Floor Statements

Madam President, I wish to take a moment to reflect a little bit on this impasse where we find ourselves. The Senator from Indiana is going to join me in a discussion here, and I will have a unanimous consent request along the way.

First of all, as to where we are, as we all know, we are at an impasse on how to fund the roughly 40 percent of the

Federal Government that is funded through discretionary spending--the spending that Congress controls, the spending that is supposed to happen through the ordinary appropriations process but does not around here.

As we address this issue, it has become obvious that every single Republican in the House and the Senate wants to defund ObamaCare as a step in the direction of completely repealing this completely unworkable bill. But all the Democrats support ObamaCare, and they want to implement it and they want to fund it and they want to move forward.

The impasse arises, obviously, because the Democrats cannot have their way in the House where the Republicans are in control, and we Republicans cannot have our way in the Senate where the Democrats are in control. So I have a suggestion. My suggestion is, maybe--maybe-- there is a third way. Maybe this does not have to be completely binary. Maybe this does not have to be an all-or-nothing proposition in which one side completely wins and the other side completely loses.

Among my Democratic friends--who are big fans of ObamaCare--I would think there is nobody who actually thinks that is a perfect bill. I cannot imagine that when the American public has made clear, overwhelmingly, their opposition to this bill. When you cannot pick up a newspaper in America today without reading a front-page story about the huge problems and costs and negative effects ObamaCare is creating, I cannot imagine that anyone thinks this is all perfect.

So here is my suggestion: Why not repeal a few of the more egregious flaws that have been acknowledged as flaws on both sides of the aisle-- those things that are not working that are most problematic--just a few. Couldn't we do that and at least make some progress?

So the three items I have in mind are the subject of my unanimous consent request. One would be repeal of the medical device tax, which is one of the most egregious flaws in this badly flawed bill, and I will speak some more about this tax in a little while. A second would be to delay for 1 year the individual mandate. I think Senator Coats from Indiana is going to speak a little bit more about how important it would be to delay that individual mandate. The third would be to protect the religious freedom of those who object based on deeply held religious views. They object to the contraception mandate that is imposed on them, including faith-based institutions.

So I am going to request that we consider these amendments. That is all--just asking for an up-or-down vote on these amendments. I think that is a pretty reasonable request. Every one of these has had bipartisan support.

By the way, the repeal of the medical device tax was supported by 79 Senators. Two-thirds of the Democratic Senators voted in favor of an amendment to repeal the medical device tax, and every single Republican. That is not even controversial anymore, to repeal the medical device tax.

They all have some level of bipartisan support. Taken together, they are about budget neutral. Repeal of the Medical device tax would cost the government some revenue, but the delay of the individual mandate would save the government expenses, so it is about revenue neutral.

This could probably speed up the whole process. If we allow these amendments, frankly, they all would probably pass. If they became part of the underlying bill and if Senator Reid has the votes to pass the amendment he wants to pass, what would go back to the House would probably pass the House and it probably would not have to get ping- ponged back here and risk a government shutdown. Finally, it would break this impasse, and it would demonstrate that we are at least able to come together on the things where there is bipartisan agreement.

So I think the most reasonable thing in the world is to have the vote. That is all. I do not know for sure how it will turn out. I think it will pass because these items have demonstrated bipartisan support before. But I think it is unreasonable not to be able to have the vote.

So, Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendments be set aside and that it be in order to call up the following amendments, which are at the desk: No. 1971, to repeal the medical device tax; No. 1972, to delay the individual mandate; and No. 1973, to protect religious freedom; I further ask consent that each amendment be limited to up to 1 hour for debate equally divided in the usual form; I further ask consent that following use or yielding back of time on each of the amendments, the Senate proceed to a vote in relation to each amendment with no intervening action or debate.

The Senator from Indiana pointed out exactly correctly the nature of this tax. It is extremely unusual that we choose to punish a company based on its sales, irrespective of whether it is making any money at all.

Senator Coats observed that this is a 2.3 percent tax on sales. I want to touch on some of the real world consequences that are happening right now in Pennsylvania because this tax went into effect on January 1. It is happening now. Here is what is happening in Pennsylvania: Fujirebio Diagnostics in Mahler, a world leader in the production of diagnostics that detect cancer, had to put on a hiring freeze. They had been hiring. They were planning on more hiring. They cannot do it now. So there is a hiring freeze there.

Cook Medical in Pittsburgh, PA. They manufacture pacemakers. They had plans to build five new plants over time in the United States. Those plants are all on hold. Everything has been put on the shelf; no new plants as long as they have to contend with this.

Boehringer Laboratories in Phoenixville, PA. They make surgical equipment. No new hires. Hiring freeze at a time when our unemployment is so unacceptably high, so many people looking for work.

B Braun. They make a wide range of medical equipment, located in the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania. They have a hiring freeze and immediate and drastic cuts in research spending. What else can they do? Such a huge new chunk of their revenue has being taken.

This is an ill-conceived tax. It is costing us jobs. It is costing us innovation. It is costing us in the quality of health care. Finally, everybody gets that, as evidenced by 79 Members of this body voting to repeal it. We are denied the opportunity to have a binding vote.

It is shocking to me.

Madam President, I want to commend the Senator from Indiana. I agree entirely. I think this is really an outrageous process. Let's consider where we are and why. We have another manufactured fiscal crisis, manufactured because the majority party that controls this body refuses to bring out appropriations bills.

We had one appropriation reach the floor this entire year. If you do not do appropriations bills, you run into this cliff at the end of the process. So now where are we? We have this giant CR, this huge omnibus, whatever you want to call it, that is going to be here on the floor for a vote.

Senator Reid has decided he would use his power to make sure that he gets to have an amendment. Actually, he gets to have a couple of amendments and gets to gut the language that would defund ObamaCare, which will be on a party line vote.

When I ask for unanimous consent to bring up amendments that have broad bipartisan support, including one which has been supported by two-thirds of all of the Democrats and every Republican, I am not allowed to offer that amendment.

We have a completely dysfunctional Senate. It is manifesting itself very clearly today. Frankly, given where this is leading, given the fact that one party here is not given an opportunity to weigh in and engage in this debate and offer amendments, I cannot support cloture on the underlying bill.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise this morning to address the energy efficiency bill we have been attempting to take up in this Chamber, and in particular an amendment I would like to offer to this bill.

I want to strongly urge my colleagues to please get on this bill. I really wish we would do some business here in the Senate. I think we are on our way to our second consecutive week where we have not had a single vote on a single legislative matter--at least not that I can remember--and we have important legislative issues to deal with. I happen to think this is one of them. There are many others. This is just not acceptable, that we go on and on without addressing the challenges we need to address for the sake of the people we represent-- the American people.

I want to talk about one small particular but important aspect. I have an amendment I have filed--and I thank my cosponsors, Senators Coburn, Flake, Risch, and Ayotte for joining me in this effort--which is an effort to repeal the renewable fuel standard. I want to talk about why it is so important we do this.

First of all, the renewable fuel standard is an old law that is on the books. It is a Federal Government mandate that we burn a certain amount, a certain volume of ethanol in our gasoline.

We have gotten to the point where this year this mandate will require that over 40 percent of all the corn we grow in America be turned into ethanol and burned in the gasoline tanks of our automobiles. We are literally burning our food. That is what we are doing on a very large scale.

