Al Franken

Mr. FRANKEN

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

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I thank the good Senator from Delaware and the Senator from Wisconsin for organizing today's celebration of manufacturing. As my colleague from Delaware mentioned and as I think the Presiding Officer knows, I have talked a lot about the role of community and technical colleges and training for students for highly skilled jobs in manufacturing, and I will talk about that role in these remarks. Shooting at Umpqua Community College But first, I heard a few minutes ago about a shooting at a college in Oregon. I just want to say something about that. First, all of our hearts in the Senate go out to the victims of that shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon and to their families, their friends, and loved ones. Students at community colleges are often young people who are getting education to prepare them for the future. Very often they are people midcareer who are going back for training to get the kind of skills Senator Coons talked about in a new career. The resurgence of manufacturing in the United States and my State of Minnesota should inspire us to invest more in training more Americans for these good manufacturing jobs. I don't know what the focus of Umpqua is, but again I believe I speak for everyone in this body that our hearts go out to all the victims and their loved ones. I don't know whether they are like some community and technical colleges in Minnesota preparing individuals for jobs in manufacturing. National Manufacturing Day Manufacturing jobs--we have heard my other colleagues talk about how these are not the old manufacturing jobs. I have heard a manufacturer refer to it as dark, dirty, and dangerous, and it is what a lot of people think of. I go to junior highs and high schools with manufacturers to talk about the high skills and the high-paying jobs that go with today's manufacturing. The most recent data available as of 2010, the average annual wage for a manufacturing job in the United States was over $56,000--about 22 percent higher than the average wage for all industries. In Minnesota, manufacturing supports jobs for more than 300,000 Minnesotans. That is about 13 percent of the jobs in our State, and manufacturing is responsible for 14 percent of the GDP. Manufacturing is a huge driver in our economy. We manufacture great things. We did the HVAC system for the new World Trade Center Freedom Tower. This is why I want to talk about one of the greatest problems our manufacturing States have today; that is, the skills gap. Manufacturers cannot find enough skilled workers to help them compete in a global economy. According to Enterprise Minnesota, an organization that supports manufacturers in my State, there are over 6,500 open manufacturing jobs in Minnesota waiting to be filled. My experience talking with manufacturers confirms that they are desperate to hire good people with the right skills for jobs that can support a middle- class life for workers and their families. In the words of just one manufacturer, Kimberly Arrigoni of Haberman Machine in Oakdale, MN: We are still suffering from a skills gap. . . . For my company specifically, it no longer is a capacity issue because of equipment, but one with people. We are limited in what we can produce and ship out the door because we don't have enough master level machinists. . . . Imagine what this very ripple effect is causing my State and our country as a whole. So how can we help our manufacturing industry meet this challenge? Well, we took a good first step last year when we passed the bipartisan Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, WIOA. It was the first reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act in over a decade-- almost two. It modernized our workforce development system and improved coordination between workforce boards, education, training programs, and local businesses. I think we need to do more to go further, and that is why I will be reintroducing legislation very soon to increase Federal investment in workforce training partnerships between employers and community and technical colleges. I call it the Community College to Career Fund Act. It would create grants that help businesses and community colleges train workers for high-skill, good-paying jobs. Businesses and community and tech colleges across my State support the Community College to Career Fund Act because they know firsthand--and I have seen firsthand the differences that these programs can make. Under this program, community colleges and businesses together would apply for grants based on how many jobs their partnership would create, what the value of those jobs would be to the community and, very importantly, how much skin in the game the State, the community or the businesses have. I hope my colleagues will take this up and pass it this year. This is a great way to address a number of things such as the cost of college. I have talked to so many manufacturers who have hired someone who has just a credential from a community technological college, hires them and then pays them to go back to school while they are working, and pays for their tuition to finish their associate's degree. They bring them back and say: Go get your bachelor's degree. Go get your 4-year college degree while you are working, and I will pay for it. These are--time and time again, I have seen people, workers who have had their education paid for, no debt, a couple degrees, and a good job--a very good job. I would like to close with the words of John Johnston from States Manufacturing in Golden Valley, CO. He writes: When my son was young he used to say, ``My daddy works with big machines that go boom, boom, boom.'' My son is now 17 years old and planning a career in manufacturing. He grew up around those machines that go boom. Unfortunately, most students these days think manufacturing is not for them. If they could only get in to see how remarkable it is to see how things are really made, they would change their perspective. He goes on: Each night at dinner we talk about his ``high of the school day'' and he is so excited to tell me about the new equipment or his next project in manufacturing class. Now it is time to light that fire inside of other students and show them today's manufacturing companies are a great place to have a career. A great place to have a career. This story illustrates perfectly why promoting manufacturing careers with young people is so important. We have a lot of advantages in this country because of natural gas. We have cheap energy relative to the rest of the world. Because of the nature of manufacturing, the main cost now is the technology, and low- skilled wages are a much smaller piece. What this country needs are high-skilled wages. We need more people, more young people especially, to take advantage of the opportunities available in manufacturing so we will continue to compete globally and expand as we compete globally. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, I rise in strong opposition to continued attacks on women's access to health care. Today, the Senate majority leader is attempting to advance a bill to ban abortion after 20 weeks. This is a blatantly unconstitutional proposal that injects politics into a private and deeply personal decision, one that should remain between a woman and her medical provider and her family. This bill is the latest--but not the last, I know--in a serious of unrelenting attacks on safe and legal abortion in this country. It not only represents a cynical affront to well-settled law, it poses a serious threat to women's health. Let me tell you why. Nearly 43 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Constitution protects, as a fundamental right, a woman's ability to decide whether and when to start a family. This bill is plainly at odds with that holding and plainly at odds with the Constitution, which is why Federal and State courts have found laws like this one unconstitutional time and time again, but our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are now pushing forward with this bill and doing it at the expense of women who need medical care in the most desperate of circumstances. Bills like this one demonstrate a callous disregard for the risks women face during pregnancy--women like Danielle Deaver, from Nebraska, who went to the doctor in a desperate attempt to save her pregnancy when her water broke at 22 weeks. Tests revealed that Danielle's amniotic fluid had ruptured, and her doctors explained that the baby could not be expected to survive, but that was not all. The rupture also put Danielle at risk, at risk of an infection that could jeopardize her fertility and her ability to have children in the future. Together, Danielle and her husband made the heartbreaking decision to terminate her pregnancy, but because Danielle lived in a State with an abortion ban that made no exception for a woman's health and had not been challenged in court, her doctor was unable to help. Danielle endured 8 days of severe pain and infection before delivering a daughter who survived for just 15 minutes. Christy Zink of Washington, DC, was 21 weeks pregnant when an examination revealed that her pregnancy suffered from a severe fetal anomaly--meaning, effectively, that the entire hemisphere of the brain was missing. Christy and her husband consulted her physician and other doctors in an attempt to