Floor Statements

Mr. President, I will try to keep my remarks to about 5 minutes, although I would first like to thank Senators Levin and McCain for their leadership on this legislation. They truly set the tone, and they have been good role models for the entire Senate on how legislation should be conducted. So I wish to thank both of them. I think many of my colleagues feel the very same way; that we appreciate how they have handled the national defense authorization bill. It has been a massive undertaking and sometimes, as we know, we have a lot of gridlock around here, but because of the way they have handled it, they have been able to get this bill to this point.

I am not going to object to this bill at all. At one point I thought about it because I am so upset--in fact, my staff has even said livid, and I have been livid--about how one item has been handled by the Air Force; that is, as we all know, about 10 months ago the Air Force came out with a proposed force restructure and that included taking an A-10 unit away from the Arkansas National Guard that is based in Fort Smith,

Mr. President, I rise today to address an issue that has arisen between companies within the moving industry. Recently, a group of full-service moving companies has attempted to change rules established by law, regulations, and court findings. These full-service moving companies are aiming to undermine the clear intent of Congress by avoiding the formal rulemaking or legislative process. The changes sought would benefit their companies and damage their competitors within the sector.

In recent years, full-service moving companies have faced new competition from a growing number of companies that allow consumers a ``do it yourself'' alternative to more expensive, traditional movers. Some general freight motor carriers have been offering ``do it yourself'' consumers an option for moving: a non-household goods motor carrier drops off empty containers or trailers at the consumer's doorstep for the consumer to load, the consumer loads the trailer-- individually, with help from neighbors, or by hiring a third party. After loading, the consumer calls the container company or freight carrier to pick up the container or trailer, the container company then arranges for an authorized general freight or flatbed carrier to pick up and haul the loaded container, dropping it off on the requested delivery date for the consumer to unload; and the carrier returns to pick up the empty container or trailer when unloaded. The customer is able to purchase the level of service he or she wants and manage the process themselves from start to finish.

Mr. President, that is precisely the type of service alternative Congress intended to encourage when it included the so-called ``Limited Service Exclusion'' in the ``Household Goods Mover Oversight Enforcement and Reform Act

of 2005,'' enacted as Sec. Sec. 4201-16 of Pub. L. No. 109-59, 119 Stat. 1144 (2005), now known as ``SAFETEA-LU.'' This Limited Service Exclusion, codified at 49 U.S.C. Sec. 13102 (12)(c), expressly states that:

The term [household goods motor carrier] does not include a

motor carrier when the motor carrier provides transportation

of household goods in containers or trailers that are

entirely loaded and unloaded by an individual (other than an

employee or agent of the motor carrier).

I sponsored this provision and worked with others in Congress to incorporate this Limited Service Exclusion into law and want to be clear of the intent of the law. The ``Limited Service Exclusion'' was intended for the non-household goods motor carrier that drops off empty containers or trailers, which are loaded by the consumer or a third party, and then delivered or stored by the container company or freight carrier. The exclusion's intent was to keep portable container supply companies and general freight carriers from the regulations required for household good movers.

The written guidance that has been requested by the full-service moving companies are pushing would ignore the Limited Service Exclusion's intent by blocking portable container supply companies and general freight carriers from relying on this statutory exclusion to work together and with the do it yourself consumer to move the consumer's belongings to his new home. That requested interpretation would reverse decades of legal precedent and rule that if the container supplier or general freight carrier refers the consumer to a third party who provides the labor to load or unload the containers and trailers, and the consumer elects to use those services, this third party automatically becomes the ``agent'' of that container company or trucking company. This attempted change of the statute with its anticompetitive effects is exactly the opposite of what I and my colleagues in the Senate and the House who voted for SAFETEA-LU intended.

The traditional moving companies urge the FMCSA to adopt a definition of ``agent''--as such term is used in the Limited Service Exclusion. This would result in greater costs to consumers and will prevent container and general freight carriers from using the Limited Service Exclusion as Congress intended. The FMCSA already has embedded in its regulations the ideal basis for arriving at a definition of ``agent'' that is consistent with our intent. The FMCSA's own regulation, 49 CFR Sec. 375.103, requires it to apply the ``ordinary practical meaning'' to the term ``agent.'' The ``ordinary practical meaning'' of the term agent is well settled as a matter of black letter law and there is no cause for a federal agency to attempt to further interpret such a well- established term. Simply put, the definition compels a finding that: as long as the container or freight carrier does not control the third party who the consumer engages to load and unload the container or trailer, the carrier does not authorize the third party to act for and on behalf of this carrier, and the third party does not agree to act on behalf of the carrier, then the third party is not the agent of the carrier. Facilitating the consumer to contract with a third party that provides loading and unloading services does not create an agency relationship as we intended that term in the Limited Service Exclusion. Moreover, on a related issue, the Limited Service Exclusion should remain intact even if the carrier receives compensation for facilitating the consumer to contract with packing and loading providers, provided that the carrier does not have an agency relationship with the packing and loading providers.

