Christopher Coons

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. We are looking forward to doing that in just a few minutes, actually. We have Dogfish Head Beer, we have Grottos pizza, and Capriotti subs, and dozens of restaurateurs and breweries and wineries from across Delaware--in age-appropriate settings--who will make available some of the finest of what Delaware has to offer. So it is my hope members of staff and our colleagues will join in the celebration of Delaware Day. One of the questions folks who are listening might have is: What about Delaware are you celebrating? It is, in my experience--and I believe my colleague's--a State that is not just the First State because of a wonderful accident of history, where we were the first State to have the vision and the courage to sign the Constitution, to ratify it, but it is also a State that has a nearly unique culture--a culture of respect, of innovation, of education, and of civility. It is a place that has a special, even a unique political culture, one that is at times the polar opposite of what I have seen here--forgive me, Madam President--in the last 2 years. Delaware, much like New Hampshire, feels and seems like a small town that is, through the magic of federalism and the Connecticut Compromise and the Continental Congress, a State with two Senators. One of the things I am proudest of about my State--and Senator Carper knows this well--is a tradition that just celebrated its 200th anniversary. It is the epitome of what we call the Delaware Way. It is a tradition that happens 2 days after every election. It is called Return Day, and it happens in Georgetown, which is the county seat of our southernmost county, Sussex County. What happens 2 days after the election--or the first thing that happens, because there are a lot of different pieces to it--is we all gather out at a local farm, and two by two--ark rules--the candidates who ran against each other in the general election get into horse-drawn carriages and ride--slowly--down the main streets of Georgetown where crowds of thousands come out to see the candidates, who just days before were engaged in vigorous political combat, being polite, being friendly, and waving to the crowds. What happens after that, I ask Senator Carper?

Mr. COONS. Madam President, as anyone who has looked at the beautiful Delaware flag knows--and it flies in our offices and hallways here--it has a date emblazoned on the bottom--December 7, 1787, and that is known as Delaware Day. That is the day when Delaware became the first State to ratify the Constitution. So to celebrate Delaware Day, we do some things together, don't we?

Mr. COONS. Madam President, this is a critical moment. Over the next few weeks, serious choices must be made about how our Nation spends its money, about our national budget. At its heart, a budget is a statement of balance. A budget shows the world what we care about, what we prioritize, what we invest in, how we intend to build our future. Everyone who comes to this Chamber comes with their own values, representing their own State. But each of us also knows we have to find a way to bridge those divides to work together to solve the enormous fiscal challenges we face as a Nation. That means addressing the more than $500 billion in automatic spending cuts, tax increases, and other fiscal changes all scheduled to take place at the beginning of the next year and known collectively as the fiscal cliff. We find ourselves at the edge of this cliff because of our shared beliefs that deficits matter and that we can't keep spending money we don't have. As it stands today, our deficit and debt are unsustainable. Last year we ran a budget deficit of well over $1 trillion, and now we have a national debt that exceeds $16 trillion. If we don't get these numbers under control, interest payments will inevitably skyrocket, taking up a larger and larger percentage of our budget until they crowd out other critical, progrowth investments in our country's competitiveness and the essential social safety net that puts a circle of protection around the most vulnerable in our country. I don't believe either one of us wants to put those two vital things at risk. When a budget is so out of balance we have to take a hard look at both the money coming in and the money going out. The only way to get back on track, in my view, is to address both sides of this equation-- revenue and spending. We have to find a balanced solution that combines tough spending cuts with reforms to our Tax Code that bring in more revenue while also ensuring fairness to taxpayers. I believe there is real momentum for this kind of big, balanced, bipartisan solution for the first time in a long time. We have seen some courageous Republicans in both the House and Senate recently stand and say that revenue has to be on the table and a few even that an increase in tax rates for the wealthiest Americans may be necessary to get a budget deal that moves us forward. They know what we all know--that, frankly, even the most drastic across-the-board spending cuts, like the kinds contained in the sequester that will kick in in January, won't save enough to close the budget gap. At the same time, across-the-board, meat ax cuts to domestic programs violate some of our basic American values by failing to protect the most vulnerable in our society, those who I believe our values call us to put a circle of protection around, even in this most difficult recovery. Risking public safety, for example, by cutting funding for police and firefighters or leaving families out in the cold this winter by cutting heating assistance to low-income seniors--these are not American values. They are not the best way to solve our fiscal challenge. The truth is that those programs specifically have already been cut more than I would ever have liked to have seen. The Budget Control Act passed last year made a dramatic $1 trillion in spending cuts over the coming decade, which fell like an ax on some community-based programs on which Delaware families depend and which I used as county executive, in partnership with our community, to fight for the disabled for affordable housing and for low-income heating assistance programs. So let's not let this moment pass us by. Let's instead seize the opportunity before us and start finding areas where, across the aisle and between the Chambers of the Senate and the House, we can agree. One of those areas of agreement is the need to extend tax cuts for the middle class, for families and small businesses still working their way out of the deep hole of the financial collapse of 2008 and still making their way through this recovery. No one from either party, from the House, the Senate, or any State in this country, wants to raise taxes on middle-class families and small businesses and families like Deborah's. Deborah is a single mother in Wilmington, DE--my hometown--who is working a full-time job and a part-time job on top of that just to make ends meet. She wrote to my office, concerned about tax increases and the fiscal cliff. She said that ``the middle class is the heart and soul of this country--what keeps it going--what else can we be hit with? I know that I cannot take on any more financially.'' So my first call today is let's give Deborah and families like hers in Delaware and around the country the certainty, before we end this calendar year, of knowing their taxes will not go up in 26 days when the calendar turns to 2013. One way to do that is for the House to take up and pass legislation this body has already considered and passed in a bipartisan way that would extend the Bush-era tax cuts for 98 percent of families and 97 percent of small businesses while also achieving nearly $1 trillion in debt and deficit reduction. This bill extends tax cuts that would otherwise expire for all Americans who earn income and for all small businesses that earn revenue but just on the first $200,000 of individual income or $250,000 in family income. Tax rates on income over and above $\1/4\ million a year would revert to the levels of the Clinton administration, the time of enormous economic growth and prosperity. This one step would blunt the impact of the fiscal cliff for the vast majority of Americans and give them the certainty they so badly need. It would also be a serious downpayment on meaningful deficit reduction and ensure that our budget more closely reflects our values, our fundamental belief in the American dream and that if you work hard, you can still get ahead. Leading Republicans in the House and the Senate, including Senator Snowe and Congressman Cole, have urged the House to move forward and pass this bill to provide badly needed security and certainty to middle-class families before the end of this year. I join their call, but let's not stop there. Let's keep going and find additional areas of compromise and constructive common ground to provide the business community with the certainty they need to plan the deployment and investment of capital so they can get Americans back to work. This would provide the market with certainty to sustain this recovery, while continuing to invest in our future. This would help families who need to know their budget future and need to be able to have confidence to take risks, to invest in growth. They want to educate their children, to buy a larger home, to take care of their children and their parents. To find the kind of balanced, bipartisan, long-term solution we need is to find a solution to all of these problems. It is only by coming together over the next few weeks--not as Republicans and Democrats but as Americans--that we can avoid a fiscal calamity that was entirely predictable. This is the result of a decade of unresolved budget fighting in this Chamber. For both parties, simply blaming the other side and waiting for the next election to give us a stronger mandate is no longer a tolerable or sustainable path forward. Working together is not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength. Americans have faced tough times before, but our strength has always been our unity and our ability to come together. It is my hope, my prayer, that faced with the challenge of the impending fiscal cliff, we can do it again. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to enter into a colloquy with the senior Senator from Delaware.

