Floor Statements

Madam President, I rise to strongly support an amendment on the floor that I have coauthored. I have joined Senator Thune, Senator Bennett, and many others on this amendment to immediately end TARP, the so-called Troubled Asset Relief Program--to end that, to wind it down immediately, once and for all.

Again, the amendment is very simple and straightforward. It terminates TARP immediately when this provision is signed into law. Just as importantly, the amendment ensures that all TARP money that is repaid to the Federal Government goes to debt reduction, as clearly intended under the law, under the original language for TARP.

I have long fought for this termination. First of all, I had grave reservations about TARP from the beginning, and I voted against that proposal. Looking back, I do not think it is at all clear that was necessary to avert some impending disaster. Looking at the last year, I think it is perfectly clear TARP has become a slush fund and has led to all sorts of continuing spending abuses.

Because of those concerns from the very beginning, I have been working to end TARP. On January 5 of last year, I offered the resolution of disapproval to try to block the release of the second half of TARP funds, the second $350 billion.

On April 2, 2009, I offered an amendment to the budget to rescind unspent TARP funds and to end it then.

On April 30 of last year, I offered an amendment to S. 896 to remove any obstacles to the repayment of TARP funds because, at that time, the bank regulators and the Department of Treasury were forcing, in some cases, financial institutions to actually keep their TARP money and not repay it back to the taxpayer sooner rather than later.

On August 6 of last year, I offered an amendment to H.R. 3435, a bill which provided extra money for the Cash for Clunkers Program, to end TARP on a date certain; namely, the end of last year.

Unfortunately, those efforts failed. But those efforts picked up steam and support every step of the way and certainly they helped illustrate--and recent discussion and debate and elections, I think, helped illustrate--the American people want to end TARP, want to end too big to fail, and get back to our normal economic rules grounded in the free market.

Why should we end TARP? First of all, in the original bill, the end date to TARP was supposed to be December 31 of last year. That was the normal end date. Last December, the Secretary of the Treasury, under authority he had, on his own, under the language of the bill, extended TARP for almost another year. I believe that was the wrong decision, unjustified, and I believe we should act to stick by the original end date and end TARP immediately.

I do not think there is anyone on this floor or around the country who can argue we need a continuation of TARP because our financial system is in some imminent danger. There is no imminent danger out there. Hopefully, that will not develop. But, clearly, it does not exist now.

Secondly, the right response to future failures is not to pump taxpayer money without limit to individual institutions. The right response is to end too big to fail and to have an orderly resolution regime. That is exactly what I am working on with Democrats, with other Republicans on the Banking Committee, to pass regulatory reform, including an orderly resolution regime to end too big to fail.

Then, the third reason we need to end TARP is it has become, in the last year, a purely political slush fund to spend on whatever the political whim of the moment is. It was never executed to achieve its original purpose. TARP stands for Troubled Asset Relief Program. Yet, ironically, that is about the only thing TARP funds have never been used for, the actual purchase of troubled assets.

From the very beginning, just after it was named the Troubled Asset Relief Program, it has been used for everything else under the Sun-- first, pumping money directly into specific mega financial institutions, then pumping money directly into the auto companies. Clearly, the car companies are not banks, are not financial organizations. They were never intended to be included under TARP.

Since then, during 2009, the proposals to use TARP as just a pot of money to spend at everyone's political whim have gone on and on. There have been proposals to use TARP money to fund highway projects. There are proposals right now to use TARP money for a new jobs program. There are proposals, at least on the House side, to start a brand new housing program funded by the TARP assets.

Perhaps we should do new activity regarding highway construction, job creation, housing, but we should not use TARP as a political grab bag, a slush fund, to pay for that and whatever else is the whim of the majority in Congress. That is a clear abuse of the program, and it is a clear ongoing threat if TARP is allowed to exist.

If we go back to the origination of TARP and discussions and talks made

at the time, it is clear that then-Senator Obama, then-Presidential candidate Obama pledged to the American people that TARP would only be used for certain purposes, and every penny would be repaid to the taxpayer. On October 1, 2008, then-Senator Obama, then-Presidential candidate Obama, clearly spelled out his conditions that he required to support TARP. He said:

If the American taxpayers are financing this solution, then

they have to be treated like investors. They should get every

penny of their tax dollars back once the economy recovers.

I don't think there is any mistake in the law or the President's comments, but because he didn't want to be misunderstood, he didn't want to communicate in any sort of vague way, he reiterated that, and he said in addition, ``every penny of which will go directly back to the American people.''

The problem is, that is not what is happening. Every month, every week, every day that TARP continues to exist, raids on the slush fund, raids on TARP, bright new ideas to spend the money so that it will never be returned to the taxpayer abound.

Unfortunately, since he explained his initial conditions for supporting TARP, the President has acted in a wholesale different way. He supported TARP money going to the car companies which was never intended under the original bill. He supported these new ideas coming from liberals in the House and Senate to use TARP money for highway construction or a new jobs program or a new housing program, which was never intended under the original bill.

We need to get back to the President's original promise: to treat the American taxpayers like the investors they are, to honor their wishes, to protect their funds, and to get all of that money returned to the American taxpayer.

I find it pretty ironic that during the last few weeks the President has bashed big banks and proposed a big new tax against big financial institutions. Yet, at the same time, he wants to continue TARP, and he wants to continue the ability to give those same big financial institutions taxpayer dollars virtually without limit. Why don't we start on the path to fiscal responsibility by at least not showering those big financial institutions with more taxpayer dollars? We are out of the crisis. We don't need TARP. Let's end it, end it immediately, wind it down.

So, again, I urge all of my colleagues--Democrats, Republicans--to honor the President's initial words back in the fall of 2008 about what TARP was supposed to be about and how all of the money should be repaid to the taxpayers. Let's honor those words. Let's honor the initial promises about TARP, and let's end it immediately since the crisis has passed and ensure that all of the money, as it is repaid over time, goes back to the American taxpayer by reducing debt. Let's stop this continuing threat that TARP is just used as a political slush fund to fund spending, programs, and ideas at the whim of the majority of Congress as it develops week to week. Let's return that money to the American taxpayer. Let's reduce the debt. Let's reduce the deficit.

Thank you, Madam President. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, how much time remains on the minority side before 9:30 a.m.?

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, since this latest version of comprehensive health care reform was unveiled a few days ago--a 2,733-page bill--I have been looking at it very carefully, particularly, of course, with the Louisiana perspective, and I want to share my strong concerns with that Louisiana perspective with my colleagues today.

Of course, we have all heard this Senate health care reform bill referred to

as the ``Louisiana purchase'' because of the special $300 million provision in it related to our Medicaid match rate.

Quite frankly, I do not much like that nickname for two reasons. First of all, the fact that we in Louisiana have to pay a higher Medicaid match rate under present law because of the hurricanes is a real inequity, which I support fixing. It is a shame the merits of that fix, which are very real, have been completely lost in this debate because of the way this Louisiana fix has been used and abused, quite frankly, in trying to pass this megabill.

But, secondly, I do not like the phrase because it suggests that Louisiana in general would fare very well under the bill overall, and nothing could be further from the truth. This bill overall sells Louisiana short. It sells Louisiana out. In fact, rather than the ``Louisiana purchase,'' I think the bill could be very accurately called the ``Louisiana sellout.''

What are those costs and those serious problems for Louisiana I am talking about?

Let's start with Medicaid, the program for the poor. Let's start with that $300 million fix. It is certainly true that fix is there--a $300 million benefit to the State under our Medicaid Program--but that is not all of the picture. It is not even all of the Medicaid picture because besides that fix, in the bill overall there is a dramatic expansion of Medicaid--a huge expansion--and the Louisiana State government and Louisiana taxpayers have to help pay for that expansion. That extra cost to the State government, to the State taxpayer, is way more than the $300 million benefit.

By very conservative estimates by the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, it is at least $1.3 billion over 10 years of full implementation. So, sure, a $300 million benefit but, at least, minimum, a $1.3 billion cost--extra cost--to the State.

Now, three things are important about these figures. One is obvious: $300 million is a whole lot less than $1.3 billion. But, secondly, this $1.3 billion over 10 years of full implementation is a very conservative estimate from the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. And, No. 3, while this money, the $300 million, is one time, this other goes on forever. This $1.3 billion is the first decade cost, but it goes on forever from there; and every 10 years, this grows and is repeated.

So what does that mean? That means in the first 10 years of full implementation, the net impact on the State is very negative, at least $1 billion, and it goes on from there.

I am very concerned about a lot of other groups in Louisiana, not just the State government and State budget. I am particularly concerned about Louisiana seniors. Of course, Louisiana seniors, like seniors everywhere, depend on Medicare. They have paid into it their whole lives. This bill--it is a simple fact; it is confirmed by the Congressional Budget Office, nonpartisan--this bill cuts Medicare $466 billion. Medicare now is already facing insolvency by 2017. So instead of fixing that in a real way, the bill steals almost $\1/2\ trillion from Medicare and uses it not within Medicare but to help pay for a brand-new entitlement.

I will not at this time. I will be happy to yield after my presentation.

That means real cuts in terms of hospitals, home and hospice, nursing homes, and Medicare Advantage. There are over 151,000 Louisiana seniors on Medicare Advantage. They are going to be particularly hard hit. They like that choice now. They will not have that choice as it exists now under this bill.

How about Louisiana taxpayers? I am also very concerned about Louisiana taxpayers. Again, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the bill contains $518 billion of tax increases nationwide--over $\1/2\ trillion of tax increases. As for that oft repeated promise that no one who earns under $200,000 will be affected, well, again, think again. The Joint Committee on Taxation-- nonpartisan--has said 42.1 million Americans earning below $200,000 will get a tax increase over the next several years--42.1 million. That means hundreds of thousands of Louisiana taxpayers will be hit, will get a tax increase--I am talking about folks who earn well below $200,000--will also pay more in the form of higher insurance premiums because, again, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said this bill increases overall health care costs. It does not decrease those costs.

Well, what about Louisiana small businesses? Surely, this bill protects them in the midst of this serious recession. Well, not exactly. The biggest impact on businesses is a brandnew mandate in the bill. Most businesses have to either provide a government-defined health insurance benefit or they have to pay a new tax to the government. NFIB, the National Federation of Small Business, says that is going to cost the Nation 1.6 million jobs. Translated to Louisiana, that is tens of thousands of additional lost jobs on top of our current high unemployment. Again, we are in the middle of a serious recession. This will cost us jobs on top of that.

There is also another big problem, which is an incentive for businesses to drop coverage. I mentioned that brandnew mandate: Either you provide a government-defined health benefit or you pay a new tax to the Federal Government. The other problem with that is, for a lot of business, it is going to be cheaper to drop coverage and pay the new tax. So many employees who have coverage now that they are reasonably satisfied with are going to lose it, and that is a big concern as well.

Just for good measure, the bill forces pro-life taxpayers to, in many very meaningful ways, subsidize abortion. Louisiana is one of the most proudly pro-life States in the Nation, so that is particularly offensive. Everyone who cares about life, who has followed this issue, whether it is the Catholic Bishops, National Right to Life, and other organizations have said, clearly, the language in this bill doesn't protect against taxpayer-funded abortion. The language in this bill does not honor the Hyde amendment, which has been Federal law since 1977. The language in this bill crosses an important line, does not offer the conscience protections we have depended on for years. So this sets radical new precedent in terms of taxpayer and Federal Government support of abortion. That is a big Louisiana concern as well.

