Bob Casey

Mr. CASEY

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

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

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about a major issue that will be before the Senate very shortly, and which we have spent some time on in the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee over many weeks and days, but most recently today in a markup. I will talk about that in a couple moments. It is time that the Senate, in the next couple of days and weeks, focuses on passing comprehensive reform measures that will put an end to Wall Street's reckless endangerment of our economic system. For too long--in fact, for many years now--we have allowed this system to be in place, where high-risk deals were cut on Wall Street. Some people made a lot of money, but our economy went into the ditch because of it. It wasn't always like that. For decades following the Great Depression, we enjoyed a financial system that worked--worked for American families and small businesses. It is pretty simple when you think about it, and it has been successful at the same time. Local banks, operating in communities across the Nation, took deposits and made loans for homes, cars, or businesses. People knew their bankers and their bankers knew them. Each party was invested in the success of the other. During this time, our economy thrived. It experienced prolonged growth and innovation. These benefits were felt across the board by people across our economy and our country. Let's contrast that period of growth and shared prosperity with what has happened in the last few years, and even over the last 30 years. This most recent period can be characterized by the massive growth of the financial sector. In 1978, commercial banks held $1.2 trillion in assets, equivalent to 53 percent of gross domestic product. By the end of 2007, that same measurement, what commercial banks held in assets, had grown to $11.8 trillion or 84 percent of gross domestic product. So the percentage went from 53 to 84, and the number went from $1.2 trillion to $11.8 trillion in assets. Unlike the preceding period, this growth was not spread across the real economy to households and businesses. Instead, it was explicitly shifted away from families and communities and concentrated on Wall Street. The impact of this concentration has been acute. People used to rely on local institutions, but they now face a financial service marketplace dominated by a few banks with retail outposts sprinkled across the country. Instead of supporting small businesses, little league teams, or families, as did their local predecessors, these megabanks gather deposits from Main Street and then slice and dice them and leverage them to the hilt and use the hard-earned wages and savings of Americans to make a handful of people very rich. Make no mistake about it, the megabanks profited tremendously from this new model. Over the last 30 years, profits and compensation in the banking industry have skyrocketed. From 1948 to 1979, the average compensation in the banking sector was more or less the same as any other job in the private sector. Today, bankers earn, on average, two times what other private sector employees take home. Simply stated, American families and small businesses are no longer the customer in this broken system. Instead, these institutions function to make wealth for themselves and their stockholders. A clear example of this can be found in recent news stories detailing the record profits of these megabanks--record profits in a time of historically high unemployment and a bad economy. These profits were not made through savvy lending to their customers. In fact, in the case of JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Bank of America--three of our largest megabanks--they have cut lending through a key Small Business Administration lending program by between 85 and 90 percent from 1 year to the next. These multibillion dollar profits have been made through high-risk trading operations with money deposited by families and businesses. The banks are expecting people in our communities to shoulder all of the risk, while getting none of the upside. Something has to give in this situation. These megabanks, these big companies, are entitled to make profits, but we will no longer allow them to continue to use the federally insured deposits of working people as capital for their money-making schemes. We need commonsense rules that separate conventional commercial banking operations from high-risk financial gambles. In no area is this need for reform more apparent than in the so- called derivatives market. A derivative is a high-risk bet that the value of another financial instrument, or commodity, or other product will go up or down. It is a bet. For years, Wall Street fought and won the battle to keep derivatives unregulated. In this highly unregulated market, Wall Street could place bets on bets, without backing them up. Therefore, when the underlying weakness of assets became apparent, the derivatives market went bust--along with it, the Wall Street banks playing in the market, causing the need for the massive bailout of these institutions. To prevent another catastrophe, we need a strong regulation of the derivatives market. Today, the Senate committee of which I am a member, the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, had a markup session. What we are talking about is members of the committee talking on amendments and then voting for final passage of the bill out of committee. That is a markup. We had that markup session today on the Wall Street Transparency and Accountability Act of 2010. I applaud our chairwoman, Senator Lincoln, for her work on putting forth a bill that cracks down on the reckless activities of Wall Street. I also commend her and other members of the committee for reporting it out of committee so we can incorporate it into the Banking Committee bill we will be considering on the floor soon. The Wall Street Transparency and Accountability Act of 2010 will add those two important words to our financial system, both transparency and accountability. In particular, it will impose it on the derivatives market, No. 1, by requiring that derivative transactions--most of them--be cleared through a central clearinghouse; second, require real- time reporting, similar to a stock exchange, of the transactions that parties are entering into. Besides a more transparent market, the most important provision in this bill is the requirement that commercial banks that have FDIC- insured accounts can no longer trade on the derivatives market. This provision will force commercial banks to refocus on what should be their No. 1 priority--the customer--instead of just profits and their own stockholders. Our current financial system is broken and no longer works for families and small businesses. When I travel across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, I often hear about the financial difficulties people are experiencing. We have close to record-high unemployment, 582,000 people out of work. A lot of people lost their jobs or their homes or both, and, in so many ways, their hopes and their dreams. Then they read in the paper every day it seems about record profits of these big megabanks. They think: What about me and my family? Why can't I get a loan? They will ask people like me: Why is the interest rate being raised on my credit card? Questions such as these have persisted for so long now. Did we not bail out these megabanks on Wall Street already so they can continue to lend money to people like me or their customers? Those are the questions I get. The answers to each of these questions are the same. These institutions have failed the American people. It is that simple. By extension, they have helped to collapse our economy. Thank goodness we are starting to turn, seeing some job growth in our economy. But we need financial institutions that focus on the needs of our families and our small businesses once again. Senator Lincoln's bill is a step in the right direction. We are not there yet. With that bill and with the work we will do on the Banking Committee bill, we can begin to restore not only transparency and accountability and sunlight, but I believe we can restore some measure of confidence in our financial system and make it work better for real people, for families, and for small businesses and also to strengthen our economy. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CASEY

