Floor Statements

Mr. President, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize National History Day, a yearlong academic program focused on improving the teaching and learning of history for 6th to 12th grade students, for receiving a 2011 National Humanities Medal. The National Humanities medals honor achievements in history, literature, education, and cultural policy. For the first time ever, a K 12 education program has received this prestigious award. National History Day was recognized as ``a program that inspires in American students a passion for history.''

Each year more than half a million students, encouraged by thousands of teachers nationwide, participate in the yearlong National History Day program. Students choose historical topics related to a theme and conduct extensive primary and secondary research through libraries, archives, museums, oral history interviews, and historic sites. After analyzing and interpreting their sources and drawing conclusions about the significance of their topics in history, students present their work in original papers, Web sites, exhibits, performances, and documentaries. These products are entered into competitions in the spring, at local, State, and national levels where they are evaluated by professional historians and educators. The program culminates in a national competition each June. National History Day programs operate in all 50 States, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories, engaging students with its unique approach to the hands-on learning of history.

In addition to discovering the exciting world of the past, National History Day also helps students develop the attributes that are critical to make them college and career ready. This includes:

critical thinking and problem-solving skills, research and reading skills, oral and written communication and presentation skills, self- esteem and confidence, and a sense of responsibility for and involvement in the democratic process. With schools spending more resources and time focusing on English language arts and mathematics education, it is important that programs like National History Day are recognized and supported to ensure students receive a quality history and civics education.

The impact of National History Day is also supported by data. A recent comprehensive study by Rockman et al found that students who participate in National History Day develop a range of college and career-ready skills, and outperform their peers on State standardized tests across all subjects--including science and mathematics.

National History Day is much more than a day, it is an evidence-based history education program that gives our young people skills to succeed in school and post secondary careers as well as a valuable understanding of how the world they live in has been shaped by people and events of the past. National History Day is a unique program that has benefited over 15 million students since 1982. I congratulate them on winning the 2011 National Humanities Medal and wish them many more years of continued success.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from New Hampshire.

For millions of American women, reading the news this morning was like stepping into a time machine and going back 50 years, seeing the headlines and the photos of this all-male panel in the House talking about a woman's right to access birth control, and no women on the panel. It turns out the chairman of the House oversight committee decided he was not going to allow a young woman who had been asked by the minority to testify and tell her story--actually of a friend who had lost an ovary because of her lack of contraception coverage. So this 19-year-old woman was left to watch, like the rest of us, as all five men addressed the committee about how they supported efforts to restrict access to care.

I am sure by now many of my colleagues here have seen this picture of this all-male panel, the picture that says a thousand words. It is one that most women thought was left behind when pictures only came in black and white.

But this was not the only story this morning that made women feel as if the clock had been turned back on them. The other story comes to us from the Republican Presidential nomination trail. It seems that yesterday, on national television, one of the chief financial backers for Rick Santorum, the Republican candidate who is now surging toward the nomination, suggested that contraception was once as simple as a woman putting aspirin between her knees. Really? Shocking. Appalling. An insult. In fact, both of these stories are enough to make any woman, regardless of her own politics, angry. It certainly does me.

These are things that are happening today and they are enough to make you believe that after years of progress, nothing has changed. For many women and men who are waking up to the news this morning, it may seem this is a swift and sudden attack on women's health care, but I am here on the floor of the Senate today to tell you all there is nothing sudden about it. There is nothing new about these Republican attacks on our family planning decisions. In fact, from the moment they came into power, Republicans in the House of Representatives have been waging a war on women's health. If you do not believe me, look at the first bills they introduced after they arrived here in Washington, DC, and were sworn into office. After campaigning across the country on a platform of jobs and the economy, the first three bills they introduced were direct attacks on women's health in America.

The very first bill, H.R. 1, would have totally eliminated title X funding for family planning and teen pregnancy prevention. It included an amendment that would have completely defunded Planned Parenthood and cut off support for millions of women who count on it.

Another one of their opening round of bills, more than a year ago, would have permanently codified the Hyde amendment and the DC abortion ban, and the original version of their bill did not even include an exception for the health of the mother.

Finally, they introduced a bill right away that would have rolled back every single one of the gains we worked so hard to get for women in the health care reform bill. It would have removed the caps on out- of-pocket expenses that protect women from losing their homes and their life savings if they get sick. It ended the ban on lifetime limits on coverage. It allowed insurance companies to once again discriminate against women by charging them higher premiums or even denying women access for so-called preexisting conditions--that, by the way, includes pregnancy.

It would have rolled back the guarantee that insurance companies cover contraceptive activities, which will save the overwhelming majority of women who use them hundreds of dollars a year.

In addition to showing their true colors with their very first legislative efforts, Republicans have shown they will go to about any limit to restrict our access to care, even shutting down the Federal Government. It seems extreme? That is exactly what happened last April, when Republicans nearly shuttered the Federal Government over a rider that was another attempt to go after title X and Planned Parenthood.

I remember, I was in those meetings, months and months of negotiations on the numbers in our budget. I was astonished that Republicans, late at night, were willing to throw all that work away to go after women's health. I was the only woman in the room that night. I can remember being personally disgusted that Republicans thought they could get away with making women victims, under the cover of darkness, in the middle of the night, with moments to go before the government was shut down.

But I also remember the resounding ``no'' when they tried to pull that, first from me, then from my women colleagues joining me today, and then a loud and overwhelming chorus of men and women all across the country. That chorus of women was heard again a few weeks ago after yet another attack on women's health care. This time the attack came cloaked in a sham investigation led by some of the same

congressional Republicans who yesterday had this all-male panel talking about women's contraception. It was an investigation of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer charity sites to cut off funding for lifesaving breast cancer screenings for women. We know what happened after the outcry followed that decision. I certainly remember going home and standing shoulder to shoulder with women and men in my home State in front of a clinic that provided those breast screening referrals and pledging to safeguard against any future attacks in the wake of that decision, but I didn't think it would come the very next week. Apparently, Republicans are still not done. Even after the loud rebuke after the Komen decision, they have decided again to pick on women's health.

