Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I am introducing the PCAOB Enforcement Transparency Act of 2013 along with my colleague Senator Grassley. This bill will allow the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, PCAOB, to make public disciplinary proceedings it has brought against auditors and audit firms earlier in the process.

Slightly over 10 years ago, our markets fell victim to a series of massive financial reporting frauds, including those involving Enron and WorldCom. Public companies had produced fraudulent and materially misleading financial statements, which artificially drove their stock prices up and misrepresented their overall profitability. Once the fraud was discovered, investor confidence plummeted, as did the markets themselves. We all took a step back after this crisis and asked ourselves how such massive financial fraud in public reporting companies could have gone undetected for so long.

The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs conducted a series of hearings on issues that were raised by the revelations raised by fraud at Enron and other public companies. The hearings produced consensus on a number of underlying causes, including weak corporate governance, a lack of accountability, and inadequate oversight of accountants charged with auditing a public company's financial statements.

In order to address the gaps and structural weaknesses revealed by the investigation and hearings, the Senate passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 in a 99 to 0 vote.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act ensured that corporate officers were directly accountable for their financial reporting and for the quality of their financial statements. The law also created a strong, independent board to oversee the conduct of the auditors of public companies, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

The PCAOB is responsible for overseeing auditors of public companies in order to protect investors who rely on independent audit reports on the financial statements of public companies. The Board operates under the oversight of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The PCAOB oversees more than 2,400 registered auditing firms, as well as the thousands of audit partners and staff who contribute to a firm's work on each audit. The Board's ability to commence proceedings to determine whether there have been violations of its auditing standards or rules of professional practice is an important component of its oversight.

However, unlike other oversight bodies, such as the SEC, the U.S. Department of Labor, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and others, the Board's disciplinary proceedings are not allowed to be public unless the parties consent. Of course, parties subject to disciplinary proceedings have no incentive to consent to publicizing their alleged wrongdoing and thus these proceedings remain cloaked behind a veil of secrecy. In addition, the Board's decisions in disciplinary proceedings are not allowed to be publicized until after the complete exhaustion of an appeals process, which can often take several years.

The PCAOB's nonpublic disciplinary proceedings create a lack of transparency that invites abuse and undermines the Congressional intent behind the establishment of the PCAOB, which was to shine a bright light on auditing firms and practices, and to bolster the accountability of auditors of public companies to the investing public.

Over the last several years, bad actors have taken advantage of the lack of transparency by using it to shield themselves from public scrutiny and accountability. PCAOB Chairman James Doty has repeatedly stated in testimony provided to both the Senate and House of Representatives over the past two years that the secrecy of the proceedings ``has a variety of unfortunate consequences'' and that such secrecy is harmful to investors, the auditing profession, and the public at large.

In one example, an accounting firm that was subject to a disciplinary proceeding continued to issue no fewer than 29 additional audit reports on public companies without any of those companies knowing about the PCAOB disciplinary proceedings. In other words, investors and the public company clients of that audit firm were deprived of relevant and material information about the proceedings against the firm and the substance of any violations.

There are several reasons why the Board's enforcement proceedings should be open and transparent. First,

as I have already noted, the closed proceedings run counter to the public proceedings of other government oversight bodies. Indeed, nearly all administrative proceedings brought by the SEC against those it regulates public companies, brokers, dealers, investment advisers, and others are open, public proceedings. The PCAOB's secret proceedings are not only shielded from the public, but from Congress as well. How can the public and Congress properly evaluate the Board's oversight of auditors and audit firms, and its enforcement program, when no one is entitled to know any of the details of these administrative proceedings, including whether a proceeding has even been initiated?

Second, the incentive to litigate cases in order to continue to shield conduct from the public as long as possible frustrates the process and requires the expenditure of needless resources by both litigants and the PCAOB.

Third, agencies such as the SEC have observed the benefits of open and transparent disciplinary proceedings, which include the benefit of informing peer audit firms of the type of activity that may give rise to enforcement action by the regulator. In effect, transparency of proceedings can serve as a deterrent to misconduct because of a perceived increase in the likelihood of ``getting caught.'' Accordingly, the audit industry as a whole would also benefit from timely, public, and non-secret enforcement proceedings.

Our bill will make hearings by the PCAOB, and all related notices, orders, and motions, transparent and available to the public unless otherwise ordered by the Board. This would make the PCAOB's procedures similar to those of the SEC for analogous matters.

Increasing the transparency and accountability of audit firms subject to disciplinary proceedings instituted by the PCAOB is a critical component of efforts to bolster and maintain investor confidence in our financial markets, and should better protect companies as well from problematic auditors.

I hope our colleagues will join Senator Grassley and me in taking the legislative steps necessary to enhance transparency in the PCAOB's enforcement process.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the PCAOB Enforcement Transparency Act of 2013 along with my colleague Senator Grassley. This bill will allow the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, PCAOB, to make public disciplinary proceedings it has brought against auditors and audit firms earlier in the process.

Slightly over 10 years ago, our markets fell victim to a series of massive financial reporting frauds, including those involving Enron and WorldCom. Public companies had produced fraudulent and materially misleading financial statements, which artificially drove their stock prices up and misrepresented their overall profitability. Once the fraud was discovered, investor confidence plummeted, as did the markets themselves. We all took a step back after this crisis and asked ourselves how such massive financial fraud in public reporting companies could have gone undetected for so long.

The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs conducted a series of hearings on issues that were raised by the revelations raised by fraud at Enron and other public companies. The hearings produced consensus on a number of underlying causes, including weak corporate governance, a lack of accountability, and inadequate oversight of accountants charged with auditing a public company's financial statements.

In order to address the gaps and structural weaknesses revealed by the investigation and hearings, the Senate passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 in a 99 to 0 vote.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act ensured that corporate officers were directly accountable for their financial reporting and for the quality of their financial statements. The law also created a strong, independent board to oversee the conduct of the auditors of public companies, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

The PCAOB is responsible for overseeing auditors of public companies in order to protect investors who rely on independent audit reports on the financial statements of public companies. The Board operates under the oversight of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The PCAOB oversees more than 2,400 registered auditing firms, as well as the thousands of audit partners and staff who contribute to a firm's work on each audit. The Board's ability to commence proceedings to determine whether there have been violations of its auditing standards or rules of professional practice is an important component of its oversight.

However, unlike other oversight bodies, such as the SEC, the U.S. Department of Labor, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and others, the Board's disciplinary proceedings are not allowed to be public unless the parties consent. Of course, parties subject to disciplinary proceedings have no incentive to consent to publicizing their alleged wrongdoing and thus these proceedings remain cloaked behind a veil of secrecy. In addition, the Board's decisions in disciplinary proceedings are not allowed to be publicized until after the complete exhaustion of an appeals process, which can often take several years.

