Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 7 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. President, we have a lot of interesting landmarks in my home State of Washington, especially in Seattle. But one of my favorites has always been the globe that sits on top of the Seattle Post Intelligencer's building on Elliott Bay. The words, ``It's in the P.I.'' wrap around that globe, and it is more than just another quirky part of our skyline. It has symbolized the importance of the paper to generations of readers.

For 146 years, the Seattle P.I., as everyone in Seattle calls it, has informed, investigated, enlightened, entertained, and, yes, sometimes irritated the people of our community. The P.I. staff has put politicians, businesspeople and bureaucrats to the test, and their work has distinguished the paper and won them well-deserved awards--from our cartoonist David Horsey's Pulitzers to a long list of prizes for public service journalism.

But, today the P.I. published its last print edition. Its owner, the Hearst media chain, put it up for sale and hasn't been able to find a buyer.

Hearst has said it will replace the paper with a smaller online edition, but it won't be the same.

We have been lucky to live in a two-newspaper town. Two-newspaper communities used to be common, but they are rare these days.

In Seattle, the Times and the P.I. had a Joint Operating Agreement for 26 years, but they were always rivals when it came to breaking news.

Competition made both papers dig a little deeper and push a little harder. That competition meant everyone from corporate leaders to school officials to sports team owners were held to a higher standard.

Our community is a better place as a result.

Unfortunately, the P.I. is not the first major paper in our country to stop publishing this year. Last month, Denver's Rocky Mountain News closed its doors. And the P.I. may not be the last to close either.

The reality is that newspapers have been struggling and cutting back for several years now. Many of the major papers across the country are worried about whether they will make it through the economic downturn.

Like so many other companies, they are victims of the recession and a changing business environment.

The depth of the problem hit home for me earlier this year when I visited the press in Olympia, our State's capital city.

In 2001, there were 31 reporters, editors, and columnists covering the state house there. Now there are nine--nine.

We have all noticed the shrinking press corps here in Washington, DC, too.

Not too many years ago, we had more than a dozen reporters here covering the Washington State delegation. We have seen that number shrink to just a couple in the last year.

This is really troubling to me because at the end of the day, newspapers aren't just another business. And if more close--and there is nothing to replace them--our democracy will be weaker as a result.

For generations, newspaper reporters have been the ones who have done the digging, sat through the meetings, and broken the hard stories.

A newspaper broke the Watergate scandal--and the story about horrible conditions at Walter Reed Medical Center.

Newspapers have exposed graft and corruption at every level of government. They have uncovered environmental threats posed by strip mining, hog farming, and contaminated waterways.

They have used the power of the press to expose injustice, prejudice, and mistreatment of people who don't have the power to speak up for themselves.

And most importantly, newspaper stories have led to real change.

In my community, the P.I.'s reports on asbestos led me to introduce my legislation to ban it and the P.I.'s investigation on the shortage of FBI agents in the Pacific Northwest has led to my work to increase the number of agents in Washington State.

We need reporters to root out corruption, shine a light on the operations of government, and tell the people what is really going on in our communities.

We need them to go to school board meetings, cover local elections, and attend congressional hearings.

And, yes, we need them to push for information, to investigate, to request public records--and to fight when the government stands in the way.

We are still working out what role the Internet will play in the Fourth Estate--and what role TV and radio have in the new media environment.

There has been a lot of talk recently about whether online publications can--or will--adequately replace the paper editions.

While there is something comfortable about the fact that we can pick up a paper, spread it out on the kitchen table, and cut out articles to stick on the fridge, what's most important to me is that if the media environment is really changing, someone will be there to step in and do the work newspapers do for our communities now.

I really hope what we are seeing is just an evolution in the news business.

I hope that when it all shakes out, the media will end up as strong as ever. I am going to miss the Seattle P.I., and I know all of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest will as well.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I am pleased to introduce legislation that would make a tremendous difference in the lives of the millions of Americans suffering from neurological illnesses, injuries, or disorders.

An estimated one in three Americans suffers from some kind of neurological condition, from Alzheimer's to Parkinson's to multiple sclerosis. An increasing number of our troops and veterans suffer from disorders such as Traumatic Brain Injury, TBI, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD.

Yet, despite this, we still have only a limited understanding of how the brain works, or how best to treat, diagnose, and cure neurological diseases and conditions. It is taking a terrible toll on our families and communities.

I know from experience how devastating these brain injuries and disorders are for victims and their families. My own father developed MS when I was young, and when he became too sick to work, my family had to rely on food stamps for a time just to get by.

Every day, we hear heart-wrenching stories of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans suffering from TBI and PTSD. Veterans with these disorders are more likely to struggle with joblessness, homelessness, substance abuse, and depression. Many are in pain, desperate for help, but unsure where to find it. And, tragically, an increasing number are taking their own lives as a result.

A recent study by the Institute of Medicine, IOM, found that the long-term health consequences of TBI alone include dementia, Parkinson's-like symptoms, seizures, and problems related to socialization and unemployment. Clearly, TBI and related disorders will affect our servicemembers and veterans far into the future, and we owe it to them to develop better treatments and understanding of these injuries and disorders.

The Neurotechnology Initiative Act of 2009, which I am introducing today, would coordinate our efforts to support new developments in research, speed up our understanding of the human brain, and help lead to treatments for all victims of neurological disorders.

