Al Franken

Mr. FRANKEN

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of the confirmation of Professor Goodwin Liu to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. As a member of the Judiciary Committee for the past 2 years, I have had the opportunity to meet with Professor Liu and vote on his nomination on several occasions. He is a singularly talented individual, and I wish to associate myself with the remarks all my colleagues have made in support of his confirmation. But the strongest arguments I have heard in support of Professor Liu haven't come from my colleagues. In fact, they haven't even come from a Democrat. No, the most persuasive arguments I have heard for confirming Professor Liu come from the former chief ethics lawyer for the administration of President George W. Bush, a gentleman named Richard Painter. Professor Painter, a Republican, is now a prominent law professor at the University of Minnesota. Earlier this year, Professor Painter wrote a lengthy article that systematically catalogued Professor Liu's strengths and systematically answered his critics. This is his conclusion: In sum, Liu is eminently qualified. He has support from prominent conservatives. . . . He is pragmatic and open- minded, not dogmatic or ideological. . . . Many, though by no means all, of his scholarly views do not align with conservative ideology or with the policy positions of many elected officials in the Republican Party. . . . Nevertheless, his views are part of the American legal mainstream. The independence, rigor, and fair-mindedness of his writings support a confident prediction that he will be a dutiful and impartial judge. When I circulated Professor Painter's article to the members of the Judiciary Committee, my Republican colleagues sent me a series of articles critiquing Professor Liu. I would like to take a few moments to rebut the criticisms in these articles because they simply don't hold water. The first and most common criticism of Goodwin Liu is that he somehow believes in a so-called living Constitution. His opponents are especially worried about his suggestion that in interpreting the Constitution, judges should consider the ``evolving norms and traditions of our society.'' Professor Liu has written an entire book about his theory of constitutional interpretation. On page 2 of that book, he writes that we need to consider a lot of different things when we interpret the Constitution. We need to consider the original understanding of the Framers. We need to consider the purpose and structure of the Constitution. We need to consider precedent. We need to consider the practical consequences of our laws. Lastly, we need to consider the evolving norms and traditions of our society. So this is just one thing--one thing--that we should take into account. But even more important, this idea that we should merely consider the evolving standards of our society in interpreting the Constitution is not a radical idea. In fact, it isn't even a new idea. This issue frequently comes up in fourth amendment cases. Over 40 years ago, in a 1967 case called U.S. v. Katz, the Supreme Court was asked to determine whether a wiretap constituted a search under the fourth amendment. If it did, law enforcement would have to get a warrant to get a wiretap. The problem, of course, was that the Founders never anticipated the telephone, let alone the wire to the telephone. So this was a new question for the Court. But the Court voted 7 to 1 to find that a wiretap was, in fact, a search under the fourth amendment, and one of the main reasons they cited was that people in modern society had come to expect and assume that their phone calls were private. Two years later, in a separate case called Smith v. Maryland, the Court formally adopted the rule that the fourth amendment will protect people where our society recognizes a reasonable expectation of privacy. So for 40 years, it has been the law of this land that you have to look at social norms when interpreting the fourth amendment. Here is another example, one that Senator Feinstein cited, but still, it bears repeating. This is what Chief Justice Marshall said about the Necessary and Proper Clause in McCulloch v. Maryland. . . . [t]his provision is made in a constitution, intended to endure for ages to come, and consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs. McCulloch v. Maryland was decided in 1819. So the idea that we should merely consider the state of our society when we interpret the Constitution isn't new, it is old. It is very old. In fact, it is arguably older than the Senate Chamber we are standing in, which first opened in 1859. Professor Liu's detractors have also accused him of believing that judges may ``legitimately invent constitutional rights to a broad range of social `welfare' goods, including education, shelter, subsistence, and health care.'' That is the accusation. This argument is based on an article Professor Liu wrote in 2008. But if you actually read the article, you will find this statement right in the introduction. This is a quote from the article: [B]ecause the existence of any welfare right depends on Democratic instantiation of our shared understandings, the Judiciary is generally limited to an interstitial role within the context of a legislative program. Courts do not act as `first movers' in establishing welfare rights . . . In other words, Professor Liu is being accused of saying judges can invent welfare rights because of an article he wrote where he said judges cannot invent welfare rights. The final point I wish to address is the idea that Professor Liu somehow supports ``using foreign law to redefine the Constitution.'' Professor Liu's critics cite an obscure speech he gave at a Japanese law school 5 years ago. According to his critics, he said in this speech that it is ``difficult for him to grasp how anyone could resist the use of foreign authority in American constitutional law.'' I went and got a copy of the speech. If you read it, you will see that Professor Liu was referring to a series of Supreme Court decisions written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, where Justice Kennedy reviewed the laws of foreign countries on certain issues. Justice Kennedy didn't use the laws of foreign countries to decide the cases before him, he used them to get a sense of how other countries were resolving the legal issues before him. Professor Liu was basically saying he found it difficult to grasp how people could disagree with Justice Kennedy. He has repeatedly said in his testimony, under oath, that he does not believe that foreign law should be binding in any way on Federal law. There are other critiques against Professor Liu that I will not go into further, but I urge my colleagues to dig behind these blanket statements. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein, I think you will find there is no there there. I think what my colleagues will find is an extraordinary intellect, a fundamentally decent man, and someone who will be a strong and impartial jurist. I urge my colleagues to vote for cloture and to vote to support his nomination. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FRANKEN

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

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of Senator Menendez's bill to eliminate subsidies to big oil companies. At a time when we have to make tough choices to address our budget deficit, when we are cutting cancer research, at a time when Minnesotans are paying $4 a gallon at the pump, and at a time when oil companies are raking in record profits, we have to stand and say: Enough is enough. It is time to end the subsidies. That is why I am a proud cosponsor of the bill. We have had to make a lot of tough choices, and there are plenty still to come. To avert a government shutdown, Congress enacted billions of dollars in cuts. Some were pretty hard for me to swallow, frankly--cuts such as $182 million from job training, $650 million from community development funds that help communities provide basic services such as roads and sewers and affordable housing, even Pell grants. These are cuts that will be felt by working families and people who are still struggling to find jobs and make ends meet. I voted for the spending bill that contained those cuts, not because they would be the cuts that I choose to make but because it was important to keep the government open. Addressing our budget deficits will take compromise. It will take shared sacrifice from everyone. That includes big oil companies that are making record profits because the price of oil is now at $100 a barrel. The bill before us would end $1.2 billion in subsidies to the five largest oil companies in fiscal year 2012 and $21 billion over the next 10 years. These companies make up three of the top five Fortune 500 companies and have had nearly $1 trillion in profit over the last decade. While high oil prices are gouging the pocketbooks of American families, these companies are on a pace for a record profit this year. In the first quarter alone, these companies collectively made about $35 billion in profits. I wish to ask my colleagues, how high do oil prices have to go--how big do the oil companies' profits have to be--before we can talk about doing away with their handouts? These companies have legacy wells that pump oil at a cost of about $10 a barrel--a little less. On average, oil production costs them $15 a barrel. When exactly don't they need these subsidies anymore? They are making record profits. At $100 a barrel, why do they need the subsidies? If oil goes up to $102 a barrel or $110, or $150, can they give us the subsidies back then? There is absolutely no rationale for these subsidies--none at all. How much money do these companies have to make before they do not need the government's help anymore? To me it sounds as though these companies do not need to be subsidized by taxpayers. President George W. Bush thought so too. In 2005 he said: With $55 dollar oil, we don't need incentives to oil and gas companies to explore. There are plenty of incentives. When testifying before Congress in 