Floor Statements

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

Mr. President, I think I can say I was blessed to be here right before the tribute to Katie that our colleagues from Iowa gave. What an inspiring life of a young lady. Although cut short, her impact is felt by many.

VISN Reorganization Act of 2012

I rise today to speak on a bill that I introduced last week, S. 3084, the Veterans Integrated Service Network Reorganization Act of 2012. This legislation would significantly reorganize the structure of the Department of Veterans Affairs, or VA, Veterans Integrated Service Networks, or VISNs, to make these networks more efficient and to allow resources to be moved to direct patient care.

The veterans' health care system in our country was originally established to treat combat-related injuries and to assist in the recovery of veterans with service-connected disabilities. Since its start, the scope of the Veterans Health Administration, or VHA, has expanded and now treats all veterans enrolled in the health care system through hundreds of medical facilities located around the country. Prior to 1995, VHA was organized into four regional offices. These regional offices simply channeled information between the medical centers and the VA's Washington, DC, headquarters office. Since the regional offices' duties were to pass

on information to the facilities, they had little ability to exercise independence in implementing policies based on the needs of the veterans in their region.

In March 1995, based upon the recommendations of former Under Secretary of Health, Dr. Kenneth Kizer, VHA underwent a significant reorganization of its Washington, DC, and regional offices. Basically, the VHA health care system was divided up into 22 geographic areas--now 21--with each region having its own headquarters with a limited management structure to support the medical facilities in that region. The goal of the reorganization was to improve access to, quality and the efficiency of care to veterans through a patients-first focus. This structure would improve care by empowering VISNs with the independence to decide how to best provide for the veterans in their region. This change also would have made the most of spending for patient care by suggesting that VISN management be located on a VA medical center campus.

The aim was to provide a better organized system that would have oversight management responsibilities of the medical facilities through a new structure called the Veterans Integrated Service Network. This new system intended to offer a clearer picture of what the duties were of both the VHA central office in Washington, DC, and the VISN headquarters offices. Going forward, VHA central office's responsibilities included changes to VA policies and medical procedures and monitoring the facilities' performance in providing care. Each VISN headquarters' primary function was to be the basic budgetary management and planning unit for its network of medical facilities. Because the scope of their tasks was limited, it was expected that a VISN headquarters could be operated with 7 to 10 full-time employees, for a total of 220 staff for all VISN headquarters nationally. Any additional expertise needed was to be called up from the medical centers on an informal basis.

I believe VHA has significantly strayed from the initial concept behind the 1995 reorganization. While some growth and an increase in VISN management staff over 17 years is expected, the growth and duplication of duties we have seen at VISN headquarters offices and medical facilities quite simply is troubling. Examples of such duplication are coordinators for homeless veterans, OIF OEF OND veterans, women veterans who are present at both the medical facilities and the VISN headquarters.

This duplication has not only redirected spending away from medical centers, it has caused a bloating of the numbers of staff across the 21 VISN headquarters. VISN headquarters have grown well beyond the 220 staff proposed by the 1995 reorganization to a total of 1,340 staff for the 21 VISNs headquarters today--an increase from 220 to 1,340 employees today. These staff are performing functions that have little to do with budget, management, and oversight, let alone direct health care for our veterans. It appears that VHA has allowed VISN headquarters staff to increase without the necessary oversight or an assessment of the impact on the original purpose for VISN. Also left unchecked are the changes in the veterans' population and how veterans have moved between States to determine if there is a need to adjust the VISN boundaries to best serve the veterans seeking care.

This bill--my bill--would bring about a much-needed change to the VISN structure. It would, No. 1, consolidate the boundaries of 9 VISNs; No. 2, move some jobs back to the VHA central office; No. 3, reduce the number of employees to 65 per VISN headquarters; and No. 4, require VHA to review the VISN staff and structure every 3 years. What a novel suggestion, that we would actually review the progress we make.

My colleagues may find it a bit odd that we could reduce the staff of VISN headquarters while also increasing the size of the veterans' population and facilities from some VISN headquarters, but because we are reducing the tasks that the VISN headquarters perform while transferring several jobs to new Regional Support Centers--or RSCs-- VISN headquarters staff would be more productive in carrying out the simple budget, management, and planning duties that they were originally tasked with in the 1995 original reorganization.

While the consolidation of VISNs would result in the closure of nine VISN headquarters, no staff would lose their job as a result of this legislation. Staff whose jobs would be eliminated because of the consolidation would have a chance to be transferred to other positions within the VA. Staff who perform the oversight functions that would be moved to the newly created RSCs would be given the opportunity to continue that work at the RSC. This legislation also returns the idea that VISN headquarters should be located on VA campuses by directing that VISN headquarters, if possible, be located on a VA medical center campus. Relocating to vacant space on the VA medical center campus hopefully would reduce the cost to the VA in the long run but, more importantly, it would bring the headquarters staff closer to the facilities they oversee.

I realize this would be an enormous change in the way VHA does business, and yet I believe this can be accomplished without any changes to how VA provides treatment and care to our Nation's veterans. In fact, I believe it will improve how VA cares for veterans by increasing the resources directly available for patient care.

It is important that VA not lose sight of its primary mission, as stated by Abraham Lincoln: `` . . . to care for him who shall have borne the battle'' and, to that end, VA should redirect spending away from bureaucrats and back to the direct care of veterans.

I believe the VISN Reorganization Act of 2012 would provide a more efficient and effective health care system to our veterans, and I hope my colleagues will see it in that light and support this effort at reorganization that is way past due.

I thank the Chair, and I note the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, I am very proud to extend my recognition and congratulations to the congregation and administration of the Grace Episcopal Church in Plymouth, NC, as this wonderful institution celebrates 175 years of providing spiritual guidance and community service to Washington County and the State of North Carolina.

This year marking the 175th anniversary of the founding of Grace Church, we give the citizens of Washington County as well as the State of North Carolina the opportunity to pay tribute and homage to a place of worship that has impacted many and assisted those in need of spiritual guidance.

Plymouth, NC traces its historical roots back to the 18th century and the beginnings of our Nation. It has served as a port on the Roanoke River off the Albemarle Sound for over two centuries, acting as a place of trade for much of North Carolina and the United States. By 1837, Plymouth had grown into an important port in North Carolina and with that growth came the establishment of the Grace Episcopal Church.

Plymouth was one of the ports targeted for blockade by Union forces during the Civil War and in that time it is believed that only 11 buildings survived the war, 1 of them being the Grace Episcopal Church.

Grace Episcopal Church has provided the town of Plymouth and the surrounding areas in Washington County spiritual guidance and leadership for the last 175 years. This institution has been a beacon of light and hope to many people in the region and the world.

Grace Episcopal Church has provided many charitable services and events for citizens in need, for example one guild at the church is comprised of a group of knitters and other handcrafters that make goods for distribution to those in need locally and abroad. Grace Episcopal Church has also been an active partner in the Washington County Habitat for Humanity projects, providing financial donations in addition to donating office space for the organization.

I ask my colleagues to join me in paying tribute to the Grace Episcopal Church in Plymouth, NC for the countless acts of charity and good will this institution has provided and will continue to provide eastern North Carolina. May their work be recognized and forever appreciated by the citizens of North Carolina as well as this Congress.

I thank the Senator from Wyoming and my colleague from Oklahoma. We have worked on this, spent tireless hours trying to save not just Medicare but health care as we know it in America today. I think what my colleague has already mentioned is that we have put in place mechanisms in law that will dismantle a health care system the American people feel comfortable with and that has served them well but that we agree is way too expensive. Look at the examples Dr. Coburn has talked about--IPAB, the independent board that will make coverage decisions and reimbursement decisions. When you cut reimbursements, you are going to chase doctors out of the system. As you cut reimbursements, you are going to defund the hospital's ability to keep the doors open in rural America.

But let's look at the things that are not obvious. What does that effort by IPAB do to innovation in health care? What companies are going to go out and put $1 billion on the line for development of a new drug or a device given they do not think they can recover enough through the reimbursement system to cover their research and development, much less the approval process of the products? It would be a vastly different America if in fact all these drugs that are breakthroughs and the devices that are so effective at keeping us living longer are sold in Europe and South America and Asia but not in the United States because we have now developed a health care system that doesn't allow them the ability to recover that money. Now match that with the lack of choice today.

In this country, we have choice. As a matter of fact, as a Federal employee, I can pick from probably 30 different health care plans--the same ones every Federal employee can choose from. But all of a sudden, in this health care bill, we have said to seniors: You know that Medicare Advantage which allowed you choice, where you could choose a provider other than the Federal Government? Well, we are going to take that away from you. Now, we didn't take it away, we just said we are not going to reimburse them to the degree that allows them to offer the plans.

Let's look at what Medicare Advantage provided for seniors. It provided a wider array of benefits than does traditional Medicare. It is good for some. They have chosen it. It won't be good for them in the future, if this health care bill is not reversed, because through the actions of IPAB and through the explicit language of the bill, Medicare Advantage will not be an advantage anymore, and everybody will have to default to the government plan that probably won't be as expansive with preventive care.

I know the Senator from Wyoming knows that in North Carolina we sort of lead the country as the model of medical homes. We are on the verge there of trying to put seniors into medical homes. We have already done it with a Medicaid population. We have saved money. But my State of North Carolina this year has a gap of about $500 million in Medicaid-- the people we are responsible for and the money we have allocated for it, even though the last 3 years we have saved almost $1 billion by being creative at how we designed our Medicaid. This health care initiative, with no input from any State, will double the population of Medicaid beneficiaries in North Carolina. So what have we done? We have shifted the responsibility down to the State at the State taxpayer level.

We didn't magically change anything in health care. We are reallocating where we are collecting the money from, and every State is the same. They underpay for reimbursements under Medicaid, doctors limit the number of patients they see that are Medicaid patients. Imagine what happens when we double the size of the Medicaid population in America. Hospitals don't have the ability to limit. They are under Federal law that says when someone shows up, they have to see them.

What we are going to do is probably attempt to bankrupt the infrastructure that we have for health care for the simple reason that rather than fix health care, we came up with creative ways to pay for it. Or in the case of IPAB--the Independent Payment Advisory Board--we figured out an external way from Congress to cut the reimbursements to doctors and to hospitals and to limit the coverage of all plans where it doesn't have to go through a legislative process in Washington. We are not always the finest example of legislation becoming law, but this is the mechanism our Founding Fathers set up to make sure bad things didn't happen.

I have to say this is one that slipped through, and now we have the responsibility to go back and fix the pieces of it that would be devastating to the future of health care in this country.

I thank the Senator from Wyoming for letting me share some time.

Well, I thank my colleague for that acknowledgment, and that is why the thought that innovation would leave the American health care system terrifies me. Innovation is the answer to the threats, both natural and intentional, that could come to this country and everywhere in the world. We never know what is around the corner. But our ability to innovate in this country has always kept us one step ahead, and I believe we are on the cusp of a new era of innovation that can only be thwarted if in fact this health care bill is fully implemented. Because the incentive will now be gone for entrepreneurs to take risks. There is no longer going to be an incentive that says take a risk and there is an opportunity at a reward.

As the Senator from Wyoming pointed out very well, we created Medicare Part D. What a novel approach, to take a health care benefit that didn't exist in the 1960s, when we created Medicare and matched it up with the coverage of the rest of the delivery system. What was the result of creating market-based coverage? Today, Medicare Part D costs 50 percent less than the estimate we made years ago when we created it in terms of what the annual premium cost was going to be. Why? It is because we created private sector competition. We didn't create government plans. It probably would have been much easier to say, okay, we are going to supply a benefit for every senior in the country. I can assure you, had we done that, we would have been well over what we projected the annual cost to be. But we are 50 percent under because we have private sector entrepreneurial companies out there competing for the business, and they are smart enough to look at the types of coverage needed and they are custom designing that to meet the needs of seniors in this country.

