Amy Klobuchar

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, today I pay tribute to one of our Nation's finest local newsmen and a Minnesota legend, Don Shelby, who is retiring after 32 years of service as a pioneering anchor, broadcaster, and reporter for WCCO in the Twin Cities. A native of Royerton, IN, Don first arrived in Minnesota in 1978. But for those of us who tuned into him every night for our news, it is as if he has always been one of us. When he first assumed lead anchor duties for the 10 p.m. newscast, Don had the tall task of replacing another Minnesota institution, Dave Moore, who had anchored the WCCO news desk for nearly 50 years. But Don's passion for bringing Minnesotans the stories that traditionally went unreported quickly made him a fixture on our television sets and in our hearts. Don never forgot his roots as an investigative journalist. And he has never been one to just sit at the anchor desk and read the news. Don is an intrepid reporter who will go to the ends of the Earth to bring his story home. Whether it was trekking to the Arctic with Will Steger, walking the beaches of Prince William Sound to expose the lasting damages caused by the Exxon Valdez oilspill, or traveling to Iraq to document the unprecedented service of our Minnesota National Guard troops, Don has brought the world home to living rooms across Minnesota. Don's professional compass has guided him to what is important and away from the temptations of tabloid journalism and the ``if it bleeds, it leads'' sensationalism that too often dominate our news cycles today. Minnesotans have benefited from Don Shelby's spirit of public service and commitment to journalistic values. For Don, it is never just about reading the headlines--it is about helping inform his viewers about the world around them. Just one example of this was his trailblazing ``Project Energy'' series--with accessible, informative news reports on our energy future, including renewable energy, climate change, conservation, transportation alternatives, and much more. In short, Don represents public service journalism at its best. Of course, it isn't just reporting that drives Don. There is also his ever-expanding list of hobbies, from mountain climbing, to bass fishing, to organic gardening, to playing guitar, and on and on. Don's intellectual curiosity knows no bounds. For more than three decades, Minnesotans have turned to Don Shelby because they have trusted his experience and honesty. While he has never been elected to public office, it is fair to say that he has become one of Minnesota's senior statesmen. And he became one by simply asking the important questions and telling the truth-- with compassion, decency, and dignity. So when Don signs off from his final broadcast this month, we will miss him dearly, but we can take comfort in knowing that our State is a better place because of his work.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 5 minutes.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I have come to the floor today in support of the Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act, which I believe, as was well stated by the Senator from California, will go a long way towards promoting job creation in the private sector and leveling the playing field for American workers. In recent months, reports have shown that retail sales are up, hourly wages are rising, and household debt is at its lowest point in a decade. We have seen some particularly promising bright spots in Minnesota, where our manufacturing exports increased 19 percent in the second quarter to $4.3 billion. Minnesota also has one of the lower unemployment rates, 7 percent, compared to 9.6 percent nationally. But while the numbers are starting to point in the right direction, too many Minnesotans, and too many Americans are still out of work. As one of my constituents recently put it, ``unemployment may be 7 percent in the rest of the state, but it's 100 percent in my house. That is what matters to me.'' He is not alone. Nationwide, there are still 15 million Americans out of work, and another 6.6 million who have joined the ranks of the long- term unemployed. I received a letter from one of them just the other day--a constituent of mine named Jon, from Northfield, MN--and I would like to share what we wrote. He says: I am 63 years old and I have worked my whole life. I lost my job in January 2009, and I've applied for every job I've seen since--even for some that'd pay half of what I previously earned. What's being done now for the millions of us without work? The bill we are discussing today is not a silver bullet solution to our economic woes. But it will help answer Jon's question, a question that is on the minds of millions of Americans right now. First, it will create a payroll tax holiday for businesses by eliminating the employer share of the Social Security payroll tax on wages paid to new U.S. employees. This will be available for 2 years and applies to any new American worker who is hired to replace a foreign employee. For far too long, we have seen our homegrown jobs shipped overseas. It is time to level the playing field for American workers, and the payroll tax holiday creates a market-based incentive for that. It encourages companies that might otherwise hire foreign employees to create jobs here at home--in places like Northfield, MN, not Mumbai, India. Second, this bill will close the tax loopholes that have put our workers at a competitive disadvantage, a provision that will also encourage companies to bring jobs back to the U.S. That is important, but I want to point out that this bill is about more than just job creation. It is about rebuilding our economic foundation. It is about reviving our manufacturing base and moving away from the mindset of the last decade, a mindset that glorified debt, consumption and the empty churn of money. What we need now are policies that allow us to be a country that thinks, invents, and makes things again, a country where you can walk into any store on any street in any neighborhood, purchase the safest product at the best price and be able to turn it over and see the words: ``Made in the USA'' stamped on the bottom. As Tom Friedman, the New York Times columnist and Minnesota native, has put it, we need to be doing some ``nation building in our own nation.'' I often think about the opening ceremonies at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, the ones that featured that perfectly synchronized 2,000-man drumming routine. Well, those drumbeats are only getting louder and louder. While China builds the world's leading solar energy industry, we sadly still have not passed an energy bill, despite some that call for a renewable energy standard. While India encourages invention and entrepreneurship, we give our innovators the runaround. And while Brazil produces more engineers, we let our students fall behind. The world is moving ahead fast. But we are not going to let it pass us by. As a country, we have always been home to the most productive, innovative, and resourceful workers in the world. I am talking about the men and women who have mined, manufactured and constructed every great product of American innovation, from cars to airplanes to solar panels to satellites. In other words, the men and women who are doing the kind of work our country was built on, the kind of work that made America great in the first place. We have before us a bill that makes sure that work is done right here in America, in our factories, in our office buildings and in our manufacturing plants. It is a good step towards not only rebuilding our domestic industry, but towards putting more Americans back to work, and I urge my colleagues to support it. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 10 minutes.