Mr. COONS

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

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise today to address a challenging situation in Mali. Mali is a west African country, a country of nearly \1/2\ million square miles, a vast country that stretches from the Sahara Desert to the Niger River area and is home to roughly 15 million people. Yet it is not at the top of the list of concerns for many Americans. This spring, back in March, a rogue element in Mali's security forces launched a coup and forcefully overthrew a longstanding, democratically elected government in the nation of Mali, our ally. This may seem inconsequential to the average American, but it could have big implications for our security, as well that of our regional and global allies, because in the power vacuum created in that spring coup, al- Qaida saw an opportunity, and they stepped in. Three different extremist groups, all linked to or controlled by al-Qaida in the Islamic Mahgreb, or AQIM, now control an area the size of Texas in the northern part of Mali. They succeeded in fracturing a formerly stable democracy and contributing to broad security, political, and humanitarian crises that I believe have grave implications for the Sahel region and for America's interests. To put it simply, this matters. Mali, a relatively strong democracy for more than two decades and an ally to the United States, is now embroiled in turmoil. The United States, in partnership with the international community, must show leadership in helping it rebuild its democracy and restore its territorial integrity by reclaiming northern Mali from terrorists and extremists. So this morning, as the chair of the African Affairs Subcommittee of the Foreign Relations Committee, I chaired a hearing to assess the developments and the path forward for U.S. policy in Mali. What I heard from our experts, from the Department of Defense, from the State Department, from the USAID, as well as a range of outside experts and one witness who testified from Bamako, the capital of Mali, was of real concern to me. Northern Mali today is the largest terrorist-controlled area in the world. In the north, extremists have imposed a harsh and strict version of Sharia or Islamic law and committed gross violations of human rights. Many folks have heard of Timbuktu but don't know that it is an ancient city in northern Mali, a site where these Islamic extremists have behaved much as the Taliban did in Afghanistan before 9/11. They destroyed sacred religious and historic artifacts in Timbuktu, imposing a harsh version of Sharia that has meant amputations, stonings, violations of women's rights of free speech, religious exercise of rights, fundamentally changing the tolerance and exclusive history of Mali. This created a humanitarian crisis as more than 400,000 Malians have fled, either internally displaced within Mali or going into neighboring countries as refugees. With growing ties between these terrorists and Nigeria, Libya, and throughout the region, AQIM, we believe, may now use its safe haven in northern Mali to plan for regional or transnational terrorist attacks. Just as we should not have ignored developments in Afghanistan, which seemed a remote and troubled country when the Taliban took it over more than a dozen years ago, so too we would ignore the chaos in northern Mali at our peril. In fact, Secretary Clinton has said that Mali has now become a powder keg of potential instability in the region and beyond. The top American military commander in Africa, GEN Carter Ham, said publicly just this week that al-Qaida is operating terrorist camps in northern Mali and is providing arms, explosives, and financing to other terrorist groups in the region. So I believe it is critical that the United States has a strong and comprehensive policy to deal with this threat. I am concerned that the current U.S. approach may not be forward leaning enough to address all three crises--security, political, and humanitarian--in a coordinated, comprehensive, and effective way at the same time. Given the compelling U.S. interest in stability, security, and good governance in Mali, we must ensure that we don't miss the bigger picture of what this situation means for the future of Mali, to our allies, and to our security. The U.N. Security Council is now considering what they call a concept of operations for an African-led military operation. The United States can and should play a more active role in supporting this and preventing the country from becoming a permanent home for extremists and a safe haven for terrorists. An active role does not mean putting American boots on the ground. Instead, we can provide operational support for a regionally led, multilateral, African-led force being organized by ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, and the African Union. In the weeks ahead the U.N. Security Council will likely vote on a resolution authorizing this coalition to lead a military intervention to dislodge the terrorists in the north. We have seen models like this work in Cote d'Ivoire and Somalia, so there is reason to believe in the potential of a regional military solution to the security crisis in the north. However, even if this intervention works, it will take time to train, equip, and assemble the regional force and to develop the appropriate plans for what happens during and after a military intervention. Frankly, Mr. President, security and stability can't be restored to Mali with military action alone. The current crisis is as much about governance as it is about security. A stronger Malian democracy is the best way to ensure security and societal gains in the short term and the long term, but democracy doesn't just begin or end with an election. One of the reasons Mali's democracy crumbled so quickly was that Malians didn't feel connected to, represented, or well served by their government. Voter turnout in the last few elections was lower and lower, with the government viewed as corrupt, social services not benefiting the relatively sparsely populated north, and institutions nationwide that were weak. The political and security challenges in Mali are two sides of the same coin; they are not separate issues. I will urge that we break down silos between departments and agencies in our government and take a comprehensive view. If we focus on the political only and insist on Mali moving forward briskly with an election even when the security situation will prevent most northern Malians from meaningfully participating, I think we risk unintentionally strengthening the hands of those who want to ensure that Mali's regional divide is permanent and hand a symbolic victory to al-Qaida. On the other hand, if we rush forward with a security solution, with a regional military intervention before it is adequately planned, before they are responsibly trained and equipped, we risk defeat on that front as well. I think we can and should do better. We can work closely with our allies, with regional partners in the international community to address all the security, political, and humanitarian crises unfolding in Mali. Effective, inclusive elections early next year should be one goal but not the only one. We also have to address the ongoing humanitarian crisis of the 400,0000 displaced persons and refugees, the more than 4.5 million people in need of emergency food aid in the region, and the security crisis of terrorists controlling an area this large. To bring long-term peace and stability to Mali and to ensure northern Mali doesn't slide into being the base of operations for the next al- Qaida attack on our allies, our interests abroad, or even the United States, we can't afford to ignore any of the pieces of this complex puzzle. The United States simply cannot afford, despite the many distractions and other priorities facing us, to ignore Mali. I pledge to work in close partnership with my colleagues in the Senate and with my friends on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to ensure an effective engagement by the United States in this important area. I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

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

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Madam President, I rise today to speak in favor of amendment No. 3262, which I am honored to cosponsor with Senators McCain and Levin. I thank the Senators for their disciplined, diligent, and very strong leadership of this year's NDAA process. This is an authorization bill that has been taken up and considered by the Senate for 52 years, and despite a lot of challenges and a lot of difficulties we had getting to bills, getting past objections, getting to reasonable processes and amendments, these two fine Senators have led admirably in a very difficult environment. This amendment does what I think we need to do next, to put before the Senate in an appropriate classified setting useful information about the possibilities before us and before our allies in a very difficult and very complex region that is, as Senator Paul has noted, currently undergoing dramatic conflict. Let me speak to a few points that persuaded me to join Senator McCain and Senator Levin in cosponsoring this amendment. First, despite the comments from my colleague from Kentucky, these plans will be delivered to the Senate in classified form. They will not be accessible to the general public, and they will not be broadcast to our opponents or those who might seek to learn about America's plans. They will only be delivered in classified form. Second, and I think most important, it is explicit in this amendment that nothing in this section shall be construed as a declaration of war or an authorization for the use of force. Senator Paul's repeated concerns that we are rushing headlong into an overengagement in a civil war that is best left to the people of Syria is reflected clearly and in plain language in that provision within this amendment. Earlier today we took up and voted on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. I spoke to this issue as well. Despite the plain language of that convention that would prevent it from having any of the noxious impacts it would have on families in the United States, despite the plain language of that convention and the various restrictions and reservations that were added to it, it would have no impact on homeschooling and no impact on reproductive rights in the United States. It would have no impact on any of the variety of things that were cast about on the floor of the Senate today. So, too, here we should not allow--despite this plain language--Senators to mislead our colleagues into thinking that somehow secretly embedded within this is an authorization for the use of force. So what is this? This is asking that the United States, in consultation between the Department of Defense and this Senate, make reasonable assessments of what our path forward in dealing with the tragic situation in Syria might be. This amendment is clear that it will not consider ground troops being deployed onto Syrian territory. It will only look at a means that might be used by the United States or our allies to stop Assad's reckless, relentless criminal use of airpower to murder his own civilians and his own citizens. I have been heartbroken as I have read account after account of jets and helicopters being used to stray from red lines, being used to bomb hospitals and schools, and of the thousands of innocents who have died. The Syrian civil war is a very complex conflict. Senator Paul asked what I really think is the central question. He said: How can we be confident that the opposition will be tolerant, inclusive, peaceful, and that it will not prosecute or persecute Christians; that they will be an ally to Israel and not impose the sorts of threats and difficulties he cited from Libya, Egypt, and other countries? That is exactly the core question at issue for us going forward: Should the United States stand on the sidelines as Bashar al-Assad massacres tens of thousands more of his civilians or should we consider what ways we can be involved through providing humanitarian assistance? Should we support our regional allies, Turkey and Jordan, through multilateral engagement, supporting Turkey's request to NATO for defensive material? Should we better learn and understand what the opposition on the ground is inclined to do and set clear standards for how, if they demonstrate they are reliable partners in pursuing peace and if they commit themselves to the elements of the national coalition and the Free Syrian Army and to being exactly what Senator Paul would hope--tolerant, inclusive, pro-democracy--why would we stand on the sidelines of history and allow Islamic extremists to instead write the future of the Syrian people? For these and many reasons I am grateful for the opportunity to join with Senators McCain and Levin in cosponsoring this amendment.