Floor Statements

Mr. President, I support the nomination of Ms. Caryn Wagner to be Under Secretary of Intelligence and Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security, DHS, and urge my colleagues to confirm her. The Intelligence Committee unanimously approved the nomination by voice vote on December 10, 2009.

The Under Secretary of Intelligence and Analysis leads the Office of Intelligence and Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security, which is among the youngest elements of the U.S. intelligence community. The main responsibilities of the Office are to ensure that information related to homeland security threats is (1) collected, analyzed, and disseminated to homeland security customers in the Department, at the State, local, and tribal levels; (2) shared as appropriate with private sector entities; and (3) provided to other intelligence community agencies. The Under Secretary of the Office leads these efforts, provides homeland security intelligence and advice to the Secretary and other senior officials in the Department of Homeland Security, and serves as the Department's senior interagency intelligence representative.

The cases of Najibullah Zazi in New York and David Headley in Chicago, both U.S. persons allegedly involved in plotting terrorist acts and having ties to noted terrorist groups overseas, show the threat of violent Islamist radicalization occurring in this country is real. The Department of Homeland Security was created in 2002 to

focus on the threat of terrorist activity in the United States, a mission that is vitally dependent on good, accurate, actionable intelligence.

Nonetheless, the Office of Intelligence and Analysis has experienced numerous problems in its short tenure and members of the Intelligence Committee and the Homeland Security Committee have frequently raised concerns. Of particular note have been the Office's ill-defined planning, programming and budget processes; a gross overreliance on contractors to the point that 63 percent of the workforce was contractor personnel as of this summer; and a lack of a strategic plan. On a number of occasions the Office has produced and disseminated finished intelligence that has been based on noncredible open source materials or focused intelligence resources on the first amendment protected activities of American citizens.

Clearly, the Office is in need of strong leadership from an Under Secretary with an extensive background in management and intelligence.

The Intelligence Committee is confident that Ms. Wagner is such a person and is up to the challenge of setting the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis on a proper course. If confirmed, among her first tasks will be to review a draft plan to restructure and refine the Office's mission, which will be a good first indication of how Ms. Wagner will manage the organization.

Ms. Wagner's distinguished career in public and private service prepares her well for this position. Ms. Wagner is currently an instructor in intelligence resource management for the Intelligence and Security Academy, LLC.

She retired from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on October 1, 2008, where she served as budget director and cybersecurity coordinator. Prior to that, Ms. Wagner served in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as an Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Management and the first chief financial officer for the National Intelligence Program. She assumed this position after serving as the executive director for Intelligence Community Affairs.

Ms. Wagner has also previously served as the senior Defense Intelligence Agency Representative to the U.S. European Command and North Atlantic Treaty Organization as well as the Deputy Director for Analysis and Production at DIA. She was also formerly the staff director of the Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence at the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and a signals intelligence and electronic warfare officer in the U.S. Army.

President Obama nominated Ms. Wagner on October 23, 2009. After completing the prehearing procedures, the Intelligence Committee held a confirmation hearing on the nomination on December 1, 2009. As part of the confirmation process, Ms. Wagner was asked to complete a committee questionnaire, prehearing questions, and posthearing questions for the record. The answers she provided have all been posted to the Intelligence Committee's Web site. The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee also held a hearing on Ms. Wagner's nomination on December 3, 2009.

In sum, I am confident that Caryn Wagner will be an asset to the Department of Homeland Security and to the intelligence community. I look forward to working with her and I urge the Senate to approve Ms. Wagner's nomination.

Nomination of Andre Birotte, Jr.

Mr. President, nominations in this Chamber are moving at a snail's pace.

Last week, it took us three votes--spanning 3 days--to move only two nominations.

Last Thursday, we had a cloture vote on Martha Johnson, the nominee to lead the General Services Administration. The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee reported her to the floor unanimously last June, but since then her nomination has been blocked on the floor for 7 months. Seven months of a hold. And then once cloture was invoked, 94 Members of this body voted to confirm her.

Unfortunately, the minority's blocking of noncontroversial nominees is becoming the rule rather than the exception.

Last Tuesday, I spoke about two nominees for posts in the intelligence community--Caryn Wagner to be the Under Secretary of Intelligence and Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security, DHS, and of Ambassador Phil Goldberg to be the Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research at the Department of State.

Neither nomination is controversial. Both were reported out of the Senate Intelligence Committee by voice vote. And both of these posts are critical to efforts to protect the security of our Nation.

Yet both nominations are still blocked on the floor.

Today, I rise to speak on yet another noncontroversial nomination that members of the minority are blocking.

Andre Birotte, Jr., is the nominee to be the U.S. attorney for the Central District of Los Angeles. He was reported out of the Judiciary Committee by voice vote.

He is highly qualified, and he is not controversial.

Mr. Birotte is a former Federal prosecutor in the office who currently serves as the inspector general for the Los Angeles Police Commission. In this role, he has the often unenviable job of determining whether disciplinary action is necessary against law enforcement officials who have been accused of official misconduct. His position requires him to review the facts and follow where they lead-- even in highly sensitive situations.

In this tough role, Mr. Birotte has stood out for integrity and evenhandedness. He has earned the overwhelming respect and support of both law enforcement officers and the civil rights community.

Mr. Birotte is tough. He is independent. He has management experience. He has prosecution experience. And I believe he will make an excellent U.S. attorney.

He will also be the first African-American U.S. attorney in the central district. It is my hope that his historic appointment as the lead Federal law enforcement official in Los Angeles will be one more step forward for a city that has known both great progress and, at times, acute disappointment in race relations.

For all of these reasons, I would like to see him confirmed as soon as possible.

This nomination is not just important to me because of the strength of the nominee, however. I also believe it is essential that we get this Office's leader into place.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in the Central Distric of California is the second largest in the country. Only the Office in the District of Columbia is larger, and that is because it has unusual responsibility for both local and Federal crimes.

The central district office employs more than 250 Federal prosecutors. They bear responsibility for prosecuting violations of Federal law across seven counties--Los Angeles County, Orange County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County, San Luis Obispo County, Santa Barbara County, and Ventura County--that span more than 40,000 square miles. The district includes Los Angeles and 34 other cities, with a combined population of more than 18 million.

It is a huge operation.

As in all of the U.S. attorneys' offices, the prosecutors in the Central District of California are busy.

In the past year alone, the U.S. Attorney's Office has brought in over $150 million in judgments, won significant convictions against leaders of gangs and fraudulent enterprises, and placed people behind bars for crimes committed around the world.

Let me give you a few examples, all from 2009 and 2010:

Central District prosecutors secured a $46 million restitution order in a case against a former real estate appraiser who committed massive mortgage fraud.

They put the leader of a $64 million Ponzi scheme behind bars for 300 months and won a $44 million restitution order against him.

They indicted 88 members and associates of a street gang called the Avenues on various charges, including the 2008 murder of a Los Angeles deputy sheriff; they indicted 24 people on gang-related drug trafficking in an investigation known as Operation Knockout; they took down an international sex trafficking ring that was forcing Guatemalan girls into prostitution in

Los Angeles; they put a foreign national behind bars for 78 months for participating in the transport of over 9,000 illegal aliens to and from Los Angeles; and they obtained a conviction and 16-year prison sentence against the founder of a domestic terrorist group that was planning attacks on U.S. military operations.

All of those prosecutions have occurred in the last 13 months alone.

Andre Birotte is a highly qualified individual who has been nominated not to lead an office embroiled in the politics of Washington, but instead that bears responsibility for investigating, prosecuting, deterring, and preventing Federal crimes against Americans and their families.

I do not believe the leadership of this office should get caught up in an unrelated dispute. If someone objects to Mr. Birotte, I hope they will come forward. Otherwise, I hope that we can move forward quickly to confirm this nominee.

Mr. President, I support the nomination of Ambassador Philip S. Goldberg to be the Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research at the Department of State and urge my colleagues to support this nomination. The Intelligence Committee unanimously approved Ambassador Goldberg's nomination on December 10, 2009.

The Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research leads the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the Department of State, a well- respected analytic agency within the Intelligence Community, known as ``INR.'' INR produces all-source intelligence analysis to advise the Secretary of State and other senior policy officials. INR is as an active participant in the Intelligence Community and contributes to products published by the National Intelligence Council. Its analysts, while far fewer in number than the analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, are highly expert in their fields and often improve the quality of coordinated intelligence assessments by challenging the views of other agencies and, if necessary, dissenting from consensus judgments that they believe to be incorrect or unsubstantiated.

One important example of INR's independent minded approach occurred in 2002, when INR dissented from the official judgment of the intelligence community regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. INR analysts expressed less certainty regarding the claim that Iraq was reconstituting nuclear weapons, taking a different view on the purpose of Saddam Hussein's pursuit of aluminum tubing. History, of course, proved the INR analysts to be correct, as Iraq was not reconstituting a nuclear weapons program.

As an assistant secretary, Ambassador Goldberg will lead a talented, experienced group of analysts, whose work offers invaluable insights to policymakers at the Department of State and throughout the government. INR analysts produce open source products as well, including reports based on global public opinion polling and foreign media analysis.

INR also serves a critical coordinating function. It is the intermediary between intelligence activities and the Intelligence Community on one hand and foreign policy and U.S. embassies on the other. INR represents the Department of State's perspective within the intelligence community and ensures that the benefits of intelligence activities outweigh any diplomatic risks. Ambassador Goldberg's experience serving in and managing U.S. embassies abroad will be very important as he helps to align intelligence and diplomatic priorities.

Ambassador Goldberg's distinguished 20-year career in the Foreign Service prepares him well for his new position. He served as the charge d'affairs and deputy chief of mission in Santiago, Chile, the chief of mission in Pristina, Kosovo, and in the U.S. embassies in Bogota, Colombia, and Pretoria, South Africa. Ambassador Goldberg is a graduate of Boston University and before joining the Foreign Service he worked for the city of New York.

From 2006 to 2008, Ambassador Goldberg served as the Ambassador to Bolivia during a period of heightened tensions between our two countries. In mid-September 2008, President Evo Morales accused Ambassador Goldberg of supporting opposition forces, declared him persona non grata, and expelled him from the country. The Intelligence Committee carefully reviewed Ambassador Goldberg's conduct in Bolivia. We have found that Ambassador Goldberg acted appropriately during his tenure and followed the policies of the U.S. Government. In fact, an inspector general report on the embassy published in September 2008 gave Ambassador Goldberg and his deputy high marks, stating that ``The Ambassador and the deputy chief of mission (DCM) provide clear policy guidance and leadership . . . [They gather] input and advice from their staff, forging an excellent working relationship among all agencies and sections at post.''

After Ambassador Goldberg's expulsion from Bolivia, the State Department strongly defended Ambassador Goldberg, both in public press remarks and in internal memoranda. In short, the Intelligence Committee believes that Ambassador Goldberg acted professionally and bears no blame for the Bolivian decision to expel him.

Since June 2009, Ambassador Goldberg has served as the Coordinator for the Implementation of United Nations Resolution 1874, which imposed economic and commercial sanctions on North Korea. In this position, Ambassador Goldberg has relied on sensitive intelligence reporting to build a diplomatic consensus to search North Korean cargo.

President Obama nominated Ambassador Goldberg on October 23, 2009. After completing the pre-hearing procedures, the Intelligence Committee held a confirmation hearing on the nomination on December 1, 2009. As part of the confirmation process, Ambassador Goldberg was asked to complete a Committee questionnaire, pre-hearing questions, and post- hearing questions for the record. The answers he provided have all been posted to the intelligence committee's website. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee also held a hearing on Ambassador Goldberg's nomination on November 19, 2009.

In sum, Ambassador Goldberg will be an asset to INR and to the intelligence community. His management experience leading foreign embassies will serve him well as he takes the helm of INR. His background--particularly his service as a diplomat on four continents-- prepares him to address the range of global intelligence questions INR analysts address.

I look forward to working with Ambassador Goldberg as he leads a highly respected and important agency within the intelligence community. I urge the Senate to approve Ambassador Goldberg's nomination.

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

Mr. President, I come to the floor as the chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence to speak on two nominations that have been before our committee. Both of these nominees have been unanimously passed out by our committee.

The first is the top person for intelligence and analysis at the Department of Homeland Security. Her name is Ms. Caryn Wagner. Second, Ambassador Phil Goldberg, who is nominated to be Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research at the Department of State.

These nominations are critically important to the safety and security of this Nation. These are the top intelligence officials in two different departments. There has been an objection to a unanimous request from the other side on the question to confirm these nominees. The majority leader of the Senate has come to the floor twice to implore, to request, to ask that these two nominees be approved because these are top intelligence people for the respective departments.

We just had a national threat hearing, a world threat hearing in the Intelligence Committee, open to the public and press, this afternoon. I asked the question: What is the possibility of an attack against the homeland in the next 3 to 6 months? Is it high? Is it low? Director Blair; Director Panetta; Director Mueller of the FBI; the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, General Burgess; the acting head of the INR, the intelligence agency of the State Department, Ambassador Dinger--every one of them said that there will be an attempt at an attack. The threat is high. Yet we cannot get confirmed two top people whose job it is to see that the analysis of this intelligence is correct.

Let me speak for a moment about Caryn Wagner. She has had a distinguished career in public and private service that has prepared her to be the Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence and Analysis.

We just had an attempted Christmas attack on the homeland. Ms. Wagner is the top person of that Department to deal with the intelligence related to exactly this--protection of the homeland.

You might think, well, is there a problem with the nominee? And the answer to that is no. She is currently an instructor in intelligence resource management for the Intelligence and Security Academy. She was hired from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Prior to that, she served as the Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Management and as the first Chief Financial Officer for the National Intelligence Program. She assumed this position after serving as Executive Director for Intelligence Community Affairs.

She also previously served as the senior Defense Intelligence Agency representative to the U.S. European Command and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, as well as Deputy Director for Analysis and Production at the Defense Intelligence Agency. She was also formerly staff director of the Subcommittee on Tactical and Technical Intelligence on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and a signals intelligence and electronic warfare officer in the U.S. Army.

She has been an intelligence official all of her professional life. She is serious. She is capable. She is a good candidate for the position of Under Secretary of Homeland Security.

We held a confirmation hearing on Ms. Wagner's nomination on December 1. Given the overlapping interest of the Homeland Security Committee, the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee held a hearing on her confirmation on December 3. There were no issues with her nomination in that committee.

The position to which she is nominated is the top intelligence position in the Department of Homeland Security. The main responsibilities of this office are to ensure that information related to homeland security threats are collected, analyzed, and disseminated to homeland security customers in the department at the State, local, and tribal levels.

So this is an important job. There is no one in it. We have just had an attack, and the chances of another attempted attack in the next 6 months are high. Yet somebody on the other side--I suspect for political reasons--is holding her up. It makes no sense, if you want to protect this Nation, to hold up this position. I hope whoever it is will come to the floor and explain why they are holding up this nominee, a woman who has had a lifetime dedicated to intelligence, who would be the top intelligence person in the Department of Homeland Security. One person holding her up, vetted by two committees, Intelligence and Homeland Security, without a negative vote at Intelligence. Why would someone hold her up? For their own agenda? Is it appropriate to hold her up for someone's own personal agenda, when you have the top person in that department responsible for intelligence, at a time when we have just had an attempted attack? I think not.

The Under Secretary of the office leads efforts to collect and analyze intelligence, to see that it is shared appropriately and provided to other intelligence community agencies. The Under Secretary provides homeland security intelligence and advice to the Secretary, as well as to other senior officials in the Department, and serves as the Department's senior interagency intelligence representative. They have no one right now. It makes no sense to me.

In short, this individual, the Under Secretary for Intelligence of the Department of Homeland Security, is responsible for ensuring that intelligence relating to a threat to the United States is acted upon. That spot is vacant. From an intelligence point of view, this is quite terrible. It is deleterious. It is not right for this body to hold up this nominee.

Unfortunately, the Office of Intelligence and Analysis has experienced numerous problems in its short tenure. Let me note some: The office's ill-defined planning, programming, and budgeting processes; a gross overreliance on contractors, to the point that 63 percent of the workforce was contracted out as of this summer; and a lack of a strategic plan. These are three major problems for which the Under Secretary needs to get on board. The Under Secretary needs to solve these problems.