Just last week, the junior Senator from Missouri introduced an amendment to a job-creating transportation infrastructure bill that is as extreme as anything we have seen. It is an amendment that will allow any employer--a barber, a banker, a multinational corporation--to be given an exemption to not cover contraception or any essential preventive for any religious or moral reason. It is an amendment that would give any employer an unprecedented license to dictate what women can and cannot have covered. It puts your employer smack in the middle between you and your health care. It is politics between women and their health care, and before the news that women across the country awoke to this morning, it was just the most recent in a very long line of attacks on our reproductive rights.

Contraceptive coverage should not be a controversial issue. It is supported by the vast majority of Americans who understand how important it is for women and their families, but let me remind everyone Republicans have made it clear from the start this is not about what is best for women or men or their family-planning decisions, it is apparently a political calculation. This is about their constituency. It is about their continued push to do whatever it takes to push their extreme agenda.

The women of the Senate, the Democratic women, are here to say enough. We are standing today and every day to fight for women and their right to make their own basic health care decisions, not their employer, not an extreme part of the Republican Party, not some men on a panel but themselves. We will continue to do so, and I am proud to stand with the women of the Senate to do just that.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, last week, we saw something amazing happening in communities across the country. When the news got out that the Susan G. Komen Foundation had cut off funding for breast cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood, men and women across this country were just outraged. They did not understand the decision, they did not agree with it, and they did something about it.

They picked up their phones, they talked to their friends, they e- mailed, they tweeted, they called their elected officials, they made their voices heard loudly and clearly, and they got results.

On Friday of last week, Komen did the right thing and announced they had reversed their initial decision. I wish to commend them for that because their mission and their great work in the fight against breast cancer is just too important to get mixed up in partisan politics.

But although that reversal was a great victory for so many women and men across the country, let's be clear: Our fight for women's health care did not end there. There are still many who continue to push partisan politics ahead of women's health, and we need to make sure the grassroots support and energy that successfully came together to right this wrong last week continues to stand firm against each and every attack that comes our way, because we do know those attacks are coming. Republicans in the House of Representatives have been waging a war on women's health since the moment they came into power.

After campaigning across the country a year and a half ago on a platform of jobs and the economy, the first three bills they introduced were direct attacks on women's health in America.

The very first one, H.R. 1, would have totally eliminated title X funding for family planning and teen pregnancy prevention. It included an amendment that would have completely defunded Planned Parenthood and cut off support for the millions of women in this country who count on it.

Another one of their opening round of bills would have permanently codified the Hyde amendment and the DC abortion ban. The original version of their bill did not even include an exception for the health of the mother.

Finally, they introduced a bill right away that would have rolled back every single one of the gains we made for women in the health care reform bill.

Their bill would have removed the caps on out-of-pocket expenses that protect women from losing their homes or their life savings if they get sick.

It would have ended the ban on lifetime limits on coverage.

It would have allowed insurance companies to once again discriminate against women by charging them higher premiums or even denying women care because of the so-called preexisting conditions--such as being pregnant.

It would have rolled back the guarantee that insurance companies cover contraceptives, which will save the overwhelming majority of women who use them hundreds and hundreds of dollars a year.

We know ensuring access to effective birth control is directly linked to declines in maternal and infant mortality, reduced risk of ovarian cancer, better overall health outcomes for women, and far fewer unintended pregnancies and abortions, which is a goal we all share.

Contraceptive coverage should not be a controversial issue. It is supported by the vast majority of Americans who understand how important it is for women and families.

I also wish to note that the affordable contraceptive policy we put in place preserves the freedoms of conscience and religion for every American. Churches and other religious institutions are exempt, and no doctor would ever have to dispense contraceptives if that is at odds with his or her religious views.

But it also protects the rights of the millions of Americans who do use contraceptives, who believe family planning is the right choice for them personally, and who do not deserve to have politics or an extreme minority's ideology prevent them from getting the coverage they deserve.

I am very glad, joining with all my colleagues, that we beat back that effort by the House Republicans, and I truly wish to commend President Obama for moving forward with this sound policy for women across America. Because that is what this is truly about. It is what it needs to be about: women and their health care needs, not partisan politics, not point scoring.

House Republicans and their allies have demonstrated they will stop at nothing to politicize this issue. Last year, they even threatened to shut down the Federal Government in a failed attempt to defund an organization that provides critical health care services for millions of women in this country. Now they are trying to cut off contraceptive coverage for women across America.

They can keep trying to push their extreme agenda, but they should know we are going to fight back just as hard in the Senate, as we clearly saw this past week, with the voices of millions of people across America who feel very strongly that politics should never come between a woman and her health care--men and women who will be watching what is happening here in DC and who, I am confident, stand ready to act again.

I am proud to be here with my colleagues today. I am proud of the victory of last week, and I am determined to remain vigilant and keep up the fight for women, for men, and their families.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I congratulate one of my constituents, Mike Kluse, on being recognized as the 2012 Laboratory Director of the Year by the Federal Laboratory Consortium, FLC. Mike is the Director of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, PNNL, located in Richland, WA.

This award is a true honor and testament to Mike's leadership and efforts at PNNL. For the past 5 years he has guided the laboratory to many accolades. The laboratory has filed more than 1,000 invention disclosures, received more than 200 patents, and issued nearly 150 new licenses. PNNL has also earned 16 R&D 100 awards as well as 12 FLC awards for excellence in technology transfer. PNNL has the newest and most modern physical infrastructure in the Department of Energy, DOE, system. And PNNL's overall performance has been judged by DOE and other Federal agencies it supports as outstanding under Mike's stewardship.

