Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, how much time is left on the majority side in morning business?

Mr. President, we are now approaching the 10th anniversary of 9/11. As with countless others who experienced all that happened that day, recounting 9/11, assessing its implications on our Nation is both a profound and deeply personal undertaking.

I will never forget the moments when I learned what happened. I was in the House gym. I was a Senator then and still went to the House gym. There is a little TV on top of the lockers, and somebody pointed out-- one of our colleagues who was in the House with me from the other side of the aisle said: Look on the TV. It looks like a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center.

We all gathered around and watched the TV and came to the conclusion that it was probably a little turbo plane that had lost its way. We kept our eyes on the TV, and then, of course, we saw the second plane hit the second tower, and we knew it was not just an accident.

I quickly showered, dressed, rushed to get into my car, and as I was driving quickly to my office, I saw another plane flying low over the Potomac, and I saw a big plume of smoke, which obviously was the plane aimed at the Pentagon. I said to myself, ``World War III has started.''

I quickly called my wife, and our first concern was our daughter who went to high school just a few blocks from the World Trade Center. We didn't know what happened. The towers were on fire. We actually took out the almanac to see how high the trade center was to see whether it could fall in the direction of her school and whether it would hit it. For 5 hours, we couldn't find Jessica. They had successfully evacuated the school, but because they shut down the elevators in the school, they all had to walk down the stairs. She was on the ninth floor, and, being Jessica, she escorted an elderly teacher who couldn't get down very quickly and lost her way from the group. Of course, praise God, we found her.

That was just the beginning of the anguish. The next day, Senator Clinton and I flew to New York. I will never forget that scene. I think of it just about every day. The smell of death was in the air. The towers were still burning. People were rushing to the towers-- firefighters, police officers, construction workers--to see if they could find the missing. The most poignant scene I think of all the time is literally hundreds of people, average folks of every background, holding up little signs--``Have you seen my daughter Sally?'' with a picture, ``Have you seen my husband Bill?''--because at that point we didn't know who was lost and who was not. It was a very rough time, and we think of it every day.

We know what happened, and it is something that will remain in our minds for the rest of our lives but, of course, not close to those who lost loved ones either during the horrible conflagration or in these later years. Now is the time for the 10th anniversary, so it is a good time to take stock of the effect of the trauma and what it means, both locally and nationally.

Obviously, every one of us in America was scared, shocked, traumatized, horrified, angry, and heartbroken. At first, we didn't know what happened. Then, as we learned who had attacked us and why, we had to confront a crisis for which we didn't feel prepared. It was an experience we as New Yorkers and Americans were not used to at all. We felt so vulnerable. Were we now going to be the subject of attack after attack from stateless, nihilistic enemies we poorly understood and were even more poorly prepared to fight? There was this doctrine of asymmetrical power: Small groups living in caves were empowered by technology to do damage to us--horrible damage--that we couldn't stop. Could it be that our vast military was a poor match for a small group of technologically savvy extremists bent on mass murder and mayhem, directed from half a world away? It seemed more likely--certain even-- that attack after attack would

come our way from a small group willing to use any tactic, from a box cutter and a loaded plane to weapons of mass destruction, focused solely on massive loss of life and damage to the economy, not to mention to our collective psyche and confidence as a people.

It certainly was a hammer blow to the great city in which I live and have lived my whole life. It raised the question of its future. People everywhere were writing the obituaries on downtown Manhattan. People and businesses were leaving or seriously contemplating leaving. Being diffuse was the answer, not concentrated. Some wrote that maybe now densely populated, diverse cities such as New York would no longer have a future. A permanent exodus seemed imminent. Downtown New York would become a ghost town. Who would work here again? Who would live here? Who would dine or see a show here? What global firm would locate thousands of jobs here? It was not an exaggeration to say that New York's days as the leading city on the global stage seemed as though they could be over.

But our response was immediate, proactive, unified, and successful. In the days, weeks, and first months after 9/11, America as a society and, by extension, its political system came together and behaved in a remarkable way. New Yorkers, as always, did the same. There immediately developed a sense of shared sacrifice and common purpose that gave rise to a torrent of actions in the private and public spheres.

Amongst the American people, there was an unprecedented outpouring of voluntary help--a tradition deeply rooted in our American tradition of community service and voluntary action noted by observers as far back as Alexis de Tocqueville, who, in the earliest days of our Republic, observed:

Americans of all ages, all conditions, all minds constantly

unite. Not only do they have commercial and industrial

associations in which all take part, but they also have a

thousand other kinds: religious, moral, grave, futile, very

general and very particular, immense and very small.

Fueled by this reaction, our government went to work immediately, at all levels, collaborating on the Federal, State, and local levels.

In Washington, DC, the policy response to the situation at hand was remarkable for its productivity, its extraordinary speed, and, overall, the positive impacts it made both in the short term and long term. All of what we did was far from perfect, but when our government is able to be this nimble, responsive, and effective, it is worth asking what the elements of its success were so that we might think about how we can apply them to future situations such as the one we are in now.

If I were to characterize our policy actions post-9/11, I would say they were nonideological, practical, partisanship was subdued; the actions were collaborative, not vituperative; they were balanced and fair; they were bold and decisive; and they were both short- and long- term focused. Let's take a quick look at each.

We were nonideological. Post-9/11, we were driven primarily by facts, not primarily by ideology. We asked, ``What does the situation require and how might we best execute that'' not, ``How can I exploit this situation to further my world view or political agenda or pecuniary self-interest?'' We didn't have a debate about the nature of government and whether or how we ought to support disaster victims or the need for housing or to get small businesses and not-for-profits back open, nor did we wring our hands about the appropriateness of rebuilding infrastructure or responding to the lack of insurance available for developers; rather, we attacked each problem as it became apparent. We professionally engaged, we compromised, and we hammered out a plan to address each problem as it arose. And we did it fast.

We were tempered in our partisanship. Partisanship is never absent from the public stage, but the degree to which it is the dominant element in the many influences on public policy waxes and wanes. In the days after 9/11, we were able to keep partisanship on a short leash.

I remember being in the Oval Office the day after I visited New York with Senator Clinton, and we told President Bush of the damage in New York. I asked the President: We need $20 billion in New York; we need a pledge immediately. Without even thinking, the President said yes. New York is a blue State, one that didn't support President Bush. He didn't stop and weigh and calculate politically; he said yes, and, to his credit, he stuck by that promise in the years to come.

We were collaborative, not vituperative, unlike recent tragedies, such as the Fort Hood shooting, where some sought to heap blame on President Obama, or the Gabby Giffords shooting, where premature blame was mistakenly directed at the rightwing for spurring the attacker which, in turn, begat a round of unseemly recriminations. Unlike those examples, following 9/11, people refrained from using the powerful and exploitable event as an opportunity to blame President Bush or President Clinton for letting an attack happen.

Rather than looking back and hanging an iron collar of blame around the neck of a President to score political points, people from both parties were willing to look forward, to plan forward, and to act forward. This, in turn, helped create a climate where collaboration was possible. And, to his credit, the President, as I mentioned, did not think about the electoral map or political implications of supporting New York.

We were bold and decisive. We did not shrink from the big thing or fail to act on multiple levels at once. On one front, we crafted the $20 billion aid package to rebuild New York. On another, we crafted the PATRIOT Act. On still another, the military and intelligence communities planned the invasion of Afghanistan to root out al-Qaida. These were big moves, with massive implications for life, the national coffers, and the structure of our society. None of the moves was perfect, but rather than, for example, derail the $20 billion aid package to New York because you might think we do not have the money to spend or blocking the PATRIOT Act because you believe it does not do enough to produce civil liberties, in the period after 9/11, those with objections made a good-faith effort to have their points included in nascent legislation, and had some real success, such as building in punishments against those who leak information obtained from wiretaps or preventing information from unconstitutional searches from abroad from being used in a legal proceeding.

But, in the end, on the PATRIOT Act, for example, Democrats--who were in the minority and could have played the role of blocker--let it pass with a pledge to improve it over time, rather than scuttling it entirely, because while there were parts of it that some disagreed with strongly, there were parts that were absolutely necessary.

Compare this to our current stalemate on fiscal policy and the economy, where time after time the ``my way or the highway'' view seems to prevail, leading to inaction, gridlock, and failure to do what the economy truly needs.

