Floor Statements

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Ensign).

Mr. President, I suspect my colleague, the senior Senator from Arizona, will have something in response to say to my friend from Iowa. But what I wish to talk about is a comment Secretary of the Treasury Geithner made on television yesterday, in which he said he thought it would be a good idea to raise taxes in this country and that he didn't think income taxes on the higher two of the five tax brackets will hurt economic growth. He also said he supports allowing the top capital gains rate to be increased by 25 percent, from 15 to 20 percent.

I want to talk about that for a few minutes today. In this country, we have two goals: job creation and economic growth. We also want to reduce our Federal deficit and ultimately the Federal debt.

So how do we promote investment? There are two basic theories. One theory is that if we spend a lot of money that we borrow from countries such as China on programs such as the stimulus program, we can create economic growth and jobs. That has not worked. We have 3 million more people out of work today than when the stimulus package was put into effect. In fact, unemployment was supposed to be 8 percent or so now with the stimulus package, and, of course, it is 9.5 percent and with no relief in sight. The other way to do this is through investment by businesses, both large and small businesses. I think most economists believe that if businesses have capital to invest, they can hire more people, create more output or productivity, and therefore produce both growth and jobs.

So what we should be doing is promoting job creation and economic growth through private investment. How do we promote that? I know one thing you do not do, especially in bad economic times, is raise taxes. The last thing any business, especially a small business, needs--when you are asking them to hire more people--is to say: By the way, would you also give some money to Uncle Sam above what you are already contributing? We need it, and you can put off hiring that person you were going to hire for your business until later.

We know that is not how you promote economic growth. You should not raise taxes, as I said, especially in a time like this.

Secretary Geithner said he did not believe higher taxes would hurt economic growth. So I checked on what the President's chief economist said--Christina Romer, Chairwoman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers--to see whether she agreed with Secretary Geithner. Well, it turns out she very much disagrees. In a paper that has just been published in the June 2010 issue of the American Economic Review called ``The Macroeconomic Effects of Tax Policy Changes,'' she writes, among other things, the following--I am quoting now from page 764:

Our estimates suggest that a tax increase of 1 percent of

GDP reduces output over the next three years by nearly three

percent. The effect is highly statistically significant.

So output or growth is reduced by nearly 3 percent just over the next 3 years.

She says on page 797:

The key results--

And we are talking about the impact of tax changes on consumption and investment, which are the two key components to growth.

She says:

The key results are that both components decline, and that

the fall in investment is much larger than the fall in

consumption. In response to a tax increase of one percent of

GDP, the maximum fall in personal consumption expenditures is

2.55 percent. . . . just slightly less than the maximum fall

in GDP. The maximum fall in gross private domestic investment

is 11.19 percent. . . .

So think of it: Just raising taxes by 1 percent of GDP results in a decrease--or she calls it a fall--in gross private domestic investment of over 11 percent. So not only are you not contributing positively to investment and therefore hiring, but you are cutting it by 11 percent during this same period.

She says on page 781:

In short, tax increases appear to have a very large,

sustained, and highly significant negative impact on output .

. . the more intuitive way to express this result is that tax

cuts have very large and persistent positive output effects.

So there you have it: Tax cuts promote economic growth. Tax increases

depress economic growth. They create a fall in both investment and consumption and therefore output, and the result is statistically significant.

Secretary Geithner is wrong. Raising taxes will have a highly significant, negative impact on job creation, investment, and economic growth in our country.

President Kennedy agreed with this a long time ago. He once said:

An economy constrained by high tax rates will never produce

enough revenue to balance the budget, just as it will never

create enough jobs.

The reason I quoted that is because the second goal we have--to reduce budget deficits and public debt--is often used as an excuse by those who want to raise taxes, saying: Well, we reduce debt by raising taxes. As President Kennedy said, if you have high tax rates, you are never going to produce enough revenue to balance the budget. You balance the budget with economic growth. The more growth you have, the more revenue is produced because people are making more money and they are paying more taxes. We know that historically. This is not in doubt. During times of economic growth, when people are doing well, revenues to the Treasury increase. In times like today, revenues are decreased. You are not going to be able to balance the budget in this kind of a situation by simply raising tax rates because--what did we just show a moment ago--raising tax rates depresses job creation, economic growth, investment. So you cannot do it by raising taxes.

Indeed, I think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have exposed themselves a little bit here because they never seem to have a concern about the deficit when it comes to spending. That is why they were able to spend over $1 trillion in an economic stimulus package and not pay for a variety of other things for which they increased spending.

I thought the most interesting example was last week when they refused Republican offers to pay for the $34 billion cost of extending unemployment insurance. All of us wanted to extend unemployment insurance. That was not in doubt. The question was, Should we pay for it with offsets in spending elsewhere? In a $3 trillion budget, we said: There are a lot of places you can get the money, starting with unspent stimulus funds. So we could have paid for or offset the $34 billion cost of extending unemployment benefits. That was our proposal.

The Democratic side said: No. We will not extend unemployment benefits unless we can add to the debt in doing so. We are going to vote no unless it adds to the debt.

In the House of Representatives, the comment was made that they were philosophically opposed to paying for or offsetting the cost because they did not want to get into a position where they would have to find a way to do that in the future. So they rejected an offer that was made by at least one Democratic Senator to use some stimulus funding to offset the cost of unemployment benefits. No, they said, we don't want to do that. We do not want to offset the costs in any way. We want to add to the debt.

So it seems a little hypocritical now for colleagues to come to the floor and say: Oh, we have this big deficit problem. We don't want to add any more to the debt. Let's raise taxes.

Then they have the temerity to say to Republicans--who say, we do not want to raise taxes on anybody, on corporations, on businesses, large, small, individuals, or anybody else--to say: Well, then, in that case, you are going to have to raise taxes on somebody because the budget assumes the tax rates that currently exist are going to be increased next year. So if you are going to increase those tax rates for some people--let's say the top two brackets--how are you going to pay for that?

We say: What is to pay for? Taxes should not be raised. They should not be raised on anybody.

Several of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are apparently in agreement with that. This is not the time to raise taxes on anybody.

But in any event, if you say: Well, we have to raise taxes to reduce the budget deficit, then why just raise taxes on the top two income tax brackets? That would raise, over 10 years, $682 billion. But if you raise taxes on everybody, you could raise taxes by $2.731 trillion.