I daresay the current health care plan that is going to be implemented and fully executed by 2014 was not personalized for anybody in this country. It looks at a 17-year-old the same way as it does a 77-year-old. Yet the health challenges and the incomes are different for both ends of the spectrum, and that is because government can't look at us as individuals. They can't group us and design something that addresses not just the coverage needs but the costs long term and the solvency.

So we only have one choice, and that is to fix what is broken. It is amazing how there is great agreement on those things that would be damaged long term and those things that are actually positive and move the ball in the right direction.

Mr. President, I would like to be recognized.

Mr. President, let me say to my colleagues, what this simply does is to take something that is happening naturally--a transition from diesel, in most cases, over to natural gas--and it accelerates it. It gives it a 5-hour energy drink. We should take this opportunity to accelerate it as fast as we can. It is paid for, as Senator Menendez said.

This is essential if we want natural gas prices to stay down-- increase demand. If not, we are going to shut in wells, we are going to find ways to sell it offshore.

If we want to keep historically low natural gas prices, then let's increase demand so production increases and we can take advantage of all these finds we have all over the United States of America.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for up to 40 minutes.

Mr. President, I thank the majority leader for his leadership on an amendment to the Transportation bill, the Menendez- Reid-Burr amendment. For short title purposes, it is called the NAT GAS bill. This is not a new bill. It is not a difficult bill to understand. It is a game changer as it relates to our energy policy in this country and, more importantly, the economic security of our country.

I wish to take these 40 minutes to walk through the bill. But before I do that, it is essential to say to my colleagues and to their staffs and to the American people: If for some reason you believe that in the next 18 months in America we are going to have massive tax reform-- lower rates, no deductions, no credits, no subsidies--then I want you to do me a favor. Turn off your TV. Leave the gallery. I will never convince you this is the right move. In fact, if I believed we were going to do comprehensive tax reform, I would not be on this floor. I would not be offering this amendment. But the truth is, there is nobody in America who believes that is going to happen.

Let me say this to all of my colleagues, their staffs, and to the American people: If you believe some miraculous thing is going to happen and there is going to be peace in the Middle East--no civil wars, no nuclear advancements, no threats--then turn off your TV. Leave the gallery. I will never convince you nor would I be here today if I thought that was going to happen.

The truth is that as policymakers we are charged with doing things based upon the landscape and the framework we have in front of us. Today, in the absence of this body acting--the Congress of the United States--the American people will get exactly what they have gotten: escalation of energy costs; that is, to fill their cars, to fill their trucks, to heat their houses. It is felt through the increased costs of the businesses for which they work. This is about personal security. This is about the livelihood of every American.

Let me just say now, if you are still with me--if you haven't turned off the tube or left the gallery--the single most important reason we should do this is our national security. Our national security is vital to this country.

Let me just stop and pose a question to my colleagues: Who controls today our access to and our cost of energy? It is not us. In many cases it is people around the world who don't even like us who control whether we are going to have access to oil or what the cost is going to be. Today 70 percent of our oil is imported. So we have 30 percent that we have some ability to control and to access, but for 70 percent of it we are at the whims of other people. We are at the whims of the market. They don't like us, and they don't care what we pay. And, I might say, many of those countries use the dollars we send them to fund terrorism--to fund the very people we run into on the battlefield in Afghanistan, Iraq, and around the world. They aren't concerned with our economy. They aren't concerned with the future of our country or the future of our children. It is not a very comforting situation to rely on for our energy, especially with 70 percent reliance on what they have.

Let me suggest this requires U.S. dollars to be spent and U.S. lives to be put on the line to make sure that day in and day out this country has access to that 70 percent reliance on black gold. Look at the gulf: ships, sailors, marines, aircraft, all in the gulf to make sure somebody doesn't shut down the Strait of Hormuz; to make sure we have access to that oil. It certainly doesn't cap what we pay at the pump or the taxes we pay to assure that when we need it, it is going to be there.

Some claim speculators are the whole problem with the oil industry. I will admit I think around the edges--a couple of cents a gallon--it is speculation; futures traders probably do have a little bit of impact. But it is not significant, and speculators don't control our access to it. Our reliance on foreign oil is what judges whether we have access to it or not. We must admit our access today is a national security threat.

No. 2: Economic security. The Presiding Officer and I know a word that is called LIHEAP, which is the low-income heating program for seniors across this country and for individuals who can't afford home heating oil. We will spend $5.1 billion this year to subsidize home heating fuel. This entire NAT GAS bill--which is a game changer relative to the cost of not just home heating fuel but diesel and gasoline--costs a little over $3 billion, and the taxpayers aren't on the hook for one penny of it. I will get to that a little bit later.

The U.S. economy is starting to recover. We have seen signs not in every community and not in every sector of our economy, but we see signs that it is moving in the right direction. But there is one common thread that all economists agree on: If energy costs go up, we stand the chance of cutting off that recovery. We stand the chance of freezing or increasing unemployment at above the rates they are today. How quickly we recover, how quickly Americans are hired, how quickly unemployment goes down, how this affects our balance of trade--we haven't even talked about the individual family budget.

Think of what a typical family is faced with today--the cost on a weekly basis to fill up that vehicle. Many families have accepted jobs not close to where they live but where jobs are available. They drive from one community to another. Some drive from one State to another because that is where the job is. We have had no increase in wages, we all know that, but we have seen food prices and gas prices and energy prices go up. Here is an opportunity for us to have a real impact on the family budget in America without charging the American people one penny to have us do it.

In my opinion, we should have started new exploration decades ago. Had we explored for oil and natural gas--onshore, offshore--had we built pipelines, we might not have this problem right now. For those who say we shouldn't do it now because it will be 10 years down the road before we feel the effects, we had this same debate 10 years ago, and we had it 18 years ago when I got to the House of Representatives. Today we are still talking about the same thing. The only thing that has changed is the price of energy in America.

I believe we ought to focus on America and North America, and we ought to tap those resources in a safe and environmentally friendly way, which is, in fact, where technology allows us to go today.

My third goal of this bill is energy security. This year we voted against pipelines. They would have provided some security. We have reduced some foreign demand, not much. Today we are reducing exploration; we are not increasing exploration at home. Who pays the bill? The American people. It is real simple. It is just passing through and pretty soon we get used to $3.76, which is the national average. In some places in the country it is over $4. But 3 years ago the price of gas was $1.86.

I was rated as the seventh most conservative Member of the Senate. This year I bought a hybrid. I bought a hybrid because I was tired of paying people money who hate us. I was tired of paying an exorbitant amount for gasoline. I would personally do anything I could to make sure I reduced my consumption and my cost. But the only way I can affect every American family is to come to this floor and to change the policies we have in this country in a way that nobody is slighted, nobody is cheated, nobody loses.

Somebody said this bill picks winners and losers. Well, I have to admit it does. The winners are the American people and the losers are everybody internationally who produces oil. I think that is a pretty good pick. Let me suggest to my colleagues this must stop. It must stop, and my suggestion is it should stop tomorrow when we vote on this amendment.

We need an energy plan. We should explore. We should build pipelines. If we did, down the road we would benefit. One might think, well, all of this is an accurate depiction of where we are. What would a natural gas bill do to change our situation?

Well, let me suggest it is about our most abundant, clean, flexible fuel. And guess what. It is American. It is found right here at home. Why wouldn't we use as much as possible? Oh, by the way, did I say it is cheap? If we look at natural gas as an equivalent to a gallon of gasoline, natural gas ranges somewhere between $1.60 and $2.10 at today's rates. Imagine where diesel is. Imagine where home heating oil is. Why? Because technology has allowed us to reach reserves that we could never reach before. It has allowed us to do it in an environmentally friendly way. It has allowed us to do it at a pretty attractive production cost.

As a matter of fact, the word in the world is the United States is the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. But nobody looks at us and says: You are controlling our access because we can't even figure out what our policy is going to be. Let me suggest--and I think the Presiding Officer knows this--if we produce more than we consume, then we will aggressively build an infrastructure to ship it all around the world. But if we consume what we produce, there will be an effort to produce more and to produce more and to produce more. When that happens typically the price goes down.

So I guess the question in front of this body is, are we going to use it for the benefit of the American people or are we going to ship it to the rest of the world? Some in Congress will say that shifting natural gas usage through Federal legislation shouldn't be done. Let me be clear. I agree 100 percent.

The Federal Government is not the one that should be legislating how markets go. But when I consider the Federal Government, we are speaking for the American taxpayer because usually they are the ones who are the backup funder of everything we pass. This bill does not do it. This bill is a 5-year bill, and it sunsets. It goes away. It funds the roughly $3.4 billion with a user fee on the exact people who are benefited by it--those natural gas users. You see, the American taxpayer has no skin in this game.

They also say the American taxpayers should not fund new credits or subsidies. I agree. These are the two criticisms this bill has received. I agree with them totally. Read the bill. That is not what we do. We fund it from the people who benefit from the credits and from the subsidies.

Now, you might ask, where do we disagree? Policy can, and I think it should, accelerate the usage of natural gas. Some have said there is no need to do this; it is happening all by itself. I agree; another point of agreement. It is happening every day in communities across this country. Ten years from now we might look back on it, and we might have made a little bit of progress. We have an opportunity right now, without taxpayer funding, to accelerate this move in 18-wheel vehicles, in fleet vehicles, in municipal trucks and automobiles. So I think we can, and I think we should, accelerate it.

Again, natural gas is the only flexible mobile fuel we have. It is not like there are other options out there we can accomplish this with. I believe if credits or subsidies are paid by the users--those who benefit--this a good result, and it is good policy.

Think about it for a moment. If you took all of our 18-wheel vehicles in America and put them on natural gas, you would reduce consumption of foreign oil by one-third. Do you want to know how to bring down the price of gasoline and diesel? There it is. Take one-third of the demand and shift it over to natural gas.

Fleet vehicle companies--FedEx, UPS; I can sort of name all of them, the in-and-out-every-day companies--they go out in the morning, come back in the afternoon, they have one fueling station, and they are running to go to natural gas. They do not need the incentive. But look how fast they could change their entire fleet if it was there--again, without one penny of taxpayer money.

Municipalities. There is not a municipality in America today that is not challenged from the standpoint of their annual budget. They have cut parks and recreation. They are trying to figure out how to do education. Every community is faced with the same thing, decreasing property values; therefore, the flow of revenues is less than they were last year and the year before.

Where is the game changer for municipalities in a natural gas bill? It is very simple. There are 500,000 buses in America, and there are 26 million kids who get on a bus every day. If we can reduce by one-third or more the cost by switching to natural gas, we should be doing everything we can to get every school system in America to have a natural gas engine in their schoolbus so the one-third they save goes back into the classroom to educate our children; where nobody is faced with trying to decide whether they are going to buy textbooks or have a teacher's aide; where every classroom is designed not based upon how much money we have available but what the educational requirements are for that next generation.

For those who suggest this bill does not do anything, I will tell you one point alone is enough to get up and vote yes when it comes up. It is a game changer. It is a game changer to local budgets. More importantly, municipalities get to devote the money to the right places.

Why is a credit needed? It is very simple. It costs money to switch an engine. A typical natural gas engine is going to cost somewhere between $25,000 and $40,000 more than the equivalent diesel engine in an 18-wheel vehicle today. But as more and more and more get built, what we are going to find is that the diesel engine is more expensive, and the natural gas engine is cheaper. Wouldn't we accelerate this as fast as we could so we could get the benefits of that production shift?

