Sherrod Brown

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 29, 2014 at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitltd ``Iran: Status of the P-5+1.''

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 29, 2014, at 2 p.m.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on July 29, 2014, at 9:30 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Judicial Nominations.''

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 29, 2014, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety of the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 29, 2014 at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Examining the Threats Posed by Climate Change.''

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs and Global Competitiveness of the Commmittee on Finance be authorized to me during the session of the Senate on July 29, 2014 at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled, ``The U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement: Lessons Learned Two Years Later.''

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to yield back all time.

Mr. BROWN

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I have received a number of calls in recent weeks, as we all have, about what is happening at the Veterans' Administration. Over the July 4th week, back in Ohio, I heard from lots of veterans at roundtables in communities all over the State, from Steubenville to Dayton, and lots of places in between: What are we going to do about the VA? I heard outrage. I heard disillusion over the VA. There is outrage about a system charged with caring for those who defend our Nation that falls short. There is frustration and disillusion because our veterans are waiting too long. We need to fix that. But I also saw letters to the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Cleveland Plain Dealer and I had conversations with veterans who defended and bragged about the service they are getting, the care they are getting, whether it is the VA in Cincinnati or Dayton or Cleveland or Columbus or Chillicothe--the hospitals we have in my State--or whether it is the community-based clinics in places such as Mansfield and Zanesville and Lima and Springfield--those smaller community-based outpatient clinics, so-called CBOCs, that serve veterans who need less acute care but still need service from a doctor, from a nurse, from a physical therapist. We can only conclude a couple of things. We can conclude there are, in fact, serious problems with the VA that need to be fixed. The Presiding Officer is a prominent member of the Veterans' Committee, and from his veterans hospitals in Connecticut he hears the same. We can also conclude that those who get in the system overwhelmingly are getting good care. There are 6.5 million veterans who are using VA health care with 85 million patient visits a year. That was in 2013. I assume there is a similar number this year. They are getting good care. The problem is access to the system. The waiting times are simply unacceptable and outrageous and the disillusionment for those veterans is worse. We know what waiting times mean, especially in mental health treatment, where far too many veterans commit suicide. With costs of war--and particularly this last round of wars over the last decade where we went to war as a nation, wrongly, in Iraq--we didn't pay for that war--and then the President and the Congress a decade ago made a fateful mistake, mostly out of arrogance, assuming that these two wars would be so short we didn't need to scale up the VA, we didn't need to increase funding, we didn't need to expand services, we didn't need to hire more doctors and nurses--two things happened. One, a whole bunch of new veterans, new soldiers and sailors and marines and air men and women, came home from Iraq and Afghanistan. A whole lot more were in the war than President Bush and the Congress thought would happen or cared to think would happen a decade ago. The second thing is they came home in much worse shape than in previous wars. Soldiers who would have died on the battlefields--the Presiding Officer is a veteran himself and he knows and we all know that the illnesses and physical and mental injuries are much greater in this war because they survived the battlefield when they might not have survived these same kinds of explosions 20 or 30 years ago. The third thing--I said two. The third thing that happened is because of a decision Congress made that was right a couple of decades ago--I believe it was President Clinton who signed that bill; it might have been President Bush 1--in passing a bill which included a provision called presumptive eligibility for Agent Orange. Before presumptive eligibility, when a veteran came home from Vietnam right after the war or developed an illness many years later, that veteran would have to fight with the VA to prove that Agent Orange was the reason he or she had that illness. After Agent Orange presumptive eligibility, what that meant is that these soldiers and these veterans, 20 years later, if they had 1 of the 20 or so illnesses defined by the law that were connected to Agent Orange, they automatically were eligible. That is called presumptive eligibility, meaning they were eligible for VA services and health care. That was a great thing. However, what that meant is that as more and more veterans moved forward from Vietnam, as they aged into their fifties and sixties and some into their seventies, they have had a huge influx of patients into the VA. That is why this veterans conference report--the bill that passed the House and the bill that passed the Senate with almost no ``no'' votes--is so important, because our commitment to our veterans must match their commitment to our Nation. I am the first Ohioan to serve a full term ever on the Senate Veterans' Committee. I have been lucky enough to be appointed to the joint House and Senate conference committee. We need to iron out the differences in these bills. We need to do three things. First, increase the accountability in the VA. VA employees, senior employees in particular, who don't do their jobs should lose their jobs; that if it is proven in fact they did not do their jobs, if they altered information, if they explained away delays incorrectly or dishonestly, that they be held accountable, period. Although let's keep in mind the vast majority of VA employees, whether they are in Hartford or whether they are in Cleveland, are dedicated public servants to our Nation and to our veterans. These are men and women who chose to serve veterans, to work in Chillicothe, in Zanesville, and in Columbus, and so many of them are veterans themselves. They chose a career to serve veterans and they are veterans themselves. Whether it is a police officer at the Dayton VA, a claims processor at the Cleveland VARO, a nurse at the Toledo CBOC, our veterans rely on them. We shouldn't condemn the VA at large for the wrongdoings of a relative few. Second, the compromise bill will provide an option for veterans who are experiencing long wait times. In the Presiding Officer's State of Connecticut and in mine, few veterans are all that far from a CBOC or from a hospital, and this new proposal says that for veterans more than 40 miles away from a CBOC or hospital, they can go elsewhere to a local hospital or a local community-based health center instead of the VA because they are closer. We don't have too many places in my State--and I believe there are none in the Presiding Officer's State--where that is the case. But those veterans who have had to wait 30 years or 30 days should have that option because care for the veteran, our commitment to veterans must match their commitment to our Nation. Third and last, the compromise bill will expand and enhance the VA's ability to provide veterans with the care they deserve. It will allow the VA to hire more doctors and nurses and physical therapists, to build more beds, to build more capacity at these VA centers and CBOCs to make sure they have the staff necessary. With the end of these two wars, thousands of our newest veterans will be joining the ranks of VA health care. The shortage of care providers has been especially pressing for vets struggling with a brain injury--the so-called invisible injuries. That is when a soldier in the Army gets a head injury and it might be considered a minor head injury. A number of combatants have told me they get their ``bells rung'' is the term they use. It is an invisible injury, a minor concussion--often not reported but a minor concussion-- and then another one and then another one. Look at what the stories have told us about the NFL players. The same holds true, only in a more serious way, for soldiers and for marines, what happens to them down the road. Thirty years later they go to the VA, their behavior has changed, their families are calling. The VA has no documentation of these injuries. They have to struggle to show these injuries, to prove these injuries to the VA, to the doctors for a diagnosis and to the VA for the coverage of the disability. That is why my tracker bill, the Fairman Significant Event Tracker Act--or SET Act--is so important. Instead of the burden being on the veteran to show here were my concussions, here were my injuries, I should be eligible for disability; here is what happened to me, diagnose me with the right diagnosis, the Army itself should be keeping those records, and they should follow the health care of the veteran when they are in the military, when they are in the VA. The interface has to take place much more smoothly, so when a soldier turns in her gear and she comes