Floor Statements

Mr. President, I understand that both my colleagues from New Hampshire and Florida wish to speak. I will be happy to have each of them speak for 5 minutes and then me speak for 5 minutes, if that is OK. I ask unanimous consent: 5, 5, and 5.

Mr. President, I thank my colleagues, first from New York and Tennessee, for the good work they have done. My Gang of 8 colleagues--seven of the Gang of 8 colleagues who are my colleagues, we are working real hard to get a bill done and it is not easy. It is one of the hardest things I have ever done as a legislator. But we keep making progress and we keep improving. Today I think is a breakthrough day.

Let me go over it. First, speaking on behalf of the Democratic Members of my bipartisan group, let's say this. There is still some drafting of the legislative language to be completed. We are continuing to inform all our allies on our side about the contours of the proposal. But barring something unexpected, we are extremely enthusiastic that a bipartisan agreement is at hand.

I know there have been a number of news reports this morning. It is accurate. We are on the verge of a huge breakthrough on border security. With this agreement, we believe we have the makings of a strong bipartisan final vote in favor of this immigration reform bill.

From the beginning of the floor debate on this bill, we have known there were a group of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who were inclined to vote for immigration reform but first wanted to see a strengthening of the bill's border security section. That makes sense because most Americans will be fair and apply common sense toward the 11 million in the shadows and future immigration if and only if they we will not have future flows of illegal immigration.

We took those concerns seriously. Our bill is tough on this stuff. We wanted it tough. The amendment makes it tougher still.

Last week, Senators Corker and Hoeven emerged as leaders of the group of like-minded colleagues from the other side of the aisle seeking a tougher approach. My friends Senators Graham and McCain and I sat down with them and we began talking, along with Senator Menendez. We began meetings with them ourselves this week.

For us on the Democratic side, it has been an important bottom line throughout this process that the path to citizenship not be put in jeopardy. The path is tough, as it should be, but must always be fair. So we could not go along with efforts, such as in the bill of my colleague from Texas, that would tie the path to citizenship to unachievable benchmarks for the border. Senator Cornyn's amendment, which was defeated on this day, went too far in that regard, and I was not sure whether the new negotiations would produce agreement either. As recently as Tuesday night, Senator Hoeven and I had an extended phone conversation that lasted 45 minutes. It would probably best be described as spirited. But about 24 hours ago we had a breakthrough. The idea that broke the logjam is the so-called border surge plan.

The border surge is breathtaking in its size and scope. This deal will deploy an unprecedented number of boots on

the ground and drones in the air. It would double the size of Border Patrol agents from its current level to over 40,000. It will finish the job of completing the fence along the entire 700-mile stretch of the southwest border, and it will enumerate, on a sector-by-sector basis, lists of cutting-edge tools and equipment that will boost surveillance and apprehension efforts, including sensors, surveillance towers, and more unmanned drones. In other words, the border surge plan calls for a breathtaking show of force that will discourage future waves of illegal immigration.

This compromise will inundate the southwest border with manpower and equipment. It not only calls for finishing a literal fence, it will create a virtual human fence of Border Patrol agents. Under the border surge, the Border Patrol will have the capacity to deploy an armed agent 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to stand guard every 1,000 feet from San Diego, CA, to Brownsville, TX.

We came up with this idea of the border surge Wednesday morning after the CBO report was released. My colleague from Texas asked: Why not a week ago? We didn't have the CBO report. We didn't know we had the dollars. We have them now, and we still keep to our goal of not costing the Treasury a nickel. The CBO report was the game changer. It gave us the budgetary flexibility to consider massive new investments in border security that we didn't think we could previously afford.

The surge shows the commitment to border security our colleagues have been asking for. I was heartened to see that our friend the junior Senator from Illinois already announced that based on this agreement he is prepared to support final passage of the bill. This is a significant development considering Senator Kirk initially opposed the motion to proceed. It is safe to say this agreement has the power to change minds in the Senate.

This agreement on border security continues the spirit of bipartisan compromise that has marked this legislation from the beginning. In fact, in the forthcoming Corker-Hoeven amendment, it will be a vehicle for accommodating some other compromises in other areas of Republican concern as well.

With this agreement, we have now answered every criticism that has come forward about the immigration bill.

First, critics expressed worry that the process would be closed and that no amendments would be allowed. The bill was available for perusal weeks before we went to committee. Under Senator Leahy's leadership, the committee was an open process, with 300 amendments filed, and now we are spending weeks on the floor trying to move as many amendments as possible. Some on the other side of the aisle have blocked that from happening as quickly as we would like--as well as some on our side too--but we are moving through these amendments.

The next criticism was that it would cost a fortune. CBO debunked that one pretty well. This adds to the Treasury. It cuts the deficit $900 billion over the next 20 years, $175 billion over the next 10 years.

Finally, the last argument: We have to secure the border. Securing the border is vital before anyone could support the bill--or some could support the bill. We have answered that resoundingly with the Corker- Hoeven amendment.

We have much more work to do, but I am more confident than ever before that the Senate will pass a strong bipartisan immigration reform bill and that it will ultimately reach the desk of the President for signature. It is a great day for the cause of immigration reform and for the Senate.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I rise to discuss the report by the Congressional Budget Office that was just released. This is a long- awaited report, and we have all been waiting with bated breath to see what they would say. The report assesses the economic and fiscal impact of S. 744, the bipartisan immigration bill being debated here in the Senate. We are still digesting the report, but at first glance it contains some very positive news for comprehensive immigration reform on a number of fronts.

At the beginning of our bipartisan negotiations on this bill, we made an important promise: Our bill will not add to the deficit. CBO found that we kept our promise--and then some. Let me review some of the top- line findings of the CBO report.

CBO found our bill decreases Federal budget deficits by $197 billion over the 2014-2023 period. CBO finds we achieve about $700 billion in deficit reduction in the second decade of implementation, from 2024 to 2033. So the first 10 years, our bill, according to CBO, decreases the deficit by $175 billion and in the second 10 years by $700 billion.

The CBO also released an economic analysis that found the bill will increase GDP by 3.3 percent in 2023, and between 5.1 percent and 5.7 percent in 2033.

The second-decade figure on deficit reduction is quite relevant and remarkable. Many of the bill's opponents were specifically urging the CBO to look at the second decade in hopes it would show major costs, but CBO found just the opposite.

I cannot overstate the significance of these findings. Simply put, this report is a huge momentum boost for immigration reform. It debunks the idea that immigration reform is anything other than a boon to our economy, and robs the bill's opponents of one of their last remaining arguments.

The report proves once and for all that immigration reform is not only right to do to stay true to our Nation's principles, it will also boost our economy, reduce the deficit, and create jobs. Immigration reform should be a priority of progressives and conservatives alike.

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

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the proponents be given 5 minutes and the opponents be given 5 minutes and then we vote.

Mr. President, I rise to speak against the amendment offered by my friend and colleague, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee.

What does this amendment do? It is very simple. It says that the 11 million people living in the shadows cannot even get RPI status, the provisional status by which they can work and travel, until--until--the Secretary of Homeland Security says the border is fully secure.

We all know that will take years and years and years, and that is why an amendment very similar to this came up in the Judiciary Committee and was defeated 12 to 6, with two Republicans joining the Democrats in voting against it, Mr. Flake and Mr. Graham, who were part of our so- called Gang of 8.

