Amy Klobuchar

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I yield back all time.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I wish to speak about the importance of a level playing field for Minnesotan miners and American steel. My State's iron ore mines and the thousands of Minnesota jobs they support are the backbone of the Iron Range. It started in the days when miners like my grandfather worked in the underground mines with picks and shovels and continues today in open-pit mines with giant electric shovels and haul trucks. Through the generations, these Minnesotans have earned a reputation for possessing a strong work ethic. They have proven that our miners on the range can compete with anybody in the world on a level playing field. Unfortunately, that fairness is being compromised by foreign trading practices that are putting steelworker jobs in jeopardy. The U.S. Department of Commerce is currently investigating the trading practices of countries that are dumping steel products in the U.S. market. This flood of foreign oil country tubular--OCTG--goods is causing our Nation's steel industry to lose sales and market to underpriced foreign competitors. An example is South Korea, which is the world's largest steel industry but has no domestic OCTG market. The result is Korean producers exporting more to the United States, creating a drop in the price of steel. While the U.S. demand for OCTG products is increasing, American producers are not seeing the benefits. In fact, they are losing sales to foreign competitors, with imports of OCTG doubling since 2008 and increased by 61 percent this year compared to the previous year. This is already having an impact in American facilities with reduced hours and the threat of layoffs for workers. Dumping of steel products has nationwide economic implications. The OCTG steel produced for the U.S. energy market accounts for approximately 10 percent of domestic steel production. U.S. OCTG producers directly employ nearly 8,000 workers across the country, and every one of those jobs in turn supports another 7 jobs in the supply chain. Here in Minnesota, where the steelmaking process begins, there are more than 10,000 high-quality, steel-related jobs. That is why I recently joined 58 of my colleagues in sending a bipartisan letter to the Secretary of Commerce expressing concern at the antidumping investigation of OCTG imports from South Korea. The letter asks the administration to more closely examine these imports for any misrepresentations in origin and nature of the products and to take action against any unfair dumping practices. We all know our industries need to be competitive--but they also need to be competing on fair terms. It is critical that our trade laws serve as the last line of defense for American companies and workers. I will continue fighting to ensure that we have a level playing field for this Minnesota industry vital to the economic prosperity of our State.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I appreciate the words of the Senator from New York, and also his keen focus on these issues for the middle class, giving everyone a fair shot. I rise today to talk about the problems of student debt in this country and the effects that it has on millions of Americans. I think we all know that it is not just students, as much as that is the first group we think about--students--it is also their parents. Those are the ones I hear from a lot, and how hard it is, and how they have that next kid coming. While maybe they were able to patch together loans and some income to help one kid go through college, the second one comes along and it is incredibly difficult. They literally have this Sophie's choice about which kid they are going to send to college or what are they going to do with the third kid. It just should not be happening in America today. I thank Senators Franken, Blumenthal, and Baldwin for bringing us together on the floor, as well as Senators Harkin, Warren, and Durbin for their leadership on this issue. In the United States we appreciate the value of education. We know it leads to higher-paying jobs, better health, and even longer lives. I know the value of education. My grandpa worked 1,500 feet underground in a mine in Ely, MN. He was not able to graduate from high school because when his parents died, the two oldest boys had to go to work in the mines. They were only 15 years old. That is what they did. They went to work in the mines. They were able to keep the entire family together.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I ask unanimous consent for another 30 seconds.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Last summer we acted to prevent the interest rate from doubling. We have also introduced the Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act. I urge the Senate to consider this very important bill so more students can manage their debt and build a better future for themselves and their family. I am proud to support this bill. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak in support of the Water Resources Reform and Development Act, also known as the WRRDA bill. I thank Senator Vitter for his work on this bill. Of course, I also thank Chairman Boxer for her leadership in shepherding this bill through, when I think many people thought it would be a very difficult year to get a major infrastructure bill done. She was able to do it, work with Senator Vitter, work with the House most significantly, and we are very pleased with this bill. I support this legislation because it will keep invasive carp out of Minnesota's northern lakes. It will help towns across the country advance critical flood protection projects. It will address overdue port and harbor maintenance on the Great Lakes. It will also ensure that navigation will remain strong on the inland waterways system, including the powerful and important Mississippi River, which of course starts in my State in Itasca State Park, where one can literally walk over the mighty Mississippi. Minnesota's fishing and boating industries contribute around $4 billion to our State's economy every single year. For Minnesotans, being on the water is more than just a way of life. It is also part of our State's culture, part of our heritage, and it is certainly part of our economic engine, but that way of life is under threat right now because of invasive species of carp, also called Asian carp. They were imported and accidentally released into the Mississippi River years ago. How I would love to reverse that moment when they were accidentally released in the Southern States into the Mississippi River, but it happened, and years later we are still stuck with the consequences. Anyone who has not seen the YouTube video, I would suggest you view it--of these Asian carp literally jumping out of the water, hitting fishermen in the head because they eat so much every single day, and of course they are eating the fish we have come to rely on in our State for great food and also great recreation. As these invasive carp have worked their way farther upstream, we have learned they are not deterred by cold winters, which was once thought to be the case. Today invasive species of carp are knocking on our doorstep. They have been found around Winona, MN, and they are already in the St. Croix River. Minnesotans know we cannot simply wish the problem away. The problem is literally swimming and jumping into our lives. That is why I authored the Upper Mississippi CARP Act, which would close the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock in Minneapolis. My lock closure provision included in the Water Resources Reform and Development Act conference report will simply require the Army Corps of Engineers to close the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock within 1 year following the date of enactment. The language is a product of years of working with State and local stakeholders, and today, with the passage of this provision, we will take a significant step forward in the fight against invasive species to make sure they do not move up into Minnesota's northern lakes. This provision has the support of Senator Franken and also Representatives Ellison, Paulsen, Walz, and Nolan in the House. It was bipartisan. It was supported by Governor Dayton and the City of Minneapolis, as well as a large number of environmental and wildlife organizations, including Minnesota Trout Unlimited, the National Wildlife Federation, the Mississippi River Fund, the Minnesota Izaak Walton League, the National Parks Conservation Association, and the Friends of the Mississippi River, just to name a few. It is also supported by countless anglers across Minnesota, and I appreciate the broad support we have had. It is not easy closing a lock, and we know there were some limited uses of the lock by certain businesses that during the winter do not use the lock but use barges, and we know the city