Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise today to express my strong concerns over efforts to expand service at Washington-Reagan National Airport-- National. I would first like to remind my colleagues that this Congress passed legislation in 1986 to create the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority so that a professional group of aviation experts would manage both National and Dulles airports. The Airports Authority has done its job well: Dulles has blossomed as an international gateway to the region and National remains an efficiently run airport.

I recognize the value of National Airport and the critical role it plays in serving our Nation's Capital. It is a key component of the transportation system in this region and it provides excellent access to the rest of the country for my colleagues.

At the same time, the citizens of my State are the ones who are most directly affected by National's operations, and we must take a balanced approach in considering any changes at the airport. My constituents are the ones who have to deal with the consequences of any decision-- additional aircraft noise, growing traffic congestion, and airport emissions that will affect them on a daily basis.

I appreciate that some of my colleagues want direct service from National to destinations in their State, but we must be even-handed in moving forward on this issue. We must avoid making wholesale changes that would have an impact on the important economic balance between National, Dulles and BWI. The airport authorities

that manage these airports, and the airlines that fly to them, have made long-term investment decisions based on the current rules. Dramatic changes to the rules would have a negative financial and economic impact on those airports and the communities that depend on them for economic growth.

In addition, any new capacity must be allowed through a fair process that does not favor any one airline or class of airlines. The limited new capacity needs to be allocated in an open and transparent process that benefits the most potential passengers, promotes competition and does not tip the scales for any airline or class of airlines.

I believe strongly that the rules currently in place at National Airport serve my state and our region well. I also recognize and respect the interests of the sponsors of the Ensign amendment and will work with Chairman Rockefeller and Ranking Member Hutchison to try to address them in conference.

Mr. President, first of all, I want to agree with my colleagues, the ranking member, the Senator from Texas, the Senator from North Dakota, and the Senator from Arizona, on the very good work that has been done on this FAA reauthorization bill and the importance of this bill, not only in terms of at least starting us down the path of NextGen and starting to recognize the safety issues that are addressed.

As a member of the committee, I wish to compliment the bipartisan approach that has been taken on this important piece of legislation. I, like my colleagues and I think most Americans, want to see us move forward on this important piece of legislation.

I also appreciate the ranking member's comments about the long and challenging journey this has been, about the slots and the perimeter rule battles between National and Dulles. I appreciate her comments in terms of my role as a Virginia Senator to make sure the unique nature of National and Dulles is protected. She made the comment that Senator Warner has been a fighter for this. In this case, I am simply filling the shoes of my esteemed predecessor, Senator John Warner, who I know for 20 years probably has had this battle, and my colleagues have gone through some of the twists and turns.

I want to make two or three comments and not take long today because I will have more to say on Monday.

One is that while National and Dulles serve our Nation's Capital, they also are the local airports for people in Virginia, DC, and Maryland, and there have been a number of issues of a unique nature with National Airport in terms of sound concerns and in terms of traffic concerns and safety concerns regarding the inability to extend any runway. I would also say with regard to Dulles that those of us who have lived in this area for decades have seen Dulles grow from being somewhat of either a foresight or a white elephant, depending on your perspective, over the last 30 years to being an international hub and an airport that has enormous potential and opportunity and has, candidly, benefited from the maintenance of the perimeter rule--an airport this government has invested in heavily.

I also have to recognize that technology has changed in terms of the nature of jets in and out of National. Technology improvements have allowed for much quieter aircraft coming in and out of National, which has mitigated some of the concerns of the neighbors around the airport. We have also seen Dulles make enormous strides not only as a long-haul airport but as a gateway airport, in many ways, for international flights.

Senator Dorgan made mention of the fact that the House has already acted in terms of changing the status quo. So the status quo, at least from the House perspective, is going to change.

What I look forward to, hopefully, after our colloquy and conversation, is a debate on Monday. I appreciate the fact that my colleagues will offer their amendment, and if we get to a vote, we will get to a vote. If we can resolve this through a conversation, I hope we can resolve it through a conversation. But I will have that opportunity to lay out some of the challenges that these airports serve to the traveling public, and particularly to my constituents, but also recognizing that the status quo of the last 20-odd years is going to change and we want to work in a way so that change can be dealt with in a way that accommodates the needs of the local community; that maintains National's incredibly important role; that doesn't cannibalize the great progress that has been made at Dulles; and that also recognizes the traveling needs of those Americans who live outside the perimeter, in a way that strikes that appropriate balance.

I appreciate the support I have received from Chairman Rockefeller and Chairman Dorgan and a number of my colleagues. I also particularly appreciate as well the good-faith efforts Senator Hutchison and Senator Kyl have made in not only raising this discussion but raising it in a way that we can perhaps resolve it so that those folks who will be on the conference committee can represent a view of the Senate that reaches that kind of accommodation, and most importantly that we can go ahead and pass this very important piece of FAA reauthorization legislation Monday afternoon.

So I look forward to that conversation, I look forward to that debate, and my hope is that we can get to a final vote on passage of the bill on Monday and the good work that so many of our colleagues have done can actually be put into action.

With that, I yield the floor, Mr. President.