The problem with the amendment is very simple: What do we do for 5, 6 years until the border is fully secure? It is going to take a while to do it. We need to bring equipment there. We need to build fences there. We need to do all of the kinds of things that are in our bill. We provide $6.5 billion to build $1 billion worth of border fence, to deploy sensors, fixed towers, radar, drones that will cover the entire border.

So what are we telling those 11 million? If you hide successfully from the police, then maybe 5 years from now you can stay here and get the right to work and the right to travel. This clearly would undo the entire theme and structure of the immigration bill that has such bipartisan support that is before us today.

Again, let me repeat, as I understand it, it is opposed by all the Members of the Gang of 8--the four Democrats and the four Republicans-- for the very reason it will take years and years until the border is secure. To wait that long, we will have millions more come across the borders illegally, the number of illegal immigrants in America will increase, and we may never get to real immigration reform that is needed--so desperately needed--by the country.

I strongly urge that this amendment be defeated. The American people made it resoundingly clear they want us to move forward with immigration reform in a careful, balanced, and bipartisan way. They want us to secure the border, and they want us to be reasonable about the 11 million who are here and about future immigration so we can grow the American economy. That is what our bill does.

This proposal would undo much of that without proposing any real solutions as to what we do before that. It has bipartisan opposition, and I strongly urge that it be defeated.

I yield the rest of my time to the chairman of our Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy.

Mr. President, thank you, and I thank my colleague from Texas for his specifics there, and I know he is trying to make the bill a better bill. I have to say, as I understand it, this is the very same amendment that was defeated in committee. It was defeated by a bipartisan vote of 12 to 6. It was defeated for two reasons.

Let me take a step back. The two reasons are, one, its cost goes through the roof, and there is no way to pay for it in the Cornyn amendment. It is estimated it could be, in the original amendment, as much as $25 billion. Now, maybe the number of border agents was reduced. I do not know if my colleague has done that, but that is a huge expense, and an unnecessary expense because our bill, the proposal that is before us, does a huge amount on border security for much lower cost. Mr. President, $25 billion is a lot of money.

Second, we do have triggers in our bill, but they are achievable and specific because this bill is a careful compromise. We want to do two things. We want to have border security, absolutely. I have always said a watch word of this bill is that the American people will be fair and have a commonsense approach to both future legal immigration and the 11 million who are living here in the shadows provided, and only provided, we prevent future waves of illegal immigration.

We do that in three ways. One is the E-Verify system. We both agree that should be in place before there is a path to citizenship. One is fixing up exit-entry. The way my colleague has fixed up exit-entry, it could take 20 or 25 years before it is in place. We cannot, should not, and will not tell those who have waited in the shadows for so long that they should wait for 25 years. Those are the estimates. We can do this on the ports and in the air, but we need a better system, which we have worked on, for land entry.

Finally, at the border itself, we have put a large amount of money in there. We have been guided by Senators McCain and Flake--because the Arizona border has more people passing through it than any other--as to what we should do.

We emphasized the ability to put in new technologies--drones that can track everybody who crosses the border and track them on land. We do it for a lot less money. But, unfortunately, one of the triggers that my colleague, my good friend from Texas, has put in place would make a path to citizenship--even if all the other metrics were put in place-- iffy, possibly yes, possibly no. That is unacceptable. We need to do both.

Should there be a new person who comes into office, should there be a different Senate, a different House, under the proposal of my colleague from Texas, not one single person could achieve citizenship, even if we had improved the border in many different ways.

So I would say to my colleagues, we certainly want to improve the border, but we cannot improve that border and put in place triggers that are not specific and achievable. We can measure whether there are 20 drones at the border. We can measure whether we have X miles of fence. But if we say, then, that it has to be at this certain rate every year, we are taking away that path to citizenship, through no fault of those who have tried to implement tougher border security.

So I say to my colleague, we cannot accept his amendment, plain and simple. We welcome proposals on border security. I know there are many on the other side. I have spoken to four or five who are working on those proposals, but the very same amendment, the very same proposal that was defeated in committee by a bipartisan vote of 12 to 6 is not going to revitalize an immigration bill, which has plenty of life already. It is not going to strengthen a bill. It could indeed kill it.

So I would urge that we go back to the drawing boards. If the Senator from Texas has a different proposal, obviously, I would look at it. This one is, unfortunately, one that we have tried, rejected, and will not lead to either comprehensive immigration reform in the broader sense or a path to citizenship in the most immediate sense.

How many extra personnel does he ask for in his amendment?

Mr. President, it is quite arguable that the entire trust fund is used up by those 6,500. That would mean no drones. That would mean no helicopters. That would mean none of the other things. It may mean no fencing that we add to the border. So my colleague from Arizona is exactly correct.

The cost here--my good friend from his side of the aisle, Senator Graham, estimated this morning that the total cost would be $18 billion. I think if you add a type of land-based exit-entry, it goes up another $7, $8 billion. We do not have that kind of money.

So I would suggest to my colleague that if he wants to add 10,000 Border Patrol--which most experts have told us will not do close to as good a job as the drones and the helicopters and the more mobile assets. And the reason is very simple. He knows as well as I do. He knows the border better than I do. We do not have roads on most of the border. What is Border Patrol going to do? There are no roads. They are impassable. A drone flying 10,000 feet above can see every person who crosses the border, track them inland, and if they go to a gathering point 25 miles inland, they pick them up there.

So the bottom line is that not only is the cost of this amendment probably exceeding the trust fund by itself, but it will take a highly efficient way of preventing people from crossing the border and replace it with an inefficient way that no experts I have talked to--again, maybe my colleague has--no expert I have talked to says the best way to control people from crossing the border illegally--which I desperately want to do--works better with a huge amount of personnel, unallocated. We do not even know--if I ask my colleague where they are going to be assigned, which sector, where they are going to work, I bet there is no answer to that.

The bottom line is very simple. We have carefully thought this through. We think we have maximized the effectiveness for about one- third of the money our colleague is talking about. It is only one of many reasons this amendment was defeated by a bipartisan group, a majority in committee.

So let's move on. Let's move on. Let's look at how we can make the border more secure. I am open to that. But this amendment, as I said, for a variety of reasons is a nonstarter.

I would just say this: No, 1, this amendment--we are only on the third day of the bill. I have said over and over that I welcome suggestions on how to improve the bill. No one says the bill by the Gang of 8 is exactly right. In fact, as Senator Leahy well knows-- our chairman of the Judiciary Committee--we accepted a large number of amendments, many of which came from the other side, in committee. We will do the same thing here. But this particular amendment is not 3 days old.

It is hard to refute the logic of my friend from Arizona.

I thank my colleague for those questions, and they are all pretty obvious.

No. 1, we have costed this out. CBO will judge whether we are correct. We have made the bill revenue neutral. In fact, we have a slight surplus. The huge cost of 6,500 border agents without any allocation where they would go--do you know what. If this were another bill, my colleague from Texas and all of his colleagues would say we are wasting billions of dollars with no plan. He is exactly right on that point.

On the second point, I have said, until I am blue in the face, sometimes from some criticism from some of the people who are my allies out there, that I am willing to look at changes in this bill. It is so unfair and patently false to say any one of the Group of 8 said we can't change the bill. We welcome changes to improve it. What happened in committee proves that.

