Floor Statements

Mr. President, I am very pleased to join with my colleague and good friend Senator Hatch to introduce this bill, which will resolve an unsettled issue that is making it difficult for museums and universities to obtain works of art for temporary exhibition from foreign countries.

Cultural exchange with foreign nations enables the sharing of ideas and history across the globe. When foreign works are shown at American museums, they expose our people to the richness of world history and culture.

In 2011, the San Diego Museum of Art hosted an exhibition of 64 works of famous Spanish artists, such as El Greco, Pablo Picasso, Francisco Goya, and Salvador Dali.

Also in 2011, the De Young Museum in San Francisco hosted an exhibition of more than 100 Picasso masterpieces from Paris, as well as more than 100 objects from the Olmec civilization in Mexico.

In 2009, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art hosted an exhibit containing artifacts from the Ancient Roman city of Pompeii, which was buried by a volcanic eruption and rediscovered in the 18th Century.

In 2007, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art hosted an exhibit with approximately 250 works of art created in more than seven different Latin American countries between 1492 and 1820.

Without these exhibitions coming to American museums, many Americans simply would not have the chance to see such important cultural and historical works in person. Exhibitions of such works also draw countless visitors each year, helping museums--which are vital to the preservation of our own culture and heritage--survive and thrive in difficult economic times.

For decades, American law has offered legal protection for these exhibitions. Passed in 1965, a law called the Immunity from Seizure Act, 22 U.S.C. 2459, is designed to provide the legal certainty necessary for American museums to organize such exhibitions with their foreign counterparts.

This law empowers the President or his designee to approve a foreign work for temporary exhibition or display in the United States, a process now handled by the State Department. If approval is granted, then the work of art is essentially protected from judicial process-- such as a court-ordered seizure--while it is in the United States.

Unfortunately, this important law has been undermined by a decision of the U.S District Court for the District of Columbia in a case called Malewicz v. City of Amsterdam.

In this case, the City of Amsterdam had made a temporary loan of works of art for educational and cultural purposes to the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Menil Collection in Houston Texas.

Even though the State Department's approval was sought and received for the temporary loan, the court held that the City of Amsterdam's temporary loan nevertheless subjected the City to Federal court jurisdiction in a lawsuit over the work of art.

The reason was that--even though the loan was for educational and cultural purposes, for works to be shown at museums--the City's activities nevertheless qualified as ``commercial activity'' under a provision of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. 1605(a)(3).

The result of this decision, unsurprisingly, is that foreign museums have been more reluctant to lend their art works to our museums in the United States.

The Executive Branch during the Bush administration recognized this problem and tried to correct it. It urged the D.C. Circuit to reverse the decision, saying in an amicus brief that the District Court's ruling was wrong, that it ``substantially undermine[d] the purposes'' of the Immunity from Seizure Act, and that it would ``discourage foreign states and other lenders from providing their artwork for temporary exhibit in the United States.'' Unfortunately the appeal was dismissed before the D.C. Circuit had a chance to correct this problem. That is why this bill is necessary.

Several museums in my home state--including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art--have asked me to help restore the legal certainty that existed prior to the Malewicz decision. I know that institutions in Senator Hatch's home State of Utah have sought his help in this regard as well.

I am very pleased to say that Senator Hatch and I have worked together--along with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, Ranking Member John Conyers, and Representatives Steve Chabot and Steve Cohen--to draft a narrow bill that we hope can be enacted quickly this year.

This bill is simple. It relies on the State Department's approval process. If the State Department approves a loan of a foreign art work--essentially immunizing the work from judicial seizure under existing law--then the foreign state's activities associated with the work's exhibition cannot be used to assert jurisdiction over the foreign state under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. 1605(a)(3).

This narrow approach does only what is necessary to fix the problem created by the Malewicz decision--nothing more, nothing less.

It is important to note that this bill would not apply if the foreign state does not seek or receive the State Department's approval. The State Department requires detailed certifications and independent investigations about an art work's provenance before it grants approval. The bill also expressly would not apply to any work taken in Europe by the Nazis or their collaborators.

Once again, I thank Senator Hatch and my colleagues in the House for working with me on this important legislation, which has already passed the House of Representatives by voice vote. I urge my colleagues to join us in supporting this legislation.

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

Mr. President, I am very pleased to join with my colleague and good friend Senator Hatch to introduce this bill, which will resolve an unsettled issue that is making it difficult for museums and universities to obtain works of art for temporary exhibition from foreign countries.

Cultural exchange with foreign nations enables the sharing of ideas and history across the globe. When foreign works are shown at American museums, they expose our people to the richness of world history and culture.

In 2011, the San Diego Museum of Art hosted an exhibition of 64 works of famous Spanish artists, such as El Greco, Pablo Picasso, Francisco Goya, and Salvador Dali.

Also in 2011, the De Young Museum in San Francisco hosted an exhibition of more than 100 Picasso masterpieces from Paris, as well as more than 100 objects from the Olmec civilization in Mexico.

In 2009, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art hosted an exhibit containing artifacts from the Ancient Roman city of Pompeii, which was buried by a volcanic eruption and rediscovered in the 18th Century.

In 2007, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art hosted an exhibit with approximately 250 works of art created in more than seven different Latin American countries between 1492 and 1820.

Without these exhibitions coming to American museums, many Americans simply would not have the chance to see such important cultural and historical works in person. Exhibitions of such works also draw countless visitors each year, helping museums--which are vital to the preservation of our own culture and heritage--survive and thrive in difficult economic times.

For decades, American law has offered legal protection for these exhibitions. Passed in 1965, a law called the Immunity from Seizure Act, 22 U.S.C. 2459, is designed to provide the legal certainty necessary for American museums to organize such exhibitions with their foreign counterparts.

This law empowers the President or his designee to approve a foreign work for temporary exhibition or display in the United States, a process now handled by the State Department. If approval is granted, then the work of art is essentially protected from judicial process-- such as a court-ordered seizure--while it is in the United States.

Unfortunately, this important law has been undermined by a decision of the U.S District Court for the District of Columbia in a case called Malewicz v. City of Amsterdam.

In this case, the City of Amsterdam had made a temporary loan of works of art for educational and cultural purposes to the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Menil Collection in Houston Texas.

Even though the State Department's approval was sought and received for the temporary loan, the court held that the City of Amsterdam's temporary loan nevertheless subjected the City to Federal court jurisdiction in a lawsuit over the work of art.

The reason was that--even though the loan was for educational and cultural purposes, for works to be shown at museums--the City's activities nevertheless qualified as ``commercial activity'' under a provision of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. 1605(a)(3).

The result of this decision, unsurprisingly, is that foreign museums have been more reluctant to lend their art works to our museums in the United States.

The Executive Branch during the Bush administration recognized this problem and tried to correct it. It urged the D.C. Circuit to reverse the decision, saying in an amicus brief that the District Court's ruling was wrong, that it ``substantially undermine[d] the purposes'' of the Immunity from Seizure Act, and that it would ``discourage foreign states and other lenders from providing their artwork for temporary exhibit in the United States.'' Unfortunately the appeal was dismissed before the D.C. Circuit had a chance to correct this problem. That is why this bill is necessary.

Several museums in my home state--including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art--have asked me to help restore the legal certainty that existed prior to the Malewicz decision. I know that institutions in Senator Hatch's home State of Utah have sought his help in this regard as well.

I am very pleased to say that Senator Hatch and I have worked together--along with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, Ranking Member John Conyers, and Representatives Steve Chabot and Steve Cohen--to draft a narrow bill that we hope can be enacted quickly this year.

This bill is simple. It relies on the State Department's approval process. If the State Department approves a loan of a foreign art work--essentially immunizing the work from judicial seizure under existing law--then the foreign state's activities associated with the work's exhibition cannot be used to assert jurisdiction over the foreign state under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. 1605(a)(3).

This narrow approach does only what is necessary to fix the problem created by the Malewicz decision--nothing more, nothing less.

It is important to note that this bill would not apply if the foreign state does not seek or receive the State Department's approval. The State Department requires detailed certifications and independent investigations about an art work's provenance before it grants approval. The bill also expressly would not apply to any work taken in Europe by the Nazis or their collaborators.

Once again, I thank Senator Hatch and my colleagues in the House for working with me on this important legislation, which has already passed the House of Representatives by voice vote. I urge my colleagues to join us in supporting this legislation.

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

Madam President, I thank the Senator from Minnesota for her remarks. For a long time, I had been the only woman on the Judiciary Committee, and I am just delighted that she is there as well and that we share the same point of view with respect to this bill.