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

Madam President, there are many reasons why the Senate is known as one of the world's greatest deliberative bodies. This Chamber has seen some of the most important debates and votes since the beginning of our Republic. As a freshman Senator--I know my colleague, the Presiding Officer, is also a freshman Senator and soon we will be joined by a series of freshman Senators and my good friend, the Senator from Illinois, is here as well--I think we have all been struck by how much history has been made in this very Chamber.

I am reminded, as we saw last evening some of the exchanges between the majority leader and the Republican leader, there is still an awful lot that I at least feel, as a newcomer, I have to learn. But one thing has become clear to me since being sworn in a little over a year ago. Some of the very safeguards that were created to make this a serious and responsible deliberative body have been abused in a way that damages this institution. In some instances, this abuse also runs contrary to our national interest.

This became very clear to me several weeks ago during the nomination and voting on Justice Barbara Keenan. Senator Jim Webb, my colleague, and I had the honor of nominating Virginia Supreme Court Justice Barbara Milano Keenan to the Federal Appeals Court for the Fourth Circuit. She is one of the most highly regarded jurists in Virginia. She received a unanimously ``well qualified'' rating from the ABA. She was reported by the Judiciary Committee unanimously last October, and then her nomination ground to a halt, first for weeks and then for months. In fact, her nomination was filibustered, if you can call it that. I recall in school thinking the filibuster

was something that was only going to be used on rare occasions of issues of national concern to make sure minority rights were protected.

Justice Keenan was filibustered, in effect, because one Senator placed a hold on her. Consequently, cloture had to be filed. That was despite the strong endorsement Justice Keenan had received from our new Republican Governor, Governor McDonnell. I appreciate his support of Justice Keenan.

A funny thing happened when we forced the vote both on cloture and the nomination: She was confirmed unanimously. Filibustering a nominee who gets a unanimous vote, something is not right with that. That is not the way this body is supposed to work.

This experience was truly an eye-opener for me. I see dozens of executive branch nominees caught up in this web. My understanding is, right now, in the second week of March, literally the Obama administration has 64 nominees pending. These are nominees where, despite overwhelming committee votes, they have languished on the calendar for months, often because one Senator has a completely different gripe about a completely unrelated issue.

The Presiding Officer knows, she and I were both Governors, we were both CEOs. I think it is incredibly important, whether you are a Governor, whether you are a CEO of a private company, and particularly if you are the President of this great country, you ought to be able to have your management team in place, clearly, 14 months after the inauguration of President Obama.

I certainly do not believe the Senate should be a rubberstamp for nominees. Far from it. In cases where there is legitimate disagreement about qualifications of any particular nominee, I am all for having a debate and then a straight up-or-down vote. But that has not been the case. It has not been the case with Justice Keenan, and I am going to cite one other individual today, and I know my other colleagues are going to be citing others.

The individual I wish to talk about is Michael Mundaca. He has been nominated by President Obama to be Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Tax Policy--a very important job in crafting tax and revenue policies. He is both highly qualified and well respected, having worked previously at high levels of the Treasury Department and in the international tax department of Ernst and Young. He has a law degree from UC Berkeley School of Law and was executive editor of the California Law Review.

As I understand it, Mr. Mundaca's nomination was approved overwhelmingly, 19 to 4, in the Senate Finance Committee before Christmas. Since then, he has been denied a vote in this body, not over any substantive concerns. If there is a concern about Mr. Mundaca's qualifications, a Senator ought to come and make that case, and we ought to have a debate. No, that is not the reason. It is because one Senator or group of Senators has decided to try to leverage this nomination to some other end. To me, that is simply not fair.

This morning--I see my colleagues starting to arrive--many Senators who are relatively new to the body will take to the floor. We are the new guys and gals, the freshmen and the sophomores. Maybe we do not understand all the rules and traditions. We basically spent our first year trying to learn those rules and traditions.

But one of the issues that has united us in all coming here this morning is because the nomination process is broken, and we are asking all our colleagues--Republicans and Democrats--to come together, not as partisans but as Americans.

In the last four Presidential terms, there have been two Democrats and two Republicans holding the White House. I am confident we would be here regardless of who occupies the White House because a President deserves his or her management team to be in place 14 months after inauguration. If there are problems with their nominees, they ought to be debated and brought to the floor and discussed, not simply left in limbo. We need to start doing our job and start voting up or down on these nominees who are languishing on the Senate calendar.

I see my colleague who is much more experienced than this freshman, my good friend, the Senator from Rhode Island. I now yield 4 minutes to my friend, Senator Whitehouse.

Madam President, I appreciate the comments of Senator Whitehouse and his pointing out one more example of a qualified nominee who needs to be voted on up or down.

I now call upon my friend and colleague from Illinois, Senator Burris.

I thank my colleague from Colorado.

I thank my colleague from Colorado. I ask unanimous consent that 7 minutes of morning business be added to each side and at the end of that time, the Senate stand in recess as provided for under the previous order. I thank my colleagues on the other side for their courtesy.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Scott Glick, a member of Senator Warner's staff, be granted the privilege of the floor during the pendency of morning business.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about a bipartisan, commonsense amendment that Members of this body endorsed yesterday by unanimous consent. I wish to thank Chairman Baucus for his work and the work of his staff in managing this important job creation package on which we took a step yesterday. I wish to thank Senator Crapo for cosponsoring this bipartisan amendment and Senator Coburn for his ideas and support.

