Roy Blunt

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, we are going to move this bill this evening. I think we have other people who wish to speak and there is no reason they should not come and speak. I encourage them to come over here and say what needs to be said so we can get our work done. We have a few people who still have opportunities to make a plane. We are not going to be voting tomorrow. We plan to be voting here in the next 30 minutes or so. I hope people come to the floor and speak on the bill. This bill has gone through a process with lots of amendments, lots of debate. It went through a conference committee. It is not perfect by anyone's standard of perfect, but legislation seldom is. It is under the level that was established in the debt ceiling agreement that also established how we deal with emergency spending. Of course, many of our colleagues did not vote for that. They did not agree with that at the time. It has only been a few weeks ago, but it is the standard that the House and Senate worked on. These numbers should be below that number. They are a little lower than the Senate number which was at that number but higher than the House number. I wish we could have been closer to the House number, but the House has a different majority than the Senate does. The real point is, if people want to come speak on this bill, the vote is scheduled here in about a half hour or so and I hope people will come on over and have their say on this bill, let the people know in addition to their vote where they stand. We are waiting for a couple of people to come. This would be a good time for them to do that. I yield, and we will be waiting. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I yield back the Republican time.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I want to talk about the four amendments I filed on this bill. I will say right upfront, all four are supported by my Missouri colleague, Senator McCaskill, so they are bipartisan amendments. Two of them would deal with a property ownership issue created by an infringement by Federal regulators, by FERC. They both deal with a private power generating dam that was built in 1931. It created a lake called Lake of the Ozarks, and over the years private property owners have constructed literally thousands of homes that on this map beside me are impacted. The houses are the red dots. The other areas in there are thousands of buildings of one kind or another on a lake that is one of the most used lakes in the country. Some people go to those houses on the weekend and a lot of people live there all the time. This is their home. Since the 1950s, the Lake of the Ozarks has been the most visited lake by boaters in the Midwest. It is a lake that is not owned by the Federal Government. Tourism at this lake totals about $200 million annually. Because of this tourist industry there is lots of private investment. In 2004, Ameren Electric, the current owner of the lake--it was built, again, in the 1930s by Union Electric, which later became Ameren Electric--applied to FERC to renew their license to generate power at Bagnell Dam, which is the dam that was built to impound the water that created the Lake of the Ozarks. This application also made sure that virtually all of the homes and structures would no longer be subject to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, but FERC rejected this request. The result has been a back and forth between Ameren and FERC and the property owners for the past 7 years. This finger-pointing by everybody involved--except the property owners, who simply think they own the property--has been nothing short of outrageous and it has left property values, businesses, tourism, tax revenues, and jobs in question. FERC has taken its role too far. FERC is acting as though they are the Corps of Engineers and somehow the taxpayers of America own this property instead of the taxpayers who actually are the individual taxpayers who own the property. On every acre of land covered by water, taxes have been paid. Property taxes have been paid on that land since the first dream that this lake would be created--so 80 years of taxpayer money. This is not a Corps of Engineers work where the Corps of Engineers can say we own the lake, we own the shoreland, we are going to decide what you are going to do. FERC has taken its role too far and it is engaging in a pattern of enforcing shoreline management rules. My first amendment would simply modify the Federal Power Act by changing the definition of what could be considered a ``project purpose.'' Currently, FERC recognizes public recreational use of land but not private ownership. We would not say they could no longer recognize public recreational use of land, but we would say that they have to recognize private ownership. If FERC, at a lake such as this, can decide access to the land, why can't FERC or some other Federal agency drive by a farmer's farm and say: That is a nice pond out there. I will bet it has some fish in it. Why don't we ensure that everybody who wants to have access to that farmer's pond has access to that farmer's pond? Maybe I should not suggest that. Maybe some Federal agency would hear that and say: It is water, it is pleasant, people ought to be able to enjoy it; everybody ought to be able to enjoy it just like the people who own the property and build the property and do their work. My amendment would stop FERC from putting the commission's policy preferences above those of ratepayers and private landowners in licensing this dam. My second amendment would simply redraw the boundaries of the Lake of the Ozarks to reflect the 662-foot contour as necessitated by changing water levels over the past 80 years. It would limit FERC's ability to issue an order to remove structures in what they now consider a project boundary until that boundary has been more finally settled. It would limit FERC's ability to reject applications as long as power generation is still preserved. The purpose of FERC is to see that a power generating dam generates power. It is not to control everything that is behind that dam. That is not the job of FERC. In fact, let me leave those two amendments with a few stories of Missouri homeowners who shared their stories with me about how FERC and FERC's actions affected their lives. This is a 30-year-old house that these homeowners have paid property taxes on for 30 years. In fact, you can see this large pine tree in front of this house. It was a seedling when they started paying property taxes, and that is a big tree. They paid property taxes the whole time. It is their first home. It is their only home. They have been informed that they are within the Bagnell Dam boundary, meaning they risk losing their house. In fact, it is one of 17 homes in this subdivision facing the same problem. In another home, Fred and Barbara Lowtharp purchased this home 15 years ago. It was built 35 years ago. These are not new homes that somebody has just put on this property in the last couple of years and FERC has come in and said you made a mistake. This is a 35-year-old home that the current owners have lived in for 5 years. Barbara shared this with me on Facebook. She said: We have been paying taxes and upkeep on our homes and new homes have been built around us within the last 2 years with permits and titles. These homes are not cabins. The majority of us live here year round. This is according to the owner: We have our money invested in these properties in good faith when we bought them, going through the right procedures and thinking you are a property owner for over 16 years, then being told your deed isn't worth the paper it is written on is