Well, the obvious answer is, well, we wouldn't want to pay for that. We wouldn't want to offset the cost of that.

But you have to figure out a way to offset the cost if we raise taxes on the upper two brackets. It is a circular argument that I suggest both makes no sense and is hypocritical.

The bottom line is this: Small businesses will get killed by an increase in the rates of income tax--the so-called upper two brackets. Twenty million people are employed by small businesses that pay their taxes in those two brackets. As a result, what you are going to do is inhibit the growth of our small businesses. An increase in the top effective rate--this is from Douglas Holtz-Eakin--from 35 percent to 42 percent would lower the probability that a small business entrepreneur would add to payrolls by roughly 18 percent.

So I think all of us realize that raising taxes, especially in those top two brackets, will inhibit growth because small business owners will have to pay the tax rather than hire someone. As I said before, according to the NFIB, there are more than 20 million workers in those firms directly targeted by the higher marginal rates. We would have to, in effect--and this came as a result of statistics presented to us by Senator Snowe, who is also on the Finance Committee--you would need to have economic growth of 5.8 percent--about twice as much as we have today--in order to return to a 5-percent unemployment rate by 2012. To get there by 2013, you would have to have an annual growth rate of 5 percent to get back to 5 percent unemployment. Well, how are we going to increase growth by that much?

I come back full circle to my original point: Our goal is economic growth and job creation. You do not get there by raising taxes. So when my colleagues start talking about raising taxes on anybody--from the death tax to the capital gains tax to marginal rates--my question to them is, Given the fact that the Chairwoman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers has been so clear that this will inhibit job creation and economic growth, why would you want to do that? Why would you want to inhibit economic growth and job creation? The better way, if we are really interested in reducing the deficit, as we should be, is to begin to slow down the spending so that eventually we are not spending more than we take in.

I will close with this point: Last Friday, the White House announced that it turns out the deficit for next year is going to be $1.47 trillion. That is about three times higher than the highest deficit with President Bush, and that was when the Democratic Congress was appropriating the money. The year before that, it was less than $200 billion. In fact, the exact deficit the last year Republicans were in control of the Congress and President Bush was President was $160 billion--$160 billion. That was 1.2 percent of GDP. For next year, it is going to be $1.47 trillion--$1.471 trillion--or 10 percent of our

Mr. President, I rise simply to insert into the Congressional Record two very interesting pieces from the Arizona Republic. The first is an op-ed, a column, by Bob Robb, who is one of the most erudite columnists I have ever read. He comments on the financial regulatory reform bill saying, among other things, that this new financial stability oversight council that is created under the legislation will have total control over what a lot of banks and businesses do.

He describes this as being able to tell a company not only what capital it needs to maintain, but what products or services it can offer. It can even order a company to divest some of its holdings or lines of business, and even take over the company with the intent of completely liquidating it, and in many cases even without the ability to contest these decisions in court.

He laments the fact that there will be no rules-based regulation of capital markets anymore; predicts it will be doomed to failure, and also talks about the beginning of the end for an independent Fed, which has significant responsibilities under this law, which he believes, and I agree, are inconsistent with its primary task, the entity in our country that is supposed to take care of the monetary policy of the country.

The other piece is an article in the Arizona Republic of July 21. I will quote from the first three paragraphs:

State and university employees with families can expect to

see their monthly health insurance costs rise as much as 37

percent next year, depending on the type of plan they choose.

It goes on to say:

The Department of Administration--

That is to say, of the State of Arizona--

cites Federal health reform as the reason the State's health

plans will carry greater expenses and higher premiums for its

members.

This is the latest example of the effect of the health care reform legislation on insurance premiums which are going to be rising around the country. But I did not expect them to rise 37 percent on our State employees next year.

I ask unanimous consent that the column by Robert Robb and the newspaper article dated July 21 in the Arizona Republic be printed in the Record.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint) and the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Bond).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint) would have voted ``nay.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint) and the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Bond).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint) would have voted ``nay.''

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

Mr. President, in the Rose Garden on Tuesday, President Obama stood with three long-time job seekers and reminded us that out- of-work Americans want to find work, and no one here, of course, questions that. I hear every day from Arizonans who look for a job day after day, week after week. They are just getting by.

I realize that few things can be more frustrating and demoralizing than struggling to find a job and that the effects of unemployment for families are deep and severe.

President Obama would have the American people believe congressional Republicans have been blocking an extension of unemployment benefits in order to make some political point. He accused us of this again on Tuesday and claimed we are refusing to help out-of-work Americans.

I wish to set the record straight. This is not a dispute about extending unemployment benefits. There is broad bipartisan agreement that we should do that. Republicans have voted several times in the past to extend benefits. I have.

The dispute, rather, is over who should pay for those benefits. Should we finance this $34 billion obligation in the short term with a loan from a foreign government and pass the tab on to our kids and grandkids or should we pay for it now by cutting other Federal spending? That is the question. It is a matter of who is going to pay for the benefits we provide to people.

I do not think we should be sending that tab to our kids. I believe we should pay it now. This is our generation. This is our problem today. We have an obligation to help take care of our fellow citizens when they are in time of need. We should find a way to pay for that. Our kids and grandkids are going to have their own problems in their day. We do not need to compound those problems by adding our obligations to those that they will need to deal with.

Republicans have offered an array of constructive solutions to the problem, proposals to pay for what we are spending, including using unspent money from the President's failed stimulus package. Almost half that money remains available.

We have tried five times to pass an extension of unemployment benefits that does not add to the debt. But our Democratic colleagues have repeatedly rejected our proposals. So the principal they are defending is not the need for unemployment insurance extension, it is that they will not pass a bill unless it adds to the debt. They will not pass a bill to extend unemployment benefits unless it adds to the debt.

The extension likely would have passed weeks ago if Democrats had simply agreed to pay for it now by cutting other Federal spending. In this $3 trillion budget that we have, obviously, there are plenty of places for us to find the offsets. Our national debt has been increased again and again during this recession. That creates long-term burdens for everyone--the employed, the unemployed, and generations to come.

While President Obama argues that we have increased the debt in the past to pay for other items, I will note that we were not in the middle of a debt crisis back then, for one thing. I suggest we pass a bill that is paid for now and recalibrate efforts to encourage private sector job creation.