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I also thank Senator Kerry for his chairmanship on the Foreign Relations Committee and his leadership on this very important issue. I thank Senator Lugar as well. Both Senators, in combination, led strongly on this important issue. Let me briefly add 2 minutes to the chorus on this floor today. First, as to the Senators who have spoken pointedly about their fears and their concerns about home schooling. I listened to their arguments while I was the Presiding Officer. Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma spoke passionately about his youngest daughter who homeschools her kids and about their fears that somehow this convention would hand the power to an unelected group of bureaucrats to direct the schooling of children in Oklahoma. I heard Senator Lee of Utah add a question to that negative chorus. He said, I have justifiable doubts that a U.N. committee in Geneva can judge the best interests of children in Utah. I agree. This convention does nothing to empower an international convention of bureaucrats to direct the schooling of children in Delaware, West Virginia, Indiana, or in Massachusetts. I am, frankly, upset that they have succeeded in scaring the parents who homeschool their children all over this country. My own office has gotten dozens of calls and letters demanding that I vote against this convention. As a matter of international law and as a matter of U.S. law, this convention does nothing to change the home schooling of children in America; rather, it does something positive. The Americans with Disabilities Act, which was led so brilliantly in its ratification by Senator Tom Harkin and Senator Robert Dole, who was a central architect in the passage in this Chamber, stands as a great accomplishment in this country in our steady progress toward freedom and inclusion. This convention, ratified by this Senate, would allow our voice to be heard in an international forum all over the world. A billion citizens of this world live with disabilities every day, and our voice deserves to be heard. When we open the Senate every day, we say the Pledge of Allegiance. At the end of it, we hold up to the world our standards: Liberty and justice for all. In this country, the Americans with Disabilities Act says we have accomplished real progress toward liberty for the disabled and justice for all. By ratifying this convention, our voice would be heard on these vital issues all over the world. It is a voice that deserves to be heard. I urge my colleagues to ratify the convention. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise today as not just the Member from Delaware but also as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to speak to the topic before us of the convention and whether the United States should ratify a convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. Our country has long been a global leader in recognizing and protecting the basic rights, the human rights of all people, including those with disabilities, and of working hard to be at the forefront of a global movement to improve access to the basic and essential aspects of productive daily life for those with disabilities. Today we have the opportunity to help extend those rights, the same rights that disabled Americans have to other people around the world. If we have that opportunity to promote freedom and human rights, why wouldn't we ensure these protections that apply to Americans apply to them abroad as well and to others, some of the nearly 1 billion fellow citizens of the world who live with disabilities. This treaty that is before us today was adopted by the United Nations in 2006 with 153 nations as signatories and so far 116 as ratifying parties. It has been 6 long years that the United States has not joined as a ratifying party. This treaty has passed with strong bipartisan support through the Foreign Relations Committee by a vote we took back in July after hearings, and it is been nearly 6 months since that vote. Yet this treaty, sadly, faces opposition on the floor of the Senate. This Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was negotiated during the Bush administration, and it enjoys strong bipartisan support. I am proud to join Senators McCain, Barrasso, Moran, Durbin, Harkin, Udall, and many others who have been advocating for its passage since March. It would, as has been said, not require any changes to U.S. law and would have no impact on our Federal budget. It would instead promote U.S. business interests by creating a level playing field for U.S. companies by equalizing accessibility requirements that foreign businesses must meet, and it would create new markets for innovative U.S. businesses with expertise in standards and technologies that would help ease the lives of those with disabilities. At least as importantly, it would promote access, mobility, and inclusion for disabled Americans abroad, especially wounded veterans. Last but not least, it would protect the right of families to homeschool their children if they choose to do so, a topic on which my office received many concerned calls from constituents. We heard directly from the Justice Department during our hearing on the Foreign Relations Committee on this convention that ratification of this treaty will not in any way erode the rights of parents with disabled children to educate their children at home if they so choose. In short, Mr. President, ratification only benefits the United States and protects Americans. The world has long looked to us as a global leader, as a moral compass, as a defender of freedom and human rights. In my view, we owe a great debt to many who have served in this Chamber before us, including, principally among them, Senator Bob Dole, who, along with many others, led the initial fight for the ratification of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The least we can do for people with disabilities all around the world is to step to the plate, to ratify this Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities without delay. It is my hope this Senate, in a bipartisan way, can come together in the spirit of unity to protect dignity and human rights for all. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting for the ratification of this most important treaty. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS. I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 5 minutes on the topic of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, like so many Americans, I stayed up late last Tuesday night to watch the election returns come in. It was 11:38 pm on the East Coast when the Associated Press called the election for President Obama, but at that late hour, Andre Murias, an 18-year-old first-time voter in Miami-Dade County, Florida, was still waiting in line to cast his ballot. Andre had been in line at the South Kendall Community Church for nearly five hours by the time he voted, just before midnight. Five hours--that is appalling. Yet, some Florida voters waited even longer--as much as 7 or 8 hours--during the State's condensed early-voting period. Rashell Hobbs, another first-time voter, waited for five hours in Chesapeake, Virginia. ``This is just horrible,'' Rashell said. ``There is no reason it should take this long.'' Rashell, I agree. Voting machine irregularities were experienced in States across the country by voters of both political parties. In Colorado, voters said they checked the box on the touchscreen panel to vote for Mitt Romney, but that the machine kept switching their pick to President Obama, while in Pennsylvania, voters reported the same problem in reverse, that their selection of President Obama was registered as a vote for Governor Romney. It wasn't just new technology that caused issues. Poll-watchers in Davidson County, Tennessee, could only stand by as would-be voters saw the long line of people waiting to cast their ballots and drove away. In Philadelphia, long-time registered voters who showed up to cast their ballots discovered their names simply weren't on the rolls any more. More than a dozen states, including Ohio, Wisconsin, South Carolina, New York and Montana, experienced some kind of breakdown in the administration of their elections. This is the United States of America. The right to vote is in our DNA. We have to get this right. That is why today, I am introducing the Fair, Accurate, Secure and Timely Voting Act of 2012--the FAST Voting Act. Making it harder for citizens to vote is a violation of voters' civil rights. Long lines are a form of voter disenfranchisement. Running out of ballots is a form of voter suppression. The fact is, access is denied when registration is cut off months before the election and where early vote and vote-by-mail options are not widely available. This particularly matters for the men and women of our armed services, who are currently stationed overseas and have no choice but to vote by mail. As widespread as the problem is, there are States that are getting it right. These states continue to be laboratories of democracy, and we need to learn from them. The FAST Voting Act creates a competitive grant program in the model of Race to the Top, which has encouraged states to aggressively pursue education reform. The states that demonstrated the most comprehensive and promising reform plans win a greater portion of the grant funding. Instead of spurring education reform, the FAST Voting Act would inspire election reform. This bill authorizes a federal program that would award grants based on how well states improve access to the ballot in at least nine ways: flexible registration opportunities, including same-day registration; early voting, at a minimum of 9 of the 10 calendar days preceding an election; no-excuse absentee voting; assistance to voters who do not speak English as a primary language or who have disabilities, including visual impairment; effective access to voting for members of the armed services; formal training of election officials, including State and county administrators and volunteers; audited and reduced waiting times at the poorest performing polling stations; contingency plans for voting in the event of a natural or other disaster, such as Superstorm Sandy, which impacted voting in New York and New Jersey, and would have only needed to take a slight turn to dramatically impact my home State of Delaware. The stakes are high, and the importance of achieving these electoral reforms is paramount. When tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of Americans have their right to vote denied or compromised, we have to take action. The implications of these voting irregularities are felt far beyond our shores. I am the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs, and I worked and studied in South Africa during its apartheid regime. One of the most inspiring sights I have ever seen was during the first ever free and fair election in that nation, when South Africans stood in line for up to two days to cast their votes. Members of our subcommittee meet regularly with African heads of State, and all of us, Democrats and Republicans alike, stress with these leaders the vital importance of free and fair elections. So when we still have substantial voting issues in our own elections, that is a cause for deep concern. We have the opportunity to send a message to first time voters here at home, as well as those fighting for democracy overseas, that every vote counts and every voter will be counted. When States prevent their citizens from exercising their fundamental right of ballot access, whether deliberately through the law or regulations, or accidentally because of incompetence or lack of preparedness, it is a violation of voters' civil rights. The FAST Voting Act is one way to try to fix our elections and make sure what happened across our country last week does not happen again. I look forward to working with my colleagues of both parties to move this important solution forward.