Dianne Feinstein

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. As modified by the Senator from Indiana.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I come to the floor this afternoon as the chairman of the Intelligence Committee in order to speak about the effect the government shutdown starting to have on the community and what effect it will have if the shutdown continues. Let me give the most important figure up front. Across the intelligence communities, 72 percent of the civilian workforce is being furloughed. This means that with the exception of a few intelligence agencies that have a significant number of military personnel, the lights are being turned off and the majority of the people who produce our intelligence, analyze that intelligence, and provide warning of terrorist attacks or advise policymakers of major national security events will be prevented from doing their jobs. Simply stated, this is unacceptable. The failure of this Congress to perform its most basic functions means that our country is at heightened risk of terrorist attack. Intelligence provides this Nation with its first line of defense because long before a threat makes it to our shores, the men and women in our intelligence community learn about it, sound the warnings, and often take the steps to neutralize that threat. Before the President or the Secretary of State makes decisions on U.N. Security Council resolutions, such as a resolution to end Syria's chemical weapons program, they review the intelligence and they seek the advice of intelligence analysts. Finding Osama bin Laden in a house in Abbottabad and removing a bomb from an Al Qaeda operative in Yemen aren't things that just happen. They require the dedicated work of a huge array of professionals. Good intelligence requires the following: CIA officers on the ground and around the world meeting with sources; technical wizards who collect signals and imagery information; engineers who put together the systems to bring the information back to Washington and who convert the ones and zeroes of computer code into meaningful, actionable intelligence. Today, 72 percent of the civilian workforce will not be doing these jobs. Our shutdown is the biggest gift we could possibly give our enemies. I understand and I support continuing to pay our military men and women, operating both at home and abroad, including tens of thousands still deployed to Afghanistan. By furloughing our intelligence workforce, we put our uniformed men and women at risk as they, too, rely on the intelligence agencies to tell them where the next assault may take place or where the next IED is hidden. We have Ambassadors in threatened capitals. I can guarantee that our Ambassadors in Kabul and Baghdad and Sanaa and Islamabad rely on their intelligence briefers and the tactical intelligence support to their security teams as much as they rely on the marines who guard front gates. I met earlier this spring with Ambassador Anne Patterson in Cairo. I saw the gates and walls of our modern Embassy that had been overrun by the same crowds protesting down the street in Tahrir Square. I met with the CIA, NSA, and other intelligence officers who give the Ambassador and her team warning when the extremists are looking to try to attack our Embassy again. Some of these intelligence professionals will obviously remain on duty and are absolutely essential, but by furloughing the majority of the intelligence civilian workforce they rely on, we are preventing them from effectively doing their job. I spoke yesterday with Director James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence. At my request, he sent me a short report on how the shutdown will affect the largest intelligence agencies. In addition to the 72 percent overall figure, his report lists how the shutdown will cripple the CIA, the NSA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, to include the National Counterterrorism Center. Every single agency I listed will lose the majority of its civilian workforce. Many of them don't have a sizable military component that is exempt from the shutdown. The numbers are still classified, but any Senator who wants to see how our failure to fund the government is harming the intelligence community is welcome to find out and read this report. It is in the intelligence office on the second floor of Hart. The intelligence agencies at the Departments of State, Treasury, Energy, and Homeland Security are hit even worse. I wholly regret that we are in this situation. I regret that across the country national parks are closed and Federal safety inspectors are sidelined. For 4 years we have squeezed the discretionary appropriations levels to the point that every part of the Federal Government has had to cut back and make do with less. What we are doing now puts American lives at risk. It is an abdication of congressional responsibility. I wanted to come to this floor to make clear to every Member of this body that what we have done directly damages our national security. I also would like to take the opportunity to speak on some of the cutbacks that are in process in the area of energy and water. Since 2001 I have served as chairman of three different Appropriations subcommittees: Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, the Interior Department, and today the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development. Over the years I helped make a lot of tough choices on which programs to fund, which not to fund, et cetera, but never have things been as bad as they are today. The cuts we are making to our appropriations bills under sequestration are strangling programs that must be funded. These are programs that are vital to our country, vital to public safety, and programs that promise to deliver the next breakthroughs in energy research. I will speak about some of the negative effects a shutdown and continued sequester would have on my subcommittee. The agency within my subcommittee that may have the most direct impact on the public is the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps safeguards our dams, our levees, and our drinking water. It keeps our harbors open for cargo ships, and it maintains more than 4,000 recreation sites. Most people don't know that. Simply put, a government shutdown would mean the termination of a wide range of Army Corps of Engineers activities. Let me mention flood control for a moment. Work is stopping on virtually all construction projects, studies, and activities related to flood control and navigation across this country. These projects protect tens of millions of Americans. A shutdown may mean the Corps stops work on improving dam safety projects, including the dam at California's Isabella Lake, which is the dam most at risk of failure in our State. Halting these projects endangers citizens and ultimately increases the cost to complete this work. What is more, these projects actually reduce overall costs to the Federal Government. Damage prevented by the Corps' projects--this is only damage prevented--exceeds $25 billion a year. It is indeed a big deal. Other Corps projects interrupted by the shutdown includes the strengthening of levees and flood walls to reduce the risk of loss of life and economic loss from flooding and coastal storms. Work could stop on improvements to flood protection levees along the Mississippi River, levees that experienced record flood levels in 2011. Projects in Boston, Kansas City, and Seattle could be suspended. Even worse, these construction delays would come at a time when severe storms are causing damage with greater frequency. Even dam safety projects could be affected by a shutdown. One example is California's Folsom Dam, where the Corps and the Bureau of Reclamation are working to increase dam safety. A shutdown would likely cause the Corps and Reclamation to suspend contract activities, delaying this vital project. The Folsom Dam is a major component of the Central Valley Project, which provides clean water to more than 20 million Californians, and should not be put at risk by a government shutdown. A shutdown will also have dramatic impacts on water-borne commerce. More than 2.3 billion tons of cargo moves through our marine transportation system. Improvements to channels, harbors and waterways ensure this vital traffic flows without pause. Projects at Oakland Harbor in California, Savannah Harbor in Georgia, and Charleston Harbor in South Carolina could be impacted by the shutdown, meaning higher construction and transportation costs. The country's vast system of inland waterways could also suffer from the shutdown. More than 600 million tons of cargo move through our inland waterways on commercial ships. A shutdown means this cargo could be slowed, and the use of locks would likely not be available at all to recreational boaters. While facilities on lakes that combine flood control and hydropower should continue to operate because of safety issues, hydropower operations will likely be curtailed. This means 353 hydropower units operated by the Corps--which provide roughly one-quarter of the country's hydropower--would operate at reduced capacity. This would cut into the $1.5 billion in payments the units generate each year. There are also major permitting and operational impacts that will be immediately noticeable. Processing of regulatory permits under the Clean Water Act, which the Corps handles, will be suspended. In a typical year, the Corps processes more than 80,000 permit actions. This means anyone from an individual building a dock to a community planning a major development would not be able to move forward because they won't be able to secure a permit. The Corps will also be unable to provide enforcement actions on existing permitted activities, which could harm sensitive environmental or aquatic resources. Another visible effect will be the shuttering of recreation areas. The Corps of Engineers is the largest provider of outdoor recreation among all federal agencies. They maintain more than 4,200 recreation sites at 422 projects in 43 States, with more than 370 million visits each year. Those visitors spend more than $18 billion annually and support 350,000 full-time or part-time jobs. All this will be impacted by a government shutdown. The Department of Energy could also face severe limitations under a shutdown. Research grants to national labs and universities could be suspended. These grants fund important clean energy challenges related to biofuels, supercomputing, and materials research. The output of world-class science facilities on cutting edge research and product development may be significantly reduced. With U.S. leadership in science threatened by China, Japan and Europe, now is not the time to suspend major scientific research. Regarding the national security missions of the National Nuclear Security Administration, a government shutdown may delay important nuclear modernization activities. A government shutdown may disrupt and delay efforts to replace aging components in every single nuclear weapon in the stockpile. For example, delays in replacing aging components in the W76 submarine-- launched warhead--which makes up more than 50 percent of the Nation's nuclear deterrent--would have serious impacts to the Navy's nuclear deterrence mission. Upgrades to aging infrastructure related to uranium, plutonium and high explosives capabilities would also be delayed. Delays of just days can add millions of dollars to a project's bottom line. A government shutdown may also delay the design of a new nuclear reactor for the Ohio-class submarine. A shutdown may also delay refueling one of only three training nuclear reactors for sailors, which is critical for supplying sufficient numbers of sailors to man the U.S. submarine fleet. Lastly, on this matter, the shutdown will delay and increase costs to clean up and remediate nuclear contamination at former nuclear weapons and nuclear energy research sites. These activities should be completed as quickly as possible to protect human health. Finally, Madam President, I just wanted to say a couple of things about the much-beleaguered health care plan and what is happening so far. During the first 3 hours today, the Federal health care Web site-- healthcare.gov--with information about exchanges across the country logged 1 million visitors. As of 9:30 this morning, in Kentucky, the health exchange had 24,000 visitors and processed more than 1,000 applications. I am anxious to provide the west coast numbers, although not able at this time due to the 3-hour time delay. There were 2 million visits to New York's health exchange during the first 2 hours of the launched site. Even at 11:30, Connecticut had 10,000 visitors and 22 people enrolled. Let me just end with this one story. Paula Thornhill, a mother of seven who lives in Virginia, was the first to apply for coverage today in her county, which is Prince William. She is quoted as saying: ``I am relieved that they did come out with this affordable health care. I am relieved.'' So far so good today, and I am hopeful that this tyranny of the minority will end shortly. I thank the Senator from Louisiana, and I yield the floor.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, since 2001 I have served as chairman on three different appropriations subcommittees. I chaired subcommittees on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, the Interior Department, and today the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development. Over the years I made a lot of tough choices on which programs to fund and which programs not to fund. But never have things been as bad as they are today. The cuts that we are making to our appropriations bills under sequestration are strangling programs that must be funded. Programs that are vital to our economy, vital to public safety, and programs that promise to deliver the next breakthroughs in energy research. To compound the problem, we are now just a few days away from a government shutdown that has the potential to devastate our economic recovery and shake the confidence in our government to get anything done. I would like to speak today about the negative effects a shutdown and continued sequester would have on my subcommittee. The agency within my subcommittee that may have the most direct impact on the public is the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps safeguards our dams, our levees and our drinking water, it keeps our harbors open for cargo ships, and it maintain more than 4,000 recreation sites. Simply put, a government shutdown would mean the termination of a wide range of vital Corps activities. Work would stop on virtually all construction projects, studies and activities related to flood control and navigation across the country. These important projects protect tens of millions of Americans. A shutdown would mean the Corps stops work on improving dam safety projects including the dam at California's Isabella Lake, the dam most at-risk of failure in the State. Halting these projects would endanger citizens and ultimately increase the cost to complete this vital work. What's more, these projects actually reduce overall costs to the federal government. Damage prevented by Corps projects exceeds $25 billion per year. Other Corps projects interrupted by a shutdown include strengthening levees and floodwalls to reduce the risk of loss of life and economic loss from flooding and coastal storms. Work would stop on improvements to flood protection levees along the Mississippi River, levees that experienced record flood levels in 2011. Projects in Boston, Kansas City, and Seattle would be suspended. Even worse, these construction delays would come at a time when severe storms are causing damage with greater frequency. Even dam safety projects would be affected by a shutdown. One example is California's Folsom Dam, where the Corps and the Bureau of Reclamation are working to increase dam safety. A shutdown would likely cause the Corps and Reclamation to suspend contract activities, delaying this vital project. The Folsom Dam is a major component of the Central Valley Project, which provides clean water to more than 20 million Californians, and should not be put at risk by a government shutdown. A shutdown will also have dramatic impacts on water-borne commerce. More than 2.3 billion tons of cargo moves through our marine transportation system. Improvements to channels, harbors and waterways ensure that this vital traffic flows without pause. Projects at Oakland Harbor in California, Savannah Harbor in Georgia, and Charleston Harbor in South Carolina would be impacted by a shutdown, meaning higher construction and transportation costs. The country's vast system of inland waterways would also suffer from a shutdown. More than 600 million tons of cargo move through our inland waterways on commercial ships. A shutdown would mean this cargo would be dramatically slowed, and the use of locks would likely not be available at all to recreational boaters. While facilities on lakes that combine flood control and hydropower would continue to operate because of safety issues, hydropower operations would likely be curtailed. This means 353 hydropower units operated by the Corps--which provide roughly one-quarter of the country's hydropower--would operate at reduced capacity. This would cut into the $1.5 billion in payments the units generate each year. There are also major permitting and operational impacts that would be immediately noticeable. Processing of regulatory permits under the Clean Water Act, which the Corps handles, would be immediately suspended. In a typical year, the Corps processes more than 80,000 permit actions. This means anyone from an individual building a dock to a community planning a major development would not be able to move forward because they won't be able to secure a permit. The Corps would also be unable to provide enforcement actions on existing permitted activities, which could harm sensitive environmental or aquatic resources. Another visible effect would be the shuttering of recreation areas. The Corps of Engineers is the largest provider of outdoor recreation among all Federal agencies. They maintain more than 4,200 recreation sites at 422 projects in 43 states, with more than 370 million visits each year. Those visitors spend more than $18 billion annually and support 350,000 full-time or part-time jobs. All would be suspended by a government shutdown. The Department of Energy would also face severe limitations under a shutdown. Research grants to national labs and universities would be suspended. These grants fund important clean energy challenges related to biofuels, supercomputing, and materials research. The output of world-class science facilities on cutting edge research and product development may be significantly reduced. With