Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 3 minutes.

Mr. President, I want to talk about John Owens, who is the first vote, for a judgeship, particularly one for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. No one questions his qualifications. I spoke on the floor about him before. I was proud to nominate him to the President. He has a sterling background and would be an excellent circuit court judge. The question that arose was because of the previous judge, a man by the name of Stephen Trott. He spent his entire legal career in California before joining the Reagan administration. He was licensed to practice law in California. He was supported by two Republican Senators from California for various federal appointments. Blue slips for his nomination were sent to California senators.

Now what am I trying to do? I am trying to say, this was a California judge for the Ninth Circuit. What has happened since then is because he moved his home to Idaho once he was a judge, Idaho or some of the representatives from Idaho tend to believe that, voila, this is now an Idaho seat. It is not an Idaho seat. I explained last week that California has less than its proportional share of Ninth Circuit Court judgeships.

Idaho has its fair share. Senator Crapo, who came to the floor and spoke about this, said nothing about population or caseload to illustrate why this judgeship should move to

Idaho. This has been a long-standing attempt to take this seat away from California. When I came to the floor before, I outlined the whole process of how historically this is, in fact, a California seat.

I urge my Republican colleagues to consider the precedent they would be endorsing if they vote against this nominee because of this seat's history; and that is, if a circuit court judge in your State decides to move to another State in the circuit, then your State has lost that judgeship. That is the precedent that not approving this judge would set.

I urge my colleagues to continue to support this nominee, notwithstanding the opposition of the Senators from Idaho.

Mr. President, I wish to honor Zev Yaroslavsky, who is retiring at the end of this year, after a distinguished and illustrious career spanning 40 years as a public servant in the State of California. We wish to extend to Mr. Yaroslavsky our sincere

congratulations for the decades of dedicated service that he has given to his Nation, his State, his city, and his county.

Mr. Yaroslavsky was first elected to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in 1994 and is in the final year of his fifth term on the Board. He has served as chair of the Board, which is rotated annually among the supervisors, four times. For the past 20 years, he has represented the Third Supervisorial District, where he will be remembered as a devoted public servant who amassed numerous accomplishments and innumerable awards.

Mr. Yaroslavsky represents nearly 2 million residents in his district. His efforts primarily have focused on fiscal, health care, transportation, the environment, veterans affairs, homelessness, and the arts. Prior to representing the Third Supervisorial District, he served on the Los Angeles City Council from 1975 to 1994 to which he was elected and re-elected six times.

As a Los Angeles City councilman, Mr. Yaroslavsky honed his fiscal skills as the respected chair of the Council's Finance Committee, and he also earned a reputation as a politician who was willing to take on issues that others would not, including the highly controversial excessive use of force and intelligence gathering policies of the Los Angeles Police Department. As councilman, he also co-authored two landmark initiatives with his colleague, the late Councilman Marvin Braude: Proposition U (1986) which cut by half the commercial development rights adjacent to residential neighborhoods, and Proposition O (1988) which repealed a drilling permit previously issued to the Occidental Petroleum Company.

Most notably, a few of his major accomplishments as supervisor include authoring the 1996 Proposition `A' park bond that resulted in the preservation of rural open space and the development of urban parks throughout the county. He also authored the 2002 Proposition `B' trauma tax, approved by over 73 percent of county voters, which is largely credited with stabilizing the county's health care finances.

Mr. Yaroslavsky was the driving force behind the Orange Line busway across the San Fernando Valley which opened in 2005 to record ridership (22,000 daily boardings). He led the effort to rebuild and modernize the world famous Hollywood Bowl amphitheater which re-opened in 2004, and he was instrumental in the development of Walt Disney Concert Hall, the home of the L.A. Philharmonic Orchestra, which opened in 2003. He has also helped fund major investments in the L.A. County Museum of Art and the County's Museum of Natural History. He is regarded as the county's fiscal watchdog, insisting that it live within its means.

Since 1991, Mr. Yaroslavsky has also been associated with the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, NDI, a non- governmental organization headquartered in Washington, DC, that promotes the development of democratic institutions in burgeoning democracies. He has monitored three international elections for NDI: Romania (1990), Mexico (2000), and Ukraine (2004). He also has conducted seminars on democratic institution-building in Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

While these are just some of Zev Yaroslavsky's significant accomplishments, on behalf of the U.S. Senate and the State of California, we extend our heartfelt gratitude for his inestimable contributions throughout his renowned career. With sincere best wishes, we congratulate Mr. Yaroslavsky upon his retirement from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. We are pleased to join his many co-workers, family, friends, and associates in wishing him health, happiness, and continued good fortune in his future endeavors.

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

Madam President, I have come to the floor to urge my colleagues to support the nomination of John Owens to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. This was approved by the Judiciary Committee without dissent.

I would like to quickly mention his qualifications. He received his bachelor's with high distinction from the University of California in 1993 and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He graduated first in his class at Stanford Law School in 1996.

From 1996 to 1997 he was law clerk to Judge J. Clifford Wallace, a noted conservative jurist appointed by President Nixon to the Ninth Circuit. He then went on to serve as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

In 2001 John Owens became a Federal prosecutor, joining the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, California. He began in the general crimes section, prosecuting a wide variety of violent crimes--drug crimes. He also served in the public corruption and government fraud section.

From 2004 to 2012, he served in the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Diego.

There, primarily his focus was prosecuting complex crimes, including fraud, health care, money laundering, public corruption, and national security.

He has had occasion to receive more than one award, among them the Director's Award for Superior Performance from the Justice Department. Mr. Owens has broad support, and the American Bar Association has given him their highest rating of ``well qualified.''

The problem that has arisen around this nomination, though, is not really his qualifications because the record will bear those qualifications out. It is the longstanding discussion over the seat vacated by Judge Stephen Trott. There is a history here, and I would like to explain it.

This seat has been vacant for over 9 years--since Judge Trott took senior status in December 2004. It is the longest running vacancy in the entire Federal judiciary. The Ninth Circuit has the greatest number of pending appeals per panel. It takes longer than other circuits to resolve an appeal. It makes no sense for this seat on the busiest circuit to stay vacant any longer.

My colleagues from Idaho have asserted that this is a vacancy which should be filled by someone from their State. Let me explain why that is not the case.

Judge Trott, whom Mr. Owens would replace, spent his entire legal career in California before joining the Justice Department under President Reagan. Throughout his career he was licensed to practice law in one State--California. Beginning in 1965 he served as county prosecutor in Los Angeles. In 1975 he sought the position of DA from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors after then-district attorney Joseph Busch passed away. When John Van De Kamp was named district attorney, Trott was chosen as his chief deputy, the second in command in the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office. In 1981 President Reagan appointed Mr. Trott to be U.S. attorney for the Central District of California.

All these things are happening in California. He was recommended for the U.S. attorney position by Senator S.I. Hayakawa of California.

In 1982, while serving as U.S. attorney, he again submitted an application to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to become DA after the DA, John Van De Kamp, was elected to be California's attorney general.

Trott was nominated by President Reagan in 1983 to serve as Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division at the Department of Justice. At his confirmation hearing for that position, Senator Pete Wilson of California introduced him. Judge Trott's official Judiciary Committee biography states that his legal residence at the time was California.

Now, this is all about whether Trott occupies an Idaho seat or a California seat.

In 1986 he was nominated by President Reagan to be Associate Attorney General. Once again Senator Wilson of California introduced him at his confirmation hearing, and once again his official Judiciary Committee biography states that his legal residence at the time was California.

In 1987 President Reagan nominated Trott to the Ninth Circuit. The Judiciary Committee sent blue slips to Senators Wilson and Cranston of California. That is the point. The point is that historically Judge Trott has occupied a California seat. He stated in his committee questionnaire that his ``two clients have been the People of the State of California and the Government of the United States.''

Judge Trott was confirmed in 1988 to a seat previously held by Judge Joseph Sneed, a California nominee. That judge's connection to the Ninth Circuit prior to his appointment was his 9-year tenure as professor at Stanford Law School. Judge Sneed established his chambers in San Francisco. These are the facts.

Judge Trott was a California nominee to a California seat on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, as was his predecessor. Once confirmed, however, Judge Trott made a personal choice to establish his chambers in Idaho. This personal choice--essentially an arbitrary occurrence-- cannot result in a State losing a judgeship to another State.

As we all know, the overwhelming practice of administrations and Senates of both parties has been to retain each State's representation on its respective circuit. Just look at the makeup of the circuits represented by the members of the Judiciary Committee. Both Iowans on the Eighth Circuit occupy Iowa seats. Three Alabamians on the Eleventh Circuit occupy Alabama seats. All of the Texas judges on the Fifth Circuit, who are not the first occupants of their seats, were preceded by Texans. The Senate recently confirmed Carolyn McHugh to the Tenth Circuit. Judge McHugh was strongly supported by Senators Hatch and Lee, and she replaced Michael Murphy, who had been a Utah nominee.

I could go through the history of each circuit, and the same pattern would emerge time after time. This is not by accident. There is a reason for it. Presidents of either party must know which Senators to consult, and Senators must know which vacancies to make recommendations for.

This might sound like inside baseball to some, but it is fundamental to the Senate's advice and consent role, and no Senator of either party would allow the arbitrary occurrence of a judge's personal choice of residence to remove a judgeship from the Senator's home State. This is a precedent this body cannot allow to be set.

Some might accuse California of trying to take more than its share of seats. This is simply not so. There is no objective reason for the Trott seat to be transferred to Idaho, where Judge N. Randy Smith already occupies that State's seat on the circuit.

By every metric--population, appeals generated, district court caseload--California has far less than its proportional share of circuit judgeships and Idaho already has its fair share. In fact, if Idaho were to get an additional judgeship, its representation on the Ninth Circuit would be 5\1/2\ times its share of caseload. That is ridiculous. Idaho would have twice as many seats as Montana and the State of our Presiding Officer, Hawaii, have even though those States generate more Ninth Circuit cases than Idaho. Nothing supports removing this seat from California to Idaho--not history, not population, not caseload. Nothing.

Let me conclude by saying this: I don't begrudge the Senators from Idaho seeking additional Federal judicial resources for their State. Senators Crapo and Risch have introduced a bill to create a new judgeship on the Federal district court in Idaho. I represent four judicial districts that virtually always have caseloads at judicial emergency levels. One of them--the Eastern District of California--is the most overburdened judicial district in the country and has a caseload that is more than double the national average. So I understand the desire of the Senators from Idaho to ensure that a sufficient number of Federal judges are present in their State to resolve the disputes of their constituents. In fact, I am a cosponsor of the Federal Judgeship Act of 2013, which would create all the new judgeships recommended by the Judicial Conference, including one for Idaho. But the fact remains this seat on the Ninth Circuit was previously held by two Californians and it should be filled by a Californian. I very much hope the Californian will be John Owens, who has an impeccable record, bipartisan support, and whom I am proud to have recommended to President Obama, and whom I would urge my colleagues to support.

I yield the floor.

Judicial Nominations

Mr. President, I rise to reintroduce the Veteran Voting Support Act, which is cosponsored by Senators Leahy, Durbin, and Reid.

Almost 7 years ago, during the previous administration, I learned that a Department of Veterans Affairs facility in California had barred voter registration groups from accessing veterans in the facility. Similar reports emerged in other parts of the country.

This was unacceptable. Therefore, then-Senator Kerry and I worked with the VA to establish a fair, nonpartisan policy to facilitate voter registration and voting for veterans who receive services at VA facilities.