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

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I rise to speak this morning about two topics. One is the recent work the President has done on nuclear security and some progress we have made this week, and the issue of tax policy in the United States of America. First, I rise today to talk about the threat posed by nuclear terrorism and the historic progress made by President Obama and his administration at the Nuclear Security Summit this week and some observations on Iran's nuclear program. The threat posed by so-called loose nuclear material is real. We know that more than 2,000 tons--2,000 tons--of plutonium and highly enriched uranium exist in dozens of countries with a variety of peaceful as well as military uses. There have been 18 documented cases of theft or loss of highly enriched uranium or plutonium--that is 18 documented cases-- throughout the world. In September of 1961, President Kennedy addressed nuclear weapons in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly. He said: Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or madness. Today, the threat of a nuclear strike is more likely to come from terrorist actors, not a state. These groups are harder to deter because they may not have a geographic base. Moreover, they are not threatened by the concept of mutually assured destruction. President Obama noted that we are paradoxically more vulnerable today to a nuclear attack than we were during the Cold War. Today's sword of Damocles still hangs by the slenderest of threads, but we have the ability to prevent this threat by minimizing the access such terrorist groups would have to nuclear materiel. So what did the United States accomplish at the Nuclear Security Summit? First, I believe it was important for the President to elevate this threat in the minds of international leaders, particularly among the so-called nonaligned movement--those nations across the world that are not aligned on these issues. Many leaders around the world do not see nuclear terrorism as an existential threat. This summit was an important first step towards accurately defining the threat that nuclear terrorism holds for us all and building broad political support for higher security standards. This political support is important because we can't stop nuclear terrorism on our own. Securing nuclear materials requires the active participation of a host of actors including governments, militaries, border guards, parliaments, intelligence services, local law enforcement, and citizens. We need increased vigilance and an understanding that a nuclear strike anywhere in the world will have a profound impact on us all. The administration was also able to attract concrete support for several initiatives. In fact, every country in attendance pledged to do more to tighten regulation of nuclear materials and several made concrete commitments to comply with international treaties on nuclear security. Most notably, our allies decided to do the following: By way of example, Canada returned a large amount of spent highly enriched uranium fuel from their medical isotope production reactor to the United States and committed to funding highly enriched uranium removals from Mexico and Vietnam; Chile removed all highly enriched uranium in March; Italy and the U.A.E. signed Megaports agreements with the U.S. which will include installation of detection equipment at ports; Kazakhstan will convert a highly enriched uranium research reactor and eliminate its remaining highly enriched uranium; Mexico will convert a highly enriched uranium research reactor and eliminate their remaining highly enriched uranium by working through IAEA; Norway will contribute $3.3 million over the next 4 years to the IAEA nuclear security fund which are flexible funds for activities in developing countries; Russia signed the Plutonium Disposition protocol, decided to end plutonium production and will make contributions to the International Atomic Energy Agency's Nuclear Security Fund; finally, Ukraine will remove all highly enriched uranium by the next Nuclear Security Summit in 2012 and half of it by year's end. This conference was only the beginning of a renewed international focus on fulfilling commitments to U.N. resolution 1540 and the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. In December, representatives from each participating country will reconvene to measure commitments made against concrete results. This effort to focus the international community will lead to even more tangible progress looking ahead to the next nuclear security summit in Seoul in 2012. Ultimately, real progress will be found in the consistent enforcement of rules already in place for monitoring and controlling the establishment and movement of nuclear material in these countries. This is not exciting work but very important as countries safeguard and reduce their weapons-grade material, and we will begin to build a more secure future. I was also encouraged at President Obama's ability to use the summit to continue building support for strong sanctions on Iran. I believe that his face to face meeting with President Hu will pay dividends as the U.N. Security Council negotiated a resolution imposing sanctions on Iran. Given China's recent opposition to new sanctions, I was encouraged by President Hu's apparent willingness to consider the resolution. We are not there yet, but the administration has laid the diplomatic groundwork necessary for a strong sanctions package. We need to move forward on this pressure track and we need to move quickly. At the end of March, I traveled to the International Atomic Energy Agency--IAEA--in Vienna for an update on its work to track the Iranian nuclear program. While I was impressed with the agency staff and leadership of Director General Yukiya Amano, I came away convinced that the international community needed to do more to confront Iran's nuclear program. My concerns have grown with reports that Iran may be planning two additional nuclear enrichment sites. In a recent interview with the Iranian Student News Agency, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had ordered work to begin soon on the two new enrichment plants. The plants, he said, ``will be built inside mountains,'' presumably to protect them from attacks. If Iran's nuclear program were peaceful in nature, they would have nothing to hide from international inspectors. Iran has all but rejected the Geneva deal of October 1, 2009, that would have seen Iran's low enriched uranium--L.E.U.