Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

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

Mr. President, I am here again to talk about the effects of climate change on the health of our families and our communities. Just as we know that secondhand smoke and too much sun exposure are bad for human health, we know pollution and variations in climate conditions are as well.

I wish to thank our chairman on the Environment and Public Works Committee, Mrs. Boxer, for the briefing she held today with a number of scientists, including one who spoke specifically about the human health effects we can see from climate change. Climate change is threatening to erode the improvements in air quality we have achieved through the Clean Air Act.

EPA-enforced emissions reductions have led to a decline in the number and

severity of bad air days in the United States. These are the days I know the Presiding Officer is familiar with because I am sure they happen in Connecticut as well as in Rhode Island, where the air quality is so poor that it is unhealthy for sensitive individuals: the elderly, infants, people with breathing difficulties to be outdoors. Even healthy people are urged to limit their activities when out-of-doors.

In Rhode Island, about 12 percent of children and 11 percent of adults suffer from asthma. Both are higher than the national average. Our Rhode Island Public Transit Authority runs free buses on bad ozone days to try to keep car traffic down because these days are so dangerous to the public. Of course, the major air pollutant behind bad air days is ozone, commonly known as smog. Ground-level ozone or smog makes it difficult to breathe, causes coughing, inflames airways, aggravates asthma, emphysema and bronchitis and makes lungs more susceptible to infection.

That all means asthma attacks, emergency room visits, hospitalizations, which, in turn, result in missed school and work and a burden not only of worry but also a burden on the economy. Smog, of course, forms more quickly during hot and sunny days. So as climate change drives more heat, it increases the number of warm days and the conditions for smog and for bad air days become more common.

Climate change is also prolonging the allergy season. I am sure there are a number of people listening who suffer from hay fever in the late summer and early fall. Some people suffer from it most acutely. It is most often caused by ragweed pollen. Since 1995, ragweed season has increased across the country. It has increased by 13 days in Madison, WI. It has increased by 20 days in Minneapolis, MN. It has increased by almost 25 days in Fargo, ND. The further north you go, the greater the increase in the ragweed season. So for folks in Fargo, for instance, it is 25 more days of sniffling and sneezing and 25 more days that ragweed pollen might trigger a child's asthma attack.

Not only does more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere mean warmer weather and therefore longer pollen seasons, it also means a higher pollen count. At 280 parts per million, which was the concentration of atmospheric carbon back in the year 1900, each ragweed plant would produce about 5 grams of pollen.

At 370 parts per million, which is where we are now--year 2000 levels to be precise--pollen production more than doubles. It doubles again at 72 parts per million, which is the concentration that is now projected for the year 2075. So as we work to improve air quality and to reduce respiratory illnesses and the allergic conditions that trigger respiratory distress, we need to fight the growing trigger, climate change.

Warming oceans and lakes can also harm our health. Higher water surface temperature is associated with harmful blooms of various species of algae. These blooms are often referred to as ``red tide.'' They deplete oxygen, block sunlight, and they produce toxins. The toxins are very often captured by clams and oysters and other shellfish.

When they are consumed, it can result in neurotoxic shellfish poisoning, which causes debilitating respiratory and gastrointestinal symptoms. A warming climate also is predicted to change the range of disease-spreading parasites, such as ticks and mosquitoes. With longer summers and shorter winters, we will face more exposure to these pests and to the diseases they can carry.

We in New England and Connecticut and Rhode Island and Massachusetts, of course, are very familiar with lyme disease, which is a tick-borne illness that can have very grave and serious effects.

Slow and steady warming is also causing sea levels to rise, which threatens coastal infrastructure and human safety as well. In South Kingstown, RI, Matunuck Beach Road is the only means of access to approximately 500 homes. That road also covers the public water main. For years, the sand erosion has eaten away at the beach. Now the road is immediately vulnerable to storms. Indeed it has been overwashed in recent storms. A breach in Matunuck Beach Road cuts off those 500 homes from emergency services. If it were damaging enough, it could cut off their water.

Our water quality is also threatened. Many of Rhode Island's wastewater treatment plants are in low-lying areas and flood zones near the coast. It is the story in many other States. In California, for example, the rising sea level has put 29 wastewater treatment plants, responsible for 530 million gallons of sewage processing every day, at increased risk for flooding.

As we know, climate change loads the dice for more extreme weather: heat waves, droughts, storms, all serious threats to human health and safety. Climate change has led to an increase in the likelihood of severe heat waves. Extreme heat causes heat exhaustion. It can cause heat stroke. The need for air-conditioning in heat waves also strains the power infrastructure, which can cause electrical brownouts and blackouts. This hinders emergency services and exacerbates wildfires and drought. These are the kinds of conditions--from extreme heat--that led to literally tens of thousands of deaths in the record-setting Russian heat wave of 2010.

Heavy rainfall can cause physical damage, flooding erosion, and sewage overflow. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 118,000 sanitary sewer overflows occur annually from storms overwashing through combined sewer systems, overloading those systems, and being released directly into the open, releasing up to actually 860 billion gallons of untreated sewage and wastewater. In 2010, heavy rainfall and flooding caused millions of dollars in damage in spilled raw sewage in Warwick, RI, my home State. The flood led to the temporary shutdown of the local wastewater treatment facility. These overflows, like the one in Warwick, can result in beach closures, shellfish bed closures, contamination of drinking water supplies, and other environmental and public health problems.

Extreme rainfall, meaning both way too little and way too much rainfall, promotes waterborne outbreaks of disease. In the northeast United States, heavy rainfall has increased by 74 percent since my childhood in the 1950s.

As we have seen with Superstorm Sandy, Hurricane Irene, and Hurricane Katrina, storms can very quickly affect millions of people and require tens of billions of dollars to clean up. The threat gets worse as sea- level rise allows storm surges to reach farther inland and create more damage than just a few decades ago. Much of the east coast was fearful of flooding during Superstorm Sandy last year, including, of course, southern Rhode Island. Because of erosion and sea-level rise, the storm surges on our shores can reach homes that were originally built hundreds of feet from the coastline.

I had the experience of standing with a man who had a childhood home that had been through at least three generations of his family. He was now actually older than me, and that childhood home--which had stood well back from the beach--was canting toward the sea and tumbling into the ocean. The ocean had claimed his home of multiple generations as its victim.

This map shows by ZIP code where the 800,000 people displaced by Hurricane Katrina sought refuge after that terrible storm. Hundreds of thousands of people were strewn across every corner of the country. Hundreds of thousands of lives were disrupted as a result.

Thankfully, not everybody is sleepwalking through these alarming realities. In 2010, Rhode Island created our Climate Change Commission, which has identified risks to key infrastructure and is analyzing data from events such as Hurricane Sandy and the 2010 flood. Other States have formed similar commissions.

I brought last night to our President's State of the Union Address Grover Fugate, who is executive director of our Coastal Resources Management Council, which has to look at and address every day and plan for the effects of our rising sea level, increased storm activity, and the risk that that portends to the shores of our ocean State.

For the past 3 years, Rhode Island has also been part of a regional greenhouse gas initiative nicknamed ReGGie, along with our neighbors in Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire,

New York, and Vermont. Our region caps carbon emissions and sells permits to emit greenhouses gases to powerplants. This has created economic incentives for both the States and our utilities to invest in energy efficiency and in renewable energy development. And consumers have reaped the benefit of lower prices. In 2012, regional emissions were 45 percent below the annual cap, so just last week the State announced an agreement to cap future emissions at the 2012 rate.

I am proud of the work done in my State, and I know the Presiding Officer's home State of Connecticut is working equally hard on this issue. We are working to both slow climate change and to prepare for what are now its inevitable effects. But sadly, when it comes to this particular threat to our national security and our prosperity, Congress is asleep. It is time for us to wake up. The health and safety of Americans and of people all over the world is at risk. We must awaken to what is happening in the world around us and to the fact that the carbon pollution we are emitting is causing it. This is our responsibility. This is our generation's responsibility. It is, indeed, our duty. It is time for us to wake up.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the heroic service of Rhode Island Air National Guard TSgt. Gregory M. Grutter. Technical Sergeant Grutter was awarded the Bronze Medal Star with Valor and the Purple Heart, and I honor him for the courageous actions he took to earn these awards.

In 2008, Technical Sergeant Grutter was assigned as a security officer for the Defense Intelligence Support Office-Afghanistan. On March 20, 2008, while driving a convoy vehicle for the Guard, Technical Sergeant Grutter twice risked his own life to thwart enemy ambushes and save the lives of others.

In the first instance, Technical Sergeant Grutter used his own vehicle as a shield to protect Afghan National Police officers driving an unarmored vehicle. Then, noticing the Afghan National Police's machine gun crew in distress, he dismounted from his own vehicle, ran through intense fire, and helped the police repair their weapons.

While Technical Sergeant Grutter was working with the machine gun crew, enemy insurgents moved in to flank the convoy and began to prepare an attack. With great bravery, Sergeant Grutter ran approximately 200 meters over exposed terrain to engage the insurgents, which forced them to retreat. Shortly thereafter, the enemy disengaged and left the area.