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, like so many Americans, I stayed up late last Tuesday night to watch the election returns come in. It was 11:38 pm on the East Coast when the Associated Press called the election for President Obama, but at that late hour, Andre Murias, an 18-year-old first-time voter in Miami-Dade County, Florida, was still waiting in line to cast his ballot. Andre had been in line at the South Kendall Community Church for nearly five hours by the time he voted, just before midnight. Five hours--that is appalling. Yet, some Florida voters waited even longer--as much as 7 or 8 hours--during the State's condensed early-voting period. Rashell Hobbs, another first-time voter, waited for five hours in Chesapeake, Virginia. ``This is just horrible,'' Rashell said. ``There is no reason it should take this long.'' Rashell, I agree. Voting machine irregularities were experienced in States across the country by voters of both political parties. In Colorado, voters said they checked the box on the touchscreen panel to vote for Mitt Romney, but that the machine kept switching their pick to President Obama, while in Pennsylvania, voters reported the same problem in reverse, that their selection of President Obama was registered as a vote for Governor Romney. It wasn't just new technology that caused issues. Poll-watchers in Davidson County, Tennessee, could only stand by as would-be voters saw the long line of people waiting to cast their ballots and drove away. In Philadelphia, long-time registered voters who showed up to cast their ballots discovered their names simply weren't on the rolls any more. More than a dozen states, including Ohio, Wisconsin, South Carolina, New York and Montana, experienced some kind of breakdown in the administration of their elections. This is the United States of America. The right to vote is in our DNA. We have to get this right. That is why today, I am introducing the Fair, Accurate, Secure and Timely Voting Act of 2012--the FAST Voting Act. Making it harder for citizens to vote is a violation of voters' civil rights. Long lines are a form of voter disenfranchisement. Running out of ballots is a form of voter suppression. The fact is, access is denied when registration is cut off months before the election and where early vote and vote-by-mail options are not widely available. This particularly matters for the men and women of our armed services, who are currently stationed overseas and have no choice but to vote by mail. As widespread as the problem is, there are States that are getting it right. These states continue to be laboratories of democracy, and we need to learn from them. The FAST Voting Act creates a competitive grant program in the model of Race to the Top, which has encouraged states to aggressively pursue education reform. The states that demonstrated the most comprehensive and promising reform plans win a greater portion of the grant funding. Instead of spurring education reform, the FAST Voting Act would inspire election reform. This bill authorizes a federal program that would award grants based on how well states improve access to the ballot in at least nine ways: flexible registration opportunities, including same-day registration; early voting, at a minimum of 9 of the 10 calendar days preceding an election; no-excuse absentee voting; assistance to voters who do not speak English as a primary language or who have disabilities, including visual impairment; effective access to voting for members of the armed services; formal training of election officials, including State and county administrators and volunteers; audited and reduced waiting times at the poorest performing polling stations; contingency plans for voting in the event of a natural or other disaster, such as Superstorm Sandy, which impacted voting in New York and New Jersey, and would have only needed to take a slight turn to dramatically impact my home State of Delaware. The stakes are high, and the importance of achieving these electoral reforms is paramount. When tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of Americans have their right to vote denied or compromised, we have to take action. The implications of these voting irregularities are felt far beyond our shores. I am the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs, and I worked and studied in South Africa during its apartheid regime. One of the most inspiring sights I have ever seen was during the first ever free and fair election in that nation, when South Africans stood in line for up to two days to cast their votes. Members of our subcommittee meet regularly with African heads of State, and all of us, Democrats and Republicans alike, stress with these leaders the vital importance of free and fair elections. So when we still have substantial voting issues in our own elections, that is a cause for deep concern. We have the opportunity to send a message to first time voters here at home, as well as those fighting for democracy overseas, that every vote counts and every voter will be counted. When States prevent their citizens from exercising their fundamental right of ballot access, whether deliberately through the law or regulations, or accidentally because of incompetence or lack of preparedness, it is a violation of voters' civil rights. The FAST Voting Act is one way to try to fix our elections and make sure what happened across our country last week does not happen again. I look forward to working with my colleagues of both parties to move this important solution forward.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I wish to commemorate the extraordinary life of Col. Eugene Smith of Wilmington, DE. Gene was the eldest child of Pat and Mary Smith, and his family's story is the American story. He was born in Ireland but moved to Wilmington at age 13, where he grew up playing sports and joined the Delaware National Guard while he was still attending Salesianum High School. After spending some time at seminary and working at DuPont--a great Delaware tradition--Gene went on Active Duty when the National Guard was federalized in the early 1940s. Colonel Smith served with honor in World War II and rose quickly to become a highly regarded military investigator with the Office of Strategic Services, leading the now-famous investigation into the post-war theft of over $1 million in jewels. On Thanksgiving Day 1952, the Smiths heard the knock at the door that every military family fears. Two Air Force officers brought news that a plane en route from Washington State to Alaska had crashed, and all 51 onboard were missing, including Gene. The wreckage of the aircraft was spotted east of Anchorage, but by the time recovery teams entered the area, it had vanished, likely buried by an avalanche. The crash was simply stamped ``unresolved.'' But America doesn't give up on our military heroes. We don't abandon our service men and women, no matter how long it takes. That is why I was so glad to read in the News Journal that on June 10 of this year, the Smith family finally got the closure they have been seeking. An Alaska Army National Guard team in a helicopter spotted debris on a glacier, and a specialized team was called in to officially identify it as the lost aircraft from more than 60 years ago. The remains of the souls lost that day were exhumed, identified, and buried at Arlington National Cemetery--the resting place for American heroes. The only surviving brother of Colonel Smith, Mike Smith of Wilmington, has carried on his family's legacy of service with honor and dignity, and we are proud to count him among our neighbors. I join all Delawareans in saluting the service and sacrifice of Col. Eugene Smith of Wilmington.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I am honored to join my senior Senator, Tom Carper, as we rise today to honor the legacy of one of Delaware's longest serving elected officials--Speaker of the House Bob Gilligan. Speaker Gilligan has served in the Delaware House of Representatives for 4 decades, elected to 20 consecutive terms by his constituents. Bob was first elected in 1972 at age 29--a remarkably young age to be so focused and service-minded. A lot has changed in this country since 1972, but not Bob's commitment to Delaware, to education, to equal rights and to making our State a better place to live. After 40 years of service, Speaker Gilligan is retiring at the end of this legislative session to spend more time with his family, including his wife Jeanne, his daughters Katie and Shannon, and his son-in-law Gavin, as well as his grandchildren, Delaney, Cole, and Asher. Earlier this year, a number of us gathered at the Mill Creek Fire Hall, where Bob is a lifetime honorary member, and celebrated 70/40-- his 70th birthday and his 40th year of public service. All it took was a look at the crowd that gathered to see the real and positive impact Speaker Gilligan has had on our community. He always kept his constituents from his district first and foremost on his mind, even as he worked on issues of broader impact to our State and even our Nation. It was through Speaker Gilligan's leadership that real transparency and openness was brought to Delaware State government. He led the way for House Bill 1--legislation in 2009 that made our State's open- government laws apply to the General Assembly. That may sound like simple fairness and good governance, but it wasn't an easy road to get there. It took all of Bob's legislative acumen to get it done, and now all Delawareans benefit from a more accountable and open government. Our State has benefitted from Bob's passion and commitment in other ways, too. His legacy is felt in education programs and schools across our State, as well as at the Mid-County Senior Center, which he helped found to support local seniors and provide the recreational, educational, and nutritional services necessary for a dignified retirement. In these times of deep division and heated political rhetoric, Bob is a breath of fresh air. He listens to diverse perspectives and values principled compromise. As someone who has been around long enough to serve as both Speaker of the House and Minority Leader for Delaware, he has worked hard to find ways to bring people together. Our State and our Nation could use more Bob Gilligans, and I join Delawareans of all political parties in thanking him for his decades of service and wishing him well in his retirement.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise today to express my gratitude to Leader Reid and to Chaplain Black, to all of us in the Chamber, and my gratitude to the Reverend Dr. Douglas Gerdts. It is my honor and privilege to welcome him to our Chamber this morning as one of Delaware's strongest and finest faith leaders. Reverend Gerdts leads the congregation at First and Central Presbyterian Church in Wilmington. Each time I join with him on Sunday mornings, I am uplifted by the stirring music, I am challenged by his passionate sermons, and I leave engaged for the week, rooted in my faith and moved forward by his words and by his leadership. But Reverend Gerdts' leadership extends far beyond the walls of his church. It touches those most in need in our community. The church literally opens its doors every Saturday, welcoming in homeless Delawareans as well as welcoming in schoolchildren who need smaller class sizes and better instruction to succeed. I have had the pleasure of knowing Reverend Gerdts for more than a dozen years. In my own service in county government I knew him as chair of the Diversity Commission, and he helped lead the charge for equality and civil unions in Delaware last year. He has made a real and lasting contribution to our community. He and his wonderful wife Walle are part of what makes Delaware a great place. As he shared with us in his prayer, he is exactly the sort of person who, through a listening heart, has become a powerful and effective servant leader of faith in my home community. My thanks to the Chaplain for allowing guest Chaplains, and my thanks to Rev. Doug Gerdts for his friendship, his faith, and his leadership. I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Madam President, I rise today in honor of the 18th anniversary of the signing of the Violence Against Women Act into law. As my good friend and colleague the Senator from California has just reminded all of us, it was my home State Senator, now our Vice President, Joe Biden, whose leadership in getting the Violence Against Women Act signed into law in the first place, moved us in this country toward a society that is more just, that is more