Floor Statements

Madam President, I rise to speak on an issue of vital importance to all who value true liberty in the United States.

Last month the Supreme Court issued its decision in the Hobby Lobby case. In 2010, in the Citizens United case, the Court said corporations have a First Amendment right to participate in elections. In the Hobby Lobby ruling, the Court took it a step further and said that since a corporation can be a person, it can also have religious views and because a corporation is a person, it can impose its religious beliefs on an employee and deny a woman insurance that protects her health by providing contraception. So the folly of the Supreme Court has come full circle, where an actual person will be denied their rights because the views of a corporation have been given priority under the U.S. Constitution as interpreted by this Supreme Court.

Instead of ``we the people,'' it is now ``I the CEO of a corporation'' who has the right to exercise their constitutional privileges as interpreted by this Supreme Court that truncates the right of individual women in America to exercise theirs.

The Supreme Court majorities have continued to extend our basic constitutional rights--the inalienable rights held by individuals--to corporations. Corporations are not people.

Supporters of the Hobby Lobby ruling have accused Democrats of hyperbole. They say we are making the Hobby Lobby case seem more dire than it truly is. The corporate personhood supporters say the ruling doesn't mean women can't use the contraception of their choice, just that the insurance provided by their employer doesn't have to cover it or they say the ruling doesn't mean a boss is imposing his or her religious views on their employees. That is just wrong. It says that the boss doesn't have to subsidize health care that violates the boss's religious views.

What happens when the religious views of a CEO are imposed on the real life of a working woman?

In real life working women earn their insurance coverage. It is part of their pay, and they depend on insurance to pay for their health care--including contraception--for themselves and their families. If that employer's choice of insurance doesn't pay for a particular type of contraception, a woman will be forced to give up her right to use it.

If one form of contraception is--just as Ginsburg explained in her dissent--$1,000, and insurance won't cover even a penny, a working woman is going to be forced to make medical decisions based on the religion her employer practices, not on what she and her doctor determine is best for her from a medical perspective. The religion of the employer trumps the recommendation of a physician to a woman, and this is just a step that changes the whole relationship between an individual and their country.

If a corporation's insurance doesn't cover any contraception because all contraceptives violate the employer's religious beliefs, then their employee's religious views are especially burdened, and she will have to pay for contraception out of her own pocket. Keep in mind that the average woman makes 77 cents on the dollar to a man, but if you are an African-American woman, then it is 66 cents on the dollar, and Latina women earn 59 cents on the dollar compared to what a white man makes in the United States of America.

In the Hobby Lobby case, the Supreme Court transformed religion from a personal choice into a corporate decision, and the corporate world-- in real life--can impose its religious views on its employees. That is why I am an original cosponsor of S. 2578, the Protect Women's Health from Corporate Interference Act, or as supporters call it the Not My Boss's Business Act.

Let's be clear. Corporations are not people, period. For-profit corporations do not have religious views. For-profit corporations should not be able to deny their employees critical health care or force American taxpayers to pay for it

because of the owner's personal religious views.

The Not My Boss's Business Act will fix the Hobby Lobby decision by making it illegal for corporations to deny their employees health care benefits--including contraception--that are required to be covered by Federal law. It will protect employees from having their health care restricted by bosses who want to impose their religious belief on others.

I urge my colleagues to vote to restore true liberty by voting to pass S. 2578. I thank all of my colleagues.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a fellow in my office, Lisa Foster, be granted privileges of the floor until the end of September.

Madam President, since 1973, when the Supreme Court decided that a woman's right to choose was constitutionally protected, women's health clinics across the country have been targeted by violence and other criminal activities by extremists.

The crimes are alarming: harassment, arson, acid attacks, obstruction, violent threats, and even murder. Women's safety has been repeatedly put at risk simply for exercising a constitutional right.

In the past 10 years, there have been approximately 75,000 incidents of violence against abortion providers in the United States. That is unacceptable. We should always remember that each of these victims of violence has a name, a family, and a story.

In 1994, a gunman killed two people and wounded five others at two clinics in Massachusetts. One of these victims was 25-year-old Shannon Lowney, a daughter of public schoolteachers, a beloved sister, and a volunteer who worked domestically and internationally with poor families and children.

Shannon worked as a receptionist and Spanish translator at Planned Parenthood in Brookline, MA. She worked there not for the pay but because she fundamentally believed women had a right to affordable health care. She wanted to do her part to ensure that patients at a vulnerable and stressful time in life were greeted with a smile. Five days after Christmas in 1994 she was fatally shot in the neck at a Planned Parenthood clinic by an extremist protester.

Shannon's story is just one of the many tragedies caused by violence against women exercising their rights.

In 2007, after the laws on the books proved inadequate, Massachusetts ensured that there would be fair and balanced laws that created a buffer zone of 35 feet around the entry of reproductive health care facilities.

This law was intended to protect people such as Shannon and the thousands of women and staff who visit and work at clinics.