Everybody is geared to do it today. As a matter of fact, it is so compelling a reason that Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors have all announced in their light-duty pickups they are going to come from the factory with natural gas. But for a consumer to fuel their vehicle with natural gas, they are going to have a little compressor at home, for compressed natural gas, hooked right up to their natural gas line. For an 18-wheel vehicle going from North Carolina to California, it is not that easy. It means we have to have the infrastructure across the country that enables that to be a feasible business decision for a company.

What does part of the NAT GAS bill do? It creates a credit, a subsidy, so the infrastructure that is needed is out there. Oh, by the way, we still have the credit in place for individual consumers who want to have fueling stations.

We are not recreating the solar or wind subsidies or credits. We are not recreating an ethanol subsidy for gasoline that Americans have just had a huge distaste for. We are taking not a technology of the future and investing in it, we are taking a technology that is here today and saying let's create the incentive for this to explode, for this to be a game changer in the global balance of trade.

Why don't some want this? Some do not want this because they use natural gas and they do not want the price to go up. We are sitting on a 100-year supply of natural gas right now if we do not drill another well. We have companies that are in the business today that--because of where the price point is and because of where the demand is--are thinking about plugging, shutting in natural gas wells because they cannot move it out of the country and they cannot sell it here. Yet we are on the cusp of being able to create an incentive that is paid for by the users that not only keeps those wells open but gives the reason for those companies to actually produce more.

America has always proven: If we will buy it, they will build it. Look at the automobile industry. We would buy them, and today we are going everywhere in the world to find the gasoline it takes to put in them. Well, my belief

is, if we accelerate the use of natural gas in trucks, fleets, and municipalities, what we are going to have is another explosion of natural gas finds. We are going to increase supply. If anything, we may see prices drop even further. But without the demand, I can assure you, the future is very predictable.

We have this fuel at home. It is on land. There is some offshore, but the majority of the finds are on land. More importantly, this has happened exactly where we need it: Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Dakota, Oklahoma--and, yes, probably North Carolina and Virginia. The fact is, none of us know today because some areas geologically have never been explored.

What are the realities? Well, if we can outproduce what we consume, one of two things will happen. One, we will build an infrastructure to sell it all around the world or, two, we will slow the exploration. In both cases the price will go up. Isn't that why people are against this bill, because they are scared the price will go up? In fact, this bill is the only thing that will keep natural gas prices at a historically low cost. Anything less than this would cause devastation throughout the marketplace.

Many say let the markets drive what happens. That is what I am doing. It is exactly what I am doing. This legislation says: Produce as much as possible. Shift as much from petroleum as technology will allow us. It is sort of like saying: Let's give the Federal Government a 5-hour energy drink. Let's put this policy on steroids to shift as much as we technologically can from gasoline and diesel and home heating oil over to natural gas.

What is the impact on the American people if we do not do this? It would be higher gas and diesel prices. It would be higher costs for all the goods we buy. Sometimes we do not think about the fact that when that trucker pays $4.20 a gallon for diesel--and they have seen their price double in the last 12 months--it is not too long before we feel it in the cost of groceries or in other consumer goods or in everything we purchase in the United States. If the energy costs go up for the warehouse that product is stored in, we get it there. If the cost to produce it goes up because the manufacturing process costs a little bit more, it goes up there. This is how inflation happens.

Here is a great opportunity for us to get our teeth into inflation and cut the primary driver of inflation. I think the byproduct of it would be that we would have almost a magnet in America of capital attraction to fuel job creation and to put Americans back to work. See, there is a lot more to an energy policy bill than whether there are winners and losers.

What else would the American people be impacted by if we do not do this? Higher property taxes. There is no way around it. There is absolutely no way around it if, in fact, we want the next generation to be educated. We have an opportunity to take one-third of that transportation cost to a municipality and to pump it back into the budget.

Well, let me suggest there is another loser. I think the Acting President pro tempore knows this. If we fail to use this as a flexible mobile fuel, most of it is going to be used to generate electricity. They are going to take the easy way out--$50 million to build a natural gas generation facility. It is cleaner burning. That makes it very attractive to them. The only problem is, we are going to get 30 years down the road, when most of us are going to be looking back--if we are still here--at our children, saying: I cannot believe we made this mistake. I cannot believe we locked you in to one fuel for the generation of all of America's electricity.

One of the beauties of America is that we have a mix, and we are constantly changing that mix between coal and natural gas and nuclear. Well, we would make a huge mistake if we just left it to today's economics to say: Let's do it all in natural gas. If we did that, we would not have a bridge fuel, we would not have the flexible mobile fuel that natural gas provides us. We would be locked in to betting that technology would allow us to run it on solar or something else in the future. I am not sure I can bet on that for my children and my grandchildren. I am not sure we are there. I am not sure we are smart enough.

I am going to pose a question to the Senate. What if I am wrong? I have been wrong before. What if I am wrong? What if this does not happen? What if there is not an explosion of transition from gas and diesel over to natural gas? It is real simple: The user fee goes away. But we tried something. There is no downside. It is not as if we are locked into something that cost the American people money. If we do not need as much, then we do not need the user fee. It has not impacted, up or down, fuel costs if, in fact, we have not pushed things over from where we are today. No damages; no downside.

What if I am right? What if I am right and this is a game changer? Well, we continue to grow our production of gas. That creates tens of thousands of jobs all across the country. We reduce our need for foreign petroleum--game changer in the security of this country. We stabilize or reduce the current price of gas, diesel, home heating fuel.

The more natural gas we leverage, the more dollars we have in our pockets as Americans. The environmental impact is significantly better than diesel or gasoline. Our economy grows because fuel costs are predictable and more investments are made hiring more Americans. Communities and companies can budget. They can budget better because we, not somebody who hates us, have control of our future costs.

Prices come down because fuel costs are less and do not go up. The less of the family budget goes to fuel, less community budgets go to buses, more goes to our children. I realize this is bold. And, boy, has America become risk averse. This is not something I stumbled on yesterday. I have been promoting this for 3 years. This is the first chance to come to the Senate floor and have a vote. You know what. It probably is not going to pass. That is the disappointing part of it. It will probably fail tomorrow unless my colleagues or their staff, who stayed after my first two comments and listened to this, understand that there is not a downside to doing this.

Why in the world would we not take this bill and implement it in hopes that for the first time we have a piece of energy policy in America? I said at the beginning that if this was done by pulling the money from taxpayers in America, I would never be up here offering this bill. But this is the time. It is now. Look at the global landscape. Look at the cost of energy. There has never been a more important time for a piece of legislation that drastically changes the future of this country.

I too have been disgusted with government investing our dollars and picking winners and losers--mostly losers--in technologies that have not proven to be effective. This is not that. This is using dollars we collect from user fees to accelerate technology that is there today. It is just accelerating its use. It is making sure that the future is radically different. It is using existing technology to be a game changer. It affects the lives and the livelihood of every American, the communities we live in, and, more importantly, our children.

Maybe this is too simple. Maybe Members of Congress can only get difficult things now. This is easy. It is easy to understand. It is easy to see the picture of what it affects. It is easy to understand the impact on the American people. And it is all positive. If you implement it, it has no downside. Why would we not try it and see what happens?

If passing this amendment might accomplish what I have described, why would we not do it? We represent the American people. It may be that their voice needs to be heard before tomorrow when votes happen. This requires vision. I have to admit, it is something that Congress has shown very little of of late. This legislation benefits only one thing--only one thing--the future of this country, the United States of America, the opportunities of our children, the prosperity of the greatest country in the world.

If that is important to you, then you ought to support this bill. It is important to me, and that is why I am here on a day when the Senate has no business, has no votes, because it was the one time I could come here uninterrupted, without the distractions of all the visitors and all the claims, to set

the record straight about this legislation. It is simple. It is easy to understand. It impacts everybody in America. It does pick winners and losers. It says: America is going to win, and the people who are not our friends are going to lose.

I am not sure you can say it any clearer than that. It does not cost the taxpayers a dime. The beneficiaries are the ones who pay the tab. If it does not work, there is no downside. If it does work, it is a game changer from the standpoint of our energy policy and, more importantly, our future.

The bill sunsets after 5 years. We have a 100-year supply of natural gas today if we did not drill another well. We import 70 percent of our petroleum, and that costs $25 billion a month that we send there. Imagine what that $25 billion could create in jobs here if, in fact, we made this simple policy change.

I thank you, Mr. President, for your attention and your patience and the patience of my colleagues since I ran over a little bit. But I will conclude with this. A bill that roughly costs $3.4 to $3.8 billion and is funded by user fees is not a big bill in Washington. But the potential impact of this legislation will not only be big in America, it will change the landscape of the world. It will put us back in control of our national security, of our economic security, and, more importantly, of our energy security. This will be a day that Congress will either be proud or disgusted at the outcome of a policy such as this.

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

Mr. President, I rise to recognize the Defense Legislative Fellow Program and honor the fellows whom I have come to know well during their service in my office since 2009. These individuals have been among our Nation's best and brightest and they come to Congress each year to impart their knowledge to Members and their staffs and leave with a better awareness of the political process and the tireless and often unheralded work that congressional staff undertake each and every day. In the past 2 years I have had the pleasure of having three defense fellows work in my office: LTC Brooks Tucker, U.S. Marine Corps; MAJ Vaughan Byrum, U.S. Army; and MAJ Brett Robinson, U.S. Air Force.

As a testament to their abilities, MAJ Vaughan Byrum, a 14-year Army officer, prior enlisted soldier, and veteran of the two deployments to Iraq, is now serving as one of a handful of promising and capable officers representing the Army in the Senate Liaison Office, and Major Robinson is completing his tenure in my office and preparing for another demanding assignment in the Washington, DC, area. As an officer in the Marine Corps Reserve, LTC Brooks Tucker started as a fellow in my office in 2009, just when I was assigned a spot on the Senate Armed Services Committee. He has served on both my personal office and Veterans' Affairs Committee staffs, and he has been a tireless advocate for North Carolina's veterans and Active-Duty families and has been the critical lynchpin in my efforts to help the service-members and families who were impacted by contamination while serving at Camp Lejeune.

I want to express my gratitude to all three of these defense fellows for their service to the U.S. Senate and the people of North Carolina.

Major Byrum came to my office after completing a tough and demanding tour of duty in Baghdad, training and mentoring the provincial police and assisting with the critical transition from coalition to Iraqi responsibility and control. Like many combat veterans whom I have met over the years, Major Byrum is the epitome of professionalism, possesses a warm sense of humor, and conducts himself with humility and impeccable bearing. A graduate of North Carolina A&T University and a leader in the Reserve Officer Training Corps, Vaughan has a heart as big as his linebacker frame. He is fondly remembered by my staff, who went out of their way to welcome him back to the Senate after an interim assignment serving in the Pentagon. His can-do attitude and self-effacing demeanor will serve him well as he works with Senators and staff in the months ahead. I know his wife Andrea and daughter Victoria are very proud of him. I realize the Byrum family has made numerous sacrifices and endured lengthy separations, and they, like so many others in the military, have borne that burden quietly, with courage and grace.

Major Robinson has worked diligently in my Washington office for the past year and ably served the people of North Carolina. Before joining the Senate, Major Robinson served as the special operations program manager for the Air National Guard overseeing the special operations budget supporting over 1,000 personnel and 9 aircraft. As a traditional Air Guardsman, he serves as a C-130 pilot with the Pennsylvania Air National Guard. Prior to his recent assignments in Washington, DC, Major Robinson completed combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan and garnered operational experience on the African Continent, Europe, and Asia. A distinguished graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, he has served as a tactics officer, pilot, and flight commander and is the recipient of numerous personal decorations for meritorious service over his 13 years in uniform.

