Floor Statements

Mr. President, the attacks of September 11, 2001, certainly had a profound impact on all Americans. In addition to the sadness, anger, fear, and, ultimately, resolve, we all felt in the aftermath of the attacks, many were also infused with a renewed sense of patriotism and fellowship that inspired them to engage in public and community service. As we approach the tenth anniversary of this terrible tragedy, I would like to honor one individual who answered the call to service, and who has done so much to help victims of the attack, Debra Brown Steinberg.

Debra was in New York City on September 11, and from her apartment she could see the smoke pouring out from the World Trade Center. As she desperately waited for news about her stepson, she made an agreement with God: if her stepson would come home safely, she would work to help the victims of the attack. Thankfully, her stepson did come home safely, and Debra has more than fulfilled her promise.

Utilizing her sharp legal acumen and more than 30 years of professional experience, Debra has become a passionate advocate for the families of those who perished in the 9/11 attacks. A partner in the respected New York firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, Debra was integral in putting together a consortium of law firms that have worked together to deliver pro bono services to 9/11 families.

Early on, Debra realized that, if her firm was going to give victims the assistance they truly needed, they would have to do more than simply offer free legal advice. Under her direction, the consortium has taken a holistic approach toward assisting the families; not just offering counsel, but also seeking to ensure they receive the services they need, and lobbying lawmakers and regulators to ensure that all victims have access to the Victim Compensation Fund. Debra has also represented many victims' families, pro bono, before the fund to ensure that they are fairly compensated.

Perhaps Debra's most amazing work has been her advocacy on behalf of some of the most vulnerable victims of the attacks: immigrants who were in the country illegally when their relatives were killed during the attacks on the World Trade Center. These individuals, as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has put it, ``share with all Americans a moment of loss and pain and pride that is now a defining part of our national history.'' However, because of their status, they were forced to cope with their pain and sadness in isolation, afraid to seek assistance or to offer their help for fear of being found out. Our Nation cannot help but feel a deep connection and commitment to this group.

Debra has worked tirelessly to assure that we live up to this commitment and to enable these victims to participate in rebuilding after the attacks. With her guidance, 11 of these spouses and children of innocent victims of the attacks have provided assistance to the Federal Government in its 9/11 related investigations and prosecutions. Debra also successfully represented these families before the Victim Compensation Fund to ensure that they received equal consideration. Finally, she has fought doggedly to ensure that these families can continue to work and live in the United States. Due in great part to her work, these family members have so far been able to stay in the United States and their cases are now being considered for a temporary visa that would allow them to live and work legally in the United States. Let us all hope that DHS is able to quickly conduct its review so that these families can leave the shadows and rebuild their lives.

Over the years, my office has had the privilege of assisting Debra in her efforts, and I have witnessed firsthand her dedication to assisting the families of 9/11 victims. Those she has represented are certainly lucky to have had her on their side. Given all that Debra has done, it's no wonder that the American Bar Association honored her with the prestigious Pro Bono Publico award in 2006. She has also received the 9/11 Tribute Center Award in 2009 and the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 2007. Her work has also been recognized several times by my colleagues here in the Senate, as well as in the U.S. House of Representatives and the New York State Legislature.

Mr. President, I commend Debra Brown Steinberg for her commitment to assisting families of 9/11 victims. Her efforts truly personify the American values of fairness and patriotism. The U.S. Senate, and the American People, owe her our sincerest gratitude.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the Chair and thank my friend from South Carolina for his generous words.

Obviously, what turned the tide in Iraq was a vision, a commanding vision by General Petraeus about what had to happen to succeed with a new counterterrorism strategy and tremendous support from the men and women of the American military, a generation that volunteered, that stepped up to the call, that rightfully should be called America's ``new greatest generation.'' They are an inspiration to us.

Of course, we lost a lot of them there. The Iraqi military fought hard and now, increasingly, has shown its capability to defend its own nation, which is what we had hoped and prayed and fought for. So my friends from Arizona and South Carolina had the same reaction I did yesterday. We began to talk to each other by the end of the day as we came back to Washington, to what was originally a FOX News story, that the decision had been made in the administration to go down to 3,000 troops. We reacted that way because it was lower than any number we had ever heard from anybody we had confidence in about what was necessary to secure all that we have gained and all the Iraqis have gained.

The papers today report it as a fact. Secretary Panetta says no decision has been made. I hope not because in these matters--I understand there is politics in Iraq as well as here, but what has to be put at the top of the list is what is best for our national security and, of course, for the Iraqis, what is best for their national security.

To me, if the number is right, and it is only going to be 3,000 more there after the end of this year, I don't see how we can feel confident that we can protect what we have spent a lot of American lives--a lot of Iraqi lives, a lot of our national treasure and theirs--securing. And I don't see how we can help to avoid a kind of possible return to civil war, particularly on the fault lines my friends have mentioned, between the Kurdish areas and the Arab areas.

This is a decision ultimately for the President. I want to say this about doing the right thing: The President, obviously, took a position for withdrawal of American troops from Iraq during the campaign of 2008. I think there were a lot of his supporters who felt, who hoped, who dreamed that pretty much the day--we are hearing a lot about day one these days, a lot about day one after the next election. But I think a lot of President Obama's supporters expected that on day one of his administration he would begin a full withdrawal from Iraq. To his great, great credit, he did not do that because I think he understood he had a goal, which was to pull our troops out of Iraq but that America had an interest and he as President had to protect that interest in not losing in Iraq, not letting it fall apart, and not letting us suffer the loss we would to our credibility and strength around the world.

My friends and I traveled a lot together. We have been in places far away from Iraq--Asia, for instance--where, when it was uncertain about whether we were going to stick to it in Iraq we heard real concern from our allies in Asia. They said: You know, Iraq is far from here, but we depend on American strength and credibility for our security and freedom in Asia, in the Asia-Pacific region. If you are seen to be weak and lame and not up to the fight in Iraq, it is going to compromise our freedom.

The President, to his credit, understood all that and put us on a slow path to withdrawal. But I don't think anybody would fault the President if we--and I think the expectation has been that we have achieved so much that we could--leave a core group there to continue to train the Iraqi military so they reach their full potential, to be there to assist them in a counterterrorism fight because that is essentially what is going on in Iraq now. The war is basically over, but the extremists, the Shia militia, some remnants of al-Qaida, are carrying out terrorist attacks. Those are the explosive--literally explosive--high-visibility attacks.

We have special capacities in the U.S. military to work with the Iraqi military to prevent and counter those terrorist attacks.

Then the final part of the mission has to be to protect the American personnel there, civilian personnel. I don't know what that number will be. At one point--we already have the largest----

I yield.

I thank my friend. At one point somebody indicated to us--we were in Baghdad--that the American Embassy, which is already the largest U.S. Embassy in the world in terms of personnel, could go up as high as 20,000. It could be that high. Those are a lot of civilians committed to working in the country that we need to have forces there to protect.

We are all coming to the floor today to appeal to Secretary Panetta, to the President: It would be shortsighted. If it is really going to be 3,000 and only 3,000, and, frankly, we are not going to tuck some away in those civilian personnel numbers in the embassy or somewhere else, covert operators--if it is really only 3,000, they are not going to be able to do the job that needs to be done. Not only that, they are going to send a message of weakness, lack of resolve, anxiousness to get out to the Iraqis' enemies and ours in the region, and that particularly includes Iran.

I join my colleagues. We have been together on this for a long time. I don't want us to squander what we have won, and we will, I am afraid, if we only leave 3,000 American troops there.

Mr. President, I want to say in response to something Senator McCain said, somebody in the military said to me: If we are not going to leave enough to do the job, we might as well not leave anybody there.

