Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. I ask that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing William ``Bill'' Huffman, the director of Government Relations for Farmers' Rice Cooperative, who is retiring after a distinguished career that has spanned more than five decades. Bill Huffman's roots to rice date back to his childhood. He was raised on his family's rice farm in Gridley, located in the heart of California's rice country the Sacramento Valley. Bill later attended Humboldt State University and graduated with a degree in radio/ television before going to work for a Sacramento radio station as a farm broadcaster. Following his career in broadcasting, Bill worked in the government, agricultural, and financial sectors and then joined Farmers' Rice Cooperative, California's largest rice marketing firm, representing more than 700 rice growers. During his 30-year career with Farmers' Rice, Bill promoted one of the Golden State's most important crops with pride and skill, advocating for important public policy issues on behalf of California's rice industry. Each week, growers could depend upon his summary of important local, State, and Federal news impacting the rice industry in ``Bill Huffman's News of the Week'' blog. In addition to tirelessly representing Northern California's rice growers, Bill also helped lead disaster relief efforts to donate rice overseas following the tragic 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia. In recognition of all of his outstanding accomplishments, Bill was awarded the California Rice Industry Award by the California Cooperative Rice Research Foundation in 2009. I had the pleasure getting to know Bill well during his time with Farmers' Rice Cooperative. We worked together to promote California's high-quality rice, protect important conservation programs, and encourage sustainable rice farming. Bill has been a strong voice for our rice growers, and I wish my friend the best as he enjoys a well- deserved retirement with his wife Sheila, their four children, and three grandchildren. Thank you.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring the memory of John Vasconcellos, a giant in California politics and government who died on May 24 at the age of 82. John made the personal political and took politics personally. He was a compassionate and caring human being who brought all of his humanity to the job of governance. John Bernard Vasconcellos, Jr., was born in San Jose, CA in 1932. After graduating with high honors from Bellarmine College Preparatory and Santa Clara University, John spent 2 years in the Army before returning to Santa Clara for law school, where he again graduated at the top of his class. John became interested in politics while serving on Governor Pat Brown's reelection campaign staff during Brown's epic 1962 race against Richard Nixon. In 1966, John was elected to the California State Assembly, beginning a record 38 years of uninterrupted service in the Legislature. In the assembly, John was known for his visionary idealism, brilliant intellect, and tough pragmatism. His mastery of budget issues led to his chairmanship of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, where he championed State investment in education. His deep interest in psychology led to the establishment of the California Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility. When term limits forced John to leave the assembly in 1996, he was elected to the State senate. As chair of the senate committees on education and aging, he championed new investments in K-12, higher education and long-term care while winning bipartisan praise for his careful fiscal stewardship. In 2004, term limits ended John's legislative career, but he did not retire. Joining with a group of friends and supporters, he established the Vasconcellos Legacy Project, VLP, an organization ``dedicated to the proposition that positive political change is possible, especially because we human beings are innately inclined toward the good.'' Through research and advocacy, the VLP has sought to overcome political polarization and cynicism to create a new ``Politics of Trust.'' Throughout his long and distinguished life in politics, John Vasconcellos demanded expected the best from himself, his colleagues, and our democracy. He was one of a kind, and he will be truly missed. I extend my deepest condolences to his loving extended family and many friends and admirers.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, Israel faces 100 rocket attacks a day from a terrorist organization called Hamas. Israel is trying to cope with getting rid of tunnels that have been built by this terrorist organization, with one purpose: to send terrorists through those tunnels so they can kidnap, torture, and kill Israeli citizens. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 492, S. 2673; that the bill be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, if you sense some emotion and anger in my voice, I have it. I am shocked and deeply saddened that my friend would come here and object, when for days and days and days he told me--he told me--he would not do this. My friend told me he would not object. This bill has the support of 81 Senators. To come here and object that his committee, which I am so proud to be--as a matter of fact, I am a senior person on that committee. My chairman is one of the great chairmen of the U.S. Senate. We bent over backward. I wanted to offer this on Monday with Senator Blunt. He was disappointed. I said: I am talking to Senator Corker. We are trying to work together. Eighty one Senators support this, and 1 Senator comes and says: Oh, it is a little bit--we need to go to the committee. There is a war going on. Hamas has put on its channel proudly showing terrorists going through tunnels. This bill is absolutely critical. It is an updated version of the bipartisan legislation we introduced last March. We worked for 16 months. We had issues with the visa waiver. We tried to take it through the committee in May. They tried to attach amendments on Iran. We need to work hard with the administration on the Iran issue. It is critical. But there is a war going on. This bill is critical, and I am so grateful to Senator Blunt and all of my cosponsors. In passing this bill today, the Senate would send a clear and unequivocal message. Let's be clear. We are leaving town. I do not want to leave town, but we are leaving town, and we are not going to have a chance, with all due respect to my friend, to take a look at this for a long time. This is the time, on the way out the door, to send an unequivocal message to our ally. Hamas continues to escalate through those tunnels. We all mourn every civilian life lost--every life lost on either side. Think about it. If in our country we had rockets coming over here from Canada or from Mexico or from the sea into our Nation, what would we do? What would we do? Concrete that was meant to build up Gaza--and I stood at that line when Israel gave up Gaza, gave it up. I was proud they did it, and I thought: What a chance for the Palestinians. I feel for them because Hamas has taken over and they use that concrete that was meant to rebuild for tunnels. I watched the video. I saw the terrorists go through, proudly bearing their weapons, sneaking up on a post and killing five Israelis. They tried to kidnap their bodies but they were unable to do it. So if not now, when is the time to pass this legislation? To say it is bipartisan is an understatement. Almost the entire Senate is on it. We all know there are a lot of important issues. My goodness. I am going to be standing here and talking about a lot of them. This is an emergency. That is why this United States-Israel Strategic Partnership Act is so critical, including our assistance for the Iron Dome missile defense system. What is important in our bill is we increase by $200 million the value of U.S. weapons we hold, we stockpile in Israel to a total of $1.8 billion. At the rate these rockets are coming over, at the rate these tunnels need to be destroyed, we need to act. We need to act. We need to send a clear message to our friend Israel, and it sends a message to Hamas. I have to say, yes, we have a visa waiver program in here. Guess what it does. It treats Israel the same way we treat other countries. I will read the names of those countries: Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, Slovakia, Estonia, and the Czech Republic. Why shouldn't Israel have that same opportunity? We worked on this provision. I know my friend has problems, but we fixed those provisions. We have given maximum flexibility on those provisions. So I am sad--that is an understatement--I am distressed, I am shocked and stunned that this afternoon, before we go out the door, with 81 Senators on a bill--a bill we actually passed a couple years ago, a similar bill, and the House passed a similar bill--that I have a friend, who is my friend--he is my friend--treating this Senator and the chairman in a way that I think is so unfair and to me betrays all the days that we talked about this, the weeks we talked about this, the way we have fixed this legislation. Most of all, I think it is a dark moment--a dark moment--when we would walk away from this opportunity to take a stand against terrorism. I thank the Chair.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I think my colleague knows absolutely the reason why. All this is just disingenuous. My friend knows--we discussed it--that if we load down this bill with extraneous amendments on other subjects it would never pass. We know that. I have been around here a long time. I know how a bill becomes a law, and thank God I learned it. One thing I know. When you start loading down a very important piece of legislation that is emergency legislation with unrelated amendments, it is not going to be able to be done on the way out the door, and my friend knows it. We have----