We held a hearing in the Rules Committee on a previous version of this bill on September 15, 2008, when I was Chairman of that committee.

One week before that hearing, the VA issued a directive that created a new and substantially improved policy to permit state and local election officials, as well as nonpartisan groups, to access VA facilities.

Yet many expressed concerns that it did not go far enough. For example, the Brennan Center for Justice, American Association for People with Disabilities, Common Cause, Demos, and the League of Women Voters sent me a letter stating that the directive was ``an important step in the right direction'' but stressed ``that the VA's recent directive will not be sufficient to protect the voting rights of the men and women served by the VA.''

Paul Sullivan, then Executive Director of Veterans for Common Sense, said: ``There is a veteran voting rights crisis. As many as 100,000 of our veterans living in VA facilities may not be able to vote in our November 4 election.''

Mr. Sullivan also explained a key problem facing veterans who live at a VA facility: ``When a veteran moves into a VA facility, the veteran's old registration becomes invalid. The veteran must re-register before he or she can vote again.''

In short, while many believed the VA's directive was not perfect, they also acknowledged it was an improvement.

I am sad to report that the 2008 voting assistance directive expired at the end of September 2013. That means no voting assistance directive is in place at the VA, with the mid-term elections only a few months away.

This is unacceptable. There is no justification for it. Veterans' voting rights, like the voting rights of others, do not have an expiration date.

There is no question about the continuing need for VA action in this area.

While the VA's directive was in place, from 2008 to 2012, veteran voter registration ticked up only slightly, from 77 to 78 percent, according to the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey.

But during the same period, actual voting by veterans dropped as a percentage of the veteran population--from 70.9 percent to 70.3 percent.

In raw numbers, there remain over 4.6 million veterans who either are unregistered or for whom the Census Bureau's data reports no response.

In the 2012 election, there were over 6.2 million veterans who either did not vote or for whom the Census data reports no response.

Thus, there is much more to do to help our veterans register and cast their ballots.

The VA is the agency best suited to do the job because it comes into contact with several million veterans each year.

In fact, in 2013, according to the VA's latest statistics, there were over 6.41 million unique patients in the VA health care system, up from 5.65 million in 2008, a 15 percent increase.

Today, I am reintroducing the Veteran Voting Support Act, which, unlike a VA directive, cannot be rescinded by the VA and would not expire.

This bill would take important steps to improve veterans' ability to register and vote.

First, the bill would require the VA to provide a veteran seeking to enroll in the VA health care system with a mail-in voter registration form. Such a form would also have to be provided to currently enrolled veterans upon a change of address or enrollment status.

The VA would be required to send such forms to the appropriate state election official within 10 days, or within five days if the form is received within five days before a registration deadline.

Second, the VA would be required to provide assistance to veterans seeking to register to vote using the mail-in form. Such assistance would be non-partisan.

Third, the bill would require the director of a VA community living center, domiciliary, or medical center to provide assistance to veterans with respect to voting by absentee ballot, consistent with state and local laws. This section is limited to residents of a community living center or domiciliary and inpatients of a medical center.

Fourth, the bill would ensure that the VA provides access for nonpartisan organizations to provide voter registration and assistance at VA facilities.

This is subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions, including limiting activities to regular business hours and requiring advance notice to the facility.

Fifth, the bill would prevent the VA from prohibiting access to VA facilities by election administration officials at the state and local levels, as long as the officials provide only nonpartisan information about voting, such as voter registration, voting systems, absentee balloting, and polling locations. This is also subject to reasonable, time, place, and manner restrictions.

Finally, the bill would require the VA to report annually on the number of veterans helped by this bill.

We owe our veterans a great debt. That debt includes a promise we will not deny them the right to vote and will commit to involving them in the process of choosing leaders who may send Americans into harm's way. This bill would help veterans register to vote, and it would help veterans living in VA facilities cast their ballots.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the Veteran Voting Support Act.

Mr. President, I rise today to protect and secure the user fees paid by America's inventors and businesses to the Patent and Trademark Office, and to stabilize that Office's funding, by introducing the Patent Fee Integrity Act. I want to thank my co- sponsors on this bill, Senators Coburn, Klobuchar, and Flake.

Throughout most of its history, taxpayers supported the operations of the Patent and Trademark Office, or PTO, through appropriations from general funds. However, in 1990, Congress established a 69 percent user fee ``surcharge,'' so that the PTO became funded entirely through fees paid by its users, the American inventors who make our country the world's technological leader.

Unfortunately, almost immediately, Congress began using the funds that inventors paid to protect their inventions for other purposes. In 1992, $8.1

million in user fees were diverted. In 1993, $12.3 million was diverted. In 1994, $14.7 million. So it continued, growing each year, until what started as a trickle became a flood in 1998, with $199 million in PTO user fees diverted.

PTO user fees continued to be diverted in most of the following years, at varying levels. In fiscal year 2011, as Congress was finishing its work on major patent reform, a new fee diversion record was set, a staggering $209 million in user fees diverted from the PTO that year.

Meanwhile, at the same time that these fees were being taken away, the length of time that it took to get a patent out of the Patent Office steadily increased. In fiscal year 1991, average patent pendency was 18.2 months. By fiscal year 1999, it had increased to 25 months. By fiscal year 2010, average patent pendency had increased all the way to 35.3 months.

These are not just numbers. This is innovation being stifled from being brought to market. The longer it takes to get a patent approved, the longer a new invention, a potential technological breakthrough, sits on the shelf, gathering dust instead of spurring job growth and scientific and economic progress.

Ultimately, this dulls our country's competitive edge in the global economy. America's record of innovation is the envy of the world; it has provided us a marked competitive edge over the decades and even centuries. When we stifle the progress of our innovation within the PTO, we lose some of this competitive advantage, and the jobs and other economic benefits that accompany it.

Obviously, there is a direct relationship between fee diversion and patent pendency. The more fees that are diverted away from the PTO, the fewer patent examiners they can hire, the more patents each examiner has to process, and the longer it takes them to get to any individual patent--a longer patent pendency.

But it is not just the time that it takes to get a patent that is hurt by diversion of resources. The quality of the patents issued is harmed as well.

As members of this body know, the Senate Judiciary Committee is actively considering legislation to address abuses of the patent system, and the House of Representatives passed its own legislation on the subject by a strong bipartisan vote of 325-91.

A variety of businesses all over the country are being sued and subjected to letters demanding payment, often based on very questionable patents that should never have been issued by the Patent Office in the first place.

Businesses and lawyers have asserted patents for, by way of example: Scanning and e-mailing a document; completing a purchase on a website with one click, as opposed to multiple clicks; and e-mailing a press release, something that I think it's safe to say that every member of this body does many times each month.

When there aren't enough patent examiners to give patent applications sufficient attention, bad patents get issued.

As the President and CEO of the Internet Association, which represents leading Internet companies like Amazon, eBay, Expedia, Facebook, Hotels.com, Netflix, Twitter, and Yahoo!, puts it: ``the Patent Fee Integrity Act . . . would provide the Patent and Trademark Office with adequate funding and resources to improve overall patent quality. Improving patent quality is an essential step in improving the entire patent ecosystem by shutting off the supply of low-quality patents that fuel litigation by patent trolls.'' The Coalition for Patent Fairness, which includes such major companies as Blackberry, Cisco, Dell, Google, Oracle, and Verizon, notes that ``When patent quality suffers, innovation throughout America's economy is stymied, and patent trolls are able to prosper.''

To make sure the Patent and Trademark Office has the resources it needs to issue patents in a timely manner and to improve patent quality, in 2011, in the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, we gave the PTO the authority to increase its user fees.

Some of us fought at that time to end the practice of fee diversion, led by my co-sponsor Senator Coburn, to make sure that the users got the full benefit of their increased fees. Unfortunately, our colleagues on the other side of the Capitol watered down the language that the Senate passed to accomplish this purpose.

One of the sponsors defended that language when it came back to the Senate, arguing that the bill ``creates a PTO reserve fund for any fees collected above the appropriated amounts in a given year--so that only the PTO will have access to these fees.''

I warned then that the House's changes provided no assurance that that is what would actually happen.

So what happened? Well, the PTO went ahead and raised its fees, as expected.

Did it get to keep all those new fees?

Unfortunately, the government wasted little time in diverting the new fees. In fiscal year 2013, $121 million in PTO user fees were diverted, due to sequestration. This pushed the total of PTO user fees diverted since PTO was made self-sufficient in 1990 to over $1 billion, $171 million, to be exact.

Requiring the payment of higher patent fees which are then used for general government purposes really amounts to a tax on innovation which is the last thing we should be burdening in today's technology-driven economy.

The fact that this latest round of fee diversion occurred through sequestration provides another reason why the legislation we are introducing today is needed. PTO never should have been subject to sequestration in the first place. As I have described, it is not supported at all by taxpayer funds--it is completely funded by user fees. These users pay for a service when they send in their fees: the timely consideration and processing of their patent or trademark application or renewal. They are entitled to have the benefit of what they paid for. These funds should not be sequestered, to pay for other government services, for which there is a deficit. The PTO does not contribute at all to the deficit, and that has been the case for more than 20 years.

As a result of PTO's budgetary shortfall, in which sequestration played a significant part: information technology modernization was scaled back significantly; the process of opening new PTO satellite offices, called for in the America Invents Act, was frozen; hiring of most support personnel was stopped; and travel and training was virtually eliminated.

Last fall brought another unfortunate budgetary disruption: the shutdown of the federal government. Fortunately, the PTO was able to keep operating for that limited time, with the balances it had in its account. However, had the shutdown continued, PTO, too, would have been forced to close up--despite the fact that it collects fees that make it self-sustaining.

There is no good reason why PTO should be subject to sequestration and shutdown. As the Business Software Alliance states in their supporting letter, ``This bill would ensure the USPTO can continue conducting self-funded operations that produce tremendous economic and social value for the United States.''

The Patent Fee Integrity Act strikes current language that makes PTO subject to the appropriations process, which has been the principal avenue through which its funding has been diverted, and ensures that it can keep its funding. However, we also include measures to maintain accountability for the agency; the bill: requires the PTO Director to submit an annual report and operations plan to Congress; requires the PTO Director to submit an annual spending plan to the Appropriations Committees; and requires an annual independent financial audit.

This bill is supported across the width and breadth of the patent user community. It is endorsed by: Bayer Corporation; Biocom; The Biotechnology Industry Organization; BSA, The Software Alliance; The Coalition for Patent Fairness; The Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, which represents a broad group of nearly 50 global corporations who employ hundreds of thousands of Americans in a variety of sectors, including 3M, Caterpillar, General Electric, General Mills, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, and Northrop Grumman; Fallbrook Technologies; The Innovation Alliance, which includes innovative small, medium, and large businesses, including Dolby Laboratories and QUALCOMM; the Intellectual Property Owners Association, which

represents more than 200 companies and 12,000 individuals in the U.S. who own intellectual property; The Internet Association; Mattel; Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association; National Association of Manufacturers; Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America; and Xerox.

Many of these groups disagree vehemently with each other about patent reform. However, they all come together to unite in support of the bill we are introducing today, the Patent Fee Integrity Act.

BSA, The Software Alliance aptly observes, ``with their funds constantly under attack, the USPTO faces an endless and unnecessary challenge to provide the services for which American innovators have already paid. The Patent Fee Integrity Act will help the USPTO continue to increase patent quality, provide critical, time-sensitive services, and guarantee continuity of its operations independent of continually- shifting political considerations.''