something that you cannot understand how this can happen in the U.S.A. This is the Facebook note continued: ``Really feel bullied by the FERC agency and Ameren.'' We owe it to the citizens involved to see that the Federal Government doesn't come in and just simply take their property. It is not fair. Imagine, you get a new job somewhere, this is your home, you cannot sell your home and buy a new home because FERC suddenly decided, after 16 years of paying taxes, that your land is not owned by you even though the county tax collectors thought it had been owned by you the whole time. Let me discuss quickly the other two amendments that deal with flood control. The Missouri and Mississippi Rivers have both been impacted dramatically by flooding this year. In Holt County alone, there was an astonishing 165,000 acres under water, most of it for 3 and 4 months. In Birds Point in the boot heel of Missouri, another 130,000 additional acres of farmland is under water. In total, we had over 400,000 acres, 600 square miles--something about the size of the entire State of Rhode Island--under water during parts of this year. Vital transportation corridors have been closed, highways washed out, businesses shut down and people have been dealing with this now for months. My first amendment, amendment No. 976, cuts the bureaucratic redtape if all you are doing is putting back something that was there before the flood. If you are rebuilding a levee, if you are putting back things that were there before the flood, to rebuild levees or locks or dams that were damaged by the flood, you should be able to do it. You should not have to go through all kinds of studies to decide if the levee that you are putting back as it was and where it was can be there again. This is the only chance we have to get these structures back in place before the 2012 flooding season starts. Of course, in 2012 it would not have to be a flood of this size to create great problems if the levee is already gone. That is what that amendment would do. It gives the Corps the tools they need to restore flood protection to the 2011 levels, hopefully before the 2012 runoff season begins. I want to talk about amendment No. 975, which restricts funding of the Missouri River Fish and Wildlife Recovery Program to $22 million. This still leaves a lot of money for that program, but it takes the other money that has been available for that program all year and makes it available to meet the critical flood control crisis. We have already spent more than $616 million on that program. This is essentially a program that is one of the big projects where the government buys land from willing sellers who want to let it become more of a wetland or a wildlife reserve, something such as that. I am not saying that willing sellers should not be able to do that, but I am saying for right now $22 million--not something more like $72 million-- is enough. In fact, we have had citizens in some of these counties call the Corps to be told truthfully: No, we don't have sufficient funds to restore the flood protection you are eligible for, but we could buy your farm. Imagine if you are on the other end of that call and you have a family farm and you are calling to find out what you can do about the levee or what you can do to get flood protection back, and they say: We cannot do anything about the levee, but we could buy your farm. If you want to go back to the kitchen table and decide if you want to sell out, the taxpayers of America have plenty of money to buy your farm, but, no, we don't have money to restore the levee that was protecting your farm just a few days ago. That is not acceptable. That is why Senator McCaskill and I are cosponsoring all four of these amendments. We recognize that these issues are critically important in our State. In fact, the last two amendments are critically important in the seven States that start in Montana and end in St. Louis, MO, that are impacted by flooding in all seven of those States this year. I hope we are able to consider these amendments, and I hope my colleagues will join me in trying to do what is right for the people we were sent here to work for. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. I rise in support of this resolution, a resolution that would allow the Congress to say this is a rule we should not go forward with, the EPA cross-border air pollution resolution of disapproval or the so-called transport rule, which places mandates on powerplants in certain States in order to spare neighboring States from emissions. The compliance date for this rule is around the corner. It is January 1, 2012. It is an extraordinary time to comply with a rule that the EPA just issued in July. Six months to look at so much of the electric transmission capacity of the country does not make sense to me, and I think will not make sense to utility bill payers once they get their utility bills. The Clean Air Act says that States are usually left to decide how best to meet new EPA rules, including decisions about compliance time. By mandating this arbitrary deadline, the EPA will only put more pressure on job creators who are struggling to make ends meet as it is. Another upcoming mandate from the EPA is the so-called utility MACT rule, a rule that deals with mercury. The combination of this transport rule and utility MACT rule will be devastating for our economy. In fact, the combined effect of these two rules will cost Americans 1.4 million jobs by 2020, according to a NERA Economic Consulting study--1.4 million jobs. Where will those jobs go? They will go to some country that cares a lot less about what comes out of the smokestack than we do. The problem gets worse, not better. These two rules will cause electricity rates to skyrocket over 20 percent in some regions of the country, according to the same study. We all remember the President's comments to the San Francisco Chronicle in 2008, where he said that under his policies electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. The plan appears to be working. But is that the right plan for a country with 9 percent unemployment? Is that the right plan for a country where the No. 1 priority in the private sector is job creation? I don't think so. Congress roundly and soundly rejected the House-passed--at least the Senate rejected it, and this Congress would reject the House-passed cap-and-trade idea that came from the administration. Now the EPA is trying to circumvent the will of the legislature by imposing cap-and- trade results with things such as the transport rule and the utility MACT rule. Unfortunately, these burdensome regulations will have the impact the President predicted; they will raise utility bills. Higher electricity rates mean a higher cost of doing business. There is no doubt the higher costs will be passed down to families across America. There is no doubt the higher costs will cost jobs. If we stand by and allow the EPA to impose these job-destroying regulations, job creators, families, seniors, and small business owners will be hit by a costly tax hike that comes in the utility bill. We should not allow this to happen. I intend to vote for this proposal that would say this is not going to be a rule that becomes law, and I urge my colleagues to do the same. Remembering Mel Hancock Mr. President, I wish to talk about a champion for a better and smaller government and an opponent of all job-killing regulations, and, in addition, a good friend and adviser of mine, someone whom many of us served with in the House, Mel Hancock, who was my predecessor in the House, where he served four terms because that was his pledge--that was the most he would serve. He was much more than a