Floor Statements

Mr. President, we are going through one of the most difficult and painful periods in American history, and millions of Americans are wondering what is happening to our country. Behind the curtain of spin, propaganda, and political attacks, here is what I believe is happening.

The rules of the economic game in this country are increasingly being rigged to provide unfair advantage to the wealthy and well-connected and to take unfair advantage of regular folks and families. America has always promised a straight deal, and that straight deal, for many Americans, is getting harder and harder to find.

Let me say I am relentlessly proud to be an American. I grew up in the foreign service of this country, surrounded by families who put public service and pride in this country ahead of their comfort, their convenience, even their safety and their family's safety. I am absolutely convinced of American exceptionalism. I have seen it, and I have lived it.

That is why I am so upset to see our country in the shape it is in today. Our Founding Fathers changed the world when they set in place our finely balanced system of government, illuminated by the clear and guaranteed rights of the American people. We are squandering that inheritance. Our government is not working, our rights are being undermined, and it is the American people who are paying the price. They are paying the price because too often they are not getting a straight deal anymore.

Let's look at some of the places where the deal is rigged, where special interest gets special deals, and where the regular American family doesn't get a straight deal. Big multistate banks are allowed to charge middle-class families 30 percent credit card interest rates that are likely illegal under the State laws where that family lives. Senators in this Chamber who are ardent States rights federalists in every other circumstance have no complaint when their State law is overruled and overborne by the big banks. Students with college loans-- who now carry $1 trillion of debt--and families with home mortgages are denied the privileges every corporate borrower gets to seek, bankruptcy protection against their debt when they are in over their heads.

Our individual tax system allows the wealthiest and highest income Americans to pay lower tax rates than middle-class wage earners pay or even hide their income in offshore tax havens and pay no tax at all. The corporate tax system allows international corporations to route their profits through foreign countries and through tax shelters to pay little or no tax in this country.

When you drill down to cases, GE, General Electric, on billions of dollars in profit, paid little or no Federal income tax. When you pull up to look system-wide, even though corporations are richer than ever, American people now contribute $5 for every $1 corporations contribute to sustaining our country's revenues. It used to be 1 to 1. For every $1 corporations contributed, the American people contributed $1. There was an even sharing of our Nation's revenue needs. But for 75 years now it has been steadily sliding, and now it is 5 to 1 against ordinary Americans and in favor of corporations.

The wealthy elite who make their fortunes in the marketplace don't protect and honor the marketplace. They try to rig the game, even when it puts the marketplace itself at risk. When that requires everybody else to come to their rescue, they show no shame and little gratitude and go right back to work gaming the system. Those who have become CEOs extract from their company's ridiculous amounts of compensation. CEO pay is up in my lifetime from 40 times the average wage of the employee to 400 times the average wage. These CEOs even extract princely compensation when they fail.

The big polluters have one party denying science entirely, denying the plain evidence of carbon pollution all around us and spinning the phony theory that the cost of controlling pollution is a burden on the economy when it is actually a huge net gain for our country. A party that used to proudly carry the banner of conservation and environmental protection is now reduced to serving corporate spin masters with phony fabrications, and it is the middle-class families who pay the price.

The appointees of one party on the Supreme Court, by a bare 5-to-4 majority, are willing to overturn precedent and flout the rules of judicial decisionmaking to decrease something novel and remarkable: that corporations are people and money is speech and, therefore, our precious constitutional rights to free speech, as American people, give corporations a right to spend as much money as they please, even anonymously, in American elections.

International corporations with no loyalty to any flag or nation but with virtually unlimited money may now drown out the voices of regular people, regular families in our American democracy. CEOs get to use the corporate megaphone amplified by the corporate treasury to drown out their employees' voices. Just one big corporation with just 5 percent of one-quarter's profits could match the entire political spending of both Presidential campaigns in the last election.

Our Constitution and Bill of Rights established the jury not once but three separate times as an important institution of freedom in our system of democracy. DeTocqueville--one of the great historians and commentators on the American system of government--called the American jury ``one of the forms of the sovereignty of the people.'' Big corporations go to court all the time and fight it out before a jury when they want to. Yet over and over again, a middle-class family, in contracts, cannot negotiate or control, in fine print they probably never even read, their credit card company, their cell phone company, the companies they do business with, quietly take away their right to go against them before an American jury. Over and over again those same Supreme Court Justices who decided a corporation was a person have let them down. They have to go, instead, to something called arbitration instead of a constitutional American jury.

To give an idea of how arbitration works, for a long time the biggest arbitration company in the country was a racket rigged to rule against the consumer. It had to be shut down by legal actions by our State attorneys general. Add it all up, all those different areas that I mentioned, and there have been a lot of changes since my childhood.

There are a lot of changes in how our country runs, and it is all in the same direction--special deals and special tax rates and special rules that help big corporations and people who are as wealthy as big corporations and leave out regular people who don't have masses of money, money, money; rules that allow corporations to intrude into our public discourse in this democracy and drown out people's voices through mighty corporate megaphones amplified by money, money, money; lies and nonsense cooked up in corporate spin

factories being treated as fact obtaining acceptability by how often the lies are repeated thanks to money, money, money.

Under all of that money, what is drowning is the sense we are all in this together as Americans. One of the things America actually stands for in this world is that we are fair with each other. We get a straight deal, and we give each other a straight deal. That is one of the ways we, as Americans, set an example in this world, an example of being fair. There are plenty of countries in the world whose internal political and economic systems amount to a racket, a racket rigged for the benefit of the rich and powerful where farmers and workers and ordinary families get screwed and the wealthy skim all the cream. Some of these countries are so bad we call them kleptocracies. The world is full of that.

It has been the pride and joy of America that we are not like that. It has been our message to the world that it doesn't have to be like that. But now it is looking more and more like we actually are becoming just like that.

What can we do about it? What can we do to make sure Americans are getting a straight deal in all of this? I propose these actions: No. 1, big banks should have to follow the State laws just like local banks do and just like you and I do. No more going to South Dakota and marketing from their credit cards 30 percent interest rates that violate the laws of the home State.

No. 2, if big corporations can restructure all their debts in bankruptcy court, so should students and families be able to. No second-class citizenship for those who borrowed college loans and home mortgages.

No. 3, amend the Constitution to make it clear that corporations are not people--never were, never could be. The Good Lord just did not make it that way. We need to make it crystal clear that corporations can't spend money in American elections anonymously or through phony shell organizations. If big oil wants to influence American elections, Americans should know it is big oil.

No. 4: Straighten out our tax systems and, until we do, put in a minimum tax for ultra-high income earners that is at least at the rate that ordinary American taxpaying families pay. While we are at it, put in a minimum corporate tax rate that is at least half of what average corporations pay. No corporation that is making millions or billions of dollars should get away with paying nothing in income tax.

No. 5: Shut down the offshore tax havens and charge companies a CEO pay surtax on CEO compensation that is more than 100 times their average worker's compensation.

No. 6: Make polluters pay the actual costs of their pollution. Why should a polluting company be able to push onto all of the rest of us the costs of their pollution? Why should American families bear that polluting corporation's costs? Economics tells us that should be part of the company's cost of doing business.

No. 7: No more corporate tax deductions for offshoring American jobs, and no more favoring of offshore corporate income derived from what used to be American jobs.

No. 8: Take out of those take-it-or-leave-it consumer contracts the provisions that take away in the fine print the American right to go before an American jury, as the Constitution and Bill of Rights promises whenever a citizen has a grievance or has been harmed.

None of these eight things I have mentioned asks anything of anyone that isn't fair, and most of them simply ask that ordinary Americans get the same deal, or at least no worse of a deal, than special Americans get and big corporations get. This all does no more than put people on the same level, or at least under the same rules, as the rich and powerful.

When someone is getting a better deal than you because of who they are, you are not getting a straight deal. When someone is taking advantage of you because you are small and easy to take advantage of, you are not getting a straight deal. When the rules of the game are rigged to help the winners win and to make you a loser, you are not getting a straight deal. It is time we started giving the people of America a straight deal around here.

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

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

Mr. President, if we pass the Rebuild America Jobs Act, we will immediately invest $50 billion into our transportation infrastructure and generate hundreds of thousands of good jobs and establish a national infrastructure bank which will generate even more good jobs. We need these jobs during the current period of high unemployment, and upgrading our crumbling infrastructure will spur long-term job growth in addition to the immediate employment benefits. So I strongly support this bill and I hope our colleagues can be brought around as well.

The Rebuild America Jobs Act is one piece of the larger American Jobs Act which, when Leader Reid brought it to the floor, all 47 Senate Republicans chose to filibuster instead of allowing us to begin debating and, if they wished, improving the jobs legislation. That filibuster blocked President Obama's plan to cut payroll taxes for every single American worker, and it blocked his plan to offer business owners generous tax breaks to hire new workers and grow their businesses. Economists estimated that the American Jobs Act would create nearly 2 million jobs--1.9 million jobs. Perhaps for that reason, many pieces of the bill have received wide bipartisan support in the past. Indeed, just last December, similar job-creating provisions were included in the Job Creation and Tax Cuts Act, which received 81 votes in the Senate.

The jobs bill that Republicans blockaded was fully paid for through a 5.6-percent surtax on income in excess of $1 million. In other words, the only tax increase in the bill is a provision that pays for job creation in this country by

having millionaires and billionaires who continue to enjoy the record low tax rates brought on by the Bush tax cuts pay a little more and only on their income over $1 million. There is no increase on the first million.

