Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Murray's Budget Committee's legal extern, Elizabeth Mendoza, be granted floor privileges beginning March 26 and ending April 30, 2014.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration en bloc of the following resolutions which were submitted earlier today: S. Res. 396, S. Res. 397, and S. Res. 398.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles be

agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table en bloc, with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I understand S. 2157, introduced earlier today by Senator Wyden, is at the desk, and I ask for its first reading.

I now ask for its second reading and object to my own request.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m. Wednesday, March 26, 2014; that following the prayer and the pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that following any leader remarks, the Senate be in a period of morning business until 11 a.m., with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each and the time equally divided and controlled by the two leaders or their designees, with Republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the final half; and that following morning business, the Senate proceed to executive session under the previous order.

There will be four rollcall votes at 11 a.m. tomorrow and another series at 2:30 p.m.

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

Why are we here tonight. We are here because if we fail to act, our planet will be destroyed. As exaggerated as that claim sounds, it is strikingly, irrefutably true. We are here because our future is at stake, and not only ours but our children's. We are here because of climate change, which is really climate disruption and planet destruction. It is real and it is urgent.

Anyone who lives in Connecticut knows about the snowstorms and hurricanes, Superstorm Sandy, the rising tide that will eventually destroy our coastline, the rising temperatures that will emaciate our vegetation and our produce. There are real human effects but also economic effects. There are immense economic perils but also tremendous economic promise. There are immense economic perils but also tremendous economic promise if we invest in the steps that have to be taken to stop climate disruption.

We can take advantage of the immense opportunity and obligation we face by acknowledging the reality that our planet is at stake and defeating and discrediting the climate change deniers, who are as much a part of the problem as any of the natural forces or elements at stake.

That is why we are here tonight, and that is why we will stay the course.

I yield the floor.

The Senator from New Mexico.

Mr. President, I am honored to follow my colleague and very good friend, the Senator from Connecticut, and to join him, the Presiding Officer, the Senator from Rhode Island; the Senator from Hawaii, Senator Schatz; and Senator Boxer, the Senator from California, in this really very inspiring and exciting occasion.

I was driving to the Capitol early this morning and I saw in the black sky the beautiful dome which words can barely capture in its beauty. Many have tried. But I felt so fortunate to be here as a spokesperson and an advocate for this cause which truly is about the rest of this century, the rest of this planet's life, our children and their children, and to be part of a debate which has reached through the night. But in fact it is night only here. In many parts of the world already it is day.

If we think globally, we realize the planet truly never sleeps. It is awake for the night here. Someplace in the world there is daylight. Hopefully, during this debate we have shed light at a time of darkness on a debate which is so critical to the future of our Nation.

We are only a few Members of the Senate here, but I cannot help recalling what the famous scientist and conservationist Margaret Mead said about this cause and the importance of people in this cause: Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

Around the world where it is daylight or still dark, there are groups of committed people willing to put their lives and their voices on the line to save this planet from climate disruption. We are not talking about climate change. We are talking about disruption--planet disruption. We are not talking about small consequences which may alter the quality of life a bit here and there. We are talking about horrendous, gargantuan changes because they are incremental and they accumulate one by one, bit by bit, until they alter our shoreline in Connecticut, our vegetation, our produce, our recreation industry, all of what makes Connecticut the great State it is in its scenic and natural beauty, and all of what makes America the great country it is-- not only in its beauty but in its economic strength and its vision for the future.

I thank Senators Whitehouse, Boxer, and Schatz for bringing us together, all of my colleagues for joining in this debate, and all who worked through the night--whether it is the guards or the pages or all who tirelessly gave us the opportunity to really make the case, much as we would in court--whether it is a closing argument or an opening statement--for the need that all of us unite in this critical cause.

The gravity of climate disruption cannot be denied. There are people who deny it. No question that there are deniers. But the science is irrefutable. The facts are there. And as Ronald Reagan said, facts are a stubborn thing. We can't change them by rhetoric in this body, and we can't make them go away in storytelling. We can read our children's books, Dr. Seuss or others, about the wonderful things which happen in fantasy or nightmares which may occur to people also in their dreams.

But in the real world, the science is well established. The science tells us climate disruption is happening as we speak, relentlessly and tirelessly. This is why we are here today.

The compassion that we as legislators demonstrate indicates we care about the people who occupy this planet now, but also about the many others who will follow us. We are here to break the culture of indifference in a busy world which is awake all the time, is so global in its reach, and is digitally connected at all moments. There is a tendency to move forward and forget about what is fundamental and important, and that is climate disruption.

To break this culture of indifference toward pollution and climate disruption, we must reverse the practices and policies which accelerate this dramatic and destructive trend in our world.

In Connecticut we have already seen firsthand the effects of climate disruption. Severe weather events used to occur once in a generation. They are now becoming the new norm. These monstrous storms--whatever they are called, Irene or Sandy--they are the new norm. In just the time I began serving in the Senate, since January 2011, Connecticut has experienced four major storms claiming lives and costing millions of dollars in damage, culminating in the unprecedented Superstorm Sandy. Now we can call Sandy a hurricane or superstorm or whatever you will. We can call these weather events inevitable or surprising, but they are becoming the new normal because of climate disruption. In February 2011 a snowstorm cost the State $20 million, and the leadership of our Governor was exemplary, but remedying the effects of the storm does not prevent them, and even preparing for them does not forestall them, because the weather is bigger than any action of man, and man can control it only by fundamental changes in the way he or she lives. The snowfall in February 2011 was followed by tropical storm Irene that wreaked $546 million in damages. The people of Connecticut had barely any time to recover before a freak October snowstorm brought an additional $614 million of devastation to the State.

Hurricane Sandy struck a year later, causing record-breaking damage and devastation to Connecticut as well as the states of New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island when the storm cleared. When all this destruction was tallied, Connecticut found itself facing damage of $770 million as well as incalculable harm to houses, beaches, and other places along the coast. I toured the coast. I saw the damage. The ferocity and fury of that storm could be comprehended only by seeing that damage or being in the midst of it, which I was for a short period at the very start when I went to tour the energy operations center in places such as Norwalk and Greenwich, along the coast where preparation was beginning for that storm. Driving back on I-95 as the storm gathered in its ferocity and fury, I was frightened in a way that all of us should now share as we see the prospect of that fury and ferocity of nature, destructively impacting our entire planet, our world, and our children's world.

We must heed Hurricane Sandy's warning as well as the alarms sounded by other storms and take steps to stop climate destruction and global warming. The evidence beyond the anecdotal

facts that we all see is irrefutable scientific evidence. Climate disruption impacts our ocean and atmosphere, disrupting actual temperature cycles and variations in climate, leading to an increasing number of severe weather events, snowstorms as well as hurricanes, cold and rain, as well as heat and drought across the country.

