Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise today to acknowledge a dedicated public servant who will be retiring this month after 37 years of service to the General Services Administration. Marcia Herzog started her career with GSA in 1973, working for the Federal Supply Service. From 1982 to 1987, she moved to GSA headquarters to work with the Office of the Comptroller, then on to the Public Buildings Service and then to work for the Executive Secretariat. In 1987, Marcia joined the Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs. In 1997, she assumed the role of national director for the Congressional Support Program, which she continues to hold. For these last 16 years, Marcia has worked in unison with the Senate Sergeant at Arms, the Committee on House Administration, and the House Chief Administrative Officer to oversee and ensure that district offices of both Senate and House Members are located and equipped to each Member's specification and desire. Her poise, professionalism, wisdom, and support have successfully guided the congressional service representatives of GSA, who operate in each of the 10 GSA regions of the United States, to provide the highest level of customer service when responding to congressional office needs in Member home State offices across the country. We congratulate Marcia on her diligent service to this body and offer her our heartfelt well wishes as she transitions to her next endeavor.

The Senate is considering the nomination of Andrew Hurwitz of Arizona to be a United States circuit judge for the ninth circuit postcloture. There is every expectation that time will be yielded back and the confirmation will take place soon.

The Senate will recess from 12:30 to 2:15 to allow for our weekly caucus meetings.

Senator Stabenow and Senator Roberts are working on an agreement for amendments on the farm bill and we will notify Senators if an agreement is reached.

Mr. President, H.R. 436 is at the desk and due for a second reading.

I now object to proceeding further on this matter at this time.

I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I will take my time now and talk about a number of things.

The first thing I wish to mention is that my friend the Republican leader talked about the fact that the President has not done enough to create jobs.

Mr. President, we all have heard that longstanding joke--in fact, it was not a joke. I represented a young man who murdered his parents, and the joke during that period of time was, I guess now your defense is going to be that he is going to claim he is an orphan. There was nothing novel or new or unique in the experience I had representing that young man who had killed his parents, but the Republican leader's remarks remind me of that. He is saying that the problem with this country is President Obama. That is like the fact that someone kills their parents and then claims they are an orphan.

Republicans have blocked bill after bill after bill. These pieces of legislation have been suggested by, introduced by friends of President Obama. These were all job-creating bills, and simply every one of these, with rare exception, has been stopped on a procedural basis by the Republicans.

Then the Republican leader cites nonrelevant Republican amendments they would like to offer on the farm bill as ways to create jobs. But it is precisely these nonrelevant, nongermane amendments that keep the Senate from doing its work--its job-creating work--like the farm bill. The farm bill involves 16 million people who work doing farm programs. We have not done one in 5 years. The highway bill is something we are waiting for Republicans in the House to move with us on.

So I would just simply say that we live in a world that is imperfect. We live in a country that is imperfect. But let's give credit where credit is due. President Obama and this administration found themselves in a terribly deep hole when he was elected 3\1/2\ years ago. The administration he replaced lost more than 8 million jobs--about 1 million jobs a year in the prior administration. And President Obama has had 27 straight months of private sector job creation. So I think we deserve and he deserves some credit for the work he has done in that regard.

So I really strongly object to the Republican leader's remarks. It is just simply wrong. And if we had some cooperation from my friends on the other side of the aisle, as we say, we would have a lot more jobs created in this country. But my friend has said that his No. 1 issue is to defeat President Obama, and that is what has happened here. We simply have not been able to legislate appropriately because that is their mantra.

Mr. President, technology has changed our world, and that is an understatement. It has changed the way we shop, the way we bank, even the way we travel. It changes the way we get information, and that is an understatement, and the way we share it, and that is an understatement.

It was about 10 years ago or so that I decided to sell my home here in the suburbs, and I was stunned by one of my boys telling me: Hey, Dad, do you want to find out what other homes have been selling for around that area? Give me about a minute. And they pulled up on the computer every home in that area that had been sold in the last 2 years--when, how much.

There was even more detail than that. I was like: How do you do that? That was 10 years ago. That was in the Dark Ages with technology. There is so much that can be done now. Somebody can go online, go to Amazon, they can buy virtually anything in the world on that one Web site.