Along with the growth of general freight motor carriers and container-supply companies catering to the needs of do-it-yourself consumers, we have seen some of these same companies become regulated property brokers and step forward in this capacity to assist these consumers. For a negotiated fee, they offer to arrange with portable container companies and general freight carriers to place the containers and trailers for loading and to have them transported to their destinations when loaded. To counteract this middleman-service, the full-service traditional moving companies are now urging the FMCSA to require do it yourself consumers desiring broker assistance to engage only brokers registered with and regulated by the FMCSA as ``household goods brokers'' to make these arrangements on their behalf and to require them to use only registered, full-service ``household goods motor carriers'' to perform the underlying transportation.

Their principal argument relies upon a false negative inference they want the FMCSA to draw from the absence of a similar ``Limited Service Exclusion'' from the ``household goods broker'' definition for brokers that arrange household goods moves for do-it-yourself consumers. This effort at changing the meaning of the statute further obstructs the intent behind the Household Goods Mover Oversight Enforcement and Reform Act of 2005. We want the consumers to have access to low-cost transportation services as an alternative to the traditional full- service moving companies when motor carriers, lacking specific household goods authority and not providing specialized household goods related services, perform the underlying transportation in reliance upon the Limited Service Exclusion codified at 49 U.S.C. Sec. 13102(12)(c). No broker-specific Limited Service Exclusion is required: if the underlying motor carrier service does not provide packing and loading services, then the motor carrier need not hold household goods authority from the FMCSA. In turn, the broker engaged by the consumer to arrange the transportation (without any packing and loading services) likewise need not hold household goods broker authority and need not use a household goods motor carrier. Accordingly, a motor carrier authorized to haul property (excluding household goods) can perform the move.

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

Mr. President, I understand we are in a period of morning business. I wish to offer a few reflections and reminiscence about our dearly departed Senator Dan Inouye.

Yesterday afternoon I came into the Chamber expecting to vote on a matter or two. I was stunned and devastated to hear the news, as were the rest of my colleagues, that we had lost Senator Inouye. When I think of what a Senator is and should be, I think of Dan Inouye.

When I came to the Senate, 10 years ago now, I would say that there were three undisputed giants in this hall. There may have been more, but there were three undisputed giants I think everybody recognized as giants in the Senate. One would be Ted Stevens, one would be Ted Kennedy, and the other would be Dan Inouye. There is something about those three men, those three Senators, that put them in a class by themselves.

Some of it is the force of their personalities, some of it is their legislative accomplishments, some of it is just their ability to get it done; when the chips are down to have the integrity, to understand the vital role that the Senate plays in our Federal system. I think Dan Inouye had all of those traits and he also had character. Character is something that is hard to describe, it is hard to quantify, hard to define sometimes, but there is no doubt Senator Inouye had character.

Yesterday morning I got off the plane. Like many of us I raced into the office. I noticed I had a big bundle of papers waiting for me to look at. I did not have a chance to look at those, I just grabbed those and plopped them on my desk and I thought I would go deal with those later, and later turned out to be the next morning, which is this morning.

I have been thinking about losing our friend Dan Inouye over the last 12 or 14 hours or so, and I was sitting in my office starting to go through this stack of papers and there at the bottom of the stack I saw a Christmas card that had come from Senator Inouye and his wife. I thought this Christmas card summed up one of the traits that made Senator Inouye so special. It is from Dan and Irene--certainly we offer our prayers and our support for Irene right now--but the photo was taken at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center, ``a performing arts facility, providing music, dance and theatrical performances as well as art exhibitions.'' It is about Hawaiian culture and education and there he is on their Christmas card, promoting Hawaii and never stopping in that quest to make us aware of the special nature of that State and the importance of that State and so many of the qualities of that State.

I look at Senator Inouye's picture on the Christmas card and what I see is that very kind and very generous but also, as our fellow Senators will testify and have testified repeatedly today, that very encouraging face and way of Dan Inouye.

Actually a year or so ago, on my own initiative, I wanted to know a little bit more about him. It is rare to have a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient in your midst, much more rare to work with that person every day. I had the great fortune and extreme pleasure of being on two of Senator Inouye's committees, committees he chaired. He chaired the Commerce Committee for a while and he chaired the Appropriations Committee. I served on both of those with him as chair. In both of those, by the way, I saw the great bipartisan working relationship he had. I want to talk about that again in a moment.

