Floor Statements

The following Senators are necessarily absent: The Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) and the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Thune).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) and the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Thune).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) and the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Thune).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) and the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Thune).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) and the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Thune).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) and the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Thune).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) and the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Thune).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul) and the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Thune).

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, last week I came to the floor to talk about how free enterprise helps people achieve earned success and thus helps them pursue true happiness. Today I want to talk about another moral benefit of free enterprise--its effectiveness in reducing poverty and promoting economic mobility.

This is an important conversation to have since President Obama has made income and class inequality the centerpieces of his reelection campaign. For example, in his Osawatomie, KS, speech last year, he said:

This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class and all

those who are fighting to get into the middle class. I

believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair

shot, when everyone does their fair share, and when everyone

plays by the same rules.

He followed up with similar themes in the 2012 State of the Union speech, saying that he believes in ``an America where hard work paid off, responsibility was rewarded, and anyone could make it if they tried--no matter who you were, where you came from, or how you started out.''

Of course, these are quintessential American values in no dispute. But the President's soaring rhetoric is at odds with his main policy, which is to achieve greater economic equality not by equal opportunity but through forced redistribution of wealth. For example, the President has proposed a litany of tax increases, such as the so-called Buffet rule, higher marginal income tax rates, and higher taxes on investment. New taxes don't lift anybody, but they do tear some people down.

The President also proposes more government spending to redistribute the new tax dollars collected. Redistributionist programs have a role, of course, as government safety nets. They help, for example, people who are ill temporarily, down on their luck, or not able-bodied. But, unfortunately, they do not cure poverty. If they did, poverty would no longer exist in America.

The only permanent cure for poverty and the only system capable of producing massive increases in economic mobility is free enterprise. Senator Mark Rubio put it well when he said that ``the free enterprise system has lifted more people out of poverty than all the government anti-poverty programs combined.'' As we will see in a moment, economic data confirms this is true.

As Arthur Brooks and Peter Wehner wrote in their book called ``Wealth and Justice: The Morality of Democratic Capitalism,'' before the rise of free enterprise; that is, for most of human history, life was ``bleak, cruel and short.'' Life expectancy was low, infant mortality was high, disease was rampant, and food was scarce. Education was only for the wealthy. Indeed, the wealthy were the only people who lived in relative comfort.

But the emergence of free enterprise roughly two centuries ago helped to change all that. As the free enterprise system took root, particularly in Western Europe, protectionist measures eased, trade increased, and businesses accumulated capital to grow and create new jobs. People pursued their self-interests free of state coercion or corruption, and the economic benefits flowed to every strata of society. As Brooks and Wehner note, ``Markets, precisely because they are wealth generating, also end up being wealth distributing.''

By every universal measure, life has improved dramatically in free market societies. Literacy, basic living standards, and life expectancy have increased, while disease and starvation have plummeted. Child labor has been eradicated. As free enterprise has spread during the last two centuries, the world's average per capita income has skyrocketed by about 10 times. These are major moral achievements. Yes, some people are richer than others, and that is true in all nations whether characterized as market economies or not. But where it exists, free enterprise has helped make the poor make tremendous gains, and they continue to climb. In the modern era of globalization, we have seen this on an unprecedented scale. Since 1970, as economic freedom has grown in developing countries such as China and India, the number of people living on $1 a day has plunged by 80 percent, according to a recent study.

What about President Obama's arguments that free enterprise has harmed middle-class prosperity? Over the past quarter century, economic studies have shown otherwise. Indeed, as Hoover Institution fellow Henry Nau pointed out in a recent Wall Street Journal article, middle- income earners have become richer and many have leaped into the upper- middle class. Between 1980 and 2007, a period Nau calls ``the Great Expansion,'' the United States grew by more than 3 percent per year and created more than 50 million new jobs, ``massively expanding a middle class of workers,'' in Nau's words.

Nau continues:

Per capita income increased by 65 percent, and household

income went up substantially in all income categories. . . .

In the past three decades, households making more than

$105,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars doubled to 24 percent

from 11 percent.

These are remarkable increases in wealth. What policies produced this expansion? Again quoting Nau:

Precisely the free-market policies of deregulation and

lower marginal income-tax rates that [President] Obama

decries.

