Michael Bennet

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. May I.

Mr. BENNET. Sure.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I wish to thank the Senator from Minnesota for her remarks and say how much I appreciate her work on this legislation, on the Judiciary Committee and beyond. The chairman is here today. I wish to thank him for his leadership both on the committee and on the floor. One way or another, something important is going to happen here this week--which should happen more regularly than it does, but it does not, in the 4 years I have been here; that is, a bill that actually is the result of thoughtful bipartisan--in some cases I even describe it as nonpartisan--work that has been done first by the so-called Gang of 8 that I was pleased to be part of, then in the Judiciary Committee itself, and now on the floor of the Senate. Before I talk about immigration, I want to mention we are still struggling out in Colorado this summer with these terrible wildfires. We have appreciated the Federal cooperation we have received. It is a reminder to me, when I stand on this floor, how important it is for us to get past this partisan gridlock we have and into a position where we are actually making shared decisions that will allow us, among other things, to do the investments we need to do to make sure our forests have the fire mitigation that will prevent them from catching and burning the way they are this summer in Colorado. Today we have the opportunity to try to work together on immigration. Opponents have come out and said this bill is going to cost us money, this bill is going to make the deficit worse. It is exactly the opposite. The Congressional Budget Office has said if we pass this bill, we will see nearly $1 trillion of deficit reduction over 20 years. This Congressional Budget Office tells us it will increase our gross domestic product by 5.4 percent over that same period of time. So this bill is a deficit reduction bill. People around here who talk about deficit reduction--and I am one of them--finally have a chance to do it in a thoughtful and measured way, in a useful and constructive way, rather than through a series of mindless across-the-board cuts which we have seen as a consequence of the sequester. Even in Washington, DC, $1 trillion is real money. That is one reason we ought to pass this bill. Another reason we ought to pass this bill is it creates a visa system that is actually aligned to the economic needs of the United States of America. Forty percent of Fortune 500 companies have been founded by immigrants. Nearly 1 in 10 business owners in Colorado are immigrants and generate $1.2 billion for our State's economy. Agriculture is a $40 billion industry in Colorado, and tourism is Colorado's second largest industry. We have a growing high-tech sector in Colorado, and 23.6 percent of STEM graduates from our State research universities are immigrants. We want them to earn those degrees if they are doing it in the United States and then stay here in the United States, build businesses in this country, invest in our future with us in this country. Today, because we have a broken immigration system, we are saying to those graduates, Go back to China and compete with us; go back to India and compete with us; we have no use for your talents here in this country. This bill fixes that. This bill has very important border security measures and measures to prevent future illegal immigration. I thank the Senator from Tennessee, who is on the floor, for his remarkable work with Senator Hoeven to get us to this point. The agreement on border security, which maintains a real and attainable pathway to citizenship which was a bottom line for the Gang of 8 Senators who were working on this bill, was the result of several Senators who were willing and determined to find a way to get this done. So I thank Senator Corker, I thank Senator Hoeven, and I thank Senator McCain and the other Republican Members of the Gang of 8 for getting us here. This is how the Senate should work--a process that leads to principled compromise. On the border security amendment, some opponents of fixing our broken immigration system continue to say our bill doesn't do enough to secure the border. No reasonable person could look at this legislation and arrive at that conclusion: nearly $50 billion in additional spending at the border, 700 miles of fencing at the border; we double the number of border agents on the southern border of the United States; we go from roughly 22,000 to 44,000 border agents. Those numbers are directionally right. We double them. More money and Federal resources are devoted to securing our border than on all other law enforcement that the Federal Government undertakes, and now we are doubling it. You might be critical and say, Well, you shouldn't spend that money, although, as I mentioned earlier, this bill results in deficit reduction of almost $1 trillion over 20 years. I could see how somebody might stand up and be critical about that. I can't see how somebody could seriously maintain this bill does not secure our border. We call for an array of new technologies and resources at our border sectors to ensure 100-percent surveillance and rapid interdiction of threats and potential illegal crossings. E-Verify is required to be used by every employer in the United States, so we don't end up the way we did the last time--with a broken system, where small businesses either became the INS or were given fake documents and people came here where there were jobs--illegally, not legally. This internal enforcement mechanism will allow us to make sure small businesses know who they are hiring, and we are turning away people who are here unlawfully and shouldn't work here in the United States of America. This is the greatest country in the world. But 40 percent of the people who are here who are undocumented came lawfully to the United States, overstayed their visas, and it is the consequence of our having a system to check people on the way in but never checks them on the way out or whether they left at all. This bill fixes that problem with a complete entry-exit system, with improved biographic and biometric tracking of those who come into and leave our borders. It is about time for us to begin to apply 21st century technology to this broken immigration system we have. There are many economic reasons why we should support this bipartisan legislation. We know it will help businesses, we know it will boost our economy, we know we are securing our borders. If people don't believe me on this, I hope they will listen to Senator John McCain and Senator Jeff Flake, who are the two Republican border Senators--Senators from a border State--who took me and others down there to see what the border actually looked like, who support this legislation, who have to go home to Arizona and be able to defend this legislation by saying it secures the borders of the United States of America. They know what they are talking about. We also can't lose sight of what this bill means for families who are suffering under the current system. Here is one story from a bright young woman in Boulder, CO, who I had the fortunate pleasure to meet, Ana Karina Casas Ibarra. I first met Ana at a bagel shop in Boulder where my staff and I stopped in for a bite to eat. She waited on us and recognized me. When my staff overheard her explaining the dynamics of the 112th Congress, they suggested she apply for an internship in my office. She was an awesome intern. We had the opportunity to learn more about her story. Fourteen years ago, her mother brought her and her two younger brothers to the United States to escape an abusive marriage. Her mom had consistently juggled two or three jobs to support them. Although Ana was a good student, an old Colorado law denied her in-State tuition. She had to work to pay for community college a few semesters at a time. Her brothers, who saw her opportunity denied, lost their motivation. One brother who speaks better English than Spanish was deported, and the other brother who has an American citizen wife and a baby is facing possible deportation right now. She just published her story in the Denver Post. She wrote: Too many families share similar horror stories of separation. There are 11 million people who have entered this country illegally, and the time is now to provide them with a path to citizenship. It is time for immigration reform. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a copy of the Denver Post op-ed.

Mr. BENNET. I just wish to say, again, how proud I am of the work Senator Corker and Senator Hoeven have done to get us to this point. I hope we will come to an agreement on some amendments between now and the end or that we will just take up this bill. It is time for us to pass it. It is time for us to fix this problem for our economy and for the families all across this country. I believe we can do it, and I think it is an opportunity for this Senate to show it can work in a bipartisan way that produces a meaningful piece of legislation that is very important to the American people. With that, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I wanted to come to the floor tonight to talk briefly about where we are in immigration reform. We are moving along this week. We have come out of several weeks of committee work, where there were a number of Republican amendments that were adopted as part of the process and a number of Democratic amendments adopted as part of the process. As somebody who was involved in the negotiating group that led to the bill reaching the Judiciary Committee, I actually think it was improved by both Republicans and Democrats. It has been an unusual bipartisan effort, and it is the kind of effort the American people, certainly the people of Colorado, think is long overdue. They do not understand why we seem to be engaged in these fights that don't have anything to do with them instead of working to get together constructively to meet the challenges this country faces. I think when it comes to this very difficult issue of immigration-- and it is difficult, and there are strong feelings about it--it has been remarkable for that reason; that we have been able to see what I would describe not even as a bipartisan process but a nonpartisan process, with people actually coming together to resolve this issue. As a result, the objections to it, the substantive objections to it are falling away. There was an objection that somehow the bill was being rushed through. Well, no, it went through the regular order, which is very rare for this place. It shouldn't be rare, but it is rare. It got a full hearing in the Judiciary Committee, and there has been a full hearing on the Senate floor. There was an argument somehow it was going to create horrible deficits, and it turns out the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said, actually, in the first 10 years it is going to improve our deficit situation by $190 billion and over the next 10 years by another $700 billion--almost $1 trillion over the course of the next 20 years. So, then, there was another argument, which was there is no border security as part of this legislation. In the Group of 8 we listened hard to what the border Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake, two Republicans from Arizona, had to say about what they believed they needed at the border. We went and visited the border with John McCain and Jeff Flake to see what they believed they needed on the Arizona border. But there were other Senators who weren't satisfied by what we put in that bill, and so there was an effort that was then led by Senator Corker from Tennessee and Senator Hoeven to amend the bill, and we supported it. I supported that amendment. In fact, that amendment got 68 votes the other night--or something like that. We were missing a couple of Senators. We would have had 68 or 69 if everybody had been here. That is progress because that has built support for the bill-- Republicans and Democrats coming together around the border security issue. I think it is very hard for anybody to make a real argument this is not a significant attempt to strengthen the border in this country. We were already spending more money on border enforcement than we do on any other Federal law enforcement combined as it was. We had gone to about 22,000 Border Patrol agents already as it was. Now we are doubling that number--doubling--as an attempt to respond to a very reasonable concern the American people have that the border should be as secure as possible. So that is now part of this legislation. So those are three things people have argued: The process was too fast, the bill was going to negatively affect the deficit, and our border is still insecure. Those were the arguments that were made. Now we don't hear those arguments