The way this law works is it requires increases every year in the amount of ethanol we are forced to burn through our gasoline tanks. This policy is harmful to our environment, it is unambiguously raising food prices, it makes it more expensive to fill up at the gas pump, and it is threatening good-paying jobs in Pennsylvania and other States. It is time for this to go.

What my amendment would do is completely repeal this renewable fuel standard, which is overdue. I know

there is broad support for peeling this back, and I hope there is a majority in this body who would support this amendment if we could only get onto it. So I do very much hope we will.

Let me explain how problematic this is. First of all, let's remember the history. The whole idea behind creating this renewable fuel standard--behind forcing people to take corn, convert it to ethanol, and burn it in their car engine--was that this was somehow going to be good for the environment. That was the idea at the time it passed. In fact, it is clear that this is bad for the environment. This is counterproductive from purely an environmental point of view.

The Environmental Working Group put out this statement:

The rapid expansion of corn ethanol production has

increased greenhouse gas emissions, worsened air and water

pollution, and driven up the price of food and feed.

This is the Environmental Working Group that came to that conclusion.

It is widely acknowledged that using corn ethanol instead of gasoline actually creates more carbon dioxide emissions--the greenhouse gas emissions about which many people are concerned. You have more of that when you burn ethanol than when you burn gasoline. In fact, the Clean Air Task Force estimates that carbon emissions from corn ethanol between 2015 and 2044, on the path we are on now, would exceed 1.4 billion tons. That is 300 million tons more than if the energy were supplied by gasoline instead. So it is counterproductive from a carbon emission point of view.

We have a chart here that quotes a conclusion from a study at Stanford University that indicates the harm that ethanol does directly to human health.

Vehicles running on ethanol will generate higher

concentrations of ozone than those using gasoline, especially

in the winter . . .

Finally, in 2011 the National Academy of Sciences stated:

Projected air quality effects from ethanol fuel would be

more damaging to human health than those from gasoline use.

I understand there was a time when we didn't know this, when we had a different impression about the health and the air quality implications of using ethanol, but we don't have that excuse anymore. It is now clear that using ethanol instead of gasoline is net harmful to the environment and harmful to human health. That all by itself is a pretty good reason to reconsider this, but there are more reasons.

One is the fact that it is more expensive to produce ethanol than it is to produce gasoline. So not only is this harmful to our health, but it costs more to do it. The Wall Street Journal estimated that in 2014 the renewable fuel standard will increase the per-gallon cost of gasoline by anywhere from 10 to 25 cents. That adds up. That could be over $300 a year on average for the average family. It is billions of dollars across our economy. That is a deadweight loss. No good comes out of that extra cost. It just reduces the standard of living of everybody who is forced to bear that cost.

In addition to increasing fuel prices, it increases food prices-- which stands to reason. If you take 40 percent of all the corn produced in America and you burn it, there is that much less corn available for food. And corn is an incredibly basic and important source of food both directly and indirectly. This phenomenon alone--the diversion of corn for ethanol production--is deemed by many scholars who have looked at this as costing maybe as much as a full percentage point a year for the average family. That is on the order of over $150 per year that we force people to pay in the form of higher food prices alone.

Another example is the indirect way in which higher corn prices filter into the rest of the economy. The fact is that feed grain is typically half the cost of raising livestock, and corn is the dominant feed grain in America. The USDA's Chief Economist stated that the renewable fuel standard increases corn prices between 30 and 40 percent. And it got so bad, it got so absurd that in 2012 there were farmers feeding their cattle candy because it was cheaper to buy candy than to buy corn. How absurd is it that the Federal Government policy is driving this kind of behavior? It makes no sense at all.

Another fact about ethanol is that it is harmful to motors. It is harmful to engines. The reciprocating piston engines we use in our vehicles--motorcycles, boat engines, and others--are designed to burn gasoline, they are not designed to burn ethanol. And the EPA has acknowledged that ethanol is harmful to these engines because ethanol is corrosive. The EPA acknowledged that ``unlike other fuel components, ethanol is corrosive.'' It is that water mixture that does damage to engines. AAA has warned that raising the ethanol content in fuel further--which is what current law has in store for us--will damage 95 percent of the cars on the road today.

The last thing I would point out is that this policy threatens good- paying jobs. I visited a refinery in southeastern Pennsylvania, a refinery that employs hundreds of workers in good-paying jobs providing the gasoline we need to move our economy, to move our families, to get to and from work, and to do all the things we need to do in life. Their ability to be a viable, ongoing refinery is jeopardized, it is threatened by the renewable fuel standard.

I wish to read a letter from the AFL-CIO business manager, a gentleman named Pat Gillespie whose concern is the job security of the workers he represents. And this is a refinery that was shuttered and in danger of never reopening. It took an amazing effort by the stakeholders in this community to make this viable, and it is viable right now and it is employing hundreds of workers in Delaware County. The point that he makes is this:

Our resurrected refinery in Trainer, Pennsylvania once again needs your intercession. The impact of the dramatic spike in the cost of the RIN credits from four cents to one dollar per gallon will cause a tremendous depression in our refinery's bottom line in 2013. Of course in the building trades we need them to have economic vitality to bring about the construction and maintenance projects that our members depend on, and the steel workers of course need the economic vitality so they can maintain and expand their jobs with the refinery. We need your assistance, your help with this matter.

I want to provide the help that they need, that Pennsylvanians need, that we all need from this ill-conceived policy that clearly has no place in the United States anymore. The help is in the form of this amendment. This amendment solves the problem. It repeals this ill- conceived standard completely. It would go away. I know there is bipartisan support for this amendment. I have several colleagues who cosponsored this amendment. This is our opportunity to pass this amendment.

To recap, this is bad policy on every possible front. The renewable fuel standard--forcing us to burn so much of our corn in the form of ethanol--is harmful to our environment. It is harmful to human health. It increases food prices. It increases fuel prices at the pump. It damages the engines on which we rely. It jeopardizes jobs. What more arguments do we need to bring an end to this misguided program? We know this. We have known this for some time. Now is the time to act.

So I urge my colleagues, let's get on the bill. Let's have amendments. Let's have lots of amendments. If we had spent the last week mowing down amendments instead of arguing about them, we would be done by now. We could have processed many dozens of amendments easily, and one of them could have been this one.

I don't think it is too late. We could still get on this bill. We could still do something that would be very sensible for our environment, for our economy, for consumers, for our health, and for the sake of our jobs. Let's repeal the renewable fuel standard. Let's do it by adopting my amendment, and let's do that by getting on this bill.

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

Madam President, I rise to describe a motion to recommit that I am going to offer. Let me start by providing a little bit of context to why I am offering this motion to recommit. That has to start by reminding my colleagues about the Budget Control Act that was signed into law in 2011, about 2 years ago.

The Budget Control Act--which, again, is an act, not a bill--has been signed into law. It is the existing law of the land. It established spending caps--limits on discretionary spending--in a modest effort to try to bring out-of-control spending somewhat under control. So we have a statutory limit on how much the Federal Government is permitted to spend. It is a limit on both the defense side and the nondefense side, but it is a limit. It is an attempt to control that which has been so difficult to control in this town, which is Federal spending.