politician. Mel Hancock was truly the ``citizen legislator,'' the individual who got into government only to make government better. Mel learned the ins and outs of the political system and developed a philosophy about taxes and government long before he came to Congress and, frankly, long before that philosophy became the philosophy that is so prevalent today. Living in rural Stone County, MO, Mel Hancock had a profound influence from his father, John Hancock, and John Hancock spoke about his concerns about a growing and intrusive Federal Government. ``The power to tax is the power to destroy,'' Mel remembered hearing his father say. Mel didn't hold public office until 1989. He sold farm equipment while in college and spent 10 years in the insurance business, where he became well known to many small business owners. In 1969, he started his own business called Federal Protection, Inc. In 1977, when proposition 13 passed in California, he became the person who drove that issue in our State. One year later, in 1978, Mel and his wife Sug joined a small group around their kitchen table and formed a group that began to fight the idea of an overregulating, overtaxing government. In 1980, in our State, voters passed what was called the Hancock amendment. That was one of the first State tax limitation amendments in the United States. Mel Hancock developed this amendment using a formula that limits total State revenue and expenses in Missouri to a percentage of personal income of residents in the State. It also required new local taxes, licenses or fees to be approved by voters in political subdivisions. His public service didn't stop there. He ran for Congress when our local Congressman retired. He announced his candidacy and won in a crowded primary. As part of that campaign, Mel declared his intention to serve only a brief amount of time. In fact, he went on to be an advocate for term limits for the Missouri State legislature as well. During his first three terms in the Congress, he served in the minority. But a sea change in 1994 took him to the majority, but it didn't change his pledge to be there only four terms. He got exactly what he wanted in the new Congress--a seat on the Ways and Means Committee. He walked away from that 2 years later, keeping his pledge to Missourians. As a lifelong Republican, Mel built a reputation that reminded many of another Missourian, as his campaign theme became ``Give 'em Mel.'' Through his work in Washington and Missouri, he was decidedly ahead of his time. He rolled up his sleeves and went to work, taking the initiative to protect citizens and taxpayers from unrestricted taxes and the power of government, and he always remembered where he came from. Mel was, first and foremost, devoted to his family, his wife Sug, whom he always called the boss, and his greatest pride was his children--Lee, Lu Ann, and Kim--and later grandchildren. He went right to work here. Mel became part of Washington. He often said that every day in America we decide between more government and less freedom or more freedom and less government. Mel Hancock could be counted on to always be on the side of more freedom. I didn't go to his memorial service today because I decided the best way to recognize his legacy was to be here and vote against these two rules that he certainly would oppose if he was still in the Congress. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, we don't use the Congressional Review Act often. In fact, I think we have only used it once successfully. But the regulators are working at a breakneck pace, and I think the overreach we see in this rule and some others that are coming out right now really requires the Congress to pay attention, requires us to revisit the reason the Congress gave itself the ability to look at rules and regulations and see if they make sense. Simply put, on this regulation, the Federal Communications Commission lacked the legal standing to produce the order we are debating today. The net neutrality order the FCC enacted is not based on the facts or on the law. In fact, I have yet to hear credible defense of why we would want to have this massive regulatory burden. In fact, we have talked about net neutrality for several years now, and the definition continues to change because the free marketplace has driven the innovation beyond every debate we have had. The marketplace where people invest and grow the Internet and access to that Internet has meant that as soon as a debate would be engaged on this issue of so- called net neutrality, it no longer mattered. I think that is what we see here as well. But it will begin to matter if we begin to manage the Internet in a way that slows down investment, that slows down innovation. Three years ago, the FCC attempted to reach far beyond any legislative mandate they had to regulate the Internet through a rule. Last year, a Federal court struck down that rule, saying the Commission had no authority to do so. Now we find ourselves debating a measure which in a roundabout way attempts to accomplish the same end with a result that might be disguised in some other way. The Commission is using a provision of the Communications Act, which was enacted to allow the FCC to ``remove barriers to infrastructure investment.'' Why would we want to do that? Why would we want to remove barriers to infrastructure investment? Why would we have passed that law? Because we want to encourage infrastructure investment by removing barriers. The basis the FCC is using was actually deregulatory, not regulatory. They are basing this on a law that said they could do something 180 degrees different from what this rule would do. Repeated government economic analysis has reached the same conclusion: There is no concentration; there are no abuses of market power in the broadband space. And even if there were, we have a lot of laws to deal with that. We have antitrust laws. We have consumer protection laws. There are plenty of ways to approach that if it happens, but nobody thinks it is happening. The Commission, like many other Federal agencies, has often been put in a position where one industry competitor is being asked for a regulation that somehow would benefit them in their competition with somebody else. This order would greatly increase the frequency of those requests. This order puts the FCC in a position of constantly having to monitor new innovations on the Internet. One of the FCC Commissioners who didn't agree with this order clearly laid out the dissent when he said this. This is a quote from Commissioner McDowell: Using these new rules as a weapon, politically favored companies will be able to pressure three political appointees to regulate their rivals to gain competitive advantages. Litigation will subplant innovation. Instead of investing in tomorrow's technologies, precious capital will be diverted to pay lawyers' fees. The era of Internet regulatory arbitrage has dawned, and to say that today's rules don't regulate the Internet is like saying that regulating highway on-ramps, off-ramps, and its pavement doesn't equate to regulating the highways themselves. In releasing the net neutrality order, the FCC charted itself on a collision course with the legislative branch as well as with the Federal judiciary, which has already struck down a similar attempt to regulate this sector by the FCC. They stated unequivocally in that attempt that the FCC lacked the standing to do so. This is a solution that is really searching for a problem. Let me guarantee that whatever anybody thinks the problem is right now, that will not be the problem 6 months from now unless we figure out how to slow down innovation in this area and suddenly we are