The buffer zone law worked. Massachusetts women could exercise their fundamental right to health care without running a gauntlet of abuse. According to a survey of reproductive health care centers across the country, a majority of facilities with buffer zones experienced a decrease in criminal activity after the buffer zone was instituted.

Today the Supreme Court of the United States took away those buffer zones of safety when it struck down the Massachusetts buffer zone law, effectively undoing the historic progress we have made in ensuring that women are protected when accessing reproductive health care and exercising their constitutional rights.

Today's Supreme Court ruling puts women at risk simply for exercising their constitutional rights. Shannon's brother Liam visited me on the day that this case was argued before the Supreme Court. Their family is representative of what has happened across this country in terms of the endangerment of women when they seek to exercise their constitutional rights.

So today is a sad day. It is not just a sad day for America but in particular for Shannon's family because they put a lot on the line to ensure that this case was brought before the Supreme Court of the United States.

The Court's decision makes it more difficult for States to guarantee women's reproductive rights and more likely that acts of violence and intimidation against women seeking reproductive health care will occur.

With reproductive rights under attack across the country like never before, it is imperative that we ensure the basic safety of all women and staff at Planned Parenthood and other health facilities.

We should be expanding access to safe reproductive health care for women, not restricting it. That is unfortunately what today is going to represent in the history of health care for women in our country.

The Presiding Officer is a national leader on these issues, fighting for the rights of women. I stand with her and with the other Members of the Senate but, more importantly, also with ordinary families across this country and Planned Parenthood and all the women in Massachusetts and this country who believe every woman seeking reproductive health care should be safe and protected.

I am proud that all Massachusetts law enforcement officials will continue to use every legal tool available to ensure the safety and privacy of women and clinic staff. Today is a historic day. Unfortunately, it is one of which our country should not be proud.

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

Mr. President, Massachusetts is the Bay State, but we are also the ``Brave State.'' But being first in freedom is not enough if we don't put our veterans, their families, and the families of the fallen first as well.

There are more than 388,000 veterans in Massachusetts. But too many of our bravest return home unable to find a job. They suffer from homelessness, mental health, and substance abuse. Too often, they end their lives in suicide. Twenty-two veterans kill themselves every day.

This March, not one servicemember died in action in Afghanistan or Iraq, but almost 700 veterans took their own lives. Of the 8,500 Massachusetts National Guard, six of them have committed suicide in the last year and a half.

We need to treat these unseen wounds, and give our veterans a better life, where they are employed, appreciated, and supported.

We have a sacred obligation to honor and care for our service men and women for their bravery and sacrifice.

On the battlefield, the military pledges to leave no soldier behind. As a nation, we must ensure that when warriors return home, we leave no veteran behind.

In recent years, we have provided historic budget increases for veterans, expanded access to VA health care, improved health services for all veterans, and modernized benefits earned by America's servicemembers.

But what is clear today is that hasn't been enough. The problems at the VA are unacceptable and they dishonor our veterans and their families who have sacrificed so much.

Anyone who contributed to the careless treatment of our veterans should be held fully accountable, and I mean anyone.

And so our work must continue. We must address the emerging needs of veterans, as well as those needs that have lingered for years.

Our returning veterans, and those who served in previous wars, always should get the best services, including medical care.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, VA, is facing a crisis. The Department of Veterans Affairs inspector general reports showed that thousands of veterans have been trying to see a doctor but were never on the VA list to see a doctor. These veterans were forgotten and lost in the scheduling process. VA leadership significantly understated the time new patients waited for their primary care appointment in their performance appraisals in part because that affected their bonuses and salary increases. Mr. President, 57,000 veterans have been waiting 90 days or more for their first VA appointment. Mr. President, 64,000 veterans have fallen through the cracks and have never received an appointment after enrollment.

These deficiencies at the VA are unacceptable.

What is clear is that we need a full-scale reform of how the VA does business. Too many men and women are falling through the cracks. We need to fully fund the VA and modernize the agency and its facilities to appropriately address the new needs of returning soldiers and their families.

All veterans are heroes, but sometimes heroes need help.

The Veterans' Access to Care through Choice, Accountability, and Transparency Act of 2014 allows the immediate firing of incompetent high-level officials who broke the trust of our veterans by leaving them behind. It also includes appropriate provisions to prevent the abuse of these new powers.

The bill allows VA to lease 26 new medical facilities that would expand access to care, including $4.8 million for the VA Worcester community-based Outpatient Clinic.

It authorizes the hiring of new medical personnel for hospitals and clinics that are facing a shortage of doctors and other health professionals.

It would allow veterans living more than 40 miles from a VA hospital or clinic to go to a private doctor.

It develops an independent commission to update the VA's scheduling appointments process and another to help spur the construction of new VA facilities.

It would allow all recently separated veterans taking advantage of the post-9/11 GI bill to get instate tuition at public colleges and universities. Finally, it would extend post-9/11 GI bill education benefits to surviving spouses of veterans who have died in the line of duty.

