Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and I ask for its immediate consideration.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I won't take the 4 minutes, but I had asked for 4 in the unanimous consent request.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mrs. BOXER. As you can tell from the clerk's reading, it is a very straightforward amendment. What I am offering in this amendment is to recommend to my colleagues we strike out the liability waiver granted to the makers of ethanol. The purpose is stated very clearly in the beginning. It says: To ensure that ethanol is treated like all other motor vehicle fuels and that taxpayers and local governments do not have to pay for environmental damage caused by ethanol. The amendment before the Senate, to which I have authored this second-degree amendment, brings, once again, to the Senate an ethanol mandate. Some think mandates of ethanol are a good idea. Others think it is a bad idea. I hope we all agree taxpayers and local communities should not have to pay to clean up any mess caused by ethanol. The point of the bill is to force States--whether they want to or not, frankly--to utilize more and more ethanol, not as a crowning blow to the States that did not want to do this, by virtue of the fact there is a safe harbor for ethanol, meaning that no liability can be found for the makers of ethanol, but we are saying to cities, States, and communities, even if you do not want to use it, A, you are forced to use it; and, B, if there is a problem, we, the ethanol makers, will not be there to help you. It will fall to the local communities to pick up the tab. A lot of people say ethanol is totally safe. I ask a commonsense question to the people of the United States of America who are going to have to make sure they are pumping their cars with ethanol in greater and greater proportion: If it is so safe, why are the companies seeking a liability exemption? I have been around enough years to know if somebody says, Step right up, step right up, try this product; this product is completely safe; it can bring no harm to you; it is perfect, never a problem; but, by the way, before you ingest it or use it, sign a form that says you won't hold us responsible if you choke or you get cancer or you die. If somebody does that to you, I will say as the daughter of a lawyer, the wife of a lawyer, and the mom of a lawyer, do not sign away your rights. Do not sign away your rights. A light bulb should go on: What is wrong with this picture? If this product is so safe, why should I sign this liability waiver? That is what is happening in this bill. We have had a vote on this before, and we have gotten anywhere from between 38 and 42 votes. It is important to go on the record again. Why do I say that? We have had a terrible problem with MTBE where, thank goodness, there was no safe harbor. Communities such as Santa Monica and Lake Tahoe, communities in New Hampshire, and all across this country have been able to go back and hold the companies accountable for MTBE. The courts have said yes, communities, you have a right to hold these companies accountable for the damage done by MTBE. Now we have a new mandate--ethanol. My colleagues who love ethanol, who want ethanol, who dream of ethanol morning, noon, and night--and this is not a partisan issue; it cuts across party lines--are giving the makers of ethanol a pass. This is a special interest loophole. The exemption language starts off with this: ``Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal or State law''--and then they talk about the waiver. When you see that in the bill, put up your antenna. It raises red flags. You know then the public is losing rights. ``Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal or State law''--and then they do harm and put the waiver in there. It goes on to say that renewable fuels--that is ethanol--cannot be found to be defectively designed or manufactured. This is the Senate of the United States of America. I did not know we were expert scientists and doctors who deal with environmental damage. We are saying renewable fuels--ethanol--cannot be found to be defectively designed or manufactured. Compliance with laws and regulations is not necessary to getting the liability waiver except for limited compliance requirements under the Clean Air Act. My colleagues are going to say--I am sure the Senators from North Dakota, from Oklahoma--Senator Boxer is wrong. This is a narrow waiver. Not true. The special interests and the people who represent ethanol will say the waiver is not really broad. It only protects these makers of ethanol from one type of lawsuit. But let me state the type of lawsuit they are protected against. It is the only lawsuit that has standing in the courts of the United States of America. How do we know this? Look at MTBE. Lake Tahoe won their MTBE suit. Why? Because they were able to use the defective product liability claim. The judge, as a matter of fact, threw out the negligence claim, the nuisance claim. So when my colleagues get up here and say, Senator Boxer is exaggerating, we are not throwing out the ability of people to sue-- yes, we are because the only pathway for the public, for our cities, for our counties, for our States to hold people accountable for a defective product is the defective product cause of action. Losing that right to bring defective product liability lets the polluters off the hook entirely. Again, I will talk about a San Francisco jury in a landmark case decided in April of 2002. The jury found that based on the theory that MTBE is a defective product, several major oil companies are legally responsible for the environmental harm to Lake Tahoe's groundwater. The jury also found many of these major oil companies acted with malice because they were aware of the dangers but withheld information. We did not have this safe harbor provision when MTBE was, essentially, mandated. Therefore, my communities in California and communities across the country are able to recover the damages. Not so with ethanol. The makers of ethanol have made sure they are going to be covered and protected. It is an embarrassment we would do this. This is the place we are supposed to protect the public interest. This is the place we are supposed to protect our people from defective products, not put in language that waives all the ability of people to sue on a defective product claim. It is a scary thought if this were in place for MTBE--by the way, there is still a move to do that on MTBE, which is another issue for another day. It is a scary thought if we had done this for MTBE. My people in Lake Tahoe, the good people there, could be left holding the bag, and your towns and cities could be left holding the bag. If ethanol harms public health or the environment, the loophole in the Energy bill risks leaving our communities with a mess. Polluters, not taxpayers or victims of pollution, should pay for harm to public health and the environment. When gasoline leaks today, there is no loophole. The polluter pays. Why should the oil companies and the ethanol producers get off the hook if they cause harm? They should not. So again, you are going to hear a lot of doubletalk when people stand up. They are going to first say ethanol is safe, there is no problem. And I say you say to them: If ethanol is so safe and you feel so comfortable with it, why do you need a liability waiver for the makers of ethanol? And then they are going to say: Oh, don't worry, we are only saying you can't sue because of a defective product. That is all. You can still sue for nuisance, negligence, all the other things, when, in fact, we know from legal history that the only claim that has standing here is a defective product lawsuit. Now, to talk about ethanol's safety--Mr. President, I ask, how many minutes do I have of my 15, please?

Mrs. BOXER. My understanding, after that, I have 15 minutes at this point; is that correct?

Mrs. BOXER. Yes.

Mrs. BOXER. I want to make sure, since it is my amendment--I don't want to lose total control of this. I would like to get to close after I have heard the opposition. I would love to have 2 minutes to rebut. If I could have 15 minutes to speak in favor of the amendment, have my colleagues lay out the argument against it, and if I could have 4 minutes to wind up, that will be good for me.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, today we in the Senate are finally apologizing to the descendants of the nearly 5,000 victims of lynching, primarily African Americans, for our failure to enact antilynching legislation. Even though the House of Representatives passed three strong antilynching measures between 1920 and 1940, the Senate filibustered all of those measures. This was wrong, and this resolution is long overdue. Lynching, a widely acknowledged practice that continued until the middle of the 20th century, was a shameful chapter in our history. It was mob justice at its most heinous, motivated by racial and ethnic hatred. And it was a national problem occurring in all but four States in our country. While passing this apology is important, it not going to right every wrong. And it does not absolve us of our responsibility to continue to work to provide justice in American society. Justice at the polls for those who are made to stand in line for hours to exercise their right to vote. Justice in the schools so that every child has an equal educational opportunity. Justice in the workplace so that no worker will face discrimination. Let us use this opportunity not only to apologize for a shameful injustice but to dedicate ourselves to eradicating the remaining injustices in our society.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, as we commemorate World Oceans Week, we celebrate the wonder and beauty of the world's oceans. We celebrate the role our oceans play in commerce, fishing and shipping. We celebrate the beauty of our coral reefs and the potential lifesaving cures they might contain. And we celebrate our commitment to improving the health of our oceans, so that our children and grandchildren will have a chance to enjoy and cherish them. That is why I am pleased to introduce the National Oceans Protection Act of 2005--comprehensive legislation to improve the health and governance of our oceans. The bill is co-sponsored by Senator Lautenberg. This legislation ``was written after two major oceans commission reports in the past two years determined that our oceans are in a state of crisis. The congressionally-established U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy and the independent Pew Oceans Commission provided detailed descriptions of the challenges our oceans are facing as well as specific solutions to improve ocean health. From pollution to over-fishing to invasive species, there are many factors that have contributed to the current crisis in which we find ourselves. Pollution threatens all aspects of ocean health. Every 8 months, nearly 11 million gallons of oil flow from American roads into our waters--the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Our oceans are also showing signs of being over-fished, which affects the communities that depend on fish stocks for their livelihood. Many fish populations, including salmon, face the threat of being depleted to seriously low levels. Invasive species--such as the killer algae found near San Diego in 2000--are another threat to ocean health. In the San Francisco Bay alone, more than 175 invasive species threaten to overwhelm native species. By targeting some of the most serious challenges facing our oceans, as outlined in the Commissions' reports, my legislation provides a comprehensive national approach to oceans protection and preservation. Let me just mention a couple of the important provisions in four key areas: First, the bill improves the governance of the oceans by giving the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration the independence it needs to better facilitate the management and oversight of our oceans. Second, the bill protects and conserves marine wildlife and habitat by, among other things, creating protection areas and authorizing $50 million per year in grants to local communities to restore fisheries and coastal areas. Third, the bill strengthens fisheries and encourages sustainable fishing in a number of ways, including requiring that entire ecosystems be taken into account when considering the health of a fishery. And, fourth, the bill improves the quality of ocean water by establishing maximum amounts of pollution that a body of water can hold and still be healthy. In addition, financial assistance will be provided to local governments to reduce pollution and increase monitoring. For their contributions to this legislation and their great leadership on oceans issues, I would like to thank Senators Inouye, Gregg, Lautenberg, and Levin, as well as former Senator Hollings. It is my hope that this bill will provide the framework needed to protect and improve our oceans. The great environmentalist and ocean- explorer Jacques Cousteau once said, ``If we were logical, the future would be bleak, indeed. But we are more than logical. We are human beings, and we have faith, and we have hope, and we can work.'' As we celebrate World Oceans Week, it is my hope that we can work together to provide a bright future for the world's oceans and continue to protect our coastal economy. I encourage my colleagues to join me in this effort to implement the recommendations of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy and the Pew Ocean Commission. I ask unanimous consent that a summary of the bill and list of endorsements be printed in the Record.