Bob Casey

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I am here to speak about legislation I am introducing today that will prevent a huge tax hike from hitting working families across America and in Pennsylvania. As the clock continues to tick down, it is imperative we come together--Democrats and Republicans, Members of both parties, in both Chambers--and pass legislation to provide more take-home pay by cutting the payroll tax, as we did in 2010. The legislation I am introducing is a compromise offer designed to bridge the gap and to get at least 60 votes in the Senate. The legislation is fully paid for and includes measures that have received bipartisan support in the past. We can no longer afford to jeopardize middle-income Americans in order to protect the wealthiest few across our country. This legislation will help working families by extending the current payroll tax cut and expanding that cut to a 3.1-percent level--a 3.1- percent reduction in the payroll tax. In essence, what we are talking about is cutting the payroll tax in half as it relates to employees. Small businesses will benefit from this legislation by benefiting directly from the additional money in the pockets of Americans across the country. Those with incomes above $1 million should help in carrying a portion of this burden, and that is why the surtax is still in this legislation, but the surtax will now be only 1.9 percent, compared to the 3.25-percent in an earlier version of my legislation. In addition, I have offered a few more offsets that have received bipartisan support. The bottom line is--just as the first bill was that I offered--this legislation is indeed paid for. The tax cut is key and an essential ingredient to job creation and economic growth in 2012. Economists and forecasters--from Moody's Analytics to RBC Capital Markets, to Barclay's Capital, to Macroeconomic Advisers--have all emphasized that the tax cut will accelerate growth in 2012. Without it, economic growth will slow and job creation will take a hit. Mark Zandi, of Moody's Analytics, has said that without the payroll tax cut for 2012, ``we'll likely go into recession.'' Congress should act quickly to expand tax relief and remove the uncertainty for working families in this holiday season about whether their taxes will go up in the new year. More take-home pay to keep the economy growing is what we need right now--and especially in the year ahead. I encourage all our colleagues in the Senate, as well as those in the House, to pass this legislation to continue and to expand a cut in the payroll tax.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I am here to speak about legislation I am introducing today that will prevent a huge tax hike from hitting working families across America and in Pennsylvania. As the clock continues to tick down, it is imperative we come together--Democrats and Republicans, Members of both parties, in both Chambers--and pass legislation to provide more take-home pay by cutting the payroll tax, as we did in 2010. The legislation I am introducing is a compromise offer designed to bridge the gap and to get at least 60 votes in the Senate. The legislation is fully paid for and includes measures that have received bipartisan support in the past. We can no longer afford to jeopardize middle-income Americans in order to protect the wealthiest few across our country. This legislation will help working families by extending the current payroll tax cut and expanding that cut to a 3.1-percent level--a 3.1- percent reduction in the payroll tax. In essence, what we are talking about is cutting the payroll tax in half as it relates to employees. Small businesses will benefit from this legislation by benefiting directly from the additional money in the pockets of Americans across the country. Those with incomes above $1 million should help in carrying a portion of this burden, and that is why the surtax is still in this legislation, but the surtax will now be only 1.9 percent, compared to the 3.25-percent in an earlier version of my legislation. In addition, I have offered a few more offsets that have received bipartisan support. The bottom line is--just as the first bill was that I offered--this legislation is indeed paid for. The tax cut is key and an essential ingredient to job creation and economic growth in 2012. Economists and forecasters--from Moody's Analytics to RBC Capital Markets, to Barclay's Capital, to Macroeconomic Advisers--have all emphasized that the tax cut will accelerate growth in 2012. Without it, economic growth will slow and job creation will take a hit. Mark Zandi, of Moody's Analytics, has said that without the payroll tax cut for 2012, ``we'll likely go into recession.'' Congress should act quickly to expand tax relief and remove the uncertainty for working families in this holiday season about whether their taxes will go up in the new year. More take-home pay to keep the economy growing is what we need right now--and especially in the year ahead. I encourage all our colleagues in the Senate, as well as those in the House, to pass this legislation to continue and to expand a cut in the payroll tax.