Thomas Coburn

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I understand my first amendment is up and pending; is that correct?

Mr. COBURN. I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I will discuss amendment No. 220 now. Is the chairman's intention that I defer calling up that amendment right now?

Mr. COBURN. Amendment No. 220 is about making sure we don't send good money after bad. When you go to the pump today to buy gasoline that is blended with ethanol, you pay, as a taxpayer, $1.78. As a taxpayer, you pay that before you ever pay the $3.51 we are paying per gallon, through incentives, tax credits, and rebates for ethanol and blending. This doesn't take away incentives on corn-based ethanol. It says that because we already have a mandate that says 15 billion gallons of ethanol must be available and put through the system this year, no longer is there a necessity to have a blender's credit to the tune of $6 billion a year. So what this does is two things: One, it takes away an incentive that is no longer needed because we have already mandated the ethanol will be there. But it saves us $6 billion that we are paying to firms that are going to do the business whether we pay it or not. So it is silly to continue to spend $6 billion of American taxpayer money of which almost $3 billion of it will be borrowed money from either the Federal Reserve or from the Chinese to incentivize something that is already mandated to happen. If we look at ethanol, it is two-thirds as efficient when blended as gasoline. It gets poorer mileage, and there is no savings in terms of carbon output or pollution. So we are incentivizing the use of a fuel that goes against what most people would like to do environmentally. It causes us to markedly increase the cost of food, which we are seeing in our country and around the world today, and we are incentivizing something that is going to happen anyway. So it is a straightforward amendment. It says on the blender's tax credit we are no longer going to give a credit for something on which we already have a market--we are going to do without it. Some will say that is a tax increase. But when we send $6 billion to a small segment of American industry, and it is not going to impact their sales at all, what is the purpose for having tax credits? If we use tax credits or expenditures to expand the economy and it is not doing that, why would we continue to do it? As part of the President's deficit commission, we looked at that and said it is a no-brainer. There is no reason we would incent something that is already mandated by law and has to happen. I know it is a controversial subject for a lot of my colleagues from farm States. But the fact is, worldwide sophistication and food preference has markedly increased. This is creating an enormous pressure in taking food stocks out of the human food chain and putting it into the energy chain. So we are not stopping that. There are still all the other credits available, incentives and mandates. But we are saying we should not spend $6 billion of American taxpayer money that we don't have--by the way, we do not have it--for something they are going to do anyway. The other point I make is that we are now a net exporter of ethanol. A lot of people don't recognize that. Through November 2010, we exported 397 million gallons of ethanol. That is almost 1 billion gallons since 2005. Not counting the blender's credit but all the other credits, we are supporting that to the tune of $1.20 a gallon. Now we are subsidizing the consumption of ethanol in Europe to the tune of $1.20 a gallon. That makes no sense when, in fact, we have significant energy needs ourselves. My hope is that we will consider this amendment and that we will vote on it. I recognize it is going to be a close vote. My count is at 55, and I know we have to get 60. I want the other 45 Members of our body to go and explain to their constituents why we are sending $6 billion to something that is going to happen anyway. It is a gift. That is all it is. We don't have $6 billion to spend that way. The other point I will make is that with the trouble we are in, we are not going to get out of it by cutting $200 billion at a time. We are going to get out of it $6 billion at a time. Senator Begich and I found $1 billion in the FAA bill from earmarks that are tied up. So if we do it $1 billion, $2 billion, $3 billion, $4 billion, $5 billion, or $6 billion at a time, pretty soon it will add up and we will take pressure off our country in terms of funding our debt. The ultimate course has to be to convince the world that we get it, that we can't continue to borrow 40 percent of our expenditures in the world financial market and expect them to continue to loan us money. It is very straightforward. My corn farmers in Oklahoma don't like it, and I understand that. It is about doing the right thing for our country. Now is the time to do it. I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about where we find ourselves. Nobody has spent more time in the last 6\1/2\ years on this floor talking about the problem in front of us. Hopefully I can do that in a way that would never impugn the motives of my fellow Senators. I enjoyed the speech of the Senator from Nebraska, because one of the things he stated is we have to come together. You are not going to get coming together when we have the speech we just heard, when you have a speech that impugns the motives of the people in the other body trying to solve some of our problems. The first point I wish to make is we are at a place where we are going to vote on two bills with no amendments. Since when did the Senate give up its ability to try to amend bills going forward? The reason we are not is because, had we not agreed to it, the tree would have been filled and we would have either voted for cloture or not to have cloture, but the fact is in this body we ought to be about amending what we do not like in the bills. If the Senator from Oregon does not like what is in the bills, he ought to have a chance to try to change it. Yet we find ourselves with a very short period of time to debate what is the No. 1 risk for us as a nation today. I have read all the economic studies that have been put out on H.R. 1. I have also read what the economists on the other side say in terms of the false assumptions that have been made in it. I don't know which ones are right, but the fact is we are not going to have an actual debate on advancing amendments. Let me describe where we are today, so everybody knows. We are adding $4.507 billion to the deficit every day. We are borrowing in the international market $3 billion a day. By the time I finish this talk, we will have added $98 million to the deficit. Adding something to the deficit, what does that mean? That is the same thing as saying we are taking the opportunity away from the children and the generation that follows us by putting them in debtors prison. That is exactly what we have done. I don't care where the blame lies. What we have to start doing is not spending money we do not have. We cannot continue to spend money we do not have. It is very interesting that a week ago this morning, this past Monday, the GAO issued a report. It covers one-third of the Federal Government and lists the duplications they found. We asked them to do that with the last debt limit extension in the Federal Government. According to my calculations, there is at least $100 billion that is not touched by either of these bills that could be eliminated tomorrow and saved against our children's future. We do not have an opportunity to offer amendments to do that on this bill. Here is real data compiled by the Government Accountability Office where multitudes of Members from this body have called me and said how do we help you do that? The first way you help me do that is make sure we have an open process on the floor where we can offer an amendment to do it. Let me highlight for a minute some of the things that were in this wonderful report put forward by the GAO. We have 47 job training programs across 9 different agencies that we are spending $18 billion a year on. Not one of them has a metric on whether it is successful or actually is accomplishing what it is supposed to do. Why do we need so many different job training programs? Why do we need any job training program if we cannot show it is working? Why are we spending money on a job training program