As unemployed Americans know, while unemployment benefits provide a lifeline, they are only a temporary fix. They are not a substitute for new private sector jobs. I will venture a guess that everybody who is unemployed today would much rather have a job tomorrow than another check from the government for unemployment benefits.

So what do we do to create jobs and get the economy moving again? Well, you do not do it by borrowing more money. The President's job- creation initiatives have been a bust. Since his enormous stimulus bill passed in February of 2009, the private sector has lost over 2 million jobs.

While there has been some anemic economic growth since the recession started, employers are still clearly reluctant to hire. That probably has to do with the reality that businesses, both small and large, look down the road. They see massive tax increases beginning next year, on top of all the new regulations imposed by this administration.

They hear about a proposed national energy tax and proposed new pro- union policies. So they are reluctant to take a chance on the future because of all the uncertainty and the burdens we have already placed upon them. The key to job creation, and thus helping unemployed Americans, is having stable and sound policies in place for employers to make long-term decisions.

More spending, taxing, regulating, and debt are not the answers. I would hope we can find a way to extend unemployment benefits without asking our children to pay the tab for this generation's problems.

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

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

Madam President, it is my honor to help host our guest Chaplain from Arizona, Rev. Donna Kafer. On behalf of Senator McCain and myself, I thank the Senate Chaplain and all others who have been so courteous to Reverend Kafer on her visit to Washington. She, I understand from the Chaplain, is the first legislative chaplain to provide the opening prayer in the Senate and only the second woman to have done so. There are milestones achieved today, and we appreciate her being with us.

She has been the chaplain at the Arizona State Legislature for over 10 years through her nonprofit organization called Leadership Challenge of Arizona. She also serves as the Arizona area coordinator of the Daughters of Destiny Network, which is a women's prison ministry based out of Colorado Springs. She travels throughout the United States sharing her testimony with incarcerated women, encouraging them and sharing the freedom that is offered through the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

Donna is an Arizona native. She and her husband Ross, a firefighter paramedic for almost 20 years, live in the Phoenix metropolitan area and have a daughter, Andrea Elizabeth.

It is our proud opportunity to help to host her today and thank her for opening the Senate with that beautiful prayer.

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo).

Madam President, I, too, would like to speak to the conference report on financial regulatory reform, which we will presumably vote on in a couple of hours. I think we all agree that the purpose of financial regulatory reform should have been to tackle the problems that led to the financial crisis in the first place. That means serious reform must, at the very least, end too-big-to-fail financial institutions and rein in two government-sponsored enterprises, the GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

But despite its size and the hype behind it, the bill before us fails in those two key respects. Moreover, even though Main Street did not cause the problem, the bill is so pervasive in its regulatory reach that it creates new burdens for Main Street businesses. I am not sure that is what the bill's supporters want or its authors intend, but that will be the result.

For example, a July 4 Wall Street Journal news article entitled ``Finance Overall Casts Long Shadow on the Plains'' explains how new derivatives rules will harm America's livestock farmers.

There are other problems with the bill. The biggest new problem it causes is the harm to the availability of credit, something our colleague, Senator Gregg from New Hampshire, has talked a lot about. It implements one-size-fits-all capital standards and uses flawed funding mechanisms. It also perpetuates bailouts, and burdens small businesses with new regulations, which I will speak about in a moment.

Let me address a few of these problems in more detail: First, the cost and offsets of the bill; second, the failure to address the GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; and, third, the job-killing Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that will reduce available credit for American businesses and thus reduce job creation.

First, the cost and offsets. The Congressional Budget Office has put the 10-year cost of the conference report bill at approximately $19 billion. That is the cost of this alleged new reform. Democrats initially tried to fund this obligation with a new tax imposed on large financial institutions. When that could not be sustained, they decided on a new funding mechanism that, as National Review recently editorialized, ``were a corporation to try it, would get its accountants sent to prison for fraud.''

Here is how it works. The bill would now ``cancel'' the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, a few months early, thus ``saving,'' theoretically, the government around $11 billion, even though it is highly unlikely that money would ever have been used to make additional TARP loans. That $11 billion would then be used to partially offset the cost of the bill.

Remember, that is money that has to be borrowed. So instead of simply borrowing 11 billion fewer dollars, we are going to pretend as though we already have that money and that we can save it by not spending it on TARP, so we will spend it on this legislation. It is a double counting that National Review is right about: It would have put a private business CEO or CFO in jail if he had tried to do an accounting trick such as that.

The TARP law moreover states that any money rescinded from TARP shall not be counted for the purpose of budget enforcement. But to avoid violating the so-called pay-go rule in the House, the conference report nevertheless uses this alleged savings to pay for the financial reform provisions, thereby violating both the letter and the spirit of the TARP law. And, as I said, taking these funds to pay for something else rather than rescinding them simply pushes our Nation deeper into debt.

So with regard to the cost of the bill--$19 billion--and the offset, much of which is not a true offset but simple double accounting with money we don't own or have anyway, but have to borrow, is a bad way to do business, to say the least, especially on something that is called a financial reform bill.

Now, I guess, fortunately, we have changed the name to reflect the authors of the bill. It is no longer the financial reform bill; it is now the Dodd-

Frank bill. I appreciate the naming of the bill for my good friend, the Senator from Connecticut, but it is supposed to be about financial reform, and it isn't financial reform when you take money you don't have, spend it for something you are not legally able to spend it for, and call that an offset for the cost of the bill.

Nevertheless, problem No. 2: Fannie and Freddie. It is just unconscionable that this bill doesn't attempt to reform in any way the two biggest causes of the problem: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It was their reckless behavior that was a major cause of the financial crisis. It is not for lack of trying on Republicans' part. Our Democratic friends say: Well, we will do that later, maybe next year. I suggest doing that is highly improbable. The way things work around here is, when you do a comprehensive bill such as this, there are a lot of tradeoffs, a lot of different interests involved. If you can't include all of the elements in one bill, it is very difficult to find the political will to tackle the biggest problem of all--Fannie and Freddie--next year without the leverage of the other provisions of the bill to deal with.

The behavior of these two institutions--these GSEs that have come to epitomize too big to fail--has surged through the entire commercial banking sector and our economy as a whole and has turned out to be one of the most expensive aftereffects of the financial crisis. For years, Fannie and Freddie made mortgages available to too many people who could not afford them. Smaller companies were crushed while the two GSEs and their shareholders reaped enormous profits, recklessly taking advantage of the government's implicit guarantee to purchase trillions of dollars worth of bad mortgages, including those made to risky, so- called subprime borrowers. It was a textbook example of moral hazard on a massive scale.

