Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I am reintroducing a bill to reform the Capital Construction Fund to address major changes in the Nation's fisheries and to allow the Nation's fishers to have access to needed funds to prevent overfishing and to help create jobs.

The Capital Construction Fund, CCF, program was originally developed at a time when American fishers were having a hard time competing with highly efficient foreign fishing vessels, modern boats that often harvested U.S. fishery resources within sight of our own shores. The initial idea behind the CCF Program was to enable U.S. fishers to accumulate the funds necessary to develop a modern fishing fleet by allowing them to deposit a portion of their fishing-related earnings into a CCF savings account on a tax-deferred basis. Under the CCF program, monies subsequently withdrawn from the CCF accounts would remain tax free as long as they were invested in new or rebuilt fishing vessels. At the same time, any unauthorized withdrawals from CCF accounts were subject to severe interest and other penalties.

The program was a success; the CCF program helped the U.S. industry build a modern state-of-the-art fishing fleet. Unfortunately, that fleet has now become overcapitalized, a problem that has been exacerbated as managers have become more and more concerned about potential overfishing and have begun to reduce the amount of fish that they allow fishers to catch each year. As a result, the U.S. commercial fishing fleet now has more harvesting capacity than the U.S. fishery resource can sustainably support. The problem now is that the monies that remain on deposit in CCF accounts represent a potential for further overcapitalization at a time when less capitalization is needed. Yet the CCF regulations currently penalize withdrawals made for anything other than a bigger or better boat.

The issue now is what to do about the money that remains ``stranded'' in existing CCF accounts. Ironically, just as the current generation of fishers is getting ready to retire, the program puts heavy penalties on them if they take money out of their CCF accounts without using it for anything other than to further capitalize an already overcapitalized fleet.

The resulting situation is problematic for the fishers, the industry and the resource. That's why I am reintroducing legislation today along with my colleague Senator Murkowski--to address the problem of stranded capital still on deposit in various CCF accounts and to relieve the pressure to increase further capitalization of the fishing fleet. My legislation will enable CCF fundholders to make a one-time withdrawal from their CCF accounts without requiring them to reinvest it in the fishing industry. Instead, they will be required to pay the taxes due on the monies withdrawn, but without having to pay interest or other penalties on such withdrawals. Those funds would be freed up for other purposes, including starting a new business and finding other ways to support and create jobs. An income-averaging formula would be applied to the withdrawals so as to avoid an excessive tax rate on the one-time withdrawal. The fishers taking advantage of such an opportunity to take money out of their CCF accounts penalty free would then be required to close their CCF accounts and would be prohibited from further participation in the program. This is a win-win-win situation. The fisher gets to take the money out of his CCF without having to pay penalties and interest, but still pays the taxes when due; the government gets taxes on the withdrawals; and the resource and the fishers who remain in the fishery avoid further capitalization of an already overcapitalized industry.

I look forward to working with Senator Murkowski, the fishing community, and the bill's other supporters to advance this legislation to the President's desk.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Coats, who is on the floor, and I be allowed up to 15 minutes to pursue a discussion about tax reform as if in morning business.

Madam President, Senator Coats and I have introduced bipartisan tax reform legislation. It is the first comprehensive overhaul of tax reform law in 25 years, since 1986, when then-President Reagan and Democrats got together and worked on a bipartisan reform that cleaned out scores of special interest tax breaks in order to hold down rates for all Americans and keep progressivity.

Senator Coats and I have worked also with Senator Gregg. I had that good fortune for a number of years, and

have picked up on some of what was done in 1986 by President Reagan and a large group of Democrats. He and I intend, in the days ahead, to come to the floor of the Senate and talk about some of the most offensive aspects of our totally dysfunctional tax system.

Today, we thought we would begin by discussing the alternative minimum tax. It seems to be pretty much the poster child for what is broken about the American tax system. It was enacted in 1969, after the Congress learned that 3 years earlier 155 wealthy taxpayers had paid no tax at all. The alternative minimum tax was designed to hit what amounted to a small group of tax evaders and not the millions of middle-class taxpayers who get shellacked by the AMT every single springtime. The problem has been that Congress has never indexed the AMT brackets for inflation.

While the regular tax bracket standard deductions and exemptions do get adjusted for inflation, the brackets and exemptions of the alternative minimum tax do not. As a result, millions of middle-class taxpayers, whose only fault is their incomes grew with the economy, now slip into this nefarious alternative minimum tax zone each year.

I would be interested, for purposes of starting this colloquy, to get the reaction of my friend and partner on it. We are going to bring up a number of these aspects of the tax system that cry out for overall reform. But I wonder what my friend's sense is about starting today with the alternative minimum tax, and how important it is that reform is done there for middle-class folks in Indiana and around the country.

Madam President, I hope that folks paying attention to this tax reform debate pick up on what Senator Coats has just described. When the alternative minimum tax was first debated, the country was talking about 155 people. These were the so-called wealthy folks. They were paying no taxes at all. What Senator Coats has just described is, next year, what started as a program to try to make sure that 155 people didn't end up getting a sweetheart deal, now we are going to see 34 million people crushed by this inequitable kind of tax, a kind of bureaucratic water torture.

We have about the same numbers in Oregon that Senator Coats has in Indiana. In 2008, 44,000 Oregon taxpayers had to pay the alternative minimum tax. Without some kind of extension or, as Senator Coats and I essentially want to do, abolishment of the alternative minimum tax, that is going to rise to close to 400,000 next year. The people who are getting hammered by this alternative minimum tax certainly don't fit that small class of the so-called freeloading wealthy folks who are figuring out ways to pay nothing.

For example, a woman earns $65,000 in 2010, say she manages a health club, she has three kids, she has to file her taxes independent of her husband because they are in the middle of a divorce. As someone who is married, filing separately, she would have been hit by the AMT in 2010, according to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Think about that, a woman who manages a health club making $65,000, with three kids, filling out her taxes and going through the unbelievable headaches, being singled out under the alternative minimum tax.

I ask my friend from Indiana--and I am sure he has very similar people in Indiana--is that the kind of person the alternative minimum tax was designed to scoop up back in 1969?