2005, one oil executive stated that removing many of these tax breaks would have no effect on his company's production activity. Today, with oil prices close to $100 a barrel, it is doubly true. Let me say something about House Speaker Boehner's statement on the debt limit last week. The Speaker told us that in terms of dealing with the deficit, everything is on the table, except for revenues. How can we not look at billions of dollars in handouts to some of the most profitable companies in America? This is sort of like a family that cannot pay its bills, and they cannot pay for food and heat and electricity and medical bills and the mortgage all at the same time. So they gather around the table and the dad says: ``To make ends meet, everything is on the table. We are paying for this stuff, except for one of us getting an extra job or working more hours or somehow bringing in more money. We can't do that.'' And the son says: ``Gee, dad, I could do more hours at TGI Friday's. I could do that.'' ``No, son. That's off the table. No more medicine for grandma. You go play with your Xbox some more.'' Revenues off the table, especially subsidies that do not do anybody any good? That does not make any sense and tells me that some of us are not serious about fixing the budget deficit. A recent report from the Joint Economic Committee concluded that: Repealing or modifying the tax incentives discussed in this report . . . would have little or no impact on consumer energy prices in the immediate future. In 2010, 60 percent of the big five oil companies' profits went to stock buybacks and dividends to their shareholders, not to exploration. So even if they had fewer taxpayer subsidies and could only use, say, 59 percent of their record profits for buybacks and dividends this year, I am pretty sure they could get by just fine. Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle think we have the wrong approach and they do not want us touching Big Oil's government handouts. Instead, they are pushing an alternative bill that would require the government to approve or reject a drilling permit in 60 days or it would be deemed automatically approved. This is a very dangerous idea. Just this morning, I asked Director Bromwich, who heads the agency in charge of offshore permitting, what he thought about this idea, and he said we would all be at greater risk from such a proposal. This shows that some of my colleagues have not learned the lessons of the BP oilspill where a shoddy approval process and numerous industry errors led to a monumental disaster in the gulf. This disaster brought economic hardship for thousands and cost 11 workers their lives. Let's not forget that. Offshore drilling is becoming an increasingly complex industry. To insist on a one-size-fits-all permit process ignores the increasing technical challenges that offshore drilling presents. The Republican bill is reckless and irresponsible, and I urge my colleagues to reject it. Instead of ending handouts to wildly profitable companies, my friends on the other side of the aisle are suggesting we throw caution and safety to the wind--and continue to dole out these subsidies. They want to make cuts to job training programs, Pell grants, and cancer research. They have proposed converting Medicare into a voucher program, which would end the longstanding guarantee that our seniors will have access to health care when they need it. It would end Medicare as we know it. But when we talk about touching one penny of big oil's subsidies, they say: It is off the table. I believe Americans come together in tough times and make sacrifices. We are all not going to get everything we want, and that includes Big Oil executives. At a time when almost 14 million Americans are unemployed, at a time when job training and other assistance programs are being cut, it is unconscionable for companies making record profits to refuse to do their part. It is unconscionable for them to refuse to give up even one penny of subsidies that they frankly do not need. I urge my colleagues to get serious about the deficit, to support the Menendez bill, and to end these wasteful handouts. 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 ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, I rise today to talk about the effort of the House last month to repeal the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules. Net neutrality is the very simple idea that all content and applications on the Internet should be treated the same regardless of who owns the content or the Web site. This is not a radical concept, in large part because it is what we see and experience every time we use the Internet. But the House wants to change all of that and effectively turn control of the Internet over to a handful of very powerful corporations. I want to take a few moments today to tell you why I think the House's vote was a mistake, and why I am going to do everything in my power to make sure we don't make the same mistake in the Senate. But before I get into those details, I think it is important to take a step back and talk about the Internet we have today. Let's be clear. The Internet we have exists because it is free and open, because we have always had net neutrality throughout the entire existence of the Internet. I have to give credit to my opponents on this issue who have done a masterful job of manipulating the American public into believing that net neutrality is something that it is not. Net neutrality is not about a government takeover of the Internet. It is simply the idea that all content, whether it is a Web page, an e- mail, or a movie we are downloading can load onto our computers at home at the same speed, regardless of who owns or controls that content. This is not a radical idea. It is what we experience today when we use the Internet. Right now, if we buy Rihanna's latest song from iTunes, it downloads as quickly as a song from a friend who started a band in his or her garage. If you send an e-mail to your mother, it arrives in her inbox just as quickly as the e-mail she gets from President Obama. If you start a Web site for your small business, your customers are able to access your Web site and place orders for your products just as quickly as if they were buying from a multinational corporation. I like to talk about YouTube's early days as a startup because it is such a powerful example of why net neutrality is so critical and how this simple concept helped create a billion-dollar company practically overnight. YouTube's early headquarters were situated in a tiny space above a pizzeria and Japanese restaurant in San Francisco, CA. But just 6 months after the site was activated, over 100 million people were using YouTube to watch videos every day. Less than 2 years after it started, YouTube sold their business to Google for $1.6 billion. Isn't that incredible? Well, I am here to tell you it would not have been possible without net neutrality. At that time, Google had a competing product, Google Video, which was the standard at the time but was widely seen as inferior. If Google had been able to pay Comcast or Verizon or any of the others large amounts of money to make its Web site faster than YouTube's, YouTube would still be floundering over that pizzeria or most likely it would have ceased to exist at all. Fortunately, Google couldn't pay for priority access, and the rest is history. What I am saying is, we take, and have taken, this equality that YouTube enjoyed--this basic fairness or neutrality--for granted in large part because that is how the Internet has always been. Unfortunately, many Members of the House have twisted this concept and are misleading the American public into believing that the government wants to take over the Internet. That is simply not true. One Member of the House actually got up on the House floor and said this: Over the last 10 years, over $500 billion--billion with a ``b''--of private investment has been made to develop broadband throughout the country. This is without any kind of taxpayer money. He is wrong on that point, but let's put that aside for now. He went on to say: This is private sector money being put into the marketplace to go and create jobs, to go and create the kinds of technologies that allow you to view and use all kinds of apps that are available on these kinds of devices. That was done without net neutrality. They would tell you that they need net neutrality in order to have this innovation. Of course, they fail to point out that net neutrality was not in place when all this innovation happened. Yes, it was; it was in place. That is the whole point. All of this innovation occurred while net neutrality was in place. We are not trying to change anything. We are keeping the Internet the way it has been during this explosion in innovation. Now, my fervent hope is that this Member of Congress was just horribly, egregiously misinformed because not only is his statement untrue, it is the opposite of true. It is 180 degrees opposite of the truth. Please, everyone understand this, I beg you. Net neutrality has been in place since the beginning of the Internet. From the very beginning, during all of that explosive growth, the Internet operated with an understanding that network providers must treat all content the same and must interconnect the pipes they have to customers' homes with the pipes that are owned by other operators. This was a fundamental design principle that was established by academics, engineers, and computer scientists who designed the earliest protocols for Internet traffic. The fact is, the Internet started and grew because everyone realized they needed to cooperate and work together for customers to be able to have access to the content they wanted. They realized that is what consumers needed to create demand for Internet service, and they realized that is what would lead to the most innovation on the Internet. The FCC isn't trying to change that. It has no interest in derailing free enterprise. Quite the contrary. The FCC is interested in protecting the innovators and entrepreneurs who have made the Internet what it is today. Because of the