Maria Cantwell

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Florida for coming to the floor and speaking so articulately about the need for help for Puerto Rico. His State is the most impacted State in the United States when it comes to our policy as it relates to Puerto Rico. He is right that there are not many Puerto Ricans in the State of Washington. But as the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, which has jurisdiction for the territories, I can tell you territorial oversight is about giving people who are U.S. citizens fair access to the law. If we are not going to help people who are U.S. citizens have fair access to the law, I am not sure why we are continuing to say that they are a territory of the United States of America. What we are talking about, and the Senator from Florida understands this, is if you don't give them fair treatment under the law, just as we do with individual citizens who need to reorganize their debt, businesses who need to reorganize their debt, municipalities that need to reorganize their debt, or even the United States of America in the big bank bailout basically allowing a lot of people to reorganize their debt, then we won't let the people in Puerto Rico come to a resolution of their debt in bankruptcy. It is a hypocrisy that is unexplainable at the moment. We should get to the bottom of this because we want to give fair treatment to Puerto Rico so they can solve their own problems. What my colleague mentioned is that a restructuring authority for Puerto Rico costs the U.S. taxpayers zero. Zero dollars. That is to say, we are not proposing, at least on our side of the aisle, that we give them immediate funds to restructure. We are simply saying: Give them the tools of bankruptcy so they can restructure. My colleagues think this is important because we know that the mass exodus from Puerto Rico, which has been about 300,000 people in the last several years, will continue if we don't give them the tools to reorganize their debt. What that will mean, as the Senator from Florida mentioned, is that people will come in droves to Florida and continue to impact that economy by asking for federal social services that are capped in Puerto Rico. They will come to Florida and ask for those services. So the United States, by denying Puerto Rico the bankruptcy tools, actually will be impacted economically. Some people have estimated the impact will be as much as $10 to $20 billion over a 10-year period of time. I would say we have a lot of skin in the game to get people to reorganize this debt. Many newspapers across the United States also believe that we should give Puerto Rico these tools to reorganize. In an editorial recently in the New York Times, which talked about the President's proposal, it said: ``Crucially, it asks Congress to change the law so that Puerto Rico's territorial government and municipalities can seek bankruptcy protection.'' They understood this issue, as did the Washington Post when they wrote: ``. . . letting an impartial bankruptcy judge sort out the competing claims on a failed public entity is the fairest, most efficient approach; without that option, Puerto Rico has no leverage in debt negotiations, and litigation could ensue.'' So there are newspapers throughout the United States of America that are looking at this issue and saying: Give them the ability to reorganize their debt. Why is this so important? Because the Puerto Rican government may default on its debt as early as January 1, when nearly $1 billion in payments are due. Many of us here want to see a resolution of this issue now, giving them the tools to avoid that. Once they default, the economic impact to the rest of us and the U.S. taxpayers will be far greater. Why do I say that? Because if you look at the inaction that takes place, U.S. taxpayers contribute $6.4 billion to Puerto Rico's annual budget, funding these various programs. If you default, that means we will be spending more than $6.4 billion. I know some of my colleagues want to protect the hedge funds from being a part of the bankruptcy reorganization. But, when you are protecting the hedge funds from being a part of the bankruptcy reorganization, you are adding costs for the U.S. taxpayers. That is something we cannot afford. If Puerto Rico is allowed to restructure their debt, they could make these decisions and save us money as U.S. taxpayers. In the long run, as I said, it would prevent the mass exodus from the island to many other States and provide Puerto Rico with the tools they need. Yet some in Congress are more comfortable with inaction, which basically is just bad public policy. Why is this? Because 20 to 50 percent of the island's debt is owned by hedge funds. These hedge funds swoop in to buy cheap Puerto Rican debt and are using their influence here in Washington, DC, to block Puerto Rico from access to bankruptcy protection that is allowed in other places. It is no secret that the solution will require sacrifice by everyone, and that is what we want to see. If Congress continues to protect these hedge funds and fails to act, it will be at both the expense of the Puerto Rican people, who have already suffered immensely, and of the American taxpayer. Sitting by idly is not a solution. We should remind our colleagues that Puerto Rico had preexisting bankruptcy authority which was taken away in 1984, mysteriously. Nobody knows why, or how, or any justification for it. They just know that it disappeared. Congress should reinstate that authority that was taken away. As the Governor of Puerto Rico said before the energy committee, quoting another leader: ``Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.'' Now is the time to act, before we see a greater mass exodus of people. This chart shows the migration between Puerto Rico and the United States. You see that it continues to grow. It has grown 500 percent in the last 10 years. The issue is that now government workers are being cut to three days a week, patients are waiting for months without basic medical care, hospitals are going bankrupt, and the health industry is about to collapse. On the other side of the aisle there is talk about the humanitarian crisis that might occur next year and how they might want to respond to it, but they don't want to stand up and say to the hedge funds that they also have to take some responsibility in this issue. Forty-five percent of the population in Puerto Rico is now living in poverty, including 58 percent who are children. Unemployment is in double digits, and it is, if you compare it to all our States, very high in the ranking of States in the United States. As a result, 80,000 people are leaving the island each year as part of a mass migration. So what is the solution? As we said: Restructure their debt; give them the tools to restructure their debt. It costs nothing to the U.S. taxpayer, saves us money in the long run, prevents a mass exodus from the island, and prevents more spending on Federal benefits to people who might migrate to the United States. We think this ought to be a lot of motivation to sit down and solve this issue today. In fact, now we are hearing from different businesses, and I will submit one letter for the Record, in the United States that do business in Puerto Rico and that don't want to lose their investment because they are so concerned about the level of collapse that could happen in Puerto Rico, and the loss of infrastructure and infrastructure investment. So why do we need to continue to move forward? Well, inaction, basically, is to say that the hedge funds have won in this game. Twenty to fifty percent of the island's debt is owned by the hedge funds, and hedge funds are using their influence in Washington to block a Puerto Rico bill from coming to the floor. Failure to act would be at the expense, as I said, of taxpayers and individuals. Just yesterday, a leader who has been supportive of reorganization of a task force in New York that was under a budget crisis said: ``The hedge funds got their way in Congress.'' That is referring to the fact that we were not able to get, as my colleague from Florida said, this legislation as part of the budget omnibus bill or other bills moving through the process. So now is the time to act to give Puerto Rico the tools. Now is the time for all of those who have made investments to say ``we all have to come to the table and resolve this issue.'' The longer we wait, the greater the risk for the United States of America--to say nothing of the issue of a territory that we lay claim to, giving them the ability to solve their problems. I ask my colleagues to come to a commonsense resolution on this issue. Stop protecting these hedge funds and start working for people who are called U.S. citizens. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the articles and the letter I mentioned.