So what do we have? We have a 2,733-page bill, mega health care reform, with all these very serious problems for Louisiana and important Louisiana groups and important Louisiana citizens, including seniors, small business, taxpayers, and the State budget, which is already facing serious cuts and challenges.

If we want to put Louisiana first considering all these costs, we have to say no to this bill. If we want to put America first considering all these unsustainable costs, we have to say no to this bill. But we can and we should say yes to the right kind of health care reform. This isn't a debate about yes or no, health care reform or not; this is a debate about what the right kind of health care reform is.

To me, we need to start over with that right kind of reform. To me, that would mean something such as starting by passing five bills. Each one doesn't need to be longer than 25 pages. Each one would be focused like a laser beam on a real problem that affects real Louisianans, real Americans, offering a real, concrete, focused solution. My five bills would be this: Cover preexisting conditions. That is a real problem in Louisiana. That is a real problem in America. Let's have a focused bill that does that.

Secondly, allow buying insurance across State lines. That would dramatically expand competition in the marketplace. That would lower premiums. That would give all folks wanting health insurance dramatically decreased costs than they have now.

Third: Let's do something real about prescription drug prices. Let's not sell out to PhRMA and cut a special deal with the pharmaceutical industry, as the White House has. Let's pass reimportation and pass real generics reform.

Fourth: Let's pass tort reform and take all that unnecessary cost out of the system. That doesn't provide better health care for anyone. It doesn't do anything positive for anyone except wealthy trial lawyers. Let's pass tort reform.

And fifth: Let's allow small business to pool across State lines to form larger pools of insurance across State lines

and gain from that extra buying power. Why shouldn't a restaurant in Baton Rouge that may only have seven or eight people to cover in health insurance, why shouldn't they be able to pool through the National Restaurant Association, create a pool of millions nationwide and enjoy the same buying power Apple Computers or Toyota has and get the same benefit in the insurance marketplace through that increased buying power and increased competition?

So I urge all my colleagues to put their State first and vote no, to put our Nation first and vote no, and to start anew with the right sort of focused reform as I have outlined.

I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I, too, rise to voice my very strong concerns about this latest version of so-called comprehensive health care reform. I will speak of my strong concerns starting with the process we are in the midst of because I am still digesting the particulars of this latest megabill.

As you know, it was divulged yesterday, a 383-page amendment to the underlying bill. The amendment references another bill which is 286 pages. The underlying bill is 2,074 pages. It makes for the seventh-- count them--the seventh version of so-called comprehensive health care reform, Obamacare for short, in a few weeks. That grand total would be 2,733 pages. So, certainly, I am still digesting this latest version. My staff is helping me,

but I wish to rise to begin to express my concerns.

The first concern is what I just referenced, this process we are in the midst of. When I went around Louisiana and when I continue to go around Louisiana--have townhall meetings--of course, health care comes up first and often. The themes I hear over and over are: This is too important to rush. This is too important to have some arbitrary deadline, whether it was last summer or Christmas. We need to get it right, not have arbitrary deadlines, and we need to know what we are voting for or against. That is what I hear about the right process to use over and over and over.

Well, unfortunately, clearly, this process we are in the midst of does not honor those wishes of Louisiana citizens, of American citizens. Before this latest megahealth care bill was unveiled yesterday, everyone it seems--including Members of the majority party who, at least, were involved in the negotiations, unlike Republicans-- was in the dark.

Let me mention a few statements Democratic Senators made over the last week or so before yesterday's unveiling.

Senator Durbin, in the leadership, said:

I would say to the Senator from Arizona, that I'm in the

dark almost as much as he is. And I'm in the leadership.

Senator Schumer of New York, also in the leadership:

I can't say what there is, because we're not allowed to

talk about what's submitted to CBO.

Senator Bayh of Indiana:

We're all being urged to vote for something and we don't

know the details of what's in it.

Senator Bill Nelson of Florida:

I don't know what the deal is.

My colleague, Senator Landrieu, of Louisiana:

There's no specific compromise. There were discussions. . .

. Until the package that was sent is scored, we really don't

even know what's in it.

Senator Casey of Pennsylvania:

Any big agreement is progress . . . even if we do not know

any of the details.

Senator Feinstein of California referred to a meeting on the majority side recently:

There was no explanation. It was sort of go team, go.

Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, talking about a similar majority meeting:

General concepts, but nothing very specific at all.

Then, at least yesterday, this new megabill--this 383-page amendment, referencing another 286-page bill, attached to an underlying 2,074-page bill--was unveiled. That finally happened yesterday morning.

Well, that is some progress. But I am afraid it is not progress enough. It is not time enough, considering we are set to vote on this new megabill in just a few hours, starting at 1 a.m. tomorrow morning.

Listening to American citizens all over the country, several Senators, including myself, have advocated we need at least 72 hours of final bill text on the Internet before we take any votes about this sort of major legislation. We need at least 72 hours of the official Congressional Budget Office cost estimate being on the Internet before we start any of those votes. I have certainly advocated that. Many of my colleagues on the Republican side have advocated that, listening, responding to American citizens who say: No arbitrary deadlines. Know what you are voting on. Get it right.

Perhaps even more importantly than my advocating it or other Republicans advocating it, at least eight Democrats have specifically demanded the same thing. In fact, on October 6 of this year, eight Democrats wrote a very clear, strongly worded letter to the majority leader, Senator Reid, and they demanded exactly the same thing: 72 hours of final legislative language on the Internet before any vote on the matter, a full Congressional Budget Office cost estimate on the Internet for at least 72 hours before any vote on the matter. I applaud these Senators for demanding that: Senator Lincoln, Senator Landrieu, Senator McCaskill, Senator Pryor, Senator Bayh, Senator Lieberman, Senator Ben Nelson, and Senator Webb.

But, again, this process we are in the midst of certainly does not honor that minimal demand. We are set to vote on this in just a few hours. When we do, we will have only had the final legislative language for about 40 hours. We will have only had the full Congressional Budget Office cost estimate for about 37 hours. That is 56 percent or less of this minimum timeframe that so many of us, including eight Democrats, have demanded.

Again, this rush to judgment, this rush to beat an arbitrary Christmas deadline, is clearly ignoring the common sense of the American people, the common sense I heard in my dozens of townhalls all across Louisiana: no arbitrary deadlines. Know what you are voting on. Get it right. Do not rush to judgment.

I have strong concerns about this process. Where are the 72 hours? Where is the opportunity for Members and the American people to know what is in this latest version of a megabill on so-called comprehensive health care reform? Where is the 72 hours' notice of a Congressional Budget Office cost estimate?

Given that rush to judgment and arbitrary timeline, I am rushing to digest this latest version of the bill. But certainly, already, I have other very strong substantive concerns. I will be coming back to the floor within the next few days to more precisely outline those concerns as I digest more of the details of this latest megabill. But let me mention at least six of the big Louisiana-based questions I am focused on in terms of this latest megabill, this latest so-called comprehensive health care reform or Obamacare.

No. 1 is the impact on the Louisiana State budget. There has been a lot of discussion about that because of the particular language included in the bill pertaining to Louisiana that apparently gives Louisiana a $300 million benefit. The problem, from the Louisiana perspective, is in the Medicaid system, and that $300 million is directly related to Medicaid. In Medicaid, there is a much greater additional burden put on all States, including Louisiana. In Louisiana's case, apparently, that is going to far surpass $300 million.

So I am concerned about the overall, the net, impact on the Louisiana State budget, particularly because of the dramatic expansion of Medicaid. Medicaid is the health care program for the poor. It is dramatically expanded in the bill. Every State--except perhaps Nebraska because of special language put in for Nebraska--every State pays a match for both existing Medicaid and Medicaid expansion. That is going to put a big extra burden on the Louisiana State budget, and that big extra burden is apparently going to be much more than the $300 million of benefit that has been so widely talked about. I am looking, right now, at the details of that.

My second big Louisiana-based concern has to do with the Louisiana seniors--Louisiana seniors who have paid into Medicare, the health care system for retirees, for years and have assumed it would be there for them, as they paid in, as they followed the rules every step of the way. I know from the study I have done already that this new, latest version of the megabill, so-called comprehensive health care reform, involves a $464.6 billion cut to Medicare. That is going to impact every Louisiana senior, and it is going to impact tens of thousands of Louisiana seniors on Medicare Advantage particularly onerously.

My third big Louisiana-based concern is the Louisiana taxpayer because this bill contains massive tax increases to pay for all these new entitlements. Apparently, the total figure of tax increases in the bill is $518 billion--over $\1/2\ trillion--more tax increases than in any of the six previous megabills, the six previous versions of Obamacare. A lot of these taxes are clearly going on individuals who earn less than $200,000 per year, families who earn less than $250,000 per year. A lot of Louisiana taxpayers are going to be hit. That is a big concern.

Fourth, I am concerned about Louisianians who have health care now and who pay premiums because those premiums, by all accounts, by all independent estimates, are going to go up because of the taxes and fees and other burdens in this bill.

Fifth, what about Louisiana small businesses, businesses that are struggling right now in a serious recession, the most serious recession since the

Great Depression? We are in the midst of an extremely serious recession, and we are putting new mandates, new burdens, and new taxes on Louisiana small business. By all accounts, that is going to cost jobs, pure and simple, as we are in the midst of a very serious recession. I am concerned about that impact on Louisiana small business.

Sixth, and finally, Louisiana defenders of life. I am very proud to say Louisiana is one of the most pro-life States in the Nation--very strong values which hold up life and the defense of life in all its forms. Apparently--it is clear to me--this bill has taxpayer funding of abortion, the first time ever in Federal legislation, breaking tradition from the Hyde amendment, which has been the law since early 1977.

I am very concerned about that radical, truly radical departure from the past.

So in closing, let me say I hope we can adopt a different process, one that reflects the common sense of the American people and Louisianans when they say no arbitrary deadlines, no rush to judgment, and know what you are voting on. Also, I hope we will adopt a different approach that doesn't involve all of the downside I have mentioned, those six major categories.

I am still digesting this latest megabill. I will return to the Senate floor in the next few days to talk more and in more detail about those concerns I have laid out. But I hope all of my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, look hard at those and similar concerns, look hard at the process and resolve to not just do this quick, not just do it before Christmas by some arbitrary deadline, but to do it right and to honor the American people in our work.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to strongly support and urge all of my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, to support the upcoming Dorgan reimportation amendment which we will be voting on later today and, just as important, to oppose the Lautenberg amendment which, as everyone knows, is a poison pill to reimportation and is simply and surely a way to absolutely kill for all practical purposes the real Dorgan reimportation language.

To me, this is a crystal-clear choice, and it is the sort of choice the American people are really interested in and really watching. It is a choice between doing something that can make a difference in people's lives, something that can help people, that can solve a real problem in health care by doing something in a focused way or we can choose to keep to the big political deal that was made inside the beltway, inside the White House with the pharmaceutical industry. That is the choice. This is really a choice between voting for the American people or voting for politics as usual in Washington. That is what it all comes down to.

On the positive side, reimportation is a very real and very effective solution to a real problem. The problem is obvious. The problem is sky- high prescription drug prices--the highest in the world--that we as Americans pay. These same drugs are sold around the world, and in many different cases--in virtually every case--we pay the highest prices in the world right here in the United States even though we have the biggest marketplace for prescription drugs. That is the system we are trying to break up. So I want and supporters of this amendment want a true free market in prescription drugs, a world price that will lower the U.S. price and dramatically help U.S. consumers.