A recent study by Citizens for Tax Justice showed that the surcharge would only apply to the richest one-fifth of 1 percent of U.S. taxpayers, leaving the taxes of more than 99 percent of all Americans-- if my math is right, 99.8 percent of all Americans--unchanged.

The Rebuild America Jobs Act, which is one piece of the full jobs bill, is paid for with a much smaller 0.7-percent surtax on income above $1 million. Having one-fifth of 1 percent of the wealthiest Americans pay less than 1 percent more in income taxes, and only on income above $1 million of income, hardly seems unreasonable to support hundreds of thousands of jobs for middle-class families in this economic climate.

As we try again and again to advance jobs legislation in the Senate, the supercommittee we established in the Budget Control Act is at work on recommendations to cut the deficit. Getting the most fortunate and well-compensated Americans to start paying a fair share in taxes ought to be a logical component of any deficit reduction plan--at least under a theory that we should have a progressive Federal tax system. That is a tax system in which we pay higher rates of tax the more money we earn.

In theory, we have a progressive Federal tax system, but, in fact, do we? We are often told that the wealthiest Americans are already shouldering too great a share of our tax burden. Earlier this year, one of the candidates, a leading candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination, told NBC that ``the top 1 percent of income earners pay about 40 percent of all taxes into the Federal Government.''

That sounds like a lot--the top 1 percent pay 40 percent of all taxes. Let's look at some data to see if the theory proves correct. The Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, two very respected organizations, estimate that the total share of Federal taxes paid by the top 1 percent of taxpayers is, in fact, 22.7 percent--not 40 percent. Remember that for a moment, 22.7 percent is the amount of Federal taxes the top 1 percent of income earners pay.

If we take a look at the long-term trends in income and taxation, it is revealing. According to the Congressional Budget Office, between 1979 and 2006, the total effective Federal tax rate for the top 1 percent of households fell. The tax rate went down almost 6 points, from 37 percent to 31.2 percent. Over the same period, that group, the top 1 percent, went from earning 10 percent of the Nation's income to 22.8 percent. The amount of the Nation's income that the richest 1 percent earn in this country climbed over that period from 10 to nearly 23 percent. They claimed an additional 13 percent of the Nation's income.

Go back to the number. The Urban Institute and Brookings Institution estimate that the total share of Federal taxes paid by the top 1 percent of taxpayers is 22.7 percent, but the share of income the top 1 percent takes is 22.8 percent. That is not a progressive tax system. They may be paying a lot in taxes, but it is proportionate almost exactly to what they are taking out of the economy in income. The relative burden of the extremely wealthy in this country is going steadily down, not up, and it has just crossed to the point where it is no longer progressive.

There is a tale of two buildings that may help explain why. This is the first of the two buildings. This is the Helmsley Building in New York City. It is on Park Avenue. It is a lovely, wonderful place--a great building. Not surprisingly, some very successful and well- compensated people live there.

It is also a big building. It is so big it has its own ZIP Code. Because it has its own ZIP Code and because the Internal Revenue Service calculates and provides information about income by ZIP Code, we can learn quite a lot about the occupants of this wonderful building. What we know from the latest IRS information that I have been able to find is that the very well-compensated and successful individuals and corporations that call this building home actually paid a 14.7-percent tax rate in 2007. That rate is lower than the Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us is what the average New York City janitor or doorman or security guard pays. So at least in this building the fabulously successful and well-compensated occupants of the building who live in those wonderful apartments on Park Avenue are paying a significantly lower tax rate in real life than the actual men and women who are their janitors, who are their doormen, who are their security guards.

It is not just some fluke about the Helmsley Building. We all remember Leona Helmsley saying it is the little people who pay taxes. There is no ghost of Leona Helmsley making that true in this building; it is true across the board. Each year, the Internal Revenue Service publishes a report consolidating the tax returns of the highest income 400 Americans and they publish that data. They do not get around to it very quickly, but in May they published the most recent data on the top 400 taxpayers in America for 2008. In 2008, the top 400 earners took home an average of $270 million each. They earned more than one- quarter of a billion dollars each that year, which is wonderful. That is the kind of country we are. One can make a real fortune here. But where it gets a little sketchy is that, on average, those 400 extremely highly compensated Americans actually paid into the Treasury of the United States at an average Federal tax rate of just 18.2 percent on adjusted gross income--18.2 percent.

We have spent time on the Senate floor debating whether the top income tax rate should be 35 percent or 39.6 percent. That is not what they pay. The top 400 income earners, the $\1/4\ billion-a-year crowd, pay actually, on average, just 18.2 percent. This means the 400 highest earning individuals in the Nation, in 2008, just like the occupants of this Helmsley Building, were paying rates lower than or equivalent to what regular working families pay.

If we went back to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and pulled out the information for the Helmsley Building but about the janitors, the doormen and about the security guards and we look to see who else in America is paying an 18.2-percent tax rate--if a person is a single filer they are paying an 18.2-percent tax rate in this country if they make $39,350 a year. Where I come from in Rhode Island, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that is about what a truck driver makes--$40,200 is what a truck driver makes; $39,350 is what it takes to put a person in the income bracket where they are paying the same tax rate into our Treasury as the 400 members of the $\1/4\ billion-a-year club.

The choice is very clear. Instead of moving forward on a jobs plan that independent economists agree will create millions of American jobs in the near term, we are facing an opposition that is fighting to make sure people making $\1/4\ billion a year pay lower Federal tax rates than regular working, middle-class American families.

That is the story of the first building, the Helmsley Plaza. This is a different building. This is the Ugland building. It is called Ugland House. It doesn't look like much, but it is near the lovely aquamarine beaches of the Cayman Islands. What is interesting about this little building is that 18,000 corporations claim they are doing business here. That is not a very big building. The notion that 18,000 corporations are doing business out of this building--that gives a whole new meaning to the phrase ``small business.'' But there is no real business going on here. The business that is going on here is funny business, under the Tax Code.

I ask consent for 3 more minutes.

The companies doing business here are not real companies; they are phony-baloney shell corporations that are designed to hide assets and to play games with the tax system. This income never even makes it into the 18.2 percent of the Helmsley Building. This gets hidden away completely.

When our tax system is rigged so it permits billionaires to pay lower tax rates than truck drivers and allows the wealthiest to avoid taxes by hiding assets in phony offshore corporations,

something is not right. With multitrillion dollar budget deficits threatening our Nation's prosperity, we have to do something to make our tax system more fair for regular Americans.

I have been working on legislation which would ensure that millionaires and billionaires pay an effective tax rate at least as high as is paid by middle-class families. This would require all taxpayers with income over $1 million a year, indexed to inflation, to pay at least a 25-percent rate. A 25-percent rate is the marginal rate middle-class taxpayers currently pay on income, from about $34,000 of income to about $84,000 of income, depending on the size of the family and the deductions they get. It seems fair to me to ask people at the highest end of the income spectrum to pay at least the tax rate middle- class families in the $34,000-to-$84,000 range actually pay. It simply doesn't make sense to have the wealthiest abusing these tax gimmicks to pay lower tax rates than middle-class families. So whether it is Leader Reid's surtax or my proposal, I hope we can act to ensure that the most successful Americans actually pay their fair share of our national tax burden to restore our Nation to its economic strength.

I thank my distinguished colleague from Michigan for her courtesy.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for 15 minutes.

Mr. President, I am here to speak about what is currently an unpopular topic in this town. It has become no longer politically correct in certain circles in Washington to speak about climate change or carbon pollution or how carbon pollution is causing our climate to change.

This is a peculiar condition of Washington. If you go out into, say, our military and intelligence communities, they understand and are planning for the effects of carbon pollution on climate change. They see it as a national security risk. If you go out into our nonpolluting business and financial communities, they see this as a real and important problem. And, of course, it goes without saying our scientific community is all over this concern. But as I said, Washington is a peculiar place, and here it is getting very little traction.

Here in Washington we feel the dark hand of the polluters tapping so many shoulders. And where there is power and money behind that dark hand, therefore, a lot of attention is paid to that little tap on the shoulder. What we overlook is that nature--God's Earth--is also tapping us all on the shoulder, with messages we ignore at our peril. We ignore the messages of nature--of God's Earth--and we ignore the laws of nature--of God's Earth--at our very grave peril.

There is a wave of very justifiable economic frustration that has swept through our Capitol. The problem is that some of the special interests--the polluters--have insinuated themselves into that wave, sort of like parasites that creep into the body of a host animal, and from there they are working terrible mischief. They are propagating two big lies. One is that environmental regulations are a burden to the economy and we need to lift those burdens to spur our economic recovery. The second is the jury is still out on climate changes caused by carbon pollution, so we don't need to worry about it or even take precautions. Both are, frankly, outright false.

Environmental regulation is well established to be good for the economy. It may add costs to you if you are a polluter, but polluters usually exaggerate about that.

For instance, before the 1990 acid rain rules went into effect, Peabody Coal estimated that compliance would cost $3.9 billion. The Edison Electric Institute chimed in and estimated that compliance would cost $4 to $5 billion. Well, in fact, the Energy Information

Administration calculated the program actually cost $836 million, about one-sixth of the Edison Electric Institute estimate.