Of course, we don't want that to happen. There are a couple of alternatives here. One is that the 3,000 is not the number. Hopefully we will have clarification. It is more than that. In all our trips to Iraq, talking about repeated teams of leadership, never has there been anyone who said to us that we needed less than 10,000 American troops there to do this job. I want to repeat this; there is a kind of sleight of hand here. Maybe it is 3,000 here and a few more thousand tucked into the civilian workforce at the embassy and a few more somewhere in the special covert operators. If that is the game plan here, it is a mistake. We ought to see exactly how many troops are leaving there. It gives confidence to our allies in the region, particularly in Iraq, and it will unsettle our enemies, particularly in Iran.

Dr. Ken Pollack has a piece in the National Interest that is out now about this situation. He is concerned about the small number of troops that may be left there and agrees that there may be some Iraqis who might be pushing for a smaller post-2011 force with a more limited set of missions. Dr. Pollack says:

That would be a bad deal for the Iraqi people and for the

United States. Our troops would be reduced to spectators as

various Iraqi groups employ violence against one another.

Moreover, if we have troops in Iraq but do nothing to stop

bloodshed there, it would be seen as proof of Washington's

complicity. If American forces cannot enforce the rules of

the game, they should not be in Iraq, period, lest they be

portrayed as contributing to the destruction of the country.

That is what we are saying.

The final point here is Dr. Pollack argues in this piece that the United States, if this is in response--giving the benefit of the doubt for a moment--to Iraqi political concerns, that the U.S. has the leverage to avoid this dangerous outcome. He writes:

America has the goods to bargain. The question is whether

Washington will.

That is the question I believe my colleagues from Arizona and South Carolina are asking today: Will we bargain with our Iraqi allies that this is the problem to be able to work with them for another chapter to secure all we have gained together up until now?

Mr. President, I rise today to honor the life and legacy of Senator Mark Hatfield--a lifelong Oregonian, a genuine statesman, and a dedicated public servant. With a career in government that spanned nearly five decades, Mark leaves behind a legacy of service and a model of civility in American political life.

From the shores of Iwo Jima, to the halls of the statehouse in Salem, Oregon, and the Chamber of the U.S. Senate, Mark dedicated his life to our country. He served courageously as a naval officer in the Second World War in the Pacific theater. He was a notable lawmaker in the Oregon State Legislature, championing civil rights legislation in the 1950s well before the Federal Government's landmark efforts in that area. He also served as Oregon's secretary of state, and for two terms, he was a successful Governor. He went on to serve the people of Oregon as a U.S. Senator for three decades.

I knew Mark to be a man of decency, always civil in the way he conducted his business, and I believe that was his signature strength as a legislator. While Mark and I did not always agree, he was never disagreeable. He was principled and passionate about the things he believed to be true, but he was also respectful of those with whom he disagreed. His demeanor won him many friends and built many fruitful relationships on both sides of the aisle, making him a most effective legislator.

Upon retiring from the Senate in 1996, Mark reflected upon the nature of our country's politics, saying, ``I'm going to miss the people, but not the process.'' He had grown disenchanted with the coarse partisanship that had warped the political process, and he knew that if we were to keep moving forward as a country, the vital center would have to hold, civility would have to prevail, and bipartisanship would have to return. Solutions do not come from gridlock. Bipartisanship has to win the day.

Since Mark retired from the Senate, our politics have become even more tribal. But I believe it would serve us all well, as we honor his life, to reflect upon the example he set--that disagreements do not have to become roadblocks but instead can be opportunities for innovative compromise.

I learned a great deal from Mark Hatfield during our time in the Senate together, and I am grateful for this opportunity to honor Mark's memory.

Mr. President, on August 8, 2011, in the small town of Dharamsala in northern India, a modest ceremony was held to inaugurate the new Prime Minister of the Central Tibetan Administration. The new Prime Minister's name is Dr. Lobsang Sangay, and I had the opportunity, together with some of my distinguished colleagues, to meet him last month.

Dr. Sangay assumes office at an important moment in Tibetan history. Indeed, his election marks a significant milestone in the advancement of Tibetan democracy, as His Holiness the Dalai Lama earlier this year announced his decision to devolve fully his political authority to the elected leadership, now led by Dr. Sangay.

At a time when dictators in many parts of the world have proven themselves willing to slaughter their own people rather than cede an iota of power, the decision of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to surrender his political authority in favor of democracy is both inspiring and significant. It was also a wise decision that will strengthen the legitimacy of the Tibetan cause among the international community and sustain it for decades to come.

The election that brought Dr. Sangay to power involved voting by tens of thousands of Tibetans living in exile in over 30 countries, from Belgium to Bhutan. In my home State of Connecticut, nearly 100 Tibetan Americans took part in this election.

Dr. Sangay, a 43-year-old academic who holds a doctorate from Harvard Law School, was elected Prime Minister with 55 percent of the vote. Now the executive authority of the Central Tibetan Authority rests solely on his shoulders.

I came away from my conversation with Dr. Sangay deeply impressed. He is a young man of considerable intellect and accomplishment, and I am certain that he will prove to be a leader of courage and conviction. The Tibetan people have chosen wisely in electing him as their Prime Minister.

During our meeting, Dr. Sangay affirmed his commitment to the Dalai Lama's ``Middle Way Approach,'' which seeks genuine autonomy for Tibet, not independence, and I was encouraged by his determination to meet the challenge of finding a solution for the Tibet issue.

Unfortunately, the situation for the 6 million Tibetans living under Chinese rule today remains deeply troubling. This is a community that has never been permitted to participate in a free and fair election of the sort that just took place among Tibetans in exile. In fact, this is a community that is governed by authorities who have deemed that carrying a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or a simple photograph of his Holiness the Dalai Lama to be illegal and punishable acts. It is a community that has faced brutal repression and violence and that has, for decades, been denied their fundamental rights, including the freedoms of expression, assembly, and association.

I hope that the self-fulfillment of democratic governance exercised by Tibetan refugees can provide hope and inspiration to those in Tibet and China who yearn for the fundamental freedom to choose their own government and leaders.

While the U.S. government does not officially recognize the Central Tibetan Administration, we do work with them though a variety of programs to help Tibetan refugees. As the United States continues its outreach to civil society and nongovernmental groups, and its promotion of democracy around the world, I hope we should enhance our engagement with the Central Tibetan Administration and Dr. Sangay.

Moreover, when Lobsang Sangay returns to Washington this fall, I hope many doors will be open to him. What the Dalai Lama and his fellow Tibetan refugees have accomplished is worthy and deserving of our attention and respect.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, I come to the floor to express my support for the measure before us, as my colleague from Missouri who has just spoken, and as everyone else I have heard express their support for this proposal. No one seems perfectly satisfied with it, but that is inevitable. I think we have come to one of those classic moments of a very big challenge our Nation faces--this enormous debt--and whether in this agreement we see this glass half full or the glass half empty and whether what encourages us in the agreement outweighs what disappoints us.

For me, the positive outweighs the negative. I am going to vote for my hopes about what this agreement means as opposed to my fears that we are not doing enough in this agreement.

What makes me most happy about it is this is a bipartisan compromise that turns the corner, turns the ship of America's state away from greater and greater deficits and a greater national debt and in the direction of balancing our budget once more. It turns us in the direction of reestablishing classic American values of discipline and thrift and concern about our future and investment in our future, which we have lost in our Federal Government through the work of both parties in the executive and legislative branches of our government.

It is a bipartisan agreement at a time when this Chamber and this city have become reflexively and destructively partisan, and that is encouraging to me, that it is bipartisan. It is a compromise at a time when this city has become ideologically rigid, and it is clear, if we look at our history, that we only make progress when we compromise. That is because we are such a big, diverse country with so many different opinions and points of view. So this is a bipartisan compromise. It is the beginning of a long, hard march back to fiscal responsibility in our country--back to a balanced budget.