I rise today to urge the Republican leadership of the Senate to allow this piece of legislation that protects American women from the plague--and it is a plague--of domestic violence, stalking, dating violence, and sexual assault to come to the floor of this Senate for a vote.

I was in the Judiciary Committee, and I voted for the original Violence Against Women Act. It was authorized for 6 years. We reauthorized it. It served another 6 years. And now the bill is up for reauthorization. It came out, surprisingly, from the Judiciary Committee on a split vote. Unfortunately, that was a party-line vote. I might say, I was stunned by this vote because never before had there been any controversy--in more than a decade and a half, in all of this time--about this bill.

This act is the centerpiece of the Federal Government's effort to combat domestic violence and sexual assault, and it has positively impacted the response to these crimes at the local, State, and Federal levels, and I hope to show this.

The bill authorizes a number of grant programs administered by the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services to provide funding for emergency shelter, counseling, and legal services for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking.

As a matter of fact, I was thinking last night, when I was mayor of San Francisco back in the early 1980s, I started the first home for battered women, which is La Casa de las Madres. We were able to fund it because it was such a critical need. Women being battered had no place to go and therefore, often stayed in the home where they were battered again and again.

This bill also provides support for State agencies, rape crisis centers, and organizations that provide services to vulnerable women.

American women are safer because we took action. Today, more victims report incidents of domestic violence to the police, and the rate of nonfatal partner violence against women has decreased by 53 percent since this bill went into effect in 1994. These figures are from the Department of Justice. So here we have a 53-percent decrease in the rate of nonfatal partner violence.

The need for the services was highlighted in a recent survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which found that, on average, 24 people per minute are victims of rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in the United States--24 a minute by an intimate partner in the United States. Over the course of the year now, that equates to more than 12 million women and men.

In California, my State, 30,000 people accessed crisis intervention services from one of California's 63 rape crisis centers in 2010 and 2011. These centers primarily rely on Federal Violence Against Women Act funding--not State funding--to provide services to victims in communities.

In 2009 alone, there were more than 167,000 cases in California in which local, county, or State police officers were called to the scene of a domestic violence complaint. Madam President, 167,000 cases--that is many.

Despite the fact that the underlying bill has 58 cosponsors from both parties, not a single Republican member of the Judiciary Committee voted to advance the legislation.

Now, the bill that came out of Judiciary does have some changes, and I want to talk about them for a moment. It creates one very modest new grant program. It consolidates 13 existing programs. It reduces authorization levels for all other programs by nearly 20 percent. And the savings--17 percent. The bill is reduced in cost by 17 percent. That is $136 million. It encourages effective enforcement of protective orders. That is a big problem. Women get protective orders, and they are violated because they are not enforced. And it reduces the national backlog of untested rape kits. It is a real problem if a jurisdiction cannot test a rape kit.

Yet there are some who refuse to support it because it now includes expanded protections for victims. Let me put this on the table. The bill's protections extend to lesbian and gay victims of domestic abuse. It includes undocumented immigrants who are victims of domestic abuse. The bill also gives Native American tribes better prosecutorial tools to fight crimes of domestic violence. In my view, these are improvements. Domestic violence is domestic violence.

I ask my friends on the other side, to the victim in a same-sex relationship, is the violence any less real, is the danger any less real because you happen to be gay or lesbian? I do not think so. If a family comes to the country and the husband beats his wife to a bloody pulp, do we say: ``Well, you are illegal. I am sorry. You do not deserve any protection?'' No, we do not. And 9 1 1 operators and police officers do not refuse to help victims because of their sexual orientation, or the country in which they were born, or their immigration status. When you call the police in America, they come regardless of who you are.

The Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2011 is supported by 50 national religious organizations, including the Presbyterian Church, the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the National Council of Jewish Women, the National Council of Catholic Women, the United Church of Christ, and the United Methodist Church.

I go back to my days as mayor of San Francisco when I saw over and over again, up close and personal, what happens because of domestic violence. I saw police getting killed when they intervened in situations involving domestic violence. We had a number of funerals for police officers in Oakland which I attended. It all stemmed from domestic violence.

To defeat this bill is almost to say that we do not need to consider violence against women, that it is not an important issue. It is. It is not a partisan issue. It never has been in this body, which is why, candidly, I am surprised I find myself on the floor urging that this bill be brought to the floor, because it has been historically, through two reauthorizations, and is a bipartisan bill.

You can't help but notice that this is not the first time a policy which would specifically imperil the health and safety of American women has compelled some of us to come to this floor and speak out on behalf of American women.

I hope that opposition to this bill is not part of a march, and that march, as I see it, over the past 20 years has been to cut back on rights and services to women. And I mean that most sincerely. I have never seen anything like it. When I came here, there were discussions about Roe v. Wade. When I first went on the Judiciary Committee, which was in 1993, I heard it. There were debates over Supreme Court opinions--Casey, et al.--and then there were debates over partial abortion. Then this year we fought against the Blunt amendment which would have effectively allowed employers to arbitrarily decline to provide critical preventive health care services for women.

You know, we had to fight for the simplest things. I think young women forget that it took until 1920 for women to get to vote in this country. It was only because women fought for it. And we have fought since the country was established for the right to vote, for the right to inherit property, for the right to go to school. Now we fight for our rights to have sufficient services from the government with respect to our health.

Now I am here to fight for a bill that strengthens laws and protects women against domestic violence and sexual assault. To me, this bill is a no-brainer. It has the support of both sides of the aisle. It is bipartisan. It saves lives. It is a lifeline for women and children who are in distress, who have no place to go or to stay and have to submit to domestic violence abuse. And no one can say I am exaggerating. Trust me, I have seen it. I have seen the bruised bodies up close and personal.

This bill has reduced the number of domestic assaults on women. The record indicates that. It should be continued. It is a no-brainer. I hope it is brought to the floor. I hope we maintain a bipartisan vote. I hope it is reauthorized.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to speak today on the nomination of Michael Walter Fitzgerald, a highly qualified nominee to the United States District Court for the Central District of California.

The vacancy Mr. Fitzgerald would fill has been declared a judicial emergency by the Judicial Conference of the United States. The Central District is the ninth-busiest court in the country in terms of filings per judgeship, and it has several vacancies that need to be filled.

I wish it had not taken four and a half months to see Mr. Fitzgerald confirmed, but I am very grateful that the Senate is able to make progress on his nomination today.

I urge my colleagues to support this nomination.

Mr. Fitzgerald was born in Los Angeles in 1959 and attended California's public schools. He received a scholarship to attend Harvard College, from which he graduated magna cum laude in 1981.

After graduating from Harvard, Mr. Fitzgerald taught at Anaheim High School. He then attended Boalt Hall Law School at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was managing editor of the Industrial Relations Law Journal and graduated Order of the Coif in 1985.

Following law school, he clerked for Judge Irving R. Kaufman on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Mr. Fitzgerald has over 25 years of experience practicing law. After one year in private practice he became an Assistant United States Attorney in the Central District of California, where he served from 1988 through 1991.

During that time, he served on the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force and with the Major Narcotics Section. He led an investigation that resulted in the seizure of 2,241 pounds of cocaine and the conviction of a major drug trafficking kingpin.

Since his service as a federal prosecutor, Mr. Fitzgerald has worked as an attorney in private practice, first at the law firm Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe and now at Corbin, Fitzgerald, and Athey LLP.

He has represented plaintiffs and defendants in civil cases, as well as criminal defendants. He also has represented major corporations and corporate officials in investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice. For example, he represented a senior Boeing manager in a Federal grand jury investigation, as well as Bank of America.

He also has been active in pro bono work. For example, Mr. Fitzgerald represented an FBI special agent, Frank Buttino, who had security clearance revoked after his sexual orientation was revealed to his FBI superiors. The case resulted in a settlement, in which the FBI revoked its policy of treating sexual orientation as a negative factor in security clearance determinations.

Mr. Fitzgerald also served as a deputy counsel on the Rampart Independent Review Panel, which was appointed by the Los Angeles Police Commission to investigate a major corruption scandal in the Rampart Division of the Los Angeles Police Department. He also served as a counsel to the Special Advisor to the Webster Commission, which investigated the L.A.P.D.'s response to the L.A. riots in 1992.

In short, Mr. Fitzgerald has an impressive record--strong academic credentials, an appellate clerkship, service as a Federal prosecutor, and over two decades in private practice.

Mr. Fitzgerald is also the first openly gay nominee to a California Federal Court--an important milestone on the road to equality.

I am confident he will be a superb addition to the district court, and I urge my colleagues to support his nomination.