save her much wanted pregnancy, but after hearing of a near inevitability that if delivered, their child would not survive, she and her husband ultimately made the very difficult personal decision to end her pregnancy. The bill we are discussing today has no exception for cases where a woman's pregnancy experiences a fetal anomaly. If a ban like this were to become law, families like Christy's would have no options. As a father of two grown children, with one grandchild and another on the way, I know what it feels like to celebrate the news that your wife or your daughter or daughter-in-law is pregnant, to accompany them to doctor's visits and checkups, to look forward to welcoming a child or grandchild into your family, and to look on with hope and worry as the pregnancy progresses, but my family has been very fortunate. I can only imagine the pain and heartbreak a family experiences when they are faced with the kind of tragic news Danielle and Christy received when they learned something was wrong, but the idea that Congress should insert itself into those moments and act to limit the difficult choices available to women and their families confronting unimaginable pain and sorrow is unconscionable. This bill ignores women like Danielle and Christy. It ignores the unique circumstances surrounding every woman's pregnancy. Instead, it substitutes the judgment of Congress for that of medical professionals, even going so far as to threaten doctors with a 5-year prison sentence for providing women with the care they need. Make no mistake, this is an extreme proposal. Unfortunately, it represents just the latest salvo in an unending campaign to make safe and legal abortion virtually impossible to access. Since the 114th Congress was gaveled into session, we have seen no fewer than 65 legislative attacks on the right to choose. Just last month, the Senate voted on a measure that would have defunded Planned Parenthood, a health care provider that serves millions of Americans, including more than 54,000 people in my State of Minnesota. That legislation failed, but as the end of the fiscal year approaches, some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle--both in the House and in the Senate--have pledged not to support a spending bill that continues funding for Planned Parenthood. They prefer to see the government shut down rather than allow a single penny to support the family planning services, the cancer screenings, and tests for sexually transmitted diseases that Planned Parenthood provides. My good friend from Alabama Senator Sessions--and he is a good friend--suggested that we instead send that money to community health centers. They do not have the staffing, they do not have the capacity to provide these needed services for the millions of people Planned Parenthood serves. That is why the public does not agree. According to a poll released last week, more than 7 in 10 Americans oppose shutting down the government to defund Planned Parenthood. One of the reasons the public does not buy into these tactics is they understand that access to reproductive health services, including contraception and abortion, has a powerful effect on the decisions women and their families make every day, decisions about whether to start a job or how much a family can afford to save for college. For the vast majority of Americans, this is not political; this is personal. It is not a place for Congress to interfere. I urge my colleagues to oppose legislation that would restrict the ability of women and families to make their own reproductive choices. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I want to thank Camille Murray for our opening prayer this morning. Reverend Murray currently serves in our Nation's Capital as the 20th senior pastor of the Georgetown Presbyterian Church. The church was founded in 1780, and Reverend Murray is the first woman pastor. Reverend Murray grew up in my home State, in Mahtomedi, MN. She holds degrees from Vanderbilt University, Princeton Theological Seminary, Oxford University, and Wesley Seminary. Reverend Murray's congregation is nonpartisan, with the belief that God transcends that which divides us. We are so happy that she led us today in prayer. Thank you very much.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise today to express strong support for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the diplomatic agreement that the United States and our international partners reached with Iran in July. I urge my colleagues to support the agreement and to reject the resolution of disapproval. This is not a decision I came to lightly. Since the agreement was announced, I have consulted with nuclear and sanctions experts inside and outside the government, Obama administration officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, Ambassadors from the other countries who negotiated alongside of us, our intelligence communities, advocates for Israel on both sides of the issue, my constituents in Minnesota, and, of course, with my colleagues in the Senate. Many have expressed reservations about the agreement, and I share some of those reservations. It is not a perfect agreement, but it is a strong one. Many people have said no deal is better than a bad deal, but that doesn't mean that the only deal we can agree to is a perfect deal. The last perfect deal we got was on the deck of the USS Missouri. What a cost we had to pay for that, including the only use of a nuclear weapon in war--actually, two weapons. This agreement is, in my opinion, the most effective, realistic option available to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon anytime in the next 15 years and beyond. Iran must never, ever have a nuclear weapon. And after 15 years, we will still have every option we currently have, up to and including the use of military force, to prevent Iran from getting a bomb. Moreover, while critics have eagerly pointed out what they see as flaws in the deal, I have heard no persuasive arguments that there is a better alternative. The agreement imposes a series of physical limits on Iran's nuclear program, especially its production of the fissile material it would require to make a bomb. The agreement's verification provisions are extremely strong, with 24/7 monitoring of and unfettered access to Iran's nuclear sites and ongoing surveillance of Iran's nuclear supply chain. Let me briefly review the central limits on its nuclear program that Iran has agreed to and the verification provisions. Together they are designed to prevent Iran from trying to get a nuclear weapon and to detect them, if they do, with enough time to respond forcefully and effectively. The agreement will prevent Iran from using weapons-grade plutonium as the fissile material for a nuclear weapon by requiring Iran to redesign and rebuild the Arak nuclear reactor, which, if completed as planned, could have produced enough weapons-grade plutonium for one or two bombs each year. Under the agreement, it won't be able to do that. Iran has to pull out the core of the nuclear reactor and fill it with concrete to destroy it. And Iran can't get any sanctions relief until it does that. The agreement also significantly reduces and limits Iran's production of uranium which, in its highly enriched form, can also be used in a bomb. Iran currently has about 19,500 centrifuges capable of enriching uranium, and it has stockpiled about 10 tons of low-enriched uranium. Under the agreement, Iran has to go down to about 5,000 first- generation centrifuges for enriching uranium and down to 300 kilograms of low-enriched uranium--a 98-percent reduction. Iran does not get any sanctions relief until it does that. Right now, it would take Iran about 2 to 3 months to get one weapon's worth of weapons-grade uranium. That is called the breakout time. The longer the breakout time is, of course, the better. This agreement will increase the breakout time to 1 year for the first decade. Because of the inspections included in the agreement, if Iran tried to cheat at their nuclear facilities and dash for a bomb, we would catch them almost instantaneously and have more than enough time to respond effectively. Iran's nuclear facilities will be subject to 24/7 monitoring and unfettered access by the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or the IAEA. Limitations on Iran's nuclear facilities and strict verification make it impossible for Iran to dash for a bomb at its known nuclear facilities for the next 15 years. But the verification provisions are also important for another reason. They make it much more difficult for Iran to be able to go for a bomb in secret as well. Beyond the 24/7 monitoring of and unfettered access to Iran's nuclear sites, international inspectors will also be guaranteed access to any site in Iran that they have suspicions about, including military sites. Now, a lot has been made about a provision in the agreement for resolving disputes when the IAEA seeks to access suspicious sites in Iran. That process can take up to 24 days. A lot of confusing and misleading things have been said about this. First of all, it is important to again emphasize that there is continuous monitoring at Iran's declared nuclear sites and unique safeguards on Iran's nuclear supply chain. That is not what the 24-day controversy is about. Where the 24 days come in is in those cases where Iran disputes the IAEA's demand for access to a suspicious, undeclared site. People have expressed concerns that 