Paulson was going to get this money, this second tranche of money, if the Bush administration was going to continue to dole out this money, I wouldn't give them $3, let alone $350 billion. I wouldn't give them 30 cents. I wouldn't give them 3 cents. However, I have to say to all of those within the sound of my voice, as someone who wound up voting for the first tranche and feeling badly about it ever since: When President-elect Obama tells us that it would be irresponsible for him, in the face of this worst crisis since the Great Depression, to not have the ability to tap into these funds; when he tells us that he is fearful that there could be a great crisis, that there could be an emergency; when he asks us to trust him on this and put our confidence in him and that he is going to use these funds in a different way, he is going to use these funds to address the housing crisis, and that he is going to be transparent; and to quote him, ``Every penny that they spend, the public will know about,'' I have a choice. I have a choice. I can say: Sorry, it was a horrible experience the first time and I am not going to give you this chance. I could say that. That is the easy thing. That is the easy vote. Voting no is the easy vote. Then I can go home and not worry about it. But how could I walk away from this President at this time? When he says to me and he says to us he needs a chance here, he needs this tool in his pocket to bring it out if he is in a crisis worse than the one now, I cannot walk away from that.

So I say to my constituents I will vote for this, and I will do it because of the assurances I have gotten from the President-elect himself that it will be different, that he will use these funds judiciously, that he needs to make sure he has this tool in his pocket. I hope my constituents understand that after hearing that from this President, who got more than 60 percent of the vote in my State, that I feel he deserves my trust at this time.

I thank the Chair and I thank Senator Dodd.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I wish to send my congratulations to the San Diego Chargers for the remarkable way that they turned around their 2008 season in the National Football League.

During difficult economic times, as they face hardships and uncertainty, millions of sports fans across America turn to their hometown teams for solace and inspiration.

Few teams this year faced as many hardships as the Chargers, and few teams in any year have overcome adversity with such inspiring tenacity.

Hampered by injuries to star running back LaDainian Tomlinson and other key players and suffering through a series of heartbreaking losses, the Chargers began the 2008 season with just four wins in their first 12 games. With 3 weeks to go in the regular season, they trailed the division-leading Denver Broncos by three games. Though their fans remained loyal and the team remained confident, few outside observers gave them any chance reaching the NFL playoffs.

Over the next 5 weeks, though, the Chargers made an amazing run. Beginning on December 4th, three consecutive San Diego victories and two Denver losses left the Chargers just one game back entering a December 28 showdown with the Broncos.

In the decisive game, the Chargers staged an awe-inspiring offensive display to crush the Broncos 52-21 and win the AFC Western Division championship. They became the first team in NFL history to have been 4- 8 and make the playoffs and the first team ever to win their division after being three games behind the leaders with three games to play.

Six days later, on January 3, the Chargers faced a terrific Indianapolis Colts team in the playoffs. In perhaps the greatest NFL game ever played in San Diego, the Chargers beat the Colts in overtime, 23-17.

Every playoff tournament ends sadly for every team but one. Last Sunday, on a snowy day in Pittsburgh, the mighty Steelers ended the Chargers season.

But nothing can dim the luster of the Chargers' late-season run. Their dramatic turnaround is an inspiration to sports fans everywhere.

Mr. President, I grew up in Brooklyn, in the shadow of Ebbets Field, where baseball fans endured years of frustration with the annual cry of ``Wait Till Next Year.'' When I was in high school, our dream finally came true, and ``next year'' became this year.

With a talented young team that has triumphed over adversity, the San Diego Chargers can look forward to next year with pride and confidence. I salute the Charger players, coaches, staff, and ownership along with their loyal fans--for a great 2008 season.

Mr. President, today I rise to reintroduce the Early Education Act. Early education is critical to preparing children across our Nation with the initial skills and abilities to successfully begin their education. While the amount of support for early education has been increasing, great discrepancies remain between the quality of programs and the level of access from State to State.

This bill is a step forward in making a national commitment to giving all children access to high quality pre-kindergarten programs that have been proven to have a solid impact on a child's success later in school and in life.

Of the more than 8 million 3- and 4-year-olds that could be in early education, just over half are enrolled in an early education program. In my State of California alone, just fewer than 60 percent of 3- and 4-year-olds are in some kind of preschool.

The result is that too many children enter elementary school unprepared to learn.

Studies have shown that children who participate in pre-kindergarten programs are less likely to be held back a grade, show greater learning retention and initiative, have better social skills, are more enthusiastic about school, and are more likely to have good attendance records.

Almost all experts now agree that an early education experience is one of the most effective strategies for improving later school performance. The National Research Council reported that pre- kindergarten educational opportunities are critical in developing early language and literacy skills and preventing reading difficulties in young children.