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, responding to my colleague from Alaska-- and I will make a longer statement in a second--I do want to thank her for her leadership, not just as chairwoman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, but also as the chairwoman of the Appropriations Interior subcommittee. Thank you for your detailing exactly why it is so important to have real money up front. You are right. For you and me and for many Western States, we have seen a change in fire habit, and we have seen probably two of the worst fire seasons our country has seen in many years and the fact that this year's season may trump that. It is very important that we give the agencies the tools to address this issue and that we give them the tools now--not a guessing game, not how much they might get or how much they might borrow but how much they have now. I think the 50-percent increase is a recognition of how dire the situation is and makes sure that these communities know that they get those resources. Yes, I wish to thank the chairwoman for allowing the committee to have a hearing. Senator Barrasso participated at a very critical moment and at a very sad moment because it was just days after we learned that we lost firefighters in the central part of our State. I wish to say that she has had a committee hearing. We have had committee hearings. My staff attended what was called the Wildfire and Us Summit. Many people in the central part of our State participated in that summit. Your question is, Is this important to us? I think when you have a rain forest that catches on fire or you have parts of Alaska that have never burned that are up in smoke, you bet this is of critical importance to both our States and to many Western States. I thank you for the question and thank you for helping to get real resources on the table and a 50-percent increase over last year's fire budget. Thank you.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I thank my colleague Senator Murkowski for her leadership on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and I thank the Senator for her discussion on fighting wildfires in the United States of America. I think she gave a great rendition. My hat is off to appropriators. I can tell you this: What we need is real money, and that is what she has provided. I thank her for that. I thank her partner on the subcommittee, Senator Udall from New Mexico. They worked together and had to provide a framework in which the omnibus reflects an appropriation that we will vote on later this week containing $1.6 billion for fire funding and fire suppression. That is $500 million more than last year. So I consider it a very good down payment. Congress has recognized that it is very important to provide funding for fire suppression and at sufficient levels so that agencies can address the issues of prevention and hazardous fuel reduction. This is something. It is critically important. I am pleased that this is a very large increase in firefighting accounts this year. Besides the 50-percent increase in fire suppression, as my colleague mentioned, there is $375 million in hazardous fuel reduction and new grants to local communities to decrease their fire hazards, additional fuel reduction projects such as controlled burns in our forests, and research on protecting homes during massive wildfires. This is critically important to my State, as they have implemented many programs over the last two seasons that they call ``hasty response'' or fuel reduction, where they have been able to show that certain treatments have actually been able to save communities and neighborhoods that have done such treatment. The challenge becomes this: How do you educate the rest of the community, the rest of the State, on the vital importance of doing this fuel reduction? It is very important that we continue this. I thank again the chairwoman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the interior subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations on the fact that this is real money today, a 50-percent increase without the necessity for a future declaration of disaster, without a future appropriations request, without pitting States against each other on every disaster, but providing some predictability with this increase about how to move forward for the 2016 firefighting season. It is very important, as she mentioned, that we continue to focus on a variety of issues and resolutions: stopping the way that we continue to erode funds from other accounts while ensuring there are considerations of cost and oversight for large and expensive fires, integrating forest research to better prioritize where prevention money goes, increasing controlled burns on our Federal lands, ensuring personnel and equipment can operate seamlessly across jurisdictions during wildfires, funding community preparedness and FireWise activities, funding risk mapping, providing technology on all large fires to ensure managers know in real time the location of the fires and of our firefighters, and upgrading our air tanker system. We saw a lot of this, and we heard a lot about our air tanker system during our committee hearings and that there was much more we could be doing. As to establishing surge capacity, we heard a lot from our local communities that joined in the fight and are more than willing to join in this effort of helping us fight wildfires, but we need to have the capacity and the training. As to ensuring communications, nothing was more frustrating in some of these wildfires than to have no broadband communication and yet to be in charge of all the evacuation for the region without the ability to communicate to the people that needed to be evacuated. It is critically important that we have on-the-ground communications systems available on day one. Doing preventative treatments when risks are low is a particular issue for our State. We want to make sure that we have cooperation in working with other agencies. We don't want to do fire treatments when we are in drought conditions and high temperatures and dry, dry conditions, but when there are less risks. We want to do mapping to clearly identify where the risks are, and we want to use technology for safety and effectiveness, such as GPS and other systems that can be used from the air, and modifying the individual assistance program. I say that because various communities that have been hardest hit by our fires have been in rural communities, but the way the definition works under our current law basically has prejudice against a community if it is not dense enough to meet the current requirement. I wish to say that the ranking member, myself, and probably even the Presiding Officer have very rural communities that can be devastated by fires. That means an entire community that may be based on recreation or outdoors or any kinds of outdoor activities could be so devastated and yet would be left without the resources, simply because they didn't meet a population density number. To me, we need to address this because these communities are integral parts of our larger United States and the economic stability of many of our States. We want to continue to make these improvements in our system. As I said, the chairwoman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee allowed several hearings to take place, and we want to continue the efforts in working with our colleagues to make sure that we are moving forward on this issue in providing all the resources that we can. I wish to address one issue, and that is that we are not going to get this overall solution by simply clearcutting large swaths of land in which we haven't made the right assessments. I say that because we have had so many issues in the State of Washington where dangerous erosion has taken place in those circumstances, but it is clear that we all agree that massive fuel reduction does need to take place. I look forward to working with my colleague on that because there are many ways in which we can prevent and fight our national wildland fires. I look forward to working with Senator Murkowski, and I thank her for getting us real money--a 50-percent increase--that doesn't require another declaration, doesn't require a future event. It is there, and we can start using it. Let's go to work with our colleagues in defining how we do hazardous fuel reduction in the most aggressive way possible, giving our communities better tools to fight these fires in the future, and working to make sure that we have the best equipment and the best resources for those individuals who are fighting those fires. I yield the floor.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Indiana for his great remarks. I thank him for making them today.