Would the Senator agree that the difficulty of projecting the AMT tax liability makes it tough

for taxpayers to compute their estimated tax payments and creates a situation in which, just because of its complexity, they can get hit with penalties?

I think the reason Oregonians are concerned about this--we have heard about it in the Senate Finance Committee--is that the AMT is essentially a separate tax system with its own tax rates and deduction rules which are less generous than regular rates and regular rules. This contributes to the tax-filing nightmare. The only way you can tell if you owe the alternative minimum tax is by filling out the forms or by being audited by the Internal Revenue Service. If it turns out you should have paid the alternative minimum tax and didn't, you owe back taxes plus any penalties or interests the IRS wants to dole out.

My question is, I ask my good friend, how in the world is a typical taxpayer going to be able to make sense out of something like that which lots of accountants tell me they cannot even sort through?

The distinguished majority leader is here. I think we are about to wrap up. I am certainly happy to yield to him if he needs a few minutes to do the business of the Senate, and then Senator Coats and I will wrap up.

Madam President, just to wrap up, Senator Coats and I are going to come to the floor in the weeks ahead to outline some of the most outlandish examples of how broken our tax system is. We thought it was appropriate to start with the alternative minimum tax because it really is the poster child for how out of whack the American tax system has become. I think we have highlighted a number of our big concerns, but I want Senators to pick up on the last point Senator Coats made, and that is that the country cannot afford the status quo.

The idea that you would just go out and pass what is called a patch, a kind of bandaid to try to make sure some of the pain is minimized for middle-class folks--the most recent patch for just 2 years cost $135 billion. The 10-year cost to make the current patch permanent is $683 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. A patch does not protect everybody; it just limits the damage.

What we want to say as we start this debate about how to go forward with tax reform is that the Congress cannot continue to handle the AMT with a patch. The country cannot afford it. Patching the AMT costs way too much, especially given the discussions we are having here, bipartisan discussions about how to deal with the Federal debt.

The only affordable way to fix the alternative minimum tax, as Senator Coats has outlined this afternoon, is to fix it once and for all and do it within the context of comprehensive tax reform; to pick it up, as was done in the 1980s when a Republican President got together with Democratic Members of Congress and cleaned out special interest loopholes to hold down rates for everybody and give all Americans the opportunity to get ahead while still having a progressive tax system.

We would repeal the alternative minimum tax once and for all and do it in a way that does not add to the Federal deficit. This is not Senator Coats and I plucking a figure out of the sky. The Joint Committee on Taxation has analyzed our bill, and under their analysis, Senator Coats and I eliminate the alternative minimum tax without adding to the Federal deficit. In my view, that is a pretty good way to start tax reform, start it in a bipartisan way and particularly by focusing on something that is so inequitable to hard-working middle- class people.

I thank my good friend from Indiana. I am prepared to yield the floor if my colleague has anything else he wants to say. I want to express my appreciation for the chance to work with him. We cannot deal with these big economic issues, the big economic challenges our country faces without going forward in a bipartisan way. I am very fortunate to have such an able partner. I thank him.

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

Mr. President, I rise today, once again, to advocate for patients and their access to more choice and competition in providing good quality health care by introducing The Ambulatory Surgical Center Quality and Access Act of 2011 with my colleague, Senator Crapo.

Advocates for health care reform and a healthier nation continue to emphasize the importance of keeping patients ``out of the hospital.'' ASCs can help do that by providing cost-effective services in an outpatient setting.

There are more than 5,200 Medicare-certified ASCs across all 50 States, with 83 in Oregon alone. These facilities, that employ the equivalent of 117,700 full-time workers nationwide, ensure that patients from Portland to Hermiston, from Klamath Falls to Coos Bay, have access to safe, effective, and quality surgical care.

But ASCs can do more than provide the same services found in a Hospital Outpatient Department; they can do it at lower cost. Medicare saves an estimated $3 billion each year when surgical procedures are performed in ASCs rather than hospitals due to ASC reimbursement equaling 56 percent of what a hospital receives.

Currently, Medicare uses two different factors to update reimbursement: one for ASCs and a different one for hospitals. ASC payments are updated based on the consumer price index, while hospital rates are updated using the hospital market basket, which specifically measures changes in the costs of providing health care. Both facilities can provide identical surgical procedures, so why aren't their respective reimbursements linked to the same update mechanism? Why should there be a double standard?

This inequity could have significant consequences for both patients' access to services and Medicare's rate of outpatient expenditures if facilities begin consolidating or hospitals begin acquiring these practices in an attempt to reimburse for the same services at a higher rate--and cost to the taxpayer.

The legislation Senator Crapo and I have introduced today, however, begins to address this in two ways: First, this bill creates parity by allowing ASC payment rates to be updated using the same market basket update hospitals use; and second, the bill goes a step further by establishing a Value-Based Purchasing program which will dispense shared savings payments based on quality reporting and improved performance.

The Ambulatory Surgical Center Quality and Access Act puts commonsense policies in place that will enhance patients' access to quality care in a cost-effective way. I urge my colleagues to join us in cosponsoring this important legislation.

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

Mr. President, I want to take a few minutes to discuss the underlying legislation, the Economic Development Administration bill, because I think, with the new numbers about the American economy--the joblessness and the trends--we are all looking for ways to encourage investment in the United States, and we are looking for ways to promote new industries that will create family wage jobs.

The Economic Development Administration has helped to do that in my home State and in other parts of the country. I want to take a few minutes and discuss that. I see the chairman of the Finance Committee. We may have gotten a little backed up, and I am anxious to hear from the chairman of the Finance Committee.

The area I want to talk about with respect to the Economic Development Administration involves nanotechnology. This is, in effect, the science of small stuff. We are seeing it pay off big in a whole host of energy-related applications, and in health care particularly, in terms of drugs and new medical devices. It has made a big difference at the Pentagon in terms of their looking at and adding carbon nanotubes to a number of the products we need to protect our warfighters.

The fact is, when we talk about this agency, we are seeing that a small public investment can leverage very substantial private sector investment in a way that is going to encourage jobs in the United States, and particularly in what I call the sunrise industries. It is sure making a difference.

For example, Wired magazine recently talked about growth in a number of key sectors. They said nanotechnology, between 2006 and 2010, grew more than 18 percent--one of our leading growth industries with jobs in the United States.