When polluters were required to phase out the chemicals they were emitting that were literally burning a hole through our Earth's atmosphere, they warned that it would create ``severe economic and social disruption'' due to ``shutdowns of refrigeration equipment in supermarkets, office buildings, hotels, and hospitals.'' Well, in fact, the phaseout happened 4 years to 6 years faster than predicted; it cost 30 percent less than predicted; and the American refrigeration industry innovated and created new export markets for its environmentally friendly products.

Anyway, the real point is we are not just in this Chamber to represent the polluters. We are supposed to be here to represent all Americans, and Americans benefit from environmental regulation big time.

Over the lifetime of the Clean Air Act, for instance, for every $1 it costs to add pollution controls, Americans have received about $30 in health and other benefits. By the way, installing those pollution controls created jobs because they went to manufacturers to build the controls and to Americans to install them. But setting that aside, a 30-to-1 benefit ratio to keep our air clean sounds like a mighty wise investment to me. That 30-to-1 ratio doesn't even count the intangible benefits--intangible but very real benefits--of clear air and clean water, the benefits of the heart and the soul, the benefits to a grandfather of taking his granddaughter to the fishing hole and still finding fish there or of the city kid being able to go to a beach and have it clean enough to swim there or the benefit to a mom who is spared the burden of worry, of sitting next to her asthmatic baby on the emergency room albuterol inhaler waiting for his infant lungs to clear.

Well, unfortunately, polluters rule in certain circles in Washington, and they emit propaganda as well as pollution, and they have been emitting too much of both lately.

Their other big lie the jury is still out on is whether human-made carbon pollution causes dangerous climate change and oceanic change. Virtually all of our most prestigious scientific and academic institutions have stated that climate change is happening and that human activities are the driving cause of this change. Many of us in Congress received a letter from those institutions in October 2009. Let me quote from that letter.

Observations throughout the world make it clear that

climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research

demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human

activities are the primary driver. These conclusions are

based on multiple independent lines of evidence, and contrary

assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of

the vast body of peer-reviewed science.

Let me repeat that last quote.

Contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective

assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science.

This letter was signed by the heads of the following organizations: the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Institute of Biological Sciences, the American Meteorological Society, the American Society of Agronomy, the American Society of Plant Biologists, the American Statistical Association, the Association of Ecosystem Research Centers, the Botanical Society of America, the Crop Science Society of America, the Ecological Society of America, the Natural Science Collections Alliance, the Organization of Biological Field Stations, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, the Society of Systematic Biologists, the Soil Science Society of America, and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.

These are highly esteemed scientific organizations. They are the real deal. They don't think the jury is still out. They recognize that, in fact, the verdict is in, and it is time to act.

More than 97 percent of the climate scientists most actively publishing accept that the verdict is actually in on carbon pollution causing climate and oceanic changes--97 percent. Think of that.

Imagine if your child were sick and the doctor said she needed treatment, and out of prudence you went and got a second opinion. Then you went around and you actually got 99 second opinions. When you were done, you found that 97 out of 100 expert doctors agreed your child was sick and needed treatment. Imagine further that of the three who disagreed, some took money from the insurance company that would have to pay for your child's treatment. Imagine further that none of those three could say they were sure your child was OK, just that they weren't sure what her illness was or that she needed treatment, that there was some doubt.

On those facts, name one decent father or mother who wouldn't start treatment for their child. No decent parent would turn away from the considered judgment of 97 percent of 100 doctors just because they weren't all absolutely certain.

How solid is the science behind this? Rock solid. The fact that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere absorbs heat from the Sun was discovered at the time of the Civil War. This is not new stuff. In 1863 the Irish scientist John Tyndall determined that carbon dioxide and water vapor trapped more heat in the atmosphere as their concentrations increased. A 1955 textbook, ``Our Astonishing Atmosphere,'' notes that nearly a century ago the scientist, John Tyndall, suggested that a fall in the atmospheric carbon dioxide could allow the Earth to cool, whereas a rise in carbon dioxide would make it warmer.

In the early 1900s, a century ago, it became clear that changes in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere might account for significant increases and decreases in the Earth's average annual temperatures and that carbon dioxide released from manmade sources, anthropogenic sources--primarily by the burning of coal--would contribute to those atmospheric changes. This is not new stuff. These are well-established scientific principles.

Let me look for a moment at the book I talked about, ``Our Astonishing Atmosphere,'' published in 1955--the year I was born, more than half a century ago--for the ``Science for Every Man Series.'' Let me read:

Although the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere remains at a

concentration of 0.03 percent all over the world, the amount

in the air has not always been the same. There have been

periods in the world's history when the air became charged

with more carbon dioxide than it now carries. There have also

been periods when the concentration has fallen unusually low.

The effects of these changes have been profound. They are

believed to have influenced the climate of the earth by

controlling the amount of energy that is lost by the earth

into space. Nearly a century ago, the British scientist John

Tyndall suggested that a fall in the atmospheric carbon

dioxide could allow the earth to cool whereas a rise in the

carbon dioxide would make it warmer. With the help of its

carbon dioxide, the atmosphere acts like a greenhouse that

traps the heat of the sun. Radiations reaching the atmosphere

as sunshine can penetrate to the surface of the earth. Here,

they are absorbed, providing the world with warmth. But the

earth itself radiating energy outwards in the form of long-

wave heat rays. If these could penetrate the air as the

sunshine does, they could carry off much of the heat provided

by the sun. Carbon dioxide in the air helps to stop the

escape of heat radiations. It acts like a blanket to keep the

world warm. And the more carbon dioxide the air contains, the

more efficiently does it smother the escape of the earth's

heat. Fluctuation in the carbon dioxide of the air has helped

to bring about major climate changes experienced by the

world in the past.

This is 1955. This is ``Our Astonishing Atmosphere,'' out of the ``Science for Every Man Series.'' This is not something that was just invented.

Let's look at the facts that we actually observe in our changing planet. Over the last 800,000 years--8,000 centuries--until very recently the atmosphere has stayed within a bandwidth of between 170 parts per million and 300 parts per million of carbon dioxide. That is not theory, that is measurement. Scientists measure historic carbon dioxide concentrations by, for example, locating trapped bubbles in the ice of ancient glaciers. So we know, over time--and over long periods of time--what the range has been.

What else do we know? We know since the industrial revolution, we-- humankind--have been burning carbon-rich fuels in measurable and ever- increasing amounts. We know we release up to 7 to 8 gigatons of carbon dioxide each year. A gigaton, by the way, is 1 billion metric tons. So if you are going to release 7 to 8 billion metric tons a

year into the atmosphere, predictably that increases carbon concentration in our atmosphere. ``Put more in and find more there'' is not a complex scientific theory. It is not a difficult proposition. And 7 to 8 billion metric tons a year into the atmosphere is a very big thing in the historical sweep.

So we now measure carbon concentrations climbing in the Earth's atmosphere. Again, this is a measurement, not a theory. The present concentration exceeds 390 parts per million.

So 800,000 years and a bandwidth of 170 to 300 parts per million, and now we are over 390.

This increase has a trajectory. Plotting trajectories is nothing new either. It is something scientists, businesspeople, and our military service people do every day. The trajectory for our carbon pollution predicts that 688 parts per million will be in the atmosphere in the year 2095 and 1,097 parts per million in the year 2195. These are carbon concentrations not outside of the bounds of 800,000 years but outside of the bounds of millions of years. As Tyndall determined at the time of the Civil War, increasing carbon concentrations will absorb more of the Sun's heat and raise global temperatures.

Let me end by reviewing the scale of the peril that we are facing if we fail to act. Over the last 800,000 years, as I said, it has been 170 to 300 parts per million of carbon dioxide. Since the start of the industrial revolution, that concentration is now up to 390 parts per million. If we continue on the trajectory that we find ourselves, our grandchildren will see carbon concentrations in the atmosphere top 700 parts per million by the end of the century, twice the bandwidth top that we have lived in for 8,000 centuries.

To put that in perspective, mankind has engaged in agriculture for about 10,000 years. It is not clear we had yet mastered fire 800,000 years ago. The entire development of human civilization has taken place in that 800,000 years, and within that 170 to 300 parts per million bandwidth. If we go back, we are back into geologic time.

In April of this year, a group of scientific experts came together at the University of Oxford to discuss the current state of our oceans. The workshop report stated:

Human actions have resulted in warming and acidification of

the oceans and are now causing increasing hypoxia.

Acidification is obvious--the ocean is becoming more acid; hypoxia means low oxygen levels.

Studies of the Earth's past indicate that these are the

three symptoms . . . associated with each of the previous

five mass extinctions on Earth.

We experienced two mass ocean extinctions 55 and 251 million years ago. The rates of carbon entering the atmosphere in the lead-up to these extinctions are estimated to have been 2.2 and 1 to 2 gigatons of carbon per year respectively, over several thousand years. As the group of Oxford scientists noted:

Both these estimates are dwarfed in comparison to today's

emissions.

As I said earlier, those are 7 to 8 gigatons per year. The workshop participants concluded with this quote:

Unless action is taken now, the consequences of our

activities are at a high risk of causing, through the

combined effects of climate change, overexploitation,

pollution and habitat loss, the next globally significant

extinction event in the ocean.

The laws of physics and the laws of chemistry and the laws of science these are laws of nature. These are laws of God's Earth. We can repeal some laws around here but we can't repeal those. Senators are used to our opinions mattering a lot around here, but these laws are not affected by our opinions. These laws do not care who peddles influence, how many lobbyists you have or how big your corporate bankroll is. Those considerations, so important in this town, do not matter at all to the laws of nature.