The future of our Nation's economy depends on the next generation of workers, and high-quality early childhood education is key to preparing them for their careers. In the long run, pre-kindergarten programs pay for themselves. Decades of research have proven that early education programs yield between $7 to $16 for every dollar invested.

My bill, the Early Education Act, would create a program in at least 10 States to provide 1 year of pre-kindergarten early education in public schools. The bill would require a dollar for dollar match by the States and would authorize no less than $300 million annually for these programs. These funds would be used by States to supplement--not supplant--other Federal, State or local funds. This bill would serve almost 150,000 children across the country.

Our children need a solid foundation that builds on our current education system by providing them with early learning skills. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Health Insurance Tax Relief Act to help our Nation's workers and working families deal with dramatic increases in health care costs. The legislation would allow taxpayers to deduct their health insurance premiums up to $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for families.

While this deduction will certainly not solve all of the problems in our health care system, it will provide help for working individuals and families who have seen health care premium costs drastically rise. Since 1999, the average health insurance premium for workers covering their families has more than doubled. A recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 40 percent of employers that offer health benefits are likely to increase the amount their employees pay in premiums.

This is an issue of fairness. Current law provides a patchwork of tax deductions for health care costs depending upon an individual's employer, the type of health care plan provided by their employer, and/ or percentage of income spent on health care, among other things.

Unfortunately this patchwork has left out many employees who face increasing premiums or are buying high cost health plans on their own. This legislation rectifies that unfairness and will help people meet rising health care costs. It would help those currently purchasing coverage to continue to do so, as well as helping people who are uninsured to purchase coverage.

This legislation is particularly important for employees in small businesses. Many small businesses across the country have been forced by the rising cost of health care to shift an increasing amount of health insurance costs to their employees. These are hard working Americans struggling to make ends meet in a weak economy.

Now more than ever we need legislation that provides targeted assistance to help families pay for health care. I urge my colleagues to support my legislation.

Mr. President, the Gulf of the Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries Boundary Modification and Protection Act will protect one of the world's most biologically-diverse and productive marine regions. I am proud to be joined in this effort by Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey and Senator Dianne Feinstein.

Established in 1981 and 1989 respectively, the Gulf of the Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries have helped protect the special marine waters and coastline that are quintessentially Californian. My bill will protect an even greater part of my State's coast by expanding the sanctuaries' boundaries to include more of northern California's great coastal upwelling area, one of only four on the planet.

Upwelling areas are places where deeper water comes up to the surface, bringing the nutrients needed by marine algae to grow and support all higher forms of marine life. Though coastal upwelling areas comprise only 1 percent of the world's ocean they produce 20 percent of its fish. The area from Point Arena to Bodega Bay, currently outside the sanctuaries' boundaries, is particularly important since it consistently has the most intense upwelling in all of North America and an enormous capacity to support marine life. I am proud that my bill will expand the sanctuaries' boundaries to protect this upwelling area.

The unique productivity of this region is illustrated by the abundance and diversity of marine life it supports: 36 species of marine mammals, including the endangered blue and humpback whales; numerous coastal and migratory seabirds, including the black-footed albatross; endangered leatherback turtles; and Coho salmon. Expanding the existing sanctuaries to include this area is necessary to protect this remarkable ecosystem from pollution and habitat degradation.

My bill has broad, local support, including from the California Coastal Commission, the California State Lands Commission, the Counties of Sonoma, Marin, and Mendocino, and the cities in the expansion region. It is also supported by fishermen, including the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, by far the largest and most active association of commercial fishermen on the West Coast. Fishermen recognize the urgency of passing this legislation to preserve the water quality and habitat essential for good fishing.

My bill will help preserve an incomparable gem of an ecosystem. I look forward to working with my colleagues to move this important legislation.

Mr. President, today I am pleased to re-introduce the Airline Passenger Bill of Rights Act, a critical piece of airline passenger safety legislation.

Anyone who has traveled recently recognizes that the delays travelers are encountering at airports are a national problem that needs our immediate attention.

Americans are all too familiar with the numerous horror stories of passengers trapped in airplanes sitting on runways for sometimes as much as 11 hours without adequate food or water, overflowing restrooms, and no opportunity to deplane.

The delays continue. On the Sunday before Christmas 2008, more than 250 passengers on a Continental Airlines flight from Houston to Boston were diverted to Bangor, ME, where they spent about 6 hours idling on the tarmac before they were told that they were going to deplane for the night and would have to find shelter and transportation on their own.

When these passengers returned the next day for their trip home, not only was their flight delayed 5 hours but they also spent another 2 hours idling on the tarmac before finally flying to Boston.

In 1999, the airlines had an opportunity to address the stranding of airline passengers on tarmacs across the country, but despite those efforts little has changed.