safe, that is more welcoming. It is, in my view, incredibly discouraging that we are fighting today in the Congress a battle that he made such great early progress on and that should have been won decades ago. Why must we fight in 2012 such a protracted legislative battle to maintain, strengthen, and secure the rights of more than half of the population of this country and to extend the lifesaving programs supported by VAWA to those who need them of every background all across our country? It cannot be that it is because those who oppose VAWA's reauthorization believe that violence against women is no longer a threat. In my own home county, New Castle County, DE, earlier this year a man was arrested after a horrifying assault on his ex-girlfriend, committed in front of all five of her children. The victim's teenage son called 9-1-1 in a panic, terrified. This incident, one of sadly many in my home community, is just another stark example of how domestic violence continues to hurt and harm not just its victims but entire families, not just the woman or occasionally men who are the victims of domestic violence but the children who witness it and whose lives are changed by it. In a world where this sort of violence continues to happen in all our communities, we still need the Violence Against Women Act. We need it to be reauthorized. We need it to be reauthorized and strengthened. We need it to be reauthorized, strengthened, and broadened. It has been a full year since VAWA expired, and still we do not have a reauthorization signed into law. Reauthorization is a real opportunity, one built into the initial act, that requires us as a body, the House and Senate together, to sit down and sift through the data and to examine how these programs can be better, stronger, more efficient, and more effective. Every 5 years we have to take a hard look at where we are failing and where we are succeeding in this important work against domestic violence, the scourge that lives in the dark throughout our community. Here in the Senate we have done that work. The House, sadly, has not. In my view, we must not let them be a roadblock to the critical progress we have been called upon to make. This is our time to make the necessary changes to improve VAWA and to reauthorize it, and we will not back down. In this year's reauthorization we made a number of critical changes, positive changes, and two that are particularly important to me: First, ensuring that every victim of abuse in this country is able to count on the law to protect them, regardless of who they are, where they live, or whom they love; and, second, ensuring that we reduce bureaucracy and strengthen accountability, to ensure that taxpayer dollars authorized through VAWA are spent wisely, responsibly, and effectively. The Senate reauthorization moves us forward by adding protections for victims of domestic violence regardless of their sexual orientation. The reality is, as we learned in reexamining VAWA and the experiences of the last 5 years, sadly the reality is that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans experience domestic violence at the same percentage as relationships in the general population, a shocking 25 to 30 percent of all relationships. Yet nearly half of LBGTQ victims are turned away from domestic violence shelters and one-quarter are unjustly arrested as if they were the perpetrators. The Senate reauthorization makes plain that discrimination is not the policy of these United States. It says no program funded by Federal VAWA dollars can turn away a domestic violence victim because of their sexual orientation or their gender identity, whether the victim is gay or straight, American Indian, White, Black, or Latino. In my view, and the view of so many in this Chamber, they deserve protection from abuse and justice for their abusers. There are two other important changes in this VAWA reauthorization as passed through the Senate, both of which help ensure we bring perpetrators to justice no matter who their victims are or where their crimes are committed. These provisions support victims of crime committed on tribal lands and help law enforcement to secure needed testimony from victims who are unwilling to come forward due to reasonable fear of deportation. So in total I think all three of these important changes to the substance and scope of VAWA strengthen it, carry forward its initial spirit, and are completely appropriate things for this Senate and the House to do in our every 5-year reconsideration and reauthorization of VAWA. It is important to remember that VAWA goes beyond basic justice for our fellow citizens. It supports the investigation and prosecution of violent crime. Delaying this reauthorization means denying essential tools to law enforcement officers in my home State of Delaware and the Presiding Officer's home State of North Carolina and all across our country. As someone who used to be directly responsible for a county police department, who worked in close partnership with all of the different elements, all the different nonprofit groups and civic and community groups, all of the elements from corrections to law enforcement to advocates to providers of services that were brought together in a positive and cohesive way by VAWA, I know how important this is to a holistic approach to combating domestic violence. If we are to tackle a problem this large, this pervasive, this dangerous, we need well-trained and dedicated law enforcement officers. We also need support from the whole community to provide the whole broad range of services that can continue to make progress in pressing back on this evil in our country. In Delaware, that is exactly want we have done. In Delaware, VAWA has fostered a community of those dedicated to reducing violence, allowing each group to reinforce the other, and adding value that individual programs alone could not create. VAWA touches on everything from transitional housing to national hotlines, from the safe exchange of children to increased awareness on college campuses, from law enforcement grants in rural communities to sexual assault service programs in urban communities--not only for women, for men, for children but for whole families and whole communities. VAWA is an important piece of legislation, and that it sits unauthorized in the other Chamber of this Congress is, to me, a great shame and a great tragedy. We must not allow this anniversary of its initial signing into law to pass without redoubling our efforts and redoubling our commitment. My colleagues who oppose this reauthorization put all of this progress at risk. Their insistence on excluding some of our friends and neighbors just because of their background or their sexual orientation is unconscionable. We will keep fighting to secure VAWA reauthorization this year because the safety of our communities depends upon it and simple justice calls for it. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, it is with great pleasure that I wish to honor the exemplary service of Dr. Robin W. Morgan as the dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Delaware. For the past 10 years, Dr. Morgan has played an instrumental role in the expansion of agricultural research in her department and the development of higher education in our State. As she steps down from her position as dean to rejoin the University of Delaware's faculty, I give my most sincere thanks to her and her staff for their diligent and enduring efforts to maintain the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources' reputation as one of the best in the Nation. Throughout her tenure as dean, Dr. Morgan conducted many studies that highlighted the substantial contribution of agriculture to Delaware's economy. Through her research and professional leadership, she has relentlessly supported agriculture in Delaware and has emphasized its importance to the financial well-being of our State. Dr. Morgan has always taken great pride in her faculty, which brings new skills, ideas, and innovation in various fields to the future of agriculture and natural resources. Over the past decade, under Dean Morgan's guidance, the number of undergraduate applications to the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources has doubled. The high caliber of hired faculty and Dr. Morgan's persistence in rebuilding several University of Delaware greenhouses has been pivotal to the growth of the program. I wholeheartedly thank Dr. Robin W. Morgan for her service as dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Delaware. Her model leadership and dedication improved the quality of education and research offered within her department. I wish her the best of luck as she steps down to pursue other research and teaching endeavors at the University of Delaware.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I wish to thank my colleague from Oklahoma for his remarks. If I might just conclude my comments on this amendment by speaking in a little detail on the amendment and its substance. The Senator from Oklahoma essentially directs the administration to find $192 million in reductions in spending in the following agencies: the Department of Commerce, the Small Business Administration, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the Trade and Development Agency. In my role as the chair of the African Affairs Subcommittee, we recently held a hearing on expanding U.S. trade opportunities in Africa for exactly the reasons I elucidated previously: that there is enormous growth, there are great opportunities across the continent. Our competitors from all over the world--not just China but Brazil, Russia, and other European countries--are expanding their investment and their seizure of these opportunities in a way that we are not. The structure of this amendment would simply declare that there is $200 million of waste and duplication at several important trade agencies and direct the administration to slash their budgets for that amount and then hope for the best. That is what Senator Coburn's proposed offset would do. These are agencies that promote and finance U.S. exports and help small and large U.S. businesses export and compete in a global market. In my view, exports, particularly to this market, mean jobs. So I am not convinced that now is the time to blindly slash our ability to export. I think we should instead be encouraging exports. In the context of the Federal budget, $192 million is a very, very small amount of money. I look forward to working with Senator Coburn to find other places where we can find reductions of this size. But this amendment, at this time, on this day, would kill the broader and more important objective of reauthorizing the African Growth and Opportunity Act third-party fabric provision, of moving forward with relevant Burma sanctions, and of moving forward with an important technical fix to CAFTA. This is a carefully crafted compromise bill that the House will pass once we pass it. I urge my colleagues to vote against the Coburn amendment and to move forward with passage of this vital bill. Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time and yield the floor. Cybersecurity Act of 2012