The legislation would make needed improvements to the research system in our country, which now is disjointed, often limiting the ability for life-altering research to reach patients in need. For example, it costs nearly $100 million more--and takes 2 years longer than average--to bring a drug that treats a neurological disease to the market. The combined economic burden of these illnesses and disorders is estimated at $1 trillion annually.

The National Neurotechnology Initiative Act would increase funding to the National Institutes of Health, NIH; help remove bottlenecks in the system to speed up research; coordinate neurological research across federal agencies by creating a blueprint for neuroscience at NIH; and streamline the FDA approval process for life-changing neurological drugs--without sacrificing safety.

The act also has economic benefits. It will help create jobs in the emerging field of neurotechnology. By developing better treatments, we can reduce health care costs for everyone.

This research also has the potential to transform highly specialized areas of medicine, computing, and defense. Most importantly, it could save or improve the lives of millions of Americans.

I am proud that this bill has support in the House, and I look forward to working on it with my colleagues here in the Senate.

Mr. President, today I am pleased to introduce legislation that would make a tremendous difference in the lives of the millions of Americans suffering from neurological illnesses, injuries, or disorders.

An estimated one in three Americans suffers from some kind of neurological condition, from Alzheimer's to Parkinson's to multiple sclerosis. An increasing number of our troops and veterans suffer from disorders such as Traumatic Brain Injury, TBI, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD.

Yet, despite this, we still have only a limited understanding of how the brain works, or how best to treat, diagnose, and cure neurological diseases and conditions. It is taking a terrible toll on our families and communities.

I know from experience how devastating these brain injuries and disorders are for victims and their families. My own father developed MS when I was young, and when he became too sick to work, my family had to rely on food stamps for a time just to get by.

Every day, we hear heart-wrenching stories of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans suffering from TBI and PTSD. Veterans with these disorders are more likely to struggle with joblessness, homelessness, substance abuse, and depression. Many are in pain, desperate for help, but unsure where to find it. And, tragically, an increasing number are taking their own lives as a result.

A recent study by the Institute of Medicine, IOM, found that the long-term health consequences of TBI alone include dementia, Parkinson's-like symptoms, seizures, and problems related to socialization and unemployment. Clearly, TBI and related disorders will affect our servicemembers and veterans far into the future, and we owe it to them to develop better treatments and understanding of these injuries and disorders.

The Neurotechnology Initiative Act of 2009, which I am introducing today, would coordinate our efforts to support new developments in research, speed up our understanding of the human brain, and help lead to treatments for all victims of neurological disorders.

The legislation would make needed improvements to the research system in our country, which now is disjointed, often limiting the ability for life-altering research to reach patients in need. For example, it costs nearly $100 million more--and takes 2 years longer than average--to bring a drug that treats a neurological disease to the market. The combined economic burden of these illnesses and disorders is estimated at $1 trillion annually.

The National Neurotechnology Initiative Act would increase funding to the National Institutes of Health, NIH; help remove bottlenecks in the system to speed up research; coordinate neurological research across federal agencies by creating a blueprint for neuroscience at NIH; and streamline the FDA approval process for life-changing neurological drugs--without sacrificing safety.

The act also has economic benefits. It will help create jobs in the emerging field of neurotechnology. By developing better treatments, we can reduce health care costs for everyone.

This research also has the potential to transform highly specialized areas of medicine, computing, and defense. Most importantly, it could save or improve the lives of millions of Americans.

I am proud that this bill has support in the House, and I look forward to working on it with my colleagues here in the Senate.

My colleague and subcommittee ranking member, Senator Bond, is correct. This resulted from a clerical error involving confusion between two different projects in the city of Casper. Senator Barrasso should not be listed as a sponsor of the Civic Auditorium project.

Madam President, I believe women around the world should have access to safe health care that will help them plan their families and stay free of diseases.

These are basic rights. That is why I rise in opposition to the amendment being offered by Senator Wicker to block funding to the United Nations Population Fund.

In the developing world, ``complications from pregnancy'' is still one of the leading causes of death for women.

More than half a million women die each year--one every minute--from preventable complications of pregnancy and childbirth.

Madam President, 201 million women can not get access to safe, modern contraception even w en they want it, and 6,800 new cases of HIV occur every day.

With its mission ``to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect,'' the United Nations Population Fund is working every day to make things better.

For nearly 40 years, UNFPA has provided more than $6 billion in aid to about 150 countries for voluntary family planning and maternal and child health care.

They are helping more women survive childbirth.

They are providing contraceptives to help women plan their families and stay free of HIV/AIDS.

They are promoting access to basic services, including clean water, sanitation facilities, food, and health care for poor women and girls.

Yet Senator Wicker and other supporters of this amendment would deny

women around the world this basic care because they believe misinformation that has been spread by antichoice lobbyists who say this fund would pay for coerced abortions.

The reality is that our government already prohibits any money from being used to fund coerced abortions. And, no U.S. money goes to China.

This bill actually continues that policy.

So all Senator Wicker's amendment would do is prevent women around the world from getting access to basic health care services--services that we take for granted here in the United States.

All of us would agree that we want to see fewer abortions in the world. I certainly do not condone funding coercive abortion practices in China or anywhere else.