U.S. leadership in science threatened by China, Japan and Europe, now is not the time to suspend major scientific research. Regarding the national security missions of the National Nuclear Security Administration, a government shutdown may delay important nuclear modernization activities. A government shutdown may disrupt and delay efforts to replace aging components in every single nuclear weapon in the stockpile. For example, delays in replacing aging components in the W76 submarine-launched warhead--which makes up more than 50 percent of the Nation's nuclear deterrent--would have serious impacts to the Navy's nuclear deterrence mission. Upgrades to aging infrastructure related to uranium, plutonium and high explosives capabilities would also be delayed. Delays of just days can add millions of dollars to a project's bottom line. A government shutdown may also delay the design of a new nuclear reactor for the Ohio-class submarine. A shutdown may also delay refueling one of only three training nuclear reactors for sailors, which is critical for supplying sufficient numbers of sailors to man the U.S. submarine fleet. Finally, a government shutdown will delay and increase costs to clean up and remediate nuclear contamination at former nuclear weapons and nuclear energy research sites. These activities should be completed as quickly as possible to protect human health. I have laid out only a taste of the effects of a government shutdown. What I cannot begin to convey is the harm to millions of families who would be out of work or whose work would be curtailed because of canceled projects across the country. This is only one of 12 subcommittees. A government shutdown would be folly, and we must prevent it from happening. Before I close, I would like to touch on another threat to the agencies funded through my subcommittee, and that is the dangerous and ongoing cuts forced on us by the sequester. With Congress focused on this immediate threat, we risk losing sight of the even more dangerous and long-term consequences of sequestration. Once again, the Energy and Water Appropriations bill provides a fine example of the choices--and dangers--that we face. The Senate bill funds the Corps of Engineers at $5.3 billion. The House bill, based on sequester levels of funding, would slash that by $596 million. This would take money from vital flood control, ecosystem restoration and navigation projects. The House also would not approve a single new study or project, further delaying vital flood protection and navigation needs. The sequester would also jeopardize such vital projects as harbor maintenance and dredging, putting a crimp on billions of dollars in cargo that moves through our coasts. The House sequester level also slashes $136 million from the Bureau of Reclamation's budget, 12 percent lower than the Senate level. One example of what the sequester would cut: The Senate bill directs funds to the WaterSmart Program and the Recycled Water Program, both of which increase the efficiency of water use in the West. With record- breaking droughts, farmers are desperately in need of more water, but the sequester would dry up these programs. The Senate would also restore funding arbitrarily cut by the House from restoration programs such as the San Joaquin River Restoration in California. This joint Federal-State-local program was the result of a settlement that ended 17 years of litigation. Defunding the program could force the project back into the courtroom. The House funding level also further weakens U.S. scientific leadership and efforts to improve the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers through the Department of Energy. The House would cut funds for the Office of Sciences by $500 million, the cutting edge work of ARPA-E by $329 million, and efficiency and renewable energy programs by $1.4 billion. While Europe and Asia invest heavily in renewable energy and basic research, the House funding under sequester would cut in half our investments in renewable energy development and by 10% investments in basic research. The government shutdown is a manufactured crisis and it is dangerous. The continuation of the sequester--while less immediate--is arguably even more dangerous. I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, particularly in the House, will join with Democrats to keep our government operating at responsible levels. We need to make those tough choices, we need to keep the government open and we must repeal sequester. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Good afternoon, Madam President.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 25 minutes.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Thank you very much, Madam President. I rise to speak on the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime and the decision that is before the Senate on how to respond to such inhumanity. I also come to the floor with the hope that the use of military force will not prove necessary and that the proposal to place Syria's chemical weapons program under United Nations control will, in fact, be successful. Last night, in my view, the President delivered a strong, straightforward speech that directly outlined the current situation in Syria. He asked that a vote by the Congress to authorize military force against the Asad regime be delayed so that a strategy could be developed with Russia and the United Nations Security Council that would eliminate Syria's deadly chemical weapons program. I believe this is the appropriate path forward, and I appreciate very much the majority leader's holding off on bringing this resolution for a vote so that negotiations can continue. Here in the Senate, there are discussions going on about how to amend the resolution passed by the Foreign Relations Committee to provide time for diplomacy. I would also like to take a minute to give Russia credit for bringing forward this plan for a negotiated solution to the conflict. I disagree with the Senator from Texas. As the Russian Ambassador described to me on Monday of this week, he said Russia is sincere, wants to see a United Nations resolution, and supports the Geneva II process which would accompany a negotiated settlement to Syria's civil war. Based on my conversation with Ambassador Kislyak, I believe Russia's goal is now, in fact, to eliminate these weapons, and I would point out that is also our goal. So I very much hope that the path to settlement--although complicated, no doubt, but if well-intentioned by all participants, it can be accomplished, and I deeply believe that. If the United Nations Security Council can agree on a resolution to put this proposal into practice, it would put the world's imprimatur on an important plan to safeguard and then to destroy Syria's chemical weapons program. Russia's responsibility to get this done is enormous, and they must move with all deliberate speed. I think Russia and Syria must understand that the only way to forestall a U.S. strike on Syria is for there to be a good-faith agreement and process underway to put all of Syria's chemical weapons--including munitions, delivery systems, and chemicals themselves--under international control for eventual demolition. Syria's chemical weapons program is maintained and stored across Syria in more than three dozen sites. There are indications that Syria currently has chemical weapons loaded and ready for immediate use in bombs, artillery, and rockets and already loaded on planes and helicopters. All of it needs to be inventoried, collected, and then destroyed as soon as possible if the effort is to succeed. This will be a large and complicated process, and the agreement may take some time to put in place. But if it can be done, we should take the time to get it done right. At the same time, we cannot allow there to be so much delay and hesitation, as has characterized some arms control efforts in the past. It is clear to me that the United States is moving quickly already. Tomorrow Secretary Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will meet in Geneva to discuss the specifics of how to move forward. I cannot stress enough the importance of this process. Not only is it a possible solution to the specter of future use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime and a way to ensure that extremist elements of the opposition do not gain control of these weapons, but it also sets an important precedent for the United Nations to act to resolve conflict before there is large military confrontation. But it should be clear by now that the Asad regime has repeatedly used chemical weapons. So I would like to speak as chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and lay out some of the unclassified intelligence that shows the regime was indeed behind this largest use of chemical weapons in more than two decades. The unclassified assessment is based on classified intelligence we have seen on the Intelligence Committee and it has been available to all Senators. So here is the case. The intelligence community assesses today, with ``high confidence,'' that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons--specifically sarin--in the Damascus suburbs in the early morning of August 21. This assessment is supported by all 16 of our intelligence agencies as well as other countries, including the United Kingdom and France. The Obama administration has publicly laid out its case at an unclassified level, and I have carefully reviewed the classified information that supports those findings. First, there is intelligence indicating that the Asad regime-- specifically its military and the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center, which manages its chemical weapons program--has used chemical weapons roughly a dozen times over the past year. On June 13, 2 months before this latest attack, the administration stated that it had completed a review of all available intelligence and had concluded that the intelligence community had ``high confidence'' that the Asad regime used chemical weapons, ``including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against the opposition multiple times.'' This followed similar assessments by France, the United Kingdom, Israel, and Turkey earlier this year. In some of these cases the regime may have been testing its delivery vehicles or various amounts of chemical agents. Some were small-scale tactical uses against the opposition. Perhaps Asad was just trying to find out how the world would react to his use of chemical weapons. It has been more than a year since top intelligence officials learned of Syrian preparations to use sarin in large quantities. Since then, at numerous other briefings and hearings, the Intelligence Committee has followed this issue closely. On September 11, 2012--exactly a year ago--while protests against our Embassy in Cairo were underway and the attack on our diplomatic facility in Benghazi was imminent, I was again briefed on the administration's plans should Asad conduct such an attack. So the attack on August 21 in Damascus was not a first-time use, rather it was a major escalation in the regime's willingness to employ weapons long held as anathema by almost the entire world population. Let me lay out the intelligence case that the Asad regime used chemical weapons on August 21. Much of this is described in a four-page August 30 unclassified document entitled ``U.S. Government Assessment of the Syrian Government's Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21, 2013.'' I ask unanimous consent that the document be printed in the Record. We know that 3 days before the attack of August 21, Syrian officials involved in the preparation and use of chemical weapons and associated with the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center were ``preparing chemical munitions'' in the Damascus suburb of Adra. That is according to the intelligence community. The intelligence specifically relates to an area in Adra that the regime has used for mixing chemical weapons, including sarin. The Syrian chemical weapons personnel were operating and present there from August 18 to the early morning of August 21, and finished their work shortly before the attack began. Some of the intelligence collected on the preparations for the attack is highly sensitive. So the details of the Syrian actions cannot be described publicly without jeopardizing our ability to collect this kind of intelligence in the future. But in numerous classified briefings over the past 2 weeks, Members of Congress have been provided with additional detail on the names of the officials involved and the stream of human signals and geospatial intelligence that indicates that regime was preparing to use chemical weapons. So we actually have names. It is from the specificity of this intelligence reporting that the intelligence community has drawn its high level of confidence that the regime was behind the use of chemical weapons. The strike began in the early morning hours on Wednesday, August 21. It is beyond doubt that large amounts of artillery and rockets were launched from regime- controlled territory in Damascus and rained down on the opposition- controlled areas of the Damascus suburbs. There is satellite imagery actually showing this, as well as thousands of firsthand accounts that began showing up on social media sites at around 2:30 a.m. The barrage continued for 5 days, though the use of chemical weapons appears to have been deliberately suspended by the regime after the first few hours. Since the attack, physical samples from the area have been analyzed. The intelligence community assesses with high confidence that ``laboratory analysis of physiological samples obtained from a number of individuals revealed exposure to Sarin.'' More than 100 videos were posted online showing the effects of the chemical weapons on hundreds of men, women and, most troubling, sleeping children who were dead or showing the signs of exposure to the nerve agent. At my request, the intelligence community compiled a representative sample of 13 videos which have been corroborated and verified. According to the intelligence community, ``At least 12 locations are portrayed in the publicly available videos, and a sampling of those videos confirmed that some were shot at general times and locations described in the footage.'' These videos clearly show the suffering and death caused by these weapons. The intelligence committee has posted these videos on our Web site, www.intelligence.senate.gov. I would urge all Americans to look at this. They are absolutely horrendous and should shock the conscience of all humanity. The videos show the physical manifestations of a nerve agent attack: foaming mouth, pinpointed and constricted pupils, convulsions, gasping for breath, all happening as the nervous system begins to shut down. One video shows a lifeless toddler receiving emergency respiratory assistance. Another shows a young boy struggling to breathe, gasping while his eyes are swollen shut and covered in mucous. A third heinous video shows rows and rows of bodies lined up in an improvised morgue. Another shows a man foaming at the mouth and convulsing, both indications of sarin exposure. It goes on and on. Last night, the President urged all Americans to watch these videos to see how hideous the use of these chemicals actually is. Seeing these images firsthand makes clear why chemical weapons have been banned and why Asad must be prevented from using them again. What truly affected me was a video I saw of a little Syrian girl with long dark hair who was wearing pajamas. The little girl looked just like my daughter at that age--same hair, same pajamas, same innocence, except the little Syrian girl was lifeless. She had died from exposure to sarin, a chemical the world has essentially outlawed. For me, watching the videos shows the abhorrence of chemical weapons. It shows why we must do something. Fired into densely populated areas such as cities, they have an indiscriminate effect, killing everyone in their path and causing suffering and eventual death to others nearby. We have evidence that the chemical attack was premeditated and planned as part of the regime's heinous tactics against the rebels. Specifically, there is intelligence that Syrian regime personnel were prepared with gas masks for its people in the area, so it could clear these areas in the Damascus suburbs that were attacked in order to wrest control from the opposition. Additional intelligence collected following the attacks includes communications from regime officials that confirms their knowledge that chemical weapons were used. Let me repeat that. Additional intelligence following the attack includes communications from regime officials that confirms their knowledge that chemical weapons were used. The official unclassified intelligence assessment distributed by the administration states: ``We intercepted communications involving a senior official intimately familiar with the offensive who confirmed that chemical weapons were used by the regime on August 21 and was concerned with the U.N. inspectors obtaining evidence.'' On the afternoon of August 21, we have intelligence that Syrian chemical weapons personnel were directed to ``cease operations.'' This is specific evidence. To sum up the intelligence case, I have no doubt the regime ordered the use of chemical weapons on August 21. I also have no doubt the use of these weapons by the military and under the guidance of Syria's chemical weapons team, Branch 450, operates under the command and control of the regime, under the ultimate leadership and responsibility of President Asad. Let me move now from the intelligence case of Syria's use of sarin on August 21 to the question before the Senate of how to respond. As I said in the beginning, it would be my strong hope that the United States and Russia can come to an agreement with other U.N. Security Council members on a way to resolve this situation peacefully. Not only is a peaceful solution preferred to the use of force, but if Syria's chemical weapons program, including all of its precursors, chemicals, equipment, delivery systems, and loaded bombs, can be put in the custody of the United Nations for its eventual destruction, that would provide a much stronger protection against future use. It also sets an important precedent for the future for the world to settle other disputes of this nature. I have urged the Obama administration to take all possible steps to make this proposal work. I appreciate the President's decision to ask us to delay any use-of-force resolution so diplomacy can be given a chance. However, the Senate may still face a resolution to authorize the use of force in the event that all diplomatic options fail. Many of my colleagues have noted that the threat of force has helped push forward the diplomatic option. The Asad