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise today to speak both in favor of the passage of the bill, S. 3326, and to speak against the Coburn amendment. I, first, wish to thank Leaders Reid and McConnell, as well as Senators Baucus and Hatch, for working together diligently to find a path forward for passing this bill. I wish to recognize Senator Coburn and Senator Menendez for being willing to work with us to get to today. I say with some regret that I stand to speak against the Coburn amendment because I respect and recognize Senator Coburn's determination to hold this body accountable and to find pathways forward to deal with our record deficit and debt. In that broader objective, I look forward to working with him on finding responsible pay-fors in future bills and in finding ways that we can steadily partner to reduce the deficit and to find and root out waste and abuse in Federal spending. But I have to say in this particular case, on this amendment, on this day, if we change the pay-for, we kill the bill. We have heard clearly from the Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Camp, and from his ranking minority member, Congressman Levin, that they will not take up this bill if amended in this form, if broken and reassembled, or if sent over in any other way. The pressure of today and the pressure of the value, the importance of this bill is what I choose to speak to. I may at some point reserve time to speak to other issues embedded in the amendment, but I first wanted to speak to the underlying bill. I am the chairman of the African Affairs Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and it is, in some ways, my special honor and challenge to help this body grasp why the African Growth and Opportunity Act is important for us to reauthorize today. Specifically what I am speaking to is the third-country fabric provision which expires in September. This Chamber is about to go out of session later today, and every day we delay in the reauthorization of this critical provision costs jobs, costs opportunity, and costs the future. Let me speak to that for a few minutes, if I might. Creating American jobs and fueling our economic recovery is my top priority, and I know it is for many Members of this body. That is why I am here to talk about what we can do to strengthen our economic security. It may surprise my colleagues, but the truth is one of the best ways to look for that future opportunity is one that was considered among the least likely just a few years ago in Sub-Saharan Africa. Access to emerging markets is critical to America's health and growth, and increased political stability and rising wages in an emerging middle class across Africa makes it the most promising continent for countries willing to invest in long-term partnerships with the United States. In AGOA--the African Growth and Opportunity Act--and its third-country fabric provision, the United States has seized this opportunity to pursue broad and mutually beneficial economic relationships that give American consumers and businesses economic security by allowing eligible countries to export apparel from Africa that is more affordable to the American consumer and, in so doing, create jobs in Africa that otherwise would be elsewhere in the world. This key provision, as I have said, expires in September. Our delay in moving forward with reauthorization that has earned strong bipartisan support is already disrupting production for American apparel companies along with the supply chain on which their customers depend. In my view, we cannot wait to take action. America can't afford to turn its back on African markets, and Congress can't afford to turn its back on extending this provision. Every 3 years since 2000, Congress has unanimously passed the reauthorization of this provision without controversy, and it is, in my view, time to do so again. I respect Senator Coburn's concern that we must change business as usual in this Chamber, but the timing of this amendment and the timing of this concern is, to me, not wise. Today Secretary Clinton is in the middle of a continent-wide tour of African countries. She is engaging with countries for strong emerging middle classes, and that offers us great opportunity: future economic partnership and very real political partnerships. From Ghana to Ethiopia to Tanzania to a half dozen other countries, some of the fastest growing economies in the world are in Sub-Saharan Africa. The seven countries that are the fastest growing economies in Sub-Saharan Africa are home to 350 million potential consumers of our products. In my view, that is why I am urging my colleagues to vote against the Coburn amendment and to allow us to pass this critically important bill today. Failing to do so, in my view, is bad for Africa and for America. Reauthorizing this provision supports the poorest African workers, the vast majority of them women. Senator Isakson, who is my capable and talented ranking minority member on the African Affairs Subcommittee, joined with Congressman Smith and Congresswoman Bass, who are our counterparts in the House, in hosting a meeting 3 months and 6 months ago with roughly 35 Ambassadors from all over the continent who pleaded with us to reauthorize this critical provision. The economic benefits of a strong middle class in Africa are obvious--a pool of new consumers hungry for American products; potential partners for us. And countries with flourishing middle classes are more likely to have strong democratic institutions, good governance, and low corruption. They are more likely to be stable and bulwarks against instability in Africa, a region that I think is vital to our future. In short, then, reauthorizing this provision and continuing our strong bipartisan support of tradition for AGOA is where the United States can continue to differentiate itself from competitors such as China, which recently surpassed the United States as Africa's No. 1 trading partner. The United States has exports to Sub-Saharan Africa that exceeded $21 billion last year, growing at a pace that exceeds our exports to the rest of the world. Africans want to partner with us. They want to work with us, and they seek opportunity. This sort of bipartisanship that in the past has allowed this AGOA third country fabric provision to be reauthorized without controversy is one that I think we should embrace again today. So let's end the delays and reauthorize this provision. Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes of my time, if I might, to the Senator from Georgia, who would like to speak to the issue of the value of the African Growth and Opportunity Act.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, to fuel American economic growth and job creation, we have to make sure our tax policy is as smart as the innovators who power our economy. American ingenuity has always been at the core of our economic success. Behind nearly every game-changing innovation, from the light bulb to the search engine, has been critical research and development that transforms an idea into a market-ready product. The challenges of the global economy may be new, but the solution is the same--supporting and sustaining American innovators. That is why I joined with my friend and colleague, the Senator from Wyoming, Senator Enzi, to draft legislation that gives innovative startup companies the opportunity to take advantage of the successful research and development tax credit, which would support their efforts to invest in innovation and create jobs. Senator Enzi and I are proud to be joined by Senator Schumer of New York and Senator Rubio of Florida in introducing the Startup Innovation Credit Act of 2012, which allows qualifying companies to claim the R&D tax credit against their employment taxes instead of their income taxes, thereby opening the credit to new companies who don't yet have an income tax liability. We are also grateful to our colleagues in the House, who are working to introduce a bipartisan companion bill this week. Over the past three decades, the research and development tax credit has helped tens of thousands of successful American companies create jobs by incentivizing investment in innovation. But with America's global manufacturing competitiveness at stake, it is time Congress shows the same type of support for entrepreneurs and young companies. Small and startup businesses are driving our Nation's economic recovery and creating jobs by taking risks to turn their ideas into marketable products. Over the past few decades, firms that were younger than 5 years old were responsible for the overwhelming majority of new jobs in this country. The tax code is a powerful tool in the government's toolbox, but tax credits can't help emerging companies that don't yet have tax liabilities. That takes the R&D tax credit off the table for countless promising startups and small businesses. Over the last two years, I have talked with dozens of business leaders and experts in tax policy to refine an idea to create a new small business innovation credit that would help those young companies. My commitment to this concept has only strengthened since I introduced a version of it in my very first bill as a Senator, the Job Creation Through Innovation Act. This work continued, along with Senator Rubio, in the subsequent AGREE Act and Startup Act 2.0. The reason I am so doggedly pursuing this idea is because it is critical for young, innovative companies in my home state of Delaware. Take, for example, DeNovix, a small company based in Wilmington. With just six employees, they design, manufacture and sell laboratory equipment that helps scientists innovate and achieve results. As a brand-new company, all of DeNovix' products are in the research and development phase. So at this point, they can't take advantage of the R&D tax credit. A new, innovative company, shut out of support they need at the time they need it most. That seems counterproductive for our economy. So let us fix it. Under the Startup Innovation Credit Act of 2012, DeNovix and companies like them across Delaware and across the country could grow and create jobs with the help of the R&D tax credit. We can't let tough economic times slow down the power of American ingenuity, especially when history has taught us that now is exactly the time we need to be investing in our innovators. More than half of our Fortune 500 companies were launched during a recession or bear market, so a small business founded this year could become the next General Electric or DuPont if it gets the support it needs. America's researchers, business leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs are already working to help create jobs and ensure American competitiveness in the global economy. We just have to support and sustain their hard work, and we cannot take the rest of the year off just because there is an election coming up. Even in this difficult, partisan atmosphere, we have to find ways to work together and get things done. Innovation will drive American economic competitiveness for generations to come, and our job is to help our innovators and entrepreneurs do their jobs. I urge my colleagues to join Senators Enzi, Schumer, Rubio and I in strong support of the Startup Innovation Credit Act of 2012.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise to speak to the issue of cyber security, one where there have been a dozen speeches given earlier today, and one where I am concerned that there is not enough determination, not enough will on the part of this body to work together, to listen to each other, to cross the small differences that remain between camps and competing theories of a bill that we should take up, and I am here to urge our colleagues in this body to address what we have been told is one of the greatest security threats facing our country, to bear down, to file amendments, to clear amendments, to listen to other Members and be willing to do the job for which we were hired, which is to pass tough, broad, bipartisan legislation to protect this country we love. In my short 20 months in the Senate, I have increasingly become more and more persuaded that we face a constant, steadily rising, increasingly dangerous threat that foreign nations, foreign actors, whether they be terrorists or enemies of the United States, are not just studying the possibility of some day attacking the critical infrastructure of the United States, they are not just writing position papers or theorizing about it or training in some camp in an obscure country, they are today actively engaged in thousands of efforts to compromise the critical infrastructure of this country. How Members of this body can ignore the importance of this threat when the majority leader and the Republican leader have twice, in my short time here, closed the Senate and urged every one of us to go to a secure, classified briefing, where we have heard from a dozen four-star generals and leaders of three-letter agencies who have told us in great detail about how grave this threat is. Why in the face of repeated and publicly cited assertions by Secretaries of Defense, heads of the NSA, leaders of our homeland security agency, and leaders responsible for our first responder community from the Federal, State, and local levels, from the private sector to this government, who have said over and over that this is a very real, very present threat--how we can ignore that threat today is beyond me. The bill that is before us is S. 3414. This is a compromise bill. In a series of meetings with other Members of this body, I have been struck to hear others say that we need more time, we need to study this further, we need to pass the narrow portions on information sharing that are easy and everybody can now agree on, and we need not pass a broader or stronger bipartisan bill that deals with