We were balanced and fair. On the one hand, we were pragmatic. We made the airlines and owners of the World Trade Center and other potential targets immune from potentially bankrupting lawsuits. It was not an easy decision. It was strenuously opposed by some in the trial bar and other Democratic allies, but it was a reasonable one.

On the other hand, we were just. We created, with billions in financing, the Victims Compensation Fund, the VCF, so no victim or their loved one would be denied access to justice. It proved to be a win-win. The crippled airline industry, so critical to our economy, was able to get back up and running, and every injured person or loved one of those lost had an expedited and fair system to pursue a claim of loss.

This harkened back to the kind of grand bargains on big issues that are the very foundation of effective government in the system of diffused power that we were bequeathed by our Founders, the kind of bargains the current state of politics make so elusive today.

We were short- and long-term focused. We were concerned with both short-term support, via FEMA aid to

homeowners, renters, and small businesses, and with long-term competitiveness. We invested heavily in transportation infrastructure to move millions in and out of the central business districts, even while we supported the arts, community groups, parks, nonprofits, and more to create the vibrant and growing 24/7 downtown we have today--a hub that is at the very center of the Nation's economy and culture--far from the horrible view we had that the downtown would become a ghost town shortly after 9/11.

In short, the response to 9/11 by all Americans, by both parties, is a roadmap for how our political system ought to function but is not now functioning.

I am not a Pollyanna. I understand the inherent nature of conflict in the political realm, and I often partake in it. I also know the trauma of 9/11 was uncommon, and made possible uncommon action. Then we had both the shocking murder of thousands of innocent victims, the heroism of the responders to inspire us, and the advantage of a common enemy to unite us.

But what we were able to achieve then in terms of common purpose and effective collective action provides us with a model for action that we in Washington must strive to emulate and--even if just in part, even if just sporadically--to recreate. We should look back to what happened during 9/11 and apply it to our own time and see how we can make ourselves better and break the kind of gridlock, partisanship, finger pointing that seems to dominate our politics today, only 10 years later.

As we survey the current state of our national psyche and the ability of our political system to debate and then implement effective policy actions for the challenges that confront us, it is painfully clear that, in a relative blink of the eye, the ability of our political system to muster the will to take necessary actions for the common good has degenerated to a place that is much too far away from our actions after 9/11.

The question that haunts me--and should haunt all of us--is this: If, God forbid, another 9/11-like attack were to happen tomorrow, would our national political system respond with the same unity, nonrecrimination, common purpose, and effective policy action in the way it did just 10 years ago or are our politics now so petty, fanatically ideological, polarized, and partisan that we would instead descend into blame and brinksmanship and direct our fire inward and fail to muster the collective will to act in the interests of the American people?

As I ponder it, I have every confidence that the first responders-- cops, firefighters, and others--would do now as they did then. Their awe-inspiring selflessness and bravery continues to be a humbling wonder and an inspiration.

I know our building trades workers would again drop everything and show up, put their lives on the line, and throw their backs into the task at hand without waiting to be asked.

I am certain that the American people would come together and find countless ways to donate their time, their energy, their ideas, and their compassion to the cause at hand.

But what of our political system?

I am an optimist, so I want to believe the answer is yes. But I am also a realist, and a very engaged player on the Washington scene, who has just been through the debt ceiling brinksmanship, amongst other recent battles, and that realistic part of me is not so sure the answer is yes.

Today, would we still pass a bipartisan $20 billion aid package to the afflicted city or would we say that is not my region or would we fail to take the long view and say we cannot afford to spend lavish sums of money like that; we have to spend within our means.

Would we be capable of coming together to pass a grand bargain such as the one that immunized the airlines from lawsuits and created the Victims Compensation Fund or instead would we embrace the politics of asphyxiation and find every excuse to block getting to ``yes'' in order to prevent our political opponents from appearing to achieve something positive.

Would all parties refrain from using the occasion to place blame on the President and on each other to gain relative political advantage or would we hear, first, the leaked whispers, then the chatter, then the recriminations that build to the ugly echo chamber of vituperation that has been the sad hallmark of more recent tragedies and national security events.

This political accord following 9/11 had its limits, especially in the aftermath of our invasion of Iraq, when one key rationale for going to war was discredited. But even for those who came to view our involvement as distracting and wrong--distracting from the more important political objective of rooting out al-Qaida and wrong because it could not work; and there was a great loss of life and treasure-- even for those of us who came to abhor the war in Iraq, it would have been unthinkable then to root against our country's eventual success in Iraq. Compare that to now, when it is fathomable that some would rather America not recover its economic strength and prowess just yet.

When we think back to where we were then and to how we reacted and compare it to challenges we confront today, it is clear that while the sacrifice of the victims and the heroism of the responders were eternal, our ability to sustain both the common purpose and effective political action they inspired has proved all too ephemeral.

I will not recount details of our current dysfunction, but suffice it to say our politics are paralyzed. Domestically, we are frozen in an illogical arm-wrestling match between the need to get people back to work and jump-start the economy and the drive to rein in the deficit. Globally, we are confronted by an uncertain place in an increasingly competitive world.

Finally, our challenges are psychological and emotional and aspirational, much as they were in the darkest hours and days after 9/ 11, and these doubts whisper to us the following questions: Are we no longer able to tackle the big issues? Are we a nation in decline?

I am not saying the challenges we face today are an exact parallel for what we faced then. It is obvious they are not. Nor are all the conditions the same. But today's challenges--from the economic to the global to the social--are not intractable, and if any one of our current dilemmas were subject to the same policy environment we had post-9/11, I have no doubt we would make substantial progress in tackling it.

Confronted with a more profound, complex, and existential challenge on 9/11, we rose to the occasion. We confronted the problem before us with uniquely American doggedness, pragmatism, creativity, collaboration, and optimism--optimism--because that is what Americans do and that is who we are. We believe that no matter how bad it gets-- whether hunkered down for the winter in Valley Forge after a series of humiliating military defeats or arriving, like Lincoln, in Washington, DC, in 1860 to find half our Nation and next-door neighbor States are attempting to destroy our Union or FDR confronting, in 1932, 25-percent unemployment and an unprecedented deflationary spiral in a modern industrial-financial economy or believing that, indeed, all people are created equal, even while you were rudely ushered to the back of the bus or facing down the totalitarian threats of fascism and communism, and believing that, yes, we will tear that wall down--Americans believe in a brighter tomorrow. We believe in our ability as a people, individually and collectively, both through private action and via our elected representatives who make our Nation's policy, to get things done to make that brighter tomorrow a reality.

We have, as a nation, faced bigger challenges. We have answered the call, and 9/11 was one shining example. We are in better shape now on many fronts as a result of the actions we took in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and those are well known: rebuilding New York City, compensating families, flushing al-Qaida from its base in Afghanistan, leading to the fact that Osama bin Laden is dead.

In the Middle East it is not, as we feared after 9/11, the hateful, myopic, reactive philosophy of bin Laden that took hold and changed their societies. Rather, it is imbued with some decent measure of hope and optimism and courage that created a cascading wave of political, social, and economic aspiration that has transformed this region from Tunisia and Libya to Egypt and Syria, added and abetted by entrepreneurial innovations pioneered here in

America. This transformation is not without enormous dangers and challenges, but consider how much worse it would have been if a pro-bin Laden movement were fueling this transformation.

It is plain we need more of what we had post-9/11 now. I am not naive. I know it cannot be conjured up or wished into existence. But if we are optimistic, if we are inspired by the Americans who died here, if we truly understand our shared history and the sacred place compromise and rationality hold at the very center of the formation of our Nation and the structure of our Constitution, then we can again take up the mantle of shared sacrifice and common purpose that we wore after 9/11 and apply some of those behaviors to the problems we now confront.

The reality of our current political climate is that both sides are off in their corners; the common enemy is faded. Some see Wall Street as the enemy many others see Washington, DC, as the enemy and to still others any and all government is the enemy.

I believe the greatest problem we face is the belief that we can no longer confront and solve the problems and challenges that confront us; the fear that our best days may be behind us; that, for the first time in history, we fear things will not be as good for our kids as they are for us. It is a creeping pessimism that cuts against the can-do and will-do American spirit. And, along with the divisiveness in our politics, it is harming our ability to create the great works our forbears accomplished: building the Empire State building in the teeth of the Great Depression, constructing the Interstate Highway System and the Hoover Dam, the Erie Canal, and so much more.