Severe storms and other things such as floods and tornadoes and drought are happening at a rate four times greater than the average 30 years ago. These storms are costing us. They are costing our families, local communities, and taxpayers more and more of their hard-earned dollars, and Connecticut families and our people are impacted severely. So Washington has an obligation and opportunity to act. This body must face the responsibility at hand and act in the interests of the American people. Climate change is a real and present and urgent danger. The threat is now. We should face this with a sense of immediacy just as we would a house burning or a storm coming, much as we did the coming of Sandy when the brave first responders, our firemen and police, braved the storm but did the right thing knowing they must act to protect our people.

The sense of urgency this issue requires and, indeed, demands is lacking today, which is why we are here, to break the culture of indifference and despair. Outside the insularity of Washington, outside of repeated recalcitrance and political stagnation--dysfunction I think is the word most often used--which has paralyzed our politics, the American public is understanding. The American public gets it. They understand that climate disruption is happening. It is happening in their everyday lives. It is affecting their homes near rivers and oceans, affecting their drinking water supplies and the crops we need for food. They understand that if nothing is done this problem will only get worse. Communities in the Midwest know why they are experiencing some of the worst drought in decades. Families in California know why their water supply is dwindling dangerously lower and lower. Lobstermen in Connecticut, Long Island Sound, dwindling in number, understand why lobster numbers are shrinking. Surviving lobster populations are moving farther north. The lobsters are our modern-day canary in the coal mine. From Montana to Arizona to New Mexico people see why clearly the wildfire season is starting earlier in the year and lasting later into the fall. We have seen the pictures here on the floor of some of those wildfires that have devastated our forests. The American people understand why our forests are burning, and the American people get it, but Congress still does not.

We have reached the time where we must do the job we were elected to do. It is time to fight for a remedy, fight for relief, to firefighters, to farmers, to lobstermen, to ordinary American people, who want to take their families to the shore and see it as they knew it when they were children.

Every generation in this Nation makes a covenant. Every generation has an obligation to leave this Nation better than when we found it. We are in danger of leaving a lesser America in so many ways, most important in what matters to everyday life, our climate, our weather, our soil and trees, what we see when we wake in the morning and before we go to bed, the natural world that is essential to our survival, not to mention our thriving.

In my home State of Connecticut the people are not waiting for answers from Washington. We have waited long enough in Connecticut, because Congress has not fully awakened. Indeed, it is still asleep. As my colleague Senator Whitehouse has said time after time, just a few feet from me, America and the world must wake up. The failure to do so, waiting and watching as disaster develops, could spell devastation for America and for our climate. That is why Connecticut is taking steps to address climate change effects like rising sea levels and storms. State officials are researching areas especially along our coast and along our waterways that are vulnerable to storm surges and inland flooding, and figuring out how best to protect infrastructure that is at risk.

I know the citizens of Senator Schatz's State of Hawaii are doing the same, taking an issue and implementing policy to rein in solutions, taking steps on their own, voting with their feet, not just their voices but their actions. And that is what the citizens of Rhode Island are doing as well, seeking to do whatever they can as individuals. They are a small group of intelligent and dedicated people, but they are seeking to change the world for the better, because a small group seeking to do so is the only thing that ever has, as Margaret Meade has said. The citizens and states from California, in the Northwest and all the way to New England, are joining in this effort. This citizens' movement to save the planet from climate disruption eventually will prevail. Eventually there will be action. But will it be in time?

I want to read an article in the Hartford Courant on January 27, 2014, just a few weeks ago. It captures how people of Connecticut are paying attention to the growing threat upon them and how they are taking steps to address it. I am quoting:

The changing climate is expected to make Connecticut a

different place with more extreme weather, hotter summers and

more precipitation, disrupting the natural world around us

and testing our ability to respond and adapt.

Some changes will be volatile and abrupt while others will

be more nuanced.

For example, maple syrup production could decline while

grape growing improves which would bode well for

Connecticut's wine industry.

At the end of the century Connecticut summer heat is

expected to feel more like the sticky dog days of Washington,

DC or perhaps, Savannah.

A warmer summer could seem rather pleasant on its face if

Connecticut were to have a summer more like those in the

south, but the changes come with greater volatility.

``As the climate gets warmer, you put more moisture into

the atmosphere, and it just gets a little more violent,''

said Richard Houghton, president of the Woods Hole Research

Center in Falmouth, MA, a nonprofit research organization

that focuses on environmental sciences.

``There's a lot more energy around. . . . that comes out in

unexpected ways, generally not to the betterment of gardens

and forests and so on,'' Houghton said.

The changes have been studied and monitored by

universities, state and federal agencies and others who have

combed for decades of data on everything from changes in

trees' growth rings to lobster habitat in Long Island Sound.

Extensive collections of scientific data have been the source

of documents for metaanalyses saying, in effect, that big

changes are underway disrupting a mostly climatological

period of thousands of years.

Perhaps more worrisome is the likelihood of severe weather

events such as floods.

Quoting here:

``Even if you had the same amount of rain, it is going to

be delivered in these more punctuated, very intense rain

events, which are more likely to wash out bridges, roads,

cause damage to people's basements, flooding, things like

that that cost more,'' said Brenda Ekwurzel, senior climate

scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, an

organization started in Massachusetts Institute of Technology

in 1969, and which is now an alliance of more than 400,000

citizens and scientists.

``We haven't designed our infrastructure, especially the

aging infrastructure of the Northeast to handle these times

of drainage needs.''

In 2007, the Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment was

conducted by scientists at more than a dozen universities,

including Harvard and Princeton, in addition to experts at

the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Oceanic and

Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Department of

Agriculture.

In 2009, several Federal agencies that are part of the U.S.

Global Research Program released another large report with

specifics about what will change and what will happen to the

northeast and Connecticut as a result of climate change.

Here are some highlights of the two reports: The northeast

could see 20 to 30 percent more winter precipitation and more

of that could be rain rather than snow, assuming a greater

level of heat-trapping emissions from human activities.

The higher emission scenario assumes a continued heavy reliance on fossil fuels while a lower emission scenario assumes a shift to cleaner energy by the middle of the century. Heavy downpours of rain have increased across the Northeast in recent decades causing intense spring flooding in 2006, 2007, and 2010.

Cities that experienced only a few 100-degree days each summer might average 20 such days per summer while others, including Hartford, would average nearly 30 days at 100 degrees or hotter.

Large portions of the Northeast could be unsuitable for growing popular varieties of apples, blueberries, and cranberries in a higher emission

scenario. Heat stress could reduce milk production in dairy cows. However, the longer growing period could be better for gardeners and farmers so long as they can adapt to the likelihood of summer droughts and flooding rains in the spring.

Hotter weather is expected to shift growth range for maple, beech, and birch forests to the north, disrupting the maple sugar industry and shifting the food sources for animals that rely on those forests, such as migratory song birds, such as the Baltimore oriole. Long-lived trees might endure, but they would be vulnerable to stresses of competition, bugs, and disease. Some parts of northern Connecticut will retain those hardwoods.

