Floor Statements

Mr. President, I thank the Chair for the recognition and the majority leader for his remarks and his leadership. I am also glad to be here with the Senator from Wyoming, who over the years has been the leading Republican Senator on the issue of ambush elections.

We are here today, as the majority leader said, to introduce a Congressional Review Act resolution to stop a new National Labor Relations Board rule. I would like to speak about that for a few minutes and then let the Senator from Wyoming continue.

Last December the NLRB issued a final rule that shortened the timeline between when pro-union organizers ask an employer for a secret ballot election and when the election actually takes place. I refer to this as an ambush election because it forces a union election before an employer has a chance to figure out what is going on. Even worse, it jeopardizes employees' privacy by requiring employers to turn over personal employee information--including email addresses, phone numbers, shift hours, and locations--to union organizers.

The effect of this resolution will be to permit the majority leader to bring this resolution to the floor after the congressional recess. There will be 10 hours of debate. The resolution cannot be amended, and it needs a majority vote to pass. The House of Representatives is following a similar procedure. Both Houses must vote on it. If it passes both Houses, the President can sign or veto the resolution. If the President decides to veto, it would take 67 votes to override. If the NLRB's new ambush election rule is disapproved, the Board cannot issue a substantially similar rule without congressional approval.

Today, more than 95 percent of union elections occur within 56 days after a petition is filed, but under this new rule elections could take place in as few as 11 days after a petition is filed. This rule will harm employers and employees alike, and here is how.

If you are an employer who gets ambushed--in other words, a union election happens before you really know what is going on--on day 1 you get a faxed copy of an election petition that has been filed at your local NLRB regional office stating that 30 percent of your employees support a union. The union may have already been quietly trying to organize for months without your knowledge. Your employees have been able to hear only the union's pitch.

By day 2 or 3 of this process, you must publicly post an election notice in your workplace and post it online as well if you communicate with your employees electronically.

By noon on day 7, you must file with the NLRB what is called a statement of position. This is a comprehensive, written legal document in which an employer sets out legal positions and claims. Under this new NLRB rule, you, the employer, waive your rights to use any legal arguments not raised in the document. On day 7, you must also present the union and the NLRB with a list of prospective voters as well as their job classifications, shift hours, and work locations.

On day 8, a pre-election hearing is held at the NLRB regional office, and an election date is set.

By day 10, the employer must present the union with a list of employee names, personal email addresses, personal cell phone numbers, and home addresses.

Day 11 is the earliest day on which the NLRB could conduct the election under the new rule. The union has the power to postpone an election by an additional 10 days at this point, but the employer has no corresponding power.

Under this new NLRB rule, before the hearing on day 8 an employer will have less than 1 week to figure out what an election petition is, find legal representation--many employers don't have a labor lawyer as a matter of course--determine legal positions on the relevant issues, learn what statements and actions the law permits and prohibits, gather information required by the NLRB, communicate with employees about the decision they are making, and correct any misstatements and falsehoods employees may be hearing from union organizers. Making even the slightest mistake in the lead-up to an election can result in the NLRB setting aside the results and ordering a rerun election or, worse, the Board could require an employer to automatically bargain with the union.

But it is the employees who stand to lose the most under this new rule. First, because of this ambush election, employees may only hear half the story about what unionizing may mean for them and for their workplace. When a workplace is unionized--especially in a State that does not have a right-to-work law--employees have their dues money taken out of every paycheck,

whether they like it or not. Employees lose the ability to deal directly with their employer to address concerns, or ask for a promotion or raise, and instead have to work through the union.

Important considerations, such as which of their fellow employees will be included in the bargaining unit, will no longer be determined before the election. As the two dissenting members of the NLRB put it: Employees will be asked to ``vote now, understand later.''

Second, employees lose their privacy because the final rule we seek to overturn requires employers to hand over employees' personal email addresses, cell phone numbers, shift locations, and job classifications, even if the employee has made it clear he does not want to be contacted by union organizers.

This rule appears to be a solution in search of a problem. Only 4.3 percent of union elections occur more than 56 days after the petition is filed. The current median number of days between when the petition is filed and the election is held is just 38 days.

These figures are well within the NLRB's own goals for timely elections. Unions won 64 percent of elections in 2013. In recent years, the union win rate has actually been going up. So what is the problem?