It is not just supporters of this amendment and this concept who are making these arguments; it is unbiased sources such as the Congressional Budget Office and others. The Congressional Budget Office says this amendment--this reimportation concept will save the Federal Government money, significant money, some $18 billion or more. And besides the savings to the Federal Government, the savings to the U.S. consumer are much greater--$80 billion or more.

So that is the positive choice--doing something real about a real problem. That is what the American people want us to do. They want us to focus on the real problems that exist in health care and attack those real problems in a focused way.

The other alternative is to keep the political deal, to vote yes for politics as usual in Washington. Tragically, that is what is represented by the political deal that was struck on this global health care bill between the White House and the White House's allies here in the Senate and the big pharmaceutical industry. It has been widely reported--it is no secret--that there was a deal between these bodies. The pharmaceutical industry agreed to support the President's initiative, putting as much as $150 million of TV advertising cash behind that support, if the White House would completely change its position on reimportation and other key points.

The record is clear: When President Obama served right here with us in the U.S. Senate, he was completely for reimportation. As a Presidential candidate, he campaigned vigorously for reimportation. Rahm Emanuel, the White House Chief of Staff, when he served in the U.S. House, was strongly for reimportation. But now, all that is off because Washington politics as usual has stepped in the way. They have reversed their position through this deal with PhRMA. Tragically, that has crept into the Senate Chamber as well. Key Senators on the Democratic side--Max Baucus and Jay Rockefeller and others--have reversed their position and apparently now are urging ``no'' votes for a policy they have long supported.

Well, we will know in a few hours who will be the winner--the American people, being given lower prescription prices, or PhRMA and politics as usual in Washington. Make no mistake about it, that is the choice. It couldn't be laid out in a clearer way. And to choose for the American people, to make real progress for lower prescription drug prices, we need to do not one but two things: first, to pass the Dorgan amendment, and second, and just as important, to defeat the Lautenberg amendment side-by-side, which would clearly, by all acknowledged sources, be a poison pill to reimportation--an easy way for the administration to ensure reimportation never happens.

I urge all of my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, to vote for lower prescription drug prices, to vote for the American people, and certainly to vote against Washington politics as usual, which the American people are so completely disgusted and fed up with. I urge that vote. Americans all around the country, in all our home States, will remember it and will thank us for it because we will actually be providing a real solution to a real problem and bringing them significantly lower prescription drug prices.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the Dorgan reimportation amendment of which I am a cosponsor. I am very glad to support this important amendment. It is a bipartisan effort.

Unfortunately, most of this debate and effort about the underlying bill is anything but bipartisan. This is a welcome contrast to that, a bipartisan effort around a very important reform proposal-- reimportation of prescription drugs.

We face an interesting situation. The United States is, by far, the biggest market for prescription drugs in the world. Yet with all that buying power and all that activity, we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world.

It is for a simple reason: We don't have a true worldwide free market in prescription drugs. We need to do that, in part, through reimportation.

Americans need lower prices. They need the sorts of prices being offered elsewhere. We need to break down this system by which the big drug companies can and do offer the same drugs at very different prices in different countries, and, of course, they offer them at the highest prices in the world in the United States. Americans should not have to choose between their lifesaving medicines and other basic needs, such as food and utility bills.

By voting for the Dorgan amendment and enacting comprehensive reimportation, we can directly address access to health care and truly lower health care costs, which I believe should be our top goal in this entire debate. That is what this amendment does. It gives Americans immediate relief from outrageously high prescription drug prices.

Our amendment allows individuals the freedom to buy their prescription drugs at affordable prices, while providing oversight to ensure that only FDA-approved and safe drugs are permitted.

Our amendment closes loopholes that big pharma has been using to fight reimportation, such as shutting down drugs to wholesalers who participate in reimportation.

Our amendment would close the poison-pill loophole requiring HHS certification, which has left it up to administrations to deny reimportation by making that comprehensive reimportation discretionary. It would shut down that poison-pill loophole.

We would make it mandatory that Americans have affordable choices for prescription drugs.

Many of us, Democrats and Republicans, and certainly including and starting with Senators Dorgan and Snowe, have long fought for this comprehensive solution. We have made important steps forward. The Senate has adopted amendments to allow personal reimportation. Just last year, we voted overwhelmingly, 73 to 23, that we need to enact this sort of comprehensive reimportation reform, and we have taken concrete steps, such as the personal reimportation provisions, some of which I have authored and passed through the Senate. But we need to go further, and we need this comprehensive approach.

Obviously, the big stumbling block in the way is the powerful pharmaceutical lobby, big pharma, which has spent millions in lobbying to stop this comprehensive approach. Just this past summer, Senator McCain read an e-mail on the Senate floor from a big pharma lobbyist outlining their strategy to derail those efforts in the Senate. More recently, there are reports that they may have struck a deal with the White House to derail these sorts of efforts and offered to spend tens of millions in support of so-called health care reform, perhaps with a deal to derail these efforts.

That is why I am so glad Democrats and Republicans are coming together around this amendment to say that enough is enough. We need to fight all of these backroom deals. We need to fight this pervasive influence by pharma and finally stand with average Americans and pass real, comprehensive reimportation reform that will bring down prices, bring down health care costs, which should be the top priority of all of us.

We all say we want to lower health care costs. That has been a big issue in this overall debate. Well, this amendment will absolutely do that. The Congressional Budget Office says that and independent analyses say that. Let's take an important step and do what we all say should be a top priority--actually lowering, in real terms, health care costs.

Again, I urge all of my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, to come together in a bipartisan way. I wish more of this debate and this effort was designed from the beginning to be truly bipartisan. But this amendment and this effort is. This amendment and this effort have been discussed for years. Let's finally get it done with a bipartisan vote to pass comprehensive reimportation.

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

Thank you, Madam President.

I strongly support the efforts of the distinguished Senator from Utah and his amendment offered along with Senator Nelson and Senator Casey. And I think this exchange and this colloquy is very helpful. In fact, I think it proves the point, particularly the participation of the Senator from Pennsylvania in it. The only folks who are defending the language in the Reid bill are folks who are clearly and strongly pro- choice, pro-abortion. Folks who have a fundamental problem with that all say the underlying language in the Reid bill has huge loopholes. That includes people who want to support the bill otherwise. I am strongly against this bill. I am not in that category. But, as the distinguished Senator, Mr. Brownback, mentioned, Representative Stupak wants to support the underlying bill. He supported it in the House, but he was very clear in his efforts on the House floor that the underlying language, which is now in the Reid bill, had huge loopholes, wasn't good enough, needed to be fixed. That is why he came up with the Stupak language, and that is essentially exactly what we have in this amendment.

Similarly, the U.S. Conference of Bishops is very supportive of the concepts of the underlying bill, but they have said clearly that the Reid bill is ``completely unacceptable'' on this abortion issue and ``is actually the worst bill we have seen so far on the life issues.''

So this colloquy involving the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania, I think that general debate proves the point clearly.

I again compliment the Senator from Utah, along with Senator Nelson, Senator Casey, and others--I am a cosponsor of the amendment--on this effort. We need to pass this on the bill. This will do away with the loophole. This will be real language to truly prohibit taxpayer funding of abortions. This constitutes exactly the same as that long tradition, since 1977, of the Hyde amendment. This marries the Stupak language, so it should be crystal-clear.

What will this amendment specifically do? It will mean there are no mandates for elective abortion coverage. Plans and providers are free from any government mandate for abortion under this amendment language. It would mean there is no Federal funding of elective abortion or plans that include elective abortion except in the case of when the life of the mother is in danger or in case of rape or incest. It means this amendment would allow individuals to purchase a supplemental policy or a plan that covers elective abortion as long as that separate policy is purchased completely with private dollars. It would prohibit the public plan from covering those elective abortions and prevent the Federal Government from mandating abortion coverage by any private plan. Insurance plans are not prevented from selling truly private abortion coverage, including through the exchange, but taxpayer dollars would have nothing--absolutely nothing--to do with it.

Bottom line: The effect on abortion funding and mandates is exactly the same as the long and distinguished tradition of the Hyde amendment with this amendment, and it would be exactly the same as the Stupak language on the House side.

I also agreed with the distinguished Senator from Utah when he said this should not be of any great controversy. Abortion is a deeply divisive issue in this country, but taxpayer dollars being used to pay for abortion is not. There is a broad and a wide and a deep consensus against using any taxpayer dollars to pay for abortion. The Senator from Utah mentioned polls. That is why the Hyde amendment has been longstanding since 1977. That is why it has been voted for and supported and passed again and again in Congresses with Democratic majorities and Republican majorities. It is a solid consensus. It does represent the common sense of the American people. Certainly, I will follow in a similar, proud tradition of Louisiana Senators supporting that consensus. Every U.S. Senator from Louisiana since the Hyde amendment was originally adopted has strongly supported this commonsense consensus view--every Senator. Everyone but me has been Democratic, but every sitting U.S. Senator from Louisiana has supported that commonsense consensus view, and I surely hope that tradition continues today.

Again, I applaud the Senator from Utah and his leading cosponsors, Senator Nelson and Senator Casey, on this effort, and I encourage all of my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, to come together around what the American people consider a real no-brainer, a true consensus, something that clearly reflects the common sense of the American people. Is abortion a divisive issue? Yes. Is using taxpayer dollars to fund abortion a close question? No. There is a clear consensus in America not to use any taxpayer dollars to fund abortion. It is crystal-clear that we need to pass this amendment, and the underlying language in the Reid bill is completely unacceptable.

With that, thank you, Madam President. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to talk about a very important topic on the floor right now, along with the Medicare issue; that is, preventive screenings and services, particularly for women. I want to focus on a very specific and important example of that, which is breast cancer screening through mammography, and also through the practice of self-examination.

This is very timely because 2 weeks ago, a U.S. government-endorsed panel issued new recommendations on this topic, which I believe, along with tens of millions of Americans, is a major step in the wrong direction. I think we need to focus on this recent action and talk about this and fix it in the context of this health care reform debate.

What am I talking about? Well, on Tuesday, November 17--literally just a couple weeks ago--the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which is an official government-sanctioned body--a task force about preventive medicine--issued new recommendations regarding breast cancer screening for women, including the use of mammography.

These new recommendations they came out with a couple weeks ago are a big step backward, a big retrenchment in terms of what the current state of knowledge is and what their previous recommendations were. Their new recommendations, just out 2 weeks ago, do four things that take a big step back on breast cancer screening.

No. 1, for women between the ages of 40 and 49, rather than get a routine mammogram every 2 years to screen for breast cancer, the task force said: Forget about that. We do not recommend that anymore. We step back from that recommendation.

No. 2, for women aged 50 to 74, the previous recommendation was to get a routine mammogram to screen against breast cancer every year. The task force, 2 weeks ago, stepped back from that and said: No, every other year is probably good enough. So not every year: every other year.

No. 3, for women over the age of 75, the previous recommendation was to have routine screening at least every 2 years. The new recommendation from the task force steps back from that and says: No, we do not recommend routine screening over the age of 75.

And, No. 4, the task force 2 weeks ago said: We no longer recommend breast self-examination by women to detect lumps to get treatment early. We do not believe in that. We do not think the science is clear on that. We step back from that.

