Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Regular order.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I was unable to attend the roll call vote that occurred on April 25, 2013 because of a family obligation. Had I been present, I would have voted in favor of the motion to invoke cloture on S. 743, the Marketplace Fairness Act. As electronic commerce has grown dramatically, new policies are necessary to maintain a level playing field so that businesses of all types can both compete and prosper. This bipartisan bill has the support of a broad coalition of Governors, mayors, business leaders, and labor groups, and is especially important to our local governments. I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure that implementation of these changes is manageable for small businesses in California and elsewhere.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the 98th anniversary of the Armenian genocide. In 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations passed the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide based in part on the horrific crimes perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenian people in the early 20th Century. Between 1915 and 1923, more than 1.5 million Armenians were marched to their deaths in the deserts of the Middle East, murdered in concentration camps, drowned at sea, and forced to endure horrific acts of brutality at the hands of the Ottoman Empire. Yet, in the 65 years that have passed since the Convention was adopted, successive U.S. administrations have refused to call the deliberate massacre of the Armenians by its rightful name genocide. For many years, I have urged both Democratic and Republican administrations to finally acknowledge the truth. I do so again today. It is long past time for our government to acknowledge, once and for all, that the Armenian genocide is a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence. In fact, the Armenian genocide along with the Holocaust is one of the most studied cases of genocide in history. Tragically, Adolf Hitler even used the Ottoman Empire's action against the Armenians to justify the extermination of the Jews in the Holocaust, saying in 1939, ``Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?'' A number of sovereign nations, ranging from Argentina to France, as well as 43 out of 50 U.S. States have recognized what happened to the Armenians as genocide. Yet successive U.S. administrations continue only to refer to the Armenian genocide as an annihilation, massacre, or murder. The entire Armenian community and the descendants of the victims of the Armenian genocide continue to suffer prolonged pain each and every day that goes by without full acknowledgement by the United States. I hope that this is the year that we finally right this terrible wrong because the United States cannot and does not turn a blind eye to atrocities around the globe. In fact, the United States is often the first to speak out in the face of violence and unspeakable suffering and to urge other countries to respond. But sadly, our Nation is on the wrong side of history when it comes to the Armenian genocide. So this April 24, as we pause to remember the victims and to celebrate the many contributions Armenian Americans have made to our great country, I hope that the United States will finally and firmly stand on the right side of history and officially condemn the crimes of 1915 to 1923 by their appropriate name.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Will my friend yield for a question?

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I appreciate Senator Reid taking the leadership here, and as I understand it--and I want him to confirm it-- what he has done is he has suggested the cuts that are hurting so many of our American citizens be restored and he is paying for that. He is not putting it on a credit card. He is paying for it by taking funds from the overseas account because we are winding down wars. Am I correct that what the Senator is doing is paying a price that equals the amount he is restoring of the sequester?

Mrs. BOXER. And I also want to say to my friend, I understand we are truly suffering in this country. I have examples of people who were turned away from cancer clinics. They can't get their chemotherapy. The Cancer Society--which is not a government entity--has said this is very dangerous. Is my friend aware that patients are being turned away and not getting the chemotherapy, grants are not being funded? I know he mentioned that. But I think the fact that patients who need chemotherapy who live--some are being denied this. Is my friend aware of that?

Mrs. BOXER. I would also say, I wonder if my friend knew--and I take just a city from the Midwest. In Cincinnati, 200 children will be dropped or denied access to Head Start. Anita Wolf, a mother of two special needs children, said she may have to choose which child can remain in Head Start enrichment programs. I say to my friend, we are here because this is hurting people. This isn't about statistics, and I am very disappointed we can't work together to restore this. How long does my friend restore these cuts?

Mrs. BOXER. I thank the Senator from Nevada for yielding, and I will listen to my colleagues from the other side.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I worked with my colleague from Alabama on a lot of issues. We do work together on occasion.

Mrs. BOXER. But on this particular issue we see the world very differently, which is to be respected, and it is with full respect that I say this sequester is not necessary. These across-the-board cuts were put into place to be so difficult and so painful that both parties would come together and come up with a solution. The President has tried and tried. He said to both parties: Why don't we meet in the middle? Let's replace the sequester, these mindless cuts, with other cuts that make sense and are not painful, and the other half with tax reform, doing away with subsidies, tax loopholes such as the billions of dollars a year oil companies have been getting that don't make sense, since they are the most profitable companies probably in the world. But Republicans' answer to that: We are not going to look at taking away these tax breaks from big companies. We are going to not look at trying to see whether millionaires or billionaires can pay anymore. We want to replace the sequester with more cuts. I know it is a fast-moving country we live in. Lord knows you have gone through some difficult times in Massachusetts and I thank the Presiding Officer for her leadership. But we do not have that short a memory. We remember this awful recession that almost turned into a depression. We know because it is basic--I am an economics major; it was a long time ago--but there was a basic understanding that when times are tough the government doesn't turn to austerity. The government helps us by saying: You know what, maybe this is a good time to fix those bridges, to build those highways, to do the things we need to do because a great country needs an infrastructure and this is the time to do it--because we need the jobs, too. We have no partners over there. Now Senator Reid comes up with a very sensible plan and here is the plan: For the next 5 months we restore the sequester. We take away those mindless cuts, get us back to normalcy, try to find another solution, a long-term solution, but in the meantime, pay for stopping the sequester by cutting from an overseas war funding account. As we bring home our soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq, we have an account that can be drawn down. So when our colleagues say Senator Reid is raising taxes to do this, he