Floor Statements

Mr. President, on Friday, I spoke at the Ladies Hermitage Association's Annual banquet in Nashville. This extraordinary organization, for 122 years, has preserved the home of President Andrew Jackson. No former President's home has more historical objects from a President's life than does the Hermitage. I ask unanimous consent that my remarks be printed in the Record.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to divide equally the remaining amount of morning business time.

Mr. President, the Senator from New York and I are on the Senate floor today to introduce

legislation that will help make the Senate a more effective place to deal with the big issues facing our country, such as the debt, our national defense, and other issues.

This is the result of discussions we have had over the last several months with many Members of the Senate on both sides of the aisle. It began with some reforms in Senate rules, which included eliminating the so-called secret hold and doing other steps. It is the culmination of work by a number of Senators on both sides of the aisle--including Senator Lieberman; Senator Collins; the leaders, Senator Reid and Senator McConnell, when they were whips; Senator Schumer and I; and others. We had bipartisan breakfasts on these reforms a couple years ago, and it came down to the questions: How many confirmations should the Senate have? How many confirmations are enough confirmations? Is it in the public interest to allow a new President, whether Democratic or Republican, to staff the government promptly? And is it in the public interest to get rid of this syndrome that is established in Washington, which I call ``innocent until nominated,'' where we invite a distinguished person to come in and run that person through a gauntlet that makes him or her out to be a criminal for making some mistake in the process of being confirmed?

We have worked together, and we have come up with legislation that Senator Schumer is introducing on behalf of both of us--on behalf of the leaders, Senator Reid and Senator McConnell, and on behalf of Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins.

This legislation would answer the question, how many confirmations are enough confirmations, by reducing or streamlining the nomination process for about 450 nominees--out of a total of about 1,400 nominations. Over 1,000 Senate confirmed nominations will remain unchanged. Just to put that into perspective, that is still more confirmations than existed when President Clinton was President of the United States. It is almost four times as many confirmations as existed when President Kennedy was President of the United States. In other words, like many things in government, the number of confirmations has grown over time.

We have ended up confirming people we have no business confirming-- people who are public relations officers, people who are financial information people--and we have made it difficult for the government to be staffed.

Is it in our interest, and the citizens', to staff the government promptly? Yes, I think it is. We have created this phenomenon where Administrations are slow to get staffed up. For example, when President Obama came in, Secretary Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, was sitting over at Treasury almost home alone during the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression. According to news accounts, he did not have much help. The key vacant positions in Treasury were Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Analysis, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax, Trade, and Tariff Policy, and a variety of others. That situation was not helping any of us. Whether we agreed with President Obama or Secretary Geithner or not, after an election a President should be able to promptly staff the government, and we in the Senate should have procedures to give us a chance to review those nominees and offer our advice and consent and confirm or reject those nominees in a reasonable period of time.

If we are spending our time dealing with junior officials or PR officers, we are spending less time dealing with the Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, on whom we should be focusing a lot of time, and to whom we should be asking a lot of questions.

Then, there is this business of what I call ``innocent until nominated''--all of us know this exists. It really exists by sloppiness on our part, both in the legislative branch and the executive branch. If you are asked to serve in the Federal Government--and I know this because I was asked by the first President Bush--you fill out forms. Well, there are many forms. There are many forms in the executive branch. They have different definitions; for example, the definition of ``income.'' If you were to carelessly fill out the same definition of ``income'' on one form as another form, you might have been incorrect on one of the forms, and then someone might say you were telling a lie and were not fit to serve. That has been called by others, including me, as being ``innocent until nominated.''

I remember when Ron Kirk, the former mayor of Dallas, was nominated by President Obama to be the Trade Representative. There was some issue about whether he had properly reported a speech fee he gave to charity. What difference did it make in terms of his overall fitness to serve? It held him up. It embarrassed him. It was not relevant to the inquiry.

So the legislation we have will do the following: It proposes eliminating the need for Senate confirmation or streamlining over 450 positions. About 200 of these nominations will be eliminated as Senate confirmations. These are the ones the Senate does not need to spend time on. The other half will come directly to the desk. Then, unless an individual Senator says: Send it on to committee to go through the regular order, it will be expedited. That still leaves us with 1,000 Senate confirmations that we can have--1,000 hostages we can take. That is more hostages than we could take under Bill Clinton. That is almost four times as many hostages than the Senate could take under President Kennedy. That ought to be plenty of hostages for any Senator to make his or her point if that is what we seek to do.

Second, the legislation would set up a process whereby an executive branch working group would review the various forms that nominees are expected to fill out, and try to have a single smart form in the executive branch. The working group will consult with committees of Congress. It might make sense to see if we can do the same thing with our forms, and make it possible that we can get all the information we want without unnecessarily subjecting nominees to harassment or trickery just because they are not wise enough to fill out different forms with different definitions.

I think this is a substantial step forward. It may not sound like much to those watching the Senate, but let me just say that both of our leaders, Reid and McConnell, have said they tried this and could not get it done. Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins have tried, and they could not get it done. I worked with Senator Lieberman 2 years ago and we could not get it done.

What has happened this time is a result of the discussion we had earlier in the year about making the Senate a more effective place to work--with the full support of the leaders, Reid and McConnell; with the full support of Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins; and with the good work of Senator Schumer. We have come up with a consensus piece of legislation which has broad bipartisan support from both sides of the aisle, including chairmen and ranking members of the committees you would think might be the first ones to object. This legislation would still leave the Senate with the prerogatives it ought to have in terms of reviewing Presidential nominees and separates out those who take our time away from the more important things we ought to be doing.

I thank the Senator from New York for the way he has worked on this issue. He has been constructive and direct and helpful. I thank the leaders for their support. I hope the committees will rapidly consider the legislation Senator Schumer is introducing on our behalf, and I hope it will show we can take another small step in making the Senate a more effective place to work.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a document entitled ``List of Presidential Appointments No Longer Requiring Senate Confirmation''--there are about 200 of those--and a document entitled ``Privileged Nominations.'' Those are the ones that will be expedited, unless a single Senator decides he or she wants to have this nominee sent to committee, and that is about another 240.