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, as I listened to my friend from Wyoming, I was thinking, ``Ditto for the food safety bill.'' This is a bill for which there is vast bipartisan support. There always has been, from the moment it was introduced with four Democratic Senators, including myself, and four Republican Senators. Of course, the bill has been led by Senator Durbin from the very beginning, and Senator Harkin has played a key role. This has been a bipartisan bill. Given that we have only seen more foodborne illness outbreaks over the last few months, there is no reason we should not pass this bill. I rise today to urge my colleagues to support this bill. I have stood here many times in support of the food safety bill. Part of this is because we had a very tragic thing happen in our State. We had three people die after the peanut butter that came out of Georgia, that peanut plant in Georgia. Three of the people who died were from Minnesota. One of them was named Shirley Almer. Her family expected her home for Christmas in 2008. She was a strong-spirited 72-year-old grandmother from Perham, MN. She had survived 2 bouts of cancer but she was actually recovering and doing quite well in recovery with a brief stay in a nursing home. But she didn't make it home for Christmas that year. She died on December 21, 2008. It wasn't the cancer that killed her. She had battled that cancer. In fact, it was a little piece of peanut butter on her toast that 72-year-old grandmother ate. She didn't know it, but the peanut butter was contaminated with deadly salmonella bacteria. Shirley Almer and two other Minnesotans are among the 9 deaths officially related to peanut products, which also sickened nearly 700 people nationwide, many of them children. Shirley's son Jeff has stepped forward as a strong voice calling for reform of our food safety system. Whether it is jalapeno peppers or peanut butter or, most recently, eggs, these outbreaks of foodborne illness and nationwide recalls of contaminated food highlight the need to better protect our Nation's food supply. The good news is we know how to protect our Nation's food supply and we have legislation sitting on the table, literally sitting on the table, that could go a long way toward doing that. Sadly, that legislation has been stalled in the Senate since last November and now, as far as I understand, our colleague from Oklahoma has some concerns and at this late hour it is still stalled. We know we can not afford any more delays. As one of the lead sponsors of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, I believe the Senate has every reason to pass this legislation. It is comprehensive. It covers everything from ensuring a safe food supply at the front end to ensuring a rapid response if tainted food gets into the supply chain. As I mentioned, it is bipartisan. You know what else about this legislation, which doesn't always happen with food safety consumer protection legislation? This has the support not only of consumer groups, not only of health groups, it has the support of many in the food industry including SUPERVALU, a very large food chain including Cub Foods, located in Minnesota. I did an event back in Minnesota with the CEO of SUPERVALU a few weeks ago on this issue. Why do our businesses care? Of course they care because they want to have safe food for the consumers. They also care because this is hurting their bottom line, when there are these scares that encompass food and people are scared. We were standing there and a woman went by and said, I don't know if I want to buy eggs and the CEO said, you know what, not one egg was recalled from our huge food stores all over the country--Cub Foods, SUPERVALU--not one egg, but consumers don't always know that. But when you have a bad actor, when you have one company, one factory as you had in Georgia, it can ruin it for everyone--consumers, obviously tragic for them, tragic injuries, but it also hurts the bottom line for these businesses that have not done anything wrong. Hormel, the maker of Spam, was standing with us at SUPERVALU that day, talking about how important it was. General Mills, Schwans support this bill. We have widespread support in our food industry because they don't want to see another person get sick from tainted food. Finally, we all know this legislation addresses a very serious issue. According to the Centers for Disease Control, foodborne disease causes about 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths in the United States each year. Yet, for every foodborne illness case that is reported, it is estimated that as many as 40 more illnesses are not reported or confirmed by a lab because people simply don't know why they got sick. The annual costs of medical care, lost productivity, and premature deaths due to foodborne illnesses is estimated to be $44 billion. There is a lot at stake here, a lot at stake for human life, and there is a lot at stake for the economy. As you know, 2 years ago, hundreds of people across the country suddenly got sick with salmonella. Once it hit Minnesota, and once people died in Minnesota, sadly, it took only a few days before the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota Health Department, our ``food detectives'' as they are called, or ``team diarrhea''--which my staff didn't want me to say on the Senate floor but that is what we call them--worked together and they were able to solve this. How do they do it? Simple detective work. They simply called the families and homes of people who had gotten sick, people who had gotten very sick, they talked to their loved ones: Where did they eat? When did they eat? What did they eat? They literally solved it in a matter of days. One State solved the jalapeno pepper problem--Minnesota. One state solved the Georgia peanut problem. That was Minnesota. That is why there is something to be learned from the model we used in our State. That is why I included it in the Food Safety Modernization Act and why it is supported by so many people and so many grocery stores across the country as well as consumer groups, the bill I introduced with Senator Chambliss of Georgia, the Food Safety Rapid Response Act. Building on successful efforts at detecting and investigating foodborne illnesses, this will strengthen the ability of the Federal and State and local officials to quickly investigate and respond to foodborne illness outbreaks. I am proud to have Senator Chambliss, from the State of Georgia, that had to have this experience. When it was finally discovered where this came from, it was from one company, one bad actor in their State. He was willing to come with me on this bill because we said enough is enough. We have to put prevention in there, which is in this bill, to stop these things from ever happening. But if it does happen, you want to solve it as quickly as possible so you don't get more people getting sick and dying. What this part of the bill does, the part Senator Chambliss and I introduced, it directs the CDC to enhance the Nation's foodborne surveillance systems by improving collection, analysis, reporting, and usefulness of data on foodborne illness. This includes better sharing of information among Federal, State, and local agencies, as well as with the food industry and the public. It directs the Centers for Disease Control to work with State-level agencies to improve foodborne illness surveillance. Finally, the legislation establishes food safety centers of excellence. The goal is to set up these food safety centers at select public health departments and higher education institutions around the country. It takes the Minnesota example across the country, first with five centers--not to directly tell each State exactly what to do but to be an example of best practices for a region of the country. Not many bills that come before Congress enjoy such a wide range of support from some important stakeholders. Not only do consumers recognize the critical need for this major bill, but the legislation has received support from major brand-name food companies. They know what is at stake. Their reputation and their bottom line depends on the trust of their customers, the trust that everything possible is being done to make sure their food is safe. As a former prosecutor like yourself, Mr. President, I have always believed the first responsibility of government is to protect its citizens. In this most basic duty, our government failed Shirley Almer and many others who have been harmed by recent recalls. We owe it to them and all Americans to fix what is broken in our food safety system. We can do a lot better with our food safety system. That is why we need to pass this legislation now. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Udall of New Mexico.) The Senator from Ohio is recognized.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for their support in passing S. 3397, the Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act by unanimous consent this week. I thank the Senate cosponsors of this bill--Senator Grassley, Senator Brown of Ohio, Senator Gillibrand, Senator Collins, Senator Corker, Senator Feingold, Senator Kohl, Senator Schumer and Senator Durbin. I especially thank my lead cosponsor, Senator Cornyn, and his counsel Gustav Eyler for their significant efforts on behalf of this important legislation. When the Drug Enforcement Administration brought this issue to my attention, I was eager to work on it because this is such a commonsense bill. We know that prescription drug abuse is on the rise and what is even scarier is that it is on the rise among teenagers. In fact, teens abuse prescription drugs more than any illicit drug besides marijuana. And according to the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, 55 percent of teens say that it is easy to get prescription drugs from their parents' medicine cabinets. We also know that up to 17 percent of all prescription drug medication goes unused each year. This bill is an important step towards getting unused, unwanted or expired medication off families' shelves and into the hands of proper authorities. The bill makes it possible for State and local law enforcement ``take-back'' programs to accept controlled substances as well, which is something that is currently very difficult for them to do. I introduced this legislation because I believe we have to give families a better option than either leaving dangerous medication in their