is not raising taxes No. 1. He is cutting spending by taking savings out of this overseas war account. It makes a lot of sense. The American people want to see the Afghanistan war come to an end. The American people want to see the Iraq war totally completed. We are saying take that money and how about spending it here? Their answer today, which is so astounding, from Senator Coburn who objected to this very important bill--Senator Coburn said he has the answer. It is called flexibility. What does that mean? It means all of these cuts, these billions and billions of dollars in cuts, we will then tell the agency: Figure it out. You figure out where to fix it. For example, in the FAA they have an airport improvement fund. They are saying we do not have to fire these air traffic controllers. Let's not do that. Take the money from the airport improvement fund. If you know anything about the airport improvement fund, it is not an idle fund. It is a fund that is paid for by taxes that people pay so their airports will be improved, hence it is called the airport improvement fund. Whether it is making sure the runways are safe or making sure the terminals are secure--this is why we have airport improvement funds. You cannot rob Peter to pay Paul. I want to say to my friend--he left the floor--and he is my friend, Senator Coburn: Flexibility is not the answer. If somebody comes to me, a colleague, and says: Senator Boxer, I left my wallet home and I am starving, can you lend me $10? And I say flexibility--what flexibility? He left his wallet home. Flexibility does not pay for air traffic controllers. Flexibility does not pay for teachers. Flexibility does not pay for FBI agents. If we ever learned anything from the horror in Boston, it is the unbelievable first responders in addition to the citizens who rushed toward the blast. The people there, the professionals, the doctors who happened to be there--we pay those people. Earth to the Senate: Not everybody lives off a trust fund. People need to get paid. Flexibility does not do it. I cannot say, if I get a call from an air traffic controller: Oh, why don't you just volunteer on your day off? He will probably tell me he is going to figure out a way--on his day off that he is forced to have, his furlough--to make some money for his family. Sometimes I wonder if we are in ``Alice in Wonderland'' around here. Nothing could be more true than today. I want you to know that I have people in Los Angeles who are stuck on runways for hours and miss very important functions. How about one of my people in Los Angeles--I have his name. It is not important. He said he missed a funeral on Monday because his incoming flight was delayed. ``We had to cancel our whole trip because the funeral is tonight and we are not going to make it.'' Flexibility is not the answer. The answer is to restore the money from sequestration. The FAA announced plans to close 149 airport control towers nationwide, including many in my State. How about people who are getting turned away who need chemotherapy and the American Cancer Society Action Network said that because of sequestration ``funding for cancer research and prevention programs are taking a dangerous hit.'' Again I say to my Republican friend, this is from the private sector on what is happening around here. The National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program will provide 32,000 fewer breast and cervical cancer screenings this year to women who have no other option for affordable, lifesaving screenings. These are lifesaving screenings. Do you want to tell that woman: Flexibility? That is not the answer. The answer is restore the funds from the sequester. Head Start, about to lose 70,000 of its 1 million slots for children. Let me tell you, in Cincinnati, 200 children will be dropped or denied access to Head Start. Anita Wolfe, a mother of two special needs children, said she may have to choose which child can remain in Head Start's enrichment program. This is a bad situation. In Oakland, the housing authority is losing $11 million, and expects 800 to 900 fewer families will get housing assistance. In Indiana Head Start programs in two towns resorted to a lottery system last month to determine which kids could remain in the program. Riverbend Head Start in Illinois has had to cut its school year by 2 weeks, leaving its staff unemployed and its participating families without childcare for those two weeks. The Santa Clara County Housing Authority has lost $21 million in funding and is considering pulling housing assistance vouchers from some of the 17,000 households it serves. Local resident and mother of two Alicia Diaz fears that she may become homeless as a result. The Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency expects to lose $13.9 million, affecting housing assistance to 1,700 families. Many of the 24,000 Los Angeles families relying on Section 8 vouchers could lose all or part of their housing subsidy before the end of this year. Customs and Border Patrol has furloughed 60,000 agents nationwide and restricted overtime. This is causing delays in cargo processing at the Ports of Hueneme, Long Beach and Los Angeles, which rely heavily on overtime because they are extremely busy ports. More than 100 dockworkers in Port Hueneme were idled due to delays, and shipments had to wait to be inspected. Every minute of delay costs money for businesses receiving their products late. Customs and Border Patrol estimates that delays could become as long as 5 days. We are seeing delays in our ports. We are seeing dock workers idled. With these delays, says one of my people, ``I have to hire the labor and pay them while I wait for Customs to clear the vessel.'' It is having an impact on our economy. Just to finish up, Senator Reid took the leadership today. I am so proud to stand with him. He found a place to get the money to put the funds back in and avert the sequester, stop the pain at the airports, stop the pain at the clinics, restore Meals on Wheels to our seniors-- all the things I talked about, and he paid for it by going to the war fund that is winding down, and making sure we can fix this problem for 5 months. It is shocking that my Republican friends would object to this when their constituency is feeling the same pain as the rest of us. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I was unable to attend the rollcall vote that occurred on Monday, April 22, 2013. Had I been present, I would have voted in favor of the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 743, the Marketplace Fairness Act.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. I move to lay the motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 719

Mrs. BOXER

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