I met with someone a couple weeks ago who had gone to work with Google when they had 15 employees, and he talked to us about the tremendous problems they had starting this company. They wanted to give people information. I will not go into all the details, but it was very difficult to come up with the Google that now exists. It was not there when there were 15 employees.

They were working all night long trying to shut down computers and keep others going. So it is amazing what we have on the computer. Everyone can do it. Who wrote that song? What is the name of that play? What is the capital of Uzbekistan? Go to our BlackBerry. Go to whatever we have and get it in a second.

So the way we get information, the way we share it, has changed so dramatically. It has changed the way our country protects itself. That is not something people understand as well as Google and Amazon. But the way we protect our country has changed. It has changed the type of attacks we have to guard against.

Some of the top national security officials, including GEN Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, GEN David Petraeus, four-star general, now head of the CIA, one of America's great patriots, and Leon Panetta, Secretary of Defense, have all said that malicious cyber attacks are the most urgent threat to our country, not North Korea, not Iran, not Pakistan, not Afghanistan but cyber attacks. We have already seen some of these. They have been kind of quiet to some but not to those in the security field.

We have seen cyber attacks on our nuclear infrastructure, our Defense Department's most advanced weapons, and the stock exchange Nasdaq had an attack. Most major corporations have been attacked. They spend huge amounts of money protecting their products or their operations from not collapsing because of cyber attacks.

Cyber attacks do not threaten only our national security, they threaten our economic security. These attacks cost our economy billions of dollars every year, millions of dollars every hour, and thousands of jobs. So we need to act quickly to pass legislation to make our Nation safer and protect American jobs.

The Defense Department, Department of Homeland Security, and experts from across the intelligence community have issued chilling warnings about the seriousness of this threat. I cannot stress enough how concerned people who understand security feel about this. Just a few days ago, Senator McConnell and I received a letter from a remarkable bipartisan group of former national security officials, Democrats and Republicans.

The group includes six former Bush and Obama administration officials: Michael Chertoff, who has been a circuit court judge, judicial scholar, became head of the Department of Homeland Security during some very difficult times we had in this country; Paul Wolfowitz, who has been advising Presidents for decades; ADM Mike McConnell; GEN Michael Hayden; GEN James Cartwright, William Lynn, III. That is who signed the letter, and I could give a short dissertation on every one of these individuals about what they know about the security of our country.

The letter presented the danger in stark terms, as stark as I could ever imagine. This is a public letter. Listen to what this one paragraph says: ``We carry the burden of knowing that 9/11 might have been averted with intelligence that existed at the time.''

Listen to that. They are admitting 9/11 could have been averted with the tools we had at hand. They go on to say:

We do not want to be in the same position again when

``cyber 9/11'' hits--it is not a question of whether this

will happen; it is a question of when.

This is not me saying this. This is General Hayden, who was the head of the CIA, briefing us many times about some of the most sensitive matters going on during the height of the Iraq war, Marine GEN James Cartwright, Defense Department expert William Lynn, III.

This eminent group called the threat of a cyber attack imminent. What does imminent mean? It means now. They said it ``represents the most serious challenge to our national security since the onset of the nuclear age sixty years ago.''

Let me reread that. They said it ``represents the most serious challenge to our national security since the onset of the nuclear age sixty years ago.'' They said it; I did not. The letter noted that the top cybersecurity priority is safeguarding critical infrastructure: computer networks--we talked about those a little bit already. But computer networks that control our electrical grid, our water supply, our sewers, our nuclear plants, energy pipelines, communication systems and financial systems and more.

Because of Senator Mikulski--she was the one who said this was important--we did this. We went down to this classified room. We had a briefing on an example of what would happen to New York City if they took down the computer system to run that State's electricity. It would be disastrous, not only for New York but for our country.

These vital networks must be required to meet minimum cybersecurity standards. That is what these prominent Americans believe, and so do I. The letter was clear that securing the infrastructure must be part of any cybersecurity legislation this Congress considers. I believe that also.

