Floor Statements

Mr. President, the United States Parole Commission is scheduled to expire tomorrow. After significant bicameral negotiations, 2 weeks ago, the House of Representatives passed by unanimous consent a bipartisan bill, H.R. 3190, to reauthorize the commission for 5 years. Public safety demands that we pass this legislation swiftly and I urge the Senate to support its immediate enactment. We should have passed this bill weeks ago, but a single Republican hold has placed us in the precarious position of seeking passage on the eve of expiration. This is not the way to protect public safety.

The Parole Commission is responsible for granting or denying parole for Federal and District of Columbia prisoners who were sentenced before the Federal and DC Governments abolished parole. The commission was created to consider the requests of these ``old law'' Federal and DC inmates, but it also has jurisdiction over more recent DC offenders who are on supervised release from prison. In addition, the commission supervises some military law offenders, State offenders in the witness protection program, and foreign-law offenders serving sentences in the United States.

The consequences of failing to reauthorize the commission would be dire. ``Old law'' Federal and DC inmates are required by law to receive periodic parole hearings. If the commission were unavailable to hold these hearings and declare that certain inmates should not be paroled, around 3,500 inmates would be released. Potentially dangerous individuals would be allowed to simply walk free without any assessment of the risk to public safety if this reauthorization does not pass the Senate immediately.

Failure to reauthorize the commission would have particularly harsh consequences for the District of Columbia. The commission currently sets the conditions of supervision for DC offenders and determines when those conditions have been violated. If the commission were to cease operations, around 9,000 offenders would no longer receive adequate supervision. These include extremely dangerous criminals, such as murderers and rapists.

Congress has consistently recognized the importance of the commission, reauthorizing it on 6 prior occasions. We last reauthorized the commission 2 years ago. At that time, the Republican-led House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill to extend the commission for 3 years, but a single Senator blocked the bill and insisted on only a 2-year extension.

So we are here now, 2 years later, and the House has appropriately passed a bipartisan 5-year extension. I have been working with the House since July on this straightforward reauthorization. As the House recognizes, the need for the commission will not cease within the next 5 years. In fact, it is estimated that Federal ``old-law'' offenders will require parole decisions for the next 35 years.

I hope we can agree to this 5-year extension, which includes extensive annual reporting requirements that will allow Congress to conduct oversight of the commission. All of the reporting requirements from the last reauthorization are included, along with new requirements related specifically to the District of Columbia. There is nothing objectionable in this bill, and there is no substantive reason for anyone to block it.

The events of the past few weeks have shown deep divisions in the House Republican caucus. But one thing on which all 232 House Republicans agree is that the Parole Commission should be reauthorized for another 5 years. They all agreed that releasing potentially dangerous prisoners was a bad idea. This bill is not controversial.

As I have mentioned before, Senator Paul and I and others are working in a bipartisan manner on sentencing reform. We believe that judges should have more discretion in sentencing when a mandatory minimum sentence is unnecessary and counterproductive. The extension of the Parole Commission is quite a different matter, however. If the commission is not reauthorized, there will be no one to decide whether thousands of offenders are ready for parole. These inmates will simply be released.

I want to commend the sponsor of the House bill, Congressman Steve Chabot, along with co-sponsors Chairman Bob Goodlatte and Ranking Member John Conyers of the House Judiciary Committee, and Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner and Ranking Member Bobby Scott of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security and Investigations. They understood the urgency and imminent consequences of inaction. Unfortunately, some in the Senate did not share that position and now we are up against the final deadline. It is time to end these petty games and to let Congress do its job. We must pass this bill now.

Madam President, I read with great interest the recent opinion piece on congressional budget negotiations written by my good friend Kent Conrad, our former colleague here in the Senate and distinguished chair of the Budget Committee.

I have been fortunate to serve in this Chamber for the past 38 years with principled leaders like Kent Conrad. I was elected to the Senate in 1974, the same year the Congressional Budget Act passed into law, and I have served here with all of the Budget Committee chairs--from Edmund Muskie to Patty Murray.

I think Kent Conrad is right that at this critical juncture we need to have a grown-up discussion about our Nation's finances--both about the debts we incur and the ways in which we pay for them. We have all heard a lot of talk in the last few years about getting our fiscal house in order. It makes for a great campaign slogan. But I am afraid that too many are not following through on their responsibility to govern.

After jumping from one manufactured crisis to another for the past few years, which has hurt the U.S. economy and America's standing in the world, it is time for reason and sanity to return to the Senate--on the budget process, on nominations, and on a whole host of other issues. Returning to regular order on the budget conference--and letting conference members from the House and the Senate work out a final agreement free from rigid ideological positions--would be a good first step to bringing some comity and order back to this body so we can serve the American people.

I remain ready to work with people on both sides of the aisle in the hopes that we can find a workable budget solution in the coming weeks, and I suggest that everyone heed the calls for bipartisanship and compromise made by Senator Conrad.

With that, I ask unanimous consent that Kent Conrad's full opinion piece from the October 24, 2013, Washington Post be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, was enacted 35 years ago to limit the government's ability to engage in domestic surveillance operations. In the years since September 11, 2001, Congress has repeatedly expanded the scope of this law to provide the government with broad new powers to gather information about law-abiding Americans. No one underestimates the threat this country continues to face, and we can all agree that the intelligence community should be given necessary and appropriate tools to help keep us safe. But we should also agree that there must be reasonable limits on the surveillance powers we give to the government. That is why I have consistently fought to curtail the sweeping powers contained in the USA PATRIOT Act and FISA Amendments Act, while also bolstering privacy protections and strengthening oversight. And that is why I continue my efforts today by joining with Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, as well as members of Congress from both political parties, to introduce the bipartisan USA FREEDOM Act of 2013.

Over the past several months, Americans have learned that government surveillance programs conducted under FISA are far broader than previously understood. Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act has for years been secretly interpreted to authorize the dragnet collection of Americans' phone records on an unprecedented scale, regardless of whether those Americans have any connection to terrorist activities or groups. The American public also learned more about the government's broad collection of Internet data through the use of Section 702 of FISA. And the world has learned that this surveillance has extended to millions of individuals in the global community including some of our allies and their leaders. These revelations have undermined Americans' trust in our intelligence community and harmed our relationships with some of our most important international partners.

While I do not condone the manner in which these and other highly classified programs were disclosed, I agree with the Director of National Intelligence that this debate about surveillance needed to happen. It is a debate that some of us in Congress have been engaged in for years. Since this summer, the Judiciary Committee convened two public hearings and a classified briefing with officials from the administration, including the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the National Security Agency, and the Deputy Attorney General.

As a result of these hearings and the recent declassification of documents by the administration, the public now knows about the repeated and substantial legal and policy violations by the

NSA in its implementation of both Section 215 and Section 702. The public now knows that, in addition to collecting phone call metadata on millions of law-abiding Americans, the NSA collected, without a warrant, the contents of tens of thousands of wholly domestic emails of innocent Americans. The NSA also violated a FISA Court order by regularly searching the Section 215 bulk phone records database without meeting the standard imposed by the Court.

These repeated violations, which have occurred nearly every year that these programs have been authorized by the FISA Court, led to several reprimands from the FISA Court for what it called ``systemic noncompliance'' by the government. In addition, the Court admonished the government for making a series of substantial misrepresentations to the Court about its activities. The NSA has assured Congress that these problems have been corrected. Yet with each new revelation in the press about new techniques developed by the NSA that intrude into the privacy and everyday lives of Americans, I grow increasingly concerned about the lack of sufficient oversight and accountability.