On a number of occasions, the office has produced and disseminated finished intelligence that has been based on noncredible, open-source materials or focused intelligence resources on the first amendment- protected activities of American citizens.

So what is my bottom line? The office is in need of strong leadership from an Under Secretary with an extensive background in management of intelligence. The Intelligence Committee is confident Ms. Wagner is such a person. She is up to the challenge. She testified that, if confirmed, among her first tasks will be to review a draft plan to restructure and refine the office's mission, which will be a good first indication of how Ms. Wagner will manage the organization. We should get cracking. We should get it done. We should get this spot filled.

I, respectfully, ask that if there is something we do not know, that the Homeland Security Committee does not know, that the Intelligence Committee does not know, that the person holding her up come to the floor and tell us what it is. It is a significant deficit not to have this position filled.

Let me turn to the nomination of Ambassador Philip Goldberg to be Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research at the State Department. Again, the Intelligence Committee had a hearing. We unanimously approved

Ambassador Goldberg's nomination on December 10, the same day we reported out Ms. Wagner's nomination.

Ambassador Goldberg has a distinguished 20-year career in the Foreign Service, where he has served as the charge d'affairs and deputy chief of mission in Santiago, Chile; the chief of mission in Pristina, Kosovo; and in the U.S. Embassies in Bogota, Colombia, and Pretoria, South Africa. Ambassador Goldberg is a graduate of Boston University and, before joining the Foreign Service, he worked for the city of New York.

From 2006 to 2008, he served as Ambassador to Bolivia, during a period of heightened tensions between our two countries.

In mid-September 2008, President Evo Morales accused Ambassador Goldberg of supporting opposition forces, declaring him persona non grata, and expelled him from the country.

The Intelligence Committee carefully reviewed Ambassador Goldberg's conduct in Bolivia. We have found he acted appropriately during his tenure and carried out the policies of the U.S. Government. In fact, an inspector general report on the Embassy, published in September of 2008, gave Ambassador Goldberg and his deputy high marks, stating:

The Ambassador and the deputy chief of mission (DCM)

provide clear policy guidance and leadership . . . [They

gather] input and the advice from their staff, forging an

excellent working relationship among all agencies and

sections at post.

After Ambassador Goldberg's expulsion from Bolivia, the State Department strongly defended the Ambassador, both in the public press as well as in internal memoranda. In short, the Intelligence Committee believes Ambassador Goldberg acted professionally and bears no blame for the Bolivian decision to expel him.

Since June of 2009, Ambassador Goldberg has served as the coordinator for the implementation of United Nations resolution 1874, which imposed economic and commercial sanctions on North Korea. In this position, he has relied on sensitive intelligence reporting to build a diplomatic consensus to search North Korean cargo.

Ambassador Goldberg appeared before the Intelligence Committee for a confirmation hearing on December 1, 2009. Given its jurisdiction over the State Department, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee also held a hearing on Ambassador Goldberg's nomination on November 19, 2009. No problems with the nomination were identified.

The unanimous view is, Ambassador Goldberg is an experienced professional who is very capable and ready to assume his new duties.

The position of Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research is a unique one in the intelligence community. The bureau, which we refer to simply as INR, produces all source intelligence analysis to advise the Secretary of State and other senior policy officials and presents an important viewpoint in the internal deliberations of the intelligence analytic community. INR analysts are highly expert in their fields and often improve the quality of coordinated intelligence assessments by challenging the views of other agencies and, if necessary, dissenting from consensus judgments, if they believe them to be incorrect or unsubstantiated.

I first came to appreciate INR's independent-minded approach in 2002, when its analysts dissented from the official judgment of the intelligence community regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. INR analysts expressed less certainty regarding the claim that Iraq was reconstituting nuclear weapons, believing that Saddam Hussein's pursuit of aluminum tubing was not for nuclear purposes.

History, of course, proved the INR analysts to be correct, as Iraq was not reconstituting a nuclear weapons program.

Bottom line: Ambassador Goldberg is well qualified, and the position for which he has been nominated to fill is an important one within the intelligence community. There has been no reason put forward why he should not be confirmed. Two committees have held hearings. The Intelligence Committee recommended his confirmation unanimously. We did for both these nominees. Yet there is a hold on the other side of the aisle.

As chairman of the Intelligence Committee, I believe it places our Nation at a security disadvantage. I urge that change. I urge that whoever has the hold, if they have something that is consequential against either one of these nominees, do the honorable thing. Come to the floor of the Senate, express your objections. Have the debate and dialog on the ability, the experience, the doings of these two people. They are superbly qualified. Neither one of these was plucked out of some political community and thrust into these positions. They have both been dedicated professionals. That is one of the reasons why this hold is so difficult to understand.

I wish the Senate to know that the Intelligence Committee, which I am proud to chair, takes its responsibility to review the President's nominees to positions requiring Senate confirmation very seriously. Our process is thorough and bipartisan. The staff does an investigation. The documents are reviewed. The hearing is held. Written questions are sent. Written questions are answered. The questions and their answers are read. The committee discusses it and votes. In this case, three committees have reviewed these two nominees. The Intelligence Committee has found them qualified for their positions. Yet they are held up.

Consider that on Christmas Day we had someone who tried to explode a device, a device which will be perfected, which will be used again, which is basically impossible to find by a magnetometer in an airport, which will be used again, and that intelligence professionals assess with confidence that we face another attack. We ought to get these positions filled.

Unless there is some reason why these two nominees are faulty, if they are not qualified, if they have done something wrong, then I say come to the floor and oppose them openly. But ``time's awastin'.'' These positions have to be staffed. This country has to be protected. Our intelligence professionals need to be in place. In two departments, we have two high-level positions relating to intelligence that are not filled and should be filled and these nominees are waiting.

So I hope someone is listening. I hope, somehow, someway, this will make a difference. And I very much hope we will be able to confirm both of these nominees--reviewed by the Foreign Relations Committee, one; by the Homeland Security Committee, the other; and reviewed and approved by the Intelligence Committee, both.

Thank you very much, Mr. President.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of the reconfirmation of Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Mr. Bernanke has been a steady hand at the Federal Reserve during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Mr. Bernanke knows something about that: his scholarly work as an economics professor at Princeton University focused on the Great Depression. At a time when our economy is climbing out of a deep recession, I believe Mr. Bernanke's continued leadership will provide the stability that is essential to economic recovery.

Some blame Mr. Bernanke for the financial crisis and its severity. They believe President Obama must set an example and break with the past by replacing him.

I do not agree.

It would be a big mistake, in my view, to jettison a man whose expertise and experience have been crucial to rescuing our economy, and I believe President Obama made the right decision to keep Mr. Bernanke at the Fed.

In my opinion, he should be reconfirmed without delay, because his term expires in 3 days. Failure to do so would send the wrong message to both the American people and global financial markets, at a time of continued economic uncertainty. It could roll back some significant progress in restoring market confidence. For instance, under Chairman Bernanke's leadership, the Dow Industrial Average rebounded significantly from a 12-year low of 6,547 on March 9, 2009 and reached a high on January 19th when it closed at 10,725. This represents a gain of 4,178 points or nearly 64 percent over the course of 10 months. The S&P 500 has risen about 70 percent since the low in March and also reached its recent high on January 19, closing at 1,150.23. Retirement accounts were valued at $8.6 trillion in the third quarter of 2007. But following the market's bottoming out in March of 2009, retirement accounts had lost $2.8 trillion--33 percent--of their peak value, according to

Retirement Savings statistics from the Urban Institute in a January 2010 report. Since then, retirement account balances have rebounded sharply. Accounts have gained roughly $1.3 trillion--23 percent--ending the third quarter at around $7.1 trillion. Although assets remain 17 percent below their peak, they are still above their 2005 value and near their 2006 value.

So we have clearly made some progress and there are positive signs, but we still have a long way to go. Simply put, the gains on Wall Street have not been felt by Main Street: The national unemployment rate is 10 percent, with 15 million Americans out of work; Small businesses are struggling, and many are going under. In my State, small business bankruptcies increased by 81 percent last year alone, and commercial corridors once teeming with business are now plagued by vacancies; consumer demand remains low as American workers struggle in these tough times; and, retirement accounts are still down roughly $1.5 trillion from their peak.

These are terrible statistics, and there is much more work to be done to increase our national prosperity.

But last week, uncertainty caused by news that Mr. Bernanke's reconfirmation was threatened in the Senate caused the Dow Jones to fall by 552 points, with a 216-point drop on Friday alone.

The point is clear: the situation is very volatile. President Obama has clearly indicated that he believes Mr. Bernanke is the man for the job, and I also believe this is the case.

Let me tell you why.

First, Mr. Bernanke is an expert on the Great Depression, a scholar who understands the causes of, and remedies for, dramatic economic downturns like the one we experienced last year. There is no one better qualified to be at the helm of the Fed at this time, and he is dedicated to fulfilling its mission to restore prosperity, create jobs and keep prices stable.

Second, Mr. Bernanke played a key role in averting a much greater financial crisis.

He took critical steps to stop the economic freefall and restore stability. He aggressively cut interest rates early on, reducing the target Federal funds rate to nearly zero. It has remained at this level since December 2008.

Under his leadership, the Fed played a central role in quelling last year's financial turmoil. It launched joint efforts with other agencies and foreign authorities to avert a collapse of the global banking system. It ensured financial institutions adequate access to short-term funding when private funding resources dried up.

It led the ``stress tests'' on large U.S. banks to ensure that these institutions had adequate capital and consumers would be confident that their bank deposits were safe.

The Fed, under Mr. Bernanke's leadership, also created targeted lending programs that helped ease the flow of credit to many businesses.

For example, the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility has financed more than 3.4 million home loans, more than 100 million credit card accounts, 480,000 loans to small businesses and 100,000 loans to large businesses.

We are starting to see the positive results of these bold moves.

There are undoubtedly legitimate critiques of Mr. Bernanke. I agree that more transparency is needed at the Federal Reserve. And, I would have liked to see more action taken to curb the abusive lending practices which have led to literally millions of foreclosures in my home State of California.

Many gaps in regulation and oversight of our financial system still remain.

The administration just proposed the Volcker rules which I believe would succeed in ending the rampant speculation and excessive size of ``too big to fail'' institutions that led us to where we are today.

Congress must act swiftly to regulate the financial sector more prudently, and expand authority for the Fed, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

We must intelligently close these gaps in regulation, not risk an economic backslide by taking out our collective frustrations on Mr. Bernanke.

Everyone is flawed, and there is more than enough blame to go around. But we must also give credit where it is due, and Mr. Bernanke successfully helped to pull this nation back from the brink.

His academic expertise on the Great Depression, coupled with his experience in facing down the greatest economic turbulence since the 1930s, makes him an unparalleled choice for leadership at the Fed right now.

USA Today, in an editorial published yesterday, gave a forceful defense of Mr. Bernanke's reconfirmation. I want to quote from it here, because I think it gives a very clear assessment of the situation:

The question facing the nation is, who do you want in

charge of this delicate task? Someone who has intimate

knowledge of what needs to be done, has learned from past

mistakes and has the confidence of the financial markets? Or

someone new who, in order to win congressional confirmation,

will be hamstrung by promises not to take difficult-but-

necessary steps, such as bumping up interest rates to keep

inflation in check?

Bernanke deserves considerable credit for helping stave off

economic collapse. For that reason, he also deserves another

term as chairman.

Mr. President, I couldn't agree more.

Mr. Bernanke deserves a chance to finish the enormous and historic task at hand. He has done well thus far, and I intend to support him for a second term as Chairman of the Fed.

Mr. President, I wish to say a few words in favor of the Conrad-Gregg amendment which will shortly be before us and in opposition to the Baucus amendment.

I have worked for some time to try to produce legislation that would create a commission which could be like a BRAC commission and deal with what I consider to be the most formidable problem facing this government.

Every Wednesday during the summer and spring, I have a constituent breakfast. One of the things I do at that breakfast is show what debt and deficit really means. One of the best ways--you learn this when you do a budget, and I learned it when I was mayor of San Francisco and for 9 years put together a budget--is to look at what is actually spent, total numbers. That gives you the real clue. It is called outlays, Federal outlays.

What have Federal outlays been? In 2009, 50 percent of everything the Federal Government paid out went to entitlements. What are entitlements? Medicare, Social Security, veterans' benefits--things that cannot be controlled--if you are entitled to them, you get them. Look at interest on the debt, which is 5 percent. If you look at discretionary defense, it is 18 percent. And if you look at everything else the Federal Government does that everybody talks about--education, agriculture, justice, the 22 agencies in Homeland Security--it is just 16 percent of what is spent. If you add together the 50 percent and the 5 percent of interest, we see 55 percent of everything the Federal Government spends this year cannot be controlled. We have to spend it. All the rest that is discretionary is rather small in comparison. If we project that out 10 years--and I must say that new numbers are coming out tomorrow, so this is the latest number I have--entitlements go up to 56 percent and interest on the debt to 14 percent; that is, 70 percent of everything that will be spent in the year 2019 if things are projected forward cannot be controlled. Discretionary defense is 16 percent, and nondiscretionary--again, everything else--is 14 percent. If you wanted to balance out, you could eliminate everything in discretionary spending and you could not solve the problem.

That is what is happening. Entitlements are expanding to an inordinate amount of what the Federal Government pays out every year. It does not matter whether something is in the budget or not in the budget; if you have to pay for it and spend it, it contributes to the deficit and that translates into debt. It is a very major problem.

That is why I rise today in support of the amendment offered by Senators Conrad and Gregg to establish a bipartisan commission to tackle this issue and look at these programs--namely, Social Security and Medicare--and make some recommendations as to how they can be changed, amended, melded to essentially be able to maintain themselves over time. We know both these programs are the third rail of American politics. Past Congresses and past Presidents have failed to take the steps necessary to ensure their long-term viability. Social Security will start running out of money in 2037, and Medicare will start to run out of money before the end of this decade. In 7 years, in 2017, Medicare will begin to run out of money.

This is an opportunity to take a concept which has worked before-- namely, the Greenspan Commission, which in 1983 added years to Social Security solvency--and have a 1-year commission, which is the Conrad- Gregg commission, to deal with this debt. It would be an opportunity to get our Nation's finances back on track. If we could have done it, we would have done it. If we could have done it, why didn't we? Why year after year do we refuse to face the issues? The Greenspan recommendations, including a change to the trust fund revenue structure, actually won bipartisan support. Those recommendations were adopted, and they were credited with saving Social Security at the time.

More recently, the base realignment and closure process, known as BRAC, and the Homeland Security commission following 9/11 made recommendations. Many of those recommendations were accepted. The BRAC Commission had a process which all of us sort of derided and did not like, but it got the job done. They presented recommendations to the Congress; the Congress could vote them down. That decided the question. That is what the Conrad-Gregg amendment would do.

We all see the gravity of what is happening. As we vote to increase the debt limit for the ninth time in 8 years, we are not able to do anything about the biggest consumers of debt--entitlements--because they are such valuable programs to people and no one wants them touched.

This commission would be bipartisan. It would be composed of 18 members--10 Democrats, 8 Republicans; specifically, 16 Members of Congress split evenly between each party and 2 administration officials. Their charge would be to come to grips with this situation and make a series of recommendations on an expedited procedure that would come to the Congress, and we would either vote it up or vote it down. Everything would be on the table. The scope of the commission is broad enough to include all possibilities for improving our budgetary outlook. The commission would issue this report before the end of the year. Mr. President, 14 of the 18 Members must approve the report before it could be presented to us, and Congress would be required to vote on the report, as I said, with expedited consideration before the end of this year. So for the first time, in a matter of months, we would have before us some recommendations. How do we tweak Social Security to enable it to go past its doomsday? How do we handle Medicare to see that it is viable throughout the next three, four, five decades? It does not circumvent congressional procedures, nor does it exclude elected officials from shaping the final report.

The Social Security trust fund runs out of money in 2037. If we do not do anything, it is going to happen sooner. Today, 50 million people depend on Social Security. By 2050, 82 million people--another 32 million people--will receive Social Security.

Most people do not realize that one-half of American workers today have no retirement or pension benefit from their company. I did not know this. One-half of all retiring workers have no retirement or pension benefit from their company. Social Security is what they will have. With the problems in the workplace today, with the increase in bankruptcies, we can be sure that Social Security is only going to become more important as the decades go on.