--shipped out the country and the eventual return of uranium enriched to 20 percent, well below weapons grade, for use in a Tehran medical research reactor. Iran would have agreed to this very good deal offered repeatedly by the international community if it wanted a nuclear program for medical and other peaceful purposes. If the United States is committed to demonstrating that international law is not an empty promise, obligations must be kept and treaties must be enforced so that the Iranian regime knows we mean business. The Iranian regime must face penalties for violating its commitments to the U.N. and the IAEA. France, the United Kingdom, the U.S., China, Russia and Germany have made serious attempts to engage with Iran through the P5+1 process. These efforts have been repeatedly rebuffed and in some cases scorned by the regime in Tehran. Iran's leaders continue to pass up extraordinary opportunities to integrate their country with the rest of the world, a desire felt by so many of Iran's citizens. I supported these engagement efforts as a means towards changing the behavior of the regime. Unfortunately, it has not worked. Noncompliance with the U.N. and IAEA must have consequences and the international community must move quickly to show Iran that we are serious. During my trip, I also attended a conference on transatlantic relations in Brussels with American and European leaders. I called on our European allies to support an aggressive multilateral sanctions package and was heartened to see that many participants heeded this call to action. I appeared on a panel alongside Yossi Kuperwasser, Deputy Director General of the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs, who also made an impassioned appeal to those assembled, not only on behalf of Israel but the broader international community. Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons would spark an arms race in the region, which does not advance Iran's or any other country's security. The clock is ticking, he said, and free people around the world have a shared interest in stopping Iran's nuclear program. I could not agree more with our friend from Israel when he made that statement. Tax Policy Next, I will move for a few moments to the other topic I want to speak about briefly, tax policy. We are in this season of not only taxes--the focus on Tax Day, it is April 15--but we are also in the season of debate about the budget and about our economic future. That is as it should be. But I think when we step back and look at what has happened over the last 18 months or so, we see, and I think the evidence is abundantly clear now, that Democrats in the Senate, working with President Obama and a very few number of Republicans, have provided meaningful tax cuts to hard-working middle-class families throughout America. Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the so-called stimulus bill, or the recovery bill as I like to call it, we will continue to fight to provide this kind of tax relief for middle-income families so they can fully reap the benefits of their hard work and stabilize their families' finances. I think, on this side of the aisle, if we look at the record of the last more than a year, we have been on the side of middle-income families as they work very hard to make ends meet in a very difficult economy. I think this record stands in stark contrast with the record of our Republican friends who tried to sell their tax breaks over the past decade as beneficial to all Americans, when in reality they gave away nearly $3 trillion--let me say that again--$3 trillion in tax cuts to the wealthiest 20 percent of U.S. households. What happened after that? Our economy went into the ditch, and we have been in the ditch for far too long. At the same time that was happening, Democrats were trying and have been succeeding in making sure we understand what middle-income families are up against. In the past year, Democrats have provided 98 percent of Americans with a tax cut. A new study shows middle-class tax cuts included in the recovery bill have saved taxpayers an average of $1,158 on their tax returns this year. Every single working- and middle-class family and individual--and here we are talking about the bottom 80 percent of income earners--have received a tax cut. This analysis accounts for the following parts of our policy: First, the Making Work Pay tax credit, which has been available to 94 percent of all working families and individuals; second, changes to the child tax credit; third, an increase in the earned-income tax credit; and, finally, relief from the alternative minimum tax, as well as a new, partially refundable education tax credit. The cite for this is Citizens for Tax Justice, April 13 of this year. I think the record is pretty clear when it comes to recent history on tax policy. Democrats have been on the side of middle-income families, providing tax cuts for so many Americans who were not getting that kind of relief before. Republicans in Washington have a long record of making sure wealthy Americans get their tax cuts. But what we see from that is an economy in the ditch. We are thankfully moving out of that ditch. We saw in January and February of 2009 more than 1.5 million jobs lost. Contrast that with January and February of 2010. There was much less job loss, in the tens of thousands, and even by the revised estimates actual growth in jobs, certainly growth in jobs in the month of March 2010. I think the record is pretty clear. With that, I yield the floor for my colleague from Delaware, Senator Kaufman.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, rollcall votes are expected to occur throughout the day in an effort to complete action on the bill. As a reminder, cloture motions were filed on the substitute and the bill. The filing deadline for first-degree amendments is 1 p.m. If we are unable to complete the bill tomorrow, we will have a cloture vote on the substitute amendment Friday morning.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. I thank the Senator from Virginia for getting us together to talk about something that is fundamental. Basically, we are talking about our system of justice. We heard the number of days, when we compare this administration to the prior administration, it takes to confirm a judge on the appellate court or on the district court. It is important for people to realize that we are not talking about saying they on the other side should be voting for all of our judges or they should be endorsing them, even though when they come to the Judiciary Committee we have had tremendous bipartisan votes on a lot of these judges. Here is a lot of what the American people do not understand. They can understand that when Senators are making their minds up about how to vote on a particular nominee to be on a district court or on an appeals court, we might have a difference of opinion as it relates to judicial philosophy, for example, or the experience of this particular individual or their character, their ability to serve with integrity. All of those basic considerations we have to weigh and I think by extension the American people weigh when they are deciding whether or not someone is fit to serve on a district court or appellate court. All of those considerations are considerations Democrats and Republicans will weigh, but we cannot do that unless we can get a vote, unless we can put a nominee in front of the Senate for an up-or-down vote based upon their record, based upon their views and philosophy. But this idea of obstructing purely for political reasons, sometimes to slow down the President's agenda for no good reason, sometimes to bottle up things in the Senate, makes no sense as all. Why don't our colleagues want these nominees for various positions in our system of justice to go before the Senate to have an up-or-down vote, and then we can have a debate as part of that about their qualifications or about their educational background or their ability. We can certainly do that. This idea of obstructing for political and partisan reasons makes no sense to us, and I am sure it makes no sense to the American people. I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorums, as required under rule XXII, be waived.

