Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following Senator Harkin, the Senator from Georgia, Mr. Isakson, be recognized.

Mr. President, myself and Senator Barrasso are two of the three doctors in the Senate. Both of us have practiced for over 25 years. We have put out several reports. Every year, Medicare recipients receive a message from Medicare, called ``Medicare and You.'' What we thought we would do is come to the floor and tell our colleagues, as well as the American people, that we also put out a ``Medicare and You'' report. There is a lot that wasn't in the ``Medicare and You'' report this year.

I ask unanimous consent to have a colloquy between myself and the Senator from Wyoming, Dr. Barrasso, as to what we are reporting in our Medicare and You statement.

This booklet, which will be available on coburn.senate.gov and barrasso.senate.gov to every Medicare patient out there, explains what has actually happened to Medicare in the last year and a half. It explains that $530 billion has been cut out of Medicare. It explains the physician reimbursement cuts were not addressed when we addressed health care and, consequently, a 27-percent cut is coming if Congress doesn't change that.

It explains that Medicare Advantage--both the options and the number of people eligible for that--has been taken away by the Affordable Care Act. It explains that the CLASS Act was put in to save money, but it won't, and it has now been abandoned by the administration. The fact is there is an independent payment advisory board, whose sole purpose is to cut payments for Medicare procedures and supplies and drugs to save money--even when that will instigate the loss of available drugs.

Finally, it creates a $10 billion trust fund for an innovation center that is a smokescreen for a rationing board very similar to the IPAB.

I want Dr. Barrasso to go over the Medicare cuts now, if he will.

The other thing Medicare recipients should recognize is that under the laws as previously set, the reimbursement for your physician in January is scheduled to decline 27 percent. When I talk to seniors in the State of Oklahoma, one of the No. 1 problems that somebody turning 65 has is now finding that physician who will care for them under the Medicare payment guidelines. What was never spoken of was the fact that there was no fix in the health care bill for the very real need to attract more physicians into caring for seniors.

As we have seen, Congress may or may not fix that--it is $300 billion to fix that. That is the cost of it. Whether we fix it or not, the fact is we are playing with the access of Medicare patients to care. Denied access is denied care.

If you live in a community much like mine where no new doctors have been coming in because there is a shortage of primary care doctors, and those who do come in will not take the lower reimbursement for Medicare because they cannot afford to, it may mean that you have to drive 70 miles to get that care. That is not access, and it is

not health care. It means you don't have available health care because the government runs the program so poorly.

Let me finish up, since we don't want to go over our time. The other thing I want to talk about for a minute is this innovation center. In the health care law, we set aside a $10 billion slush fund for innovation in payment and procedures for Medicare patients. We are going to be spending $10 billion to figure out how to pay for it more cheaply and limit the combinations, or increase the combinations of combining these things so that the reimbursements are less.

First of all, I don't understand why it is going to take $10 billion, but it is a slush fund. No. 2 is that if you don't like the results of that, there is nothing we can do about it except reverse the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare. No. 2, you can't sue. You have no injunctive relief. You have no opportunity to express your desire in a court of law or through an administrative procedure to challenge their elimination of paying for certain procedures that may in fact save the country money but may in fact also hurt the very patients who are on Medicare.

We have this fund that we cannot find out anything about; no rules have been put out on it, and we cannot find the details of it. Yet, we know what the purpose of the fund is. It is like the IPAB fund. It is designed to ration the care that seniors need to control the cost of Medicare.

What do we know about Medicare? One dollar of every three dollars spent on Medicare doesn't help anybody get well and doesn't keep anybody from getting sick. The reason it doesn't work is because of the government's mandate--we have all these stories about shortages of drugs. The reason there are shortages of drugs in our country is because Medicare has mandated prices 90 percent of the time so low that we only have one supplier. Some of them either have a technical problem or have decided to stop making a drug that is critical to our seniors because we have a price control bureaucracy.

There are large problems with the Medicare law. They need to be recognized and addressed. They need to be fixed, and the last thing we ought to do is spend $10 billion figuring out how not to get somebody treatment, or lessen the availability of treatment through the innovation council.

I yield the rest of my time to the Senator from Wyoming.

If the Senator will yield for a moment, one of the reasons our cancer cure rates are a third better than England is because we don't have an IPAB and they do. The No. 1 reason survival rates from cancer in England are lower is because treatments are denied by their IPAB for the best treatments, which will save more people's lives at the best price. That is something that should not be discounted.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I believe Congress should reexamine the federally mandated medical loss ratios in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Today I will outline four reasons I believe consumers will face increased costs, decreased choice, and reduced competition.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, PPACA, included a provision that requires all health plans to adhere to a medical loss ratio, MLR, established in law. The MLR refers to the percentage of premium revenues for health insurance plans spent on medical claims. Thus, if a plan received $100 of premiums and spent $85 on medical claims its MLR would be 85 percent.

Beginning no later than January 1, 2011, PPACA requires a health insurance issuer to provide an annual rebate to each enrollee if the ratio of the amount of premium revenue expended by the issuer on clinical claims and health quality costs, after accounting for several factors such as certain taxes and reinsurance, is less than 85 percent in the large group market and 80 percent in the small group and individual markets.

Supporters of PPACA tend to herald the newly created, higher MLR requirement as providing ``better value'' for policyholders compared to a lower MLR. To the untrained ear, perhaps higher MLRs sound better since they force health insurance plans are required to spend a larger percentage of each dollar on medical claims.

Jamie Robinson, a professor in the School of Public Health at the University of California at Berkley, noted that numerous organizations ``have assailed low medical loss ratios as indicators of reduction in the quality of care provided to enrollees and sponsored legislation mandating minimum ratios.'' However, he rightly concludes that while ``this is politically the most volatile and analytically the least valid use of the statistic.''

In fact, a close examination of the data suggests there are several reasons to be concerned with the one-size-fits-all federally mandated MLRs in PPACA. Here are four key reasons why PPACA's MLRs will likely negatively impact American consumers and patients.

First, insurance markets across the country threaten to destabilize. During the health reform debate, opponents of the Federal takeover of health care warned that the federally mandated MLR could endanger the high-quality health coverage many Americans enjoy because it could lead to market destabilization in some States. Under PPACA, States are permitted to adjust the percentage for the individual market only if the Secretary of Health and Human Services grants them a waiver because the Secretary determines that the health insurance market would otherwise be destabilized. Unsurprisingly, a total of 15 States have applied for a waiver from the MLR. This means that nearly one in three States has found that the MLR could destabilize their market and threaten consumers' coverage.

A review of the data shows why States are concerned. According to a study published in The American Journal of Managed Care, the specific impactof the new medical loss rules on the individual health insurance market ``has the potential to significantly affect the functioning of the individual market for health insurance.'' Using data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the study's authors ``provided state-level estimates of the size and structure of the U.S. individual market from 2002 to 2009'' and then ``estimated the number of insurers expected to have MLRs below the legislated minimum and their corresponding enrollment.'' They found that in 2009, ``29 percent of insurer-state observations in the individual market would have [had] MLRs below the 80 percent minimum, corresponding to 32 percent of total enrollment. Nine states would have atleast one-half of their health insurers below the threshold.''

The study explained the impact in ``member years,'' which requires some explanation. Most health insurance policies typically have a 12- month duration, but individuals can enroll or disenroll on a monthly basis. As a result, much of the accounting and actuarial calculations that a health insurance plan makes are in member month or year terms. A member year is 12 member months and could be one individual or multiple persons. For example, if an individual is enrolled for 12 months, that is one member year, or if two people are enrolled for just 6 months each, that is one member year. The study found that ``if insurers below the MLR threshold exit the market, major coverage disruption could occur for those in poor health,'' and they ``estimated the range to be between 104,624 and 158,736 member-years.'' This empirical analysis highlights the huge disruption American consumers may face. As health insurers consolidate, stop offering some insurance products, or exit the market place altogether, Americans who like the high-quality private health plan they have will lose it. This effect would undermine the President's promise to Americans that if they like the health care plan they have, they could keep it.

There is a second concern: Instead of consumers receiving ``better value,'' consumers face increased costs. Despite often-repeated arguments that federally mandated MLRs will result in ``better value'' for consumers, there is little substance to back up this claim. The assumption behind this claim is that spending more cents of a health care dollar directly on care is inherently better. But this may not necessarily be the case. University of California, Berkley, professor Jamie Robinson has studied the issue of MLRs closely, and he noted in Health Affairs that the connection between the MLR and good value is not as clear as some would claim. ``The medical loss ratio never was and never will be an indicator of clinical quality,'' he said. In fact, Professor Robinson explained that ``neither premiums nor expenditures by themselves indicate quality of care. More direct measures of quality are available, including patient satisfaction surveys, preventive services use, and severity-adjusted clinical outcomes. Although each of these is limited in scope, they at least shed light on quality of care. The medical loss ratio does not.''

While the MLR cannot guarantee better value for consumers, it can lead to higher premium costs. As the Congressional Research Services explained,

the MLR provision in PPACA requires health insurance plans ``to pay rebates to their members if a certain percentage of their premiums are not spent on medical costs. This provision may provide an incentive for health insurance companies to reduce their compensation to and/or utilization of producers as they seek to reduce their administrative costs in relation to their medical costs.''

In this scenario, unintended consequences are important to consider. For example, an insurer may increase premiums in another product to make up for lost revenues in one where a rebate is issued. Also insurers may be incentivized to scale back utilization management techniques as a result of the MLR requirement. Accordingly the underlying medical trend which drives premium costs would increase for everyone in the risk pool, therefore leading to higher premiums for all consumers who have a health plan with that company.

Costs for consumers may also increase because of increased fraud in the system. Because insurance plans are economically discouraged from activities not directly connected to medical care, there is a perverse incentive to reduce efforts to police fraud such as conducting utilization reviews and data analysis to root out individuals who defraud the system. This is such a significant problem that it was highlighted in congressional testimony before a House subcommittee earlier this year. ``Given the role that health plan fraud prevention and detection programs have played in establishing effective models for public programs, improved data for law enforcement, and successful prevention efforts, we believe the MLR regulation's treatment of such programs should be reevaluated,'' said the witness. According to the testifying witness, the specific concern is `` the MLR regulation only provides a credit for fraud `recoveries'-- i.e., funds that were paid out to providers and then recovered under pay and chase' initiatives.'' This effectively discourages preventative measures:

The MLR regulation's treatment of fraud prevention expenses

works at cross purposes with new government efforts to

emulate successful private sector programs, and it is at odds

with the broad recognition by leaders in the private and

public sectors that there is a direct link between fraud

prevention activities and improved health care quality and

outcomes.

