Thomas Carper

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 30, 2010, at 2:30 p.m. to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Interagency Contracts (Part II): Management and Oversight.''

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee on Aging be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 30, 2010, from 2-5 p.m. in Dirksen 106 for the purpose of conducting a hearing.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 5611, which was received from the House.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CARPER

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration en bloc of the following resolutions which were submitted earlier today: S. Res. 576, S. Res. 577, and S. Res. 578. Without objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the resolutions.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table en bloc, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements relating to the resolutions be printed in the Record.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session and that the previous action tonight with respect to Calendar No. 963 be vitiated and that the Senate then proceed to Calendar No. 964; that the nomination be confirmed; that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate resume legislative session.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of S. Con. Res. 67, which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H. Con. Res. 293, the adjournment resolution, received from the House and at the desk.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn under the provisions of H. Con. Res. 293 until 2 p.m. on Monday, July 12; 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, and that following any leader remarks, there be a period for the transaction of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, when we return on Monday, July 12, Senators should expect a rollcall vote at approximately 5:30 p.m. We hope to reach an agreement to vote on confirmation of a judicial nomination. Senators will be notified when any agreement is reached.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I understand that H.R. 5552 has been received from the House and is at the desk, is that correct?

Mr. CARPER. I ask for its first reading.

