Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

I ask unanimous consent to call up amendment No. 2107 and make it pending.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, this is not a new issue. This has been before this body on several occasions. I want to assure my colleagues that if the lobbyists for the pharmaceutical companies in this town are able to block this, we will be revisiting this issue. This is an issue of fundamental fairness and decency and giving Americans the opportunity to have access to very important medication that in many cases is lifesaving. It has been blocked by one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington, that of the pharmaceutical companies.

For years, along with many other Senators and the current occupant of the White House--the President of the United States, when he was a U.S. Senator, supported this amendment. I would love to see the administration weigh in and take the same position that then-Senator Obama took on this issue of basic and fundamental decency and fairness to people who are badly in need of medicine to, in many cases, literally save their lives.

Industry opponents of the comprehensive importation proposals have found various ways to confuse the issue, raise red herrings about safety, or cut secret deals to block passage of reasonable and widely supported prescription drug importation programs.

Let me give an example--this recently came up--of the activities of the pharmaceutical companies in the formulation of ObamaCare. ``GOP probe uncovers deal between Obama and drug companies,'' by Philip Klein, the senior editorial writer of the Washington Examiner.

Three years ago, President Obama cut a secret deal with

pharmaceutical company lobbyists to secure the industry's

support for his national health care law. Despite Obama's

promises during his campaign to run a transparent

administration, the deal has been shrouded in mystery ever

since. But internal emails obtained by House Republicans now

provide evidence that a deal was struck and GOP investigators

are promising to release more details in the coming weeks.

What the hell?'' White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim

Messina, who is now Obama's campaign manager, complained to a

lobbyist for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of

America (PhRMA) in January 15, 2010 email. ``This wasn't part

of our deal.''

This reference to ``our deal'' came two months before the

final passage of Obamacare in an email with the subject line,

``FW: TAUZIN EMAIL.''

At the time Billy Tauzin was president and CEO of PhRMA--

And I might add, one of the highest paid lobbyists in history, millions of dollars--

the e-mail was uncovered as a part of Obama's closed-door

health care negotiations that was launched by the House

Energy and Commerce Committee oversight panel:

``In the coming weeks the Committee intends to show what

the White House agreed to do as part of its deal with the

pharmaceutical industry and how the full details of this

agreement were kept from both the public and the House of

Representatives,'' the committee's Republican members wrote

in a memo today.

On June 20, 2009, Obama released a terse 296-word statement

announcing a deal between pharmaceutical companies and the

Senate that didn't mention any involvement by the White

House.

``The investigation has determined that the White House,

primarily through Office of Health Reform Director Nancy Ann

DeParle and Messina, with involvement from Chief of Staff

Rahm Emmanuel, was actively engaged in these negotiations

while the role of Congress was limited,'' the committee

members wrote. For example, three days before the June 20th

statement, the head of PhRMA--

That is Mr. Tauzin--

promised Messina, ``we will deliver a final yes to you by

morning.''

Meanwhile, Ms. DeParle all but confirmed that half of the

Legislative Branch was shut out in an e-mail to a PhRMA

representative: ``I think we should have included the House

in the discussions, but maybe we never would have gotten

anywhere if we had.''

What went on in the formulation of ObamaCare is still one of the worst, sleaziest exercises I have seen in my many years here, and this involvement by the pharmaceutical companies was probably the most egregious. All this amendment does is allow U.S. consumers who need more affordable prescription drug options to either go without their medications or pay higher prices than they could get from legitimate Canadian pharmacies. But that is not a reason. It is not a reason for us to stop fighting for those in the United States who need more affordable prescription medications.

There are Americans in this country today who cannot afford their medications. They have a choice between eating or taking their prescription drugs. Meanwhile, there is a way for them to get much cheaper drugs, and this amendment does that.

We will hear from the pharmaceutical company supporters in the Senate who will talk about safety and how Canadians don't have the same standards we do. Really? Do we really believe the Canadian regulations and oversight are any better or worse than the United States? To ensure that U.S. patients have at least one option, this amendment takes a very narrow approach to safe importation by focusing on legitimate Canadian pharmacies.

Under this amendment the Secretary of Health and Human Services will certify ``approved Canadian pharmacies'' based on certain safety and quality criteria. To ensure that patients are not exposed to unsafe medications ``approved Canadian pharmacies'' can only sell drugs to U.S. customers that are the same as U.S. approved drugs. To protect U.S. patients against rouge distributors, a list of approved Canadian pharmacies must be published by the Secretary of Health and Human Services so Americans know which Canadian pharmacies are legitimate.

The cost of health care, including prescription drugs, continues to increase. However, there is nothing in the underlying FDA bill that will bring down the cost of prescription drugs. I wonder if the bill should be enacted when it doesn't do anything to address costs. The quality of pharmaceuticals in this country is outstanding, and I recognize that. But don't we all know how expensive it is?

For example, don't we know that in the United States of America, Nexium, 20-milligram, 30 tabs, is $195.99. The Canadian brand is $108.55, and Canadian generic is $69. For Plavix, the U.S. brand is $195; the Canadian brand, $132.

I am sure many Americans whose health coverage does not include these very expensive pharmaceuticals would be eager to take advantage of the same quality brand of prescription drugs that are available at these pharmacies in Canada.

As we all know, unemployment remains over 8 percent, and millions of families have mothers and fathers who remain unemployed or underemployed and have no health insurance coverage. But the unemployed and uninsured still have health conditions, and they need medications. Millions continue to search for more affordable ways to get their needed prescription drugs.

Unfortunately, in my State many of my fellow citizens who cannot afford it go to Mexico to get drugs, and I cannot guarantee what they purchase there will always be what it is purported to be. That is not a criticism of my friends south of the border. But the fact is in Canada they have the same kind of process we do. Despite there being no official program to import medications from Canada, approximately 1 million U.S. consumers use

their own money to safely get their medications from legitimate Canadian pharmacies.

In Arizona, over 20,000 patients purchase their medications safely from Canadian pharmacies. In Florida over 85,000 patients purchase their medications safely from Canadian pharmacies. A recent study from Roger Bate, an AEI scholar, confirms that in drugs dispensed from legitimate Canadian pharmacies there was no failure of authenticity between drug samples obtained online from U.S. pharmacies compared to the same drug from Canadian pharmacies. Within the verified pharmacies U.S. prices on average were 52.5 percent higher than Canadian pharmacy prices. In other words, the drugs from Canadian pharmacy sites are the same dosage, form, and potency as drugs in the United States, only much less expensive.

The drugs are the same as I mentioned. This amendment doesn't authorize insurance companies, huge pharmacy chains, or drug wholesalers to import massive quantities into the U.S. system. This is about safely allowing uninsured, unemployed, and the underemployed to individually import these drugs they need.

So, please, somebody explain to me how we tell the struggling family who needs their medications that they cannot use their own money to get the same drug from legitimate Canadian pharmacies where the costs can be more than 50 percent lower than U.S. prices. It is not about the alarms of safety because this amendment requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to promulgate regulations permitting individuals to safely import medications from Canada, and the following safety criteria must be met for a patient to import drugs from FDA- approved Canadian pharmacies: The prescribed drug must be dispensed by a licensed Canadian pharmacist; the prescribed drug must be for personal use in quantities that don't exceed a 90-day supply; the prescribed drug must be dispensed in accordance with a valid prescription issued by a physician licensed to practice in the United States; the imported drug must have ``the same active ingredient or ingredients, route of administration, dosage form, and strength as a prescription drug approved by the Secretary.''

The amendment recognizes that approved Canadian pharmacies meeting safety criteria can and should provide needed alternatives to U.S. patients using their own money to affordably obtain their medications. The Secretary is required to publish on the FDA Web site a list of ``approved Canadian pharmacies'' that meet the following stringent criteria: The pharmacy has been in existence for 5 years prior to enactment of the program and has a purpose other than to participate in the U.S.-Canadian safe drug importation program; the pharmacy operates in accordance with provincial pharmacy rules and regulations; the pharmacy complies with all inspection and data reporting procedures; the pharmacy agrees that labs approved by the Secretary shall be used to conduct product testing to determine the safety and efficacy of sample pharmaceutical products; the pharmacy does not resell products from online pharmacies located outside Canada to consumers in the United States.