And I cannot accept that we would deny women life-saving care because of a dishonest lobbying campaign.

Not only is contributing to UNFPA the right thing to do--it is in our best interest.

By helping to lift families out of poverty, and slow the spread of disease, we can reduce conflicts and bring stability and hope to some of the most troubled regions in the world.

I am proud that President Obama is pledging to refund UNFPA after the previous administration consistently canceled funding for the agency.

I urge my colleagues to vote down the Wicker amendment.

So let me simply say that I believe that women around the world should have access to safe health care that will help them plan their families and stay free of diseases. These are basic rights, and that is why I oppose the amendment that is being offered by Senator Wicker to block funding to the United Nations Population Fund.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Amendment No. 635

To the Senator from Wisconsin I would say, yes, that is our expectation.

Mr. President, as chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies, I rise to clarify an error that we have found in the explanatory materials accompanying H.R. 1105, the Omnibus Appropriations Act. Included within the Transportation-Housing Division of the bill is an appropriation of $570,000 within the TCSP program for transportation improvement in the Antelope Valley in Lincoln, NE. The attribution table that accompanies the explanatory statement to the bill inadvertently omits the name of the Senate sponsor of that appropriation. Mr. President, the Senate sponsor of the project is my colleague, Senator Ben Nelson.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, I rise this evening to address criticism that has been raised by some of our Republican colleagues about the Omnibus appropriations bill that is before us today. As I have talked about repeatedly, this bill that is in front of us now is very critical. At the end of this week, a few days from now, the continuing resolution we have been operating under is going to expire. At that time, the Government will shut down if we do not take action.

This bill we are talking about keeps the Government running at a time when we desperately need Federal employees on the job working to help our economy recover. Our communities are counting on the money and the work in this bill. This bill fulfills the commitment we made to our communities back in June and July, when we marked up these appropriations bills. It ensures that the basic needs of Government, from housing to law enforcement, to transportation safety are met

and that our agencies keep up with inflation.

I have come to the floor because some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have been raising questions about the 1 percent of funding in this bill that they call earmarks. I wish to spend a minute talking about that 1 percent of this funding.

The fact is, this is money that is being directed to critical needs in our communities, projects that our local leaders say they badly need so they can keep people safe or help them fund housing or ensure that local businesses stay strong.

Opposing that money means opposing new jobs, updating infrastructure and economic opportunity in local communities, including many in my home State at a time when communities across this country need all the help they can get to recover from this economic crisis. For example, this bill includes $3 million to help widen a very dangerous stretch of road between Walla Walla and Pasco in my home State of Washington.

Now, in the last 18 years, there have been over 1,000 accidents on that stretch of highway. Over 400 people have been hurt and more than 30 people have died. It is so dangerous a stretch of highway that local officials formed a coalition just to fight for funding to widen that highway. I have been very proud to work with them to help make their community safe. The sooner we can get that highway fixed the better.

This bill also includes $3 million to reimburse communities in Washington State for some of the cost of protecting our northern border. Now, most of the communities on our northern border are very small. But they bear the large burden of protecting our Nation from international criminals, including drug dealers and potential terrorists, and jailing international fugitives.

In fact, in Whatcom County, in the northern part of my State of Washington, they spend about $2 million from their general fund, from the county's general fund, every year to process these border-related criminal cases. They shoulder, this poor little county, an unfair burden in return for keeping all of us safe.

Those police and sheriffs along the border have made it clear to me that they need help. I was glad to work in this bill to help ensure that the Federal Government, us, is stepping up to support that local county.

This bill includes over $700,000 to build 83 studio apartments for chronically homeless and mentally ill people in Seattle, with at least a third of the space designated for homeless veterans. Because of this housing money, they are going to have a stable place to live. It will prevent some of the most vulnerable people in our community from falling through the cracks and allow them the chance to focus on getting treatment and rebuilding their lives.

Cascade Supportive Housing is a key part of King County's 10-year plan to end homelessness. Not only will this money help the people who live there, it will take a burden off the social safety net and ultimately save all of us money in services we would have had to provide. So like all of the projects listed, this might not have gotten Federal support if that community had not come to me as their Senator and if I had not been able to work hard, as my job is, to secure money in this appropriations bill. I am proud I can include funding for programs that help my constituents.

We have heard these projects called insulting and wasteful. Tell that to the commuters in Walla Walla. Tell that to the families trying to keep their homes in Seattle. Tell that to law enforcement personnel in Bellingham in Whatcom County.

Washington State is 2,500 miles away from this Nation's Capitol. When I come to DC, it is my responsibility to fight for my home State. I don't want to leave the decisions about what is best for Washington up to a bureaucrat in an agency who has never been to or even heard of Walla Walla or Pasco or Blaine, who has no idea who the people in those communities are or what their needs are. The Founders of our Constitution didn't want that either. In fact, our Nation's Founders made it clear that the administration has no right to spend money without congressional approval. They believed the people, through their representatives--and that is all of us--should make those decisions. Without congressionally directed spending, the President would have unprecedented power to determine where all of our taxpayer dollars are spent.

It is easy for critics to pull out projects that may sound funny to them or make an easy cable news story. They do this and then try to paint every bit of congressionally directed spending with one brush. I reject those efforts. I reject the notion that each and every bit of spending we direct is correct or wasteful. My constituents do too.

