Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, tomorrow we celebrate the 23rd anniversary of the signing of the Americans With Disabilities Act, the ADA. This landmark civil rights legislation will always be the highlight of my almost 40 years here in the Congress. The Americans With Disabilities Act is one of the landmark civil rights laws of the 20th century; as someone once said, a long overdue emancipation proclamation for people with disabilities. The ADA has played a huge role in making our country more accessible, in raising expectations of people with disabilities about what they can achieve at work and in life, and inspiring the world to view disability issues through the lenses of equality and opportunity. In these times, it is valuable to remember passage of the original Americans With Disabilities Act was a robustly bipartisan effort. As the chief sponsor of the ADA here in the Senate, and as the chair of the Disability Policy Subcommittee at that time, I worked very closely with both Republicans and Democrats. At that time Senator Robert Dole was the minority leader of the Senate, and we received invaluable support from President George Herbert Walker Bush. Key members of his administration, such as White House Counsel Boyden Gray, worked so hard on this, as did Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, who was magnificent in his support for the Americans With Disabilities Act. Transportation Secretary Sam Skinner and other Members of Congress also played critical roles in passing the ADA. First and foremost among those, I would have to say, was Senator Ted Kennedy, who was chair of the full committee at the time and who allowed me to take the bill through as the chair of the Disability Policy Subcommittee. Senator Orrin Hatch played a key role at times, making sure we got the conservatives on the same page. Representatives Tony Coelho, Steny Hoyer, Major Owens, Steve Bartlett, and I might also mention someone who is not mentioned a lot, because he was not here in the Senate at the time we passed it, but who put in a lot of his life's work and who was chairman of that subcommittee before I took it over, Senator Lowell Weicker from Connecticut. As a matter of fact, he was the first sponsor of a comprehensive disability policy bill here in the Senate. So he became a great supporter, a great personal friend of mine through all these years, and Lowell Weicker deserves a lot of credit for actually getting us focused on the issue of a comprehensive civil rights bill addressing the issue of disability. Before the ADA, life was very different for folks with disabilities in Iowa and across the country. Being an American with a disability meant you couldn't ride on a bus because there was no lift, not being able to attend a concert or a ballgame or a movie with your family or your friends or loved ones because there was no accessible seating, not even being able to cross the street in a wheelchair because there were no curb cuts. In short, being disabled in America before the ADA meant not being able to work or participate in community life. Discrimination was both commonplace and accepted. Since then, we have seen amazing progress. The ADA literally transformed the American landscape by requiring architectural and communications barriers be removed and replaced with accessible features such as ramps, lifts, curb cuts, widened doorways, and--for anyone who is watching this on C-SPAN and put on the mute button--you get closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing. More importantly, the ADA gave millions of Americans the opportunity to participate in their communities. We have made substantial progress in advancing the four goals of the ADA: equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency--the four pillars of the ADA. But I stand here today to remind my colleagues that we have not yet kept the promise we made 23 years ago with strong bipartisan support. We still have too many Americans with disabilities living in poverty, oftentimes in isolation and without control over the supports and services in their lives. For example, last week in my role as the chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, we concluded an investigation and issued a final report on the state of the implementation of the part of the ADA that provides for people to be able to live and receive services in integrated settings, and prohibits people from being unnecessarily separated and isolated from their family and friends and put in institutions or other segregated settings. What we found is disturbing. Twenty-three years after the 1999 Olmstead case decision by the Supreme Court, we found that more than 200,000 working-age Americans with disabilities--many in their late teens and early twenties--remain trapped in nursing homes and institutions, separated from their families and communities against their wishes--despite the 1999 Supreme Court decision in Olmstead v. LC that people with disabilities have the right to be integrated in the community. Our committee investigators found that only 12 States devote more than half of their Medicaid long-term care dollars to home and community-based services. The number of working-age adults in nursing homes has actually increased by more than 30,000 over the last 5 years. It is shameful. Unfortunately, many States continue to approach community living for people with disabilities as a social welfare issue and not as a civil rights issue. This is a failure of vision on the part of many State leaders. So how can we correct this injustice? Well, we need to clarify that under the ADA, every individual who is eligible for long-term services and supports has a federally protected right to a real choice--their choice--in where they receive these services and supports, whether in an institution or in a community. What that also means is, at long last, Congress needs to end the institutional bias in the Medicaid system. Right now, under Medicaid, States are required to pay for long-term services and supports if you are in a nursing home. But if you want to receive those supports and services in an integrated community-based setting, Medicaid has the option of covering you. That is the institutional bias that exists in Medicaid: They have to pay for you if you are in a nursing home, and they don't have to pay for supports and services if you are in a community or integrated setting. As long as it remains that way, the deck will continue to be stacked in favor of costly institutional settings. We know from our investigations that home-based, community- based integrated settings with support services for people with disabilities is more cost effective than putting people in an institution or a nursing home--not to mention the quality of life, and the fact that so many people with disabilities want to be in an integrated community setting and do not want to be housed in a nursing home. In my remaining 17 months that I have as a Senator here in the Senate, I plan to hold hearings and introduce legislation that will accelerate the rate at which States move their long-term services and supports in the direction of home and community-based settings. Another area where our work is incomplete is making sure people with disabilities take their rightful place in the American workforce. Twenty-three years after the passage of the ADA, it is shameful that two out of every three adults with a disability are not even in the workforce, not working. That is shameful. We may say, Well, the unemployment rate in America is now 8 or 9 percent. Think about if you are a disabled adult; it is 60 percent or more who are unemployed. Next week in the HELP Committee, we will mark up the Workforce Investment Act, a critical law that has not been reauthorized since 1998. The workforce has changed a lot since 1998, and a lot of the ADA generation have come of age during that period of time. So in the bipartisan draft Senators Alexander, Murray, Isakson, and I filed with the committee yesterday, we include provisions that will improve how the vocational rehabilitation system partners with schools to deliver services that will result in more young people doing internships, part- time jobs, in competitive settings. The aim is to maximize the likelihood that young people with disabilities will leave school college and career ready-- people such as Lily Siegel, who was my intern this summer from the American Association of People with Disabilities. They provide summer internships. Lily, and so many like her, have high expectations for themselves. They want to be challenged. They want to work in competitive, integrated employment. They don't want to be shunted into subminimum wage jobs with no future, no chance for advancement, no chance for challenging themselves to do better and to do more and to take more responsibility. We owe it to them to do everything in our power to help them transition to the kinds of jobs and higher education experiences that will help them build a career and maximize their economic self-sufficiency. I can