So what troubles me about it? What troubles me about it is that the bipartisan compromise also represents a kind of bipartisan agreement by each party to yield to the other party's most politically and ideologically sensitive priority. In the case of Democrats, it is to protect entitlement spending, and in the case of Republicans it is to not raise taxes. The reality is that we have to do some of both if we are going to get our country back into balance.

Because this agreement doesn't really touch the entitlement programs--particularly Medicare, which is growing faster, bigger than any other government program--it puts all the burden of getting back toward balance in our budget on the so-called discretionary spending part of the budget. That is about one-third of Federal spending. About 60 percent is the entitlement or mandatory programs. So we have the beginning of a system that forces cuts in the discretionary third of the budget--defense and nondefense--which they have to do, they have to cut--but it doesn't ask much of anything of the 60 percent that is growing so rapidly, which is entitlement spending.

As a result, if the special committee created in this agreement-- which is the great hope of the agreement, I think--doesn't work its will and involve itself in entitlement reform and tax reform, and Congress doesn't accept it, then the trigger, the automatic spending cuts are also all from discretionary spending, asking that one-third of the budget to pay the way, even though it is a small part of the responsibility for the increase in government spending. That would have a devastating effect on our national security because it would dramatically undercut our defense, as well as some of the programs that are the great investment programs of our future: education, energy, et cetera, et cetera. So I hope the special committee will redeem our hopes and Congress will too by dealing with entitlement reform.

I wish to say here that Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and I, in June, introduced a proposal that would take steps to save Medicare for the almost 70 million people who will be on Medicare in a decade and reduce the enormous costs it places on our taxpayers. I think a lot of people in our country think the payroll deductions and the premiums they pay, pay the total benefits of Medicare. Unfortunately, that is not so. The average Medicare beneficiary in their lifetime takes $3 or $4 out of the system for every $1 they put in, and we just can't run a program long term like that. Who picks up the rest? The taxpayers, the budget. That is a big part of why we are heading into deficit. So we can't save Medicare by leaving it as it is. We can only save Medicare-- and I want to save Medicare because I believe in the program--if we change it.

Senator Coburn and I put forward this plan that will save over $600 billion in Medicare costs over the next decade. It will extend the solvency of Medicare by at least 30 years and reduce Medicare's 75-year unfunded liabilities by $10 trillion.

Now, I know our plan contains some strong medicine, but that is what it will take to keep Medicare alive, and we believe our plan administers this medicine in a fair way. Senator Coburn and I are going to forward our proposal, which is in legislative form, to the joint select committee for their consideration, and we hope they will include parts of it in their recommended legislation.

I also believe it is essential for the joint committee to act to bolster the solvency of Social Security. Many think Social Security is not contributing to the deficit because it has a positive balance in the Social Security trust fund. But what is in that trust fund? It is notes that the United States Government has given to the Social Security trust fund every time we have borrowed from it. Of course, we are bound to pay that money back.

The fact is, today Social Security is running a deficit on a cashflow basis. In other words, the payments into the system are not as great as the payments out, and they will continue to do that in increasing numbers for the foreseeable future.

What does that mean? It means the Social Security trust fund has to come to the Federal Government to redeem the bonds the government gave Social Security when it borrowed the money. How does our government pay back the Social Security trust fund? By borrowing over the next two decades $2.6 trillion, currently held in IOUs, plus interest. If we don't do something to save Social Security, when we hit the year of 2036, Social Security will only

be able to pay benefits to the extent that they are covered by incoming receipts, and that will mean a sudden, shocking, painful 23-percent cut in benefits for senior citizens.

We have to begin to enact reforms now to slowly save Social Security, and we can do it. I wish to indicate today to my colleagues that Senator Coburn and I are working again on a bipartisan proposal to secure Social Security for America's seniors for the long term, and we hope to have that done in time to also forward to the special committee for their consideration.

So the bottom line: We can't protect these entitlements as well as have the national defense we need to protect us in a dangerous world while we are at war against Islamic extremists who attacked us on 9/11, and will be for a long time to come. We can't not touch the entitlements or raise taxes and create a tax reform proposal and expect to protect all the programs of investment in our future that mean so much to America's families: education particularly, alternative energy, investments in our transportation system.

To be able to do all that in the right way, we need this special committee and Congress to take the next steps. But this is a significant beginning, as imperfect as it is.

If I may, finally, for all of us--and particularly for the President, the Speaker, the majority leader, the Republican leader in the House, and the Democratic leader in the Senate, and everybody who worked so hard, coming close to the kind of grand bargain I think we needed, that the Simpson-Bowles Commission adopted, that the Gang of 6, our 6 colleagues, recommended to us, which I support, and that the President and the Speaker, President Obama and Speaker Boehner, were close to but unfortunately fell apart--there is disappointment that a lot of us feel. But perhaps to put it in a broader context, I wish to quote from an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal today written by David Rivkin and Lee Casey, who are two lawyers whose work I have long admired. Here is what they say to take us back and perhaps remind us that we fill these seats for a short period of time. We act within the system created by our Framers, and we do our best. They wrote:

The debt-ceiling crisis has prompted predictable media

laments about how partisan and dysfunctional our political

system has become. But if the process leading to the current

deal was a ``spectacle'' and a ``three-ring circus,''

As someone put it--

the show's impresarios are none other than James Madison and

Alexander Hamilton. Our messy political system is working

exactly the way our Founders intended it to.

Then I go toward the end of their op-ed piece:

The key point has been made--

Excuse me. Let me start a paragraph ahead:

Rarely in our system do the participants--

Whether in the White House, Senate, or House--

achieve all or even most of their goals in a single political

battle. . . . The key point has been made. Few now suggest

that we can continue on our current spending binge. That is

the beginning of a consensus, and a good start towards

genuine change.

The Framers would be pleased at the spectacle.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I rise to speak on the proposed debt crisis agreement. The first thing I would like to do is express my appreciation--I think I would actually say empathy to the President, the Vice President, and the bipartisan leadership of both Houses of Congress who have had to deal with this enormously significant and difficult problem for our Federal Government because the obvious fact is we have worked our way into a very deep hole of debt. When I say ``we,'' I mean we, all of us--succeeding Presidents of different parties, Members of both parties in both Houses of Congress. There is a tendency, when you have a problem such as this, to want to point and blame everybody else. The truth is, we are all responsible, and we are only going to get out of this hole and get the American government and the American people out of this hole if we work together to solve the problems, just as we have together caused these problems.

I saw some numbers recently--I think I have them right; I know I have them almost right--that express very simply what happened over the last decade. In fiscal year 2001, the last year of the Clinton administration, the Federal Government tax revenues--revenues--were at about 19.6 percent of the gross domestic product. Federal Government spending in that year was about a point lower, 18.5 or 18.6 percent of the gross domestic product. So you are raising about 1 percent more of the GDP than you are spending, and you have a surplus.

What is it now? It is startling how the change has occurred. Spending is up close to 25 percent of the gross domestic product, and revenues are down to about 15 percent. Now you have a gap of about 10 percent of spending, as a percentage of GDP, over revenue, and we have this enormous deficit and debt--$14 trillion. If you said to me when I came to Congress in 1989 that our government would one day have a debt of over $14 trillion, I would have said: Impossible. But here we are. And it is growing at $1 trillion a year and more. That is the problem we have.

When you think about those percentages I cited, speaking very simplistically, the way we are going to get out of the hole we are in is by cutting spending and raising revenues. We would like to do that in a way that also gets us back to economic growth. That is the critical third factor. If we are growing economically, the revenue system we have will raise more money and help us to close this gap.