Ironically, this myopic focus on MLRs obscures the best tool to evaluate the value of a health insurance product: consumer choice. As Professor Robinson explained:

The best indicator of current and expected future value in

a market economy is the willingness of the consumer to

purchase and retain the product. In health care, this

translates into measures of growth in enrollment and

revenues, adjusted for disenrollments and changes in prices.

Plans that are growing are offering something for which

purchasers are willing to vote with their dollars and

consumers are willing to vote with their feet.

Let me turn to my third concern. Consumers face fewer choices, less competition in the marketplace. As noted previously, the MLR threatens to destabilize several markets by pushing some health insurance plans to stop offering some insurance products, or exit the market place altogether. The Congressional Research Service explained this more in detail in a memo to Congress. CRS said the MLR ``requirements of PPACA will place downward pressures on administrative expenses, including the use of insurance producers. Thus, there will be an incentive for insurance companies to cut back on the use of producers or reduce their commissions in order to rein in their administrative expenses. Some observers, including associations of producers, have suggested that the regulatory and market changes resulting from PPACA could put producers out of business.''

The very allowance in PPACA for waivers from the MLR provision is a tacit admission the one-size-fits-all MLR approach mandated under PPACA is neither in the best interest of consumer choice nor competition among health plans in many insurance markets across the country. President Obama once publicly pushed for a government-run health plan under the auspices of more ``choice and competition,'' Unfortunately, the controversial health care law he signed is set to reduce choice and competition for millions of American consumers.

Mr. President, finally, the new mlr mandates further the government takeover of health care. Much ink has been spilled about the claim that PPACA represents a government takeover of health care. In my view, there is no disputing this claim. Even before the passage of PPACA, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service issued a report showing that 60 percent of health care spending in the United States is controlled by State, local, and Federal governments. Now, after passage of the controversial health care law, the Federal Government will effectively regulate health insurance markets and dictate what types of health coverage Americans can buy--even penalizing employers and consumers who do not offer or purchase coverage. The law also massively expands the Medicaid Program--a program that began as a Federal-State partnership but that has evolved into a gimmick-ridden program threatening State budgets and too often promising patients coverage while denying them access to care. The law also includes hundreds of new powers for the Secretary of Health and Human Services and creates dozens of new programs that will further interfere in the practice of medicine. Yes, the law is a government takeover of health care.

Interestingly, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office warned that if the MLRs in PPACA were only slightly higher, PPACA would result in a complete government takeover of all health insurance. In a December 2009 analysis, CBO warned that if the MLRS were 5 percentage points higher, all private insurance would become ``an essentially governmental program.'' In fact, this CBO analysis--publicized before the health care bills became law-- may be one key reason the Democrats refrained from pushing for a 90-percent MLR. CBO warned that if a 90- percent MLR were adopted, ``taken together with the significant increase in the Federal government's role in the insurance market under the PPACA, such a substantial loss in flexibility would lead CBO to conclude that the affected segments of the health insurance market should be considered part of the federal budget.'' If the bills' authors had, in fact, included a 90-percent MLR, they would have faced critics waving a CBO analysis affirming the government takeover of the health insurance industry was complete. However, even with this determination, CBO appeared to admit that determining at what point a high MLR triggers a complete government takeover of the insurance industry was not entirely cut and dry. CBO said, ``Setting a precise minimum MLR that would trigger such a determination under the PPACA is difficult, because MLRs fall along a continuum.''

Mr. President, in the end though, CBO settled on 90 percent as the tipping point, though, as they noted, any ``further expansion of the Federal Government's role in the health insurance market would make such insurance an essentially governmental program, so that all payments related to health insurance policies should be recorded as cash flows in the federal budget.'' In other words, this was just about as close as the Democrats could get without even CBO admitting it was a complete government takeover of the health insurance markets.

Madam President, this is a straightforward amendment on a program that fails 70 percent of the time. We spend $35 million a year. It has an abject failure rate. Only 30 percent of it results in anything positive happening; 70 percent of the time it does not. The Obama administration and the Bush administration thought this program should be canceled.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

Madam President, what the Senator from Maine just said is that $4.2 million is going to be unsuccessful and $2.8 million might be. The fact is that with a $1.3 trillion deficit and a $15 trillion debt, we can't continue to do this no matter how great it sounds when it fails 70 percent of the time.

I ask for the yeas and nays on my amendment.

Mr. President, I have talked with Senator Webb. Some of what he wants to do is probably fine, but we are absolutely ignoring the U.S. Constitution if we do this. We have no role, unless we are violating human rights or the U.S. Constitution, to involve ourselves in the criminal court justice system or penal system in my State or any other State.

The Association of District Attorneys is against this. There are a lot of times interest groups are for something, but we have no business deciding from a central committee in Washington whether Oklahoma is meeting the requirements of its constitution rather than the U.S. Constitution.

I would urge a ``no'' vote against this, and that we honor our Constitution.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up the following amendments en bloc, displacing the amendment that is present, but considering each one of them individually: amendments Nos. 794 through 797, amendments Nos. 799 through 801, and amendment No. 833.

Mr. President, we have 2,705 people in this country who had adjusted gross incomes in excess of $2.5 million last year who got farm payments--direct farm payments. This is an amendment that will limit adjusted gross incomes above $1 million from receiving direct payments.

We hear we are going to change that system. We may change that system. But that has not happened yet. All this amendment says, if you make more than $1 million, you should not be eligible to receive a direct farm payment from this government. Rather than taxing the millionaires, the first thing we ought to do is quit giving them subsidies.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. President, $1 million a year and we are giving them money. We have a $1.3 trillion deficit, and we continue to hear the defense of that. It would be great if we do a new farm program. But the fact is, that is not a given. If we pass this amendment and we do a new farm bill, this amendment has no effect.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, there are 4,000 properties in the United States that get money from HUD for housing to help people whom we want to help. There are 450 owners who are chronically on the list of slumlords, who put the people who live in these houses in danger; they are at high risk for losing their lives in that property.

This amendment only says that if you are going to continue to put these people at risk of losing their lives, then we are not going to pay you anymore. We are not going to send you money if you continue to be in this group of slumlords who are not spending any of their money bringing their properties up to date and you are leaving people at risk of significant harm. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, they did offer, but they told us they didn't have the time to work it out.

The fact is, these are life-threatening emergencies. If one person dies because we don't do this, it is on our hands.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, is the next ordered amendment No. 796?

Might I be recognized?

This is an amendment that addresses something that is going on that I think we should not allow. We have a lot of great programs that help a lot of cities and States out by creating loans that allow the cities and States to do something. What is happening is, when the project we gave the loan for fails, they turn around and take Federal grants to repay the loan.

All this amendment does is to prohibit us from allowing grants to be used to repay Federal loans on local or city or State projects.

Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I rise today to congratulate and commend an outstanding citizen of my State.

Next Tuesday, October 25, Albert ``Kell'' Kelly of Bristow, OK, will take office as the new chairman of the American Bankers Association. Mr. Kelly is CEO Of SpiritBank in Bristow, part of a family-owned cluster of businesses which includes farming, ranching and banking enterprises. In fact, even now, Kell continues to work his 900-acre ranch whenever he is not traveling.

Mr. Kelly is equally active in community affairs. He once served as an assistant district attorney and also was chairman of the Oklahoma Bankers Association, and he is currently chairman of the Oklahoma Turnpike Commission. No wonder Kell Kelly has been called the most influential non-politician in Oklahoma. Education, transportation, and local business development are all key elements of Kell's community involvement. He understands that the purpose of a community bank is to build a community.

Kell is also a champion of empowerment. Five years ago he started a program among his bank employees, teaching them how to write letters and speak with government officials about public policy issues. So far, 65 SpiritBank employees have been trained to be volunteer citizen- activists regarding the various issues that concern them.

Kell's insight as a community banker will be vital in rolling back the excessive intrusion into the day-to-day business of banking that is stifling our Nation's economic recovery

Banking is not only a barometer of economic health but also one of the key drivers of an economy. Under Kell Kelly's leadership, we can expect the American Bankers Association to be a strong advocate for more sustainable and more responsible banking policy and, God willing, to lead the way to a strong and lasting economic recovery for our Nation.

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

Madam President, I wish to speak for a moment in regard to amendment No. 739, which is Senator McCain's amendment. Senator McCain has been very careful with this amendment, to make sure, in terms of enhancements, that he excluded those things that were most important to a lot of people in this country in terms of alternate transportation.

This amendment, which limits the expenditures, mandatory expenditures on enhancements of the Highway Trust Fund money, does not include--in other words, it would not prohibit funding for bicycle paths, or pedestrian and bicycle facilities, pedestrian and bicycle safety, and education activities, the conversion of abandoned railway corridors to trails, for either trails or bicycle paths. It would not prohibit funding for environmental mitigation of highway runoff pollution, reduce vehicle-caused wildlife mortality, maintain habitat connectivity, and it would not prevent funding for the acquisition of scenic easements and scenic or historic sites. I think Senator Cardin might have related something other than that. I wanted to clarify that for my colleague who cannot be here.

What a lot of Americans do not realize is that we have several hundred thousand bridges in our country that are substandard, in disrepair, or are at great risk for those who travel over them. And by mandating that 10 percent of highway funds have to be spent on nonhighway needs, at a time when our country is running massive deficits, has almost $15 trillion worth of debt--as a matter of fact, we are in excess of $15 trillion worth of debt right now, that we should make sure we only apply those enhancements to the things that are most specifically needed.

We do have a commitment from Senator Boxer and Senator Inhofe that we will have some flexibility with enhancements in the future on the next highway bill. What Senator McCain is trying to do here will legitimize that and certainly does not harm the purpose of that.

Basically what Senator McCain's amendment would do, funding this bill for 7 of the 12 transportation enhancement activities, is it would prohibit funding for scenic and historic highway programs, including tourist and welcome centers. We should not be building a welcome center when there is one bridge in any State that is a danger for the American people who are going across it.

