Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 307, H.R. 2431.

Madam President, I further ask that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, February 26, 2014; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that following any leader remarks, the Senate be in a period of morning business for 2 hours, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the Republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the final half; and that following morning business, the Senate proceed to S. 1982, the veterans' benefits bill, postcloture; further, that all time during adjournment and morning business count postcloture on the motion to proceed to S. 1982.

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

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Rules and Administration will meet at 10:30 a.m., on February 12, 2014, to conduct a business meeting to consider the nominations of Thomas Hicks and Myrna Perez to be members of the Election Assistance Commission.

Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Rules and Administration will meet on February 12, 2014 at 10 a.m., to hear testimony on the ``Bipartisan Support for Improving U.S. Elections: An Overview from the Presidential Commission on Election Administration.''

For further information regarding this hearing, please contact Lynden Armstrong at the Rules and Administration Committee (202) 224-6352.

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Rules and Administration will meet at 10:30 a.m., on February 12, 2014, to conduct a business meeting to consider the nominations of Thomas Hicks and Myrna Perez to be members of the Election Assistance Commission.

For further information regarding this meeting, please contact Lynden Armstrong at the Rules and Administration Committee at (202) 224-6352.

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

Madam President, I rise to speak of my colleague, our friend Senator Baucus, who hopefully will be confirmed by the Senate to his new post in a few hours.

I have, of course, known Senator Baucus since I came to the Senate, but even before, one of my first impressions of him was a picture of Senator Baucus in his white cowboy hat on his ranch in Montana. To me, a kid from New York City, he looked like the Marlboro Man. He was handsome and he was in the cowboy hat. So I said: Wow.

When I met Senator Baucus, I found his heart, his brain, and his soul were every bit as good as the outside. He was a great leader of the Finance Committee. First, he had great intellect. Max Baucus would see an issue, understand the issue, and get to the heart of the issue quicker than almost anybody else. He understood the vagaries of legislation, and he knew how to try to get things done. He always worked in a bipartisan way. He reached out to Republicans, and many criticized him sometimes for doing it, but given the gridlock in this body, in retrospect, everybody would think: Wow, that is what we should be doing. And he tried and tried.

Of course, his crowning legislative achievement was health care. I know there are some--particularly on the other side of the aisle--who criticize it, but I have no doubt that Max Baucus will be regarded as a giant in what he did in coming up with the health care reform bill. I have no doubt that as the kinks are worked out and as the effort moves forward, it will be regarded as one of the pieces of landmark legislation of this decade and this century, and it wouldn't have happened without Max Baucus.

There are 37 million Americans who now have access to health insurance, a whole generation of young adults who will be insured through the age of 26, and protection of all Americans with preexisting conditions because of the diligence, the never-give-up attitude Senator Baucus had. On so many other things in the bill--getting after the private insurance companies; now community health centers are providing health care for the poorest among us in a better way--this is one of many issues on which Max Baucus took the lead.

As I say, he was a premier legislator, worked long and hard, figured out what he thought the right thing to do was, tried to get colleagues from the other side of the aisle as well as on our side of the aisle to support it, and then got it done. The list of his accomplishments is long. He took the bull by the horns, never backing off.

I know Senator Baucus will be an outstanding ambassador to China. It is one of the most important foreign policy positions our country has to offer, and having someone with Max Baucus's acute mind, great persistence, good heart, and good soul will mean a lot.

Not only are we going to miss Max, we are going to very much miss his wife Mel. She is terrific. They met not too long ago, and I know how happy they make each other. I think it makes all of us feel happy as well.

Max, you are truly the best of the ``Last Best Place,'' and we will all miss you.

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

Mr. President, after more than a year of debate, negotiation and compromise, the farm bill has finally been approved. This legislation is a win for the family farmers and rural economy that is at the heart of Upstate New York. While the final product does not include everything that we fought for, the farm bill's passage was of the utmost importance to New York. It maintains or grows scores of programs for our dairies, fruit and vegetable farmers, maple syrup producers, rural development projects and iconic New York companies like Hickey Freeman in Rochester, NY.

The farm bill is unique in that it touches the lives of all Americans by ensuring the health of our nation's food supply. It does that by supporting our hard working farmers. The bill supports innovative agricultural research that helps make our farms some of the most productive on the planet. I am proud that this will include the Acer Access and Development Program or Maple Tap Act, which will provide grants to promote maple tapping and research across New York. This bill makes common sense reforms like eliminating direct payments and expanding opportunities for crop insurance and even linking crop insurance with conservation compliance. This bill does this all while providing a safety net for our farms that often face unpredictable natural disasters.