PNNL's research and development portfolio spans many missions of importance to our country: national security, homeland security, clean energy development, environmental remediation programs at the Hanford Site, and scientific research ranging from systems biology to supercomputing.

Under Mike's leadership, PNNL has been involved in the formation of Innovate Washington, a nonprofit organization that aims to accelerate technological innovation by bringing together universities, national labs, entrepreneurs, and others involved in technology transfer. Mike is also a frequent public advocate for the strategic alignment of research with technology transfer and strongly supported the streamlining of PNNL's technology transfer operations.

PNNL also deserves praise for the safety and excellent work environment it provides for its employees and the surrounding community. As director, Mike has sustained an exceptional record for PNNL and built upon its history to make it one of the region's strongest corporate citizens. He's also been a tireless supporter of community activities and programs. Furthermore, Mike's outstanding leadership led to DOE extending PNNL's contract in 2011.

Therefore, it is with great pride that today on behalf of the citizens of Washington State I thank Mike for all his work. With that said, we know that PNNL's great successes could not be achieved without the strong support from the PNNL family, so my thanks also extends to the extraordinary scientists, engineers, and personnel that continue to make a difference in our region and the Nation.

Madam President, I thank the Senator from Minnesota. As he was eloquently telling us, last Saturday was the 2-year anniversary of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision that caused our democracy to take a giant step back from the values we hold dear in this country. It was a ruling that overturned decades of campaign finance law and policy, allowed corporations and special interest groups to spend unlimited amounts of their money influencing our democracy, and blew the door wide open for foreign corporations to spend their money on elections right here in the United States.

That disastrous decision opened loopholes in our campaign finance laws big enough for the biggest corporations and wealthiest Americans to drive truckloads of anonymous money right through, and as we have seen over the last 2 years, that is exactly what they have done. Tens of millions of dollars have flooded our electoral process, with no transparency, no accountability, no way for the American people to know where it is coming from or who would benefit from the policies being advocated. This is wrong. It is not the way elections in America are supposed to work.

We are a country that believes very strongly that every voice deserves to be heard. If you have a good idea, you can go out and talk about it. If your fellow citizens agree with you, they can stand with you. They can tell their friends and their neighbors and vote for you or in support of the issue. That is one of the foundations of our great democracy. Today it is being subverted. The Citizens United ruling has given special interest groups and the wealthiest Americans a giant megaphone to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens across America-- to spend unlimited money and do it with no transparency, no accountability.

This is a personal issue for me. When I first ran for the Senate back in 1992, I was a long-shot candidate with some ideas and a group of amazing and passionate volunteers by my side. Those volunteers cared deeply about making sure the voices of average Washington State families were being represented. They made phone calls. They went door to door. They talked to families across my State who wanted more from their government. Well, we ended up winning that grassroots campaign because the people's voices were heard loudly and clearly. But to be honest, I do not think it would have been possible if corporations and special interests had been able to drown out their voices with a barrage of anonymous negative ads.

My story is not unique. In every election across the country, ordinary citizens make the decision to get involved in the political process. They lace up their shoes, hit the streets, and make their case to their fellow citizens. They ask their friends and their neighbors for financial support to help them spread their ideas. And they publicly--publicly--release the names and contributions of everyone who supports their campaign.

These men and women come from all different walks of life, and they each have their own reasons for running, but for most of our Nation's history, they had a shot. They could compete. Ordinary Americans who wanted to get involved in public service to improve their community or their State or their Nation could do that because their voice could be heard. But if Citizens United is allowed to stand, these Americans are going to be drowned out and beaten down by the onslaught of unlimited and anonymous money special interests can throw into races to support the candidates who agree with them, the candidates who will be good for their own bottom line and who will not threaten the loopholes and subsidies or tax breaks from which their financial backers profit. This is wrong. It needs to end.

Last session, I was proud to support legislation--the DISCLOSE Act-- that would shine a bright spotlight on this process and force special interest groups and CEOs to take responsibility for the ads they put on the airwaves--the same way candidates do. That bill would have strengthened overall disclosure requirements for groups that are attempting to sway our elections. It would have banned foreign corporations and special interest groups from spending in U.S. elections, made sure corporations are not hiding their election spending from their shareholders, limited election spending by government contractors to make sure taxpayer funding is never used to influence an election, and would have banned coordination between candidates and outside groups on advertising so corporations and special interest groups can never sponsor a candidate.

That bill was blocked on the Senate floor last session, but we cannot give up. We need to overturn Citizens United and hand democracy back to our citizens. Anyone who believes special interest groups and big corporations should not be able to spend unlimited money influencing our elections without any accountability or any transparency should support this effort. Anyone who believes foreign entities should have no right to influence U.S. elections should stand by our side. And anyone who agrees with Justice Brandeis that ``sunlight is the best disinfectant'' should drop their opposition to this and work with us to get this done.

Throughout the history of our great Nation, ordinary citizens have had a strong voice in our electoral process. The Citizens United decision is a threat to that critical foundation of or democracy, and 2 years later, it is clearer than ever that we cannot allow it the stand. So I thank all of our colleagues who are speaking out here on this floor and vow to continue to work with them to right this wrong.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, there are no more important issues for middle-class families across America than jobs and the economy. This is what they want their elected officials to be focused on. It is exactly what I think we ought to be working on every single day. That is why I have come to the Senate floor again and again to urge my Republican colleagues to stop blocking our attempts to extend and expand the middle-class tax cut so many of our families are counting on. That is why I come to the floor once again today to discuss the urgent need to maintain Federal unemployment benefits for middle-class families across our country. This should be an easy issue.