Sea levels are expected to rise 10 inches to 2 feet by the end of the century, and those projections do not account for recent observed melting of the world's major ice sheets, which means the estimates could be too conservative.

What is now considered a once-in-a-century coastal flooding in New London and Groton along the Thames River could occur as frequently as every 17 years. Several experts agree that modeling sea-level rise is more difficult than predicting other effects of climate change because there are so many variables related to the ocean. In any scenario, the seas are expected to rise.

Houghton, the head of the Woods Hole Research Center, said that what happens to the climate depends on a multitude of factors around the globe--from deforestation in tropical areas to the burning of fossil fuels for energy. One important distinction is that weather and climate are different. Climate future does not predict when and where it will rain. Instead, it predicts patterns, such as overall warmer temperatures or the greater likelihood for violent floods, such as tornadoes or floods. For climate change, it is more about general trends and extreme changes as a result of global warming.

As more erratic and extreme weather becomes more likely, property owners, town governments, cities, States, and the Federal Government will be put to new tests of their responses and adaptability.

Dr. Ekwurzel said that maybe 30 years down the road we will have gotten better at dealing with those extreme events because they are going to become the new normal. I would say in the next decade--15 or 20 years--we are going to have some hard lessons as to how to deal with this.

The work of responding and adapting is already underway and has been for years, though there is renewed concern after power outages and widespread property damage during Tropical Storm Irene and the October storm of 2011 and Superstorm Sandy in 2012. ``They were clearly wake-up calls,'' said Jessica Stratton, director of policy in charge of climate issues at the State Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

Connecticut has a wide-ranging climate strategy that ranges from buying energy that produces less carbon which causes further warming and a less predictable climate to better preparation for greater extremes. In terms of preparing for higher sea levels and inland flooding from harsh rain, there are three priorities, according to Jessica Stratton.

First, Connecticut is researching areas vulnerable to rising sea levels and storm surges and inland flooding. Second, the State is looking to critical infrastructure, facilities, and property at risk in those high-hazard areas. Third, the State, and other parties, will work to develop best practices to protect infrastructure and habitat and to mitigate or reduce risk to the greatest extent possible. The last measure will involve assisting residents, State, and local government.

In 2010 a committee of scientists, engineers, farmers, policymakers, public health officials, and business owners published a 195-page document called ``The Impacts of Climate Change on Connecticut Agriculture, Infrastructure, Natural Resources and Public Health.''

``We think it is highly probable that we are going to experience these kinds of events more frequently,'' Stratton said of recent storms and flooding.

She continued:

And because of that, I don't want to sit here and just say,

``OK. We'll take it. We'll pick up the pieces afterward.''

Let us do what we can to lessen the negative impacts, and

those are human, those are property, those are business

losses. There are a whole bunch of things. So, let us take

whatever steps we can to enable our society as it

currently is to function as well as it can and to get back

to normal as quickly as it can.

I have quoted so extensively from this article in the Courant because it summarizes many of the facts that cannot be denied. Those facts are stubborn. Those facts presage a disaster that we have the power to ignore, but we also have the power to act and to deal with it and to take advantage of the immense opportunity that lies ahead. This is an opportunity that could actually create jobs and economic growth, and that is the key point.

The problem of climate disruption is also a tremendous opportunity. It is an opportunity not only to change mindsets and culture--the culture of indifference--it is an opportunity to change the way we live, create jobs, a new lifestyle, and economic growth.

The real and serious health impact of climate change impacting millions of Americans should be enough to force Congress to act, but if that is not enough evidence, let us look to the economic impact of inaction. Take the asthma rates--just one example of climate change impact on health costs.

According to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology, the United States spends approximately $3,300 per person with asthma per year. In the 5-year period between 2002 and 2007, asthma costs grew 6 percent, from $53 billion to $56 billion.

NOAA, the National Climate Data Center, estimates that the extreme weather events that occurred across the country in 2012 alone, which included tornadoes in the Plains States and the South, the wildfires in the West, and the Midwest drought and Hurricane Sandy, cost the American economy $1 billion in rebuilding and lost economic productivity. That estimate is no doubt low and conservative.

A rocket scientist is not needed to understand the effects that rising sea levels will have on our coastal communities, which include many of America's large cities and population centers. America's cities will be underwater, and we will have to rebuild their defenses at great cost.

There is another side of this situation. There is a different side of this coin of climate disruption. Yes, climate disruption can be devastating to our economy; indeed, it has already begun to be so, but it also offers the hope and opportunity of spurring new technology, reducing our dependence on oil, and thus driving down greenhouse gas emissions in a way that will empower and drive economic growth.

The U.S. Economic and Statistics Administration reports that the country's 2010 trade deficit in petroleum-related products was $265 billion or approximately $855 per American citizen. The EPA and the DOT--the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation--estimate that the corporate average fuel economy standards that require vehicles to be more fuel efficient and emit less CO2 by 2025 save $8,000 per vehicle over each car's lifetime. Upgrading and retrofitting buildings to be more energy efficient and creating jobs by creating new technologies and training workers to develop skills to execute the retrofit and to work in burgeoning alternative energy industries will generate tremendous return for our economy.

The bipartisan Shaheen-Portman Energy Savings and Industrial Competitive Act, which I was proud to sponsor, is waiting in the wings for congressional action. It would create over 190,000 jobs and save $16 billion a year for consumers by 2030. We must make the Shaheen- Portman bill law. It is only one example of what the Senate can and must do to help stop climate disruption. It is a small measure--modest in its impact--but it is a start. If we do nothing else as a result of this debate tonight, let it lead us to bring back the Shaheen-Portman bill.

So even if--unlike the overwhelming majority of scientists--you have doubts about the science of climate change, remember that the economic benefits of addressing it, even if you think it is a dream, a nightmare or some fantasy supporting renewable energy, promoting greater efficiency in motor vehicles and buildings will save

money, add jobs, make for stronger buildings and better vehicles. Most important, it will save wasteful energy use. That argument ought to be enough to convince anyone that these investments are smart for America.

So whatever your reasons may be, whether you are motivated by the need to ensure a livable climate for future generations, whether you are moved to action by Americans suffering by millions from health problems, exacerbated by a more polluted environment, whether you understand the threat to the U.S. economy that is created by not only the more intense weather events but a more efficient energy landscape-- whatever your motivation, whether it is fear or anxiety, apprehension about the future or simply a desire to save money from wasteful use of energy, the intense weather events are becoming more intense and they are becoming the new normal. Inefficiency in energy is becoming a norm as more people around the globe use energy, and we can lead by example in the United States. The Nation must wake up. Congress must awaken, and now is the time to act.

I wish to close by reading some letters from the people of Connecticut because I think they speak eloquently to the reason we are here and the reason the people of Connecticut are taking this kind of action.