I should point out that even if we abide by the spending caps that are in the existing law, if we follow the law, we are still going to run a huge deficit. Next year the deficit will be about $560 billion. That means that next year, if we have the spending discipline of living within the law, we will still increase our total outstanding debt by more than $\1/2\ trillion and our debt as a percentage of our economy will rise to 76 percent--76 percent debt-to-GDP ratio. Our debt-to-GDP ratio is already higher than it should be. It is already costing us economic growth and jobs. It is going to rise further. That is assuming we stick to the spending cap.

I should point out that the way we got to this point is just spending on autopilot, just growing spending every year. I will give one example. Since 2000, total Federal spending has doubled. That is the scale of the increases in spending we have been experiencing. That is why we have been running huge deficits. We now have a massive debt. The accumulated debt is causing this big drag on our economy and preventing us from having the kind of job growth we ought to have.

Here is my big concern. The bill we are considering right now, the Transportation-HUD bill, puts us on a direct path to bust the caps, to break the law, to spend even more than the statutory limits we put in place just 2 years ago. Let me walk through how we get there.

The fact is that under the Budget Control Act the cap that is set on discretionary spending for the fiscal year we are currently debating, 2014, is $967 billion. That is the number. If you add up the spending sums for all of the appropriations bills my Democratic friends want to pass, it adds up to $1.058 trillion. It is $91 billion more spending than is permitted under current law.

It busts the caps by almost $100 billion. We cannot afford this kind of spending. We cannot afford the spending we are currently contemplating, much less nearly another $100 billion.

Now, I should be clear. Any single bill does not bust the caps all by itself. It is what they do in combination. But this bill is one of a series that in combination is designed to bust the caps. All you have to do is add up the total spending in each bill, and you get a number that is much greater than the cap. So it is very clear.

This particular bill, by the way, is a huge increase. The Transportation-HUD bill spends over $54 billion in its current form, as currently contemplated. That is $5 billion more than in 2013. That is a 10-percent increase in just 1 year. It is almost $10 billion more than what the House proposed. It is even more money than what the President of the United States asked for in his own budget request. He did not ask for this much money. Yet here it is on the Senate floor, a bill that busts the cap, increases spending dramatically, and spends more money than the President even asked for, at a time when we are running huge deficits that are costing us economic growth.

I think this is a very bad idea, so I have a motion. I am grateful to have the support of many of my colleagues, including Senator Shelby and Senator Hoeven, both who are appropriators. I think Senator Hoeven is intending to speak in support of this motion. Let me explain clearly what it will do. What my motion will do is send the bill back to committee with instructions to lower the spending in the bill to $45.455 billion. That is the number that would be consistent with the spending caps. It would allocate an amount of money to this appropriations bill, the Transportation-HUD bill, in proportion to what the Transportation-HUD bill spends under the current fiscal year. It would do that for the next fiscal year.

I am not suggesting that I would go through and line by line make all of

the individual adjustments within the bill. I would leave that to the committee that has the most expertise, the Appropriations Committee. Let them do their work, but let them do it in a way that ends with a product that is consistent with the law, consistent with the spending caps.

One point I should make about the spending caps in the Budget Control Act--I think there are some folks in this town who mistakenly think that since deficits have gotten a little smaller in recent years than they were in the past few years, somehow we do not have a deficit problem anymore and we can just crank up spending. I have to say I think that is a profoundly mistaken view. We still have a huge problem with the spending path. A $\1/2\ trillion deficit is a devastatingly large deficit. As bad as that is, several years in the future, under current projections--again, this assumes that we live within the law-- within a few years these deficits start to explode again even beyond the current levels, which are already unacceptable.

So I think this is very important. This is the first appropriations bill the Senate is considering this year. This is the one that is going to determine whether we are going to go down a path of disregarding the bipartisan, Presidentially signed law of the land which is in existence right now. This bill is designed to be part of a process to bust that wide open so that we spend more money that we can't afford. That would be a huge mistake.

This is a motion to recommit back to the committee, report out a bill where they can establish the priorities and the allocation within the limit but set the limit at a level that is consistent with the caps.

I move to commit S. 1243 to the Committee on Appropriations with instructions to report back with such changes as may be necessary such that total budget authority for fiscal year 2014 is not greater than $45.455 billion.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, I rise to speak for a few moments about the cloture vote we just had and the confirmation vote that is upcoming.

First of all, let me start by saying I think Mr. Hochberg is a good, capable, and competent person. The point I am making is that the candidate for President of the Ex-Im Bank, for whom we just granted cloture and are likely to confirm, is a capable individual.

I voted against cloture, and I am going to vote against this confirmation. It is not about him. I wish to explain what this is about for me and why I think this is a lost opportunity. Precisely, it is this: By invoking cloture, as we have just done, and confirming Mr. Hochberg, as we are no doubt about to do, I think we are going to miss a big opportunity to insist on some modest reforms that are necessary at the Ex-Im Bank and we are going to miss an opportunity to pressure the administration and the Ex-Im Bank to follow existing law in ways that are not currently being followed. I wish to touch on a couple of these.

First of all, just by way of background, a reminder about the Ex-Im Bank: This is a taxpayer risk. This is a bank that makes taxpayer- backed loans and guarantees to countries and companies that buy American products. In 2012 we reauthorized the ongoing existence of the Ex-Im Bank and increased its lending authority to $140

billion. Now, not only are taxpayers taking a risk every time a loan is made by the Ex-Im Bank, but the taxpayers are systematically being undercompensated for that loan. The pricing on these loans is necessarily not reflective of the full risk to the taxpayer. How do we know that? Because if they were fully pricing in the risk, then the Ex- Im Bank wouldn't have a competitive advantage over other private banks. They would be more than happy to finance exports. In fact, the export bank exists for the purpose of subsidizing these exports, and they do it in the form of consciously and intentionally underpricing the loans so that the taxpayers do not get an adequate compensation and certainly not a market compensation for the risk they take. That is just the reality. That is the nature of the Ex-Im Bank.

I would also point out that Ex-Im Bank's inspector general issued a report in September about some of the issues they discovered in the management of the Ex-Im Bank. They recommended that the Ex-Im Bank undergo stress testing. We require this of all of the big private financial institutions. They require that they go through all kinds of analyses about what would happen to their institutions under different economic and market circumstances that could occur, and then we evaluate how well they hold up to the stress of changes in interest rates, changes in economic conditions, and so on. The Ex-Im Bank has promised they will do this, but we haven't seen any results.

The inspector general also suggested some at least soft limits on concentration because the Ex-Im Bank is massively concentrated in a single industry. Almost all of the financing it provides is in a single industry, and that creates a risk to the taxpayers, of course, if there is a problem in that industry. The Ex-Im Bank has rejected considering any concentration limits.

The third thing I would point out is that the inspector general's report suggested that the board have more oversight authority. The Ex- Im Bank has not agreed to increase the board's oversight authority.

There is another problem with the Ex-Im Bank, it seems to me; that is, by its very nature it picks winners and losers in ways that are inappropriate. I will give a few examples. Because it is a government entity, it is ultimately controlled by the political class and its activities ultimately get politicized. It has already happened. For instance, in an entity that is supposed to be all about subsidizing exports for job creation purposes, there are mandates that a certain amount of their business has to be green activity. It has to be what some people think is acceptable or preferable in the energy space. That is a judgment which has nothing to do with maximizing overall exports. It is a political decision that is imposed on the Ex-Im Bank because politicians can. There is also a mandate on small business, which is to favor one sector over another.