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I come to the floor tonight to discuss Puerto Rico, a territory of the United States since 1898. Millions of residents have been citizens since 1917, nearly 100 years. This community of 3.5 million people is facing economic, fiscal, and liquidity problems. What are we doing about it here in Congress? We are not doing anything. That needs to change, and it needs to change now. We spent 10 years watching Puerto Rico suffer through a recession. We spent months here in Congress discussing what to do. There have been a lot of ideas--some popular, some controversial. I can say that, as the ranking member on the Energy Committee, I have heard many ideas, but now is the time to act. We need to allow Puerto Rico to restructure. That is, we need to give them the same opportunities that we gave to average American citizens and municipalities to restructure their debt--the same that we gave to Wall Street when they were in a financial crisis, the same brink that we were almost on when we had our own economic problems. Yet there are some here in the halls of Congress who would rather listen to hedge funds and make sure they are prioritized in a debt restructuring than actually putting in place debt restructuring. I propose a two-part, no-cost approach that will be most effective and least controversial to help us out of this situation. The Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which has jurisdiction over territories, has heard from experts from the Department of Treasury and other government officials about how dire this situation is now. Just yesterday, a group of six CEOs sent a letter to congressional leaders urging swift legislative action on the Puerto Rico situation. I can tell my colleagues the whole issue of what to do about Puerto Rico in the long term has many divergent views, but all those divergent views in Puerto Rico are singing the same tune right now: Restructure before January 1 or they will face serious issues of default. Why do we care? We care because the U.S. Government will have an impact of between $1 billion and $2 billion of more service demands if we do not allow them to restructure. This year, the government and electric utilities failed to make their payments. Government workers are being cut to three days a week. Patients are now waiting months for medical care. Hospitals are going bankrupt. And the health care industry is threatened by a complete collapse. Forty-five percent of the population is living in poverty-- including 58 percent of them who are children--and the unemployment rate is stuck at 12.2 percent, more than double the highest State's unemployment rate. So what does it cost us to act here in the United States? It costs the U.S. taxpayers zero. It costs us zero because if we think about it, this is about debt restructuring. This about setting up a process which they are denied just because Puerto Rico is a territory; they cannot get the relief of restructuring. They tried. They tried to pass their own bankruptcy law. They tried, and then basically were told that it didn't meet a Federal standard. They are not like a municipality that has this authority. They are a territory. They are our territory. If we want them to restructure successfully and keep more debt from coming to the shores of the United States because of--I would say that we have had a huge increase in population. So the cost of inaction is this acceleration of the Puerto Rico population coming to the United States. In 2014, we see that the number jumped to almost 70,000 people in one year. The net migration has been more than 500 percent in the last 10 years. If we do nothing in the next week and don't act on this problem, more migration of Puerto Ricans is going to come to the United States. When they come, what will happen? They will be demanding more services, such as Head Start, SNAP, unemployment insurance, and Pell Grants. So default equals more Federal spending. The notion that my colleagues think that somehow this inaction is the way out of this equation--they are just adding more responsibility to the U.S. taxpayer. Why? Is it because they want to protect hedge funds in a bankruptcy process? Do they want to decide in the Halls of the U.S. Congress who gets in line first and who gets paid? I will remind my colleagues, particularly since the Presiding Officer knows the Deepwater Horizon issue very well, we did not make decisions here in the U.S. Congress--in the Senate and in the House of Representatives--as to who would get paid in the Deepwater accident implosion. We appointed a receiver. They made the tough decisions. When it came to Detroit's bankruptcy, we did not make the decision. I guarantee my colleagues that of 100 Members of the U.S. Senate, there are probably 100 opinions in both of those cases as to how we thought each of those payments or restructurings should be done. But we are not the experts, and just because we have an opinion about what we would like to see Puerto Rico do doesn't mean we should be writing that into legislation and prejudging what should be an official, legal process of restructuring debt that we need to give Puerto Rico the authority to have. This is what newspapers across the United States are saying, including the Los Angeles Times, the Miami Herald, the Boston Globe, the New York Times, and others: Give Puerto Rico the ability to restructure their debt. So why are people here failing to take up this mantle? People have been arguing for months about different ideas. Some of our colleagues want to increase the Medicaid reimbursement rate. Some of our colleagues want to have an EITC increase. Some of our colleagues want Puerto Rico to do away with their pensions before they go into a bankruptcy structure. Those are all political opinions by individuals that one could say are worth debate. Now we are at the point of default. Just as we need to make decisions before January 1, our colleagues are now trying to say that we can continue to discuss this issue. We don't have time to continue to discuss this issue. We have next week, and, as a member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee that oversees territories, I feel it is our responsibility to propose a policy and get it in place so that we can find some resolution of this issue. I think this two-part fix about making sure there is the ability to restructure and a council to oversee it in coordination with Treasury is the best we can do at this point in time to save the U.S. Government from further costs and to give relief to Puerto Rico. The notion that people here in the U.S. House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate are trying to protect hedge funds so that they can maximize their return is despicable. It is despicable. The notion that somebody is trying to protect these fundamental questions that need to be decided in a formal process of bankruptcy or reform, as we are calling it within the territory, is the fair and even process that should take place without prejudice. We are going to, as a body, have a very robust discussion, I guarantee my colleagues, for years and years and years to come about what the United States is going to do about the territory of Puerto Rico. Let's at least give ourselves the luxury of having that discussion when the territory is not in default. Let's come together and pass some legislation for them to restructure their debt. Let a professional organization take the politics out of this and make the best financial decisions that can be made now to save the U.S. taxpayer from further expense. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I join my colleague Senator Murray in commemorating Mayor Haggerton's 30 years of public service. As mayor, Mr. Haggerton led the effort to develop and adopt Tukwila's first strategic plan, providing a clear vision for economic development in the city. Mayor Haggerton was also among the first to offer regional assistance to the Oso, Arlington, and Darrington communities following the devastating State Route 530 mudslide in 2014. Throughout his tenure, Mayor Haggerton has served on multiple regional and national boards and always carried out his job with a passion for and commitment to helping others. As our constituents in Washington State know, Mr. Haggerton had a genuine interest in learning about the issues facing those he was elected to serve. He has been an integral leader in Tukwila and played a critical role in shaping the city's history. I have no doubt that Mr. Haggerton's work in Tukwila and the greater Puget Sound region will have a lasting impact on generations for years to come.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. I thank the senior Senator from Vermont for his leadership on this issue. Last year, I travelled to sub-Saharan Africa with Senator Stabenow. In Africa, we saw firsthand that empowering women and girls as leaders in agriculture is important to promoting economic development. When we returned, we fought to make sure promoting economic opportunities for women was an important aspect of renewal of the African Growth and Opportunity Act. Investing in women produces a good return on investment. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, if women had the same access to economic resources as men, this could increase agricultural productivity by 20-30 percent. The Congolese Government's export taxes on coffee producers have the opposite effect. It unfairly burdens women. It should be repealed before the Democratic Republic of the Congo receives any additional AGOA benefits.