However, this bill is more than just an agriculture bill; it is the bedrock of our food and agriculture policy for the next 5 years. The Farm Bill will drive our rural economy into the 21st Century by making investments not only in our farms, but in water, broadband, and energy infrastructure. This bill provides opportunities to grow small business in rural communities, such as helping a rural entrepreneur turn grandma's award winning jam into a commercial product ready to be sold on store shelves across the great state of New York and across the country. This farm bill pulls our rural and urban communities ever closer, as it expands opportunities for farmers markets and food hubs to communities that for so long have lacked access to local fresh food.

Another very important provision in this bill that I would like to highlight is extension of the Wool Trust Fund. For more than a decade we have had in place this successful program to protect the workers at American manufacturers of men's suits from an unfair trade anomaly. While we allow finished suits to be imported into this country duty- free from many countries, we impose a 25% duty on the fabrics that our domestic suit manufacturers must import. This anomaly has acted as a huge tax on companies that wanted to stay and manufacture here in the United States. Therefore, more than a decade ago, we enacted the Wool Trust Fund program to provide both duty refunds and licenses to import limited quantities of suiting fabrics at reduced duties. The combination of these steps helped to level the playing field and keep manufacturing jobs from moving abroad.

The Farm Bill will extend and modify this program. For example, it will consolidate the duty refunds and duty reductions with the intention of maintaining the same amount of benefits for the same manufacturers as would have been achieved under the current program. While the program has been modified it continues its central purpose-- providing a mechanism to reduce the tariff burden of companies that stay in the United States to manufacture apparel without harming the domestic textile industry.

I am proud to say that one company that benefits from this program today, and that will continue benefiting, is Hickey Freeman and its 410 employees in Rochester, New York. I am proud to be a customer of this iconic brand. I am also proud to have stood up for these workers by helping establish this program more than a decade ago and extending it through the years. I am certain that the provisions of this bill will be implemented as intended so that Hickey Freeman and its employees-- along with many other companies in New York and across the country-- will continue to benefit fully from this program in the same way that it has benefited for more than a decade.

From suit manufacturing in Rochester to maple taps in the Adirondacks, from dairies in the Central part of my state, to apple, pear, cherry and berry growers in the Hudson valley, from the wineries at end of Long Island to those near Niagara Falls, the industries that bring life to our rural communities will be better because we passed this Farm Bill. Their crops will grow fuller and stronger, and so will our economy.

Mr. President, I rise today in very strong support of the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act and urge my colleagues to vote today to pass this legislation that will help millions of Americans across the country.

First, I want to recognize the admirable leadership of Senators Menendez, Isakson, and Landrieu for helping to put together such a strong coalition amidst some challenging political headwinds.

Senator Landrieu, in particular, has been like Paul Revere in the night for not only calling our attention to the detrimental elements of the Biggert-Waters bill but for continuing to emphasize this bill's importance to States from coast to coast.

Senator Menendez and I share the New York-New Jersey coast, as does the Presiding Officer, and that, of course, has been devastated.

I will briefly say what has happened here. Literally tens of thousands of Americans will lose their homes--middle-class Americans, working-class Americans, and poor Americans--if we don't pass this legislation. Very simply, Biggert-Waters was not followed. Before increases were to go into effect, an affordability study was to be done. It was not. As a result, homeowners are having to pay thousands of dollars more. Homeowners who paid $500 a year for flood insurance-- it is mandatory--now pay $4,000 or $5,000. There are some who pay as much as $30,000. Even worse, many more will lose their homes when they sell them because the flood insurance for the next owner will go up so much they will lose tremendous value on their homes.

A home is the middle class's piece of the rock. People struggle long and hard to pay that mortgage, and when they are in their later years, fifties, sixties, seventies--I guess fifties isn't later years these days--this is what they have. Their nest egg is their home. To all of a sudden pull the rug out from under them and say when you sell your home, the next person is going to have to pay $15,000 or $20,000 a year in flood insurance, which makes the value of that home plummet, is so unfair.

We have additional unfairness in our State of New York, as well as the neighboring State of New Jersey. People who were devastated by Sandy and struggled to rebuild their homes are all of a sudden getting walloped with huge flood insurance bills which they cannot afford. They are already in debt. So to allow this to go on makes no sense. If Americans ever want the Government to act, it is in these types of situations where there is an unfairness that is unrelated to any individual action by these homeowners which clobbers them. It takes away their financial security, it takes away their home, and makes life miserable.

It should come as no surprise that if people cannot afford flood insurance policies, we will see more and more homeowners decide to drop out of the program, or communities that decide not to adopt new flood maps proposed by FEMA. On top of that, as rates go higher and higher, those folks who are not required to buy flood insurance but wanted to do the prudent thing, may drop out of the program as well.

So, let me emphasize one point for my colleagues that may still have reservations about our bill: If folks start dropping out of the National Flood Insurance Program en masse, that would be a much larger drag on the system than a simple delay of rate increases. Without flood insurance, when future disasters hit, these families and communities will be entirely dependent on Federal aid to help them rebuild.