My amendment is simple. It amends the Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009--what I think most folks refer to commonly as the stimulus--to correct gaps in oversight and transparency. It provides much needed additional accountability for these public investments, again, that have come about through the stimulus package.

I voted for the stimulus package. It was one of the first and toughest votes I cast as a Member of this body. I have worked hard to make sure my State, the Commonwealth of Virginia, has had opportunities to compete for its fair share of this funding.

The Recovery Act was not perfect, and reasonable people can debate whether it was necessary or whether it was ambitious enough. But I do think it is fair to say that the majority of the economists of all political stripes across most of the ideological spectrum now agree a year later that while imperfect, the stimulus package prevented our battered economy from sliding over a cliff last spring into what I think could have been a full-scale economic depression.

Almost a year ago, I remember coming to this floor for one of my first presentations, and I stood on the Senate floor and spoke of my concerns about the potential challenges of implementing a piece of legislation as big as the Recovery Act.

At that time, I said we needed to come up with a common set of definitions, performance metrics, that would allow us to honestly measure our progress as these stimulus dollars were pumped into our economy. I know that metrics, performance indicators, and other things--many Members' eyes start to glaze over when you go into these kinds of discussions, but if we are going to be truly responsible to the people of this country, it is our job to make sure we put in place, particularly when we start new programs, those kinds of performance metrics.

As the Chair knows, prior to being Senator, I had the opportunity to be Governor. The hallmark of my administration was, that which gets measured gets done. My sense was that as we started down the ambitious path around the Recovery Act, we needed to have those same kinds of metrics in place.

I suggested a year ago requiring specific timelines and checkpoints so we could better track the outcome of programs funded by stimulus dollars. I discussed at that time steps we could take to hold Recovery Act recipients more accountable. I actually recommended delaying or deferring stimulus payments if progress was not adequately demonstrated or appropriately reported. Here we are a year later, and while I do believe the macro level of a lot of the stimulus activities has accomplished its goals, it appears that requirements for program reporting and disclosure of spending plans have gone missing or just have not been reported and that the notion of putting in place, in effect, a business plan for some of the new programs of this legislation has never fully been vetted. In the amendment this body adopted yesterday--this bipartisan amendment--we have successfully included fixes to make sure that on a going-forward basis, we will not have this problem.

When we passed the Recovery Act 1 year ago, we required recipients to report quarterly, we required agencies to post reports, and we established an oversight board to tackle issues of waste, fraud, and abuse--the Recovery Accountability Board. We required the Congressional Budget Office, various inspectors general, and the Government Accountability Office to provide oversight. One would think, with all this reporting and oversight, that we would have it totally covered, that we would have thought through all of the ramifications. Unfortunately, a year later we have found that is not the case.

Not that anyone here needs a recap, but I think it is fair to once again explain--and I do not think particularly those of us who are supporting the Recovery Act and the administration ever did a very good job of actually explaining to the American people what was in the Recovery Act. It is not a long recap, but I do think it is important for viewers and my colleagues to recall what it was.

Literally more than one-third of the stimulus act was tax cuts, $288 billion of tax cuts. I believe it was, in effect, the third largest tax cut in American history. As I travel Virginia--and the Presiding Officer, I know, travels the great State of Illinois--I very rarely find a constituent who realizes the stimulus had a huge amount of tax cuts. We have only paid out less than half of those dollars, but a third of the stimulus was tax cuts.

A second third was direct assistance to State and local governments.

I can tell you, in the Commonwealth of Virginia, I sometimes run into the legislators there, some folks from the other side, who oftentimes will say to me: Senator, we are going to keep kicking you in the tail about the stimulus, but keep sending those checks because otherwise we would be right down the tubes at the State level.

Oftentimes, these dollars have gone to prevent what would have been otherwise catastrophic layoffs in our schools, in our highway departments, providing health care. Many State governments that are working on biennial budgets are finding, in the second year of the budget when the stimulus dollars run out, the enormous budget shortfalls they are going to face.

Again, for many of our constituents, because these dollars did not necessarily create new jobs but prevented massive additional layoffs, I am not sure we conveyed that to folks adequately.

The third part of the stimulus package and the category I am primarily concerned with today and the focus of my amendment included significant new investments in our Nation's economic infrastructure. These are areas this body and policymakers have talked about for years, but we never really put our moneys where our mouth was until the stimulus. These areas include such policy goals as smart grid; investing in high-speed rail; making sure we have the power of information technology to transform our health care industry to make it more productive and cost-effective, so we have significant dollars in health care IT; and an area I am particularly interested in: deployment of broadband across our rural communities.

As you can see in this third category, as of mid-February we have only paid out about $80 billion of a total of $275 billion. And it has now become clear that many of the programs in this third category are what I would term ``high risk.'' That means they include Federal programs that sought enormous increases in funding and new responsibilities. Some of these programs barely existed a year and a half ago. They had relatively modest priorities before. But now with broadband, we have seen a 100-fold increase, and dramatic increases in health care IT. These programs have had a year to gear up, but we have to make sure they actually have business plans that can be vetted. In some cases, these stimulus funds were actually designated for brand-new priorities and new programs. Now many of these programs are just now a year later getting their stimulus funds out the door.

Here is the challenge my amendment will address: We simply do not know a year in and with $80 billion being spent out very much about how these high-risk programs are actually doing in terms of delivering broadband, health care IT, and smart grid.

