Floor Statements

Mr. President, first of all, in all this mess there is some good news. The Affordable Care Act is up and running, and the people of America are responding in remarkable numbers.

Remember how the Republicans said this is bad, it is a failure? They kept saying it was a failure even though it had not even started. In the first 24 hours of healthcare.gov being up, the national marketplace, 4.7 million people visited. In California, which has its own State-run marketplace, 5 million people visited that site yesterday. I noted that I heard the Republican leader out here earlier today. In his home state of Kentucky, with 78,000 visitors, they started nearly 4,700 applications and completed more than 2,900 yesterday in the first day.

I think what this all indicates is the American people is hungry to get covered with health insurance. With 30 million people out there without health insurance, with a preexisting condition, or maybe they are ill right now, maybe they have had other things happen or are out of work--now they can go on the marketplace and get health insurance coverage. And they are flocking to it, because it has been sorely needed for decades.

The Republicans still want to hold the government hostage and defund the Affordable Care Act. I would like to know what the Republican leader might say to those 4,700 people who applied in Kentucky yesterday. And we know it is going to be more as the weeks and months go by. We have 6 months to sign up. But think about those figures just in the first day.

Fifty-five thousand people went to Colorado's exchange and 1,450 created accounts to allow them to start shopping. I mentioned New York. There were 10 million attempts to reach their Web site.

We had some glitches. Yes, some Web sites froze because they didn't expect that many people to come on the first day.

Andrew Stryker was among the first people to purchase health care through the marketplace. Mr. Stryker is 34 years old and lives in Los Angeles where he is a freelancer. He has a preexisting condition--high blood pressure--and says health insurance companies had denied him coverage on the individual market. He said signing up for coverage through the marketplace will save him over $6,000 per year when compared with his monthly premium for his COBRA plan. For that, he said, I would have waited all day.

So the Affordable Care Act is up and running, and people all over this country are flocking to it to get the good news that they can get affordable coverage for themselves and their family.

The same is happening in my own State of Iowa, where the plans have come in as some of the lowest in the country.

So that is the good news. The bad news is Republicans here are still trying to stop it before too many people get health insurance because then they know they won't be able to turn it back. The people of America have waited too long to have health insurance coverage for themselves and their families. Now everyone can get health insurance at a price they can afford. So we are going to have health coverage not just for the healthy and the wealthy but for everyone in this country. That is the good news.

We are now in day 2 of the Federal shutdown. If we listen to some Members across the aisle and in the other body, one might get the sense that it is no big deal. The Congressman from my own State said, the sky hasn't fallen. We have had government shutdowns and the sky hasn't fallen, the roof hasn't caved in. No big deal. I may have paraphrased a little bit, but that is basically what he said. They seem to think you can simply turn off the Federal Government for a few days or a month or two and it won't matter. I don't understand this attitude, but it is what we hear from Members of the other party.

Let me explain what a government shutdown means in the areas I am most familiar with as the chair of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and as chair of the Appropriations Committee that funds those programs.

As of yesterday, the National Institutes of Health stopped enrolling new patients in 497 ongoing clinical research trials. Of those trials, 255 are studying treatments for cancer and 50 involve children with cancer. These are ongoing clinical research trials right now--stopped-- 50 involving children with cancer. What do you say to those families? Clinical trials can't be completed if they don't have enough patients. But as long as there is a shutdown, the process stops.

I remind everyone, when I am talking about NIH I am not just talking about Bethesda, MD. I am talking about all over this country. NIH funds research and clinical trials in every State in this country. As of yesterday, the NIH began turning away people from its clinical research center. Each week of a shutdown, NIH estimates it will close its doors to 200 new patients who need help. Also yesterday the NIH stopped processing applications for new research grants. These applications are submitted by scientists all over the country, from universities and other places in our States, not just from Bethesda and not just from Washington, DC.

We might say OK, so they have stopped processing new research grants. So what. The sky hasn't fallen, the roof hasn't caved in, according to the Congressman from Iowa. We have no idea which of those grant applications might lead to the next cure for cancer or Alzheimer's or diabetes or might be that one bit of research that fits into that slot where other people can build on it to find cures. But so long as there is a shutdown, none of them will be considered. That is the effect on

Under what order are we proceeding?

I have more to say about the Centers for Disease Control, but I guess I will have to seek my 10 minutes later on in the day.

I thank the Chair.

I thank the Senator. She is very kind. I have at least another 5 to 7 minutes to go. I have some data from CDC that I want to put in. So I thank her very much.

I have been talking about the Centers for Disease Control and what the shutdown means in terms of monitoring outbreaks, food-borne outbreaks, illnesses, virus outbreaks--and that is not happening now.

I want to turn to another thing; that is, what CDC is and how CDC keeps Americans safe every day, and that is in food safety.

The Centers for Disease Control has stopped its epidemiological work to identify potential outbreaks and link the outbreak to a food source. I can't tell you what might be missed while the CDC is shut down. I can give a few examples where recently the CDC has sounded the alarm and kept Americans safe.

Only 12 days ago, 162 people in 10 States became ill with hepatitis A as a result of eating contaminated frozen berries--the kinds of mixed berries you get in the grocery store freezer department. The States are as far apart as Arizona, California, New Jersey, Hawaii, and Wisconsin, but because of the expertise of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they were able to go out, get this secured, recall the food, and trace it down. They traced it, believe it or not, to some pomegranate seeds that came from Turkey--not America but Turkey. This is another way in which the Centers for Disease Control protects the safety of Americans.

In August cyclospora infected 643 people who ate a particular salad mix in 25 States. A lot of people may remember that. The outbreak was first identified in my home State of Iowa. They immediately called the Centers for Disease Control, and then the CDC got a hold of other States. The next place it popped up was Texas--Iowa, then Texas. They traced it. CDC put its detectives, as I call them, to work. They isolated this salad mix, and it was traced to a place in Mexico. It was recalled. Yes, 643 people got sick, but we stopped it before it spread any further and before anybody died. That is what the CDC did.

Now, because of the government shutdown, CDC has stopped.

I hope there is not another outbreak like this, but one never knows. But the detectives on the CDC epidemiology team are now furloughed. What does that mean for the safety of Americans?

When the Congressman from Iowa on the other side said: Well, you know, the sky hasn't fallen and the roof hasn't caved in because the government has shut down, implying that it is no big deal, I hope and pray we don't have a virus outbreak, a bacteria outbreak, or a food- borne outbreak such as I just mentioned. Well, will food contamination happen tomorrow? Will a flu outbreak happen this weekend?

I have heard people say: We shouldn't be too concerned about the shutdown. It might last only a few days.

To those I ask, how many days can we afford to lose when a virus emerges? In those few days, how many people will buy and eat a contaminated product? How many more people will catch the flu, West Nile virus, hepatitis or E. coli? I could go on and on. How long can we afford to put a blindfold on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention?

I am not trying to unduly frighten anybody, but I am telling the facts. What I said here happened recently. This is not mythological. This is not maybe. These things actually happened within the last few weeks in America. People got sick. People lost work.

Again, we have to be concerned. Yes, maybe the sky hasn't fallen or the roof hasn't caved in. Is that what we have to have happen before we reopen the government? I say to that Congressman from Iowa, is that what has to happen--must a lot of people have to get sick, or do lot of people have to die? Then maybe we will say: Oh, I guess now we have to reopen the government. What a terrible way to run a government.

In another area--and again I am talking about things under my jurisdiction as the chair of this committee--the Social Security Administration furloughed 18,000 Federal employees and Social Security officers across the country--29 percent of the agency's workforce.

I suppose some would say: Well, so what. They are just bureaucrats.

Let's take a look at them. Checks will still go out, Social Security checks will still go out, disability and retirement claims will still come in, but that is it. What that will mean is delays in basic services for the 180,000 people who visit a Social Security office every day in America or the 445,000 people who call Social Security offices every day who have a problem, who have a question, maybe a lost card. Need I mention what it means when you have a lost Social Security card, don't have that ID, trying to get some health care services or something else and you don't have your Social Security card? Some 22,000 Americans a day file for retirement benefits. Twelve thousand a day apply for disability benefits.

As I said, Social Security will continue to accept those, but nothing will happen. That means the backlog piles up and piles up and piles up every day. Twenty-two thousand a day file for retirement benefits. They can file it, but nothing happens. So that just builds up day after day after day, and the backlog gets worse.