But doing these two things that are critical to solving the national crisis we have--which is to raise revenue and cut spending--is difficult politically, very hard politically. It is not what a lot of politicians think our constituents want us to do. But I think today the American people are so anxious about the national debt, so anxious about the economy, and so frustrated and angry with Members of Congress that they would like us to do what is counterintuitive, which does not seem like traditional politics, which is to actually do together what will solve the problem--stop the partisan politics, solve the problem. They know we have to cut some spending, we have to raise some revenues, and they want us to do it fairly. That is the difficult dilemma the White House and the bipartisan congressional leadership faced in dealing with this problem, and it results in the agreement.

I thank the leaders and the White House for the agreement because it does do some significant things. No. 1, it avoids the unknown risk of a default for the first time in our history. Some people think it would not be so bad. I do not want to play that game with our economy and our financial future. I think it would have hurt us. So it avoids that. Second, it does begin to cut some spending and put some caps on. Third--and maybe this is the most hopeful--it creates a special joint committee of Congress to recommend further cuts in this so-called second tranche of cuts.

But it does not do two other things, and as a result, this proposal before us now is unfair. What doesn't it do? It seems to me that in reaching this agreement, each political party yielded to the other party's highest priority political and ideological interest. So this agreement does not deal with entitlement reform at all, including Medicare reform, which is a priority for Democrats, and it does not raise revenues, which is a priority for Republicans. Why do I say it is unfair? It is unfair because it sets before us a solution to the problem that only asks of the discretionary spending lines in our budget.

What I mean to say here is that discretionary spending in fiscal year 2010 represented about 35 percent of all government spending. Mandatory spending, the so-called entitlements, was almost 60 percent. So 35 percent discretionary, 60 percent mandatory. Interest payments were about 5.5 percent. So if you are taking the mandatory spending off the table and you are not going to add any revenues, then you are left with taking all the savings that this agreement proposes to achieve--almost $3 trillion, maybe at best $3 trillion--you are taking it all out of discretionary spending. In doing that, you are going to end up having a devastating effect on our security and I believe on our prosperity and also on our future, on the capacity of our government to take care of those who are most vulnerable and on the capacity of our government to help the economy grow.

To better explain this, I just want to say very briefly, what is discretionary spending? Well, there is the defense side, which is the Department of Defense. In some cases in the agreement, it is described as security, and that would include Homeland Security and the Veterans' Administration. The nondefense discretionary includes most of what most people see as our government: education, health, administration of justice, energy, environment, agriculture, commerce, community and regional development, science, space, technology research. All of those will suffer devastating cuts under this proposal because we have not been able to deal with entitlements, particularly Medicare.

Why do I cite Medicare? I believe in Medicare. I think it is a great program. But, look, it is on course to do two things: One, it is going to go bankrupt soon, according to the report of its own trustees, no later than 2024 but as soon as 4 or 5 years from now. The hospital part of Medicare is going to go bankrupt. It is not going to have enough

money. Why? Because though people put money, through their payroll taxes, into hospital insurance, the reality is that the average beneficiary of Medicare takes $3 or $4 out for every $1 put in. You cannot do that and have it be sustained over the long haul. And over the next decade, approximately 20 million more Americans are going on to Medicare because of the baby boomer generation. So it is the single largest, fastest growing element of our Federal budget.

It seems to me--again, I support Medicare. I voted against the Ryan budget. I do not want to privatize it. But you cannot protect Medicare as it is and expect it to stay as it is. You are only going to protect Medicare by changing it, and this budget does not touch that at all. I could say more about that, but that is enough for the moment.

So the end result of all this is that of the approximately $1 trillion in the so-called first phase or tranche of cuts adopted by this plan, they are pretty much all from discretionary spending, defense and nondefense--Head Start, Pell grants, education, and defense.

The second phase is the part that bothers me and really worries me, I would say. The proposal before us sets up a committee, 12 Members of Congress equal in terms of party allocation. They have the opportunity to deal with the problems that are left out of this and have this be a fairer proposal to get America back in balance; that is, to deal with the entitlements and deal with the revenues--tax reform, entitlement reform, whatever you want to call it. But will they? And if they do not, if the two parties' priority political and ideological interests are reflected in the committee and stop it from dealing with entitlements and revenues or are reflected on the floor, then there is an automatic mechanism for cutting an additional $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion, and that all comes out of discretionary spending, defense and nondefense.

Some of my other colleagues have come to the floor to describe the impact on nondefense discretionary spending, really most of what we know as government: education, health care, environmental protection, transportation, et cetera, et cetera.

I am on the Armed Services Committee. I am on the Homeland Security Committee, privileged to be chair. My priority in my service in the Senate has been our national security. I will tell you this: If that sequester ever went into effect, it would have a devastating impact on the ability of our men and women in uniform and their leaders to protect our security in what remains a dangerous world.

The initial $1 trillion of cuts mandated in this proposal includes $350 billion over the 10 years from defense, as I understand the numbers. President Obama had earlier directed the Department of Defense to cut $400 billion from their spending over the next decade.

The Department of Defense is working on that. GEN Martin Dempsey, soon to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he was working on that. He thought he could accomplish it, but it was not going to be easy.

He was asked: What would happen if you were demanded to go beyond the $400 billion in cuts from defense over the next 10 years? He said it would be extraordinarily difficult and involve very high risk to our national security. He is not against cuts in defense. I am not against cuts in defense. But they have to be reasonable because, in the end, the first responsibility of our national government is to protect our security.

If we do not have security, we do not have anything else. We do not have freedom. We do not have prosperity. We do not have anything else. The world is full of people who want to do us damage, who want to kill us, who want to bring down our civilization, who are involved in an ideological--some sense theological--clash with us. I am just saying that if the joint committee, the special committee, cannot reach agreement or reaches agreement and Congress rejects its proposals, there will be an automatic cut in defense of an additional $500 to $600 billion over the next decade. Add that to the $350 billion already in the first phase mandated by this proposal, we have $1 trillion in cuts. We are not going to be protected, as we have to be.

It is as simple as that. It is unfair--not only unfair, it is irresponsible. Admiral Mullen was in Afghanistan over the weekend. He had a conversation with some of our troops that got a lot of attention from the media. One of the soldiers got up and said: Admiral Mullen, we were following the debt debate in Congress. Can you promise us we will get paid regularly in the coming weeks?

Admiral Mullen quite honestly said: I do not know. Because it was not clear whether we were going to come to an agreement and avoid a default.

I will tell you, if this full package goes forward and the joint committee does not reach a different result and recommendation and $1 trillion of cuts are imposed on our national security-Defense Department budget over the next 10 years, whoever is Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when this goes into effect--it will be General Dempsey--he will still be there, fortunately, in January of 2013--when they are asked: Will we get paid, I believe they are still going to say: I do not know. Some of you will. We may have to have a reduction in end strength in the force, the number of people we have protecting our country. If families of men and women in uniform for the United States ask, if this total package of cuts goes into effect on defense, if their families of the military ask: Are our loved ones in uniform going to be given the equipment to carry out the missions our country is asking of them in a way that maximizes their ability to succeed and protects them, I do not think anybody in the military can say yes. I could not say yes, if that was the case.

So I am disappointed. I will say one other thing because we are all so focused on jobs and the economy. The American military does not just protect our security and advance our ideals, as it does, and live by our ideals, as it does, but it also has a tremendous positive impact on our economy. It is the American military that is the foundation of an international system of stability and security that has undergirded, that has been the precondition of the enormous growth that has happened in America and a lot of other places in the world, where hundreds of millions, probably billions, of people have come out of poverty because they could rely on the safety of the sea lanes, they could rely on order in the world in places such as Asia, Europe, and throughout the world.