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

Mr. CASEY

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

Mr. CASEY

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

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise tonight for a very specific purpose. It is to speak about a person I have known a long time--25 years or more--who is currently the President of the Pennsylvania State AFL/CIO, a great labor leader in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I will submit a longer statement for the Record due to the late hour, but I did wish to say a few words about him. His name is Bill George, and anyone who knows anything about organized labor in Pennsylvania, anyone who knows anything about the topic of battling on behalf of working men and women, knows the name Bill George. He has been the President of our State AFL/CIO since 1990, 20 years in that position. Prior to that, he was a great leader with the United Steelworkers of America and someone I came to know long before I was a candidate for public office, and certainly in the 15 years or so that I have been either a candidate or a public official he has been a source of great inspiration and a great friend. Even beyond the work he has done for candidates and for causes, this is someone who understood, at a very young age, what it means to battle--to fight the battles for working men and women, to work together with people to collectively bargain for wages and benefits, making sure that working men and women have a voice, and someone who understood what an election means. At the end of the process of conducting an election, you elect someone to public office--or a group of candidates--and their votes and their actions have an impact on working men and women. Bill George has always understood that. He has always understood that those in our society who do not have a voice need people like him to stand and fight battles. I know the Presiding Officer is well aware that organized labor--and I think Bill George has been a great example of this--often has been battling the hardest on issues from which they do not necessarily benefit directly. The case in point, the minimum wage. We know that those who are represented by unions in almost every circumstance have a pretty solid wage compared to those who may be making a minimum wage or less. We know organized labor, thankfully over many generations now, has been able to bargain collectively for health care benefits. But even despite that, they have battled for those who do not have health insurance. Bill George has been one of the leaders in Pennsylvania for 20 years, making sure the voice of working men and women have been heard but also making sure the poor had a voice, the vulnerable, the forgotten, the people who have been left out. To use a line from Scriptures, ``The least, the last and the lost'' have been beneficiaries of his great voice and his strength of personality, his commitment to fighting for justice and especially fighting for economic and social justice. Tonight, as we are here in Washington and voting, there is a huge crowd of Pennsylvanians at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, a convention center named in honor of one of our greater Governors, a native of Pittsburgh. The AFL/CIO tonight is paying tribute to Bill George and also Dan Rooney, the great owner of the six-time Super Bowl Pittsburgh Stealers and now the Ambassador to Ireland. So I wish to compliment both Dan Rooney and Bill George on their award tonight at the AFL/CIO dinner in Pittsburgh. But in a very particular way, I wish to commend and salute the work Bill George has done over so many years in our Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, culminating in the last 20 years as President of the Pennsylvania AFL/CIO. Congratulations to Bill George. I know he will stay active in Pennsylvania and beyond, but we want to commend him especially tonight. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration, and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 204.