It already takes about 13 months, on average, to get a decision on an appeal for disability benefits. With this shutdown, it is going to be longer. It is going to be 14 months, 15 months and 18 months, and on and on. If you need a new Social Security card, sorry. As long as there is a shutdown, you can't get one. You cannot get a new Social Security card. If you need to replace your Medicare card, tough luck, you are going to have to wait a long time.

The Department of Labor staff, who investigate worker violations such as wage theft, will be at home instead of on the job. Some worker protection staff are still on the job but they are only looking at the highest risk facilities or responding after an accident has occurred. This isn't acceptable.

Take, for example, MSHA, the Mine Safety Health Administration. It is unable to conduct all of its required inspections because of the shutdown. How many safety and health violations won't be identified and corrected? How many miners are at risk of lifelong injuries and illnesses because of this shutdown?

As someone remarked the other day: You know, these mine operators, they can smell a mine inspector 2 miles away. Well, now, what are these mine operators going to do, when we know what their track record has been in the past, violating safety precautions? When they know they are not going to get inspected, will they ramp up production? They will get as much out of their miners as they can and they won't worry about the safety because the inspectors aren't coming around. How many miners will have their health affected or will be injured? I certainly hope not die, but you never know. That is just at the Department of Labor.

I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 more minutes.

Mr. President, it is not just our current workforce that is impacted by this stalemate. The government shutdown is also threatening to shut the door at Head Start classrooms. This month, grants for 22 Head Start providers are scheduled to be renewed. These are simply continuations of existing grants. The providers have already enrolled children. But after a shutdown, this funding will be cut off. As a result, 18,000 children and families that those programs serve are going to be losing access to early childhood education services this month--this month-- this month.

As I said, I could go on and on, but I just wanted to point out how people are being affected by this shutdown. It may not be visible to all, but it is there, and it is hurtful to them and their families and to our country. This shutdown needs to stop. It is time for cooler heads to prevail. It is time to end this mindless, damaging, preventable shutdown.

There is one simple way to do it. All the Speaker of the House has to do is bring up a clean continuing resolution which is sitting over there right now--bring it to the floor of the House. The votes are there to pass it, and the government will be back in business tomorrow. If he did that, the shutdown would be over, and Americans would know their safety and health--everything from food to illnesses to viruses to bacteria and food safety--will again be protected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We would know the research and the operations of the National Institutes of Health will continue. We would know our workers will be safe once again on the job because of the Department of Labor. We would know our Social Security offices will be open and running and will be able to process claims and issue new Social Security cards and Medicare cards.

I just want to make it very clear there are a lot of people being hurt by this. They may not be on the front lines or highly visible, but they are out there and they are being hurt today. It is a shameful, shameful comment on a great nation like ours that we continue this government shutdown, hurting so many people in this country.

With that I yield the floor.

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

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

As chair of the HELP Committee--that great committee upon which the Presiding Officer also sits and a valuable member of that committee--I was just informed by our staff that as of this last hour, over 2.8 million people have gone on healthcare.gov to get information and sign up for the Affordable Care Act.

In fact, there were so many people online that at different places in the country, the Web site froze. Then I heard some of my Republican friends were saying: See, we told you it wasn't ready. The Web site is not working right. If very few people had signed up, they would have said: See, we told you no one is going to sign up for it. They are trying to have it both ways.

There were 2.8 million Americans on the first day logged on to healthcare.gov to get this information, and, again, to sign up. By tomorrow we will have some data and some statistics on how many people who not only inquired but have actually signed up on the Web sites. We will have some more information on that tomorrow. Obviously, the interest is there, and we knew it would be.

Leader Reid told a story today about how years ago he went out and visited Google in California. At the time they were telling him that when they first started Google, they didn't realize how many people would be using it, and they kept crashing and freezing. So they had glitches of their own. There are some glitches in this system because a lot of people are coming on and wanting the information and wanting to sign up. That is the good news, and it is what we always knew.

We knew that when we passed the Affordable Care Act, if we approached it in a diligent, forthright way but cautiously and in an orderly manner, it would work, and that is why it has taken us almost 3 years to get to this point because we wanted to do it right. We wanted to do it in a way that would work.

I think today is a remarkable day in the history of our country in that we are now going to have affordable health care insurance for every American that cannot be taken away if you get sick. They can't deny it to a family because somebody had a preexisting condition. Everyone will have health care insurance that will be affordable and can't be taken away, and we will have a whole new suite of preventive care measures and wellness programs to keep people healthy and to prevent illness in the first place.

We have turned the corner on bringing health care to every American regardless of their health status, regardless of their economic status, regardless of whether they have a job or don't have a job, no matter how old, no matter how young, and no matter the circumstances. Everyone will be able to be covered by health care insurance.

I guess I might also say it is another red letter day because of the closedown of the government. We have the House of Representatives that, again, will not even put the bill on the floor of the House for a vote that will keep the government running. Think about that.

They will not even put it on the floor for a vote because they know if they put it on the floor, they will get enough Republicans and Democrats to vote for it, and it will pass.

So the tea party extremists in the House--instead of putting it on the floor and passing it tonight so the government could be back in business tomorrow--are trying to make a little deal. First it was to defund and delay ObamaCare. Now they have something they are doing on the House floor where they are going to fund some little TV programs. It is nonsense. This is not worthy of a great country.

I had a nice conversation with Secretary of State Kerry this morning--not necessarily just about this, but, of course, we talked about the government shutdown. I asked him: Secretary, you are close to this. How is this playing in other countries? Secretary Kerry said: It is painful for us in the State Department--representing the government of the United States in a nonpartisan way--to have other countries look at us, scratch their heads, and wonder why we are doing things like this. He was just pained, not for himself but for all of his wonderful diplomats and ambassadors all around the world who represent our country and what they must have to go through to have other countries see what we are doing and question our judgment.

That is what the tea party people are doing. They are driving this country down. What they are doing is very dangerous. It is ideologically driven obstructionism, and it has taken a dangerous turn.

Again, despite the efforts to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government, the House Republicans have shut down the government because we will not submit to defunding or delaying ObamaCare, or the Affordable Care Act, whichever you call it.

It seems as though we see this crisis differently. I was reading a newspaper report that one Member of the House Republican caucus said with a big smile: We are very excited. It is exactly what we wanted, and we got it. This is exactly what they wanted, a government shutdown and they got it? We are excited, she said.

The article also notes the reaction of another representative who reportedly said: It is wonderful. We are 100 percent united. Again, that was from another tea party Republican.

What are they excited about? Are they excited about the hundreds of thousands of Federal workers who are on furlough today? Are they excited about the closed monuments and the national parks? Are they excited about the delayed veterans' benefits, Social Security, loss of economic activity and jobs?

After more than three decades in Washington, it is difficult to shock me, but the sheer cynicism and fundamental lack of decency we are witnessing right now is nothing short of breathtaking.

As I understand it, this is just the first step. The tea party Republicans continue to threaten that if the Senate and President Obama don't submit to their demands, they will create another economic crisis by causing our country to default on the national debt in the middle of the month.

Who pays the price for this recklessness?

I would be delighted to yield to my friend from Illinois.

I say to my friend from Illinois, I would be delighted to sign on to that letter because I am acutely aware of what is happening at NIH, but I might also tell my friend from Illinois that I would also like to include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But I must say to my friend that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is out there keeping diseases from spreading, containing them where they break out, putting in prevention measures all over this country. They too are furloughing people. Just think what would happen if, God forbid, some virulent bacteria or virus were to break out and they have--as my colleague knows, the CDC is very good at containment. They know how to handle these situations. What if they don't have the people to do that?

I say to my friend, it is shameful. It is not befitting a great nation. Maybe they would like us to be a Third World country.

I see this and I don't understand. The Senator from Illinois is right: Where is their shame? But where is their sense of responsibility? Where is their sense of being responsible to the people of this country, to have a government that works to protect them, to keep them healthy, that does the medical research that the Senator spoke about? I see that, and I don't understand why they don't grasp the kind of damage they are doing to our country. I don't understand it.

Madam President, I thank the Senator for his input and his questions. I think the Senator has highlighted the kind of situation that begs credulity. People around this country must wonder, Have we taken all leave of our senses here?

People say we should sit down and negotiate. We are always willing to negotiate. We are always willing to talk about issues. But when the tea party Republicans in the House say, No, we won't even keep the government open unless we defund ObamaCare, which is the law of the land, that is trying to nullify a law by holding a gun at our heads and saying we are going to shut down the government unless we get rid of a law--not a bill, not a proposal before us, but the law of the land upheld by the Supreme Court, this is not the way to govern. It is the way to take

hostages, maybe. It is the way to commit blackmail, but it is not the way to run a government.