Landscape and scenic beautification are nice things. But you know, when you are down making hard choices about the things that are most important, that is not one of them. Historic preservation we cannot have as a priority now. Rehabilitation and operation of historic transportation building structures or facilities; we should not, in fact, spend that money on archeological planning and research when, in fact, we have dangerous bridges that people are coming across every day.

Finally, although transportation museums are great, that cannot be a priority today when we are borrowing $13 trillion every year to keep the transportation trust fund at a level that will not allow us to increase the level at which we resolve these difficult bridges. We cannot continue to borrow that $13 trillion. So this is a commonsense amendment. It is a modification of what I have offered in the past. It is a smarter amendment. It is a better amendment. It still allows the bicycle community and the enhancements associated with that to continue.

I would remind my colleagues, the Federal Highway Administration obligated $3.7 billion in enhancement funds for 10,857 projects between 2004 and 2008.

That included $1 billion for signing, beautification, and landscaping. That billion dollars could have fixed well over 5,000 bridges that are dangerous today.

There was $224 million on projects to rehabilitate and operate historic transportation buildings. Another 2,500 bridges could have been fixed for that. And $28 million to establish 55 separate transportation museums.

It is not about not wanting the money to get out there, about targeting the bicycle community--it is absolutely protected in this-- but it is about ordering our priorities. If there is anything we have not done a good job of in Congress over the last 10 or 15 years, it is making hard choices about what is a priority and what isn't. I think the vast majority of Americans would think the safety of the bridges they drive across is more important than any of these things Senator McCain is saying we are going to limit in this bill.

Of the 604,000 bridges in the United States in 2010, 24 percent of them are deficient. This includes 69,000 that are structurally deficient. In other words, they have significant deterioration, and they have had to have load reduction carrying capacity limitations placed upon them. And 77,410 bridges are functionally obsolete; they don't meet the criteria of design standards.

These figures expose a nationwide problem of deficient bridges as well as the misplaced priorities of Congress. We need to fix this, and I am in support of the McCain amendment.

I yield the floor at this time and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask the pending amendment be set aside and my previous pending amendment No. 792 be brought up.

I have a modification to that amendment that I sent to the desk. I thank the Senator from California for giving me this privilege.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and amendment No. 791 be called up.

I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be considered as read.

This is a straightforward amendment. We have had a lot of talk about millionaires in the country, but what most people don't realize is that there are a lot of farmers in this country whose adjusted gross income is well in excess of $1 million whom we are making direct payments to.

What I would put forward is if you are making over $1 million, I don't think you need a lot of help from the Federal Government to be profitable. So what this amendment will do is it will put a limit of $1 million or greater from receiving direct payments from the Department of Agriculture. You could say somebody making $980,000, but we have chosen this. Right now it is supposedly $2.5 million adjusted gross income.

What we have done is, of all the people who make more than $2.5 million, 75 percent of their income outside of the farming income comes from some other areas. In other words, this is not their main business. Their main business isn't farming. So if they make $2.5 million farming, and they make 75 percent more than that in other areas, again, I would say we should have trouble justifying to the American people that we are sending their tax dollars--actually, borrowed money that is going to be charged to their kids and grandkids--to those individuals.

Of the 1.8 million people who received farm payments from 2003 to 2006, 2,702 of them exceeded the income limits that were established at that time, greater than $2.5 million. GAO reported that the USDA does not have management controls in place to verify that payments are not made to individuals who exceed the program's income eligibility limit. So we have a limit of $2.5 million, but they are not enforcing it. They don't know whether they are enforcing it.

What this amendment will do is, first, we are going to cut it back to $1 million and say put it in action so you know who you are paying and how much they are making. GAO found that participants in the program in 2006 were three times as likely to have an adjusted gross income in excess of $500,000 as individuals who did not participate at all in the direct payment program. In other words, 21 of every 1,000 farm program participants reported in excess adjusted gross income of $500,000 or more, compared with 7 of every 1,000 tax filers in the general public. Instead of taking more of what wealthy individuals have earned, Congress would be wise to first end unsolicited subsidies in the farm program to those individuals.

Studies show that direct payments went to wealthy individuals who live in urban areas but own or have partial interest in their farms. In other words, they are absentee landlords who live in U.S. cities with populations 100,000 or more, but they were paid $394 million in farm payments in terms of the direct payment in 2010 alone. So that is $\1/ 2\ billion.

The top 10 percent of direct payments in 2010 received 59 percent of the money under the program. In other words, the top 10 percent got 59 percent of the direct payment money. These 88,000 people got an average of $30,000. But if you look at those with adjusted gross income, they got far in excess of that. Some examples include 23 Members of Congress in the 112th Congress; 109 individuals living inside Washington, DC; 203 individuals in Miami; 179 individuals inside the city limits of San Francisco received over $1 million in payments; 290 New York City residents received $800,000 on average in payments.

President Obama's fiscal 2012 budget proposes to reduce the per- person cap on direct payments to wealthy farmers by 25 percent or more and reduce the adjusted gross income eligibility limit by $250,000 over 3 years. Well, what this amendment does is in the spirit of what the administration wants to do, but it goes further. It says if you are making over $1 million in adjusted gross income, you should not be eligible for direct payments through the farm program. It is straightforward. It is a way for us to change what we are doing. It is a way for us to save a significant amount of money, almost $\1/2\ billion.

I dare say that if you poll the average American and you said we are paying out hundreds of millions of dollars every year to people making more than $1 million who are farming, they would say, We don't agree with that. That can't be the original intent of that program.

That program is designed to help those people who are truly undercapitalized, who truly are having a difficult time even when we have great markets. And I am not opposed to the payment program. But the fact is, to have a significant percentage of that go to individuals who are making far in excess--33 times what the average individual in this country makes--I think is something we ought to end, and we ought to end right now.

Amendment No. 792 to Amendment No. 738

Mr. President, I ask that the pending amendment be set aside and amendment No. 792 be called up.

I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be considered as if read.

This is another fairly straightforward amendment. We have significant housing for people who have

a need in our country. But inside that program, in HUD, there are payments being made for housing complexes with life-threatening conditions or in absolute poor physical condition. Yet people are trapped there. We keep sending the money. The money doesn't go to improve the housing; it goes into the pockets of those who own the housing through this subsidized housing.

Thousands of needy families have turned to the government for stable housing. They have been placed in properties with health and safety deficiencies, including some that are life-threatening. There are 3,847 properties with life-threatening deficiencies as determined by HUD-- life-threatening--that are currently or previously designated as ``troubled'' by HUD during the past 5 years. Of those, 2,297 are in poor physical condition and were designated as ``troubled'' by HUD. Some of these are for the same properties that appear year after year on HUD's registration list of troubled properties. These numbers will not reflect all the deficient housing provided by HUD and other Federal departments and agencies. This is just a taste of a portion of what is out there.

What this amendment would do is cut off aid to the greedy slumlords, while protecting needy families by prohibiting HUD from making any payment to any person or entity with respect to a property assisted or insured by HUD, currently designated as ``troubled'' on the Online Property Integrated Information Suite for ``life-threatening deficiencies'' or ``poor'' physical condition and that has been on the Online Property Integrated Information Suite's troubled property list at least one time during the past 5 years.

What we are saying is, if someone has been taking advantage of this program as the owner of the property and not making it a safe property, not making it inhabitable, yet people have no choice but to live there, what we are saying is HUD should not be giving them any money. HUD should not be giving them any money.

Over the past several years, there have been far too many examples of slumlords receiving hundreds of millions of Federal tax dollars. In many cases, those without stable housing sought help but were put at health and safety risk by those entrusted to care for them with taxpayer funds. A recent ABC News ``Nightline'' reported that the Federal Government's low-income housing programs are plagued by theft, mismanagement, and corruption at local levels, including millions spent on housing for sex offenders and dead people, and all too often fail the 3 million families who rely on them for a clean, safe place to live.

Specifically, the report found the Philadelphia Housing Authority spent housing funds on lavish gifts for its executives, $500,000 to settle sexual harassment claims, $17,000 of housing funds to throw an extravagant party for the executives. The same month at a belly-dancer party, a 12-year-old girl living in Federally subsidized housing suffered a near-fatal asthma attack that left her unable to speak or walk, secondary to dangerous mold in that apartment complex because it was not taken care of with the dollars that were paid by American taxpayers to help those who are dependent on us.

The New York Daily News recently found some of the city's landlords received $81 million in Federal housing funds, even though their buildings were riddled with housing code violations. The report stated millions of dollars have been doled out to buildings where tenants have repeatedly complained about rats, roaches, nonworking elevators, lack of heat and flaky lead paint. The Federal Government provided $350 million to more than 60 housing authorities that have been repeatedly faulted by auditors for mishandling government aid. In Indiana, investigators found the poor forced to live in substandard housing that local authorities knew was unsafe, yet did not fix. In Indianapolis alone, more than $5.2 million a year has been spent on housing residents in unsafe conditions, according to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette.

About $2.2 million of the Federal funds intended to support low- income housing on the Navajo Nation Indian lands in New Mexico was spent on gaming, furs, jewelry, racehorse training, according to the Las Vegas Sun. There is no oversight at HUD to make sure the landlords will meet the eligibility requirements for receiving these funds. What we are actually doing is we are saying, if they do not meet the criteria, they should not get the money. That is hardly a novel idea. Yet we continue to spend hundreds of millions of dollars supposedly to help those who are neediest among us. Yet it does not help them at all because the money is misdirected and not reinvested in the housing.

HUD continues to subsidize repeat offenders with a history of placing families in unsafe living conditions. There were 6,100 properties designated as ``troubled'' during the past 5 years. Some of these properties appear year after year on the same list. There is no change. They are still getting the money. These include properties in my own State of Oklahoma. Needy families should not be put in dangerous conditions as a result of neglect by the slumlords but, more importantly, as a result of neglect in our oversight of HUD.

What we would propose to do is to ensure the Federal housing benefits for the needy, rather than the greedy, and to prevent slumlords from abusing taxpayers and the disadvantaged and the aged. This amendment would bar HUD from paying landlords whose properties are in poor physical condition or have life-threatening deficiencies, according to their own analysis.