The third point, I would say to my colleague, the way the Senator from Texas constructs the trigger, there will be no one who will ever achieve a path to citizenship because he leaves out turnbacks. If we don't have turnbacks--the 90 percent causes us trouble even with the way it was done in other areas, with other suggestions. If we leave out turnbacks, people who are turned back or caught, and we say go home, we will never get to 90 percent.

To say the proposal of the Senator from Texas allows a path to citizenship--it makes it virtually impossible. Therefore, again, I would say I wish to improve border security. I am open to suggestions. I wish to improve this bill in every area. I know my colleague from Arizona, my colleague from Colorado, my colleague from Illinois, the rest of us welcome that, and we have shown it time and time again.

This amendment, I don't think, advances moving the bill forward. It doesn't work on border security because of its expense, its lack of specificity, and it is taking away the very technology we need. It doesn't create a path to citizenship in any way. It doesn't allow one.

Finally, its cost is through the roof. Whatever CBO says, 6,500 new border agents is a multibillion-dollar proposition, unpaid for. I know my colleagues on the other side rue the day when we vote for unpaid-for obligations.

I yield to the Senator from Vermont.

That is exactly the right number, as I recall.

My count is exactly the same.

We are so proud of that fact, Mr. Chairman.

I agree. That is the right count. There were four of us there, and we did just as the chairman said.

I yield to the Senator from Arizona.

I thank my colleague, and I agree with the sentiments.

I reiterate one final point. The Cornyn amendment, as proposed, asks for a 90-percent success rate in terms of effectiveness on the border, but it eliminates the turnback part of it.

That would mean now that it would be virtually impossible to get to that 90 percent 1 year from now, 5 years from now, 10 years from now, because one of the most effective things we do on the border is turn people back. We don't catch them after they cross the border. They get up to the border, we find them when they get to the border and say go home.

It fails on both counts. It has been debated. It has been studied.

I would plead with my colleagues who want more border security: Let's move on.

The Senator from Utah has amendments on taxes and on benefits. The Senator from Ohio has amendments on E-Verify. Many of my colleagues have amendments on many other issues. We are open to debate and discussion on the core principles that the eight of us agreed to. That is an agreement among the eight of us, and the rest of you can disagree with that--we think most of you will agree with those core principles. So be it. Aside from the basic core of the bill, we welcome changes, suggestions, and improvements. We look forward to a healthy debate.

To bring up an amendment that has been rejected and basically turns things on its head, because there will be no path to citizenship for anybody, and because you are just sort of, if you will, with all due respect, throwing money at a problem without specificity as to where the money goes, that doesn't move the debate forward.

I yield to my colleague.

I thank my colleague.

Reclaiming the floor for a brief minute, I know my colleague from Utah has been offered time to speak on his proposal, so I don't want to take too much more time.

I wish to say once again that we welcome suggestions. The Senator from Arizona is right. We carefully looked at the border. This wasn't fly-by-night. Every one of us, certainly not only myself, wants to see that border as secure as possible.

It so happens that 6,500 more Border Patrol agents, if you asked the experts, they wouldn't know what to do with them. Large sections of the border have no roads, have no way to station Border Patrol agents there; whereas, helicopters, drones, and mobile forces work.

It was my colleague from Arizona who actually taught me that on a trip to the border. He used his military expertise to help us figure out the most effective way to seal the border effectively.

When I hear of the amendment from my colleague from Texas, I don't get what the logic is behind it, frankly. I certainly don't get the logic on his trigger.

It is fair if we want to make sure the border is secure, but if we use triggers--as some might, and I am not saying that my colleague from Texas intended that--but if triggers become a way to avoid a path to citizenship--without saying directly I want to avoid a path to citizenship because I don't want to vote for it--that is not going to work and we will not move forward.

This Nation desperately needs us to move forward as Democrats and Republicans together. Let's continue the bipartisan spirit we have had. Let us move forward together to make this bill better, make our country proud of us, and keep America the leading power economically and every other way.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the comprehensive immigration reform bill we will begin debating later today and for the rest of the month.

I thank my colleagues for voting yes on the motion to proceed, which will let us debate this very important bill which is critical to the future of our security, our economy, and our society. This overwhelming vote--a majority of both parties--starts this bill off on the right foot.

First, I will begin by saying that this has been the most open and transparent process we have seen in the past few years. Unlike most bills where only 1 or 2 Senators draft them, this bill was drafted by 10 of us here in the Senate.

I thank each of the four Republicans and four Democrats in the Gang of 8--my seven colleagues in the gang--for their great work. The agricultural program in the bill was drafted by Senators Feinstein and Hatch. We then held a number of hearings where we debated, considered, voted on, and adopted scores of amendments during the Judiciary Committee markup under the able leadership of Chairman Leahy. Many of those amendments were bipartisan or were amendments offered solely by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. These amendments dramatically improve the bill. Our bill is better and stronger today than it was when we introduced it.

Before the bill was marked up, this bill had been vetted by the eight of us. Eighteen of us here in the Senate have already had the chance to make our mark on this bill and consider all of the ways in which it should be changed. Now we are here on the floor, where all of my colleagues will have the chance to further improve the bill and discuss the changes they feel need to be made. We readily admit this bill is not perfect and can always be improved. It is undergirded by one thought about the present situation and one about the future that we hope to change. In the present situation, our country--amazingly and counterproductively--turns away hundreds of thousands of people who will create jobs and improve our economy, and at the same time we let millions cross the border and take jobs away from American workers. The system is backward and the status quo is unacceptable.

Our bill is based on one simple principle: that the American people will accept and embrace commonsense solutions to future legal immigration and to the 11 million now living here in the shadows if-- and only if--they are convinced there will not be future waves of illegal immigration.

Our bill does three basic things. First, it ensures that we will never again have a wave of future illegal immigration. Second, it fixes our completely dysfunctional legal immigration system to make us the most competitive Nation in the world for both this century and the next. Third, it contains a tough but realistic path for making sure that the people currently here illegally are held accountable for what they did, but it also allows them to join American society on our terms in a fair and honorable way rather than by the current amnesty-by- inaction we see today.

I wish to make it extremely clear that, first and foremost, we are committed to ending the waves of illegal immigration we have seen in the last 30 years. We will accomplish this goal by building a very sturdy three-legged

stool of border security, employment verification, and entry-exit. I will now explain what our bill does in each of these areas to prevent future waves of illegal immigration.

Make no mistake, our borders will be secured as a result of this bill. We appropriate $6.5 billion up front in this bill to bolster our security efforts, and that is in addition to the annual appropriations made for each year of border security.

Before any legalization can even begin, the Secretary of Homeland Security is required to come up with a plan on how to deploy $4.5 billion of those resources to acquire new infrastructure, technology, and personnel that will enable the border patrol to catch 9 out of 10 illegal immigrants who attempt to cross our border. Only after this plan is presented to Congress and deployment of the resources has commenced may the legalization program begin to adjust undocumented individuals to registered provisional immigrant status--what we call RPI status. All of the resources in the plan must then be deployed on the ground and working before anyone in RPI status can ever be granted a green card and gain citizenship.