I urge my colleagues to join us in supporting this critical bill. As the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform and others observed in the letter they sent to me in support of this bill: ``Your legislation would empower the USPTO to fully support America's innovators without adding a single penny to the deficit.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that letters of support be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise to reintroduce the Veteran Voting Support Act, which is cosponsored by Senators Leahy, Durbin, and Reid.

Almost 7 years ago, during the previous administration, I learned that a Department of Veterans Affairs facility in California had barred voter registration groups from accessing veterans in the facility. Similar reports emerged in other parts of the country.

This was unacceptable. Therefore, then-Senator Kerry and I worked with the VA to establish a fair, nonpartisan policy to facilitate voter registration and voting for veterans who receive services at VA facilities.

We held a hearing in the Rules Committee on a previous version of this bill on September 15, 2008, when I was Chairman of that committee.

One week before that hearing, the VA issued a directive that created a new and substantially improved policy to permit state and local election officials, as well as nonpartisan groups, to access VA facilities.

Yet many expressed concerns that it did not go far enough. For example, the Brennan Center for Justice, American Association for People with Disabilities, Common Cause, Demos, and the League of Women Voters sent me a letter stating that the directive was ``an important step in the right direction'' but stressed ``that the VA's recent directive will not be sufficient to protect the voting rights of the men and women served by the VA.''

Paul Sullivan, then Executive Director of Veterans for Common Sense, said: ``There is a veteran voting rights crisis. As many as 100,000 of our veterans living in VA facilities may not be able to vote in our November 4 election.''

Mr. Sullivan also explained a key problem facing veterans who live at a VA facility: ``When a veteran moves into a VA facility, the veteran's old registration becomes invalid. The veteran must re-register before he or she can vote again.''

In short, while many believed the VA's directive was not perfect, they also acknowledged it was an improvement.

I am sad to report that the 2008 voting assistance directive expired at the end of September 2013. That means no voting assistance directive is in place at the VA, with the mid-term elections only a few months away.

This is unacceptable. There is no justification for it. Veterans' voting rights, like the voting rights of others, do not have an expiration date.

There is no question about the continuing need for VA action in this area.

While the VA's directive was in place, from 2008 to 2012, veteran voter registration ticked up only slightly, from 77 to 78 percent, according to the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey.

But during the same period, actual voting by veterans dropped as a percentage of the veteran population--from 70.9 percent to 70.3 percent.

In raw numbers, there remain over 4.6 million veterans who either are unregistered or for whom the Census Bureau's data reports no response.

In the 2012 election, there were over 6.2 million veterans who either did not vote or for whom the Census data reports no response.

Thus, there is much more to do to help our veterans register and cast their ballots.

The VA is the agency best suited to do the job because it comes into contact with several million veterans each year.

In fact, in 2013, according to the VA's latest statistics, there were over 6.41 million unique patients in the VA health care system, up from 5.65 million in 2008, a 15 percent increase.

Today, I am reintroducing the Veteran Voting Support Act, which, unlike a VA directive, cannot be rescinded by the VA and would not expire.

This bill would take important steps to improve veterans' ability to register and vote.

First, the bill would require the VA to provide a veteran seeking to enroll in the VA health care system with a mail-in voter registration form. Such a form would also have to be provided to currently enrolled veterans upon a change of address or enrollment status.

The VA would be required to send such forms to the appropriate state election official within 10 days, or within five days if the form is received within five days before a registration deadline.

Second, the VA would be required to provide assistance to veterans seeking to register to vote using the mail-in form. Such assistance would be non-partisan.

Third, the bill would require the director of a VA community living center, domiciliary, or medical center to provide assistance to veterans with respect to voting by absentee ballot, consistent with state and local laws. This section is limited to residents of a community living center or domiciliary and inpatients of a medical center.

Fourth, the bill would ensure that the VA provides access for nonpartisan organizations to provide voter registration and assistance at VA facilities.

This is subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions, including limiting activities to regular business hours and requiring advance notice to the facility.

Fifth, the bill would prevent the VA from prohibiting access to VA facilities by election administration officials at the state and local levels, as long as the officials provide only nonpartisan information about voting, such as voter registration, voting systems, absentee balloting, and polling locations. This is also subject to reasonable, time, place, and manner restrictions.

Finally, the bill would require the VA to report annually on the number of veterans helped by this bill.

We owe our veterans a great debt. That debt includes a promise we will not deny them the right to vote and will commit to involving them in the process of choosing leaders who may send Americans into harm's way. This bill would help veterans register to vote, and it would help veterans living in VA facilities cast their ballots.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the Veteran Voting Support Act.

Mr. President, I rise today to protect and secure the user fees paid by America's inventors and businesses to the Patent and Trademark Office, and to stabilize that Office's funding, by introducing the Patent Fee Integrity Act. I want to thank my co- sponsors on this bill, Senators Coburn, Klobuchar, and Flake.

Throughout most of its history, taxpayers supported the operations of the Patent and Trademark Office, or PTO, through appropriations from general funds. However, in 1990, Congress established a 69 percent user fee ``surcharge,'' so that the PTO became funded entirely through fees paid by its users, the American inventors who make our country the world's technological leader.

Unfortunately, almost immediately, Congress began using the funds that inventors paid to protect their inventions for other purposes. In 1992, $8.1

million in user fees were diverted. In 1993, $12.3 million was diverted. In 1994, $14.7 million. So it continued, growing each year, until what started as a trickle became a flood in 1998, with $199 million in PTO user fees diverted.

PTO user fees continued to be diverted in most of the following years, at varying levels. In fiscal year 2011, as Congress was finishing its work on major patent reform, a new fee diversion record was set, a staggering $209 million in user fees diverted from the PTO that year.

Meanwhile, at the same time that these fees were being taken away, the length of time that it took to get a patent out of the Patent Office steadily increased. In fiscal year 1991, average patent pendency was 18.2 months. By fiscal year 1999, it had increased to 25 months. By fiscal year 2010, average patent pendency had increased all the way to 35.3 months.

These are not just numbers. This is innovation being stifled from being brought to market. The longer it takes to get a patent approved, the longer a new invention, a potential technological breakthrough, sits on the shelf, gathering dust instead of spurring job growth and scientific and economic progress.

Ultimately, this dulls our country's competitive edge in the global economy. America's record of innovation is the envy of the world; it has provided us a marked competitive edge over the decades and even centuries. When we stifle the progress of our innovation within the PTO, we lose some of this competitive advantage, and the jobs and other economic benefits that accompany it.

Obviously, there is a direct relationship between fee diversion and patent pendency. The more fees that are diverted away from the PTO, the fewer patent examiners they can hire, the more patents each examiner has to process, and the longer it takes them to get to any individual patent--a longer patent pendency.

But it is not just the time that it takes to get a patent that is hurt by diversion of resources. The quality of the patents issued is harmed as well.

As members of this body know, the Senate Judiciary Committee is actively considering legislation to address abuses of the patent system, and the House of Representatives passed its own legislation on the subject by a strong bipartisan vote of 325-91.

A variety of businesses all over the country are being sued and subjected to letters demanding payment, often based on very questionable patents that should never have been issued by the Patent Office in the first place.

Businesses and lawyers have asserted patents for, by way of example: Scanning and e-mailing a document; completing a purchase on a website with one click, as opposed to multiple clicks; and e-mailing a press release, something that I think it's safe to say that every member of this body does many times each month.

When there aren't enough patent examiners to give patent applications sufficient attention, bad patents get issued.

As the President and CEO of the Internet Association, which represents leading Internet companies like Amazon, eBay, Expedia, Facebook, Hotels.com, Netflix, Twitter, and Yahoo!, puts it: ``the Patent Fee Integrity Act . . . would provide the Patent and Trademark Office with adequate funding and resources to improve overall patent quality. Improving patent quality is an essential step in improving the entire patent ecosystem by shutting off the supply of low-quality patents that fuel litigation by patent trolls.'' The Coalition for Patent Fairness, which includes such major companies as Blackberry, Cisco, Dell, Google, Oracle, and Verizon, notes that ``When patent quality suffers, innovation throughout America's economy is stymied, and patent trolls are able to prosper.''

To make sure the Patent and Trademark Office has the resources it needs to issue patents in a timely manner and to improve patent quality, in 2011, in the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, we gave the PTO the authority to increase its user fees.

Some of us fought at that time to end the practice of fee diversion, led by my co-sponsor Senator Coburn, to make sure that the users got the full benefit of their increased fees. Unfortunately, our colleagues on the other side of the Capitol watered down the language that the Senate passed to accomplish this purpose.

One of the sponsors defended that language when it came back to the Senate, arguing that the bill ``creates a PTO reserve fund for any fees collected above the appropriated amounts in a given year--so that only the PTO will have access to these fees.''

I warned then that the House's changes provided no assurance that that is what would actually happen.

So what happened? Well, the PTO went ahead and raised its fees, as expected.

Did it get to keep all those new fees?

Unfortunately, the government wasted little time in diverting the new fees. In fiscal year 2013, $121 million in PTO user fees were diverted, due to sequestration. This pushed the total of PTO user fees diverted since PTO was made self-sufficient in 1990 to over $1 billion, $171 million, to be exact.

Requiring the payment of higher patent fees which are then used for general government purposes really amounts to a tax on innovation which is the last thing we should be burdening in today's technology-driven economy.

The fact that this latest round of fee diversion occurred through sequestration provides another reason why the legislation we are introducing today is needed. PTO never should have been subject to sequestration in the first place. As I have described, it is not supported at all by taxpayer funds--it is completely funded by user fees. These users pay for a service when they send in their fees: the timely consideration and processing of their patent or trademark application or renewal. They are entitled to have the benefit of what they paid for. These funds should not be sequestered, to pay for other government services, for which there is a deficit. The PTO does not contribute at all to the deficit, and that has been the case for more than 20 years.

As a result of PTO's budgetary shortfall, in which sequestration played a significant part: information technology modernization was scaled back significantly; the process of opening new PTO satellite offices, called for in the America Invents Act, was frozen; hiring of most support personnel was stopped; and travel and training was virtually eliminated.

Last fall brought another unfortunate budgetary disruption: the shutdown of the federal government. Fortunately, the PTO was able to keep operating for that limited time, with the balances it had in its account. However, had the shutdown continued, PTO, too, would have been forced to close up--despite the fact that it collects fees that make it self-sustaining.

There is no good reason why PTO should be subject to sequestration and shutdown. As the Business Software Alliance states in their supporting letter, ``This bill would ensure the USPTO can continue conducting self-funded operations that produce tremendous economic and social value for the United States.''

The Patent Fee Integrity Act strikes current language that makes PTO subject to the appropriations process, which has been the principal avenue through which its funding has been diverted, and ensures that it can keep its funding. However, we also include measures to maintain accountability for the agency; the bill: requires the PTO Director to submit an annual report and operations plan to Congress; requires the PTO Director to submit an annual spending plan to the Appropriations Committees; and requires an annual independent financial audit.

This bill is supported across the width and breadth of the patent user community. It is endorsed by: Bayer Corporation; Biocom; The Biotechnology Industry Organization; BSA, The Software Alliance; The Coalition for Patent Fairness; The Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, which represents a broad group of nearly 50 global corporations who employ hundreds of thousands of Americans in a variety of sectors, including 3M, Caterpillar, General Electric, General Mills, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, and Northrop Grumman; Fallbrook Technologies; The Innovation Alliance, which includes innovative small, medium, and large businesses, including Dolby Laboratories and QUALCOMM; the Intellectual Property Owners Association, which

represents more than 200 companies and 12,000 individuals in the U.S. who own intellectual property; The Internet Association; Mattel; Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association; National Association of Manufacturers; Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America; and Xerox.