Internet, you no longer need a major studio to like your film or a television show you produce in order to have people see it. You no longer need a major record deal to start distributing your music. You no longer need a high school diploma or a fancy degree to launch a small business and sell your products online. We don't want to change that. We want to preserve that. The FCC's only goal is to make sure the Internet we know and love does not become corrupted and altered by a small number of large corporations controlling the last free and open distribution channel we have in this country. As telecom companies have grown larger and fewer and started owning not just the pipes but also the content, their incentives have changed. They are starting to care more about giving their own content a competitive advantage rather than promoting innovation and competition on the Internet. The fight for net neutrality isn't about changing the Internet, it is about creating a few rules of the road to keep it open and free, to keep it the same, and to continue the innovation and growth that is such a creator of jobs and wealth. The fight for net neutrality is about making sure large corporations are not allowed to put tollbooths on the information superhighway. This fight is about making sure that the Internet stays the way it is--free, open, equal, available to everyone regardless of how much they can pay to get their content. There was a time not so long ago when net neutrality was a bipartisan issue that was not incredibly controversial. Three years ago, Mike Huckabee was talking about the need to keep the Internet a level playing field. In 2006, 11 House Republicans voted in favor of net neutrality on the floor. Rarely do you have the Gun Owners of America and the Christian Coalition joining with moveon.org and the ACLU to advocate for the same policy of nondiscrimination on the Internet. But they all agree on net neutrality. And so do the Catholic bishops. Later today, I will receive 87,000 letters opposing the House's effort to undo the FCC's open Internet rules. These letters came from Americans across the United States, including 2,000 letters from Minnesotans who are worried about this issue. They want the Internet to stay the way it is--open and free from corporate control. I am confident as more Americans realize what is at stake, we will hear from more and more constituents who will ask us to protect them from corporate takeover of the Internet. What is most striking about this issue, which seems to have gotten lost in the rhetoric that my opponents use, is that experts from Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Citibank, Wells Fargo, and Raymond James have all stated they do not believe the FCC's current rules will hurt investment. Citibank has called the rule ``balanced'' and Goldman Sachs said it is ``a framework with a lot of wiggle room'' that is a ``light touch'' by the FCC. Despite this broad and diverse coalition of businesses and interest groups, we are still arguing about something that should have been settled long ago. Why is that? A lot has changed in the last couple of years. Control of the Internet has been placed in the hands of a small number of players. Media consolidation has raised the stakes for certain mega conglomerates which have a lot more to gain in a world without net neutrality. I was last year on the Senate floor talking about net neutrality back in December when the NBC-Comcast merger had not yet been approved by the FCC or the Department of Justice. At the time, I warned this would be the first in a cascade of media consolidation deals. Wouldn't you know it, 2 months later, AT&T announced another record-breaking $39 billion deal with T-Mobile. That merger, which Wall Street applauded, is almost assuredly going to be a raw deal for consumers. If approved, we will have a duopoly in wireless telecommunications in this country. Eighty percent of the wireless space will be controlled by two companies--AT&T and Verizon. I look forward to the hearing next week in the Antitrust Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee so we can further explore the details of this deal. But I think it is fair to say I am very skeptical because it is likely to raise prices and it certainly will reduce choice for consumers. I have always been skeptical of media consolidation because at the end of the day, when corporations have tremendous amounts of power to control prices and cripple competitors to benefit their bottom line, everyone loses. But the impact of media consolidation in telecommunications is about more than just consumer prices. We have always known that large corporations have the power to influence elections. Last year, the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United took a situation that was already terrible and made it worse--much worse. Now AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner, and Comcast can spend unlimited amounts of money to support the candidate or campaign they care most about or try to weaken or kill net neutrality. It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that when a single corporation--in this case AT&T--spends $15.3 million in a single year to influence Congress and has 93 full-time lobbyists on its roster, Congress might churn out legislation that AT&T likes. How can American consumers, stuck with rising cable, Internet, and cell phone bills, ever be expected to counter that type of lobbying power? With media consolidation, we have seen a shift in the net neutrality talking points of Members of Congress who are also receiving large checks from Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast. Yet the irony here is that the open Internet rules passed by the FCC earlier this year are actually pretty weak and riddled with loopholes. Actually, I think that is the ``wiggle room'' to which Goldman Sachs was referring. These rules are, let's be honest, a mediocre compromise drafted to appease a handful of powerful Internet service providers. I was not happy with these rules and thought the FCC should have done more, particularly to cover wireless Internet networks. But it did not. It did not in part because the Commission wanted companies such as AT&T to get on board with its plan, and AT&T did--more or less. AT&T did not think the rules were ideal, but it acknowledged the framework is a compromise that gives its investors certainty. That has not changed how the House is framing its rhetoric about this rule, which is one of the reasons I think the vote last month was a political stunt designed to misinform Americans and appease a small number of very vocal critics. This is not what most Americans, entrepreneurs, or small businesses want. They and I want a world where the future Twitters, eBays, and Amazons of the world can grow and thrive without interference from big, mega conglomerates. Finally, regardless of how one feels about the FCC's rules, I think we can all agree this issue requires thoughtful debate and discussion, not the kind of uninformed rhetoric I quoted earlier from the House debate. By forcing an up-or-down vote through the Congressional Review Act, the House leadership short circuited the normal legislative process and ignored the FCC's work on this issue. The FCC spent months examining this topic and meeting with tons of stakeholders and Internet companies. It carefully considered and compromised on a range of issues that I, frankly, wish they had not budged on. To claim that the FCC engaged in a power grab is unfair and far from the truth. The White House has said the President will veto this resolution, but I will be working hard in the coming months to make sure that we have enough votes to stop this before it reaches the President's desk. We are at a pivotal moment. If we do not act to preserve the FCC's open Internet rules, the Internet as we know it today may cease to exist. I hope my colleagues will recognize this and will join with me in voting down the House's resolution of disapproval. Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, today, I am reintroducing the Dairy Country Of Origin Labeling Act, or Dairy COOL, with Senator Schumer, Senator Gillibrand, Senator Sherrod Brown, and Senator Sanders. Our bill is very straightforward; it simply extends country of origin labeling requirements to dairy products. The current country of origin labeling law, which went into effect in 2008, applies to meats, produce, and nuts, but it doesn't include dairy products. Our bill adds dairy products--including milk, cheese, yogurt, ice cream, and butter-- to the list. This bill is about families. Minnesota families should have the right to know where the food they buy was produced. Consumers have this information for meat and produce; they should have it for the dairy products they feed their families every day. Minnesota dairy farmers and family farmers across the Nation should have the right to distinguish their products from imported products. Hardly a week goes by where you don't hear another story of contaminated food and toys that were imported from foreign countries but only discovered after they were in American homes. Labeling our dairy products lets parents make informed choices at the grocery store. It gives consumers the information they need to be confident about the quality and safety of the food they buy. Farming is a risky business. Prices have stabilized for now, but less than two years ago, high feed prices and unpredictable price swings threatened the viability of family dairies across the country. This bill isn't a silver bullet, but it does give family farms another tool that will help them compete in a crowded marketplace. And it gives consumers the option to purchase milk and cheese from our own family farms. So I urge my colleagues to support this legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, today, I am reintroducing the Dairy Country Of Origin Labeling Act, or Dairy COOL, with Senator Schumer, Senator Gillibrand, Senator Sherrod Brown, and Senator Sanders. Our bill is very straightforward; it simply extends country of origin labeling requirements to dairy products. The current country of origin labeling law, which went into effect in 2008, applies to meats, produce, and nuts, but it doesn't include dairy products. Our bill adds dairy products--including milk, cheese, yogurt, ice cream, and butter-- to the list. This bill is about families. Minnesota families should have the right to know where the food they buy was produced. Consumers have this information for meat and produce; they should have it for the dairy products they feed their families every day. Minnesota dairy farmers and family farmers across the Nation should have the right to distinguish their products from imported products. Hardly a week goes by where you don't hear another story of contaminated food and toys that were imported from foreign countries but only discovered after they were in American homes. Labeling our dairy products lets parents make informed choices at the grocery store. It gives consumers the information they need to be confident about the quality and safety of the food they buy. Farming is a risky business. Prices have stabilized for now, but less than two years ago, high feed prices and unpredictable price swings threatened the viability of family dairies across the country. This bill isn't a silver bullet, but it does give family farms another tool that will help them compete in a crowded marketplace. And it gives consumers the option to purchase milk and cheese from our own family farms. So I urge my colleagues to support this legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FRANKEN