If the President wants to increase class mobility and prosperity and build on the successes of the ``Great Expansion,'' then he must turn away from

the statist policies that have dominated his 3 years in office. As Brooks and Wehner write:

The answer is not less capitalism, it is better

capitalists.

And I would add, that includes the President and his advisers.

Most fundamentally, our policies must reward hard work and merit for the simple reason that people are more successful and industrious when they get to keep more of the fruits of their labor.

That is what we call earned success. Their prosperity flows to others when they open businesses, create jobs and new products, compete for workers, raise wages, and invest their profits, which can then be lent to other entrepreneurs. But when market forces are restricted--when taxes are too high and regulations are too stifling--entrepreneurship loses its appeal. If people think outcomes are predetermined by the government, they don't have incentives to compete.

A 2005 study by economists Alberto Alesina and George-Marios Angeletos underscores the point. They found that beliefs about meritocratic rewards are self-fulfilling. They concluded that if a society thinks people have a right to enjoy the fruits of their effort, it will choose low taxes and have lower tolerance for redistribution. Effort will be high in these places. Conversely, they found that if citizens believe the system is rigged and that luck and connections, not merit, are the key determinants of success, then they will demand forced wealth redistribution and effort will be lower in these places.

Simply put, if people think the system is inherently unfair, it will wind up that way. That is precisely what has happened in countries such as Spain and Greece, where outcomes are divorced from effort, and, to a large measure, bureaucrats and special interests dictate who gets economic rewards.

Since everyone does better when effort is rewarded, then protecting merit-based success is a moral issue. Indeed, the first American immigrants left countries with too little opportunity for advancement to come here and earn rewards based on merit and be the masters of their own destiny. Polls have shown that, over the years, Americans have not grown tired of the merit-based system but instinctively support it. U2 singer Bono colorfully explained why individual determinism in America is so great:

In America, the guy looks up at the mansion on the hill and

says, ``One day, if I really work hard, I am going to live in

the mansion on the hill.'' In Dublin, they look at the

mansion on the hill and say, ``One day I'm going to get that

[guy].''

Free markets breed a culture of aspiration and mobility, in which people reject the politics of envy and instead focus on their own advancement and their own success. If our goal is to foster such a positive culture of achievement, then we must eschew class warfare in favor of the free-market policies that have done so much to boost prosperity both at home and abroad.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) and the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Heller).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) and the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Heller).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) and the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Heller).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. President, first let me commend my colleague from Alaska who is seeing this battle of the high price of gasoline firsthand in a State that could contribute greatly to the country's solution to the problem if the President and administration would but let it. I was led on a trip by her father several years ago to the northern part of Alaska, where there are huge untapped reserves that literally, if they had been allowed to be sent to the lower 48 at that time, could have significantly ameliorated the problem we have today. I appreciate her comments. We will talk more about that.

Mr. President, President Obama has ignited a national debate about the meaning of fairness and American values. In his campaign narrative, ``fairness'' means greater redistribution of income by the Federal Government, and expanding government control over the economy represents what he calls a ``renewal of American values.'' He argues that income inequality is the ``defining issue of our time''--his words--and that it prevents many Americans from enjoying their right to pursue happiness.

While the President cloaks his rhetoric in the language of liberty-- and often misconstrues quotations from Presidents Lincoln and Reagan in the process--his interpretations of key American concepts and values are shallow, materialistic, and distortive of the true American dream.

We don't need more government interventionist and redistributionist policies, which reduce freedom, in order to achieve greater measures of fairness and to pursue happiness. Having the government arbitrarily decide how much money should be taken from person A and given to person B is not fair in any sense of the word, nor does it make Americans happier. Indeed, even though America has become a much wealthier country during the last few decades and average income is higher, studies show that happiness levels have remained unchanged. In 1972, for example, 30 percent of Americans described themselves as happy. In 2004, 31 percent of Americans described themselves that way. That is because, contrary to what President Obama suggests, the key determinant of lasting happiness and satisfaction is not income; rather, it is what American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks calls ``earned success.'' People are happiest when they have earned their income, whatever the level. When the government tries to take all of the trouble out of life by taking care of our every need, it makes earned success that much harder to achieve.