I thank the Presiding Officer, and I notice that the Senator from New York is also on the Senate floor. I thank him for his work on this issue.

Mr. President, the Senator from New York and I are on the Senate floor today to introduce

legislation that will help make the Senate a more effective place to deal with the big issues facing our country, such as the debt, our national defense, and other issues.

This is the result of discussions we have had over the last several months with many Members of the Senate on both sides of the aisle. It began with some reforms in Senate rules, which included eliminating the so-called secret hold and doing other steps. It is the culmination of work by a number of Senators on both sides of the aisle--including Senator Lieberman; Senator Collins; the leaders, Senator Reid and Senator McConnell, when they were whips; Senator Schumer and I; and others. We had bipartisan breakfasts on these reforms a couple years ago, and it came down to the questions: How many confirmations should the Senate have? How many confirmations are enough confirmations? Is it in the public interest to allow a new President, whether Democratic or Republican, to staff the government promptly? And is it in the public interest to get rid of this syndrome that is established in Washington, which I call ``innocent until nominated,'' where we invite a distinguished person to come in and run that person through a gauntlet that makes him or her out to be a criminal for making some mistake in the process of being confirmed?

We have worked together, and we have come up with legislation that Senator Schumer is introducing on behalf of both of us--on behalf of the leaders, Senator Reid and Senator McConnell, and on behalf of Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins.

This legislation would answer the question, how many confirmations are enough confirmations, by reducing or streamlining the nomination process for about 450 nominees--out of a total of about 1,400 nominations. Over 1,000 Senate confirmed nominations will remain unchanged. Just to put that into perspective, that is still more confirmations than existed when President Clinton was President of the United States. It is almost four times as many confirmations as existed when President Kennedy was President of the United States. In other words, like many things in government, the number of confirmations has grown over time.

We have ended up confirming people we have no business confirming-- people who are public relations officers, people who are financial information people--and we have made it difficult for the government to be staffed.

Is it in our interest, and the citizens', to staff the government promptly? Yes, I think it is. We have created this phenomenon where Administrations are slow to get staffed up. For example, when President Obama came in, Secretary Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, was sitting over at Treasury almost home alone during the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression. According to news accounts, he did not have much help. The key vacant positions in Treasury were Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Analysis, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax, Trade, and Tariff Policy, and a variety of others. That situation was not helping any of us. Whether we agreed with President Obama or Secretary Geithner or not, after an election a President should be able to promptly staff the government, and we in the Senate should have procedures to give us a chance to review those nominees and offer our advice and consent and confirm or reject those nominees in a reasonable period of time.

If we are spending our time dealing with junior officials or PR officers, we are spending less time dealing with the Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, on whom we should be focusing a lot of time, and to whom we should be asking a lot of questions.

Then, there is this business of what I call ``innocent until nominated''--all of us know this exists. It really exists by sloppiness on our part, both in the legislative branch and the executive branch. If you are asked to serve in the Federal Government--and I know this because I was asked by the first President Bush--you fill out forms. Well, there are many forms. There are many forms in the executive branch. They have different definitions; for example, the definition of ``income.'' If you were to carelessly fill out the same definition of ``income'' on one form as another form, you might have been incorrect on one of the forms, and then someone might say you were telling a lie and were not fit to serve. That has been called by others, including me, as being ``innocent until nominated.''

I remember when Ron Kirk, the former mayor of Dallas, was nominated by President Obama to be the Trade Representative. There was some issue about whether he had properly reported a speech fee he gave to charity. What difference did it make in terms of his overall fitness to serve? It held him up. It embarrassed him. It was not relevant to the inquiry.

So the legislation we have will do the following: It proposes eliminating the need for Senate confirmation or streamlining over 450 positions. About 200 of these nominations will be eliminated as Senate confirmations. These are the ones the Senate does not need to spend time on. The other half will come directly to the desk. Then, unless an individual Senator says: Send it on to committee to go through the regular order, it will be expedited. That still leaves us with 1,000 Senate confirmations that we can have--1,000 hostages we can take. That is more hostages than we could take under Bill Clinton. That is almost four times as many hostages than the Senate could take under President Kennedy. That ought to be plenty of hostages for any Senator to make his or her point if that is what we seek to do.

Second, the legislation would set up a process whereby an executive branch working group would review the various forms that nominees are expected to fill out, and try to have a single smart form in the executive branch. The working group will consult with committees of Congress. It might make sense to see if we can do the same thing with our forms, and make it possible that we can get all the information we want without unnecessarily subjecting nominees to harassment or trickery just because they are not wise enough to fill out different forms with different definitions.

I think this is a substantial step forward. It may not sound like much to those watching the Senate, but let me just say that both of our leaders, Reid and McConnell, have said they tried this and could not get it done. Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins have tried, and they could not get it done. I worked with Senator Lieberman 2 years ago and we could not get it done.

What has happened this time is a result of the discussion we had earlier in the year about making the Senate a more effective place to work--with the full support of the leaders, Reid and McConnell; with the full support of Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins; and with the good work of Senator Schumer. We have come up with a consensus piece of legislation which has broad bipartisan support from both sides of the aisle, including chairmen and ranking members of the committees you would think might be the first ones to object. This legislation would still leave the Senate with the prerogatives it ought to have in terms of reviewing Presidential nominees and separates out those who take our time away from the more important things we ought to be doing.

I thank the Senator from New York for the way he has worked on this issue. He has been constructive and direct and helpful. I thank the leaders for their support. I hope the committees will rapidly consider the legislation Senator Schumer is introducing on our behalf, and I hope it will show we can take another small step in making the Senate a more effective place to work.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a document entitled ``List of Presidential Appointments No Longer Requiring Senate Confirmation''--there are about 200 of those--and a document entitled ``Privileged Nominations.'' Those are the ones that will be expedited, unless a single Senator decides he or she wants to have this nominee sent to committee, and that is about another 240.

