Michael Bennet

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. I urge people to read this because what Mr. Klein does in this article is chart the political course of this mandate from about 1989 to the present. The red shown on the chart is the years in which this was a Republican idea, advanced by Republican Members of Congress and by think tanks like the Heritage Foundation that actually came up with the idea to begin with to deal with the fact that there were people in this country who were not buying health insurance and whom we were all subsidizing, and then when it became a Democratic idea in more recent times. It strikes me as one person watching all of this that this might have more to do with the party that is in the White House or not in the White House than it does with respect to the merits of the idea. But it is, of course, the merits of these ideas that we should be debating and talking about. But we should not be telling the American people that something that affects 1 percent of the American people is a broad- based assault on the middle class, and we should be bringing to this floor the ideas we have for improving what 50 percent of the American people or 70 percent of the American people are already facing. That is what people in our States believe. Here is part of an editorial from the Greeley Tribune, which I think was published yesterday, where they wrote: In 2010, the North Colorado Medical Center provided more than $71 million in services to indigent patients who didn't have health insurance. It wrote off another $29 million in bad debt. The Greeley Tribune writes: Eventually, insured patients [must] pay for that, in higher premiums and co-pays. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that editorial be printed in the Record.

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I believe that folks in Colorado have moved on here, that they want us to improve this legislation, that they want us to get focused on the real matters at hand, which are getting this economy going again, getting us into an environment where we have more jobs and rising wages again, and they are a lot less interested in these talking points. I do not understand why people who are in politics can simultaneously make such a big deal about this that affects 1 percent of the people in this country and at the same time support legislation, for example, that forces women, that mandates women to have procedures before they can make a choice about their own reproductive health. It does not make any sense because it is completely inconsistent. I have a daughter Anne who is 7, not 6 like Mary's daughter. But it is her health care and the certainty in her life and in her sisters' lives and the thousands of children across my State whose health care we should be interested in. I can see that other colleagues of mine have come to the floor, so I am going to move along here. But before I do that and before I yield to the Senator from Maryland, I want to say that if this repeal happened in the House and then this repeal happened in the Senate and it were signed into law, 932,000 Coloradans who have preexisting conditions would lose their insurance, 50,000 young adults in Colorado who can now stay on their parents' insurance until they are 26 would no longer be able to, and women could once again be discriminated against simply because they are women. It is welcome to 696,000 women in Colorado who need maternity care or other women's health services who are not going to be charged higher premiums since this law is in effect. And when these exchanges are set up, 521,000 Colorado children will, for the first time, have better vision and dental coverage. I want to work in a bipartisan way going forward to try to make sure we are doing everything we can to follow the examples of places such as St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction or the University of Colorado Hospital in Denver or Denver Health in Denver to drive higher quality and to drive lower costs. It is essential. It is essential for our economy, and it is essential for our competitive position in the world. And it is essential that we put these talking points down and start actually dealing with the facts as they are. With that, Mr. President, I thank you for your patience, and I yield the floor.

Mr. BENNET. What the health care bill was intended to do--and again, it may not have done it perfectly, and there may be other ideas we ought to be legislating around--what it was intended to do is solve a problem that confronted not 1 percent of the American people, not 4 million people, but a problem that conservatively--extremely conservatively--affects 50 percent of the American people and is a $58.5 billion problem, not a $4 billion problem, because it is 50 percent of the people who are covered today by their employers who have to pay $1,100 a year in additional premiums to subsidize the uninsured in the United States of America. That was one of the big objectives of dealing with this health care issue. And I say it is conservative because this number does not even include the people who are buying insurance on their own. So maybe if you add those numbers together, you get to about 70 percent of the American people. So we spent a week on cable television, on the floor of the Senate, occupied completely with this 1 percent number over here, with no theory at all about what we are doing for 50 percent of Americans. That is how comical this conversation has become. I should not say comical. That is how detached this conversation has become from what is actually going on in the real lives of the people whom I represent and others in this Chamber represent. What is so amazing to me, having watched this as somebody who has not been around here for very long and may not understand all the ways of Washington, is that when you look at the history of this so-called mandate or so-called tax, it is really puzzling to understand the politics around this. This is a chart, I show you in the Chamber, that is part of an article that ran in the New Yorker a couple weeks ago called the ``Unpopular Mandate'' by Ezra Klein. I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed in the Record.