24 days is too long. Prime Minister Netanyahu has likened this to giving a drug dealer 24-days' notice before you check his premises, saying that is a lot of time for a drug dealer to flush a lot of drugs down the toilet. But here is the problem for Iran and the problem with this criticism. You can't hide radioactive material such as uranium. It leaves traces behind, and they can be detected for far, far longer than 24 days. One nuclear expert has said: If Iran were to flush the evidence down the toilet, they'd have a radioactive toilet. And if they were to rip out the toilet, they'd have a radioactive hole in the ground. Uranium-235 has a half-life of over 700 million years, and the half- life of uranium-238 is over 4 billion years. The IAEA will catch Iran after 24 days. Now, it is true that there are some activities--related to weapons design, for example--that don't use nuclear materials and are much easier to hide. That is a genuine challenge that inspectors and our intelligence efforts will face. But the fact is that you can move a computer that you are doing design work on in 24 seconds or erase stuff in 24 milliseconds. I am sure it is actually a lot faster than that. But Iran is still not allowed to conduct those activities under the agreement and will face severe consequences if they get caught. So the bottom line is that the IAEA's guaranteed access to suspicious sites will help support the verification of the agreement. Perhaps more importantly, we will also have ongoing surveillance of Iran's nuclear supply chain. That means that in order to make a nuclear weapon in the next 15 years, and even beyond, Iran would have to reconstruct every individual piece of the chain--the mining, the milling, the production of centrifuges, and more--separately and in secret. And it would have to make sure it didn't get caught in any of the steps. This agreement--plus our own comprehensive intelligence efforts--would make it exceedingly unlikely that Iran would be able to get away with any of that. And Iran would therefore risk losing everything it gained from the deal and the reimposition of sanctions, to say nothing of military attack. We don't have to trust the regime's intentions to understand the reality it would face. Attempting to cheat on this agreement would carry an overwhelming likelihood of getting caught and serious consequences if it does. We still have work to do to diminish the threat Iran poses to our national security and, of course, to the safety of our allies in the Middle East, beginning with Israel. As sanctions are lifted, the non- nuclear threat to the region may very well grow. We will need to bolster our support to regional counterweights such as Saudi Arabia. And, of course, we will need to maintain our terrorism-related sanctions, which are unaffected by the deal. We also need to work very closely with Israel, our greatest friend in the region, in order to assure its security. As a Jew, I feel a deep bond with Israel. As a Senator, I have worked very hard to strengthen our country's bond with that nation and to bolster its security, and I will continue to do that. A nuclear-armed Iran would be a truly grave threat to Israel, and so I believe this agreement will contribute to the security of Israel because it is the most effective available means of preventing Iran from becoming nuclear armed, so do a number of very senior Israeli security experts, including some of the former heads of Israel's security services. There is no doubt in my mind that this deal represents a significant step forward for our own national security. One concern has been raised about what happens after year 15 when many of the restrictions in the deal expire. Well, there will still be major checks on Iran's nuclear program after that date. Under the deal, Iran will be subject to permanent, specific prohibitions on several of the steps necessary to build a bomb. Iran's nuclear program will still be subject to heightened monitoring by the IAEA and Iran's nuclear supply chain will still be subject to uniquely intrusive monitoring, which will limit Iran's ability to divert nuclear materials and equipment to a secret program without being detected. Iran must never, ever have a nuclear weapon. We will still have every option we currently have, up to and including the use of military force, to prevent that from happening. But we also must begin now to make the case to the world that the danger posed by an Iranian nuclear weapon will not expire in 15 years, and remind Iran that should it begin to take worrisome steps, such as enrichment inconsistent with a peaceful program, we stand ready to intervene. That said, we don't know what the world will look like in 15 years. As long as this regime holds power, Iran will represent a dangerous threat to our security. But it is possible that by 2031, Iran may no longer be controlled by hardliners determined to harm our interests. More than 60 percent of Iran's population is now under the age of 30. These young Iranians are increasingly well educated and pro American. We don't know how this tension within Iran will work out. But I think if we reject this agreement, we will lose this opportunity with the people of Iran. If we back out of a deal we have agreed to, we will only embolden the hardliners who insist that America cannot be trusted. We will be doing self-inflicted damage to American global leadership and to the cause of international diplomacy. What is more, the alternatives that I have heard run the gamut from unrealistic to horrifying. For example, some say that should the Senate reject this agreement, we would be in a position to negotiate a better one. But I have spoken to the Ambassadors or Deputy Chiefs of Mission of each of the five nations who helped broker the deal with us, and they all agree that this simply would not be the case. Instead, these diplomats have told me that we would not be able to come back to the bargaining table at all and that the sanction regimes would likely erode or just fall apart completely, giving Iran's leaders more money and more leverage and diminishing both our moral authority throughout the world and our own leverage. That is just the reality. And of course Iran would be able to move forward on its nuclear program, endangering our interests in the region--especially Israel--and making it far more likely that we will find ourselves engaged in a military conflict there. If Iran cheats on this agreement and we are a part of it, we will have a say in the international response. If we are not a part of this agreement, we will not. Now, most opponents of the agreement do not seek or want war with Iran--even if opposition to the agreement makes such a war, in my opinion, more likely--but some of them do. One of my colleagues suggested that we should simply attack Iran now--an exercise he believes would be quick and painless to the United States. In fact, he compared it to Operation Desert Fox, intimating that it would be over and done with in a matter of days. But this is pure fantasy, at least according to what our security and intelligence experts tell us, and it is certainly not the lesson anyone should have learned from the disastrous invasion of Iraq. The Middle East is an unstable, unpredictable, largely unfriendly region. We know that military undertakings in the region are likely to bring very painful, unpredictable consequences. That is partly why we should give diplomacy a chance. Yet, a number of my colleagues and others were intent on opposing such a diplomatic solution even before the agreement was reached. In March----

Mr. FRANKEN. I ask unanimous consent for another 2 minutes.

Mr. FRANKEN. Thank you, Mr. President. In March, 47 of my Republican colleagues took the unprecedented step of sending a letter to Iran's leaders just as these sensitive negotiations were nearing an accord. It was a clear attempt to undermine American diplomacy and signaled that they would oppose any deal with Iran, no matter what the terms. So it is not surprising that these critics now oppose the finished deal, but it is disappointing that they refuse to acknowledge, let alone take responsibility for the dire consequences that would almost certainly result from killing it. It is possible that there would not be a war if we reject the agreement, but what seems undeniable is that if we and we alone were to walk away from an agreement that we negotiated alongside our international partners, that would be a severe blow to our standing and our leadership in the world. Diplomacy requires cooperation and compromise. You don't negotiate with your friends; you negotiate with your enemies. Indeed, no one who is for this deal has any illusions about the Iranian regime, any more than the American Presidents who made nuclear arms agreements with the Soviet Union had illusions about the nature of the Communist regime there. For a long time, it looked as if our only options when it came to Iran would be allowing it to have a nuclear weapon or having to bomb the country ourselves. This agreement represents a chance to break out of that no-win scenario. To take the extraordinary step of rejecting it because of clearly unrealistic expectations, because of a hunger to send Americans into another war, or, worst of all, because of petty partisanship would be a terrible mistake. I therefore urge my colleagues to prevent this resolution of disapproval from moving forward and to vote in support of the agreement. Thank you. I yield the floor.

