Lamar Alexander

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator from Arizona for his leadership over the years and for pointing out the flaws in this proposal. It wastes money, it undercuts reliable electricity--like coal and nuclear electricity--and, in my view, it destroys rather than saving the environment. But let's say exactly what we are talking about. This was a tax credit that was first passed in 1992, as the Senator from Arizona said, to help an infant industry. It has been renewed eight times. If you are a wind developer, it pays you 2.3 cents for every kilowatt hour of wind that you produce--which in some markets is about the cost of the wholesale value of each kilowatt hour of electricity. In fact, the subsidy is so great, sometimes in some markets, wind producers can actually give away their electricity and still make a profit. At other times--in the middle of the night in Chicago--they can actually pay utilities to take their wind power and still make a profit. That is what the wind production tax credit is. As the Senator says, this is a mature industry. I support jump- starting certain types of energy for a limited period of time. But Steven Chu, President Obama's Nobel Prize-winning U.S. Energy Secretary, in 2011 in response to my question--Is it a mature technology?--said: Yes, it is a mature technology. I would ask the Senator from Arizona, what is the justification for spending over the next 2 years $13 billion of taxpayer money? It is the most wasteful, conspicuous, taxpayer subsidy that I know of in Washington, DC. It proves Ronald Reagan's statement that the only thing in life that is eternal is a government program.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Yes, and I thank the Senator from Arizona. The United States uses almost 20 percent of all the electricity in the world, and we need electricity that we can rely on. We don't want to flip the switch and have the lights not come on. We don't want to go to work and have the generators not working. So we use a lot of electricity, and that comes from baseload power. That is typically, in our country, coal, nuclear, and now natural gas. Wind is intermittent. It usually blows at night. Usually it blows only about a third of the time, and you either use it or lose it. So relying on wind power to run a country that uses 20 percent of all the electricity in the world is the energy equivalent of going to war in sailboats when nuclear ships are available. Baseload power is undercut by this intermittent wind power because of this subsidy. This subsidy is so large that wind developers can, in some cases, give away their electricity and still make a profit. And in some cases they pay the utilities to take their wind power, making the baseload power that we need to rely on for the long term less economical. This leads to the closing of nuclear plants and coal plants.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Well, the Senator from Arizona is from the West and I, of course, am from the East. In the Eastern United States, the wind turbines really only work well on ridgetops. I live near ridgetops around the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. If we ran wind turbines from Georgia to Maine along the Appalachian Trail, we would only produce about the same amount of electricity that eight nuclear power plants would produce. And we would still need the nuclear power plants or the coal plants or natural gas plants to produce electricity when the wind isn't blowing. We don't want to see those 20-story towers on top of our ridgetops. You can see the blinking lights from 20 miles away. I think they destroy the environment in the name of saving the environment. There are appropriate places for wind power, and it has an appropriate place in the market. I would ask the Senator from Arizona, isn't it time for wind to stand on its own in our marketplace and compete with other forms of electricity?

Mr. ALEXANDER. Correct.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I would say to the Senator from Arizona, just to be specific about this--negative pricing, as we call it--the opportunity for a wind developer at, say, 3 o'clock in the morning in Chicago to literally pay the utility to take the wind power, thereby causing the nuclear plant or the coal plant to be less useful, is contributing--it is not the whole reason, but it is contributing to the closing of nuclear plants. The Center for Strategic and International Studies said that because of the low price of natural gas and this subsidy for wind, we might lose as many as 25 percent of our nuclear plants in the next 10 years. Nuclear power produces 60 percent of the carbon-free, sulfur-free, nitrogen-free electricity--air pollution-free electricity. A number of environmental groups have begun to point out their concern for what would happen to our air, if we lost this important source of clean generation of electricity. This is just one more reason we should let wind take its natural place in the marketplace. Wind is now 4 percent of all the electricity that we produce. It was, as the Senator said, the fastest growing form of generation, so let it compete. Let it go where it should go. Offshore is another place it could go. But it is time to end the subsidy and let wind stand on its own.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator for his leadership. And when we talk about a 1-year or 2-year extension, it is important to note that we are talking about the next 10 years. Let's say I qualify for the production tax credit--I am a wind developer this year, which means I get that credit for the next 10 years. That is why the 2-year extension of the wind production tax credit really spends tax dollars over the next 11 years when you count both those years. It totals $13 billion. We throw dollars around so much here, it is hard to get a sense of how much $13 billion is. In 2012 we spent $10 billion government-wide on all of energy research. It would be much better to use these dollars to reduce the debt or to use some of it for clean energy research. We need low-cost, clean, cheap energy. In my view, energy research is a much better use of taxpayer dollars, when they are available, than long-term subsidies. After nearly twenty-two years and eight renewals, the wind PTC has been around for far too long. Ronald Reagan was right. I hope to prove him wrong on this one--that the wind PTC finally comes to an end.

Mr. ALEXANDER. No, I do not. I guess, in summary, after nearly 22 years, it is time for wind production to step out on its own in the marketplace. Let's save $13 billion, and let's stop distorting the marketplace and undercutting nuclear plants as well as coal plants, and let's stop destroying the environment in the name of saving the environment. I thank the Senator from Arizona for his leadership. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record following our colloquy an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal of May 7, 2014, entitled ``Wind-Power Tax Credits Need To Be Blown Away.''