The PCAOB's nonpublic disciplinary proceedings create a lack of transparency that invites abuse and undermines the Congressional intent behind the establishment of the PCAOB, which was to shine a bright light on auditing firms and practices, and to bolster the accountability of auditors of public companies to the investing public.

Over the last several years, bad actors have taken advantage of the lack of transparency by using it to shield themselves from public scrutiny and accountability. PCAOB Chairman James Doty has repeatedly stated in testimony provided to both the Senate and House of Representatives over the past two years that the secrecy of the proceedings ``has a variety of unfortunate consequences'' and that such secrecy is harmful to investors, the auditing profession, and the public at large.

In one example, an accounting firm that was subject to a disciplinary proceeding continued to issue no fewer than 29 additional audit reports on public companies without any of those companies knowing about the PCAOB disciplinary proceedings. In other words, investors and the public company clients of that audit firm were deprived of relevant and material information about the proceedings against the firm and the substance of any violations.

There are several reasons why the Board's enforcement proceedings should be open and transparent. First,

as I have already noted, the closed proceedings run counter to the public proceedings of other government oversight bodies. Indeed, nearly all administrative proceedings brought by the SEC against those it regulates public companies, brokers, dealers, investment advisers, and others are open, public proceedings. The PCAOB's secret proceedings are not only shielded from the public, but from Congress as well. How can the public and Congress properly evaluate the Board's oversight of auditors and audit firms, and its enforcement program, when no one is entitled to know any of the details of these administrative proceedings, including whether a proceeding has even been initiated?

Second, the incentive to litigate cases in order to continue to shield conduct from the public as long as possible frustrates the process and requires the expenditure of needless resources by both litigants and the PCAOB.

Third, agencies such as the SEC have observed the benefits of open and transparent disciplinary proceedings, which include the benefit of informing peer audit firms of the type of activity that may give rise to enforcement action by the regulator. In effect, transparency of proceedings can serve as a deterrent to misconduct because of a perceived increase in the likelihood of ``getting caught.'' Accordingly, the audit industry as a whole would also benefit from timely, public, and non-secret enforcement proceedings.

Our bill will make hearings by the PCAOB, and all related notices, orders, and motions, transparent and available to the public unless otherwise ordered by the Board. This would make the PCAOB's procedures similar to those of the SEC for analogous matters.

Increasing the transparency and accountability of audit firms subject to disciplinary proceedings instituted by the PCAOB is a critical component of efforts to bolster and maintain investor confidence in our financial markets, and should better protect companies as well from problematic auditors.

I hope our colleagues will join Senator Grassley and me in taking the legislative steps necessary to enhance transparency in the PCAOB's enforcement process.

Madam President, are we in regular order?

Madam President, I rise today in support of the Marketplace Fairness Act. I am pleased to join Senators Enzi and Durbin and many of my colleagues in this bipartisan effort to pass this bill that will help small businesses in my State expand and create jobs by ending a tax loophole that benefits out-of-State remote sellers. I want to particularly commend Senator Enzi and Senator Durbin for their long- time leadership on this issue. They have been relentless in trying to find an effective way to allow States to collect sales taxes on items that are actually delivered into their States.

This is a huge issue in my State of Rhode Island where businesses are having a very difficult time competing against out-of-State retailers because of, frankly, the outdated rules that require shops on Main Street to collect taxes while their out-of-State online competition does not. When you go to the stores in Rhode Island you'll see that they are facing this with increasing frequency. And small business men and women are demanding help.

When Internet commerce was in its early stages, online companies were basically exempted by what is now, by all accounts, an out-of-date Supreme Court decision, from collecting State and local sales taxes for sales in States where they do not have a physical presence--despite the fact that there was still an obligation to collect sales taxes on those purchases. That obligation was shifted to consumers, who are often unaware they have an obligation. This loophole puts Main Street businesses at a competitive disadvantage, hurts the ability of Rhode Island to keep jobs in the State, and strains State budgets all across the United States.

In order to address this inequity, the bill before us today would give States the ability to enforce their own sales tax laws and, by so doing, relieve consumers of the legal burden to report to State tax departments the sales taxes they owe on online purchases--since they would be paying sales taxes as a matter of course at the time of purchase, just as they would in a regular store.

Essentially it levels the playing field. If you walk into a store in Rhode Island and there is a sales tax charge, you would pay it. If you receive an item you ordered off the Internet, you would pay a sales tax as part of the bundled price of the item. It is what people would expect to do.

The legislation would also ensure that the rules for collecting sales tax from out-of-State retailers are clear and consistent. States can enter into

an already established Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement which my State and 21 other States are party to, or States can adopt a set of alternative minimum simplification standards to make it easier for online businesses to comply with their tax laws.

And this bill makes it easier for businesses--that choose to do business in a State that requires remote sellers to collect sales taxes--to comply with the law by providing software to help them calculate the sales tax.

Furthermore, this bill exempts small businesses with less than $1 million in gross revenue from having to collect sales taxes on remote sales. Those truly small businesses would not be affected by the legislation before us today.

This bill does not create new taxes or increase existing taxes. Instead, the bill will help States and cities collect billions in unpaid taxes already owed, reducing the need to raise new taxes on tax- compliant businesses and citizens. Indeed, yesterday I was with my Governor and he indicated that if we could pass this at the Federal level and allow the State of Rhode Island to collect approximately $70 million a year, he would secure a reduction in our sales taxes which would benefit all the people and businesses in Rhode Island.

This is a proposal that I think is not only necessary, it is long overdue. In 2012, as I have indicated, Rhode Island estimated it lost approximately $70 million in uncollected revenue. The revenue was legally owed but, because of this loophole, it went uncollected. This puts pressure on individuals and businesses that play by the rules. Indeed, if the Marketplace Fairness Act becomes law, Rhode Island has provisions in State law--and the Governor reiterated that yesterday-- that would help lower the sales tax from 7 percent to 6.5 percent and eliminate the recent extension of sales tax to clothing purchases over $250. This would have huge and immediate benefits to the people and businesses of Rhode Island.

The other thing it could do, frankly, is it would encourage local businesses to hire Rhode Islanders. We are facing a 9.1-percent unemployment rate. We have been slowly making progress in terms of putting people back to work--but there is much more to be done. This bill would help with that recovery because one of the barriers main street businesses face in hiring locally is the unfair competition from remote sellers that do not collect sales tax. This bill corrects that.