About a year or two ago I thought: I want to know more about Senator Inouye, so I started reading. Of course, you can go to Wikipedia and whatnot, but there are several books available, several resources available where they talk about his life story. Of course, with Senator Akaka and Senator Inouye, they were both born in the Territory of Hawaii, not the State of Hawaii but the Territory of Hawaii. When you start to read about Dan Inouye's young life, you start to think this is an ordinary, average guy. He is going to grow up and be pretty nondescript. Who knows what he is going to do with the rest of his life? But

when he is a youngster he does things such as he parks cars at ball games; he cuts his classmates' hair for money--you know, these little things we all do. He saved his money and bought and trained a flock of homing pigeons. He had a postage stamp collection--all this ordinary American stuff that boys do as they are growing up.

But his life took a dramatic turn on December 7, 1941. He was an eyewitness, like Senator Akaka--and Senator Akaka often tells the story but Dan Inouye was an eyewitness to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He was too young to join the military at that point, but he was not too young to serve. The way he served was he worked as a medic in the aftermath of that. I read a story about him one time and the only comment he said was he saw ``a lot of blood'' in those days when he worked around the clock to help people.

When he finally came of age to be able to serve, which was a few years later, he joined the Nisei 442nd Regimental Combat Team. For a lot of people, a lot of Americans, we may not appreciate exactly what or who the 442nd is, but it turns out it would become the most highly decorated unit in the history of the U.S. Army. Of course, Senator Inouye received the Medal of Honor for his service in that unit.

There is one other distinction it has. Almost all the Members were of Japanese descent. So here is this 17-, 18-year-old young man who had eyewitness accounts of very harsh treatments by Americans of Japanese Americans.

One of the things Senator Inouye did not talk a lot about is that he did some sort of goodwill tour back in the 1940s to Japanese internment camps. He came to the two in Arkansas. My understanding is maybe the members of the 442nd--I am not quite sure how it worked, but they were doing some training or whatever, maybe down in Louisiana. I am not quite sure. But nonetheless they came and they went to the two Japanese internment camps in Arkansas.

He goes on to serve in World War II with tremendous distinction. In fact, there are a few video interviews I would recommend to people that C-SPAN2 ran last night, just unbelievable, some of the stories he told about serving in the war and how it changed his life.

One of the things that I loved about him is how he carried a burden. He carried a burden of those heroic war years with him for the rest of his life. The fact that he had been so effective in war haunted him. It stayed with him, I am sure, until the day he died. I heard him talk about it a few months ago.

He also struggled and suffered with his own type of discrimination because he was a Japanese American. My generation--and certainly people younger than me--take that for granted. We don't discriminate against Japanese Americans. However, during the time of World War II, when a lot of people had never had much experience with Asians and Asian Americans, all they knew was that they had bombed Pearl Harbor, we were at war with them, so they must all be bad.

I remember Senator Inouye told a story--in fact, it was on PBS for the series called ``The War,'' a Ken Burns movie, where he talked about how he lost his arm and had done his rehab and was headed out to the west coast. It is my understanding he was supposed to catch a ship and go back to Hawaii after his long rehabilitation. Well, he decided to stop in and get a haircut at a local barber shop on the west coast. I believe the barber shop was in Oakland, CA. Here was a highly decorated World War II veteran who had literally almost given his life to this country and would live the rest of his life without his right arm. When he walked in the barber shop, the barber told him bluntly: ``We don't cut Jap hair.'' ``We don't cut Jap hair'' is the kind of thing that stays with you. That is the kind of thing that made Senator Inouye so special.

I saw him meet with a young man just a few months ago who had also lost his arm. This young man lost his arm to cancer. He introduced himself to Senator Inouye and said: I have always admired you and respected you because of your disability and what you have done for other people with disabilities. Dan Inouye looked him square in the eye and said: ``I don't consider it a disability.''

There again, we see his character and get a glimpse of what he was all about.

He was also the first Japanese American to be elected to Congress, the first Japanese American to be sworn in, and the first Japanese American to serve in the Senate. In fact, he was sworn into the House the very same day that Hawaii became a State.

There is a story that has circulated in the House for a decade about his swearing in. He came in at kind of a special time because he won a special election. He was in a class of one to be sworn in over there and Sam Rayburn did the normal swear-in thing. He said, without thinking: ``Raise your right hand and repeat after me.'' Of course, Congressman Inouye didn't have a right hand at that point; he left it in Italy while fighting for his country.

He broke several barriers, large and small, throughout his life. One of the things I loved about him was his relationship with Ted Stevens. I still remember that their desks were right across the aisle from one another. I remember them working together on all kinds of legislation. They were brothers. Their love and friendship transcended partisan divide. They were totally for the national interest. I think they set a great example for all of us and how we can work together.