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I rise today as a mother, a grandmother, and a Senator--a Senator whose State has been touched far too many times by gun violence, including mass shootings. I also wish to reiterate my support for the people of Boston who are dealing with the aftermath of senseless, tragic, and cowardly violence. I think I need to put into context why I have for so long been an advocate of gun safety measures. In January 1989, a gunman stepped onto the grounds of Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, CA. He fired at least 106 bullets from an AK-47 rifle across the schoolyard. He killed 5 children, ages 6 to 9, and 1 teacher, and he injured 29 other students before fatally shooting himself. This horrific crime led California to enact an assault weapons ban and, of course, we know that assault weapons ban in California is still in place. I so appreciate Senator Feinstein's leadership in trying to, once again, authorize at the Federal level an assault weapons ban. Californians still remember this tragedy in Stockton, just as the Nation will always remember the victims of the horrific events of Friday, December 14, 2012, at Sandy Hook Elementary School. I flash forward to from 1989 and the Stockton tragedy to a law office in San Francisco in 1993, where a crazed gunman--I remember his name, but I will not say it--with an assault weapon killed eight people and wounded six. One of those people was a brave lawyer who threw his body over the body of his wife, sacrificing his own life to save hers. That young man was one of my son's best friends, and I know personally how these horrific and senseless tragedies live on with the survivors--the parents, the spouses, the children, the families, and the friends. It changes their lives and it pierces their hearts forever. I have told you a couple of stories about California. But let me say this: Let's look at what has happened across this Nation since Sandy Hook. In the 120 days since Sandy Hook, more than 2,200 Americans have been killed by gun violence. Hardly any place was spared. We know there are many, many firearms in America. There are 300 million firearms in the United States. If you were to divide that up, that would be one gun per person, of course. There are many people who have many, many guns. This is a 50-percent increase--the number of guns in circulation-- since 1995, when there were, as I say, about half that number. When I go home and I speak about this--and I write about it--I say: There are 31,000 reasons why we need to pass sensible gun laws because--31,000--that is the number of people who die every year in America from gun violence. That is 87 people every single day, on average. You look at this: 31,000 people dying every year from gun violence. So how do you get a sense of what that is? I think back. One of the reasons I got into politics in the first place was the war in Vietnam and trying to end it, first as an activist and then, actually, as an elected leader in my country. I think about how many people died in the 10-year war of Vietnam and it was a little bit more than 50,000 in that 10-year period and it turned our country upside down--upside down. I can tell you, I lived through it: generation against generation. It was a very tough time in this Nation. People lost faith in the country. It was tough. Yet we have 31,000 people killed every year in America from gun violence, and it is something where we all kind of just say: OK, that is terrible, but we do not do anything about it. But we are about to do something about it that is very important. It may not be everything I would want to do, given my history on this issue, but I will say, if we can move forward with sensible background checks--and I thank Senators Manchin and Toomey so much, so much, for their work--and if we can do something about straw purchasers, and if we can do something about making our schools safer--which I am pleased to say I wrote the legislation that is in the underlying bill before us--if we can do a few of these things, it would be a big step forward. Do I want to see more done? Yes. Do I want to see the ban on assault weapons reinstated? I do. But I do feel we are at a point in time where we may be able to get something done that matters. I think we ought to look at mass shootings in the last 30 years. First of all, 40 percent of mass shootings have occurred since 2006. So if you go back 30 years, you see 40 percent took place since 2006. According to the Washington Post, in 2012 alone, 175 people were killed or wounded from mass shootings. People who should not get these weapons are getting these weapons. People with severe mental illness are getting these weapons. We know that. Today, we got to see in the Democratic Caucus lunch a heroine, someone who is unbelievable, Gabby Giffords, struggle with each step, with every word. Why? What did she do? She held a townhall meeting so she could bring government to her people in the most personal of ways. And someone who was very sick got access to weapons, and the rest we know. In the name of those who were lost, Gabby Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly have been truthtellers. These people--Mark and Gabby--are gun owners, proud gun owners. They are not coming from a different place. Yet they are standing for sensible gun laws. I am so grateful to them for dedicating their lives to this, and I am so grateful to the parents of the children and all the victims at Sandy Hook for putting a human face on these numbers. Madam President, 175--what does that mean? If you saw the faces you would know what it means. And sometimes the wounds, as we see with Gabby, are so hard to deal with. We can make it harder for people who are criminals, who have no right to have a gun, we can make it harder for them by making sure they have to undergo a background check. Today, I learned from Mark Kelly that we, through the background checks that we already have--that is when people go to a regular retail store--we have stopped well over a million gun sales, well over. Yet we do not have that same system in place for gun shows or private sales. So Joe Manchin and Senator Toomey have been working together, and they have crafted a way to move toward a sensible background check-- yes, protecting family members who want to give a gun to the next, but they have preserved, the most important part of their bill, which is to simply make a uniform standard for a gun sale wherever you purchase your gun. Some of the strongest proponents of this are people who run retail stores who go through the laborious situation--although it is pretty quick now--of doing a background check. Yet somebody can go across the street to a gun show and make a deal and never be asked, and they could be a criminal, they could be mentally unbalanced, they could be a terrorist, OK, and still get a gun. I want to look at the issue of school shootings in America. The tragedy that took place at Sandy Hook is a tragedy that far too many of our Nation's communities have faced in recent years. I have in the Chamber a chart that shows that since the year of Columbine, 262 students, teachers, and others have been killed or wounded in K-12 school shootings. People go to school. It is supposed to be a protected zone. Who thinks about this? Look how many people since Columbine. And we swore we would never allow that to happen again. It is happening. So we have to do more. I tell you, this is just K-12. But if you look at America's colleges and universities, in my own State, at California's Oikos University, in 2012--it is in Oakland--a former student returned to the campus and killed seven people and injured three. We have these horrible violent incidents at colleges and universities. School shootings are on the rise in America. I am telling you. I have the numbers to show it on this chart. Divided up by decades, we go back. From 1979 to 1988--this is the number of incidents at schools; not the people killed, but the number of school shootings--there were 27. This is just for K-12. This does not include the universities. So for K-12, from 1979 to 1988, 27 incidents; from 1989 to 1998, 55 incidents; from 1999 to 2008, 66 incidents. This is a number we do not want to keep going up. In so many of these cases it could have been prevented. I am not saying every case, but certainly in some cases. If we were able to do something about the magazine capacity here, that would have a big impact on the numbers as well. So we are moving up, and that is not a good number. The parents of the fallen children at Sandy Hook and Oikos in my home State have joined countless other parents