Mr. President, I rise to thank the distinguished Senator from New Jersey for his remarks, and most particularly for the remarks of my friend and colleague from California. She has fought this fight along with the dean of our women, Senator Mikulski, year after year and time after time.

Before I speak about the Blunt amendment, I wanted to express that the retirement or announced perspective retirement of Senator Olympia Snowe is, for me, a heartbreak. I have regarded her as one of the most impressive Senators in our body. She still has many good years ahead of her. I have had the pleasure of working with her on a number of bills. Most importantly, we did really the only fuel economy improvement that had been done in 20 years in the 10-over-10 bill. What is interesting about it is it was a bipartisan bill and it got passed thanks to Senator Ted Stevens who was Vice-Chairman of the Commerce Committee at the time and it was put in his bill. So it was really quite wonderful to see that happen.

This is my 20th year here, along with my friend and colleague Senator

Boxer, and over the last 10 years what I have seen is more and more attacks on women and women's health, stemming largely from the abortion debates, but not only that. We have fought--and Senator Mikulski has led the way--for equal pay, we have fought against discrimination, attacks on Title X Family Planning grants, attempts to defund Planned Parenthood, and attempts to limit access to preventive health care such as contraception. These attacks to limit a woman's right to make her own reproductive health care choices have now escalated to an unprecedented level. I am not going to go into the specifics of some of them, but trust me, I never thought I would see people in public office put forward some of the bills out there. I believe strongly that all women should have access to comprehensive reproductive care, and should be able to decide for themselves how to use that care regardless of where they work or what insurance they have.

The other side of the aisle has tried to take away access not only to contraception but also primary and preventive screenings for low-income women that are provided by the Title X Family Planning program and by Planned Parenthood. Title X programs serve over 5 million Americans nationwide, Planned Parenthood almost 3 million. They are not minor, they are major, and for many individuals it is their only source of care. And now here we are defending not just women's rights but the rights of all Americans to have access to essential and preventive health care benefits.

I strongly oppose this latest attack in the form of the Blunt amendment, and I join my colleagues on the floor to speak about the harm that this amendment will do.

I think it was stated by Senator Menendez that the amendment is vague. In its vagueness it becomes a predicate for any provider, employer, or insurer to decline to provide to cover a myriad of health care benefits simply on the basis of religious beliefs or moral conviction. There is no statement in the legislation as to what the religious belief or moral conviction has to be, when it begins, or when it ends. It is an excuse as to why they do not want to do something.

What does this mean? Well, what it means in reality is 20 million women could be denied any preventive health care benefits, including contraception, mammograms, prenatal screenings, and cervical cancer screenings. In addition, 14 million children--and this is right--could be denied, under this Blunt amendment, access to recommended preventive services including routine immunizations, necessary preventive health screenings for infants, and developmental screenings.

In my State alone an estimated 6.2 million individuals--2.3 women, 1.6 million children, and 2 million men--could be denied access to the preventive health services afforded to them by the health reform law, which incidentally is four typewritten pages, single spaced, a list of preventive health services. This debate is not about religious freedom. It is about allowing providers and employers the right to deny access to care for autism screening, STD and cancer screenings, and well-baby exams for any reason. All they have to say is they have a moral concern with it, that their conscience bothers them.

For instance, any employer could refuse to cover screening for type 2 diabetes because of moral objections to a perceived unhealthy lifestyle. A health plan could refuse to cover maternity coverage for an interracial couple because they have a religious or moral objection to such a relationship. The only thing this amendment does is protect the right to deny. It doesn't give anything. It allows denial. It does nothing to protect the rights of employees to access fundamental health care.

The radical wing of the Republican Party does not speak for most of the women in this country. About 100 organizations nationwide oppose this amendment, including the National Partnership for Women and Families, National Physicians Alliance, Human Rights Campaign, and the American Public Health Association.

Earlier we heard from an intensive care nurse who had worked 37 years in intensive care in a Boston hospital who said people get the best care essentially when the politicians stay away, and I believe that. I have heard to date--and I am sure Senator Boxer has heard from a similar number--from 11,500 constituents in my State, Senator Boxer's State, who oppose this amendment and have grave concerns about its implications. I don't need to tell the women in this body that we have had to fight for our rights. No one has given women anything without a fight. We had to fight for our right to inherit property, our right to go to college, our right to vote, and for the last 10 years, the right to control our own reproductive systems. We will continue to fight the Blunt amendment and other attempts to roll back the clock.

I urge my colleagues to think carefully about the long-reaching implications of this amendment and oppose it. Senator Boxer shared with me a letter, and she indicated that she had read one part of it. I wish to read another part of it. This is a letter from Patrick Kennedy to Scott Brown, and I want to read this paragraph because it involves someone everybody on this floor knows sat right over there at that desk for years and was known as the lion of the Senate. When he stood on his feet, everyone listened. Here is what Patrick Kennedy said:

My father believed that health care providers should be

allowed a conscience exemption from performing any service

that conflicted with their faith. That's what was in his 1995

law and what he referenced to the Pope. That is completely

different than the broad language of the Blunt amendment that

will allow any employer, or even an insurance company, to use

vague moral objections as an excuse to refuse to provide

health care coverage. My father never would have supported

this extreme legislation.

It is signed Patrick Kennedy, and I believe Senator Boxer put the letter in the Record so anyone who wishes to see the whole letter has access to it. But I hope this amendment is defeated on the floor.

I see the distinguished Senator from the neighboring State, Maryland, the dean of the women, is on the floor.

I will yield the floor.

Mr. President, I heard the remarks of the distinguished Senator from New York, and, obviously, I agree and I guess I would like to add my 2 cents to the arguments presented.

I am a 19-year member of the Judiciary Committee, so I have had a front-row seat for judicial nominations for a long time. Over 800 judges have been confirmed since I came to the Senate.

Now, it was not so long ago that liberals and conservatives could easily win confirmation as long as they were well qualified, fair- minded, and had judicial temperament. They were confirmed. It may even surprise some that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was confirmed by a vote of 96 to 3, and Justice Antonin Scalia was confirmed 98 to 0. That was a different time.

Today partisanship has stalled even the most uncontroversial judicial appointments. Senate Republicans allowed no nominees to be confirmed at the end of the last session and have allowed only five so far this year. In this environment even those reported out of committee by voice vote without any controversy are unable to receive a floor vote for many months if they ever receive one at all.

Let me give a recent example, a judge I recommended to the President. Judge Cathy Bencivengo's nomination to the Southern District of California was approved by the Judiciary Committee by voice vote. Yet she waited 4 months for a floor vote. Then she was ultimately confirmed 90 to 6, showing that there simply was no need to hold up the nomination in the first place. This level of obstruction is relatively new and has impeded the confirmation process for both judicial and executive branch nominees.

Let's do a quick comparison. Nearly 80 percent of President George W. Bush's judicial nominees during his first term were confirmed--80 percent. In contrast, less than 60 percent of President Obama's judicial nominees have been confirmed. As a result, the judicial vacancy rate stands at nearly 10 percent. That is double what it was when President Bush left office.

Similarly, during the first session of the 112th Congress, the confirmation rate of President Obama's executive branch appointments was only 51 percent. President George W. Bush and Bill Clinton each had a confirmation rate of over 70 percent during comparable periods in their Presidency.

So, clearly, there has been a change post-Bush, and I think that is what we are talking about. This is not good for the judiciary, it is not good for this body, and it is not good as standard operating practice of the Senate. It is clear we are seeing a degree of obstruction that is unprecedented and that hampers the ability of the judicial and executive branches to perform their constitutional functions. It is preventing us, the legislative branch, from fulfilling the responsibility that we owe to the two other branches of government.

In my State we have three nominees, each for positions the judicial conference has declared to be judicial emergencies, which means extraordinarily heavy caseloads. These should win confirmation without delay.

I will give you one: Judge Jacqueline Nguyen, a nominee for the Ninth Circuit. She is a remarkable jurist with an impeccable record. She was confirmed to the district court 97 to 0 in 2009. She was approved by the Judiciary Committee for the Ninth Circuit by a bipartisan voice vote. Yet her nomination has been pending on the floor for nearly 3 months. This is an easy one: unanimously passed, has served as a district court judge, could be voted for and passed if not by 100 percent, very close to it. The Ninth Circuit, which has by far more pending cases per appellate panel than any other appellate court, needs her to be confirmed without further delay.

There is a reason for this. I think Republicans don't like some of the appellate courts; therefore, what they try to do, candidly, is keep the positions vacant and hope that after the election there will be a Republican President and they will get their nominees through. Well, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and this is not a good way to handle judicial appointments.