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, this Middle Class Tax Cut Act is very simple. It does two things for employers and also helps employees. Last year, the Senate came together in a bipartisan bill. We passed a tax bill that, among other things, reduced payroll taxes for employees. This legislation expands that. Instead of just saying we are going to have a reduction of 2 percent of the payroll tax, this legislation cuts it in half. So you are cutting the payroll tax in half. That is take-home pay, $1,500 in the pockets of the average working family in America. Secondly, it allows us to provide a cut as well for businesses, cutting in half the payroll tax for businesses. It is good public policy. It will create lots of jobs at a time when the American people are telling us, with one voice, they want us to do one thing here: create jobs or create the conditions for job creation so small businesses can hire. At the same time, they want us to come together in a bipartisan way. I urge a ``yes'' vote.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, the problem with this proposal--and I hope we are reaching the point where we are actually coming together in a bipartisan way--is that it does not help small business. What we should be doing is cutting the payroll tax in half for employees and cutting it in half for employers so we can help small businesses. This bill does not do that. All it does is take the existing cut in the payroll tax and keep that in place. We like that part of it. We should expand the tax cut for workers and also have a separate cut in the payroll tax for employers, so 160 million workers and lots of businesses can get the benefit of this payroll tax cut to put money in people's pockets, grow the economy, and move the economy forward. I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. I thank the Chair. Let me talk for a moment about the legislation. The legislation before us, as I said before, would both extend and expand the payroll tax cut that is in place right now. First of all, for employees, we cut it in half. So instead of paying a 6.2-percent payroll tax, the employee, the worker, would pay just 3.1 percent. That has a sizable impact on the economy when we do that-- 1,500 bucks in the pockets of the average worker in America. Approximately 160 million American workers are impacted and as many as 6.7 million in Pennsylvania. So we would not only keep in place the payroll tax cut for workers, but we want to expand it so it is fully cut in half. Secondly, I wish to speak for a moment about the employer side of this because that wasn't part of last year's effort. I introduced the payroll tax credit in early 2010 to encourage employers to hire and accelerate the pace of the recovery. A number of folks on both sides of the aisle have worked on this. The ideas of those kinds of tax credits in those kinds of bills we introduced form the foundation of what we are trying to do today. This legislation incorporates elements of my and others' earlier legislation to provide businesses with quarterly incentives to increase their payrolls. I wish to highlight a couple of elements of the legislation before us. First, this bill cuts payroll taxes in half for 98 percent of U.S. businesses. These businesses have taxable payrolls of $5 million or less. They will see their payroll taxes cut in half, as I said before, for the worker as well as the business. Some people say: OK, that is 98 percent of businesses. That is good news. What about the other 2 percent who have higher incomes? Those businesses that have taxable income above $5 million will still get a payroll tax cut from 6.2 percent to 3.1 percent on the first $5 million of their taxable payroll. So they get it up to that level. So this is a huge benefit to small businesses across the country and even some businesses larger than that. The Joint Economic Committee, of which I am the chair, recently released a report that indicated that small business lending remains well below prerecession levels both in the number of loans and the dollar value of those loans. So a lot of small businesses still cannot get access to credit. This payroll tax cut legislation will help those companies substantially to be able to get access to credit. Finally, I wish to make a point about the legislation as it relates to eliminating the employer's share of the Social Security payroll tax on the first $50 million of increased payroll in 2012. This isn't just a cut, this is an elimination if they do one of three things: if they are hiring more workers; if they increase the hours, which is another way to get the benefit; thirdly, if they are boosting pay. This legislation is one of the best ways to create jobs, one of the best ways to kick-start our economy. I will conclude with this. If we look at the real world of communities across Pennsylvania or across the country, means that if we pass this legislation, for median family income in Pennsylvania, the benefit is $1,535, a little more than $1,500. So whether people go to small rural counties or big cities or suburban communities, wherever it is across a State such as ours, workers will be able to put roughly $1,500 in their pockets for this season coming up when people need some help, and small businesses will be substantially positively impacted by this legislation. We need to pass this legislation. We need to do it now to help our workers, to help our businesses, and to grow the economy and create jobs. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY. I ask unanimous consent for an additional 5 minutes.