tell you from my work in this area that this generation of young people who have come of age under the umbrella of the ADA, who were born in 1990 through 1995, has been integrated into their schools. They weren't segregated as my brother was and sent halfway across the State to a State institution. They have higher expectations. They have had accessibility. They see what society has done to make sure that they can travel, they can go out with their friends and their family, they can go to school in integrated settings, they can get jobs and, under the ADA, employers have to provide reasonable accommodations for that job. They don't deserve now to be frustrated by not having the opportunity to get that competitive integrated employment. That is what we are doing in the Workforce Investment Act, to provide for young people in high school who have disabilities, to let them know they expect more of themselves, and we do too. No longer will it be acceptable for them to leave school and go into some minimum wage covered employment where they are warehoused for the rest of their lives. They want to get out there and show what they can do. That is why we are changing the Workforce Investment Act, changing voc rehab to focus on getting these young people internships, job shadowing, mentoring, so they know what their abilities are and what they can expect to do once they leave school. When we passed the ADA, so many people came here from other countries--legislators, parliamentarians--how can we now do this? How can we get our laws changed? About 11 years ago, the United Nations set up a committee to look at this. Out of this came the U.N. Convention on the Rights of People With Disabilities, the CRPD. That treaty was sent to our President, and under our system the President sends it out to all his Departments in the executive branch to report back, what things do they need to do to change to conform to the treaty? In other words, if the treaty is the supreme law of the land, what laws do we have to change in order to comply with that treaty? Guess what. After about a whole year of circulating through all of our Departments of Justice, Labor, HHS, Agriculture, and everything else, it came back: We don't have to change one law because we are the best in the world when it comes to the civil rights protection of people with disabilities. So last year, under the guidance of then-Senator John Kerry, who is now our Secretary of State, it went to the Foreign Relations Committee. They had hearings. Senator McCain and I were the two leadoff witnesses. We brought that treaty to the floor of the Senate in December, fully expecting it would pass. Under the Constitution of the United States, it requires a two-thirds vote to approve the treaty and we thought we had the votes. We brought it on the floor. We fell 6 votes short of the 67 votes we need. We had a number of Republicans and Democrats on the bill. Why did it fail? Right before we brought it up, former Senator Rick Santorum and others began to talk about how this was going to prevent people from homeschooling their kids. I thought I knew the treaty. I had read it. I had looked at it. I thought, Did I miss something? Is there something in there I didn't find? I went back to my staff and said, Comb through this. I got ahold of people at the U.N. and said, What is in there that would prevent people from homeschooling their kids? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. That charge was made out of whole cloth somehow, but at that time in my office calls ran 50-1 against adopting the treaty on that issue. So people were misinformed because of a few people like Mr. Santorum and others who decided to whip this up--for whatever reason, I don't know. There were also a lot of comments made on the Senate floor by my Republican colleagues at that time that we shouldn't be adopting a treaty in a lameduck session, even though we pointed out that many treaties in the past had been adopted in lameduck sessions. I review that history to tell my colleagues that under now the leadership of Senator Bob Menendez, who is the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee--and I might add that the person who succeeded Senator Kerry in his position in the Senate, the present occupant of the chair, is also on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee--there are going to be some more hearings. Under the leadership of Senator Menendez, we intend to bring that back to the floor this fall. We need to get the 67 votes. People ask: Why is that so important? It is important for the United States to take leadership on this issue around the globe. Over 100 nations have already signed the treaty. They are looking to us for leadership. I have talked to some of my colleagues and they say: Why do we need to join that? We are OK. We are doing just fine. We are doing just fine with disability law in our country. We do not need to join this convention, sign this treaty. It seems to me that is an inherently selfish way of looking at who we are and what we are about as a nation. We have provided, I think to the world, guidance and direction on disability issues. If we are a part of the Convention, we get a seat at the table. When countries come and say we want to conform our laws, we want to make sure we meet the guidelines of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, this commission that is set up will be there to both guide and direct countries but also to see whether they are fulfilling their obligations. If we are not a signatory to the treaty, we are not at the table. There is another reason we should sign this Convention. I just spoke to a group of people yesterday, people with disabilities, and I said: There are a lot of people in this country who use a wheelchair. Guess what. They would like to travel overseas. They would like to go with their friends and their family. But in many of these countries they do not have curb cuts. They do not have lifts. They do not have accessibility for people with disabilities. Shouldn't people with disabilities in this country have the same right to travel and enjoy foreign travel as anybody else? If we are a signatory to the treaty, then we can work with those countries to help change their laws, change their structures. I cannot tell you how many veterans I have talked to, people who have come back from Iraq and Afghanistan disabled, and do you know what they say. They want us to join the treaty too because they want to travel overseas, and they feel constricted because they will not have accessibility in other countries. For the life of me I cannot understand why people are not supporting this treaty. I do not get it. I just don't get it. It is supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It is supported by every veterans group in this country. It is supported by, I think, every faith-based group in this country. It is supported by everyone in the disability community. It is supported by every former living President, from the two Bushes to Clinton, to Carter. It has broad-based support. You would think with that kind of support it would be a no-brainer to pass it in the Senate. We are going to bring it up again this fall. I am hopeful we can do it. No one worked harder on a lot of these issues than Senator Bob Dole. We just had his 90th birthday party Tuesday in Statuary Hall. It was quite an event. So we fell just six votes short. I look forward to working with Senators Menendez, McCain, Ayotte, Barrasso, Durbin, Udall, and Coons to bring the treaty back to the floor and get the additional votes needed for it to pass. I tell you, people with disabilities, their family members, supporters, the business community, the veterans community, faith-based and civil rights groups are mobilizing for this. They do not want to take another chance that this will not pass. I urge my colleagues to take the time to look at the facts related to the disability treaty. It requires no changes in U.S. law. It has no budget impact. As I said, when we become a party to the Convention, we have a seat at the table with the rest of the world. We will be well positioned to accelerate progress for the 1 billion people with disabilities around the world. It is our chance to be that shining city on the hill for the rest of the world. I might also add this is supported by the high-tech business community in America because their global leadership position on accessible products and services can be used by the rest of the world. For all those reasons, we need to pass it. Let me just close with this one last thought. Again, I am struck by the fact that these days we are surrounded, as I said earlier, with a new generation of young adults with disabilities who grew up since passage of the ADA, including a number of wounded warriors back from Iraq and Afghanistan. I call these younger people the ADA generation. They see disability as a natural part of human diversity. They reject the prejudices and stereotypes of earlier generations. I can tell you this, they have high expectations for themselves. They