Mrs. BOXER. Excuse me. I have the time. My friend can get emotional about process. Be my guest. I am not emotional about process. I am emotional about results. How would the Senator feel if he had a terrorist group digging tunnels under his cities? That is an issue separate and apart from our agreement we have to have a good agreement on Iran. But you know when you start amending these bills like that, they are not going to go through on unanimous consent. So I am disheartened, disappointed, saddened, and I think everybody knows what has happened here.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, before Senator Corker leaves the floor, I want to make sure I understand because maybe there is a window of opportunity to revisit this. I want to make sure I heard what he said. It was my clear understanding--and the Senator said he does not know why I thought this--that my friend would not object to this if it came to the floor. I had staff conversations. I know the Senator is saying after it came out of committee, but there were other conversations I am privy to staff to staff. So let me say that. Is it my friend's interest to go and talk to Senator Barrasso in particular--a friend of mine--and see whether he was just going to use these amendments as talking points? If, in fact, he was not going to do that, call for a vote, and he stands down, would my friend allow us to get this done tonight just given the moment in time in which we find ourselves at this late hour?

Mrs. BOXER. I wish to engage with my friend in a bit of a colloquy here. I listened to the Senator from Texas, Senator Cornyn--who is working to try to solve these problems--lament the fact that Democrats in the House would not go along with the Republican version of this emergency appropriation. So I went back and I asked my staff to detail--and my friend did that. I want to make sure that he agrees with what I think basically was in there: First of all, a change in the 2008 law that President George W. Bush signed, written by Senator Feinstein and others--quite bipartisan--to treat these children with human dignity and ascertain that in fact they had a real problem. If they didn't have a real problem, send them back home; and if they did have a real problem, make sure they were safe here. So that was in there. Then, as my friend said, the National Guard piece was in there. Now, what is really interesting is these children are coming over, and they are saying to the Border Patrol: Take me. So I don't mind having the National Guard at the border if we really have to defend, et cetera. I have come after that in the past. But it just seems to me--and my friend made the point--it is one thing to put Border Patrol on and it is another thing to send down the military to face off with these children. The other thing is, of course, they strip down the money dramatically so that these kids may well have to remain in some of the worst conditions in these customs facilities. Now, the question I really want to talk to my friend about is this. I researched this today and asked to find out, every year, how many foreign nationals become legal residents under current law even without changing our law. We know the immigration bill didn't pass over there. It is 1 million a year. Every year, we take 1 million foreign nationals, and they become legal residents in America. Doesn't my friend believe that since we take 1 million people a year in legally, we can deal with 56,000 children, that we can do that, that we have the capacity to do that? We know, if it follows trends, that most of them will be placed with relatives or caring friends, a few may not be, and some will be sent back. But doesn't my friend believe, in this great Nation of immigrants--I am a first-generation American on my mother's side. My mother was born in Europe and her whole family escaped before the Holocaust. I don't think there is anyone in this Chamber, unless they are Native American, who can say truly at one time their relatives weren't immigrants. My friend is so eloquent on the point. We handle 1 million foreign nationals becoming permanent legal residents every year. Don't we think America has the capacity to handle 56,000 children?

Mrs. BOXER. I thank the Senator.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Senators, I will be brief. It is so unfortunate that the House walked away from the work we did, the bipartisan work we did together--79 votes. My goodness. We can't get that these days for Mother's Day. So it was fantastic what we did: the work of Senator Wyden and Senator Hatch, the work of Senator Carper and Senator Corker, the work of Senator Vitter in our committee that I as chair. It is very sad because what we wanted to do was to take care of this problem this year, in this Congress, on our watch, not kick the can down the road. That is what they chose to do in the House. It is most unfortunate, and their pay-fors were just a lot of smoke and mirrors. Having said all of that, we all know--and colleagues have asked me how am I going to vote--that we can't walk away from the highway trust fund. We can't let it stagger and fall. Millions of jobs and thousands of businesses depend on it. So I will be voting aye, and I will be working with Senator Wyden and the rest of my friends and colleagues to make sure we get a multiyear bill as soon as possible. Thank you. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of the President's emergency supplemental request of $615 million to fight wildfires throughout the United States. We have witnessed increasingly large and devastating wildfires over the last few decades. Nationwide, the costs of fighting wildfires has increased from $200 million in 1986 to $1.7 billion in 2013. In that same time, the amount of acres burned has increased from 2.7 million acres in 1986 to 4.3 million acres in 2013. In many parts of the U.S., fire seasons are now 60 to 80 days longer compared to three decades ago and in some places like Southern California, the fire season never ends. This is leading to seasonal firefighters being hired several months earlier than normal and federal agencies spending more to make sure our firefighters are prepared and have the necessary resources available for the entire year. So far this year, California has experienced a 35 percent increase in fire activity and a 16 percent increase in acres burned over an average year. These alarming statistics translate to more than 4,000 wildfires in my State already that have burned more than 52,000 acres since the beginning of the year. Right now, brave firefighters in California are battling five different large fires. The largest is the Sand Fire, which has burned over 4,000 acres east of Sacramento. This fire has already destroyed 19 homes. Although it has already been an unprecedented fire season in California, we are not at all out of danger yet as the significant wildland fire potential remains above normal for most of the State through October of this year. It is also above normal in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, and parts of Arizona. Adding to the difficulty of battling these enormous fires is the constrained fire suppression budget we are currently operating under. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Interior announced that wildfire-fighting costs this summer are projected to run about $400 million over budget. In fact, since 2002, the United States has overspent its wildfire suppression budget every year except one--and in three of those years, went over the suppression budget by nearly $1 billion. This chronic underfunding of our firefighting accounts cannot continue. When we fail to budget for fire suppression, the Forest Service and the Department of Interior are forced to transfer money from fire prevention accounts to make up the difference. That makes no sense! We are taking money from the very programs that help reduce the threat of wildfires--such as hazardous fuel removal programs. In my State, plans to remove dry brush and dead trees in the Tahoe National Forest and the Plumas National Forest have been delayed because wildfire prevention funding is not available. The President's supplemental request not only adds funding for fire suppression during this fiscal year, it solves the problem in the future by creating a Wildfire Suppression Cap Adjustment so that extraordinary fire costs are treated in the same way as destructive hurricanes, tornadoes, or earthquakes are funded. This means that money to fight the largest fires would not be subject to discretionary budget caps much like FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund. As our fire seasons become longer, hotter, and endanger more communities, we must act now to change how wildfire suppression is funded so that we can reduce fire risk and increase the resiliency of the Nation's public lands, forests, and the surrounding communities. I urge my colleagues to support this emergency supplemental funding and address the growing crisis of wildfires. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Would the Senator yield for a question?