infrastructure. As you know well, Mr. President, for years critical committees in this body have been working on this issue. Senators Lieberman and Collins, the chair and the ranking member on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, have been engaged in working their way through difficult issues for years. The relevant committees, from Energy to Commerce to Intelligence, have been engaged in hearings and studies and in legislating for years before I became a Senator. In the last few months there has been some important and strong work to build a bipartisan consensus around the bill that is before us today. I, like you, I believe, Mr. President, had some real concerns about the information-sharing portions of the bill, title VII, which have to do with permitting private companies to share information with each other about the threats of attacks. One of our big problems right now, we are told, is that companies of all different sectors of our economy hesitate to share publicly or to share with our national security infrastructure information that is critical to knowing when we are being attacked, how we are being attacked, and how it might spread. Title VII of the bill gives them liability protection to encourage the broad and regular sharing of that information. But those of us who are concerned about the balance between privacy and security, about protecting civil liberties and whether we have gone too far in seeking security at the expense of liberty, offered a whole series of revisions and changes to this bill--changes that have been accepted. So too in a different section of the bill--title I, which deals with critical infrastructure--folks from the private sector raised alarms and concerns months ago that this bill was too prescriptive, too heavyhanded, was involved too much in regulation and in demanding certain actions by the private sector. Those concerns, too, have been addressed in a broad way. I have been impressed with how many changes Senators Lieberman and Collins have been willing to accept out of a broad working group of more than a dozen Senators of both parties who over the last few months have come forward with suggestions that have made that portion of the bill truly voluntary for the private sector, in a way that balances the role of civilian agencies with parts of our national security apparatus, in a way that provides enough liability protection but not too much, and in a way that allows the private sector to have a leading role in setting standards. My point, then, is to say to my colleagues that when they say we need more time to study it, I say we need to come to this bill, we need to come to the floor, and we need our colleagues to be clear--what are your remaining concerns? In a meeting last Friday with several Senators and representatives of industry, I had read every word of title VII and urged them to be concrete with us about what their concerns were. I left unsatisfied. I left concerned that some were simply scaring the private sector and scaring our citizens into thinking this bill is not ready. So for those who still have concerns--and there may very well be broad and legitimate concerns about the bill and about its direction-- let's take these 2 days. I understand that more than 90 amendments have been filed. I think it is the challenge before us to make the amendments germane, narrowly focused, and relevant to improve the bill rather than distracting us into issues that are more partisan or tied to the campaign and to focus on the work that is left before us. If I could, I am gravely concerned about those who would urge us to split off the portion of the bill on information sharing and ignore the portion of the bill that has to do with protecting our critical infrastructure. As speaker after speaker has come to the floor today and made clear, our electricity grid is at risk, our dams and our powerplants are at risk, our highways and financial system are at risk. There are all sorts of areas in the United States where there have been real cyber attacks, online attacks, in other countries that have demonstrated the devastating potential power of our opponents and enemies around the world. In the face of the cautionary notes we have heard from leaders of this body and around the country and in the face of that very strong reality, why we wouldn't pass a broad and tough bill that facilitates information sharing and protects our critical infrastructure and strikes a fair balance in the middle is beyond me. It is not that this body has been too busy. It is not that we are exhausted by having passed too many broad and strong, bipartisan bills. We have gotten good work done this session. There are things, from the farm bill to the Transportation bill, where this body has shown an ability to listen to each other across the differences of party and region and craft strong, balanced, bipartisan bills. It is on this topic of cyber security that we have heard over and over that there is no more pressing challenge. Why, if our adversaries are not going to be taking the month of August off, if our adversaries are not going to cease from now until November to attack us, would we not bear down and focus on getting done the work that is before us as the U.S. Senate? We are called at times the world's greatest deliberative body. I will say to you as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, in other parts of the world there are folks who are striving toward democracy who question whether this is the model they should follow. In the remaining days before we all go to some recess, why not bear down, do our homework, do our reading, be forthcoming with clear and concise concerns, and hammer out our differences? I extend an invitation to any colleague, any industry group, or any group of concerned citizens: I am happy to meet with anybody to hear their concerns and try to do my level best to convey them to the bill managers and the leaders, who have done a remarkable job of hearing and accepting compromise provisions of this bill on privacy, on the role of the private sector, on making voluntary what was mandatory and striking a fair balance. I urge our colleagues to take this moment seriously, to not allow the days to slip, the month to pass, and the moment to pass us by. How will we answer our constituents, our communities, and our families following an attack that has been so frequently predicted? Do we not believe we will end up regulating in a more heavyhanded, more reactionary, and more ill-informed way after a successful massive attack than now when we have the time to listen to each other and craft a balanced and responsible and bipartisan bill? Mr. President, I will close. I am convinced that this is the gravest threat facing our country today, graver than that of terrorism from overseas. In fact, GEN Keith Alexander of the NSA has clarified just in the last few days to a group of us how grave a threat this is. I renew my offer to any Member of this Chamber: Come and meet with me. Come and meet with Senators Lieberman and Collins. Come and meet with the leaders of the relevant committees, take up your cause, and give an amendment that is narrow and focused and relevant, and let us hammer out a better defense for this Nation. There are those who question the purpose and purposefulness of this body. It has no greater purpose than finding a bipartisan way to craft a strong and vibrant solution to a clear and growing national threat. Just a few weeks ago, I had the honor of sitting for lunch with Senator Daniel Inouye. He is the one Member of this body to have earned the Congressional Medal of Honor in combat. I asked his advice, as the most senior member of my party: What issues, Senator Inouye, do you think I should be focused on? What is the thing you might urge me--a freshman--to invest my time and effort into? His answer was simple, his answer was profound, and his answer, I hope, will be heard by this body. He said to me: I am the only Senator who was at Pearl Harbor. Our next Pearl Harbor will come from a cyber attack for which we are today unprepared. Let's do our duty. Let's listen to each other, come together, hammer out a strong and bipartisan bill, and honor the service and sacrifice of that ``greatest generation''--both in this Chamber and our country--and do our duty. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, to fuel American economic growth and job creation, we have to make sure our tax policy is as smart as the innovators who power our economy. American ingenuity has always been at the core of our economic success. Behind nearly every game-changing innovation, from the light bulb to the search engine, has been critical research and development that transforms an idea into a market-ready product. The challenges of the global economy may be new, but the solution is the same--supporting and sustaining American innovators. That is why I joined with my friend and colleague, the Senator from Wyoming, Senator Enzi, to draft legislation that gives innovative startup companies the opportunity to take advantage of the successful research and development tax credit, which would support their efforts to invest in innovation and create jobs. Senator Enzi and I are proud to be joined by Senator Schumer of New York and Senator Rubio of Florida in introducing the Startup Innovation Credit Act of 2012, which allows qualifying companies to claim the R&D tax credit against their employment taxes instead of their income taxes, thereby opening the credit to new companies who don't yet have an income tax liability. We are also grateful to our colleagues in the House, who are working to introduce a bipartisan companion bill this week. Over the past three decades, the research and development tax credit has helped tens of thousands of successful American companies create jobs by incentivizing investment in innovation. But with America's global manufacturing competitiveness at stake, it is time Congress shows the same type of support for entrepreneurs and young companies. Small and startup businesses are driving our Nation's economic recovery and creating jobs by taking risks to turn their ideas into marketable products. Over the past few decades, firms that were younger than 5 years old were responsible for the overwhelming majority of new jobs in this country. The tax code is a powerful tool in the government's toolbox, but tax credits can't help emerging companies that don't yet have tax liabilities. That takes the R&D tax credit off the table for countless promising startups and small businesses. Over the last two years, I have talked with dozens of business leaders and experts in tax policy to refine an idea to create a new small business innovation credit that would help those young companies. My commitment to this concept has only strengthened since I introduced a version of it in my very first bill as a Senator, the Job Creation Through Innovation Act. This work continued, along with Senator Rubio, in the subsequent AGREE Act and Startup Act 2.0. The reason I am so doggedly pursuing this idea is because it is critical for young, innovative companies in my home state of Delaware. Take, for example, DeNovix, a small company based in Wilmington. With just six employees, they design, manufacture and sell laboratory equipment that helps scientists innovate and achieve results. As a brand-new company, all of DeNovix' products are in the research and development phase. So at this point, they can't take advantage of the R&D tax credit. A new, innovative company, shut out of support they need at the time they need it most. That seems counterproductive for our economy. So let us fix it. Under the Startup Innovation Credit Act of 2012, DeNovix and companies like them across Delaware and across the country could grow and create jobs with the help of the R&D tax credit. We can't let tough economic times slow down the power of American ingenuity, especially when history has taught us that now is exactly the time we need to be investing in our innovators. More than half of our Fortune 500 companies were launched during a recession or bear market, so a small business founded this year could become the next General Electric or DuPont if it gets the support it needs. America's researchers, business leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs are already working to help create jobs and ensure American competitiveness in the global economy. We just have to support and sustain their hard work, and we cannot take the rest of the year off just because there is an election coming up. Even in this difficult, partisan atmosphere, we have to find ways to work together and get things done. Innovation will drive American economic competitiveness for generations to come, and our job is to help our innovators and entrepreneurs do their jobs. I urge my colleagues to join Senators Enzi, Schumer, Rubio and I in strong support of the Startup Innovation Credit Act of 2012.