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

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, the Master Teacher Corps Program addresses the recommendations presented in the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology's 2010 K-12 STEM education report and tracks the priorities laid out more than 10 years ago in the Glenn Commission report. Specifically, it would establish an ongoing system to improve the quality of mathematics and science teaching in grades K-12, and it would improve the working environment and make the teaching profession more attractive for K-12 mathematics and science teachers. With the planned reform and reauthorization of No Child Left Behind this year, we have a rare and, indeed, ideal opportunity to implement real change in K-12 STEM education in this country. So let's act now, before it is too late, before the storm has fully gathered, and before that rapidly approaching category 5 hurricane destroys the competitive technological edge and the prosperity our country has worked so hard to build and maintain. I urge my colleagues to join Senators Lieberman, Shaheen, and me in supporting a sustained investment in K-12 STEM teacher quality and in raising the standards of the teaching profession through the STEM Master Teacher Corps Act.

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise to talk about a matter that is very important to our country, to Minnesota, and to me, which is science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education or STEM education for short. As I have traveled around Minnesota, I have heard from many of our high-tech businesses. They fear our students will not be ready to take on the jobs waiting for them when they graduate and, as a result, these jobs will go unfilled and our economy will founder. This is not just true in Minnesota, of course, but across the country--in Pennsylvania, the State of the Presiding Officer, and everywhere in our Nation. That is why I am addressing our need for a well-trained STEM workforce through the STEM Master Teacher Corps Act, which has been cosponsored by my colleagues, Senators Lieberman and Shaheen. We have been hearing concern about the state of STEM education in our country for over a decade now. In 2000, a 25-member commission, headed by former Senator John Glenn, published a report called ``Before It's Too Late,'' which addressed the pressing need for high-quality math and science teaching. Five years later, another report--``Rising Above the Gathering Storm''--presented the findings and recommendations of a National Academies commission, chaired by former Lockheed Martin CEO Norm Augustine, concerning the deteriorating condition of STEM education and basic research. Last year, a followup report, dramatically entitled ``Rapidly Approaching Category 5 Hurricane,'' warned us that the ``gathering storm'' is now threatening to wipe out U.S. leadership in global science and technology if we don't act fast--and said so with good reason. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly every one of the top 30 fastest growing professions requires STEM skills. These include jobs in some of the fields that are most critical to the future of our country--health care, energy, climate change, and national security. Yet too few kids are graduating from high school with the interest or the preparation to successfully pursue STEM degrees in college. Well over half of college students in China and Japan major in STEM fields, compared with only one-third of U.S. students. International standardized tests show that we rank only average or below average in students' math and science performance. The 2009 Program for International Student Assessment placed American 15-year- olds 25th in math and 17th in science out of 34 OECD countries--the developed countries. What is worse is, we are spending more on education per student than any other OECD country in the world, except for Luxembourg. As Congress works to reform No Child Left Behind this year--and the Presiding Officer is working with me on that on the HELP Committee--I urge my colleagues to consider strongly the importance of STEM education and how to spend our limited resources most effectively. President Obama has proposed recruiting and training 100,000 new STEM teachers in the next decade and has requested $100 million to advance this worthy goal. However, many STEM teachers leave the profession within their first few years of teaching, often drawn by far more lucrative salaries elsewhere in science and technology fields. Those talents are valued in the market. So if we are going to invest in recruiting and training new teachers, we also need to invest in retaining and best utilizing those individuals. The STEM Master Teacher Corps Act is based on a proposal brought forth by President Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. It will provide the top K-12 STEM teachers in a participating area with additional professional development, so they can become leaders in their schools and in their communities. Master teachers will mentor their younger or less-effective peers, giving them guidance and inspiring them to stay in teaching. Master teachers will also network with one another, sharing best practices and resources. Together, these measures will improve the quality and the ability of all teachers to impart strong STEM skills and an eagerness to learn and pass it on to their students. Providing career advancement opportunities to effective STEM teachers and support to beginning teachers will help increase retention, so our investments in recruitment and training will have an even greater payoff. In recognition of their excellent work and new leadership responsibilities, it is only fair that these master teachers should be compensated, so my legislation also gives them a salary bump. Our teachers work just as hard as other STEM professionals, and it is time we recognize that and pay them accordingly. According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, the median salary offered to recent college graduates in certain STEM-related fields, including physics, computer science, accounting, and engineering, is $24,000 higher than that offered to a new secondary school teacher and $30,000 higher than that offered to a new elementary school teacher. This legislation has been endorsed by more than 60 national and regional groups, ranging from educational organizations such as the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, the College Board, and Education Minnesota, to business groups such as LifeScience Alley, the BioBusiness Alliance of Minnesota, and the Minnesota High Tech Association. The bill is also supported by rural groups, such as the National Rural Education Association and the Rural School and Community Trust and numerous science and math societies. I am particularly pleased to have the endorsement of two leading national businesses that also happened to be headquartered in my State, Medtronic and 3M. Both of these companies recognize and support the importance of acting now to ensure a well-trained workforce for the future, and they have already shown a proactive interest in supporting and engaging students in STEM activities. I was recently at a first robotics event at the University of Minnesota that was astounding. They had two huge auditoriums of these over-130 teams competing in Minnesota in this robotics competition. So I am very grateful for the support of 3M and of Medtronic. Mr. President, I have a very impressive list of the number of endorsers to the bill, and I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the full list of endorsers.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that floor privileges be granted to Ashley White of my staff for the duration of the consideration of the pending bill, S. 493.