In other words, they already know it, but they are still paying it. What this amendment would say is: They are on the list; they do not qualify. It will send a great signal. Not only will we not pay as much money to properties and put people in better properties, but we will change the expectation of the people who are making all the money off the HUD moneys for the properties. We will make a big difference.

There may not be many who actually lose the money, but there will be many people who are depending on it, living in far better conditions, far safer conditions, if we pass this amendment.

I wish to take just a moment, if my colleague does not mind, to talk about where we are. I have a total of 12 amendments. I was allowed to bring up two. I understand they do not want to get in a hurry, but the fact is, these are all good-government amendments, every amendment I brought up. They may not pass, but that is our fault. But the fact is, we should not be limiting amendments. Let's get them out there. Let's do them. There are money savings, there are quality savings, there are ways to make the agencies work better, and we should not be afraid of that.

We stand right now as a nation in the worst shape we have ever been. The risks to our country are great. We need to quit thinking about partisanship. We need to quit thinking about advantage in the political arena and start doing what is necessary to fix our country. We passed a budget bill that allowed a debt increase that the average American does not realize actually did not save any money. Over the next 10 years, we are actually going to spend $800-some-odd billion more than what we spent last year on discretionary programs. It is time we start being honest with the American public. These 12 amendments are simple and straightforward. One of them copies the amendment of Senator Mikulski for CJS, that ties down and makes more responsible the agencies on their conference spending.

Conference spending is out of control. The Department of Agriculture is absolutely out of control on the money it spends. So we ought to be about moving things through that make a real difference so we can start rebuilding the confidence. Fifteen percent of the people have confidence in us, and I understand why. It is because we spend most of our time around here in quorum calls. I was prepared tonight to put up all these amendments, see which ones could be taken, not necessarily have a vote on every one, but we are not going to allow that to happen. We are not going to allow that to happen not for any good reason; we are not going to allow it to happen for political reasons, and that is killing our country. Whether Republicans do it or Democrats, none of it is any good. The country is on to us.

Eighty-five percent think we are doing a lousy job. I wonder why it is that low. I cannot find anybody in the State of Oklahoma who thinks we are

doing a good job. I can't find anybody around the country who thinks we are doing a good job. But I say to my colleagues, let's start moving stuff through that actually changes things, that is actually going to make a difference. One does not have to agree. Vote it down. None of these are trick amendments. None of these are meant to be political amendments. They are just straightforward, good-government amendments we ought to consider. If one disagrees, disagree. Fine. But let's not not vote on them and let's not quit making attempts to try to fix what is wrong in our government.

HUD's oversight of housing is a disaster. When we have this many properties year after year on this list, why would we not want to fix that? It is not that we don't want to fix it. It is we do not want to give somebody an opportunity to put out the real reason our country is in trouble. The real reason is us. We have not done our jobs. We have not done the oversight. We have not cleaned up things. We can have great arguments and great discussions and great debates but to not have the debate at all means we deserve every bit of that 85-percent lack of confidence in what we are doing.

Tomorrow, I hope I will be able to offer the rest of these amendments. I will work. I have talked with almost every one of the managers on the amendments. None of them are controversial. Some they may disagree with and want votes on, others can be accepted. But to not move forward and then say it is taking too long to get the bill, when we are here ready to work, is not an excuse the American people are going to buy anymore.

Mr. President, I submit the following notice in writing:

In accordance with Rule V of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I hereby give notice in writing that it is my intention to move to suspend Rule XXII, Paragraph 2, including germaneness requirements, for the purpose of proposing and considering amendment No. 670 to S. 1619.

Mr. President, I thank the Chair for the recognition, and I wish to recognize the good work my colleague, the Senator from New Jersey, has done on this issue.

I have been in the Senate a little over 6 years and I was cajoled into allowing this to pass the last time it passed. I have blocked every other disease-specific piece of legislation, and there is a reason for that. Both the last Director of the NIH and the current one caution against us being specific in what we demand them to do. There is a reason for that. Our science is changing enormously--enormously. We are now at the molecular level, at the genetic level, and at the immune level of thousands of diseases. What we research in diabetes now has prevalence for neurosciences. What we research in neurosciences now has prevalence for tons of other diseases. Dr. Zerhouni has said: Please don't do this.

I am known in this body to be a stickler on spending, but if there were two areas I would increase spending in our budget it would be to the NIH and to the National Science Foundation--both of them--and I recently reported out a report that was somewhat critical of some of the spending on the National Science Foundation. We can do

everything better. But the important aspect is no one who is opposing the reauthorization of this bill right now is opposed to autism research or the ideas behind it. What we are opposed to is tying the hands of the researchers and the Directors at NIH and telling them what they should do and how they should do it.

I would also dispute the fact the money will go away. The CR we are going to consider this week will continue this funding at the level it is until November 18, which gives us plenty of time to work with Senator Menendez to work out some of our problems with this piece of legislation. So we come to this debate in good faith. We recognize the emotional ties associated with such a devastating disease. As an obstetrician and pediatrician, I have diagnosed it. I have treated it. I have sat with the families as they have suffered through the consequences of this disease. I don't take it lightly. But I also don't take lightly our inability to make the clear choices and ratchet around the moneys for the NIH.

What we should do is say: NIH, here is your money. Go where the science helps the most people in the quickest way and where the science leads us. At a time when our country is desperate to get our fiscal house in order, what we want is the most efficient NIH. What we want is nonduplicative grants at the NIH. What we want is no fraud in the grants associated with autism, which have been published and which people are now in jail for. We want that eliminated. We want the oversight on the NIH to be across the board in every area. Are they doing what we are asking them to do to spend the money wisely and what the science would tell them to do, not what any one particular interest group would tell them to do?

So I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 1094, the Combating Autism Reauthorization Act, and that my amendment at the desk related to requiring the Secretary of HHS to identify and consolidate duplicative and overlapping autism funding throughout the Federal Government be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, and any statements related to the bill be printed in the Record.

I understand that. My commitment is to work with the Senator from New Jersey to try to solve this problem before any funding would change, and I don't think it is going to change.

I would also note for my colleagues that last year we had over $450 billion appropriated by the appropriators that was not authorized for anything. There were no authorizations at all. So this money isn't going to go away. There is no hurry. There is no tragedy. We can continue, and we can work as colleagues to try to solve our problems as well as meet the demands the Senator from New Jersey thinks must be met.

With that, I yield the floor.

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

I ask that amendment No. 610 be considered as pending, brought up, and read.

I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, the bill we have before us today is a bill to fund emergency relief through FEMA for a lot of the emergency disasters our country has experienced over the past 6 months.

I don't think there is a large disagreement that we ought to take care of the areas that are the Federal responsibility in the respective States for the extreme weather as well as fire-related tragedies that have been experienced by a multitude of States. However, the question is, given where we stand as a country, do we just borrow the money to do that and add it to the debt or is the government running so efficiently that we can't cut something else and make a choice about how we pay for it? The bill as brought forward has no pay-for at all. In other words, the assumption is that if we pass this bill, we will go and borrow approximately $7 billion more in the international markets.

What I would put forward is that we know we have plenty of areas we can cut now that are not effective, not efficient, that are wasteful, that are duplicative, and we would not have to borrow that additional money. The easiest thing in the world is to spend somebody else's money. And what we are doing with this bill by not paying for it is actually asking our grandchildren to pay for an obligation we have today.

The amendment I have asked to be called up is nearly identical to an amendment this body passed by a vote of 64 to 36 in April of this year.

The Government Accountability Office brought forth a report on duplication that showed hundreds of millions of dollars in wasteful duplication. This is not the only area we could go, but this is an area we have already agreed as a body is an effective way to pay and save money. We could easily find $7 billion by eliminating multiple programs that accomplish the same thing. Let me give some examples of what the GAO showed.

The Department of Defense and the VA are both creating new medical record systems as we speak, both paying for independent contractors doing the same thing. They are going to have intertwined medical records ultimately. We do not need to set up two different programs. By doing that, we could save a couple of billion dollars, just by having one program for both VA and DOD.

We have multiple contracts, according to the GAO, in terms of interagency and areawide contracts that actually increase our procurement costs, where we could consolidate those and have one contract and actually save money. But we have not done that. That is something that can be done by the OMB at our direction.

The other area which is extremely interesting--and the President has already agreed to this. They are already starting to do it. But we could do it much faster and save a significant amount of money. We could save $150 billion to $200 billion over the next 10 years just by consolidating data centers. We initially had some 500 of those. I think we are up to around 2,000. We had 434 in 1998 and 2,000 Federal data centers in 2010. What everybody knows is we could cut that by about half, not have any change in the effectiveness, and save about $150 billion over the next 10 years.

This amendment identifies the areas listed in the GAO report and instructs the OMB to find those that are most likely to be achievable to come to $7 billion. We have agreed to do this in the past on a previous bill when Senator Warner and I offered this amendment jointly to pay for the spending.

I can go on with a lot of other areas in terms of wasteful spending. I will not. But I make this one plea: In August we left after passing a debt limit increase, the largest debt limit increase we have ever incurred in segments, and said we were going to start living within our means. We have created a supercommittee to find $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years in savings. While they are doing that, if we decide to pass an emergency supplemental bill for FEMA and do not pay for it, we are going to be working in exactly the opposite direction of what we said we needed to do.

The facts are, we are almost schizophrenic. We say we need to cut spending. Yet we are going to spend $7 billion more. Yet we do not want to find some spending to cut to pay for it; we just want to borrow it. You can understand why very few Americans have confidence in us. On the one hand we are addressing the problem, and on the other hand we are ignoring the problem.

I think it would behoove the confidence level in this institution if, in fact, we tried to pay and found the courage and the willpower to say if we are going to spend additional money, we are going to create priorities, and we are actually going to eliminate spending somewhere else to be able to pay for this, to be able to do this more important thing.

I have trouble understanding, even when I talk to our colleagues privately, why we would not do this; why we would not pay for this $7 billion by reducing wasteful spending elsewhere.

As we go to the vote at 4 o'clock, the question that people ask is, Why was it OK to cut the spending from these departments back in April, but it is not OK to cut the spending now? Sixty-four of our colleagues voted to cut this spending in April. I know several are opposed to paying for this, but we are in a new day. We live in a new world.

The Oklahoma Chamber of Commerce was here this week. The title of their meeting was ``New Realities.'' The new reality is that we are going to run to the end of the time at which we can borrow money or afford to pay the interest rate on the money that we can borrow, and the discipline we need is to live within our means.