that is not working? We have five departments, eight agencies, two dozen Presidential appointees who oversee our work on bioterrorism. We don't have one agency responsible for it, one group of people. We are spending $6.5 billion a year on bioterrorism and the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. We have 20 agencies and 56 programs dedicated to teaching America financial literacy. We have no moral authority to teach anybody financial literacy when we have a deficit that is going to be $1.65 trillion this year and we are $14.2 trillion in debt. We have 80 economic development programs across 4 different agencies where we spend $6.5 billion a year. We don't know if they are working. Maybe they are but we ought to know it before we spend money we don't have on things when we do not know if they are working. We have 15 different agencies covering 30 food safety laws--15 different agencies. We have 18 nutrition programs, separate nutrition programs. We spend $62.5 billion a year, $30 billion of it is borrowed, and we do not know the results. Why shouldn't we have one? And why shouldn't we put a metric on it to know whether it is working? We have 20 homeless programs. We heard mentioned the homeless programs. We are going to spend $2.9 billion at seven different agencies, and if you add up the money over the last 10 years that we spent on homeless programs we can buy every homeless person in this country a $200,000 home. Yet we continue to spend money. We don't know if the programs are working. They certainly would be better off if they had $200,000 for their care for the future rather than continue the programs we have no metrics on. We have 82 teacher training quality programs--82 of them. They are across 10 different Federal Government agencies and we spend $4 billion a year on them and we have no idea whether they are successful. As a matter of fact, we do know if they are successful--we are not successful in our country today. Are we getting value for what we are spending? Remember, 40 cents of every dollar we spend on these programs we are borrowing from the Chinese. We have 52 programs for entrepreneurial efforts. Since when is that a role of the Federal Government? We have 35 programs to oversee infrastructure; 27 different programs for commercial buildings; 28 programs to oversee new markets outside of this country--28 programs; 20 programs for business incubators, and 17 different grant programs for disaster preparedness. We have 17 different grant programs for disaster preparedness; 34 areas where Federal agencies, offices, or programs have redundant objectives or are fragmented across several departments; 2,100 data centers for 24 agencies. Consolidating them could save $200 billion over a decade. We cannot even offer that amendment on this debate. That is $20 billion a year. That is a third of what the House wants to save. We have the ability--there is the waste, there is the incompetency in what Congress has done through its duplication of efforts and its lack of oversight--to solve a great portion of our fiscal problems. We can do it. But we cannot do it when the process does not allow for debate and votes on those specific issues. I want to talk for a minute about what is ahead of us as a nation because I think it is important. I am very sorry my friend, President Obama, has not led on this issue. Let me tell you what is in front of us. What is in front of us is rising interest rates. What is in front of us is rising competition for capital to fund our deficits. The historic rate for us on our debt as a nation over the last 35 years has been greater than 6 percent. Last year we paid less than 2 percent for what we have on the books, less than 2 percent average. Our historical timeframe on when that money is due is usually about 10-plus years. We are now financing that at 59 months. What is going to happen in the world next year? Well, the difference in terms of sovereign financing--that is, other countries that also need to borrow money, including us--and what is available to finance that next year is $7 trillion. In other words, there is a $7 trillion shortfall in terms of what is going to be available to finance. If we are going to borrow $7 trillion in the world more than what is available, what do we think is going to happen to interest rates? What is going to happen? Well, they are going to rise. So we are going to be faced with one of the following two dilemmas unless Congress gets its act together. Here are the two dilemmas: The first is, our average interest cost goes back to its historical cost. If that happens, immediately we are going to see $640 billion more a year in interest costs--$640 billion. We only have less than $200 billion this year. We are going to see a $640 billion increase. That does not help any person who has a need. All that does is that is paid out to our debtors. That is a very real risk for us right now. That goes to say that we do not have a lot of time because what we know is interest rates are going to rise. So it is mandatory that Congress do what the American people have known for a while we need to do; that is, live within our means. Now, let me describe the second problem or second solution; that is, what the Federal Reserve will do. The Federal Reserve will just print more money. Well, if we print more money and we do not have any base for doing that, that creates what is called inflation. It is called debasing our currency. What happens in America if we decide that the way we are going to get out of our problem is to debase our currency and print more money, like the Fed is doing right now, what is called quantitative easing 2? They are printing $600 billion worth of money between now and June. Well, what happens is the value of everything we own in real terms declines, in nominal dollars goes up, but the purchasing power of the average middle-class family in this country declines tragically, and the safety net this country has been known for, for those who are far less fortunate than the average American, will be absolutely unaffordable, totally unaffordable. So we are talking about the destruction of the best of America, our middle class. We are talking about taking opportunities away. So what is the answer? The answer is not to have more partisan statements by Senator Merkley impugning the motives of people who are trying to do what is right even though it is different from his opinion. The answer is for Congress to get together and recognize the threat to our future and give up long-held positions to solve the greater good. That means we have to move. That means we have to recognize that we cannot have it all our way. How do we actually do that? Well, the one failure of Congress, in my time in Congress, both in the House in the mid-1990s and now in the Senate since 2004, is we do not do oversight. How did we end up with this report that shows $100 billion in duplications? The only way it could happen is we were not watching. We were not doing the oversight. So one of the things that needs to happen is the chairman of every committee ought to spend 90 percent of their time in oversight on things we are already doing rather than working on creating new bills and new programs. Second, what ought to happen is we ought to have a vigorous debate with amendments on the floor of the Senate to solve some of the very real problems. It is not all that hard to solve these problems. But what happens is in partisan bodies, people talk past one another. Nobody would decline the fact that we ought to get rid of unused property. We can save $8 billion a year if we get rid of unused Federal property. Does anybody disagree with that? But we have not done it. There is $8 billion. We are going to get out of this $1.6 trillion hole a couple billion dollars at a time. We ought to do that. We ought to get rid of the wasteful printing at the Government Printing Office, save several hundred million dollars over the next 10 years. We ought to quit paying bonuses to contractors who do not do their job--and we have documented that multiple agencies are doing that-- performance bonuses when they do not meet the performance requirements. We ought to collect the unpaid taxes from Federal employees; it is $3 billion. Those are the settled claims; these are not the unsettled claims. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cardin.) The Chair notifies the Senator he has 10 minutes remaining.