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I thank you for the recognition. I come to the floor to briefly talk about the Supreme Court decision on health care. I was in Colorado last week. We had a wonderful time traveling across the Western Slope of our State. We spent time in Gunnison County and other places. We fished in Hartselle. One thing people were not talking about there was the Supreme Court decision on health care. What they were talking about was how we get our economy moving again; how we recouple our economic growth in this country to job growth and wage growth again; how we create a comprehensive and thoughtful approach to reducing our deficit and our debt; how we educate our kids for the 21st century; how we build this economy to make sure we leave our kids with something better than what we found. In short, they were talking about exactly what people inside the beltway are not talking about. Today the House of Representatives--I don't know whether voting has started yet--in the wake of the Supreme Court decision, is voting to repeal the health care reform bill for the 31st time. They have been successful 30 times. They have voted to repeal the bill 30 times, but they feel the need now to do it a 31st time. I saw on the TV in my office today the Twitter traffic that was rolling at the bottom of the screen. One person after another announced that they were voting to repeal the health care bill for the 31st time. I thought about a Facebook post I saw last week from somebody I know in Denver named Mary Seawall. She is on the school board there, but she is not a politician. This is what she wrote the day after the Supreme Court reached its decision on health care: Yesterday's Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act came on a hard day for our family. Yesterday afternoon, we learned that our 6-year-old Annie has type 1 diabetes. She and I sat in a doctor's office crying through her first finger prick, her first insulin shot. Our life is now different. She will have this disease for her entire life or until there is a cure. A few years ago, our entire family might have lost our insurance. She now has a preexisting condition that likely would have made her uninsurable as an adult. Mary wrote: What I am saying is not political; it's a mother's sigh of relief. ``A mother's sigh of relief.'' When I heard the Supreme Court ruling, I was waiting for the call-- ``I was waiting for the call''-- to tell me why my baby looked too thin, why she had to take breaks walking up a flight of stairs, why she had started wetting her bed. The ruling means she lives in a country that won't leave her behind. We are very lucky that we caught this early before she lost consciousness or went into a coma, something that would have likely happened in the next few days. I know our luck came from health insurance that allowed her worried parents to take her to the doctor because we had a ``bad feeling.'' Many families, even insured ones, can't do what we did. I was raised on the idea of ``better to be safe than sorry.'' Our health care system has been ``better sorry than safe'' for too long. Mary goes on to say that this Supreme Court decision ``couldn't have come at a better time, our family's worst day.'' I hope the folks who are twittering about their repeal for the 31st time of this bill rather than working to try to improve it, rather than working to try to fix it, incapable of actually telling us what they would replace this with, would take a moment to read what a mother in Denver posted on Facebook last week. I do not think this health care bill was perfect, and I said that from the day we passed it. There are issues around cost, in particular, that I continue to be very concerned with because despite the rhetoric around this place, the reality is that we cannot solve our deficit and debt problem without dealing with a restructuring of how we deliver health care in the United States. Maybe the bill is not perfect, and maybe there are suggestions that could be made to improve it. I have my own. I tried, when we passed the bill, to put a fail-safe in place that would actually hold this Congress to the numbers that it said it would save, the dollars that we said we would save, and that if we did not, we had to figure out how to cut or make other changes to get there. So there is more work to be done. But the thing I find amazing--and this is why I wanted to come to the floor--is how far away this conversation is from the people I represent and what a masquerade so much of this conversation is. I know there were a lot of people who were disappointed that the health care bill was declared constitutional by the Supreme Court, and there were people who said they were going to declare it unconstitutional, and they did not. So the next day--and really for the next week--what we heard was, well, the bill imposes a tax on the middle class of this country, that the President broke a promise because he said he would not raise taxes on the middle class. I want everybody to know what is being talked about when people talk about this. They are talking about a piece of the legislation called the health care mandate. Some people call it a penalty, and some people call it a tax. That is something that has been debated around here for the last week. It has not been debated before this. I do not care what label you put on it, frankly, because people at home are not talking to me about this. Do you know why they are not talking to me about this? Because it applies to 1 percent--1.2 percent, to be precise--of the American people. That is what the Congressional Budget Office told us when we were passing this legislation. And if you do not believe me, it is on page 33--I will not enter the whole opinion into the Record--of the Supreme Court's finding of fact, where Justice Roberts finds as a matter of fact that the CBO said this mandate would cost $4 billion and that roughly 4 million people would be affected. Those are the 4 million people after Medicare and Medicaid and private employers' insurance and personal insurance that people buy. That is a group of people, a sliver, 1 percent of the American people who can afford to buy insurance but do not and choose to pay the penalty or the tax or the mandate instead of buying their insurance--$4 billion; 4 million people. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the portion of the Supreme Court Opinion of the Court that I referred to on page 33 of the opinion be printed in the Record.