While governmental action is not the whole answer to all that faces us, it is equally true that we cannot confront the multiple and complex challenges we now face with no government or a defanged government or a dysfunctional government.

As we approach the 10th anniversary of 9/11, the focus on what happened that day intensifies--what we lost, who we lost, and how we reacted--it becomes acutely clear that we need to confront our current challenges imbued with the spirit of 9/11 and determine to make our government and our politics worthy of the sacrifice and loss we suffered that day.

To return to de Tocqueville, he also remarked that:

The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened

than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair

her faults.

So, like the ironworkers and operating engineers and trade workers who miraculously appeared at the pile hours after the towers came down with blowtorches and hard hats in hand, let's put on our gloves, pick up our hammers and get to work fixing what ails the body politic. It is the least we can do to honor those we lost.

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

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

Madam President, I rise today to urge this body to complete the extensive work that has been done on the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act and send this bill to the President for signature.

The America Invents Act has been years in the making. The time has come to get this bill done once and for all.

The importance of patent law to our Nation has been evidenced since the founding. The Constitution sets control over patent law as one of the enumerated powers of the Congress. Specifically, it gives the Congress the power ``To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.''

Today we take an important step toward ensuring that the constitutional mandate of Congress is met as we modernize our patent system. This bill is the first major overhaul of our patent laws in literally decades.

My colleagues have spoken at length about the myriad ways the America Invents Act will bring our patent law

into the 21st century. What I want to focus on, of course, is jobs.

The America Invents Act is fundamentally a jobs bill. Innovation and intellectual property has always been and always will be at the heart of the American economy. By rewarding innovators for inventing newer and better products, we keep America's creative and therefore economic core healthy.

Over the last few decades, however, innovation has outpaced our patent system. We have an enormous backlog at the PTO. The result of this backlog is that it is much harder for creators to obtain the property rights they deserve in their inventions. That challenge in turn makes it harder for inventions to be marketed and sold, which reduces the incentive to be innovative. Eventually, this vicious cycle becomes poisonous.

The America Invents Act cuts this cycle by making our patent system more efficient and reliable. By providing the Patent and Trademark Office the resources it needs to reduce the backlog of nearly 700,000 patent applications, the bill will encourage the innovation that will create and protect American jobs. In addition, the bill streamlines review of patents to ensure that the poor-quality patents can be weeded out through administrative review rather than costly litigation.

I am especially pleased that H.R. 1249 contains the Schumer-Kyl provisions that we originally inserted in the Senate to help cut back on the scourge of business method patents that have been plaguing American businesses. Business method patents are anathema to the protection that the patent system provides because they apply not to novel products or services but to abstract and often very common concepts of how to do business. Often business method patents are issued for practices that have been in widespread use for years, such as check imaging or one-click checkout. Imagine trying to patent the one-click checkout long after people have been using it.

Because of the nature of the business methods, these practices aren't as easily identifiable by the PTO as prior art, and bad patents are issued. Of course, this problem extends way beyond the financial services industry. It includes all businesses that have financial practices, from community banks to insurance companies to high-tech startups. Section 18, the Schumer-Kyl provision, allows for administrative review of those patents so businesses acting in good faith do not have to spend the millions of dollars it costs to litigate a business method patent in court.

That is why the provision is supported not only by the Financial Services Roundtable and the Community Bankers, but by the Chamber of Commerce, the National Retail Foundation, and in my home State by the Partnership for a Greater New York.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that letters in support of section 18 from all of these organizations be printed in the Record.

A patent holder whose patent is solid has nothing to fear from a section 18 review. Indeed, a good patent will come out of such a review strengthened and validated. The only people who have any cause to be concerned about section 18 are those who have patents that shouldn't have been issued in the first place and who were hoping to make a lot of money suing legitimate businesses with these illegitimate patents. To them I say the scams should stop.

In fact, 56 percent of business patent lawsuits come in to one court in the Eastern District of Texas. Why do they all go to one court? Not just because of coincidence. Why do people far and wide seek this? Because they know that court will give them favorable proceedings, and many of the businesses that are sued illegitimately spend millions of dollars for discovery and everything else in a court they believe they can't get a fair trial in, so they settle. That shouldn't happen, and that is what our amendment stops. It simply provides review before costly litigation goes on and on and on.

Now, my good friend and colleague, Senator Cantwell, has offered an amendment that would change the section 18 language and return to what the Senate originally passed last March. Essentially, Senator Cantwell is asking the Senate to return to the original Schumer-Kyl language. Of course, I don't have an inherent problem with the original Schumer-Kyl language. However, while I might ordinarily be inclined to push my own version of the amendment, I have to acknowledge that the House made some significant improvements in section 18.

First, H.R. 1249 extends the transitional review program of section 18 from 4 to 8 years in duration. This change was made to accommodate industry concerns that 4 years was short enough, that bad actors would just wait out the program before bringing their business method patent suits. The lying-in-wait strategy would be possible under the Cantwell amendment because section 18 only allows transitional review proceedings to be initiated by those who are facing lawsuits.

On a 20-year patent, it is not hard to wait 4 years to file suit and therefore avoid scrutiny under a section 18 review. It would be much harder, however, to employ such an invasive maneuver on a program that lasts 8 years.

Second, the Cantwell amendment changes the definition of business method patents to eliminate the House clarification that section 18 goes beyond mere class 705 patents. Originally, class 705 was used as the template for the definition of business method patents in section 18. However, after the bill passed the Senate, it became clear that some offending business method patents are issued in other sections. So the House bill changes the definition only slightly so that it does not directly track the class 705 language.

Finally, the Cantwell amendment limits who can take advantage of section 18 by eliminating access to the program by privies of those who are sued. Specifically, H.R. 1249 allows parties who have shared interests with a sued party to bring a section 18 proceeding. The Cantwell amendment would eliminate that accommodation.

All of the House changes to section 18 of the Senate bill are positive, and I believe we should keep them. But to my colleagues I would say this in closing: The changes Senator Cantwell has proposed do not get to the core of the bill, and the most profound effect they would have is to delay passage of the bill by requiring it to be sent back to the House, which is something, of course, we are all having to deal with on all three of the amendments that are coming up.

I urge my colleagues to remember that this bill and the 200,000 jobs it would create are too important to delay it even another day because of minor changes to the legislation. I urge my colleagues to vote against the amendment of my good friend Maria Cantwell and move the bill forward.

With that, I yield the floor.

My friend from Illinois is correct. I have previously inserted into the Record a March 3 letter from the Independent Community Bankers of America which stated that ``Under the current system, business method patents of questionable quality are used to force community banks to pay meritless settlements to entities that may have patents assigned to them, but who have invented nothing, offer no product or service and employ no one. . . . The Schumer-Kyl amendment is critical to stopping this economic harm.''

No. Patent holders who have generated productive inventions and have provided large numbers of American workers with good jobs through the development and commercialization of those patents are not the ones that have created the business method patent problem. While merely having employees and conducting business would not disqualify a patent-holder from Section 18 review, generally speaking, it is not the understanding of Congress that such patents would be reviewed and invalidated under Section 18.

Madam President, I would like to clarify the record on a few points related to section 18 of the America Invents Act. Section 18, of which Senator Kyl and I were the authors, relates to business method patents. As the architect of this provision, I would like to make crystal clear the intent of its language.

It is important that the record reflect the urgency of this provision. Just today, while the Senate has been considering the America Invents Act, Data Treasury--the company which owns the notorious check imaging patents and which has already collected over half a billion dollars in settlements--filed suit in the Eastern District of Texas against 22 additional defendants, primarily community banks. These suits are over exactly the type of patents that section 18 is designed to address, and the fact that they continue to be filed highlights the urgency of signing this bill into law and setting up an administrative review program at the PTO.

I would like to elucidate the intent behind the definition of business method patents. Other Members have attempted to suggest a narrow reading of the definition, but these interpretations do not reflect the intent of Congress or the drafters of section 18. For example, in connection with the House vote on the America Invent Act, H.R. 1249, Congressman Shuster submitted a statement in the Record regarding the definition of a ``covered business method patent'' in section 18. 157 Cong. Rec. H4497 (daily ed. June 23, 2011).