Mr. COBURN. I thank the Chair. Here is a list of ideas that comes to $380 billion, of things that we would, as normal Americans sitting at our family table, say: You are in trouble. Forty percent of your budget you are spending you do not have the money for. Your credit cards are maxed out. You cannot do it. What can we spend? Here it is. There were 72 amendments last year. Two of them passed the Senate. I heard the Senator from Nebraska talking about some pain that might occur in his district. I want to tell you, there has to be shared pain all across the country if we are going to get out of the problem we are in. We can no longer kick the can down the road without spilling the soup all over our kids. The time for action is now. The time for leadership is now. If we look at history, what we find is the average age of a republic is 207 years. All republics before us have failed. How have they failed? What is it that caused them to lose their economy and their freedom? Was it an invading army? Was it some natural disaster? None of those things. If we go back in history, every one that has failed has failed over fiscal issues, the very issues that confront us today. I think it is time America cheats history. I think it is time we come together and solve these big problems. It is going to be painful for everyone. It means some Senators are going to lose their seats if they do the best, right thing for America. There cannot be a greater calling than that, to do the best, right thing for our country. It means following a pattern of leadership that says personal sacrifice by me in a leadership position has to come first, demonstrating my ability to understand the problem. So we are going to have a limited debate on two bills, both imperfect. But certainly one of them goes more toward the problem that we have than the other. We are going to spend $3.8 trillion this year through September 30. The deficit is going to be $1.6 trillion. The savings from the House cut is this little, bitty green line down here. It is only $57 billion. The savings from Inouye is $4.7. You cannot even see a line. It does not begin to address the duplication, the waste, the fraud and abuse, the incompetence of what we have created in the Federal Government. It will not solve our problems. It will be a nice starting point for partisan debate, but it takes us away from what we need to do. Here is the cut. Here is the deficit. This is a pie chart. It is showing--it is nothing--$57 billion is nothing. What we have to do to be able to compete in a world financial market is send a signal that we get what the problem is, that we are willing to make the difficult and tough sacrifices and choices to become viable and reliable and have people loan us money in the future. We have to extend the term and period of our debt where we buy the time to make these things possible so the least amount of pain--although very real--comes about. For goodness' sake, we have to stop spending money we do not have on things we do not absolutely need. I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from Louisiana.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, will you kindly advise me when I have 10 minutes left, please.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. I wish to express my opposition to Reid amendment No. 143, as modified. I do not believe public institutions of higher education, or any entity, should be carved out of the definition of micro entity in the underlying legislation. Had a rollcall vote occurred, I would have voted no.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I want to thank all of the cosponsors who joined in support of my amendment, particularly Senators Boxer and Grassley, who recognized the importance of this amendment for the proper functioning of the PTO and for the underlying legislation. Furthermore, I want to thank Chairman Leahy and Ranking Member Grassley for including my amendment in the managers' amendment to the patent reform legislation. Our Founding Fathers recognized the value that intellectual property provides to this country and sought to protect innovation as they did physical property. Article I, section 8 of our Constitution states ``The Congress shall have power . . . to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.'' It is necessary for the Federal Government to protect and enforce intellectual property rights domestically and internationally. Intellectual property is important to our country, businesses and individual rights holders, and I believe a strong patent system is one crucial element in maintaining our country's leadership in innovation, invention and investments. While I do believe it is the goal of this patent reform legislation to strengthen and improve our patent system, I do not believe that such goals are possible without reform to the financial crisis facing the patent office. My amendment would provide an immediate solution to this crisis. The amendment creates a lockbox--a new revolving fund at the Treasury-- where user fees that are paid to the PTO for a patent or a trademark go directly into the revolving fund for PTO to use to cover its operating expenses. Congress would not have the ability to take those fees and divert them to other general revenue purposes. I do not think everyone in this body understands what it means for the PTO to be a wholly fee-supported agency. PTO does not receive any taxpayer funds. PTO receives fees through the payment of patent and trademark user fees--fees paid by small inventors, companies and universities to protect their ideas and technology. While those that pay these fees expect efficiency and quality from the PTO, they do not receive it. Because of the current PTO funding structure--where PTO user fees are deposited into the Treasury, but PTO is then required to ask for annual appropriations--Congress, who only has authority over taxpayer funds, maintains control over the user-funded PTO. When PTO's fee income is greater than what Congress provides via appropriations, we spend the ``excess'' on other general revenue purposes. As a result, those that pay to use the patent system are not receiving the quality service they deserve. It is more than mere coincidence that the two major problems at the PTO, (1) the growing number of unexamined patent applications or ``backlog,'' and (2) the increased time it takes to have a patent application examined or ``pendency,'' are the result of a ``lack of connection between the monies flowing into the agency and those available for expenditure.'' In fact, the latest data from the PTO shows that the patent processing backlog is almost 26 months. That is, it takes 26 months for the patent examiner to even pick up the application to take his ``first action.'' Total overall pendency--from filing to final action--is approximately 35 months. The PTO also states the total number of patent applications pending is over 1.16 million, with over 718,000 of those waiting for a patent examiner to take his first action. One of the primary reasons for these incredibly long waiting periods is a lack of resources at the PTO. By providing a permanent end to fee diversion, Congress has the ability to contribute greatly to the enhanced efficiency of this agency. This is not the first time Congress has been confronted with its diversion of PTO user fees. Since the early 1980s, Congress has addressed issues related to this issue. Beginning in the late 1990s, our own congressional reports have documented the problems with fee diversion from the PTO, and the domino effect it has on PTO's efficient operation. In 1997, the House Report on the Patent and Trademark Office Modernization Act stated: ``Unfortunately, experience has shown us that user fees paid into the surcharge account have become a target of opportunity to fund other, unrelated, taxpayer-funded government programs. The temptation to use the surcharge, and thus a significant portion of the operating budget of the PTO, has proven increasingly irresistible, to the detriment and sound functioning of our nation's patent and trademark