dealing in a static environment instead of a dynamic environment. Even if there were a legal basis for this legislation, we still cannot get away from the fact that it is a massive and unnecessary overreach into the private sector, which has thrived while our overall economy has slowed and stalled. In 2003, only 15 percent of Americans had access to broadband. According to the Commission's own National Broadband Plan, last year 95 percent of Americans had access to broadband. Between 2003 to 2010, 15 percent to 95 percent--it sounds to me as if that access is doing what you want it to do and occurring how you want it to occur. Fixed and mobile broadband Internet access, expanded and improved upon by the private sector, is the fastest growing technology in history. In only 7 years, 95 percent of Americans got to where 15 percent were 7 years earlier. Competition in this field is robust. Technology advances, network buildout, and infrastructure improvements are happening quickly, to the tune of billions of dollars of investment and innovation and an ever- expanding array of applications for consumers. More competition is on the way as providers make use of increased amounts of spectrum coming online and lay new networks of fiber to connect Americans in rural areas in the country. The telecommunications sector contributes more than $60 billion annually to our economy. Net neutrality would slow that down. With the order that was set forth, the Commission will begin to speculate on what might happen as opposed to what clearly is happening. First, the kind of anticompetitive action the Commission seeks to remedy is already illegal. Second, the competition in this space is far too fierce. Their rule is far too repressive. Most Americans already have two options for wired broadband access at work or at home, and the number of wireless competitors available is exponentially higher. No government has ever succeeded in mandating investment and innovation, and until this order nothing has held back Internet investment and innovation in this country, and that is why it has done so well. Broadband buildout is a thriving success story on which virtually all Americans now count. We now even take it for granted. It is incumbent upon us to look at this rule to understand the negative impact it will have on a thriving way to communicate, to do business, and to talk to each other, and to reject this rule and let this system continue to develop with the same innovation, the same intensity, and the same incredible success it has had in the past 7 years. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I join with my friend from New York to discuss the needs of our National Guard. We are introducing two important pieces of legislation today that I believe will help address those needs. I have always been a strong supporter of our brave men and women of the Missouri National Guard, who contribute greatly to the safety and security of our country. Those who serve or who have served deserve America's deepest respect and must receive the resources they need when they come home. Since the events of September 11, 2001, the men and women of the Missouri National Guard have answered the call of our Nation by volunteering to go into harm's way. Many of our soldiers and airmen in the National Guard have been deployed numerous times, working and training side by side with our active duty members. As you can imagine, multiple deployments take a toll on both our guardsmen and women and their families. The Missouri National Guard is an emergency response force for disasters readiness and relief. They have responded to a wide range of State and national emergencies including flooding, tornadoes and even hurricanes on the Gulf Coast. During the historic floods this summer, the Missouri Guard had more than 600 guardsmen serving 14 counties across Missouri to assist with flood relief. After the devastating tornado in Joplin, MO, the 1-138 Infantry Regiment helped to remove debris and assisted in gathering and provided information for those seeking local, State and Federal resources. Members of 1139 Military Police Battalion helped to aid law enforcement officers with traffic control and security. As part of their Federal mission, from 2008-2009 our Missouri National Guard deployed more than 1,000 citizen-soldiers to Kosovo, and in 2009 we deployed 2,352 soldiers and 1,670 Airmen to support overseas contingency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Currently 1,101 Missouri Guardsmen are deployed. After serving admirably in their tours, our Guardsmen and women return home, yet they do not always receive the resources they need to provide for themselves and their families. The National Guard Outreach Act of 2011, introduced by Senator Gillibrand, will help to correct this deficiency. The active Army health plans only cover service men and women for 6 months after they have returned from their deployments. For many, this time period is spent simply adjusting back to civilian life. Studies show the real stress of combat and separation from one's family takes its toll on our service members and their loved ones for up to two years after they return home. Over the past several years, Congress has extended the coverage for returning National Guard soldiers with money from Overseas Contingency Operations funding, better known around here as supplementals. Since this funding is being normalized, I believe it's important that we continue to provide for the needs of our returning citizen-soldiers. The National Guard Outreach Act of 2011 would help to provide those returning home with secure health services, marriage and financial counseling, substance abuse treatment and other services necessary to aid in a smooth transition for those returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Undiagnosed illnesses, left untreated, have long-lasting social, emotional and financial impacts long after service members are reintegrated into a community. Many Guardsmen and women today lack health insurance and go without health care as well as behavioral health care. I thank Senator Gillibrand for introducing this legislation and for working with me on the bill. I am also introducing the National Guard Employment Protection Act of 2011 to amend the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994, USERRA, to authorize the Secretary of Defense to include Full Time National Guard Duty for possible exemption from the USERRA 5- year limit on service. These exemptions cover service during a time of war or national emergency, support of missions where others have been ordered to duty under an involuntary call-up authority, and for other critical missions or requirements. Usually, certain types of active duty service are exempted from the five-year reemployment limit under USERRA. However, the needs of today have left our Guardsmen and women performing duties which are not covered under the USERRA, forcing Guard units to return to duty much sooner than usual. This, in turn, keeps service members away for longer periods of time, often beyond the 5-year limit. When National Guardsmen and women are working side by side with their Active Duty counterparts supporting critical active duty missions, they should not be forced to decide between keeping their civilian jobs and supporting critical national security missions. At no time in America's history has the National Guard played such a critical role in the defense and security of our homeland, both as partners with our active forces and allies on the continuing War on Terror and as a critical component of homeland emergency preparedness and disaster response. We must make sure all of our Nation's heroes can fulfill their missions without worrying about supporting their families when returning home. As a Nation, we must honor our men and women in uniform, providing them with the resources they need, both in combat and when they return home to their families and civilian lives. This is why I am proud to play a lead role in supporting the National Guard Employment Protection Act of 2011 and the National Guard Outreach Act.