After 5 years, if the Border Patrol is not catching 9 out of every 10 illegal immigrants who attempt to cross the border, a commission with border State Governors and elected officials will be empowered to make recommendations on how best to spend an additional $2 billion that this bill has already preappropriated in order to achieve this 90-percent effectiveness rate.

With minimal resources and with many fewer resources, we are more effective at the border. The effectiveness rate has gone up from 68 percent to 82 percent. Imagine what will happen with the resources we provide in this bill, all of which is paid for by provisions in the bill, both fees for those who wish legal workers to come to work for them and fines for those who have crossed the border illegally. DHS will implement the recommendations of the commission after they have been presented to the Secretary.

Think of this: Crossing the border without permission from the government is a crime. When we catch someone crossing the border and prosecute and deport them, we are solving the crime and punishing the criminal. Our bill will deploy the resources needed to catch, prosecute, and deport 90 percent of the people who cross the border illegally. Ninety percent of all border-crossing cases will be successfully closed. How does that closure rate compare to other violations of our laws? According to FBI statistics, each year we successfully catch, prosecute, and detain wrongdoers in less than 50 percent of the cases where a violent crime has been committed and in less than 20 percent of the cases where a property crime has been committed. Think about the much higher standard our bill is creating for border security--90 percent. Everyone knows 90 percent is an A grade, and our bill will achieve an A-rated border.

For days and weeks now I have heard Senators who would oppose any immigration bill. They say our bill does not secure the border, as if the $6.5 billion does not count. If anyone has a better idea, tell us. But to say this will not improve border security--some may disagree on whether it is the best way to do it or some may disagree on whether it does enough, but don't say it won't do anything to secure the border. History shows that of course it will. The eight of us believe it will do it well and do it strongly. It will do it far better than anything that has ever been envisioned.

Now let's take a look at what we can purchase for this money.

We are going to be building $1 billion worth of border fence. Our bill requires that it be built before anyone can get a green card. Our bill originally had $500 million more allocated for fencing, and the fencing money was actually decreased by the senior Senator from Texas, who thought we were building too much border fence in our bill.

Second, we will be purchasing sensors, fixed towers, radar, and drones that will cover the entire southern border. When this technology is deployed, we will finally be able to see every single person crossing our border, and we will know where to send our 21,000 Border Patrol agents to go catch people.

I visited the border with Senators McCain, Flake, and Bennet. It is huge. We cannot station enough people on the border. There are no roads on large parts of it. But with the drones, we can see every single person who crosses the border day or night, and we can follow their path, so they can be apprehended when they are 10, 20, 25 miles inland. It is a huge improvement. Simple math tells us we have more than one Border Patrol agent for every city block of the southern border. Imagine how low crime would be if we had a police officer on every block. Imagine, once we deploy this technology, how effective it will be.

For those who say the American people do not trust the government to get the job done, I say let's look at the facts. Providing additional resources to DHS for border security has an incredibly proven track record of success. In 2010 Congress passed an emergency supplemental appropriations bill for border security. I worked on that with my colleague from Arizona, Senator McCain. It was $600 million. In 2009, according to the GAO, the national effective rate for the entire southern border was 72 percent. In 2011, a year after this was deployed, it went up to 82 percent.

Again, saying this will not improve border security at all or saying there is no security at the border is not fair, and it is not right. I urge my colleagues not to say it. Again, some may disagree with how or disagree with how much, but there is a heck of a lot of border security in this bill.

Most of the resources in the supplemental budget went to the Tucson border sector. In 2009 the effectiveness rate at the Tucson border sector was 71 percent. In 2011 it went up to 87 percent. Given that a mere $600 million supplemental appropriation was able to increase border security effectiveness from 72 percent to 82 percent, it is reasonable to assert that spending over 10 times that money on border security in the form of a $6.5 billion supplemental appropriation for personnel, infrastructure and technology will allow us to apprehend 9 out of every 10 people who try to cross the southern border illegally.

Second, visa overstays will be identified and apprehended when this bill passes. An estimated 40 percent of the 11 million people in unauthorized status are individuals who entered the United States legally but overstayed their visas. When a foreign national enters the country, he or she is fingerprinted and his or her passport or visa is electronically scanned against our data security databases. Amazingly, when this individual exits the country, no such scan occurs, leading to uncertain information as to who overstayed their visas. Forty percent of those who cross illegally do not cross the border; rather, they overstay their visas.

For individuals who enter the United States by air or sea, we will require those individuals to swipe their machine-readable passport visa on an electric scanner at the gate immediately before exiting the United States. To prevent identity theft when the person swipes their visa or passport, their picture comes up on a screen at the gate. The gate agent who is given the passport has to match the picture on the screen with the person giving their passport. The exit information will be given to all of the Department of Homeland Security components to generate an accurate overstay list of people who entered the United States by air or sea. Persons on this list will be apprehended, detained, and deported by ICE.

Persons entering the United States from the northern border will also be identified as exiting the country via the northern border when they are granted entry into Canada, and that is because the United States and Canada are willing to share entry information such that each country will be providing the other country with de facto exit information.

There is criticism leveled by opponents of immigration reform that the exit system must be biometric in order to prevent visa overstays and that using passport or visa pictures instead of fingerprints will not work. Although this criticism is not justified because we will be using picture-matching to prevent identity theft, our bill phases in biometric exit capabilities at our largest airports. During the first 2 years of enactment the bill will require the taking of biometrics for people

leaving the United States through the 10 largest international airports. It will go to 20 more in 6 years. If it works better than the photo-match system, we will phase in the print system nationwide. We believe the photo system is just as effective and much, much cheaper. Why do we need to spend billions more to achieve the same result?

In any case, the key to our bill is that we will ensure, soon after passage--even as this biometric exit system is being deployed--we will be able to detect, detain, and deport individuals who enter the United States legally from Canada by airport or seaport and then overstay their visas.

We also make the completion of this entry-exit system a trigger for the path to citizenship. The path to citizenship cannot happen unless this entry-exit system is deployed.

Third, even if a small number of people are able to cross the border illegally or overstay their visa--neither system will be perfect--they will still not be able to find work legally in the United States due to our bill's mandatory employment verification system. Even if someone is able to get here illegally or overstays their visa, their main goal for being here--working--will be impossible after the bill is passed.

That is why we have illegal immigration. The people who cross our borders are very poor people. Most of them are living in poverty and they want a job. They want some money. If they can send $10 a week home to their wife, father or children, they will cross the border to do it. But if they can't get jobs, they are not going to come.

We have 11 million people here today, and we do not have a problem whereby these folks are besieging us with terrorist acts. They are simply here working and feeding their families.

If we eliminate the jobs magnet, we will eliminate illegal immigration. Under this bill, every employer seeking to hire a worker must determine, using our employment verification system, whether that prospective employee is here legally and can work. If the prospective employee is either a noncitizen with work authorization, a U.S. citizen with a passport or a resident of a State that agrees to share a driver's license with DHS--and all 50 States now have driver's licenses--then the prospective employee will have to produce that form of identification to their employer that matches the photo pulled up on the E-Verify database in order to work legally. This will eliminate the identity theft problem that plagues the current E-Verify system.

If the prospective employee is a U.S. citizen who does not have a passport or is not from a State that shares driver's licenses with DHS, then that individual--it is a very small number--will have to answer questions about their identity, generated randomly from their Social Security number, in order to prevent identity theft. Credit card companies have used this system to huge and positive effect.