There was an amendment when we were considering this bill. One of our colleagues offered an amendment that would force the Ex-Im Bank to make sure a certain amount of their business was subsidized loans to African companies and countries. I am sure this Senator has a very sincere interest in supporting Africa in various ways. That is fine if he has that interest, but is the Ex-Im Bank the vehicle we are supposed to use to do that? Let's keep in mind that when we establish a minimum statutory lending hurdle for some geographical area and Ex-Im is not there, they have to lower their standards to reach that goal, so it increases taxpayer risk for this political goal.

My point is that it is inevitable, it is guaranteed, it is already happening that this process becomes politicized, and that is not a good idea.

There is another problem with the activity of the Ex-Im Bank, which is that taxpayer-backed loans and guarantees also inevitably help some American companies at the expense of others. That is the nature of this, and that is a problem. One clear example is commercial air carriers. We have American companies that are airlines, they are commercial carriers, and then there are foreign companies that do this as well, and they compete directly against American carriers. Well, if you are a foreign airline, you get the Ex-Im Bank subsidy loan to buy your aircraft, and if you are an American airline, you don't. This happens. It happened recently. Air India got a $3.4 billion loan subsidy from Ex-Im Bank so they can buy their aircraft, and Air India competes directly with American companies that are not eligible for the loans because it is not considered an export.

These are the sorts of unintended consequences that occur when the government creates these mechanisms for meddling in the markets.

By the way, under current law the Ex-Im Bank is required to provide an analysis and make the analysis public about any adverse impact on American companies when they engage in this sort of activity, and we haven't seen that analysis. In fact, we have a court decision that criticizes the Ex-Im Bank. The court of appeals found that they had, in fact, failed to comply with this law about assessing the negative financial impact on U.S. companies; nevertheless, they are continuing to make these loan guarantees in this context.

All of these problems have been discussed in the past. We have had this debate before. One of the very constructive things we did in the 2012 reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank was that we said: What is the reason--why do we do all of this? The proponents always give the same argument--it is always the same--and it is that other countries around the world do this to subsidize their exports, and if we don't subsidize ours we will be at a competitive disadvantage and we can't have that.

That is the justification we always get. One can question the wisdom of that justification. We could have a big debate about that. But let's put that aside for a second because there is a potential solution to that problem. It is that in global trade talks and bilateral and multilateral trade talks, we, the United States--the world's biggest trading country, the world's biggest economy--could insist on a process by which we have a mutual wind-down of this economically unhealthy activity. The countries of the world that have these export-subsidizing banks could mutually agree to phase them out. Then we wouldn't have to do it because they do it, taxpayers wouldn't have this risk, and we wouldn't be unfairly benefiting some companies at the expense of others. We could phase this out.

In fact, that is exactly what the 2012 authorization bill requires. It requires the administration to begin negotiating with our trading partners for a mutual phaseout of all export subsidies. I believe that is the right solution to this admittedly difficult problem. Let's all agree we are going to phase out this activity.

Well, despite the fact that this mandate is in the reauthorization bill we passed a year ago--it is the law of the land--it is not happening. It is just not happening. There are no such discussions under way. There are no such negotiations. This is certainly not a priority of the administration's trading activity. I am not sure it exists at all as a priority. This is the main reason I came to the floor this morning and voted against cloture.

Cloture--the requirement to get the 60 votes to cut off debate to then consider the vote on the underlying nominee--is a very important tool. If we had held 41 votes, 41 Senators who refused to agree to cut off debate, the administration would have been in a little bit of a pickle because by the end of this month, in the absence of a newly confirmed President, the Ex-Im Bank couldn't do any business. So what would have happened? Would the Ex-Im Bank have just shut down? No. That wasn't ever going to happen. But what might have happened is we might have had a discussion: Can we get the administration to actually begin the negotiating they are supposed to do under existing law? Could they please begin to observe the law? Could the Ex-Im Bank actually begin to respond to the inspector general's reports? And in the pressure, frankly, of this moment, I think we would have had progress. Instead, we have voted for cloture. I think later today we are going to vote to confirm the nominee, who, as I said, is a very capable, very competent individual. So none of this is going to happen. What we are going to do is confirm the status quo, continue business as usual, business as it has been.

This, of course, occurs in a context, right? It occurs in the context of this argument we have been having about whether Republicans have been obstructing nominees, and I think, frankly, it infects the judgment about how Senators might consider voting on something such as a cloture measure. I would just remind everybody that going into this discussion earlier this week, the Senate had confirmed 1,560 of the President's nominees and was blocking 4--1,560 to 4. Some are suggesting that is an outrageous activity on our part because it denies the President the opportunity to assemble his team. Really? He has 1,560 confirmed, and there are 4 we are holding. That works out to 99.7 percent of the President's nominees confirmed, and we are portrayed as preventing the President from assembling his team. I completely reject that characterization. I think the President has enjoyed a tremendous opportunity and reality of getting his team in place, getting them confirmed.

We ought not relinquish the power the Constitution gives to the Senate to advise and consent. Remember, the Constitution doesn't just say that the Senate shall advise, it says advise and consent. ``Consent'' has a very specific meaning. If we do this automatically and routinely and we think that--I guess those who object to our approving 1,560 and objecting to 4--it seems to me the implication is that we are supposed to simply routinely rubberstamp everyone, there can't be any objections ever, whatsoever. That is not what the Constitution calls for. As a matter of constitutional principle, that is a very flawed analysis.

I wanted to speak this morning because this is a very real, specific case of where, had we exercised more fully, in my judgment, our opportunity to deny cloture, we would have made a little bit of progress in better observation of existing law, further reducing risk the taxpayers take, and getting the Ex-Im Bank to comply with some of the recommendations in the inspector general's report. I wanted to share that.

I know how this vote is going to go. I know Mr. Hochberg is going to be confirmed. I hope we will be able to make progress anyway, but I am sure we would have had a better chance of making meaningful progress if we had used this moment.

As we consider future nominees, I hope we will remember that this is a fundamental and important role for the Senate to play--to use confirmation as a moment to focus the attention of the administration on what is important to our constituents, to our taxpayers, and I hope we won't relinquish that opportunity.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to begin by commending my many colleagues who put a lot of time and effort into this bill and attempts to refine it through this amendment process. But I have to say, with all due respect, I think a great portion of the debate we have been having in this body misses the fundamental point, the most important aspect of what we ought to be addressing in immigration.

We have spent a lot of time working on and talking about what we do with the people who are here illegally, and there is a path to citizenship in this underlying bill for these folks.

We have talked an awful lot about border security. And border security is an important issue. But I am strongly of the view that while that is important, border security reform is not sufficient to solve the immigration problem we have. I would point out that however high we choose to build a wall on our border, someone can always build a ladder that is 1 foot taller.

I think the most important part of this whole debate ought to be about, What do we do about the next wave of immigrants, the next group of people who want to come to this country--future immigration that is certainly going to happen? I think to address that we have to think about what drives the immigration that has been happening, much of which has been illegal.

I think what drives it is poor people who have very meager prospects who want to come to a rich country where there are great opportunities. It is people who want to work hard and build a better life for themselves and their families. It happens to be the exact same thing that drove every previous wave of immigration.