systems . . . this, of course, has had a debilitating impact on the [PTO].'' It is disturbing to me, and should be to all Members, that many of the same practices that this 1997 report notes as those that suffer from lack of consistent PTO funding still occur today--14 years later. Yet Congress continued to grapple with PTO's funding problem into the early 2000s. In 2003, the House noted in its report on the Patent and Trademark Fee Modernization Act that ``by denying PTO the ability to spend fee revenue in the same fiscal year in which it collects the revenue, an equivalent amount may be appropriated to some other program without exceeding their budget caps. Although the money is technically available to PTO the following year, it has already been spent.'' In 2007, I offered a different version of my current amendment to patent reform legislation considered by the Judiciary Committee. My amendment passed without opposition. Last year, I offered this amendment in the Judiciary Committee, and it was tabled by a vote of 10-9. Yet, in 2008, this body adopted by unanimous consent an amendment by Senator Hatch to the fiscal year 2009 budget resolution that condemns the diversion of funds from the PTO. Clearly, for more than a decade, both Houses of Congress have recognized that many of the efficiency and operational problems at the PTO could be remedied by giving the PTO authority over its own fee collections. However, we have yet to take the responsibility to relinquish the control over these user fees that we think we deserve. In fact, in the current arrangement, Congress cannot resist the temptation to take what is not ours and divert it to nonpatent related functions. This is especially tempting during bad economic times, which we have recently been experiencing. Such an arrangement flies in the face of logic, commonsense budgeting and overwhelming support from the entire patent industry for providing the PTO with a consistent source of funding. Ending fee diversion is one of the only areas of 100 percent agreement within an industry that has often been divided on other issues in this bill. My amendment is supported by: PTO; Intellectual Property Owners Association, IPO; American Intellectual Property Law Association, AIPLA; International Trademark Association, INTA; The 21st Century Coalition; Coalition for Patent Fairness, CPF; Innovation Alliance; American Bar Association, ABA; U.S. Chamber of Commerce; Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, WARF; BIO; Intellectual Ventures; National Treasury Employees Union, NTEU; Intel; and IBM. The PTO cannot effectively manage the changes made in this legislation without permanent access to its user fees. I agree that there are aspects of the patent system that need to be updated and modernized to better serve those that use the PTO, and this bill makes reforms to the current patent system. In fact, one of those changes involves giving the PTO fee setting authority. Section 9 of the bill states that the PTO shall have authority to set or adjust any fee established or charged by the office provided that the fee amounts are set to recover the estimated cost to the PTO for its activities. This is a great provision to put in the bill, but it is only one side of the funding story. In fact, providing the PTO with fee setting authority alone is at odds with the way Congress currently funds the PTO. If I were the PTO director, why would I take advantage of this provision by increasing fees to a point where I think they would cover my operational costs, when I know that Congress has the ability to take whatever it wants of those increased fees and spend it on something other than what I budgeted those fees to cover? In fact, PTO Director Kappos has specifically commented on fee diversion at the PTO. During his confirmation hearing in 2009, Director Kappos stated in his testimony that the PTO faces many challenges and one of the most immediate is ``the need for a stable and sustainable funding model.'' In his private meeting with me prior to his hearing, he discussed his experience as a high-level manager, officer and counsel at IBM. He acknowledged that, despite the vast knowledge and experience that he can bring to the PTO, he could not run PTO efficiently without access to sustainable funding. In March 2010, Director Kappos appeared before the House CJS Appropriations Subcommittee and stated the PTO was likely to collect at least $146 million more than its 2010 appropriation. He was right, and in July 2010, the PTO had to ask for more funds from Congress in separate legislation, but it was only given $129 million. As a result, PTO ended up collecting at least $53 million above that amount, which it could not access. In April 2010, Director Kappos made similar comments at a meeting in Reno, NV. When discussing the pending Senate legislation, Director Kappos stated, ``I am going to make USPTO much better whether we get new legislation or not . . . There is more than one way to solve our problems. Lack of funding is a real issue . . . It's very hard to cut down on a huge backlog with a lack of funding . . . Lack of funding hits you at every corner at the USPTO. Just do the math . . . We'll all be dead and gone by the time we get rid of the backlog of appeals at the current rate. It is so overwhelming and it all comes down to the resources you need. It comes down to money.'' In January 2011, Director Kappos appeared at a House Judiciary Committee PTO Oversight hearing. He stated, ``uncertainty about funding constrained our ability to hire or allow examiners to work overtime on pending applications during the last year.'' It baffles me that these comments have not been heeded by Congress. Director Kappos believes much progress can be made without legislation as long as there is a sustainable funding model. Similar words appear in the House Report on the 2003 Patent and Trademark Fee Modernization Act: ``While the agency has demonstrated a commitment to embrace top-to-bottom reform consistent with congressional mandates, it is equally clear that PTO requires additional revenue to implement these changes.'' Yet, our PTO director, who has incredible plans for this agency, cannot accomplish those due to revenue shortfalls that have plagued the agency for decades--a problem Congress has the ability to permanently fix. Congress has not ended its diversion of fees from the PTO. On a regular basis, from 1992 to 2004, the amount Congress ``allowed'' the PTO to keep via appropriations was less than the fees PTO collected. At the height of this problem in 1998, Congress withheld $200 million from the PTO and diverted it to other general revenue purposes. As recently as 2004, Congress diverted $100 million from the PTO, in 2007, it was $12 million, and in 2010, it was $53 million. In total, since 1992, Congress has diverted more than $800 million that the PTO will never be able to recover. Now, beyond the concern that appropriators have with relinquishing control over PTO funding, some might say that the practice of fee diversion has ended in recent years, making this amendment unnecessary. Under public pressure from numerous sectors of the American innovation industry, in 2005 and 2006 and 2008 and 2009, it is true Congress gave PTO all of the funds it estimated in its budget request. So, some argue that no permanent solution to PTO fee diversion is necessary because of Congress's proven restraint. However, it is not entirely true that all fee diversion has ended. First, it is inaccurate to say there has been no fee diversion since 2004. According to the PTO, $12 million was diverted in 2007, and $53 million in 2010--a type of diversion slightly different from the past. From 1992-2004, PTO provided an estimate of its fees, but appropriators diverted funds by appropriating to the PTO less than its estimate and applying the difference to other purposes. In 2007 and 2010, PTO provided its estimate and, it is true, appropriators provided an amount equal to that estimate. But, PTO collected more than what appropriators gave them, and those fees were diverted to