Those are four huge changes in their previous recommendations. Those are four huge, new recommendations completely at odds with what I believe is the clear consensus in the medical community and the treatment community.

When I first read about these new U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendations, around November 17, I had the immediate reaction I just enunciated, but I said: I am not an expert. I am not a doctor. I am not a medical expert. I want to hear from folks who are much closer to this crucial issue than me. So my wife and I convened a roundtable discussion in Baton Rouge, LA. We had it on Monday, November 23. It was at the Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center. They were very kind to host it. It was cohosted by Women's Hospital in Baton Rouge. We had a great roundtable discussion featuring a lot of different people, including oncologists, other MDs, other medical experts, and including, maybe most importantly, several breast cancer survivors who literally lived through this issue themselves. Those breast cancer survivors were all women who got breast cancer and had it detected relatively early, in their forties. So they are exactly the group of people these new recommendations would work against because the new recommendations say don't get regular mammography screening in your forties.

Again, I was interested in hearing from the real experts, both medical experts and the survivors, what they thought about it. I wasn't very surprised, quite frankly, when they all had exactly the same reaction I did to these new U.S. Preventive Service Task Force recommendations. Everybody to a person said this is a big step backward. This will make us move in the wrong direction. Increased screening, early detection is a leading reason we are winning increasingly the fight against breast cancer. It is a leading reason we are doing so much better in this fight.

In that one room at the Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center, in a sense we had a snapshot through history and proof of the great gains we have made, including through early screening because, as I said, we had these survivors, all a supercause for celebration: Folks who had detected their cancer, most of them relatively early; all of them first got it and detected it either in their forties or some in their thirties. Unfortunately, in the same room, we had a life experience on the other end of the spectrum going back 40-plus years. That is my wife Wendy who lost her mother to breast cancer when she was 6 years old. One of the reasons is simple and straightforward and directly related to what we are talking about.

Back in the late 1960s when Wendy lost her mom to breast cancer there wasn't this same routine. There wasn't this emphasis on screening. There wasn't the recommendation for annual mammograms. There wasn't the educational push for self-examination. There wasn't that focus, and because of that, far more women, tragically, including Wendy's mother, died.

We have made huge progress since then. Again, the very life experiences in that one room in Baton Rouge proved that. The medical doctors and the oncologists, the other experts, as well as the breast cancer survivors, all made that point.

So I am standing on the Senate floor to urge us to take focused, specific action to legislatively repeal any impact of these new recommendations by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force issued in November.

This topic is on the Senate floor. It is on the floor through the Mikulski amendment. There is probably going to be a Republican alternative to that Mikulski amendment. My concern is, in terms of everything on the floor now, none of it directly, specifically takes back the impact of those new recommendations. I think that is the first matter we should all come together on, 100 to nothing, on this topic.

We can have a broader debate. We can have differences about the best approach to prevention and screening. But the first concrete, focused thing we should do right now on the Senate floor today is come together, 100 to nothing, to legislatively overrule any impact of those new recommendations. That is, again, what I have been hearing from experts not just in Baton Rouge, not just in that one room, but across the country; experts in terms of oncologists, other medical doctors, leaders of the cancer associations across the country and, perhaps most importantly, breast cancer survivors. I daresay that is what every Member of this body has heard from their States since those new recommendations came out around November 17.

So, again, whatever we do in this broader debate, I have a very simple, basic, focused suggestion. Let's show the American people we can come together around something on which I believe we all agree.

There is an expression: It is mom and apple pie. Well, this should be considered mom and apple pie because it is literally about mom and our wives and our daughters and, obviously, half the population. So let's come together around this issue, and let's legislatively overrule any legal impact, any legal consequence of these new task force recommendations of the U.S. Preventive Service Task Force.

That is what my Vitter amendment, No. 2808, does. I had hoped the amendments on the Senate floor on this general topic would do that already. Unfortunately, the one that is pending now, at least the Mikulski amendment, does not do that. In fact, in some ways it points to the new recommendations of the task force and holds up those new recommendations. Our current law holds up the current recommendations. I think because the new recommendations they promulgated around November 17 are so egregious, such a bad idea, because the consensus around the country starting with experts and oncologists is so clear that we should negate any impact of them. So, again, my Vitter amendment No. 2808, which is currently filed as a second-degree amendment to the Mikulski amendment, would do that.

Let me be perfectly clear and read my text because it is very short:

For the purposes of this Act, and for the purposes of any

other provision of law, the current recommendations of the

United States Preventive Service Task Force regarding breast

cancer screening, mammography, and prevention shall be

considered the most current other than those issued in or

around November 2009.

So what it does is simple. It says we are erasing, we are canceling out, any effect of those new recommendations made by the task force in and around November 2009. We are saying that never happened because the consensus is so clear against it.

Again, I expected the Mikulski amendment to do that directly. It doesn't do that. It does other things about prevention, which is fine. We can debate those points. We can have a discussion about that. But I think we need to all come together to absolutely, categorically, specifically, legislatively take back, overrule these new recommendations.

I am certainly eager to work with everyone in this body starting with Senator Mikulski, starting with Senator Murkowski, whom I believe may offer a Republican alternative to include this language. I hope this language, which seems to me is a no-brainer given the consensus on the topic, can be included in both of those amendments. It should be just accepted and included in the Mikulski amendment. It should be accepted and included in the Murkowski amendment. That would be my goal so that whatever happens on these votes, we come together in a unified way. Literally, it would in essence be 100 to nothing, to say: No, time out. These new recommendations of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force from November of

this year are a huge step backwards, a huge mistake. That is what the experts are saying. That is what oncologists are saying. That is what cancer specialists are saying. That is what leaders of cancer associations are saying. That is what, perhaps most importantly, breast cancer survivors are saying.

We can look at history in this country in the last several decades and happily point to real progress in this fight. One of the causes of that good news, that improvement since the late 1960s when my wife Wendy's mom passed away from breast cancer, clearly one of the underlying reasons, clearly one of the leading causes is dramatic improvement in this prevention and screening, using mammography, also educating about self-examination.

So, again, I have this second-degree amendment. My hope and my goal would be that this language, which should be noncontroversial, would be accepted on it, as well as any Republican alternative, and that whatever happens in terms of those votes, we come together and make crystal-clear that this task force of unelected bureaucrats--didn't include a single oncologist, by the way--made a big mistake and we are going to make sure those new recommendations don't have any impact in terms of law, in terms of government programs, in terms of legal impact on insurance companies.

Again, I look forward to working with everyone on the floor, including Senator Mikulski, including Senator Murkowski and others to pass this language. It should be a no-brainer. It is mom and apple pie. Let's pass it and at least in this focused way come together and do the right thing in direct reaction to something that just happened 2 weeks ago.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

I object.

Mr. President, reserving my right to object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I certainly concur with the distinguished majority whip's goal of more amendments and more votes.

With regard to this very important screening and mammography issue, my goal has been a very focused one. I have a filed second-degree amendment that has a very simple, focused objective, which I believe is extremely noncontroversial. I believe it would be supported by everyone in this body, and that is simply to ensure that there is no legal force and effect to the recent recommendations issued in November of 2009 by the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force with regard to breast cancer screening, use of mammography, and self-examination.

As everyone knows, those new recommendations were shocking in that they took a giant step back from the previous recommendations and took a giant step back in terms of recommended screening, which virtually every expert I know of strongly disagrees with.

So this filed, simple second-degree amendment simply says that those new recommendations of November of this year have no force and effect. I will read the amendment. It is very short. To be clear, it does nothing more than that.

[F]or the purposes of this Act, and for the purposes of any

other provision of law, the current recommendations of the

United States Preventive Service Task Force regarding breast

cancer screening, mammography, and prevention shall be

considered the most current other than those issued in or

around November 2009.

So we are simply ensuring that those new recommendations--which I strongly disagree with, experts strongly disagree with, I believe all of my colleagues do--have no legal force and effect. So I would simply ask that the unanimous consent proposed be modified so that the Mikulski amendment incorporates this language. I would propose that as an alternative unanimous consent request.

Yes, I continue to reserve my right to object. I am very disappointed about objecting to this important and what should be noncontroversial provision. I would suggest another solution, which is to take the unanimous consent request on the floor and modify it so there is simply a vote on this second-degree amendment, amendment No. 2808, immediately before the vote on the Mikulski amendment.

Mr. President, reserving my right to object, again, I am very disappointed to hear that. I have approached both sides. Senator Murkowski has incorporated similar language, and I was hoping we could come together, 100 to nothing, to actually pass this on to the bill, whichever alternative tomorrow is voted up--and maybe they both will be--but whichever is voted up or whichever is voted down, I think it is very important to come together and state that we don't want these new task force recommendations to have any force and effect.

So let me propose a third and final alternative unanimous consent request: that at any point after these votes, but before cloture is filed on the pending matter, this amendment No. 2808 receive a vote on the Senate floor as a first-degree amendment to the underlying bill.

Mr. President, if I could----

Mr. President, reserving my right to object, just so I can respond directly, I didn't mean to cut the Senator off. If he has any further statement, I will be happy to listen to it. But just so I can respond directly, the first thing today, I approached both those Members and everyone involved in this debate about this language and certainly the majority side has had this language for at least 7\1/2\ hours. The equivalent of this language has been incorporated into the Murkowski amendment, but my hope is that the same thing be accepted in the Mikulski amendment because it is not clear which is going to be adopted. I don't see the great controversy here. So that was my hope. And that is why I approached those two Senators and the majority side 7\1/2\ hours ago about it with specific language.

So I renew my last unanimous consent request I made in that spirit.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, merely to respond through the Chair, I would say I have been working in that spirit. I have given the language to the majority side. I have been working both at the staff level and Member level with many folks. This should be noncontroversial. I don't know of any Senator who disagrees with this. So I will accept that offer. I will not object to this pending unanimous consent, but I truly hope the offer is made in good faith because I believe, when anyone reads this language, they will agree with it.

Again, it simply says these latest recommendations by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, made 2 weeks ago, will not have any legal force and effect. I believe all of us--certainly, it is my impression and, I guess, we will find out tomorrow morning--I believe all of us want to stop them from having force and effect because it is a great step backward in terms of breast cancer screening and mammography and even education about self-examination.

So I certainly take that offer and look forward to the majority side rereading this language and hopefully accepting it tomorrow morning because I can't imagine, on substantive grounds, objecting to the language.

Thank you. With that, I will not object.

Madam President, I rise to share the same sorts of concerns as my colleague from South Dakota. I share the concerns, more importantly, of citizens all across Louisiana who have echoed those same thoughts to me over and over again as I have traveled the State. Like so many of my colleagues, I have spent a lot of time these last few months reaching out to my constituents, my fellow citizens in Louisiana, in every part of the State.

During the August recess, obviously, there were lots of townhall meetings around the Nation. I held 21 in Louisiana, in every corner of the State. Since then, I have held six more townhall meetings. I continue to do other types of outreach. For instance, yesterday--since we had a 1-day opportunity--I flew home specifically to do a few things, including having a roundtable of doctors, including two past presidents of the AMA, other health care providers, small business representatives, leaders in the pro-life community, and it was a roundtable discussion specifically to focus on the Reid bill.

In all that process, since the August recess and even before, I have heard certain themes over and over again, no matter where I was in Louisiana. One of those themes was great concern about what this Congress is thinking of doing on health care but not just because of the significance of health care, which is vitally important, which is personal to every American, but also because of how it fits into a trend so many Louisianians and so many Americans are seeing over the past year--a trend of dramatically increasing Federal Government power and intervention and dramatically increasing Federal Government spending and debt.