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I join with my friend from New York to discuss the needs of our National Guard. We are introducing two important pieces of legislation today that I believe will help address those needs. I have always been a strong supporter of our brave men and women of the Missouri National Guard, who contribute greatly to the safety and security of our country. Those who serve or who have served deserve America's deepest respect and must receive the resources they need when they come home. Since the events of September 11, 2001, the men and women of the Missouri National Guard have answered the call of our Nation by volunteering to go into harm's way. Many of our soldiers and airmen in the National Guard have been deployed numerous times, working and training side by side with our active duty members. As you can imagine, multiple deployments take a toll on both our guardsmen and women and their families. The Missouri National Guard is an emergency response force for disasters readiness and relief. They have responded to a wide range of State and national emergencies including flooding, tornadoes and even hurricanes on the Gulf Coast. During the historic floods this summer, the Missouri Guard had more than 600 guardsmen serving 14 counties across Missouri to assist with flood relief. After the devastating tornado in Joplin, MO, the 1-138 Infantry Regiment helped to remove debris and assisted in gathering and provided information for those seeking local, State and Federal resources. Members of 1139 Military Police Battalion helped to aid law enforcement officers with traffic control and security. As part of their Federal mission, from 2008-2009 our Missouri National Guard deployed more than 1,000 citizen-soldiers to Kosovo, and in 2009 we deployed 2,352 soldiers and 1,670 Airmen to support overseas contingency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Currently 1,101 Missouri Guardsmen are deployed. After serving admirably in their tours, our Guardsmen and women return home, yet they do not always receive the resources they need to provide for themselves and their families. The National Guard Outreach Act of 2011, introduced by Senator Gillibrand, will help to correct this deficiency. The active Army health plans only cover service men and women for 6 months after they have returned from their deployments. For many, this time period is spent simply adjusting back to civilian life. Studies show the real stress of combat and separation from one's family takes its toll on our service members and their loved ones for up to two years after they return home. Over the past several years, Congress has extended the coverage for returning National Guard soldiers with money from Overseas Contingency Operations funding, better known around here as supplementals. Since this funding is being normalized, I believe it's important that we continue to provide for the needs of our returning citizen-soldiers. The National Guard Outreach Act of 2011 would help to provide those returning home with secure health services, marriage and financial counseling, substance abuse treatment and other services necessary to aid in a smooth transition for those returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Undiagnosed illnesses, left untreated, have long-lasting social, emotional and financial impacts long after service members are reintegrated into a community. Many Guardsmen and women today lack health insurance and go without health care as well as behavioral health care. I thank Senator Gillibrand for introducing this legislation and for working with me on the bill. I am also introducing the National Guard Employment Protection Act of 2011 to amend the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994, USERRA, to authorize the Secretary of Defense to include Full Time National Guard Duty for possible exemption from the USERRA 5- year limit on service. These exemptions cover service during a time of war or national emergency, support of missions where others have been ordered to duty under an involuntary call-up authority, and for other critical missions or requirements. Usually, certain types of active duty service are exempted from the five-year reemployment limit under USERRA. However, the needs of today have left our Guardsmen and women performing duties which are not covered under the USERRA, forcing Guard units to return to duty much sooner than usual. This, in turn, keeps service members away for longer periods of time, often beyond the 5-year limit. When National Guardsmen and women are working side by side with their Active Duty counterparts supporting critical active duty missions, they should not be forced to decide between keeping their civilian jobs and supporting critical national security missions. At no time in America's history has the National Guard played such a critical role in the defense and security of our homeland, both as partners with our active forces and allies on the continuing War on Terror and as a critical component of homeland emergency preparedness and disaster response. We must make sure all of our Nation's heroes can fulfill their missions without worrying about supporting their families when returning home. As a Nation, we must honor our men and women in uniform, providing them with the resources they need, both in combat and when they return home to their families and civilian lives. This is why I am proud to play a lead role in supporting the National Guard Employment Protection Act of 2011 and the National Guard Outreach Act.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, over the past year, Missouri and the entire country have faced numerous natural disasters that devastated the livelihoods of people in our communities. As we work to rebuild, the scope of these events has placed unusual logistical and financial pressures on rebuilding efforts. Disaster community development block grants provide communities with vital short-term and long-term recovery funds that pick up where FEMA funding leaves off. The $400 million that is included in the transportation; housing and urban development appropriations bill is a step in the right direction. I am thankful for the opportunity to join with Chairman Murray, Ranking Member Collins and my other colleagues in expressing the importance of these funds for the communities rebuilding after disaster. I look forward to continuing our work together to make sure that disaster community development block grants get the funds necessary to meet disaster needs in Missouri and throughout the country.