Now some online retailers who benefit from this unfair tax advantage understand the need to correct the loophole. That is why companies such as Amazon.com, with substantial remote sales, support this legislation. Governors of every political stripe recognize the undue pressure this tax loophole puts on their budgets, businesses, and citizens, and that is why the National Governors Association supports this. Ultimately, the Marketplace Fairness Act is about revitalizing our real economy by helping Main Street businesses compete against remote sellers that benefit from this tax loophole because these Main Street businesses cannot hire workers or expand if shoppers use their stores just to browse and then make their purchases online in order to avoid paying sales tax.

Yesterday I was with a group of business leaders in Rhode Island. Among them were the Cardi brothers, Ron and Pete Cardi, who own a family furniture store. It has been in the family for generations. They are first-rate businessmen and first-rate community leaders. They tell me it is not uncommon for someone to come in the showroom, get help from one of their skilled sales personnel, order the furniture, have it shipped to their homes so they see it fits exactly right, then call up and have it returned to the store--and then a truck will show up a day or two later at the customer's house, from a remote seller with the same item because the remote seller doesn't collect sales tax. We cannot have our retailers in States such as Rhode Island simply be showrooms for remote sellers. That is one of the consequences of this loophole we have to correct. This bipartisan proposal is designed not only to allow States to keep or retain the tax that is owed, but also, in the case of Rhode Island, to allow a tax reduction; and furthermore, to give local businesses more incentive to hire.

This is legislation that makes extraordinary sense in every dimension. I hope we can get through this debate this week and successfully pass this legislation. We are all encouraged by the 75 votes this proposal received when it was made as an amendment during the budget debate and the 74 votes this bill received on the cloture motion. I am hopeful it will continue to enjoy a similar level of support moving forward.

Once again, let me thank Senators Enzi and Durbin for their extraordinary leadership, which has helped forge this bipartisan and bicameral bill, and I urge my colleagues to support its passage.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, since 1968, more Americans have been killed by gun violence in the United States than have died in all the wars in American history combined. This is a heavy toll on public safety and public health. As a body, this Senate can do more and should do more to make our communities safer.

It has been too many years, too little action, too much tragedy and heartbreak since the last debate on guns. I know all my colleagues share my utter horror at the mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut last December. Yet our responses to this and other tragedies are vastly different. I am motivated by them to demand passage of serious, concrete, and comprehensive measures to try to safeguard innocent and precious lives, to prevent the next Newtown, the next Aurora, the next Tucson, and countless other devastating examples of senseless gun violence.

Unfortunately, it seems we are on the verge of throwing up our hands and saying there is nothing we can do. But there is something we can do.

We will take a series of votes this afternoon to reinstate the assault weapons ban and prohibit high-capacity magazines, amendments I am cosponsoring, and a compromise effort to close the gun show loophole and require better background checks. These measures balance protection for responsible gun ownership with protection for public safety.

As someone who has served in the U.S. military, I believe carrying a gun is a serious responsibility. However, today it is far too easy for criminals, domestic abusers, gang members, and terrorists to buy weapons.

Today's New York Times describes just how easy it is. One South Carolina man is noted as:

a fugitive from the Rhode Island police who has two

outstanding felony warrants as well as a misdemeanor warrant.

His legal status bars him from owning guns, but he was

recently seeking to buy an AK-47 assault rifle on [the

website] Armslist and was also trying to trade a Marlin

rifle. He posted photos to his Facebook account of an AK-47

he had already purchased, along with a variety of other guns.

Clearly, the system is broken, and there is room for common sense reform. Indeed, we need to close gaping loopholes in current law which allow the sale of firearms at gun shows or online without accountability or background checks to determine whether the buyer has a criminal record.

The Manchin-Toomey compromise, while not perfect and not my ideal solution, would go a long way toward closing these loopholes. I wish to personally commend both Senator Manchin and Senator Toomey for their bipartisan, and, indeed in many respects, courageous steps to try to make this legislation possible for all of us.

In March of 2004, during the 108th Congress, when Democrats were in the minority, Senator McCain and I worked together on bipartisan legislation to close the gun show loophole. With his great leadership, we passed an amendment 53 to 46, which was one of several successful gun safety amendments. Ultimately, the gun lobby defeated the underlying bill, a bill it originally supported and identified as a top priority. This was because we had managed to pass sensible gun safety measures, at least in the amendments to the legislation.

This is proof that passing sensible legislation to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals is possible with bipartisan cooperation. We have done it.

Gun ownership is a fundamental right in this country, but reasonable limitations on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips are fully consistent with the Second Amendment.

Indeed, in the 2008 majority opinion in the Heller decision, Justice Scalia made clear that the Second Amendment is ``not unlimited'' and is not ``a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.''

Limiting access to military-style weapons and strengthening background checks would help save lives and make our communities safer. We also need to improve access to mental and behavioral health care. One of the ironies is that more often an individual with mental illness is the victim of gun violence or other types of violence than the perpetrator of violence. However, it is still important to take any opportunity to help strengthen our mental health system.

This is why I support the Harkin-Alexander amendment which, among its many provisions, would include my bipartisan youth suicide prevention measure, the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act reauthorization, legislation which was led very courageously and successfully by our former colleague, Senator Gordon Smith. I urge my colleagues to support these amendments and to muster the same kind of bipartisan cooperation Senator McCain, I, and several others had years ago.

It is my wish we can reach a sensible consensus. Indeed, an overwhelming majority of Americans are demanding this. There is no question what the American people want. The question we will settle is are we responding to the American people or are we responding to a very narrow self-interest. I hope we will respond to the American people.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, once again, on July 1, millions of college students will see the interest rate double on their student loans from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent unless Congress takes action. Borrowers will pay an estimated $1,000 more in interest on their loans each year of repayment if Congress fails to act.

Student loan debt is second only to mortgage debt for American families. Now is not the time to add to student loan debt by allowing the interest rate on need-based student loans to double. I am pleased to introduce the Student Loan Affordability Act with my colleagues Senator Al Franken, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Senator Debbie Stabenow, Senator Sherrod Brown, and Senator Bernie Sanders to maintain the current 3.4 percent interest rate for the next 2 years, as we work towards a long-term solution in the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.

Last Congress, we narrowly averted a doubling of the interest rate on need-based student loans. It took thousands of calls, letters, and rallies from students and parents across the country and our concerted effort to negotiate a bipartisan solution. However, we were only able to get a temporary, 1-year fix.

The budget passed by the House Republicans assumes a doubling of the interest rate. In stark contrast, the budget resolution we passed last month accommodates legislation to keep rates low.