will be working with them. We also know the kayaking community was using the lock, and I truly appreciate their support in closing down this lock. We had a tour boat that was using this lock, and they no longer use it. Then of course we had the Army Corps there. We worked with them. It was not easy at first, but I have appreciated their work. We know in an emergency the lock could be opened again. But this is not just a study; this closes down this lock in 1 year. I also want to thank my colleagues who worked with me on this provision who may have similar locks and dams and were concerned about what precedent this would set. We were able to make this a very focused provision, so we did not get resistance in the end, and they actually worked with me on compromise language, got it in the Senate, and I thank my colleagues in the House for using this exact provision in the House bill. Closing this lock is supported by many people. I remember meeting with a group of kayakers who, despite being impacted by the lock closure, told me: ``We're with you on this!'' Recreational users of the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock have taken voluntary steps, as I mentioned, to limit their use of the lock to reduce the chance of allowing invasive carp to spread upstream, but we knew we had to go further, and that is what we are doing today with the passage of this provision. Although making the decision to close the lock was not done lightly, it is right for our State. We know invasive species of carp can dominate the environment and make up an astounding 90 percent of the biomass in the river. They outcompete prized sport fish. They make waterskiing unsafe for families, and they make boating in our lakes and rivers smelly and even dangerous. In Minnesota, the Department of Natural Resources and the Metropolitan Council studied the economic impact of closing the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock and also the economic value of recreation activities upstream of this lock. They found that for every one job dependent on the lock staying open, over eight jobs rely on recreational boat trips upstream of the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock. Closing the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock is a key part of a strategy to protect Minnesota's waters for future generations, but the fight against invasive carp does not end here. I will continue to fight for an ``all of the above'' solution to this challenge that includes closing this lock while also supporting research and carp barriers to protect other bodies of water in Minnesota. Solving this problem will require the continued cooperation of Federal, State, and local stakeholders all working together, and the passage of the lock closure provision is a leap forward, but of course it only helps with Minnesota's northern lakes. We are already seeing problems in the southern rivers, and we need to develop that research. There must be a way to eliminate these carp--by giving them food that will not kill other fish, by doing things with bubble barriers, and other ideas that have been brought forward. I know the State of Minnesota is working on that. I know the State of Wisconsin is working on that--and people all over the country. The Federal Government must play a role, and we must protect our Great Lakes, but we also must not forget our waterways. The WRRDA bill also advances critical flood protection projects, including the Fargo-Moorhead--or as I like to call it, being from Minnesota: the Moorhead-Fargo--diversion project which will protect Moorhead, MN, and Fargo, ND, from flooding caused by the Red River of the North. I have seen firsthand how hard people in the Red River Valley work to prepare for a potential flood. The Presiding Officer knows what this is like in New Jersey with his hurricanes, but I can tell you in Minnesota we literally have to plan for it every single year. They literally have warehouses for people putting sand in bags, anticipating this flooding. In a number of years we nearly lost these two major cities. This is not the way to do this, as much as we love our volunteers-- our seniors, our school kids, and everyone else--who have gathered together to get this project done and have stopped their lives for weeks. It would be much better to have permanent flood protection. I have worked with Senator Hoeven, of course, and Senator Heitkamp. They have both taken a lead, as well as Senator Franken, to get this done. The region avoided flooding this year. The river has been, however, in major flood stage 6 out of the last 8 years. In 2009--the year of the record flood--the river rose to more than 40 feet. In Minnesota and North Dakota, the Red River does not divide us. Working together, it actually brings us together and unites us, and it is that spirit of solidarity that drives our efforts in the Red River Basin. Floods damage homes, destroy crops, and hold entire cities hostage. The Fargo-Moorhead flood diversion project is critical to safety and economic development in the region, and finding a permanent solution to the issue makes much more economic sense than continuing to fight the flooding and repair damages year after year. The WRRDA bill also helps address flood protection for Roseau, MN. Roseau has recovered from a flood in 2002 that caused widespread damage, but the area needs flood protection to reduce the flood stages in the city. The next phase of the Roseau diversion project will reduce future flood damages by nearly 86 percent. I thank Collin Peterson, the Representative who represents Roseau, for his work on getting this funding. The families and businesses of Roseau have waited too long for flood protection, and the WRRDA bill ensures the project will be completed. But the WRRDA bill does not just protect property; it also strengthens our economy. The competitiveness of our economy is directly tied to the strength of our infrastructure. This includes upgrading and modernizing our ports, our harbors, and our waterways. The harbor maintenance trust fund collects $700 million more each year than it spends on dredging and maintenance. Meanwhile, our ports and navigation channels wait for basic maintenance. Coming from New Jersey, the Presiding Officer may think of New Jersey as having ports. Well, we have a major port--one of the biggest ports-- in Duluth, MN, that connects goods from the Midwest--not just from Minnesota, from all over the Midwest--to the Great Lakes through the St. Lawrence Seaway. It is a major port and brings goods in from the rest of the world. The backlog of sediment due to insufficient dredging is more than 18 million cubic yards and is estimated to cost $200 million. The WRRDA bill helps correct this disparity and ensures that funds are spent to address the needs of shippers and that the Great Lakes system does not fall into further disrepair. When ships on the Great Lakes have to light load--which means they have about 10 percent less cargo than they should have--when they have to reduce their cargo because channels are not deep enough, our whole economy suffers, not just the shippers, not just the people who are producing the goods. Our whole economy suffers when we have to ship 10 percent less than we could on these ships and instead we are bringing it in from other parts of the world. This does not make any sense at all. That is why I cosponsored an amendment with Senator Levin that establishes the Great Lakes ports as a single navigation system and sets aside additional funding for the Great Lakes ports. This provision will help ensure maintenance and dredging is done throughout the Great Lakes system. We are so excited about this. It is finally warming up in Duluth. In northern Minnesota, it is no longer colder than Mars. Our ships are ready to go and transport goods. We want them to be at their full capacity. The only way we can achieve this is by dredging some of these areas where we have seen some major problems. The bill also makes critical reforms to our Nation's rivers and waterways. The inland waterways system in this country spans 38 States and handles approximately one-half of all inland freight. With many maintenance and construction projects years overdue, the inland waterways are in dire need of major rehabilitation. The inland waterways trust fund, which funds these projects, is in steady decline. If we do not strengthen it, the industries that so heavily depend on the inland waterways system and the people that work for these industries--critical jobs--will suffer. That is why I cosponsored the RIVER Act with Senators Casey and Landrieu to help move forward major construction projects on the inland waterways system, including much-needed rehabilitation of the locks and dams on the Mississippi River. A number of the provisions of the RIVER Act are included in the final WRRDA bill, including reforms to the project management process that will help ensure waterways