Unemployment benefits provide a lifeline for millions of families, and it would be simply wrong to cut off this support while the economy continues to struggle and so many of our workers are having so much trouble finding work. Right now, there are more than four unemployed workers for every single job opening. If every opening were filled tomorrow, we would still have more than 10 million workers across the country without a job to even apply for.

Additionally, nearly half of all unemployed workers have been out of a job for 6 months or longer, which is higher than we have seen for more than 60 years.

So millions of Americans are unemployed today, not because they do not want to work and not because they do not have valuable skills but simply because they find themselves in an economy that is not creating jobs as quickly as we need it to. Those unemployed workers are desperate to get back on the job. Unemployment benefits make all the difference for them and their families while they scour the want ads and pound the pavement and send out resume after resume after resume.

I recently sent a letter to my constituents asking for their stories about what these benefits actually mean to them and their families. The response to that was unbelievable. Within a few days, I received hundreds of e-mails. People sent me videos. They sent me pictures of their families. I received story after story from workers and families from across my home State of Washington who are fighting to make ends meet in this very tough economy and who cannot afford to have the rug pulled out from underneath them.

One of those stories came from a woman named Vicki, who lives in Maple Valley, WA. She was an unemployed single mom, lost her apartment, and told me she now has to share a room with her son in a relative's home. Vicki told me she has made every effort--going to interviews, sending out her resumes to hundreds of employers, still not able to find a job.

She understands that in this economy finding a job will not be easy, but she is going to keep trying, and the support she receives from unemployment benefits has kept her and her family afloat and made all of the difference. She said those benefits allowed her to put food on the table for her family and gas in her car so she could go to job interviews. She told me, ``If I lose my unemployment benefits, I do not know what I will be able to do to provide for my son.''

She is not alone. I heard from older Americans such as Judy. She is a grandmother of five from Bothell, WA. Judy told me she had been working for 47 years before being laid off from her teaching job in 2009. She said over the last 12 years she has worked to teach adults the skills they need to move into jobs as bookkeepers and receptionists and schedulers. But in this economy, although she was an expert in her area, even she cannot find a job in those fields.

She wrote to me, saying:

I want to work, but nobody will hire older citizens no

matter how much experience they have. I started looking for a

job at the pay level I was at when I was laid off. But after

being unemployed now for 2 years, I am even looking at jobs

for less than half of that. Still I am told my experience

does not match their requirements.

For Judy, unemployment benefits are not the solution. She wants a job. But they provide her with some critical support while she looks for that last job before she can retire.

I also heard from Sheila from Bellevue, WA. Like Judy, she is close to retirement, but she was laid off last year from an engineering technician job that she told me she loved and now she is desperate to get back to work. After sending out over 500 resumes since then, she has had 4 interviews. In her e-mail to me, Sheila wrote:

I was devastated when I was laid off. I now look for work 7

days a week. I have worked hard my entire life. I do not want

everything I have worked for to disappear.

She told me that is what would happen if her unemployment benefits run out now.

Finally, I received a video message from Scott in Olalla, WA. Scott told me that after working at the same company for 20 years, he was laid off in March and filed his first unemployment claim in the 30-plus years he has been in the workforce. He said he always thought unemployment insurance was for the other people, never thought he would be the one collecting it. Now he calls it a godsend for him and his family. In his video, Scott told me about the uncertainty his family would face if his benefits expired before he could get back on the job. If this happens, Scott said:

I cannot imagine what it would do to my family to lose our

home. We spend our money wisely. We live well within our

means. But if we lost our home, we would be just another

statistic. The last thing I want to do is to explain to my

wife and my daughter that we have to leave our home.

That is exactly what he said would happen if he loses his unemployment benefits in this tough economy.

Those are just a few of the many stories I have received. There are so many of them out there. Millions of the people across America, including about 100,000 in my home State of Washington, will stand to lose their benefits

that they count on if Congress does not act by the end of this year, in a few short weeks. These workers are not looking for a handout. They do not want to be a burden, but they need support while they get back on their feet and back on the job.

In this struggling economy, maintaining these unemployment benefits is critical. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said maintaining unemployment benefits is one of the most effective policy tools we have now to boost the economy and get money into the pocket of our consumers. If they are cut off, it would not just be devastating for the families who count on this support, it is going to hurt our small businesses and communities to have billions of dollars pulled away from consumers who spend it every month on food and rent and clothing. We cannot afford to have this lifeline cut off. Our great country has always been a place that stands with our middle-class families when times are tough and gives them the support they need to get back on their feet and back on the job and contributing to their communities once again.

I urge all of our colleagues to stand with us as the holidays approach, to maintain these unemployment insurance benefits that so many of our families are counting on, and to keep working to cut taxes for the middle class and get our economy moving again and put our country back to work.

On that last point, before I finish, I want to join our majority leader and so many others who today called on Republicans to stop blocking their own bill and allow it to be brought up for an up-or-down vote. We know the Republican bill that passed the House yesterday is going to fail. It is bad policy, and many in their own caucus apparently do not support it. Their bill takes some of the policies we are fighting for to support the middle class, including unemployment benefits, waters them down, and then adds a whole bunch of tea party red meat to attract the Republican support it needed to pass the House.

I am focused on delivering the tax cuts that middle-class families need and deserve, so I will vote against the Republican bill if it is allowed to come up. But I cannot believe that our Republican colleagues are now preventing us from taking a vote on their own bill and then not allowing us to come together, which we need to do in these last few days before the holidays, to get a bipartisan deal and get it to the American people. They expect us to do this job. That is what is holding us up.

I urge our colleagues to sit down, work out an agreement, so that we can all celebrate the holidays with our families, and the families out there who are counting on us will know we have done the job for them.

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

Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak about the nomination of Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and to urge my colleagues to join me in voting in support of his confirmation.