So I hope the moderate Republicans--and believe me, there are a lot of good moderate Republicans. On my own committee, I deal with good people who work together to get bills passed and to get them out of our committee. We just need them to say to the tea party: You are wrong. This is not good for us, it is not good for the country, and it is not good for the Republican Party, either.

I will have more to say about this later as well as tomorrow when I will bring some more figures to the floor on how many more people are excited about the Affordable Care Act and are going to healthcare.gov.

If I might, I wish to take one extra minute here to say that I was down at the World War II Memorial this morning to greet some Iowans who were coming in on an Honor Flight and I saw the barricade up there. I talked to one of the park officers and I said, This doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense because it is open. I have come down here at midnight and walked around. It is out in the open. I could understand it if it were a building where you had to go through a device and security. I could understand that because the government is shut down. Then some buses came from Mississippi. I had to leave before the Iowans could arrive. They went behind the barrier. They went in and everybody was fine. I heard this afternoon that the Park Police came down and now we are moving people out again and putting up the barricades.

Why are there barricades on the Jefferson Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the World War II Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, or any of those where people walk around? It doesn't make sense to put up barricades around these outdoor memorials.

While this whole shutdown of government is nonsense, I don't think we ought to respond to nonsense with more nonsense. So I call upon the Park Service and the Department of the Interior, on those instances where it is open 24 hours a day, such as the World War II Memorial, the Korean War Memorial, or the Lincoln and Jefferson Monuments, why put up the barricades? People are there, they go there 24 hours a day. This doesn't make sense. I hope by tomorrow, whoever gave the orders to put those barricades up will have those orders superseded by someone higher up and get those barricades down. As I said, I can understand if it is a building where we have to have security, where we have to have guards and machines and equipment. I understand, with a government shutdown, that is not accessible. But for something that is open, as those monuments are, where people wander in and out 24 hours a day, it makes no sense to put up barricades. I call upon the Park Service to get rid of those barricades.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in executive session on Wednesday, October 2, 2013, at 10 a.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen

Well, here we are Mr. President. I guess this is like the movie

``High Noon.'' The two sides are walking down the street. I just hope, like in the movie ``High Noon,'' the good guys win. In other words, I hope reason and judiciousness and a sense of responsibility to the people of this country prevails, and not some knee-jerk reaction to what a few people in the House of Representatives want to do to our government.

There seems to be a sense among some Members across the aisle here, and certainly among a block of Republicans in the House, that shutting down the Federal Government is no big deal. Well, I suppose if you are of an anarchist mind--which I think some of them may be--then you do not want government, you want to create chaos, you want to create confusion.

Someone might ask: Why would someone want to create chaos and confusion? I think if you read your history, you will find that most authoritarian governments and most authoritarian movements that are based upon a minority view or a minority support gain their power through confusion and chaos, by disrupting--disrupting--the public body. I do not care whether it is authoritarian movements of the left or the right, that is what they do. They know they cannot gain power through the normal channels, especially in a democratic government, so, therefore, they do everything they can to skew the way government operates.

First, you manipulate the district lines for how you elect Members of the House of Representatives so that you have a lot of safe districts for one party. I have to hand it to the Republicans, they were very keen on this for the last 10 years or so, and they focused on redrawing the district boundaries so they would have what we might call sinecures, a safe seat.

But if you look at the election results of the last election, more Americans voted for Democratic Members of the House than they voted for Republican Members of the House, but the Republicans are in charge of the House. That is because of the way the district lines were drawn after the last census was taken.

So that is one way you do it, you skew it that way. And then what happens is you bring in a minority block of tea party-type people to the House of Representatives, and they want to sow more confusion and more chaos because they know that is the only way their views are ever going to prevail. They will never prevail in the open marketplace of ideas and debate and discourse among the American people.

On what do I base that statement? Look at the last election. A lot of what the tea party is proposing and what they are now doing in terms of focusing on shutting down the government, much of that was proposed by their candidate for President--not all of it but a lot--and I think the American people soundly rejected that. So the tea party, being frustrated because they cannot get their way electorally or in the open marketplace of ideas and discourse and public debates, now sees their only way to do it is to create confusion and chaos.

One might say if they are doing that, certainly the public will turn against them. Well, I think to a certain degree that is happening. But for the vast majority of Americans out there--who go to work every day and work hard, who are raising their families, thinking about where the next paycheck is coming from or whether they are even going to have a job; young people getting out of school with mountains of debt, trying to get a job, to start a family, perhaps--they are not focusing on the everyday activities of what we do around here in Washington. They read the headlines and may see the news or see something on their laptops or on their iPads or whatever, and what they see is a Congress that is muddled and mixed up and cannot get anything done.

You read the polls, and the people blame all of us for this. I think the people in the tea party have seen that, and I think they believe that if they can create more confusion and chaos and disruption of government, both sides will be blamed, and out of that they believe somehow they can rise to the top of the heap and infuse the government with their minority views.

That is what is happening. It is a small group of willful men and women, who have a certain ideology about how our country should run and what we should do, who cannot get their way in the normal, as I say, discourse and debate and votes either here in the Congress or in the body politic at large. And since they cannot get their way, they are going to create this confusion and discourse and hope the public will be so mixed up on who is to blame for this that they will blame both sides, and perhaps they feel their minority--which is so imbued with this passion of theirs, this ideology, this rigidness of ideology of theirs--that they are the ones who will come out en masse and vote in the next election, other people will be so discouraged they will say: Oh, a pox on both your houses, I won't vote, and, therefore, that is the path they see to taking over government.

It is dangerous. It is very dangerous. I believe we are at one of the most dangerous points in our history right now--every bit as dangerous as the breakup of the Union before the Civil War. We are at a point where: Will this Congress allow a small group dedicated--I give them credit for working hard--but a small group of dedicated, ideologically driven individuals to dictate to the Senate and the House what our course of action is going to be? We cannot give in to that.

So I call upon my friends in the Republican Party who are moderates-- and there a lot of them in my own State, around the country. They are conservative, but they are responsible conservatives. They may look at Democrats and say: You want to go too fast one way. We might want to go a little bit slower that way or maybe we want to go in a slightly different direction, so let's get together and work it out and see which way we go. That is being a responsible conservative or a responsible liberal too, I would say. I call upon them to disabuse themselves of this idea that somehow they have to march in lockstep with this small band of tea party--call them what you will--rightwing ideologs--you can use whatever adjectives you want--but they must disabuse themselves of the idea that they have to somehow march in lockstep with them.

I keep reading the papers that somehow the Speaker of the House is trying to find a way out of this. Well, I do not know John Boehner real personally, but he was on the Education and Labor Committee all the time I was on the committee here. We always went to conference. We worked things out in a reasonable manner.

There is a way forward--there is a way forward--and that is for the Speaker basically to take what we do here. What we are about to pass today is a stripped-down version of a continuing resolution that will keep the government running until November 15. But it knocks out all that other junk the House put in about defunding ObamaCare and all this other stuff they put in there. It is just a straightforward: Let's keep the government running until November 15.

The compromise we made on our part was to give up on our budget line. We had a certain level that we wanted to fund the government. The Republicans had a lower level. So we accepted the lower level. We accepted that lower level. In turn, we asked, rather than going until December 15, go to November 15 on this continuing resolution funding the government.

So we accepted the lower level--hard for some of us to swallow. I didn't believe in that lower level. I thought it should be higher so we could adequately fund things such as education, health care, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, all of the things--transportation infrastructure. But it was a compromise. We took the lower level.

We said: Do it until November 15 so we can bring our appropriations bills out on the floor, hopefully between now and then, and we can work on an overall spending package for next year, one that is not just a continuing resolution that just keeps things going, but maybe we want to make some changes--and we do. I know in my committee we want to change some things, hopefully make them work better. So by doing that by November 15, then that gives us a month from November 15 until Christmas to get it all worked out and hopefully have this package passed by Christmas. If we go to December 15, we will not have time to do that. So that is what is before us today.

Here is the Speaker's avenue to act responsibly and to let the American people know there are responsible Republicans. All he has to do is take the bill we pass here and bring it up in the House and encourage some of his more moderate Republicans to support it and get the Democrats to support it and pass it in a bipartisan fashion. However, if the Speaker wants to just cater to this small band of ideologs, well then he will take what we pass here, change it around, add this, add that--I hear they have a laundry list--and then send it back to us. That is totally irresponsible.