Mr. FRANKEN

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

Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, I rise today to speak in strong opposition to legislation that would defund Planned Parenthood and jeopardize women's access to health care. Each year Planned Parenthood opens its doors to millions of Americans, including more than 54,000 people in my State of Minnesota, people who need affordable, quality health care, such as breast and cervical cancer screenings, pregnancy tests, and family planning services. One in five women in this country has received that care at Planned Parenthood, and for many women Planned Parenthood is their primary source of health care. Yet today the Senate is considering opening debate on a proposal to defund Planned Parenthood--a proposal to block this health care provider from continued participation in our Federal safety net health programs. It is a proposal that would close Planned Parenthood's doors and leave millions without a provider. Make no mistake, this proposal has nothing to do with protecting women's health. Instead, it advances a political agenda that threatens women's ability to receive often lifesaving care. In my State of Minnesota alone, Planned Parenthood provided more than 9,000 cervical cancer screenings and nearly 14,000 screenings for breast cancer in just 1 year. These screenings save women's lives, women such as Liz Steele from Minneapolis. Liz's first job after graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire didn't offer health insurance, so she relied on Planned Parenthood for basic health care services. When a blood sample taken during a routine physical exam more than 25 years ago indicated that Liz had a deadly form of leukemia, the nurse practitioner who cared for Liz at Planned Parenthood tracked her down and connected her with a physician who treated her cancer and saved her life. Liz said, ``Without [the nurse's] persistence, I quite frankly wouldn't be here right now. Planned Parenthood is responsible for saving my life.'' Unfortunately, the bill we are discussing today ignores women like Liz. Rather than recognizing Planned Parenthood's role in protecting women's health, the legislation continues a series of unrelenting attacks on Planned Parenthood and on women's access to basic health care. We have seen this strategy before. In 2007, the Senate voted on a measure that would have eliminated support for any health care provider--including Planned Parenthood--that provides safe, legal abortion services. In 2011, the Senate voted on a proposal that singled out Planned Parenthood by name and would have disqualified it from receiving Federal support. Each time, these attempts to place political hurdles between a woman and the health care provider of her choice failed--by a vote of 41 to 52 in 2007 and 42 to 58 in 2011. Today's attempt will fail as well. Recently, antiabortion activists secretly recorded videos of Planned Parenthood doctors and staff. In these videos, some of the physicians captured on tape did not treat the issue of reproductive health services with the appropriate level of sensitivity. I was glad to see that the president of Planned Parenthood apologized for the tone of those remarks. But these videos--deceptively edited to paint a misleading picture of the organization--were designed to distort the truth and create controversy, a controversy that opponents of reproductive rights are now exploiting by pushing the same failed strategy, only this time they have focused their opposition to reproductive rights in disingenuous rhetoric that purports to value women's health. The bill's lead sponsor claimed that ``[t]here will be no reduction in overall federal funding available to support women's health.'' Another cosponsor of this legislation claimed the bill would ``provide additional money for women's primary health care services,'' but the bill's operative language makes no such commitment. It merely provides that ``no federal funds may be made available to Planned Parenthood.'' What the bill's proponents choose not to acknowledge is that Planned Parenthood health centers serve 36 percent of all patients who receive health care from a federally supported women's health center--more than any other provider--but those sponsors have no plan for where the millions of patients currently receiving health care from Planned Parenthood would go if this legislation were successful--no plan. Moreover, claims that opponents of Planned Parenthood support continuing or even increasing funding for women's health services are especially hard to believe in light of the fact that some of the same people also support cutting the very programs that fund women's health services now. Just a little over 1 month ago, House appropriators approved a spending bill that would completely eliminate the title X family planning program--the Nation's only Federal program exclusively dedicated to reproductive health care. Senate appropriators proposed slashing title X--a program that is already running on fumes--by $30 million. So claims that a bill to ban one of America's most trusted health care providers from Federal programs would support women's health--claims made while the bill's proponents are working to gut Federal programs that provide services like breast and pelvic exams, contraceptives, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections and HIV--are nothing short of preposterous. It is no secret that attacks on Planned Parenthood are part and parcel of a longstanding campaign to make safe and legal abortion in this country virtually impossible to access. Ironically, the defunding of Planned Parenthood would interfere with the delivery of health care that actually prevents unintended pregnancy and reduces the need for abortion. If the proponents of this bill were truly sincere in their desire to support women's health, they would embrace efforts to improve contraceptive coverage and increase access to birth control rather than continue to attack the Nation's No. 1 provider of basic women's health services. The ability to access reproductive health care by the services that Planned Parenthood provides has a powerful effect on the choices women and families make every day--choices about finishing college or graduate school, whether to buy a home or start a business. The ability to decide whether or when to start a family shapes lives, and for nearly 100 years Planned Parenthood has played an important role in ensuring that women are able to make that decision for themselves and shape their own destinies. I urge my colleagues to resist the impulse to let politics stand between a woman and her health care and to oppose legislation to defund Planned Parenthood. Thank you, Madam President. I yield to my colleague from Montana.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the Department of Labor's proposal to provide overtime pay to more Americans, a step that could affect as many as 90,000 middle-class workers in Minnesota and nearly 5 million around the country. Right now, if someone makes more than $450 a week, or about $24,000 a year, there is a very good chance they don't qualify for overtime pay, and that is below the current poverty line for a family of four. The newly proposed regulations would raise that level to $970 a week, or about $50,000 annually. That means that a salaried worker earning less than that amount will be able to benefit from overtime pay regardless of the duties that he or she performs. This change would benefit an enormous number of Americans whose wages have remained virtually unchanged while the cost of education, childcare, and retirement have risen steadily over the past decade. Last month, we saw the 64th straight month of private sector job growth since the Great Depression. Our economy overall is getting stronger, but too much of that prosperity is going to people at the top. Middle-class families and those aspiring to be in the middle class simply are not reaping the benefits. In fact, America's wealth gap between middle-income and upper-income families is at its highest level--the gap--since 1983. The gap between the highest and lowest earners is at its greatest since before the Great Depression. This kind of inequality is not just bad for those workers. It is bad for our economy as a whole, which is strongest when we have a thriving middle class. Overtime protections were first passed as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 in the midst of the Great Depression, when the economy was far worse off than it is now. It was passed as a way to protect workers from abusive employers and lay the groundwork to rebuild the middle class. While overtime protections have been a staple of the American economy, they no longer reach many of the workers they were intended to help. Just look at the trends. In 1975, overtime covered 62 percent of full-time salaried workers, including a majority of people with college degrees. Today only 8 percent of workers are eligible for overtime, which is an especially alarming statistic since hourly wages for the average worker have remained flat in real dollars since 1979. That is why in January of this year I joined several of my colleagues in pushing President Obama to update these outdated overtime rules. We asked the President to allow more working people to qualify for overtime and to index those earnings, that threshold, to keep up with inflation so that future generations of American workers could reap the benefits of their hard work. I am glad the administration agreed. These proposed rules will help put more money in the pockets of those who work longer hours or provide incentive to employers to hire more workers or increase the hours of part-time workers and help strengthen the economy. These rules will allow workers to spend their new-found earnings and spur further economic growth. They will help grow our shrinking middle class, which is the backbone of our economy, and help create a pathway for those who want to become a part of the middle class. It is vital that we support this proposal to guarantee overtime pay to millions of more Americans. I thank the Presiding Officer, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, the Student Non-Discrimination Act would extend the same Federal civil rights protections available to other children to LGBT children. I feel very strongly about this, and let me tell you why. LGBT kids are facing an epidemic of bullying in our schools. Nearly 75 percent of LGBT students say they have been verbally harassed at school. More than 30 percent report missing a day of school in the last month because they felt unsafe. Sometimes kids cannot endure the taunting. These boys, 11 years old, 13, and 15, committed suicide because they were harassed relentlessly, and they are just three of the many tragic cases. And in case after case, the parents begged the school to do something, only to be ignored. Our laws failed these children, but we can change that. We have come very far on this issue. As a body, we passed ENDA, which protects LGBT adults, but this is about children. It is our job as adults, not just as Senators, to protect children. Think about the LGBT people you know--your friends, staff, family. Now imagine them as children just beginning to discover who they are but doing so in the face of taunts and intimidation. You cannot get a good education if you dread going to school. My amendment just says that schools would have to listen when a parent says ``My kid isn't safe'' and then do something about it. I thank the chairman and the ranking member for committing to hold this vote. I strongly urge my colleagues to vote to protect our children. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, may I ask how much time is remaining?