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the issue of job creation and also supporting our small businesses and strengthening our economic recovery. One of the fundamental questions I have been asked in Pennsylvania-- and I think most Senators on both sides of the aisle have been asked repeatedly, not just in the last couple of days or weeks but for many months now--is a very fundamental question: What are you doing as a Member of the Senate to create jobs or to at least create the conditions under which jobs will be created? What are you doing in your votes, in your advocacy, in your fight in Washington for jobs? What does that mean? Sometimes we have a better answer than other times. Today, and certainly in the last couple days--and I think we will be debating this for a number of days moving forward and that is a good thing--we will have a better answer to that fundamental question: What are you doing as a public official to create jobs in America? One of the ways we can kick-start the economy and get job creation moving in the right direction again is by passing legislation such as the legislation that I have introduced, the Middle Class Tax Cut Act. It is now before the Senate, as the Presiding Officer knows, and we have been talking about it already, but we have more work to do on this today and some voting to do today on this legislation. The legislation is fully paid for and will accomplish two important objectives. No. 1, it will strengthen the economy to support middle- income families, and specifically the way we do that is by providing middle-income families with a cut in the payroll tax, which means take- home pay that will help make ends meet for that worker and that family, but it will also have an impact by boasting demand throughout our economy. No. 2, we will cut payroll taxes for small businesses to help them grow and create jobs. Here is what most people are confronting, and it is not just the big numbers. There are more than 14 million people out of work across America. In Pennsylvania, the latest number for October was more than 500,000 people out of work. To be exact, it is 513,000 people out of work. That number has fluctuated. Thank goodness it started to go below half a million, but then it bumped again to almost 525,000 so it is at least is moving away from that number. When half a million people are out of work in a State, you can imagine the hurt the families are feeling, the lives of struggle and sacrifice in our midst, and that is why we have to do something to jump-start the economy and create jobs. I think the American people also want us to do this in a bipartisan way and we can and we should. We came together at the end of 2010 and passed a tax bill which was bipartisan. There are elements of that bill that one side or the other did not like, and vehemently so, but we came together in a bipartisan way to pass a tax bill at the end of last year. We need to do the same thing on a payroll tax cut. We need to work together, Democrats and Republicans, and get a result for the American people. This is something we can do right now--not 6 months from now, not a year from now but right now--to help our families and to create jobs. There is broad agreement that more needs to be done to support the economic recovery. We have to create more jobs, and we have to kick-start the engine of economic growth. While the economy has added nearly 2.8 million private sector jobs in the past 20 months, we continue to face significant economic challenges. Unemployment across the country, as we all know, is still at about 9 percent, and long-term unemployment remains at record levels, with 4 out of every 10 unemployed workers having been jobless for 6 months or more. We know that gross domestic product--so-called GDP--grew at less than 1 percent, the annual rate, for the first half of the year. So for the first 6 months of 2011, we had less than 1 percent growth. The third quarter of gross domestic product growth was recently revised downward. Initially 2.5 percent, it was revised downward to just a 2 percent annual rate. So it is self-evident that we have to do something right now about jobs. With a weak labor market and only modest economic growth this year, it is clear we have to act right now. Payroll tax cuts and credits are powerful tools to increase job creation and provide economic relief for middle-income families. The current 2 percent payroll tax cut for working Americans that is in place now has played an important role in sustaining the economic recovery. By the end of this year, 121 million families will have received an average tax cut of more than $930 based upon last year's action we took to cut the payroll tax. That was a good decision, but, if anything, we need to continue that as well as expand it, and I will explain that as I go forward. The number of families benefiting from this current payroll tax cut is very large because anyone who receives a paycheck benefits from a cut in payroll tax. Anyone who receives a paycheck gets this cut. Cutting payroll taxes immediately increases the take-home pay of everyone who gets a paycheck. Compared to reducing the tax rates for the top 1 percent of the American people, more money goes to middle and lower income Americans, who are likely to spend it, if we keep the payroll tax cut in place, and, of course, we want to expand it as well. Because take-home pay is greater, people have more money in their pockets--as I said, more than 930 bucks this year. This additional take-home pay will result in more spending. When we spend at that level--and a lot of families are spending more, especially during the holiday season--that boosts demands for goods and services and that leads to job creation. This is not theory. This is not some untested theory or hope. We know this works. We did it in 2011, and we have to do more of it in 2012. The employee side of this--and I will divide this into employee and employer for a second--the employee tax cut expires at the end of this year, as I mentioned. Without congressional action, employees' share of the payroll tax will return to 6.2 percent of earnings, up from the current 4.2-percent level. So we have a payroll tax that has been cut from 6.2 to 4.2. That is in place. But if we do nothing, if we don't act, if we don't pass an extension, that 4.2 percent will go up to 6.2 percent, and it will be a tax increase for families across the board. If we fail to act, these middle-income families will see their payroll tax cut disappear at the end of this year. Let me say that again. If we don't act by the end of December, middle-income families will lose this payroll tax cut that is in place now. What does this mean? Well, it means basically losing between 900 bucks and 1,000 bucks. And this is take-home pay for workers and their families. This is a very tough time for families, as I mentioned before, with high unemployment and so many stresses, economic stresses and pressures on their lives. Families who are already facing both declining wages and stubbornly high unemployment, families who are struggling to pay for housing, make car payments, pay the food bill, pay for college tuition, whatever it is in their lives that means making ends meet, are still having a terribly difficult time. Losing this tax cut would also undermine the recovery by reducing consumer spending. Numerous economists and forecasters have highlighted the dangers to the economy of allowing this payroll tax cut to expire. Independent analysts estimate that letting a 2-percent employee tax cut expire would reduce gross domestic product growth by up to two-thirds of 1 percent in 2012. Mark Zandi, from Moody's, in an article from September 9 of 2011 entitled ``An Analysis of the Obama Jobs Plan,'' made that same point. If we don't continue the payroll tax cut, we will have an adverse impact on economic growth. Goldman Sachs Global ECS Research had a similar conclusion. So this isn't just about individuals losing a payroll tax cut that is in place now, this is about harming in a very adverse way our economy's ability to grow in a substantial way. Let me talk for a moment about the legislation before us, the Middle Class Tax Cut Act which I introduced.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set those three amendments aside.