His tireless work and patient manner has not gone unnoticed, whether it be helping a Vietnam combat veteran receive a long overdue decoration for valor, offering operational perspectives on air operations in Afghanistan and Libya, or working in concert with military commanders and civilian leaders in North Carolina to address veterans' needs.

And to Jori, his wife, who is also an Air Force officer, thank you for your support and sacrifice as you balance the demands and confront the challenges of life in service to this Nation. I enjoyed meeting you and your sons, Grayson and Kiernan, and I know Major Robinson couldn't do what he does without your love and support.

I have gotten to know Major Robinson and Major Byrum quite well in the past 2 years. For men with so many rich life experiences and career accomplishments to be proud of, they truly epitomize the moniker ``quiet professional'' and exude a measured demeanor, consistent competency, and genuine modesty that has made them trusted advisers to me and my staff and garnered our admiration and affection. In sum, they are superb examples of the finest military in the world.

From interns in my office to constituents in the State, to all of my staff in North Carolina, Major Byrum and Major Robinson have impressed us at every turn and succeeded in educating us about the honor, tradition, and sacrifices made every day by our service men and women overseas, especially those of the National Guard.

Thank you, MAJ Vaughan M. Byrum and MAJ Brett B. Robinson, for your distinguished year of service to the people of North Carolina and for your continued commitment to protecting our Nation and the prosperity of all Americans.

Mr. President, I rise today to highlight the introduction of important bipartisan legislation to reauthorize the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act of 2006 and the BioShield Special Reserve Fund. I am pleased to be joined by my colleagues, Senators Harkin, Enzi, and Casey. I thank them for their efforts and leadership on this important legislation. It

is clear that my colleagues share my dedication to strengthening and enhancing our Nation's ability to be prepared for and respond to all hazards that may confront us.

As we introduce legislation to strengthen and improve our Nation's medical and public health preparedness and response programs, it is appropriate to reflect on the progress we have made to date, the seriousness of the threats facing our Nation, and the work that remains to be done if we are going to be prepared to respond to the full range of threats, whether naturally occurring, like an influenza pandemic, or a deliberate bioterrorism attack.

During the 109th Congress, I chaired the Subcommittee on Bioterrorism and Public Health Preparedness. Building on the lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina and September 11, Congress took a hard look at how we could better prepare and respond to public health and medical emergencies. The Subcommittee held multiple public hearings, roundtables, and meetings, and Congress received significant input from public health officials, medical experts, emergency managers, biotechnology companies, and stakeholders from across our nation. These actions culminated with the passage of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act of 2006.

Through the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act, Congress empowered the Department of Health and Human Services with the tools it needs to protect the American people more effectively and efficiently in response to a public health emergency. This law established the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, or ASPR, to unify the Department's preparedness and response programs and mission and answer the critical question of ``who is in charge?'' when it comes to medical and public health preparedness and response. Since its inception, ASPR has carried out significant preparedness and response planning and coordinated response efforts with federal, State, and local public health partners.

The Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act of 2006 also established the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, to speed up the development of countermeasures--such as vaccines or treatments--to protect Americans against a potential chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear terrorist attack, or other public health emergency, such as a pandemic influenza. PAHPA also gave BARDA the ability to make mile-stone based payments through the BioShield Special Reserve Fund--a $5.6 billion medical countermeasure procurement fund established by Congress in 2004 to provide assurances of the federal government's commitment to purchasing medical countermeasures if companies embarked on years long development of these life-saving products. Even without full funding, BARDA has been able to identify promising countermeasures and support the critical advanced research and development necessary for making these products available to the American people. Thanks to BARDA and the investment we have made over the last few years, our nation was much better positioned to quickly respond to the H1N1 pandemic influenza two years ago.

I am very proud to have authored this important bipartisan law five years ago and I am proud to have again joined with Senators Harkin, Enzi, and Casey in a bipartisan manner to tackle the serious challenges that remain in ensuring our nation is prepared to respond to all- hazards. In recent weeks, Congress has been reminded of the urgency of our work in this area. Last month, the WMD Center published a comprehensive Bio-response Report Card evaluating our nation's preparedness against potential bioterror attacks. This report noted that while we have made progress, the U.S. Government received ``Ds'' and ``Fs'' in certain areas associated with responding to large-scale biological attacks that terrorists like Al- Qaida or others may seek to perpetuate against us. This report and recent analysis by the Government Accountability Office calling for improvements to our nation's medical countermeasure programs are a serious wake-up call that cannot go unaddressed. The American people expect the President and Congress to do all we can to prevent an attack, and in the event of an attack, be prepared to respond in order to save lives. When it comes to protecting the American people, failing grades are unacceptable.

Our work on this important legislation has been guided by sound principles. First and foremost any improvements to existing programs and authorities must be targeted and strategic and based on the lessons we have learned over the past five years, including the H1H1 pandemic and disasters at home and abroad. We must ensure the continuity of critical medical and public health preparedness authorities and programs, including the BioShield Special Reserve Fund. Given the significant fiscal challenges facing our nation, we must also ensure that we are maximizing the taxpayer resources supporting this critical preparedness mission, as well as ensuring appropriate transparency and accountability for these resources and programs. Finally, we must ensure a robust medical countermeasure enterprise, from the research bench to the points where patients receive care, including by ensuring that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's regulatory tools and pathways reflect modern-day threats.

The Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act Reauthorization of 2011 would strengthen and enhance our nation's medical and public health preparedness and response programs and go a long way in addressing many of the short-comings and concerns raised by GAO and the WMD Center, as well as other stakeholders. Our legislation provides the ASPR with enhanced policy oversight and coordination of medical and public health preparedness and response programs to further unify our response in the event of a public health emergency. Our legislation also ensures an appropriate emphasis on chemical, radiological, biological, and nuclear threats as part of an all-hazards approach to our National Health Security Strategy. Our legislation ensures that an emphasis on strategic initiatives to advance medical countermeasures and community resiliency are incorporated into the National Preparedness Goals, as well as the importance of considering the unique needs and considerations for individuals at-risk in the event of a public health emergency.

Our legislation would reauthorize the National Disaster Medical System, the volunteer Medical Reserve Corps, the Emergency System for Advance Registration of Volunteer Health Professionals, the Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Hospital Preparedness Cooperative Agreement Programs, and the Strategic National Stockpile. Targeted flexibility under our bill will help our State and local partners optimize community resiliency at the local level. By reauthorizing the BioShield Special Reserve Fund, our bill sends the clear signal that the U.S. Government remains committed to purchasing medical countermeasures.

The critical role that FDA plays in our medical countermeasure enterprise has become clear over the past five years and our legislation strengthens this enterprise by making targeted improvements to FDA's role in this important endeavor. For example, our bill allows the Secretary to make medical countermeasures under review by the FDA available in limited circumstances based on either a declared emergency or an identified threat, and requires the material threat posed by the agent of agents for which a product under review is intended is considered when reviewing medical countermeasures for approval, clearance, or licensure. We will stretch taxpayer dollars even further by allowing FDA to extend the shelf life of products stockpiled in the Strategic National Stockpile. Our legislation also charges FDA with promoting medical countermeasure expertise and developing regulatory science tools to advance the review, approval, clearance, and licensure of these products. By enhancing the scientific exchange between FDA and medical countermeasure stakeholders, FDA will not only be identifying problems, but an active partner in solving them to ensure our nation has the medical countermeasures necessary to protect the American people. Medical and public health preparedness and response programs, including the availability of medical countermeasures, are a matter of national security and our bill will ensure the appropriate, senior- level national security focus on these issues.

In addition to reauthorizing PAHPA, I am pleased to also introduce the Medical Surge Capacity Act, critical legislation that I hope we can include in the final version of PAHPA reauthorization. I thank Senators Harkin, Enzi, and Casey for working with me on this important bipartisan legislation that makes strategic improvements to current law to enable the Secretary of Health and Human Services to target and issue waivers under Section 1135 of the Social Security Act in as timely a manner as possible based on the circumstances of an emergency. This legislation authorizes HHS to implement waivers as soon as either a public health or national emergency is declared, and enables the Secretary to institute 1135 waivers in ``host areas'' outside of a declared disaster area, but into which patients are being evacuated to receive care.

I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues in Congress and the administration to do the important work of reauthorizing PAHPA and BioShield in order to ensure our nation is as prepared as possible in the event of the unthinkable, whether natural, or man-made.

Mr. President, I rise today to highlight the introduction of important bipartisan legislation to reauthorize the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act of 2006 and the BioShield Special Reserve Fund. I am pleased to be joined by my colleagues, Senators Harkin, Enzi, and Casey. I thank them for their efforts and leadership on this important legislation. It

is clear that my colleagues share my dedication to strengthening and enhancing our Nation's ability to be prepared for and respond to all hazards that may confront us.

As we introduce legislation to strengthen and improve our Nation's medical and public health preparedness and response programs, it is appropriate to reflect on the progress we have made to date, the seriousness of the threats facing our Nation, and the work that remains to be done if we are going to be prepared to respond to the full range of threats, whether naturally occurring, like an influenza pandemic, or a deliberate bioterrorism attack.

During the 109th Congress, I chaired the Subcommittee on Bioterrorism and Public Health Preparedness. Building on the lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina and September 11, Congress took a hard look at how we could better prepare and respond to public health and medical emergencies. The Subcommittee held multiple public hearings, roundtables, and meetings, and Congress received significant input from public health officials, medical experts, emergency managers, biotechnology companies, and stakeholders from across our nation. These actions culminated with the passage of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act of 2006.

Through the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act, Congress empowered the Department of Health and Human Services with the tools it needs to protect the American people more effectively and efficiently in response to a public health emergency. This law established the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, or ASPR, to unify the Department's preparedness and response programs and mission and answer the critical question of ``who is in charge?'' when it comes to medical and public health preparedness and response. Since its inception, ASPR has carried out significant preparedness and response planning and coordinated response efforts with federal, State, and local public health partners.

The Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act of 2006 also established the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, to speed up the development of countermeasures--such as vaccines or treatments--to protect Americans against a potential chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear terrorist attack, or other public health emergency, such as a pandemic influenza. PAHPA also gave BARDA the ability to make mile-stone based payments through the BioShield Special Reserve Fund--a $5.6 billion medical countermeasure procurement fund established by Congress in 2004 to provide assurances of the federal government's commitment to purchasing medical countermeasures if companies embarked on years long development of these life-saving products. Even without full funding, BARDA has been able to identify promising countermeasures and support the critical advanced research and development necessary for making these products available to the American people. Thanks to BARDA and the investment we have made over the last few years, our nation was much better positioned to quickly respond to the H1N1 pandemic influenza two years ago.

I am very proud to have authored this important bipartisan law five years ago and I am proud to have again joined with Senators Harkin, Enzi, and Casey in a bipartisan manner to tackle the serious challenges that remain in ensuring our nation is prepared to respond to all- hazards. In recent weeks, Congress has been reminded of the urgency of our work in this area. Last month, the WMD Center published a comprehensive Bio-response Report Card evaluating our nation's preparedness against potential bioterror attacks. This report noted that while we have made progress, the U.S. Government received ``Ds'' and ``Fs'' in certain areas associated with responding to large-scale biological attacks that terrorists like Al- Qaida or others may seek to perpetuate against us. This report and recent analysis by the Government Accountability Office calling for improvements to our nation's medical countermeasure programs are a serious wake-up call that cannot go unaddressed. The American people expect the President and Congress to do all we can to prevent an attack, and in the event of an attack, be prepared to respond in order to save lives. When it comes to protecting the American people, failing grades are unacceptable.