Mr. CASEY. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 482 submitted earlier today.

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

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 468, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. CASEY

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

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m., Thursday, April 15; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate proceed to a period of morning business for 1 hour, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, with the majority controlling the first 30 minutes and the Republicans controlling the final 30 minutes; that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of H.R. 4851, the Continuing Extension Act.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I am grateful for this opportunity to speak about health care. I commend our chairman, Senator Baucus, for his great leadership in the Finance Committee and on so many other important issues we have been wrestling with with regard to health care. We have had a chance over many months now--and even as we speak today--to talk about a lot of the policy of the bill the President signed into law, our health care bill we passed here in the Senate, and, of course, the policy contained in the bill we are considering now. But sometimes it is important for us to step back and talk about some--not all--but a few examples of some of the real people out there on whom this legislation will have an impact. I have spoken a number of times about Trisha Urban from Berks County, PA--all the problems she and her family had with their health care: denied coverage because of a preexisting condition, running into problems when the insurance company dropped coverage. Her husband died in the process. And the same day he died, her daughter was born. I have told that story a number of times, and I will tell it again. I also want to highlight what has happened to another family, the Ritter family from Manheim, PA, Lancaster County. The family has two young girls whom I have met. I met them in 2009. As children, these two little girls, Hannah and Madeline Ritter, hit their lifetime cap on their cancer treatment before they completed their course of treatment. When they hit this cap, they were 4 years old, these two Ritter twins. If that is not proof that comprehensive health reform is needed now, I do not know what more we can say. We are very happy the President signed into law the bill we passed in December. Now the health care reform is the law of the land. The Ritter twins--Hannah and Madeline Ritter--will not have to worry about how to get or keep health insurance coverage throughout their lives because, in 2010, strong consumer protections will go into effect. Not only will these protections ensure that these two little girls--Hannah and Madeline--not only will it ensure they can have access to the medical care they need to grow up healthy, but also they will be able to reap the benefits of other parts of this bill. This bill will also help hard-working insured Americans from having to declare bankruptcy due to medical bills, as the Ritter family of Manheim, PA, had to do at one point. I do not have the time in this segment to be able to tell their whole story, but suffice it to say, in addition to the nightmare their daughters lived through, the family had to declare bankruptcy. But some highlights of what this bill means to real families: Health insurance reform puts American families and small business owners--not their insurance companies--in control of their own health care. Secondly, this bill makes health insurance affordable for middle- class families and small businesses--one of the largest tax cuts in history--reducing premiums and out-of-pocket costs. Third, it holds insurance companies accountable, at long last, to keep premiums down and prevent denial of care and coverage, including for preexisting conditions. No. 4, this legislation improves Medicare benefits with lower prescription drug costs for those in the doughnut hole, better chronic care, free prevention care, and nearly a decade more of solvency for Medicare. Finally, No. 5--and this is not a comprehensive summary but one more point--this legislation reduces the deficit, according to the Congressional Budget Office, by $143 billion over the next 10 years. If you look at the 10 years after that, 20 years in total, it is well over $1 trillion. So this is a bill, and this is legislation, whose time has come. At a time when our State--in Pennsylvania, where we have 577,000 people out of work, almost a record number of people out of work in Pennsylvania-- we have to make sure that one of the things we put in place is a more secure health care system for workers and their families. We all have heard the list of provisions that will go into effect right away. Small businesses will have access to--have the eligibility, I should say--for tax credits. Some companies will get credits up to 35 percent of the dollars they spend on premiums. The Federal Government will be investing in community health centers even in greater amounts than the Federal Government does now. Older citizens would not be affected by the doughnut hole problem where they have to pay the whole freight for prescription drug costs for several thousands of dollars' worth of care. They are going to get relief from that. In 3 months' time--3 months from yesterday--people with preexisting conditions will be able to get help from a high-risk pool, a special fund to help them in that crisis. As we know, in 6 months--in September--children will have the full legal protection in new insurance plans for denials of coverage--or I should say against denials of coverage--for a preexisting condition. So for all of those reasons and more, whether we are thinking about the problem that Trisha Urban and her family had before and certainly after her husband's death, or the Ritter twins, Hannah and Madeline Ritter, we hope more families have the benefit of the protections in this bill. We know one thing. We know small businesses across the country are starting to get a sense now of what this will mean in terms of helping them with the tax credit, helping their employees with the critically important issue of health care. Mr. President, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a fellow in my office, Avni Shridharani, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the Senate's consideration of H.R. 4872.