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on this infrastructure jobs bill, and actually I think my good friend from Minnesota has done a great job of explaining why we need to be focused on infrastructure. I think if I was going to summarize my comments, as they might compare with hers, they would be that we need to be focused on the longer term problem. We certainly do have a committee that is working on a 2-year bill, and here we are spending time today talking about a bill that I think is likely not to happen. Even if it did happen, would it be better than a 2-year bill? Of course not. Does it do anything better than the traditional infrastructure focus of the country that includes communities and cities and States instead of Federal bureaucrats? Of course it does not. We need to be focused on the right thing, at the right time. The top concern on American minds today is righting our Nation's economy, having an economy that creates private sector jobs. While we take different approaches to addressing this issue, I think the Congress is genuinely united in understanding what the goal should be; we just have such a difference of opinion as to how to get there. What role does infrastructure play in private sector job creation and competition? It plays a critical role. In fact, it is one of the few places where the Federal Government actually can take actions that specifically create private sector jobs. Roads and bridges are maintained and kept clean and kept open and supervised by State and local authorities, but they are built by private sector contractors. So that is a good thing. The question is, What is the best way to get there? Unfortunately, we are 2 years removed from the expiration of the last surface transportation bill, and we are talking in the Transportation Committee--I am told; I am not on that committee--I know Chairman Boxer and the ranking Republican, Mr. Inhofe, are talking about how you can have another 2-year extension of that bill. It is unfortunate we are not talking about the 4- or 5- or 6-year surface transportation bill we have traditionally talked about because that is the kind of time it takes to really make a project that matters work. We have been holding the surface transportation bill together with duct tape and Super Glue for a couple of years now, and the last time we did this, in September, we extended that bill for 6 months. The President frankly began to put his energy behind this different proposal that I have lots of concerns about. But I have even greater concerns about the fact that the energy and focus is there instead of on how do we get at least a 2-year extension of a transportation bill, a surface transportation bill that would work. I said we were holding the bill together--the legislation together-- by duct tape and Super Glue. Unfortunately, that is how we are also holding the transportation system together, because you cannot have the Eisenhower vision that was mentioned earlier of an interstate system, you cannot have an Eisenhower vision that has a 6-month shelf life or a 6-month window of opportunity. If you are going to have that kind of system put in place, you have to have a system that is put in place with an understanding that this is an ongoing program, that we have ongoing sources of funding, that we have an ongoing ability to contract. That is why we need to be talking about the best way to find new and innovative ideas to invest in our infrastructure development. I am increasingly concerned that this legislation we are talking about today takes a short-term ``Federal bureaucrat knows best'' approach, rather than the approach we have had good success with in the country when we were building roads and bridges and airports and infrastructure in ways that mattered. In all of our home States, certainly in my home State of Missouri, community leaders and job creators tell me that they are clearly looking for more certainty of how to create jobs. They need the ability to look beyond 3 or 6 months in order to plan and anticipate investment levels to expand their operations. We need to make smart investments in our Nation's infrastructure so people who build infrastructure can look forward with certainty, and communities that are dependent on infrastructure can look forward with certainty, and a business that is thinking about making a job-expanding commitment to a community knows what the highway plan is for the decade, not for the next day. We have to get there, and you cannot get there 6 months at a time. This piecemeal approach, including the continuing resolution, and the so-called stimulus bill, and other things that postpone other efforts for communities to get funding, the whole idea of an infrastructure bank that would go for projects that had some ability to pay for themselves--when you ask questions about that, nobody knows what that means. Nobody knows why. If these things have an ability to pay for themselves, States could bond them out tomorrow. If you have a revenue stream that will pay off the building of a bridge, if you figured out how to create that revenue stream, States could issue that bond right now. The only reason to have a Federal infrastructure bank is because the infrastructure bank is insolvent and not planned to be solvent, and only the Federal Government can give it the credibility it needs so it can ever possibly be used. But that is not the long-term solution to infrastructure. As we have witnessed in recent months, the President's idea of a jobs plan apparently is focused on holding press conferences in front of bridges--he had one today--to sell the idea that another stimulus bill will create more jobs. How does the President ever expect shovel-ready projects to be shovel ready? They only get to be shovel ready if you have a lot of time to plan and you know what the funding source is, and you know how you are going to not just start the project but complete the project--bridge replacement and major infrastructure investment and critical projects. But if this bill does become law, 10 percent of the money, the Congressional Budget Office estimates, would be spent between now and September 30 of next year. So this is no economic recovery plan. It is also no long-term highway plan. And 10 percent of the money spent in the next 11 months is not what it takes to get this job done. Of course, 50 percent of that--of all of the money--would be spent by the Federal highway department rather than allocated, as we have allocated Federal highway money since the 1950s, back to the States with incentives for them to match that money and to do the best they could to have a fair distribution of highway and surface transportation money across the country. These piecemeal solutions will not work. There are many examples of communities that are facing challenges and they want to know how that question is going to be met. In Washington, MO--not Washington, DC, but Washington, MO--there is an 80-year-old bridge that goes across the Missouri River. It needs to be replaced. It has needed to be replaced for some time now. But are we going to let the President of the United States decide if that is the bridge we replace? There are some things that the President should not decide. The President is without any question in the best position to decide what is the best way to go into Abbottabad and get Osama bin Laden. The President is not in the best position to decide what are the bridges to be built between Kentucky and Ohio. I know he likes to give that example a lot because the Republican Senate leader is from Kentucky and the Republican Speaker of the House is from Ohio. And he says, we need a bridge between Ohio and Kentucky. That may actually be true. But the President of the United States is not the best person to solve that problem. The best people to solve that problem are the people in Kentucky and Ohio who get their gas tax money, their transportation money, whatever kind of funding we can figure out meets the needs of the future and say, here is our 10-year plan. Here is how we are going to fund our 10-year plan. In year one we are going to do the bridge planning for which of these bridge possibilities we need. In year two we are going to plan the bridge we decided we needed. In year three we are going to build the bridge. Maybe by year six or seven someone is using the bridge. This is the idea. These