I thank the Presiding Officer, and I notice that the Senator from New York is also on the Senate floor. I thank him for his work on this issue.

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

Mr. President, I join Senator McConnell in welcoming Reverend Austin from Murfreesboro, TN, just down the road from Nashville. He formerly worked here, as Senator McConnell said. We are delighted he has this privilege today to pray at the beginning of the Senate, which is something that has happened since the beginning of the Senate, since the very first days of the Senate. I thank him for taking his time to be here. Welcome.

Mr. President, will the Chair let me know when I have consumed 8 minutes?

Mr. President, this is St. Patrick's Day, as Reverend Austin mentioned, and we celebrate that. We are coming up on another important anniversary, and that is the anniversary of the enactment of the health care law, which the majority regards as a historic achievement and most Republicans regard as a historic mistake.

I want to talk a little bit about that law, but there is another anniversary I remember very well that came a few days before enactment of the health care law--the so-called health care summit that was held at the Blair House. It was a remarkable event.

The President of the United States, who is highly intelligent and well-versed on health care, invited a bunch of us down to discuss health care. He stayed and we stayed for 6 or 7 hours. During that discussion, it was a pretty free exchange. I especially remember one of them. I had been asked by Senator McConnell and Representative Boehner to represent Republicans in presenting our side, and the President's invitation gave us a platform we usually don't have. He has a better platform than we do most of the time.

We made our argument that we would prefer an approach on health care that instead of expanding the health care delivery system, which we all know costs too much, we should go step by step to reduce the cost of health care so more people can afford to buy insurance. That was the basic discussion we had. We got down to some facts. I had said that, according to the CBO, the President's plan would raise individual premiums and make insurance cost more for individuals who buy insurance by 10 to 13 percent. The President said, after I finished:

So, Lamar, when you mentioned earlier that you said

premiums go up--that's just not the case, according to the

Congressional Budget Office.

I said:

Mr. President, if you're going to contradict me, I ought to

have a chance to respond. The Congressional Budget Office

report says that premiums will rise in the individual market

as a result of the Senate bill.

The President said:

No, no, no, no--let me--and this is an example of where

we've got to get our facts straight.

I said:

That's my point.

And it went on from there. I had to make a decision at that moment whether I should continue to have a public disagreement with the President. I thought I was right, and he thought he was right, so I decided it would be more appropriate for me not to do that in public, to let other Senators and Congressmen have their say. I exchanged a letter with the President that day, and I came to the floor of the Senate later that week to make my argument on why I believed premiums would go up.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the transcript of my exchange with the President and that of Senator Kyl and a couple of Members of Congress and the letter I sent to the President that day which made my point rather than publicly argue with him. My remarks I made on the floor of the Senate later that day are in the Record.

We talk a lot about the law of unintended consequences in dealing with legislation. In this case I believe the health care law is a situation where we had a lot of predictable consequences. Republicans were saying, for example, premiums are going to rise. In fact, they have. We were saying specifically that individual premiums will rise. It was predictable they would because, in the first place, the health care law requires that individuals buy a better policy than what they buy today. So if they are going to buy a Cadillac instead of a Chevy, it will cost more and they will get more benefits.

Second, there are some taxes in the health care law, such as with medical devices, that are passed on to the consumer and premiums will go up.

Third, a lot of people who moved into Medicaid are going into a system of government health care where the doctors aren't properly reimbursed. Many of the doctors shift the costs over to the people who buy insurance. That is called cost shifting.

For all those reasons, we have seen stories regularly in California, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Connecticut that individual premiums, over the last year, have gone up at least partially due to mandates included in the new law.

Let's look at some of the other issues we talked about during that time. We said the bill would raise taxes. In fact, it does--$813 billion. As I mentioned, the tax on medical devices is passed right along to people who buy insurance, and their costs go up.

We said it would cut Medicare, and it has. Eleven million Medicare Advantage recipients--about one-fourth of everyone who has Medicare-- are seeing or will see their benefits reduced.

We said there would be thousands of pages of new regulations that would hamper small businesses and individuals as they go about their daily lives. We are beginning to see them come. The most notorious is that form 1099 which causes 40 million businesses to file a report every time they buy something that costs more than $600. We hear a lot of talk about repealing that. We have tried to repeal it for some time, but it is still the law.

Something that particularly bothered me about the debate were the unfunded mandates on State governments. We hear about college tuition going up in California 30, 40 percent. People would be surprised to think that the reason may be that the Federal Government is imposing more

health care costs on California, and the money that ought to go for the University of California or the University of Tennessee isn't there. Where does the university get the money to keep its excellence? It raises tuition.

Our former Democratic Governor, who just retired, said the health care law imposes on Tennessee more than $1.1 billion in new costs between 2014 and 2019. That is an unfunded mandate from Washington that will cost the people of Tennessee.

Fewer jobs will be created as a result of this law. Someone might say: How can you say that? I will give an example. I met with a group of leaders of the restaurant industry in America. They are CEOs of all the big restaurant companies. They are the second largest employer in America. They hire a lot of low-income people. One of them said they had been operating their stores with 90 employees on the average, and as a result of the health care law, their goal was to operate with 70 employees. That is fewer jobs. And there were many other examples of that around the room.

Even the student loan takeover has created a problem because students are actually paying more in interest on their student loans to help pay for the new health care law, which I think a lot of students would not appreciate.

The health care law that was passed a year ago, which some believe is a historic achievement, we believe is a historic mistake. We believe it would have been better and will be better to, instead of expanding a health care system that costs too much, go step by step to reduce its costs so more people can afford insurance. We will continue to advocate that position. We voted to repeal the health care law. We lost that vote. But we are continuing to work.

With Senator Johanns' leadership and others, we will work to repeal the 1099 provision. Senator Hatch and others are working to give Governors more flexibility in the Medicaid Program. And we will continue to advocate solutions such as allowing people to buy insurance across State lines.

Next Wednesday is an important anniversary. Some believe it is a historic achievement. We believe it is a historic mistake and that there is a better solution to health care costs.