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I am grateful to be joined by Senator Kaufman after me. Almost two decades after the end of the Cold War, the United States and Russia maintain more than 90 percent--90 percent--of the world's total stockpile of 23,000 nuclear weapons. Each of these weapons has the capacity to destroy a city, and a large-scale nuclear exchange could extinguish most life on this planet. As you are aware, massive numbers of nuclear weapons increase the risk of catastrophic accidents, errors, or unauthorized use. There is a serious imperative in the United States to address this issue. The United States--and especially this administration--has rightly focused on nuclear nonproliferation as a top priority. In his Prague speech, the President of the United States, President Obama, said: As long as these weapons exist, the United States will maintain a safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary, and guarantee that defense to our allies. But we will begin the work of reducing our arsenal. So I think it is important to note that the President used a number of important words there: ``safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary.'' But he also said we have responsibilities. The first test of that commitment is the new START agreement. In October, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said: [T]he United States is interested in a new START agreement because it will bolster our national security. We and Russia deploy far more nuclear weapons than we need or could ever potentially use without destroying our ways of life. We can reduce our stockpiles of nuclear weapons without posing any risk to our homeland, our deployed troops or our allies. Clinging to nuclear weapons in excess of our security needs does not make the United States safer. And the nuclear status quo is neither desirable nor sustainable. It gives other countries the motivation or the excuse to pursue their own nuclear options. So said the Secretary of State. As we know, Secretary Clinton is in Moscow now, and we all hope we will be able to make progress on the START follow-on treaty during her visit. We want to thank and commend her for the work she is doing not only as Secretary of State every day but at this time especially in Moscow. The START follow-on treaty would reduce deployed nuclear weapons in the United States and Russia and would provide crucial verification measures that would allow a window into the Russian nuclear program. While this treaty has taken a little longer than expected to complete, I applaud the leadership of Assistant Secretary for Verification, Compliance and Implementation, Rose Gottemoeller, and her efforts to pursue a strong agreement as opposed to an immediate agreement. A new START agreement is in our national security interests, especially in terms of maintaining verification and transparency measures. Once complete, this agreement could help to strengthen the U.S.-Russian relationship and potentially increase the possibility of Russian cooperation on an array of thorny and grave international issues, including North Korea and Iran. The START follow-on treaty is a clear demonstration that the United States is upholding our nonproliferation obligations under the NPT. START is a necessary step in reaffirming U.S. leadership on nonproliferation issues. Without a clear commitment to our nonproliferation responsibilities through a new START agreement, it will be increasingly difficult for the United States to secure international support in addressing the urgent security threats posed by the spread of nuclear weapons. International agreements to limit nuclear weapons draw upon a deep well of bipartisan support over the years. There is no reason--no reason at all--why this START agreement should be different. We may have our differences on elements of the treaty when it is presented before the Senate for ratification, but I hope--and I believe this will happen--we will be able to come together in common cause in recognition that these agreements are in our national security interests because they ultimately decrease the likelihood--decrease the likelihood--of accidental launch and decrease the likelihood of terrorist access to nuclear materials. There will be deliberation and there will be debate, but I am confident that at the end of the process, we will have a strong agreement that in the proud tradition of the Senate will garner bipartisan support. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I wished to review a couple points with regard to where we are on health care. We are at a point now where, of course, we are still awaiting action in the House--the other body, as it is sometimes referred to in the Senate--so we have to allow the House process to take place, and then, of course, we will be taking up health care more directly or more definitively next week. But I think it is important to put this issue into the context of real people. We have a lot of discussions in the Senate and throughout Washington on process and procedure and numbers and all that, and that is important and relevant, but at the end of the discussion--the old expression ``at the end of the day''--we have to be able to not only talk to the American people, as we have over many months now--in some cases many years--about what this legislation will do, but also we have to be aware of what is concerning a lot of people, a lot of families. I received a letter in the early part of 2009 from a woman in Pennsylvania who lives in Berks County--kind of the eastern side of our State, just north of Philadelphia, a couple counties north of Philadelphia, Berks County--and