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I would first of all like to thank Chairman Levin and Ranking Member McCain for their work on this national defense authorization bill, and tonight I will speak to an amendment I filed. I will not call it up for now. I just want to speak to it. This is a critically important debate for the country, and I know the chairman and ranking member have worked very hard on it. I have had the honor and the pleasure to work with Senator Levin on a number of measures over the years, and one of the real concerns we all have is what is happening to our troops as it relates to IEDs-- improvised explosive devices. It has been central to the work many of us have done, certainly my work as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, and, of course, Chairman Levin and so many others working on this bill for a long time. It does have a daily impact, obviously, on our troops and on their families. Often the best words about our soldiers and the war itself come from Lincoln when he talked about those who lose their life in battle, those who gave, as he said, ``the last full measure of devotion to their country.'' But he also talked about those who served and are wounded and who come back. His words to describe those soldiers, when he spoke of them, was ``him who has borne the battle.'' I think about those words when I consider those who have borne the battle and come back with not just injuries but with grievous injuries--sometimes almost irreparable harm done to them because of the explosion they lived through from an IED. I was in Bethesda Naval Hospital a couple weeks ago. It is one of the real privileges of serving in the Senate that we are given the opportunity to meet so many brave young men and women who serve--those who serve and are never hurt, those who serve and are wounded, and, of course, unfortunately, we meet the families of those who lose their life in battle. But as I said, a couple weeks ago, at Bethesda Naval Hospital, I walked into the room of a soldier who had been injured and was recovering. His parents and his brother were in the room with him. One is always worried about staying too long because you feel like you are almost intruding. But for some reason, that night, I didn't feel I was intruding because this wounded soldier wanted to talk. He wanted to talk about his service, he wanted to talk about his love for his country, how he was injured, and he also talked about the future--what he wanted to do when he left that hospital bed. It was a stunning moment for me to hear--from a soldier who is looking up from his hospital bed--of the optimism he displayed about his future. The calm with which he could speak about his service was, to me, stunning. He talked as if he were just recovering from a minor injury. Halfway through my visit, I almost had to remind myself of the injuries he was suffering from. He had both legs blown off below the knee from an IED blast. But despite that, despite the horror of it, despite the damage done to his body--a 20-year-old soldier--he was talking about the future, what he was going to do when he left that hospital, and he was talking about his service. So when we see soldiers such as him, I think it inspires us all the more and compels us to do more when it comes to protecting our troops against the scourge of IEDs. We know, and so many people here know, that they are the top killer of our troops in Afghanistan. The primary ingredient in IEDs found in Regional Command South, in Afghanistan-- where the Presiding Officer and I were in August--is a fertilizer called calcium ammonium nitrate, known by the acronym CAN. It is banned in Afghanistan but unfortunately is produced in a few factories in Pakistan. Just a small percentage of what is produced in Pakistan finds its way into Afghanistan and becomes the main ingredient in the IEDs. Most of the calcium ammonium nitrate used in IEDs, unfortunately, comes from Pakistan. Over the past 2 years, I have led an effort to urge Pakistan to do more to address this threat. I have sent letters, we passed a resolution in the Senate, and I traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan last August to make the case directly to the leaders in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. As I mentioned, the Presiding Officer, Senator Bennet, along with Senators Blumenthal of Connecticut and Whitehouse of Rhode Island traveled with me. We spent a good deal of time in Pakistan--3 days. I think we were pretty consistent in the delivery of that message; that we were not only providing a sense of urgency but almost a directive, as best we could, urging and pushing