Unfortunately, a second ambush was already in the making. A large number of civilians became trapped by small arms fire from enemy forces. Without regard for his personal safety, Technical Sergeant Grutter provided suppressing fire from an exposed position, which allowed the Afghan National Police to evacuate the civilians to safety.

As a result of the courageous actions taken by Technical Sergeant Grutter, lives were saved and the convoy continued its mission.

I thank Technical Sergeant Grutter for his brave actions and honor his distinguished service and meritorious achievement in earning the Bronze Medal Star with Valor and the Purple Heart. The courage he demonstrated during his combat mission brings great honor to our country, the Air National Guard and the state of Rhode Island.

Along with his fellow Guardsmen, I thank Technical Sergeant Grutter for his outstanding commitment to serving and protecting our country. We in Rhode Island are lucky to call him one of our own, and we are proud of him.

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

Mr. President, I am going to be joined fairly soon by the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Levin, to discuss the upcoming sequester and the impact the sequester will have on this country if it is allowed to go forward. Chairman Levin has been pretty clear about this, as have our national security officials on the defense

side. It is equally harsh on the nondefense side. But most important, it will be a real blow to the economy. The economists now are saying if we let the sequester kick in as scheduled, it will cost us 1 million jobs. One million Americans will lose their jobs because we let the sequester hit.

Other things--cuts to education; 70,000 young children kicked off of Head Start; 10,000 teacher jobs at risk; funding for up to 7,200 special education teachers and aides and staff could be cut. Food safety--2,100 fewer food inspectors. Research--several thousands of our researchers who are doing cutting-edge research in all sorts of areas from electronics to finding cures for diseases could lose their jobs. Up to 373,000 seriously mentally ill adults and seriously emotionally disturbed children could go untreated at a time when we are talking about the need for more treatment in the wake of the terrible tragedy in Newtown, CT. In law enforcement we could see a lowering of capacity equivalent to more than 1,000 Federal agents. Nutrition assistance-- 600,000 women and children would be dropped from the Department of Agriculture's nutrition programs. More than 100,000 formerly homeless people, including veterans, would be removed from their current housing and emergency shelter programs because they would no longer be funded under these cuts.

It is a deadly serious thing, the sequester that is coming at us. There are much better alternatives. What I am doing today is filing two pieces of legislation that would completely eliminate the sequester and pay for the elimination of the sequester, not by running up the debt or the deficit, but by repealing tax giveaways, giveaways in the Tax Code. One of the bills would put in enough tax giveaways that we could get rid of the sequester for about a year, which would allow the budget process we are embarked on now to conclude and then we would be ready to go with the new budget and go forward in the regular order that way, letting the budget process drive the decision.

The other way is simply to get rid of the sequester for the full 10 years, just get rid of it for once and for all; do it now and the other bill I proposed would do that. Both bills do this without raising taxes, by going after tax giveaways, and by avoiding these kinds of Draconian defense and nondefense cuts that have been now--I guess ``estimated'' is probably the right word but I think they are pretty confident would cost America a million jobs. A million American families would lose their paychecks because we did this.

The first point I want to make as I go about this is these tax expenditures are no small thing. Here is what we collect through the income tax every year from individuals: $1.09 trillion; round numbers, $1 trillion. Here is what we give away in tax deductions, loopholes, different expenditures and deductions: $1.02 trillion. So on the individual side what we pass through the Tax Code and back to people is almost as big as what we actually collect.

When you look at the corporate income tax revenue, the corporate income tax revenue is $181 billion in 2011. Here is what went back through to corporations in tax expenditures: $157 billion.

Another way to look at it is there is $2.1 trillion of tax liability in this country. One trillion dollars of it comes back to the government in the form of actual revenues and another trillion of it gets distributed through the gimmicks and loopholes and deductions and tricks and so forth in the Tax Code. On the corporate side there is a total of $338 billion in tax liability, of which only $181 billion actually appears as revenue to the government, and the other $157 billion gets distributed again because of tricks and gimmicks and loopholes and provisions in the Tax Code.

What some of our colleagues want us to do is say: Well, we raised tax rates once--just now. We raised them on only the wealthiest families in America. We only raised them back to where they were under President Clinton when the economy was booming, but we did that and we should look no further.

The problem with that analysis is that only looks at the revenue that is actually collected. It doesn't look at the loopholes. It doesn't look at the tax expenditures either on the individual side or on the corporate side.

It is also worth noting that if we add these two up and we get $2.1 trillion or, more likely on the corporate side, if we add these up and we get $338 billion, there is more money out there which that doesn't count. That is the money that never shows up for taxation in the first place because it has been hidden in offshore tax refuges. People have pretended their income is in funds in the Cayman Islands, and they have pretended their intellectual property is in a five-person office in Ireland. There are a lot of gimmicks by which a lot of the money never even gets into this calculation. When we look at the pain the sequester is going to cause, it makes a lot of sense to look at the tax expenditures, which amount to a total of $1.17 trillion, and use that to offset.

Another thing worth looking at, just to remember where we are, is that in the last 2 years on this question of reducing the deficit, we have reduced the deficit by $2.4 trillion, and $1.7 trillion of that came in spending cuts and $700 billion came in the form of new revenues. In terms of a balanced approach to deficit reduction that looks at both spending cuts and revenues, we are not balanced yet. We are nearly $1 trillion ahead on the spending cut side. So when Republicans say we are only going to look at spending cuts going forward, they are not just saying that all those goodies in the Tax Code that go to wealthy individuals and corporations as tax deductions, loopholes, and expenditures are off limits, they are also saying that we are going to make it even more unbalanced than it is now.

By the way, the way I get to $1.7 trillion is by taking $1.46 trillion, which is the actual cuts, and then adding the interest savings that are associated with it. And I take the same interest savings on the revenue side, so it is even, the way we have allocated the interest.

I see Chairman Levin is here, so I am going to yield to him when he returns.

Let's look at one more graph while we are here. As we saw here, a lot of this is corporate tax expenditures. Every year there is $157 billion in corporate tax expenditures, which calls to mind, how are we doing in terms of a fair balance between individuals and corporations in the American tax system? Well, we have done some research, and it turns out that corporations are providing less and less of our revenues.

When we go back to 1935, this chart shows that for every $1 of revenue the U.S. Government got from an individual, it got $1 from corporations. It was 1 to 1--individuals $1, corporations $1. By 1948 it became 2 to 1. For every $1 that a corporation contributed to our Nation's revenues, individuals had to kick in $2. In 1971 we had 3 to 1--$1 from corporate America, $3 from individuals, regular Americans. By 1984 that was up to 4 to 1--$1 from corporate, $4 from individuals. The ratio as of 2011 is 6 to 1, which means the amount of tax burden individuals in this country bear has climbed sixfold compared to corporations meeting their responsibilities. One of the reasons is that so many American corporations are hiding money offshore and away from the taxman. Now, whether these are the kinds of accounts we heard about during the Presidential campaign, such as in the Cayman Islands and so forth, or whether it is locating intellectual property in some faraway country and using internal transactions to move revenue to avoid the taxman over and over, Chairman Levin and his committee on investigations have looked into this and over and over again, and they have shown this is a really strong area in which an enormous amount of money can be raised.

The problem with doing it the other way--going after Americans again and asking them to kick in even more in spending cuts rather than going after the corporate high jinks in the Tax Code--is that leads us down this path of austerity that Republicans have championed. The problem with that austerity path is that when we get into a recession--as we have been in--we should try to cut our way out of it. The problem with that is it has not worked. We argued against that theory from the beginning because it seems wrong, it doesn't make logical sense, and it runs against a lot of principles of economics.

Over and over again, our colleagues said: No, no, no. We just need to cut

our way out of this, and that will be our solution. When we get in trouble with the economy, we cut spending.

That has proven to be a disaster. Where they have gone to austerity in Spain, the unemployment rate is 26.6 percent, and GDP growth is negative. Their economy is actually shrinking. Greece has an unemployment rate of 26.8 percent, and their GDP growth is negative 6 percent. Their economy is shrinking even more rapidly. In Portugal, the unemployment rate is 16.3 percent, and the GDP growth is negative 3 percent. By comparison, the United States, although things are not right yet, is doing much better.

I see that the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee is here on the Senate floor, so I will yield at this point.

Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Michigan. I appreciate very much that he has signed on as a cosponsor of both my 1-year and full 10-year--9 now--sequestration alternatives that avoid a calamity for our economy, the potential crash of 1 million jobs, by looking exactly where Senator Levin suggests--at the tax loopholes.

As I showed a moment ago, it used to be, back in 1935, a ratio of 1 to 1 of dollars paid by individual Americans in taxes compared to dollars paid by corporations in taxes. Now it is 6 to 1--$6 out of a family's pocket for every $1. What has allowed America's corporate world to lower their tax liability by so much--down to one-sixth of what it used to be relative to what regular Americans pay? Well, the biggest chunk of it is all the money that flows out through the Tax Code. We have virtually the same amount flowing out through the Tax Code as we actually keep our hands on as revenue. So for $2 trillion in tax eligibility, half of that goes right back, on the personal side, and out here, it is $338 billion, and $157 billion that goes back. It never sees the tax man. It goes straight back through the Tax Code.

Lobbyists have been here for years working on those loopholes and making sure different industries and interests get those benefits. That is where it

all goes. That is why we are in a situation in which we have what the distinguished Senator from Michigan has talked about--all of these disgraceful loopholes.