the woman who wrote to me, Trisha Urban, is someone whom I have come to know over the past couple years because of the tragedy in her own life which relates directly to health care. Trisha Urban related to me, in a letter she wrote to me but also in subsequent conversations, her story, which was the subject of a lot of discussion and public notoriety in her home area. I wish to read portions of the letter--not the whole letter but I think the relevant parts of this letter. She talks about her husband, she and her husband having all kinds of trouble with health care, which relates directly to almost every major issue we are talking about. Quoting from her, she said: Like many Americans, we have difficulty with our health insurance. My husband had to leave his job for 1 year to complete an internship requirement to complete his doctorate in psychology. The internship was unpaid and we could not afford COBRA. I will end the quote there for a second. We have had debates for weeks on extending COBRA health insurance to those who are unemployed-- a safety net not only for Trisha Urban and her family, at that time, but so many American families--millions of them--especially in the midst of a terrible recession. Picking back up on her letter: Because of preexisting conditions, neither my husband's health issues nor my pregnancy-- She talked earlier in the letter about her pregnancy. --would be covered under private insurance. I worked four part-time jobs and was not eligible for any health benefits. We ended up with a second-rate health insurance plan through my husband's university. When medical bills started to add up, the insurance company decided to drop our coverage stating the internship did not qualify us for the benefits. I will comment on that section. In those few sentences, you have the preexisting condition problem and the ``insurance company dropped our coverage'' problem. This is information we have heard over and over in testimony from real people about what insurance companies in America are doing to these families. They are discriminating against families-- legally, apparently, under current law. That is part of why we want to change what has been happening in America, change the law through passage of legislation to deal with the question of protecting families with preexisting conditions. At long last--we have talked about this issue for decades but certainly in the last couple of years and more intensively in the last couple of months--this opportunity we have, this legislation gives us a chance not just to talk and to pontificate about what is wrong with the system but to act, to vote and to act to change the system to protect families. Again, we are talking about preexisting conditions, we are talking about people, families who are going to work every day, paying their premiums, doing their part of the agreement they have with an insurance company. Yet, despite paying their premiums, despite doing what they are supposed to do under the current system, they are being denied coverage, they are being discriminated against because they have a preexisting condition or, even more outrageously, their children are being denied coverage because of a preexisting condition. I have to ask myself--and I think a lot of Americans are asking this question--why do we tolerate this? Why do we go from year to year and say: it is terrible, insurance companies deny people coverage because of preexisting conditions even though they have been paying their premiums; it is terrible that insurance companies drop their coverage; it is terrible that they put limits on the kind of care they will provide, but they will put a dollar limit on it for a year or for a lifetime? That is really terrible, but there is nothing we can do about it. That is basically what we have been saying for years. We complain about the problem, and no one or not enough people here in Washington are willing to take on the insurance company and say: No, you are not going to do that any longer. We are going to make those practices illegal. We have a chance, and it is an up-or-down vote situation. We have a chance over the next couple of days--I hope not weeks but certainly the next couple of days--to decide these questions once and for all. We are either going to stand up to insurance companies or we are going to allow them to control people's lives in a way that is insulting to the American people. It is damaging the ability for families to have coverage and to have better health care. I believe what insurance companies do on these discriminatory practices is harming our economy long term. How can you be a productive worker if you have to worry every day, even though you paid your premium, whether an insurance company can discriminate against you, against your family, and especially against your children? That is what Tricia Urban was pointing to here, not because it was an issue in Washington but it was an issue in her life, in the life of her husband, and eventually having an impact on her own pregnancy. I pick up the letter again, and I am quoting Tricia Urban again in the letter. She talks about what the costs were for her and for her husband: We were left with close to $100,000 worth of medical bills. Concerned with the upcoming financial responsibility of the birth of our daughter and the burden of current medical expenses, my husband missed his last doctor's appointment less than 1 month ago . . . Meaning less than 1 month prior to February of 2009. Here is where she begins to close the letter. I am quoting again. I am a working class American and do not have the money or the insight to legally fight the health insurance company. We had no life insurance. I will probably lose my home, my car, and everything we worked so hard to accumulate and our life will be gone in an instant. If my story is heard, if legislation can be changed to help other uninsured Americans in a similar situation, I am willing to pay the price of losing everything. You might be wondering what happened to her, what happened in her life. Was it just a situation where they