I fully support efforts to put the National Flood Insurance Program on a path to solvency, but it will not happen overnight, and attempting to do so in a manner that raises premiums too high too quickly, without consideration for broader affordability concerns, will end up being a decision that they come to regret.

We have to prevent the most devastating rate hikes from going into effect until FEMA and Congress can figure out a way to ensure the solvency of the National Flood Insurance Program without breaking the bank for middle-class homeowners.

It's illogical for homeowners to pay higher premiums based on the risk-zone of their home before FEMA accurately determines the actual risk. Yet, that is exactly what is happening today.

Currently, millions of policyholders who built to code and whose homes have been subsequently remapped into a higher risk area are facing significant rate increases with no assurance that the FEMA flood maps are accurate.

Prematurely forcing individuals and families out of their homes with astronomical increases of flood insurance premiums before even guaranteeing the reliability of rate maps is asinine.

But the legislation before us today delays these rate increases until an overseer can certify that FEMA has implemented a flood mapping approach

that utilizes sound scientific and engineering methodologies that accurately determine varying levels of flood risk.

Not a day goes by that I don't think about the impact that Sandy had on the millions of families across New York. Their stories and the struggles they face motivate me each day to do whatever I can to make their lives better.

As my colleagues can attest these are not isolated events. Storms are becoming more prevalent and more ferocious. And they are not just in coastal New York, New Jersey and Louisiana, but Montana, Colorado and central States as well.

New Yorkers and families across the country aren't thinking about whether the next natural disaster will impact them, they are thinking about when. This body can act now and prevent a manmade disaster from burdening them as well.

This bill, the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act, will protect homeowners across the country, many of whom have only just begun to recover, from potentially huge flood insurance premium hikes and loss of property value. We must pass this bill today.

To reiterate, my colleagues Senator Landrieu, Senator Menendez, Senator Isakson and others have worked tirelessly to advance this bill and help all our constituents who have built back after seemingly insurmountable loss. I implore my colleagues to stand together, in a true bipartisan effort, to make this program fairer for middle class families struggling to hold onto the homes they rebuilt in the communities they call home.

The bottom line is we have to pass this bill. It makes no sense. We required a study before imposing devastating rate increases on homeowners to see what the effect would be to put the rates into effect. It is putting the cart before the horse. If it is not backward thinking, I don't know what it is. It makes no sense to do this.

The Toomey amendment will come forward, and it basically is not passing any bill. The Toomey amendment says we should put all the costs on these middle-class and working-class homeowners quickly. It doesn't have any limits, and it would do the same exact thing. So anyone who thinks the Toomey amendment is palliative, you may as well vote against the bill.

The good news here: Democrats and Republicans have come together. This is how this body should work. We have allowed a limited number of amendments on each side. I was glad to hear the minority leader talk the other day about how this is how the Senate should work. We agree, and I hope this will set the precedent for future bills where we can come together on the floor, have a reasonable number of amendments-- hopefully relevant and germane that relate to improving the legislation--and then we will have the bill be given an up-or-down vote.

This bill will pass this afternoon. When this bill passes--and when it passes the House--millions of homeowners across America will breathe a sigh of relief. They will be able to keep their homes. They will be able to sell their homes, and they will know there is a process to put flood insurance on an even keel that won't be all on their backs.

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

Mr. President, I thank my colleague and friend from Tennessee for his, as usual, thoughtful presentation, even though I disagree with it. His positions are always thoughtful, carefully thought out, and I appreciate his thoughts and efforts.

The need to pass the Menendez-Isakson-Landrieu bill is extremely important. In New York we have seen the follies of the present flood insurance law. We have seen follies in a variety of ways. Most of all, we have seen homeowners charged a fortune which they can't afford. We have seen homeowners told that even if they are not going to be charged, immediately when they sell their home, the rate will go up so high that they can't sell their home, so the value of the home decreases.

We have seen people--victims of Sandy--whose homes were destroyed or badly damaged, rebuild their homes and then be perhaps forced to lose them because of ridiculous flood insurance rates. We have seen the problems with the maps--areas 5 miles from the nearest flood somehow get called a flood zone and they have to pay more insurance.

We have seen FEMA overreaching in terms of drawing maps. In fact, in my State, they used Suffolk County's flood maps and flood levels and just transposed them on Nassau County--a different place with different elevations and different tides, and we had to get that undone. So a moratorium, going back to the drawing board and holding rates in place while that happens, makes eminent sense.

