Floor Statements

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

Mr. President, at this time I wish to give a short statement for the Record, and then I will ask for the Senate to consider the nomination of Winslow Lorenzo Sargeant, of Wisconsin, to be Chief Counsel for Advocacy, for the Small Business Administration.

This is very troubling to me, as the chair of the Small Business Committee. Months ago now, we had Dr. Winslow Sargeant before our committee. The President nominated him to be the Chief Counsel of the Office of Advocacy for the Small Business Administration. For my colleagues who may not be aware of this office and how important it is to have a qualified individual leading it, let me say that the Office of Advocacy works to reduce the burdens of Federal policies and regulations on small business, which is an important effort that is undertaken when either Republicans or Democrats are in the majority.

We recognize that sometimes regulations, particularly overly burdensome regulations, can be difficult for small business, so this position in the Small Business Administration was actually created to advocate not on behalf of the regulations, not on behalf of the government, but on behalf of the small businesses--the millions of them that are out there struggling right now to create jobs. We want to be helpful to them, not hurtful. So it is puzzling to me why this nomination is being held up, particularly because he passed out of our committee with bipartisan support.

He has three degrees, including a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in electrical engineering, and a background as a very successful small business owner himself. He not only is well educated but well aware of the many difficult challenges facing businesses today.

Dr. Sargeant cofounded Aanetcom, a technology company that was ultimately acquired. He is currently the managing director of Venture Investors, a Midwest venture capital company which focuses on funding startup health care and technology companies. In this role, Dr. Sargeant works closely with technology transfer organizations to develop policies which enable the formation of startups, giving him an unmatched insight into the needs of entrepreneurs in this challenging economic environment.

This is exactly what we need to be doing here: nominating and confirming people such as this to step into positions of power, to advocate on behalf of small businesses. So it is very troubling to me this nomination has been held up. I am going to ask for his nomination to be cleared in a moment.

I am also puzzled because he has the support of many business organizations: the National Small Business Association, the Small Business Association of California, the Small Business Technology Council, and the Small Business Association of New England--very well- respected small business organizations from one side of the country to the other that are familiar with him and his work.

With more than 80 percent of job losses coming from small businesses since the current recession began, it is critical, I believe, as the chair of this committee, that we provide our Nation's 29 million small business owners

with a strong and effective advocate here in Washington.

This position is empty. There is no one sitting in the office, at a time when small business needs a voice. There are regulatory matters coming from all sides. There are new challenges in this environment. There are trade opportunities for businesses all over the world. Our small businesses must break into those markets. Let's not even begin to talk about the regulatory nightmares here at home--just think about those regulatory nightmares as our small businesses seek markets across the oceans and over our borders. Why--why--would anyone want to hold up this position? But someone is, and we are going to find out who and why.

Dr. Sargeant also has spent a great deal of time sitting on different boards, helping to advise others on building strong businesses. He is a Kauffman Fellow, a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, and Sigma Xi. He serves as a director of the University of Wisconsin Foundation, a trustee for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, and a member of the corporation board of Northeastern University. He is an advisory board member for WiCell, the Waisman BioManufacturing Facility, the University of Wisconsin Astronomy Department, and Purdue University Discovery Research Park.

And the list of his accomplishments goes on. He has served as a technical advisory board member for startup company Intersymbol Communications, Madison-based venture firm Venture Investors, LLC, managing member of Xcelis Communications, LLC and as an advisory board member for the Maryland Venture Fund. Dr. Sargeant received the inaugural 2002 Wisconsin distinguished Young Alumni Award and was the 2003 Outstanding Engineering Alumni Awardee from Northeastern University.

Dr. Sargeant's work also extends to the community. He has been a member of the Board of Directors for the Boys and Girls Club of Madison, Wisconsin, since 2006; a member of the Accelerate Madison, Inc., a Madison, WI, organization dedicated to using information technology to spur economic growth; and active alumni organizations, such as the University of Wisconsin Foundation.

I have no doubt that Dr. Sargeant will make an excellent Chief Counsel for Advocacy and I remain baffled as to why his nomination has yet to be confirmed.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 427, the nomination of Winslow Lorenzo Sargeant, to be Chief Counsel for Advocacy, Small Business Administration; that the nomination be confirmed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, any statements relating to the nomination be printed in the Record, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then resume legislative session.

I thank my good friend, the Senator from Alabama. He and I have worked on many important issues together. He is not a member of the committee, and I appreciate that. But I wish to, through the Chair, let the Senator from Alabama know that he might want to consult with some of the members of the Small Business Committee because when we come back I am going to be asking every day on the floor of the Senate for this nomination to proceed.

