Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I wish to honor two young heroes from Colorado who received 9-1-1 for Kids' Medal of Honor this week. The medal is bestowed upon young people who distinguish themselves by calling 911 in an emergency and help to save someone's life or report a crime. An award is also presented to the dispatcher who processed the call and provided the appropriate emergency response.

Last year, 7-year-old Alisha Fetz and 12-year-old Matthew Diaz, both of Thornton, each found themselves in difficult situations in which they needed to protect their family members.

Alisha called 911 on June 1, 2011 when her mother was having difficulty breathing. Alisha answered dispatcher Ashley Bettschen's questions clearly and calmly, even providing her mother's cell phone number and information on her mother's medical condition. Following all of dispatcher Bettschen's instructions, Alisha ensured that her mother was treated quickly and efficiently.

On August 15, 2011, Matthew called 911 while his house was being burglarized. He locked himself and his younger sister in a bathroom and managed to whisper answers to Dispatcher Rhonda Halsey in a calm and clear manner. Because of his great descriptions of both the burglars and their vehicle, the suspects were apprehended only minutes later. The burglars were both prior convicted felons, and several other open cases were cleared because of Matthew's call.

Both of these kids knew exactly what to do. They didn't panic, and they helped ensure the safety of their family members through their actions. They and the dispatchers who helped them serve as a great example of how important it is for kids to know what to do when trouble arises.

The organization, 9-1-1 for Kids, is working to ensure that kids of all ages understand the importance and proper use of 911. It does so by raising awareness through conferences, media outreach, training activities, school events, and by highlighting the stories of kids like Alisha and Matthew.

I join all Coloradans in offering our gratitude to dispatchers Ashley Bettschen and Rhonda Halsey for their service to their communities and congratulating Alisha and Matthew for this award as well as their bravery and ability to remain calm in the face of an emergency.

Mr. President, this week we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the passage of title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. For over 40 years, this historic law has furthered gender equality in education and sports in schools so that young women, including my three daughters, Caroline, Halina, and Anne, who all play soccer, may enjoy the benefits that come along with sports participation.

On October 29, 2002, title IX was renamed the ``Patsy Takemoto Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act'' to honor the tireless determination and leadership of Congresswoman Mink of Hawaii in developing and passing title IX. If Congresswoman Mink was still with us today, I know she would be proud of the remarkable gains that have been made to ensure equal opportunity for women and girls in sports, education, and professionally.

In my home State of Colorado, we are ahead of the curve with regards to opportunities for girls and women in sports. The U.S. Olympic Training Center, located in Colorado Springs, was created by an act of Congress in 1978, just a few years after title IX was passed. It is encouraging to know that women, like Gold Medal Winner Lindsey Vonn, now make up nearly half of all U.S. Olympians competing at the games-- representing more than 48 percent of the 2008 team. Jamie Derrieux, a senior at Grand Junction High School, was named to the 5A First-Team All-State team and will be playing basketball at the University of Northern Colorado this fall. The flagship all-girls charter school, GALS, Girls Athletic Leadership Schools, in Denver practices active learning that engages students in health and wellness activities in the belief that these are key contributing factors in optimizing academic achievement and self-development. The Colorado Women's Sports Fund Association works toward increasing the number of girls and women who participate in athletics and reducing and eliminating barriers that prevent participation.

Studies show that participation in sports has a positive influence on the intellectual, physical and psychological health of girls and young women. By a 3-to-1 ratio, female athletes do better in school, do not drop out, and have a better chance to graduate from college. Sports participation is linked to lower rates of pregnancy in adolescent female athletes, and according to a study from the Oppenheimer/ MassMutual Financial Group, of 401 executive businesswomen surveyed, 82 percent reported playing organized sports while growing up, including school teams, intramurals, and recreational leagues.

Despite the vast improvements, inequalities and disparities still remain. According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, schools are still providing 1.3 million fewer chances for girls to play sports in high school than boys. These numbers have an even greater impact on Latinas and African-American young women. It is because of such disparities that I signed on to the Senate resolution put forth this week by Senators Patty Murray of Washington and Olympia Snowe of Maine to show my commitment to working toward a more equal future.