Employers who do not use E-Verify or who hire illegal workers will be given severe penalties and be jailed for repeated violations. I know many on the other side have wanted to make E-Verify mandatory and permanent. We have heard that for years. Now, all of a sudden when we do it, it is not good enough.

Fourth, this bill also fundamentally alters the cost-benefit analysis for coming to the United States illegally by creating a new W visa worker program to encourage people to come here legally. Because of the bill's significantly enhanced border security, entry-exit, and employment verification, any person intending to come to the United States illegally will have to take great safety risks, at great personal and financial costs to come here. Once they are here, they will find there are no jobs available to support themselves.

Alternatively, they can choose to come legally and work as part of our W visa work program that is created for individuals to work in jobs where employers cannot find American workers but only if they can't find them. Up to 200,000 visas a year will be made available for this purpose. We start with a program that can grow as our economy grows and creates more jobs and is flexibly related to the rate of unemployment.

In addition, a new agricultural program will be set up to replace the previously illegal flow of agricultural workers. Given that the Census Bureau and the Pew Hispanic Center have estimated the illegal flow in past years to be around 400,000 people per year, there should be enough visas to meet any demand for additional workers that might exist.

If more legal workers are needed, the newly formed Bureau of Immigration and Labor Market Research can provide additional visas to permit more workers to enter in occupations they find have shortages of workers.

Given these new programs, it would no longer make any sense for intending illegal immigrants to spend tens of thousands of dollars and risk their lives to come here illegally. Illegal immigration will be a thing of the past.

Fifth, the bill will protect American workers in four ways: Because of the new employment verification system Americans will no longer have to compete for jobs with unauthorized workers who can easily be exploited. I say to so many of my colleagues who are worried about this, I ride my bicycle around Brooklyn early in the morning. I see on various street corners congregating young men, mainly, and some guy on a truck comes over and says: I will give you $15 to work on roofing on a few houses I am building. I guarantee he doesn't say he will pay them $2 above minimum wage and give them an hour off for lunch. Those illegal immigrants are driving down the wage base, particularly in lower skilled places. That will end.

Second, in the bill's legal worker programs, Americans must be recruited first before any foreign worker will be hired.

In addition, all foreign workers will be required to be paid the same wage as an American would be paid for that job, meaning that a foreign worker will never be hired to undercut an American worker's wage.

All foreign workers will be given portability to change employers if they don't like their current employment situation. This means employers will no longer choose foreign workers over American workers because they have more control over those workers.

Finally, this is also a very fair bill--and we have, of course--I don't go into it here for lack of time--an H-1B system and a system that says if you are a foreigner who studies in an American college and gets an M.A. or Ph.D. in STEM--science, technology, engineering, and math--you will get a green card. These are the very people who in the past have created new companies and created tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of new jobs in America. Now, if they want to come to America after they study here or stay in America, we send them away and they go to Canada and Australia. That would not happen anymore under this bill.

Finally, it is a very fair bill for legal immigration and resolving the status of the people who are here. We create a system, as I mentioned, that allows America to attract and retain the best and brightest minds from around the world in science, math, finance, technology, the arts, and more, fundamental to maintaining America's preeminence in a an increasingly competitive global marketplace. We also provided a JOLT--J-O-L-T--to our travel industry by making it easier for foreign nationals to come to the United States and spend their lucrative vacation dollars here instead of somewhere else.

Of great importance, and perhaps the dividing line between some in this Chamber and the rest of us, we give the 11 million people here a chance to come out of the shadows and earn a path to citizenship after spending 10 years on probation, working, keeping their nose clean, learning English and civics, and paying their taxes. It is a tough path to citizenship, but it is a fair path, and it is a path we make sure will happen, providing the specific metrics in our border security provisions are met.

Our bill requires all of these important enforcement resources I have described to be put in place before we give the individuals a path to citizenship. We in the Group of 8 agree that is fair to ask. The Federal Government should have to put the resources in place that we promised, as necessary, to get the job done. That is entirely within our control and we will live up to our work. But by the same token, we will not leave these 11 million people in immigration limbo forever. It makes no sense to have people living here permanently who have not invested in America. This is the huge mistake Europe has made. We see the ill effects every day on the news of what happens in European countries that have not

integrated their immigrant populations. Those populations become affected by a sense of alienation, a lack of opportunity, a lack of upward mobility. That is not America. Here we give people the chance to be all they can be through their hard work. We want people here to be serving on juries, serving in the military, and saying to people that they are just as American as anybody else.

In my city--the city in which I was raised and in which I live--there is that beautiful lady in the harbor with that bright torch. That has been America, and that lady has said through the centuries: If you come here and work hard, stay clear of the law, no matter who you are and what your economic level is, we welcome you. We want you to become an American.

We are not going to take that away. That would be just as dramatic a change in this country we love so much as tearing up the Bill of Rights. It has been part and parcel, warp and woof, of America.

To those who suggest having some secondary status, to those who say let's put into the bill an excuse so someone 3 years from now can say no one can become a citizen, we say: No. We have some basic principles we will not compromise and that is at the top of the list.

In conclusion, I wish to send this message loudly and clearly to all who might be listening today. We are interested in compromises that will make this bill even stronger and more secure. Our group does not claim to have a monopoly on wisdom. We will hear out any of our colleagues from either side of the aisle who have good-faith suggestions on how to improve this bill.

I have heard some say we should not consider any further changes to the bill and dare the other side to vote against it. I reject that approach. We are not interested in scoring a political victory to help one party; we are interested in passing a law that changes the awful status quo, solves the problem, and makes America an even greater and better place. Just because the process has been, to date, so encouraging does not mean we can take anything for granted. So we welcome constructive input from our colleagues and we want to work with them. But the one thing none of us will do is condition the path to citizenship on factors that may not ever happen in order to appear tough.

We are committed to border security. We are committed to ending illegal immigration. But we are equally committed to allowing people the right to earn their way to become an American citizen if they work hard, play by the rules, learn English, and avoid criminality.

Just as I believe to my core that border security should not be a bargaining chip, I also believe to my core that leaving people in immigration limbo, uninvested in America and its successes, is also something we should not do just to pass a bill. I commit in good faith to every one of my colleagues in this Chamber who wants to work with me to improve the bill that I am open to any ideas. But for those of my colleagues who will not support this legislation, I simply ask the question: How would you solve this problem? The answers are not simple. That is why it has taken us months to get to where we are today.

This bill represents our best chance for a broad bipartisan compromise on a complex issue that we have had for decades.

I hope all of us take this opportunity very seriously. I hope we all do what we can to show the American people that their lawmakers do still have the ability to solve difficult problems that affect every one of our daily lives.

With that, I ask that my colleagues will agree to work with us in good faith to improve this bill and to give a resounding vote--from both sides of the aisle--of support for this bill when it comes to final passage.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Rules and Administration will meet on Wednesday, June 12, 2013, in SR- 301, Russell Senate Office Building, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on the nomination of Davita Vance-Cooks, of Virginia, to be the Public Printer.

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

committee on small business and entrepreneurship

Mr. President, I rise in support of S. Res. 65, an important and timely resolution that restates U.S. policy to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability and expresses U.S. support should Israel be compelled to take military action against Iran in its own legitimate self-defense.