The majority leader said it very well when he referred to a 1959 debate over amendments to the National Labor Relations Act. Then- Senator John F. Kennedy warned against rushing employees into a union election. Senator Kennedy said:

There should be at least a 30-day interval between the

request for an election and the holding of the election...in

which both parties can present their viewpoints.

The 30-day waiting period is an additional safeguard

against rushing employees into an election where they are

unfamiliar with the issues.

It is clear to see this rule is wrong. That is why Senator Enzi, Senator McConnell, and I are asking the Senate to disapprove the rule and prohibit the National Labor Relations Board from issuing any substantially similar rule.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the Chair for the recognition and the majority leader for his remarks and his leadership. I am also glad to be here with the Senator from Wyoming, who over the years has been the leading Republican Senator on the issue of ambush elections.

We are here today, as the majority leader said, to introduce a Congressional Review Act resolution to stop a new National Labor Relations Board rule. I would like to speak about that for a few minutes and then let the Senator from Wyoming continue.

Last December the NLRB issued a final rule that shortened the timeline between when pro-union organizers ask an employer for a secret ballot election and when the election actually takes place. I refer to this as an ambush election because it forces a union election before an employer has a chance to figure out what is going on. Even worse, it jeopardizes employees' privacy by requiring employers to turn over personal employee information--including email addresses, phone numbers, shift hours, and locations--to union organizers.

The effect of this resolution will be to permit the majority leader to bring this resolution to the floor after the congressional recess. There will be 10 hours of debate. The resolution cannot be amended, and it needs a majority vote to pass. The House of Representatives is following a similar procedure. Both Houses must vote on it. If it passes both Houses, the President can sign or veto the resolution. If the President decides to veto, it would take 67 votes to override. If the NLRB's new ambush election rule is disapproved, the Board cannot issue a substantially similar rule without congressional approval.

Today, more than 95 percent of union elections occur within 56 days after a petition is filed, but under this new rule elections could take place in as few as 11 days after a petition is filed. This rule will harm employers and employees alike, and here is how.

If you are an employer who gets ambushed--in other words, a union election happens before you really know what is going on--on day 1 you get a faxed copy of an election petition that has been filed at your local NLRB regional office stating that 30 percent of your employees support a union. The union may have already been quietly trying to organize for months without your knowledge. Your employees have been able to hear only the union's pitch.

By day 2 or 3 of this process, you must publicly post an election notice in your workplace and post it online as well if you communicate with your employees electronically.

By noon on day 7, you must file with the NLRB what is called a statement of position. This is a comprehensive, written legal document in which an employer sets out legal positions and claims. Under this new NLRB rule, you, the employer, waive your rights to use any legal arguments not raised in the document. On day 7, you must also present the union and the NLRB with a list of prospective voters as well as their job classifications, shift hours, and work locations.

On day 8, a pre-election hearing is held at the NLRB regional office, and an election date is set.

By day 10, the employer must present the union with a list of employee names, personal email addresses, personal cell phone numbers, and home addresses.

Day 11 is the earliest day on which the NLRB could conduct the election under the new rule. The union has the power to postpone an election by an additional 10 days at this point, but the employer has no corresponding power.

Under this new NLRB rule, before the hearing on day 8 an employer will have less than 1 week to figure out what an election petition is, find legal representation--many employers don't have a labor lawyer as a matter of course--determine legal positions on the relevant issues, learn what statements and actions the law permits and prohibits, gather information required by the NLRB, communicate with employees about the decision they are making, and correct any misstatements and falsehoods employees may be hearing from union organizers. Making even the slightest mistake in the lead-up to an election can result in the NLRB setting aside the results and ordering a rerun election or, worse, the Board could require an employer to automatically bargain with the union.

But it is the employees who stand to lose the most under this new rule. First, because of this ambush election, employees may only hear half the story about what unionizing may mean for them and for their workplace. When a workplace is unionized--especially in a State that does not have a right-to-work law--employees have their dues money taken out of every paycheck,

whether they like it or not. Employees lose the ability to deal directly with their employer to address concerns, or ask for a promotion or raise, and instead have to work through the union.

Important considerations, such as which of their fellow employees will be included in the bargaining unit, will no longer be determined before the election. As the two dissenting members of the NLRB put it: Employees will be asked to ``vote now, understand later.''