Mrs. BOXER. I thank my friend. I wanted to ask him a question. Because I think the way the Senator responded to the Toomey amendment was exactly right on point. It was almost a deja vu as I listened to my friend from Pennsylvania, because he is not on the committee of jurisdiction. But we had this debate, as my friend pointed out. As a matter of fact, I started to get a little stressed as he related what we went through to get to the point where we have an expedited procedure that takes care of the problems my friend from Pennsylvania talks about. But we do not throw out every landmark environmental law. That would be a disaster. I can give you an example and ask my friend if he agrees with this example. I also want to point out the American Public Health Association strongly opposes Senator Toomey's amendment, because they know the health of the people is at stake. But let's say you had a situation where you brought in a contractor to clean up after there was a disaster, collapse, let's say, of a highway. There was a body of water nearby. The contractor came in. Instead of having a good clean operation, he started dumping his fuel and chemicals and everything else into this waterway. Mind you, under our law he has already got an expedited permit, he is ready to roll. But he or she, they have to be good citizens and not make matters worse. Does my friend not agree that these landmark laws, such as the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, should be respected, and the Toomey amendment throws them out the window, and we can endanger the health of the people?

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I know my friends Senator Mikulski and Senator Shelby are doing everything they can to work the will of the Senate. I know how they both want to get something done on this appropriations bill. I simply want to say that I looked at the modification of my Republican friend--and he is my friend--that he offered, and I think for the good of America, who could be watching, I want to make a couple of points that will take me 30 seconds. First of all, there is no limit on the number of amendments. We do not know if it will be 5, 10, 20 or 1,000 or 2,000 or 1 million. We have no idea. They would not even have to be related to the bill at hand, and they will not tell us what this list of amendments is. I have looked back at some recent requests, and I want to be very honest with my friend. The recent requests I have seen before have been attacks on the Clean Air Act, attacks on the Clean Water Act, attacks on the Safe Drinking Water Act, attacks on women's health care. Frankly, that is not something I can agree to. So I just want to say I am so saddened that we cannot seem to take up the most popular bill. I know how hard everybody has worked on MILCON- VA, and my friend, Senator Shelby, said: Our side is eager to schedule floor consideration of appropriations bills. Well, if they are really eager, they should work together with Senator Mikulski. You could not find anyone more fair. Get a finite list of amendments. If they are controversial, we have the 60-vote threshold. We know how to do our work around here. So I am sorry it has come to this, and I appreciate the leadership of both Senators.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, reserving the right to object, will we still have 2 minutes before each amendment then? It will be in between?

Mrs. BOXER. I thank the Chair.

Mrs. BOXER. Parliamentary inquiry.

Mrs. BOXER. Have the votes been set for a certain time?