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 30 more seconds.

Mr. FRANKEN. This isn't about lawsuits; this is about schools doing the right thing when the parents ask. They are the same protections granted to the kids by virtue of their race. That wasn't a local issue; that was a Federal right we had to pass. The same with title IX for girls. That is why we just won the World Cup. This is the right thing to do. We are adults here. Let's protect children. Let's protect children. This is not about lawsuits. It is about adults, about a parent calling the principal and saying ``My kid is being harassed'' and then the principal will do something--because they aren't. They aren't in many, many cases. Thank you.

Mr. FRANKEN. I object. I am joking.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, I rise to speak about the urgency of passing the Student Non-Discrimination Act, which takes the same protections that children have against discrimination on the basis of race and national origin and gender and disability, and it extends those protections to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender children-- LGBT children. That is it. It is a simple bill. It stands for the principle that LGBT kids have a right not to be bullied just because of who they are. There are people who will say: What can you do to stop bullying? Kids will be kids. Boys will be boys. I don't think that is right. Because what we are seeing in our schools today is not just teasing; it is not playground behavior. What we are seeing is more than just bullying. We are seeing discrimination. Let me explain what I mean. If a Black child was referred to by a racial slur at school, would we say kids will be kids? If a Jewish student got beat up because he wore a yarmulke to school, would we wave it off and say boys will be boys? If a shop teacher told a female teacher she didn't belong in his class, would we be fine if the school just looked the other way? No, we would not. In fact, there are Federal civil rights laws that are specifically designed to stop this kind of conduct. But if a gay child is relentlessly harassed by his classmates, if a principal tells a girl she can't go to her senior prom because she wants to bring another girl as her date or if a school stands by as teachers, students, and other administrators refer to a transgender child not as ``he'' or ``she'' but as ``it,'' there is no law that was written to protect those children. Our laws fail those children, and that is just wrong. We can change that. The bullying of LGBT children in our schools has reached epidemic proportions. More than 30 percent of LGBT kids report missing a day of school in the previous month because they felt unsafe. Nearly 75 percent of LGBT students say they have been verbally harassed at school, and more than 35 percent of LGBT students report being physically attacked. You cannot learn if you dread going to school. It has been estimated that, on average, LGBT kids comprise 40 percent of all homeless youth. To be sure, family rejection is a leading factor, but LGBT kids' inability to escape verbal harassment and physical attacks makes them drop out, which makes them much more likely to be homeless. That is unacceptable. Our children should not have to experience that kind of hate at school, and, as we have seen all too often, some of them just can't endure it. A few years ago, I met a wonderful woman named Wendy Walsh, the mother of Seth Walsh, whose photo is next to me here. Wendy told me that Seth had endured years of anti-gay harassment at school in Tehachapi, CA. When he was in the fifth grade, other students started calling him gay, and as he got older the harassment became more frequent and more abusive. By seventh grade, taunts and verbal abuse were a constant part of Seth's day. Students called him faggot and queer. He was afraid to use the restroom or to be in the boys' locker room before gym class. Seth had always been a good student, receiving A's and B's, but as the harassment escalated, he started to get failing grades. Friends reported that he became depressed and withdrawn. Wendy desperately tried to get school district officials to do something, but her pleas were brushed aside, and in September of 2010, Seth hanged himself from a tree in his family's backyard. He was 13. Seth left a note expressing his love for family and friends but also his anger at the school. Justin Aaberg was a rising sophomore at high school in Anoka, MN, my home State. Justin played the cello. In fact, he composed music for the cello. His mother Tammy told people that he was a ``sweet boy who seemed to always have a smile on his face.'' Justin came out to his mom when he was 13. In July of 2010, Justin hanged himself in his bedroom. His mother later learned from Justin's friends and from messages he left before his death that he had been the victim of incessant bullying at school. Justin was 15 when he died. Carl Walker Hoover was a Boy Scout and a football player for his school in Springfield, MA. But starting in the sixth grade, the kids at Carl's school started to bully and harass him for ``acting gay'' or ``acting like a girl'' even though he didn't identify as LGBT. When Carl's mother, Sirdeaner Walker, learned about the harassment, she spoke to his principal, his teacher, and his guidance counselor repeatedly, asking the school to intervene. But in April of 2009, Sirdeaner found her son hanging by an extension cord on the second floor of her home. In the letter Carl left behind, he said he simply couldn't take it anymore. Carl was 11 years old. Justin, Seth, and Carl's stories are not anomalies. They are just a few of the many tragic cases in an epidemic of school bullying against LGBT kids or kids who are perceived to be LGBT. The bill we are debating this week is an education bill, a bill about taking the steps necessary to secure better and brighter futures for our children. It is our responsibility not just as Senators but as adults to protect children and to help them flourish. Children who are afraid to go to school can't get a good education. Think about the children in your life--your son or your daughter, your grandchild or your niece or nephew--and what it must be like for a child in your life to get up and face the school day ahead not with excitement but with anxiety and fear, with dread and shame. This shouldn't happen in America. In America, we have passed laws that guard against harassment in our schools on the basis of race, national origin, sex, and disability, but LGBT students face bullying and intimidation without recourse. This amendment would simply provide LGBT kids with the same legal remedies available to other kids under our Federal civil rights laws. It says that schools would have to listen when a parent calls and says: My child isn't safe, and then the school has to do something about it. It would ensure that LGBT kids have the same protections, not some of the same protections, as other kids. This is not a revolutionary idea. In fact, more than a dozen States have already passed laws that protect students from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and it is working. In States that have protections for sexual orientation and gender identity in schools, LGBT students report nearly one-third fewer instances of physical harassment and nearly half as many instances of physical assault as in States lacking these protections. We have come incredibly far in our understanding of LGBT people in a very short period of time not just as a country but as a body. In 2013, by a vote of 64 to 32, the Senate passed ENDA, the Employment Non- Discrimination Act, which would prohibit job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. It would prohibit firing someone or harassing them at work for being gay or transgender. It would protect adults. Now it is time to protect kids and to put in place policies to ensure that a child of 11 or 13 or 15 is allowed to live their life and discover who they are--to discover that maybe they are a great cellist or a first-round NFL draft pick--without facing taunts and intimidation and physical violence in the school. It is our responsibility as a country and as a body to protect our children. I strongly urge my colleagues to do just that by supporting the Student Non-Discrimination Act and voting for it as an amendment to this bill. I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 20 minutes.