If the American military is cut as much, in the worst case as this proposal would cut it, it is the beginning of the end of America as a great international power. It is the beginning of the end of this system of international security that has undergirded our prosperity and so much of the prosperity of the world. Which other nation will assume the responsibility we have? We have benefitted from it greatly. It is a statement that we are prepared to decline as a country.

I come back and say again, that to get us out of the fiscal hole we in the Federal Government have put this country into, everybody is going to have to give. Everybody is going to have to take cuts. That includes defense, and there is a lot that can be cut out of defense. But there is also a lot that has to be changed in entitlement spending.

There are people who are getting away with tax loopholes who ought to be paying more in taxes. Everybody has to contribute to solve this national crisis. Right now, this proposal is unfair because it adds contributions, cuts, sacrifice only from the recipients of discretionary spending, and that means while all of them should be paying--should be accepting cuts, they are being asked to take cuts that are unfair and counterproductive to our security, to our liberty, to our prosperity, to our morality as a country that has always taken care of people who could not take care of themselves.

If these discretionary cuts go into effect, all that will be jeopardized. So I have come to say this to my colleagues and to say, frankly, that I have not decided how I am going to vote. I understand the proposal does prevent the default, it does begin some process of cuts, and it has this committee which offers the most hope.

But on the other hand, I see in front of me a mechanism set up which I think--if it goes through its conclusion--will have not a net positive effect

on our future, if the committee's work is not good and accepted by Congress, but a net negative effect on America's future.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Coltsville National Historical Park Act, and express my strong support for the designation of the Coltsville Historical District in Hartford, Connecticut as a National Park. I thank my colleague Senator Blumenthal for joining me as an original cosponsor of this legislation, and also wish to thank my longtime friend and colleague, Congressman John Larson, who recently introduced an identical version of this bill in the House.

In 1990, I had the privilege of introducing and successfully fighting for the legislation that established the Weir Farm National Historic Site as Connecticut's first and, as yet, only contribution to the National Park System. Over two decades later, I am honored to strive for the same outcome for Coltsville.

Located on the banks of the Connecticut River in Hartford, Coltsville is at the heart of a cluster of historical landmarks of great significance for Connecticut and our entire Nation. A newly established national park in Coltsville would span more than 200 acres and beckon tourists to such Hartford destinations as the homes of Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe, as well as to the great events organized by Riverfront Recapture, along our beautiful waterfront.

Coltsville's past is as compelling as its future possibilities. Samuel Colt, born in Hartford, was first famous for developing the revolving-breech pistol, which became one of the standard small arms of the world in the last half of the nineteenth century. Production of that firearm helped build a model town on the banks of the Connecticut River, including the Colt Armory, workers' housing, Colt Park, the Church of the Good Shepherd, and the Colt family home, known as ``Armsmear.'' At its peak during the twentieth century, the factory at Coltsville employed over 10,000 people and made a significant contribution to the country's war effort.

But the legacy of the Colt operation goes well beyond the manufacturing of guns. Colt himself invented a submarine battery used in harbor defense, a submarine telegraph cable, and other innovations. The success of Samuel and Elizabeth Colt's precision firearms business led to other industrial advancements in Connecticut and throughout New England, including the manufacture of sewing machines and typewriters. Ultimately, the spirit of innovation fostered at Coltsville was crucial to establishing Connecticut's proud tradition of manufacturing everything from small arms to jet engines, and even the submarines that our servicemembers use to defend our freedoms.

The early industrial innovators represented the same pioneering spirit of American ingenuity that we see today in defense, information, and biotechnology firms. Today, we sometimes take this innovation for granted. In Samuel Colt's day, every ingenious development was a grand achievement and a small revelation.

The industrial revolution transformed our nation culturally and economically like no other force ever has. People moved into the cities. Living standards rose. The middle class grew and economic growth intensified.

Unfortunately, Hartford has not been immune to the economic hardships the country is facing. That is why Coltsville must be a beacon to our nation of what once was and can be again, the center of industry, innovation, and prosperity. Just as Coltsville did for Hartford during the Industrial Revolution, the designation of a National Park will serve as a catalyst for growth in a struggling city.

I believe that memorializing Sam and Elizabeth Colt and their movement is particularly important as Americans struggle to emerge from a deep recession. The way we are going to revitalize our economy is to invest in people, to invest in and inspire innovation that will pioneer new industries that will create millions of new jobs. Coltsville is a historic landmark and a living reminder of the extraordinary advances in technology and innovation that have been America's story for over 400 years.

I thank Senator Blumenthal and Congressman Larson for their work and dedication to advance Coltsville's status as a National Historical Park. I reaffirm my strong support today for recognizing these values, and I look forward to working cooperatively with my colleagues in making it happen.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Coltsville National Historical Park Act, and express my strong support for the designation of the Coltsville Historical District in Hartford, Connecticut as a National Park. I thank my colleague Senator Blumenthal for joining me as an original cosponsor of this legislation, and also wish to thank my longtime friend and colleague, Congressman John Larson, who recently introduced an identical version of this bill in the House.

In 1990, I had the privilege of introducing and successfully fighting for the legislation that established the Weir Farm National Historic Site as Connecticut's first and, as yet, only contribution to the National Park System. Over two decades later, I am honored to strive for the same outcome for Coltsville.

Located on the banks of the Connecticut River in Hartford, Coltsville is at the heart of a cluster of historical landmarks of great significance for Connecticut and our entire Nation. A newly established national park in Coltsville would span more than 200 acres and beckon tourists to such Hartford destinations as the homes of Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe, as well as to the great events organized by Riverfront Recapture, along our beautiful waterfront.

Coltsville's past is as compelling as its future possibilities. Samuel Colt, born in Hartford, was first famous for developing the revolving-breech pistol, which became one of the standard small arms of the world in the last half of the nineteenth century. Production of that firearm helped build a model town on the banks of the Connecticut River, including the Colt Armory, workers' housing, Colt Park, the Church of the Good Shepherd, and the Colt family home, known as ``Armsmear.'' At its peak during the twentieth century, the factory at Coltsville employed over 10,000 people and made a significant contribution to the country's war effort.

But the legacy of the Colt operation goes well beyond the manufacturing of guns. Colt himself invented a submarine battery used in harbor defense, a submarine telegraph cable, and other innovations. The success of Samuel and Elizabeth Colt's precision firearms business led to other industrial advancements in Connecticut and throughout New England, including the manufacture of sewing machines and typewriters. Ultimately, the spirit of innovation fostered at Coltsville was crucial to establishing Connecticut's proud tradition of manufacturing everything from small arms to jet engines, and even the submarines that our servicemembers use to defend our freedoms.

The early industrial innovators represented the same pioneering spirit of American ingenuity that we see today in defense, information, and biotechnology firms. Today, we sometimes take this innovation for granted. In Samuel Colt's day, every ingenious development was a grand achievement and a small revelation.

The industrial revolution transformed our nation culturally and economically like no other force ever has. People moved into the cities. Living standards rose. The middle class grew and economic growth intensified.

Unfortunately, Hartford has not been immune to the economic hardships the country is facing. That is why Coltsville must be a beacon to our nation of what once was and can be again, the center of industry, innovation, and prosperity. Just as Coltsville did for Hartford during the Industrial Revolution, the designation of a National Park will serve as a catalyst for growth in a struggling city.

I believe that memorializing Sam and Elizabeth Colt and their movement is particularly important as Americans struggle to emerge from a deep recession. The way we are going to revitalize our economy is to invest in people, to invest in and inspire innovation that will pioneer new industries that will create millions of new jobs. Coltsville is a historic landmark and a living reminder of the extraordinary advances in technology and innovation that have been America's story for over 400 years.