This bill is an important first step to dealing with the crisis at the VA. However, more needs to be done. We need to make sure the Massachusetts VA hospitals in Brockton, West Roxbury, Jamaica Plain, Bedford, and Northampton can continue to provide the care that our veterans deserve, including the latest in health care for traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other injuries.

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

Madam President, I was the first in my family to go to college. I drove an ice cream truck to work my way through Boston College as a commuter. I did the same thing to go to law school. I lived at home all the

way through college and law school in order to be able to afford to go to college. As a result, I had to take out Federal loans like so many millions of American students have to do today. But here is the thing. If the owner of the ice cream truck company I worked for wanted to refinance the loan he had for the trucking fleet, he could do that. If my parents wanted to refinance the mortgage on their house, they could do that. But if I wanted to refinance my student loans as would every single student today, I was out of luck, and that is not right, that is not fair, and that needs to change.

In Massachusetts, as the Presiding Officer knows better than anyone, we recognize that education is a ladder of opportunity that allows every child to maximize their God-given abilities. It is the best path to middle class success and economic opportunity. The big dreams of college should never be thwarted by the small print of student loan agreements. The economic opportunities that students have because they graduate should not be accompanied by the hopelessness from overwhelming debt--almost like the mythical Sisyphus with a boulder on his shoulders, trying to go up the side of a mountain. That is how students feel with their student debt as they graduate from colleges and universities across this country. So in the same way that mortgage refinancing helps mortgage holders who are underwater, students drowning in debt should benefit from refinancing their student loans at a lower rate.

Today more than 70 percent of America's students borrow money to attend college. The average student graduates from college owing nearly $30,000. Americans today owe almost $1.2 trillion in student loans, more than is owed on credit cards. Almost 1 million people in Massachusetts currently owe more than $24 billion in student debt. Thirty percent of young borrowers nationwide are unable to keep up with their payments and are in default, forbearance or deferment. That kind of debt makes it difficult to start a family, buy a home or save for retirement. Reports show that high student loan debt deters our promising minds from enrolling in graduate programs. That means fewer highly skilled workers, which harms our economy now and makes us less competitive in the world economy in the future.

There is a way to make it easier for those of us who have student loan debts and to put more money in their pockets every single month. That is to listen to the wisdom of our Presiding Officer, to make sure that people here in this Chamber and across our country listen to this guiding light that you are creating for our country to be able to move from this present world where debt so saddles young people that they really cannot ever plan to realize all of their dreams, to a new vision of what might be possible in lowering this burden on young people across our country.

Last year the Congress passed legislation that lowered Federal student loan interest rates for new borrowers but did nothing for existing borrowers. So today interest rates for new borrowers are just under 4 percent while rates for older borrowers are around 7 percent for recent undergraduates and even higher for some older borrowers. The bill which you have introduced as the senior Senator from Massachusetts simply allows 25 million eligible student loan borrowers the option of refinancing down to the rates offered to new Federal student loan borrowers this year.

The bill allows eligible student loan borrowers to refinance their private loans into the Federal program. Many parents cosigned the private loans for their children and are on the hook if their children default on these loans. Your legislation will save existing student loan borrowers thousands of dollars to help them get ahead, not fall behind. This money can be used to help pay for the downpayment on a new home, to start a new business or to start a family. This is one more way to give Americans a fair shot at the American dream. So we thank you for your leadership on this issue. We thank you for laying out a pathway to make it a slightly easier place for young people to be as they leave college, as they have this debt on their shoulders.

When I was in school the interest rate was 3 percent. Those loans were called national defense student loans. Emblazoned over the Boston Public Library it reads: ``The education of its people is the best defense of a nation.'' That is what it says across the Boston Public Library. That is what we have to once again understand, that the first generation that was the beneficiary had 3 percent loans. This generation--in a much more wealthy country--has loans at 6, 7, 8, 9 percent and more, and that just makes it very difficult for them to maximize their God-given abilities in the same way that the Members of the Senate were able to maximize theirs.

We have a responsibility to this generation to go back to that original message, to go back to that incredible plan that was put together after World War II to finally democratize access to education for every family, for every child who wanted to work towards improving themselves. Those national defense student loans understood that the best defense of a Nation is the education of its people. That is how we preserve order and liberty within our society, and that is what your proposal does.

By using the Buffett rule, by using the offset which says to billionaires and millionaires in our country that you are just going to pay the same taxes as the middle class, well, then we finance something that is really critical. We finance the dreams and the hopes of young people in our country, so that the debt they have to shoulder after they leave college is not so burdensome that they never really can fully realize their dreams.

So I ask all my colleagues to support Senator Warren's legislation. I think it is going to be without question at the top of the list of the most important work we do in this Chamber this year, and I call upon my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to respond in the kind of bipartisan way that the American people want, those 40 million families that need relief from this oppressive burden of student loan debt.

With that, I thank the Presiding Officer for her leadership.

I yield back the remainder of my time, and I note the absence of a quorum.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I will yield to the Senator.

Thank you, Mr. President.

We are at a very important historical juncture, where the science is now conclusive that in fact the planet is dangerously warming.