They are letters to me from constituents in all walks of life expressing their personal feelings about this issue. Patricia Wallace of New Haven wrote:

As the director of elderly services for the City of New

Haven last year when we had 34 inches of snow, I heard from

seniors who could not get out of their front or back doors

and had no way to move that much snow, who could not get fuel

delivered, who could not get food. I have a husband who uses

a wheelchair to get to work. It was nearly impossible for us

to move the snow that city plows pushed up on the side of the

street so that he could get on the lift of the van to get to

work.

A few years back, many senior housing complexes lost power

during Sandy and had no generators. When they were built, we

did not face the frequent severe weather that is now routine.

Two non-profit nursing homes have generators, but they are

not built for the length of time we have had to operate

during these severe weather storms.

Another Connecticut resident named Diane Taber-Markiewicz told me:

The global warming of our planet is now creating a push

back from the environment that is causing millions of people

around the world to lose their way of life. This affects us

all and results in a loss of people and other valuable

resources needed to sustain and progress our species.

Personally, we deal with severe weather events regularly;

power outages that cause us to lose work and cost us in

wasted food that spoils during outages. Our local, regional,

national infrastructure is dangerous in its deteriorated

state and our tax dollars go to assisting the very companies

and politicians who support our demise.

Lenore Lewis-Foreman of Bridgeport wrote me to say:

I have a nerve disorder. Because of this, the weather plays

a significant part of my day-to-day activities. Some days I

am okay enough to get out of bed and participate in society

while being productive. There are days the pains are so bad

that my eyes blur and I cannot move. The past season has made

it increasingly difficult for me to even motivate myself

enough to get out of bed. I have many family and relatives

who have been affected by climate change. Some have passed on

or moved to another State. A few have decided to stay here in

the northeast and stick it out.

Countless Connecticut residents, in other words, countless members of our communities across our State have written to me with their positions and concerns. Like these three writers whose letters I shared with you, many Connecticut citizens fear that climate change will disproportionately affect the most vulnerable among our population: the elderly, the ill, and people without financial resources. People understand that climate change will have consequences, not only for their personal lives but for our food and water, our way of life. People are already bearing the burden of climate change and disruption every day. They know that if nothing is done, it will only get worse for them and for future generations. Again, the time for action is now. America must wake up.

Let me close by reading a small part of a book that was quoted earlier in this debate by my colleague from the State of Oregon, Senator Merkley, who cited the ``Lorax'' book by Dr. Seuss. It says in part:

Now I'll tell you, he says, with his teeth sounding gray,

how the Lorax got lifted and taken away. It all started way

back, such a long time back, way back in the days when the

grass was still green and the pond was still wet and the

clouds were still clean.

It goes on to describe the degradation and the tree cutting and the disregard for that environment. I know Senator Merkley has quoted it at length so I will not do so. But it closes with a very poignant and dramatic observation that maybe others, maybe many in this body have read to their children.

I worried about it with all of my heart, but now says the

Once-ler, now that you are here, the word of the Lorax seems

perfectly clear. Unless someone like you cares a whole awful

lot, nothing is going to get better, it's not. So Catch!

Calls the Once-ler. He lets something fall. It's a Truffula

Seed. It's the last one of all. You're in charge of the last

of the Truffula Seeds. And Trufulla Trees are what everyone

needs. Plant a new Trufulla. Treat it with care. Give it

clean water. And feed it fresh air. Grow a forest. Protect it

from axes that hack. Then the Lorax and all of his friends

may come back.

In a certain sense, the stories we read our children have a message they understand. Our children understand in many ways better than we do, because they understand what it means to play in the snow or have sunny skies or a day that is not filled with superstorms. They understand what it means to act individually, to take care of the environment and our planet. I would like to think it is because we have read them the stories of environmental heroes who championed the right causes, who cared enough to act. I would like to think the leadership of some in this body, their leadership by example and countless others across the Nation, who take stands, stand up, speak out against climate disruption, against the emissions that threaten the very existence of our planet, provide those young people with leadership by example. I would like to think they are learning from some of us and the stories we tell them and read to them from Dr. Seuss or others.

The story from Dr. Seuss is not about games, about fantasies. It may seem like a fantasy and it may be spoken as a story, but it carries a message that the trees are what everyone needs; we need to plant them. Fresh air is what everyone needs, and we must preserve it. We need to protect this planet from the axes that will hack at them, as climate change most assuredly will do.

Climate disruption--call it climate change, global warming, whatever you will--is a threat that we have the opportunity and obligation to counter. We are taking baby steps. We need great strides. America must wake up and so must the world.

I yield the floor.

If I may respond to the Senator, my colleague and friend from Rhode Island, with a question that summarizes one of the key reasons we are here today. I see we

have been joined by the senior Senator from Rhode Island who is senior to me on the Armed Services Committee and so knows better than I probably some of the answers that can be made to the question posed by the Senator from Rhode Island. But let me say at the outset, the military understands, in some ways better than America, the crisis of energy waste and climate disruption this Nation and the world faces. Indeed, the military has taken steps to be greener in its energy use, to use fuel cells and other renewable sources of power, because it knows the cost of excessive energy consumption, particularly oil dependence and energy reliance on powers that will do us no good and mean us harm.

Energy dependence cannot be good for America's strategic interest or American defense. That is one of the reasons why our military is seeking to lead by example. I thank them for doing so. The Secretary of the Navy, for example, has spoken to me at great length, Secretary Mabus, about the use of new sources and renewable sources of power on the ships that take the navy to the farthest corners of the globe. So the American military is leading by example. But America can lead by example. Thomas Jefferson and our Founders thought America would be the best hope for the world in its example of leadership. Thomas Jefferson said, ``The world belongs to the living.'' Let us resolve that the living have a world that is worthy of that covenant we make as Americans to leave this Nation better and stronger than it was when we took over.

Let's not have failed on our watch. America can be a shining example in what it does, inspiring the world by that example, not by its mandates or its military, but by its peaceful use of energy in a way that preserves the planet. We can use renewables. In fact, in Connecticut, we make fuel cells that can power the world in a much more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly world. Fuel cells are our future. They are made in Danbury and Torrington and the Hartford area by companies that are growing, another example of jobs creation and economic boom that can result from addressing the opportunities as well as the obligation of climate change.

I have spoken on the floor about those companies, as well as about the Connecticut climate action plan launched in 2005, the main goal of which is to substantially cut the amount of greenhouse gases being produced within our State. In Connecticut, we are moving ahead, just as the Nation must move ahead with these kinds of initiatives.

The Connecticut Sea Grant College Program, another example, understands the opportunity and the obligation of this time in our history. We can translate climate disruption into a positive through these kinds of measures we use to show the world that there are profoundly important gains at hand.

The regional cooperation Connecticut has helped to lead in the Connecticut Energy Finance and Investment Authority, the RGGI program. That kind of initiative is, in a microcosm, what America can do for the world.

So the question posed by the Senator from Rhode Island, who has helped to lead this debate, goes to the heart of what we are as Americans, as leaders in providing the world an example of energy savings, respect for our planet, addressing the problem that exists for us now, and denying the deniers their sway in this debate.