Mr. BENNET

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

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of H.R. 3001, which was received from the House and is at the desk.

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read three times and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, without any intervening action or debate, and any related statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, July 12; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that the majority leader be recognized and the first hour be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the majority controlling the first half and the Republicans controlling the final half.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, this evening the majority leader filed cloture on the Landrieu substitute and the underlying Small Business Jobs and Tax Relief Act. As a result, the filing deadline for amendments to the Landrieu substitute amendment and to S. 2237 is 1 p.m. tomorrow. Unless an agreement is reached, the cloture votes will be on Friday. We hope we can come to an agreement to have them tomorrow.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of H.R. 4155, which was received from the House and is at the desk.

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read three times and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any related statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I want the record to reflect that I would have voted in favor of H.R. 4348, but I went home to Colorado to be with my constituents, many of whom have lost their homes and are facing severe challenges as several fires continue to rage across the State. By finally reauthorizing our transportation programs for over 2 years, we will provide some measure of certainty for States, municipalities, and businesses across the country urgently in need of more than just a 2-month extension. The bill includes resources, modeled on legislation that I introduced with Senator Mark Warner, for transit-oriented development competitive grants to help local communities work with private investors to promote long-term transit planning, and the legislation also contains a common-sense modification to the rural transit formula for which I advocated. These provisions will benefit transit agencies across my State as they provide quality service to Coloradans. The bill also maintains continued funding for the Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) Program and Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination (SRS) Act. These programs are lifelines for financially strapped rural counties and local businesses. Of course this is not a perfect bill. I am disappointed that the conference committee eliminated the Senate provision funding the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a program that has been vital to preserving Colorado's western heritage. And I would have liked to see a longer reauthorization, with structural reforms to the highway trust fund to ensure we can continue to finance improvements to our public infrastructure and leave more--not less--for the next generation. That said, I commend my colleagues for all their hard work getting this bill across the line. I am also pleased that this legislation will prevent loan rates from doubling and averts an increase that would have put the dream of a college degree further out of reach for thousands of Colorado students, and increased an already crushing debt burden on the middle class.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, today I wish to honor two young heroes from Colorado who received 9-1-1 for Kids' Medal of Honor this week. The medal is bestowed upon young people who distinguish themselves by calling 911 in an emergency and help to save someone's life or report a crime. An award is also presented to the dispatcher who processed the call and provided the appropriate emergency response. Last year, 7-year-old Alisha Fetz and 12-year-old Matthew Diaz, both of Thornton, each found themselves in difficult situations in which they needed to protect their family members. Alisha called 911 on June 1, 2011 when her mother was having difficulty breathing. Alisha answered dispatcher Ashley Bettschen's questions clearly and calmly, even providing her mother's cell phone number and information on her mother's medical condition. Following all of dispatcher Bettschen's instructions, Alisha ensured that her mother was treated quickly and efficiently. On August 15, 2011, Matthew called 911 while his house was being burglarized. He locked himself and his younger sister in a bathroom and managed to whisper answers to Dispatcher Rhonda Halsey in a calm and clear manner. Because of his great descriptions of both the burglars and their vehicle, the suspects were apprehended only minutes later. The burglars were both prior convicted felons, and several other open cases were cleared because of Matthew's call. Both of these kids knew exactly what to do. They didn't panic, and they helped ensure the safety of their family members through their actions. They and the dispatchers who helped them serve as a great example of how important it is for kids to know what to do when trouble arises. The organization, 9-1-1 for Kids, is working to ensure that kids of all ages understand the importance and proper use of 911. It does so by raising awareness through conferences, media outreach, training activities, school events, and by highlighting the stories of kids like Alisha and Matthew. I join all Coloradans in offering our gratitude to dispatchers Ashley Bettschen and Rhonda Halsey for their service to their communities and congratulating Alisha and Matthew for this award as well as their bravery and ability to remain calm in the face of an emergency.