I, for one, thought we were going to see growth in a number of instances. We have seen bipartisan support for congressional efforts. The 21st century nanotechnology legislation in particular, signed by George W. Bush, is one piece of legislation I was especially proud of being part of because it encouraged research in this exciting field and had bipartisan support. It laid the groundwork for the next steps.

The next steps in particular involve using at EDA some modest public investments to leverage very substantial private investments in innovation. In my State, ONAMI, the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute, is on the cutting edge of nanotechnology research and application. It has been helped by the EDA agency.

Participants in ONAMI include Oregon's four largest public research universities, the National Science Foundation, the Departments of Defense, Energy, Commerce, and major corporations as well. What we have sought to do is to make sure in this extraordinarily exciting field we don't fall behind China and other global competitors. So there is huge potential. Federal efforts can support private sector initiatives in the nanotechnology field and together leverage U.S. advantages in innovation and technology and particularly facilitate job growth.

The Chair knows of Intel, which is a large employer in his State as in mine. That is the kind of company we are looking at for the future, where they pay good wages. We are seeing substantial growth, and they are looking to try to target nanotechnology in particular as a sunrise industry, as an area that is going to facilitate an opportunity for our country to lead.

America is in a fight for the future of nanotechnology. We are seeing China and a lot of our global competitors making major investments in this area. Our private sector is stepping up, but we ought to have the government partner as well. That is why EDA's support of nanotechnology and the innovation economy is so critical. They have partnered with the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health to promote innovative approaches in health and science.

I am proud to say, as part of a major economic challenge grant, the Oregon Innovation Cluster, of which ONAMI is a part, was one of the award winners. My State is not the only place where nanotechnology investments are being made. The Economic Development Administration has invested in nanotechnology throughout the country--in Colorado, the Mid-Atlantic Nanotechnology Alliance; in Tennessee and in South Carolina with the Clemson University Research Foundation. These are just a few examples, from Oregon all the way to the east coast of the United States, where the Economic Development Administration has helped entrepreneurs work to create jobs in exciting fields such as nanotechnology and helped us commercialize leading-edge technologies.

I hope my colleagues will support this bill. I particularly commend the chairman of the committee, Senator Boxer. Nanotechnology and EDA are a partnership where high-tech industries can help create good, high-paying jobs in America. I hope we will support this particular legislation.

Mr. President, today Sen. Crapo, Sen. Risch, Sen. Merkley, and I are introducing the Geothermal Production Expansion Act of 2011. The bill is aimed at making improvements to the Geothermal Steam Act and is very similar to legislation introduced in the 111th Congress as

Mr. President, today Sen. Crapo, Sen. Risch, Sen. Merkley, and I are introducing the Geothermal Production Expansion Act of 2011. The bill is aimed at making improvements to the Geothermal Steam Act and is very similar to legislation introduced in the 111th Congress as

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to engage in a colloquy between Senators Udall, Feinstein, and Merkley.

Mr. President, I am going to talk for just a couple of minutes about the issue of secret law that Senator Udall and I, as we are both members of the Intelligence Committee, have been working on for quite some time. Then I am going to yield to our friend, the distinguished chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Feinstein, for a colloquy.

What this issue is all about is this: I believe there are two PATRIOT Acts in America. The first is the text of the law itself, and the second is the government's secret interpretation of what they believe the law means.

As an example, several years ago Americans woke up to learn that the Bush administration had been secretly claiming for years that warrantless wiretapping was legal. This disclosure greatly undermined the public's trust in the Department of Justice and our national intelligence agencies, and it took Congress and the executive branch years to sort out the situation.

I believe the American people will also be extremely surprised when they learn how the PATRIOT Act is secretly being interpreted, and I believe one consequence will be an erosion of public confidence that makes it more difficult for our critically important national intelligence agencies to function effectively. As someone who served on the Intelligence Committee for 10 years, sitting right next to Senator Feinstein, I don't want to see that happen.

Let me yield now to Senator Udall. He will also have brief remarks, and any colleagues who want to speak, and then Senator Feinstein will lead us in the discussion of how we will be moving forward. So I yield to Senator Udall who has been an invaluable member on the Intelligence Committee. He and I have worked on this since the day he joined our committee, and I am so appreciative of his involvement.

Mr. President, I have enormous respect for my special friend from California, the distinguished chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee. I have literally sat next to her for more than a decade. We agree on virtually all of these issues, but this is an area where we have had a difference of opinion.

I have said I wouldn't support a long-term reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act without significant reforms, particularly in this area. I am especially troubled by the fact that the U.S. Government's official interpretation of the PATRIOT Act is secret, and I believe a significant gap has developed now between what the public thinks the law says and what the government secretly claims it says. That is why I and my colleagues from Oregon and Colorado and New Mexico have proposed an amendment that would make these legal interpretations public.

Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee for proposing this course of action for addressing the secret law issue. Obviously, colleagues would like more information on that, and they are going to be in a position to know that the Intelligence Committee is going to be examining it closely. I will just describe the next steps from there.

Senator Udall and I have discussed this issue with Senator Reid. Senator Reid indicated to the chairwoman and myself and Senator Udall that we would have an opportunity through these hearings--and, of course, any amendments to the bill would be discussed on the intelligence authorization legislation, which is a matter that obviously has to be classified--but if we were not satisfied, if we were not satisfied through that process, we would have the ability to offer an amendment such as our original one on the Senate floor.

Of course, the chairwoman would still retain full rights to oppose it, but we would make sure if this issue of secret law wasn't fixed and there wasn't an improved process to make more transparent and more open the interpretation of the law--not what are called sources and methods which are so important to protect our people--we would have an opportunity, if it wasn't corrected in the intelligence community, to come to the floor.

Senator Reid has just indicated to all of us that he would focus on giving us a vote if we believed it was needed on another bill--not the intelligence authorization--before September 30. So there is a plan to actually get this fixed, and that is what is key.

At this time I yield to the Senator from Colorado.

Mr. President, let me just make one last comment. I also wish to express my appreciation to Senator Merkley, who has been an extraordinarily outspoken advocate of our civil liberties and our privacy in striking a good balance between fighting terror and protecting the rights of our people, and I have so appreciated his leadership on this issue.