their government as hard as we could to help us and to help themselves, by the way, because a lot of Pakistanis lose their lives this way as well. So during these meetings, Senators Bennet, Blumenthal, Whitehouse, and I heard good things; that the Pakistani Government had developed a plan, a strategy to deal with this--a plan to tighten their borders, a plan to regulate the sale of calcium ammonium nitrate and other IED precursor materials, and a plan which included conducting a public relations campaign to sensitize the Pakistani people to the dangers posed by these materials. This political commitment was encouraging, but given the ongoing and increasing threat to our troops, we need to maintain a sense of urgency about it. I think we owe our troops nothing less than that sense of urgency. During our meetings in Islamabad, we also discussed the serious threat IEDs pose to the Pakistani people, as I mentioned a moment ago. More than 500 Pakistanis have been killed by IEDs since the beginning of this calendar year. This is a common threat that requires a common solution. This is something we can and should work on together. It is no secret the relationship between the United States and Pakistan is not a good relationship right now. It is a vast understatement to say it has soured dramatically. There is an awful lot of tension and mistrust and a real breakdown in this relationship. One of the ways--not the only way but one of the ways--we can build some confidence so we can begin to work together on a common threat is for the Pakistani Government to take concerted action on the question of IEDs. I do want to commend and thank those three Senators I mentioned who were on the trip with me--Senator Bennet of Colorado, the Presiding Officer, who was there for every meeting and worked very hard with us; Senator Whitehouse as well, from Rhode Island; and Senator Blumenthal was also with us, who spoke today about this today. I didn't hear him give his remarks on the floor, but my staff told me about them, and I thank him for those words and for the dedication to this issue he and Senators Bennett and Whitehouse have given during our trip in August and since that trip. I am proud to join them on this effort today and every day that we have been working on it. I also thank Senator Barrasso from Wyoming for his leadership and willingness to work with us on this amendment. This is a critical issue for our troops and for their families. I think it was so important that we delivered during our trip, and continue to deliver thereafter, a strong bipartisan message to the Pakistani Government and to any official in their government who has anything to do with this issue. I think we can deliver another message by way of this amendment on this bill. This amendment will hold Pakistan to its commitments--the commitments it already made to its strategic plan to counter IEDs. As we know well, these IEDs are killing and injuring our troops at a terribly alarming rate. While we can never completely eradicate the component parts of IEDs, we can make life difficult for the bombmaker if we pass this amendment. We should recommit ourselves to this important mission and redouble our efforts to limit the availability of these component parts on the battlefield. Again, we owe nothing less than that to our troops. Often, I have said that when we talk about the commitment and the sacrifice of our troops, we should also talk about praying for them, and we all do that. Thank goodness, the American people pray on a regular basis for our troops. But I think we should also, once in a while, pray for ourselves; that we may be worthy of the valor of our troops. There aren't a lot of ways to prove yourself worthy of the valor of our troops, but one way Members of the Senate and House can prove ourselves worthy of that valor is to pass amendments, such as this amendment, to force, as best we can, officials in Pakistan to do what is right for our troops and their families, for our country but also to do what is right for their own people--the people in Pakistan who are threatened every day by IEDs. I will conclude by saying we have an opportunity to prove ourselves worthy of the valor of our troops, and passing this amendment is one such way to do it. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CASEY. I yield the floor, and I would suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CASEY. I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment.

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I call up three amendments. The first amendment is amendment No. 1215, the second is amendment No. 1139, and the third is amendment No. 1140.