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, the so-called tax extenders bill is the subject of discussion--55 provisions in the Tax Code to be extended that have expired or are expiring. The wind production tax credit is one of those. I hope the majority leader will do what the Senate should do, which is to allow those of us who have amendments--like the Senator from Arizona and I, who have offered two amendments related to the wind production tax credit--to have our say on behalf of the people of Tennessee and Arizona and the American people and to not impose the gag rule on the American people, which has become the practice here in the Senate. The only reason we are really here is to have a say and to have a vote on behalf of the people who have elected us. If an important bill, such as the tax extenders bill, comes forward and we have a $13 billion expenditure that Americans feel strongly about, we ought to have a vote. We ought to have a say. So I hope very much, as we move forward, the majority leader will bring us back to the time when the Senate offered a chance to have a vote, to have a say on behalf of the people of the United States. We might not win our vote, we might lose our vote, but we will have had our say. This is the body in the American constitutional framework that has been described in the most recent history of the Senate as the one authentic bit of genius in the American system of government. That is because we have to have consensus before we move ahead, and you only govern a complex country such as this by consensus. That is what 60 votes is about. That is what debate is about. We have gotten far away from that--far away from that. So this would be a good time to drop this notion of the gag rule on the American people, this business of cutting off amendments, cutting off debates, and say: We welcome amendments. We welcome debate. We will vote them up, we will vote them down, pass them in a responsible way, and we will go on to the next one. So it is my hope that Senator Flake's amendments, which I am proud to cosponsor--both of them--will be one of several amendments on the tax extenders bill to be allowed a vote when that bill comes up. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, does the Senator from Massachusetts wish to address the Senate at this time?

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts. I ask unanimous consent that the junior Senator from Tennessee and I be permitted to engage in a colloquy, and I ask for the attention of the Senate.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Thank you, Mr. President. Remembering Harlan Mathews Mr. President, a few days ago we lost a prominent Tennessean, Harlan Mathews. He was 87 years old, and he lived a long and distinguished life. Harlan Mathews served in the Senate seat in which I now have the privilege of serving. When Senator Al Gore was elected Vice President more than 20 years ago--Harlan Mathews took his seat and then retired from the Senate after serving two years of his appointment. But that was, by a long shot, not a description of his public service. Yesterday Senator Corker and I were at his funeral and memorial service in Nashville, which was a beautiful service, a simple service, as he would have imagined. The theme that kept coming through again and again was what a fine mentor and unselfish public servant Harlan Mathews had been in our State for 60 years. He was a World War II veteran, came to Vanderbilt University, and in 1950 met a young Governor whose name was Frank Clement--a rising star in national politics. He became his assistant and served in a variety of State government positions with very little interruption until he was appointed by Governor McWherter to serve for 2 years in Al Gore's seat. Twenty years ago Harlan Mathews decided not to run for reelection and has lived the past 20 years in Nashville. We were there with his wife Pat, his sons, and a host of friends. What I think about Harlan Mathews is that other than his great friend former Governor Ned McWherter, no one had more friends around the State capitol than Harlan Mathews did. So today we pay tribute to him and to his family for a life well lived, for his service to the State of Tennessee, and for being a man who has mentored as many young public servants of our State as anyone I can think of.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator from Tennessee. Harlan was known for working quietly, and being modest. The service was only about 40 or 45 minutes to reflect that. He would have been a terrific Senator if he had been here for 25 years because of what we know about him. He wasn't out front. He was behind the scenes. He worked to get things done. He was always results- oriented, and he didn't mind who got the credit. Sometimes there is a shortage of that in the Senate--then and now today. He had those rare skills of the public servant that are always valuable and always needed. I know his wife Pat, his sons Stan and Les, and his granddaughters Katie and Emily miss him deeply. We do as well, and we join them in admiring his life and his example. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the obituary of Harlan Mathews detailing his public service.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for his courtesy.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am here to support the introduction of a bill I am cosponsoring, the Expanding Opportunity Through Quality Charter Schools Act. Charter schools are about freedom for teachers, choices for parents, and more and better opportunities for students. I gave the weekly address for the Republican Party on Easter weekend, and I said that, instead of mandating tasks for you to do, government should enable you to create a happier, safer, more prosperous life. This bill is just the kind of proposal that enables people. It enables parents to help their children get a real opportunity by choosing better schools for them to attend. It enables students to learn and succeed. It enables teachers to succeed by giving them the freedom to use their firsthand knowledge. And it enables administrators to succeed by freeing them from bureaucratic mandates and giving them the chance to use their good judgment. The bill would continue the Federal charter schools program, which since 1994 has given grants to states to start new charter schools. It would make improvements to that program to ensure that those funds are used as effectively as possible to increase the number of high-quality charter schools. Specifically, this bill would invest more Federal funds in the replication and expansion of high-quality charter schools with a proven record of success, while still giving States the flexibility to invest in innovative new models. The bill would continue Federal support for non-profit organizations which help charter schools find suitable facilities, while also encouraging States to assist charter schools in this task. It would provide those hard-working and creative educators seeking to open charter schools with greater flexibility in how they use Federal startup grants, for example, by allowing them to use the funds for transportation or for facilities improvements if that is what they decide is the best use of funds. Finally, this legislation would encourage States to provide charter schools with the support they need to be successful and to hold them accountable when