I thank Senator Blumenthal and Congressman Larson for their work and dedication to advance Coltsville's status as a National Historical Park. I reaffirm my strong support today for recognizing these values, and I look forward to working cooperatively with my colleagues in making it happen.

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

Madam President, I support this amendment. I am prepared to yield back any additional time.

Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Madam President, I move for reconsideration and to lay that matter on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Amendment No. 514

Madam President, I believe there is agreement on this amendment on both sides. The amendment makes sense, and, therefore, I yield back all time on both sides.

Madam President, we are on the verge of passing legislation that will streamline the executive branch nominations process and I want to congratulate the bill's authors--Senators Schumer and Alexander--for their bipartisan accomplishment and thank them for their hard work.

This bill--S. 679, The Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act of 2011--removes about 170 non-policymaking positions from the list of Presidential appointments requiring Senate confirmation--plus over 2800 members of the Public Health Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, Officer Corps, whose appointments and promotions are also subject to the Senate's advice and consent.

This is not as many positions as the bill first contemplated. But it is a significant achievement nonetheless when you consider that the work that goes into vetting nominees must be multiplied by four because the White House, the Senate, the FBI and the Office of Government Ethics, OGE, all have to conduct their own thorough background investigations.

So by removing 170 positions we eliminate the need for 680 separate background investigations.

This frees up the Senate, the White House, the FBI and OGE to focus their efforts on vetting nominations for those critical positions where policy is made. And that should help speed up the vetting and confirmation process for these positions as well.

This act also establishes an executive branch working group to study and report to the President and Congress on the best ways to streamline all the paperwork nominees are required to fill out and consider consolidating it under a single ``smart form.''

Most nominees submit to at least four reviews, each represented by a separate packet of government forms, including a White House Personal Data Statement, questionnaires from the FBI and the Office of Government Ethics, and at least one questionnaire from the Senate committee of jurisdiction.

A ``smart form'' would be an electronic system for collecting and distributing background information for nominees requiring Senate confirmation that a nominee would have to fill out just once and the information would then be transferred to all the other relevant forms.

Before we vote, I wanted to stress the bipartisan nature of this effort.

In January, Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader McConnell decided the nomination and confirmation process had become too slow and cumbersome and that this posed a serious national and economic security problem when crucial offices go unfilled for months and months.

They established a working group on executive nominations and appointed Senators Schumer and Alexander--chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Rules Committee--to lead it.

Senator Collins and I are also part of that group as chairman and ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Senators Schumer and Alexander introduced their carefully crafted legislation on March 30, with a bipartisan group of 15 cosponsors. And on April 13 the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, on a bipartisan vote, reported the bill favorably to the Senate.

The bill was brought to the floor, debated and further changes made in the spirit of compromise.

This is the Senate at its best. A problem was identified and both sides of the aisle worked together to craft a solution.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation so future administrations will be able to get their teams in place more quickly and the Senate can focus

its energy on the qualifications of just the most important executive branch appointments as was intended by the Constitution.

Madam President, this will be on final passage. I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

Madam President, I yield back all remaining time.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I rise today, with my colleagues Senator Collins and Senator Akaka, to introduce legislation to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our Government by fostering greater integration among the personnel who work on critical national security and homeland security missions.

The national security and homeland security challenges that our nation faces in the 21st century are far more complex than those of the last century. Threats such as terrorism, proliferation of nuclear and biological weapons, insurgencies, and failed states are beyond the capability of any single agency of our Government, such as the Department of Defense, DOD, the Department of State, or the intelligence community, to counter on its own.

In addition, threats such as terrorism and organized crime know no borders and instead cross the so-called ``foreign/domestic divide,'' the bureaucratic, cultural, and legal division between agencies that focus on threats from beyond our borders and those that focus on threats from within.

Finally, a new group of government agencies is now involved in national and homeland security. These agencies bring to bear critical capabilities, such as interdicting terrorist finance, enforcing sanctions, protecting our critical infrastructure, and helping foreign countries threatened by terrorism to build their economies and legal systems, but many of them have relatively little experience of involvement with the traditional national security agencies. Some of these agencies have existed for decades or centuries, such as the Departments of Treasury, Justice, and Health and Human Services, HHS, while others are new since 9/11, such as the Department of Homeland Security, DHS, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,

Mr. President, I rise today, with my colleagues Senator Collins and Senator Akaka, to introduce legislation to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our Government by fostering greater integration among the personnel who work on critical national security and homeland security missions.

The national security and homeland security challenges that our nation faces in the 21st century are far more complex than those of the last century. Threats such as terrorism, proliferation of nuclear and biological weapons, insurgencies, and failed states are beyond the capability of any single agency of our Government, such as the Department of Defense, DOD, the Department of State, or the intelligence community, to counter on its own.

In addition, threats such as terrorism and organized crime know no borders and instead cross the so-called ``foreign/domestic divide,'' the bureaucratic, cultural, and legal division between agencies that focus on threats from beyond our borders and those that focus on threats from within.

Finally, a new group of government agencies is now involved in national and homeland security. These agencies bring to bear critical capabilities, such as interdicting terrorist finance, enforcing sanctions, protecting our critical infrastructure, and helping foreign countries threatened by terrorism to build their economies and legal systems, but many of them have relatively little experience of involvement with the traditional national security agencies. Some of these agencies have existed for decades or centuries, such as the Departments of Treasury, Justice, and Health and Human Services, HHS, while others are new since 9/11, such as the Department of Homeland Security, DHS, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,

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

Mr. President, it is my honor now to rise as chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to speak on behalf of S. 679, the Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act of 2011, and I do so with great gratitude toward Senator Alexander, who is now on the Senate floor, Senator Schumer, and others who worked together to clear away procedural obstacles to focus on this piece of legislation.

This is a noble effort that has been tried before and failed, but I am confident this time, with the support of our leaders--really our bipartisan leadership, Senator Reid, Senator McConnell, Senator Alexander, Senator Schumer, not to mention Senator Collins and me--we are going to, in our committee role, get this passed. This is a bipartisan effort to solve a problem, or at least help solve part of a problem, that has been growing for a long time in Washington in our government--certainly since the Kennedy administration--which is, it takes too long for an incoming President and a sitting President to get their team in place, and there are too many vacancies throughout the course of an administration, as I will indicate during my remarks.

The average is 25 percent, one-quarter of the positions in the administration, are empty at any one time because of the length of the process, the delays that occur in the executive branch, the White House, and in the Senate, and this is a direct attempt to try to lessen that problem. One of my favorite descriptions of our current nomination and confirmation process--I have used this so often I forgot who said it; the gentleman in the chair might have said it--described the current confirmation and nomination process as ``nasty and brutish without being short.'' So, hopefully, this will make the process at least less nasty and brutish and shorter as well.

Mr. President, 100 days into President Obama's administration only 14 percent of the full-time Senate-confirmed positions had been filled-- only 14 percent. After 18 months, 25 percent of key policymaking positions were still vacant. This is not an unusual circumstance. Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush faced similar difficulties. It is a problem that does have, however, a serious national and economic security implication because crucial offices go unfilled for months and months.

President Bush actually did not have his national security team, including critical subcabinet officials, confirmed and on the job until at least 6 months after he took office. The 9/11 Commission pointed out how dangerous this was and recommended steps to speed up the process for national security appointments, some of which were adopted as part of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2004.

At the height of the financial crisis, which we are still working our way out of, Secretary of the Treasury Geithner was actually home alone, with no other Senate-confirmed positions at the Treasury Department filled for over 3 months. That is an outrageous result.