GEN Keith Alexander, Director of the National Security Agency, has said something very similar. This is what he wrote to Senator McCain recently:

Critical infrastructure protection needs to be addressed in

any cyber security legislation. The risk is simply too great

considering the reality of our interconnected and

interdependent world.

General Alexander is one voice among many. President Obama; the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies Commission on Cyber Security; the two Chairmen of the 9/11 Commission, Governor Kean and Congressman Hamilton; the Director of National Intelligence, General Clapper; the Director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, have all echoed a call to action--not sometime in the distant future but now. They believe the attack is imminent.

The attack may not be one that knocks down buildings, starts fires that we saw on 9/11, but it will be a different kind of attack, even more destructive. The entire national security establishment, including leading officials of the Bush and Obama administrations, civilian and military leaders, Republicans and Democrats, agree on the urgent need to protect this vital infrastructure.

That is only part of it. Yet some key Republicans continue to argue that we should do nothing to secure the critical infrastructure, that we should just focus on the military. When virtually every intelligence expert says we need to secure the systems that make the lights come on, inaction is not an option. A coalition of Democrats and Republicans, including the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, Senator Lieberman, and the ranking member, Senator Collins; the chairman of the Commerce Committee, Senator Rockefeller--remember, Senator Rockefeller was for years chairman of the Intelligence Committee and/or the ranking member; Senator Feinstein, now the chair of the Intelligence Committee, have joined together and proposed one approach to address the problem. It is legislation. It is not something that is theoretical. It is not an issue paper. It is legislation.

Their bill is an excellent piece of legislation. It has been endorsed by many members of the national security community. It is a good approach, and it would make our Nation safer. But there are other possible solutions to this urgent challenge. Unfortunately, the critics of the bill have failed to offer any alternatives to secure our Nation's critical infrastructure.

The longer we argue over how to tackle these problems, the longer our powerplants, financial system, and water infrastructure go unprotected. Everyone knows this Congress cannot pass laws that do not have broad bipartisan support. There are 53 of us, 47 of them. So we will need to work together on a bill that addresses the concerns of the lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

But for that to happen, more of my Republican colleagues need to start taking this threat seriously. It is time for them to participate productively in the conversation instead of just criticizing the current approach. There is room for more good ideas on the table, and I welcome the discussion of any Republican generally interested in being part of the solution.

The national security experts agree. We cannot afford to waste any more time. The question is not whether to act but how quickly we can act. I put everyone on notice. We are going to move to this bill at the earliest possible date.

Mr. President, shortly, we are going to move to confirm the judge whose nomination we voted to move forward to last night. If everyone will be at ease for just a moment.

Let me ask Senator Coburn how long he wishes to speak.

If the Senator will be patient, we will get this done very quickly.

Mr. President, the matter before the Senate is the nomination of Judge Hurwitz; is that right?

I yield back all time on this nomination.

I will in one second.

I ask unanimous consent that immediately upon the adoption of the motion to proceed to S. 3240, there be a period of debate only on the bill until 4 p.m. today and that the majority leader be recognized at that time.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that a Stabenow- Roberts perfecting amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be considered original text for the purpose of further amendment; that the following Lee motion to recommit and four amendments be the first amendments and motion to recommit in order to the bill with no other first-degree amendments or motions to recommit in order until these amendments and motion are disposed of: Paul No. 2182, Shaheen No. 2160, Coburn No. 2353, Cantwell No. 2370, and Lee motion to recommit; that there be up to 60 minutes of debate equally divided between the two leaders or their designees on each of these amendments and the Lee motion; that upon the use or yielding back of time on all four amendments and the Lee motion, the Senate proceed to votes in relation to the amendments and motion in the order listed; that there be no amendments or motions in order to the amendments or the Lee motion--which is the motion to recommit--prior to the votes other than motions to waive points of order and motions to table; that upon disposition of these amendments and the Lee motion, I be recognized.

Madam President, I appreciate the good intentions of my friend from Kentucky because they are good intentions. But we are on a bill now that just simply does not allow something like that to come forward. I would like to work with him in the future--I am sure a number of other Senators would--to focus on our relations with Pakistan.