so much anymore. Now we hear scare stories about health care. We are hearing scare stories about how this will affect our economy even though the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said we are going to see five additional points of gross domestic product growth--GDP growth--in the second 10 years of this bill passing, as a result of bringing people out of the shadows. It is not as if the 11 million people who are here and who are undocumented are not working. They are working. Many of them are working in this country. Many of them are working in the agriculture sector in my State and in this country. Many are working in other industries as well all across the United States. But they are working in an unlawful way. They are working in a cash economy. They are working in a situation where they are easily exploited. Because of that, they drag down the wages of everybody in America. Workers in my State who are here and who are legal--l-e-g-a-l--are having to compete in a marketplace where there are people who can pay less because they know there are people who have to take less because they do not have lawful recourse. All the protections we put in this bill, all the protections to make sure, and rightfully so, an American is offered a job first; to ensure, and rightfully so, we are not bringing in a whole bunch of new people when there are Americans looking for work--all of those protections pale in comparison to the protection of bringing 11 million people out of the shadows and out of a cash economy and into a place where they are paid a lawful wage and they are paying their taxes to the U.S. Government. If all someone cared about, if the only thing someone cared about when they got up in the morning and went to bed at night was rising wages for Americans, solving this issue finally for the 11 million would be the most important thing you could do. And we do that in this bill. The opponents of this bill are not seriously suggesting they are going to go to the expense of sending 11 million people back to where they came from. They are not seriously suggesting, in answer to this issue, that nothing in the CBO report is true, that none of it makes sense, that this is about ObamaCare when what we are really trying to do for once in this place is solve a set of challenging issues in a bipartisan way. Mr. President, even more than that, for a decade or more, because of our broken immigration system, the policy of this country has been to turn back talented people--even people educated at our universities, even people educated to be engineers and mathematicians. When they have graduated from college here, at our expense, in many cases, we have not said to them: Stay here and build your business. Compete here and help us grow this economy. Start a business--as half of the Fortune 100 or 500 companies have been started by immigrants. No. We have said: Go home. Go home to India and compete with us from there. Go home to China and hire other people over there. If we pass this bill, we will say once again that this nation of immigrants is open for business, that we are open to the most creative and talented people in the world, that we want them to drive our economy in the United States just as they have generation after generation going back to our Founders. It is a great testament to who we are and to the nature of our country that people want to come here, and under the right circumstances we should have them here. The CBO report--and I don't even care about the CBO report--makes it very clear--makes it very clear--what businesspeople in my State already know: It makes it clear to the agricultural industry in my State, the high-tech industry in my State, the ski resorts in my State that the objections of people of goodwill on this bill have been met through compromise and through principled agreement. This is a good piece of legislation. We shouldn't, in this ninth or eleventh hour or whatever it is--the ninth inning--allow ourselves to get distracted by the politics seeking to divide us in this Chamber or in this country. And I don't believe we will. So I urge my colleagues to support the passage of this bill. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Through the Chair, two sentences, which are: Our farmers and ranchers in Colorado have been suffering through the worst drought that we have had in a generation. This is the third year in a row of that drought. We have passed a bipartisan farm bill twice on the floor of the Senate, I think with over 70 votes. It is not perfect. There are things in it I would change. It is the only bipartisan deficit reduction, other than the immigration bill, that has been achieved by a committee in this Congress, either on the Senate side or House side-- the only one. We make important reforms to our conservation title. We end direct payments to producers. The Senate bill is not a perfect bill, but it is a good bill. Today the House of Representatives voted their own bill down. Farmers and ranchers in Colorado who are working hard to try to support their families, to create a condition where they can leave their farms and ranches to the next generation of Coloradans, are left to scratch their heads once again why Washington cannot get its work done. I urge the House of Representatives to pass the bipartisan Senate farm bill so our farmers and ranchers can get the relief they need. I yield the floor.

Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I appreciate the recognition, and I ensure my colleagues I will be brief. I appreciate very much the work of the Senator from Ohio on this bill. I wanted to come to the floor this afternoon to talk about the agreement that we have reached with Senators Corker and Hoeven that will significantly increase security measures taken at our borders. We have spent a lot of time talking about this issue over the last months with some proposals that would have simply gone too far by sacrificing the path to citizenship, perhaps completely, in some of these proposals. I thank Senator Corker, Senator Hoeven, and the other Senators who have been involved in this discussion for striking the balance in a different place and giving us a path to another bipartisan agreement that has required compromise--principled compromise--on all sides throughout this process. A number of us have said that this bill is not the bill each of us would have written left to our own devices. But the nature of this place, when it is working, is that it is a place where people make principled compromises and come together. I want to thank Chairman Leahy, who is on the floor today, for the process that he led in the Judiciary Committee to get us here. There were over 300 amendments considered. I think there were 141 amendments adopted by both Democrats and Republicans. This is the way Colorado expects the Senate to work--a State that is one-third Democratic, one-third Republican, and one-third Independent, and doesn't care very much about what labels people put on each other or themselves but would like the institutions in Washington to actually reflect their priorities and reflect the way they do business, which is by coming together and figuring out how to deal with principled disagreements. So while we have said this bill isn't the bill that I would have written alone, it is a good bill. It is a bill that has gotten stronger in the committee and stronger on the Senate floor. That is the way it is supposed to work. People at home know that doing big things means we are going to have to be willing to come together from time to time on compromised solutions, and that is what we are doing here. We are protecting the principles the eight of us laid out when we started this process, which includes ensuring a pathway to citizenship that is real and attainable, in addition to preventing future illegal immigration through, among other measures, securing our borders. Our agreement had additional support for securing the border even after the improvements we have seen over the last 10 years. But now what we have before us is what some have called a border surge plan that will significantly expand resources at the border beyond what is already in the bill. It will double the number of border agents--an agent, it has been estimated, every 1,000 feet on the border. It will significantly expand fencing. It will implement new technology and resources such as fixed towers, surveillance cameras, and aerial surveillance units. It will provide for full monitoring of our southern border. We have already dramatically increased security at the border. This bill will double the number of border agents on our southern border. And while these items will add more cost to the bill, we know such costs are offset by fees and fines on visas throughout our bill. Yesterday's news from the Congressional Budget Office that the bill as written would achieve nearly $900 billion in deficit savings over the next 20 years--coupled with the gigantic steps we are already taking at the border, along with the growing coalition of support for fixing our broken immigration system--is leaving opponents with less and less to undercut the bill. The case is simply slipping away for maintaining the status quo that is holding back our economy, keeping us less secure, and tearing apart families. At home, people actually think securing the border is a virtue. They support securing the border at home. People at home think a pathway to citizenship that resolves the question for the 11 million people working in this shadow economy, in this cash economy, is a virtue. People at home believe both of those things would be positive. In Washington, somehow it becomes a trade: border security for citizenship, depending on which side you are on. I want to say how grateful I am to the other Members of the Gang of 8, particularly to Senator McCain, Senator Graham, Senator Rubio, and Senator Flake, my Republican colleagues, and to Senator Hoeven and Senator Corker for creating the opportunity for us to have a big bipartisan vote on this Senate floor next week; to be able to show the American people there is hope, that we can finally resolve not just the issue for the 11 million, but we can also begin as a country to have the talents of people from all over the world who want to contribute to our economy, who want to build their businesses here. I thank them for legislating in such a constructive way, so as we move forward, to have the chance for each of us to vote to reaffirm two essential principles that make our country so special: One, that we are committed to the rule of law and the other that we are a nation of immigrants. I yield the floor. I thank the Senator from Utah for his patience.

Mr. BENNET. I object. Madam President, I did not know that was the purpose of the Senator rising, so I will keep going on another topic. Through the Chair, does the Senator from Utah want to speak?

Mr. BENNET. I yield.

Mr. BENNET. Through the Chair, I am aware of that. I appreciate the Senator from Vermont, the former chair of the committee and now the chair of the Judiciary Committee, reminding the Chamber that the Senator from Vermont has been here longer than I have been, just being honest about it. But I wonder sometimes what it would have been like to serve in this body when it did not have a 10-percent approval rating. The chairman was here when the Congress did not have a 10-percent approval rating. I don't know why anybody in the world would want to work in a place that had that level of approval. I came down to the floor once with a slide that tried to find other enterprises that had the kind of approval rating we have in this Congress. It is very hard to do. The IRS had a 40-percent approval rating. There is an actress who had a 15-percent approval rating. Eleven percent of the American people say they want the country to be a Communist country--I don't, by the way. I think Fidel Castro had a 5- or 6-percent approval rating. We have to start working together. That is what the American people want. That is what the people in my State want. They know we are not always going to agree on everything, but they expect us to actually get things done. One of the matters we have in front of us, this immigration bill, is an excellent example of Republicans and Democrats coming together to do their work. The chairman is exactly right. The Senator from Vermont is exactly right. We have differences on the Agriculture Committee sometimes, but they are not partisan differences. They are not differences between Republicans and Democrats. They are regional differences, and we find a way to hash those out. We were able to pass this bill on the floor with broad bipartisan support. That is what we should do with this immigration bill and that is what the House of Representatives should do with our Senate farm bill. I yield the floor.