There is a path forward. It is the path of responsibility, of being responsible, being judicious, not giving in to a small band of ideologs who want to seed confusion and discord, a small band of ideologs who want to use the power of the minority to do what they can to disrupt government in order to get their way.

When we were kids, there was always some kid who was playing marbles with you--or whatever it was, playing games--who did not get his way. So they picked up and went home, threw a temper tantrum. Well, for kids who were out playing, as we did, in the fields in small communities, temper tantrums were something they lived with. They did not really do much harm. But that is not true here in the Congress. We cannot afford the temper tantrums of a few ideologs.

There is more I could say about what they want to do and how they want to nullify laws by doing this. We have the Affordable Care Act that we passed here. It is being implemented. There has been a lot written about the exchanges starting next week. It is the law of the land and has been upheld by the Supreme Court. Yet a small band, a small group, a few on this side--not everyone on the Republican side-- and some in the House want to nullify that law not through votes, they want to nullify it by shutting down the government or by not paying our bills when the debt ceiling comes and defaulting on our debt. Nullification of a law through that type of action--that is sort of like picking up your marbles and going home. But when you are a kid, no one really gets hurt. But who gets hurt from this? The American people.

I think there are a lot of people who say that shutting down the government is no big deal. It is a big deal. OMB recently estimated that in 1996 when the government shut down, it cost in today's dollars $2.1 billion just because of a few days of a shutdown of government. So those who say they are fiscal conservatives have to think about that, what the cost would be to the American people of shutting it down.

I happen to be privileged to chair the appropriations committee that funds Head Start Programs, early childhood development programs, elementary education, Pell grants, student loans, and medical research. I can tell you that if the government shuts down, a lot of people are going to get hurt.

Twenty-two Head Start providers will be delayed. About 18,000 kids will be denied Head Start Programs. The National Institutes of Health will not be able to fund new biomedical research projects. Social Security offices will close. Every day in this country, 445,000 people will call their Social Security office. They have a missing check. They have something wrong. They need some help. With the government shut down, no one will be able to call the Social Security office and get that kind of help.

I could go on and on. This is not a game. This is not a game. Hopefully we are not children. Hopefully we are responsible adults. I believe what we are doing today is responsible, in passing a stripped- down continuing resolution to keep the government going until November 15. I understand we will have the votes to do that. I just hope the House of Representatives will be responsible and forget about kid's games like picking up your marbles and going home or throwing a temper tantrum or shutting down the government because you cannot get your way. This is a dangerous time. I just hope the Members of this body, the Senate, and the House of Representatives, in which I was privileged to serve for 10 years, will rise to the occasion and let the American people know we are going to act responsibly.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in open session on Thursday, September 26, 2013, at 10 a.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ``Newborn Screening Saves Lives: The Past, Present, and Future of the Newborn Screening System''.

For further information regarding this meeting, please contact Josh Teitelbaum of the committee staff on (202) 224-9243.

Mr. President, we find ourselves in yet another ``Alice in Wonderland'' moment here in the Senate. We are again on the brink of a government shutdown for no reason other than the House Republicans' absolute obsession with repealing the Affordable Care Act. Their strategy isn't anything new. They are running the same old plays out of the same old playbook that they have used for 3 years. None of these attempts have worked, but failure is no deterrent if all you care about is scoring political points with your political base.

The House has voted 42 times to repeal or defund the Affordable Care Act. You would think after the first 41, they might get a sense that it is just a waste of time. But, no, the House is at it again, risking the widespread economic damage that a government shutdown would cause just so they can indulge their political obsession yet one more time. I sort of half-facetiously said last weekend that the good news is that the obsessive-compulsive disorder is covered under ObamaCare--just in case these House Republicans might care to use it.

Defunding the Affordable Care Act would deprive Americans of all of the

law's benefits, such as historic consumer protections, affordable coverage, and cheaper prescription drugs, just to mention a few.

Work on the insurance marketplace, which will be open for business, as we know, next Tuesday, would stop. As a result, individuals and small businesses would no longer be able to enroll in affordable comprehensive health insurance through the marketplace, nor would they receive possible tax credits to help them with their premium payments.

In addition, the planned expansion for Medicaid would be canceled. Seven million Americans who are projected to enroll in the marketplaces next year and 9 million through expanded Medicaid would lose their coverage.

Over the next decade, the number of uninsured would rise by at least 25 million Americans. As if 25 million more uninsured was not bad enough, this bill from the House would cancel all of the hard-earned, long-awaited consumer protections that are in the law to protect every American with insurance, such as coverage for preexisting conditions and coverage of young people on their parents' policies to age 26.

So we would kind of go back to the bad old days when insurance companies were in the driver's seat and telling you what kind of health insurance you were entitled to and when and charging you outrageous prices for it. Instead of protecting all Americans against arbitrary limits on coverage, repeal of the Affordable Care Act would take us back to the days when insurance companies could terminate your coverage just when you are the sickest. This would hurt families like Danny and Lisa Grasshoff from Texas who were unable to find coverage that would pay for their son's hemophilia treatment until the Affordable Care Act banned lifetime limits. More than 105 million Americans are currently protected by this provision, more than 105 million who are protected under the Affordable Care Act.

Instead of allowing young people to start a new job or new business or go off to school and stay on their parents' policy until they are age 26--which they can do now under the Affordable Care Act--repeal would make them fend for themselves in a chaotic insurance place that offers too little coverage for too much money. More than 3 million young Americans are currently covered and are taking advantage of this protection. They would lose it under the House bill.

All 105 million Americans protected from a ban on lifetime limits would lose it under the House bill.

Now, instead of protecting 130 million nonelderly Americans who have preexisting conditions--such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease--denial of coverage repeal would put the insurance companies back in the driver's seat. They would be picking and choosing whom they want to cover. There are 130 million Americans who are covered under that ban on preexisting conditions.

Instead of helping all Americans prevent illness or disease by providing preventive services, such as colonoscopies, repeal would allow insurers to charge expensive copays. Sometimes they can pay as much as $300 for these essential services.

I just talked to a friend of mine who recently went in for his annual checkup. He got an annual checkup and advice on how he should handle his health care, and there were no copays and no deductibles under the Affordable Care Act.

Repeal under the House bill would deprive States and localities of vital funding to combat chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. Thanks to health reform, the Prevention and Public Health Fund is saving lives and cutting costs by supporting such programs.

Cutting off funding would immediately stop States' work in building the health insurance marketplaces. I just mentioned that it will start next Tuesday. These will be transparent, easy to understand, one-stop shops so individuals and small businesses can purchase affordable coverage. It starts next Tuesday. These marketplaces have been endorsed by experts all across the political spectrum because for the first time they will create a real marketplace for health insurance. Individuals and small businesses have the same purchasing power and choice that only big companies enjoyed before. Again, this will have a direct pocketbook impact.

Premium rates are coming in from marketplaces across the country, and they are much lower than projected. In fact, my home State of Iowa released rates last week that independent experts say are some of the lowest in the country--in the marketplace. Well, the House bill would take that away. It would stop that. Why would we want to do something like that when we are providing a really good deal for consumers?

Most importantly, these exchanges are a centerpiece of a system that will bring coverage, as I said earlier, to more than 25 million Americans who otherwise would be uninsured and living with the oppressive fever of being one illness away from bankruptcy or not knowing if they can afford a doctor's visit for their child. Why would anyone want to stop this? Why would anyone tell States: Stop what you are doing to serve your citizens. That is exactly what the House bill does.

If we pass that House bill, Congress will turn its back on America's seniors, tossing out hard-won improvements in Medicare benefits. It would take us back to the days when Medicare prescription drug coverage had a giant gap. We all know that as the doughnut hole. It is in the middle, exposing millions of seniors to the full cost of drugs just when they need the most assistance. Now, health reform closes that doughnut hole step by step until 2020 when it all disappears.

I just received this from Iowa. The Affordable Care Act in Iowa is already helping seniors on Medicare. Seniors on Medicare saved $76 million on prescription drugs because of the Affordable Care Act in Iowa--just in Iowa, $76 million. If we adopt the House bill, it takes that away. It reopens that doughnut. There are 6.6 million seniors all across the country who have already saved more than $7 billion in discounts on drugs purchased in the doughnut hole. Repealing this would increase senior drug prices by $5,000 a person over the next 10 years. Why would we want to do that?

