Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session and the Foreign Relations Committee be discharged en bloc of Foreign Service nominations beginning with Robin J. Brinkley Hadden and ending with Heather Louise Yorkson, which were received by the Senate and appeared in the Congressional Record on February 24, 2010, PN1482, except for Hussein Waheed Iman; that the Senate proceed en bloc to their consideration; that the nominations be confirmed en bloc and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table en bloc; that any statements be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate resume legislative session.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 30, 2010 at 9:30 a.m. in room G50 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 30, 2010, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Green Housing for the 21th Century: Retrofitting the Past and Building an Energy-Efficient Future.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 30, 2010, at 10 a.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 30 at 9:30 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate to conduct a hearing on June 30, at 2:30 p.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 30, 2010, at 9 a.m. in room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 30, 2010.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 30, 2010, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Nuclear Terrorism: Strengthening Our Domestic Defenses, Part I.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 30, 2010, at 9:30 a.m. in room 628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on June 30, 2010, at 9 a.m., in room SH-216 of the Hart Senate Office Building, to continue the hearing on the nomination of Elena Kagan to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 30, 2010, at 2:30 p.m. to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Interagency Contracts (Part II): Management and Oversight.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee on Aging be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 30, 2010, from 2-5 p.m. in Dirksen 106 for the purpose of conducting a hearing.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 5611, which was received from the House.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of S. Con. Res. 67, which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration en bloc of the following resolutions which were submitted earlier today: S. Res. 576, S. Res. 577, and S. Res. 578.

Without objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the resolutions.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table en bloc, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements relating to the resolutions be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H. Con. Res. 293, the adjournment resolution, received from the House and at the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I understand that H.R. 5552 has been received from the House and is at the desk, is that correct?

I ask for its first reading.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session and that the previous action tonight with respect to Calendar No. 963 be vitiated and that the Senate then proceed to Calendar No. 964; that the nomination be confirmed; that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate resume legislative session.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn under the provisions of H. Con. Res. 293 until 2 p.m. on Monday, July 12; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and that following any leader remarks, there be a period for the transaction of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, when we return on Monday, July 12, Senators should expect a rollcall vote at approximately 5:30 p.m. We hope to reach an agreement to vote on confirmation of a judicial nomination. Senators will be notified when any agreement is reached.

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

I wish to begin by saying some nice words about the Senator from Alaska. When she ran for the Senate the first time, she ran against one of my dearest friends, former Governor Tony Knowles, whom I tried very hard to elect to the Senate. When he lost, I said: You are here. I want to work with you. I want to be your partner on a whole lot of things.

This is one we cannot be partners and colleagues on. I want her to know, though, there will be other opportunities, and I look forward to those opportunities. Today I am compelled to oppose what she is attempting to do.

As my colleagues are aware, I go back and forth on the train every day and night. Usually before I catch the 7:15 train in Wilmington, I go to the YMCA and work out. Sometimes people talk to me and say: Hi, how are you? Sometimes they try to raise issues. This week a fellow came up to me and said: What is this all about? ``This'' being today's debate on the proposal of the Senator from Alaska. I didn't have time to explore it in detail in order to make my train, but I want to answer his question today.

This is about are we going to be guided by decades of science from thousands of respected scientists or not. This is about are we going to seize the opportunity that is inherent in the adversity we face at home and around the world or not. This is about are we going to get serious about ending our addiction to oil, a lot of which in our country is in places like the Gulf of Mexico, some thousands of feet below the surface of the water or not. This is about are we going to stop sending literally maybe hundreds of billions of dollars every year to places around the world that are unstable, nondemocratic, propping up tyrants who lead countries such as Iran and Venezuela or not. This is about are we going to continue sending troops to places such as Iraq or other places where they happen to have a lot of oil and we want to make sure there is access to the oil or not. This is about whether we are going to jump-start our economy at a time in our history when millions of young people are graduating from colleges, universities, and high schools wondering if they will have the kind of opportunity to find a job and provide for themselves and their families some day, to provide a good life, better than the one they have inherited from their parents. That is what this is about.

We have heard--and I know my colleagues have heard--from thousands of

scientists from all over the country who give us their advice. What are they telling us? Among the things they are telling us is that the Earth is growing warmer. They are telling us that we are part of the cause. They are telling us to do something about it. They are saying to us if we won't do something about it, at least let EPA do the job they have been told by the Supreme Court they have to do under the Clean Air Act. Among the things they have had to do under the Clean Air Act is to provide for ratcheting up the fuel efficiency of cars, trucks, and vans up to about 34 miles per gallon by 2016. The effect of doing that will take something like 50 million cars, trucks, and vans off the road by 2030. That is the kind of thing EPA needs to do, if we will let them.