In 2007, Social Security alone kept 35 percent of older Americans out of poverty. That is how important it is. Thirty-five percent of our seniors would be living in poverty if it were not for Social Security. And for almost two-thirds of people, Social Security makes up more than half their income. So Social Security is really the breadbasket, it is the opportunity for many seniors and pensioners and retirees to continue to live and stay out of poverty.

Medicare is in even worse shape. By 2017, the hospital insurance trust fund will be depleted. In last year's Trustees report, insolvency was projected in 2019. Medicare is unsustainable over time.

That is something that none of us wants to admit, none of us wants to face. The record is clear: None of us has faced it. None of us has done anything about it, and yet the time is ratcheted sooner and sooner.

So once the hospital trust fund is exhausted, it will be necessary to reduce the amount of benefits payable. What does that mean? That means after 2017, only 81 percent of benefits will actually be paid. Think of that. Is it all right to let that happen? Is it all right to do nothing? Is it all right to say: OK, we know that come 2017 only 81 percent of the benefit an individual should get will be paid, and it is because we are not willing to do anything about it? That is what we are saying if we vote no on the Conrad-Gregg resolution.

Medicare Part B and Part D prescription drug coverage will increasingly

outpace beneficiary income over time. So funds won't be there to pay for prescription drug benefits. That is the simple result. Without finding an adequate way to fund these obligations, those funds will have to be borrowed or will be nonexistent, and this further adds to the debt we see coming down the pike. All of it adds together to the financial insolvency of both Social Security and Medicare.

That is why a commission is needed--because we haven't done what we should have done. We haven't made the tweaks, the changes, the adjustments. We haven't looked at means testing. These programs were founded on the belief that no matter how wealthy you are, you should get these benefits. My own view is that should change. They should be looked at more as insurance programs. If you don't need them, if you are a millionaire, why should you have these benefits? If you need them, if you are part of the half of America that has no pension or retirement benefit, if you earn under, let's say, $250,000 a year as a retiree, maybe you should still get them. But if you earn more than $250,000, with this picture facing us, maybe you should pay your own way.

These are some of the decisions that have got to be made, and we can't keep putting them off because they are unpleasant, because the more we put them off, the bigger the troubles get. That has been the case in the 17 years I have been here. I have watched this, and it keeps going up and up and up. So the problem is apparent, but it has been ignored. It has been shoveled under the rug. It has never been addressed, and that is why we need a commission.

I cosponsored a bill two Congresses ago with Senator Domenici and I cosponsored a bill this Congress with Senator Cornyn to create a Social Security-Medicare commission. Mine was not composed of Members of Congress, but there was opposition. People felt, well, if this body is going to have the ability to make a recommendation that may result in having to put more money into the system, either by increasing the payroll tax or any other way, then it ought to be the Members of the Congress or the Senate who make that recommendation. Senator Conrad and Senator Gregg took that as a kind of mandate and said: All right, we will do that, and here is what we propose.

I am very glad the Senator from Florida is on the floor. We have worked as part of this group together, come to several meetings. I guess it would be fair to say there are about 16 or 17 of us who have worked together with Senator Conrad on the Democratic side on this, and we do so because we recognize doing nothing doesn't save Medicare and doing nothing doesn't save Social Security. But doing something may, so that is why we need a commission. This will never get done if we follow regular order in the Congress. For 17 years, I have watched that regular order year in and year out, and nothing has happened. I remember Fritz Hollings standing right there on the floor talking about keeping money from going out of the trust funds. As you know, now it is an accounting judgment. Everything goes into one fund, but there is just an accounting judgment. He advocated separating it out so it couldn't be used to balance the budget. Right now the trust funds are used to balance the budget. They are not set aside for a special fund to see that Social Security remains secure. It is the good faith and credit of the government that does that. Well, I say that isn't enough. We have to face the consequences, bite the bullet. We have to find a way to see that our national credit card is fiscally responsible.

I know my time is up, but I want to indicate my very sincere support and my thanks to both Senator Conrad and Senator Gregg for their work, for their leadership, and for their strong advocacy. They have friends. We will support them. And I very much hope this body will as well.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I thank the Senator.

Mr. President--I voted to support of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009, which will reform our Nation's health care system.

This is our chance to fix a broken system. We tried in 1993 and 1994 and failed. Over 15 years have passed since our last effort. This may be our last, best opportunity before we are forced to wait another 15 years for real reform. And our country cannot afford to wait another 15 years. Our system is simply unsustainable.

Now this bill is not perfect, and without question there are items I would like to change. I believe it is a work in progress. However, it accomplishes several important objectives.

The bill is incremental. There will be time to make needed adjustments before it is fully effective.

It expands insurance coverage and provides new consumer protections from insurance company abuses.

It does all this in a fiscally responsible way, reducing the deficit and prolonging the solvency of the Medicare trust fund.

Throughout this process, I have argued that health reform should be incremental. I believe that in many ways, this bill is incremental.

It leaves the best of our health care system in place. The majority of Americans with coverage continually say they are happy with their insurance. Under this legislation, they can keep what they like.

The bill also will be phased in over the next several years. People in need of coverage will receive immediate help in many forms.

Beginning in 2010, next year, the Federal Government will spend $5 billion to establish a high-risk pool, which will provide subsidized coverage for those who have been denied private insurance on account of a preexisting condition.

Young adults will be able to remain on their parents' health insurance until age 26. Many young adults currently lose their coverage as soon as they graduate from college; this will allow them to maintain their coverage while they find a job.

Seniors enrolled in the Medicare prescription drug benefit will receive an additional $500 in drug coverage before they encounter the so-called doughnut hole coverage gap. This is the coverage gap that occurs after seniors spend $2,830 on prescription drug costs. They are then required to pay the full amount out of pocket, until their costs total $4,550. This additional $500 of coverage means that seniors will encounter a small gap in their drug coverage and pay less out of pocket.

There will be new limits on the amount of premium dollars that can be spent on non-health care expenses by all health insurance companies. This is very important--I have long worried that insurance companies spend too much on administrative expenses, like medical underwriting, claims processing, overhead, and profits and salary, and not enough on actual medical care. Starting next year, plans sold in the individual and small group markets must devote at least 80 percent of premium dollars to health care expenses; and plans sold to large groups must spend at least 85 percent of the premium funds they collect on health care services. This provision will give people the assurance that most of their premium dollars go to pay for care.

Also next year, small business can receive tax credits to help cover the cost of covering their employees. These credits will be available on a sliding scale to employers with 25 or fewer employees, with average annual wages of $50,000 or under.

Expansion of community health centers. Beginning in 2011, the Federal program that supports community health centers will begin to receive significant additional funding, totaling $10 billion through 2015.

This expansion of community care helps guarantee that we are providing not just coverage for medical care but also access. A health insurance card does no good if no physician will accept it. These clinics provide care for all and in many places will be the backbone of a reformed health care system.

Finally, in 2014, the full scope of the reform effort will come in place. People will be able to compare their coverage options in newly created exchanges, and in many cases they will receive tax credits to help them purchase coverage.

This allows plenty of time to see how reforms are working and, if necessary, for Congress, the administration, and States to make adjustments to ensure that health reform is effective.

The bill contains several critical insurance industry reforms that will help cover 31 million additional Americans. I am convinced that our country's for-profit health insurance industry operates with profits, not people, in mind. And this legislation will contain a number of new standards that this industry will need to meet.

They will not be allowed to discriminate based on gender.

They will not be able to take away coverage once a person gets sick.

They will not be able to charge more, or deny coverage entirely, based on an individual's health history or preexisting conditions.

Insurance will be sold in regulated markets called exchanges, where consumers can easily compare their different insurance options. Web sites allow Americans to easily compare prices when shopping for airline tickets, and this will extend the idea to health insurance.

These exchanges will work on behalf of consumers to negotiate lower prices and to ensure that participating plans meet high standards. Consumers will receive clear information about what is covered and how much it will cost. They will have several different levels of coverage from which to choose.

Every exchange will also offer two national plans, overseen by the Federal Office of Personnel Management. This office ensures that Federal workers and Members of Congress have good health plan choices. One of the included plans will be offered by a nonprofit company. For consumers in highly concentrated markets with only a few choices, these national plans will provide a new option for quality coverage.

Most importantly, these exchanges will consider the previous behavior of insurance plans. If a company raises rates unfairly over the next several years, exchanges will consider this and decide whether they should be allowed to sell in these new markets.

This is a strong incentive for plans to treat consumers fairly.

All of this is accomplished in a fiscally responsible manner. The bill saves money, and it saves Medicare.

It is clear that we cannot afford to continue on our current path.

It expands coverage to an additional 31 million Americans while reducing the Federal budget deficit by $132 billion by 2019. Deficit reduction increases in the second 10-year period that the bill will be in effect.

Now, this is a major point of contention. I continue to hear the other side say that this bill will cost $2.5 trillion over 10 years. Even the Republicans' own analysis shows that the bill will reduce the budget deficit. The Budget Committee's minority staff released an analysis that examines the bill's net cost and savings over the next several decades.

The Republican staff projects that the bill will reduce the deficit by $176 billion from 2014 to 2023.

This number grows to $1.032 trillion from 2020 to 2029.

The total net deficit reduction, according to Republicans, is $1.165 trillion from 2010 to 2029.

Let me say it again. These are partisan estimates, produced by Republican staff, and they show significant, meaningful deficit reduction.

The bill also takes a first step at prolonging the solvency of the Medicare Program. Without action, Medicare will be insolvent in 2017. That is 9 short years from now.

This bill extends Medicare's solvency by approximately 4 to 5 years. Make no mistake, more must be done. The Chief Actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid estimates that it extends solvency to 2026. And I believe this bill lays the groundwork to help make Medicare more sustainable.

It contains a Medicare Commission, which will examine the program and make recommendations to Congress on an expedited basis.

It creates accountable care organizations, in which physicians work together to provide more efficient care for patients, while sharing in some of the savings they generate for the Medicare Program.

Controlling entitlement spending must be a priority, and I believe this is an important step in the right direction.

Throughout the health reform process, I have emphasized the importance of a health reform bill that meets the needs of large and complex States such as California.

My State, without question, has one of the largest and most complex health care systems. As a result, we face some of the most complex challenges.

Over 6.6 million Californians are uninsured. The State is experiencing an unprecedented budget crisis. And even after health reform, the State will still have as many as 2 million undocumented, which will continue to strain public hospitals, emergency rooms, clinics and other providers.

California's public hospitals play a key role in meeting these needs and care for the poorest of the poor. These hospitals rely on payments called Medicaid disproportionate share hospital, DSH, funding to cover their costs, both for the uninsured that they cover and the very low reimbursement rates their receive from the Medicaid Program. DSH funding accounts for, on average, 40 percent of public hospitals' total funding.

I am pleased that the managers' amendment has slightly reduced the annual cut to Medicaid DSH funding that California and other States that use their full allotments will receive.

Under the original bill, California would have received a 50 percent cut in Medicaid DSH once the rate of the uninsured in the state dropped by 45 percent under this version, the state's allotment will only be cut by 35 percent. This reduces a $550 million cut to $385 million, for a savings of approximately $165 million per year to California.

States are now guaranteed to keep at least 50 percent of their current Medicaid DSH allotments, which will provide long-term stability to this critical program.

I am grateful to Senator Reid for making these adjustments, and I will continue to work with my colleagues in the House to keep as much of this critical funding intact as possible as the process moves forward.

The cost to California from the expansion of Medicaid remains a serious concern.

The bill will cover the full cost through 2016 generated by opening the program to all adults who earn less than $14,400 per year, which is 133 percent of the Federal Poverty Level, FPL. However, California will need to maintain this expansion and will also have to find a sufficient number of doctors willing to take patients newly eligible for Medicaid.

This will cost money. Health reform should not bankrupt large States like California. Ensuring that health reform works for my State will be a top priority as this legislation moves to conference.

I am also concerned that the structure of the annual tax on the health insurance sector may have unintended consequences that will have a disproportionate impact on California. This tax will generate roughly $60 billion over the next 10 years.

The impact of this provision would be disproportionate on States such as California, which have a high proportion of fully insured coverage. For example, 77 percent of the commercially enrolled population in California is enrolled in fully insured health plans. This includes public employee plans such as CalPERS and the city and county of San Francisco.

The net result is that California would pay upwards of one-third more than the average State on a per capita basis. Many integrated nonprofit health plans, some of which have been cited as models of efficiency, would face additional expenses and consumers would be impacted through higher premiums and limited choices.

Now, an exemption is provided for nonprofit insurers in the managers' amendment--for example, nonprofits with an overall medical loss ratio of 90 percent or better or nonprofits in a State which regulates premium increases could be exempt from the tax.

But this would have a limited impact in California and our two largest nonprofit insurers--Kaiser Permanente and Blue Cross/Blue Shield may not qualify for the exemption. Because California lacks an entity to regulate premium increases, the only way nonprofit insurers in our State will likely qualify for an exemption is by meeting the medical loss ratio requirements, set at 90 percent overall in the bill. This is a high hurdle to meet, and I worry these additional costs could appear in the premiums paid by Californians.

The most important component of successful health reform remains controlling health insurance premium increases. I remain concerned that companies will attempt to take advantage of the period of time between the passage of legislation, and 2014, when exchanges are up and running with new consumer protections. We have seen this with credit card companies since credit card reform legislation passed, and I fear health insurance will be no different.

I proposed an amendment to create a Medical Insurance Rate Authority and to ensure that all insurance companies are subject to some type of rate review.

The amendment asks the National Association of Insurance Commissioners to produce a report, detailing the rate review laws and capabilities in all 50 States. The Secretary of HHS will then use these findings to determine which States are capable of doing sufficient rate reviews to protect consumers.

In States where insurance commissioners have authority to review rates, they will continue to do so. In States without sufficient authority or resources, the Secretary of HHS will review rates and take any appropriate action to deny unfair requests. This could mean blocking unjustified rate increases, or requiring rebates, if an unfair increase is already in effect. This will provide all American consumers with another layer of protection from an unfair premium increase.

The amendment would also require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish a Medical Insurance Rate Authority as part of the process in the bill that enables her to monitor premium costs.

The Rate Authority would advise the Secretary on insurance rate review and would be composed of seven officials who represent the full scope of the health care system including at least two consumers, at least one medical professional, and one representative of the medical insurance industry. The remaining members would be experts in health economics, actuarial science, or other sectors of the health care system.

Unfortunately, this amendment was not included, at the insistence of one member of our caucus. I look forward to working with conferees to find some way to ensure that more Americans are protected from unfair premium increases.

With all the debate over offsets, CBO projections, premiums, and matching funds, it is easy to forget that at the end of the day, we are talking about people. The bill we are debating, I believe, will save lives.

A lack of health insurance is more than an inconvenience; it can be deadly. Americans age 64 and under who lack health insurance have a 40- percent higher risk of death than those who have coverage. This is Dr. David Himmelstein from a Harvard Medical School Study of September 2009.

These are real people, who die earlier than they need to because of problems getting coverage and problems with our health care system. Expanding health coverage is a moral issue, one that, I believe, reflects the character of our Nation. In the richest country in the world, no one should die because they cannot afford health coverage.

For all of this bill's imperfections, I am convinced that it will mean the difference between life and death for some people. And it is not every day that we can say that about a piece of legislation.

We could not pass up this opportunity.

I have joined my colleagues in supporting this bill.

Mr. President, I rise to discuss an amendment to create a medical insurance rate authority and rate review process that I filed to the Patient Care and Affordable Choice Act.

Unfortunately, because of the objections of one of my colleagues, my amendment was not included in the final bill before us today.

I am profoundly disappointed. I would like to take a few minutes to discuss why I believe this proposal is so important and why, without it, we can expect to see skyrocketing health insurance premiums.

I am very concerned that health insurance companies will seek to exploit the time between passage of the bill, and 2014, when reforms are fully in place.

Credit card companies provide a useful example. Earlier this year, Congress approved major credit card reform legislation. However, the consumer protections it contains will not be fully effective until February 2010.

Credit card companies have taken full advantage of this interim period to raise rates, with many card interest rates increasing 20 percent over the last year.

I am very worried that health insurance companies will do the very same thing. And I believe the rate authority amendment is essential to stopping them.

In some States, insurance commissioners have the authority to review rates and increases and block rates that are found to be unjustified. According to a 2008 Families USA report, 33 States have some form of a prior approval process for premium increases.