I echo his point of view. Now is an important time to do this because the alternative, which is more spending cuts, pushes us down the austerity path that has failed in Europe and that is projected by the Bipartisan Policy Center to cost us 1 million jobs. There is an alternative: to go after all of these tax loopholes which, as the chairman said--as Senator Levin said--we should be going after those anyway. They are just plain wrong on their own.

If we had a balanced budget, we should be going after them. It is simply not fair. These are relics of power and lobbying and special influence and special pleading in the Tax Code, and we need to be rid of them. Now is a very good time to be rid of them to avoid pitching the economy into recession.

I know my two pieces of legislation are not going to pass. We are not going to pass a bill that has the sequester 100 percent paid for by new revenues from closing tax loopholes. I wish we would, but I know we are not going to. My point in filing the legislation is to prove that it could be done. It could readily be done. It could be done with pieces of legislation that Senators in this body have supported over and over and over again. So it is not necessary to walk into the fiscal band saw of sequestration: to have our national defense take the hit it is going to take; to have regular American families take the hit they are going to take; to have the economy, with 1 million jobs lost, take the hit it is going to take, all for what? To protect the big oil companies so they can keep getting subsidies from the American people? Is that the choice we want to make? So that a billionaire who puts his name on a museum gets more charitable tax bang for his charitable buck than a regular family when they just give money to their church every week? Is that the stuff we want to protect at that cost?

That is the question we will have to answer. I am very grateful to the chairman, Senator Levin. He has been working on this for years. His Subcommittee on Investigations has been looking into this in detail. His legislation is a part of what I am proposing as one of the pay- fors. I look forward to continuing to work with him.

The American people have our back on this one. This is a starker contrast between where the American people want to go and how to protect them and our economy versus special interest politics in this town that has carved out all of these loopholes that allow corporations to effectively cheat on their taxes. Effectively. It is not technically cheating because they have gotten the law written so it allows that practice. But if a person is a regular American who doesn't have a lobbyist to get them that same sort of treatment, it looks an awful lot like cheating.

Let me close by saying if we go the other path--if we follow this austerity route we have seen to be so calamitous in Europe--here are some quotes:

If the full sequester takes place as scheduled, 1 million

jobs may be lost.

That is the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Paraphrasing: Growth in real GDP would be about 1\1/4\ percentage points different, depending on which path we choose.

We lose 1.25 percentage points GDP growth by hitting this sequester. That is from the Congressional Budget Office.

If we look at the American Enterprise Institute, hardly a leftwing group:

An abrupt spending sequester at a rate of about $110

billion per year--

Which is what we are looking at--

scheduled to begin March 1 could cause a U.S. recession.

Robert Frank, a very well regarded economics professor at Cornell, has said:

The cuts scheduled are not a way to run a rational

government. Cuts of any kind at this time are not a good

idea. It is recessionary. It would slow growth for sure and

put people out of work.

Another organization not known for its leftwing views, the Wall Street Journal, says this austerity method ``threatens to create a vicious cycle, as mass layoffs to meet budget targets spark a deeper contraction, reducing tax revenue and increasing welfare costs as well as damping consumption.''

That is exactly what has happened in other places.

Look at what they say in England where they have done this. The conservative Daily Telegraph's Jeremy Warner describes what is going on over there. ``This is a truly desperate state of affairs. . . . We seem to have the worst of all possible worlds, with nil growth, some very obvious cuts in the quantity and quality of public services, but pretty much zero progress in getting on top of the country's debts.''

That is not the way we want to go. That is the wrong way to go. There is another way, and it is to look at that vast part of the Tax Code both for corporations and, primarily, for wealthy individuals that allows literally nearly half of what would be tax revenue to flow back through the loopholes. That is where we should be doing our work. That is where we should be looking. I applaud and appreciate Senator Levin for his long and expert leadership in this area.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am going to be joined fairly soon by the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Levin, to discuss the upcoming sequester and the impact the sequester will have on this country if it is allowed to go forward. Chairman Levin has been pretty clear about this, as have our national security officials on the defense

side. It is equally harsh on the nondefense side. But most important, it will be a real blow to the economy. The economists now are saying if we let the sequester kick in as scheduled, it will cost us 1 million jobs. One million Americans will lose their jobs because we let the sequester hit.

Other things--cuts to education; 70,000 young children kicked off of Head Start; 10,000 teacher jobs at risk; funding for up to 7,200 special education teachers and aides and staff could be cut. Food safety--2,100 fewer food inspectors. Research--several thousands of our researchers who are doing cutting-edge research in all sorts of areas from electronics to finding cures for diseases could lose their jobs. Up to 373,000 seriously mentally ill adults and seriously emotionally disturbed children could go untreated at a time when we are talking about the need for more treatment in the wake of the terrible tragedy in Newtown, CT. In law enforcement we could see a lowering of capacity equivalent to more than 1,000 Federal agents. Nutrition assistance-- 600,000 women and children would be dropped from the Department of Agriculture's nutrition programs. More than 100,000 formerly homeless people, including veterans, would be removed from their current housing and emergency shelter programs because they would no longer be funded under these cuts.

It is a deadly serious thing, the sequester that is coming at us. There are much better alternatives. What I am doing today is filing two pieces of legislation that would completely eliminate the sequester and pay for the elimination of the sequester, not by running up the debt or the deficit, but by repealing tax giveaways, giveaways in the Tax Code. One of the bills would put in enough tax giveaways that we could get rid of the sequester for about a year, which would allow the budget process we are embarked on now to conclude and then we would be ready to go with the new budget and go forward in the regular order that way, letting the budget process drive the decision.

The other way is simply to get rid of the sequester for the full 10 years, just get rid of it for once and for all; do it now and the other bill I proposed would do that. Both bills do this without raising taxes, by going after tax giveaways, and by avoiding these kinds of Draconian defense and nondefense cuts that have been now--I guess ``estimated'' is probably the right word but I think they are pretty confident would cost America a million jobs. A million American families would lose their paychecks because we did this.

The first point I want to make as I go about this is these tax expenditures are no small thing. Here is what we collect through the income tax every year from individuals: $1.09 trillion; round numbers, $1 trillion. Here is what we give away in tax deductions, loopholes, different expenditures and deductions: $1.02 trillion. So on the individual side what we pass through the Tax Code and back to people is almost as big as what we actually collect.

When you look at the corporate income tax revenue, the corporate income tax revenue is $181 billion in 2011. Here is what went back through to corporations in tax expenditures: $157 billion.

Another way to look at it is there is $2.1 trillion of tax liability in this country. One trillion dollars of it comes back to the government in the form of actual revenues and another trillion of it gets distributed through the gimmicks and loopholes and deductions and tricks and so forth in the Tax Code. On the corporate side there is a total of $338 billion in tax liability, of which only $181 billion actually appears as revenue to the government, and the other $157 billion gets distributed again because of tricks and gimmicks and loopholes and provisions in the Tax Code.

What some of our colleagues want us to do is say: Well, we raised tax rates once--just now. We raised them on only the wealthiest families in America. We only raised them back to where they were under President Clinton when the economy was booming, but we did that and we should look no further.

The problem with that analysis is that only looks at the revenue that is actually collected. It doesn't look at the loopholes. It doesn't look at the tax expenditures either on the individual side or on the corporate side.

It is also worth noting that if we add these two up and we get $2.1 trillion or, more likely on the corporate side, if we add these up and we get $338 billion, there is more money out there which that doesn't count. That is the money that never shows up for taxation in the first place because it has been hidden in offshore tax refuges. People have pretended their income is in funds in the Cayman Islands, and they have pretended their intellectual property is in a five-person office in Ireland. There are a lot of gimmicks by which a lot of the money never even gets into this calculation. When we look at the pain the sequester is going to cause, it makes a lot of sense to look at the tax expenditures, which amount to a total of $1.17 trillion, and use that to offset.

Another thing worth looking at, just to remember where we are, is that in the last 2 years on this question of reducing the deficit, we have reduced the deficit by $2.4 trillion, and $1.7 trillion of that came in spending cuts and $700 billion came in the form of new revenues. In terms of a balanced approach to deficit reduction that looks at both spending cuts and revenues, we are not balanced yet. We are nearly $1 trillion ahead on the spending cut side. So when Republicans say we are only going to look at spending cuts going forward, they are not just saying that all those goodies in the Tax Code that go to wealthy individuals and corporations as tax deductions, loopholes, and expenditures are off limits, they are also saying that we are going to make it even more unbalanced than it is now.

By the way, the way I get to $1.7 trillion is by taking $1.46 trillion, which is the actual cuts, and then adding the interest savings that are associated with it. And I take the same interest savings on the revenue side, so it is even, the way we have allocated the interest.

I see Chairman Levin is here, so I am going to yield to him when he returns.

Let's look at one more graph while we are here. As we saw here, a lot of this is corporate tax expenditures. Every year there is $157 billion in corporate tax expenditures, which calls to mind, how are we doing in terms of a fair balance between individuals and corporations in the American tax system? Well, we have done some research, and it turns out that corporations are providing less and less of our revenues.