It is not only the problem he outlined, but there are other things-- the ability of our vehicles to drive to Afghanistan and lots of other things. It is an issue on which the Foreign Relations Committee has held hearings. It is something on which we need to focus, and I would also indicate to my friend that Senator Leahy, who has been a protector of human rights for his entire career, is the chairman of the State- Foreign Operations Subcommittee. He is also concerned about this.

So I would say to my friend that he does not stand alone in his concern. But there has to be a time and place for everything. Hopefully, we can have a full debate on our relations with Pakistan in the near future.

Amendment No. 2389

Madam President, on behalf of the managers, I call up amendment No. 2389, which is at the desk.

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays on that amendment.

Madam President, I have a second-degree amendment at the desk.

Madam President, I have a motion to recommit the bill with instructions at the desk.

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays on this motion.

Madam President, I now call up amendment No. 2392.

I ask for the yeas and nays on that amendment.

Madam President, I call up amendment No. 2393, which is a second-degree amendment.

Madam President, I now move to proceed to Calendar No. 250,

Madam President, I have managed a few bills during my time here, quite a few bills. It is always so gratifying, after the work that goes into the work you have done on a committee or a subcommittee, to have that matter come to the floor. It is a terrible disappointment to not be able to move forward as you anticipated.

So I say that for Senator Stabenow and Senator Roberts. No one has worked harder than they have in bringing the bill to the floor. It is bipartisan. It is important not only for the State of Michigan, the State of Kansas, but it is important for the country.

I wish we could proceed in another way to have amendments heard and voted on. But even though this is something awkward, we are going to move forward with this bill. We are going to bring up some amendments. They are big amendments. They are crucial to Senators being able to issue their opinions on this legislation. One deals with sugar, one deals with food stamps, both very controversial and very important.

We are going to have those amendments, and, hopefully, we will have a good debate on those matters. We can move forward on this bill in other ways. I have not given up hope. I know Senator Stabenow and Senator Roberts have not given up hope to have a universal agreement so we can legislate on this bill.

As I have indicated, we do not do this very often in this manner. But it is important because we have an issue that needs to move forward. A lot of times when the tree is filled we just walk away from it. We are not going to walk away from this. This bill is far too important. It affects the lives of millions of people--about 16 million--in America.

The reforms have been made in this bill--I remember when I came from the House of Representatives 26 years ago, we wanted to make the reforms that are in this bill. So they have done remarkably good work. We hear everyone, Democrats and Republicans, talking about: Let's do something about the debt and the deficit. Here we have done it.

What they have done is bring to this body a bill that reduces our debt by $23 billion. We have a long ways we need to go beyond that. But, gee whiz, this is a big deal, $23 billion. So I commend and applaud the two managers of this bill. They are fine Senators. They have done a service to our country by getting us to the point we are now.

Mr. President, before my friend leaves the floor, I express my appreciation--really from our country--for his tireless efforts in focusing attention on what has been going on in Burma. He has come to the floor and given numerous statements to focus attention on this issue. It took a while to get some traction, but finally he got some traction, and that is why progress was made in Burma.

I appreciate his mentioning Senator Feinstein. She has also been very focused on this. But no one has been to the floor more than Senator McConnell talking about this issue. As a result of that, we have made progress. It has been slow, but it has been deliberate, and I think we can see a new day for that country.

Mr. President, before my friend leaves the floor, I express my appreciation--really from our country--for his tireless efforts in focusing attention on what has been going on in Burma. He has come to the floor and given numerous statements to focus attention on this issue. It took a while to get some traction, but finally he got some traction, and that is why progress was made in Burma.

I appreciate his mentioning Senator Feinstein. She has also been very focused on this. But no one has been to the floor more than Senator McConnell talking about this issue. As a result of that, we have made progress. It has been slow, but it has been deliberate, and I think we can see a new day for that country.

The Senate is considering the motion to proceed to the farm bill postcloture.

At 4:30, the Senate will proceed to executive session to consider the nomination of Andrew Hurwitz of Arizona to be a United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit. At 5:30 p.m., there will be a cloture vote on the Hurwitz nomination.

Mr. President, Democrats and Republicans hold a different view on many issues. But the bipartisan work by Senators Stabenow and Roberts on the agriculture jobs bill demonstrates, despite our differences, we can still find common ground. I hope their cooperative spirit guides our work on this important legislation this week. American farmers are counting on us, and so is the economy.