projects are completed on time and cost overruns are minimized. I also supported Senator Casey's amendment to increase the inland waterways user fee. Let me emphasize that the user who pays this fee asked for it. They agreed to pay this fee. We have a case of a win-win situation where the businesses that use these locks and dams want to actually pay more money to upgrade them because they need to carry their goods to market. I think the Presiding Officer knows the only way we are going to advance here in this economy on an international basis is if we are making stuff, inventing things, and sending them overseas instead of everyone sending their goods to America. We are not going to do that without a modern transportation system. Here we have businesses that are employing tens of thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people, that are willing to pay extra money to upgrade our locks and dams. That is all this is about. Industry partners, from farmers to shippers to companies such as Cargill in my State, strongly support this user fee increase. The increase was their idea. They know this modest change will go a long way to ensuring that our Nation's rivers are viable for years to come. The fee increase did not make it into the WRRDA bill because it is a tax provision. There are some good things in this bill for locks and dams. I do appreciate how the industry worked so well with me on allowing this provision of the closure of the one lock in Minnesota to stop the invasive species from going up into our northern lakes. But I also am continuing to work with them to upgrade our locks and dams throughout the country. One aspect that would truly help is this fee that businesses are willing to pay. It is exactly what we want-- private money going to upgrade our infrastructure. So we need to get this done. I will work with them in the future to get it on any bill we can so we can upgrade this country's locks and dams. Again, I commend Chairman Boxer and Ranking Member Vitter and all of the WRRDA conferees for putting together this bipartisan legislation. From keeping invasive carp out of our waters, to fighting to protect towns from flooding, investing in critical waterway infrastructure, to making sure our harbors are at 100 percent, this legislation is vital to the economy, our environment, our cities and towns. I will be proud to vote for it today. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I appreciate hearing Senator Lee's objection. I do believe this is an issue that has been delayed for too long. The bill passed the Judiciary Committee by voice vote last June. Yet businesses, communities, and individuals continue to be victimized. This is a bipartisan bill. This is legislation that has been introduced with Senator Graham of South Carolina, with Senator Hoeven of North Dakota--two Republicans--as well as Senator Schumer and Senator Coons. As I noted, it passed the Judiciary Committee. Yet we still have objections from the other side--people who are holding up this bill. At the same time, metal theft continues to rise across the country. This bill does not create the kind of burdens my friend mentioned. This bill is very narrow. The only crime it creates for a Federal crime is a crime of theft of critical infrastructure--critical infrastructure, something that could threaten the national security-- and this is not a far reach, given we have seen people stealing copper pipes, given we have seen houses blow up. So it is not a far reach at all. Secondly, what does this bill do? It leaves it to States to decide what metal theft laws they want. In the end, it does not preempt those laws. If States have laws that are on point, if they have laws relating to metal theft that create some kind of a requirement that not everything can be paid for by cash so law enforcement can actually track this, then we have a situation where that State law would govern. It is not an overly burdensome law. In fact, many States are adopting these kinds of laws. Our problem is there are some States that refuse to adopt these kinds of laws. So people are stealing metal from places such as Minnesota and bringing it to those States--to scrap metal dealerships that are accepting that metal and that don't have to report any kind of information to the police and don't have to have any recordkeeping. We have a national problem. If you don't believe me, listen to this story. Just last week, in my home State, metal thieves robbed dozens of veterans' graves--veterans' graves as we are approaching Memorial Day. What did they do? They took the brass rods that hold their symbol of service. People want to tell me this isn't a problem? People are stealing stars on veterans' graves and they are stealing the brass rods that hold their symbols of service. Just when families are gathered for Memorial Day, we have metal thieves wreaking havoc because they can go to some scrap metal dealer that isn't following the law and sell it and no one is going to keep track of who they are. This is a crime. This is a crime, and it is not the first time. On Memorial Day in 2012, thieves stole more than 200 Bronze Star markers from veterans' graves in Isanti County, MN. So I ask my colleagues who are holding up the bill how they explain defending this kind of practice and allowing it to continue, when this metal is being taken because it is valuable and it can be brought to scrap metal dealers that aren't following the law. Metal thieves have become infamous for shameless acts such as this. These thieves will stop at nothing to get this high-priced metal and make a quick buck. Last month thieves stole the aluminum wheelchair ramp from the front steps of a man's house in Washington, stranding the man inside. Enough is enough. Are our friends going to be listening to some scrap metal dealers when most of them follow the law, but clearly some don't want to follow the law; is that what we are listening to in this Chamber? Are we going to listen to the veterans of this country? Are we going to listen to the police groups? By the way, this bill has been endorsed by the Major Cities Chiefs of Police, the Fraternal Order of Police, and the Major County Sheriffs' Association. So I ask, are we going to listen to those groups or are we going to listen to the scrap metal lobby? In Minneapolis, thieves have targeted the city's oldest continuously used church. First, they stole the copper downspouts. Then they came back to steal two air-conditioners and gut the copper supply lines to the kitchen freezers. Before the church even had time to replace the stolen air-conditioners, the thieves came back a third time to steal a third air-conditioner and gut the newly replaced copper lines. Replacing the stolen items and installing security fixtures has cost the parish thousands of dollars that could have otherwise been spent on the good work of the church. These thefts have cost the parish more than money, it has also cost a tradition. This church has been serving French meat pies since the late 1800s, but this year they had to cancel it because of the thieves. Last winter at a recreation center in St. Paul, MN, thieves stole $20,000 worth of pipe from the outdoor ice rink, causing the center to close until local businesses donated labor and materials to make the repairs--$20,000 worth of pipe. The problem is the replacement is much more than $20,000. It was hundreds of thousands of dollars because they have to repair the whole ice rink. In Rochester, MN, I met with local businesses that have been robbed by metal thieves--one local business 12 times in just the past 2 years and has suffered more than $150,000 in losses, similar to the story Senator Hoeven and I heard when we met with electric companies in Fargo and in Moorhead. During one of the robberies in Rochester, thieves even stole a truck with the company logo on it and then used the truck to rob other construction sites without raising suspicion. Across the country, copper thieves have targeted construction sites, power and phone lines, retail stores and vacant houses. They have caused explosions in vacant buildings by stealing metal from gas lines, and they have caused blackouts by stealing copper wiring from street lights and electrical substations. Do you know why? Because they have a willing buyer. They have people who are willing to buy their stuff and will not even take the care of keeping records and taking checks so law enforcement can later investigate who they are. These next examples show how dangerous metal thefts can be. Last October four people were injured in an explosion at a University of California-Berkeley electrical station. Officials blamed it on copper theft that occurred 2 hours before the explosion. The copper is stolen, the pipes don't work, the workers turn it on, and there is an explosion and four people injured. Georgia Power was having a huge problem with thieves targeting a substation that feeds the entire Atlanta