I was reminded of what I am speaking of this morning driving in and hearing an ad on the radio which said that through Fannie Mae, you could get a mortgage for 105 percent of the value of your home. Now that means that immediately you are so-called underwater; that is to say, you owe more than your home is worth.

Why are we immediately making the same mistake with Fannie Mae that got us into the problem in the first place, where the mortgages exceeded the value of the homes? I don't understand it.

The easy credit that was provided before is what helped to fuel the rising home prices that created the inflated housing bubble, especially in the subprime mortgage market. As prices rose, so too did the demand for even larger mortgages, so Fannie and Freddie looked for ways to make even more credit available to borrowers. But, of course, when the market collapsed, the two GSEs were left with billions of dollars of bad debt.

By 2008 they held nearly $5 trillion in mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. They were overleveraged but, unfortunately, deemed too big to fail.

So what do we have today? Fannie and Freddie hold a combined $8.1 trillion of outstanding debt. Think of that: $8.1 trillion. In total, taxpayers have lost already $145 billion bailing them out. When Secretary of the Treasury Geithner lifted the bailout cap last December, it put the taxpayers on the hook for the remainder of these losses, for unlimited losses at these two institutions.

So let's be clear. Every day that Fannie and Freddie remain in their current form is a day that U.S. taxpayers are subsidizing the failed policies of the past. I think it is very doubtful we are going to get meaningful reform of Fannie and Freddie when it couldn't be done in the bill that is supposed to deal with all of the underlying problems that created the recession we are in now.

The third problem: Harming small business through ``consumer protection.'' It harms far more than small business; it harms everyone who is attempting to get credit. As our friend and colleague, Senator Gregg, has said many times on this floor, perhaps the biggest problem with this legislation is the fact that it is going to make credit much more expensive for everyone. But let's start with small businesses.

In my home State of Arizona and across the country, these are the entities that hire. They are supposed to be the first ones that hire coming out of a recession. The way they do that is to have access to credit. Well, they are obviously very wary of the intrusive new bureaucracy that masquerades as consumer protection in this bill, but which would compound the problem of credit availability.

All of us here support the concept of consumer protection, so let's don't get off on a tangent of being for or against consumer protection. We all support that. The question is, How do you do it? Safeguards can be strengthened without creating a new regulatory bureaucracy with the powers that exist in this bill and all of the untoward ramifications that result. Unfortunately, the conference report maintains, with very little change, the flawed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from the bill that was passed in the Senate, the so-called CFPB. It is housed in and funded by the Federal Reserve but theoretically would operate as an independent agency with an enormous budget and with rule-writing ability and enforcement authority that I think will, in fact, create independence from the Fed.

The CFPB could significantly reduce credit access for small businesses and thereby jeopardize America's economic recovery. Without available credit, companies cannot grow and consequently will not hire additional American workers. Obviously, that is not what the bill's authors intended, but it is the inevitable result.

The new bureau will have a say in almost every aspect of American business. In an attempt to ensure--and I am quoting now--``ensure the fair, equitable and nondiscriminatory access to credit for individuals and communities''--the wording in the law--the new bureau will have latitude to impose its will, with few checks and balances, on American credit providers, all of which will result in more expense, more regulation, higher costs for consumers, and less availability of credit.

The CFPB also exposes companies to very costly compliance and extensive enforcement proceedings, including potentially frivolous lawsuits, by eliminating national preemption and other means.

In my view, the potentially serious costs of this bureau do not justify its purported benefits. Consumer protection could have been accomplished in much less intrusive and fairer ways. We all want to shield consumers from abuses and exploitation, but this is obviously not the right way to do it.

So we should ask ourselves one question: Why is it that the CEOs of some of the largest companies on Wall Street, some of the largest financial institutions, actually favor this bill? Well, it is no skin off their backs. They have the money, and they have the resources and the personnel to deal with its complexity and to put the money up front and then charge the consumers on down the line. It would entrench their privileged status, as they have the resources to maneuver around its provisions, as I said, and would certainly institutionalize the idea that certain big financial firms deserve preferential treatment by Federal regulators.

So for all of the reasons I have discussed, as well as others, and despite my strong desire to enact prudent financial reforms, I think this legislation is misguided. I can't support it, and I urge my colleagues to vote against it.

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

Mr. President, I just want to take a moment to ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record, at the conclusion of my remarks, an editorial dated today from the Arizona Republic. That is my hometown newspaper in Phoenix, AZ.

The editorial is entitled ``End run denies public a debate on health care.'' The point of the editorial is that while we had a very long debate over the so-called health care legislation--I think the name of the act was the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act--we never had the kind of debate that would have edified the American public on the general question of a government-run health care system versus one that was more amenable to the doctor-patient relationship and the privacy that Republicans were suggesting was a better way to go.

What the editorial says is that the President's recess appointment of Dr. Berwick obviated the kind of debate that could have occurred had he gone through the regular nomination process and had a hearing at which his views could be elicited, and we could have then debated whether he, with his views, was the right person to head the CMS, which is the entity that will be running the program.

The editorial concludes with these comments, after noting that even Democratic leaders in the Senate were perplexed by the recess appointment, noting Senate Finance Committee chairman, Max Baucus, saying he was ``troubled'' by the move. The editorial concludes:

Considering how dubious the public remains about Obamacare,

there is every reason to believe the Republicans really did

want an exchange with the candid, erudite Berwick. The recess

appointment strongly suggests the White House simply did not

want to have another fight over the contentious health care

issue.

Political parties can be devious. History is littered with

appointments delayed to death out of little more than spite.

This wasn't one of those appointments. Dr. Berwick will

head a federal agency that spends $800 billion a year. The

public deserves to know what he thinks.

The point is, we would have had an opportunity to know what Dr. Berwick thinks and for the American people to express themselves on that issue through their representatives in the Senate had we gone through the regular nomination process. But because the President decided to short-circuit that while we were off and back home on our July 4th recess, and made the recess appointment, we will never have that opportunity. As the editorial notes, that is lamentable. It denies the public an opportunity they would have had to understand better what his point of view was and perhaps to have a debate about the general underlying nature of the health care bill that was passed.