Let me sum up. First, I am very grateful to our chairwoman and pleased with this agreement. The chairwoman has indicated she believes those of us who want to reform secret law have raised a serious and important issue. Those are her words. We are grateful for that because we obviously believe very strongly about it. The chairwoman has said we will hold hearings promptly to examine the secret law issue, give serious consideration to looking at reforms in the fiscal year 2012 intelligence authorization bill, and then, per our conversations with the majority leader, if Senator Udall and I believed it had not been corrected on the intelligence authorization bill, we would have the right to offer--and certainly the chairwoman could oppose it--an amendment on the floor of the Senate on an unrelated bill. Senator Reid, to his great credit, in an effort to try to resolve this and move it along, said to the three of us that he would be working to do that.

Again, our thanks to the chairwoman and all of my colleagues on the floor, including Senator Merkley, who is not a member of the committee and knows an incredible amount about it and certainly showed that last night in our discussions and was very helpful. I wish to yield to him.

So with the cooperation the chairwoman has shown all of us who are trying to change this and the efforts of Senator Reid to make sure if we didn't work it out we could come back to the floor again, I withdraw the Wyden-Udall amendment for the time being. It ought to be clear to everybody in the Senate that we are going to continue to prosecute the cause of making more open and accountable the way the government interprets this law in making sure that the American people have the confidence that the way it is being interpreted is in line with the text of the legislation.

I withdraw at this time the Wyden-Udall amendment, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 1082, introduced earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read three times and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, and any statements relating to the matter be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Sessions be recognized to speak for up to 20 minutes for debate only.

Mr. President, the Senate is preparing to pass another 4- year extension of the USA PATRIOT Act. I have served on the Intelligence Committee for over a decade and I wish to deliver a warning this afternoon. When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the PATRIOT Act, they are going to be stunned and they are going to be angry. They are going to ask Senators: Did you know what this law actually permits? Why didn't you know before you voted on it? The fact is anyone can read the plain text of the PATRIOT Act. Yet many Members of Congress have no idea how the law is being secretly interpreted by the executive branch because that interpretation is classified. It is almost as if there are two PATRIOT Acts, and many Members of Congress have not read the one that matters.

Our constituents, of course, are totally in the dark. Members of the public have no access to the secret legal interpretations, so they have no idea what their government believes the law actually means.

I am going to bring up several historical examples to try to demonstrate what this has meant over the years. Before I begin, I wish to be clear I am not claiming any of the specific activities I discuss today are happening now. I am bringing them up because I believe they are a reminder of how the American people react when they learn about domestic surveillance activities that are not consistent with what they believe the law allows. When Americans learn about intelligence activities that are consistent with their understanding of the law, they look to the news media, they follow these activities with interest, and often admiration. But when people learn about intelligence activities that are outside the lines of what is generally thought to be the law, the reaction can get negative and get negative in a hurry.

Here is my first example. The CIA was established by the National Security Act of 1947 and the law stated that the agency was ``forbidden to have law enforcement powers or internal security functions.'' Members of the Congress and legal experts interpreted that language as a clear prohibition against any internal security function under any circumstances. A group of CIA officials had a different interpretation. They decided that the 1947 law contained legal gray areas that allowed the CIA to monitor American citizens for possible contact with foreign agents. They believed this meant they could secretly tap Americans' phones, open their mail, and plant listening devices in their homes, among other

things. This secret legal interpretation led the CIA to maintain intelligence files on more than 10,000 American citizens, including reporters, Members of Congress, and a host of antiwar activists.

This small group of CIA officials kept the program and their ``gray area'' justification to the program a secret from the American people and most of the government because, they argued, revealing it would violate the agency's responsibility to protect intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure. Did the program stay a secret? It didn't. On December 22, 1974, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh detailed the program on the front pages of the New York Times. The revelations and the huge public uproar that ensued led to the formation of the Church Committee. That committee spent nearly 2 years investigating questionable and illegal activity at the CIA. The Church Committee published 14 reports detailing various intelligence abuses which, in addition to illegal domestic surveillance, included programs designed to assassinate foreign leaders. The investigation led to Executive orders reining in the authority of the CIA and the creation of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.

In 1947, President Harry Truman and his top military and legal advisers secretly approved a program named PROJECT SHAMROCK. PROJECT SHAMROCK authorized the Armed Forces Security Agency and its successor, the NSA, to monitor telegraphs coming in and out of the United States. At the outset of the program, companies were told that government agents would only read ``those telegrams related to foreign intelligence targets,'' but as the program grew, more telegrams were sent and received by Americans and they were read. During the program's 30-year run, the NSA analysts sometimes reviewed as many as 150,000 telegrams a month.

While the Ford administration said it made all pertinent information about PROJECT SHAMROCK available, the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Justice Department had kept the program secret from the public. They argued that public disclosure was both unjustified and dangerous to national security, and it avoided Congress's questions regarding the legality of the program by stating that the telegrams present somewhat different legal questions from those posed by domestic bugging and wiretapping. That program didn't stay secret either.

The newly formed Senate Intelligence Committee ultimately disclosed the PROJECT SHAMROCK program on November 6, 1975, arguing that public disclosure was needed to build support--build support--for a law governing NSA operations. The resulting public uproar led to a congressional investigation. The NSA's termination of PROJECT SHAMROCK and the passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which attempted to subject domestic surveillance to a process of warrants and judicial review.

Years later, during the Reagan administration, senior members of the National Security Council secretly sold arms to Iran and used the funds to arm and train Contra militants to topple the Nicaraguan Government. Selling arms to Iran violated the official U.S. arms embargo against Iran and directly funding the Contras was illegal under the Boland amendment. That was the one Congress passed to limit U.S. Government assistance to the Contras.

But the officials at the National Security Council were convinced they knew better. They were convinced that violating the embargo and illegally supporting the Contra rebels would help free American hostages and help fight communism in Nicaragua. Instead of engaging in a public debate and trying to convince the Congress and the public they were right, they secretly launched an arms program and hid it from the Congress and the American people. How did that work out for them?