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

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

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, this Saturday, November 19, marks the 148 Anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. In this address, President Abraham Lincoln famously said, ``The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.'' In advance of this important historic occasion, I am introducing the Gettysburg National Military Park Expansion Act. If enacted, this legislation would expand the boundaries of Gettysburg National Military Park to include the historic Gettysburg Railroad Station and an additional 45 acres of land at the southern end of the battlefield. Through these acquisitions, the between 1.5 to 3 million people that visit Gettysburg each year will enjoy a more complete experience. Passage of this legislation is very important, especially right now as the Park prepares for the 150 Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. The Gettysburg Railroad Station, which is also known as the Lincoln Train Station, is located in downtown Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It was built in 1858 and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. During the Battle of Gettysburg, the building served as a train station to transport thousands of troops and also as a hospital. Perhaps more important historically, this station was the site to which President Lincoln arrived on the day before he delivered the Gettysburg Address in 1863. This station is currently operated by the National Trust for Historic Gettysburg and is open to the public year round. It also serves as the home to the Pennsylvania Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, which organized and held events in 2009 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth. The station was renovated in 2006 using state grant money to serve as an information and orientation center, but currently does not serve as such because of a lack of funds to manage its day-to-day operations. The Gettysburg Borough Council voted in 2008 to transfer the station to the National Park Service so that it could be used as a visitor center for tourists coming to the Gettysburg area. The Gettysburg National Military Park Expansion Act would also expand the boundary of the Gettysburg National Military Park to include 45 acres of land at the southern end of the battlefield. This area is both historically and environmentally significant. It was where cavalry skirmishes during the Battle for Gettysburg occurred and is also home to wetlands and wildlife habitat related to the Plum Run stream that runs through the National Park. The forty five acres were donated in April of 2009 and as a result no federal funding or land acquisition would be required to obtain the property and incorporate it into the National Park. The Gettysburg National Military Park Expansion Act would help preserve different sites that are historically significant while protecting the environment. The Civil War was a monumental moment in our Nation's history and because of this we must take steps to preserve the area's historical sites.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I firmly believe that members of the public must have access to the information contained in annual consumer confidence reports, which are required by the Safe Drinking Water Act's right-to-know provisions. For the past 11 years, the Environmental Protection Agency has required community water systems to provide customers with an annual report on the quality of their drinking. Currently, large water systems, those serving 10,000 people or more, are required to mail copies of the entire report to every customer. Today, believing wholeheartedly that public access to consumer confidence reports is critical and must be maintained, I am cosponsoring Senator Toomey's bill, S. 1578. Under this bill, community water systems would be required to send reports in the mail if a violation of the maximum contaminant level occurs during the year. However, if there is no violation, water systems could post the reports online and only mail hard copies upon request. I believe that S. 1578 draws attention to an area in which our Federal policy might benefit from discussion, debate, and potential modernization. Since Internet access has increased dramatically since 1999, the option of reviewing reports online is likely far more appealing to consumers than it once was. Also, amendments to the current requirements have the potential to reduce paper waste and to reduce unnecessary administrative burden and expense by providing customers with the ability to choose whether or not to receive the report in the mail.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, this Saturday, November 19, marks the 148 Anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. In this address, President Abraham Lincoln famously said, ``The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.'' In advance of this important historic occasion, I am introducing the Gettysburg National Military Park Expansion Act. If enacted, this legislation would expand the boundaries of Gettysburg National Military Park to include the historic Gettysburg Railroad Station and an additional 45 acres of land at the southern end of the battlefield. Through these acquisitions, the between 1.5 to 3 million people that visit Gettysburg each year will enjoy a more complete experience. Passage of this legislation is very important, especially right now as the Park prepares for the 150 Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. The Gettysburg Railroad Station, which is also known as the Lincoln Train Station, is located in downtown Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It was built in 1858 and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. During the Battle of Gettysburg, the building served as a train station to transport thousands of troops and also as a hospital. Perhaps more important historically, this station was the site to which President Lincoln arrived on the day before he delivered the Gettysburg Address in 1863. This station is currently operated by the National Trust for Historic Gettysburg and is open to the public year round. It also serves as the home to the Pennsylvania Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, which organized and held events in 2009 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth. The station was renovated in 2006 using state grant money to serve as an information and orientation center, but currently does not serve as such because of a lack of funds to manage its day-to-day operations. The Gettysburg Borough Council voted in 2008 