Many of these groups disagree vehemently with each other about patent reform. However, they all come together to unite in support of the bill we are introducing today, the Patent Fee Integrity Act.

BSA, The Software Alliance aptly observes, ``with their funds constantly under attack, the USPTO faces an endless and unnecessary challenge to provide the services for which American innovators have already paid. The Patent Fee Integrity Act will help the USPTO continue to increase patent quality, provide critical, time-sensitive services, and guarantee continuity of its operations independent of continually- shifting political considerations.''

I urge my colleagues to join us in supporting this critical bill. As the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform and others observed in the letter they sent to me in support of this bill: ``Your legislation would empower the USPTO to fully support America's innovators without adding a single penny to the deficit.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that letters of support be printed in the Record.

Good morning.

Mr. President, over the past week there have been numerous press articles written about the intelligence committee's oversight review of the detention and interrogation program of the CIA.

Specifically, press attention has focused on the CIA's intrusion and search of the Senate select committee's computers, as well as the committee's acquisition of a certain internal CIA document known as the Panetta review.

I rise today to set the record straight and to provide a full accounting of the facts and history.

Let me say up front that I come to the Senate floor reluctantly. Since January 15, 2014, when I was informed of the CIA's search of this committee's network, I have been trying to resolve this dispute in a discreet and respectful way. I have not commented in response to media requests for additional information on this matter. However, the increasing amount of inaccurate information circulating now cannot be allowed to stand unanswered.

The origin of this study.

The CIA's detention and interrogation program began operations in 2002, though it was not until September 2006 that members of the intelligence committee, other than the chairman and the vice chairman, were briefed. In fact, we were briefed by then-CIA Director Hayden only hours before President Bush disclosed the program to the public.

A little more than a year later, on December 6, 2007, a New York Times article revealed the troubling fact that the CIA had destroyed videotapes of some of the CIA's first interrogations using so-called enhanced techniques. We learned that this destruction was over the objections of President Bush's White House counsel and the Director of National Intelligence.

After we read about the destruction of the tapes in the newspapers, Director Hayden briefed the Senate intelligence committee. He assured us that this was not destruction of evidence, as detailed records of the interrogations existed on paper--in the form of CIA operational cables describing the detention conditions and the day-to-day CIA interrogations.

The CIA Director stated that these cables were ``a more than adequate representation'' of what would have been on the destroyed tapes. Director Hayden offered at that time, during Senator Jay Rockefeller's chairmanship of the committee, to allow members or staff to review these sensitive CIA operational cables, given that the videotapes had been destroyed.

Chairman Rockefeller sent two of his committee staffers out to the CIA on nights and weekends to review thousands of these cables, which took many months. By the time the two staffers completed their review into the CIA's early interrogations in early 2009, I had become chairman of the committee and President Obama had been sworn into office.

The resulting staff report was chilling. The interrogations and the conditions of confinement at the CIA detention sites were far different and far more harsh than the way the CIA had described them to us. As a result of the staff's initial report, I proposed and then Vice Chairman Bond agreed, and the committee overwhelmingly approved, that the committee conduct an expansive and full review of the CIA's detention and interrogation program.

On March 5, 2009, the committee voted 14 to 1 to initiate a comprehensive review of the CIA detention and interrogation program. Immediately, we sent a request for documents to all relevant executive branch agencies, chiefly among them the CIA.

The committee's preference was for the CIA to turn over all responsive documents to the committee's office, as had been done in previous committee investigations.

Director Panetta proposed an alternative arrangement: to provide, literally, millions of pages of operational cables, internal emails, memos, and other documents, pursuant to the committee's document requests at a secure location in northern Virginia. We agreed but insisted on several conditions and protections to ensure the integrity of this congressional investigation.

Per an exchange of letters in 2009, then-Vice Chairman Bond, then- Director Panetta, and I agreed--in an exchange of letters--that the CIA was to provide a ``stand-alone computer system'' with a ``network drive . . . segregated from CIA networks'' for the committee that would only be accessed by information technology personnel at the CIA, who would ``not be permitted to'' ``share information from the system with other [CIA] personnel, except as otherwise authorized by the committee.''

It was this computer network, notwithstanding our agreement with Director Panetta, that was searched by the CIA this past January, and once before, which I will later describe.

In addition to demanding that the documents produced for the committee be reviewed at a CIA facility, the CIA also insisted on conducting a multilayered review of every responsive document before providing the document to the committee. This was to ensure the CIA did not mistakenly provide documents unrelated to the CIA's detention and interrogation program--or provide documents that the President could potentially claim to be covered by executive privilege.

While we viewed this as unnecessary, and raised concerns that it would delay our investigation, the CIA hired a team of outside contractors--who otherwise would not have had access to these sensitive documents--to read, multiple times, each of the 6.2 million pages of documents produced, before providing them to fully cleared committee staff conducting the committee's oversight work. This proved to be a slow and very expensive process.

The CIA started making documents available electronically to the committee staff at the CIA-leased facility in mid-2009. The number of pages ran quickly to the thousands, the tens of thousands, the hundreds of thousands, and then into the millions. The documents that were provided came without any index, without any organizational structure. It was a true ``document dump'' that our committee staff had to go through and make sense of.

In order to piece together the story of the CIA's detention and interrogation program, the committee staff did two things that will be important as I go on.

First, they asked the CIA to provide an electronic search tool so they could locate specific relevant documents for their search among the CIA-produced documents--just like you would use a search tool on the Internet to locate information.

Second, when the staff found a document that was particularly important or that might be referenced in our final report, they would often print it or make a copy of the file on their computer so they could easily find it again. There are thousands of such documents in the committee's secure spaces at the CIA facility.

Now, prior removal of documents by the CIA.

In early 2010, the CIA was continuing to provide documents, and the committee staff was gaining familiarity with the information it had already received.

In May of 2010, the committee staff noticed that the documents that had been provided for the committee's review were no longer accessible. Staff approached the CIA personnel at the off-site location, who initially denied the documents had been removed. CIA personnel then blamed information technology personnel, who were almost all contractors, for removing the documents themselves without direction or authority. Then the CIA stated that the removal of the documents was ordered by the White House. When the committee approached the White House, the White House denied giving the CIA any such order.

After a series of meetings, I learned that on two occasions, CIA personnel electronically removed committee access to CIA documents after providing them to the committee. This included roughly 870 documents--or pages of documents--that were removed in February 2010 and, secondly, roughly another 50 that were removed in mid-May 2010. This was done without the knowledge or approval of committee members or staff and in violation of our written agreements.

Further, this type of behavior would not have been possible had the CIA allowed the committee to conduct the review of documents here in the Senate. In short, this was the exact sort of CIA interference in our investigation that we sought to avoid at the outset.

I went to the White House to raise the issue with the then-White House counsel. In May 2010 he recognized the severity of the situation and the grave implications of executive branch personnel interfering with an official congressional investigation. The matter was resolved with a renewed commitment from the White House counsel and the CIA that there would be no further unauthorized access to the committee's network or removal of access to CIA documents already provided to the committee.

On May 17, 2010, the CIA's then-Director of Congressional Affairs apologized on behalf of the CIA for removing the documents. And that, as far as I was concerned, put the incident aside. This event was separate from the documents provided that were part of the internal Panetta review which occurred later, and which I will describe next.

At some point in 2010, committee staff searching the documents that had been made available found draft versions of what is now called the internal Panetta review. We believe

these documents were written by CIA personnel to summarize and analyze the materials that had been provided to the committee for its review. The Panetta review documents were no more highly classified than other information we had received for our investigation. In fact, the documents appeared based on the same information already provided to the committee.

What was unique and interesting about the internal documents was not their classification level but, rather, their analysis and acknowledgment of significant CIA wrongdoing. To be clear, the committee staff did not hack into CIA computers to obtain these documents, as has been suggested in the press. The documents were identified using the search tool provided by the CIA to search the documents provided to the committee. We have no way to determine who made the internal Panetta review documents available to the committee.

Further, we do not know whether the documents were provided intentionally by the CIA, unintentionally by the CIA, or intentionally by a whistleblower. In fact, we know that over the years on multiple occasions the staff have asked the CIA about documents made available for our investigation. At times the CIA has simply been unaware that these specific documents were provided to the committee. And while this is alarming, it is also important to note that more than 6.2 million pages of documents have been provided. This is simply a massive amount of records. As I described earlier, as part of its standard process for reviewing records, the committee staff printed copies of the internal Panetta review and made electronic copies of the committee's computers at the facility. The staff did not rely on these internal Panetta review documents when drafting the final 6,300-page committee study. But it was significant that the internal Panetta review had documented at least some of the very same troubling matters already uncovered by the committee staff, which is not surprising in that they were looking at the same information.

There is a claim in the press and elsewhere that the marks on these documents should have caused the staff to stop reading them and turn them over to the CIA. I reject that claim completely. As with many other documents provided to the committee at the CIA facility, some of the internal Panetta review documents--some--contained markings indicating that they were ``deliberative'' and/or ``privileged.'' This was not especially noteworthy to staff. In fact, CIA has provided thousands of internal documents to include CIA legal guidance and talking points prepared for the CIA Director, some of which were marked as being ``deliberative'' or ``privileged.''

Moreover, the CIA has officially provided such documents to the committee here in the Senate. In fact, the CIA's official June 27, 2013 response to the committee study which Director Brennan delivered to me personally is labeled ``deliberative process, privileged document.''

We have discussed this with the Senate legal counsel who has confirmed that Congress does not recognize these claims of privilege when it comes to documents provided to Congress for our oversight duties. These were documents provided by the executive branch pursuant to an authorized congressional oversight investigation, so we believe we had every right to review and keep the documents.

There are also claims in the press that the Panetta internal review documents, having been created in 2009 and 2010, were outside the date range of the committee's document request or the terms of the committee study. This, too, is inaccurate. The committee's document requests were not limited in time. In fact, as I have previously announced, the committee study includes significant information on the May 2011 Osama bin Laden operation, which obviously postdated the detention and interrogation program.

At some time after the committee staff identified and reviewed the internal Panetta review documents, access to the vast majority of them was removed by the CIA. We believe this happened in 2010, but we have no way of knowing the specifics, nor do we know why the documents were removed. The staff was focused on reviewing the tens of thousands of new documents that continue to arrive on a regular basis.

Our work continued until December 2012 when the Intelligence Committee approved a 6,300-page committee study of the CIA's detention and interrogation program and sent the executive report to the executive branch for comment. The CIA provided its response to the study on June 27, 2013.

As CIA Director Brennan has stated, the CIA officially agrees with some of our study, but, as has been reported, the CIA disagrees and disputes important parts of it. And this is important. Some of these important parts the CIA now disputes in our committee study are clearly acknowledged in the CIA's own internal Panetta review. To say the least, this is puzzling. How can the CIA's official response to our study stand factually in conflict with its own internal review?

Now after noting the disparity between the official CIA response to the committee study and the internal Panetta review, the committee staff securely transported a printed portion of the draft internal Panetta review from the committee's secure room at the CIA-leased facility to the secure committee spaces in the Hart Senate office building. And let me be clear about this. I mentioned earlier the exchange of letters that Senator Bond and I had with Director Panetta in 2009 over the handling of information for his review. The letters set out a process whereby the committee would provide specific CIA documents to CIA reviewers before bringing them back to our secure offices here on Capitol Hill.