I think about the 25-year-old Mexican guy in central Mexico who lives in a poor community where prospects are grim and the standard of living is miserable. He wants to come here to build a better life, and he does so in the same way my grandparents in Ireland and my great-grandparents in Portugal wanted to come here, for the exact same reason.

My ancestors had very little education and no skills. They came to this country to work, and that is what they did. When they did that, they didn't weaken America, they didn't weaken our economy. They helped to build this country, they helped to build this economy, as all of our ancestors did. That is true of immigrants who want to come here and work, and we ought to have a legal avenue that allows these people who want to build a better life for themselves and, in the process, will build a better America--we ought to allow that to happen.

In my view, this bill doesn't go nearly far enough in accommodating the legal immigration we could and should have in this country, especially with respect to low-skilled workers.

I will be the first to say the bill makes a lot of progress for high- skilled workers in two big areas: the H-1B visa. The cap that has been too low for too long is significantly raised. And although we have created hoops that people have to go through that are probably unnecessary, it is progress that we have a much higher cap.

There is also a new opportunity for graduate students in the STEM fields to get green cards, in time, and that is very constructive. These people come here with a great deal of human capital, intellectual capital, they are trained in fields where we need these skills, and the last thing we should do is send them home to compete against us. It is terrific that this bill addresses that by welcoming these folks.

But for the category of low-skilled nonagricultural legal immigration, this bill is wildly inadequate. I say that because the visa that is created to accommodate these folks I think has terribly low caps. In the first year, the cap is a mere 20,000 people. The next year it is 35. It goes up to 75 eventually. These are absurdly low numbers by any reasonable measure. Frankly, you could consider this the anti-immigration bill because these numbers are so low, and this is the category where there is the greatest interest in immigrating.

I would point out that early in the last decade, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, there were 800,000 people coming here every year. In 2007, the Kennedy-McCain immigration reform bill was reported out of committee with the support of Senator Kennedy, and that allowed for 400,000 guest worker visas each year.

Yesterday or the day before, the CBO came out with a score of this underlying bill, and interestingly they predict that fully 75 percent of all future illegal immigration that is expected under current law will occur under this bill. I think part of the reason is because we are not providing an adequate legal avenue for people who want to come here and work hard.

So I have an amendment. I will have more to say about this later, but I want to mention this to my colleagues and urge their consideration. It is an amendment that lifts the cap each year. The first year it takes the cap up to 200,000. It then goes to 250,000, 300,000, and finally 350,000 in the fourth year.

I would point out that these caps on the W visas--the low-skilled worker visas--would still be lower in the fourth year than Senator Kennedy agreed to in the first year, a few years ago. It doesn't change the wage protections that are in the underlying bill. A worker would still need a sponsoring employer. All of those provisions stay the same. But we at least would increase the opportunity of people who want to come here legally and work hard to build a better life.

I know some of my friends, especially on the other side, are going to oppose this. But I will tell you, if we do not raise the caps for the low-skilled workers who want to come to this country, then the next wave of illegal immigration is guaranteed regardless of what we do at the border. Anybody who thinks more legal immigration of people who want to come here and work hard for themselves and their family is harmful to our economy or to America and we need to keep those people out, as, I am afraid to say, this bill does, that is a profound misreading of American history. Throughout all of our history, from before we even became an independent Republic, the story of America has been one wave of immigrants after another. And while millions of people were coming to this country, what was happening to America? We were becoming richer. Wages were rising, our economy was growing, our standard of living was increasing. That is what happens when people come here to work; they increase the size of our economy.

We shouldn't view our economy as a pie where we are all fighting for a slice and we don't want somebody else to get a bigger slice, because what happens when people come here through a legal system to work hard is they increase the size of the pie. They are consumers, they become investors, they become contributors to our economy and to our country, just as every single wave previous to them--including my grandparents and all of our ancestors--did as well.

I think this is the central challenge: Fix the broken immigration system so we won't have the next wave of illegal immigration, so we can continue to build a stronger economy that these folks will help to build. I think we need to address these caps as a part of the process of doing that.

I want to thank my colleague, Senator Johnson from Wisconsin, for cosponsoring this amendment. I know a number of other colleagues are interested in sponsoring this. I will have more to say about this later in the week or next week, but I think this is a very important topic that we need to address in this debate.

Mr. President, I appreciate the time and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I hope I am not going to have to object, but I wish to suggest a very modest and sensible alteration to the UC request from my colleague, the chair of the Budget Committee, so hopefully we can get on to this because I would like to see us go to conference.

I was very critical of the 3 years when my Democratic colleagues absolutely refused to do a budget. It is progress that this year they decided to do one. I am glad. I am on the Budget Committee. I think we ought to have a budget, and I think we should go to the conference committee, despite the fact we are very far apart.

My Democratic friends supported and voted for a budget with at least $1 trillion of new tax increases, and I strongly oppose that. But I agree that is what ought to be discussed in conference. The budget that was passed uses the big tax increase that was in the budget for additional spending. I strongly disagree with that. But again, that is exactly the kind of thing that ought to be the subject of negotiations in a conference. We are very far apart. I don't know whether we can narrow that gap, but we should try.

The only reason I have been objecting, and that some of my colleagues have been objecting thus far, is that our Democratic friends want to insist on retaining the opportunity to use the conference report on a budget resolution to raise the debt ceiling, and I would point out the debt ceiling issue was not even contemplated in the Senate budget resolution. It never came up, it wasn't discussed, there was no amendment, there was no vote, and it is not in the document. In the House budget, the debt limit increase is not contemplated. It is not there. It wasn't voted on. It is completely absent.

So consistent with the rules of the Senate, I would simply suggest we go right ahead to conference, that we have a conference on the budget but that we follow the normal procedure of the Senate, which is that matters that are not in either bill, either the House or Senate bill, be excluded from consideration in a conference report so we don't airdrop in some extraneous unrelated matter that was never contemplated by either body.

I think that is the sensible approach and necessary because the debt limit is a very important issue. We have a staggering amount of debt we have allowed to accumulate. It is already damaging our economy and is a huge threat and we know the President and many of our Democratic friends think we should just raise that debt ceiling with no strings, no conditions, no reforms. So we have a very real concern this conference committee, as contemplated by my friends on the other side, would be a vehicle for the backroom deal that would allow them to exclude Republicans and come back and jam through a debt ceiling increase with no reforms.

In order to avoid that, but so we can go to conference, which I think we should do, I would simply ask that we modify the unanimous consent request as follows; so it would not be in order for the Senate to consider a conference report that includes reconciliation instructions to raise the debt limit.

If the chair of the Budget Committee would agree to that modification of her unanimous consent request, then I would agree to it.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I will wrap up quickly. I thank my colleague, the chair of the Budget Committee, but as she knows--and I wish to make sure everyone is clear--the motion to instruct conferees the chairman of the Budget Committee is recommending is completely nonbinding. It is nothing more than a recommendation. The fact remains she is insisting on retaining the ability to do a backroom deal that would raise the debt ceiling without allowing any Republican input in this body whatsoever. This is a very bad policy. It was not contemplated in either bill.

I would be delighted to go to conference with a budget resolution from the House and the Senate that does contemplate everything that is in those two respective agreements but not some extraneous matter that could be very damaging to our economy that was never contemplated. So I object.

