Floor Statements

Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for the vote on the nomination of Morgan Christen, of Alaska, to be U.S. circuit judge for the Ninth Circuit. If I were able to attend today's session, I would have supported the Christen nomination.

Mr. President, each year more than 6 million children in the United States are reported as victims of child abuse and neglect. Tragically, at least 1,700 of those children lose their lives--most under the age of four. Maltreatment deaths are preventable and it is our duty to fight for those who are too young to defend and speak for themselves.

Currently, the United States does not have a comprehensive strategy for addressing child abuse fatalities. We also lack a national standard for reporting these fatalities, leaving many of these deaths to be largely underreported. That is why today I am introducing the Protect Our Kids Act, which will establish the Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities.

This commission will be comprised of a variety of professionals with diverse experience and perspectives. They will develop a national strategy for reducing child abuse and neglect fatalities, and provide comprehensive recommendations for all levels of government. They will analyze the effectiveness of existing programs designed to prevent or identify maltreatment deaths and learn more about what works and what doesn't. Child abuse fatalities are not isolated to one part of our country or another.

Once the commission completes their, work they will submit a report with their findings to Congress and the report will be publicly available. The loss of just one child to abuse is one child too many. I would like to thank my colleague, Senator Collins, for working with me on this bipartisan bill to protect our Nation's children. A number of organizations have been integral to the development of the legislation and have endorsed it, including the National Coalition to End Child Abuse Deaths whose members include the National Association of Social Workers, NASW, the National Center for the Review and Prevention of Child Deaths, NCRPCD, National Children's Alliance, NCA, Every Child Matters Education Fund, ECMEF, and the National District Attorney's Association, NDAA.

I look forward to our continued progress in developing a more effective approach to improving child welfare and ask all of my colleagues to support this important legislation.

Mr. President, each year more than 6 million children in the United States are reported as victims of child abuse and neglect. Tragically, at least 1,700 of those children lose their lives--most under the age of four. Maltreatment deaths are preventable and it is our duty to fight for those who are too young to defend and speak for themselves.

Currently, the United States does not have a comprehensive strategy for addressing child abuse fatalities. We also lack a national standard for reporting these fatalities, leaving many of these deaths to be largely underreported. That is why today I am introducing the Protect Our Kids Act, which will establish the Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities.

This commission will be comprised of a variety of professionals with diverse experience and perspectives. They will develop a national strategy for reducing child abuse and neglect fatalities, and provide comprehensive recommendations for all levels of government. They will analyze the effectiveness of existing programs designed to prevent or identify maltreatment deaths and learn more about what works and what doesn't. Child abuse fatalities are not isolated to one part of our country or another.

Once the commission completes their, work they will submit a report with their findings to Congress and the report will be publicly available. The loss of just one child to abuse is one child too many. I would like to thank my colleague, Senator Collins, for working with me on this bipartisan bill to protect our Nation's children. A number of organizations have been integral to the development of the legislation and have endorsed it, including the National Coalition to End Child Abuse Deaths whose members include the National Association of Social Workers, NASW, the National Center for the Review and Prevention of Child Deaths, NCRPCD, National Children's Alliance, NCA, Every Child Matters Education Fund, ECMEF, and the National District Attorney's Association, NDAA.

I look forward to our continued progress in developing a more effective approach to improving child welfare and ask all of my colleagues to support this important legislation.

Mr. President, I apologize for interrupting my colleague, and I will not for long. I think my colleague wants to speak on the subject of the nominations that are going to be contained within an hour of debate, equally divided. I want to make certain the comments of the Senator are going to be part of that time period. So if I could ask, for my colleague--I believe we are almost at the hour where we have to go to executive session and report the two nominations. I would be happy, then, to yield to my colleague to speak first, if he wishes.

Would my colleague agree with that?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that after we have moved to executive session, the Senator from Iowa be the first to speak in the time period allotted to the opponents.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, before the clerk calls the roll, that before the Aponte vote there be 2 minutes of debate.

Do we have any time remaining?

Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for the cloture vote on the nomination of Mr. Richard Cordray to be Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. If I were able to attend today's session, I would have supported cloture on this nomination.

Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for the votes on the motion to proceed to the Casey Middle Class Tax Cut Act of 2011, S. 1944, and the motion to proceed to the Temporary Tax Holiday and Government Reduction Act, S. 1931. If I were able to attend today's session, I would have supported the motion to proceed to the Casey Middle Class Tax Cut Act of 2011, S. 1944, and opposed the motion to proceed to the Temporary Tax Holiday and Government Reduction Act, S. 1931.

Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to legislation to provide civilian payroll tax relief, to reduce the Federal budget deficit, and for other purposes, S. 1931. If I were able to attend today's session, I would have opposed cloture on this bill.

Mr. President, the African Meeting House in Boston is one of the great landmarks of American freedom, as important to understanding our history as Faneuil Hall and Bunker Hill.

Not only is it the Nation's oldest black church building but throughout much of the 19th century it also served as the unofficial headquarters of the movement to abolish slavery in America. And on December 6--its 205th anniversary--the African Meeting House will reopen its historic doors after a $9 million restoration project to preserve the place where giants like William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass once thundered against the evil of human bondage.

It was in the Meeting House basement where William Lloyd Garrison formed the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1832. Garrison predicted that the principles set forth by the Society would ``shake the nation by their mighty power.'' Indeed, they did, because they were, in fact, the same principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the other founding documents of our country. The Meeting House is a reminder of the struggle which was inevitable because slavery was written into our Constitution before brave Americans--both white and black--shed blood and spoke powerful words to ensure that it was at last written out of that founding document.

Maria Stewart, an African-American woman William Lloyd Garrison admired greatly, took Garrison's argument further, insisting in a series of speeches at the African Meeting House that under those founding documents, women were entitled to the same rights as men. ``It is not the color of the skin that makes the man or the woman, but the principle formed in the soul,'' she said in one of her speeches in 1833. ``Brilliant wit will shine, come from when it will; and genius and talent will not hide the brightness of its luster.''

That was never as true as when Frederick Douglass delivered ``A Plea for Speech in Boston'' at the African Meeting House in 1860 after an anti-slavery meeting elsewhere in the city had been disrupted by a mob. ``No right was deemed by the fathers of the Government more sacred than the right of speech,'' Douglass said. It is ``the great moral renovator of society and government,'' he said. Slavery itself could not survive free speech. ``Five years of its exercise would banish the auction block and break every chain in the South,'' he said.

Tragically, it ultimately required a war to resolve the great contradiction at the heart of our democracy. And with the coming of the Civil War, the African Meeting House joined the war effort, hosting rallies to recruit an all-black regiment of black soldiers. The result was the legendary 54th Massachusetts Infantry made up of volunteers from as far as Haiti, led by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw--the regiment and its commander both immortalized in monuments, literature and, of course, the award winning film Glory.

Mr. President, I was proud to work with Governor Deval Patrick and the Massachusetts congressional delegation to get $4 million in Federal grants

for the $9 million renovation of the African Meeting House. But few people have worked harder to make the renovation and rededication a reality than Beverly Morgan-Welch, the executive director of the Museum of African-American History. She has spent more than a decade spearheading the project, and I congratulate her for all her efforts on behalf of the Museum and the Meeting House and for the decades she has spent telling the unique and powerful story of African-Americans. It is an inspiring story about those whose spirits would not be broken by slavery, those who found ways to create families and communities under unimaginably brutal conditions, and those who managed--against all odds--to escape to freedom.

The African Meeting House reminds us that America has come a long way in making good on what Dr. King called ``the promissory note'' of our democracy--the right to ``life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness'' to all our citizens. It is a testament to the great strides we have made in outlawing the racial injustice that tainted the ideals of American society and helped make possible the election of our first African-American president and, in Massachusetts, our first African- American governor.

But the African Meeting House also reminds us of the work and the struggle that continues today. If we are to be fully emancipated from the consequences of slavery, we must understand its history, which played out so eloquently, so gallantly and so courageously at the African Meeting House.

Mr. President, for the Committee on Foreign Relations I report favorably following nomination lists which were printed in the Record on the dates indicated, and ask unanimous consent, to save the expense of reprinting on the Executive Calendar that these nominations lie at the Secretary's desk for the information of Senators.