Our work on this important legislation has been guided by sound principles. First and foremost any improvements to existing programs and authorities must be targeted and strategic and based on the lessons we have learned over the past five years, including the H1H1 pandemic and disasters at home and abroad. We must ensure the continuity of critical medical and public health preparedness authorities and programs, including the BioShield Special Reserve Fund. Given the significant fiscal challenges facing our nation, we must also ensure that we are maximizing the taxpayer resources supporting this critical preparedness mission, as well as ensuring appropriate transparency and accountability for these resources and programs. Finally, we must ensure a robust medical countermeasure enterprise, from the research bench to the points where patients receive care, including by ensuring that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's regulatory tools and pathways reflect modern-day threats.

The Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act Reauthorization of 2011 would strengthen and enhance our nation's medical and public health preparedness and response programs and go a long way in addressing many of the short-comings and concerns raised by GAO and the WMD Center, as well as other stakeholders. Our legislation provides the ASPR with enhanced policy oversight and coordination of medical and public health preparedness and response programs to further unify our response in the event of a public health emergency. Our legislation also ensures an appropriate emphasis on chemical, radiological, biological, and nuclear threats as part of an all-hazards approach to our National Health Security Strategy. Our legislation ensures that an emphasis on strategic initiatives to advance medical countermeasures and community resiliency are incorporated into the National Preparedness Goals, as well as the importance of considering the unique needs and considerations for individuals at-risk in the event of a public health emergency.

Our legislation would reauthorize the National Disaster Medical System, the volunteer Medical Reserve Corps, the Emergency System for Advance Registration of Volunteer Health Professionals, the Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Hospital Preparedness Cooperative Agreement Programs, and the Strategic National Stockpile. Targeted flexibility under our bill will help our State and local partners optimize community resiliency at the local level. By reauthorizing the BioShield Special Reserve Fund, our bill sends the clear signal that the U.S. Government remains committed to purchasing medical countermeasures.

The critical role that FDA plays in our medical countermeasure enterprise has become clear over the past five years and our legislation strengthens this enterprise by making targeted improvements to FDA's role in this important endeavor. For example, our bill allows the Secretary to make medical countermeasures under review by the FDA available in limited circumstances based on either a declared emergency or an identified threat, and requires the material threat posed by the agent of agents for which a product under review is intended is considered when reviewing medical countermeasures for approval, clearance, or licensure. We will stretch taxpayer dollars even further by allowing FDA to extend the shelf life of products stockpiled in the Strategic National Stockpile. Our legislation also charges FDA with promoting medical countermeasure expertise and developing regulatory science tools to advance the review, approval, clearance, and licensure of these products. By enhancing the scientific exchange between FDA and medical countermeasure stakeholders, FDA will not only be identifying problems, but an active partner in solving them to ensure our nation has the medical countermeasures necessary to protect the American people. Medical and public health preparedness and response programs, including the availability of medical countermeasures, are a matter of national security and our bill will ensure the appropriate, senior- level national security focus on these issues.

In addition to reauthorizing PAHPA, I am pleased to also introduce the Medical Surge Capacity Act, critical legislation that I hope we can include in the final version of PAHPA reauthorization. I thank Senators Harkin, Enzi, and Casey for working with me on this important bipartisan legislation that makes strategic improvements to current law to enable the Secretary of Health and Human Services to target and issue waivers under Section 1135 of the Social Security Act in as timely a manner as possible based on the circumstances of an emergency. This legislation authorizes HHS to implement waivers as soon as either a public health or national emergency is declared, and enables the Secretary to institute 1135 waivers in ``host areas'' outside of a declared disaster area, but into which patients are being evacuated to receive care.

I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues in Congress and the administration to do the important work of reauthorizing PAHPA and BioShield in order to ensure our nation is as prepared as possible in the event of the unthinkable, whether natural, or man-made.

Parliamentary inquiry: Under the current structure, how long before a Member on this side can be recognized?

I thank the Chair.

I would like my own time.

Mr. President, I say to my colleagues that there were a lot of blanket statements about one's level of participation. I have negotiated with the chairman of this committee for 9 months on the reauthorization of our emergency preparedness and biodefense in this country. I know what negotiations are. I know what compromise is. I know what commitment of time is. I got this bill last Friday. I will find out where it went online, or which copy went online. My staff got this bill last Friday. Yes, we have read it. We have eight amendments, which is not as voluminous as Senator Rand Paul; but he gets that ability, as he gets the ability to be heard.

The minority's only leverage in this institution is to have an opportunity to offer amendments and to debate them. I hear what the Senator is saying, but based upon the timeframe you set--you don't get the privilege of doing that when you have to deal with the minority.

I know the chairman, for whom I have deep respect, has been here a long time, and he knows it. This could have been something very easily worked out with communications on both sides of the aisle. The fact is that, as I prepared for this markup, I was told there was an agreement, and that agreement meant the chairman and ranking member were going to hold this bill intact. There were going to be no exceptions to it. They were going to vote to make sure this bill didn't change.

That doesn't give one a lot of comfort, knowing what the outcome of amendments will be regardless of the merit of the amendments. When we started this morning, the chairman was very gracious and let me say my due for about 5 minutes. I am appreciative of that. I made it very clear to Members at that time, the only thing I asked them to do was weigh it on the merits of the amendment--my first amendment out of the chute, and it was my best shot. I will say right here on the floor, it was a damn good amendment. You know what. Lockstep we went down the line, and they proved to me that there is a deal.

You know, the next amendment was offered by Senator Franken. I was the first one who stood up and said I disagree with the base text--it was offered by both of them--but I will support it. I am in year 17. Senator Franken said he spent more time on this bill than any bill ever. Boy, if that is the case,

that is a sad statement about how much time we spend on legislation, because you could not have had it more than since last Tuesday, according to the chairman himself.

I will take questions at some point, but I patiently sat here waiting for my own time. I will use it, and then I will allow the Senator to stand and ask a question.

In the same statement, there was criticism of the participation. Apparently, I or Senator Paul had not spent the time or hadn't devoted the time to this particular piece of legislation. I have been working on this for years. I think the chairman knows I am passionate when I get involved. It is not from a standpoint of a lack of knowledge, it is from a standpoint of trying to achieve the right end.

The chairman said very clearly that we are not going to make this perfect out of committee; we are going to have another shot at it on the Senate floor.

Let me remind my colleagues that 55 times in this Congress the majority has chosen to fill the amendment tree, meaning that no minority Member has had an opportunity to amend the legislation. How could I feel good about a truncated markup process that happens 4 days after I physically got an 868-page bill, when the caveat that I am given is: Oh, but you will have another opportunity to do it on the floor? Maybe, maybe not. I don't think the chairman can make an assurance to me that we are going to have an open rule on the Senate floor that allows unlimited amendments. If he can, I will yield to him for that consent. It is above his pay grade. It is above mine, too. That decision won't be made by the chairman or ranking member, and it won't be made because somebody is trying to perfect the bill.

I learned a long time ago that coming to the Senate floor and screaming doesn't do any good. It wakes people up in the gallery, and people at home think this must be important. This is about our kids. This is about whether K-12 education works. There is one takeaway we can all make: No Child Left Behind was well-intended legislation, and it was implemented poorly, embraced by very few. North Carolina happened to be a State that received a tremendous amount of waivers. We got a waiver from Average Yearly Progress because our State had a yardstick that was actually better, and the Secretary of Education recognized that. It didn't, through those waivers, change any of the Federal intrusion into K-12.

Let me explain what I mean. We have right now about 93 education programs that are authorized; not all of them are funded. If your system determines that you can use one of those programs, you can access that money. But if there is not a program for what your problem is, you don't get a shot at the money. I suggested through legislation that we take all of those programs and throw them into two pots and give States full flexibility to decide how they use the money.

This bill--they talk about flexibility. Well, it does eliminate the title of 40 programs, and it throws them into 6 new major mega- education programs--still with the strings. You have to spend it the way we design it in Washington, not the way you interpret it at home. And for a superintendent, that should not settle real well--flexibility versus prescription. One way is Federal intrusion into local education. The other is a partnership for education success.

Having gone with this one-size-fits-all called No Child Left Behind, I would think the natural swing would be, gee, if we want to fix education, why don't we enlist educators, superintendents, and principals in this bill? The 868 pages that we are going to debate--it will happen; minority rules can only last so long, and we will be marking this bill up and, hopefully, it will come to the floor and we will get an opportunity to amend it.

But incorporated into this bill is 20 pages that define reading. I want you to think about that. When the claims are made that this is not Federal intrusion, a one-size-fits-all, this bill spends 20 pages defining for every local school system what reading is. This is insane.

I have a simple challenge for my colleagues. What happened about the accountability of parents, teachers, principals, elected school boards, and community leaders? Healthy communities today have a relatively successful K-12 education system. In most cases, it is because employers recognize the fact that that is potentially their future workforce, and their educational success is that community's success for survival and for advancement.

But what this bill does is say we are going to determine what ``highly gifted'' is for teachers, and we will determine what success or failure is. We are going to take the place of the parent, teacher, superintendent, elected officials, and the business community; we are going to take that all over.

From the standpoint of the amount of money, we are still participating at about the same level--about 10 percent of the overall cost of K-12. But if you don't play by our rules, you don't get our programs or our money. I daresay there is not one of us who recognizes the fact that every community has a unique problem--where one is a school building, the next one is available highly gifted teachers; and where one might be the ability to have a second language taught, the other might be the passion of Teach for America teachers that infiltrate their system.

I cannot come up--no matter how many pages I write--with a K-12 education bill that I can honestly say trumps any community's that I represent that they could come up with on their own. If anything, I know I would be woefully short of what they could do.

The answer, to me, is let's get them more in charge, empower them more, and let's give them greater flexibility. Let's be what we are best at--a financial partner in the success of education. As a matter of fact, we will take up an amendment at some point that triggers the flexibility in the 868 pages. But it is only triggered if a school system accepts one of six things. One of those things is actually federally mandated firing of the principal or X amount of teachers of a failing school.

How in the world could we put in Federal legislation that you get the full flexibility if you are willing to go out and fire the principal or 20 teachers at a school that has been determined by Washington to be a failure?

This is almost surreal to me. In many ways, it goes way past where No Child Left Behind tried to get to, which was creating a measurement tool that could be seen by all and judgments made based upon that, though it wasn't perfect.

What my colleague Senator Paul has asked for, quite honestly, is very reasonable. Take the bill--the one that we are considering, not the one that went up last Tuesday--I got this e-mail while I am standing here, which says:

The original ESE bill was put up on line one week ago. The

managers' amendment on Monday. The document explaining the

changes was online yesterday.

So everybody is right. The only problem is what Senator Paul described, which was the bill that we are considering right now went up on Monday.

The explanations for the changes went up yesterday. I am sure if Senator Paul came up with 74 amendments, his staff has been a little busier than mine because they only came up with 7 or 8. But what Senator Paul has asked for is very reasonable.

Take this bill--not a hypothetical bill--and let's have a hearing on it--not a markup, a hearing--at whatever speed the chairman can put it together, where we bring in actual educators, we bring in superintendents or we bring in school board members, maybe we bring in a parent. That would be novel.

I can still remember, when I started 17 years ago, and reading about the Washington, DC, schools, my first teacher-parent mentor meeting. I remember the expectations I had of a parent who didn't care about a fifth grader's future. If they did, why would this child be so challenged to read? What I was met with, as I walked in and met with that parent, was the parent of a fifth grader who said: Congressman, you are my son's only hope. I want him to have so much more than I do.