Second, employees lose their privacy because the final rule we seek to overturn requires employers to hand over employees' personal email addresses, cell phone numbers, shift locations, and job classifications, even if the employee has made it clear he does not want to be contacted by union organizers.

This rule appears to be a solution in search of a problem. Only 4.3 percent of union elections occur more than 56 days after the petition is filed. The current median number of days between when the petition is filed and the election is held is just 38 days.

These figures are well within the NLRB's own goals for timely elections. Unions won 64 percent of elections in 2013. In recent years, the union win rate has actually been going up. So what is the problem?

The majority leader said it very well when he referred to a 1959 debate over amendments to the National Labor Relations Act. Then- Senator John F. Kennedy warned against rushing employees into a union election. Senator Kennedy said:

There should be at least a 30-day interval between the

request for an election and the holding of the election...in

which both parties can present their viewpoints.

The 30-day waiting period is an additional safeguard

against rushing employees into an election where they are

unfamiliar with the issues.

It is clear to see this rule is wrong. That is why Senator Enzi, Senator McConnell, and I are asking the Senate to disapprove the rule and prohibit the National Labor Relations Board from issuing any substantially similar rule.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of my remarks at the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing yesterday be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of my remarks at the Brookings Institution earlier today be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I am especially pleased to see that the Senator from Utah is presiding this afternoon because I come to the floor today to offer a resolution which is his inspiration, really, and on which I am pleased to be working with him.

Simply put, this is a resolution to establish a majority vote on Presidential nominations. This would establish by rule the Senate tradition of approving Presidential nominations by a simple majority vote. The rules change we propose would establish by rule this tradition of approving Presidential nominations of Cabinet Members and judges by a simple majority vote, which existed from the time Thomas Jefferson wrote the rules in 1789 until 2003, when Democrats began filibustering Federal Circuit Court of Appeals nominees.

Most importantly, it would change the rules in the right way, through a two-thirds vote, which is what the existing rules of the Senate provide. Unfortunately, on November 21, 2013, Democrats broke the Senate rules without even attempting to get the 67 votes required to change the rules, which caused former Senator Carl Levin, a Democrat from Michigan, to say at the time, quoting former Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, that ``if a majority of the Senate can change its rules at any time, there are no rules.'' We are the Nation's rulemaking body. If we cannot follow our own rules, how can we expect the American people to show respect for and follow the rules we help to create?

The proposal Senator Lee and I have made will be considered by the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, according to the Senator from Missouri, Senator Blunt, the chairman of the Rules Committee. It would ultimately require a two-thirds vote of the Senate to change the Senate rules. This all has to do with the so-called nuclear option.

If I might say an additional word about the so-called nuclear option, I came to the Senate in 2003, which was when our Democratic friends decided they would use cloture, which requires 60 votes to cut off debate, as a way of denying a Presidential nomination on a Federal circuit judge. It had never in the history of the Senate been used before in that way. Cloture had been used twice, I believe, based on my research, to deny a sub-Cabinet member a position in the 1990s, but that was the first time it had ever been used on any such position with the exception of Abe Fortas.

It is important, given all the misinformation that has been spread about the nuclear option, to know what the facts are. The tradition has always been in the Senate that Presidential nominations deserved an up- or-down, 51-majority vote. That has basically been the tradition. Even with the most controversial nominations, such as that of Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court Justice--I believe the vote was 52 to 48-- there never was a suggestion that someone might use cloture to require it to be 60 votes. Cloture didn't apply to nominations until 1949, so it was never used between the time Jefferson wrote the rules at the beginning of the Senate and 1949.

It was first used in 1968, but not really. President Johnson was trying to save face for Abe Fortas, his friend who was a Supreme Court Justice. He had nominated him for Chief Justice. A problem came out, and President Johnson engineered a 45-to-43 cloture vote, which Fortas ``won.''

That is really the only exception in the whole history of the Senate until 2003, when the Senate said it is going to take 60 votes to confirm a Presidential nomination for a judge rather than the traditional 51.

I have talked to several of my colleagues on the other side about this issue. They are fairly straightforward about why they did it. They thought President George W. Bush's nominees were ``too conservative.''

I knew some of those judges--Judge Pickering of Mississippi, for example. He put his children into a public school in Mississippi in the 1960s, and he was being accused of being a segregationist when he was actually leading the charge in his State of Mississippi to desegregate the public schools.