Additionally, unlike the pictures some of my colleagues are trying to paint, none of this spending is secret. Last Congress, Democrats led the most sweeping ethics and earmark reform in history. This year, the Appropriations Committees in both the House and Senate went out of their way to voluntarily bring that transparency to a new level. Last year, we reduced earmark spending by 43 percent. After President Obama won in November, we then went back and cut it by 5 percent more. Each and every earmark in this bill now has a name attached to it. Anyone who wants to can go online and find out who is asking for money and for what. That is the accountability and the transparency our constituents deserve and we have provided.

Secondly, Democrats are not the only ones directing money in this bill. Nearly half of the earmarks Republicans object to were inserted by Republicans themselves. This bill directs $475,000 to build an emergency shelter at a Women's Bay in Alaska; $475,000 to Harbor Homes in Nashua, NH, to build housing for honorably discharged homeless veterans; $475,000 for the construction of a residential substance abuse treatment center for women and their children in Sioux Falls, SD; $617,000 for a new building for the Houston food bank in Houston, TX; and $190,000 to build low-income housing in New Orleans. These and dozens of other projects are going to help families who are hungry or veterans who are homeless. They will enable parents to get access to high-quality childcare and families to find safe, affordable housing. They are good projects, and I am sure the Republican Senators who put them in these bills did so because they know this money will make a real difference for people in their communities. They know that if they didn't fight for funding in this bill, it is going to be up to some DC bureaucrat who might not know that the Houston food bank needs a new roof or that there is a real need for an emergency shelter at Women's Bay, AK. All of these create jobs. They direct money to vital infrastructure needs. They help strengthen communities for the future.

Senators who oppose this bill say it is full of waste. I doubt any of the Senators who asked for this money would say their project was money gone to waste. I bet neither would the communities that need the money to help shelter families or support businesses or keep people safe.

The point is, just as I don't expect a Senator from Oklahoma or Arizona to know the needs of Walla Walla or Bellingham, I don't want to tell another Senator that I know their State better than they. We have huge needs in this country today. We cannot afford to tie this bill up any longer on petty, baseless arguments. We cannot afford to risk shutting down the Government at the end of the day.

I urge colleagues, let's get this bill passed. Let's move forward. Let's get to work addressing the real problems Americans face every day.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

I yield back our time.

Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote and I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from California for yielding me time on this bill and thank her for her support as we move forward in a very critical time to cast a vote that is very important to all of our communities, and that is for the Omnibus appropriations bill from last year that is currently on the Senate floor.

Let me start by commending our leadership, our new committee chairman, Senator Inouye, and our vice chairman, Senator Cochran, who have put this bill in front of us. This Omnibus appropriations bill before us that we are now debating is absolutely essential to every community in our country, especially as we work to address this economic crisis. Both of our Senators, Mr. Inouye and Mr. Cochran, have been very measured and evenhanded as we have brought this bill together, despite the many challenges we face. I thank them for their work.

I chair the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation and Housing. I rise today to urge all of my colleagues to support this very important Omnibus appropriations bill. As I said, this bill is essential to families and communities across our country. It enables us, our Government, to meet the needs for health care, for housing, to make college more affordable, and to keep our communities safe. Just as important, our communities today are counting on us doing our job and passing this bill.

With this bill, we are fulfilling our commitments we made to them back in June and July of last year when these bills were marked up in our appropriations committees. Senator Byrd, who was the Appropriations Committee chairman at the time, held four separate markup sessions. Almost every committee member attended those sessions to debate and vote those appropriations bills out of committee. While, of course, not every Senator agreed with every line in every bill, they were written with the cooperation of our Republican colleagues. All of us had to make compromises, but in the end each of these bills was reported out of the full committee either unanimously or with a very large bipartisan vote. That is because each of these bills represents a bipartisan consensus and stays within the budget resolution Congress passed earlier last year.

Our Republican colleagues were full participants when we negotiated the final details of this with the House of Representatives. Therefore, the omnibus bill we are debating today reflects many of the same priorities Democrats and Republicans alike approved last July.

Even so, our Federal agencies have now been operating under a continuing resolution for 5 months now, since this fiscal year began. We cannot delay sending them this bill any longer. On Friday night of this week, at midnight, if we do not pass this bill, funding for most of our Federal agencies will stop. It will stop and the money will be cut off. The Federal Government will come to a halt. I think about what that means. Millions of Americans depend on this funding. We cannot afford to let politics stand in the way and risk a government shutdown, especially not when we face the greatest economic challenge since the Great Depression, not with so many of our Federal agencies working day and night to make sure the economic recovery bill we adopted last month can meet the needs of our families across the country, and not when we know communities across the Nation are desperate for help to keep transportation and safety and housing and all the other programs moving forward.

As chair of the Transportation and Housing Subcommittee, I want to take a little bit of time today to give some details about why this bill is so important to address the housing crisis and ensure the continued safety of our transportation system.

First of all, this bill is an essential part of our efforts to restart the housing market. In the last several weeks, I have heard some of my colleagues talk about how they want to focus on housing as we repair this economy. We cannot fix the housing market without the provisions in this omnibus bill.