It is true it will cost the government some money. But what is our job here? Is it to let thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands default, lose their homes while we stand here and twiddle our thumbs? I don't think so. I don't think the vast majority of Americans think that. We have to figure out how to deal with flood insurance and the Menendez-Isakson-Landrieu bill does that. But while we are doing it, we have to make sure people don't lose their homes. There are many more storms out there. We know that. We have had a Katrina and a Sandy, creating unprecedented damage. It certainly means that the old flood insurance program probably has to be changed. But to just eliminate it, basically, by not passing this bill or by passing the Toomey amendment which, in effect, would eliminate it, makes no sense and would cause huge damage.

I rise in opposition to the Toomey amendment. If a person believes there should be some level of affordability before we impose rates, then a person can't vote for the Toomey bill. Because the Toomey bill basically has mandatory rate increases before any affordability study is concluded. It repeats the mistake of Biggert-Waters. Biggert-Waters actually called for an affordability study. FEMA didn't complete the affordability study and still had the rates go into effect.

If affordability is one of our hallmarks, and I believe it is, then it certainly makes no sense to do what FEMA has done under Biggert- Waters, which is put rate increases in effect before affordability is studied or do what Toomey does, which actually explicitly says rate increases shall go into effect before the affordability study is completed.

Furthermore, the Toomey amendment, in my judgment, means we may as well have nothing at all; we might as well go back to the old, because it establishes an uncapped annual fee on all 5.6 million NFIP policyholders for an unspecified period of time until the identified costs of this bill are offset.

There is no guarantee that homeowners would be protected from a $30,000 premium, if that is what the actuaries think. Speaking for my State of New York, they say it is people on the water. It is second homes. It is rich people. Not in New York, it is not. We have all seen the pictures of homes damaged in Staten Island, in the Rockaways, Queens, in southern Brooklyn, on the southern shore of Long Island-- modest homes, some of them even called bungalows, where people live full-time. In Long Beach, average folks--firefighters, teachers, cops, clerks, secretaries, small business people who struggle--double or triple or quadruple their insurance rates, their flood insurance rates, and they can't get by.

One other point I wish to make. Some of my colleagues said: This doesn't effect me. It is going to because FEMA is remapping across the country. They have done a lot of the remapping in New York. I have talked about how irresponsible what they have done is. Once they come to other Members' States and maps, they will see that the mapping is almost nonsensical, mapping people into flood zones who have never had a flood, charging rates that average folks cannot afford. From what I am told, Pennsylvania is the State with the highest percentage of new mapping activity; 14 percent of all new mapping activity, 1,400 maps. So I think even for my good friend from Pennsylvania--and I know he is a true believer in these things and I don't doubt that and I respect his integrity, but it is sure going to affect the people of Pennsylvania.

Guess which State is second in terms of new maps? New York: 625. That is why I feel so strongly and have worked so hard with Senators Menendez and Isakson and Landrieu, who have done such a fabulous job on this legislation to get it passed.

So I urge defeat of the Toomey amendment. The Toomey amendment is almost a mirror image of the bill itself, the Biggert-Waters bill, which we are tying to counteract and because FEMA did not implement it correctly.

If the Toomey amendment is defeated, and if our flood insurance bill, which I am a proud cosponsor of, is passed, homeowners will be able to breathe a sigh of real relief while FEMA goes back to the drawing boards and figures out a way to have a flood insurance program that does not bankrupt thousands of middle-class, working-class people.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, first, I thank my colleague and friend and roommate from Illinois--we are going to miss our landlord deeply-- for his articulate enunciation of where we are here. We have always extended unemployment benefits, and we have done it, in most instances, in a bipartisan way and not paid for it. Under George Bush, 2007, unemployment was only 5.6 percent. Now it hovers around 7 percent. He moved it forward. It had bipartisan support.

Things have evolved. I guess we do not have that bipartisan support. As Senator Durbin outlined, a lot of the amendments to try to pay for this sort of rob Peter to pay Paul. I have heard a lot of my Republican colleagues say let's talk about how we deal with poverty. These amendments that we have heard talked about are kind of punitive and do not really deal with the issue.

I would like to address another issue, and that is how we come to an agreement here and get this place working again. On both sides of the aisle, there is a great deal of consternation that we are not legislating. We have had this problem for a while. Thursday it came to a head. There were some harsh words that were issued by some. The question is how do we get things working again.

First, I remind my colleagues there are instances when this place, the Senate in particular, is still working. We had a farm bill, an immigration bill, the WRDA bill. They all had one thing in common and that is the chairman and ranking member agreed on a proposal. When the chairman and the ranking member agree on a proposal,

or a large group of Democrats and Republicans agree on a bipartisan proposal--in immigration we had great help from the chairman, but Senator McCain and I--neither chairman nor ranking member of the Judiciary Committee--came to an agreement with the help of Senators Menendez, Durbin, Bennet, Graham, Flake and Rubio. But we can get something done, and we can shepherd even the most controversial and difficult legislation through the floor.