they fail to demonstrate positive results. Last summer, Senator Rand Paul and I sat in a room with the parents who had been able to get their child into a charter school in Nashville, where 600 students were left on the waiting list. It was an emotional experience to hear these parents talk about their child getting this opportunity, to hear the students talk about how well they are doing, and to hear from the teachers who spend their lives helping these students. Charter schools are public schools stripped of many Federal, State and union rules and constraints placed on traditional public schools. The money the State government would ordinarily spend on their district school follows each child to the charter school instead. Charter schools cannot charge tuition, and any student who wants to attend a charter school may do so if space is available. If more students want to attend than can be accommodated, the charter school must use a lottery to decide which students receive a seat. Several years ago I visited the Memphis Academy of Science and Engineering, a charter school in Memphis. While most Memphis students were on spring break at the time, the sophomores I visited were in the classroom studying Advanced Placement biology. Because the school's teachers have the flexibility to do what is best for their students, the school was open 12 hours a day and on Saturday mornings because many of these children did not have as much at home as others. And these children, who the year before had been at schools deemed ``low-performing,'' were succeeding. These students were fortunate because their parents had the opportunity to choose this charter school, and their children were lucky enough to win a seat. Across Tennessee, more than 15,000 students now have that same opportunity to attend one of 68 charter schools--and they are thriving as a result. A recent study by Stanford University found that, on average, Tennessee students attending charter schools gain the equivalent of 86 additional days of instruction in reading and 72 additional days of instruction in math each year than do students attending district schools. In other words, they make almost a year-and-a-half's worth of progress in a single school year. About 60 percent of students attending charter schools in Tennessee are low-income, more than 90 percent are African American or Hispanic. In other words, charter schools in Tennessee are making a difference for those students who have traditionally been least well served by our Nation's public schools. We have come a long way since 1992, when, in my last act as U.S. Education Secretary under George H.W. Bush, I sent a letter to every school superintendent across the country, urging them to consider replicating the early successes of charter schools in Minnesota--which were then called ``start-from-scratch schools.'' At the time, there were only a dozen charter schools in existence. Today, there are well over 6,000, serving over 2.5 million students. Nearly 5 percent of all public schools students in the United States now attend charters. Most important--the fact that should give great urgency to our effort here today--there are an estimated 580,000 students on waiting lists for charter schools throughout the Nation. That is because parents and students see that charter schools are working.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, on behalf of the distinguished Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin, I ask unanimous consent that he and I and the Senator from Wyoming, Mr. Enzi, and the Senator from North Dakota, Ms. Heitkamp, be permitted to engage in a colloquy.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, this colloquy is for the purpose of marking an important day in the Senate because it was on this day 1 year ago that the Senate overwhelmingly passed the Marketplace Fairness Act. We did this by an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote. Sixty-nine Senators, including about half of our Republican caucus, 21 Republicans, supported an 11-page bill--a rarity in this body--that is about just two words, and the words are ``States rights.'' The Marketplace Fairness Act, simply described, gives States the right to decide for themselves whether to collect or not collect State sales taxes that are already owed. This ability to collect taxes that are already owed would give States the option to reduce existing taxes or to avoid a new tax or to pay for services without raising taxes. The Marketplace Fairness Act closes a tax loophole that prefers some businesses over other businesses and some taxpayers over other taxpayers. Out-of-State businesses are being subsidized because they don't have to collect sales taxes--taxes that are owed--and local businesses do. As a result, some taxpayers are being subsidized because some pay sales taxes and others do not even though they may owe the taxes. That is not right, and it is not fair. This legislation, which passed the Senate 1 year ago, gives States the option to decide whether to change that. One of the best ways to lower State taxes is for the Federal Government to allow States to collect State sales taxes from everyone who owes the tax and not just from some of the people who owe the tax. We have an honor roll of conservatives who do not think States ought to have to play ``Mother May I?'' with the Federal Government on this question. For example, Al Cardenas, chairman of the American Conservative Union; Art Laffer, President Reagan's favorite economist; Charles Krauthammer; Representative Paul Ryan; Governor Mike Pence, a former Member of the House of Representatives; Governor Chris Christie; former Governor Jeb Bush; former Governor Mitch Daniels; and the late William F. Buckley, not to mention Governor Bill Haslam of the State of Tennessee, agree that recognizing the power of State legislators to make these decisions for themselves is consistent with the 10th amendment and our constitutional framework. In our State of Tennessee, the Marketplace Fairness Act is an insurance policy against a State income tax. We don't have a State income tax and we don't want a State income tax. The House of Representatives has not yet acted on this bill. The bill that was passed a year ago today by the Senate was an overwhelming bipartisan vote. We are hopeful that the House will soon either enact our bill, which we have sent to them, or send us their version of the bill so we can confer and send a result to the President of the United States. State and local governments have been waiting on Congress to solve this problem for more than 20 years--since 1992 when the Supreme Court said Congress has the ultimate power to resolve the issue. Now is the time to act on this legislation. We are ready to work with the House to enact that legislation this year. In conclusion, I will read the comments of Al Cardenas, chairman of the American Conservative Union and former chairman of the Florida Republican Party. When talking about the Marketplace Fairness Act, Mr. Cardenas said, When it comes to state sales tax, it is time to address the area where federally mandated prejudice is most egregious-- the policy towards Internet sales, the decades-old inequity between online and in-person sales as outdated and unfair. Again, that was Al Cardenas, chairman of the American Conservative Union, speaking in support of the Marketplace Fairness Act. I am pleased that of the four Senators who will be on the floor during this colloquy, two are already here. I see the Senator from North Dakota, and I see the Senator from Wyoming. If it is all right with the Senator from Wyoming, I will defer to the Senator from North Dakota. While the Senator may be a little modest about this--I hope she is not--she actually started it all. She has a better view of the Marketplace Fairness Act than just about anyone because of her service in the State government of North Dakota. She has an ability to explain in plain and simple language why the fair and right thing to do is to recognize the rights of States to make these decisions for themselves. Her ability to do that has been a crucial part of our debate and is one of the reasons why we had such overwhelming bipartisan support in the Senate.