I think it is fair, in the spirit of openness that so many people have called for, that we have these discussions now in a very open way on the floor of the Senate. So I hope the Senator will understand the spirit of this. This gentleman is extremely well qualified. I have had numerous calls to my office urging us to move forward.

I thank the Senator from Alabama for those comments. But if you would relay that to not only the members of the Small Business Committee but to the Republican Caucus, that would be wonderful. Thank you.

Mr. President, how many more minutes do I have?

Thank you.

Let me, while I have the floor, call attention to this document that is on our desks. It is the Executive Calendar that is placed every day on our desks. Since we have been at our desks now for many hours, I actually had the opportunity to read it, which I do not often do.

Although the pages are not numbered, I counted them and I believe there are 12 pages. This is documentation of every person pending on the Executive Calendar for confirmation. It might be interesting to the people observing our session today to note that all of these nominations--from the Judiciary, to the Federal Elections Commission, to the Department of Energy, to military positions, Corps of Engineers positions, the Army, the Executive Office of the President, members appointed to the Amtrak Board of Directors, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Farm Credit Administration, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Housing and Urban Development--these are people--pages and pages of names--who the President has suggested would be wonderful people to serve our government.

They have passed the committee process, most of them--or many of them, I understand--with bipartisan votes. Why they are sitting on this calendar I do not know. But we are going to find out. I realize there is sort of a place and a time and a process in the Senate, but it is important for us to know, and for these individuals who have put their lives and their careers on the line, who put their homes up for sale, who have left their former jobs thinking they were going to come to work for the Government of the United States--proud to work for our government--many at much less than they were making before they were nominated by the President. I am going to ask my colleagues on the Republican side, Why are they being held up?

There are actually two individuals I know personally--two judicial candidates from the State of Louisiana: Beth Foote and Brian Jackson-- one outstanding lawyer from the Western District of Louisiana, and one outstanding lawyer from the Middle District of Louisiana. They are not technically being held up, but they are not moving forward. So we need to be moving them forward. The chairman of the committee, Chairman Leahy, has done a wonderful job moving them through. In fact, the Senator from Alabama was extremely complimentary--who is on the Judiciary Committee--of both of those nominees because I happened to be present at their hearing. The Senator from Alabama was extremely complimentary in his views, and he is, of course, the ranking member on that committee.

When we get back, on behalf of Beth Foote and Brian Jackson and Winslow Sargeant, I hope some of my other colleagues will be happy to join me in very open and public discussions on the floor of the Senate about what might be a problem that we should know about so that we can get these people in positions of power and authority and of service, might I say, to the people of the United States of America.

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

Mr. President, as Chair of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, I am pleased to join the Committee's Ranking Member, Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, and my distinguished colleague from Illinois, Senator Richard Durbin, in introducing the Small Business Community Partners Relief Act of 2010. This bi-partisan legislation will provide much-needed relief to Women's Business Centers, WBCs, and SBA Microloan intermediaries--two Small Business Administration, SBA, resource partners that provide critical assistance to our Nation's 29 million small businesses.

For my colleagues who may not be familiar with these programs, let me first explain the vital role of WBCs and Microloan intermediaries and the importance of aiding the small businesses these centers target.

Women's Business Centers provide quality counseling and training services to all entrepreneurs, primarily women, and especially those who are socially and economically disadvantaged. More than 110 centers across the country help more than 150,000 clients annually on a vast array of topics--from how to write a business plan to where to get financing. Many WBCs provide multilingual services and a number offer daycare services, allowing mothers with children to attend training classes.

Microloan intermediaries provide small, short-term loans to start-ups or small growing firms that cannot access credit through traditional loan programs. Like WBCs, the 160 Microloan

intermediaries throughout the nation also help entrepreneurs manage their start-up and expand while creating or saving thousands of jobs. Also like WBCs, the Microloan intermediaries tend to serve disadvantaged businesses in areas of the country that have been hit the hardest by the recession. About 48 percent of microloans go to small businesses owned by women, and about 53 percent to minority-owned small businesses.

Aiding women and minority small business owners is vital to the economic success of our nation because women-owned and minority-owned businesses are the fastest growing segments of the small business community--creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. Women-owned businesses contribute nearly $3 trillion to our economy and create or save 23 million jobs each year, according to the Center for Women's Business Research. Minority-owned firms contribute nearly $700 billion to the economy and create or save 4.7 million jobs, according to the Department of Commerce's Minority Business Development Agency.

While minority and women-owned firms do contribute greatly to the economy, they still need our help. Even though the number of minority- owned firms has grown by 35 percent, the average gross receipts for those firms dropped by 16 percent. Women-owned firms meanwhile have lower revenues and fewer employees than their male-owned counterparts-- although 6 percent of men-owned businesses have revenues of $1 million or more, only 3 percent of women-owned firms reach the $1 million marker.