Since we last met on this floor a lot has happened. The global temperature

for April 2014 tied with 2010 for the warmest April ever recorded in the history of the planet. This goes back to 1880.

In May, the third National Climate Assessment presented the scientific evidence that climate change is already impacting the United States.

The good news. The good news is that the President last week promulgated new rules to control greenhouse gases coming out of powerplants in the United States of America.

Here is the very good news--the Senator from Rhode Island, the Senator from Vermont, the States across the Northeast--nine States have already had a regional greenhouse gas initiative over the last 9 years. In Massachusetts, we are already 40 percent lower now in 2014 than we were in 2005--40 percent lower. We know a flexible system such as this can and will work across the country.

It is absolutely necessary for the United States to be the leader. We cannot preach temperance from a bar stool. The United States cannot tell the rest of the world they should reduce their greenhouse gases when we are still continuing on our historic path.

The good news is we are going to create a green energy revolution. We can save creation while engaging in massive job creation in the United States.

We can unleash this green energy revolution. We can reduce greenhouse gases. We can give the leadership to the rest of the world. We need to have a big debate here on the Senate floor. This is the place where the United States of America expects us to have this debate and where the rest of the world is watching.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise today to speak in favor of the confirmation of David Barron to the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

As a Harvard Law professor, he has broad bipartisan support from those who know him best--his colleagues. Larry Tribe and Charles Fried--two professors at Harvard who could not be further apart politically--both agree--and this is the joint quote--``Barron is a brilliant lawyer who will make an excellent judge. What is clear to us is that Barron will decide cases based solely on the relevant sources of legal authority, including binding precedent, and that his political views would in no way distort his legal judgment.''

This is the kind of unequivocal support we want for a judicial nominee, and David Barron is just the kind of judge we should confirm.

I stand alongside those of my colleagues who believe transparency is paramount and that we need a public debate on drone policy. Indeed, I support a robust debate on our entire drone policy, not simply the use of a drone to kill an American citizen who was plotting the annihilation of his fellow Americans.

Importantly, the White House just announced that it will release to the general public the key memo Professor Barron wrote, so all Americans will be able to take part in this debate.

But let us be clear: David Barron is not responsible for the administration's delay in releasing the memos he

and others in the Office of Legal Counsel were directed to produce. He is certainly not responsible for the administration's drone policy or the decision to authorize an attack. He is a lawyer who was asked to do legal analysis for his client, the President of the United States.

Entangling David Barron's nomination with the policy of drone deployment is unfair to him and unfair to the people of Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Puerto Rico who need the vacancy on the First Circuit filled by someone as qualified as David Barron.

I believe David Barron will be an excellent judge, and that is why he has my support.

Madam President, I commend the Senate on taking final action on the Water Resources Reform and Development Act, known as WRRDA. Today's bill includes the $310 million Boston Harbor dredging project which will deepen Boston Harbor's main navigation channels.

Boston Harbor is an economic anchor for the entire New England region, and this investment will help ensure its future as a port of world class distinction. Improving the harbor to accommodate more and larger ships will bring more jobs, more investments, and more economic activity to the harbor, extending Boston's position as a shining city upon a hill as well as on the shore.

Dredging the harbor will double the number of containers on ships coming into Boston. The project will also allow the port to accommodate ships being built to serve the expanded Panama Canal, which is planned to open next year.

The Army Corps projects that for every dollar spent on construction, there will be $9 returned in increased economic activity, resulting in a $2.7 billion economic benefit for the entire New England region.

I thank Chairman Boxer and Ranking Member Vitter for their hard work getting this bill over the finish line. I also thank Senator Warren and Congressman Capuano, Congressman Lynch, and the entire Massachusetts congressional delegation for their leadership and commitment in securing this vital funding.

I yield the floor.

Objection.

Mr. President, I rise to speak on the issue of net neutrality. Right now there are people who are watching the floor of the Senate streaming live on C-SPAN.org.

They might be engaged political junkies or maybe they need something to help them take a nap. Let's face it; the action in this most deliberative body can sometimes feel a little slow.

Now imagine just a few companies deciding that C-SPAN.org will be put into a slow lane; that the public interest content streamed out to the world will be sent out at an even more deliberative pace, while kitten videos will get priority.

When people talk about net neutrality, that is what we are talking about. Instead of open and free Internet where the billions of clicks and links made by customers and entrepreneurs in their living rooms and garages determine who wins and loses, it will be just a few companies in a few corporate boardrooms deciding who gets into the express lane and who falls behind in a traffic jam.

We need a truly open Internet because an open Internet has become the world's greatest platform for innovation, job creation, and economic growth. An open Internet enables freedom of expression and the sharing of ideas across town or around the world. An open Internet is driving economic growth in Massachusetts and throughout the United States.

Openness is the Internet's heart, nondiscrimination is its soul, and any infringements on either of these features undermine the intent of net neutrality.

The vitality of this free platform is at stake today because right now our Internet regulators at the FCC are determining how they will use its authority to keep the Internet open for business.