who have lost their children in violent assaults on our Nation's schools and colleges. They have joined with parents of Colorado's Columbine High School, California's Santana High School, Minnesota's Red Lake Senior High School, West Nickel Mines School in Pennsylvania, Virginia Tech, and so many others. The shooting at Sandy Hook is another reminder that we have failed our children. I do not know how to put it another way. I am so sad about it. This topic is so heavy in my heart because I know we can do some things to change it. I believe we are on the brink of doing some things--not enough in my view but some things to change it. I could tell you, Madam President--because the Presiding Officer was there today--we had quite a caucus today. Our colleagues who stood up, who have seen these tragedies in their States, were beyond eloquent. Our colleagues--who are trying to do something that, yes, may be politically difficult--are showing courage. It is one of those moments when you say: I am blessed to be here, and I can do something about this. I think more and more of our colleagues are beginning to realize this, as they meet with the parents and they meet with colleagues and they sit down one-on-one. We have to keep our children safe. One of the pieces of legislation that is less controversial that is included in the base bill before us is the School and Campus Safety Enhancements Act that I have authored with Senator Collins, Senator Warner, and Senator Kirk to help secure our Nation's schools. For years, we had the very successful Secure Our Schools program. Basically, we build from that program and we make some changes to it that I think will make it better. I want to explain the way it would work. What we say is, if a local entity--and this could be a police department; it could be school districts--if they feel they want to secure their schools, they will have to put some funds on the line, about 50 percent of the funding. But we would supplement that funding by 50 percent. We would help to pay for security-related capital improvements at the school plant. A lot of our schools are old. When they were built, no one thought 5 seconds about some of these issues. Classroom locks, lighting, fencing, reinforced doors, security assessments, training for students and teachers and administrators, coordination with local law enforcement-- there are so many things we can do. But we know our school districts and our local police departments are stretched right now. We want to help them pay for some of these things--perimeter fencing, for example, and cameras. You could see someone coming onto the campus and take action to either alert your school officers who may be there or your local police department to prepare. We have had a similar program in place since 2002, but the authorization expired in 2009. In the past, 5,500 schools have received these funds, but the funds were not even sufficient. Fifty-four percent of the entities that applied for these grants were turned away. So we know this is a program the schools like because they took advantage of it. But we ran out of funds. We want to make sure we reauthorize this. In the past, programs such as the one in the bill passed with a 307-to-1 vote in the House and the Senate 95 to 0. What we do is reauthorize the Safety in Schools Program for 10 years. We increase the authorization to $40 million a year. We allow more flexibility. We do not say what they have to use it for. By the way, they do not use it for more cops in schools. That is another issue. It is not in this particular piece. It is something I care about and want to work on. It is not in this bill. What is in this bill is making capital improvements to the facilities. It is not a one-size-fits-all. Some people do not need a fence or a camera or a door. We leave it up to the schools. Flexibility. We also do something Senator Warner truly wanted. We create a Department of Justice and Department of Education task force to develop advisory school safety guidelines. We include language from Senator Grassley to ensure adequate grant accountability. Senator Warner and Senator Kirk also wanted to create a National Center for Campus Public Safety, which will serve as a clearinghouse for education, training, and best practices. Here is the thing. Some of our campuses know how to do this and others do not. So we want to make sure there is a central place one can find out the best practices. I was going to go through, in closing, some of the ways these funds were actually used on the ground before this program expired. In Sulphur Springs, TX, which is a school district made up of nine schools, they wanted to do a safety assessment. They were able to make that safety assessment so they knew what they had to do to make their schools safer. When they did their study, they found they needed to replace older security equipment and technology, expand restricted access keyway systems, and placed classroom security levers on all doors, which allowed teachers to lock doors from the inside. Simple point. You may say: Oh, that is not expensive. Why do you need to spend money? It sure adds up when you truly want to secure a door and want to do it right. So if you have many doors, we can help them do these things. If they wanted to make sure they hardened their facility, that is what the money is for. There is a township in New Jersey that used funds to secure perimeter and playground areas by installing security gates at elementary and intermediate schools to create a safer learning environment. The new exterior fences defined school boundaries, making the school grounds safer for students. Interior gates were placed at schools, providing the ability to lock off specific areas of the schools during emergencies. Again, it is common sense. But when these schools were built, no one thought about this. Everything was open. It is similar to the Capitol when I came here. I am dating myself. A long time ago, you could go anywhere--no metal detectors, no fences, walk up the steps to the Capitol. We have lost a lot of that freedom. Our world is now to balance our freedom in the greatest country in the world with security. That is what we are trying to do with this. In Minnesota, we saw grants used to conduct security assessments and institute safety training classes. In Palmer High School in Colorado, they implemented a new surveillance, lockdown, and evacuation procedure. They doubled the number of doors that are operated by security cards, so it reduced the number of outside individuals able to gain building entry. It makes it harder for people to get in. It might be annoying for some parents, but I think right now people realize this is what is needed. It is this balance. In Florida, in Leon County, which is responsible for 50 schools, they had no central point of contact to coordinate communication across all school facilities. So they set up, with the funds from this program, a 24-hour emergency operations center which has significantly reduced emergency response time. There is one point of contact. So what we have done in this bill is not a one-size-fits-all. We do not say in here: You have to do 10 things. We say: You come up with the plan. You send it to the Department of Justice. They look at the plan. They work with you to make it good. If they think it is worthwhile, we will fund it 50 percent. My final point. I want to show who supports school safety provisions in the bill: Fraternal Order of Police, Security Industry Association, National Sheriff's Association, National Association of School Resource Officers, International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators. I ask unanimous consent to have the list printed in the Record.