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator from North Dakota for her eloquent statement and for her leadership. I am delighted that she has gone from being a caption on a lawsuit to a Senator who can help us pass this bill. In just a moment I will yield the leadership of this colloquy to the assistant Democratic leader, but I wish to say a word about the next Senator speaking and about Senator Durbin as well. Senator Mike Enzi is the real pioneer on the Marketplace Fairness Act. He knows what he is talking about. He is a shoestore owner from Wyoming. He knows what it is like for someone to come in and try on a pair of shoes and then go home and order them on the Internet and disadvantage a smalltown owner of a shoestore as compared with an out- of-State business. He has diligently and systematically lead this fight the whole time, and it was due to that diligence that the Senate had this overwhelming bipartisan achievement one year ago today. I thank him for his leadership. Now I recognize the assistant Democratic leader. The truth of the matter is, the way the Senate works, we would never have been able to pass this in the Senate with such fine fashion if it hadn't been for the leadership of the assistant Democratic leader, Senator Durbin of Illinois. I thank him very much for his leadership and congratulate him for it, and I am glad to turn the leadership of the colloquy over to him.

Mr. ALEXANDER

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

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 20 minutes.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, we are told that this week, on Wednesday, we are going to have a vote on the so-called minimum wage, the so-called 40-percent increase in the minimum wage. This is part of a jobs plan by my friends on the Democratic side. Now, it is not a plan that is intended to pass anything, and that was revealed in a New York Times article by my distinguished friend from New York, Senator Schumer, who may be an architect of this. It is to highlight political differences, which is a fair thing to do in the Senate. But lest anyone think that someone is trying to pass a law here, they should not be confused by that. We have had three hearings on the minimum wage in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, of which I am the ranking Republican member. We have had time to have those three hearings, but the chairman of the committee, the Senator from Iowa, has said we do not have time to markup the bill in committee or consider any amendments to this idea with better proposals to create jobs. It was reported in one of the Hill newspapers that somebody said: Well, why don't you have time for amendments on the minimum wage, and he said: Well, there might be embarrassing amendments. I think there probably would be votes on embarrassing amendments--embarrassing only if you voted against them. So let me talk a little bit about this proposal by my Democratic friends to create jobs by raising the minimum wage. Now, they are on the right issue. The issue is jobs. We have been home in Maine and Tennessee and around the country, and too many people are having a hard time finding a job. Too many people have been out of work for more than 6 months. We call them the long-term unemployed. Mr. President, 10.5 million people are unemployed right now. Unemployed Americans have been out of work an average of 9 months. That is beyond the time for unemployment compensation, on the average. It is hard to find a job. It is hard to create a job. It is especially tough on people in their forties and fifties and sixties. Family incomes are lower than we would like for them to be. The critical problem is, there are too few jobs, especially for low-wage workers. Then, we saw a report this morning that said that most of the jobs created since 2008 have been lower-wage jobs rather than higher- wage jobs. So the issue is right. It is jobs. The American people want it to be easier to find a good-paying job. The Democratic proposal we are going to vote on this week as a solution to the jobs problem is a proposal that will eliminate 500,000 jobs. Now, let me say that again in case anyone thought I misread my page of notes. We are talking about jobs, and the Democratic proposal--this is the big deal this week. We are not going to do anything in the Senate this week of any significance on the floor, so far as I know--a few nominations--except have a procedural vote Wednesday on the minimum wage proposal, and the Democratic proposal to make it easier to find a job is to eliminate 500,000 jobs. In case you think I am making this up, let me quote where I got this piece of information. This is from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The Congressional Budget Office is something we set up by law because we will make our Republican points and we will make our Democratic points, and we may shade it a little bit this way or a little bit that way. So we say to the CBO: You tell us the truth as best as you can tell. They are nonpartisan. We do not always like what they say. This is what they said about the Democratic proposal to create more jobs: Once fully implemented in the second half of 2016, the $10.10 option [to raise the minimum wage] would reduce total employment by about 500,000 workers, or .3 percent. . . . That is according to the Congressional Budget Office. Should we believe the Congressional Budget Office? Senator Heller, the distinguished Senator from Nevada, asked Janet Yellen, President Obama's recently confirmed head of the Federal Reserve Board, what her thoughts on the CBO study and the impact of raising the minimum wage would be. This is what she said. I quote President Obama's new Fed chief, Janet Yellen: The CBO is as qualified as anyone to evaluate that literature. And she said: I wouldn't want to argue with their assessment. So there we have the Congressional Budget Office saying it will reduce 500,000 jobs and the new head of the Federal Reserve Board-- appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate--saying she ``wouldn't want to argue with their assessment.'' We will be hearing more from Democrats this week about the number of people whose wages will be raised by the minimum wage. There will be that. But the CBO also reported that $4 out of $5 earned from the increase in the minimum wage will go to workers in families who are above the poverty level. Mr. President, $4 out of $5 will go to workers in families who are above the poverty level, and nearly one-third of those families who would benefit from the minimum wage increase already earn more than three times the poverty level. This reminds me of ObamaCare in this way: According to a recent Washington Post story, only about 1 in 4 people signing up for ObamaCare were previously uninsured. About three-quarters of people with ObamaCare insurance already had insurance before we went through all the turmoil of the last 3 or 4 years. In the same sort of way, the minimum wage is said to benefit low- income Americans, but only 1 in 5 of the dollars from an increase will go to families below the poverty line. And that is not all. In addition to cutting 500,000 jobs and providing 80 percent of the benefits to families above the poverty level, the Democratic jobs proposal imposes one more burden on the only Americans who are capable of solving this problem, and that is the job creators. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record following my remarks the testimony of Laurie Palmer of Waterville, ME, who owns four Burger King franchises with approximately 140 employees. I say to the distinguished Presiding Officer, I had no idea he might be presiding today, but I am glad to have a Maine story. Ms. Palmer says in her testimony: An increase in the minimum wage will directly and negatively impact my ability to create new jobs while limiting the benefits available to my current employees. I currently employ 60 people who work an average of 25 hours per week and earn the current minimum wage as defined by Maine law--$7.50 per hour. All but a handful of these people were hired within the last 6 months. Mathematically, an increase in the federal minimum wage would cost me an extra $3,900 per week or $208,000 per year . . . my net income for last year was approximately $35,100--with an extra $208,000 in expenses, I will very likely be forced to close my business. She also notes, ``One hundred percent of my current staff starting at minimum wage are under 25.'' Republicans believe that if we want to create jobs, there is a better way. We would like to offer our ideas through the Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee. But as I mentioned, we only had time for three hearings. Although we are able to spend a whole week on this on the floor for one procedural vote, we are not allowed to offer amendments in the committee and, so far as I know, here because there might be embarrassing amendments. Let's consider what those embarrassing amendments might be. They might be about the earned-income tax credit. Senator Rubio of Florida, and Congressman Paul Ryan, have all suggested the earned-income tax credit is a better way to make sure the lowest earning workers in America have a better wage if we are going to get the government involved in it. Of course, if we are going to do that, we are going to have to deal with some problems, including the Internal Revenue Service estimate that 21 or 25 percent of the payments are improperly made in 2012. We could consider the proposals that, rather than giving those earned- income tax credits out in a lump sum each year, they might be given out with each paycheck. But the Congressional Budget Office also said something about earned- income tax credits. They said one-third of low-wage workers would be in families [benefiting from the minimum wage increase] whose income was more than three times the Federal poverty level in 2016. By contrast, said CBO, an increase in the earned-income tax credit would go almost entirely to lower income families. CBO also noted that the earned- income tax credit encourages more people in low-income families to work, a value we should encourage. So if our goal as a country is to provide a minimum wage for working Americans, why is it fair to assess the cost of that goal on just the Americans who create the jobs? Of course it makes creating the jobs harder, but even more importantly, why should not every one of us who pays taxes share in the burden of increasing America's workers' pay? That is what happens with the earned-income tax credit. There is another proposal, a bipartisan one. We call it the 30-to-40- hour workweek. Senator Collins of Maine is one of the principal sponsors. The Senator from Indiana I believe is the lead Democratic sponsor. It is a bipartisan proposal that would, in effect, be a 33- percent pay increase for millions of American workers who already have seen their hours cut because of ObamaCare. It is a way to prevent--to say it another way--millions more workers from getting a 25-percent pay cut. The reason all of this occurs is because ObamaCare defined full-time work as 30 hours. We would like to change it to 40 hours. ObamaCare says employers with 50 or more full-time workers must offer government- approved insurance or pay a fine. Full time is defined as 30 hours or more. That sounds as though it was written in France. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says 74 percent of their members say the health care law makes it harder for their firms to hire workers. Changing the definition of full time to 40 hours would make it easier to hire. Senators Collins and Donnelly have introduced the Forty Hours is Full Time Act. It would change the definition of full time in the law to 40 hours per week. We could be discussing that this week. We could have brought that up in our committee, had we been allowed to, or the SKILLS Act. There are 47 separate Federal jobs programs for which taxpayers are spending $18 billion. The Government Accountability Office says 44 of those programs are duplicative. The SKILLS Act, passed by the House, consolidates 35 Federal programs and creates a single workforce investment fund. Members of the Senate have been working with Members of the House to see if we can agree on a revision of the Workforce Investment Act. We are making good progress. If we can do a better job spending those dollars across America, that would be a good way to help create more jobs in America or at least make them easier to obtain. But we do not have time for that in our hearings. We could spend time debating amendments to transform long- term unemployment compensation into job training. But we do not have time for that amendment. Today, Americans have been out of work for an average of 9 months. They need new skills. They need skills that help them get a job. Then ask almost anyone on either side of the aisle what is the best long- term way to make sure that children of low-income families are prepared for a good job. Almost every Governor I know is focused like a laser on this. That is the chance to go to the best possible school. I have introduced legislation that would allow States, such as Tennessee or Maine, to take their money from approximately 80 existing federal elementary and secondary education programs and turn it into $2,100 scholarships that would follow 11 million low-income children to the school they attend. We could create $2,100 scholarships for 1 out of 5 school-aged kids in America. When I say ``schools they attend,'' that could include a private school, if the State decided that. But this would not be a Federal mandate to that effect. The State would make that decision. It would simply make sure these Federal dollars follow the child to the school the child attends. If the State wants it to be public, if the State wants it to be on this corner, that is up to the State. We could offer and discuss that amendment. Why not give elementary and secondary children a ticket to a better school? We give