Safe drug importation is a bipartisan issue. People in all of our States are still struggling with family budgets, and the Senate cannot do anything to give patients more choices about where they can get their needed drugs because the drug industry opposes allowing individual Americans to use their own money to safely get the same drugs from Canada, and it doesn't make sense.

Just a word about the types of medications that are eligible. I have been asked by colleagues whether biologic medicines can be part of the program. The answer is not unless they can be safely imported under the provisions of the amendment and regulations issued by the Secretary.

The amendment doesn't discriminate against the type of conditions or medicines that patients should be able to safely import under this program. Not all biologics are the same. Some biologic medicines are available in capsules; others are injectable medications that require refrigeration. Some injectables don't require refrigeration and are shipped to patients throughout the United States every day.

I don't believe U.S. patients should be necessarily prevented from saving money on biologics. If a biologic medicine cannot meet the various safety provisions in the amendment, it should not be eligible. If it can meet the requirements of the amendment, then a biologic can be available to U.S. patients.

If the past is a prologue, then obviously this amendment will go down. Then after this amendment is rejected, I hope none of my colleagues have any curiosity about the way the American people feel about us; about the incredible, inordinate, illegitimate, outrageous influence of the pharmaceutical companies in America over the average American citizen. American citizens should be able to purchase pharmaceuticals from an approved pharmacy in Canada that many times is saving them half the money.

I am sure the distinguished chairman, my friend from Iowa, knows how many families do not have prescription drug coverage who are making a choice today between eating and medicine. What are we going to do? We are going to turn down this commonsense amendment.

Congratulations ahead of time to the corrupt pharmaceutical companies and their influence in the United States Senate and Capitol.

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

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

Mr. President, this amendment is a simple one. It creates a safe individual drug importation program only from approved Canadian pharmacies, overseen by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

In a normal world, this would probably require a voice vote. But what we are about to see is the incredible influence of the special interests, particularly PhRMA, here in Washington, where people who cannot afford it will have to make a choice between eating and medicine. They will not be allowed to purchase a medication at less than half the price, many times, than they will in American pharmacies in Canada.

So what you are about to see is the reason for the cynicism the American people have about the way we do business in Washington. PhRMA--one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington--will exert its influence again at the expense of average low-income Americans who will, again, have to choose between medication and eating.

Mr. President, I would be remiss if I did not recognize that today's meeting of the Senate Committee on Armed Services to vote out its annual Defense authorization bill was the last for Richard F. Walsh of my staff. I know Dick's Winnebago is packed and idling outside and is probably out of gas because he delayed his retirement to see us through mark up, but I want to say a few words before we adjourn.

I believe in the nobility of public service, and I think Dick exemplifies that, not just through his tenure here but throughout his entire career. Many may not know that Dick came to the Armed Services Committee after a distinguished 30-year career in the Navy, much of it as a judge advocate. He served in a number of challenging assignments, including counsel to the Chief of Naval Personnel; commander of the Naval Legal Service Office, National Capital Region; director of legislation in the Navy's Office of Legislative Affairs; and executive director for Senate affairs under the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs.

In 2001, my good friend Senator John Warner hired Dick to handle personnel issues. From the halls of the service academies to the bones of Tripoli, Dick has seen it all. He has worked on issues of military pay, benefits, and education. Some were high profile, others not. Some were for the dogs, literally and figuratively. During his tenure, he strived to ensure fairness in the military justice system and remained vigilant so that military standards continue to reflect the honor of military service. I am proud of the work we did together on the GI bill to ensure the transferability of military benefits to family members. Through it all, he showed himself a consummate professional.

Our committee works on issues vital to our national security and the men and women who protect it. Dick's work in particular over the last decade touches our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and their families, daily, in very real, very meaningful ways. I know Dick will have mixed emotions when he leaves us, but he can take comfort in the knowledge that he has made a difference.

So from one retired Navy officer to another, I wish Dick Walsh and his wife Gail fair winds and following seas as they board their Winnebago and push off for a well-earned retirement together.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a statement released yesterday by Senators Graham, Lieberman, and myself on the decision of Ambassador Ryan Crocker to depart his post in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Mr. President, I was deeply saddened to learn of the sudden death on April 17 of Stephen Daggett, a highly respected defense expert at the Congressional Research Service and an authority on the U.S. defense budget.

Mr. Daggett provided Congress with authoritative analysis on many aspects of defense spending in the overall context of defense policy and U.S. national security strategy. His briefs to Members of Congress and his written reports captured the complexity of issues ranging from the Department of Defense's Quadrennial Defense Review to the budget priorities of the Armed Services.

Very few ``defense experts'' could do what he could do. Mr. Daggett was admired by his professional colleagues in CRS and earned many awards for his dedication and outstanding performance. His appraisals were sought-after by Members of Congress and their staffs, by others in the Department of Defense, and by industry. Mr. Daggett's particular interest in providing an unbiased, unvarnished assessment to diverse constituencies, especially outside Congress, was laudable.

In an era of wide political gulfs, he supplied irrefutable ground truths--which often became the basis for common understanding and problem solving. His accounts of the interrelated nature of defense policy, strategy, and budgets continue to be the standards of the discipline. Thought leaders on and off the Hill, in industry, associations and think tanks, on the right and the left, will feel his absence.

Mr. Daggett was a national asset who provided the Congress with invaluable expertise on defense issues for over 20 years and during three U.S. wars. He will be sorely missed by his professional colleagues and friends, by his wife, Diana, his sons Thomas and Sam, and by the many in Congress who depended on him.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, and I will not object, I would like to thank both leaders for their hard work in getting what I believe is one of the more important sense-of-the- Senate resolutions achieved here. It is very difficult. I think words matter. The fact that this resolution points out that we need a comprehensive policy that includes economic sanctions, diplomacy in military planning, capabilities, and options; that this objective is consistent with the one stated by President Barack Obama in the State of the Union Address where he said, ``Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal''--I think this is an important resolution. I thank the majority leader.

I also point out that the final part of it says that nothing in the act shall be construed as a declaration of war or an authorization of the use of force against Iran or Syria.

First of all, it is not an authorization. Second of all, I wonder if we ought to include Canada and maybe Brazil and other countries along with that since this resolution contemplates in no way anything concerning Syria, but I guess we could probably throw it in. However, I will not ask for a unanimous consent to amend to add Canada, although the Canadians are very upset because they have no teams in the finals of the National Hockey League Stanley Cup championship series.

Again, I thank both the Senate majority leader and the Republican leader for the work they did and also our friend Senator Menendez, who was also an important factor in getting this done.

I do not object.

Would the Senator yield for a question?

Isn't it true that the President of the United States said that it was ``unacceptable'' for the Iranians to have a nuclear weapon?

I have a series of questions.

So doesn't that mean the United States of America would reserve all options in case of an unacceptable situation where the Iranians continued--and we have seen no deviation from that path-- toward the acquisition of a nuclear weapon?

So isn't it true that we are having this debate about whether this amendment or this legislation could be construed as an authorization or opening the door for military action; that the administration's policy is already very clear that it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon? And I am sure that, over time, the three of us could talk for a long time about the implications for the entire region of Iran, not just the threat to Israel but the entire region of an Iranian government which is, quote, going to wipe Israel off the map, which then, of course, would force other nations in the region to develop nuclear weapons.

Isn't it true that it has been a matter of national policy--both Republican and Democratic--that it is unacceptable? And that does not mean we automatically would use military force, but it does mean we would have to react to the development on the part of the Iranians of a nuclear weapon.

So this resolution we are considering is no different in any way--in fact, it is less specific than what the President of the United States has said and what I believe most every Member of the U.S. Senate is on record one way or the other saying: that the development of a nuclear weapon by Iran would be an unacceptable situation.

I know our friend Senator Menendez is going to speak, but this is not any change in American policy toward Iran, both Republican and Democratic, and that is that there is an existential threat to the State of Israel and other countries in the region, other Arab countries in the region, that would be posed if the Iranians continued on their development of nuclear weapons.