The House bill will roll back the unprecedented investments we make in Medicare fraud prevention. This is another little-known aspect of what we put into the Affordable Care Act. We increased criminal penalties, we launched innovative new technologies to detect and pursue fraudulent activities, and we put more cops on the beat to preserve Medicare funds for beneficiaries--not the quacks and the fraud manipulators. Taxpayers of this country saved $8 for each $1 we put into that program. If you put $1 into it, we are saving $8. Why would we want to repeal that? But the House bill would repeal it.

It would hurt seniors' access to health care in rural areas. I come from a rural State. The Presiding Officer comes from a very rural State. We put Affordable Care Act incentive payments paid to rural primary care providers in the Affordable Care Act. The House bill would take that away.

As I mentioned earlier, we put provisions in the Affordable Care Act for seniors to get preventive care and wellness visits with no copays and no deductibles. In 2012 more than 34 million American seniors got free preventive services in Medicare.

CBO tells us that the improvements we put in the Affordable Care Act to the Medicare payment policy coordination and efficiency will extend the life of the Medicare trust fund by another decade.

Republicans are always saying: Well, Medicare is going to go broke. OK. In the Affordable Care Act we did things that the experts say will extend the life of the Medicare trust fund by another decade, and they want to repeal that. It just doesn't make sense.

Finally, we come to the most inexplicable part of this debate. Republicans have played the Washington stage politically for all it is worth. We saw an example of that last night when one of our colleagues on the other side kept the Senate in all night long. I think the Senator from Texas started off yesterday at around 2 or something like that--please excuse me if I didn't pay a lot of attention to it--he started at 2 in the afternoon, and it went on all night. He kept the Senate here and went on this morning until about noontime, I guess.

I respect every Senator's right to come to the floor and speak unhindered, just as I am doing now. Pretty soon another Senator will speak unhindered, and that is one of the beauties of the Senate. I think we also have a responsibility to be at least a little cognizant-- just a little bit--of how we are burdening others.

So, yes, a Senator spent all night here. I wonder if that Senator ever stopped to consider how much it cost the taxpayers to keep this place lit, to keep the clerks and the people here; all the police, all the safety people here and around outside, just to keep this place running, so one person could speak all night. I wonder if he ever considered that.

As I say, I don't deny anybody's right to speak. But I have to wonder about responsibility, being responsible to the body and to the public at large.

Imagine my surprise when that same Senator who kept people here all night--who kept the lights lit and cost the taxpayers I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of dollars, at least--voted for the very bill he was talking against. It was a 100-to-0 vote today. Some things are hard to grasp around this place. I am sure the public out there watching this will say, Wait a minute, he spoke all night against this bill and against the Affordable Care Act, against ObamaCare, and a few other things too, but then turned around and voted for cloture on the motion to proceed. As I said, some things are pretty hard to understand around this place. I guess one has to define it in terms of pure politics, sometimes just pure politics.

Again, here is where he talked about the most inexplicable part. My friends on the other side are making great and solemn speeches about the debt and the deficit, warning us, bringing us within hours of a government shutdown, all in the name, they say, of fiscal discipline. But as a condition for agreeing to fund the government, what do they demand? The repeal of the best deficit-reducing measures we have ever had. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office confirms that the Affordable Care Act reduces the deficit by more than $100 billion in the next 10 years, and over $1 trillion in the next 10 years.

So, again, let me see if I get this straight. The Republicans propose to reduce the deficit by increasing the deficit. Well, again, as I say, some things are kind of hard to understand around here.

I think it is time to stop the silly games. We had our debate. We worked hard on the Affordable Care Act. This debate is not about deficit reduction, it is not about the Nation's fiscal health, it is about tearing down health reform at any cost. Tear it down, get rid of it, go back to the way it was when powerful health insurance companies had control to raise your rates whenever they wanted to, to not give people health coverage if they had a preexisting condition, to deny people coverage when they got sick, cut them off right at that point, deny them benefits, and making insanely big profits doing so.

Those are the old days. It seems to me my friends in the Republican Party want to go back to those days, but we don't. The vast majority of the American people say, No, we want to move forward with a health care system that covers everyone and doesn't leave anyone out.

Again, as I said, my friend's obsession with repealing this health care bill is not based on budget or something. Sometimes I wonder what it is based on. If someone were to ask me, Senator Harkin, do you think the Affordable Care Act is the end-all and be-all, that it is absolutely perfect, I would have to refer to what I said when we first passed the bill, and it came under my committee, the HELP Committee. I said I like it as I would like a starter home. We might have to add some rooms, we have to add a door here or there or change some of the designs of this or that, but it was like a starter home, to be filled in over months and years ahead, change with changing conditions and circumstances, and as we learned more, as we went ahead, that maybe things would have to be changed in the Affordable Care Act. But the foundation was solid. It has a solid foundation, and a solid structure of making sure that we had a health care marketplace to cover all, that it wasn't controlled by a few; that everybody, no matter how poor, would get health insurance and those who are the poorest would get a government subsidy to buy into that insurance.

We wanted to make sure we had good preventive programs, wellness programs, to keep people healthy and out of the hospital in the first place, to change from what I have always said we had in America: We did not have a health care system, we had a sick care system. If you get sick, you get care, but in America we have never had much of anything to keep us healthy in the first place. As I have said many times, in America it is hard to be healthy and easy to be unhealthy. We need to change that around. We need to make it easier to be healthy and harder to be unhealthy.

The Affordable Care Act takes steps in that direction, providing free mammograms, cervical cancer screenings, colonoscopies, by providing wellness checkups for people every year, by putting in place community transformation grants where communities could begin to think of how they can structure communities to promote wellness, good activities, and better diets.

So, yes, it is like a starter home. Do I think some things will have to change in the Affordable Care Act in the future? I am sure that is true. But that doesn't mean tearing down the structure and digging out the foundation and throwing it all away and going back to where we were before--to square one. The answer is to move ahead. Let's open these marketplaces. Let's get people signed up. If things need to be fixed and changed in the future, that is our job here. It is our job to fix these things and make sure our laws are correctly interpreted and benefit people.

It is as though some people have the idea that all we have to do is pass the law and sit back and everything will take care of itself. That is not true. No law is like that. We need to implement them. But we need to do it with good will and in a spirit of compromise and in a spirit of--not everyone knows all the answers, but in a spirit that what we are attempting to do with the Affordable Care Act or ObamaCare, if you will, is to move us in a direction where people will be healthier, where people will have affordable, quality coverage that can't be taken away because they get sick, or be denied because they have a preexisting condition; kids can stay on their parents' policies for a decent length of time after they get through school, and all of the things I spoke about. These are good, solid foundations for a good health care system in America.

I think my friends on the other side who want to repeal this are simply on the wrong side of this debate. I am always reminded of what William Buckley once said. He was sort of the father of the modern conservative movement in America. He once said the role of a conservative is to ``stand athwart history yelling, Stop!''

Knowing the late Mr. Buckley, I am sure he probably had a smile on his face when he said it.

It seems as though that is what some people are saying: We just want to stop all of this.

I have said many times since we first started the Affordable Care Act debates here several years ago, and since we first started working on this, if people have a better idea, come forward and let's take a look at it and see what we come up with, but I haven't seen that yet.

I want to close by referring to a couple of letters I got from Iowans. They make it clear what this is all about.

Angela from Edgewood writes that she has ``a family history of cancer and now I have been able to have the screenings that I need.'' She asks me how she can volunteer to spread the word to others. Well, I just did.

John from Des Moines says that ``because of the ACA--the Affordable Care Act--I have been able to start my own business, I have been able to purchase coverage and am looking forward to the exchanges.''

So the choice is to go forward, to work together to make whatever needed improvements need to be made, to come together as a united American people and to create a reformed health care system that works not just for the healthy and wealthy but for all Americans. That is what this battle is about. That is what this is all about. That is

why we don't need to shut the government down. Let's act responsibly. Let's pass a short-term continuing resolution without defunding the Affordable Care Act or all of this other nonsense dealing with the debt ceiling increase, and then let's get down to the hard work of working together to make sure we fund the government next year as we bring this session of Congress to a close later in November or December. Hopefully, in the next couple of days the Senate will act and we will let the House know we are not going to defund the Affordable Care Act.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Daniel Goldberg, Samantha Aster, and Whitney Waite of my staff be granted floor privileges for the duration of today's session.

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in executive session on Wednesday, September 18, 2013, at 10 a.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to mark-up S. 1086, The Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 2013, the Committee Funding Resolution for the 113th Congress, the nominations of Richard F. Griffin, Jr., to serve as General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, and Scott Dahl, to serve as Inspector General of the US Department of Labor, as well as any additional nominations cleared for action.

For further information regarding this meeting, please contact the Committee at (202) 224-5375.

Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in open session on Thursday, September 19, 2013. at 10 a.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ``The Triad: Promoting a System of Shared Responsibility. Issues for Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act''

For further information regarding this meeting, please contact the Committee at (202) 224-5501.

Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in open session on Tuesday, September 24, 2013. at 10 a.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ``U.S. Efforts to Reduce Healthcare-Associated Infections''

For further information regarding this meeting, please contact the Committee at (202) 224-7675.

committee on indian affairs

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in open session on Thursday, September 12, 2013, at 10 a.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ``Dental Crisis in America: The Need to Address Cost''

For further information regarding this meeting, please contact Sophie Kasimow of the committee staff on (202) 224-5480.

Committee on Rules and Administration

Mr. SCHUMER, Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Rules and Administration will meet at 10 a.m., on Tuesday, September 10, 2013, to consider the nominations of Ann Miller Ravel and Lee E. Goodman to be members of the Federal Election Commission and to consider an original resolution authorizing expenditures by the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration for the remainder of the 113th Congress.

For further information regarding this meeting, please contact Adam Topper at the Rules and Administration Committee at 202-224-6352,

Mr. President, I understand we are now in postcloture debate on this nominee. I understand there is up to 8 hours that can be consumed for that purpose, if I am not mistaken.

I certainly hope we don't have to take that much time. For this nominee and the other four to follow, I am hopeful we can get through them today and get the nominees to the President before we leave here this evening.

Today is a day that I and many of my colleagues have long waited for. Because of the bipartisan deal reached on the President's nominees, it looks as though we finally have a path forward to confirm a full slate of nominees to the National Labor Relations Board. A fully confirmed, fully functional board will be a huge step forward for workers and employers in our country, and this will be the first time in over a decade this has happened.

Over 75 years ago Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act, guaranteeing American workers the right to form and join a union and to bargain for a better life. For both union and nonunion workers alike, the act provides for essential protections. It gives workers a voice in the workplace, allowing them to join together and speak out for fair wages, good benefits, and safe working conditions. These rights ensure that the people who do the real work in this country see the benefits when our economy grows and aren't mistreated or put at risk on the job.

The National Labor Relations Board is the guardian of these fundamental rights. Workers themselves cannot enforce the National Labor Relations Act; the Board is the only place where people can go if they have been treated unfairly and denied the basic protections the law provides. Thus, the Board plays a vital role in vindicating workers' rights. In the past 10 years the NLRB has secured opportunities for reinstatement for 22,544 employees who were unjustly fired. It has also recovered more than $1 billion on behalf of workers whose rights were violated in the last decade.

The Board does not just protect the rights of workers and unions; it also provides relief and remedies to our Nation's employers. The Board is an employer's only recourse if a union commences a wildcat strike or refuses to bargain in good faith during negotiations. The NLRB also helps numerous businesses resolve disputes efficiently. For example, when two unions picketed Walmart in 2012, Walmart filed a claim with the NLRB, and the NLRB negotiated a settlement. So by preventing labor disputes that could disrupt our economy, the work that the Board does is vital to every worker and every business across the Nation.

Earlier this year I received a letter from 32 management-side and 15 union-side labor attorneys from across the country who made this point particularly well. It urged the swift confirmation of a full package of five NLRB nominees and said:

While we differ in our views over the decisions and actions

of the NLRB over the years, we do agree that our clients'

interests are best served by the stability and certainty a

full, confirmed Board will bring to the field of labor-

management relations.

I could not agree more. Confirming these nominees swiftly is vitally important because the National Labor Relations Board must have a quorum of three Board members to act. If there are less than three Board members at any time, the Board cannot issue decisions and essentially must shut down. Although the Board currently has three members, Chairman Pearce's term expires on August 27--next month. At that point the Labor Board would be unable to function unless we confirm additional members. Now, that is more than just an administrative headache. It would be a tragedy that denies justice to working men and women across the country. So it is imperative that we act to avoid this and keep the Board open for work.

Up until recent times, all of us in Congress agreed that the Board should function for the good of our country and our economy, but in the last few years that understanding has broken down. As I said, it has been a decade since the Board has had five Senate-confirmed members. It is not that qualified people have not been nominated, because they have. The problem is that a few of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle--I am not saying everyone, but a very vocal minority--have been trying to use the nominations process to undermine the mission of the National Labor Relations Board.

They, first of all, do not like the National Labor Relations Act, but they

know they could never repeal it outright. So what is their solution, this vocal minority on the Republican side? Keep the NLRB inoperable by refusing to confirm nominees regardless of their qualifications. In this case, one of my Republican colleagues announced his intention to filibuster the NLRB nominees 6 days before the nominations were announced, and he openly admitted his intention was to shut down the agency.

We have seen lots of nominees deemed unacceptable simply because they have worked on behalf of workers or unions and they support our system of collective bargaining. These nominees have been accused of being biased and called unfit to serve because they worked for labor unions or were lawyers for labor unions. But I would like to point out what the National Labor Relations Act--the law--actually says. I have often quoted from the National Labor Relations Act on this point, and I will do so again right now. Here is what the law says:

It is declared to be the policy of the United States to

eliminate the causes of certain substantial obstructions to

the free flow of commerce and to mitigate and eliminate these

obstructions when they have occurred by encouraging the

practice and procedure of collective bargaining and by

protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of

association, self-organization, and designation of

representatives of their own choosing, for the purpose of

negotiating the terms and conditions of their employment or

other mutual aid or protection.

That is what the law says. The purpose is, again, to encourage ``the practice and procedure of collective bargaining'' for the good of our workers, for the good of our economy, and for the good of our Nation.

So if we have a nominee who comes up for the Board who supports collective bargaining, I would think that nominee would be more qualified, not less qualified, to serve on the Board because that nominee understands what the law says. So we should be seeking nominees who are, in the words of one of the nominees before us today, not pro- union, not pro-worker or pro-management, but ``pro-Act''--``pro-Act.'' If you are pro-act, the act says that we should be ``encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and by protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing.'' That is what the law says.

I am optimistic that the nominees before us today will bring this perspective to their work at the Board. All five nominees have diverse backgrounds and are deeply steeped in labor and employment law. While I certainly do not agree with the politics or perhaps the ideology of each nominee, it cannot be disputed that this is a competent and experienced group of lawyers. Given their diverse backgrounds and qualifications, there is no reason this package of nominees should not be confirmed with strong bipartisan support.

All five of these nominees have been thoroughly vetted. For the two most recent nominees--Kent Hirozawa and Nancy Schiffer--the vetting process has been quick, but it has been thorough. They have submitted all of the paperwork that we receive for our nominees. They have appeared before our committee in a hearing, answered any questions. They have met with staff for both sides, and they have answered all the written questions posed by members of my committee. They have demonstrated themselves to be impressively qualified and capable, and I look forward to their future service on the Board.

So I believe the time has come to start a new chapter for the NLRB. It is time to ratchet down the political rhetoric that has recently haunted this agency and let the dedicated public servants who work there do their jobs. Indeed, I hope today's votes mark a new beginning for the Board, with a new energy and vitality, a new spirit of collaboration. A revitalized NLRB is a critical part of our continued efforts to build a strong economy and a strong middle class. It is long past time to put the Board back in business and to tone down the rhetoric.

I say to my friends on the other side--again, a vocal minority-- certainly they can vote against the nominees. That is their right. That is their privilege. But do not use the nomination process to try to shut down the Board or to thwart the implementation of the National Labor Relations Act.

I am sure there were times when a majority of the Board was appointed by Republican Presidents and they were probably more promanagement. I cannot think of one right now, but I am sure they probably made some decisions that I would not be in favor of. But they did it openly. There are also times under a Democratic President when the Board would probably have three members who would be more from the labor side than management side. But that is the ebb and flow.

Quite frankly, for most of the times in the past, even though Republican Presidents had put nominees on the Board who were probably more promanagement or came from the management side--they would have three of those and then two from the worker or labor side--they still ran the Board in a nonpartisan fashion and reached agreements in an open fashion that were implementing the National Labor Relations Act. I would be hard pressed to think of a time when the Board acted in contradiction to what the act actually says.

Until recently--and this has just broken down in the last few years when President Obama's nominees to the Board, in the first instance, were filibustered when the President had to give recess appointments to nominees. Of course, a recess appointment can only last so long, and then that person has to leave the Board. As I said, there was a threat by a Member on the Republican side to filibuster nominees before they were even sent down. That means the Board would have been unable to operate. So the President then gave a recess appointment to two nominees to keep the Board functioning. That then found its way into the courts.