Mr. President, today I would like to join the Massachusetts relatives and friends of Massachusetts native son Terigi Rossi in celebrating 15 remarkable years as a police officer in Dallas, TX, the last 10 as a member of that city's elite SWAT Team.

The name Terigi Rossi may be familiar to television viewers. Officer Rossi was featured in ``Dallas SWAT,'' a reality television series on the A&E Network that followed members of the Dallas SWAT Team in 2006- 2007. The TV cameras captured the gritty, life-on-the-line experiences of Officer Rossi and his fellow SWAT Team members, but they also followed them home, showing the family life of officers whose lives are always in danger but who always put family first.

In Officer Rossi's case, viewer had an intimate view of a man who with his fellow officer is called out to capture a bank robbery suspect barricaded inside a garage, or responding to another call, trying to stop a suspected drug dealer from destroying evidence. But when the work day is done, the cameras followed Officer Rossi through training for an amateur boxing match, then back home where he cooks chicken cutlets for dinner with his wife Grace and their two sons, 15-year-old Antonio and 11-year-old Terigi. Then, it is off to his part time job as a security guard to supplement the family income.

As a prosecutor in Middlesex County in the 1970s, I worked with hundreds of police officers. And it was clear how much we ask of these officers. They are required to be many things to many people--minister, social worker, keeper of the peace, the lawman with the courage to face the armed suspects at great personal risk. And since the late 1960s, some of the best of these lawmen have been recruited into elite tactical units to perform dangerous and high-risk operations--lawmen like Terigi Rossi.

Terigi Rossi grew up on Harley Avenue in the city of Everett, MA. He graduated from Malden Catholic High School where, not surprisingly, this 6-foot 230-pound athlete was a lineman on the football team, playing offense and defense. He graduated from Suffolk University where he was recruited by the city of Dallas to serve on their police force, one of the largest in the Nation, with 2,977 sworn officers and 556 civilians.

And I have to say--Massachusetts's loss was Texas's gain, because Terigi Rossi would have been a great addition to any police force in our State. Just look at the 15 years this always-on-the-go officer has spent on the Dallas police force, including 10 years with the city's always-ready-to-go 50-member SWAT Team as a specialist in gas and chemical weaponry.

Officer Rossi's family and friends back home in Massachusetts, particularly my friend Tom Ciulla, are justifiably proud of his record of public service. I join them in celebrating not only his 15 years in a police uniform but also his 10 years in the armor of the Dallas SWAT Team. And I send thanks to Grace, Antonio and Terigi for their support of Officer Rossi. They know as well as any that law enforcement officers are never off duty. They protect the public any time and any place that the peace is threatened. And we should give them all they help they need.

Mr. President, I strongly oppose Senator Paul's resolution of disapproval of the Environmental Protection Agency's, EPA, cross- State air pollution rule because I believe that it is an extreme measure that is anti-clean air and water, anti-jobs and business, anti- public health, and could potentially prevent EPA from protecting the public from cross-state pollution indefinitely.

EPA finalized the cross-State air pollution rule on July 2011, establishing a cost effective program to reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from coal-fired powerplants that negatively affect citizens in downwind States. The rule updates a 1997 Clean Air Act standard and replaces a 2008 standard that was struck down by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Because this rule replaces the vacated rule from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, if this resolution succeeds, by law EPA will not be able to issue a ``substantially similar'' rule, which means that supporting this resolution could prohibit EPA indefinitely from promulgating any rule to control cross state air pollution. This would be an enormous step backwards.

Contrary to what those who support this Resolution would like you to believe, the cross-State air pollution rule is a very reasonable regulation. By 2014, EPA estimates this Rule will yield up to $280 billion in annual health and environmental benefits, far outweighing the $800 million in annual projected costs. EPA worked closely with industry and specifically designed this rule to give powerplants maximum flexibility and keep compliance costs low. Not implementing this rule would mean that local businesses in many Eastern States would have to turn to more expensive, less cost efficient controls to meet air pollution standards.