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, if Senator Wyden would like this time, I think that would be really appropriate to sum it up in the 1 minute we have. If there is an opposition person, they can speak. I think the Senator should sum it up in 1 minute.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I wish to speak to Senators for a minute and tell Members this amendment is the end of the Federal highway system. The States oppose it. My friend from Utah gave a very impassioned speech earlier in which he essentially said: Free the States. Let them be free. But the States oppose this amendment. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials strongly oppose it and so does the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Trucking Associations, American Society of Civil Engineers, the National Stone, Sand, and Gravel Association. The fact is it would result in an immediate 80-percent cut to our States at a time when we still have 700,000 unemployed construction workers and thousands of businesses that are waiting--just waiting--to rebuild the infrastructure. I hope Members will vote no on this radical amendment.

Mrs. BOXER. No, not at all. Please proceed.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I would like to take my time off the general debate time; is that appropriate?

Mrs. BOXER. I thank the Chair. I am so pleased to be on the floor because the Senate has to be heard on this issue of the highway trust fund and our whole transportation system for that matter. I do wish to praise Senators Wyden and Hatch for coming together across party lines and making some real improvements in the pay-fors that are associated with this extension. I am very much in favor of the way they handled this bill, and I am also very much in favor of the way the pension smoothing was handled in the Carper-Corker-Boxer amendment because that does away with it altogether, because we shorten the timeframe so we don't need any pension smoothing in there. Before I speak specifically about the wisdom of what the Finance Committee did and my hope that we can get it over the finish line today, I want to give kind of an overview of where we are in general. For 2 years we have known that our Transportation bill expired September 30. We have known this for 2 years. Yet, and still, here we are at the 11th hour with an extension. This is probably, I think, the 12th extension in a few years. I think that is so unfair to the people of this great country who rely on their bridges and their highways and their transportation systems. It is so unfair to the thousands of businesses that work to rebuild our infrastructure, and it is very unfair to the millions of workers who work in construction. We still have 700,000 unemployed construction workers. When we do a piecemeal bill like this, of course, it is better than doing nothing-- there is no doubt about that; I would not argue that--but it still sends a message of indecision and, frankly, I think of incompetence on our part, and I step to the plate on that. But I am very proud to say that my committee--100 percent bipartisan; we did not have a dissenting vote--passed the 6-year transportation bill. When we did that, I went to my colleagues and said: I know you have the hard job. You have to figure out the long-term funding. I want to help you. I came forward and I said: Why don't we look at several proposals. One is what they are doing in Virginia. This was a Republican idea. It is to do away with the gas tax completely and replace it with a fee at the refinery level. That would be a more broad-based tax. We would do away with the gas tax. No more Federal gas tax at the pump. That would solve our problems. You set it at a rate where it floats, and we would have 100 percent certainty. Senator Wyden was quite open to it. He took a look at it. I know he floated it. Clearly, we did not have the type of support we would need. Then the Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO said: Do you know what. We have not raised the gas tax in 21 years. Mr. President, we have not raised the gas tax in 21 years. I did a little reading and found out the first President to initiate the gas tax--and I say to Senator Hatch, he might be interested in this--the first President to formulate a gas tax--and it came in at a penny--was Herbert Hoover. The next President who raised it was President Eisenhower, who had that great vision to then put it into a trust fund for highways, and he raised it a couple of cents. So it was about 3 cents. The next President to raise it was President Reagan. And the next President to raise it was George Herbert Walker Bush. They were all Republican Presidents. Then President Clinton raised it. Clearly the Congress supported it each and every time because it is a user fee. So that is an alternative. There are many other ideas. I know Senator Wyden and Senator Hatch have a number of ideas, and I know Senator Hatch prefers a user fee. It makes sense. But because of the time crunch--because of, because of, because of--we did not get it done. I am proud. Senator Vitter is proud. We got it out of our committee, a 6-year bill. It is not a great, massive bill. It just takes the current program, adds inflation, and extends it for 6 years. I can tell you, if Senator Vitter and I can agree, if Senator Carper and Senator Barrasso can agree, if Senator Cardin can agree with Senator Sessions, and Senator Sanders with Senator Fischer--I could go on. Our committee goes from left to right, and everybody agreed we should have the 6-year bill. So as I stand here today, I am distressed that we do not have that before us, but I am still grateful to my friends for doing what they could politically do. But I feel it is a sad day for us, and I know and I hope we pass