When we go back to 1935, this chart shows that for every $1 of revenue the U.S. Government got from an individual, it got $1 from corporations. It was 1 to 1--individuals $1, corporations $1. By 1948 it became 2 to 1. For every $1 that a corporation contributed to our Nation's revenues, individuals had to kick in $2. In 1971 we had 3 to 1--$1 from corporate America, $3 from individuals, regular Americans. By 1984 that was up to 4 to 1--$1 from corporate, $4 from individuals. The ratio as of 2011 is 6 to 1, which means the amount of tax burden individuals in this country bear has climbed sixfold compared to corporations meeting their responsibilities. One of the reasons is that so many American corporations are hiding money offshore and away from the taxman. Now, whether these are the kinds of accounts we heard about during the Presidential campaign, such as in the Cayman Islands and so forth, or whether it is locating intellectual property in some faraway country and using internal transactions to move revenue to avoid the taxman over and over, Chairman Levin and his committee on investigations have looked into this and over and over again, and they have shown this is a really strong area in which an enormous amount of money can be raised.

The problem with doing it the other way--going after Americans again and asking them to kick in even more in spending cuts rather than going after the corporate high jinks in the Tax Code--is that leads us down this path of austerity that Republicans have championed. The problem with that austerity path is that when we get into a recession--as we have been in--we should try to cut our way out of it. The problem with that is it has not worked. We argued against that theory from the beginning because it seems wrong, it doesn't make logical sense, and it runs against a lot of principles of economics.

Over and over again, our colleagues said: No, no, no. We just need to cut

our way out of this, and that will be our solution. When we get in trouble with the economy, we cut spending.

That has proven to be a disaster. Where they have gone to austerity in Spain, the unemployment rate is 26.6 percent, and GDP growth is negative. Their economy is actually shrinking. Greece has an unemployment rate of 26.8 percent, and their GDP growth is negative 6 percent. Their economy is shrinking even more rapidly. In Portugal, the unemployment rate is 16.3 percent, and the GDP growth is negative 3 percent. By comparison, the United States, although things are not right yet, is doing much better.

I see that the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee is here on the Senate floor, so I will yield at this point.

Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Michigan. I appreciate very much that he has signed on as a cosponsor of both my 1-year and full 10-year--9 now--sequestration alternatives that avoid a calamity for our economy, the potential crash of 1 million jobs, by looking exactly where Senator Levin suggests--at the tax loopholes.

As I showed a moment ago, it used to be, back in 1935, a ratio of 1 to 1 of dollars paid by individual Americans in taxes compared to dollars paid by corporations in taxes. Now it is 6 to 1--$6 out of a family's pocket for every $1. What has allowed America's corporate world to lower their tax liability by so much--down to one-sixth of what it used to be relative to what regular Americans pay? Well, the biggest chunk of it is all the money that flows out through the Tax Code. We have virtually the same amount flowing out through the Tax Code as we actually keep our hands on as revenue. So for $2 trillion in tax eligibility, half of that goes right back, on the personal side, and out here, it is $338 billion, and $157 billion that goes back. It never sees the tax man. It goes straight back through the Tax Code.

Lobbyists have been here for years working on those loopholes and making sure different industries and interests get those benefits. That is where it

all goes. That is why we are in a situation in which we have what the distinguished Senator from Michigan has talked about--all of these disgraceful loopholes.

I echo his point of view. Now is an important time to do this because the alternative, which is more spending cuts, pushes us down the austerity path that has failed in Europe and that is projected by the Bipartisan Policy Center to cost us 1 million jobs. There is an alternative: to go after all of these tax loopholes which, as the chairman said--as Senator Levin said--we should be going after those anyway. They are just plain wrong on their own.

If we had a balanced budget, we should be going after them. It is simply not fair. These are relics of power and lobbying and special influence and special pleading in the Tax Code, and we need to be rid of them. Now is a very good time to be rid of them to avoid pitching the economy into recession.

I know my two pieces of legislation are not going to pass. We are not going to pass a bill that has the sequester 100 percent paid for by new revenues from closing tax loopholes. I wish we would, but I know we are not going to. My point in filing the legislation is to prove that it could be done. It could readily be done. It could be done with pieces of legislation that Senators in this body have supported over and over and over again. So it is not necessary to walk into the fiscal band saw of sequestration: to have our national defense take the hit it is going to take; to have regular American families take the hit they are going to take; to have the economy, with 1 million jobs lost, take the hit it is going to take, all for what? To protect the big oil companies so they can keep getting subsidies from the American people? Is that the choice we want to make? So that a billionaire who puts his name on a museum gets more charitable tax bang for his charitable buck than a regular family when they just give money to their church every week? Is that the stuff we want to protect at that cost?

That is the question we will have to answer. I am very grateful to the chairman, Senator Levin. He has been working on this for years. His Subcommittee on Investigations has been looking into this in detail. His legislation is a part of what I am proposing as one of the pay- fors. I look forward to continuing to work with him.

The American people have our back on this one. This is a starker contrast between where the American people want to go and how to protect them and our economy versus special interest politics in this town that has carved out all of these loopholes that allow corporations to effectively cheat on their taxes. Effectively. It is not technically cheating because they have gotten the law written so it allows that practice. But if a person is a regular American who doesn't have a lobbyist to get them that same sort of treatment, it looks an awful lot like cheating.

Let me close by saying if we go the other path--if we follow this austerity route we have seen to be so calamitous in Europe--here are some quotes:

If the full sequester takes place as scheduled, 1 million

jobs may be lost.

That is the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Paraphrasing: Growth in real GDP would be about 1\1/4\ percentage points different, depending on which path we choose.

We lose 1.25 percentage points GDP growth by hitting this sequester. That is from the Congressional Budget Office.

If we look at the American Enterprise Institute, hardly a leftwing group:

An abrupt spending sequester at a rate of about $110

billion per year--

Which is what we are looking at--

scheduled to begin March 1 could cause a U.S. recession.

Robert Frank, a very well regarded economics professor at Cornell, has said:

The cuts scheduled are not a way to run a rational

government. Cuts of any kind at this time are not a good

idea. It is recessionary. It would slow growth for sure and

put people out of work.

Another organization not known for its leftwing views, the Wall Street Journal, says this austerity method ``threatens to create a vicious cycle, as mass layoffs to meet budget targets spark a deeper contraction, reducing tax revenue and increasing welfare costs as well as damping consumption.''

That is exactly what has happened in other places.

Look at what they say in England where they have done this. The conservative Daily Telegraph's Jeremy Warner describes what is going on over there. ``This is a truly desperate state of affairs. . . . We seem to have the worst of all possible worlds, with nil growth, some very obvious cuts in the quantity and quality of public services, but pretty much zero progress in getting on top of the country's debts.''

That is not the way we want to go. That is the wrong way to go. There is another way, and it is to look at that vast part of the Tax Code both for corporations and, primarily, for wealthy individuals that allows literally nearly half of what would be tax revenue to flow back through the loopholes. That is where we should be doing our work. That is where we should be looking. I applaud and appreciate Senator Levin for his long and expert leadership in this area.

With that, I yield the floor.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. President. By the way, what a pleasure it is to see the new Senator presiding.

Climate Change

Mr. President, I rise every week on this Senate floor to talk about the dangers of carbon pollution to our atmosphere and to our oceans. This week I want to preface my remarks by talking about America and her role in the world.

I can use some very well-known words to make my point. From John Winthrop to Ronald Reagan, we have described our great American experiment as ``a city on a hill.'' Indeed, our hymn ``America the Beautiful'' sings about our ``alabaster cities' gleam.'' President Kennedy's inaugural address said that ``the glow from [our] fire can truly light the world,'' and a generation later, President Obama's first inaugural noted that our ``ideals still light the world.'' We Americans have described ourselves as a beacon of hope, a light in the darkness, our lamp lifted up in welcome and in example.

Daniel Webster years ago said that our Founders ``set the world an example.'' That was what the founding of America meant--our Founders ``set the world an example.'' President Clinton has pointed out that the power of our example, the power of that example in

the world, has always been greater than any example of our power. That was the way Bill Clinton described it. And when Daniel Webster said that our Founding Fathers had set before the world an example, he went on to say this:

The last hopes of mankind, therefore, rest with us; and if

it should be proclaimed, that our example had become an

argument against the experiment, the knell of popular liberty

would be sounded throughout the earth.

I have spoken before about this small globe of ours, the light of dawn sweeping each morning across its face, lighting cities and cottages, barrios and villages, and across the globe's face people coming forth from homes and hovels into that morning Sun, each knowing, from our American example, that life does not have to be the way it is for them, knowing that an example of liberty and self-government stands free before them, that America stands as an alternative and a rebuke to the tyranny, to the corruption, or to the injustice in which they may be enmired.

So like many of my colleagues, I believe America has a special destiny in the world. America's special destiny does not come easy, and it does not come alone. America's special destiny confers upon us a special duty. What is that duty? That duty is to live up to our own example, to see to it that our lamp gleams brightly, to be the promise that each dawn America offers this small globe.

So let's look at climate change in that light. What if our carbon pollution is, in fact, changing the planet? What if, in fact, we know this, we know this to any reasonable degree of responsible certainty? And what if, knowing this, we do nothing? And what if the reason we do nothing is the influence of special interests who profit from that very pollution or the groundless ideology of a fringe? What sort of example is that for America to set? How does that meet our special duty? How does that advance our special destiny?