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, we have been living under No Child Left Behind, or NCLB, for 13 years. During that time, we have learned a lot about how NCLB works and a lot more about what doesn't work. Students, teachers, and parents across the country have been waiting a long time for us to fix this law. As a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, I am proud to have worked on the legislation before us today and to have helped to get it this far. The Every Child Achieves Act of 2015 builds a strong bipartisan foundation to reform our national education system, and I thank Chairman Lamar Alexander and Ranking Member Patty Murray for their leadership on this bill. Over the last 6 years, I have met with principals and teachers, students, parents, and school administrators in Minnesota. These conversations have helped me to develop my educational priorities to help improve our schools, our communities, and our Nation's future. I worked with colleagues on both sides of the aisle, including the esteemed Presiding Officer, to find common ground, and I am very pleased that many of my priorities to improve student outcomes and close the achievement gap are reflected in the legislation that is before us today. During my conversations with parents and students, I often speak about children's mental health. At Mounds View school district in Minnesota, I met a single mother named Katie Johnson. She told me about her son, a 9-year-old boy whose behavior she just wasn't able to control. Because this school had a system in place--a mental health model in place--they were able to identify that he might have some mental health problems and get him access to community mental health services. He was diagnosed with ADHD and Asperger's. He was able to get the treatment he needed, and it turned him around. Katie told me that her son is now doing well in school and he had taken up Tae Kwon Do. Katie told me that her life had been out of control when she couldn't control her child. But she pointed to herself--and I will never forget this--she pointed to herself and said: ``Now I am bulletproof. I can do anything.'' Well, I said, let's do this. So I came here and introduced the Mental Health in Schools Act, and I am proud that over the last couple of years we have gotten $100-plus million extra through the appropriations process for programs like the one in that bill. I have worked hard to get provisions based on my Mental Health in Schools Act into the bill before us today. My provisions will allow schools that want to work with community-based mental health organizations and mental health providers to use Federal education funding to provide mental health screening, treatment, and referral services to their students by equipping school staff with the training and tools to identify what it looks like when a kid has a mental illness. Every adult in this school, from the lunch lady to the principal, from the schoolbus driver to the teacher, was trained to see what it looked like when a kid might have a serious mental health issue, and then they would refer to the professional in the school, the counselor or school psychologist. One of the most common features of successful schools in disadvantaged communities is the presence of an effective school principal. This should come as no surprise. It is a matter of common sense to expect that a successful school or any successful organization would have a strong leader. Research shows that school leadership is one of the most critical components of improving student learning. Yet, despite its importance, the Federal Government has not devoted adequate attention or resources to improving the quality of principals in high-need schools. That is why I made sure that there is dedicated funding written into the base bill to create a pipeline of effective principals for high-need schools. I had a roundtable a number of years ago. The roundtable was with principals from around the Twin Cities. A school had been turned around by a great principal. We started talking about testing. One of the principals referred to the NCLB test as ``autopsies.'' I knew immediately what he meant. Schools had to administer an NCLB test toward the end of the year--toward the end of April--and the school and the teachers didn't get the results until late June, when the kids were out of school. So the teachers couldn't use the results of the tests to inform the instruction of their kids. I found out that was why in Minnesota schools were administering other tests in addition to the NCLB test. On top of that, they were giving computer adaptive tests. What are computer adaptive tests? Well, they are computers--meaning the teacher gets the results right away, so he or she can use the results of that test to inform the instruction of each child. They are adaptive, which means that if a child is getting everything right, the questions get harder; if they are getting things wrong, the questions get easier. This is much more descriptive of where the child is and you can pinpoint this. This informs the instruction. These kinds of tests were not allowed in the original NCLB because they said that all tests had to be standardized--standardized, meaning having the same test for each child--but you get a much better assessment with computer adaptive tests. That is why I wrote an amendment with Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia into the Every Child Achieves Act to allow States to use computer adaptive tests. Teachers will now be able to create lesson plans based on how each student performs, starting the next day. They use computer tests to more accurately measure student growth, which is something I believe in-- measuring growth and not judging whether a kid meets or what percentage of kids meet some arbitrary performance standard or proficiency standard but instead whether the school is helping every kid grow. The only thing I liked about No Child Left Behind was the name. Yet, every teacher started teaching to the middle--teaching to the kids who are just below or just above that artificial line of proficiency. That was a perverse incentive not to focus on the kid above the line or below the line. Every child achieves. That is what we are going for. This amendment will go a long way toward improving the quality of assessments used in our schools and will give teachers and parents more accurate and timely information about how their kid is growing. Another issue I hear about as I travel around Minnesota--this time from businesses--is that students graduating from our schools aren't ready to take on the jobs that are waiting for them. This is called the skills gap. It isn't just a problem in Minnesota; I would say it is a problem in every State. We have jobs now that are going unfilled because our graduates lack science, technology, engineering, and math, or STEM, skills. In fact, by 2018 Minnesota employers will have to fill over 180,000 STEM-related jobs. So I wrote an amendment to provide funding to support partnerships between local schools, businesses, universities, and nonprofit organizations to improve student learning in STEM subjects. My amendment says that each State can choose how to spend and prioritize these funds, which can support a wide range of STEM activities, from in-depth teacher training, to engineering design competitions, to improving the diversity of the STEM workforce. States can also use these funds to create a STEM Master Teacher Corps, which is based on my legislation called the STEM Master Teacher Corps. This will offer career-advancement opportunities and extra pay to exceptional STEM teachers and help them serve as mentors to less- accomplished teachers. Today, it is getting harder and harder for students to pay for college. That is why the Presiding Officer, the good Senator from Louisiana, and I worked--and the way the cameras work, you can't see the Presiding Officer because I am talking; it is Bill Cassidy of Louisiana--we worked together to help reduce the cost of college while kids are still in high school. Our amendment provides funds to cover the costs of advanced placement and international baccalaureate exam fees for low-income students. When I did college affordability roundtables, I found students who had taken an AP course but were afraid to spend the money for the test in case they did not get the 3, 4 or 5, which gave them a credit. So this will help those students do that. Our amendment also includes dual enrollment programs and early college high schools. In Minnesota, we call them postsecondary educational opportunities. These are two other models that help students earn college credit while in high school, and by participating and succeeding in these programs, students can save a lot of money toward college by getting college credits. The academic programs I have mentioned are critical to our children's success in school, but many kids also need additional support to help them succeed in school. For example, school counselors respond to a wide range of student needs, from dealing with the aftermath of traumatic events to school bullying, to the college admissions process and career advising. But we have a shortage of school counselors in this country. Unfortunately, the