Mrs. BOXER. I have left out PTAs, National School Board Association, the NEA, and so on. We have a long list. Look, we will never be able to stand here and say we have solved every problem. We cannot. But we have to be able to say, we have to be able to know we did everything we could to reduce these tragedies. As I stand here I think, what will people say who do not vote for this and the next tragedy comes? What will they say? How can they look at their kids and their grandkids and say: I did not think it was right. We need to do commonsense things around here, not put ideology ahead of practicality. The slaughter of innocents must stop. I am going to support the Toomey-Manchin amendment. It closes the gun show and Internet loophole. It is not the perfect background check I would write. We know that. But it is good. It is solid. It moves forward. I am going to support Senator Leahy--his amendment which will outlaw the abusive practice of straw purchasing and gun trafficking. I will support Senator Feinstein's important amendment on assault weapons, to ban those weapons. She has worked so hard to make it fair and just and right. It would also take high-capacity clips off our streets. Senator Feinstein will have much more to say on assault weapons. I will withhold my remarks on that until that debate. Clearly, we have work to do. Clearly, we all carry from our State and in our hearts stories of this violence. Now we have a moment in time where we can actually act. I truly appreciate this opportunity.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the time until 6 p.m. be for debate only; that at 6 p.m. the Senate recess subject to the call of the chair; that when the Senate reconvenes the majority leader be recognized.

Mrs. BOXER. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. BOXER

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

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. I wish to add my voice in stating it is wonderful to have Senator Fischer on my committee, where we are doing good work. We like to say in the committee the public works side is a very collegial side and the environmental side is a little less. I am proud to have her with us working on the new Water Resources Development Act. I look forward to working closely with her. I congratulate her on her maiden speech. It is like getting the first scratch on your car: You need to just do it, and you did it very well. Climate Change I have been coming to the floor on Monday evenings--I don't know how many people have actually taken note of the fact--every Monday the last several months to speak about an issue no one in the Senate wishes to speak about very much. I shouldn't say no one; maybe 25 of us do. The issue is climate change. I think it is very important we have in the Record and place in the Record everything we know about climate change so future generations will see at least a few of us understood the issue. We are willing to step forward and do something about this issue. Gun Control I wish to say I personally am very grateful to the people of Connecticut for responding to the Sandy Hook tragedy with such focus, intelligence, compassion, and common sense. I include in that ``thank you'' the Democrats and Republicans who came together to pass some of the most sensible gun laws which balance gun rights with the need for people to be safe. They need to be safe in a movie theater, safe in the schools, and safe in their homes. I think the American people totally understand when 90 percent of them support background checks. I am so proud of my colleague Senator Feinstein. She and I have been working on this issue for a long time. A very long time ago, in the early 1990s, there was a crazed gunman who walked into a law office with an automatic weapon. He killed people. One of them was my son's very dear, good friend, killed while protecting his wife from the shooter. I know from that experience and watching my son's loss at a relatively young age--right out of law school--what it did to my son, let alone what it did to the families of those who were gunned down by this Gian Luigi Ferri, who walked into 101 California Street and sprayed those bullets as fast as he could. After this tragedy the State of California passed an assault weapons ban, which has been in place since. Senator Feinstein brought the issue of the U.S. assault ban to the floor of the Senate. I will never forget standing here watching the vote, because it was such a close vote. We did in fact ban those weapons of war. When George Bush was President, the ban expired and was never put back in. Where do we stand today? I would say, just to be rhetorical with you, there are 31,000 reasons to pass sensible gun legislation. This is how many people die a year at the hands of a gun. I watched very carefully the Judiciary Committee take up this issue as they looked at various provisions. I wish to thank them for passing the provision I worked on with Senator Collins, a bipartisan bill. This will ensure we have grants to school districts that wish to make some capital improvements to their plants to, for example, build a perimeter fence or put in some cameras or hot lines. That particular provision received strong bipartisan support. I am actually working with Senator Graham now to expand it even a little more. However, this is not enough. I think securing our schools is very important. You should not do so in a one-size-fits-all way. Wouldn't it be helpful to this great country if we were able to keep guns out of the hands of known criminals? Wouldn't it be wonderful for our great Nation if we could keep guns out of the hands of the severely mentally ill? Wouldn't it be important to expand background checks so people don't go around the current system and slip through with the consequence of facing the families who will never, ever be the same because of what they have lost? I wish to thank our President. People have said he needs to do so many things, too many things. A President needs to do a lot of things. Every day he wakes up there is something else which needs his attention, but he has never forgotten the promise he made to those parents of Sandy Hook. It is my understanding they are coming to Capitol Hill and visiting various Senate offices. They are looking into the eyes of the Senators if they are able to arrange a meeting with them and saying: Please, we know you may not like every aspect of the bill, but don't filibuster the bill. Allow us to take it up and then vote your conscience. You owe the country. What would we say to our children who were gunned down? Anyone who knows a 6-year-old, 5-year-old, 7-year-old child knows the beauty and joy of that age with everything in front of them. The fact anyone could hurt a child is beyond our capacity to imagine. To take a gun into a school and slaughter these children is beyond belief. We must respond. The way to respond is not to say we are not going to take up this legislation because we love the National Rifle Association. The National Rifle Association has a right to its opinion. I will say that over and over. They have a right to their opinion, as does the ACLU and each one of us. We all have the right to our opinion. At some point we need to come together on commonsense legislation when 90 percent of the people support background checks to keep those weapons out of the hands of the people who shouldn't have them. What is taking so long to vote on this and do this for 90 percent of the people? I listened to one commentator today who said 90 percent of the people wouldn't even agree today was Monday. When 90 percent of the people agree with background checks, let's embrace this idea. Who cares whose idea it was? Who cares who wrote the legislation? What we need to care about are those children and the thousands of people who are killed every single year. I suspect the Presiding Officer, along with me, remembers the Vietnam war and what it did to this