to transfer the station to the National Park Service so that it could be used as a visitor center for tourists coming to the Gettysburg area. The Gettysburg National Military Park Expansion Act would also expand the boundary of the Gettysburg National Military Park to include 45 acres of land at the southern end of the battlefield. This area is both historically and environmentally significant. It was where cavalry skirmishes during the Battle for Gettysburg occurred and is also home to wetlands and wildlife habitat related to the Plum Run stream that runs through the National Park. The forty five acres were donated in April of 2009 and as a result no federal funding or land acquisition would be required to obtain the property and incorporate it into the National Park. The Gettysburg National Military Park Expansion Act would help preserve different sites that are historically significant while protecting the environment. The Civil War was a monumental moment in our Nation's history and because of this we must take steps to preserve the area's historical sites.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I rise to speak on both nominees. I will start with Bob Mariani. And I refer to him that way because I have known him a long time, but his full name is Robert David Mariani. Bob Mariani is someone I know to be a person of not just high intellect and ability but also someone with great integrity. Bob Mariani was born in Scranton, PA--the same city in which I was born. I still live there and so does he. He received his law degree cum laude in 1976 from the Syracuse University School of Law and also received his college education cum laude from Villanova University, graduating within the top 10 percent of his class. He was ranked second within his major field of study as an undergraduate. Bob Mariani is a well-respected lawyer and advocate in northeastern Pennsylvania. He has received the highest rating--well qualified--from the American Bar Association. He spent 34 years as a civil litigator in Scranton, PA, where he specializes in labor and employment law. Since 2001, he has been the sole shareholder in the law firm that bears his name. He was also the sole proprietor of a similar law office that bears his name from 1993 to the year 2001, and a partner as well in an earlier iteration of that law firm, Mariani & Greco, from 1979 to 1993. Bob has taught labor law at Penn State University and been an instructor at Penn State's Union Leadership Academy Program, where he taught labor law and collective bargaining. Bob has received a whole series of commendations and awards that I won't list due to the time we have today, but probably the most important thing I could say about Bob--and I know I might be a little biased because I know him and have great respect for him--is that he is a person who will apply the law; who understands when someone comes before him, they should be accorded basic fairness no matter who they are, no matter what point of view, and no matter where they come from. I know integrity and commitment to public service--not just of the law but the public service a judge can provide--are the values that will guide Bob Mariani as a judge, and so I am very happy we will be voting on his nomination. Also today, we will be voting on the confirmation of Mark Raymond Hornak. I have not known Mark as long as I have known Bob Mariani, but I have known him for more than 15 years now. Mark is a native of Homestead, PA--southwestern Pennsylvania. By way of a quick summary of his educational background, he got his law degree summa cum laude--the highest honors--in 1981 from the University of Pittsburgh Law School, graduating second in his class. He was editor-in-chief of the University of Pittsburgh Law Review. He got his college degree from the University of Pittsburgh as well, and was a dean's list student and member of the honor society there. His career has been varied and significant as a lawyer and advocate. He has been a partner in the law firm of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney since 1982. He has specialized in civil litigation, labor and employment law, media defense and governmental representation, and is a member of the firm's executive committee. He is the solicitor of the Sports & Exhibition Authority of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, and also has been very active in his community in Pittsburgh. He also represents national television, radio, and publishing clients in media litigation, including defamation, first amendment and access issues, and in transactional matters. Prior to joining the Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney firm, Mark served as law clerk to the Honorable James M. Sprouse of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Mark also has a long list of honors and achievements that I won't list today, but, again, he is someone who has great integrity and ability and who understands serving on the bench on a Federal district court--whether it is in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, as in Bob Mariani's case, or the Western District of Pennsylvania, as in Mark Hornak's case--is public service, and with it comes the responsibilities and obligations of being a public servant. Both of these candidates understand that--both Bob Mariani and Mark Hornak--and so I am honored to be able to speak today regarding their nominations. I would urge a ``yes'' vote on both nominations. I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise for literally 30 seconds, because I failed, when talking about both the Mariani and Hornak nominations, to thank Senator Toomey, my colleague from Pennsylvania. We worked together on both these nominees to arrive at a consensus position, and so I am grateful for Senator Toomey's help, and grateful for the work of his staff as well. I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. I wished to respond to my colleague from Arizona on a couple points. I rise in opposition to his amendment. I think there is a lot we agree on, based on the remarks he gave about making sure the program works and is efficient and delivers results for taxpayers. I don't agree with eliminating the program in this case. I appreciate the words he said about trade adjustment assistance and his recognition that workers are going through a tough time right now. This amendment is a disagreement about what we do about firms. In this case, it is pretty simple. We have trade adjustment assistance that helps individual workers, and I think there is a lot of agreement on that. This particular program is about individual companies. Basically, what we are talking about is 265 firms in the country. The average quantum of