want to be challenged and they want to challenge us to make sure our society is open and they have the opportunity to go as far as their talents can take them. We cannot let these people down. If we passed the ADA, now we have to take steps to make sure it is not just a promise, but it is a promise we are keeping and that we will keep. We in the Senate have a responsibility to keep fighting to ensure that they have an equal opportunity to be independent, fully integrated, fully self-sufficient. That, at the heart, is what the Americans with Disabilities Act is all about. Twenty-three years later, we can look at it and say, without doubt, it truly is America at its very best. I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, this week Americans are celebrating the 23rd anniversary of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act. As chief Senate sponsor of that legislation, I know that we could not have prevailed without the tireless, passionate, never-give-up advocacy of disability rights advocates and leaders across America. One of those outstanding leaders, Michael Winter, cannot be with us to celebrate this year's anniversary. He passed away earlier this month. But I would like to take a few minutes today to celebrate the life of this wonderful person. Michael was born with a disability, and grew up in Chicago at a far less enlightened time, when students and other young people with disabilities were excluded from the mainstream. Michael used a wheelchair, but he was not the kind of person to take discrimination sitting down. At an early age, he began to speak up. He discovered the power of advocacy. He was determined to change the world for people with disabilities. In 1969, Michael was enrolled in Southern Illinois University. Because the school president's wife used a wheelchair, the SIU had made a commitment 15 years earlier to become one of the first accessible colleges in the United States. But Michael was not satisfied. He believed that the university needed to be more inclusive for students with disabilities. So Michael and other students with disabilities took over the university president's office and chained a wheelchair to his desk. They did so to drive home the point that the campus needed to have accessible transportation for people with disabilities. The university, to its great credit, made improvements, and Michael had found a special focus for his advocacy. His passionate and highly effective advocacy for accessible transportation became a constant throughout his life. In addition, Michael was one of the early leaders in the Independent Living movement. In 1977, after college and attending graduate school, he went to the fledgling Berkeley Center for Independent Living, where he completed an internship with Judy Heumann. He ended up staying on as a staff member for another 4 years. He then directed a Center for Independent Living in Hawaii before returning to the Berkeley as director of the Center for Independent Living for 12 years. During that period, Michael also served as president of the National Council on Independent Living. As I said, Michael's special passion was to advocate for more accessible transportation. Later in his career, he held various positions at the U.S. Department of Transportation, and was responsible for helping enforce civil rights with respect to transportation under the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act, the Civil Rights Act, and other laws. He also advocated for more accessible transportation internationally. Marca Bristo, CEO of Access Living in Chicago, recently shared a memory of Michael Winter, whom she considered a mentor on independent living. She wrote: I'll never forget being in Seoul riding the most accessible subway I've ever been on with my son. Later I asked my host from Rehabilitation International, Dr. Il Yung Lee, how did it happen? He said: ``The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Michael Winter.'' Many Americans got to know Michael in Eric Neudel's award-winning documentary, ``Lives Worth Living,'' which chronicled the rise of the disability rights movement in the United States. The documentary recounts the historic day in 1990 when hundreds of disability rights advocates crawled and climbed up the steps of the Capitol Building in Washington to protest the slow progress in passing the Americans with Disabilities Act. One person who was there recalled the scene as follows: A young girl with cerebral palsy, fiercely determined to reach the top (``I'll take all NIGHT if I have to!''), inspired the admittedly out-of-shape Michael Winter to follow close behind. When the activists gathered en masse in the Capitol rotunda, Winter was approached by a young, able- bodied woman who was excited by the crowd. Turns out she was a tour guide, expecting to host a group of ``handicapped'' people on a tour through the capitol. ``I have to tell you something,'' Winter wryly informed her. ``I don't think these people are here for a tour.'' Hundreds of disability rights activists are in Washington this week to celebrate the 23rd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. We also celebrate the contributions of leaders like Michael Winter, who are responsible for America's remarkable progress toward fulfilling the four great goals of the ADA--equal opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency. Despite this progress, we know that our journey is far from finished. We have not yet achieved the full promise of the ADA. But we go forward inspired by the memory and example of Michael Winter and other outstanding leaders in this movement. Thank you, Michael Winter, for a job well done. Thank you for helping us to create a better, fairer, more inclusive and accessible world for people with disabilities.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the consideration of H.R. 1911, as provided under the previous order.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, we are now on the student loan bill, so to speak. There is going to be a few hours of debate on the bill itself--actually 3 hours. As I understand it, there will be three amendments in order under the rule on this bill. So we will probably be on this bill for some time this afternoon. But we do want to finish it. I know the leader wants to finish it. Both the majority leader and Republican leader want to get this finished today, so we will be working on this bill for probably the better part of this afternoon. I would like to set the stage for it by talking about the situation with student loans and why we are where we are right now. First of all, I would like to say the bill before us basically is the House bill. There will be a Manchin-Burr amendment that will be offered as a substitute. I will be supporting that. That is the compromise bill. That is the compromise we reached through several weeks of negotiations between the Republicans on the Senate side and the Democrats on the Senate side and the White House. It was a three-party negotiation that went on, and this is the compromise that was reached. So the bill before us represents a number of compromises that were made on both sides to produce legislation that would give certainty to students who borrow money from the Federal Government to attend college this fall. As we all know, we have debated several different measures related to student loan interest rates for several weeks. This is the closest we have gotten to an agreement that represents at least two core Democratic principles, our side's principles, related to student loan interest rates. I think it is only right to point out that we have had a couple of votes on keeping the interest rates at 3.4 percent for subsidized student loans for next year. That did not receive the 60 votes needed to move. As a consequence, on July 1, the interest rates on subsidized loans snapped back from 3.4 to 6.8 percent. We have been working hard to try to keep students from paying that 6.8 percent interest and on how we could reach some agreement, and that is what this bill does that is before us. The two core principles we fought for were that the front-end caps-- they have front-end caps to ensure that undergraduate students taking out Stafford loans will not pay above 8.25 percent interest even if there are extreme fluctuations in the market. I point out that 8.25 percent is exactly the caps we had on student loans in the 1990s. This is not something new or out of line with what we have done before. We had 8.25 percent in the nineties, and I might add five times in the nineties we bumped up against that cap, so that cap protected students five times in the nineties from going above 8.25 percent. Graduate students taking out these Stafford loans will have a cap of 9.5 percent in interest. Parents and graduate students taking out PLUS loans, these are the parent loans, will never pay above 10.5 percent. That is the first principle, to have these upfront caps. Second, the principle we had is to get as close to budget neutral as possible. The composition of this bill