Let me give another one: Paul Watford should be confirmed quickly to the Ninth Circuit. He is eminently qualified. He clerked for conservative Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He served as a Federal prosecutor, and he has been a distinguished practitioner of appellate law in California for many years. He is uncontroversial. He has been endorsed by the former president of the Los Angeles Chapter of the Federalist Society by conservative law professor Eugene Volokh and by the general counsels of several major corporations that he has represented in appellate cases. The Senate should confirm him without delay.

Michael Fitzgerald, a nominee to the Central District of California, should also be confirmed quickly. This is a court that ranks as the ninth busiest in the Nation in terms of filings per judgeship. Mr. Fitzgerald is an extraordinarily qualified nominee with 25 years of experience as a Federal prosecutor and as a lawyer in private practice. His nomination was also reported by the Judiciary Committee by a bipartisan voice vote. Yet his nomination has been waiting for a vote on the floor for nearly 4 months. All of this is unnecessary. They could go through by unanimous consent.

Now, I understand that some of my Republican colleagues believe President Obama's recent recess appointments are a reason to delay needed confirmations to overburdened courts around the country. I would simply remind my colleagues of a bit of history and ask them to think carefully about whether they want to go down this very dangerous path.

Many will recall that President Bush made two controversial recess appointments to the Eleventh Circuit and the Fifth Circuit in early 2004. Like Republicans now, Democrats were upset about the President's appointments. Nevertheless, in the months that followed, Democrats permitted numerous circuit court and district court nominees to be confirmed. The Senate continued to act on such nominees until September of 2004--2 months before the Presidential election.

So I say to my colleagues--and say this respectfully--take a step back. Do not obstruct every judicial nomination from this President. Our judicial system depends on a Senate willing to do its constitutional duty and provide advice and consent on judicial nominees. Most pending nominees are well-qualified, consensus choices for courts that urgently need them to begin their service. We should confirm them without delay.

Our job is to vote. Our job is not to obstruct, to delay. It is to vote. We

function on a majority system. If you do not think someone is qualified, if you do not believe they have the judicial temperament, if you do not believe they have enough experience, if you do not like them for any reason, vote no. That is entirely within the prerogative of a Senator. But to hold them up, despite judicial emergencies, despite high caseloads, is to impact the system of justice.

I think this 10-percent vacancy factor now indicates that the condition of justice is, in fact, being affected throughout our country, particularly in the Ninth Circuit and in California as well as in many other States.

I thank the Acting President pro tempore and yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I thank my friend and colleague, the distinguished chair of the committee, for her work in managing this bill. This is a huge bill. It has many titles. It is a complex bill. It is a totally vital bill. Both on this floor and off this floor, she has been advocating and pushing and doing what is necessary. I want to say thank you very much to my friend and colleague, Senator Boxer.

Madam President, let me describe what happened in 2008 in Chatsworth, CA. On September 12, 2008, Metrolink commuter train 111, carrying more than 200 people, departed the Chatsworth train station about 4:20 p.m. Heading west, the commuter train ran through a train signal at 44 miles per hour at about 4:22 p.m. and 2 seconds. The train signal showed red, for stop.

At the same time, a Union Pacific freight train, weighing four times the weight of the commuter train, was heading east on the same track. It exited a tunnel with little time to react to the oncoming commuter train. Both trains were on the same track going in opposite directions, each going roughly 40 miles per hour. The trains collided head on.

The carnage was unspeakable; 25 people died. Their bodies, many torn to pieces, had to be extracted from heaps of steel and wreckage.

This is the scene. This is the commuter train. This is the freight train. This is the car that essentially chopped apart 25 people.

As Superior Court Judge Peter Lichtman wrote:

These were teachers, Federal, State, municipal employees,

business owners, executives, artists and students that were

all lost on that day.

Many families were left without any provider, not to

mention the loss of a mom or dad.

Another 101 people were injured, many of them very seriously. Volunteers and rescue crews worked valiantly to pull them from the wreckage.

You can see this overturned train here. You see the rescue crews. It was a terrible, terrible scene.

Judge Peter Lichtman described many of these injuries. Passengers seated at table seats suffered ``horrible abdominal injuries that could not be medically resolved.'' ``All of the bench passengers were launched head [or] face first into a bulkhead.'' ``Almost all of these passengers suffered traumatic brain injuries to varying degrees.''

Let me explain how and why this happened. Seconds before the crash, the train's engineer was text-messaging on his cell phone. He was the only personnel aboard that train when he looked down to send a text to a teenage boy. This was one of 21 text messages sent by this engineer this day. He received 20 secretaries messages and made four outgoing telephone calls, all while he was driving a large commuter train.

According to the NTSB's comprehensive report on the crash, this behavior distracted the engineer and caused the collision. It led to the train running red signals. In fact, NTSB found the passenger train's engineer never even hit the brakes before impact. NTSB found that a crash avoidance system would have stopped the train and prevented this disaster, but, unfortunately, the tracks in Los Angeles had and have no such system nor do most tracks in the United States.

As a result of this accident, 25 people died and 100 people were injured. The statistics about the Chatsworth disaster do not begin to tell the story. Perhaps I might be able to better put into words what is at stake in this debate in one of the votes we will be taking about positive train control by telling you a little bit about Kari Hsieh and Atul Vyas.

Eighteen-year-old Kari did not want to trouble her father to drive her from the family's Newhall home to a restaurant in Simi Valley, so she took the train. In October 2008 she became one of many young people killed in this crash. She was just starting her senior year at Hart High School and looking forward to a career in medicine, according to her family. She played tennis for the school and was well liked by her classmates who described her as warm and caring. ``Anyone who knew her can remember her by her beaming smile and infectious laugh,'' one of her classmates told the Los Angeles Times.

Here she is.

``She had such a positive outlook on life and always had something nice to say about everyone,'' wrote a parent of a varsity tennis player. ``I feel blessed to have been part of her life.''

Then there is Atul Vyas, a student at Claremont McKenna College, who was studying to become a doctor. At 20 years old, he was in the process of applying to graduate programs at MIT, Duke, and Harvard. He scored in the top 1 percent of his medical school entry exams, but he was having trouble answering one question on applications: Describe a hardship you have overcome.

``He said `I have not had any.' I have had a blessed life,'' explained his father. Atul never finished that application nor did he reach his goal of medical school. He took Metrolink train 111 home to visit his family as he did every 2 to 3 weeks, but he never made it home because an engineer was texting.

As the NTSB found, these young lives and the lives of 23 others could have been saved if crash avoidance technology, known as positive train control, had been in place. In 2008, Congress finally required railroads to deploy positive train control, which the National Transportation Safety Board had placed on its top 10 most wanted safety technologies listed since 1990. This body gave the railroad industry 7 years to deploy positive train control crash avoidance systems nationwide. The leaders of Southern California's Metrolink, Union Pacific, and BNSF railroads each committed to deploy positive train control systems in Los Angeles years earlier than the national mandate. These railroads are still on track to deploy the system next year.

I met yesterday with John Fenton, the new CEO of Metrolink, and Matt Rose, the CEO of BNSF. They both indicated their desire to make their highest priority positive train control, and I thank them. Metrolink is going to go ahead with it as soon as possible regardless. BNSF told us if they delay--if this bill delays it, they may take an additional year.

I salute both of them for their support of this program. However, I am very alarmed that others in the railroad industry and in Congress diminish the value of positive train control.

As a matter of fact, the bill we will most likely be voting on--in one of its titles, the commerce title--delays positive train control until 2018. The House bill delays it until 2020. When the technology is there, despite its complications of installation, when you have high- risk lines, freight lines and commuter lines traveling in opposite directions on the same track, and when you have human frailty--in this case one engineer texting aboard a commuter train of a couple of hundred people--the only answer to assure the safety to the commuter trains of this Nation, in my view, is positive train control. I view it as an emergency need. The NTSB views it as an emergency need.

According to them, scores of deadly accidents across the country since 1970 could have been prevented if positive train control in effect were installed. I agree strongly with the NTSB Chairman, Deborah Hersman, whom I happen to know, who recently wrote to the Congress that:

The NTSB will be disappointed if installation of this vital

safety system to prevent fatalities and injuries is delayed.

The need to extend the 2015 positive train control deployment deadline has not been demonstrated. The Senate Commerce Committee has held no hearings on this issue and no published reports investigating this question have recommended an extension, according to the NTSB experts.

Furthermore, every railroad has submitted an approved plan to meet the 2015 deadline to the Federal Railroad Administration, and the administration is preparing a report to Congress on positive train control deployment progress this year, which should provide us guidance on that effort to date.