We have a couple of courts that decided the President did not have the power to do a recess appointment the way he did it. Other courts have taken different pathways. So that set of facts in that case is winding its way to the Supreme Court. It probably will be decided some time next year. But that is what happens when people do not let nominees who are fully qualified--fully qualified--come to the floor to get an up-or-down vote.

So I am very pleased this agreement that was reached a couple weeks ago to not filibuster nominees included the National Labor Relations Board. So we have an agreement from the Republican side that they will not filibuster these nominees. We have five of them. This is the first, Mr. Hirozawa. I am hopeful that, again, since they have been thoroughly vetted, we can move ahead expeditiously to vote on them and that we will not take the full 8 hours to debate these nominees and that each one of them--each one would have 8 hours. But, hopefully, we can collapse that and have the votes on the nominees at some time later this afternoon, and, as I said, turn a new chapter in the NLRB. Put them down there on the Board and let them do their work, and tone down the political rhetoric a little bit on the National Labor Relations Board.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that time during all postcloture quorum calls on the Hirozawa nomination be charged equally to both sides.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the time be yielded back.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that all time be yielded back.

Mr. President, today I join with my senior colleague from Iowa, Senator Grassley, and with the distinguished chair of the Judiciary

Committee, Senator Leahy, in reintroducing the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act.

The need for this legislation was vividly demonstrated by the experience of an Iowan--Jack Gross. Mr. Gross gave the prime of his life, a quarter century of loyal service, to one company. Despite Mr. Gross's stellar work record, FBL Financial demoted him and other employees over the age of 50 and gave his job to a younger employee.

Expressly to prevent this kind of discrimination, in 1967 Congress passed the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, ADEA. Modeled from and using the same language as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964-- which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, sex, national origin and religion--the ADEA makes it unlawful to discriminate on the basis of age.

When Mr. Gross sought to enforce his rights under this law, a jury of Iowans heard the facts and found that his employer discriminated against him because of his age. That jury awarded him almost $47,000 in lost compensation.

The case was ultimately appealed to the Supreme Court. In June 2009, in Gross v. FBL Financial, Inc., the Court ruled against Mr. Gross, and in doing so made it harder for those with legitimate age discrimination claims to prevail under the ADEA. In fact, on remand, despite the fact Mr. Gross had established that age discrimination was a factor in his demotion, he lost his retrial.

For decades, the law was clear. In 1989, in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, the Court ruled that if a plaintiff seeking relief under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act demonstrated that discrimination was a ``motivating'' or ``substantial'' factor behind the employer's action, the burden shifted to the employer to show it would have taken the same action regardless of the plaintiff's membership in a protected class. As part of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, Congress codified the ``motivating factor'' standard with respect to Title VII discrimination claims.

Since the ADEA uses the same language as Title VII, was modeled from it, and had been interpreted consistent with the Civil Rights Act, courts rightly and consistently held that, like a plaintiff claiming discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion and national origin, a victim bringing suit under the ADEA need only show that membership in a protected class was a ``motivating factor'' in an employer's action. If an employee showed that age was one factor in an employment decision, the burden was on the employer to show it had acted for a legitimate reason other than age.

In Gross, the Court, addressing a question on which it did not grant certiorari, tore up this decades' old standard. In its place, the Court imposed a standard that makes it prohibitively difficult for a victim to prove age discrimination. According to the Court, a plaintiff bears the full burden of proving that age was not only a ``motivating'' factor but the ``but for'' factor, or decisive factor. And, unfortunately, just last month the Supreme Court, in University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, extended Gross to retaliation cases under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Moreover, lower courts have extended Gross to other civil rights claims, including cases arising under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act.

The extremely high burden Gross imposes radically undermines workers' ability to hold employers accountable. As Professor Helen Norton testified to the HELP Committee, ``Gross entirely insulates from liability even an employer who confesses discrimination so long as that employer had another reason for its decision. By permitting employers to escape liability altogether even for a workplace admittedly infected by discrimination, with no incentive to refrain from similar discrimination in the future, the Gross rule thus undermines Congress's efforts to stop and deter workplace discrimination.''

Bear in mind, unlawful discrimination is often difficult to detect. Obviously, those who discriminate do not often admit they are acting for discriminatory reasons. Employers rarely post signs saying, for example, ``older workers need not apply.'' To the contrary, they go out of their way to conceal their true intent. The employer is in the best position to offer an explanation of why a decision that involves discrimination or retaliation was actually motivated by legitimate reasons. As Professor Norton testified, ``[s]uch burden shifting appropriately recognizes and responds to employers' greater access to information that is key to proving or disproving an element of a particular claim . . .'' By putting the entire burden on the worker to demonstrate the absence or insignificance of other factors, the court in effect has freed employers to discriminate or retaliate.

Unfortunately, as Mr. Gross and his colleagues know all too well, age discrimination does indeed occur. Countless thousands of American workers who are not yet ready to voluntarily retire find themselves jobless or passed over for promotions because of age discrimination. Older workers often face stereotypes: That they are not as productive as younger workers; that they cannot learn new skills; that they somehow have a lesser need for income to provide for their families.

Indeed, according to an AARP study, 60% of older workers have reported that they or someone they know has faced age discrimination in the workplace. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in Fiscal Year 2012, over 2,800 age discrimination complaints were filed, a more than 20 percent increase from just five years ago. Given the stereotypes that older workers face, it is no surprise that on average they remain unemployed for more than twice as long as all unemployed workers.

The Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act reiterates the principle that Congress established when it passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act--when making employment decisions it is illegal for race, sex, national origin, religion, age or disability to be a factor.

The bill repudiates the Supreme Court's Gross v. FBL Financial decision and will restore the law to what it was for decades. It makes clear that when an employee shows discrimination was a ``motivating factor'' behind a decision, the burden is properly on the employer to show the same decision would have been made regardless of discrimination or retaliation. And, like the Civil Rights Act of 1991 with respect to discrimination cases under Title VII, if the employer meets that burden, the employer remains liable, but remedies are limited.

This is a common sense, bipartisan bill. In fact, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, key provisions of which served as a model for this legislation, passed the Senate on a bipartisan basis 93-5. Further, we are introducing this bill only after countless hours of consultation with civil rights stakeholders and representatives of the business community. Moreover, this bill addresses the concerns that were raised about an earlier version of the bill at a hearing held before the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee in March 2010.

In fact, I want to comment on two changes from that earlier version of this bill introduced in the last Congress. Since October 2009, when Senator Leahy and I first introduced the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act, we have had the benefit of nearly three and a half years of lower court application of the Gross decision.

The 2009 bill would have expressly amended the ADEA to make clear that the analytical framework set out in McDonnell Douglas v. Green applied to that statute. Even though, before Gross, every Court of Appeals had held that McDonnell Douglas had applied to age claims, this clarification was meant to address a footnote in Gross in which the Court arguably questioned the applicability of McDonnell Douglas to the ADEA. Since the bill was first introduced, however, every lower court that has examined the issue has continued to apply McDonnell Douglas to the ADEA. As a result, because McDonnell Douglas applies to the ADEA already, we deem it unnecessary to amend the statute.

Second, the initial bill expressly amended only the ADEA. Since Gross, however, lower courts have applied the Court's reasoning in that decision to

other statutes. Because the most notable application has been to the ADA, Rehabilitation Act and Title VII retaliation claims, those statutes are expressly amended here too.

Finally, in Gross, the Court defended the Court's departure from well-established law by noting that it ``cannot ignore Congress' decision to amend Title VII's relevant provisions but not make similar changes to the ADEA.'' In other words, the Court found that because Congress, in the Civil Rights Act of 1991, codified the ``motivating factor'' framework for discrimination claims under Title VII, but not for the ADEA, Congress somehow must have intended Price Waterhouse not to apply to any statute but Title VII.

Because of the Court's reasoning, I want to emphasize that this bill in no way questions the motivating factor framework for other anti- discrimination and anti-retaliation statutes that are not expressly covered by the legislation. As the bill's findings make clear, not only does this bill repudiate the Gross decision itself, but it expressly repudiates the reasoning underlying the decision, including the argument that Congress's failure to amend any statute other than Title VII means that Congress intended to disallow mixed motive claims under other statutes. It would be an error for a court to apply similar reasoning following passage of this bill to other statutes. The fact that other statutes are not expressly amended in this bill does not mean that Congress endorses Gross's application to any other statute.