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, as we commemorate World Oceans Week, we celebrate the wonder and beauty of the world's oceans. We celebrate the role our oceans play in commerce, fishing and shipping. We celebrate the beauty of our coral reefs and the potential lifesaving cures they might contain. And we celebrate our commitment to improving the health of our oceans, so that our children and grandchildren will have a chance to enjoy and cherish them. That is why I am pleased to introduce the National Oceans Protection Act of 2005--comprehensive legislation to improve the health and governance of our oceans. The bill is co-sponsored by Senator Lautenberg. This legislation ``was written after two major oceans commission reports in the past two years determined that our oceans are in a state of crisis. The congressionally-established U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy and the independent Pew Oceans Commission provided detailed descriptions of the challenges our oceans are facing as well as specific solutions to improve ocean health. From pollution to over-fishing to invasive species, there are many factors that have contributed to the current crisis in which we find ourselves. Pollution threatens all aspects of ocean health. Every 8 months, nearly 11 million gallons of oil flow from American roads into our waters--the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Our oceans are also showing signs of being over-fished, which affects the communities that depend on fish stocks for their livelihood. Many fish populations, including salmon, face the threat of being depleted to seriously low levels. Invasive species--such as the killer algae found near San Diego in 2000--are another threat to ocean health. In the San Francisco Bay alone, more than 175 invasive species threaten to overwhelm native species. By targeting some of the most serious challenges facing our oceans, as outlined in the Commissions' reports, my legislation provides a comprehensive national approach to oceans protection and preservation. Let me just mention a couple of the important provisions in four key areas: First, the bill improves the governance of the oceans by giving the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration the independence it needs to better facilitate the management and oversight of our oceans. Second, the bill protects and conserves marine wildlife and habitat by, among other things, creating protection areas and authorizing $50 million per year in grants to local communities to restore fisheries and coastal areas. Third, the bill strengthens fisheries and encourages sustainable fishing in a number of ways, including requiring that entire ecosystems be taken into account when considering the health of a fishery. And, fourth, the bill improves the quality of ocean water by establishing maximum amounts of pollution that a body of water can hold and still be healthy. In addition, financial assistance will be provided to local governments to reduce pollution and increase monitoring. For their contributions to this legislation and their great leadership on oceans issues, I would like to thank Senators Inouye, Gregg, Lautenberg, and Levin, as well as former Senator Hollings. It is my hope that this bill will provide the framework needed to protect and improve our oceans. The great environmentalist and ocean- explorer Jacques Cousteau once said, ``If we were logical, the future would be bleak, indeed. But we are more than logical. We are human beings, and we have faith, and we have hope, and we can work.'' As we celebrate World Oceans Week, it is my hope that we can work together to provide a bright future for the world's oceans and continue to protect our coastal economy. I encourage my colleagues to join me in this effort to implement the recommendations of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy and the Pew Ocean Commission. I ask unanimous consent that a summary of the bill and list of endorsements be printed in the Record.

Mrs. BOXER

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

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I rise to speak to this nomination of this very controversial nominee who is opposed by both Senators from California, which is fairly extraordinary. I remember well a time in the not too distant past when even if one Senator from a State opposed a nominee from his or her State, that sank the nomination. Then they said it had to be both. We have a situation where both Senators from California oppose this nominee. I can assure the Senator from Utah, if he opposed a nominee who came from his State, and his colleague did as well, I think I would give it a little more, shall we say, attention than he is. The fact is, if you have watched this debate, you know by now that this nominee is way outside the mainstream. You can stand up here and say all you want that she is in the mainstream and within the mainstream. You can even say that she won election in California. What you are not saying is she came up for election about 11 months after she had served a 12-year appointment, and she had no opposition. Nobody ran against her. Most of her controversial decisions occurred after that vote. Anyone who knows anything about California politics knows that it is very rare that judges are made into an election issue. We usually approve our judges. It is very different than what is being presented here, that everyone went out and said: Oh, hurrah, Janice Rogers Brown is running. This is not the case at all. We have Senator Hatch coming up and saying this woman is well within the mainstream and all the rest of it, but the two Senators from California are saying: Watch out. Because no statement could be further from the truth. I have spoken on this nomination and on the broader issue several times. Sometimes you ask yourself, is it worth just one more time? I would say, in answering my own question, to me it is worth it just one more time because the issues surrounding these nominations we are addressing these next days will bring home to the American people why it was that we had all this fuss over 10 judges the Democrats blocked. These are 10 judges put forward by President Bush who were all extraordinary cases, outside the mainstream, whether dealing with employment rights or the environment or civil rights or human rights-- any kind of rights you can think about: privacy rights, the right to make sure our kids are protected and our criminals are punished. In these 10 cases, we found many examples where our people were left in the lurch because of decisions made by these judges. In some cases, these judges, fortunately, were in the minority. In the case of Janice Rogers Brown, she was in the minority many times because she is so out of the mainstream that not even her five Republican colleagues could join her in many of her dissents. But this number, 208 to 10, reflects where we were when the Republicans threw a fit and the White House threw a fit and said: We want every one of our judges passed. We don't want to lose even 5 percent of our judges. They got 95 percent. They were not happy--208 to 10, and they threatened to change a system that has been in place well before the movie ``Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'' came out. For more than 200 years, the Senate has had the right to unlimited debate that can only be shut off by a supermajority. We have had that in place for a very long time. The Republicans did not like it. They only got 95 percent of their judges and, by God, they wanted 100 percent. It reminds me of my kids when they were little, and probably I was that way when I was little. ``I want it all. I want everything. I don't want to give up a thing.'' That is not the way the Senate works. It is not the way the country works. If you read what the Founders had in mind for our Nation, it was protecting minority rights. So when an appointment such as this, which is a lifetime appointment--at very high pay, by the way, and very good retirement--that there would be a check and balance against this nominee, so only those who deserve to be on the bench, who show that they had judicial temperament, who were qualified--underscore that, very important--and who were in the mainstream, will take their seats. So we had a crisis that, fortunately, I am very pleased to say, was resolved by some Republicans and Democrats who got together and stood up to the Republican leadership and said: Wrong. We are not going to do this. We are not going to see a packing of the courts. We are going to preserve the filibuster. But what happened was three very controversial judges got past that filibuster. That was the deal that was cut, that Priscilla Owen, that Pryor, and here Janice Rogers Brown would be guaranteed their cloture vote, and then we will now be voting on them. It will take 51 votes to stop Janice Rogers Brown. I hope we can get that. Senator Hatch said he hopes every single person in the Senate will vote for Janice Rogers Brown. I predict, if she gets confirmed, it will be by the fewest number of votes we have seen around here, probably, in many years. I think so. Let me talk about the issue of qualifications because this is something I did not discuss with my colleagues up until now. On April 26, 1996, the Los Angeles Times wrote about an evaluation report that was written about Judge Janice Rogers Brown. This is what the Times reported: Bar evaluators received complaints that Brown was insensitive to established legal precedent . . . lacked compassion and intellectual tolerance for opposing views, misunderstood legal standards and was slow to produce opinions. Can you imagine? This is the person who everyone who spoke on the other side today has said is so great, everyone who spoke on the other side said is so wonderful? This is the person they all said deserves to be promoted? Let's read it again because it is important. This woman is going to the circuit court of appeals in Washington. ``Bar evaluators''--these are the people who are the experts--``received complaints that Brown was insensitive to established legal precedent . . . lacked compassion''--and we are going to show that--``and intellectual tolerance for opposing views. . . .'' In other words, intolerant to opposing views. Can you imagine a judge who is intolerant to opposing views? How can that judge be independent? How can that judge be fair if, going in, they are intolerant to certain views? And they said she ``misunderstood legal standards.'' That is a condemnation for someone who is going to be judging. ``And she was slow to produce opinions.'' We all know that we would like to have justice be swiftly delivered. Justice delayed is justice denied. She was slow to produce opinions. The LA Times goes on: She does not possess the minimum qualifications necessary for appointment to the highest court in the State, That is my State, the California Supreme Court. . . . the bar commission that reviews judicial nominees told Governor Pete Wilson in a confidential