Last week, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, Lisa Monaco, stated that the government should only collect data ``because we need it and not just because we can.'' I completely agree--and that is why the government's dragnet collection of phone records should end. The government has not made a compelling case that this program is an effective counterterrorism tool, especially when balanced against the intrusion on Americans' privacy. In fact, both the Director and the Deputy Director of the NSA have testified before the Judiciary Committee that there is no evidence that the Section 215 phone records collection program helped to thwart dozens or even several terrorist plots.

It is clear that as the administration has become more open and forthright about these programs, the facts have not matched the rhetoric. It is time for serious and meaningful reforms to FISA in order to restore the confidence of the American people in our intelligence community. Modest transparency and oversight provisions are a good first step, but by themselves they are insufficient to protect the privacy rights and civil liberties of Americans. We must do more.

The USA FREEDOM ACT is a legislative solution that comprehensively addresses a range of surveillance authorities contained in FISA. I want to thank Congressman Sensenbrenner for his dedicated work on this bipartisan, bicameral piece of legislation that we are introducing today. We are joined in this effort by members of Congress from both chambers and across the political spectrum, and I want to thank the following Senators for cosponsoring this legislation: Senator Lee, Senator Durbin, Senator Heller, Senator Blumenthal, Senator Murkowski, Senator Hirono, Senator Udall of New Mexico, Senator Begich, Senator Baldwin, Senator Heinrich, Senator Markey, Senator Udall of Colorado, Senator Warren, Senator Merkley, Senator Tester, and Senator Schatz.

Our bill will end the dragnet collection of phone records under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act by requiring that only documents or records relevant and material to an investigation may be obtained, and that they have some particular nexus to a specific foreign agent or power. It will also ensure that the FISA pen register statute and National Security Letters cannot be used to authorize similar dragnet collection by applying the same standard. The bill also adds more meaningful judicial review of Section 215 orders and raises the standard for the government to obtain a gag order for every Section 215 order.

In addition to stopping the dragnet collection of phone records, our legislation will address privacy concerns related to surveillance conducted under the FISA Amendments Act, which allows the government to gather vast amounts of Internet communications content by foreigners located overseas. Given the technological nature of Internet communications, we must vigilantly protect against the inadvertent collection of the contents of the wholly domestic communications of U.S. persons--something that the NSA acknowledged has happened before. Our bill will place stricter limits on this type of collection, and also require the government to obtain a court order prior to conducting `back door' searches looking for the communications of U.S. persons in databases collected without a warrant under Section 702 of FISA.

Finally, the USA FREEDOM Act will require enhanced accountability, transparency, and oversight in the FISA process. Our bill builds on a proposal by Senator Blumenthal to provide for the creation of a Special Advocate who will advocate specifically for the protection of privacy rights and civil liberties before the FISA Court, as well as a process for publicly releasing FISA Court opinions containing significant interpretations of law. Under the bill, public confidence in the government's activities will also be strengthened by more detailed public reporting about the numbers and types of FISA orders that are issued.

Importantly, this measure requires new Inspector General reviews and imposes new sunset dates. I have long believed that sunset provisions are an important tool because nothing focuses the attention of Congress or the Executive Branch like the looming chance that a law will end. It is important to note that Section 215, which the government is using to conduct dragnet phone records collection, will expire in June 2015 unless Congress decides otherwise. This bill also shortens the FISA Amendments Act sunset by 2 years, and adds a new sunset for National Security Letters. This aligns all of these FISA sunsets so that Congress can address them comprehensively in 2015, rather than in a piecemeal fashion.

These are all commonsense, bipartisan improvements that will ensure appropriate limits are placed on the government's vast surveillance powers. The American people deserve to know how laws governing surveillance authorities are being interpreted and will implicate their personal information and activities. The American people also deserve to know whether these programs have proven sufficiently valuable as counterterrorism tools to justify their extraordinary breadth. This legislation will help to repair that trust deficit by providing enhanced layers of transparency, oversight, and accountability to ensure that we are protecting national security while restoring protections for the privacy rights and civil liberties of law-abiding Americans.

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

Mr. President, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, was enacted 35 years ago to limit the government's ability to engage in domestic surveillance operations. In the years since September 11, 2001, Congress has repeatedly expanded the scope of this law to provide the government with broad new powers to gather information about law-abiding Americans. No one underestimates the threat this country continues to face, and we can all agree that the intelligence community should be given necessary and appropriate tools to help keep us safe. But we should also agree that there must be reasonable limits on the surveillance powers we give to the government. That is why I have consistently fought to curtail the sweeping powers contained in the USA PATRIOT Act and FISA Amendments Act, while also bolstering privacy protections and strengthening oversight. And that is why I continue my efforts today by joining with Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, as well as members of Congress from both political parties, to introduce the bipartisan USA FREEDOM Act of 2013.

Over the past several months, Americans have learned that government surveillance programs conducted under FISA are far broader than previously understood. Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act has for years been secretly interpreted to authorize the dragnet collection of Americans' phone records on an unprecedented scale, regardless of whether those Americans have any connection to terrorist activities or groups. The American public also learned more about the government's broad collection of Internet data through the use of Section 702 of FISA. And the world has learned that this surveillance has extended to millions of individuals in the global community including some of our allies and their leaders. These revelations have undermined Americans' trust in our intelligence community and harmed our relationships with some of our most important international partners.

While I do not condone the manner in which these and other highly classified programs were disclosed, I agree with the Director of National Intelligence that this debate about surveillance needed to happen. It is a debate that some of us in Congress have been engaged in for years. Since this summer, the Judiciary Committee convened two public hearings and a classified briefing with officials from the administration, including the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the National Security Agency, and the Deputy Attorney General.

As a result of these hearings and the recent declassification of documents by the administration, the public now knows about the repeated and substantial legal and policy violations by the

NSA in its implementation of both Section 215 and Section 702. The public now knows that, in addition to collecting phone call metadata on millions of law-abiding Americans, the NSA collected, without a warrant, the contents of tens of thousands of wholly domestic emails of innocent Americans. The NSA also violated a FISA Court order by regularly searching the Section 215 bulk phone records database without meeting the standard imposed by the Court.

These repeated violations, which have occurred nearly every year that these programs have been authorized by the FISA Court, led to several reprimands from the FISA Court for what it called ``systemic noncompliance'' by the government. In addition, the Court admonished the government for making a series of substantial misrepresentations to the Court about its activities. The NSA has assured Congress that these problems have been corrected. Yet with each new revelation in the press about new techniques developed by the NSA that intrude into the privacy and everyday lives of Americans, I grow increasingly concerned about the lack of sufficient oversight and accountability.

Last week, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, Lisa Monaco, stated that the government should only collect data ``because we need it and not just because we can.'' I completely agree--and that is why the government's dragnet collection of phone records should end. The government has not made a compelling case that this program is an effective counterterrorism tool, especially when balanced against the intrusion on Americans' privacy. In fact, both the Director and the Deputy Director of the NSA have testified before the Judiciary Committee that there is no evidence that the Section 215 phone records collection program helped to thwart dozens or even several terrorist plots.