Despite the uncertain economic times, America's farms are the most productive in the world, exporting $136 billion worth of products last year and supporting 16 million private sector jobs. But to keep American farms strong, Congress must pass a strong farm bill.

This legislation creates jobs, cuts subsidies, and reduces the deficit. The bill includes important reforms to farm and food stamp programs. It saves $23 billion, which will be used to reduce the deficit. And it will give farmers the certainty they need to maintain the largest trade surplus of any sector of our economy.

Helping American farmers thrive is an important part of our work to get the economy on a firm footing again. I commend Senators Stabenow and Roberts for their leadership on this issue. We are working now to come up with a list of amendments on this legislation.

It is a shame we are now wasting 30 hours postcloture on this bill. It is a bill that passed by 90 Senators agreeing that we should move forward to debate. But it now appears we are in a situation that we were in last week and the week before and the week before that, when the Republicans have made a decision that they would rather do anything they can to stop jobs from being created, hoping it will help them with the elections come November.

Too often in this Congress the Republican strategy has been to kill job-creating bills in the hopes of harming the economy and hurting President Obama. It forces the Senate to spend weeks passing consensus legislation that once was passed in a matter of minutes.

They have held many important jobs measures hostage to extract votes on unrelated, ideological amendments. It appears we are in that same place right here on this bill.

I am disappointed, as I have already said, that they have caused us to waste 30 hours on procedural hurdles on this bill. We shouldn't have to do that. We shouldn't have to run that clock when 90 Senators agree we should move to the bill. That is what happened last week.

I hope my Republican friends will dispense with these delay tactics. This is a bill that creates jobs, cuts subsidies, and protects our working farmers.

We hear the hue and cry from our Republican friends all the time that they want to reduce the deficit. How about one bill, in one fell swoop, with $23 billion of deficit reduction--a bill that will reduce subsidies, get rid of a lot of waste and abuse, and create jobs.

We are in this position where my friends have said, just as the Republican leader has said, that their only goal is to defeat Obama, not help our country, and that is too bad.

Would the Chair announce the business of the day.

Reservation of Leader Time

Mr. President, I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 415, S. 3240.

Mr. President, we are now on the motion to proceed to the farm bill.

Mr. President, the time until 10:30 a.m. will be equally divided between the two leaders or their designees. At 10:30 a.m. there will be a cloture vote on the motion to proceed to the farm bill. We hope we can reach agreements on the amendments today.

The hour following the cloture vote will be equally divided, with the Republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the final half.

Mr. President, here we are again on these endless, wasted weeks because the Republicans are preventing us from going to legislation. We should have been legislating on this bill. This is a bipartisan bill. It is managed by two very good Senators. One is a Democrat, Debbie Stabenow, chairman of that committee, and Pat Roberts from Kansas, who in the past has been chairman of the committee and is ranking member of the committee today. They have come up with a very good bill. It saves the country $23 billion. It gets rid of a lot of wasted subsidies. It is a fine piece of legislation.

We hear the hue and cry constantly from our Republican friends to do something about the debt. This bill does it. It saves the country $23 billion. We are going to have a cloture vote on the ability for us to proceed to the bill, and on the ability for us to start legislating.

I don't need to give a lecture to the Presiding Officer about how vexatious this is, that we have to do this every time. The Presiding Officer wanted to do something to change this process at the beginning of this Congress. I will bet, Mr. President, if we maintain our majority--and I feel quite confident we can do that and the President is reelected--there are going to be some changes. We can no longer go through this on every bill. There are filibusters on bills they agree with. It is a waste of time to prevent us from getting things done. So enough on that. It is such a terrible waste of our time.

Measures Placed on the Calendar--S. 3268 and S. 3269

Mr. President, there are two bills at the desk due for a second reading.

Mr. President, I would object to any further proceedings with respect to these bills, en bloc.

Mr. President, would the Chair announce the business of the day.

Reservation of Leader Time

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Chair start calling the roll, with the time equally divided.

How much time does the Senator need?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Alabama be recognized for another 5 minutes.