report. Janice Rogers Brown . . . does not possess the minimum qualifications necessary for appointment to the highest court in the State, the bar commission that reviews judicial nominees told Governor Pete Wilson in a confidential report. This is the nominee Senator Hatch says he hopes everybody votes for. Now she is moving over to an area where she hasn't really practiced before, to the Federal bench. Yesterday, I was at a press conference with some fantastic women lawyers, including Eleanor Holmes Norton, who you know, I think, is the delegate to the House of Representatives from DC, and also Elaine Jones. They went through, chapter and verse, her decisions, her writings, her minority views. They agreed this is a terrible appointment. What is interesting is these are African-American women speaking about an African-American woman. This is not easy to do. It is not easy for a female Senator to say this is a terrible appointment. This nominee's personal story is remarkable. There are a lot of remarkable stories in America. We are all so proud of our country, that it gives people opportunity. But what I am fearful about is what she is going to do to those who want to grab that dream. Her attitude toward what the government can and cannot do, her attitude about what is permissible in a workplace, is shocking. Her attitude toward senior citizens, her attitude toward children, her attitude toward rape victims, all of this is very frightening, to think this woman, with a great personal story, is going to bring those kinds of values and this kind of record to the court that many consider to be second in importance to the Supreme Court of the United States of America. There is no question that this nominee is way out of the mainstream. This is one of her famous quotes. You listen to these words. These are not the words of Senator Barbara Boxer or Senator Dianne Feinstein or Senator Patrick Leahy or Senator Harry Reid or any other Senator who is opposing this nominee; these are the words of the nominee: Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates, and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: Families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible. I don't know what country she grew up in. I really don't know how she got her views of America because clearly she has been critical of the government in her writings, going back to the 1930s. So, presumably, because she has been in the minority view on all the things she says and does, she has to be miserable about the state of America. She thinks our families are under siege, that there is war in the streets, that people are getting their property taken away from them, that there is a decline in the rule of law. I guess she doesn't know we are doing much better controlling crime. Who does she think is going to control crime if not government? Does she think we should have a private police force? When government moves in, everything is terrible. Does that mean when we build a highway things get worse, or do they get better? Does that mean if we fund a transit system things get worse, or they get better? Does that mean when we fix a pothole or pass a law that you have to wear a seatbelt that things get worse, or things get better? She is an idealogue because the answer is sometimes government does good things, and sometimes we don't. Sometimes we do things we should not do, and sometimes we don't do enough. But there is no way you can say when government moves in, deceit triumphs and we have a debauched culture and virtue is contemptible. Is she that critical of this country? Is she that down on this country? Is she that negative about the greatest country in the world? The answer is, she is. Let's look at some of the other things she said. When we had the New Deal, this country was in the middle of a terrible depression, and the Congress and the President passed some overdue legislation such as the minimum wage because people were starving to death. They said it was important to have a 40-hour workweek because people were being worked to death. Social Security was instituted at that time. She calls this ``the triumph of our own Socialist revolution.'' I am assuming, therefore, she thinks we should go back to the days when we did not have Social Security. That is interesting because there are other people who feel that way around here. So they happily vote for Janice Rogers Brown. Does she think we should go back to the day when children worked in the workplace? Child labor laws were passed around that time. Does she think a boss can tell you, you have to work 100 hours? I guess she does because it is socialism. And then her famous quote about senior citizens. This is a woman who this President wants to send to the second highest court in the land. Her view of senior citizens is extraordinary: She called senior citizens ``cannibals.'' I want everyone to think of their grandma right now. Does anyone think of their grandma as a militant? Does anyone think of their grandma as stealing from you? Or, rather, that your grandma thinks much more about you than she does about herself? I can assure you that is what we think of our grandmas. They will do anything for us, for their grandchildren. But not Janice Rogers Brown. She accuses senior citizens of ``blithely cannibalizing their grandchildren because they have a right to get as much `free stuff' as the political system permits them to extract.'' What a view of our senior citizens. The greatest generation; the generation that fought in World War II. And now, getting to be the generation that fought Vietnam, one of the toughest wars because it was so controversial, and the suffering that guess on. These are the folks that are now the grandparents and the senior citizens. They are getting as much ``free stuff.'' Why? Because they served in the military and they get veterans' benefits, veterans' health care, and prescription drugs if they are sick. I resent Janice Rogers Brown's statements. I resent that statement on behalf of every senior citizen in this country. You can put lipstick on it, you can put nail polish on it, it is still ugly. She calls government ``the drug of choice.'' She even goes after rugged midwestern farmers. She says they are looking for big government. Who does she know--a rugged midwestern farmer who is looking for the Government to support them? And ``militant senior citizen.'' Every time I say that I think of grandmothers in Army uniforms marching down the street. These are visions so ridiculous that they have no place being brought into this D.C. Court of Appeals. At the end of the day, that means there is deep hostility toward our senior citizens, toward our workers, toward our farmers, toward our people. Janice Rogers Brown is way outside the mainstream to the extreme. I hope the American people understand why we held her up for so long. The only reason she is getting the up-or-down vote today is she is part of the deal to preserve the filibuster for future out-of-the-mainstream folks. We were on the verge of losing that. She argued that e-mail messages sent by a former employee to coworkers criticizing a company's employment practices were not protected by the first amendment, but she supported corporate speech. That was in Intel v. Hamidi. She argued that a city's rent control ordinance was unconstitutional and a result of the ``revolution of 1937.'' The woman is stuck in the past. She keeps going back to the New Deal, to 1937. Get over it. The things that worked well, we have continued--such as Social Security, minimum wage, or the FDIC, where we protect your deposits. Get over it. The American people demand those minimum protections. But not Janice Rogers Brown. She does not demand it. She argues that it was a revolution that the New Deal began. She opposed it and says it is all about takings and it is all wrong. Here is an interesting fact. Janice Rogers Brown is on a court with six Republicans and one Democrat. People say, it is California, it is California, everyone there is a liberal Democrat. Wrong. I would not be here if it were not for Republican, Independent voters, and Democratic voters. Here is the deal: She stood alone on a court of six Republicans and one Democrat 31 times. Think about it. You are a judge. You are a Republican. You have five Republican colleagues and one Democratic colleague. Yet 31 times you disagreed with those five Republicans and that one Democrat. Who could actually stand up here, look the American people in the eye, and say she is a mainstream judge? That is just not true, based on the facts. Members can say whatever they want on the Senate floor, and I would die for a Members' right to free speech. You can put lipstick on it, nail polish, and dress it up, but the facts are the facts: She stood alone 31 times on a court of six Republicans and one Democrat. Maybe it goes back to what the bar said about her, when she was put up for her position, that she was unqualified, that she did not understand legal precedent. Maybe that explains why she stands alone, she does not know what she is doing. Maybe she does not understand it. Maybe she does not get it; otherwise, why would she find herself alone so many times? Let's go back to what has been said when she was appointed by Pete Wilson. They received complaints that Brown was ``insensitive to established legal precedent.'' In a court of appeals, that is a key fact. You have to understand what the law is, what has come before. She ``lacked compassion and intellectual tolerance for opposing views, misunderstood legal standard and was slow to produce opinions.'' Maybe she just couldn't follow the reasoning of her colleagues because she did not understand the legal precedence, or maybe they were moving too fast for her. Or, maybe she chose just not to follow it because she lacked compassion, and she has no intellectual tolerance for opposing views, even if it is legal precedent. Let's see what else they said: She does not possess the minimum qualifications necessary for appointment to the highest court in the State [that is the California State court] the bar commission that reviews judicial nominees told Gov. Pete Wilson in a confidential report. This was printed in the ``Los Angeles Times'' April 26, 1996. One would think that the President's men who came up with this idea would have vetted this person. Why did we stop her from getting a vote? Simply because we knew the facts. If she wasn't qualified for the California Supreme Court, how does she now get to be qualified for this position? It makes no sense. We will go back to some of the times she stood alone. This case is rather remarkable. We have Janice Rogers Brown, a female. A case comes before her of a woman who was 60 years old. She was a superstar working in a hospital, Huntington Memorial Hospital. She was fired from her job based on age discrimination. Janice Rogers Brown said: . . . discrimination based on age does not mark its victims with a stigma of inferiority and second class citizenship. I ask the average American: A 60-year-old employee is perky, who is sharp, who is wise, who is experienced, who has gotten stellar reviews, who does better than almost anyone else, but she is fired because someone in management said, 60, you are out. So she is out of a job. And this woman had a lot of pride in her work. Maybe it was her whole life, maybe she was so devoted. We know people like that. Janice Rogers Brown makes a statement that ``discrimination based on age does not mark its victims with a stigma of inferiority and second class citizenship.'' Yesterday in the press conference where I was with a lot of minority women lawyers, one of them, Elaine Jones, made an important point about this case. She said it is fine for Janice Rogers Brown to think that discrimination based on age does not mark its victim with a stigma of inferiority and second class citizenship. If she feels that way, she should run for public office, run for the Senate, go to the House and change the laws we have written which say, in fact, it is a stigma to be the victim of age discrimination. This is hurtful, and it does confer second-class citizenship on the individual. Her position is her own opinion. Everyone has a right to his or her own opinion. I don't have a problem with that. I don't agree with her. I think it is mean. I think it is nasty. I think it hurts our people. But