back to Ravenna, OH, or she comes back to Wauseon, OH, or she comes back to Maple Heights or Garfield Heights, the VA locally will know what has happened to her. These are the challenges. I will finish with a couple of troubling notes I received from a couple of people in Ohio. One came from Gary in Franklin County, which is the home of the State capital: My brother was a Vietnam vet and survivor of a major battle in Vietnam. He never discussed his experiences. He took his life in 1992. This bill will provide important mechanisms to help reduce the rate of suicides among our veterans. Every Member of Congress should support it. It is not a political issue, but a part of our sincere and legitimate commitment to our veterans. I couldn't have said it better. Christine from Miami County, the county just north of Dayton in southwest Ohio: This bill will remove the redtape that our veterans encounter at a time when they are least able to deal with it. My son died at his own hands after a tour in the Middle East. He sought help from the VA and was diagnosed with PTSD shortly before dying. I know his mental state at the time, and he would not have been able to handle providing proof that he experienced traumatic events or remember the duties he performed. In other words, he had these injuries. The military didn't have the records of these injuries because he wasn't injured so badly that he was sent back to Germany or to Bethesda or to Walter Reed, but the military should have kept these records so he knew what, in fact, was wrong. He was not able, in his condition, to put together and find his old buddies that were with him 6 or 8 years earlier that could kind of recall the incidents of what happened. Christine writes that this bill is a simple, effective solution. We need to address the issues facing our veterans. Our commitment to our troops must match their commitment to our Nation. I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Thank you, Madam President, and thanks to Senator Enzi who is one of the most cooperative Members of the Senate on so many levels. He and I cochaired the Air Force caucus together and he has been good to work with. When I sat on the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee, he was a member known then, as he still is, as one you can reach out to and who would get things done. Special thanks to Senator Isakson who is on the floor and to Senators Harkin and Murray who did so much to work with our office on our SECTORS ACT and the whole litany of workforce investment issues. I am indebted to them. Passing this legislation would reauthorize and improve the Workforce Investment Act which first was established some 15-plus years ago. It includes critical workforce development programs that have helped thousands of Americans get on their feet. It provides streamlined one- stop services that empower adults and students and gives them the tools, skills, and the resources they need to find a new career and improve their current skills. All of this helps to meet the needs of employers looking for trained, skilled workers. The Cuyahoga Works Career Center in Cleveland is one of those programs. It is run out of The Cuyahoga County Library, known as one of the best library systems in the country. The center told me of a few success stories I wish to share. A teacher was laid off from Cleveland Public Schools 3 years ago, substitute teaching while she worked with a Cuyahoga Works career counselor. The counselor showed her how to use social networking and LinkedIn more effectively. As a result she connected with an administrator in a local school district that invited her to discuss her job search. During this meeting the teacher learned that although she had a strong background, she could benefit from taking a couple computer classes. The Cuyahoga Works career counselor directed her to the library's Google workshops along with a few other computer courses. Shortly afterwards the teacher let her career counselor know she had accepted a long-term position in one of the local school districts. Let me share another Cuyahoga Works success story. While visiting the new Cleveland casino, a Cuyahoga Works career counselor was stopped by an employee who had worked with this counselor on her job application. The customer was extremely grateful and went so far as to introduce the counselor to her supervisor explaining, ``This person is the reason I got this job.'' It is clear that legislation such as this works. We know that to compete globally we need workers who can quickly adapt to new technologies in business processes. So our workforce training programs must be able to keep up with the times. That is what the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act does. It builds on existing success and updates it for the 21st century workforce. Part of this improvement means we take a sector-based approach. Since 2007, I have held some 250 roundtables around my State. From the beginning of the first one at the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce through a whole host of these in agriculture, with farmers and veterans and small businesspeople, workers and others, what I hear over and over is despite high unemployment, too many employers are having a hard time finding workers with the skills necessary. As a result, job openings in high-growth industries--health care, energy, bioscience, even manufacturing--are going unfilled. The skill gap exists, especially for careers in high-tech fields and for jobs that require more than a high school degree. But often the skills gap exists with people with less than a college degree. This gap denies workers new opportunities they deserve. It undermines our Nation's economic competitiveness and limits our ability to attract new jobs and businesses. To close the gap, we need to create industry or sector partnerships to ensure that workers have the right skills to get hired in high-tech emerging industries with good-paying jobs. It means local communities--local community colleges, local workforce investment boards, local labor unions, local small businesses--decide what they need to put these workforce training programs together regionally in community after community, whether it is in North Dakota, the Presiding Officer's State, or whether it is in my State of Ohio, driven by what kinds of jobs are available. That is why I introduced the Strengthen Employment Clusters to Organize Regional Success--or SECTORS Act--back in 2008. I reintroduced this legislation with Republican Senator Collins from Maine this year. I am pleased that provisions in today's bill are based on our bipartisan SECTORS bill. This modernization bill requires sector-based partnerships to ensure workforce training programs are developed with industry input, with labor input, with local community investment, workforce investment boards, with local businesses, whether it is in Chillicothe or Akron or Toledo or anywhere in my State. Given the difficulty of negotiations, I am grateful for Chairman Murray's dedication to this bill, for her prioritization of these partnerships, because we know from experience how important they are. With too many Americans still unable to find work, we should do all we can to ensure our workers are fully qualified to fill available jobs. That is what the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act does, and that is why I encourage my colleagues to support it. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, yesterday I chaired, along with Congressman Smith, a Republican from New Jersey, the Congressional-Executive Committee on China. At this hearing, Terry Sefranek, a Clevelander actually from Brooklyn Heights, OH, a suburb of my city, submitted written testimony. The hearing was to address the concerns that American consumers, pet owners, farmers, and parents have about the safety of pet food, pet treats, processed chicken, and animal feed from China. Ms. Sefranek joined me then today on a call with some national press to talk about this issue. I wish to share briefly the actual words of Ms. Sefranek's testimony. She said: In December of 2011, my little Sampson, a healthy, lively and hilarious fox terrier mutt was showing signs that he was not well. He seemed withdrawn, and his appetite was decreasing, and all he wanted was to drink water and urinate. His health rapidly decreased. We took him to the veterinarian 3 times in the next two weeks. Finally, blood tests revealed horrible results. Sampson was in acute renal failure. The Doc gave him intravenous fluids for six long, tormenting days. And then, the agonizing decision, the hardest, most heartbreaking decision. With my husband and children around us, I held my little buddy in my arms for the last time, as he was euthanized. Ms. Sefranek continues: One day during this time, I saw a local family on the news, holding up a bag of Waggin' Train Chicken Jerky Treats. Their dog had eaten them and died of renal failure a few weeks earlier. Their new little puppy was fed leftovers from the same bag--and became ill right away. As soon as they stopped the treats, he recovered. I was floored. It was the exact same treat that Sampson had eaten; it has been his new favorite, and I was giving him them as a treat for about a month. I'm sure that was the only major change in his diet. Sixty-two million households in this country have a pet. Americans raise 83 million dogs and 96 million cats whom, as is the case with my wife's and my dog Franklin, we treat, in many ways, as members of the family. That is why it is alarming that since 2007, the FDA has been aware of the deaths and illnesses of thousands of