Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I am reintroducing the Adult Education and Economic Growth Act of 2012. This bill will address the critical needs in our workforce by investing in adult education, job training and other workforce programs needed to build a strong and competitive 21st century workforce. I am pleased to be joined in this initiative by Senators Jack Reed and Sherrod Brown. An identical bill has been reintroduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman Hinojosa.

By almost any measure, our Nation faces a critical need to strengthen existing programs of adult education. Our current adult education system falls short in preparing our people to compete globally. In fact, fewer than 3 million of the 93 million people who could benefit from these services actually receive them.

The U.S. labor market has changed dramatically with the advent of new technology and with the loss of jobs in the manufacturing sector. The need for well-trained and highly skilled workers has increased. At the same time, our adult education system, which should effectively prepare our low-skill workers to meet the demands of this shifting economy, has not kept pace with this changing workforce.

Since 2002, the Federal Government has consistently decreased funding for adult education. In addition, the Nation's primary Federal resource for adult education, job training and employment services, the Workforce Investment Act, has not been reauthorized for more than 10 years. Only about one in four adults with less than a high school education participates in any kind of further education or training.

There are other signs pointing to the need for a better approach to adult education. Consider adult education enrollment rates. In 1998 there were more than 4 million individuals enrolled in adult education programs. In 2007, enrollments had dropped to just 2 million. This is a 40 percent drop from when the Workforce Investment Act was originally enacted in 1998.

A growing number of U.S. skilled workers are facing retirement age and the growth in skilled labor force has stagnated. Addressing the looming skills shortage in many sectors and regions in the U.S., through reinvestment in our adult education system, will result in an educated and literate adult population.

According to the Workforce Alliance, 80 percent of jobs in today's economy require some education beyond a high school degree. Yet there are 8 million adults in the workforce who have low literacy, limited English proficiency, or lack educational credentials beyond high school.

With so many workers who are unemployed or underemployed, it is clear that we should invest in the training or re-training of U.S. workers to fill this growing gap.

Our legislation begins the vital task of addressing these problems.

Today, we are proposing a four-pronged approach to strengthen the Nation's workforce. First, we want to build ``on ramps'' for American workers who need new skills and a better education in order to improve their lives. Currently our adult education programs are operating in silos and it is critical that we improve the adult education system through partnerships with businesses and workforce development groups. Just as importantly, we want to encourage employers to help them, by offering tax credits to businesses that invest in their employees. This government has long provided employers with limited tax credits when they help their employees go to college or graduate school. It is basic logic and to the national good, that we should provide similar incentives for basic adult education.

Second, we must modernize the delivery system of adult education by harnessing the increased use of technology in workforce skills training and adult education. The bill provides incentives to states and local service providers to increase their use of technology and distance learning in adult education. Many adult learners cannot afford the time or money to travel to a classroom and deploying technology will help meet this need.

Third, our bill establishes stronger assessment and accountability measures.

This bill authorizes a rather modest $500 million increase in funding to invigorate state and local adult education programs nationwide to increase the number of adults with a high school diploma. As a result, the bill will inevitably increase the number of high school graduates who go on to college, and update and expand the job skills of the U.S. workforce. All of this is relevant to my longstanding personal goal of promoting basic economic fairness in our society.

Other provisions of the Adult Education and Economic Growth Act will improve workers' readiness to meet the demands of a global workforce by providing pathways to obtain basic skills, job training, and adult education.

The act will provide workers with greater access to on-the-job training and adult education by encouraging public-private partnerships between government, business and labor.

The act will improve access to correctional education programs to channel former offenders into productive endeavors and reduce recidivism.

The act will encourage investment in lower skilled workers by providing employers with a tax credit if they invest in their employee's education. This tax credit is aimed at encouraging general and transferable skills development that may be in the long term interest of most employers but are not always so clearly rewarded by the market.

This act focuses on addressing the unique needs of adults with limited basic skills, with no high school diploma, or with limited English proficiency. Those individuals who may have taken a different path earlier in life, and who now find themselves eager to go back to school and receive additional job training and skills, should be provided opportunities to get back on track.

I encourage my colleagues to support this important endeavor. Our Nation's workforce and local communities will be stronger for it.

Mr. President, today I am reintroducing the Adult Education and Economic Growth Act of 2012. This bill will address the critical needs in our workforce by investing in adult education, job training and other workforce programs needed to build a strong and competitive 21st century workforce. I am pleased to be joined in this initiative by Senators Jack Reed and Sherrod Brown. An identical bill has been reintroduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman Hinojosa.

By almost any measure, our Nation faces a critical need to strengthen existing programs of adult education. Our current adult education system falls short in preparing our people to compete globally. In fact, fewer than 3 million of the 93 million people who could benefit from these services actually receive them.

The U.S. labor market has changed dramatically with the advent of new technology and with the loss of jobs in the manufacturing sector. The need for well-trained and highly skilled workers has increased. At the same time, our adult education system, which should effectively prepare our low-skill workers to meet the demands of this shifting economy, has not kept pace with this changing workforce.

Since 2002, the Federal Government has consistently decreased funding for adult education. In addition, the Nation's primary Federal resource for adult education, job training and employment services, the Workforce Investment Act, has not been reauthorized for more than 10 years. Only about one in four adults with less than a high school education participates in any kind of further education or training.

There are other signs pointing to the need for a better approach to adult education. Consider adult education enrollment rates. In 1998 there were more than 4 million individuals enrolled in adult education programs. In 2007, enrollments had dropped to just 2 million. This is a 40 percent drop from when the Workforce Investment Act was originally enacted in 1998.

A growing number of U.S. skilled workers are facing retirement age and the growth in skilled labor force has stagnated. Addressing the looming skills shortage in many sectors and regions in the U.S., through reinvestment in our adult education system, will result in an educated and literate adult population.

According to the Workforce Alliance, 80 percent of jobs in today's economy require some education beyond a high school degree. Yet there are 8 million adults in the workforce who have low literacy, limited English proficiency, or lack educational credentials beyond high school.

With so many workers who are unemployed or underemployed, it is clear that we should invest in the training or re-training of U.S. workers to fill this growing gap.

Our legislation begins the vital task of addressing these problems.

Today, we are proposing a four-pronged approach to strengthen the Nation's workforce. First, we want to build ``on ramps'' for American workers who need new skills and a better education in order to improve their lives. Currently our adult education programs are operating in silos and it is critical that we improve the adult education system through partnerships with businesses and workforce development groups. Just as importantly, we want to encourage employers to help them, by offering tax credits to businesses that invest in their employees. This government has long provided employers with limited tax credits when they help their employees go to college or graduate school. It is basic logic and to the national good, that we should provide similar incentives for basic adult education.

Second, we must modernize the delivery system of adult education by harnessing the increased use of technology in workforce skills training and adult education. The bill provides incentives to states and local service providers to increase their use of technology and distance learning in adult education. Many adult learners cannot afford the time or money to travel to a classroom and deploying technology will help meet this need.

Third, our bill establishes stronger assessment and accountability measures.

This bill authorizes a rather modest $500 million increase in funding to invigorate state and local adult education programs nationwide to increase the number of adults with a high school diploma. As a result, the bill will inevitably increase the number of high school graduates who go on to college, and update and expand the job skills of the U.S. workforce. All of this is relevant to my longstanding personal goal of promoting basic economic fairness in our society.

Other provisions of the Adult Education and Economic Growth Act will improve workers' readiness to meet the demands of a global workforce by providing pathways to obtain basic skills, job training, and adult education.