she has a right to think that if she wants. What she does not have a right to do as a judge is to say that the law we passed simply does not exist. That is why she is so out of the mainstream. We have found that age discrimination brings with it a stigma of inferiority and second-class citizenship. We have said it is illegal. It is not legal. Her position is contrary to State and Federal law and puts her way outside the mainstream. And now a look at some of the others. She is the only member of the court to vote to overturn the conviction of the rapist of a 17-year-old girl because she felt the victim gave mixed messages to the rapist. Maybe my colleagues on the other side want to send someone to this very important court that stands with a rapist against a victim. I wouldn't think so. If one reads details of the case, members will be shocked by the details. The young woman already was raped once. This was a second rape. The first man pleaded guilty. He claimed innocence, but she was the only member of the court to say this young woman did not have a right to see this rapist confined to prison. It is shocking to me that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle think this woman is in the mainstream. Is it in the mainstream of America to side with a rapist over a 17-year-old girl? Is it in the mainstream of America to side with an employer who fires you because you turn 60? It is totally against the State and Federal law. She was the only member of the court to oppose an effort to stop the sale of cigarettes to children. That case was Stop Youth Addiction v. Lucky Stores. There is a reason there is an organization called Stop Youth Addiction--because we all know that tobacco is so addictive. When you start young, it is very hard to kick the habit. I am sure everyone in this Chamber who has ever smoked knows how hard it is to kick the habit. The younger you start, the more hooked you get. Therefore, parents and others who are advocates are trying to make sure they cannot go into the store and purchase cigarettes at an underage level. She was the only member of the court to oppose the effort we had going on to ensure that kids do not buy cigarettes. Is that mainstream thought, to go up against parents and families and say it is fine for a retail store to go ahead and sell cigarettes to a kid--your kid, my kid, my grandson? That is not mainstream. It is out of the mainstream. This woman is out of the mainstream. That is why the Democrats have stopped her, until today. We did use the filibuster on her. We were glad to use the filibuster on her. If it did not happen that we had this deal, we would still be using the filibuster on her, to protect the people of the United States of America from her kind of values which stand with a rapist, which stand with the tobacco companies, which stand with those who discriminate. She can explain in any way she wants. We know the results of her thinking. She could come up with a fancy explanation to tell this young 17-year-old woman, but look her in the eye and say: Well, your rapist has to get out because you didn't say it exactly the right way--when every other member of the court sided with this 17-year-old girl. I am shocked my colleagues are supporting this nominee. And this issue is not going to go away. These decisions are not going to go away. There are going to be writings about these decisions. There is going to be discussion about them. People will be held accountable for their votes here. They should be, one way or the other. If people in my home State are going to write and say, Why are you speaking out against someone from California, a woman who is a sharecropper's daughter, I am going to say, That is a good question, and let me tell you why. She is out of the mainstream to the extreme, and she is hurting our people. It is pretty simple for me. She is bad on discrimination. She is the only member of the court to find that a State fair housing commission could not award certain damages to housing discrimination victims. And how about this? An African-American policewoman needed to rent a place and knocked on a door and had the door slammed in her face--more than once, again and again. She sued for discrimination. Every single member of that court, the highest court in California, ruled in favor of this policewoman-- except Janice Rogers Brown. Oh, no. Oh, no. She said: You do not deserve any damages. You do not deserve any award for what you went through. Too bad. Now, she may not have written it like that in her statement, but at the end of the day she had to look in this woman's eyes, this policewoman's, and say: Got the door slammed in your face three times? Too bad. That is the bottom line with how she ruled. She might as well have said that. And she stood alone. Is that American values? Is that mainstream America, that someone would stand on the side of someone who slammed the door in the face of someone simply because they did not like their appearance, they did not look like them? Seriously, folks, this is pretty basic American values 101. She is the only member of the court to find that a disabled worker who was the victim of employment discrimination did not have the right to raise past instances of discrimination that had occurred. So here is someone who is saying they were victimized in an employment situation because they were disabled, they wanted to be able to tell about the series of events that led up to this particular lawsuit, how many times this had happened--she had MS and these discriminatory acts had taken place over many years--and Janice Rogers Brown stood alone and said she did not have the right to raise the past instances of discrimination. Is that an American value, to tell someone who has multiple sclerosis, who has been discriminated against for years: Well, we are not interested; we are not interested in hearing about the past; just stick to this one case? I do not think, if my colleagues really took the time and the energy and the effort to do the kind of work my great staff has done on this-- and I have to say, I heard Senator Hatch say, well, all this comes from--what did he say?--liberal groups writing these things. This is painstakingly difficult work done by my staff. And they went through it because I said: Did she ever stand alone--because I knew her reputation is so out of the mainstream--did she ever stand alone? And they came back to me with this: She stood alone on the side of a rapist. She stood alone on the side of people who would discriminate. She stood alone on the side of tobacco companies against families. That is how I look at it. She said a manager could use racial slurs against his Latino employees. Can you imagine coming to work every day and having to put up with a slur about yourself, about your ethnicity, about your religion, about your disability? There has to be some value placed on human dignity. Well, you do not get it when you look at the writings of Janice Rogers Brown. You do not get it when you look at the way she comes down on a lot of these cases. She was the only member of the court who voted to strike down a State antidiscrimination law that provided a contraceptive drug benefit to women. There is a very important law in my State that says if a woman wants to get contraceptives through her insurance, she should be allowed to. We talk around here a lot about the right to choose and all of that. All of us, I would hope, would come together in saying we do not want to see so many abortions. That is right. We want to make sure we reduce the number of abortions. Well, the way you do that is through contraception. There was a time and place when contraception use was illegal in this country, until there was a case in the Supreme Court that was actually memorialized yesterday, the Griswold case, which said: No. It is legal. Well, if contraception is legal, why on Earth would we discriminate against people who try to use their health insurance to get it, their drug benefit to get it? So this case comes before the California Supreme Court, and every member of the court--five Republicans and one Democrat--except her, except Janice Rogers Brown, says that is an appropriate law. So, again, we have someone out of the mainstream. If she is so out of the mainstream on contraception, imagine where she will be on the right to privacy, if she gets into that issue. She is the only member of the court to find that a jury should not hear expert testimony in a domestic violence case about ``battered women's syndrome.'' Now, this one really touches my heart because, fortunately, many years ago, Senator Joe Biden phoned me when I was a House Member, and he said that he had written a bill called the Violence Against Women Act. We knew women were being battered and women were being raped. The violence against women was growing, and yet there was no Federal response. We have made tremendous progress in this area. We still have a long way to go. Mr. President, I have been asked a question. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. BOXER. As we learned more about stopping violence against women, we found out something very ugly, which is sometimes women are in such a desperate circumstance, after being battered for so long, that they lose their center and their balance and they fight back. Sometimes you will have a case that comes before a court, and in defending a woman they want to bring in an expert to talk about battered women syndrome-- why is it that a woman, who is otherwise peaceful, otherwise decent, with no criminal record, no criminal history, would suddenly break out and do violence to another. If you do not understand battered women syndrome, it makes it difficult. Janice Rogers Brown was the only member of the court to say a jury should not hear expert testimony in a domestic violence case about ``battered women's syndrome''--the only one. How is that in the mainstream of thinking? How is that in the mainstream of American values? How is that going to help us learn more about why people would act in a certain way? It does not say how a jury has to find. They just wanted to have this testimony. All of her colleagues found it would be perfectly appropriate. Not Janice Rogers Brown--out of the mainstream, in the extreme, standing alone time after time. Janice Rogers Brown, the only member of the court who voted to bar an employee from suing for sexual harassment because she had signed a standard workers' compensation release form. She was the only member of the court who said: You do not have the right to sue if you have been sexually harassed because you have already signed a workers' comp release form. They are two different things. Yet for her, no, it was one and the same, and she stood alone in this case as well. She was the only member of the court to find nothing improper about requiring a criminal defendant to wear a 50,000 volt stun belt while testifying. I think we discussed the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court recently made a judgment on this, that it is very important, in order to have a fair trial--and in America that is what we believe in. Now, I, myself, am very tough on a criminal. I would do the worst of the worst to someone convicted of a heinous crime because I believe people give up their right to be among us if they commit a heinous crime. So I am very tough. At the same time, I understand you do not want to do something that would prejudice a case. When you bring someone into court, before they have been found guilty of anything, and they are wearing a 50,000 volt stun belt, it may give a message to the jury. And that may just result in an overturning of a conviction later on. So the California Supreme Court found, except for Janice Rogers Brown, it was a mistake. She stood alone. So let me finish up in this way. It is really an extraordinary nomination, this particular nomination. When the Democrats stood tall against this nominee, there were reasons. There were reasons we stood tall against 10 nominees. We allowed 208 to move forward, but we stood against 10. We stood against 10 and said: Do you know what. We are going to follow historic precedent. If we believe these nominees are out of the mainstream, we are going to stand and be counted. It is not pleasant. It is not nice. It is not enjoyable. It is not something anyone looks forward to. It is unusual to do