When the FCC first unveiled its new Open Internet proposal a few weeks ago, the Commission contemplated whether to allow paid prioritization. Under these proposed Internet rules of the road, fast lanes could open to those who can pay, leaving others stuck in traffic. The result: Consumers could be stuck in an online provider pileup when a broadband provider decides to slow down a streaming of Netflix's House of Cards or bring a high-speed Yahoo search to a crawl or block a free online call to a friend abroad. But the worry goes far beyond simply slowing down the videos we watch on YouTube.

Without a truly open Internet, startups and small businesses would suffer, slowing our economy and job growth throughout Massachusetts and around the country. No one should have to ask permission to innovate. But with fast and slow lanes, that is precisely what an entrepreneur will need to do.

Right now the essence of the Internet is to innovate and test new ideas first. If an idea then takes off, the creator can attract capital and expand. The Internet today is a level playing field where the competition for the best in technology and ideas thrives.

Creating Internet fast and slow lanes would flip this process on its head. Instead, an entrepreneur would first need to raise capital in order to start innovating, because she would need to pay for fast-lane access to have a chance for her product to be seen and to succeed. Only those with access to deep pockets would develop anything new. Imagine the stifling of creativity if startups need massive amounts of money even to innovate. So consider an app developer or creator of a new product in Boston or throughout the country. How will she reach potential customers and viewers if her Web site is stuck on a gravel path while those with access to capital whiz by on the interstate as they flash their Internet E-ZPass? She won't reach her customers; only those with money will.

If you don't believe me, consider the more than 100 tech companies-- including Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and Twitter--that characterize broadband providers imposing tolls on Internet companies as a ``grave threat to the Internet.'' Consider the 50 venture capitalists who wrote to Chairman Wheeler last week and said that with paid prioritization, ``an individual in a dorm room or design studio will not be able to experiment out loud on the Internet. The result will be greater conformity, fewer surprises, and less innovation.'' Less disruption--less creation of the next big idea. That would be the end of the Internet as we know it today.

Unfortunately, I have seen this fight before. In 2006, when the open Internet was under attack, I introduced the first net neutrality bill in the House of Representatives. Today our battle to preserve an open and free Internet wages on. That is why last week I joined with 10 of my Senate colleagues to urge Chairman Wheeler to rethink paid prioritization and to insist that he explore all options, including reclassifying broadband as a telecommunications service.

We need to put on the books the strongest open Internet rules as possible, and if title II reclassification is the most effective way to accomplish this goal, that is what the FCC should do because then it would be treated as a common carrier service. That is how we treat traditional phone service. That, in fact, is what the Internet has become in the 21st century. You cannot live without it. We have to treat it as such. To be connected in the 21st century, you need Internet access. That is why, if needed--and it just might be--title II will have to be the way to go.

As one of the primary authors of the 1996 Telecommunications Act--a bill that unleashed competition and created hundreds of millions of dollars in private investment--I know the FCC has both the power and the responsibility to oversee the operation of broadband networks and intervene in its efforts to preserve competition and safeguard consumers. It is time for the FCC to use that power to protect the tremendous potential of the Internet.

The Internet is a vital tool that helps businesses compete and expand, pumping life into our economy. Again, after

the 1996 act, $1 trillion of private sector investment went into developing new companies online, into expanding the Internet. Why? The government acted to make sure there was a level playing field in the 1996 act and then got out of the way and watched the competition flourish in this chaotic new world of broadband. There was no YouTube. There was no Google or Amazon. There was no Twitter. There was no Facebook. It didn't exist. It could have existed before then but not if we didn't have a flourishing Internet that was wide open for competition and investment from the private sector.

That is why this decision by the Federal Communications Commission is so important. It is understanding the very nature of this new communications job-creating revolution that we have here. We must fight to protect it.

I thank you, Mr. President, for allowing me this time, and I yield back.

Mr. President, I ask that the Chair recognize the Senator from Tennessee.

I seek recognition to speak for 5 minutes.

Mr. President, two things happened yesterday:

First, the Shaheen-Portman energy efficiency bill collapsed--at least for now. It would have created 190,000 new jobs. It would have cut carbon pollution by 22 million automobiles on the roads of the United States in equivalency. That is a big deal. It is something that was agreed upon by Democrats and Republicans.

What happened? Well, too many Republicans wanted to vote on the Keystone Pipeline issue. They knew the vote on the Keystone Pipeline was going to fail because they don't have the votes in order to be successful, so they took a bill that would cut carbon emissions and said they wouldn't pass it unless they got a vote on three additional amendments to increase global warming emissions:

No. 1. Stop EPA from cutting emissions on powerplants. They wanted to vote to take away EPA authority on that.

No. 2. Allow massive export of natural gas that will actually increase costs to consumers in the United States and move us back to coal because the higher the price of natural

gas, the more people are going to go back to burning goal. They all understand that. That is what the game is all about.

No. 3. Prevent the Senate from considering global warming pollution controls in the future. That is right--just have a vote that prohibits the Senate from considering global warming pollution levels.