The CIA review was designed specifically to make sure that committee documents available to all staff and members did not include certain kinds of information, most importantly the true names of nonsupervisory CIA personnel and the names of specific countries in which the CIA operated detention sites. We had agreed upfront that our report didn't need to include this information, and so we agreed to redact it from materials leaving the CIA's facility.

In keeping with the spirit of the agreements, the portion of the internal Panetta review at the Hart building in our safe has been redacted. It does not contain names of nonsupervisory CIA personnel or information identifying detention site locations. In other words, our staff did just what the CIA personnel would have done had they reviewed the documents.

There are several reasons why the draft summary of the Panetta review was brought to our secure spaces at the Hart building. Let me list them: No. 1, the significance of the internal review, given disparities between it and the June 2013 CIA response to the committee's study. The internal Panetta review summary, now at the secure committee office in Hart, is an especially significant document, as it corroborates critical information in the committee's 6,300-page study that the CIA's official response either objects to, denies, minimizes, or ignores.

Unlike the official response, these Panetta review documents were in agreement with the committee's findings. That is what makes them so significant and important to protect.

When the internal Panetta review documents disappeared from the committee's computer system, this suggested once again that the CIA had removed documents already provided to the committee in violation of CIA agreements and White House assurances that the CIA would cease such activities.

As I have detailed, the CIA has previously withheld and destroyed information about its detention and interrogation program, including its decision in 2005 to destroy interrogation videotapes over the objections of the Bush White House and the Director of National Intelligence. Based on the above, there was a need to preserve and protect the internal Panetta review in the committee's own secure spaces. The relocation of the internal Panetta review was lawful and handled in a manner consistent with its classification. No law prevents the relocation of a document in the committee's possession from a CIA facility to secure committee offices on Capitol Hill. As I mentioned before, the document was handled and transported in a manner consistent with its classification, redacted appropriately, and it remained secure with restricted access in committee spaces.

Now the January 15, 2014, meeting with Director John Brennan. In late 2013, I requested in writing that the CIA provide a final and complete version of the internal Panetta review to the committee, as opposed to the partial document the committee currently possesses.

In December, during an open committee hearing, Senator Mark Udall echoed this request. In early January 2014, the CIA informed the committee it would not provide the internal Panetta review to the committee citing the deliberative nature of the document.

Shortly thereafter, on January 15, 2014, CIA Director Brennan requested an emergency meeting to inform me and Vice Chairman Chambliss that without prior notification or approval, CIA personnel had conducted a ``search''--that was John Brennan's word--of the committee computers at the offsite facility. This search involved not only a search of documents provided by the committee to the CIA but also a search of the stand-alone and walled-off committee network drive containing the committee's own internal work product and communications.

According to Brennan, the computer search was conducted in response to indications that some members of the committee staff might already have had access to the internal Panetta review. The CIA did not ask the committee or its staff if the committee had access to the internal Panetta review or how we obtained it.

Instead, the CIA just went and searched the committee's computers. The CIA has still not asked the committee any questions about how the committee acquired the Panetta review. In place of asking any questions, the CIA's unauthorized search of the committee computers was followed by an allegation--which we have now seen repeated anonymously in the press--that the committee staff had somehow obtained the document through unauthorized or criminal means, perhaps to include hacking into the CIA's computer network.

As I have described, this is not true. The document was made available to the staff at the offsite facility and it was located using a CIA-provided search tool running a query of the information provided to the committee pursuant to its investigation.

Director Brennan stated that the CIA search had determined that the committee staff had copies of the internal Panetta review on the committee staff's shared drive and had accessed them numerous times. He indicated at the meeting that he was going to order further forensic investigation of the committee network to learn more about activities of the committee's oversight staff.

Two days after the meeting, on January 17, I wrote a letter to Director Brennan objecting to any further CIA investigation due to the separation of powers constitutional issues that the search raised. I followed this with a second letter on January 23 to the Director, asking 12 specific questions about the CIA's actions--questions that the CIA has refused to answer.

Some of the questions in my letter related to the full scope of the CIA's search of our computer network. Other questions related to who had authorized and conducted the search and what legal basis the CIA claimed gave it authority to conduct the search. Again, the CIA has not provided answers to any of my questions.

My letter also laid out my concern about the legal and constitutional implications of the CIA's actions. Based on what Director Brennan has informed us, I have grave concerns that the CIA's search may well have violated the separation of powers principles embodied in the U.S. Constitution, including the speech and debate clause. It may have undermined the constitutional framework essential to effective congressional oversight of intelligence activities or any other government function. I have asked for an apology and a recognition that this CIA search of computers used by its oversight committee was inappropriate. I have received neither. Besides the constitutional implication, the CIA's search may also have violated the Fourth Amendment, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, as well as Executive Order 12333, which prohibits the CIA from conducting domestic searches or surveillance.

Days after the meeting with Director Brennan, the CIA inspector general David Buckley learned of the CIA search and began an investigation into the CIA's activities. I have been informed that Mr. Buckley has referred the matter to the Department of Justice given the possibility of a criminal violation by CIA personnel.

Let me note, because the CIA has refused to answer the questions in my January 23 letter and the CIA inspector general is ongoing, I have limited information about exactly what the CIA did in conducting its search.

Weeks later, I was also told that after the inspector general referred the CIA's activities to the Department of Justice, the acting counsel general of the CIA filed a crimes report with the Department of Justice concerning the committee staff's actions.

I have not been provided the specifics of these allegations or been told whether the Department has initiated a criminal investigation based on the allegations of the CIA's acting general counsel.

As I mentioned before, our staff involved in this matter have the appropriate clearances, handled this sensitive material according to established procedures and practice to protect classified information, and were provided access to the Panetta review by the CIA itself. As a result there is no legitimate reason to allege to the Justice Department that the Senate staff may have committed a crime. I view the acting counsel general's referral as a potential effort to intimidate this staff, and I am not taking it lightly.

I should note that for most, if not all, of the CIA's detention and interrogation program, the now-acting general counsel was a lawyer in the CIA's Counterterrorism Center--the unit within which the CIA managed and carried out this program. From mid-2004 until the official termination of the detention and interrogation program in January of 2009, he was the unit's chief lawyer. He is mentioned by name more than 1,600 times in our study.

Now this individual is sending a crimes report to the Department of Justice on the actions of congressional staff--the same congressional staff who researched and drafted a report that details how CIA officers, including the acting general counsel himself, provided inaccurate information to the Department of Justice about the program.

Let me say this: All Senators rely on their staff to be their eyes and ears and to carry out our duties. The staff members of the intelligence committee are dedicated professionals who are motivated to do what is best for our Nation. The staff members who have been working on this study and this report have devoted years of their lives to it, wading through the horrible details of a CIA program that never, never, never should have existed.

They have worked long hours and produced a report unprecedented in its comprehensive attention to detail in the history of the Senate. They are now being threatened with legal jeopardy just as the final revisions to the report are being made so parts of it can be declassified and released to the American people.

I felt I needed to come to the floor to correct the public record and to give the American people the facts about what the dedicated committee staff have been working so hard on for the last several years as part of the committee's investigation.

I also want to reiterate to my colleagues my desire to have all updates to the committee report completed this month and approved for declassification. We are not going to stop. I intend to move to have the findings, conclusions, and the executive summary of the report sent to the President for declassification and release to the American people. The White House has indicated publicly--and to me personally-- that it supports declassification and release. If the Senate can declassify this report, we will be able to ensure that an un-American, brutal program of detention and interrogation will never again be considered or permitted.

The recent actions I have just laid out make this a defining moment for the oversight of our intelligence committee. How this will be resolved will show whether the intelligence committee can be effective in monitoring

and investigating our Nation's intelligence activities or whether our work can be thwarted by those we oversee.

I believe it is critical that the committee and the Senate reaffirm our oversight role and our independence under the Constitution of the United States.

I thank the Presiding Officer for his patience, and I yield the floor.

I ask unanimous consent that the order with respect to alternating blocks of time be vitiated and that the Senate remain in a period of morning business until 8:45 a.m., Tuesday, March 11, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for between 20 and 30 minutes.

I want to begin by thanking my friend and colleague, Senator Boxer, for her leadership. It was 2 years ago that she began a climate action task force that took place at noon, when all our stomachs were grumbling for food, but it provided some very interesting advice, very interesting knowledge, from interesting scholars who came to speak. She was then joined by Senator Whitehouse, when he came. Now there is Senator Markey, and there is quite a large number--certainly of Democratic Senators--who attend these Tuesday meetings at noon. So I want to thank them very much for this leadership.

As we have heard already, debate over climate change has raged for years here on Capitol Hill, but the scientific facts actually have been conclusive for some time now. Most people I have found don't realize that the greenhouse gases we put into the atmosphere just don't go away. They do not dissipate. These gases can stay for decades. Our actions--the greenhouse gas pollution we put into the air and the forests we cut down--are changing the composition of Earth's atmosphere, increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to above 400 parts per million.

Just look at this chart. As this chart shows, these are global warming gases. This is carbon dioxide. You can see how it has run quite along at this level, and then in the last few years it has begun to jump up, so much that the average in 2013 was 396 parts per million. People don't know this--that all these gases remain in our atmosphere year after year, decade after decade, and century after century.

This change is altering how our atmosphere interacts, with massive amounts of solar energy radiating out from the center of our solar system. It is well known within the scientific community that the Earth's blanket--our atmosphere--is getting more effective at trapping heat. The full effects of this stronger blanket--or shield or whatever you want to call it--must be projected into the future. Different projections show different effects, but we know this. Change is coming, and it has already begun.

A lot of people also believe our Earth is immutable, that we can't destroy it and that it can't change. They assume our planet has always been pretty much the same. But the last time the Earth's atmosphere contained 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide was more than 3 million years ago when horses and camels lived in the high Arctic in conditions that averaged 18 degrees warmer than today. Seas were at least 30 feet higher, at a level that today would inundate major cities around the world and flood the homes of a quarter of the United States population.

Concentrations of carbon dioxide have risen, as I said, from the 280 parts per million to more than 400 parts per million in just the last 150 years. Scientists tell us there is no known geologic period in which concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have increased as quickly. Bottom line: Never has our planet faced a faster or more ecologically devastating change.

To settle the scientific debate over climate change, the Bush administration appointed a National Academy of Sciences Blue Ribbon Panel. The group, which included former climate change deniers, reported to Congress in 2001 that greenhouse gases are ``causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise.'' They said: ``Temperatures are, in fact, rising.''

The United Nations created its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of more than 600 leading scientific experts; and what did they say? They said the ``warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia.''

Average temperatures over lands and ocean surfaces globally have increased 1.53 degrees Fahrenheit from 1880 to 2012, with the highest rate of increase in the past 3 decades.

Just look at this. See the line indicating carbon dioxide concentration. Start from here. Now notice that the temperatures are still down. Watch the line start to go up and notice the climate warm up to where it is today.

The IPCC report continued: ``The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen, and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased.''

This makes that clear. If we don't reduce the greenhouse gas emissions, the National Research Council predicts the average global temperatures will increase by as much as 11.5 degrees--11.5 degrees by 2100. Such a dramatic and rapid increase would be catastrophic to our planet Earth. It would change our world permanently.