The New York Times published a story of these activities on November 25, 1987. A joint congressional committee was launched to investigate the Iran Contra affair with televised hearings for over a month. The House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House and Senate Intelligence Committees held their own hearings. The first Presidential commission investigating the National Security Council was launched. Multiple reports were published documenting the administration's illegal activities, and the Nicaraguan Government sued the United States. Dozens of court cases were filed and National Security Council officials--including two National Security Advisers--faced multiple indictments.

Finally, following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a handful of government officials made the unilateral judgment that following U.S. surveillance law, as it was commonly understood, would slow down the government's ability to track suspected terrorists. Instead of working with the Congress, instead of coming to the Congress and asking to revise or update the law, these officials secretly reinterpreted the law to justify a warrantless wiretapping program that they hid from virtually every Member of the Congress and the American people.

It is not clear how long they thought they could hide a large, controversial national security program of this nature, but they kept it so secret that even when it yielded useful intelligence, classification restrictions sometimes prevented the information from being shared with officials who could have used it.

I was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee at this point--a relatively new member--but the program and the legal interpretations that supported it were kept secret from me and virtually all of my colleagues.

Again, did that program stay secret? The answer is no. After several years, the New York Times published a story uncovering the program. The resulting public uproar led to a divisive congressional debate and a significant number of lawsuits. In my view, the disclosure also led to an erosion of public trust that made many private companies more reluctant to cooperate with government inquiries.

As most of my colleagues will remember, Congress and the executive branch spent years trying to sort out the details of that particular program and the secret legal interpretation--the secret legal interpretation--that was used to justify it. In the process of doing so, Congress also attempted to address an actual surveillance issue. I think all my colleagues who were here for that debate would agree those issues could have been resolved far more easily, far less contentiously, if the Bush administration had simply come to the Congress in the first place and tried to work out a bipartisan solution to them rather than, in effect, trying to rewrite the law in secret.

When laws are secretly reinterpreted this way, the results frequently fail to stand up to public scrutiny. It is not surprising, if you think about it. The American law-making process is often cumbersome, it is often frustrating, and it is certainly contentious. But over the long run, this process is a pretty good way to ensure that our laws have the support of the American people, since those that do not will actually get revised or repealed by elected lawmakers who follow the will of our constituents. On the other hand, when laws are secretly reinterpreted behind closed doors by a small number of government officials--and there is no public scrutiny, no public debate--you are certainly more likely to end up with interpretations of the law that go well beyond the boundaries of what the American people are willing to accept.

Let me make clear that I think it is entirely legitimate for government agencies to keep some information secret. In a democratic society, of course, citizens rightly expect their government will not arbitrarily keep information from them, and throughout our Nation's history Americans have vigilantly guaranteed their right to know. But Americans do acknowledge certain limited exceptions to the principle of openness. We know, for example, that tax officials have information about all of us from our tax returns. But the government does not have the right or the need to share this information openly. This is essentially an exception to protect personal privacy.

Another limited exception exists for the protection of national security. The U.S. Government has an inherent responsibility to protect our people from threats. To do this effectively, it almost always requires some measure of secrecy. I do not expect General Petraeus to publicly discuss the details of every troop movement in Afghanistan any more than early Americans

expected George Washington to publish his strategy for the Battle of Yorktown. By the same token, American citizens recognize that their government may sometimes rely on secret intelligence collection methods in order to ensure national security, in order to ensure the safety of the American people, and they recognize that these methods can often be more effective when specifics are kept secret.

But while Americans recognize that government agencies sometimes rely on secret sources and methods to collect intelligence information, Americans also expect these agencies will cooperate at all times within the boundaries of publicly understood law.

I have served on the Senate Intelligence Committee for a decade, and I do not take a backseat to anybody when it comes to protecting what are essential sources and methods that are needed to keep the American people safe when intelligence is being gathered. But I do not believe the law should ever be kept secret. Voters have a right and a need to know what the law says and what their government thinks the text of the law means. That is essential so the American people can decide whether the law is appropriately written and they are in a position to ratify or reject the decisions their elected officials make on their behalf.

When it comes to most government functions, the public can directly observe the government's actions and the typical citizens can decide for themselves whether they support or agree with the things their government is doing. Certainly, in my part of the world, American citizens can visit the national forests and decide whether they think the forests are appropriately managed. When they drive on the interstate, they can decide for themselves whether those highways have been properly laid out and adequately maintained. If they see someone punished, they can decide for themselves whether the sentence was appropriate, whether it was too harsh or too lenient.

But Americans generally cannot decide for themselves whether intelligence agencies are operating within the law. That is why the U.S. intelligence community evolved over the past several decades. The Congress set up a number of watchdog and oversight mechanisms to ensure that the intelligence agencies follow the law rather than violate it. That is why the Senate and House each have a Select Intelligence Committee. It is also why the Congress created the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. It is why Congress created a number of statutory inspectors general to act as independent watchdogs inside the intelligence agencies themselves. All these oversight entities were created at least in part to ensure that intelligence agencies carry out all their activities within the boundaries of publicly understood law.

But the law itself must always be public. Government officials must not be allowed to fall into the trap of secretly reinterpreting the law in a way that creates a gap between what the public believes the law says and what the government secretly claims it says. Anytime that happens, it seems to me there is going to be a violation of the public trust. Furthermore, allowing a gap of this nature to develop is simply shortsighted. Both history and logic should make it clear--and that is why I brought these examples to the floor of the Senate--that secret interpretations of the law will not stay secret forever and, in fact, often come to light pretty quickly. When the public eventually finds out that government agencies have been rewriting surveillance laws in secret, the result, as I have demonstrated, is invariably a backlash and an erosion of public confidence in these government agencies.

I believe this is a big and growing problem.

Our intelligence and national security agencies are staffed by many talented and dedicated men and women. The work they do is very important, and for the most part, they are extraordinarily professional. But when members of the public lose confidence in these agencies, it does not just undercut morale, it makes it harder for these agencies to do their jobs. If you ask the head of any intelligence agency, particularly an agency that is involved in domestic surveillance in any kind of way, he or she will tell you that public trust is the coin of the realm, it is a vital commodity, and voluntary cooperation from law-abiding Americans is critical to the effectiveness of our intelligence agencies.