We have work to do. Please join me in celebrating the 40th anniversary of title IX by supporting efforts to expand equality in sports participation and education for women and girls around the country.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak in strong support of the farm bill we have on the floor, and to recognize chairwoman Stabenow and ranking member Roberts for constructing a bill that passed the Committee with strong, bipartisan support.

I would like to express my strong support for the bill's work on conservation including a reformed and stronger conservation title, and a provision known as ``sodsaver'' that was authored by Senator Thune of South Dakota. I was a proud cosponsor of the provision when we marked up the bill in committee, and I am glad to see it in the package on the floor.

I would also thank the Chair for including the Bennet-Crapo amendment regarding conservation easements in the consent agreement, and I look forward to the amendment's expected passage later today.

Finally, I hope to continue to work with the chair and ranking member on two topics.

The first is easement policy. In my State of Colorado, easements are an important tool for protecting environmentally vital and valuable grasslands. We did a lot of great work in committee to simplify this program and make it easier for the administration, partner entities, and landowners to use. One great thing S. 3240 does is provide a waiver for grasslands of significance, making it easier for the Secretary to enter into agreements to conserve these areas. The west is experiencing grassland loss, which impacts soil and water quality. Anything we can do to make it easier to protect this land is needed.

The second issue centers on treating insect infestations in our national forests. My State and others are experiencing epidemic levels of insect infestations causing unbelievable levels of tree mortality. I have been working with Senator Bingaman, Senator Baucus, Senator Wyden, Senator Mark Udall and others to make sure we have the right policies in place to react to the situation.

It is my understanding that the chairwoman would be willing to work with me on these important issues; is that correct?

Mr. President, first, I wish to thank the Senator from Alabama for calling this body's attention once again to the debt crisis we face as a country. I was with some people just a little while ago, and I was telling them a story about a conversation I had in Colorado about our debt and our deficit and the moral obligation we have to our kids to actually deal with this problem and face up to the fact. My then-10-year-old daughter was with me, Caroline.

We walked out on the front stoop of this place, and she said to me: Daddy.

I said: What.

She said: Just to be clear--she was making fun of me because I say that sometimes--she said: Just to be clear, I am not paying that back.

That is the right attitude she ought to have and the right attitude children all across the country ought to have and the right attitude we ought to have. I look forward, when we get into this discussion this summer, to finding out how to find a bipartisan path through this morass so that Caroline Bennet doesn't have to pay back a debt she didn't accrue.

I wanted to come to the floor today to talk about the economy because I think one thing we can agree on in this body for sure is that the best deficit reduction program we can find would be to get this economy moving again. I wanted to talk about one sector in particular that has created tremendous economic growth in Colorado; that is, the wind energy sector. I know my colleague from Colorado, Mark Udall, came down earlier today to discuss the same issue, and I so much appreciate his continued efforts in fighting for these jobs.

Just a piece of context here. We face very significant structural issues in this economy today. I have brought this chart down here before, but what it shows is that our gross domestic product--our economic output--is actually higher today than it was when we went into the worst recession since the Great Depression. Our productivity is off the charts. That is the blue line, the second line. It has been going that way since the early 1990s because of our response to competition from China and India and other places, because of our use of technology, and because of the recession itself, which drove productivity straight up as firms all across the United States tried to figure out how to get through this tough time with fewer people. But median household income continues to fall in this country, and we have 23 or 24 million people who are unemployed or underemployed, even though we are generating this economic output.

I think there are two fundamental answers to this. One is education. The worst the unemployment rate ever got for people with a college degree in the worst recession since the Great Depression was 4.5 percent. But the other is innovation. Jobs are going to be created tomorrow and next week and the week after that that have rising wages, not lowering ones, not falling ones. And this economic recovery, like the last economic recovery--those two together are the first recoveries we have had as a nation in our history where economic growth decoupled from job growth and wage growth. I don't know about the Presiding Officer, but that is what I hear about most in my townhall meetings at home.