airport--one of the busiest airports in the world, the Delta hub. The airport was getting hit two to three times a week and surveillance didn't lead to any arrests. This is a crime that knows no borders, no boundaries. It happens in cities, it happens in suburbs, and it happens certainly in rural areas. Depending on the case, it threatens public safety, weakens our infrastructure, and undermines our businesses. The impact is staggering. In one study, the U.S. Department of Energy found the total cost to industries affected by copper theft would exceed over $900 million every single year--$900 million every single year. Between 2010 and 2012 the National Insurance Crime Bureau identified nearly 34,000 insurance claims related to metal theft. To put that number in perspective, it marked a 36-percent increase from the 25,000 claims reported between 2009 to 2011. That 25,000 number was more than an 80-percent increase from the previous reporting period. Listen to who is supporting this bill, and then I ask my colleague: Are you going to listen to these businesses or are you going to listen to the scrap metal dealers? Air Conditioning Contractors of America, supporting the bill, American Public Power Association, supporting the bill, American Supply Association, Associated Builders and Contractors, CenturyLink, Edison Electric Institute, Heating, Air-Conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors, the Home Depot, International Council of Shopping Centers, Independent Electrical Contractors, Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance, Lowe's Companies, Inc., National Association of Electrical Distributors, National Association of Home Builders, National Electrical Contractors Association, National Retail Federation, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, Retail Industry Leaders Association, Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors' National Association, Inc., United States Telecom Association, Windstream Corporation, XO Communications. I could go on and on. These are mainstream businesses on Main Street that support this bill because they are getting ripped off. So what can we do about it? We know why it is happening; that is, because there is a global demand for copper, especially from China and India, and higher prices encourage thieves to steal copper and other metals. We all know the vast majority of scrap metal dealers are legitimate and law-abiding. They do not want to buy stolen property. I have worked extensively with the scrap metal industry in my legislation. We have made some changes they suggested in order to improve the effectiveness of the bill and lessen the burden on scrap metal dealers wherever possible. Given the scale of the problem, I believe we have to take strong steps to fight these crimes and give law enforcement the tools they need. I worry that at some point we are going to have a major break in our Federal infrastructure and everyone will look back and wonder why they listened to some lobbyist representing the scrap metal dealers instead of all these businesses I mentioned and instead of the police. They will look back to this moment. Maybe they could at least listen to the beer dealers. They support this bill because their kegs are getting stolen all over the country. What does our bill do? First of all, it puts modest recordkeeping requirements on the recyclers that buy scrap metal, limiting the value of cash transactions, and requiring sellers in certain States to prove they actually own the metal. The bill also makes it a Federal crime to steal metals from critical infrastructure and directs the U.S. Sentencing Commission to review relevant penalties. Our intention is not to preempt State laws, so if a State already has laws on the books regarding metal theft, they would still apply and the Federal law would not. These criminals work across State lines--we know that--and they take advantage of States without this type of law. This bill is intended to fill the gap in States that don't have these protections. My people are getting ripped off in Minnesota because some States don't have laws. This is a Federal crime, and it is a Federal problem. The shameless--shameless--robberies of veterans' graves make clear we can't just let this go anymore. It is time to pass this bill. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 88, S. 394, the Metal Theft Prevention Act; that the bill be read a third time and passed; and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. We yield back all time.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. We yield back all time.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. We yield back all time.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, we yield back all time.

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, I rise today in support of the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2014. I commend Senator Shaheen and Senator Portman on their leadership and tireless efforts to craft an energy efficiency bill that is good for consumers, good for our economy, and good for our environment. The Shaheen-Portman energy efficiency bill is supported by a coalition of environmental organizations, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, and the BlueGreen Alliance. It is also supported by business trade associations such as the chamber of commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. By working together on a bipartisan basis, the two Senators have put together a bill that is officially sponsored by seven Democrats and seven Republicans and I believe the vast majority of the people in this Chamber. Although this bill is not a substitute for comprehensive energy or climate legislation, it is the right effort to put us on more secure energy footing and strengthen our economy. I have always argued that at a time when we have been having a hard time working on comprehensive energy legislation--something which I believe we should do and which would be very good for our economy--we need to get behind efforts such as this one. I am so pleased this has finally happened; however, I am not certain we will be able to get it done this week. I believe the beneficial role energy efficiency improvements can have for consumers and also our economic competitiveness often gets overlooked in today's debate. The Shaheen-Portman bill creates new incentives to install energy-efficient technologies in homes, businesses, and manufacturing facilities that can quickly pay for themselves. The savings for consumers alone are astounding. According to a new study, Shaheen-Portman is estimated to save consumers $16 billion a year by 2030. Making these improvements will not only save consumers and businesses money, it will also create more than 190,000 jobs. America has always been a country that benefits from the development of innovative technologies, but this bill recognizes that we don't need to reinvent the wheel or rely on a new space race to move our economy forward. This bill will lead to the installation of energy-efficient technologies that are commercially available today and can quickly pay for themselves through energy savings. The bill doesn't just work with individuals in the private sector on a voluntary basis to encourage energy efficiency, the bill also helps the government become more efficient. Some people might question why the government should try to make energy efficiency improvements when there are so many demands for Federal resources. I believe we can't afford to needlessly waste energy and taxpayer resources on older heaters, inefficient lighting, and drafty buildings. Making commonsense improvements to our Federal buildings will pay dividends for years to come. The Shaheen-Portman bill includes a number of commonsense provisions that will help keep energy affordable. I wish to briefly focus on one example which may not sound important at first blush but which has a big impact on the Minnesota Rural Electric Association and the consumers it serves in my State. The rural electric co-ops strongly support a provision in the Shaheen-Portman bill that my friend and colleague from North Dakota, Senator Hoeven, introduced and that I am helping to lead, and that is to change the Department of Energy rule to ensure that large-capacity hot water heaters that are part of a demand response program can continue to be manufactured. The rural electric co-ops in my State have installed thousands of large-capacity hot water heaters in people's basements. Heating water is a major source of energy consumption, and our co-ops have found a way to provide an important service in a way that incentivizes wind energy development and saves consumers money. These hot water heaters are only turned on at night, when the wind blows the strongest and the demand for energy is the lowest. Then in the morning, when people wake up and turn on their lights, the heaters are already off. The wind energy is stored in