I would like to take this time to thank my colleagues Senator Menendez, Senator Graham, Senator Hoeven, and Senator Blumenthal for joining forces to introduce this important bipartisan resolution that recognizes and reaffirms the special bonds of friendship and cooperation that have existed between the United States and the State of Israel for more than six decades.

Make no mistake--the diplomatic, security, and economic relationship between Israel and the United States is stronger than it has ever been, and nothing can break that everlasting bond. But let's be completely frank. Right now, our friend Israel faces one of the gravest threats it has confronted in more than a half a century.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is dangerously obsessed with the goal of acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. And we are getting closer and closer to ``crunch time'' in terms of Iran developing that nuclear weapons capability.

Time is of the essence, but unfortunately the latest talks between the United States, our international partners, and Iran in Almaty, Kazakhstan, failed to achieve any progress toward curbing Tehran's nuclear ambitions. ``Talks'' about the ``future talks'' are ongoing, but the centrifuges continue to spin in Iran, with more advanced centrifuges on the way.

And who can deny the horrific actions of the Iranian regime. From its support of the vicious Asad regime in Syria, which is spearheading a human rights catastrophe that has led to the deaths of more than 70,000 people, to its backing of murderous terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, the Iranian regime is getting more and more dangerous by the day. All the while, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continues to guide his people down a very perilous path.

That is why this bipartisan resolution is so timely. It recognizes the tremendous threat posed to the United States, the West, and Israel by Iran's continuing pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability, and it deplores and condemns in the strongest possible terms

the reprehensible statements and policies of the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran threatening the security and existence of Israel.

The United States must do everything we can--as quickly as we can--to convince the Iranian Government that it is in its interest to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons. This resolution sends a blunt message to the Government of Iran the United States will take whatever steps are necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.

This resolution states that nothing in this text shall be construed as an authorization for the use of force or a declaration of war. But rest assured, I believe that when it comes to Iran, we should never take the military option off the table. President Obama has stated that Israel is a true friend. And if Israel is attacked, America will stand with Israel. Most importantly, President Obama has said that Iran's leaders should understand that he does not have a policy of containment; rather President Obama has a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.'' I take the President at his word, and so should the Government of Iran. But we need to ratchet up the sanctions and the pressure on Iran now.

And rest assured--Congress has given the President a powerful package of economic sanctions that will paralyze the Iranian economy and I am confident we in Congress will do more and this Administration will do more to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapons capability.

I strongly urge my colleagues in the Senate to support this important resolution and I look forward to its swift passage.

Madam President, I would like to engage in a colloquy with the Senator from California, the chair of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, as well as the Senators from New Jersey, Senators Lautenberg and Menendez, and my colleague from New York, Senator Gillibrand.

I thank the chair for her leadership in bringing the Water Resources Development Act to the Senate floor to address the urgent need for investment in our Nation's waterways, port infrastructure, and for coastal flood protection. It is my hope that this bill will be passed quickly. The Sandy relief bill provided over $5 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers to construct and repair authorized hurricane protection projects in States devastated by Superstorm Sandy. A $20 million comprehensive study was included in order to analyze the flood risks of the east coast with the congressional intent and authority for the corps to move to specific feasibility studies. However, it is currently our understanding that the Corps of Engineers does not intend to provide specific project recommendations in this study that will result in feasibility studies. I am pleased that I was able to work with you, Chairman Boxer, and my colleagues from the affected States, to add language to this bill that addresses this issue. I would like to clarify the intent of the language.

Will the language in section 3004 of the water resources development bill result in specific project recommendations for the Corps study?

I am pleased that this matter concerning the additional funds for the Great Lakes has been clarified. The chairman has gone to great lengths to address important national priorities in this bill, including providing funding for our high-use, deep draft ports--like those in New York, Los Angeles/Long Beach and Oakland--and supporting unique commercial navigation systems like the Great Lakes. I also want to make sure that these funds are distributed to harbors in the Great Lakes that have been ignored by the corps over the years. Chairman Boxer, is that the intent of the language in section 8004 of the bill, that additional priority funds could be used for any Great Lakes navigation project, including those that handle lower levels of freight, measured by tonnage?

Thank the Senator for clarifying this matter, and I thank her for her work on this important legislation.

Madam President, first, I thank my colleague from Oregon for offering his proposal and am sorry it was rejected. We should be going to conference on the budget, there is no question about it. It is hard for us to understand how, on the other side, people have been railing for 4 years: You do not have a budget. And now we have a budget and they do not want to move forward. But that is not what I rose to speak about today.

Madam President, first, I also want to say to the Senator from California and the Senator from Louisiana, job well done. The WRDA bill is a very good bill, and it will help both the port of New York City--one of the great ports of the world--as well as our Great Lakes ports, which are having their own troubles in terms of dredging.

But there was an extreme disappointment in the bill--no fault of my colleague from California. I am extremely disappointed at the objection some of my colleagues raised to even allowing a vote on the Landrieu amendment to the WRDA bill, and I, along with Senator Landrieu and others, will keep fighting until this commonsense amendment passes. I am speaking of amendment No. 888. I was proud to cosponsor it. Very simply, it would delay for 5 years any premium increases resulting from revised flood maps. The purpose of the amendment was to provide FEMA enough time to complete the study it was required to complete over a month ago on the affordability of increased premiums.

Senator Toomey is right that we passed a flood insurance reauthorization bill just 10 months ago, but it was always the intent-- and many of us worked hard on that--under Biggert-Waters that FEMA would conduct an affordability study before higher premiums would go into effect. That way Congress could review the findings and recommendations and address important issues relating to affordability and neighborhood sustainability.

Senator Landrieu's amendment was carefully crafted to give FEMA time to complete its study, then allow Congress 6 months to respond. For technical reasons, she amended it to a straight 5-year delay--I thought that was better--but the purpose was the same. The logic is irrefutable: Why bother to do the study at all if we are going to allow FEMA to charge ahead and start raising premiums all over the country?

I say this to my colleagues--the Senator from Louisiana knows it well, and we know it well in New York--you are going to be finding out across the country that flood insurance premiums are going to rise so high that they will be unaffordable to average middle-class people.

What do you say to the homeowner who is forced into the choice of either paying crushing flood premiums or leaving their home and their neighborhood? Do we say to them: Sorry, we just couldn't get around to thinking about difficult cases like yours just yet.

That is not going to stand. That is not fair. It is not acceptable.

I note for my colleagues who might think this is just a Hurricane Sandy-related issue, it is not. New Yorkers are facing this situation because our flood maps are being revised--a process that was well underway before Sandy. So the increased premiums many New Yorkers could well face will face all of your constituents. As FEMA starts revising flood maps--and they are increasing the number of homes included and increasing the level at which homeowners have to pay--every one of you is going to be facing the same problem we are facing in New York.

Madam President, $9,500 for flood insurance for someone who makes $40,000 or $50,000 and lives in a modest home? Forget it. We cannot have that, and I will tell FEMA right now that will not stand. Something will give because the situation is untenable.

The original bill provided for a study, and then Congress could act on that study and modify the bill. But now we are moving forward without even the study being done. In fact, people in some States are already seeing their premiums rise up to 25 percent a year, and many more States will be covered over the next 2 years.