Exhibit 1

[From the Arizona Republic, July 13, 2010]

End Run Denies Public a Debate on Health Care

Crazy as it sounds, we did not have a real ``debate'' over

health care lo those many months prior to the passage of the

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in March.

Basically, the warring factions had an 18-month fight over

interpretations.

President Barack Obama and Democrats interpreted the new

law as one that would, affirmatively, lower costs, preserve

existing options, extend coverage near-universally and

improve care overall.

On defense against the interpretations of mostly Republican

critics, they argued the plan did not constitute socialized

medicine, was not a Washington power grab, would not explode

costs, would not create ``death panels,'' would not reduce

insurance options, would not foist new burdens on the states,

and wouldn't increase federal deficit spending.

It was a debate over the meaning of a constantly evolving

bill, not one of competing philosophies.

But a debate over the efficacy of a centralized, govemment-

led health-care system vs. a decentralized, mostly private

system? Rarely was the epic struggle ever that

straightforward.

Senate hearings on the appointment of Obama's nominee to

head the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Dr. Donald

Berwick, would have been a great opportunity to hear those

debates, at long last.

Unfortunately, that isn't going to happen. The president

short-circuited those hearings by using his power to make

appointments during congressional recesses. According to a

White House spokesman, the president anticipated Republican

obstructionism, and so performed the end run. That

explanation is debatable. There was no discernable

``impasse'' on the Berwick appointment.

Republicans claim they greatly anticipated the Berwick

hearings, given the Harvard-educated pediatrician's candid

commentary over the years about his enthusiasm for a single-

payer health-care system similar to that of Great Britain.

Likewise, Democratic leaders in the Senate also were

perplexed at the recess appointment. Senate Finance Committee

Chairman Max Baucus of Montana said he was ``troubled'' by

the move.

Considering how dubious the public remains about Obamacare,

there is every reason to believe the Republicans really did

want an exchange with the candid, erudite Berwick. The recess

appointment strongly suggests the White House simply did not

want to have another fight over the contentious health-care

issue.

Political parties can be devious. History is littered with

appointments delayed to death out of little more than spite.

This wasn't one of those appointments. Dr. Berwick will

head a federal agency that spends $800 billion a year. The

public deserves to know what he thinks.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Now let me set the record straight. Republicans have never said no to Dr. Berwick. We have never blocked a vote on Dr. Berwick. There has never been a vote called on Dr. Berwick. In fact, there has never even been a hearing on Dr. Berwick. Republicans have not stopped his nomination.

It is true there hasn't been a permanent director of the agency that Dr. Berwick will now head since 2006. When Barack Obama became President on January 20, he could have corrected that problem. But I suspect the reason he didn't nominate anyone to head CMS during the debate on the health care bill is because if Dr. Berwick was his nominee, the last thing the President wanted was a discussion of Dr. Berwick's views on health care. His views are antithetical to the views of the majority of the American people, supporting rationing, as he does, and his love affair with the British single payer system, as he has described it. This is not something the American people would have countenanced. So Barack Obama, the President, rather than filling the position, decided to hold off on nominating a person to head CMS until after the health care debate was over.

Now, this is bait and switch. This is not the transparency that Barack Obama promised when he campaigned for the job of President. Instead, in my view, it is hiding the ball: Let's get health care passed, not tell anybody we are going to nominate Dr. Berwick to head CMS, and then, after the bill is passed--in fact, I think about 4 months after the bill is passed--nominate Dr. Berwick, and then have the gall to say Republicans stopped his nomination. We haven't stopped his nomination. There has been nothing for us to stop. There has been no vote.

I am on the Finance Committee. The chairman of the Finance Committee, a Democrat, Max Baucus from Montana, was very upset about the fact that the President appointed Dr. Berwick because he said: I haven't even had a chance to call a hearing yet.

Republicans stopped the nomination? No, we didn't stop it. Has there been a vote on the floor of the Senate? No. Has there been an attempt to have a vote? No. So how could we have filibustered a nominee who hasn't had a hearing, when his name hasn't even been brought up in committee, and who hasn't been sent to the Senate floor for action?

Well, they say: We anticipated you would have objected to him. Yes, that is true. Knowing all we know about him, you are right; a lot of us would have objected to him. So bring him up for a vote, and let's have the vote, up or down. If he has the votes to pass, he passes. If he doesn't, then perhaps the American people's will has been expressed.

I wish to remind my colleagues that the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, Chuck Grassley, requested a hearing for Dr. Berwick. He requested that it take place the week of June 21. Why? That was before the hearings for the Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan. The reason Senator

Grassley did that was because he wanted to make sure for the several of us--there are three Republicans and I know at least one Democrat who serve on both the Judiciary Committee and the Finance Committee. He wanted to make sure we would have an opportunity to attend both hearings because we knew the time the Elena Kagan hearings were going to be held in the Judiciary Committee. He specifically requested that Senator Baucus schedule the hearing for Dr. Berwick the week of June 21. He would have been happy to be there. I would have been happy to be there.

For anybody to suggest that Republicans are to blame for the fact that Dr. Berwick's nomination didn't come to a vote or wasn't brought to the Senate floor is sheer fantasy. We have not held up the nomination. We have not prevented a vote. We have not blocked the vote. Yes, we have been critical of Dr. Berwick. Since when is that a crime? Since when is that the party of no?

Let me mention a few of the reasons we are critical of Dr. Berwick and why the American people are going to rue the day that the President, while we were gone from Washington over the July 4 recess, recess-appointed Dr. Berwick. He didn't go through the regular Senate process. He made a recess appointment before Senators had an opportunity to have a hearing or to have a vote.

Well, I think I know some of the reasons. First of all, his radical views on health care policy. I am not going to quote all of the things he has said, but he did describe his love of the British single payer system in very poetic terms. He said he was in love with it. He has described it in the most glowing terms. He said his preference is for absolute caps on health care expenditures in the United States. He says competition is one of the biggest problems in American health care. He says he believes in one-size-fits-all care. That is a direct quotation. Everything I have said here are quotations from different things he has written, all the way from 1992 through 2008.

We wanted to hear more about some of these views, especially since the CMS, or Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services of the Department of Health Care that he will head up, is in charge of administering the health care law we passed, a law that does--let me just mention four specific things it does, with a budget, as I said, larger than the Pentagon budget. I think he has something like $803 billion in benefits this fiscal year that he has the opportunity to dole out. So there is a great deal of power.

