Floor Statements

Madam President, I have taken the floor before to talk about the health care reform bill, to comment on the Supreme Court decision, which I believe history will show was clearly the right decision. It was the right decision on the law giving the Congress the power to legislate in an area where there is a national need, as the legislature did in the 1930s with Social Security and in the 1960s with Medicare.

The health reform proposals that were adopted by Congress are within the purview of the legislative branch of government. The Supreme Court upheld that right in that decision. I also said it was the right decision because it allows us to move forward on

a path toward universal coverage, where all Americans are guaranteed access to affordable health care. America will now join all of the other industrial nations of the world to say health care is a right, not a privilege.

The legislation that was passed, the health reform bill, has already helped American families. Let me talk about an area--I could talk about many--about what it has done in protecting our consumers against the practices, the arbitrary practices of health insurance companies. We already are seeing that it is in effect where families are being able to take advantage of the fact there are no longer any lifetime caps on health insurance policies. By 2014, we will eliminate annual caps on benefits on health insurance plans. We already have seen for our children the elimination of preexisting conditions, so our children can get policies without having restrictions on what is covered and what is not covered. By 2014 we will see that the preexisting conditions for everyone will no longer be an obstacle to full insurance coverage. That is particularly important for women, where we know at times they have been held to a preexisting condition because of a pregnancy or being the victim of domestic violence.

We have seen discrimination in premiums against women. That no longer will be the case. I could talk about many Marylanders who are happy today because they can stay on their parents' insurance policies--the fact that they are over the age of 21. They can now stay on that policy until age 26.

I want to talk about one other aspect of this law that may not be quite as familiar to our constituents. This provision will take effect on August 1, but we already are seeing the benefits. What I am talking about is the 80-20 rule, where health insurance companies must give value for the premium dollar to the beneficiary. At least 80 percent of the dollars we pay for premiums must go for benefits.

Let me share with you a letter I received from one of my constituents. She wrote:

I recently had a pleasant surprise. . . . two checks from

my health care [insurer] that were rebates on premiums paid.

I am someone who has to buy individual health coverage and

have been doing so for the last 8 years. The premiums are

high and the deductible is high--so I am essentially paying a

high price for catastrophic coverage while still paying for

individual doctor visits, prescriptions, etc. It is

frustrating, but the choices are limited and expensive for

individual coverage, and you don't really know how good your

coverage is because you don't use it unless you have a major

medical event. My premiums go up every year despite the fact

that I don't file claims. This month I received a check in

the amount of $139 from my current [insurer] and over $300

from a previous [insurer]. Both checks were rebates as a

result of the new health care act.

I did not realize it, but the act requires insurance

companies to use 80% of the premiums they collect on health

care costs. . . . and neither of them hit that percentage and

were thus required to provide a refund. Wonderful! The bill

is so complicated that I do not understand a great deal of

it--but am very pleased with this aspect which seems to go a

long way in helping keep health care costs reasonable and

prevent consumers from being gouged . . . So thanks to the

Senator and all who helped with this health care act.

I bring this to my colleagues' attention, because there are going to be millions of American who are going to be getting rebate checks, and some are going to start scratching their heads, wondering where it is coming from. They are going to be saying: Gee, I guess I made a mistake in the premiums I paid. They are returning them. They are getting those checks because of the passage of the health reform bill, and the provision in the health reform bill that requires insurance companies to give value for the premium dollars we pay.

That protection is now the law of the land. Thanks to the acts of Congress and President Obama, and the Supreme Court upholding the law, those rebates are going to be received. The number of people in the country is 12.8 million Americans who are going to get rebate checks worth about $1.1 billion. Average rebate: $151. That is real money for people who are struggling with their health care needs.

I am proud that in the State of Maryland, there is going to be $27 million made available to 141,000 Marylanders, with an average rebate of $340 for those who get rebates in my State. Let me break this down a little bit further. In the individual market, like the person I received the letter from, the rebates for the people in Maryland will actually average a higher amount. They will average $496. I think that speaks to the fact that insurance companies have hedged their bets in the individual market. They tell us that, you know, we have got to charge a lot more because we do not know what we are getting, when in reality they are making a lot more money in the individual market.

So for the people of Maryland, 38,000 of them are going to get, on average, close to $500 in rebates thanks to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, thanks to the passage of health reform, and thanks to the Supreme Court upholding our right to do it.

The same thing is true in the small group markets where we find that there will be 3.3 million Americans getting rebate checks who are in the small group markets. These are the markets, of course, in which again the options were not as great, more difficult, because of insurance carriers not being as anxious to insure people in small group markets as they are in the larger markets.

The average rebate per family will be $174. In Maryland that number again is higher, $310 for the 13,000 people in Maryland. It also applies to those in the large group markets. These are the large plans. They also are going to see rebates because the insurance carriers charged excessive fees. And they are going to get premium dollar rebates. Some 5.3 million Americans in these large plans will see rebates that average $135. In my State of Maryland, it will be 89,000 people, with rebates averaging $268 a family. These are 1-year numbers. These continue every year. So let me tell the people of Maryland and the people of this country what you can expect. You might get a check that will be delivered to you in the mail. It will be a rebate check. That is as a result of the passage of the health reform bill. You might also see a deposit into the account that automatically pays for your health premiums, because the insurance carrier can make a direct deposit into the accounts which are paying for these premiums.

It is possible you might find a reduction in future premiums. They can use it to reduce your future premiums, but they have to let you know that, so you realize you are getting the rebate, but it is being applied against future premiums. Or if the employer is paying the premiums, the rebates will go to the employer, but the employer must use it to benefit your plan. They cannot use it for themselves. It is used to help again the beneficiary. You will get notice of that.

My purpose again is to make it clear that you would not have gotten these rebates but for the protections that are in the Affordable Care Act. I know my colleague from Vermont and I have been on the floor many times pointing out that all Americans, not just those who do not have insurance today, not just those who might have been discriminated against because of preexisting conditions, not only that 24-year-old who is now on her parent's policy, but all Americans have benefited from the Affordable Care Act, the protections that are in it.

Now millions who thought they were being treated unfairly by their insurance companies are going to be able to get rebates because of excessive premiums. The rule works in combination with another provision of the law that requires rate review to ensure premium increases are reasonable. In other words, we have put into the law protections against unreasonable increases in your premiums. Insurance companies are now required to justify any premium increases of 10 percent or higher. Most States now have the authority to determine whether these increases are excessive, while HHS reviews rates in States that do not operate under effective rate review programs.

That is how federalism should work. States have an opportunity to act. If they do not have adequate review, we have national backup and protection to make sure the rate reviews are being handled in the appropriate way. So as our constituents start to get the benefits-- another benefit of the health reform bill, and there are many more that are starting to take effect, and we will hear about some more of those next week, on August 1--I wanted my constituents of Maryland and my

friends around the Nation to know we have provided that you get value for the premium dollar you pay for your health insurance.

We back that up with enforcement, so if there are excessive premiums being charged, the insurance carriers must rebate those premiums to you. Millions of Americans will get the benefit, starting now. We are pleased that this type of protection is in the Affordable Care Act.

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

Mr. President, today I rise to discuss the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the tremendous progress we have made thus far, and the need to do even more if we are going to stop this devastating disease in its tracks.

The fight against HIV/AIDS has been a long one. In more than 30 years, approximately 26 million people have died from AIDS, and there are still an astounding 7,000 new infections every day. But our commitment to combating this disease is making important strides.

In the past decade, new HIV infections fell 20 percent, thanks in large part to the lifesaving antiretroviral treatment we and our partners are making available in every corner of the world that AIDS touches.

We know that relatively healthy people with HIV who receive early treatment with antiretroviral drugs are 96 percent less likely to pass on the virus to their uninfected partners. So treating these individuals not only allows them to live their lives in dignity but is also an important key to prevention.

In my home State of Maryland, the Jhpiego program has spent decades addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South America, Africa, Europe and Asia. Jhpiego has made enormous strides in prevention of mother-to- child transmission, increasing counseling and testing and providing greater access to antiretroviral drugs.

Jhpiego has integrated HIV/AIDS services with tuberculosis, cervical cancer, malaria in pregnancy, family planning and maternal and child health services, to address the problem of coinfection among HIV/AIDS patients and to reach as many people as possible. These integrated services represent the future of our health assistance. We have learned from programs like Jhpiego's what our best practices should be so that we are innovators in prevention, care, and treatment.

I am pleased that Jhpiego and groups like it from across the globe are coming together for this week's AIDS 2012 conference in Washington, DC. This conference is the largest gathering of professionals working in the field of HIV in the world and will bring together more than 20,000 people from more than 120 counties all working together to create a blueprint for combating HIV/AIDS. I can only imagine the exciting new synergies that will develop when so many innovative, committed individuals are in the same room.

Among the presenters are luminaries from the public, private, and multilateral sectors such as President Bill Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and former U.S. First Lady Laura Bush, Her Highness Mette-Marit, Crown Princess of Norway, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidib, Sir Elton John, Whoopi Goldberg, and Bill Gates.