If you think it is just coastal States, such as my State of New York and the State of Louisiana, it is not. In fact, according to FEMA, my friend Senator Toomey's home State is one of the States that rely most heavily on flood insurance. Pennsylvania ranks seventh in the total amount of NFIP payouts, seventh in the number of claims filed since the program began.

So we all have an interest to get this right, that we proceed with eyes wide open in attempts to bring the Flood Insurance Program onto sounder financial footing; that we have the benefit of all the data and analysis we need. My prediction: If we do not change this, there will be no flood insurance or at the very minimum we will let it be optional for everybody and let people decide because to force people between paying an amount they cannot afford and forcing people to leave their homes is a choice this Congress will ultimately not abide for.

It is important to remember that if people cannot afford flood insurance, they are going to drop out of the program. Their communities might not adopt new flood maps when proposed because they know the cost is prohibitive. When future disasters hit, these families and communities will be entirely dependent on Federal aid to help them rebuild, and that will cost the taxpayers even more.

So it is important that we ensure the program is both financially sound and accessible to ordinary middle-class families. Something is very wrong with a program that requires middle-class families to pay over $10,000 a year for a policy with coverage that is capped at $250,000.

You may ask why I am so passionate about this issue. Because I have visited too many families, too many communities in New York City and in upstate New York where the prospect of higher premiums is causing residents to rethink whether they can even afford to remain in the homes in which they have lived, many of them, for their whole lives, whether they can afford to live in the neighborhoods in which they grew up, where their families and friends live, where their children go to school. Families are being forced to make this choice in neighborhoods from Staten Island to the Rockaways to Massapequa and east and upstate in places such as Schoharie County and in the southern tier counties such as Broome and Tioga and in north country counties such as Essex. It would be a shame if we allowed this to happen--all because FEMA did not get around to studying the impact of higher flood rates and Congress did not have a chance to respond.

So I hope that by the time New York's maps are completed and New Yorkers have completed the process of rebuilding in the wake of Sandy, fears of $10,000 flood insurance premiums for middle-class homes will prove to have been incorrect. But right now those fears are very real, and they are putting the future of some of New York's most tightly knit middle-class neighborhoods at risk.

As I noted previously, New York's flood maps were in the process of being revised before Sandy hit. But in the wake of Sandy, it adds insult to injury when families who are spending their entire savings to repair their homes are told that in a year or two they may not be able to afford to live there.

In conclusion, I am disappointed that we did not get a vote on this issue, but I will keep pushing and pushing until this awful situation is rectified. I know Senator Landrieu will. I know Senator Vitter will. The issue is too important to too many New Yorkers and too many Americans, and I will not stop until we get a vote and until we ultimately succeed.

I am confident many more of my colleagues will begin to hear from their constituents about the challenges they are facing as flood premiums are increased, and they will see the wisdom of Senator Landrieu's amendment and Congress will ultimately act to fix this problem once and for all.

With that, I appreciate my colleagues giving me time, and I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise today to speak in favor of amendment No. 802 to the WRDA bill offered by my friend, great legislator, chairman of the Subcommittee on Homeland Security, Senator Mary Landrieu. I am proud to cosponsor this amendment.

The amendment would delay flood insurance premium increases until FEMA has completed a study on the impacts on the affordability of planned premium increases. Nobody in this body knows better than Senator Landrieu the challenges faced by communities in the wake of natural disasters, and she has been beyond generous in sharing her time and expertise and lending her vocal support to the States, such as mine, so greatly impacted by Superstorm Sandy.

Last year Congress passed a flood insurance reauthorization and reform

bill, the Biggert-Waters Act. We passed the Biggert-Waters Act because if the program expired, flood insurance would become unavailable or unaffordable for people who needed it.

Congress also needed to reform the program going forward because it is billions of dollars in debt and needs to be put on a better financial footing.

In my home State, one of the counties received a very poor and unfair map, which was undone in the bill.

In the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, many middle-class families in New York are struggling to get back on their feet. Many lost everything. They have had to drain their savings to rebuild. They have been out of their homes for months. The kids get on a schoolbus and have to go 20, 30 miles to school.

Imagine losing everything in your home as so many have. It is an awful feeling, not just the chair you were comfortable sitting in, all of your appliances and all of that, but that picture of great-grandma and great-grandpa which was priceless is gone. It is a horrible thing.

Adding another layer of difficulty to this situation, the flood insurance reforms enacted by Congress last summer result, in many cases, in huge insurance premiums. Our families in New York are caught in limbo.

Families in Breezy Point, the Rockaways, Broad Channel, Staten Island, Brooklyn, on the south shore of Long Island, from Long Beach all the way out to Mastic and Shirley, are still trying to make decisions, are repairing their homes and investing tens of thousands of dollars to do so. Many of these homes are very middle-class homes. These are not rich people. They have worked hard. Some of them are teachers, policemen, firemen, construction workers or small business owners. Many of them are being told their insurance rates could be $10,000 a year or more. What kind of insurance is flood insurance if it is $10,000 a year? It puts homeowners in the worst possible position. They either have to come up with an additional $10,000--worse in Sandy because they have already paid money to redo their homes, but even for a normal homeowner $10,000 a year and you don't get a mortgage. Ten thousand dollars a year, this is absurd.

I don't know what is wrong with the flood insurance program, but any program that has to charge an average homeowner on Long Island, Brooklyn, Queens or Staten Island $10,000 ought to be reexamined by this Congress. It is confounding. People are upset and they should be.

Recognizing the burden these changes could put on families, FEMA was required to conduct a study on the affordability of flood insurance, the effects of increased premiums on low-income homeowners and middle- income homeowners, and ways to increase affordability. The study was originally supposed to be completed within 270 days. That was 9 months after the bill was passed.

That deadline has come and gone. FEMA hasn't even begun to collect the necessary data. We know FEMA has been busy responding to Sandy and other natural disasters.

At the same time it is unfair to hit homeowners with massive new flood insurance premiums without any plan of how to address the needs for those who can't afford these skyrocketing, out-of-control, and out- of-reach premiums. The amendment is a recognition of that fundamental fairness.

Large parts of New York City are having their flood maps revised. As a result, New Yorkers, many, could face the prospect of crushing increases in premiums. Right now, far too many Sandy victims are still in the process of rebuilding their homes. They simply cannot afford a whopping increase in flood insurance premiums.

Common sense and a sense of fairness dictate that we should delay any unnecessary increases until we know exactly how hard they hit our communities and until we can come up with a solution that makes flood insurance reasonable and affordable--particularly if it is mandated, as it often is--in effect or by law.

That is what the amendment does. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the amendment.

I also wish to mention an amendment offered by my good friend from across the Hudson River, Senator Menendez of New Jersey, a State also suffering from Superstorm Sandy, that seems to address many of the same concerns.

His amendment would delay flood insurance premium increases until FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funds have been expended. This commonsense amendment would give homeowners a chance to use the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program for its intended purpose, to rebuild stronger and safer, resulting in lower flood risks.