In this economic downturn, minority and women-owned businesses are struggling even more than usual. When they go to their local WBC or Microloan intermediary they are finding these centers of aid and counseling struggling as well. That's because, in order to receive Federal money, the centers and intermediaries must also find matching local funds. This funding often comes from local governments, universities and private entities. But these partners have had to tighten their belts, cutting much of their funding to the WBCs and Microloan intermediaries.

Without matching funding from their local partners, some WBCs and Microloan intermediaries have had to reduce or refuse Federal money. Nine WBCs have closed or requested reduced funding in the last year and many intermediaries are struggling to keep their doors open, even in the face of record demand for their services.

The Small Business Community Partner Relief Act would enable the SBA Administrator to temporarily waive the non-Federal match funding requirement, allowing struggling WBCs and Microloan intermediaries to receive the full amount of Federal support available. This change will make it possible for the centers and intermediaries to continue serving those small businesses that need help the most in these difficult times.

I look forward to working with Ranking Member Snowe, Senator Durbin and my colleagues in the Senate to make this necessary change a reality for the hundreds of centers and intermediaries throughout the country, and the millions of small businesses that rely on these programs to help them survive, grow and create jobs.

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

Mr. President, as Chair of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, I am pleased to join the Committee's Ranking Member, Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, and my distinguished colleague from Illinois, Senator Richard Durbin, in introducing the Small Business Community Partners Relief Act of 2010. This bi-partisan legislation will provide much-needed relief to Women's Business Centers, WBCs, and SBA Microloan intermediaries--two Small Business Administration, SBA, resource partners that provide critical assistance to our Nation's 29 million small businesses.

For my colleagues who may not be familiar with these programs, let me first explain the vital role of WBCs and Microloan intermediaries and the importance of aiding the small businesses these centers target.

Women's Business Centers provide quality counseling and training services to all entrepreneurs, primarily women, and especially those who are socially and economically disadvantaged. More than 110 centers across the country help more than 150,000 clients annually on a vast array of topics--from how to write a business plan to where to get financing. Many WBCs provide multilingual services and a number offer daycare services, allowing mothers with children to attend training classes.

Microloan intermediaries provide small, short-term loans to start-ups or small growing firms that cannot access credit through traditional loan programs. Like WBCs, the 160 Microloan

intermediaries throughout the nation also help entrepreneurs manage their start-up and expand while creating or saving thousands of jobs. Also like WBCs, the Microloan intermediaries tend to serve disadvantaged businesses in areas of the country that have been hit the hardest by the recession. About 48 percent of microloans go to small businesses owned by women, and about 53 percent to minority-owned small businesses.

Aiding women and minority small business owners is vital to the economic success of our nation because women-owned and minority-owned businesses are the fastest growing segments of the small business community--creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. Women-owned businesses contribute nearly $3 trillion to our economy and create or save 23 million jobs each year, according to the Center for Women's Business Research. Minority-owned firms contribute nearly $700 billion to the economy and create or save 4.7 million jobs, according to the Department of Commerce's Minority Business Development Agency.

While minority and women-owned firms do contribute greatly to the economy, they still need our help. Even though the number of minority- owned firms has grown by 35 percent, the average gross receipts for those firms dropped by 16 percent. Women-owned firms meanwhile have lower revenues and fewer employees than their male-owned counterparts-- although 6 percent of men-owned businesses have revenues of $1 million or more, only 3 percent of women-owned firms reach the $1 million marker.

In this economic downturn, minority and women-owned businesses are struggling even more than usual. When they go to their local WBC or Microloan intermediary they are finding these centers of aid and counseling struggling as well. That's because, in order to receive Federal money, the centers and intermediaries must also find matching local funds. This funding often comes from local governments, universities and private entities. But these partners have had to tighten their belts, cutting much of their funding to the WBCs and Microloan intermediaries.

Without matching funding from their local partners, some WBCs and Microloan intermediaries have had to reduce or refuse Federal money. Nine WBCs have closed or requested reduced funding in the last year and many intermediaries are struggling to keep their doors open, even in the face of record demand for their services.

The Small Business Community Partner Relief Act would enable the SBA Administrator to temporarily waive the non-Federal match funding requirement, allowing struggling WBCs and Microloan intermediaries to receive the full amount of Federal support available. This change will make it possible for the centers and intermediaries to continue serving those small businesses that need help the most in these difficult times.

I look forward to working with Ranking Member Snowe, Senator Durbin and my colleagues in the Senate to make this necessary change a reality for the hundreds of centers and intermediaries throughout the country, and the millions of small businesses that rely on these programs to help them survive, grow and create jobs.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness of the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 25, 2010, at 2:30 p.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Doubling U.S. Exports: Are U.S. Sea Ports Ready for the Challenge?''