As temperatures have increased, we have seen that ice sheets that cover the North and South Poles have begun melting. The average annual Arctic sea ice area has decreased more than 20 percent since 1979. That is when satellite records first became available. The Greenland ice sheet has melted by nearly 30 percent.

Here we can see the Arctic, the red line shows what it was in 1979, and current picture shows what has been lost and what is left.

The melting of glaciers and ice caps, along with expansion of ocean water due to the increase in temperature have caused the global sea level to rise by 8 inches since 1870, with over 2 inches just in the past 20 years. If we do nothing to stop climate change, scientific models project that there is a real possibility of sea level increasing by as much as 4 feet by the end of this century--4 feet.

Now, what would 4 feet do? At risk are nearly 2.6 million homes located less than 4 feet above high tide nationwide.

Let me speak about my home State of California. We have, within those 4 feet, the homes of 450,000 people, 30 coastal power plants with generating capacity of 10 gigawatts, 22 wastewater treatment plants with capacity of 325 million gallons per day, 3,500 miles of roadway, 280 miles of railway, 140 schools, and 55 hospitals and other health care facilities. These could all be inundated by the end of the century.

Oakland and San Francisco International Airports are susceptible to flooding, and both are today studying expensive new levy systems to hold back the tides.

Sea level rise in California would also cause flooding of low-lying areas, loss of coastal wetlands, such as portions of the San Francisco Bay Delta,

erosion of cliffs and beaches, and saltwater contamination of drinking water. Bottom line: Rising seas put California's homes, public facilities, and environmental resources in great peril, and adapting to this change will impose great cost.

Temperatures in California have increased 1.26 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 4 decades. The warmer climate could be particularly devastating to us where threats from catastrophic wildfire and reduction in water resources will likely make sunny California a desert State. The Sierra Nevada snowpack--and we are hearing a lot about that now--which includes Lake Tahoe--is the State's largest source of water. It equals about half the storage capacity of all of California's man- made reservoirs. If we do nothing, the Sierra Nevada spring snowpack could drop by as much as 60 to 80 percent by the end of the century, eliminating the water source for nearly 16 million people.

Only four States have populations as large as 16 million people, and the largest agricultural State in the United States--California--needs water resources to farm and grow crops. The 38 million people living in California also need water to drink, to bathe, to water flowers, for businesses to flourish.

Major fire is another danger because the size, severity, duration, and frequency of fires are greatly influenced by climate. This is the Rim Fire, from not too long ago. It gives us an idea of how things burn. Fire seasons in the West are starting sooner and lasting longer. The average length has increased by 78 days since 1970, a 64-percent increase. This isn't a coincidence, and climate change is suspected as a key mechanism for that change. The change is apparent.

During a recent Senate hearing, U.S. Forest Service Chief Tidwell testified:

On average, wildfires burn twice as many acres each year as

compared to 40 years ago, and there are on average seven

times as many fires over 10,000 acres per year.

I believe this: We cannot stop climate change from happening. We do not have a silver bullet. There is no action we can take to stem the tide. But if we can hold the warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius, we can accommodate for it. But if the warming reaches 5 degrees to 9 degrees Celsius, the effects are catastrophic for our planet Earth. Dramatic and catastrophic effects are far more likely. Through a series of incremental but somewhat aggressive policy steps, we can slow the change.

The combustion of fossil fuel--coal, oil, and natural gas--accounts for 78 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in our country. Most of the fossil fuel emissions come from the smokestacks of our power plants and the tailpipes of our vehicles.

The bottom line: To address climate change, we must take steps to use fossil fuels more efficiently, and we must initiate a shift away from fossil fuels where we can and toward cleaner alternatives.

I believe we can attack this problem by: establishing aggressive fuel economy standards to reduce emissions from the transportation sector; enabling a shift to renewable sources of power; limiting the emissions from stationary sources, especially power plants; and, most important, putting a price on heat-trapping carbon pollution.

Let me mention some steps we have taken because we have begun a transition to a cleaner energy economy. The good news is that carbon dioxide emissions have dropped 12 percent since 2005, due in part to the policies we have adopted.

One of my proudest achievements was working with Senators Snowe, Inouye, Stevens, Cantwell, Lott, Dorgan, Corker, Carper, and many others in the 2007 Ten-in-Ten Fuel Economy Act, raising the corporate average fuel economy known as CAFE at the maximum achievable rate.

Let me say what these new standards mean. They mean we will have a fleetwide average of 54.5 miles per gallon in 2025. These standards will cut greenhouse gas emissions from cars and light trucks in half by 2025, reducing emissions by 6 billion metric tons over the life of the program, more than the total amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the United States in 2010. Better yet, these standards will save American families more than $1.7 trillion in fuel costs, resulting in average fuel savings of more than $8,000 per vehicle.

Our legislation also directed the administration to establish the first ever fuel economy standards for buses, delivery trucks, and long- haul 18 wheelers. The first standards, which apply to trucks and buses built from 2014 to 2018, will reduce greenhouse gas pollution by approximately 270 million metric tons.

I am very sorry Senator Snowe from Maine isn't here today because I began this effort with a simple sense of the Senate resolution in 1993 with Senator Slade Gorton from Washington, Senator Bryan from Nevada, and myself, and we couldn't get a simple statement passed. We then tried an SUV loophole closer, which was to bring SUVs down to the mileage of sedans and we couldn't do this.

We then did the Ten-in-Ten and we didn't think it was going to go anywhere. Senator Stevens and Senator Inouye put it in a commerce committee bill. Senator Stevens changed his view on it, put it in a commerce committee bill, and it swept through the Senate and through the House, was signed by the President, and is now the law. Today President Obama has made completing CAFE standards for trucks built after 2018--which are required by our 2007 law--a key part of his Climate Action Plan.

Power plants are our largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions. It is fair to say Federal tax incentives and financing, State mandates, federally funded research, and a dramatically improving permitting process have led to a recent shift away from coal-fired power plants and toward renewable energy and lower emission natural gas.

Additionally, renewable energy production has more than doubled since 2008, and it continues to boom. Last year 4,751 megawatts of solar were installed nationwide. This is a 41-percent increase over the previous year. Power plant carbon dioxide emissions have dropped 17 percent since 2005.

The lesson is clear: We must continue the policies which are working, such as the wind and geothermal production tax credits, the solar investment tax credit, and a project-permitting process which advances projects on disturbed and less sensitive lands expeditiously, but we must also take longer term steps to ensure that power plant emissions continue to drop.

I support the President's plan to use Clean Air Act authorities to limit greenhouse gas emissions. The Supreme Court's landmark global warming case, Massachusetts v. EPA, found greenhouse gases are pollutants with the potential to endanger human health and welfare. President Obama and EPA have an obligation to comply with these directives to limit such emissions. So I very much look forward to the President advancing a strong rule which will use market-based mechanisms.

I also believe Congress could act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants by putting an explicit price on pollution. It has taken me a long time to get there--approximately 20 years. I supported various other mechanisms--and will continue to support--but I am convinced, based on information by the Energy Information Administration, a fee on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants starting at only $10 per ton could reduce emissions 70 percent to 80 percent by 2050, if the fee steadily increases over time. This is the emissions reduction level experts say is necessary to stabilize the climate at less than 2 degrees Celsius warmer than today. If we can do this, we save planet Earth. If the climate goes 5 degrees to 9 degrees warmer by the end of the century, we have lost.

Such a fee could be responsive to emissions performance. If emissions were falling consistent with science-based emissions targets, the fee would not have to go up every year. It is estimated a fee on power plant emissions would be nearly as effective in reducing heat-trapping emissions as an economy-wide fee. The difference is 2 percent. So both policies deserve consideration.

Such a fee would provide industry with cost certainty, and the revenues--exceeding $20 billion annually--could help address our Nation's debt. They should go back to the general fund. The revenue could finance other important national priorities, such as tax reform,

income inequality, energy research development.

An MIT study found that if the fee revenues were used to cut other taxes or maintain spending for social programs, ``the economy will be better off with the carbon (fee) than if we have to keep other taxes high or cut programs to rein in the deficit.''

Science has clearly shown the planet is warming and now at a faster rate than ever. We know this. Now we as leaders must make a choice: Do we act, do we lead, do we tackle the problem or do we wait until it is too late? Do we continue the progress we have made on fuel economy by taking on other large emitters or do we simply claim it is impossible, it is intractable, we can't do anything about it? Do we blame the problem on China? And China has a big problem. Do we deny undeniable facts due to current politics?

I believe we have an obligation to lead. There is no question it is difficult and there is no question there are hard choices, but we have an obligation to control our own pollution. Our Nation has the opportunity to demonstrate to the rest of the world it can be done, and tonight shows there are some leaders.

I thank Senator Boxer, Senator Whitehouse, Senator Markey, and Senator Schatz for their leadership, not only on this evening but for the years they have led on this issue. So let's get it done.

Before I end, I would note that my legislative assistant, the young man sitting next to me, is leaving to work for the Department of Energy. He has worked on fuel efficiency standards, climate change, energy, transportation, and a number of other issues.

Matthew Nelson, I want you to know your expertise, your unique creativity and capacity, and your dedication will be missed.

Madam President, Jean Manning is synonymous with the Office of the Senate Chief Counsel for Employment. Since establishing the Office in 1993 at the direction of the Joint Leadership, Ms. Manning has provided invaluable counsel to Senate offices to ensure their compliance with applicable employment laws, including the Equal Pay Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and numerous other laws Congress applied to itself when it passed the Government Employee Rights Act of 1991 and the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995. Now, after decades of service to the Senate, Jean is retiring. While her retirement is much deserved after a long career, her wise counsel will be missed throughout this great institution.

Ms. Manning, who originally hails from Chicago, began her career as she now ends her career--with public service. After receiving a B.A. in 1972 from the University of Illinois, she took on the important role of educating junior high school students. Ms. Manning left teaching to further her education, obtaining an M.B.A. and a J.D. from the University of Illinois. While pursuing her law degree, Ms. Manning was a member and Articles Editor of the University of Illinois Law Review, in which she published an article about using multiple regression analysis to assess and remedy salary inequity between men and women, a subject about which she has always been passionate. Also while in law school, Ms. Manning was awarded the Rickert Award for Excellence in Legal Writing, an honor that anyone who has reviewed Ms. Manning's exceptional legal writing will know was well deserved.

Following her graduation from law school in 1983, Ms. Manning began her legal career in the great State of California, where she honed her legal skills as a labor and employment law litigator at several prestigious national law firms. Although she eventually moved to the East Coast in 1992, Ms. Manning still considers California her home. She returns to California several times each year to visit friends and family. In retirement, she plans to live in northern California during part of each year.

In the early 1990s, Congress as a workplace underwent a sea change when all major employment laws became applicable to Congress. The Joint Leadership selected Jean Manning as the Senate's first Chief Counsel for Employment to establish and to manage the Office of the Senate Chief Counsel for Employment. Ms. Manning's goal was to create a nonpartisan, legal defense office in the Senate that would provide top- tier legal advice and representation to all Senators and Senate offices in the area of labor and employment law. Ms. Manning has far exceeded her goal. The office she established has a stellar reputation throughout the Senate. On a daily basis, the Office of the Senate Chief Counsel for Employment advises and trains all Senate offices of their obligations under employment laws. Every year, the Office presents over 70 legal seminars within the Senate to ensure that Senate managers understand and adhere to all employment laws when managing their offices.