The wind production tax credit, it seems to me, cuts right to the core of whether and how we want to compete in this global and changing economy.

Let me show another picture here. This is it. This is a factory in Brighton, CO--bricks and mortar, made in America. It is a wind production facility. We are not talking about some fly-by-night experimental industry here.

This credit has triggered tremendous economic growth in Colorado and all across the country--good-paying jobs, manufacturing jobs here in the United States. As Representative Steve King, a Republican from Iowa, said recently in an op-ed he published, the production tax credit has driven as much as $20 billion in private investment. This is not some Bolshevik scheme. That is $20 billion in private investment supporting jobs here in the United States, manufacturing jobs here in the United States.

Wind power accounts for more than one-third of all new U.S. electric generation in recent years. In Colorado alone, it has created 6,000 jobs. It has moved our State toward a more diversified and cleaner energy portfolio. But because they can't get any certainty out of Washington, like everybody else, developers and manufacturers are already starting layoffs. They are laying off employees today in anticipation of the credit expiring at the end of the year.

Vestas, which has a huge manufacturing footprint in Colorado, from Windsor all the way south to Pueblo, is poised to lay off 1,600 workers if we fail to act. It is hard for me to understand, when our concerns about the deficit and our concerns about economic growth are ones that we hear about every day on the floor, why laying off 1,600 workers in Colorado is a good idea. Iberdrola Renewables, also doing business in Colorado, has already laid off 50 employees. Nationally, 37,000 jobs are at risk, not to mention the ones we could have created after 2012 but won't if we let this credit expire.

I know sometimes I sound like a broken record, but the world is not going to wait for us. Our largest single export today is energy, actually--interestingly enough. That is a very recent occurrence that we became a net exporter of energy. Before that, our single largest export was aircraft. We build the best aircraft in the world. Mr. President, $30 billion a year is what that export is to the United States.

China's export of solar panels last year was $15 billion--half our largest single export. They did not export 1 solar panel 10 years ago, and we invented the technology in the United States. In fact, some of us claim we invented it right at home in Colorado.

I am sure China would love to have this business as well or we can get out of our own way and extend the PTC, extend the tax credit, save those jobs, and grow our own clean energy economy.

This is not a partisan issue. I led a letter several months ago, where Republicans and Democrats from the Colorado delegation came together to urge a quick extension as part of the payroll deal. That effort, unfortunately, was not successful, nor were the others we have tried to take in the interim.

Shortly after our letter I filed an amendment--a bipartisan amendment--with the Senator from Kansas, a fully paid-for 1-year extension of the credit. This place has become the land of flickering lights. We extend one thing for a month, we extend another thing for 2 months.

I am very proud of the work we are doing on FDA right now, which is a 5-year reauthorization. But, my goodness, couldn't we extend this for a year to give people some degree of certainty, particularly when it is paid for?

I thank Senator Moran, Republican from Kansas, for joining me--or for letting me join him--to lead that amendment.

Following that, several colleagues and I have partnered with Senator Grassley and others to write a bill that would extend the credit for 2 years. There is clearly plenty of bipartisan support out there, and I know the people in my State--whether Republicans or Democrats or Independents or not even thinking about that--I know they want us to get this done.

Nearly 7,500 Coloradans have already signed a petition on my Web site supporting the wind production tax credit. I urge others today who are watching this to visit my Web site and please add their name.

I conclude by asking why, when the economic stakes are as high as they are, the Congress cannot get its act together. We need to extend the wind production tax credit, and we need to do it now.

EQIP and CSP

Mr. President, I rise to speak on Coburn amendment No. 2353, and I want to be the first to say how much I appreciate the efforts of my colleague from Oklahoma at deficit reduction. In fact, we are currently working together to promote a comprehensive approach to deficit reduction, and I deeply appreciate his leadership, which in many ways has been unparalleled on this issue. However, I have to oppose this particular amendment. I understand we are likely to consider the amendment this afternoon. I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment by supporting the motion to table.

This amendment will repeal the popular Environmental Quality Incentives Program, EQIP, and the Conservation Stewardship Program, CSP. Both are critical programs authorized under the conservation title of the farm bill.