The same report describes several notable successes among States that use this process, including . . . regulators in North Dakota were able to reduce 37 percent of the proposed rate increases filed by insurers. Maryland used their State laws to block a 46-percent premium increase after a company charged artificially low rates for 2 years. The decision was upheld in court. New Hampshire regulators were able to reduce a proposed 100 percent rate increase to 12.5 percent.

But in other States, including California, insurance commissioners do not have this ability.

And Some states have laws like this on the books, but do not have sufficient resources to review all the rate changes that insurance companies propose.

Consumers deserve full protection from unfair rate increases, no matter where they live.

The amendment I have proposed would ensure that all Americans have some level of basic protection. The amendment will strengthen a provision included in the underlying bill, which already requires insurance companies to submit justifications and explain increases in premiums. They must submit these justifications to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and they must make these justifications available on their Web site.

I believe we must do more.

The amendment asks the National Association of Insurance Commissioners to produce a report detailing the rate review laws and capabilities in all 50 States. The Secretary of HHS will then use these findings to determine which States have the authority and capability to undertake sufficient rate reviews to protect consumers.

In States where insurance commissioners have authority to review rates, they will continue to do so.

In States without sufficient authority or resources, the Secretary of HHS will review rates and take any appropriate action to deny unfair requests.

This could mean blocking unjustified rate increases, or requiring rebates, if an unfair increase is already in effect.

This will provide all American consumers with another layer of protection from an unfair premium increase.

The amendment would also require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish a medical insurance rate authority as part of the process in the bill that enables her to monitor premium costs.

The rate authority would advise the Secretary on insurance rate review and would be composed of seven officials that represent the full scope of the health care system including: at least two consumers; at least one medical professional; and one representative of the medical insurance industry.

The remaining members would be experts in health economics, actuarial science, or other sectors of the health care system.

The rate authority will also issue an annual report, providing American consumers with basic information about how insurance companies are behaving in the market. It will examine premium increases, by plan and by State, as well as medical loss ratios, reserves and solvency of companies, and other relevant behaviors.

This data will give consumers better information. But more importantly, it will give the newly created insurance exchanges better information.

Under the amendment, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the relevant insurance commissioner, will recommend to exchanges whether a company should be permitted to participate in the exchanges.

So companies should be put on notice: unfair premium increases and other unfair behaviors will come with a price. Millions of Americans will receive tax credits to purchase coverage in the exchange beginning in 2014. Insurance companies will need to demonstrate that they are worthy of participating in this new market, and receiving Federal money to cover uninsured Americans.

This concern about premium increases stems from the fact that we are the only industrialized nation that relies heavily on a for-profit medical insurance industry to provide basic health care. I believe, fundamentally, that all medical insurance should be not for profit.

The industry is focused on profits, not patients. And it is heavily concentrated, leaving consumers with few alternatives when their premiums do increase.

As of 2007, just two carriers--WellPoint and UnitedHealth Group--had gained control of 36 percent of the national market for commercial health insurance.

Since 1998, there have been more than 400 mergers of health insurance companies, as larger carriers have purchased, absorbed, and enveloped smaller competitors.

In 2004 and 2005 alone, this industry had 28 mergers, valued at more than $53 billion. That is more merger activity in health insurance than in the 8 previous years combined.

Today, according to a study by the American Medical Association, more than 94 percent of American health insurance markets are highly concentrated, as characterized by U.S. Department of Justice guidelines. This means these companies could raise premiums or reduce benefits with little fear that consumers will end their contracts and move to a more competitive carrier.

In my State of California just two companies, WellPoint and Kaiser Permanente, control more than 58 percent of the market. In Los Angeles, the top two carriers controlled 51 percent of the market.

Record levels of market concentration have helped generate a record level of profit increases.

Between 2000 and 2007, profits at 10 of the largest publicly traded health insurance companies soared 428 percent from--$2.4 billion in 2000 to $12.9 billion in 2007. This is Health Care for America Now, Premiums Soaring in Consolidated Health Insurance Market, May 2009, citing U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

The CEOs at these companies took in record earnings. In 2007, these 10 CEOs

made a combined $118.6 million. The CEO of CIGNA took home $25.8 million; The CEO of Aetna took home $23 million; The CEO of UnitedHealth took home $13.2 million; and the CEO of WellPoint took home $9.1 million.

I am very concerned that this profit seeking behavior will only worsen, now that insurance companies know that health reform will change their business model.

Insurers know that come 2014, they will be playing by new rules: No discriminating based on preexisting conditions. No cherry picking and choosing to cover only the healthy. No charging women or older people astronomical rates. No dropping coverage once someone gets sick.

Insurers know these changes are coming. Listen to a comment made by Michael A. Turpin, a former senior executive for UnitedHealth. He is now a top official at an insurance brokerage firm, and he said that insurers were ``under so much pressure to post earnings, they're going to make hay while the sun is shining.''

``Make hay while the sun is shining.'' That means these companies will try to make as much money as they possibly can, for as long as they can.

That is why a rate review amendment is so important.

Frankly, I wish the health reform bill before us would go further and eliminate the for-profit health insurance industry.

But since this bill chooses to maintain a for-profit industry, we must do the next best thing and ensure that it is thoroughly regulated. Insurance companies should not be able to take advantage of the fact that affordable health care is a basic life need. In effect, they have the power to increase their prices at will, knowing that people will continue to pay as long as they can afford to do so.

This amendment certainly will not fix all of the ills of a for-profit insurance industry, but I believe it makes a needed improvement in the underlying bill and will help protect consumers from unfair increases. Without it, I worry that consumers in far too many States will see major premium increases.

I will continue to work to see that this amendment is included in the final version of health reform legislation. Without it, too many Americans will still lack protection from unfair rate increases.

I ask unanimous consent that a copy of a support letter from California organizations be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the California Desert Protection Act of 2010.

I strongly believe that conservation, renewable energy development, and recreation can and must coexist in the California Desert--and this legislation strikes a carefully conceived balance between these sometimes competing concerns.

The key provisions of this bill would designate two new national monuments--the Mojave Trails and the Sand to Snow National Monuments.

It would add adjacent lands to the Joshua Tree and Death Valley National Parks and the Mojave National Preserve; designate 5 new BLM wilderness areas and protect 4 important waterways, such as the Amargosa River and Deep Creek, as Wild and Scenic Rivers; improve the process to permit large-scale wind and solar development on suitable public and private lands in the California desert; and enhance recreational opportunities in the desert, while ensuring that the training needs of the military are met.

This bill is the product of painstaking discussions with key stakeholders--including environmental groups, local and State government, off-highway recreation enthusiasts, hunters, cattle ranchers, mining interests, the Department of Defense, wind and solar energy companies, California's public utility companies, and many others. I am grateful for all of their efforts.

The bill is divided into two titles.

The first title primarily covers conservation, recreation, and other purposes.

The second title of the bill covers renewable energy development on suitable lands.

Taken together, this bill will shape the future of the Southern California Desert, and I believe it can serve as a model for future efforts to balance renewable energy development and conservation.

As of today, this bill has been endorsed by: the California Wilderness Coalition; the Wildlands Conservancy; the Wilderness Society; the National Parks Conservation Association; Friends of the River; Cogentrix Energy; Edison International, parent company of Southern California Edison; Friends of Big Morongo Canyon Preserve; Friends of the Desert Mountains; Mojave Desert Land Trust; Desert Protective Council; Amargosa Conservancy; Death Valley Conservancy; the Cities of Barstow, Desert Hot Springs, Hesperia, Indio, Palm Springs, San Bernardino and Yucaipa; Riverside County Supervisor Marion Ashley; San Bernardino County Supervisor Neil Derry; Imperial County Supervisor Wally Leimgruber; Coachella Valley Association of Governments; SummerTree Institute; and Route 66 Preservation Foundation.

The California Desert Protection Act, which was enacted in 1994, was a sweeping piece of legislation aimed at

conserving some of the most beautiful and ecologically significant lands in my home State.

The law created Death Valley National Park, Joshua Tree National Park and the Mojave National Preserve, as well as 69 desert wilderness areas managed by the Bureau of Land Management, BLM.

Collectively, it protected over 7 million acres of desert lands, making it the largest land conservation bill in the lower 48 States in U.S. history.

To this day, it remains one of my proudest accomplishments since joining this body.

Much has changed since the passage of the California Desert Protection Act. Many of the impediments that prevented conservation of other pristine desert lands in the area no longer exist.

Department of Defense concerns with designating some wilderness areas near Fort Irwin have been resolved.

Many mining areas inside national parks and potential wilderness have closed.

Grazing allotments on both BLM and National Park Service land have been retired by willing sellers.

Hundreds of thousands of acres of privately owned land has been donated to or acquired by the Federal Government.

Yet even as these issues were resolved, new challenges have emerged. There are now competing demands over how best to manage hundreds of thousands of acres of public lands in the desert.

Some believe the lands should be used for large-scale solar and wind facilities and transmission lines. Others would like to conserve critical habitat for threatened and endangered species.

Some would like more acreage available for grazing or for off-road recreation.

Finally, some would like to see additional lands made available for military training and base expansion.

Earlier this year, I learned that BLM had accepted applications to build vast solar and wind energy projects on former railroad lands previously owned by the Catellus Corporation. These lands had been donated to the Federal Government or acquired with taxpayer funds for conservation.

I believe the development of these new cleaner energy sources is vital to addressing climate change, yet we must be careful about selecting where these facilities are located. The current process doesn't work because it allows energy firms to propose the sites for renewable energy development, including land donated or acquired specifically for conservation.

Approximately $45 million of private donations--including a $5 million land discount from Catellus Corporation--and $18 million in Federal Land and Water Conservation grants was spent to purchase these lands, with the intent of conserving them in perpetuity.

As the sponsor of the legislative provisions that helped secure the deal to acquire the roughly 600,000 acres of former private land, I found the BLM's actions unacceptable.

We have an obligation to honor our commitment to conserve these lands--and I believe we can still accomplish that goal while also fulfilling California's commitment to develop a clean energy portfolio.

That is the purpose of this legislation.

The first title of the legislation is geared towards the goal of conserving the Desert's sensitive ecosystem.

First, this bill will ensure that hundreds of thousands of acres of land donated to the federal government for conservation will be protected by creating the Mojave Trails National Monument. This new monument would cover approximately 941,000 acres of Federal land, which includes approximately 266,000 acres of the former Catellus-owned railroad lands along historic Route 66. I visited the area earlier this year and was amazed by the beauty of the massive valleys, pristine dry lakes, and rugged mountains.

In addition to its iconic sweeping desert vistas and majestic mountain ranges, this area of the Eastern Mojave also contains critical wildlife corridors linking Joshua Tree National Park and the Mojave National Preserve. It also encompasses hundreds of thousands of acres designated as areas of critical environmental concern, critical habitat for the threatened desert tortoise, and ancient lava bed flows and craters. It is surrounded by more than a dozen BLM wilderness areas.

The BLM would be given the authority to both conserve the monument lands, and also to maintain existing recreational uses, including hunting, vehicular travel on open roads and trails, camping, horseback riding and rockhounding.

The bill also creates an advisory committee to help develop and oversee the implementation of the monument management plan. It would be comprised of representatives from local, State and Federal Government, conservation and recreation groups, and local Native American tribes.

Before I go on to the other conservation provisions in the bill, I would like to address one important issue--and that is what should be done about some of the proposed renewable energy development projects proposed for lands included in this monument.

Although it is true that the monument will prevent further consideration of some applications to develop solar and wind energy projects on former Catellus lands or adjoining lands in the monument, it is important to note that of the proposals in question, not a single one has been granted a permit nor is a single one under review at the California Energy Commission or under formal NEPA, National Environmental Policy Act, review at BLM.

To ensure that creation of the monument does not unnecessarily harm the firms that worked in good faith and invested substantial time and resources to produce renewable energy in California, the legislation will offer these companies an opportunity to relocate their projects to federal renewable energy zones currently being developed by the Department of the Interior.

Additionally, the monument would not prevent the construction or expansion of necessary transmission lines critical to linking renewable energy generation facilities with the electricity grid.

Second, the bill would establish the ``Sand to Snow National Monument,'' encompassing 134,000 acres of land from the desert floor in the Coachella Valley up to the top of Mount San Gorgonio, the highest peak in Southern California.

The boundaries of this second, smaller new monument would include two Areas of Critical Environmental Concern: Big Morongo Canyon and Whitewater Canyon, the BLM and U.S. Forest Service San Gorgonio Wilderness, the Wildlands Conservancy's Pipe's Canyon and Mission Creek Preserves, and additional public and private conservation lands, including two wildlife movement corridor areas connecting the Peninsular Ranges with the Transverse Ranges.

This area is truly remarkable, and would arguably be the most environmentally diverse national monument in the country. It serves as the intersection of three converging ecological systems--the Mojave Desert, the Colorado Desert, and the San Bernardino mountains--and is one of the most important wildlife corridors in Southern California.

This monument designation would protect 23.6 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail and the habitat for approximately 240 species of migrating and breeding birds, the second highest density of nesting birds in the U.S. It also serves as a home and a crucial migration corridor for animals traveling between Joshua Tree National Park, the oasis at Big Morongo, and the higher elevations of the San Bernardino Mountains.

I would like to make one additional point, and that is that despite its ecological significance, this area is not particularly well-known-- largely because it is managed by a number of distinct entities, including the BLM, Forest Service, National Park Service and private preserves and conservation agencies. So, the monument designation would help to attract more attention to one of California's natural gems.

Third, the bill establishes new wilderness and allows more appropriate use of lands currently designated as Wilderness Study Areas.

The 1994 California Desert Protection Act extended wilderness protection to many areas in the desert, yet several areas near Fort Irwin were designated as wilderness study areas in order to allow the base to expand.

Now that Fort Irwin's expansion is complete, it is time to consider these areas for permanent wilderness designation.

The bill protects approximately 250,000 acres of BLM land as wilderness in five areas. These areas contain some of the most pristine and rugged landscapes in the California desert.

Beyond Fort Irwin, the bill also expands wilderness areas in Death Valley National Park, 90,000 acres, and the San Bernardino National Forest, 4,300 acres, inside the Sand to Snow National Monument created by this bill.

The bill also releases 126,000 acres of land from their existing wilderness study area designation in response to requests from local government and recreation users. This will allow the land to be made available for other purposes, including recreational off-highway vehicle use on designated routes.

Fourth, this bill would create the Vinagre Wash Special Management Area.

The agreed-upon designation for this area in Imperial County, near the Colorado River, was reached after careful discussion with key stakeholders.

Although the land possesses some wilderness characteristics, there are also competing interests. The Navy Seals currently use some of this area for occasional training. Additionally, many local residents enjoy touring the rolling hills in the area by jeep.

Through the combined efforts of conservation groups, local residents and county government, and the Department of Defense, a compromise conservation designation was developed.

For the land known as the Vinagre Wash, the bill will create a ``special management area'' covering 76,000 acres, including 12,000 acres of former railroad lands donated to the Federal Government.

Of these, 49,000 acres are designated as potential wilderness and only become permanent wilderness if and when the Department of Defense determines these lands are no longer needed for Navy Seal training.

This designation will permit the area to continue to be accessed by vehicles and be used for camping, hiking, mountain biking, sightseeing, and off-highway vehicle use on designated routes and protect tribal cultural assets in the area.

Fifth, the bill adds to or designates four new Wild and Scenic Rivers, totaling 76 miles in length. This designation will ensure they remain clean and free-flowing and that their immediate environments are preserved. These beautiful waterways are Deep Creek and the Whitewater River in and near the San Bernardino National Forest, as well as the Amargosa River and Surprise Canyon Creek near Death Valley National Park.

Sixth, the bill includes adds approximately 74,000 acres of adjacent lands to the three National Parks established by the 1994 California Desert Protection Act.

The bill adds 41,000 acres in Death Valley National Park. This includes former mining areas where the claims have been retired and a narrow strip of BLM land between National Park and Defense Department boundaries that has made BLM management difficult.

The bill adds 30,000 acres in the Mojave National Preserve. This land was not included in the original Monument because of the former Viceroy gold mine. However, the mining operations ceased several years ago, and the reclamation process is nearly complete. Additionally, a 2007 analysis by the Interior Department recommended that this area would be suitable to add to the Preserve.