Also contrary to what those who support this resolution are saying, the cross-State rule would mean more certainty, not less, for business. Powerplants have known this rule was coming for years, and getting rid of it would create serious uncertainly by throwing the issue back to the courts and reopening it to lawsuits. This could mean years of continued uncertainty for companies who won't know what standards they will be held to. The cross-State rule gives power plants the certainty they need.

The cross-State air pollution rule also creates jobs. The University of Massachusetts's Political Economy Research Institute estimates that this rule and EPA's other recent clean air rule--the Air Toxics MACT-- together will create nearly 300,000 jobs a year on average over the next 5 years. In fact, thanks to environmental regulations under the Clean Air Act, since 1970, we have created millions of jobs in pollution control and environmental technologies industries, and the United States exports tens of billions of dollars of pollution control technologies annually. Using a term often thrown around these days, Senator Paul's resolution would be ``job killing.''

Most importantly, nullifying this rule will have significant and immediate negative public health effects, especially for our children, seniors, and other vulnerable populations. In Massachusetts alone, the cross-State rule it is expected to avoid up to 390 deaths each year and result in up to $3.2 billion of annual health and environmental benefits. Nationally, by 2014, each year it will prevent up to 34,000 premature deaths, 15,000 nonfatal heart attacks, 19,000 hospital and emergency room visits, 1.8 million days of missed work or school, 400,000 cases of aggravated asthma, and the list goes on.

These are not just statistics; these are real children who have to sit on the sidelines during a soccer game or are up wheezing late at night and making emergency trips to the hospital; laborers who can't finish a shift because of respiratory problems; senior citizens whose quality of life is dramatically diminished because they must be attached to a respirator 24 hours a day; and so many more. I recently heard the story of 6-year-old Mia Murphy in Massachusetts whose mother, Rachael Murphy, lives in fear of her daughter's next asthma attack. Only 6 years old, Mia can have coughing fits that last for hours. It is terrifying for both Mia and her mother when Mia can't breathe. Mia needs to take daily medication to control her asthma, but when she has a flare up, only a 5-day course of high dosage steroids can relieve her symptoms. While these steroid courses help, they also cause Mia to have nightmares and emotional outbursts. For Mia, a normal cold can cause a flareup for weeks. As Mia's mother says, ``Children rely on us to keep them safe.'' All children have a right to clean air. With other citizens in Massachusetts, Rachael has bravely spoken out to support efforts like the cross-State rule to improve the air quality in Massachusetts to help keep her children healthy. Without this rule, Massachusetts and other Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States will not be able to control air pollution in the region at a level that protects the public health of our citizens.

Forty years of the Clean Air Act have proven that environmental protection and economic growth go hand in hand. The American people support the Clean Air Act because they know it has improved our Nation's air quality and protected public health. S.J. Res. 27 would undermine this progress at the expense of America's most vulnerable populations. We cannot in good conscious let it pass.

Mr. President, what would be the order after that?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized for the time I have--I think it is about 15 minutes--after that.

Mr. President, this is one of those times when, on the floor of the Senate, we hear a proposal that people characterize as one thing, but it is, in fact, anything but what they are characterizing it as.

What I just heard the good Senator from Mississippi talking about: We don't want to slam the brakes on development, he said. We don't want to have the SEC intrusion.

So they are trying to say to the American people that they want to liberate the Internet, when, in fact, what they want to do is imprison the Internet within the hands of the most powerful communications entities today to act as the gatekeepers who will control the ability of the Internet to do the very kind of development that brought us here. What they are talking about, their concept, this CRA challenge is that wolf in sheep's clothing. It is that simple. So I think colleagues need to step back and think about how the Internet got to be what it is today when it was developed.

I know the Senator from West Virginia, the chairman of the committee, and I were members of the Commerce Committee back in the 1990s when we wrote the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and we thought we were pretty clever and we wrote a good act. Within 6 months of writing that act, it was obsolete because all our conversation was about telephony at a moment where, because of the Internet, the entire discussion was about to become about data transmission and the movement of information over the Internet. That has never been fully revisited. But the reason we have a Google today, the reason we have had this incredible development of Internet retail business, of all these Web sites, of Facebook, and so many more is because of the open architecture of access to that Internet--which, I would remind everybody in America, was created by government money in government research. It came out of an effort to develop a communications system for our country in the case of nuclear war. So we created, through DARPA, ARPA, research that produced this communications network. Then the private sector saw the opportunity, and a whole bunch of very creative people rushed in and made the Internet what it is today.