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise tonight to thank my colleagues who worked so hard on this transportation package that we have just voted on. I thank Chairman Inhofe and Senator Boxer for their hard work, as well as Chairman Thune and Senator Nelson from the commerce committee for their hard work. The last thing I would have predicted at the beginning of this year is that Senator Boxer would have joined forces with Senator McConnell to force through a transportation package that many of us probably thought wasn't even a reality. I would like to thank the Senator from California because I think there are times in everybody's career where you have to decide that you are going to stand up and push forward no matter how many arrows are shot in your back or no matter how many questions people ask. You have a vision of a path that you see and you realize that at the end, you think you can produce a package that will really be good for America. That is what Senator Boxer has done. She has produced a package that will not only be a great legacy for an already great career but will be the very anecdote we need right now to an economy that is greatly challenged by a lack of infrastructure investment. I say that because the Senator from California and I both represent West Coast States that see Asia as a great economic opportunity and that represent ports up and down the West Coast. We probably have the top one and two and three and four ports on the west coast as far as volume. The key thing that we know is that our own quadrennial review of energy products told us that we can't even move product because we compete so much for room on our rails, and battle congestion on our highways. So for the first time, because of this legislation, the United States of America will have a national multimodal freight policy, along with a national freight strategic plan to say that we have to identify the freight network that is most critical to moving product to the United States of America and through our ports, and that we should have a program to direct funding to those multimodal projects that are going to help get U.S.-made products outside of the United States and to the markets where they need to be delivered. So again, I thank Senator Thune and Senator Nelson for fighting for these provisions in the commerce committee bill that got merged into this package and all of the staff on both sides of the aisle in the commerce committee who helped on this and Senator Boxer and Senator Inhofe for including this. I know that many times I ran into staff in the hall and they said: Yes, we know, freight can't wait. Which is kind of a moniker that we had come to talk about because freight really can't wait. If we are not shipping it in a timely fashion from North America, from the United States, I guarantee to my colleagues that products will be delivered to Asia or to Europe from someplace else and we will lose business. So I think the U.S. Congress and the Senate tonight has understood that our infrastructure needs a shot in the arm to move freight and to establish this policy I know is going to pay dividends for us. So thank you very much for making sure that provision was in this legislation. It is a very key moment for us looking at the fact that we are an exporter and that we want our products to reach markets in a timely fashion. I also want to thank the Secretary of Transportation because he gets this policy, and the national advisory committee that his predecessor established on freight will be very helpful for us in identifying the projects and using the resources that are in this legislation to move forward. I also want to say how happy and grateful I am that the resolution of the Export-Import Bank debate is finally over tonight, and finally we have resolved the fact that the Bank will be reauthorized for 4 years. There are hundreds of millions of dollars of projects that need to be approved and they can hopefully start moving through the process. I will point out that the Board needs nominees to fill the vacancies, and we should get that done so we can finish this process. But the fact that we are making a commitment for 4 years to the strategy that, yes, we want to manufacture products and, yes, we want to build things and ship them to overseas markets--whether they are grain silos, whether they are airplanes, whether they are music stands, whether they are tractors--whatever they are, we want to build them and we want to reach developing countries and international markets, and we are going to make sure the credit agencies that assist bankers in finalizing those deals exist, and we are making that commitment for 4 years. So if there is anybody who has arrows in their back over that, I also thank them for continuing to fight to make sure we got through this process. My colleagues know that both a majority of people in the House--a majority of Republicans--supported this idea and finally got their voices heard through a discharge petition, and the majority of the U.S. Senate supported this position. So I hope people who have allowed this process to finally take place will understand how valuable the freight provision and the export bank provision is for us as a country to continue our export strategy. Our strategy is to build great products and to sell them to a developing world. Ninety-five percent of consumers are outside of the United States, so let's sell products, but we have to fix our infrastructure to do it. We have to make sure that credit is available to do it, and we have to make sure we continue to move forward with the other policies that are going to help us with this strategy. So, again, I want to say how grateful I am. I will tell my colleagues I don't think it is a perfect bill, but everybody here understands it is not a perfect bill. Again, I want to thank the Senator from California for her decision to take what is a challenging process and persevere on an investment strategy that--each and every one of us would have written a different one, but at least it got us to this goal of making needed investment in critical infrastructure at a time that our country needs to be able to move products and get things to customers around the globe, and this will very much help in that process. Again, I thank the staff on both committees, on both sides of the aisle, and everybody who was involved in making these policies a reality. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, last year the Pacific Northwest, and the Nation lost one of our greatest civil rights heroes with the passing of Billy Frank, Jr. It is clear a great leader has been lost when an entire community shows up to commemorate his life and celebrate his spirit. I attended Billy's memorial, along with Senator Murray and 6,000 others, and was honored to have the chance to pay tribute to the man who fought for the civil rights of Native Americans, the principles of environmental stewardship, and the importance of salmon recovery and preservation in the Pacific Northwest. Today, I am introducing the Billy Frank Jr. Tell Your Story Act, which would change the name of the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge to the ``Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge.'' In addition, this legislation would create a national memorial to commemorate the signing of the Medicine Creek Treaty, the treaty that Billy Frank fought so hard to enforce, within the refuge. The wildlife refuge sits adjacent to the Nisqually Reservation where Billy grew up and lived, and contains the estuary and salmon that Billy devoted his life to protecting. Billy Frank, Jr. just wanted to fish. He was a fisherman to his core, and that's how he wanted history to remember him. Everyone who knew Billy would want us to remember him as the legend that walked and fished among us. Given his life, his legacy, and the way he changed Washington State and the Nation, it is only right that we honor his legacy by forever linking his name to the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. Along with his advocacy for protecting Tribal treaty rights, Billy Frank changed the way we look at the environment. Because of his advocacy, we now have environmental restoration efforts throughout the Puget Sound, including at the Nisqually River Delta, the largest tidal marsh rehabilitation in the Northwest. Additionally, we have the Puget Sound Partnership, a Tribal and public-private partnership dedicated to improve the health of our Puget Sound. Billy understood that we have a sacred responsibility to be stewards of our environment, and that we must leave it for future generations in better condition than it was left to us. The Billy Frank Jr. Tell Your Story Act has the support of the Nisqually Tribe and the neighboring Puyallup Tribe, along with the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, the National Congress of American Indians, and the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. A companion bill introduced by Congressman Denny Heck has been approved by the House Natural Resources Committee and is awaiting consideration by the House. I urge its passage in the Senate, especially given the recent decision by President Obama to posthumously award Billy the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Billy grew up listening to the stories of his father and others belonging to the Nisqually and other tribes. Routinely harassed for fishing his tribe's namesake Nisqually River with nets, Willie Frank, Sr. recalled a warden telling him, ``Your treaty isn't worth the paper it's printed on.'' Billy's father always told him, ``Just keep fishing. Even if they arrested you, just keep fishing. Even if they beat you just keep fishing. Keep fishing and claim what was promised in the in the Medicine Creek Treaty.'' By changing the name of the Nisqually wildlife refuge, we will not only honor the fisherman that fought to protect the land and its people, but we will make this land better than it was left to us, just like Billy Frank, Jr. would have wanted.