In his 2010 book ``The Battle,'' Brooks describes the connection between earned success and happiness:

Earned success gives people a sense of meaning about their

lives. And meaning also is key to human flourishing. It

reassures us that what we do in life is of significance and

value, for ourselves and those around us. To truly flourish,

we need to know that the ways in which we occupy our waking

hours are not based on mere pursuit of pleasure or money or

any other superficial goal. We need to know that our

endeavors have a deeper purpose.

Earned success is attained not simply through one's vocation but also through raising children, donating time to charitable or religious causes, and cultivating strong relationships with friends and family. That is why successful parents and more religious people tend to be very happy.

The earned success that comes from doing a job also explains why self-made millionaires and billionaires continue to work hard after they have earned their fortunes. These people are driven by the satisfaction that comes from creating, innovating, and solving problems. In many cases, they are making products or providing services that improve our quality of life. They are not content merely to rest on their laurels and enjoy their wealth; they want to continue experiencing the pride and satisfaction that comes from earned success.

The importance of earned success also explains why people who win the lottery usually wind up depressed when they discover that the excitement of being rich and buying things wears off fast. The same is true of recipients of other sources of unearned income. Studies show that welfare programs don't make people happier. We need them to help some people to subsist, but they don't yield true happiness or satisfaction because the money is not earned.

If earned success is the path to happiness, public policies should be geared toward promoting opportunity and freedom for everyone. No economic system does more to promote earned success and freedom than free market capitalism. As social scientist Charles Murray writes in his new book, ``Coming Apart'':

All the good things in life . . . require freedom in the

only way that freedom is meaningful: freedom to act in all

arenas of life, coupled with responsibility for the

consequences for those actions.

In a true free market system, everyone is guaranteed equal rights and opportunities under the law, all individuals and institutions play by the same rules, and the government acts primarily as a neutral umpire, not a redistributor of income or a venture capitalist. Property rights are upheld, contracts are enforced, and hard work is rewarded. As Brooks points out, free enterprise is the only economic system that addresses the root causes of poverty by enlarging the economic pie rather than allowing government officials and bureaucrats to decide how to slice the existing one.

The President's concept of fairness is different from what most believe. I recently read an anecdote that helps illustrate the fundamental disagreement about the difference between ``fair'' and ``earned.'' Two siblings are fighting about who gets the last cookie. The brother says he should get it because his sister has already had two and that is not fair. The sister responds that she helped make the cookies, so she earned it. The brother believes it is fair to equalize rewards, regardless of effort. The sister beliefs in meritocratic fairness--that forced equality is unfair. Those of us who believe in the ultimate fairness of the free market subscribe to the sister's view of meritocratic fairness. She earned it.

Free market capitalism is the most fair system in the world--and the most moral. It is premised on voluntary transactions that make both sides happy by meeting their needs. Unfortunately, the past few years have shown us what unfair economic policies look like.

When the government picks winners and losers in the marketplace, it is being unfair. When it rewards certain

companies or industries for ideological reasons while effectively punishing and demonizing others, it is being unfair. That is crony capitalism. When it shapes a corporate bailout to favor organized labor over secured debtholders, as the Obama administration did in the Chrysler bailout, it is being unfair. When it plays venture capitalist and gives a taxpayer-funded $545 million loan guarantee to a doomed company such as Solyndra, it is being unfair. When it makes the Tax Code even more complex and even more tilted in favor of special interests, it is being unfair. When it adopts financial regulations that institutionalize ``too big to fail,'' putting taxpayers on the hook, it is being unfair. I could go on, but you get the point. Does anyone really think America's economic system is ``fairer'' today than in January 2009?

Is it fair that, after the first 3 years of the Obama administration, the poor are poorer, the poverty rate is rising, the middle class is losing income, and 5.5 million fewer Americans have jobs to do than in 2007? Is it fair that the three counties with the highest median family income happen to be located in the Washington, DC, area? Finally, is it fair that the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans are constantly being attacked by the President even though they now pay nearly 40 percent of all Federal income taxes and the richest 10 percent pay two-thirds of all Federal taxes? These are some of the questions Stephen Moore recently posed in the Wall Street Journal.