Let me give just one example. Up until last year, the Federal Housing Administration's market share for guaranteeing mortgages had dropped to a low of 3 percent. But now that the mortgage industry is in crisis, lenders have turned back to the FHA in droves because they know it will be reliable. Yet, under the terms of the continuing resolution, the FHA is prevented from helping willing and qualified buyers get mortgages because that agency cannot guarantee more than $185 billion a year. If we do not pass the bill in front of us and raise that cap to a level above $300 billion, our effort to restart the real estate and housing industry is going to crash and burn. If any of us think it is hard to get a mortgage now, just watch that happen if we keep the FHA's loan volume cap at last year's level.

If we fail to pass this bill, we are going to throw thousands of low- income families out of stable, affordable

housing. In the last year alone, 3 million Americans lost their jobs. Communities across this country are struggling to meet those needs. This is absolutely the wrong time to unravel the safety net we have in place. The 2009 omnibus bill would provide enough additional money to keep up with inflation and keep the current tenant-based section 8 recipients in their homes. If we have to keep the funding for that program flat, the consequences will be severe. It is estimated that as many as 45,000 families will be turned out of their homes if we don't pass this bill; that is, 45,000 families who would lose their housing and be forced to turn to relatives, shelters--wherever they can--for help. So this bill is critical to help us address the Nation's housing needs.

But the omnibus is also essential to the safety of our airlines, our railroads, our roads, and our bridges. All of us, I hope, are aware we face very serious challenges today because our air traffic controllers and our safety inspectors are retiring in very large numbers, leaving a lot of less-experienced people to fill their shoes. Those are the people who help us land or take off at our airports, who make sure our planes are safe. We have been working for several years to address this crisis. This bill is going to make sure we can keep hiring new air traffic controllers and safety inspectors so they can get the training and experience they need. This bill provides the money to fully fund some of the safety personnel we brought on last year. I hope it is very clear to everyone how important it is to keep up these efforts. If we do not pass this bill, not only will we be unable to hire new safety personnel, but we are going to have to fire some of the people we hired last year. We face a simple choice: We can hire and train new air traffic controllers and address that huge gap in experience levels between the workers who are retiring and the new employers who are at our towers across the Nation or we can just let those shortfalls get worse. I think that is an investment we cannot afford to not make.

The same is true when it comes to the safety of the rest of our transportation system. This omnibus bill provides critical investments in rail safety inspectors, truck safety inspectors, and pipeline inspectors.

Back in the fall, through the leadership of Senators Inouye and Lautenberg and many others, the Senate passed a comprehensive rail safety and Amtrak bill that was signed by President Bush. That bill laid out a very new vision for a modernized national rail network and a new safety system that requires adequate staffing at the Federal Railroad Administration. With this bill that is before us now, we begin to make those investments. It is not a moment too soon. In the last couple of years, a record number of commuters have parked their cars and started taking the train in response to the economic crisis and high gas prices. We have to expand and improve our rail transportation in America to meet that demand. But if we keep the funding levels flat, we could end up forcing Amtrak to shut down some of those routes instead.

Additionally, we finally got a settlement for Amtrak's workers last year after they were forced to go almost 9 years without a wage increase. That settlement was recommended by President Bush's emergency board. It called for the Government--us--to make a lump-sum payment in backpay to Amtrak workers. The bill before us includes the funding for that long-awaited payment. Those workers earned that money, but if we do not pass this bill, they almost certainly will not get it.

I give those as a couple of examples of what could happen if we do not approve this omnibus bill and get it to the President's desk by Friday. Those, by the way, are just the risks in transportation and housing. I know many of my fellow chairmen on the committee will be talking about what happens to health or agriculture or energy or law enforcement.

Less than a month ago, we came together on this floor to pass a huge bill designed to give our economy the jump-start we need to get the Government working again and make investments that are going to create jobs and strengthen our communities. We are already seeing it begin to work. But the progress we are already making will be forced to a stop before it can get any momentum if we do not put the people in place to carry it out.

That is why this bill is so important. This bill will keep the Government running at a time when we need Federal employees to put all of their efforts, every single day, into helping our economy recover. We need this bill to help ensure that our low-income families keep safe, affordable housing. We need this bill so that the FHA can help more people get loans and buy homes. And we need it to ensure that our transit system runs safely and smoothly. This bill is critical to every one of our communities, and we all have to work together and do what is right for the American people today. We all know our families are struggling and they are scared about what is ahead for our economy. They do not have time for us to play games. They need help now.

I hope we can all join together this week and move this bill, the 2009 Omnibus appropriations bill, to the President's desk by Friday and get our country working again.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the previously ordered vote slated to occur at 11:45 now occur at 12 noon and that the additional time be divided as previously ordered and the remaining provisions under the agreement remain in effect.

I object.

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

Mr. President, I rise to oppose the amendment that has just been offered by the Senator from Nevada. I go home every weekend and I talk to families across my State. There is no doubt that people are hurting. Thousands of people have been laid off from their jobs, and thousands more are worried that this week they are the ones who are going to be laid off from their jobs.

Since we first came into session in January, we have been working as hard as I have ever seen to address these challenges that are facing millions of Americans today--losing their jobs, losing their homes, losing their retirement. We are trying to get this economy back on track and instill some confidence in this country so we can move forward. We passed a major economic recovery package just a few weeks ago. It is being implemented as we speak and will be implemented over the coming weeks and months.