places us about as close to budget neutrality as possible, meaning that billions of dollars will not be generated off the backs of students to reduce our budget deficit, something that was included in the version of this legislation that passed the House and which was a key feature on an earlier Republican bill that received a vote in the Senate--not a passing vote, it received a vote. Again, these are the compromises made on the Republican side. They had several billions of dollars to raise on the student loans in the future. We did not. So we compromised down. Basically, it is $715 million over 10 years. Since there is going to be over $1 trillion over 10 years, $715 billion is not much compared to the $1 trillion in student loans that will be taken out over the next 10 years. That comes down to about $71 million a year. That is just about as close as we can get it to budget neutrality. What does this mean for students? It means this fall all undergraduate students, subsidized or unsubsidized, will only have to pay 3.86 percent interest. That is down from 6.8, down to 3.86 percent. That means they will have that interest rate for the life of the loan. That is locked in. It will not vary. Graduate students will see a 1.4-percent rate decrease from what it would be and parents will see a 1.5-percent rate decrease, so in all cases a decrease. That means real savings for borrowers. That means an average of $1,500 savings for undergraduates, $2,913 for graduate students, and $2,066 for parents, again over the life of the loan. This bill also includes a provision that requires the GAO to submit a report to Congress within 4 months, detailing what the actual cost to the Federal Government of administering the Federal student loan program is and what the appropriate interest rate should be to avoid generating any unnecessary revenue. Again, I am sure people referred to it. There was an editorial in the New York Times this morning talking about the fact that the government should not be generating revenue off the backs of students. We all agree with that. That is why we tried to get this as close to budget neutrality as possible. As some will point out, under the system the way it is set up over the next 10 years, the CBO estimates the Federal Government will make more than $180 billion on Federal student loans. I might just say, deriving savings was not the intended purpose of the Federal student loan program when it began in the 1960s, and it should not be a purpose of it now. The purpose should be to keep interest rates as low as possible for students and their families. So in 4 months, when the GAO submits its report to Congress, I plan to use that information to inform us on the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act--I will have more to say about that in a second--to get a loan system that does not generate money for the government. This debate on student loan interest rates will continue, and I hope my colleagues will join us in that discussion as we move to the Higher Education Act reauthorization next year. As I said, I will have more to say about that in a second. I have cosponsored this bill that is before us. I will vote for its passage. I will oppose other amendments because we have an agreement to move ahead. I believe this was the best deal we could get for students at this time. The bill before us is supported by a number of groups, including the United States Student Association, the American Council on Education, Rock the Vote, Center for American Progress and Generation Progress, Generational Alliance, the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Also, this morning we received a letter from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights that supports this with a ``yes'' vote on the bill before us. I wish to make it clear that I plan to revisit the issue of student loan interest rates, along with other facets of the higher education system, in order to address the whole issue of college affordability. This fall the Senate HELP Committee, which I chair, will start consideration on the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act that expires this year. The interest rates--what we are talking about here today--we attach to Federal student loans is an important issue. I don't deny that. It is one that deserves our attention, but I want to point out that it is just one piece among many that go into college affordability. We will be tackling the many pieces that go into the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act so we can address the whole issue of college affordability. When I am in Iowa, I hear from students and parents about the financial squeeze they are facing from the spiraling costs of college and their anxiety about student loan debt. I have charts here. The first chart shows the increase in the cost of a public 4-year education over time. It has tripled since the 1980s. If we look at that chart, we can see that from 1980 to today the cost of a college education has tripled. That is the red line. The blue line is the Consumer Price Index. As we can see, our current system is out of step with the marketplace. The cost of that degree has skyrocketed for students across the country. The costs have risen far higher and faster than the rate of inflation. Why is this happening? Why has it gone up so rapidly? If we look at 1990 to 1991, it just shot up. From about 2000 to now, it has really skyrocketed. I think it is legitimate for us to ask this question: Why is that happening? It is not just student loan interest rates causing that. We have had low student loan interest rates, so that cannot be the sole cause. Something else is going on. Again, that is why we need to examine that in the Higher Education Act--so we can find out why that has happened. The second chart I have shows what is happening to our students. The average loan debt for a bachelor's degree has doubled since the 1990s. In the 1990s the cumulative debt a student would have after going to college would be $9,350. Today it is $26,660. That is over a 20-year period. Why has that gone up so much? That is why we have to get into the whole panoply of issues that affect college affordability. In light of this crisis, I have chaired a series of hearings in our committee focused on what is being done to curb the cost and how we can have strategies to help keep the dream of higher education alive for students without giving them a ton of debt when they graduate. To date, we have examined promising strategies employed by innovative colleges and universities to curb costs while improving student outcomes. We have looked at State policies for improving affordability and State barriers to innovation, efficiency, and effectiveness. There is much room for progress and improvement when it comes to our system of higher education. I believe a consensus is emerging on the need to break away from business as usual. We cannot keep going on the way we have been doing over the last 20 years in funding for higher education. Among the many ideas we have heard in these hearings, three major themes have emerged. First, States are cutting funding to public universities, shifting the costs to students, their families, and Federal financial aid programs. In all of our hearings--and we have looked at all that goes into these charts, such as the increase in costs to students and the cost of college--the single largest correlative factor has been the decrease in State support for higher education. What has become clear--at least to this Senator--is that State legislators have figured it out. They can cut their budgets and cut their support for public universities, shift the burden back on students and their families, the students come to the Federal Government and borrow more money, we increase Pell grants, and the burden on the student grows because their debt grows. Yet the colleges themselves are not stepping in to do anything. There are some colleges doing innovative things, but they are not doing enough to control the costs. Something has to be done about the States backing off of their support. The second theme that emerged was that many of our more than 7,000 degree-granting institutions are not making college affordability a priority. It is just not a priority. They are focused on chasing rankings, investing in efforts unrelated to academic success, and they are failing to respond to a rapidly changing higher education landscape. The third theme that emerged was that students and families are not empowered with accurate, clear, and accessible information about the comparative costs, quality, and value when shopping for a college education. While college affordability is a complex issue with no easy answers, there is much that all stakeholders--the Federal Government, State governments, institutions, families, and students--can do to increase college access and success and keep the costs down regardless of a student or family background. Again, we are going to have to look at this in the higher education bill. Interest rates are just one piece