First of all, we know the bill establishes a Medicare commission which is given the responsibility of finding sources of excess cost growth, meaning tests and treatments that are too expensive or whose coverage would mean too much government spending on seniors. There is an opportunity for rationing.

The law will redistribute Medicare payments to physicians based on how much they spend treating seniors.

That is a way they can adjust the payments and, therefore, determine care.

Third, it will rely on recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force--that is the entity that last year recommended against mammograms for women under the age of 50--in order to set preventive health care benefits, which is another form of rationing.

Finally, it will authorize the Federal Government to use comparative effectiveness research, or CER, when making Medicare determinations. Republicans tried to get on a simple amendment to that to say: OK, you can compare effectiveness research but not to deny coverage based on cost. Our attempts to get that amendment passed were defeated. Why? Because they wanted to leave the flexibility in the law for the head of CMS, now Dr. Berwick, to ration care.

What is done in Great Britain is what he says is good policy. He said:

It's not a formula for comfort; it's a formula for

constructive discomfort.

He described in several other ways the fact that this would be something people would not like but they would get used to it and have to abide by it. He said:

The decision is not whether or not we will ration care; the

decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.

Indeed, at least his eyes will be open--the people who make the decisions on whether we can get health care for our families and what it is. He will know what is happening, but will we know until it is too late? We didn't even have a chance to ask Dr. Berwick questions about this because he never was given a hearing. We weren't given that opportunity. Instead, the President waits until we are out of town over the Fourth of July recess and recess-appoints the individual so that he doesn't have to have a hearing or a Senate vote.

Here is another comment from Dr. Berwick:

I would place a commitment to excellence--standardization

to the best-known method--above clinician autonomy as a rule

for care.

That means the doctor gets to decide what happens to the patient, along with the patient, as opposed to standardization of the best known method, with a bunch of bureaucrats figuring out in a cookie-cutter way what kind of treatment is less costly and therefore best for people who receive government-paid health care. True, this is the way it is done in some other countries that he thinks are great in terms of their health care system. That is not the way it ought to be in the United States. By this individual now receiving this nomination and this appointment, he now will be the person who helps to determine that standardization rather than the clinician autonomy we have today.

Again, Dr. Berwick will head the agency in charge of implementing much of the new health care law. He will have the responsibility to determine what your health care coverage entails. He is the person whom the President appointed to reduce the government's health care costs. I can guarantee you how that reduction will occur: it will occur when they decide that standardization requires that the government only approve the following kinds of treatment or drugs or services, and too bad if you expected something greater than that.

Given Dr. Berwick's philosophy, public comments, and writings about rationing, I think we have a pretty clear picture of where he will look to achieve those savings.

In 1996, he wrote a book entitled ``New Rules.'' He and his coauthor recommended ``protocols, guidelines, and algorithms for care,'' with the ``common underlying notion that someone knows or can discover the best way to carry out a task to reach a decision, and that improvement can come from standardizing processes and behaviors to conform to this ideal model.''

This is extraordinarily distressing when we are learning every day of innovative ways physicians and scientists have come up with to treat diseases and chronic conditions and illnesses--with new kinds of drugs, with other kinds of treatment, avoiding surgery in many cases, and now, importantly, using genomic research. The TGEN Institute in Phoenix, AZ, for example, is pioneering work involving the human genome so that ultimately we can determine what is best for each individual person in terms of a treatment. You may have breast cancer, for example, but physicians know all breast cancers are not the same and they are not all treated the same way. One woman can be treated with a particular form of radiation or chemotherapy or surgery, and yet for another person who seemingly has the same cancer, that treatment doesn't seem to work. Through human genome research, they basically map out each person's gene history, family history, and gene makeup in such a way as to know whether various kinds of treatment will be accepted or tolerated or successfully completed for each patient. They can tailor the treatments or the drugs for each particular patient.

If you have standardization of processes and behaviors to conform to this ``ideal model,'' to quote Dr. Berwick, you are going to get away from the kinds of treatments that could really be breathtakingly innovative for the future and could save many lives and improve our quality of life for as long as we live. This is the future. The future isn't cookie-cutter medicine where the doctor has to do exactly what some group of bureaucrats says because they performed a test someplace and that was the most efficient way to treat the particular patient.

Another couple of things.

Dr. Berwick expressed his disapproval for costly cutting-edge medical technologies and has said prevention services such as ``annual physicals, screening tests, and other measures'' are ``over-demanded.'' One of the things we did in the health care legislation was provide a lot of different incentives for preventive care, for screening, to try to help people avoid illnesses on the theory that it would be a lot cheaper if we didn't do a lot of treatment that was unnecessary. If you could identify in advance that an individual had a need for some treatment, maybe you could catch the disease, say, the cancer, early and not have the expensive treatment, the end-of-life kind of care that is frequently very expensive.

Let me close with a couple of things. The Wall Street Journal editorialized about Dr. Berwick's vision, saying this:

Such a command-and-control vision is widespread among

America's technocratic medical left, but it is also

increasingly anachronistic amid today's breakneck medical

progress. There isn't a single ``ideal model'' in a world of

treatments tailored to the genetic patterns of specific

cancers, or for the artificial pancreas for individual

diabetics, or other innovations that are increasingly common.

This is nonetheless where Dr. Berwick . . . will look for his

``savings.''

As CMS Administrator, Dr. Berwick will not only oversee billions in Federal spending but will be responsible for programs that cover millions of lives. It is perplexing, to say the least, that such an important position would bypass Senate consideration, without even so much as holding a hearing.

Moreover, this appointment is just the latest self-contradiction of an administration that claimed it would be the most transparent in history. We now have another example of the lack of transparency--the President recess-appointing someone, I believe, in order to avoid having a hearing and to avoid having a debate that would inform the American people of the kind of person the President was putting into this enormously important position.