it, and we did it 10 times. We gave this President a 95-percent ``yes'' record of judge confirmations, but he is not a happy camper unless he gets 100 percent. If I got 95 percent of the vote, I would be soaring high. If I got 95 percent of my bills passed through here, I would be soaring high. I would be so happy if my kids listened to me 95 percent of the time. I would be smiling. I would say: Yes, I think you are wrong on that 5 percent, but I feel good about it. Not this President; he wants 100 percent. It is called the arrogance of power. It is called one-party rule. I think the American people want to be governed, not ruled. We had a King George once. It didn't work out very well. We like President George better than King George. But President George, as every President, whether it was Bill or Harry or you name it--some day it will be a woman, I can hope--every President who reads the Constitution knows there is an advice and consent clause. That means when you put people up for these lifetime appointments, the Senate has an important role to play. And instead of being annoyed about it, instead of being bothered about it, instead of feeling it is cramping your style, you should use your power, your effectiveness, your political capital, your charm, use whatever you have to come over to the Senate, to sit down with Senators, to say: Look, I am thinking of putting up Mr. X or Mrs. X. What do you think? It is frustrating because early in the Bush Presidency, Alberto Gonzales, who was the White House counsel, came over and he did say to me--because I was against a Ninth Circuit Court nominee--do you have any good ideas for who else you might support? I did. I talked to my people, to my Republican supporters. We came in. We had six terrific Republican names. We sent them. Nothing. So they asked, but they never acted. Some of these people were quite conservative. I think they would have been pleased. But this seems to be an administration that wants 100 percent of what they want. They don't want the shared responsibility of governing. Either they don't want or they don't understand or they don't like the balance of powers, which is such a centerpiece of our Government. We see it on the Bolton nomination as well. That is not for a judgeship. That is a nomination for U.N. ambassador. But, again, if we could just talk to each other, we could come up with someone who would be terrific, instead of having these standoffs, which are difficult. They are not pleasant. We are not getting a lot of work done because of how much time we are talking about Janice Rogers Brown, because many of us believe she is so out of the mainstream, we can't let it go. That is why I so respect the moderates who came up with the agreement because part of that agreement said in the future the President should talk to us more, especially about Supreme Court nominees. We are at a place and time where we have proven one point, that when we stood up against these 10 judges and allowed 208 to go through, it wasn't arbitrary or capricious or nasty or personal. It was because these people are out of the mainstream. I well remember when George Bush was declared the winner in 2000, he came right out and said: I am going to govern from the middle. Here is where we are: George Will, `` `Extraordinary' Rhetoric.'' George Will calls Janice Rogers Brown out of the mainstream. George Will is very rightwing and he calls her out of the mainstream. He says it is a fact that she is out of the mainstream. The Mercury News says: As an appellate judge who would hear the bulk of challenges to Federal laws coming out of Washington, Janice Rogers Brown's appointment would be disastrous. She'd be likely to strike down critical environmental, labor laws and antidiscrimination protections. Brown, though, has infused her legal opinions with her ideology, ignoring higher court rulings that should temper her judgment. That was the from San Jose Mercury News, a very mainstream newspaper in Silicon Valley. From the Sacramento Bee that sits in the heart of the capital of California: The minority in the Senate certainly is justified in filibustering a lifetime appointment of Brown. . . . The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is the last place we need a judge who would impose 19th century economic theory on the Constitution and 21st century problems. The issue isn't Brown's qualifications; it's her judicial philosophy. I see my friend from Colorado is here. I will stop now and thank him for the work he did on that compromise on the filibuster. I was not a happy person that Janice Rogers Brown was in the group, but our side had to give up something. I have spent days expressing why I hope there will be a strong vote against her. She is out of the mainstream. I thank the Chair and yield the balance of my time to Senator Salazar.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, today I am reintroducing the Commercial Airline Missile Defense Act. This legislation is designed to ensure that our commercial aircraft are protected against the threat posed by shoulder-fired missiles. I first introduced this legislation in February 2003 in response to two separate attacks attributed to al Qaeda terrorists. The first attack was the attempted shoot down of a U.S. military aircraft in Saudi Arabia. The second attack was against an Israeli passenger jet in Kenya. Fortunately, there were no casualties in either case. But make no mistake, the threat posed by these weapons--also known as man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS)--is very real. In May 2002, the FBI said, ``. . . Given al Qaeda's demonstrated objective to target the U.S. airline industry, its access to U.S. and Russian-made MANPAD systems, and recent apparent targeting of U.S.-led military forces in Saudi Arabia, law enforcement agencies in the United States should remain alert to the potential use of MANPADS against U. S. aircraft.'' In February 2004, the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Admiral Lowell Jacoby, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on current and projected national security threats. He stated the following: ``A MANPAD attack against civilian aircraft would produce large number of casualties, international publicity and a significant economic impact on aviation. These systems are highly portable, easy to conceal, inexpensive, available in the global weapons market and instruction manuals are on the internet. Commercial aircraft are not equipped with countermeasures and commercial pilots are not trained in evasive measures. An attack could occur with little or no warning. Terrorists may attempt to capitalize on these vulnerabilities.'' It is estimated that there are between 300,000 and one million shoulder-fired missiles in the world today--thousands are thought to be in the hands of terrorist and other non-state entities. Since I first introduced my legislation in 2003, progress has been made in adapting countermeasures now being used by the military for use on commercial aircraft. A special program office has been created within the Department of Homeland Security that is working to demonstrate and test two prototype countermeasure systems. Flight testing is scheduled to begin in a matter of weeks. This legislation, which I am again introducing with my primary cosponsor, Senator Schumer, states that the installation of countermeasure systems on commercial aircraft will begin no later than 6 months after the Secretary of Homeland Security certifies that the countermeasure system has successfully completed a program of operational test and evaluation. We need to continue to move forward to ensure that commercial aircraft are protected from the threat posed by shoulder-fired missiles. I appreciate the hard work of my colleague in the House, Congressman Steve Israel, who is a real leader on this issue. I hope my colleagues will support this important legislation.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, today I am reintroducing the Commercial Airline Missile Defense Act. This legislation is designed to ensure that our commercial aircraft are protected against the threat posed by shoulder-fired missiles. I first introduced this legislation in February 2003 in response to two separate attacks attributed to al Qaeda terrorists. The first attack was the attempted shoot down of a U.S. military aircraft in Saudi Arabia. The second attack was against an Israeli passenger jet in Kenya. Fortunately, there were no casualties in either case. But make no mistake, the threat posed by these weapons--also known as man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS)--is very real. In May 2002, the FBI said, ``. . . Given al Qaeda's demonstrated objective to target the U.S. airline industry, its access to U.S. and Russian-made MANPAD systems, and recent apparent targeting of U.S.-led military forces in Saudi Arabia, law enforcement agencies in the United States should remain alert to the potential use of MANPADS against U. S. aircraft.'' In February 2004, the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Admiral Lowell Jacoby, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on current and projected national security threats. He stated the following: ``A MANPAD attack against civilian aircraft would produce large number of casualties, international publicity and a significant economic impact on aviation. These systems are highly portable, easy to conceal, inexpensive, available in the global weapons market and instruction manuals are on the internet. Commercial aircraft are not equipped with countermeasures and commercial pilots are not trained in evasive measures. An attack could occur with little or no warning. Terrorists may attempt to capitalize on these vulnerabilities.'' It is estimated that there are between 300,000 and one million shoulder-fired missiles in the world today--thousands are thought to be in the hands of terrorist and other non-state entities. Since I first introduced my legislation in 2003, progress has been made in adapting countermeasures now being used by the military for use on commercial aircraft. A special program office has been created within the Department of Homeland Security that is working to demonstrate and test two prototype countermeasure systems. Flight testing is scheduled to begin in a matter of weeks. This legislation, which I am again introducing with my primary cosponsor, Senator Schumer, states that the installation of countermeasure systems on commercial aircraft will begin no later than 6 months after the Secretary of Homeland Security certifies that the countermeasure system has successfully completed a program of operational test and evaluation. We need to continue to move forward to ensure that commercial aircraft are protected from the threat posed by shoulder-fired missiles. I appreciate the hard work of my colleague in the House, Congressman Steve Israel, who is a real leader on this issue. I hope my colleagues will support this important legislation.