This is one step that will be the right thing to do for future generations. It is the right thing to do to build confidence in our institution, and it is the right thing to do to eliminate waste and duplication in the Federal Government.

I yield the floor, suggest the absence of a quorum, and make a point I will talk again on this prior to the vote.

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

Mr. President, I would like to say Senator Reid and I have had several discussions today and we are working to try to resolve an impasse we have, but we are not there yet. I wanted to be clear with my colleagues what my intent was, and if we can work the problems out, I am happy to try to do that.

I have three separate unanimous consent requests I am going to be asking for. One will separate the FAA bill, pass it, and send it to the House. Another will separate the Transportation bill, eliminating the transportation enhancement component of it and send it to the House, and another one eliminates the transportation component of the combined bill and sends it back to the House. I understand the leader is concerned with those but felt I would exercise my right to offer those unanimous consent requests.

Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 2887, the House-passed FAA surface transportation reauthorization bill, and my amendment at the desk related to a 4-month extension shall be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements related to the bill be printed in the Record.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 2887, the House-passed FAA surface transportation reauthorization bill, that the Coburn amendment at the desk related to repealing the 10-percent transportation enhancement mandate be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements related to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 2887, the House-passed FAA surface transportation reauthorization bill, that my amendment at the desk related to a 6-month surface transportation extension that repeals the 10-percent transportation enhancement mandate be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, and any statements related to the bill be printed in the Record.

I object.

I would ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I would like to spend a few minutes discussing some things in general.

In making a couple points today, I was referred to by one of our colleagues as a dictator. I am not offended at that; I understand the frustration of what is going on. But I think there are some significant points that the American people ought to hear about where we are and what we are doing.

Quite frankly, if we look at our financial situation and we look at the history of the world, no country has ever recovered from the situation in which we find ourselves in terms of our debt-to-GDP ratio and our debt-to-export ratio.

In August, before we left, we passed a piece of legislation that goes--a small amount--toward fixing the very real problems that are in front of our country in terms of spending money we don't have on things we don't absolutely need. But we have before us, and coming before us, two different pieces of legislation: One is a shell piece of legislation, and the assumption is the majority leader will utilize it to fund supplementation for disaster relief for the many areas in our country that need that funding. There is not a dispute that we should be doing that. There is a dispute about how much that should be. But the greatest dispute is, when we are running $1.3 trillion and $1.4 trillion deficits, and we know we have significant waste, duplication, and fraud in the Federal Government, whether we ought to spend another $6 billion or $7 billion by borrowing or we ought to actually reduce spending somewhere else to pay for a much more important and proper need in which the Federal Government has a role. That is the real debate.

I think we have worked a way to have appropriate amendments to try to pay for that, and we should probably go forward. There are, however, two other programs that are precarious in their funding: One is FAA-- and we have coming to us the 22nd temporary reauthorization--and the Transportation bill, which is, I believe, its sixth temporary reauthorization.

Now, there are some real questions the American people ought to be asking about why 22 times we have temporarily reauthorized the FAA for a short period of time, and why now we are on our sixth temporary--or fifth; I may be wrong on one of those numbers but close--temporary reauthorization. That is because we are not prioritizing what is important for the country in terms of our legislative agenda. We don't control that, but there are some things that the American people are interested in that we do control.

The highway trust fund has received a supplementation over the last 4 years of $35 billion from the American taxpayer outside of the taxes they collect for that trust fund. Out of that amount of money billions of dollars have been spent on things other than highways and bridges.

We now have 146,000 deficient bridges in our country, some in every State in the country. We have more now after the floods in the Northeast. We have significant problems and we have a limited amount of money, and what is in front of us is another short-term extension of 6 months for the transportation funding which continues to spend money on items that are a low priority.

I am not saying we couldn't spend the money on it. But when we are short of money, and we are borrowing money to put money into the trust fund, and our No. 1 priority ought to be safety and quality roads and bridges, to spend significant funds on things that are not a priority now--not when we are head over heels in debt, not when the trust fund is precarious--then we ought to not force States to spend money they don't want to spend. Yet in this bill 10 percent of the surface transportation moneys have to be spent on enhancement.

So that tells Oklahoma, or any other State: If you have an excess number of bridges, it doesn't matter that that is a safety problem for your citizens; we are still going to make you spend this 10 percent money over here that doesn't have anything to do with safety or true transportation, but we are going to require it because we can--except, the problem is, the people in your State pay the taxes in the first place for their highways and their bridges, not for the museums, not for all the hundreds of other things that are spent that are low priority.

So I thought I might give us a little flavor of what some of those things are. If we were at a different time where we had an excess of funds, I am not saying they are necessarily bad. But when we have bridges falling down in this country, and concrete--like the summer before last in Oklahoma--falling out of an interstate highway bridge injuring somebody, falling onto their car as they drove under it, I would think that we would want to repair these 146,000 bridges rather than spend money redecorating a sign.

So I will not go through all of them--I will put all of them into the Record--but let me go through a few of them just to see. If the American people actually believe we should not fix bridges or roads and we ought to spend money, I am fine. If the Senate believes we ought to not fix bridges, we ought not concentrate on safety, we ought not concentrate on the quality of our roads and bridges and they vote it down, I am fine too. But the fact is, we ought not to be spending money when we have the hundreds of thousands of bridges that are dangerous to people in this country.

All we are saying is, if a State wants to continue to spend money on something other than safety and bridges and roads, fine, it can, but don't make those of us who already have a big problem with safety have to spend money on something that doesn't protect our citizens, doesn't enhance their highways by spending money on something that is called an enhancement but doesn't enhance their safety or their ability to commute.

So what are some of them? Lincoln Highway 200-Mile Roadside Museum in

Pennsylvania--it received $300,000 in enhancement funding to commemorate the historic highway along the 200-mile route. Interpretive signage, colorful, repainted vintage gas pumps, engaging murals, refurbishing a large coffee pot.

Notably, Pennsylvania ranks No. 1 in the country in terms of bridge deficiency levels. Forty-six percent of the bridges in Pennsylvania are either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. Mr. President, $300,000 would have fixed two of them. So we chose to not fix two but spend the money elsewhere. At a different time, sure, or if Pennsylvania wants to spend it, let them. But don't force them to spend money on something that does not protect the quality of transportation for their citizens.

How about Chinatown Gateway, a $250,000 enhancement to supplement the construction of the Twin Dragons Gateway to the Chinatown area? California has over 7,000 bridges that are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. One out of every three bridges in California is in trouble, and we are doing aesthetics instead of fixing bridges.

How about the White Squirrel Sanctuary in Tennessee? Kenton, TN, located in Gibson County, calls itself ``the Home of the White Squirrel.'' They received $110,000 in transportation enhancement funding to construct a white squirrel sanctuary with walking trails, brick crosswalks, a footbridge, and a parking lot. There are 3,856 bridges that are structurally deficient in the State of Tennessee. They didn't necessarily want to do this. They did not have any choice. They had to spend 10 percent of their surface transportation money on things such as this.

Tuscumbia Landing in Sheffield, AL--$104,000 to investigate Tuscumbia Landing's archaeological features. The only problem is, 23 percent of Alabama's bridges are structurally deficient. That could have fixed two of them.

How about the National Corvette Museum Simulator Theater in Warren County, KY--$200,000 to build a grand simulator theater. Mr. President, 31 percent of the bridges they cross in Kentucky are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.

The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum--$400,000 to construct the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum. It is a great idea if we are in the black and have a good cashflow. But when Pennsylvania leads the Nation in deficient bridges and dangerous bridges, why would we spend that money? Why would we force them to spend that money?

I can go on. I will add to the record many other examples, all the way up to 40 separate examples of where we are spending money but we are not fixing bridges.

I ask unanimous consent that those examples be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.

We are not pouring asphalt, we are not laying concrete, we are not decreasing congestion, and we are not increasing safety. What we are doing is we are following the rules of Washington when we have greater needs. We are in trouble as a nation because Congress does not set priorities, and when they do set priorities, there is no connection to the reality of our financial situation.

We have some options on how to go forward. One of the options would be to take the FAA bill, split it out, approve it, send it back to the House, and FAA is taken care of. The second option would be to pass the highway extension for 6 months with the elimination of enhancements and send it back to the House. But I will not give a unanimous consent, as is my right as a Senator of the United States, for us to continue to spend billions of dollars on things that are not a priority when the country is struggling to survive. Its very survival depends on us changing the way we do business. If that means the highway transportation bill does not get approved, so be it. But there has to be a point in time in this country when we change direction and we start meeting the obligations that are put before us.

The No. 1 obligation is to start spending money where it does the most good and quit spending money we do not have on things we do not absolutely need. With a 35-percent deficit--and we are going to run another $1.3 trillion deficit next year, which will cost a significant amount of funds for our kids and our grandkids just to repay what we are going to waste next year--there ought to be a time at which we say enough is enough.

I know there will be several, including my own senior Senator, who will be unhappy with my position, but I believe it is time to draw a line in the sand for the American people, for our future. It is not popular. It is certainly not expedient. But it is absolutely the right thing to do.

If the Senate wants to solve the problem of these two bills, we can split them or we can keep them together, but we need to end the enhancements right now until we get the highway trust fund healthy again, No. 1, and, No. 2, until we get our country healthy again. When we do, I will be happy to defer.

Remember, we are not saying you cannot do it. We are just saying you ought to have the option to not do it.

Exhibit 1

Kalanianaole Highway, Ka'lwi Scenic Shoreline Trail--

Federal Transportation enhancement funds were used to

intervene in a local land use dispute in Hawaii. A decades

long dispute over the preservation of Hawaiian shoreline

versus local developmental interests was assisted by the

Department of Transportation, which used $11 million in

enhancement funds to acquire land for conservation purposes,

effectively meddling in the local land use. In the mean time,

45 percent of Hawaii's bridges are either structurally

deficient or functionally obsolete.

Antique bike collections--The University of California

Davis received a transportation enhancement grant of $440,000

to purchase 60 unique antique bikes for its Bicycle Museum

Collection.