In the statement, Mr. Shuster states: ``I would like to place in the record my understanding that the definition of `covered business method patent' . . . is intended to be narrowly construed to target only those business method patents that are unique to the financial services industry.'' Mr. Shuster's interpretation is incorrect.

Nothing in the America Invents Act limits use of section 18 to banks, insurance companies or other members of the financial services industry. Section 18 does not restrict itself to being used by petitioners whose primary business is financial products or services. Rather, it applies to patents that can apply to financial products or services. Accordingly, the fact that a patent is being used by a company that is not a financial services company does not disqualify the patent from section 18 review. Conversely, given the statutory and regulatory limitations on the activities of financial services companies, if a patent is allegedly being used by a financial services company, the patent will qualify as a ``covered business method patent.''

The plain meaning of ``financial product or service'' demonstrates that section 18 is not limited to the financial services industry. At its most basic, a financial product is an agreement between two parties stipulating movements of money or other consideration now or in the future. Types of financial products include, but are not limited to: extending credit, servicing loans, activities related to extending and accepting credit, leasing of personal or real property, real estate services, appraisals of real or personal property, deposit-taking activities, selling, providing, issuing or accepting stored value or payment instruments, check cashing, collection or processing, financial data processing, administration and processing of benefits, financial fraud detection and prevention, financial advisory or management consulting services, issuing, selling and trading financial instruments and other securities, insurance products and services, collecting, analyzing, maintaining or providing consumer report information or other account information, asset management, trust functions, annuities, securities brokerage, private placement services, investment transactions, and related support services. To be eligible for section 18 review, the patent claims must only be broad enough to cover a financial product or service.

The definition of ``covered business method patent'' also indicates that the patent must relate to ``performing data processing or other operations used in the practice, administration, or management'' of a financial product or service. This language makes it clear that section 18 is intended to cover not only patents claiming the financial product or service itself, but also patents claiming activities that are financial in nature, incidental to a financial activity or complementary to a financial activity. Any business that sells or purchases goods or services ``practices'' or ``administers'' a financial service by conducting such transactions. Even the notorious ``Ballard patents'' do not refer specifically to banks or even to financial transactions. Rather, because the patents apply to administration of a business transactions, such as financial transactions, they are eligible for review under section. To meet this requirement, the patent need not recite a specific financial product or service.

Interestingly, Mr. Shuster's own actions suggest that his interpretation does not conform to the plain meaning of the statute. In addition to his statement, Mr. Shuster submitted an amendment to the Rules Committee that would exempt particular types of business-method patents from review under section 18. That amendment was later withdrawn. Mr. Shuster's subsequent statement in the Record appears to be an attempt to rewrite through legislative history something that he was unable to change by amendment.

Moreover, the text of section 18 further demonstrates that section 18 is not limited to patents exclusively utilized by the financial services industry. As originally adopted in the Senate, subsection (a)(1)(B) only allowed a party to file a section 18 petition if either that party or its real parties in interest had been sued or accused of infringement. In the House, this was expanded to also cover cases where a ``privy'' of the petitioner had been sued or accused of infringement. A ``privy'' is a party that has a direct relationship to the petitioner with respect to the allegedly infringing product or service. In this case, it effectively means customers of the petitioner. With the addition of the word ``privy,'' a company could seek a section 18 proceeding on the basis that customers of the petitioner had been sued for infringement. Thus, the addition of the ``privy'' language clearly demonstrates that section 18 applies to patents that may be used by entities other than the financial services industry.

The fact that a multitude of industries will be able to make use of section is evident by the broad based support for the provision, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Retail Federation, among many others.

Madam President, I rise in opposition to the amendment of my dear friend, Senator Cantwell.

Business method patents are a real problem. They never should have been patented to begin with. Let me give an example: double click. We double click on a computer or something such as that and after it becomes a practice for awhile, someone files a patent and says they want a patent on double clicking. Because of the way the Patent Office works, the opponents of that never get a chance to weigh in as to whether it should be a patent. The Patent Office has gone way overboard in allowing these business method patents.

One might say: Then you get your day in court. That is true, except 56

percent--more than half--of all the business method patent litigation goes to one district, the Eastern District of Texas, which is known to be extremely favorable to the plaintiffs. It takes about 10 years to litigate. It costs tens of millions of dollars. So the people who are sued over and over for things such as double clicking or how to photograph a check--common things that are business methods and not patents--settle. It is a lucrative business for a small number of people, but it is wrong.

What this bill does is very simple. What the bill does, in terms of this amendment, is very simple. It says the Patent Office will make an administrative determination before the years of litigation as to whether this patent is a legitimate patent so as not to allow the kind of abuse we have seen. It applies to all financial transactions, whether it be a bank or Amazon or a store or anybody else, and it makes eminent sense.

So as much respect as I have for my colleague from Washington, I must strongly disagree with her argument and urge that the amendment be voted down.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

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

Mr. President, first, I know the Presiding Officer cares a lot about Dr. Agnes Varis as well, and as soon as I finish speaking, I will take the chair so the Presiding Officer may say a few words about her.

I would like to say some words about a great American, a wonderful New Yorker, and a dear friend, Dr. Agnes Varis.

Sadly, for all of us, Agnes died last Friday, July 29. She fought a relentless disease for more than 2 years. She did not want a funeral, a memorial service or an obituary, but those of us who knew and admired Agnes could not allow this passing to go unremarked.

Agnes was a miracle worker, and I would like to take a few moments just to share a small fraction of the wonderful things she accomplished in her life of over 80 years.

Dr. Varis was an incredible woman who founded a generic drug company 40 years ago, when a woman CEO was very uncommon. After great success in business, she turned her time and support to people and issues she cared about. From her tireless support for affordable drugs to her generous and unwavering assistance to students, artists, musicians, and animals, Agnes was an angel to so many.

Agnes was a woman who did not take no for an answer. She fought for battered women of Bergen County, NJ, helped out music lovers seeking affordably priced tickets, supported and cheered on women in politics, and generously improved veterinary science and animal shelters.

When one met Agnes, one saw she was a powerful woman and a caring woman. She combined both those features in a beautiful human being.

She came from humble beginnings, and maybe that is why she never stopped making a difference in the lives of those around her. She would see somebody whom she hardly knew and hear about their plight and then move heaven and Earth to help them. She was a generous soul.

She knew education, success, and culture were essential ingredients to a happy life, and she brought all those gifts and opportunities to thousands, if not millions, of people.

Dr. Agnes Varis was born in Massachusetts in 1930 and was raised in Brooklyn, NY, my hometown. She was the only one of eight children of Greek immigrant parents to attend college. She earned her degree in chemistry and English from Brooklyn College and later in her career attended NYU's Stern School of Business.

Right out of school, she took an entry-level job in a chemical manufacturing company that focused on bulk pharmaceuticals and her smarts made her incredibly successful.

Agnes was a pioneer and a leader in the pharmaceutical industry. As president and founder of Agvar Chemicals and Aegis Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Varis worked tirelessly to increase the accessibility of lifesaving pharmaceuticals for people in the United States and around the world.

She was one of the founders of the modern generic drug industry and a key player in the adoption of the Waxman-Hatch Act of 1984, which created a streamlined approval process for generic pharmaceuticals. It is the reason affordable generics exist.

Today, just about every one of us takes generic drugs. They are low cost, save people money, and, even more importantly, it makes those drugs accessible to people who might not otherwise afford them. In this way alone, Agnes probably saved the lives of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people.

She was the one who introduced me, along with a few of her friends, to the issue of generic drugs and why they are so important. I have worked very hard on that issue for over a decade--a decade and a half-- and it was Agnes always importuning me on.

She was always generous, as well as being a skillful and savvy businesswoman. Nearly 1,000 unemployed service workers who lost their insurance in the aftermath of September 11 got Agvar generic drug plan cards, which were good for 1 year, and they gave free generic drug prescriptions at any Duane Reade pharmacy in New York City.

Isn't that amazing? No one asked her to do this. She heard it somewhere or other that there were people who lost their jobs, and she knew they needed drugs, so she bought them a drug card.

At the height of the AIDS epidemic in Africa, Agnes helped broker an arrangement between the Clinton Foundation and an Indian generic pharmaceutical company to provide affordable AIDS medications to African nations at a very low cost.