Who are the scientists we are hearing from? I don't know them all. We have heard from a couple thousand. I know a couple of them well. Their names are Lonnie and Ellen Thompson, professors at Ohio State University, my undergraduate alma mater. They spent a lot of the last 20, 25 years running the polar research center at Ohio State. They have also spent a lot of the last 25 years going around the world climbing up some of the tallest mountains, a lot of them along the equator, where the snow caps give them the opportunity to take ice core samples. Those snow caps over time have actually begun to largely disappear. The ice core samples they still have frozen on the campus at Ohio State give us an opportunity to go back in time and, as we go back in time, to look back as much as a million years. What do we see then? We see over that million years different levels of carbon in the air. Sometimes it is high, sometimes it is low. They have correlated--the Drs. Thompson; I call them the Thompson twins--the increases in carbon with increases in temperature over time and the decreases in carbon with the decreases in temperature. They are correlated. They are positively correlated. Drs. Thompson say we ought to do something about it. We ought to act on that science.

I believe they are absolutely right. We have also heard from scientists that the 10 hottest years in all the years we have been around as a country keeping records are the last 20 years. In an effort to compel the government to take action, all kinds of campaigns have been launched. I heard one from Senator Feinstein talking about drought, fertile farmland turning into desert. Polar bears don't have ice to float on. We see endangered species disappear. Movies are made about extreme weather that is going to flow out of climate change. I am going to leave it to others to pursue those particular agendas or examples. I want to focus on a couple I am more familiar with. One is Delaware, where I live. The other is Florida, where my parents lived for the last 30 years of their lives.

This is Delaware, outlined here in black. If the melting that is going on in Greenland and the west Antarctic ice sheets continues, if it continues over the next 100 years or more, this will no longer be Delaware. The green area right here will be Delaware. People won't go to Rehoboth Beach anymore or Bethany or Dewey Beach. They will be looking for a beach up here in Dover. They won't be going go to NASCAR races in Dover. They will be going to a sailboat regatta in Dover. Ocean View, which doesn't have an ocean view, will be under the ocean.

Let's take a look at Florida with about a 1-meter rise in sea level. My parents lived in Clearwater just around here in St. Petersburg and Tampa. The place where they used to live will be largely under water. They lived about a half mile from the gulf. It will be pretty much under water. Look at south Florida, go to South Beach. When we have 1 meter of sea rise, we won't find it. It will be under water. What happens with 6 meters of sea rise? The red part is the parts of Florida that are basically under water. Most of the people who live in Florida live in the parts in red. Where are they going to live? I guess they can come inland a little bit, but they won't be living in the area that turns red because they would otherwise be under water.

There is a saying that all politics is local. That has been true for a long time, and it is still true. The highest point of land in Delaware is a bridge. When we get a couple feet of sea level rise, the outline of our State changes dramatically. The quality of life in a State that is under water changes dramatically as well. The same is true of Florida and a bunch of other coastal States.

What do we need to do? We need to unleash market forces, put millions of people to work building new nuclear powerplants, finding ways to take carbon dioxide coming out of coal-fired plants, turning it into a concrete aggregate to build roads, bridges, finding ways to take the CO2 coming off coal-fired plants and turning it into biofuels. We need to deploy off of our shores windmill farms. We need to deploy windmill farms from North Carolina all the way up to Maine. We need to take that electricity we are generating from the wind and use that to power vehicles such as the Chevrolet Volt that will be launched this fall or the Fisker Karma cars of Project Nina that are going to be launched in a year or so, built in Delaware. They get 100 miles per gallon. We need to make sure that the cars, trucks, and vans that GM and Chrysler are prepared to build, 44 miles per gallon, that when they build them, somebody will be there to buy them.

Let me conclude with the words of a friend of Senator Boxer, an eminent climatologist named Stephen Stills. He wrote a great song that says: ``Something's happening here; what it is ain't exactly clear.''

It is clear to me. Our planet is getting warmer. It is clear to me the great challenges that poses for all of us. But inherent in those challenges are great opportunities. The thing we have to do is seize those opportunities, to seize the day.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, while Medicare Part D has been a very popular program and has improved access to tens of millions of patients, the donut hole has been a continuing source of frustration for many beneficiaries. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act begins to fill in the ``donut hole'' with a 50 percent discount program that will begin in 2011. The purpose of the coverage gap discount was to provide relief for those beneficiaries who struggle with paying for medications in the coverage gap and, as a result, stop taking medicines as prescribed or cut back on their monthly medication use.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently released guidance to Part D plans regarding the administration of the Part D coverage gap discount. In that guidance, CMS responded to comments that sought clarification on the relationship between the 50 percent discount program and existing Part D rebate contracts. Although the CMS guidance clarified that manufacturers would continue to negotiate with Part D plans to provide rebates, I feel the need to further clarify this issue.

Any interference by CMS with price negotiations between manufacturers and Part D plans would be counter to the explicit intent of Congress through the government noninterference clause. With the passage of PPACA, and specifically the Part D Coverage Gap Discount Program, the government non-interference clause continues to be the existing law; therefore, CMS does not have the authority to require manufacturers to provide rebates at any particular level.