We need to come together to develop long-term solutions to the growing burden of student loan debt, the rising cost of college, and the need to improve higher education outcomes so that students complete their degrees and get the full benefit of their investment in education. Everyone agrees that college costs are too high and climbing higher. Families will be priced out of a college education, even with grants and loans, if we do not take real action on curbing cost increases.

What we can do right now is reassure students and families that we will not allow the interest rate to double this July at a time when interest rates are at historic lows.

Student loan debt affects millions of Americans. Two-thirds of the class of 2011 graduated owing student loans, with an average debt of $26,000. Student loan debt has passed the $1 trillion mark--exceeding credit card debt. Moreover, the students and families we are trying to help with the Student Loan Affordability Act have demonstrated economic need. Indeed, approximately 60 percent of the dependent students who qualify for subsidized loans come from families with incomes of less than $60,000.

The question before us is will we make the student loan debt burden worse by allowing interest rates to double or will we take action to protect low and moderate income students.

We need to act fast. July 1 is only 81 days away. I urge all our colleagues to join us in supporting the Student Loan Affordability Act.

Mr. President, today, along with my colleague Senator Whitehouse, I am introducing the Rhode Island Fishermen's Fairness Act of 2013.

For nearly a decade, I have worked to give the fishermen of my state full participation in the management of the fish stocks that they rely on for their livelihoods.

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act established eight regional fishery management councils to give fishermen and other stakeholders the leading role in developing the fishery management plans for federally-regulated species. As such, the councils have enormous significance on the lives and livelihoods of fishermen. To ensure equitable representation, the statute sets out the states from which appointees are to be drawn for each council.

Under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the State of Rhode Island was granted voting membership on the New England Fishery Management Council, NEFMC, as NEFMC-managed stocks represent a significant percentage of landings and revenue for the state. However, while Rhode Island's participation in the New England fishery remains important, its stake in the Mid- Atlantic fishery has become more critical. Yet, it does not have voting representation on the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, MAFMC, which currently consists of representatives from New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina.

Rhode Island's stake in the Mid-Atlantic fishery is hardly incidental. According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, data, Rhode Island accounted for approximately 20 percent of the commercial catch from this fishery in 2012, and its landings are greater than the combined total of landings for the States of New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. In fact, New Jersey is the only state currently represented on the MAFMC that lands more MAFMC-regulated species than Rhode Island.

While Rhode Island is represented on some policy-setting committees on the MAFMC, its position on those committees is not guaranteed nor does the state have a vote on matters as they come before the full council. Having that representation can be critically important to Rhode Island as decisions are made on critical stocks like squid, which comprised 40 percent of the state's annual landings in 2012 according to NOAA data, and is a major part of our commercial fishing sector.

This legislation offers Rhode Island that voice. Following current practice, the Rhode Island Fishermen's Fairness Act would create two seats on the MAFMC for Rhode Island: one seat appointed by the Secretary of Commerce based on recommendations from the Governor of Rhode Island, and a second seat filled by Rhode Island's principal State official with marine fishery management responsibility. To accommodate these new members, the MAFMC would increase in size from 21 voting members to 23.

There is precedent for this type of change. North Carolina was added to the MAFMC through an amendment to the Sustainable Fisheries Act in 1996. Like Rhode Island, a significant proportion of North Carolina's landed fish species were managed by the MAFMC, yet the state had no vote on the council.

With mounting economic, ecological, and regulatory challenges, it is more important than ever that Rhode Island's fishermen have a voice in the management of the fisheries on which they depend. I look forward to working with Senator Whitehouse and my other colleagues to restore a measure of equity to the fisheries management process by passing the Rhode Island Fishermen's Fairness Act.

Mr. President, once again, on July 1, millions of college students will see the interest rate double on their student loans from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent unless Congress takes action. Borrowers will pay an estimated $1,000 more in interest on their loans each year of repayment if Congress fails to act.

Student loan debt is second only to mortgage debt for American families. Now is not the time to add to student loan debt by allowing the interest rate on need-based student loans to double. I am pleased to introduce the Student Loan Affordability Act with my colleagues Senator Al Franken, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Senator Debbie Stabenow, Senator Sherrod Brown, and Senator Bernie Sanders to maintain the current 3.4 percent interest rate for the next 2 years, as we work towards a long-term solution in the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.

Last Congress, we narrowly averted a doubling of the interest rate on need-based student loans. It took thousands of calls, letters, and rallies from students and parents across the country and our concerted effort to negotiate a bipartisan solution. However, we were only able to get a temporary, 1-year fix.

The budget passed by the House Republicans assumes a doubling of the interest rate. In stark contrast, the budget resolution we passed last month accommodates legislation to keep rates low.

We need to come together to develop long-term solutions to the growing burden of student loan debt, the rising cost of college, and the need to improve higher education outcomes so that students complete their degrees and get the full benefit of their investment in education. Everyone agrees that college costs are too high and climbing higher. Families will be priced out of a college education, even with grants and loans, if we do not take real action on curbing cost increases.

What we can do right now is reassure students and families that we will not allow the interest rate to double this July at a time when interest rates are at historic lows.

Student loan debt affects millions of Americans. Two-thirds of the class of 2011 graduated owing student loans, with an average debt of $26,000. Student loan debt has passed the $1 trillion mark--exceeding credit card debt. Moreover, the students and families we are trying to help with the Student Loan Affordability Act have demonstrated economic need. Indeed, approximately 60 percent of the dependent students who qualify for subsidized loans come from families with incomes of less than $60,000.

The question before us is will we make the student loan debt burden worse by allowing interest rates to double or will we take action to protect low and moderate income students.

We need to act fast. July 1 is only 81 days away. I urge all our colleagues to join us in supporting the Student Loan Affordability Act.

Mr. President, today, along with my colleague Senator Whitehouse, I am introducing the Rhode Island Fishermen's Fairness Act of 2013.

For nearly a decade, I have worked to give the fishermen of my state full participation in the management of the fish stocks that they rely on for their livelihoods.

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act established eight regional fishery management councils to give fishermen and other stakeholders the leading role in developing the fishery management plans for federally-regulated species. As such, the councils have enormous significance on the lives and livelihoods of fishermen. To ensure equitable representation, the statute sets out the states from which appointees are to be drawn for each council.

Under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the State of Rhode Island was granted voting membership on the New England Fishery Management Council, NEFMC, as NEFMC-managed stocks represent a significant percentage of landings and revenue for the state. However, while Rhode Island's participation in the New England fishery remains important, its stake in the Mid- Atlantic fishery has become more critical. Yet, it does not have voting representation on the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, MAFMC, which currently consists of representatives from New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina.