I am pleased to speak as chair of the Small Business Committee with several of my colleagues from the committee who have been hard at work coming up with ideas, drafting and passing legislation in the Small Business Committee over the last 3 months, particularly to get ready for this time. It is time that this Senate and Congress moved a third jobs bill with a focus on small business in America.

I acknowledge the members of the Small Business Committee. Two of them will join me this morning, and we will all, hopefully, be on the floor in the next couple of days talking about the importance of focusing on small business job creation. My ranking member, of course, is the great Senator from Maine, Ms. Snowe; John Kerry, former chair of the committee; Chris Bond, former chair; Carl Levin; David Vitter; Tom Harkin; John Thune; Joe Lieberman; Mike Enzi; Maria Cantwell; Johnny Isakson; Evan Bayh; Roger Wicker; Mark Pryor; James Risch; Ben Cardin; Jeanne Shaheen; and Kay Hagan. Let me say that these members have been extraordinary. We have passed not one, not two, not three, not four, but five fairly significant pieces of legislation in a completely bipartisan fashion. The bills I will highlight this morning have been passed by our committee by large and convincing margins: 18 to 0, 15 to 3, 16 to 4. We are proud of the work we have done.

My call to the Senators this morning is to get our eyes off of Wall Street and onto Main Street. If we really want to dig out of this recession, created by a number of things--failed policies from the past administration, a confluence of the crash of the stock market and the financial sector, poor regulation from us over time--the people who have really suffered are the small business owners who, unlike large businesses and public companies, have put everything at risk--their future, their house, their children's future--everything at risk to create business because that is what Americans do, and we do it better than any country on Earth.

We recognize the strength of American business. It is about entrepreneurship. That is what the Small Business Committee is focused on. We want attention--and we will get it--to this issue.

I thank the members for their hard work and support. In this toxic environment, to get anything out of a committee with that kind of vote, we deserve a round of applause before we even start. But that is another story for another day.

Now we have to move the bills through the process. I want to share this graph, which is telling. Of the share of net new jobs created, 65 percent of the new jobs created by everything we do here will be created by small business, not by big business. Large firms are shrinking, reorganizing, sort of waiting for the market to come back. I understand that. They have a fiduciary responsibility. These folks are out there taking the big risk. When the way is not clear, when it is still cloudy, it is small businesses taking a chance that maybe things will turn around. These are the people we have to get our eyes on.

As chair of the Small Business Committee, I have heard for months that small businesses want to hire new workers. They need to hire new workers. They can expand their business, but they don't have the ability.

Small business owner Ray Meche, who owns several neighborhood pharmacies in southwest Louisiana, has an excellent track record. He has been in business for over 20 years. He has never missed a payment. He can't get a loan because he uses the small business lending program and he is capped at $2 million. One of our bills would raise that cap to $5 million. That is something we must do now. Until we do, business owners such as Ray wait. They wait to get larger loans to expand their businesses. They wait for a government contract. They wait for opportunities for counseling as they attempt to boost sales by tapping into potential markets overseas.

I want to show an export chart which is also telling. When I saw this, I had my staff use it at every townhall I do because I actually didn't believe it. I made them go back and do it several times because it was so contrary to my notion of the world. But it is true. This is the truth. Of all small businesses in America, of every one we know, less than 1 percent export their goods out of the country. Think about that. When the market in America is soft and our businesses are trying to create jobs, we can do what we can to energize these markets at home, but we most certainly should be looking overseas. I can tell you why small businesses would be a little nervous about it. Because they have never negotiated with big trade representatives China and Korea and Germany and France. It could be a little intimidating. They have great products. With the Internet, they have the world at their fingertips. What they don't have is an export bill by their own Congress that gives them an opportunity to get the training and technical assistance through departments we already pay for, departments that are already set up but just aren't focused on small business and helping them trade.

I want to see this pie chart expanded. I don't know if we can expand it to 10 percent of small businesses or 20 percent, but we can't sit at 1 percent while our people lose jobs here. That is why this package is important.

I thank Senator Shaheen for her extraordinary leadership and also my ranking member, Senator Snowe, who has spent a great deal of time talking in the committee and in hearings about the opportunity for trade. That is what this package does as well.

I want to present the Access to Capital Coalition that is behind us. We did not come here to the floor alone. We have an extraordinary coalition for a jobs agenda from small business groups all over America, from the small business groups represented by the Chamber of Commerce, to the Federation of Small Business, to the San Francisco Small Business Network, to the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, the Marin Builders Association, the Main Street Alliance, just to read a few, Oregon Small Business for Responsible Leadership.

This list represents hundreds of thousands of businesses that say to me every day: Senator, does anybody know we are here? Every day we pick up the paper and we read about AIG, Goldman Sachs, General Motors, Exxon. We think those companies are great. We hope maybe to be as big as they are one day. But does anybody know we are here?