The bill adds 2,900 acres in Joshua Tree National Park. This includes multiple small parcels of BLM land identified for disposal on its periphery. Transferring this land to the Park Service would help protect Joshua Tree by preserving these undeveloped areas that border residential communities.

Seventh, the bill designates new lands as Off-Highway Vehicle Recreation Areas.

One of the key goals I have strived for in this bill is to find balance to ensure that the many different needs and uses in the desert are accommodated with the least possible conflict. Some of the most frequent visitors to the desert are the off-highway recreation enthusiasts.

In California alone, there are over 1 million registered off-highway vehicles, many of which can be found exploring thousands of miles of desert trails or BLM designated open areas.

However, in order to meet military training needs, the Marine Corps is studying the potential expansion of Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms into Johnson Valley, the largest OHV area in the country. I strongly support providing our troops with the best possible training, but if the Marines need to expand the base into Johnson Valley, this could have potentially resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of acres of OHV recreation lands.

But over the past year I met with Major General Eugene Payne, Assistant Deputy Commandant for Installations and Logistics, and Brigadier General Melvin Spiese, Commanding General, Training and Education Command, to discuss this issue, and I am very grateful for their efforts to consider base expansion options that would preserve much of Johnson Valley for recreation.

As the result of those meetings, the Marine Corps has committed to studying an alternative that would allow for a portion of Johnson Valley to be used exclusively for military training, a portion exclusively for continued OHV recreation and a third area for joint use. While the environmental review process must first be completed, I am hopeful that this option will prevail for the benefit of the Marines and recreational users of Johnson Valley.

The lesson learned from Johnson Valley is that, despite the vast size of the California desert, there are relatively few areas dedicated to OHV recreation, and even those areas face increasing competition from other types of uses. These areas are important not only to the hundreds of thousands visitors who enjoy them, but also to the local economy that depends on their tourist dollars. Additionally, by protecting these areas, we also protect conservation areas by providing appropriate places for OHV recreation.

So, this bill will designate five existing OHV areas in the Mojave desert as permanent OHV areas, providing off- highway groups some certainty that these uses will be protected as much as conservation areas. Collectively, these areas could be as much as 314,000 acres, depending on what, if any, of Johnson Valley is ultimately needed by the Marines.

This section of the bill also requires the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a study to determine what, if any, lands adjacent to these recreation areas would be suitable for addition. This will help make up for some of the lost acres in Johnson Valley should the Marines decide to expand there.

Finally, this title of the bill includes other key provisions that address various challenges and opportunities in the California desert, including: state land exchanges.

There are currently about 370,000 acres of state lands spread across the California desert in isolated 640 acre parcels. Because many of these acres are inside national parks, wilderness, the proposed monuments or conservation areas, they are largely unusable. The bill seeks to remedy that problem by requiring the Department of the Interior to develop and implement a plan with the state to complete the exchange of these lands for other BLM or GSA owned property in the next ten years. These land exchanges will help consolidate the state lands into larger, more usable areas that could potentially provide the state with viable sites for renewable energy development, off- highway vehicle recreation or other commercial purposes.

The bill ensures the right of the Department of Defense to conduct low-level overflights over wilderness, national parks and national monuments.

The bill requires the Department of the Interior to study the impact of climate change on California desert species migration, incorporate the study's results and recommendations into land use management plans, and consider the study's findings when making decisions granting rights of way for projects on public lands.

The bill requires the Secretary to ensure access for tribal cultural activities within national parks, monuments, wilderness and other areas designated within the bill. It also requires the Secretary to develop a cultural resources management plan to protect a sacred tribal trail along the Colorado

River between southern Nevada and the California-Baja border.

In order to ensure that donated and acquired Catellus lands outside the Mojave Trails National Monument are maintained for conservation, the bill prohibits their use for development, mining, off-highway vehicle use, except designated routes, grazing, military training and other surface disturbing activities. The Secretary of the Interior is authorized to make limited exceptions in cases where it is deemed in the public interest, but comparable lands would have to be purchased and donated to the Federal Government as mitigation for lost acreage.

So, all of these provisions, when taken together, would serve to complement the lasting conservation established by the California Desert Protection Act--while ensuring that other important local uses are maintained in appropriate areas.

The Mojave Desert is a spectacular national treasure worthy of protection, but it is also a unique national solar resource.

The Mojave has more than 350 sunny days per year; has large flat valleys and mesas; is close to major transmission lines and millions of electricity consumers in Southern California; and lies above 4,000 feet in elevation, where the sun is strongest.

There is no question that we need to harness the desert's plentiful solar energy--but in order to do that, we need to cut through a bureaucratic backlog of stalled permits, and ensure that development occurs on the most appropriate lands.

That is exactly what the second title of this legislation is intended to do.

For too many years the promise of utilizing desert lands to produce clean, renewable solar power was out of reach. The up-front technology costs were too expensive, while coal was deemed to be cheap and plentiful.

But the economics of solar power began to shift in the right direction in 2005, when Congress established a 30 percent investment tax credit for solar power facilities, a provision I championed. I was proud to work with Senator Snowe and other members of the Senate Finance Committee to extend this tax credit through 2016 during the last Congress.

On December 17, I introduced new legislation with Senator Merkley to make sure solar companies can fully realize the benefits of these tax incentives.

The other chief roadblock to developing solar in the desert has been the broken permitting process.

The Federal Government has failed to focus wind and solar development on appropriate lands where it can be readily permitted.

There are currently more than 110 applications to develop more than 42,000 megawatts of renewable energy capacity on BLM land in the California desert.

Until very recently, nothing was done to evaluate these development proposals.

All but a few proposals have not even begun the formal environmental review process required by the National Environmental Policy Act, NEPA. The BLM has been slow to direct development towards disturbed lands or to discourage proposals on lands acquired for the purpose of conservation.

Wind developers have had to wait more than three years to receive permission to measure the wind above public lands.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has told renewable energy developers seeking to use disturbed private lands that they would need to develop complex habitat conservation plans for their projects, a process expected to take nine years.

Contrast that with the recent announcement from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who has pledged that the BLM will complete permitting of 10 ``fast track'' solar projects on public lands by December 2010.

So, the good news is that this administration has taken steps in the right direction to encourage this important shift to renewable energy.

But it is critical, nonetheless, that this legislation is enacted in order to codify and build upon these improvements to the permitting process and help establish the transmission lines needed to carry cleaner energy from the desert to consumers.

Key provisions of the bill: first, the bill will require BLM to put personnel in place focused exclusively on renewable energy development in the desert, make the staff accountable to Congress, and provide a reliable stream of funding to expedite the review of applications.

The BLM began establishing renewable energy permitting offices earlier this year, but this legislation would codify this new administrative policy, establish that the offices have a clear Congressional mandate, and ensure that they will focus specifically on renewable energy development in each state with significant wind and solar resources on public land.

These offices would be funded from the existing BLM permit improvement fund--a fund which is currently only available to supervise the permitting for oil and natural gas development.

It makes sense that this fund should go towards providing cleaner energy sources as well.

Second, the bill would help cut through the backlog of pending renewable development applications with a ``use it or lose it'' approach.

This would replace the ``first come-first serve'' approach the BLM currently employs.

The legislation would establish strict deadlines for developers to conduct necessary biological and cultural studies, ensure connection to the grid, and develop a plan for water. This would ensure that serious development proposals are moved to the front of the line--and help put an end to unfettered speculation on desert lands.

Third, this legislation will expedite the application process for solar development on private lands.

When I toured the desert last spring, I asked developers why they wanted to develop pristine public lands, instead of using private lands.

The answer shocked me: they told me it was easier to permit a project on pristine public land than on private lands.

We need to ensure that it takes no longer to review an application to develop private lands than it does to develop public lands--without infringing upon important environmental regulations.

So, the bill would establish a pilot mitigation bank program--a new idea based on successful desert protection efforts in Nevada, wolf protection efforts in New Mexico, and Coral Reef protection efforts in the Caribbean.

The mitigation bank program would be a win-win, both accelerating permitting and coordinating endangered species protection efforts.

Developers seeking to utilize private lands would be able to contribute to a mitigation fund, instead of negotiating the terms of endangered species mitigation, which the Fish and Wildlife Service recently predicted would take nine years.

The interest from the funds contributed by developers would be used to better manage endangered species habitat in specific mitigation zones of federal land that would be permanently set aside for species protection.

The principal in this fund would be used to purchase new pristine habitat when it became available.

This Mitigation bank program would be run by BLM, and the Fish and Wildlife Service would consult with the BLM on renewable energy project review, just as they do now for renewable energy proposals on public land.

This would help level the playing field between public and private lands, and it could cut down the time it takes to permit projects for private lands considerably.

Fourth, the legislation would require the BLM, the Forest Service, and the military to complete Environmental Impact Statements to develop renewable energy on the lands they oversee.

This has two benefits.

First, it ensures that Federal land managers will proactively plan the use of public lands--instead of allowing private industry to make these de facto decisions.

Federal land managers will be required to identify renewable energy development areas where development is in the public interest through the programmatic EIS process. This will help avoid the sort of site- specific environmental conflicts that can delay projects for years.

The second benefit of this provision is that it will result in a formal evaluation of whether public land currently managed by the military will also be

considered for solar development, instead of concentrating this development only on BLM land. There are currently approximately 3 million acres of California desert that are managed by the military, and much of this land could be developed for renewable energy consistent with the military mission.

By requiring the military to evaluate the impacts of a program to develop its solar resource, the legislation ensures that all available public lands are properly considered for renewable energy development in California.

Fifth, this legislation expedites the permitting of temporary meteorological measurement devices.

In California, it sometimes takes a wind developer three years to get a permit simply to measure wind speed. Such barriers to research are unnecessary and unwise, and this legislation assures that this type of research qualifies for existing categorical exclusions from complex environmental reviews.

Sixth, the legislation would provide grants and loan guarantees to innovative electricity transmission technologies that will reduce the need to build massive, visually and environmentally disruptive transmission lines in the desert.

Finally, the legislation would return 25 percent of the revenue generated by new renewable energy projects to the State, and 25 percent to local county governments. This would ensure that these entities have the resources to support permitting, public lands protection, and local conservation efforts.

Bottom line: The permitting process is broken. It is not facilitating solar and wind development where it belongs. This legislation intends to fix that.

It may surprise my colleagues that I am introducing such comprehensive legislation to ensure the protection of California's desert heritage, the development of our renewable resources, and the continued enjoyment of desert recreation.

After all, I am not from the desert. I have lived in or near San Francisco for most of my life.

But over the years I have come to truly appreciate California's sweeping desert landscapes.

I remember my first visits to the desert years ago. It was treated like a waste dump. It was full of abandoned cars. Old appliances littered the landscape.

But we have worked very hard to clean it up.

We have worked to make sure that the vast vistas and pristine desert habitat are respected by humanity, and that we give to our children a healthier, more beautiful desert than we inherited.

But if we are to remain successful in the long run, we must not only protect the desert land itself, we must also protect the broader environment from the ravages of climate change, and we must offer economic opportunity to those who live in these areas.

That is the purpose of this legislation. There are many places in the California desert where development and employment are essential and appropriate.

But there are also places that future generations will thank us for setting aside.

I have worked painstakingly with stakeholders to ensure that this legislation balances sometimes competing needs.

This bill, if enacted, will have a positive and enduring impact on the landscape of the Southern California desert, and I hope it will stand as a model for how to balance renewable energy development and conservation.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the California Desert Protection Act of 2010.

I strongly believe that conservation, renewable energy development, and recreation can and must coexist in the California Desert--and this legislation strikes a carefully conceived balance between these sometimes competing concerns.

The key provisions of this bill would designate two new national monuments--the Mojave Trails and the Sand to Snow National Monuments.

It would add adjacent lands to the Joshua Tree and Death Valley National Parks and the Mojave National Preserve; designate 5 new BLM wilderness areas and protect 4 important waterways, such as the Amargosa River and Deep Creek, as Wild and Scenic Rivers; improve the process to permit large-scale wind and solar development on suitable public and private lands in the California desert; and enhance recreational opportunities in the desert, while ensuring that the training needs of the military are met.

This bill is the product of painstaking discussions with key stakeholders--including environmental groups, local and State government, off-highway recreation enthusiasts, hunters, cattle ranchers, mining interests, the Department of Defense, wind and solar energy companies, California's public utility companies, and many others. I am grateful for all of their efforts.

The bill is divided into two titles.

The first title primarily covers conservation, recreation, and other purposes.

The second title of the bill covers renewable energy development on suitable lands.

Taken together, this bill will shape the future of the Southern California Desert, and I believe it can serve as a model for future efforts to balance renewable energy development and conservation.

As of today, this bill has been endorsed by: the California Wilderness Coalition; the Wildlands Conservancy; the Wilderness Society; the National Parks Conservation Association; Friends of the River; Cogentrix Energy; Edison International, parent company of Southern California Edison; Friends of Big Morongo Canyon Preserve; Friends of the Desert Mountains; Mojave Desert Land Trust; Desert Protective Council; Amargosa Conservancy; Death Valley Conservancy; the Cities of Barstow, Desert Hot Springs, Hesperia, Indio, Palm Springs, San Bernardino and Yucaipa; Riverside County Supervisor Marion Ashley; San Bernardino County Supervisor Neil Derry; Imperial County Supervisor Wally Leimgruber; Coachella Valley Association of Governments; SummerTree Institute; and Route 66 Preservation Foundation.

The California Desert Protection Act, which was enacted in 1994, was a sweeping piece of legislation aimed at

conserving some of the most beautiful and ecologically significant lands in my home State.

The law created Death Valley National Park, Joshua Tree National Park and the Mojave National Preserve, as well as 69 desert wilderness areas managed by the Bureau of Land Management, BLM.

Collectively, it protected over 7 million acres of desert lands, making it the largest land conservation bill in the lower 48 States in U.S. history.

To this day, it remains one of my proudest accomplishments since joining this body.

Much has changed since the passage of the California Desert Protection Act. Many of the impediments that prevented conservation of other pristine desert lands in the area no longer exist.

Department of Defense concerns with designating some wilderness areas near Fort Irwin have been resolved.

Many mining areas inside national parks and potential wilderness have closed.

Grazing allotments on both BLM and National Park Service land have been retired by willing sellers.

Hundreds of thousands of acres of privately owned land has been donated to or acquired by the Federal Government.

Yet even as these issues were resolved, new challenges have emerged. There are now competing demands over how best to manage hundreds of thousands of acres of public lands in the desert.

Some believe the lands should be used for large-scale solar and wind facilities and transmission lines. Others would like to conserve critical habitat for threatened and endangered species.

Some would like more acreage available for grazing or for off-road recreation.

Finally, some would like to see additional lands made available for military training and base expansion.

Earlier this year, I learned that BLM had accepted applications to build vast solar and wind energy projects on former railroad lands previously owned by the Catellus Corporation. These lands had been donated to the Federal Government or acquired with taxpayer funds for conservation.

I believe the development of these new cleaner energy sources is vital to addressing climate change, yet we must be careful about selecting where these facilities are located. The current process doesn't work because it allows energy firms to propose the sites for renewable energy development, including land donated or acquired specifically for conservation.

Approximately $45 million of private donations--including a $5 million land discount from Catellus Corporation--and $18 million in Federal Land and Water Conservation grants was spent to purchase these lands, with the intent of conserving them in perpetuity.

As the sponsor of the legislative provisions that helped secure the deal to acquire the roughly 600,000 acres of former private land, I found the BLM's actions unacceptable.

We have an obligation to honor our commitment to conserve these lands--and I believe we can still accomplish that goal while also fulfilling California's commitment to develop a clean energy portfolio.

That is the purpose of this legislation.

The first title of the legislation is geared towards the goal of conserving the Desert's sensitive ecosystem.

First, this bill will ensure that hundreds of thousands of acres of land donated to the federal government for conservation will be protected by creating the Mojave Trails National Monument. This new monument would cover approximately 941,000 acres of Federal land, which includes approximately 266,000 acres of the former Catellus-owned railroad lands along historic Route 66. I visited the area earlier this year and was amazed by the beauty of the massive valleys, pristine dry lakes, and rugged mountains.