of it, and that is what we are addressing today, but there is a lot more going on than just interest rates. We have to look at our system of accreditation. We have to look at our campus-based aid programs, the financing of Pell grants, and the regulation of the for-profit colleges that my friend from Illinois is always consistently pointing out here. We need to look at the structure that supports our Federal loan system, from the loan origination process to the servicing done by private and nonprofit contractors after students have completed their course of study, and debt collection should they default. The system we have is complex. I will repeat that the interest rate on student loans is only one piece of this jigsaw puzzle. It is an important piece to be sure and one we are addressing today. Throughout the discussions about the interest rates, both President Obama and my ranking member and good friend Senator Alexander have personally committed to working with us as we take up the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act in the coming year so we can address all the issues affecting our entire higher education system and hopefully enact much needed reforms. We all understand how serious and important the issue of affordability is for a higher education. I look forward to working with Senator Alexander, members of our committee on both sides, and the White House in the months ahead to come up with a Higher Education Act reauthorization bill that is comprehensive and really gets to the bottom of college affordability so we can start to break away from the way we have been doing things in the past. As I said, we cannot continue on the way we have been doing this. There are many who have been involved in negotiating the legislation before us today. Compromises are tough sometimes. I have said before-- and I know my friend from Illinois said this at our press conference last week--if I were to write this bill and if I could have it my way, this would not be what I would write. I understand that. It wouldn't be what my friends on the other side would write either. And that is the art of compromise--to bring both sides together and get the best agreement we can. This is a good agreement. It is good for undergraduate students, it is good for graduate students, and it is good for their families. I thank President Obama for his leadership in negotiating this bill. I would also like to thank my friends and colleagues. I thank Senator Durbin, who was a great leader in bringing this about. I thank Senator Manchin, Senator King, Senator Carper, as well as Senator Alexander, Senator Coburn, Senator Burr, and their staffs for all the hard work and diligence in putting this proposal together. As I said, this might not have been the bill I would have written, and I think everybody who has been involved in this would say the same. But it is the best we could do. Quite frankly, it is going to lower interest rates this year. For undergraduate students, for the next 4 years it will be lower than 6.8 percent. In the fifth year it goes up just a little bit. As I said, as we look at the Higher Education Act and as we get this back from GAO in 4 months, we are all going to work together to see what exactly is the best path forward. We can keep the interest rates low for students this year and into the future, and I support this bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act. I encourage all of my colleagues to vote in favor of its passage. I am glad to yield for my friend Senator Durbin.

Mr. HARKIN. Again, I thank my friend from Illinois for his great leadership. Before I get right to the answer, I would point out the art of compromise, which we did. The Republican proposal we had before us a few weeks ago raised $15.6 billion over 10 years. So they have compromised a long way too. We have gotten it down to $715 million, over 10 years, from $15.6 billion. The Senator is absolutely right. We are looking at close to $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years, and that kind of puts that $715 million in perspective. If we don't pass this today, there is one sure effect: Student loans will be almost twice what they would be under this bill--this year, almost twice--for them and their families.

Mr. HARKIN. And that would be true for this year and next year and the year after, almost--not quite--this is 3.86, it would be 6.8. So they would be paying 6.8 percent on every loan they take out this year rather than 3.86 percent, which I might point out also covers both subsidized and unsubsidized loans. That is a good deal. Again, I say to the Senator that by keeping the rates like that--and this is another good point to make and I think people should understand. A student borrowing this year at 3.86 percent locks that in for the lifetime of the loan--locks that in. It doesn't go to 8.25 percent. That 8.25 is a cap in case interest rates start going up. I would point out to my friend from Illinois that 8.25 is what we had in the 1990s, and five times in the 1990s we hit that cap, so we protected students five times in the 1990s at that 8.25 percent. I say to my friend we have to pass this bill to keep students from paying 6.8 percent on their loans this year. Amendment No. 1773 On behalf of Senator Manchin, I call up his amendment which is at the desk.

Mr. HARKIN. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I yield the floor. Amendment No. 1774

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

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I spoke on the floor earlier today about the proposal that is before us. I wish to reiterate what I said then: I cannot stress enough that this bill represents a number of compromises made on both sides to come to a solution on how to keep interest rates low for students in the coming years. The compromise we will be voting on shortly is the closest we have gotten to a deal that represents two core Democratic principles related to student loan interest rates: No. 1, the inclusion of hard, upfront caps for students, so should we experience high interest rates in the future, they will be protected from those high rates. Let me repeat. Under this plan, undergraduates in this country will never pay more than 8.25 percent. That is what we had in the 1990s, and five times we bumped up against that in the 1990s. History could well repeat itself in that regard. We have a hard cap. Graduate students will pay no more than 9.5 percent; parents and graduate students taking out PLUS loans, no more than 10.5 percent--hard cap. Secondly, we wanted this to come as close to deficit neutral as possible, and this is what we have done. To show how we made compromises around here, I will say that the Republicans' initial proposal that we had voted on here--and it went down, as well as the initial Democratic Senate proposal went down--the Senate Republicans' initial proposal raised $15.6 billion in deficit reduction over 10 years. We negotiated down to $715 million over 10 years. Put that in context. Over the next 10 years the student loan program will probably loan out somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.4 to $1.5 trillion. What we are talking about is only $715 million over the next 10 years. That is the closest we could come to zero and at the same time have hard caps and keep interest rates low. I can't stress enough that this is a true compromise. If I were to write it, I would write it differently, and I have expressed myself in votes on the Senate floor in the past. But we have to deal with the art of the possible and reach compromises that answers both what the Republicans sought to do and what we sought to do. I would also reiterate that this is not the end of the conversation. It is the beginning. As important as student loans are--Stafford loans so students are able to get an education and their parents being able to afford it--as important as that is, it is only one part of the jigsaw puzzle that is college affordability. In 4 months, when the GAO report comes back--and I will again repeat that one of the elements we got in this compromise was a requirement that the GAO do a study on student loans, what the real cost is to the government, what the real cost is to administer that, and get that back to us in 4 months. When we are in our committee reauthorizing the Higher Education Act, we can take that into account. My good friend from Maine, who has been so instrumental in working out this agreement, has said many times that the rule book we have to go on is CBO estimates. I have been here long enough to see how many mistakes CBO has made in the past. We don't know if they are right. We have no way of knowing that. We also don't know what those interest rates are going to be in the future, and we don't know if a 2.05 add-on or 3.6 add-on is the right thing. We don't know. That is why we have required the GAO to give us an in-depth study so we can have a better handle on the cost to the government, what it costs to administer the program and all of its elements. We will take that