This was written up in all the newspapers but not Agnes's name. She did not want her name out there. She just wanted to do good, help people who needed help, save lives.

Agnes and her husband Karl were great music lovers. They loved classical music. Just as she brought affordable drugs to market, Agnes supported the arts and made music and concerts more affordable to all.

She donated the Agnes Varis Performance Stage to Jazz at Lincoln Center and sponsored the Jazz Foundation of America's national educational children's Jazz in Schools Program, which employs elderly jazz musicians. Just like Agnes: She knew there were elderly jazz musicians who were out of work and struggling. She knew bringing jazz to young children would be a great thing for many of them. She combined the two and just did it. That was Agnes.

She was one of the Metropolitan Opera's--in New York City, one of the greatest operas in the world--she was one of its most generous and engaging board members. She was committed to bringing opera, typically, again, to the widest possible audience, including those who could not afford tickets. In 2006, she funded the enormously popular Agnes Varis and Karl Leichtman Rush Tickets program, which offered expensive orchestra seats for $20, $25--affordable to one and all.

In 2009, Dr. Varis was appointed by President Obama to the President's Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

She was a great lady, a rare lady, someone who combined so many different attributes and made a powerful impression, even if one only met her for 10 minutes.

Agnes, we will miss you. But all your good works and all the possibilities and opportunities you made for others will allow your spirit to live on.

God bless you, Agnes Varis.

I yield the floor.

Will my colleague, the majority leader, yield for a question?

I thank our leader.

Mr. President, the leader outlined it well. The House, for all its machinations, delays, and struggles, is pursuing a path to nowhere because their bill will not pass, will not become law. Fifty-three of the fifty-three Democrats have signed a letter saying they will not vote for it, and the President has said he will veto it--all for a simple reason: because if we do this short term, we don't calm the markets and, at the same time, we start all over in a few weeks going through this again.

As the leader said--and it is true--the bill he will put on the floor is our only chance, and the reason it is our last chance is very simple: After tonight, anything put on the floor--is this true, Mr. Leader, that after tonight, if we were to put anything on the floor, given the rules of the Senate, nothing could be voted on before default would occur?

Will the leader continue to yield?

That means this bill the leader will put on the floor tonight is the last train out of the station, and it also means, given the rules of the Senate, that only with bipartisan cooperation can we do it.

So we are hoping and praying that our colleagues from the other side of the aisle, led by their leader--and 15 signed a letter talking about a bipartisan compromise as part of the Gang of 6, or Gang of 8--that that group could come forward and make suggestions, not simply say the Boehner bill because that will not pass, but make suggestions on modifications to the Reid plan. That is our only hope of avoiding default, and we must act now. Is that a correct depiction of the status on the floor and of where we are headed?

Mr. President, I will ask one more question. If we are unable

to come to a compromise on the leader's bill, there is virtually no time, no matter what the House does, for the Senate to do anything before default is over. That means our Republican colleagues have the ball in their hands in terms of default; is that correct?

I see that the minority leader is here, and I thank the majority leader for yielding.

Madam President, I wish to underscore what the leader has said.

The bottom line is very simple. Speaker Boehner is busy twisting arms right now to try to get his bill passed through the House, but it is a futile gesture because that bill is not going to pass the Senate. We have made that clear in the letter that 53 of us signed yesterday, and nothing has changed. The idea that we will take Boehner's bill and pass it or take Boehner's bill and tweak it and pass it is not what is going to happen. So we would urge Speaker Boehner and all of our Republican colleagues to sit down and negotiate.

Throwing a hot potato over to us that will not pass just delays things a day, and we are simply 4 days away from one of the worst financial catastrophes that could face this country; namely, for the first time in our 230-year history, a refusal to pay the debt. That means the time for these kinds of political games and political posturing is over.

Speaker Boehner is having a rough time getting the votes over there, but my guess is he will. But it will not make a darned bit of difference. It will not make a darned bit of difference because it is not going to pass this house, the Senate. It will not pass because a short-term extension risks the same things that no extension risks: a downgrade, a lack of confidence in the markets, and gridlock. We have seen gridlock up to now; 3, 4, 5, 6 months from now the same gridlock will occur. We cannot play with this kind of risky fire.

So our plea to the Speaker is stop continuing to throw pieces of red meat after red meat after red meat, piece after piece after piece of red meat to that rightwing lion in your caucus. Start taming the lion. That is what you have to do because otherwise that lion will devour you and devour the economy of our country.

The kind of narrow ideological approach that we have seen in the House will not get us anywhere. The shame of it all is that not every Member of the House, and I don't believe the Speaker, has that ideology, the sort of my-way-or-no-way ideology, the no-compromise ideology, and it is time to break free. It is time to do what is good for the country.

A short-term solution will not work. The leader has just made clear that as soon as the House passes its bill, it will be defeated in the Senate. Let's not waste 5, 6, 7, 8 more hours. Let's start negotiating something that will save this country from potential financial catastrophe now.

I would be happy to yield to my friend from Iowa.

I thank my colleague from Iowa for the question. I concur in his findings. I haven't found one either.

Democrats know we have different views on this side of the aisle, and many of us would write deficit-reduction bills differently than some others of us would. But we realize that to let the debt ceiling lapse would be a disaster to not raise it. So I have not heard of a single Democrat who has said the debt ceiling ought to lapse, and I have heard scores of Republicans, elected, official Republicans and thousands of others and groups in that rightwing firmament pushing their members to let this debt ceiling lapse.

My guess is--and God forbid it happens; and we are doing everything we can to prevent it from happening--they will retract that language or they will find ways to explain what they meant because their analysis that it doesn't matter or it will not do much harm is, unfortunately, dead wrong.

That is absolutely the fact. My colleague from Iowa is exactly correct.

The bottom line is, yes. What we are talking about with the debt ceiling is debts we have already incurred. No American family has the luxury, once they sign up for a mortgage, to tell the bank: Well, I am not going to pay you unless you do A, B, and C. No American family has the luxury of telling the credit card company: Hey, unless you buy me a year's supply of groceries, I am not going to pay my credit card debt.

Once you incur the debt, you have an obligation to pay. That is one of the foundations of American life. It has been that foundation since Alexander Hamilton argued with Thomas Jefferson, and it has served our country well.

The awful example that it would set if America, this great land, this Federal Government said: Well, I am not going to pay the debt, I am not going to pay the debt unless A, B, C, D is done--what kind of example does that send to American families, to American young people? It is the opposite, frankly, of the conservative philosophy--part of which I agree with in this regard--that you pay your bills, that you pay your debts. If you don't, there is a consequence.

So it is just amazing. This is the first time, I believe--check the history books--in American history where a large group in either House of this Congress has made it a campaign not to pay the debt unless they get their way on certain other issues, whatever they be. If every one of us did that, this country would be paralyzed. We wouldn't be able to do a thing. It is leading down a road that nobody should want to travel.

Again, my colleague from Iowa is on the money.

There needs to be balance. The President has stressed this. I think everyone on our side has stressed this. We do have a serious deficit problem and a serious debt problem. We have to deal with it. I think there is agreement in this Chamber, and I will give some credit to those on the other side of the aisle who made this their signature issue in influencing policy. But if we are going to have to do that and do belt tightening, shouldn't it be across the board?

Here is the fact of the matter: If you are a middle-class person, it is hard to pay for college. It is hard to pay for prescription drugs. It is hard to take that paycheck and make sure it deals with all the needs you and your spouse and your children have. Over the years, we have established ways that the government helps with student loans or with prescription drug programs or other kinds of help. It so happens that the wealthy among us, God bless them, don't need a student loan. They have plenty of money to pay for their children's college. They don't need a prescription drug plan. Even with the high expense of these prescription drugs, they can afford it. God bless them.

The way the wealthy benefit from the Tax Code, because they have a lot of money, is there are tax expenditures, tax breaks they get. They think they are important. I understand that. But they are no more important than helping young people go to college or helping our elderly, average folks pay for their prescription drugs. If you are going to be across the board and you are going to say no revenues, you are going to have an unbalanced and unfair approach.

Let me say this: Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have tried to scare people. This has not happened just this year but for many years. They say: Democrats want to raise your taxes. That is not the case if you are an average middle-class American. In fact, the President has made it a watch word, and we have religiously concurred and followed, that no one who makes below $250,000 a year should get any tax increase. That is 97 percent of all Americans.

