Floor Statements

Mr. President, I read the papers down here and across the country. It makes it look as if the issue of whether we are going to move forward with the implementation of the health care bill passed a few years ago is just about politics. It is just a political football that is being tossed back and forth between the two sides.

While the threats are empty, there is no way we are going to pass a continuing resolution that is not going to include funding of this vital health care law, it still gets an enormous amount of play out there. I think it is important for us to come down to the floor and explain to the American people that this issue is not political, that the health care law is not just a piece of paper.

The health care law is a lifeline to millions of families out there across America who have been absolutely drowning in health care costs and an inability to access the system over the past several decades. We did not pass this law to score political points. We did not do it to make ourselves feel good. We did it because we saw almost immeasurable human suffering out on the streets of America to which this place needed to respond.

It is not OK that in the most affluent, most powerful country in the world, about 15 percent of our society has the potential to go to bed sick every night simply because they cannot afford to see a doctor. It is certainly not OK that 50 percent of the bankruptcies in this country historically have been caused by the misfortune of an individual or a family member to get sick.

So I think it is time that when we talk about the implementation of the health care law, ObamaCare, whatever you want to call it, we are talking about consequences that are not political. They are consequences related to life or death.

That is not hyperbole. There are people out there every week dying because they do not have access to our Nation's health care system which, if you can find it, is and can be the best health care system in the world.

The problem is there are far too many people who have no insurance and no way to access it or who are vastly underinsured and cannot get the right access to it. So I just want to talk for a minute about what this is going to mean to our constituents, to your neighbors, and what it would mean if, by some miracle of politics, the tea party gets its way and this bill was no longer the law of the land come next month.

Let me tell you what it already means for a senior citizen who is living on $20,000 a year in New Britain, CT. Today, that senior citizen gets to walk in to their doctor to get a wellness visit. They do not have to pay anything out of pocket any longer. Previously they did. You would think that is not a lot of money. But for someone in Connecticut who is living on a fixed income or somebody in Delaware who is taking home a pretty meager Social Security check every month, the costs escalate when you are just trying to pay your rent or your mortgage, put food on the table, be able to put gas in your car to get back and forth to see your grandkids.

That extra expense of having to pay for preventive costs can actually make a difference.

For those seniors who have pretty high drug costs, one of the worst things this Congress did over the last 10 years was pass a prescription drug bill that had this doughnut hole sitting in the middle of it. If you paid for a bunch of drugs through the Medicare benefit, eventually you would have to start paying out of your own pocket. That could be thousands of dollars that senior citizens don't have.

This health care bill closes the doughnut hole, eliminates half of it almost overnight and then essentially eliminates it over time. That is thousands of dollars in savings for seniors. That is medication that, frankly, a lot of seniors would never have been able to buy but they will now be able to access because of this law.

Those things go away if Republicans get their way and ObamaCare is defunded. All of a sudden, if that happens, tomorrow senior citizens have to pay out of pocket for preventive costs. Seniors who have high drug costs all of a sudden have to go back to paying 100 percent of the cost of generics versus 50 percent, which is what they are paying now.

What about the average family of four who today in Connecticut is paying about $605 a month for health care? Probably the health care plan is not that good to begin with. It probably has some significant holes in it in terms of what it will cover.

If this health care bill is implemented, which it will be, that number goes down from $605 a month to $286 a month for the average family of four in Connecticut.

Let me tell you, the average family of four in Connecticut living in Stamford, Bridgeport, Norwalk, or Norwich, could use that extra $300 in savings to help save for college, to help put a bit more nutritious meal on the table, maybe to pay some back credit card bills. Three hundred dollars is a big deal. That is the big difference this health care bill will make, $605 a month down to $286 in Connecticut. It is a big difference. It is an even bigger difference because the health care plan they are going to get for $286 a month is going to be a good one.

We are going to finally have some standardization when it comes to the benefits you are getting. When you buy the health care plan in Connecticut or wherever you are, you are going to know what you are getting. There is going to be a minimum set of benefits that is going to be covered. You are going to be able to know that when you buy insurance you are getting ambulatory patient services, coverage for hospitalization, coverage for maternity and newborn care, your prescription drugs are covered, lab services, and rehab benefits. Every plan is going to be able to cover these things, but not if the health care law were magically repealed.

All of a sudden people who were counting on that number going from $600 to $300 in Connecticut will be paying $600, probably $700, $800, and they will continue to have to deal with a dizzying array of benefit packages, many of which simply don't measure up to what families need.

What about for Betty Berger? What does this mean for her? She is a constituent of mine in Meriden. She doesn't want anyone to ever have to go through what she went through. She and her husband had health care coverage for themselves and their kids through her husband's plan. Her husband switched jobs. In the week of time between when he was at his first job and his second job, their son was diagnosed with cancer. Her husband's second job identified it as a preexisting condition and effectively refused to cover the son.

The Bergers lost everything. They lost their house, they lost their car, they lost their savings simply because their son was diagnosed with cancer during the 1 week in which the husband wasn't employed. That will never, ever happen again after this bill is implemented. No insurance plan regulated under this bill can deny a family access for health care simply because one of their family members is sick. It is unconscionable that ever happened in this country, and it will not happen again if this bill is implemented. But if the Republicans get what they want and this bill is defunded, if this bill is repealed in that magical fantasy world, the example of the Bergers happens hundreds of thousands of times over across the country.

Lastly, what about the McCullough family, another family in Connecticut?

Little Kyle McCullough, when I first met him, was 8. He is probably now 10 or 11 years old. He has a very complicated disease for which he has to take $3,000 injections. He will hit his lifetime limit in a matter of years and his family will be on the hook for every expense thereafter. The health care bill says no more annual, no more lifetime limits for health care coverage. You could have health care insurance that is going to take care of little Kyle McCullough for as long as he needs those injections, at whatever cost it is going to be.

It is insurance. Because for people who have a bad lot in life and have a big, complicated, expensive, illness they are going to be covered. If the health care bill is repealed, defunded, or whatever Republicans want to do, Kyle McCullough's family has to pay for that out of pocket for the rest of their life, as will thousands of other families like them.

That is what the stakes are. It is not a piece of paper. It is not a political football. It is life and death. It is hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars that hard-working families throughout this country desperately need and a health care system they need to be much more fair and much more compassionate.

It is not going to happen. It is political fantasy that Republicans are going to be able to defund or repeal the health care law as a consequence of the budget debates we are going to have over the next few weeks.