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, this week we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the passage of title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. For over 40 years, this historic law has furthered gender equality in education and sports in schools so that young women, including my three daughters, Caroline, Halina, and Anne, who all play soccer, may enjoy the benefits that come along with sports participation. On October 29, 2002, title IX was renamed the ``Patsy Takemoto Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act'' to honor the tireless determination and leadership of Congresswoman Mink of Hawaii in developing and passing title IX. If Congresswoman Mink was still with us today, I know she would be proud of the remarkable gains that have been made to ensure equal opportunity for women and girls in sports, education, and professionally. In my home State of Colorado, we are ahead of the curve with regards to opportunities for girls and women in sports. The U.S. Olympic Training Center, located in Colorado Springs, was created by an act of Congress in 1978, just a few years after title IX was passed. It is encouraging to know that women, like Gold Medal Winner Lindsey Vonn, now make up nearly half of all U.S. Olympians competing at the games-- representing more than 48 percent of the 2008 team. Jamie Derrieux, a senior at Grand Junction High School, was named to the 5A First-Team All-State team and will be playing basketball at the University of Northern Colorado this fall. The flagship all-girls charter school, GALS, Girls Athletic Leadership Schools, in Denver practices active learning that engages students in health and wellness activities in the belief that these are key contributing factors in optimizing academic achievement and self-development. The Colorado Women's Sports Fund Association works toward increasing the number of girls and women who participate in athletics and reducing and eliminating barriers that prevent participation. Studies show that participation in sports has a positive influence on the intellectual, physical and psychological health of girls and young women. By a 3-to-1 ratio, female athletes do better in school, do not drop out, and have a better chance to graduate from college. Sports participation is linked to lower rates of pregnancy in adolescent female athletes, and according to a study from the Oppenheimer/ MassMutual Financial Group, of 401 executive businesswomen surveyed, 82 percent reported playing organized sports while growing up, including school teams, intramurals, and recreational leagues. Despite the vast improvements, inequalities and disparities still remain. According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, schools are still providing 1.3 million fewer chances for girls to play sports in high school than boys. These numbers have an even greater impact on Latinas and African-American young women. It is because of such disparities that I signed on to the Senate resolution put forth this week by Senators Patty Murray of Washington and Olympia Snowe of Maine to show my commitment to working toward a more equal future. We have work to do. Please join me in celebrating the 40th anniversary of title IX by supporting efforts to expand equality in sports participation and education for women and girls around the country.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in strong support of the farm bill we have on the floor, and to recognize chairwoman Stabenow and ranking member Roberts for constructing a bill that passed the Committee with strong, bipartisan support. I would like to express my strong support for the bill's work on conservation including a reformed and stronger conservation title, and a provision known as ``sodsaver'' that was authored by Senator Thune of South Dakota. I was a proud cosponsor of the provision when we marked up the bill in committee, and I am glad to see it in the package on the floor. I would also thank the Chair for including the Bennet-Crapo amendment regarding conservation easements in the consent agreement, and I look forward to the amendment's expected passage later today. Finally, I hope to continue to work with the chair and ranking member on two topics. The first is easement policy. In my State of Colorado, easements are an important tool for protecting environmentally vital and valuable grasslands. We did a lot of great work in committee to simplify this program and make it easier for the administration, partner entities, and landowners to use. One great thing S. 3240 does is provide a waiver for grasslands of significance, making it easier for the Secretary to enter into agreements to conserve these areas. The west is experiencing grassland loss, which impacts soil and water quality. Anything we can do to make it easier to protect this land is needed. The second issue centers on treating insect infestations in our national forests. My State and others are experiencing epidemic levels of insect infestations causing unbelievable levels of tree mortality. I have been working with Senator Bingaman, Senator Baucus, Senator Wyden, Senator Mark Udall and others to make sure we have the right policies in place to react to the situation. It is my understanding that the chairwoman would be willing to work with me on these important issues; is that correct?