It is clear that as the administration has become more open and forthright about these programs, the facts have not matched the rhetoric. It is time for serious and meaningful reforms to FISA in order to restore the confidence of the American people in our intelligence community. Modest transparency and oversight provisions are a good first step, but by themselves they are insufficient to protect the privacy rights and civil liberties of Americans. We must do more.

The USA FREEDOM ACT is a legislative solution that comprehensively addresses a range of surveillance authorities contained in FISA. I want to thank Congressman Sensenbrenner for his dedicated work on this bipartisan, bicameral piece of legislation that we are introducing today. We are joined in this effort by members of Congress from both chambers and across the political spectrum, and I want to thank the following Senators for cosponsoring this legislation: Senator Lee, Senator Durbin, Senator Heller, Senator Blumenthal, Senator Murkowski, Senator Hirono, Senator Udall of New Mexico, Senator Begich, Senator Baldwin, Senator Heinrich, Senator Markey, Senator Udall of Colorado, Senator Warren, Senator Merkley, Senator Tester, and Senator Schatz.

Our bill will end the dragnet collection of phone records under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act by requiring that only documents or records relevant and material to an investigation may be obtained, and that they have some particular nexus to a specific foreign agent or power. It will also ensure that the FISA pen register statute and National Security Letters cannot be used to authorize similar dragnet collection by applying the same standard. The bill also adds more meaningful judicial review of Section 215 orders and raises the standard for the government to obtain a gag order for every Section 215 order.

In addition to stopping the dragnet collection of phone records, our legislation will address privacy concerns related to surveillance conducted under the FISA Amendments Act, which allows the government to gather vast amounts of Internet communications content by foreigners located overseas. Given the technological nature of Internet communications, we must vigilantly protect against the inadvertent collection of the contents of the wholly domestic communications of U.S. persons--something that the NSA acknowledged has happened before. Our bill will place stricter limits on this type of collection, and also require the government to obtain a court order prior to conducting `back door' searches looking for the communications of U.S. persons in databases collected without a warrant under Section 702 of FISA.

Finally, the USA FREEDOM Act will require enhanced accountability, transparency, and oversight in the FISA process. Our bill builds on a proposal by Senator Blumenthal to provide for the creation of a Special Advocate who will advocate specifically for the protection of privacy rights and civil liberties before the FISA Court, as well as a process for publicly releasing FISA Court opinions containing significant interpretations of law. Under the bill, public confidence in the government's activities will also be strengthened by more detailed public reporting about the numbers and types of FISA orders that are issued.

Importantly, this measure requires new Inspector General reviews and imposes new sunset dates. I have long believed that sunset provisions are an important tool because nothing focuses the attention of Congress or the Executive Branch like the looming chance that a law will end. It is important to note that Section 215, which the government is using to conduct dragnet phone records collection, will expire in June 2015 unless Congress decides otherwise. This bill also shortens the FISA Amendments Act sunset by 2 years, and adds a new sunset for National Security Letters. This aligns all of these FISA sunsets so that Congress can address them comprehensively in 2015, rather than in a piecemeal fashion.

These are all commonsense, bipartisan improvements that will ensure appropriate limits are placed on the government's vast surveillance powers. The American people deserve to know how laws governing surveillance authorities are being interpreted and will implicate their personal information and activities. The American people also deserve to know whether these programs have proven sufficiently valuable as counterterrorism tools to justify their extraordinary breadth. This legislation will help to repair that trust deficit by providing enhanced layers of transparency, oversight, and accountability to ensure that we are protecting national security while restoring protections for the privacy rights and civil liberties of law-abiding Americans.

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

Mr. President, I want to express my thanks to the governments of Colombia, Cuba and Norway, and to the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Reverend Jessie Jackson, for their efforts to secure the release yesterday of American citizen, Kevin Scott Sutay, who was kidnapped by the FARC earlier this year. I hope this is another sign that negotiations to end Colombia's decades long armed conflict are progressing, and that a peace agreement is possible.

I also want to take this opportunity to call attention to the contributions of two courageous Colombian human rights activists, Islena Rey and Father Alejandro Angulo Novoa, and to the challenges they and other human rights defenders face.

On September 9, Colombia's Human Rights Day, both were awarded for their human rights work in a presentation organized by Di logo Inter- Agencial en Colombia, a consortium of international nongovernmental organizations working for human rights in Colombia. This is the second year of the awards, and they were presented during a time of increasing attacks against human rights defenders in that country. The awards are significant not only because they recognize the recipients' contributions, but also because they help to reduce the social stigma that surrounds human rights work in Colombia and many other countries.

Islena Rey, founder of the Meta Civic Committee for Human Rights, was named Defender of the Year for her efforts to bring together and organize community leaders in support of victims of human rights abuses. She works in one of Colombia's most dangerous regions, the Eastern Plains, which has long been plagued by violence spurred by the illegal narcotics trade.

Ms. Rey knows the risks. Four years ago this month, she was shot and seriously wounded while returning from a community meeting. She is also the sole survivor of the original Meta Committee members, who, throughout the 1990s, were systematically assassinated, leaving her to carry out her advocacy work alone. Four years after nearly losing her life, she presses on, conducting investigations, providing support to victims, and working to rebuild the Meta Committee.

In addition to recognizing Islena Rey, the organization presented Father Alejandro Angulo Novoa with the Life Long Defender award for his contributions to human rights in Colombia over the past 4 decades. Father Alejandro is one of the founders of the Center for Research and Popular Education in Bogota. He is currently the coordinator of CINEP's human rights database which collects, records, and disseminates information on the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. He has dedicated his life to this work and to supporting the poor and excluded.

The courage and dedication displayed by these two individuals represents just a small fraction of the essential work being done by human rights defenders in Colombia. It is all the more remarkable because, despite some notable progress in investigating, prosecuting and punishing those responsible for heinous crimes, impunity is the norm and Colombia remains a very dangerous place for lawyers, social activists, and journalists who work and report on human rights.

Islena Rey, Father Alejandro, and countless other brave Colombians will continue tending to victims of human rights abuses. They are undeterred by the social stigma they face, or the threats and acts of violence against them and their colleagues. They deserve our respect and our thanks, because the protection of human rights, wherever they are threatened or denied, is everybody's responsibility.

Mr. President, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act ECPA, one of the Nation's premiere digital privacy laws, was enacted 27 years ago on October 21. I join the many privacy advocates, technology organizations, legal scholars and other Americans who celebrate this milestone and all that ECPA has come to symbolize about the importance of safeguarding our privacy rights in cyberspace.

When I introduced ECPA with former Republican Senator Charles Mathias in 1986, I said that ``the privacy protections in ECPA are designed to protect legitimate law enforcement needs while minimizing intrusions on the privacy of system users as well as the business needs of electronic communications system providers.'' During the last three decades, ECPA has become the premier law for protecting Americans from unauthorized government intrusions into their private electronic communications.

When Congress enacted ECPA, email was a novelty and no one imagined how prevalent it would become in our daily communication let alone how long it might be stored. But after almost three decades, new technologies--such as the Internet, social networking sites and cloud computing--have changed how Americans use and store email. Storing documents and other information electronically has become much less expensive and mobile technologies permit users to access stored documents wherever and whenever they choose. As a result, the digital privacy protections put in place 27 years ago have not kept pace with new technologies.

That is why Congress must revitalize the digital privacy protections that were enacted in ECPA. That is also why I am working in a bipartisan manner to update this law to reflect the realities of our time.