Ms. Manning also has tirelessly represented Senate employing offices at all levels of the Federal court system, including arguing before the United States Supreme Court. It is a testament to the high standards she set for herself and her entire office that, since its inception 21 years ago, the Office of the Senate Chief Counsel for Employment has never lost a case.

Throughout her Senate career, Ms. Manning has provided Senators, officers and Senate employing offices with unfailingly sound legal advice--even at times when she knew her advice might be unpopular. We thank her for her exceptional service to the Senate. The Senate is losing a great legal advocate, educator and source of institutional knowledge. The Senate is a better place for Ms. Manning's outstanding service, and she will be missed.

Madam President, I rise today to recognize the dedicated career and service to the Congress and the Nation of Renee Simpson, who is retiring at the end of this month after over 30 years of service in both the Executive and Legislative branches of our government. She has dedicated her life to public service helping keep our Nation and its citizens secure, and we honor her for her longstanding dedication.

Renee is leaving the Senate as a staff member for Audits and Oversight of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. During her 3 years on the Committee, Renee has been integral to the committee's oversight of the 16 intelligence agencies. She led reviews of the intelligence community's information technology modernization and classification processes, and served as a committee liaison with the inspectors general of the intelligence community. Her knowledge and insight helped both identify items of concern and proposals for improvement.

In addition to her service with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, Renee has served as a Legislative Affairs Officer in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and as the Special Senate Liaison for the United States Marine Corps Office of Legislative Affairs. But perhaps her most significant assignments and accomplishments came during her 24 years of service with the U.S. Naval Reserves.

Ms. Simpson's distinguished military career began as an Operations and Readiness Officer for Desert Shield/Desert Storm and her unwavering commitment to service led her to posts around the world, including to NATO's Allied Forces Southern Headquarters Command, the U.S. Embassy in Rome, Italy, the Joint Task Force in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, U.S. Joint Forces Command, and the Office of the Director of Naval Intelligence in Washington, DC.

Renee has received numerous awards for her military service including the Defense Superior Service Medal as well as many Navy and Marine Corps Commendation and Achievement Medals.

Renee is especially close to her family and her priorities and heart lie with them in Sanford, NC. Her father, Lester Ray Simpson, is a proud Navy veteran of the Korean War who has an appreciation of fine attire with just the right bow tie. Her mom, Vivian, remains Renee's unending inspiration and role model. And according to Renee, her sister, Jane Rae Fawcett, is ``a superstar and the smartest, funniest person I know.'' Finally, her family simply would not be complete without her anchor of a brother-in-law, Deputy Sheriff Ed Fawcett. Renee lives, breathes and loves her family above all else.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to publicly thank Renee and to note my appreciation for her dedicated and dignified efforts. We will miss your insight and experience, and your commitment to pursuing the right policies to protect our Nation.

Mr. President, I am very pleased to express my strong support for two highly qualified nominees to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California:

Superior Court Judge Beth Freeman, and James Donato.

I recommended these candidates to President Obama after my bipartisan screening committee gave them both strong recommendations.

I am very pleased they will soon fill two longstanding vacancies in the Northern District of California.

Judge Freeman earned her law degree from Harvard Law School in 1979, and she served in the County Counsel's Office in San Mateo for 18 years.

She has spent the last 12 years on the San Mateo Superior Court, including as presiding judge and assistant presiding judge. She has presided over more than a thousand trials, and she has experience in both civil and criminal cases.

I have received letters of support for Judge Freeman from Don Horsley, president of the San Mateo Board of Supervisors and former chair of the County's Domestic Violence Council, and from Stephen Wagstaffe, San Mateo District Attorney.

These letters are strong endorsements for Judge Freeman, and I will simply quote what Mr. Wagstaffe said: ``In 36 years as a prosecutor in San Mateo County, I have not seen a better judge in all respects than Judge Freeman.''

That is very high praise, and I am pleased Judge Freeman soon will be confirmed and begin her service as a Federal judge in San Jose.

Let me now describe Jim Donato, who once confirmed will serve in San Francisco.

Mr. Donato earned his law degree from Stanford Law School where he was a Senior Editor of the Stanford Law Review. He clerked for Judge Procter Hug on the Ninth Circuit.

He served for 3 years in the City Attorney's Office in San Francisco. He has built a distinguished record over two decades as a private practitioner handling complex civil cases such as antitrust cases, at Cooley LLP and Shearman & Sterling LLP.

Complex civil experience is especially important in Northern California because the Northern District's docket is 84 percent civil, according to the most recent statistics.

Mr. Donato also is a leader in the San Francisco legal community where he has devoted much of his time to the Bar Association of San Francisco, including as its President in 2008.

I have great confidence Mr. Donato will be an outstanding federal district judge.

Let me close by noting that each of these nominees will fill a judicial vacancy that has been designated as a ``judicial emergency'' by the Judicial Conference of the United States.

The Northern District's weighted caseload per judgeship is over 13 percent above the national average. Filings per active judge are up 17 percent since 2008. In fact, it now takes 27 percent longer for a civil case to get to trial than it did in 2010.

The vacancy Judge Freeman would fill has existed for over 800 days. The vacancy Mr. Donato would fill has existed for over 500 days.

It is long past time for these seats to be filled. Indeed, each of these nominees should have been confirmed in 2013--but, unfortunately, each had to be renominated in this session and voted out of the Judiciary Committee for a second time. This wasted several months during which each could have been serving as a Federal Judge.

Nevertheless, I am very pleased that, today, Judge Freeman and Jim Donato will be confirmed and will be able to assume their duties shortly.

I urge my colleagues to support both of these fine nominees.

Madam President, I rise to support the nomination of Ambassador Daniel Bennett Smith to be the Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research.

I am not aware of any opposition to this nominee and so look forward to a strong vote of confirmation by my colleagues. I am also pleased that the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, known as INR, will continue to have strong leadership by a respected senior member of the foreign service.

The INR Bureau is a small, but effective entity within the U.S. intelligence community. In fact, it only has approximately 200 analysts, but it has a very strong reputation for independent and unbiased analysis. Its intelligence professionals include those from the foreign service and the civil service, including many who have decades of experience in the topics they cover.

These analysts are prized for the intelligence value they provide to senior State Department officials, to include the Secretary and his team, ambassadors, and the men and women who work the country desks.

INR also brings the State Department's knowledge and viewpoint to discussions and debates within the intelligence community, helping to ensure that intelligence decisions are informed by diplomatic requirements and information gained by our embassies around the world.

In the past several years, INR has perhaps become best known for its dissents from some of the main points in the flawed intelligence reports that led to the war in Iraq. Unfortunately, those dissents were marginalized in key intelligence products and not provided adequate scrutiny. As a result, I can tell my colleagues that members of the intelligence committee pay special attention to dissenting voices in the intelligence community, and always to the views of INR.

The primary mission of this Bureau is to provide intelligence to policymakers at the State Department. INR is one of the three all- source analytic agencies within the intelligence community, along with the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency.

INR also ensures that intelligence operations and sensitive intelligence-related law enforcement activities are consistent with U.S. foreign policy. The Assistant Secretary for INR is therefore the conduit between the intelligence community and the State Department to ensure that our intelligence activities and the conduct of our foreign policy are coordinated and aligned.

In sum, the Assistant Secretary for INR is both an independent leader of an intelligence community agency and the Secretary of State's point person on intelligence matters.

Ambassador Smith is well-qualified to be the Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research. He has served for 30 years as a Foreign Service officer and in a variety of positions at the State Department. Most recently he was Ambassador to Greece (from 2010 to 2013).

Ambassador Smith has also served as Executive Secretary of the State Department, Principal Deputy Secretary for Consular Affairs, and in overseas posts in Bern, Istanbul, Ottawa, and Stockholm. He is a career officer in the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Career Minister.

The Intelligence Committee approved Ambassador Smith by voice vote on January 16, with unanimous support. A month earlier, on December 17, 2013, the committee held an open hearing on his nomination. After Ambassador Smith was voted out of our committee, the Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on his nomination on January 28.

Ambassador Smith has had a long and distinguished career at the State Department that will serve him well in this position. I urge my colleagues to support the nomination of Ambassador Daniel Bennett Smith to be Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research.

Mr. President, I rise on behalf of myself and Senators Boxer, Wyden and Merkley to introduce legislation to respond to California's devastating drought conditions.

This weekend's storm in Northern California was more than a year in coming, and there are some encouraging signs that came from it: Rainfall in the Sacramento Valley averaged 2 to 3 inches. North of San Francisco Bay, precipitation averaged 4 to 7 inches. Between Friday and Monday, about 7 inches of precipitation fell in the Northern Sierra. The Southern Sierra saw more than 3 inches. Over the same period, the water contained in Northern Sierra snow increased by 3 inches; Central Sierra by 4 inches; and Southern Sierra by an inch.

But one storm in the North will not end this historic drought. In the San Joaquin Valley, precipitation over the weekend was less than an inch, while San Diego and Los Angeles saw only about a quarter-inch of rain. Also, the snowpack in the Sierra remains very troubling. Statewide, the snowpack is at 29 percent of normal for this date. The Northern California mountains are at 18 percent, and the Central Sierra is 36 percent.

State officials have confirmed that this weekend's rain and snow will have very little effect on the amount of water available for California. Even after this storm, California faces some of the driest conditions in modern times, leading to last month's declaration by Governor Brown of a drought emergency.

As of the beginning of February, at least 10 communities are in danger of running out of drinking water within 2 months. Without relief, more communities may face similar difficulties.

California's State Water Project helps supply water to 25 million Californians and 750,000 acres of farmland. For the first time in its 54-year history, it will not be providing any water to its water agencies.

The Central Valley Project irrigates about 3 million acres of farmland, supplies water to millions of Californians and supports crucial environmental habitats. This year, it will likely not be able to provide water to many farmers in the Central Valley.

As of February 9, Lake Shasta, California's largest reservoir, and Lake Oroville, the State Water Project's principal reservoir, are both at only 37 percent of capacity. San Luis Reservoir, crucial to farmers south of the Delta, is at only 30 percent of capacity.

Without water, farmers north and south of the Delta have lost crops, trees, workers, and income. Businesses, factories, schools, hospitals, fire departments, and other social services facilities will have trouble carrying out their work.

Let me put this in perspective: According to the State, to reach average annual rain and snowfall levels, this past weekend's rainfall must be repeated very frequently from now until May. And even then, California would still remain in drought conditions.

We need a forceful and immediate response to help those who are suffering. That is why I am introducing the California Emergency Drought Relief Act of 2014 along with Senators Boxer, Wyden and Merkley. Representative Jim Costa will introduce this bill in the House.

This bill focuses on measures that can provide water supplies to California this year. It would cut red tape and free up federal agencies to operate with maximum flexibility and speed so they can move water to those who need it. When we have more water to move from storms like we saw this weekend, this bill will make an even greater difference.

Let me sum up how this bill would help. First, the bill would increase

water supplies. By being smarter about how we manage water projects, we can free up more water. For example: This bill directs Federal agencies to open water gates on the Sacramento River for as long as possible when few salmon are migrating. This should allow thousands of acre feet of water to be pumped without harming the species.

It also directs agencies to find ways to control turbid waters so endangered Delta smelt that are attracted to these waters do not swim near the water pumps. Less risk to fish means more water can be pumped. And the bill mandates agencies to use the maximum authority allowed under the Endangered Species Act to provide as much water as possible from Delta pumping while staying within the law.