But there are many instances--these days more than ever because the parties are further apart than they used to be and there is less overlap--there are instances where the chair and ranking member can't or there does not seem to be a bipartisan agreement. What do we do in those instances?

I have discussed this with many on the other side of the aisle. There is a tradition here. I am here sort of a middle level amount of time, about 14 years. The general theory has been whichever party is in the majority, whichever is in the minority, that the majority gets to set the agenda and the minority gets to offer amendments. There is a lot of discussion as to why that is not happening anymore, and there are different explanations on each side of the aisle. There will be a discussion in our caucus, and I think in the Republican caucus, at this lunch, as to how to try to break that logjam. That is a good thing.

I will just make one point here that has been largely forgotten and that is this. There are two parts to this sort of agreement, deal, arrangement. The first part is the ability to offer amendments. Should it be unlimited amendments? Should it be all nongermane amendments? That has to be discussed and worked out. But certainly the minority should get to offer amendments. There is a general theoretical agreement among everybody about that.

But the other side is that the majority should be able, once the amendments are disposed of, to get an up-or-down vote on the final passage of the bill--that the bill not be filibustered--not just the motion to proceed, but once we go through the amendatory process, the bill itself.

If friends on the other side of the aisle say I want to offer my amendment but unless it passes I am going to vote to block the bill from coming up for an up-or-down vote, that does not seem right. My purpose for a brief few moments, coming to the floor, is to remind both sides of the aisle, but particularly my Republican colleagues, that to get this place moving again requires two things. One, an ability to offer amendments. But second, an ability to vote on final passage, have an up-or-down vote on final passage once those amendments are disposed of one way or the other.

We know that our colleagues will offer tough amendments sometimes. That is the nature of things. Many times the amendments are just offered with an idea to improve the bill or have a different idea. Sometimes they are amendments that just make it very difficult to vote against, but so be it. That is how this place has always been run. I think most of my colleagues on this side of the aisle are willing to accept that. But at the same time, we do not want to go through an amendatory process and then, because we are 55, not 60, never be able to get an up-or-down vote on final passage of the legislation.

There are two sides to this story. There are two sides to an agreement to get the floor of the Senate working again--particularly when the majority and minority cannot agree on an overall bill. One side is an ability to offer amendments; the other side an ability for an up-or-down vote once those amendments are disposed of. I don't think you can have one without the other.

Just as we could not ask our Republican colleagues for an up-or-down vote, if they were not able to offer amendments, I don't think it is fair for our Republican colleagues to ask us to go through the amendatory process, some of which will be difficult, and then not get an up-or-down vote on final passage.

That is the little piece I wanted to say here. I hope it will help bring us together because the greatest fun I have had in this place and the greatest effectiveness I have had in this place is when I worked in a bipartisan way on bill after bill. It happens less frequently now. Although, as I said, the immigration bill is an exception to that, and other bills are an exception to that. But maybe we can get back to working together if each side tries to understand the grievances and the gravamen of the position of the other.

I hope we can do that on this bill and on many other bills in the future.

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

Mr. President, I would like to ask the leader a question.

Objection.

Reserving the right to object.

Let me just say, I think on both sides of the aisle there is a real desire to try to work things out so we can have more debate, more discussion. It seems to me, from the years I have been here--not as long as either leader--there has always been sort of a way the place worked, particularly in the old days when it worked better: The majority sets the agenda. That is their right as majority. The minority has the right to offer amendments--both--amendments that might change that agenda and amendments that, frankly, might be tough to vote for so the minority can capture the majority again. That has been fair.

But it seems to me that what my friend the Republican leader is saying is: We want all the amendments we want, but we are still going to filibuster any bill you bring up. Maybe a few have said: If our amendments pass on the other side, maybe we won't filibuster. But that is not much of a fair deal.

So I would suggest that what the Democratic leader has suggested is eminently fair. It gives the minority--no matter who it is--their time- honored right to offer amendments, difficult amendments. That is part of the deal. But it gives the majority the right to set the agenda and not have the things they bring forward filibustered ipso facto and not be allowed to come to a vote.

It is in fact true, as I understand it, that a couple of those who are offering amendments on the other side of the aisle have stated that if their amendment doesn't pass, they won't allow us to come to a vote.

So I hope we could proceed along the way the majority leader suggests and not to simply offer amendments--relevant, not relevant; germane, not germane--and then make it almost certain the bill will be filibustered and that we won't be able to get an up-or-down vote. All we are asking is an up-or-down vote on employment insurance.

So I object.

I thank my friends from Illinois and Rhode Island.

How much time is remaining on our side?

Mr. President, I see what is going on here. Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle know the power of this issue but don't really want to vote for it, and so they are putting impossible logjams in the path.