If the President wants to continue claiming that his policies are fostering economic ``fairness'' and ignoring the virtues of the free enterprise system, then let the debate begin.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Portman), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 10 minutes and that I be followed by the Senator from Texas, Mr. Alexander.

What did I say? From Tennessee. Whatever I said, I apologize. I said Texas. I apologize.

Mr. President, I need to speak for a few minutes this morning about two important news events of this week: the budget that was submitted by the President and the news reports that the President is considering reducing our nuclear arsenal to dramatically lower levels than they are today. Let me speak to both those subjects briefly this morning, and then I will have more to say about them as time goes on.

In the President's budget, there is a specific part for the Department of Energy that funds the nuclear weapons program. Despite promises of the President that he would follow what is called the 1251 study over the course of his Presidency and request in the budget the sums of money for the Department that is called the NNSA--part of the Department of Energy--he reduced that this year by $372 million less than the target. The net result of that over 5 years is going to be $4.3 billion.

I know my colleague from Tennessee is very interested in this. Before the START treaty was debated, there was a big debate about whether the funding for the NNSA in the nuclear modernization program was adequate.

On the Veterans Day recess, before we began the debate on START, General Chilton, former head of STRATCOM, and Dr. Miller, the Assistant Secretary of Defense, flew to Phoenix and said to me: You were right. We were wrong. We have underfunded this by over $4 billion. We are going to add that to our 5-year budget profile.

This was the argument we had been making all along: You have underfunded the nuclear modernization program. You need to add between $4 billion and $5 billion to it. They agreed and that is what went into the revised 1251 report.

As a result of the budget request this year, we are right back where we started from before the revision--$4.3 billion below--and that is where we were when the administration came forward and said: You were right. We were wrong. Our previous figure was not enough.

So we have a problem, and it is going to cause some real disruptions.

One of the things we have to do is extend the life of one of our old weapons called the B 61. This is a 2-year delay now on that, a 2-year delay on another warhead called the W 76, at least a 5-year delay in the construction of the plutonium processing facility at Los Alamos Laboratory called the CMRR facility.

Why is that important? We knew prior to commitments the President made before the START treaty was debated that the CMRR was critical. We do not have a production capacity. Unlike Russia and China, for example, we cannot produce new nuclear weapons. We have to go back and revise the ones we have. One of the facilities that would enable us to do that is this CMRR facility. In fact, that is where a great deal of the work would be done.

What we were told was that the President was fully committed to constructing this facility on a timetable set out in the 1251 report. Some of us were a little dubious. The President's representative said: We will put it to you in writing. So he did. What he said in his message on the New START treaty to the Senate with regard to this facility--I will quote it; the letter related to his intent to modernize and replace the triad:

[To] accelerate to the extent possible, the design and

engineering phase of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research

Replacement (CMRR) building and the Uranium Processing

Facility (UPF)--

That is the facility for uranium processing at Oak Ridge, TN--

[and to] request full funding, including on a multiyear basis

as appropriate, for the CMRR building and the UPF upon

completion of the design and engineering phase for such

facilities.

We were concerned he would not request the funding in the outyears and that they would not accelerate the construction of these facilities. So he said he would. He would accelerate it to the extent possible and request full funding, including on a multiyear basis.

The budget he submitted this year breaks that commitment to the Senate, and those Senators who voted for the treaty based upon these commitments are obviously going to be reevaluating their support for the treaty. There are things that can be done by the Congress, including our power of the purse, to deal with the issue, which I will hope to have time to speak to in a moment.

Former Secretary Gates reflected on the Senate's reliance on these commitments when he said:

This modernization program was very carefully worked out

between ourselves and the Department of Energy; and, frankly,

where we came out on that played a fairly significant role in

the willingness of the Senate to ratify the New START

agreement.

For those who relied on the administration's commitment, they have been broken. We are right back to where we started from before the treaty was taken up.

If you want to know specifically what the problems are, Dr. Charles McMillan, the Los Alamos Director said:

Without CMRR, there is an identified path to meet the

Nation's requirement of 50 to 80 pits per year . . . the

budget reduction in FY13 compounds an already difficult set

of FY12 budget challenges and raises questions about whether

we can meet the pace of the modernization path outlined in

the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review.