Overturning the rules, as the CRA proposes to do, would put the very open architecture that has created this extraordinary agent of communication, of commerce, and family communication, and all these things it has done for business, it would put it at risk and discourage investment in companies at the edge of the Internet that could be the next Google or the next Amazon. Overturning these rules would actually hurt our competitiveness and economic growth and they would diffuse the creative energy that has driven the Internet to be what it is today. Because if we overturn what they are doing today, we take the reality of the Internet and we put it in the hands of the gatekeepers.

Everything that goes over the Internet today goes either through our telephone at home or television or whatever, through cable, out of our house or the airwaves. But if we are not having an open architecture on the Internet, then the people who control those access points can start discriminating about who gets access at what speed; and if they control who gets access at what speed and begin to charge more for that, you begin to have a profound impact on the ability of any business to develop and a profound impact on the access that consumers have come to anticipate with respect to the Internet.

Think about this. We are talking about neutrality. We are standing here trying to defend neutrality. The other side is coming in here trying to create a new structure where the process will be gamed once again in favor of the most powerful. This is part of the whole debate that is going on in America today, about the 99 percent who feel like everything is gamed against them and the system is geared by the people who have the money and the people who have the power who get what they want. That is what this debate is about.

The network neutrality rules the FCC has promulgated are based on the principles that everybody should support of promoting transparency of broadband service operations, preventing the blocking of legal content and Web sites, and prohibiting discrimination of individuals, applications, and other Web sites. That is what we are for. This CRA is an effort to undo the FCC's ability to protect those principles.

Establishing those principles has actually brought about certainty and predictability to the broadband economy. It ensures that anyone can create a Web site, anyone can deliver an Internet-enabled service with the certainty that is going to be made available to everybody else on the Internet. Innovators now know they are not going to have to go ask a big telephone company: Hey, Verizon, hey AT&T, will you guys please let us have access so we can go do this thing? Oh, well, maybe we will do that, but we are going to charge you in order to do that. They completely destroy the openness that is provided, this ability for anybody in America to sit in their home or school or somewhere and come up with an idea and innovate. That freedom to innovate, the freedom to innovate is what has made the Internet the platform for economic and social development it is today, and a vote for the CRA is a vote to stifle that.

On the side of those favoring the FCC's action are venture capitalists and the companies that have made the Internet what it is today, civil rights groups, civil liberties advocates, academics, scholars who have studied and testified to the virtues of open networks. Let me quote a few of them.

John Doerr is somebody whom many of us have come to know by virtue of his business acumen and the legendary venture capitalist efforts he was engaged in. He was an early backer of Amazon, an early backer of Google, Electronic Arts, Netscape, and a number of other innovators whose creations have driven the growth of the Internet. Here is what he says:

Maintaining an open Internet is critical to our economy's

growth . . . and this effort is a pragmatic balance of

innovation, economic growth, and crucial investment in the

Internet.

Ray Ramsey, the president and CEO of TechNet, a national bipartisan network of more than 400 technology sector CEOs, said of the vote at the Commission in favor of the network neutrality rules:

The vote by the FCC is a pragmatic recognition of the need

for codifying principles for protecting nondiscrimination and

openness for the Internet.

Charlie Ergen, the president and CEO of Dish Network, said:

The Commission's order is a solid framework for protecting

the open Internet. The new rules give companies, including

Dish Network, the framework to invest capital and manpower in

Internet-related technologies without fear that our

investment will be undermined by carriers' discriminatory

practices.

Others supporting the order include the Communications Workers of America, civil rights organizations, consumer advocates. In sum, those who support the rules include those who fund the development of Internet companies, those who use the Internet, and advocates who favor open discourse and debate. I think we in the Senate ought to listen to the people who created it, the people who developed it, the people who are taking it to the next generation, and the people who use it.

The Los Angeles Times editorialized on Sunday in favor of the rules of the FCC, saying:

The agency's net neutrality rules are a reasonable attempt

to protect the innovative nature of the Internet and should

not be overturned.