So this resolution is an important statement on the part of the Senate and Congress, but to somehow say this is a major change in policy of any kind obviously flies in the face of the record of this President and previous Presidents as regards this issue.

I also would like to thank the Senator from New Jersey for his continued contributions to these national security issues.

And if there were a need for military action, it is the view of all of us that we would come back to the Congress of the United States before any such action were contemplated.

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

How much time do I have remaining?

Mr. President, I rise to discuss the Violence Against Women Act and the policies that impact the lives of women. Since its original enactment in 1994, the Violence Against Women Act has been reauthorized twice by unanimous consent, under both Democratic and Republican leadership. The legislation originated out of a necessity for us to respond to the prevalence of domestic violence, sexual violence, and the impact those crimes have on the lives of women.

By and large, the legislation has worked, even though there are outstanding issues, such as spending inefficiencies and needed improvements to oversight. As with most large pieces of legislation, including the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization, there are debates and philosophical differences about elements of various provisions in the bill. While the Senate should be allowed to debate and ideally resolve these differences, I don't think any of the points of controversy we will discuss are important enough to prevent passage of the legislation. The Violence Against Women Act represents a national commitment to reversing the legacy of laws and social norms that once served to shamefully excuse violence toward women, a commitment that should be maintained.

Whatever differences we might have over particular provisions in the bill, surely we are united in our concern for the victims of violence and our determination to do all we can to prevent violence against the innocent, regardless of gender. I recognize women suffer disproportionately from particular forms of violence and other abuse, which this legislation is intended to address. I believe it does address it, and that is why I support it. But our motivation to act on their behalf resides in our respect for the rights all human beings possess, male and female, all races, creeds, and ages: to be secure in their persons and property; to be protected by their government from violent harm at the hands of another; to live without threat or fear in the exercise of their God-given rights.

Similarly, whatever our political differences in this body, I trust we all believe we are doing what we think best serves the interests and values of the American people--all the American people. I don't think either party is entitled to speak or act exclusively for one demographic of our population, one class, one race or one gender. The security and prosperity of all Americans is a shared responsibility and each of us discharges it to the best of our ability. We do not have male and female political parties and we do not need to accuse each other of caring less for the concerns of one-half the population than we do for the other half. The truth is, both parties have presided over achievements and increases in opportunity for women. Both parties have nominated women to the Supreme Court. Both parties have had excellent female Secretaries of State. Both parties have had female Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates. Both parties have reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act. Both parties have made progress toward ensuring Americans, male and female, have an equal opportunity to succeed as far as their talents and industry can take them.

That progress has come in the form of many policies, from changes to our Tax Code to changes in education policy, to improvements in workplace environment as well as from changes in cultural attitudes in both the public and the private sector. Do we always agree? Do we always get it right? No, we do not. But I do think there is much for all of us to be proud.

Regrettably--and there is always something to regret in politics--we have seen too many attempts to resolve inequities in our society and ensure all Americans are afforded the same respect for their rights and aspirations misappropriated for the purpose of partisan advantage, which has the perverse effect, of course, of dividing the country in the name of greater fairness and unity.

My friends, this supposed war on women or the use of similarly outlandish rhetoric by partisan operatives has two purposes, and both are purely political in their purpose and effect. The first is to distract citizens from real issues that matter, and the second is to give talking heads something to sputter about when they appear on cable television. Neither purpose does anything to advance the well-being of any American.

I have been fortunate to be influenced throughout my life by the example of strong, independent, aspiring,

and caring women. As a son, brother, husband, father, and grandfather, I think I can claim some familiarity with the contributions women make to the health and progress of our society. I can certainly speak to their beneficial impact on my life and character. But I would never claim to speak for all the women in my family, much less all the women in our country any more than I would venture the same presumption for all men.

To suggest that one group of us or one party speaks for all women or that one group has an agenda to harm women and another to help them is ridiculous, if for no other reason than it assumes a unity of interest, beliefs, concerns, experiences, and ambition among all women that doesn't exist among men or among any race or class. It would be absurd for me to speak for all veterans and wrong of me to suggest that if a colleague who is not a veteran disagrees with my opinion on some issue, he or she must be against all our veterans.

In America, all we can fairly claim to have in common with each other at all times--no matter what gender we are or what demographic we fit-- are our rights. As a son, brother, husband, father, and grandfather, I have the same dreams and concerns for all the people in my life. As a public servant, I have the same respect for their rights and the same responsibility to protect them, and I try to do so to the best of my ability.

Thankfully, I believe women and men in our country are smart enough to recognize when a politician or political party resorts to dividing us in the name of bringing us together, it usually means they are either out of ideas or short on resolve to address the challenges of our time. At this time in our Nation's history we face an abundance of hard choices. Divisive slogans and the declaring of phony wars are intended to avoid those hard choices and to escape paying a political price for doing so.

For 38 straight months our unemployment rate has been over 8 percent. Millions of Americans--men and women--cannot find a job. Many have quit looking. Americans don't need another hollow slogan or another call to division and partisanship. They need real solutions to their problems. They are desperate for them.

Americans of both genders are concerned about finding and keeping a good job. Americans of both genders are concerned about the direction of our economy. Women and men are concerned about mounting debt--their own and the Nation's. Women and men are hurt by high gas prices, by the housing crisis, shrinking wages, and the cost of health care. Women and men are concerned about their children's security, their education, their prospects for inheriting an America that offers every mother and father's child a decent chance at reaching their full potential. Leaving these problems unaddressed indefinitely and resorting to provoking greater divisions among us at a time when we most need unity might not be a war against this or that group of Americans, but it is surely a surrender, a surrender of our responsibilities to the country and a surrender of decency.

Within the tired suggestions that women are singularly focused on one or two issues are the echoes of stale arguments from the past. Women are as variable in their opinions and concerns as men. Those false assertions are rooted in the past stereotypes that prevented women from becoming whatever they wanted to become, slowed our progress, and hurt our country in many ways. The argument is as wrong now as it was then and we ought not to repeat it.

We have only these in common: our equal right to the pursuit of happiness and our shared responsibility to making America an even greater place than we found it. Women and men are no different in their rights and responsibilities. I believe this legislation recognizes that. I don't believe the ludicrous partisan posturing that has conjured up this imaginary war.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I voted against S. 1789 because short-term financial relief for the Postal Service that will ultimately lead to a taxpayer bailout is no longer acceptable. According to the Postal Service, S. 1789 ``does not provide the Postal Service with the speed and flexibility it needs to achieve the $20 billion in cost reductions'' and they will need additional legislative action in 2 to 3 years.

The bill is designed to keep the current failing Postal Service business model in place by halting the structural changes the Postal Service says it needs to ensure its long-term viability. Instead of the Senate dealing with the real problems, such as 80 percent labor costs and consolidating the excess retail network of the Postal Service, the bill continues to allow no-layoff clauses in union contracts, will lock in unsustainable mail service standards, and place new litigious processes, restrictions, regulations, and appeals that will make it impossible for the Postal Service to close and consolidate underutilized post offices and mail-processing facilities. These roadblocks fly in the face of the hard reality that the Postal Service lost $13 billion in the past 2 years due to its failing business model and the changes in the way the American public communicates.

S. 1789 also prevents the Postal Service from moving to 5-day delivery, at a savings of anywhere from $1.7 to $3 billion annually and is one of the largest single steps available to restore their financial solvency. The Postmaster General has been coming to Congress since 2009 asking for this flexibility, and the American people overwhelmingly support this move. The Senate, however, chose to protect the 6-day delivery of junk mail even with first-class mail, which makes up more than half of postal revenues, on a downward spiral with no sign of recovery.

Finally, this bill continues the harmful practice of passing bills that are not paid for. S. 1789 has at least five budget points of order against it, and instead of being fiscally responsible and pay for this bill as promised, the Senate agreed to move forward and stick the American taxpayer with the tab. If we are not willing to keep our promise and abide by the spending limits we put in place, we are not really serious about fixing our countries financial problems.