ideas, these short-term solutions, simply do not work. State departments of transportation are hesitant to commit to long- term projects without the assurances of a funding stream in the future. The President's bus tour will not provide individuals with more certainty, but instead a long-term investment plan would work to answer these questions. We need a clear Federal infrastructure blueprint to help county commissioners, to help contractors and cities, to help statewide departments of transportation lay the groundwork to plan, to assess local needs, to hire more employees, to make the decisions necessary to encourage economic growth. In addition to the short-term approach that I think this bill has, I am concerned with some of the policies included in this proposal. With the increased funding for discretionary proposals, grant programs such as the Federal TIGER grants and now the infrastructure bank, the message being sent to the States is that Washington bureaucrats will set the priorities. Our entire infrastructure network is in desperate need of comprehensive updating that refuses to be put off any longer. We need to refocus all our efforts on the modes of transportation, the flexibility between them. Why we continue to rely on fragmented programs makes no sense to me or lots of other people. The answer is not to continue writing blank checks to the administration and then hoping that the people who will make the decision--with zero accountability, frankly--will somehow make that in the best interests of all of our States. We need to do the hard work of crafting and investing in a formula that works for the future. Chairman Boxer and Ranking Member Inhofe have been working hard putting together a new reauthorization bill. I wish that were a 6-year bill, not a 2-year bill. But I tell you, a 2-year bill has far greater possibilities for success than a 6-month bill that will go away before it is able to do any good. I look forward to starting the work. I hope we can stop taking time on things that will not work and start solving the problems that have to be solved for the country, that have private sector job recovery that we need to be prepared for the next century, as people in this body worked in the 1950s to see that we could be prepared for the last 50 years of the last century. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I wish to take a moment to thank Senator Kohl. The comments the majority leader made about him were certainly proven right in all of our relationships. I thank him for his guidance and encouragement throughout this process. We have had open communication and worked together to address the amendments brought forward by our colleagues. While we didn't agree on every single thing in the bill, we certainly agreed to be agreeable about that and see if we couldn't produce a work product people have a right to expect of the Senate. So the passage of these three bills is significant. I certainly wish to thank Senator Kohl's staff--Galen Fountain, Jessica Frederick, Dianne Nellor, and Bob Ross--for their contributions, and I thank my staff: Stacy McBride, Mary Koskinen, Brian Diffel, Zach Kinne, and Christina Weger. Because this has been a process that has involved two other subcommittees, I wish to express my thanks to my colleagues for their hard work and cooperation on the other parts of this bill: Senators Mikulski and Hutchison and their staffs on the Commerce, Justice, Science Subcommittee and Senators Murray and Collins and their staffs on the Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development. The floor staff has worked hard over the course of the last several days. Often, that work goes unnoticed. But managing this bill has not been easy. It was a little different from many of the appropriations bills that have been brought to the Senate floor, and certainly the floor staff has been of tremendous help to me and to the committee staff. This has been a long process. A dozen amendments that affect the agriculture division of this bill have been accepted over the course of the debate. I am glad we have had an open debate and hope we can swiftly move to conference with the House and send this work product on to the President so that we can get these appropriations processes started as close to the regular time as we possibly can, based on the moment in which we find ourselves, and look forward to working with the Appropriations Committee as we bring other bills to the floor. Again, I close my remarks on this bill by expressing my personal appreciation to Senator Kohl and his willingness to work with a new Member of the Senate in putting this product together and bringing this bill to the floor.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. I move to lay the motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 763

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I note the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, yesterday, around 5:30 or so, we had all kinds of Members who suddenly wanted to come over and talk about their amendments. Now is an opportunity to talk about these three appropriations bills. The floor is open. There are a number of pending amendments. Hopefully, Members will come over and offer amendments or talk about the amendments they have offered. We want to move through this legislation as quickly as we can but, actually, no quicker than we need to. There is plenty of time. If Members want to talk about this bill, if they want to support the bill or oppose the bill or maybe more likely right now come and talk about the significant number of pending amendments, this is a good time to do that. I suppose the other thing I could and should talk about that I know the Chair would be happy with would be the great Cardinals victory last night. Even the cushions in the back of the Chamber seem to be a little brighter red today than they normally are. So maybe the Texans need to come and talk about their amendments and talk about the Rangers. But I will say that the Cardinals team, from the last week or so of August until right now, has been one of the true miracles of baseball history--going from 10\1/2\ games to even qualifying to be the wildcard in the playoffs and almost every game from that moment on having the sense that this is the intensity of the final game of the season. All Cardinals fans are proud. There is quite a bit of red on today here on the Senate floor. There is another Cardinals game tonight, and I wouldn't mind watching some of it. My best chance of doing that is if Members will come over here and talk about their pending amendments now and defend those amendments. It seems to me as though this week the Senate has been working as the Senate should work--bringing appropriations bills to the floor, debating those bills, letting Members propose amendments--and hopefully we will continue with these bills: the Agriculture, Rural Development, and Food and Drug Administration bill Senator Kohl and I brought to the floor; the Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development bill; the Commerce-State-Justice bill--I think it may be Commerce-Justice now. So we have a lot of topics. We don't want to let this appropriations process go to one huge bill that nobody understands, nobody has time to read, and nobody has time to debate. So hopefully, with all of these pending amendments, we will have some discussion. We have had a number of votes already today, but a number of Members have things they would like to see discussed and voted on, and hopefully we will begin to see more of that happen. With that, it does appear we don't have a quorum yet or other Members to speak, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. I thank my colleagues for bringing amendments to the floor on the Agriculture bill and also on the other two bills we are dealing with, Transportation and Housing and Urban Development, and Commerce- Justice-State. We have had a vigorous debate over the past few days. We will have further votes today, and I think we will have further amendments today. We look forward to our colleagues continuing to come to the floor to debate these amendments. I hope we can continue working together to produce a bipartisan piece of legislation that becomes the first appropriations bill, as such, that we hopefully will be able to complete with the House. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I wish to talk about a bill that I believe and hope----