For example--let me turn to the next chart--on the Web site recovery.gov, you learn that the Energy Department has paid out about $2.5 billion in stimulus money so far. Close to another $24 billion remains to be spent out.

If we look even further, we find that the Energy Department complied with OMB requirements last year to come up with an implementation plan for its Weatherization Assistance Program. The Energy Department plan set a clear and reasonable goal. It said it would use stimulus dollars to weatherize 50,000 homes across the country in 2009. Weatherization programs are geared to low-income homes. They help

the homeowners. They decrease energy costs and decrease our commitment on foreign oil. There is a lot of good in this program. But a report from the Energy Department just 3 weeks ago showed that these funds actually paid to weatherize only 30,000 or so homes in 2009. That means the programs missed the goal by 20,000 homes. That is a score of 60 percent. When I was in school, 60 percent was not a passing grade.

We should be concerned that almost every dollar of the $5 billion program for weatherization has already been awarded. We have to make sure we are getting the results we were promised. How can we have confidence these grants already in the pipeline for this year are going to be properly managed? We must have more transparency and accountability from the Energy Department about how they are managing this program and overseeing the spending of these funds.

There are the same kinds of challenges around the smart grid program. I am not just picking on the Department of Energy. If we look at the other areas--health care IT and rail--we find similar challenges.

There is no information, beyond once these funds are distributed, how this fund distribution fits into the overall management of these new programs. That information should be easily accessible and available to taxpayers, and it should be reported on a regular basis to those of us in Congress who have this oversight responsibility. If these agencies are not meeting their milestones or deadlines and if stimulus programs are not producing measurable results, we need to know about them. If there are problems of potential barriers to distributing these stimulus funds, we in the Congress and the administration could do more to support reasonable solutions. We should be able to work together to fix the management barriers that have slowed down this work.

It is not too late. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the government spent only about 18 percent of the stimulus funds in fiscal year 2009. By the end of this fiscal year--that means October of this year, 2010--that number grows to about 54 percent. But that still means over half of the dollars will be spent out after October of this year. That means much of the stimulus funding remains in the pipeline, and that means we have an opportunity now to correct any management and transparency gaps.

Our amendment this body adopted will do that in three important ways:

First, it requires agencies to update and refine their implementation plans they developed last year for these high-risk programs. We define ``high risk'' as any program that received more than $2 billion or any program that saw a funding increase of 150 percent or more from the previous year's funding. These are the programs that went from quite small to ramping up to huge amounts. It also includes brand-new programs. Under our amendment, these programs will be required to update their stimulus implementation and oversight plans by July 1. As a former business guy, what that means in legislative speak is they have to show us their business plan in a way that is intelligible and understandable to the taxpayers and to Congress by July 1.

Second, our amendment would require these high-risk programs to report their outcomes to Congress and taxpayers every quarter beginning September 30. We cannot wait for a year to go by to see if these programs that are spending billions of dollars are actually achieving their goals. These reports must include relevant information on spending and outcomes that clearly measures whether these programs are working and meeting the goals defined basically in the business plans they would have submitted by July 1.

Finally, our amendment adds an enforcement mechanism to make sure that Federal agencies, Members of Congress, and the public have access to the information they deserve to evaluate whether these stimulus investments are actually working. One of the things we found is that close to 1,000 recipients of stimulus funding in this last quarter never even filed the required reports so that we know and the taxpayers know how these dollars are being spent.

The amendment will impose civil and financial penalties on stimulus grant recipients who deliberately or consistently fail to comply with quarterly reporting requirements. The amendment provides sufficient discretion for the Attorney General and the courts to set these penalties and to make sure there is consideration of whether the recipient is a nonprofit organization or State and local government or a small business. Again, we are not trying to unduly penalize, but we want to put some teeth in the fact that these organizations that are recipients of Federal funds document what they are doing with those funds. This is basic accountability.

Once again, I applaud my colleagues for stepping up in a responsible and bipartisan way to correct obvious gaps in management, accountability, and transparency of the Recovery Act programs. With so much of the stimulus funding still in the pipeline, this amendment will allow us to dramatically improve the way we measure and report outcomes and demonstrate accurate, verifiable results for the taxpayers.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2010, at 9:30 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2010, at 9:30 a.m., to hold a hearing entitled ``Building on Success: New Directions in Global Health.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2010, at 2 p.m. in the President's Room.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2010, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``The Lessons and Implications of the Christmas Day Attack: Watchlisting and Pre-Screening.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2010, at 10 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``We the People? Corporate Spending in American Elections after Citizens United.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2010, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Nominations.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2010, at 3 p.m. to hold an International Operations and Organizations, Democracy and Human Rights subcommittee hearing entitled ``The Future of U.S. Public Diplomacy.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2010, at 10 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Personnel of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2010 at 10:30 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the subcommittee on Public lands and Forests be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2010, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD- 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the subcommittee on Science and Space of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2010, at 2:30 p.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2010, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for up to 6 minutes.

Mr. President, I rise today, and while I am speaking as in morning business, it is actually speaking in support of the legislation the chairman of the Finance Committee talked about, just taking it in a slightly different direction.