Despite all of what I just said, some have made what I have called the ``wolf in sheep's clothing'' argument, the false argument that network neutrality rules regulate the Internet--that they actually regulate it--and this is an opportunity to keep it open and impose a condition on innovators.

I don't know how asking innovators to get permission from somebody else to be able to go do what they have already done since the 1990s is going to improve things. The truth is, network neutrality rules govern not the Internet but they govern the behavior of the firms that own and operate the gateways to the Internet. That is what is at stake. When the airwaves that carry

the information that connects us to everyone else in the Internet is in the hands of a few and subject to their control, we are in trouble.

The rules we are debating today state that those gateways should not be used to favor some voices over others or some firms over others on the Internet. That is what is at stake. That is what this fight is about. The truth is, if the rules are overturned, every innovator on the Internet will be exposed to the risk that, before they innovate, before they create a new product, they are going to have to go to somebody and say: Mother, may I do this? Then there will be a price attached to it.

Beyond the false argument that network neutrality constitutes regulation of the Internet rather than anticompetitive behavior, opponents to the rule predicted the FCC action was going to have negative economic repercussions. Yet even in an economy that has struggled, that prediction has proven to be wrong.

In the time since the FCC voted on the rule to preserve the open Internet, investment in networks that support wired and wireless broadbrand grew by more than 10 percent compared to the same period the year before. Venture capital investments in Internet-specific companies surged, with $2.3 billion going into 275 companies in the second quarter of 2011. It may well be that 2011 is going to be the biggest year for tech IPOs in more than 10 years. That seems to indicate strong investor confidence in the companies that rely on the open Internet already exists, and we should not disrupt that.

Having lost the argument that network neutrality hurts innovation or the economy, they therefore want to create a new argument; that is, the FCC acted outside its legal authority in protecting the free flow of communication on the Internet.

A court, the right place for that decision to be made, is going to make that decision. But, again, the argument actually challenges common sense. It challenges the basic understanding of reasonableness. To argue that the FCC, the agency that Congress created in order to regulate communications by wire and radio, somehow has no jurisdiction in this very space is to argue that communications over the Internet are not, in fact, conducted over a wire or over the airwaves. It is completely lacking in any foundation in common sense and certainly in the law.

The law we created grants the FCC the authority in the Telecommunications Act to ``make such rules and regulations, and issue such orders, not inconsistent with this Act, as may be necessary for its functions.''

That is the power we gave to them. Under title II, title III, title VI of that act, it encourages the FCC to protect the public interest and encourage just and reasonable rates through competition. That is precisely what net neutrality achieves. It is precisely what we achieve under the rules of the FCC.

Under title VII, the FCC is mandated to take immediate action to remove barriers to infrastructure investment and promote competition in the telecommunications market if advanced telecommunications is not being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion. That can be determined on a case-by-case basis, and we obviously can continue as we have since the early 1990s to do this. So there is no good reason for this debate to fall along party lines.

I hope it will not be just Democrats who vote to preserve this rule. I hope we will maintain an open Internet technology and support the open Internet order.

Mr. President, today I would like to celebrate the remarkable commitment demonstrated over nearly 18 years in Senate service by one of my most loyal and longest serving aides, Chris Wyman, who retired October 31.

Chris Wyman eschews the limelight of politics and the media. But I know him as a close friend and a humble, self-effacing, earnest public servant, who ``walked point'' for me in Massachusetts on every issue and every case affecting military personnel, veterans, and their families.

For Chris, the work was always personal. He understands the demands on the military and their families better than most, having enlisted and served on Active Duty in the Navy before he came to work for me shortly after I began my second term representing Massachusetts.

The work that Chris began on my staff starting in 1993 was difficult, particularly for someone who found such common cause with anyone who had worn the uniform of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, or Coast Guard. Their cause became Chris's concern day in and day out. The issues changed with time, from veterans' benefits and Agent Orange, to PTSD and traumatic brain injuries, but what always remained was Chris's special determination to help those who had served their country and ensure that they were always treated with dignity and respect by the government that had sent them into harm's way.