Mr. President, the last Congress was the most productive in the history of the country. Some say not the most productive, but certainly no one disagrees that it is the most productive since Franklin Roosevelt was President during his first term. But since there is a new majority in the House, this Congress has been altogether different and that is an understatement.

Consistently this Congress has taken weeks or months to pass even simple, commonsense legislation and proposals that would have previously passed in minutes. The Senate has wasted literally months considering bipartisan bills only to have those bills smothered to death under nonrelevant Republican amendments.

Congressional Republicans have held even the most important jobs measures hostage to extract votes on unrelated ideological amendments-- despite the minority leader's own call to ``stop all the showboats.'' Those were his words.

The Democrats and American people have endured this blatant obstruction all year--in fact, for 18 months. What is it we are talking about? Obstruction. If you look in the dictionary, it says it all. I did that this morning. The dictionary says that obstruction is a condition of being clogged or blocked. Doesn't that define what has happened here in this wonderful body we call the Senate? Republicans have clogged or blocked everything we have tried to do, even things they have agreed on.

Yesterday we read that we will have to endure it every day for the rest of the year--every day for the rest of this Congress. And this came from Congressman Cantor, the No. 2 person in the Republican- dominated House of Representatives. House Republican leaders admit they have given up on actually running the country. Despite the work that remains to keep our country on the right track and continue 27 months of private sector job growth, they say they are done legislating for the year, and in spite of the fact the President is working to create 4.3 million private sector jobs.

But listen to this report from the political publication Politico yesterday, and I quote:

Serious legislating is all but done until after the

election . . . The rest of this year, Cantor said, will

likely be about sending ``signals. . . .''

Let's try that again. Because it is hard to comprehend that someone who is supposedly running the other body would say such a thing, but he did.

Serious legislation is all but done until after the

election. The rest of this year, Cantor said, will likely be

about sending ``signals. . . .''

So rather than work with Democrats to strengthen our economy and create jobs, congressional Republicans will put on a show designed to demonstrate the extreme ideological direction in which they would lead this country.

Majority Leader Cantor's candor is frightening. He said out loud what practically every Republican on Capitol Hill has been thinking all along: They care more about winning elections than creating jobs. We just don't usually hear them say so in public when reporters are listening.

Just a short month ago, Speaker Boehner urged Congress ``to roll up your sleeves and get to work.'' To an audience of conservatives, the Speaker said, ``We can't wait until after the election to legislate.''

Less than a week after, he said Leader McConnell urged us to ``stop the show votes that are designed to fail. Let's stop the blame game. Let's come together and do what the American people expect us to do.''

The statements of Speaker Boehner and Leader McConnell are Orwellian. They do exactly the opposite of what they say.

Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, by all means a moderate Senator, who is retiring amid frustration of increasing partisanship in Washington, wrote to me in April to urge quick Senate action on many of the challenging issues facing us. It was a letter crying out for help-- but not for help from us, not for help from Democrats. She was speaking to the Republicans. She knew they were holding up virtually everything we were trying to do. I am sure that is one reason this fine woman is leaving the Senate.

Leader Cantor's remarks provide a window into the true Republican agenda. It seems when congressional Republicans forget the world is watching, they say what they really mean. They are more interested in putting on a partisan sideshow than in solving the real problems facing this Nation. In truth this comes as no surprise. It is just more of the same.

Republicans have launched a series of attacks on access to health care for women, even contraception, and have filibustered legislation to ensure American women get equal pay for equal work.

In my desk--I haven't used this in a while, but I knew it was here all the time. Filibuster, filibuster, filibuster, filibuster. That is what obstruction is all about. ``Filibuster,'' from the dictionary:

One of a class of piratical adventurers who pillaged the

Spanish colonies in the West Indies during the 17th century;

one who engages in unauthorized and irregular warfare against

foreign States; a pirate craft.

Now, it is also defined as:

To obstruct progress in legislative assembly; to practice

obstruction.

That is what they have done. They have filibustered legislation to ensure American women get equal pay for equal work. Who could be against that? The American people--if we take a poll, no one is against it. Republicans aren't against it, except Republicans in the Congress of the United States.