In April, the Judiciary Committee favorably reported bipartisan legislation that I authored with Republican Senator Mike Lee to update ECPA and to bring this law fully into the digital age. Our bipartisan bill updates ECPA to require that the government obtain a search warrant--based upon probable cause--before obtaining the content of our emails and other electronic communications. The commonsense reforms in our bill carefully balance the interests and needs of consumers, the law enforcement community, and our Nation's thriving technology sector. The bill enjoys the support of a diverse coalition of more than 100 privacy, civil liberties, civil rights and technology organizations from across the political spectrum, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Heritage Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology and Americans for Tax Reform. The bill is also the product of careful consultation with many government and private sector stakeholders, including the Departments of Justice, Commerce and State, local law enforcement, and members of the technology and privacy communities. I remain disappointed that a single Republican Senator has objected to the unanimous consent request to pass this bipartisan bill, which overwhelmingly passed the Judiciary Committee.

The privacy reforms in this bill are too important to delay. Like Senator Lee and me, all of the bill's supporters understand that protecting our digital privacy rights is not a Democratic ideal, nor a Republican ideal, but an American ideal that all of us should embrace. As ECPA reaches another milestone, it is important to remember that Americans continue to face threats to their digital privacy. I hope that all Senators will join me in supporting the Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendments Act and that the Senate will pass this bill without delay.

Mr. President, I want to bring to the attention of my colleagues a courageous Ecuadoran journalist who has been recognized by the Committee to Protect Journalists International Press.

Janet Hinostroza has anchored the investigative news show ``30 Plus'' for the past decade and hosted the news program ``La Manana de 24 Horas,'' both on the private Ecuadoran television channel Teleamazonas. She also hosts a radio program on 98.1 FM Mundo and is the local correspondent for Univision, while managing a production company specializing in journalistic programming and audiovisual products.

Ms. Hinostroza has attracted the wrath of the Ecuadoran authorities for reporting on such important issues as human and arms trafficking, the Ecuadoran police, corruption, and extrajudicial killings. She recently investigated a scandal involving a loan by a state-owned bank to a businessman who defaulted. I am informed that her reporting uncovered irregularities in the loan and connected the businessman to the then-head of Ecuador's central bank, who was President Rafael Correa's cousin. As a result, she received anonymous phone calls threatening her safety and she had to temporarily leave her television news program.

Teleamazonas, like many Ecuadoran news outlets that engage in reporting critical of the government, is regularly targeted with harassment by official censors. Ms. Hinostroza's program is required to designate regular time slots, legally reserved for reporting official information in times of crisis, to present presidential rebuttals to her reports, contrary to Ecuador's broadcast laws.

In recognition of Ms. Hinostroza's brave and important work and commitment to fighting for a free press, next month the Committee to Protect Journalists will award Ms. Hinostroza the International Award for Freedom of the Press.

Unfortunately, the harassment of Ms. Hinostroza is only one example of a steady deterioration of democratic principles in Ecuador. It is the responsibility of democratic governments to foster an environment of pluralism, and nothing is more basic to that than public access to information from a free press. Instead, the Ecuadoran Government has carried out a relentless assault on the media, and recently it went a step further by restricting the autonomy of nongovernmental organizations.

A decree adopted in June creates burdensome new procedures for nongovernmental organizations, both Ecuadoran and international, to obtain legal status to operate in the country. Like a free press, civil society plays a crucial oversight role in any democratic society. The Ecuadoran decree is similar to what we have seen in other countries whose repressive governments are using laws and decrees to silence their critics.

I ask unanimous consent that excerpts from a recent report by Human Rights Watch about the Correa government's latest efforts to consolidate power and silence its critics be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. President, the distinguished Presiding Officer is, like myself, a New Englander and knows what fall is like in our part of the country. Late last month, I was fortunate to enjoy the most lovely settings I think can be found anywhere at any time, as Vermont's hillsides are painted orange, yellow, and red by peak fall colors set against powder blue skies. Vermonters love these sublime few weeks. We happily welcome visitors around the United States. Actually, we welcome visitors from around the world. It is interesting to walk down the streets in some of our cities and hear several different languages being spoken as visitors come here. They share the experience, and they hike and bike and fish, and they hunt in our extensive preserved natural areas.

But these best of times have become the worst of times, as Vermonters and visitors alike have found closed signs on their favorite natural areas due to the tea party shutdown of the Federal Government. The window is quickly closing in Vermont for the Fish and Wildlife biologists and national forest rangers who have work that must be done before the first snow falls. We know how Washington can close down for an inch or two of snow. In Vermont, we are talking about 10, 15, or 20 inches of snow. These Fish and Wildlife biologists and national forest rangers' schedules are dictated by the changing seasons and the biological clocks of nature. The House Republican leadership has been no more able to undo the law of the land--which is the Affordable Care Act--than they would be able to slow or stop Vermont's changing seasons.

Insisting on tying a repeal or a defunding of the Affordable Care Act to reopening the government is doing real and lasting damage to Vermont's economy and natural resources as fall quickly becomes winter.

The 26,000-acre Nulhegan national wildlife refuge in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom is among the best upland bird hunting areas in New England. There is plenty of room for everyone, but just days after the opening of grouse season, the refuge has been forced to hang up a closed sign and lock its gates. This has dealt a blow to the tourism economy of the small towns around the refuge that depend on these annual visitors and hunters.

The Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge on the shores of Lake Champlain is, without a doubt, the best and most extensive freshwater duck habitat in New England. Huge meadows of wild rice attract thousands of migrating waterfowl and legions of bird watchers

and hunters. Even with the fall migrations in full swing, the Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge has hung up a closed sign and locked its gates for the start of the fall hunting season.

Hikers looking for the best panoramic views of Vermont's fall colors flock to the Appalachian Trail and Vermont's Long Trail which run together up the spine of the Green Mountains, through the 400,000-acre Green Mountain National Forest. Through-hikers, weekenders, and day trippers spread out to enjoy hundreds of miles of trails. But only a skeleton crew of forest rangers and fire crew remain on the job. Visitors centers and restrooms are closed; even volunteer workers have been pulled from the trail and forced to stop shelter work and trash collection at trailheads because of the tea party shutdown.

These may not seem like huge matters in the national scheme of things, but in a State of 600,000 people they are major. Not only are the livelihoods of Vermonters being devastated, but the things that we cherish the most about our State are being denied to people who want to come and see them.

Woodstock, VT, is the quintessential New England village and host to the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park. The centerpiece of the park is the oldest sustainably managed forest in the United States. It is a beautiful forest. But visitors are denied access to this forest in all of its fall glory. Long-planned events at the park have been canceled and the gates have been locked.

Certainly there are many more places for visitors to enjoy--this has been a wonderful picture-perfect season. I am told by my friends and neighbors who live near our home in Vermont that it has been absolutely gorgeous. As much as I love all my colleagues and enjoy being with them, I would much rather be up there seeing the same view as Vermonters are. But the closing of our Federal lands, just as hunting seasons begin and the hillsides shine, is depriving Americans from experiencing the country's natural heritage and causing serious economic damage to the small towns, and the innkeepers and guides who depend upon these areas for their living. Foreign tourists, increasingly important to our economy, and their tour operators, are confused and disappointed by these outcomes. They say: this sort of thing has never happened in our country and yet you are the wealthiest and most powerful country on the earth; why are you doing this?