regime has clearly used chemical weapons to gas its own people. I believe it will most likely do so again, unless it is confronted with a major condemnation by the world. That now is beginning to happen. The regime has escalated its attacks from small scale ones that killed 6 or 8 to 10 people with sarin to an attack that killed more than 1,000. We know the regime has munitions that could kill tens of thousands of Syrians in Aleppo or Homs. If the world does not respond now, we bear the responsibility if a larger tragedy happens later. Of course, it is not only Syria who is looking at preparing and using weapons long banned by the international community. Iran is watching intently what the world will do in Syria and will apply the lessons it learns to its current development of nuclear weapons. North Korea, which has refrained from using both the nuclear weapons it has and the chemical weapons stockpile that actually dwarfs that of Syria, may well use the Asad example to fire on South Korea. Remember, we have 28,000-plus troops right over the border of the DMZ, within a half hour. More generally, countries around the world will see the United States as a paper tiger if it promises to take action but fails to do so. Former Secretary of Defense, Bob Gates, whom I have great respect for, who worked in both the Bush and Obama administrations, said exactly that when he came out in support on the resolution for use of force against Syria. Gates said this: I strongly urge the Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, to approve the President's request for authorization to use force. Whatever one's views on the current United States policy towards Syria, failure by Congress to approve the request would, in my view, have profoundly negative and dangerous consequences for the United States, not just in the Middle East, but around the world both now and in the future. I strongly believe the major powers in the world have a responsibility to take action when a country not only slaughters 100,000 of its own citizens, makes millions homeless within Syria, and makes millions into refugees in Turkey and Jordan, but especially when it is willing to use weapons against them that have been banned as an affront to all humanity because they are outlawed by a treaty joined by 189 nations representing 98 percent of the world's population. If the United Nations does not act in such cases, I believe it becomes irrelevant. If nothing is done to stop this use of chemical weapons, they will be used in future conflicts. I am confident of that. American servicemen in World War I were gassed with their allied partners. In our briefings over the past week, the military has made clear to us that if we allow the prohibition on chemical weapons use to erode, our men and women in uniform may again suffer from these weapons on the battlefield. Chemical weapons are not like conventional weapons. Consider for a moment how sarin, for example, can kill so indiscriminately. The closer you are to the release, such as from a mortar or an artillery shell, the more certain you are to death. It spreads over a wide geographic area. It can shift from one neighborhood to another if the wind shifts. During World War I, chemical weapons, primarily chlorine, phosgene, and mustard gas were used by both sides of the war. They caused an estimated 100,000 fatalities and 1.3 million injuries, 1,462 American soldiers were killed, and 72,807 were injured by chemical weapons, which represented one- third of all U.S. casualties during World War I. Since World War I, not a single U.S. soldier has died in battle from exposure to chemical weapons. However, according to the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, ``since World War I, chemical weapons have caused more than 1 million casualties globally.'' During World War II, Nazi Germany used carbon monoxide and pesticides such as Zyklon B in gas chambers during the Holocaust, killing an estimated 3 million people. An additional document will be printed in the Record that details the history and uses of chemical weapons around the world since World War I. These past uses of chemical weapons make clear that they should never be used again and that the entire world must stand up and take action if they are. In Syria, the intentional use of chemical weapons on civilians, on men, women, and children gassed to death during the middle of the night while they were sleeping, is a travesty that reflects hatred and increasing desperation of the Asad regime. I also believe there are other chemical weapons that have been mixed and loaded into delivery vehicles with the potential to kill thousands more. Think about that. If Asad can slaughter 100,000 of his own people without a second thought, what is he going to do next if we do nothing to hold him accountable? What is he going to do next if the United Nations does nothing? What is he going to do next if this effort to reach consensus on the Security Council doesn't work? He will use them again. I believe they are ready to go. Why would the Asad regime load bombs with chemical weapons and not use them? If the United States does nothing in the face of this atrocity, it sends such a signal of weakness to the rest of the world that we are, yes, a paper tiger. That is going to be the conclusion in Iran and in North Korea. The answer is we cannot turn our backs. The use of chemical weapons is prohibited by international law and it must now be condemned by the world with action. Albert Einstein said in a well-known quote: ``The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.'' For more than 90 years, our country has played the leading role in the world in prohibiting the atrocities of World War I and then World War II. We are the Nation that others look upon to stop repressive dictators and massive violations of human rights. We must act in Syria. We cannot withdraw into our own borders, do nothing, and let the slaughter continue. I hope military force will not be needed, that we will allow the time for the United Nations and the parties on the Security Council to put an agreement together, and that the threat of force will be sufficient to change President Asad's behavior. If these diplomatic efforts at the U.N. fail, I know we are going to be back here on the floor to consider the authorization for use of military force, but I sincerely hope it won't be necessary. When the Ambassador from Russia described Russia's intentions to me on Monday, he told me it was sincere. Now the ball is in Russia's court. Russia and the United States will need to come together, bring the other parties together, and make it possible for the United Nations to act so the United States won't have to. I yield the floor.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today on behalf of myself and Senator Collins, to introduce the Child Care Infant Mortality Act. This is bipartisan legislation that would allow states participating in the Child Care Development Block Grant, CCDBG, to use part of this funding for child safety training. Currently, states participating in Child Care Development Block Grant, CCDBG, are required to set aside at least 4 percent of funds to improve the quality of the programs offered in their states. Our bill would simply ensure that strategies to enhance child safety, including disseminating information related to prevention strategies for sudden unexpected infant death, are included in as an allowable use of funds. According to the Centers for Disease Control, CDC, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, half of the approximately 4,500 SUID cases in the United States are entirely preventable with effective training and implementation of correct sleep practices. It is estimated that child care settings account for 20 percent of all SUID fatalities in the United States. Life-saving sleep strategies, first aid and CPR are successful in preventing infant death and are easily implementable; yet training is not currently an allowable use of funds under the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act. Nationally, over 4,500 infants die suddenly with no immediate obvious cause every year. These deaths are not highly publicized by the media because of the severe pain it causes families. A large percentage of child care providers are unaware of the risks of sleep associated infant deaths until they come face-to-face with a death of a child under their care. The more aware providers are of safe sleep practices, the more likely they are to follow suggested guidelines. In particular, posting safe-sleep practices and offering required training can further cut the number of infants we lose every year to sudden unexpected infant death. Beyond safe sleep practices, child care provider training in CPR and first aid will allow providers to identify and address potentially harmful situations for infants. The Child Care Infant Mortality Prevention Act of 2013 expands the list of allowable uses for CCDBG funding to permit states to use this funding on activities to improve child care quality. Our bill would also require the Secretary to update and make widely available- training, instructional materials, and other information on safe sleep practices and other sudden unexpected infant death prevention strategies. I am proud that Senator Susan Collins has joined me as an original cosponsor of this bill. It is essential that this issue is addressed by building upon the existing structure and capacity of the networks of Child Care providers participating in the Child Care and Development Block Grant. It is critical that we work to ensure that child safety is a primary goal of the block grant, and that appropriate and adequate training on safe sleep practices, first aid, and CPR are included in the training regimen promoted by this Act. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today on behalf of myself and Senator Collins, to introduce the Child Care Infant Mortality Act. This is bipartisan legislation that would allow states participating in the Child Care Development Block Grant, CCDBG, to use part of this funding for child safety training. Currently, states participating in Child Care Development Block Grant, CCDBG, are required to set aside at least 4 percent of funds to improve the quality of the programs offered in their states. Our bill would simply ensure that strategies to enhance child safety, including disseminating information related to prevention strategies for sudden unexpected infant death, are included in as an allowable use of funds. According to the Centers for Disease Control, CDC, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, half of the approximately 4,500 SUID cases in the United States are entirely preventable with effective training and implementation of correct sleep practices. It is estimated that child care settings account for 20 percent of all SUID fatalities in the United States. Life-saving sleep strategies, first aid and CPR are successful in preventing infant death and are easily implementable; yet training is not currently an allowable use of funds under the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act. Nationally, over 4,500 infants die suddenly with no immediate obvious cause every year. These deaths are not highly publicized by the media because of the severe pain it causes families. A large percentage of child care providers are unaware of the risks of sleep associated infant deaths until they come face-to-face with a death of a child under their care. The more aware providers are of safe sleep practices, the more likely they are to follow suggested guidelines. In particular, posting safe-sleep practices and offering required training can further cut the number of infants we lose every year to sudden unexpected infant death. Beyond safe sleep practices, child care provider training in CPR and first aid will allow providers to identify and address potentially harmful situations for infants. The Child Care Infant Mortality Prevention Act of 2013 expands the list of allowable uses for CCDBG funding to permit states to use this funding on activities to improve child care quality. Our bill would also require the Secretary to update and make widely available- training, instructional materials, and other information on safe sleep practices and other sudden unexpected infant death prevention strategies. I am proud that Senator Susan Collins has joined me as an original cosponsor of this bill. It is essential that this issue is addressed by building upon the existing structure and capacity of the networks of Child Care providers participating in the Child Care and Development Block Grant. It is critical that we work to ensure that child safety is a primary goal of the block grant, and that appropriate and adequate training on safe sleep practices, first aid, and CPR are included in the training regimen promoted by this Act. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, Chairman Murray, and Senator Boxer, I rise to discuss with you the importance of funding for the Surface Transportation Board in this legislation, as well as the funding that Chairman Murray has provided to the Federal Railroad Administration to continue to administer its grant awards. As you know, opponents of California's high-speed rail project are attempting to use the Federal permitting process in order to prevent the Nation's first high-speed rail project from moving forward and succeeding. The Surface Transportation Board funding will provide the resources necessary to continue the Board's efforts to permit the growth of passenger rail projects in the United States. The funding in the bill for the Federal Railroad Administration will ensure that this agency is able to monitor and administer the grants it already awarded.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I also would like to thank Chairman Murray and Chairman Mikulski for your explanation. I am deeply alarmed by attempts in the other body of Congress to prohibit the Department of Transportation and the Surface Transportation Board from completing their permitting and oversight responsibly. These attempts violate the spirit of federalism. The California high- speed rail project was approved by California's voters on the ballot, the legislature has enacted enabling legislation, and the Governor supports it. While some may not like this type of transportation investment, it is the choice that my State has made for their future, and the Federal Government should respect those decisions. Furthermore, I strongly believe the Federal permitting process should not be used as a tool to obstruct and delay major infrastructure investments of our States. Permitting infrastructure in California is a notoriously thorough, long, and comprehensive process. In the years California has analyzed this one project, China has built thousands of miles of high-speed rail. But this year, in an attempt to stymie the project, opponents of California's plan forced the Surface Transportation Board--an agency dedicated to protecting fair competition in freight rail--to assert Federal jurisdiction over California's high-speed rail project. This new layer of Federal permitting is duplicative of the thorough 5-year-long review performed by the Federal Railroad Administration. Nonetheless, State and Federal entities complied with this extraneous requirement. However, now opponents are working vigorously to stall the actions at the Surface Transportation Board that will allow construction to finally begin in earnest. Fortunately, the Surface Transportation Board exists to facilitate the growth of rail in the United States--not to impede it. As long as the Board acts quickly within its statutory authority, it will not impede California's decisions.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Thank you, Chairman Murray, for ensuring that California will not be left holding the bag, which is not a fair way for the Federal Government to treat the States. Were an appropriations bill to prevent the Federal Government from honoring its grant commitments, it would set a dangerous precedent. I am concerned that it would undermine the competitive process.