country. It was a tragic war which killed about 50,000 of our beautiful young people over a 10-year period. It tore this country apart. It stood this country on its head. We lose 31,000 people every year to gun violence. We should be chomping at the bit to do this legislation. Having said that, I know there is some very good work going on right now across the party lines on the background check. I hope Senator Manchin and Senator Toomey come together on this issue, because it would be a breakthrough. I certainly believe, whether the agreement is forthcoming or not, we need to take up this bill. This bill is not controversial. It talks about making sure there are no straw purchases where someone comes in who is qualified to buy guns, receives them, and turns around and sells them to someone who isn't qualified. It doesn't pass the test. We have to increase the penalties for that. Of course, as I said, the school safety provisions I will be supporting. As to the ban on assault weapons of my colleague Senator Feinstein, I have not heard one person explain to me why weapons of war should be on our streets. I don't see it. I mean the most I can get out of the other side is, well, that is just a start. If we start there, we will go there, we will go there, and we will go there. That is a ridiculous argument to me. We don't need weapons of war on our streets. We don't need high-capacity clips on our streets. So I commend the Judiciary Committee for doing its work: Senator Leahy--I know how hard other Senators on that committee are working-- Senator Schumer and Senator Feinstein. I, myself, and my staff are working with Senator Graham to even boost up the school security piece. But we need to respond to 90 percent and 85 percent of the people; otherwise, I don't know whom we represent. We are sent here by the people, and the people are looking at this in their sorrow and their determination to do something about it, and we cannot fail the test. President Obama, as I started to say before, has not taken his eye off this ball, just like he hasn't taken his eye off the immigration ball, the North Korea ball, and the Syria ball. You name it--this economy, jobs, getting our fiscal house in order--this President has been handed quite a deck of cards, and he is working on all of it. I believe he has done what he promised he would do when he made those promises to the parents of the Sandy Hook Elementary School. I know he is bringing them here to the Hill, and let me tell them now: You don't have to come and see me. I am with you, and I will do everything I can. Don't worry about stopping at our office, just tell us what we can do to help. When I watched the Judiciary Committee I was so interested because Senator Cruz made the point: This is a right to bear arms; it can't be messed with, period, end of story. The committee pointed out to him-- which I thought was quite right--that no right is unlimited. Mr. President, we have the freedom of speech, but we can't scream out in a theater there is a fire unless there is a fire. You can't do that. You can't slander somebody. You can't libel somebody. With every right comes responsibility. So my belief is there is a right to bear arms. People who are qualified to have a weapon can have it. They want it to defend their families, they want it certainly for hunting, that is fine. That is fine with me. I support the sensible gun laws we have in California. If you want to carry a concealed weapon in our State, you have to go to the sheriff or the police chief and make your case. I support that. Other colleagues don't support that. I respect that. The bill they have worked so hard on in the committee is really not anything radical. They are commonsense steps so people who have a severe mental illness can't get their hands on a gun, and someone who knowingly sells guns and ammunition to a criminal or someone who is not qualified gets punished. That is important. We make sure there is a background check if you buy a gun at a gun show. So I guess you can tell I am a little perplexed as to why it is taking us so long to bring this up. But the good news is Colorado passed sensible gun laws, Connecticut did, and California has sensible gun laws. I am so proud of those States. But let's face it, it doesn't do much good if you live in a State that has these protective laws when the State next door has no laws and so the most violent criminal can go and get whatever kind of gun, whatever kind of clip that he wants. I say he; I don't say she. I don't want to ever have to say she, so I will say he. It is time. I just came back from California where I spent the break and listened to people. They are rooting for us to get something done, quite clearly. We have had our tragedies--oh, my God--in schools, in restaurants, in law offices, and we understand. We have 38 million people in our State. It is crowded. We have to learn to live together in peace. If we have disagreements, we have to work them out. So sensible gun laws are at work in our State, but we sure would like to see those sensible gun laws across the country so that our people are truly safe. People talked to me about that, and they talked to me about immigration reform. I had an incredible meeting in Los Angeles with the groups of people who are going to be impacted by that. Again, we are so hopeful we will have that legislation before us soon. In our committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee, which I chair, we are ready to go to work with the Water Resources Development Act. This is a little lighter topic. It deals with our water infrastructure and making sure our ports are dredged, making sure we are protected from storms. With the extreme weather we have had--and Hurricane Sandy was certainly just the latest example--we need to pass this Water Resources Development Act. So we are ready to go as soon as we finish the gun debate. I spoke to Senator Reid, and we are hopeful we will be able to go to the WRDA bill. Climate Change I will close with my Monday night talk on climate. And I have to say, we face a lot of threats. I have talked about one huge threat we face-- a society that has too many deaths from gun violence--but we also have a very different kind of threat you don't see as clearly called climate change, and it is dangerous. This is my fourth speech on climate. The first time I took to the floor I talked about the fact that USA Today is doing a year-long report on climate, and they call their report ``Why You Should Sweat Climate Change.'' It describes how climate change--they call it climate disruption--is happening all around us. I talked about a report on another talk entitled the ``2013 High Risk List'' that was released by GAO, the Government Accountability Office, which is a government watchdog agency, and it informs us that climate disruption and the increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as Sandy threaten our Nation's financial security. Look what it cost. Sandy was $60 billion, $70 billion, $80 billion, and we stepped to the plate and helped, as we should have. We can't keep doing this. We are struggling to get this economy on track. I also spoke about another aspect, which is the effect on public health of too much carbon in the air. Today I want to talk about another issue that I find kind of intriguing because whenever I try to bring the subject up to colleagues--except for the 25 or so of us who really care about this--they say to me something like, well, it is ridiculous for America to act. China has to act first because they are a terrible actor. If they do not act, what is the point of our taking the lead? Well, I have to say that is an argument I find insulting to America. I don't want to wait for China to take the lead on anything because they do not share our values. We don't wait for China to act on issues such as human rights before we protect human rights. We don't wait for China in terms of the way they treat their