Mr. President, I wish to offer my full support for the nomination of Judge Luis Felipe Restrepo to serve as U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Before I begin, I wish to take this opportunity to thank Chairman Leahy and Senator Grassley for helping facilitate Judge Restrepo's confirmation

hearing and Leader Reid and Leader McConnell for their assistance in bringing his nomination to the Senate floor.

I would also like to thank Senator Casey for his collaboration in our bipartisan effort to fill Pennsylvania's judicial vacancies with exceptional candidates. Over the past 2\1/2\ years, we have worked together to identify and recommend eight candidates, seven of whom have been confirmed. The people of Pennsylvania value this bipartisan spirit and I am pleased our joint efforts have led to today's consideration of Judge Restrepo.

Judge Restrepo currently serves as a Federal magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. A native of Columbia, he was raised in Northern Virginia and received his citizenship in 1993. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, he went on to earn his J.D. from Tulane School of Law.

Judge Restrepo brings a strong record as an attorney in both the public and private sector, which helps explain why he merited a unanimous ``Well Qualified'' rating from the American Bar Association. After working as a public defender, he then practiced law at the law firm of Krasner & Restrepo, focusing on criminal defense and civil rights litigation. After 13 years in the private sector, Judge Restrepo was selected to be a Federal magistrate judge and has served the public in this capacity for 7 years.

Aside from his legal duties, Judge Restrepo has devoted significant time to his community. In addition to his involvement with the Make-A- Wish Foundation, he established the Police/Barrio project, which focuses on improving the relationship between the Police Department and Latino Community in Philadelphia.

I am very confident that Judge Restrepo's judicial experience, legal acumen, and dedication to public service will serve him well should he be confirmed for the Federal bench. I am pleased to support this highly qualified nominee and I urge my colleagues to vote for his confirmation.

Mr. President, I would like to speak for several minutes, principally about the two judicial nominees.

I think I could wrap this up in less than 10 minutes.

Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

I do want to speak principally about the two nominees from Pennsylvania, both of whom I strongly support, and I am delighted they are going to get their votes today. But before I do that, I do want to put just a little bit of context on judicial nominations and confirmations as a general matter because I think it is important that we understand this.

In my own experience in the 2\1/2\ years I have been in the Senate, I know I have voted to confirm the vast majority of judicial nominees whom President Obama has proposed for us. In fact, since President Obama became President, the Senate has confirmed 193 district court nominees and blocked 2. That is a confirmation rate of about 99 percent. In the last Congress, the 112th Congress confirmed more judges than any Congress in 20 years. So by any reasonable measure, we are confirming judges at a terrific rate. Republicans are cooperating and confirming the nominees of a Democratic President, and this is as it should be when the nominees are competent, as they have been.

So President Obama is enjoying a rate of confirmation of judges that is far greater than the rate President Bush, for instance, enjoyed or most other previous recent Presidents, which is part of the reason why I am concerned when I hear persistent rumors that the majority leader is considering invoking the nuclear option and breaking the rules so he can change the rules as to how nominees get confirmed. I do not understand why there is a problem that would require this. If he were to do this, this would be in direct contradiction to a commitment he made to all of us very publicly that he would not do this. So I really hope that Senator Reid will keep his word and that he will not break the rules in order to change the rules.

He stated very clearly in January of 2011 that--I will quote Senator Reid:

I agree that the proper way to change Senate rules is

through the procedures established in those rules, and I will

oppose any effort in this Congress or the next to change the

Senate's rules other than through the regular order.

I would remind my colleagues that earlier this year Republicans went along with a rule change about which I had real reservations. I personally could not support it, but most Republicans did. It changed the rules, forfeiting some of the power we have as a minority, granting the majority greater flexibility to go to a bill without assuring us we would be able to offer the amendments we would like. We granted that to the majority in part because we got another explicit commitment that there would be no nuclear rule change if we made that agreement. Well, we did, at least as a party and as a body.

So, again, I certainly hope Senator Reid will honor the promise he made that was part of that understanding, where he said in January of this year, in an exchange with Senator McConnell--Senator Reid said:

Any other resolutions related to Senate procedure would be

subject to a regular order process including consideration by

the Rules Committee.

I would add, that means a 67-vote majority in the Senate because that is the way you change the rules in accordance with the rules.

Sarah Murnaghan

Having said that, I want to also make a brief mention of some terrific news we got in Pennsylvania; that is, the opportunity for a little girl named Sarah Murnaghan to have a lung transplant she had been waiting for. I have spoken about this on the Senate floor. A Federal judge in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania issued a temporary restraining order forbidding a rule that was keeping her off the transplant list to be a potential recipient of a donor lung transplant. Fortunately, by virtue of that restraining order, she was able to go on the list and receive the lung transplant. She had an emergency surgery just yesterday that seems to have gone very well, and we are all delighted for that and wishing for her speedy and full recovery.

Having said that, as I indicated to the chairman, I wanted to come down principally to say how pleased I am that we are going to vote today and I believe confirm both Judge Jeffrey Schmehl and Judge Nitza Quinones, who are two nominees for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Both are eminently qualified, terrific individuals who come highly recommended.

I commend Senator Casey. He and I have worked together since I have been here. He has been terrific to work with. We have looked to identify some of the most capable and talented people. I would like to mention a couple of the things I know Senator Casey mentioned.

Judge Schmehl is a terrific guy. He is the president judge of the Berks County Court of Common Pleas. His candidacy was approved by a voice vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee. He is a graduate of Dickinson College. He has his J.D. from the University of Toledo School of Law. He has served as a public defender. He has served in private practice. After 9 years at a law firm, he was elected to the Berks County Court of Common Pleas, where his colleagues made him the president judge. He is a very bright individual. He has a keen intellect, a great judicial temperament. He has done a great job on the Berks County court, and he will make a great Federal judge. I hope my colleagues will support his candidacy.

Nitza Quinones is a native of Puerto Rico. She is a graduate of the University of Puerto Rico School of Business Administration. At the University of Puerto Rico, she got her J.D. She has demonstrated a terrific commitment to the legal community and beyond that in Philadelphia. She has been very active mentoring young people--law students in particular--and is a great advocate of civic education for high school students. She has served on the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas since 1991, presiding over a very large number of very diverse cases. She has extensive experience in the courtroom. She has demonstrated her ability, her commitment, her judicial temperament. Yet, as it happens, she will be the first Latino judge on the Eastern District of Pennsylvania court.

I think it is terrific that we are able to vote today to confirm both of these judges. I look forward to continuing to work with Senator Casey to fill the remaining vacancies across Pennsylvania. I thank Chairman Leahy for his work in advancing these nominees. I urge my colleagues to support their confirmation.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I rise to speak briefly about a heartrending situation in Pennsylvania to wich I wish to call my colleagues' attention. As I speak this morning, there is a brave little 10-year-old girl who is fighting for her life in Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Sarah Murnaghan suffers from cystic fibrosis. She has been in the hospital for 3 months now. Recently, she has been put on a machine that helps her breathe, with great difficulty. But she is at a point now where she needs a lung transplant. There is no question

about that. The doctors, in fact, have said she may only have a few weeks to live without a new lung.

At this moment, her government is failing her. Here is the reason I say that. We have law and we have policy that requires that the Health and Human Services branch of the Federal Government, through a third party, develop rules governing how organs are transplanted. This organization which has the direct authority is the Organ Procurement and Transportation Network.