If members of the public lose confidence in these government agencies because they think government officials are rewriting surveillance laws in secret, it is going to make those agencies less effective. As a member of the Intelligence Committee, I do not want to see that happen.

I wish to wrap up now with one last comment; that is, as you look at these statutes, and particularly the ones I have outlined--where you have so many hard-working lawyers and officials at these government agencies--I wish to make it clear I do not believe these officials have a malicious intent. They are working hard to protect intelligence sources and methods and for good reason. But sometimes they can lose sight of the differences between the sources and methods, which must be kept secret, and the law itself, which should not. Sometimes they even go so far as to argue that keeping their interpretation of the law secret is actually necessary because it prevents our Nation's adversaries from figuring out what our intelligence agencies are allowed to do.

I can see how it might be tempting to latch onto this ``Alice in Wonderland'' logic. But if the U.S. Government were to actually adopt it, then all our surveillance laws would be kept secret because that would, obviously, be even more useful. When Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978, it would have been useful to keep that law secret from the KGB so Soviet agents would not know whether the FBI was allowed to track them. But American laws should not be public only when government officials think it is convenient. They ought to be public and public all the time. The American people ought to be able to find out what their government thinks those laws mean.

Earlier this week, I filed an amendment, along with my colleague from the Intelligence Committee, Senator Mark Udall, and that amendment would require the Attorney General to publicly disclose the U.S. Government's official interpretation of the USA PATRIOT Act. The amendment specifically states that the Attorney General should not describe any particular intelligence collection programs or activities but that there should be a full description of ``the legal interpretation and analysis necessary to understand the . . . Government's official interpretation'' of the law.

This morning, Senator Mark Udall and I--and we had the help of several colleagues: Senator Merkley, Senator Tom Udall--reached an agreement with the chair of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Feinstein. She is going to be holding hearings on this issue next month.

Senator Mark Udall and I, as members of the committee, will be in a position to go into those hearings and the subsequent deliberations to try to amend the intelligence authorization. If we do not get results inside the committee, because of the agreement today with the distinguished chair of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Feinstein, and the majority leader, Senator Reid, we will be in a position to come back to this floor and offer our original amendment this fall.

We are going to keep fighting for openness and honesty. As of today, the government's official interpretation of the law is still secret-- still secret--and I believe there is a growing gap, as of this afternoon, between what the public believes that law says and the secret interpretation of the Justice Department.

So I plan to vote no this afternoon on this legislation because I said some time ago that a long-term reauthorization of this legislation did require significant reforms. I believe when more Members of Congress and the American people come to understand how the PATRIOT Act has actually been interpreted in secret, I think the number of Americans who support significant reform and the end of secret law--the end of law that is kept secret from them by design--I think we will see Americans joining us in this cause to ensure that in the days ahead, as we protect our country from the dangerous threats we face, we are also doing a better job of being sensitive to individual liberty.

Those philosophies, those critical principles are what this country is all about. And we are going to stay at it, Senator Udall and I and others, until those changes are secured.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, consistent with Senate Standing Orders and my policy of publishing in the Congressional Record a statement whenever I place a hold on legislation, I am announcing my intention to object to any unanimous consent request to proceed to S. 968, the PROTECT IP Act.

In December of last year I placed a hold on similar legislation, commonly called COICA, because I felt the costs of the legislation far outweighed the benefits. After careful analysis of the Protect IP Act, or PIPA, I am compelled to draw the same conclusion. I understand and agree with the goal of the legislation, to protect intellectual property and combat commerce in counterfeit goods, but I am not willing to muzzle speech and stifle innovation and economic growth to achieve this objective. At the expense of legitimate commerce, PIPA's prescription takes an overreaching approach to policing the Internet when a more balanced and targeted approach would be more effective. The collateral damage of this approach is speech, innovation and the very integrity of the Internet.

The Internet represents the shipping lane of the 21st century. It is increasingly in America's economic interest to ensure that the Internet is a viable means for American innovation, commerce, and the advancement of our ideals that empower people all around the world. By ceding control of the Internet to corporations through a private right of action, and to government agencies that do not sufficiently understand and value the Internet, PIPA represents a threat our economic future and to our international objectives. Until the many issues that I and others have raised with this legislation are addressed, I will object to a unanimous consent request to proceed to the legislation.

Mr. President, Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls has long been a leader in America's effort to develop geothermal energy, and it's also a power in men's basketball, winning national titles in 2004 and 2008.

Now, it is the national champion in women's softball. It is the first women's team to win a national championship at OIT, but I am sure it won't be the last.

The Hustlin' Owls entered the national tournament ranked 18th in the Nation. They came out 1st in the Nation. They were led by a stellar performance from their pitcher and MVP, Jackie Imhof. In the final game, she pitched a shutout, allowing only four hits and striking out seven. Through the tournament, Imhof was 6-1 with an amazing earned run average 0f 0.59. Imhof and two other teammates, catcher Kayde Schaefer and shortstop Shauna Collins, made the all tournament team.

Congratulations to coach Greg Stewart and the Hustlin' Owls of OIT. Clearly, they are doing something right at Oregon Institute of Technology.

Mr. President, President, I rise today to introduce the Enforcing Orders and Reducing Circumvention and Evasion Act, or the ENFORCE Act, of 2011.

For almost a century, Democratic and Republican Administrations have promoted and protected America's anti-dumping and countervailing duty laws. These laws recognize the reality that foreign competitors don't always play by the rules. Some employ unfair and unscrupulous trade practices that put American businesses at a serious disadvantage. So, when it comes to ensuring that American businesses and workers have a level playing field to compete, anti-dumping and countervailing duty laws are the first line of defense.

But it is not enough to just pass these laws; they need to be enforced. Duties don't work unless they are assessed and collected. But just like some people cheat their way out of taxes, the same is true for foreign supplies and dishonest importers who evade and flout the anti-dumping and countervailing duties that protect American business and workers from grievous economic harm.

These suppliers and importers are what I call trade cheats.