I have heard from others on the floor about how it is all a product of our imagination, but, as Ronald Reagan said, facts are stubborn things, and the facts show, regrettably and tragically, that climate disruption is destructive, implacable, relentless, and only we can stop it.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I want to begin by thanking my colleague and friend from Connecticut, Senator Murphy, for the very eloquent and powerful remarks he has just made, showing America the Connecticut experience with health care, which shows that the Affordable Care Act is working and is expanding opportunities for health care across the country. Once the myths are exploded, once the truth is told, Americans will appreciate how fortunate we are to have this reform in the way that health care is insured and delivered for the American people.

There are bumps in the road, as Senator Murphy has just said. There will continue to be issues to be overcome in achieving success. But the enormous potential to make America healthier, to eliminate the anxiety and anguish Americans experience in seeking a quality of life that health care affords, is an opportunity and obligation we cannot shirk. I am proud to join with him in speaking this truth and clarifying for people across the country the great promise of this program.

A lot of the promise still has to be fulfilled. A lot of the realization about that promise has to be educated. But we will succeed in that effort. I thank him and my other colleagues who are joining us in seeking to make America realize the great potential and promise that we have, and already the great accomplishments that have been made.

Connecticut stands as a model for both the promise and the accomplishment in the 130,000 people who have already enrolled in the benefits for young people now permitted to stay on their parents' policies, and, indeed, the elimination of preexisting conditions as an obstacle to insurance.

I know about many of these issues and obstacles from my time as attorney general when I fought insurance companies that denied basic opportunities and failed to fulfill their obligation and impose these kinds of obstacles. Now, hopefully, insurers will be a partner in this effort, and so will the medical community and business community across the country.

So I look forward to continuing this effort and thank him for the exposition he has given, and my other colleagues who will join us later today.

I want to focus on a group that particularly needs health care in this country, and that is our veterans. We are here to talk about the Comprehensive Veterans Health and Benefits and Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act of 2014--a measure that seeks to address comprehensively the challenges our veterans face today.

There are more and more veterans. We are losing some of the ``greatest generation.'' In fact, we are losing them tragically and unfortunately

every day. But the next greatest generation needs the same benefits and services we have given to the ``greatest generation.'' The next greatest generation is serving right now and has served recently in the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan.

We must be unwavering in our commitment to our veterans. We must determine that this big and broad bill is necessary to keep faith with them and to make sure we meet the diverse and urgent needs they present.

We all talk in this body about our commitment to veterans. But all too often, our Nation has failed to keep faith. I have learned that we all have expressed here our admiration and commitment to our Nation's veterans. I have introduced, as have many of my colleagues, veterans bills based on input from my constituents. In fact, my very first piece of legislation as a Senator was the Honoring All Veterans Act.

But the reality is this comprehensive approach is necessary. I thank Senator Sanders as chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee for recognizing that the needs of our veterans are interlocking, multifaceted, and manifold in the kinds of problems that are raised as they leave the military and enter the civilian world.

Sometimes it is their medical records that cannot be transferred seamlessly from the Department of Defense to Veterans Affairs and Veterans' Administration facilities. Sometimes it is the failure to make their military skills transferable in credentials and licensing. And sometimes it is medical conditions, health care needs for post- traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury, that make their wounds invisible, make them difficult to discern to the ordinary eye but are there deeply and enduringly unless they are treated properly. That is why health care for them is so important and why this bill expands opportunity for health care so dramatically.

The health care needs of our veterans must be met through the provisions of this bill that expand health care opportunities and services. When I first came to the Senate, I thought--and I think reasonably--that a veteran needing health care could simply go to a VA hospital to receive it. But that is really not the case. On January 17, 2003, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced that it would ``temporarily'' suspend enrolling Priority Group 8 veterans. That temporary restriction stands today. So under existing restrictions, a veteran making as little as $33,577 or a family of five making a household income of $50,025 can be denied health benefits in Connecticut. There are an estimated 720,000 Priority Group 8 veterans who are not enrolled in health care. Tens of thousands of veterans apply each year for enrollment and are denied due to that means test.

Simply put, the VA should have the capacity and resources to serve every veteran. That is why section 301 of this bill would allow veterans who lack that access, who do not have a service-connected disability, and who do not have affordable health insurance, to enroll in the VA's health care system.

There are other health care provisions: section 305, which expands the provision of chiropractic care; sections 331, 332, and 333, which expand complementary and alternative medicine. Anybody who has not yet seen ``Escape Fire'' should view it to understand the stark ways that veterans have challenges in access to alternative treatments and why drug addiction and abuse can become such a problem. And there is section 334, expanding wellness programs. All of these programs are vital, as well as the expanded access to treatment for post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury, which, in my view, are at the core of the need for this legislation.

Section 342 would require the VA to contract with outside providers to establish a program of supportive services to family members and caregivers of veterans suffering from mental illness. All of these invisible conditions have such dramatic consequences in the employability of veterans and their ability to give back and continue to contribute to this Nation, as so many of them wish to do.

The needs of our veterans are also pressing in disability claims. The need to end the backlog is, again, one of the areas addressed directly in this bill. The backlog of disability claims at the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a chronic problem. The VA is making progress. There is no question that the numbers are better today than they were. But there are still veterans such as Army veteran Jordan Massa in Connecticut, who served in Afghanistan, and Marine veteran David Alexander, who was deployed in Iraq, who had to wait too long and suffered as a result. We need to keep faith with those veterans.

I understand and I applaud Secretary Shinseki, who has committed to tackling this problem. But some 389,000 claims are still backlogged. In Connecticut, about 48 percent of the claims are backlogged, meaning that 48 percent of claims made by our veterans take more than 125 days to be resolved. Each of these veterans has an individual story, a record of service, a record of suffering. Be it in today's wars or conflicts past, a record of service and sacrifice is exemplified by every one of them. These individuals may now be looking for employment, perhaps, to support a family. We need to keep faith with them.

This legislation aims to decrease the backlog further through an accelerated appeals process and getting the VA the information it needs to decide these claims. It brings in local governments to help with the claims. And it helps veterans who have misfiled documents in the claims process to seek a better route to what they need and deserve.

The bill also would require regular reports to Congress on efforts to eliminate the backlog. Accountability is so critical--accountability on backlogs, on all of the issues that underlie the failure to process these claims as quickly as they should be. And the backlog must be eliminated.

Employment programs are also addressed in this bill. So are the traumatic effects of sexual assault. The bill is multifaceted and comprehensive, as it should be. To address the diverse and urgent needs, it must be big and broad because the needs and challenges of our veterans are big and broad.

The reality is that 1 million men and women will leave the military over the next 5 years. One million patriotic and brave men and women will be separating from our Armed Forces. Becoming veterans, they will need services and benefits that they have earned, and they will need them at the time they leave, not at some distant point in the future. We owe it to them now to keep faith.

I have submitted amendments that would address some of the other issues.