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I would also like to take a moment to congratulate the University of Minnesota-Duluth's men's hockey team for capturing their first ever NCAA Division I Championship. The UMD Bulldogs faced off against the Michigan Wolverines in St. Paul this past Saturday and, wow, it was an amazing game. Over 19,000 fans packed the Xcel Energy Center to watch a nail-biter, really, is what it was. Goaltenders Shawn Hunwick of Michigan and UMD's Kenny Reiter kept the game close, neither allowing a goal in the third period and sending the game into overtime. Stuck at 2-2 Bulldog Travis Oleksuk gathered the puck behind the Michigan goal just 3 minutes into the extra period. With the puck on his backhand, Oleksuk slid a pass in front of the net to hard-charging teammate Kyle Schmidt, Hermantown, MN. Kyle, only 10 days removed from hand surgery, buried the puck from just outside the crease. In a moment of pure exuberance, he skated to the half-line and dove onto his back, performing what I believe was a snow angel, as he slid on the ice. It was something to see. It was one of the most thrilling finishes in college hockey history. After 50 long years, Kyle's overtime goal gave the Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs their first ever men's hockey NCAA Championship. In his tenth year at the helm, Coach Scott Sandelin led a tenacious and skilled Bulldog team that dominated on the power play and got timely goaltending throughout the tournament. I would be remiss if I didn't commend the Michigan Wolverines, who played fiercely and deserve congratulations for an excellent final game. I know everyone at the University of Minnesota-Duluth must still have smiles on their face after their victory, and I congratulate the players and coaches and the fans on a triumphant season. I would also be remiss if I didn't say that last year the women's hockey team, the Bulldogs also, won the women's NCAA Division I hockey tournament. So kudos to the University of Minnesota-Duluth and the Bulldogs. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, I rise to talk about the disastrous consequences if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle continue to prioritize politics and posturing over what is best for Americans and our fragile economic recovery. We have 27 hours to convince them that shutting down the government should not be treated as a gimmick, that shutting down the government is a serious matter with serious consequences for almost every American. But before I go into the consequences and their impact on my constituents, I want to take a moment to reflect on how we got here, how we are now in a position where a government shutdown is 27 hours away. One thing is certain: There is a lot of misinformation and confusion out there. A number of my friends on the other side of the aisle have been saying that the Democrats and the President refused or failed to pass appropriations for fiscal year 2011. This is revisionist and confused history. One of my colleagues, a new Member, said today: Why was it that a few months ago, after the election but before the new Congress took over, when the President had both houses of Congress under control of his party, why did he opt not to pass a full budget for fiscal year 2011? The Presiding Officer knows this is just not true. This isn't true. I have been hearing a lot of this. We had appropriations legislation for the entire Federal Government ready to go. Democrats were in support of it. We were prepared to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year. But, remember, it takes 60 votes to pass something like that in the Senate. There were 58 Democrats in the Senate last December, and there were 42 Republicans. So we needed some Republicans to pass a full budget for 2011--not many, but we needed two. We didn't get any. Not a single Republican agreed to support the bill. That is what happened. For a while, we were told that a number of Republicans were going to support it. The bill had been negotiated on a bipartisan basis. But then, by all accounts, arms were twisted, and they were turned against the bill. The minority leader said: I am actively working to defeat it. And he did. He killed it. That is the truth. And my friends on the other side of the aisle celebrated. After they made clear that there would not be enough votes to pass the omnibus bill, my friend from Illinois engaged in a colloquy with Senator McCain, asking: For those who don't understand what just happened, did we just win? Senator McCain responded: I think there is very little doubt. Senator Kirk concluded the colloquy by saying: I congratulate the Senator. We really do owe it in these serious times to engage in debate where we are being honest with the American people. There is little doubt about who opted not to pass a full budget for 2011. It was not the President or the Democrats in the majority; it was my friends on the other side. My friends on the other side protest that they do not want to shut down the government, and then they point the finger at us. Yesterday, there was a rally for the tea party on Capitol Hill. Part of my delegation, Michelle Bachmann, whom I like very much, said: Democrats are trying to make it look like we want to shut the government down. We don't. They are trying to do that. Silence. That same day at the same rally, Mike Pence said to them: It looks like we're going to have to shut down the government. And what did the tea party crowd do? They started chanting: ``Shut it down. Shut it down. Shut it down. Shut it down.'' According to his own account, when Speaker Boehner told Republican colleagues in his caucus that he had taken steps to prepare for a shutdown, ``I got a standing ovation.'' There have been no standing ovations on our side about a prospective shutdown. Come on. We are trying to keep the government working. We desperately want to keep the government working. Republicans are busy fighting ideological battles. For them, this is not about the deficit. It is not about the budget. It is certainly not about jobs. This is about ideology. I was presiding today, and I had the opportunity to hear some of my colleagues talking about the bill the House passed today to fund the troops. We want to fund the troops if there is a shutdown. We do. There was all this sanctimonious talk about how Republicans want the troops to be funded, and the House had passed a bill to fund it. Do you know what was left out? That Steny Hoyer, the minority whip in the House, the Democratic minority whip, had offered a bill to pay the troops if there was a shutdown, a clean bill, nothing attached to it other than that. It was voted down by Republicans in the House. What passed? A bill with a rider on it about abortion. I didn't hear that in all the sanctimonious talk. Let's at least have an honest debate. Really, adding abortion? Look, I know there are people who have very strong, heartfelt feelings, obviously, on abortion on both sides. This is something we have been talking about for decades. Why put it a rider about abortion on legislation to pay for the troops and then go in front of this body and say: Democrats don't want to pay the troops. This can't be about holding a gun to our heads and saying: You have to come down on this side of this issue that people feel so strongly about and have been debating for 40 years. The Republicans in the House talk about the Constitution. They started this session by reading the Constitution. They left out some of the embarrassing parts, that a slave was three-fifths of a person. They left that out. But there are two Houses, and there is a President. But they don't want to compromise. They just want to put a gun to our heads. And it is in the form of abortion and in the form of global warming. Look, 99.6 percent of climate scientists in the world believe there is global warming and it is caused by human beings. The other .4 percent work for coal companies or oil companies or the Heritage Foundation. Then there might be another guy somewhere. Why put a rider on this that is about ideology? This should not be an ideological debate. This is about getting the deficit down and about our economy. We had 216,000 new jobs last month. It is fragile, but we are beginning to come out of this. This is not the time to shut the government down. What it is going to do to people in my State, to seniors--every week, there are hundreds of seniors--how many a day--170 a day applying for Social Security. They are not going to be able to do that, people who just turned 65. There are people who are going to try to get FHA loans and won't be able to. There are farmers who want to put seed in the ground who will not have the Farm Service open. This is not the time to do this. This is going to mean 800,000 Federal employees laid off. What is that going to do to the economy? Look, there are things in this that I don't like, but I am willing to swallow and do it. They want to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in hunger programs, $700-plus million to cut food for women, infants, and children. It has been analyzed, and because of that, the neediest kids will not get their allotted amount of fruits and vegetables that is recommended. And that is not just during the closing; that is what they want to do for the rest of the year and presumably beyond that. At the same time, we were here last December, and they wanted to extend the Bush tax cuts. They insisted on it, not just to your first million dollars or your second million dollars, to your tenth million dollars, to your 13th million dollars, or to your 300th million dollars. The top 400 income earners in this country average over $330 million a year in income. They would rather those women, infants, and children not get food, the food they need to be healthy. I don't like that. Boy, do I not like that. Boy, do I not like that. But I was willing to swallow that for whatever is in the compromise to keep the government going so we could go through the year, so we could keep the economy going, so we continue the job growth we have had. They know how to keep the government going. Take the ideological stuff off. Let's not resolve abortion in 27 hours. We have had more than 27 years--37 years--since Roe v. Wade. Let's not put a gun to everyone's head and say we have to resolve Roe v. Wade in 27 hours. That is just plain inappropriate. I think you know how I feel. I think we know which side gives standing ovations when it is announced the government may very well be shut down. I think we know which side's crowd cheers and chants when they hear there may be a shutdown. I wish it were not that way. I wish we were working together. I hope we are working together. I hope we are working together on Monday. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. Franken pertaining to the submission of S. Res. 133 are located in today's Record under ``Submission of Concurrent and Senate Resolutions.'')