This is the first time the United States has hosted the conference in two decades, and I believe it is the right moment for us to be showcasing our strong bipartisan effort to bring the AIDS epidemic to an end.

The United States has long been a leader in the global fight against HIV/AIDS. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on International Development Assistance, I am proud to note that from 2004 to 2010 the United States spent more than $26 billion on bilateral funding to fight AIDS. From my experience leading this subcommittee, I know that dedicated government experts from an array of U.S. agencies are involved in the fight, as are thousands of nonprofits and community organizations.

Yet despite the progress that the numbers and statistics tell us, the story on the ground is still heartbreaking, and now is not the time to rest on our laurels. International anti-AIDS funding has not increased significantly since 2008. In places like the Congo, for example, doctors are only able to supply antiretroviral drugs to 15 percent of the people who need them. Globally, just 8 million of the 15 million treatment-eligible patients in AIDS-ravaged poor regions of the world are getting antiretroviral drugs.

We must do better. We must do better to improve the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS, and we must do better to save the lives of their loved ones.

Some experts believe that ``fatigue and forgetting'' are two of the reasons we have not reached more people. Though we have been working on treating this disease for decades, we still have an overwhelming number of infections to treat.

But the good news is that scientists now believe we have the tools to make serious progress in the fight against AIDS. Scientific advances over the last year have been remarkable, and we can't afford to abandon the fight and to lose momentum now.

In a recent Washington Post article, Michel Sidibe, Executive Director of UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV and AIDS, said, ``The previous generation fought for treatment, our generation must fight for a cure.''

I am proud that in just the last year, the National Institutes of Health has increased spending on cure-related research by $56 million. This is a step in the right direction, and I want to see us do more. I stand with the entire HIV/AIDS medical community in renewing the call to prevent, treat, and cure HIV/AIDS. Let's use the opportunity of this historic gathering to renew our call to work on creating an AIDS-free generation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Hala Furst, a Presidential Management Fellow on detail to the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, be granted the privileges of the floor for the duration of the debate on S. 3414.

Mr. President, I thank, first of all, my colleague from California, Senator Boxer. I happened to be on the Senate floor and listened to my Republican colleagues as they were talking about the estate tax. I think we have to clarify what this legislation is all about that we will be voting on in a few minutes. It is an effort to fully protect about 98 percent of Americans from the uncertainty as to whether their income tax will go up on January 1. That is what this bill is about. There are a lot of other problems we have, including the fiscal cliff we have been talking about.

I understand the concerns we have with the estate tax. We have a problem with the physician reimbursement under Medicare. We have problems with the sequestration orders and the impact it would have on all of our agencies whether it is national security or the domestic budget. We have concerns about extending tax provisions for the energy sector of our economy. We have the uncertainty of whether we will extend the unemployment insurance additional benefits. All of those are legitimate concerns.

I hope the Republicans and Democrats will come together to deal with the deficit. That is what we should do. I can tell everyone I have been one of those Senators meeting with Republicans, meeting with my Democratic colleagues, and that is what we want to do. We want to give predictability to the American people about a credible plan to deal with our deficit.

I was proud to be one of the Democrats on the Budget Committee in the Senate. The Presiding Officer helped to say let's use the Simpson- Bowles model to try to get a bipartisan agreement on a budget document much earlier this year so we could come forward with a credible plan to deal with the deficit. We are now just a few weeks away when Congress is likely to go out of session for the November elections. We have heard in the House they are talking about leaving the third week of

September. So what we are trying to do--and this is a pretty simple bill--is to say for the overwhelming majority, 98 percent, let's at least give the certainty to the people of our country so they know on January 1 their tax rates will not go up. Why do we want to do that? Because predictability gives confidence. Confidence allows people and consumers to buy and helps to grow our economy. That is why we do it.

Sure, it is frustrating we can't deal with everything right now. We want to deal with everything, but we are not going to be able to come to that political agreement. Can't we at least come to the agreement to protect the vast majority of the taxpayers of this country?

The bill we will be voting on very shortly says we would not let the personal income tax rates go up for those whose incomes are up to $250,000. As Senator Boxer pointed out, every income-tax payer gets the advantage of it. If you make $1 million, you get the lower tax rates on the first $250,000. That way everyone gets the advantage.

We also protect the refundable child tax credit because we know American families depend upon that refundable tax credit. I want to thank the majority leader for putting this into the bill. That is part of a family's planning process to know whether they can buy consumer goods. We included that in the legislation that we will have a chance to vote on. We included the American opportunity tax credit. The Presiding Officer is very involved in that. That is to help families afford college education.

I was at a university meeting over the weekend and looked at the debt that our college graduates are inheriting as they go through college. Well, we extend in this bill the help we give to working families to be able to afford a college education for their children, which helps to build this great Nation. It helps to make us more competitive. We have also included in the legislation the small business expenses because we want to give predictability to small businesses to go out and buy capital assets so they can turn around and help our economy grow.

So I just wanted to point out some pretty simple choices. Do we believe we should give the predictability that I think everybody agrees on? Why can't we keep the bill simple and get it done? My Republican colleagues want to find some way to be able to vote no to help the overwhelming majority of the people in this country.

I will say this again. If you make $1 million, you are going to get $6,000 of relief under this bill. Isn't that enough? Then let's come together and hopefully use the remainder of this year or early next year to get a credible plan and get our deficit under control. Let's give confidence to the American people so we will not face that fiscal cliff, and we will get our job done. The purpose of this is to create jobs. We need to create more jobs in our country.

I wish to share with my colleagues this photograph that was taken. I will ask my colleagues where they think this photograph took place, with many people sewing and manufacturing clothing. We can see the U.S. flag there. The next question is, When do my colleagues think this photograph was taken? The 1920s? The 1930s? I remember growing up in Baltimore and seeing all of the different clothing manufacturers located in my city. So perhaps this is a historic photograph. It is not. It was just recently taken in Westminster, MD. It is the English American Tailoring Company, with 380 jobs, producing the finest suits in the world.

I show this photograph to demonstrate that we can succeed in manufacturing in America. In the last 28 months, we have seen an increase of 500,000 jobs in manufacturing in America. That is the largest growth since 1995 in our country. We have to fight for the jobs and keep our jobs here in America.

I had a chance to talk with English American Tailoring Company union employees. They are happy not because they are happy to have a job-- everyone is happy to have a job--they know they have a good job in a company that cares about them, and they take pride in what they are making. Make it in America. In Maryland, in the United States, we have a company that makes the best custom suits in the world because they are American made and because they have the best technology and the best quality of any company in the world.

Let me tell my colleagues something else that might surprise them. They had a 15-percent increase in sales this year. They added an additional 50 employees this year. They are now making plans to break ground on a training facility in Westminster, MD. They have confidence in their ability to produce the right product for America and to create the jobs and keep the jobs here.

We have done this over and over in America. I know my colleagues have taken the floor to talk about the auto manufacturing industry, with the best sales in 5 years. Chrysler's sales have increased 34 percent; General Motors is up 12 percent; Ford is up 5 percent; 10,000 new jobs at Ford Motor Company; 4,000 coming from Mexico back to the United States. Make it in America. Our U.S. auto manufacturers are making it in America. We can create more jobs if we just create the right climate.

We need to help small business. I agree that is where most of the job growth will take place. That is where most of the new innovation comes from. So why don't we take up sensible legislation that the majority leader talked about that would reward small companies that are creating more jobs by giving tax credits? I am also proud of a provision in that bill to increase surety bonds for small companies so they can compete. That is what we should be doing.

We need trade policies. I want to give another bit of good news. I see Senator Nelson is on the floor, and he was instrumental in the citrus trust fund. But we have the wool trust fund and the cotton trust fund also approved by the Senate Finance Committee. Why is that important for this contract we have here? This company, English American Tailoring, makes quality suits, but they have to import the wool because the wool is not available in America. Here is what happens. The tariff today on that wool coming into America is higher than the finished suit, if it was imported into America, which encourages manufacturing outside of America. That makes absolutely no sense at all. That is why we have a wool trust fund--to correct this inverted tariff so that we can make it competitive to manufacture in America. That is why we have it. I am proud that by a unanimous vote, we are recommending that from the Senate Finance Committee. I hope we can find the cooperation on this floor to get that done.

I also want to make sure that the citrus industry in Florida is taken care of, so we take care of the citrus trust fund and the cotton trust fund. Shirts are manufactured today--my friend from New Jersey, Senator Menendez, helped on this, and Senator Schumer helped a great deal with the wool trust fund. We make cotton shirts in New Jersey. We can make those shirts because we can manufacture more efficiently than other countries, but we can't have an inverted tariff. We can't afford to make it more expensive to manufacture than import. That is what that is about. These are commonsense policies.

We need tax policies that make sense. Senator Stabenow has been working hard on the Bring Jobs Home Act so that we actually reward companies that bring their jobs back to America and we don't allow taxpayers to foot the bill for those who want to take their jobs overseas.

The bottom line is that we can make it in America. We can make it in America. We are doing that in Maryland, and we are doing it throughout the country. We need sensible policies.