I think Congress should consider the FRA's findings carefully before scaling back or delaying a system that can prevent crashes such as Chatsworth. And there have been three prior crashes that have taken lives on this Metrolink system. These are not isolated. They happen. We now have a technical system that can be 100 percent proof-positive to provide safety. So I am very concerned that without a national strategy, deployment of positive train control in southern California will become more difficult. There will be excuses, and there will be a lessening of effort. And both BNSF and Metrolink have made very strong efforts to comply with 2015. Why change it? The Los Angeles area is a huge commuter area, and when it is not necessary to change it, why do it? The national requirement to deploy the system by 2015 creates a substantial incentive for industry to develop new and cost-effective technology that lowers the deployment costs for everyone, including Metrolink.

The national strategy, which will hopefully be presented in the FRA's 2012 report to Congress, could play a significant role in addressing positive train control deployment barriers. This system can prevent human error from causing collisions, dangerous releases of hazardous materials, and passengers and train crews from being killed and injured.

So I make these remarks today in the hopes that there will be support in this body for the 2015 deadline. And I really appeal to the committee that right now it is locked in at 2018--we have tried, we have talked to the staff, and we have been rejected--to understand that what they are delaying is a device that saves lives, and there is no excuse for so doing. The case has not been made to do so. The hearings have not taken place, there was no markup to add this, and I strongly believe it should not be delayed in this bill. I hope Members will listen. I hope they will respond. Hundreds of thousands of commuters are at risk until this system is put into place.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I have submitted an amendment to the pending surface transportation reauthorization bill.

Community colleges are a critical source of education and job training for many individuals. Nationwide, we have 1,655 community colleges, which enroll nearly 6 million students. These community colleges will play a big role in helping Americans develop the skills to be competitive in our 21st century economy.

In light of the President's call for job training assistance, it is imperative that we support programs that help workers meet the new demands of our economy. My amendment does just that.

This amendment ensures that transit agencies that partner with community colleges on job training programs are eligible for Federal grants.

By supporting collaborative job-training programs between community colleges and transit agencies, we support our workforce in gaining valuable technical skills, while also supporting industries that are facing a workforce shortage.

I will urge my colleagues to vote for this amendment to ensure that we are supporting our workers in getting a valuable education and supporting an industry that is facing a critical workforce shortage.

Mr. President, today I have filed Amendment No. 1536 to the pending surface transportation reauthorization bill. This amendment is also supported by Senator Boxer.

This amendment would change the railcar procurement rules to allow transit systems to contract for delivery of railcars for up to 5 years from the date of delivery of the first railcar.

Current law requires the purchase of buses and railcars to be completed

within 5 years of the date the contract is signed, not the date of the first delivery.

So this amendment would give transit operators the chance to sign larger and more cost effective contracts, which in some cases can save substantial money.

The current rules do not make sense for rail operators. They are designed to stimulate competition among manufacturers, and they prevent transit agencies from locking themselves into contracts for outdated buses in a market that is constantly evolving and advancing technologically.

But these rules do not recognize the reality of purchasing and producing railcars.

A light rail system's car designs must maintain a basic design for compatibility reasons, so rules designed to promote innovative design have little benefit.

But by forcing the transit rail agency to buy cars with the same basic design in two orders instead of one, these rules almost certainly increase total costs. It may also lead to the purchase of different models from two different orders, increasing maintenance costs in the future.

For instance, the Bay Area Rapid Transit System, or BART, is replacing its entire fleet of 669 railcars and buying an additional 106 for an expansion project.

BART's railcars have been in use for about 50 years, and they have become too costly to maintain. It is clearly time that they be replaced.

The current 5 year procurement rule, however, would force BART to issue two small procurements, instead of one large one.

BART estimates this will cost taxpayers and transit riders $325 million and they will buy the same number of cars either way.

This amendment would allow transit agencies like BART to sign one single contract, to purchase in bulk, and to save money for strapped systems.

Buying in bulk means cheaper flooring, seats, and all other component parts needed to build a railcar. BART also risks increased prices of component parts between contracts.

This amendment empowers transit systems to apply lessons learned from the airline industry in order to make transit more efficient and less costly.

As BART has pointed out in their letter on this amendment, Southwest Airlines is their model.

Southwest flies only Boeing 737s, making it the lowest cost maintenance system in the country. BART wants a single railcar design, to bring about the same type of savings.

BART hopes to purchase one model and keep their maintenance costs low as well.

The bottom line is this amendment gets Federal rules out of the way of transit agencies that want to use their market power.

It helps transit get the best possible price when purchasing equipment.

It stretches limited Federal dollars much, much further.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and ensure that taxpayers' money is used in an efficient manner. During these critical economic times, every cent of the people's money should be spent wisely.

Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2012, which will improve the sharing of cyber threat and cybersecurity information in the private sector and with the federal government.

We all know that the cyber threat is perhaps the number one threat to our Nation at this time. It is significant that just last month, at the Senate Intelligence Committee's hearing on

Worldwide Threats, the U.S. Intelligence Community's official statement equated cyber threats to terrorism and proliferation as the highest priority threats to our security.

An unclassified report by the Intelligence Community made public in November 2011 said cyber intrusions against U.S. companies cost untold billions of dollars annually and named China and Russia as aggressive and persistent cyber thieves.

One of the main obstacles to better U.S. cybersecurity is that a combination of existing law, the threat of litigation, and standard business practices prevent or deter the private sector from sharing information about the cyber threats they face and the losses of information and money they suffer.

We know there have been multi-million dollar cyber thefts from the Royal Bank of Scotland, Citibank, and other financial institutions. But companies like these are reticent about making public these cyber attacks because that could further damage their bottom line.

Even cyber security companies like RSA and national security agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigation fall victim to malicious cyber activity, but the lessons learned from those attacks are generally not shared with others that face the same threat.

Finally, cyber criminals violate our privacy by hacking into the computers in our homes. They steal passwords for our bank accounts, access our private information, and turn our computers into launching points for further attacks.

These cyber intrusions affect Americans in substantial and real ways, and the threat is only growing. After reviewing the intelligence for many years on the cyber threat, it is clear to me that foreign nations and non-state actors are already causing major damage to our economy. I am also convinced that these bad actors are capable of causing potentially catastrophic loss of life and economic damage by opening a dam, crashing our financial system, or bringing down the electric grid.

For these reasons, I am very pleased that Majority Leader Reid is bringing comprehensive cybersecurity legislation to the Senate Floor after the President's Day Recess.

For 2 years, Leader Reid has worked with the Chairmen and Ranking Members of all the committees of jurisdiction on cybersecurity to produce this legislation, and Senators Rockefeller, Collins, Lieberman and Snowe in particular are to be commended for their extensive efforts in this area.

As the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, I am particularly interested in legislation to address the need for better information sharing.

The intelligence committees in the Senate and House have been working to improve information sharing on counterterrorism since the terrorist attacks of September 11. The urgency in the cyber arena is just as important, but is, if anything, more difficult, as we must coordinate and protect the sharing of information that will go to a far greater number of entities, both public and private.

Unfortunately, the private sector entities that operate the critical networks that control financial markets, power plants, dams, and communications are prevented in very real ways from sharing information to warn each other of cyber threats. Barriers to such sharing include perceived financial and reputational risks; legal barriers in electronic surveillance laws; liability concerns that arise from potential lawsuits; and lack of one Federal agency in charge of cyber information sharing.

The bill I am introducing today will allow for more information sharing by providing clear authority to share cyber threat information and by reducing legal barriers to private entities' ability to work with each other and with the federal government to share cybersecurity information, in a manner that upholds privacy and civil liberties.

Participation in information sharing in this bill would be voluntary for companies, but any company that does share threat information will be protected for doing so, and the information would be subject to strict privacy controls.

I also want to be very clear that this bill does not give law enforcement or the Intelligence Community any new authorities for conducting surveillance.

In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal on January 27, 2012, former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, and former Deputy Secretary of Defense Bill Lynn said that the Intelligence Community needs to make cyber threat information available to other parts of the government and to commercial entities to maximize our cyber defenses.

The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2012 would do just that.

Specifically, this legislation requires the Federal government to designate a single focal point for cybersecurity information sharing. The bill refers to this focal point as a ``Cybersecurity Exchange'' because with cybersecurity, it's not enough for entities to operate as ``centers'' or ``task forces'' that only receive information; they must also serve as a hub for appropriately distributing and exchanging cyber threat information. The bill also requires the government to reduce bureaucratic obstacles to sharing so that the government can be a more effective partner for the private sector.

The bill establishes procedures for the government to share classified cybersecurity threat information with certified private sector entities. Generally, only government contractors can receive a security clearance, but other companies, such as Internet Service Providers, need to receive classified threat information in order to protect against attacks. This bill makes them eligible to receive security clearances for that purpose. Those companies would be under the same restrictions to protect classified information as the government.