Shrine to Tennessee state history costs federal government

$23 million-- Nashville, Tennessee received $23 million in

federal enhancement funding to construct its bicentennial ode

to Tennessee state history. The project included the building

of ``a 1,400-foot Wall of History etched with historic events

from the state's first two centuries, 31 fountains that each

represent one of the state's rivers, and a 200-foot granite

state map.'' The only thing more egregious than federal funds

used for a clearly state interest, is that 20 percent of

Tennessee Bridges are either structurally deficient or

functionally obsolete.

ARTwalk--ARTwalk is tagged as a unique outdoor experience

that constructs pathways between shopping areas, galleries,

and museums in Rochester, Vermont. The project used $234,000

in federal enhancement dollars to build the artsy outdoor

museum, while 861 of Vermont's bridges remain either

structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.

Old Roman Bath House Renovation--$160,000 worth of

enhancement funding was used in Berkeley, West Virginia for

the renovation of the oldest building in town, an Old Roman

Bath House. While local residents may be interested in

visiting a bath house where George Washington used to

frequent, federal taxpayers may find the connection to

critical infrastructure more puzzling. Moreover, 36 percent

of West Virginia's bridges remain structurally deficient or

functionally obsolete.

Saddletree Factory Renovation--The Ben Schroeder Saddle

Tree Factory, a historical factory in Madison, Indiana,

received transportation enhancement funding for historical

preservation purposes because the factory used to make

Saddletrees, the foundation of a saddle. 21.5 percent of

Indiana's bridges are either structurally deficient or

functionally obsolete.

Toledo Harbor Lighthouse--The Toledo Harbor Lighthouse in

Toledo, Ohio, protected by the ``phantom'' officer Frank,

will receive a $500,000 enhancement grant to restore windows,

doors, bricks, and shutters. This grant will not only help to

restore the facade of the historical lighthouse, but also

carry on the legendary ghosts of the haunted lighthouse.

Unfortunately, ``phantom'' officer Frank will not be able to

protect Ohio drivers from the 6,598 bridges that are either

structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.

Critter Crossing--The Monkton, Vermont Conservation

Commission received $150,000 in federal grant money to build

a--critter crossing, to save the lives of thousands of

migrating salamanders and other amphibians that would

otherwise be slaughtered by vehicle traffic on a major

roadway. Thousands of blue- and yellow-spotted salamanders,

frogs, and other amphibians spend the winter months in the

rocky uplands near Monkton, but must return to low-lying

wetlands in order to reproduce. To travel between these two

areas, the salamanders must cross the heavily-traveled

Monkton-Vergennes Road. While some conservationists have

celebrated the project, others remain skeptical. ``I

certainly respect all species. However, I don't see the need

to pay $150,000 for a salamander crossing'', read one email

reportedly sent to the Burlington [Vermont] Free Press

newspaper. ``I realize there are a lot of other stupid things

my tax dollars go toward, but this one is near the top of the

list.'' Maybe the local communities will prevent the critters

from crossing one of the 861 bridges that are either

structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.

North Carolina Transportation Museum Spencer, North

Carolina--The North Carolina Transportation Museum has

received over 11 million to renovate and showcase steam

locomotive artifacts. As of 2010, North Carolina has nearly

5000 bridges that are either structurally deficient or

functionally obsolete.

Massachusetts bike and pedestrian allotted millions, but

remain unspent--Massachusetts has received $135 million in

federal funds for bike and pedestrian projects since 1991, of

which it has spent little more than $51 million, according to

The Boston Globe. That means nearly two-thirds of the funds

provided in the last two decades by Congress to the state for

such projects remain unspent. Perhaps Massachusetts would

like to use their unspent funds to work on their 2,548

bridges that are either structurally deficient or

functionally obsolete.

Nevada spending millions of federal transportation dollars

to make Vegas highways beautiful--In 2008, Nevada received

its transportation enhancement allotment of $6,287,466. They

decided to spend it in a variety of ways, a few million went

to biking facilities and trails, a few million went to

welcome centers and interpretive centers. $498,750 even went

for ``decorative rocks, native plants, some pavement

graphics, a few walls, and some great big granite boulders''

to beautify an interchange to Las Vegas' 215 Beltway.

A couple miles down the highway, N-DOT beautified another

interchange with ``striping in the rocks and some native

plants.'' That project has cost $319,163 so far this year.

The people of Nevada might have been able to think of some

better things to spend that money on. One local who uses the

interchange frequently was not impressed by the expensive

beautification project. ``I'm busy watching where I'm going.

I'm not looking at landscape improvements and stamped

concrete.''

Unfortunately, there is little that local officials can do

to re-direct the money to better uses. ``We applied for the

federal enhancement dollars and those federal enhancement

dollars can only be used for landscaping and pedestrian type

improvements,'' explains the top civil engineer at the Clark

County Public Works Traffic Management Division.

The N-DOT deputy director for southern Nevada is just as

frustrated as many citizens that federal restrictions

prohibit states from directing money where it is really

needed. ``It's really getting out of hand to where these pots

of money have these constraints associated with them and you

can't spend money where you want to.'' These restrictions

sometimes leave states no choice but to spend money on

frivolous projects or lose it entirely. The deputy director

notes, ``if N-DOT doesn't spend that money and employ workers

in Nevada, another state is gonna have that money up for

grabs.''

Washington, DC receives Transportation Enhancement grants

for murals and valet bikes--Washington, DC received nearly $2

million in transportation enhancement grants in Fiscal Year

2010, ranging from $50,000 to $579,000. These grants include

items such as the stabilization of historic murals and a

grant for bicycle parking and valet services, along with the

creation of a ``Room to Breathe'' poster. The $2 million

allotment would be much better used for bridge repair, as 158

of the 244 bridges in the District are either structurally

deficient or functionally obsolete.

Railroad Caboose Relocation and Renovation--The Princeton

Railroad Museum received a $78,280 transportation enhancement

grant to help pay for the relocation of a historic train

caboose to be displayed and restored.

Texas Highway Rest Stops--The Texas Department of

Transportation uses a substantial amount of their required

transportation enhancement spending to build highway rest

areas. Texas plans to spend $262 million to build or overhaul

roadside stops along its highways, with a majority of the

funds coming from enhancement grants. However, some residents

question the construction of rest stops in such close

proximity to other commercial areas, leading one local

resident to surmise about the $10 million Salado rest area,

``I think $10 million would have made a nice third lane in a

lot of spots . . . It's pretty spectacular for a rest area,

for, I guess, $2 million worth . . . $10 million? That's a

lot of money.'' Additionally, the Texas Department of

Transportation spent $16.2 million in enhancement funding on

a Battleship Texas restoration project.

California Sculpture Competition--Federal transportation

enhancement dollars were used as prize money for an art

competition to find a sculpture fitting to place in a parking

lot for a Laguna Beach, California Friday Film Series event.

Merchant and Drovers Tavern Museum--The Merchants and

Drovers Tavern Museum in Union County, New Jersey received a

$210,790 transportation enhancement grant to create a museum

on the second floor of the recently renovated building. The

Merchants and Drovers Tavern Museum touts its amenities by

letting visitors ``experience the hospitality of the 1820s''

and ``quench his thirst in the taproom, sit for a while in

the parlor or, perhaps, try a bed for size at this `hands-on'

museum.'' Meanwhile, visitors should also be wary of driving

over any New Jersey bridges on the way to the museum, as 35

percent of them are either structurally deficient or

functionally obsolete.

Museum uses transportation funds for its Heating and Air

Conditioning system--The Sayre Historical Society Museum in

Bradford County, Pennsylvania received a transportation

enhancement grant of $74,704 for the ``Sayre Historical

Society RR Museum Heating and AC project.'' You read that

correctly, American gas taxes are being directed towards

heating and air installation.

War of 1812, Bladensburg, Maryland excavation--Enhancement

funding was used to excavate several historical buildings in

Bladensburg, Maryland to study the ``transportation history''

of the area. Bladensburg was used for troop movements during

the War of 1812, as well as being a transportation hub during

early America.

Funding for a Transportation Exhibit--$300,000 in federal

money will pay for a new exhibit on the history of

transportation at a local museum in Missouri. The fresh

display at the St. Charles County Heritage museum will

explain the influence of rivers, railroads, roads, and trails

in the region over the years. The grant application

highlights how ``The County and its residents have had to

rely on multiple forms of transportation and as technology

changed, the area had to adapt to the changing transportation

methods/patterns.''

Not everyone in the community agrees the federal government

should fund this type of project. A county executive said,

``It's the kind of thing the federal government can't afford

to do.'' Other officials however have a different perspective

on the federal funding. The county parks director explained

how ``the $300,000 grant is `a pretty insignificant amount of

money compared to that total pool' of federal transportation

spending.'' Maybe a more significant number should be 7,021,

the number of Missouri bridges that are either structurally

deficient or functionally obsolete.

Iowa town receives new entrance sign--Fairfield, Iowa used

$40,800 in transportation enhancement funds to upgrade its

``Welcome to Fairfield'' sign. It is likely that Iowans would

welcome their transportation funds upgrading their bridges,

as Iowa ranks 3rd in bridge deficiency rates in America.

Michigan Receives Transportation funds to plant flowers and

rehabilitate an engine house--In 2010, the Michigan awarded

$5 million in federal transportation enhancement grants to

various projects including reconstructing cobblestone roads,

purchasing and installing bicycle racks, and

``streetscaping'' a downtown street in Bridgetown, Michigan

with ``decorative sidewalk treatments, street trees,

perennial flowers and other decorative plantings, planters,

and ornamental street lighting.'' One grant awarded $336,490

to rehabilitate the historic Quincy and Torch Lake Railroad

Engine House while another grant awarded $1,490,280 to the

Detroit Science Center to construct an exhibit depicting

``how roads, tunnels and bridges are constructed.''

Transportation Funding used to replace unaesthetic fencing

around Oklahoma Capitol Oil Derricks--The Oklahoma Department

of Central Services, the controller of Capitol Grounds,

received $216,000 in transportation enhancement funding to

replace fencing around active oil wells on Lincoln Boulevard

with a more aesthetically pleasing form of fencing.

Unfortunately while Capitol Complex may look better, Oklahoma

bridge deficiency rates remain 2nd in the United States.