Obviously, this is a debate about pollution, not about energy efficiency, from the perspective of the Republican Party--although I give credit to the many Republicans who were working on a bipartisan basis with Jeanne Shaheen in order to put together a bill that actually accomplished something and showed this institution can work.

A second event actually happened yesterday as well. Two new climate studies were released saying that the West Antarctic ice sheet is collapsing and the melting of the West Antarctic is unstoppable. Twelve feet of sea level rise is coming.

Did you hear that? The West Antarctic ice sheet is collapsing, the melting is unstoppable, and 12 feet of sea level rise is coming.

What does that mean? That means Boston, underwater; South Florida, underwater; New Orleans, underwater.

In the Senate, we are moving at a glacial pace on climate change. We are frozen. But while we do nothing, the pace of glacial collapse is accelerating. The world's ice is melting.

The Senate has been called the cooling saucer of democracy. But when it comes to climate change, it is the warming plate, cooking the Earth as we continue our slide into an ocean of dysfunction.

The next major piece of the West Antarctic glacier that breaks off into the ocean should be reserved as an island for all of the climate deniers. We will just call it the Island of Deniers. They can all live there because there will be plenty of room on this huge, massive body of ice that keeps breaking off and heading into the ocean.

Secondly, we are about to take up tax extenders, and we have a fantastic chance to extend the production tax credit for wind in our country. Unfortunately, because of the unpredictability of the tax breaks for the wind industry, 30,000 people in the wind industry were laid off last year. That is not because the wind industry didn't prove it could increase the amount of electricity in our country generated from wind; it is because--unlike the oil industry, unlike the gas industry, unlike the nuclear industry, unlike the coal industry--the wind industry has to come in, hat in hand, to beg to continue their tax breaks year after year. There is no predictability for that marketplace. This gives us a chance to extend those tax breaks.

So it is a big challenge, but ultimately if the oil and gas industry is going to receive $7 billion in tax breaks per year, the wind industry should receive the tax breaks it needs. We need a level playing field. We need a way to ensure that there is, in fact, a fighting chance for these new renewable energy industries. The existing industries have received tax breaks going back 100 years. These newer industries are there. They are creating jobs at a massive pace, but we need to ensure that the tax breaks are there.

My hope is that we will be able to pass these tax extenders. Again, there are extensions for tax breaks that are in there for many industries across the board. It is the kind of bipartisan effort that deserves support, like the Shaheen-Portman energy efficiency bill. My hope is that the institution can work in order to accomplish that goal. Civility on matters such as these should not melt away. We need to make sure we are, in fact, protected for generations yet to come.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I wish to express my warmest congratulations to both Rabbi Dr. Gershon C. Gerwitz and Dr. Mindy Gerwitz of Brookline, MA upon their departure. Rabbi Gewirtz has served as Young Israel of Brookline's dedicated Mara d'Asra for three decades, alongside his wife Mindy, and their children Yossi, Henoch, Sorah Leah, Adina and Doniel arrived in 1984. His wife, Dr. Mindy Gerwitz has also been a longtime passionate and dedicated community leader in her own right, contributing tireless decades of service.

Rabbi Gewirtz leaves Young Israel of Brookline with an indelible legacy as one of the prime architects of Young Israel and as a local and national Jewish leader, in Brookline, the Greater Boston Jewish community, and the national Orthodox movement.

Rabbi Gewirtz has led in times of great joy, incredible challenge, deep tragedy and monumental growth. Through it all, Rabbi Gewirtz has kept the Young Israel community together. He represented the Orthodox Jewish community locally and nationally with wisdom and integrity. Most importantly, he established personal relationships with his congregants, always serving their religious, spiritual, intellectual and halachic needs.

I wish to express my boundless gratitude to Rabbi Gewirtz for his many years of devoted service to Young Israel of Brookline and to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He has had a storied career, and I know the best is yet to come for him and his family.

Madam President, I rise today in support of the nomination of Indira Talwani to the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Ms. Talwani is a brilliant and accomplished attorney who will make an outstanding addition to our district court.

She is an American success story. Her parents were immigrants from India and Germany. If confirmed, she will be the first Asian-American district court judge in Massachusetts.

She has received honors throughout her career, and her background and experience unquestionably qualify her for the bench. She will be someone the people of Massachusetts, of New England, and our whole country can be proud of.

I believe she will be an objective, unbiased decisionmaker, and that is exactly what we need for our district court judges. I recommend her wholeheartedly to the Members of this body.

The Shaheen-Portman energy efficiency bill is going to be considered here today, and I recommend it to all of the Members of this body because it is a bill that has been developed across parties in a bipartisan way--across industries, across labor, across consumer groups.

This is a bill which on a bipartisan basis is going to lead to improvement in the building codes of the United States to reduce energy consumption, increases in the efficiency of industrial equipment to reduce energy consumption, to increase the energy efficiency of Federal buildings in our country to reduce energy consumption. None of it is being done on a mandatory basis. It is all done on a voluntary basis. That is why we have a consensus here today.