In all those years, Chris was my eyes and ears on the ground in Massachusetts 7 days a week--the person who listened to veterans and their families about the many challenges affecting their lives. His compassion and his presence helped me to take concerns heard in conversations and transform them into legislation to tackle human problems on a more national scale.

Among the efforts I worked on in the Senate, you can see the imprint of Chris's visits to veterans across Massachusetts, including the Helping Heroes Keep Their Home Act, which provides protection for servicemembers and military families against foreclosure and increased interest rates; a measure that made service life insurance available to reservists called to Active-Duty and National Guard members; the Corey Shea Act, which allows eligible parents of a fallen servicemember to be buried with their child in any of the 131 cemeteries run by the VA's National Cemetery Administration, if that child has no living spouse or children; a $20 million supplemental appropriation in 2007 for VA centers; seven Vet Centers in Massachusetts benefited from the measure; and millions of dollars more in Federal grants from the Department of Veterans Affairs for homeless vets shelters located throughout Massachusetts.

For Chris, each of those legislative efforts began with a human face: veterans who were living on the streets in a country that at times had forgotten their sacrifices when they came home, grieving mothers and fathers who had lost children on the battlefield, veterans struggling during an economic collapse that threatened them and their families with foreclosure, and particularly families who had lost sons and daughters to PTSD and the hidden wounds of war and who had dedicated themselves, with Chris's help, to transforming their mourning into mission to help others.

It is no understatement that Chris had one of the toughest and most demanding job in my Boston office, certainly the most intense. He met so many at their most vulnerable and others still who were overcome by the deepest and most indescribable grief--and even anger. But it was Chris Wyman who remembered always that if Americans were sent somewhere in the world dodging bullets and bombs to protect our freedom, then there should be no limit to the government's commitment to do its part back home to support them and their families.

For Chris, each day was measured not in minutes or hours but in phone calls--as many as 50 calls a day. Some were routine--soldiers or veterans needing absentee ballots, forms, or help applying for benefits. For Chris, those cases were the easiest the ones in which a highly placed phone call or a well-timed letter could be the lubricant to make the State and Federal bureacracy run more smoothly. But some of those calls were far from routine. Take just one that resulted in a special moment just about this time last year in Newton, MA, when Chris's intervention helped right a wrong inadvertently committed years before by the Federal Government. Thanks to Chris's hard work, I was able to present a Congressional Gold Medal to the family of 2LT James Calhoun, a member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, who was killed in World War II. The Tuskegee Airmen had been awarded the medal collectively in 2007, but Lieutenant Calhoun's daughter, Jean Calhoun Royster, was excluded from that ceremony. When Jean reached out to Chris and to my office, we intervened to help secure the medal in honor of her father. It was touching to see the pride Jean felt for her father when she held his medal in her very own hands, but more than that, it was inspiring to know that behind the scenes it was Chris's diligence that helped to make it happen.

I also remember another special day Chris helped make possible--the day I pinned a Purple Heart on 22-year-old Sean Bannon of Winthrop, who was wounded in both legs in Iraq and spent 6 weeks recovering at Walter Reed. We held the ceremony at Fenway Park on Patriots Day in 2008. And the Red Sox surprised Sean by allowing him to throw out the first pitch, with No. 38, Curt Schilling, standing in as Sean's catcher. He wasn't on the field let alone on the mound that day, but Chris Wyman was the MVP of our team that day the unsung hero of a proper welcome home for a real military hero, Sean Bannon. That was a joyful day for the Bannon family and for all of us, but for Chris it was just one of the many ways he made a contribution. It was every day that Chris received calls from wives, husbands, and children worried about loved ones on Active Duty somewhere in the world or from veterans enduring life-threatening health conditions. They, too, needed real action, not just a promise to get back to them later. And whenever he got one of those calls, Chris would spring into action and stay at it until he got the answers and results that these brave Americans and their families deserved.

Among these solemn duties were some that Chris rarely spoke about but which are seared into him forever.