As regards these laws of nature, because we can neither repeal nor influence them, we bear a duty, a duty of stewardship to see and respond to the facts that are before our faces according to nature's laws. We bear a duty to shun the siren song of well-paying polluters. We bear a duty to make the right decisions for our children and grandchildren and for our God-given Earth.

Right now I must come before the Chamber and remind this body that we are failing in that duty. The men and women in this Chamber are indeed catastrophically failing in that duty. We are earning the scorn and condemnation of history--not this week, perhaps, and not next week. The spin doctors can see to that. But ultimately and assuredly, the harsh judgment that it is history's power to inflict on wrong will fall upon us. The Supreme Being who gave us this Earth and its abundance created a world not just of abundance but of consequence and that Supreme Being gave us reason to allow us to plan for and foresee the various consequences that those laws of nature impose.

It is magical thinking to imagine that somehow we will be spared the plain and foreseeable consequences of our failure of duty. There is no wizard's hat and wand with which to wish this away. These laws of nature are known; the Earth's message to us is clear; our failure is blameworthy; its consequences are profound; and the costs will be very high.

I thank the Senator from Arkansas for his indulgence for the extra time, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the three pending trade agreements with Korea, Colombia, and Panama.

Let me say at the outset that I am in favor of free trade, if that term is allowed its true meaning. I have great confidence in the American worker and American businesses to compete and succeed in the global marketplace if given a free and level playing field. For generations, our country has shown

that hard work and ingenuity are the engines of progress and economic prosperity. The innovations that have shaped our 21st century economy were, in great measure, conceived and produced here in the United States. And in return for allowing other countries to benefit from our hard work and innovation, America was rewarded with a strong middle class.

Unfortunately, however, in a post-NAFTA world, being the best is no longer good enough. Instead, we have engaged in a race to the bottom, where to succeed you have to be the cheapest. And so, through our trade policy, we have too often put our workers at a real disadvantage.

Indeed, since 1994, when NAFTA went into effect, manufacturing sector employment across the country has fallen by over 5 million jobs, including over 42,000 in my State of Rhode Island. Contributing to these staggering losses are our trade agreements with Mexico, Central American and Caribbean countries, as well as the entry of China into the WTO.

That is why I cannot support the three trade agreements that are before the Senate today.

The Korea Free Trade Agreement is especially troubling for Rhode Island, particularly with respect to its treatment of textiles. According to the U.S. International Trade Commission's report, the textile industry is expected to lose jobs because of the favorable tariff reductions Korean manufacturers would receive under the agreement.

Rhode Island has a long history in textiles. In fact, the modern textile industry in this country can be traced back to Slater Mill in Pawtucket, RI, in 1793. Textiles were an important part of the State's economy throughout the Industrial Revolution and into the 20th century. But many of the business owners I have been talking to have told me how hard it has been for them, shrinking, laying off workers, and watching as factory after factory closed their doors around them.

I am working with what's left of the textile industry in Rhode Island--a small group of companies that are making really great products. Darlington Fabrics in Westerly, for example, makes performance athletic-wear, including products for our military. Coated Technical Solutions, based in Newport, works with coated fabrics for things like inflatable boats and tarpaulins. Northeast Knitting makes specialized medical fabrics, and Hope Global exports shoelaces.

I have heard from some textile companies that their sole competition comes from manufacturers in South Korea. These foreign competitors will disproportionately benefit from the tariff reductions in the Korea FTA. This is just another in a long line of examples of how our trade policy has failed American manufacturers.

With respect to the Colombia agreement, Colombia has a history of violence toward trade unionists, with 51 labor members murdered last year alone. Although the Obama administration negotiated a labor action plan with the Colombian government, there are no guarantees that its provisions will be enforced, and in fact, indications are that the violence has continued.

In short, I see no reason why we should put American jobs at risk to benefit a country that cannot provide its citizens the most basic rights that we offer to ours. The Colombia free trade agreement is a bad deal for Americans, and it may be a worse deal for Colombians.

Panama has its own labor abuses, but its status as a tax haven is perhaps most troubling. Approximately 400,000 multinational corporations are registered in Panama, many of which have license to conduct business without reporting or paying taxes. While the Obama administration stepped in and negotiated a tax information exchange agreement, this agreement lacks the transparency required to assure compliance.

The benefits of a trade agreement with Panama barely register by any economic measure. I believe it would be a mistake to encourage trade with a country that offers little to the United States but that so brazenly facilitates the breaking of our tax laws.

I will object to these agreements until we make a wholesale revision of our trade policy and put enforcement at the forefront. Representing a State that may have suffered the most from unfair Chinese competition, I can't support more of these agreements until I see serious and sincere enforcement. We should refrain from passing further free trade agreements until we can ensure that American workers and businesses are protected.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, this evening, I cast my vote in favor of the Senate moving forward with critical job-creation legislation. With 61,000 Rhode Islanders and millions of Americans currently looking for jobs, we must take swift action to help put people back to work. Sadly, as they have all-too-many times this Congress, Republicans chose to obstruct our efforts by blocking us from even debating the American Jobs Act.

This filibuster is particularly disappointing because the American Jobs Act, as introduced in the Senate by Leader Reid, represents a balanced and already-tested approach to job creation. Indeed, the bill includes a host of provisions that have received wide bipartisan support in the past. It may not be the exact bill each of us would draft on our own, but it is a thoughtful and reasonable place to begin working on a Senate jobs plan.

I say the bill is ``balanced'' because it includes a full range of job-creating provisions from tax credits to help businesses hire, to infrastructure programs that will put people to work updating and upgrading our roads, bridges, and schools.

In addition to being ``balanced,'' I say the American Jobs Act is ``tested'' because it includes programs that have worked in the past. For example, the Federal Highway Administration estimated that $1 billion invested in our highways supports about 28,000 jobs. That means that the President's proposed investment of $27 billion would generate or save over 750,000 jobs. In addition to the upfront investment, the bill would deposit another $10 billion in a National Infrastructure Bank which could leverage the money with private investments to create hundreds of thousands of additional jobs. We know how well the National Infrastructure Bank would work from the experiences of local revolving funds like Rhode Island's Clean Water Finance Agency.

We also know that funds provided by the bill would prevent hundreds of thousands of teachers, police officers, and firefighters from losing their jobs. According to the Department of Education, $10 billion in emergency funds provided last summer have already spared 114,000 teachers' jobs. The $35 billion included in the American Jobs Act would keep hundreds of thousands of additional teachers and first responders from getting pink slips. A lot of small businesses count on teachers and firefighters and police officers with paychecks coming in to do business.

We are not just talking about statistics in this debate. The millions of jobs that would be created or preserved under the American Jobs Act would hit home for families who have been trying to find work for so long.

Just last week, I held a telephone town hall with Rhode Islanders from all across our State. We took questions from folks on issues from jobs to the future of Medicare and Social Security. There was one call in particular that really stuck with me. It was from a woman named Diane in Narragansett. Diane, a Marine veteran, and her husband are both out of work and struggling to put food on the table for their three young children. Her husband a trained heavy equipment operator and welder has taken temporary employment as a landscaper and a fisherman, but can not find a steady paycheck. They have missed bill payments and have struggled to keep a roof over their heads. On the call Diane said, ``[o]ur dream of owning a house is shot out the window . . . [We] don't know where to go [We] don't know what else to do.'' Diane and her husband are hardworking people doing their best to survive in a frustratingly sluggish economic recovery. They are just asking for a fair chance to provide for their kids and reclaim their portion of the American dream. We owe it to Diane and her family to set aside our differences and focus on getting something done to create jobs for the American people. It is not too late for us to work together to help solve our Nation's jobs crisis. Let us cut the politics and delay tactics and begin that critical work.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2011, and I would note the presence on the floor of one of its principal sponsors, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, whom I have been very pleased to work with on this legislation.

I am proud to be one of the original cosponsors of this bill, an important piece of bipartisan legislation that will help protect American workers from the trade-distorting effects of currency manipulation. In particular, this legislation will allow us to fight back against policies China has used to gain an unfair advantage over American manufacturers.

Our American trade deficit with China rose from $83 billion in 2001-- the year China joined the World Trade Organization--to $273 billion in 2010. That trend is discouraging enough on its own, but it is more troubling to consider that the growing trade deficit ultimately represents goods no longer made in the United States by U.S. workers. In fact, the Economic Policy Institute estimates that the trade deficit with China has cost 2.8 million American jobs over the past decade, including nearly 12,000 jobs in my home State of Rhode Island.

With so many families still struggling with unemployment in the wake of the recession, it is important that we examine just how we came to lose so many jobs to a single country and respond accordingly. It would be one thing if the answer was that China's workers are just more talented, their products are of higher quality, and they have simply bested us in the open market. But that is not the case. The evidence suggests another explanation: that China is gaming the international system.

First, China provides subsidies to critical industries, which likely violates World Trade Organization rules and gives Chinese companies an unfair competitive advantage over American manufacturers.

Second, by restricting exports of their raw materials, China drives up the cost of making products here in the United States.

Third, by turning a blind eye to or even facilitating the rampant theft of American intellectual property, China benefits from what may be the largest illicit transfer of wealth in history.