Mr. BENNET

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

Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I come to the floor today to talk about the bill that has been before us for the last week and a half or so to fix our broken immigration system. As the Presiding Officer knows, this bill has been the product of bipartisan work both in the so-called Gang of 8, which I have the privilege to be a part of, as well as in the Judiciary Committee where they ran a process that set a standard for the way this place ought to operate. We considered over 300 amendments in the Judiciary Committee, accepting 141 amendments, many of them from Republicans and Democrats alike. Now we are on the floor. Those who want to delay immigration reform, who want to defeat immigration reform, are using every tactic they can find to try to stop this bill. But, fortunately, there are other people of goodwill on both sides of the aisle who are trying to come to an agreement. We focused a lot in the last week, as we should, talking about the border. I spoke about the progress we have already made in securing our southern border. There is more to do. There is progress that is reflected in the underlying bill, and if that can be improved in a way that does not make the pathway to citizenship contingent or unreal, I think there are those of us who are willing to hear what that looks like. What we have not spent time on is actually what people in Colorado have spent their time on when it comes to the question of fixing our broken immigration system, which is the way the current system defeats them in their efforts to build their businesses in this economy and the promise that could be achieved if we actually were able to pass this bill as it has been written. I have heard from people from every walk of life across the State of Colorado who have been hurt by our outdated and unreasonable and unimaginative and un-American immigration laws. They understand in their gut the velocity we can add to the economy by fixing the system, if Washington would just do its work. They include high-tech companies on the Front Range including the bioscience, engineering, and aerospace industries, among others. One of those companies, Newsgator, an innovative social media software company based in Denver, makes a compelling case. Its chairman and founding CEO J.B. Holston told our office: I have been watching the immigration debate closely because my company relies on high-skilled technology workers. In the 21st century global economy, we are in an arms race-- we are in an arms race-- for recruiting, attracting, and retaining the world's best and brightest. Our current immigration system is a barrier to American businesses winning that race. Stalled progress on immigration also sidelines growth capital for U.S. high tech companies. That's a toxic combination for growth. The proposed immigration overhaul bill is a great step forward. It is not only the high-tech sector feeling these pain points. Farmers, including peach growers on the western slope, cattle ranchers on the eastern plains, and onion growers in the northern part of our State, and tourism and the ski industry across Colorado are feeling it as well, and DREAMers from the Denver public school system and other school districts, rural and urban, struggling to go to college and work toward a career because of their legal status. We made a commitment when we set out as the Gang of 8, Democrats and Republicans working together, that our legislation would be deficit neutral, that it wouldn't add one dime--not one dollar--to our deficit. That was an important principle for the members of this group because, as the Presiding Officer knows, we face significant deficits, significant national debt. Yesterday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office not only affirmed the stories I am hearing from my tech community and my agricultural community and from businesses all across the State about economic growth, it also had some incredible news with respect to our deficit. CBO estimates if we pass this bill, we will reduce the deficit by almost $200 billion in the first decade and almost $700 billion in the second decade--almost $1 trillion. Even in Washington, DC, that is real money. There will be almost $1 trillion of deficit reduction over the next two decades as a consequence of this bill. So let's break down what the CBO is saying. This bill will increase employment and jobs in the country. More workers will come here. More people will build businesses here. They will consume more and invest more. This will spur economic growth. These are not my opinions. These are not the opinions of the Gang of 8, although we share these opinions. These are the opinions of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office as a result of reading this bill. Our bill also allows millions of Americans who are currently undocumented to step out of the shadows of a cash economy and start contributing more to our economy as they earn more. When you crunch the numbers, based on the Congressional Budget Office score, this bill will significantly increase our gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, and reduce deficits. The CBO found that projected deficits will decline significantly over the next decade as a consequence of this legislation. Every year, from 2015 on, they expect deficits to go down. It is going to end up, as I said earlier, saving us $197 billion between now and 2023. It turns out that based on this estimate, we will only begin to see the benefits of this bill in the first decade. The economic benefits of this bill actually accelerate in the second decade. From 2024 to 2033 the bill would reduce deficits by $690 billion. I realize we have gotten in the habit around this place of thinking in 30-day increments or 60-day increments. It is driving folks at home crazy. This is a chance for us to reset for the 21st century. The CBO has done the math. What that math tells you--despite what other people who do not want to have immigration reform for whatever reason have said, who claim that this is going to drive our deficits through the roof--that math tells us we have a total of $887 billion in deficit reduction over the next 20 years. Here is a surprising fact that is buried in the Congressional Budget Office report: Those deficit-reduction estimates are actually conservative. CBO is only counting the most obvious savings in their estimate. It is not including other more indirect economic benefits-- such as increased productivity--that will likely yield additional savings. Here is what CBO actually says in its report. This is a direct quote: According to CBO's central estimates (within a range that reflects the uncertainty about two key economic relationships in CBO's analysis), the economic impacts not included in the cost estimate would have no further net effect on budget deficits over the 2014-2023 period and would further reduce deficits (relative to the effects reported in the cost estimate) by about $300 billion over the 2024-2033 period. Let me put that another way. The CBO is saying this bill could actually, when you factor in the economic effects, reduce deficits by $300 billion more in the second decade than it actually projects in the cost estimates. One way or another, we are either just below or just above $1 trillion, and that is real money, particularly in light of the sequester--the law we had written to be so terrible and so ugly it would never, ever go into effect, but now is the law of the land. What a more destructive way to get $1 trillion in savings than a bunch of automatic, across-the-board cuts. In fact, the prominent conservative economist Doug Holtz-Eakin said a few months ago that he thought, using a dynamic scoring model, the immigration bill could reduce deficits by even more--shaving as much as $2.7 trillion off our deficits. So until yesterday we had not heard what this nonpartisan group, the Congressional Budget Office, had to say about this immigration bill. But it supports what we have already heard from businesses at home, our industry leaders across the country, and economists no matter what political stripe they are, that fixing our immigration system is going to help strengthen our economy. We know it will secure our borders. We know it will reunite families. And we know it will bring people who came to this country for a better life a chance to come out of the shadows and contribute to our democracy and contribute to our economy in the 21st century, as they did in the 20th century and as they did in the 19th century before that. What we have not heard is a convincing case to maintain the status quo that is holding back our economy, that is keeping unresolved the question about what to do with the 11 million people who are living in our shadow economy, and what we are to do to reinvite talented people from around the world to make their best contribution in America. That is what this bill represents. This bill is a reaffirmation of the idea that we are a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. The Senate should pass this bill. I yield the floor.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, today I would like to congratulate Mr. Scott Blackmun of the U.S. Olympic Committee, USOC, on recently being named Sports Business Journal's 2013 Sports Executive of the Year. Scott has shown real leadership as the chief executive officer of the United States Olympic Committee, a position in which he has served for the past 3 years. He has represented Colorado with distinction on that committee, and he fully deserves this recognition for his work and commitment to international athletic excellence. Scott has revamped the U.S. Olympic Committee since his appointment in 2010, bringing results both on and off the field of competition. Under his leadership, the USOC has been able to partner with several new sponsors, negotiate a revenue-sharing agreement with the International Olympic Committee, and oversee a U.S. Olympic team that won the most Gold Medals at the 2012 London Olympic Games. Scott also served the USOC capably in multiple previous capacities a decade ago. A hard worker of high integrity, Scott previously served as chief operating officer of Anschutz Entertainment Group, a major presenter of sports and entertainment events. An accomplished attorney, Scott's skill and work ethic have made him an invaluable asset in the Colorado legal community. I know Scott personally, having worked with him in the past, and I know him to be a diligent yet passionate advocate for clients and causes alike. It is a privilege to recognize and commend the accomplishments and career of Scott Blackmun. This award is a testament to his commitment to the USOC and to his country. We are proud to be able to say that he is a Coloradoan, and I want to extend my sincere congratulations to Scott, his wife Ann, and their three children.