In Colorado, I have heard time and time again from our farmers and our ranchers how critical these programs are to holding on to their family farm.

EQIP, for example, is on the front lines of agricultural production. It helps farmers ensure that their operations contribute to clean water and clean air in our rural communities. It proactively and successfully addresses new and emerging resource issues to avert the need for regulation--to put our farmers and ranchers in a place where they have less regulation, not more, because of the work they are doing on the ground to conserve their lands.

Let me give you one example from Colorado. EQIP resources have been used to ensure that the sage grouse stays off the endangered species list--a listing that would threaten ranchers all across the West. That is the result of the great work that has been done by farmers and ranchers in Colorado with EQIP.

By providing resources to mark barbed wired fences--making them more visible to the threatened bird--EQIP is working for farmers and ranchers, and it is working well. It is the flagship of voluntary, incentive-based conservation programs, which is a direction I think we should be heading, and a direction we head in this farm bill.

Both EQIP and CSP provide quantifiable benefits that are reflective of the varied conservation challenges all across our country. So I strongly support this new conservation title as we reported it out of the committee in a bipartisan vote.

As I have mentioned, and has been discussed on this bill, this bill is also remarkable for the cuts it makes: $23.6 billion. To my knowledge, there is not any other committee in the Senate or any committee in the House of Representatives that has actually reached bipartisan agreement and, in this case, bipartisan consensus on budget cuts, which is the way we should be doing business around here because it is what the American people and the people in Colorado expect from us, particularly on these difficult questions around our deficit and our debt. And $6.4 billion of those cuts--$6.4 billion of that $23 billion--came from the conservation title, not all of which I liked, but we made difficult compromises at the committee level, and we ought not make further cuts on the floor, especially to programs that make smart and effective investments in our rural communities.

So I will oppose, for those reasons, amendment No. 2353 and support the motion to table, and I urge my colleagues from both sides of the aisle to do the same.

Finally, I wish to say thank you to the chairwoman of this committee and the ranking member, Debbie Stabenow and Pat Roberts, for their extraordinary bipartisan work in getting the bill this far. It is my fervent hope that leadership on both sides reaches an agreement on these amendments so we can move forward and do the right thing for our farmers and ranchers back home in Colorado.

With that, I see my colleague from Connecticut, Senator Lieberman, on the floor. I thank the Presiding Officer for his patience and yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, it is a great privilege to be here tonight with the senior Senator from Colorado because the topic I come to the floor to talk about tonight is the West. Similar to the Presiding Officer, I have been thinking a lot about our home State of Colorado because we currently have a terrible wildfire burning just west of Fort Collins. Susan and I and the girls went up to Jamestown this weekend--I think I told the Presiding Officer this earlier--and dropped them off at camp, and that is far away from where this fire is. It is on the other side of Estes Park. But even from there, we could see an incredible plume of smoke, and in the 45 minutes or so we were there, I would say the volume of that plume of smoke increased by three-or fourfold and we could tell something terrible was going on.

As the Presiding Officer knows better than anybody in this Chamber, this devastating fire has destroyed over 100 structures and has tragically claimed one life and endangered many others. In fact, as we stand in this Chamber tonight, there are many endangered by this fire. At over 43,000 acres and growing, it is the third largest fire in Colorado's history.

Today, I think I can say for both of us, our thoughts go out to the family who lost a loved one and to the hundreds of firefighters who are bravely working on the ground as we are here tonight. We wish them well and we wish them success in battling this blaze.

As the Presiding Officer knows, wildfires are simply part of life in the West. Managing our land to improve resiliency needs to be a focus of ours in this Congress. That is why I am pleased, as a member of the Committee on Agriculture, to say the farm bill reauthorizes stewardship contracting, which allows our Federal land management agencies to implement high priority forest management and restoration projects. Much of the Presiding Officer's career has had to do with these programs. I thank him for his support, and I have been pleased to be able to carry on his work as a member of the Agriculture Committee. This is a critical tool for initiatives that restore and maintain healthy forest ecosystems and provide local employment. The Presiding Officer, I think, was on the floor maybe yesterday talking about the importance of this to our timber industry in Colorado and across this country.