them a ticket to a childcare development center. We did that in a bipartisan way last month. We have tickets to college. We call those Pell grants. Why not help them go to better schools? Then there are other amendments that we think, on our side of the aisle, have more to do with creating jobs than a so-called minimum wage proposal that the Congressional Budget Office says will destroy 500,000 jobs. For example, we could build the Keystone Pipeline, which passed the Senate last year during our budget discussions 62 to 37. That would create jobs. We could pass trade promotion authority. President Obama has asked us to do that. Both in Europe and in Asia, the President has a chance to negotiate trade agreements that would create more jobs in America as we ship automobiles and soybeans from Tennessee and other places to the rest of the world. But the majority leader of the Senate says: No, that is dead for this year. We could debate a proposal to reform the National Labor Relations Board. I do not like the fact that they have become more of an advocate than an umpire, with micro unions, with ambush elections, with undermining state right-to-work laws. But Democrats come back and say: Well, when the Republicans are in power, they are more of an advocate for employers. Maybe there is some truth to that. Let's pass a law saying: It would be better to create jobs in America if employers and employees could count on the NLRB to be a fair and unbiased tribunal, an umpire, not an advocate. We could create jobs in America and slow the spread of jobs to Europe from America by repealing the medical device tax. That also passed the Senate last year, 79 to 20, which means there are lots of Democrats for it as well as lots of Republicans. So as I say, the only thing embarrassing about these amendments to a jobs bill would be voting against them. On the most important issue facing the country, surely we can do better than the stale, bankrupt idea that will be voted on this week on the floor of the Senate, that according to the office we are supposed to trust for advice, the Congressional Budget Office, would, No. 1, destroy 500,000 jobs; No. 2, concentrate most of the benefits on those above the poverty line; No. 3, make it more expensive to create jobs; and, No. 4, tax only some taxpayers for a policy designed to benefit the entire society. This kind of thinking is right in line with ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, and all of the other policies that have spread a big wet blanket of rules and regulations over our free enterprise system and made it harder to create a job and harder to find a job in the United States of America. That is why we have 10.5 million people unemployed in America today for an average of 9 months. It is this constant parade of ideas that increases the big, wet, smothering blanket of rules and regulations over the free enterprise system and that does nothing to make it easier to create jobs and easier to find a job. There are better ideas. Reform refundable tax credits to benefit all low-income workers; replace long-term unemployment compensation with job training; change ObamaCare's workweek definition from 30 hours to 40 hours to encourage full-time work; use existing Federal education dollars to give children of low-income families a $2,100 scholarship to choose a better school. All of those would create an environment in which the job creators could create more jobs and in which these who want them could find a job more easily. That is what we should be about, instead of pretending we can pass a law in America and give many people a higher income. We can do that. We can do that. But when we do it, make no mistake about it, we are destroying 500,000 jobs and giving benefits to people above the poverty line instead of below.

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

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I have many concerns with the nomination of Dr. David Weil to be the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division at the Department of Labor--DOL. The Wage and Hour Division is an important agency that oversees the enforcement of more than a dozen laws that govern just about every private sector employment relationship in America. To fill this position, we need someone who can be trusted by both employees and employers to enforce the law without bias, and we need a qualified manager. Unfortunately, I think Dr. Weil fails to meet that standard. My greatest concern is about his ability to be impartial in carrying out the duties of his office. This role requires that he be a neutral arbiter of law. But we have a number of writings and lectures by Dr. Weil that suggest he may use the power of government to pursue how he thinks the employer/employee relationship should be defined. Dr. Weil has written a new book called ``The Fissured Workplace: Why Work Became So Bad for So Many and What Can Be Done to Improve It.'' In this book, he suggests the Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division-- the division he is nominated to lead--could look for ways to expand its current interpretations of labor law and should target employers who use certain business models. In addition, in his book, Dr. Weil singles out a number of major employers, such as Marriott, Time Warner, Bank of America, Walmart, Hershey, AT&T, Verizon, Subway, Hyatt, Apple, and FedEx. Dr. Weil states that current labor laws and traditional regulatory enforcement allow companies such as these to ``have their cake and eat it too,'' because they use common business models such as subcontracting and supply chains and, therefore, can push liability for compliance with workplace statutes off to other entities that are in their business model. He further says that companies use multilayer business models ``to avoid unionization,'' and appears to be critical of that, stating that employers ``she[d] employment'' to find ``more subtle ways to shift away from a highly unionized workforce or move work to forms of employment that are both legally and strategically difficult for unions to organize[.]'' Dr. Weil has been critical of the franchising industry as a whole. For example, Dr. Weil believes the Wage and Hour Division should investigate corporate entities for wage and hour violations at individual franchises/locations even though a direct employer-employee relationship may not exist. He recommends investigating industries that employ significant numbers of low-wage workers, such as the fast food, hotel/lodging, and construction industries. The franchising industry has been an incredible engine of economic growth in this country and, according to the International Franchise Association, has created hundreds of thousands of successful small businesses, employing over 8 million individuals. Many of these businesses are owned by people who started on the bottom rung of the economic ladder, making minimum wage, and worked their way up all the way to the top. Many of them are owned by women and minorities. For so many people, franchising has been the path to the American Dream. Take, for example, Laurie Palmer of Waterville, ME, who owns four Burger King franchises and employs approximately 140 people. She is already worried about the prospect of closing her business with possible minimum wage increases and the cost of Obamacare. The last thing she should be worrying about is being singled out for a