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I wish to say, through the Chair, thank you to the Senator from Missouri for her advocacy on behalf of our service men and women. And I think she should have made no assumption about yielding the floor to me, but I am happy to take it, if the Senator is done. Madam President, I come to the floor today, as I did yesterday, to talk about this incredible opportunity we have before us with this bipartisan immigration bill that we are considering now in the Senate, in regular order in the Senate. I hope we have a process on the floor, now that we are here, that mirrors the one the Judiciary Committee had: an open process where people can offer amendments they care about, one that has a spirited debate on a variety of important issues, so the American people can have the benefit of a fully transparent and deliberative process over these important issues. In the Judiciary Committee process alone, over 300 amendments were filed, and 200 were considered, and over 140 of them were actually adopted by the committee. That is the way this place ought to work. I think it will strengthen this bipartisan bill to continue to take other people's ideas. What we did not do in the Judiciary Committee, and what I hope we will not do on the Senate floor, is accept amendments that will disrupt a very carefully negotiated balance in the so-called Gang of 8 or Group of 8--four Democrats and four Republicans--who worked hard together to try to get to a place that could actually work. Today there has been a lot of talk, and over the past few days, about the border security issues, the border in particular, and preventing future waves of immigration. I did not come down here to negotiate any particular amendments or to litigate any particular amendments. I did want to get a little bit of context of where we arrived in the Group of 8 on this issue. The bill, as written, makes very serious investments, takes major steps to secure our borders. I have to say the work was informed most principally by two border Senators, John McCain and Jeff Flake, both Republicans representing the great State of Arizona. As they have pointed out and as we have pointed out, we actually, contrary to some of the rhetoric around this place, have made a lot of progress over the last decade. It is not perfect, but we have moved in the right direction. As you can see from this chart, in 2012 alone our expenditure on border security and immigration enforcement--this is before this bill we are talking about now that makes more investments in border security--our investment exceeded $17.7 billion. That is what the American people spent on border security, which is 23 percent higher-- just on border security. That is 23 percent higher than the $14 billion we spend on all of the other Federal law enforcement agencies combined. I think it will surprise the American people to know that. This is what we spent on border security. Here is the Border Patrol. Here is ICE. Together that is $17 billion, a little more than that. That is more than we spent on the FBI, the DEA, the Secret Service, the U.S. Marshal's Service, the ATF--all of those law enforcement agencies. All of them combined in 2012, before we pass the law that is in front of us, that is what we spent protecting the border. To hear some people around here talk about it, one would think none of that money made a difference. One would think none of the increased border agents have made a difference. Well, as of January 2013, the U.S. Border Patrol had 21,370 agents in total, 18,000 of whom are on the southwest border. From 1980 that represents a ninefold increase. It is nine times the number of agents we had. We had roughly 2,000 in 1980; today we have roughly 21,000. That might be a reason border crossings are down as much as they are. In fact, we are at about net zero this year in terms of people coming across our southern border and leaving. Now, there are still areas on the borders where we need to do more, like in Arizona's Tucson sector. Senators McCain and Flake were kind enough to take some of us down to the border to see what was really happening, to understand the topography down there, the difficulty of building a fence from one end of our border to the other. There are places where fences have been incredibly effective, like in San Diego. There are other places we are going to need other technology to be able to secure our borders in an efficient and thoughtful manner. I hope others who have concerns in this area will meet with these border Senators and listen to what they have to stay about how we can improve the situation on the southern border. What our bill calls for, in addition to the increases in resources, is that within 6 months of the bill's passage, the Secretary of Homeland Security is required to develop and submit to Congress a comprehensive border strategy and fencing strategy. We appropriate in this bill $4.5 billion in addition to this money you saw up here, $4.5 billion for these strategies. The goal of this plan is to achieve persistent surveillance and a 90-percent effectiveness rate at certain high-traffic border areas. These are places on the border where lots of people try to get into the United States. I can tell the Presiding Officer, I have seen it with my own eyes. When Senator McCain took us down there, we actually saw someone come across the border. We saw somebody climb the fence while we were standing right there. I have a photograph of it on my cell phone. That person was apprehended within about 30 seconds of getting across the border. It shows it is an issue we need to continue to manage, but it is good news that we have seen the improvement we have. I think these goals will be met. I am convinced by the conversations I have had with Homeland Security and with others that the objectives we have laid out to create this 90-percent effectiveness rate in the high-traffic areas is achievable; that it is achievable with the technologies we propose. If there are changes that can be made during this discussion to improve that, I am all for them. But if the goals are not met, people will say: Well, you say it is going to happen. What if it does not happen? Here is what happens: In 5 years, if it has not happened, a southern border security commission will be established to make further recommendations about how it is we can secure the border, with representation from the border States themselves. We appropriate another $2 billion in this bill for the commission's recommendations, if, in fact, we ever have to get to a commission, which I hope we will not, and I expect that we will not. I have heard people say one of the big problems with this bill is it is just like 1986 all over. I was not here in 1986, so I cannot take the credit or the blame for what happened in 1986. But it is a serious critique and a reasonable critique of that bill; that it did not do anything to stop the future flow of immigrants and illegal immigration in this country. That is a very fair critique. It is not a fair critique of our bill because our bill deals with the border security I talked about, as well as internal security measures in the United States of America that were completely absent in the 1986 effort. This bill includes a universal E-Verify system. We crack down on employers who hire undocumented workers. That alone will reduce dramatically the incentive of people to cross the border illegally. If they know all across America that small businesses can run a biometric card or other ID through a database that tells them whether people are here lawfully or not, and in an instant know whether they are here lawfully instead of engaging in this game that has been played for decades in-country where people with false security cards are able to come in and get a job and then a year or 18 months later, the employer finds out the Social Security is no longer available, that is going to dramatically disincentivize people from crossing the border. The small business owners I know are very happy with this because they are tired of being the immigration police. They are tired of feeling like they went the extra mile to figure out whether someone was here lawfully, they relied on a Social Security card that looked perfectly valid, with a valid Social Security number, only to find out 18 months later they hired somebody who was undocumented. They are so weary, which is why they are expecting the Congress to finally do its job and fix this broken immigration system. The comparison to 1986 is unfair in many ways. Mark Everson, who is a former Deputy Commissioner at the Immigration and Naturalization Service who oversaw the implementation of the 1986 law, wrote today in the Washington Post: In contrast, the legislation before the Senate today takes a comprehensive approach. . . . Demand for unauthorized workers can be dampened, but only through adequate attention to the workplace and interior enforcement. If anything, I would accelerate the rollout of the E-Verify system, while helping to secure our borders faster. I hope we can accelerate the E-Verify system. The reason is I have heard from employers who say: You know what. We are playing by the rules. We are making sure we do not hire undocumented people for our construction business, but there are other people down the road who will pay lower wages to people who are here unlawfully. That is an unfair disadvantage for us. I agree with that. I think the question about how fast we can implement E-Verify needs to be balanced against the inconvenience we pose to businesses as they get up to speed on the new system. But that is certainly something we can talk about. Finally, we have among many other broken parts of this system a broken entry-exit visa system in the United States. I think it would shock the American people--it surprised me--to learn that of the 11 million people who are here, 40 percent of them are people who entered the country lawfully. They entered the country on a visa, but they overstayed their visa. We have to have the ability in this great country of ours, in this 21st century, to somehow detect when people are coming in on a visa, but we have not bothered to figure out when people are leaving, which does not make a lot of sense given the fact that the technology is available. This bill finally includes a mandatory and operational biographic entry-and-exit system to track those coming to the United States and those living in the United States of America, and, miraculously, finally, we are going to actually know who is coming in and out of the country. As we begin to phase in a biometric system, it will build upon the other efforts being taken to track visitors in a way that is cost effective. We are going to become more secure. We will finally know who is in this country and who should be asked to leave the United States of America. So, in my view, border security is not a reason to obstruct this bill. As I said earlier, we are open to changes, but we already have very strong border measures in this bill. I do not want that to be overlooked. I think when people hear that we need to spend billions and billions and billions of dollars more, they should know that we are already spending billions of dollars down there. Some of it has been effective; some of it has not been effective. I would say let's do what is effective, let's not do what is ineffective, and let's not overspend at a time when we have the budget issues that we are facing. In conclusion, as the USA Today editorial board has written: Unlike 1986's political sleight of hand-- There is not a lot of love lost for the 1986 bill, as you can tell. Unlike 1986's political sleight of hand, this year's legislation is a tough, credible plan for preventing a new surge of illegal immigration. A quest for unattainable perfection should not be allowed to undo the good that it would achieve. I wish I could say this was a place that did not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We seldom ever get to the good. But in this case, I think we have gotten to a place that is very good. We should move forward together as we have to this point in a bipartisan way to craft a thoughtful solution to a broken system that continues to be a drag on the economy of the State of Colorado and the economy of the United States of America. This law, if we pass it, will once again reaffirm what makes the United States so special: One, that we subscribe to the rule of law. There are a lot of countries in the world where that is not true. It is one of the principal reasons that people want to come to the United States: because it is a place where you can live up to your talent, because nobody can take it from you, because we subscribe to the rule of law. People want to come from all over the world--it is a great compliment to our country--to build their businesses here and to help us grow our economy. It will reaffirm as well the very important notion that we are a nation of immigrants, generation to generation going back to the founding of this great country of ours. That is who we are. If we get this bill passed, if we get this bill passed in the House, I think we will have done something very important for this generation of Americans and also for the people who are coming after. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I want to first thank the Senator from South Dakota for his indulgence for 5 minutes or so to do this, and the Senator from Indiana for yielding his time to me. We got a little out of order on the floor, but I wanted to speak before the night was out about this incredible chance we have with respect to fixing our broken immigration system. Over the next few weeks, the Senate has a golden opportunity to do something great, to do something that is important, to do something that shows that Washington can actually work; that we are aligned with the priorities of the American people; and that we can take on hard challenges and solve them. That is the opportunity before us. I have to say thank you to all of my colleagues who served on this so-called Gang of 8 and worked not even in a bipartisan way but in a nonpartisan way to fix problems that afflict our economy and our democracy throughout the country in different ways. I particularly want to thank Senator John McCain and Senator Schumer for their leadership during good times, but particularly during the tough times during this negotiation. A lot of people I represent sometimes wonder whether Washington is just irretrievably broken, whether we can actually do something in the regular order instead of just in the middle of the night. To them I can come to the floor tonight and say: Finally, we have a process of which we can be proud. We have a bipartisan bill. We had a dozen hearings on this issue, with almost a month between the introduction of the bill and the committee markup. We had 37 hours of consideration in the Senate Judiciary Committee, with 300 amendments filed and 212 considered. I think 141 of these amendments from our colleagues were actually approved. Even some of the harshest critics of the bill have commended the open and transparent process, and I am grateful to Chairman Leahy for his work as well as the members of the Judiciary Committee. In the coming weeks, many more amendments will come before this body. Voices on every side of the issue will continue to have the chance to be heard, which is the way democracy ought to work. At the end of the day, I hope we will not squander the greatest chance we have had in a generation, in 25 years, to fix our broken immigration system. No one understands this better than the people of Colorado--the people I represent, who even though they do not think of themselves this way particularly, are one-third Democrat, one-third Republican, and one-third Independent. From end to end and corner to corner of our great western State, people have said to me: Michael, when are these guys going to fix this broken immigration system? With agriculture on the west slope in northern Colorado and on the eastern plains, this has a $40 billion impact to our State. We have great high-tech in Colorado, with people inventing the future as we stand here today in bioscience, aerospace, engineering, and a growing startup community. Colorado's high-tech sector includes more than 10,000 companies. My hope is that 5 years from now there will be 10,000 more, and 5 years after that 10,000 more than that. We have 150,000 workers today who produce almost $3 billion in exports each year, as well as a new patent office opening soon. We have a huge tourism industry. Hotels, restaurants, and the ski industry struggle to find the workers they need. The ski industry alone brings in 57 million visitors to the country each year, many of these people traveling to Colorado year after year. We have a growing Latino population. It is almost 21 percent of our State's population. In places such as the Denver Public Schools--a place I had the privilege to work before I came to the Senate--over half our students are Latino. That is why we set out several years ago to have a conversation in Colorado, in the rural parts of the State, in the urban parts of the State, with our high-tech community, with our agriculture community, saying: What needs to be done? We brought together business leaders, farmers, faith leaders, law enforcement, advocates, and community leaders and we said: Washington is broken. We can't wait for them to act. What can we do in Colorado? We came up with seven principles for immigration reform which are now reflected in the legislation before us. It turns out that actually for once we underestimated this place. This place was willing to approach this work with the seriousness of purpose that Colorado citizens were. I wish to tell one Colorado story to reflect this. Wayne Mininger, an onion farmer from Greeley, CO, also represents onion farmers across the Nation as head of the National Onion Association. Growing up on his father's farm in California's San Joaquin Valley and now owning his own farm in Greeley, CO, he has witnessed the farmer's struggle to find reliable labor his entire working life. The farmers he represents have long voiced their frustration with a visa system that results in serious delays hiring workers or not having enough labor altogether to harvest crops. They are not interested in the politics in the Nation's Capitol. They are interested in running their farms and ranches. They are interested in knowing they have a steady supply of labor. Wayne took the trouble to write a letter to the Greeley Tribune about why he is supporting this bill. Since he said it better than I could say it myself, I ask unanimous consent it be printed in the Record.

Mr. BENNET. Madam President, some critics will not be surprised people around here are using the same old, tired talking points in an effort to delay and kill this bill altogether. But the people of Colorado know better and the people across this country know better. They know that passing this bill is critical to strengthening our country's borders. It will make us safer, add to our security, aligning our immigration system with the needs not of a 20th century economy or a 19th century economy but of the 21st century economy our children are expecting us to build and honoring our heritage of a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. That is why a growing number of Americans support fixing our broken immigration system and 70 percent support a tough but fair pathway to citizenship. That is what is contained in this bill. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the days and weeks ahead to find ways we can even improve this bill and, at the end of the day, pass legislation that will make us stronger as a nation and better serve the next generation of Americans and the generation after that. Since our founding, there are a number of aspects that have made us spectacular as a country, but there are two that are hard to find anywhere else. We are a nation that subscribes to the rule of law and we are a nation of immigrants. With this bill, we will assert both of those principles, and I think we have a golden opportunity to come together again and say that Washington is not just about playing our own politics, it is about doing the people's business so we can show this place can actually work together again to accomplish something very important for all of America. I yield the floor, probably considerably later than I should have.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, today I wish to congratulate four outstanding businesses that have won the President's ``E'' Award for their role in advancing Colorado's export industry. The ``E'' Award was created by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to recognize companies that have made significant contributions to increasing American exports. It is one of the highest honors an export company can receive. Many of these companies are small- and medium-sized firms--the lifeblood of our economy--and we can proudly say that of the 57 businesses honored, 4 were from our home State of Colorado: Frederick Exports, World Trade Center Denver, Geotech Environmental Equipment, and Lightning Eliminators. These innovative companies are strengthening our State's economy, creating jobs, and paving the way for other businesses in the State interested in exporting their products and services overseas. In 2012, American exports hit an all-time record high of $2.2 trillion and Colorado exports increased by more than 10 percent growing to $8.1 billion. These businesses are a perfect example of how companies across the State can take advantage of this trend by tapping the growing international market. These achievements not only benefit these individual businesses, but they increase economic development for our State. The World Trade Center Denver and Frederick Export, both based in Denver, were honored for assisting and facilitating export activities. The World Trade Center Denver educates businesses throughout the Rocky Mountain region about international trade and connects these businesses to the more than 300 World Trade Centers located in 100 countries. With over 250 members locally, the World Trade Center Denver has helped countless local businesses expand their markets and build strategic partnerships. Frederick Export is an export management company that has successfully helped more businesses in Colorado export their products and services abroad and grow their customer base. Companies represented by Frederick Export have seen growth of 20 percent or more each year. Denver-based Geotech Environmental Equipment and Boulder-based Lightening Eliminators were recognized for showing sustained export growth. Lightning Eliminators, a leading supplier of lightning protection and prevention products and services, has grown its exports by nearly 200 percent over the past 4 years. Lightning Eliminators exports its innovative, patented lightning protection technology to such faraway places as Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Taiwan. Geotech Environment Equipment provides quality environmental equipment to more than 20,000 companies worldwide and employs almost 100 people. Its exports have grown 40 percent over the past 4 years. The pioneering spirit and innovative nature of Coloradans like these are spurring new job growth, driving our economy, and moving our State forward. I join the White House in honoring the contributions these companies have made to both Colorado and the country. I look forward to seeing their future progress and thank them for the vital part they have played in helping our State thrive.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I come to the floor to talk a little bit about the farm bill which is before the Senate. Notwithstanding all the rhetoric we have had around the budget over the last 4 years or so around here, last year the Senate Agriculture Committee was the only committee, to my knowledge in either House, the Senate or the House, that passed a bipartisan deficit reduction plan. We did it together, Democrats and Republicans, working together on the committee with the various constituencies around the United States of America. That bill ultimately passed the Senate in a broad bipartisan vote right here on this floor. The House of Representatives was unable, for whatever reason, to enact a version of the farm bill over there, which was an incredible disservice to rural America. Farmers in my State, ranchers in my State, the State of Colorado, faced an unprecedented drought throughout this entire period. Throughout the summer of 2012, when I was traveling the State, no one was talking about the Presidential election--particularly in these rural areas, which was on the mind of everybody in Washington. What they wanted to know was why a farm bill had not been passed and for good reason--because the Senate had passed a bill that was supported by both Republicans and Democrats, by producers of all types across the country, and it was a good piece of legislation. Fast forward to this week, when the Senate Agriculture Committee has once again passed a bipartisan bill with meaningful deficit reduction. I thank Chairwoman Stabenow from Michigan and the ranking member Senator Thad Cochran for their leadership on this bill. This bill now has gone through two different ranking members on the Republican side and has been supported in a bipartisan way, as I said earlier. This farm bill, similar to the last version we passed, reflects the values and the process we want to see in other areas of our budget. We identify priorities in this bill. We streamline duplication in this bill. We break away from old, inefficient ways of doing business in this farm bill. We eliminate direct payments in one of the most significant reforms we have seen in a farm bill in a very long time. These payments are issued to farmers regardless of economic need or market signals. We do away with that abuse. This bill prioritizes what is working for producers and it strengthens crop insurance as a result, which is what my farmers have said is most important to them. I have spoken on this floor before about Colorado's battle against historic drought conditions. Some farmers lost over half their corn yields in 2012 alone. It is hard to imagine, when you think about it, any business losing half of its production in 1 year, but that is what happened to Colorado's