Rhode Island's stake in the Mid-Atlantic fishery is hardly incidental. According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, data, Rhode Island accounted for approximately 20 percent of the commercial catch from this fishery in 2012, and its landings are greater than the combined total of landings for the States of New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. In fact, New Jersey is the only state currently represented on the MAFMC that lands more MAFMC-regulated species than Rhode Island.

While Rhode Island is represented on some policy-setting committees on the MAFMC, its position on those committees is not guaranteed nor does the state have a vote on matters as they come before the full council. Having that representation can be critically important to Rhode Island as decisions are made on critical stocks like squid, which comprised 40 percent of the state's annual landings in 2012 according to NOAA data, and is a major part of our commercial fishing sector.

This legislation offers Rhode Island that voice. Following current practice, the Rhode Island Fishermen's Fairness Act would create two seats on the MAFMC for Rhode Island: one seat appointed by the Secretary of Commerce based on recommendations from the Governor of Rhode Island, and a second seat filled by Rhode Island's principal State official with marine fishery management responsibility. To accommodate these new members, the MAFMC would increase in size from 21 voting members to 23.

There is precedent for this type of change. North Carolina was added to the MAFMC through an amendment to the Sustainable Fisheries Act in 1996. Like Rhode Island, a significant proportion of North Carolina's landed fish species were managed by the MAFMC, yet the state had no vote on the council.

With mounting economic, ecological, and regulatory challenges, it is more important than ever that Rhode Island's fishermen have a voice in the management of the fisheries on which they depend. I look forward to working with Senator Whitehouse and my other colleagues to restore a measure of equity to the fisheries management process by passing the Rhode Island Fishermen's Fairness Act.

Mr. President, I wish to recognize the accomplishments of

This bipartisan amendment, cosponsored by Senator Collins, Senator Merkley, and others, would add resources to energy programs for the purpose of increasing support for the Weatherization Assistance Program. It would also include weatherization in the investments under the deficit-neutral reserve fund on clean energy and environmental protection.

Weatherization does several things: It puts people to work, helps low-income people control their energy bills, and helps us move toward energy independence. We need to do more of this, not less. This amendment will put us back on the track of doing more, not less.

I would urge passage of this amendment.

Mr. President, the Marketplace Fairness Act is about leveling the playing field for brick-and-mortar businesses. We have a bipartisan and bicameral bill to do just that. So I am pleased to join Senators Durbin, Enzi, and many of my colleagues in offering this budget amendment today to add a deficit neutral reserve fund to ensure marketplace fairness by allowing States to enforce their State and local sales tax laws.

This is a big issue in Rhode Island, where businesses have a hard time competing against out-of-State retailers because of outdated rules that require shops on Main Street to collect revenue, but their out-of- State online competition does not.

When Internet commerce was still in its early stages online companies were basically exempted from collecting State and local sales tax for sales to States where they do not have a physical presence despite the fact there was an obligation to collect sales tax on those purchases.

This puts Main Street businesses at a competitive disadvantage, hurts the ability of Rhode Island to keep jobs in the State, and has strained State budgets all across the United States.

In 2012, Rhode Island lost out on estimated $70 million in uncollected revenue. Revenue that was owed but because of an outdated Supreme Court decision went uncollected. It is past time that we fix this loophole.

I have talked to a lot of local business owners about this in Rhode Island and many of them say the same thing: Since when is requiring all customers to pay the same sales tax rate a tax increase?

This is a bipartisan proposal. It seeks to keep jobs in our communities, and bring much-needed revenue to strained State budgets all across the United States.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and continued efforts to close this long-outstanding loophole.

I thank them and yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would like to speak on the amendment, but I see the sponsor is here. If he has no objection, I will speak, then ask for a vote.

The Coburn amendment proposes to reduce funding for 49 national heritage areas by $8 million and redirect $6 million to park operations. It also strikes the reauthorization of 12 areas located across the country, including one in my State of Rhode Island but also in Tennessee, South Carolina, and Georgia, among other States.

The amendment doesn't provide a real fix for the problems with respect to national park funding. Moving $6 million is not going to make up for the $134 million cut we have had to impose upon the Park Service.

In addition, there has been some suggestion this would help restore White House tours. Those tours are governed by the Secret Service budget, which is not part of this amendment. So that would not be affected.

These heritage areas are private-public partnerships. They are not national parks. They provide huge economic development. They are located across the country. It is something we should restore, maintain, and not cut.

With that, I would simply add the National Park Conservation Association opposes the amendment, and I ask my colleagues to oppose the amendment.

I want to thank the Senator from Michigan for allowing me to participate in this colloquy. I also

commend her for a thoughtful, insightful, and extremely compelling argument about creating jobs as a way not only to give people a chance to rise in the middle class but also to accomplish our other objective, which is ultimately to reduce the deficit.

As the Senator pointed out, when I was here with her in the late 1990s, we reached the point where we had a projected surplus of perhaps $5 trillion over 10 years. She has catalogued the way in which that surplus has been eroded. What we need to do is focus, as she suggests, on the urgent need to create jobs and ensure our Nation's budget makes investments in growing and strengthening the middle class. We are all here as beneficiaries of the programs and policies of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, which consciously built the middle class and invested in us. Our parents invested in us. We need to do the same thing. She is absolutely correct, the investments we are proposing in this Democratic budget will be critical not only to individual success but to our success as an economy, and as a global competitor. I thank her for her words.

I am here to join her to address this pressing need to create jobs, to strengthen the economic recovery, and to underscore the vast differences between the proposal we are making, and the budget proposed by the House of Representatives, by our Republican colleagues.

Let me state what is a very disturbing figure. There are 12 million unemployed Americans, with 4.8 million of these individuals unemployed for more than 6 months. We are seeing unprecedented levels of long-term unemployment. Americans are struggling to stay in their homes, put their children through school and put food on their table.

In my State we are unfortunately among the top States in a category no one wants to be leading, and that is unemployment. The harsh reality of what we are facing in Rhode Island was brought home with a stunning article in last Sunday's Washington Post. It noted some 180,000 Rhode Islanders, over 15 percent of our population, receive SNAP benefits, supplemental nutrition assistance program benefits. Some are receiving SNAP because they don't have jobs, although they have looked from month to month to month. Some have jobs, but the pay is so little they qualify under the income limits of the SNAP program.

I want to particularly thank the Senator from Michigan for her valiant efforts to increase SNAP funding. Literally we are talking about putting food on people's tables. Fifteen percent of my State of Rhode Island depends on food support to have a healthy diet for them and particularly for their children.