pets, but we still don't know what is causing it. Last month the FDA said that reports of illnesses had increased to 5,600 pets, including 1,000 dog deaths, and now three human illnesses. Pet owners shouldn't have to worry about the safety of the food they give their pets. When we go to a pet store, go to a grocery store and buy pet food, we shouldn't have to worry that pet food could actually endanger that dog's, that cat's health. While no cause has been identified, the illnesses many think are linked to pet treats from China, which raises questions. If something says it is made in China, can we be assured that it is safe? If it says ``made in the USA,'' what exactly does that mean? Is everything being done to keep these pet treats safe? Last year the USDA declared that China can export processed, cooked chicken into the United States. This paves the way for chicken sourced in the United States to be shipped to China for processing and then sold back to American consumers. While no such chicken has yet entered our shores, it is possible that very soon this processed chicken could end up on our dinner tables and in our school lunchrooms. Researchers are exploring a possible link also between animal feed from China and the PEDv that has wiped out 10 percent of piglets--10 percent of our young pig population. It has been a year already and no definitive cause has been identified. Americans want and require better answers. We want and require clearer labels and the peace of mind that the foods we import from the People's Republic of China are safe. This is why I am introducing an amendment to the agriculture appropriations bill to ask the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture about the status of inspectors' visas to China and how many are currently inspecting there. We heard in testimony yesterday an uncertainty from FDA and USDA about our ability to get the number of inspectors we need into China to inspect the processing of chickens in China. I urged the FDA to investigate and determine the cause of these pet illnesses and PEDv, and the companies to ensure the highest safety standards. When we buy something that says ``made in the United States of America,'' whether it is food for human consumption or whether it is processed food for human consumption or whether it is processed food for our pets, we should be confident that food is actually made, processed, and put together in the United States of America. In our testimony yesterday, we couldn't quite be 100 percent sure that is the case. A couple of things need to go on there. One, the packaging and the labeling needs to be believable and credible and it needs to be true. Second, those companies that import--it used to be that companies would produce in the United States with food safety rules we have in the United States--drug safety, food safety--customers, buyers, and supermarkets that buy this food with ``made in the USA'' labels knew that because we have a good FDA, because we have a good U.S. Department of Agriculture, because we have good food safety rules in our country-- we knew that ``made in the USA'' was a label we could trust. Then companies in this country began to do something in the last 20 years--especially since Congress passed Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China. Companies began to shut down production in places such as Rocky River and Maple Heights and Garfield Heights and Brooklyn Heights, OH, and move that production to Wahan or Shihan or Beijing, or Shanghai, China, and then sell those products back to the United States. If companies are going to do that, costing our communities jobs in far too many cases, hurting families and workers who lose those jobs--if companies are going to do that, they need to be responsible in the production in those countries. They need to be responsible when pharmaceuticals are made in China by U.S. companies and then shipped back to the United States. Those pharmaceuticals need to be safe. We know in the case of a drug called Heparin which people in Toledo, OH, took, and a number of people died from it. All over the country they took this drug. It was a blood thinner made in China by a company that, frankly, didn't know--couldn't reach back and determine and find out where all the ingredients for these drugs were made. So there are a couple of points. One is whether it is dog treats, whether it is food that humans consume in our country or whether it is pharmaceuticals, our regulatory structure needs to make sure these are safe. If they are made in the United States, we are much more confident they are safe, because government rules and regulations in the United States--despite what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle always like to say about government regulation--we know our food supply is pretty darn good. But if companies are going to outsource that production, move it to China and then sell it back to the United States, we need these rules in place. We need these companies to be reliable and liable ultimately in what they are doing. So if a company is going to bring a drug into the United States--an American company producing in China and bringing it back to the United States--they are responsible for the contents, and they are responsible for the safety of those drugs. Their executives, those companies, should be liable if they are producing that food. Whether it is for human consumption or whether it is for pets or whether it is pharmaceuticals, all of that matters. Americans, again, should not be worried about the safety of the food they put on the dinner table nor the safety of the pet food they give to their dogs and cats. Mr. President, I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN

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

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, American manufacturing has taken quite a hit in the last 15 years in this country. Some 30 years ago, U.S. manufacturing made up some 25 percent of gross domestic product. Today that number has declined to somewhere in the vicinity of 10 or 11 percent of gross domestic product. That has meant literally millions of jobs paying good wages in cities and suburbs and rural America that have simply disappeared. Some have been lost to technology. Far too many have been lost to unfair trade practices, as jobs are moved overseas. Some of that responsibility lies with this Congress, which has written laws or refused to change laws that encourage companies through trade agreements and through tax laws to shut down production in Worcester, MA, or Wooster, OH, and move to Wuhan, China. But we have seen some good news. From 2000 to 2010, we lost about 5 million manufacturing jobs; 60,000 plants closed in this country. The good news we have begun to see is that since the auto rescue in 2008 and 2009 and since this President has been relatively aggressive-- better than his predecessors--in enforcing trade laws, we have seen growth in manufacturing. Since 2009--again, because of trade enforcement, because of the auto rescue--about 500,000 manufacturing jobs have been created. We see new investments in advanced manufacturing. We see new investments in clean energy. Natural gas production is providing domestic manufacturers with an affordable energy source. Natural gas prices have remained pretty constant at $4 or $5, with a likely predictable, stable price for the next several years--maybe for a decade. This production in natural gas has also increased demand for world- class tubular steel. Nearly 8,000 workers across the United States make what we call oil country tubular goods. That is the steel pipes that are some of the strongest steel ever invented, ever developed, because that steel needs to be able to absorb high-speed, high-rotation deep drilling into water and into stone. Only the best kind of hardened steel can withstand that kind of pressure. These jobs--these 8,000 jobs making oil country tubular goods--support another 7 jobs in the supply chain. We have an opportunity to grow the economy by investing in manufacturing to create more good-paying jobs. But here is the problem: When foreign steel is dumped into our country, American workers pay the price. What that means simply is that when South Korea--which literally has no domestic market. South Korea has begun to produce oil country tubular goods. They do not use this kind of steel in their domestic economy. So they began this production, they started up, they ramped up this industry all for export, which they are free to do. But global oversupply is a major challenge facing our domestic steel industry. It threatens thousands of steel jobs. OCTG--oil country tubular goods--imports have doubled since 2008. Imports account for more than 50 percent of the pipes being used by companies drilling for gas and oil. If that were done through fair competition, it would be one thing, but here are some things we know: We know that in South Korea they need to go to mostly Australia and Brazil to get the iron ore and the coal and the limestone for their steel production. Plants in Ohio, in the Midwest, go to Minnesota to get iron ore or they go to Indiana for their coke, which is made from coal. Their coal is processed into coke. They may go to Ohio to get their limestone. So the Koreans, obviously, to get their raw materials--their raw materials have to travel much longer distances for their Korean steel industry than the U.S. steel industry, No. 1. No. 2, American workers are paid only slightly more than Korean workers, so there is not much difference in the cost of labor. No. 3, the U.S. steel manufacturers have upgraded and