Finally, of course, China appears to be intentionally manipulating the value of its currency. Indeed, through controlled purchases of massive amounts of U.S. currency, the Chinese central bank has made the value of its currency--the yuan--artificially cheap relative to the U.S. dollar. Economists estimate the yuan is currently undervalued by as much as 28 percent against our dollar. The depressed value makes it 28 percent cheaper to buy goods from China than from the United States and it makes U.S. goods correspondingly more expensive. It is essentially a subsidy for Chinese products and a tax on U.S. products.

This is much more than a problem of abstract economic theory. The consequences of currency manipulation are deeply felt in households in Rhode Island and across the country. In the Presiding Officer's home State of Pennsylvania, in the floor manager's home State of Ohio, and all across the United States, it is felt by families who for generations have contributed to our growth as a nation by going to work every day and building things, from cars and boats to toys and electronics. These workers helped define our American character, from the start of the industrial revolution at Slater Mill on the banks of Rhode Island's Blackstone River through the first decade of the 21st century. But they have watched in recent years as job after job has been lost to China.

This unfair competition needs to stop. The advantage the undervalued currency gives to Chinese companies has put American manufacturers out of business and middle-class Americans out of work.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week on a study that measured the impact of unbalanced trade with China on communities across the country. The research shows that areas with industries exposed to Chinese import competition have higher unemployment rates and lower wages, and the people in these areas are forced to rely more heavily on government safety net programs.

That study ranked the Greater Providence, RI, area second among regions exposed to competition from China. This comes as no surprise to Rhode Islanders.

Rhode Island was once a world leader in textiles and jewelry manufacturing. But these industries have been hit hard by a flood of cheap imports from China, greatly straining our State's economy. If we regained the nearly 12,000 jobs estimated to have been lost to China over the past decade, our unemployment rate in Rhode Island would drop by two full percentage points.

As I travel around Rhode Island, I have heard time and time again from workers and business owners about the costs of Chinese currency manipulation.

George Shuster is the CEO of Cranston Print Works, a textile manufacturer that traces its roots in Rhode Island back to 1807. He told me:

We know first-hand the impact that China's disruptive

policies have had as we have seen factory after factory close

their doors around us. Addressing China's manipulation of its

currency would be a good first step to bringing our trade

policy to where it needs to be to help get American

manufacturers moving in the right direction again.

Leslie Taito is the CEO of the nonprofit Rhode Island Manufacturing Extension Service. She has worked with a diverse set of manufacturers across the State to help them increase their efficiency and become more competitive. She told me this:

U.S. manufacturers are resourceful, agile, and fully

capable to meet national and international demand. Currency

manipulation creates an uneven playing field that has cost

the United States countless jobs and has dramatically

increased our trade deficit. I equate it to telling a boxer

to go into the ring with one hand tied behind his back and

asking him to come out the victor. Manufacturers in this

country aren't asking for special consideration, they just

want it to be fair.

Mr. President, this is why I made addressing currency manipulation a central part of my ``Making It in Rhode Island'' manufacturing agenda, and why I was one of the original cosponsors of

the legislation that is before the Senate today.

The Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2011 will strengthen the tools that we have at our disposal to counter the actions of countries such as China that choose to manipulate their currency rates. This legislation will first improve the oversight of exchange rates and allow us to identify currencies that are misaligned. For countries found to manipulate their currency values or that fail to correct a misalignment, this law will trigger tough consequences. Our trade enforcement agencies will gain clear authority to eliminate the advantage created by currency manipulation by imposing tariffs on products imported from offending countries. This should send a clear message to China, or any currency manipulator, that if they abuse the currency markets, they will not benefit.

Simply put, this legislation will help level the playing field for American companies. Economists have predicted that a fair market for our exports would reduce our annual trade deficit by between $100 billion and $200 billion. The resulting increase in production would add over one-quarter of $1 trillion to our GDP and create up to 2.25 million American jobs.

Are the Chinese squawking about this? Are the big multinational corporations who have no allegiance to any flag or nation squawking about this? Yes. Of course, they are. America has for too long been taken advantage of, allowing the wiles of others to erode our wealth. The winners at a rigged game will always object when the other party gets wise to the fact that the game is rigged and begin to do something about it.

But if we are to solve the problem of China's currency manipulation and stand up for American companies, American manufacturers, and American workers, we should pass this legislation.

I applaud my colleagues from both sides of the aisle for their work on this bill, and I commend in particular Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio who is here on the Senate floor managing the bill right now.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the job market these days is tough. I have heard from countless Rhode Islanders who have worked all their life, but who have lost their jobs and are now struggling to make ends meet. Sadly, many of these jobs have been lost because big companies are taking advantage of cheaper labor overseas.

We should take action to stop this pattern, and I have introduced legislation to end tax giveaways to companies that ship jobs overseas that I hope we will pass. In the meantime, we need to do everything we can to help those displaced workers get back on their feet.

Therefore, I am pleased that the Senate has acted to extend the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program for American workers who have lost their

jobs due to the effects of international trade. TAA benefits are designed to help displaced workers transition back into the job market, and that is precisely what we need during this prolonged period of high unemployment. In my State of Rhode Island, the unemployment rate has been over 10 percent for 30 straight months and currently stands at 10.6 percent.

TAA benefits will help advance our economic recovery and get Americans back to work. In the past 2 years, over 1,400 Rhode Islanders have been helped by the job training services provided through, and the readjustment allowances have offered those workers a modest bridge until they can get back on their feet.

I have said throughout the economic downturn that we need to stand up for people who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, and this is especially true for trade-displaced workers. President Kennedy made this point when he signed TAA into law in 1962. He said then, regarding the effects of U.S. trade policy on our workers, that ``those injured . . . should not be required to bear the full brunt of the impact. Rather, the burden of economic adjustment should be borne in part by the federal government.''

I know that American workers can compete and succeed in the global markets when given a level playing field. But for too long, our policy has been to encourage cheaper imports from countries with lax environmental standards and few protections for their workers.

TAA benefits help workers in the manufacturing and service sectors to adjust to a rapidly changing global economy. This legislation will ensure that this help remains available, especially with so many people still out of work in Rhode Island and throughout the country.

Madam President, this February I joined with colleagues from both sides of the aisle to offer an amendment to the FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Act to secure aircraft cockpits by making it a Federal criminal offense to knowingly aim the beam of a laser at an aircraft. Our commonsense and bipartisan amendment to protect passengers and pilots received overwhelming support in this body, and was agreed to by a vote of 96 to 1. A similar measure subsequently passed the House, without controversy, by voice vote under the suspension rules. Unfortunately, the larger bill to which my amendment was attached has been held up because of unrelated issues. As a result, today I am joining with Senators Kirk, Boxer, and Feinstein to re-introduce this provision as a stand-alone bill.

When targeted at aircraft, laser pointer strikes can instantly flash throughout the cockpit, temporarily

blinding the pilot and crew. One pilot described the feeling of being hit by a laser like this: ``It immediately [lit] up the whole cockpit and it hit both of my eyes and burned both of my corneas. Instantly, I was blinded. It felt like I was hit in the face with a baseball bat-- just an intense, burning pain.'' FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt warned that lasers can ``damage a pilot's eyes or cause temporary blindness.'' In an event on this topic held last year at T.F. Green Airport in my home state of Rhode Island, a pilot explained that the temporary blindness from a laser hit can last several seconds or longer, and when a plane is rapidly approaching the ground for landing, ``one second can make a big difference.''

This kind of threat to a pilot's sight--particularly during the critical phases of takeoff and landing--poses an unacceptable risk to the travelling public, our pilots and crew, and citizens on the ground. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has thus described laser incidents as ``a serious safety issue.''

The problem has grown in recent years. According to a report earlier this year by the Federal Aviation Administration, 2,836 pilots reported they were targeted with lasers in 2010, nearly double the number in 2009. These strikes occur at airports all across the country. At T.F. Green Airport, for example, there were 12 such reported incidents last year. The threat, which puts interstate commerce and travel at risk, requires attention at the national level.

Current Federal law does not provide prosecutors with sufficient tools to prosecute and deter this dangerous conduct. Ill-fitting existing statutes can only be used in limited cases, leaving even identified perpetrators to go unpunished. My legislation would solve this problem by creating a criminal offense that clearly covers this harmful conduct. It would explicitly criminalize knowingly aiming the beam of a laser pointer at an aircraft. Violations would lead to punishment of imprisonment for up to 5 years or fines up to $250,000. The bill would exempt valid uses of laser pointers in the aviation context, such as designated research and development activities, flight test operations, training, and emergency signaling. Prosecutors thus would have a new valuable tool to protect air safety without any burden being imposed on legitimate use of lasers.

I thank Senators Kirk, Boxer, and Feinstein for their leadership on this issue, and our partners in the House for their work. I hope Senators from both sides of the aisle will join me in enacting this legislation to protect American aviation.

Mr. President, it is a great honor and a great pleasure to join my senior Senator Jack Reed in welcoming Rabbi Leslie Gutterman from Providence, RI, here onto the Senate floor to open the Senate on this day by leading us in prayer.

Rabbi Gutterman is a personal friend, but he is more than that. He is a person of real significance in the Rhode Island community. He has served as the rabbi of Temple Beth El for 40 years, which means he has officiated at the weddings of the children of people whose bar mitzvahs at which he officiated, and he has officiated at the bar mitzvahs of the grandchildren of people whose weddings at which he officiated. He is an important part of the Rhode Island community. He has been described as a community asset and a moral compass for Rhode Island. In addition, he is just a beautiful person.