People have been passionate about health care. Again, part of that is because that is a very personal issue, and a bill such as this affects literally every single American. But, again, a big part of it has been that Louisianians are also connecting the dots. They see a bigger picture, which concerns them. Louisianians have been connecting the dots to a government takeover of banks and insurance companies and car companies, with the CEO of GM literally being fired and hired in the Oval Office, and now, potentially, one-sixth of the U.S. economy through health care.

So there is a broader concern and theme I have heard over and over, which is an explosion of Federal Government power and intervention and an explosion of Federal Government spending and debt. This bill, unfortunately, does nothing except to confirm my constituents' worst fears in that regard. It is more of the same. It is more of that theme. It is another big dot they will be connecting in that trend, and I share that concern.

One specific issue that goes to that concern is the so-called government option or public option because that strikes a lot of people, including me, as a big, open door to dramatically increasing the Federal Government's role and dominance in health care in our country--one-sixth of our economy. Why do I say that? I truly believe the government option--if this bill passed or anything similar to it passed--would be the dominant option overnight and, perhaps, the only option in a few years.

Let me explain why. I will just point to one provision, which is the so-called pay-or-play mandate on business. Under this Senator Reid bill, as under previous versions of this idea, such as the Senate HELP Committee bill, a business--virtually any business in the country-- would, for the first time, have a legal mandate, and the mandate would be to provide health insurance up to a certain minimum defined by Federal bureaucrats or the business would have a choice. The choice would be, if you do not want to provide that health insurance, well, you can write a penalty or fee check to the government instead.

What is wrong with that? Well, the penalty or fee check in this bill is pretty much set at $750 per employee per year. How does that equate into a business's bottom line in the choice businesses would face? Well, businesses that do provide health insurance nationally pay an average of not $750 per employee per year but $6,100 per employee per year. So what sort of choice do you think that is going to present to business? What sort of result would you expect?

In this brave new world, if the bill passes, everyone is guaranteed coverage in some form or fashion, and business has a choice: $6,100 per employee per year or $750 per employee per year. I think, for a lot of small businesses under extreme competitive pressure, that is not going to be a hard choice. It is going to be an easy choice. The result for tens of millions of Americans who have coverage now they are reasonably satisfied with through their employer, the result is going to be getting dumped off that coverage, with businesses saying: Well, there are other options now. There is the government option. Good luck. We can't afford it. We have to be competitive. We have to go with our bottom-line decision--$6,100 per employee per year or $750 per employee per year. I think the clear result will be tens of millions of Americans getting dumped off coverage they have now that they are reasonably satisfied with.

Do not take my word for it. Other outside experts, the Lewin Group and others, say dumping will occur and could, in fact, be massive; tens of millions of Americans--under their analysis of a previous bill that had largely the same provisions--over 110 million Americans. So that is a problem with regard to ballooning Federal Government intervention, power, domination of the marketplace.

Again, as I said a few minutes ago, another part of that theme and concern I heard over and over was ballooning Federal Government spending and debt. Here again, this Reid bill does nothing to allay those fears. In fact, it does a lot to increase those fears.

There has been a lot of talk and a lot of reports of the CBO score of $848 billion over 10 years. First of all, $848 billion is a lot of money. That is a lot of Federal Government spending and growth. It is hard to get your hands around that figure. What does that mean? If someone had started spending $1 million a day when Jesus Christ was born and kept spending $1 million a day, we would not yet be up to that figure. So that is a lot of money.

But what is worse, that figure is artificially low. The true cost of the bill is much greater. There are a number of budget gimmicks the ranking member on Budget, Senator Gregg, and others have talked about that prove that $848 billion figure is truly low compared to the full cost of the bill.

What am I talking about? Well, the biggest budget gimmick is the fact that the spending side of the bill does not kick in for the first 4 years. The tax side, of course, as always, kicks in immediately. So the tax increases, the fee increases, et cetera, kick in immediately. But the benefit spending side of the bill does not kick in for the first 4 years. So that is what will occur in the first 10 years of the bill's life, should it be passed. Therefore, in that CBO score of the first 10 years, what the CBO is scoring is 10 years of tax increases and only 6 years of spending. So that is a huge budget gimmick which helps produce that artificially low $848 billion or so.

In fact, we should be looking at the first 10 years of full implementation; in other words, the first 10 years when not only all the tax provisions are kicked in but everything on the benefits spending side is kicked in. That is basically from 2014 to 2024. What are the numbers there when you look at the real first 10 years, the first 10 years of full implementation? The real numbers are not $848 billion--as big a figure as that is, spending $1 million a day since Jesus Christ was born and you still would not be up to it--but there the analysis is $2.5 trillion over 10 years.

Again, Louisianians see this, Americans see this as another big dot to connect, part of a huge trend of exploding Federal Government power and exploding Federal Government spending and debt. What does that represent in terms of that explosion of spending and debt? It also represents enormous new taxes, and that goes to the cost issue my distinguished colleague from South Dakota was talking about.

When I talk to Louisianians specifically about health care--not just these

broader trends and these broader concerns they are very focused on but specifically health care; OK, we have to fix certain issues in health care--what is the top issue? Virtually everyone in Louisiana says cost, ballooning cost. Whether they have coverage now or they are struggling to get coverage, the issue is cost. What can we do about cost?

Again, this bill does nothing to fix that. It makes it worse. As was illustrated with Senator Thune's graph, it pushes the cost curve up and not down. Part of the reason it does that is, in that $2.5 trillion of activity there are enormous taxes, and those taxes become built into health insurance premiums. So premiums do not go down, they go up. They go up in a major way.

What are some of these we are talking about--again, enormous tax increases, enormous tax increases across the board, taxes on choice and well-being. Flexible spending which allows individuals to have a tax- free account for medical needs, that is limited. That is downgraded and capped at $2,500 a year. Taxes on over-the-counter medicines that many patients' families and seniors depend on, that is a tax increase of $5 billion; reduced deductions for health expenses, again, another tax increase; higher Medicare payroll taxes; the rate on wages in excess of $200,000, a very large tax increase; over and over again, major tax increases. The bill would impose $28 billion in new taxes on employers that do not provide government-approved health care plans. There is a tax increase of $53.8 billion, over 10 years, in terms of the Medicare population.

So, again, there are huge tax increases that are part of that, and that is the major reason that cost curve is not being pushed down. In fact, it is being pushed up.

As I approach this bill, after looking at it carefully over the last few days, my first bottom-line question is: How does it respond to those dominant concerns I have heard over and over again from Louisiana citizens all across the State over the last several months? What does it do about ballooning Federal spending and debt? What does it do about the growth of government power and intervention and the cost of health care?

Sadly, it fails on all those accounts. It moves us in the wrong direction on all those accounts. So I urge my colleagues to adopt a different approach, to vote no tonight, to not move to this approach, to adopt a far more focused, positive approach that responds directly to those concerns of the American people.

I yield back my time.

Madam President, I rise to talk about the Kerry-Boxer climate change bill which, sadly, was reported out of the EPW Committee, contrary to its rules and precedents, without any discussion or amendment.

First of all, let me underscore that I think it is very unfortunate that a 1,000-page bill, a bill with enormous potential impact on our economy--indeed, on our way of life--was pushed out of committee with no Republicans being present, with not a single amendment being considered, and, in my opinion, directly contrary to the very rules and precedents of the committee. But I want to focus on specific provisions of the bill that are particularly troubling to me that underscore how serious a matter this is and what an enormous impact it could have on our economy and, indeed, on our way of life.

I guess in many ways the title of the presentation is ``Why Carbon Credits Don't Matter.'' So many folks, so many companies, so many people particularly within the beltway are concerned about their allocation of carbon credits. But because of these significant sections in the bill which also exist word-for-word in the Waxman-Markey bill, the carbon credits will not matter because sections 705 and 707 will shut down significant economic activity, no matter what carbon credits certain people and certain companies have.

Let me explain what I am talking about. Section 705(e) and section 707 are very important in the bill. Basically, section 705(e) says that we are to track the global measurement of greenhouse gas emissions and specifically to see if they are held below a threshold set in the bill, a goal set in the bill of 450 parts per million carbon dioxide equivalent. Then section 707 says that, beginning July 1, 2015, if the global concentrations are above this 450 parts per million line, then:

. . . the President shall direct relevant Federal agencies

to use existing statutory authority to take appropriate

actions identified in the reports submitted under sections

705 and 706 and to address any shortfalls identified in such

reports.

What does that mean? That means if you bust this 450 parts per million line, the President does not have authority to take action; he is mandated to take every administrative action possible, to use every agency in the Federal Government under him--he shall direct them to address whatever shortfalls there are between that 450 parts per million line and where the measurements are.

One significant factor in all of this, whether we can ever reach that goal of limiting greenhouse gases to 450 parts per million, is what other countries, particularly the developing world, are going to do.

One thing that is really problematic with this entire plan is the G5 developing countries and Russia have made it crystal clear that they will not accept any hard caps. I cite here a clear quote from a top Chinese Foreign Ministry official, a clear quote from the Minister of State for Environment of India and the top economic adviser of Russia's President about that issue. All of these statements and many more make it crystal clear that the G5 and Russia will not accept any such hard cap.

This is a pretty significant issue. Because of this, I wrote to the EPA on July 15 and asked several questions. One is basic to this issue: What does your modeling say if the G5 and Russia reject hard caps? That is a pretty significant scenario because it seems pretty clear that it is the scenario that will happen based on the statements of those countries. The EPA answered that it has not even analyzed that scenario. These other countries have made it clear they are going to reject hard caps. The EPA has not analyzed this scenario.

Because of that, I then went to the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. That is the leading modeling expert in these matters that Federal Government agencies, starting with the EPA, depend upon. In fact, the EPA helped direct us to this laboratory. I asked the same question: What does the modeling say if the G5 and Russia reject hard caps as they have absolutely promised to do? The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory answered that none of the models they use--and they use 10 models--none of those models, under this scenario, produced global concentrations at or below 450 ppm of CO- equivalent greenhouse gases. So under all of those models we break through this goal set in the bill.

This chart shows what DOE's specific Northwest National Laboratory model predicts when the G5 and Russia reject all hard caps. Already we are in the four hundreds. In about 1 year we break through the 450 limit--451. Then it goes up from there.

What does that mean in the context of this legislation and, specifically, the sections I talked about a minute ago? Well, the legislation says that on July 1, 2015, if this green line is above 450, then the President is mandated to take whatever action is necessary: Use all tools available to get us back to this 450 limit.

Under this scenario, the G5 and Russia rejecting hard caps, which is an absolute certainty based on their clear pronouncements, this mandate, under those significant sections of the legislation, both Kerry-Boxer and Waxman-Markey, exactly the same language in both, this mandate goes into effect and would absolutely go into effect.

What does that mean? Well, the first thing it means is carbon credits, which everybody is so focused on, so many people and companies are fixated on, carbon credits will not matter if your project, if your economic activity takes any discretionary Federal permit because, beginning July 1, 2015, the President will be mandated, not authorized, not encouraged, nothing is suggested, he will be mandated to take

any action possible to get us down to that limit. That would include denying all discretionary permit requests.