Over $150,000 in Gasoline Taxes directed towards making

brochures--Over the last 10 years, federal transportation

enhancement grants have been used to produce brochures for

various purposes including monuments paths, scenic trails,

and bicycle safety. The State of Kansas even received a

federal grant to install and replace their brochure display

cases at SRA.

Enhancement funds used to help construct replica of

historical schooner--In 2001, Burlington, Vermont received a

$20,000 grant to subsidize the building a full scale replica

of the 1862-class sailing canal boat, the Louis McClure.

Crandall Farm Restoration project--Washington County, Rhode

Island received a $120,000 transportation enhancement grant

for renovation of Crandall Farm. The project consisted of

renovating the 1870 house on the farm into a welcome center

and educational tool for the traveling public.

South Carolina uses gas taxes to purchase $15,000 ``Welcome

Signs''--Orangeburg County, South Carolina received a $34,965

transportation enhancement grant o help purchase three signs

at a cost of $44,500, or $14,833 per sign. Unfortunately,

South Carolina bridges are not as welcoming, as 22 percent of

them are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.

The State of Michigan receives nearly $100,000 to celebrate

mysterious centennial--In 2004, Michigan received a $99,540

transportation enhancement grant for publications, historical

commemorative items, and displays for a ``centennial

celebration.'' The only thing more puzzling than how these

activities are related to transportation is that the

centennial for Michigan Statehood occurred in 1937.

Mr. President, I wish to talk about an amendment, but also I had one of my colleagues who was sitting in your position as President pro tempore notice an error I made on July 27. Senator Whitehouse questioned my numbers and, in fact, he was right. I said $115 million in regard to the savings on limousines. It was $11.5 million per year, not $115 million. It was $115 million over 10 years. So I wish to stand to put that in the Record that I was in error and Senator Whitehouse as a cordial colleague questioned me on it and I thank him for his accountability.

We have before the Senate now a patent bill. There is no question there is a lot of work we need to do on patents. I know the President pro tempore sits on the committee that I do and we have spent a lot of time on this. But I am very concerned, I have to say, about what we are hearing in the Senate about why we wouldn't do the right thing that everybody agrees we should be doing because somebody doesn't want us to do that in the House, and I think it is the worst answer we could ever give the American people.

When we have a 12-percent approval rating, and the Republicans have worse than that, why would we tell the American people we are not going to do the right thing for the right reason at the right time because somebody in the House doesn't want us to and that we are going to say we are not going to put these corrections into a patent bill that are obviously important and we are going to say it is going to kill the bill when, in fact, it is not going to kill the bill? But that is what we use as a rationalization. So let me describe for a minute what has gone on over the years and what has not happened.

The first point I would make is there has not been one oversight hearing of the Patent Office by the Appropriations Committee in either the House or the Senate for 10 years. So they haven't even looked at it. Yet the objection to, and what we are seeing from an appropriations objection is--and even our chairman of our Committee on the Judiciary, who is an appropriator, supports this amendment but isn't going to vote for it because somebody in the House is going to object to it.

But the point is, we have money that people pay every day. From universities to businesses to individual small inventors, they pay significant dollars into the Patent Office. Do you know what has happened with that money this year? Eighty-five million dollars that was paid for by American taxpayers for a patent examination and first looks didn't go to the Patent Office. Yet we have over 1 million patents in process at the Patent Office, and over 700,000 of those haven't ever had their first look.

So when we talk about our economy and we talk about the fact that we want to do what enhances intellectual property in our country--which is one of our greatest assets--and then we don't allow the money that people actually pay for that process to go for that process and we have backlogged for years now patent applications, we have done two things. One is we have limited the intellectual property we can capture. No. 2 is we have allowed people to take those same patents,

when we have limited ability, especially some of our smaller organizations, and patent them elsewhere. So the lack of a timely approach on that is lacking.

The process is broken. Since 1992, almost $1 billion has been taken out of the Patent Office. So we wonder, why in the world is the Patent Office behind?

The Patent Office is behind because we will not allow them to have the funds the American taxpayers who are trying to get ideas and innovations, copyrights, trademarks, and patents done--we will not allow the Patent Office to have the money.

The amendment I am going to be offering--and I have a modification on it that is trying to be cleared on the other side, and I will not actually call up the amendment at this time until I hear whether that has been accepted. The amendment I have says we will no longer divert the money that American businesses, American inventors, American universities pay to the Patent Office to be spent somewhere else; that it has to be spent on clearing their patents.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record--and I will submit a copy at this time--a letter I received August 1 from the head of the Patent Office.

I must tell you that we are so fortunate that we have Director Kappos. We have a true expert in patents, with great knowledge, who has made tremendous strides in making great changes at our Patent Office. But he requires a steady stream of money, and he requires the ability to manage the organization in a way where he can actually accomplish what we have asked him to do.

Frankly, I have spent a lot of time working with the Patent Office-- not with everybody else who wants an advantage in the patent system but with the Patent Office--and I am convinced we have great leadership there.

In his letter, he talks about their inability to update their IT because the money is not there because we will not let him have the money--their money, the money from the American taxpayers.

Let me give a corollary. If, in fact, you drive your car into the gas station, you give them $100 for 25 or 28 gallons of gas, and they only give you 12 gallons of gas and they say: Sorry, the Appropriations Committee said you couldn't have all the gas for the money you paid, you would be outraged. If you go to the movie, you pay the fee to go to the movie and you buy a ticket, you walk in, and halfway through the movie they stop the projection and say: Sorry, we are not going to give you the second half of the movie even though you paid for it--inventors in this country have paid the fees to have their patents examined and evaluated and reviewed. Yet we, because of the power struggle, have decided we are not going to let that money go to the Patent Office. The amendment I have says we are going to allow that to happen. If money is paid and it goes into a proper fund that is allocatable only to the Patent Office, it cannot be spent anywhere else and has to go to the Patent Office.

Some of the objections, especially from the House Appropriations Committee, are that there is no oversight.

The reason there is no oversight is because they have not done any oversight and neither have we, so you cannot claim that as an excuse as to why you are afraid. This patent bill will give an authorization for 7 years for the fees. We can change that if we want, but the fact is that we are never going to know if we need to change it if we never do oversight, which we have not done. Nobody has done oversight on patents. I am talking aggressive oversight: What did you start? What was your end? How much did you spend? Where did you spend the money? What is your employee turnover? What is your employee productivity? What should we expect?

None of that has been asked. I believe it is probably pretty good based on the fact that I have a lot of confidence in the management at the Patent Office, especially what I have seen in terms of performance for the last couple of years versus before that, but the fact is that oversight has not been done.

It is not just the Patent Office. It hasn't been done anywhere. Very little oversight has been done by the Senate, and it is one of the biggest legitimate criticisms that can be made of us as a body, that we are lazy in our oversight function. Of the $3.7 trillion that is going to be spent, we are going to have oversight of about $100 billion of the total.

The amendment does a couple of things. Let me kind of detail that for a moment. One of the things is that by returning the money to the Patent Office, the Director thinks he can actually cut the backlog in half. In other words, we have over 700,000 patents that have never been looked at sitting at the Patent Office now, and he believes that in a very short period of time they could cut that to 350,000.

From 1992 through 2011, $900 million has been taken from the PTO. In 2004 Congress diverted $100 million, in 2007 it diverted $12 million, last year it diverted $53 million, and it is $80 million to $85 million that is going to be diverted this year. In 4 years out of the last 10, Congress gave the Patent Office all the money because it was so slow, so lethargic in terms of meeting the needs of inventors. The only thing we have in the current bill is the promise of a Speaker and the promise of a chairman that they will do that. There is nothing in law that forces them to do it. There is nothing that will make sure the money is there. No matter how good we fix the patent system in this country, if there is not the money to implement it, we will not have solved the problems.

In June of 2000, the House debated the PTO funding, and an interesting exchange took place between Representative Roybal-Allard and Representative Rogers, who was a cardinal at the time. Representative Allard discussed the problem of PTO fee diversion and the need for user fees to pay for the work of the agency. She asked--in the documentation of the Congressional Record, she asked Chairman Rogers if 100 percent of the user fees would go to the PTO, and Mr. Rogers stated that the fees would not be siphoned off for any other agency or purpose and remain in the account for future years. But according to the PTO, in fiscal year 2000, $121 million was, in fact, diverted. So when we have the chairman of the committee say we should not doubt the word of the Appropriations Committee, yet we have in the Record the exact opposite of what the Appropriations Committee said was going to happen, we should be concerned and we should fix it to where the money for patent examination goes for patent examination. So we have a clear record of a statement that says it was not going to happen, and, in fact, $121 million was diverted from the Patent Office.

Finally, from 1992 to 2007, $750 million more in patent and trademark fees was collected than was allowed to be spent by the Patent and Trademark Office. Had they had that money, we would have a backlog of about 100,000 patents right now, not 750,000. We would have intellectual property as a greater value in our country, with greater advantage over our trading partners because that money would have been effectively used.

On July 12, former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin wrote to Senators Reid and McConnell noting:

The establishment of the Patent and Trademark reserve fund

in H.R. 1249 would be ineffective in stopping the diversion

of the fees from the U.S. Patent Office.

In other words, what is in this bill now will not stop the diversion of the fees.

Just so people think I am not just picking on one area, this is a bad habit of Congress. It is not just in the Patent and Trademark Office that we tell people to pay a fee to get something done and we steal the money and use it somewhere else. For example, in the Nuclear Waste Fund at the Department of Energy, utility payments by individual consumers pay for a nuclear waste fee. That money has been spent on tons of other things through the years rather than on the collection and management of nuclear waste. To the tune of $25 billion has been spent on other things.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is a fee-based agency. Since the SEC was established, it has collected money via user fees, charged for various transactions in order to cover the cost of its regulation. The primary fees are for sales of stock, registration of a new stock, mergers, tender offers. It also collects fees for penalty fines, for bad behavior. They go into the Treasury's general fund, and amounts collected above the SEC budget were diverted to other government programs.

In 2002, Congress changed the treatment of the fees of the SEC so they would only go to a special appropriation account solely for the SEC. SEC would not have access to the fees, however, should it collect more than its appropriation.

In the Dodd-Frank bill, Congress again changed the treatment of the fees and required some of the fees to go to the General Treasury and others to the reserve fund. As a result, lots of complaints with the SEC, and they still do not have access to their funds. Thus, like the PTO, if Congress chooses not to provide all the funds in the initial appropriation, they will not have them.