The bill removes legal and policy barriers to information sharing by affirmatively authorizing private sector entities to monitor and defend their own networks and to share cyber information.

By creating a robust privacy compliance regime to ensure that information in the Federal government's hands is protected. Just as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Privacy Act, and many other statutes place conditions on the government's ability to use information it receives, this bill would limit the government's ability to use private sector cyber information for approved cybersecurity purposes only.

And also by providing appropriate liability protections for companies that share cyber information under the terms of the bill. A company that shares threat information with a cybersecurity exchange or with other private sector entities is protected under this bill from litigation for having done so. Many companies have told us that the threat of litigation deters them from sharing details about cyber attacks they have faced. In order to assist other companies and the government to protect against those attacks in the future, that information needs to be shared and acted upon.

I look forward to the consideration of this bill and the rest of the cyber legislative package that will be taken up by the Senate soon.

Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2012, which will improve the sharing of cyber threat and cybersecurity information in the private sector and with the federal government.

We all know that the cyber threat is perhaps the number one threat to our Nation at this time. It is significant that just last month, at the Senate Intelligence Committee's hearing on

Worldwide Threats, the U.S. Intelligence Community's official statement equated cyber threats to terrorism and proliferation as the highest priority threats to our security.

An unclassified report by the Intelligence Community made public in November 2011 said cyber intrusions against U.S. companies cost untold billions of dollars annually and named China and Russia as aggressive and persistent cyber thieves.

One of the main obstacles to better U.S. cybersecurity is that a combination of existing law, the threat of litigation, and standard business practices prevent or deter the private sector from sharing information about the cyber threats they face and the losses of information and money they suffer.

We know there have been multi-million dollar cyber thefts from the Royal Bank of Scotland, Citibank, and other financial institutions. But companies like these are reticent about making public these cyber attacks because that could further damage their bottom line.

Even cyber security companies like RSA and national security agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigation fall victim to malicious cyber activity, but the lessons learned from those attacks are generally not shared with others that face the same threat.

Finally, cyber criminals violate our privacy by hacking into the computers in our homes. They steal passwords for our bank accounts, access our private information, and turn our computers into launching points for further attacks.

These cyber intrusions affect Americans in substantial and real ways, and the threat is only growing. After reviewing the intelligence for many years on the cyber threat, it is clear to me that foreign nations and non-state actors are already causing major damage to our economy. I am also convinced that these bad actors are capable of causing potentially catastrophic loss of life and economic damage by opening a dam, crashing our financial system, or bringing down the electric grid.

For these reasons, I am very pleased that Majority Leader Reid is bringing comprehensive cybersecurity legislation to the Senate Floor after the President's Day Recess.

For 2 years, Leader Reid has worked with the Chairmen and Ranking Members of all the committees of jurisdiction on cybersecurity to produce this legislation, and Senators Rockefeller, Collins, Lieberman and Snowe in particular are to be commended for their extensive efforts in this area.

As the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, I am particularly interested in legislation to address the need for better information sharing.

The intelligence committees in the Senate and House have been working to improve information sharing on counterterrorism since the terrorist attacks of September 11. The urgency in the cyber arena is just as important, but is, if anything, more difficult, as we must coordinate and protect the sharing of information that will go to a far greater number of entities, both public and private.

Unfortunately, the private sector entities that operate the critical networks that control financial markets, power plants, dams, and communications are prevented in very real ways from sharing information to warn each other of cyber threats. Barriers to such sharing include perceived financial and reputational risks; legal barriers in electronic surveillance laws; liability concerns that arise from potential lawsuits; and lack of one Federal agency in charge of cyber information sharing.

The bill I am introducing today will allow for more information sharing by providing clear authority to share cyber threat information and by reducing legal barriers to private entities' ability to work with each other and with the federal government to share cybersecurity information, in a manner that upholds privacy and civil liberties.

Participation in information sharing in this bill would be voluntary for companies, but any company that does share threat information will be protected for doing so, and the information would be subject to strict privacy controls.

I also want to be very clear that this bill does not give law enforcement or the Intelligence Community any new authorities for conducting surveillance.

In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal on January 27, 2012, former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, and former Deputy Secretary of Defense Bill Lynn said that the Intelligence Community needs to make cyber threat information available to other parts of the government and to commercial entities to maximize our cyber defenses.

The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2012 would do just that.

Specifically, this legislation requires the Federal government to designate a single focal point for cybersecurity information sharing. The bill refers to this focal point as a ``Cybersecurity Exchange'' because with cybersecurity, it's not enough for entities to operate as ``centers'' or ``task forces'' that only receive information; they must also serve as a hub for appropriately distributing and exchanging cyber threat information. The bill also requires the government to reduce bureaucratic obstacles to sharing so that the government can be a more effective partner for the private sector.

The bill establishes procedures for the government to share classified cybersecurity threat information with certified private sector entities. Generally, only government contractors can receive a security clearance, but other companies, such as Internet Service Providers, need to receive classified threat information in order to protect against attacks. This bill makes them eligible to receive security clearances for that purpose. Those companies would be under the same restrictions to protect classified information as the government.

The bill removes legal and policy barriers to information sharing by affirmatively authorizing private sector entities to monitor and defend their own networks and to share cyber information.

By creating a robust privacy compliance regime to ensure that information in the Federal government's hands is protected. Just as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Privacy Act, and many other statutes place conditions on the government's ability to use information it receives, this bill would limit the government's ability to use private sector cyber information for approved cybersecurity purposes only.

And also by providing appropriate liability protections for companies that share cyber information under the terms of the bill. A company that shares threat information with a cybersecurity exchange or with other private sector entities is protected under this bill from litigation for having done so. Many companies have told us that the threat of litigation deters them from sharing details about cyber attacks they have faced. In order to assist other companies and the government to protect against those attacks in the future, that information needs to be shared and acted upon.

I look forward to the consideration of this bill and the rest of the cyber legislative package that will be taken up by the Senate soon.

Mr. President, I rise to speak on behalf of the nomination of magistrate judge Cathy Ann Bencivengo to the position of district judge for the Southern District of California.

Judge Bencivengo will fill a judicial emergency vacancy in a judicial district along the southwest border that has one of the highest and most rapidly increasing criminal caseloads in the country.

The Southern District of California includes San Diego and Imperial Counties. It borders Mexico, and it consequently has a large immigration caseload. It ranks fourth in the country in terms of criminal case filings per authorized judgeship.

The district's former chief judge, Irma Gonzalez, wrote me a letter urging Judge Bencivengo's confirmation and highlighting the felony caseload crisis in the district. As Chief Judge Gonzalez explained, since 2008 criminal case filings in the district have increased by 42 percent and civil case filings by 25 percent. In the past fiscal year alone, criminal cases had risen 17 percent up to the time of her letter. It is, in fact, a judicial emergency.

I ask unanimous consent to speak for 7 minutes.

Let me tell everyone a little about Judge Bencivengo. She is a consensus nominee who was approved by the Judiciary Committee by a voice vote. That does not often happen. There was no objection from any colleague on any side of the aisle.

She was recommended to me by a bipartisan judicial selection committee which I have established in California to advise me in recommending judicial nominees to the President. This committee reviews judicial candidates based on their legal skill, reputation, experience, temperament, and overall commitment to excellence.

Judge Bencivengo has been a U.S. magistrate judge in San Diego for the last 6 years, and she has earned an outstanding reputation in that judicial role.

Throughout my advisory committee's process, Judge Bencivengo has actually set herself apart as a person who would be truly exceptional. She was born in New Jersey. She began her undergraduate career at Rutgers. She earned a bachelor's in journalism and political science and a master's from Rutgers as well.

She worked for a leading American corporation--Johnson & Johnson--in New Brunswick. She then attended the University of Michigan Law School, where she excelled, graduating magna cum laude, and was inducted into the Order of the Coif.

After law school, she joined the San Diego firm of Gray Cary, which later became part of a major international law firm. She became a founding member of the firm's patent litigation group. Her knowledge of patent law, which she honed in law school and in private practice, made her a valued resource for her colleagues and clients, so she quickly rose through the ranks at her firm. She was selected as the national cochair of her firm's patent litigation group, a role in which she managed 70 patent attorneys.

In 2005, she became a magistrate judge, a role in which she has served as a serious and thoughtful jurist. Since her appointment, she has published 180 opinions, over 190 reports and recommendations, over 1,800 orders on nondispositive motions, and roughly 800 of her orders involved felony criminal cases.