What else does it mean? It means, under that mandate in the law, you can bet that every leftwing environmental group in the world, much less in this country, will sue to block all economic activity that requires discretionary permits. Quite frankly, they will have a very compelling case. They will point to this legislative language, if it is enacted, and say: Time out. The President is not just authorized to do this, the President is not just encouraged to do this, the President is mandated to take every action he can, which clearly would include denying all discretionary permits to push that curve, that green curve, back down to 450 or as low as it can go.

So what does that mean? That means carbon credits are meaningless if you need a discretionary permit for certain economic activity or for any new economic project. This is a very important aspect of the bill. Again, it is in Kerry-Boxer. Exactly the same language is also in Waxman-Markey as it passed the full House of Representatives.

This gives an enormous mandate to the President of the United States to absolutely take action once those global greenhouse gas emissions get above 450. So my message is clear, particularly to the companies that have supported this legislation because they have been assured certain carbon credits.

The message is clear: Carbon credits will not matter if any of your activities, if any of your new projects or proposed projects requires any discretionary Federal permit. To deliver that message, crystal clear, to those companies, in particular, tomorrow I am writing to a significant leading handful of those companies that so far have supported the legislation, pointing out the enormous impact of those sections, 705 and 707, and asking them to focus very clearly on what it means to their projects, to their economic activity, to their bottom line because, again, carbon credits will not matter once this enormous mandate and authority of the President goes into effect.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise again in strong support of my amendment No. 2644 to the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill. It is coauthored by the distinguished Senator Bennett from Utah, and it is strongly supported by many other Members.

There has been a lot said about this amendment, most of it inaccurate, so let me step back and start with what the amendment says. It is pretty simple, pretty straightforward when you actually read it.

The amendment simply requires the census that we are set to take next year to ask whether the respondent is a citizen. The amendment does not do anything but that. It simply says: The census should ask folks if they are citizens. It is very straightforward.

We should count every person in the United States. The census should include everyone, but in so doing, I am encouraging, and my amendment would require, that the census ask if an individual is a citizen.

Compared to that statement of policy, that simple goal, it is absolutely mind-boggling to me some of the statements that have been made about it. First, the distinguished majority leader Senator Reid admitted in several conference calls and statements to the press that he is trying to invoke cloture on this bill specifically to block out any vote, any discussion of the Vitter amendment.

Secondly, in saying that, the majority leader called my amendment ``anti-immigrant.'' I honestly don't see how any reasonable person can say that when we take a census and we simply ask whether the respondent is a citizen or a noncitizen--and plenty of noncitizens are here legally--that is anti-immigrant.

Third, and perhaps most outrageously, Senator Reid said my effort is akin to the activities in the 1950s and 1960s to intimidate Black citizens and try to get them to stay away from voting in the voting booth. I take personal offense to that. I think there is no reasonable comparison, and I ask Senator Reid to apologize to me for that outrageous statement on the Senate floor.

As I said, what the amendment does is simple. It says that the census should ask whether a respondent is a citizen or not. Why is that important? Well, for at least two reasons. First of all, the census is an enormously important tool we in Congress are supposed to use-- information and statistics--as we tackle any number of significant issues and Federal programs. Certainly it is a very significant and important issue that we deal with the immigration problem and the issue of illegal immigration. And certainly it is useful to know, if we are going to spend $14 billion to do a census, who within that number are citizens and who within that number are noncitizens.

Secondly, and even more important, the top thing the census is used for, the first thing the census is used for is to reapportion the U.S. House of Representatives, to determine after each census is done how many U.S. House Members each State gets. The current plan is to count everybody and not ask whether a person is a citizen or a noncitizen. So the current plan is to reapportion House seats using that overall number--using both citizens and noncitizens in the mix. I think that is wrong. I think that is contrary to the whole intent of the Constitution and the establishment of Congress as a democratic institution to represent citizens. I believe only citizens should be in that particular calculation for the reapportionment of the U.S. House of Representatives.

This is a significant issue for many States, including my State of Louisiana. It has a very big and direct and concrete impact on Louisiana and certain other States. It comes down to this: If the census is done next year and reapportionment happens using everybody-- citizens and noncitizens--Louisiana is going to lose a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. We will lose one-seventh of our standing there, our representation there, our clout. If the census was done and only the number of citizens was used to determine reapportionment, Louisiana would not lose that House seat. We would retain seven seats. So that has a very big and direct impact on my State of Louisiana.

I would also point out that it will have the same impact in seven other States: North Carolina, South Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Michigan, Iowa, and Indiana--excuse me, eight other States. So a total of nine States are in this position, Louisiana being one of them. So it is a very significant issue that directly impacts many citizens and many States.

So I urge all of my colleagues to support getting a vote on the Vitter amendment by denying cloture on the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill. However you may vote, this is an important issue, and however you may vote, we need a full debate and a vote. In particular, I would urge my colleagues from North Carolina, South Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Michigan, Iowa, Indiana, and, of course, Louisiana to vote no on cloture so we can examine this very significant issue and so we can have a vote on the Vitter-Bennett amendment.

There has been discussion in at least two areas that I wish to quickly address. One is some discussion in the press, including from my distinguished colleague from Louisiana, Senator Landrieu, who has indicated that what I just laid out in terms of the impact on reapportionment isn't true. Well, I think every expert who has looked at this, every demographer who has looked at this agrees with what I just said, that this factor is the difference between Louisiana losing a House seat or not and these other States losing a House seat or not.

I would point out three experts, but there are many others. Dr. Elliott Stonecipher, demographer from Louisiana, has been leading the charge on this issue. I compliment him for his tenacity and his hard work. But there are others as well. In an October 27, 2009, New York Times article, my numbers were again confirmed by Andrew Beverage, professor of sociology at Queens College, New York. He did an independent analysis and said exactly the same thing, that, yes, this issue of whether we use citizens and noncitizens in reapportionment does make that huge difference for those States. And last week, my analysis and my numbers were confirmed yet again by an independent and well-respected demographic expert--again in my State of Louisiana--Greg Rigamer with GCR and Associates. And that is very significant.

Secondly, I wish to briefly address this cost issue. It is interesting that in this debate, the other side has been flailing around for an argument against my amendment, though nobody has argued-- or nobody whom I have heard--that reapportionment should be done counting citizens and noncitizens, and that is more consistent with the notion of Congress being the representative body of citizens of the United States. So folks on the other side are wildly flailing around for some argument, and the one they have come across is cost: Oh my goodness, the census would have to incur additional cost to add this to the form.

Well, it is certainly true that it would cost some more. I can't give you a precise dollar figure, but it would cost something more. It is certainly true it would have been better for this to have been caught and debated earlier rather than later. Unfortunately, the committee of jurisdiction, the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which reviews the census forms, did not bring this issue up in a significant way. I agree with that. I don't agree with this wild figure that it would cost $1 billion.

Let me point out a couple of things. First of all, the cost of the census has ballooned from the last census. The last census was $3.4 billion; this census is going to be $14 billion. So the first thing I would say, quite honestly, is that it is pretty ironic for an agency that has had a budget balloon from $3.4 billion in the last census to $14 billion this census to say they can't squeeze in that question, that they can't do it right for $14 billion.

Secondly, quite frankly, the Census Bureau has a horrendous record in terms of cost estimates. When they threw out this very large, very round figure of it costing an additional $1 billion, I called them and said: OK, can you give us the rationale for that, the background on that cost estimate? After 3 weeks of asking for the data behind that $1 billion claim, they sent us one piece of paper with 10 bullet points on it, all very general statements and suggestions, with a final bottom line being a nice even round figure of $1 billion--very unimpressive, in my opinion, in terms of any precise accounting for $1 billion.

I would also draw everyone's attention to an October 7, 2009, GAO report delivered to the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security. It was about the census. In that report, the GAO said:

Given the Bureau's past difficulties in developing credible

and accurate cost estimates, we are concerned about the

reliability of the figures that were used to support the 2010

budget.

In another example, the Office of the Inspector General filed a report in 2008 about the census. In that report, the office inspected a particular cost estimate from the Census Bureau that came up to $494 million for a certain portion of their activity, and they said: We think this is a wildly inflated figure, and we can immediately identify cost savings that bring it down to $348 million--a significant savings of almost $150 million. When the Census Bureau was confronted with that, they had to agree and they had to adopt the lower figure.

So, Mr. President, the bottom line is simple: We do a census every 10 years. It is a very important event. We need to do it right, and to do it right, we need a full debate and a vote on this central question embodied by the Vitter-Bennett amendment. So I urge all of my colleagues to vote no on cloture of the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill to demand a reasonable debate and vote on the Vitter-Bennett amendment. This is an important question, and we simply shouldn't forge ahead. Americans have a fundamental problem with not even asking the citizenship question and therefore forging ahead with a plan to reapportion the entire U.S. House of Representatives by putting noncitizens in the mix, when the whole notion of our representative democracy and of Congress is to represent the citizens of the country.

I urge my colleagues to support that position, and I thank my colleagues who have done so thus so far. In particular, I urge my colleagues from North Carolina, South Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Michigan, Iowa, Indiana, and certainly Louisiana to stand up for their States, to stand up for their interests, to stand up for their clout and their representation in the U.S. House of Representatives.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to join my distinguished colleague from Alabama, as well as our colleague from South Carolina, who will come to the floor soon to talk about this Department of Homeland Security Appropriations conference report and specifically the major provisions which had broad bipartisan support which were stripped out of the conference report in the dead of night. I wish to thank my colleague from Alabama for all his work on this issue in general, particularly the E-Verify system. I strongly support the E-Verify system. I strongly support expanding it aggressively. It is part of a solution. It is not the whole solution; no one item is. But it is an important part of the solution to get our hands around immigration enforcement, particularly at the workplace. So I thank my colleague for that work.

Absolutely, I will yield.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

I absolutely agree with my colleague.

I would point out in that vein, the Sessions amendment got broad support. When the Democratic leadership handling the bill on the floor asked to table the amendment, that was rejected 53 to 44. In a similar way, they attempted to table the amendment of our colleague from South Carolina, and that motion was defeated 54 to 44. My amendment was adopted by unanimous consent. Yet with that clear support from the Senate floor, the leadership on the other side apparently went to conference and took out those amendments in the dead of night. I find that worrisome. I find it worrisome in terms of the process. I find it worrisome in terms of immigration reform and where we are apparently headed.

Again, as I said, these were three significant amendments put in this bill on the Senate floor. All three have been stripped out of this conference report.

Let me focus for a minute on my proposal. When the bill was on the Senate floor, my amendment, which was Senate amendment No. 1375, was passed by unanimous consent. So literally no one in the entire body, Democratic or Republican, objected. Essentially, everyone agreed to put this amendment on the bill. The amendment was to prohibit funding to the Department of Homeland Security if they implemented any changes in a final rule requiring employees to follow the rules of the Federal Social Security no-match notices. This, as E-Verify, is an important piece of the puzzle. It is an important piece of the solution.

In August of 2007, the Department of Homeland Security introduced its no-match regulation. This clarified the responsibility of employers who receive notice that their employees' names and Social Security numbers don't match up with the records at Social Security.

So under the rule, employers receiving these notices who did not take corrective action would be deemed to have constructive knowledge that they are employing unauthorized aliens. So, in other words, the intent and the way the rule worked was very simple and straightforward. If records went in to the Department of Homeland Security, if a name and a Social Security number didn't match according to Social Security records, then the Federal Government would notify the employer and would say: Time out; you have a problem. You need to do something about it. If it is a mistake, we need to figure that out, but otherwise it seems as though you are hiring an illegal. So stop and either clear up the mistake or do not hire that person.