corn growers. Crop insurance is what is keeping farmers and rural economies in business and that is why this should be a priority. That is why this bill should have been passed 2 years ago when it first came to the floor of the Senate. It is why we should pass it next month. Beyond crop insurance, another key highlight of this bill for those of us from Colorado is conservation. The title carries over the reforms from last year's bill, and this year's bill includes a provision to ensure that recipients of government-supported crop insurance comply with basic conservation requirements. This measure is the result of a historic agreement between the commodity groups and the conservation groups in this country. It is supported by a wide variety of stakeholders--from the Farm Bureau to the National Wildlife Federation. This revamped conservation title is huge for rural America and for my State. It is critical for farming and ranching families looking to keep their land in agriculture generation to generation. It is incredibly important for our hunters and sportsmen. It is important for anybody-- which is most of us--who cares about the long-term health of our soil, our air, and our water. These conservation measures help us improve the efficiency of production agriculture and improve the quality of the environment in farm country. We recognize that keeping these landscapes in their historical, undeveloped state is an economic driver for our entire State and for our entire region--for tourism, for wildlife habitat. As I have traveled Colorado over the last several years, farmers and ranchers constantly were talking to me about the importance of conservation. They highlighted, in particular, conservation easements which provide Department of Agriculture assistance to help landowners who are interested in voluntarily conserving the farming and ranching heritage of their land. I wish to spend a few minutes sharing stories that Coloradans have shared with me. This is a photo--you don't have this as much in Delaware. I know you have other things. Here is a photo of a ranch in Colorado, the Music Meadows Ranch. It is outside of Westcliffe, CO, elevation 9,000 feet. I have a version of this picture in my office here in Washington. It is 4,000 acres. The rancher's name is Elin Ganschow. It is some of the finest grass-fed beef in the country, raised by Elin and her family at this ranch. Thanks to the Grassland Reserve Program, Elin's ranch now has a permanent conservation easement. It provides wildlife habitat for elk, mule deer, pronghorn antelope, black bear, and mountain lions, species prized by Colorado sportsmen. They contribute millions of dollars to our State's economy, and she has been able to continue having her family ranch. Thanks to an amendment adopted by the Agriculture Committee this year, we will see even more of these easements happen on high-priority landscapes such as the Music Meadows Ranch. I thank Chairwoman Stabenow and Senator Cochran for working so hard with me to get that amendment approved. Private lands conservation such as this, the type aided by the farm bill, is absolutely critical for so many reasons. It is poorly understood in the East, but it is an incredibly important tool for those of us in the West to keep our family farms and ranches family farms and ranches and provide the habitat needed for our sportsmen and for tourism. Here is another example of why this bill is so crucial for our sportsmen and outdoor recreation economy. This is a photo taken of a friend, John Gale, hunting pheasants in Yuma County, CO. The Conservation Reserve Program, CRP, provides important habitat for pheasants and other upland birds all across the country. The land surrounding this is all CRP land--everything you can see and far beyond that--and it has enabled this pheasant hunting to happen in our State. The CRP program protects habitats in addition to holding in place highly erodable soil--something we have a lot of history with in Colorado. For instance, the soil in Baca County, CO, has over 250,000 acres enrolled in CRP. Baca County was absolutely devastated by the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, as chronicled in Tim Egan's ``The Worst Hard Time,'' and other books. Thanks to CRP, Baca County has weathered recent droughts much better than it otherwise would have. Healthy grasslands, open landscapes, and abundant wildlife are a fundamental part of what it is to be in the West. We need to preserve those grasslands, those open spaces, and those species, and that is what the conservation title of the farm bill does. I strongly support this new conservation title as reported out of the committee in a bipartisan vote. I know some are going to try to amend this bipartisan consensus. One of the great things about serving on the Agriculture Committee is there is so little partisanship. The differences we have are not Republican versus Democrat. We have some differences, but they tend to be regional and understandable. We have a way, a process, and the leadership to actually work through issues together. It would be nice if we did more of that around here. I am worried there will be some amendments that will come forward, among other things, in the name of deficit reduction, which, as I mentioned earlier, is already reflected by this committee's work, unlike every other committee in the Congress. As far as Lee amendment No. 1017 and No. 1018, I appreciate my neighbor's effort on deficit reduction. These programs repeal the important programs I talked about here on which our farmers and ranchers rely, and they keep our soil on the ground, not in our wind and air. Lee amendment No. 1017 repeals the CRP program I spoke about earlier. I have been on this floor many times to talk about cutting our deficit. I am glad we have been part of a process which has actually led to deficit reduction. We need to put the entire budget under a microscope, including agriculture, to cut waste and eliminate redundancies. Let me say again, including agriculture, the bill we have on this floor makes those cuts--$24 billion in all. Some $6 billion of these cuts come from conservation. Not all of those cuts are cuts I like, but I agreed to them in the package we were moving forward. We made difficult compromises at the committee level, and now we have a more efficient conservation title as a result that won support from both sides of the aisle. Over 650 conservation groups support the conservation title before us, and I urge my colleagues to support it and oppose amendments which would weaken the title and undermine the good work of Republicans and Democrats on the committee. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. I wish to thank, through the Chair, the Senator from New Mexico for his kind remarks and for keeping it brief today. I know it is an issue of great importance to him and to his State. This morning the Senate Judiciary Committee began working on the Border Security Economic Opportunity and Modernization Act, otherwise known as a bill to fix our broken immigration system. As we are here today, they are continuing to work on that bill and I think will work into the night. Working with this group of 8--I call it a group of 8, not a gang, because Senator McCain doesn't like the term ``Gang of 8,'' so in deference to him I call it the group of 8--has been one of the most rewarding experiences during my time in the Senate. My Senate colleagues in this group include Senators Schumer, McCain, Durbin, Graham, Menendez, Rubio, and Flake. I come to the floor today first to thank them for their leadership and courage to move past the talking points on this issue and to produce this bipartisan product the committee is now considering today. This is a bill that has been applauded by editorial boards from the Wall Street Journal to the New York Times--two editorial pages that seldom agree on anything. In Colorado, editorial boards from across the State, including the Denver Post, the Colorado Springs Gazette, and Durango Herald, have all praised this bill. It has the support of a wide-ranging and extremely diverse coalition from the left and the right, from business and from labor, rural and urban all across the United States. All of this is to say the pieces are in place today to actually get something done in this town, in Washington, DC, and in Congress. That is not a small feat for a place where stalemate has become standard operating procedure. I would say we have a golden opportunity to rise above politics as usual, to do something big and something real-- something that lasts and endures. We have the chance to pass commonsense, bipartisan legislation that will strengthen our economy and our families, better protect our borders and our communities, and offer a tough but fair path to citizenship for those currently here without any legal status at all. In this way we have the chance to act together to do something great for our Nation and for its future. It is a cliche--uttered many times in this Chamber, including by me-- that America is a Nation of immigrants, and, of course, that is true. But we are so used to saying and hearing that phrase we rarely take the time to act or to think: What does that even mean? There is literally no other country in the world, on this planet, for which immigration is so central to its history and to its identity as the United States of America. All of us in this Chamber--and, more importantly, every family back home we are privileged to represent--can tell us when and how their family came to this country. Did they come in a boat in the 17th century? Did they come by plane in the 20th century? Did they come by foot or by bus, with papers or without? Every one of us has a story. My family has one of its own that won't surprise my colleagues to know I find pretty interesting. It is also utterly ordinary for this country. When I was in the second grade, my class was given an assignment. We were asked to research whose family had been in America the shortest time and the longest time. So we interviewed our parents and grandparents, we traced our genealogies, and we came up with our answer as a class. The answer was me. My family was the answer to both of these questions--the longest time and the shortest time. My father's family came over on one of those 17th century boats. For nearly 400 years, the Bennets, in nearly one form or another, have lived in this country. Then there is my mother. She was born in Poland in 1928, while Nazi tanks were massing on the border. She and her parents endured that war in and around Warsaw. They and an aunt were the only members of their family to survive. Everybody else in their family perished at the hands of the Nazis. They lived in Poland for a couple of years after that, but then by way of Stockholm and Mexico City, my mother and her grandparents arrived in New York City in 1950. She was 12 years old in 1950. As is the case with so many children of immigrants, she was the only one in the family who could speak any English at all. But the three of them were alive, they were free, and they had made it to America. My mother and grandparents were able to rebuild their lives and succeed here because America welcomed them. It greeted them not with prejudice but with opportunity. They worked hard--extremely hard--to be worthy of that great gift. It was a gift my grandmother, Halina Klejman, who loved this country as deeply as anyone I have ever known, taught me and my brother and my sister never to take for granted. So my family's history happens to run through both Plymouth and Poland, but it is not so different from the ones millions of Americans tell. Stories such as the town of San Luis, CO. San Luis is Colorado's oldest town, founded in 1851. The town was established by Latino settlers from New Mexico who migrated under a land grant issued by the Mexican Governor in Santa Fe. These immigrants were the pioneers of the Colorado settlement 25 years--25 years--before Colorado officially became a State. The narratives of how we come here matter because they tell us who we are and where we have been. But they matter just as much for where we are going as a Nation. The future of this country will be determined not just by those of us who are in this Chamber or in this city, or even in this country today. It is going to be written by people who have yet to step foot in the United States of America. Because over our history, it is the refugees fleeing persecution--the