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, last year the Pacific Northwest, and the Nation lost one of our greatest civil rights heroes with the passing of Billy Frank, Jr. It is clear a great leader has been lost when an entire community shows up to commemorate his life and celebrate his spirit. I attended Billy's memorial, along with Senator Murray and 6,000 others, and was honored to have the chance to pay tribute to the man who fought for the civil rights of Native Americans, the principles of environmental stewardship, and the importance of salmon recovery and preservation in the Pacific Northwest. Today, I am introducing the Billy Frank Jr. Tell Your Story Act, which would change the name of the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge to the ``Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge.'' In addition, this legislation would create a national memorial to commemorate the signing of the Medicine Creek Treaty, the treaty that Billy Frank fought so hard to enforce, within the refuge. The wildlife refuge sits adjacent to the Nisqually Reservation where Billy grew up and lived, and contains the estuary and salmon that Billy devoted his life to protecting. Billy Frank, Jr. just wanted to fish. He was a fisherman to his core, and that's how he wanted history to remember him. Everyone who knew Billy would want us to remember him as the legend that walked and fished among us. Given his life, his legacy, and the way he changed Washington State and the Nation, it is only right that we honor his legacy by forever linking his name to the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. Along with his advocacy for protecting Tribal treaty rights, Billy Frank changed the way we look at the environment. Because of his advocacy, we now have environmental restoration efforts throughout the Puget Sound, including at the Nisqually River Delta, the largest tidal marsh rehabilitation in the Northwest. Additionally, we have the Puget Sound Partnership, a Tribal and public-private partnership dedicated to improve the health of our Puget Sound. Billy understood that we have a sacred responsibility to be stewards of our environment, and that we must leave it for future generations in better condition than it was left to us. The Billy Frank Jr. Tell Your Story Act has the support of the Nisqually Tribe and the neighboring Puyallup Tribe, along with the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, the National Congress of American Indians, and the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. A companion bill introduced by Congressman Denny Heck has been approved by the House Natural Resources Committee and is awaiting consideration by the House. I urge its passage in the Senate, especially given the recent decision by President Obama to posthumously award Billy the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Billy grew up listening to the stories of his father and others belonging to the Nisqually and other tribes. Routinely harassed for fishing his tribe's namesake Nisqually River with nets, Willie Frank, Sr. recalled a warden telling him, ``Your treaty isn't worth the paper it's printed on.'' Billy's father always told him, ``Just keep fishing. Even if they arrested you, just keep fishing. Even if they beat you just keep fishing. Keep fishing and claim what was promised in the in the Medicine Creek Treaty.'' By changing the name of the Nisqually wildlife refuge, we will not only honor the fisherman that fought to protect the land and its people, but we will make this land better than it was left to us, just like Billy Frank, Jr. would have wanted.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from North Dakota for coming to the floor again to talk about the Export-Import Bank and today specifically outlining how this program of credit insurance helps finance the sales of U.S. products in overseas markets, particularly for small businesses. She and I, obviously, are stalwarts on what are economic opportunities in a global economy. We want to make things in the United States of America and we want to sell them to overseas markets. So we are here today to thank our House colleagues for standing up and defeating amendments last night that would kill the Export-Import Bank as a part of a package in the transportation deal. We are proud of those Senators who have supported this in the Senate, but we are especially proud of those House Members who went to the extent of getting a discharge petition to demonstrate that 313 Members of the House of Representatives support this policy. My colleague and I are not giving up on trying to emphasize to people we have waited way too long to get this done and now we should not wait one moment longer. We should make sure this part of a transportation bill--while not necessarily our choice for how this gets done--finally gets over the finish line so we can put our small businesses back to work. As my colleague said, small businesses are the key to her State's economy. Well, they are really the key to the U.S. economy. Fifty percent of all U.S. jobs are provided by small businesses. So that is why we have talked about this issue as it relates to those job providers. If you are in North Dakota and Washington State and you are growing an agricultural product, you show me the bank that is going to finance that sale. I know maybe people don't think about agricultural products when it comes to Ex-Im Bank, but that is exactly what we have in mind because our States produce so many agricultural products. The fact is small businesses need global customers. Why? Because if we are just going to grow product for the United States of America, we are not going to be growing much job opportunity. Ninety-five percent of consumers live outside the United States, and we want to make sure we are selling to them, but when we are selling to a country in Africa or we are selling to a country in Asia and you go to that bank in North Dakota or even in Walla Walla, WA, or someplace, and you say: Listen, I want you to help me do a deal with this buyer in a very small country, they want to know, what the securitization is. The securitization of that issue is usually all the capital of that company, which means they are not going to do the sale or they are going to try to find a bank that is also not going to do it because they do not have the security to put behind that. That is why credit insurance was created--to help those sales actually happen. That is why this is such an important issue to small businesses. People think, well, OK, we get it, you are concerned about jobs. This is not just about the jobs in our State today, although we care immensely about that; this is about the way the Senator from North Dakota and I view the economy of the future. We view it as an economy that is taking opportunity of what is happening with the growth of the middle class outside the United States, that and selling them U.S.-made and U.S.