William Pryor of Alabama was a law clerk for Judge John Minor Wisdom. I know the distinguished Senator from Utah, who was a Supreme Court law clerk, knows of Judge Wisdom. He was regarded by everyone as one of the finest Federal circuit judges in the country. He had the greatest respect for William Pryor. He would have been shocked to hear what was said about him at the time.

It was a shocking thing to me to arrive in the Senate in 2003 and find my friends on the other side of the aisle for the first time in Senate history saying it would take 60 votes to confirm President Bush's judges. I strongly objected to that. I even suggested that if a few Senators on this side and a few Senators on that side would work together, we could break the stalemate. A Gang of 14 was created. It did break the stalemate, but as a result, five judges nominated by George W. Bush were not confirmed because the other side decided they didn't like their philosophical views. So instead of a 51-vote margin, they required 60, and so they weren't confirmed.

This is the tally in the history of the Senate. The number of Supreme Court nominees in the history of our country who have ever had their nomination denied by filibuster, by a cloture vote, is zero, with the exception of the Fortas nomination, if you want to

count that. Not a single one. Supreme Court nominations are among the most controversial nominations ever before the Senate.

The number of Cabinet members who have ever had their nominations denied by a filibuster, by requiring 60 votes in the history of the Senate--zero. Not one. Not an Obama nominee. Not a Clinton nominee. Not a Bush nominee. Zero. Not one.

Let's go to district judges. There has been a lot of talk about district judges and how difficult it was for President Obama to have district judges confirmed. There is no truth to that whatsoever. I was in the Senate; I know that. I will give an example. There was an effort to deny a seat to a judge from the State of Rhode Island by 60 votes, a judge whom I didn't support, but I and a group of other Republicans made sure we did not use cloture to deny a seat to a President's district judge nominee for the first time in history, and so we did not.

So the number of Federal district judges in the history of the United States who have ever had their nomination denied by a filibuster, by the 60-vote cloture rule, is zero.

So Supreme Court Justices, except for Fortas, Cabinet members, district judges--zero. Filibusters have not been widely used in the history of this Senate to deny a President his nomination. However, there are other problems that nominations have.

I was nominated once. I came to be nominated to be the Secretary of the Department of Education. A Senator from Ohio, Senator Metzenbaum, put a so-called secret hold on my nomination and held me up for 3 months, but then when I came to the floor, I was confirmed. We have abolished those kinds of secret holds. We have made changes in the rules to make it easier for the President's nominees to be confirmed.

There have been seven sub-Cabinet members, including John Bolton-- three Republicans and four Democrats--who have had their nominations rejected because of a cloture vote, all since 1994. So no Cabinet members, no Supreme Court Justices, no district judges, seven sub- Cabinet members.

What is the score on circuit judges? This is what brought up the fuss in 2003 when the Democrats filibustered 10 nominations because they were too conservative. As I mentioned earlier, five were confirmed and five were rejected as part of the compromise. Since that time, Republicans have rejected two Democrats. So the score is the Democrats have rejected five Federal Circuit judges and Republicans rejected two. Republicans actually rejected three others, but that led to the events of November 21, 2013, when the Democrats broke the rules to change the rules.

It would be as if in a Super Bowl or in a playoff game, let's say, Seattle gained 9 yards and they needed 10, so they changed the rules because they were the home team and said that is a first down. No one would have any respect for the game if they did that, and no one will have any respect for the Senate if we keep doing that, which is the point Senator Lee and I would like to make because the tradition of the Senate has always been to give to a President the prerogative of allowing his nominations to be confirmed by 51 votes or a simple majority of Senators duly chosen and sworn. We propose to change the rule to reflect the tradition of the Senate.

Some say: Well, why don't you do to them what they did to you?

I don't think that is a very good way to live your life. I mean, if the Democrats did the wrong thing, if they brought the Senate to its knees, if they made the Senate into a place that doesn't follow its own rules, then we should do that to them? No. I think what we should do is replace bad behavior with good behavior, and good behavior means we adopt changes to the rules in the way the rules require, which is, in effect, 67 votes or two-thirds of the Senators present and voting.