Who would believe that on this side of the aisle we would delay an important part of the ACA which would hurt--as my colleagues from Illinois and Rhode Island brought out--parents who have kids with cancer? We are not going to do that, and we are not going to do it on the fly.

So what I would say to my colleagues is if you believe in unemployment benefits and extending them, pass them clean and simple. Don't play games. Don't put obstacles in their path that you know would be insurmountable. Get it done.

I make one other point. The bottom line is very simple: People want to work. People who have lost their jobs after working decades for a company are knocking on doors every day. They are going online. They are desperate to work.

This idea that unemployment benefits encourage them not to work is balderdash.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 1882, a bill to extend the exclusion from income for employer-provided mass transit and parking benefits; that the bill be read three times and passed; and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

I object.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague. We are good friends and I know his heart is in the right place. I would just make a couple of quick points before I get into a little bit of the substance, and I will be brief.

The reason this extender has special weight and deserves being brought up today is the following: Most of the tax extenders--and I certainly support a large number of them--can be put into law retroactively with little harm done. Since most of them affect people's tax returns in 2015 if the law is changed, say, January or February of 2014, it doesn't affect this because the tax deduction would actually be filed before April 2015.

The one problem with the mass transit benefit is it is much harder to make retroactive. People try and we tried last year. We did it retroactively. But since the benefit goes each month to the commuter from his or her employer, retroactivity doesn't work quite as well.

That is why I felt it was important to try to get this passed now, so perhaps when the House returned immediately--there is good bipartisan support for this in the House support as well--they might enact it and we would not have to wait for the Finance Committee to go through a large number of other tax extenders hearings and whatever, because the longer it is retroactive, the harder it is.

I certainly appreciate my colleague's objection. I am going to fight very hard to try to get this done in January when we return. I would just make these following points about the benefit.

It is a win-win. It is a win for our mass transit commuters because then they get the same benefit--no more, no less--than those who drive to work and park. It was an anomaly in the law, pointed out by my late colleague, friend, and mentor, Senator Moynihan, that it was unfair to give people who drive their cars to work double the tax benefit of mass transit commuters. It is only fair to make them equal.

Right now, the law will raise the parking-driving benefit--those who drive to work--at the rate of inflation to $250. That is a good thing and I am all for that. But if the law is not renewed before December 31, the mass transit benefit, which I have worked hard to make equal to the park-and-drive benefit, will revert back to $130 a month, which is a lot less and unfair.

The second benefit is to people who drive. You say why would they benefit? They are getting theirs. The bottom line is, for every person who takes mass transit and doesn't take his or her car to work, that reduces congestion on the roads. So even if you never want to ride the train or the bus to work, you should be for this.

Finally, I would say the following: It benefits our environment. We all know that mass transit pollutes the air a lot less than people driving individual cars. In many places it is not possible to use mass transit, but in more and more parts of the country it is and we ought to be encouraging that. To have this benefit expire is bad, bad for people who take mass transit. Obviously there are a lot of them in my State--700,000--who get this benefit. It is bad for those who drive and bad for the clean air that we wish to breathe.

I will continue my quest because I think it is only fair and only right and it is good for all of America. As my colleague noted, it is a tax break. We generally can find more agreement on tax breaks than many other issues--fiscal and tax issues in this Congress. I will continue my quest to have this renewed as soon as possible, and I think it is not unfair to do it ahead of the other tax breaks because of the unique way that this benefit functions and how it is harder--not impossible but harder to enact retroactively.

Mr. President, I wish you, the entire staff who has done a great job here through the year, and all of my colleagues as well as those here in the gallery, a merry Christmas, a happy new year--not least of whom is my good friend and colleague from Utah who I know has a big and happy family. I wish them a merry Christmas and a happy new year as well.

I yield the floor, I guess with just about almost certainty for the last time in 2013.

I thank my colleague.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Michigan for her heartfelt words. I couldn't agree with her more. I thank the majority leader and my colleagues from Ohio and New Jersey as well for recognizing the importance of this package of tax relief.

The Tax Extenders Act of 2013 would extend tax relief which business and middle-class families in my home State of New York and across the country depend on. They are noncontroversial. They have received bipartisan support in the past. And because of the great uncertainty over our economy, doing this quickly and not saying we will do it 3 months after they expire makes a great deal of sense. I know my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have objected to all of these. I hope they will reconsider, because for the good of the economy--which is just beginning to pick up a little bit--we need to do these extenders.

I am going to talk about four of them, but one is particularly critical because it doesn't work very well retroactively. The others do. That is why I urge my colleagues to reconsider and will ask for a separate UC before we leave here on this particular one because it has particular need right now, and that is the mass transit commuter tax benefit.