Another truly western aspect of this bill I would like to focus on tonight is conservation and specifically the stewardship of our western landscape. In my travels around Colorado, I have been heartened to see over and over farmers and ranchers arm in arm with conservation groups and with sportsmen, all in the name of proper stewardship of the land, of protecting our open spaces. They all share the recognition that keeping these landscapes in their historical, undeveloped state is an economic driver--as family farms, as working cattle ranches; for tourism, for wildlife habitat, and to preserve our rural way of life and our rural economies.

Every citizen knows the American West is a destination for those seeking wide-open spaces--a ``home on the range,'' as they say, a way of life that is focused on working the land and the wise stewardship of our natural resources. We also know that as we have grown as a country, there has been increasing development pressure on this way of life and on the landscape. That pressure is exactly why the farm bill's conservation title is so vital to people in the West.

I serve as chairman of the Conservation Subcommittee of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and through the dozens--literally dozens--of farm bill listening sessions I have held over the last 18 months, farmers and ranchers were always talking about the importance of conservation; conservation of their way of life and conservation of their land, particularly the use of conservation easements which help landowners voluntarily conserve the farming and ranching heritage of their land, a heritage that is so important to our State and to the entire West.

So I wished to spend a few minutes sharing some of the stories Coloradans have shared with me and, maybe more important than that, showing our colleagues what this looks like. Of course, we live in the most beautiful State of all 50 States, in Colorado. This photo is from the Music Meadows Ranch outside Westcliffe, CO, elevation 9,000 feet. On these beautiful 4,000 acres, Elin Ganschow raises some of the finest grass-fed beef in the country. Thanks to the Grassland Reserve Program, Elin's ranch now has a permanent conservation easement. So this beautiful land will likely always have someone running cattle on it.

This photo I have in the Chamber is from the San Luis Valley, where my predecessor, Ken Salazar, is from. Fifteen different conservation easements--finalized by the Colorado

Cattlemen's Agricultural Land Trust--protect nearly all of the private land over a 20-mile stretch in the valley.

The great work of the Cattlemen's Agricultural Land Trust, aided by the programs in the farm bill conservation title before us, is protecting our western way of life in Colorado.

This beautiful picture is also from the valley. This is not a movie set, by the way. This is how we live our lives in the great State of Colorado and why these programs have been so important.

Finally, I want to share one more Colorado story about preserving our State's fruit orchards. Most people do not know this, as I have traveled the country--and I imagine Senators Isakson and Chambliss from Georgia might even be surprised to hear--Colorado is a national leader in the production of peaches. This picture is of a peach orchard in Palisade.

My friends from California might also be interested to know that Colorado has a burgeoning wine industry as well. In Colorado's Grand Valley, pictured here, conservation programs have been efficiently employed to protect 14 family farms growing peaches and wine grapes among other things.

The Federal investments made available to protect these lands have not only ensured they will stay in agricultural production, but the resources provided from the Natural Resource Conservation Service, NRCS, help these family farms acquire new land to plant and new equipment to plant it.

Mr. President, as you can see--and as you already know--conservation is an integral part of what we are all about in the West. It helps define who we are. Sometimes people only focus on conserving public land in its undeveloped state, and that is an important endeavor in Colorado and across the West. But private land conservation--the type aided by the farm bill--is critical for so many reasons: to protect the agricultural heritage of the land, and for wildlife habitat: elk, bighorn sheep, pheasant, Colorado cutthroat trout--the list goes on and on--so many of the prized species that are important to our Nation's sportsmen and nature lovers.

Finding open landscapes and the species that inhabit them are a fundamental part of what it is to be in the West. We need to preserve these open spaces. That is what this title does. I strongly support this new conservation title as reported out of the committee on a bipartisan vote.

I know some would look to amend this bipartisan consensus, to cut conservation resources in the name of deficit reduction or to apply it to some other purpose. I am the first to say we need to cut our deficit. We need to put the entire budget under a microscope--including agriculture--to cut waste and eliminate redundancies. And, by the way, we have.