This amendment simply says: Let's wait until people have taken this opportunity to reduce their future flood risks before we increase their flood premiums. It makes abundant sense. I hope my colleagues would pass both Senator Landrieu's and Senator Menendez's fine amendments.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, on May 7, 2013, the Joint Committee on the Library organized, elected a Chairman, a Vice Chairman, and adopted its rules for the 113th Congress. Members of the Joint Committee on the Library elected Senator Charles E. Schumer as Vice-Chairman and Congressman Gregg Harper as Chairman. Pursuant to Rule XXVI, paragraph 2, of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a copy of the Committee rules.

Mr. President, on May 7, 2013, the Joint Committee on Printing organized, elected a Chairman, a Vice Chairman, and adopted its rules for the 113th Congress. Members of the Joint Committee on Printing elected Senator Charles E. Schumer as Chairman and Congressman Gregg Harper as Vice Chairman. Pursuant to Rule XXVI, paragraph 2, of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a copy of the Committee rules.

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Joint Committee of Congress on Printing will meet on Tuesday, May 7, 2013, at 10 a.m., in SC-4 to conduct its organization meeting for the 113th Congress.

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

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library will meet on Tuesday, May 7, 2013, at 10 a.m., in SC-4 to conduct its organization meeting for the 113th Congress.

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

Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship

Mr. President, In September of 2011 this body debated and passed landmark patent legislation which was subsequently signed by the President and is now law.

The America Invents Act--AIA--updated, for the first time in many years, the way patents are issued and prosecuted, and in some instances the means by which businesses defend themselves against lawsuits filed by the ever-growing cottage industry of patent assertion entities.

The AIA made many important improvements to our patent law. But more needs to be done. Even in just the short time since the bill passed, the problem of so-called ``patent trolls'' has continued to grow exponentially. In fact, patent trolls cost operating companies $29 billion in 2011 alone. Many of these suits are the result of poor- quality patents being asserted by highly litigious parties against ordinary businesses, large and small, who are left with only unacceptable options: pay a costly licensing fee, settle a court case to avoid litigation costs, or expend millions in litigation fees in hope of prevailing at the end of the day in court.

This has been especially problematic in the universe of technology startups--a booming industry in New York in particular. These small businesses have everything going for them--good ideas, smart employees, and loyal customers. But they risk being entirely undercut by a clever patent troll who takes advantage of them in court. In fact, I have heard from businesses that actually had to fold as a result of a single poor-quality patent lawsuit. This is anathema not only to a pro-growth business culture, but also to the very principles of the intellectual property system.

I believe we can address this problem, and I believe there is a clear and simple way to do so; in fact, we have a model in Section 18 of the AIA. Section 18, the Schumer-Kyl provision, established a post grant review by the experts at the PTO of covered business method patents-- the very patents which have been wreaking havoc in the courts and in boardrooms across the country. Section 18 allows a petitioner to request that the PTO review a covered patent and if they find it more likely than not to be invalid, to take a second look at it and return a decision promptly.

During debate of Section 18, I took the opportunity to make clear that District Courts should stay proceedings in patent cases if the PTO is reviewing the same patents because the PTO decision regarding the patent's standing would prove dispositive in court and obviate the need for further court proceedings.

I am pleased to note that district judges have been giving deference to the legislative history and that in at least 2 cases, have stayed their proceedings pending a PTO decision. Section 18 is not only providing patent holders and accused infringers with an alternative to court, but judges are able to better manage their dockets through the use of this new post-grant proceeding.

In the approximately 6 months since the process authorized by Section 18 began, around 20 patents have been challenged through it at the PTO. And those cases are being considered at the PTO in a more cost- effective way than litigation.

It is apparent that Section 18 is working the way we intended; the only problem with it is that it is too limited in two respects: first, it was only authorized as a temporary program and second the types of patents that are allowed to be considered under it are limited. For this reason, I will be introducing a bill when we return from recess to improve Section 18 by removing its temporary status and making more ``likely invalid'' business-method patents eligible for review. I look forward to working with Chairman Leahy and my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee on legislation to improve further the patent granting and patent prosecution system. A great place to start is to make sure the experts at the PTO get a chance to review low-quality patents against relevant prior art so that they cannot be used as a weapon against legitimate business.

I rise in strong support of the proposal by our Democratic leader. We all know that sequestration was a blunt instrument, and now it is beginning to hurt. There is delay after delay at airports throughout the Nation.

This is not only a question of traveler inconvenience. Our economy in all likelihood will lose many more dollars in the next week or two than it costs to furlough the air traffic controllers when businesspeople can't travel, when tourists can't travel. I know my home city of New York is greatly affected. No one stays in the hotels, no one dines in restaurants, and no one attends the shows. This may be repeated in destination after destination throughout the country. If people are so uncertain of air travel that when they show up at the airport, they may wait 1 hour or they may wait 5 hours, they won't go. A good percentage will stop their trips.

So it doesn't make sense to go forward. I think we are in agreement. The problem is, how do we fix it? There aren't many ways to fix it because if

you simply say, give flexibility, the Transportation Department has very little flexibility because many of its funds are off limits. The highway trust fund, for instance, isn't affected by sequestration because those are our nickels and dimes that go into the gas tax per gallon, which wasn't affected by sequestration. An extremely high and disproportionate number of the Transportation Department's expenditures are air traffic controllers themselves.

We have this problem. As Leader Reid pointed out, we have other problems--stopping cancer research and cutting back on NIH and NSF, which has always been our seed corn. NIH created a biopharmaceutical industry that is second to none and employs millions of people in your State and mine. NSF research basically created the Internet, which has created millions of jobs and makes the U.S. industry the envy of the world.

So we are cutting our seed corn, the kinds of programs for our homeless veterans, and the kinds of programs for our homebound seniors. The meat-ax approach of sequestration cuts those across the board.

My preference would be to close some tax loopholes to get rid of sequestration. I don't think we should give tax breaks to oil companies. We should not give tax breaks to companies that send jobs overseas. That would be my preference. But we know our friends on the other side of the aisle are against any revenue increases right now, so to put this on the floor immediately would be an exercise in futility.

The leader's plan is the right plan. It is ingenious. We have $600 billion on the budget that we know we won't spend the vast majority of because no one believes we will have troops in Iraq or Afghanistan 5 years from now. Yet that money is sitting there on our budget and preventing cancer research, air traffic controllers, and money for homeless vets from being used where it was supposed to be.

So the proposal to take a certain amount of money out of the OCO--the overseas contingency operations--which we know we won't spend, makes no sense. Now you say: Well, you know you won't spend it; it is a gimmick.

It is not a gimmick. It is sitting there in the budget occupying space and could be used by these other agencies. And to insist the OCO continue is causing real pain, causing our economy not to grow as quickly, causing vulnerable people to be hurt, and causing research-- the seed corn of America--to decline.

Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are saying that President Obama is to blame for these delays. He has very little choice if we don't change things, and this is a way to change things.

If we want to get rid of these delays, which we all on both sides of the aisle very much desire, I would propose to my colleagues that the solution proposed by the majority leader is the best way to go given the political necessities on the other side, the desire not to have any revenues--even closing certain tax loopholes.

So I would hope we could come together and vote on this solution. Cutting the OCO has been supported by Republicans. I remember Senator Kyl, a former Senator from Arizona, was advocating this late last year to deal with the doc fix, the DRGs, and other things. The people will come together on this. So I hope we can vote for this proposal, put the air traffic controllers back to work off their furloughs, get rid of these delays, and then come together in a grand agreement in time for the September budget.

I yield the floor.