Other conservation work is being curtailed, as well, in ways likely to do lasting damage. Control of parasitic sea lamprey in Lake Champlain has to be accomplished each fall to protect the game fish and threatened species. There is a very short window when the sea lamprey treatments can be applied before these parasites migrate from the rivers to the lake. That window is fast closing. It is going to be missed if U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists remain on furlough. If these fall treatments do not take place, thousands of young sea lamprey will be allowed to reach the lake, where they are immune to treatment, live for years, and devastate the fishery. This will undo years of work, and taxpayer dollars invested in this program will be wasted by a small group of radical obstructionists who jump in front of the cameras and say things that make no sense at all.

In Vermont and across the country, there is a lot of work that needs to take place on Federal lands before winter snows sweep in. Snowmobiling is very popular among my constituents. It is a mainstay of our winter economy. But fall is the time the trails are graded and bridges repaired. Our most important trail networks are on Federal lands, and important maintenance is being delayed--deferred in some cases--due to the tea party shutdown. If trails are not opened before the snow flies, the devastating impact on tourism and local communities is going to last all winter long and impact people who want to go to work every day, who are hard-working, honest, good people who can't understand what is happening here in Washington.

Fall in Vermont is the most glorious season. It is my favorite one. We welcome visitors. We get outdoors more ourselves, and are busy preparing for the long winter to come. Our hard-working Federal partners are proud of the work they do on these Federal lands, and they know this manufactured tea party crisis is causing real and lasting damage to our natural resources and the Vermont economy.

National parks and refuges in Vermont are not the only places closed for business. According to the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, every day the Federal Government is shuttered costs the National Park Service nearly $\1/2\ million in lost fee collections nationwide. And the impacts are even greater for the surrounding communities that are losing $76 million per day in visitor spending. While some in the tea party actually have the arrogance to go on television and argue that shutting down the Federal Government is saving us money, the truth is just the opposite. It is costing every one of us taxpayers money, and it is costing everybody in the private sector huge amounts of money. And now, as we reach day 15 of the tea party shutdown, the National Park Service has been denied over $6 million in lost revenues, and local communities--not government workers, but local communities--honest, hard-working men and women have lost over $1 billion. This is why several States have chosen to foot the bill to reopen a handful of national parks to stop further losses to local economies. The cost of shutting down the government, paying the lost revenue--that is what is keeping us in the red.

So I say to the small group of obstructionists, stop wasting time. Put our government back to work. Show the rest of the world that we really are the great country we know we are. I want to get back to work for Vermonters; we owe it to our constituents to resolve this now and start making real decisions about our future.

Speaker Boehner should call up the Senate continuing resolution for a vote. It would receive bipartisan support, and we could put an end to this pointless tea party shutdown. We would reopen our Federal lands. We would be supporting our local economy.

There is more I can say, Mr. President, and I will, but I applaud Majority Leader Reid for working with the Republican leader, Senator McConnell. I applaud them for being what grownups should be, trying to bring us back and trying to bring our government back, showing what a great country we are so we do not have countries such as China saying: Oh, we should not rely on American currency. They are not reliable people.

We are getting this all over the world--Americans are not reliable. What damage these tea party obstructionists are doing to our great country. We ask our military to serve around the world and protect us-- and maybe they will get paid, but a lot of the support for them, the VA and whatnot, is being closed down. It is shameful. The same people who shut down the government are saying it is terrible that the government is shut down. I think the American people can see through this.

I don't care what party you belong to or who you are, with the exemption of a small group, people know this country has to be open so it can work--can work for all of us--and can project an image of strength and stability throughout the world, can do the things that made us great in the past and that will keep making us great in the future, not this shabby exercise.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, if I might for a moment, we have had dozens and dozens of terrorists who have been arrested. We had the so-called Underwear Bomber, a member of Osama bin Laden's family, and many others. They were all given their Miranda warning and they wouldn't shut up. They kept talking day after day after day. It has been my experience that if they are going to talk, they are going to talk, whether they are given a Miranda warning or not. Wouldn't it be nice if we demonstrated to the rest of the world that we are not afraid of these

people, and that we have the best system of justice in the world and we are going to use it? We have only had three or four convictions by military commissions in terrorism cases; we have had several hundred convictions in our Federal courts.

It is not responsible for Senators to talk about: Oh, my gosh, if we just sent them to Guantanamo. Guantanamo by itself is damaging to the United States and harms the image of the United States.

The fact of the matter is that the people we have arrested and who went through our court system will usually talk ad nauseam, whether they have been given the Miranda warning or not. So let's be realistic. It might be a nice talking point to scare people, but the people who are actually involved in prosecutions know it works.

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

Mr. President, I will be speaking later this afternoon with regard to the judges, but I have heard a number of people, including the distinguished senior Senator from Connecticut and others on the floor, speaking about the effect of the shutdown. I appreciate my colleagues who come and give real-world statements of how what is happening here impacts their constituents.

I was just in Vermont and had the opportunity to talk with people, many of whom I have known for years, about how they are being effected by the shutdown. These are hard-working people who work for our government. They have skills our government needs. They are being furloughed through no fault of their own.

They said: I know I am getting paid less in the government, but I have a skill and the country has done so much for me and my family, it is a way to give back, but I am not going to tell my children to do that. They are well educated. I am not going to tell them to do that, to get treated this way.

What is going to happen is we are going to have a lot of these furloughed people who will say the heck with it. They will leave government service. These are experts in our intelligence services, the Department of Defense, medical research, and other areas. What will happen when we try to replace them? We will be scrambling around, hiring contractors, paying a lot more for people without the skills and experience.

The private sector is being impacted. I have used the example of a person who has a microbrewery in Vermont. He put a lot of money and effort into a seasonal brew and was prepared to go with it during what we call the leaf-peeping season, the fall foliage season, in Vermont, but he needs an approval stamp from the Department of Agriculture, but the people who would give him the approval he needs have been furloughed.

There are a number of people who may need a passport for an emergency, a family member is abroad and ill and somebody has to get on a plane. A lot passports get issued in St. Albans, Vermont, but the employees at the passport office are not allowed to go to work and get their job done.

Those who have questions of the IRS that they need for their businesses, normally they could call them, but the IRS is closed.

In another area--and someone in the press asked me about this a few moments ago--what about the court system. Our Federal court system is facing some very serious problems. If there is a criminal case, because of our speedy trial rules, that goes to the head of the line. We also have, since Gideon v. Wainwright, the fact that criminal defendants are entitled to counsel. But the counsel might not be there. Defenders' offices might have to furlough staff.

Courts can't keep asking the same lawyers to just volunteer their time; maybe they will get paid and maybe they will not, and if they do, it is going to be far less than they make otherwise.

What happens is that those criminal cases start backing up. Then if there is a legitimate civil case one wishes to bring, good luck in the Federal courts. They could wait year after year after year to have their case heard. By the time their case makes it in front of a judge, whatever remedy they might have is going to be inadequate because of the delay. Justice delayed is justice denied.

This is happening in our Federal courts as the money runs out because we have not passed a Continuing Resolution to fund our co-equal branch of government. Combined with the funding cuts to the courts due to sequestration and the 93 current Federal district and circuit judgeships that are vacant 39 of which have been deemed judicial emergency vacancies because the caseloads are so high and it is not difficult

to see that our courts need us act. Fortunately, we will have one judge from Illinois and one judge from Alabama confirmed this afternoon--but we have a shortage of judges because of vacancies and because we are having to wait months and months before we are able to vote on uncontroversial nominees, who in the past would have been confirmed within days.