I thank the leader for his courtesy in giving me a chance to go ahead.

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 Senator Bennet and I have up to 10 minutes for a colloquy.

Mr. President, Senator Bennet and I have just announced an effort that I think most teachers, most principals, and many parents will want to be a part of. We are going to look at the education system in Tennessee and in Colorado--two of the more progressive States in education--to see if there are too many tests and too many regulations. We want to make sure the tests we have are good tests and the regulations we have are reasonable regulations, and any minute we can save from an unneeded test or an unnecessary regulation is a minute a teacher can spend devoted to teaching.

So we have done two things. First, we are introducing today legislation that we hope will be a part of the new Elementary and Secondary Education Act when it is passed that will have the Education Secretary set up a task force that will do something we don't usually do in government, which is subtract instead of add government--in other words, to continuously ask teachers, principals, and others what tests, what regulations are unnecessary so we can get rid of them.

Second, we are going to start right away to do this in Colorado and Tennessee. We have talked to our Governors--Governor Hickenlooper and Governor Halsam--and we are going to put together a task force of educators in our State and ask them to say to us: What regulations are unnecessary? What tests are unnecessary?

When I was Governor, I used to say to the Education Secretary, who was then Bill Bennett: There are too many Federal regulations. He would say to me: I bet you have more State regulations than Federal regulations. And he was right.

When I was Education Secretary, I had many teachers and others say to me: We can't do this, we can't do that because of the Federal regulation, when, in fact, there was no such Federal regulation. What often happens is that the confusion between what the Federal Government requires and what the State government requires creates inordinate confusion in the classroom, and teachers feel all tied up.

So we are going to start right away to do this. We are both very excited about this. We think this should give teachers and others in the classroom an opportunity to do their jobs. One day less on an unneeded test might mean one more day teaching a child U.S. history, which would suit me fine.

I wish to congratulate Senator Bennet for his contribution to the debate, his ideas. His ideas come from his experience as an extraordinarily successful superintendent of the Denver Public School System. So we are taking his more recent experience and my own background, putting them together with our teachers and principals, and we look forward to reporting to our colleagues what we find, as well as to Secretary Duncan, who will be a full partner with us in this. We hope this is part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act when it is enacted in a bipartisan way.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a memorandum on the

Colorado-Tennessee working group on effective regulation and assessment systems for public education, which outlines the roles Senator Bennet, myself, Secretary Duncan, along with Governor Haslam of Tennessee and Governor Hickenlooper of Colorado, will have.

Mr. President, one more time, the bottom line of this proposal by Senator Bennet and myself is that every minute a teacher spends on an unneeded test or regulation is a minute the teacher cannot devote to teaching a child. What we are asking the teachers of Tennessee and Colorado to do for us is to identify the rules and regulations we need and the rules and regulations we can get rid of.

I thank the Chair also.

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

Mr. President, as the Senator from Arizona and the Senator from Connecticut have done eloquently in their ways, I wish to express on behalf of the people of Tennessee to the people of Japan our sympathy for the devastation they have experienced.

I applaud the administration and the American people for their immediate response to offer assistance, charitable aid, and search and rescue teams to find survivors. There is no more important two-country alliance than that of Japan and the United States. The former Ambassador Mike Mansfield used to teach that to all of us younger Governors during the eighties and nineties. We will stand with the people of Japan until they recover from this disaster.

There is a special relationship between the Japanese and Tennesseans because of the location of so many Japanese industries in our State over the last 30 years. As a result, Tennesseans have been reaching out to our friends and their families in Japan.

We should also commend the Japanese for their courage they have shown in dealing with the devastation and in particular with their level- headed response to the damage at their nuclear reactors at Fukushima Daiichi. In this age when instant communication can sometimes create misinformation and even panic, the Japanese leadership and nuclear scientists are working with organizations from around the world in responding to the danger and keeping the rest of the world informed.

This is the largest earthquake in Japan's recorded history--30 times more forceful than the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and 700 times stronger than the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. While the risk is by no means over and the events in Japan continue to evolve, the reactor safety systems so far appear to have done their job in withstanding the earthquake, tsunami, power loss, and explosions, and no other reactor containment structures seem to have been breached in these worst-case situations. The lessons that America can take away from this tragedy are this: Learn all we can from the Japanese experience to make the operation of American reactors as safe as possible.

Since the 1950s, the U.S. Navy has safely traveled more than 136 million miles on nuclear power. Today, 104 civilian reactors produce 20 percent of America's electricity and 70 percent of our clean electricity. That is without sulfur, without nitrogen, without mercury, or without carbon. No one has ever died from a nuclear accident at any of our commercial or Navy reactors.

Let me say that again. No one has ever died from a reactor accident at one of our Navy or commercial reactors.

Without nuclear power, it is hard to imagine how the United States could produce enough cheap, reliable, clean electricity to keep our economy moving and keep our jobs from going overseas.

Here is what we know about what has happened in Japan. We have all seen the video of the explosion of the building at Daiichi unit 1, now unit 3. I am sure many of us have thought those were reactors exploding. Fortunately, that is not what happened. A buildup of hydrogen gas in the secondary containment structures led to explosions which destroyed the buildings themselves but the primary containment structures inside appear not to have been compromised. To reduce the resulting increase in containment pressure, a relatively small amount of radioactive vapor has been dispersed into the atmosphere.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company has told us that the highest level of radiation detected onsite to date is 155.7 millirem per hour, and that has since been reduced to 4.4 millirem per hour. But what does that mean in regard to human exposure risk? To help put that in perspective, here are a couple of facts. The average American receives about 300 millirem of radiation exposure each year from naturally occurring sources, such as the Sun, and another 300 millirem of radiation exposure from medical applications, such as CT scans and x rays.

What did happen after the earthquake is that the ensuing tsunami crippled the backup electrical generators and batteries needed to keep cooling water circulating in the plants after they had been safely shut down. This ultimately led to use of the last line of defense emergency core cooling system--flooding the entire containment vessel with seawater. While this pretty much assures that the reactors will not ever be used again, as long as the seawater continues to be pumped in, the possibilities of further damage ought to be halted.