Here we are today talking about a bill that basically is the responsibility of Congress, every single year, to fund the Government agencies that help make our country work. We should have had this bill passed 3, 4, 5 months ago. We did not. This bill was done. It was ready to go by the end of July. All of the appropriations committees had finished their work. They had passed them out of the Appropriations Committee, almost all of them on a unanimous vote, some of them with just a few negative votes in committee.

But the responsibility of the Senate and House and Congress every year is to pass our spending bills. We pass these bills in order to make our agencies work, whether it is the Food and Drug Administration that makes sure our food is safe, whether it is our air traffic controllers who manage the flights out of our airports, whether it is our health care agencies that do research and important work for this Nation's health, whether it is Government agencies that fund agriculture or any of the other agencies we have. These are people who go to work every day whose function it is to make our economy and our country work so that average citizens do not have to sit at home and worry about whether the drug they purchase is safe or whether the agriculture they buy at the market is safe or whether their schools are funded or whether we provide individuals the basic health care Americans know they need in order to keep their families secure.

It is too bad these bills didn't pass a few months ago. Why didn't they? Because we had an administration whose bottom line was to say no. The President at the time, President Bush, said: I will say no to these bills as they come to my desk.

But here in the Senate and in the House, we said: These bills are important, but if this President is going to veto them, we are going to wait a few months for the election.

That happened, we have a brandnew President, and, unfortunately a few months late because we were working on an economic stimulus package, we are here to pass these bills. I wish they were done a few months ago. I know all of us do. But we should not delay it any further. All of the people who worked with us to get these bills passed, everyone in the country, whether it is a YMCA that has a domestic violence center that is waiting for $100,000 that we marked up in committee and appropriated last year for them, or highway projects we marked up in this bill, or transit projects, across the board, whether it is law enforcement, whether it is consumer product safety, whether it is the numerous housing agencies that are funded in this--they have known for several months what they are going to get. They are waiting for us to finish our work this week, by this deadline, Friday, so we do not go back to a CR. It is our responsibility to pass these bills.

The Senate had a very strong vote just a few hours ago to say we are not going to work off a continuing resolution. We are going to do a responsible job of funding these agencies, as we said.

The amendment of the Senator from Nevada that now comes before us sends us into a tailspin. It says we are going to send these bills back to the Appropriations Committee to cut some $20 billion out of them and come back to us. First of all, just from a process point of view, this is not going to happen by this Friday, and if we do not get this bill passed by this Friday, the Government shuts down. I can talk about the consequences of that. I have been in this body before when the Government shut down. It is not pretty, and we do not want to be there for a million reasons that I am happy to talk about for some time, but we will leave that for another day.

The fact is, to send this bill back to the Appropriations Committee and tell them to cut $20 billion out of it, that will underfund critical initiatives this Senate and this House believe are important.

Let me talk for a minute about housing. We all know that one of the reasons our economy is in such trouble today is because of the housing crisis that has come before us. In this bill--if we do not pass it as it is written and before the Senate today, we have about 45,000 families who will lose their jobs on top of the thousands we have already seen. We cannot afford to put those families in jeopardy. Yet that is essentially what will happen if the amendment of the Senator from Nevada is agreed to.

We are working hard to make sure our families do not go into foreclosure. The amendment of the Senator puts all of those families at risk. Single-family guaranteed housing loans are at risk under the amendment of the Senator. Federal law enforcement efforts through the Department of Justice are at risk through the amendment of the Senator. Antiterrorist enforcement programs through the Department of Treasury are at risk under the amendment of the Senator. U.S. attorneys are at risk. Food and medical product safety--right at a time when we are all worried about peanut butter--is at risk. Consumer product safety--the risk goes on. All of these priorities that we worked through our committee on a bipartisan basis and said we need to move these initiatives forward are at risk under the amendment of the Senator.

I believe we have to all go back to our responsibilities. All of us wish the bill could have passed a few months ago. It didn't. It is in front of us now. We need to pass this bill, get it to the President's desk, and then we will have

an opportunity to look at a budget for 2010. Our Budget Committee will look at that budget hard, we will pass the budget out--it will have to pass in the Senate and House--and it will set the parameters for next year's appropriations bills. Those appropriations committees will then, in the next few months, begin to work on their bill. For anybody who has issues, small or large, that is the appropriate place to begin the debate and amendment process and hopefully in regular order to pass those bills and move forward. But we should not jeopardize this bill at this point. That is not responsible. That is not what any of us should be doing at this point.

Finally, let me talk about the debt issue we have been hearing so much about. None of us wants to operate this country in debt. All of us are fiscally responsible. I have heard every Member of the Senate come forward and talk about making sure we keep our house in order.

Who got us to where we are today? The Republicans who came into power under George Bush turned historic surpluses into historic deficits by not being honest about the costs in front of us--whether it was the Iraq war or whether it was other costs that were paid off-budget, emergencies across the country--not coming forward and being honest about the fact that we do need to fund health care research or education for our kids. Why have these bills not passed before the election? Because even Republicans didn't want to cut education or to cut health care, which would have been what we had to do to meet the President's budget level.

I take a backseat to no one when it comes to making sure our country moves forward in a fiscally responsible way and deals with the debt we have. But at the cost of laying off thousands of people because we are not being responsible and up-front about the job we have to do is irresponsible.