She has substantial expertise in patent law, which will be welcome in the district, which is part of a new Federal judicial program designed to assign more patent cases to judges who are experts in the field of patent law. So she will be helpful.

Judge Bencivengo has received high praise from any number of people. I know of no opposition to her confirmation. I think this advice and consent process will yield a very good, seasoned San Diego magistrate judge for the district court, and I am very proud to recommend her and to have had unanimous consent of the Judiciary Committee for her confirmation.

I see Senator Lee on the floor. Perhaps I could ask unanimous consent that when Senator Lee concludes, and if there is time remaining, I be recognized to speak for a couple minutes as in morning business.

Mr. President, I would like to briefly respond to Senator Lee's comments.

I understand the reasons for which he is opposing this nominee. I would again point out that, in my opinion, based on what I heard the distinguished Senator say, it has nothing to do with the nominee. It has to do with a peripheral issue. I would hope a majority of the Senate would understand this is a totally noncontroversial, totally capable, totally qualified, and totally good nominee. To hold her confirmation hostage is something that doesn't redound well on this body.

This is a judicial emergency in the Southern District of California, and we need to get this judge approved. So while I appreciate the Senator's comments--I think most of us are well aware of the feelings on the other side--I think somehow, some way, we have to come together and prevent what is happening. And what is happening is, if I don't get my way on something, I am going to hold up appointments, I am going to hold up confirmations, and I am going to do whatever I can to show I have power to disrupt this body.

In essence, the body can be disrupted. We know that. There are very strong minority rights in the Senate rules of order. But at the same time, we have an obligation to see that qualified people who want to serve in this government--in this case in the judicial arm, in the Federal Court system--have an opportunity to do so, and where there is real danger in terms of overly high caseloads, we can respond and get qualified nominees in place.

I appreciate what the Senator had to say. I understand it. But I appeal to this body: Please vote to approve Cathy Bencivengo to the Southern District of California.

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

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I rise to discuss the continued attacks on the rights of women to control their own reproductive choices.

Women should have access to comprehensive reproductive care and should be able to decide for themselves how to use that care.

Here is the problem. The politics of women's health care has reached an extreme point, most recently with the decision of the Susan G. Komen Foundation to stop funding for breast cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood.

Following the outrage of millions of men and women around the country, the Foundation reversed its course, at least for this year.

A year ago, House Republicans passed a budget that would have eliminated the Title X Family Planning Program and defunded Planned Parenthood.

Annually, these programs serve almost 8 million Americans nationwide providing primary care, cancer screenings, well baby care, contraceptive services, education, annual exams, STD and HIV testing, and flu vaccines.

These programs provide critical health care services to many women who simply cannot afford to go anywhere else.

It is ironic to defund these programs because family planning education and access to contraception can save money. For example, title X supported family planning centers prevented 406,000 abortions and saved taxpayers $3.4 billion in 2008 alone.

The same House-passed budget would have also eliminated the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program. Teen pregnancy costs taxpayers billions of dollars annually.

Recently, the Obama administration announced its final policy on contraception coverage as part of the preventive health services recommended for women. The policy concluded employers are required to provide no-cost contraception or another option to their employees.

The administration included a very narrow exemption to this requirement, and allowed religious organizations, such as churches or synagogues that primarily employ people of their own faith, to opt-out.

This narrow religious exemption, which does not include hospitals, universities, or other organizations with religious affiliations, was the right decision. It ensures that millions of women of all faiths, including nurses, janitors, doctors, and college instructors, will access to good health care, including contraception, if they want it.

A nurse seeking employment should not have to choose between one employer who provides contraception coverage and one who doesn't.

Access to contraception is widely supported. Today, two new polls were released that showed the majority of catholic voters support coverage for prescription birth control.

Seventy-one percent of American voters, including 77 percent of Catholic women voters, support health plans covering birth control without co-pays.

Moreover, 28 States, including California, already require employer- provided health plans to include contraception coverage if the plan provides prescription drug coverage.

In 2004, the California Supreme Court held that Catholic Charities was no different from any other employer and therefore required to provide contraception coverage for their employees.

I agree.

Access to contraception can reduce rates of unintended pregnancy, help with certain health problems, and reduce the risks of some cancers. Expanding the exemption would have caused unacceptable harm to women.

The administration should keep this exemption narrow.

House Republicans insisted on including a ban on local funding for abortions in the District of Columbia in the fiscal year 2012 appropriations bill.

They have introduced and passed numerous bills that would significantly restrict a women's right to choose. This past October, the House passed a bill that would prohibit Federal funds from being used for any health plan that offers abortion coverage.

This would mean that any women receiving Federal subsidies to help them afford health insurance would effectively be prohibited from purchasing coverage that included abortion services.

Last May, the House passed a bill that falsely claimed to end public funding for abortion. There are already stringent Federal protections that prohibit Federal dollars from being used for abortions; this bill was not about that.

Instead this bill was an attempt to reopen a contentious debate and to impose unprecedented limitations on women using their own money for abortion services.

Even worse, this bill would have allowed hospitals to refuse to provide abortion care or refer a patient to a hospital that would provide it, even when a woman's life is in critical danger.

This attack on women's health must be defeated. All women deserve access to quality comprehensive health care, regardless of their income level or place of employment.

There is a balance between respecting America's democratic values and increasing access to important health services for women. In addition to being a health concern, for many women it is an economic concern as well.

Better health policies for women help them save on out of pockets costs. When women are healthy, communities are healthy. I will continue to stand for women's health and fight for equal access to care.

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

Mr. President, on behalf of myself and Senator Boxer, I join my colleagues in the House of Representatives, including Mr. Costa, Mr. Lungren, Mr. Cardoza, Mr. Farr, Mr. Denham, Ms. Richardson, Mr. Baca, Mr. Herger, Mrs. Capps, Mr. Filner, Ms. Lofgren, Ms. Matsui, Mr. Nunes, Mr. McNerney, Mr. Thompson, Mr. Schiff, Ms. Lee, Ms. Loretta Sanchez, Ms. Eshoo, Ms. Chu, Ms. Speier, Ms. Linda Sanchez, Mr. Becerra, Ms. Hahn, Mr. Sherman, Mr. Honda, Mr. McClintock, and Mr. Calvert, to pay tribute to Mr. Jack King on the occasion of his retirement from the California Farm Bureau Federation. For more than 35 years, Jack King has worked on behalf of our Nation's farmers and ranchers to ensure that they have a voice in our Nation's capital. His passion for agriculture has made him a strong and effective advocate for the American Farm Bureau Federation and the California Farm Bureau Federation.

Growing up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin taught Jack the value of hard work, and the important role agriculture plays in America--specifically when it comes to feeding and clothing our families and supporting our economy. Upon graduating from the University of Wisconsin, Jack began his career in agriculture with the university's cooperative extension office. Jack then went on to work for the Wisconsin Council of Agricultural Cooperatives and the Wisconsin Council of Agriculture. In 1973, Jack ventured west and joined the California Farm Bureau Federation as assistant manager of the information division.

Jack expanded his work with the Farm Bureau, and in 1985, he became news services director for the American Farm Bureau Federation. Based in Illinois, Jack managed internal and external communications and often worked in conjunction with the Washington, D.C. office to ensure that legislators were connected with farmers and ranchers. In 1994, Jack returned to California to serve as manager of the California Farm Bureau Federation's National Affairs Division. He served as a direct link between farmers, ranchers, and Members of Congress.

Jack's tremendous contributions and dedication can be measured in a number of ways. Notably, Jack made approximately 200 trips to Washington, D.C. His deep commitment was based in his belief that legislators needed to hear directly from farmers and ranchers in order to understand their contributions and the difficulties they face. Specifically, Jack has been dedicated to working on comprehensive immigration reform, natural resource regulations, and renewable energy.

Of course none of these accomplishments would be possible without the love and support of Jack's wife, Mary Ann; their sons, Carl, David and Bryan; and two grandchildren.

We ask our colleagues to join us in recognizing Jack King's enthusiasm and work ethic. His devotion and loyalty to our Nation's farmers and ranchers make him a source of pride for our community, State and Nation. We thank Jack for his work on behalf of farmers and ranchers in California and all across the country, and wish him well in retirement.

Mr. President, I rise today with Senators Lieberman, Rubio, Boxer, Durbin, McCain, Webb, and Mark Udall to submit a resolution expressing our deep concern about the current situation in Tibet and our steadfast support for the Tibetan people.

Once again, we have seen how harsh and counterproductive Chinese policies have heightened tensions and led to deadly violence.