Look at what other continents and nations will experience, particularly those that have not enjoyed the economic development we achieved through our carbon economy.

I will start in Africa, where temperatures are expected to increase faster than the rest of the world. Rainfall patterns are also expected to change, decreasing in some areas, increasing in others. Floods, droughts, and new crop diseases linked to changes in temperature and rainfall will hurt African farmers in a continent where subsistence farming is still so important to so many individuals' way of life. Research shows that production of crops, such as maize--a core staple in Africa--will decrease by 30 percent over the next 20 years due to climate change. More frequent and severe extreme weather will have dire consequences there. We saw, just a few weeks ago, the worst flood in a decade, killing at least 38 people in Mozambique and leaving 150,000 homeless.

Parts of Russia have warmed between 3.5 and 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit just in the last century, leading to the loss of permafrost. Russians, like Alaskans--whom I spoke about before--build homes and roads and infrastructure on the permafrost. When it disappears, communities lose the very foundations on which they are built. NOAA says that the Russian heat wave of 2010, which killed tens of thousands of people, was the most severe since records were first kept back in 1880. And this type of heat wave is now more and more likely.

Go to the Land Down Under, where warmer and more acidic oceans have fueled a widespread coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrier Reef is a natural wonder. It is one of the great wonders of the world. Economically, it is the basis of a $4 billion tourism industry in Australia, and it is dying before our eyes. Scientists say that climate change heightens the devastation from other natural disasters in Australia, such as the 2009 bushfires that claimed 173 lives, the 2011 flooding that killed dozens, and the wildfires that have already damaged hundreds of homes and displaced thousands of Australians this year.

Europe is getting hotter, with increased risk of summertime droughts in Central Europe and in the Mediterranean. Tree lines creep higher in European mountain ranges. Glaciers in Central Europe shrink. Alpine ski areas have been forced to adapt to higher temperatures and less snow.

South America has been warming, and glaciers in the Andes are retreating at an increasing rate. I have a symbol of that retreat in my office. Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University and Clark Weaver of NASA loaned me this artifact. It is a piece of a plant that has been preserved under the Quelccaya Ice Cap in Peru for at least 5,200 years--more than 3,000 years before Jesus Christ walked the Earth. This plant was overcovered by glacier and has stayed that way ever since. Now, thanks to glacial retreat, that piece of plant, which was preserved by the weight and cold of the glacier, is in my office.

Closer to home, in Canada, a tropical fungus that causes lung disease and meningitis has been discovered. Scientists think the deadly yeast likely came to Vancouver Island in ballast water from ships, but now-- now--it can survive there because of higher temperatures.

In the Arctic, we are losing sea ice, permafrost, glaciers, and ice sheets. Arctic sea ice is shrinking at about 5 percent per decade. With that shrinkage, there is less ice to reflect sunlight back into space. More heat is captured, and the warming accelerates. At this rate, Arctic summers will be ice free within decades. For the United States, that means new Arctic waterways to defend, an expanded theater of operations in the Arctic, and increased competition for Arctic resources.

Wherever you look around the globe, climate change changes habitats, changes where plants can grow, and loads the dice for more frequent and more severe extreme weather. Heat waves, droughts, floods, and storms create victims and refugees who require humanitarian relief. The poorest nations, those least prepared to weather natural disasters, will suffer the most. Those nations will look to us and to the rest of the developed world for help. They will not look to us for help without reason. The United States is responsible for one-quarter of all industrial-age carbon pollution in the world. Today we no longer emit the most carbon dioxide; China has passed us.

But we have emitted the most over time. Nations all over the world have implemented carbon reduction plans. Some have implemented carbon pricing. Many invest far more than we do in renewable energy. The United States is falling behind rather than leading. Even China, today's biggest polluter, recently committed to reduce the amount of carbon it emits relative to its economic output.

In 2009, China passed the United States of America in renewable energy investment. Looking at all that, it is hard to imagine that those who will suffer, those who will be displaced, those who will lose their ancient livelihoods all around the world will look benevolently upon our Nation.

It is hard to believe they will not resent that they are forced to bear those burdens at the price of our carbon economy. One can readily imagine extremists who wish to rally disenchanted people against us, even to violence against us, finding fertile opportunity where that resentment festers.

Will it not be, as Daniel Webster said, ``an argument against [our] experiment?'' Will it not be an argument against our experiment that our democracy, our great American democracy, seized in the grip of polluting special interests or fringe political ideology, was unable to respond to the facts around us to protect ourselves and our world?

Will there not be ready ears easy to fill with that argument against our experiment, among those who have been uprooted from traditional homes and livelihoods or among those whose homes and livelihoods have been disturbed by climate refugees?

Destiny means duty. Destiny means duty, and we are failing in that duty. It is time for us to awake in this moment to that duty. We can expect in the long and blessed future of this country to have to face unpleasant facts, facts more unpleasant than the facts of carbon pollution and climate change and ocean acidification.

We have done this before. With God's help, we will do it again. But if we cannot bring ourselves to our senses now, in this moment, in our day and hour to wake and face these facts, what a terrible admission that is by this generation of Americans.

Stand we a chance of being looked back at as a greatest generation if we fail to address this greatest issue facing our planet? Lord Acton noted ``the undying penalty which history has the power to inflict on wrong.'' Truly, that penalty will be inflicted on us, on our generation, if we do not awaken to these plain facts and to our plain duty.

I see the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee is nearby and may well seek the floor with respect to the Violence Against Women Act.

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

Rhode Island is mourning the loss of one of our most renowned and accomplished citizens. Richard Walton was an activist, a teacher, a journalist, and a force for good in our State, in our Nation, and indeed in the world.

It would take most of us many lifetimes to achieve as much and to touch as many as Richard did in his 84 years.

Richard organized workers to win collective bargaining rights, and he organized communities to win social justice. He helped build houses for homeless Rhode Islanders, and he helped preserve Rhode Island's historic buildings. He volunteered at and helped lead the State's largest soup kitchen, and he emceed concerts for and helped lead the Stone Soup Folks Arts Foundation. He served in the Navy, and he protested against war.

Richard worked to improve our country, promoting third-party politics. He was the Citizens Party candidate for Vice President in 1984, and was a central figure in the founding of the Green Party. Richard worked to improve our world, documenting movements for independence in Africa and heading up educational and medical initiatives in Central America.

Richard was known for his hospitality. Every year he welcomed hundreds of friends and strangers to his home on Pawtuxet Cove in Warwick for a combination birthday party/folk music jam. And he was known for his generosity. He asked his guests to donate to one of his favorite causes instead of bringing gifts.

One of the many social welfare organizations that benefitted from Richard's passion and brilliance was the George Wiley Center, a grassroots antipoverty nonprofit. In 2008, the Center asked Richard to compose its statement of philosophy. It begins like this:

The George Wiley Center is, in the short term, ``a voice

for the voiceless,'' but our enduring task is to help them

find their own voice, to speak out for their own legitimate

basic needs and not let those in power treat them as

powerless, for they are not powerless once they recognize

that their numbers count, that their voices count, that their

moral worth as human beings, as residents of the United

States, counts.

Richard's allies would attest that this was indeed his own philosophy, lived out each day of his life. Richard will be missed by many, including his children, Cathy and Richard. But his legacy of justice, compassion, and empowerment will be felt by many, for years to come.

Mr. President, today I wish to pay tribute to one of my State's great traditions and to a wonderful man. The Herreshoff Marine Museum, founded in 1971, preserves today the history of one our State's most important economic and design legacies, the Herreshoff boat building company of Bristol.

Early Rhode Island settlers took advantage of the State's location on the Narragansett Bay to foster one of Colonial America's most successful marine economies. Newport, RI, was the Colonies' fifth most prosperous commercial center, in part because of its port activity. Since that time, Rhode Islanders have sustained the State's maritime tradition, excelling in boatbuilding, fishing, shipping, port operation, energy exploration, and marine biology.

The marine trades continue to play a pivotal economic development role in our State today; as many other sectors in Rhode Island struggle to rebound from the recent recession, our marine industry is actually expanding. The Rhode Island Marine Trade Association reports that this industry supports over 6,600 Rhode Island jobs, paying almost $260 million in wages to Rhode Island workers--and almost 10 percent of private employers in the State are associated with the boating industry.

The Herreshoff family helped shape Rhode Island's maritime legacy. In 1878, John Brown Herreshoff and his brother Nathanael Greene Herreshoff more commonly known as ``Captain Nat''--joined forces to form the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company in Bristol, RI. Known for innovative design, superior skills, and efficient manufacturing, the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company quickly became a national leader in the boatbuilding industry. The brothers developed a lighter, faster version of the steam generator boiler, which allowed steamboats to operate at a much higher speed than previously possible.. Indeed, Herreshoff built the fastest boats on the water, both steam and sail. Between 1893 and 1920, five of Nathanael Greene Herreshoff's custom-designed racing sloops were chosen to sail in the prestigious America's Cup, and all five emerged as victors.