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to again discuss the need to restore and protect Lake Tahoe. Lake Tahoe is a national treasure. Her alpine beauty has drawn and inspired people for centuries: artists and poets, John Muir and Mark Twain, and countless millions the world over. As a girl, I went to Lake Tahoe to ride horses through the woods, to swim in the clear blue waters and to bike around the magnificent Basin. For over 16 years, representatives from different ends of the political spectrum have come together to Keep Tahoe Blue. The challenges are great. Climate change and drought have created a persistent threat from catastrophic wildfire. Sedimentation and pollution threaten water quality and the lake's treasured clarity. And invasive species threaten the economy of the region. The time to act is now, and the federal government must take a leading role--78 percent of the land surrounding Lake Tahoe is public land, primarily the Eldorado, Toiyabe and Tahoe National Forests. That is why today I am reintroducing the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act of 2013, which is co-sponsored by Senators Harry Reid, Dean Heller and Barbara Boxer. The bill would continue the Federal commitment at Lake Tahoe by authorizing $415 million over ten years to improve water clarity, reduce the threat of catastrophic fire, combat invasive species, and restore and protect the environment in the Lake Tahoe Basin. Specifically, it would do the following: Provide $243 million over 10 years for the highest priority restoration projects, according to scientific data. The legislation authorizes at least $138 million for stormwater management and watershed restoration projects scientifically determined to be the most effective ways to improve water clarity. This bill also requires prioritized ranking of environmental restoration projects and authorizes $80 million for State and local agencies to implement these projects with costs being split evenly between the Federal agencies and non-federal partners. Eligible projects must demonstrate their cost effectiveness, stakeholder support, ability to leverage non-federal contributions and meet environmental improvement goals. Implementation of priority projects will improve water quality, forest health, air quality and fish and wildlife habitat around Lake Tahoe. Authorizes $135 million over ten years to reduce the threat of wildfire in Lake Tahoe. These funds will finance hazardous fuels reduction projects including grants to local fire agencies, who must contribute at least 25 percent of project costs. The bill also authorizes important restoration work related to the devastating 2007 Angora fire, which destroyed 242 residences and 67 commercial structures. Fuels treatment on Washoe Tribal lands, wildfire prevention planning, and improvements to local water district infrastructure to fight wildfires that reach urban areas are eligible for grant funding. The bill also creates incentives for local communities to have dedicated funding for defensible space inspections and enforcement. Protecting Lake Tahoe from the threat of quagga mussels and other invasive aquatic species. Protecting Lake Tahoe from the threat of quagga mussels and other invasive aquatic species is a major priority because of the serious threats posed to Lake Tahoe. University of California, Davis and University of Nevada, Reno scientists report that they have found up to 3,000 Asian clams per square meter at spots between Zephyr Point and Elk Point in Lake Tahoe. The spreading Asian clam population could put sharp shells and rotting algae on the Lake's beaches and help spread other invasive species such as quagga mussels. The bill would authorize $30 million for watercraft inspections and removal of existing invasive species. It would require all watercraft to be inspected and decontaminated if they are determined to be a risk to the lake. These invasive species threats are serious. For example, one quagga or zebra mussel can lay 1 million eggs in a year. This means that a single boat carrying quagga could devastate the lake's biology, local infrastructure, and the local economy. The threat to Lake Tahoe cannot be overstated. In 2007 quagga mussels were discovered in Lake Mead. In the 6 years since, there population has swelled exponentially. Today there are more than 3 trillion. The infestation is probably irreversible. There is good news. There is promising news on this front. Scientists have begun testing a new strategy by placing long rubber mats across the bottom of Lake Tahoe to cut off the oxygen to the Asian clams. Early research suggests that these mats were very effective at killing the clams. We continue to learn from this important research about how best to manage invasive species. We can fight off these invaders. But it will require drive and imagination and the help authorized within this bill. Supports reintroduction of the Lahontan Cutthroat Trout. The legislation authorizes $20 million over 10 years for the Lahontan Cutthroat Trout Recovery Plan. The Lahontan Cutthroat Trout is an iconic species that has an important historic legacy in Lake Tahoe. When John C. Fremont first explored the Truckee River in January of 1844, he called it the Salmon Trout River because he found the Pyramid Lake Lahontan Cutthroat Trout. The trout relied on the Truckee River and its tributaries for their spawning runs in spring, traveling up the entire river's length as far as Lake Tahoe and Donner Lake, where they used the cool, pristine waters and clean gravel beds to lay their eggs. But dams, pollution and overfishing caused the demise of the Lahontan Cutthroat Trout. Lake Tahoe is one of the historic 11 lakes where Lahontan Cutthroat Trout flourished in the past, and it's a critical part of the strategy to recover the species. Funds scientific research. The legislation authorizes $30 million over ten years for scientific programs and research which will produce information on long-term trends in the Basin and inform the most cost- effective projects. Prohibiting mining operations in the Tahoe Basin. This legislation would prohibit new mining operations in the Basin, ensuring that the fragile watershed and Lake Tahoe's water clarity are not threatened by pollution from mining operations. Increases accountability and oversight. Every project funded by this legislation will have monitoring and assessment to determine the most cost-effective projects and best management practices for future projects. The legislation also requires the Chair of the Federal Partnership to work with the Forest Service, Environmental Protection Agency, Fish and Wildlife Service and regional and state agencies, to prepare an annual report to Congress detailing the status of all projects undertaken, including project scope, budget and justification and overall expenditures and accomplishments. This will ensure that Congress can have oversight on the progress of environmental restoration in Lake Tahoe. Provides for public outreach and education. The Forest Service, Environmental Protection Agency, Fish and Wildlife Service and Tahoe Regional Planning Agency will implement new public outreach and education programs including encouraging Basin residents and visitors to implement defensible space, conducting best management practices for water quality and preventing the introduction and proliferation of invasive species. In addition, the legislation requires signage on federally financed projects to improve public awareness of restoration efforts. Allows for increased efficiency in the management of public land. Under this legislation, the Forest Service would have increased flexibility to exchange land with state agencies which will allow for more cost-efficient management of public land. There is currently a checkerboard pattern of ownership in some areas of the Basin. Under this new authority, the Forest Service could exchange land with the California Tahoe Conservancy and the California Department of Parks and Recreation of approximately equal value without going through a lengthy process to assess the land. For example, if there are several plots of Forest Service land that surround or are adjacent to Tahoe Conservancy or California State Parks land, the state could transfer that land to the Forest Service so that it can be managed more efficiently. This legislation is needed because the ``Jewel of the Sierra'' is in big trouble. If we don't act now, we could lose Lake Tahoe, lose it with stunning speed, to several devastating threats. Anyone doubting that climate change poses a severe threat to Lake Tahoe should read an alarming recent report by the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center. It was written for the U.S. Forest Service by scientists who have devoted their professional careers to studying Lake Tahoe. And it paints a distinctly bleak picture of the future for the ``Jewel of the Sierra.'' Among its findings are the Tahoe Basin's regional snowpack could decline by as much as 60 percent in the next century, with increased floods likely by 2050 and prolonged droughts by 2100. Even ``under the most optimistic projections,'' average snowpack in the Sierra Nevada around Tahoe will decline by 40 to 60 percent by 2100, according to the report. This would likely bankrupt Tahoe's ski industry, threaten the water supply of Reno and other communities, and degrade the lake's fabled water clarity. It is devastating. According to the UC Davis report, an all-out attack on pollution and sedimentation may be the lake's last best hope. Geoff Schladow, director of the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center and one of the report's authors, noted the need to restore short-term water quality in Lake Tahoe--while there's still time to do it. ``Reducing the load of external nutrients entering the lake in the coming decades may be the only possible mitigation measure to reduce the impact of climate change on lake clarity . . . ,'' the report said. Without such an effort, the ``internal loading of nutrients'' could fundamentally change the lake and fuel algal growth, creating a downward spiral in water quality and clarity. Water clarity is one of the central problems the legislation would address. Pollution and sedimentation have threatened Lake Tahoe's water clarity for years now. In 1968, the first year UC Davis scientists made measurements using a device called a Secchi disk, clarity was measured at an average depth of 102.4 feet. Clarity declined over the next three decades, hitting a low of 64 feet in 1997. There has been some improvement in this decade. Last year scientists recorded average clarity at 75.3 feet--the clearest readings in a decade. But it is a fragile gain. Sedimentation and stormwater runoff pose a persistent threat. Climate change has already made itself apparent at Lake Tahoe. It makes the basin dry and tinder-hot, raising the risks of catastrophic wildfire. Daily air temperatures have increased 4 degrees since 1911. Snow has declined as a fraction of total precipitation, from an average of 52 percent in 1910 to just 36 percent in recent years. Climate change has caused Lake Tahoe's surface water temperature to rise over 2 degrees in 44 years. That means the cyclical deep-water mixing of the lake's waters will occur less frequently, and this could significantly disrupt Lake Tahoe's ecosystem. This legislation is intended to address these problems. Last year, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee reported out the bill favorably, but there was not enough time for a floor vote. It is my hope that this legislation can move through committee quickly and be passed later this year. A lot of good work has been done. But there's a lot more work to do, and time is running out. Mark Twain called Lake Tahoe ``the fairest picture the whole world affords.'' We must not be the generation who lets this picture fall into ruin. We must rise to the challenge, and do all we can to preserve this ``noble sheet of water.'' Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to again discuss the need to restore and protect Lake Tahoe. Lake Tahoe is a national treasure. Her alpine beauty has drawn and inspired people for centuries: artists and poets, John Muir and Mark Twain, and countless millions the world over. As a girl, I went to Lake Tahoe to ride horses through the woods, to swim in the clear blue waters and to bike around the magnificent Basin. For over 16 years, representatives from different ends of the political spectrum have come together to Keep Tahoe Blue. The challenges are great. Climate change and drought have created a persistent threat from catastrophic wildfire. Sedimentation and pollution threaten water quality and the lake's treasured clarity. And invasive species threaten the economy of the region. The time to act is now, and the federal government must take a leading role--78 percent of the land surrounding Lake Tahoe is public land, primarily the Eldorado, Toiyabe and Tahoe National Forests. That is why today I am reintroducing the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act of 2013, which is co-sponsored by Senators Harry Reid, Dean Heller and Barbara Boxer. The bill would continue the Federal commitment at Lake Tahoe by authorizing $415 million over ten years to improve water clarity, reduce the threat of catastrophic fire, combat invasive species, and restore and protect the environment in the Lake Tahoe Basin. Specifically, it would do the following: Provide $243 million over 10 years for the highest priority restoration projects, according to scientific data. The legislation authorizes at least $138 million for stormwater management and watershed restoration projects scientifically determined to be the most effective ways to improve water clarity. This bill also requires prioritized ranking of environmental restoration projects and authorizes $80 million for State and local agencies to implement these projects with costs being split evenly between the Federal agencies and non-federal partners. Eligible projects must demonstrate their cost effectiveness, stakeholder support, ability to leverage non-federal contributions and meet environmental improvement goals. Implementation of priority projects will improve water quality, forest health, air quality and fish and wildlife habitat around Lake Tahoe. Authorizes $135 million over ten years to reduce the threat of wildfire in Lake Tahoe. These funds will finance hazardous fuels reduction projects including grants to local fire agencies, who must contribute at least 25 percent of project costs. The bill also authorizes important restoration work related to the devastating 2007 Angora fire, which destroyed 242 residences and 67 commercial structures. Fuels treatment on Washoe Tribal lands, wildfire prevention planning, and improvements to local water district infrastructure to fight wildfires that reach urban areas are eligible for grant funding. The bill also creates incentives for local communities to have dedicated funding for defensible space inspections and enforcement. Protecting Lake Tahoe from the threat of quagga mussels and other invasive aquatic species. Protecting Lake Tahoe from the threat of quagga mussels and other invasive aquatic species is a major priority because of the serious threats posed to Lake Tahoe. University of California, Davis and University of Nevada, Reno scientists report that they have found up to 3,000 Asian clams per square meter at spots between Zephyr Point and Elk Point in Lake Tahoe. The spreading Asian clam population could put sharp shells and rotting algae on the Lake's beaches and help spread other invasive species such as quagga mussels. The bill would authorize $30 million for watercraft inspections and removal of existing invasive species. It would require all watercraft to be inspected and decontaminated if they are determined to be a risk to the lake. These invasive species threats are serious. For example, one quagga or zebra mussel can lay 1 million eggs in a year. This means that a single boat carrying quagga could devastate the lake's biology, local infrastructure, and the local economy. The threat to Lake Tahoe cannot be overstated. In 2007 quagga mussels were discovered in Lake Mead. In the 6 years since, there population has swelled exponentially. Today there are more than 3 trillion. The infestation is probably irreversible. There is good news. There is promising news on this front. Scientists have begun testing a new strategy by placing long rubber mats across the bottom of Lake Tahoe to cut off the oxygen to the Asian clams. Early research suggests that these mats were very effective at killing the clams. We continue to learn from this important research about how best to manage invasive species. We can fight off these invaders. But it will require drive and imagination and the help authorized within this bill. Supports reintroduction of the Lahontan Cutthroat Trout. The legislation authorizes $20 million over 10 years for the Lahontan Cutthroat Trout Recovery Plan. The Lahontan Cutthroat Trout is an iconic species that has an important historic legacy in Lake Tahoe. When John C. Fremont first explored the Truckee River in January of 1844, he called it the Salmon Trout River because he found the Pyramid Lake Lahontan Cutthroat Trout. The trout relied on the Truckee River and its tributaries for their spawning runs in spring, traveling up the entire river's length as far as Lake Tahoe and Donner Lake, where they used the cool, pristine waters and clean gravel beds to lay their eggs. But dams, pollution and overfishing caused the demise of the Lahontan Cutthroat Trout. Lake Tahoe is one of the historic 11 lakes where Lahontan Cutthroat Trout flourished in the past, and it's a critical part of the strategy to recover the species. Funds scientific research. The legislation authorizes $30 million over ten years for scientific programs and research which will produce information on long-term trends in the Basin and inform the most cost- effective projects. Prohibiting mining operations in the Tahoe Basin. This legislation would prohibit new mining operations in the Basin, ensuring that the fragile watershed and Lake Tahoe's water clarity are not threatened by pollution from mining operations. Increases accountability and oversight. Every project funded by this legislation will have monitoring and assessment to determine the most cost-effective projects and best management practices for future projects. The legislation also requires the Chair of the Federal Partnership to work with the Forest Service, Environmental Protection Agency, Fish and Wildlife Service and regional and state agencies, to prepare an annual report to Congress detailing the status of all projects undertaken, including project scope, budget and justification and overall expenditures and accomplishments. This will ensure that Congress can have oversight on the progress of environmental restoration in Lake Tahoe. Provides for public outreach and education. The Forest Service, Environmental Protection Agency, Fish and Wildlife Service and Tahoe Regional Planning Agency will implement new public outreach and education programs including encouraging Basin residents and visitors to implement defensible space, conducting best management practices for water quality and preventing the introduction and proliferation of invasive species. In addition, the legislation requires signage on federally financed projects to improve public awareness of restoration efforts. Allows for increased efficiency in the management of public land. Under this legislation, the Forest Service would have increased flexibility to exchange land with state agencies which will allow for more cost-efficient management of public land. There is currently a checkerboard pattern of ownership in some areas of the Basin. Under this new authority, the Forest Service could exchange land with the California Tahoe Conservancy and the California Department of Parks and Recreation of approximately equal value without going through a lengthy process to assess the land. For example, if there are several plots of Forest Service land that surround or are adjacent to Tahoe Conservancy or California State Parks land, the state could transfer that land to the Forest Service so that it can be managed more efficiently. This legislation is needed because the ``Jewel of the Sierra'' is in big trouble. If we don't act now, we could lose Lake Tahoe, lose it with stunning speed, to several devastating threats. Anyone doubting that climate change poses a severe threat to Lake Tahoe should read an alarming recent report by the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center. It was written for the U.S. Forest Service by scientists who have devoted their professional careers to studying Lake Tahoe. And it paints a distinctly bleak picture of the future for the ``Jewel of the Sierra.'' Among its findings are the Tahoe Basin's regional snowpack could decline by as much as 60 percent in the next century, with increased floods likely by 2050 and prolonged droughts by 2100. Even ``under the most optimistic projections,'' average snowpack in the Sierra Nevada around Tahoe will decline by 40 to 60 percent by 2100, according to the report. This would likely bankrupt Tahoe's ski industry, threaten the water supply of Reno and other communities, and degrade the lake's fabled water clarity. It is devastating. According to the UC Davis report, an all-out attack on pollution and sedimentation may be the lake's last best hope. Geoff Schladow, director of the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center and one of the report's authors, noted the need to restore short-term water quality in Lake Tahoe--while there's still time to do it. ``Reducing the load of external nutrients entering the lake in the coming decades may be the only possible mitigation measure to reduce the impact of climate change on lake clarity . . . ,'' the report said. Without such an effort, the ``internal loading of nutrients'' could fundamentally change the lake and fuel algal growth, creating a downward spiral in water quality and clarity. Water clarity is one of the central problems the legislation would address. Pollution and sedimentation have threatened Lake Tahoe's water clarity for years now. In 1968, the first year UC Davis scientists made measurements using a device called a Secchi disk, clarity was measured at an average depth of 102.4 feet. Clarity declined over the next three decades, hitting a low of 64 feet in 1997. There has been some improvement in this decade. Last year scientists recorded average clarity at 75.3 feet--the clearest readings in a decade. But it is a fragile gain. Sedimentation and stormwater runoff pose a persistent threat. Climate change has already made itself apparent at Lake Tahoe. It makes the basin dry and tinder-hot, raising the risks of catastrophic wildfire. Daily air temperatures have increased 4 degrees since 1911. Snow has declined as a fraction of total precipitation, from an average of 52 percent in 1910 to just 36 percent in recent years. Climate change has caused Lake Tahoe's surface water temperature to rise over 2 degrees in 44 years. That means the cyclical deep-water mixing of the lake's waters will occur less frequently, and this could significantly disrupt Lake Tahoe's ecosystem. This legislation is intended to address these problems. Last year, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee reported out the bill favorably, but there was not enough time for a floor vote. It is my hope that this legislation can move through committee quickly and be passed later this year. A lot of good work has been done. But there's a lot more work to do, and time is running out. Mark Twain called Lake Tahoe ``the fairest picture the whole world affords.'' We must not be the generation who lets this picture fall into ruin. We must rise to the challenge, and do all we can to preserve this ``noble sheet of water.'' Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I am pleased that the Senate is considering Tony West's nomination to be Associate Attorney General of the United States today. I have a great deal of respect for Tony. As a fellow Californian, I know he will serve the position of Associate Attorney General with distinction. The role of the Associate Attorney General--the third-highest ranking position at the Department--is to help lead the Justice Department and to oversee the Department's civil units, such as the Civil Division, Antitrust Division, and Tax Division, as well as the Office of Justice Programs, which provides grants, including to State and local law enforcement. Mr. West's qualifications for this position are unquestionable. He has served as Acting Associate Attorney General since March 2012. He also spent 3 years as Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Division, so he is no stranger to the responsibilities and demands of leadership in the Justice Department. From 2001 to 2009, Mr. West was a partner at Morrison & Foerster LLP, where he represented major corporations in securities litigation, antitrust cases, and white-collar criminal defense. From 1994 to 1999, he served as assistant U.S. attorney in the Northern District of California for 5 years. He prosecuted high-tech crimes, bank robberies, fraud schemes, and sexual exploitation offenses. He received his bachelor's degree from Harvard University and later earned his law degree at Stanford Law School, where he was president of the Stanford Law Review. Simply put, Tony West brings a great deal of experience in Justice Department leadership, private practice, and criminal prosecution to this position. I am confident he will do an outstanding job, and I urge my colleagues to support his nomination.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Protecting Our Youth From Dangerous Synthetic Drugs Act of 2013 along with my colleagues and friends, Senators Klobuchar, Manchin and Schumer. This bill will provide law enforcement and prosecutors with an important new tool to address the growing threat posed by dangerous, synthetic drugs. Synthetic drugs are unregulated substances designed by scientists to mimic the effects of controlled substances. They are packaged in a manner which is intended to appeal to our Nation's youth and are sold at gas stations, head shops and over the Internet. Manufacturers of these products boldly seek to circumvent Federal law by marketing their merchandise as innocuous items like potpourri, incense, bath salts and plant food and stating that they are ``not intended for human consumption.'' Make no mistake; the individuals who produce, distribute and sell these products are nothing more than drug traffickers who seek to profit from the human use of these drug products. When Congress outlawed several of these synthetic drugs last year, traffickers did not stop producing them. Instead, they made slight alterations to the chemical structure of the illegal drugs to skirt the law. By doing this, the traffickers produced ``controlled substance analogues.'' The bill I am introducing today will give law enforcement the tools they need to prosecute individuals who produce and distribute controlled substance analogues. Many of the controlled substance analogues on the market today are designed to mimic the effects of THC, the principal chemical in marijuana. The Monitoring the Future survey, which tracks the drug- using behaviors of adolescents, began studying the use of synthetic marijuana in in 2011. Their 2012 report found that 11.3 percent of 12th graders had used synthetic marijuana in the prior 12 months. Aside from alcohol and tobacco, synthetic marijuana was the second most widely used drug among 12th graders after marijuana. There are many other ``families'' of controlled substance analogues which have been encountered in the market place. They mimic the effects of drugs like ecstasy, PCP and LSD and therefore produce strong stimulant and/or hallucinogenic effects when ingested. Altogether, there are an estimated 200 controlled substance analogues available today. The threat is global and is rapidly expanding. Fortunately, the Obama Administration has made progress combatting this threat. Two nationwide operations targeting designer synthetic drugs--one in 2012 dubbed Operation LogJam and the other which culminated approximately two weeks ago named Operation Synergy-- demonstrate this progress. These operations resulted in at least 318 arrests; 681 executed search warrants, including at least 29 for drug manufacturing facilities; $93 million in cash and assets seized; and the removal of 10 tons of synthetic drugs from the supply chain. Today, I am introducing a bill that will put these drug traffickers on notice that if they seek to develop products containing controlled substance analogues that put our nation's youth in harm's way, then they will be brought to justice. This will be accomplished by creating a new tool by which the administration can designate, and publish, an administrative list of outlawed controlled substance analogues. First, the Protecting Our Youth from Dangerous Synthetic Drugs Act of 2013 will establish an inter-agency committee of scientists, headed by the Drug Enforcement Administration, DEA, which will be responsible for establishing and maintaining an administrative list of controlled substance analogues. The Committee is structured so that it can respond quickly and robustly to the threat. Second, DEA officials have informed my staff that virtually all of these controlled substance analogues arrive as bulk powders from outside our borders. My bill will make it illegal to import a controlled substance analogue on the list unless the importation is intended for non-human use. Third, the bill directs the U.S. Sentencing Commission to review, and if appropriate, amend the federal sentencing guidelines for violations of the Controlled Substances Act pertaining to controlled substance analogues. Finally, it is important to note that controlled substance analogues are not controlled substances, meaning that the registration, reporting and recordkeeping requirements of the Controlled Substances Act do not apply to those who seek to perform bona fide scientific research or use a controlled substance analogue for non-human industrial applications. This bill sends a strong message to drug traffickers who continue to circumvent our Nation's laws. Congress recognizes that no matter how you alter the chemical structure of synthetic drugs to get around the law, they remain dangerous and should not be available for human consumption. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Protecting Our Youth From Dangerous Synthetic Drugs Act of 2013 along with my colleagues and friends, Senators Klobuchar, Manchin and Schumer. This bill will provide law enforcement and prosecutors with an important new tool to address the growing threat posed by dangerous, synthetic drugs. Synthetic drugs are unregulated substances designed by scientists to mimic the effects of controlled substances. They are packaged in a manner which is intended to appeal to our Nation's youth and are sold at gas stations, head shops and over the Internet. Manufacturers of these products boldly seek to circumvent Federal law by marketing their merchandise as innocuous items like potpourri, incense, bath salts and plant food and stating that they are ``not intended for human consumption.'' Make no mistake; the individuals who produce, distribute and sell these products are nothing more than drug traffickers who seek to profit from the human use of these drug products. When Congress outlawed several of these synthetic drugs last year, traffickers did not stop producing them. Instead, they made slight alterations to the chemical structure of the illegal drugs to skirt the law. By doing this, the traffickers produced ``controlled substance analogues.'' The bill I am introducing today will give law enforcement the tools they need to prosecute individuals who produce and distribute controlled substance analogues. Many of the controlled substance analogues on the market today are designed to mimic the effects of THC, the principal chemical in marijuana. The Monitoring the Future survey, which tracks the drug- using behaviors of adolescents, began studying the use of synthetic marijuana in in 2011. Their 2012 report found that 11.3 percent of 12th graders had used synthetic marijuana in the prior 12 months. Aside from alcohol and tobacco, synthetic marijuana was the second most widely used drug among 12th graders after marijuana. There are many other ``families'' of controlled substance analogues which have been encountered in the market place. They mimic the effects of drugs like ecstasy, PCP and LSD and therefore produce strong stimulant and/or hallucinogenic effects when ingested. Altogether, there are an estimated 200 controlled substance analogues available today. The threat is global and is rapidly expanding. Fortunately, the Obama Administration has made progress combatting this threat. Two nationwide operations targeting designer synthetic drugs--one in 2012 dubbed Operation LogJam and the other which culminated approximately two weeks ago named Operation Synergy-- demonstrate this progress. These operations resulted in at least 318 arrests; 681 executed search warrants, including at least 29 for drug manufacturing facilities; $93 million in cash and assets seized; and the removal of 10 tons of synthetic drugs from the supply chain. Today, I am introducing a bill that will put these drug traffickers on notice that if they seek to develop products containing controlled substance analogues that put our nation's youth in harm's way, then they will be brought to justice. This will be accomplished by creating a new tool by which the administration can designate, and publish, an administrative list of outlawed controlled substance analogues. First, the Protecting Our Youth from Dangerous Synthetic Drugs Act of 2013 will establish an inter-agency committee of scientists, headed by the Drug Enforcement Administration, DEA, which will be responsible for establishing and maintaining an administrative list of controlled substance analogues. The Committee is structured so that it can respond quickly and robustly to the threat. Second, DEA officials have informed my staff that virtually all of these controlled substance analogues arrive as bulk powders from outside our borders. My bill will make it illegal to import a controlled substance analogue on the list unless the importation is intended for non-human use. Third, the bill directs the U.S. Sentencing Commission to review, and if appropriate, amend the federal sentencing guidelines for violations of the Controlled Substances Act pertaining to controlled substance analogues. Finally, it is important to note that controlled substance analogues are not controlled substances, meaning that the registration, reporting and recordkeeping requirements of the Controlled Substances Act do not apply to those who seek to perform bona fide scientific research or use a controlled substance analogue for non-human industrial applications. This bill sends a strong message to drug traffickers who continue to circumvent our Nation's laws. Congress recognizes that no matter how you alter the chemical structure of synthetic drugs to get around the law, they remain dangerous and should not be available for human consumption. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President, on behalf of Senator Chambliss and myself we wish to recognize and pay tribute to Mr. Michael J. Morell, Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, who will leave his current position on Friday, August 9, 2013, and retire at the end of September. Mr. Morell's career spans over 33 years in the CIA during which he distinguished himself as a patriot, leader, and friend of the Senate. Michael Morell deserves the gratitude of the entire Nation for his three decades of selfless service at the CIA. An Ohio native, Mr. Morell received a B.A. degree in economics from the University of Akron in 1980 and an M.A. in economics from Georgetown University in 1984. Since joining the CIA in 1980, Michael's talents lifted him from being an analyst covering international energy issues to some of the toughest assignments that the CIA has to offer: Presidential Briefer, Associate Deputy Director, Director of Intelligence, Deputy Director, and toughest of all, twice he was called upon to serve as Acting Director. In each assignment, Michael provided exemplary leadership for the men and women of the Agency and demonstrated he was someone who knew how to manage operations, sharpen analysis, invest in new technologies, and assure the smooth functioning of the entire CIA workforce. As the President's Daily Briefer, Michael was at President Bush's side on that horrific day in September 2001. He was there at President Obama's side as Deputy CIA Director when the United States brought justice to Osama bin Ladin in May 2011. These are only two examples out of many where Michael helped guide the Agency and the Nation through some of the most complex and challenging times in our recent history. As the Acting Director and Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Michael has had frequent interaction with Senators and staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. His professionalism, mature judgment, frank and sage advice, and interpersonal skills earned him the respect and confidence of the committee. His sound judgment and candor also directly contributed to his successful representation of the CIA's interests before the committee and Congress. As the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, we have had additional opportunities to see Michael's contributions to this Nation. We cannot speak of them here, but the American people should know that his service goes beyond the public record, and has spanned the globe. Throughout his career, Michael Morell demonstrated a profound commitment to our Nation, selfless service to the CIA, deep concern for Agency officers and their families, and a commitment to excellence. Michael is the consummate intelligence professional whose performance personified those traits of courage, competency, and integrity that our Nation expects from its professional intelligence officers. Mr. President, we ask our colleagues to join us in thanking Mr. Michael Morell for his honorable service to the Central Intelligence Agency and the people of the United States. We also thank Michael's wife Mary Beth and his children, Sarah, Luke, and Peter, for their support and understanding, as well as their sacrifices in allowing Michael to selflessly commit himself to protecting our Nation against those who would do us harm. We wish the Morell family all the best in the future.