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise to speak on my pay-for-war resolution, which I am submitting today. This resolution would change the way we pay for war spending, and it would change the way we deliberate about going to war. This is not a symbolic resolution. It would return us to the traditional American way of paying for wars, where the Congress and the Nation confront head-on the financial cost, commitment, and sacrifice of going to war. This is something I believe in strongly. It is an issue I have been working on for months. This did not start with Libya, though Libya certainly gives it a new urgency. A number of my friends on both sides of the aisle have expressed concerns about the potential costs of the war in Libya, but this resolution is broader than Libya. It is about how we are going to pay for any wars in the future. The resolution seeks to reestablish a fiscally responsible way of paying for our wars. It is fiscally responsible because it would require that war spending be paid for or offset, as we say in the Senate. It is also morally and politically responsible because it would reestablish the connection between the citizenry of the United States and the cost of going to war--a burden that is now shared solely by the men and women of the military and their families, while the rest is passed on to future generations in the form of debt. Over the last 10 years, our wars have been paid for by borrowing, mostly from China and other countries willing to finance our debt, and by giant emergency spending bills. That is unusual in American history and, frankly, my resolution is aimed at making sure it stays unusual. Iraq and Afghanistan have cost us well over $1 trillion. In fact, the Congressional Research Service's most recent estimate is that, including this fiscal year, Congress will have approved $1 \1/4\ trillion for Iraq and Afghanistan--$806 billion for Iraq and $444 billion for Afghanistan. That is a staggering sum of money, and it has been financed through debt, through borrowing from other countries, and emergency supplemental spending bills which go on our debt. What is more, the Iraq war was accompanied by a massive tax cut. That failed fiscal experiment created the impression that going to war requires no financial sacrifice. We know that is not true. The question is, Who will bear the financial sacrifice, the generation that has decided to go to war or its children and grandchildren? The Iraq and Afghanistan wars drove up our deficit. They didn't single-handedly create our deficit problem, but they made it much worse. If we are going to fix our deficit problem, rejecting how we finance those wars must be part of the solution. We have to ensure that the manner of funding--by borrowing--the Iraq and Afghanistan wars remains an anomaly in American history. That is exactly what my resolution seeks to do. It will ensure that future wars don't make our deficit and debt problem worse. It will ensure that Congress and the American people face the financial sacrifice of going to war, and it will force us to decide whether a war is worth that sacrifice. A huge gap has grown between the majority of the American people and the small proportion who serve in the military. So much sacrifice has been asked of them and their families, yet so little of the rest of us. My resolution will reconnect those who serve and our larger society. The Obama administration is taking an important step in seeking to reduce reliance on emergency spending bills and, instead, budget for war through the regular budget process. They have included an overseas contingency operations account over and above the budget for the day- to-day operations of the Defense Department. That account is where we now find our war funding. But the improvements the Obama administration has made are not enough. The momentous decision to go to war deserves a way of paying for those wars that matches the seriousness of that decision. Overseas contingency operations should be paid for. Thus, my resolution simply says that if there is a new overseas contingency operation requiring new funding beyond the Defense base budget, that funding must be offset. It does not specify how that offset is to be found, leaving it up to Congress to decide. Different people have different ideas. Some may propose spending cuts, others may propose revenue increases or a combination of the two. But the bottom line is, Congress must find a way to pay for the cost of new wars we decide to undertake. More specifically, this pay-for-war resolution creates a point of order so any Senator can object to a legislative proposal that allows for spending on new overseas contingency operations that is not deficit neutral. But it has some flexibilities. First, it allows the cost for war in a given year to be offset over 10 years. Because of how the budgeting process works now, spending cuts must be found in the same year of funding as the war spending. But if there is any offset on the revenue side, it can be spread out over 10 years. My resolution also allows the offset requirement to be overridden by a vote of 60 Senators. So if three-fifths of us deem it important enough to spend on an overseas contingency operation without paying for it ourselves, that can happen. I believe this fully addresses any concern people might have about unduly tying the hands of the President or of the Congress, for that matter. If there were a genuine emergency that required immediate military response in the short term, and that could not be covered by the base defense budget, my resolution would not tie our hands. Any true emergency would certainly motivate enough of us to vote to waive the point of order. Similarly, if at a particular time our economic circumstances make it especially ill-advised to offset the spending on a war, we would be able to waive or override the offset requirement with 60 votes here in the Senate. Let me talk briefly about how this resolution handles Iraq and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, we are where we are on Iraq and Afghanistan. This resolution is not meant to drive policy on those wars. It is forward looking. Earlier I mentioned the Obama administration's praiseworthy effort to reduce reliance on emergency supplemental spending bills. My resolution would strengthen that effort by exempting the spending on those wars from this offset requirement but only up to the amount of the President's regular budget request. Anything above that cap would be subject to the offset requirement. For example, for fiscal year 2012 the President requested $118 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan. Any costs over and above that request would need to be offset. That number should go down as we draw down from Iraq and Afghanistan. This idea is derived, by the way, from a recommendation of the President's fiscal commission. The idea that we should pay for our wars is not a Democratic idea. It is not a Republican idea. It is not left or right, it is not antiwar, it is not pro-war--it is common sense. That is why my resolution has garnered expressions of support from a diverse range of organizations and defense and budget experts. It is supported by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, by the Bipartisan Policy Center, and by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Noted fiscal hawk David Walker, the former Comptroller General of the United States, has expressed his support. So has Maya MacGuineas of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. A number of experts have stated the rationale for the bill very powerfully. Here is what Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution said: Senator Franken's proposal is serious and smart. It seeks to remedy a major problem of the last decade--fighting wars while not asking the broader nation for sacrifice and commitment and meanwhile racking up Federal debt in a way that endangers the economic progress of future generations. Here is what William Niskanen and Ben Friedman of the Cato Institute said: Democracies cannot accurately evaluate policies with hidden costs. Deficit financing sends war bills to future taxpayers. That limits the extent to which voters and their Representatives weigh the wars' costs against other priorities. The effect is to make war feel cheaper than it is. Here is what Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research said: The vast majority of people in the country have no direct connection to the people serving in the military. If we think that a situation requires the men and women in our military to risk their own lives, then the rest of us should at least be willing to pay for the costs of this adventure with our tax dollars. My resolution makes budgetary sense and it makes moral and political sense. That is why I am confident my resolution will garner the support of my colleagues and of the American people. I think Americans understand that the way we have gone about paying for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan--by borrowing and putting the financial burden on later generations instead of taking it on ourselves--is not good budgeting and, frankly, it is not good decisionmaking about war. Right now we are hiding the costs of war by shifting their financial burden to future generations and we are refusing to consider the real sacrifices that war requires of a nation--not just the members of the military. That has to change. We need to start paying for war and it needs to be part of the larger conversation about how we address our Nation's deficit and debt.