I could give 1,000 examples, but the ripple effect on real Americans is awful. We see a salmonella outbreak in the West. We know our Department of Agriculture inspectors are out there checking--oh, wait a minute, they are not. They are furloughed or many of them are. What do we do there?

As to areas where there are ports, normally busy ports, is shipping coming in and out or is it being slowed because there are suddenly less people?

I know when I talk to the FBI, they tell me about investigations they can't go forward with or can't complete because of furloughs.

We had this horrific bus accident in the South a couple of weeks ago. I cannot imagine the grief those families must feel for those who were lost. What I found shocking was that after the accident our National Transportation Safety Board couldn't send a team down to find out what happened and whether there is anything that can be learned to prevent similar crashes because their investigators are furloughed.

I know the distinguished Presiding Officer has stood and worked hard on this floor, in our caucuses, and with others to get the government back open and to get us to do the right thing. I am preaching to the converted.

I see our deputy leader, the distinguished senior leader from Illinois, who has spoken not only on this floor but in the national media for the need to reopen.

I yield the floor to the distinguished Senator from Illinois. I thank the Senator for what he is doing, as I stopped in to thank our majority leader for standing strongly on this to reopen the government.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I know it is several minutes past 5. I doubt very much if we will use the 30 minutes. We will probably be able to yield back time so the vote can be at 5:30, although I am not making that request at this point.

Listening to the distinguished chair of the Appropriations Committee, the senior Senator from Maryland, I had to agree with everything she was saying. This is the fourteenth day of the government shutdown, and by refusing to pass a clean continuing resolution to fund the operations of the Federal government, Republicans continue to threaten the critical functioning of all three branches of government.

With this ongoing shutdown of the entire Federal government, a handful of ideologues in the House of Representatives are holding the entire judicial system hostage and this threatens our entire democracy.

One critical problem is that we have more than 90 judicial vacancies, including 39 that have been designated as emergency vacancies due to high caseloads by the non-partisan Administrative Office of the Courts.

While we will vote to confirm two additional judges today, we are moving far too slowly and are not keeping pace with the urgent needs of our Federal judiciary. We must do better.

Both of the district court nominees we are voting on today have been nominated to fill vacancies that were named judicial emergencies by the nonpartisan Administrative Office of the Courts. Andrea Wood is nominated to a judicial emergency vacancy in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Since 2004, Ms. Wood has served in the Division of Enforcement of the Securities and Exchange Commission, currently as a senior trial counsel and previously as a senior attorney. Before joining the SEC, she spent 5 years in private practice as an associate at Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Following law school, Ms. Wood served as a law clerk for Judge Diane P. Wood of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Ms. Wood earned her B.A., with honors, from the University of Chicago, and her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she served as articles editor of the Yale Law Journal. She has the bipartisan support of her home State Senators, Senator Durbin and Senator Kirk. Her nomination was approved by the Judiciary Committee by voice vote with no opposition to her confirmation expressed more than 2 months ago.

Madeline Haikala is nominated to a judicial emergency vacancy in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, where she has served as a magistrate judge since 2012. Prior to her appointment, she worked at the Birmingham law firm of Lightfoot, Franklin, & White for 22 years, first as an associate and subsequently as a partner. In addition, Judge Haikala has taught for approximately 7 years as an adjunct professor at the Cumberland School of Law.

The ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary unanimously rated Judge Haikala well qualified to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, its highest rating. Judge Haikala also has the strong support of both of her Republican home State Senators, Senator Shelby and Senator Sessions. Like the other nomination we are voting on today, Judge Haikala's nomination was approved by the Judiciary Committee by voice vote with no opposition to her confirmation expressed more than 2 months ago.

While I am pleased that we are finally getting to vote on these nominees, there remain far too many judicial vacancies. Because of the government shutdown, we have been unable to hold hearings, process, and approve nominees in the Judiciary Committee for the last two weeks. It does our country a serious injustice when we fail to provide our Federal courts with the resources it needs. Let us end this shutdown now so we can do what we were elected to do and carry out business on behalf of the American people.

Let me tell my colleagues another thing that has happened. This afternoon, I got a call from the chief judge of the District of Vermont, the Federal district court. She wanted me to know they are going to run out of funds on Thursday. She is very worried about the growing opiate crisis in Vermont. If the courts run out of money, they are not going to be able to monitor and test those awaiting trials in serious drug trafficking cases.

Judge Reiss made it very clear that we are going to hear this from courts all over the country. We forget there are things our courts have to do and should do to keep the Presiding Officer safer and me safer, as well as everybody else. But we are saying, sorry, we are having this little political snit and we are not going to give you the money.

I have always been proud of being a member of the Vermont bar. I have been proud of that membership during the time I was in private practice and during the time I was a prosecutor, but throughout it all, we always relied on the courts to do their work. We expected that if after Gideon v. Wainwright it was necessary to appoint counsel for a criminal defendant, the counsel would be there. We expected that if one had a case they wanted heard, there would be a court that could hear it. That is not going to happen. We are going to have criminal cases that are going to get backed up because we don't have the personnel there, and behind those criminal cases are going to be people--Republicans, Democrats, Independents--who are going to have legitimate civil cases that they need to bring to court to be resolved and they are not going to be heard for years and years and years.

Some of the handful of ideologues who are holding up our ability to fund the government go down and have a disturbing and disgraceful rally on the Mall, where they ridicule the President of the United States. They distort their own roles in how they closed down the government, and then they try to use brave veterans as pawns, do they know what they are doing to the image of the United States?

I see the distinguished Senator from Illinois on the floor. One of these judges is from his state. I don't know if he wishes to speak.

I would say once more, all Americans who rely on our court and our judicial system know our system of justice is facing a great danger not because of anything the courts have done but because of a small group of ideologues in the House of Representatives who are holding this budget hostage.

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

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 suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I hope the country listens to what the senior Senator from Illinois has said about the ramifications of this shutdown. This is not a political exercise. This is not a bumper sticker thing. This is hitting every single family, every single person in America. It doesn't make a difference whether they are Democrats, Republicans or Independents. It is going to hurt and hurt badly. Whether you are saving money for your child to go to college, to put away for your retirement or are paying bills for an illness, all of us are going to be impacted. So I thank the distinguished senior Senator from Illinois for those comments.

Madam President, on this 12th day of being paralyzed by this unnecessary shutdown, there are real results that will come about because of it. I have given several examples on the floor about how Vermonters are suffering due to this tea party shutdown. And I am sure the distinguished Presiding Officer probably has similar examples from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts or others as well.

Earlier this year I worked with Senator Crapo, a Republican from Idaho, to build the support we needed to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act--VAWA--and I was proud when both the Senate and House passed the legislation with strong bipartisan votes and the President signed it. We put our differences aside--and we are philosophically very different--to help the people we serve, whether they are in Idaho, Vermont, Massachusetts or anywhere else. We sent a clear message that violence against women will not be tolerated. We put the needs of victims first when we promised rape crisis centers and domestic violence shelters they would have the resources they need to keep their doors open and to keep their 24-hour hotlines staffed. But now we are here in October, which marks Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and so many of the lifesaving programs we put in this legislation are caught in the crossfire of the tea party shutdown.