Let's be honest about what they are asking. They are asking for higher costs for seniors; they are asking for higher costs for middle- class families; they are asking for more bankruptcies; and they are asking for more misery for the thousands of families who are struggling to keep their heads above water when they deal with a complicated illness. That is the true reality of what is happening out there today in our health care system that is getting better by the day and will get even better if we move forward with the implementation of the health care law.

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 to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, almost all of this week on the floor of the Senate will be dedicated to one of the most serious, if not the most serious, matters this body ever considers--that of war and peace and the question of whether we engage American military assets in conflicts across the globe. I am sure I will be back to the floor later this week to speak on that weighty matter. I appreciate the very passionate remarks of the Senator from Illinois on this subject.

Almost every week over the last several months when the Senate has been in session, I have come to the floor to talk about another subject of life-and-death consequence; that is, the growing number of individuals across this country who have been killed by guns. We are going to debate life and death on the Senate floor this week as we try to figure out what the course of American intervention may or may not be in a place on the other side of the Earth in which far too many innocent people, little babies and adults alike, are being killed. We also need to debate what we are going to do to prevent the fact that babies and teenagers and adults right here in the United States of America are being killed. So I have brought this poster down--or a variant of it--a couple of times a month every single month since about April of this year, and it shows a number. The number is a pretty simple number. It represents the number of people in the United States who have been killed by guns since December 14.

As we get further away from that date, maybe people forget what it is, but in Connecticut we will never, ever forget what that date means. December 14 is the date on which 20 little 6- and 7-year-old boys and girls were killed inside Sandy Hook Elementary School, along with 6 teachers and professionals who protected them, as well as the gunman and his mother. Twenty-eight people in all were killed that day. It has lit a spark under the American consciousness about this issue, which has frankly been lingering for far too long.

Twenty-eight people died in Newtown on December 14, but every day across this country, on average, 30 people die due to homicide from guns. So I am back here today to try to tell the stories of just a handful of the 7,907 people who have been killed at the hands of gun violence since December 14. When I started back in April, I think this number was somewhere around 4,000. It has marched upward and almost doubled since then.

This has been a really bad summer in Connecticut. For instance, in places such as New Haven and Hartford and Bridgeport, we thought we were making some real progress when it came to the number of homicides by guns. This summer, unfortunately, we saw far too many, people such as Devaante Jackson, 18 years old, who was killed on August 15 of this year in New Haven. He was killed in a driveby shooting while simply standing on a sidewalk just after 8 o'clock on the evening of August 15. A friend of Devaante's said:

I don't understand why somebody would do this to him. He's

real good. I never knew he had any problems with anybody

because he always (got) along with everybody.

Another friend said:

He wasn't a bad kid; he was just in the wrong spot at the

wrong time . . . everybody should know . . . stop the

violence, put the guns down.

A few days later in Hartford, at the same nightclub, in two separate incidents, two young men--Miguel Delgado, age 21, and Brian Simpe, age 19--were killed. Disputes started in the nightclub and spilled out onto the streets of Hartford--two different disputes, two different incidents, and both of these boys were killed.

Brian was 19 years old. He graduated from Manchester High School and attended Manchester Community College. He worked at ShopRite in order to make enough money to go to community college. He wanted to start his own business. He was a kid who wanted to do something great with his life. Before he headed out that night, he tweeted, ``Just another summer night out.'' Unfortunately, in places such as Hartford and New Haven and Bridgeport and Baltimore and Chicago and Los Angeles, this is just another summer night out. Too many people are being killed simply as a result of common disputes, this time happening in a nightclub in Hartford.

Domestic violence, as we know, unfortunately, often leads to tragic homicidal incidents. Janice Lesco, from Coventry, CT, died on August 24--just a few weeks ago--from a gunshot wound to the chest. Her husband, who shot her, then committed suicide. Her husband had a well- documented and decade-long history of threats and abuse. Ms. Lesco was a mother and a grandmother. She had lived in Coventry for most of her life.

Luckily, in Connecticut we have an agreement that people who have a history of domestic violence shouldn't get their hands on a gun, but they can if they walk into a gun show or if they buy their gun on the Internet. We can't simply make the decision here that if a person buys a gun online or a person buys a gun at a gun show, they should be stopped from doing so if they have a history of domestic violence.

Frankly, I was struck by this one newspaper article describing one night in New Haven. This is even earlier--on August 11, 2013. It starts by talking about Torrance Dawkins, a 22-year-old Waterbury man who was celebrating his birthday in a New Haven nightclub when he was shot and killed at about 1:30 on August 11.

The article goes on and sort of casually says that later that day New Haven police responded to more gun violence. A local rapper was putting up sheets on an upcoming concert he was going to be holding in town, and he suffered a single gunshot wound to his neck. Davon Goodwin, who was 18 years old, was later that day shot in the thigh on Hamilton Street. And just before 5 p.m. that day, police were called to an area near Dixwell Avenue and found out that Jermaine Adams, 41, had received a gunshot wound to his face. Those last three people miraculously survived. But we can see how casual gun violence can be on a summer Sunday in New Haven, CT. One young man died as a consequence of a dispute at a nightclub, and three other people luckily survived who were shot later in the day.

Every single day in this country--in the United States of America--30 people are dying due to gun violence. Almost 8,000 people have died since the tragedy in Sandy Hook, and this body has done nothing to stop it. We have had commonsense legislation before this Senate that would just say: You know what. If you have a criminal history, you should not be able to buy a gun, no matter where you buy it--at a gun show, from a gun dealer, online.

We have had commonsense bipartisan legislation on the floor saying: You know what. It should be a crime to buy a whole mess-load of guns from a gun store and then go out and intentionally sell them to criminals. We cannot get that passed either.

We even tried to just say: Let's beef up our mental health system to make sure people who have serious mental illnesses get the treatment they need so they do not resort to violence--the very few who do. That was part of the bill we could not get passed.

So I am going to continue to come down to the floor to give voices to these victims, to talk about the real people, the stories behind the dozens of people who are killed every day by guns and the 8,000 people who have been killed since Sandy Hook. We are going to make an important decision this week about whether we are going to commit military assets to the Middle East, and maybe that debate will stretch into next week and the week after. But we should not forget that while people are dying overseas, people are dying due to gun violence right here in the United States, and before it is too late--before another 8,000 people

die from guns in this country--we should do something about it.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, today I wish to honor the service of Mr. Peter Sorbo, of Connecticut, whose family resides in Waterbury, CT. In January 1943, 18 year-old Peter Sorbo enlisted in the Army to serve his country during World War II. Deployed to the European theater and assigned to Bombardment Group 384, Squadron 545, he served as a waist gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress and perished on August 12, 1943 after his plane was shot down above the Rhine.