homes or flushing such medication into the water supply. Parents know that keeping unwanted prescription drugs in their homes increases the risk that young people will find them, but current law provides them with few alternatives. By making it easier for people to dispose of controlled substances they no longer need, we can reduce teens' access to these drugs and help curb teen drug abuse. This bill amends the Controlled Substances Act to allow the Attorney General to draft regulations permitting authorized entities to accept and dispose of controlled substances. These regulations will enable state, local, and private entities to operate drug take-back programs for all prescription drugs, while taking the necessary steps to prevent unlawful diversion and promote safe disposal. Senator Cornyn recounts with great specificity the provisions of this bill that were added after consultation with many of our House colleagues and their staffs. I want to mention those members whose contributions to this bill have improved it greatly: Representatives Henry Waxman, Joe Barton, Jay Inslee, Bart Stupak, and Lamar Smith. I am grateful to their offices for working with us to get this bill to a place where it could obtain the unanimous support of the U.S. Senate, and I second Senator Cornyn's comments about the specific contributions of each of those individuals and their offices. The provisions that we added after collaboration with House offices, along with the bill's ``no cost'' estimate from the Congressional Budget Office, are among the many reasons the bill enjoys the support of 41 State attorneys general, the Department of Justice, and the National Association of Chain Drug Stores. They also prove that this bill is bicameral in its design, as well as bipartisan. I want to thank all of my colleagues again for their support.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Hampshire, my neighbor in the Chamber. I thank her for her fine remarks. I was listening when she talked about Senator Graham's comments. I truly believe that was a moment of leadership, where basically he said he had spent a lot of time in the last 2 years trying to elect a different person for President, but President Obama won and he respected his nominee and that his job was to look to see if that person was qualified to be on the Supreme Court. Despite political differences--and he didn't agree with everything she said--he said his job was to see if she was qualified. He said at the hearing, which I will never forget, that he was proud to be supporting her. I imagine the Senator from New Hampshire has had similar experiences in her State with having to grapple with those kinds of things when appointing judges.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Makes the grade. With that, I yield to my colleague from South Carolina.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I think this concludes our very broad discussion about all of the fine qualifications of Elena Kagan for this job and, again, refuting the words of one of our colleagues-- unfortunate words--in which he said, I believe, that she doesn't have the gifts and the qualities of mind and the temperament one must have to be a Justice. Look at the words of so many people across this country, along so many different ideological lines--69 law school deans who wrote about her knowledge of the law and skills in legal analysis as being ``first- rate.'' They say: Her writings in constitutional law and administrative law are highly respected and widely cited. She is an incisive and astute analyst of law, with a deep understanding of both doctrine and policy. Listen at what the National Association of Women Judges has said: We recognize the essential qualifications that a justice of our highest court must have: superior intellectual capacity as well as an intimate knowledge and a deep understanding of constitutional law. It cannot be seriously disputed that General Kagan brings these qualifications with her in abundance. From the Women's Bar Association: Solicitor General Kagan's intellect and legal acumen have been recognized by those across the political spectrum. Of course, I already read into the Record the words of the National District Attorneys Association. So many people have written in support of Solicitor General Kagan. But I would say that no words meant more to me than the words of our colleague, Senator Graham, who is here across the aisle. He had the courage to stand up and explain why he made the decision to support her nomination. He made very clear that he didn't agree with every position she had ever taken or would agree with every decision that she would ever make. But he talked about our role as Members of the Senate to not be political arbiters in terms of who the judge should be but to have the role of oversight and to figure out what the qualifications are and does this person meet the qualifications and does the person have the judgment to make decisions in very difficult cases. And, as Senator Graham so eloquently stated that day during the hearing, Solicitor General Kagan--

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Maryland for her fine words. She is someone who knew the Court before there were any women on that Court. She has seen many changes. I thank her for her work. To break the glass ceiling, we have now been joined by one of our male colleagues, after hearing from five female colleagues. But we are going to let him speak. We have been joined by the senior Senator from the State of New Mexico. We are honored to have Senator Bingaman here to speak about Solicitor General Kagan.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from North Carolina for her comments. I like how she pointed out how Solicitor General Kagan has received support from so many people on both sides of the aisle, and then also Solicitor General Kagan's support for the military. I remember one of the most touching points of the hearing--that long and laborious hearing--was when Elena Kagan spoke about reading a letter from a student who had been at her law school in which, after she was nominated, he actually wrote a letter to the newspaper. He served in Iraq, and he wrote a letter about how fair she was to him and her strong support for him as a soldier. She said it was the only moment during the whole leadup to the hearing, with all those things that happen, that she said she shed some tears. I will never forget that moment in the hearing. As we consider this nomination, I want to reflect on how far we have come. I see I have been joined by the dean of the women Senators, Senator Mikulski from Maryland. When Sandra Day O'Connor graduated from law school more than 50 years ago, as the Senator from Maryland knows, the only offer she got back then after she graduated high up in her class from Stanford Law School, the only offer she got at a law firm was as a secretary. Justice Ginsburg faced similar obstacles. When she entered Harvard, she was only one of nine women in a class of more than 500. One professor actually asked her to justify taking that place in that law school class from a man. I know we learned during the hearing that Solicitor General Kagan is well aware of the strides women have made. In a 2005 speech, quoting Justice Ginsburg, she described a student resolution at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. This resolution would have introduced a 25- cent per week penalty on all students without mustaches. The women who came before Elena Kagan to be considered by the Judiciary Committee helped blaze that trail for Elena Kagan--people such as Justice Ginsburg, Sandra Day O'Connor, and Sonia Sotomayor. Although Elena Kagan's record stands on her own, she is also, to borrow a line from Isaac Newton, ``standing on the shoulders of giants.'' All the women Senators I know--both Democratic and Republican--always feel they are standing on the shoulders of giants, maybe somewhat short giants, when they see the dean of the women Senators, Senator Mikulski from Maryland, who has entered the Senate Chamber.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I am so honored to come to the floor with a number of women Senators to discuss the President's nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to be the Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. As is the Presiding Officer, I am a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and we both had the opportunity to question Elena Kagan and to listen to her brilliant and insightful responses. Everyone heard her, and no matter how anyone is voting on this nomination--although it is hard for me to understand how they could oppose her--I think there was very much consensus on this idea that she knew what she was doing, that she has done every job that she has had very well, that she has confronted very difficult situations, and that she has always been a leader and someone who can bring consensus. She consistently demonstrated the quality that some of us had already seen in her records; that is, of pragmatism and reasonableness and a consensus builder. So I will save my remarks until later because I have been joined by the Senator from New York, Mrs. Gillibrand, who is from Elena Kagan's home State. While she may have worked in Massachusetts for quite a while, she actually came from New York. It is an honor to have Senator Gillibrand, who is also an attorney, joining us today. I yield for Senator Gillibrand.