In July of last year, I was proud to join many of my colleagues in the Senate to pass comprehensive Wall Street reform legislation that is already working to protect middle-class families, hold Wall Street accountable, and put in place policies to make sure taxpayers will never again be left holding the bag for the big banks' mistakes. I supported this legislation because for far too long the financial rules of the road had not favored the American people. They were tilted toward big banks, credit card companies, and Wall Street, and they were twisted and abused to make sure no matter what happened, the financial industry would come out ahead.

When the economy was roaring, the big banks made enormous sums of money and handed out huge bonuses to their employees. But when the products they created brought down the banks and pulled Main Street down with them, it was the taxpayers who had to foot the bill to prevent absolute calamity. Wall Street had a pretty good system going for a while: Heads they won, tails the taxpayers lost. To correct this, we fought to pass Wall Street Reform last year over Republican objections, and we took a huge step in the right direction. We strengthened the rules. We increased the oversight. And critically, we created the first-ever agency dedicated to protecting middle-class families, seniors, and small business owners from the financial fraud and scams that have devastated so many.

The mission of this new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is clear: to make sure that consumers come first--that the financial industry can no longer pull fast-ones on their customers--and, fundamentally, that the markets for consumer financial products and services actually work for all Americans. The CFPB's job is to help consumers understand the financial products that are being marketed to them every day because we know the big banks win when the American people don't understand the fine print. And it is to make sure that the financial firms are playing by the rules and to stand up for the American people and enforce those rules if consumers are being lied to, scammed, or cheated.

Over the last year the CFPB has been staffing up and ramping up and has already started working to protect consumers. But without a confirmed Director, they are simply unable to do everything possible to stand up for middle-class families. Their hands are tied. Without a confirmed Director, the CFPB doesn't have the full authority to protect consumers who use non-bank financial institutions such as payday lenders, credit-reporting agencies, and debt collectors, which are services many working families depend on, as well as so many of our Nation's veterans and servicemembers. This isn't right. We created the CFPB to protect all families and consumers, and we need to confirm a Director to give them the tools they need to do that.

I was proud to support President Obama's appointment of Elizabeth Warren to help set up the new Bureau. I think she did a fantastic job, and I am deeply disappointed that Republicans were so opposed to her work standing up for middle-class families against the big banks that they said they would block any attempt to name her as full-time Director. I thought the way Elizabeth Warren was treated by Senate Republicans was truly shameful. But she hasn't given up, and she is still fighting for the middle-class families and consumers she has always been such a passionate advocate for.

I am very glad that President Obama nominated another strong advocate for the middle-class to fill this role. Richard Cordray has been serving as the Chief of Enforcement at the CFPB, so he understands the mission and the need to fight for the rules that protect consumers. He previously served as attorney general and State treasurer in Ohio, where he amassed a strong record of standing up for seniors, investors, business owners, and consumers. He has received support from Democrats and Republicans, and he is the right man for the job.

But the Republicans who have come out in opposition to this nomination don't seem to be opposing Richard Cordray. They seem to be opposed to the very idea that anyone should be in a position to stand up for consumers and families in the financial products market. They want to keep this position open because they are worried that this agency is going to have too much power.

Well, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was designed to have power. It was created to put that power in the hands of middle-class families and consumers and to take some away from the big banks and credit card companies that had it all before.

So once again we have a simple choice before us in the Senate: Do you stand up for middle-class families who deserve to be protected from scams and financial gimmicks or do you stand up for the big banks and Wall Street firms that are scared to death that a powerful consumer advocate will cut into their fat profits and big bonuses? I know where the American people stand. I stand with them. And I truly hope that Republicans have a change of heart and stand with us to confirm this highly capable and effective nominee so the CFPB can do the job the American people expect and deserve.

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

Mr. President, I come to the floor this evening to urge my colleagues to support legislation to extend and expand the payroll tax cut on which middle-class families across America depend. Last week Democrats brought a bill to the floor that would have not only accomplished this goal for our workers, it would have also cut the payroll tax for half of our Nation's employers and eliminated it entirely for businesses who were making new hires.

To pay for this proposal, Democrats proposed a small surtax on millionaires and billionaires; that is, people who are earning more than $1 million a year. In order to extend and expand the critical tax break for middle-class families and small businesses owners, we thought it right to call on the wealthiest among us--those who can afford it-- to pay just a little bit more at a time when a vast majority of Americans are struggling.

Our bill set up a choice, and we thought it was an easy one: Do you vote to extend critical tax cuts for middle-class families or do you vote to protect the wealthiest Americans from paying one penny more toward their fair share?

Unfortunately, almost every Senate Republican chose to side with the richest Americans and filibuster our middle-class tax cut bill. In a surprising development, their leadership's own bill to simply extend the middle-class tax cuts while protecting the wealthiest Americans was opposed by the majority of Republicans.

Republicans spent months on the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction saying that the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans should be made permanent, that the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations should get even deeper tax cuts, the tax cuts for the rich should not be paid for and should be simply added to the deficit, and that a pledge made to a Republican lobbyist named Grover Norquist gave them no choice but to support tax cut extensions.

So I have to say I am truly disappointed to see, once again, that this apparent concern for tax cuts only seems to extend to millionaires and billionaires. Now that a break for the middle class is on the verge of ending in a few short weeks--potentially causing deep harm to our weak economy--those Republicans who fought tooth and nail for tax cuts for the rich are nowhere to be found. In fact, many of them are actively opposing it.

Republicans seem to be operating under the backwards economic principle that only tax cuts for the richest Americans and biggest corporations are worth fighting for. In fact, they have a name for that group of people. They call them the job creators. They believe the only ones who create jobs in America are the rich, and they claim the tax cuts and loopholes they fight for that benefit the wealthy will somehow trickle down to the rest of us.