People have been evacuated and authorities are taking every precaution, and that, of course, is what we wish to see. Despite one of the largest earthquakes in the world's history, with accompanying tsunamis, fires, and aftershocks--multiple disasters compounded one on top of the other--the primary containment at reactors near the epicenter appears not to have been breached and the radioactive venting appears to have been controlled and minimal.

This experience has brought back memories of the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. Although we remember Three Mile Island as the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history, it is also important to remember that no one was hurt at Three Mile Island. As I said before, there has never been a death resulting from a commercial nuclear accident in American history. What happened at Three Mile Island was basically an operator failure. A valve failed, and when the automatic safety mechanism kicked in, the operators overrode it because they became confused by the number of alarms.

Three Mile Island completely changed the American nuclear industry. The Kemeny Commission, appointed by President Carter, analyzed the problems and made many recommendations, almost all of which have been put into practice. The valve that started the whole thing had failed nine times, but the manufacturer tried to keep it a secret. People in the nuclear industry then did not talk to each other. Now safety is a top priority of the nuclear industry. The Institute of Nuclear Power Operations collectively shares best practices to achieve the highest levels of safety, as well as reliability. Nuclear operators train for 5 years before they can take over in the control room. They spend 1 week out of every 5 to 6 weeks in a simulator honing their skills. The nuclear companies have special emergency teams that can be dispatched anywhere in the country at a moment's notice. A Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspector practically lives onsite. What is more, every reactor in the country is on the hook for $112 million if something goes wrong at another reactor. As one can imagine, they watch each other very carefully.

I have talked with any number of Navy veterans who had experience with nuclear commands. One reason I am confident there have not been any nuclear reactor accidents in the nuclear Navy that killed anyone over the last half century is because the responsibility for the safety of that reactor goes right up to the captain of the vessel.

It was not the same at Chernobyl, the infamous 1986 Soviet accident.

Chernobyl involved 60 immediate deaths and radiation exposures that, according to the World Health Organization, may eventually result in 4,000 cancers. But Chernobyl was a completely different kind of accident and the result of different technology.

More than that, the Soviets had not built a containment structure at Chernobyl. The containment structures at these Japanese reactors--40 to 80 inches thick concrete and steel--appear, as we speak this afternoon, to have withstood an 8.9 magnitude earthquake, tsunami, power failure, and explosion.

There are gas and oil fires raging in Japan. Water and sewer systems are damaged. The possibility of disease and starvation is imminent. There are a great many things to worry about in addition to the problems with the Japanese reactors. There are tens of thousands of people still unaccounted for. Right now, the effort needs to be helping those who need help, containing further damage and risk, and getting Japan back up and running again. Then we can take the lessons learned from this earthquake and tsunami and apply them to make our nuclear plants as safe as possible and help the world do the same.

America's 104 nuclear reactors provide, as I mentioned earlier, 20 percent of our electricity, 70 percent of our clean electricity. Japan has 54 reactors and gets 30 percent of its electricity from nuclear. France gets 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. The United States invented nuclear power, but the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not issued a construction license for a new reactor in more than 30 years. There are 65 reactors under construction around the world. However, only one of those 65 is in the United States, and that is the construction of a previously halted project by the Tennessee Valley Authority.

The Japanese and the French have surged into the lead in terms of nuclear power and are now being challenged by Korea and Russia on the international market. China, with 27 nuclear reactors currently under construction, will soon join them all.

Nuclear power today provides about 15 percent of the world's electricity. While there are always risks with every form of energy, it is important that we be clear about the risks each type of energy poses. But it is also important to remember that we do not abandon highway systems because bridges and overpasses collapse during earthquakes. The 1.6 million of us who fly daily would not stop flying after a tragic airplane crash. We cannot stop drilling after a tragic oilspill unless we want to rely more on foreign oil, run up our prices, turn our oil drilling over to a few big oil companies and all our oil hauling over to more leaky tankers. Mr. President, 34,000 people die in motor vehicle accidents every year, but we do not stop driving because we have to get our children to school and ourselves to work. In all of these cases, when there are accidents, we do our best to examine the tragedies and make our continued operation and our lives as safe as possible. That is what we need to do here.

Our reactors in the United States are built to the highest standards in the world. The Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a press briefing today:

Right now we believe that the nuclear powerplants in this

country operate safely and securely.

The Chairman said:

Nuclear powerplants in the United States are designed to

very high standards for earthquake effects. All our plants

are designed to withstand significant natural phenomena, like

earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis. We will take whatever steps

are necessary to ensure the safety and security of nuclear

powerplants in the country. But right now, we believe we have

a very strong program in place.

``As we get more information from Japan,'' said the Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, ``as this immediate crisis ultimately comes to an end, we will look at whatever information we can gain from this event and see if there are any changes we need to make in our system.''

The Deputy Secretary of Energy said:

Nuclear power has been a critical component of the United

States energy portfolio.

The White House press secretary, on behalf of President Obama, said:

Nuclear power remains a part of the President's overall

energy plan.

Despite the fact that there has never been a death as a result of the operation of a commercial American reactor or in our nuclear Navy, which has been using reactors in its ships and submarines since the 1950s, our goal should be to continue every effort to try to make certain the operation of our existing and new nuclear powerplants are as safe as possible.

For example, some have suggested that so-called passive cooling systems that operate on natural convection could prevent the problems that arose in Japan when the backup power to pump water was lost.

Nuclear power is a demanding but manageable technology. As we move forward, let us learn the proper lessons from this Japanese experience to make sure that in the United States and in the world, we are even better prepared for the unexpected events of the future.

I thank the Chair, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, how much time remains?

Will the Chair let me know when 2 minutes remains?

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from South Dakota for his eloquent remarks. He phrased exactly the question before this body on which we are going to be casting two votes within a few minutes, and that is this: Will we or will we not stop spending money we don't have? I repeat, the question is: Will we or will we not stop spending money we don't have? Do we have the courage and the common sense and the sense of responsibility to make difficult decisions for the future of our country when it comes to spending and debt?