So we have a problem. Unless the President is willing to work with Members of Congress, and unless Members of Congress are willing to recognize that the Senate acted based upon some commitments the administration made and we have to keep our end of the bargain as well, we are going to find a huge problem with our modernization program, with our nuclear weapons

program, and all that portends with respect to our deterrent capability.

Now, let me turn to the other news of the week. The President's people confirmed that, yes, they are, in fact, studying whether we can reduce our nuclear warheads. Remember, we were at 1,500 for START, and an 80 percent reduction could take us down to 300. That is almost unthinkable, especially in today's environment where we have Russia and China with new production capacities. They are developing new nuclear weapons and producing them.

We are not designing or developing any new nuclear weapons. We have no plans to do so, and we have no production capacity to make them, even if we did. The capacity to refurbish the old ones is now going to be delayed another 5 years. So why would we be thinking about reducing our warheads even further under these circumstances? Well, some people say, with a robust missile defense program, and by upgrading our conventional capabilities, we might think about this. The problem with these two assumptions is, this budget cuts both of them dramatically as well. We are not enhancing conventional capabilities, we are drawing them down, which, by the way, is what has caused the Russians to rely much more heavily on their nuclear program.

What about the people who rely on our nuclear deterrence, the 32 countries that rely on our nuclear umbrella? If they see this, my guess is they are going to look at what they might do to develop their own weapons: So much for nonproliferation. What about the idea that countries that now have close to 300 weapons could become peers of the United States? How is that for strategy, to have Pakistan, which will soon have more weapons than Britain does, to have as many nuclear weapons as the United States?

That is not exactly the most stable place in the world today. Iran is developing its capability. North Korea already has it. The Chinese are already at roughly this level and improving their capability. Of course, Russia is much above it and talking about actually building more nuclear weapons, not fewer.

The Deputy Defense Minister in Russia recently said, on February 6:

I do not rule out that under certain circumstances, we will

have to boost, not cut our nuclear arsenal.

Now we are talking about reducing ours. How are we going to convince the Russians to reduce theirs? I presume this is all going to be done in some kind of additional treaty with the Russians, not likely to occur.

To me, what is most bothersome is that one of the arguments that nuclear opponents have always had is that we never want to get to a point where our doctrine, instead of holding hostage the military capability of any would-be adversary, would be to hold civilians hostage, innocent civilians. That is precisely what happens when instead of having enough nuclear weapons to cover all of the military targets of a potential adversary, we end up having only enough weapons to hold hostage the cities of our potential adversary and thus the civilian population of those countries.

That is not a moral deterrent. As a result, I think we have to think very carefully about this prospect of reducing our nuclear weaponry. We, obviously, have to do a lot more work on this issue in the Congress. As I said, we have some means of expressing our views to the administration. I think it needs to think very carefully about this. To the extent that it thinks it is going to solve or going to help with our financial crisis, reducing the number of warheads, unfortunately, does not reduce a lot of expense. It is a little bit like the BRAC Commission. So that cannot be cited as a reason to do this.

Finally, nor is there any prospect that we can serve as a moral example to other countries in the world by reducing our warheads to that level. The START treaty was supposed to be a new reset showing the world, through our moral example, the benefits of reducing warheads. Not a country in the world has reduced warheads since the signing of the New START treaty except the United States. Russia has not, China has not, Pakistan has not, our allies have not, and Iran and North Korea talk about expanding their programs.

So this is based on a very shaky proposition of benefits which are very unlikely to occur, and it is fraught with dangers that we must debate in this country before the President simply unilaterally decides to make such a drastic change in American policy.

We will have more time to discuss this in the future. Given the fact that these two events were kicked off this week--the President's budget and this latest announcement--I thought we should at least have a preliminary discussion of it on the floor of the Senate today.

I yield to my colleague from Tennessee.

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize an important milestone in our Nation's history.

On February 14, 1912, Arizona officially became the 48th member of these 50 United States. I am proud to salute my home State on this her centennial celebration.