I would like to have printed in the Record an article from the Waterbury Republican American that outlines this fascinating story about one of Connecticut's brave soldiers.

Many of Connecticut's sons, like Peter Sorbo, gave their lives defending our freedom and they deserve our perpetual gratitude. I ask that this body devote itself to remembering these courageous men and women by honoring their sacrifices and forever preserving their memories.

The following article written by Mike Patrick appeared in the July 29, 2013 edition of the Waterbury Republican-American. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I thank very much Senator Baldwin and thank the State of Wisconsin for, in a lot of ways, leading the way and showing us what is possible when it comes to delivery system reform.

It is pretty amazing some of those statistics Senator Baldwin used when she talked about how much waste there is in the system today. The estimates are from the Council of Economic Advisers, $700 billion; from the New England Healthcare Institute, $850 billion. To put that in context, even if the median of the two is right--somewhere in the high $700 billion range--that is $100 billion more than we spend every year on the military. That is enough money to provide coverage for 150 million more Americans. That is enough to pay the salaries of every single first responder personnel in the country, including firefighters, police officers, and EMTs for over a decade.

It is an enormous amount of money that we are wasting today because we have a reimbursement system, as Senator Whitehouse said as well, that essentially rewards providers and hospitals and health care systems for providing volume rather than providing quality.

We understand there is not a single health care provider in the country that does not get into this if not for their desire to provide quality health care. There is no malevolent motive involved here. But, ultimately, when you have to keep your doors open--as a medical practice, as a hospital, as a nursing home--and you get paid more the more medicine you practice and the more treatments you order and the more tests you have your patients undergo, then you are going to follow the money. It is time we reorient our reimbursement model under Medicare and Medicaid, and in partnership with our private insurers, so we are reimbursing based on the quality of medicine and the quality of the outcomes you provide rather than on how much stuff you order or prescribe.

Let me talk about three examples of how we have succeeded already when it comes to changing the model of reimbursement.

First, the issue of readmission rates. When you go into a hospital for a surgery, that hospital is going to get a set fee for the surgery and for the amount of time you spend in the hospital afterwards. It is called a bundle payment. Bundle payments are good because what it does is it encourages you to essentially use your resources wisely because you are not going to get paid more if you keep the person in the hospital for 10 days than if you keep the person in the hospital for 5 days.

But here is the problem when it comes to the care people were getting after a particular surgery. Because the hospital got a set payment for that period of time, they had an incentive to push the person out of the hospital as quickly as possible. That was an incentive not only because the payment itself did not get bigger the more amount of time you were in the hospital, but it also was incented that way because if the person went home too early and then they came back again to the hospital, the hospital got a second bundle payment when they came back. And if they came back a third time and a fourth time, they got another payment.

So what was happening is there was an incentive to send people home before they were ready because not only would that save you money on the first bundled payment, but it actually made the hospital or the health system money in the long run because the person came back a second or a third or a fourth time.

I do not think there was a single hospital in the Nation that was deliberately misaligning their care so they would have people coming back to the hospital a second or a third or a fourth time. I am not suggesting people were trying to game the system in that way. But what certainly was happening was that without an incentive that pulls you the other way--get the care right the first time--there was, unfortunately, insufficient care being provided.

So the health care bill says: Listen, we will pay you for maybe the first readmission, maybe for really complicated procedures we will pay you for a second readmission, but at some point there has to be an end to this model. At some point it has to be up to you as the hospital or as the health care provider to get the care right the first or the second time so we are not on the hook for readmissions occurring times three or times four. That is a pretty simple change, but it can save hundreds of millions of dollars.

The second example is accountable care organizations. We set up a bunch of Pioneer accountable care organizations. These are bigger systems of care, where you have primary care doctors networked with specialty care providers, working under one umbrella to coordinate the care of the sickest patients. There are different numbers, but they all tell the same thing, which is that the sickest 5 or 10 percent of patients in the country are taking up about 50 percent of annual medical expenditures. So if you do a better job of

coordinating the care of that small percentage of the medical population, you are going to save a lot of money.

Accountable care organizations can do that. Instead of having siloed care, where a co-morbid patient goes to a primary care doctor over here, then a specialist here, then a specialist there, if they are all under one roof and they are talking to each other, then you can save a lot of money just by coordination. That is the theory. So the health care reform act put that theory into practice. It set up a pilot program by which Pioneer accountable care organizations--essentially, a beginning set of accountable care organizations--would be set up under a model through which Medicare would say: If you save money, we are going to deliver back to you some of those savings so that, in fact, there is not a disincentive to practice less medicine because if you practice less medicine, Medicare will take some of the savings and it will share with you some of the savings.

Well, we have only had a year or so of returns from this model, but the results are pretty stunning. The average increase in costs per beneficiary has been--in the Pioneer ACOs--less than 50 percent of that for non-Pioneer ACO models. That is a pretty significant savings.

In addition, go back to this question of readmissions. In 25 of the 32 Pioneer ACOs, there was a lower risk-adjusted readmission rate than in non-Pioneer ACOs. Coordinated care where you are reimbursing an organization as opposed to just the individual physicians actually saves you a lot of money.

Then third, the issue of outliers. What you find when you look at the data--and it may be that Senator Whitehouse talked about this--is that sometimes 60, 70, 80 percent of the system is practicing good medicine at the right cost, and it is really only a small handful of providers that are way outside of the median and all you have to do, when it comes to some subsets of reimbursement, is bring those outliers back into the median.

Home care was a great example. In the Accountable Care Act, we said that for home care providers that had utilization rates that were far outside the median, we were going to stop reimbursing for those episodes that were far outside the median. CBO was not sure how to score it because they did not really know that was going to change people's practice. But it did. And it is estimated that single change, in controlling for the handful of outliers when it comes to high utilization rates in the home care line item, is going to get us almost $1 billion in savings over a 10-year period of time.

When you look at home care, actually it is only a handful of areas in which you have these outpaced utilization rates compared to the rest of the country. It is places in Texas, it is places in certain counties in Florida. Most of the country is right where you should be. So part of reforming our delivery system is also taking care of these outliers.