parents seeking opportunity for their children--who make America the America we love. They are the ones who keep us fresh and free-thinking and free. They are all of us. They are every single one of us--a nation of immigrants. Unfortunately, today's immigration policies do not reflect the history or the values that shaped it. Neither do they reflect our 21st century economic needs. Instead, our system is a hodgepodge of outdated, impractical, and convoluted laws. It is a mess of unintended consequences that hurts our businesses and families and keeps America at a competitive disadvantage in an ever-shrinking world. There is an old Visa slogan--I mean capital V, Visa slogan--that says something like ``Life Takes Visa.'' Well, in the United States, work takes a visa--and our visa system is working against us today. It is stifling growth and making us less competitive. Travel around my home State of Colorado, as I do, and people will see what that looks like. People will meet vegetable growers in Brighton and peach farmers such as Bruce Talbott from Palisade who fear they will not have enough labor to harvest their crops season after season. They are part of Colorado's $40 billion agricultural industry--the lifeblood of our State and so vital to our Nation--yet they have no confidence--and for good reason-- that a legal, reliable, and competent workforce will be available for their farms and ranches. Fifty-seven million tourists visited Colorado in 2011. I don't know whether the Presiding Officer was among them, but we would love to have her back. If people were to talk to our ski resort operators and restaurant owners, they will hear loudly and clearly that we need a program for low-skill workers to come into this country and fill jobs Americans don't want. In cities such as Denver and Boulder a person will find high-skilled immigrants with graduate degrees in science and engineering--the kind who are 3 times more likely to file patents and 30 percent more likely to create new businesses. In fact, more than 40 percent of the 2010 Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants and their children. Forty percent of the largest companies in the United States of America, which once were small companies and grew to become large companies, were created by immigrants. These companies employ more than 3.6 million people in this country and generate more than $4.2 trillion in revenue every single year. You will also see thousands of foreign students with these highly technical advanced degrees who are being turned away. You will hear them say they have no choice but to go back to India, go back to China, and use whatever they have learned at American universities to compete down the line with American workers. Students such as Wolfgang Pauli, a German psychology and neurocience Ph.D. student who had attended the University of Colorado-Boulder-- Wolfgang was studying under a temporary visa sponsored by his adviser at the University of Colorado, but because of the inflexible nature of our visa system, his adviser wasn't able to keep him for an advanced research project despite his advanced skills and unique experience. The position went unfilled. It is a loss for the project, for innovation, and for Wolfgang. I have been to India. I have been to Hyderabad. I have seen people sitting in front of computer screens in a room with a clock on the wall that said underneath it ``East Hartford, CT.'' I said to the guy who ran the show there: Why does that clock say East Hartford, CT, on it? He said: Because they are redesigning the engines for Pratt & Whitney in East Hartford. Two shifts a day, by the way, 24 hours a day. They are up when people in East Hartford, CT, are up. I asked: Where were the people sitting at those computers educated? He said: Half were educated in my country, in India, and half were educated in your country. What we know is if they were given the opportunity to stay here and contribute, to build their business, to apply their intellect here, many of them would, but today we are sending them away. This is crazy. It doesn't end there. Go into our schools all across America, as I did when I was superintendent of the Denver public schools, and you will see kids, meet kids--great kids, hard-working students--enter their junior and senior years, their peers making college visits and considering careers, and you will see what it looks like when those students fully realize, in the starkest and most heart-breaking terms imaginable, what it means to live in a country without legal status; what it means to live in a place they got to through no fault of their own, without legal status. Many of these young people--inspiring young people such as Octavio Morgan, who graduated third in his class from Bruce Randolph High School in 2011--managed to carve out a future against all odds. But I don't know how we as a Nation can continue to look them in the eye and preach opportunity and social mobility without dealing with their legal status. You will hear about dangerous border crossings. You will hear about separated families and disrupted dreams. Yes, if we are being honest, you will also hear about jobs that went to new neighbors, and gang violence, and overcrowded schools. You will see, as we study this, and hear and feel a system that hardly qualifies as one. But that is the system we are living in unless we do something about it. For years, even though Congress has done nothing, immigration has become a poster child for the kind of dysfunctional politics the American people have rejected, but we keep on practicing it. We keep on practicing this dysfunctional set of policies. That is the way it has been in Congress. I hope it is now changing. But thankfully, for a lot of us who are here, that is not what we see back home--not even close. (Mr. COONS assumed the chair.) A few years ago, a small group of us in Colorado began working on a set of principles to begin a more pragmatic and productive immigration discussion. Utah launched a similar effort in 2010, so I would like to recognize the leadership of our friends to the west for paving the way. I was very pleased to take part in my State's effort, along with former Senator Hank Brown--no stranger to some of the people in this Chamber. Senator Brown, a Republican, is one of Colorado's greatest statesmen, with a long record of working across the aisle to get things done. Over the course of 18 months, we traveled over 6,300 miles in Colorado--which is, by the way, not a hardship; a lot of people fly over oceans to get there to have their vacations, but still, 6,300 miles--and held about 230 meetings in the State. We talked to farmers and business owners, law enforcement officials and educators, faith leaders and Latino leaders, and all are struggling with different broken pieces of our immigration system. But we found far more agreement on what immigration reform should mean and what it ought to look like than you would ever think was possible if you listened to the politicians here in Washington or the pundits on TV. Together, we developed a commonsense blueprint called the Colorado Compact. It puts its emphasis on a strong economy and strong national security; it cares for families while keeping our citizens safe. I am glad we developed these principles, and I am glad it was done in such a bipartisan way, in rural parts of the State as well as urban and suburban parts of the State, and that we had such a broad coalition of people, including my former opponent for this very seat, whom we assembled in support of it. One of the things we all agreed on was that, as promising as efforts like this are--the effort in Colorado, the effort in Utah--this issue needs more than piecemeal reforms. No State's effort can be a substitute for a smart, sensible, national strategy to overhaul our immigration system, and with this new Senate proposal, that is exactly what we have. The bipartisan Senate bill we have introduced addresses each of the issues we mentioned in the compact, and it does so in a way that is reasonable, that is compassionate and respects the rule of law. It recognizes that we must take concrete steps to further secure our borders. We are building on steps already taken. Since 2004, the United States has doubled the border patrol. We have tripled the number of intelligence analysts working at the border. We are seizing a higher volume of contraband weapons, currency, and drugs, and net migration from Mexico is at its lowest level in decades. Our bill would make substantial further investments at the border, including new fencing and technologies--motion sensors, virtual monitoring systems, inexpensive surveillance, and other innovative approaches--that enable us to secure the border more cheaply, more effectively, and with a smaller footprint. However, there is still more we can do. With 40 percent of illegal immigration due to visa overstays, we need to ensure a better system for tracking people who come to our shores, who enter and exit our borders, which is why our bill provides for a stronger and more comprehensive entry/exit system. This is a very interesting point that a lot of people do not know. Forty percent of the 11 million people who are here who are undocumented entered the country lawfully on a visa. We have a system to check them on the way in, but we do not have a system today to check whether they ever left. This is one of the ways, by the way, that the bill will prevent our finding ourselves back where we are today to begin with. We need to secure opportunity, also, for those who are already in this country. Our bill provides a fair but tough pathway for many of the Nation's 11 million undocumented immigrants, especially young people whose parents brought them here as children, just like my mother was, in search of a better life. Those here without status today would be required to undergo a background check, pay a $2,000 fine, pay all of their back taxes. They would have to go to the back of the line, which is what both parties have said for years, behind those who have gone through the proper process to immigrate. That is only fair and it is only right. This is not just a humane thing to do, but it is sound economic policy. Conservative economist Doug Holtz-Eakin estimates that immigration reform will generate $2.7 trillion in deficit reduction and help grow the economy. Some estimates have said this bill would grow the economy by more than a percentage point of GDP. It is $1 trillion or so over a 10-year period. A path to citizenship would lead to higher wages in this country, more consumption of goods, and increased revenue. Our bill proposes a more coordinated effort across Federal, State, and local governments, in partnership with private organizations, to help new immigrants and refugees integrate into their communities. Our immigration title, which was influenced by cities such as Littleton and Greeley, CO, would help provide immigrants with greater access to English language classes and civics education and help us cultivate stronger citizens with a greater appreciation for our Nation and her history. With a broken immigration system hurting our businesses and workers as well, we propose an efficient, sensible, and flexible visa system that would be more aligned with our changing 21st-century economy. As I mentioned earlier, roughly 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants. We want an immigration system that harnesses the world's innovation and talent here in the United States of America. There is no place where this is truer than the State of Colorado, where 1 in 10 entrepreneurs is an immigrant. Colorado has a high-tech sector that includes more than 10,000 companies and 150,000 workers who produce almost $3 billion worth of exports each year--$3 billion worth of exports each year--as well as a new patent office opening soon. We want the next Facebook or iPhone or clean energy technology and breakthrough medical device to be built in our State or at least in America. That is why we create a new INVEST visa for foreign entrepreneurs who want to start new businesses here in the United States. A new category of visas proposed in our bill provides this investment opportunity. Immigrant entrepreneurs who have launched successful startups could stay or come and continue to create jobs and fuel our economy if they can show they have been backed financially. We make it easier for foreign students who graduate with advanced degrees