This rule provided employers with clear guidance on the appropriate due diligence they should undertake if they received that sort of letter from the Federal Government. So employers who received no-match letters would know they have a problem: Either their record keeping needs to be improved or they have hired illegal workers. The DHS no- match rule gives companies that want to follow the law a clear path to safety. Companies that prefer to ignore the problem or have chosen to run their business with illegal labor cannot be forced to act responsibly, so they do so at their peril under this rule. Since the Social Security letter leaves a clear record for DHS investigators to build a case against employers, it makes the entire system far more workable.

My amendment simply said we are going to keep that new rule in place. It is important for enforcement. It is important for workplace enforcement. It is important to get our hands around the problem of illegal immigration because of the common sense behind that concept. My amendment was adopted on the Senate floor unanimously, by unanimous consent.

As I said, Senator Sessions had an important amendment which he just talked about to expand the E-Verify system. That amendment was actually opposed by some, and there was a motion to table the amendment, but that motion to table was defeated 53 to 44. Similarly, Senator DeMint of South Carolina had an important immigration enforcement amendment. He will be coming to the floor to talk about that this afternoon. His amendment required the completion of at least 700 miles of reinforced fencing along the southwest border by December 31, 2010. Again, his amendment was opposed by some liberals on the Senate floor. They moved to table that amendment but, again, by a significant vote that motion to table was defeated 54 to 44.

So if these amendments are adopted by comfortable, if not unanimous, margins in the Senate, why are they being stripped in the dead of night in the conference committee report? Unfortunately, I think it is clear this Congress, under the Democratic leadership, and this administration want to take a very different approach to immigration, and they are not serious about any of these enforcement measures.

I think that is a shame because these three amendments and other good enforcement ideas I believe represent the common sense of the vast majority of the American people. To me, this harkens back to the major immigration reform debate we had in the summer of 2007 when a big so- called comprehensive immigration reform bill came to the floor of the Senate. It didn't have enough enforcement, in my opinion. It did have a huge amnesty program instead. So by the end of the debate, the American people spoke loudly and clearly. They said: No, we want enforcement. We want to do everything we can on the enforcement side first. We don't want a big amnesty.

That so-called comprehensive bill was defeated by a wide margin. After that seminal event, so many on the Senate floor, including many who had backed that bill, Senator McCain among them, said: OK, we heard the American people. We heard you loudly and clearly. We need to start with effective enforcement. We need to start with commonsense measures, such as a certain amount of fencing, such as E-Verify, such as the Social Security no-match rule. Yet when we put those commonsense measures in this bill, what happened? In this Congress, led by Democratic leadership, under this administration, it was just stripped out of the conference committee report.

Sure, it got big votes on the Senate floor; sure, it has widespread House

support; sure, the Vitter amendment was adopted by unanimous consent. We don't care. We are going to strip it out.

The message is loud and clear. The message is, we don't care what the American people have said. We don't care what they said in the summer of 2007. We don't care what they say over and over and over again about these issues--no-match, E-Verify, fencing--we are just going to oppose any of those commonsense enforcement measures.

I truly believe the second half of where the leadership in this Congress and this administration is coming from is the same thing as the second half of that immigration reform bill in 2007: a big amnesty program with little to no enforcement, a big amnesty program.

We need to listen to the American people. We don't need to play games and say we are supporting provisions and then have them stripped out of conference reports. We need to be more straightforward, more honest in what we are truly about in attacking this problem. Unfortunately, this conference report is an example of exactly the opposite.

I urge my colleagues to pay attention to what is happening because so many folks in this body are speaking out of both sides of their mouth. They are saying: Oh, yes, fence, sure; E-Verify, absolutely; social security no-match, sure. Then they get certain leaders of the conference committee to do their dirty work and just strip those provisions. They are ignoring the will of the American people. They are rejecting commonsense enforcement, and according to many reports, the Obama administration and its leaders in the Congress are going to attempt another push for broad-based amnesty.

We need to listen to the American people and not play games. In particular, we need to stop this game playing overall. Senator Sessions, my distinguished colleague from Alabama, was right when he said these sorts of antics--talking out of both sides of our mouths on this issue, stripping so-called popular amendments from a conference committee report--these antics are exactly what is eroding confidence in Congress overall. This is exactly what the American people are so frustrated and, in fact, so scared about with regard to many other issues, such as health care.

I believe this is of real concern as we go into the health care debate because, quite frankly, what does it matter what we adopt on the Senate floor when the conference committee work is going to be handled, perhaps, just like this Homeland Security conference committee was. People can have little confidence based on our votes on the Senate floor. The conference committee work can be diametrically opposed to it on significant issue after significant issue, just as it was on no match, on E-Verify, on fencing.

We need to stop eroding public confidence in that way. We need to do what is, in fact, our first job in the Congress, House and Senate, which is to listen to the American people and, yes, represent the American people.

I am afraid this DHS conference report, with its significant omissions in the area of Social Security no match, E-Verify, and fencing, is a sign that this leadership in Congress and this administration are not prepared to do any of that. I lament that.

I urge all of our colleagues to come back together and demand progress on E-Verify, on no match, and on fencing, and to stop this game playing as we move to other crucial issues, including health care.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

THE PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware is recognized.

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

Mr. President, I stand to urge all of my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, to support having a vote on Vitter amendment No. 2466 to the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill.

Unfortunately, the majority leader and others have been working quite hard to block that vote. I believe this issue demands attention, demands focus, demands reasonable debate, and a vote.

What is this issue? This is the revised version of my amendment to that appropriations bill:

None of the funds provided in this Act or any other act for

any fiscal year may be used for collection of census data

that does not include a question regarding United States

Citizenship.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record my amendment.

Mr. President, the point is very simple. A big decennial census is coming up next year. Under the current plans of the Census Bureau, we are going to count everybody in the country--and that is fine--but we are not going to distinguish, we are not going to know the difference between citizens and noncitizens. I think that is not fine, I think that is crazy, and I think it will lead to some dangerous results.

First of all, the whole purpose of a census is to give us maximum information, maximum tools we can use in a whole host of policy debates and Federal programs. Certainly, it is useful to know both the overall number of persons in the country but also the subcategories of citizens and noncitizens. That is particularly relevant because the immigration debate is important, and we need to get our hands around that issue.

Secondly, and even more important, it is important because I believe when we use the census for congressional redistricting for determining how many U.S. House seats each State gets, we should count citizens, but we should not count in that context noncitizens, including illegal aliens.

I think it is crazy, nutty, and I think the average American certainly agrees that we would determine how many U.S. House Members every State gets to represent it in the Congress and count noncitizens, including illegal aliens. I do not think the Founding Fathers set up a democracy--in many ways one of the most important democratic institutions in history in the U.S. Congress--to represent noncitizens. Why are we not adding in the entire population of France or Belgium or Brazil? For obvious reasons, because this is a democracy to represent citizens of the United States.

Of course, we can only avoid that in terms of congressional reapportionment if we know the subcategories of the count, citizens versus noncitizens. I urge all of my colleagues to support having a vote on this Vitter amendment to the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill and then, of course, when we get to a vote--and we will--hopefully, on this bill but sometime in the near future--I assure you, we will--to support in a bipartisan way this amendment.

Let me make two final points. First of all, I have made every reasonable attempt to get this vote. I had two other amendments on the list for votes on this bill that were important to me and I think are important substantively. I have told, through our representatives, the majority leader and his office that I will forgo votes on those two other amendments. We need a vote on this crucial amendment.

Secondly, I remind particular Senators from eight States that their States will lose representation in the U.S. House if we count noncitizens versus if we were to do congressional reapportionment only counting citizens.

I believe everybody should be focused on this issue. I believe everybody should support my commonsense position. But surely the Senators from

those eight States would want to vote for their States' self-interest. Those States are Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, North Carolina, and, of course, my State of Louisiana.

Again, I particularly appeal through the Chair to the Senators from those eight States--Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Louisiana. Obviously, for the very interests of your State, please support getting a vote on the Vitter amendment. Please support the Vitter amendment. Your State's representation in the U.S. House hangs in the balance. Of course, that means please do not vote for cloture on the CJS bill until we can have such a vote.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I rise to talk about my pending amendment to the Commerce-Justice-State appropriations bill, amendment No. 2644. Apparently, this has created some interest and some opposition. It apparently is one of the major, if not the major, reason the majority leader felt the need to file cloture on the Commerce-Justice-State bill rather than simply come to an agreement regarding pending amendments and votes. It saddens me that--although that agreement was all worked out, basically--it was out the window, and he just decided to file cloture and bar votes on all of those amendments, including my amendment No. 2644. I think we should have a reasonable debate on my amendment and

then a straightforward vote on the amendment because it is an important topic, directly related to that bill.

What does the amendment do? My amendment is about the next census. It simply says no funds in that appropriations bill can be spent on the next census unless we ask about citizenship. I believe that is a basic requirement for the next census, to give us adequate tools to deal with a whole host of issues, including illegal immigration, including properly handling congressional reapportionment. Again, I find it very sad and, frankly, telling that the majority leader is going to such lengths to avoid having a vote on that simple concept, that simple idea.

Why should we ask a question about citizenship? A couple of reasons. First of all, the census is supposed to give us in Congress important information, detailed information, the tools we need regarding how to handle a host of Federal programs and Federal issues. Certainly a major issue we need to deal with in this country and in this Congress is immigration, including illegal immigration. It seems like basic information we would want to collect. How many folks covered in the census are citizens and how many are noncitizens? That is basic information that would help us in a whole host of ways with regard to Federal programs and with regard to dealing with the immigration issue.

There is another even more important reason, in my opinion, we should collect this information, and that is because one of the most important things any census is used for is reapportioning the U.S. House of Representatives; determining how many House seats each State in the Union gets in terms of representation. As it stands now, the plan is to do the census, to not distinguish in any way between citizens and noncitizens, and therefore to have noncitizens counted in congressional reapportionment. I think this is crazy and goes against the very idea of a representative democracy, people being elected by voters to represent citizens in the Congress. I don't think the Founding Fathers set up our democracy to have noncitizens represented in the Congress.

As it stands now, without asking that simple, basic, fundamental question, noncitizens will be counted in congressional reapportionment. That means States with a particularly large number of noncitizens, including illegal aliens, will be rewarded for that, will get more representation, more say, more clout in the House of Representatives. States that do not have that issue will be hurt. They will get less say, less clout, less Members of the House of Representatives. I think that is fundamentally wrong.

I also have a very specific interest in finding against that because Louisiana is one of nine States that would specifically be hurt. There are at least nine States that will have less representation in the House of Representatives if we count all people in congressional reapportionment, including noncitizens, versus if we just count citizens. It is important to say what those nine States are, and I specifically reached out to the Senators representing those nine specific States to make it clear to them that their States lose out in terms of that equation.

Those States are Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oregon, and Louisiana. Those nine States would have less representation, less say, less clout in the House of Representatives if all people, including noncitizens, are counted in congressional reapportionment versus if only citizens are counted. Once again: Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oregon, and Louisiana.

I particularly implore my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, from those States to be aware of that, to support the Vitter amendment, and so we get to a vote on the Vitter amendment, No. 2644, to vote against cloture on the entire bill.