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Excellent. Mr. President, I am going to speak about the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown. Before I go into the reason I hope the Senate will reject this nomination--and the ``reasons'' because there are many--I wish to put into context for my colleagues, and for anyone watching this debate, why the Senate has spent so much time looking at the rules surrounding the nomination and confirmation of Federal judges. It is very clear when you vote to confirm a Federal judge that it is a very important vote. Why is that? It is because these judges really vote on so many issues of importance to us, whether it is our right to vote, our right to a safe workplace, our right to privacy, our consumer rights--it goes on and on--our victims' rights. The fact is, these issues are crucial, and who winds up on the bench on Federal courts is very important to the American people. This is not an abstract debate about Senate rules and procedures; it is really about who sits on the courts, and why is it that for 200-plus years the minority party has had the right to filibuster or delay the vote on nominees who they believe are outside the mainstream--whether that means they are to the far right of the mainstream, as in this particular case, or to the far left of the mainstream. Presidents who have tried to pack the courts in the past, have tried to twist the arms of the court, have been rebuffed, from Thomas Jefferson, once, to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, another time, when FDR had 74 Democrats in this Chamber. He could do anything he wanted, if they agreed. He had won his election by 60 percent of the votes. He decided he did not like what the courts were doing, so he said: Well, I want to double the size of the courts. He had the votes. But the Democrats in the Senate said: Mr. President, we like you. We love you. We think you are a great President. But we will not allow you to pack the courts because the bottom line is that our Founders did not want a ruler, they wanted someone to govern. They did not want a ruler, they wanted someone to govern. Therefore, they believed very strongly in checks and balances and the rights of the minority so that we do not have a court system that has on it people who would be so far out of the mainstream as to disrupt the very fabric of our country. Now, this President did his own move to pack the courts. Let's face it, that is what happened. He had the agreement and acquiescence of almost a majority of the Senate, until a few brave Republicans came over to our side and said: Look, let's step back from this precipice. Let's not do away with the filibuster. These are lifetime appointments. These judges get good pay, and they are never up for election. This is the only check and balance we have, when their names are brought before us. So I was so appreciative of my colleagues on the other side for standing up and saying: We are not going to change the rules of the game in the middle of the game because some President wants to pack the courts with people who are so far out of the mainstream that it could set our country back for generations. That is what really happened. Now, in order to get that deal they came up with, they said to our side: You are going to have to give. You are going to have to give on three judges whom you have stopped. This 10 on the chart represents the number of judges Democrats have stopped. They said: In order to get this deal, you have to give up on three. One of those three judges is Janice Rogers Brown, a nominee way out of the mainstream, to the extreme, which I will explain. But we have to remember this deal only involves the vote to end the filibuster. We said: OK, enough of our colleagues will join with you to end the filibuster. But the deal did not say: Therefore, she would get automatically voted in. We still have the up-or-down vote on Janice Rogers Brown. A lot of us believe very strongly that 51 of us should oppose this nomination. I think we might well get those 51 noes, or close to it, but, obviously, we are pushing for 51. Now, again, I want to focus your attention on these numbers: 208 to 10. It is actually 209 to 10 with the Priscilla Owen judgeship approved. We have stopped 10. We have approved 209. And this President and the Republicans here have been crying every morning that they do not get 100 percent of what they want. They have gotten 95 percent of what they want. It is not good enough. When you want all the power, it is not good enough. When I go home and look in the eyes of my constituency, I ask: If you got 95 percent in your course, would you be happy? Oh, yes. If you got 95 percent of what you wanted from your spouse, would you be happy? Oh, ecstatic. If you wrote a list down of everything you wanted in your life--where you wanted to go for a vacation, where you wanted to be educated, the kind of car you wanted--and at the end of the day you got 95 percent of what you wanted, you would be thrilled, except if you believe you deserve 100 percent, by God, and nothing less will do. That is what we are facing with this Republican power grab. That is what we are facing. Remember those numbers: 209 to 10. When you are out somewhere and somebody says: Well, aren't the Democrats blocking all these judges? No, no, no. Ten; and we approved 209. Now, I am going to show you in just a moment the list of the groups that oppose Janice Rogers Brown to be put on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Now, when you see these groups, you will be shocked because I think everybody knows by now that Janice Rogers Brown is the daughter of a sharecropper. We have heard that over and over again, and that is remarkable. We have a lot of remarkable stories in America. My own mother never even went to high school. I am in the Senate. She had to drop out to support her family. There are lots of stories like that. But I do not expect people to automatically support me because in my family I went to the Senate and my mother never graduated from high school. It is interesting and it is important, and it certainly says a lot about our country and the opportunity our country affords people such as Janice Rogers Brown and Barbara Boxer, and particularly people of color, women of color who have even a harder time. It is a miraculous country we live in. That is why I oppose her nomination, because she would set it back. It is not her life that I attack when I say I am not for Janice Rogers Brown; it is what she will do to your life. If you look at her record, you will see why the things she will do to your life are things you would not want. So I want you to listen to the groups that are opposed to Janice Rogers Brown: ADA Watch/National Coalition for Disability Rights; Advocates for the West; AFL-CIO; Alliance for Justice; Alliance for Retired Americans; American Association of University Women. I want you to think about why these groups are opposed to her. Every one of them is opposed to her because they have read her list of cases and they understand that she will hurt them. Retired Americans, when you hear about what she thinks about seniors, you will understand that. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees; American Lands Alliance; American Planning Association; American Rivers; Americans for Democratic Action; Americans United for Separation of Church and State; Amigos Bravos; Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law; Center for Biological Diversity; Center for Medicare Advocacy; Citizens Coal Council; Clean Water Council; Clean Water Action; Clean Water Action Council; Black Women Lawyers of Los Angeles; California Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League; California Association of Black Lawyers; Californians for Fair and Independent Judges; California Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO; California League of Conservation Voters; California National Organization for Women. Do we have more here? California Native Plant Society; California Women's Law Center; Californians for Alternatives to Toxics; Chinese for Affirmative Action; Environmental Defense Center; Environmental Law Foundation; Equality California; John Muir Project; Coalition of Labor Union Women; Coast Alliance; Committee for Judicial Independence; Community Rights Counsel; Congressional Black Caucus; Defenders of Wildlife; Delta Sigma Theta Sorority; Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund; Earthjustice; Earth WINS; Endangered Species Coalition; Equal Justice Society; Families USA; Feminist Majority; Friends of the Earth; Georgia Center for Law in the Public Interest; Gray Panthers; Great Rivers Environmental Law Center; Leadership Conference on Civil Rights; Legal Momentum, formerly the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund; Northwest Environmental Advocates; NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund; Oil Field Waste Policy Institute; People for the American Way; Planned Parenthood Federation of America; Progressive Jewish Alliance; Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice; Service Employees International Union; the Sierra Club; Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project; the Foundation for Global Sustainability. And I have some more to share with you. It is very rare to see such an outpouring of opposition to a court nominee. Planned Parenthood Golden Gate; Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles; San Bruno Mountain Watch; San Francisco La Raza Lawyers; SEIU Local 99; Stonewall Democratic Club of Los Angeles; Unitarian Universalist Project Freedom of Religion; Western Law Center for Disability Rights; Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles; Women's Reproductive Rights Assistance Project; Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the Bay Area, NARAL Pro-Choice California; National Association of Women Business Owners, San Francisco Chapter; National Council of Jewish Women, California; National Council of Jewish Women, Los Angeles; National Women's Political Caucus of California, which is a bipartisan organization; Pacific Institute for Women's Health; Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund; Mineral Policy Center; NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund; NARAL Pro-Choice America; National Abortion Federation; National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP; National Bar Association. And there are more. This is remarkable. I needed this time to go through this extraordinary list, representing millions and millions of Americans who are saying no to Janice Rogers Brown. National Council of Jewish Women; National Council of Women's Organizations; National Employment Lawyers Association; National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare--folks, when you hear what she says about Social Security, you will understand it, and senior citizens--National Fair Housing Alliance; National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association; National Health Law Program; National Organization for Women; National Partnership for Women and Families; National Senior Citizens Law Center; National Urban League; National Women's Law Center; Natural Heritage Institute; Natural Resources Defense Council; New Mexico Environmental Law Center; the Wilderness Society; Union for Reform Judaism; Unitarian Universalist Association; USAction; Valley Watch, Inc.; Washington Environmental Council; Western Land Exchange Project. So that is a long list. That is a long list. There is a reason why these organizations--many of which are nonprofit, many of which are bipartisan, many of which represent women, represent minorities, represent families, represent seniors, represent the environment, represent fairness in the judicial system--there are many reasons why they oppose Janice Rogers Brown. I hope if this debate on Janice Rogers Brown does nothing else, it sends a message to the American people that when the Democrats stood up and said no to 10 people--and, by the way, said yes to 209--said no to 10 people--actually, now it is 9 people--they are people like this. They are people like Janice Rogers Brown who are opposed by mainstream America. At the end, I will read the editorials that are coming out across the country against Janice Rogers Brown. Packing the courts with people like this will set our country back, and these organizations that have worked for so many years for fairness, for justice, for equality, for fairness in the workplace, for equal pay for equal work, for good treatment in the workplace, to protect the air and water, know what they are talking about. Let's see some of the things that she has said in her lifetime on the bench. She said: Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates, and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: Families under siege-- This is Janice Rogers Brown. This is what she thinks of America. This is what she thinks of the greatest country in the world-- families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property-- As someone who owns property, no one has ever tried to take it away from me. I don't know what her problem is-- the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility; and the triumph of deceit. She must hang out with some pretty tough people. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible. This is Janice Rogers Brown's view of life in America. I didn't know, when we passed the seatbelt law or legislation to help the victims of domestic violence, that our society disintegrated. But she thinks so. She calls Supreme Court decisions upholding New Deal protections such as the minimum wage and the 40-hour workweek ``the triumph of our own socialist revolution.'' I didn't know it was socialism to say that people ought to work 40 hours, basically. She accuses senior citizens of ``blithely cannibilizing their grandchildren because they have a `right' to get as much free stuff as the political system permits them to have.'' So she looks at grandparents like me as cannibalizing our grandchildren. I ask every grandmother and grandfather in America to oppose this woman getting on the bench. How can someone look at grandparents as cannibals because they may think it is important to get the Social Security and Medicare for which they paid into the system? It is outrageous. She declares: Big government is . . . [t]he drug of choice-- Here she goes after everybody-- for multinational corporations, single moms, regulated industries, rugged Midwestern farmers, and militant senior citizens. Every time I read that I think of the senior citizens I know getting dressed up in a military uniform and taking over the country. OK everybody, it is 12 o'clock, let's play bingo now. She declares: Big government is . . . [t]he drug of choice for militant senior citizens, for single moms, for rugged Midwestern farmers. She takes them on, too. What is she thinking? I don't know any farmers who believe big government is what they want in their lives. She is bad on first amendment rights of individuals. She argued that e-mail messages sent by a former employee to coworkers criticizing a company's employment practices were not protected by the first amendment. This was a young man who sent out a few e-mails during a very long time period, and she said he had no right to free speech. He couldn't do it. But the corporation could do it all day long. This is showing you some of her decisions and her statements. She said a manager could use racial slurs against his Latino employees. Can you imagine that? Using racial slurs in the workplace? That was fine with Janice Rogers Brown. She is way outside the mainstream. She argued that a city's rent control ordinance was unconstitutional as a result of the revolution of 1937. Believe me, most of the people who passed that ordinance weren't alive in 1937, so that is her other attack on the New Deal. She is way back. She has this thing about the New Deal, as if the New Deal is what we are talking about today. Everyone agrees that what has survived of the New Deal is very important wage and hour laws and protections and Social Security. She is after it all. She argued that a law that provided housing assistance to displaced elderly, disabled, and low-income people was unconstitutional. This is very interesting because having been in local government myself, one of the things that we try to do is help get housing for people who are so vulnerable. This is a law in San Francisco for the elderly, disabled, and low-income people. Who could you find who was more compelling to help than, say, an elderly woman, whom she calls a militant senior citizen, who can barely stand up or look up from her walker? She said San Francisco was ``turning into a kleptocracy'' and that ``private property is now entirely extinct in San Francisco.'' This woman absolutely lives in a dream world to say something like this. If you try to buy a home in San Francisco, you can buy it, if you have $1 million. So I don't know what she is talking about. She makes things up that fit her ideology. Imagine saying that providing housing assistance to displaced elderly, disabled, and low-income people has no chance of succeeding because it is unconstitutional. Her views stand alone as being so out of the mainstream. Speaking of standing alone, I wanted to tell you about Janice Rogers Brown. She sits on the California Supreme Court where she has been since 1996. She is on a court that has six Republicans and one Democrat. She is a Republican. Follow this: She sits on a court that is made up of six Republicans and one Democrat. You would think she would be happy as a clam. No, she is not because those other Republicans, not to mention the one Democrat, don't see life through her eyes. She is so outside of the mainstream that she stood alone on court decisions 31 times. I am going to tell you of some of these cases where she stood alone. She was the only member of the court to vote to overturn the conviction of the rapist of a 17-year-old girl because she believed the victim gave mixed messages to the rapist. She was the only one on the court who stood on the side of the rapist. This is who George Bush wants to put on the bench so she can stand against your daughter? I don't think we should do that. We should stand up and be counted on this vote. We should not be standing with someone who supports a rapist. It is as simple as it gets. She was the only member of the court to find that a 40-year-old woman who was fired from her hospital job could not continue with her lawsuit. I want you to think for a moment of a 60-year-old woman with a great employment record--and I have to tell you, maybe it is my age, but you are still going pretty strong at 60--and she was fired based on age discrimination. This is Janice Rogers Brown: Discrimination based on age does not mark its victims with a stigma of inferiority and second-class citizenship. Really? The woman was fully employed, did a great job, was doing her work, was getting rewarded with a salary, and the next day she wakes up, and for no reason, she is fired. And Janice Rogers Brown says: That is not a stigma. That is no reason to feel bad. That is not a reason to feel like a second-class citizen. I beg your pardon. Six others on that court--five Republicans and one Democrat--thought Janice Rogers Brown was off the wall. Her position saying that age discrimination is not a stigma and, in fact, was really not discrimination at all is contrary to State and Federal law. So George Bush wants to elevate a woman who says essentially there is no such thing as age discrimination. Let's face it, that is the bottom line. Someone can ask: Well, Senator, where did she say that? That is the result of her ruling. She stood alone 31 times, and now George Bush wants to elevate her. There were other times that she stood alone. This is how far out of the mainstream she is. She was the only member of the court to oppose an effort to stop the sale of cigarettes to children. I say to every parent in America who may be listening to the debate, you don't want your 10-year-old or 9-year-old or 11-year-old or 12-year-old to walk into a supermarket to start smoking, which we know is devastating, which we know is addictive, which we do everything we can to stop our kids from doing. If you want your kid protected, then you tell George Bush Janice Rogers Brown doesn't deserve to be elevated for that kind of decision. This isn't the 1950s. I remember the 1950s where they used to say cigarettes are great for you. They are relaxing. They are wonderful. We gave them out free to people to tell them: Calm yourselves. This is terrific. You will live a long time. The leading cause of cancer death among women is not breast cancer, it is lung cancer. In the meantime, she is saying: No, you can't stop the sale of cigarettes to children in this particular case, which was the case that came before her. She was the only member of the court--remember, five Republicans and one Democrat--who voted to strike down a State antidiscrimination law that provided a contraceptive drug benefit to women. In the old days in this country getting a contraceptive was illegal. It was the Supreme Court eventually--and there is actually a 40th anniversary of this tomorrow, the Griswold case. Until the Griswold case, it was illegal to use contraception in this country. The bottom line is, this case of the Supreme Court turned it around and said you can't stop something. So here you have a situation where the State is saying you can't discriminate against women. You need to allow them to be covered with this prescription drug contraception. Janice Rogers Brown says: Wait a minute. I am standing alone. She was the only member of the court who said women can be discriminated against and their contraception does not have to be protected. Talk about going back. We are going back with this woman. She stood alone. The only member of the court to find that a county could not sue a utility company for illegal price fixing that had substantially increased the county's costs for natural gas. Where has this woman been? Does she think about things like Enron? The scams that went on in California and on the west coast? Maybe she should go see that movie, ``The Smartest Guy in the Room,'' I think is the name of it. It is a story about Enron and their manipulation of the market. Here you had a situation where a county was being run into bankruptcy because of the utility bills they were getting from a private utility. Every single justice on that court in California said absolutely the county has a right to sue that utility company. They ran up the price of natural gas. They hurt consumers. They hurt the county. But not Janice Rogers Brown. She stood with the utility company. Are you getting the picture here of someone who deserves a promotion? I hope not because I don't think she does. I hope that what I am doing today is making the record clear that when we stood up against these 10 judges--although in essence now 9--she was one of them for a reason. It is not happy for me to have to go against someone from my own State. It is not enjoyable for me to have to go against somebody who is a woman whose life story is remarkable. It is not easy for me to have to take a stand against a minority woman, and it is not easy for every civil rights organization in this country to do the same. But we need to know what we are doing. This President has to get a message. This could have been avoided if he had sent his people to see the Senators, which is the way it used to be done. Do you think it is OK to give this woman a promotion? No. Let's talk. Can we talk? Can I show you this research? Can I show you how many times she stood alone, how she is bad for families, how she is horrific for senior citizens, how she has ruled against consumers, how she stood with the rapist? Can I show you? We never got the chance. This President doesn't believe in advice and consent. He does not believe in it. He looks at it as an annoyance. He should read the Constitution. Senators are supposed to be giving advice and consent-- advice at the front end, consent when we have the vote. But, no, they want 100 percent. They want to pack the courts. They want to pack the courts with people who will hurt average Americans and stand up for the special interests and the far rightwing of this country. That is not what this President said he was going to do. I remember the day when he declared victory in 1992 and the Supreme Court gave him his seat. He came out in a most humble way, he said: I will govern from the center. I believed him at that point; I honestly did. And then you have a nomination like this, and you just wonder were those empty words? I have to say they were because you have to judge people not by their words, but by their deeds. You have to judge this judge by her decisions. She was standing alone 36 times in a court of 6 Republicans and 1 Democrat. We have some more. The only member of the court to find that a State fair housing commission could not award certain damages to housing discrimination victims. Imagine that. This is a minority woman, and she doesn't understand in her heart how it must feel to be discriminated against when you are looking for housing simply because of the color of your skin or perhaps your religion. It is stunning. It is absolutely stunning to me. The only one to stand alone on this court. So I am going to close with--wait, there is more. We have a few more of these ``only times to stand alone.'' The only member of the court to find that a jury should not hear expert testimony in domestic violence cases about battered women's syndrome. You all know what battered women's syndrome is. It is a situation where a woman has been beaten and beaten and abused and abused-- sometimes to a pulp. And it impacts her actions toward her abuser. She was the only member of the court to find that a jury should not hear expert testimony dealing with Battered Women's Syndrome. Well, to me, that says she stands with the batterer against the woman, against the