invested many billions of dollars in their production. There is a 2-year-old steel mill in Youngstown, OH. There are major investments in Lorain and Cleveland to make oil country tubular steel--major investments. I was at the Wheatland steel plant north of Youngstown in Warren, OH. There is a $20 million new investment there. So our mills are just as modern--maybe more modern-- than the Korean mills. Lastly, after this oil country tubular steel is produced in Ohio or in Pennsylvania, it is transported maybe 50 miles to use in the oil and gas fields at the Marcellus or Utica shale in Ohio or in the region. Korean steel tubes, on the other hand, are transported maybe 10,000 miles to the fields in this country to use in oil and gas drilling. So clearly we know that the Koreans simply are subsidizing their steel. We call it steel dumping. Call it whatever technical or nontechnical term you want, it is clear that the Koreans are not playing fair. If they can design an industry--think about this--if Korea can decide: Well, there is a market in the United States for this kind of steel; we will just design an industry, we will subsidize that steel, we will sell into that market, and we may put some of them out of business--if we as a government accept this kind of behavior from Korea, it will show the rest of the world a blueprint on how you take jobs from the United States of America, how you start a business, how you invest in this business, how you illegally subsidize this business, how you export from your country into the United States, throwing American workers out of work, undercutting American companies, and in the end making our manufacturing in the United States of America experience even more decline than we have seen over the last 30 years. We are asking the Department of Commerce to reconsider its preliminary decision to make sure they look at what, in fact, has happened in this industry. There is no question that the deeper you look--or there is no question on the surface--that Korea is subsidizing its steel, that it is breaking trade rules. There is clear evidence that our workers and manufacturers are being cheated in another way; that is, by currency. My bipartisan legislation--I have worked with Senator Sessions and Senator Graham and others, Senator Stabenow on the Democratic side--our bipartisan legislation would crack down on China's currency manipulation. It would treat currency manipulation as an unfair trade subsidy and require the Commerce Department to investigate that currency manipulation. If you cheat on currency, if you devalue in playing this game with currency at the rate of 30 percent, what that means is when China exports a product to the United States, it is 30 percent cheaper, making it very hard for U.S. companies to compete--another way of subsidizing is through currency--or if U.S. companies try to sell into the Chinese market, our goods cost 30 percent more than the Chinese goods. So, again, we simply cannot play on a level playing field. A report released earlier this year said that 254,000 Ohio jobs would be created if currency manipulation were eliminated by 2015. When foreign steel is dumped into our country, American workers pay the price. When foreign steel is dumped into our country, American businesses pay the price. When foreign steel is dumped into our country, the communities where these mills are, these communities that supply, feed into, and sell items and sell goods into the supply chain, pay the price too. So it means fewer teachers, fewer police officers, fewer people working, less income, less prosperity in those communities. Again, when foreign steel is dumped into our country, workers pay the price over and over. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN

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

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, there is good news for America's veterans this afternoon. Senator McCain and Senator Sanders, the chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, have apparently come to a tentative agreement on what we should do to deal with some of the serious problems at the Veterans' Administration. We know a couple of things. First of all, we know that health care in the veterans hospitals, in the VA system, in the community-based clinics in places such as Akron and Canton and Youngstown and Springfield and Mansfield and the care in the big hospitals, such as Wade Park and Dayton, is superb and there is overwhelming support among veterans for the care they have earned and deserve and are getting. The problem is getting access to that care in a number of cases. Too many veterans have waited too long, been forced to wait too long to get the medical care and the medical treatment they need. That is a product, frankly, of a historically underfunded VA. We know a decade ago, when the President a decade ago--more than a decade ago-- and the Senate and the House took the country to war the Veterans' Administration funding was put pretty flat. There was no real preparation by the Congress, by the President--then President Bush--and by the VA to scale up veterans' capacity, the VA capacity, veterans' health care--not enough nurses, not enough doctors, not enough health care personnel, not enough capacity at the VA health care system to take care of the surging numbers of soldiers coming home, sailors coming home, marines coming home, air men and women coming home. We also know at the same time what happened with Agent Orange, and the Agent Orange presumptive eligibility. As Vietnam veterans were beginning to get sicker, were beginning to show more and more symptoms, the government made the right decision, Congress made the right decision, if a soldier had boots on the ground, they were eligible. If a soldier had an illness defined by the law that was connected to Agent Orange, then they were presumed to be eligible. They didn't have to go back and prove they were actually exposed at a certain place at a certain time in Vietnam. All of those were good things, as our country, our government, our VA, embraced war, men and women, to get the VA care they earned. The bad news was Congress and the President didn't prepare for it a decade ago as this surge of new people, the veterans coming home, veterans living here for a number of years after doing their service, that they could get the health care they needed. That is the reason we have had these long delays. There are certainly issues of leadership within the VA. There are issues of administrators not doing their jobs. They should be held accountable. They should pay a price for that--sometimes termination, certainly disciplinary action if shown to have failed to live up to their responsibilities ethically and efficiently and correctly and responsibly. It is clear this new agreement will take us forward. It will mean a couple of things. One, it means those administrators, those VA officials who didn't do their jobs, will be held accountable. Secondly, and most importantly, it will mean veterans who have had long delays or who live in rural areas and simply can't get the coverage, can't get to the VA clinic, the community-based outpatient clinic or the VA hospital, the VA center, if they can't get that health care treatment today, or soon, they can go to a private hospital, they can go to a community-based health clinic and get the coverage, get the care they need at no cost to the veteran. The third thing is, to make up for the neglect of a decade ago that we have tried to remedy by almost doubling the VA budget over the last 5 years to take care of all these people who are now in the system who have suffered much more serious illness and disability than the veterans of a generation ago who might have died on the battlefield from these same injuries, that we scale up the training of doctors and nurses in these VA facilities. There has been an agreement reached among a group of us on the veterans committee and both parties that we will fund a number of new facilities around the country as we train more doctors and nurses and other health care personnel--physical therapists, occupational therapists, and others. At a time of not particularly good news for veterans over the last few weeks and really over the last few months, this is good news. This will make for a better VA. We know the VA is a huge health care system, with 85 million veteran visits, patient visits to the VA over the last year and 8 million different veterans have used the VA over the last 12 months. We have to make sure we do our jobs as Senators and Members of Congress and in the White House to take care of our veterans. For those who served us, it is time we served our veterans. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, during Memorial Day and last week, I spent much of the time traveling Ohio with Michael Fairman, a retired Navy corpsman and a Columbus resident, who served with the Marines in Afghanistan from 2007 to 2011. His son Zack is a third-generation Navy corpsman serving with the Marine Corps First Tank Battalion deployed in the Middle East. Based on his own combat experiences and his concern for other veterans and the suicide of a friend, a fellow veteran, Mr. Fairman came to my office with an idea of how we can help both servicemembers and veterans--veterans like Alexander Powell, a student at the University of Toledo who joined us in Northwest Ohio. Mr. Powell was deployed in Iraq in 2006 when his gun truck was struck by an IED. He had no physical or visible injuries. He went back to duty the next day, but he began experiencing blackouts and dizzy spells. It wasn't until 2009 that he was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and hospitalized to begin treatment. Mr. Powell is not alone. The VA reports that some 300,000 veterans struggle with post-traumatic stress. The Defense Department reports that out of 300,000 TBI injuries, there are 25,000 cases of what they call mild traumatic brain injuries because mild TBI is an invisible injury. Think of an NFL player getting a concussion or a series of concussions over a period of a career. Think of a soldier getting what a number of soldiers said to me--marines and air men and women and soldiers and sailors talk about getting their ``bell rung'' when they get a head injury. It is an injury that is not serious enough for an NFL player to sit down, not serious enough for a soldier to be sent home, perhaps not serious enough for a soldier to get any medical treatment at all, but one of a series of concussive events of invisible or minor head injuries can lead to problems a number of years later. So when veterans or servicemembers seek service-connected disabilities for related injuries, they often don't have the necessary documents needed to establish the connection between their military service and their claim with the VA. That was the case for Mr. Powell. He told me last week: It was my job [after returning home] to gather up any proof that I had to show that my truck was hit by an IED and gather statements from people who were there to corroborate my story. That is a task, if not done immediately after the incident, that is almost impossible to accomplish. So 5 years, 6 years, 7 years later, Mr. Powell is back in Ohio trying to piece together the series of head injuries he sustained, what exactly happened, finding witnesses, his unit commander, and comrades to be able to prove to the VA that his disability is earned and warranted and trying to explain to his doctor what his head injuries might have entailed. The burden is on the veteran to provide the VA with information establishing the connection between their claim and their service. This can lead to denied claims. It can lead to improper medical care. It increases the disability claims backlog. We are all concerned--even though the VA has shrunk that backlog by 50 percent in the last year or so, we also know that one of the reasons for the backlog at the VA is it takes so much more time for the VA employee and the soldier to try to piece together the record of injuries that might have taken place 5 years ago, a decade ago, a decade and a half ago. That is why I introduced the Significant Event Tracker Act, which Mr. Fairman helped to create. This bill will improve the claims process for veterans and servicemembers. Mr. Fairman visited a number of House and Senate offices. The only one who responded was actually Senator Cornyn's office, from Texas. He and I have talked about this bill, and we both understand how important this can be to veterans. Let me explain the bill. First, it would allow unit commanders to document events, such as a roadside bombing, that each servicemember in their command is exposed to and which might later be connected to these ``invisible injuries.'' Second, recording this information on an individual basis will help military medical officers better diagnose and treat military members who have mental health concerns. Finally, for veterans and military retirees, this act will help them file better initial claims--claims with supporting documentation from DOD. In other words, veterans should be able to focus on their recovery, not on having to prove the cause of their injury. Let me say that again. A soldier going to the VA in Dayton, OH, or Cincinnati or to a veterans clinic in Mansfield should be able to focus on her recovery and not having to prove the cause of her injury. This bill puts the responsibility on the Army, on the Marines, on the Defense Department, not on the veteran, to track and connect significant events to individual servicemembers that would later potentially lead to post-traumatic stress or to traumatic brain injury. Commanders already report major injuries. We want commanders to report about individual servicemembers who were involved in any kind of a minor or ``invisible'' head injury. This was a big idea that came to me from Michael Fairman. He visited a number of Senate offices and House offices. Senator Cornyn showed interest in it. My office has written the legislation with Michael Fairman. This Nation is rightfully proud of our veterans. This idea came from a veteran. This idea deserves to be seriously entertained by this Senate and, frankly, by the Defense Department, if we can work with them, on finding ways to implement some of these ideas. 25th Anniversary of Tiananmen Square Mr. President, I rise to commemorate an event that happened 25 years ago today not just in Beijing, China, but in other places in China when millions of people across that country, in Tiananmen Square and other places, rallied in support of democracy, human rights, and an end to official corruption. Like many Americans, I was inspired. At the time, I wasn't a Member of Congress. Living in Ohio, I was inspired by the courage and pursuit of individual fundamental freedoms--freedoms that we hold dear in this country and sometimes take for granted, that are not always granted in other countries around the world. I recall the optimism of that moment and how it was crushed when the tanks rolled in. Today we assess what the last 25 years meant to the Chinese but also, more importantly, to U.S.-China relations and what our policy should be. China has made tremendous leaps forward in the past 40 years since normalization, but following Tiananmen Square we have missed opportunity after opportunity to integrate China into the global rule- based community of nations to protect our economic interests and to move China in the right direction on political reform. It is not an easy task, but 25 years later China is still fundamentally undemocratic. It too often refuses to play by the rules-- rules that would benefit China short term and long term. The question now is whether China will address the challenge facing it or will it continue to take a more doctrinaire and hardline stance, one that undermines the progress China has made and, because of China's influence, could undermine the global system and regional stability. In many respects China has reaped the benefits of open trade with the rest of the world while avoiding many of its obligations. Our trade deficit with China at the time of Tiananmen Square 25 years ago stood at $6 billion; that is, we bought from China $6 billion in goods more than we sold to China. Last year it grew to 50 times that amount--$318 billion--the highest ever. That means almost every single day of the year on the average, every single day of the year, we buy from China $900 million more in goods than we sell to China. That trade deficit and China's currency manipulation has cost Americans millions of jobs and significantly reduced our Federal budget. I know what unbalanced, unfair, and not playing on a level playing field trade with China has done to places such as Springfield, OH, Marion, OH, and Chillicothe and Lima, and my hometown of Mansfield, and Ravenna, OH, all over my State, all over the Midwest, all over the country. In the end, we compromised as a nation too much. We bought into the myth that China's economic integration after Tiananmen Square would bring about human rights and respect for the United States and international rules. That is not what has happened. Through the commission I chair, the Congressional Executive Commission on China, we have tried to honor the memory of Tiananmen Square by making sure that China's obligations toward human rights and the rule of law are not forgotten. The commission highlighted many concerns: cyber theft threats to democracy in Hong Kong, illegal, unfair trade practices, denial of visas, or threats of denial of visas to foreign journalists, food safety, environmental, and public health concerns, a crackdown on human rights activists, including Ilham Tohti, a peaceful activist for the Uyghur minority group in Tibet. It is my hope we have an open and transparent debate about our China policy. Whether it be on trade agreements, where we continue to be on the short end every single year, or whether it is about growing Chinese foreign investment in this country, this debate must be given proper weight rather than ignoring our concerns over human rights, the rule of law, labor, public health, and the environment. Above all, the debate about U.S. policy toward China must include all segments of our society and not the way we typically do trade agreements in this country, supported by newspaper publishers, economists at Harvard, but not fundamentally supported by the American people and the public. Our workers and small businesses need to be included, NGOs and human rights groups, instead of being led by powerful interest groups such as large corporations. Debate needs to be inclusive and it needs to draw on the interests and aspirations of all parts of American society. More must be done as we honor 25 years in the memory of Tiananmen Square. The world must continue to seek improvements on China's record of human rights and the rule of law. More must be done. Only by recognizing the legitimate aspirations of its people and the obligations of the international system can China assume the role to fit its history and its size. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. I rise to discuss the growing problem with U.S.