Notwithstanding these sea-going champions, the Herreshoffs' most acclaimed boat design is arguably the smaller S class. Nathanael Greene Herreshoff first designed the S boat in 1919, and the company built 95 boats before halting production in 1941. So well designed and built are they, that many S boats are still racing today.

It is no wonder the S boat has held up so well. The boat shows speed and agility under all conditions, and its engineering is considered one of the most groundbreaking undertakings in boatbuilding history. The S boat was particularly well suited for the coastal waters of Rhode Island: comfortable for easy day sailing; fast when racing hard. Its deep keel and hull shape made the boat steady in the strong ocean breeze that characterizes summer afternoons on Narragansett Bay, but on mild days its vast mainsail catches the lightest zephyr. The S boat boasted a keel with a high aspect ratio, and a high ballast-to- displacement ratio, allowing for a stiffer boat. Although these features were unusual for the 1900s, other boat designers quickly adopted them after the great success of the S boat became apparent. The S boat transom became a common sight for other sailors.

Ninety-five years after the first S boat splashed into Bristol Harbor at the Herreshoff boatyard, the fleet is active and growing, with boats being restored to join the class. This success and growth is much thanks to fleet commodore Fred Roy. Fred brought bouyant enthusiasm and cheerfulness to the Narragansett Bay Herreshoff S Class Association, and the association and all who love our bay and its special sailing traditions join in appreciation of Fred Roy. Fred has brought the spirit of the S boat, rail down and surging forward, to this part of our ongoing history and maritime culture, and I take this opportunity to thank and salute him, and celebrate this tradition of Narragansett Bay.

Madam President, I am delighted to see the Presiding Officer in that seat. I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 20 minutes.

Madam President, I actually came to speak on another subject, but I had the opportunity to hear the minority leader's remarks as I was waiting to speak. I would point out in response that our friends on the other side love to characterize the spending that has taken place in recent years as something that was the will and choice and desire of President Obama. What they fail to recall is that during that period, we actually had an economic meltdown. Most Americans remember that economic meltdown. States such as Rhode Island are still in the aftermath of that economic meltdown--an economic meltdown, by the way, that occurred at the end of the last Republican administration and was caused by those policies.

The economic meltdown was relatively global. We have very practical examples of countries that went the path of spending cuts that the Republicans recommend--recommended through the whole economic meltdown. Just take a tour of Europe and you will see where the austerity plan was followed, the results have been far worse: lower GDP growth, higher unemployment. We are actually struggling through better in America by understanding that when the economy is collapsing, if the Federal Government withdraws even more money from it, it just collapses faster and you postpone the period of growth and recovery.

This business us only having a spending problem--well, you can look at the revenues as adequate, but it depends what you are measuring it against. If you are measuring revenues against the times when we had a balanced budget, it has always averaged 20 percent. It averaged around 20 percent of GDP. We are at 16 percent right now. This is a huge gap. If we drop and try to balance the budget, which is what I think we would like to achieve at 16 percent, we are going back to the social conditions of the early 1950s, conditions where many seniors still lived in poverty. I know the party on the other side likes looking back, but I do not think they want to look back to that. I really do not think most Americans want to live in a country in which that is the case.

So, do we have a spending problem? Yes, of course, we do. But when revenues are at 16 percent of GDP and we have never balanced the budget in recent history at 16 percent of GDP--in recent history, it has always been with revenues around 20 percent of GDP.

When you have these unbelievable revenue giveaways to special interests--Big Oil getting these huge subsidies, hedge fund managers paying these favored low tax rates, tax rates lower than their chauffeurs and their doormen and their maids pay--the Tax Code is riddled with those kinds of special interest giveaways, and if we can bring some of that back into the equation, not only does that add revenue and move us better toward the goal of a balanced budget and a reduced deficit but, frankly, in most of those cases, it is the right thing to do all on its own. It is the fair thing to do all on its own.

Yes, there are things that are idiotic buried away in the Federal budget. I am not here to defend studies about pig manure or reality TV shows. But the

problem is that once you actually get into discussions on this subject with the other side, it is not long until their guns turn on Medicare, it is not long until their guns turn on Social Security. We have seen it before. They tried to privatize Social Security. They thought they had the power to do it, and the American people told them: Heck no. But that is where the discussion goes. It may start with reality TV shows and pig manure, but before you know it, they have their guns trained on Medicare and Social Security. We need to defend programs such as those on which families depend.

So on the subject of what we leave to our children and grandchildren, let me turn to the point of my remarks, which is that it is time to wake up in this body to the reality of what we are doing to our climate. It is time to wake up.

Madam President, 2012 was the warmest year in the continental United States since records began being kept in 1895. It is not a unique single anomaly of a year. If you look at the first 12 years of this century, 2000 to 2012, they are all in the 14 warmest years on record. This is not just about future generations, it is not just about polar bears and sea turtles. These trends are being felt right now in real places by real people.

The recent draft of the Federal Government's National Climate Assessment shows, at a local level, why every one of us should care that carbon emissions are causing climate change.

Let's take a little tour. I will start in the Northeast, which includes my home State of Rhode Island. In this region, which is defined in the assessment as from West Virginia to Maine--that is not the Northeast we usually talk about, but that is the way it is defined in this report--annual temperatures have increased by almost 2 degrees Fahrenheit since records began. The entire range between high and low is only about 4.2 degrees, so an increase of 2 full degrees is a big deal in that scale.

If greenhouse gas emissions remain at current levels, the projection is another 4.5 degrees to 10 degrees Fahrenheit of warming by the end of the century. That will change all of our lives in very significant ways. Even if we do reduce emissions, the Northeast is still projected to experience an increase in the frequency, intensity, and duration of heat waves.

By as soon as 2050, Delaware, Maryland, and West Virginia could experience twice as many days per year--that is 15 more days in some places--with temperatures over 95 degrees Fahrenheit. In western New York and Massachusetts, where 95-degree days are rare, there may be an additional 5 days per year over that mark. In Rhode Island, a lot of people stay cool in the summer by opening the windows at night, letting the cool night air fill the house, and then closing the drapes or the screens or the shades in the morning. That is not going to work any longer when persistent high nighttime temperatures allow no relief from the heat.

Without significant upgrades, our region's electric grid will not be able to sustain the power demand as more and more air-conditioning becomes necessary for people to be comfortable in the summertime. As we see more hot days, we also see more bad ozone days, which still keep people indoors in Rhode Island or even send them to the hospital, as pollution from Midwest coal plants settles in on us.

In addition to heat, precipitation in the Northeast increased almost one-half of an inch per decade over the last century. Extreme precipitation--very heavy rain or snow--has increased 74 percent between 1958 and 2010. That is the sharpest increase in the Nation.

On our shores--we are a very coastal State--due to a combination of warming and expanding oceans and other tectonic conditions, sea level has risen about 1 foot in the Northeast since 1900.

That is higher than the 8-inch global average sea-level rise. Sea- level rise is actually up 10 inches at the Newport tide gauge since our terrible hurricane of 1938. Because of extreme precipitation and sea- level rise, more and more populated areas are at risk of flooding.

Let's move to the Southeast where the draft assessment predicts more extreme heat with the number of 95-degree or hotter days in the region from Louisiana through central Florida expected to quadruple by mid- century. If you like it hot down there, you are a lucky person because you are going to get a lot more of it.

Southerners will likely see something much less appealing, which is more ground-level ozone, better known as smog, which poses serious health risks especially to children and the elderly. But the real story of the Southeast is one of disastrous weather. Between 1980 and 2011, the Southeast was struck by more billion-dollar disasters than any other part of the country. The region is particularly vulnerable to extreme weather, and sea-level rise makes things worse.

The RAND Corporation notes that 1,800 square miles of Louisiana have been lost to the sea since the 1930s. Entergy, a regional utility, predicts $23 billion in losses by 2030, factoring just a 6-inch increase in sea level and a 3-percent increase in hurricane wind speed. Communities in the Southeast need to take real steps to become more resilient in the changing environment. North Carolina, for instance, is raising highway bridges out to the Outer Banks as seas rise and storms worsen.

In the Midwest, temperatures are increasing rapidly. From 1900 to 2010, average temperatures increased about 1 degree Fahrenheit, and the rate of warming tripled between 1980 and 2010. Under the assessment's worst-case scenarios, temperatures across the Midwest are projected to rise 8.5 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100. If you are a farmer, that means everything will have changed.

Hotter temperatures are having a far-reaching impact on the Great Lakes. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, scientists at NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory have found that the Great Lakes are taking in more heat from the air during the summer and storing it longer. The result: On average, ice on the Great Lakes is forming later in the winter and disappearing earlier. In fact, total ice cover has fallen 71 percent on the Great Lakes from 1973 to 2010.

That is not good for the lakes, the people, and species of this region. Ice cover protects the lakes from evaporation, and it protects the eggs of fall-spawning fish from winter weather. Coastal areas unprotected by shore ice are more susceptible to erosion. Less ice means less snowmobiling or ice fishing. As anyone in Cleveland or Buffalo can tell you, open water fuels the dread lake-effect snows that wallop leeward shores. All of this can be traced, in part, to climate change driven by greenhouse gases.