In the 2012 budget justification from the Securities and Exchange Commission, they noted it had significant challenges maintaining a staffing level sufficient to carry out its core mission. From 2005 to 2077, SEC had frozen or reduced budgets that forced reduction of 10 percent of their staff and 50 percent of technology investment. What happened in 2007 in this country? What were the problems? So the diversion of the money from the SEC actually contributed to the problems we had in this country. So it does not work.

Finally, one that is my favorite and that I have fought against every year that I have been here is the Crime Victims Fund, and that is a fund where people who are criminals actually have to pay into a fund to do restitution for criminal victims, and we have stolen billions of dollars from that fund. They are not taxes, they are actually restitution moneys, but the Congress has stolen it and spent it on other areas. The morality of that I don't think leads anybody to question that that is wrong.

Amendment No. 599, as Modified

Now, if I may, let me call up amendment 599. I ask that the pending amendment be set aside and ask that the amendment be modified with the changes at the desk.

I thank the Senator for this. This is a minor technical correction.

I thank the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. I noted earlier, before I came to the floor, he supported it in principle and we have a difference in principle about what would happen to the bill. This is a minimal technical correction that was recommended to us, and I appreciate the Senator for allowing that to be considered.

Let me spend a moment talking about the chairman and his belief that this will not go anywhere. This is a critical juncture for our country, when we are going to make a decision to not do what is right because somebody is threatening that they do not agree with doing what is right and that they will not receive it. In my life of 63 years, that is how bullies operate, and the way you break a bully is you challenge a bully.

The fact is, I have just recorded into the history of the House the statements by the chairman of the Appropriations Committee in the House in terms of his guarantee for protecting the funds for PTO, which he turned around and took $121 million out of the funds that very same year that he guaranteed on the floor that he wouldn't do. So what I would say is we ought not worry about idle threats. What we ought to be worried about is doing what is best and right for our country. What is best and right is to give the money to the Patent Office that people are paying for so the patents will get approved and our technological innovations will be protected. I don't buy the idea the House is not going to take this if we modify it.

Actually, what 95 percent of the people in this country would agree to is that the Patent Office ought to get the money we are paying for patent fees, just as the FDA should get the money paid by drug companies for new applications, just as the Park Service should put the money for the camping sites--the paid-for camping sites--back into the camping sites. Why would we run away from doing the right thing?

I find it very difficult when we rationalize down doing the correct thing that everybody agrees should be done but we will not do it for the right reasons. That is why we have a 12-percent approval rating. That is why people don't have confidence in Congress--because we walk away from the tough challenges of bullies who say they won't do something if we do what is right. I am not going to live that way. I am not going to be a Senator that way. I am going to stand on the position of principle.

This is a principle with which 95 Senators in this body agree. We are going to have several of our leaders try to get them not to do that on the basis of rationalization to a bully system that says: We will not do the oversight, but we still want to be in control.

In fact, in the process of that, America loses because we have 750,000 patents that are pending right now, and there should only be about 100,000.

The bullies have won in the past, and I am not going to take it anymore. I am going to stand up and challenge it every time. I am going to make the argument that if a person pays a fee for something in this country for the government to do, that money ought to be spent doing what it was paid to the government to do. It is outside of a tax; it is a fee. It is immoral and close

to being criminal to not correctly spend that money from that fee.

If our body decides today we are going to table this amendment, the question the American people have to ask is, Where is the courage in the Senate to do what is best for our country? Why are the Senators here if they are not going to do what is best for the country? Why are they going to play the game of rationalization and extortion on principles that matter so much to our future? I will not do that anymore. Everybody knows this is the right thing to do. We are babysitting some spoiled Members of Congress who don't want to carry out their responsibilities in an honorable way and do the oversight that is necessary. What they want to do is complain that they do not have control.

Well, this bill authorizes funds for 7 years. We can change that number of years. We can actually change the actual amount of fees if, in fact, they are not doing a good job. But right now, as already put in the Record, there is no history of significant oversight to the Patent Office, so they would not know in the first place. So what we are asking is to do what is right, what is transparent, what is morally correct and give the Patent Office the opportunity to do for America what it can do for them instead of handcuffing us and handicapping us where we cannot compete on intellectual property in our country.

I have said enough. I will reserve the remainder of my time when I finish talking about one other item.

There is an earmark in this patent bill for The Medicines Company. It ought not be there. This is something that is being adjudicated in the courts right now. Senator Sessions has an amendment that would change it. I believe it is inappropriate to specify one company, one situation on a drug that is significant to this country, and we are fixing the wrong problem. We probably would not win that amendment. I think it is something the American people ought to look at and say: Why is this here? Why is something in this big bill that is so important to our country?

I agree with our chairman. He has worked months, if not years, over the last 6 years trying to get to this process, and now we have this put in. We did not have it in ours. The chairman did not have it in ours. It came from the House.

We ought to ask the question Why is it there? Why are we interfering in something that is at the appellate court level right now? Why are we doing that? None of us can feel good about that. None of us can say it is the right thing to do. Why would we tolerate it?

It is this lack of confidence in America; it is about a lack of confidence in us. When people know and find out what has happened here, they are going to ask the question. The powerful and the wealthy advantage themselves at the expense of everybody else. They have access. Those who are lowly, those who are minimal in terms of their material assets do not. It is the type of thing that undermines the confidence we need to have.

I just wanted to say I am a cosponsor of Senator Sessions' amendment. I believe he is accurate. I think they have won this in court. It is on appeal. They will probably win it on appeal. This will end up being necessary, and there is a way for us to fix it if, in fact, they lose, if it is appropriate to do that. I believe it is inappropriate at this time.

I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

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

Mr. President, I wish to respond to my chairman's comments. First of all, what we have proposed came out of the Judiciary Committee in the House 32 to 3. In other words, only three people on the Judiciary Committee in the House objected to this.

The other point I wish to make is the letter from Chairman Rogers does not bind the next Appropriations Committee chairman. I think everybody would agree with that. It only binds him and it only binds him as long as he honors his commitment. I have no doubt he will honor his commitment as long as he is chairman.

The third point I wish to make is what the House has set up doesn't make sure the funds go to the PTO, it just means they can't go somewhere else. That is what they have set up. They do not have to allow all the funds collected to go to the PTO. So they can reserve $200 million or $300 million a year and put it over there in a reserve fund and send it to the Treasury which will cause us to borrow less, but the money won't necessarily go to the PTO. There is nothing that mandates the fees collected go to the Patent and Trademark Office.

I understand my chairman. I understand his frustration with trying to get this bill through, and I understand that he sees this as a compromise. I don't. I understand we are going to differ on that and agree to disagree.

With that, I yield the floor to allow the chairman to speak, and I reserve the remainder of my time.

Madam President, today, I rise to discuss section 18 of H.R. 1249, the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act. Consistent with the statement in the Record by Chairman Lamar Smith on June 23, 2011, I understand that section 18 will not make all business method patents subject to review by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Rather, section 18 is designed to address the problem of low-quality business method patents that are commonly associated with the Federal circuit's 1998 State Street decision. I further understand that section 18 of the bill specifically exempts ``patents for technological inventions'' from this new review at USPTO.

Patents for technological inventions are those patents whose novelty turns on a technological innovation over the prior art and are concerned with a technical problem which is solved with a technical solution. The technological innovation exception does not exclude a patent from section 18 simply because it recites technology. Inventions related to manufacturing and machines that do not simply use known technology to accomplish a novel business process would be excluded from review under section 18.

For example, section 18 would not cover patents related to the manufacture and distribution of machinery to count, sort, and authenticate currency. It is the intention of section 18 to not review mechanical inventions related to the manufacture and distribution of machinery to count, sort, and authenticate currency like change sorters and machines that scan paper instruments, including currency, whose novelty turns on a technological innovation over the prior art. These types of patents would not be eligible for review under this program.

American innovation is an important engine for job growth and our economic revitalization. To this end, the timely consideration of patent applications and the issuance of quality patents are critical components and should remain

the primary goal of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Madam President, this is a straightforward amendment that says if you pay into the Patent Trademark Office to have a patent evaluated, that money ought to be spent on the process. We have now stolen almost $900 million from the Patent Office. We have almost a million patents in arrears. We have fantastic leadership in the Patent Office, and we will not send them the money to do their job. It is unconscionable that we will not do this.

I understand the arguments against it, and I reserve the remainder of our time.

Madam President, I think I have reserved my time.

Madam President, I will make the following points, and I would ask for order before I do that.

It is true that the House bill moves the money to where it cannot be spent elsewhere, but there is no requirement that the money be spent in the Patent Office. There is a written agreement between an appropriations chairman and the Speaker that is good as long as both of them are in their positions. This is a 7-year authorization. It will not guarantee that the money actually goes to the Patent Office.

This bill, with this amendment in it, went out of the House Judiciary Committee 32 to 3 in a strong, bipartisan vote. It was never voted on in the Senate because the appropriators objected because of a technical error, which has been corrected in this amendment. So it violates no House rules, it violates no condition and, in fact, will guarantee that the Patent Office has the funds it needs to have to put us back in the place we need to be.

This bill will not be killed because we are going to make sure the money for patents goes to the Patent Office. Anybody who wants to claim that, ask yourself what you are saying. We are not going to do the right thing because somebody says they will not do the right thing? We ought to do the right thing.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

I would make note there is nothing we can do now new because the House has adjourned. So even if we were to pass this, nothing would happen with it. I have been assured that from the majority leader's office.

I agree with the Senator from California that any action on the mediation board is probably inappropriate for this bill. I would not disagree with that. But my reservation--and I plan on objecting, and I think the good Senator from California knows that--is both in the House and the Senate, by significant votes, we passed limitations on essential air services by majorities that said we could no longer afford to spend thousands of dollars on individual seats, on subsidies for people who live 110 miles from an airport or 140 miles from an airport. But what we could do is make sure--to major airports--that those under 90, those above 90, we could still do that.

So I understand we have placed people in difficult positions, but it is us as a body, not individual Senators or parties, that has done that because we have failed to do our work.

So I object to this unanimous consent request, and then I offer one of my own, noting that if this unanimous consent request is agreed to, it will go directly to the President, not to the House. So I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 2553, which was received from the House, and 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.

Yes.