other purposes rather than being returned to PTO the following year. Without access to those funds, PTO lost $12 million in 2007 and $53 million 2010, for a total of $65 million. Second, Congress has engaged in ``soft diversion'' of PTO funds through earmarking PTO fees. From 2005-2010, appropriators directed PTO to spend its user fees on specific, earmarked items in appropriations bills totaling over $29 million. Such items included: $20 million for ``initiatives to protect U.S. intellectual property overseas;'' $1.75 million for the National Intellectual Property Law Enforcement Coordination Council, NIPLECC; $8 million for PTO to participate in a cooperative with a nonprofit to conduct policy studies on the activities of the UN and other international organizations, as well as conferences. While we all agree it is important to protect intellectual property rights abroad, PTO should be able to have discretion to decide how much of its budget should be directed for those purposes. Third, the PTO faces a huge backlog of unexamined patents, as well as an enormous patent pendency problem for those applications already being processed. Fee diversion from the PTO has exacerbated these waiting periods through a congressional Ponzi-scheme. Even if we were to accept that fee diversion stopped in 2005, CBO states that approximately $750 million was diverted from 1992-2007. With the addition of the $53 million diverted last year, the PTO has lost over $800 million due to fee diversion. Thus, PTO has been constantly trying to recover from years of a ``starvation funding diet.'' So, when the PTO presents a budget of what it needs to process applications in the next 1-year period, that money is actually going towards processing applications sitting in the backlog. As a result, Congress is really not providing PTO with what it needs for the year in which it receives appropriations. Rather, it is giving short-shrift to the current year's needs because PTO must apply its fees not to the inventor who submitted his application this year, but to those who paid and submitted applications years ago. Lack of funding is exacerbated under a continuing resolution. In fact, PTO's lack of access to its user fees is further amplified in a year with a continuing resolution, such as this fiscal year. Under this CR, the PTO can only spend at the level given to it by the Appropriations Committee in 2010, which is approximately $1.5 million per day less than the President's fiscal year 2011 budget request. PTO already has to wait on year-to-year funding that may not materialize, and under a CR the problem is worse since PTO cannot get access to their fees until the CR is lifted. In January, the PTO Director noted at the House Judiciary PTO oversight hearing, ``our spending authority under the continuing funding resolutions and the lack of a surcharge assessment through early March, however, represent foregone revenue of approximately $115 million as compared to what was proposed in the President's fiscal year 2011 budget request.'' Thus, under the House-proposed CR, without a specific provision inserted to allow the PTO to collect all of the fees it collects, PTO will not be able to access its future fee collections. My amendment would solve this problem of constantly using time and resources at both the PTO and Congress to ensure the PTO receives the funding it deserves and does not suffer from Congress's inability to properly fund the government. As the above problems show, even without direct diversion, PTO still faces the possibility of having its fees diverted by other means. Thus, while I recognize that some effort has been made by Congress, it is no consolation to me or to the PTO Director that, in recent years, appropriators have ``restrained'' themselves and provided the PTO with all of the fees that it collected. ``But, such recent restraint does not guard against future diversion.'' In 2007, the American Intellectual Property Law Association stated in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, ``there is nothing to prevent the devastating practice of fee diversion from returning . . . While everyone wishes for a more rapid recovery by the Office, it must be remembered that the current situation is the result of a 12 year starvation funding diet. It will take permanent, continued full funding of the USPTO . . . to overcome these challenges.'' An amendment to permanently end fee diversion is the only effective remedy. The only true solution to the problem of PTO fee diversion that will give solace to those in the patent community and to the PTO Director is a permanent end to fee diversion so the PTO can effectively and efficiently budget for its future operational needs. The President's fiscal year 2012 Budget also supports a sustainable funding model for the PTO. It states, ``another immediate priority is to implement a sustainable funding model that will allow the agency to manage fluctuations in filings and revenues while sustaining operations on a multi-year basis. A sustainable funding model includes: (1) ensuring access to fee collections to support the agency's objectives; [and] (2) instituting an interim patent fee increase. . . .'' In fact, as I stated earlier, in 2008, this body approved, by unanimous consent, an amendment to the 2009 budget resolution by Senator Hatch that condemns the diversion of funds from the PTO. My amendment is in the same vein--if we will vote to condemn fee diversion, we should also vote to remedy the problem. I believe we cannot have true patent reform without ending fee diversion and providing the PTO with a permanent, consistent source of funding, which is why I believe very strongly that this amendment should be adopted. As my colleague Senator Hatch so effectively stated in Judiciary Committee markup this year, ``fee diversion is nothing less than a tax on innovation.'' Finally, I would like to point out that nothing in this amendment allows the PTO to escape congressional oversight and accountability. You have all heard me talk about the need for more transparency in all areas of our government, and this is no exception. Enacting this amendment will not put the PTO on ``auto-pilot'' or reduce oversight of PTO operations. In fact, the amendment requires extensive transparency and accountability from the PTO, giving Congress plenty of opportunities to conduct vigorous oversight. My amendment provides four different methods by which Congress will hold PTO accountable: (1) an annual report, (2) an annual spending plan to be submitted to the Appropriations Committees of both Houses, (3) an independent audit, and (4) an annual budget to be submitted to the President each year during the budget cycle. Furthermore, nothing in this amendment changes the current jurisdiction of any congressional committee, Appropriations or Judiciary, to call PTO before it to demand information, answers and accountability. In fact, it has the potential to yield more information to Congress via the four reporting requirements than provided by other agencies. This amendment is not about authorizers versus appropriators, but rather it is about giving the PTO and its very capable and experienced director the opportunity to improve the agency and provided top-notch service to PTO applicants. It is also about making oversight of the PTO a priority for all committees of jurisdiction. It is about stimulating our economy because when the PTO is fully funded, patents are actually granted, which creates jobs in new companies and in the development and marketing of innovative new products. It is about fulfilling our responsibility to ensure efficiency, accountability and transparency in our government so that we reduce our deficit and provide our grandchildren relief from the immense financial burden they currently bear. Thus, to truly reform the patent system in this country, more than any legislation, it is necessary for the PTO to be able to permanently and consistently access the user fees--not taxpayer funds--it collects. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for up to 20 minutes.