Today, as Federal funds are being held hostage by the tea party shutdown, we are starting to see the real toll of this brinkmanship. In Franklin County, VT, a northwestern county in our State, advocates were hopeful when they learned a new grant would allow one staff person to help victims of LGBT domestic assault in that rural region. Of course, this hope has given way to frustration because the funds promised on October 1 did not come through due to the shutdown.

Barre City, Vermont, is the town where my father was born. It has a population of 9,200. In Barre City, the police force has furloughed two half-time detectives who were providing 24/7 coverage for special responses to domestic violence cases. They were also providing critical training for their colleagues on how to answer these challenging calls.

I was a prosecutor in Vermont, and I saw how terrible these domestic violence cases could be, and they occur in every State. I would bet that every single State can give an example of what this shutdown has meant, the same as Barre, VT.

There is a long list of programs funded with VAWA grants that continue to provide services to victims--and incur the related costs-- based on the hope they might be reimbursed once funding is restored. Meanwhile, the tea party says maybe the check will be in the mail. They have no choice because despite what the tea party might think, when you close the spigot of funding, it doesn't mean the victims go away.

I still have nightmares of some of these scenes I saw at 3 o'clock in the morning when I was a prosecutor. They are still occurring. We can at least cut way back on them and help people in America.

But I also want to know what is going to happen to victims and their children when the money for WIC and the TANF programs runs dry. We know many victims of domestic violence have to rely on this support when they leave their abusers. In the past they had to stick with their abusers because

they had to feed their children. Now at least they have a lifeline out there. If you combine that with the impending cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program the tea party wants, I wonder whether this is going to cause these victims and their children to stay in the homes of the abusers just so the children can be fed. That is shameful.

This is America. This is America. All of these tea party members get paid. They are getting paid today. They get their expenses. They get their staff. They can fly back and forth. They can go on television and all of that. They are not facing this abuse or the question of how they feed their children.

Kris Luken, director of Voices Against Violence in St. Albans, VT, says the uncertainty is the hardest part, both for her agency and for the victims it serves. At the end of last week, the first of the tea party shutdown, she said:

We are fielding a lot of calls from survivors who don't

know how they are going to make ends meet. People just don't

know what the impact will be.

So you get abused first by whoever the abuser is, and now you are going to get abused by this tea party shutdown. In these difficult economic times, it is more important than ever to ensure that our safety net is in place. We cannot turn our backs on these families-- that is not who we are as a country.

When we reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act this year, we included provisions to specifically address the high rate of domestic and sexual violence experienced by Native American women. Sadly, this shutdown disproportionately affects that already vulnerable population. Tribal lands rely heavily on Federal funding and one tribal domestic violence shelter in South Dakota has lost 90 percent of its funding. That shelter is at capacity and the loss of funds means victims are being turned away. They are left with no place to turn. That is simply unconscionable.

The District of Columbia's Sexual Assault Nurse's program relies on Federal funds to provide necessary medical assistance to rape victims, including rape kits. Absent emergency funding which will soon dry up unless we end this foolish shutdown, rape kit examinations will cease, leaving victims without the specialized care they deserve and the DNA evidence they need to prosecute and convict their rapists.

Let's end the uncertainty. Let's end the shutdown and fulfill our promises to the people we are here to represent.

The continuing resolution passed by the Senate--a resolution which, after all, was asked for by the House of Representatives and was a compromise with them--could end this stalemate. The leadership in the House of Representatives should have the courage to bring it to a vote--the courage not necessarily for their own political needs but the courage for the needs of America.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, my friends in Vermont watch what is going on, and it is hard to explain it to them--especially people who are hard working, who rely one way or the other on government programs and they do not come through.

It was in the press today about the polls, saying how angry people are at the small group in the other body who has held things up. And I understand that. It is probably difficult for those people, who work hard every single day, pay their bills, trust in their government, and then see what is happening.

I appreciated the meeting with the President yesterday. The distinguished Presiding Officer was there. I know how much President Obama wants to have the shutdown end, have people go back to work, have the United States pay its bills. And I agree with him. I think the vast majority of Americans agree with him. Now he has to get a tiny minority in the Congress to agree with him. It is unfortunate--it is unfortunate--that they do not because ultimately we should be serving the best interests of our country, not what might work at a tea party rally or a fundraiser to get one's face on television.

I will give an example. When September 30 came and went, it was not just the Federal Government that shut down. The farm bill extension also expired. I can speak to this with some sense of knowledge of how that works. I have been able to serve on the Senate Agriculture Committee for 38 years. I have served as the chair of it. We have a superb chair now in Debbie Stabenow. But I have seen both Republicans and Democrats in that committee traditionally over the years come together, work closely together.

I think of two people who were nominees of their parties for President who were miles apart in political philosophy--Senator George McGovern, a Democrat, and Senator Bob Dole, a Republican; one a liberal Democrat, the other a conservative Republican--but on the farm bill, on the nutrition programs, they worked closely together for what was best for America, what was best for the country.

We passed an excellent farm bill, a bipartisan farm bill in this body, in the Senate. But because the other body would not take it up and either pass it or vote to improve it, the farm bill extension expired. This one-two punch of political reality is needlessly harming our Nation. It is leaving farmers with great uncertainty about the future of vital farm programs, all the while with no staff at USDA to answer farmers' questions.

I know the distinguished Presiding Officer has a lot of agriculture in his State. His State is much larger than mine. But we also have a lot of agriculture in the State of Vermont.

There is a basic essential responsibility of Congress to fund the government. Why has that been ignored? Regular business is replaced by bumper-sticker politics. This shutdown is and was entirely avoidable. It is perpetuated by the reckless leadership of the House that is willing to imperil the economy and negatively impact every single American family.

They are not asking for compromise. Compromise has already happened here in the Senate. We conceded to the House terms. We adopted and leader Harry Reid had to fight to get the votes to give the House what they had asked for by adopting an appropriations bill at the funding level the House wanted, which maintains sequestration.

But even though he had been told by the House leadership that would get us back, that would have the government stay open, after we did it they said: Oops, we changed our mind. They moved the goalposts again.

You cannot run government like that. That is by whim. That is not by commitment. That is by changing your views by the moment. It is not by keeping your word. Anyone claiming that the Senate has been unwilling to compromise has conveniently ignored the fact that the Senate came forward and passed a continuing resolution at the level the House requested.

So I, like the American people, certainly like my fellow Vermonters, am tired of having a political process obstructed. It is time to reopen the government for business. Stop the silly season. Stop the games. Stop rushing to the TV cameras to get your face on there and say: I am the only person serving America, as I try to destroy America.

Let's reopen. For the farmers in Vermont who have found their local USDA office dark, they know the shutdown is even more troubling, because it has diverted attention from the now-expired farm bill. This manufactured crisis is making it next to impossible to reach compromise on this important agriculture, rural development, and nutrition legislation.

The bipartisan Senate farm bill would provide $25 billion in savings. This is a bill both Republicans and Democrats voted for in the Agriculture Committee and on this floor--$25 billion in savings that could be applied toward reducing the federal deficit.

But no; instead, the House forced us into the shutdown, which is costing the Federal Government hundreds of millions of dollars a day, $1.6 billion a week, for nothing. So they can go on television and say: Look at us. Rally to us because we are standing up for America.