wage and hour investigation simply because she is a franchisee. Dr. Weil's responses to written questions while his nomination was before the HELP Committee also raised several questions about his policy positions. He gave non-answers to some pretty simple questions. He would not answer yes or no when asked if he supports instructing Wage and Hour Division investigators to presume a worker is an employee even if the employer has told investigators the worker is an independent contractor. In other words, if an employer hires an independent contractor, Dr. Weil may feel that he has the discretion to decide that person is really an employee. This is important because, just this month, a Texas Federal district court judge slapped DOL, and ultimately the taxpayer, with half a million dollars in costs for a failed wage and hour lawsuit. The Wage and Hour Division unsuccessfully tried to claim that a company's independent contractors were employees. After multiple investigative missteps noted by the court, including a wage and hour investigator improperly shredding and burning interview notes and incorrectly assessing a $6 million penalty against the company, the court found ``DOL failed to act in a reasonable manner'' and did not believe a reasonable person would conclude the folks in question were employees. If Dr. Weil is confirmed, I hope he reads the court's decision closely to ensure this type of investigative behavior does not happen again. Dr. Weil's writings suggest he may have a bull's eye on industries that use subcontracting and franchising. And he would not answer yes or no when asked to commit to treating all complaints equally based on the merits instead of the industry. Instead, he committed to giving the agency's investigators guidance on how to prioritize complaints, but made no indication of what complaints he thinks should be a priority. I am also concerned about Dr. Weil's lack of management experience. If confirmed, Dr. Weil will be charged with supervising the work of more than 1,800 employees in 54 field offices covering all of our states and territories, with a $224 million budget. Dr. Weil has no management experience beyond supervising small teams of people at Boston University and Harvard. Several outside groups, including the Associated Builders and Contractors, the International Franchise Association, and the National Restaurant Association have also expressed their opposition to Dr. Weil. The Wall Street Journal underscored its concerns with Dr. Weil by describing him as ``a life-long, left-wing academic with labor union sympathies, no private-sector experience or legal training, and limited management experience.'' Last, I will note that this position has not had a confirmed Administrator since the Bush Administration and this fact cannot be blamed on Republican delays or use of the filibuster. The President has nominated two individuals to this position, both of whom voluntarily withdrew before any HELP Committee votes were scheduled. The last nominee withdrew his nomination in August of 2011--a full 32 months ago. After waiting this long, we need to get this right. I cannot support a nominee who has advocated expanding current law beyond what Congress intended, nor could I support a nominee who is a proponent of targeting industries and employers who use certain business models rather than being responsive to complaints of breaches of the law or one that has the underlying goal of increasing unionization without regard to the desires of employees themselves. Therefore, I cannot support Dr. Weil's confirmation.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I support the Senator from Iowa and his request that this bill go to the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. In the Republican Conference, we talk a lot about the importance of taking legislation through committee so it can be amended and considered through the regular order. This is certainly important legislation. All of us would agree on that. The Senator from Pennsylvania and the Senator from West Virginia deserve a lot of credit for bringing this terrible story to our attention and proposing we address it. And I think we should. But the appropriate way to do that here, is to take it to the committee of jurisdiction to be considered in a markup, amended, and see if anyone has a better idea. My second reason for hoping this bill goes to the HELP committee is that I have my own idea. I think this bill poses an important question to the Senate about whether we want to constitute ourselves as a national school board. That is, in fact, what we would be doing if we passed it into law. In our country there are 100,000 public elementary and secondary schools. They all have a principal who is in charge of the employees in that school. This bill is about determining what kind of criminal background check those school employees should have. What is the principal supposed to do? Doesn't the principal have any responsibility for this? Can the principal just say that this is the job of the United States Senate, so I don't have to worry about that? There are 14,000 local school boards across West Virginia, Tennessee, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and all of our other States. What is the responsibility of these local school boards when it comes to determining the qualifications of their teachers or the health and safety of their students? Do the members of the local school board say: We don't have to worry about those questions too much because the U.S. Senate will determine for us what the qualifications for teaching will be or how we will keep students healthy and safe in our local public schools? There are 50 Governors of our states. I used to be one of them, as was the distinguished Senator from West Virginia. I got pretty tired of people flying to Washington, D.C. thinking that they were the only ones who had any sense of responsibility for the public school students in Tennessee. In fact, I felt like the more Washington, D.C. intruded into Tennessee by making decisions that we should be making for ourselves, the less responsible we felt for those decisions and the less effective we were at doing our jobs. I remember in the early 1990s there was a piece of legislation which whizzed through the Senate and the House just like this piece of legislation has been doing. It was called the Gun-Free School Zones Act, and it came after a particularly terrible shooting at a school. We still have those shootings today, and it wrenches our heart every time they happen. So, after the shooting, the U.S. Congress said: We will fix it. The Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional because it exceeded the authority of Congress under the commerce clause--that in effect it wasn't Washington's job; it was the job of the states and local communities to determine the issue of gun possession around schools. I submit that the safety of our schools is the job of the parents of those schools, of the principal in that school, of the community which supports that school, of the local school board, of the supporting organizations, and of the governor and the legislature of the state. If they can pretend they can kick that responsibility up to Washington, I think that is wrong. I do not think that is within our constitutional framework in the United States. Those responsibilities belong locally. The Senator from Iowa and I have a