Mr. CARPER. I ask for its second reading and object to my own request.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I am pleased to follow my colleague, Senator Feinstein, in tribute to Robert Byrd, whom I always called Leader and who always called me Governor. He was our leader. He was a leader for a long time and will always be that in a very real sense to many of us. I was born in Beckley, WV, just about a dozen miles or so from a community called Sophia, which is where Robert and Erma Byrd once ran a little mom-and-pop supermarket back in the late 1930s, early 1940s. I think he was the butcher. He ran that supermarket and later on, I think, in World War II, he was a welder during the war. As we know, in the late 1940s he had the opportunity to run for the West Virginia Legislature and ran. He was a great fiddler and went around his community, his district, playing the fiddle. He always called himself a hillbilly. Ironically, I was down in the central part of our State just about a month ago and had a chance to attend a picnic for senior citizens, a cookout. A lot of people were there. I was sitting at different tables and walking around. I was sitting at this one table, and I learned this lady sitting to my left was from West Virginia. I said: Where are you from? She said: Sophia. I said: That's right outside of Beckley, where I was born. She said: Yes, I knew Robert and Erma Byrd when they ran that mom- and-pop supermarket. I said: You're kidding. She said: No, I did. I asked her to share some thoughts with me about it, and she did. Two weeks later I was back in the Senate and Senator Byrd was coming in in a wheelchair. In the last part of his life he lost the ability to walk. He never lost his voice, never lost his mind either. But he came in, and I stopped to say hello to him, see how he was doing, and I said: Leader, I just met a woman over in Delaware the other day who knew you from your little supermarket in Sophia, WV. I told him about it, and he smiled. He said: Do you remember her name? Do you remember her name? Ironically, I could not remember it. But if I had, he would have. He was amazing. Some people think the reason he got elected to office so many times, in the legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives and in the Senate, was because he was so good at, frankly, looking out for West Virginia economically, making sure they were not left behind. He was also a pretty good politician. He was good at names. I remember once, when we had a funeral for my mom who died about 4 years ago, and we had a celebration of her life just outside of Beckley. We had it in the home, a very large home of a family who had 19 kids. One of them married my cousin, Dan Patton. Some people have a dining room; they had like a banquet hall for their meals. We were all gathered in this banquet hall, paying tribute to my mom, reflecting on her memory, and I was walking around the house afterwards, and I came across a Congressional Record tribute on the wall of this house. It was a tribute from Robert Byrd honoring this family. I was just blown away. I couldn't wait to get back to the Senate the next week and say to Senator Byrd: You will never guess whose house I was in. I told him the name of the house, the family, and he said: I remember that guy. He is a barber. They have 19 kids. This guy was just amazing. I used to call him on his birthday. I used to call him not just on his birthday but when he and Erma had an anniversary. I would call him on Christmas and other special occasions just to see how he was doing and let him know I was thinking about him. I think it was his 90th birthday, and I called him and I said: Leader, I think it is your birthday today. He said: Yes, it is. I said: How old are you, anyway? I knew. He said: Well, I'm 90. I said: I just hope when I am 90 I can just sit up and take nourishment. Mr. President, he said: I hope you can, too. He was amazing. He and Joe Biden share the same birthday. Sometimes I would call Senator Byrd on his birthday and say: Leader? He said: Governor, is that you? I said: That's me. I always get this confused, who is older, you or Biden? He said: I still got him by a couple of years, but he is catching up on me. I guess now he will really have a chance to catch up. I came here as a freshman Senator. I had been in the House, and a Governor before. I came in as a freshman in 2001. I was about the age of the pages down here. I remember Senator Byrd really took a bunch of us under his wing. He became sort of my mentor. I think the fact we had this West Virginia connection made it even more special for me, and I think maybe for him. He taught us how to preside. He explained to us the rules of the Senate. He knew the rules better than anybody else and he was able to work the rules, use the rules to get things done--or not, to keep things from getting done. Boy, he was good. He taught us how to behave in the Senate, and he did that--not just for us but for people who had been here for 20, 30, 40 years. If they were acting up, making too much noise on the Senate floor, he would stop them dead in their tracks. He once said to me the most important role for the Presiding Officer, Mr. President--he said the most important role of the Presiding Officer is to keep order. That is what he said. He said: If you can keep order, the rest is pretty easy. I always remembered that. He presented to me my Golden Gavel. The Presiding Officer has a Golden Gavel. You get it after presiding so many hours in the Senate. But I was very honored to receive mine from Senator Byrd. When I got here in 2001 I think he was 83, an age when most people are ready to sit back and take it easy. He was just picking up speed. As Senator Feinstein said, he could take to the Senate floor without a note, give a speech on just about any subject, throw in all kinds of anecdotes with respect to ancient Rome and Greek mythology, recite poems and stuff. I once said to him: How do you remember all those poems? He would say: I just make them up. He was just kidding. He actually was able to remember them. I sometimes have a hard time remembering where I am supposed be for my next meeting. He was from West Virginia, the southern part of West Virginia. As others have said, his views on race as a younger man and as a new person in the Senate were not the same views that he left with. He matured, grew up. He once said to me: The worst vote I ever cast, I actually voted against and spoke against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I think he sort of went to his grave regretting that. But I think he went to his grave having atoned, if you will, for that sin. He changed his views with respect to race. In part it was a matter of conscience-- he was a person of deep faith--but I think also probably he changed, in part, because of the prodding and cajoling of, among others, one of his best friends, Senator Ted Kennedy. As I said earlier, I loved to call him on special days. I would almost always call him when I was back in West Virginia, call him on my cell phone, call him at his home in McLean. It wasn't his birthday or anything and I would call him. I would say: Leader? He would say: Is that you, Governor? I would say: Yes, I am driving down to West Virginia on the Virginia Turnpike heading toward Beckley. He would say: No kidding. I said: I am trying to remember which exit to get off of. The first one is Harper Road, then there is another one. The third one, I can't remember that. What is that? He would say: That's my road, the Robert C. Byrd Drive exit. I would always have a good time with him for that. Others have spoken about all the leadership roles he played here, all the votes he cast, all that he did. He did so much for West Virginia. I love to go back to West Virginia. I think the friendliest people I have ever met in my life are from West Virginia. It is kind of a hardscrabble place. They have come a long ways, in no small part because of his enormous help. He has been accused of trying to hijack Washington and move it to West Virginia and bring in all kinds of Federal agencies and jobs. He was really trying to make sure West Virginia did not get left out, and I think thanks to his intervention, they did not. He made life a lot better for the folks who live in West Virginia today, and who lived there for the last 58 years. He also made life better for a generation of Americans, maybe a couple of generations of Americans, in looking back, and maybe even looking forward as well. He is going to make their life better, looking forward, for the people in this country who need health care, the people in this country who need a decent place to live, a chance to buy a home, a chance to get an education, the opportunity to improve their station in life. More than anybody I know, for a guy who was born, orphaned in North Carolina as an infant, who was traded off by his mom in her last will and testament--she wanted him to be raised by her sister who lived in West Virginia, and her sister took this young man in. His name was not Robert Byrd. But she took in her nephew. She and her husband raised Robert Byrd in tough situations, hardscrabble situations, and he sort of raised himself by the bootstraps and worked hard all of his life to make something of his life and to serve as a model for us in the end, and a model for our country. I yield the floor.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session and the Foreign Relations Committee be discharged en bloc of Foreign Service nominations beginning with Robin J. Brinkley Hadden and ending with Heather Louise Yorkson, which were received by the Senate and appeared in the Congressional Record on February 24, 2010, PN1482, except for Hussein Waheed Iman; that the Senate proceed en bloc to their consideration; that the nominations be confirmed en bloc and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table en bloc; that any statements be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate resume legislative session.