victim. I have colleagues here who want, and support, an amendment to the Constitution to give rights to victims. Yet, they are going to vote for this woman who stood with a rapist and who stood on the side of batterers. It doesn't make sense. This woman does not deserve to be promoted for standing against the victims of violence and with the perpetrators of violence, and she stood alone. The only member of the court who dissented from a decision that a standard worker's compensation claim did not bar her civil claim for sexual harassment. That makes absolutely no sense. You go to work and you sign documents. One of them is a workers' comp release form. They are forms. Then this person finds out there is sexual harassment in the workplace, and she brings a lawsuit to stop it, and Janice Rogers Brown says: Well, the day you came to work and filled out all your forms, you said you would not file a workers' comp claim. Workers' comp is not a civil remedy for sexual harassment, in my opinion. Workers' comp is getting hurt on the job; it is not sexual harassment. She stood alone. I am sure her colleagues on the court were stunned, but that is Janice Rogers Brown. She stands alone against victims and with the perpetrators of violence and harassment. The only member of the court to find nothing improper about requiring a criminal defendant to wear a 50,000 volt stun belt while testifying. This is amazing. She thought: Oh, no, wear a 50,000-volt stun belt. And every other judge on the court said: No, no, no, this is America. We don't do that here. But not Janice Rogers Brown because she is so out of the mainstream. The only member of the court to find that a disabled worker who was the victim of employment discrimination did not have the right to raise past instances of discrimination that had occurred. So here you have a disabled victim. She had multiple sclerosis. So I say to those who have a disability or to those who have compassion in their heart, you have a string of examples of how you were discriminated against. Janice Rogers Brown said: Oh, no, that is not admissible. We don't want to know about it. She stood alone. She is bad for workers, for victims, and the disabled. That, I think, completes our work on when she stood alone. I am going to close, in the few minutes I have remaining, with some editorials to show the broad range of comments about Janice Rogers Brown. I am going to lead off with George Will, a very conservative columnist, as I think most of my colleagues know. He talks about the deal that was cut on the filibuster, and he says: Janice Rogers Brown is out of that mainstream. It is a fact, he is calling her out of the mainstream. This is George Will, and there is not much room on his right. So that is interesting. The MercuryNews: As an appellate judge who would hear the bulk of challenges of Federal laws coming out of Washington, her appointment would be disastrous. I want you to know, the MercuryNews is in Silicon Valley. The MercuryNews is very balanced. The MercuryNews is very moderate. They say her appointment would be disastrous. She'd be likely to strike down critical environmental, labor laws, and antidiscrimination protections. Brown, though, has infused her legal opinions with her ideology, ignoring higher court rulings that should temper her judgment. That is a scathing editorial of this nominee. The issue isn't Brown's qualifications-- The Sacramento Bee says-- it's her judicial philosophy. This is the Sacramento Bee. This is California speaking to the rest of the country. We should be prideful, but we are not. We are upset about this appointment. The issue is not her qualifications, it is her philosophy. The minority in the Senate certainly is justified in filibustering a lifetime appointment of Brown. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is the last place we need a judge who would impose 19th century economic theory on the Constitution and 21st century problems. How far back are we going to go? I have to say to my colleagues who may be watching this or may be coming back to the Hill today, we have an opportunity here to stand up for the people of the United States of America. We have an opportunity to say no to someone--not that they do not have a wonderful life story, but in spite of that life story because this appointment is not about her life, it is about our life, it is about your life, it is about the lives of your children, your grandchildren, your grandmother, your grandfather. This is an appointment that is out of the mainstream, so stated by George Will. This is a woman who stood alone 31 times. You will hear my colleagues on the other side say: Don't listen to Senator Boxer, her explanation of these cases is inaccurate. But I have to tell you, it is accurate. When you have a woman who is a Republican who stood alone against five other Republican mainstream judges 31 times, who dissented more than a third of the time in a courtroom such as this, you know you are looking at someone who does not deserve a promotion. I am going to keep talking about this nomination. We are going to have a press conference with all of these groups that we can manage to muster, and we are going to be very strong to our colleagues in saying, yes, we are not filibustering Janice Rogers Brown--we gave that up as part of the deal we made so that we would not see filibusters outlawed--but we are going to fight to see that she does not get the 51 required votes. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, as I understand, the Democrats have until 4 p.m. to speak as in morning business.

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

Mrs. BOXER

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

Mrs. BOXER. I ask unanimous consent to have an additional 5 minutes. I will close down in 3 minutes. So we have reason after reason after reason here. Senator Voinovich laid out the record. He read from the record. I am going to close with something I hope every single Member of this Senate will listen to. John Bolton did not tell the truth to the committee. I am going to repeat that. John Bolton did not tell the truth to the Foreign Relations Committee. He said he shrugged off the issue. He shrugged off the issue with these people he tried to fire. He said he just dropped by the CIA on his way home from work. He said he didn't try to dish out retribution or try to fire anybody at all. He said a lot of things that weren't true to our committee. And that is very serious. He wasn't truthful with us. He didn't give us honest accounts. He didn't tell us the truth about how he tried on many occasions to fire these analysts. And if nothing else I have said matters about the retribution, about the twisting of arms to get intelligence to build up a phony case against other countries, if the fact that he said there was no United Nations doesn't move you, or if that 10 stories were gone it wouldn't matter, if you don't care anything about that, I think you ought to care about telling the truth before a committee of the Senate. And we have had chapter and verse. We have it cold here. For all those reasons, I hope we will not vote for John Bolton. And if we do not get the information Senators Biden and Dodd are pushing so hard for, we should delay this until we see that information because it is a matter of right and wrong. It is right for us to get that information. It is wrong for the administration to withhold it. We are a separate but equal branch with the White House. I thank my colleagues. I know this was a long statement, but this is a very important issue. And it is not just one reason against John Bolton; there are about six. I hope I have laid them out. I thank you very much, Mr. President. I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. BOXER. I ask would ask the time in the quorum be divided equally between both sides.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I listen to my distinguished chairman, and I wonder who he is actually talking about when he says there is so much support for John Bolton. There has been an unprecedented outcry of Republicans and Democrats against this nomination. I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record the votes on U.S. ambassadors at the United Nations since 1945.

Mrs. BOXER. I thank the Senator. I have how many minutes remaining?

Mrs. BOXER. What this will show for the record is that starting in 1945, we have had voice votes and unanimous consent votes on almost all of these nominees. There were few exceptions. Andrew Young got the post 89 to 2; Donald McHenry, 83 to nothing--so they had votes--Jeane Kirkpatrick, 81 to nothing. The largest ``no'' vote was Richard Holbrooke, who had 16 against him. Bill Richardson was 100 to nothing; John Negroponte, voice vote; Danforth, voice vote. I am putting this in the Record because when you listen to my friends who are supporting John Bolton, you would think that this is just a run-of-the-mill type appointment, that it is usual to have this kind of firestorm. Nothing could be further from the truth. This nomination is a diversion from the consensus candidates that we have had in the past. Since my chairman talked about all the support John Bolton has, I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record in a letter dated May 9, 2005.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, in March 2000, I introduced legislation to deal with the high price of gasoline. At the time, the price of gasoline had reached a startlingly high $2.15 per gallon in California. Today, gasoline prices on average in California are $2.43 per gallon, 13 percent higher. The problem is getting worse, not better, and so today I am reintroducing my bill to control the manipulation of gasoline prices. We have heard that higher gasoline prices are due solely to higher crude oil prices. I just do not buy it. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, from January 17 through April 11, the cost of crude oil rose 10.8 percent. During the same time period, the average retail price of gasoline in the United States rose 24.9 percent. Something is not right. Look at the profits that are being pocketed by the big oil companies. Compared to the same time last year, oil companies' first-quarter profits are dramatically higher. Look at the number of mergers and acquisitions in the industry over the past several months. The continued consolidation only reduces competition and increases energy costs. Look at the refiners that may be taking plants off-line at will for ``routine maintenance,'' which is reminiscent of the electricity crisis when generators took their plants off-line for ``routine maintenance'' in order to artificially increase prices. My legislation will shed light on manipulation and hopefully curtail it. The bill requires the Federal Trade Commission to automatically investigate the gasoline market for manipulation anytime average gasoline prices increase in any State by 20 percent in a period of 3 months or less and remain at that level for 7 days or more. Market manipulation would include, but it is not limited to, collusion or the creation of artificial shortages such as unnecessarily taking refineries off-line. In determining the trigger, the gasoline price used would be the Energy Information Agency's weekly pricing of regular grade gasoline. A report on the FTC's investigation would be due to Congress 14 days after the price trigger. Under the bill, the FTC would be required within 2 weeks of issuing the report to hold a public meeting to discuss the findings. If the finings indicate that there is market manipulation, then the FTC would work with the State's attorney general to determine the penalties. If the findings indicate that there is no market manipulation, then the U.S. Department of Energy must officially decide, within 2 weeks, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve should be used in order to ease prices and stabilize supply. We need to deter market manipulation. Otherwise, we risk serious price gouging with no accountability to consumers. My legislation offers a reasonable standard for an investigation and a reasonable time frame in which to complete that investigation. I believe the threat of these investigations and the public light that would be shed on the system will keep gasoline prices down. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this bill.