We have seen savings, whether it be in controlling readmission rates, setting up accountable care organizations, or taking on outliers within our home care system.

Now it is time to do more because, before I turn it over to my good friend Senator Blumenthal, here is where the rubber hits the road.

In about 10 years, Medicare starts taking in less money than it sends out. It does not go bankrupt all of a sudden, but it starts to become fiscally insolvent. There are only a handful of ways to stop that reality from happening. You can either ask beneficiaries to pay more out of pocket; you can cut their benefits, give them less; you can ask people to pay more into the system while they are working or you can make the system more efficient.

It may be that we have to do a mix of those. But clearly the first three are not that palatable: reducing benefits, increasing copays, or increasing taxes. This is not a partisan issue. Both sides agree that in 10 years we have an accounting problem in Medicare. Both sides agree that we have to make changes today in order to stop that crisis from occurring.

It strikes me that if the most conservative Republican and the most liberal Democratic sat down at a table and looked at those four options--increased copays, reduced benefits, increased taxes, or increased efficiencies--we would all agree. The conservative Republican and the liberal Democrat would agree, along with probably every other Member of this body, that is the first place you should go is to reduce inefficiencies. That is what the delivery system provides. So we have set up a working group here in the Senate which is beginning its work this week, that Senator Baldwin, Senator Whitehouse, Senator Blumenthal, I, and others will be building over the course of the late summer and fall. We hope it will draw interest from both sides of the aisle so we can start to put some meat on the bones when it comes to the changes in our delivery system that can be made to increase efficiencies so as to forestall the need to balance the Medicare books on the backs of taxpayers, workers, or beneficiaries.

With that, let me yield the floor to my great friend from Connecticut, someone who both as a Senator and our State's attorney general has been fighting for health care consumers for a long time, Senator Blumenthal.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Madam President, let me associate myself with the remarks of my colleague from Connecticut, Senator Blumenthal, as well as the majority leader, who was here earlier today, and Senator Klobuchar--all speaking on behalf of our nominee to head the ATF, as well as Senator Blumenthal's remarks on behalf of Fairfield, CT, resident James Comey to be the head of the FBI. Very few agencies, other than the ATF and the FBI, are more intricately involved in the preservation of the health and safety of the American public, and we deserve to have votes on those nominees tonight and this week.

But I also want to associate myself with the other remarks Senator Klobuchar made. She talked about our obligation as a body to reverse these very damaging sequester cuts to NIH funding for medical research, and she listed some very compelling stories about men and women who have had their lives saved, preserved, lengthened because of discoveries made through medical research.

It is a reminder to the Senate and to the House--to anyone who treads upon these two floors--that we hold life and death in our hands with the decisions we make. We decide when we choose to fund or not fund the NIH as to whether we are going to give life to people who are waiting on those kinds of cures and treatments.

But, similarly, we make decisions about life and death when we choose not to act, when we choose to do nothing, to sit pat. In this case we make a decision to allow people to die in this country--specifically 6,633 people since December 14--when we make a choice to do nothing about the scourge of gun violence that continues to plague this Nation.

I have tried to come down here every single week--as Senator Klobuchar did in speaking about the effects of funding medical research in very personal terms--to talk about the implications of doing nothing when it comes to the increasing levels of gun violence in this country, in similarly personal terms.

December 14, of course, for most people is easily recognized as the date

when 20 6- and 7-year-olds were killed in Sandy Hook, CT, along with 6 adults who cared for them, as well as the gunman and his mother. Since that day, 6,633 people have been killed by guns at a rate of about 30 a day--the highest of any civilized nation in the world, and we do nothing.

One of those, on July 14, was Horsley Shorter, Jr. Horsley managed a Family Dollar store in Tampa, FL. Junior, as he was known, had some kids come in occasionally who would try to take things out of the store or try to steal. When he had to report them to the police, he would. But this was a very gentle man, and more often than not he would pull the kids aside and try to talk through things with them to try to help them understand what they were doing and what the implications were.

He would never do anything to instigate a fight, his friend said. In fact, his last words to one of his coworkers was ``the pen is mightier than the sword.''

What happened that day was an armed robber came into the store and demanded money from the clerk. According to police, Shorter was inside the office, and he was shot when he ran out to try to help his coworker who was at the counter. The robber then forced the clerk at gunpoint into the parking lot, where he stole the clerk's car and used it to escape. According to one friend, Shorter was very close to that coworker, took him under his wing, which was the reason he ran out into harm's way to try to save him.

This friend said:

I believe that's why that young guy is alive [today].

Junior wasn't going to watch nobody die. He gave his life for

him.

About 2 weeks earlier, on July 2, Chanice Reed, 22, and Annette Reed, her mother, as well as Eddie McCuin, a 10-year-old, were shot in a triple murder in Fort Worth, TX.

An hour after the shooter killed his pregnant girlfriend, her mother, and her little brother, he walked into the Forest Hill Police Department, telling officers to arrest him because he ``did something bad.'' He was 22 years old. He had a history of domestic violence. He was sentenced to 1 year of deferred adjudication probation because of assault.

Because of a domestic dispute, and because of his easy access to guns, in order to resolve this disagreement, he shot his pregnant girlfriend, her mother, and her 10-year-old little brother.

Just a couple days ago, in Bridgeport, CT, Pablo Aquino died. He was 27 years old. He was described as a ``humble man.'' He was always down at the baseball field helping kids because he had a son playing baseball there.

He spent his days at the Fairfield County Hunting Club in Westport, where he tended to horses.

He got into an argument--a simple argument--when the suspect decided that the best way to solve this argument was to turn a gun on Pablo, killing him.

The next day, the community had a vigil for him. The vigil was to remember him but also because they did not have enough money for a funeral. So as the vigil was going on, one of his friends stood out on the corner with an empty tin can of iced-tea mix, asking passersby to contribute a couple cents for a funeral that was expected to cost $2,000.

Over the July 4 period, there were three shootings in New Haven, CT.

At around 10:30 on Wednesday night, police said somebody shot and killed 19-year-old Errol Marshal. His body was discovered on the front porch of a home, pronounced dead at the scene.

At the same time, investigators found Courtney Jackson, a 26-year- old, suffering from a gunshot wound to the stomach.

Brian Gibson, 23, of New Haven, was shot outside of a public housing complex shortly thereafter.