-grown products. Less than 3 percent of small businesses today are exporters. How are we going to get them to be exporters? We want them to take risks. How are we going to get them to take risks if they can't get financing for their products? If 95 percent of consumers live outside the United States, that is where the rising growth is happening, that is where the big opportunity is, and we want our small businesses to do something about it. Yet we take away the one tool that has been there to help small businesses finance those. It was a big mistake. My colleague talked about that. There were more than 3,300 small business deals approved by the Export-Import Bank in 2014, so that was a lot of economic opportunity. I have met people from many of those companies. They warm my heart and make me believe the United States of America can win at any economic opportunity it sets its mind to. When I think about a Yakima company that makes music stands-- Manhasset has been in the music stand business for 40 years. They are selling music stands all over the United States of America. They get up every morning, they go into that factory, and they try to figure out how they are going to improve their processes, how they are going to improve access. But if you say to them that every sale they make to an overseas market has to be backed with their own capital--from Manhasset--how long will it take before someone comes in and competes with them and basically knocks them off and defeats them? It is not going to take long. What they have to do is constantly grow their market opportunities and stay ahead of technology investments, even with a music stand, the best techniques, the best practices, and get your reputation as the best product and advertise and continue to dominate in the marketplace. That is what selling and exporting are all about. The two of us come from export States, Washington State being a major exporter and North Dakota being an exporter. We know in our DNA that we have to compete. We want our small businesses to compete, and that is why both of our States have been big users of the Export-Import Bank, and we want these deals. In helping to support those small businesses, the Export-Import Bank has done $10 billion worth of exports. Isn't this what we want? Isn't this what we want in the United States of America, to help small businesses grow and become exporters? They are winning. They want their products to be purchased by overseas consumers. When they don't support the Export-Import Bank, they are saying: I want to make it really, really, really hard or impossible for you to make that sale, because you are going to have to go find somebody to finance it. And we all know that people would rather do a lot more financing of dark derivative markets than helping small businesses get their deals done. We are so happy that our colleagues in the House of Representatives last night defeated 10 amendments to kill the Export-Import Bank and that it is now traveling over here as part of a transportation package that will go to conference, and hopefully in the next 2 weeks we will be able to rectify this issue and put our small businesses back to work. This is so important not just for the companies using the Export-Import Bank today but because my colleague and I know we have to grow our economy. We know we do great work and we produce great products. We need to make sure that in the developing world, we can access the opportunity to get our foot in the door and make the sale. Don't stop us from doing that. Let's finally get this Bank reauthorized and get on our way to growing a stronger economy. I yield the floor.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce, by request, the Administration's legislative proposal the National Park Service Centennial Act. The bill authorizes or expands several authorities to assist the National Park Service in managing the over 400 units of the National Park System as it prepares for the centennial anniversary of the agency's establishment in 1916. While I may not agree with every provision in the administration's proposed bill, I believe it is important for this legislative proposal to be considered in the Senate, which is why I agreed to introduce it by request. At the same time, I will continue to work with other Senators on both sides of the aisle to develop a bipartisan consensus on a national park centennial bill so that the Senate can consider and pass a bill before the National Park Service's centennial anniversary next year. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the administration's letter to the Senate transmitting the legislative proposal and a section-by-section summary of the bill prepared by the Department of the Interior be printed in the Record.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce, by request, the Administration's legislative proposal the National Park Service Centennial Act. The bill authorizes or expands several authorities to assist the National Park Service in managing the over 400 units of the National Park System as it prepares for the centennial anniversary of the agency's establishment in 1916. While I may not agree with every provision in the administration's proposed bill, I believe it is important for this legislative proposal to be considered in the Senate, which is why I agreed to introduce it by request. At the same time, I will continue to work with other Senators on both sides of the aisle to develop a bipartisan consensus on a national park centennial bill so that the Senate can consider and pass a bill before the National Park Service's centennial anniversary next year. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the administration's letter to the Senate transmitting the legislative proposal and a section-by-section summary of the bill prepared by the Department of the Interior be printed in the Record.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from North Dakota for her question because she is right on the pinpoint of what this issue is about. It is really about small businesses that don't have huge capital reserves to set aside money so that they can guarantee the sale of their product. As I said, there is $9 billion of pending issues before the Bank right now, and many of those are small businesses. So those small businesses could be opening up economic opportunity that might grow their revenue significantly and allow them to create more jobs. When we think about the motion I just made, if no one had objected, that $9 billion would have been free to go out into the economy, those deals would have gotten done, those small businesses would have been empowered, and we would be on our way to winning in what is an export economy. Why is it an export economy? Because the growing middle class around the globe is going to double in the next several years. Ninety-five percent of consumers live outside the United States of America. So we want to win economic opportunity, and we have to be able to sell outside the United States of America. It is hard because not every place in the United States of America is so developed that their banking system is there to do deals. This great company in my State, in Spokane, SCAFCO--two of my colleagues here--the ranking member on the Agriculture Committee, from Michigan, and my colleague from North Dakota, Senator Heitkamp--are very active in agriculture issues and will get it. He is basically making and selling aluminum grain containers, silos, all over the world. That is his business. He has expanded it, built new buildings, and he has an incredible workforce. As the rest of the world--particularly in Africa and South America but even in Asia--starts to grow their agricultural economies, guess what they need. They need agriculture equipment. I am sure the Senator from Michigan understands that because she has some of those manufacturers. So those manufacturers have a huge opportunity to sell U.S.-made agriculture equipment. I like to say: Guess what we are still No. 1 at in the United States of America? Agriculture. We know how to do agriculture. Guess what the next big opportunity is around the globe? Feeding the growing middle class around the globe. It is one of the biggest economic opportunities. But we have to be able to sell them things. We have to be able to sell them Michigan-manufactured products. We have to be able to sell them agriculture products that my colleague from North Dakota makes. SCAFCO needs to be able to sell their grain silos, but they can't because people want to hold up this process, all to put a trophy on someone's desk saying they did the bidding of a very conservative think tank that--the last I know, I don't think they created any of these manufacturing jobs in America. I hope my colleagues will help us continue this debate because I know there are some who will say: Well, we passed this bill, and it is going to get done someday. Someday, really? Because everybody said we will get it on the Transportation bill in April. OK. That didn't happen. They did an extension. It didn't happen. We will get it on the Transportation bill in July. The Bank won't expire. Guess what. It expired. Now they are telling us to wait again, and we do not want to wait on creating more U.S. jobs. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I hope our colleagues realize that the economic activity we could be seeing today could help us in everything we are doing moving forward. While the Senate has passed the Export-Import Bank, it is part of a larger transportation package that this Senator hopes will actually get done. But there are many people who don't want to see the Export-Import Bank reauthorized. In fact, some of our colleagues suggested in the recent budget deal that they put a 1-year provision in for the Export- Import Bank. I don't support a 1-year provision. We support a 5-year reauthorization, and we want to get to that now. We do not want to see more jobs shifted overseas as we continue to have this debate, because that is what is happening. We are giving economic opportunity to other countries to take advantage of our businesses. I hope we will take this up and move it forward so that we can get economic opportunities back in front of the American people at a time when we most critically need to. I yield the floor.