-China relations. Earlier their week we saw another example of how the Chinese Communist government will do everything it can--anything--to get ahead. The United States of America, in something that rarely happens, charged five Chinese military officers and accused them of hacking into American nuclear, metal, and solar companies to steal trade secrets. This is not only a national security concern, it is an economic concern. Two who were allegedly hacked are U.S. Steel and the United Steelworkers union--organizations with which I have helped to file unfair trade practice cases against Chinese state-owned companies. It is not only a cause-and-effect, but these two entities, a steel company and a steelworkers union, filed unfair trade practices against China, and now the U.S. Government is filing legal charges against them for going after these two companies--against the Chinese. We won these trade cases because we held China's feet to the fire and used our trade laws to level the playing field for our steel companies and our steelworkers. Jobs were saved and factories stayed open because of these trade cases, and that is precisely why China is targeting these companies. We know the Chinese will do just about anything to get ahead economically. Fair enough. We also know that China will cheat and spy. The best example is currency manipulation, which makes Chinese exports more competitive. When you manipulate the currency--when China sells products into the United States, the price is less, basically subsidizing Chinese exports into the United States, putting American workers out of jobs. When U.S. companies export to China, because China has manipulated the currency, it means that the prices are higher for these American goods, making them significantly less than competitive, if you will, in China. So when China cheats on currency, our workers at U.S. Steel in Lorain, Wheatland Tube in Warren, Vallourec Star in Youngstown, and TMK IPSCO in Brookfield lose out, and when our workers suffer, our economy suffers. A December 2012 report by the Peterson Institute--a conservative think tank--found that currency manipulation by foreign governments costs the government between--quite a range--1 million and 5 million jobs, increasing the U.S. trade deficit by $200 to $500 billion a year. These are manufacturing jobs that are about export or competing with imports. They are almost always pretty good-paying jobs. In 2012 our trade deficit with China broke $300 billion for the first time, and then in 2013 for the second time it broke $300 billion. An Economic Policy Institute report notes that ``addressing currency manipulation is the single most important policy change for U.S. workers.'' EPI argues that up to 5.8 million American jobs--40 percent of them in manufacturing--would be created if currency manipulation were eliminated by next year. It would reduce the goods deficit by at least $200 billion. For my home State of Ohio, EPI found that eliminating global currency manipulation by next year would create 254,000 jobs--up to 75,900 in manufacturing; reduce Ohio's unemployment rate by nearly 3 percentage points; increase Ohio's GDP by up to $17.4 billion; and improve the fiscal position of Ohio's State and local governments altogether by up to $3.7 billion. That is only Ohio. It doesn't count Connecticut; it doesn't count Arizona; it doesn't count the other 47 States. That is why we are urging the administration to be more aggressive and level the playing field for American workers and businesses. We should pass my bipartisan legislation with Senators Sessions, Graham, Stabenow, Hagan, and others, which would treat currency manipulation as an unfair trade subsidy and require the Commerce Department to investigate currency manipulation. It is also why we must urge China to comply with the World Trade Organization commitments and fully and faithfully implement all the WTO rulings against it. The U.S. Trade Representative's report paints a sobering picture of the Chinese state's efforts to intervene in the economy and unfairly help China's businesses despite its WTO commitments that it wouldn't do that. China still has not agreed to the procurement agreement from WTO. By not doing so, our businesses miss out on the opportunity to compete for potentially $100 billion a year in contracts. In other words, China won't let us sell into their country in many cases because they don't follow the WTO procurement agreement. Another issue noted by the USTR is China's imposition of retaliatory duties against countries bringing WTO cases against it. One case involving grain-oriented electrical steel--and I was speaking to an executive at AK Steel, David Horn, an executive at AK Steel in southwest Ohio--China not only lost in a WTO challenge but now appears to not comply with the ruling. The continued imposition of these duties even after WTO ruled against it has caused significant harm to companies such as AK Steel, as I mentioned, which is based in West Chester, OH. The issue of retaliation figured prominently in the latest cyber espionage cases brought by the Department of Justice. Several American companies and the steelworkers union that were targeted were taking part in trade cases to challenge China's unfair trade practices. China tries to intimidate our companies and they try to intimidate the U.S. Government from holding them accountable to international and U.S. laws. Living up to their trade obligations and promoting the rule of law in China not only benefits American companies, American workers, and American local communities, it also benefits the Chinese people. There are already examples of Chinese companies willing to play by the rules. I applaud the announcement that Fuyao Glass Industry Group, a Chinese producer of auto safety items, has finalized its agreement to buy the former General Motors plant in Moraine, OH, a Dayton suburb. It is an example of how fair trade and foreign direct investment going both ways can benefit the Chinese, a Chinese company, and create 800 new jobs in Ohio. But to truly have a fair trading relationship, there must be a level playing field. That means playing by international rules. This brings me to my final point. If China continues to manipulate its currency, cheating American workers, cheating American businesses, refuses to abide by WTO rules, is now accused of stealing trade secrets from American companies and unions, why in the world would this Senate even consider and why would the President consider entering into a bilateral investment treaty with China? Have we not learned? In 1999, the year 2000, we passed permanent normal trade relations with China. Many of these issues were aired then. China said they would follow the rule of law. China said they would do it right. China hasn't followed the rule of law. China hasn't done it right. China hasn't played fair. So we are considering entering into a bilateral investment treaty with China? I don't think so. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN

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

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to pass the tax extenders package that the Senate Finance Committee put forward which would reinstate a number of tax provisions to help with job creation and to especially help homeowners and workers get back on their feet. Yesterday I spoke to United Egg Producers which consists of a group of many family farmers and some larger farmers. My State is No. 2 in the country in egg production, second only to the State of Iowa. I talked to Tom Hertzfeld, Jr., and his son Jordan, who are third and fourth generation egg farmers in Grand Rapids, OH, a community not too far from Toledo in northwest Ohio. The farm has been in the family since 1959. They produce about 100,000 dozen eggs every day. It is a technical business. The eggs go from the chicken to the carton and then into the customers' hands. The production equipment requires major investment. So when farmers like Tom need to buy new equipment, build new barns, and acquire more property, they should be able to accelerate their writeoffs. Bonus depreciation and section 179 gives our small businesses the capital to invest in tools that are important for them to expand, hire people, and make their communities more prosperous. As we help existing businesses expand, we need to focus on reviving industries, especially manufacturing. We know wealth is created when we make it, mine it or grow it. We do all three of those in a significant way in my State. Ohio is the Nation's third largest manufacturing State, only behind California, which is three times our population, and Texas, which is twice our population. The new markets tax credit will help revitalize communities hit hard by shuttered factories by leveraging tens of billions of dollars in private investments. We know what the new markets tax credit has done for development in areas that are generally a little poorer than most. We want to be able to target manufacturing too, and that is what our Manufacturing Communities Investment Act does. Last year, for instance, in Portage County, the community of Streetsboro lost 300 jobs after Commercial Turf Products shut its doors. Under the Manufacturing Communities Investment Act, the city could access financing to bring new manufacturing businesses back to Streetsboro. For those workers who have lost their jobs and benefits, the health coverage tax credit, or the HCTC, needs to be extended. The HCTC preserves a program that Ohioans--such as the Delphi salaried retirees who worked hard and played by the rules--know, understand, and trust. Extending the tax credit for 2 years is fiscally responsible. We should improve the HCTC and make it permanent, as