So we will be offering our resolution, as we do today. We will be offering it in the Senate Rules Committee. We hope the Senate Rules Committee will approve it and report it to the floor. We hope Senator McConnell will find time on the floor to bring it up. We hope that 67 of our colleagues will agree with it. We will show the country that we know how to follow our own rules and that we know how to take the tradition of the Senate, which has been there since Thomas Jefferson wrote the rules, with very few exceptions, to make sure that Presidential nominees are entitled to an up-or-down vote by a majority of the Senate. That has been the rule, that has been the tradition, and that should be the rule, and the rules should be changed in the way that rules are supposed to be changed.

There is one other issue I wish to mention without going into any length about it. What happened in the Senate on November 21, 2013, was the lowest point in the Senate that I have seen. The majority decided that because it didn't have the votes to put three judges--liberal judges--on the DC Court of Appeals, it would break the rules to change the rules, and it just put them there anyway. It pretended that the reason it did that was because President Obama couldn't get his nominees confirmed.

Well, on every Senator's desk is an Executive Calendar. Everyone who can be confirmed has been reported by a committee to the floor and is listed on the Executive Calendar. There is only one way to get on this calendar--there was only one way on November 21, 2013, and that was for a Democratic majority in a committee to report a nominee to the floor of the Senate. That was the only way you could get there. Republicans couldn't do it; only the Democrats could. So on November 21, 2013 the calendar was filled only with people the Democratic majority had approved of.

There was only one way for anyone to get off the Executive Calendar and onto the floor of the Senate to be confirmed, and that was for the Democratic leader, the majority leader, to move to do that. We can't object to that. We have to vote on it. There is no motion to proceed with a nomination; he can bring it up anytime he wants to.

The charge was made that there was a big backlog of people on this calendar. Well, here are the facts, and anyone who doubts it can look at the Executive Calendar for November 21, 2013, and they will see what the backlog was. There were 78 regular order nominations on November 21, 2013. Fifty-four of those nominees had been on the calendar less than 3 weeks. Sixteen had been on the calendar between 3 and 9 weeks. Eight had been on the calendar for more than 9 weeks.

There was an informal agreement between the floor staffs that 40 of the uncontroversial nominees on this calendar--40 of the 78--could be confirmed before the Senate left at the end of the week.

Let me use a specific example--district judges. We hear a lot about district judges. We had changed the rules at the request of the majority leader to make it easier to confirm district judges. We basically said that there could only be 2 hours of debate on a district judge and the majority could give back 1 of those hours.

On the date the Democrats said there was a big backlog, there were 13 district judges on the calendar. Those were the only ones who could have been brought up by the majority leader. One had been waiting for more than 9 weeks. Four had been waiting for between 3 and 9 weeks. Eight had been waiting for less than 3 weeks. But the important point is that we could have confirmed them all over the weekend. All the majority leader had to do was to move the nomination of each of the 13, wait an intervening day, and then if they did that on Thursday, the intervening day would be Friday, and then we would come back on Monday and we would have 1 hour of debate for each of those nominations. So there was no excuse. There was no backlog.

The Washington Post and the Congressional Research Service said that President Obama's nominees were moving through the Senate at about the same speed that President Clinton and President George W. Bush's nominees had been at that time in their terms. That is what the Congressional Research Service and the Washington Post said.

The calendar speaks the truth about the absence of a backlog. And I was involved three times in working to change the rules to make it easier to do Presidential nominations. It was nothing more than a power grab. So our friends should just admit that and admit that it was the wrong thing to

do for the Senate. A lot of Senators weren't here then.

The resolution Senator Lee and I have proposed gives the Senate a chance to abandon bad behavior and begin to adopt good behavior, to take a tradition of the Senate that has been followed almost without exception since 1789 and make it the order of the day and to do it the way the Senate rules say it should be done--with 67 votes.

In closing, let me simply say that I appreciate the fact that I am able to work on this with Senator Lee. This legislation developed really from a conversation and a suggestion he made to me on the floor of this Senate. I thought about it, and I said: I think you may be right about that. We worked together, and because of his background in the law and his experience in the Supreme Court, his leadership on this issue has been invaluable.

I thank the Senator for his suggestions, I thank him for his leadership, and I look forward to working with him when it comes before the Senate Rules Committee. I hope we can persuade our fellow Senators in a bipartisan way that a good way to begin this year would be to begin to change the rules the right way and to reject the bad behavior and bad habits of the last session of Congress.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of my remarks at the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing yesterday be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes, and that following me, the Senator from North Carolina be recognized for up to 15 minutes.