In conclusion, this bill is very straightforward. It reiterates what Congress said in 1967 when it passed the ADEA--when making employment decisions it is illegal for age to be a factor. A person should not be judged arbitrarily because he or she was born in a certain year or earlier when he or she still has the ability to contribute as much, or more, as the next person. This bill will help ensure that all our citizens will have an equal opportunity, commensurate with their abilities, for productive employment.

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

Mr. President, today I join with my senior colleague from Iowa, Senator Grassley, and with the distinguished chair of the Judiciary

Committee, Senator Leahy, in reintroducing the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act.

The need for this legislation was vividly demonstrated by the experience of an Iowan--Jack Gross. Mr. Gross gave the prime of his life, a quarter century of loyal service, to one company. Despite Mr. Gross's stellar work record, FBL Financial demoted him and other employees over the age of 50 and gave his job to a younger employee.

Expressly to prevent this kind of discrimination, in 1967 Congress passed the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, ADEA. Modeled from and using the same language as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964-- which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, sex, national origin and religion--the ADEA makes it unlawful to discriminate on the basis of age.

When Mr. Gross sought to enforce his rights under this law, a jury of Iowans heard the facts and found that his employer discriminated against him because of his age. That jury awarded him almost $47,000 in lost compensation.

The case was ultimately appealed to the Supreme Court. In June 2009, in Gross v. FBL Financial, Inc., the Court ruled against Mr. Gross, and in doing so made it harder for those with legitimate age discrimination claims to prevail under the ADEA. In fact, on remand, despite the fact Mr. Gross had established that age discrimination was a factor in his demotion, he lost his retrial.

For decades, the law was clear. In 1989, in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, the Court ruled that if a plaintiff seeking relief under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act demonstrated that discrimination was a ``motivating'' or ``substantial'' factor behind the employer's action, the burden shifted to the employer to show it would have taken the same action regardless of the plaintiff's membership in a protected class. As part of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, Congress codified the ``motivating factor'' standard with respect to Title VII discrimination claims.

Since the ADEA uses the same language as Title VII, was modeled from it, and had been interpreted consistent with the Civil Rights Act, courts rightly and consistently held that, like a plaintiff claiming discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion and national origin, a victim bringing suit under the ADEA need only show that membership in a protected class was a ``motivating factor'' in an employer's action. If an employee showed that age was one factor in an employment decision, the burden was on the employer to show it had acted for a legitimate reason other than age.

In Gross, the Court, addressing a question on which it did not grant certiorari, tore up this decades' old standard. In its place, the Court imposed a standard that makes it prohibitively difficult for a victim to prove age discrimination. According to the Court, a plaintiff bears the full burden of proving that age was not only a ``motivating'' factor but the ``but for'' factor, or decisive factor. And, unfortunately, just last month the Supreme Court, in University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, extended Gross to retaliation cases under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Moreover, lower courts have extended Gross to other civil rights claims, including cases arising under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act.

The extremely high burden Gross imposes radically undermines workers' ability to hold employers accountable. As Professor Helen Norton testified to the HELP Committee, ``Gross entirely insulates from liability even an employer who confesses discrimination so long as that employer had another reason for its decision. By permitting employers to escape liability altogether even for a workplace admittedly infected by discrimination, with no incentive to refrain from similar discrimination in the future, the Gross rule thus undermines Congress's efforts to stop and deter workplace discrimination.''

Bear in mind, unlawful discrimination is often difficult to detect. Obviously, those who discriminate do not often admit they are acting for discriminatory reasons. Employers rarely post signs saying, for example, ``older workers need not apply.'' To the contrary, they go out of their way to conceal their true intent. The employer is in the best position to offer an explanation of why a decision that involves discrimination or retaliation was actually motivated by legitimate reasons. As Professor Norton testified, ``[s]uch burden shifting appropriately recognizes and responds to employers' greater access to information that is key to proving or disproving an element of a particular claim . . .'' By putting the entire burden on the worker to demonstrate the absence or insignificance of other factors, the court in effect has freed employers to discriminate or retaliate.

Unfortunately, as Mr. Gross and his colleagues know all too well, age discrimination does indeed occur. Countless thousands of American workers who are not yet ready to voluntarily retire find themselves jobless or passed over for promotions because of age discrimination. Older workers often face stereotypes: That they are not as productive as younger workers; that they cannot learn new skills; that they somehow have a lesser need for income to provide for their families.

Indeed, according to an AARP study, 60% of older workers have reported that they or someone they know has faced age discrimination in the workplace. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in Fiscal Year 2012, over 2,800 age discrimination complaints were filed, a more than 20 percent increase from just five years ago. Given the stereotypes that older workers face, it is no surprise that on average they remain unemployed for more than twice as long as all unemployed workers.

The Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act reiterates the principle that Congress established when it passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act--when making employment decisions it is illegal for race, sex, national origin, religion, age or disability to be a factor.

The bill repudiates the Supreme Court's Gross v. FBL Financial decision and will restore the law to what it was for decades. It makes clear that when an employee shows discrimination was a ``motivating factor'' behind a decision, the burden is properly on the employer to show the same decision would have been made regardless of discrimination or retaliation. And, like the Civil Rights Act of 1991 with respect to discrimination cases under Title VII, if the employer meets that burden, the employer remains liable, but remedies are limited.

This is a common sense, bipartisan bill. In fact, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, key provisions of which served as a model for this legislation, passed the Senate on a bipartisan basis 93-5. Further, we are introducing this bill only after countless hours of consultation with civil rights stakeholders and representatives of the business community. Moreover, this bill addresses the concerns that were raised about an earlier version of the bill at a hearing held before the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee in March 2010.

In fact, I want to comment on two changes from that earlier version of this bill introduced in the last Congress. Since October 2009, when Senator Leahy and I first introduced the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act, we have had the benefit of nearly three and a half years of lower court application of the Gross decision.

The 2009 bill would have expressly amended the ADEA to make clear that the analytical framework set out in McDonnell Douglas v. Green applied to that statute. Even though, before Gross, every Court of Appeals had held that McDonnell Douglas had applied to age claims, this clarification was meant to address a footnote in Gross in which the Court arguably questioned the applicability of McDonnell Douglas to the ADEA. Since the bill was first introduced, however, every lower court that has examined the issue has continued to apply McDonnell Douglas to the ADEA. As a result, because McDonnell Douglas applies to the ADEA already, we deem it unnecessary to amend the statute.

Second, the initial bill expressly amended only the ADEA. Since Gross, however, lower courts have applied the Court's reasoning in that decision to

other statutes. Because the most notable application has been to the ADA, Rehabilitation Act and Title VII retaliation claims, those statutes are expressly amended here too.

Finally, in Gross, the Court defended the Court's departure from well-established law by noting that it ``cannot ignore Congress' decision to amend Title VII's relevant provisions but not make similar changes to the ADEA.'' In other words, the Court found that because Congress, in the Civil Rights Act of 1991, codified the ``motivating factor'' framework for discrimination claims under Title VII, but not for the ADEA, Congress somehow must have intended Price Waterhouse not to apply to any statute but Title VII.

Because of the Court's reasoning, I want to emphasize that this bill in no way questions the motivating factor framework for other anti- discrimination and anti-retaliation statutes that are not expressly covered by the legislation. As the bill's findings make clear, not only does this bill repudiate the Gross decision itself, but it expressly repudiates the reasoning underlying the decision, including the argument that Congress's failure to amend any statute other than Title VII means that Congress intended to disallow mixed motive claims under other statutes. It would be an error for a court to apply similar reasoning following passage of this bill to other statutes. The fact that other statutes are not expressly amended in this bill does not mean that Congress endorses Gross's application to any other statute.

In conclusion, this bill is very straightforward. It reiterates what Congress said in 1967 when it passed the ADEA--when making employment decisions it is illegal for age to be a factor. A person should not be judged arbitrarily because he or she was born in a certain year or earlier when he or she still has the ability to contribute as much, or more, as the next person. This bill will help ensure that all our citizens will have an equal opportunity, commensurate with their abilities, for productive employment.

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

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in executive session on Wednesday, July 31, 2013, at 10 a.m. in room 608 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to mark-up S. 1356, Workforce Investment Act of 2013, the nominations of Robert F. Cohen, Jr., of West Virginia, to be a member of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission, William I. Althen, of Virginia, to be a member of the Federal Mine Safety and Health review Commission, Catherine E. Lhamon, of California, to be Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, Department of Education as well as any additional nominations cleared for action.

For further information regarding this meeting, please contact the Committee at (202) 224-5375.