Congress can no longer enact temporary fixes that avert financial crisis for only a brief period. If we continue to act in this irresponsible way, the American taxpayer will be the one that ultimately suffers in the form of higher postage prices and taxpayer bailouts. We must make hard choices now so future generations of Americans will have a viable Postal Service.

Mr. President, I want to discuss one of the amendments that I believe we will be voting on later, and basically what it does is it establishes a BRAC-like process in order to consolidate redundant, underutilized, and costly post offices and mail processing facilities.

We found over the years that Congress was politically unable to close a base or a facility that had to do with the military, so we adopted a process where a commission was appointed, those recommendations to consolidate excess and underutilized military bases were developed, and Congress was given an up-or-down vote. This is sort of based on that precedent.

The bill before us clearly doesn't offer any solutions. According to the Washington Post editorial:

The 21st Century Postal Service Act of 2011, proposed by

Senators Joseph Lieberman and Susan Collins and passed last

week by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security Government

Affairs, is not a bill to save the U.S. Postal Service. It is

a bill to postpone saving the Postal Service.

I agree with the Washington Post. I usually do. The Service's announcement that they lost $5.1 billion in the most recent fiscal year was billed as good news. That is how dire the situation is, the fact that they only lost $5.1 billion.

The Collins-Lieberman bill, which transfers $7 billion from

the Federal Employee Retirement System to the USPS--to be

used to offer buyouts to its workers and paying down debts--

can stave off collapse for a short time at best.

Nor do the other measures in the bill offer much hope. The

bill extends the payment schedule for the Postal Service to

prefund its employee retirement benefits from 10 to 40 years.

Yes, the funding requirement is onerous, but if the USPS

cannot afford to pay for these benefits now, what makes it

likely that it will be able to pay later, when mail volume

has most likely plummeted further?

The bill also requires two more years of studies to

determine whether a switch to five-day delivery would be

viable. These studies would be performed by a regulatory body

that has already completed a laborious inquiry into the

subject, a process that required almost a year.

The Washington Post goes on to say:

This seems a pointless delay, especially given a majority

of Americans support the switch to five-day delivery.

And finally they go on and say:

There is an alternative--a bill proposed by Rep. Darrell

Issa that would create a supervisory body to oversee the

Postal Service's finances and, if necessary, negotiate new

labor contracts. The bill . . . is not perfect, but offers a

serious solution that does not leave taxpayers on the hook.

So we now have legislation before us that makes it harder, if not impossible, for the Postal Service to close post offices and mail processing plants by placing new regulations and limitations on processes for closing or consolidating mail processing facilities, a move in the wrong direction. It puts in place significant and absolutely unprecedented new process steps and procedural hurdles designed to restrict USPS's ability to manage its mail processing network.

Additionally, the requirement to redo completed but not implemented mail processing consolidation studies will ultimately prevent any consolidations from occurring this calendar year.

What we have to realize in the context of this legislation is that we now have a dramatic shift, technologically speaking, as to how Americans communicate with each other. That is what this is all about. We now have the ability to communicate with each other without sitting down with pen and paper, just as we had the ability to transfer information and knowledge by means of the railroad rather than the Pony Express.

We now have facilities that are way oversized and unnecessary, and we are facing a fiscal crisis. According to the Postal Service:

The current mail processing network has a capacity of over

250 billion pieces of mail per year when mail volume is now

160 billion pieces of mail.

So now we have overcapacity that is nearly double what is actually going to be the work the Postal Service does, and all trends indicate down. More and more Americans now acquire the ability to communicate by text message, Twitter, and many other means of communications. So to somehow get mired into while we cannot close this post office, we have to keep this one open, we have to do this--we have to realize it in the context that a large portion of the U.S. Postal Service's business is conducted by sending what we call ``junk mail'' rather than the vital ways of communicating that it was able to carry out for so many years.

In addition, the Postal Service has a massive retail network of more than 32,000 post offices, branches, and stations that has remained largely unchanged despite declining mail volume and population shifts. The Postal Service has more full-time retail facilities in the United States of America than Starbucks, McDonald's, UPS, and FedEx combined. And according to the Government Accountability Office, approximately 80 percent of these retail facilities do not generate sufficient

revenue to cover their costs. That is what this debate is all about. I hope my colleagues understand that we are looking at basically a dying part of America's economy because of technological advances, and in this legislation we are basically not recognizing that problem.

When 80 percent of their facilities don't generate sufficient revenue to cover their costs, then any business in the world--in the United States of America--would right-size that business to accommodate for changed situations. This bill does not do that. It continues to put up political roadblocks that prevent tough but essential closings and consolidations.

I grieve for the individuals who took care of the horses when the Pony Express went out of business. I grieve for the bridle and saddle and buggymakers when the automobile came in. But this is a technological change which is good for America in the long run because we can communicate with each other instantaneously. So we have a Postal Service--and thank God for all they did all those years, in fact, to the point where they were even mentioned in our Constitution. But it is now time to accommodate to the realities of the 21st century, and the taxpayers cannot continue to pick up the tab of billions and billions of dollars. Again, last year it lost only $5.1 billion, which they suggested was good news.

All this bill does is place significant and absolutely unprecedented and new process steps and procedural hurdles designed to restrict USPS's ability manage its mail processing network. Additionally, the requirement to redo completed but not implemented mail consolidation studies will ultimately prevent any consolidations from occurring this year.

So what do we need to do? We obviously need a BRAC. We need a group to come together to look at this whole situation, find out where efficiencies need to be made--as any business in America does--and come up with proposals, because Congress does have a special obligation, and have the Congress vote up or down. This bill will continue the failing business model of the Postal Service by locking in mail service standards for 3 years which are nearly identical to those that have been in place for a number of years.

The clear intent of this provision is to prevent many of the mail processing plant closures that the Postal Service itself has proposed as part of its restructuring plan. It also prohibits the Postal Service from moving to 5-day mail delivery for at least 2 years with significant hurdles that must be cleared before approval, even though the Postmaster General has been coming to Congress since 2009 and asking for this flexibility.

One of the largest single steps available to restore USPS's financial solvency would save the Postal Service at least $2 billion annually. If you told Americans that we would save the taxpayers' money--because they are on the hook for $2 billion a year--if you went from 6-day to 5-day mail delivery, I guarantee you that the overwhelming majority of Americans do support a 5-day delivery schedule rather than 6-day delivery schedule.

This, of course, kicks the can down the road. The bill also has at least five budget points of order against it about which the ranking member of the Budget Committee came to the floor yesterday and spoke.

So the BRAC-like amendment is essential, in my view, to moving this process forward. I don't know how many more billions of dollars of taxpayers' money is going to have to be spent to adjust to the 21st century. There is no business, no company, no private business in America that when faced with these kinds of losses wouldn't restructure. And they would restructure quickly because they would have an obligation to the owners and the stockholders. We are the stockholders. We are the ones who should be acting as quickly as possible to bring this fiscal calamity under control.

The GAO, the Government Accountability Office, states:

The proposed Commission on Postal Reorganization could

broaden the current focus on individual facility closures--

which are often contentious, time consuming, and

inefficient--to a broader network-wide restructuring, similar

to the BRAC approach. In other restructuring efforts where

this approach has been used, expert panels successfully

informed and permitted difficult restructuring decisions,

helping to provide consensus on intractable decisions. As

previously noted, the 2003 Report of the President's

Commission on the USPS also recommended such an approach

relating to the consolidation and rationalization of

USPS's mail processing and distribution infrastructure.

We pay a lot of attention to the Government Accountability Office around here and this is something the Government Accountability Office recommends as well.

In addition:

[GAO] reviewed numerous comments from members of Congress,

affected communities, and employee organizations that have

expressed opposition to closing facilities. Such concerns are

particularly heightened for postal facilities identified for

closure that may consolidate functions to another state

causing political leaders to oppose and potentially prevent

such consolidations.

We should listen to the Government Accountability Office, take politics out of this delicate process, and move forward with their recommendations.