Mr. COBURN. I also ask the Chair to advise me when I have consumed 15 minutes.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I thank the majority leader and the minority leader both for their comments on this report. It is important for the American people to know that this is the first of three reports we are going to receive. This report just covers what the GAO has looked at in the last 4 to 5 years. It truly only covers about one- third of the Federal Government, and I am talking discretionary programs, not mandatory programs such as Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. The GAO report shows at least $100 billion in savings if we could do our job. We are going to have a large debate over the next 2 weeks focused on funding the government for the next 6 months of this fiscal year and what the funding is going to be like in the next year. If I were sitting at home as a regular American looking at Congress, having read this report, the question I would ask is, Why will there be any debate at all? The GAO has given us a roadmap. They have said: Here is where $100 billion--those are my numbers, not theirs--of savings can come on an annualized basis on the first third of the discretionary side of the Federal Government. The discretionary programs of this government are 24 percent greater now than they were 2 years ago. The challenge we face before us as a nation is a far greater challenge than anything we have ever faced. That sounds like a gigantic overstatement, but when the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is head of all of our military, reporting to our civilian officials, says the greatest threat to this country is our debt, we ought to wake up and pay attention to it. The average American--75 percent of Americans--across this land wants the size of the Federal Government and its spending reduced, and that includes Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. What is lacking today is the leadership to define the problem for the American people so that we can come together as a nation and solve this greatest of all challenges before us. Let me spend a minute talking about what is going to happen if we don't solve it. We heard the minority leader, the Senator from Kentucky, talk about the $1.65 trillion deficit this year. Today, the United States is borrowing money, on average, for everything we have borrowed, for about 2 percent. The historical average at which we borrow money is around 6 percent. Over the next 2 years, we are going to add, if we don't change things drastically--and I am talking drastically--another $3.5 trillion to the debt, to bring us to almost $18 trillion worth of debt. If we apply our historical interest rate to the debt--which we will be at in 2 or 3 years, there is no question about that--of 6 percent to $18 trillion, what we get is $1.08 trillion a year in interest costs. Think about that. We spent $127 billion this last year on interest, and we are going to take $1 trillion. What happens if that happens? What that means is there is no discretionary budget. That means there is no money for the military; there is no money for education; there is no money for any or all of the programs other than Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. That is the only thing that is left. And if that happens, our ability to borrow money in the international market will markedly decline, and the likelihood is that interest rates will go even higher than our historical average of 6 percent. So the time to call us together, the time for shared sacrifice--not for sacrifice's sake but so we can restore the hope of prosperity for our Nation--is now. It is not tomorrow, it is now. We are going to have a small bill on the floor that over the next 2 weeks will eliminate $4 billion by advancing terminations of programs both President Bush and President Obama want to terminate and eliminate $2.7 billion worth of earmarks that are inappropriate. So that is $4 billion over 2 weeks. Our interest cost today and what we are borrowing is $3 billion. That is what we are borrowing a day that we don't have. Every day, we go into the markets and borrow $3 billion. So over these 2 weeks, 14 days--14 days--we are going to borrow $42 billion, and we are only going to save $4 billion. Do my colleagues see the magnitude of the problem? We cannot continue to go in this direction. The bill the House sent us is a step in the right direction but far less than what is needed based on the reality of what is in front of us. Every dollar this government spends, we borrow 40 cents of it--40 cents. What do we think a 20-year-old individual out there is going to see 20 years from now as a consequence of us going down the drain in terms of the interest costs and the debt? Necessity is the mother of invention. We have a need now as a nation--not as Republicans and Democrats but as a Nation--to come together and make the decisions that will put us on a course that guarantees the future for our kids and grandkids. The easiest way I know right now to take some of the sting out of the parochialism and partisanship is for every Member of this body and those in the House to become acutely aware of what this report says. The minority leader listed a few of the programs. Let me go through these. Sitting at home or sitting in your office, think about if any of this makes sense. There are 82 separate teacher training programs run by the Federal Government--82 separate sets of bureaucracies and sets of Federal employees. None of these teacher training programs, by the way, have a metric on them to evaluate whether they are successful. So when we are not successful--and I question whether it is even the role of the Federal Government to be involved in teacher training. I couldn't find it in the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson couldn't find it in the Constitution. Roosevelt couldn't find it in the Constitution. Johnson couldn't find it in the Constitution. They all said so. We have quotes on that. Yet we have 82 programs, none of which do we know whether they are working. We have 47 job training programs, 44 of which overlap one another-- some to the degree of 100 percent, some 60 percent. We spend $18 billion a year on it, and not one of them has a measurement of whether it is effective. We have a great need in our country today to retrain people to available jobs. Yet we don't have any idea whether these will work. If you are trying to figure out how to get through these programs, you need another government program to help you figure out how to get through them. We have 20 offices with programs for homeless people--20 different programs--at the Federal level. Again, if you read the Constitution and the enumerated powers, you find a real difficulty in saying whether that is a Federal responsibility versus a State responsibility. Yet we have 20 separate programs for homeless people. How about one that works--if, in fact, it is a responsibility of the Federal Government. We run 80 separate economic development programs--80 of them. That is in four different Cabinet agencies. We spend $6.5 billion a year, and what the GAO says is you cannot say whether there is any economic development that has come out of this $6.5 billion. The Department of Transportation spends $58 billion on 100 separate programs run by 5 different agencies with 6,000 employees, with no idea whether that is the most efficient or effective way to do it because nobody has ever put a metric on it. We have 30 separate programs on food safety, run by 15 different Federal agencies. We just added a whole bunch more with the last food safety bill--none of which had a metric on it, none of which perfected the food safety in terms of interstate transport, which is undoubtedly a Federal responsibility. How about an efficient and effective way to do that. How about 1 agency being responsible for food safety instead of 15. We have 18 domestic food and nutrition programs--we spend $62.5 billion--11 of which we have no idea whether they are performing effectively. The first question you might ask is, How in the world did we get all these programs? We got all these programs because somebody saw a need and thought that would solve that need. They did so without the benefit of one of the No. 1 obligations of Congress, which is the oversight of the bureaucracy. We have all these complaints by those who favor the earmarking process that if we don't earmark it, then the Federal agencies will spend the money where they are. They forget one little clue in terms of the Congress. We have absolute power to oversee every branch of the Federal Government in terms of their effectiveness and their efficiency. Yet we have not done it. The Congress has that. Whether it is run by Republicans or Democrats, it is not done. It is not a partisan issue. It is laziness on our part. It is far easier to write a new bill that solves the same problem and not oversee the others. Consequently, we answer the humanitarian, compassionate call to fix something we have done by treating symptoms rather than the disease. We have a real disease in our country today. The disease is a cancer that will take away our freedom. If you look back in history, all republics have fallen. The average age of a republic is 206 years. How did they fail? What caused them to fail? If you read the history books and look at all of them, you will find that even though they might have been overrun by an enemy, the key factor that caused them to fail was fiscal every time. They