The act will provide workers with greater access to on-the-job training and adult education by encouraging public-private partnerships between government, business and labor.

The act will improve access to correctional education programs to channel former offenders into productive endeavors and reduce recidivism.

The act will encourage investment in lower skilled workers by providing employers with a tax credit if they invest in their employee's education. This tax credit is aimed at encouraging general and transferable skills development that may be in the long term interest of most employers but are not always so clearly rewarded by the market.

This act focuses on addressing the unique needs of adults with limited basic skills, with no high school diploma, or with limited English proficiency. Those individuals who may have taken a different path earlier in life, and who now find themselves eager to go back to school and receive additional job training and skills, should be provided opportunities to get back on track.

I encourage my colleagues to support this important endeavor. Our Nation's workforce and local communities will be stronger for it.

Under the previous order, the Senate stands adjourned until 11 a.m. on Tuesday, January 10, 2012.

Thereupon, the Senate, at 11 and 32 seconds a.m., adjourned until Tuesday, January 10, 2012, at 11 a.m.

Mr. President, 70 years ago today at 0745 in the morning in Hawaii--where it is now about 0840 in the morning--our country was attacked at Pearl Harbor bringing us into World War II. It was a war that had been ongoing in Europe for more than 3 years, and in Asia, in different forms, for a much longer period, probably 7 to 8 years.

This began a national effort that was historically unprecedented in its unity and in its vigor in which the United States astounded the world in terms of its capacity to respond to this attack on many different fronts. Our economic production was staggering by 1943. Our production schedule included 125,000 aircraft, 75,000 tanks, 35,000 antiaircraft guns, and 10 million tons of merchant shipping.

During the course of that war, the productive capacity of this country gave our allied forces more than half of all of its armaments, including 86 percent of the armaments that were used in response to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

I rise today to express my thanks and my appreciation to the men and women of that generation who stepped forward and responded to the call of service in this period. During World War II more than 16 million Americans stepped forward to serve our country. In that period more than 400,000 of them died, including 291,557 who were killed in action. Another 670,846 were wounded in action. Out of those 16.1 million, today about 1.7 million World War II veterans remain alive. They are carrying the torch and the memory of this larger group who stepped forward and served and became known as the ``greatest generation.''

It is my profound pleasure and, quite frankly, my duty to remember all of them today. Among those 16 million who served, nearly 8 million were able to take advantage of the World War II GI bill. It was my honor to have introduced a similar GI bill on my first day in the Senate in 2007. Within 16 months, our body and the other body

had come together to agree on an educational package that would allow those who served since 9/11 to have the same chance at a first-class future as those who served during World War II. It is a program that will pay their tuition, buy their books, and give them a monthly stipend.

On this day of remembrance, for those who served during World War II, we should also remember that for every dollar that was spent on the World War II GI bill, our Treasury received $7 in tax reimbursements because of the ability of the ``greatest generation'' to have successful careers and to contribute to our economy.

So today I would just like to say, as one of many of us here who are the next generation from the ``greatest generation,'' how thankful I am for the service they gave and for the example they set when they returned from war. For many of us--me--they were our parents, they were our mentors, they were our role models, they were our leaders as we ourselves matured into leaders. They taught us how to love our country. They taught us how to value the notion of service. Their legacy is in every area of our society today.

We honor them and we should resolve, all of us, to continue in the traditions that were imbued in us by their sacrifices and the example they set when they returned from a most difficult war.

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

Mr. President, I would like to say that I believe the Senator from Colorado has a good point. I say that as someone who is a strong supporter of military commissions, who in many cases has aligned himself with my good friend the Senator from South Carolina and Senator McCain as well on these issues. To me, this is not a jurisdictional issue, and it is not an issue about whether we should be holding people under military commissions under the right cases or under military detention under the right cases.

My difficulty and the reason I support what Senator Udall is doing is in the statutory language itself. I say this as someone who spent a number of years drafting this kind of legislation as a committee counsel. I have gone back over the last 2 days again and again, reading these sections against each other--1031 and 1032 particularly--and I am very concerned about how this language would be interpreted, not in the here and now, as we see the stability we have brought to our country since 9/11, but what if something were to happen and we would be under more of a sense of national emergency and this language would be interpreted for broader action.

The reason I have this concern is we are talking here about the conditions under which our military would be sent into action inside our own borders. In that type of situation, we need to be very clear and we must very narrowly define how they would be used and, quite frankly, if they should be used at all inside our borders. I think that is the concern we are hearing from people such as the Director of the FBI and the Secretary of Defense.

I am also very concerned about the notion of the protection of our own citizens and our legal residents from military action inside our own country. I think these protections should be very clearly stated. There is a lot of vagueness in this language.

What the Senator from Colorado is proposing is that we clarify these concepts--that we take this provision out and clarify the concepts. Protections are in place in our country. We are not leaving our country vulnerable. In fact, I think we are going to make it a much more healthy legal system if we do clarify these provisions.

That is the reason I am here on the floor to support what Senator Udall is saying. I know the emotion and the energy Senator Levin has put into this, and I respect him greatly. I happen to believe we need to do a better job of clarifying our language.

I spent 16 years, on and off, writing in Hollywood. One of the things that came to me when I was comparing these sections is that this is kind of the danger we get in when we get to the fourth or the fifth screenwriter involved in a story. We want to fix one thing and we are not fixing the whole thing.

I greatly respect the legitimacy of the effort that is put into this. But when we read section 1031 against section 1032, there are questions about what would happen to American citizens under an emergency. Let's take, for instance, what happened in this country after Hurricane Katrina. It is not a direct parallel, but we can see the extremes people went to under a feeling of emergency and vulnerability. We had people who were deputized as U.S. marshals in New Orleans, and we could see them on CNN putting rifles inside people's cars, stopping them on the street, going into people's houses, making a decision--which later was rescinded--that they were going to take people's guns away from them. The vagueness in a lot of this language will not guarantee against these types of conduct on a larger scale if a situation were more difficult and dangerous than it is today.

Section 1031, which Senator Levin mentioned, may be clear to the administration but it is not that clear to me, when they talk about a covered person. This isn't simply al-Qaida, depending on how one wants to interpret it, in a time of national emergency. It is a person who is a part of or who substantially supported al-Qaida, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act. We might be able to agree to what that means here on the Senate floor today, but we don't know how that might be interpreted in a time of national emergency. I am not predicting that it will; I am saying we should have the certainty that it will not.

OK. Similar concerns also revolve around the definitions in terms of the applicability of U.S. citizens and lawful resident aliens when we go to the words ``requirement does not extend.'' What about an option? These are the types of concerns I have. We should have language that very clearly makes everyone understand the conditions under which we would be using the U.S. military inside the borders of the United States.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise as the chairman of the Subcommittee on Personnel of the Armed Services Committee to speak on our bill. I would like to begin my comments on this national defense authorization by saying what a privilege and an honor it has been to work with Chairman Levin and Senator McCain.

I say this as someone who spent 4 years as a committee counsel in another era and then another 5 years in the Pentagon, 4 of them as Assistant Secretary of Defense, and Secretary of the Navy working with the Congress, and finally as a Member of the Senate. I believe Chairman Levin is the epitome of what a chairman, a full committee chairman of the Senate should be.

I have known Senator McCain for many years. As one would expect, we have not agreed on some political issues. But I have also enormous regard for Senator McCain as well. I would like to also thank members of the Personnel Subcommittee, especially the ranking member, Senator Graham, for the work they have done in preparing this legislation. I would also like to thank our staff: Gary Leeling, John Clark, and Brie Fahrer for all of the hard work they have done in order to bring this bill forward.