In the Great Plains, the most significant consequence of a changing climate will be changes in rainfall. This is already beginning to happen. Total rain is expected to increase in Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska, while Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas are projected to get less. Farming and the energy sector, including oil and gas exploration, will feel increased pressure and competition for water supplies. Eighty percent of the population of the Great Plains depends on the High Plains aquifer for drinking water. Projected temperature increases, more frequent droughts, and higher rates of evaporation spell serious trouble for the region's water supply if water isn't managed better.

The availability of water, and even snow, will also affect the Southwest. People of the Southwest are acutely aware of how their history and their fate is tied to the availability of water. According to the draft assessment:

Over the past 50 years across most of the Southwest, there

has been less late-winter precipitation falling as snow,

earlier snow melt, and earlier arrival of most of the year's

streamflow.

These changes can ripple through the economy and the health of the region.

In the western mountains, massive forests stand dead on the mountainsides, as warmer winters allow the killer bark beetle to swarm northward into higher latitudes and uphill into higher altitudes. Ominously, the draft assessment says that the combined impact of increasing wildfire, insect outbreaks, and diseases will cause:

Almost complete loss of subalpine forests . . . by the

2080s.

Separate studies by scientists at NASA and at the University of Washington predict increasing frequency of severe wildfires.

The Park City Foundation in Utah predicted an annual local temperature increase of 6.8 degrees Fahrenheit by 2075, which would cause a total loss of snowpack in the Park City resort area. This would result, obviously, in thousands of lost jobs, tens of millions in lost earnings, and hundreds of millions in lost economic output.

In the coastal zone of the Pacific Northwest, erosion inundation and ocean acidity are all major threats. More than 140,000 acres of coastal Washington and Oregon lie within 3.3 feet of high tide. Sea-level rise of 4 feet or more is entirely plausible by the end of the century.

Ocean acidification caused a 70- to 80-percent loss of oyster larvae at an oyster hatchery in Oregon from 2006 to 2008. Wild oyster stocks in Washington State have also failed as weather patterns caused more acidic water to rise to the surface at the shore. This is an industry worth about $73 million annually.

For Hawaii, the rapidly changing climate presents a unique threat. Tourism and agriculture, among Hawaii's top economic sectors, are each distinctly vulnerable. Changes in precipitation, erosion, ocean warming, and acidification will irreversibly alter Hawaiian ecosystems, home to about one-quarter of all threatened and endangered species in the United States.

For example, we know that warm enough water causes corals to bleach. Bleaching is a technical term that I won't go into right now. Bleaching can help coral survive short-term stresses, but in response to persistent ocean warming, bleaching signals the start of a long-term downward spiral toward the death of the coral and the reefs, the incubators of the oceans.

Perhaps no other region of the United States is experiencing the effects of climate change more dramatically than Alaska. Alaska is, of course, supposed to be cold. The animals and plants have adapted to that, and so have the people.

Since the 1960s, however, Alaska has been warming twice as fast as the rest of the United States. Annual air temperature has already increased by 3 degrees Fahrenheit. Winter temperatures are up 6 degrees.

According to the draft assessment highlights, Alaska is seeing--and this is a graph of the sea ice:

Earlier spring snow melt, reduced sea ice, widespread

glacier retreat, warmer permafrost, and dryer landscapes.

By mid-century, summer sea ice could disappear altogether. As in the Great Lakes, less ice along the Alaska coast means more severe coastal erosion without the ice to buffer the shores from storms. Most of the permafrost in Alaska is tens of thousands of years old, but it too is disappearing as the Alaska climate warms. Permafrost is a natural wonder whose loss threatens structures such as buildings, roads, as well as plants and wildlife that have adapted to the frozen tundra. Thawing permafrost buckles roads and air strips, causing costly disruptions in transportation.

It appears, as we take this tour of the country, that there is only one region that isn't yet awakening to the effects of climate change, and that is here, Capitol Hill. History is calling out to us to meet our duty, and the call is loud and clear, but we are sleepwalking. It is time to wake up. The public has every reason to want to grab us and give us a good shake. An AP poll out in December found that 83 percent of Democrats, 77 percent of Independents, and 70 percent of Republicans accept the reality of climate change and understand that it will be a serious problem for our United States.

A recent poll conducted by Yale University and George Mason University found that a large majority of Americans, 77 percent, say climate change should be a priority for President Obama and for all of us in Congress. But we snooze on, listening to the lullabies of the polluters.

Carbon pollution from fossil fuels is threatening our future, and unless we take serious action to scale back the pollution, the consequences are looking increasingly dire all across our country. It is time to hear the alarms, to roll up our sleeves, to get to work, and to do what needs to be done. It is time, indeed, to wake up.

I yield the floor, and 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 am here because I was on the floor the other day and I heard--while I was waiting my turn to speak-- Senator Hatch give a speech. I have the very highest regard for my friend, the Senator from Utah, and his speech was very thoughtful. It was passionate. It was thorough. I thought it deserved a respectful response and so I am here to respond to that and I hope to begin a debate or engage in a debate, if not begin it.

Senator Hatch was talking about the fiscal situation, and he framed his remarks with the observation that our $16.4 trillion debt is too high and the observation that ``annual trillion-dollar deficits have become the norm with the current administration.''

Senator Hatch is certainly right that debt is too high and annual trillion-dollar deficits have indeed briefly become the norm. But I would suggest that is not the norm recently because of this administration; it is the norm because the economy collapsed.

We all remember the economy collapsed. To withdraw Federal spending from a collapsing economy is only to make things worse. The economic collapse created these deficits and, as the economy recovers, we can draw them down.

There is not agreement on that. Some have preached austerity as the way forward when the economy collapses. When this began, there was lively debate between those who thought that stimulating the economy and supporting the economy would be more sensible than applying austerity. We are past theory and now we are into experience. The experience of foreign countries belies that austerity works when economies are collapsing. From Spain to Greece, European countries that responded to the economic downturn by slashing their budgets are suffering from shrinking economies and persistent double-digit unemployment rates.

A recent IMF, International Monetary Fund, report estimates that budget austerity in a weak economy might actually inflict significant harm and have a much lower than expected effect on the deficit, consistent with the observations in Europe.

The reason this is this way--I will get into jargon just for a minute--economists measure the effects of changes in government spending on GDP with a metric called the fiscal multiplier. A multiplier of 0.5, for example, means that a $1 decrease in government spending would reduce GDP by 50 cents.

The higher the fiscal multiplier, the worse the impact a cut in spending has on the overall economy and, therefore, the lower its actual ultimate effect on deficit reduction.

The new IMF report suggests that in the United States--as in other countries that are recovering from the great recession--the fiscal multiplier is actually greater than 1, meaning that a $1 reduction in government spending shrinks the overall economy by more than $1, doing net harm.

Oxford Economics puts the fiscal multiplier of the United States at 1.4, which means that for every $1 we cut, we would lose $1.40 in gross domestic product. Goldman Sachs, which is not exactly a leftwing outfit, has put the multiplier for the United States close to 1.5--cut $1; lose $1.50 in gross domestic product. Economists at the University of California found that during recessions--and it is important, during recessions--the fiscal multiplier in developed countries generally falls between 1.5 and 2.

That complicated economic gobbledygook boils down to this: $1 in reduced government spending will reduce gross domestic product by more than $1--by $1.40 or $1.70 or whatever the multiplier is--and damage the economy without accomplishing the intended deficit reduction.

Other countries attempted budget austerity during the economic downturn. Spain, Greece, and Portugal, particularly, have persistent double-digit unemployment--over 26 percent in Spain and Greece--and they have anemic or negative economic growth rates. Contrast that with the United States, where a more balanced approach to the economic crisis yielded an unemployment rate that is still far too high but markedly lower than the austerity countries and economic growth of 2.1 percent, where all the other countries are experiencing negative economic growth--Spain, Greece, and Portugal.

So let's not fault the President and the administration for deficits that were caused by, A, an economic collapse and, B, the wise decision to avoid the austerity path that has thrown Spain and Greece into nearly 27 percent unemployment rates and all three countries into negative GDP growth.

We will need to address the debt more and more as economic conditions improve, and Senator Hatch was correct to point to health care expense as our biggest national fiscal concern. It would, however, I believe, be a misdiagnosis to focus on Medicare and Medicaid as the source of the health care spending problem. Indeed, Medicare may be the single most efficient health care provider in our entire health care system. Medicare is a place where the health care cost problem hits the Federal budget because the Federal budget pays for Medicare, but Medicare is not the underlying source of the problem. I hope this was what Senator Hatch meant when he said ``the problems with the program are systemic,'' and when he said the solution is ``structural reforms.''

I know that one of the leading health care providers in the country, one of the best at seeing the health care cost problem as systemic and one of the best at addressing it with structural reforms, is the health care system in Senator Hatch's home State of Utah, Intermountain Healthcare. The Senator has a living example at home that health care spending can be addressed through structural reforms, through delivery system reforms.

One example is that just a few weeks ago, Intermountain clinicians in Utah were recognized for their work in greatly reducing the number of patients who die from sepsis, which is the leading cause of death in U.S. hospitals. So it is no small matter. Through a new protocol to better detect and treat sepsis, these doctors and nurses brought the death rate for septic patients entering through the emergency room down from over 20 percent, 5 years ago, to under 9 percent. These advances have saved hundreds of lives in Utah, and they are a model to be applied by hospitals around the world.