I know you are there. We are going to fight hard for you, and we are going to pull this coalition together to focus on the one group of people in America who can actually create jobs, which would be the small businesses, found in every neighborhood, on every Main Street, in urban areas, suburban areas. And, yes,

even rural areas can create the kind of jobs we need to lift this Nation out of the worst recession since the Great Depression.

I say to the Presiding Officer, you were a banker. You understand the importance of lending money to small businesses and getting it to them when they need it quickly. You established extraordinary opportunities in your home State of Illinois. That is what this package of bills does that has passed out of the Small Business Committee and is pending for action in this Senate.

Small businesses have borne the greatest burden in this economy. They are the business that have the greatest potential to improve it. By making these simple, inexpensive, and commonsense proposals to help small businesses, we can turn pink slips into paychecks for American workers, and we can lift our entire Nation out of this terrible recession into a brighter day in the future.

So, again, I thank my colleagues on the committee for working in such a bipartisan manner.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an outline of the five bills that make up this package, S. 2869, the Small Business Job Creation and Access to Capital Act; S. 2862, the Small Business Export Enhancement and International Trade Act; S. 2989, the Small Business Contracting Improvement Act; S. 1229, the Entrepreneurial Development Act; and S. 1233 the SBIR/STTR Reauthorization Act.

We will take them up, hopefully, in a package at a later date, but I want to call my colleagues' attention to the package of bills that will expand loan limits, expand contracting opportunities with the Federal Government, which, by the way, spends billions of dollars right now with business. If we just spend a little bit more with small business, these small businesses--instead of absorbing the contracts, which the big businesses do--will have to hire up.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 30 more seconds.

Small businesses, when they get a contract from the Federal Government, will staff up because that is what small businesses do. They are very flexible. They are very agile. They will scale down, and they can scale up quickly.

So I am proud of this package. I want to recognize two of my members who are on the Senate floor: former Governor and now a Senator from New Hampshire, Jeanne Shaheen, who has been a great leader on this issue--I thank you, Senator--and also Senator Ben Cardin from Maryland. He has been a particularly strong leader on the contracting for small businesses. So I would like to ask the Senator to join me in her remarks this morning.

Mr. President, again, I thank my colleagues both, and particularly Senator Cardin, for that impassioned plea to focus this place on small business. If we are serious about

creating jobs, then our focus, our effort, our work should be for the millions of small businesses out there that with just a little bit of tweaking, a little bit of help from an export initiative here, some regulation reform here, loan pools here, changing current law, could help them do what they want to do, which is expand and grow jobs.

I see my colleagues are here to speak, so I am just going to take 1 minute to conclude.

I wish my colleagues to know that while this package is five major bills, there is an initiative that is not in bill form yet, but we are very serious about bringing it forward. It is going to include a provision for there to be a pool of capital available. It may be the way Senator Cardin has envisioned it, which is direct loans from the SBA. It may be the way Senator Levin and Senator Warner have been talking about, which is an idea to provide guaranteed loan pools to leverage private capital in the country. It may be something Bill Clinton spoke with us about yesterday, which is creating a dynamic new opportunity to retrofit public buildings in America and put people to work and use the savings in energy efficiency to pay back the loans so there is no new taxpayer money spent. It is leveraging the private sector to do two great things: provide jobs immediately and make more efficient every public building in America.

There is more we can do. So as the chairman, let me be very clear. I am very proud of this package. It is five bills. It has passed our committee almost unanimously. As we move this package to the floor, I hope we will get the same cooperation from Republican Members on this floor as we did from the Republican Members who serve on our committee. We have been very open, very sincere in our efforts to pull this package together, and we will continue to work in that good spirit. I hope we are met with that same feeling.

Two more things, briefly. I am probably not going to push to put in this bill a reform piece on credit cards to small businesses because it is not the jurisdiction of our committee; it is primarily the jurisdiction of the Banking Committee. However, I want this Senate to know I am on record today. Senator Cardin says--and he is correct--how in the world are small businesses in America going to stay in business if they have to pay 15 and 20 percent interest rates? Could anybody tell me this? Is there any small business in America that thinks they can make money, hire people, and pay 20 percent interest rates? It is a shame. It is wrong. We are going to do something about small business credit card rates. I will tell my colleagues why. Because in the old days, not too long ago when the housing market was strong, which it is not today, Americans--who believe in the American dream because we tell them about it when they are 4 years old and they actually believe it when they grow up--their house had $200,000 or $300,000 or $400,000 or $50,000 in equity. So when they wanted to start a business, they went to their banker and their banker said: How much equity do you have in your house? They said: $50,000. They wrote them a check that day for $20,000. They took that amount of money and they bought a stove and they started a business, maybe cooking a little scrambled eggs and ham.