lived beyond their means. Look at what is happening to us in the world today. The scope of our power militarily is being limited by our economic power because we are extremely far in debt. When you go to the lead economists, such as Ken Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart--the book they have written is ``This Time is Different.'' The economists tell us our debt right now--not what is coming this next year but right now--with the interest costs we have today, is costing 1 percent of GDP. We are only going to grow about 3.5 percent this year. If we didn't have the debt, it would be 4.5 percent. That means 1 million more people would have great-paying jobs this year if we didn't have this debt. So there is a clarion call out there coming from America--not inside Washington--to fix the real problems. As a physician, what I know is this: If I treat the symptoms of a disease and do not treat the real disease, I ultimately make the disease much worse. I cover up the signs and symptoms of the disease. The disease we have is a disease of not recognizing the very critical nature that you cannot--never--you can never live above and beyond your means without ultimately paying a greater price. The difference between the Federal Government, most of the State governments, and every family is when you have maxed out the credit card, it is maxed. You are not going to get another credit card company to give you more. You will either have to start paying or you will default on it. The question comes, Will we honor our true commitments? Will we make the hard decisions that are required to put us on a path for renewed prosperity? Will we take real information--and I have offered 70 amendments on this over the past 6 years, which have been voted down-- and will we start paying attention now because, ultimately, if we don't make decisions today that will control and set us on a path of prosperity, we are going to be in a position where our debtholders will make our decisions for us. That is when liberty declines. That is when American exceptionalism dies. That is when our destiny is taken from our hands. It should not be that way. I, again, call on the President to lead this Nation to define the problem, the real threat to our freedom, and come forward and pull us together and let's solve this problem, with everyone recognizing that everyone is going to sacrifice, but the sacrifice will create a future benefit that will be rewarded in the lives of our children and grandchildren. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I rise to voice my concerns regarding S. 388, a bill to prohibit Members of Congress and the President from receiving pay during government shutdowns. While I believe it is important we in Congress lead by example, I am concerned this bill does not go far enough. Every bill that Senate moves this Congress should send a clear message to the American taxpayer that we are serious about our Nation's finances, the economic struggles being faced by our fellow citizens across the country, and the future of this great country. If we are going to prohibit pay for Members of Congress and the President, we must also include members of the President's Cabinet, for example. The bill prohibits retroactive pay for Members of Congress and the President who would not be paid during a government shutdown. This prohibition on retroactive pay should also apply to nonessential Federal Government employees who would be furloughed during a government shutdown. It is unfair to force hard-working Americans to pay the salaries of politicians who have failed to do their jobs or government employees who did not have to report to work because they are nonessential. It is also my opinion that this legislation encourages Members of Congress to raise the debt ceiling. Clearly Congress does not need any more incentive to borrow and spend money or raise the debt ceiling. Since March of 1996 Congress has raised the debt limit 12 times. In 1995, the gross Federal debt was $4.92 trillion. Today, the national debt exceeds $14 trillion. We should not be passing legislation incentivizing more borrowing and debt. If anything, this bill should reduce Members' pay if they increase the debt limit, not the other way around. I am also concerned with the timing and need for this bill. Prior to the Presidents Day recess, the House of Representatives passed a bill funding the operations of the Federal Government through the remainder of the fiscal year that included over $60 billion in spending reductions. Unfortunately, the Senate, which has not passed a single appropriations bill for fiscal year 2011, once again failed to act on this bill. And just today, the House passed a 2-week continuing resolution that the Senate will pass. It is about time for the Senate to do its most basic job--ensuring the continued operations of the Federal Government in a fiscally responsible manner. With government spending at unsustainable levels, it is imperative that every Member of Congress make hard choices regarding Federal spending and cut waste, fraud, abuse, and duplication at every level of government.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I wish to thank the chairman of the committee for his work on this patent bill. I still have a few small problems with it, but I am extremely grateful for his consideration of our amendment. Most people don't understand there are no tax dollars taken from the general fund for the Patent Office. It is all fees paid when you file a patent or a trademark or a copyright. Unfortunately, over the last 10, 15 years, $800 million of those fees have not been left at the Patent Office. They have been taken and used somewhere else. So when you pay a fee for a patent, that money isn't going to pay for the examination of the patent. Right now, we find ourselves with 718,000 patents waiting for first action. If I file a patent today, what we will see is that 26 months from now my patent will have first action--the first reading by an examiner. If we want to create jobs and stay on top of the world in terms of innovation, we cannot allow that process to continue. So what the amendment does is say we are not going to take the money people use to pay for a patent application and spend it somewhere else; we are actually going to spend it on patent applications. That is what it was set up for. Quite frankly, it is immoral to take money for a specific purpose for advantaging an American company or inventor or a university and not apply that money for the intended purpose under the statute. Although this is controversial, most Americans would think, if you are paying $10 on a toll road, the money is going to keep the toll road up. Yet we haven't been doing that with the Patent Office. We are in trouble not because of our Patent Office but because we have not enforced intellectual property rights owned by Americans around the world. So as we work on getting a patent bill and blending it with whatever the House passes, it is as important--again, I thank the chairman because he was kind enough to have a hearing on the intellectual property for us, in terms of its enforcement. There are two key points for American innovation to bring jobs to America. One is when you get a good idea and have an ability to get it patented and can defend the patent. The other side of that is to enforce that patent throughout the world with our own Justice Department, in terms of our State Department and in terms of the intellectual property rights. It is amazing how much of our intellectual property is being stolen by China today. I wish to relate a conversation I had with their Secretary of Commerce--their equivalent to ours--in China 3 years ago. I asked him about intellectual property rights. He was bold in his statement to say: We are not going to honor them. We are a developing nation and you would not have honored them either--even though they are a signatory to the World Trade Organization. It is important we understand whom we are dealing with--people who will cheat and steal intellectual property from America. Fixing the patent apparatus will help us get there, but it is just as important to have tough laws on our books that create sanctions on nations that do not honor intellectual property. Again, this is a simple, straightforward, moral response to an immoral act: collecting fees for something and not spending it on that, which has put us behind the curve. This will bring us back. We have a wonderful new Director, over the last 18 months, in the Patent Office. It is being run better than ever. They are catching up. But last year we took $53 million of the fees that were for patents and spent it elsewhere. What this amendment does is stop that. It may come to a time in this bill that we allow the Patent Office to set their fees. It will come to a time when we have to say: Wait a minute. You are charging too much. You have to be more efficient. We don't do anything with oversight. We still have the oversight capability of all the Appropriations Committees. We have the ability to change this in the future in terms of their fee setting. If we do the proper oversight, we will spring forward with tremendous new technology that is protected and enable that capital expenditure that was spent to get that technology to flourish in terms of American jobs. Again, I thank the chairman. He worked with me judiciously. It has been a pleasure to work with him. I thank him for his efforts on my behalf and that of the American inventors in this country.