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, the bill I hope we get to tonight is part of the President's jobs package. It would repeal an action taken by the Congress a few years ago that I think has proven to be a harmful decision on the part of the Federal Government. This would repeal the 3-percent withholding tax, which has a dramatic impact on anybody who does business with the government. That includes local governments and State governments and anyone who contracts with the government--and the government basically pays 97 percent of the bill. The President, rightly, pointed out that one of the things we can do to get more money in the economy--and in many cases, simply to create profit where profit is not there otherwise--there are government projects for many businesses, and the profit margin is less than 3 percent on big projects. There is only so much work one can do to stay in business. If a person is not making money, they cannot stay in the business of doing what they are doing. So for those large projects that have a huge overall number, often the profit doesn't even equal the 3- percent withholding, and businesses have determined they cannot do that. Obviously, it impacts the bidding process for Federal work. The tax revenue generated by this mandate is thought to be only around $200 million a year, and that $200 million left in the economy, left in the bidding process, left in the granting process could make a real difference. The only thing this job-killing tax increase does is delay recovery and stop us from getting on with the business of making American private sector job creation a reality. The repeal is strongly supported by dozens of groups, including the Farm Bureau, the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business, the National League of Cities, the Corn Growers Association, the Associated General Contractors, the American Trucking Association, Associated Builders and Contractors, and the Federation of American Hospitals. Think about that group, and the fact that you have the Federation of American Hospitals, the National League of Cities, and the Corn Growers Association. This must be a government policy that has broad impact on lots of different segments of the economy. It is not all that unusual to see the National Manufacturers Association or the Chamber of Commerce or the National Federation of Independent Business on a list supporting a bill. But when they are on the list with the other people I mentioned, plus the truckers and the Associated Builders and Contractors, something must be happening. And why have all of these groups come together and said let's support this part of that package? Medicare payments to hospitals and individual physicians will be affected when this goes into effect in January of 2013. Medicare payments to individuals and hospitals will have 3 percent withholding. This causes a lot of cashflow problems for both the physician and for the hospital. Farm payments. Even loan deficiency payments, beginning January 1, 2013. You get 97 percent of the partial solution to the problem you already have. Grants for for-profit companies, regardless of whether they are State or Federal, will have 3 percent withheld. Grants, by their definition, are allocated to an entity for a specific purpose, such as research. And if you have a research budget that is grant dependent, what happens if you get 97 percent of the budget? Do you get 97 percent of the solution or does that mean you never get to the full solution? What if the grant is for a facility of some kind or a delivery of a service? What happens when you can only deliver 97 percent of that? And again, back to these big construction projects, where 3 percent withholding may be more than the profit. This is one of the pieces of the President's jobs bill that I and others wish to see become a reality so that people could look out a year from now and not have to begin to plan on what happens when you only get 97 percent of what you expected it would cost to complete a job or to complete a project. I believe we are going to be able to vote on this later this evening. I think we are going to have that opportunity, and I urge my colleagues to vote on it. I think it is one of those things, if we actually let it occur in the first of January 2013, people would wonder: Why couldn't they figure out during the interim period of time when this was passed and was going to go into effect that no matter what the intention was this will not work? In a bipartisan way, we should step forward and clarify this problem before it becomes a real problem with real consequences and, in fact, probably already having an impact on bidding, on requesting grants, and on other things. People are probably already beginning to think about what happens if this project is agreed to or approved or our bid is accepted for work that would be done beyond 2012. I see my friend from Illinois is not here, and until he gets back, seeing no one else on the floor, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw McCain amendment No. 741.

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

Mr. BLUNT. With that, it appears that there is not a quorum.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator DeMint, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and offer amendments Nos. 763 and 764 en bloc.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I object on behalf of Senator Hatch and Senator Isakson.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I join my good friend in suggesting we would like to see our colleagues come over here. These three appropriations bills are being handled on the floor and they are open to amendment. We haven't had appropriations bills on the floor of the Senate in this way in quite a while. We would like to get these bills done. Hopefully, we can get these bills done maybe even this week and send them on over to the House to talk about these bills and their bills--3 bills, 16 amendments, and those aren't all the amendments we expect to be offered. But we hope these amendments are offered today--a significant number--and as the Senator from Maryland said earlier, we expect votes on some of these amendments around 6 o'clock. Between now and then, we look forward to a vigorous debate on as many of these as the sponsors can come and debate. But the Agriculture bill that I am the ranking member of; the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development bill, which the Senator represents so well; and the Commerce-State-Justice bill are all bills that are moving forward in as close to a regular process as we have had in a while. We look forward to seeing these amendments debated this afternoon and some of them--as many of them as possible--voted on this afternoon and this evening.

Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to temporarily set aside the pending amendment to offer the Grassley amendment No. 860.