Members of the Personnel Subcommittee, as well as our colleagues on the full committee, have worked together in a collaborative way to improve the quality of life of our men and women in uniform and of their families. Senator Graham and I share the goal of doing everything we can to address the needs of our active duty, National Guard, and Reserve members, DOD civilian personnel, and their family members. They have answered every call and met every mission asked of them with selfless service.

The Personnel Subcommittee provisions in this bill are a result of a bipartisan team effort. The bill includes many provisions important to the quality of life for our service members and their families. I would like to highlight just a few:

The bill authorizes $174.6 billion for military personnel and health care, $5.1 billion more than what Congress authorized last year, and $480 million under the President's budget request;

the bill authorizes an across-the-board military pay raise of 1.6 percent, which matches the annual increase in the Economic Cost Index. I understand that all of America is suffering in these economic times, and the Federal workforce is currently under a pay freeze. However, this pay raise for our service members reflects their unique conditions of service and special sacrifices on behalf of the Nation during the prolonged combat operations of the past 10 years;

the bill reauthorizes more than 30 types of bonuses and special pays aimed at encouraging recruiting and retention of the highest caliber individual;

the bill authorizes fiscal year 2012 active-duty end strength of 562,000 for the Army; 325,700 for the Navy; 202,100 for the Marine Corps; and 332,800 for the Air Force;

the bill authorizes a total of $30 million for supplemental impact aid, including $25 million for heavily impacted schools, and $5 million for schools with military children with severe disabilities;

the bill authorizes service secretaries to mobilize Reserve component units and personnel for preplanned and budgeted missions to enhance the use of the operational Reserve;

the bill requires the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, to develop a comprehensive policy on the retention of and access to evidence and records relating to sexual assaults involving service members;

the bill prohibits the denial of reenlistment of a service member who has been determined by a Physical Evaluation Board, PEB, to be fit for duty but who is subsequently determined to be unsuitable for continued military service for conditions considered by the PEB;

the bill also includes important provisions that will help the Department achieve cost savings and realize efficiencies in its military personnel and health care accounts, including:

reducing the overall active-duty end strength by almost 10,000, and authorizing force management tools to facilitate further force reductions planned over the next several years;

consolidating and reforming the existing statutory framework related to travel and transportation allowances for services members, their families, and other authorized travelers to achieve efficiencies and savings in the travel area;

requiring hostile fire pay and imminent danger pay be prorated based on the number of days spent in a qualifying area; and

requiring that beneficiaries newly enrolled in the Uniformed Services Family Health Plan transition to TRICARE for Life when they become eligible for Medicare, the same as all other military retirees.

Finally, I wish to highlight what I consider to be the moral contract we have with the men and women of the military who volunteer to wear the cloth of our Nation in military service.

While the department properly insists on providing the highest quality health care, an imperative reflected in the provisions of this bill, we are also mindful of sharply rising health costs. As the Secretary of Defense testified earlier this year, there has been a nearly three-fold increase, 276.3 percent, in Defense health care costs over the last decade, from $19 billion in 2001 to $52.5 billion in the President's budget request this year.

A number of factors have driven this increase, including several important enhancements to the TRICARE program and other initiatives specifically focused on meeting the medical and health-care needs of a force that has been subjected to the unrelenting strain of 10 years of combat operations.

It is important to note, however, that such cost increases are not unique to the Department of Defense. Similar cost growth has also occurred in civilian health care programs during the same period. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, total U.S. health expenditures from 2000 to 2009 have increased by 181 percent, from $1.37 trillion in 2000 to $2.48 trillion in 2009.

My colleagues on the subcommittee and full committee considered this issue very carefully during our mark-up of this bill. I believe we have struck a reasonable and appropriate balance. This bill does not prohibit the pharmacy copayment changes, for example, or TRICARE Prime enrollment fees proposed by the administration, but it does limit annual increases in the Prime enrollment fee to the cost of living increase in retired pay, beginning in fiscal year 2013.

Looking ahead, I believe the Department of Defense can reduce its health care costs in a number of ways, including more efficient operations. Those options should be explored carefully before contemplating major changes to today's program for the sake of so- called budget efficiencies if we are to maintain our moral contract with our service members.

I know that many of my colleagues plan to offer a number of amendments to this bill, and I look forward to working with them to make this bill even better.

Congress has passed a defense authorization bill for 49 consecutive years. I urge my colleagues to make it 50 and pass this important legislation as quickly as possible.

I point out that we have done the best job we can do in terms of bringing a bill to the floor that will take care of the needs of the men and women who serve in our military and the national security needs of our Nation. I know we are going to go into a period pretty soon where we are going to be going through the defense budget as well as the other areas of the expenditures of this country.

I just hope people will keep in mind, as we start making comparisons with military service versus civilian service, that military service is unique in this country in more ways than sometimes we recognize. I remember when I first came to the Senate hearing the report of the Dole-Shalala Commission on Military Compensation. There was a great deal of comparison with respect to how they develop compensation analysis in the civilian sector.

Something we have to remember when we look at the areas of the U.S. military, particularly on the manpower personnel side, is a person cannot pick their job. Many people come in because they want to spend a portion of their lives serving their country. They cannot decide, if they do not like who they are working for, that they want to leave. They cannot quit their job. They cannot decide they do not want to be transferred if they are being sent to a place they do not want to go. By the way, they might get shot at, blown up, or killed.

This is a unique environment. We tend to forget this when budget cuts come or when the hostilities fade away, that we have an obligation to be the lifetime stewards of the people who have stepped forward and put themselves on the line on behalf of our country.

There are provisions in this authorization bill that relate particularly to our basing system in Asia. I have spent a good part of my life working on these issues. I would like to say right at the outset that I strongly advocate a strategy-driven review of all of our bases around the world. I think we need to do a zero sum analysis based on our strategy as to which bases we should keep in operation and which ones perhaps we should not. But there is a unique situation that exists at the moment in terms of the vital interests we have as the key balancing force in Asia, and we have been working on this.

We have developed--the chairman, Senator McCain, and myself have worked very hard to develop language in this legislation that would call for an independent review of the basing proposals that have been on the table in Korea and Okinawa and Guam. Particularly, with the situation on Okinawa, this has become an issue that is larger than simply American military bases in Japan. The inability of our two governments to have come up with a workable solution to the basing system on Okinawa has created one of the most difficult domestic political situations inside Japan today. This has been going on for 15 years. There have been 15 years of uncertainty. We need to move forward in a timely manner. It cannot be kicked down the road any longer.

We have a formula inside this authorization bill which will allow independent eyes to come in and do an analysis of where these bases need to go, sort of a step away from the turf protection one often sees among the military services inside the Pentagon. There is also going to be considered, possibly as early as later today, an amendment that will allow the Chief of the National Guard Bureau to become a full member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

I oppose this amendment. I am going to take some time to explain this. I realize this is a moving train. I think we have 70 cosponsors on this amendment. But I have offered a second-degree amendment which would basically say let's take a timeout. Let's get another look. Let's look at the potential implications of putting the Chief of the National Guard Bureau as a full member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

I say this as someone who has, as all of us, a tremendous regard for what the National Guard has been doing not only over the past 10 years but through the course of our entire history. One tends to forget, because of the lack of the use of the National Guard during the Vietnam war, that our history has been marked by instances of the National Guard stepping forward to serve during war. They were the preponderance of our military forces in World War I and World War II once mobilization was declared. They sent 100,000 people into Korea.