got dropped from their coverage? That is bad enough. Is it a situation where they got dropped from coverage and also were denied treatment or care or coverage because of a preexisting condition? That would be bad enough in and of itself. But, no, the story gets worse from there. She talks about the day when her water broke and she is about to go to the hospital to deliver her baby. The baby's name is Cora--just a little more than a year old now. Here is what she says: My water had broken the night before, we were anxiously awaiting the birth of our new child. A half-hour later, 2 ambulances were in my driveway. As the paramedics were assessing the health of my baby and me, the paramedic from the other ambulance told me that my husband could not be revived. She walks out the driveway to get into the car to go to the hospital to deliver her daughter Cora, and she sees her husband dead on the driveway, largely because or maybe exclusively because he missed his doctor's appointment for a heart condition because he was worried about paying for the doctor visit. This is not some screenplay or some theoretical story; this is real life for people in America. We have to ask ourselves, on both sides of the aisle--our friends on the other side have to ask themselves: Is this good enough? Is this the best America can do, that we have to say sorry to Tricia Urban; sorry that happened to you about a preexisting condition, but we do not have the guts or the ability here in Washington to stand up to insurance companies; sorry you were denied coverage, but it is not going to change; sorry that a doctor's visit might have cost too much at a particularly vulnerable point in your life or the life of your husband; sorry that your husband died, but we don't think we can be responsive to those situations. Why do we tolerate this? Why do we allow insurance companies to control our lives this way? This is not just another vote in Washington. This is not just some discussion about reconciliation or the House vote and all that other stuff. This is about real life, and in the next couple of days we are either going to stand up to insurance companies or we are not. I think it is a whole set of questions Tricia Urban is asking. She is asking me, she is asking all the Democrats in this Chamber and all the Republicans. Then there is another set of questions I have and I think a lot of Americans have for our colleagues on the other side. They say they want health care reform, but they are not willing to support what we are trying to do. You say: OK, if they do not support what you are trying to do, they probably have an alternative plan they have all come together on and worked on for months and they are going to propose that alternative; that is the American way. They have an idea, we have an idea, we have a debate and vote, and someone wins, right? That is not the case. I am still waiting--we are all still waiting for Republican elected officials in Washington, House or Senate, to tell us what their plan is, to tell us definitively what they really want to do. Do they really want to be responsive to this problem of a preexisting condition? Do they really want to stand up against the insurance companies and say: No, you can't discriminate against families any longer. Oh, by the way, they are going to do just fine, those insurance companies, because if our bill passes they are going to have 30 to 31 million more Americans covered. So they are going to do just fine. Don't worry about the insurance companies, they will do just fine even if we put a lot of protections in the bill. We have to ask our Republican friends: You say you care about covering Americans. Our legislation covers more than 30 million; how about you? Their latest proposal covers 3 million Americans. That is not even a serious attempt to cover Americans. We passed a bill last year on children's health insurance where we are going from 4 million children covered and, because President Obama signed the children's health insurance reauthorization into law, we are going up to 7 million. We have already proven we can cover more children with an expansion of an existing program than the other side of the aisle is going to cover in their entire health care plan. But there is not much detail other than that. They say they want to cover 3 million. So it is a choice: Shall we cover 31 million Americans and strengthen our economy and give people the security of health care or give 3 million coverage and pretend that is a serious proposal? They say they care. They say they care on deficit reduction and controlling costs. Yet they will not support a proposal that at last count reduced the deficit by $130 billion. We are getting new information that is just coming out today from the Congressional Budget Office that number might still remain true from what it was in December--$130 billion of deficit reduction over the first 10 years and in the second 10 years maybe as high as $1 trillion or more. If you care about deficit reduction, then why wouldn't you sign on to something that would provide maybe the most significant deficit reduction in American history in one piece of legislation? They say they care about Medicare. We have heard that a lot over there. They care about Medicare and all that. Then, when their proposal comes out, they want to have vouchers for Medicare. Is that a serious proposal? They have to answer some basic questions, and they have to specifically answer the questions Tricia Urban is asking us because Tricia Urban's story is a story we have heard in different forms all over the country, certainly all over Pennsylvania. Maybe not every story has preexisting conditions, limiting coverage, jacking up rates so you can't afford to have coverage, and, tragically, a death in the family. Maybe not every story is that substantial. But we have heard stories over and over. I also point to our businesses. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an Associated Press--Pittsburgh Tribune Review article from earlier this month, ``Health Tops Pennsylvania Business Woes.''