into account. I was pleased to hear, again, Senator Alexander, my good friend and ranking member on our committee, earlier today on the floor. He expressed the same commitment he has expressed to me personally that I mentioned today; that is, working together to get a reauthorization of the Higher Education Act done in this Congress. Senator Alexander is committed to that, and so am I. I might also add that I am pleased that President Obama has also said he is personally committed to working with us to get a Higher Education Act through and working with us to look at all of the college affordability issues. This was displayed in his speech today. This is just one element--an important element but only one element. I look forward to working with Senator Alexander, the White House, Secretary Duncan, the Department of Education, and members of my committee on the Democratic side to really look at all aspects of college affordability and how we are going to address this issue comprehensively. I again want to point out for the Record--because soon we will be voting--that there are two amendments that will be voted on. I think one is by Senator Reed of Rhode Island and the other is by Senator Sanders of Vermont, and then we will have our final passage, if I am not mistaken. I know the two amendments that have been offered--one by Senator Sanders and one by Senator Reid--look very nice, and I know many on my side will be tempted to vote for them, but I will not be voting for them. They look nice, they sound nice, they would be nice in a perfect world, but we have to deal with CBO estimates. Quite frankly, the cost of those amendments, as judged by CBO, is something we can't do. Again, they sound nice, they look nice, they might feel nice, but we can't do it. So I will be opposing those amendments. I will be opposing them because we can't do that at this time. What we can do is do the compromise we have reached. That is what we can do. And don't let anyone tell you this is a bad deal for students. This is not a bad deal for students. If we don't pass this, undergraduate students this year will pay 6.8 percent on their loans. With this bill, they will pay 3.86 percent. Tell me which is the best deal. Next year it is 4.26 percent, the year after that it is 5.4 percent, and the year after that it is 6.29 percent. It doesn't get up to 7 percent for 4 years, if CBO is right. In any case, for the next 4 years it is going to be lower than 6.8 percent for every undergraduate student in college. Don't let anybody tell you this isn't a good deal for students. It is a good deal for students. This is why today we received an endorsement by the United States Student Association endorsing this bill, endorsing the compromise. They are not walking away from it. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights has endorsed this bill. Any way you look at it, this is a good deal for students, and it is a good deal for their families. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. Could there be a better deal? Well, I suppose. How about free money? That is always a good deal, free money. There is always something better out there. I say to my friends on the Democratic side, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Yes, there is probably a more perfect thing we could do. We can't afford it. We don't have the CBO scoring that would allow us to do that. Plus, we need the votes of our colleagues on the Republican side, so that is why we have to have a compromise. That is the way this place should run--on compromises. Legitimate, yes, hard-fought-out, but good compromises. What Senator Manchin and Senator Burr have offered is that compromise--a good bill, a good, solid compromise, one that will make sure interest rates for undergraduate students will be lower for the next 4 years and under 6.8 percent. As Senator Alexander worked so hard to make sure we got into this compromise, when students get these loans at 3.68 percent this year, that is it for the life of the loan--that is a good deal--or next year at 4.26 percent or the next year at 5.24 percent. That is a good deal. So don't let what you might think would be more perfect take you away from voting for this bill. This is a good bill. Again, I thank so many who are responsible for putting this together. I thank Senator Durbin, Senator Manchin, Senator King, and Senator Carper, who worked so hard through so many days and weeks to get this pulled together. Of course, I thank my ranking member and good friend Senator Alexander, who has been here from day one trying to find that sweet spot that we could all agree on and vote on. I thank Senator Coburn, Senator Burr, and all their staffs for all of their hard work and diligence in putting this proposal together. I thank President Obama and his team and Secretary Duncan and his team for working together, and all of our staffs. This is the best we could do on a compromise for students given all the various priorities of this side, that side, the White House, and everybody else. This is a good deal. We shouldn't turn it down. I will vote against the amendments offered by Senator Reed and Senator Sanders, well meaning though they are. As I said, they sound nice and they look pretty, but don't be lured into thinking that somehow that is going to happen. It is not. We have to stick with this compromise and get a good deal for the students, even though you may not think it is perfect. It is a good deal. I support the Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act. I encourage all of my colleagues to vote in favor of its passing and against amendments that would detract from it. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all time be yielded back with the exception of 2 minutes equally divided prior to each vote.

Mr. HARKIN. The Senator from Rhode Island knows I have the highest respect and affection for him. I might say that he makes excellent points. As I said earlier, this amendment looks good, looks pretty, sounds pretty, and might be nice in a perfect world, but that is not where we are. Like my colleagues, like Senator Reed, I want to make sure we are only asking students and families to pay as much interest as needed in order to properly administer the program and no more. Student loans should not be a profit center for the Federal Government. As I said earlier, that is why we put into our underlying bill, the Manchin-Burr bill, a requirement that GAO report back to us in 4 months as to what it actually costs. My good friend from Rhode Island doesn't know what it costs. I don't know what it costs. No one really knows what the cost of this is. As Senator Alexander said earlier, we are going to be looking at all of this in the Higher Education Act, what college affordability is. Let me repeat. Under the bill before us, students pay less interest rates than 6.8 percent until 2017. While the Reed bill may sound good, we are not there. We are not there to move on the Reed bill yet or anything like it. Plus, the offset he has for that, even though he has fully paid for it, is not acceptable to a lot of people here in the Senate Chamber. Stick with the underlying bill and defeat the Reed amendment.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I can't support this amendment. By sunsetting this effort 2 years because CBO uses a 10-year window, the amendment would cost an estimated above $20 billion, and there is no offset to pay for it. So, again, the lack of that offset would violate the agreement we made under our bipartisan agreement of trying to get as close to deficit neutrality as possible. Like Senator Sanders, I also want to make sure we make any needed changes to student loan interest rates before they become too high. Let me remind everyone, in the 1990s we had an 8.25-percent cap. We hit it five times. We got back in this agreement an 8.25-percent absolute cap. Beyond that, for the next 4 years every student--subsidized and unsubsidized--in college will have a lower interest rate than 6.8 percent. In the outyears, who knows what the interest rates are going to be. We don't know that, and neither does CBO. But we do know what they are going to be this year and probably next year, and the students get a much better deal under the compromise. So I say, don't support the Sanders amendment. Let's vote and let's keep the compromise in place and give our students a good deal, this year and next year and the year after and keep that 8.25-percent cap that we negotiated.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, the vote comes on what we are going to do and that is--as my good friend Senator Manchin said--to keep interest rates low for students. What this means for our students is that the student loans for all undergraduate students will be reduced from 6.8 percent to 3.86 percent this year. It will be lower than 6.8 percent for the next 4\1/2\-- almost 5--years. Do our students and our families a favor. Vote for final passage. Keep the interest rates low and make sure our students are not paying a 6.8-percent interest rate this year, next year, and the year beyond.