All three shootings were connected. All three shootings are due to the fact that too many kids and too many young adults today do not know how to resolve their disputes any other way than getting a gun, and also because in a city such as New Haven guns are like water; they are all over the place. They are all over the place because this body does not pass legislation to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. We refuse to pass a bill making it a Federal crime to illegally traffic guns.

All those seem very dissimilar from Newtown. But then there are ones you hear about that strike you as so similar to the reason why I am here today talking about this, because of the 26 people who died at the Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Not much more than a month after Newtown, the Griego family was killed, all in one fell swoop, in Albuquerque, NM--Greg, 51; Sarah, 40; Zephania, 9; Jael, 5; and Angelina, 2. The parents were killed by their son, the little girls and boy killed by their brother. Nehemiah was 15 years old when he took a semiautomatic weapon to kill his family. Like Adam Lanza, the shooter in Newtown, Nehemiah was a troubled teen--more troubled than anyone around could have realized. Like Adam Lanza, he took out his rage on his family, first killing his mother while she lay sleeping in her bed. Like Adam Lanza, he had plans to continue his killing spree. He was going to go to the local Wal-Mart before he was stopped. He was anticipating getting into a firefight with the police. And like Adam Lanza, he used an assault weapon that was readily available to him in his own home.

Greg, 51; Sarah, 40; Zephania, 9; Jael, 5; Angelina, 2--5 of the 6,633 people--30 or so a day--who have been killed by guns since December 14. We are not going to stop them all by passing a piece of legislation on the Senate floor. Background checks will not bring 6,600 people back, nor will a ban on human trafficking, nor will a ban on the sale of 30-round magazines or assault weapons. But they will absolutely bring some of those people back. They will absolutely lessen the rate below 30 a day.

I am going to continue to come down to the floor week after week to tell the stories of victims of gun violence, to give them a voice on the floor of the Senate, so that someday, some time, hopefully soon, this place will wake up to the fact that we do have responsibility over life and death on the floor of the Senate, and it is about time, when it comes to the rising incidents of gun violence across this country, we do something about it.

I yield back the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to call up amendment No. 1783.

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

I call up amendment No. 1783 and ask that it be pending.

I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, there is a broad consensus among the people of this country that when we spend dollars through the Federal Treasury, when we spend taxpayer dollars, they should be used to fund American jobs. In fact, that has been a law on the books since the early part of this century. For a long time the Buy American Act has required that when we buy things, whether it be through the military or through the Department of Transportation, we buy things from American contractors. That makes more sense today than ever before because as we struggle to try to get our economy back up and running, one of the sectors that is hurting more than others is the construction sector. Every time we violate the Buy American provisions of our law, we lose the opportunity to try to alleviate great stress that is currently upon our construction industry.

Thankfully, the DOT has been one of the best agencies, actually, when it comes to making sure American-made material goes into construction projects. The $41 billion the Highway Administration receives in this bill to be spent on roads and bridges is an important engine of job growth throughout the country. I have to say they generally do a pretty good job, as opposed to some other agencies--the Department of Defense at the top of the list--in making sure those dollars go to American companies.

There are circumstances in which the Buy American provisions are waived. There are a number of ways you can waive those provisions, but it is important for us to have full transparency and disclosure when the Department of Transportation and FHWA are considering awarding a major project funded by American taxpayers to a foreign company.

When the Buy American statute is waived, the requirement that American-made material be used is null and void. What this bill says is that when the FHWA provides public notice that they are considering waiving the Buy American clause for a particular project, they include in that public notice a consideration of the impact on American jobs. It is worth knowing whether a waiver is simply going to result in the loss of 10 American jobs or the loss of 500 American jobs.

This amendment very simply says that when a waiver to the Buy American law is pending, we should know from the Department of Transportation and from the FHWA how many American jobs are at risk. That gives us the opportunity to weigh in and try to make sure that waiver is not granted. This, frankly, gives American companies a little bit better information to use when they are trying to make the case that they can actually do the work that may be being considered for a foreign company.

We all know what is happening to jobs in the building trades. In some parts of the country unemployment is hitting 20 percent when it comes to carpenters, operating engineers, plumbers, and sheet metal workers.

I wish to applaud the DOT for being one of the models when it comes to trying to make sure taxpayer dollars are kept here at home. This amendment would make sure that in those limited cases where the DOT is sending work overseas, we get a chance to understand what the real impact will be.

We have a lot of work to do when it comes to tightening our Buy American laws. We are talking about the DOT, but the real problem is another agency we will hopefully have a chance to talk about later on the Senate floor; that is, the Department of Defense. Seventy percent of Federal purchasing comes through the Department of Defense. They have been expediting the offshoring of defense work at a rate that should make every single Senator on this floor shudder.

This is an important amendment that I hope will get bipartisan support. I thank Senator Collins for allowing it to become pending on the floor. I think it is just the beginning of a lot of work we have to do when it comes to enforcing a very simple principle. When our constituents send their hard-earned tax dollars to Washington, DC, and they are used to buy things or build things for the U.S. Government, we need to hire U.S. companies and American workers to do the job.

I ask unanimous consent that there be a period for debate only until 2:15 p.m. today.

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

I would ask the Senator if the Senator from Maryland could speak for 5 minutes. I would notify all of my colleagues that we intend to go to the motion to table once that debate occurs.

On July 20, a few days ago, we had a pretty somber anniversary in this country. Senator Bennet came down to acknowledge the occasion. It was the 1-year anniversary of the shooting in Aurora, CO, in which a young man killed 12 individuals and wounded 58 others when he walked into a crowded movie theater at a midnight showing of ``The Dark Knight Rises.'' This, once again, showed the vulnerability of this Nation when the Congress refuses to act on the issue of preventing gun violence.

I have come down virtually every week--not, frankly, as often or as regularly as Senator Whitehouse has on the issue of climate change, but in the short time I have been in the Senate I have tried to come down to the floor virtually every week to talk about the victims of gun violence. Today it is an apt moment to recognize the victims in Aurora, who now have been lost for over a year.

This number represents something different. On December 14, our world in Connecticut was absolutely shattered by a global tragedy in which 26 people, adults and children, including 7-year-olds, died in a splatter of gunfire at Sandy Hook Elementary School, as well as six of the professionals who were charged with protecting them.

What has happened since December 14 is, frankly, in a lot of ways even more egregious, even more unconscionable, even more difficult to swallow than what happened on that day, and that is that 6,497 people have died from guns since December 14 in, frankly, every manner.