We spend a lot of time talking in this body about the necessity for us to focus on jobs and how Americans feel about that search for jobs. We read about unemployment numbers at 9.7 percent. While we say, with some relief, the numbers did not pop up during February, those numbers are still way too high.

I had a personal experience--I was not planning on speaking on the Senate floor, but I wanted to share with my colleagues and others an event that happened--actually is still happening--about 45 minutes south of this Chamber.

My office had decided to sponsor a jobs fair, where we would bring together more than 30 Federal agencies. We located this jobs fair down 45 minutes, as I mentioned, south of here at the University of Mary Washington at their Stafford campus.

For those who do not follow all of the ins and outs of Northern Virginia, we are blessed in Northern Virginia and Virginia overall with actually a rather low unemployment rate. Statewide our unemployment is about 7 percent, and in Northern Virginia our numbers are even much lower.

As I mentioned, we put together this jobs fair, not unlike what the Chair has done or other Senators have done. We were well represented with over 30 Federal agencies--from TSA to the Peace Corps to the Fish and Wildlife Service. We put out the word, not knowing exactly what kind of response we would get. This is the first jobs fair I have hosted as a U.S. Senator.

At first we were a little worried. Last week, last Wednesday we only had about 75 RSVPs for this jobs fair on a

college campus south of Washington. But by that Friday night we had almost 3,000 folks signed up. By yesterday afternoon, we realized, oh, my gosh, our numbers were topping out about 5,000, and we were warning people that perhaps all of the accommodations we put in place were not ready to handle this many folks. We extended the hours of the jobs fair from noon to 12 to actually 4 o'clock today.

When my staff started showing up this morning about 6:30 or 7, there were 500 people waiting in cars, many of whom had been sleeping there for hours. By 9 o'clock, when the jobs fair was supposed to start, 3,000 people were in line. I showed up there about 9:30, and, regrettably, before noon, we had topped out over 5,000, probably closer to 7,000 folks clogging the roads trying to come to this jobs fair in Stafford County, VA.

Unfortunately, we had to cut it off at that point and put out the word that we would try to have another jobs fair with these Federal agencies and some private sector partners within the next few weeks. The response was overwhelming.

As I mentioned earlier, I spent an hour simply going up and down the line of folks who were waiting. Many of these folks were people who had graduate degrees; almost all of them had college degrees. They looked like any of the kind of workforce we would see crossing any parts of our Nation's Capital today.

I heard story after story of folks who had never ever expected to show up at a Federal jobs fair, folks who had never ever expected to see their lives turned topsy-turvy by unemployment, or by folks who were still unable to change jobs because of their constraints on health care.

None of these folks were looking for a handout. They were just looking for that opportunity to talk with some of the 35-plus representatives from Federal agencies about the possibilities of getting a job. All they wanted to do was try to do a better job for themselves and their families.

So as we return to the debate on the so-called tax extenders bill, and when we work, as I know I have with the Presiding Officer, on efforts to kind of free up credit for small business owners or when we talk about how we can provide other kinds of incentives with the private sector to jumpstart the economy, while it was great to provide the possibility of these jobs in the public sector, the vast majority of jobs will and should be created in the private sector.

As we think about this piece of legislation right now, to make sure our Tax Code is supportive enough of those private sector efforts, I saw the reason for those efforts this morning in the thousands in one of the most prosperous parts of our country, in Northern Virginia.

I came back more charged up than ever that what we do here is terribly important and that the folks there in that line didn't understand rules about filibusters or holds or all the other procedural back and forth that sometimes seems to dominate the floor. What they did want us to do was to put that aside, put our partisanship aside and get the job done of trying to create more and more jobs all across the country. It is my hope in the coming weeks, when we have the next jobs fair, we will have the same kind of response. I look forward to the day, hopefully in the not too distant future, when we have a jobs fair, whether it be in Virginia or in Minnesota, that we get a few folks but that we don't get overwhelmed with the kind of literally unprecedented number of the 7,000 folks we saw today.

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

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

Mr. President, I rise to talk about an amendment I hope ultimately will be given a chance for consideration on this very important legislation we are working on right now. I commend the chair of the Finance Committee for his good work on trying to focus this next round of job-creation activities that will be created, I believe, as we move forward on extending some of the tax provisions that expired last year. Some of these tax provisions were part of our stimulus bill that, about a year ago, we passed to help jump-start job activities; a stimulus bill I sometimes think the American public--perhaps we never explained. In fact, close to one-third of that bill was tax cuts, another third was direct assistance to States and localities, and the final third was a series of new initiatives, many of which are just now starting to come to pass.

I can recall, about a year ago, I came to the Senate floor as we were debating the stimulus, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, to talk about fiscal accountability; to talk about our long-term outlook; and to make some recommendations on how we might better track the performance and outcome of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, what most folks commonly refer to as the stimulus.

Here we are 1 year later and unfortunately it appears critical Recovery Act reports and plans have gone missing or have been long ignored or were never fully developed in the first place. As we debate this important piece of legislation that extends a number of the tax provisions, I think we ought to take this moment as well to correct some of the deficiencies in reporting on the fiscal responsibility I think all of us on both sides of the aisle would like to see in the overall Recovery Act activities. We have this chance, at this point, to correct course and to ensure we can account for every dollar. Now it is time to correct management and transparency gaps that still exist.