I wasn't there because of a government program. I was there because I think every child ought to have the opportunity to succeed, and we can't write that in a bill. We can't describe for every community how they get to success. If we could, No Child Left Behind would have been perfect because

everybody believed it would have that big a change. So you see, this is about not just changing a system, it is about creating passion--a passion for success.

I will tell you, passion for success is not taking the Federal Government's HR Department--which is pitiful--and saying: Well, let's export this to every school in America. That is not the answer. The answer is for us to get out of the way and for us to empower those local officials to make the changes they need to and for the judgment to be of those community leaders and those parents.

We will have a debate soon on what is highly qualified, and it is very proscriptive as to what a highly qualified teacher needs to be. But in my definition, highly qualified is a pharmacist who has decided they don't want to work in a store anymore and would like to teach chemistry in a high school. Unfortunately, under all the Federal standards today, that person can't do that because they don't have a certificate to do so. We will codify that into law, in 868 pages, and all the talented folks we have around the country--who could walk into a classroom and not only have the educational foundation to be able to teach our students but the passion to want to be there and to say it in a way that isn't taught out of a textbook but is learned through their occupation--will be gone. It will be gone. Even though that pharmacist may not want to compound drugs anymore, if their choice is that or retirement, they will retire because we have cut out something that would allow them to contribute.

I didn't mean to go this long, but I will be honest, in my patience to get the opportunity to speak, I heard some outlandish comments that, quite honestly, I could take to be very personal. To suggest any Member had sufficient time to review this legislation--the only person who could make that comment would be one who got the bill before I did, and I think I am entitled to have it at the same time every other member of the committee gets it.

To have an agreement that says we are not going to take amendments-- that says one can offer them, but we are not going to take them--I think that is a black eye on the entire institution, if we would adopt a policy such as that. But I have seen it up close and personal already.

I would love to take the chairman at his word that we will have an opportunity on the floor to fix this bill, but--based upon how the floor has been run up to this time--I can't believe there will be even one opportunity for me to offer an amendment. So I have to roll my dice on the markup process in committee, and I have to do it in a way that accommodates every member. If Senator Paul believes he needs more time, I have to be there to try to defend his time.

If that is inconvenient for people, it is going to be inconvenient. The truth is, our children's future is way more important than our convenience. Our children's future is way too important to rush a bill. Our children's future is way more important than a deal between a ranking member and a chairman as to how to make this easy out of committee so we can fix it on the floor.

I have been here 17 years. Perfection is not possible in Congress, but perfection should be our goal every day. When we look at what we have debated, we understand why less than 15 percent of the American people think highly of us. I think what we are getting ready to do will have a significant impact on how that number is reduced, not how it is increased.

I thank my colleagues for their patience. They certainly don't have to request time from me. I will yield back and gladly allow them whatever of their own time they would like to take.

I yield the floor.

Would the Senator yield for 1 second?

If the Senator interpreted my comments to be personally targeted to him, then I do apologize. The Senator said--and I wrote it down: I spent more time on this bill than any other bill ever.

My criticism about the statement was, I said: If the Senator got the bill when I did, then there is not a whole lot of time between Friday when I got the bill and Wednesday when it was marked up.

I don't question for a minute the Senator from Minnesota or the staff has spent a tremendous amount of hours on education. But in defense of Senator Paul and what he has sought is there has not been a hearing on this legislation. There are some things in this 868-page bill our committee has not had a hearing on that it would be great to have the opportunity to ask someone who is an education professional. In the absence of the ability to do that, you, I, the Senator from Kentucky, our staffs, all have to rely on what committee staff tells us. And that is not always the most accurate thing, regardless of which side of the aisle you are seeking that information.

I appreciate what the Senator from Minnesota has said. I think that education should be a passionate debate, and we have seen some passion here this afternoon. I would hope the Senator from Minnesota would suggest to Senator Harkin, maybe there is a pathway where we can get predictability in the number of amendments, predictability in the time it takes to mark this up, with some accommodation to the sensitivities that Senator Paul and others have raised, because I hope the Senator from Minnesota will agree with me, there is not an urgency to do it this week, and if we could, when we come back from the end of October, have a hearing, I think we could have a pathway to mark up and completion.

Having said that, it probably will be a product that I couldn't support, I will aggressively try to amend, and I would be anxious and hopeful that I would have the opportunity again on the floor to try to affect its content.

But if the Senator will be an advocate for that, I think there is a pathway that doesn't in any way, shape, or form delay our ability in this institution to conference with the House or to present the President a bill. I would be more concerned with whether we produced the right product, and I think we can achieve that better.

I thank the Senator for yielding to me.

Madam President, I rise today to echo the comments of colleagues earlier about the contribution of Lamar Alexander, our friend and colleague, as well as somebody who has had an impact not just on the State of Tennessee but on the United States of America. I think one of the toughest things a Member of the Congress can do is to, No. 1, step down from leadership, or, No. 2, voluntarily leave the body.

I think it says more about Lamar Alexander than any comments that can be made; that he understands where he is going, and I think he stated it very well. His contribution to the future of this country is what he is most concerned with, and that is why this country is blessed to have leaders such as he. We welcome him back into the ranks of the normal, the general population of what has been the asylum of late. I hope Lamar will be a great influence in our ability to get the body of deliberative debate and participation back, and that is certainly his quest.

One of his passions, though, is education. I was shocked he didn't mention that in his litany of areas he would delve into. But I know earlier last week he and I and others introduced five reforms to K-12 education.

When we talk about the future, whether it is Senator Alexander or myself or others, we say the future of this country is conditional upon how well we educate the next generation and how we make sure the next generation has the foundational knowledge they need to compete in a 21st-century economy.

I think it is safe to say today our record is not good. Just 70 percent of our high school seniors graduate on time. Let me say that again: 70 percent of our high school seniors will graduate on time. Many of those will never go back. They will not cross the goal line. In today's economy, their likelihood of being invited for a job interview is slim to zero.

We have Federal laws that require an employer to accept an application from whoever walks in the door. However, when it gets down to the interview process, I can assure my colleagues that when employers look at that resume and it doesn't have high school graduation on it, they will certainly invite others who at least have that threshold of education, if not further degrees. So I think we owe it to the next generation to be candid with them and tell them that this is a minimum to have an opportunity for unlimited success.

If we ever get to a point that this is not about an opportunity of unlimited success, America will have changed greatly, and I think that is one of the passions Senator Alexander has. That is why he is so involved in issues such as education and why he is willing to sacrifice leadership for greater involvement in the policies.

In the bills we introduced last week, there were two that Lamar and I did together. Let me share with my colleagues what those bills do.

Today, we have 97 authorized programs and 59 of them are funded. They are all funded individually. That means we make money available to a State and consequently to a school district. But their requirement to access that money is they have to do exactly what we structured in the program. Many schools do not need that program, and they forego that money. Yet on the Senate floor we have debated frequently the need to get more resources into especially at-risk school districts to bolster that foundational education.

We simply leave title I alone--it is targeted at a specific population--but we take all these other 59 programs that were funded last year and meld them into two pots of money: One pot is designed for improvement in teaching and learning; the other pot is designed for safe and healthy student block grants.

You might say: Well, what if a school system does not need a fund for improvement of teaching and learning, but they do need more money for safe and healthy students? We allow 100 percent transferability between those two areas. So if a school system purely needs teaching and learning, and they want to focus on all of that, they will take that safe and healthy student block grant money and put it over into teaching and learning. By the same token, for school systems that might not see the benefits there, but they have a growing title I population, we allow 100 percent transferability up to the title I program.

What are we trying to accomplish? We are trying to do what school systems have told us year after year, decade after decade: Give us more flexibility. Let us decide what it is we need for our students to learn. This is not about input. This is about output. This is about focusing on how we improve education to where every child crosses that goal line of success; that then the foundational knowledge base is so great that they are marketable in whatever direction our economy decides to go.

The challenge for us--a lot like what Senator Alexander did today; he gave up power, a position in leadership--it means the Congress has to give up the power of deciding exactly how every school system is going to implement programs. We have to be big enough to realize that the one-size-fits-all structure from Washington does not work; that every school system in America is a little bit unique; and, yes, we recognize the fact that not every State is necessarily the best fiduciary of the funds. This legislation only requires the States to siphon off 1.5 percent of the money. We are not going to build a palace or create a bureaucracy in State capitals in education off of these programs anymore. The intent is to take this money and put it into the classroom; make sure the skills of the teacher are better; make sure, in fact, we are teaching teachers the right way to teach today.

I know we are not allowed to have electronics on the Senate floor. We hide them in our pockets real well. Kids are not allowed to have electronics in school. They hide them in their pockets real well. When we all leave where it is prohibited, this is the first thing we pull out of our pockets. We check our messages. We check sports scores. We check the news. Some of us old people make phone calls. But we have a generation that does nothing but text.

They are different than I am. I am a little bit different than Lamar. Every generation is going to be different. But walk in a classroom today, and the first thing a teacher says is, Open your book to page 44. Yet in between the covers of a book we have a generation that has never delved into it. They have gone between the covers of their iPad, their Kindle, their PDA in their pockets. They read books, they play games, but they do it in a different way.

It is time for us to recognize the fact that they learn differently because they communicate differently. Our ability is to take somebody my age who still has a passion for the classroom and to change the way they teach

through how we take them through continuous education. You see, effectiveness is, in part, connecting with the people we are trying to teach. If we do that in the right way, we are going to be successful.

I am not trying to create the model in Washington and to say to the States and localities: Here is the only way you can do it. We are trying to give them the flexibility of the money, and let them design the programs they think will work. Again, with that, though, it requires us to let go of that power of accountability. There is no reason for Washington to be accountable for every K-12 system in this country. We can be a partner, and I think the appropriate role is a financial partner. But as to accountability, I do not want to be in Washington determining whether a school is a pass or a fail or whether a teacher is highly qualified. At best, it is arbitrary that we would come up with something.

I want to empower communities, I want to empower parents, I want to empower the business community to say: You determine success and failure. I want to empower principals and administrators: You determine whether teachers are qualified.

I do not want to sit in Washington and define how pharmacists who have lost their passion to work in a drugstore cannot shift over and become chemistry teachers in a high school because I have determined they are not qualified to do it. Yet, day in and day out, I would go into the pharmacy, and I would allow them to compound drugs for me. But they cannot go in a classroom and explain to kids how that works or, more importantly, how the interaction of compounds actually happens. That is not my role. It is not our role. Our role is to encourage, by making sure the tools are there for those closest to the problem to come up with solutions.

Well, what we did last week was a minor step in the right direction. I hope my colleagues will look at the legislation and will entertain cosponsoring it. I hope the Secretary of Education will look at it, even though we have had conversations that have continued since the first of the year, and we have a ranking member and a chairman engaged in the reauthorization of elementary and secondary education right now. I hope we influence their ability to get some type of an agreement.

But I think it is also important to understand that within the context of this issue are things that all of us know work. Let me give you a couple examples.

Senator Kirk introduced a bill on expansion of charter schools. Why is that important? It is not important because we simply want to create competition with the public model. Charter schools have become an incubator of new ideas, of new ways to teach.

In Houston, TX, some former Teach for America students created KIPP Academy and immediately had such success that they exported KIPP Academy to New York. Their intent was to go from New York to Atlanta, and somehow they happened to stop in Northampton County, NC, in a little town called Gaston. It is in the middle of nowhere. But like all of North Carolina, it is beautiful. Its students are at risk. There is no economic driver in that county. But for some reason, KIPP stopped there and created a school. Now we have taken underperforming students and through KIPP all of them excel.