There have been more mass shootings, accidental deaths, and suicides. There have been instances of one-on-one urban violence, suburban violence, and family-on-family violence. What has happened is this country has become kind of numb to it. We have to accept that every day we are going to be able to pick up a paper, and somewhere across this country there is going to be upward of 30 or 40 people who have died at the hands of guns at a rate that we can't find anywhere else in the civilized world. We just kind of accept it.

The number is startling. Since December 14, almost 6,500 people have died of gun violence. But we just can't settle on that number. We have to talk about who these people are. I am trying to lend some voice to the victims of gun violence every week on the floor of the Senate to try to spur the Senate to action because I have become resolved that the numbers aren't enough.

Apparently, this number isn't big enough for the Senate to do something so that maybe if we humanize these tragedies, that might do the trick.

A.J. Boik was described as a ball of joy by his friend Jordan. He had just graduated from high school, and he was looking forward to attending the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design in the fall. He wanted to be an art teacher and wanted to teach others the joy he felt for art.

He was known as a big personality, so much so that after he was killed in that movie theater in Aurora, over 1,000 people came to his funeral. Among those mourners were his girlfriend who was there in the theater the day he was shot.

Matthew McQuinn was one of the heroes that day. He was there with his girlfriend Samantha and her brother Nick Yowler. When the shooter came into the theater and started spraying bullets, Matthew, as well as Nick, attempted to shield Samantha from the bullets.

Samantha survived but Matthew did not. He was working in a Target, which is where he actually met his girlfriend when they were working at another Target. He was remembered by his coworkers very fondly. He died that day saving a life.

Also a victim that day was PO3 John Thomas Larimer. He was one of two Active-Duty servicemembers who died as a result of that mass shooting. His girlfriend Kelley Vojtsek, whose life was saved, said this:

John and I were seated in the middle area. When the

violence occurred, John immediately and instinctively covered

me and brought me to the ground in order to protect me from

any danger.

In that act, he saved his girlfriend, but he was struck with a bullet that ended his life.

Alex Sullivan was 27 years old. His friends called him a gentle giant. He was ringing in his 27th birthday, in fact, by going to the premier of ``The Dark Knight Rises.'' His family said he always had a glowing smile on his face. He made friends with everybody. He was a huge movie buff, a comic book geek--as his family called him--and the New York Mets. The Sunday following his attack would have been his 1- year wedding anniversary.

Micayla Medek was called Cayla by her friends. She loved her friends and going out with her friends. That is what she was doing when she went out that evening to see this movie. Her family didn't find out she had been killed that day until 20 hours after the shooting. They had spent that evening and morning driving from hospital to hospital hoping to get news she had survived.

Veronica Moser-Sullivan was the youngest of the 12 people who were shot. She was 6 years old, not unlike the 20 6-year-old and 7-year-old children killed in Newtown. She was described as beautiful and innocent, excited about life. She was there that

evening because her family wanted to get her mind off of the recent passing of her grandfather. She had become consumed with sorrow over the passing of her grandfather. So as a treat her family brought her to the premier of this movie. She was going to start swimming lessons the following week.

James Holmes walked into that movie theater with an AR-15-style rifle, which we have heard talked about over and over and over--the weapon of choice in mass shootings in this country. But just as important, he was armed with 100-round drums of ammunition. Why on Earth does this Senate allow for the continued legal sale of 100-round drums of ammunition? What possible legal reason could there be for the possession of 100-round drums of ammunition that go into an automatic weapon other than to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible? There is no reason a hunter or sport shooter needs a 100- round drum of ammunition. Yet we can't even get the votes to ban the sale of those deadly accessories to semiautomatic weapons.

I get it. These 6,497 people didn't die at the hands of an assault weapon, they didn't die at the hands of a 100-round drum, never mind a 30-round magazine, but these mass shootings are going to continue to happen. Frankly, the one that happened in Santa Monica not long ago barely made the headlines in this country. Three or four people dying at the hands of a semiautomatic weapon is nothing these days. Now there have to be 20 or 30 people die in order for it to be a big story. Expectations have changed because these shootings are becoming regular, normal occurrences. But we can't let this country become numb to mass shootings in the way I would argue we have become numb to the 6,500 people who have died since December 14.

I understand we tried and failed to get legislation passed through the Senate--supported by 90 percent of Americans--that would extend background checks to more sales of weapons, to make sure criminals don't have weapons, to make gun trafficking a crime in a way that it is not, to provide some more mental health resources, but we shouldn't give up. We shouldn't give up because there is going to be another Aurora, there will be another Sandy Hook if we do nothing, and 30 to 40 people will still die every day if we stand by and continue to allow this kind of regular, everyday gun violence to be the background noise of this Nation.

Maybe if the numbers don't move people, the stories of the victims will. Maybe that will be enough to finally prompt the Senate and the House of Representatives to action.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate immediately proceed to Calendar No. 98, H.R. 1092.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Energy Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 1294 and the bill be referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, July 25, 2013; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that following any leader remarks, the Senate be in a period of morning business until 11 a.m., with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, with the majority controlling the first 30 minutes and the Republicans controlling the second 30 minutes; that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of S. 1243, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill.

Mr. President, we will continue to work through amendments to the THUD appropriations bill tomorrow.

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

Mr. MURPHY. Madam President, I rise today to recognize a

distinguished and outstanding citizen of the State of

Connecticut, Ambassador Joseph Verner Reed.

Ambassador Joseph Verner Reed has served as a senior

diplomat at the United Nations for 30 years. A diplomat's

diplomat, he was appointed by President Ronald Reagan as

Ambassador of the United States of America to the Kingdom of

Morocco in 1981 and in 1985 as the Representative of the

United States to the Economic and Social Council of the

United Nations as Deputy Permanent Representative at the

United States Mission. In 1987, he was appointed Under-

Secretary-General of the United Nations for Political and

General Assembly Affairs. In early 1989, President George H.

W. Bush appointed Ambassador Reed the Chief of Protocol of

the White House, where he served until late 1991.

In 1992, the then Secretary-General of the United Nations,

Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, appointed Ambassador Reed Under-

Secretary-General of the United Nations and Special

Representative for Public Affairs, concluding his assignment

in February 1997. In June 1997, Secretary-General of the

United Nations, Mr. Kofi A. Annan, re-appointed Ambassador

Reed as President of the Staff-Management Coordination

Committee, SMCC, the highest internal body of the World

Organization. Ambassador Reed served SMCC for 12 years,

concluding his assignment in December 2004.