He and his wife Janet have come here today to join us, and we are very proud and delighted that we could share this moment of the morning with our colleagues and with Rabbi Gutterman.

I yield the floor back to the majority leader with great pride in the presence of Rabbi Gutterman on our floor this morning.

Mr. President, we all traveled over to the House Chamber a few days ago to hear President Obama present his jobs plan, a jobs plan for which I intend to support and fight. But during the course of that speech, we also heard the President indicate that he was going to come and make some recommendations to the Senate and to the House regarding our debt and deficit strategy.

I come to the floor today to urge the White House, in dealing with our debt and our deficit issues, to pursue a strategy for cost reduction in our health care system that does not rely on harmful cuts to our seniors' Medicare benefits. I cannot tell you how important this is in Rhode Island where we have a significant senior population. Many of our seniors are low income. The average Social Security benefit is around $13,000 to $14,000.

Some of the ideas that have been floated in this body--more than just floated; they have actually passed the Congress, the House of Representatives--would be devastating to Rhode Island seniors: an end to Medicare in 10 years; $6,000 in increased costs to each senior, on average, per year, hidden in what the Republicans like to call their cut, cap and balance plan, with an even worse attack on Medicare and on Medicare beneficiaries than was in the House budget that passed, which was a bad enough attack on its own. That simply is more than seniors in Rhode Island can manage. It is not fair; it is not right. And, most importantly it is not necessary.

I do concede that rising health care spending has placed a lot of stress on our national budget. In the joint session of Congress in September 2009, President Obama himself said: Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close.

If you go to the other side of the political spectrum and to the other Chamber of Congress, Congressman Ryan said: Our debt and deficit problem is, at its core, a health care problem. I agree with that. We need to address it. The question is how.

The fundamental fact that so many of our colleagues overlook in their urgency to attack Medicare--a program that Republicans have been against from its very founding and that the renewed tea party assault on Medicare has revived--has misled the debate, because the cost problem in Medicare is not a problem that is unique to Medicare. Wherever you look in the American health care system, costs are exploding. They are going up in Medicare probably at a lower rate than other quadrants of the health care sector, but they are going up. They are going up in Medicaid. States are having trouble dealing with that burden. They are going up in TRICARE and in veterans' care. Indeed, Secretary Gates said: Health care costs are eating the Defense Department alive. Eating the Defense Department alive, health care costs are. And if you are in private insurance, whether it is Kaiser or United or Blue Cross, pick your insurer, the costs are going up dramatically. Our own hospitals in Rhode Island, which provide health care, are watching their health care costs accelerate at significant rates far above a multiple of our rate of inflation.

This problem of rising health care costs is creating real strain. It is not just creating strain on the Federal budget--granted, it is creating strain in the Federal budget--but it is also creating incredible stress on seniors, on small business owners who can't afford health insurance for themselves, or have to whittle away at the health insurance their employees have in order to keep it affordable, or have to give it up entirely as they face the stresses of this economic downturn.

As the Presiding Officer, the senior Senator from Colorado, knows because

his, like Rhode Island, is a small business State. When you are a small business, your employees are pretty darned close to family. When you have to whittle away at their health care benefits, when you have to whittle away at what they get, when you have to raise their costs, that is a hard decision for that small business owner/manager to make.

It is tough on American families. It is tough on big businesses. It is tough on American big export companies. Our automobile industry, the tractor manufacturers, the road building equipment manufacturers, the folks who build big American products that we export overseas, we build enormous amounts of health care costs into those products. It has been estimated that nearly $2,000 in health care costs goes into an American car. Well, the foreign car that competes in the international market with that American car comes out of a national health care system. So that health care cost isn't in the cost structure of the company that makes the car. And because they collected most of their taxes through a value-added tax, it doesn't even come in through the tax system, because the export products get out of those companies and into the international market without a tax burden. So there are our products, trying to compete overseas, with this weight of our health care system cost on them and it helps make America uncompetitive. So it is not just Medicare. It is everywhere in the American health care system. It is systemwide.

A couple of years back, when we were first discussing this issue and the White House held a couple of health care conferences, I was fortunate to be invited to those conferences. The President used a metaphor in discussing where we were in health care in those discussions. He used the discussion of us being headed for a cliff. If we didn't do something about our health care costs as a country, we were headed for a cliff.

Well, nothing has changed. We are still headed for that cliff, and the solution we have to find is to take the bus that we are all on and turn it before we get to the cliff.

It is not an adequate solution to simply throw seniors off the bus in order to lighten the Medicare cost load without doing what we need to do to change the direction of the American health care system to alleviate this cross-system, this economywide burden.

Fortunately, we gave President Obama tools to do this in the Affordable Care Act. We fought about all sorts of elements in the Affordable Care Act. We fought about the public option. We fought about universal coverage. There were imaginary claims raised that there were death panels in the health care bill. It was considered to be socialized medicine, the same phrase that was trotted out years ago to oppose Medicare. They brought that old stalwart phrase out again-- totally false.

The only socialized medicine we have in this country is the kind we give our veterans, which is the very best quality care they are entitled to--what Bob Dole has said is the place we should look toward for health care reform. But that is a separate argument. But my point is there was a whole lot of phony controversy about that health care bill.

What was completely not discussed was that a huge chunk of that bill was dedicated to delivery system reform of the health care system, to turning the bus before we hit the cliff. There is a lot in there for the President to work with. There are literally dozens of programs and pilots to turn us in this new direction. I urge very strongly, as we address the government health care cost problem that we face, we look at it as a systemic problem, and we address it as a health care cost delivery system problem rather than pick out seniors, throw them off the bus, and keep it careening toward the cliff without changing its underlying direction. That would be, in medical parlance, a misdiagnosis of the illness and a mistreatment of it as a result, and fundamentally malpractice. But that is the direction we are being led, and I am here to urge us that we go in a different direction.

There is a lot to be gained. America's health care system is provably, wildly inefficient. We burn more than 18 percent of America's gross domestic product on our health care system every year--18 percent. To put that into context, the next most inefficient industrialized competitor that we deal with internationally runs at around 12 percent of gross domestic product. So here we are, the United States of America--the most innovative, the most technologically developed country in the world, a country that prides itself on efficiency, on common sense, on making smart decisions--and what are we doing? We are 50 percent more inefficient than the most inefficient other industrialized country in the world.

One would think that we would not be the most inefficient. One would certainly think we would not be the most inefficient by a margin of 50 percent over the second most inefficient country in the world. It just does not make any sense, but that is how bad it is. That is a pretty strong measure of how laden with excess costs our national health care system is.

For all of that, we do not get better outcomes. I wouldn't mind spending 50 percent more than Switzerland or France or any other country if we got 50 percent better outcomes, if we lived 50 percent longer, if we were 50 percent healthier, if we had 50 percent better care, if we had 50 percent better maternal mortality in childbirth--but we do not. When we look at the measures of how we do for our people in the American health care system, we compare with countries such as Greece and Croatia. We are down in the thirties in the ranking if you look at most of the quality measures.

Incredibly overbloated expenditure and at best moderate performance are the two prevailing characteristics of our health care system. That means there is a lot of ground to be gained.

It has been quantified by President Obama's own Council of Economic Advisers who estimated $700 billion every year could be saved if we cleaned up the health care system and made it moderately efficient. We could save that $700 billion without harming the quality of care for Americans.

That seems like a big number, but actually the New England Healthcare Institute says that number is $850 billion a year. George Bush's Treasury Secretary, Secretary O'Neill, who knows a lot about this from his time as CEO of Alcoa and as the person leading the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative, combined with the Lewin Group, which is a very well regarded Washington institution that looks at health care issues and evaluates them, they both agree that the number is $1 trillion a year that we could save without harming the experience or quality of care for the American consumer.

We tried to throw pretty much everything we could at this problem in the Affordable Care Act. A consultant to the administration, MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber, said about the Affordable Care Act and its delivery system reform component:

Everything is in here. I can't think of anything I would do

that they are not doing in that bill.

We gave the administration literally everything they could want, everything they asked for. I had a group that met with me as we were designing the Affordable Care Act, people from unions, people from NGOs that work on health care issues, people from the business sector, people who are experts in this area--to say, What are we missing? What more could we put in to help get at this problem of excessive costs for moderate results?

By the time the bill came to the floor, this was the answer from my group: Nothing. We can't think of anything else. We tried. It is all in there. So I agreed with Professor Gruber's assessment.

What is the nature of what we did? It boils down to what I contend are five basic strategies. One is quality improvement. The quality of American medicine is not anywhere near as good as it should be. Anybody who was listening to me talk, who has had a loved one in their family seriously ill, ill for any length of time, or who has been seriously ill themselves, they know that from their own experience. They know of the lost records. They know of the confusion between multiple doctors who are treating them and not talking to them, maybe both prescribing medications that are contra-indicated with each other, but they don't know the other one is doing it. They know the experience of having to be your own navigator through this complex system. They know what a nightmare that

is. They know it. It is not a debatable proposition.

It also works out in some pretty identifiable data. Nearly one in every 20 hospitalized patients in the United States gets a hospital- acquired infection. A hospital-acquired infection should be a ``never'' event. If we apply the Pronovost principles and do things started in Michigan and are carried out around the country now, we can knock that down by about 90 percent, but still it is endemic.

Everybody knows somebody who has gone to a hospital for a procedure and came out with a hospital-acquired infection, often a life- threatening one. Just treating those infections costs about $2.5 billion a year. They are completely avoidable.