Ms. CANTWELL. Yes. That's the dollar value of deals for U.S. companies being held up that could be moved forward.

Ms. CANTWELL. Yes.

Ms. CANTWELL. Yes.

Ms. CANTWELL. Yes.

Ms. CANTWELL. So I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 282, H.R. 597, the Export-Import Bank Reform and Reauthorization Act, and that the bill be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from North Dakota for her continued leadership on this issue and for pointing out to our colleagues that we really could be just a short step away from reauthorizing a very important business tool for small businesses, manufacturers, and the agriculture industry by making sure that we reauthorize the Export-Import Bank. What my colleague is referring to is that it would take just a short agreement here this morning to go ahead and take the House-passed bill that, as she explained, was passed after colleagues got a discharge petition, but it is the same as the language that we have had over here in the Senate. The process to move forward on this reauthorization would be very simple. I am sure Senator Heitkamp pointed out before I got to the floor that a filibuster-proof majority of our colleagues approve of this legislation. I think 67 of our colleagues approve of this, and now we have this tremendous support--313 votes--from the House of Representatives. As Senator Heitkamp said, we are just a short step away. Why are we so emphatic about that? Why wait? When we look at what has just come out, the financial numbers show a 1.5 percent job growth. I think it is something like that. It shows very anemic numbers for our economy. I don't know about anybody else, but since we are a very cyclical economy in the Northwest, or we have been for various periods of time in our history, my constituents expect me to get up every day and fight for things that will improve the economic opportunity of America, and that is what we are doing here. When we look at 2014, it supported $27.4 billion in U.S. exports and 164,000 jobs. My colleagues know how much the economy outside of the United States is growing. So we want to sell them U.S.-made products. I think it is one of the biggest economic opportunities in front of us. I believe in what we make. I complained because I think exotic financial instruments got us into trouble, and I want to be known for something in the United States of America besides exotic financial instruments. I like that we make airplanes and automobiles. The Senator from Michigan has joined us on the floor. I like that we make great agriculture products from North Dakota that are then exported around the globe. I visited Bob's Red Mill in Oregon. That company makes a great variety of various grain products that are shipped all over the world. They use the Export-Import Bank as a way to gain access because not every bank in Oregon is brave enough to take on a deal in Tanzania or some other country. Why? Because the banking doesn't exist there. So the Oregon bank says: OK, I will bank you. I will get Bob's Red Mill sold in all of those places, but I want some credit insurance. I want to be sure that you have an insurance program in case something goes wrong, and that is where the Export-Import Bank comes in. In 2014, we had $27.4 billion in U.S. exports and 164,000 jobs. Where have we been since 2008? It has helped us with 1.4 million jobs. Our economic information shows that we have had a somewhat anemic quarter in our country. I would say it is interesting that it did coincide with this issue of the Export-Import Bank, and this whole malaise here of not getting work done probably didn't make anybody happy in business, and there is the fact that a lot of doubt and uncertainty plagued us. So if you want to help the economy, let's just agree this morning that the Export-Import Bank is a great tool to help U.S. manufacturers grow their economic opportunities outside of the United States. Let's just agree this morning and get this done, and we will be moving ahead on this important issue. Now, some people are saying: Let's just wait. I am saying: What we are risking by waiting is more job loss, more small businesses at risk, and the U.S. economy at risk. There are more than $9 billion in pending Export-Import Bank deals on the table--$9 billion. That can't get done because the Bank doesn't exist anymore. If you just think about that, those are U.S. companies that have economic activity to do around the globe to help us grow the U.S. economy at a time when we have been anemic. If no one objects to my motion, we would restart that engine today.

Ms. CANTWELL. Yes.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Yes.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I would like to thank my colleagues for coming to the Senate floor this morning to give an important message to our colleagues--that it is now time to take up the Export-Import Bank issue and pass that legislation today. I thank my colleague from North Dakota, who has had this legislation in the Senate and has worked hard on the banking committee to make sure this legislation is moving forward and has been there at every step in the process. Being from a State that knows exports matter, she knows that having a finance regime that allows banks to take advantage of the fact that they need credit insurance has been a good thing for the American economy. It has helped us grow jobs in the United States, as we are selling exports to overseas markets. So she has been a stalwart. My colleague from New Hampshire who just left the floor, Senator Shaheen--I have visited her State and facilities and manufacturers involved in aerospace and other types of manufacturing that are trying to win in the international marketplace with their products by selling them overseas. When we cancel a program that actually helps us pay down the deficit--those individuals who get financing through a bank and a credit agency like the Export-Import Bank actually have to pay a fee. That has actually helped us reduce the deficit. It is money paid every year, and it helps us reduce the deficit. My colleague Senator Shaheen has been a great advocate for reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank. As my colleagues have talked about, the dirty little secret is out in Washington; that is, you cannot pass the Ex-Im Bank reauthorization because there is not enough support in the Congress to do so. Well, the answer is, that was a bunch of hooey promulgated by some very conservative think tanks that wanted to hold conservative Republicans hostage, and then they tried to hold all of us hostage. That is right-- they tried to hold all of us hostage, saying that we cannot pass this. We know the House of Representatives, with 313 votes--a majority of the Republicans in the House--voted for the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank. They now join 67 people here who want to go to and move that legislation in the Senate. So the majority of people in both the House and Senate have supported the reauthorization of the Export- Import Bank and have done so for more than a year, but we let it expire. What happened? We let down the American economy because the end result has been a loss of jobs. I will give one example of 850 jobs that went from U.S. companies over to these countries instead because without the Export-Import Bank, they lost deals that went to other places because other countries also have credit agencies that help small and regional banks finance the sale of U.S.-made products. As they are being sold to say South Africa or an Asian country or someplace else, the companies cannot find the financing--a lot of agricultural products--and so they come to a bank in their community and say: Help finance my sales overseas. In fact, Senator Murray and I met with a great--my colleague from North Dakota will like this--microbrew manufacturer in Ballard, WA, and they said: You know, we are trying to sell into the Scandinavian market. They like our products, but we are not big enough as a distributor to finance the sale of our products into those markets. So we either have to take that on our books ourselves or find a way to take our company and leverage it with some capital to increase our market exports. So what did they do? They tried to minimize that. Otherwise, do you know what that company would have to do? They would have to take all their capital and put it aside to leverage that money to expand the market. Instead, they said: Well, let's go to a bank and get them to loan us the money so we can expand our products into Scandinavia, where people love drinking this Ballard beer. The bank says: Well, we like that idea. We like you. You are doing well. But we are a little afraid of your selling into that distribution market in Scandinavia. We want you to have some credit insurance. That is what the Export-Import Bank does. It says to that banker in Ballard: We will provide you a little credit insurance. Do you have to pay a fee for that? Yes, you have to pay a fee for that. What does that fee do? It helps the Federal Government pay down the deficit. Who wins? We all win because that Ballard company now gets to grow. I would say that over in Scandinavia, they get to drink great beer that is made in Washington State. As one of the largest hops producers in the United States, my colleague from an agricultural State understands this. So everybody wins. Then the Ballard company gets to expand jobs. So that is what this is all about. In this instance, we lost 850 jobs.