That is an example of how the real problem in health care is the total cost of the underlying system. We pay more for health care than any other developed nation. Here is the United States at 17.6 percent of our gross domestic product spent on health care. The most expensive and least efficient other industrialized nation in the world is the Netherlands at 12 percent. Behind it fall France and Germany at 11.6 percent, Switzerland at 11.4 percent, and England and Japan at 9.6 and 9.5 percent, respectively.

If we could simply make our health care in this country as bad as the worst other industrialized country in terms of efficiency, if we could just meet the

standard met by the other least efficient country in the world, we would save about $800 billion a year.

So there is a huge savings opportunity in the health care system for all of that extra spending. For that $800 billion a year in extra spending that we do, do we get great outcomes? Are Americans healthier and better cared for than people in those other countries? Well, unfortunately, the answer is not at all. Each little dot represents one of the OECD countries. This represents life expectancy from 72 to 84, which is a pretty good measure of how good the health care system is, if it is making you live longer.

This represents the cost per person of health care. As you can see, virtually everybody is grouped kind of around in here, with reasonably good life expectancy between 78 and 82. Japan has actually driven it up to 83. It is roughly $2,000 to $4,000 per individual.

Everybody--I can almost cover them all with my hand. This is the United States of America, below all of them in life expectancy, above all of them in cost. So let's not pretend there is not a lot of room for progress.

The worst part is that this is the rate of growth of our U.S. health care system. Look at this: 1960--I will astound the pages who are listening by telling them that I was alive in 1960; I was 5 years old then--$27.4 billion. Now it is $2.7 trillion. We spend 100 times as much on health care now as we did when I was 5 years old. We blew through the halfway point probably back in around 1990. We have doubled since then to $2.7 trillion.

This is what is happening to our national health care costs. This is our national health care cost curve. If you think that with this kind of a rocketing cost structure, we are going to be able to solve this problem by cutting Medicare, that is not going to work. Trying to solve that kind of a cost-increase problem by cutting Medicare benefits is a losing game. It will cut Medicare away to nothing.

We have to address the conditions that caused this increase. We have to address the discrepancy between us and other nations and, indeed, as the Senator from Connecticut who is presiding well knows, the discrepancy between different States. His brother is one of the great experts on the discrepancy that allows Medicare to pay 2\1/2\ times more per patient in Miami than it does for a patient in Minneapolis, when the patient in Minneapolis is getting as good or better care.

We have to be able to get those discrepancies out of the system. When we do, when we do it that way, the savings will fall to Medicare and Medicaid. Indeed, 40 percent of those savings will go into the Federal Government, Medicare, Medicaid, VA, TRICARE, employee benefits. It will also help Blue Cross, Kaiser, and United. It will help all the private companies that pay for private insurance. It will help individuals who have to pay for that skyrocketing cost now because we run a system that is 50 percent more inefficient than the least efficient industrialized country with which we compete.

So this is a big deal. It is not just me saying so; some very credible folks agree. President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers says that you can save annually out of our health care system $700 billion. The National Institute of Medicine says it is $750 billion a year. The New England Health Care Institute estimated that it was $850 billion. And a well-regarded group that studies health care called the Lewin Group, together with George Bush's Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, has estimated that it is $1 trillion a year in savings to be had. So this would look a lot better if instead of $2.7 trillion you were spending only $1.7 trillion. And those are the kinds of savings that are conceivable, are possible. We really have to focus on that.

The Commonwealth Fund recently released a report that outlines a variety of policies that would accelerate health care delivery system reform and slow health care spending by $2 trillion from 2014 to 2023. Those are the policy ideas we should be considering because those ideas go to the real heart of the cost problem. Going after Medicare benefits rather than going directly after the underlying health care cost problem reflects a misdiagnosis of the problem. When you have a misdiagnosis of the problem, you get the cure wrong.

Senator Hatch was very thoughtful, and he offered some specific proposals. I think the proposals to combine deductibles for Parts A and B and the limitation on first-dollar coverage of Medigap plans could well fit into a good health care compromise. I suggest we should also include letting Medicare use its substantial market power to negotiate drug prices just as the VA now does. It is hard to imagine that our deficit problem could be as dire as Senator Hatch has described and at the same time less important than providing this notorious Federal handout to immensely profitable pharmaceutical companies.

Finally, let me say that Senator Hatch indicated he thought the revenue discussion was now done. I would respectfully disagree. The revenue discussion is not done. To date, through the Budget Control Act and through other measures enacted in the last Congress, we have cut the deficit by $2.4 trillion. In rough numbers, we have achieved $1.7 trillion of that through spending cuts and then the related interest savings. In contrast, we have only cut the deficit by $700 billion through new revenues, by restoring Clinton-era tax rates for the top 1 percent of income earners. That is what we have done so far.

I think it is probably safe to say the tax rate discussion is probably done, but we have not even begun to discuss tax loopholes. Why should millionaires get more tax benefits against their charitable contributions than middle-class families do? Why should a billionaire who builds a wing on a museum and puts his name on it get more tax bang for his charitable buck than the middle-class family who gives to their local church? Is protecting that benefit for high-end charitable donors more important than addressing our deficit?

How about tax subsidies to the most profitable companies in the world, the Big Oil behemoths? The American taxpayers have to provide money to big and often foreign oil companies. Is keeping Big Oil lobbyists happy with subsidies from the American people more important than addressing our deficit?

Should companies and wealthy individuals be allowed to hide their money from the tax man in offshore accounts, while working families pay their taxes fair and square? Is protecting that tax gimmick more important than addressing the deficit?

How about that carried interest trick that allows hedge fund billionaires to treat their income as low-tax capital gains while their chauffeurs, gardeners, maids, and executive assistants pay regular income taxes? Is it more important to keep that sweet deal running than it is to fix the deficit?

Our friends on the other side cannot have it both ways. They cannot say that the deficit is so desperately important that we have to cut Medicare, cut food stamps, cut off scientific research, cut the FBI and the national parks and Big Bird, for Lord's sake--that is how important the deficit is--and then say that the deficit is not such a big deal after all, that it is less important than tax breaks for offshore corporations, special deals for the pharmaceutical industry, favors for high-income Americans that regular families do not get, and subsidies to Big Oil.

It cannot be both things at once. Frankly, even without the deficit, many of those tax deals are the things we should get rid of just on the merits, just because they are sleazy and unfair and the product of Washington insider dealing. We should be rid of them. They cannot be more important to keep than addressing the deficit.

So while there are surely still ways to trim the deficit by improving inefficient programs and cutting wasteful spending, let's not say tax revenue is done before we have even gotten into the rich trove of tax deals and gimmicks that we give away every year through the Tax Code.

In 2012, corporations benefited from an estimated $127 billion in loopholes and special provisions. In addition, the individual income tax code permitted over $1 trillion in deductions, exclusions, and credits last year--$1 trillion in 1 year. Many of those only benefit the wealthiest taxpayers. Overall, there are hundreds of billions of dollars a year in tax expenditures that we can use to address the deficit.

My last point on revenues is this: As our friend Kent Conrad, the former

chairman of the Budget Committee, used to point out, every time in recent history that we have had a balanced budget, we balanced it with revenues and spending around 20 percent of gross domestic product. Our revenues are now at about 16 percent of gross domestic product. If we balanced our budget at that level, at 16 percent of gross domestic product, it would be the lowest level of Federal spending since 1951, when half of the Federal budget still went to the Department of Defense and half of American seniors still lived in poverty.

They say the Republican Party wants to go backward, but do they really want to go back to that? That would change our country dramatically and for the worse at a time when, even with Federal student aid, the cost of college remains unaffordable for too many aspiring students, when our energy and technology infrastructure is lagging and our transportation infrastructure is crumbling, and when our international competitors are making greater investments in 21st century innovation than we are.

Saving money by reforming how we deliver health care is not just possible, it is happening around us. A 2008 report from the Dartmouth Atlas Project held up some promising examples, predicting that, using the Mayo Clinic as a benchmark, the Nation could reduce health care spending by as much as 30 percent for acute and chronic illnesses. A benchmark based on Senator Hatch's home State company, Intermountain Healthcare, predicts a reduction of more than 40 percent.

So let's get to work, together in a bipartisan fashion, to give American families the health care system they deserve.

Instead of waste and inefficiency, poor outcomes and missed opportunities, let's have a health care system that is the envy of the world, not an outlier on high costs and low results.

This approach has a triple benefit: It protects seniors and families who rely on Medicare and Medicaid. It improves patient outcomes and makes our experience of the health care system better in terms of results, and it dials back health care spending and helps protect us from that exploding cost.

The alternative, slashing benefits, does nothing to curb the underlying cost problem, and it certainly doesn't improve care. It only does one thing, harms seniors and degrades the programs they count on.

During a 2011 Senate HELP Committee hearing that I chaired, Greg Poulsen of Utah's Intermountain Healthcare said:

Intermountain and other organizations have shown that improving quality is compatible with lowering costs and, indeed, high-quality care is generally less expensive than substandard care.

Let this be our guiding principle as we work together to ease the burden of excessive health costs on both the Federal balance sheet and on our fellow Americans' pocketbooks.

I ask unanimous consent that the period for morning business be extended until 6:30, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

I yield the floor.