For example, the need to recognize that post-traumatic stress is not only a condition that afflicts our current military men and women and veterans but also past veterans, even though it was undiagnosed and untreated at the time. Changing their status so as to recognize post- traumatic stress for the veterans of past wars is a need that we need to address.

I will make sure those veterans of past wars, whether it is Vietnam or Korea or any of those conflicts in our history, receive a second look at their discharge. That is the purpose of the amendment. That is the purpose of legal action that has been brought by the Yale veterans clinic. I will continue to support it.

We can go further as well to enhance our veterans' health by including the Toxic Exposure Research and Military Family Support Act in this measure. I have an amendment that will do so. Many veterans were exposed to toxic chemicals such as Agent Orange and their needs are only beginning to be addressed.

In addition to the harmful effects to those individuals, there are also impacts on their children. For many years those who were exposed to Agent Orange were told there was no evidence that their symptoms resulted from that. Now that we have evidence Agent Orange is toxic, we need to include the longer term effects on their children and their families. The amendment I have offered would address those issues.

Even if none of those amendments I have proposed are adopted during this process, this measure stands on its own as a historic step forward. It is, indeed, a historic recognition of the obligation and opportunity we have at this point in our history to make sure we leave no veterans behind and keep faith with our veterans, address their needs in a

big and broad bill that reflects the urgent and diverse issues and challenges they face. I am proud to support it.

I thank my colleagues on the Veterans' Affairs Committee who have approved many of the parts of this bill by unanimous vote or overwhelming bipartisan majorities. This cause should be truly bipartisan. Let's move forward and move America forward addressing the needs and challenges of its veterans as we have an obligation to do. We must keep faith with our veterans and leave no veterans behind.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on February 26, 2014, at 10:30 a.m., to hold a hearing entitled ``Treaties.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on February 26, 2014, at 2:15 a.m., to hold a hearing entitled ``Prospects for Peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Great Lakes Region.''

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 on February 26, 2014, at 10 a.m., in room S-216 of the Capitol Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on February 26, 2014, in room SD-628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Early Childhood Development and Education in Indian Country: Building a Foundation for Academic Success.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on February 26, 2014, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Offshore Tax Evasion: The Effort to Collect Unpaid Taxes on Billions in Hidden Offshore Accounts.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on February 26, 2014, at 10 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``An Examination of Competition in the Wireless Market.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on February 26, 2014, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy of the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on February 26, 2014, at 10 a.m., in room SD-215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Retirement Savings for Low-Income Workers.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Personnel of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on February 26, 2014, at 10 a.m.

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

Mr. President, I am here very proudly and gratefully to support the nomination of Jeffrey Meyer as a U.S. district court judge for the District of Connecticut. I am proud because of his extraordinary credentials. I am grateful to President Obama and, hopefully, to this body for giving Connecticut the services of a professor, litigator, prosecutor, and a person of extraordinary integrity and ability. Jeffrey Meyer has all of the qualifications in extraordinary depth and quality to be a great judge. He is truly a lawyers' lawyer. He is a prosecutors' prosecutor. He will be a judges' judge.

Mr. Meyer served as a legal aid lawyer in Vermont for Vermont Legal Aid and as an associate of two Washington, DC, law firms. He really has made his mark as a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Connecticut, where he served for 10 years, five of them as appeals chief. He also was a law clerk to Judge Oakes for the Second Circuit. He has a grounding in academia, having taught at Quinnipiac Law School and served as Supreme Court advocacy clinic teacher at Yale, where he has also been a visiting professor since 2000.

I am abbreviating and summarizing his credentials because they are well documented and well known in this body. What can't be summarized so easily is the quality of judgment he has and that befits a judge on the Federal court.

Judges on the U.S. district court, as I know from my own experience, having litigated for quite a few years, are often the last point of justice for many people in our country. They are the voice and face of justice for so many people who may not have the means or the persistence to appeal further, and for most litigants he will be the voice and face of justice before his court. That is a very solemn responsibility. It is a responsibility for life.

These decisions about who will serve on the district court are among the most important we make in this body, so we approach it seriously and thoughtfully. Following the high standards we impose, Jeffrey Meyer aptly and abundantly meets the test for serving as a U.S. district court judge: His background in litigation; his experience in actually trying cases; his background as an academic, in thinking through some of the toughest issues of the law and teaching others how to do it, how to actually be a lawyer; and, of course, his judgment and his sense of perspective and, most importantly, his integrity.

I have worked with Jeff Meyer. I know of his dedication to his clients. I have worked with him in very tough personal situations where his advice to a client would make a critical difference in that person's life. I know he

has the human quality of compassion and insight that is really necessary to make judgments about credibility when he has to judge the credibility of a witness on the stand or when he has to sentence an individual who may have broken the law but has mitigating factors to present. Anybody who spends time in a trial court knows that judges have to make split-second decisions based on their knowledge of the law but also on their instincts, on what they sense is right. Jeff Meyer has that quality of judgment that makes all the difference in the world. Some people have it, even if they haven't graduated, as Jeff Meyer did, from some of the best schools in the country, and some people don't, even when they have all the degrees in the world. Maybe it is common sense or horse sense or good instincts or character. It is very hard for anyone to say who has it without meeting them, as we did on the Judiciary Committee, and knowing them.

I thank the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, my great friend and colleague Senator Leahy, for championing people of this great ability. Senator Leahy has devoted his lifetime to the quality of our Federal judiciary, and it has been immensely beneficial to our judiciary and to all who appear before our Federal judges to have a champion such as Senator Leahy of Vermont.

There are now 96 vacancies in our Federal court. Thirty-nine of those vacancies have been classified as judicial emergencies. Let us get on with our task and our responsibility to make sure justice is not delayed in the greatest country in the history of the world, because we know so often justice delayed is, in fact, justice denied. That may be true of the least seemingly important case that matters so greatly to the person whose life is at stake or it may be an issue of great moment to the Nation's future. But one way or the other, the American people rely on us to make sure justice is done, that judges are nominated and confirmed, and that we enable every American to have access to judges who will decide fairly and wisely the merits of their case. Whether it is through a trial or in a motion, justice is what makes our Nation one of the greatest--the greatest, in fact--in the history of the world.

I am very proud and grateful for the opportunity to support Jeff Meyer to be a U.S. district court judge for Connecticut.

I yield the floor.

I thank my distinguished colleagues for recognizing my sons' service. One is a marine reservist deployed to Afghanistan and the other is a Navy officer currently in further training.

I thank them and offer my support to the goals they have articulated today. I look forward to the resolution they are offering and talking further about the specifics of it. I again thank them for recognizing the urgent need for this body to take action at this point in supporting those goals. I look forward to continuing my work with them. Again, my gratitude to them for their courage and determination, and I offer my thanks and support.

I am here today to talk about a bill that undoes an injustice, and frequently the work of this body is to undo injustices, and sometimes even mistakes, such as the repeal of the cost-of-living adjustment reduction for certain military retirees.