I hope our colleagues will defeat the amendment by Senator Ensign, move on, pass this bill this week, and then we can have all the debate we want about the budget that will come before this body shortly, about the appropriations moving forward.

Let me remind all of us that what we are talking about here is extremely important. No one wants to get a pink slip. No one wants to see their job lost. No one wants to see their health care at risk, their education at risk, or for that matter, within my appropriations bill, their flight from their airport at risk because we have not added air traffic controllers, which is in this bill. There are many other issues in this bill that are at risk under the proposal of the Senator, and I urge our colleagues to defeat this amendment and move forward, doing what we were sent here to do, and that is be responsible.

I yield the floor.

I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Madam President, I would ask the Senator from Alaska which amendment she is sending.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business with the time equally divided in the usual form.

Madam President, I modify my request and ask unanimous consent that Senator Coburn be allowed to speak for 5 minutes on the amendment, and following his remarks, the Senate move to a period of morning business, with the time equally divided in the usual manner with a 10-minute limitation.

Mr. President, the Senate is not in order.

Mr. President, the business before the Senate is now the nomination of President Obama's nominee as Secretary of Labor, U.S. Representative Hilda Solis.

My colleagues on the Senate HELP Committee worked together to move forward Hilda Solis's nomination. I have come to the floor today to urge the full Senate to join me in supporting her confirmation so we can fill this critically important Cabinet position as soon as possible.

Today, America's families are facing incredible challenges. They are struggling with record unemployment and a devastating economic crisis. They need and they deserve an advocate in the administration who is passionate about public service and committed to fighting for them. Representative Solis is that person. I want to share today a part of her HELP Committee testimony. If confirmed, Hilda Solis wrote that we have her solemn commitment to ``work hard every day to ensure that middle-class families do not lose hope.''

I thank Representative Solis for her willingness to answer President Obama's call to serve. She has been very responsive to the questions that were submitted to her by the HELP Committee. She has been a dedicated public servant, and she has an extensive public record of supporting working families. Moving forward on this nomination this afternoon will send a crucial message to working families that we understand their needs and that they are absolutely essential to our economic recovery efforts. We cannot afford to wait.

For anyone who is unfamiliar with her background, I would like to share with you a little bit about Representative Solis. She was born in California and grew up as one of seven children. Her mother was an immigrant from Nicaragua. Her father worked as a farmworker, a railroad worker, and a Teamsters shop steward in a battery recycling plant. He raised his family to understand that joining a union had helped them secure a place in America's middle class. Her parents stressed values such as education and hard work, public service and commitment to family.

Even though they could not afford to go to college themselves, her mother and father sacrificed to make sure their children would reach their full potential.

With the support of her family and the help of Pell grants and student loans, Hilda Solis became the first in her family to graduate from college. Her sisters followed in her footsteps. One earned a Ph.D. in public health and two others became engineers. Thanks to the values she grew up with, Hilda Solis always worked to give back to her community. She has served as the director of the California Student Opportunity and Access Program, and as a college trustee, because she wanted to ensure that other students

could have the same opportunity she did to get a college degree.

In 1992 she expanded her service to the public arena and was elected to the California State Assembly. In 1994, she became the first Latino State senator in California. As a State lawmaker, she wrote a record 17 laws to protect victims of domestic violence. She championed worker rights. She helped small businesses, and she worked to strengthen the economy.

Hilda Solis's achievements and service to students, to her State, and to the U.S. House of Representatives are proof that anything is possible in America, no matter what your background is. She is an example of why we have to ensure that every child and every family has a chance to succeed. Her experience is a quintessential example of the American dream. I should add I feel a very close connection to her because her background is not that different from my own. I too am one of seven children of loving, committed parents who taught us that with hard work anything is possible in America. My family faced very tough times when I was young. When my dad developed MS, we depended on food stamps for a while. My brothers, sisters, and I all were able to go on for college because of Pell grants and student loans.

Like Hilda Solis, I grew up believing that everyone can succeed if we give them a fighting chance. That is part of the reason why I know she will join me in fighting day and night for our working families in our struggling economy today.

Not only is Hilda Solis the right choice to serve as Labor Secretary, I want to emphasize how critical it is for us to move forward and fill this Cabinet position. For the last 8 years, working families have felt like an afterthought of the previous administration. I can tell you, as chair of the Employment and Workplace Safety Committee, it is long past time for a change. I am hopeful that the Department of Labor will soon have a leader who stands ready to help the Department fulfill its very core responsibilities to America's working men and women.

For years, I have said, if you do not invest in the growth and development of America's workforce, our families, our communities and our Nation will suffer in the long run. Now, today, with the unemployment at 7.6 percent, with 3 million jobs lost over the past year, and literally thousands of more pink slips going out every month, with hundreds of thousands of new unemployment insurance claims being filed every week, workers need an advocate in the new administration who will stand up for them. They need someone who believes, as I do, that investing in them is investing in our future. They need someone who believes that their Government should work for them during the good times and help them succeed during the hard times. They need someone who will be their voice in every economic recovery discussion.

As we all work very hard to help our economy recover and grow again, I believe three things are very clear: First, we need to create new jobs and help Americans who are out of work or underemployed find employment that ensures they are able to stay in the middle class.