I can take you to Charlotte, NC, where KIPP finally found a home and was located next door to the elementary school. There is no way anybody can claim they draw from a different population. They draw from the same school neighborhood. Yet if we compare KIPP to the traditional elementary school next door, the performance of those students is off the charts. At some point, we have to look at it and say: This model works. How do we replicate it? But we are hung up in that one is public and one is charter.

Well, let me tell you, if we could replicate all of them to be KIPP, I would not care what we call them, and I would care less about how we funded them. I would only care about the outcome, how many students have the education foundation we need. In KIPP's case, it is almost 100 percent.

One big component of KIPP is the fact that they plug in to Teach for America graduates, teachers who enter the system knowing that for a period of time their agreement is they are going into at-risk areas; they are going in dealing with students ``somebody'' has deemed hard to complete the process. They go in with a different passion. They do not go in surprised with the makeup of the students in their classroom on the first day. They go in expecting this job to be tough, knowing their creativity and their innovation is going to be challenged.

What we have found so far is that for those Teach for America graduates, they end up staying longer than, in fact, the contractual period of time. They find it is much easier, but also much more satisfying, to take the most at risk and to make sure they have that education foundation that is needed.

That is incorporated into these bills. It is not just left to a simple line item that, in this particular case, I think, has been zeroed out in the President's budget. But it can be incorporated into this where we cannot only fund but we can expand Teach for America. With Senator Kirk's bill we can expand what KIPP is doing. We can challenge other individuals in other areas of the country to create KIPP-like models that work.

My challenge today is to assure all Members of the Senate and all Americans. Our kids deserve us to try. We have been dictating from Washington for decades, and we continue to see 30-plus percent of our kids not reach that goal line. If they do, they do it in a way that is not necessarily advantageous to their future.

If we want our country to continue to prosper, if we want to continue to be the innovator of the world, then we have to create a pool, a generation of kids, where 100 percent of them are prepared to compete. I think that is exactly why Senator Alexander stated he was willing to give up the rein of leadership, to be more integrally involved in the solutions that are crafted on this floor and in this Congress. That is why I said earlier, America has benefited because we have people such as Lamar Alexander here.

I am convinced that over the next several months, the reauthorization of elementary and secondary education will be front and center. I can only ask my colleagues that they spend the time looking at some of the suggestions that are on the table already. Authorship means nothing to me. It is outcome. Change the bill in a way that still stays within this framework--I will be a cosponsor of anything. Start to make Washington more dominant in the control of how the money is used or what the programs look like--I have been there. We have tried that. Not only does it not work, educators have told us it is increasingly more frustrating for them and they will drop out of the system.

We have to create a system that is a magnet for talent, a magnet for people who are as passionate as Lamar Alexander, something that gives us hope in the future that our kids have a better chance of succeeding than they have had over the past few decades. I think the Empowering Local Educational Decision Making Act of 2011 is a start, and I think the next generation is worth the investment of time on the part of our Members to look at this legislation and to get behind it.

I thank the Acting President pro tempore and yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from a State once owned by North Carolina, and a distinguished Member of this August body.

What are we doing here today? We are responding to what every CEO has said and every local leader has said and every parent has said: If you want a future in this country, you have to fix K-12 education. We have to make sure every child in this country has the foundational knowledge to meet whatever challenge they are faced with in a lifetime.

Washington is good at coming up with new programs and, to be honest, when we look back over the history of the last couple decades, every year we come up with a new program to fix K-12. What is obvious? We never fix it. But what we hear loudly and clearly from people who are on the front lines--those elected and those nonelected and those who are charged with educating our children--is give them flexibility. We can't design one program in Washington that works in Raleigh, NC, and works in Knoxville, TN, much less in rural North Carolina or rural Tennessee.

What I propose is very simple: that 59 pots of money, 59 different programs, be merged into two pots, and that

those local school systems have the flexibility and the capability to choose what they are going to use that money for to educate our kids. What a novel thought, that we would take the people on the front line-- for the first time, I am suggesting that Washington give up the power we have to say: You do it our way or you will not get the money.

We are faced in the future with some degree of austerity. We are not going to have the money to throw it out and see what works. But that is Washington's typical response. Now it is time to begin to focus not on that we think works but what the teachers and the principals and the elected officials locally, but more importantly, the community decides works.

Senator Isakson alluded to a number of factors we use as to how we gauge success or failure. I will tell my colleagues the gauge we ought to have: What does a parent think? The likelihood is that by the time we get those standard tests, it is probably too late to fix it for their kids, but it may fix it for somebody else's.

What we are attempting to do today as we reform K-12 education through these bills is to lay the gauntlet down and say that no child will be exposed to an inferior education in the future because we are going to empower--not Washington--we are going to empower the local community.

Again, what I am simply doing in the Empowering Local Education Decision Making Act of 2011 is to take 59 programs under elementary and secondary education and put them into flexible foundational block grants. Some might say the State is going to steal money off it. No. We limit it to 1.5 percent to administer the program. It has a formula that satisfies exactly how this money is going to be distributed so it is done fairly.

Where we don't exercise Washington authority is we don't tell the local school system: Here is the only way you can use it. We say to the local school system: Here are 59 programs. You pick the ones that best fit what your needs are in your community. In addition to that, those two pots of money we have created are 100 percent transferable. If you feel that one pot doesn't meet the need which might be in your area, then you can shift all of that money over to the other pot. So if you believe that focusing on teacher quality is better versus students, you have the flexibility to do it without asking us for a waiver. In addition to that, if title I is where you need additional funds, both pots of money are transitional to title I for additional support for at-risk kids.

That is something we have never done. Just this week I received a letter from the Council of Great City Schools, a coalition, by the way, of our Nation's largest central school districts. In their letter they wrote this:

Both Title II and Title IV of the Elementary Secondary

Education Act have become unwieldy and unfocused over the

past authorizations, and are in substantial need of

rewriting. Your effort to simplify and clarify the purposes

and flexibilities within these key programs is noteworthy.

With budgetary constraints faced at all levels of

government, streamlining federal requirements, providing

predictable and consolidated formula-based funding streams to

local school districts, and ensuring local district decision

making in the use of funds under your bill is particularly

welcome.

I urge my colleagues to read these bills. Look at your school systems. Make a decision that is right for the future of every child in this country and support our reauthorization efforts.

I thank the Senator from Tennessee.

Mr. President, am I incorrect that the other side has a speaker coming at 11 o'clock?

I will take whatever time the Chair gives me. I will yield, when I need to, to the other side.

Let me add to what my good friend from Missouri talked about. That is about the Federal commitment to disaster. North Carolina happens to be one of those States that is probably the most recent. We welcome the attention of FEMA, but we

also have the last disaster before. And just like he expects the promises to be fulfilled, even though we are first in line now, we expect the promises to be fulfilled to those who are already out there. Our country is great enough to do it. It is the greatest country in the world. But it means we have got to do it in a responsible way. Part of that means we need to pay for it. I hope my colleagues will join what I think will be a House effort to expedite the funding needed for disaster relief but to do it in a way that we do not charge future generations because of our fiscal irresponsibility.

I had the opportunity to participate in a colloquy earlier on reforms to K-12 education. I wish to take the few remaining minutes I have to talk a little bit more about that, because I think to some degree we hear about education and the failures of K-12.

Senator Kirk alluded to some charter schools in Chicago. I want to mention a school nobody hears about. It is called the KIPP Academy. Technically, it is a charter school. It started in Houston, TX. Then it expanded. Its second location was in New York City. Its third location was targeted to be Atlanta, but halfway between Atlanta and New York they found a little county in rural North Carolina. It is called Northampton County, and a little community there called Gaston, NC, the last place you would expect a Texas innovative charter school to say, let's put a facility here. Predominantly minority; clearly below the average income level of every county in North Carolina; challenged for economic development. They do not have the infrastructure. But KIPP looked at it and said: You know, no child should go without what we are out there to offer. Today the success rate of that school is off the chart. But it also is in every KIPP location that has opened.

When you have successes such as that, whether they are in Houston, TX, or New York City, or Gaston, NC, the responsible thing is to stop and take a breath and ask yourself: What have they figured out that either we have not in Washington or what flexibility do they have that we do not give everybody else?

When you walk into a KIPP school, it is markedly different as soon as you walk in the door. Most kids are in uniforms. The school day is longer. The teachers are partners in education, which begs me to talk a little bit about Teach for America, the program that many Members of Congress support.

Teach for America challenged the next generation of kids who want to be educators to commit a certain portion of their life in these at-risk locations. It is a program we ought to support because its standards for its teachers exceed the definition we have for ``highly qualified.'' As a matter of fact, not only do their credentials make them one of the best individuals to put into a classroom, you match that with their passion for their students to succeed, and all of a sudden you have got a formula for success regardless of the socioeconomic conditions of the child who came.

Well, I fear Teach for America is not going to get the attention of Congress that it should. Yet across this country, when you find successful, qualified teachers, they have come out of this program. The commitment to be there for 2 years or 3 years or 5 years is no longer a contract that they are waiting for the end of; they are looking for the opportunity to make this a career.

It is those teachers, those Teach for America graduates, who are finding their way to being the principals of schools, to being elected on the school board, to being involved in areas that, for once, now these Teach for America graduates are challenging traditional education to live up to what this obligation is they have got. That is to make sure that every child has the foundational education they need to compete.

It does not matter whether the example I talk about is the KIPP Academy charter model that was started in Houston or whether it is the Noble Street charter that was created in Chicago. All of these examples were not created here. They were not created in Congress or in Washington. Yet what typically we do is we try to import the solution from here.

I will be the first to tell you, a principal is much closer to your children than the Congress of the United States. They are much closer to the school. They are much closer to the school system. They have greater influence on the outcome. Where have we been influencing education? We influence it on the input side, not the output side, because we say: Here is some money. We have got some money. But you can only use it for this because we have determined this is the solution to the problem. KIPP sort of broke the mold. They said: Our mission is to educate every child. We want to see them succeed.

Let me give my colleagues an example. In Charlotte, NC, they opened a KIPP Academy, K-8, next door to a traditional K-6 school. There is no way anybody can look at it and say, this drew kids who were in a different neighborhood. No, it drew kids from exactly the same neighborhood. But if you look at the performance side by side physically, the performance of the kids in the KIPP far exceeds the performance of the kids in the traditional public school system.

(Mr. BROWN of Ohio assumed the chair.)

Why? Because KIPP officials have the flexibility to design how they educate those children. The goal at the end is the same--to meet a standard of performance, to meet an educational level that is set nationally.

To me, it only makes common sense for us to see the ones that exceed the goals we set and ask how do we import what they do into the rest of our K-12 system? Part of it is recognizing the fact that up here we don't have the solutions; we are merely a financial partner. That is one of the reasons this morning I introduced a bill. What that bill does is it takes 59 pots of money--59 separate programs that were funded last year. In one area, we call it the fund for improvement of teaching and learning, to say we can take 59 programs and combine them into two pots of money; one is teaching and learning and the second one is safe and healthy students.

In the teaching and learning area, we have consolidated about 24 funding programs into one. We have said to local educators that they can use this money however they want, if their focus is teaching and learning, and they can pull out of the other pot any moneys they need for programs that address safe and healthy students.

We went a step further and said, if one of these pots of money doesn't work for them, then we will give them 100 percent transferability from one pot to the other. So if their objective and their need is greater in teaching and learning, we will give them the ability to take the safe and healthy student money and throw it over into the teaching and learning pot so they can access more funds.

In addition, some communities across the country might need additional help in title I, at-risk students. We allow 100 percent transferability of both of those into title I. For those concerned with title I, not only do we not touch it, we make it available to receive additional funding if a school system decides to do it, not a bureaucrat in Washington, DC.