I have spoken before in this Chamber and at home in Connecticut about my opposition to the pension cost-of-living adjustment reduction contained in the budget agreement approved by this body. I firmly believe there is no just way to balance the budget on the backs of our military retirees. It was a mistake then, and we can undo it now without a so-called pay-for. Their sacrifice and service has been paid in full. With their sacrifices, military retirees deserve to be paid in full for the promises we have made to them. We made those promises to them for their service and sacrifice that they have given us already, and we should not break that promise.

The reduction in these cost-of-living adjustments impacts both the brave veterans who served for 20 years in the military and those who earned their retirements because of a service-connected medical disability. We should keep our promises to both.

Last month I discussed this problem with about 25 veterans in American Legion Post 96 in West Hartford with Commander Ken Hungerford. Our brave patriots who served and sacrificed for our country understandably agreed they should receive the full benefit of present cost-of-living adjustments. This is a promise we have made and a promise we must keep.

To fix this issue, Senator Shaheen of New Hampshire and I first introduced the Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act. I continue to support it. I also support Chairman Sanders' comprehensive veterans legislation that would restore this cut to military retiree pensions, along with improving access to health care and tackling benefits backlogs for veterans.

I am very proud to have helped draft the omnibus bill, known as the mega bill, that has already been offered on the floor.

There is a very simple, straightforward solution that we should adopt before either of those two options. It is S. 1856, which would repeal section 403 of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013. S. 1856 meets this criteria of paid in full. It is simple and straightforward. It has no pay-for because there is no need for an offset when we are talking about fulfilling our promises to our brave and dedicated veterans, who have given on the battlefield their all, who have given us, in service and sacrifice--even before they reach combat or even if they had no combat--the kind of contribution to our national security and our national defense that merits these cost-of-living adjustments.

As a member of the Armed Services Committee, I listened to the testimony of Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense Christine Fox that it was not consulted in the drafting of the cuts in COLA--the cost-of- living adjustments--and does not support the reduction in military retiree benefits enacted through section 403 of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013.

If there is a need to combat fraud in any of our programs, let the Department of Justice increase the vigor and effectiveness of enforcement efforts. If there is a need to repair a statute, to prevent waste or fraud or corruption, we should deal with that issue separately and distinctly. If there is a need to reduce the debt and the deficit-- and I agree we should be mindful of fiscal responsibility--we ought to do it without breaking our promises to veterans. We ought to keep those promises without worrying about the debt that could be cut by other measures. And we should adopt those other measures rather than demanding a payback or an offset or whatever the terminology may be.

In the next 5 years, we will see 1 million Americans leave the U.S. military.

As troops come home from Afghanistan, as the military downsizes, the Marines and the Army reduce the number of men and women serving in uniform, 1 million Americans will leave the military. That number consists of individuals' lives--it is not just a statistic--individual stories of heroism and bravery on the battlefield, of invisible wounds, as well as horrific visible injuries; invisible wounds involving the issues of post-traumatic stress and chronic brain injury. More than one-third of them, perhaps as many as a half of all of those young men and women leaving the military, will bear those invisible wounds of war.

We need to provide them with the health care, job counseling, skill training, jobs, and treatment for those invisible wounds of war they deserve and they have earned. That is the purpose of the bill I have helped to draft with Senator Sanders' leadership, the omnibus bill that will address those issues.

I am hopeful, also, we will adopt the VOW to Hire Heroes Act, to extend tax credits for employers who hire those veterans, tax credits that expired at the end of last year. My bill would restore them.

But let us now urgently and immediately adopt S. 1856--a simple and straightforward measure to restore justice to the Federal pension system for military retirees. Let us not balance our budget on the backs of our brave veterans. Let us restore those pensions to the level we promised and keep our promises as a nation to the military veterans who have kept our freedoms strong.

Mr. President, that is the end of my remarks. I thank you. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Margaret Taylor, a detailee from the State Department to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, be granted floor privileges today in anticipation of votes on nominations and for the rest of the 113th Congress in order to assist with matters related to the work of the committee.

Mr. President, I am reminded even at this late hour, when most of the world has moved on to other pursuits, what a great privilege it is to be with two magnificent voices and advocates for fairness and economic opportunity: Senator Warren of Massachusetts, and my very good friend, Senator Booker of New Jersey, on his first occasion here on the floor. I feel very blessed and fortunate and privileged to be here with them. I feel that way at any moment on this floor in this body but particularly as we face this great challenge ahead: how to preserve and enhance our middle class in America; how to make sure America fulfills its great promise Senator Booker evoked so eloquently, going back to the days of George Washington; and now, with great leaders facing many of the same kinds of basic questions about whether we can provide that opportunity going forward, whether we are equal to the task in an increasingly complex society.

Just today, in the New York Times, there was a very profound and telling story about markets losing middle-class consumers. Only the high-end and the low-end retailers are being able to find markets for their products because our middle class is dwindling, squeezed by the vise of an increasingly desperate situation. How desperate it is for people who are depending now on unemployment insurance, as they see the deadlines for them approaching and they know they will lose roofs over their heads, meals on their table, for families they are struggling to keep together. As Senator Booker and Senator Warren said so well, the unfairness of the economic crisis caused by Wall Street and Washington but visited upon Main Street America, middle-class America, mainstream America, still struggling to recover.

We know the unemployment we face today is deeper and more intractable than at any other time in our history. Long-term unemployment is larger percentagewise than it has been in previous recessions. That is a tragedy for those families but also for our economy, because those consumers are lost to the retailers and to the mainstream small- and middle-sized businesses that depend on them to grow and hire more people.

In Connecticut, as of last month, almost half of all of the individuals who have suffered a job loss--43.6 percent--were unable to find work for 6 months or more. That is more than 60,000 people. Those numbers don't tell the stories. They are not the voices and faces I have seen who are depending on a meager $300 a week and who have lost even that amount.

Rosa Dicker, who has a deep knowledge of health care reform from her previous work, has received only three call-back interviews out of 500 jobs she has sought, and her job search lasted almost a year. Michael Kubica, who went back to get his MBA after years of experience in insurance and publishing, and, again, has been repeatedly turned away for employment. Alicia Nesbitt, proud to have been employed continuously from the age of 16--decades ago--recently found herself applying for food stamps. Then, of course, there is Katherine Hacket of Moodus, CT, who joined the President recently to speak out about the need for extending these benefits. Katherine's family has sacrificed greatly for this Nation, because she has not one but two children serving in our military. Yet, because of Congress's inaction, Katherine is struggling to pay for food and heating bills during her job search.

There are good guys out there helping people to find jobs. Capital Workforce Partners has done tremendous work. I have met with them and other job creators, as well as job seekers around Connecticut, and sometimes those job searches actually succeed, because people are able to sustain their lives and continue to search for work.

Erin Londen, one of the constituents whom I met as I have gone around the State, has found work after 10 months of unemployment. She writes:

I could not be happier! I just love my new job, it is

everything I was looking for.