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to briefly contribute what I can to this debate. One of the great honors, as the Presiding Officer knows, in being a freshman is the opportunity to preside. I had the opportunity to preside when the Republican leader came to the floor and spoke to Burma sanctions. So I just wanted to say to the Republican leader that because of that speech, I have familiarized myself with the issue of Burma sanctions that he spoke to earlier. I do think it is important that we move to it. I do think it is important to move forward on it. But the Republican leader made the comment earlier that he doesn't much understand the other part of the bill, which is AGOA, the African Growth and Opportunity Act. I choose to stand briefly to speak to that because I am the chair of the African Affairs Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Senator Isakson and I joined with Congresswoman Bass and Congressman Smith in twice receiving dozens of Ambassadors from across the continent 3 months ago and 9 months ago as they expressed their grave concern about the thousands of mostly women all across the continent who are losing their jobs as we delay. The AGOA reauthorization expires in September, and I am grateful for Chairman Baucus and for his vigorous pursuit of renewal in a timely fashion. AGOA needs to be renewed promptly, not in September. In part, I believe this is why the administration has insisted on holding together Burma sanctions and this AGOA reauthorization--it is because of the urgency of getting AGOA reauthorized. It dates back to the Clinton administration. It was first signed into law a dozen years ago. I think it has real importance for our view in Africa, for how the United States is viewed in Africa, for our bilateral relations with more than a dozen countries. I would be happy to answer questions about it. But we have three different issues here: the concerns the Senator from Oklahoma has raised about the pay-for, and I respect his concerns about budget and budgetary discipline and dealing with our deficit; the concerns the Republican leader has raised about Burma and about sanctions and about our ongoing role as a global leader in pressing for the liberation of people and process in Burma; and the concerns many other Senators and I have shared about timely reauthorization of the African Growth and Opportunity Act. Unfortunately, the three of them intersect in a way that today is preventing us from moving forward. It is my hope that the Republican leader, the chairman of the Finance Committee, the Senator from Oklahoma, and I can sit down and craft some responsible compromise that allows this to move forward because, if my understanding is correct, it is the concerns of the Senator from Oklahoma that are preventing us from moving forward at this point, and it is the administration's concerns that are preventing breaking apart the Burma sanctions and AGOA sanctions. And there is a third provision relating to CAFTA, if I am not mistaken. So if we could work together in a way that finds a responsible path forward, it is still possible. There is bipartisan support in the House for the passage of this package. In fact, I believe they were prepared to pass it by unanimous consent earlier this week and only hesitated to proceed because they heard there was a hold here in the Senate. I would like to work together in a way that can demonstrate to the people of Burma, to the people of Africa, and to the people around the world that this greatest deliberative body on Earth can still work out issues of this scale in a timely fashion. So I offer my willingness to work together to find a path forward either tonight or in the week ahead. I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Madam President, I am honored to be able to join the Senator from Minnesota in speaking today in support of all the Members of this body voting to proceed to the consideration of the important cybersecurity bill to which he and Senator Durbin have spoken. Today we have an opportunity to celebrate progress--very real, very concrete, and very important progress--in the legislative efforts to make America both more secure and yet retain our core constitutional freedoms: the protections of privacy that Americans have held dear from the very beginning of this Republic. As I have said before on this floor, taking action to protect our Nation from the very real and urgent threat of cyber attack is of paramount importance, something so urgent that it deserves our undivided attention. But so is protecting the privacy rights of law- abiding American citizens. As we work together toward this commonsense, compromise piece of legislation the Senate should consider in coming days, I fought hard, along with several colleagues, to ensure we maintain the right balance between privacy and security. That balance is essential. Compromising our liberty would be as dangerous as compromising our safety. But thanks to the hard work of so many of my colleagues--in particular Senator Durbin, Senator Franken, Senator Blumenthal, Senator Merkley, Senator Sanders, and others--we found that appropriate balance in this legislation that is before us. The changes we have made to the original text and to the House-passed version have significantly strengthened privacy rights. That is why I say we can celebrate real progress here today. I long thought it was the privacy issues that would be the rock on which this ship would founder, that the critical and unaddressed privacy issues in CISPA and SECURE IT, spoken to by Senator Franken, would be issues that would prevent me from supporting cybersecurity legislation in this session of Congress. But we have made remarkable progress. Let me briefly review a few of the areas where that progress has been made. We made sure companies cannot pry into the private online activities of everyday Americans in the name of national security. I want to mention one more improvement. In addition to those mentioned by Senator Franken just before me concerning legal immunities contained in this bill, this bill appropriately gives companies the authority to share cyber threat- related information with each other and the government, without which we can't know what the rapidly emerging significant national cyber threats are. It also gives them immunity from suit if they do so. So if companies share with each other real-time cyber threat information, they cannot be sued. But prior versions of this bill might have provided bad actors with immunity against all privacy laws. So instead, we added tough provisions to ensure if a company acts recklessly or willfully to violate the law and the online privacy of its customers, they will be held accountable. This legislation now, in my view, strikes an appropriate balance between empowering companies and providing them certainty, as well as maintaining the privacy rights of Americans and their customers. In this new, better, stronger legislation, it is no longer the case that companies can share your data and violate your privacy because you interact with them online. If that had remained in this bill, I would have expected millions of Americans to mobilize to stop this legislation. But we are here today as a group of Senators to announce that real progress has been made, and we are comfortable with and support this legislation from a privacy perspective. I urge my colleagues, when we take up this vote later this afternoon, to vote to proceed to the bill and to allow us a full and robust debate on this cybersecurity legislation. Getting to this new and improved legislation was a team effort, and special credit is due to Senators Lieberman and Collins for leading the way, for being willing to find common ground on challenging issues. There was also a great deal of work done by my senior Senator Tom Carper and by Senators Feinstein and Rockefeller who chair committees and were also essential to making such great progress. One of the aspects of cybersecurity and the threat to our country that keeps me up at night is that it is constantly evolving. Our enemies are smart, they are capable, and they are fast. That means our cyber defenses have to be flexible, adaptable, and regularly evaluated in order to keep up. One good thing about the House version of this legislation is that it includes a sunset provision requiring that in 5 years, this body once again must take a hard and serious look at cybersecurity threats, and update or change our defense as needed, and ensure that privacy protections have been fully observed. That is not just good strategy, it is good sense. Think about the capabilities of your computer, your cell phone 5 years ago compared to today. The pace of change is faster online than ever before, and we need the kind of legislative process that allows us to review our work and ensure not only that we stay ahead of the curve in defending our country but we continue to strike the right balance between privacy and security. That is why, similar to Senator Franken before me, I intend to introduce an amendment on the floor--which I hope will earn consideration by this body and the support of my colleagues--to take the sunset provision of our House counterparts and match that in the Senate in this bill. It is the right thing to do to help keep us safe and to help our military leaders and cybersecurity experts stay one step ahead of those who would wish us harm. In closing, I thank Senator Whitehouse, who has been an important part of two different teams working on this bill. Senators Kyl and Whitehouse led a team that worked hard on critical infrastructure. I wish to thank Senator Blumenthal of Connecticut, who participated in the privacy side work and in the critical infrastructure work. Now we are speaking to title VII, to the information-sharing provision of the bill and the dramatic and real progress that has been made in addressing the balance between security and privacy. There has also been great progress made, in my view, in addressing the issues of critical infrastructure, and I invite Senator Blumenthal of Connecticut, who has contributed so well to both these efforts, to address the Chamber at this time. I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, it is with great pleasure that I pay tribute to MAJ General Hugh Broomall. After spending nearly 38 years serving Delaware and our Nation with the Delaware National Guard, General Broomall is retiring. He will leave behind an organization he helped to strengthen and a legacy of service that will not soon be forgotten. A native of Wilmington, DE, General Broomall's military career began when he enlisted in the Delaware Air National Guard, where he went on to receive a commission in 1974. General Broomall became an air intelligence officer and deployed worldwide in support of exercises and contingencies. Most recently, General Broomall served as the special assistant to the Director of the Air National Guard, where he was responsible for strategy development, State and Federal liaison, interagency coordination, and special studies supporting the 106,000 Air National Guard members nationwide. General Broomall's impact is not limited to Delaware. When asked about General Broomall, LTG Bud Wyatt said, ``his multi-dimensional experience, both civilian and military, makes him an outstanding asset to the Nation. His tireless work with the military, private industry and the Hill during critical budget times, directly contributed to keeping the Air National Guard ready, relevant and reliable to serve both our state and federal military requirements well into the future. He is an outstanding American.'' I couldn't agree more. And so, I congratulate Hugh Broomall for his years of exemplary service and countless contributions to the Delaware National Guard, as well as the national military community, the people of Delaware and the country that he loves. General Broomall is an exemplary citizen, and on behalf of all Delawareans I would like to thank him and his family for their many sacrifices during his 38 years of service and wish him well in his retirement.