Our proposal would be composed of five members appointed by the President, with input from the House and Senate and the Comptroller General, with no more than three members being of the same political party.

The Postal Service, in consultation with the Postal Regulatory Commission, will be required to submit a plan to the BRAC-like Commission on closures and consolidations, which will include a list of closures and consolidations, a proposed schedule, estimated annual cost savings, criteria and process used to develop the plan, methodology and assumptions used to derive the estimates and any changes to processing, transportation, delivery or other postal operations anticipated as a result of the proposed closures and consolidations.

The Commission will be required to publish in the Federal Register the definition of ``excess mail processing capacity'' with a period of public comment.

After receiving the plans, the BRAC-like Commission will be required to hold at least five public hearings.

Finally, the Commission will be required to vote on the recommendations, with the concurrence of at least four of the members, and submit the recommendations to Congress. Any recommendation will be the subject of a congressional vote of approval or disapproval.

The amendment recognizes the fact that the current business model for the Postal Service is no longer viable. If we continue to act in an irresponsible way by putting up political roadblocks, the American taxpayer will be the one who ultimately suffers in the form of higher postage prices and bailouts. We should make hard choices now so future generations of Americans will have a viable Postal Service.

I ask unanimous consent the Washington Post editorial, ``A Failure to Deliver Solutions to Postal Service's problems,'' be printed in the Record.

I don't know what the ultimate result of the votes in the Senate will be. I do know that if it passes, it will be strongly opposed in the other body, the House of Representatives. If it is passed and signed into law, we will be back on the floor within 2 years addressing this issue again because this is not a solution. This isn't even a mandate. It is a proposal that will do business as usual and an abject failure to recognize there are technological changes that make certain practices obsolete, and that is what this is all about. Is it painful? Yes. Is it difficult? Yes. But the overall taxpayer obviously wants us to act in a fiscally responsible manner.

I yield the floor.

I call up amendment No. 2033.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, this amendment would establish a commission on postal reorganization, basically a BRAC. It is the same thing we have done in the case of military bases. For many years we were unable to close a single one. This would establish a commission on postal reorganization. They would come out with their findings and recommendations and Congress would vote up or down.

Recently, the Government Accountability Office released a report just this month entitled ``Challenges Related to Restructuring the Postal Service's Retail Network,'' which supports this BRAC-like policy process, and it goes on to say that this Commission could broaden the current focus on individual facility closures, which are often contentious, time consuming, and inefficient to a broader network with wide restructuring similar to the BRAC approach.

This is obviously an admission that we are unable to make these tough decisions ourselves, but it has proven successful in the BRAC process, and I think it will in this case.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, before the Senator speaks, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to follow the remarks of the Senator from Rhode Island.

Mr. President, I rise to comment on our failure to move forward with debate and discussion and amendments on this very important bill. The sponsors of the legislation and I may have very different proposals to address this compelling issue, but neither the sponsors nor I believe we should not have debate, discussion, and amendment.

Unfortunately, again, because of a requirement by Members that their amendment be voted on, apparently, the majority leader will now move on, fill the tree, amendments will not be allowed, and we will move on to other legislation. This affects 500-some-thousand American employees. We are talking about tens of billions of dollars. We are talking about an urgent need to restructure and reform the postal system in America. So now, because of demands of Senators to have votes on nongermane amendments, we will now move on to other legislation. I wonder when we will address the issue. May 15 is a very critical date in this whole scenario.

I would like to talk a bit about my proposal, and that basically is modeled after the bill that is pending in the other body, the House of Representatives.

Yesterday the Washington Post editorial said, ``The time for real postal reform is now.'' It begins:

For anyone who still does not quite grasp the

technologically obsolescent U.S. Postal Service's calamitous

financial situation, here are a few facts from Thursday's

Government Accountability Office report.

Before I go through that, I will quote from a Washington Post article from November 18. It specifically refers to the pending legislation. It says:

The 21st Century Postal Service Act of 2011, proposed by

Senators Joseph I. Lieberman and Susan Collins and passed

last week by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and

Governmental Affairs, is not a bill to save the U.S. Postal

Service. It is a bill to postpone saving the Postal Service.

The service's announcement that it lost $5.1 billion in the

most recent fiscal year was billed as good news, which

suggests how dire its situation is. The only reason the loss

was not greater is that Congress postponed the USPS's payment

of $5.5 billion to prefund retiree health benefits. According

to the Government Accountability Office, even $50 billion

would not be enough to repay all of the Postal Service's debt

and address current and future operating deficits that are

caused by its inability to cut costs quickly enough to match

declining mail volume and revenue.

The Collins-Lieberman bill, which transfers $7 billion from

the Federal Employee

Retirement System to the USPS--to be used for offering

buyouts to its workers and paying down debts--can stave off

collapse for a short time at best.

I point out that this is the Washington Post's view and the GAO's view, not necessarily that of this Senator.

Nor do the other measures in the bill offer much hope. The

bill extends the payment schedule for the Postal Service to

prefund its employee retirement benefits from 10 to 40 years.

Yes, the funding requirement is onerous, but if the USPS

cannot afford to pay for these benefits now, what makes it

likely they will be able to pay later when mail volumes

most likely will have plummeted further?

The article goes on to talk about one of the favorite tactics around here--more studies.

The bill also requires two more years of studies to

determine whether a switch to five-day delivery would be

viable.

I have to repeat that for my colleagues. We need to study for 2 years as to whether we need to reduce mail delivery from 6 days to 5 days. Isn't that marvelous. Isn't that marvelous--2 years to study. What it is is delaying what is absolutely necessary; that is, to have 5-day-a- week delivery.

One of my colleagues said it might keep someone from getting a newspaper in the mail. We are talking about $50 billion short, and we can't even reduce the number of days which has been recommended by the Postmaster General himself, so we are going to have 2 years to study whether we should switch to 5-day-a-week and whether that would be viable.

Continuing to quote from the Washington Post article:

These studies would be performed by a regulatory body that

has already completed a laborious inquiry into the subject, a

process that required almost a year.

So it will actually take 3 years.

This seems a pointless delay, especially given that a

majority of Americans support the switch to five-day

delivery.

We are sympathetic to Congress's wish to avoid killing

jobs. And the bill does include provisions we have

supported--such as requiring arbitrators to take the Postal

Service's financial situation into account during collective

bargaining and demanding a plan for providing mail services

at retail outlets.

But this plan hits the snooze button on many of the postal

service's underlying problems. Eighty percent of the USPS's

budget goes towards its workforce; many of its workers are

protected by no-layoff clauses.

Our Postal Service has no-layoff clauses in its contracts. I wonder if most Americans know that.

Seven billion dollars' worth of buyouts may help to shrink

the workforce, but this so-called overpayment will come from

taxpayers' pockets, and it is a hefty price to pay for

further delay.

There is an alternative--a bill proposed by Representative

Darrell Issa, (Republican-California) that would create a

supervisory body to oversee the Postal Service's finances

and, if necessary, negotiate new labor contracts. The bill,

which just emerged from committee, is not perfect, but it

offers a serious solution that does not leave taxpayers on

the hook.

I wish to read from the April 14 Washington Post editorial, which I think sums up the situation.

For better or worse, our children's children will marvel at

the fact that anyone ever used to send the paper thing called

``a letter.'' They'll be amazed to learn that we

unnecessarily spent billions of dollars propping up a huge,

inefficient system for moving these things around. But what

would really astound future generations is that we borrowed

that money and left it to them to pay it back.

There is no better description of what this bill is all about. My friends, I will be glad to go into a number of details, but it is very clear Congress and the Postal Service cannot make decisions, so what we need is the only thing we found that worked to reduce our bases in America, which was a BRAC. So what we need is a BRAC-like commission to identify those post offices and other facilities that need to be closed.

I wish to go back to what the article said about future generations. My friends, we now communicate with these. We communicate by e-mail and we communicate by tweeting and we communicate electronically in the ways we used to do with pen and paper or a typewriter. That is a fact. So we have seen a dramatic reduction in regular mail. We have seen it go down in a very dramatic fashion, which will accelerate over time. Listen, when guys my age are doing this, everybody is doing it. The fact is, everybody will be doing it, and they will not have to put a 30- or 40- or 50-cent or 60-cent stamp on a letter in order to get a message to their friends, families, business associates, et cetera.