Well, that is wrong. We know the Republican economic policy has failed us. It was this kind of thinking that turned a surplus into a deficit, that brought our economy to its knees, that failed our middle class and allowed the wealthiest Americans to amass record fortunes, paying the lowest tax rates in decades. It is the wrong way to go. Americans know it and our country has the scars to prove it.

A constituent of mine named Nick Hanauer recently published an op-ed in Bloomberg Businessweek that speaks to this point exceptionally well. Nick is a businessman. He is a venture capitalist in Seattle. He helped to launch more than 20 companies, including amazon.com, and he has a deep understanding of 21st-century jobs and the innovation economy.

Nick wrote that it is not tax cuts for the rich that create jobs--and I want to quote him. He says:

Only consumers can set in motion a virtuous cycle that

allows companies to survive and thrive and business owners to

hire. An ordinary middle-class consumer is far more of a job

creator than I ever have been or ever will be.

He advocates ending the tax breaks for the rich and using some of that savings to give average working families a break and put more money in their pockets. Nick's logic is clear, and it makes economic sense. It is in line with what the American public believes, and it is exactly why this middle-class tax cut needs to pass.

So while I strongly supported our last bill that would have extended and expanded this tax cut on both workers and employers, it was clear that Republicans were not going to drop their filibuster. So we are back now with a compromise.

Republicans claim to be concerned that our bill was too big, so we scaled it back. They didn't like the surcharge on the wealthiest Americans, so we cut it down significantly and we made it temporary. To make it even more acceptable, we included spending cuts that both sides said were acceptable as well as their proposal to make millionaires ineligible to receive unemployment insurance and food stamps.

The compromise that is before us is fully paid for. It extends and expands payroll tax relief for millions of middle-class families in our country. It will create jobs and provide a critical boost for this economy at a time when we desperately need it.

So I continue hoping that our Republican colleagues will be as focused on tax cuts for the middle class as they are for the wealthiest Americans and largest corporations. I hope they stand with us to pass this critical legislation in time for the holidays because that is what American families want.

I thank the Chair.

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

Mr. President, I come to the floor this morning to urge my colleagues to support the middle-class tax cut bill that would extend and expand the payroll tax relief for our families and small business owners. This legislation is straightforward. It should not be controversial. At a time when so many of our hard-working middle-class families continue to struggle in this very tough economy, this bill would cut their Social Security payroll tax in half, from 6.2 percent to 3.1 percent. That means a tax cut for 160 million workers in this country today.

In my home State of Washington it represents a tax cut of around $1,700 for a family earning the median income next year. This bill would put money into the pockets of small business owners and encourage them to hire workers by cutting the employer's side of the payroll tax in half as well and eliminating it altogether for firms that are making new hires. In Washington State, 150,000 small business owners would receive a tax cut under this plan and they would have thousands of dollars more in their pockets to spend in their communities and get workers back on the job.

This is a big deal. Economists from across the ideological spectrum have said payroll tax cuts create jobs and boost the economy. They have said it could be devastating to allow them to go up in this weak economy.

In the past, Republicans have agreed and have strongly supported payroll tax cuts as an effective way to boost the economy and create jobs, so this should be easy. It should be something both parties can get behind and quickly pass, but unfortunately it seems politics are getting in the way. I am disappointed that many of the same Republicans who spent the last few months fighting tooth and nail to prevent tax increases on the richest Americans and biggest corporations are now hesitating to give average working families a break. In fact, it was this very issue that prevented the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to come to a deal.

On the Democratic side we put forward serious compromises on the table to get to a balanced and bipartisan deal, but our Republican counterparts refused to allow the wealthiest Americans to pay a single penny more in taxes and insisted that the middle class and seniors and most vulnerable Americans bear the burden of this crisis alone. It was not fair then; it is not fair now. This bill is fully paid for by asking millionaires, who earn more than $1 million a year, to pay a little bit more, a small step toward a fair share. It is not drastic. It does not close the loopholes and shelters that Republicans have been fighting hard to maintain. It does not touch the Bush tax cuts for the rich they have been protecting. It doesn't end the tax breaks for the oil and gas industry that they would not allow us to close. It simply adds a 3.25-percent tax on incomes over $1 million a year. That means if someone earns $1.2 million in a single year they only owe an additional 3.25 percent on that last $200,000.

At a time when so many families are struggling, we think this is a fair thing to ask the wealthiest Americans, who survived so well, to continue to give working families a break.

This vote sets up a simple choice. Do you vote to extend tax cuts for middle-class families and small businesses that have been struggling in this economy or do you vote to protect the wealthiest Americans from paying 1 penny more toward their fair share? I know where I stand. I feel very strongly that we owe it to middle-class families across this country to extend this tax cut. I think it would be a whole lot easier if our Republican colleagues were as focused on tax cuts for the middle class as they are for tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and corporations.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and extend tax cuts for the families who need them most.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to reiterate my support for section 526 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Section 526 prohibits Federal agencies including the Department of Defense--from contracting for fuels that have higher

emissions than conventional petroleum.

This is not only an issue of clean energy and a better environment but, more importantly, our Nation's security and ability to fight. The Department of Defense is the world's biggest energy consumer, using 300,000 barrels of oil every day. Given our reliance on foreign sources of oil, this is a formidable security challenge for our country.

The efforts underway at the Department to increase efficiency and expand the use of renewable energy and alternative fuel sources are critical to both the bottom line of Pentagon and to increase the safety of our warfighters. As you know, a record number of casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan have occurred while units transport fuel and supplies in military convoys. Increasing our energy and fuel efficiency not only reduces the overhead costs of the military, but it will also decrease the need to move as much fuel and supplies, lessening the risks posed by these convoys to our troops.

This is an important and timely issue because while the National Defense Authorization Act we are considering on the Senate floor does nothing to affect section 526, the House version of NDAA repeals this important law.