When we talk about what we want to do with the budget, it is about getting people back to work. That is what they want. They don't want a SNAP benefit. They want good jobs. They want the same opportunities, from which we benefited, which helped build a strong middle class. What is their greatest fear? Not just falling out of the middle class, but that their children won't even have a remote chance of middle-class income or a middle-class lifestyle, those opportunities which we in our day took almost for granted. We must turn things around.

As the Senator pointed out, the Republican policy is focused on cutting taxes for the very wealthy. This policy has been demonstrated over the last decade to not produce good-paying jobs for middle-income Americans. However, it does produce very substantial benefits for the wealthiest of Americans.

That is not the way to grow a country. That is not what

many people today and through our history have sacrificed

their lives for. They are not out there serving in

Afghanistan and other places so those who have much could

have more. It is so those who have very little would have a

chance, at least a chance. This is what we are talking about

behind all the numbers. We are talking about investing in

America. We need to make that investment.

The other side of the aisle indulges in what I believe is a fallacy: The only way of fixing the economy is cutting the deficit. But, instead of focusing exclusively on deficit reduction in the near term, we need to pass legislation which will put people back to work, give them a job, give them hope, and give them an opportunity, give them a sense they can make their lives and their children's lives much better.

The Democrats have proposed a series of initiatives over the last several years to do just that, such as tax incentives for small business to hire people, repairing schools, roads, bridges, or tax breaks for low- and middle-income Americans so they may have a little bit more in their paychecks. We have tried to pass these measures but have been frustrated consistently, even though we have the majority, because of filibusters and procedural delays. The American people understand that we need to create jobs. They want us to act. They want us to act to their benefit, not for the very few but for the majority of Americans.

The other approach Republicans espouse is hand-in-hand with this notion of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans is that austerity through spending cuts can grow the economy. That you can cut programs, cut everything, and that will grow the economy.

That is not reality. What we see and what history suggests, when you are cutting during an economic recovery, you are basically counteracting the recovery. You are contracting economic expansion. You are not adding to the momentum of growth, you are subtracting from the growth.

If you want a current example, look across the ocean to Europe and Great Britain. They embarked upon an austerity program several years ago. Most commentators suggest they are in worse shape today than they were 3 or 4 years ago when they started this austerity program. This is the result of cutting, cutting, cutting. If we proceed down that pathway, we will be in worse shape several years from now than we are today. We can be in better shape by investing in our future and by creating jobs.

Another aspect of this too is it is not only the question of filibustering our proposals to create jobs--but that we know in August 2011 there was a real threat to undermine the full faith and credit of the United States, to refuse for the first time in modern history to increase the debt ceiling, to pay the debts which we owed. And the majority of those debts, at least the much of the recent ones, resulted from the previous administration. And so the debt ceiling crisis triggered the whole process which has led us today to sequestration. Now Americans will have to suffer through sequestration. The Congressional Budget Office has already said if we don't reverse sequestration, we will lose 750,000 jobs. Those are the jobs middle- income Americans are expecting and hoping for. We are losing about .6 percent of growth. We will be headed where our friends across the ocean are headed, not expanding but contracting; not increasing employment but decreasing employment. We are worse off because of these austere policies, not better off.

What the Democratic budget does--and my colleague from Michigan has outlined it very well and with great articulation, that the way you should deal with these issues is through a balanced approach--a balance of revenue and spending cuts which will not harm our economy. That is what we did in 1993 and 1994 when I was a Member of the House of Representatives. President Clinton came to us and said: Here it is, we are going to cut spending and we are going to raise revenue. And we passed it by one vote in the House, one vote in the Senate--not one Republican vote, but still by one vote here and one vote in the House of Representatives. That set the stage for the later efforts that finally led not only to a balanced budget but to a surplus, and that is the approach we have to adopt today. It's an approach that works.

The Republican budget calls for a total of $4.6 trillion in cuts and would leave the sequester in place. So it would compound the damage of the sequester. The Republican budget has also been estimated to provide millionaires an average tax cut of $400,000. Once again, the big winners in this proposal are the wealthiest Americans, not those who are struggling to put food on the table, to get a job, to see their children have a better future. And, again, the Republican budget refuses to responsibly address the $1 trillion sequester. They provide nearly $6 trillion in tax cuts that, again, overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest Americans, but don't address the $1 trillion sequester. So essentially their

budget is compounding the difficulties we have in growing this economy and creating jobs.

I will be happy to yield.

Those are the estimates I have received, and I believe they are reliable. Many commentators have looked at the budget and concluded that this represents a remarkable reduction in taxes for the wealthiest Americans.

And once again, it shouldn't come as a surprise because, as we recall--and I was here in 2001, when I voted against the Bush tax cuts--the mantra back then was that they are the job creators; just cut those taxes and those jobs will grow. But we saw during the Bush administration one of the poorest private job creation records of any President since World War II. And here Republicans are repeating the same line, as they say, deja vu all over again: Cut the taxes, and magically the jobs will grow. But, you grow jobs by having a balanced approach and through investment in human capital and physical capital, such as roads and bridges, and also by having the revenue to be responsible so you pay your way.

Well, no. In fact, there was a front page story today, I believe, in one of the major newspapers declaring the fact that they are home from the battlefront and are now in the unemployment line. So we are seeing a remarkable number of veterans who are unemployed. And these are men and women in their twenties. They certainly want to work. They worked very hard defending this country, yet now they are coming home and have significant levels of unemployment.

That is one of the real problems, as well as our need and our obligation to support veterans health care, particularly mental health care, to support the Veterans' Administration.

The irony, of course, is that we are seeing even higher levels of unemployment, in some cases, among young veterans than we are in the population at large. That is particularly bitter and ironic for those people who have served and sacrificed and are continuing to serve and sacrifice.

Senator.

I would like to reemphasize the point the Senator from Michigan has made and Senator Murray has made, which is that we have been down this road before. We can't simply cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans to magically create jobs. What it produced in reality was a huge deficit, along with two unfunded wars. But that seems to be the message again from the other side--let's just cut taxes and then, of course, cut spending too. That is not the balanced approach we need in the Nation. That is not the balanced approach that in the 1990s, as my colleague pointed out, got us to a surplus, got us to a sense that we were really moving forward and that the middle class had a chance, that their children would have a better life. And that is what we have to do again.

When I look at my State of Rhode Island, I can cite a myriad of examples of the harm that would be caused by the Republican budget. The budget they are proposing, which leaves the sequester in place would result in about a $4.5 million cut in Federal support for our public schools. I can tell you that every city and town in Rhode Island is struggling just to keep the lights on. If they lose $4.5 million of Federal aid, that is going to make it even harder. And do you know what happens? Well, guess what happens to property taxes. They go up. And not just Rhode Island, all across the country because one of the ironies here is that every mayor understands that ultimately they have to balance their budgets, and so they will raise taxes and they will cut spending. But they will do it, hopefully, in a balanced way, similar to what we are espousing in our approach to the budget.