Mr. President, I express the same concern Leader McConnell expressed. We regret that the President has seen fit to do this. I understand he can appoint anybody he wants, but what I really resent is turning around and having a spokesman for the President say that somehow or other the fact that he didn't have a hearing or the fact that he never was voted on is somehow the Republicans' fault. We had nothing to do with the fact that he didn't have a hearing. We asked for a hearing. We had nothing to do with the fact that he never had a vote. We never objected to any vote. There has never been a question of having a vote. Nobody ever said, in the Finance Committee or on the Senate floor, let's vote on Dr. Berwick. We had nothing to object to. The President can make the appointment if he wants to. We can still debate his qualifications even though he will now serve in this position. But to blame Republicans for having to do it in this nontransparent way is wrong, and I think Republicans are going to continue to demonstrate to the American people why this is a nominee who should have been aired out in public rather than appointed during the July 4 recess.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), the Senator from Florida (Mr. LeMieux), the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts), the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Sessions), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts), and the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Bond).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. President, during a recordbreaking six decades of public service, Senator Byrd served this Nation with diligence and spirit. As a legislator, Senator Byrd had many notable qualities, particularly his legendary oratory skills and his masterful knowledge of Senate procedure. Having authored a four-volume history of this Chamber, he understood its nuances and intricacies, and he was an articulate spokesman for protecting procedural rules.

Senator Byrd kept a copy of the Constitution in his pocket, and he could recite it from memory. He was always first to remind us that the Framers intended the Senate to be different from the House of Representatives and to stand as a bastion of individual and minority rights. He celebrated these distinctions serving as they do the fundamental principle of checks and balances within the legislative branch.

At a recent Rules Committee hearing, Senator Byrd said:

The Senate is the only place in government where the rights

of a numerical minority are so protected. The Senate is a

forum of the States, where regardless of size or population,

all States have an equal voice. . . . Without the protection

of unlimited debate, small States like West Virginia might be

trampled. Extended deliberation and debate--when employed

judiciously--protect every Senator, and the interests of

their constituency, and are essential to the protection of

the liberties of a free people.

Senator Byrd's insights, expertise, and constitutional scholarship will truly be missed. They are a great part of his legacy, one that I hope will be honored for generations.

On a personal note, I will mention that while Senator Byrd and I did not share a perspective on many matters of public policy, we had a common appreciation for bluegrass music. I always enjoyed talking with him about that subject. He was a talented fiddler, playing on stage, on television, and while campaigning for office. He even recorded an album entitled ``Mountain Fiddler.'' He gave me a copy, and I was very impressed with his skill.

Robert Byrd's knowledge, his hard work, his high spirit, and dedication to the people of West Virginia will always be remembered. My wife Caryll and I extend our thoughts and prayers to his family.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Bennett), the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Bond), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg), the Senator from Florida (Mr. LeMieux), the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski), the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Shelby), the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter), and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Voinovich).

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

Mr. President, I wish to speak on the Iran sanctions conference report which I assume we will be approving in a matter of a few minutes. This is a very important event in the Congress and could play a very significant role in the history of our country. I support the conference report. It is designated as H.R. 2194. I reiterate, I believe it is crucial that the Senate approve the conference report and that the President sign it into law as soon as possible. I fully predict both of those things will occur.

Let me mention three of the most important provisions of the bill so we know what it does. It deals with sanctions against Iran. There are two reasons: No. 1, to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear capability, and No. 2, to support the aspirations of the people of Iran for a more representative government.

What the bill does first is to expand the scope of existing sanctions against companies that invest in Iran's energy sector, and it includes measures to punish firms that export gasoline to Iran. We would think a country such as Iran would have plenty of gasoline, but they do not have refinery capacity to create the finished product which their people must use. So something on the order of at least 40 percent of their gasoline has to be imported. Because of this heavy dependence on imported gasoline, it is vulnerable to outside pressure, and that is why this particular sanction is an important step. By putting a squeeze on Iran's gas supplies and dissuading energy firms from investing in the country, we can hopefully force the Iranian regime to make difficult decisions about its finances, thereby further increasing its unpopularity.

Second, the bill limits nuclear cooperation agreements between the United States and countries which sell illicit materials to Iran. It also limits licenses under any such current agreements. A country that allows its citizens or companies to provide equipment or technologies or materials to Iran that make a material contribution to its nuclear capabilities should not benefit from nuclear cooperation with the United States, and we make it clear that won't be permitted under this provision.

The third thing the bill does is it includes the so-called McCain language that requires the President to compile a list of Iranian officials, specific people who have brutalized the Iranian people, and to impose sanctions against those particular individuals identified as human rights violators. The administration can use the new authority it is given in this legislation to publicly identify those people in the Iranian Government who are actually responsible for perpetrating human rights violations in Iran since the fraudulent elections in June of 2009. It can hold these people accountable through these targeted sanctions. The measure also requires that such persons be subject to restrictions on financial and property transactions. It also makes such persons ineligible for U.S. visas.

We can see there is a broad array of targeted kinds of sanctions that, combined, could have a significant impact on our policy with Iran.

While I am pleased that the conferees concluded their work and the legislation is here on the floor, I do wish to note in passing that it is long overdue. At the request of the administration, Congress has repeatedly delayed action on bilateral sanctions legislation. Because sanctions take time to work, we have given up some time here.

In some respects, we have wasted too much time waiting for the United Nations to finally act, as it eventually did earlier this month. The U.N. Security Council resolution, however, will do very little to slow down or stop Iran's nuclear weapons program or even prevent its support for terrorism around the world. Its provisions--the bulk of them--are voluntary. They don't deal with Iran's energy sector. This is primarily because of the demand of the Chinese Government. It also excludes Russia's cooperation with Iran on the Bushehr powerplant as well as the sale by Russia of the S-300 missile system to Iran, a very modern and effective anti-aircraft system which could certainly play a role in defending Iran against an attack on its nuclear facilities.

In addition, the divided vote of the Security Council displays to Iran that the world is not united in dealing with its illicit conduct. In fact, I argue that, in a way, we are in a worse position than we were 18 months ago when the President started his diplomacy in dealing with Iran. Up to then, all of the resolutions that had been passed against Iran had been unanimous. This one was not unanimous. In some respects, we have lost ground.

It is clear that the President's effort to get the Iranian regime to negotiate for that 18-month period did not achieve anything except allow the Iranians more time to develop their weaponry. The U.S. sanctions resolution is not going to be very effective in going any further than that, in my view, nor will the European Union add much to the U.N. resolution, although they will add something.

Before I conclude, let me ponder for a second a question others have asked, which is, How important is it that we do everything we can to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon? What would happen if it did acquire a nuclear weapon? What would be the big deal?