We also need the confidence of consumers about the take-home pay they are going to have in order to be able to buy the suits manufactured by English American Tailoring or other companies in our community or to buy a car manufactured here in America. They want to do that, but they need the confidence.

So don't complicate the bill we are going to be voting on in 1 hour. Don't make it that difficult. It is a pretty simple bill. It says whether we are going to fully protect 98 percent of Americans from seeing their tax rates go up and their paychecks go down on January 1 and help every American, regardless of their income, with the first $250,000 of taxable income.

I hope we will then make a commitment, Democrats and Republicans, to

put aside our partisan differences and listen to each other and come up with a credible plan that answers not just the issues--the only issue raised by my Republican colleagues, which is the estate tax--but also answers the questions of our physicians for Medicare and answers the problems of our people who depend upon government, the sequestration orders. Let's get it together and get all of that done, but let's not let the traditional partisan differences stop us from protecting 98 percent of Americans, so that companies such as English American Tailoring can continue to expand and create more jobs here in America to help our economy grow because people will be willing to buy the suits, knowing there is some confidence in the Tax Code that allows them to plan for their future.

I urge my colleagues to support the efforts we are going to vote on in a few moments.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Elizabeth Eickenberg, from Senator Merkley's staff, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the day.

Mr. President, today I am proud to introduce the Renewable Fuel Standard Flexibility Act. I am introducing this bill because I have grave concerns about the impacts the Federal mandate for corn ethanol production is having on the price of food in this country and the cost of domestic food production.

Corn is a staple of the modern American diet that has become a ubiquitous ingredient or additive in most of our food and it is fed as feed to nearly all livestock animals. The fact is, most meals Americans consume either has corn as an essential ingredient or consist of ingredients that required corn to produce. From milk, to eggs, to beef to poultry, to bread, to soft drink, and most prepared frozen meals corn--is essential to American food.

The first section of Michael Pollan's 2006 Best Seller The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals is titled ``Industrial Corn'' and it explains just how omnipresent corn, in some form or another, is in American diets. For better or for worse, the vast majority of the food found on American supermarket shelves is made from processed corn. When it comes to the animal proteins Americans consume most of these animals were raised on corn diets.

For decades, America's corn growers were out producing demand for corn and food producers, and consumers benefited from relatively low corn prices that ranged around $2 a bushel. While consumers may have benefitted from these prices, American corn and grain growers were hurting badly.

Since 2007, the tides have been turning significantly. National demand for corn is at an all-time high and corn futures project corn reaching $8 a bushel in the near future. A growing and hungry nation combined with new demands for corn that are the result of technological innovations have created new uses for corn in the form of ethanol as both a motor fuel additive and in plastics. These new uses, combined with expanded traditional uses have fueled the upward spike in corn prices.

Corn growers have benefitted tremendously from the increased demand and high corn prices. Ethanol producers have enjoyed a variety of government supports mandating levels of ethanol production which have helped them weather high corn prices paying a high price for corn feedstocks is relatively easy when you have enormous production tax credits and a federally mandated market for your product.

Food producers, including livestock and poultry producers, who use tremendous amounts of corn to raise their livestock and produce food, do not have the luxury of a mandated market for their products.

In Maryland, our number one agricultural product is poultry. Poultry production is far and away the top employer on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Maryland poultry is hurting and it is because they are competing with big oil, and other non-traditional users, for corn. Corn is vitally important to raising chickens. Unlike other livestock, like cattle or hogs which are ruminants that can eat a variety of different types of feed, chickens' diets are limited to corn. Feed makes up more than 73 percent of the cost of raising poultry and when corn reaches $6.50 or $7.00 or even $8.00 a bushel that cost goes even higher.

I understand the important role domestic ethanol production will play in helping our nation achieve greater energy security. However, the nurturing and growth of our domestic biofuels industry must not come at the expense of our domestic food supply. In other words, we cannot sacrifice U.S. food security for energy security. That is why I do not support the use of food based feedstocks like sugar and corn to be commercially produced into ethanol.

I also believe that as global demand for oil increases, driven by increased mobility and affluence spreads in the developing world, renewable biofuels will compete well with oil and that the government supports we have in place will not be necessary because pure market demand for less expensive and cleaner burning fuels like ethanol will drive growth in biofuel production, not government mandates.

Because domestic food production is reaching a state of crisis driven by the increasing cost of inputs, like corn, that the food producers have to unfairly compete with industries that are operating with under government production mandates I am introducing legislation today that offers a simple change to the Renewable Fuel Standard that will help provide our domestic food producers access to corn.

This legislation will link the amount of corn ethanol required for the RFS to the amount of U.S. corn supplies. This legislation sets up a process so that when the USDA reports on U.S. corn supplies towards the end of each year, based upon the ratio of corn stocks- to expected use, there could be a reduction made to the RFS mandate for corn ethanol. This is a common sense solution to make sure that we have enough corn supplies to meet all of our corn demands.

Once a year, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency will review the current corn crop year's ratio of U.S. corn stocks-to- use ratio in making a determination of the RFS.

By the end of November the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency will make an official determination of the Renewable Fuels Standard, RFS, corn ethanol mandate for the following calendar year, based on the U.S. Department of Agriculture's November World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimate report to determine the U.S. corn stocks-to-use ratio. The administrator shall provide for a waiver for the RFS for the following calendar year according to the calculated stocks to use ratio as directed. Such a waiver, if required, shall be included in the Environmental Protection Agency's Federal Register notice regarding the RFS for the following calendar year. The required

waiver, if any, will take effect January 1 of the new calendar year.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Waiver to the Renewable

Stocks-to-Use Ratio Percent Fuels Standard for Corn

Ethanol ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Above 10.00............................... no adjustment 10.00 to 7.50............................. 10 percent reduction 7.49 to 6.00.............................. 15 percent reduction 5.99 to 5.00.............................. 25 percent reduction Below 5.00................................ 50 percent reduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------

I believe the future of biofuels must be in the development and production of cellulosic and advanced biofuels that are not derived from feedstocks that are part of essential food sources. As a supporter of bringing cellulosic and advanced biofuels to market, my legislation explicitly states that it ``shall not affect the volume of advanced biofuels required under'' the Renewable Fuel Standard. This will leave intact the advanced biofuels production mandate which I believe is critical to growing this still nascent and beneficial fuel product to commercial viability.

Because of corn's many uses it has become a commodity that is in high demand. Assuring our domestic food producers' access to this valuable and increasingly scarce crop is so important to controlling the cost of food in America and maintaining the economic viability of our U.S. food companies. I urge my colleagues to support U.S. food producers and families working to put food on the table by co-sponsoring the Renewable Fuel Standard Flexibility Act.

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

Mr. President, today I am proud to introduce the Renewable Fuel Standard Flexibility Act. I am introducing this bill because I have grave concerns about the impacts the Federal mandate for corn ethanol production is having on the price of food in this country and the cost of domestic food production.

Corn is a staple of the modern American diet that has become a ubiquitous ingredient or additive in most of our food and it is fed as feed to nearly all livestock animals. The fact is, most meals Americans consume either has corn as an essential ingredient or consist of ingredients that required corn to produce. From milk, to eggs, to beef to poultry, to bread, to soft drink, and most prepared frozen meals corn--is essential to American food.

The first section of Michael Pollan's 2006 Best Seller The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals is titled ``Industrial Corn'' and it explains just how omnipresent corn, in some form or another, is in American diets. For better or for worse, the vast majority of the food found on American supermarket shelves is made from processed corn. When it comes to the animal proteins Americans consume most of these animals were raised on corn diets.

For decades, America's corn growers were out producing demand for corn and food producers, and consumers benefited from relatively low corn prices that ranged around $2 a bushel. While consumers may have benefitted from these prices, American corn and grain growers were hurting badly.

Since 2007, the tides have been turning significantly. National demand for corn is at an all-time high and corn futures project corn reaching $8 a bushel in the near future. A growing and hungry nation combined with new demands for corn that are the result of technological innovations have created new uses for corn in the form of ethanol as both a motor fuel additive and in plastics. These new uses, combined with expanded traditional uses have fueled the upward spike in corn prices.

Corn growers have benefitted tremendously from the increased demand and high corn prices. Ethanol producers have enjoyed a variety of government supports mandating levels of ethanol production which have helped them weather high corn prices paying a high price for corn feedstocks is relatively easy when you have enormous production tax credits and a federally mandated market for your product.

Food producers, including livestock and poultry producers, who use tremendous amounts of corn to raise their livestock and produce food, do not have the luxury of a mandated market for their products.

In Maryland, our number one agricultural product is poultry. Poultry production is far and away the top employer on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Maryland poultry is hurting and it is because they are competing with big oil, and other non-traditional users, for corn. Corn is vitally important to raising chickens. Unlike other livestock, like cattle or hogs which are ruminants that can eat a variety of different types of feed, chickens' diets are limited to corn. Feed makes up more than 73 percent of the cost of raising poultry and when corn reaches $6.50 or $7.00 or even $8.00 a bushel that cost goes even higher.