Instead of doing as some did when the Pony Express was replaced by the railroad--trying to prop up a failing industry--let's find a graceful exit and, at the same time, preserve those functions of the Postal Service that will be around for a long time. There are functions that could stay around for a long time. But this is a dramatically changed world. We now have instant communications. We have instant news cycles, and we have today a proliferation, thank God, of information and knowledge that was unknown in previous years or in history. There are upsides and downsides to that, but the Postal Service delivering letters does not play any role in the future of information being shared and made available to citizens all over the world.

First-class mail makes up more than half of postal revenues. It is down by more than 25 percent since 2001. In the last 11 years, it is down 25 percent, and I promise that will accelerate. It continues on a downward spiral with no sign of recovery. This, combined with unsustainable 80-percent labor costs and labor contracts that contain no-layoff clauses, points to the hard reality the Postal Service is broken.

By the way, that is also the conclusion of the Government Accountability Office, which just recently issued a report entitled ``Challenges Related to Restructuring the Postal Service's Retail Network.'' Let me quote from that report.

In 2011, the American Postal Workers Union . . . and USPS

management negotiated a 4-year agreement that limits

transferring employees of an installation or craft to no more

than 50 miles away.

How in the world did they negotiate an agreement that they would not transfer anybody farther than 50 miles away?

If USPS management cannot place employees within 50 miles,

the parties are to jointly determine what steps may be taken,

which includes putting postal employees on ``stand by'' which

occurs when workers are idled but paid their full salary due

to reassignments and reorganization efforts.

I am not making that up. If someone is a postal service worker and they want to be reassigned more than 50 miles away, they cannot do it. And if they can't do it, they put employees on stand-by, and they are idled but paid their full salary due to reassignments and reorganization efforts. My friends, it helps us to understand why 80 percent of their costs are in personnel.

The GAO, in its report, makes an argument basically for a BRAC. They call it the Commission on Postal Reorganization. Quoting the GAO once again:

The proposed Commission on Postal Reorganization could

broaden the current focus on individual facility closures--

which are often contentious, time consuming and inefficient--

to a broader network-wide restructuring, similar to the BRAC

approach. In other restructuring efforts where this approach

has been used, expert panels have successfully informed and

permitted difficult restructuring decisions, helping to

provide consensus on intractable decisions. As previously

noted, the 2003 report of the President's Commission on the

USPS also recommended such an approach relating to the

consolidation and rationalization of USPS's mail processing

and distribution infrastructure. We also reported in 2010

that Congress may want to consider this approach to assist in

restructuring organizations that are facing key financial

challenges.

GAO has testified that USPS cannot continue providing

services at current levels without dramatic changes in its

cost structure. Optimizing the USPS's mail processing network

would help USPS by bringing down costs related to excess and

inefficient resources.

Continuing to read from the GAO report:

Lack of flexibility to consolidate its workforce: USPS

stated it must be able to reduce the size of its workforce in

order to ensure its costs are less than revenue. Action in

this area is important since USPS's workforce accounts for

about 80 percent of its costs.

We are faced with a very difficult decision, and the amendment and substitute I have has a number of provisions. I see my friend from Connecticut is on the floor, and I know he wants to discuss this issue as well, but the fact is we are looking at a Postal Service that once upon a time was so important to the United States of America it was even mentioned in the Constitution. Since those days, and in the intervening years, the Postal Service performed an incredibly outstanding job in delivering mail and communications to our citizens all over America--

in all settings, in all parts of our country--and they deserve great credit for doing so. But now we face a technological change.

As I understand it, a huge portion of their mail now is made up of so-called junk mail, which is advertising mail. Americans in greater and greater numbers are making use of this new technology, as I pointed out, and it is time we understood that and we stopped this incredible hemorrhaging of money. According to the Postal Service itself, by 2020, they are expecting to face up to a $238 billion shortfall. They are expecting a $238 billion shortfall in just the next 8 years--$238 billion. The Postal Service has reached its borrowing limit of $15 billion. Even with dramatic cost savings of $12 billion and workforce reduction of 110,000 postal employees in the past 4 years, the Postal Service is still losing money. In fact, the Postal Service has said it could lose as much as $18 billion annually by 2015 if not given the necessary flexibility it needs to cut costs and transform.

What does the legislation before us do? It delays by 2 years for a study--a study--to figure out whether we should go from 6 days a week to 5 days a week. I wonder how long it would take some smart people to figure out whether we should go from a 5-day delivery versus 6 days. According to the sponsors of the bill, it takes them 2 years, after they have already studied it for 1 year. Remarkable. Remarkable.

What we need--and this is, unfortunately, testimony to the lack of political courage of Members of Congress and members of the administration--a BRAC process. We need a BRAC process, where we can appoint a number of men and women who are knowledgeable and who are willing to make these decisions for us and then those decisions would be made and it would come back for an up-or-down vote in the Congress of the United States.

I point out again, this bill before us locks in the current service standards for 3 years. It will make it impossible to go forward with the vast bulk of the Postal Service's planned network consolidation for at least 3 years. It puts in place significant new steps, including public notice and comment, before a processing plant can be closed. It gives appeal rights to the PRC for processing plant closures and gives binding authority to this PRC to keep a plant open to protect service standards.

The bill adds a number of new regulations designed to make it more difficult to close post offices. It includes a post office closure moratorium until retail service standards are created. It gives the PRC the ability to enforce a ``retail service standard'' which would enable the PRC to not only require appealed post offices stay open but even require new post offices to be open if a complaint is lodged.

It continues the 2-year delay before USPS can go to 5-day delivery, as I mentioned, and it removes a provision in the reported text that required arbitrators to take into account pay comparability in any decision. It replaces it with vague language that says ``nothing in this section may be construed to limit the relevant factors that the arbitration board may take into consideration.''

If that isn't vague language I don't know what is. Let me repeat it. They want the board to do nothing in this section of the legislation that could be construed to limit the relevant factors that the arbitration board may take into consideration. That is pretty good guidance, isn't it?

I could go on and on, but in summary I would just go back to the Washington Post's final paragraph of their article and repeat--and this is what this is all about, my friends.

For better or worse, our children's children will marvel at

the fact that anyone ever used to send the paper thing called

``a letter.'' They'll be amazed to learn that we

unnecessarily spent billions of dollars propping up a huge,

inefficient system for moving these things around. But what

would really astound future generations is that we borrowed

that money and left it to them to pay it back.

I thank the sponsors of this bill for the great effort they made. I think we have open and honest disagreements that deserve debate and discussion and amendments. They deserve amendments and they deserve honest debate. We are talking about the future of the Postal Service in America and we are talking about literally, over time, hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayers' money.

I hope the majority leader will reconsider and allow amendments to be proposed. I hope my colleagues will not insist on a vote on a nonrelevant amendment as a condition to moving forward with legislation. That is not right either.

I have said time after time, because I have been around here for a long time, we should have people sit down, both majority and Republican leaders, and say, okay, how many amendments do you want? Which amendments do you want voted on? Give them a reasonable handful, which we did not that long ago, and then you have those votes and move forward.

This is important legislation. The Senator from Connecticut will point out that May 15 is a critical day. This issue cannot be strung out forever.

I hope we can sit down with the majority and Republican leader and come up with some amendments that would be allowed and then move forward. I don't know if my amendment will be agreed to, but I think it deserves a vote. I think it deserves debate and consideration.

Again, I thank the sponsors, three of the four of whom are on the floor, for their hard work. I look forward to the opportunity to have honest and open debate and discussion on this very important legislation. I know they and their staffs have put in hundreds and hundreds of hours of work on this legislation to bring it to the floor.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, will the Senator from Nevada yield just for a comment?

I thank him for honoring those who came to this country who fled reeducation camps and execution in a most horrible, brutal regime period. The enormous contribution those individuals and their children now have made to our Nation, our economy, our political scene, is remarkable and one of which all of us should be extremely proud. I thank the Senator from Nevada for recognizing those individuals' contribution.