I have proposed in the legislation that I have introduced with Senators Rockefeller, Stabenow, Hirono, and Donnelly. At the very least we should renew this critical tax credit. Earlier this year I traveled across Ohio and met with homeowners such as Hattie Wilkins from Youngstown, OH. She was laid off, fell behind on her mortgage, and began the foreclosure process. Her bank--because it was in their interest too--forgave the $35,000 she still owed, but Hattie and thousands of homeowners across the country face higher taxes if we don't move to extend the Mortgage Forgiveness Tax Relief Act. In many ways it is a phantom income. If it is a short sale or they get a principal reduction--as I was discussing with Ohio realtors today--the homeowners never really get the money for it, but they are hit with the tax bill as if they had gotten that income. We have extended this tax forgiveness, if you will, in the past because Members of both parties recognize there is still a critical need for it. All of these items--as part of the tax extenders package--help create jobs, put money in homeowners' pockets, pay for health insurance, and allow people to stay in their homes. As I said, it also creates jobs and is good for our communities. It is important that we pass the tax extenders package as soon as possible in this Chamber. I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I applaud the efforts of Senator Franken and Senators Durbin and Warren and Jack Reed, who will speak after me, for their efforts on dealing with the terrible burden of debt that far too many young people in this country face. We know it is bad for them. We know this is a burdensome, onerous debt. We know it is bad for their families. In many cases, mothers and fathers cosign these loans and have to put off other kinds of things they want to and should do in their lives. We know what it means to those families and to the economy and those communities where these students come out of college with huge debt. They cannot buy a car. They cannot buy a home. They cannot start a business. In many cases they put off getting married and starting a family because of debt. None of this is good. Think back a generation. I heard Senator Klobuchar speak today on the floor. She went to what we consider in this country an exclusive, very expensive university. She scrounged together, her teacher mother, her father--I was in the Presiding Officer's chair as she was speaking. Her father is a reporter, a journalist, columnist, as my wife is. He did not make a lot of money. It was difficult to come up with tuition, room and board for Amy Klobuchar, a young 18-year-old student then, but they were able to do it. I looked back at my wife who graduated college 30- plus years ago, the daughter of a maintenance worker in a powerplant, a union member, 35 years in the union. She is the oldest of four. Her parents absolutely had a commitment to send her to college but could not afford it. Her mother took a job as a home care worker as Connie was approaching college age. She is the oldest. She went to a State university, Kent State University, one of the fine State universities in our State. She graduated in 1979 with only about $1,200 in student loan debt. She worked part of that time, she got grants, but college tuition was so much less expensive then, not just at private, more elite schools but at State universities especially and community colleges. Now it is so out of reach for far too many families. As the students approach that day and have these discussions with their parents, it is important to try to think through how these students who do not necessarily have a lot of sophistication yet in finances, how they look at this. A recent study found that two-thirds of student loan borrowers were not as aware of the difference between Federal student loans and riskier, higher interest private student loans. So they go into this not necessarily always with eyes wide open. They are idealistic. They are enthusiastic about going off to school. They want to get ahead. They do not want to put too big a burden on their parents or obviously on themselves, but they are not, according to the study, aware of the differences between Federal student loans and these higher interest private student loans. Many students then take out private student loans, even though they are eligible for the more affordable Federal ones. You can't expect students to have a fair shot at building a successful livelihood if we don't give them the tools to succeed. That is why the Know Before You Owe Private Student Loan Act is so important. The bill would require private student loan lenders to clearly state the difference between the student's ultimate cost of attending college and the student's estimated financial assistance. They should be taking full advantage of any Federal financial aid packages they may qualify for before taking on any private student loan debt, although they so often don't know that because this is complicated. Second, our bill would provide loan statements to borrowers and their families at least once every 3 months so they can understand what they are getting into. Also, it would require private student loan lenders to submit an annual report to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau about student loans. We know private student loans typically have significantly higher interest rates. They offer more limited payment options. They offer no relief for graduates who are underpaid, have been laid off or are unable to find work. That is why my Refinancing Education Funding to Invest for the Future, or REFIF Act, addresses this problem by authorizing the Treasury Department to make the private student loan market more efficient. It would allow borrowers to refinance their more costly private loans into more affordable loans at no cost to taxpayers. Now the Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act would allow homeowners to refinance and lock in lower Federal interest rates. All of these pieces of legislation will give students a fair shot at the American dream of going to school--whether they choose to go to Lorain or Cincinnati State Technical and Community College, whether they want to go west to Otterbein, a private school in Ohio or Denison or Oberlin or whether they want to go to a larger State university such as Ohio State or usually Toledo or Youngstown State. It would allow those with private student loans into the Federal program, saving hundreds and possibly thousands of dollars by switching to the lower Federal interest rates. We all hear it. The Presiding Officer hears it from his Connecticut residents. Senator Reed hears it from Rhode Island, and we will hear from people in our States pleading for help. Let me share a couple of them, and then I will yield the floor for Senator Reed. Kelly McVicker, a father of three in Toledo--I spoke with him on the phone and I talked to him. We went to Perrysburg High School, a suburb of Toledo--an affluent suburb--but still a place where students struggle with student loans and student debt. When Kelly was 17, he took out a $48,000 student loan to get his degree. Today he is 31, working to pay down that original loan, which has now grown to $73,000, while also trying to support his family. He took out a $48,000 loan. He has been working, he has been going to school, and he has been doing what people and what society asked of him, and yet he is now saddled with this $73,000 debt. Andrea, from the same part of the State, the northeast corner of Ohio, wrote to me from Williams County saying: I have been repaying my student loan religiously for about 14 years, and I feel as though my payment never goes down. My interest rate is 7.75 percent. When I contact my lender, they have no offer to lower the rate. I find it hard to believe when my mortgage is 3.25 percent, and so is my auto loan. I can even get a credit card with zero percent interest. I would be better off defaulting and let the companies take care of it. I am married with three children. At this rate, I will still be paying off school loans when my oldest goes to college. I did not have the luxury of having financial help from my parents, and I am trying not to let that happen to my own children. Higher education is extremely important to my husband and me, and as a middle class family, there doesn't seem to be much help in this area. I am a frustrated person who seems to be indebted to student loans, and I don't want the same for my children. All of these pleas, whether they come from Providence or whether they come from Cleveland, are from people who want to do the right thing. They want to get out from under these loans, but they want to pay them. They want to pay them back. They just want an interest rate that is more competitive when they see what their home mortgage interest rates are. For Andrea from Williams County, her interest rates for her home mortgage are less than half of what she is paying for student loans. Why should that be? We need to respond to these pleas for help from so many of our constituents of all ages, of both genders, from all across our States in communities, small towns, big cities, and rural areas. Across the country there are responsible borrowers who have played by the rules and are still finding themselves coming up short. Unless we act, we will have a generation of Americans unable to build a life for themselves because they are in a nonstop cycle of dealing with costly loan repayment. It is important. We have the opportunity, by passing these bills, to give Americans the fair shot they need at paying off their loans, of going to school, of getting ahead, starting businesses, starting families, buying homes, and getting this economy back on track. We can do this, and it is important we start today. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 15 minutes.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise to discuss partly the state of our economy but more precisely the state of our workers. Working Americans are in some sense being attacked from both ends. We have seen an orchestrated attempt to cut safety net programs where a low-income worker making $9, $10, or $11 an hour might be eligible in some cases for SNAP or is surely eligible for the earned income tax credit. Opponents strongly say that programs such as SNAP foster a culture of dependency and do not reward work. Those same elected officials--some of whom, I might add, have voted to raise their own pay--oppose efforts to ensure that hard work is reworded with fair pay. Last fall one House Republican said: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. I am all for quoting Scripture. I do not think it should be used to vilify hard-working people. Detractors of SNAP, opponents of the minimum wage, cannot have it both ways. By raising the minimum wage, it means, frankly, fewer people will be eligible for SNAP, because if their wages are higher, they cannot and should not be eligible for certain benefits. So we create opportunities for Americans to earn a living wage and no longer need those benefits. One hundred years ago in January, Henry Ford, in 1914, announced that he was going to pay his workers $5 a day. Nobody thought, when they looked at Henry Ford and his life, nobody thought he was doing it out of the kindness of his heart. But that did not matter; he decided to pay everybody in his plant $5 a day because he understood that paying them more would mean a more prosperous workforce who could then, presto, have the money in their pocket to begin to buy a car, to buy a Model T or to buy one of Henry Ford's cars. We should be taking a page from Ford's playbook. Productivity has increased 85 percent in this country since 1979. It used to be as productivity went up, wages went up. Since World War II, between 1945 and 1973, productivity went like this: Wages pretty much paralleled the increase. In other words, workers who were producing more for their boss would get part of the wealth, would share in the wealth they were helping to create for their company, for their boss. So while productivity has increased 85 percent in the last 35 years, inflation-adjusted wages increased 6 percent, and the value of the minimum wage fell 21 percent. Think about that. Productivity went up 85 percent. Profits went up significantly. Wages went up only 6 percent. The value of the minimum wage fell 21 percent. The value of the minimum wage, since 1968, is actually one-third less today--the minimum wage today is worth one-third less in buying power of the minimum wage in 1968. Simply put, workers, while they are earning more for their bosses, they are making their companies more profitable, workers are not seeing the wealth they helped to create. Fundamentally, the contract--not literally a legal contract but the contract we once had in this country was, if you work hard, if you take responsibility, if you are productive, if you do things according to sort of society's mores, you would benefit. You would benefit in higher wages. You would benefit in a higher standard of living. In the aftermath of the recession, the job growth, the increase in jobs, has been in the low-wage job sectors. Men and women who lost good-paying middle-class jobs, generally through no fault of their own, are returning to work at low-wage jobs, jobs that make it difficult to support a family. Enrollment for programs such as SNAP has grown. I hear some of my sort of tea party colleagues complain that more and more people are getting SNAP. They are, because wages are not going up, because the minimum wage has less buying power than it used to. So many workers that were union, middle-class workers now are making lower wages 45 million people. So, yes, the number of people who are receiving SNAP benefits, food stamps has gone up. In 2011, 45 million people relied on those benefits. SNAP spending increased, but that is a reason to pass the minimum wage. Increase their wages and fewer people will need that. Too many people who work harder than ever are barely getting by despite their best efforts. That is why millions of fast-food workers in cities across the country took to the streets in December for a National Day of Action, asking for and demanding an increase in the minimum wage. More than half of frontline fast-food workers, more than half of those who work more than 40 hours per week, earn so little that they are forced to enroll their family in public assistance. Think of all the companies, all the companies where workers are making such low wages and they are getting food stamps. So I come to the floor to talk about the minimum wage and to specifically discuss support for the Fair Minimum Wage Act. Majority Leader Reid has been supportive of this measure, as have most of my colleagues in this Chamber. We have not yet been able to corral 60 votes, which is what we need to break a filibuster, from those who I think are far out of step with the country, with their constituents, who oppose the minimum wage. The Fair Minimum Wage Act would raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour in three 95-cent increments. In other words, it is $7.25 now. Upon the President's signature, it would be $8.20. One year later it would be $9.15. Then one year later it would be $10.10 an hour. The bill also--this is important to note because it is rarely talked about. The bill also raises the Federal minimum wage for tipped workers from the current $2.13 an hour to 70 percent of the regular minimum wage. If you work in a restaurant, if you are a server, if you push a wheelchair at an airport, if you are a valet, if you are working in a hotel where you get tips, in most cases those employers are only required to pay the subminimum wage, assuming that you are going to get up to the minimum wage with tips. It does not always happen that way. It is a Federal law that it should, but it does not always happen that way. As Senator Durbin and I were talking earlier, it is not so easy to enforce that. So if you are in a diner and you are talking to your server, the chances are that your server is making significantly less than the minimum wage, maybe higher than $2.13--that is the law--but maybe no more than $3 or $4 an hour. If you are in an airport and you see someone pushing an older person in a wheelchair, usually down the concourse, or someone who is disabled for whatever reason, they are only making $3, $4 or $5 an hour. The tipped minimum wage, $2.13, has not been raised since 1991. So every time we have raised the minimum wage--we did it bipartisanly; President Bush signed it in 2007. We did one a few years before that--I was in the House then--bipartisanly. The Presiding Officer from Indiana supported these minimum wage increases. But every time we have raised the minimum wage since 1991, the $2.13 subminimum wage, the tipped wage, has been stuck. It has never been raised. This will raise the tipped wage. Let me share a couple of letters. I got a letter from Tom in Cuyahoga County, the county I live in, in Northeast Ohio: Senator Brown, I'm a 50 year old food service worker with a college degree, and I make $7.40 an hour. I just closed my retirement account that had $2,500 in it to pay my bills-- and it's still not enough to cover everything. Now with that money gone, I should be able to qualify for food stamps. I only have the most basic bills, and I don't have any credit card debt or loans. How much longer do we have to wait for a livable wage? The people whom I have met who are working minimum wage or close to minimum wage, $8-, $9-, $10-an-hour jobs, are people who often hold two jobs. They are working hard. They have so little to show for it. For somebody who is willing to work as most people in this country do, they should have a livable wage. We know there are many more stories such as Tom's that all of us will hear if we go out in our States and listen. Pope Francis I exhorted his parish priests to go out and ``smell like the flock.'' The illusion of the Old and New Testaments and sheep and shepherds was obviously what he was referring to, but he was also referring to the fact of how important it is for people in his church, in the Roman Catholic Church, the priests, the people who minister to people, should understand how people live. It is an important admonition for politicians too. I think more of my colleagues should get out of Washington and ``smell like the flock'' as Pope Francis said, meet people trying to make a go of it on a minimum wage, put food on their table to support their families, to put a little aside maybe for retirement someday; all of those are so important. When we are seeing people working harder and harder, and, frankly, getting paid less and less money for it because of the decline of the buying power of the minimum wage, we know it is time for change. I ask my colleagues to support the Fair Minimum Wage Act. It will pull millions of people out of poverty. It will help our economy because it will put money in people's pockets that they will immediately spend, generating other economic activity and creating jobs. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I understand that S. 2262, introduced earlier today by Senators Shaheen, Portman, and others is at the desk, and I ask for its first reading.