Yes, we were the last of the contiguous 48 States to join, but we were certainly not the least of them. Today I would like to tell you just a little bit about why I say that is so.

Arizona is not the largest or the oldest member of the Union. It did not participate in the Revolutionary War. It does not border an ocean or one of the Great Lakes. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution do not bear a single Arizonan signature. Yet there is something about Arizona that is great, something that truly sets the Grand Canyon State apart from the rest. The Grand Canyon, of course, comes to mind.

I would like to quote one of America's most famous explorers, John Wesley Powell, who once said:

The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be adequately

represented in symbols of speech, nor by speech itself. The

resources of the graphic art are taxed beyond their powers in

attempting to portray its features. Language and illustration

combined must fail.

I agree. I have hiked the Grand Canyon. I have seen it from above, and I have seen it from below. Words literally cannot describe its power or its beauty. That is why every year millions of tourists come from all corners of our Nation and from across the Atlantic and the Pacific to experience the majesty we are fortunate enough to have right there in our own backyard.

But as big as it is, the Grand Canyon is just a small part of the Arizona story. There are the Sedona Red Rocks, the beautiful White Mountains, the Painted Desert, the Petrified Forest, Monument Valley, Saguaro National Park, the 12,000-foot San Francisco Peaks, and countless other natural wonders that span across our deserts and through our forests. There are almost 4,000 peaks and summits in our State alone.

Arizona is also home to manmade marvels, including innovative projects that have allowed much needed freshwater to flow to our communities. These include the Hoover Dam, the Glen Canyon Dam, the Central Arizona Project, the Salt River Project and its keystone element, and the Theodore Roosevelt Dam.

Arizonans share the land with owls, ocelots, and eagles, jaguars, lots of rattlesnakes, and falcons. Our landscape is foliated not just with agave and cacti but with majestic aspen, fir, and spruce and the largest Ponderosa pine forest in the world.

We are rich in natural resources. From an early age, all Arizonans learn about the State's five Cs: copper, cattle, cotton, citrus, and climate.

Copper. The mineral that attracted many Arizonans to our State in the first place has been used by American Indians in tool and weaponmaking for centuries. Today, Arizona produces more copper than every other State combined, and it is now being used to develop the alternative energy technologies and vehicles of tomorrow.

Cattle. Along with sheep and hogs, the ranching of cattle is deeply imprinted on our State's cowboy culture and continues to help drive our economy today.

Cotton. One of our most important cash crops at the turn of the last century, cotton is still an important industry in our State. This crop, including our very own Pima long-staple variety, is used to produce the clothing, fertilizer, fuel, and cooking oil used by millions of Americans every day.

Citrus. The harvesting of fruits such as lemons and oranges is one of the important elements of Arizona's agricultural industry, with a history that runs deep in our State. We now export about $40 million in fruits and preparations every year.

Climate. Arizona mornings are warm and filled with sunshine, and our sunsets are the best anywhere. We may not always have a white Christmas, but we do have a booming tourism industry that attracts nearly 37 million--we call them snowbirds, conservationists, and adventurers--every year.

These five Cs, along with the natural treasures I mentioned earlier, are the physical expression of our State motto: ``Ditat Deus'' or ``God Enriches.'' Because of this, Arizonans are fiercely protective of the ecological riches that exist around them.

We honor nature for its beauty, but we also respect it for its power. I do not need to tell you about Arizona's heat. Some of my colleagues in this Chamber are known to complain when it reaches 80 degrees in Washington. Well, we Arizonans start to get warm when the mercury hits 120. It gets cold at night too. In fact, Arizona can yield the Nation's highest and lowest temperatures in the very same day.

There are forest fires. Last summer, we saw the largest such fire in our history, the Wallow megafire, burn more than 840 square miles of our treasured landscape. But we have picked ourselves up, and we are rebuilding--just like we always do. The lessons we have learned from the Wallow fire will help us defend against similar megafires in the future.

Some of Arizona's forebears were the prospectors and the ranchers who gave up everything for a chance at a better life. Some were the adventurers and cowboys who thrived on freedom and danger. Some of us can trace our history directly back to the Spanish missionaries or to our longstanding dynamic Hispanic community that has so greatly influenced our distinctive culture and cuisine. Many of us are direct descendants of the very first Arizonans--the 21 great American Indian tribes who continue to teach us important lessons about working with rather than against the expansive natural beauty and danger that surrounds us.