Let's look at the facts. The Federal Government this year is collecting $2.2 trillion--that is what is coming in--and spending $3.7 trillion. We are collecting $2.2 trillion in revenue, and we are spending $3.7 trillion in revenue. That is a fact.

Here is another fact: Forty cents of every dollar the Federal Government spends is borrowed, much of it from China.

Here is another fact: We are piling up new debt at the rate of $4 billion a day--$4 billion a day of new debt. Here is another fact: Last month was the shortest month of the year--February. The deficit--that is this year's deficit in just that month--was the largest in history: $223 billion. And our friends on the other side are suggesting we solve a problem of this dimension by reducing spending by $4.7 billion. As Senator Thune said, by tomorrow, at about this time, we will have piled up as much more debt as they propose to save. That is not urgent; that is not responsible; that is not dealing with difficult decisions in the way people expect us to do.

The Republicans in the House of Representatives have stepped up and have made difficult decisions. We might not agree with every single detail of the decision, and the Senate will have its own priorities when we pass a bill, but I, for one--and I think many others on this side of the aisle--are going to vote for H.R. 1, the House-passed $57 billion cut, because it is a sure step toward reducing spending and stopping our country from spending money we don't have. Senate Democrats say, Sorry, we can only find $4.7 billion to save.

The purpose of the vote I will cast today is to say we have an urgent need that needs to be addressed. We have a sense of responsibility toward that decision. We can't solve much of it today, but we can solve some of it today, and the time to start addressing this urgent need is now.

When I became Governor of Tennessee about 30 years ago, a friend gave me a book written by George Reedy, Lyndon Johnson's press secretary. It was called ``The Twilight of the Presidency.'' In that book, I found a definition I used as Governor because it was such a good definition of what an executive in public life is to do. George Reedy said that the job of the President is, No. 1, to see an urgent need; No. 2, to develop a strategy to meet the need; and No. 3, to persuade at least half the people that he is right. See an urgent need, develop a strategy to meet the need, and persuade at least half the people he is right.

This is an urgent need facing our country. Forty cents out of every dollar we spend is borrowed; $2.2 trillion coming in; $3.7 trillion going out; 47 top economists over 2 weekends ago saying it was the most urgent need facing our country. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is saying it is our biggest national security threat--the debt. As Senator Thune said, debt costs jobs. Economists tell us that debt at this level costs us about 1 million jobs a year.

Let me read what the President's own debt commission had to say about this. This debt commission had six Members of the U.S. Senate as members--three Republicans, three Democrats. Five of the six voted for this report of the debt commission. They said, as members of this commission:

We spent the past 8 months studying the same hard, cold

facts--

Not opinions, facts.

Together we have reached these unavoidable conclusions. The

problem is real. The solution will be painful. There is no

easy way out. Everything must be on the table, and Washington

must lead.

That is President Obama's debt commission. After all the talk about debt and deficits, they go on to say:

It is long past time for America's leaders to put up or

shut up.

That is the President's debt commission talking.

The era of debt denial is over. There can be no turning

back. We sign our names to this plan because we love our

children, our grandchildren, and our country too much not to

act while we still have the chance to secure a better future

for all of our citizens.

That report included five Members of this body, two Democrats, three Republicans. That was what the debt commission had to say.

Here is what the President had to say. In 2009 he said:

What we have done is kicked this can down the road. We are

now at the end of the road. We are not in a position to kick

it any further.

We can only find $4 billion to save?

President Obama said last year:

I hope some of the folks who are hollering about deficits

and debt step up, because I am calling their bluff.

We can only save $4 billion?

My administration is going to seek to work with Congress to

execute serious entitlement reform.

And then as Senator the President said:

Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically, weakens

us internationally. Leadership means the buck stops here.

Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices

today on to the backs of our children and grandchildren.

America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.

I ask, where is the President of the United States in this debate? Where is the President of the United States? His debt commission came out months ago and recommended $4 trillion in savings. No support from the President. The President made an eloquent State of the Union Address. I sat on the front row and applauded many times. No sense of urgency about the Federal debt. The President offered his budget a few weeks ago. No plan for reducing the Federal debt.

Now we are taking step No. 1, which is to work on the discretionary part of the budget--only about 12 percent of the budget. The House is willing to take difficult steps; the Senate Democratic majority says we can only find an amount that equals the debt we are piling up in one 24-hour period; and the President is missing in action.

I respectfully say that is not leadership. We need the President of the United States to join us in an effort to stop our country from spending money we don't have, in making difficult decisions about spending, so we can assure the strength and future of our country.

The question before us is will we or will we not stop spending money we don't have? Will we or will we not make the difficult decisions it takes to reduce spending so that our country will be strong for the future?

The other side says they can find $4.7 billion to save. We say we can start with $57 billion. I will vote for the $57 billion and against the $4.7 billion because that is a sure step toward a bright path for America's future.

I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of our time.

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

Madam President, I appreciate the comments of my friend, the Senator from California. We have to be serious about the country's debt. Admiral Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says the debt is our biggest national security threat.

Anyone in my State who looks at what we are spending in Washington is astonished. We are spending, this year, $3.7 trillion. We are collecting $2.2 trillion. The House of Representatives has said: Let's take a step--a serious step--toward dealing with that debt. I applaud them for that. That number is a number that we on the Republican side try to support in the Senate. We might have our own priorities within that reduced number, but we need to get serious about the entire problem of America's debt.

It also goes directly to the problem of jobs we have in our country today. The last Democratic Congress and the President's policies have thrown a big wet blanket on private sector job creation in America. One of the biggest parts of the wet blanket is the big debt. According to economists, it costs us 1 million jobs a year. The big debt creates the potential for higher interest rates. That makes it harder to create jobs. It soaks up capital. It could be used to create jobs. It creates uncertainty. It creates a lack of confidence.

There is a lot of spirit in this Senate to find a consensus on how to deal with the debt. I want to be one who does that. I look forward to a serious discussion of those efforts.