The Department of Defense supports this existing law and has said that it does not prevent them from purchasing the fuel it needs to meet its current mission needs. Hundreds of veterans who served in the Armed Forces from World War II through the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have asked the Senate to oppose repeal of section 526.

I urge my colleagues to join with the Department and our veterans to support this law.

I also applaud the work the DOD has done to date to move toward homegrown, renewable fuel sources, including the Navy's commitment to reduce petroleum use in its fleet by 50 percent through programs such as the Green Fleet.

To help the DOD realize its goals and to increase the security of our troops, we must dramatically scale up advanced biofuels production in the United States. Companies here in the United States have already developed technologies to produce ``drop-in'' ready fuels, so no new infrastructure or engine modifications are needed. These fuels are based on plants like camelina, jatropha, and algae--plants that can be grown all over the country in a variety of climates.

I believe section 526 has laid the foundation for this needed scale up of advanced biofuels, and it is time to take the next step toward ensuring that the DOD has access to a greater range of energy options than foreign sources of fossil fuels. That is why I have been working with my colleagues, Senator Cantwell, Congressman Inslee, and others, to put in place multiyear contracting authority for the purchase of biofuels.

We have introduced legislation in both the Senate and the House to do just that, and while that legislation in not included in this bill, I am pleased that we were able to include language that will require the Department to clarify its existing authorities for multiyear contracts for the purchase of advance biofuels and what additional authorities are needed for the Department to enter into such contracts going forward.

Mr. President, I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure the final NDAA bill keeps the Department moving forward on securing and supporting renewable energy and fuel alternatives.

Mr. President, I would like to recognize and honor the service of Thomas H. Miller as he retires as the executive director of the Blinded Veterans Association. Mr. Miller has been an outstanding servant to his country and an advocate for his fellow veterans. He is truly an example of courage and perseverance. He has demonstrated throughout his career that the blindness he sustained through combat injuries does not impede his ability to have an impact here at home.

Mr. Miller served his country honorably in Vietnam and lost his eyesight during a 1967 combat mission. He was honorably discharged a year later and returned home to find limited resources for veterans suffering from blindness. Following his own struggle to adjust to life at home, Mr. Miller dedicated himself to ensuring that all blinded veterans share in the resources, services, and support than can bring new hope and opportunities.

As executive director of the Blinded Veterans Association, Mr. Miller helped dramatically improve the lives of blinded veterans nationwide. In 2006 he helped launch Operation Peer Support a program aimed at ending the isolation suffered by many blinded veterans returning from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. This program provides veterans with valuable information regarding rehabilitation, employment, and self- help activities. Most importantly, Operation Peer Support has provided many blinded veterans with the opportunity to interact with one another and make lifelong friendships here at home.

Mr. Miller was also instrumental in raising awareness for blinded veterans. During his time with the Blinded Veterans Association, Mr. Miller worked with the Veterans Health Administration to improve care for the vision impaired. He testified before the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs about the challenges facing blind veterans and served as the chair of the Federal Advisory Committee on Prosthetics and Special Disabilities Programs. In 17 years of leadership, the Blinded Veterans Association made vital contributions to legislation that has greatly expanded benefits and services for vision impaired veterans.

Our Nation is fortunate to have veterans as selfless and dedicated as Mr. Miller. While he could have allowed his combat injuries to slow his career, Mr. Miller instead saw his experience as an opportunity to help improve the lives of thousands of his fellow veterans. He has given honest and faithful service to his country and those wounded veterans transitioning to life back at home.

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

I rise to speak about the transportation-housing title of the bill before the Senate. It has broad bipartisan support because it addresses the very real housing and transportation needs of American families across the Nation.

This is not a perfect bill, but there is a lot to be proud of in the conference report, and I am pleased with what we have been able to accomplish with my colleague Senator Collins, because she has worked so hard in a bipartisan way to get us to this point, and Chairman Latham and Congressman Olver on the House side and all of their staff.

This bill makes needed investments in our transportation infrastructure and creates critical jobs, while also supporting housing and services for our Nation's most vulnerable.

This bill touches the lives of all Americans in ways they can appreciate every day, whether it is a parent who commutes every day and needs safe roads or new public transportation options so they can spend more time with their family, a business that depends on a solid infrastructure to move goods and attract customers, young families searching for safe and affordable communities to raise their children or a repeatedly laid-off worker who needs help to keep his or her family in their home. This bill has a real impact on Americans who are struggling in these troubling economic times.

Our bill takes a balanced approach that addresses the most critical needs we face in both transportation and housing, while remaining financially responsible and staying within the constraints of the budget.

The bill contains improvement investments for our Nation, including $500 million for the competitive, multimodal TIGER Program to help improve our Nation's infrastructure, including rail transportation projects; $1.4 billion for Amtrak, including funding for State- supported services; sufficient funding to preserve housing for our Nation's low-income families, elderly, disabled, and veterans who rely on HUD's housing and rental assistance programs; $39.8 billion to continue the Federal-Aid Highway Program at current levels; $45 million for housing counseling; and $75 million for 11,000 new vouchers for homeless veterans.

The bill also addresses the needs of communities that have been hit by disasters this year, providing $1.7 billion in emergency relief highway funding and up to $400 million in CDBG funding for areas that have been most impacted by recent disasters.

It is not a perfect bill, but it is a good bill. It represents a fair, bipartisan compromise that makes investments in our infrastructure and protects the most vulnerable, while living within our funding restraints. Our bill helps commuters, homeowners, and the most vulnerable in our society. Most importantly, it creates jobs and supports the continued recovery of the national economy.