The bill would also reduce bureaucracy. During this emergency situation, the federal government must work as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Relying on emergency authorities that already exist, the bill directs Federal agencies to complete environmental reviews under shortened timeframes so water supply measures such as water transfers and fallowing of land can be carried out with minimal delay.

The bill would also provide emergency funding and disaster assistance. It authorizes additional expenditures to fund measures that can make a difference now, especially for the communities that are at risk of running out of drinking water soon.

They include $100 million to carry out projects to maximize water supplies. There is also $200 million for disaster relief to help farmers and rural communities. That includes $100 million for emergency conservation measures so farmers can carry out projects to protect lands, crops and watersheds; $25 million in grants for rural communities to take action to upgrade, repair or secure water systems; $25 million in pre-disaster hazard mitigation grants so communities and the State can complete projects to lessen the effects of the drought; $25 million in grant funding for public and nonprofit organizations to provide emergency assistance to low-income migrant and seasonal farmworkers affected by the drought; and $25 million in grants to private forest landowners for conservation measures related to drought and wildfire. The bill would also direct Federal agencies to prioritize grant funding for water projects that can yield water supplies and alleviate the drought's effects now.

The bill also amends the Stafford Act. The 1988 Stafford Act was meant to provide a comprehensive framework for how the country responds to major disasters, including droughts. However, because the Act has been interpreted very narrowly since its passage, eight drought- stricken States have applied for a major disaster declaration, and all eight have been denied: California in 2009; Georgia in 2008; Virginia in 2003; Maine in 2002; Texas and Oklahoma in 1998; and Minnesota and North Dakota in 1988.

To correct this, the bill amends the Stafford Act. These changes will provide States with greater flexibility to access Federal disaster assistance programs. These programs help individuals affected by drought conditions with disaster unemployment assistance and crisis counseling.

Let me be clear: this bill does not create new Federal assistance programs. It is an effort to clarify the intent of Congress regarding the Stafford Act, and to make the Stafford Act work better for droughts. When major disasters like a severe drought occur, communities should be eligible for Federal assistance.

During these emergency times, I also strongly believe some requirements should be relaxed to relieve the pressures faced by water users. To that effect, my bill proposes giving North-of-Delta water contractors more time to take delivery of water they were allocated in 2013, so they have more flexibility with their 2014 supplies. It also delays some water contract payments that Central Valley Project contractors must pay the Federal Government to lessen financial stress as they confront and recover from the drought.

I want to be clear: the success of some of these measures will depend on how much rain we get and how much water is available to be moved. This bill is not a replacement for rain, but it will give us tools to make water available when we have storms like the one over the weekend. My goal is to make sure we are maximizing every drop of water in the system and we are doing everything as quickly as possible to offer some measure of relief.

Finally, there are important lessons to learn. Southern California is better prepared than the rest of the State to cope with this drought thanks to decades of work to build storage and improve water conservation. Metropolitan Water District, I understand, has enough water supplies for 19 million customers through voluntary water use reductions.

Were it not for the more than 2 million acre-feet of water reserves, including 600,000 acre feet in Diamond Valley Lake, Southern California water users would be facing up to 50 percent mandatory water use restrictions.

The message is clear: For the long term, we must build additional storage if we are to be prepared for the next drought which is sure to come.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and our counterparts in the House, to support this bill.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise on behalf of myself and Senators Boxer, Wyden and Merkley to introduce legislation to respond to California's devastating drought conditions.

This weekend's storm in Northern California was more than a year in coming, and there are some encouraging signs that came from it: Rainfall in the Sacramento Valley averaged 2 to 3 inches. North of San Francisco Bay, precipitation averaged 4 to 7 inches. Between Friday and Monday, about 7 inches of precipitation fell in the Northern Sierra. The Southern Sierra saw more than 3 inches. Over the same period, the water contained in Northern Sierra snow increased by 3 inches; Central Sierra by 4 inches; and Southern Sierra by an inch.

But one storm in the North will not end this historic drought. In the San Joaquin Valley, precipitation over the weekend was less than an inch, while San Diego and Los Angeles saw only about a quarter-inch of rain. Also, the snowpack in the Sierra remains very troubling. Statewide, the snowpack is at 29 percent of normal for this date. The Northern California mountains are at 18 percent, and the Central Sierra is 36 percent.

State officials have confirmed that this weekend's rain and snow will have very little effect on the amount of water available for California. Even after this storm, California faces some of the driest conditions in modern times, leading to last month's declaration by Governor Brown of a drought emergency.

As of the beginning of February, at least 10 communities are in danger of running out of drinking water within 2 months. Without relief, more communities may face similar difficulties.

California's State Water Project helps supply water to 25 million Californians and 750,000 acres of farmland. For the first time in its 54-year history, it will not be providing any water to its water agencies.

The Central Valley Project irrigates about 3 million acres of farmland, supplies water to millions of Californians and supports crucial environmental habitats. This year, it will likely not be able to provide water to many farmers in the Central Valley.

As of February 9, Lake Shasta, California's largest reservoir, and Lake Oroville, the State Water Project's principal reservoir, are both at only 37 percent of capacity. San Luis Reservoir, crucial to farmers south of the Delta, is at only 30 percent of capacity.

Without water, farmers north and south of the Delta have lost crops, trees, workers, and income. Businesses, factories, schools, hospitals, fire departments, and other social services facilities will have trouble carrying out their work.

Let me put this in perspective: According to the State, to reach average annual rain and snowfall levels, this past weekend's rainfall must be repeated very frequently from now until May. And even then, California would still remain in drought conditions.

We need a forceful and immediate response to help those who are suffering. That is why I am introducing the California Emergency Drought Relief Act of 2014 along with Senators Boxer, Wyden and Merkley. Representative Jim Costa will introduce this bill in the House.

This bill focuses on measures that can provide water supplies to California this year. It would cut red tape and free up federal agencies to operate with maximum flexibility and speed so they can move water to those who need it. When we have more water to move from storms like we saw this weekend, this bill will make an even greater difference.

Let me sum up how this bill would help. First, the bill would increase

water supplies. By being smarter about how we manage water projects, we can free up more water. For example: This bill directs Federal agencies to open water gates on the Sacramento River for as long as possible when few salmon are migrating. This should allow thousands of acre feet of water to be pumped without harming the species.

It also directs agencies to find ways to control turbid waters so endangered Delta smelt that are attracted to these waters do not swim near the water pumps. Less risk to fish means more water can be pumped. And the bill mandates agencies to use the maximum authority allowed under the Endangered Species Act to provide as much water as possible from Delta pumping while staying within the law.

The bill would also reduce bureaucracy. During this emergency situation, the federal government must work as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Relying on emergency authorities that already exist, the bill directs Federal agencies to complete environmental reviews under shortened timeframes so water supply measures such as water transfers and fallowing of land can be carried out with minimal delay.

The bill would also provide emergency funding and disaster assistance. It authorizes additional expenditures to fund measures that can make a difference now, especially for the communities that are at risk of running out of drinking water soon.

They include $100 million to carry out projects to maximize water supplies. There is also $200 million for disaster relief to help farmers and rural communities. That includes $100 million for emergency conservation measures so farmers can carry out projects to protect lands, crops and watersheds; $25 million in grants for rural communities to take action to upgrade, repair or secure water systems; $25 million in pre-disaster hazard mitigation grants so communities and the State can complete projects to lessen the effects of the drought; $25 million in grant funding for public and nonprofit organizations to provide emergency assistance to low-income migrant and seasonal farmworkers affected by the drought; and $25 million in grants to private forest landowners for conservation measures related to drought and wildfire. The bill would also direct Federal agencies to prioritize grant funding for water projects that can yield water supplies and alleviate the drought's effects now.

The bill also amends the Stafford Act. The 1988 Stafford Act was meant to provide a comprehensive framework for how the country responds to major disasters, including droughts. However, because the Act has been interpreted very narrowly since its passage, eight drought- stricken States have applied for a major disaster declaration, and all eight have been denied: California in 2009; Georgia in 2008; Virginia in 2003; Maine in 2002; Texas and Oklahoma in 1998; and Minnesota and North Dakota in 1988.

To correct this, the bill amends the Stafford Act. These changes will provide States with greater flexibility to access Federal disaster assistance programs. These programs help individuals affected by drought conditions with disaster unemployment assistance and crisis counseling.

Let me be clear: this bill does not create new Federal assistance programs. It is an effort to clarify the intent of Congress regarding the Stafford Act, and to make the Stafford Act work better for droughts. When major disasters like a severe drought occur, communities should be eligible for Federal assistance.

During these emergency times, I also strongly believe some requirements should be relaxed to relieve the pressures faced by water users. To that effect, my bill proposes giving North-of-Delta water contractors more time to take delivery of water they were allocated in 2013, so they have more flexibility with their 2014 supplies. It also delays some water contract payments that Central Valley Project contractors must pay the Federal Government to lessen financial stress as they confront and recover from the drought.

I want to be clear: the success of some of these measures will depend on how much rain we get and how much water is available to be moved. This bill is not a replacement for rain, but it will give us tools to make water available when we have storms like the one over the weekend. My goal is to make sure we are maximizing every drop of water in the system and we are doing everything as quickly as possible to offer some measure of relief.

Finally, there are important lessons to learn. Southern California is better prepared than the rest of the State to cope with this drought thanks to decades of work to build storage and improve water conservation. Metropolitan Water District, I understand, has enough water supplies for 19 million customers through voluntary water use reductions.

Were it not for the more than 2 million acre-feet of water reserves, including 600,000 acre feet in Diamond Valley Lake, Southern California water users would be facing up to 50 percent mandatory water use restrictions.

The message is clear: For the long term, we must build additional storage if we are to be prepared for the next drought which is sure to come.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and our counterparts in the House, to support this bill.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today I am introducing a bill that would provide critical authority to the Department of Veterans Affairs to use enhanced-use leases to engage in public-private partnerships in order to provide supportive housing for homeless veterans at the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Medical Campus in California.

Homelessness is a tragedy, and I am deeply concerned that it plagues many of our Nation's brave and honorable veterans. I would like to make you aware, that Los Angeles has the largest concentration of homeless veterans in the United States, currently estimated to be 6,300. What is even more unacceptable is that two buildings on the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Campus that can potentially provide supportive housing for a portion of these veterans are currently vacant due to a lack of Federal funding.

There is good news, though. The community of Los Angeles has expressed great interest in leveraging private resources and forging a partnership with the Department of Veterans Affairs to make progress in using these facilities to provide housing and hope for homeless veterans in the area. However, giving this authority to the Secretary of Veteran Affairs requires legislative action, and so I am happy to present to you today the solution that is required.

You should be aware that the solution I am proposing is a finely crafted fix to a previous action Congress took in 2007 to safeguard the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Campus. I moved in 2007 to prohibit the ability of the Department of Veterans Affairs to lease or sale any property on the West Los Angeles Campus, due to concerns that these authorities would likely be abused at the detriment to Los Angeles' veterans. Specifically, broad authorities were being used for commercial development displacing prop on the West Los Angeles Veteran Affairs Department, and risked reducing or eliminating the important services this campus provides to veterans. Today is a new day, and my bill will allow a very tightly limited authority to enter into enhanced-use leases at two specific vacant buildings on the campus to be used for the sole purpose of providing supportive housing for veterans who are homeless.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this modification of lease authority in order to make real progress using private dollars to deliver on our promise to California's veterans who have bravely served in the defense of the entire United States. I look forward to working with my colleagues on enacting this authority as soon as feasible.