So they set the rules by which we deal with this excruciating situation where there is always more demand for transplanted organs than the supply of organs. Prior to a decision yesterday afternoon, which I will comment on, despite a very high need for a transplant and despite the fact that her doctors believe she is a very good candidate for a transplant, Sarah's name was not on the list of people to receive a transplant simply by virtue of one fact; that is, she has not yet reached the age of 12.

See, the current policy has one very sensible feature. The current policy is meant to establish as the highest priority for recipients people who have the most urgent need. That makes sense. You could have other criteria, such as how long you have been waiting or how much you are willing to pay, but I do not think those would be better. Those would be worse.

The right criteria is who has the most urgent need. So that is right. The problem is it applies only to people who are 12 and over. But there are children under the age of 12 who are very good candidates for adult lung transplants. The medical science is very clear. You take a portion of the lung if the child is too small for a full lung transplant. This is well established. This works. This girl is a good candidate for this, but she is not on the list.

Yesterday, something very important happened. Sarah's parents filed a suit against Health and Human Services challenging the rule that excludes their daughter from this list. The judge considering this, a judge in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, a Federal judge, Judge Baylson, granted a temporary restraining order enjoining the Secretary and the Organ Procurement and Transportation Network from applying the rule that excludes Sarah.

So this is terrific. This is a big breakthrough for 10 days now. This is the thing. It is a temporary order for 10 days now Sarah cannot be excluded from this list. So what that means is she can go on the list and she will go wherever on the list the urgency of her circumstances puts her. That is as it should be.

The problem is this is only for 10 days, and then the judge is going to have a hearing. We don't know how that is all going to turn out

I am asking Secretary Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, to exercise the authority that is given to her in legislation to recognize that there is a flaw in this policy.

I am not asking Secretary Sebelius to make an exception for one individual. I would be the first to suggest that would be a dangerous place to go. We don't want individual Cabinet members, politicians, or anyone else making decisions about who is going to get an organ and who is not. We want a system that works. The current system doesn't work for kids who are good transplant candidates and have the acute need but aren't yet 12 years old.

I am urging Secretary Sebelius, as strongly as I can, to exercise the discretion that the law gives to her to change the policy. Don't change it for one person, change it for a category. I think any child who is a viable candidate for the adult transplant and who has sufficient urgency ought to be able to go on the adult list. That is not to say that they automatically go to the top of the list. Their ranking on the list ought to be determined by the urgency of their circumstances, as it should be for everyone else.

I would argue we are not suggesting that we make an exception for Sarah. What I am suggesting in a way is the opposite: Stop making exceptions that exclude Sarah. She is a good candidate. The doctors believe this.

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia is one of the best children's hospitals in the world. Nobody disputes that. Her doctors are some of the best doctors in the world. This is vitally important. The life of a small child depends on this. I don't know how many other children might be in similar circumstances.

I appreciate the opportunity to rise and make this case. Again, I just want to stress that we are not asking for an exception for one individual to be chosen over others. We are asking for a change in a policy that is flawed; that is currently excluding somebody from being on the list to be an organ donor recipient who ought to be on that list.

I am grateful to Judge Baylson for the decision he made, but that is a temporary restraining order that will only last 10 days. If a transplant does not occur within that 10 days, then Sarah and any other children in her circumstances, their future becomes uncertain after that.

I urge the Secretary to take the action that is necessary.

I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, the Senator from Louisiana is proposing an amendment that I strongly disagree with the substance on. Despite that, I don't object to her having a vote on her amendment. What I object to is the fact there are only four Senators who get to have amendments.

We have a list of maybe a dozen, maybe it is 15 amendments, that Senators from our side have been requesting to have considered and they have been objected to all week long. Now we are told that soon we can expect the majority leader to file a cloture motion on the bill which will lead to shutting off this bill entirely. This seems to me a clear strategy to block amendments.

So far we have had 10 rollcall votes on amendments on this bill. Of those, three have been Republican. Last year, the farm bill had 42 rollcall votes. What I would like to do is work this out right now, and we can do that, as far as I am concerned, if these amendments could be made in order. Maybe there are others on your side, and I would welcome them.

I have no objection to the Senator from Louisiana having a vote on her amendment, but I don't think we should be doing just these four or some subset thereof and continuing to shut out all the other Senators who have been trying to get their amendments agreed to.

So, for that reason, I object.

Madam President, I rise to make a unanimous consent request.

We have been following an extraordinary horror story in the news, and it is the story of Kermit Gosnell's truly unspeakable crimes that were committed over a long period of time--maybe as long as two decades--at the Women's Medical Society in Philadelphia, PA.

We suspect there were literally hundreds of late-term and very late- term abortions that were conducted there, and we now know from his conviction in a criminal trial that there were babies born alive-- probably many--who were then murdered when scissors were used to sever their spinal cords after they were born alive in a failed abortion attempt. Further, we know that Kermit Gosnell and some of his colleagues kept aborted fetuses in bags and bottles, discarded them, left them on shelves.

It is unbelievable what was happening at that place for years and years. In fact, the crimes were discovered by accident. Police raided offices to seize evidence of illegal sales of prescription drugs. It was only during that raid for illegal prescription drug sales that they discovered the evidence of these atrocities.

It is my view and the view of many of my colleagues that we need to do a lot more to make sure that the laws, which were blatantly being violated by Kermit Gosnell, are better enforced. We need to do that through proper due diligence and discover where they are being violated.

About 2 weeks ago Kermit Gosnell was convicted. He was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder for killing three infants. He was convicted of one count of third-degree murder in the overdose death of a woman. There were 21 counts of abortion of an unborn child of 24 weeks or more, and he was convicted of 208 counts of violation of informed consent.

We have a resolution, S. Res. 133. It points to these atrocities that were committed. It simply calls on Congress and the States to investigate and correct the abusive, unsanitary, and the blatantly illegal abortion practices that certainly were conducted here at the Women's Medical Society in Philadelphia and similar such practices that may be occurring in other places.

I ask unanimous consent that the HELP Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 133, that the Senate proceed to its consideration, and that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be made and laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Reserving the right to object, I think the Senator from Connecticut makes a number of important observations and raises a number of very important issues. I think there is an opportunity for the two of us to work together to address some of these. However, my reading of the actual resolution for which he is requesting unanimous consent, in my view, equates outcomes--including deaths but outcomes resulting from malpractice and unsanitary conditions and other completely indefensible practices--equates those with the serial, premeditated, intentional murder of babies. I don't think those things ought to be equated because I think they are of a very different nature.

Furthermore, the resolution of the Senator from Connecticut, it is my understanding, does not call for the investigations that I think are necessary to determine how widespread these practices are, under what circumstances they are occurring, and what more could be done to prevent them.

For those reasons, I object.

Mr. President, I am submitting a resolution to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Lake Erie.

In the history of United States, the War of 1812 is often an overlooked chapter. However, for any visitor intrepid enough to forego the elevators in the Senate side of the Capitol, it is impossible not to notice one important day within those years of turmoil and war. Dominating the staircase is a massive rendition of the Battle of Lake Erie, painted by William Henry Powell in 1873.