This committee--the Senate Agriculture Committee--under the leadership of the chairwoman and the ranking member, is the only committee I am aware of in this entire Congress--the House or the Senate--that has actually come up with a bipartisan consensus on deficit reduction. I thank the ranking member and the chairwoman for their leadership, for setting a model, an example for the other committees that are working--or should be working--to get our deficit under control.

I might say, $6.4 billion of those cuts do come from conservation, not all of which I like. But we made difficult compromises at the committee level. We have a more efficient conservation title that won support from both sides of the aisle, and we ought to move this bill forward.

I know there has been a little bit of the usual back-and-forth about amendments that are not necessarily related to the topic at hand, and we have a habit of doing that in the Senate. I hope there can be an agreement reached by the leadership so we can move this critically important bill forward.

Again, at a time when so much partisan bickering is going on around this place, to have seen the fine work that was done by this committee--Republicans and Democrats working together--to strengthen this commodity title, create real deficit reduction, and actually end direct payments to producers--one of the most significant reforms in agricultural policy that we have had around this place in decades--it would be a shame--worse than a shame; it would be terrible--to let that work go to waste.

With that, Mr. President, the hour is late. I am going to stop so we can close. I thank the Presiding Officer very much and say again what a privilege it was to be able to talk about our home with him in the chair.

So with that, 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.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 491, submitted earlier today by Senators Coons and Boozman.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements relating to the measure be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 492, submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any related statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, June 13; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that the majority leader be recognized; and that following any leader remarks the first hour be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees with the Republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the final half.

Mr. President, Senators should expect two votes in relation to the sugar and SNAP amendments to the farm bill tomorrow. Senators will be notified when the votes are scheduled.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

Mr. President, today I wish to honor a former Tuskegee University professor whose efforts to support this country during the First World War, with the help of the hard-working young people he recruited for agricultural clubs, have gone largely unacknowledged until recently.

After the United States entered World War I in April of 1917, Professor John D. Wray left his position at Tuskegee University and relocated to North Carolina to aid in the war effort. As a professor specializing in agricultural science, Wray utilized his unique skills to help grow food for servicemembers fighting abroad. He partnered with Black county agents to organize and encourage African-American farmers' children to join agricultural clubs, which became known as the Saturday Service League. Wray even created a newspaper, the Rural Messenger, which was advertised as ``the only Negro farm journal in the world.''

In the first issue, Wray wrote that the children ``were told why they should engage in this work as a necessary defense for their country; that they could greatly assist by growing food to feed the boys who had gone to the trenches.'' In just 1 year's time, Wray had increased participation in North Carolina agricultural clubs tenfold, growing enrollment from 1,400 to more than 14,000. The Saturday Service League produced more than 17,000 chickens, 30,000 eggs, 23,000 pounds of pork, 700 bushels of wheat, 500 bushels of peas, 1,800 bushels of peanuts, 32 bales of cotton, 45,000 bushels of corn, and 700 bushels of potatoes in a single year.

Even after the war ended in 1919, many of the youth were inspired by Wray's patriotism and continued to work in the clubs to help feed the hungry and displaced peoples of Europe. By World War II, the clubs were nicknamed the ``Victory Volunteers.''

Born in 1889, Wray grew up on a tobacco farm near Durham and moved to Greensboro, NC, to attend the Agricultural and Technical College, where he received his degree in agricultural science. There he met his wife and developed a passion for community organizing. Utilizing the agricultural skills he learned at the college, Wray taught the youth he organized modern farming techniques that increased yields 10 times over, actively improving the utility of each farmer he encountered. In 1915, the North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station offered him a job with a salary of $1,200 per year, making him the first African- American agent for the North Carolina Extension Service. He also became an advocate for young Black men who were mistreated while serving their country in military service.