the form of hot water that can be used throughout the day. This provision in the Shaheen-Portman bill will provide regulatory certainty that these heaters will continue to be available. Another provision I worked on with Senator Hoeven was to find new opportunities to engage the nonprofit community in making energy efficiency improvements. We have an amendment that would help nonprofits--including hospitals, schools, faith-based organizations, and youth centers--make energy efficiency improvements that will help them save money and ultimately serve our people. Our amendment, which is fully offset, has the support of Senators Blunt, Pryor, Stabenow, and Mikulski. The amendment would provide $10 million each year for the next 5 years to create a pilot grant program so that nonprofits can save through energy efficiency. We work with stakeholders to ensure that grants will achieve significant amounts of energy savings and are done in a cost-effective manner. The grants would require a 50-percent match so that there is complete buy-in from the nonprofits, and grants would be capped at $200,000. Our amendment has the support of the National Council of Churches, the YMCA of the USA, and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, to name a few. This provision was one of the many good ideas--many of them bipartisan--that promote energy efficiency and that we believe will be included in the bill once it is finally voted on. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, the Nonprofit Energy Efficiency Act, and also support the underlying bill. The bill, as we have discussed, would save consumers and taxpayers money, reduce energy consumption, help create jobs, and make our country more energy independent. Another issue that can drive up the price of energy for consumers is metal, and this is the final issue I wish to talk about because I have attempted to get this bill on several other bills. I was able to pass it through the Judiciary Committee. It is a bill that is cosponsored by Senator Graham, and Senator Graham and I are leading the bill. Senator Hoeven and Senator Schumer are also cosponsors of this bill, as well as Senator Coons. We have been working very hard on the issue of metal theft for years. It has broad support because it has struck so many electric companies and so many consumers. Houses have blown up when people take simple copper piping out of the basement and then someone turns on the gas. Literally, people have lost their lives. We had one incident in Minnesota, and we have seen others across the country. This is unbelievable, but the stars that were placed on the graves of veterans during veterans holidays have been stolen. The beer industry is strongly behind this bill. Why? Because kegs are being stolen all over the country. Those are just things I am recalling by memory. But this is a major problem. Ask any power company or construction crew across the country or even operators of ice skating rinks in Minnesota, where one theft of a couple thousand dollars' worth literally costs the city of St. Paul millions of dollars because once they take a pipe out, they have to rebuild the entire system. Talk to any of these people and quickly learn about the growing problem of metal theft. My bipartisan bill--the Metal Theft Prevention Act--has been filed as an amendment to the energy efficiency bill to bring attention to this important issue. The amendment is the much needed Federal response to the increasingly pervasive and damaging problem of metal theft. Metal theft has jumped more than 80 percent in recent years, hurting businesses and threatening public safety. It is a major threat, especially to power companies. In a recent study, the Department of Energy found that the total value of damages to industries affected by theft of copper wire alone is approximately $1 billion every single year. I have visited small electric companies in the rural areas that have been stolen from--not once, not twice, but three times. I have visited companies that have had their trucks stolen and then the thieves go out in the trucks and steal wire because people let them in because they have the electric company's truck. They have targeted construction sites, power and phone lines, retail stores, and vacant houses. They have caused explosions in vacant buildings by stealing metal from gas lines, and they have caused blackouts by stealing copper wiring from street lights and electrical substations. Last October four people were injured in an explosion at a University of California Berkeley electrical station. Officials blamed it on copper theft that occurred 2 hours before the explosion. As the electrical workers tried to fix it, the explosion occurred. As I mentioned, they are taking brass stars from our veterans' graves. This happened on Memorial Day of 2012. In another case that shows just how dangerous metal theft can be, Georgia Power was having a huge problem with thieves targeting a substation that feeds the entire Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport, one of the busiest airports in the world. The airport was getting hit two to three times a week and surveillance didn't lead to any arrests. This rise in incidents of metal theft across the country, the growing cost to businesses, and the danger it poses underscores the critical need for Federal action. What does our bill do? It helps combat this by requiring modest recordkeeping by recyclers of scrap metal, just keeping track of who is selling the metal. It requires limiting the value of cash transactions. This simply means they can take it in for $100 bucks, but after that they have to require a check. We have many States that are doing this but not enough. So what we are finding is people are stealing metals in Minnesota where we have a $100 cash requirement and then they are selling it in another State so they cannot be tracked. The amendment also makes it a Federal crime to steal metal from critical infrastructure and directs the U.S. Sentencing Commission to review relevant penalties. The Metal Theft Prevention Act has been endorsed by the National Rural Electric Cooperate, the American Public Power Association, American Supply, Edison Electric Institute, National Electrical Contractors Association, National Association of Home Builders, National Retail Federation, U.S. Telecom Association, and about a dozen other businesses and organizations. It has the support of the Major Cities Chiefs of Police Association, the Major County Sheriffs' Association, the National Sheriffs' Association, the Fraternal Order of Police, and the National Association of Police Organizations. I ask my friends who represent the scrap metal dealers to look at this coalition and to ask yourself: Is this worth it, over a $100 requirement for writing a check? Is it worth it to oppose this when buildings are blowing up and critical infrastructure is being broken into and one of the busiest airports in the country is having problems? Is it worth it to oppose a bill that has strong bipartisan support? I don't think it is. I think the interests of the consumers of this country, the interests of businesses in this country, and the interests of law enforcement should trump, and that is what should matter in this Chamber. So I hope my colleagues will look at this again and look at the bare minimum this legislation sets. It does not create that much of a burden, when all these companies that buy this scrap metal, much of which is stolen--a number of these things are stolen. A lot of these people are good. They know it doesn't matter. They are doing it in some of the States. All they are doing is keeping records and requiring a check when it is over $100. That is all we are talking about. If we balance $1 billion in theft a year against a simple requirement of recordkeeping, I think it is pretty clear. I hope my colleagues will look at it this way, and I know their chiefs and sheriffs will tell them this must be a priority. We need to do everything we can to protect our critical industry infrastructure from unscrupulous metal thieves. I hope my colleagues support this bill when it comes up for a vote. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the Senate floor today to honor the life of a truly remarkable man--a devoted husband, a loving father and grandfather, a dedicated friend, and a true public servant. Jim Oberstar was a man of purpose and grit who never stopped fighting for the people of his district, the people of northeastern Minnesota. His resilience was the resilience of the people he represented. He was one of those rare people who was just as comfortable in the Aurora, MN, parade in khakis and tennis shoes as he was at the French Embassy. One unique thing about Jim Oberstar was that he always broke into French at a moment's notice, and he would literally speak French at the French Embassy and in Paris, but he might also speak French at the Aurora parade, even though no one else there spoke French. Whether he was biking the Mesabi Trail or fishing on Sturgeon Lake or hanging out with some of his constituents at Tom & Jerry's Bar in Chisholm--which is where he grew up--he always loved northern Minnesota and the people he represented. Jim never lost sight of where he came from or the values he grew up with. He knew that, among other things, his job in Washington was to be an advocate, and he approached every day with a fierce but disciplined urgency of purpose. What I loved most about him was that, in a day of sound bites and quick fixes, he was never afraid to give that long, long explanation of why he voted for something or why he thought it was important to his constituents. As the Star Tribune noted this week, Jim was always a popular editorial guest and meetings with him were the ``equivalent of a graduate school seminar.'' When I think about Jim, I first think--as someone whose roots are also in northern Minnesota, whose grandpa worked in the mines--about how he fought hard to keep the mines open when times were tough, back when things were bleak and people were hurting. Like my own grandpa, Jim's dad was Slovenian, and he was proud of that. And Jim's dad, like my own grandpa, was also an underground miner. They were part of a generation of immigrants who toiled hundreds of feet underground day after day to mine the iron ore that built this Nation and kept the world free in World War II. It was a hard, hard life--long days and treacherous conditions, their families living in fear of that dread whistle that meant another miner had been injured or killed. Jim knew that sound well because he lived through it. So when Jim got to Congress, he fought tirelessly to not only keep the mines open but to protect the rights of the workers and to improve safety. During his first years in the House, Jim pushed for legislation that created the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Today, thanks to the hard work of Congressman Jim Oberstar, mining conditions have greatly improved. That was bread-and-butter legislation for Jim--straightforward, commonsense policies that made people's lives better. It sounds simple, but we know in Washington today there are too many people who would rather score political points than get down to the hard work of governing. Not Jim Oberstar. He was a man of conviction. In a business known for rewarding the expedient over the noble, he lived a life of principle. He played the long game, and he did it on behalf of the American people. That is a great American, and that is a legacy worth celebrating. We lost Jim suddenly this week in the middle of the night in his sleep. The day before he had spent the day with his grandkids. He had gone to one of his grandchildren's plays. He had been going on long bike rides. Even after he lost his election in 2010, he never let it get him down. He took all that energy and zest for life and put it into his family, put it into the continuing work he did on transportation, put it into his friends and everything he loved to do. We mourned him today, but we also celebrated the incredible gifts Jim gave to our country. It is awe-inspiring to think about how much time he spent mastering Federal transportation policy: 47 years--nearly five decades--11 as a staff member on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and 36 as an elected representative. During that time he literally changed the landscape of Minnesota and the country. His fingerprints can be found on just about every major federally funded transportation project during the last five decades-- roads, bridges, tunnels, rails, locks and dams, and bike paths. Jim loved bike paths. He was a visionary. He was in front of everyone on that. He would try to get money for bike paths, and people would laugh at him: Bike paths? Who cares about bike paths? Now everyone wants bike paths. Everyone wants bike paths in their communities. Every American who flies in an airplane or drives on our Federal highways can thank Jim Oberstar. Every American who bikes their bike trails and hikes places such as the beautiful Lake Superior Trail in northern Minnesota or drives on our national highways and bridges should remember him. He was a treasure trove of facts, figures, and advice for every Member of Congress. He always used to kind of poke fun at the Senate because he claimed things came here and didn't get done. He would always say: All that ever happens in the Senate is you ratify treaties and confirm judges. One day, close to my own election, I was looking at the newspaper clips and I saw my name next to Jim saying that and I thought: Oh no, what has he said. It was in the International Falls paper, and I got it out and he had said: Well, all the Senate ever does is confirm judges and ratify treaties, but Amy is going to try to rescue this bill. She will try to get it done. I was quite relieved. One of the most memorable stories for me came on his last day in the House when Members came and told stories about him. There was a Congressman from Pennsylvania who talked about the time Jim visited his district to celebrate the opening of a new bridge. He said that Jim stood up with no notes and recited in incredible detail almost every infrastructure project that had ever been built in that district, along with the name of every Congressman who had ever served in the district, with all the right pronunciations, and he even included their middle initials. He did it with no notes. The Congressman was in awe. He walked back to his office, started looking back through the records and Googling things, and it was no surprise to anyone that Jim was exactly right. That was Jim. He loved politics. He thought of government as an honorable profession, and he was so proud of the people who followed in his footsteps, whether what he taught Senator Franken and me as we started representing Minnesota or one of his favorites, the mayor of Duluth, Don Ness, who started working with him when he was 23 years old as a young aide or whether it was all the staff members who worked for him all those years. He was so proud of the people he taught, the people he mentored. He was so proud of the Members in Congress--Democrats and Republicans--with whom he worked. He would so often work to get amendments and get little projects for their districts, and then he would let them take the credit when they went home. I wish to end today with something Jim said in his farewell speech to Congress. He was reflecting on why he had originally run for office, and this is what he said: [The reason] why I came is to serve the people, to meet the needs of their respective families, and to leave this district, leave this House, leave this nation a better place than I found it. There is no question that Jim Oberstar left this world better than he found it. Through his incredible legacy of public service, he found immortality in the beautiful children and grandchildren who were and are his family. He has left the world a better place. The youngest one, a little baby we met today at the funeral, was recently adopted, and Jim's daughter named him ``Jim.'' He left the world so much. He not only taught us how to win elections because he knew how to do that, he also taught us how to act and what to do when you lose an election. He has found immortality in the hearts of those who knew him and the lives of countless more who never will, in the majestic grandeur of stately bridges and in the cool shadows of quiet bike paths, in the hardhats hanging in the lockers of hard-working miners who go home safely at the end of the day. That is where you will find Jim Oberstar. That is where his legacy lives on. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I want to thank Senators Harkin, Warren, and Durbin for their leadership on the important issue of student debt. In the United States we all appreciate the value of education. We know it leads to higher paying jobs, and we know it leads to better health and even longer lives. Education gives everyone in this country a fair shot. My grandpa never graduated from high school. He worked 1,500 feet underground in the mines in Ely, MN. He saved money in a coffee can in the basement so he could send my dad to college. My dad went to a community 2-year college and then went on to the University of Minnesota, where he earned his journalism degree. He went from those hard-scrabble mines in Ely, MN, on to a journalism career where he got to interview everyone from Mike Ditka to Ronald Reagan to Ginger Rogers. My mom taught second grade until she was 70 years old. I still run into people who tell me what a great teacher she was. And here I stand, a U.S. Senator, the granddaughter of an iron ore miner, the daughter of a teacher and a newspaperman, and the first woman elected to this job from my State. One thing I know for sure: It would not have been possible without education. It would not have been possible without my parents, my grandparents, and my teachers, who believed in me and believed in the value of education. I still remember getting into college. I still remember back then-- and I graduated from high school in 1978--that it was $10,000 a year to go to the college I went to. I remember my dad thinking: I can't afford this. We went and met with the student loan and financial aid people. He was wearing his brown polyester pants, and he had all these coins in his pockets. Somehow we were able to get this done through loans and through his financing a good part of it. Back then, on a journalist's salary and my mom's teacher salary, we were able to afford a college like that. But now I see my daughter and I know how much it has changed and how expensive it is. Yet it is still so necessary. Higher education doesn't just benefit individual students, it benefits our entire economy by creating a more flexible, productive, and mobile workforce at a time when more jobs require some form of postsecondary education. In manufacturing now, more jobs require postsecondary education than not. We cannot allow cost to be a barrier to opportunity when we have job openings right now. I see my friend the Senator from North Dakota, and I know they have job openings in North Dakota. We have job openings in Minnesota. We have job openings that require skill, that require post-high school skills. Yet a lot of our kids can't afford to get those degrees. Rising costs for education are putting a strain on families and students and making college seem out of reach for too many young people. Many find themselves deeply in debt long before they set foot in the workplace. This student debt hangs like an anchor around not just these students but around our entire economy, and it is dragging us down. Graduates with high debt may delay making key investments, such as saving for retirement or getting married or buying a home. We had a hearing today in the Joint Economic Committee with Chairman Yellen of the Federal Reserve, and she talked about the fact that while our economy is improving, housing is still flat. She talked about the fact that housing is flat because so many young people aren't forming households. They are not getting houses. Student debt may impact a person's career choices by deterring graduates from taking jobs in order to pursue jobs that allow them to pay their debt. So we don't have people going into teaching. According to the report I released as Senate chair of the Joint Economic Committee, our State has one of the highest rates of student debt in the country, with 71 percent of recent graduates in Minnesota having a loan debt compared to 66 percent nationally. The average debt load of student borrowers who graduated in 2011 in Minnesota is also more than $3,000 higher than the national average. It is over $30,000 in our State compared to $27,000 nationally. The good news is that there are things we can do. As you know, Mr. President, last summer we acted to prevent the interest rates on subsidized Stafford loans from doubling. Yesterday we introduced the Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act in the Senate. This bill would give student loan borrowers a fair shot at managing their debt by offering them the opportunity to refinance their debt at the same low rates offered to new borrowers in the student loan program. Outstanding student loans now total more than $1.2 trillion. That even means something in Washington. It surpasses total credit card debt and affects 40 million Americans. That is why I am a cosponsor of the Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act--because it is time we gave students a chance to refinance their loans and find better financial footing. Education is the pathway to economic opportunity. Workers with higher levels of education have experienced much faster wage growth and lower unemployment rates than other workers. But the increasing level of student debt in recent years presents challenges for graduates just beginning their careers. These bright young people should be planning for their futures, not struggling financially because they worked hard to earn their degrees. Our country has come a long way since my grandpa saved that money in a coffee can in his basement so he could send my dad to college. There are parents all over America who want to do the same thing, but the money they have to save right now couldn't fit in a coffee can. That is why we have to make it easier and not harder for our students. I urge my colleagues to support this bill and pass this bill so students can manage their debt and build a better future for themselves and for their families. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

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

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I rise today to urge my colleagues to pass the Stopping Tax Offenders and Prosecuting Identity Theft Act of 2013. Before we have another year--yet another year--of criminals stealing the tax returns of millions of hardworking Americans, we need to pass this bipartisan bill. Let me tell you from the start this is a bill that I introduced with Senator Sessions of Alabama. This is a bill that made it through the Judiciary Committee 18 to 0. After a number of amendments were considered and rejected, this bill made it through the Judiciary Committee--in which there are many different people of ideological views--18 to 0. So what is this about? We have a problem in this country, and it is a problem I think people would be very surprised about if they knew how much money it involved. Criminals are increasingly filing false tax returns using stolen identity information in order to claim victims' refunds. What does this mean? How much money are we talking about? In 2012 alone, identity thieves filed 1.8 million fraudulent tax returns, almost double the number confirmed in 2011. The numbers in the documents in these cases may be forged, but the dollars behind them are real. In 2012, there were another 1.1 million fraudulent tax returns that slipped through the cracks, and our U.S. Treasury paid out--are you ready for this--$3.6 billion in fraudulent returns, $3.6 billion at a time when we have a debt. At a time when we are cutting programs and doing everything we can to make the government more accountable, we paid out $3.6 billion in fraudulent returns. That is taxpayers' dollars going down the drain. But when the criminals file these fake tax returns, it is not only the Treasury that loses out. Everyday people are the real victims, forced to wait months--sometimes even years--before receiving the refunds that are owed to them, and it can take years to fix the problems when you have your identity stolen. In 2012, Alan Stender, a retired businessman from the 5,000-person town of Circle Pines, MN, was working to file his taxes on time, just as so many Americans did this past month. After completing all the forms and sending in his tax returns, Alan heard from the IRS that there was a major problem. Someone had stolen his identity and used his personal information to fraudulently file his return and steal his tax refund. Last month, 25 people were arrested in Florida for using thousands of stolen identities to claim $36 million in fraudulent tax refunds. This included the arrest of a middle-school food service worker who stole the identities of more than 400 students. Those victims are just kids. Yet criminals are stealing their identities to get fake tax returns. Attorney General of the United States of America Eric Holder had his tax ID stolen. Two young adults used his name, date of birth, and Social Security number to file a fraudulent tax return. They got caught and they got prosecuted. But when our own Attorney General of the United States is a victim of tax fraud--people stealing his identity--I think it is time to admit we have a problem. From a retired man in Minnesota, to middle-school students in Florida, to the Attorney General of the United States, it is clear identity theft can happen to anyone. We also know this crime can victimize our most vulnerable citizens-- seniors living on fixed incomes or people with disabilities depending on tax returns to make ends meet. These people cannot financially manage having their tax returns stolen. There is a lot at stake here, and bipartisan action is needed. That is why I put forward this bipartisan piece of legislation along with Republican Senator Jeff Sessions to take on this problem and crack down on the criminals who are committing this crime. The critical legislation--which, by the way, has a similar version that passed in the House last year--will take important steps to streamline law enforcement resources and strengthen penalties for tax identity theft. The STOP Identity Theft Act will direct the Justice Department to dedicate resources to address tax identity theft. It directs the Department to focus on parts of the country with