in STEM fields to get a green card--I know this has been of great interest to the Presiding Officer--and increase the number of H- 1B visas. This will help us attract and retain highly skilled and educated talent to fill labor shortages in some of our fastest growing industries, including bioscience and computer engineering. Our bill also creates a new--this is a lot to take in, I know, Mr. President, and I hope people will have the chance to study this. This is why I am so glad we took the time we did to negotiate this bill with the eight of us, but now it is going through the committee on which the Presiding Officer serves, the Judiciary Committee, to have hearings, to have a markup, to have everybody have their chance to offer--I think when I last heard, there were more than 300 amendments to the bill--to offer those amendments and then to get it to the floor where we can debate it. There is going to be time to do all this work, and this requires time to understand it. Our bill creates a new W visa, a program for lesser skilled workers to come into the country. This, in addition to several other reforms that are made throughout our bill, will ensure that we can continue to fill our labor needs in sectors such as hospitality and our vibrant ski industry, which hosts 56.5 million visitors every year. There was complete agreement among Democrats and Republicans who were meeting in this group that our visa system must protect American workers and prevent exploitation, such as requiring efforts, first, to recruit American workers. It also must be paired with a reliable, cost- effective employment verification system that prevents identity fraud, protects our civil liberties, and is critical to stopping future illegal immigration. That is one of the key objectives of this legislation. We do not want to end up right where we are today, with 11 million undocumented people, and we have put the systems in place--including, very importantly, this employment verification system--to deal with that. We have had broad bipartisan support on this part for many years in this Congress, and it is now part of our legislation. This all has to come with a determination to crack down on employers who knowingly hire illegal workers. Simply put, if we want to reduce illegal immigration, we need to make legal immigration a much more straightforward process in this country. That is one of the reasons I was glad to take part in the agriculture negotiations around this bill under the leadership of Senator Feinstein and with Senator Rubio and Senator Hatch. This bill alone is going to stabilize our agricultural workforce for years to come and is critical to protecting and growing our agricultural economy, which has a $40 billion economic impact in Colorado. This bill provides a faster path to citizenship for agricultural workers to be able to do the important work of producing our Nation's food and fiber and, increasingly, our energy. It also creates a new streamlined program for agricultural guest workers that is more usable for employers while maintaining critical worker protections. It is the first time we have had an ag jobs title of this bill that is endorsed by both the farm workers and the Farm Bureau. I thank them for taking part in these negotiations and for the willingness of both sides to give a little up for the greater good. Their example is one we should embrace as we go forward on this bill. As I said earlier, I feel the same way about the bipartisan colleagues who worked on this bill. In crafting this bill, we all had to give a little--just a little--to get a lot. Each of us had to come to the table with our diverse perspective, representing different constituencies. We each would have written certain pieces differently were we left to our own devices, but this type of compromise needs to happen if you are crafting a bipartisan and complex bill to fix the immigration system in a country of 300 million people. Every single member of the group was committed to working together to accomplish that goal. In particular, I wish to again thank Senators Schumer and McCain especially for driving this process forward. As the committee begins its important work, I would like to acknowledge the work and leadership of Chairman Leahy to see it through. In the spirit of our partnership, I think it is important to remind ourselves, on an issue where emotions can run so high and so hot, that all of us are trying to do right by the American people, as each one of us sees it. Every proposed path to citizenship is not amnesty, and this proposed path to citizenship is not amnesty. And every opponent of these reforms is not anti-immigrant. We need to do more to secure our borders, but we do not need to treat people trapped in a failed system as criminals. These changes will be difficult. It is understandable that people worry about what this is going to mean for their jobs, their schools, their businesses. But if we just apply a very basic test--is it smart and it is right--then I am confident we can find common ground and move forward. I would like to close with one last reflection on my own grandparents' experience. On my first birthday, which was November 28, 1965, my grandparents gave me a birthday card and sent me a gift. In that card, they wrote: The ancient Greeks gave the world the high ideals of democracy in search of which your dear Mother and we came-- They wrote this in English, by the way. Remember, when they came to this country, they spoke none. The ancient Greeks gave the world the high ideals of democracy in search of which your dear Mother and we came to the hospitable shores of beautiful America in 1950. We have been happy here ever since, beyond our greatest dreams and expectations, with Democracy, Freedom and Love and humanity's greatest treasures. They continued: We hope that when you grow up, you will [have a chance to help] to develop in other parts of the world a greater understanding of these American values. Democracy and freedom and love, in my grandparents' view: humanity's greatest treasures, and they called them American values. This is a lesson my wife Susan and I are now trying to teach our three little girls. Opportunity is indeed a precious gift this country will give each generation, asking only that they in turn not squander that inheritance but increase it and pass it along to the next. That is our responsibility as we consider this piece of legislation, and for that matter any other. If history is any guide, someone waiting in line for a visa at this moment or someone waiting to enter what my grandparents called ``beautiful America'' will go on to become a brilliant artist or a talented surgeon or a path-breaking businessperson. Someone whose father picked grapes will grow up to found the next Apple. Someone operating a ski lift at Vail is going to be the parent or grandparent of a President or, God help us, of a Senator. That person will stand in our shoes a generation from now, and they will know whether we had the courage to do what was smart and what was right and what was hard. Now is not the time to pat each other on the back. We have a long way to go, as the Presiding Officer knows. But what we do have is some momentum--I think a lot of momentum--and a balanced reasonable piece of legislation. There are going to be some difficult discussions and challenges ahead. There is no doubt about that. But what I know is if we use the efforts and insights of the Colorado Compact as a guide, we will arrive at that shared, sensible middle ground. We will pass legislation that is worthy of the great hope of my grandparents and the future generations in this country. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. King.) The clerk will call the roll.

Mr. BENNET. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, today I wish to celebrate Anna Jo Garcia Haynes, a remarkable Coloradan, who has made helping kids her life's work. Anna Jo rises every morning and before she greets the day, asks, ``What can I do to improve the lives of kids today?'' She began her work with the founding of the Mile High Montessori Early Learning Center, which operates eight centers in Denver's inner city for children from families with limited resources. Anna Jo has received many accolades over her career, and she has been recognized by foundations, elected officials, including both houses of the Colorado legislature, and many others. She is often praised with flowery language and many whereas clauses to acknowledge her service to Colorado's kids. I know that Anna Jo would want me to say in my remarks today that she is very proud of her humble, pioneer roots in Colorado and that she raised five children, who were secure in their mother's love and grew up to become leaders in their own right. She would further want me to say that she lives for kids--and has worked to create hope and success for kids who were not born into educational or economic opportunity but who have achieved it due to the programs she has worked to create and support. This month, Anna Jo is receiving due recognition from the Girls Athletic Leadership School in Denver, CO, for being a champion for Colorado education. I join the Girls Athletic Leadership School and the State of Colorado in thanking Anna Jo for working to create educational opportunity and for enriching our community and our State. I look forward to whatever Anna Jo tackles in the future and the positive influence she will continue to have in our community.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, today I wish to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the enactment of The Family and Medical Leave Act, FMLA. For 20 years, this historic law has helped individuals balance their family and work obligations. As a husband, and the father of three daughters, the flexibility to care for your family and children without the fear of losing your job is invaluable. The passage of the FMLA represented a broad, bipartisan Congressional effort to improve working conditions for American families. Since the FMLA was signed into law by President Clinton in 1993, workers have used it more than 100 million times to take job-protected leave. Under the FMLA, an employee may take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for the birth or adoption of a child or placement of a foster child. An employee can also use the FMLA to care for a spouse, child or parent suffering from a serious health condition. At the core of the FMLA is the concept of flexibility. And that idea--not just flexibility in taking leave, but flexibility across the board, in all facets of the workplace experience--is something we must strive for in today's office environment. We must allow our workers to be productive and commit themselves to their jobs, while also allowing them to be great parents. In my home State of Colorado, we have expanded the benefits under the FMLA by adopting two additional State leave policies--Domestic Abuse Leave and Colorado Small Necessities Leave. Under Domestic Abuse Leave, employees who are victims of domestic violence and sexual assault may take leave in order to seek various medical and legal services. Colorado Small Necessities Leave allows workers to take 18 hours of unpaid annual leave each school year in order to participate in their children's school activities, including attending parent/teacher conferences. Despite the vast improvements in practices since the enactment of the FMLA, our country still has a ways to go. Most part-time workers and nearly half of full-time workers are not eligible for leave under FMLA. And millions of employees who are eligible cannot afford to take unpaid leave. With this is mind, this law must not be considered an end, but instead a first step in the right direction--there is room for improvement. For example, we should consider expanding the definition of a family to include members of the LGBT community. But it is a worthwhile start, and so again, I would like to take this opportunity to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the FMLA. I hope we can use the upcoming session of Congress to look for ways to strengthen this important law.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Laura Pence, Rina Shah, and Stephanie Aarthun, legislative fellows in my office, be granted the privilege of the floor for the remainder of this session.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 7 minutes on the same topic as my colleague.