No, you are costing American taxpayers $1.6 billion a week. That is straight to the taxpayers. But more and more of the damage of the government shutdown is spreading across the Nation. In every city and every community, with each passing day, the State governments, local governments feel the pinch and may go bankrupt.

We heard last week that the CME Group, the world's largest futures exchange, informed their customers that the shutdown and USDA furloughs could affect dairy and livestock contracts. While much of Wall Street is worried they will not have the Bureau of Labor Statistics employment numbers this month, on Main Street and our Nation's farms, our agriculture businesses, the concerns are growing about missing agriculture pricing information that impacts dairy and livestock futures contracts and options for milk, cheese, butter, and other dairy products. That may sound esoteric to some, but if you are one of those farmers who gets up before dawn, works hard all day long, until after dark, 7 days a week, paying your bills, paying your mortgage, being an integral part of the community, this is real. The farmers are doing their work and their job. We ought to do ours.

Let me give you an example of the uncertainty the shutdown is imposing on farmers and businesses from coast to coast. Vermont's own Cabot Creamery Cooperative, which makes some of Vermont's award-winning cheeses, could be hit by the missing pricing information. In recent years, Cabot, being good business people, has increased the use of futures contracts as an active part of its risk management effort. It makes sense. We have seen many farmers and food companies and dairy cooperatives across the country do the same after the disastrous collapse in milk prices in 2009.

But the USDA staff is furloughed, and farmers and businesses like Cabot can no longer have a daily or weekly report of cash prices for agriculture products. These are the benchmarks of these futures contracts that are used to hedge against risk and big price swings.

To make matters worse, the entire USDA Web site is shut down, keeping farmers from seeing and using previous agriculture reports from the agency. These are the same people who are working long hours. They are obeying the rules. They are doing what is expected of them. But suddenly they are

having their legs taken out from under them.

I have heard from the Vermont Economic Development Authority. We call it VEDA. It is Vermont's statewide economic development finance lender. They are focused on supporting Vermont industrial, commercial, and agriculture enterprises. Nearly their entire agricultural portfolio, $70 million--probably not much in some States, but a lot in my little State--intersects in some way with USDA. Their ability to service current loans and work on new agriculture loans is quickly freezing up. The list is growing for the number of customers that are going to be locked out in the cold because the shutdown is quickly causing the whole agricultural lending scene to seize up.

I am hearing from our apple growers in Vermont. We have a very short harvest this time of the year in Vermont. Fall harvest, and then it snows. They are in the middle of a fantastic, long-awaited harvest. They have to keep one eye on the weather forecast on how their crops are doing, and the other on the Department of Labor to ensure that their apple harvest workforce, which is a seasonal workforce, will actually be there.

Many of our farms use the Federal H-2A temporary worker program. I am starting to hear a litany of problems due to the tea party shutdown of the Federal Government. Farmers are unable to get their workers required Social Security numbers, because the Social Security Administration is not issuing new numbers and cards during the shutdown--during the tea party shutdown.

These farmers are Republicans, Democrats, Independents. They do not want to play politics. They want to play by the rules. They cannot understand why the tea party is playing politics with their business. It is resulting in farmers needing to pay huge amounts of backup withholding taxes, which they otherwise would not need to do if their workers would be able to acquire Social Security numbers.

Farmers needing new H-2A workers are being stymied in the application process since the Department of Labor is not administering the necessary parts of that process thanks to the artificial, made-in- Congress, tea party shutdown. The ripple effects of the shutdown are spreading ominously outward across Vermont and every other State.

I spoke about one aspect of agriculture. My colleagues represent all parts of this country and could talk about a whole lot of other aspects of agriculture. That is just one multi-multi-multibillion dollar industry across this country that is being hurt and ultimately being devastated. Some will go out of business, all because of the tea party shutdown.

All these problems could be solved right now. They can be solved this afternoon. So let's stop this shameful politicking. The House should end the shutdown. Vote on the Senate-passed continuing resolution. After all, it has the numbers the House asked for. All they have to do is keep their word. We in the Senate did. Now it is time for them to.

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

Madam President, the World Bank-IMF Annual Meetings are this week, and President Kim is expected to propose and seek approval for significant changes to the Bank's strategy, organization, and budget. After years of promised but undelivered change, serious and lasting reform at the World Bank is long overdue.

An October 9th Washington Post article, entitled ``Wider Impact Eludes World Bank,'' describes the limited impact of billions of dollars spent by the Bank on some 700 projects in 100 countries since the global financial crisis because of delays, poor oversight, cost overruns, and projects that did not deliver promised economic benefits.

This track record raises serious questions about the World Bank's relevance as developing countries struggle with growing demands for energy, water, food, education, health care, and jobs.

There are many capable, dedicated people at the World Bank who chose to work there because of their belief in its development mission. But for too long the Bank has been an insular, inflexible, arrogant, and risk-adverse institution, more responsive to government elites than the needs of the poor.

Beyond that, an October 7th New York Times article entitled ``World Bank, Rooted in Bureaucracy, Proposes a Sweeping Reorganization,'' describes a recent survey of the Bank's 10,000 employees. The survey revealed a ``culture of fear'' and a ``terrible environment for collaboration.''

I have voiced concerns about this culture myself. Fiefdoms are jealously guarded by Bank managers. Staff has been retaliated against, ostracized, and had their careers destroyed because they had the audacity to complain about incompetence, corruption, waste, or instances of sexual harassment and abuse.

For literally decades, I have heard promises of reform from one president of the Bank after another, yet the Bank's bureaucracy has defended the status quo. The Bank has become expert at appearing open to reform while fiercely resisting change.

So it is refreshing to hear a World Bank president openly acknowledge that the Bank has drifted away from its core mission of fighting poverty, and that its bureaucracy has become ``concretized.'' President Kim has denounced the culture of fear that leads to risk avoidance, and he has shown a willingness to challenge the conventional wisdom.

He has said that the employees of the World Bank's multiple components must work together if they are to have any hope of meeting the goals of eliminating extreme poverty by 2030 and increasing the incomes of the poorest 40 percent. He has also said that the World Bank must become more efficient and responsive to balance the increasing influence of countries like China. And to get there, he is proposing the first major strategic realignment in 17 years.

How does President Kim propose to change the Bank?

He has already shaken up senior management and brought in new people from outside. And he is proposing changes to the way the World Bank is organized and does its work. He wants to take down the bureaucratic silos that are inefficient, promote rivalries, and keep people from working together.

President Kim wants the technical staff to have greater influence within the Bank and he wants them to share their knowledge with countries. He thinks the Bank should be a better partner, helping governments make sound education, health, and job training investments for their people.

President Kim recognizes that the Bank requires increased resources to achieve its goals but that the Bank's long-term financial health is ultimately dependent on its ability to become more self-reliant. He wants to leverage private sector funding, increase revenue, and seek new financial tools to support country development.

He proposes to cut the World Bank's operating costs by $400 million over 3 years. He estimates that for every $100 million reduced in the Bank's operating budget an additional $1 billion would be available for new loans.

I am encouraged by President Kim's energy, focus, and willingness to address long-standing entrenched problems at the World Bank. He and the Bank's many employees should know that those of us in Congress who are responsible for appropriating the funds for the U.S. share of payments to the World Bank will be strongly supporting his efforts, and basing future appropriations on the results.