Madam President, in Jerusalem last week during a private meeting with U.S. Senators, the Prime Minister of Israel suggested creating a new Marshall Plan to help the people of Middle Eastern countries who are struggling to gain more freedom. I was one of the Senators in that meeting.

In one important way, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's proposal is different from the plan that helped rebuild Western Europe after World War II. Its funding would not come from the U.S. Government but from private gifts and foundations worldwide. Instead of the money going for rebuilding bombed out industrial plants and roads as it did after World War II, it would more likely be spent in the Middle East now on schools, on health clinics, and on clean water.

Fundamentally, though, the plans are very similar. Both GEN George C. Marshall in 1947 and Prime Minister Netanyahu today proposed helping adversaries as well as allies. Both aim to relieve hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. Both proposals are based squarely on self- interest, as antidotes to the spread of philosophies unfriendly to democracy: communism in the case of postwar Europe and militant Islam in the Middle East today.

In both cases, applicants for the money would write their own plans. In 1948, 16 nations met in Paris to develop the Marshall plan. President Truman then submitted it for approval to the Congress. Most of the money was distributed by grants that did not have to be repaid.

The first Marshall plan was short term, from 1948 to 1952, and so should be this new Marshall plan. The goal is not to create dependencies but to help people stand on their own.

There are some important differences between the idea of the Marshall plan after World War II and Prime Minister Netanyahu's proposal for the Middle East. The new Middle East Marshall plan would cost much less. The original Marshall plan spent between $115 billion and $130 billion in today's dollars over those 4 years. If a Middle Eastern plan carefully distributed a few billion dollars over 5 years it could have an enormous impact.

The Marshall plan started out after World War II buying food and fuel and ended up rebuilding bombed-out industrial plants, roads, and other infrastructure. In addition to schools and clinics, a Middle Eastern Marshall plan is more likely to spend money on, for example, a corps of young people who are paid a subsistence wage to strengthen their own country.

Marshall plan money went to 16 European governments. Money for a Middle Eastern plan should probably be distributed through non- governmental organizations.

After World War II, there was a clear effort to impose on Europe and Japan the American model. We should have learned by now that the path to democracy in the Middle East is more likely to be uniquely Middle Eastern. The original Marshall plan was paid for mostly by United States taxpayers. Money for this new plan should come from around the world, mostly from private gifts.

The first Marshall plan was used mostly for purchase of goods from the United States. Today, those goods would be purchased from around the world.

What are the next steps? First, a coalition of foundations should step forward and announce its willingness to consider proposals from Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries that would assist a transition to a more democratic form of government.

Second, the first grants should be quickly approved, probably to non- governmental organizations already in place. The original Marshall plan moved slowly. In this age of instant communication, freedom fighters expect immediate results. Some evidence of improvement in their lives could help sustain a movement toward democracy against the lure of militant Islam.

An early State Department memorandum compared General Marshall's proposal to a flying saucer: ``Nobody knows what it looks like, how big it is, or whether it really exists.'' Prime Minister Netanyahu's proposal also is usefully vague, with details to be filled in later by applicants for grants. But shouldn't it be enough simply to propose helping people struggling for freedom based upon the hard-eyed belief that their success will benefit other Democratic countries, including the United States and Israel?

Madam President, in Rochester, NY, today and tomorrow, family and friends are celebrating the life of David Kearns, who died a few days ago at age 80.

David Kearns was the former chief executive officer of the Xerox Corporation who, during the 1980s, led that corporation to win back the copying market from the Japanese. Along the way, he found time to become America's most effective business leader who was a champion of education reform, especially for pushing new technology into schools. He served as Deputy Education Secretary under the first President Bush while I was the Secretary of Education in 1991, 1992 and 1993.

I remember first meeting David Kearns in 1990, when I was president of the University of Tennessee and had my office in Knoxville. He came into my office, and on the way he said hello to every single person in the outer office, and every single other person he met while I was there. And he remembered every single one of their names. I didn't forget that, and they didn't forget him. When David Kearns left the University of Tennessee from that visit I bought his book about education reform and read it.

Later that year, President Bush called me and asked me to become his Education Secretary. I asked the President if I could put together my own team, subject to his approval, and then if we could put together our own plan, subject to his approval. Those were two of the smartest questions I ever asked, because that meant I didn't have to go through the White House staff to get the team cleared or the policy cleared. I could go directly to the President. And as soon as I had that permission, I called David Kearns and asked him if he would be willing to be the Deputy Secretary of Education in the U.S. Department of Education.

I knew it would be hard to persuade him to do so. He was at the peak of his career. He had just retired as one of America's best known business leaders. His friends said: Why in the world would you go into the government and subject yourself to all that abuse and take a secondary position in a minor department? I asked President Bush to call David Kearns and recruit him, and he did, appealing to his patriotism. They both served in World War II.

David had such a passion for education, he came on board, and it was terrific that he did. It was a privilege to work with such an accomplished executive. Employees in the Department of Education loved having him around. Having him there helped recruit a distinguished team of leaders for the Department and we put together what we thought, over 2 years, was a pretty impressive program working with President Bush.

Some of the ideas sound very familiar today, especially to former Governors. One idea was break-the-mold schools. Today we call them charter schools, or start-from-scratch schools. The thought was to have one in each congressional district--535 of them--funded by $1 million of seed money from the Federal Government.

To support those schools, we created a new American Schools Development Corporation, and with David's leadership raised $70 million in private capital for that. That attracted hundreds of design teams from around the country with ideas for how to create better schools. President Bush hosted a number of America's business leaders at Camp David to help make that happen.

We worked with Diane Ravitch to create an effort to implement standards for the national education goals that President Bush had helped to set in 1987 with the Nation's Governors. These were the goals for math, science, history, English, and geography, and we took important steps toward that. Today, the common standards States are adopting owe some of their beginnings to those efforts.

We established commissions to look at extending the school day. We pushed for technology in the schools. The President proposed in 1992 a GI bill for kids, which would give scholarships to poor kids so they could choose any school, public or private or religious, so they could have more of the same choices of good schools that kids with money had.