Unfortunately, there are several Senators from those States who voted for cloture yesterday. I hope they will reconsider. I hope they would see, if they vote for cloture again, that they would be preventing us getting to this issue. They would be preventing us getting to a reasonable and full debate and vote on this issue. I implore all Senators from Indiana, including Senator Bayh, who voted for cloture previously; from Iowa, including the Senators there who voted for cloture previously; the two Senators from Michigan; the two Senators from Pennsylvania; the Democratic Senator from North Carolina; the Democratic Senator from Louisiana--please don't vote for cloture again until we can get a reasonable vote on this amendment.

Let me specifically address some of the arguments that have been made against this amendment because I think they are completely erroneous. One argument is this will intimidate folks and discourage noncitizens from filling out the census form. I think it is important to note, No. 1, this citizenship question is asked on the long form. The long form gets millions of responses, and the census has never noted any difficulty in getting folks to fill out the long form.

This question is also asked in the American Community Survey which the Census Bureau does. Again, the same citizenship question is asked here, and we get plenty of responses. The Census Bureau has never noted a big problem in terms of getting those responses.

To make this perfectly clear, I am perfectly willing to revise my amendment so that we only focus on citizenship, not immigration status. I will be happy to revise my amendment so it only mentions and only focuses on citizenship versus immigration status.

The other argument, that the Census Bureau itself has apparently made, is that this would be cumbersome and cost money at this stage in the census. Frankly, I find this pretty ironic coming from a bureaucracy which is spending $13 billion on this new census, up from $4.5 billion from the last census. Here is a bureaucracy where the cost of the new census versus the last census has tripled. The last score they are getting $13 billion, but asking this one question, which they already ask in the long form, which they already ask in the American Community Survey, is a huge problem and will cost too much money. That simply is silly on its face. It is important to do this right. Certainly asking a basic question about citizenship is central to doing it right.

In summary, I urge all my colleagues to demand a vote on this important issue and to vote against cloture on the bill until we get that vote. Then, when we get that vote, I urge all my colleagues to support the Vitter amendment, No. 2644. It is very simple and straightforward. It will say: Ask the citizenship question. Let us know how many folks in the overall count are citizens and how many are noncitizens. That is absolutely essential, No. 1, so we can use the census information as a full tool in many of the programs and policies we debate and implement in Congress. No. 2, it is particularly important for congressional reapportionment.

I do not believe noncitizens should be counted in congressional reapportionment. I don't believe States which have particularly large noncitizen populations should have more say and more clout in Congress because of that than States that do not, and that States such as Louisiana should be penalized. I don't believe those nine States in particular--Louisiana, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oregon--should be penalized by including noncitizens in congressional reapportionment. I certainly do not believe Senators representing those nine States should vote either for cloture, cutting off a vote on my amendment, or should vote against my amendment.

Again, I particularly urge all Senators from those nine States to stand up for their States, to vote for the interests of their States, to vote for their States getting full and proper representation, to vote against their States being penalized in terms of the census and in terms of congressional reapportionment.

It is a simple issue but a very basic, fundamental issue. The census is an important tool. It only happens once every 10 years. We need to get it right for a whole host of reasons, particularly with congressional reapportionment in mind.

I daresay if any Members of this body go back home to their States and have a discussion in a diner, have a townhall meeting, just ask a representative group of citizens: Did you know that noncitizens, including illegal aliens, are not only counted in the census--

but we do not discriminate--we do not know the numbers of noncitizens versus citizens? And, because of that, did you know all of those noncitizens are factored into determining how many House seats each State gets so that States with very large noncitizen populations, including large numbers of illegal aliens, are rewarded for that; they get more clout and say and vote in the House of Representatives, and other States, particularly the nine States I mentioned, are penalized because of that?

I daresay the average citizen would be stunned about that and would say, hardly with any exception: That is not right. We should know those numbers, and we should not count noncitizens in terms of House representation. I certainly think citizens and voters in Indiana, in Iowa, in Oregon, in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Louisiana would certainly say: Wait a minute, we are being penalized because noncitizens are being counted or being worked into the formula for representation in Congress? That is crazy.

It is crazy. It doesn't meet the smell test, it doesn't meet the commonsense test of the American people, and we should act to make sure the next census is done right, starting by having a vote on the Vitter amendment, No. 2644, and by passing that amendment to the bill.

With that, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and to call up Vitter amendment No. 2644.

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

Mr. President, I present this amendment on behalf of myself and my distinguished colleague from Utah, Mr. Bennett, who will speak after me. It is a very simple but, I believe, a very important amendment. It says we are not going to do a census that doesn't ask some basic questions about citizenship and immigration status.

Specifically, the amendment reads:

None of the funds provided in this act or any other act for

any fiscal year may be used for collection of census data

that does not include questions regarding United States

citizenship and immigration status.

I believe this is a vital amendment for two reasons. If we don't adopt this amendment or other legislation, the census will move forward and will not distinguish in any way between citizens and folks in this country legally and noncitizens. That, in my opinion, is absolutely crazy, again, for two reasons.

No. 1, the census is done every 10 years to give Congress an important tool in terms of many things that Congress and other bodies of government do: funding, public policy, different programs. Clearly, we need accurate, specific information about the illegal alien question in this country. I assume we will all agree, however we come down on the issue, that illegal immigration is a big issue and a big problem. We debate that issue, we try to solve that issue in different ways all the time in this body. Yet we would do a census, we would spend tens of billions of dollars on a census, and we wouldn't ask the question: Are you a citizen and, if not, are you in this country legally or illegally? That is absolutely crazy. The census does ask those questions in the long form. They are able to get the long form completed. They are able to compile information, but that is not the full census; that is a tiny percentage of the full population.

So if we are going to spend tens of billions of dollars every 10 years to do a major census, it seems absolutely a no-brainer that we would get full and accurate information about the number of illegals in this country.

Secondly, and perhaps even more importantly, the single most important thing we use the decennial census for is to reapportion the House of Representatives, to decide how many House Members each State gets. Under the Federal plan, the way the census is designed, the House would be reapportioned counting illegal aliens. States that have large populations of illegals would be rewarded for that. Other States, including my home State of Louisiana, would be penalized.

I believe it is very clear that when the Founders set up our representative democracy, they didn't think of the basic fundamental institutions of our government as representing folks who come into the country breaking the law, staying here illegally. I think it is shocking to most Americans when they hear we would even consider reapportioning the House of Representatives counting illegals, but that is exactly the plan now. Of course, we would have no opportunity to debate that or to adopt a new plan unless the census distinguishes between citizens and legals and illegals, which my amendment would demand we do.

This isn't some theoretical issue. This is a very concrete issue, a very meaningful issue about how much representation each State has in the House of Representatives. There are many States that will lose representation from what they would otherwise have if illegal aliens are counted in congressional reapportionment. Specifically, the States of Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina would lose out. So I wish to specifically speak to my colleagues in this body--Republicans and Democrats alike--from those States: Please support the Vitter and Bennett amendment No. 2644. It has a direct impact on whether you are going to have less representation in the House of Representatives or more. Let me be even more blunt. If you vote against this amendment, you are voting against the interests of your State. If you vote against this amendment, you are voting for your State having less representation in the House of Representatives than they would if illegals are not counted in reapportionment. Again, with that in mind, I wish to repeat the list: Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. For Senators from those States, it is a vote directly about their State's own interests and their State's representation in the House of Representatives.

More broadly speaking, I think the huge majority of Americans would certainly take the view I am suggesting, which is we should not apportion Members of the House based, in part, on illegals. We should not reward States for having large illegal populations and penalize States that do not. I think that is on a different planet from where our Founding Fathers were in setting up the basic Democratic institutions of our country, and there is no more basic and no more Democratic institution than the House of Representatives.

With that, I urge all my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, to support this amendment.

I yield time to my distinguished colleague from Utah, Mr. Bennett.

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

I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up Vitter amendment No. 2630.

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

Mr. President, I will read the amendment to explain what it is about:

None of the amounts made available in this title under the

heading ``COMMUNITY ORIENTED POLICING SERVICES'' may be used

in contravention of section 6429(a) of the Illegal

Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.

That is the entire amendment. What does that mean? That Illegal Immigration Reform Act is about the mandate that local government has to fully cooperate with Federal immigration officials with regard to immigration enforcement. It doesn't mean that local governments become immigration agents, that they have the affirmative responsibility to do all of that work for the proper Federal authorities. It does mean that when they come across illegal immigrants and arrest them, for instance, for local law violations, they are dutybound under Federal law to properly inform Federal authorities.

The problem is, in several select jurisdictions, so-called sanctuary cities, they have made the affirmative public statement and decision that they are not going to do that. They will not comply with Federal law. They are going to ignore Federal immigration law, and they are not going to cooperate in any way with Federal immigration enforcement authorities.

We can debate whether that is good policy or bad, but we don't really need to get to that level of debate because it is present Federal law that cooperation must be extended by local police agencies and local governments. These sanctuary cities--it is beyond debate--are violating current Federal law. They are taking Federal law and saying: Too bad. We are not going to have anything to do with it. We will violate Federal law. We will not cooperate in any way with Federal immigration enforcement.

My amendment says if you violate Federal law, you will have to live by some consequences. Specifically, you will lose COPS funding for your specific jurisdiction. If you want to do that, if you want to flaunt the law, there is going to be a meaningful consequence. You will lose community policing grants.

I believe this is reasonable and necessary because there are a number of sanctuary cities that have made the affirmative decision that they are going

to flaunt and ignore and violate Federal law, have nothing to do with proper enforcement of Federal immigration law and the necessary cooperation between those Federal agencies and local law enforcement.

Nobody wants to make local law enforcement immigration enforcement. Nobody wants to place on them some affirmative duty to do the work of Federal immigration offices, which is significant. We are not trying to place that additional burden or some unfunded mandate on them. But existing Federal law does say they need to cooperate with Federal immigration enforcement. They can't have an affirmative policy that when they arrest, for a local charge, somebody who is in the country illegally, they forget about that, turn their eye to it, and never notify Federal authorities.

Tragically, this bad sanctuary city policy has had tragic results. I will mention one such instance. This involved an illegal alien, Edwin Ramos, who is currently being charged with three counts of murder in San Francisco. That is because he shot and killed Tony Bologna, 48, and his two sons--Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16--after they were driving home from a family picnic last June. Apparently, this dispute started after Tony Bologna blocked the gunman's car from completing a left turn. That was enough to merit getting out of the car and unloading a semiautomatic weapon on Bologna's vehicle, killing him and both of his sons.

Ramos is a native of El Salvador. He was in the country illegally. He is a reputed member of the gang MS-13, and had previously been found guilty of two felonies as a juvenile; not exactly misdemeanors either, a gang-related assault and the attempted robbery of a pregnant woman. Ramos had been arrested at least three times before this triple murder. He was living illegally in the United States. There was no documentation of legal status, no temporary visa status.

So why wasn't he deported when he was arrested, particularly on violent charges? Because San Francisco is a sanctuary city. They have made the affirmative determination that established a policy of breaking Federal law and not having anything to do with immigration enforcement. That led directly to a triple murder of three innocent American citizens. This is one tragic story. There are others.

The bottom line is, we have a Federal law that should prevent that. We need that law enforced and lived by, by all local jurisdictions. The Vitter amendment will put some reasonable teeth behind enforcement and some meaningful consequence when local authorities choose to completely ignore and violate Federal law.

I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense, reasonable amendment.

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