You see, under U.S. trade laws, when a certain import is found to be unfairly traded, that is, it benefits from government subsidies or is sold below market prices, the U.S. Department of Commerce imposes additional duties on these imports. These duties, we call them anti- dumping and countervailing duties, or AD/CVD, ensure that American producers are only asked to compete on a playing field that is level.

But we have these trade cheats out there. They cheat American taxpayers out of the revenue that is supposed to be collected on imports, and which is needed to reduce the budget deficit, and they cheat American producers out of business that may otherwise be theirs. In short, the trade cheats steal American jobs and America's treasure.

The trade cheats are increasingly, and brazenly, employing a variety of schemes to evade AD/CVD orders. Sometimes, they hustle their merchandise through foreign ports to claim that it originates from somewhere it doesn't. Other times, the trade cheats will provide fraudulent information' to government authorities at American ports of entry, or they engage in schemes to mislabel and misrepresent imports.

In recognizing this problem, I convened a hearing in the subcommittee on international trade, customs and global competitiveness entitled ``Enforcing America's Trade Laws in the Face of Customs Fraud and Duty Evasion'' in May of this year. At this hearing we heard from Senators of both political parties and companies from across this nation about their concerns regarding this lack of enforcement. Others launched their own investigation into the matter.

My own staff on the Finance Subcommittee on Trade, Customs and Competitiveness learned that if often takes Customs and Border Protection, CBP, nearly a year to ask its sister agencies for investigatory help when it is needed and when CBP does refer a case to an outside agency they don't follow-up to ensure that it gets handled. It generally takes several years for the government to conclude an investigation into evasion and reassess the appropriate duties that should have been collected.

Customs and Border Protection, is the nation's frontline defense against unfair trade and is responsible for enforcing U.S. trade remedy laws and collecting AD/CV duties. Yet, if you listen to the concerns of domestic producers, like those who testified at my hearing, timely and effective enforcement of AD/CVD orders remains problematic and AD/CV duty evasion continues, seemingly unabated.

While Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and CBP are dragging their feet to enforce our trade laws, this country's domestic manufacturers are being hammered by foreign trade cheats. It is not like the cheaters wait around to get caught and pay their fines, they disappear long before the so called government watchdogs arrive. ICE and CBP are the two principal American government agencies that are supposed to police this beat. In my view, one of them, CBP, treats allegations of duty evasion like junk mail. The other, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has been more visible on the issue of alleged illegal movie downloads than taking steps to protect tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs that are threatened by unfair trade.

Such lollygagging is not only hurting our domestic producer, it is hurting our country's treasury. U.S. industry sources estimate that approximately

$91 million in AD/CV duties that were supposed to be applied to just four steel products went uncollected as a result of evasion in 2009. This is an amount equal to 30 percent of all AD/CV duties CBP collected that year. With 300 current AD/CVD orders in place on countless products from over 40 countries, the potential for AD/CV duty evasion is vast, and hundreds of millions of AD/CV duties may be unaccounted for. Every penny counts and we have an obligation to the American businesses, and the workers they rely on, to do a better job.

The bill I am introducing today, with Senators Snowe, McCaskill, Blunt, Brown from Ohio, Portman, and Schumer, will go a long way toward empowering the federal government to do a better job to combat the trade cheats and enforce U.S. trade laws. I would like to highlight just a few of the main provisions.

First, the ENFORCE Act would formalize a process by which allegations of evasion are acted on. Because CBP primarily relies on the private sector to identify evasion of AD/CVD, the ENFORCE Act would formalize that process by allowing stakeholders to file a petition alleging evasion and require CBP to initiate an investigation pursuant to the petition within 10 days.

Second, our bill would establish a rapid-response timeline by which CBP would investigate allegations of evasion. The ENFORCE Act would give the CBP 90 days, after an investigation of evasion begins, to make a preliminary determination into whether there is a reason to believe an importer is evading an AD/CVD order. So if an affirmative preliminary determination is made, AD/CV duties would be required to be collected in cash until the investigation is concluded and any entries of subject merchandise would not be liquidated by CBP in order to ensure that the correct amount of duties owed can be collected. CBP would also be required to make a final determination as to whether merchandise subject to an investigation under the bill entered into the U.S. through an evasion scheme within 120 days after CBP has issued a preliminary determination. Flexibilities are added to these timelines for cases that are complex. All of this would put an end to the lollygagging that our domestic producers would desperately like to see ended.

Third, the ENFORCE Act would help facilitate information sharing. Our bill would establish clear instruction and guidelines to promote appropriate information sharing among the various agencies to better combat evasion and protect consumers from unsafe goods. Everyone knows that the more information law enforcement agencies have, the better they are able to do their jobs.

Last and certainly not least, our bill would establish accountability. CBP's broad mandate to facilitate trade, enforce trade remedy laws, and protect national security often leads to inconsistent efforts to combat evasion of the trade remedy laws. The ENFORCE Act would require CBP to provide annual reports to us here in Congress about the effectiveness of its enforcement efforts and the job it is required to do to protect American producers from the harm of unfairly traded imports.

As you can see, this bill presents a common-sense strategy to combat trade cheating and the evasion of antidumping and countervailing duty collection. Enforcing U.S. trade laws and combating unfair trade practices must be a central pillar of an economic and trade policy that is designed to promote economic growth and job expansion, especially as we continue to recover from a recession.

I want to take a moment to recognize and thank some terrific colleagues of mine in the Senate that are joining me in introducing this legislation. I thank you, and your staff, for your help and for your efforts. I would also like to thank the Retail Industry Leaders Association, the Committee to Support U.S. Trade Laws, and the Coalition to Enforce Antidumping & Countervailing Duty Orders for their valuable input. I look forward to more of their input going forward.

I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate and with my friends in the House of Representatives to build support for this initiative and to take action on behalf of American producers.

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

Mr. President, President, I rise today to introduce the Enforcing Orders and Reducing Circumvention and Evasion Act, or the ENFORCE Act, of 2011.

For almost a century, Democratic and Republican Administrations have promoted and protected America's anti-dumping and countervailing duty laws. These laws recognize the reality that foreign competitors don't always play by the rules. Some employ unfair and unscrupulous trade practices that put American businesses at a serious disadvantage. So, when it comes to ensuring that American businesses and workers have a level playing field to compete, anti-dumping and countervailing duty laws are the first line of defense.