These are Arizona's founding fathers. While each has influenced our State in a unique way, all share these common traits: a strong sense of independence and a willingness to persevere against the odds.

That is, I believe, one of the reasons Arizona has such outsized national influence compared to its relatively small size and population. Indeed, the fierce wind of independence that rolls across our desert landscape has propelled not one but two of our leaders to national political prominence in just the past few decades. We may not have had an Arizonan in the White House--yet--but there are few States that can boast a single 20th or 21st century major party Presidential nominee, let alone two in our Barry Goldwater and John McCain.

My friends on the other side of the aisle will no doubt recall their very able Senate majority leader from Arizona, Ernest McFarland. They will also remember Representative Mo Udall and Senator Carl Hayden, who served an amazing 57 years in Congress, 42 of them in this Chamber alone. To put that into perspective, that is longer than Arizona's senior Senator and I have served in the Congress combined.

Our State has both nurtured and welcomed respected jurists such as William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O'Connor, world-renowned architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, entertainers such as Waylon Jennings, Linda Ronstadt, and Glen Campbell--even Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight series. Also, of course, I would be remiss if I neglected Steven Spielberg. He, too, embraced Arizona's adventurous, entrepreneurial spirit, turning his teenage moviemaking hobby in Scottsdale and Phoenix into a multimillion-dollar Hollywood empire. Had he been raised in another State, one without our Arizona spirit, would the world have known classics today such as ``ET'' and ``Jaws''? We may never know.

One thing we do know is that Arizona also gave rise to the Navajo Code Talkers. It is a shame more Americans are not aware of the talkers' incredible story. Their official Web site puts it this way:

It is a great American story that is still largely

unknown--the story of a group of young Navajo men who

answered the call of duty, who performed a service no one

else could, and in the process became great warriors and

patriots. Their unbreakable code saved thousands of lives and

helped end World War II.

Their code, of course, was the Navajo language.

Some of those young men were simple sheepherders on Arizona's great Navajo reservation until our Nation called them to serve. They did so with honor. They became American heroes in the process. Without them, we may never have achieved victory in the Pacific theater, and I am proud to pay tribute to these warriors today. Arizona honors them, and every American owes the Code Talkers a debt of gratitude.

These are just some of the many reasons I am proud to call myself an Arizonian. I was not born in Arizona. I became one by choice, and it was one of the most consequential decisions I ever made. I came as a young man to attend the University of Arizona. There I met my wife Carol, and together we raised two children, both of whom I am proud to say learned their five Cs from a very early age. I have not left Arizona since my days at the University of Arizona, nor do I think I ever would or could. There is something about the beauty that surrounds, the spirit that encompasses, the Sun that paints the landscape every morning. There is something different about Arizona, and I am proud of that difference. We are a special people with a distinctive place in the American mosaic.

I offer my congratulations to our Governor Jan Brewer, to my Arizona colleagues in the House and Senate, and to my constituents throughout our State on this historic centennial anniversary.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

I thank the Chair.

(The remarks of Mr. Kyl pertaining to the introduction of S. 2109 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, on behalf of Senator McCain and myself, I am pleased to introduce the Navajo-Hopi Little Colorado River Water Rights Settlement Act of 2012. This is S. 2109.

It is propitious as the State of Arizona today celebrates its centennial--its 100th birthday--that we also have the opportunity to resolve significant water rights issues for the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe, and water users throughout the Southwest. Indeed, the legal arguments for the claims being settled predate Arizona's induction into the Union. It is also worth noting that for more than two decades--more than 20 percent of Arizona's statehood time--hundreds of individuals in Arizona and here in Washington have worked hard to settle all these claims.

The protracted, and at times contentious, negotiations are a reflection of water's fundamental importance as well as the care and attention communities in the Southwest have given to managing this very limited resource. For many on the Navajo and Hopi Reservations, however, management of the resource is nothing more than a mirage.