Imagine a world in which Iran does have a nuclear weapon. Lay aside the fact that we have a picture of the Iranian leader, Ahmadinejad, with a nuclear weapon and just imagine what he would do with that. Would it really be possible to contain a nuclear Iran using conventional deterrence mechanisms?

Some would say: We lived with a nuclear-armed Soviet Union for four decades. It worked with Moscow; why would it not work with Tehran? To some extent, it depends on the definition of ``work.'' Will it work?

Remember that while the Soviets never actually used their nuclear weapons, the fact that they possessed the weapons made a big difference in political events over those 40 years. It allowed them to subjugate Eastern Europe, and we had no way of responding. Had we tried to respond, there was the nuclear threat against us. It allowed them to foment a Communist revolution around the world and to sponsor a range of international terrorist groups during this period of time. When the Soviets invaded Hungary in 1956 in order to crush a democratic uprising, they knew the risk of a nuclear exchange would prevent the United States from responding with military force. I remember at that time the disappointment of the Hungarians who thought the United States had led them to think we would be supportive. In effect, there was nothing we could do that wouldn't potentially provoke a nuclear attack by Russia, and nobody wanted that. In other words, Moscow's nuclear arsenal served as the ultimate deterrent. It allowed the Kremlin to

undermine U.S. interests across the globe without fear of an American reprisal. The Soviets didn't need to use their nuclear weapons in order to achieve results; the mere fact that it had nuclear weapons dramatically increased both its strategic power and its leverage over foreign policy and, to some extent, over the United States.

The same would be true if Iran acquired nuclear weapons. Even if the mullahs never actually detonated a nuclear bomb, their acquisition of a nuclear capability would forever change Iran's regional and global influence, and it would certainly forever change the Middle East. If Iran went nuclear, its neighbors--thinking particularly of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey--might feel compelled to pursue their own nuclear arsenals. Tehran could easily trigger a dangerous chain reaction of nuclear proliferation. Once they had nuclear weapons, the Iranians would be much more aggressive in supporting terrorist organizations that are killing even American troops, for example, in Iraq. The Iranians would also ramp up their support for Hezbollah and Hamas and possibly provide them with nuclear materials. They would be emboldened to conduct economic warfare against the West, for example, by disrupting oil shipments traveling through the Straits of Hormuz. Iran would also be more confident about expanding its footprint in Latin America, where it has established a close working relationship with Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez. Governments around the world would lose faith in America's reliability as a strategic partner. U.S. credibility would be irrevocably weakened.

Remember, this is not the worst-case scenario. We are assuming that a self-preservation instinct would dissuade the Iranians from ever launching nuclear weapons against our allies or even the United States. But then again, is this really a safe assumption? Iranian leader Ahmadinejad has repeatedly expressed his desire to destroy the State of Israel, and given his radical, millenarian religious views and the viciously anti-Semitic ideology espoused by the Iranian theocracy, we can't simply dismiss the idea that Iran would attack Israel with nuclear weapons.

Because the United Nations took so long to act and because its sanctions are relatively weak, there is also the possibility, as the Jerusalem Post pointed out in an article entitled ``Too Little, Too Very Late,'' that U.N. sanctions could lull the international community into a false sense of security. That is where the action we take today could really help.

Here is what the Post wrote:

Breaking and evading these sanctions--

Talking about the U.S. sanctions--

ought to be a breeze for Ahmadinejad. A full year after

Iran's deceptive elections, which spurred countrywide

demonstrations, he may be less popular but his position is

stable. After the regime brutally quashed his opposition, it

is very doubtful that stunted sanctions will destabilize his

hold on power. . . . [The U.N.] sanctions . . . are not the

antidote to the Iranian nuclear threat that Israel had hoped

for and that the free world so badly needs. In some ways,

they may even exacerbate Israel's predicament. They will lend

the appearance of an international mobilization to curb

Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions, but in actuality will

achieve nothing--the worst of all worlds.

That is why I think the United States separate sanctions authorized by the legislation we will vote on shortly are so important to come in behind the United Nations sanctions and what the European Union might do to supplement those actions in a way that will truly be meaningful.

Finally, I want to note something that, frankly, is as important as everything else I have said and should be seen as part and parcel to our action in adopting this sanctions legislation. It has nothing to do with nuclear weapons, but it has everything to do with human rights. We need to make it very clear to the Iranian people that we care about them, we care about their aspirations for more freedom, for more representative government, and for the ability to take advantage of the opportunities their country should be presenting for them.

We can help the people of Iran achieve those aspirations by putting pressure on the people who prevent that from occurring, the regime in Tehran, the mullah-led government. These sanctions can have an impact on those mullahs and, in turn, help the Iranian people achieve their goals.

We need to be lending moral and rhetorical support to the Iranian activists. These are the people who poured into the streets last summer in protest of a fraudulent election. Just as we championed the cause of Soviet and Eastern European dissidents during the Cold War, I believe we should promote the efforts of Iranian freedom fighters and, frankly, shine a spotlight on the regime's brutal repression. That can be done especially through the McCain provisions that are part of the Iran sanctions legislation we are considering.

Had the United Nations imposed strong sanctions on Iran a long time ago when it was first found to be in violation of the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty, I would be more optimistic about our chances of success. Iran's economy would have been under severe strain for an extended period, and the government would have had fewer resources to fund its nuclear program and less power to repress its people.

As I said, there is still time, and because we are able to approve this conference report today and send it to the President for his signature, we are able to add to the sanctions that the rest of the world is willing to impose in such a way as to not only have an opportunity to dissuade the Iranian leaders from pursuing their nuclear program but, as I said, just as importantly, to demonstrate to the Iranian people we aim to support them in their quest for greater freedom.

So I hope my colleagues will send a very strong message with a unanimous vote for the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2009. I hope the President will sign this legislation immediately and begin to implement its provisions.

Mr. President, there is a long list of folks to thank: Representatives Berman and Harman and Cantor in the House of Representatives are just some who come to mind; Senator Lieberman and Senator Bayh, colleagues in the Senate; the leaders, Leader Reid and Leader McConnell, who have worked to bring this report to us for a vote today in an expedited way. I think this is a very good example of cooperation both between the House and the Senate and between Democrats and Republicans to accomplish something that is not just good for the people of the United States of America but people around the world--in the Middle East, and in particular the people of Iran.

So I urge my colleagues to unanimously support the conference report when we have an opportunity to vote on it shortly.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.