Mr. CARPER

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

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. I wish to begin by saying some nice words about the Senator from Alaska. When she ran for the Senate the first time, she ran against one of my dearest friends, former Governor Tony Knowles, whom I tried very hard to elect to the Senate. When he lost, I said: You are here. I want to work with you. I want to be your partner on a whole lot of things. This is one we cannot be partners and colleagues on. I want her to know, though, there will be other opportunities, and I look forward to those opportunities. Today I am compelled to oppose what she is attempting to do. As my colleagues are aware, I go back and forth on the train every day and night. Usually before I catch the 7:15 train in Wilmington, I go to the YMCA and work out. Sometimes people talk to me and say: Hi, how are you? Sometimes they try to raise issues. This week a fellow came up to me and said: What is this all about? ``This'' being today's debate on the proposal of the Senator from Alaska. I didn't have time to explore it in detail in order to make my train, but I want to answer his question today. This is about are we going to be guided by decades of science from thousands of respected scientists or not. This is about are we going to seize the opportunity that is inherent in the adversity we face at home and around the world or not. This is about are we going to get serious about ending our addiction to oil, a lot of which in our country is in places like the Gulf of Mexico, some thousands of feet below the surface of the water or not. This is about are we going to stop sending literally maybe hundreds of billions of dollars every year to places around the world that are unstable, nondemocratic, propping up tyrants who lead countries such as Iran and Venezuela or not. This is about are we going to continue sending troops to places such as Iraq or other places where they happen to have a lot of oil and we want to make sure there is access to the oil or not. This is about whether we are going to jump-start our economy at a time in our history when millions of young people are graduating from colleges, universities, and high schools wondering if they will have the kind of opportunity to find a job and provide for themselves and their families some day, to provide a good life, better than the one they have inherited from their parents. That is what this is about. We have heard--and I know my colleagues have heard--from thousands of scientists from all over the country who give us their advice. What are they telling us? Among the things they are telling us is that the Earth is growing warmer. They are telling us that we are part of the cause. They are telling us to do something about it. They are saying to us if we won't do something about it, at least let EPA do the job they have been told by the Supreme Court they have to do under the Clean Air Act. Among the things they have had to do under the Clean Air Act is to provide for ratcheting up the fuel efficiency of cars, trucks, and vans up to about 34 miles per gallon by 2016. The effect of doing that will take something like 50 million cars, trucks, and vans off the road by 2030. That is the kind of thing EPA needs to do, if we will let them. Who are the scientists we are hearing from? I don't know them all. We have heard from a couple thousand. I know a couple of them well. Their names are Lonnie and Ellen Thompson, professors at Ohio State University, my undergraduate alma mater. They spent a lot of the last 20, 25 years running the polar research center at Ohio State. They have also spent a lot of the last 25 years going around the world climbing up some of the tallest mountains, a lot of them along the equator, where the snow caps give them the opportunity to take ice core samples. Those snow caps over time have actually begun to largely disappear. The ice core samples they still have frozen on the campus at Ohio State give us an opportunity to go back in time and, as we go back in time, to look back as much as a million years. What do we see then? We see over that million years different levels of carbon in the air. Sometimes it is high, sometimes it is low. They have correlated--the Drs. Thompson; I call them the Thompson twins--the increases in carbon with increases in temperature over time and the decreases in carbon with the decreases in temperature. They are correlated. They are positively correlated. Drs. Thompson say we ought to do something about it. We ought to act on that science. I believe they are absolutely right. We have also heard from scientists that the 10 hottest years in all the years we have been around as a country keeping records are the last 20 years. In an effort to compel the government to take action, all kinds of campaigns have been launched. I heard one from Senator Feinstein talking about drought, fertile farmland turning into desert. Polar bears don't have ice to float on. We see endangered species disappear. Movies are made about extreme weather that is going to flow out of climate change. I am going to leave it to others to pursue those particular agendas or examples. I want to focus on a couple I am more familiar with. One is Delaware, where I live. The other is Florida, where my parents lived for the last 30 years of their lives. This is Delaware, outlined here in black. If the melting that is going on in Greenland and the west Antarctic ice sheets continues, if it continues over the next 100 years or more, this will no longer be Delaware. The green area right here will be Delaware. People won't go to Rehoboth Beach anymore or Bethany or Dewey Beach. They will be looking for a beach up here in Dover. They won't be going go to NASCAR races in Dover. They will be going to a sailboat regatta in Dover. Ocean View, which doesn't have an ocean view, will be under the ocean. Let's take a look at Florida with about a 1-meter rise in sea level. My parents lived in Clearwater just around here in St. Petersburg and Tampa. The place where they used to live will be largely under water. They lived about a half mile from the gulf. It will be pretty much under water. Look at south Florida, go to South Beach. When we have 1 meter of sea rise, we won't find it. It will be under water. What happens with 6 meters of sea rise? The red part is the parts of Florida that are basically under water. Most of the people who live in Florida live in the parts in red. Where are they going to live? I guess they