Again, I say this as someone who spent 3 years as the principal adviser to the Secretary of Defense and Guard and Reserve programs when Cap Weinberger was Secretary of Defense. I was the First Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs.

The National Guard is a unique composite. To put the Chief of the National Guard Bureau as a full member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in my view and in the view of all of the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Defense, would be confusing. In the words of Secretary Panetta, it ``would not improve upon this advisory function or advance the statutory purpose, rather it would introduce inconsistencies among the JCS members and potentially negatively affect the formulation of an integrated joint force by fostering the impression that the National Guard is a separate service.''

All of the Joint Chiefs agree on this position. In fact, the hearing we had on this issue was the only hearing in modern memory where all of the Joint Chiefs showed up to state their views.

I ask unanimous consent that letters from the Joint Chiefs, from the Secretary of Defense, and from two of the three Service Secretaries be printed in the Record stating that opposition.

The administration also opposes this amendment. Senator Graham mentioned during the committee hearing that candidate Obama, at a National Guard Association convention, expressed his support for this idea. But President Obama has yet to offer his support for this idea. In fact, the Secretary of Defense, as I mentioned, has stated his strong opposition. If the President is inclined to support this idea, perhaps he should clarify that for us.

The Chief of the National Guard Bureau already has extraordinary access at the table. There have been some questions about bringing the National Guard to the table. He has extraordinary access at the table. He, in fact, is the only chief of any department in the Pentagon who does not have to report to a Service Secretary. He reports to the Secretary of Defense right now.

The other Reserve components report through Service Secretaries--the Army Reserve, as opposed to the Army Guard; the Air Force Reserve, the Navy Reserve, the Marine Corps Reserve, and the Coast Guard Reserve, through the Coast Guard process.

They are all represented at the table in the Joint Chiefs without having to be members of the Joint Chiefs.

I remind my colleagues that what we are proposing here is statutorily doable if this body wishes to do it. But it is going to be bureaucratically awkward in the Pentagon if it were to occur. You are going to put into position on the Joint Chiefs of Staff an individual who is not a service chief.

During the committee hearing, Senator Graham and others mentioned an article I had written in 1972 in the Marine Corps Gazette calling for the Commandant of the Marine Corps to become a full member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I am actually quite flattered that someone would recall an article I wrote 39 years ago when I was a 25-year-old Marine Corps captain. But the point of the article actually is the reverse of what we are talking about today. The point of that article was that the Marine Corps is a separate service--a completely separate service. The Marine Corps wears a separate uniform than the Navy. The Marine Corps was being represented on the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the same way as, say, naval aviation. This is not true with the National Guard. The Air National Guard wears the uniform of the U.S. Air Force. When they are mobilized, they are a part of the Air Force. The Army National Guard wears the uniform of the U.S. Army. When they are brought into Federal service, they are wearing the same uniform.

We made a lot of this when I was Assistant Secretary for Reserve Affairs--talking about one Army, one Air Force. You cannot tell the difference when their units are called up and they are put together.

So what are we doing when we say there should be a position on the Joint Chiefs of Staff for an individual who is not a service chief? What does that say, for instance--let's think about this--about Special Operations Command? The Special Operations Command--a lot of people are writing about it right now because of the activities they have been doing over the past 10 years and the fact that they have pretty well quintupled the people on the ground. The Special Operations Command is not a separate service. People are saying and writing that they act as a separate service, but they are made up of members of the other services. They are put together by the CINC, and they are fed by the service chiefs based on policies developed at the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In 1986, going into 1987, when I was Assistant Secretary of Defense, there was a constitutional confrontation that occurred when a lot of Governors in the United States were being pressured by political groups that did not support the policy of the Reagan administration in Central America. What they started doing was lobbying the Governors of the different States in their role as commander of the militia--the National Guard--saying that the Governors should not be sending National Guard troops, or their militia, into Central America. At one point, Secretary Weinberger turned around to me and said that we have 40 percent of the National Guard in the United States potentially nondeployable to Central America because the Governors in States such as California and Ohio said they weren't going to send their National Guard troops to Central America. We had a long and divisive argument over this. It took place for almost a year.

Finally, we worked with Sonny Montgomery, who was ``Mr. National Guard'' in the House of Representatives, for whom I had worked years before. We got a piece of legislation that said the Governors cannot do that; that the Governor, even though he or she is commander of the militia, cannot stop deployments when the Pentagon decides they should deploy. This went all

the way to the Supreme Court. The National Guard lost. We clarified, in that Supreme Court decision, the supremacy of the Army clause of the Constitution over the militia clause of the Constitution--basically, that the needs of the Army, the needs of the U.S. military, active-duty military, when calling up these units, superseded the desires of a Governor.

I would say that that principle still would be in effect today and still should be recognized in the way the National Guard is fed into our active-duty Army units and Air Force units when they are being deployed. And they are well represented on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff emphasized this, and every one of them discussed the confusion and the potential inequality among other reserve components if this amendment were to succeed.

I have enormous respect for Senator Leahy. I consider him to be a great friend. I know he is not particularly happy with the statement I am making right now. I hope people will take a hard look at the amendment I am offering, which says let's take a timeout and look specifically at the effects that this positioning of a chief of guard as a member of the Joint Chiefs would have on the principles of civilian control, accountability, and of someone who is not subject to the oversight of a confirmed secretary of the military department, and a number of other issues.

With that, on the remainder of the bill I express my strong support and my respect and admiration for Chairman Levin, Senator McCain, and the other members of the committee.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Neely Marcus Silbey of Senator Murray's staff be granted floor privileges for the duration of the 112th Congress.

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

Mr. President, 11 days ago, all but four of the Republicans in this body filibustered a commonsense piece of legislation that would have created a national commission designed to bring together some of the best minds in America to examine our broken and frequently dysfunctional criminal justice system and to make recommendations as to how we can make it more effective, more fair, and more cost-efficient.

This legislation was the product of more than 4 years of effort. It was paid for. It would have gone out of business after 18 months. It was balanced philosophically. It guaranteed equal representation among Democrats and Republicans in its membership. It was endorsed by 70 organizations from across the country and from across the philosophical spectrum--from the National Sheriffs' Association, the Fraternal Order of Police, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, to the ACLU, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and the Sentencing Project.

I must say that at first I was stunned by this filibuster at the hands of 43 Republicans. But on the other hand, it is impossible not to notice over the past 2 years the lamentable decline in bipartisan behavior in this body, even in addressing serious issues of actual governance. I say this with a great deal of regret, both personally and politically.

I think I can fairly say there is no one in this Chamber who has tried harder to work across party lines. In fact, one of my Republican friends joked not long ago that I was the only ``nonpolitical'' Member of the Senate. I spent 4 years in the Reagan administration as an Assistant Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Navy. I am proud of that. I consciously sought out Senators John Warner and Chuck Hagel as two of my three principal cosponsors when I introduced the post- 9/11 GI bill.

I voted with the Republicans 17 times during the health care debate. I was the only Member of Congress in either party or in either House to send a letter to President Obama, when he claimed he would come back from the climate change summit in Copenhagen with a politically binding agreement, stating my belief the President did not have the constitutional authority to bind the American people to an international agreement without the approval of the Congress. I have taken issue with this administration with respect to closing down our facilities at Guantanamo. I have consistently opposed any tax increases on ordinary earned income.