In addition to its iconic sweeping desert vistas and majestic mountain ranges, this area of the Eastern Mojave also contains critical wildlife corridors linking Joshua Tree National Park and the Mojave National Preserve. It also encompasses hundreds of thousands of acres designated as areas of critical environmental concern, critical habitat for the threatened desert tortoise, and ancient lava bed flows and craters. It is surrounded by more than a dozen BLM wilderness areas.

The BLM would be given the authority to both conserve the monument lands, and also to maintain existing recreational uses, including hunting, vehicular travel on open roads and trails, camping, horseback riding and rockhounding.

The bill also creates an advisory committee to help develop and oversee the implementation of the monument management plan. It would be comprised of representatives from local, State and Federal Government, conservation and recreation groups, and local Native American tribes.

Before I go on to the other conservation provisions in the bill, I would like to address one important issue--and that is what should be done about some of the proposed renewable energy development projects proposed for lands included in this monument.

Although it is true that the monument will prevent further consideration of some applications to develop solar and wind energy projects on former Catellus lands or adjoining lands in the monument, it is important to note that of the proposals in question, not a single one has been granted a permit nor is a single one under review at the California Energy Commission or under formal NEPA, National Environmental Policy Act, review at BLM.

To ensure that creation of the monument does not unnecessarily harm the firms that worked in good faith and invested substantial time and resources to produce renewable energy in California, the legislation will offer these companies an opportunity to relocate their projects to federal renewable energy zones currently being developed by the Department of the Interior.

Additionally, the monument would not prevent the construction or expansion of necessary transmission lines critical to linking renewable energy generation facilities with the electricity grid.

Second, the bill would establish the ``Sand to Snow National Monument,'' encompassing 134,000 acres of land from the desert floor in the Coachella Valley up to the top of Mount San Gorgonio, the highest peak in Southern California.

The boundaries of this second, smaller new monument would include two Areas of Critical Environmental Concern: Big Morongo Canyon and Whitewater Canyon, the BLM and U.S. Forest Service San Gorgonio Wilderness, the Wildlands Conservancy's Pipe's Canyon and Mission Creek Preserves, and additional public and private conservation lands, including two wildlife movement corridor areas connecting the Peninsular Ranges with the Transverse Ranges.

This area is truly remarkable, and would arguably be the most environmentally diverse national monument in the country. It serves as the intersection of three converging ecological systems--the Mojave Desert, the Colorado Desert, and the San Bernardino mountains--and is one of the most important wildlife corridors in Southern California.

This monument designation would protect 23.6 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail and the habitat for approximately 240 species of migrating and breeding birds, the second highest density of nesting birds in the U.S. It also serves as a home and a crucial migration corridor for animals traveling between Joshua Tree National Park, the oasis at Big Morongo, and the higher elevations of the San Bernardino Mountains.

I would like to make one additional point, and that is that despite its ecological significance, this area is not particularly well-known-- largely because it is managed by a number of distinct entities, including the BLM, Forest Service, National Park Service and private preserves and conservation agencies. So, the monument designation would help to attract more attention to one of California's natural gems.

Third, the bill establishes new wilderness and allows more appropriate use of lands currently designated as Wilderness Study Areas.

The 1994 California Desert Protection Act extended wilderness protection to many areas in the desert, yet several areas near Fort Irwin were designated as wilderness study areas in order to allow the base to expand.

Now that Fort Irwin's expansion is complete, it is time to consider these areas for permanent wilderness designation.

The bill protects approximately 250,000 acres of BLM land as wilderness in five areas. These areas contain some of the most pristine and rugged landscapes in the California desert.

Beyond Fort Irwin, the bill also expands wilderness areas in Death Valley National Park, 90,000 acres, and the San Bernardino National Forest, 4,300 acres, inside the Sand to Snow National Monument created by this bill.

The bill also releases 126,000 acres of land from their existing wilderness study area designation in response to requests from local government and recreation users. This will allow the land to be made available for other purposes, including recreational off-highway vehicle use on designated routes.

Fourth, this bill would create the Vinagre Wash Special Management Area.

The agreed-upon designation for this area in Imperial County, near the Colorado River, was reached after careful discussion with key stakeholders.

Although the land possesses some wilderness characteristics, there are also competing interests. The Navy Seals currently use some of this area for occasional training. Additionally, many local residents enjoy touring the rolling hills in the area by jeep.

Through the combined efforts of conservation groups, local residents and county government, and the Department of Defense, a compromise conservation designation was developed.

For the land known as the Vinagre Wash, the bill will create a ``special management area'' covering 76,000 acres, including 12,000 acres of former railroad lands donated to the Federal Government.

Of these, 49,000 acres are designated as potential wilderness and only become permanent wilderness if and when the Department of Defense determines these lands are no longer needed for Navy Seal training.

This designation will permit the area to continue to be accessed by vehicles and be used for camping, hiking, mountain biking, sightseeing, and off-highway vehicle use on designated routes and protect tribal cultural assets in the area.

Fifth, the bill adds to or designates four new Wild and Scenic Rivers, totaling 76 miles in length. This designation will ensure they remain clean and free-flowing and that their immediate environments are preserved. These beautiful waterways are Deep Creek and the Whitewater River in and near the San Bernardino National Forest, as well as the Amargosa River and Surprise Canyon Creek near Death Valley National Park.

Sixth, the bill includes adds approximately 74,000 acres of adjacent lands to the three National Parks established by the 1994 California Desert Protection Act.

The bill adds 41,000 acres in Death Valley National Park. This includes former mining areas where the claims have been retired and a narrow strip of BLM land between National Park and Defense Department boundaries that has made BLM management difficult.

The bill adds 30,000 acres in the Mojave National Preserve. This land was not included in the original Monument because of the former Viceroy gold mine. However, the mining operations ceased several years ago, and the reclamation process is nearly complete. Additionally, a 2007 analysis by the Interior Department recommended that this area would be suitable to add to the Preserve.

The bill adds 2,900 acres in Joshua Tree National Park. This includes multiple small parcels of BLM land identified for disposal on its periphery. Transferring this land to the Park Service would help protect Joshua Tree by preserving these undeveloped areas that border residential communities.

Seventh, the bill designates new lands as Off-Highway Vehicle Recreation Areas.

One of the key goals I have strived for in this bill is to find balance to ensure that the many different needs and uses in the desert are accommodated with the least possible conflict. Some of the most frequent visitors to the desert are the off-highway recreation enthusiasts.

In California alone, there are over 1 million registered off-highway vehicles, many of which can be found exploring thousands of miles of desert trails or BLM designated open areas.

However, in order to meet military training needs, the Marine Corps is studying the potential expansion of Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms into Johnson Valley, the largest OHV area in the country. I strongly support providing our troops with the best possible training, but if the Marines need to expand the base into Johnson Valley, this could have potentially resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of acres of OHV recreation lands.

But over the past year I met with Major General Eugene Payne, Assistant Deputy Commandant for Installations and Logistics, and Brigadier General Melvin Spiese, Commanding General, Training and Education Command, to discuss this issue, and I am very grateful for their efforts to consider base expansion options that would preserve much of Johnson Valley for recreation.

As the result of those meetings, the Marine Corps has committed to studying an alternative that would allow for a portion of Johnson Valley to be used exclusively for military training, a portion exclusively for continued OHV recreation and a third area for joint use. While the environmental review process must first be completed, I am hopeful that this option will prevail for the benefit of the Marines and recreational users of Johnson Valley.

The lesson learned from Johnson Valley is that, despite the vast size of the California desert, there are relatively few areas dedicated to OHV recreation, and even those areas face increasing competition from other types of uses. These areas are important not only to the hundreds of thousands visitors who enjoy them, but also to the local economy that depends on their tourist dollars. Additionally, by protecting these areas, we also protect conservation areas by providing appropriate places for OHV recreation.

So, this bill will designate five existing OHV areas in the Mojave desert as permanent OHV areas, providing off- highway groups some certainty that these uses will be protected as much as conservation areas. Collectively, these areas could be as much as 314,000 acres, depending on what, if any, of Johnson Valley is ultimately needed by the Marines.

This section of the bill also requires the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a study to determine what, if any, lands adjacent to these recreation areas would be suitable for addition. This will help make up for some of the lost acres in Johnson Valley should the Marines decide to expand there.

Finally, this title of the bill includes other key provisions that address various challenges and opportunities in the California desert, including: state land exchanges.

There are currently about 370,000 acres of state lands spread across the California desert in isolated 640 acre parcels. Because many of these acres are inside national parks, wilderness, the proposed monuments or conservation areas, they are largely unusable. The bill seeks to remedy that problem by requiring the Department of the Interior to develop and implement a plan with the state to complete the exchange of these lands for other BLM or GSA owned property in the next ten years. These land exchanges will help consolidate the state lands into larger, more usable areas that could potentially provide the state with viable sites for renewable energy development, off- highway vehicle recreation or other commercial purposes.

The bill ensures the right of the Department of Defense to conduct low-level overflights over wilderness, national parks and national monuments.

The bill requires the Department of the Interior to study the impact of climate change on California desert species migration, incorporate the study's results and recommendations into land use management plans, and consider the study's findings when making decisions granting rights of way for projects on public lands.

The bill requires the Secretary to ensure access for tribal cultural activities within national parks, monuments, wilderness and other areas designated within the bill. It also requires the Secretary to develop a cultural resources management plan to protect a sacred tribal trail along the Colorado

River between southern Nevada and the California-Baja border.

In order to ensure that donated and acquired Catellus lands outside the Mojave Trails National Monument are maintained for conservation, the bill prohibits their use for development, mining, off-highway vehicle use, except designated routes, grazing, military training and other surface disturbing activities. The Secretary of the Interior is authorized to make limited exceptions in cases where it is deemed in the public interest, but comparable lands would have to be purchased and donated to the Federal Government as mitigation for lost acreage.

So, all of these provisions, when taken together, would serve to complement the lasting conservation established by the California Desert Protection Act--while ensuring that other important local uses are maintained in appropriate areas.

The Mojave Desert is a spectacular national treasure worthy of protection, but it is also a unique national solar resource.

The Mojave has more than 350 sunny days per year; has large flat valleys and mesas; is close to major transmission lines and millions of electricity consumers in Southern California; and lies above 4,000 feet in elevation, where the sun is strongest.

There is no question that we need to harness the desert's plentiful solar energy--but in order to do that, we need to cut through a bureaucratic backlog of stalled permits, and ensure that development occurs on the most appropriate lands.

That is exactly what the second title of this legislation is intended to do.

For too many years the promise of utilizing desert lands to produce clean, renewable solar power was out of reach. The up-front technology costs were too expensive, while coal was deemed to be cheap and plentiful.

But the economics of solar power began to shift in the right direction in 2005, when Congress established a 30 percent investment tax credit for solar power facilities, a provision I championed. I was proud to work with Senator Snowe and other members of the Senate Finance Committee to extend this tax credit through 2016 during the last Congress.

On December 17, I introduced new legislation with Senator Merkley to make sure solar companies can fully realize the benefits of these tax incentives.

The other chief roadblock to developing solar in the desert has been the broken permitting process.

The Federal Government has failed to focus wind and solar development on appropriate lands where it can be readily permitted.

There are currently more than 110 applications to develop more than 42,000 megawatts of renewable energy capacity on BLM land in the California desert.

Until very recently, nothing was done to evaluate these development proposals.

All but a few proposals have not even begun the formal environmental review process required by the National Environmental Policy Act, NEPA. The BLM has been slow to direct development towards disturbed lands or to discourage proposals on lands acquired for the purpose of conservation.

Wind developers have had to wait more than three years to receive permission to measure the wind above public lands.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has told renewable energy developers seeking to use disturbed private lands that they would need to develop complex habitat conservation plans for their projects, a process expected to take nine years.

Contrast that with the recent announcement from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who has pledged that the BLM will complete permitting of 10 ``fast track'' solar projects on public lands by December 2010.

So, the good news is that this administration has taken steps in the right direction to encourage this important shift to renewable energy.

But it is critical, nonetheless, that this legislation is enacted in order to codify and build upon these improvements to the permitting process and help establish the transmission lines needed to carry cleaner energy from the desert to consumers.

Key provisions of the bill: first, the bill will require BLM to put personnel in place focused exclusively on renewable energy development in the desert, make the staff accountable to Congress, and provide a reliable stream of funding to expedite the review of applications.

The BLM began establishing renewable energy permitting offices earlier this year, but this legislation would codify this new administrative policy, establish that the offices have a clear Congressional mandate, and ensure that they will focus specifically on renewable energy development in each state with significant wind and solar resources on public land.

These offices would be funded from the existing BLM permit improvement fund--a fund which is currently only available to supervise the permitting for oil and natural gas development.

It makes sense that this fund should go towards providing cleaner energy sources as well.

Second, the bill would help cut through the backlog of pending renewable development applications with a ``use it or lose it'' approach.

This would replace the ``first come-first serve'' approach the BLM currently employs.

The legislation would establish strict deadlines for developers to conduct necessary biological and cultural studies, ensure connection to the grid, and develop a plan for water. This would ensure that serious development proposals are moved to the front of the line--and help put an end to unfettered speculation on desert lands.

Third, this legislation will expedite the application process for solar development on private lands.

When I toured the desert last spring, I asked developers why they wanted to develop pristine public lands, instead of using private lands.

The answer shocked me: they told me it was easier to permit a project on pristine public land than on private lands.

We need to ensure that it takes no longer to review an application to develop private lands than it does to develop public lands--without infringing upon important environmental regulations.

So, the bill would establish a pilot mitigation bank program--a new idea based on successful desert protection efforts in Nevada, wolf protection efforts in New Mexico, and Coral Reef protection efforts in the Caribbean.

The mitigation bank program would be a win-win, both accelerating permitting and coordinating endangered species protection efforts.

Developers seeking to utilize private lands would be able to contribute to a mitigation fund, instead of negotiating the terms of endangered species mitigation, which the Fish and Wildlife Service recently predicted would take nine years.

The interest from the funds contributed by developers would be used to better manage endangered species habitat in specific mitigation zones of federal land that would be permanently set aside for species protection.

The principal in this fund would be used to purchase new pristine habitat when it became available.

This Mitigation bank program would be run by BLM, and the Fish and Wildlife Service would consult with the BLM on renewable energy project review, just as they do now for renewable energy proposals on public land.

This would help level the playing field between public and private lands, and it could cut down the time it takes to permit projects for private lands considerably.

Fourth, the legislation would require the BLM, the Forest Service, and the military to complete Environmental Impact Statements to develop renewable energy on the lands they oversee.

This has two benefits.

First, it ensures that Federal land managers will proactively plan the use of public lands--instead of allowing private industry to make these de facto decisions.

Federal land managers will be required to identify renewable energy development areas where development is in the public interest through the programmatic EIS process. This will help avoid the sort of site- specific environmental conflicts that can delay projects for years.

The second benefit of this provision is that it will result in a formal evaluation of whether public land currently managed by the military will also be

considered for solar development, instead of concentrating this development only on BLM land. There are currently approximately 3 million acres of California desert that are managed by the military, and much of this land could be developed for renewable energy consistent with the military mission.

By requiring the military to evaluate the impacts of a program to develop its solar resource, the legislation ensures that all available public lands are properly considered for renewable energy development in California.

Fifth, this legislation expedites the permitting of temporary meteorological measurement devices.

In California, it sometimes takes a wind developer three years to get a permit simply to measure wind speed. Such barriers to research are unnecessary and unwise, and this legislation assures that this type of research qualifies for existing categorical exclusions from complex environmental reviews.

Sixth, the legislation would provide grants and loan guarantees to innovative electricity transmission technologies that will reduce the need to build massive, visually and environmentally disruptive transmission lines in the desert.

Finally, the legislation would return 25 percent of the revenue generated by new renewable energy projects to the State, and 25 percent to local county governments. This would ensure that these entities have the resources to support permitting, public lands protection, and local conservation efforts.

Bottom line: The permitting process is broken. It is not facilitating solar and wind development where it belongs. This legislation intends to fix that.

It may surprise my colleagues that I am introducing such comprehensive legislation to ensure the protection of California's desert heritage, the development of our renewable resources, and the continued enjoyment of desert recreation.

After all, I am not from the desert. I have lived in or near San Francisco for most of my life.

But over the years I have come to truly appreciate California's sweeping desert landscapes.

I remember my first visits to the desert years ago. It was treated like a waste dump. It was full of abandoned cars. Old appliances littered the landscape.