Mr. President, I am advised by the highly competent floor staff that Senators Nelson and Collins will be worked in to be able to speak shortly after we have because I know they both are hoping to do that.

Amendments Nos. 67, 98, 103, 174, 102, and 55 Withdrawn

I ask unanimous consent that the following amendments be withdrawn: Sullivan No. 67, Murkowski No. 98, Flake No. 103, Merkley No. 174, Tillis No. 102, and Peters No. 55.

The Senator from North Carolina, Senator Burr, and I are here to speak about an important and exciting development that is about to occur in our Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. What we are talking about and we will describe in our remarks today is a report entitled ``Innovation for Healthier Americans'' which will launch a bipartisan effort to look at how Congress can help to get cutting-edge treatments, drugs, and devices to America's patients more quickly while still preserving this Nation's gold standard for safety and quality. This report and the actions we hope to take will affect virtually every American.

I am especially glad today to be here with the Senator from North Carolina. While there are a number of Senators on this body who worked hard on these issues--which in our government are usually dealt with by the Food and Drug Administration and by the National Institutes of Health--no one has been more effective, no one has worked harder, and no one has had more foresight and vision on these issues than Richard Burr, the Senator from North Carolina. The report today is substantially his work product, and he will be deeply involved in the next year as we work with Senator Murray, our Democratic friends, and with President Obama to try to bring this to a result.

In 2013, Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health, wrote the following:

Drugs exist for only about 250 of the more than 4,400

conditions with defined molecular causes. And it takes far

too long and far too much money to get a new drug into our

medicine cabinets. This is an old problem that cries out for

new and creative solutions.

Since Dr. Collins said that, the number of conditions with defined molecular causes has increased now to about 5,390, yet the number of new drugs approved has not kept pace with these discoveries.

The President of the United States has recognized this problem. In his State of the Union message a few days ago, President Obama said this:

21st century businesses will rely on American science,

technology, research and development. I want the country that

eliminated polio and mapped the human genome to lead a new

era of medicine--one that delivers the right treatment at the

right time. In some patients with cystic fibrosis, this

approach has reversed a disease once thought unstoppable.

The President said:

Tonight, I'm launching a new Precision Medicine Initiative

to bring us closer to curing diseases like cancer and

diabetes--and to give all of us access to the personalized

information we need to keep ourselves and our families

healthier.

Senator Murray and I had breakfast yesterday with Secretary Burwell and talked with her about the President's statement and about Secretary

Burwell's own desire to help implement that initiative.

Today Senator Burr and I released a report titled ``Innovation for Healthier Americans.''

Next, Senator Murray--who is ranking member of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions--and I will start examining the issues in this report and other issues raised in comments, through a bipartisan HELP Committee staff working group.

I emphasize that we are going to be working together, Democrats and Republicans. We are going to be working with Secretary Burwell, we are going to be working with the President of the United States, and we are going to be on a parallel track with the House of Representatives, where Chairman Upton and his team have been working for several months on what they call 21st century cures. In our committee in the Senate we will begin hearings in March.

We are releasing the report today in order to ask for comments. Surely we missed something in the report. If someone who is listening or reading it may have an idea or solution, we would like to know about that. We have opened an email account just to hear from those outside of Washington, DC, that is: [email protected].

Improving medical device and drug development is not a new topic for the HELP Committee. Legislation was passed in 1997 and different legislation was passed in 2012 to try to get at the same goal of speeding delivery of drugs and devices while ensuring they are still safe. Our goal will be to give bipartisan legislation to the President this year.

It is encouraging to have the House, the Senate, and the President working on such an important common goal that affects virtually every American during the same Congress. That greatly increases our likelihood of securing a result.

We want to improve and modernize how drugs and medical devices are discovered, developed, and approved. We will examine the work of the National Institutes of Health, which funds and enables much of the research that leads to medical breakthroughs and the Food and Drug Administration which regulates all the medical products we come in contact with.

As I mentioned, this work will touch the life of almost every single American--from a very ill patient who has run out of treatment options and is counting on the most cutting-edge drug to an active child with asthma who is hoping to run faster and farther with the aid of a new drug.