workers. We have read about that. We don't wait for China, especially on environmental issues. We have to act. China is not a role model. We should be the role model. China is already suffering serious consequences for failing to address pollution in the course of its economic development. Remember, our colleagues are saying: Wait for China. You may not be able to see anything on this photograph--I can hardly see it and I am standing next to it--because of the smog and the filth that is in the air in China. When I made a trip there on climate change and other issues, I never saw the Sun. One day we went out and our guides were so excited, they said: It is sunny today. No, it wasn't. There was this layer of smog and a little bit of light was shining through. So I say to my colleagues who tell us to wait for China, we should wait for them--the worst actor on the world stage--before we take up the most dangerous challenge that we face in terms of science? China now has hazardous levels of air pollution and toxic emissions. They do not care. The only reason they are trying to do something about it now is people don't even want to go there and people are getting sick and dying there. They need to work their people to their last breath, and their last breath is coming a little too early. According to a new scientific study from the Health Effect Institute on leading causes of death worldwide, outdoor air pollution contributed to 1.2 million premature deaths in China in 2010, which is 40 percent of the global total. Here it is. Outdoor air pollution contributed to 1.2 million premature deaths in China in 2010 because their air is so filthy. What makes my friends believe they will go after carbon pollution any more than they went after smog or soot or anything else? They are not. It is going to get worse. Urban air pollution is set to become the top environmental cause of mortality worldwide by 2050, ahead of dirty water and lack of sanitation. It is estimated that 3.6 million people could end up dying prematurely from air pollution every year, mostly in China and India. I am so excited to have this Presiding Officer in the Senate. He is such a strong supporter of our landmark environmental laws. But we face the rollback of those laws every day right here in the Senate. I feel like saying to my colleagues: Go to China. Let's have another picture of that again. Go to China. This is what you want America to be? I represent Los Angeles. It used to look a little like this, not quite as bad. But we did what we had to do. We said to the polluters: Clean up your act. You have to. It is part of the cost of doing business, just as emitting carbon has a cost, carbon is the cause--too much carbon. We need some carbon, but too much carbon is the cause of climate change, so we have to put a price on it. People who pollute should have to pay for it, and that will drive us to clean energy. That is the way it works. The cost of environmental degradation in China was $230 billion in 2010 or 3.5 percent of the Nation's gross domestic product. The people there are very afraid to speak out, so when they do speak out you know something is really bad. In January, outrage boiled over as air pollution in China reached record levels--well beyond what Western environmental agencies consider hazardous. The cost of environmental damage in China is growing rapidly amid industrialization. I saw myself the U.S. Embassy in Beijing has used air quality monitoring technologies in and around their compound so they know if their little kids can even go outside to play. We are working to help the Chinese understand what happens when you have too much pollution. We know it because we are the leader. They are not the leader; they are the culprit. My colleagues say don't do anything about carbon pollution because they have to do it first. Don't wait for them. They don't get it. Maybe by now they are starting to get it, but I am not waiting for them. We have to do what the President said, which is take the initiative. Decades ago, the Cuyahoga River in Ohio was on fire, massive air pollution hung over our cities, and our lakes were dying from pollution. The American people demanded action. We didn't wait for China or anybody else. We passed landmark laws: the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, Superfund, all these great landmark pieces of legislation that came from the committee on which I serve. I stand on the shoulders of those former chairmen-- Republican and Democratic--including John Chafee, whom I loved, who was so strong, and, by the way, strong on sensible gun laws too. People say, oh, they predicted terrible things would happen to our society when we passed these landmark laws. But guess what happened over the last 40 years. America's gross domestic product has risen by over 200 percent. So this is not a choice between economic development versus environmental cleanup. They go hand in hand, because if we can't breathe, we can't work. If we can't breathe, we can't go to school. When you are in your State and you visit a class--any age but particularly the younger ones in the elementary schools--ask them how many of them have asthma or know someone with asthma. It is a shocking thing that happened to me in an area that has very clean air--San Francisco--but not clean enough, obviously, because at least one-third to one-half of the children raised their hand. We know we are doing the right thing, but we have to protect and defend against these constant environmental riders. We face them on the budget. We face them constantly. They want to turn back the clock, and it makes no sense because we have seen a lot of environmental technology and growth of jobs--3.4 million people employed in clean technology. So it is in our Nation's DNA to turn a problem into an opportunity and not say: Well, yes, this is bad. Superstorm Sandy was bad. We know it is bad when 99 percent of the scientists say this is bad and we see what is happening in Greenland and we see what is happening in the Arctic and we see what is happening with heat waves and we see and we see, but we just sit back because the oil companies like to do business the way they are doing it. They don't want to lose any business. They don't want to see us move to those clean cars, the clean energy. It is sad. To say wait for China, the next person who tells me that, I am going to make them look at this picture. I am going to force them to look at this picture. Wait for China? They can't see anything there. We have to rise to this challenge. According to the National Oceanic Administration, in 2011, there were 14 extreme weather events. What do I mean by extreme weather? Terrible floods, droughts, storms, wildfires. Each of them cost at least $1 billion. And we had 11 such disasters in 2012. I heard Governor Cuomo of New York say: We prepared for a once-in-50-years flood, and we are getting them every year. That is what is happening on the ground. These extreme weather events reflect an unpaid bill from climate disruption, a tab that will only grow. I talked about the $60 billion tab from Superstorm Sandy. We have started to address carbon pollution. That is the very good news. President Obama, working with Senators Snowe and Feinstein, did something very important to make sure we have better fuel economy, and the standards go into effect between 2012 and 2025. They will provide huge benefits. Guess what. When this program is implemented, consumers will save $8,000 over the life of their car. Why? Because they are getting better fuel economy. I drive a hybrid Prius in California. I am getting about 140 to 150 miles a gallon because I do my little trips and then I come home and I plug it in. It is truly remarkable. It is saving our family money and it is helping to save the environment. This is a win-win-win. But if we listen to my friends, they look at it as lose-lose-lose. They are dour about the idea of taking the lead. We have to take the