Ms. CANTWELL. I thank the Senator from North Dakota for that question because that is the issue. What people don't understand is that there are so many of these deals that--basically there was a U.S. company that wanted to sell its ability to build bridges to an African country. Yet, because the Export-Import Bank expired, that African country ended up basically going with a competitor, an Asian competitor. Same thing here. When we don't finance these deals--I know of a deal that GE lost to Rolls-Royce. Why? Because the credit agency in Europe could finance the deal, so they just bought a different product. The issue is not that somehow the private sector is going to step in here and basically help in a capital market. It is the same way the Small Business Administration works. The Small Business Administration has 7(a) loans to help finance the sales that basically go through Main Street banking, but the Small Business Administration provides a little certainty and predictability to the process so that we are not seeing huge losses. Basically, the Small Business Administration has not seen large defaults, and neither has the Export-Import Bank. So these are tools that basically people try to say to us will be picked up somehow, that the private sector will respond to this. Well, in developing markets around the world, when U.S. manufacturers are trying to compete and build a great product, all you are doing by killing the Export-Import Bank is enabling some other manufacturer in Europe or Asia or South America to compete with our manufacturers on an uneven playing field. You are giving them an advantage our manufacturers don't have. So, literally, people on the other side of the aisle have shipped jobs overseas by saying they don't want to support the Export-Import Bank, and they have held it up for so many months now that we have lost jobs. This is only one example. There have been tens of thousands of jobs lost since the Export Import-Bank failed to get reauthorized. Now the question is, Why are we going to wait 1 more day? Now that the House has passed the bill, with a majority of Republicans supporting it, why would we wait 1 more day to pass a key tool that is instrumental in supporting jobs in the United States of America? I hope my colleagues--I appreciate so much my colleague from North Dakota talking about this because, you know, being--I don't if it is that we are ag States, that we see how much the global economy means to our States, but we know this: that 95 percent of consumers are outside of our borders and that if we want to increase our economic activity in the United States and grow jobs, we better be selling to those 95 percent of consumers outside of the United States. If you want to sell to those 95 percent of consumers outside of the United States, first you have to build a great product or develop a great agricultural product, but then you have to be able to have the competitive tools to reach them from a financing and banking system. So the funny thing is that all of those people on the other side who basically act as though they are against the Export-Import Bank because they think it is some sort of mysterious organization, those are the people who basically wanted to bail out Wall Street. They are the ones who are behind the big banks. They are the ones who are trying to basically disassemble all of the banking reforms we passed to protect the American consumers. So they are not for some sort of great, good government; they basically are just looking for a trophy to put on their mantle to say that, oh, we killed this government program, which, as I have said, is wrong because it actually helps us create jobs in the United States of America, it helps U.S. manufacturers win in the United States of America, it helps us get our products to places they would not already go, and it helps pay down the Federal deficit. So it is a win-win situation for all of us. What we have to do now is to get this reauthorized. We should not wait another minute. The notion that all of my colleagues should take away from this is that a minority of people holding up voting on this has also been wrongheaded. To allow a minority to thwart what is such an essential tool has been a mistake. What we need to do is right that mistake immediately by passing this legislation here in the Senate, get the Bank back operating, let our U.S. manufacturers and agricultural producers win again in the international marketplace, and help our economy grow with these important jobs that are related to exports. I again thank my colleague for being down here on the Senate floor. We are not going to give up. We are going to be down here. That is because, as you know, we are having all of these budget discussions, and people should remember that over the last 20 years, the Export- Import Bank has generated $7 billion to the Treasury--$7 billion over 20 years. So not only does it help us grow jobs, it actually has helped us pay down the deficit. I hear a lot of discussion about budget deals and transportation packages and things of that nature. So, to me, if you want to put more revenue back into our coffers, then support the Export-Import Bank immediately and you will be recognizing immediate revenue for any of these budget discussions that we are having and that we need to move forward on. I am not under the impression that somehow all of the people in the Senate are now going to support this legislation and that it is going to move quickly, because there will still be some on the other side of the aisle who don't support moving forward. But I would say that number--$7 billion over 20 years--I think it is worth a few procedural 60-vote thresholds to get that money and to give Americans the certainty that this particular program will be reinstated and that we will be back to letting hard-working Americans who build a great product get the credit assurances they need to sell their products on a global basis and to win in the international marketplace. That is what America is all about. Don't hold these people down. They are the people who created, with great ingenuity and great sweat, the great products that have made our country great. So let them export their products. Don't make it harder for them just because you want to win a trophy from the Heritage Foundation. Let's get back to making sure we are making this place operate. We know the majority both in the House and Senate supports the Export- Import Bank and the jobs it creates. Let's get this bill reauthorized today.