But we have worked very hard to clean it up.

We have worked to make sure that the vast vistas and pristine desert habitat are respected by humanity, and that we give to our children a healthier, more beautiful desert than we inherited.

But if we are to remain successful in the long run, we must not only protect the desert land itself, we must also protect the broader environment from the ravages of climate change, and we must offer economic opportunity to those who live in these areas.

That is the purpose of this legislation. There are many places in the California desert where development and employment are essential and appropriate.

But there are also places that future generations will thank us for setting aside.

I have worked painstakingly with stakeholders to ensure that this legislation balances sometimes competing needs.

This bill, if enacted, will have a positive and enduring impact on the landscape of the Southern California desert, and I hope it will stand as a model for how to balance renewable energy development and conservation.

Mr. President, today the Senate will take an important step to raise awareness of human trafficking, a form of modern-day slavery. The resolution, introduced by myself and Senators Cornyn, Cardin, and Brownback, observes National Slavery and Trafficking Prevention Month from January 1 through February 1 to raise awareness of, and opposition to, modern slavery and human trafficking. This bipartisan resolution was passed unanimously today by the Senate.

Human trafficking is a crime in which persons are forced to work against their will in sweatshops, prostitution rings, farm labor, private homes, and other enterprises. The traffickers use force, threats of force, and coercion to ensure that their victims believe they have no other choice but to work for their captors.

The resolution resolves that Congress supports (1) the goals and ideals of observing the National Slavery and Trafficking Prevention Month from January 1 through February 1 to recognize the vital role that the people of the United States have in ending modern slavery; (2) marking this observance with appropriate programs and activities culminating in the observance on February 1 of National Freedom Day; and (3) all other efforts to raise awareness of and opposition to human trafficking.

This resolution recognizes the month of January as significant for modern slavery and human trafficking. January 1 is the anniversary of the effective date of the Emancipation Proclamation and February 1 is the anniversary of the date that President Abraham Lincoln signed the joint resolution sending the 13th amendment to the States for ratification.

In addition, it recognizes that January 11 is a day that many have chosen to commemorate human trafficking. In the 110th Congress, I sponsored a concurrent resolution that passed the Senate supporting January 11 as a National Day of Human Trafficking Awareness.

In 2007, California passed a resolution, signed into law by Governor Schwarzenegger, designating January 11 as National Day of Human Trafficking Awareness. The Los Angeles City Council and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors did the same for the county of Los Angeles.

The issue of human trafficking has become particularly problematic in California. San Diego is an international trafficking gateway city used to traffic foreign children into the U.S. The United Nations has listed Mexico as the No. 1 exporter of exploited children into North America.

From 1998 to 2003, more than 500 people from 18 countries were ensnared in 57 forced labor operations throughout California. These statistics only represent the cases that were discovered. Frequently, human trafficking goes undetected because the victims are not only afraid of their traffickers, but they have been taught by their traffickers to fear U.S. law enforcement.

Congress has acted to broaden the tools available to prosecute perpetrators of modern slavery and to assist and protect victims of human trafficking. It has enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 and the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008.

California has taken a leadership role in identifying and prosecuting human trafficking cases. For example, San Diego received one of the first grants to train local law enforcement on identifying and prosecuting human trafficking. The U.S. attorneys offices in Oakland, Los Angeles, and San Diego have all created antitrafficking task forces.

Using these tools, this August five people in California were sentenced to Federal prison, all receiving multidecade sentences for their roles in an international sex trafficking ring that lured young Guatemalan women and girls into the Los Angeles area and forced them into prostitution.

In this distressing case, the defendants intimidated and controlled their victims by threatening to beat them and kill their loved ones in Guatemala if they tried to escape. At least three of the defendants restrained the victims by locking them in at night and blocking windows and doors to prevent their escape.

In another recent case in Walnut Creek, CA, a woman was found guilty of trafficking a nanny from Peru. For nearly 2 years, the victim was forced to cook, clean, and take care of the family's children through false promises of pay. The victim was eventually able to escape, with the assistance of local residents and officials and parents at a local elementary school.

Human trafficking is a pervasive global crime, with nearly 1 million people trafficked across international borders every year. According to the State Department, roughly 80 percent of the victims are women and children.

I believe that it is vital that we work together as a nation to eliminate human trafficking and prevent the victimization of the most vulnerable members of society.

Awareness of the issues surrounding slavery and trafficking by those people most likely to come into contact with vulnerable populations is essential for effective prevention and prosecution of this frequently hidden crime.

I thank my colleagues for their support of this resolution to help raise awareness of modern day slavery.

Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Renewable Energy Incentive Act of 2009, which is cosponsored by Senator Jeff Merkley.

This act would extend, expand, and improve existing tax incentives and grant programs for renewable energy, especially for solar energy.

Provisions of this act are widely supported by public power utilities, environmental groups, renewable energy companies, renewable energy industry associations, and labor unions.

These include, for example: the American Public Power Association; the Solar Energy Industries Association; the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power; the Northern California Power Agency; the Southern California Public Power Agency; the Large Public Power Council, LPPC; solar companies including Brightsource, Solyndra, Tessera Solar, and Stirling Energy Systems and many others.

First, the bill would allow renewable energy companies to claim grants from the Treasury department, in lieu of renewable energy tax credits, through 2012 instead of 2010.

Second, it would permit public power utilities to claim these same Treasury Grants.

Third, it expands the solar investment tax credit to include manufacturing equipment and solar water heaters for commercial and community pools.

Finally, it establishes a new tax credit for solar companies who consolidate and develop disturbed private land instead of developing our more pristine public lands.

The most significant provision in this bill would extend the Treasury Grants Program established in the stimulus by two years, allowing renewable energy developers to continue claiming these grants.

Section 1603 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act established ``payments in lieu of tax credits for specified energy property'' in order to support renewable energy development.

The program allows renewable energy developers to take grants, or payments, from the Treasury department instead of claiming tax credits in order to help build projects that require a great deal of capital upfront.

The provision has reduced the impact of the financial crisis on renewable energy development.

Before the grants program was established, most renewable energy developers had to partner with profitable banks, or ``tax equity partners,'' in order to take advantage of renewable energy tax incentives.

These big financial institutions would apply tax credits against their large profits, taking a cut for themselves along the way.

But in 2008, when financial sector profits sank, the $8 billion ``tax equity'' market largely evaporated.

Renewable energy development ground to a halt because developers could not find tax equity partners.

Major players in the space, such as AIG and Lehman Brothers, disappeared. The banks that still had profits began demanding a much higher cut.

That's when Congress stepped in.

The stimulus created the Treasury Grants, which allow developers to claim their tax benefits directly, instead of partnering with profitable banks.

The U.S. wind industry installed 1,649 megawatts of new capacity in the third quarter of this year alone, a boost from the previous two quarters and in excess of 2008 levels. Experts credit the Treasury grants program.

Solar is also getting back on track. For instance, SunEdison used a Treasury grant in lieu of tax credits to accelerate construction of an 18 megawatt photovoltaic array--one of the largest in the U.S.

The firm's CEO told the press: ``That could not have been done without this program.''

The Treasury program is also allowing renewable energy developers to attract significantly more debt backing for projects than would otherwise be possible, according to recent statements by the managing director of energy investments at J.P. Morgan Capital.

But the grants program is set to expire in 2010, far before most utility scale solar projects will begin construction or financial analysts predict tax equity markets will recover.

If the grant program is not extended, bank profits will again become the limiting factor on renewable energy development in the U.S., and that makes no sense.

That is why I propose to extend the program two years.

This legislation would also level the playing field between public power and for-profit companies by allowing public power utilities to receive Treasury Grants for renewable energy projects.

Public power utilities serve 45 million American consumers, but they are currently prohibited from receiving grants for their renewable energy development.

The basis for this prohibition is that public power utilities are tax exempt, non-profit corporations owned by local governments, who therefore have not been able to claim tax credits directly on their income tax returns.

But excluding public power from the grants program does not make sense.

Congress created the Treasury grants program specifically to assist firms that lacked the ability to claim the full benefits of renewable energy tax incentives.

If we are going to allow for-profit companies to claim these direct grants, why would we exclude our non-profit public power utilities?

So leveling the playing field for public power is fair.

This provision is also necessary to protect our local community utility companies who want to deploy renewable energy.

The federal grants make building renewable energy projects cost effective for rate payers.

Because public power utilities lack access to these grants, they are now frequently establishing complex financial arrangements with private developers in order to build renewable energy projects that qualify for federal help.

This is in direct conflict with public power's historic, proven business model as a vertically integrated, non-profit.

It requires our cities and towns to negotiate unnecessarily complex deals with Wall Street.

Let me give you an example.

Turlock Irrigation District, TID, a public power utility in my state, decided to build a 137 megawatt wind farm in 2007.

They wanted to build and own.

But to make it cost effective, Turlock signed a contract to buy the power, but a tax equity partner would ``own'' the project and receive the benefit of the federal production tax credit.

The contract was extremely complex and costly, requiring the participation of an investment bank to find a tax equity partner, an equity group to be the tax equity partner, legal counsel for the equity group, experts to provide risk advice and engineering advice to the equity group; bond counsel to provide renewable asset specialists; an operator to run the plant for the equity group; and an asset manager, to advise the equity group on the performance of the operator.

After 2 years and millions of dollars spent trying to finalize this deal,

Turlock learned that the supposedly profitable equity partner, American International Group, AIG, wasn't profitable at all.

AIG backed out and the entire deal collapsed.

After much analysis, Turlock Irrigation District decided to own and operate the wind farm, giving up on receiving any Federal support.

Larry Weis, the General Manager, explained in a letter to me:

The bottom line is that TID made a business decision to

forego working with a private developer to develop a project,

because the complexity of the deal and the dollars spent to

arrange it meant that much of the value of the tax credit

would go to the equity partners and not pass through to our

consumers. Given the facts and the absence of a comparable

incentive for consumer-owned utilities, TID made the best

choice it could under the circumstances, even though it means

our customers will pay more.

This legislation is necessary to prevent other public power utilities from being forced to make this difficult, unnecessary choice.

Public power utilities deserve access to renewable energy incentives comparable to those awarded to the private sector, and this legislation will assure that happens.

This legislation also expands the solar investment tax credit to include manufacturing equipment and solar water heaters for commercial and community pools.

The bill would allow equipment that makes solar panels to qualify for the 30 percent solar investment tax credit.

Solar panel manufacturing is moving offshore, to Germany and Asia, where support is considerable.

This financial incentive could jumpstart solar manufacturing in this country, and could lead to thousands of new jobs, such as those being created at Solyndra's new factory in Fremont, CA. Or those proposed by Applied Materials at their proposed facility near Los Angeles.

The bill would allow commercial pool solar hot water heaters to qualify for the solar tax credit.

Approximately 189,000 commercial pools nationwide--at hotels/motels, health clubs, and schools--use fossil fuel or electricity to heat an estimated 27 billion gallons of water.

If the heating systems were replaced with solar hot water systems, there would be 1.23 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions avoided annually.

That is the equivalent of taking 237,000 cars off the road.

In California, which has 26 percent of all commercial pools in the U.S., this provision could significantly reduce pollution.

Finally, the legislation would establish a new tax credit for the purchase, consolidation, and use of multiple, 100 acre or less blocks of high solarity, disturbed private lands for solar development.

Solar developers have focused development proposals on pristine public land because it is very difficult, costly, and time intensive to consolidate large blocks of disturbed private land from many different owners.

This tax credit will financially reward those firms that are willing to go through the trouble of land consolidation, thereby making the increased burden of private lands development more appealing.

Over the last few years, the renewable energy industry has grown dramatically.

Last year the U.S. added more new capacity to produce renewable electricity than it did to produce electricity from natural gas.

A great deal of this growth can be attributed to our renewable energy tax policies.

This legislation, I believe, would continue this growth into the future.

Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Renewable Energy Incentive Act of 2009, which is cosponsored by Senator Jeff Merkley.

This act would extend, expand, and improve existing tax incentives and grant programs for renewable energy, especially for solar energy.

Provisions of this act are widely supported by public power utilities, environmental groups, renewable energy companies, renewable energy industry associations, and labor unions.

These include, for example: the American Public Power Association; the Solar Energy Industries Association; the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power; the Northern California Power Agency; the Southern California Public Power Agency; the Large Public Power Council, LPPC; solar companies including Brightsource, Solyndra, Tessera Solar, and Stirling Energy Systems and many others.

First, the bill would allow renewable energy companies to claim grants from the Treasury department, in lieu of renewable energy tax credits, through 2012 instead of 2010.

Second, it would permit public power utilities to claim these same Treasury Grants.

Third, it expands the solar investment tax credit to include manufacturing equipment and solar water heaters for commercial and community pools.

Finally, it establishes a new tax credit for solar companies who consolidate and develop disturbed private land instead of developing our more pristine public lands.

The most significant provision in this bill would extend the Treasury Grants Program established in the stimulus by two years, allowing renewable energy developers to continue claiming these grants.

Section 1603 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act established ``payments in lieu of tax credits for specified energy property'' in order to support renewable energy development.

The program allows renewable energy developers to take grants, or payments, from the Treasury department instead of claiming tax credits in order to help build projects that require a great deal of capital upfront.

The provision has reduced the impact of the financial crisis on renewable energy development.

Before the grants program was established, most renewable energy developers had to partner with profitable banks, or ``tax equity partners,'' in order to take advantage of renewable energy tax incentives.

These big financial institutions would apply tax credits against their large profits, taking a cut for themselves along the way.

But in 2008, when financial sector profits sank, the $8 billion ``tax equity'' market largely evaporated.

Renewable energy development ground to a halt because developers could not find tax equity partners.

Major players in the space, such as AIG and Lehman Brothers, disappeared. The banks that still had profits began demanding a much higher cut.

That's when Congress stepped in.

The stimulus created the Treasury Grants, which allow developers to claim their tax benefits directly, instead of partnering with profitable banks.

The U.S. wind industry installed 1,649 megawatts of new capacity in the third quarter of this year alone, a boost from the previous two quarters and in excess of 2008 levels. Experts credit the Treasury grants program.

Solar is also getting back on track. For instance, SunEdison used a Treasury grant in lieu of tax credits to accelerate construction of an 18 megawatt photovoltaic array--one of the largest in the U.S.

The firm's CEO told the press: ``That could not have been done without this program.''

The Treasury program is also allowing renewable energy developers to attract significantly more debt backing for projects than would otherwise be possible, according to recent statements by the managing director of energy investments at J.P. Morgan Capital.

But the grants program is set to expire in 2010, far before most utility scale solar projects will begin construction or financial analysts predict tax equity markets will recover.

If the grant program is not extended, bank profits will again become the limiting factor on renewable energy development in the U.S., and that makes no sense.

That is why I propose to extend the program two years.

This legislation would also level the playing field between public power and for-profit companies by allowing public power utilities to receive Treasury Grants for renewable energy projects.

Public power utilities serve 45 million American consumers, but they are currently prohibited from receiving grants for their renewable energy development.

The basis for this prohibition is that public power utilities are tax exempt, non-profit corporations owned by local governments, who therefore have not been able to claim tax credits directly on their income tax returns.

But excluding public power from the grants program does not make sense.

Congress created the Treasury grants program specifically to assist firms that lacked the ability to claim the full benefits of renewable energy tax incentives.

If we are going to allow for-profit companies to claim these direct grants, why would we exclude our non-profit public power utilities?

So leveling the playing field for public power is fair.

This provision is also necessary to protect our local community utility companies who want to deploy renewable energy.

The federal grants make building renewable energy projects cost effective for rate payers.

Because public power utilities lack access to these grants, they are now frequently establishing complex financial arrangements with private developers in order to build renewable energy projects that qualify for federal help.

This is in direct conflict with public power's historic, proven business model as a vertically integrated, non-profit.

It requires our cities and towns to negotiate unnecessarily complex deals with Wall Street.

Let me give you an example.

Turlock Irrigation District, TID, a public power utility in my state, decided to build a 137 megawatt wind farm in 2007.

They wanted to build and own.

But to make it cost effective, Turlock signed a contract to buy the power, but a tax equity partner would ``own'' the project and receive the benefit of the federal production tax credit.