In January 2005, Secretary-General Kofi A. Annan appointed

Ambassador Reed as Under-Secretary-General and Special

Adviser. In February 2009, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

reappointed Ambassador Reed as Under-Secretary-General and

Special Adviser. Ambassador Reed continues to serve the

organization.

Recently, Ambassador Reed was honored with the presentation

of the distinguished achievement award by the American

Society of the French Legion of Honor. I ask unanimous

consent that the remarks made at that event by the President

of the Society, Guy Wildenstein, as well as Ambassador Reed's

response, be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of the nomination of Gina McCarthy to be this Nation's next EPA Administrator.

Mr. President, you and I know Gina McCarthy's work firsthand because, prior to joining the EPA, she was our commissioner in the State of Connecticut of the Department of Environmental Protection, where she served under a Republican Governor and worked with both parties to advance the environmental and business interests of the State.

So first I want to very briefly share with my colleagues why I support Gina McCarthy. But then I, frankly, want to talk about why I believe my Republican colleagues--who may not be supportive every single day of the year of the mission of the EPA--should support her as well.

I support Gina McCarthy because for her entire career she has been a champion of public health. A lot of people who rise to lead Federal agencies spend the majority of their career here in Washington, and there is nothing wrong with that, but there is something special that comes with somebody like Gina McCarthy, who started her career as a local public health official in Canton, MA. She learned public health at the ground level, and she understood very early on that the government, working together with the business community, can have an enormously positive effect on the health of our Nation.

I support her because she has come up the right way, through the grassroots of America's public health infrastructure. I support her because of the great work she did in Connecticut when she was, as I mentioned, our Republican-appointed commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection.

One of the things she did is work with States all throughout the Northeast on something called RGGI, which is a voluntary association of States throughout the Northeast region to try to reduce carbon emissions.

There is nothing but success when you tell the story of RGGI. She did this under a Republican Governor. There are a number of Republican Governors along with Democrats who participated in this plan. But over time, the plan was to reduce carbon emissions from northeastern States by 10 percent, moving toward 2018. Through this mechanism, what we have seen is not just a reduction in carbon emissions from Connecticut and the States that participate, but a pretty amazing reduction in the amount ratepayers are paying. Why? Because through this rather modest cap-and-trade regime, we were able to take the money gleaned through the system and put it right back into efficiencies so that ratepayers were paying less, so much so that the estimates are that consumer bills will be $1.1 billion less because of the work Gina McCarthy did. It is an average of about $25 off the bill of a residential homeowner, and about $181 off the bill of commercial consumers.

I support her because of what she has done since she has come to the EPA, leading the air quality initiatives at the EPA. She has made a huge difference. You take a look at the Mercury and Air Toxics Rule alone, and the estimates are almost hard to comprehend. Mr. President, 11,000 premature deaths will be prevented because of work she did on that one effort alone; 4,700 heart attacks will be prevented because of these toxins disappearing from our air; and maybe most importantly to those of us with little kids at home, 130,000 asthma attacks will not happen in this country, largely to children, because we will have cleaner air to breathe.

I support Gina McCarthy because of the work she has done her entire career

to be a great steward of the environment and a resolute champion of clean air.

But I want to talk for a few minutes about why I think our Republican colleagues should support her as well.

We had a breakthrough this week on the issue of how this body will treat at least this set of nominees. I think there was agreement between Republicans and Democrats that the President, of whatever party he or she may be, should get his or her team in place, and that this body should work to make sure that occurs, and maybe with the one caveat that there should be a responsibility of the President to put people with a pragmatic mind in charge of agencies that might be ones in which there is disagreement here over their mission. I might not expect my Republican colleagues to support somebody going to the CFPB or to the EPA who is a rigid ideologue. But I think there is agreement that if the President does choose a pragmatist--somebody who is willing to reach out across the aisle, who is willing to build coalitions--then this body should support the President's team.

I want to make the case to my Republican colleagues, as they make their final decision as to how they are going to vote on Gina McCarthy, that is exactly who she is. Lots has been made of the fact that she, with the exception of her appointment to the EPA during her tenure under President Obama, has been a Republican appointee. It was not just Governor Jodi Rell, a Republican--who I disagreed with on a lot of things back in Connecticut--who appointed her to head up our DEP, but she also, of course, got her start in the higher ranks of environmental protection from Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. So she has clearly demonstrated that she is someone who is able to work across the aisle.

But what I think Republicans want to know is, as she presides over an EPA that is going to move forward with new regulations for proposed powerplants and, we hope, will move ahead with new clean air regulations for existing powerplants, is she going to do that in a rigid, arbitrary fashion or is she going to be willing to listen to industry as well?

I want to give you a couple quotes that come from people who work in the industry, people, frankly, whom I do not agree with, that the President does not agree with, and, frankly, that Gina McCarthy is not going to agree with all the time, but people who have worked with her who have at worst a begrudging respect for the work she has done and at best, frankly, an admiration.

William Bumpers, who is a partner at a law firm in town and represents powerplants and other industry clients, says:

[Gina McCarthy] is one of these avid environmental program

managers who is exceptionally competent but practical. My

experience with her in the past four years, I can meet with

her. She's very forthright. There's no guile with her. While

I haven't always agreed with the rules that come out of

there, there's never been any guess work about what comes out

of there.

Gloria Berquist, who is the vice president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, says:

She is a pragmatic policymaker. She has aspirational

environmental goals, but she accepts real world economics.

Charles Warren, who was a top EPA official in the Reagan administration and who now represents a lot of people in the industry, says:

At EPA, as a regulator, you're also asking people to do the

things they don't want to do. But Gina's made an effort to

reach out to industries while they're developing regulations.

She has got a good reputation.

Even the spokesman for the National Mining Association--this might come under the category of ``grudging respect,'' but he says:

She is very knowledgeable. I don't think anyone is

questioning her understanding or ability. She will not be

caught off-guard in any defense of what they have done. I

would expect her to be well-informed. She just doesn't strike

me as an ideologue.

This is what the industry says. We know the Republicans support her because that is how she got the jobs that led to her position at the EPA. But even within industry, they recognize that they are going to disagree with her. They are not going to come down to the EPA in a parade of support for some of the things she may do. But they acknowledge that she is going to listen and that to the extent possible she is going to work with them.