Today our scientists and researchers are making discoveries at a pace that our development process is not equipped to match. Patients wait while treatments languish in laboratories, going through our drawn out, inefficient, and outrageously expensive development process.

FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg has acknowledged that ``we are left relying on the 20th century approaches for the review, approval and oversight of the treatments and cures of the 21st century.''

There is no time to waste in solving this problem. The mapping of the human genome opened a whole new world of individualized medicine in which a person's genetic makeup can drive the doctor's plan for disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.

In the words of Andrew von Eschenbach, the former Commissioner of the FDA and Director of the National Cancer Institute:

We stand on the cusp of a revolution in health care.

Advances in molecular medicine will allow us to develop

powerful new treatments that can cure or even prevent

diseases like Alzheimer's and cancer. Tomorrow's high-tech

cures can also slash health-care costs and eliminate

ineffective treatments. What will it take to realize the

potential of the new medicine?

Today's report is the first step of our initiative. It seeks to answer the questions: What today is driving innovation? What barriers are standing in the way? What can we improve?

The report has five main themes:

No. 1, it costs too much to bring medical products to patients; No. 2, as science and technology advance, the discovery and development process takes too long; No. 3, the Food and Drug Administration's responsibilities have grown to include many unrelated to regulating medical products; No. 4, science outside the FDA is moving at a faster pace than ever; No. 5, an effective FDA is essential to maintain the U.S. leadership in biomedical innovation.

Some of the report's key findings include that complex medical devices approved in the U.S. were available to patients in Europe on average four years earlier than in the U.S., and increased competition for NIH grants may be discouraging researchers from proposing risky projects. Further, the average cost to develop a drug is disputed-some say $1 billion, some say $2 billion, some more-but all agree it is rising, and unpredictable and inconsistent development requirement standards in the FDA review process drive product developers to design clinical trials that are unnecessarily expansive.

Since World War II, the U.S. has dominated the biomedical industry space. Even 20 years ago, studies suggested that the U.S. share of global biomedical research funding was as high as 70-80 percent.

However, from 2007 to 2012, the U.S. share of research and development declined from about 51 percent to 45 percent. While the U.S. continued to lead the world in public sector investment during this time, private sector investment shrank by almost $13 billion and largely reallocated to Asia.

This is a chance to step back and look at where we are and how all the different reauthorizations have added up. We need to ensure that legislative efforts over the last 30 years are helping and not getting in the way of having the best treatment and technology available for the right patient at the right time. Our goal is simple but ambitious-- to work in a bipartisan way with members of the HELP Committee to make sure policies support medical innovation and patient access to important medicines and medical technologies.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the copy of the executive summary from the report that Senator Burr and I are releasing today.

I look forward to the remarks from the Senator from North Carolina. As I have said, no Senator has done more on either side of the aisle in this area of helping us think about creative new ways to move treatments, medical devices, and drugs through our safety process into the medicine cabinets and into the hands of patients who desperately need them.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, in accordance with rule XXVI, paragraph 2, of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I submit for publication the Rules of Procedure for the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, as unanimously adopted by the committee on January 28, 2015.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the Rules of Procedure be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of my remarks at the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing yesterday be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today I am reintroducing the NLRB Reform Act with Senator McConnell.

Our legislation will change the National Labor Relations Board from an advocate to an umpire.

The board was created 80 years ago to act as an impartial umpire in labor disputes that threaten the free flow of commerce.

The board's decisions affect about 85 million private-sector workers and 5.7 million private-sector employers.

But over time, the board has become an advocate for one interest group over the other--changing positions with each new administration.

There are three significant problems the board faces today:

First, the biggest problem is partisan advocacy. Today, the majority of the 5-member board is made up of appointees who follow the president's political leanings. President Obama has appointed 3 labor union lawyers to the board.

Second, the board has a freewheeling advocate for a general counsel. The board's most recent general counsels have been exceeding their statutory authority and bringing questionable cases that threaten American jobs.

Third, it is too slow to resolve disputes. Right now, 145 cases, that is 32 percent of the board's caseload, have been pending for more than a year.

Our bill provides three fixes.

First, it ends partisan advocacy. A 6-member board of 3 Republicans and 3 Democrats and a majority of 4 will require both sides to find a middle ground.