I understand the important role domestic ethanol production will play in helping our nation achieve greater energy security. However, the nurturing and growth of our domestic biofuels industry must not come at the expense of our domestic food supply. In other words, we cannot sacrifice U.S. food security for energy security. That is why I do not support the use of food based feedstocks like sugar and corn to be commercially produced into ethanol.

I also believe that as global demand for oil increases, driven by increased mobility and affluence spreads in the developing world, renewable biofuels will compete well with oil and that the government supports we have in place will not be necessary because pure market demand for less expensive and cleaner burning fuels like ethanol will drive growth in biofuel production, not government mandates.

Because domestic food production is reaching a state of crisis driven by the increasing cost of inputs, like corn, that the food producers have to unfairly compete with industries that are operating with under government production mandates I am introducing legislation today that offers a simple change to the Renewable Fuel Standard that will help provide our domestic food producers access to corn.

This legislation will link the amount of corn ethanol required for the RFS to the amount of U.S. corn supplies. This legislation sets up a process so that when the USDA reports on U.S. corn supplies towards the end of each year, based upon the ratio of corn stocks- to expected use, there could be a reduction made to the RFS mandate for corn ethanol. This is a common sense solution to make sure that we have enough corn supplies to meet all of our corn demands.

Once a year, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency will review the current corn crop year's ratio of U.S. corn stocks-to- use ratio in making a determination of the RFS.

By the end of November the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency will make an official determination of the Renewable Fuels Standard, RFS, corn ethanol mandate for the following calendar year, based on the U.S. Department of Agriculture's November World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimate report to determine the U.S. corn stocks-to-use ratio. The administrator shall provide for a waiver for the RFS for the following calendar year according to the calculated stocks to use ratio as directed. Such a waiver, if required, shall be included in the Environmental Protection Agency's Federal Register notice regarding the RFS for the following calendar year. The required

waiver, if any, will take effect January 1 of the new calendar year.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Waiver to the Renewable

Stocks-to-Use Ratio Percent Fuels Standard for Corn

Ethanol ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Above 10.00............................... no adjustment 10.00 to 7.50............................. 10 percent reduction 7.49 to 6.00.............................. 15 percent reduction 5.99 to 5.00.............................. 25 percent reduction Below 5.00................................ 50 percent reduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------

I believe the future of biofuels must be in the development and production of cellulosic and advanced biofuels that are not derived from feedstocks that are part of essential food sources. As a supporter of bringing cellulosic and advanced biofuels to market, my legislation explicitly states that it ``shall not affect the volume of advanced biofuels required under'' the Renewable Fuel Standard. This will leave intact the advanced biofuels production mandate which I believe is critical to growing this still nascent and beneficial fuel product to commercial viability.

Because of corn's many uses it has become a commodity that is in high demand. Assuring our domestic food producers' access to this valuable and increasingly scarce crop is so important to controlling the cost of food in America and maintaining the economic viability of our U.S. food companies. I urge my colleagues to support U.S. food producers and families working to put food on the table by co-sponsoring the Renewable Fuel Standard Flexibility Act.

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

Let me compliment Senator Stabenow for her leadership as chair of the Agriculture Committee. I want the Senator to know I was on the phone yesterday with our soil conservation district managers talking about the provisions that are in the Senate bill, and I wish to personally thank the Senator from Michigan for reaching out to all of us. Our negotiations were tough, but they were fair, and I believe the reforms the Senator has in the bill will help our region and all the regions of our country deal with the underlying problems of agriculture in America.

So I particularly wish to thank her for that. The process she followed is how the legislative process should work: a very open process, a very bipartisan process. We have a good product, and I hope the House will bring forward a bill and get it to conference so we can continue the dialogue. It is important to give the predictability to farmers that this 5-year reauthorization provides. So I thank the Senator from Michigan for her extraordinary leadership in this area on behalf of the agricultural community of my State of Maryland.

I really came to the floor to talk about another one of the efforts of the Senator from Michigan today; that is, the Bring Jobs Home Act. I thank Senator Stabenow for her leadership on this bill as well.

Senator Stabenow understands that outsourcing is devastating to our country. Americans understand that. Marylanders understand that. When we are outsourcing, we are losing jobs. Families are devastated by outsourcing. What is most shocking is that our laws encourage companies to take jobs out of America. Our Tax Code should encourage companies to keep their workers in the United States. We need to make it in America.

I think we were all shocked to hear about the U.S. Olympic team and the fact that they are going to be outfitted by clothing manufactured in China. That is outrageous. It never should have happened. We can make it in America.

I must tell my colleagues, I hear from people in Maryland all the time--and I am sure the Presiding Officer hears the same thing in New Mexico, as does my colleague from Colorado as well. When we get a call from a call center, we think the person is in our neighborhood talking to us about a local issue. Then we discover that person is halfway around the world pretending to be our neighbor and friend or representing a local business, when in reality we have outsourced that service--not we, the company has outsourced it--and the worst thing is they don't tell us about it. They are misleading the consumers, and I know we have some legislation to correct that.

That is outsourcing. That is costing America jobs, and it is wrong. We can compete. Americans can compete with any other workforce in any other country, as long as we have a level playing field. So we want to make it in America. Yes, we can.

First, let me talk about some success stories. Not too long ago I visited Marlin Steel in Baltimore City. This is a steel wire manufacturer that uses raw material from America and manufactures its product in America, in Baltimore City, a high-quality wire steel product. They sell their product in America, export their product to other countries, and create more jobs in America. That is a success story.

A lot of people have given up on steel. We can't give up on steel. We need to make it in America.

Let me tell my colleagues about another success story. Tomorrow I will be at English American Tailoring, which is located in Westminster, right near Baltimore, in Maryland. They manufacture suits in America. They make it in America. We are able to do it. All they ask for is a level playing field.

We took some steps in the Senate Finance Committee yesterday to provide that level playing field by what we call the wool trust fund, which deals with inverted tariffs. We must make sure our laws are fair. The shocking thing about clothing is it actually has higher tariffs on the raw material--making it impossible to manufacture in America--than the finished product coming into America. We correct that with the wool trust fund. We need to make sure we have a level playing field.

Let me tell my colleagues another success story, about Pacific Trade International. This is a success story. This company was located in Asia, an American company located in Asia, making candles known as the Chesapeake Bay Candles--being made in Asia. Well, this is a success story. They are back in Maryland. They are located in Glen Burnie, MD, in the United States of America, making those candles, selling them to Kohl's and Target and other retailers, creating 100 jobs that are now in my State of Maryland as a result of this company bringing jobs back to America.

In the last 28 months alone, we have seen 500,000 new manufacturing jobs in America. We have talked about the U.S. auto manufacturing industry and how we have seen that industry take off because we can make it in America.

That brings me to the efforts of Senator Stabenow and others on the Bring Jobs Home Act. It is shocking--and I think the people in Maryland and around the Nation are shocked--to understand that our Tax Code actually encourages companies to take jobs overseas. American taxpayers are actually footing the bill because, under current law, if an American company decides to take its jobs and export them overseas, the moving costs are deductible per our Tax Code.

Why do we allow that? Why do we ask the taxpayers to subsidize moving jobs overseas? Well, the Bring Jobs Home Act says: Let's get rid of that tax deduction. Instead, let's make sure if companies bring jobs back to America, yes, we will consider those necessary expenses. We don't consider it necessary business expenses to export jobs. And we will give them some additional help with a 20-percent credit.

This is what we should be doing: creating policies that encourage keeping jobs in America. Make it in America. Yes, we can.

We are going to have a chance to bring this bill forward, and I hope my colleagues will support it. Then let's try to move this bill quickly.

This is a pretty simple bill which does three things: It eliminates the deduction for moving jobs overseas, it makes sure we have that deduction if companies bring jobs back home, and we provide a credit as part of the cost to bring the jobs back home. It is very simple. Why don't we keep it that way. Why don't we just pass this bill by itself and do something about creating jobs in America.

I say to my colleagues, this shouldn't be a partisan issue. We all know we have to keep jobs in America. This is a simple bill. Let's get it done. Let's not confuse it or mix it with other issues. Let's show the American people we can act in the best interests of our country.

With that, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I have taken to the floor of the Senate on previous occasions to talk about our aging water infrastructure and the need for financing. I have talked about the State revolving funds, which are the principal funding sources for our local governments' ability to upgrade their water infrastructure. I have talked about the need for safe drinking water and how that is being compromised. I have also talked about the way we treat our wastewater and the health risks involved in an aging infrastructure. And when I have taken to the floor on different occasions to talk about the consequences of our failure to act, I have made it clear if we move forward with water infrastructure projects it will not only provide the type of infrastructure we need for public health but it will also create jobs and opportunities in our communities.

I have the honor of representing the State of Maryland in the Senate, and we have some very aged communities in Maryland. One of those, of course, is my home city of Baltimore, where the water infrastructure is as historic as some of its buildings--well over 100 years old. And although I have talked about this issue before, I want to bring to the Senate's attention that this past Monday, in Baltimore, a 120-year-old water main broke, creating a massive crater in downtown Baltimore on one of the busiest streets in our city. I have been told it will take a couple of weeks before that can be fixed. I have also been told that, as a result, downtown Baltimore was flooded, sending thousands of workers home and costing businesses countless loss of revenue.