There are about 700,000 commuters in the New York metropolitan area, including from the Presiding Officer's home State, who take advantage of this current incentive. The commuter benefit currently covers up to $245 a month from a person's income to pay for their mass transit commute to and from work. So whether you take the subway, bus, train, or drive to work and park, the benefit provides significant savings.

The tradition, unfortunately, in this Senate and in this Congress was to treat mass transit as a second-class citizen, because the benefit traditionally had been significantly greater for those who drive and park than for those who take mass transit, and we have had serious problems.

First, until we changed it a few years back, the mass transit was half the benefit of parking and driving. Second, it was not indexed for inflation the way the parking benefit was. So if we let this provision expire, the mass transit benefit will revert to $130 a month, while those who drive and park will actually get an increase to $250 for 2014 because of inflation.

We cannot let these transit benefits for mass transit users get left behind. To do them is a win-win. It is a win, of course, for those who use mass transit--and we have so many in the New York area. It is also a win for drivers, because every person who is encouraged to use mass transit by this benefit will actually take a car off the road, remove some degree of congestion, and allow drivers to move more quickly. And, of course, it is a win for our environment, because mass transit is a far more effective way environmentally of moving things along.

So when the leader a few minutes ago requested the Senate pass the tax extenders act, I was disappointed it was blocked, and particularly disappointed that this benefit was blocked, because while we can do it retroactively, it is harder to implement than the others that are done retroactively, because most of them take effect when you pay your taxes in 2015, whereas this one takes effect month by month.

The proposal we are asking for is exactly the same as was included in the bipartisan negotiated tax extenders package considered by the Senate Finance Committee and passed by the Senate on a bipartisan basis for one additional year, through 2014. I hope we will consider it now, not retroactively later next year as we did last year. Employers need to plan whether they will provide the benefit. Commuters need to elect to take it. And as I said, it is done on a monthly basis. You can do it retroactively, but it is much harder.

I know we have lots of problems here between the parties, but we should not hold the mass transit commuters of America hostage. We should not make

them second-class citizens. Their deduction is every bit as important, every bit as justifiable, as for those who drive and park. I hope my colleagues, before we adjourn this year for the Christmas holiday, would in the Christmas spirit extend this benefit.

Now I wish to talk about a few other credits which are also part of the package being blocked right now. One is the new market tax credit. Individuals and businesses across my State are counting on the new market tax credit. The new market credit program was created to stimulate private-sector investment in economically distressed communities. It has done exactly that. I have seen it work in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and the capital district in New York.

Over the first decade of the program, $20 billion in new market tax credit investment leveraged an additional $25 billion in capital from other sources to finance economic development in communities where financing might be difficult to come by.

The program is a proven job creator. Between 2003 and 2010, new market tax credit investments created over 500,000 jobs across the country. Again, it has always had bipartisan support. It is sort of a no-brainer. It should be continued.

I will now talk about the short line rail tax credit. It is a little like the new market tax credit in that it is a tax credit which encourages private investment and jobs.

We have short lines all across the country. They connect the main trunk lines on rail to the more isolated regions. But in those somewhat isolated regions are factories. We have opportunities for tourism, say, in the Adirondacks, and the short line rail tax credit helps maintain and renovate the short line rail system.

Rail is very prosperous these days. The big carriers can maintain the trunk lines very well. But it is harder to maintain the short line, and Congress in its wisdom decided to give a tax break for those. If you are unfamiliar, the short line rails are a web of tracks all over the country connecting local businesses and manufacturers to interstate rail systems. The unheralded links that bring raw materials into our businesses and connect them with other cities and supply chains must be maintained. Over 50 percent of rail track in my home State is short line rails. Approximately 550 short line railroads provide 50,000 miles of track in the country, and the credit is extremely useful in my State, financing hundreds of thousands of dollars of rail infrastructure investment annually. It is used all across the country. We have 42 bipartisan cosponsors in the Senate for this legislation. So I hope we will consider this one and pass it.

Finally, the IRA rollover. The IRA rollover provision is also set to expire, affecting so many retirees. They need to know whether it will be extended in order to plan their charitable giving in the coming year. If it isn't extended, many taxpayers over 70\1/2\ years of age will be surprised with a tax bill when they transfer funds from their IRA to their favorite charity in 2014. So this is important and, again, is one that truly is in the Christmas spirit.