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, 4 years ago today, July 24, 2009, was the last time the minimum wage was increased. It rose from $6.55 an hour to $7.25 an hour. And it has been stuck there ever since. Four years is too long. It is time to raise the minimum wage. To that end, I have introduced legislation along with Rep. George Miller in the House. The Fair Minimum Wage Act will gradually increase the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour in three annual steps. Our bill will also link future increases in the minimum wage to the cost of living, using the Consumer Price Index, so that people who are trying to get ahead don't fall behind as our economy grows. Finally, our bill--for the first time in more than 20 years--will raise the minimum wage for workers who earn tips, from a paltry $2.13 per hour, today, to a level that is 70 percent of the regular minimum wage. This will be gradually phased in over the course of 6 years, which will give businesses time to adjust while providing more fairness for hardworking people in tipped industries. While millions of workers have been without a raise these past 4 years, costs have continued to climb. Between 2009 and 2012, rent has gone up 4%, auto repair costs have climbed 6%, food is 8% more expensive, child care costs 9% more, and public transportation takes a 13% bigger bite out of workers' wallets. I do not need to tell you that when you are taking in $1,000 a month, even a few dollars more at the grocery checkout line is a hardship. The tens of millions of working poor and low-wage Americans and their families know this. They know that the minimum wage, for many, is a poverty wage; it pays $3,000 less per year than what is needed to lift a family of three above the poverty line. They know they can not survive on such meager wages. They know it because they live it. Unfortunately, the McDonald's corporation does not seem to understand. Last week, a budgeting brochure that McDonald's provides its workers went viral on the Internet. It seems that, as the folks at The Atlantic said, ``McDonald's can't figure out how its workers survive on minimum wage.'' Let's talk about McDonald's. McDonald's is the third-largest employer of low-wage workers in the country, with 860,000 U.S. workers. According to Glassdoor, the average wage for a cashier is $7.72 and for a crew member is $7.68. That is just pennies above the minimum. Even managers only make around $9.50 per hour, sometimes less. The McDonald's budget brochure shows workers how to add up their monthly expenses to determine their monthly household budget. But wages at McDonald's are so paltry that its sample budget had to assume that its employees work two full-time jobs to earn $2,000 a month. Never mind that most fast food jobs are part-time, and finding two jobs would be very difficult in today's economy with so many unemployed and part- time workers looking for full-time jobs. On top of requiring two jobs, this budget's estimated costs are either out of sync with reality or simply missing. It estimated rent at $600 a month, when in reality rent costs $783 for a one-bedroom apartment and $977 for a two-bedroom, according to the National Low- Income Housing Coalition. Those are national figures; rent is much higher in many parts of the country. The McDonald's budget also doesn't include necessities like child care or food. And I don't know where someone is going to get health insurance for $20 a month. Even McDonald's charges $54 a month for its most basic plan for one employee with no dependents, and that is after a year of working there. With just one dependent, it is $140 a month. And that basic plan still has deductibles and copays on top of the premium. This just shows how difficult it is for tens of millions of people-- folks who do some of the most demanding work in our country--to make ends meet. But it's not just low-wage workers who are hurt when they can't keep up with costs. This hurts our communities and our local businesses as well. When our neighbors can't afford to go to the grocery store or the auto repair shop or the hardware store, all of those businesses suffer. They lose customers and sales. But imagine if the lowest wage workers all got raises. They would take their car in for that long-needed repair. They would pick up a few extra items at the store. They would buy a new pair of shoes for their growing son or daughter. And those local stores would all benefit. And when we see that 30 million people across the country will get a raise thanks to the Fair Minimum Wage Act, all that extra spending really adds up. The local grocery might even have to hire new people to keep up with rising demand. In total, my bill will add $33 billion to our GDP over its 3 years of implementation. And it will create 140,000 new jobs over that same period. It's simple: more money in consumers' pockets means more spending, which means more economic activity, which means more jobs. In fact, the financial and economic experts know this already. I have seen article after article, interview after interview from financial experts saying that we need more consumer spending in order to get our economy really going. Just last month, the Wall Street Journal interviewed the president of Naroff Economic Advisors. He analyzed a recent consumer spending report and said, ``We're in a situation where we need much stronger increases in wages and salaries if households are going to have the money to spend and the economy's going to grow faster.'' He added: We need wages to grow significantly faster. They're coming up from where they have been, but we need them to really begin to pick up. We need stronger job growth, but more importantly we also need average salaries and hourly wages to grow faster. Those have been largely flat and that's the problem. Right now, income's growing because we're creating more jobs, not because people are making more money. We need the average person to see their salaries go up before they can spend more and drive this economy forward. Well, we can raise wages in this country, and we can provide those raises to the people who need it most--not to CEOs but to the people serving our food, watching our children, helping us when we call customer service, and assisting us at our local stores. These are the people who are earning wages so low, they work two jobs and still can't make ends meet. And these are people who will go out and spend just about every dime in their local stores, boosting their local economies. Minimum wage workers want to support themselves. Ninety percent of the people who would benefit from my legislation are adults, not teenagers. They are often parents. In fact, one in five working parents in this country will get a raise under my bill, and a third of single parents. A total of 18 million children have parents who would get a raise. Think about that. All of those millions of families with a little more money to spend. What a help that will be to those growing kids. We owe it to millions of low-wage families struggling to just have a glimpse of the American Dream, to make sure that they get a raise and can support their families. But we also owe it to ourselves, to our economy. Our system works best when everyone has the opportunity to support themselves, to be productive, and to participate in our larger economy. Raising the minimum wage is a simple and effective way to do this. And we know we can do it in a responsible way, with no unintended consequences. My bill would phase in an increase in three steps, giving businesses time to adapt. And because the minimum wage will apply to all businesses, no single business will be at a competitive disadvantage. Also, my proposal is in line percentage wise with previous increases in the minimum wage. Decades of solid economic research shows us that these increases have not caused job losses. In fact, businesses stand to benefit from increased wages, because raises result in significantly lower turnover rates, which in turn saves those businesses money. Four years without a raise is 3 years too many. We have to make sure that working families can keep up with the economy. That is why linking future increases in the minimum wage to the cost of living is so crucial. Small annual increases will be easy to absorb, but will make a big difference to American families. And it will help our businesses on Main Street as well as our national economy. Mr. President, it is time to raise the minimum wage and link it to inflation for the future. It is the right thing to do, and it is the responsible thing to do. And it will give a much needed boost to both local economies and our national economy. I urge my colleagues to support this long-overdue legislation.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Gabe Sandler, Madeline Walker, Katie Kasten, and Megan Miraglia of my staff be granted floor privileges for the duration of today's session.