lead. What we do impacts the world. When our Nation reduces its carbon pollution, it makes a difference. We account for 20 percent of the global pollution. China accounts for about the same, but I am not waiting for our society to look like this. Here is the great news: When we reduce carbon pollution, there are side benefits. The side benefits are we are not going to look like this because we are also going to shift over to those clean technologies, have less smog, less soot, and our people will be able to breathe. Peer-reviewed science has forecasted the United States could significantly contribute to reducing the likelihood that we will avoid extreme impacts of climate disruption. We know we are already facing some disruption, but the quicker we move, the more we cut back on that carbon pollution, the better. Addressing climate change will have many investments in solar and wind and clean energy, strengthening our domestic renewable energy sector. I am so proud of California. We are moving in that direction and doing well. According to the Pew Charitable Trust, clean energy policies could provide up to a $2.3 trillion market--not billion but trillion--for investments in renewable energy. So we can ignore this opportunity to be a market leader in renewables and then take those inventions all over the world or we can do it and benefit our economy. I saw today that former Secretary of State George Schultz, a resident of my great State and who was part of the Reagan administration, penned an important article about why we should go to a carbon tax. A carbon tax, a simple thing: If someone produces carbon pollution, they have to pay for every ton. His idea is give that back to the American people. Help them pay for those transition periods of time where we are going to move toward that clean energy. I am very pleased he wrote that article, and I am hoping to get him before our environment committee to talk about it. We have to step up to the plate on climate. Every one of us has an obligation to do it. I know it is hard, because with the exception of a storm such as Sandy and then heat waves that are outrageous, we don't think about it. I understand why. It is not pleasant. We have so many challenges on our hands--budget challenges, education challenges, immigration challenges, gun violence challenges. So if it is not right in front of us where we see it every day or read about it every day or it is not hitting our State every day, I understand why some people would prefer to ignore it. But we owe it to our kids and our grandkids to be leaders. This is our time. We didn't pick this time to be born to live, but here we are, and here are these scientists telling us: Wake up, do something or we are facing a planetary emergency. Every Monday night that I can be here, I will be here. I want to make a record, at least for history if not for political action--which is what I truly want--that we do something. The President visited San Francisco recently. I hope he will continue to do the right thing. It is lonely for him because he doesn't have a legislature that gets it. But let me say to colleagues who are definitely, I can assure you, not watching this but who may read about this speech: Don't ever say to me: Let's wait for China because that is an insult to America and it is an insult to our people. We are going to wait for a country that doesn't care about its people enough so that the people have to run around in masks, and they can't even see anything, it is so smoggy and dirty there. So don't tell me: Wait for China, because that argument-- or as they would say in certain parts of the country, that dog don't hunt. I don't say that in my part of the country. What I say is that makes no sense whatsoever. I will continue to come here in the hopes that we can come together on this issue, in the hopes that President Obama will keep on moving, in the hopes that my State and the Northeast and other States are going to move on this issue. I will protect their right to do it. I will defend against anyone who comes to roll back the Clean Air Act--which, unfortunately, Senator Inhofe came at us with an amendment in the budget that said the Environmental Protection Agency should no longer have the ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions--imagine--and we had more than 40 votes for that position. That is scary. That is akin to saying we should stop worrying about smoking and get 45 votes to say it is no big deal. This is a big deal. I will just keep on making the talks on Monday nights, if I can. I wish to thank my staff. They are working so hard to put this together in a coherent way, so perhaps after 6 months of making these speeches, we have a story to tell from beginning to end that would be compelling enough so no one will ever say to me: Let's wait for China to fix their problem, and people might actually come up and say: Put me on as a cosponsor on that Sanders-Boxer bill or the Sheldon Whitehouse bill that puts a price on carbon. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Parliamentary inquiry: May I ask the Chair how many amendments we have voted on in this budget, both voice and actual votes?

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 622.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, my amendment simply ensures important issues will be addressed, such as how much oil will stay here versus how much will be exported and, therefore, will we suffer from higher energy prices? How much steel will be made in America? How many private property rights suits will result from this pipeline? We have had a lot of them on the southern lake. How will this affect our national security, the dirty tar sands oil? Our American national security experts warn us against the instability worldwide caused by climate disruption. I urge an ``aye'' vote on this amendment, regardless of how you feel about Keystone. These are essential issues which must be addressed.

Mrs. BOXER. Well, Mr. President, the handwriting is on the wall. I see it. But I do believe when my colleague argued against my amendment--and he was quite successful--it was not an accurate argument. The fact is his amendment has already made the decision for us that everything is hunky-dory with this pipeline. Well, it is not true that all the work has been done. We don't know how much of the steel will be American; we don't know how many of the jobs will be American; we don't know if our national security people think that dirty tar sands is going to create climate disruption. Wake up. This is the only place in America where people don't understand that real climate disruption is very dangerous. You want to talk about polls? Look at what the people think about extreme weather. Look at what the people think about too much carbon pollution. So there will be another day to fight, but I want to say to my friend--he is a good guy, and we have worked well together on this. But I hope we will vote no and allow the process to continue.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, the Rubio amendment hurts families. It is opposed by respected doctors organizations and many women's groups. Colleagues, under the Rubio amendment, a doctor and a grandmother would go to jail if the grandmother brought her grandchild across State lines, say, after she was raped. Senator Rubio insists that only a parent be there. But what if the mom is ill or the dad is in Afghanistan or she is scared to death to tell her mom or her dad? Colleagues, there are cases of daughters dying due to their desperation and fear of telling their parents. Let's not endanger our children and place government against our grandmothers. Please vote no. Mr. President, I raise a point of order that the pending amendment is not germane to the underlying resolution. It, therefore, violates section 305(b)(2) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Mrs. BOXER. I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 278