In conclusion, businesses, families, retirees will pay the price if all of these valuable tax relief provisions, and many of the others mentioned by Senator Reid, are not extended by the end of the year. I would hope, in the same spirit of comity that we passed the budget, we could come together and pass these extenders. They have always had bipartisan support. They are, after all, tax reductions. I know my colleagues on the other side of the aisle believe in tax reductions. To delay them and do them retroactively would be doing a disservice to our economy and to the millions of Americans who are working or seeking work in our country today.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to echo the outstanding words of my colleagues from both Florida and Louisiana. They echo the views of many. Everyone says the public is exasperated with the Congress. Our approval ratings are low. They are. Why? It is simply because when huge problems occur that affect ordinary people, we seem paralyzed. What is happening with flood insurance embodies what I am talking about. Average homeowners who purchased flood insurance through the years for $800, $1,000, are now being hit with bills of $4,000, $5,000, $6,000. If you are rich, that is nothing. But the vast majority of people who have flood insurance, whether they live on the oceans in my State or the State of the Senator from Florida or on the gulf of the State of the Senator from Louisiana or on the bodies of water such as the Mississippi or Missouri Rivers, are not wealthy people. You tell them all of a sudden out of the clear blue they have to pay $4,000, $5,000, $6,000 for flood insurance, they do not know what to do. It is a crisis for them. They say to us: Congress, fix this.

This is what we are supposed to do. So in their wisdom, the Senator from New Jersey, the Senator from Louisiana, the Senator from Georgia, the Senator from Florida, myself, many others have come up with a proposal that says: We know flood insurance is broken, but we do not want to see it broken on the backs of average homeowners. We have a plan that will delay these increases until 2017, while FEMA studies affordability, and while Congress reexamines this issue.

There was an affordability study in Biggert-Waters. Somehow FEMA ignored it. We are not letting that happen. So that is why we have to act here. There are three types of people who are in danger. The first are those who know or are about to know they are going to be hit. They have flood insurance already and their costs are going to go way up. The vast majority are middle-class people.

The second are those who will be told: Your insurance will not go up, but when you sell your home it is going to go way up. Any bureaucrat who tells us, well, that does not affect the average person--it affects the value of their home immediately. But it also says they cannot sell their home. In my area, if flood insurance is going to be $8,000 or $10,000 or even $20,000 a year, who is going to buy the home, except at a greatly reduced value?

But, my colleagues, there is a third group. They do not know who they are. FEMA is changing flood maps throughout the country. They will get to your State, unless maybe Utah or a State such as that does not have any flood insurance. I do not know. But the vast majority of our States that either bound the Great Lakes, the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the gulf, the great rivers--the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Ohio, the Platte--are all going to be affected.

A year from now your constituents are going to come to you and say: Stop this. This will affect the overwhelming majority of States and Senators, even if they do not know it now. So our solution is not an ideological solution, it is not a solution that picks one side or the other. It says: Put a moratorium on this until we can figure it out in the right way that does not put the burden of flood insurance solely on the backs of people who cannot afford it--average folks.

In my State--my good friend from Florida mentioned it--we have people who have struggled to fix their homes from Sandy, spending tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Then all

of a sudden they are hit with a huge flood insurance bill. They are already in debt.

That is not fair. Just when they move back finally into their homes, FEMA comes in and tells them in a year or two they cannot afford to live in those homes they fixed. That is intolerable.

The bottom line is simple. We have a good piece of legislation. We would hope we could pass it by unanimous consent, as my colleagues from Florida and Louisiana said, as a nice Christmas--not present, because it is not a present. These are people who deserve to have this. But it is a nice Christmas thought. But if not, we will come back in January. That is my expectation. That is what the leader has told us. We are willing to go through a cloture vote and bring this legislation to the floor. We expect and hope that we will get the same kind of bipartisan support that has helped us put this bill together with Senators from every part of the country.

I would say to homeowners: It is my hope and prayer and indeed expectation, although around here expectations sometimes are not met, that we will have this bill on the floor and then passed so that homeowners, millions of homeowners across America, can breathe a sign of relief; they can stay in their homes, and flood insurance will be amended in the right way.

I would be happy to yield for a question.

My understanding is just that, that in the--even possibly in the first week when we get back, that the leader, having rule XIV'd it, which means he can bring it to the floor right away, can put it on the floor and, of course, then people can demand--those opposed--that we invoke cloture so we can proceed to the bill and then vote on the bill. But if we have 60 votes, we will be able to meet that cloture barrier. So it is my understanding the plan is to actually do it as soon in January as the first week we get back, which I believe is January 6. If we cannot do it then, we will be pushing very hard to do it shortly thereafter.

I thank my colleague for that question. Exactly. This is affecting so many people in so many parts of the country. It does not affect just Democrats or Republicans, conservatives or moderates, Independents or liberals. The support is building daily. Senators and Congress Members are getting calls from their constituents pleading with them to do something.

So it is my view, it is my understanding that the House is undertaking a very similar piece of legislation. I would expect it would pass the House, where they do not even need the 60-vote majority. I know in my delegation it has bipartisan support. As I understand it, in most delegations it has bipartisan support.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on December 19, 2013, at 9:30 a.m., in room 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.