Again and again, he made personal visits to the homes of Gold Star families. He would simply show up to visit, to comfort, and to help out after families received the phone call that every military parent dreads the most. Chris formed deep friendships with many of the families, friendships that will last a lifetime. While many quote Abraham Lincoln's words, Chris lived them--through his actions, not his words, he held sacred Lincoln's pledge at Gettysburg that our country will care for ``him who has borne the battle, and his widow and his orphan.'' And so Chris did--at wakes, at funerals, in military hospitals and veterans homes, in all these difficult circumstances and the difficult days and months and years that followed, Chris Wyman kept the faith.

Chris did this for all veterans--in their spirit and many times in their memory. But he also joined a special fraternity the tight knit ``Band of Brothers'' who served with me during Swiftboat duty in Vietnam. He came to them in the 1990s and never lost touch with any of them, extending to them, as he did for so many Massachusetts veterans, total dedication and commitment through hospital visits, weddings, and funerals. It was no surprise, then, that several years ago they made him an honorary member of their ``brotherhood,'' presenting him with a blue crew member shirt, exactly the same as the ones they wore so proudly whenever they were together.

It seems fitting that Chris is retiring so close to Veterans Day--a day to honor America's veterans for their patriotism, their love of country, and their willingness to serve and to sacrifice because for these past nearly 18 years, for Chris Wyman, every day was Veterans Day. He is a shining example of service to those who have served.

Mr. President, both Chris and I are proud to be Navy men, and in the Navy, we have a special term--``Bravo Zulu'' which means ``Well Done.'' So, as one old sailor to another, with a thank you for many years of loyalty and friendship, to Chris Wyman I say ``Bravo Zulu'' for a job well done.

Mr. President, once again, too many of our Nation's small businesses are facing difficulty in gaining access to capital. That is why today I am introducing the Increasing Small Business Lending Act to increase access to capital for our Nation's small businesses to help them sustain and build their businesses, create jobs and expand our economy.

In October 2008, markets froze. Credit lines were cut. A lending gap was created in the market. Even Small Business Administration guaranteed loans, that help reduce risk for lenders, were stalled. Congress stepped up and enacted temporary measures to help fill the gaps in small business lending, saving nearly 90,000 small businesses.

One such business is LazerCraze in North Andover, Massachusetts that received an SBA loan to expand to a second location and purchase state- of-the-art equipment that allowed them to hire an additional 37 full time employees.

SBA, administrator Karen Mills has said that the previous temporary changes to the SBA loan programs were a success, ``In short, it worked. We engineered a turnaround in SBA lending even though conventional credit was, and still is to some extent, very tight. Taxpayers got a big bang for the buck. With just over a billion dollars in total subsidy, we supported about $42 billion in lending. In fact, SBA had its highest-ever weekly loan volume the week before Christmas when we supported nearly 2 billion dollars in lending, 10 billion total last quarter. Here is the headline: overall, that is nearly 90,000 small businesses that are not surviving this recession, but growing and creating jobs.

Unfortunately, the temporary small business loan provisions ran out of funding in January 2011, ahead of the authorization which expired in March 2011. Since then, small business lending has declined, making it more difficult for small businesses to create jobs and for our economy to emerge from our economic downturn.

The legislation I am introducing today is similar to the Small Business Lending Market Stabilization Act, which I introduced in 2008 that was included in both the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, P.L. 111-5, and extended in the Small Business jobs Act, P.L. 111-240. The Increasing Small Business Lending, Act will eliminate for one year the fees for 7(a) and 504 Small Business Administration loans and increase SBA loan guarantee of 90 percent, policies that were started as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and extended in the Small Business Jobs Act.

According to the SBA, total small business loans outstanding, loans under $1 million, actually declined during the first half of 2011 after the temporary provisions ended. Loans outstanding to small businesses at the end of the second quarter totaled only $607 billion, which is the slowest since the economic downturn began in 2008.

We can't afford to have our economic progress reversed by a decline in access to capital for small businesses. Since the increased guarantee and reduced fees have expired, our economic recovery could be impeded if we don't act to continue the policies that we know work. By extending key provisions to bolster access to capital, small businesses will have the assurance and support they need to put their innovative ideas into practice and get more Americans back to work.

My legislation will complement the existing Small Business Lending Fund that encourages lending to small businesses through smaller community banks. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and I ask all Senators to support job growth and small businesses by supporting this legislation.