It shocks the conscience in this day and age that many on the Navajo and Hopi Reservations only have access to the amount of water they can haul--in some instances literally by horse and wagon--to the remote reaches of the reservations. While this picture of conditions near Dilkon on the Navajo Reservation could be confused as a depiction of conditions at the time Arizona became a State in 1912, it was taken in just August of last year.

We can see that it depicts, as in many other areas of the reservation, that between one-third and one-half of the households lack complete plumbing facilities, with many families being forced to haul water significant distances. That is what we see depicted in this photograph. This has become a way of life on the reservation--a full- time job that limits economic opportunities and perpetuates a cycle of poverty. What is more, this lack of clean, readily available drinking water significantly impacts the health and safety of the Navajo and Hopi people. There are higher rates of disease and infant mortality and a lack of sufficient water supplies to meet fire-suppression needs. It is inconceivable in 2012 that Navajo and Hopi families are still living in these conditions.

Legally, the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Tribe may assert claims to larger quantities of water, but, as seen here, they do not have the means to make use of those supplies in a safe and productive manner. Among water law practitioners, the tribes may be said to have ``paper'' water, as opposed to ``wet'' water. Those claims are far-reaching, extending beyond the mesas and plateaus of northern Arizona and calling into question water uses even in California and Nevada.

The legislation we introduce today, however, would resolve many of those issues. In exchange for legal waivers, the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Tribe would receive critical drinking water infrastructure. The three groundwater projects contemplated by this act would deliver much needed drinking water supplies to the impoverished areas of the Navajo and Hopi Reservations.

It is also important to note that this settlement would facilitate water deliveries to the eastern part of the Navajo reservation through the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project, a project that has not only been approved by Congress but was one of 14 projects chosen by the President in October for expedited environmental review and permitting. Although that expedited project may deliver 6,411 acre-feet of water to Navajo communities in Arizona, such deliveries cannot occur until the Navajo claims in Arizona have been resolved. This settlement accomplishes that goal, reallocating water for delivery through the Navajo-Gallup pipeline.

Importantly, this settlement would not only inure to the benefit of the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Tribe, but it would also provide immeasurable benefits to non-Indian communities throughout Arizona, California, and Nevada. Without a settlement, resolution of the tribes' claims would take years, require parties to expend significant sums, create continued uncertainty concerning water supplies, and seriously impair the economic well-being of all of the parties to the settlement.

For example, municipalities, farmers, ranchers, and industrial water users in northern Arizona would be able to better plan for their water future without the uncertainty and expense of continuing costly litigation against the tribes. Likewise, water users from the Imperial Valley of California to the Las Vegas Strip would be

able to take comfort in the knowledge that lower Colorado River water- management regulations that they spent years developing would no longer be subject to challenge by the Navajo Nation.

In addition to resolving the tribes' claims to the Little Colorado River, this settlement sets the table for future negotiations regarding the lower Colorado River. The settlement, among other things, reserves water for future negotiation of those claims. In doing so, this bill acknowledges the importance of those settlement negotiations to the tribes and the non-Indian communities throughout the Southwest.

I have had the privilege to work on a number of water settlements throughout my career. Each has been rewarding and served to meet significant needs for both the American Indian and non-Indian communities involved. In that same regard, I am pleased to have had the opportunity to work with the many parties who have negotiated this settlement, and I am committed to bringing it to fruition through congressional enactment.

I believe this bill represents the best opportunity for all of the parties and for the American taxpayer to achieve a fair result. The settlement resolves significant legal claims, limits legal exposure, avoids protracted litigation costs, and, most important, saves lives. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

As we move forward with the request for hearings that we will need to hold and hopefully, after that, bringing this legislation, after properly marking it up, to the floor of the Senate, Senator McCain and I will have much more to say about how the settlement came about, what its importance is to the people of Arizona, describing the legal consequences of it, and what it means to the future of my State.

I am particularly pleased that all of the parties in Arizona-- literally hundreds of people came together to reach an agreement that we could then embody in legislation that I could introduce on the day of Arizona's birthday, its centennial, its 100th birthday, as another important event in the history of our State. I think it would be a fitting birthday present to the people of the State Arizona if our colleagues will help us in ensuring that this legislation can be adopted in this centennial year.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.