So when we say we want revenues, we are talking about two things: We are talking about tax breaks, tax loopholes for the very wealthy, whether they be individuals or corporations, and we are talking about tax breaks for the wealthiest among us who, under the previous administration, got much greater breaks than anybody else. That is all we are talking about.

So I would ask my colleagues, I would ask the American people to understand that. Don't be scared when somebody gets up and says they want to raise taxes, that it means your taxes. It doesn't unless, God bless you, you have a whole lot of money or you are a corporation with a very nice little break that may not be as necessary as, say, helping middle-class students go to college or helping the elderly get lifesaving prescription drugs. So there has to be balance.

Now, I know my good colleague from Iowa, who has spent his lifetime creating government programs that help people, it pains him when he hears there has to be spending cuts in those programs. But I have never heard him say: If there are any spending cuts, I am not going to vote for deficit reduction. But the mirror image on this side says: I will not vote for any bill if it even has one plug nickel of revenues. That is not fair. That is not right. That is not balanced. It is totally against what just about every American believes, including a majority of Republicans. So that is why we are making this fight.

I will say one other thing in reference to my colleague's question. It is unfair when the commentators and the people say: Well, on the one hand, the Democrats aren't compromising and, on the other hand, the Republicans aren't compromising. I understand that we should always not just look at our own position and try to understand somebody else's position. That is the way it works around here; otherwise, we would have a dictator, a benevolent dictator. We do not. But when we are willing to give on spending cuts, serious spending cuts we do not like, and the other side says they are not willing to give a nickel on revenues, it is not each side is failing to give. It is not that each side is compromising a value. It is not that each side has walked about the same distance to come up with a compromise. In this case--it is not true every time--my Republican friends have been unwilling to compromise one jot and we have been willing to do things very painful to us.

I say to my friends who comment and write about this: Be fair. Let the public know who is willing to move away from their hard-line position for the sake of compromise, for the sake of raising the debt ceiling, for the sake of getting our large debt and deficit down, and who has refused to budge. I think the answer is pretty obvious.

I yield the floor.

First, I wish to thank my good friend and colleague

from Maryland for her great words. She comes from the heart of Maryland and the heart of America. Very few people I have met in politics in my many years in this endeavor have an understanding of how average people feel and think and tick than the great Senator from the State of Maryland, and I wish to thank her for her outstanding remarks. If this body on both sides of the aisle would listen to her and her commonsense intelligence, we would be in a lot better shape than we are now. So I thank my colleague from the great State of Maryland, the senior Senator.

I rise to discuss the deadlock we have reached in the debate over raising the Nation's debt ceiling. Two nights ago, the President spoke and put the current stalemate in the context it belongs: The result of a small block within the House Republicans that refuses to compromise even one inch, it is on their shoulders.

We have perhaps 100 Republicans at the extreme right who seem to be leading the Congress and the Nation over a cliff. They don't even care about the idea that we might default. It is appalling. Yet they seem to be calling the shots.

For the last few weeks, the President has met over and over with House Republicans trying to meet them halfway and in some instances more than halfway. He has offered to cut record amounts from our debt and make cuts in programs that would be extremely painful to our side of the aisle. This minority in the House has come to think of ``compromise'' as a dirty word, and it appears as if they can't take yes for an answer. If you don't care about debt reduction, if you don't care about debt ceiling, rather, you can't get something done.

Speaker Boehner, who is a good and reasonable man, wants to do the right thing and compromise, but he is struggling to rein in his caucus. Instead of leading the House, Speaker Boehner is being led by a fringe in his caucus that thinks default is OK. This week, Speaker Boehner offered a two-step plan that simply kicks the can down the road. It resolves the debt ceiling only for the next few months. With the new CBO numbers, it will inevitably resolve it for even a shorter period of time, and that puts us, within a few months, right back at square one, all over again, with the same anxiety, the same gridlock, the same problems we face today. What sense, in the good Lord's name, does that make to just repeat this over and over until we drive off the cliff? It makes no sense.

All we have to do is look at how difficult this crisis has been to resolve after a year of negotiations. Does anyone think it would be a good idea to do this all over again in less than 6 months? The Speaker's approach is not only wrong, it is dangerous. It would leave a cloud of default hanging over our heads for the next several months, undermining confidence in U.S. bonds.

Market analysts have rejected the Speaker's approach, saying it could actually bring some of the same bad consequences as a default itself. It could even cause a credit rating downgrade.

Just yesterday, the CEO of Nasdaq testified before the Judiciary Committee and said:

The longer the deal, the better it is for the markets.

Christian Cooper, a currency trader, was quoted by Bloomberg News this morning saying:

From the markets' point of view, a two-stage plan is a

nonstarter because we now know it is amateur hour on Capitol

Hill and we don't want to be painted in this corner again.

There is significant risk of a downgrade with a deal that

ties further cuts to another vote only a few months down the

road.

He said it better than any of us could say it, and he is a currency trader.

Mohamed El-Erian, the CEO of PIMCO, one of the most respected investors in the markets--and he invests, as I understand it, hundreds of billions of dollars. Mr. El-Erian expressed concern the other night that ``the political ground is being prepared for a short-term stop-gap compromise.'' He warned this could push stocks down and leave the U.S. debt rating ``extremely exposed to a damaging downgrade.'' Let me again quote Mr. El-Erian, one of the great experts on our credit markets. What he said is, the kind of plan that came over from the House that is attempting to be debated in the House--I don't think it will even make it over, but the kind of plan being debated in the House would ``create an extremely exposed damaging downgrade to our credit, to our Nation's debt rating.''

Even Republicans rejected a short-term increase in the debt ceiling as recently as last month. Dave Camp, Republican chairman of Ways and Means, said:

It doesn't give you certainty. Ideally, you'd like to get

that settled and not have to continually have it a

continually hanging-over issue.

That is the Republican head of the Ways and Means Committee.

House majority leader Eric Cantor said:

If we can't make the tough decisions now, why would [we] be

making those tough decisions later. I don't see how multiple

votes on a debt ceiling increase can help get us to where we

want to go. It is my preference we do this thing one time. .

. . Putting off tough decisions is not what people want in

this town.

That is from House Majority Leader Cantor. Yet he is leading the charge to send over the very type of plan he has criticized only a few weeks ago.

Republicans have apparently flip-flopped on this point. They are now saying they want the same kind of short-term debt ceiling increase they opposed on substantive grounds previously. Republicans have flipped- flopped on this point. Make no mistake about it, a short-term deal is still a nonstarter in the Senate and nothing more than a glidepath to a credit downgrade, and we will not allow it.

While Republicans continue pushing for an unproductive plan, Senator Reid's plan, the Senate plan, offers real potential to finally break this impasse. It makes difficult choices. It includes almost $1 trillion in domestic discretionary program cuts, including defense. This is serious belt tightening that will have consequences, good consequences, for years to come.

The plan received a major boost this morning when Congress's official scorekeeper confirmed that the first draft cuts more--a lot more--than the Boehner plan. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Senate draft bill achieves almost $1.3 trillion more in deficit reduction than the Boehner plan.

The report also affirms that the $1 trillion in savings the Senate planned from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is real. That is CBO saying it, not some Democrat who is hoping and praying for an easy fix. This completely undercuts the arguments by Republicans who have tried to call these savings a gimmick, even though they included them in their own budget and voted for them a few months ago. If it was OK in their budget, it has to be OK in our budget. You cannot just change your mind based on whose budget it is. Substance should matter to some extent.

Plus, since the CBO only measured the plan's first draft before additional planned savings were incorporated into the bill, the final version of the Senate plan will achieve even deeper savings when it is filed on the Senate floor. As Politico reports this morning:

In the battle of budget scores, the Senate Democratic

deficit reduction bill is the clear winner thus far over an

alternative by Speaker John Boehner.

Lastly, Senator Reid's proposal allows for a joint committee that has the potential to achieve even deeper savings down the road to get our country back on the path to economic growth. All in all, this is an offer that Republicans cannot refuse. All of the cuts in Senator Reid's proposal have been supported at one point or another by the Republican side. It meets the two main requirements laid out by the House Republicans: First, Speaker Boehner said the amount of the debt ceiling increase must be matched by the amount of spending cuts. Our proposal will do just that.