Second, it reins in the general counsel. Businesses and unions would be able to challenge complaints filed by the General Counsel in Federal district court, and they will have greater transparency about the basis and legal reasoning of charges brought by the General Counsel.

Third, it encourages timely decisions in two ways. First, either party in a case before the board may appeal to a Federal Court of Appeals if the board fails to reach a decision in their case within one year.

Second, funding for the entire NLRB would be reduced by 20 percent if the board is not able to decide 90 percent of its cases within one year over the first 2-year period post-reform.

Our bill would offer these solutions without taking away rights or remedies for any employee, business, or union.

While the increasing partisanship at the board has occurred in Republican administrations as well as Democrat administrations, it has reached a climax in this administration.

Three of President Obama's recent nominees came to the board from a major labor union's leadership.

One labor law professor at a major university recently said that she can't even use the most recent textbook, instead she has to resort to handing out NLRB decisions. The decisions are coming out so rapidly and this NLRB is venturing into new territory with efforts at rulemaking.

This is no way to maintain a national labor law policy.

Mr. President, today I am reintroducing the NLRB Reform Act with Senator McConnell.

Our legislation will change the National Labor Relations Board from an advocate to an umpire.

The board was created 80 years ago to act as an impartial umpire in labor disputes that threaten the free flow of commerce.

The board's decisions affect about 85 million private-sector workers and 5.7 million private-sector employers.

But over time, the board has become an advocate for one interest group over the other--changing positions with each new administration.

There are three significant problems the board faces today:

First, the biggest problem is partisan advocacy. Today, the majority of the 5-member board is made up of appointees who follow the president's political leanings. President Obama has appointed 3 labor union lawyers to the board.

Second, the board has a freewheeling advocate for a general counsel. The board's most recent general counsels have been exceeding their statutory authority and bringing questionable cases that threaten American jobs.

Third, it is too slow to resolve disputes. Right now, 145 cases, that is 32 percent of the board's caseload, have been pending for more than a year.

Our bill provides three fixes.

First, it ends partisan advocacy. A 6-member board of 3 Republicans and 3 Democrats and a majority of 4 will require both sides to find a middle ground.

Second, it reins in the general counsel. Businesses and unions would be able to challenge complaints filed by the General Counsel in Federal district court, and they will have greater transparency about the basis and legal reasoning of charges brought by the General Counsel.

Third, it encourages timely decisions in two ways. First, either party in a case before the board may appeal to a Federal Court of Appeals if the board fails to reach a decision in their case within one year.

Second, funding for the entire NLRB would be reduced by 20 percent if the board is not able to decide 90 percent of its cases within one year over the first 2-year period post-reform.

Our bill would offer these solutions without taking away rights or remedies for any employee, business, or union.

While the increasing partisanship at the board has occurred in Republican administrations as well as Democrat administrations, it has reached a climax in this administration.

Three of President Obama's recent nominees came to the board from a major labor union's leadership.

One labor law professor at a major university recently said that she can't even use the most recent textbook, instead she has to resort to handing out NLRB decisions. The decisions are coming out so rapidly and this NLRB is venturing into new territory with efforts at rulemaking.

This is no way to maintain a national labor law policy.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of my remarks from last week's Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of my remarks at yesterday's Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, this year marks the centennial year of the establishment of the Johnson City Chamber of Commerce.

Since its establishment on July 6, 1915, the chamber has served as the leading voice for local business and community development. The chamber has been instrumental in transforming Johnson City from a small rail-shipping town in the early 1900s to a distinguished medical community over the past several decades and continues to lead the way for new business, trade, and growth in upper East Tennessee.

As we see around the country, the Federal Government has been throwing a big, wet blanket of burdensome regulations on businesses and the economy, and chambers of commerce around the Nation have been leaders in advocating to get Washington out of the way and unleash our free enterprise system. The best thing we can do for job creation is to remove these regulations so businesses and entrepreneurs will be able to get our economy moving again.

We need to be working to help our job creators put people back to work, and we thank the Johnson City chamber for its work to help Tennessee businesses and employees, and for all it has done to help Johnson City succeed and continue to thrive.

With a new Republican majority, we will work with the chamber to advance our shared goals to jump-start our economy and liberate our free market so businesses in Tennessee and around the Nation will have the freedom they need to get our economy going in the right direction.