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I am pleased we are finally at the point where we can vote on the nomination of Thomas Perez to serve as Secretary of Labor. Indeed, it seems as though the most important question before us today has gotten lost in all of the debate. Will Tom Perez be a good Secretary of Labor? The answer is unequivocally yes. There is no question that he has the knowledge and experience needed to guide this critically important agency. His outstanding work in Maryland as their secretary of labor has won him the support of the business community and workers alike. Here is a quote from the endorsement letter from the Maryland Chamber of Commerce: Mr. Perez proved himself to be a pragmatic public official who is willing to bring differing voices together. The Maryland Chamber had the opportunity to work with Mr. Perez on an array of issues of importance to employers in Maryland, from unemployment and workforce development to the housing and foreclosure crisis. Despite differences of opinion, Mr. Perez was always willing to allow all parties to be heard and we found him to be fair and collaborative. I believe that our experiences with him here in Maryland bode well for the nation. That is a pretty strong endorsement by a chamber of commerce for a nominee whom the minority leader this morning characterized as a ``leftwing ideologue . . . willing to bend the law to achieve his ideological ends.'' That is what the minority leader said this morning. That grossly unfair characterization is manifestly inconsistent with the experiences of the Republican leaders and business leaders who have actually worked with Tom Perez. These people clearly disagree with the minority leader's assessment of Mr. Perez's qualifications and character. I am informed that the minority leader never met with Mr. Perez. Mr. Perez offered to meet with him, but the minority leader said no. Yet the minority leader comes down here and makes these kinds of judgments as to his character and his integrity? We have heard a lot of discussion about the controversy surrounding Mr. Perez's nomination over the last couple of days on the Senate floor. His integrity and character have been viciously and unfairly attacked. I take particular issue with the minority leader's suggestion this morning that Mr. Perez doesn't follow the law or believe it applies to him. I respectfully suggest that the minority leader needs to check his facts. Those allegations couldn't be more to the contrary. Tom Perez believes deeply in the law. He believes that all the laws on the books, especially those that protect our most important rights--the right to vote, the right to be free from discrimination in the workplace, the right of people with disabilities to live in their own communities--Tom Perez believes strongly that these rights should be respected and enforced. These are the same laws that I sometimes think some on the Republican side would like to forget are on the books, but these laws matter. Voting rights matter. Fair housing rights matter. The rights of people with disabilities matter. And Tom Perez has fought for that. We shouldn't shy away from using every tool in our arsenal to strengthen our enforcement of civil rights laws. These laws are part of what makes our country great. I am incredibly proud of the work Mr. Perez has done at the Department of Justice to make these rights a reality again after years of neglect. He should be applauded, not vilified, for the service he has provided to this country. He is a leader whose career has involved passionate and visionary work for justice. Yes, he has had to make difficult decisions. He has faced management challenges. As we now know, he has been the target of accusations, mudslinging, and character assassination. I have looked carefully into Mr. Perez's background and record of service, as the chair of the authorizing and oversight committee. I can assure Senators that Tom Perez has the strongest possible record of professional integrity and that any allegations to the contrary are unfounded. They are simply unfounded allegations. There is absolutely nothing that calls into question his ability to fairly enforce the law as it is written. There is absolutely nothing that calls into question his professional integrity, moral character, or his ability to lead the Department of Labor. I am particularly disappointed that Republicans continue to raise concerns regarding Mr. Perez's involvement in the global resolution of two cases involving St. Paul, MN--the cases called Magner and Newell. I spoke about that at length, and Republicans have talked about it. This has been debated exhaustively. Quite frankly, there is nothing there. This is an issue the HELP Committee and the Judiciary Committee have thoroughly examined and found no cause for concern. The House Oversight and Judiciary Committees have also thoroughly explored the underlying facts. In fact, both the majority and minority staff on the House Oversight Committee have released reports on the matter. What the reports revealed is that the evidence is clear--Mr. Perez acted ethically and appropriately at all times. Indeed, he had clearance to proceed as he did from the appropriate ethics officers at the Department of Justice. Noted experts in legal ethics have confirmed this. There is no foundation for any allegation of wrongdoing by Mr. Perez in these cases involving St. Paul, MN. Yet they keep being drummed up. But they are just allegations. Anybody can make an allegation-- especially here on the Senate floor. Members can make all kinds of allegations. I simply ask for proof. Back up those allegations. There is no proof. There is nothing to back up those allegations that somehow Mr. Perez acted unethically or in violation of law. I am also deeply disappointed that my Republican friends are suggesting that Mr. Perez has been unresponsive to requests for information by Members of this body. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mr. Perez has been as open and aboveboard as he possibly can be with both my committee and Members of the Senate. He has met with any Member personally who requested a meeting. He requested a meeting with the minority leader, and the minority leader said no. He appeared before our committee in a public hearing. He answered more than 200 written questions. He bent over backward to respond to any and all concerns raised about his work at the Department of Justice. This administration has also been extraordinarily accommodating to my Republican colleagues--especially to their concerns about Mr. Perez's handling of the Magner and Newell cases while at the Department of Justice. The administration has produced thousands of documents. They have arranged for the interview of government employees and access to transcripts of inspector general interviews. They have provided access to Mr. Perez's personal e-mails. They have facilitated almost unprecedented levels of disclosure to alleviate any concerns. They have responded to every request for information, including the letter by Chairman Issa that Senator Isakson submitted for the Record this morning. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the response to Chairman Issa's letter from the Department of Justice at this point.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 more minute to conclude my remarks.

Mr. HARKIN. In short, the Department of Justice has made all e-mails available for review. It is true Congressman Issa has continued to repeat his requests, but that doesn't mean Mr. Perez and the administration have not been responsive, because they have. The fact is this nominee has been more than thoroughly vetted. He has the character and the integrity and the expertise to lead the Department of Labor. The President has chosen Mr. Perez to join his Cabinet, and there is absolutely no reason why the Senate should not consent to this choice. I am proud to support Mr. Perez's nomination. He will be an asset to the Department of Labor and to our entire country. I look forward to the opportunity to work with him in his new position to help all working Americans. I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in open session on Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at 10 a.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ``Hearing on National Labor Relations Board Nominees.'' For further information regarding this meeting, please contact Sarah Cupp of the committee staff on (202) 224-5441.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in executive session on Wednesday, July 24, 2013, at 10 a.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to mark-up the nominations of Kent Yoshiho Hirozawa, to be a Member of the National Labor Relations Board and Nancy Jean Schiffer, to be a Member of the National Labor Relations Board, as well as any additional nominations cleared for action. For further information regarding this meeting, please contact the Committee at (202) 224-5375. Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, is there a unanimous consent request pending?

Mr. HARKIN. Then I ask for 1 minute following the Senator from Florida.