According to press reports and the International Campaign for Tibet, since the beginning of the Chinese New Year on Monday, security forces in Sichuan province have opened fire three times on Tibetans who gathered peacefully to protest Chinese policies on Tibet.

At least six Tibetans have been killed and many more wounded.

These attacks come on top of a recent spate of self-immolations mostly by Tibetan monks and nuns.

Since March 2011, at least 16 Tibetans, including four this month alone, have set themselves on fire and at least 12 have died.

I know I join my colleagues in mourning these tragic deaths and the death of Tibetans in this latest round of unrest.

In addition, I call on Chinese security forces to exercise maximum restraint and stop targeting Tibetan protesters.

Violence is not the answer to the legitimate grievances of the Tibetan people.

We must raise our voice with this resolution to call on Beijing to respect the right of Tibetans to practice their own religion freely and preserve their distinct cultural and linguistic identity.

This resolution mourns the death of Tibetans who have self-immolated and deplores the repressive policies targeting Tibetans; calls on the Government of the People's Republic of China to suspend implementation of religious control regulations, reassess religious and security policies implemented since 2008 in Tibet, and resume a dialogue with Tibetan Buddhist leaders, including the Dalai Lama or his representatives, to resolve underlying grievances; calls on the Government of the People's Republic of China to release all persons that have been arbitrarily detained; to cease the intimidation, harassment and detention of peaceful protestors; and to allow unrestricted access to journalists, foreign diplomats, and international organizations to Tibet.

The resolution commends His Holiness the Dalai Lama for his decision to devolve his political power in favor of a democratic system; congratulates Tibetans living in exile for holding, on March 20, 2011, a competitive, multi-candidate election that was free, fair, and met international electoral standards; and reaffirms the unwavering friendship between the people of the United States and the people of Tibet.

Over the past several years I have been following the situation in Tibet with increasing concern.

I became involved in this issue when I first met His Holiness the Dalai Lama during a trip to India and Nepal in the fall of 1978.

At that time, as Mayor, I invited His Holiness to visit San Francisco and he accepted.

In September 1979, I was delighted to welcome the Dalai Lama to San Francisco to receive his first public recognition in the United States.

He inspired me to act and I have had the privilege to call him a friend for over 30 years.

Over this time, I have come to the view that Chinese policies on Tibet are intended to suppress the Tibetan culture and people.

These policies include punitive security measures including permanently placing Chinese officials in monasteries; surveillance, mass arrests, and detentions; and restrictions on freedom to practice religion including requiring monks to denounce the Dalai Lama.

We have seen how these policies have created an atmosphere of despair, hopelessness, and frustration among many Tibetans.

Despite nine rounds of talks between the United Front Work Department of the Communist Party of China and envoys of His Holiness, a comprehensive solution to the Tibetan issue remains out of reach.

As a friend of China and the Dalia Lama, I am saddened to see the situation in Tibet deteriorate to this point.

The Dalai Lama has been trying to engage the Chinese leadership for over fifty years.

In the 1990s, I carried three letters to President Jiang Zemin from the Dalai Lama requesting a face to face meeting.

In my view, the Dalai Lama's concerns are driven by a strong Tibetan belief and experience that the Chinese Government continues to suppress the Tibetan culture and way of life.

As my colleagues know, the Dalai Lama has made it clear that he does not support independence for Tibet, but rather meaningful cultural and religious autonomy for the Tibetan people within the People's Republic of China.

Most recently, in his March 2011 statement marking the 52nd anniversary of the peaceful Tibetan uprising he stated:

In our efforts to solve the issue of Tibet, we have

consistently pursued the mutually beneficial Middle-Way

Approach, which seeks genuine autonomy for the Tibetan people

within the [People's Republic of China].

The newly elected prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile, Dr. Lobsang Sangay, has affirmed this policy in his inaugural address:

Guided by the wisdom of our forefathers and foremothers, we

will continue the Middle-Way policy, which seeks genuine

autonomy for Tibet within the People's Republic of China.

Despite these repeated and unequivocal statements, Beijing continues to insist that His Holiness seeks independence for Tibet.

I am stunned that this message has fallen on deaf ears.

Let there be no doubt: the clear goal of His Holiness and the Tibetan people is autonomy within China.

This autonomy can only come about through meaningful dialogue and negotiation, not actions that would undermine Tibetan culture.

As such, I urge the administration to work with our friends and allies in the international community and call on the Chinese Government to begin a substantive dialogue with the Dalai Lama on national reconciliation, respect for the Tibetan culture, and meaningful autonomy for Tibet.

I urge my colleagues to stand up for the Tibetan people and support this resolution.

Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in marking the 2-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United. I want to express my support for legislation to reverse the harmful impact of this decision and restore accountability, transparency and common sense to our Nation's electoral system.

Nearly 2 years ago, on January 21, 2010, the Roberts Court handed down a 5-4 decision striking down parts of the ``Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act.''

That decision--Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission--flew in the face of nearly a century of Congressional law and overturned two prior rulings of the Supreme Court.

This case is not alone.

It is part of a pattern of decisions from the Roberts Court that have overturned precedent.

I have a real concern that this Court is going out of its way to rewrite and reinterpret prior law with decisions, I am sorry to say, seem to favor corporate interests over the interests of the American people.

The Citizens United decision may be the most troubling of these activist decisions.

This decision does not only impact one group of people or one area of the law--it affects the very functioning of our elections and the democracy of more than 300 million Americans.

The Court's decision in this case opened the door to unlimited corporate spending in Federal elections.

Let me repeat: unlimited spending.

The Court held that the First Amendment of the Constitution protects the rights of corporations to spend freely--in the millions or even the billions--on election ads to support or defeat a particular candidate.

What does this mean in the real world?

This means that an oil company like ExxonMobil--a company that earned $45 billion in profits last year--could spend unlimited money to support a candidate who supports more drilling, or to defeat a candidate who opposes more oil drilling.

It means that Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater, and other defense contractors could spend unlimited sums toward the election of candidates who view their defense positions favorably.

Or large banks like Bank of America would be free to use their corporate treasury to attack candidates who favor financial regulation and consumer protection.

As Fred Wertheimer of Democracy 21 testified at a Rules Committee hearing in 2010, ``It would not take many examples of elections where multimillion corporate expenditures defeat a Member of Congress before all Members quickly learn the lesson, vote against the corporate interest at stake in a piece of legislation and you run the risk of being hit with a multimillion-dollar corporate ad campaign to defeat you.''

Is this what we want?

Four years ago in 2008, at this same point in the presidential election cycle, $12.9 million was spent by super PACs in support of candidates.

The fall 2010 midterm elections ushered in this new political landscape with outside groups spending a record $300 million on political advertisements and other messages. This amount represents a 340 percent increase above 2006 spending levels.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the spending by presidential super PACs in this year's election cycle has quadrupled since 2008 to an astonishing $42.5 million spent as of January 24, 2012.

More money is being spent than ever before.

Do not take my word for it.

Take a look at what is going on in the Republican Presidential primary. Corporations and wealthy individuals are funding these super PACs and spending vast amounts of money to attack candidates.

My concerns with these dramatic increases in spending are heightened by a

recent finding from the Center for Responsive Politics that approximately 44 percent of the outside spending in 2010 came from anonymous sources.

The Roberts Court's decision in Citizens United was, I believe, the wrong one.

It protects corporate free speech and will drown out an individuals' free speech. It has threatened to put democratic elections in the United States up for sale to the highest bidder. And it will, I believe, lead to voters having less reliable information about candidates, not more.

The Court gets the final word on the Constitution, and it has spoken.

However, Congress should pass the DISCLOSE Act or Senator Tom Udall's campaign finance constitutional amendment.

I supported the DISCLOSE Act in the last Congress because I believe it is a critical step forward, but the bill was narrowly defeated on a cloture vote of 59-39 in September of 2010.

Given what we have seen in the Republican primaries this year, I think this body must try again to pass the DISCLOSE Act. In 2010, we came close to passing it and needed just one additional yea vote to move the bill forward.

The DISCLOSE Act ensures the American public knows who is funding an ad when they see it on television, and it will close loopholes that could have otherwise allowed unlimited spending in our elections by foreign nationals and corporations receiving government assistance.

I understand that Senator Schumer is working to reintroduce this legislation, and I fully support him in this effort.

Senator Udall's resolution to amend the Constitution would authorize Congress to regulate the raising and spending of money for federal campaigns, including the independent spending of super PACs.

This resolution is a critical step to ensure that corporate dollars will not flow in the dark to one candidate and against another, but, instead, our election process will regain the transparency it has lost after Citizens United.

I believe it is essential that we pass legislation to address this growing problem, and I look forward to working with my colleagues to do so.