Today, I would like simply to very briefly go through a couple things my amendment would do. Hopefully, the chair of the Finance Committee and folks on the other side will agree to have these amendments incorporated. My amendment will, in three very important ways, correct the management and transparency gaps that still exist in the Recovery Act. First, it will require agencies to update the implementation plans they have developed last year for high-risk programs.

High risk has this connotation that somehow it is a bad area or bad idea. No, the high-risk areas I am defining are those programs that are over $2 billion that saw a funding increase of over 150 percent more than their fiscal year 2008 funding or are brandnew programs. These programs will be required to update their plan by July 1, 2010.

Let me take a moment and describe what kind of programs I am talking about. As I mentioned a few moments ago, the stimulus broke into tax cuts, assistance to the States, and then, finally, an agreement that we ought to take up a series of areas that have for years been talked about in this country but, candidly, we have never done much about-- broadband technology, high-speed rail, smart grid, health care information technology. These are all areas that, again, had broad support on both sides of the aisle, that we talked about, and only in the case of the stimulus were there actually funds put behind these initiatives. The challenge was, a year ago many of these areas had very little funding or had no programmatic prior experience so the administration appropriately took some time to gear up these programs. We are just starting to see some of the disbursement on high-speed rail and disbursement on the President's Race to the Top education grants. But for these new programmatic areas, we need to make sure there is a plan in place, that there are metrics in place, and that we know how these dollars are being spent out. So the first part of my amendment will require these programs in high-risk areas to update their plans by July 1 of this year.

Second, my amendment will require these high-risk programs to report back to Congress and the public quarterly, beginning September 30, 2010.

These reports must include performance and financial data to let us know whether these programs are working and meeting the goals they defined in their initial business plan that they would lay out to us in July of this year.

I think this is terribly important. These are areas that, because they are new--I think they have enormous popular support, but because they are new, we need to make sure that at the front end of these program implementations, we have that business plan in place, we have the metrics, and we have a reporting mechanism.

The second part of my amendment is an area that we have been working with the inspector general around the Recovery Act, Mr. Devaney, and others. I think many of us in this Chamber would be disturbed to find out that the recent quarterly report showed that over 1,000 recipients of stimulus funding--1,000 agencies, departments, grantees--had failed to report back the legally required data on how these dollars have been distributed, what kind of tracking is in place. Consequently, when we hear critiques, particularly from the other side, about the stimulus, about the job creation and efficiency, well, an appropriate rebuttal requires facts being in place. Over 1,000 of the recipients that have received stimulus funds have basically ignored the law and failed to report back. So my amendment proposes financial penalties of up to $250,000 for recipients of the stimulus funds who knowingly fail to comply with the existing quarterly reporting requirements. We have to ensure that our agencies, Congress, and the public are getting the information they need to know if these important investments are working.

The amendment requires agencies to notify recipients if they miss a deadline. They will provide an opportunity for the recipient to report and offer technical assistance if they need that assistance to get back on track. But if recipients knowingly do not file the required reports or if they ignore these agency requests for this information, agencies may impose a penalty to hold these recipients accountable. The amendment provides sufficient discretion for agencies to set penalties, such as consideration of whether the recipient is a nonprofit, government, or small business entity. We don't want to add on a new burden, but we simply want those who are receiving financial assistance from the stimulus fund to actually fulfill their obligation and make sure they report back to us and the public on how those dollars are being spent.

I repeat, it is not too late to correct the gaps in program management and transparency in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. So much of the Recovery Act funding is still in the pipeline. As a matter of fact, at the end of last fiscal year, last October, only 18 percent of our recovery dollars had been spent out. Even at the end of this fiscal year, at the end of September 2010, only about 54 percent of the dollars will be spent out. We still have literally hundreds of billions of dollars to be spent out from this program.

We have to make sure--we owe it to ourselves, we owe it to the public--that we have in place both the appropriate metrics on these high-risk programs and that those other organizations that are receiving dollars do what is their legal requirement to report back on this terribly important data.

I hope we can get this amendment adopted. I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to bring this added transparency and this added management oversight to this very important activity.

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

Madam President, I rise today to commend the efforts of Virginia Task Forces One and Two on their recent deployment to Haiti. Their combined efforts in the immediate aftermath of the devastating earthquake resulted in the successful rescue of 19 men, women, and children.

These teams are made up of over 150 firefighters, physicians, and structural engineers from Fairfax and Virginia Beach, VA.

Both teams were manned and ready within 24 hours of the call for help. That included preparing and staging over 100 tons of cargo and gear for airlift to Haiti.

One of the rescues involved Jens Christensen, a United Nations worker from Denmark who was trapped in the United Nations compound. The teams worked for over 8 hours to free him, and kept him alive by inserting a feeding tube through the rubble to provide him water during the rescue.

Acting on a tip from local residents, the team also rescued two children, ``Kiki and Sabrina,'' almost a full week after the earthquake. These two Haitian girls were still alive in a building no one had previously searched.

Another woman was rescued from the rubble of a collapsed market, and the team was able to provide paramedics and physicians to treat her on site and stabilize the woman for transport to a local hospital.

These teams leveraged their countless hours of training to hit the ground running at full speed. They have extensive international and domestic disaster response experience, and are recognized throughout the United States and the world as leaders in readiness, response and recovery techniques.