So what would the bill before the Senate now do? It would eliminate the need for Senate confirmation for about 200 positions out of about 1,200 that now need Senate confirmation. Of these 200 positions, most of them are in the areas of legislative and public affairs, internal management positions,

such as, chief financial officers who report to others up the chain of command, directors, commissioners, or administrators at or below the Assistant Secretary level who, again, will report to another Senate- confirmed official, and the members of a number of part-time advisory boards which, under the current state of the law, have to go through full vetting and then full Senate consideration and confirmation.

The proposal before us is not by any means a radical proposal. Removing these positions from the need for Senate confirmation would free up both the Senate and future administrations to concentrate more fully on the nominations for those key positions where public policy is made. I want to note, again, the bipartisan nature of these proposals.

In January, Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader McConnell decided the nomination and confirmation process had become too slow and cumbersome. That was in January of this year. They established a working group on executive nominations and asked leaders Schumer and Alexander to be in charge of that. Chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Rules Committee, Senator Collins and I were also privileged to be part of that group as chair and ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

The reforms proposed by Senators Schumer and Alexander in our group have really been carefully crafted, and I cannot thank them enough for both their legislative intellectual work on this but also for sticking with it right to this moment. They introduced their legislation on March 30; that is, Schumer and Alexander, with a bipartisan group of 15 cosponsors. On April 13, our Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, again, on a bipartisan vote, reported the bill favorably to the Senate.

Senators Schumer and Alexander are also proposing an important Senate Resolution, S. Res. 116, that would streamline the confirmation process for approximately 200 other Presidential appointments that receive Senate confirmation by allowing their nominations to bypass the committee process and come directly to the Senate floor as long as no Senator objects. This is an important companion proposal.

So if all goes well, we will have 400 of the current 1,200 positions--that is about one-third of the current nominations requiring full Senate consideration, Senate proposal, committee consideration, et cetera--to be in a different status. These 200 positions that will be the subject of S. Res. 116 come from 30 bipartisan Federal advisory groups and councils, such as the Social Security Advisory Board and the IRS Advisory Board.

This is the way the Senate should work. A problem is identified, both sides of the aisle work together to craft a solution, then bring it to the floor for debate. Hopefully, it is a model for what we can and should do in a lot of other areas that are pressing not just on the Senate but on the country and the people of the country.

On March 2, Senator Collins and I--just speaking a bit more in detail--held a hearing which we called ``Eliminating the Bottlenecks: Streamlining the Nominations Process.'' We heard from a group of former executives, really White House officials, both parties, and from some experts in the private sector. They made a compelling case for change, and here is some of what we learned.

When President Kennedy entered office in 1961, there were 850 Senate- confirmed positions that the President had to fill. By the time President George W. Bush took office, that had increased to 1,143. When President Obama was sworn in just 8 years later, that was already up to 1,215. Not surprisingly, with more positions it takes longer to fill them. The delay is not, fortunately, at the Cabinet level. Between 1987 and 2005, it took Presidents an average of only 17 days from the time of a vacancy to nominate a Cabinet Secretary, and the Senate took an average of just 16 days to confirm the nominee. But it is at the critical subcabinet level where things slow to a crawl.

It took Presidents an average of 95 days--that is, of course, more than 3 months--to nominate Deputy Cabinet Secretaries, and the Senate took 62 days to confirm them, another 2 months. Now we are up to more than 5 months for Deputy Cabinet Members which are critical to the functioning of their departments. Noncabinet agency heads waited an average of 173 days for nomination and 63 additional days for confirmation. So we are up to over 230 days, over 7 months, approaching 8 months. Noncabinet agency deputy heads fared even worse, an average of 301 days before nomination and 82 days before confirmation. That is more than a year to go through this process while those offices are effectively unfilled, and the people's business is not being done.

Part of the problem is a large number of appointments that need to be made at the outset of an administration can overwhelm the resources available within the executive branch and the Senate to review and vet these nominees. So eliminating the requirement for Senate confirmation for nonpolicymaking or lower level positions should allow an incoming administration and the Senate, as well as the FBI and the Office of Government Ethics, which do the vetting, to focus on more important policymaking positions, speeding up the process.

Other problems contributing to the delay are the numerous duplicative and time-consuming forms that potential nominees are required to fill out. Most nominees actually submit to at least four reviews, each represented by a separate packet of government forms, including a White House personnel data statement, questionnaires from the FBI, Office of Government Ethics, and at least one questionnaire from the Senate committee of jurisdiction.

There is a very interesting study done by Professor Terry Sullivan at the University of North Carolina that found half the questions asked in those four reviews for each nominee are redundant. They are repetitive. This act would establish, therefore, an executive branch working group to study and report to the President and the Congress the best ways to streamline all this paperwork, along with a detailed plan for creating and implementing a smart reform. An example would be an electronic system for collecting and distributing background information for nominees requiring Senate confirmation. With a ``smart form'' such as this, a nominee could answer a question once and the information would be filled in for all of the relevant forms.

The need for reforms in the Federal appointments process is not a new topic. Over the past three decades, an abundance of commissions, think tanks, good government groups, and individual academics have turned their sights on this problem.

I will not list them all, but here are just a few: the National Academy of Public Administration in 1983 and 1985; the President's Commission on the Federal Appointments Process in 1990; the Twentieth Century Fund in 1996; the Brookings Institution's Presidential Appointee Initiative, cochaired by former Senator Nancy Kassebaum and former Director of the Office of Management and Budget Franklin Raines in 2001; and the bipartisan National Commission on the Public Service, headed by Paul Volcker, in 1989 and 2003.

The Senate has looked into making changes as well. In 2001, our committee--then called the Governmental Affairs Committee and chaired by former Senator Fred Thompson--held a 2-day hearing titled ``The State of the Presidential Appointment Process,'' which looked at many of the ideas we are considering today.

The committee also reported out a bill--``The Presidential Appointments Improvement Act of 2002''--that sought to make modest improvements to the appointments process, including streamlining financial disclosure requirements. But the full Senate never considered it.

Then, as I mentioned, Congress passed the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, which included some improvements to help speed up the consideration of critical members of a new President's national security team.

Now it is time to take a modest next step. We have reasonable, bipartisan legislation in front of us and it is time--in fact, past time--to act.

Now let me address the question that seems to be of concern to some of our colleagues, which is: Is the Senate, in limiting by 200, and in some sense limiting another 200, giving away its

power to advise and consent? I say the answer is a resounding no, and I wish to explain why. Let me read directly from article 2 of the Constitution:

[The President] shall nominate, and by and with the Advice

and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other

public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court,

and all other Officers of the United States, whose

appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which

shall be established by Law.

This part of the quote is crucial:

But the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such

inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President

alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

The very first Congress, in which, of course, many of the Framers of our Constitution sat, did precisely what they authorized in the Constitution when they created the State Department, which was then called the Department of Foreign Affairs. The Secretary--a man by the name of Thomas Jefferson--was subject to Senate confirmation, but the legislation creating the Department also called for the hiring of a ``chief clerk'' who would be second in command--essentially the deputy. That position was not subject to confirmation and Jefferson hired a man named Henry Remsen, who had held the same job under the previous Articles of Confederation.

So right from the beginning--from the Founding Fathers, the drafters of the Constitution--it was clear they understood there had to be limits on the number of offices the Senate would be called on to advise and consent to.

Incidentally, I think it is also worth noting that in that first Congress, on a single day in 1789, the Senate took up 102 nominations sent to it by President Washington 2 days earlier and approved them all but one. Needless to say, President Washington complained about the one nominee whom the Senate did not confirm. But Washington, obviously acknowledged as the Father of our Country, was unique, and no President--appropriately, I would say--has received exactly that kind of deference since. The nominations process can be a rough and tumble one, and that is to be expected under our separation of powers.