They didn't always agree. If we look at their voting record, they voted opposite each other a lot of times, but they worked together and had an exemplary relationship I think we should all follow.

We had Senator Inouye come to the Senate Prayer Breakfast a few months ago. For those who are watching at home or don't know a whole lot about the Senate, every Wednesday morning we are in session we have a Senate Prayer Breakfast. It is for Senators and former Senators only. When we come together, it is a very special time to share each other's lives and tell stories.

It was a treat to have Dan Inouye. I believe he lived in Rockville, so it was hard for him to get here so he didn't make it that often, but he came when he could. I have been here 10 years, and I have been going to the prayer breakfast almost that long. He is the only speaker I have seen in the Senate Prayer Breakfast who got a standing ovation before he spoke and a standing ovation after he spoke. That is the kind of Senator and man he was. He had this spirit that oozed from him. No matter what situation he was in, other people respected him so much.

This last story I will tell is one of my favorite stories about him. When he won his reelection back in 2010--I didn't see it, but I heard this--at the podium that night while accepting his election for his ninth term, he announces that he is going to run for his tenth term in 2016. That is part of that indomitable spirit that we will all miss so much about Senator Inouye.

With that, I want to thank my colleagues for all the wonderful things they have said about Senator Inouye. I want to lift up his family in prayer. He has a fantastic, wonderful staff, and I know everyone in Hawaii is mourning the loss of this great man.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would like to thank Senator Wicker for bringing attention to the need for the Department of Defense, and all Federal agencies, to include American-made wood products in green building standards and rating systems.

I would also like to express my continued support for Federal Government measures designed to spur the design and construction of high-performance green buildings.

However, I am concerned that discouraging certain wood building products and materials from use in Federal buildings because they do not comply with the LEED standard but are otherwise acceptable for U.S. building projects, may undermine the Federal Government's energy efficiency goals.

Wood products are among the most ``green'' of all building materials.

With the green building market estimated to reach as high as $140 billion by 2013, securing a strong place for wood is essential to the wood products industry's future growth.

Wood is an ideal green building material because it is renewable, stores carbon that reduces greenhouse gases, and is energy efficient.

There are several green building rating systems being used by Federal agencies and the private marketplace now, and the competition among these systems has resulted in improvements in all of the green building standards. Some of these rating systems recognize the benefits of American-made wood products in their scoring system.

It is important that the Department of Defense, General Services Administration and other Federal agencies ensure that multiple green building standards be considered for the design and construction of Federal buildings.

I believe the best approach is to permit the marketplace to decide which rating system is best suited for each project and Congress should encourage all of the rating systems to compete for government contracts.

Madam President, I want to thank Chairman Levin and Ranking Member McCain for the work they have done on the National Defense Authorization and for working with me on this amendment.

This bipartisan amendment, the Helping Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Return to Employment, HIRE, at Home Act, introduced by myself and Senator Johanns encourages states to consider the training servicemembers receive during active duty when determining eligibility for State licenses and certifications.

This amendment will encourage States to consider the specialized military training and experience servicemembers acquire on active duty as filling all or some of the State certification and licensing requirements. Specifically, the amendment will apply to individuals seeking employment as commercial truck drivers, certified nursing assistants or emergency medical technicians.

By eliminating the expensive and time consuming hurdles servicemembers often face, this amendment will help ensure our returning veterans come home to new job opportunities and help lower the high unemployment rate among our young veterans.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Energy Committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 4850, and the Senate proceed to its consideration.

I ask unanimous consent a Bingaman amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to, that a Shaheen-Portman amendment which is at the desk be agreed to, the bill as amended be read a third time and passed, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to consideration of Calendar No. 497, H.R. 915.

I ask unanimous consent the committee-reported substitute amendment be agreed to and the bill as amended be read a third time.

I know of no further debate on the bill.

I ask unanimous consent the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate and any related statements be printed in the Record as if read.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 6215, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

I know of no further debate on this measure.

I ask unanimous consent the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate and any statements related to the bill be printed in the Record.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 2706, which was received from the House.

I know of no further debate on this measure and urge its passage.

I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 526, S. Res. 466.

I further ask that the Durbin amendment which is at the desk be agreed to, the committee-reported substitute amendment, as amended, be agreed to, and the Senate immediately proceed to a voice vote on adoption of the resolution, as amended.

I further ask the committee-reported amendment to the preamble be agreed to; the preamble, as amended, be agreed to; the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, and any statements be printed in the Record.

I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 3556, which is at the desk.

I further ask the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 445, H.R. 1791.

I further ask the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements be printed in the Record.