This is an important capability--and just yesterday I understand the teams were put on ready alert to potentially deploy again, this time to Chile to help with search and rescue efforts.

Please join me in commending the heroic and humanitarian efforts of Virginia Task Force One and Virginia Task Force Two.

I offer sincere thanks to all the team members, support personnel, and the families of these brave men and women.

Mr. President, in the summer of 2009, Senator Webb and I had the honor of interviewing several potential candidates to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. We were enormously impressed by the quality of all the candidates being considered. But one candidate rose to the top of the list for her extensive experience, judicial temperament, and commitment to the law. This candidate was Justice Barbara Keenan.

President Obama nominated Justice Keenan on September 14, 2009. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the nomination where members of the committee were given the opportunity to engage Justice Keenan in a question-and-answer session. On October 29, 2009, the members of the committee reported the nomination by unanimous consent.

Justice Keenan's nomination has been on the Senate Calendar for 4 months now. I believe it is time for this Chamber to consider the nomination and give Justice Keenan an up-or-down vote.

Justice Keenan has strong academic credentials. She graduated from Cornell University in 1971 and received her law degree from the George Washington University Law School in 1974. She also earned a master of laws degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1992.

Justice Keenan has served with distinction at every level of State court in Virginia. She has served as a justice on the Virginia Supreme Court since 1991. She also served on the Fairfax County General District Court, the Circuit Court of Fairfax County, and the Court of Appeals of Virginia. Earlier in her career, Justice Keenan worked as an assistant prosecutor in Fairfax and briefly worked as an attorney in private practice.

The Virginia State Bar Judicial Nominations Committee ranked Justice Keenan as ``highly qualified.'' She was one of the few candidates to receive a unanimous vote.

The committee noted in the summary of her evaluation that ``. . . it would be a shame to lose Justice Keenan's skills on the Supreme Court of Virginia, but Senators Webb and Warner could do no better than her appointment to the Fourth Circuit . . .'' The committee also found that Justice Keenan has exhibited excellent judicial temperament, has the highest integrity, and concluded that she has superior intellect and legal skills for the position.

In addition to the Virginia State Bar, Justice Keenan was considered ``highly recommended'' or ``highly qualified'' by the Virginia Women Attorney's Association, the Old Dominion Bar Association, the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association, and the Asian Pacific American Bar Association.

I must also mention that Justice Keenan is the first woman appointed to the bench in Virginia and one of the initial 10 appointees to the Virginia Court of Appeals following its creation in 1985.

Six weeks ago Justice Keenan was the first woman to administer the oath of office to a Virginia Governor, Gov. Bob McDonnell.

In May, Virginia Lawyers Weekly named Justice Keenan as the ``influential woman of the year'' for ``a litany of first and years of service.''

I look forward to casting my vote in support of Justice Barbara Keenan's nomination and encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do the same.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I thank my colleague, the Senator from Delaware, for his comments and for his leadership on this issue. I also thank all of the freshmen. This is, I think, the seventh time the freshmen have come to the floor on this very important issue. Our colleagues have had to now endure 65 speeches from the freshmen on the subject of health care.

Before I get into my remarks, I want to personally thank Senator Baucus, Senator Dodd, the majority leader, and their staffs, for working with the 11 freshmen Members who have come together today to unveil a package of health care amendments focused on the issue of cost containment.

We have been working on this now for close to 3 months.

Let me say at the outset, I am proud of the enormous broad-based support we are receiving for this package of amendments. The Business Roundtable has endorsed the amendments. Companies such as Walmart, Intel, Target and Quad/Graphics endorse this package. Groups such as the AARP and the AFL, and important think tanks such as the New America Foundation have endorsed this package. We also have support from Mark McClellan, who was the head of CMS under President Bush. While the merged bill starts to move us in the right direction in addressing health care spending in this country, this package strengthens that movement. Our package further moves us away from a current system that makes no financial sense--one that rewards volume over quality and one that reimburses hospitals for higher, rather than lower, readmission rates.

We are taking the payment reform aspects of the health care bill-- sections that increase accountability, and focus on data mining and administrative simplification--and accelerating them. We are giving the Secretary, as we move forward, the ability to take pilot programs and broaden their approach and appeal. And if it works, we'll bring that reform to our whole system.

While we anticipate a very good score from CBO in terms of lowering health care costs overall, another thing we focused on with this package is not just health care reform in the context of government- related programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, but also how we partner with those in the private sector.

One of the reasons the Business Roundtable is so supportive is the fact that our package recognizes that well over half of the American public still receives their health care through private insurance or in conjunction with their employers. With these amendments, we look at how we take the best of the private sector, and the lessons we've learned from them, and bring those into health care reform.

My friend, the Senator from Delaware, has raised this point. There are still issues to be resolved in this bill.

I still have some concerns, particularly with the public option portion. But I know that with a good-faith effort, we are going to get those issues resolved.

One thing that needs to be reaffirmed, time and time again, is what happens if we don't enact health care reform. Not acting is a policy choice; it is every bit as much of a policy choice as moving forward on this bill. What many don't realize is that the largest driver of our Federal deficit is not education funding, transportation funding, and not even TARP funds or the stimulus. The largest driver of our Federal deficit is health care spending.

If we fail to act now, Medicare, which provides health care to millions of senior citizens, will go bankrupt in the next 8 years. If we fail to act now, an average Virginia family will see their health care costs eat up 40 percent of their disposable income in the next decade.