She is not a person who wanted to be without work. She is not a person who sought to be unemployed for 10 months. None of these people--none of the people on long-term unemployment insurance--want to be without work. She wrote to me:

It can take up to three months to get an interview. Then if

you have follow-up, it could be another month. So I do not

think it is reasonable to only offer six months of

unemployment benefits.

That pretty much says it.

I want to emphasize one aspect of this problem that I think is absolutely unconscionable for this Nation to tolerate, and that is the high unemployment rate among our veterans.

This situation for post-9/11 veterans is beyond comprehension and beyond accepting. The male post-9/11 veterans in particular face rates of 8.6 percent, almost 2 points above the national average. Many of these veterans have been out of work for more than 6 months.

Long-term unemployment among our veterans is a scourge that this Congress has an obligation to address. Many of them left good-paying jobs. They came back to a nation that said it was grateful, and now they find no jobs and no unemployment insurance to keep a roof over their head and food on their table.

That is why I have introduced the VOW to Hire Heroes Act that would extend a key tax credit to incentivize companies to hire veterans. This credit expired last year, but veteran unemployment remains a serious problem, and I urge the Congress again to pass it. I have been joined by Senator Begich and Senator Udall of New Mexico in writing to the Finance Committee to urge it to approve this measure so we can bring it to the floor.

I want to thank AMVETS as well for its support on a measure that is, unfortunately, increasingly important; that is, to ban discrimination against veterans in both employment and housing. Believe it or not, this phenomenon occurs. Most would find it incredible. Yet a measure is necessary to ban discrimination against men and women who served in uniform, who served and sacrificed, who have given to this Nation.

Discrimination, unfortunately, is also a fact of life against the long-term unemployed. I have proposed again and reintroduced the Fair Employment Opportunity Act, which would prohibit discrimination on the basis of employment status.

Discrimination has been established by various studies--researchers at Northeastern University. Similar studies involving academics at Yale, the University of Chicago, and the University of Toronto have found that the long-term unemployed--the longer they have been unemployed--are much more likely to be victims of discrimination. I want to thank seven cosponsors on this bill: Senators Markey, Gillibrand, Sanders, Shaheen, Murphy, Menendez, and Brown. I urge other colleagues to support it as well. f

Finally, I want to thank again Senator Booker. He honors not only his own long history of public service but also the memory of our late colleague, our extraordinary and esteemed colleague, and my wonderful mentor and friend, Frank Lautenberg. He joins the ranks of others in the Senate who are fighting for the needs of the economically disadvantaged--people, as he said so eloquently, who play by the rules. They believe in this country, its ideals, its goals, and they want to serve it and give back and contribute.

This Nation depends on a covenant. It is the covenant that each of our generations leaves the country better for the one that follows--not only that the country is better for the next generation, but that each of our generations, on our watch, pledges to do better.

That is the reason we need to extend unemployment insurance. Without it, we will be a lesser nation, not just economically but in fairness and morality as well. I thank Senator Booker for reminding us of that fundamental fact about our Nation.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, this month we recognize the 41st anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, a ruling that assured every woman her constitutional right to make her own decision about whether and when to have a child based on her fundamental right to have her privacy protected.

I had the honor to clerk for the author of Roe v. Wade, Justice Harry Blackmun, shortly after that decision in 1974. Few of us expected we would be here 41 years later facing the kind of attacks--in fact, the onslaught on women's health care and on their right to privacy--that we see again and again and again on the part of States, and even in this Congress.

Today the House of Representatives will debate and probably vote on a bill that would severely restrict--very practically constrict--a women's right to choose. H.R. 7 is a threat to that right of privacy. Instead of moving forward in protecting women's health, all too often we have seen ongoing attacks. After four decades, this judgment is threatened by onerous and ongoing limitations repeatedly passed by State legislators and this body.

I am very proud to be joined today by two of my most distinguished colleagues, Senator Murray of the State of Washington and Senator Baldwin of Wisconsin, who have been tireless champions for women's rights--for our constitutional rights--and for women's health care. I am humbled and admiring of the work they have already done and the work we have ahead of us.

With their support, I have introduced--particularly with the active work of Senator Baldwin--a measure that will proactively and preventively protect women's rights against this onslaught at the State level.

The Women's Health Protection Act is designed to stop restrictions that purportedly protect women's health but really use that cause as a ruse and a ploy to impose physical layouts on clinics, admitting privileges on doctors, and other kinds of severely burdensome restrictions--such as ultrasound requirements when there is no real medical reason for them--and basically apply to abortion health care the same kinds of restrictions with no more limitations than are required for medically comparable procedures. That is the basic principle.

The goal is to push back the offensive onslaught on women's health care. We want to be on the offense rather than the defense because undoubtedly most of these restrictions, if not all, will eventually be struck down by the courts. The resources which are required are burdensome on the organizations and groups and individuals who are forced to carry on that fight.

I know about that fight because I helped to wage it as an attorney general in the State of Connecticut for 20 years. I am very proud that I enforced many of the laws that are designed to protect a woman's right to choose, including the FACE statute. I was the first attorney general to enforce the FACE statute.

We have many issues that are now before the Supreme Court, such as the McCullen v. Coakley case--which I hope will be decided--to uphold the buffer zone that makes women's rights real against the intimidation and deterrents that anti-choice groups try to bring.

Making these rights real--the right of privacy, the right to be left alone--is the fundamental reason that we have introduced the Women's Health Protection Act.

The President tonight will talk about many of the most important issues that matter to this country, including economic opportunity, job creation, recovery from the deepest recession in recent history; giving people a greater sense of confidence and trust in their ability to gain the skills they need to move forward in their lives. Economic mobility in this country is one of the greatest challenges we face for our children and our grandchildren. Those issues of job creation and economic growth are what we should be debating, not H.R. 7, not the restrictions at the State level that seek to inhibit and impede the ability of a woman to exercise her fundamental right to privacy. Let's keep in mind what is important to the American people who sense deeply, because it is part of our cultural DNA, part of our fundamental reason for being as a nation, that we have a right to privacy over a personal decision that should be made by a woman in consultation with her doctor, her health care provider, and her family, without interference from government bureaucrats or politicians. That is what is important. Ending the chilling effect of those State restrictions is also one of the goals--the chilling effect that deters women from exercising those rights, making those rights real, protecting a woman's right to decide whether and when to have a child. Every pregnant woman faces her own unique circumstances and challenges, and she has a right to make her own decision based on her own values, guidance from a physician she trusts, a family member she loves and her personal goals and what is right for her family.

In the 40 years since Roe v. Wade, the attacks on this right have not been slowed; they have merely evolved, and they have taken new forms. I stand with my colleagues today and ask that we recognize together these pervasive threats, that we counter them and stand together in fighting back.

I am very proud to stand with Senator Baldwin and Senator Murray,

and I am proud to yield for Senator Baldwin.