assistance is a little more than $62,000 per firm. Part of that is as simple as having an expert come into a company--because of foreign competition and I would say unfair foreign competition--and helping them with their process, being able to produce a product in a more efficient way, changing an assembly line or giving advice in a way that a company is not able to figure out on its own. It provides that technical assistance. The other part about this is, it is an effort to make sure these firms can better compete in a very tough environment, frankly, that has often been undermined by trade agreements. That is my perspective. I know some don't share that. The other number I would point to, in terms of the effectiveness of the program, is that 90 percent of the companies that received this trade adjustment assistance help for their technical assistance or otherwise are in business more than 5 years later. So I would debate the question about the effectiveness. It is the same spirit or the same belief that underlies trade adjustment itself. When a worker is thrown out of a job because of unfair foreign competition or the ravages of a tough economy, we say to that worker we are going to retrain them to get them back into the workforce and that is the purpose of the worker part of this. The same is true of a company. Sometimes a company gets its legs knocked out from under it in a bad economy, and we say we will have a program to allow an expert to come in and help them get through this period. It is not unlimited. There is a limited amount of money available nationally for those 265 firms. I think there is a lot of agreement about a basic disagreement about the need for a particular Trade Adjustment Assistance Program for the companies. I would respectfully rise in opposition to the amendment of my friend from Arizona. I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I have a short presentation to make regarding trade adjustment assistance, which of course is legislation that was passed through the Senate not too long ago. There was a long debate, an important debate about trade adjustment assistance, which is basically a program we have had in place for decades. That program recognizes that sometimes workers and companies are caught in a position, because of the unfair trade and unfair competition, where they are left not only without a job but sometimes without the prospect of retaining their position in a particular trade or work they have done for many years. So trade adjustment assistance allows us to provide some help to that worker or that company so we can retrain folks for the jobs of the future and so that worker can be retrained and adjust to the changes in the economy. In particular, today I rise in opposition to amendment No. 740, which would eliminate funding for trade adjustment assistance for firms. We provide it for workers but there is also a part of the act that provides help to firms. U.S. trade policy should, I believe, work in the best interests of the American people, especially American workers and American companies. Of course, as a Senator from Pennsylvania, I want that policy to work for our workers and our companies. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. Past trade deals have sent jobs overseas. Several administrations have not done enough to crack down on China's unfair trade policies. Our workers and our companies need safeguards against employment disruptions caused by our trade policies or sometimes caused by our lack of a trade policy. That is one of the reasons why trade adjustment assistance is so important, that we extend it as we have to help workers and the companies they work for deal with the repercussions of bad trade deals and unfair competition, unfair trade that impacts our workers. There is an effort by this amendment to somehow change the dynamic as it relates to firms. I know in Pennsylvania, in calendar 2010, 51 companies in our State were accepted into the program. Fifty-one individual companies were accepted into the trade adjustment assistance program to help those companies rebound, to recover from the ravages of international trade. Supporting these firms as they work to better compete against foreign imports will help protect the jobs of the workers in those firms. I have worked to ensure that the TAA program is reextended, including this help we provide for individual firms. The legislation that was recently passed maintains trade adjustment assistance for firms but returns funding authorization to its pre-2009 levels. I think this is a critically important point to make. Maybe the best evidence, though, of what has happened is evidence from individual States but more particularly individual companies. I ask unanimous consent that a news article that is dated Tuesday, June 21, 2011, from the Bethlehem Express-Times be printed in the Record.

Mr. CASEY. This article talks about a visit I made to a chemical manufacturing plant. The pertinent part of this article speaks volumes about why trade adjustment assistance is so important for firms. I am quoting from a statement made by a gentleman who heads the Manufacturing Resource Center in Bethlehem, PA, Jack Pfunder. Here is a summary of what he said. The article says: Pfunder said that with technical and financial assistance provided by TAA, the manufacturing industry is able to innovate and better prepare itself for a successful future. That is someone who is on the ground every day, working on manufacturing issues in Bethlehem, PA. He knows what he is talking about when it comes to the impact of trade adjustment assistance for a firm and in particular for this firm. Another part of the article talks about one of the vice-presidents at the company I visited, Puritan Products: Senior vice president Thomas Starnes believes it is `absolutely' important for a manufacturing company of Puritan Products' size to receive government funding in this economic climate. I am quoting here from the last line of the article: We don't have the funds internally to do some of these things so getting some government support certainly helps our cause. That is one company and the leadership of one company telling us in a very concise way why trade adjustment assistance for firms is vitally needed. I know we are going to have debate about this issue that will be ongoing even after passage of the legislation, but I rise in opposition to the amendment of Senator McCain, amendment No. 740, and urge all Members of the Senate to continue to support not just trade adjustment assistance for workers but trade adjustment assistance for firms as well, especially in this very difficult economy. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.