Those days are over with. There is no equity in their homes anymore. When they go to their bank, they don't see a sign that says welcome-- and I am not talking about community banks, I am talking about big banks that got all the money from us--they see a sign that says come back next year when things are better. So they have to then dig in their pocket and pull out their credit card. We have done them a great favor. We allow the companies to charge them not 3 percent, not 6 percent, not 10 percent but 20 percent.

I can't put that bill in this package, but I promise my colleagues it is coming. We cannot ask small business to pay 20 percent on their loans. Yes, we have to give them tax relief. But do my colleagues know what they need right now? They need borrowing relief.

So I am going to conclude with that. It is going to be a good package, and we are going to be very smart about how we put it forward. I know we have to take the tough things maybe separately so as to not detain this. But I am on record, and we are going to fight for it until we get it done.

I yield the floor. I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, I join my colleague in supporting this amendment. We have modified it from the original version. No environmental laws will be ignored. The process will be followed. But this amendment would simply expedite getting money to the Gulf Coast States and to other States that benefit from this program. I ask my colleagues to support it.

I move to reconsider the vote.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to speak on an issue that is of great importance to small businesses and independent inventors everywhere--patent reform.

I understand that the Senate Judiciary Committee has been hard at work analyzing what reforms would improve the U.S. patent system. One of these reforms would involve changing the U.S. from a ``first to invent'' to a ``first to file'' invention priority system. As Chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship, I want to ensure that Congress' reform will create a patent regime that will not unduly burden small businesses and independent inventors, but instead, enhance their success as innovators in the U.S. economy.

Small businesses represent 99.7 percent of all employers, employing \1/2\ of the U.S. labor force. These businesses are at the forefront of U.S. innovation and have produced over 80 percent of net new jobs in the U.S. economy over the past decade. At a time when our Nation's economy is under stress, we need the help of small businesses in creating new jobs and economic opportunities.

Today, we are living in what some call a ``Digital Age'' with an ever-increasing focus on how to incorporate advanced technology into our day to day activities. When it comes to advanced technology, small businesses are also leading the pack in terms of job growth, producing approximately 40 percent of all high-tech employment nation-wide.

One measurable way of tracking the rate of small business innovation in the U.S. is by analyzing patent statistics. For example, small businesses in the technology sector produce 13 times more patents per employee than large businesses. Additionally, small firm patents outperform those of larger firms in a number of key areas, and tend to be cited more frequently as these patents are more original and more general. These metrics are important indicators of patent value, and indeed small firm patents are tightly linked to growth in the patenting firms.

As you can see, the role that small businesses play as innovators in our economy is critical to our Nation's overall success as an international high-tech leader. In order to properly track and understand how changes to the U.S. patent system will impact our small innovators, I am introducing the Small Business Patent Data Collection Act of 2010. This legislation will direct the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy to conduct a study in consultation with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to analyze how changes to the current system will impact the ability of small businesses to obtain patents, whether the change would create barriers, and how it will impact the costs and benefits to small businesses overall.

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

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to speak on an issue that is of great importance to small businesses and independent inventors everywhere--patent reform.

I understand that the Senate Judiciary Committee has been hard at work analyzing what reforms would improve the U.S. patent system. One of these reforms would involve changing the U.S. from a ``first to invent'' to a ``first to file'' invention priority system. As Chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship, I want to ensure that Congress' reform will create a patent regime that will not unduly burden small businesses and independent inventors, but instead, enhance their success as innovators in the U.S. economy.

Small businesses represent 99.7 percent of all employers, employing \1/2\ of the U.S. labor force. These businesses are at the forefront of U.S. innovation and have produced over 80 percent of net new jobs in the U.S. economy over the past decade. At a time when our Nation's economy is under stress, we need the help of small businesses in creating new jobs and economic opportunities.

Today, we are living in what some call a ``Digital Age'' with an ever-increasing focus on how to incorporate advanced technology into our day to day activities. When it comes to advanced technology, small businesses are also leading the pack in terms of job growth, producing approximately 40 percent of all high-tech employment nation-wide.

One measurable way of tracking the rate of small business innovation in the U.S. is by analyzing patent statistics. For example, small businesses in the technology sector produce 13 times more patents per employee than large businesses. Additionally, small firm patents outperform those of larger firms in a number of key areas, and tend to be cited more frequently as these patents are more original and more general. These metrics are important indicators of patent value, and indeed small firm patents are tightly linked to growth in the patenting firms.