The consensus includes an understanding that this is going to create 190,000 new jobs in our country--from the Shaheen-Portman bill. It will save consumers $16 billion per year. And it will cut carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere, polluting our country and our world by the equivalent of 22 million automobiles per year by the year 2030.

These are benefits that are going to be maximized because we are going to start working smarter, not harder, just reducing the amount of energy we consume, reducing the amount of CO2 we send into the atmosphere, and doing it on a voluntary basis--voluntary.

So let's have a vote here on the Senate floor. Let's just get it done. Let's agree on what it is that we know is going to help our country. We know it is going to create more jobs. But the Republicans say: No, we need a vote on the Keystone Pipeline. We need a vote on something that is highly controversial, and we demand that vote.

Majority Leader Reid agrees to have a vote on the Keystone Pipeline-- agrees to have a vote on the Keystone Pipeline. How controversial is that? Well, you are going to take the dirtiest oil in the world, coming down from Canada, build a pipeline through the United States, bring it down to Port Arthur, TX, which is a tax-free export zone, and then that oil is going to be exported out of the United States. Where are the benefits for the United States in this scenario? We take the environmental risk, the Canadians get the benefit of having the dirtiest oil in the world come through that pipeline, and then it is going to be exported out of the United States.

How do I know it is going to be exported out of the United States? Because I, as a member of the House of Representatives, had this amendment over and over brought to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, and every time the American Petroleum Institute opposed it. Even though they say it is all about North American energy independence--ha-ha--when you have a vote, every Republican votes to keep that provision out of the bill so the oil can go out of the United States. So just stop this about ``energy independence for North America'' if you don't, as a part of the Keystone Pipeline, accept a provision where the oil has to stay here. Otherwise, what is the point? I will tell you what the point is. It is maximizing profit for the oil industry because they make more money when they sell the oil outside the United States. American consumers don't get the benefit of it, no. The world is going to get the benefit of it; the oil industry is; the Canadians are.

Majority Leader Reid said: We will have a vote on that. We will have a vote on it.

And then what happens? We come back this week, and the Republicans say that is not enough. This nice energy efficiency bill is going to be the vehicle for even more highly controversial issues, which at the end of the day is all meant to do what? To kill the energy efficiency bill because it reduces the amount of CO2 that goes into the atmosphere on a voluntary basis.

How do we know that? Well, we know it because their amendments go right

to the heart of what it is that we should all now finally accept. They want to have a vote and a big debate here that would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency of the United States of America from regulating greenhouse gases, from regulating global warming. That is the debate they want to have. They are saying: No energy efficiency bill--which everyone agrees on--unless we have a debate on whether our Environmental Protection Agency can regulate greenhouse gases.

It is 2014. It is 100 degrees in Kansas today. There are hurricanes, cyclones, the tides are rising, the water is warmer, and the storms are more intense. It is not just here, it is all across the planet. The scientists agree that there is global warming. Their amendment would prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating global warming pollution. That is what they call something that is reasonable.

We have a bill everyone agrees should pass, but after getting an agreement that the Keystone Pipeline would be debated, they just continue on down the pathway.

Yesterday the Obama administration released a third U.S. National Climate Assessment. From droughts in the West to deluges in the East, this new report shows that we are becoming the United States of climate change and that we must act in order to keep our Nation safe and strong.

Second, they want to attach a provision to massively expand our exports of natural gas. They want to take the natural gas that is being drilled for here in the United States and put it on ships and send it out of our country. The more natural gas we export out of our country, the higher the prices are going to be for natural gas in our country. It will be more expensive to generate electricity. It will be more expensive for manufacturers to make their products in our country. It will be more expensive for those who want to build natural gas buses and natural gas trucks to be able to do so.

That is something they want to do--export the natural gas of the United States to other countries. Does that make any sense? Is that the kind of noncontroversial discussion we should have at the time we have an energy efficiency bill that should go through? No, not at all. This is meant to dynamite the energy efficiency bill. That is what that amendment is all about.

Then they want to add a rider to the bill as well that will prohibit the EPA from even considering at any time in the future a price on carbon--or, for that matter, prohibiting anyone.

These are loaded, highly controversial amendments, all at their heart denying the reality of how much harm they will do to the United States. Meanwhile, the Koch brothers smile. They smile because they know it is all going to accomplish their principal goal: making sure no energy efficiency bill passes in the Senate this year, no reduction in the amount of greenhouse gasses we are sending up. That is the agenda. It is going to be the agenda into the future for the Republican Party. It has been the agenda.

I look out and I see Republicans who have worked hard to put together this energy efficiency bill. I praise them for their willingness to come together on commonsense, reasonable provisions that reduce the amount of carbon going into the atmosphere on a voluntary basis by encouraging the creation of 190,000 new jobs in our country that Democrats and Republicans agree on. And I see this whole process getting hijacked by the Koch brothers, by the oil industry, by the natural gas industry that wants us to devolve into a big debate over science that is now completely and totally consensus not only here but around the planet.