Now, we also have a situation where, if we look at the Republican budget, there are all sorts of abstract cuts--nondiscretionary domestic spending, et cetera--that translates into real harm, and that affects real lives. For example, there is an estimated $3.3 trillion in cuts to programs that benefit low- and middle-income Americans. Of that $3.3 trillion, $2.6 trillion are cuts to Medicaid and subsidies that help modest-income American families across the country to get health insurance. As I mentioned before, there is a projection--and the Senator is an authorizer for this program--of $135 billion being taken out of the SNAP program.

Again, let me go back to last Sunday's Washington Post story. Fifteen percent of the people in Rhode Island depend on this to help them get just adequate nutrition including children--and we are going to cut $135 billion out of this? And on the other side of the spectrum, we are giving a $400,000 tax cut or more to the wealthiest Americans? That is not fair, and it is not good economics. We can't have a generation of children who have been deprived of good nutrition, who have been deprived of good housing; if we do, we are not going to have the productive workers who will lead this Nation forward in this century and beyond. These spending cuts and tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans just do not make any sense. It doesn't balance the books, and it doesn't keep our obligation to the majority of Americans to give them a fighting chance.

Our budget, in contrast, has $100 billion in projects to put Americans to work and repair the worst of our crumbling bridges and roads. There is not

one of our colleagues who can't find some 20 or even more bridges in their State that require repair right away, and that would put hundreds of people to work productively and would increase the economic efficiency of our Nation.

Let me give an example. We had a major portion of I-95, the north- south road in Rhode Island--north-south right past Providence- Pawtucket, RI. for several years being rebuilt. The good news is that it is being rebuilt, but before we could rebuild, we had to divert truck traffic, which meant they couldn't efficiently deliver their loads. We had to station State police 24 hours a day to prevent the trucks from going there. So we had to engage all those individual law enforcement officers because the bridge couldn't support basic travel. We are now close to completing the whole project so we should no longer have to have State troopers out there 24 hours a day, and truckers no longer have to take a 20-mile detour to deliver their loads. When we talk about infrastructure, we are talking about economic efficiency as well as putting people to work. The Democratic budget does this.

I think we have also made very difficult choices--tough choices--in making sure that we are paying our way, that we are paying down the deficit and doing it in a way that doesn't cost us the recovery and creating the jobs we need right away.

I commend Chairman Murray because she has done a remarkable job of shepherding this bill through, of balancing so many complicated issues and making sure we have kept faith with the Americans who sent us here. They just want a chance. They just want to be able to think that their child is going to have a better life than they have had. I think this budget goes much further than our colleagues' to give them that chance, to give them that hope, and to give them that opportunity.

With that, I yield back to the Senator from Michigan.

Madam President, before I begin, I want to thank Chairwoman Mikulski. She has demonstrated both leadership and resolve in her new role and in assembling this bill under very challenging circumstances.

Overall, this bill provides a total of $1.043 trillion for discretionary spending, and it reflects a number of reductions that the Appropriations Committee had to make in order to accommodate the $4 billion cut to the discretionary spending caps mandated by the January agreement on the so-called ``fiscal cliff.'' In addition, because of a point of order raised by Senator Toomey last year, the emergency designation was removed for $3.5 billion in disaster and mitigation funding in the Superstorm Sandy appropriations bill. I opposed this point of order because I believe disaster funding should be treated as an emergency, as it has been in disasters past. Because we fell three votes shy of the 60 needed to waive the point of order, we must now absorb $3.5 billion in cuts in this bill. That will have real impacts on critical programs.

Moreover, I am deeply disappointed we have not been able to come up with a commonsense and balanced solution to turn off sequestration. These crippling across-the-board spending cuts 7.8 percent for defense programs and 5 percent for domestic discretionary programs will be applied to virtually every discretionary program in this bill. If left unaddressed, they will translate into an estimated 750,000 fewer jobs across this country, including in my home State of Rhode Island, where the unemployment rate is just under 10 percent.

I was one of a majority of Senators who voted for a reasonable solution to replace sequestration with a balanced mix of revenues and spending reductions. I am frustrated that a minority in this Chamber blocked this plan, which would have prevented the self-inflicted job losses and economic pain of sequestration. Now, in order to avoid a government shutdown on March 27, we must forge ahead and pass the best appropriations bill we can, despite these limitations.

Even in the face of these limitations, the Senate bill represents a better path because it makes responsible investments and saves jobs.

Without the funding provided in this bill to meet the funding levels promised in MAP-21, last year's transportation authorization bill, we would lose an additional 25,000 jobs. As chairman of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, I worked to provide $2.4 billion in funding for clean water and drinking water projects, $336 million more than the President requested. This investment, when combined with state matches and leveraging, will support 849 projects and 130,000 jobs.

Let me turn to the Interior title of this continuing resolution in more detail. The CR provides $29.8 billion, which is an increase of $650 million over the Subcommittee's FY 2012 allocation.

While that amount is a 2 percent increase, most of it, approximately $600 million, is needed to fully fund the 10-year average for fire suppression. In addition, we must also absorb the cost of $423 million appropriated as part of the September continuing resolution to repay fire borrowing that occurred in FY 2012.

Even though the subcommittee's allocation rose, so did the costs of programs we must fund. The House was able to avoid tough decisions for the

Environmental Protection Agency and Interior funding in its CR because it had an even larger allocation for this title. But it only accomplished that by shortchanging other important investments in other titles, including transportation, child care, education, health research, police, and firefighters.

Lest anyone be confused by the House's new-found commitment to the EPA and other environmental priorities, one should only review the devastating cuts it made to these programs in its initial FY 2013 committee-reported Interior Appropriations bill.

With the resources available and the challenges we face, I believe we in the Senate have funded all agencies in the Interior Appropriations title fairly, and we have still been able to achieve a number of important environmental goals.

As I have already noted, we have been able to provide a solid level of funding for infrastructure through the clean water and drinking water State revolving funds.

We were able to hold funding levels steady for grants that help States run their environmental programs at $1.1 billion. These funds create jobs at the State level and provide for enforcement of our Federal pollution control laws.

As I mentioned, we also fully funded the 10-year average of fire suppression for both the Interior Department and Forest Service, in anticipation of a tough fire season.

We were able to include $53 million in new funding to hire doctors, nurses, and support staff at newly constructed Indian Health Service facilities. These funds will allow seven facilities to open their doors to patients that would otherwise sit vacant.