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, first, I wish to thank the Senator from Alabama for calling this body's attention once again to the debt crisis we face as a country. I was with some people just a little while ago, and I was telling them a story about a conversation I had in Colorado about our debt and our deficit and the moral obligation we have to our kids to actually deal with this problem and face up to the fact. My then-10-year-old daughter was with me, Caroline. We walked out on the front stoop of this place, and she said to me: Daddy. I said: What. She said: Just to be clear--she was making fun of me because I say that sometimes--she said: Just to be clear, I am not paying that back. That is the right attitude she ought to have and the right attitude children all across the country ought to have and the right attitude we ought to have. I look forward, when we get into this discussion this summer, to finding out how to find a bipartisan path through this morass so that Caroline Bennet doesn't have to pay back a debt she didn't accrue. I wanted to come to the floor today to talk about the economy because I think one thing we can agree on in this body for sure is that the best deficit reduction program we can find would be to get this economy moving again. I wanted to talk about one sector in particular that has created tremendous economic growth in Colorado; that is, the wind energy sector. I know my colleague from Colorado, Mark Udall, came down earlier today to discuss the same issue, and I so much appreciate his continued efforts in fighting for these jobs. Just a piece of context here. We face very significant structural issues in this economy today. I have brought this chart down here before, but what it shows is that our gross domestic product--our economic output--is actually higher today than it was when we went into the worst recession since the Great Depression. Our productivity is off the charts. That is the blue line, the second line. It has been going that way since the early 1990s because of our response to competition from China and India and other places, because of our use of technology, and because of the recession itself, which drove productivity straight up as firms all across the United States tried to figure out how to get through this tough time with fewer people. But median household income continues to fall in this country, and we have 23 or 24 million people who are unemployed or underemployed, even though we are generating this economic output. I think there are two fundamental answers to this. One is education. The worst the unemployment rate ever got for people with a college degree in the worst recession since the Great Depression was 4.5 percent. But the other is innovation. Jobs are going to be created tomorrow and next week and the week after that that have rising wages, not lowering ones, not falling ones. And this economic recovery, like the last economic recovery--those two together are the first recoveries we have had as a nation in our history where economic growth decoupled from job growth and wage growth. I don't know about the Presiding Officer, but that is what I hear about most in my townhall meetings at home. The wind production tax credit, it seems to me, cuts right to the core of whether and how we want to compete in this global and changing economy. Let me show another picture here. This is it. This is a factory in Brighton, CO--bricks and mortar, made in America. It is a wind production facility. We are not talking about some fly-by-night experimental industry here. This credit has triggered tremendous economic growth in Colorado and all across the country--good-paying jobs, manufacturing jobs here in the United States. As Representative Steve King, a Republican from Iowa, said recently in an op-ed he published, the production tax credit has driven as much as $20 billion in private investment. This is not some Bolshevik scheme. That is $20 billion in private investment supporting jobs here in the United States, manufacturing jobs here in the United States. Wind power accounts for more than one-third of all new U.S. electric generation in recent years. In Colorado alone, it has created 6,000 jobs. It has moved our State toward a more diversified and cleaner energy portfolio. But because they can't get any certainty out of Washington, like everybody else, developers and manufacturers are already starting layoffs. They are laying off employees today in anticipation of the credit expiring at the end of the year. Vestas, which has a huge manufacturing footprint in Colorado, from Windsor all the way south to Pueblo, is poised to lay off 1,600 workers if we fail to act. It is hard for me to understand, when our concerns about the deficit and our concerns about economic growth are ones that we hear about every day on the floor, why laying off 1,600 workers in Colorado is a good idea. Iberdrola Renewables, also doing business in Colorado, has already laid off 50 employees. Nationally, 37,000 jobs are at risk, not to mention the ones we could have created after 2012 but won't if we let this credit expire. I know sometimes I sound like a broken record, but the world is not going to wait for us. Our largest single export today is energy, actually--interestingly enough. That is a very recent occurrence that we became a net exporter of energy. Before that, our single largest export was aircraft. We build the best aircraft in the world. Mr. President, $30 billion a year is what that export is to the United States. China's export of solar panels last year was $15 billion--half our largest single export. They did not export 1 solar panel 10 years ago, and we invented the technology in the United States. In fact, some of us claim we invented it right at home in Colorado. I am sure China would love to have this business as well or we can get out of our own way and extend the PTC, extend the tax credit, save those jobs, and grow our own clean energy economy. This is not a partisan issue. I led a letter several months ago, where Republicans and Democrats from the Colorado delegation came together to urge a quick extension as part of the payroll deal. That effort, unfortunately, was not successful, nor were the others