One might say: Well, these things happen. But in Baltimore we have a water main break at the rate of about two or three a day, costing a great deal of money because our city workers have to go out, dig it up, and cut off water service to homes and businesses, which are inconvenienced by not having the ability to get water. And we experience this expense again and again.

What we need to do is upgrade our water infrastructure. We all understand that. We need to make that investment. These major water main breaks are becoming more and more a reality. In 2008, we saw River Road in Bethesda turn literally into a river. We

had to use helicopters to rescue people because of a water main break. In October 2009, we had a major break in Dundalk, MD, outside Baltimore, which flooded thousands of homes, causing incredible inconvenience to that community. One year ago, not far from where we are right here, we saw a major water main break in Prince George's County, closing the Washington beltway and causing a lot of homeowners to be without water for an extended period of time.

The water infrastructure in this country is in desperate need of new attention and greater investment. That is true in our wastewater treatment facility plants and it is true in the way we transport our clean water. Wastewater treatment plants are critically important in preventing billions of tons of pollutants each year from reaching America's rivers, lakes, and coastlines. These facilities prevent waterborne disease and make our water safe for fishing and swimming.

Similarly, some 54,000 community drinking water systems provide drinking water to more than 250 million Americans, keeping water supplies free of contaminants that cause disease. The ongoing degradation of these systems puts our human health directly at risk.

Many of our water and wastewater systems are outdated, with some components across the country over a century old. This aging infrastructure contributes to the 75,000 sanitary sewer overflows that occur in the United States per year--75,000 sewage overflows a year in the United States. It causes an estimated 5,500 annual illnesses due to these contaminations which occur on our beaches and in our streams and lakes where American families vacation.

The Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that more than $630 billion will be needed over the next 20 years to meet the Nation's drinking water and wastewater infrastructure needs.

As chair of the Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife, I held a hearing where we brought in some of our local officials to talk about some of these needs. They told us they can't possibly do this with the resources they currently have available, that they need a Federal partner--they need a stronger Federal partner--and they need a Federal Government that will give them new innovative tools in order to deal with these critical needs.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake of Baltimore testified she would like to see some form of trust fund established so we can leverage money and make these types of investments. She pointed out--which we already know--that for the money we spend on water infrastructure we will cause a multiplier effect. By a ratio of 3-to-1, it actually creates more money in our economy. If we put $1 billion in water infrastructure improvement, it creates $3 billion of economic activity in our communities, allowing us to create more jobs at the same time we improve our water infrastructure for public health and for economic development.

This makes sense. We need to do this. I don't know how many more times I will have to come to the floor of the Senate and point out these horrible water main breaks that are occurring all over. What is happening in Baltimore--what is happening in Maryland--is happening in every one of our States. This is not a one-State problem. This is a national problem. People are outraged by these situations, and they are going to be more outraged when they realize their public health is at risk and the availability of safe drinking water is at risk, as well as the inconvenience that is caused when their basements are flooded or they can't get to their businesses or have to leave their businesses early or pay additional local taxes in order to repair the damage done as a result of the failure to replace aged infrastructure.

I urge my colleagues to work together on this issue. Let's make sure we have a budget that makes sense for this country but that allows us to invest in the types of investments that are important for America's future. We have talked about that with transportation infrastructure, we have talked about that with energy infrastructure, but the same thing is true with water infrastructure. So I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to provide the tools and resources that will allow our economy to grow and our local governments to upgrade their water infrastructure systems.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I wish to thank Senator Lautenberg.

I was listening to Senator Mikulski and Senator Bingaman on their comments to try to bring some common sense to our election laws by basically disclosing who contributes to the political process. That is something Republicans and Democrats have been together on for a long time. I don't know what happened. This seems to be an issue that doesn't get bipartisan support.

I particularly wish to thank Senator Whitehouse for his leadership on this issue. He has been talking about this matter of DISCLOSE, along with Senator Schumer, since the Supreme Court decision in 2010 with the Citizens United decision.

I must say that I think the Citizens United decision will go down as one of the worst decisions in the history of the Supreme Court of the United States. I say that for many reasons. First and foremost, those who are students of our judicial system and our constitutional separation of powers will understand that the case that went up to the Supreme Court was a pretty narrow case based upon a 30-minute documentary. In that decision of Citizens United, the Court ruled in a very broad way that a corporation has all the rights of an individual in our political system. It is the first time that has happened. It reversed the legislation that had been passed by Congress.

The Framers of our Constitution envisioned that it was the legislative branch of government that would make our laws and policies. The legislature, after a great deal of debate and after many different attempts, passed laws that restricted how much money corporations could put in our political system and how they had to do it in a very open and transparent manner. Then we had a reform bill known as the McCain- Feingold bill that spelled out certain restrictions. All of these cases and laws have been upheld over a long period of time by court decisions.

In Citizens United, the Court not only substituted itself for the legislature but reversed its own precedent in ruling that corporations could literally put an unlimited amount of money into our political system. As I said, I think it was one of the worst decisions in the history of the Supreme Court. It has now unleashed unlimited money in our political system. What corporations and undisclosed sources can now put into our elections will dwarf what individual contributors will make available in the political season.

The Center for Responsive Politics has now said that super PACs and their related organizations have already spent over twice what similar groups spent 4 years ago. We not only have this unleashing of undisclosed corporate funds, we are now seeing the super PACs taking over as the major source of funding of campaigns.

As Senator Mikulski just said on the Senate floor, if we run for office and solicit contributions, every one of those contributors is listed on our reports. We make quarterly reports so that the people of the Nation know who is financing our campaigns. They will not know who is financing these ads that are going to appear on television from these Citizens United-type political activities where we don't know where the money is coming from. It could come from a single source who wishes to influence our political system but does not want to be identified in the cause. I really think this compromises our democratic system. I think an individual could literally distort our political system through the use of money, and that is something I hope all of us would be concerned about.

I am now a believer. I think the only thing we can do to overturn the Citizens United case is to support Senator Tom Udall's constitutional amendment. That amendment gives the Congress the power we thought we had to legislate.

I think the people of Maryland, West Virginia, and our Nation would be surprised to learn that we cannot legislate the limits of what people can contribute in campaigns. They think that is our responsibility, not the Court's. Well, Senator Tom Udall's amendment would give us the power to do that and overturn the Citizens United case. I hope we could come together to let us have the power we should have. It seems to me that is something both Democrats and Republicans in this body should agree on, that those decisions should be made in the Congress of the United States and not in the Supreme Court or the courts of our land.

The bill we have before us--and I urge my colleagues to let us move forward to the DISCLOSE Act--brings transparency into the campaign finance system. Many of us frequently talk about transparency. Transparency is the most important part of integrity in our system. We talk about a lot of other countries adding transparency to the way they do business. Well, we should have transparency in one of the most fundamental parts of our system, and that is how we conduct our elections. It is key to our democracy.

It is Justice Brandeis who said that ``sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.'' I don't understand why we would resist the public knowing who is contributing money to influence our political system.

The DISCLOSE Act has the bipartisan support of the League of Women Voters, Democracy 21, and People for the American Way.

Let me quote from a letter recently sent to Congress by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center. It says:

Hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent to influence

the outcome of the elections over the next four months.

Neither the candidates being attacked with these millions of

dollars nor the public will have complete, accurate,

meaningful information about the sources of such money. Only

the contributors and the beneficiaries will be in the know.

Passage of S. 3369 will mean that in future election cycles

those funding these shadow campaigns will be disclosed to the

public so that voters can make informed decisions at the

polls.

The letter goes on to say:

As we get closer to the 2012 elections, the amount of

federal campaign-related spending using funds from

undisclosed sources continues to rise. Especially troubling

is the lack of transparency regarding the expenditures of so-

called ``Section 501(c) groups'' this election cycle, such as

Priorities USA and Crossroads GPS.

I have heard some of my colleagues say: Well, can we constitutionally do

this? Is this allowed for us? After all, Citizens United sort of says anything goes. Well, let me quote from the Citizens United decision-- and this is very interesting--where the Court wrote:

[P]rompt disclosure of expenditures can provide

shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold

corporations and elected officials accountable for their

positions and supporters. Shareholders can determine whether

their corporation's political speech advances the

corporation's interest in making profits, and citizens can

see whether elected officials are in the pocket of so-called

moneyed interests.

The First Amendment protects political speech; and

disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the

speech of corporate entities in a proper way. This

transparency enables the electorate to make informed

decisions and gives proper weight to the different speakers

and messages.

That is the Supreme Court speaking in Citizens United.

We clearly have the authority to move at least this modest step forward to allow the American people to see who is making these contributions so they can make an informed judgment on election day. We owe it to the citizens of this country to take up and pass the DISCLOSE Act.