I am pleased to say this bill also includes language to extend the authorizations of 12 national heritage areas so they will continue to receive their partnership grant funding from the National Park Service.

We want to make sure these heritage areas continue to thrive, so I am proud we were able to extend their authorizations in this bill. And it is worth noting that these grants don't require new funding they are already paid for within the existing National Park Service budget.

This is important in my State, with the John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor, but for many others, as well.

Finally, land and water conservation funding is sustained at the FY 2012 level of $322 million.

Of course, there are tradeoffs within this bill, and places where we had to sustain cuts below the FY 2012 enacted level.

This is in part due to the hand we were dealt by the President in the budget he submitted for FY 2013. We accepted cuts proposed by the administration for several programs, including construction programs and Superfund.

The Senate bill funds the EPA at $8.34 billion, which, while a reduction of $107 million from the FY 2012 level, is the amount requested by the President for FY 2013. Additionally, the Senate bill spares the agency from the debilitating cuts set in the FY 2013 House Interior bill, which funded the EPA at a level that is $1.29 billion less than FY 2012. Yes, that is a billion.

Unfortunately, however, those reductions alone were not enough to meet our obligation to provide an approximately $1 billion increase for fire. We had to make cuts to other operating programs in the bill cuts that I know will only be more difficult because they will come in addition to sequestration.

Before I conclude, I want to address a few other aspects of this bill and the consequences of continuing resolutions and the sequester.

A major reason we are now confronting such huge deficits is the utter collapse of our financial markets beginning in 2008. Some of this collapse occurred because parts of our financial system were either lightly or barely regulated such as our derivatives and subprime mortgage markets.

However, we also learned the severe costs of having an under- resourced and outmatched Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

I still remember an April 2008 hearing with former SEC Chair Christopher Cox, in which he stated the SEC didn't need more resources meanwhile Bernie Madoff was scamming more and more victims in the largest Ponzi scheme in history, and Lehmann Brothers was levered 30-1 and hiding its precarious financial condition through repurchase agreements.

By starving the SEC and CFTC of resources, we are repeating the mistakes of the recent past.

The CFTC is already suspending its examinations of key market participants and ``shelving'' enforcement actions because of budget constraints. The impact of static funding along with the sequester will further erode its oversight. Indeed, under the CR, the CFTC will operate with a budget that is 37 percent less than the administration says it needs.

The case of the SEC is more disturbing. While subject to appropriation, the SEC has no impact on the deficit since its expenditures are offset by transaction fees applied to the industry. With the impacts of the sequester, the SEC will operate at 20 percent less than the administration has requested. This failure to appropriately fund the SEC will do nothing to improve the fiscal situation. At the same time, our economy and our capital markets will be more vulnerable. That makes no sense.

If we want American markets to be the most liquid, transparent, efficient, and orderly in the world, we need to provide the cops on the beat--the SEC and CFTC with an adequate and stable source of funding.

I also want to speak about the impacts CRs can have on specific programs because they offer no nuance or flexibility. That has been shown to be the case this year with the Weatherization Assistance Program, a program that creates jobs and helps provide energy efficient retrofits to low-income individuals and families.

President Obama described the program this way in a 2009 interview: ``[Y]ou're getting a three-fer. Not only are you immediately putting people back to work but you're also saving families on [their] energy bills and you're laying the groundwork for long-term energy independence. That's exactly the kind of program that we should be funding.''

Under the Recovery Act, we invested $5 billion in this program, which annually received only $175 to $200 million. As the program worked through this infusion, funding for the regular program was scaled back. In FY 2013, funding will be only $68 million even before the sequester is applied. Since there will no longer be carry-over from earlier years, there will not be enough funding to mount a viable program in all 50 states. That's not only regrettable, it is also counterproductive to our goals to create jobs and increase energy efficiency. I hope we can work with the Department of Energy to find ways to sustain the program in 2013 as we seek to address the shortfall in 2014.

Finally, while this should be the case for all of our spending priorities, I want to note that this package includes a full defense appropriations bill that provides DOD with the funding for programs it needs. I am particularly pleased that the bill provides funding to build two Virginia-class submarines in FY 2013 and to purchase equipment for two submarines in FY 2014, which will ensure that we will have the capital resources and workforce in place to move forward. This also retains thousands of good paying jobs for highly skilled workers in my State and elsewhere.

There is much to comment on about the tough choices we have had to make in this bill and the sequester cuts that loom over every discretionary program. Given the very challenging circumstances we face, Chairwoman Mikulski has done her best to craft a bill that can clear the Senate and hopefully get to the President's desk so that we can avoid a government shutdown, which would be even more disastrous.

Yes, that is correct.

Yes, I will welcome the opportunity to work with the Senator and our colleagues here in the Senate on priority needs within the Interior bill, including American Indian and Alaska Native health and education issues, to the extent possible given the overall budget constraints we face.

Madam President, I would ask my colleague, Senator Mikulski, Chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, if she would join me and our colleague Senator Collins in a colloquy on the Weatherization Assistance Program.

I thank the Chairwoman.

I know a major reason that the Chairwoman wants to get back to regular order is that continuing resolutions are blunt instruments that do not allow for the adjustments for specific programs. One place where that has played out is in the Energy and Water Development bill, specifically with respect to the Weatherization Assistance Program.

I know the chairwoman has long supported the weatherization program, which helps provide energy efficient retrofits to low-income individuals and families. It also provides jobs, which is so important given the continuing challenges in our economy.

President Obama described the program this way in an interview in 2009, ``[y]ou're getting a three-fer. Not only are you immediately putting people back to work but you're also saving families on [their] energy bills and you're laying the groundwork for long-term energy independence. That's exactly the kind of program that we should be funding.''

Under the Recovery Act, we made a one-time investment of $5 billion in this program, which has historically received $175 to $200 million in annual appropriations. As the program worked through this infusion, funding for the regular program was temporarily scaled back. In FY 2013, funding for the program will be only $68 million even before the sequester is applied. Since there will no longer be carry-over funds available, there will not be enough funding to mount a viable program in all 50 States. That is regrettable, particularly when the Senate bill contained $145 million, $6 million more than the budget request. It is also counterproductive to our goals to create jobs and increase energy efficiency.

I would ask the Chairwoman if she would work with us and the Department of Energy to find ways to sustain the program through appropriate reprogramming so that it does not cease to be a 50-State program. I would also ask if she would work with us in fiscal year 2014 to see how we can support this important initiative. Before I yield to the Chairwoman to respond, I would ask Senator Collins if she would like to comment.

I thank the Chairwoman for that response. I look forward to working with her, Senator Collins, and others to support this program in fiscal year 2013 and during the fiscal year 2014 funding cycle.