Last March a Federal appeals court ruling struck down New York State's Passenger Bill of Rights law, stating that it is up to the Congress to set a national Federal standard.

To meet this immediate need for Federal legislation, I am re- introducing the Airline Passenger Bill of Rights Act, along with Senator Snowe, to give airline passengers basic protections when they are facing these delays and disruptions in their travel.

This legislation requires airlines to give passengers adequate food, water, facilities, and medical attention when planes are delayed on the tarmac.

In addition, the bill requires each air carrier to develop an emergency contingency plan, to be reviewed and approved by the Department of Transportation (DOT) that identifies a clear timeframe to allow passengers to deplane if they choose and if the pilot deems it safe.

Airlines will need to give passengers the option of deplaning every 3 hours, with exceptions to maintain passenger safety and airport efficiency.

Our legislation also includes a few additional provisions from the FAA Reauthorization bill passed by the House in the last Congress. Our bill requires airports to develop plans to handle stranded passenger aircraft and creates a DOT hotline for consumer complaints. It would also permit the DOT to levy fines against air carriers or airports that do not submit or adhere to the contingency plans.

The European Union enacted a Passenger Bill of Rights in 2005 and Canada passed similar legislation last year. It is time for the United States to step up and make a serious commitment to the millions of Americans that rely on safe and effective air travel.

As the number of airline passengers is expected to increase to 1.3 billion by 2025, we can't afford a ``business as usual'' attitude when it comes to passenger safety and efficiency at our nation's busiest airports.

Consumers deserve access to food, water, and medical attention when stranded on an aircraft tarmac due to delays. Congress has the ability to ensure airline passengers' fundamental rights are protected by enacting our Passenger Bill of Rights legislation.

I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass this legislation in this Congress.

Mr. President, today I rise to reintroduce the Early Education Act. Early education is critical to preparing children across our Nation with the initial skills and abilities to successfully begin their education. While the amount of support for early education has been increasing, great discrepancies remain between the quality of programs and the level of access from State to State.

This bill is a step forward in making a national commitment to giving all children access to high quality pre-kindergarten programs that have been proven to have a solid impact on a child's success later in school and in life.

Of the more than 8 million 3- and 4-year-olds that could be in early education, just over half are enrolled in an early education program. In my State of California alone, just fewer than 60 percent of 3- and 4-year-olds are in some kind of preschool.

The result is that too many children enter elementary school unprepared to learn.

Studies have shown that children who participate in pre-kindergarten programs are less likely to be held back a grade, show greater learning retention and initiative, have better social skills, are more enthusiastic about school, and are more likely to have good attendance records.

Almost all experts now agree that an early education experience is one of the most effective strategies for improving later school performance. The National Research Council reported that pre- kindergarten educational opportunities are critical in developing early language and literacy skills and preventing reading difficulties in young children.

The future of our Nation's economy depends on the next generation of workers, and high-quality early childhood education is key to preparing them for their careers. In the long run, pre-kindergarten programs pay for themselves. Decades of research have proven that early education programs yield between $7 to $16 for every dollar invested.

My bill, the Early Education Act, would create a program in at least 10 States to provide 1 year of pre-kindergarten early education in public schools. The bill would require a dollar for dollar match by the States and would authorize no less than $300 million annually for these programs. These funds would be used by States to supplement--not supplant--other Federal, State or local funds. This bill would serve almost 150,000 children across the country.

Our children need a solid foundation that builds on our current education system by providing them with early learning skills. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Health Insurance Tax Relief Act to help our Nation's workers and working families deal with dramatic increases in health care costs. The legislation would allow taxpayers to deduct their health insurance premiums up to $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for families.

While this deduction will certainly not solve all of the problems in our health care system, it will provide help for working individuals and families who have seen health care premium costs drastically rise. Since 1999, the average health insurance premium for workers covering their families has more than doubled. A recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 40 percent of employers that offer health benefits are likely to increase the amount their employees pay in premiums.

This is an issue of fairness. Current law provides a patchwork of tax deductions for health care costs depending upon an individual's employer, the type of health care plan provided by their employer, and/ or percentage of income spent on health care, among other things.

Unfortunately this patchwork has left out many employees who face increasing premiums or are buying high cost health plans on their own. This legislation rectifies that unfairness and will help people meet rising health care costs. It would help those currently purchasing coverage to continue to do so, as well as helping people who are uninsured to purchase coverage.

This legislation is particularly important for employees in small businesses. Many small businesses across the country have been forced by the rising cost of health care to shift an increasing amount of health insurance costs to their employees. These are hard working Americans struggling to make ends meet in a weak economy.

Now more than ever we need legislation that provides targeted assistance to help families pay for health care. I urge my colleagues to support my legislation.