Once again, I wish to thank my colleague, who is now on the Senate floor, Senator Whitehouse, for his leadership on this issue. As I said earlier, from day one when the Supreme Court issued its decision, it was Senator Whitehouse who immediately observed that we have to do something to make sure that those who use this process to influence our system--that information is disclosed so the public has the information they need in order to properly judge our elections.

Mr. President, first, let me thank my colleague from Connecticut, Senator Blumenthal, for his comments. I must tell the Senator, listening to him account to the people in Connecticut, to the individuals who are struggling in this economy, I can tell the Senator we have the same exact circumstances happening in Maryland.

This past weekend I was with some small business owners who were telling me their plans for opening a new restaurant and opening a new gasoline station, telling me of the struggles they are having in getting financing. There are community banks that have money, but they cannot make the loans because of the new rating system, and it is very difficult to get the capital to get the type of expansions they need today to start a new business.

In my State of Maryland, the high-tech and cybersecurity areas where we have small companies that are starting up to help our country, to help our country answer the problems of cybersecurity, help our country develop the type of biotech discoveries that will make our health care system more cost effective, are having a very difficult time putting together the capital in order to be able to move forward with job creation.

The Senator and I know 60 percent of our job creation will come from small businesses. We also know innovation is more likely to come from small companies that find ways to work more cost effectively. Today in this economy it is a challenge for small business owners to be able to put together the business financing to create the jobs we need for our economy.

The Senator also understands if we are going to balance our budget, if we are going to be able to move forward, we have to have more people working. A lot of people are looking for work and cannot find a job. We want more people working to fuel our economy. Also, by the way, they also pay taxes and help us bring our budget into balance.

So I could not agree with the Senator more that we need to get Democrats and Republicans working together. Here we have a bill on the Senate floor that helps small businesses. Let's not filibuster this bill. Let's at least bring it up for an up-or-down vote. I thought in a democracy majority rules. Let's bring it up. Let's have a vote. Let's keep it to the small business issues.

We all talk about our support for small businesses. Let's keep it to the issue before us: to create jobs, to help small businesses do that.

The underlying bill--and I thank Senator Reid for the underlying bill--says to small businesses: If you add to our economy, if you create more jobs, if you increase your payroll, then we have tax help for you to do that.

I must tell you, I think this is exactly what we need. We know businesses cannot get all the financing they need. They need some help in order to be able to put together new job opportunities. This bill provides that with a 10-percent credit on the cost of a new hire. That gives an incentive for the small business owner. It may be the difference between setting up that new restaurant or moving forward to add that employee that will not only help our economy but will help that company discover the way in which we can deal with the cyber threats to this country. So it helps our country, it creates the jobs, and this underlying bill should be discussed on the floor of the Senate without filibusters that deny us that chance.

I also thank Senator Landrieu. Senator Landrieu, the chair of the Small Business Committee, has put forward a series of amendments. I am proud to have worked with her on the amendment she has brought forward that adds some provisions that are extremely important.

I know in the underlying bill, working with Senator Landrieu, we have also the expensing provision. That is an important provision. As I am sure the Senator from Connecticut understands, that provision allows a business owner to go out and make a capital investment, to buy a piece of equipment. Rather than having to write it off over 3 years or 5 years or 10 years, they can write it off immediately, having the ability to buy that piece of equipment, to grow their business, and to be able to then write off the cost. It is just a timing issue for the businessperson, but it is the difference between making the investment or not making the investment, creating a job or not creating a job.

By the way, by buying that piece of equipment, that business owner is also helping another business owner who is selling that piece of equipment, to get our economy back moving again. It is those types of commonsense provisions that have always enjoyed broad bipartisan support in the Senate--always. These are provisions we have had Democrats and Republicans working on together. We need to do that today.

Let's move on with the bill. We have had it on the floor of the Senate now a couple days. Let's move on and start voting, but do not filibuster. Let's vote on relevant amendments. Can't we just stick with the small business issues and vote on that in order to help our economy grow?

I am also pleased about another provision that is in the Landrieu amendment and the underlying bill now that we could have a chance to vote on that increases the surety bond limits for small businesses. This was passed by the Senate and incorporated into law in February 2009. I was proud to be the sponsor of this amendment that increased the surety bond limit from $2 million to $5 million.

The reason this becomes important is, for a small business owner to be able to get a government contract of over $100,000, they need to have a surety bond. In order to get that surety bond, the small business owner has to take, usually, for security, some of their assets and pledge them for the surety bond rather than using them for the credit of the company, which is really a catch-22 situation.

Increasing the limit from $2 million to $5 million frees up some of that ability because the government comes in, the Small Business Administration comes in and helps them with that surety bond. So if you are a construction contractor trying to get a Federal contract, the difference between $2 million and $5 million is a huge difference in the type of contracts that you can compete for.

It is interesting that when we looked at it, we had projected it would generate about $147 million in additional bonding activity for projects of over $2 million, and we found that, in fact, it increased activity by $360 million.

So the need was there. It generated strong activity. Democrats and Republicans supported it. I was proud of the support of Senator Landrieu and Senator Snowe.

This is not a controversial issue. The only way we are going to get that increase--that expired in 2010. It is no longer part of the law. We are back to $2 million. So small business owners are at a disadvantage. We just have not had a chance to extend that. It is not controversial. It brings money into the economy. It is not scored.

So we need to be able to get that done. If we cannot get to this bill, I do not know when we will get that increase in the surety bond limit. So that is another reason I urge my colleagues to let us vote on this bill to help small businesses in our community. It has always enjoyed bipartisan support.

Here is what we are asking. My colleagues, we all talk about we want to create more jobs. We all talk about supporting small businesses because we know small businesses are the growth engine of America. We all know small businesses create more of the new patents, more of the new innovations per employee than the larger companies do. Let's put our action where our words are. We can do that today by allowing the Senate to move forward to consider amendments on the Reid bill that is before us--the Landrieu amendments. Let's move forward with that bill. Let's take up relevant amendments that deal with small business

issues. Let's vote them up or down by a majority vote of the Senate. And then I am sure, at the end of the day when we put that bill up for final passage, it will enjoy broad support by the Members of this body. And it gives the American people confidence that we indeed are focused on job creation for America.

I urge my colleagues to let us move forward on this bill. Let's take up the Landrieu amendments, take up the underlying bill. Let's do something that can help small businesses, help job growth, help our economy, and restore confidence to the American people that we are indeed dealing with the agenda they want us to do--moving our country forward, moving our economy forward by creating more jobs in our economy.

I thank my friend from Connecticut.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, a year ago, I shared with my colleagues concerns I had about the trajectory of democracy in Hungary. Unfortunately, since then Hungary has moved ever farther away from a broad range of norms relating to democracy and the rule of law.

On June 6, David Kramer, the President of Freedom House who served as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor for President George W. Bush, summed up the situation. Releasing Freedom House's latest edition of Nations in Transit Kramer said: ``Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, under the pretext of so-called reforms, have been systematically breaking down critical checks and balances. They appear to be pursuing the `Putinization' of their countries.''

The report further elaborates, ``Hungary's precipitous descent is the most glaring example among the newer European Union (EU) members. Its deterioration over the past five years has affected institutions that form the bedrock of democratically accountable systems, including independent courts and media. Hungary's negative trajectory predated the current government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, but his drive to concentrate power over the past two years has forcefully propelled the trend.''

Perhaps the most authoritative voice regarding this phenomenon is the Prime Minister himself. In a February 2010 speech, Viktor Orban criticized a system of governance based on pluralism and called instead for: ``a large centralized political field of power . . . designed for permanently governing.'' In June of last year, he defended his plan to cement economic policy in so-called cardinal laws, which require a two- thirds vote in parliament to change, by saying, ``It is no secret that in this respect I am tying the hands of the next government, and not only the next one but the following ten.''

Checks and balances have been eroded and power has been concentrated in the hands of officials whose extended terms of office will allow them to long outlive this government and the next. These include the public prosecutor, head of the state audit office, head of the national judicial office, and head of the media board. Those who have expressed concerns about these developments have good reason to be alarmed.

I am particularly concerned about the independence of the judiciary which, it was reported this week, will be the subject of infringement proceedings launched by the European Commission, and Hungary's new media law. Although there have been some cosmetic tweaks to the media law, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media has argued that it remains highly problematic. Indeed, one expert has predicted that the most likely outcome of the new law will be to squeeze out reporting on corruption.

Hungary also adopted a new law on religion last year that had the stunning effect of stripping hundreds of religions of their legal recognition en masse. Of the 366 faiths which previously had legal status in Hungary, only 14 were initially granted recognition under the new law. Remarkably, the power to decide what is or is not a religion is vested entirely and exclusively in the hands of the legislature, making it a singularly politicized and arbitrary process. Of 84 churches that subsequently attempted to regain legal recognition, 66 were rejected without any explanation or legal rationale at all. The notion that the new framework should be acceptable because the faiths of most Hungarian citizens are recognized is poor comfort for the minority who find themselves the victims of this discriminatory process. This law also stands as a negative example for many countries around the world just now beginning tenuous movement towards democracy and human rights.