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New York for that enthusiastic endorsement. I like how she took on some of these criticisms that have been lodged against Solicitor General Kagan. I also understand that at least one of my colleagues who spoke out in opposition has stated that, in his words: ``I believe she does not have the gifts and qualities of mind or temperament that one must have to be a Justice.'' Well, anyone who sat through those hearings or watched them on TV, as Senator Gillibrand has pointed out, would have to disagree. Anyone would have seen an incredibly smart, intellectually engaged person who answered Senators' questions astutely and whose energy never seemed to flag. Neither did her sense of humor, I will add. She had immediate recall about every single case or constitutional doctrine that she was asked about, and to say she doesn't have the gift or quality of mind is simply ridiculous. This is a woman who is a trailblazer: the first woman dean of Harvard Law School, first woman Solicitor General. To say she does not have the gifts or the qualities of mind to be a Justice is nothing short of ridiculous. I next will yield for someone who knows something about having a good temperament and a good quality of mind, the Senator from New Hampshire, who is also a trailblazer in her own right: the first woman to serve as both a Governor and a Senator, Mrs. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. One thing about Elena Kagan: When you look at her series of jobs, you realize she has been in the arena as a manager, a teacher, an adviser, a consensus builder, and a lawyer. In every job, she has worked very hard and has done very well. Her work on the front lines tells me she has the practical experience in thinking about the impact of the law and policies on ordinary people, and I think sometimes that is missing in some of these decisions. There is a case I dwell on involving prosecutions and what kind of evidence can come before the court when you are dealing with some of the DNA tests, and I disagree with the recent Court decision that actually wasn't decided on ideological grounds but I believe was decided in an impractical way. I believe Solicitor General Kagan will bring that kind of practicality to the Court. When you are involved in considering the nitty-gritty details of different policies, when you are actually in the game as a decisionmaker, as she has been, you have to figure out when to compromise and when to hold firm. You have to know what the consequences of your recommendations will be. As a law school dean, Elena Kagan was widely credited with bringing together a faculty that was rife with division. Whether she was helping recruit talented professors from across the political spectrum or later, when she was working with Senators from both parties on tobacco legislation, she forged coalitions and found resolution between seemingly intractable parties. It strikes me that it takes a pretty extraordinary person who, after working in the Clinton administration, still gets a standing ovation from the conservative Federalist Society; who inspires a group of 600 law students, who can be a bit cynical, to show up for a rally wearing ``I love Elena'' T-shirts; someone who earned the respect of the law professors she worked with, regardless of their ideology, a group that I would say, as I said in the hearing, can be somewhat fearless in the face of supervision. In sum, she has had a lot of practical experience reaching out to people who hold very different beliefs, and that is increasingly important on a very divided Supreme Court. I believe that is why, when you look at the past, all the previous Solicitor Generals from the past 25 years, under Democratic and Republican administrations, support Elena Kagan's confirmation. This practical experience is also why she has the support of the National District Attorneys Association, which I used to belong to in my previous job. They actually wrote about her, saying that the National District Attorneys Association believes Solicitor General Kagan's diverse and impressive life experiences will be a welcome addition to the Court in fashioning theory that will work in practice. One of the things that I think show the practicality of her and how she responded to our questions is when I asked her about the metaphor Chief Justice Roberts made famous at his confirmation hearing. I asked what she thought about the idea that judges were like umpires who just need to ``call balls and strikes'' and whether that was a useful metaphor. She gave an interesting and insightful response. She said the metaphor is useful in some respects but maybe not in others. It is useful because judges have to be fair and neutral like umpires and judges have to be aware that they have a powerful but limited role-- that they can't legislate from the bench, they aren't elected officials. But she also said the metaphor has its limits if it suggests that judging is some kind of ``robotic enterprise,'' if it makes people think judging is an easy, automatic kind of thing because issues are always clear-cut. That isn't right, and it definitely isn't right at Supreme Court level. Cases that come before the Supreme Court, I say, are by their very nature not clear-cut or they would not have ended up there. What is necessary is good judgment. We have to look for nominees who are going to bring that kind of good judgment to the Court. I see I have been joined by the Senator from North Carolina, Mrs. Hagan, which rhymes with the name of our nominee, Solicitor General Kagan. We are pleased to be joined by Senator Hagan. We have now had four women Senators here today in support of Solicitor General Kagan's nomination. We are also well aware that if she is confirmed, we will have three women on the Supreme Court when the Court goes into session in the fall--something that has never happened in the history of the United States.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, we have now been joined by the Senator from Delaware, and we are pleased to have him here as well as we continue our discussion about the fine qualities of Solicitor General Kagan for the job of Justice of the Supreme Court. Senator Carper.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I rise today to address the need to move quickly and to confirm several qualified judicial nominees--I would say many qualified judicial nominees. You are going to hear about a number of them today. I am going to talk specifically about the highly qualified nominee for the District of Minnesota who was unanimously voted out of our Judiciary Committee more than a month ago. Our failure to confirm Susan Richard Nelson quickly has consequences for my State. The judge she has been nominated to replace took senior status as of last October and is stepping down from the Federal bench altogether in a couple of weeks. That means a smaller number of judges will be doing the same heavy workload until she is confirmed, which is not fair to my State or many of the States you will hear from today. This nomination is important to our district. Our district's caseload has increased significantly in recent years. In fact, as of June 2008, our district had the second highest number of case filings per judgeship in the entire country--the second highest in 2008 in the entire country. Yet, if she is not confirmed after coming through our committee unanimously, we will be down a judge even though we have this high caseload. Even as of December 2009, we were still in the top 10 most overloaded districts in the country. From 2008 to 2009, the district saw a 54-percent jump in the number of civil cases filed. That is over 5,000 civil cases currently pending and only 6 judges on a full-time status to deal with these cases, not to mention the docket of criminal cases on top of that. The district needs Judge Nelson to be confirmed quickly. Delay is not an option. It is worth noting that by this time in President Bush's administration, we had confirmed 61 judicial nominees. By contrast, we have only confirmed 36 of President Obama's. When a vacancy arose on the Federal district court in Minnesota, I convened a judicial selection committee to consider mainly highly qualified candidates. From this fine pool of applicants, I recommended Susan Richard Nelson to the President. President Obama formally nominated her for this position, and I appreciate the work of Senator Leahy and Senator Sessions, who is also here, in making sure she had a speedy nomination hearing. However--this is a familiar story for several nominees--after Susan Richard Nelson received a unanimous vote in the committee, her nomination stalled on the Senate floor. There is no reason to hold up this nomination. Susan Richard Nelson is exactly the kind of person you would like