Madam President, I thank the leader for his generous and kind remarks. As he said, he and I have done battle on the honorable field of combat, but I think the feeling of respect and appreciation and admiration is mutual. I thank the leader.

Madam President, I thank my colleague for his continued leadership on this issue and his eminent qualifications to address it and help educate the American people about what is at stake.

I think this colloquy we are having has to be considered in the context of the arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court. I think my colleague from South Carolina, Senator Graham, will mention that we should not draw too many conclusions from the questions that are asked by the Justices of the Supreme Court.

One of the things I find when I watch the talk shows--and I ask the Senator from Wyoming this--the first thing they say is that the most important thing about ObamaCare is that parents can keep their children on their health insurance plan until they reach age 26. Well, you know, I think all four of us right now would be glad to put that into law as an amendment in a New York minute. If they want to keep their children home living in the basement until they are 30, that is fine. But for that to be the centerpiece, saying that this is why we have to preserve ObamaCare, is, of course, a bad joke.

What we are arguing about here is the thousands of pages--I guess the Senator from Wyoming knows--is it 100,000 pages of regulations that have been already issued to try to implement this plan?

Also, we have promised to repeal and replace ObamaCare, depending on not only the Supreme Court decision but the will of the people as expressed, perhaps, next November.

Of the areas that I think we have not focused enough attention on, one is the unsavory process that resulted in passage of this legislation--behind closed doors and everybody at Blair House bludgeoning the AMA and the pharmaceuticals and the deals that were cut here.

Another area was a promise made by the President that he would consider--it wasn't committed to, I will admit--medical malpractice reform. And here we are talking about 20 to 30 percent of the health care costs in America

which, in the view of some, can be attributed to the unnecessary tests that are being administered and prescribed by physicians and health care providers because of their fear of ending up in court. Yet, in all of this bill, there is not one mention that I know of that has a meaningful approach to medical malpractice reform.

Since the Senator from South Carolina not only is an expert on the Supreme Court, but also he is one of the trial lawyers' Republican favorites, maybe he could address that aspect of medical care as well.

Would the Senator from Wyoming comment on that?

Could I ask my colleagues if they remember the Cornhusker kickback? Another Democratic holdout took credit for $10 billion in new funding for community health centers, an exemption for nonprofit insurance in their States; and Vermont and Massachusetts were given additional Medicaid funding; a $300 million increase for Medicaid in Louisiana, and the list goes on and on. This was the process they went through, culminating, as the Senator from South Carolina mentioned, on Christmas Eve--a process that, obviously, most Americans find unsavory.

It is interesting, and I would ask my two colleagues to comment on the fact that the same people, the same organizations--the AMA, the hospitals, the pharmaceuticals, and others, that all signed up and were bludgeoned into supporting ObamaCare--and by the way, that negotiating that took place, since the President promised there would not be lobbyists in the White House, that they would not play a major role, it was done in Blair House--these same people, these same organizations, have come to our offices asking for relief from ObamaCare. Isn't that fascinating. I mean, time after time, the same members of the same organizations that supported ObamaCare come and say, look, we can't live with this provision, we can't do this, it is impossible for us to comply with that provision. It is a fascinating commentary on trying to do the Lord's work in the city of Satan, is it not, I ask my colleagues?

Mr. President, I am glad to see the Senator from Illinois on the Senator floor to object to my next proposal.

Mr. President, throughout our history, from time to time we have passed legislation that long after it has served its purpose, if it ever did, still remains on the books. I think one of the great and outstanding examples of that is a law called the Jones Act.

The Jones Act, I am sure, may have had some rationale behind it back in 1920 when it was enacted. I am also sure there is perhaps only 1 American in 1,000 who has ever heard of the Jones Act. But the Jones Act has a direct impact on oil supplies, on the cost of oil, and the cost of other products.

The Jones Act says, incredibly, any product shipped between two U.S. ports--whether it is Honolulu, HI, and San Francisco or one of the gulf coast ports to the northeast or anyplace between two U.S. ports--can only be transported by U.S.-owned, U.S.-built, and U.S.-crewed vessels. Talk about protectionism. There is probably no greater example than this.

The Jones Act, enacted in 1920, has cost consumers--especially in places such as Hawaii where the transportation of goods is long distance--enormous amounts of money. In other words, citing the February 2012 Energy Information Administration Report, there are only 56 tankers that meet the Jones Act requirements, which accounts for less than 1 percent of both the total number and the total deadweight tonnages of tankers in the world. So less than 1 percent of the tankers in the world are able, by law, to operate between two U.S. ports.

So what does this do? Obviously, when we are talking about supply and capacity, it drives up the cost of petroleum. In fact, sometimes it is two or three times the rate of a foreign flagship--again, according to the Energy Information Administration. Not only that, the Jones Act tankers--those 56--aren't always readily available, so the costs can be even higher than we are talking about.

Let me give another example of the harm the Jones Act does to American consumers. In 1999, the U.S. International Trade Commission-- not a Republican or Democrat or Liberal or Conservative organization-- said a repeal of the Jones Act would lower shipping costs by approximately 22 percent. A 2002 economic study from that same commission found repealing the Jones Act would have an annual positive welfare effect of $665 million on the overall U.S. economy. Given the price of oil, that is probably now close to $1 billion.

The Jones Act adds real direct costs to consumers, as I mentioned, particularly to Hawaii and Alaska. I notice the Senator from Alaska is on the Senate floor. A 1988 GAO report found the Jones Act was costing Alaskan families between $1,921 and $4,820 annually for increased prices paid on goods that were shipped from the mainland. In 1997, a Hawaii Government official asserted that ``Hawaii residents pay an additional $1 billion per year in higher prices because of the Jones Act. This amounts to approximately $3,000 for every household in Hawaii.'' Again, those figures are from 1988 to 1997. Obviously, they are higher today.

Everybody says there is nothing that can be done immediately about the price of oil. My friends, if we repeal the Jones Act, we would have an immediate effect on the price of oil because when we are transporting oil from the gulf coast to the Northeast, and it costs two or three times more if that supply is restricted to being transported only by these 56 tankers, then, obviously--according to figures that are accurate that it costs two to three times more than if we allowed other foreign-flagged ships to move these goods and services, but particularly oil tankers--we could cut the cost of oil, of gasoline, immediately.

So the next time you hear the President of the United States or my friends on the other side of the aisle say there is nothing that can be done now about reducing the price of a gallon of gasoline, understand that we can do so by repealing the Jones Act immediately.

If there was ever a law that has long ago outlived its utility or usefulness, if it ever had any, it is this law passed in 1920. Only American built? We can't even buy another one--a tanker or a ship--that is built in another country and not have it fall under the Jones Act, even if it is American owned and with an American crew. Amazing.

What I am leading to, obviously, is that we should repeal the Jones Act. If not repeal it, then waive the Jones Act. If not fully waive it, then waive it just for the transport of oil, for oil and gas tankers. If that is not enough, let's just waive it for 6 months. Couldn't we just do that for 6 months?

I know what the response of the Senator from Illinois is going to be. That is his duty on the Senate floor, and I respect that. But, my friends, the price of a gallon of gasoline is now, this March, according to media reports, the highest it has been in history. Depending on what happens in a lot of different areas of the world-- particularly the Middle East and what happens in Iran and other things that are going on in this very dangerous world we are living in today-- it could go considerably higher.

So why don't we take a commonsense approach and at least for 6 months waive the requirements of the Jones Act for only oil and gasoline tankers--for just 6 months. It seems to me that would make a great deal of sense.

I know all four of my unanimous consent requests on these amendments are going to be denied. But, first of all, I think the Jones Act should be repealed completely. If it isn't to be repealed, couldn't we at least waive the Jones Act restrictions on coastwise trade for oil and gas tankers? If we can't waive it permanently for that, can't we waive those restrictions for 6 months? We are discussing energy and the price of oil. Can't we waive the Jones Act restrictions on coastwise trade for oil and gasoline for 6 months.