As you can see, the role that small businesses play as innovators in our economy is critical to our Nation's overall success as an international high-tech leader. In order to properly track and understand how changes to the U.S. patent system will impact our small innovators, I am introducing the Small Business Patent Data Collection Act of 2010. This legislation will direct the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy to conduct a study in consultation with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to analyze how changes to the current system will impact the ability of small businesses to obtain patents, whether the change would create barriers, and how it will impact the costs and benefits to small businesses overall.

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

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and to call up amendment No. 3335 for the purposes of modification only.

I have already spoken about the amendment at length. I have already submitted a lot of documents to the Record about the importance of this amendment. But to recap, the amendment I am offering on behalf of myself and Senators Vitter, Cochran, and Wicker is an amendment that will help the recovery effort of the gulf coast, particularly as it relates to Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.

If we do not get this amendment on this bill or the next bill--I prefer it on this bill--we will literally shut down 7,000 units that are under construction today of low-income and moderate housing along the gulf coast, from Mobile to Waveland to Gulfport to New Orleans, all the way over to Cameron Parish, the entire gulf coast. Many people witnessed the terrible catastrophe that happened in our State just 4\1/ 2\ years ago, and we will be marking the fifth anniversary of Katrina. The wounds seem a little bit fresh watching the scenes from Haiti and Chile. The situation in Haiti is much more disastrous in many ways than what happened in the gulf coast, but we most certainly went through our own horrors. Five years seems like a long time, but when you are digging out of rubble such as we see happening right now and when the flood waters don't recede, in some places for 3 months, and people can't return to their neighborhoods for 9 months, you can understand why it has taken us a little time to rebuild some of this housing. It has taken longer than we ever imagined.

In addition, despite the fact that we have worked as hard and as fast as we can, in the middle of rebuilding some of these multifamily units--we are trying to build them better, smarter, and more energy efficient, in a much better way than they were before for both public housing and low-income housing--the market collapsed, which is not the fault of the people of Louisiana. We don't work on Wall Street. We don't live on Wall Street. We are just busy trying to build our communities back. Wall Street collapses.

As a result, tax credits, which the Congress was so generous to give us some years ago to do this work, if we don't get this extension of a placed-in-service date, the developers--which includes the Catholic Church, nonprofit developers, not just for-profit developers--will lose their opportunity to sell these credits in the marketplace for the financing necessary to finish construction. That is sort of the long and short of it.

I am not here asking for additional credits. We are grateful, those of us from the Gulf Coast States, for what the Congress has already given us. But if this amendment, a 2-year extension, is not attached to this bill, 7,000 units currently under construction and we estimate about 13,000 jobs along the gulf coast will be lost.

So since this is a jobs bill, I thought it would be a good place to put this amendment because it will save 13,000 jobs, building great apartments for rent and purchase that our people need in the gulf coast. That is what the amendment does.

I ask unanimous consent for the amendment to be modified.

At the appropriate time, I will call up the amendment for a vote and further debate. I wished to make sure we have the modification in. I have now suggested a pay-for for it. I again thank Members for being helpful to us. We thought actually these units would be finished by now. Of course, the people trying to move into them want them to be finished. But between us trying to get ourselves organized after the catastrophe and then with the market collapsing, we need additional time. That is all this amendment does.

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

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

I rise to speak for a few minutes while we are in a quorum call and trying to decide how we are going to proceed on this bill, to speak about a very important amendment that, hopefully, at some time as this debate moves forward, could be considered.

It is an extremely important amendment, not just to the people of Louisiana but to the people of Mississippi and Alabama as well, three States that were very hard hit by a natural disaster 4\1/2\ years ago, when Katrina, one of the largest hurricanes ever recorded, slammed into actually the gulf coast, hit the State of Mississippi directly and then parts of Louisiana.

Then, 3 weeks later, we were hit by another category 4 storm, Hurricane Rita. We are 4\1/2\ years into that disaster and catastrophe, and the gulf coast is still struggling to recover.

People are very familiar with the scenes they are seeing in Haiti, and now, unfortunately, we are getting very familiar with the scenes we are seeing in Chile. So it was not that long ago that we were seeing similar scenes along the gulf coast, not as desperate a situation as Haiti. We are not clear about how the situation in Chile is playing out.

But we can all remember the terrible videos and slides of destruction. Having represented that State now for all this time, let me tell you, our work is still going on. That is what brings me to the floor today. In the underlying bill, there are some big issues that have gotten a lot of coverage: unemployment, COBRA, et cetera. These are all very important. There are also some smaller pieces of this bill that are very important, the extension of some tax credits that help to restore tax credits in the region; a 1-year extension. There is a 1- year extension for low-income housing, a tax credit for the whole country.

But what is not in the bill, what is missing, is the piece I wish to talk about and ask my colleagues to consider adding to this bill when we get to a position where some amendments might be considered.