They have stopped us from restoring fairness to the Tax Code to ensure billionaires don't pay a lower tax than middle-class families. They put women at risk by holding the Violence Against Women Act in limbo. They blocked a bill to hire more teachers, cops, firefighters, and first responders. They have stalled important jobs measures such as the aviation bill. We had 22 short-term extensions of that.

Finally, they shut down the government on one occasion--the government as it relates to the Federal Aviation Administration-- putting tens of thousands of people out of work. They have stalled for months and months work done on a bipartisan basis by two fine Senators: Senator Boxer, the chairman of that committee, and Senator Inhofe, the ranking member. It doesn't matter. They are stalling the highway bill. Millions of jobs. We can't get it done.

For months, congressional Republicans have actively worked against any piece of legislation that might create jobs or support economic growth. We don't need to take my word for it, just look at the record. Democrats have known all along that congressional Republicans' No. 1 goal isn't to improve the economy or to create jobs. It is to defeat President Obama.

People say: Oh, come on. You don't really mean that, do you? I mean every word of it. Here is why: The leader of the Republicans in the Senate said it. I didn't make it up. The minority leader, the senior Senator from Kentucky, said so plainly in another one of those moments of candor. Here is what he said:

The single most important thing we want to achieve is for

President Obama to be a one-term President.

He said that in October of 2010 when this country was mired in monumental challenges, rather than saying let's work together and do some things. How many jobs could we have created if we had some semblance of help from the Republicans in Congress? Not 4.3 million jobs. Remember, 8 million or 10 million were lost in the Bush administration. We have struggled to get some of them back. We could have created millions more jobs just with a little help, but here is where they are headed. They are headed toward doing everything they can, no matter what it takes, to try to make President Obama a one-term President.

We are fighting back from the greatest recession since the Great Depression. Yet Republicans' top priority hasn't been to create jobs; their top priority wasn't to help businesses to grow and to have people hire workers. It wasn't to train the next generation of skilled employees or to hire more cops and firefighters or to put construction crews back to work building those roads and bridges we need. We have 70,000--not 7,000--70,000 bridges that are in trouble in this country. They need help.

We have a bridge in Reno, NV, where they will not have the kids stay on the schoolbus. They take them out, drive the bus over the bridge, and have the kids walk across the bridge. That is not the only place; all over the country that is happening. But we are getting no help. No, that wasn't their top priority, to help create those construction jobs. It was to drag down the economy in the hopes of defeating President Obama. Thanks to Leader Cantor's candor, today we know Republican priorities haven't changed one single bit.

I appreciate very much the wonderful statements by Senators Durbin, Schumer, and Murray. We have a problem in this country based on what Cantor said. Here are the headlines: ``Congress switches from policy to politicking.'' All we have said here today has been based on fact. That is too bad. It is too bad we have someone who is running the House of Representatives who is trying to kill these important pieces of legislation Senator Schumer outlined that we have passed over here. We have passed all these things, worked very hard to get them done.

Because of politicking, and not policy, the majority leader of the House of Representatives is killing all this legislation for reasons we all understand.

Order of Procedure

Madam President, cloture has been invoked on the motion to proceed to the farm bill by an overwhelming vote of 90 to 8. Senators Stabenow and Roberts are now, as we speak, working on an agreement to amendments to the bill. I am hopeful they can make significant progress over the weekend. There will be no more rollcall votes today. Monday at 5:30 we will have a vote on Andrew Hurwitz to be a Ninth Circuit judge.

I hope we can get the farm bill done next week and lock in an agreement on flood insurance, which is also vitally important to this country.

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

I send a cloture motion to the desk with respect to that nomination.

I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum under rule XXII be waived; that at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, June 11, there be up to 60 minutes of debate on the motion to invoke cloture on the nomination, equally divided between the two leaders, or their designees; that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the nomination; further, that if cloture is not invoked on the nomination, the Senate resume legislative session and the motion to proceed to S. 3240 be agreed to at 2:15 p.m., Tuesday, June 12; finally, if cloture is invoked, that upon disposition of the Hurwitz nomination, the Senate resume legislative session and the motion to proceed to S. 3240 be agreed to.