ability of school counseling professionals to assess students is often hindered by a high student-to-counselor ratio, often two or three times the recommended amount. In Minnesota, we have 1 counselor for every 700 students. That is unacceptable. So I wrote a provision that addresses this critical need by authorizing the Elementary and Secondary School Counseling Program in the Every Child Achieves legislation. Federal grants like this one will help States and districts address these high ratios between students and counselors and bring more trained professionals into schools. Another critical support for students is afterschool programs. Senator Lisa Murkowski from Alaska and I worked on an amendment together to fund 21st Century Community Learning Centers because these afterschool programs play a critical role in increasing student achievement, keeping students safe, and helping out working families. There are over 100 21st Century Community Learning Centers across my State of Minnesota, and these centers provide high-quality afterschool activities to help address the physical, social, emotional, and academic needs of the students they serve. Senator Murkowski and I worked on another amendment to help American Indian students. Our amendment would fund Native language immersion programs throughout Indian Country because language is critical to maintaining cultural heritage. Native students who are enrolled in language immersion programs have higher levels of student achievement, high school graduation rates, and college attendance rates than their Native American peers in traditional English-based schools. Again, I am very pleased that with the help of my colleagues, I was able to include all of these amendments in the legislation we are considering today. These provisions will help hundreds of thousands of students throughout the country reach their full potential. Lastly, I would like to speak in support of Senator Patty Murray's and Senator Johnny Isakson's early learning amendment that was included in the bill and Senator Bob Casey's floor amendment called strong start for America, which also expands access to early childhood education. This is so important. The achievement gap between disadvantaged students and their peers is evident before they enter kindergarten. Early childhood programs can help narrow this gap. In fact, high- quality early childhood education programs not only help prepare our children for school, study after study shows there is a tremendous return on investment in high-quality early childhood education, ranging from $7 to $16 for every $1 spent. Kids who attend a high-quality early childhood program are less likely to be special ed kids or to need special education programs, less likely to be held back a grade. They have better health outcomes, the girls are less likely to get pregnant in adolescence, they are more likely to graduate high school, more likely to go to college and graduate from college and have a good job and pay taxes, and much less likely to go to prison. I have been a big supporter of investing in early childhood programs for years because it is simply just common sense to do. That is why I support Senator Casey's amendment. More generally, No Child Left Behind is long overdue for the right kind of reform. With the leadership of Chairman Alexander and Ranking Member Murray, my colleagues and I on the HELP Committee have worked hard to incorporate the lessons we have learned from teachers, students, parents, and school administrators and put them into this legislation. We have made tremendous progress on this bill, but we still have some work to do before it becomes law. We need to close the achievement gaps in this country. That means we should expect States to focus on all of their students, including low-income and minority students. At its core, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, passed first in 1965, is a civil rights bill that was intended to improve equality and expand opportunity for disadvantaged students. So I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues to strengthen the accountability provisions in this bill. I urge my colleagues to support the Every Child Achieves Act of 2015 so we can keep working to support all of our Nation's students. Finally, I want to flag something that is very important to me. I have a pending amendment to Every Child Achieves that I care an enormous amount about, the Student Nondiscrimination Act, which will give LGBT--lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students the protection they need and deserve in school. I will come back to the floor to discuss that amendment at length. I yield the floor.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Boris Granovskiy, a fellow in my office, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the 114th Congress.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise today to talk briefly about trade adjustment assistance, or TAA, and about trade enforcement. I will be supporting the TAA bill. Tribute to Casey Aden-Wansbury But before I talk about that, I would like to recognize my chief of staff, Casey Aden-Wansbury, who has never been on the floor before. She asked to be on the floor today, since she is leaving. Of course, I said yes. But I said that so that I could talk about you, Casey. You didn't know that. You have to sit through this. Casey has served in my office since I joined the Senate in July of 2009. She is leaving Washington next week and is heading to San Francisco, where her husband will be starting an amazing new job. Jamo has a great job, and he has been so supportive of you, Casey, and also of Casey's parents. You will now be much closer to them. I am very excited for Casey, but I wish she weren't leaving. Everyone in my office is going to miss you--no one more than me. When my grandson was 30 minutes old, I held him in my arms, and I said to him: It is all staff. It is true. It is all staff. Casey has been an amazing chief of staff. She is the most focused, determined person I know. I am a member of the Writers Guild and the Screen Actors Guild. I get screeners. We got ``Zero Dark Thirty'' sent to me during the awards season. My wife and I were in our living room. We put ``Zero Dark Thirty'' on. At a certain point in the movie, I said to Franni: The lead character reminds me of someone. Finally, I said: It is Casey. If Casey had been in the CIA, I think we would have gotten bin Laden a little earlier. Casey deserves an enormous amount of credit for all the work that I and our office have been able to get done in my first term--the day-to- day work that we do to improve the lives of people in Minnesota and across the country. Whether it was mental health in schools or improving workforce training or protecting net neutrality or defeating the Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal, I am so proud of the work we have done in the Senate. And it is all staff. Casey has led that staff brilliantly every step of the way. I will miss Casey more than anyone, including myself, really knows. Whoever gets Casey next will be very, very lucky indeed. Casey, I cannot express how deeply thankful I am for all you have done for me, for our office, and for the State of Minnesota. Thank you. Now, Mr. President, I would like to turn briefly to the trade adjustment assistance package. I believe that when trade is done right, it can benefit our workers, our communities, and our businesses. But I was concerned that the fast-track procedures set up by the trade promotion authority bill will not do enough to make sure that we do trade right. So I voted against that bill, and I will vote against it again later. Once we are done with that bill, we will consider the trade adjustment assistance bill that was originally packaged together with the fast-track bill. I will support TAA. It is far from perfect. For one thing, it simply does not provide enough assistance. But it will go a long way toward providing help for workers who are displaced by trade, as we know some will be. I also strongly support the Leveling the Playing Field Act, which is included in this package along with TAA. Senator Brown's bill, of which I am proud to be a cosponsor, would help strengthen our trade remedy laws--the laws that enforce our trade policies and protect our domestic industries from dumped and subsidized imports from other countries. In Minnesota, I have seen firsthand the damage that happens when we don't have--and just as importantly, can't enforce--strong trade protections. In the last few months alone, we have seen what happens when countries unfairly dump their goods here. Nearly 1,000 Minnesotans in the Iron Range are losing their jobs after a flood of dumped steel imports. The Leveling the Playing Field Act would help improve our anti- dumping laws, including restoring Congress's original intent in setting the standard for when a domestic industry is materially injured by unfairly traded foreign imports. We need to be able to respond effectively when dumped imports are harming our domestic iron and steel industry and the workers in that industry or when those imports are harming other industries, as is happening now. This bill will be an important step in enabling that more effective response. With these provisions, we are standing up for American manufacturers by putting in place and enforcing fair trade practices. For these reasons, I will be voting for the trade adjustment assistance bill, and I look forward to its being enacted into law. Thank you, Mr. President, for allowing me to say a few words about Casey and about TAA. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Thank you, Leader Reid.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise today to thank Rabbi Harold Kravitz for offering the opening prayer today in the Senate and to praise him for all of his excellent work. Rabbi Kravitz is rabbi at Adath Jeshurun in my State of Minnesota and is an important leader in our State. In addition to serving his congregation, Rabbi Kravitz is also a leader in the fight against hunger. He is outgoing chair of the board of MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, where he has been working to end hunger for all people regardless of their faith background. One of the things most notable about Rabbi Kravitz is his commitment to bringing together people of all faiths to end hunger. I especially want to recognize Rabbi Kravitz's work in Minnesota to make school lunches free and available for all children. No child should ever go hungry. We know kids won't do as well in school when they are hungry. It is also just wrong. That is why I have taken up the issue at the Federal level as well, to try to make this commonsense policy that Rabbi Kravitz has championed in MAZON as widespread as possible. Rabbi Kravitz has done excellent work in Minnesota and as a national leader in the fight against hunger. Thank you for that, Rabbi, and thank you again for offering the opening prayer this morning.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, thank you. I rise today to urge prompt passage of the House-passed USA FREEDOM Act of 2015 and to urge opposition to the amendments offered by the majority leader. Those amendments are unnecessary. They would weaken the bill in unacceptable ways, and they would only serve to prolong and deepen the uncertainty around the reform and continuation of important national security authorities. The House-passed USA FREEDOM Act is measured, compromise legislation that is the result of lengthy negotiations that bring much needed reforms to some of our surveillance authorities, ensuring that we safeguard Americans' rights while increasing the government's accountability. I am proud to have worked with Senator Dean Heller of Nevada to craft the bill's transparency provisions, which draw support from privacy advocates, the business community, and national security experts. The USA FREEDOM Act works to end bulk collection programs that our intelligence community has told us are not necessary. At the same time, the bill makes sure our national security agencies have legal tools that are necessary to protect our Nation. Put simply, the USA FREEDOM Act of 2015 strikes the balance we need--making sure that our government can keep our Nation safe without trampling on our citizens' fundamental privacy rights. Of course, the public cannot know if we are succeeding in striking that balance if they do not have access to even the most basic information about our major surveillance programs. That is why my focus has been on the legislation's transparency provisions. Under the provisions I wrote with Senator Heller, the American people will be better able to decide for themselves whether we are getting this right. For all these reasons, the act has my strong support. And I am in good company. The House has passed it. The President is ready to sign it. We have the votes here to pass it. So what are we waiting for? Senator McConnell has offered several amendments. And here is the problem: They deviate from the House bill without improving the legislation. At best, the result of adopting these amendments would be further delay, further negotiation, and a highly uncertain outcome. Now that we have allowed the national security authorities at issue to expire, we simply do not know how the House would proceed if we sent them back a modified bill. Maybe that kind of risk and delay would be justified if these amendments improved the bill, but they do not. I would like to talk a little bit about why these amendments are both unnecessary and problematic. The majority leader's main substitute amendment makes two additions to the bill. The first is a requirement that electronic communications service providers notify the government if they plan to shorten the length of time they retain call detail records--records that the government may seek to query under the USA FREEDOM Act. The fact is, based on how our country's telecom infrastructure is set up, the government only goes to a handful of companies for call detail records, and those companies have told us they have business reasons for retaining records. Based on a long history of working with these companies--under these authorities, other authorities--the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence have told us the USA FREEDOM Act is fine as it is. There simply is not a problem in need of a solution here. And look, this is the kind of thing that we can revisit if in the future some change in circumstances means that data retention threatens to become a problem. It certainly does not need to risk derailing the bill and its reforms now. The second change in the majority leader's substitute amendment is a certification requirement asking the Director of National Intelligence to certify to Congress that the USA FREEDOM Act's transition from bulk collection of call detail records to a more targeted approach is operationally effective. To be clear, this certification, whether issued or not, in no way affects the effective date of the bill or the timeline for the transition. It has no statutory limitations. It is a wholly unnecessary deviation from the House-passed bill. If there is a problem with the operational effectiveness of the transition, you can bet that the Director of National Intelligence is going to let us know, and I would certainly hope and expect that we would all be ready to listen and work with him at that point. Again, this is the kind of thing that should not risk derailing the bill now. The majority leader has offered other amendments that seek to weaken the USA FREEDOM Act more directly. One amendment would lengthen the time before the bill with its various reforms goes into full effect. That would do nothing but unnecessarily extend bulk collection programs. NSA has told us they can transition in 6 months, as provided for in the bill as it stands. There is no justification for extending the timeline now. Another amendment would render ineffective one of the safeguards for Americans' privacy rights and civil liberties in the bill. This amendment would weaken the role of outside, nongovernment experts in participating in certain cases before the FISA Court. That is an unacceptable change to a provision that has already been the subject of bipartisan negotiations and compromise. That is really the thing to remember--this is a compromise bill. In writing our transparency provisions, Senator Heller and I had to compromise a great deal. We didn't get everything we wanted when we initially negotiated these provisions last year, and we had to compromise further still this year. I am disappointed that the bill doesn't include all of the requirements that were agreed to in our discussions with the intelligence community and that were included in the Senate bill last Congress. But that is the nature of bipartisan compromise. And I recognize that right now we need to start by taking one big step in the right direction, and that is by passing the USA FREEDOM Act. Down the road, we will have the opportunity to revisit these issues as needed. For my part, I am committed to pushing my colleagues to revisit the transparency provisions. We still have work to do, particularly with regard to section 702, which has to deal with the collection of communications of foreigners abroad. But, again, right now it is clear what needs to happen in this Chamber. We need to pass the House-passed USA FREEDOM Act without further amendment. If we do that, we can get these authorities back up and running. That is exactly what we should do. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. FRANKEN

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