By the time we left in 1993, every State in America had their own version of America 2000--it was Tennessee 2000 or New Hampshire 2000 or Kansas 2000--moving toward the educational goals community by community. None of that would have happened without David Kearns' enthusiasm, skill, and leadership.

In 1992, during a riot over Rodney King in Los Angeles, President Bush sent David to represent him. David had a strong background in civil rights. While he was there, he telephoned me and said: This is the hardest phone call I have ever had to make. I have cancer. He had just discovered he had cancer of the sinus. When he came back, he had an operation and the operation gradually destroyed his eyesight.

That was 20 years ago, but it didn't stop David Kearns. During that time, he created the Kearns Center for Leadership at the University of Rochester, where he graduated and served as trustee for many years. Then to help him get around, because he couldn't see, or could barely see, he invited a young man each year to go with him and help him see and do what he needed to do. For those young men--nearly 20 over the last 20 years--that has been a remarkable opportunity to be in the presence of one of America's great mentors at an early stage in their lives.

Everyone who knew David Kearns admired him and loved him. A few days ago, I spoke with Shirley Kearns, David's wife of 56 years, and reminded her of what she already knows: how much David's friendship meant to me. Honey and I will be thinking of them today and tomorrow in Rochester. We will be thinking about Shirley, their 4 daughters, 2 sons, and 18 grandchildren.

For me, one story sums up David Kearns' life better than others. I think back to 1995, when I was in Utah. I was trying to persuade Republicans that I was their natural nominee for President of the United States. I wasn't successful in that, but I was enthusiastic about it. I had made to a Republican group what I thought was an especially good speech. During the speech, I talked about my work in the U.S. Department of Education and I talked about David Kearns--about his leadership and about how he helped do all the things I have just mentioned. After the speech, an enthusiastic Republican lady came up to me and said: That was a wonderful speech. Thank you very much, I said. Now I know who should be President, she said. Well, thank you, I said. She smiled and said: David Kearns. That was the opinion that she and I and almost everyone who met him had of David Kearns, whose 80 years in this country have been very special.

I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I appreciate the remarks of the Senator from Connecticut. I am glad I had the opportunity to hear them.

I, too, am here to celebrate Ronald Reagan's life, born 100 years ago, but also his nearly 50 years of influence on American public policy. I begin in this way. A few years ago when he was President, President Reagan attended one of the many Washington press dinners held here. I think it was the Gridiron dinner. It was well known to 90 percent of the people in the audience that members of the press had a different point of view on politics than he did, but they liked him anyway, and they respected him, just as he respected them. I remember that evening that he strode into the Gridiron dinner smiling and looking like a million bucks. The press rose and smiled back and applauded him. President Reagan stood in front of the media until the applause subsided and then he said:

Thank you very much. I know how hard it is to clap with

your fingers crossed.

The media laughed. They had a wonderful time with President Reagan.

The first thing we think about, those of us who had a chance to know him--and that was a great many of us--is that Ronald Reagan was a very friendly, congenial man, an easy person to know, the kind of person one would enjoy spending time with. He was very comfortable, as we say, in his own skin. What we saw in private was what everybody else saw in public.

Ronald Reagan was about more than being friendly and congenial. Each of us has a personal story of his or her connection to President Reagan. I have mine, and I wish this as an example.

Sixteen years ago this month I stood, as a great many Members of this body have, on the front porch of my hometown courthouse. In my case, it was in Maryville, TN. There I announced my candidacy for President of the United States. It was an offer the people of the United States did not accept. My preacher brother-in-law said I should consider that defeat as a reverse calling. I have, and I have gone on to other things.

As an example of the influence President Reagan had on my generation and others, let me read an example of what I said in 1995, 16 years ago:

Thirty years ago Ronald Reagan, before he was elected to

any public office, made an address called ``A Time For

Choosing.'' He said that in America freedom is our greatest

value, and that then there were two great threats: communism

abroad and big government at home.

Looking back over those last 30 years, I suppose we could

say, one down and one to go. Communism, the evil empire, has

virtually disappeared. But big government at home has become

an arrogant empire, obnoxious and increasingly irrelevant in

a telecommunications age. In every neighborhood in America,

the government in Washington is stepping on the promise of

American Life. The New American Revolution is about lifting

that yoke from the backs of American teachers, farmers,

business men and women, college presidents, and homeless

shelter directors and giving us the freedom to make decisions

for ourselves.

Ronald Reagan put it this way in 1964: ``This is the issue

of the election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self

government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and

confess that a little intellectual elite in a far distant

capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan

ourselves.''

That was also the issue of the election in 1994. It will be

the issue of 1996, and for years to come. It took 30 years of

unfashionable principled leadership by the last Republican

Washington outsider who became President to help collapse the

evil empire. Now is a good time to give another Republican

Washington outsider the opportunity to help put some humility

into the arrogant empire in Washington, D.C.

So we see that the issues of 1964, the issues of 1994, the issues of 2010, and most likely the issues of 2012 and 2016 and beyond have a lot of similarities.

Over that half century, Ronald Reagan was the finest spokesman for that point of view, the finest and the most persuasive.

We Americans say anything is possible. Nothing symbolizes that more than the American Presidency. We see it in President Obama today, we saw it in President Lincoln, we saw it in President Truman, we saw it in President Eisenhower, and we saw it in Ronald Reagan. No President symbolized that more in the last half century than President Reagan did, though. He reminded us of what it means to be an American. He lifted our spirits, he made us proud, he strengthened our character, and he taught us a great many lessons. We celebrate the centennial of his birth and the half century of his influence in public life.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record Ronald Reagan's speech ``A Time for Choosing,'' given on October 27, 1964, which launched him into public debate in the United States.

I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record as well remarks I made in Orange County, CA,

on October 28, 1994, on the 30th anniversary of the speech ``A Time for Choosing.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record remarks I made in tribute to President Reagan in June of 2004.

I yield the floor.