This amendment that I offer is not just offered by myself but offered by Senator Cochran and Senator Wicker and Senator Vitter. It was a bipartisan amendment and something the four of us feel very strongly about. In addition to the support it has from the four of us, it also, happily, has the support of the administration and the Secretary of

They have written a very lengthy letter saying why the

amendment I am offering is so important. In addition, I am happy to say, today we got a very strong editorial in the New York Times, which does not always write favorably about some things we have requested. But they have looked at this and have indicated this is something that should be done.

Let me take a minute to explain what we are asking for. Right after Katrina and Rita, the Congress, in its wisdom, said: Your situation is so bad down there, you have had so many houses destroyed, so many low- income houses destroyed, we are going to give you some extra low-income housing tax credits.

We normally get a formula of about $2 per person in the country. Well, they gave us like $18 per person in the country, which was wonderful. We needed the help. We needed those extra low-income housing tax credits to build housing for the very poor but also to build housing for the working middle class, people whom we rely on to help our hotels get started, our restaurants get started, our schools to run, our teachers, our firefighters, our police officers.

So the city and the region--this happened in New Orleans and lots of other parishes. It also happened along the gulf coast of Mississippi. Catholic Charities stepped to the plate, developers stepped to the plate and said: OK, we will use these low-income tax credits to build some housing.

Think about Haiti right now. Think about the scene you saw on CNN this morning. I was just looking at the scene. There is no plan. The rainy season is coming. One million people have no shelter. All they have are those sad old little blue tarps we had along the gulf coast. But Congress, in its wisdom, instead of keeping them in tents in the Mississippi gulf coast said: OK, hire, private sector. Here are some tax credits. Go out and build houses for these people as fast as you can.

So the developers, of course, had to scramble. We all had to scramble because it was very chaotic. But we put plans together and we decided how--it would take us some time, but we figured out how to build good housing, smart housing, not the same old terrible housing we had but new housing.

That is wonderful. That is the good part of the story. The bad part of the story is, we have run out of time. But it is not our fault we ran out of time. We worked as hard as we could. But as soon as we were ready to go to the market with these tax credits, what happens? The market collapses. So then our developers could not even get the tax credits.

The problem for us, which is a big problem, is that now if we do not have all these units, what they call, in service, by the end of this year, we are going to lose over 7,000 housing units. That is a lot. Not 70, not 700 but 7,000 all through the city of New Orleans, all through the gulf coast.

People--seniors, policemen, firefighters, teachers, workers in the restaurants--will have no place to live. Everybody says: Oh, Landrieu, there you are crying wolf again. I am not crying wolf. This is going to happen. So that is why this amendment--I have been asking for it for a year. The team has been very supportive, but it is not in the bill.

So I am on the floor to shake the bells, rattle a little bit, to say: Please consider this amendment. We are not asking for any new credits. We are not asking for any special credits. We do not--well, we need some new credits, but we are not asking for new credits. We just need to have the credits we have that have already been put into place. We cannot lose them.

This amendment is going to cost about $300 million. It has a cost to it. I am asking the Finance Committee to please see how we can pay for this. It is an emergency, but I understand we want to try to pay for things as we go on, things such as this. So I am asking the Finance Committee to think about how this can be paid for.

But, again, I submit, in conclusion, the letter from the administration supporting it, the letter from Secretary Donovan, the editorial we got in the New York Times, the articles I am going to submit from our newspapers that clearly say this is important.

I thank the Members of this body for at least considering this amendment. I thank Senator Cochran, Senator Wicker, and Senator Vitter for joining in a bipartisan way to ask for it. I most certainly hope we can get this done because if not we are going to shut down these projects that are underway, we will lose 13,000 jobs, as well as lose the opportunity for over 7,000 families on the gulf coast to get good, affordable housing.

That is our argument, and I do not think there is any opposition. I hope not. Because it would be very important for us to get this amendment on this bill.

Mr. President, if there is no one here to speak, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I know we have returned to H.R. 4213. It is my intention to call up amendment No. 3335, sponsored by myself, Senator Cochran, Senator Wicker, and Senator Vitter.

Madam President, I spoke at length about this amendment today, so it is not necessary for me to go into a great deal of detail. I offer it on behalf of several Senators from the gulf coast in order to help extend the placed-in-service state for several low-income housing units along the gulf coast. We are not asking for additional authority, we are not asking for new tax credits but just to allow us the tax credits that have already been allocated.

Without the State extension, we will lose literally thousands of affordable housing dwellings and approximately 13,000 jobs. Since we are focused on jobs and focused on economic growth and development, we thought this would be an appropriate amendment to this bill.

I have called up the amendment, and I will allow the leadership to decide when the appropriate time to vote on this amendment will be.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

I wish to speak for up to 10 minutes as in morning business.