we have tried to take in the interim. Shortly after our letter I filed an amendment--a bipartisan amendment--with the Senator from Kansas, a fully paid-for 1-year extension of the credit. This place has become the land of flickering lights. We extend one thing for a month, we extend another thing for 2 months. I am very proud of the work we are doing on FDA right now, which is a 5-year reauthorization. But, my goodness, couldn't we extend this for a year to give people some degree of certainty, particularly when it is paid for? I thank Senator Moran, Republican from Kansas, for joining me--or for letting me join him--to lead that amendment. Following that, several colleagues and I have partnered with Senator Grassley and others to write a bill that would extend the credit for 2 years. There is clearly plenty of bipartisan support out there, and I know the people in my State--whether Republicans or Democrats or Independents or not even thinking about that--I know they want us to get this done. Nearly 7,500 Coloradans have already signed a petition on my Web site supporting the wind production tax credit. I urge others today who are watching this to visit my Web site and please add their name. I conclude by asking why, when the economic stakes are as high as they are, the Congress cannot get its act together. We need to extend the wind production tax credit, and we need to do it now. EQIP and CSP Mr. President, I rise to speak on Coburn amendment No. 2353, and I want to be the first to say how much I appreciate the efforts of my colleague from Oklahoma at deficit reduction. In fact, we are currently working together to promote a comprehensive approach to deficit reduction, and I deeply appreciate his leadership, which in many ways has been unparalleled on this issue. However, I have to oppose this particular amendment. I understand we are likely to consider the amendment this afternoon. I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment by supporting the motion to table. This amendment will repeal the popular Environmental Quality Incentives Program, EQIP, and the Conservation Stewardship Program, CSP. Both are critical programs authorized under the conservation title of the farm bill. In Colorado, I have heard time and time again from our farmers and our ranchers how critical these programs are to holding on to their family farm. EQIP, for example, is on the front lines of agricultural production. It helps farmers ensure that their operations contribute to clean water and clean air in our rural communities. It proactively and successfully addresses new and emerging resource issues to avert the need for regulation--to put our farmers and ranchers in a place where they have less regulation, not more, because of the work they are doing on the ground to conserve their lands. Let me give you one example from Colorado. EQIP resources have been used to ensure that the sage grouse stays off the endangered species list--a listing that would threaten ranchers all across the West. That is the result of the great work that has been done by farmers and ranchers in Colorado with EQIP. By providing resources to mark barbed wired fences--making them more visible to the threatened bird--EQIP is working for farmers and ranchers, and it is working well. It is the flagship of voluntary, incentive-based conservation programs, which is a direction I think we should be heading, and a direction we head in this farm bill. Both EQIP and CSP provide quantifiable benefits that are reflective of the varied conservation challenges all across our country. So I strongly support this new conservation title as we reported it out of the committee in a bipartisan vote. As I have mentioned, and has been discussed on this bill, this bill is also remarkable for the cuts it makes: $23.6 billion. To my knowledge, there is not any other committee in the Senate or any committee in the House of Representatives that has actually reached bipartisan agreement and, in this case, bipartisan consensus on budget cuts, which is the way we should be doing business around here because it is what the American people and the people in Colorado expect from us, particularly on these difficult questions around our deficit and our debt. And $6.4 billion of those cuts--$6.4 billion of that $23 billion--came from the conservation title, not all of which I liked, but we made difficult compromises at the committee level, and we ought not make further cuts on the floor, especially to programs that make smart and effective investments in our rural communities. So I will oppose, for those reasons, amendment No. 2353 and support the motion to table, and I urge my colleagues from both sides of the aisle to do the same. Finally, I wish to say thank you to the chairwoman of this committee and the ranking member, Debbie Stabenow and Pat Roberts, for their extraordinary bipartisan work in getting the bill this far. It is my fervent hope that leadership on both sides reaches an agreement on these amendments so we can move forward and do the right thing for our farmers and ranchers back home in Colorado. With that, I see my colleague from Connecticut, Senator Lieberman, on the floor. I thank the Presiding Officer for his patience and yield the floor.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any related statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 492, submitted earlier today.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 491, submitted earlier today by Senators Coons and Boozman.

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements relating to the measure be printed in the Record.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, Senators should expect two votes in relation to the sugar and SNAP amendments to the farm bill tomorrow. Senators will be notified when the votes are scheduled.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, June 13; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that the majority leader be recognized; and that following any leader remarks the first hour be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees with the Republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the final half.

Mr. BENNET

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