I took that same bipartisan approach when I introduced the criminal justice commission bill in 2009, obtaining the cosponsorship of a number of Republicans, including Senators Lindsey Graham and Orrin Hatch, both of whom serve on the Judiciary Committee. The filibuster of a commonsense measure that might assist this Nation in resolving the national disgrace that now comprises our criminal justice system is a sad metaphor for the obstructionism that is too frequently replacing commonsense leadership in our national debate.

We spent more than 4 years reaching out to all sides of the philosophical spectrum. We worked with liberals, we worked with conservatives, we worked with law enforcement, we sought the views of many Republicans, and we also worked in close coordination with the other body. Toward that end, it is interesting to note that in the last Congress, the House of Representatives approved the same legislation by a voice vote. It was not even considered controversial. In fact, Congressman Lamar Smith, a Republican, now the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, was a cosponsor of the legislation.

But let us speak frankly. In the aftermath of the 2010 elections and in anticipation of the 2012 Presidential election, the mood in this historic body has frequently become nothing short of toxic. In that environment, even this carefully developed and much needed legislation is suddenly considered controversial and not only controversial, it was also alleged to be unconstitutional.

Just before the vote, Senator Coburn of Oklahoma said: ``We're absolutely ignoring the U.S. Constitution if you do this.''

Senator Hutchison from Texas said: ``This is the most massive encroachment on States rights I have seen in this body.''

With all due respect, I am pretty comfortable with the legal education I received at Georgetown University Law Center. I care about the Constitution. I keep a copy of the Constitution on my desk, and I refer to it frequently. I think I have a pretty good idea of what is in it and what is not and there is nothing in the Constitution that precludes the Congress from asking some of the best minds in America to come together and to give us advice and recommendations on the entire gamut of challenges that face our criminal justice system. Certain Senators may not like that idea. That is their prerogative. They may not even want to hear the advice. They may not even want to believe there is a problem in our criminal justice system. But to claim the Constitution precludes this process is nothing short of absurd.

In fact, our national leadership has received such advice before, most notably in 1965, during the Johnson administration, which is the last time we have had a comprehensive examination of our criminal justice system.

I am not alone in this judgment. Over the past 11 days, there have been a number of editorials and articles pointing out the unfortunate nature of this filibuster: Sunday, masthead editorial, New York Times; Sunday, masthead editorial, Washington Post; a very observant article in the Politico the day of the vote; editorial, Newsday. The lead editorial in the Virginian-Pilot in my home State reads: ``Senate Negligence on Crime Reform.'' Very interestingly, an article in the National Review--one of the most conservative magazines in the United States--is titled: ``An Absolute Scandal.'' The first sentence of that article reads: ``The insane refusal of 43 Senate Republicans to back the National Criminal Justice Act.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record at the end of my remarks all these articles I have referred to.

Mr. President, for nearly 2 years, our legislative process has too often become sidetracked by what can only be termed an ``indiscriminate obstructionism.'' A lot of good ideas have fallen by the wayside, having become hostages in the larger debate about who should comprise our national leadership and how we should solve long- term problems, such as our fiscal crisis. This larger debate has affected the willingness of many in the other party to come together and address a number of serious issues of governance that should be resolved no matter who is President and no matter how we end up addressing the economy. I would ask my friends on the other side of the aisle to think hard about the overwhelming frustration across our country with the persistent failure of the Congress to address these kinds of issues.

Nowhere is the need to think creatively for the good of the country more clear than where it affects our dysfunctional criminal justice system, the challenges of which threaten the safety and the well-being of every single community and every single American. This system will not be fixed by sticking our heads in the sand and pretending not to see its failings. It will only be fixed by bringing together the good minds of those who have dedicated years of thought and action to finding answers. That is what we have been trying to do. Unfortunately, that is what we were stopped from doing by this filibuster.

People in this country are looking for leadership, and obstructionism is not leadership. We will continue to pursue this effort, and I would ask my Republican colleagues to join the unanimous position of the Democratic Party as we do.

Exhibit 1

[From The New York Times, Oct. 30, 2011]

Editorial: Falling Crime, Teeming Prisons

Senator Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, has a smart

proposal to create a bipartisan commission to review the

nation's troubled criminal justice system and offer

recommendations for reform. The National Criminal Justice

Commission Act would be a valuable first step toward reducing

crime as well as punishment. Unfortunately, Senate

Republicans derailed the bill recently, with some falsely

claiming that it would encroach on state's rights.

As a means of controlling crime, America's prisons are

notoriously inefficient and only minimally effective, often

creating hardened criminals out of first-time offenders. The

United States has 5 percent of the world's population, yet 25

percent of the world's prisoners. In the past generation, the

imprisonment rate per capita in this country has multiplied

by five. There are 2.3 million Americans in prisons and

jails. Spending on prisons has reached $77 billion a year.

While crime has gone down notably, just 10 to 25 percent of

the decline can be credited to the increase in imprisonment.

The rest is from the waning of the crack epidemic, the aging

of the baby boomers and other factors.

Even as the prison population has grown, less than half of

the inmates are serving time for violent crimes. Far too

often, prison has become a warehouse for people with drug or

alcohol addiction. More than half of the population has some

form of mental illness. Without proper addiction and

psychiatric treatment, many end up back in prison soon after

their release.

The incarceration rate has had a devastating effect on

minority communities. African-Americans, who make up one-

eighth of the population, now make up about 40 percent of

those in prison. African-American

men have a one-in-three chance of spending a year or more in

prison. The trend affects whole communities, depressing

earnings and increasing recidivism.

There are, however, ways to end this cycle of

incarceration. This could be done by reducing sentences for

nonviolent offenses, ending mandatory minimum sentences and

cleaning up drug markets nationally. Reasonable senators

should support the bipartisan commission that Senator Webb is

calling for, which would cost only $5 million and could help

bring about compelling reforms.

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

I would like to spend some time today addressing the amendment I have introduced, which is pending--it will be voted on later this morning or early this afternoon--which would establish a national commission to address the issue of criminal justice in our country.

I would like to begin by thanking the senior Senator from Maryland for her comments earlier this morning and her strong support of this legislation. I also wish to thank the majority leader and, I believe, a majority of our Democratic caucus who cosponsored this legislation in the last session.

This is a bill that was put together over a period of 4\1/2\ years. It is not so much politics as it is leadership in terms of how we address the issue of criminal justice in the United States. We had the support last year, we continue to have the support, I believe, and the cosponsorship on the Republican side of Senator Graham. Last year, Senator Hatch and Senator Snowe also cosponsored this legislation. It passed the House in the same form we are introducing it today by voice vote, with the cosponsorship of Lamar Smith, who is now the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. It was voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee last year.

This is a very important moment in terms of how we are going to resolve a lot of the pending issues with respect to law enforcement in this country.

I wish to start off by saying that my motivation in getting involved in this issue stems first from the time I spent as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, where one of the strongest leadership principles that was ingrained in every marine was that in order for a system to function, it has to be firm but also fair, and also from my time as a journalist preceding the time I have spent here in the Senate.

It is the product of 4\1/2\ years of work, outreach, and listening. We have listened to more than 100 organizations from across the country, across the philosophical spectrum. We have listened to our colleagues on the other side. We have adapted the legislation to ensure that this is balanced politically, so we can set politics aside and get into the complex issue of how we resolve the broken points in our criminal justice system.

Our criminal justice system is broken in many areas. We have some strong work in local areas, with people trying to help fix these problems, but we need a national commission in order to take a look at the criminal justice system from point of apprehension all the way to reentry into society of people who have been incarcerated. We have not had this overarching national look since 1965.

What are the two boundaries that affected my approach to this? I would like to lay them out very quickly.