This legislation, however, I wish to emphasize, does nothing to change that. In fact, I would argue this legislation enhances the Senate's authority regarding advice and consent by enabling us to focus our energies on the qualifications of those who would shape national policy. If we don't fix this system, which almost everybody regards as broken, I think we risk what has already begun to happen, which is that some of our Nation's most talented people will simply not accept nominations for these important positions because of the time involved, the redundancy involved, and they will go unfilled.

There has been a lot of work done to support this effort, some of which was done by some of our former colleagues, including Senator Bill Frist and Chuck Robb and former White House officials Clay Johnson from the Bush administration and Mack McLarty from the Clinton administration. For the past year, the four of them have headed up a bipartisan commission to reform the Federal appointments process and they have all endorsed this bill as well as S. Res. 116, and so too has the Partnership for Public Service.

I know there is a natural tendency--notwithstanding all the reasons everybody understands to limit the number of nominees that come before the Senate for advice and consent--when we come to that moment where individual chairs of committees and ranking members don't want to yield what seems to be any authority. But, honestly, this is not an authority worth fighting to retain, and it works against the general functioning of the Senate, against the functioning of our government and, in my opinion, actually undercuts the vitality of the advice and consent clause.

I call on my fellow chairmen, ranking members, and of course all of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote yes on this legislation so future Presidents can recruit the best nominees to serve us and the Senate can make sure it does its full job under the advice and consent clause to investigate and confirm them before they take office and deal with the Nation's business.

As always, I have been privileged on the committee to be working with Senator Collins as my ranking member, and I yield to her at this time.

Mr. President, I thank our friend and colleague from Tennessee for his statement and even more for the hard work he has done, along with Senator Schumer--the hard work, the steadfast work, without which we would not be on the floor right now.

Senator Collins and I both agree this is one of those rare cases where I would not say we gave up, but we were beginning to grow pessimistic about our capability to achieve these reforms. It is unusual for us because we are usually so stubbornly persistent.

But Senator Alexander and Senator Schumer, working with the encouragement and blessing of the two leaders,

Senators Reid and McConnell, have put us in a position to get this done. It would be a real step forward. So I thank the Senator. Obviously, the work begins now.

The floor is open for debate, as of 3 o'clock, for amendment. If either of my colleagues do not have anything more to say, I would suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation, along with my colleague from Connecticut, Senator Blumenthal, which will strengthen the content knowledge and instructional skills of our present K-12 teacher workforce. Our goal with this legislation, like any education legislation I support, is to ultimately raise student achievement.

The Teachers Professional Development Institutes Act would establish up to eight new Teachers Professional Development Institutes throughout the nation each year over the next 5 years based on the successful model that has been operating at Yale University for over thirty years. Every Teachers Institute would consist of a partnership between an institution of higher education and the local public school system in which a significant proportion of the students come from low-income households. These Institutes will strengthen the present teacher workforce by giving each participant an opportunity to gain more sophisticated content knowledge and a chance to develop curriculum units with other colleagues that can be directly applied in their classrooms. We know that teachers gain confidence and enthusiasm when they have a deeper understanding of the subject matter that they teach and this translates into higher expectations for their students and an increase in student achievement.

The Teachers Professional Development Institutes are based on the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute model that has been in existence since 1978. For over 30 years, the Institute has offered, five or six 13 session seminars each year, led by Yale faculty, on topics that teachers have selected to enhance their mastery of the subject areas they teach. The subject selection process begins with representatives from the Institutes soliciting ideas from teachers throughout the school district for topics on which teachers feel they need to have additional preparation, topics that will assist them in preparing materials they need for their students, or topics that will assist them in addressing the standards that the school district requires. As a consensus emerges about desired seminar subjects, the Institute director identifies university faculty members with the appropriate expertise, interest and desire to lead the seminar. University faculty members, especially those who have led Institute seminars before, may sometimes suggest seminars they would like to lead, and these ideas are circulated by the representatives as well. The final decisions on which seminar topics are offered are ultimately

made by the teachers who participate. In this way, the offerings are designed to respond to what teachers believe is needed and useful for both themselves and their students.

The cooperative nature of the Institute seminar planning process ensures its success. Institutes offer seminars and relevant materials on topics teachers have identified and feel are needed for their own preparation, as well as what they know will motivate and engage their students. Teachers enthusiastically take part in rigorous seminars they have requested, and practice using the materials they have obtained and developed. This helps ensure that the experience not only increases their preparation in the subjects they are assigned to teach, but also their participation in an Institute seminar gives them immediate hands- on active learning materials that can be used in the classroom. All of this is a very empowering experience for teachers.

The Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute conducted a National Demonstration Project from 1999-2002 that showed that similar Institutes could be created rapidly at diverse sites with large concentrations of disadvantaged students. After 2 years of research and planning, and based on the success of that project, the Institute in 2005 launched the Yale National Initiative to strengthen teaching in public schools, a long-term endeavor to assist with the establishment of Teachers Institutes of this specific type in most states. As a result, new Institutes already have been established in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Charlotte, North Carolina, and New Castle County, Delaware. Nine other school districts in 6 states, including California, Arizona, Oklahoma, Illinois, Virginia, and Georgia, are currently participating in the Initiative to learn how to develop a new Institute.

The teachers surveyed for the National Demonstration Project reported that student motivation, student interest, and student mastery were higher during the Institute-developed unit than during other work. Subsequently, the findings of a 2009 Report on Teachers Institute Experiences found that teachers participated out of desires to obtain curricula that suited their needs, increased subject mastery, and motivated students. Mr. President, 96 percent of the teachers rated the Institute seminars as useful, partly due to the reported increase in knowledge and in raising expectations for their students.

A retrospective study showed that over 5 years, Teachers Institute participants were almost twice as likely as non-participants to remain teaching in the district 5 years later. Research has shown that longevity in a district leads to increased teacher effectiveness.

Many agree that teacher quality is the single most important school- related factor in determining student achievement. High-quality teacher professional development programs that focus on subject and pedagogy knowledge are a proven method for enhancing the effectiveness of a teacher in the classroom. A recent review of professional development studies by the Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences found that, and I quote ``teachers who receive substantial professional development, an average of 49 hours in the 9 studies, can boost their students' achievement by about twenty-one percentile points.''

The Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute model enhances teachers' basic writing, math, and presentation skills. It increases expectations of student achievement and enthusiasm for teaching while developing skills for motivating students. These are key features that research suggests are effective in producing gains in both teacher knowledge and practice and student achievement. The Teachers Institutes lead to student achievement gains through a proven approach distinguished from both conventional professional development offerings of school districts and from traditional continuing education and outreach programs of colleges and universities.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said recently, and I quote, ``the practices of high-performing countries show clearly that America in particular has to do much more to elevate the teaching profession, from the recruitment and training of teachers to their evaluation and professional development.''

This is precisely what the Teachers Professional Development Institutes Act strives to accomplish. The need for effective teachers with deep content knowledge is most apparent and urgent in schools and school districts that enroll a high proportion of students from low- income families, exactly the schools and school districts that Teachers Institutes serve.

The Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute has already proven to be a successful model for teacher professional development as demonstrated by the high caliber curriculum unit plans that teacher participants have developed and placed on the web, and by the evaluations that support the conclusion that virtually all the teacher participants felt substantially strengthened in their mastery of content knowledge and their teaching skills. The finding that Institute participants were almost twice as likely as non-participants to remain teaching in high- need schools is especially encouraging. Our proposal would open this opportunity to many more teachers in high-need schools throughout the nation.

I urge my colleagues to act favorably on this measure.

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