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

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, on February 17, 2011, I introduced a bill that will provide assurance to taxpayers that Federal employees are on equal footing with the American people and are held accountable to the same rules they enforce. In 2009, the Internal Revenue Service, IRS, found nearly 100,000 civilian Federal employees were delinquent on their Federal income taxes, owing over $1 billion in unpaid Federal income taxes. When considering retirees and military, more than 282,000 Federal employees owed $3.3 billion in taxes. This legislation will save taxpayers at least $1 billion by requiring the Internal Revenue Service to collect unpaid Federal income taxes from civilian Federal employees. Federal employees have a clear obligation to pay their Federal income taxes. The very nature of Federal employment and the concept inherent to ``public service'' demands those being paid by taxpayers to also pay their fair share of taxes. Federal workers should not be exempt from the laws they enforce. In fact, they should lead by example. Failure to do so is an affront to taxpayers and to the rule of law. Unfortunately, Congress has allowed this abuse of taxpayer dollars to occur throughout the Federal Government and failed to implement the proper safeguards to hold culprits accountable. Considering our national debt recently surpassed $14 trillion, it is critical Congress quickly pass this legislation. Surely this milestone is a wake-up call for Congress to find ways to get control of the Federal budget and help get our country back on the right track towards fiscal responsibility. The bill I recently introduced requires all Federal employees to be current on their Federal income taxes or be fired from their jobs. This is a commonsense bill that most Americans would believe is reasonable, necessary, and likely surprised that it is not already the standard throughout the Federal Government. It is not the intention of this legislation to single out the majority of Federal employees who work hard and pay their taxes. Instead, the bill would carefully reach only those who have willfully neglected to pay their income taxes and would direct the IRS to only collect money already owed under the Federal Tax Code. This legislation excludes Federal employees who make oversights in their personal taxes but willfully agree to pay them or are challenging the delinquency in court or through the IRS. Specifically, it excludes Federal employees from termination if (1) the individual is currently paying the taxes, interest, and penalties owed to IRS under an installment plan; (2) the individual and the IRS have worked out a compromise on the amount of taxes, interest and penalties owed, and the compromise amount agreed upon is being repaid to IRS; (3) the individual has not exhausted his or her right to due process under the law; or (4) the individual filed a joint return and successfully contends he or she should not be fully liable for the taxes, interest, and/or penalties owed because of something the other party to the return did or did not do. I recently introduced this bipartisan legislation, because Congress has failed to responsibly manage taxpayer dollars and serve in the best interests of the American people. This legislation will provide a solution to level the playing field between Federal employees and the American people when it comes to paying Federal income taxes. It should be a priority of this Congress to pass this solution as a way to provide equal treatment under the law and to seek out commonsense opportunities that will reduce our national debt. Now is the time for Congress to get a grip on the federal budget and find responsible ways to save in order to preserve the heritage of service and sacrifice that made our country great. I thank my colleagues for the opportunity to speak in support of this legislation. I ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their support.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I have no problem at all with my senior Senator's modification to the amendment. I am going to ask to have a voice vote on this to accommodate everybody, recognizing the late hour, but I want to make a point. What Senator Leahy wants to do is great to help people. But the one question we have not asked is--and we are going to be asked to ask it all the time from here forward given where we are--is it a Federal responsibility to supply these benefits? You can't find it in the Constitution. You can't find it anywhere. When we look at the hard decisions we are going to have to make over the next 2 years in terms of trimming both mandatory programs and discretionary programs, where we set an example that we are going to expand something that is not in our constitutional role, we are making a mistake and we are setting ourselves up for failure.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to waive the 60- vote threshold on this vote and have a voice vote.

Mr. COBURN. Amendment No. 64 is an amendment by myself and Senator Begich from Alaska. It is an orphan earmark amendment where we instruct the agencies to eliminate moneys that have been sitting for 9 years or longer and have not expended it. That is close to $500 million that we could count so far, probably $1 billion. It helps the agencies. It is money we have already allocated that will never be spent, that is unaccounted for. I believe we are going to have a voice vote on it and I appreciate everybody's support of that amendment.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up amendment No. 64.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up amendment No. 80, as modified.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, this is an amendment regarding Essential Air Service. The amendment of Senator McCain is to eliminate Essential Air Service, which is basically a subsidy for people who have to drive short distances--not long distances--to the airport. But we have selectively said certain people in this country can be advantaged by driving certain distances. What this amendment as modified says is, provided the Secretary doesn't see extraneous circumstances otherwise, you have to be at 90 miles or greater to qualify for Essential Air Service. We started out with 100 and we saw there were significant difficulties that people actually had with that requirement. What we have done is taken this amendment and moved it to 90 miles. It does not affect a large number of airports but there are several within this that have minimal enplanements. Remember, the average American drives over an hour to get to the airport now. We are saying we are not going to do it if you are driving an hour and a half, 90 miles, unless there is a circumstance where the Secretary of Transportation says otherwise, such as some particular places in West Virginia where it is tremendously mountainous and the time and distance does not meet with the average. All it does is lessen it. Remember, in this bill we are increasing the amount of funds at a time we are going bankrupt. We are increasing the amount of funds for Essential Air Service. What we have done is a compromise to extend it to those who actually need it but also not subsidize something we should not. It affects less than 26 airports, and now less than that, now that we have modified it. I appreciate my colleagues' support on that. I think we will have actual votes on that in a minute. Amendment No. 81 I call up amendment No. 81.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, this is another amendment on Essential Air Service. This amendment eliminates Essential Air Service when the average enplanements are less than 10 a day. There is no way we can afford, given our financial situation, to subsidize Essential Air Service for the airports that have less than 10 a day. I know that is a disagreement amongst us, especially for those who are having the benefit, that have subsidy today. By the way, the subsidy is supposed to be limited to $200, but if you take what happens on many of these, it is over $400; one of them is $482 per person per subsidy on airports that have less than 10 enplanements a day. It is common sense, given the realities of where we are today, realities of a $1.68 trillion deficit projected by the White House for this year. It makes common sense we would do this. Amendment No. 91 Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up amendment No. 91.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, the Airport Improvement Program is a needed program but what we do regularly in the Airport Improvement Program is we are incentivizing the expenditure of moneys in a way that does not recognize the priorities of this country. The way we do that is we have a cost sharing in which the Federal Government pays for 95 percent of all these programs. What has happened, and even in my own State, we have spent money in airports that have very few landings every day. There is no commercial service but very few private planes landing. All this amendment does is it says if you are going to qualify for the AIP for airport improvement, that over the next 3 years we would take that from 95 percent down to 75 percent, which is well above the average of every other grant program that we have in the Federal Government. It is not about trying to eliminate, it is trying to say if we are going to set priorities, what we should do is lower the amount of Federal funds so that the State or the community that wants to utilize these funds will recognize, by their having to pony up a little bit more of the money, in fact it is a legitimate thing. At 95 percent we are having all sorts of money wasted on things that are not a priority for our country given the financial situation we are in. With that, I think I have responded in less than the time allocated to me, and I yield the remainder of my time.