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President, on behalf of Senator Chambliss and myself we wish to recognize and pay tribute to Mr. Timothy P. Ireland, Deputy Director of the Office of Congressional Affairs, OCA, at the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, who is retiring after a long and distinguished career of government service. Tim is not well known to the American people, but his quiet service and unflappable demeanor here made him a friend to the Intelligence Committee and staff After graduating from the University of Southern California in 1970 with a bachelor's degree in international relations, Tim continued his education, earning a master's degree and Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. After teaching for 2 years, Tim joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1981, as an officer in the Directorate of Intelligence, focusing on European political and military affairs. Tim worked in a number of analytic and management positions in the Directorate of Intelligence, authored a National Intelligence Estimate, and served on the President's Daily Brief staff. Throughout his career, Tim worked in both policy and intelligence community positions. He spent 2 years in the Department of State's Bureau of Political-Military affairs working on arms control and strategic defense issues. For nearly 4 years he worked in the National Intelligence Council. Tim entered the field of resource management in 1991 with a tour in the Office of Comptroller. He subsequently served in senior resource management positions in the Directorate of Intelligence, the Office of the Chief Information Officer, and the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, CFO. In this last capacity, Tim proved invaluable to the committee in understanding the CIA's programs and finances, giving direct, accurate answers to difficult questions. Twice, Tim served as the Acting Director of the Office of Congressional Affairs, serving as the CIA's primary interface with congressional oversight committees, leadership, and Members. While serving in the offices of OCA and CFO, Tim was known for keeping the Congress fully and currently informed. In these capacities, Tim had frequent interaction with Senators and staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. His professionalism, thoughtfulness, and frank responses earned him the respect and confidence of the committee. His friendly demeanor and candor helped him successfully represent the CIA's interests before the committee and Congress. Tim Ireland throughout his career has shown a deep commitment to our national security, proud service to the CIA, and a calm yet thorough performance in his work. His more than 32 years of service as an intelligence officer has helped to keep our Nation and its citizens safe. Mr. President, we ask our colleagues to join us in thanking Mr. Tim Ireland for his honorable service to the Central Intelligence Agency and the people of the United States. We also want to thank Tim's wife Andy for her support and understanding, as well as her sacrifices in allowing Tim to selflessly commit himself to protecting our Nation. We wish Tim and Andy Ireland all the best in the future.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in introducing the Nuclear Waste Administration Act. This bipartisan legislation, which has been years in the making, is also cosponsored by Senators Ron Wyden, Lisa Murkowski, and Lamar Alexander. This legislation represents our best attempt to establish a workable, long term nuclear waste policy for the United States, something our Nation lacks today, by implementing the unanimous recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future. First, the bill would create an independent entity, the Nuclear Waste Administration, with the sole purpose of managing nuclear waste. Second, the bill would authorize the siting and construction of three types of waste facilities: a ``pilot'' waste storage facility for waste from shut down reactors, additional storage facilities for waste from other facilities, and permanent repositories to dispose of nuclear waste. Third, the bill creates a consent-based siting process for both storage facilities and repositories, based on the successful efforts to build waste facilities in other countries. The legislation requires that local, tribal, and State governments must consent to host waste facilities by signing incentive agreements, assuring that waste is only stored in the States and communities that want and welcome it. Fourth, the bill would direct the fees currently collected from nuclear power ratepayers to fund nuclear waste management, currently about $750 M annually, into a new Working Capital Fund available to the Nuclear Waste Administration to fund construction of waste facilities. Finally, the legislation ensures that the new Nuclear Waste Administration will be held accountable for meeting Federal responsibilities and stewarding Federal dollars. The Nuclear Waste Administrator will be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The Administration will be overseen by a five-member Nuclear Waste Oversight Board, modeled on the Defense Nuclear Facilities Board. The administration will have an Inspector General. The administration will not be able to access the corpus of the Nuclear Waste Trust Fund until it reaches agreement with a host community. Appropriators may limit the administration's spending, if necessary. Finally, if the agency fails to open a nuclear waste facility by 2025, additional funding will cease. The United States has 104 operating commercial nuclear power reactors that supply \1/5\ of our electricity and nearly 75 percent of our emissions-free power. However, production of this nuclear power has a significant downside: it produces nuclear waste that will take hundreds of thousands of years to decay. Unlike most nuclear nations, the United States has no program to consolidate waste in centralized facilities. Instead, we leave the waste next to operating and shut down reactors sitting in pools of water or in cement and steel dry casks. Today, approximately 70,000 metric tons of nuclear waste is stored at commercial reactor sites. This total grows by 2,000 metric tons each year. In addition to commercial nuclear waste, we must also address waste generated from creating our nuclear weapons stockpile and powering our Navy. The byproducts of nuclear energy represent some of the nation's most hazardous materials, but for decades we have failed to find a solution for their safe storage and permanent disposal. Most experts agree that this failure is not a scientific problem or an engineering impossibility; it is a failure of government. Although the Federal Government signed contracts committing to pick up commercial waste beginning in 1998, the Federal government's waste program has failed to take possession of a single fuel assembly. Our government has not honored its contractual obligations. We have been sued, and we have lost. So today, the Federal taxpayer is paying power plants to store the waste at reactor sites all over the nation. The cost of this liability is forecast to reach $20 billion by 2020. As we try to manage our growing national debt, we simply cannot tolerate continued inaction. In January 2012, the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future completed a two-year comprehensive study and published unanimous recommendations for fixing our Nation's broken nuclear waste management program. The commission found that the only long-term, technically feasible solution for this waste is to dispose of it in a permanent underground repository. Until such a facility is opened, which will take many decades, spent nuclear fuel will continue to be an expensive, dangerous burden. That is why the commission also recommended that we establish an interim storage facility program to begin consolidating this dangerous waste, in addition to working on a permanent repository. Finally, after studying the experience of all nuclear nations, the commission found that siting these facilities is most likely to succeed if the host states and communities are welcome and willing partners, not adversaries. The commission recommended that we adopt a consent based nuclear facility siting process. Senators Wyden, Murkowski, Alexander, and I introduce this legislation in order to begin implementing those recommendations, putting us on a dual track toward interim and permanent storage facilities. The bill also reflects much work by former Senator Bingaman, who put forward a similar proposal as one of the last bills he wrote. In my view, one of the most important provisions in this legislation is the pilot program to begin consolidating nuclear waste at safer, more cost-efficient centralized facilities on an interim basis. The legislation will facilitate interim storage of nuclear waste in above- ground canisters called dry casks. These facilities would be located in willing communities, away from population centers, and on thoroughly assessed sites. Some members of Congress argue that we should ignore the need to interim storage sites and instead push forward with a plan to open Yucca Mountain as a permanent storage site. Others argue that we should push forward only with repository plans in new locations. But the debate over Yucca Mountain, a controversial waste repository proposed in the Nevada desert, which lacks State approval, is unlikely to be settled any time soon. I believe the debate over a permanent repository does not need to be settled in order to recognize the need for interim storage. Even if Congress and a future president reverse course and move forward with Yucca Mountain, interim storage facilities would still be an essential component of a badly needed national nuclear waste strategy. By creating interim storage sites, a top recommendation of the Blue Ribbon Commission, we would begin reducing Federal liability while providing breathing room to site and build a permanent repository. Interim storage facilities could also provide alternative storage locations in emergency situations requiring spent nuclear fuel to be moved quickly from a reactor site. Both short- and long-term storage programs are vital. Permanently disposing of our current inventory of nuclear waste will take several decades. Because of that long timeline, interim storage facilities allow us to achieve significant cost savings for taxpayers and utility ratepayers by shuttering a number of nuclear plants. One thing is certain: inaction is the most costly and least safe option. Our longstanding stalemate is costly to taxpayers, utility ratepayers and communities that are involuntarily saddled with waste after local nuclear power plants have shut down. It leaves nuclear waste all over the country, stored in all different ways. It is long overdue for the government to honor its obligation to safely dispose of the Nation's nuclear waste. This will be a long journey, but we must take the first step.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in introducing the Nuclear Waste Administration Act. This bipartisan legislation, which has been years in the making, is also cosponsored by Senators Ron Wyden, Lisa Murkowski, and Lamar Alexander. This legislation represents our best attempt to establish a workable, long term nuclear waste policy for the United States, something our Nation lacks today, by implementing the unanimous recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future. First, the bill would create an independent entity, the Nuclear Waste Administration, with the sole purpose of managing nuclear waste. Second, the bill would authorize the siting and construction of three types of waste facilities: a ``pilot'' waste storage facility for waste from shut down reactors, additional storage facilities for waste from other facilities, and permanent repositories to dispose of nuclear waste. Third, the bill creates a consent-based siting process for both storage facilities and repositories, based on the successful efforts to build waste facilities in other countries. The legislation requires that local, tribal, and State governments must consent to host waste facilities by signing incentive agreements, assuring that waste is only stored in the States and communities that want and welcome it. Fourth, the bill would direct the fees currently collected from nuclear power ratepayers to fund nuclear waste management, currently about $750 M annually, into a new Working Capital Fund available to the Nuclear Waste Administration to fund construction of waste facilities. Finally, the legislation ensures that the new Nuclear Waste Administration will be held accountable for meeting Federal responsibilities and stewarding Federal dollars. The Nuclear Waste Administrator will be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The Administration will be overseen by a five-member Nuclear Waste Oversight Board, modeled on the Defense Nuclear Facilities Board. The administration will have an Inspector General. The administration will not be able to access the corpus of the Nuclear Waste Trust Fund until it reaches agreement with a host community. Appropriators may limit the administration's spending, if necessary. Finally, if the agency fails to open a nuclear waste facility by 2025, additional funding will cease. The United States has 104 operating commercial nuclear power reactors that supply \1/5\ of our electricity and nearly 75 percent of our emissions-free power. However, production of this nuclear power has a significant downside: it produces nuclear waste that will take hundreds of thousands of years to decay. Unlike most nuclear nations, the United States has no program to consolidate waste in centralized facilities. Instead, we leave the waste next to operating and shut down reactors sitting in pools of water or in cement and steel dry casks. Today, approximately 70,000 metric tons of nuclear waste is stored at commercial reactor sites. This total grows by 2,000 metric tons each year. In addition to commercial nuclear waste, we must also address waste generated from creating our nuclear weapons stockpile and powering our Navy. The byproducts of nuclear energy represent some of the nation's most hazardous materials, but for decades we have failed to find a solution for their safe storage and permanent disposal. Most experts agree that this failure is not a scientific problem or an engineering impossibility; it is a failure of government. Although the Federal Government signed contracts committing to pick up commercial waste beginning in 1998, the Federal government's waste program has failed to take possession of a single fuel assembly. Our government has not honored its contractual obligations. We have been sued, and we have lost. So today, the Federal taxpayer is paying power plants to store the waste at reactor sites all over the nation. The cost of this liability is forecast to reach $20 billion by 2020. As we try to manage our growing national debt, we simply cannot tolerate continued inaction. In January 2012, the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future completed a two-year comprehensive study and published unanimous recommendations for fixing our Nation's broken nuclear waste management program. The commission found that the only long-term, technically feasible solution for this waste is to dispose of it in a permanent underground repository. Until such a facility is opened, which will take many decades, spent nuclear fuel will continue to be an expensive, dangerous burden. That is why the commission also recommended that we establish an interim storage facility program to begin consolidating this dangerous waste, in addition to working on a permanent repository. Finally, after studying the experience of all nuclear nations, the commission found that siting these facilities is most likely to succeed if the host states and communities are welcome and willing partners, not adversaries. The commission recommended that we adopt a consent based nuclear facility siting process. Senators Wyden, Murkowski, Alexander, and I introduce this legislation in order to begin implementing those recommendations, putting us on a dual track toward interim and permanent storage facilities. The bill also reflects much work by former Senator Bingaman, who put forward a similar proposal as one of the last bills he wrote. In my view, one of the most important provisions in this legislation is the pilot program to begin consolidating nuclear waste at safer, more cost-efficient centralized facilities on an interim basis. The legislation will facilitate interim storage of nuclear waste in above- ground canisters called dry casks. These facilities would be located in willing communities, away from population centers, and on thoroughly assessed sites. Some members of Congress argue that we should ignore the need to interim storage sites and instead push forward with a plan to open Yucca Mountain as a permanent storage site. Others argue that we should push forward only with repository plans in new locations. But the debate over Yucca Mountain, a controversial waste repository proposed in the Nevada desert, which lacks State approval, is unlikely to be settled any time soon. I believe the debate over a permanent repository does not need to be settled in order to recognize the need for interim storage. Even if Congress and a future president reverse course and move forward with Yucca Mountain, interim storage facilities would still be an essential component of a badly needed national nuclear waste strategy. By creating interim storage sites, a top recommendation of the Blue Ribbon Commission, we would begin reducing Federal liability while providing breathing room to site and build a permanent repository. Interim storage facilities could also provide alternative storage locations in emergency situations requiring spent nuclear fuel to be moved quickly from a reactor site. Both short- and long-term storage programs are vital. Permanently disposing of our current inventory of nuclear waste will take several decades. Because of that long timeline, interim storage facilities allow us to achieve significant cost savings for taxpayers and utility ratepayers by shuttering a number of nuclear plants. One thing is certain: inaction is the most costly and least safe option. Our longstanding stalemate is costly to taxpayers, utility ratepayers and communities that are involuntarily saddled with waste after local nuclear power plants have shut down. It leaves nuclear waste all over the country, stored in all different ways. It is long overdue for the government to honor its obligation to safely dispose of the Nation's nuclear waste. This will be a long journey, but we must take the first step.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Preventing Antibiotic Resistance Act. This legislation puts in place reasonable safeguards on when and how antibiotics can be used in agriculture. Few people realize that antibiotics are used in animal agriculture; even fewer realize the scope of the problem. Last year 29.9 million pounds of antibiotics were sold in the U.S. for meat and poultry production. That is four times what was used in all forms of human medicine. But there is more to be concerned about. The vast majority of these drugs are fed to healthy livestock and poultry, with little or no veterinary oversight. The drugs are used for growth promotion, to fatten up animals before slaughter. At these low levels, the doses are not large enough, or powerful enough, to eliminate all the bacteria inside the animal's body. The small dose only kills off the weakest bacteria, leaving the strongest, most resistant bacteria behind to reproduce. It creates a perfect storm for antibiotic resistance. This isn't just a problem for the animals. These antibiotic resistant pathogens make their way into our food, our water, and our communities. A recent study published in the medical journal Clinical Infectious Diseases found that nearly 50 percent of grocery store meat was contaminated with antibiotic resistant pathogens. Even more concerning, 25 percent of the meat was contaminated with pathogens that were resistant to three or more type of antibiotics. Antibiotics are the closest thing to a ``silver bullet'' in human medicine. They are capable of wiping out a wide variety of bacterial infections. But we are in danger of losing this weapon in the fight against infectious diseases. Tens of thousands of people in the U.S. die each year from antibiotic resistant infections. Unfortunately, we are learning the hard way that these precious, lifesaving drugs no longer work as well as they once did. That is why I am so committed to this bill, to preserve the efficacy of these drugs that save lives every day. The Preventing Antibiotic Resistance Act directs the Food and Drug Administration to prohibit the use of antibiotics in ways that accelerate antibiotic resistance. The bill requires drug companies and producers to demonstrate that they are using antibiotics to treat clinically diagnosable diseases, not just to fatten their livestock. But the bill takes a nuanced approach; the restrictions only apply to the limited number of antibiotics that are critical to human health. Any drug not used in human medicine is left untouched by this legislation. The Preventing Antibiotic Resistance Act also preserves the ability of farmers to use all available antibiotics to treat sick animals. If a veterinarian identifies a sick animal, or a herd of animals that are likely to become sick, there are no restrictions on what drugs can be used. This legislation is not revolutionary. Fifteen years ago Denmark became the first country to ban the routine use of antibiotics in the food and water of livestock. The entire European Union followed suit in 2006. Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Korea, Thailand, the Philippines and Japan have also implemented full or partial bans on non-therapeutic uses of antibiotics. But the majority of producers in the U.S. have not followed suit; and it is time for a wakeup call. Put simply--irresponsible use of antibiotics endangers us all. And if the drugs can't be used safely, they shouldn't be used at all. Some still refuse to accept the facts; they say that there is no evidence that antibiotic use in agriculture leads to infections in humans. They are wrong. Rear Admiral Ali S. Khan, MD, MPH, Assistant Surgeon General and Director of the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testified in the House Energy Committee that ``studies related to Salmonella as both a human and animal pathogen, including many studies in the United States, have demonstrated that use of antibiotic agents in food animals results in antibiotic resistant bacteria in food animals, resistant bacteria are present in the food supply and are transmitted to humans, and resistant bacterial infections result in adverse human health consequences, e.g., increased hospitalization.'' Doctor Joshua Sharfstein, Principal Deputy Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, also testified at the hearing and agreed with Rear Admiral Khan. The FDA, he said, ``supports the conclusion that using medically important antimicrobial drugs for production purposes is not in the interest of protecting and promoting the public health.'' Quantitative evidence from the EU and Canada also support this conclusion. In response to public health concerns about the rise of resistance to the antibiotic cephalosporin in Salmonella and E. coli, chicken hatcheries in Quebec voluntarily stopped using the drug in February 2005. Following the ban, the public health agency of Canada reported a dramatic 89 percent decrease in the incidence of resistant salmonella in chicken meat and 77 percent decrease in related human infections. Once the drug was partially reintroduced in 2007, antibiotic resistant infections in people jumped back up 50 percent. Unfortunately we are fighting an uphill battle with antibiotic resistant infections. Our tools and resources are diminishing even while the number and severity of these infections are increasing. One example is Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, MRSA infections in 1974 accounted for only two percent of the total number of staph infections; in 1995 it was 22 percent; and by 2004 it was 63 percent. CDC estimates that by 2005, there were 94,360 MRSA infections in the United States. Tragically, about 19,000 of them, 20 percent, were fatal. The primary reason is that MRSA is virtually immune to almost every antibiotic used in modern medicine. By comparison, during the same year there were 17,011 deaths due to AIDS; so the scope and consequence of this problem is stunning. Of course not all MRSA is derived from the overuse of antibiotics on the farm. Many infections are acquired in the hospital, and it is believed that these bacteria became resistant to antibiotics due to the misuse of drugs in human medicine. But MRSA is infecting individuals who have not been in a hospital setting. There is strong evidence that at least one strain of MRSA infecting people is coming directly from livestock. This strain, known as ST398, has been shown to disproportionately infect farmers and their families. Like all MRSA, ST398 is resistant to the antibiotics methicillin and oxacillin. But resistance to other antibiotics is also common among ST398 strains which make treatment especially challenging. A study by the CDC in December 2009 showed that hospital-acquired MRSA strains and community-acquired MRSA strains such as ST398 are trending in opposite directions. The study found that community-acquired MRSA, a type of MRSA that did not emerge in the hospital setting and is not contracted there, increased 700 percent between 1999 and 2006. By contrast, hospital-acquired MRSA cases declined roughly 10 percent over this same time period. Over the past decade, it has become clear that MRSA is not just a problem for hospital administrators. More and more individuals are acquiring this devastating infection in their homes, at their gyms or in restaurants. While it is exceedingly difficult to determine the exact extent that antibiotic use in agriculture influences individual MRSA cases, we know for certain that statistical evidence overwhelmingly suggests that a reduction of antibiotic use in agriculture will result in a reduction of highly resistant MRSA cases. Since the recent data released by the FDA confirm that more than 80 percent of all antibiotics sold in this country are for meat and poultry producing animals, one can reasonably conclude that a reduction of antibiotic use in agriculture will result in a reduction of highly resistant MRSA cases. This legislation will very likely reduce the number of resistant infections and will very likely save lives. But some still claim that this legislation may make our food supply less safe. They argue that antibiotics keep our animals healthy, and healthy animals make for healthy food. But research shows us that these concerns are misguided. More than 375 public, consumer and environmental health groups, including the American Medical Association, the American Public Health Association, and the Infectious Diseases Society of America, support the legislation. This bill makes incremental changes to ensure that our actions on the farm do not negatively impact the health and well being of our farmers, their families, and every one of us who consume the food they produce. I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass these critical reforms.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Preventing Antibiotic Resistance Act. This legislation puts in place reasonable safeguards on when and how antibiotics can be used in agriculture. Few people realize that antibiotics are used in animal agriculture; even fewer realize the scope of the problem. Last year 29.9 million pounds of antibiotics were sold in the U.S. for meat and poultry production. That is four times what was used in all forms of human medicine. But there is more to be concerned about. The vast majority of these drugs are fed to healthy livestock and poultry, with little or no veterinary oversight. The drugs are used for growth promotion, to fatten up animals before slaughter. At these low levels, the doses are not large enough, or powerful enough, to eliminate all the bacteria inside the animal's body. The small dose only kills off the weakest bacteria, leaving the strongest, most resistant bacteria behind to reproduce. It creates a perfect storm for antibiotic resistance. This isn't just a problem for the animals. These antibiotic resistant pathogens make their way into our food, our water, and our communities. A recent study published in the medical journal Clinical Infectious Diseases found that nearly 50 percent of grocery store meat was contaminated with antibiotic resistant pathogens. Even more concerning, 25 percent of the meat was contaminated with pathogens that were resistant to three or more type of antibiotics. Antibiotics are the closest thing to a ``silver bullet'' in human medicine. They are capable of wiping out a wide variety of bacterial infections. But we are in danger of losing this weapon in the fight against infectious diseases. Tens of thousands of people in the U.S. die each year from antibiotic resistant infections. Unfortunately, we are learning the hard way that these precious, lifesaving drugs no longer work as well as they once did. That is why I am so committed to this bill, to preserve the efficacy of these drugs that save lives every day. The Preventing Antibiotic Resistance Act directs the Food and Drug Administration to prohibit the use of antibiotics in ways that accelerate antibiotic resistance. The bill requires drug companies and producers to demonstrate that they are using antibiotics to treat clinically diagnosable diseases, not just to fatten their livestock. But the bill takes a nuanced approach; the restrictions only apply to the limited number of antibiotics that are critical to human health. Any drug not used in human medicine is left untouched by this legislation. The Preventing Antibiotic Resistance Act also preserves the ability of farmers to use all available antibiotics to treat sick animals. If a veterinarian identifies a sick animal, or a herd of animals that are likely to become sick, there are no restrictions on what drugs can be used. This legislation is not revolutionary. Fifteen years ago Denmark became the first country to ban the routine use of antibiotics in the food and water of livestock. The entire European Union followed suit in 2006. Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Korea, Thailand, the Philippines and Japan have also implemented full or partial bans on non-therapeutic uses of antibiotics. But the majority of producers in the U.S. have not followed suit; and it is time for a wakeup call. Put simply--irresponsible use of antibiotics endangers us all. And if the drugs can't be used safely, they shouldn't be used at all. Some still refuse to accept the facts; they say that there is no evidence that antibiotic use in agriculture leads to infections in humans. They are wrong. Rear Admiral Ali S. Khan, MD, MPH, Assistant Surgeon General and Director of the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testified in the House Energy Committee that ``studies related to Salmonella as both a human and animal pathogen, including many studies in the United States, have demonstrated that use of antibiotic agents in food animals results in antibiotic resistant bacteria in food animals, resistant bacteria are present in the food supply and are transmitted to humans, and resistant bacterial infections result in adverse human health consequences, e.g., increased hospitalization.'' Doctor Joshua Sharfstein, Principal Deputy Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, also testified at the hearing and agreed with Rear Admiral Khan. The FDA, he said, ``supports the conclusion that using medically important antimicrobial drugs for production purposes is not in the interest of protecting and promoting the public health.'' Quantitative evidence from the EU and Canada also support this conclusion. In response to public health concerns about the rise of resistance to the antibiotic cephalosporin in Salmonella and E. coli, chicken hatcheries in Quebec voluntarily stopped using the drug in February 2005. Following the ban, the public health agency of Canada reported a dramatic 89 percent decrease in the incidence of resistant salmonella in chicken meat and 77 percent decrease in related human infections. Once the drug was partially reintroduced in 2007, antibiotic resistant infections in people jumped back up 50 percent. Unfortunately we are fighting an uphill battle with antibiotic resistant infections. Our tools and resources are diminishing even while the number and severity of these infections are increasing. One example is Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, MRSA infections in 1974 accounted for only two percent of the total number of staph infections; in 1995 it was 22 percent; and by 2004 it was 63 percent. CDC estimates that by 2005, there were 94,360 MRSA infections in the United States. Tragically, about 19,000 of them, 20 percent, were fatal. The primary reason is that MRSA is virtually immune to almost every antibiotic used in modern medicine. By comparison, during the same year there were 17,011 deaths due to AIDS; so the scope and consequence of this problem is stunning. Of course not all MRSA is derived from the overuse of antibiotics on the farm. Many infections are acquired in the hospital, and it is believed that these bacteria became resistant to antibiotics due to the misuse of drugs in human medicine. But MRSA is infecting individuals who have not been in a hospital setting. There is strong evidence that at least one strain of MRSA infecting people is coming directly from livestock. This strain, known as ST398, has been shown to disproportionately infect farmers and their families. Like all MRSA, ST398 is resistant to the antibiotics methicillin and oxacillin. But resistance to other antibiotics is also common among ST398 strains which make treatment especially challenging. A study by the CDC in December 2009 showed that hospital-acquired MRSA strains and community-acquired MRSA strains such as ST398 are trending in opposite directions. The study found that community-acquired MRSA, a type of MRSA that did not emerge in the hospital setting and is not contracted there, increased 700 percent between 1999 and 2006. By contrast, hospital-acquired MRSA cases declined roughly 10 percent over this same time period. Over the past decade, it has become clear that MRSA is not just a problem for hospital administrators. More and more individuals are acquiring this devastating infection in their homes, at their gyms or in restaurants. While it is exceedingly difficult to determine the exact extent that antibiotic use in agriculture influences individual MRSA cases, we know for certain that statistical evidence overwhelmingly suggests that a reduction of antibiotic use in agriculture will result in a reduction of highly resistant MRSA cases. Since the recent data released by the FDA confirm that more than 80 percent of all antibiotics sold in this country are for meat and poultry producing animals, one can reasonably conclude that a reduction of antibiotic use in agriculture will result in a reduction of highly resistant MRSA cases. This legislation will very likely reduce the number of resistant infections and will very likely save lives. But some still claim that this legislation may make our food supply less safe. They argue that antibiotics keep our animals healthy, and healthy animals make for healthy food. But research shows us that these concerns are misguided. More than 375 public, consumer and environmental health groups, including the American Medical Association, the American Public Health Association, and the Infectious Diseases Society of America, support the legislation. This bill makes incremental changes to ensure that our actions on the farm do not negatively impact the health and well being of our farmers, their families, and every one of us who consume the food they produce. I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass these critical reforms.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today in support of S. 744, the bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill before the Senate. Through the process of negotiation and compromise, including 212 amendments that were considered during the course of the Senate Judiciary Committee markup last month and now much discussion on the Senate floor, a workable, tough--but fair--bill sits before us, ripe for us to take action on a problem that has gone unresolved for far too long. Colleagues, this is our last, best chance to achieve immigration reform. The bill before the Senate provides long-sought-after solutions that will help fix our broken immigration system. It takes into consideration our country's modern-day national security, economic, and labor needs, as well as our country's age-old tradition of preserving family unity and promoting humanitarian policies. It would also bring approximately 11 million undocumented individuals now living in the United States out of the shadows and on a path where they could proudly and openly contribute to this great nation. The first fundamental principle of the bill is that we must control our Nation's borders and protect our national security. Before a single undocumented person in the United Staes can earn a green card, several important ``triggers'' must be met, showing that the Federal Government has effectively secured the border and is enforcing current immigration laws. These triggers include the following: No. 1, an unprecedented increase of 20,000 new full-time Border Patrol agents stationed along the southern border. No. 2, the full deployment of the comprehensive southern border security strategy, which requires the Department of Homeland Security to conduct surveillance of 100 percent of the southern border region. No. 3, DHS completion of the southern border fencing strategy, which includes at least 700 miles of pedestrian fencing along the southern border. No. 4, implementation of a mandatory employment verification system for all employers, known as E-Verify, which will prevent unauthorized workers from obtaining employment. No. 5, implementation of an electronic exit system at air and sea ports of entry that operates by collecting machine- readable visa or passport information from passengers of air and vessel carriers. These enforcement improvements build upon the Department of Homeland Security's substantial progress in securing and managing our borders. Over the past several years, DHS has deployed unprecedented amounts of manpower, resources, and technology to secure the Nation's borders, and these efforts have not only led to enhanced border security but have also expedited legitimate trade and travel. The second fundamental principle included in the bill is the creation of a path to citizenship for the 11 million individuals who are living and working in the United States without proper immigration documentation. While some have insisted that all 11 million undocumented immigrants should be deported, such a solution is not reasonable. A majority of these individuals and families have become integrated into the fabric of their communities, and deportation would be a severe outcome. Many work and pay taxes, but they and their families live in the shadows and face the possibility of being picked up and deported, daily. The State of California has the largest number of undocumented immigrants, estimated to be 2.6 million people or nearly one-fourth of all unauthorized immigrants currently living in the United States. These individuals have become an essential part of the California workforce. Many work in hotels, restaurants, agriculture, and the housing and construction industries. A recent study of immigrants in California that was completed by Dr. Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda and Marshall Fitz of the Center for American Progress concluded that, ``if all unauthorized immigrants were removed from California, the state would lose $301.6 billion in economic activity, decrease total employment by 17.4%, and eliminate 3.6 million jobs.'' The study further showed that, ``if unauthorized immigrants in California were legalized, it would add 633,000 jobs to the economy, increase labor income by $26.9 billion, and increase tax revenues by $5.3 billion.'' This bill establishes a process to bring these individuals out of the shadows. The need to provide a stable, legal, and sustainable workforce through immigration reform is critical in the agricultural sector. According to government estimates, there are about 1.8 million people who perform hired farm work in the United States. Approximately 1.2 million of these individuals--fully two-thirds of those who help bring pistachios, almonds, wine, and other things we enjoy, to our tables-- are not authorized to work here. Some may ask, why don't farmers hire Americans to do the work? The answer is, they have tried and tried, but there are not many Americans who are willing to take a job in the fields. It is hard, stooped labor, requiring long and unpredictable hours, often in the hot Sun and high temperatures. That is why the labor shortage persists even in these challenging economic times. The United Farm Workers initiated the ``Take Our Jobs'' campaign in which they invited citizens and legal residents to apply for jobs on farms across the country, but only seven people accepted jobs and trained for agriculture positions. A 2012 California Farm Bureau survey found that 71 percent of the tree fruit growers and nearly 80 percent of raisin and berry growers were unable to find adequate labor to prune trees and vines or pick crops. This problem also impacts year-round industries such as dairy. A 2012 Texas A&M study found that farms using an immigrant workforce produce more than 60 percent of the milk in our country. Without these immigrant dairy employees, economic output would decline by $22 billion and 133,000 workers would lose their jobs. All over the Nation, growers are closing their farms because they lack a stable, legal workforce. And American farmers who remain are suffering economic losses because of the lack of immigration reform. And when farmers suffer, there is a ripple effect felt throughout the economy--in farm equipment manufacturing, packaging, processing, transportation, marketing, lending, and insurance. The reality is that if there are not enough farm workers to harvest the crops in the United States, we will end up relying on foreign countries to provide our food supply. This is not good for our economy or for ensuring that Americans are receiving safe and healthy foods. Right now, the H-2A visa, or temporary agricultural guest worker visa, is the only program that is available for growers to hire foreign workers. Unfortunately, this program has not worked for the vast majority of agricultural employers. A 2011 National Council of Agricultural Employers survey found that administrative H-2A delays prevented almost three-fourths of surveyed employers from timely receiving workers, which caused economic loss of nearly $320 million for farms in 2010. Katie Jackson from Jackson Family Wines in Santa Rosa, CA, wrote me about the challenges she currently faces in navigating the H-2A visa program and identifying a sufficient number of skilled workers. She wrote that because, ``very few of the unemployed in this Nation will opt to work in agriculture, and even fewer have the necessary skills to do so,'' Jackson Family Wines turned to increased automation and use of the H-2A program. However, Ms. Jackson noted that ``the H-2A program is cumbersome and from our perspective merely provides a temporary fix.'' In previous Congresses, Senators Craig, Kennedy, and I repeatedly tried to pass bipartisan legislation to address this, known as AgJOBS, without success. This year, I collaborated with Senators Rubio, Bennet, and Hatch to negotiate and develop a new proposal that is balanced and fair to address the ag labor crisis. I am very grateful to Senator Schumer and the other Members of the Gang of 8 that they incorporated this proposal into this bill; it is now subtitle B of Title II, the ``Agricultural Worker Program.'' All of the elements of this program were negotiated between farm worker representatives and a large coalition of grower organizations. These negotiated provisions protect both farmers who are forced to rely on foreign farm labor and the farm workers by allowing the current undocumented farm workers to continue to work in agriculture to earn a blue card and eventually a green card. Under the bill, agricultural workers who can document U.S. agricultural employment for a minimum of 100 work days or 575 hours in the 2 years prior to date of enactment are eligible to adjust to blue card status. Blue card applicants must not have a felony or violent misdemeanor conviction and must pay a $100 fine for being in the United States without immigration status. Agricultural workers are eligible for a green card when they pay all taxes, have no felony or violent misdemeanor convictions, and pay another fine--of $400. The worker must also document that they performed at least 5 years of agricultural employment for at least 100 work days per year during the 8-year period beginning on the date of enactment or performed at least 3 years of agricultural employment for at least 150 work days per year during the 5-year period beginning on the date of enactment. To replace the problematic H-2A program, the bill will also address the long-term workforce needs of farmers going forward, including dairies and other year-round ag industries, by creating a streamlined system to bring in temporary guest workers through a new agricultural visa program called the W-Visa program. This two-part new farm worker visa program provides a temporary worker two options, which are at-will employment or contract-based employment. No. 1 at-will employees have the freedom to move from employer to employer without any contractual commitment. No. 2 contract employees must commit to work for an employer for a fixed period of time, which can provide increased stability for both employees and employers. After fulfilling this commitment, they are then free to work for other U.S. agricultural employers. The bill includes specific negotiated wage rates that replace the ``adverse effect wage rate'' standard that exists under the current H- 2A program, which has proven to be very controversial, and which many farmers say is one of the reasons that the H-2A program is unworkable. The number of agricultural guest workers who can enter the country in any given year is subject to a carefully negotiated cap to reflect anticipated labor market demands. For the first 5 years, the visa program is capped at 112,333 per year. With a 3-year visa, this would result in 336,999 temporary workers who can be in the country at one time. To ensure that a given year's visa allocation is not used up by regions of the country that harvest earlier than others, the bill requires that the visas be evenly distributed on a quarterly basis in the first year and that the USDA Secretary can modify the timing of the disbursement of visas based on prior usage patterns thereafter. Any unused visas that remain at the end of a quarter can be rolled over to the next quarter but not to the next year. The cap may be increased if there are demonstrated labor shortages or reduced in response to a high unemployment rate of agricultural workers. After 6 years, the number of applications for guest worker visas and the number of blue card applications approved will also be considered when determining the annual caps. This new, improved visa program will help American agriculture continue to be a driving force in our Nation's economy. For those who are currently unauthorized to be in this country, Democrats and Republicans together created a new registered provisional immigrant--or RPI--program to provide such immigrants with lawful immigration status. RPIs would be authorized to work in the United States and to travel abroad. Only if they meet stringent criteria may they renew their RPI status for another 6 years and ultimately adjust from RPI status to that of a lawful permanent resident--or green card holder. Let me be clear, this is not amnesty. Amnesty is automatically giving those who broke the law a clean slate, no questions asked. This bill does not do that. Instead, the bill imposes rigorous requirements in order for each individual to attain legal status, apply for a green card, and eventually become a citizen. The time has come for those who are already here, doing jobs across the spectrum--such as caring for our aging population, working in restaurants and hotels, and creating successful small businesses. It is realistic for us to secure a sufficient legal workforce, while importantly protecting our U.S. workers, to meet the labor needs of this country. This bill would also finally pave the way for DREAMers who were brought to the United States by their parents and grew up here; they consider the United States their home and want to give back. Approximately 65,000 DREAMers graduate from our high schools each year. They are hard-working and are dedicated to their education or to serving in the Nation's military. Some are valedictorians and honor roll students; some are community leaders and have an unwavering commitment to serving the United States. Through no fault of their own, these young individuals lack the immigration status they need to realize their full potential. This bill will provide an opportunity for these students to fulfill the American dream and it is only prudent for us to give them that chance. While still prioritizing the American workers who are seeking jobs by establishing a strict screening requirements, this bill aims to meet the needs of businesses so that our economy can succeed not only in the fields but in medical, technological, and research labs across the country. This bill reforms the H-1B visa program for high-skilled workers by doubling and potentially tripling it depending on the country's labor needs. Ensuring that this country stays ahead of the curve in technology, it facilitates advances in science, technology, math, and engineering by stapling a green card to certain STEM graduates' passports. It creates a W visa program for low-skilled workers and encourages ideas through entrepreneurship, enabling the creation of the likes of the next eBay, Google, PayPal, and Yahoo, all which were founded by immigrants. I want to commend the members of the Gang of Eight Senators--Schumer, McCain, Durbin, Graham, Menendez, Rubio, Bennet, and Flake,--for providing a foundation that strikes the right balance and reflects the best thinking on how to accommodate all the various concerns and interests. I also want to recognize those who paved the path forward for them, including former Senators Kennedy, Specter, Salazar, Kyl, and Martinez. Their hard work in tackling this difficult issue has finally brought us to this crucial stage. This is not a perfect bill, but it is a necessary bill. If we do not seize this opportunity, I fear that the chance of comprehensive reform will be gone for another generation--something I believe would be a terrible mistake for our country. It realistically and pragmatically updates our current immigration system in a way that enhances our national security, ensures our labor needs are met in a fair way that does not compromise U.S. workers, facilitates timely family unification, and is humane. I hope you will join me in passing this bill in the Senate.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to reintroduce the Respect for Marriage Act. Today is an historic day. The Supreme Court issued two decisions that are major victories for the cause of equality for same-sex couples in this nation. In United States v. Windsor, the Court struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, which denies the federal benefits and obligations of marriage to legally married same-sex couples. I was one of 14 members of this body to vote against DOMA in 1996, and I am pleased a major part of the law has been declared unconstitutional. In Hollingsworth v. Perry, the Court left in place a trial court injunction finding Proposition 8 unconstitutional--which will bring marriage equality back to my home State of California. I am thrilled by these decisions, which will mean a great deal for same-sex couples in California and across the Nation. Our work, however, is not done. It remains critical that Congress act to fully repeal DOMA. That is what the Respect for Marriage Act will do. This legislation is cosponsored by 40 members of the Senate--Senators Baldwin, Baucus, Bennet, Blumenthal, Boxer, Brown, Cantwell, Cardin, Carper, Casey, Coons, Cowan, Durbin, Franken, Gillibrand, Harkin, Heinrich, Hirono, Kaine, King, Klobuchar, Leahy, Levin, McCaskill, Menendez, Merkley, Mikulski, Murphy, Murray, Reed, Sanders, Schatz, Schumer, Shaheen, Stabenow, Mark Udall, Tom Udall, Warren, Whitehouse, and Wyden. I want to thank them for their strong support of this legislation. I would also like to thank Representative Jerry Nadler for his staunch leadership on this issue in the House of Representatives. Today, 12 States: Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia allow same-sex couples to marry. Because of today's decision in Hollingsworth v. Perry, which left, in effect, a trial court order finding Proposition 8 unconstitutional, my home State of California will soon once again recognize the freedom to marry for same-sex couples. I am thrilled about that result. According to the 2010 Census, there are over 131,000 same-sex married couples in this Nation--a number that is sure to grow. I think most Americans have come to recognize that same-sex couples live their lives like other married couples. They raise children together. They care for each other in good times and in bad. They take the same vows and make the same commitments as straight couples. Simply put, they are families. Like other families, they reap life's joys and bear the brunt of life's hardships together. Until the Supreme Court's decision today in United States v. Windsor, DOMA turned these families into second-class families. Under over 1,100 Federal laws, DOMA prohibited the Federal Government from recognizing the equal dignity and commitment of legally married same-sex couples. These couples were barred from filing joint tax returns, forced to pay much higher taxes on employer-provided health benefits, and stripped of protections for married couples from the estate tax. They could not receive Social Security survivor benefits, which protect a surviving spouse from becoming destitute when the other spouse passes away. Critical protections and benefits for service members and veterans were also denied. According to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, well over 100 statutory protections granted by Congress to servicemembers turn on marital status. Today's decision in United States v. Windsor is a major victory for equality. It says that Section 3 of DOMA--which denies Federal recognition to legally married same-sex couples--is unconstitutional because it is a denial of equal protection. The Windsor case had to do with two women--Edie Windsor and Thea Spyer--who met in 1963 and were together for over 40 years. They married in 2007. Yet when Thea died in 2009, Edie was forced to pay over $360,000 in estate taxes because of DOMA. Had her spouse been a man, Edie would not have had to pay those taxes. Even after the Court decision, which hinged on a bare 5-4 majority, the Respect for Marriage Act remains critically important legislation, for several reasons. First, DOMA is a discriminatory law--all of it should be fully stricken from the books. It was wrong when it was passed, and it should be repealed. Second, even after the Windsor decision, there will remain inconsistencies in how certain Federal programs are administered. For example, the Social Security Act provides Survivors' Benefits-- which are critical for families after a spouse dies--based on the law of the state where the deceased spouse was domiciled at the time of death. So, a married couple could live together for 40 years, contribute equally to the system, and then be stripped of what they have earned-- just because they moved to another state for medical reasons before one spouse passed. That's just not right. Veterans benefits are based on the law of the state where the parties resided at the time of the marriage, or when the right to benefits accrued. So, different veterans benefits might be granted or denied, depending on where a couple lived at different times, without any rhyme or reason. That is not fair to former servicemembers who may have moved around as part of their military service. This bill is simple. It would strike all of DOMA, a discriminatory law, from the U.S. Code. It would provide a clear rule that the Federal Government would recognize a marriage if that marriage is valid in the State where it was entered into. This rule will provide clarity and predictability for legally married same-sex couples, and it will be easy to administer for federal agencies tasked with ending DOMA in the programs they administer. The bill would not require any state to issue a marriage license it does not wish to issue, nor would it require any religious institution to perform any marriage. In 2011, after I first introduced this bill, I gave a press conference about it at the National Press Club. I said I was not faint- hearted about this, and that I was in it for the long march. Today, I remain committed to that cause and determined to see it through. Our work is not finished until DOMA is fully off the books, which is what this bill will do.