But it is not enough to just pass these laws; they need to be enforced. Duties don't work unless they are assessed and collected. But just like some people cheat their way out of taxes, the same is true for foreign supplies and dishonest importers who evade and flout the anti-dumping and countervailing duties that protect American business and workers from grievous economic harm.

These suppliers and importers are what I call trade cheats.

You see, under U.S. trade laws, when a certain import is found to be unfairly traded, that is, it benefits from government subsidies or is sold below market prices, the U.S. Department of Commerce imposes additional duties on these imports. These duties, we call them anti- dumping and countervailing duties, or AD/CVD, ensure that American producers are only asked to compete on a playing field that is level.

But we have these trade cheats out there. They cheat American taxpayers out of the revenue that is supposed to be collected on imports, and which is needed to reduce the budget deficit, and they cheat American producers out of business that may otherwise be theirs. In short, the trade cheats steal American jobs and America's treasure.

The trade cheats are increasingly, and brazenly, employing a variety of schemes to evade AD/CVD orders. Sometimes, they hustle their merchandise through foreign ports to claim that it originates from somewhere it doesn't. Other times, the trade cheats will provide fraudulent information' to government authorities at American ports of entry, or they engage in schemes to mislabel and misrepresent imports.

In recognizing this problem, I convened a hearing in the subcommittee on international trade, customs and global competitiveness entitled ``Enforcing America's Trade Laws in the Face of Customs Fraud and Duty Evasion'' in May of this year. At this hearing we heard from Senators of both political parties and companies from across this nation about their concerns regarding this lack of enforcement. Others launched their own investigation into the matter.

My own staff on the Finance Subcommittee on Trade, Customs and Competitiveness learned that if often takes Customs and Border Protection, CBP, nearly a year to ask its sister agencies for investigatory help when it is needed and when CBP does refer a case to an outside agency they don't follow-up to ensure that it gets handled. It generally takes several years for the government to conclude an investigation into evasion and reassess the appropriate duties that should have been collected.

Customs and Border Protection, is the nation's frontline defense against unfair trade and is responsible for enforcing U.S. trade remedy laws and collecting AD/CV duties. Yet, if you listen to the concerns of domestic producers, like those who testified at my hearing, timely and effective enforcement of AD/CVD orders remains problematic and AD/CV duty evasion continues, seemingly unabated.

While Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and CBP are dragging their feet to enforce our trade laws, this country's domestic manufacturers are being hammered by foreign trade cheats. It is not like the cheaters wait around to get caught and pay their fines, they disappear long before the so called government watchdogs arrive. ICE and CBP are the two principal American government agencies that are supposed to police this beat. In my view, one of them, CBP, treats allegations of duty evasion like junk mail. The other, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has been more visible on the issue of alleged illegal movie downloads than taking steps to protect tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs that are threatened by unfair trade.

Such lollygagging is not only hurting our domestic producer, it is hurting our country's treasury. U.S. industry sources estimate that approximately

$91 million in AD/CV duties that were supposed to be applied to just four steel products went uncollected as a result of evasion in 2009. This is an amount equal to 30 percent of all AD/CV duties CBP collected that year. With 300 current AD/CVD orders in place on countless products from over 40 countries, the potential for AD/CV duty evasion is vast, and hundreds of millions of AD/CV duties may be unaccounted for. Every penny counts and we have an obligation to the American businesses, and the workers they rely on, to do a better job.

The bill I am introducing today, with Senators Snowe, McCaskill, Blunt, Brown from Ohio, Portman, and Schumer, will go a long way toward empowering the federal government to do a better job to combat the trade cheats and enforce U.S. trade laws. I would like to highlight just a few of the main provisions.

First, the ENFORCE Act would formalize a process by which allegations of evasion are acted on. Because CBP primarily relies on the private sector to identify evasion of AD/CVD, the ENFORCE Act would formalize that process by allowing stakeholders to file a petition alleging evasion and require CBP to initiate an investigation pursuant to the petition within 10 days.

Second, our bill would establish a rapid-response timeline by which CBP would investigate allegations of evasion. The ENFORCE Act would give the CBP 90 days, after an investigation of evasion begins, to make a preliminary determination into whether there is a reason to believe an importer is evading an AD/CVD order. So if an affirmative preliminary determination is made, AD/CV duties would be required to be collected in cash until the investigation is concluded and any entries of subject merchandise would not be liquidated by CBP in order to ensure that the correct amount of duties owed can be collected. CBP would also be required to make a final determination as to whether merchandise subject to an investigation under the bill entered into the U.S. through an evasion scheme within 120 days after CBP has issued a preliminary determination. Flexibilities are added to these timelines for cases that are complex. All of this would put an end to the lollygagging that our domestic producers would desperately like to see ended.

Third, the ENFORCE Act would help facilitate information sharing. Our bill would establish clear instruction and guidelines to promote appropriate information sharing among the various agencies to better combat evasion and protect consumers from unsafe goods. Everyone knows that the more information law enforcement agencies have, the better they are able to do their jobs.

Last and certainly not least, our bill would establish accountability. CBP's broad mandate to facilitate trade, enforce trade remedy laws, and protect national security often leads to inconsistent efforts to combat evasion of the trade remedy laws. The ENFORCE Act would require CBP to provide annual reports to us here in Congress about the effectiveness of its enforcement efforts and the job it is required to do to protect American producers from the harm of unfairly traded imports.

As you can see, this bill presents a common-sense strategy to combat trade cheating and the evasion of antidumping and countervailing duty collection. Enforcing U.S. trade laws and combating unfair trade practices must be a central pillar of an economic and trade policy that is designed to promote economic growth and job expansion, especially as we continue to recover from a recession.

I want to take a moment to recognize and thank some terrific colleagues of mine in the Senate that are joining me in introducing this legislation. I thank you, and your staff, for your help and for your efforts. I would also like to thank the Retail Industry Leaders Association, the Committee to Support U.S. Trade Laws, and the Coalition to Enforce Antidumping & Countervailing Duty Orders for their valuable input. I look forward to more of their input going forward.

I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate and with my friends in the House of Representatives to build support for this initiative and to take action on behalf of American producers.

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