Second, Speaker Boehner said the tax increases must be off the table. Even though most of us would prefer tax increases, our proposal includes no revenue raisers whatsoever. We don't want tax increases on the middle class; we want tax increases on the wealthy and elimination of corporate loopholes. To not have them is a hard decision to many on our side who know we are going to need to do that for serious debt reduction.

The bottom line: In conclusion, we are getting dangerously close to August 2. Over and over Democrats have shown a willingness to move in the direction of Republicans. It is time for

Speaker Boehner to cut off his extreme Republicans who refuse to support even the plan that he crafted to meet their reckless demands. The Reid plan is our best route to a compromise. It is a compromise we need soon before the markets render a truly ominous judgment that will set our economy back for years.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, as we spend the day debating the Republican plan to cut, cap, and kill Medicare, a plan that is dead on arrival in the Senate, it has become obvious what the true question of the day is. That question is, Will we as a nation allow ourselves to be driven into default and financial calamity by a small group of extreme rightwing ideologues in the House GOP?

It has become increasingly clear that this group of ideologues has grabbed the reins and is refusing to let go, no matter who tries to pry their fingers off. It is clear that this uncompromising group of narrow ideological Congressmen is the one thing standing in the way of raising the debt ceiling so our Nation does not default. It is the group that alone wants to drive the car off the cliff. We are now 11 days from defaulting on our debt, and for the last few months this small group, far outside the mainstream, has contributed nothing to efforts to reach a compromise.

The House GOP has rejected every form of compromise, from the Simpson-Bowles plan, to the President's $4 trillion grand bargain, to the McConnell fallback plan, to, as of yesterday, the Gang of 6 framework. Instead, they have offered dangerous schemes such as the cut, cap, and kill Medicare plan that passed the House yesterday. Their ``plan'' would wreak havoc on our country's seniors and the middle class. It is not a serious proposal, it will never pass this body, and it is a waste of time.

While reasonable people are trying to come to a compromise, the House GOP is becoming increasingly isolated. Yesterday, for example, my colleague John McCain warned the House GOP that Americans do not want the government to shut down and urged them to learn the lessons of 1995. Then, close to a third of Senate Republicans signed on to a plan that would combine major spending cuts with new revenues--a balanced approach the House GOP has sworn off. And every day more voters are abandoning them. As the L.A. Times reported this morning:

Republican resistance to compromise has turned a

significant bloc of voters against them . . . frustrated

members of their own leadership as well as establishment GOP

figures.

So the House GOP is being criticized from every corner.

Then today we have what must be the most significant departure to date from the House GOP's fantasy-land. In a major development, antitax crusader Grover Norquist told the Washington Post that letting the Bush tax cuts lapse would not constitute a tax hike. This is a development the significance of which should not be underestimated. It is a recognition from Norquist that the House Republicans are increasingly isolated and have painted themselves into a corner. Norquist is trying to signal to the House GOP that their no-compromise position is untenable, deteriorating, and bad for their party and the country. The House GOP is on an iceberg that is melting into the ocean, and even Grover Norquist is offering them a lifeboat. The question is, for their own good and for the country's good, will they take it? I urge my colleagues in the House to accept this lifeline. It is time to leave default-denier island and come back to reality.

The House Republican extremists--those who are way over to the far right--painted themselves into a corner, even to the right of Grover Norquist. Grover Norquist, the hall monitor when it comes to enforcing the Republican Party's antitax pledge, has given House Republicans a hall pass. They should use it. This is a coded message from one of the truest believers in the Republican Party that it is time for conservatives to step back from the brink.

Norquist has given us a potential path forward. If we decouple the Bush tax cuts now by only extending them for the middle class and not for millionaires and billionaires, we could have the foundation of a deal that includes revenues but does not violate the Norquist antitax pledge.

This decoupling strategy is what the President and Speaker Boehner were entertaining earlier in the context of a grand bargain, but Leader Cantor and other rightwing hardliners forced the Speaker to walk away because they feared violating the antitax pledge. But now a deal on decoupling seems to have Norquist's permission, if not his blessing. We should revisit it.

It is time to recognize that the quickest, most effective and economically sound way to reduce our deficit and debt is a balanced approach that both cuts spending and raises revenues--a plan that mirrors every other successful deficit reduction deal in our Nation's history, a plan along the lines of the ones negotiated by Presidents Reagan, Bush, and Clinton.

I hope my colleagues in the House GOP see the danger of the path they are going down and change course before they take the entire country down with them.

I would be happy to yield to the distinguished majority leader.

Eight years.

I do, some.

That is absolutely right.

Indeed. I have learned that hard lesson.

I have read that. Yes, I have.

Yes. I think the leader has an excellent point. To not be here this weekend when the Nation stares at the first default in our 200-some-odd year history is amazing to me, that they would be gone. And when you think about it, either they do not care about defaulting on the debt--and we know Speaker Boehner does care about that default. I think he is aware of what terrible problems it would create for this country for decades to

come. So the answer must be what the leader is saying; that is, they hope to jam us at the last minute with something and say: Take it or leave it, which is playing with fire.

I can assure my colleagues in the House that is not how we are going to play ball here. There has to be a fair compromise, not something they come up with at the last minute and sort of toss it over here. That could create default, and if they do it, it would be on their shoulders.

Well, again, in answering the leader, first, the rules of the Senate would allow any single Senator--and we have a whole handful--to delay things day after day after day after day. Second, there are things out of any Senator's control. For instance, any proposal on an issue such as this would have to be scored by the CBO. We learned on the health care legislation that CBO cannot just sort of push legislation into a machine and an hour later say: Here is your score. It takes days and sometimes weeks. And the fact that just about every procedural motion can be filibustered and delayed means we are getting so close to the deadline that we would be in serious trouble.

Again, I repeat, I find it terribly disconcerting. It is hard to see anything but callousness toward the danger our Nation faces if we were to default by the House not being here this weekend because even a rudimentary knowledge of the House procedures--which I know the leadership of the House has--would indicate to them that if they do not get us something very, very soon and, in fact, they do not sit and negotiate and compromise--which they have refused to do, driven by a hundred, perhaps, Congressmen, many of them new here, who sort of say: We do not care if we default--the consequences of default would be enormous and staggering and would not just go away in a month or two but would be with us for a decade. And here they are back home this weekend when America faces one of the greatest potential economic crises that we have faced.

So I very much thank the leader for bringing this up and asking these questions.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 21, 2011, at 10 a.m. in room SD-G50 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 21, 2011, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 21, 2011, at 10 a.m. to conduct a committee hearing entitled ``Enhanced Oversight After the Financial Crisis: The Wall Street Reform Act at One Year.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 21, 2011, at 10 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 21, 2011, at 10 a.m., in Dirksen 406 to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Legislative Issues for Transportation Reauthorization.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 21, 2011, at 10:30 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Improving For-Profit Higher Education: A Roundtable Discussion of Policy Solutions'' on July 21, 2011, at 2 p.m. in room SH-216 of the Hart Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on July 21, 2011, at 2:15 p.m. in Room 628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ``Facing Floods and Fires--Emergency Preparedness for Natural Disasters in Native Communities.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on July 21, 2011, at 10 a.m. in SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct an executive business meeting.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 21, 2011, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety, and Security of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 21, 2011, at 2:30 p.m. in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Making Our Roads Safer: Reauthorization of the Motor Carrier Safety Programs.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee on Aging be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 21, 2011, at 2 p.m. in room SD-106 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ``A Prescription for Savings: Reducing Drug Costs to Medicare.''

Madam President, first I want to thank my colleague from the great State of Washington for her remarks and her never-ending strong and successful defense of our veterans who have done so much for us. I want to salute my colleague from Washington State.

I am going to speak on two topics for the 10 minutes I have allotted. First, on Abby Wambach, the pride of Rochester and the U.S. Women's National Soccer team, and then on the Cut, Cap, and Unbalance Plan that is now being debated in the House and will soon be debated in the Senate.

First, I rise to recognize the extraordinary efforts of the U.S. Women's National Soccer team in this year's World Cup, and in particular Pittsford, NY's own Abby Wambach.

Over the last month, the Women's National Team has taken this country on the ride of a lifetime that we won't soon forget.