Under the fund of improving teaching and learning, States and local school districts may use funds for activities and programs that meet the purposes of the fund for the improvement of teaching and learning and their unique and individual needs. These may include evaluation systems for teachers and principals that take into account data on student academic achievement and growth as a significant factor.

That is exactly what Senator Isakson was talking about, the need for accountability. But we are trying to take a majority of the responsibility for accountability and send it to the local school systems. All we can see are numbers up here in comparison to what our goal is for people to hit. I am concerned that a community takes ownership in the performance of their school system because that community is reliant on their success for their future.

My hope is, school systems and communities around the country will see this as a tremendous opportunity to once again not only take control of local education but to be empowered to make decisions on the way they teach our kids.

It reforms teacher and principal certifications, recertifications, licensing, and tenure; alternative routes for State certification of teachers and

principals, including mid-career professionals from other occupations, former military personnel, and recent college or university graduates with records of academic distinction who demonstrate the potential to become highly effective teachers and principals.

There is this whole pool of people we exclude because they didn't go through a traditional method of being classified a teacher. Yet their base of knowledge, their expertise and, I suggest, their passion, in many cases, exceeds those who might be in the classroom today.

Is it reasonable to believe that a pharmacist has the institutional knowledge to teach chemistry? I hope so because we trust him every day when we go into a pharmacy. If a pharmacist feels impassioned enough that he or she wants to go into a high school and teach chemistry, what they might lack in the educational process of becoming a teacher they certainly have in knowledge; but more important, they may have the passion to want to be in there and, more important, they have an understanding of why the success of that student is absolutely vital.

It includes performance pay systems; differential, incentive, and bonus pay for teachers in high-need academic subjects and specialty areas and teachers in high-poverty schools and districts; teacher achievement initiatives that promote professional growth, multiple career paths, and pay differentiation.

Everywhere else in the world we pay bonuses for performance. In the government, we pay bonuses even when people don't perform. I haven't quite figured that out. When we introduce bonuses, it is not based upon whether somebody--an agency or a department--succeeded; it becomes part of their annual stipend. We have to revisit that. Why would we institute it in government and then suggest that when we import this into K-12 education, somehow it is wrong?

The only reason it is wrong is because the teachers union doesn't like it because they don't negotiate. That has to change. The teachers union doesn't know our children. The truth is, the only reason the majority of the teachers actually join the union is because they are the only source of liability coverage, liability insurance that teachers can get. The fact is, you and I would not teach in a classroom without liability insurance, based upon the accusations and charges some families come up with against teachers. Ask them, if you don't believe me. Maybe we ought to look at the Federal umbrella and allow teachers to access liability from us and maybe contract with a third- party insurer and give them the opportunity to go into that classroom and only be concerned with educating children. I have never had anybody from Teach for America talk to me about liability coverage. They only come and talk to me about the success of their students or the need to expand programs at work and about the need for flexibility at the local level because they have gone to multiple school districts and they do things differently, because that is where the administration told them they had to go to get their Federal money.

I am suggesting a radical change: Taking 59 programs, put them into two pots, shake them up, and say: You pick what is best for the school system you are in.

With safe and healthy student block grants, the local districts could use the funds for activity and programs to meet the purposes of safe and healthy students and their individual needs, which are not limited to drug and violence prevention activities and programs, before and afterschool programs, including during summer recess periods, and programs that extend the schoolday, week, and school year calendar.

It includes school-based mental health services. Some of these sound eerily familiar because we have heard people in our community saying we are not doing enough in mental health. That may not be the issue in the community next to us. This now allows the flexibility for the school systems that need to access it to access it. I think every Member here wants to make sure there are afterschool opportunities for the many families in which both the husband and wife work.

Up to this point, we said: Here is the program; you have to use this program. Now what I am saying is: Here is the money; you decide what program best fits your school system. It may not be at the local rec center; it may actually be in the school. Think about it. It is already a facility we own. We are going to have to heat it and cool it. Why not utilize it other than just during the meat of the education day?

It includes emergency intervention services following traumatic crises. It seems every year we have these events that happen, and sometimes we forget the effect it has on these students. I talked earlier about eastern North Carolina and the effect of Hurricane Irene. I have communities right now where people have not been able to return to their homes. The road is gone, the power is not back on, and the only access is by ferry. Don't for a minute believe this doesn't have an effect on a fifth grader. Maybe school had only been in effect about a week, but they are traumatized from it. If it is identified by a school system, now they have the flexibility to treat that, because I can assure you that if they are traumatized, the ability to learn is probably minimized.

There are programs that train school personnel to identify warning signs of youth suicide. I would like to suggest that doesn't exist, but the truth is, we know it does. In many cases, it is identified by the people who spend the most time with them, which are the teachers, coaches, and administrators. They don't have the capacity to intervene in any way, shape or form. Now the flexibility is at least there.

I am not suggesting that any of these areas are things school systems have to do. But I think, for once, we have laid out a buffet and said they can pick and choose what works. If I could best summarize where I think our focus should be in Washington on K-12, it is on the outcome. Are our kids learning?

Last year, about 66 percent of our Nation's high schoolers graduated on time. In North Carolina, it was barely over 70 percent graduating on time. Let me assure the pages who are here and young folks who might be listening to this, there is a Federal law that says every company has to accept an application from somebody who is looking for a job. There is no Federal law that says they have to interview that applicant. If you are an employer today and you have 100 applications and 98 have a high school diploma and two of them don't, I can assure you the two who don't have a high school diploma will not be invited back for an interview. They are out of the pool of selection because that has become the base minimum for consideration of a job that might have any upward mobility. It doesn't mean every child has to have a 4-year degree. But it does mean, from a standpoint of the business world, business has sort of cut it off and said our threshold is a high school diploma. A high percentage of our kids are not graduating from high school on time. If I was on the floor talking about health care today, we would call this an epidemic and we would fix it. No, this is education. This is somebody else's children. I have raised mine and educated mine.

This is the future fabric of America. We can either fix education or the rest of the world will clean our clock economically in the future. The secret to long-term success is making sure we field a team of highly gifted, knowledgeable Americans. If we plan to do that with a high of 60 percent of our kids with barely a high school diploma, I assure you the rest of the world will see that as an opportunity to surpass us and bury us. We have an opportunity to fix it now.

We talked earlier about No Child Left Behind--the right direction of legislation that was severely implemented incorrectly. It could have been a real winner if people embraced it, but they didn't. Now, 9 years later, 4 years after we were supposed to assess its success, make changes, and reauthorize it, we are in the ninth year, struggling to put together a reauthorization bill--in large measure because up until now everybody wanted to try to create a Washington bill to initiate solutions to elementary and secondary education versus a local approach that Washington is a partner in that provides flexibility and imagination.

We are going to spend a lot of time between now and the end of the year because it is vital we get reauthorization in 2011. I don't think we can let another class of students suffer through the lack of flexibility in the school systems they live in.

Senator Kirk talked about the need to expand charter school opportunities. I am for it. I cosponsored the bill. But just because there has been a private alternative that works, let's also face the reality that we are not going to put every child in America in a charter school. We might ought to, but we are not. And unless we want to say up front that everybody who is not in a charter school is going to suffer and they are not going to have the educational foundation kids over here have, then we better do both at the same time--provide that new avenue of education, which is an expansion of charter school opportunities; challenge the private sector, like KIPP stepped up; and design a school that works and at the same time look at the public side of it and say: What do we need to do as a country?

I would suggest, when we honestly look at that and we focus on outcome versus input, what we will find is we have to empower more of the local community. We have to challenge business leaders in that community to hold the school system accountable. We have to challenge parents to actually look at the performance of their children and to hold those principals and administrators and teachers accountable for the performance of their kids. We have to make sure a community sees the success of education as the ability for that community to grow in the future.

When you go into a community, the worst thing you can hear, as a Member of Congress, is that when the kids graduate from high school, they never return. They never return because the business opportunities aren't there. Usually that is rooted in the fact that K-12 in that community doesn't work because wherever you have an educated workforce, you have a company looking to make investments.

I have heard my colleagues say that North Carolina has unfair advantages in economic development; that we have 58 community colleges, and that gives us something to sell that everybody else doesn't have; that we have the mountains and the beach, and that is not something everybody has. It is all a good thing to sell, but let me tell you what North Carolina really has. Let me tell you why companies around the world are investing in North Carolina. It is because we produce the second largest pool of graduates of higher education annually than any State in the country other than California. When a company invests $1 billion in North Carolina, they know every year they can reach into the graduate pool and have a shot at getting the cream of the crop of those students. Why would it be any different for a company looking at locating in any community? If they look at a community that has a pitiful performance in K-12, why would they ever think of making the investment there? They will make the investment where the future workforce is available. If they believe the kids graduate and leave and never come back, they will look for where those kids moved to and make their investment there.

If we want to keep communities alive, whether they are in Ohio or North Carolina, we have to find a way to make K-12 a success in every community, big and small, urban and rural, and it starts by legislation that empowers those local school systems and, more importantly, shifts accountability from Washington and puts it back into the community, makes it the responsibility of the officials, the business leaders, and, most important, the parents.

Mr. President, I thank the Chair for accommodating me this morning. I noticed the other speaker didn't come in, so I am thrilled I was given the extra time.

I urge my colleagues over the months to come to pay attention to the K-12 reauthorization. There are many proposals out there. Not all will work, and we are not assured any are certain to succeed. But if you look for guidance, talk to the people who are closest to the problem. What they are screaming for today is the flexibility to put the money where it can have the greatest effect on the outcome of education, and that is this legislation.

I thank the Chair. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the 10th anniversary of September 11, 2001.

This year, like every year that has passed since, our nation reflects back on the horrific attacks that cost the lives of 2,977 men, women, and children in New York, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon, and on the brave men and women who have laid their lives down since then in defense of the freedoms and security we so often take for granted.

These coordinated attacks on our Nation had such a profound impact on our society and our world view that we now look at our recent history in two different phases, pre-9/11 and post-9/11. They made us more aware of the threats that we face as a nation, and they woke us up to the cold reality that the things we hold most dear as Americans are the very things that make us a target for terrorism.

However, these attacks and our collective response had a much deeper, more profound impact than that--they brought us together in a way that nothing else has since the Second World War, and they underscored the same spirit that has characterized our Nation and its citizens since America's founding. It is this spirit that truly sets America apart and makes us unique. It is a sense of perseverance and determination, a loyalty to our fellow Americans, and the willingness to risk it all for what we believe in. This spirit was forged in the fires of revolution, grew strong in the face of adversity, and has defined the character of our Nation since its inception.

These attacks were not just directed at buildings and people. They were meant to hit us at our core, to attack our very way of life and everything we stand for. They sought to instill fear and doubt in us, but they failed. They sought to intimidate us and disrupt our communities, but they failed. What they did was bind us together in a unified front to stand up to these injustices and push forward with the same spirit and character that the terrorists sought to destroy. We stood together, and in one collective voice said, ``We will not be intimidated, and we will not be held down. We are Americans, and we stand together.''

Ten years have passed since that fateful September morning, and not an American alive at the time will ever forget the horrors of that day. Those whom we lost will remain in our hearts forever, and images of the aftermath are permanently engrained in our memories. We came together to cope with a national tragedy and were reminded not of those things that divide us, but of those things that unify us. In the wake of tragedy, we found hope.

Though a decade has passed since then, I urge all Americans to look back to the days and weeks that followed 9/11 and remember that sense of unity and patriotism that was so prevalent. Though it is our diversity and differences that, in part, make us such a great and unique Nation, it is our common bonds that make us Americans. Let us put our differences aside and once again focus on those things that bind us, for we are all Americans, and we will forever be one nation under God.