can come inland a little bit, but they won't be living in the area that turns red because they would otherwise be under water. There is a saying that all politics is local. That has been true for a long time, and it is still true. The highest point of land in Delaware is a bridge. When we get a couple feet of sea level rise, the outline of our State changes dramatically. The quality of life in a State that is under water changes dramatically as well. The same is true of Florida and a bunch of other coastal States. What do we need to do? We need to unleash market forces, put millions of people to work building new nuclear powerplants, finding ways to take carbon dioxide coming out of coal-fired plants, turning it into a concrete aggregate to build roads, bridges, finding ways to take the CO2 coming off coal-fired plants and turning it into biofuels. We need to deploy off of our shores windmill farms. We need to deploy windmill farms from North Carolina all the way up to Maine. We need to take that electricity we are generating from the wind and use that to power vehicles such as the Chevrolet Volt that will be launched this fall or the Fisker Karma cars of Project Nina that are going to be launched in a year or so, built in Delaware. They get 100 miles per gallon. We need to make sure that the cars, trucks, and vans that GM and Chrysler are prepared to build, 44 miles per gallon, that when they build them, somebody will be there to buy them. Let me conclude with the words of a friend of Senator Boxer, an eminent climatologist named Stephen Stills. He wrote a great song that says: ``Something's happening here; what it is ain't exactly clear.'' It is clear to me. Our planet is getting warmer. It is clear to me the great challenges that poses for all of us. But inherent in those challenges are great opportunities. The thing we have to do is seize those opportunities, to seize the day. I yield the floor.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, while Medicare Part D has been a very popular program and has improved access to tens of millions of patients, the donut hole has been a continuing source of frustration for many beneficiaries. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act begins to fill in the ``donut hole'' with a 50 percent discount program that will begin in 2011. The purpose of the coverage gap discount was to provide relief for those beneficiaries who struggle with paying for medications in the coverage gap and, as a result, stop taking medicines as prescribed or cut back on their monthly medication use. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently released guidance to Part D plans regarding the administration of the Part D coverage gap discount. In that guidance, CMS responded to comments that sought clarification on the relationship between the 50 percent discount program and existing Part D rebate contracts. Although the CMS guidance clarified that manufacturers would continue to negotiate with Part D plans to provide rebates, I feel the need to further clarify this issue. Any interference by CMS with price negotiations between manufacturers and Part D plans would be counter to the explicit intent of Congress through the government noninterference clause. With the passage of PPACA, and specifically the Part D Coverage Gap Discount Program, the government non-interference clause continues to be the existing law; therefore, CMS does not have the authority to require manufacturers to provide rebates at any particular level.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 4071.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, let me try to be clear on one point, as we come to the close of this discussion. For States or their national banks, under what is proposed and what would occur under our amendment, if a State AG wants to try to enforce a State law on a national bank, the bank can go in and say to the courts, they can go in and say to the regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, that State law is preempted. That cannot be enforced against a national bank. The question here--and this is a point where I gave on and our side gave on in negotiations--how about if the State AG or State officials want to come in and enforce the rules that have been developed by the new consumer bureau? Under the compromise we have reached, while they cannot come in and enforce their own State laws, or, really, come in and enforce the Federal law we are debating today, the State AG can come in and enforce the rules, which have been worked out over a period of months--draft regulations, proposed regulations, common periods, revised regulations with guidance, and finally adopted regulations with guidance. In those instances, when the regulations are adopted in their final form--gone through that whole process--then the AGs can come in and not selectively enforce them, but they have the right to enforce those, along with--for big banks, big national banks--the bureau, and if they are not so big national banks, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. That is where I think we have ended up here. I do not think it is a bad compromise. As our colleague from Tennessee and certainly the Presiding Officer and our two floor managers, Senator Dodd and Senator Shelby, know, we have been sent to govern, and sometimes I cannot get what I want. But what we try to do is to be willing to give, and in an orderly fashion we have a final compromise that I think meets muster. Let me say, as a former Governor--I think there are five former Governors on our original amendment--I do not think anyone can accuse me or any of the other former Governors of not being for States rights. But sometimes we need a strong Federal regulator with strong enforcement authority, particularly when we are dealing with issues of interstate commerce and our national banking system, which we seek to preserve. In closing, I wish to assure my colleagues that I believe the amendment I offer with a number of my colleagues preserves the ability of States' attorneys general to provide a backstop to the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. While the new bureau will be the main enforcer of its new rules, we have preserved the role for the State AGs to ensure that the consumers are not put at risk because Federal regulators are asleep at the switch. Again, I wish to thank Senator Corker for all his work on not just this issue but on others to try to get us to a better place. With that, I believe our time is just about expired.