The first is that we have entered a period from the 1980s forward where we have tended to overincarcerate for a lot of nonviolent crimes. This is a chart that goes from 1925 to today. Beginning in the 1980s, our incarceration

system skyrocketed to the point where there are now 2.38 million people in prison in the United States. Seven million people are involved in the criminal justice system on one level or another of supervision from our authorities.

The second is that Americans don't feel any safer for all of this incarceration and for the approach that it has taken. Survey after survey from the last decade indicates that the average American community feels more threatened this year than it did last year. Two- thirds of Americans believe crime is more prevalent today than it was a year ago.

This is a leadership question. How do we fix it? Whom do we go to in order to find the answers so we can have the kind of advice that is very difficult to obtain in a holistic way so that Congress can move forward and the country can move forward and solve this problem?

This legislation is paid for. It is sunsetted at 18 months--very similar to the legislation Senator McCaskill and I put together going after the problems in wartime contracting, which now, after a 2-year sunset period, has reported out very important improvements in looking at a system in Iraq and Afghanistan that resulted in $30 billion to $60 billion of fraud, waste, and abuse. We put a commission together, we brought in good minds to help us solve the problem, they came in with recommendations, and we are going to fix that problem as best it can be fixed.

It is balanced philosophically and politically. I would ask my colleagues when the last time was that we had law enforcement lining up with people who were generally believed to be on the other side philosophically--the ACLU, NAACP, et cetera--all coming together and saying the same thing. This needs a national commission. This needs to be fixed.

In terms of law enforcement, we have the strong support of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Sheriffs' Association, the Fraternal Order of Police, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, the National Narcotics Officers' Association, the National Association of Counties, the National League of Cities, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and the National Criminal Justice Association.

There are a few quotes in terms of supporting this legislation that I would ask my colleagues from both sides to consider.

Chief Michael Carroll, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said:

For more than 20 years, the IACP has advocated for the

creation of a commission that would follow in the footsteps

of the 1965 Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement . . .

The IACP believes that it is imperative that the National

Criminal Justice Commission Act be approved in a timely

fashion. For far too long our Nation's law enforcement and

criminal justice system has lacked a strategic plan that will

guide and integrate public safety and homeland security.

Chuck Canterbury, the national president for the Fraternal Order of Police:

Law enforcement has changed a great deal in the last few

decades. We believe establishing a national commission . . .

will only help law enforcement officers do their jobs more

effectively, more efficiently, and more safely.

Sheriff B.J. Roberts, president of the National Sheriffs' Association:

. . . make the creation of a national commission all the more

necessary to ensure law enforcement . . . has the tools and

knowledge necessary to adapt to the continually evolving

justice system. The NSA commends . . . this work on this

critical issue. We look forward to supporting you to pass

this bill.

Criminal justice experts from across the philosophical spectrum:

Chuck Colson, founder of the Prison Fellowship:

I write from the perspective of a conservative who has

always been comfortable as a reformer . . . I don't believe

this is an ideological issue at all, but one on which people

of good will, conservative and liberal alike, could join

forces to make prisons more effective, humane and successful.

Brian Walsh, the Heritage Foundation:

Reform experts who are serious about criminal justice

reform should . . . reach out to elected officials on both

sides of the aisle.

Mark Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project:

A new approach to crime prevention is necessary and the

time for reform is upon us. The commission created by this

legislation would establish an organized and proactive

approach to studying and advancing programs and policies that

promote public safety, while overhauling those practices that

are found to be fundamentally flawed . . . We strongly urge

passage of the National Criminal Justice Act.

Professor Charles Ogletree, Harvard Law School:

The comprehensive, timely and important bill . . . will go

a long way toward addressing some of the severe inequities in

the criminal justice system. This effort should be pursued

with great vigor to ensure that we not only hold offenders

accountable, but that we implement criminal justice policies

that are sensible, fair, increase public safety and make

judicious use of our State and Federal resources.

I am grateful that this legislation has been offered as an amendment on this appropriations measure. Again, it is paid for. It is sunsetted. It is balanced philosophically and politically. We listened very carefully to our colleagues from the other side of the aisle to incorporate their suggestions as this legislation moved forward. It passed the House last year, and I earnestly hope people from both sides of the aisle will support this legislation when it comes to a vote later today.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, this bill is the result of 4\1/2\ years of work and outreach and listening to the other side, incorporating recommendations from across the political spectrum. It is paid for. It is sunsetted at 18 months. It is balanced philosophically and politically. Contrary to some of the comments that were made, this does provide for equal participation from both parties.

It has been endorsed by more than 70 national organizations, including almost all of the law enforcement organizations in America: International Association of Chiefs of Police, National Sheriffs Association, Fraternal Order of Police, National Association of Counties, National League of Cities, U.S. Conference of Mayors.

It is time for us is to move forward to get the comprehensive advice from the best minds in America in terms of how to fix our broken criminal justice system.

I urge a ``yes'' vote, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. President, I ask the time.

This is not an encroachment. I wouldn't support an encroachment. It actually convenes the best minds to give recommendations.

Mr. President, I wish to thank my colleague from Oklahoma for giving me the courtesy of speaking, and I thank him again for the work he has done on the Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on East Asian Affairs, where he is the ranking Republican, and the other work he has done on the Armed Services Committee.

Today I rise to speak about the National Criminal Justice Commission legislation which I introduced more than 2 years ago and which the leader and the managers of this bill are now going to offer as an amendment to the pending legislation. First of all, I thank the leader and the managers of the bill for calling up this legislation. I also thank my principal Republican cosponsor, Senator Lindsey Graham, for all the work he has done.

There are good national commissions and bad national commissions and redundant national commissions and sometimes there are national commissions which are not only needed but vital to the resolution of issues we face.

I am thinking, as I speak, of the first Commission on Wartime Contracting which Senator Claire McCaskill and I introduced 4 years ago and which resulted in a finding of approximately $30 billion in fraud, waste, and abuse in contracts that had gone to Iraq and Afghanistan and which provided a model for the way we should be approaching such contracts in the future. I would put this particular national commission in that category. It was put together after much thought and many hearings. It is paid for, it is sunsetted at 18 months, and it is dedicated to helping us resolve an issue of very serious national purpose.

I began on this issue before I came to the Senate--the issue of the imbalance in our criminal justice system and the need to bring a comprehensive resolution in terms of how we handle crime and reentry in this country. We have had more than 2\1/2\ years of hearings since I came to the Senate. After I introduced this legislation, we met--at staff levels, since I am not on the Judiciary Committee--with representatives from more than 100 different organizations across the country and across the philosophical spectrum.

This chart is an indication of the type of support we have received for this commission. I will not read the names, and I don't expect anyone viewing the TV screen to be able to read all the names, but this is an unusual circumstance. We have organizations as philosophically diverse as the ACLU, the NAACP, the Sentencing Project, the National Organization for Victim Assistance, the ABA Criminal Justice Section, the National Center for Victims of Crime, along with the Fraternal Order of Police, the National Sheriffs Association, and the International Association of Chiefs of Police, which all agree we need to step forward and examine our criminal justice system in a comprehensive way, from point of apprehension to point of return, so that we make better use of our assets and make better use of our own people, quite frankly.

Today we incarcerate more people than any other country in the Western world or in any known country in the world. We have 2.3 million people in our prisons and jails and another 5 million people on probation or in some way under postcorrectional management. Hundreds of thousands of people are being released from jails and prisons every year and reentering society, and at this point we are without a comprehensive structure that will allow those who wish to become productive citizens again the opportunity to have the right kind of transition.