to see sitting in a judge's seat. She has been a magistrate judge for the District of Minnesota for the last 8 years, where she has earned the respect of litigants, lawyers, and judicial colleagues alike. She has the judicial temperament, personal integrity, and keen legal mind that are absolute prerequisites for this job. Throughout her tenure, she has gained a reputation as a fair but stern magistrate judge, one who is thorough and prepared. She has been described as a judge ``who favors neither plaintiff nor defendant, who listens carefully to both sides of every matter she hears, and who can be relied upon to give articulate, well- reasoned explanations for her decisions.'' The ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary unanimously gave Judge Nelson their highest rating. I believe she will make a fine Federal judge, and that is why I rise to speak today. But this is not just a Minnesota issue; this is a national issue. As a former prosecutor, I know what happens when you have an overloaded judiciary, when you do not have the players in place, either the prosecutor, the public defender, or the judges. When you do not have judges available to hear cases, judges whose time is spread too thin, cases do not get heard, victims do not get justice, and litigants do not get their problems solved. In other words, it slows down the wheels of justice when you do not have the people in place to actually hear the cases. It is my hope again that we can end this waiting game and confirm these nominees. I truly appreciate the bipartisanship work on our committee to get these judges through to the floor. But now is the time to get the work done. I know we will be asking for unanimous consent for a group of the judges whom we are addressing. I know Susan Richard Nelson's name will be included at that time. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

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

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor today in support of the small business jobs bill, which is moving through the Senate. I first would like to say how much I appreciate Senator Landrieu of Louisiana and her leadership on this bill, as well as the members of the Small Business Committee, who have worked incredibly hard to bring this bill to the point it is ready to get voted on. When we first began discussing how we could help our small businesses deal with the issues they face in this difficult economy, I spent a lot of time going around my State and actually talking to those who run small businesses, who work in small businesses, to get some ideas of what would really work. That is when I heard time and time again about how they desperately need capital. In fact, according to the National Federation of Independent Business, 45 percent of small businesses in America say adequate access to capital is their No. 1 problem. I think this is summed up well in a letter I got from a constituent of mine. He founded his first real estate company over 20 years ago, and when the market went south, he did not just tighten the hatches, he actually invested his savings in a new home staging business to help people get their homes ready to be put on the market. Wile his new business is profitable, he still cannot get credit. In the letter to me he said: I have approached over 10 banks and guaranteed a loan using my building with a free and clear title, and have been turned down by every bank. The answer to growing the economy and creating jobs is getting the banks to lend to low risk entrepreneurs like me. The great thing is, our community banks agree. Last week on the Senate floor, I read a letter I received from Harry Wahlquist of Star Bank in Bertha, MN. As you can imagine, Bertha is not exactly a majority metropolis. Bertha, MN, is not New York City. I just want to read it again because I think it drives home the point that there is broad consensus that this bill is what we need. In this letter, the banker from Bertha said this: I am a banker and need capital to continue serving my nine Minnesota towns. Please pass the small business lending bill now. You gave money to Wall Street. How about Main Street in Minnesota? That is what this bill will do. It will help Main Street. It does it with more than a number of provisions to expand access to credit. It provides for a 100-percent exclusion on capital gains taxes on small business investments made in 2009 and 2010. It increases the maximum deduction for business startup expenses to help entrepreneurs get their businesses off the ground. It allows businesses of all sizes to write off more of their investments in property and equipment to help them grow. Provisions like these are why this bill has such broad support. Whether it is the Chamber of Commerce or the Independent Community Bankers of America, they want us to work together to pass this bill. We have gotten this economy off the cliff. We worked with our banks and our financial institutions 2 years ago. We also worked with the stimulus bill, with the Recovery Act. But we know the answer cannot just be government jobs. We know that. What we are looking at is how do we work with small businesses that create 65 percent of the jobs in this country? How do we work with the private sector to create jobs? Another reason we need this bill is that it helps small businesses increase demand for their products and services. At a time of sluggish consumer spending, we need to be sure all American businesses--both big and small--have a chance to reach new customers abroad because when our companies are able to unlock new markets, they are also able to create new jobs. Currently, the United States derives the smallest percentage of our GDP from exports compared to other major economies--the smallest percentage when we look at other economies across the world. As people in China, in India, and other countries gain more purchasing power, there is great potential for exports in this country because the people in these countries, in China and India, as they are gaining purchasing power, will become our potential customers. More exports will mean more business, more jobs, and more growth for the American economy. So you can finally go in the store, look at the best good for the best price, and you can turn it over and it says ``Made in the USA.'' You can see that good on the shelves in China, and you can see it in India. First and most obviously, exports allow a company to increase its sales and grow its business. Second, a diversified base of customers helps a business weather the economic ups and downs. Currently, less than 1 percent of all American businesses export overseas. Of those that do, nearly 60 percent sell their products to only one foreign country, typically Canada or Mexico. With 95 percent of potential customers outside our borders, and with the purchasing power they have increasing, it is clear the opportunities that lay in exporting for our businesses, large and small, are there. But for many businesses, especially the small and medium-sized ones, the world looks like one of those ancient maps that contains only the outlines of the continent and a few coastline features, but the rest of it is a blank space of vast, unknown, and unexplored territory. But do you know what. Thirty percent of our small and medium-sized businesses say they would like to export if they knew how, if they had the connections. In many situations, our small and medium-sized businesses have the products. They have the services. They simply cannot deal with the complexity of the international markets. The overwhelming majority of businesses, even those that want to export, do not know about the export promotion services offered by our Federal agencies, and they do not know where to begin in order to make use of these services. To help blunt the learning curve for these businesses, Senator LeMieux and I introduced legislation, which is included in this small business bill, to make sure companies have the capital and tools not only to continue exporting but to expand their reach to those 95 percent of customers who are located outside the borders of the United States. If we really want to get out of this economic slump, we have to look outside our borders. We have to look at the customers across the world. First of all, this bill increases the activities and staffing of the Department of Commerce U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service Officers in carrying out their mission. Secondly, it expands the Rural Export Initiative, which helps rural businesses develop international opportunities. Every $1 invested creates $213 in rural exports. That is a return on investment. It does so by helping businesses, to prepare them for profitable growth in global markets. It focuses on locating and targeting new markets, the mechanics of exporting, including shipping, documentation, and financing. My State is now seventh in the country for Fortune 500 companies. But these companies did not start big. Medtronic started in a garage. 