The contract was extremely complex and costly, requiring the participation of an investment bank to find a tax equity partner, an equity group to be the tax equity partner, legal counsel for the equity group, experts to provide risk advice and engineering advice to the equity group; bond counsel to provide renewable asset specialists; an operator to run the plant for the equity group; and an asset manager, to advise the equity group on the performance of the operator.

After 2 years and millions of dollars spent trying to finalize this deal,

Turlock learned that the supposedly profitable equity partner, American International Group, AIG, wasn't profitable at all.

AIG backed out and the entire deal collapsed.

After much analysis, Turlock Irrigation District decided to own and operate the wind farm, giving up on receiving any Federal support.

Larry Weis, the General Manager, explained in a letter to me:

The bottom line is that TID made a business decision to

forego working with a private developer to develop a project,

because the complexity of the deal and the dollars spent to

arrange it meant that much of the value of the tax credit

would go to the equity partners and not pass through to our

consumers. Given the facts and the absence of a comparable

incentive for consumer-owned utilities, TID made the best

choice it could under the circumstances, even though it means

our customers will pay more.

This legislation is necessary to prevent other public power utilities from being forced to make this difficult, unnecessary choice.

Public power utilities deserve access to renewable energy incentives comparable to those awarded to the private sector, and this legislation will assure that happens.

This legislation also expands the solar investment tax credit to include manufacturing equipment and solar water heaters for commercial and community pools.

The bill would allow equipment that makes solar panels to qualify for the 30 percent solar investment tax credit.

Solar panel manufacturing is moving offshore, to Germany and Asia, where support is considerable.

This financial incentive could jumpstart solar manufacturing in this country, and could lead to thousands of new jobs, such as those being created at Solyndra's new factory in Fremont, CA. Or those proposed by Applied Materials at their proposed facility near Los Angeles.

The bill would allow commercial pool solar hot water heaters to qualify for the solar tax credit.

Approximately 189,000 commercial pools nationwide--at hotels/motels, health clubs, and schools--use fossil fuel or electricity to heat an estimated 27 billion gallons of water.

If the heating systems were replaced with solar hot water systems, there would be 1.23 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions avoided annually.

That is the equivalent of taking 237,000 cars off the road.

In California, which has 26 percent of all commercial pools in the U.S., this provision could significantly reduce pollution.

Finally, the legislation would establish a new tax credit for the purchase, consolidation, and use of multiple, 100 acre or less blocks of high solarity, disturbed private lands for solar development.

Solar developers have focused development proposals on pristine public land because it is very difficult, costly, and time intensive to consolidate large blocks of disturbed private land from many different owners.

This tax credit will financially reward those firms that are willing to go through the trouble of land consolidation, thereby making the increased burden of private lands development more appealing.

Over the last few years, the renewable energy industry has grown dramatically.

Last year the U.S. added more new capacity to produce renewable electricity than it did to produce electricity from natural gas.

A great deal of this growth can be attributed to our renewable energy tax policies.

This legislation, I believe, would continue this growth into the future.

As soon as he comes in, I would be happy to yield.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Mr. President, simply put, I believe this amendment would be a harsh and unnecessary step back in health coverage for American women.

What this amendment would do, as I read it, is to prohibit any health insurance plan that accepts a single government subsidy or dollar from providing coverage for any abortion, no matter how necessary that procedure might be for a woman's health, even if she pays for the coverage herself.

The proponents of this amendment say their sole aim is to block government funds from being used to cover abortion, but the underlying bill already does that. In the bill before us, health plans that opt to cover abortion services--in cases other than rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is at stake--must segregate the premium dollars they receive to ensure that only private dollars and not government money is used. They argue that segregating funds means nothing--you heard that-- and that money is fungible. However, this method of separating funds for separate uses is used in many other areas, and there is ample precedent for the provision.

For example, charitable choice programs allow agencies that promote religion to receive Federal funds as long as these funds are segregated from religious activities. We all know that. We see it in program after program. If these organizations can successfully segregate their sources of funding, surely health insurance plans can do the same. Additionally, the Secretary of Health and Human Services must certify that the plan does not use any Federal funding for abortion coverage based on accounting standards created by the GAO.

This amendment would place an unprecedented restriction on a woman's right to use her own money to purchase health care coverage that would cover abortions. Let me give my colleagues one example. Recently, my staff met with a bright, young, married attorney who works for the Federal Government. She and her husband desperately wanted to start a family and were overjoyed to learn she was pregnant. Subsequently she learned the baby she was carrying had anencephaly, a birth defect whereby the majority of the brain does not develop. She was told the baby could not survive outside of the womb. She ended the pregnancy but received a bill of nearly $9,000. Because she is employed by the Federal Government, her insurance policy would not cover the procedure. Her physician argued that continuing the pregnancy could have resulted in ``dysfunctional labor and postpartum hemorrhage, which can increase the risk for the mother.'' The physician also warned that the complications could be ``life threatening.''

However, OMB found that this circumstance did not meet the narrow exception in which a woman's life, not her health, is in danger. The patient was told: ``The fetal anomaly presented no medical danger to you,'' despite the admonitions of her physician. The best she could do was to negotiate down the cost to $5,000.

Now, this story, without question, is tragic. A very much-wanted pregnancy could not be continued and, on top of this loss, the family was left with a substantial unpaid medical bill. Health insurance is designed to protect patients from incurring catastrophic bills following a catastrophic medical event. But if this amendment passes, insured women would lose any coverage included in the underlying bill, even if she pays for it herself. Why would this body want to do that? I can't support that.

A woman's pregnancy may also exacerbate a health condition that was previously under control, or a woman may receive a new diagnosis in the middle of her pregnancy. It happens. If this amendment passes, women in these circumstances would also learn that their insurance does not cover an abortion. In some cases, it may be unclear whether the woman's health problem meets the strict definition of life endangerment.

The National Abortion Federation has compiled calls they receive on

their hotline which are available to women who need assistance obtaining abortion care. Let me give you a few examples.

Molly was having kidney problems and was in a great deal of pain. She couldn't go to work. She couldn't provide for her two children. When she became pregnant, she made the decision to terminate the pregnancy in order to have her kidney removed to begin her recovery. She knew carrying the pregnancy would create additional health problems and would leave her unable to provide for her family.

Jamie already had severe health problems when she learned she was pregnant. She was a severe diabetic and her low blood sugar levels caused her to suffer from seizures. She was unable to continue her pregnancy but had difficulty affording the procedure.

Another was suffering from a serious liver illness when she became pregnant. Doctors were unsure of the cause, but she was in a great deal of pain. She already had two children. She could not care for them because of this pain. The tests and medications she needed to address her medical condition were incompatible with pregnancy.

None of these women experienced immediate threats to their lives, so under this amendment their circumstances would not meet the narrow exceptions permitted for abortion coverage.

This is a problem. How can one say we are going to provide insurance, but we don't like one aspect of it. We don't want the government to pay for it. OK, OK. But the woman herself can't pay for it. That is the extra step that this legislation takes.

To this day, it is still legal to have an abortion. Women in this situation don't buy insurance for abortion, but they buy a policy that may cover them, married women, should something happen in a pregnancy in the third trimester. If they find a baby is without a brain, she can have an abortion, and it is covered.

One of the problems with this whole debate is everybody sees something through their own lens. They don't see the grief and trouble and morbidity that is out there and the circumstances that drive a woman to decide--married--she has to terminate her pregnancy for very good medical reasons. Nobody considers that. This is all ideologic, and it really, deeply bothers me.

So I can only tell my colleagues I very much hope this amendment goes down.

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

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

If I might, Madam President, my understanding was we alternate, go from side to side. I have been sitting here waiting.

Madam President, I admire the Senator's gentility. I thank him very much.

I rise to say a few words on behalf of the Mikulski amendment, but before I do, I wish to make a generic statement.

Those of us who are women have essentially had to fight for virtually everything we have received. When this Nation was founded, women could not inherit property and women could not receive a higher education. In fact, for over half this Nation's life, women could not vote. It was not until 1920, after perseverance and demonstrating, that women achieved the right to vote. Women could not serve in battle in the military, and today we now have the first female general. So it has all been a fight.

Senator Mikulski and Senator Boxer in the House in the 1980s carried this fight. Those of us in the 1990s who came here added to it. You, Madam President, have added to it in your remarks earlier. The battle is over whether women have adequate prevention services provided by this bill. I thank Senator Mikulski and Senator Boxer for their leadership and for their perseverance and their willingness to discuss the importance of preventive health care for women. Also, I thank Senator Shaheen, Senator Murray, and Senator Gillibrand, joined by Senators Harkin, Cardin, Dodd, and others, for coming to the floor and helping women with this battle.

The fact is, women have different health needs than men, and these needs often generate additional costs. Women of childbearing age spend 68 percent more in out-of-pocket health care costs than men. Most people don't know that, but it is actually true. So we believe all women--all women--should have access to the same affordable preventive health care services as women who serve in Congress, no question. The amendment offered by Senator Mikulski--and she is a champion for us-- will ensure that is, in fact, the case. It will require insurance plans to cover at no cost basic preventive services and screenings for women. This may include mammograms, Pap smears, family planning, screenings to detect postpartum depression, and other annual women's health screenings. In other words, the amendment increases access to the basic services that are a part of every woman's health care needs at some point in her life.

Let me address one point because there is a side-by-side amendment submitted by the Senator from Alaska. Nothing in our bill would address abortion coverage. Abortion has never been defined as a preventive service. The amendment could expand access to family planning services--the type of care women need to avoid abortions in the first place.

As I mentioned, the Senator from Alaska has offered an alternative version of this proposal. But regardless of the merits or problems with her proposal, it remains a kind of budget buster. According to the CBO, the amendment would cost $30.6 billion over 10 years. Adopting this amendment would require us to spend some of the surplus raised by the CLASS Act or some of the budget surpluses in the bill. The underlying bill, as written, reduces the budget deficit by $130 billion in the first 10 years and as much as $650 billion in the second 10 years. This is a very important thing, in my view, and we need to maintain these savings. The Mikulski amendment would do that. It costs $940 million over 10 years as opposed to the $24 billion to $30 billion in the Murkowski amendment.

The Mikulski amendment is, I believe, the best way to expand access to preventive care for women, while keeping this bill fiscally responsible.

We often like to think of the United States as a world leader in health care, with the best and the most efficient system. But the facts actually do not bear this out. The United States spends more per capita on health care than other industrialized nations but in fact has worse results. According to the Commonwealth Fund, the United States ranks No. 15 in avoidable mortality. That means avoidable death. This analysis measures how many people in each country survive a potentially fatal yet treatable medical condition. The United States lags behind France, Japan, Spain, Sweden, Italy, Australia, Canada, and several other nations.

According to the World Health Organization, the United States ranks No. 24 in the world in healthy life expectancy. This term measures how many years a person can expect to live at full health--robust health. The United States again trails Japan, Australia, France, Sweden, and many other countries.

These statistics show we are not spending our health care resources wisely. The system is failing to identify and treat people with conditions early on that can be controlled. Part of the answer, without question, is expanding coverage. Too many Americans cannot afford basic health care because they lack basic health insurance. But another piece of the puzzle is ensuring this coverage provides affordable access to preventive care--the ability to be screened early--and that is what the Mikulski amendment will accomplish.

Women need preventive care--screenings and tests--so that potentially serious or fatal illnesses can be found early and treated effectively. We all know individuals who have benefitted from this type of care--a mammogram that suddenly identifies an early cancer before it has spread or before it has metastasized; a Pap smear that finds precancerous cells that can be removed before they progress to cancer and cause serious health problems; cholesterol testing or a blood pressure reading that suggests a person might have cardiovascular disease which can be controlled with medication or lifestyle changes. This is how health care should work--a problem found early and addressed early. The Mikulski amendment will give women more access to this type of preventive care.

Statistics about life expectancy and avoidable mortality can make it easy to forget that we are talking about real patients and real people who die too young because they lack access to health care. Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health shared the following story, which comes from Dr. William Leininger in California, and here is what he says:

In my last year of residency, I cared for a mother of two

who had been treated for cervical cancer when she was 23. At

that time, she was covered by her husband's insurance, but it

was an abusive relationship and she lost her health insurance

when they divorced. For the next 5 years, she had no health

insurance and never received follow-up care, which would have

revealed that her cancer had returned. She eventually

remarried and regained health insurance, but by the time she

came back to see me, her cancer had spread. She had two

children from her previous marriage, and her driving

motivation during her last rounds of palliative care was to

survive long enough to ensure that her abusive ex-husband

wouldn't gain custody of her children after her death. She

succeeded. She was 28 years old when she died.

Cases like these explain why the United States trails behind much of the industrialized world in life expectancy. For this woman, divorce meant the loss of her health coverage, which meant she could not afford followup care to address her cancer--a type of cancer that is often curable if found early. And that is where prevention comes in. So this tragic story illustrates the need to improve our system so women can still afford health insurance after they divorce or lose their jobs. And it shows why health reform must adequately cover all the preventive services women need to stay healthy.

The Mikulski amendment is a fight--I am surprised, but it is a fight--but it will help expand access to preventive care while keeping the bill fiscally responsible. To me, it is a no-brainer. If you can prevent illness, you should. In and of itself it will end up being a cost savings. So I have a very difficult time understanding why the other side of the aisle won't accept a measure that is more fiscally responsible by far than their measure, will do the job, and will give women preventive care and begin to change that statistic which shows that, among other nations, we do so badly.

I thank the Presiding Officer for coming to the floor and speaking out on this, and I hope there are enough people in this body who recognize that virtually everything women have gotten in history has been the product of a fight, and this is one of those.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise to speak in support of the nomination of California Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Nguyen to be a Federal District Court Judge from the Central District of California. I urge her confirmation.

Judge Nguyen is a tested judge with a track record of success as both a judge and a Federal prosecutor. She will be the first Vietnamese American on the Federal bench. Her nomination comes about this way.

I have had, for a long time, a bipartisan judicial selection committee in California to advise me in recommending judicial nominees to the President. The committee gave Judge Nguyen its unanimous recommendation. Then I recommended her to the President for his nomination to the Federal district court. I believe she is going to be an excellent Federal district court judge in the Central District.

Judge Nguyen was born in South Vietnam. She immigrated to this country with her family at the age of 10 during the final days of the Vietnam war. The Nguyens spent several months living in a refugee camp in Camp Pendleton, San Diego, before moving to the La Crescenta neighborhood of Los Angeles. She was naturalized in 1984.

Judge Nguyen's parents worked two and three jobs at a time in Los Angeles, and Judge Nguyen and her siblings worked side by side with them, cleaning a dental office, peeling and cutting apples for a pie company, and finally managing the doughnut shop that their parents bought and owned.

In her application to my selection committee, she explained that looking back on these experiences she realizes now that they were difficult. She wrote:

But I nevertheless feel incredibly fortunate because those

early years gave me invaluable life lessons that have shaped

who I am today.

She went on to graduate from Occidental College in 1987 and from UCLA Law School in 1991. She was in the Moot Court Honors Program.

For the first 4 years of her career, she practiced commercial law as a litigation associate at the private law firm of Musick, Peeler and Garrett, where her caseload included complex contract disputes and intellectual property cases. In 1995 she left the firm to become an assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, and a very good one.

As an assistant U.S. attorney in the criminal division, she prosecuted a wide variety of crimes, including violent crimes, narcotics trafficking, organized crime, gun cases, and all kinds of fraud. She spent 6 months in the organized crime strike force section, handling a title III wiretap investigation of a Russian organized crime group responsible for smuggling sex slaves into the United States from the Ukraine. In 2000, she received a special commendation from FBI Director Louis Freeh for obtaining the first conviction ever in the United States against a defendant for providing material support to a designated terrorist organization.

The Justice Department recognized her with three additional rewards for superior performance as an assistant U.S. attorney, and in 2000 she was promoted to deputy chief of the general crimes section.

In 2002, Judge Nguyen left the U.S. attorney's office when Governor Gray Davis appointed her to the Superior Court in Los Angeles, and she has been on that bench for more than 7 years and has presided over more than 65 jury trials.

As she has said in her own words:

I am deeply passionate about the privileges that we enjoy

as Americans and am committed to spending my life in public

service. If I am given the honor to serve as a United States

District Judge, I believe my experiences, work ethic,

maturity and judgment will serve me well.

I could not agree more. I think Judge Nguyen will be a truly outstanding judge of the Federal district court and I urge my colleagues to support her nomination.

I yield the floor.