At the same time, we have 7 million people under some form of correctional supervision or in prisons and we don't feel any safer. This is the other beam our analysis has ridden as we looked at this. Even today, if we ask Americans, two-thirds of the people in this country believe crime is more prevalent today than it was a year ago.

So we were tasked--we tasked ourselves--with looking at this problem to try to figure out how we can do a better job of addressing the issue of criminal justice, spending less money. We are now in a situation where State and local budgets have been stretched to the breaking point. Professor Western of Harvard estimates that annual correctional spending right now is about $70 billion, with State spending on corrections increasing 40 percent over the past 20 years.

We are witnessing a war on our border with respect to gang warfare. Since President Calderon launched an offensive against drug gangs and cartels in 2006, tens of thousands of people have died in drug trafficking violence along the border. It is estimated that these cartels are now operating in more than 230 cities and towns in the United States. These entities need to be examined in the context of transnational gang activity as they relate to our criminal justice system.

We are also largely housing our Nation's mentally ill in our prison system. The number of mentally ill in prison right now is nearly five times the number of mentally ill in inpatient mental hospitals. Noted experts have cited jails and prisons as the No. 1 holding facility for the mentally ill.

So the conclusion we reached, after listening to dozens of representatives from different organizations across the philosophical spectrum, was that we need to have a long-overdue, top-to-bottom, beginning-to-end examination of how the criminal justice system works in the United States from point of apprehension to the decision of whether to arrest. And, if arrested, what sort of port does a person go into? How long should that person be in prison? What should prison administration look like, and how could that be better adapted? What models do we have out there that can be applied? What should reentry programs look like, and how do we deal with the ever-increasing problems of transnational gangs? We need to examine all of those pieces together.

The last review of this nature that was undertaken was done in 1965 by President Lyndon Johnson. So I introduced the National Criminal Justice Act, the goal of which is to create a blue ribbon national commission, time sunsetted--18 months--to get the finest minds in the country together to examine these different pieces and to come back to the Congress with specific recommendations for reforming our national criminal justice system.

Just last week, in a meeting of the Senate law Enforcement Caucus, Philadelphia Police Chief Charles Ramsey noted the tremendous influence of this last commission's report, which was reported in 1967--44 years ago--and voiced strong support for the creation of a new commission. We are long overdue to look at what works and what doesn't in our criminal justice system.

This bill has, quite frankly, struck a nerve across the country. I have heard from citizens across all 50 States in support of this initiative. I mentioned

the list of supporting organizations, including judges, lawyers, police, public health officials, educators, academics, prisoners, civil rights organizations, and people who are simply concerned about making our criminal justice system better, more fair, and more adaptable to solving the issues of the true criminal population in the United States.

So, again, I express my appreciation to Majority Leader Reid for working with the managers of this bill and bringing this amendment to the pending legislation, and I trust that it will be a noncontroversial, $5 million, paid-for study that will, in the end, help us resolve the many fallacies that now pervade our criminal justice system.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, first, let me say there is a great deal the Senator from Connecticut just said that we are in nearly full agreement on. I find it ironic that we are probably going to cancel ourselves out on these two votes later in the day, for essentially the same reasons that the Senator just gave. I thank the Senator for his comments, and particularly on this second piece of legislation which I have been struggling with and in exactly the same way the Senator from Connecticut has.

I wish to begin my comments today by expressing my strong support for the majority leader in terms of how he handled a very difficult discussion on Thursday night.

I think we can all agree that the Senate at times has become quite dysfunctional over the past couple of years. I was very interested to hear Senator Corker's comments. He and I arrived at the Senate at the same time, and I empathize with a lot of the comments he was making, although I guess looking for accountability depends on which end of the telescope you are looking through.

For me, looking at the situation we faced on Thursday night, we have to start with the reality that these were not serious amendments that were being offered at the end of the debate of this piece of legislation. They in many ways epitomize the paralysis of serious debate here in this body and how it affects all of our ability to get serious things done. Only one of those nine proposals was germane, and that was the proposal from my good friend Senator Hatch. They were not relevant. This is what the majority leader is being faced with time and again. We are talking about one amendment on the bill with respect to China currency that wanted to talk about the regulation of nuisance dust. We had another one that wanted to talk about the use of pesticides in navigable waters, and another one that wanted to talk about EPA regulation on cement manufacturing. There may be a time and a place for that kind of discussion; but if you look at the impact of this type of--and I have to agree with the majority leader's characterization--this type of dilatory conduct, it prevents responsible, germane legislation from moving forward.

I will give you one example from my own attempt to amend this bill, and that was the amendment I offered last week that would have prohibited American companies from transferring intellectual property and technologies that were developed with the assistance of the American taxpayer to such countries as China that require technology transfer as a matter of doing business there. That amendment is not going to get a vote. I believe that amendment is something that most people in this body and most Americans would want to see passed. But because we have been in this state of paralysis, these types of issues have been deflected off the screen, off the debate on the Senate floor, and now we are moving forward with a bill that doesn't have these sorts of issues in it. I am going to vote for this bill, by the way.

With respect to the jobs bill, I wish to make a couple of comments here, first associating with some of the comments that Senator Lieberman made. But also, there is an issue here with respect to economic fairness and the disparity in this country between top and bottom that I don't think is being properly debated in the context of this bill.

In the end, as Senator Lieberman pointed out, I strongly believe the way to bring good jobs back is to improve our economy in the private sector, and that means more capital investment.

Winston Churchill once said something to the effect that, You can't tax your way out of an economic downturn any more than you can pick up a bucket if you are standing in it.

There is a lot of money out there. The Senator from Connecticut mentioned that. We can't control whether that money is going to be invested, but we can work to incentivize conduct that might encourage investment. I think people on both sides need to set aside the partisan debate that is going on looking into next year's election and work toward that end.

At the same time, there are two difficulties I have with this legislation. The first is the timing. Senator Lieberman was very eloquent in his concerns about the timing of this bill, with the supercommittee working on these issues in a larger context, getting ready to report out within the next month or so. Senator Corker made a very valid point that I hadn't thought about, and that is that we have worked--and I have been one of those who has worked--to bring these free-trade agreements to fruition. We have a very short window with the President of South Korea arriving this week and hopefully having a free-trade agreement passed by the time he makes his presentation to a joint session of the Congress.

But there is another issue, and that is the pay-for. We are talking about this millionaire surcharge, this 5.6 percent that would be put on top of these other tax increases for the ``millionaires.'' But in many cases, this isn't even a tax on the wealthiest Americans it is designed to reach.

Let me preface what I am going to point out here by saying I believe I have been one of the loudest and most consistent voices on the issue of economic fairness and executive compensation in this body. I raised it in every speech during my Senate campaign. I put it on the table nationally when I responded to President Bush's State of the Union Address in 2007. I put the issue of the disparity in executive compensation from when I graduated from college when a CEO was making 20 times what the average worker makes, to today, when it is about 400 times. I introduced a windfall profits tax after it became clear that the money we put into TARP was going to be used to unjustly reward executives from the companies that had been bailed out by our taxpayers. This was a very narrowly focused bill that said, If your company got $5 billion or more, you could get your compensation, you could get a $400,000 bonus, and anything after that you had to share with the people who bailed you out because they were bailing out the economy. I couldn't get a vote.

Let's be fair. I couldn't get a vote because neither side wanted a vote. People don't want to take a vote on something that is that directly related to how they finance their campaigns. That is the honest truth. I didn't get a vote on it, but I think my record on this issue is absolutely clear.