Finally, a year ago, I warned that ``[i]f one side of the nationalism coin is an excessive fixation on Hungarian ethnic identity beyond the borders, the other side is intolerance toward minorities at home.'' I am especially concerned by an escalation of anti-Semitic acts which I believe have grown directly from the government's own role in seeking to revise Hungary's past.

Propaganda against the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, which defines the current borders of Hungary, has manifested itself in several ways. Most concretely, the Hungarian government extended citizenship on the basis of ethnic or blood identity--something the government of Viktor Orban promised the Council of Europe in 2001 that it would not do and which failed to win popular support in a 2004 referendum. Second, the government extended voting rights to these new ethnic citizens in countries including Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine. This has combined with a rhetorical and symbolic fixation on ``lost'' Hungarian territories--apparently the rationale for displaying an 1848 map of Greater Hungary during Hungary's EU presidency last year. In this way, the government is effectively advancing central elements of the agenda of the extremist, anti-Semitic, anti-Roma Jobbik party. Moreover, implicitly--but unmistakably--it is sending the message that Hungary is no longer a civic state where political rights such as voting derive from citizenship, but where citizenship derives from one's ethnic status or blood identity.

The most recent manifestation of this revisionism includes efforts to rehabilitate convicted war criminal Albert Wass and the bizarre spectacle of the Hungarian government's role in a ceremony in neighboring Romania--over the objections of that country--honoring fascist writer and ideologue Joszef Nyiro. That event effectively saw the Speaker of the Hungarian Parliament, Laszlo Kover; the Hungarian State Secretary for Culture, Geza Szocs; and Gabor Vona, the leader of Hungary's most notoriously extremist party, Jobbik, united in honoring Nyrio. Several municipalities have now seen fit to erect statues honoring Miklos Horthy, Hungary's wartime leader, and the writings of Wass and Nyiro have been elevated onto the national curriculum.

It is not surprising that this climate of intolerance and revisionism has gone hand-in-hand with an outbreak of intolerance, such as the antiSemitic verbal assaults on a 90-year old Rabbi and on a journalist, an attack on a synagogue menorah in Nagykanizsa, the vandalism of a Jewish memorial in Budapest and monuments honoring Raoul Wallenberg, the Blood Libel screed by a Jobbik MP just before Passover, and the recent revelation that a Jobbik MP requested--and received--a certificate from a genetic diagnostic company attesting that the MP did not have Jewish or Romani ancestry.

We are frequently told that Fidesz is the party best positioned in Hungary to guard against the extremism of Jobbik. At the moment, there seems to be little evidence to support that claim. The campaign to rehabilitate fascist ideologues and leaders from World War II is dangerous and must stop. Ultimately, democracy and the rights of minorities will stand or fall together.

Hungary is not just on the wrong track, it is heading down a dangerous road. The rehabilitation of disgraced World War II figures and the exaltation of blood and nation reek of a different era, which the community of democracies--especially Europe--had hoped was gone for good. Today's Hungary demonstrates that the battle against the worst human instincts is never fully won but must be fought in every generation.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize Colonel David E. Anderson who will complete his 2-year tour of duty as commander and district engineer of the Baltimore District, Army Corps of Engineers, on July 20, 2012. Colonel Anderson will officially retire from the United States Army Corps of Engineers at the end of the year. Colonel Anderson's career has spanned 26 years of service where he has led both mechanized and airborne combat engineer units as well as commanding two USACE districts.

Colonel Anderson excelled as the commander of the Baltimore District in the North Atlantic Division. He directed the successful operation of flood risk mitigation, hurricane protection, environmental restoration, Federal navigation and other water resource work within a 49,000 square mile area and along 7,000 miles of the Chesapeake Bay's environmentally sensitive shoreline. Colonel Anderson led the district as it responded to the Nation's Base Realignment and Closure 2005 mission, which brought a $7.2 billion construction and engineering effort to the National Capital Region.

During his career he has served as the commander of the Honolulu District and two tours as a legislative assistant, including one tour as the legislative assistant to the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, and one tour as the legislative assistant to the Secretary of the Army.

Colonel Anderson's dedication to duty, loyalty to the Nation, and personal engagement with soldiers, civilian personnel, and the public will be positively felt for years to come. His selfless service is in keeping with the highest traditions of the Corps of Engineers.

Kara Anderson, Colonel Anderson's wife of 24 years, and his three children, also warrant our thanks. In addition to her unfailing support for her husband, she has played an active role in every military community that Colonel Anderson's career has taken him. The entire family has made important sacrifices for our Nation and they, too, deserve our thanks.

I ask my colleagues to join me today in recognizing the contributions Colonel Anderson has made to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Baltimore District and wish him and his family well in his retirement.

First, Mr. President, I thank Senator Bennet for his comments as they relate to the Affordable Care Act. I appreciate very much the

point the Senator made that what was passed by Congress and signed by President Obama was really an evolution of work that had been done and recommendations that had been made by Democratic and Republican administrations over a long period of time and that what the Supreme Court did was uphold Congress's ability to move forward with a plan that will give every American access to affordable quality health care.

I could not agree more with the Senator that we need to do work on this. We need to improve the bill. There are different things we need to work on, and Democrats and Republicans should be working together to move forward on the health care debate.

I also appreciate the point the Senator raised that the House of Representatives--I think it is the 31st time they are acting on legislation that repeals all or part of the Affordable Care Act. But their strategy is to repeal the law, and they have nothing to move forward with. They do not have a plan. As the Senator pointed out, if that were to become the case--and it will not; we are not going to pass it in the Senate--parents who now have their children on their insurance policy, who are 23-, 24-, 25-years-old, would lose that opportunity, and parents who can now get their children covered by insurance who have preexisting conditions would lose that protection.

The Patients' Bill of Rights that we have incorporated against abusive practices of private insurance companies--so that if someone goes into an emergency room with emergency conditions, they need to be reimbursed under prudent layperson standards--that could be lost. Our seniors could lose their wellness exams that are covered under Medicare. And we are closing the coverage gap on prescription drugs. That could be lost.

Let me also point out that our seniors appreciate the fact that what we did in the Affordable Care Act extends the life of Medicare for about a decade. That would be lost.

Small businesses will be able, in 2014, to go into exchanges and not be discriminated against by paying more for their insurance than a larger company. That would be lost.

As the Senator knows, the attack on women's health care--this bill that is now law allows women to be treated equally with men as far as premiums are concerned. That would be lost.

So I appreciate Senator Bennet taking the time on the floor to go over exactly what would happen if we were to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

What we need to do, and I think the Court gave us this opportunity-- they spoke to the fact that it is up to Congress to move forward on this--it gives us a chance, Democrats and Republicans, to say: How can we make sure our health care system is as cost-effective as possible.

In the Senate Finance Committee today, we had a roundtable discussion with experts as to how we can do delivery system reforms, use ways we can manage people with serious illnesses and bring down the cost. That is what we need to do.

But the Affordable Care Act itself reduced health care costs. Look at the record. We will lose all that. We actually add to the deficit by repealing the Affordable Care Act. As the Senator knows, the House changed their rules so they can repeal the bill, even though it adds to the deficit.

So I wanted to first thank the Senator for bringing this to the attention of our colleagues as to what is involved. I do think Democrats and Republicans need to work together. The one comment I hear more and more from my constituents is stop the gridlock in Washington. Stop debating the old issues. Let's move forward. Let's create jobs. Let's work together. Let's get the job done for the American people.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes as in morning business.

I rise to bring attention to Tourette syndrome, a neurological disorder that affects more than 200,000 Americans in the most severe form and as many as 3 million more who exhibit milder symptoms. Tourette syndrome or TS is characterized by repetitive involuntary movements and vocalizations called tics.

The disorder is named for a French neurologist who in 1885 first described the condition in an 86-year-old woman. TS occurs in people from all ethnic groups and is present in males three to four times more often than in females.

The early symptoms are typically noticed first in childhood, usually when a child is between the age of 3 and 9 years of age. Although TS can be a chronic condition with symptoms lasting a lifetime, most patients experience the most severe symptoms in their early teens, with some improvements occurring in the late teens and continuing into adulthood.

In May, a 13-year-old boy named Jackson Guyton from Parkton, MD, visited my office to tell me about his experiences with Tourette. Jackson first noticed symptoms 5 years ago during the summer of 2007. While on vacation with his family at the beach, his body started making strange movements he could not control. First, came a head jerk, then eye-squinting and rolling; later, he started emitting high-pitched squeaking sounds. As Jackson put it: ``I was a regular kid one moment, with good grades and very few problems, then in the next I was rolling my eyes and making sounds. . . . like a fire alarm going off.''

In school, the sound was so loud his friends would cover their ears and avoid sitting near him in class, and parents of other children began complaining about his being in their children's class. With teachers who were uneducated on TS, the symptoms continued throughout the school year.

So as to avoid ridicule, Jackson began skipping school or spending more time in the nurse's office than in class. Fortunately, Jackson's parents found a physician who was able to quickly diagnose the condition as Tourette Syndrome. Jackson changed schools and spent the next few years in treatment, trying various medications prescribed by his doctors.