One of the reasons we are seeing so much broad-based business support for our amendment package is business understands that if we can't drive down overall health care costs, the ability of the United States to come out of this recession and remain competitive in a global marketplace will be seriously undermined. As long as American business has to pay twice as much per person--as much as $3,000 to $4,000 more per employee--for their health care costs than any of our industrial competitors around the world, regardless of how productive the American workforce is, American businesses will be at a serious disadvantage.

Our amendment package is complex. It is a bit dense. There are some 30-odd different provisions that take very good parts of the merged bill and move them faster. It increases price transparency in health care pricing, and increases our ability to take programs and pilots that work and roll them out on a wider basis. My good friend, the Senator from Colorado, has been working hard on the administrative reform portion.

This is a good package of amendments. I was asked yesterday by somebody in the press how I would describe the package. I guess I would sum it up--because some of this stuff gets fairly dense--with two things that this package of amendments is trying to do.

I think we all remember, years back, in the travel industry, when you called up and tried to get an airline reservation and depending on whom you called and what time you called, you might get a totally different price on your airline ticket. Well, this package of amendments is trying to do for health care what Travelocity did for the airline business. And that is bring some true pricing transparency to the health care system.

Our package of amendments will move us--it will not get us all the way there--but it will move us further down the field. I say this modestly, again, to the originators of the bill--it is a very good bill, a very good framework. But humbly I might say, as some know, I was lucky enough in the old days to fall into the cell phone industry. I managed to eke out a small living in that industry. I like to think about the cell phone industry as a metaphor for this package of amendments. If we think of the original bill as creating the cell phone of the 20th century, our package of amendments is basically the iPhone version to your Motorola flip phone original version. We literally provide dozens of new applications on a good, basic framework that has been provided by this merged bill. And we take these applications a little bit further into the 21st century.

I am very proud of the work all these freshmen Senators and their staffs have done over the last 3 or 4 months. Again, I thank the chairman of the Finance Committee, the chairman of the HELP Committee, the majority leader and their staffs for helping us work through this package, and I look forward to its adoption.

With that, I yield the floor, and I believe the junior Senator from Colorado will speak next.

Madam President, I know our time is about to expire. I wish to close by thanking all my freshman colleagues and their staffs for the great work they have done on this legislation.

I see a number of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle. This is an amendment package that brings greater transparency, greater accountability, greater efficiency, and greater innovation, and is supported by the Business Roundtable, small businesses and health care systems around the country. I ask for their consideration.

I again thank the Chair, Senator Dodd, for allowing us to lay out this package of amendments. I think it will add an important component to this bill in trying to rein in costs not just on the government side but systemwide.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the 225th anniversary of the birth of MG Zachary Taylor, a Virginia native son and the 12th President of the United States of America.

Best remembered as a distinguished military hero, Zachary Taylor was known as a resourceful, steadfast, modest and compassionate commander who fought many successful battles, earning from his soldiers and countrymen the affectionate nickname ``Old Rough and Ready.''

Zachary Taylor's personal popularity increased as his national prominence spread. General Taylor defeated Henry Clay, Winfield Scott and Daniel Webster for the Whig Party Presidential nomination. Although he had not sought office, Zachary Taylor was elected the 12th President of the United States.

Slavery was the driving issue of the campaign and the primary challenge of Zachary Taylor's brief Presidency. In his inaugural address, Zachary Taylor promised that the preservation of the Union would be his first obligation. He was determined to find a solution to end slavery even though he was a southerner and a slave holder. Zachary Taylor urged settlers in New Mexico and California to bypass the territorial stage and draft constitutions for statehood. As Southern Democrats called for a secession convention, Zachary Taylor reacted with a bristling statement that he would hang anyone who tried to disrupt the Union by force or by conspiracy, setting the stage for the Compromise of 1850.

During his 15 months in office, Zachary Taylor also created the Department of the Interior and signed a treaty with Great Britain guaranteeing a neutral canal connecting North and South America.

After laying the cornerstone of the Washington Monument on July 4, 1850, Zachary Taylor fell ill and passed away. An unprecedented 100,000 people lined the funeral route to see the hero laid at rest.

On November 24, 2009, representatives of local, State and Federal Government will gather to honor one of Orange County's most famous native sons. First Day Issue Zachary Taylor Dollar coins will be given to county schoolchildren. Please join me in commemorating the life of Zachary Taylor and the courage and efforts during his term of office to bring a peaceful end to slavery in the United States.

Mr. President, let me commend my colleague, the Senator from Massachusetts, for his comments about Senator Byrd. I also want to join in recognizing and celebrating Senator Byrd's service to West Virginia and to our country. As a new Member to this body, I did not have the occasion to work as closely with Senator Byrd as others. However, as a resident of the Commonwealth of Virginia, not only did I follow the enormous respect Senator Byrd has engendered here in the Senate, but I have also watched with awe Senator Byrd's ability to bring jobs back to West Virginia. He was able to relocate many Federal agencies and activities, oftentimes that may have previously resided in Virginia, to the State of West Virginia.

I join my colleagues in commending Senator Byrd, not only for his enormous service to this body and to our country, but as someone who has been a tireless advocate for his home State of West Virginia.