One thing I have stated from the first moment I ran for office is that I do not believe we should raise taxes on ordinary earned income. When this proposal was first put in front of the American people, there was a part of it in the pay-for that was called the Warren Buffet rule. But what I just said is the Warren Buffett rule--and it has been misrepresented in this debate. Warren Buffett has the same position.

My understanding of his position, and I have read it very carefully, is that we should not tax ordinary earned income. In fact, he made a clarification about a week ago. This is Warren Buffett on the Warren Buffett rule:

My program would be on the very high incomes that are taxed

very low. Not just high incomes. Somebody making $50 million

a year playing baseball, his taxes won't change. If they make

a lot of money and they pay a very low tax rate, like me, it

would be changed by a minimum tax.

How do we do that, and does it matter? It matters a whole lot because we are not talking about this distinction when we are addressing issues of fairness in society, the true nature of what has happened at the very top in this country.

The proposal of the President looks good at first glance; it sounds good on a TV bite. But in all respect to the people who put it forward, I do not believe it is smart policy, and it does not go where the real economic division lies in our country. This is what Warren Buffett is talking about.

If we look at the top .1 percent of our taxpayers, the very top, two- thirds of the money they take in is from capital gains and dividends. Only one-third is from wages.

What does that mean with respect to this surcharge we are going to put down? This is what the surcharge on earned income for millionaires will do: It will bring the tax on ordinary earned income from 35 percent--first, under the assumption of 39 percent, which is the failure to renew the Bush tax cuts--and then to 45.2 percent, someone making wages.

Who is in this category? Very few people. Let's say someone is an athlete, as Warren Buffett mentioned, and they have 3 or 4 years in their career where they can make the money. They are going to get their income, because it is ordinary earned income, taxed at 45 percent of everything they make, just for the Federal taxation, at the same time that capital gains tax, which is where two-thirds of the top .1 percent of our earners make their money, is going to stay at 15 percent. That is what Warren Buffett is talking about.

He is sitting here saying: I make my money off of stock sales, basic transactions where I get capital gains, and I am at 15 percent. My secretary is paying double what I am. The people who have ordinary earned income are going to pay three times the rate of what somebody is making on capital gains, and that is two-thirds of what the people at the very top make.

If we went after capital gains--let's just say, notionally, let's say we allow the Bush tax cuts to expire on capital gains but keep them on ordinary earned income. This margin would be 35 percent of ordinary income versus 20 percent. What would that do? According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, over 5 years they could recoup $402 billion. That is almost as much as this other surcharge could make over 10 years in order to pay for this legislation.

Most important, we are going into issues of fairness that we have been trying to bring to the table; that is, to truly focus on those at the very top who have benefitted the most from what has happened in what is frequently becoming a fractured economic society.

I am going to vote the exact opposite way the Senator from Connecticut is going to vote, but I think he and I share many of the same concerns. It is just how we get there. If people are ready to discuss capital gains, moving it back up to what it was, from 15 to 20 percent--if we are willing to discuss capital gains, I will know we are serious. If we are not willing to discuss capital gains, I think we have seen this movie before.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 11, 2011, at 4 p.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs' Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 11, 2011, at 2:30 p.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Labor-Management Forums in the Federal Government.''

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

I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes and that following my remarks, Senator Barrasso be recognized.

Mr. President, I wish to speak for a few minutes about an amendment I introduced that, in my view, gets to the heart of some of the more troubling Chinese trade policies that are threatening the economic security and the long-term competitiveness of our country.

It is well known that many American companies operating in China are required to transfer their intellectual property and proprietary technology to China as a prerequisite for doing business in that country. I will repeat that they are required to transfer this technology. Despite assurances from the Chinese leadership earlier this year that this was no longer ``official'' Chinese policy, China does continue to be aggressive and overt in its pursuit of foreign intellectual property as it seeks to develop its own, what it calls indigenous innovation. Companies such as General Electric and Westinghouse, among many others, have been required to transfer proprietary technology to Chinese counterparts in order to do business there.

If a private company has developed technology on its own and it makes a business decision to transfer that technology to a joint venture partner in a place such as China, unless there are national security issues, we are obligated to respect the free marketplace. They may be seeking short-term profits at the expense of long-term competitiveness, but that is a business decision. But it is a different case when the American taxpayer has financed the development of these technologies through Federal funding assistance, and I do not believe it is appropriate to allow those technologies simply to be given away to other countries.

Every American owns a piece of intellectual property that has been financed through taxpayer assistance. Federal dollars that go to R&D funding, loan guarantees, and public-private partnerships in order to help develop the next generation of technologies here are supposed to be making American businesses competitive and generating American jobs, not helping develop other industries such as those in China. My amendment would prohibit that practice.

Last year, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce issued a report entitled ``China's Drive for Indigenous Innovation.'' The Chamber noted that China's master plan for the development of science and technology ``is considered by many international technology companies to be a blueprint for technology theft on a scale the world has never seen before.''

The report went on to state that China's ``persistent'' intellectual property theft is ``compounded by the indigenous innovation industrial policies which compel technology transfers in order to have access to the China market.''

The New York Times recently reported that Ford Motor Company is looking to share proprietary technologies for electric vehicles in exchange for selling cars in China. The electric vehicle sector has been developed through Federal R&D funding, loan guarantees, and public-private partnerships--costs borne by American taxpayers. In 2009, for instance, Ford Motor Company received a $5.9 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy to advance its vehicle technology manufacturing program.

We see these types of transfers in other industries as well. The Washington Post reported last month that General Electric has transferred valuable aviation avionics technology to state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China. Our government has long supported the aviation industry through procurement initiatives and Federal research projects. The fruits of American taxpayer support will now be incorporated into Chinese commercial airliners, in line with China's desire to develop an internationally competitive aircraft industry that could rival American-based Boeing.

We see similar examples of technology transfer in the nuclear energy sector. According to the Financial Times, Westinghouse Electric has transferred more than 75,000 documents to Chinese counterparts as the initial phase of a technology transfer program in exchange for a share of China's growing nuclear market. These documents relate to the construction of four third-generation AP1000 reactors that Westinghouse is building in China.

American taxpayers supported the development of the AP1000 as well as its predecessor, the AP600, through decades of nuclear energy research and development at the Department of Energy. In other words, our taxpayers provided years of government support for the design and licensing of this reactor.

In a January 2010 letter to Obama administration officials, the heads of 19

American business and industry associations wrote of ``[s]ystemic efforts by China to develop policies that build their domestic enterprises at the expense of U.S. firms and U.S. intellectual property.'' Signatories to that letter included the Business Roundtable, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record.

I am introducing a very simple amendment. It is intended to protect American innovation and American jobs, and it is intended to make America more competitive and to create jobs here at home. In cases where technologies are developed with the support of the American taxpayer, my legislation prohibits companies from transferring the technology to countries that by law, practice or policy, require proprietary technology transfers as a matter of doing business.

Specifically, it says: A country which, by law, practice or policy, is required to transfer proprietary technology or intellectual property as a condition of doing business in that country will not be the recipient of any of these technologies that were developed with the assistance of the American taxpayer.

Quite simply, if taxpayers supported the development of the technology, they own a piece of it, and it can't just be given away. The transfer of publicly supported proprietary technologies by American firms to China, and potentially other countries, clearly and unequivocally places the competitive advantage of the American economy at risk.

Our trade laws are designed in order to protect national security, but our economic security is also an element of our national security. Intellectual property in the civilian sector should also be protected. My amendment seeks to do that.

I believe this is an issue every Senator can support.

I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.