That is just one element of the health care system. If we got after the quality gaps in our health care system, the savings would be far greater. So there is a lot to be gained in quality. That is one of the five.

The second is prevention. We do not analyze and evaluate and implement prevention strategies very well as a country. We don't even evaluate effectively what prevention methods save enough money in the long run that we should just pay for them for everybody because it saves money to have people do this. We don't differentiate between what is probably a good idea for an individual to pay for and what is such a good idea and saves so much money that it should be part of the baseline of medical treatment that every American gets. It doesn't matter how sick they are, doesn't matter how old they are, doesn't matter how wealthy they are, doesn't matter where they live, they should be getting this prevention treatment because it saves all of us money.

We should be analyzing those things, proving them and putting that prevention strategy to work because the cheapest way to treat an illness is to prevent it in the first instance. The third is payment reform. We pay doctors more--the more they prescribe, the more tests they order, the more medications they order, the more procedures they direct, the more they get paid. It should come as no surprise that when you send that incentive out there into that particular marketplace, you get dramatic overuse, which has been quantified in study after study.

This bill, the Affordable Care Act, has pilots to start directing the payment for medical procedures and for medical care based on the outcomes so that its value is how well you get that dictates payment, not how much the doctor does to you. That will be a paradigm shift in health care. You have to get it right. It is not easy to do. It is going to take some doing, but it is vitally important. That is the third part.

The fourth is administrative simplification, in particular, administrative simplification in the area of the warfare that currently exists between health insurance companies and hospitals and doctors. Ask any hospital, ask any doctor what it is like dealing with the insurance companies, trying to get paid for the services they deliver. They will tell you it is torture.

The last time I was at the Cranston Community Health Center in Rhode Island, they told me half of their personnel are dedicated to trying to get paid. The other half do the health care work. Half of their personnel are dedicated to trying get paid. And they have a $200,000 a year contract with experts to try to help train the 50 percent of their personnel who are dedicated to trying to get paid in what the latest tricks are from the insurance industry so they can keep ahead of the game. Because it is an arm's race. Well, my guess is that about 10 percent of the health care dollar that goes through the insurance companies goes to delay and denial of payment. There is 10 cents right off the top, leaving only 90 cents for the rest of the health care equation.

The doctors and the hospitals have to fight back. They have to hire their own consultants and their own experts and their own billing companies. They are not as efficient. There are more of them. They are more spread out. It is not what they are expert at. It is harder for them to fight back. I think they pay more than 10 cents out of every dollar. You put the 2 together, that is 20 cents out of the health care dollar on the private insurance side that does not go to health care at all. It goes to fund the arms race between insurers and doctors over getting paid.

This year Health Affairs: Journal of Health Care Policy published a study that compared the administrative costs of physician practices in Ontario, Canada, and physician practices in the United States. It found if doctors in the United States could lower their administrative costs to match those of the Ontario physicians, the total savings would be approximately $27.6 billion a year. The Ontario doctors have administrative costs, but they have a single-payer system and it is pretty easy to deal with. The $27.6 billion is primarily fighting with the different insurance companies that all have different systems about claims and billing. There are big savings to be had by eliminating that unnecessary and expensive warfare that produces zero health care benefit to anybody.

The last piece, which is the structure for most of the rest of it, is a solid, strong health information technology infrastructure for this country. I can go to a bank anywhere in this country and I can take out my ATM card and access my checking account. I can find out what is in my savings account. I can do transactions. I can make deposits. However, if I step out of that ATM booth and get whacked by a taxicab and rushed to the emergency room, they have no idea what my health history is or what my health records are. We do not have a modern electronic health record in this country. We do not have modern electronic infrastructure in this country.

When I started arguing about this a few years ago, I can remember The Economist magazine publishing an article that said the health care industry in America was the worst industry for the deployment of information technology of all of the American industries except one. The only industry that was behind the health care industry and the deployment of information technology was the mining industry. We have improved, thanks to President Obama and this administration putting a big investment in this area, but we have a long way to go because we were way behind the curve.

Those five things--quality improvement, serious investment and prevention where it saves money, payment reform so that the system has incentive to provide value rather than volume, knocking down the administrative overhead that drapes over this system and weighs it down, and a robust health information technology infrastructure, those are the five keys and almost every single one of the programs I referred to that is in the Affordable Care Act fits one of those principles.

Why are we not doing this? Why is this not a bigger part of the debate if it is $700 billion to $1 trillion a year, if the result is better care for Americans, fewer medical errors, more prevented illness, less nonsense and unnecessary care from their doctors in chasing the payment model of volume, less fighting with the insurance company over trying to get paid and a health information record that is yours, that is private, that is secure, that goes with you wherever you are?

There was a fellow in Rhode Island whose daughter was taken ill. She had a pretty serious condition. She was taken to the emergency room in Rhode Island, and they realized that this was bad. They needed specialty care, specialty machinery and treatment, and they had to rush to the specialty hospital in Massachusetts that could do the work on her she needed to save her life. So off they went. When they got there, they discovered that they had not brought her paper health records with her. They had to redo all the testing. They had to start from scratch. Seconds counted as they fought for this woman's life. Thankfully it all turned out fine, but it put her life at risk and it cost a fortune to redo all the tests. It made her recovery harder because a lot of time was wasted. Are you kidding me, a paper health record? But that is where we are.

All of this is win-win. Where is the pressure to do it? Well, there is a problem, and the problem is that it is not the kind of change that CBO--the people who guide our budget decisions around here--can score. I asked Alan Simpson from the Simpson-Bowles budget group during one of our Budget Committee hearings if he believed that reducing health care costs through delivery system reform is an important

part of addressing our debt and deficit problem. And he answered: What you are saying is exactly right. It is not, unfortunately, scoreable. That is why it is not in our report.

I get it. It is not scoreable. It is not in the report. We should not overlook these factors as we make these decisions on behalf of the American people because even if you cannot score how you get to that $700 billion in savings or if the New England Health Care Institute is right, that $850 billion, or if Bush Secretary O'Neill is right, that $1 trillion a year in savings using methods that improve both our experience and quality of care needs to be a priority even if it is not scoreable.

Tomorrow I will send a letter to the President, which the Presiding Officer has been good enough to sign, along with a broad array of my colleagues who have agreed to cosign, which reiterates the case I make here tonight. The letter urges the President's attention to the potential of delivery system reform rather than Medicare benefit cuts for seniors. It should be our first priority to fix that overloaded 50 percent more inefficient than the most inefficient country in the world system, the one with $700 billion or $850 billion or $1 trillion in annual savings that are possible. Fix that before you go to a senior who had no part in this, who cannot help but try to do their best, and say to them, we are taking away your benefit. That is not the way to proceed. That is the wrong way to proceed. It is morally wrong and it is wrong as a matter of policy.

Where I contend we are--and I will say this in closing--there is a movement and an industry emerging in the area of health care delivery system reform. It is strong in the private sector, whether we look at places such as Palmetto down the Carolina Coast; Geisinger in the Pennsylvania area; up in the Wisconsin area, Gundersen Lutheran; out toward Utah, the west, Inner Mountain; Mayo in Minnesota and Florida; or Kaiser, based in California. These are all major American health care delivery companies that have seen the potential delivery system reform. They are working hard to make it happen. They are committed to it, and they are getting results. We need to have their back. We need to support them as they do this.

But it is never going to be scorable because this is not a mathematical equation where we say: You are not getting this benefit. We are going to take away 20 percent of what you get. We are going to run it through the same nonsensical system that causes most of our cost problems and at the end we are going to say it is going to be 20 percent cheaper. It is easy to do the math that way, but it is a pretty cruel way, and it is lazy because we need to be in the middle fixing that piece.

But it is not arithmetically easy because where we are is like the early stages, I contend, of the airline industry--I should say of the flight industry. What did we know when the Wright Brothers first put their flying machine into the air at Kitty Hawk? We knew a curved surface sped through the air, generated lift. We knew a whirling air screw generated propulsion, and we knew that if you twisted the ends of the wings, you could control the direction. Those principles haven't changed.

I just got back from Afghanistan and Pakistan. We flew for 14 hours from the Arabian Peninsula back to Dulles Airport. That plane had movies on it. It had food on it. Everybody was comfortable. It had air- conditioning. We landed a plane that was the size of probably the average small town in America at the time the Wright Brothers were flying and everybody on it felt perfectly safe and comfortable. It came down a tube of electronic decision support for those pilots so they knew exactly what was going on every moment. If you went back to the Wright Brothers, you could not score in the actuarial sense the progress that would lead us in less than a century from a rickety wooden canvas, manned kite, puffing down the beach at Kitty Hawk, to these sleek, computer-guided, miraculous aircraft that fly us in comfort around the world today. You could not do it. But that didn't mean we shouldn't bet on it. That didn't mean we shouldn't pursue it. That didn't mean it wouldn't make a huge difference in the quality of mankind's life to be able to have that technological lead.