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I wish to tell you about a teenager whom I think you know about--Justin Aaberg--from our home State of Minnesota. Yesterday should have been Justin's 16th birthday. Justin was a kind young man, friendly and cheerful, a budding composer, but he was also the target for bullies at his high school, who targeted him because he was different--because he was gay. I never had the opportunity to meet Justin. His family lost him to suicide last summer. The Presiding Officer knows that. But you and I have been privileged to meet his mother Tammy. I have been privileged to meet her a few times. She is incredible. She has been speaking out to protect other kids. Because, unfortunately, there are a lot of other kids out there struggling to get through school as they suffer from bullying and harassment and discrimination at their public schools. Nine out of ten LGBT students are harassed or bullied or taunted in school. This harassment deprives them of an equal education. They are more likely to skip school, they are less likely to perform well academically, and they are more likely to drop out before they graduate from high school. In some tragic cases, such as Justin's, the harassment of LGBT students can even lead to suicide. We have seen this in all too many cases all over the country, because, sadly, this problem is so much broader than Justin. More than a third--more than a third--of lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth have made a suicide attempt. More than a third. That is horrifying beyond belief to me. We are failing these kids. That is why I, along with 29 of my Senate colleagues, including the Presiding Officer, have reintroduced the Student Nondiscrimination Act today. While Federal civil rights laws prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, disability, and national origin, they do not expressly cover sexual origin or gender identity. As a result, parents of LGBT students have limited legal recourse when schools fail to protect their children from harassment and bullying. You might be wondering why I am mentioning bullying and discrimination in the same breath. It is simple: When a school acts to protect kids with disabilities from bullying but looks the other way when LGBT kids are harassed by their peers, that is discrimination. When school staff members participate in or encourage bullying of LGBT youth, that is discrimination. When a principal excuses a bully who torments an LGBT kid with ``boys will be boys,'' this is discrimination and needs to stop. It needs to stop before more kids are hurt. The Student Nondiscrimination Act would prohibit discrimination and harassment in public schools based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It would give LGBT students similar civil rights protections against bullying and harassment as those that currently apply to students based on characteristics such as race and gender. This legislation would also provide meaningful remedies for discrimination in public schools based on sexual orientation or gender identity, modeled on Title IX's protection against discrimination and harassment based on gender. Fifty years of civil rights history shows that similar laws that contain such remedies are often most effective in preventing discrimination from occurring in the first place. Like other civil rights laws, the one we introduce today would prompt schools to avoid liability by taking proactive steps to prevent the discrimination and bullying of students protected by the bill. I guarantee you that when this bill is passed, nearly every school district in this country is going to go to its lawyer and ask, ``How do we come into compliance?'' I guarantee you that the U.S. Department of Education will issue regulations, as it has under Title IX, so that schools have guidance in how to protect these kids. The goal isn't for any school to be sued for failing to protect kids from bullying and harassment. The goal isn't for any school to come under Department of Education scrutiny. The goal is for schools to do all they can to ensure these incidents never happen in the first place. Parents in Minnesota and across the country entrust their children to public schools with the understanding that these schools will do everything in their power to keep their children safe. When 9 in 10 LGBT kids are bullied at school, when they are three times more likely than straight kids to feel unsafe at school, when one third of LGBT kids say they have skipped a day of school in the last month because of feeling unsafe, then we know that our public education system is not fulfilling its most basic obligation to parents to keep children safe. We have an obligation to do something about it. Yesterday, Justin Aaberg from Minnesota should have celebrated his 16th birthday with family and friends. But instead, I know that his family and friends were missing him terribly--are still missing him terribly. No child should have to go through the pain that Justin went through at school. No mom or dad should have to go through the heartbreaking pain that Justin's family has gone through. It is time. It is time that we extend equal rights to LGBT students. We have the opportunity now, as we reform No Child Left Behind--the ESEA, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act--to include this legislation. Our children cannot afford for us to squander this opportunity. I urge my colleagues to join me today in supporting the Student Non-Discrimination Act and demanding protection for all of our children under the law. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. Franken pertaining to the introduction of S. 555 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. FRANKEN. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I wish to tell you about a teenager whom I think you know about--Justin Aaberg--from our home State of Minnesota. Yesterday should have been Justin's 16th birthday. Justin was a kind young man, friendly and cheerful, a budding composer, but he was also the target for bullies at his high school, who targeted him because he was different--because he was gay. I never had the opportunity to meet Justin. His family lost him to suicide last summer. The Presiding Officer knows that. But you and I have been privileged to meet his mother Tammy. I have been privileged to meet her a few times. She is incredible. She has been speaking out to protect other kids. Because, unfortunately, there are a lot of other kids out there struggling to get through school as they suffer from bullying and harassment and discrimination at their public schools. Nine out of ten LGBT students are harassed or bullied or taunted in school. This harassment deprives them of an equal education. They are more likely to skip school, they are less likely to perform well academically, and they are more likely to drop out before they graduate from high school. In some tragic cases, such as Justin's, the harassment of LGBT students can even lead to suicide. We have seen this in all too many cases all over the country, because, sadly, this problem is so much broader than Justin. More than a third--more than a third--of lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth have made a suicide attempt. More than a third. That is horrifying beyond belief to me. We are failing these kids. That is why I, along with 29 of my Senate colleagues, including the Presiding Officer, have reintroduced the Student Nondiscrimination Act today. While Federal civil rights laws prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, disability, and national origin, they do not expressly cover sexual origin or gender identity. As a result, parents of LGBT students have limited legal recourse when schools fail to protect their children from harassment and bullying. You might be wondering why I am mentioning bullying and discrimination in the same breath. It is simple: When a school acts to protect kids with disabilities from bullying but looks the other way when LGBT kids are harassed by their peers, that is discrimination. When school staff members participate in or encourage bullying of LGBT youth, that is discrimination. When a principal excuses a bully who torments an LGBT kid with ``boys will be boys,'' this is discrimination and needs to stop. It needs to stop before more kids are hurt. The Student Nondiscrimination Act would prohibit discrimination and harassment in public schools based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It would give LGBT students similar civil rights protections against bullying and harassment as those that currently apply to students based on characteristics such as race and gender. This legislation would also provide meaningful remedies for discrimination in public schools based on sexual orientation or gender identity, modeled on Title IX's protection against discrimination and harassment based on gender. Fifty