While many wartime stories focused on the front lines of combat, it is equally important to recognize Americans who worked to support them. Professor John D. Wray knew exactly what he could do to maximize his support for the United States in one of our greatest times of need. I learned of Professor Wray through his granddaughter, Kathryn Green, who now resides in Denver, CO. She and her family take great pride in his contributions to our Nation's war effort during World War I. I join them and all Americans today in offering our gratitude and thanks to Professor Wray's outstanding commitment to country, community, and the agricultural sciences.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to support the goal of my friend and colleague from New Mexico of delivering lower cost medicines to Americans. But, unfortunately, I cannot support his underlying amendment, No. 2111 to S. 3187. I agree that we should increase access to generic drugs wherever we can, and I agree that the path to market for generic products is fraught with legal challenges. But I have several concerns about the amendment. First, as convoluted as it seems, the Hatch-Waxman law that created the pathway to bring generic drugs to market has been a tremendous success in doing just that. Eighty percent of the drugs on the market now are generic, and over the last decade consumers have saved $931 billion on their drug costs as a result. There is clearly a balance in the system, and mechanisms within that system are working to bring generics to market.

As I understand it, a key element of generic entry into the market is the incentive to challenge brand-name patents. The underlying amendment changes the key incentive for generic manufacturers--the 180 days of market exclusivity. The amendment allows late filers to now share in the exclusivity, significantly reducing the incentive for companies to file early and ensuring that products get to market as quickly as possible. Generic manufacturers have a limited window for market advantage, and it is the revenues gained during this incentive period that fuel additional product development. There is a balance here. If we need to adjust that balance, I think it needs to be done in a broader context. We need to be sure that any changes that we might make do not disrupt the balance and inadvertently harm consumers.

While other aspects of the amendment are well-meaning, they may also have unintended consequences. I look forward to continuing the dialog on this issue with my colleague and others as we all work collectively to provide lower cost medicines to our constituents while maintaining an appropriate incentive for companies to innovate and develop the therapies that patients need.

Mr. President, today I wish to congratulate the Denver Gay Men's Chorus on its 30th anniversary. For the last 30 years, the group has shown great commitment to educational, cultural, and social enrichment in the community on behalf of the Rocky Mountain Arts Association.

Since the Denver Gay Men's Chorus was formed in 1982, it has performed more than 130 concerts and more than 1,400 compositions, arrangements, and medleys. The group has commissioned 25 works. It performed at the 1996 World Summer Olympics in Atlanta at the opening of the Olympic Diversity Center. It has also received the Denver Mayor's Award for Excellence in the Arts.

Today, the organization has more than 170 volunteer singers who perform at numerous community outreach events every year. They include performances at Manhattan Middle School's Diversity Week to end school bullying and a performance at the World AIDS Day Concert.

I join the State of Colorado in thanking this organization for working to address social issues and spread a message of tolerance and for enriching our community and our State. I look forward to its future work and the effect it will continue to have on our community.

I would like to try for 10 minutes but if I can do it shorter----

I thank the Senator from Iowa, the chairman of the HELP Committee, for his indulgence.

Yesterday I spoke about some of the process on the important issues of drug safety and making sure there is a good system for safer drugs, both in preparation and distribution. I know we seem to get close to reaching a resolution, which is tremendous. I have heard many of my colleagues praise different parts of the bill, which I will do as well in a minute. But I want to take 1 more minute again, while the chairman and the ranking member are on the floor, to recognize what an enormous accomplishment their leadership has resulted in, getting this bill to a close.

As I said yesterday, I think the work of the HELP Committee, both Democrats and Republicans, with the leadership of the chairman and the ranking member, is a model for this Congress. It is the reason why the quality of this bill is so high. We still have a few votes to go tomorrow, but people forget that it is rare to be working on a full extension of anything here. This has become the land of flickering lights, where we keep things on for 1 more month or 2 more months. Here we actually have a 5-year extension of this legislation. It is wonderful to be working in such a bipartisan and businesslike fashion. It is not lost on me how much work has been put into the bill by my colleagues on the HELP Committee, including the Presiding Officer, or the HELP Committee staff. I want to reiterate my thanks and gratitude for the work on the bill that will truly help patients and American families get the medical products they need when they need them.