I look forward to having it reach the President's desk soon for his signature, and before I close I again thank my colleague Senator Collins and all of her staff for all of their very hard work on this bill. I also thank all of my staff members who worked beyond reasonable hours to get this bill to this point tonight to be able to send it to the President. They are Alex Keenan, Megan McCarthy, Dabney Hegg, Rachel Milberg, Molly O'Rourke, Travis Lumpkin, Evan Schatz, and Lauren Overman. I thank all of them for their hard work and all of Senator Collins' staff as well as our chairman, Senator Inouye, and look forward to the passage of this bill this evening.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I have come to the floor this afternoon to discuss the VOW to Hire Heroes Act, which is an amendment to help put our Nation's veterans back to work that we will be voting on tomorrow, on the eve of Veterans Day.

The real meaning of Veterans Day is to remind ourselves to take care of service-connected veterans and their families. That is what this amendment does.

We all realize, of course, this Chamber has had its share of disagreements and discord lately, and it is no secret that we are sharply divided on any number of economic and political issues that are facing average Americans right now. But this is one issue we should never be divided on.

I have served on the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee for over 16 years,

and I can tell you that veterans have never been a partisan issue. We have all made a promise to those who signed up to serve, and we all need to keep it. That is why I have been so pleased to work to help put this amendment together in a comprehensive and bipartisan manner.

This amendment brings all ideas to the table, Democratic and Republican, Senate and House, those from the President and from Members of Congress, and it uses all those ideas to address one of the most daunting and immediate problems facing our Nation's veterans--finding work.

On this Veterans Day, after almost 10 years of war, nearly 1 million American veterans will be unemployed. It is a crisis that faces nearly 13 million other Americans. But for our veterans, many of the barriers to employment are unique.

That is because those who have worn our Nation's uniform, and particularly for those young veterans who spent the last decade being shuttled back and forth to war zones half a world away, the road home isn't always smooth. The redtape is often long, and the transition from the battlefield to the workplace is never easy.

Too often today our veterans are being left behind by their peers who didn't make the same sacrifices for their Nation at a critical time in their lives. Too often they don't realize the skills they possess and their value in the workplace is real. Too often our veterans are not finding open doors to new opportunities in their communities.

But as those who know the character and experience of our veterans understand well, that shouldn't be the case. Our veterans have the leadership ability, discipline, and technical skills to not only find work but to excel in the economy of the 21st century. That is why, 2 years ago, I began an effort to find out why, despite all the talent and drive I know our veterans possess, this problem persists.

To get to the crux of this problem, I knew I had to hear firsthand from those veterans who were struggling to find work. So I crisscrossed my home State of Washington and communities large and small, at worker retraining programs, in VA facilities, and in veterans halls. I sat down with veterans themselves to talk about the roadblocks they face. What I heard was heartbreaking and frustrating.

I heard from veterans who said they no longer write that they are a veteran on their resume because of the stigma they believe employers attach to the invisible wounds of war.

I heard from medics who return home from treating battlefield wounds and can't get a certification to be an EMT or even to drive an ambulance. I spoke with veterans who said many employers had trouble understanding the vernacular they used to describe their experiences in an interview or on their resume. I talked to veterans who told me the military spent incalculable time getting them the skills to do their job in the field but very little time teaching them how to transition the skills they have learned into the workplace when they come home. The problems were sometimes complicated and sometimes simple. Most importantly, though, they were preventable. But the more I relayed the concerns of our States' unemployed veterans to Federal Government officials for answers, the more I realized there were none. It became clear that for too long we have invested billions of dollars in training our young men and women with the skills to protect our Nation only to ignore them once they leave the military. For too long at the end of their career we patted our veterans on the back for their service and then pushed them out into the job market--alone.

That is why in May of this year, as chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, I introduced a bipartisan veterans employment bill to ease the transition from the battlefield to the working world. It is a bill that will allow our men and women in uniform to capitalize on their service while also making sure the American people capitalize on the investment we have made in them.

For the first time it requires broad job skills training for every servicemember as they leave the military as part of the military's Transition Assistance Program. It allows servicemembers to begin the Federal employment process prior to separation in order to facilitate a truly seamless transition from the military to jobs in our government, and it requires the Department of Labor to take a hard look at what military skills and training should be translatable into the civilian sector in order to make it simpler for our veterans to get the licenses and certifications they need.

All of these are substantial steps to put our veterans to work. Today they are being combined with the other great ideas in this comprehensive amendment that is now before the Senate, including an idea championed by my House counterpart, Chairman Miller, that will ease the employment struggle of our older veterans by providing them with additional education benefits so they can train for today's high- demand jobs, and an idea that has been championed by President Obama, Senator Baucus, and many others that provides a tax credit for employers who hire veterans.

With this amendment we are taking a huge step forward in rethinking the way we treat our men and women in uniform after they leave the military. For many of us, particularly those who grew up with the Vietnam war, we are also taking steps to avoid the mistakes of the past, mistakes that I believe we stand perilously close to repeating.

Every day we read about skyrocketing suicide statistics, substantial abuse problems, and even rising homelessness among the post-9/11 generation of veterans. While there are lots of factors that contribute to those challenges, failure to give our veterans the self-confidence, the financial security, and dignity that a job provides often plays a very crucial role.

On this Veterans Day we need to redouble our efforts to avoid the mistakes that have cost our veterans dearly and have weighed on the collective conscience of this Nation. We can do that agreeing to this amendment, but also by looking back to a time when we stepped up to meet the promises we made to our veterans.

I mentioned on the Senate floor many times that my father was a veteran of World War II. But what I do not always talk about is the fact that when he came home from war, he came home to opportunity-- first at college and then to a job, a job that gave him pride, a job that helped him and my mother raise seven children who have gone on to support families of their own. This is the legacy of opportunity we have to live up to for our Nation's veterans. The responsibility we have on our shoulders does not end on the battlefield. It does not end after the parades on Friday. In fact, it does not end.

I urge my colleagues to put aside our differences, to come together and meet the challenges of putting our Nation's veterans to work.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that an intern from Senator Merkley's office, Jeff Whitmore, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the day.