So with the indulgence of my friend from Illinois, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate returns to consideration of S. 2204, the pending energy tax bill, it be in order for me to offer--I want to offer them all--my amendment No. 1948, which is, as I described, an amendment that would waive the Jones Act restrictions. In other words, it would allow a foreign-flagged tanker to move oil and gas--a waiver for 6 months to move just oil and gas--so that we can immediately reduce the cost of transportation, which would then translate itself at the pump at every gas station in America.

Mr. President, I always enjoy a little dialog between myself and the Senator from Illinois. I hope he would have the same passion concerning all subsidies, including the outrageous and disgraceful subsidies that--and there is a lot of solar in the State of Arizona--a lot of solar. I will stop here, but if we are going to repeal the gas and oil subsidies, let's repeal them all. Let's repeal them all.

I am not sure--again, the logic that says that if we are able to immediately reduce the cost of oil by repealing the Jones Act, which then would reduce the cost of transportation, would then reduce the cost of gasoline--why should we out of hand reject such a motion or an effort to do so?

But I understand what the position of the majority and the distinguished Democratic leader is, and I know others are waiting, so I thank the Senator and I yield the floor.

Madam President, I might point out to my friend from Mississippi that the first amendment we had on the floor of the Senate when we were considering ObamaCare was to restore that $500 billion, and it was voted down on a party-line basis.

I thank my friends for allowing me to engage in this colloquy. I want to discuss this with my friends. In my view, probably what encapsulates the problems with this legislation--the commitment began that we would provide affordable health care to all Americans, which meant we had to put the brakes on inflation in health care because health care was becoming unaffordable--the highest quality health care in the world. Nothing, in my view--and I ask my colleagues this--describes more how this whole plan went awry than the so-called CLASS Act.

Late in the debate, the CLASS Act was thrown in to provide long-term care for seniors, which seems like a worthy cause, but the whole thing was a gimmick. It was described by Senator Conrad, our chairman of the Budget Committee, as a ``Ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing that Bernie Madoff would have been proud of.''

They foisted that off on us. Why? Initially, because of CBO scoring, it would show an increase in finances into revenues and into the whole ObamaCare program. But as soon as those people who were paying in became eligible, obviously, the reverse happened. Thank God for former Senator Gregg of New Hampshire, who had an amendment adopted that required the Secretary to certify that the program would be solvent for over 75 years before the program could be implemented. If it hadn't been for that, the CLASS Act would be here today.

Then, last October, the Secretary of Health and Human Services issued a report confirming what many of us knew was inevitable: that the Secretary could not certify the CLASS Act's solvency as required under law. So we went through this exercise of frantically searching for ways to increase revenue, at least the way CBO does scoring. So we did the CLASS Act and, thank God, Senator Gregg of New Hampshire put in an amendment that they had to certify that it would be viable over 75 years. There was not a snowball's chance in Gila Bend, AZ, that they were able to certify that for over 75 years it would be a viable program.

It was kind of entertaining, but late on a Friday night the Secretary of Health and Human Services said she could not certify that the program would be solvent throughout a 75-year period. The result of this was, obviously, that they didn't have the false revenues that CBO could score. They didn't have a program that could provide long-term care for seniors. Again, as the Senator from North Dakota aptly pointed out, this ``Ponzi scheme of the first order'' faced and met a well- deserved death.

That is why an overwhelming majority of the American people disapprove of this whole exercise of ObamaCare. They want it repealed. They don't support it. I am proud to say in this election we will decide whether we repeal and replace ObamaCare. The American people care about that.

They could have kept it on the books. If it had not been for the amendment of Senator Gregg from New Hampshire which said they had to certify its solvency over a 75-year period, we would have the CLASS Act today, a Ponzi scheme where people would be paying in, and that is scored as revenues, and some years later when they retire, obviously, the reverse would have been true.

I have yet to hear one of my colleagues come over and admit that they

were wrong about the CLASS Act. I would love to hear some of those who strongly advocated for it. My friend from Iowa, Senator Harkin, said:

So we get a lot of bang for the buck, as one might say,

with the CLASS Act that we have in this bill.

Senator Whitehouse said this:

Certain colleagues on the other side of the aisle have

argued that the CLASS plan would lead to a financially

unstable entitlement program and would rapidly increase the

Federal deficit. That is simply not accurate.

I look forward to my colleagues who supported and voted for the CLASS Act to come over and agree that it was, as Senator Conrad pointed out, a Ponzi scheme.

Before that, the whole point of reforming health care was to reduce the cost of health care. That was the goal. We all know Medicare cannot be sustained for the American people if the inflation associated with health care continues. The whole object of this game was to reduce the cost of health care and preserve the quality of health care.

Does anybody think that was achieved with this legislation? That is why the American people have figured it out. I yield for the Senator from South Dakota.

I ask the Senator, even though we have shut down the office of the CLASS Act, even though the Secretary of Health and Human Services said they can't certify that it will be fiscally solvent over 75 years, it is still on the books. Isn't the CLASS Act still on the books? Does the Senator think it might be appropriate, since we cannot comply with the law, to maybe repeal that portion of the law? Is that something we might think about? It might be a pretty good amendment.

In addition, I ask the Senator how many new regulations have been issued, and how many new regulations do we anticipate as a result of this exercise?

Mr. President, today I rise to honor a distinguished naval officer and a true patriot. Having just passed the torch of command for U.S. Pacific Command, Admiral Robert F. Willard will hang up one last time the uniform he first donned almost four decades ago. On the eve of his retirement, it is fitting to memorialize in the annals of this chamber Admiral Willard's years of selfless service to our Nation.

A Los Angeles native, Admiral Willard graduated from the United States Naval Academy and was commissioned in 1973. After he completed flight training and qualified as a naval aviator, he served in F 14 fighter squadrons operating off of the aircraft carriers USS Constellation, USS Ranger, and USS Kitty Hawk. Admiral Willard's proficiency in the cockpit led to his assignment to Navy Fighter Weapons School, more commonly known as

TOPGUN, where he served as the operations and executive officer. Many may not know that Admiral Willard was the aerial coordinator for the 1986 movie Top Gun and also appeared in it as a flight instructor. Admiral Willard later commanded the famous Screaming Eagles Fighter Squadron operating off of the USS Carl Vinson.

In 1992, following his successful completion of nuclear power training, Admiral Willard rejoined the USS Carl Vinson as its executive officer. He went on to command the amphibious flagship USS Tripoli and the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. As a flag officer, Admiral Willard twice served on the Joint Staff, was deputy and chief of staff for U.S. Pacific Fleet, commanded Carrier Group Five embarked upon the USS Kitty Hawk, and commanded Seventh Fleet in Yokosuka, Japan. In March 2005, Admiral Willard became the 34th Vice Chief of Naval Operations, and in May 2007, he became Commander of the United States Pacific Fleet.

On October 19, 2009, Admiral Willard was appointed as Commander, U.S. Pacific Command. He assumed command when much of our focus was still on the Middle East and North Africa, and rightly so. Conflicts there, however, in no way diminished the importance of the Asia-Pacific, where strategically important events unfolded during Admiral Willard's command. As the United States rebalances its national security strategy and realigns its forces with a greater focus on the Asia-Pacific, Admiral Willard's leadership over the last 2 years has laid a critical foundation for our security and that of our allies, now and in years to come.

Pacific Command is personally resonant with me. Between 1968 and 1972, my father held the position, then known as Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command, that Admiral Willard has just relinquished. The running joke between Admiral Willard and me has been that he was living in my father's old house. And so, of all the praise and accolades I could bestow on Admiral Willard for his service to our Nation, the best and most appropriate would be: the command undertaken by my father and other great men has been admirably served by the leadership of Admiral Willard.

Admiral Willard has always paid tribute to his spouse of 38 years Donna, who has been a tireless advocate for the men and women of the commands in which she and her husband have served, and a wonderful ambassador for the United States and the Navy. And so I extend a grateful Nation's thanks to the Willards and their children Jennifer, Bryan, and Mark for their exceptional service, best wishes for the next chapter in their life, and fair winds and following seas.