Secondly, we need to help low-skilled and low-earning workers get the skills they need to find family wage jobs in healthy industries, so they can become part of the middle class.

And, third, we need to make smart investments that will create jobs, increase worker training, and make us more productive and competitive in the global economy. I am confident that as Labor Secretary, Hilda Solis will join me in working to reach those goals.

Our working families deserve a workforce system that is innovative, that is modern, and can meet the needs of the millions of unemployed and underemployed American workers. I am confident she is committed to making the reauthorization of our Nation's workforce system a top priority of her first year.

I look forward to working with her to help ensure families can balance the competing needs of work and home by expanding job-protected leave and other family-friendly work policies.

To be fully productive, workers need to know that their employers and their Government are doing everything they can to ensure they are safe and they are healthy on the job.

Finally, I look forward to working with her to make OSHA and MSHA proactive agencies again where the health and the safety of our workers is their first priority. We have a lot of big challenges ahead of us in this country, but we also have a very big opportunity.

I know that together we can help our workers access training for 21st century careers, including the emerging green jobs we hear so much about; we can help our workers balance the needs of home and careers and help them keep safe on the job. We can work to protect their rights to organize and secure a better economic future for themselves; and, ultimately, we can help our working families improve their quality of life.

Now, more than ever, workers deserve a leader who is dedicated to seeing them succeed. I look forward to working with Secretary Solis and the Department to do that. I encourage all of our colleagues to support this critical nomination.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, we are on the Solis nomination this afternoon.

I ask unanimous consent that the following Senators on our side be recognized to speak: Senator Menendez for 10 minutes, Senator Sanders for 15 minutes, Senator Dodd for 15 minutes, and Senator Boxer for 10 minutes.

No. These Senators requested that time, and we will go back and forth in the usual fashion.

Mr. President, I thank all of my colleagues for their remarks today, including the distinguished ranking member of our HELP Committee, the Senator from Wyoming, and the ranking member on my Subcommittee on Employment, the Senator from Georgia. We have all worked together on a number of issues that are important to the well- being of workers in this country, and today is no different as we consider the nomination of Hilda Solis to serve as President Obama's Labor Secretary.

As a committee and as a body, we have done our due diligence in reviewing her nomination and materials. Now it is time to move forward.

Working families across the country are facing the hardest of economic downturns. Most of them have never experienced anything like this. It is affecting everyone across our country. Earlier today, we learned that about 303,570 people in my home State of Washington were unemployed and looking for work in January. That is the largest number ever in my State. That is over 303,000 families who are now wondering how they are going to be able to pay their bills or keep their house or afford health care or even save for retirement.

Workers in my State and across the country cannot afford to wait one more day for an advocate in this administration who will make their voice heard as we work to repair our country's economy. They cannot afford to wait any longer for a new leader at the agency that is responsible for unemployment insurance, job training, and placement services, protecting the health and safety of our workers on the job, and ensuring their rights in the workplace are protected. We have to have a Labor Department that can move into high gear to meet workers where they are. Hilda Solis stands ready to answer that call.

Before I conclude, I want to take just a minute to thank a number of people who helped us to get to this point. In addition to the distinguished ranking member on the HELP Committee, Senator Enzi, and the ranking member on our subcommittee, Senator Isakson, and all of their staff members, I wish to recognize and thank Senator Kennedy who is the chairman of our Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. His dedication to America's working families is unmatched. And his staff, including Portia Wu and Lauren McFarren, have dedicated countless hours to moving this nomination forward.

I also thank Senator Dodd, who chaired the HELP Committee executive session that reported Representative Solis out of committee, bringing us a step closer to today's confirmation.

Let me also thank my staff who have worked so hard with me: Gerri Fiala, Crystal Bridgeman, Mike Waske, Mike Spahn, and Stacy Rich. I appreciate all of their joint efforts to getting us here today.

Of course, I thank our great floor staff who worked tirelessly to help move this process forward.

Finally, I want to particularly thank Representative Hilda Solis for, once again, answering the call to serve. We expect the final vote on her nomination shortly. I encourage all Senators and colleagues to support her confirmation on behalf of all the working

families in our country who need a voice in Washington, DC.

Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of time and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to go to a period for morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on February 24, 2009, at 10 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, February 24, 2009, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet, during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Addressing Underinsurance in National Health Reform'' on Tuesday, February 24, 2009. The hearing will commence at 10 a.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, February 24, 2009, at 2 p.m., in a Joint Hearing with the House Veterans' Affairs Committee to receive testimony from the Disabled American Veterans. The Committee will meet in room 345 of the Cannon Building beginning at 2 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on February 24, 2009 at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing entitled ``The Ticketmaster/Live Nation Merger: What Does it Mean for Consumers and the Future of the Concert Business?'' on Tuesday, February 24, 2009, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Presiding Officer of the Senate be authorized to appoint a committee on the part of the Senate to join with a like committee on the part of the House of Representatives to escort the President of the United States into the House Chamber for the joint session to be held at 9 p.m. this evening.

Mr. President, yes, the Senator from Pennsylvania's understanding is correct. The conference report does give the Secretary of Transportation authority to waive the minimum grant size under the discretionary grant program for the purpose of funding significant projects in smaller cities, regions or States. Additionally, funds provided for investment in highway infrastructure maybe be used for passenger and freight rail transportation and port infrastructure projects.

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