3M started as a sandpaper company in Two Harbors, MN. Target started as a dry goods store in the Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis, and they grew and they grew and they grew and a lot of how they grew was exporting their products, building new stores across the world, sending medical devices to places such as China and India. Well, do you know what. It is a lot easier for big companies to do it because they have the staff to do it. It is a lot harder for small and medium-sized companies. I saw success in our State, a little company in southern Minnesota, near Austin, MN, Akkerman Inc., named after Darryl Akkerman, who is there now--the son of the owner. He has been named ``the trenchless digger of the year'' in the United States. He has a product, and it is a big one. He puts big steel piping underground and pushes the piping through to do trenchless digging. Guess what. Countries such as China and India that have a lot of people on the surface of their land, they do not want to dig up big trenches. They want to do trenchless digging. In the middle of a cornfield he has grown from a few dozen employees to 77 employees, all because of exports. Mattracks, the moose capital of Minnesota, Karlstad, MN, has grown from 5 employees to 50 employees simply by driving to Fargo, ND, and meeting with a woman named Heather who is with the Foreign Commercial Service Department, and finding out what potential customers they had from Turkey to Kazakhstan. That is what we are talking about, exports. I am so proud the small business bill includes some major provisions, the bill Senator LeMieux and I introduced in Commerce. We got it through the committee, and it is now on the small business bill. It is going to make a world of difference so small businesses can access a world of opportunity. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I thank Senator Landrieu for her great leadership on this bill. What I have heard over and over from small businesses in my State is they want to know how come Wall Street is doing OK right now and they are still struggling. Somebody once said that it is like Wall Street got a cold and Main Street got pneumonia. They are still having trouble. Yet 65 percent of the jobs in this country come from small businesses. When I look at the big businesses in Minnesota, such as Medtronic, it started as a little business in a garage. The Mayo Clinic started with two doctors starting a practice together. 3M started as a sandpaper company up in Two Harbors, MN. Big businesses start as small businesses, and we need to help them. I support all the work that is done with getting the credit out there. I did want to note the important part of this amendment that was put together by myself and Senator LeMieux to help with exports. Ninety-five percent of the customers of this country right now are outside our borders, and 30 percent of small businesses say: If we could export, we would love to do it. We just don't have the people who speak the language who work for us. We only have five employees or we don't have the contacts to export our goods to Turkey. We don't have a full-time trade person. Having some help for them so they can talk with people at the Commerce Department to figure out are these real customers, simply get on the computer and call our embassies. Those embassies should be their embassies, not just for big business. They should be the embassies for small and medium businesses too. We are hopeful. This is a bipartisan amendment with a lot of support. It is going to help jobs in America. I hope we can get this passed because it is incredibly important to small- and medium-sized businesses.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I thank the Senator from Louisiana. Again, I thank you for including the piece of this bill on exports because we have waited so long to include it. This is something that came out of the Commerce Committee. So I appreciate the Small Business Committee being willing to put this amendment in there, a bipartisan amendment. It went through the Commerce Committee unanimously, with the sole focus of helping small- and medium-sized businesses, people who do not have the resources, that when they want to send their products, 30 percent of them say they want to export. They look at the world, and it looks like one of those ancient maps where you do not see all the countries. They do not have contacts out there. They do not know someone in Kazakhstan or someone in Turkey or someone in Morocco, but yet someone there wants their product. So the whole idea was to have some resources, some tools, so they can access those markets. We all know that if we are going to get out of this economic slump, we can do some of it by selling products in the United States, but a lot of it has to deal with us selling our products abroad because we have to become a country again that makes stuff, that thinks again, that sends things to other countries, that creates jobs in America, so you turn over something when you go in a store and it says: ``Made in the USA.'' The way we do that is by selling things in our own country but also selling things to all those customers, all those millions and millions of customers who are starting to get buying power in other countries. But it should not be just for the big businesses; the small- and medium-sized businesses should be able to access those markets as well. That is why this amendment is so incredibly important, an amendment that came, this piece of it, unanimously through the Commerce Committee. It boggles my mind that anyone would be voting against it. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I wish to first commend Senator Landrieu for her great leadership. It is true we share this river, and when you see all the barges go down the river every day, you see the trade and the export firsthand that we are talking about. I am focused on the export end, but I wish to give my support to the lending part of this. It is so important, and Senator Landrieu, as head of the Small Business Committee, has worked on it incredibly hard. When we discussed this idea last year of small business lending, I went around to a number of my small businesses and I heard time and time again how much this would be helpful for them. I think it is summed up by a letter I got from Bertha, MN. My colleagues may not have heard of it. It is not exactly a metropolis. This letter is from a guy named Harry Wahlquist of Star Bank in Bertha, MN. This is what he wrote just a few weeks ago. He said: I am a banker and need capital to continue serving my nine Minnesota towns. Please pass the small business lending bill now. You gave money to Wall Street. How about Main Street in Minnesota? I think it has been said that Wall Street might have caught a cold, but Main Street got pneumonia. There are still many issues out there, and a lot of it could be helped to create private sector jobs by simply allowing credit out there and more loans. The other piece of this which Senator Landrieu and my other great colleague from the Commerce Committee, Senator LeMieux, mentioned was exports. I became very interested in this because my State is now seventh in the country for Fortune 500 companies. We are 21st in population, but we have a strong and thriving business community that believes in exports and believes in innovation. We brought the world everything from the Post It note to the pacemaker. While all of these things did not start at the big companies, these big companies started in garages--companies such as Medtronic, in Two Harbors, MN, or little sandpaper companies such as 3M. They all started small. Sixty-five percent of the jobs in this country are due to small business. Yet these small businesses, which now see this world of opportunity out there for them--95 percent of the jobs in America--95 percent of the customers for America, for American businesses, are outside of our borders. Unlike 3M or Medtronic, great Minnesota companies--or Best Buy--that can have people working internally on these issues to identify markets, a little company in Benson, MN, isn't going to be able to have a full- time person looking at where they can sell their products. They still have managed to do it, and a lot of them have been able to do it by working directly with the Commerce Department. These are not little companies that necessarily are big government guys. These are people who are conservative businessmen or businesswomen who went out there and said: Well, how am I going to figure out where I can sell my product around the world when I don't speak the languages. I don't have a trade person. My favorite example is a company called Matt Trucks in northern Minnesota, population 900, the moose capital of our State. A little second grader named Matt was in school and he came home to his dad and he drew a picture of a truck. The truck had wheels and he put a bunch of tracks on each of the wheels of the truck. His dad said: Matt, that is really cute. But as you have seen on TV, the tracks go between the wheels. This little kid said: No, Dad. This would be a lot better because you can put the tracks on the wheels and take them out and use it as a regular truck. His dad is a mechanic. He