this Wyden-Hatch substitute. It is a much-improved way to pay for the extension. But we are extending all the way to May, right up against the next construction season. Now, if you are a State--whether it is Utah or California or West Virginia or Maryland or Oregon; it does not matter--you are not going to enter into any agreement. No businessperson is going to take this on where you do not know what the future holds. So we are putting it off again, and it is sad we are doing it, and we have 60, 70, 80 groups out there, which I will list later, that are supporting our shortening the timeframe. Now, my friend says artificial deadlines are bad. But let's face it. Their bill raises--I think it is $11 billion. Am I right on that? So we know it takes it to May 31. That is their deadline. Our bill, in the Carper-Corker-Boxer rewrite, takes it to December. We cut it back. We totally eliminate pension smoothing--totally eliminate it--and we take it back to $8 billion, and that forces us to do the job in December. Look, this Congress has to do its work. The trust fund expires during this Congress. Now we are kicking it down the road to the next Congress. Whatever the Senate wishes, I will go along with it. If the Senate says, no, we are going to go with that longer term extension, so be it. I will fight just as hard to move forward with a 6-year bill, I say to my colleagues, when we get back or in a lameduck. I want to close by talking a little bit about pension smoothing for just a minute because I so agree with Senator Hatch when he says this is not his favorite thing. It is not my favorite thing either, and we come from different sides of the aisle. So just to be clear, what we are saying to companies is, you can set aside less money for your pension requirements to your employees. Now, I have to admit in the light of day, I voted for that the last time when Senator Baucus brought that forward. I did. But it also was a company buy, an increase in the amount of money companies had to pay into the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. If a company goes broke and they cannot pay their pensions because they have not set aside enough--and with our help they are not having to set aside enough--what happens then? The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp kicks in, and that is funded by the companies. But if that does not have enough--and my information is it is short $34 billion, as we speak--the taxpayers will have to bail it out. So this pension smoothing is really, really dangerous. It is an offset that is not a good one. Now, the Wyden-Hatch proposal is much, much better than the House proposal because it cuts it basically in half. The Carper-Corker bill cuts it out completely. So we just have to step to the plate. I think Senator Wyden is right. Here we are bailing out--if I could use those terms--the highway trust fund until May, while we set up another potential weakness in our pension system. It is not smart. It should not be done. We had 2 years to figure this out. But no question--no question--the Wyden-Hatch proposal is a far better proposal. Just making sure people pay their taxes, that is something we should all believe in, and, for the first time, the two Senators brought that issue forward to a successful conclusion. I am very, very grateful to them for that. So I very strongly support this. I hope we will see a lot of support for the amendment that Senators Carper, Corker, and I brought forward because we do away with pension smoothing. So if you do not like pension smoothing, vote for that one; and we cut back the money so we can take this whole thing up in December and give some certainty to all the groups out there, whether it is the Chamber of Commerce or the general contractors or the cement people or the gravel people or the AFL-CIO or the laborers. All these folks want to make sure we are not just doing a little cut and paste and get us up against the next thing. I keep saying ``in closing,'' but I really mean it now. What you are dealing with here, if you want to use an analogy, is: You find a house you really like, so you go to the bank, and the bank looks at you and says: Well, you are a good risk. Yes, we will definitely give you a mortgage, but it is only for 9 months. Nobody is going to take that mortgage. Our States are not going to enter into 3-year contracts when they know they only are going to get the funding for 9 months. We have an amendment by Senator Lee which would cut the Federal Government's ability to help the States and wind up with an 80-percent cut in funding. So it is very risky moving out with all these things hanging over our head. But I am still pleased with what the Finance Committee did. I thank Senators Reid and McConnell for allowing us to have this time on the floor and all of my colleagues for agreeing, because this is a debate that has to start somewhere. So it is starting today. We know whatever happens, we are just doing a patch, and we are going to have to sit down together with good will and good ideas and solve this problem for the good of our country.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I will be very brief. I know my colleagues want to present the Carper-Corker-Boxer amendment. I will just say that we just did the math. The Senator cuts the gas tax to such a degree that the States would get an 80-percent cut. The Senator can do the math himself, but I am happy to work with the Senator on it. It is not convenient--it is not right to speak about another Member when they are not here, but my understanding is Senator Inhofe does not currently support this. I could be wrong. We will find out in a couple hours. One of us can apologize. But I will apologize if I misstated his objection to this. I yield the floor. Amendment No. 3583