That brings me to the subject of medical devices. Colorado is the sixth largest medical device sector in the country, with over 600 bioscience companies overall. We obviously need to strike a balance, as we think about this legislation, because as we speed the FDA approvals, we have to ensure that devices are safe. This year has represented a good-faith bipartisan effort among members on and off the HELP Committee to find policies that will empower the FDA to ensure safer devices and also ensure that our companies on the ground have more regulatory certainty and predictability.

The FDA has been upfront about the challenges the device center faces--reviewer turnover, young, less experienced reviewers, and management challenges. At the same time we have heard from venture capital investors who say that regulatory uncertainty at the FDA is a reason they have been hesitant about continued investments in the United States and thought about the future investment in Asia and Europe. The new medical device user fee will go a long way toward ensuring the FDA has the resources to provide safer, more effective medical devices in less time and with more predictability.

Over the course of a year we were also able to craft a balance of policies on both the innovation and safety side. This includes reinforcing regulations in place since 1997 that require the FDA to take the least burdensome approach to approving medical devices by not asking companies for unnecessary or unrelated information.

I see the Senator from Minnesota on the floor, and I thank her for her leadership on this piece of legislation. It also includes important safety provisions such as ensuring the medical devices have a tracking number so if there is any problem, doctors and patients can quickly know if their product is one that works.

I would like to say a word about drug shortage, which is a discussion issue every Member is hearing about in their States. In just the last year, the FDA was notified of about 220 drug shortages. We know that the amount of patients this affects is monumental. For

cancer alone, over 550,000 patients have been currently affected by our national drug shortage crisis.

In Colorado, our patients and providers are extremely frustrated. A pharmacist at St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction said that he keeps a 2-page list of 50 drugs that he cannot get or can barely get a hold of, including 12 chemotherapy drugs.

I want to share a couple of constituent stories from my home State.

Dawn Gibbs from Long Mount, CO, wrote:

Dear Senator Bennet: I am contacting you to inform you of

my grave concern of the national shortage of the preservative

free cancer drug Methotrexate. My 2-year-old cousin receives

this drug for her newly diagnosed leukemia of October 2011.

Her doctors told her that they only have a 2 week supply left

at their clinic. This drug keeps her leukemia from traveling

to her brain. This shortage is life threatening to her and

3,000+ like her with this cancer.

I thank you for your assistance in this matter. I know that

my little 2-year-old cousin cannot speak out on her own

behalf, so I am honored to be her voice. I feel my voice will

not be enough alone to make a difference, and I hope that you

will be our voice.

Dawn Gibbs' voice is being heard on behalf of her cousin, just as patients all across the country are lending their voices to this important debate.

Carol Gill from Morrison, CO, wrote:

Dear Senator Bennet: I have stage 4 cancer. My current

treatment regimen is doing a fine job of keeping the disease

stable. This regimen includes a biweekly infusion of two

generic drugs--5FU and leucovorin--and two other drugs still

on patent. I receive treatment at the University of Colorado

Hospital. My oncologist just called me to say that the

University of Colorado Hospital is out of 5FU.

Today oncologists at the University of Colorado Hospital

are calling their patients to tell them some or all of their

cancer treatment must be suspended.

Thank you for taking this seriously and taking immediate

steps to correct it.

Carol Gill.

My hope is that this Senate bill can give some reprieve to these Coloradans in desperate need of their lifesaving drugs.

The Senate bill would give the Food and Drug Administration the much needed authority to require drug manufacturers to report any discontinuance or interruption or other adjustment that would likely result in a shortage, especially those drugs needed to provide emergency care. It would also immediately create a task force that would create a strategic plan to address drug shortages and submit recommendations to Congress as well as study the effect on drug pricing as it relates to shortages.

The people in my home State and every one of our home States need us to provide solutions to this problem yesterday. They cannot wait any longer, nor should they.

I will say again that it is because of the leadership of the two people sitting here, the ranking member of our committee and the chairman of our committee, that we have been able to get this bill to the floor for a vote. I think we should take that vote tomorrow and move forward on behalf of patients all across this country and the bioscience community.

I thank the Chair.

I yield the floor.

I thank the ranking member.