From their nail-biting efforts to qualify for the World Cup to their heroic comeback against Brazil in the quarter finals, this team showed the best of America during this year's World Cup. At each stage of this team's success, there was a driving force, a player who learned the game from her older brothers on the soccer fields of New York's greater Rochester region, a player named Abby Wambach. Hundreds of Rochester's fans gathered at her brother's pub to cheer on Abby as she headed ball after ball into the back of the net.

In the past few years, and especially the past month or so, Abby has become a household name. Fans from Rochester, the State of New York, and across the country watched in awe of Abby as she led the U.S. squad throughout the World Cup.

But in Rochester and the surrounding area, Abby has been a star ever since she played on Our Lady of Mercy High School's varsity team as an eighth grader. Unusually young to be playing on a varsity squad, she helped her team achieve a section V title. And as is clear to all of us who have watched Abby over the years, her success has continued ever since.

From Our Lady of Mercy to the Olympic games in Athens, and the 2011 World Cup, Abby has been an incredible player and leader at every turn. Abby Wambach has always represented the best New York has to offer and given young women across the country someone to look up to, and the last month of the World Cup action has only cemented her legacy as one of the greatest U.S. Women's Soccer players of all time.

She scored over 120 international goals, none more dramatic or meaningful than her goal against Brazil in the quarter finals. No matter the odds or the score, Americans will never give up and always believe, and Abby and her teammates showed that same drive and desire during the game against Brazil. Abby and the U.S. soccer team created a moment that will live long in the sports lore of our Nation.

As the buzz continues about her goal, there are some people close to Abby

who probably weren't surprised. For those who watched Abby during her sophomore year score two goals and make a clutch penalty kick that vaulted Our Lady of Mercy to the section V championship match, they know this is what Abby Wambach does.

For months, Abby has been a long way from home. But tomorrow, she will get the warm Rochester welcome she comes to know when her Magic Jack Club faces the Western New York Flash.

Of course, we all know the efforts of the U.S. women's team came just short in the end, and we can't help but be happy for the Japanese team and the entire country as they finally have something to celebrate after the challenging months they have been through. So Japan may have won this round, and congratulations to them, but they should know the U.S. Women's Soccer Team will see them in London for the Olympics next summer, and again for the World Cup in Canada in 2015, with the pride of Rochester, Abby Wambach, leading the way.

Now to perhaps a less happy subject, the so-called Cut, Cap, and Balance Plan.

Let me say we are going to be debating this in the House and in the Senate over the next week. Theater trumps serious solutions as the House Republicans plan a vote on their unrealistic Cut, Cap, and Balance proposal. It truly is theater trumping serious solutions when you put something on the floor that you know may not pass your own body in the House, certainly won't pass the Senate, and would be vetoed by the President, at a time when our Nation's credit is teetering on the edge. Let's stop playing games and solve this problem once and for all.

We on this side of the aisle call the plan Cut, Cap, and Kill Medicare for one good reason. Under this reckless plan, seniors could see their Medicare cuts go up by $2,500 beyond Ryan cuts, Social Security benefits could be slashed by $3,000 a year. It is the Ryan plan on steroids.

The Ryan plan has been seriously rejected in a bipartisan vote in this body. The American people dislike it intensely. And yet now we have done something that is even more extreme. If you thought it wasn't possible to be more extreme, look at the Cut, Cap, and Kill Medicare plan that some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are offering.

There are three things wrong with their plan. First, we have a serious debt problem. If the credit of the United States goes into default, we will pay the price for a decade. It will make our deficit worse, it will raise costs to the Federal Government because interest rates on Federal bonds will go up and stay up for a very long time. It will raise the cost to average homeowners because both mortgages and credit card rates will go up. It could very well send our economy back into a recession. Let's roll up our sleeves, let's compromise, and let's meet in the middle and do something that will end our deficit problem, reduce our debt, and make sure we are able to pay the debts we have already incurred.

But, no, theater is the day. Ideologues do not see the world as it is. I read some of the statements by some of the freshman colleagues from the Republican side in the House. They just do not get it. Their view is that they are so right that all they have to do is put this on the floor and all of America and every other Senator and Congressman will go along. Ideologues do not see the world as it is, and that is why I have never been too fond of them, whether they have been on the far right or on the far left. Yet that is who is governing here.

If you read those statements in the papers this morning, that all they have to do is put this out there and everyone will see the righteousness of their cause, I have a word for them: Slashing Medicare and slashing Social Security is not the right thing to do, and I will never see things that way. Saying that millionaires should continue to get tax breaks while we are slashing Social Security and killing Medicare is something I will never go along with, nor will a single colleague on my side of the aisle.

It is not going to pass. It is theater and politics at its worst. It is ideologues governing--or trying to govern. They are not able to govern because they do not see the grays in the world; it is only black or white.

The plan has three strikes against it. No. 1, it will not solve the problem, and it is political theater. No. 2, it will kill Medicare as we know it. That is why we call it cut, cap, and kill Medicare. And, No. 3, it will not do a thing to help the middle class, while giving huge tax breaks to millionaires and corporate America. That is not the plan America wants. That is not the plan America needs. That is not the plan that will pass.

I understand many of us have to bow to an extreme base in the party. That happens around here a lot--but not when we are 2 weeks away from defaulting on our debt, not when we are 2 weeks away from potentially walking off a cliff and incurring injuries from which we will never recuperate.

I call on my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to stop the theater, to stop throwing red meat to the far right base, and join us in solving the problems of America.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, it is my distinct honor to rise in support of Paul Oetken's confirmation to the bench of the Southern District of New York. We have a very deep pool of legal talent in New York, but Paul's nomination is one everybody is talking about. Paul is brilliant, well rounded, and unwavering in his dedication to public service and his commitment to rule of law. His confirmation will only improve the workings of one of the best and busiest courts in the country.

I look for three qualities in judicial candidates: excellence, moderation, and diversity. Paul's Excellence is provable on paper. He is a graduate of the University of Iowa and Yale Law School and has worked in the highest echelons of two of the three branches of government, including for the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice and for Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun. He has also climbed the ranks of private legal practice, serving most recently as the head of litigation for the large New York media company Cablevision, one of our fine companies in New York.

I consider a broad range of experience to be an important training ground for teaching judicial candidates the second quality I look for: moderation. I do not like judges who tend to be too far to the right, but I do not like judges who come from a perspective that is too far

left either. Paul Oetken fits the bill of a mainstream, moderate judge. His moderation and modesty were evident during his confirmation hearing and are clear to all who know him. When judges have in their resume practical experience dealing with real-world problems, they tend to understand that a judge cannot simply impose things from on high without understanding the effect of imposing those decrees on average people, average businesses, and average governments.

When a candidate has these two qualities--excellence and moderation-- diversity is a bonus. But in this case, at this moment, Paul is not just an excellent candidate. As the first openly gay man to be confirmed as a Federal judge and to serve on the Federal bench, he will be a symbol of how much we have achieved as a country in the last few decades. And importantly, he will give hope to many talented young lawyers who, until now, thought their paths might be limited because of their sexual orientation. When Paul becomes Judge Oetken, he will be living proof to all those young lawyers that it does get better.

Paul Oetken's modest but brave act of going through the confirmation process makes this otherwise quiet moment historic. But long after today, what the history books will note about Paul is his achievement as a fair and brilliant judge.

In a short while, our country will take one step closer toward equality and away from bigotry and prejudice. I am very proud to have played a supporting role, and I look forward to Paul Oetken's service on the bench in the Southern District of New York. Often quoted but still one of my favorites is what Martin Luther King often said:

The arc of history is long, but it bends in the direction

of justice.

Paul Oetken's nomination to the Federal bench proves that point once again.

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

Mr. President, I understand there is a bill at the desk. I ask for its first reading.

I now ask for a second reading and, in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to my own request.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that on Monday, July 18, 2011, at 5 p.m., the Senate proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 82; that there be 30 minutes for debate equally divided in the usual form; that upon the use or yielding back of time the Senate proceed to vote without intervening action or debate on Calendar No. 82, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, that any related statements be printed in the Record, that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 2 p.m., Monday, July 18, 2011; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, 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 until 3:30 p.m. with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each; and that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of H.R. 2055, the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies appropriations bill; further, that at 5 p.m., the Senate proceed to executive session under the previous order.