I think that is what we want at the EPA. I think that is who Gina McCarthy will be. I do not think that just because of speculation, I think that because as the junior Senator from Connecticut, I watched her walk the walk and talk the talk in Connecticut. I know she did it in Massachusetts because that is why we picked her in Connecticut. I have certainly seen her do it in her years heading clean air policy at the EPA.

For my friends who want a strong, passionate advocate for clean air, you got one in Gina McCarthy. For my friends who want a pragmatist who, though they may disagree with her, is going to at least be practical in how she implements the policies of this administration, you have that voice too. Gina McCarthy will be a great pick at the EPA. I urge my colleagues to support her.

I yield the floor.

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

I ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business.

Madam President, I rise today to speak on the American Jobs Matter Act. This legislation was introduced by myself, Senator Blumenthal, Senator Brown, and Senator Merkley.

No one is going to disagree that this country has the greatest, most powerful military in the world. Although the Defense Department has not been spared from the draconian cuts included in the sequester, we still have a robust defense budget. Annual defense spending has grown from $287 billion in 2001 to over $700 billion today. Today it is hovering at around 6 percent of GDP.

A significant portion of these Federal defense dollars are used to purchase manufactured goods that make our military the preeminent fighting force in the world. In order to have the best military, you need the best people--we certainly have that--and the best stuff, which we have as well.

It is not debatable that our industrial base--going all the way back to the iconic assembly lines that churned out the machinery which was used to defeat fascism during World War II to today's shipyards that are producing our nuclear-powered submarines--is not still the best in the world. But 20, 30, or 50 years from now are we still going to be the best? That is the question before us today and the question this legislation seeks to answer.

Over the past 5 years the Department of Defense has cumulatively spent about $700 billion on manufactured goods. Over that same period of time, the United States has lost 1.7 million manufacturing jobs.

Why is this? Obviously, there is no single answer to this question, but it is telling that during this period of time DOD has spent $124 billion purchasing goods from foreign manufacturers. Some of these foreign manufacturers are in countries that are our allies today and will always be our allies, but some of these foreign manufacturers come from countries that are not our allies today and will never be our allies.

The bottom line is that when we outsource defense-manufacturing capabilities--either to our allies or to our adversaries--manufacturers shut down in this country and our capability to create and make critical defense items for our soldiers vanishes. The erosion of our industrial base kills jobs, and it jeopardizes our national security.

There are countless examples of how these spending decisions harm our industrial base, but I will give two examples that affect my home State of Connecticut.

In Waterbury, CT, there is a company that makes the metal tubing which goes into every ship the Navy builds. It holds the wires and the conduits. It is an incredibly complicated product, such that there are only two or three companies in the world that make this. For over 150 years this company in Waterbury, CT, has employed people in my State and kept our Navy equipped with the tubing it needs.

Over the years, the Navy has started to favor a foreign competitor who, frankly, has a history of engaging in unfair trade practices in order to undermine its competitors. They are offering the Navy a slightly more discounted price than the American company. So from the Navy's perspective, it is tempting to award that bid to an overseas contractor, but the monetary costs to the Navy cannot be the only thing we look at.

First of all, if this company in Waterbury goes under, then we will forever lose the ability to make this critical defense item in the United States. The country from which we are buying this equipment might be our ally today, but who knows what the case will be 10 or 20 years down the line. The fact is, you cannot just recreate the expertise, personnel, and machinery that makes this specific type of metal tubing.

Second, even if the Navy gets a 5- or 10- or 15-percent discount on this particular item, that benefit to the Navy essentially disappears when you look at the overall cost to the U.S. taxpayer because when those jobs are lost in Waterbury, CT, those men and women start qualifying for Federal benefits such as unemployment and Medicaid. We lose the tax revenue that comes to the local government, the State government, and the Federal Government. And, all of a sudden, that small discount they get by going to a foreign manufacturer vanishes before their eyes.

Here is a second example and one that to a lot of Americans will be absolutely maddening. We have a machine that makes dog tags. Essentially, we have a machine that goes out into the field and makes them for soldiers. There is nothing more iconic and emblematic of the danger soldiers put themselves in, the sacrifice they sometimes make, than the dog tag. It has historically been made by an American-built machine. But, recently, bids have been going to an Italian company that makes a similar machine simply because the Italian company's machine costs 3 percent less than the American machine.

First of all, it is not acceptable that our dog tags are not American made. Second of all, that 3-percent difference is negligible when we compare it to all of the money lost when those jobs disappear in the United States. How can this happen?

There was overwhelming bipartisan consensus when Congress passed something called the Buy American Act 75 years ago, which said we should give preference to companies in the United States when we are buying things for the U.S. military. I don't think anybody today questions the wisdom of that act. But over the years we have built loophole after loophole, exception after exception, into the Buy American Act such that sometimes a minority of the parts of a particular thing we are buying for the Department of Defense comes from American firms.

The real world examples I mentioned and many others have prompted me, along with Senators Merkley and Brown and Blumenthal, to introduce the American Jobs Matter Act. Here is what this legislation will do; it is pretty simple: It will require that the Department of Defense, for the first time, has to measure domestic employment as a factor in awarding a contract. It is a simple premise. In the same way that DOD considers price and past performance when awarding work, they should also consider the impact on domestic employment in the award of a contract.

Under this bill, our largest contractors would also have to account for the expected job creation of their subcontractors, because that is where a lot of the problem is. We are not buying a lot of big goods that are assembled in other countries, but the hundreds of thousands of parts that sometimes go into a submarine or a jet engine or a tank or a humvee are often made outside of the United States. This would require the contractor to present an estimate of how many jobs throughout the supply chain are created here in the United States. Under this bill, when DOD gets two similar bids and one would create more American jobs than the other bid would, DOD can take that into account when awarding the contract.

Frankly, most people I talk to back in my home State of Connecticut think this already happens. People assume that if past performance and price are about equal, the home team should win. But, today, there is no law that allows military contractors to make that distinction. This bill would allow them, for the first time, to do that.

Retired U.S. Army BG John Adams recently published a study about the vulnerabilities in our defense supply chain. His report, which mentioned actually some of the specific examples I referenced, said this:

The health of our manufacturing sector is inextricably

intertwined with our national

security, and that the United States' national security is

threatened by our military's growing and dangerous reliance

on foreign nations for the raw materials, parts, and finished

products needed to defend the American people.

It is time we changed that. The American Jobs Matter Act will put our defense industrial base on a stronger footing for the future.

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