The Battle of Lake Erie was one of the few unquestioned American triumphs in the war. In the center of Powell's painting is the young and courageous Oliver Hazard Perry. On September 10, 1813, after two hours of intense fighting, defeat stared Commodore Perry dead in the face, yet he refused to succumb. The painting depicts the famous point in the battle when Perry transfers his command from his disabled flagship to the U.S. Brig Niagara to begin the fight anew. His determination would pay off as the confused and battered enemy fleet would be unable to sustain the ongoing punishment from the Niagara's cannonade. One by one each enemy vessel would strike their colors as they were forced to relinquish control of the Great Lake of Erie.

The dramatic encounter breathed new life into a damaged American war effort and captured the imagination of our young nation. Contributing in no small way to this victory was Pennsylvania's own city on the lake, Erie, that provided the safe locale, supplies, and muscle necessary to build the victorious fleet in limited time.

Just as the Battle of Lake Erie would test the resolve of the young commander Perry and his fleet, the overall war would test the resolve of our young nation. For those who think that partisan division is something unique to our country's current condition, I encourage you to look back to the bitter struggles between the Republicans and Federalists at the beginning of the 19th century. Those years would produce not only disagreement on the direction of our nascent union but also uncertainty of the ultimate success of this great experiment in representative government and the war very nearly tore us apart.

This upcoming bicentennial affords us the opportunity to reflect on the challenges overcome by our forefathers to shape and preserve this great nation that we have inherited. My friends in Erie and the Perry 200 Commemoration Commission will spend this summer paying tribute to this great battle and its participants, and I thank them for their hard work and dedication to ensure their appropriate recognition. I am hopeful this resolution can help bring attention to this remarkable event that so moved our Nation 200 years ago.

Mr. President, I rise to address the Shaheen amendment No. 925 the chairman of the committee just referred to. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I wish to start by thanking Senator Shaheen for her leadership, Senator Kirk for his leadership, and Senator Durbin for his support and leadership. We have all worked together on this amendment. I wish to briefly explain why I think it is important and why this amendment deserves the support of this body.

First of all, people ought to understand we have an extensive and complicated system by which taxpayers and consumers are forced to prop up, to an artificially high price, the price of sugar in this country. We subsidize a handful of wealthy sugar growers at the expense of everybody in America because I can't think of any consumer who doesn't consume sugar. Everybody uses some amount of sugar. It is in virtually all processed food. It is obviously in any kind of confectionery or any kind of sweets. It is a staple, a fundamental staple. In fact, the poorest Americans spend the highest percentage of their limited income on sugar because that is the nature of this food staple that is sugar.

Well, what do we do through our agricultural policy? One of the things we do is we put a limit on how much we can bring in from overseas. It just so happens there are some places in the world that can grow sugar cheaper than we can, and rather than take advantage of the opportunity to have a lower cost staple for all Americans-- including the poorest of Americans--instead we establish a quota and say there is only so much we are going to bring in without imposing a big, huge, expensive tariff on them, and since we don't grow enough ourselves to meet the demand, when we hit that quota, we do, in fact, impose that huge tariff on the additional sugar we need to buy.

But that is not all we do to subsidize these handful of growers at the expense of American taxpayers and consumers. Another program we have is an extensive loan program where ultimately the taxpayer lends money to sugar producers, and it is a ``heads-I-win, tails-you-lose'' program for the sugar producer. If the price drops too low on sugar that the producer would actually have to reach into his own pocket to pay back the loan, guess what. He doesn't have to do that. He can say: Nevermind, I am not going to pay back the loan. I will just give you the sugar. This is classic ``heads-they-win, tails-we-all-lose.''

It goes beyond that because in an effort to prop up the price at artificially high levels so we are all paying more than we need to for sugar, we have a program that is called the Feedstock Flexibility Program. This program is one in which the USDA takes taxpayer money and buys up huge quantities of sugar in order to drive up the price for all of us. I know it is hard to believe this is true. I am not making this up. I am not creative enough to make this up. This is real.

Then what does the USDA do with the massive quantity of sugar it might buy? By the way, there was a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal just a few weeks ago about a huge purchase the USDA is seriously thinking about making, has the discretion to do it, and might very well make. If they don't use all of the sugar, they don't have anything to do with it, so they sell it at a huge loss. They sell it to somebody who is going to make ethanol or something with it. That is what we do with it. It is unbelievable, all the ways in which taxpayers or consumers are forced to subsidize a very wealthy group of sugar growers. So that is what we do as policy under existing law.

This amendment tries to push that back a little bit. That is all we are trying to do. What Senators Shaheen and Kirk and Durbin and I have done with this amendment is say: Can we at least push back some of the most egregious features? Can we go back to the policy we had prior to the 2008 farm bill because prior to 2008, we did subsidize sugar, but at least not quite as much as we do today. So that is what we are trying to do. Let's just go back to the policies we had before 2008, and specifically let's eliminate this Feed Stock Program, this program whereby the USDA can go out and purchase huge quantities of sugar, driving up the price, and then turn around and sell it at a huge loss. Let's end that, and let's have a little bit more flexibility on this quota so American consumers can have the opportunity to buy more sugar at prices that are at least a little closer to the world prices.

Here are a few facts we ought to keep in mind. The net effect of all of these programs on all of our consumers--and as I say, everybody consumes sugar--is that we pay, on average, about 30 percent more than the world market price for sugar. That is what we are doing to our consumers now. By the way, that is separate and apart from the cost to taxpayers. That is just what consumers are forced to pay.

Now, does that have the effect of maybe protecting a handful of jobs among sugar growers? It probably does. So the Commerce Department decided to take a look at this, and they did a study. They discovered, sure enough, there are a certain number of jobs among sugar producers that are protected by the fact that we don't allow a free market in sugar and we don't allow imports from more efficient producers. But here is what else they discovered. They discovered for every job we save among sugar producers, we lose three jobs among companies that manufacture with sugar--companies that make cakes and desserts and candies and all the other kinds of goods we manufacture that require sugar as an ingredient. The reason we lose those jobs is because those companies can't compete with foreign imports that don't have this crazy Sugar Program.

So, for instance, we have candy companies that have left America and have moved to Canada because Canada doesn't do this. When they relocate in Canada, they can buy sugar at a normal world price, the same as anyone else anywhere in the world outside of America--maybe not anybody, but lots of people outside of America can buy sugar that is much cheaper than what they have to pay for sugar when they are an American citizen, an American company, so they can make candy much cheaper.

So we lose American jobs, which we have lost, they go to Canada or somewhere else, and how can that possibly be a good outcome to lose three jobs for every one we protect. It doesn't make any sense.

This is a badly flawed policy. I would advocate that we completely repeal all of this. That would be my personal view. That is not what this amendment does. All we do in this amendment is say let's just go back to where we were before the farm bill of 2008 expanded this program and created this new liability for taxpayers.

So I urge my colleagues to support the Shaheen amendment No. 925 for some good, commonsense improvements to our existing sugar policy.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, my understanding is Senator Shaheen is going to take the first 30 seconds of 1 minute on behalf of speaking in favor. I don't see her on the floor. I will take the second half.

I believe I see her now, so at this time, if she is ready, I yield to the Senator from New Hampshire.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Hampshire. She is absolutely right. It makes no sense to have a program that forces American consumers to pay at least 30 percent more than the going rate for sugar to force taxpayers to subsidize these producers. Also, we can lose jobs because, as the Senator pointed out, our own Commerce Department has found that for every job it saves, three manufacturing jobs are lost. This is a modest amendment that takes us back to the 2008 levels.