years of civil rights history shows that similar laws that contain such remedies are often most effective in preventing discrimination from occurring in the first place. Like other civil rights laws, the one we introduce today would prompt schools to avoid liability by taking proactive steps to prevent the discrimination and bullying of students protected by the bill. I guarantee you that when this bill is passed, nearly every school district in this country is going to go to its lawyer and ask, ``How do we come into compliance?'' I guarantee you that the U.S. Department of Education will issue regulations, as it has under Title IX, so that schools have guidance in how to protect these kids. The goal isn't for any school to be sued for failing to protect kids from bullying and harassment. The goal isn't for any school to come under Department of Education scrutiny. The goal is for schools to do all they can to ensure these incidents never happen in the first place. Parents in Minnesota and across the country entrust their children to public schools with the understanding that these schools will do everything in their power to keep their children safe. When 9 in 10 LGBT kids are bullied at school, when they are three times more likely than straight kids to feel unsafe at school, when one third of LGBT kids say they have skipped a day of school in the last month because of feeling unsafe, then we know that our public education system is not fulfilling its most basic obligation to parents to keep children safe. We have an obligation to do something about it. Yesterday, Justin Aaberg from Minnesota should have celebrated his 16th birthday with family and friends. But instead, I know that his family and friends were missing him terribly--are still missing him terribly. No child should have to go through the pain that Justin went through at school. No mom or dad should have to go through the heartbreaking pain that Justin's family has gone through. It is time. It is time that we extend equal rights to LGBT students. We have the opportunity now, as we reform No Child Left Behind--the ESEA, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act--to include this legislation. Our children cannot afford for us to squander this opportunity. I urge my colleagues to join me today in supporting the Student Non-Discrimination Act and demanding protection for all of our children under the law. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FRANKEN

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

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about H.R. 1, the House bill we just voted down and which I will continue to oppose until major changes are made. With apologies to Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, I would like to talk about Willy Sutton for a second. While we should not normally take fiscal lessons from criminals, Willy Sutton had it right. He said he robbed banks because ``that's where the money is.'' Of course, he didn't target places with only petty cash. What is the point of robbing a school or a homeless shelter? There is no money there. But that is exactly what H.R. 1 seeks to do. Instead of tackling our deficits by going after the bank, it is targeting our most vulnerable. Domestic nonsecurity discretionary spending makes up only 12 percent of our budget. We cannot balance the budget with only 12 percent of the budget on the table. We need to be looking at the big picture. We need to be focusing on the bank, where the money is. In President Obama's State of the Union Address he said in order to get back on track, to build prosperity, we need to out-educate, out- build, and out-innovate the rest of the world. Ask any small business owner and they will agree that though sometimes they have to trim overhead, they have to also make smart target investments for their business to grow. So why does H.R. 1 do exactly the opposite? The President calls for education funding that supports afterschool programs from Bemidji to Worthington. Yet H.R. 1 cuts $100 million. In Minnesota, H.R. 1 would effectively eliminate afterschool programs for nearly 2,000 kids. H.R. 1 also cuts job training programs, virtually zeroing out the first title in WIA, even when 3,000 Minnesotans are on waiting lists to get training for jobs that are going unfilled. I talked to businesses all over Minnesota and they need trained workers. They support the Workforce Investment Act. The President calls for infrastructure. Yet H.R. 1 cuts surface transportation projects across the country, including nearly $8 million for a new railroad crossing in Staples and $250,000 for the St. Paul Complete Streets Plan. The Department of Transportation estimates that H.R. 1 would effectively cancel 75 projects in 40 States across the country and put more than 30,000 jobs at risk nationwide. The President calls for innovation. Yet H.R. 1 cuts $2.5 billion in lifesaving biomedical and health research at the National Institutes of Health and National Cancer Institute. The United States and my home State of Minnesota have been the world leaders in innovative biomedical research. Under H.R. 1, the United States will be forced to detour from our path toward breaking biomedical frontiers. I think we can agree we must not be penny-wise and pound-foolish when it comes to investing in our Nation's future. H.R. 1 does exactly the opposite of what our country should be doing during an economic recovery. H.R. 1 does not target Willy Sutton's bank, it goes after schools and roads and cancer research. I have a few ideas for targeting the bank where the money is. Let's start with big oil and gas. Over the past decade, the past 10 years, just the five largest oil and gas companies have made $1 trillion in profit--not revenues, profit; $1 trillion in profit. Yet we are giving them tax subsidies that have been in place since as far back as 1916. Eliminating these wasteful subsidies will bring in about $64 billion over 10 years. Let's do that. Another bank: Waste and fraud in the health care system. Provisions in the health reform law reduce waste. The value index that I and others pushed for in the health care reform bill is going to ensure that we reward value, not volume, in Medicare. In Texas, for example, Medicare reimbursements are about 50 percent higher per patient than they are in Minnesota. Yet in Minnesota we have better outcomes. Why? Because we deliver higher value health care at a much lower cost. Imagine how many tens of billions or hundreds of billions of dollars we could save if every State delivered health care like Minnesota does, like my State does. Also, in Medicare the government pays too much for Medicare prescription drugs. Because Medicare represents so many people, it could negotiate prices directly with the drug companies and deliver the same benefits for seniors at a lower cost. The VA already does this. This simple change could save taxpayers up to $24 billion a year or $240 billion over 10 years. This is where the money is. I am not the first to point out there is waste in health care, but we can do something about it. Guess what. H.R. 1 would cut $250 million from health care fraud and abuse control. Another bank is the Department of Defense. We all agree we cannot skimp on national security, believe me. When our troops are at war, two wars, we can do nothing to skimp on their safety, their security, their readiness, their ability to fight these wars, or on them when they come back from the war. H.R. 1 makes cuts to programs for homeless vets. We do not want to skimp on national security, but when the military says it doesn't need or want something, we should listen. When it says it doesn't need the F-35 alternate engine, the Marine Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, or the Non-Line of Site Launch System, we should not buy them. This could save billions of dollars. Then, of course, there is revenue. H.R. 1 does nothing to shore up revenue at a time when we still have our troops overseas engaged in combat. We have always paid for our wars before. This time we passed huge tax cuts for the wealthy, and just a couple of months ago my colleagues on the other side of the aisle insisted on extending these tax breaks on income over $1 million. We had a vote on this. It was not enough to extend the tax breaks on the first million or the second million or the third million or the tenth million or the twentieth million or the fiftieth million or the hundredth million. Ending the tax breaks for millionaires could have brought in around $35 to $40 billion every year. On the back of the envelope, that is $350 to $400 billion over 10 years--I added a zero. The President has stated this was only a temporary extension, and I plan to hold him to that. If we are going to be talking about making shared sacrifices and cutting homeless vets and cutting Head Start, let's make sure those shared sacrifices are really shared. All these ideas need to be on the table, not just 12 percent of our entire budget. If we are at all serious about reforming our budget, and I am talking about serious about this, it has to include the bank. We have to go where the money is. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FRANKEN

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