terrific relationship and ideological differences on many occasions. I spent the morning debating with him about whether his proposal for early childhood education would in effect create a national school board. He basically made the same argument that is being made here. He said: If we are going to give states money from Washington for early childhood education, we have a responsibility to define how that money is spent, including the parameters for what the teachers' salaries should be. So if we can define what criminal background checks ought to be for school employees in Maryville, TN, public schools, we can define what the teachers' salaries ought to be in the Maryville, TN, public schools. If we can decide what the safety measures in the school ought to be, we can decide what the maximum size of classes ought to be. We can decide what the length of the school day ought to be and what kind of vision and health screenings we ought to provide. Those decisions are important for children as well. Whether the children are fed properly is important as well. Are we going to kick those decisions upstairs to the U.S. Senate and say: You set the rules for that. Physical activity programs. The distinguished Senator from Iowa has been a champion for more physical activity his whole career here. He would like to set that as a goal from Washington. I think that is the job of a local community. Professional development for school staff. If we make decisions about criminal background checks for staff, we can make decisions about their professional development as well. How about academic standards and curriculum? In the State of Tennessee and in many other States there has been a near rebellion over the so-called Common Core State Standards. The important issue is about how we raise standards for children who need to learn more to succeed. But the problem is that Washington got involved with the standards, and people in our State and many other States don't like national school boards and Washington-control of public schools. So I think we should stop and think about this. I would prefer to see the federal government in Washington act as an enabler of States and local school boards rather than a mandator. I would like to see us take this terrific focus the Senators from Pennsylvania and West Virginia have put on the importance of criminal background checks and the safety of our children by making it easier for States and local school boards to search a State criminal registry, a State-based child abuse and neglect registry, a fingerprint-based FBI criminal history, a search of the national sex offender registry. Forty-six States already require all public school employees to go through some form of a background check. Are we to say we know better than they do? If so, what does that say about our entire structure of public education and whether we should just tell the 14,000 local school boards in the U.S. to disband. We don't need you to make decisions about the safety of the schools in your district. We will do it in Washington. We don't need you to make decisions about academic standards and curriculum. We will do that here? I think we in Congress should be enablers, not mandators. I think we should take this powerful focus the two Senators have put on criminal background checks for school employees, take it to the HELP committee, and put a spotlight on making it easier and more important for all 100,000 principals, all 14,000 local school boards, all 50 State Governors to do it, help parents to be aroused, and put the spotlight where the spotlight ought to be. If they want a gun-free school zone, put the spotlight on the school and the community around it. If they want a safe school, put the spotlight on the school and the community around it. If they want to have a criminal background check system to keep predators out of schools, put the spotlight on the principal, the school board, and the community around it. That is the way to effectively do it. That is the way to respect our federalist system of government and our constitutional framework. That is the way to avoid creating a national school board. So I look forward to working with the Senator from Iowa, the Senator from West Virginia, and the Senator from Pennsylvania. This is an important issue. I would like to see it become law. But I would like for our government in Washington to be more of an enabler of local school boards and school principals than a mandator from Washington.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I am willing to support holding a hearing on the bill, moving it rapidly through the HELP committee, and moving it back to the Senate floor. I will make my argument in committee or on the floor, and I may win or I may lose. But I have thought about the gun-free school zones act for more than 20 years, and I thought about it from the point of view of a parent and of a Governor. The Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has conservative Republicans on one side and liberal Democrats on the other. I spend most of my days on the committee trying to argue my Democratic friends out of their good ideas that they want to impose on every local school district in America. There is a moral imperative to have high academic standards for children. There is a moral imperative to have physical education for children. There is a moral imperative to have breakfast for children. There is a moral imperative to help disabled children. There is a moral imperative to do all these things. We all feel that. But just because we in Washington contribute 10 percent of the money spent on elementary and secondary education doesn't mean we should substitute our judgment for that of the local school board and the principal who is accountable to that community for the safety of each child in their school. We ought to think about that before we start assuming these responsibilities because if we pass this bill into law, leave people to think that we solved the problem, and another problem happens, then who is going to be held accountable? The local principal? The local school board? The Governor? No. Maybe the Senate will be held accountable because we took it upon ourselves to say to the parents: We have kept your child safe. We should enable parents. We should enable schools. We should enable local school districts to create safe and effective schools with high standards. We should give parents choices of schools with effective teachers, but we shouldn't mandate it or define it from Washington. That is my argument, which I would like to be considered when we think about the extent to which we ought to say to a local school board or principal: We are going to define for you what a criminal background check should consist of for the people you hire in your schools. I pledge to work on it as rapidly as Senator Harkin can move it through the committee. I will make my argument, and we will come to a conclusion. I appreciate the Senators from Pennsylvania and West Virginia putting a focus on such an important issue, and I look forward to a speedy conclusion to the debate and a passage of an appropriate bill on an important issue. I just hope it enables instead of mandates. Thank you, Madam President.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from North Carolina and I be allowed to engage in a colloquy for 20 minutes, and following that the Senator from Iowa be recognized.