The planet is running a fever. There are no emergency rooms for planets. We have to engage in preventive care to avoid the worst, most catastrophic impact of climate change on this watch we have here in the Senate. But, no, the process is being hijacked. You can see it here. They want to torpedo this process so that more oil, more coal, and more profits for the coal and oil companies become the agenda.

So all I can say, ladies and gentlemen, is that we are at a historic turning point. The headlines in the newspapers across this country and across this planet tell the story today: Climate risk growing. That is the consensus. That is the reality. That is what this energy efficiency bill is meant to deal with. And what will happen--and we are going to see it over and over--is we are going to have Member after Member on the Republican side get up and demand that we have a debate on something unrelated to this energy efficiency bill where there is a consensus. They want to take climate science that is a consensus around the planet and have another huge debate here on it. That is the tragedy of this.

The green generation, the young people in our country, they know this is the challenge of this generation. We as a nation have to stand up. A high percentage of that CO2 in the atmosphere is red, white, and blue. We cannot preach temperance from a barstool. We cannot tell the rest of the world ``you must do something'' if we are not doing something. That is what the bill we should be debating here today would do on a bipartisan basis: reduce greenhouse gases, create 190,000 jobs, and do it all on a voluntary basis--too simple, too good, too clearly consistent with these two objectives of job creation and greenhouse gas reduction.

So I think what we are seeing is that the conserve in conservative no longer exists--not with the Koch brothers around. So this is now just going to be something that short-circuits the legislative process. It ensures that the energy efficiency bill is collateral damage because of their insistence on these amendments, when instead we have a chance this week to say that we are going to move forward on a smart energy policy; that we will work smarter, not harder; that we should come together to pass this bill without these giveaways to the oil industry and to the coal industry so that we can create jobs and save energy. And I would recommend to my colleagues that is the correct historical position this Chamber should be in right now.

At this point, Madam President, I yield the back the remainder of my time.

Madam President, I am proud to stand here today to support raising the minimum wage. No person in America should work full time and not earn enough to be above the poverty level. The poverty level in the United States in 2014 is about $23,000 for a family of four. Today, if someone works under the minimum wage for 40 hours a week they are still in poverty. No one should work 40 hours a week and be given a salary that does not lift them and their families out of poverty. That is absolutely wrong.

Millions of people in our country have been trying to climb into the middle class. But no matter how hard they work, they are stuck in the same place.

In America today, nearly half of those who grow up in families in the bottom fifth of income earners will stay there as adults. Tens of millions of Americans labor tirelessly for years to scale the economic ladder but they can never get off the ground. That is unacceptable, it is immoral, and that needs to change.

Raising the minimum wage is a first step to fighting income inequality in our country. We must help restore the dignity and the value of work and help millions of families escape poverty by increasing the national minimum wage.

Today, more than 46 million Americans are living in poverty. The average American household made less in 2012 than it did in 1989. That is wrong. It is plain wrong. Over these last 20 years, the top 1 percent of wage earners in America has seen their income skyrocket by 86 percent. In the years ahead it is going to get worse for those making the minimum wage. Over the next 5 years the real value of the minimum wage is projected to decline by 10 percent or over $1,400 of purchasing power for a full-time worker, unless we increase the minimum wage.

What does that mean? It means Americans will be able to buy less if we don't do it, and it will be harder for families to get by. The poor will effectively get even more impoverished. Even as they are working 40 hours a week, they get poorer and poorer and poorer because that minimum wage does not buy as much as it did the year

before and the year before and the year before. So the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That is the system we have right now unless we take action to make sure those who earn the minimum wage are keeping pace with what it takes to buy the food, to pay the rent, to pay for the schools for the children in their family. If we don't do this, they get poorer and poorer while continuing to work 40 hours a week.

We know low-income Americans would benefit from raising the minimum wage, but they are not the only ones. Hundreds of small businesses in my home State of Massachusetts have signed on to a petition for a fair minimum wage of $10.50 per hour. That petition says that raising the minimum wage makes good business sense. That same small business petition says workers are also customers.

They are right. Increasing the purchasing power of minimum-wage workers helps stimulate the economy. Research has shown time and time again that minimum-wage workers spend the additional income they receive when the minimum wage is increased. If we increase the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour, 28 million workers would receive about $35 billion in additional wages.

Raising the minimum wage does not cause job losses, even during periods of recession. Most minimum-wage workers need the income to make ends meet and spend it quickly. It goes right into the economy. So economists believe it will actually boost the economy by creating about 85,000 new jobs and increasing economic activity by about $22 billion. That means everyone in our economy should be on board.

Raising the minimum wage is about giving families security, opportunity, and dignity--the security to know they can make ends meet, the opportunity to climb out of poverty and into the middle class, and the dignity to know they are getting paid a fair wage for a hard day's work. That is why I am proud to stand here today to urge my colleagues to increase the minimum wage so that we give America the raise it needs for those who are working so hard for our economy.

I yield the floor.