went into the shop and created this truck and these tracks. Then he started a company that he called MATTRACKS, after his second grader. They have about five employees. They are chugging along. One day the dad went to Fargo, ND, which is the region of the Commerce Department that serves part of Minnesota, and he talked to a woman named Heather. She is with the Federal Government. He went to her for help. She looked on her computer and identified some markets and called the embassies where he could sell this truck. Now, due to exports, due to the fact that they are exporting to dozens of countries, from Kazakhstan to Carlton, MN, they have 55 employees, all because of exports. We have seen this all over our State. That is why Senator LeMieux and I came together to introduce a bill to focus on exports for small- and medium-sized businesses. Do my colleagues know that 30 percent of small- and medium-sized businesses would like to export more, but they simply don't know how to do it? Well, this amendment helps to fill the gap and assist U.S. businesses that are looking to export their products but do not have the resources or the know-how to find new international customers. The program focuses on locating and targeting new markets, the mechanics of exporting, including shipping, documentation, and financing, and the creation of business plans. This amendment is projected to create 43,000 jobs. It would do this by making sure this U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service, which assists small- and medium- sized businesses, is able to carry out its mission to work with these businesses by having adequate staff. Secondly, it expands the rural export initiative, which helps rural businesses develop international opportunities. As noted by my Republican colleague, Senator LeMieux, the numbers are clear. Every dollar invested in this program creates $213 in rural exports. This part of the small business amendment that Senator Landrieu is putting together allows the Department of Commerce to identify known exporters that have a capacity to grow their international sales. A business that has already been exporting to Canada or Mexico something like 50 or 60 percent of its business only exports to those countries-- it allows them to look for other countries. It provides matching grants to industry associations and nonprofit institutions to underwrite a portion of the startup costs for new export promotion projects. This is real jobs. We all know that we helped our country from going off the financial cliff. We did that with the stimulus package and by building new roads and bridges. The way out of this economic slump will be with private business expanding and with jobs. The way you do it is look across the borders and see where you can sell your goods. They have been selling goods to us, right? I want the United States to be a country again that makes goods and sends our goods to other countries. That is what this piece of the bill is about. I am grateful to Senator Landrieu and for the leadership she included in this package. I thank Senator LeMieux for his leadership on this amendment. I hope we pass this bill. It is incredibly important. I now turn to my other colleague, who has chosen to wear bright pink today, the Senator from Louisiana. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

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

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, as you well know, it has been 3 months since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in a massive fireball, killing 11 workers and injuring 17 others. But the extent of this tragedy is still beyond comprehension for everyone in this country. Since then, as we all know, as much as 50,000 barrels of oil per day has flowed into the Gulf of Mexico. At that rate, the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska has been duplicated every 4 days. I don't think that when this started, anyone thought that was possible. There are many resources down there, as we know. It was slow going at first, but now we see more than 6,800 vessels, 117 aircraft, 3 million feet of boom, and more than 45,000 personnel. In May, I went on an aerial tour of the spill while I was in New Orleans. I saw firsthand the miles and miles of oil slick covering the gulf, threatening the livelihoods of millions of people in the gulf coast as well as some of our Nation's most precious wildlife. Our priorities are clear. First, we have to plug this well. We know there are some efforts underway as we speak, as well as a long-term plan of pushing some cement in there, that we know may not be completed until mid-August. The second is that BP and others responsible must pay so that the taxpayers of our State of Minnesota as well as States across the country are not on the hook. The $20 billion the President and others negotiated with BP was a very strong start because, as we know, what happened with the Exxon Valdez--20 years later, a lot of those families still had not gotten their money. Mr. President, 8,000 of the plaintiffs and fishermen died before they got their money in that case. Third, we need to figure out what happened so this never happens again. Fourth, we need to reform the agencies that were supposed to be the watchdogs but turned out to be the lapdogs and redouble our efforts to diversify the energy supply. I have focused on addressing this disaster because I believe we owe it to the taxpayers and because this disaster has devastated the resources that belong to all Americans. Now, as we face the worst environmental disaster in our Nation's history, we cannot lose sight of a piece of it that I don't think has gotten enough attention. Why? Because we have not even seen it play out yet. We have seen that wildlife down there right now. We have seen the pelicans drenched with oil hobbling on the beaches. We have seen all that. But what we have not seen yet--and we have no idea of the extent of the problem yet--is what is going to happen to the 13 million migratory birds, waterfowl coming from Minnesota, coming from Wisconsin, that winter in the gulf coast in those marshes. At first, no one, understandably, focused on the unsettling proposition that millions of birds that winter in the gulf every fall and winter will be faced with toxic shorelines and toxic marshes, but as the oil laps up on the shore, we have to face this unacceptable but real problem right now. As you know, in our State we know summer has arrived when we hear the loon calls from our 10,000 lakes. Minnesota is home to half a million ducks and the largest population of loons in the continental United States. Hunting and wildlife watching is part of our heritage, but it is also an important part of our economy. Waterfowl hunting contributes almost $50 million in economic activity in Minnesota every year, and Minnesota has the third highest birding participation rate of all States, at 33 percent or 1.5 million people. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is heading up the Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration Program, which will come up with an estimate of restoration costs that will be sent to BP for them to pay to help clean up the shorelines, the estuaries, and the marshes. Additionally, the new escrow account that has been created will help ensure that the claims process for individuals and businesses runs smoothly and efficiently, and it will also help ensure that claims by government--State, local, and tribal--that are submitted to BP will not be delayed by a slow claims process. But, while the Unified National Incident Command is doing all it can to stop the leak, it is important that we simultaneously do all we can to protect the habitat of the birds and the ducks in the gulf that support our hunting and birding economy in this country. In just a few weeks, millions of birds will begin to migrate south from Canada, from the Great Plains and parts of the Midwest. They will fly hundreds or even thousands of miles to the gulf coast, where they spend their winters. Remember, all we have seen so far is just the birds that live down there in the heat. Think of when all the birds go down there. This is what they are going to find. They are going to find that beaches that used to have beach balls are now filled with tar balls. So many of them go to the marshes and the wetlands, and the oil is starting to creep into those marshes. We cannot really put up a sign for those birds that says: Hey, go to Mexico instead. There are naturally other places they could go, but, guess what. They can't read. Nor are we going to be able to put some big net up to stop them from flying to those places. I talked to people, experts on this, from Ducks Unlimited and other places. These birds do not have the instinct to avoid those oily areas. They are going to just plow back in where they went last winter. That is why a bipartisan group of Senators joined me in sending a letter to Secretary Salazar to ensure that proper attention and coordination is also made with U.S. Fish and Wildlife and conservation organizations that are working to protect the habitat of migratory birds. I am pleased that just this week, the National Incident Command announced the launch of a new Web site, restorethegulf.gov, dedicated to providing the American people with clear and accessible information and resources related to the BP oilspill response and recovery. It is also important that as we focus on stopping this terrible leak, we also prepare for the serious and imminent threats to the birds and wildlife that play a critical role in the regional gulf economies and to the more distant regional economies in places such as Minnesota and Wisconsin. In just a few weeks, we must be ready for the mass influx of ducks and birds in the gulf region. If we fail to prepare, countless unsuspecting birds, wildlife, will not return to Minnesota and our ecosystems and economies will feel the impact, not just in Minnesota but throughout the country; not just in Louisiana, not just in Florida. It will spread. We will continue to push, with the recovery efforts, to make sure there is adequate focus on this important issue. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I thank my two colleagues, Senators Shaheen and Stabenow, for joining me in making open arguments in favor of Solicitor General Kagan to be the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. If Members listened to Senator Shaheen's discussion of the experience of Elena Kagan, something quickly emerged: she has always been on the front line and has not been afraid to get into battle. She is the one who had to go before the Supreme Court and argue the Citizens United case that basically came up with a ruling from the current Supreme Court with which I don't agree. The Supreme Court went beyond their bounds in how they interpreted election law, reversing decades of precedent. Yet it was Elena Kagan who was the one willing to stand there as Solicitor General and basically say corporations are not people; people are people. I like the thought of someone of her experience--such an intellectual heavyweight--getting on the Court to basically match Justice Roberts. As Senator Shaheen has pointed out, she has consensus-building skills in addition to that. She is someone who has been able to bring together people of diverse views. With such a divided Court, as we see right now, I think it is going to be very helpful--if she gets through our process, which I believe she will--to have her on that Court. She also is a trailblazer. She was the first woman dean at Harvard Law School in their 186-year history. In 2009 she became the first woman to serve as Solicitor General. As has been pointed out, she has also been a law professor, a member of the White House Counsel's Office, and a domestic policy adviser to President Clinton. When I look at her resume, I notice two things: The first is that she has practical experience thinking about the impact of laws and policies on the lives of ordinary Americans. When you are involved in considering the nitty-gritty details of policies--as has emerged, as we look at all the thousands and thousands of documents she has given to the Judiciary Committee--she is someone who has been actually involved in crafting those ideas, those policies. When you have to figure out, as she has, whether to compromise or hold firm on a piece of legislation, you have to know exactly what the consequences of your recommendations will be. You have to think about the lives that will be impacted. The second thing I notice about her resume is that she has a track record of listening to different viewpoints and bringing people together--whether it is her legacy of helping to recruit talented academics to Harvard from across the political spectrum or working with Senators from both parties on antitobacco legislation. It is worth noting this is a nominee who once got a standing ovation from the Federalist Society when she spoke to them--that is a conservative legal society--during her time as a law school dean. It was not because she agreed with them on every substantive matter. In fact, she noted that at the beginning. It was because they respected her because she was willing to listen to other viewpoints and bring in other viewpoints. We need that kind of consensus builder on the Supreme Court of the United States. Finally, we have to add to her list of achievements that she managed to calm the factionalism and frustration for which the law school faculty had previously been known. I can tell you after managing 167 lawyers it is not easy, but it is even harder to manage a number of law professors. What you come up with, when you look at her whole career, is she has the practical experience of reaching out to and working with people who have different beliefs. I think that is exactly what we need on the Supreme Court. Some of my colleagues, as has been pointed out, question whether she is fit to be a Supreme Court Justice because she has never before been a judge. Well, right now every single Justice on that Supreme Court has been a judge. While they may have different backgrounds, they have come up through what is called the ``judicial monastery.'' I think the fact that the President has nominated someone who has been on the front line, deciding policies but also arguing intricate legal cases, is a good thing. As has been pointed out by Senator Shaheen, I do wonder whether these same colleagues who are objecting on the judicial experience issue would have objected to putting Chief Justice Rehnquist on the Supreme Court or Justice Brandeis or Justice Frankfurter. They did not have any judicial experience either. It is worth noting this opinion on the importance of judicial experience is not shared by at least one member of the Supreme Court who believes that may not quite be necessary. In a speech he gave at the end of May, Justice Scalia said he was ``happy to see that this latest nominee is not a federal judge--and not a judge at all.'' For historical context, Justice Scalia noted when he first arrived at the Supreme Court in 1986, three of his colleagues had never been a Federal judge. Chief Justice Rehnquist came to the bench from the Office of Legal Counsel. Justice Byron White was Deputy Attorney General. Justice Lewis Powell was a private lawyer in Richmond. Beyond that, her current job--Solicitor General--as Senator Shaheen noted, is actually referred to as ``the tenth Justice'' because it is such an important position. She represents the people before the Supreme Court. That is incredibly important training for an individual nominated to serve on the Supreme Court. It is worth noting that the last Solicitor General who subsequently became a Supreme Court Justice was none other than Thurgood Marshall-- Elena Kagan's mentor and former boss. So I hope we can put to rest this idea that only judges are qualified to be Justices. That is not a standard that we have applied throughout history, and it is not one we should start applying today. Just think--and I will end with this, Mr. President--how far we have come. When Sandra Day O'Connor graduated from law school 50 years ago, the only offer she got from a law firm was for a position as a legal secretary. Justice Ginsburg faced similar obstacles. When she entered Harvard in the 1950s, she was only one of nine women in a class of more than 500, and one professor actually asked her to justify taking a place in that class that could have gone to a man. Later, she was passed over for a prestigious clerkship despite her impressive credentials. In the course of the more than two centuries of this great country, 111 Justices have served on the Supreme Court. Only three have been women. If confirmed, Ms. Kagan would be the fourth, and for the first time in the history of our country three women would take their places on the bench when arguments are heard in the fall. I look forward to our Judiciary Committee hearing. I have to tell you, I hope my colleagues listen to what Elena Kagan has to say. When she came before our Judiciary Committee as a nominee for Solicitor General, she was very impressive. She got bipartisan support. I would like to see that again. Our job is to look at the qualifications of this nominee. Our job is to decide if she is competent. As Senator Graham said during the confirmation hearing for Justice Sotomayor, he may not have picked a particular nominee, he may have supported someone else for President, but in the end, our job is to look at their qualifications and whether they will serve our country well on the Supreme Court. I believe the answer for Elena Kagan will be yes. We are all looking forward to the hearings, and I urge my colleagues to come to the hearings with an open mind. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I am pleased to come to the floor today with a few of my women colleagues to discuss the President's nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. I am a member of the Judiciary Committee. We are looking forward to the hearings coming up in a few weeks. We hope the country is watching because this is a very important job and Ms. Kagan is a very impressive person. With that, I turn to the Senator from Michigan, Ms. Stabenow.