So that is where we are. These five principles are a little bit beyond the Kitty Hawk stage perhaps but not by much. If we invest and if we get behind this, the day will come, and it will come soon, when the quality of health care each one of us receives--we will look back and we will think, what we are getting now, that was canvas and wood sticks. That was primitive. We will have personalized electronic health care. Companies will emerge to create applications so whatever illness you have, the very best treatment will be downloaded so you know what you should be doing, when, and it will be adjusted for your blood type and family history and gender, if it is a factor that makes a difference, and for your body mass. Whatever it is that is relevant to you getting the best treatment as an individual, that is the kind of stuff that will be available. We will aggregate the data about what is effective, and people who have far more brilliance than I will plow through all the data about America's health care experience and they will start learning things about what works and what doesn't, what two things we didn't notice are connected. We will start to find those anomalies or those associations, and that will open a whole new era of discovery and treatment. Between those new applications that will guide in a personalized way health care for Americans, based on their own data and based on the best available information so your doctor is a little bit like that pilot landing the plane out of Dulles, making their own decisions, flying the plane directly but surrounded by that decision support that makes plane landings so safe--if your wheels aren't down, the alarms go off. If you get out of the glide slope, the alarms go off. If there are wind gusts on the field, the alarms go off. All that information and more is captured so the pilots can focus on flying the plane. That is the kind of support our doctors can have. That is the kind of support we can have. Those are American industries that will grow and emerge.

So we need to get behind this. I feel very strongly about this, as my colleagues can tell and as the four pages have had to wait and listen to me at this late hour can tell. But I say now it would be a shameful act on the part of the Congress of the United States if, with an opportunity like that in front of us, if with a compelling cost target, as we have from delivery system reform in front of us, and with the proven thesis that by getting there we actually improve the quality of care for people--we are not taking anything away; we are making their quality and experience of care better, which is a win-win-win. If we turn away from that win-win-win and instead take the easy, lazy way of throwing seniors off the bus and putting Medicare benefit cuts on them and let that bus just keep rocketing toward that cliff, that will be a moment that will merit the scorn of the American people and the shame of our own conscience because we will have done the wrong thing and we will have done it because it was the easy way out.

I urge the White House not to take that road and to instead redouble their efforts on delivery system reform, back Secretary Sebelius in what she is doing and Don Berwick in what he is doing and, most significantly, put a hard date and dollar metric out there so the world can evaluate how well the administration did. If this is as important as I think it is, if this is as important as the administration thinks it is by the work they have already dedicated to it, then they should be willing to set for themselves a date and dollar savings target to tell the country: By this date, we will save this many hundreds of billions of dollars a year through delivery system reform. If we don't, then it is murk, it is mush. There is no accountability to it. It is generally going in the right direction.

A young President many years ago had a similar opportunity. We were losing the space race to the Soviet Union. He could have said in his speech: I think it is time that we bent the curve of America's space program. I think it is time we bent the curve of America's space exploration. But he didn't. He said something much more specific. He said: Within a decade, the United States of America is going to put a man on the Moon and bring him home safely. If President John Fitzgerald

Kennedy had given that first speech, we would never have put a man on the Moon. The reason we put a man on the Moon is because when a President of the United States sets a hard target for the Government of the United States, that vast bureaucracy moves to achieve that purpose. If the President of the United States denies that vast bureaucracy, the clarity of that purpose does not give a specific measurable goal, and it makes that goal far less likely to achieve.

So not only do I ask the White House to turn away from Medicare benefit cuts and redouble their efforts on delivery system reform, I ask them to decide how much they are going to save, and by when, and let us know so we can evaluate their success in meeting that goal. I promise them every support in reaching that goal.

I thank the Presiding Officer for his patience and yield the floor.

Madam President, today I rise to offer my support for the President's request for immediate supplemental assistance for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. This funding will enable FEMA to continue to provide critical aid to victims left in the wake of Irene's deadly

path, and victims of other natural disasters that have struck throughout the country.

My home State of Rhode Island has experienced two major disasters in the last couple of years, so I know firsthand how hard homeowners, businesses, and municipalities have struggled to recover, even with Federal assistance programs.

This is not the time to play politics. If Congress fails to provide this emergency funding between now and September 30, we run the risk of completely running out of disaster funds. Our fellow Americans need this funding to recover from catastrophic disasters. Mother Nature does not distinguish between blue and reds States, and both Democratic and Republican Governors--and in Rhode Island's case an Independent Governor--have asked for immediate disaster aid.

This supplemental funding will help replenish FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund, which pays for Federal disaster response and recovery activities. The fund has been running dangerously low as a result of the devastating tornado in Missouri, tornados in Alabama, major flooding in the Midwest and South, wildfires in Texas, and the historic flooding caused by Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee.

This year's disasters have been particularly destructive and I urge my colleagues to remain committed to all the victims as they struggle to become whole again. We should approve this disaster aid to ensure that communities aren't left in ruins.

The shortfall in funding has already forced the administration to put certain disaster recovery activities on hold. My State, like many others, sustained a federally declared disaster last month as a result of Hurricane and Tropical Storm Irene. In order for FEMA to ensure it had the resources to provide immediate relief for new disasters such as Hurricane Irene, the agency had to freeze long-term recovery and mitigation projects.

This funding conundrum really hits home because in Rhode Island communities are still reeling from the historic flooding that occurred in the spring of 2010. Rhode Island saw more rain during that disaster than any month on record, and the devastation wrought by those storms exceeded anything in living memory.

I was on the ground during the flooding last year and have been intimately involved in the recovery process. I know how important FEMA's long-term recovery and mitigation programs are for revitalizing damaged communities, especially in States like mine that were already hurting from the difficult economic environment.

I urge my colleagues across the aisle to let us pass this critical legislation to provide supplemental funding for FEMA. Not only will it go a long way toward providing peace of mind should another disaster strike, it will also ensure that communities across the country that are still recovering from past disasters can continue to move forward in their recovery. This will make us a stronger and more resilient nation.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak in favor of H.R. 1249, the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act. This is a vital piece of job-creating legislation and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Before I turn to the merits of the bill, let me start by applauding the long, hard work of Chairman Leahy. He has led the effort on this legislation for many years, patiently working towards a bill that would win broad support from the many interested stakeholders while achieving the crucial goals of spurring innovation, generating jobs, and securing America's place as the world leader in the intellectual property economy. It has been a pleasure to work with him on this important issue. I likewise applaud the hard work of colleagues on both sides of the aisle who have sought to support continued American leadership in technology, medicine, and countless other fields.

Our patent system unfortunately has become a drag on that leadership, largely because it has gone 60 years without improvements. It is long past time to repair that system and thereby energize our innovation economy and create jobs.

Our Nation long has led the world in hard work and ingenuity. My home State of Rhode Island, for example, has a long and proud history of industry and innovation, from the birth of the American industrial revolution to the high-tech entrepreneurs leading our State forward today. An area has developed in Providence, for example, that is rightfully known by the nickname ``the Knowledge District'' for its remarkable innovation. Rhode Island likewise is the home of remarkable research universities, individual inventors, and businesses of all sizes that have contributed giant leaps forward in the fields of technology, medicine, and mechanical science.

Innovators like these in Rhode Island, and across America, are the drivers of our future economic well-being. My conversations with these Rhode Islanders, however, have made clear to me that the current patent system is making it unnecessarily difficult for them to innovate. Innovators who can solve the most complicated problems of medicine, mechanics, or technology are losing out because of basic problems in our patent system. We need to fix these problems now. Fail to do so and we will pay the price in jobs and international competitiveness.

I have heard two complaints over and over back home in Rhode Island. The first relates to delays in the issuance of patents. Enormous backlogs persist at the Patent and Trademark Office. As a result, our innovators have no certainty whether they have successfully

established intellectual property rights in their inventions. This dampens and frustrates innovation.

The America Invents Act takes on the backlog in a number of different ways. It allows the Patent and Trademark Office discretion to set its own fees and includes a provision that will discourage fee diversion. While I would have preferred to have seen Senator Coburn's anti-fee- diversion amendment accepted by the House, I am confident that these provisions, coupled with exceptions that will ensure low fees for small businesses, will enable the Patent and Trademark Office to better manage its resources and reduce examination times.

My conversations with Rhode Island inventors also identified a second clear problem in our patent system: the threat of protracted litigation. Unfortunately, numerous poor quality patents have issued in recent years, resulting in seemingly endless litigation that casts a cloud over patent ownership. Administrative processes that should serve as an alternative to litigation also have broken down, resulting in further delay, cost, and confusion.

The America Invents Act will address these problems by ensuring that higher quality patents issue in the future. This will produce less litigation and create greater incentives for innovators to commit the effort and resources to create the next big idea. Similarly, the bill will improve administrative processes so that disputes over patents can be resolved quickly and cheaply without patents being tied up for years in expensive litigation. The bill also moves America to the simple First-Inventor-to-File system which will eliminate needless uncertainty and litigation over patent ownership, and it eliminates so-called ``tax patents.''

In all, the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act is an important and much- needed reform of our patent system. True, every intellectual property stakeholder did not get everything they wanted in this version of the patent bill. I am sure every participant in this process would like a few things added to the bill and a few things taken out. That is inevitable in a bill that has been crafted in a true spirit of compromise. The result is a bill that may not please everyone in all respects but that satisfies its core responsibility to remove existing burdens on American innovation and allow the growth of high quality, high technology jobs in our country. It is extremely important in this time of economic hardship that we put people to work. That is exactly what this bill will do and I believe we should pass it immediately. We should not amend it further in a manner that will risk the bill's ultimate defeat. This is a long journey and we are at the finish; let's get this bill done for American inventors and workers. Let's see this much-needed piece of patent reform passed into law.

I once again urge my colleagues to vote to pass this important piece of legislation into law.