Those medicines were somewhat helpful. Jackson tried other treatments and clinical trials at Johns Hopkins University, where he met Dr. Matthew Specht, a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry who teaches children exercises to help control the tics.

That technique, cognitive behavioral intervention therapy or CBIT requires patients to use a great amount of focus and it does not work for everyone. But it did help Jackson control his squeaks. In the middle school, he encountered a guidance counselor named Mrs. Oates who helped change his life. In Jackson's words:

She learned as much as she could about TS and helped me

learn how to deal with the kids better and talk to teachers

about what was happening. She also gave me a safe place to

hang out when things were bad. Through her and a group that

my mom started to help other families with TS in our area, I

made a few friends who understood me better.

She also helped Jackson develop a presentation for the 6th grade class in his school. Jackson is now 13 years of age, and in September he will enter the 9th grade at Hereford High School. He is no longer feeling depressed, and he no longer retreats from others because of his condition. Rather, he welcomes the opportunity to use his experiences to educate teachers and other students as a Youth Ambassador, a position for which he was trained at the National TSA Conference with about 40 other young people.

Recently, he presented information about TS to more than 400 elementary school students. He says he truly enjoys answering their questions. He believes, as I do, it is important for people to understand that children with TS are not doing strange or disruptive things on purpose, and he just wants to be treated like everyone else.

Jackson still has unpredictable and sometimes painful tics, but he knows now that TS will not stop him from accomplishing everything he wants to do in life. Last year, Jackson's little brother Davis was also diagnosed with TS. Jackson says that having a teacher who understands the problem and knows how to help is one of the most important things in the life of a child with TS.

He is preparing a special presentation for Davis's class that he will deliver when the 2012-2013 school year starts. I am very proud of this young man. I am hopeful the examples set by him, his

guidance counselor Mrs. Oates, and other TSA Youth Ambassadors are blazing a trial for those who are newly diagnosed.

I am also pleased Congress understands how important public awareness of Tourette is. In 2000, Congress created the Tourette Syndrome Public Health Education Research Outreach Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The purpose of this program is to increase recognition and diagnosis of TS, reduce the stigma attached to the disorder, and increase the availability of effective treatment.

The program also includes a public-private partnership between the CDC and the Tourette Syndrome Association, or TSA, that provides educational programs for physicians, allied health professionals and school personnel as well as those who have TS, their families, and the general public. To date, the CDC-TSA outreach program has conducted more than 520 educational programs for 32,000 professionals and community members nationwide.

This program is working well. In addition, CDC has entered into a cooperative agreement with the University of Rochester and the University of South Florida to better understand the public health impact of tic disorders, including TS, for individuals and their families and the community.

One of the areas being assessed is education, as they are looking at the effect of TS on standardized test scores, grade retention, and the presence of an individualized education program. Significantly, they are also measuring teachers' understanding of TS, and this information will be used to inform and improve outreach programs.

I urge my colleagues to support full funding of this program again this year so we might expand awareness of TS and lead to a better quality of life for people such as Jackson and families across the Nation who are affected by this disorder.

I yield the floor.

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

I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Madam President, I take this time to comment on the Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act. This was a good day for the American people. It allows us to move forward with providing universal health care coverage for all Americans--affordable, quality health care.

I wish to quote from a former Member of this body when he said:

For me, this is a season of hope, new hope for a justice

and fair prosperity for the many and not just for a few, new

hope. And this is the cause of my life, new hope that will

break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American--

north, south, east, west, young, old--will have decent,

quality health care as a fundamental right and not a

privilege.

That was a statement from our former colleague, the late Senator Ted Kennedy, on August 26, 2008. This Congress acted and did what was right to move this Nation forward to join all the other industrial nations in the world to say health care is a right, not a privilege.

The Supreme Court today recognized it was Congress's responsibility, and Congress had the legal authority to move forward. As a result of this decision, we are going to find that $10.7 billion has been recovered already today by dealing with waste, fraud, and abuse in the Medicare system. We will be able to continue with those programs that make our health care system more affordable. We will be able to continue health care coverage for those between the ages of 19 and 25 who are now on their parents' health insurance policy; 3.1 million young adults have benefited from that provision of the Affordable Care Act that was upheld by the Supreme Court today.

Seventeen million children with preexisting conditions can no longer be denied coverage by their insurers. That provision is now safe as a result of the Supreme Court decision. And 5.3 million Americans on Medicare have saved, on average, $600 on their prescription drugs.

As you know, we worked in this Affordable Care Act to close the coverage gap--the so-called doughnut hole--on prescription drug coverage for our seniors. In upholding the Affordable Care Act, the Supreme Court allows us to continue to make sure that coverage gap is eliminated.

There are 70,000 Americans with preexisting conditions who now have the security to know their coverage is safe. In addition, in 2011, 32.5 million seniors received one or more free preventive services. So far in 2012, 14 million seniors have already received these services.

The expansion of benefits in Medicare that was under the Affordable Care Act, providing the wellness exam and eliminating the copayments on preventive health services, will also now be saved and our seniors will be able to continue to receive those benefits.

On the doughnut hole, the coverage gap on prescription drugs will save $3.7 billion for 5.2 million seniors, with an average of $651. This is real money. This is the difference between some seniors being able to take their medicines or having to leave them on the pharmacist's desk. That is now also protected.

Insurance companies will provide almost 13 million Americans with over $1 billion in rebates in 2012. We put into the health reform proposals protections against excessive premiums by private insurance companies. Well, that is going to save consumers in America over $1 billion. And 105 million Americans will no longer have lifetime limits on their coverage.

Insurance should be there to protect you. Before the Affordable Care Act, there were limits that might not have covered extraordinary costs, catastrophic costs. We now have that protection as a result of the Affordable Care Act and the Supreme Court's upholding that decision today.

It is also important for small businesses. In 2011, 360,000 small businesses took advantage of the tax credit that helps small companies afford to buy health insurance for their employees. When we fully implement this bill in 2014, small companies will enjoy the same larger pools and lower premiums that larger companies enjoy today in covering around 2 million workers. So we have already made a significant amount of progress as a result of the Affordable Care Act and the Supreme Court upholding that law today.

I wish to talk a minute about the Patients Bill of Rights. One of the major parts of the bill was to take on the abusive practices of private insurance companies. We all know that was at risk if the Supreme Court did not uphold the actions of Congress. As a result of upholding the actions of Congress, we now find, for example, access to emergency care, a provision I worked on, says it is prudent for you to go to an emergency room if you are having shortness of breath, if you are having chest pains. It is the right thing to do to go to the emergency room and that your insurance company has to pay for that visit. It can't go by your final diagnosis that it may not be a heart attack. After you get your bill, and it is not paid for by your insurance company--you might have a heart attack--this bill protects a person and makes sure insurance companies do not use abusive practices against you.

Access to women's health care is guaranteed under the Patients Bill of Rights. Access to pediatric care and choice of health care professional as your primary care--all that is in what we call the Patients Bill of Rights that protects you against abusive practices of private insurance companies.

Clinical trial coverage is also here, and the provision I worked on, health

disparities. We know we pay a heavy cost in America because of health disparities in minority populations and in gender issues. We now have a National Institute for Minority Health and Health Disparities at the National Institutes of Health. That will help us understand why we have these disparities in our system and what we can do to reduce those disparities, because it is the right policy for America and it will also save us money. That law now is protected. That institute is protected and is no longer in jeopardy as a result of the Supreme Court's upholding of the Affordable Care Act.

Let me talk about oral health care. We have talked frequently on the floor here about Deamonte Driver, the 12-year-old in Maryland who, in 2007, had no health insurance and could not get access to dental care and lost his life. We said that was not going to happen again in our State, or anyplace in the Nation, and we are proud that children's access to pediatric health care--dental care--is protected under the essential benefit provisions in the Affordable Care Act that was upheld by the Supreme Court today.

I also want to comment on the importance of the legal decision beyond health care. To me, it shows the Supreme Court was able to find a way to advance the rule of law and to follow precedent we have seen in upholding programs such as Social Security and Medicare, which are mandatory insurance programs. It is the right decision on the rule of law. It is the right legacy for this Court to find a way--in a Supreme Court that has nine different Justices with different views--to come together on an opinion that upheld the authority of Congress to act on a major national problem.

Now it is time for us to move forward. This issue has been litigated. The Supreme Court is the final arbiter of this decision. It is constitutional. I urge my colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans, to work together to implement this bill in the best manner for the people of this Nation. We know we are saving money, we know the Congressional Budget Office says the implementation of the Affordable Care Act will save hundreds of billions of dollars over the first 10 years and then trillions of dollars beyond that in our health care system. Let's work together to make sure it works. Let's work together in the interest of the American people. Let's put our partisan fights aside, let's accept what the Supreme Court has done, and let's move forward to get this law implemented in the most cost-effective way so we can indeed achieve the goal Senator Kennedy was talking about--that every American should have access to affordable quality care in the richest Nation in the world.

With that, Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.