especially high rates of tax return identity theft and boosts protections for vulnerable citizens such as seniors and veterans. We also urge the Justice Department to cooperate fully and coordinate in investigations with State and local law enforcement agencies. Identity thieves have become more creative and have expanded from stealing the identities of individuals to stealing that of businesses and organizations. My bill recognizes this change and broadens the definition of tax identity theft to include businesses, nonprofits, and other similar organizations. This is something that came to us from law enforcement. This is a bill that passed through the Judiciary Committee of the Senate--not an easy journey--18 to 0. Finally, we need to crack down on the criminals committing this crime. The bill would strengthen penalties from tax identity theft by raising the jail sentence. I believe this bill would go a long way in helping law enforcement use their resources to more efficiently and effectively go after these crimes. It is time to pass it through the Senate. As I said, it passed through the House of Representatives. In recent weeks, we have made significant progress by passing this bill out of, as I said, the Senate Judiciary Committee. I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. We had votes on amendments in the Judiciary Committee, which some may hear about soon, that were rejected but were heard out. We had very good discussions and arguments, and I believe that is why I got the support of the people who were putting those amendments forward. Senator Hatch himself said one of those amendments belonged in the Finance Committee. In any case, we came together in the Judiciary Committee, voted for this bill 18 to 0, and it is now time to get it through the Senate. With an 18-to-0 vote, I should have been able to bring this bill to the full Senate, but I know my colleague from Texas has some concerns, even though he is on the record supporting this bill in committee. The time is now to pass this bipartisan piece of legislation to crack down on identity thieves and protect the hard-earned tax dollars of innocent Americans. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 316, S. 149, the STOP Identity Theft Act, the bill be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I reserve the right to object.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, the bill I put out on the floor is a bipartisan bill. It is a bipartisan bill that passed the Senate Judiciary Committee 18 to 0. It is a bill that last Congress passed under suspension in the House with the support of Republican Representative Lamar Smith and got through the House of Representatives. The House of Representatives, which tends to sometimes be a rather partisan place, was able to pass that bill. We cannot let this bill, when we are bleeding $3.6 billion in fraudulent tax return payments, die on the floor because my friend from Texas is trying again to put on these amendments. I have no problem in having this amendment come up through the Finance Committee. By the way, Senator Hatch, the ranking Republican on the Finance Committee, said on the record during the Judiciary Committee hearing that S. 2067 should be considered first by the Finance Committee; that it was in the Finance Committee's jurisdiction. Yes, he voted for it in the end, but that is what he said. That is why this was problematic, and that amendment failed. We had a full discussion about this amendment. In addition, there is a rulemaking on this issue, with 76,000 comments before the IRS. That is the issue. As for the other amendment that my friend from Texas has put out there as 2066, also considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee, also debated in the Judiciary Committee--we didn't close off the amendment. We had an amendment, we had a discussion, and that amendment failed by 10 to 8. There are several laws, as we know, that are already on the books that could be useful in this case, and there may be further discussion of this in the future. But this bill has nothing to do with that. Just because it has the word ``tax'' in it doesn't mean it has anything to do with the IRS employees and the amendments that my friend from Texas put forward. What is this bill about? This bill is about how, in 2012, identity thieves filed 1.8 million fraudulent tax returns, almost double the number confirmed in 2011. That is 1.8 million Americans having their tax ID stolen in 2012. There were another 1.1 million that slipped through the cracks, and our own U.S. Treasury is paying out $3.6 billion from fraudulent returns. Our own Attorney General of the United States of America had his tax ID number stolen. If Eric Holder can have his tax ID number stolen--and they were able to catch the guy and prosecute him--what happens to the poor guy in Minnesota. That guy wasn't caught. What happens to the people that have their tax ID stolen and then they take years to be able to get back their identity. This is why this bill went through the House of Representatives without messing around with these amendments. This is why this bill went through the Judiciary Committee, where we had the discussion and the votes on amendments. All I am trying to do is take this 18-to-0 Judiciary vote--which I was very pleased that the Senator from Texas supported in the Judiciary Committee and said good words about this bill--all I am trying to do is to get this bill passed, instead of having a debate about an amendment that clearly should have gone through the Finance Committee, as stated by the ranking Republican on the Finance Committee. It is time to get this bill passed. That is why I object to the amendments raised by the Senator from Texas and ask that this bill be passed.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I would like to thank the leader for his superb leadership on tourism. Anyone who represents the State of Nevada understands how important tourism is to our States and to our country. The leader knows it is not just about Las Vegas, it is also about places such as the Mall of America in Minnesota or all of those great bed and breakfast and fishing operations in the States of Maine or Arkansas or Missouri. Senator Blunt is the lead Republican head of this bill, along with myself, and we now have 26 authors on the reauthorization of the Travel Promotion Act, Brand USA; in addition, of course, to the immigration bill, which would allow us to not just reauthorize the Travel Promotion Act but also the JOLT Act, which creates all kinds of new ways to add more jobs to America by speeding up the visa process, by creating some more visa waiver countries and other things. We will be talking more about that later. Nigerian Schoolgirls Abduction Today I am here on a very important matter. I rise to discuss the outrageous abduction of 276 schoolgirls by the terrorist group Boko Haram in northeastern Nigeria. Now we have reports that these schoolgirls, some as young as 15 years old, are being sold into forced marriages with militants. I know this sounds like something that might be in some kind of a late-night movie or in a strange book, but in fact this happened. This happened this last month, that these 276 schoolgirls were abducted from their school by a terrorist group in Nigeria. With Boko Haram's leader now appearing on video vowing to ``sell them in the market,'' let's call this what it is: one of the most brazen and shocking single incidents of human trafficking we have seen in recent memory. As Secretary of State John Kerry said this weekend, it is ``not just an act of terrorism. It's a massive human trafficking moment and [it is] grotesque.'' This heinous crime demands that we take action immediately to help bring these girls home to their families and bring their kidnappers to justice. This is a test of our own country's commitment to fight human trafficking and modern-day slavery, and we must step up and help Nigeria with this challenge. On the night of April 14, a gang of heavily armed militants attacked the dormitory of the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, a town in Nigeria's Borno state. They shot the guards, loaded 276 girls into trucks, and drove them away into the forest. That was 3 weeks ago today, and since then there has been disturbingly little action to find these girls and to get their captors. Local police say around 53 of the girls have escaped, but that still leaves at least 223 held hostage in the hands of Boko Haram. That is almost as many people as were aboard Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. That was 239 passengers and crew, which we all know about and is a horrible tragedy and the subject of intense media coverage and a massive international search, costing tens of millions of dollars. But I have a feeling many people who are watching this right now or who are in this Chamber probably have not even heard about these girls in Nigeria. In Nigeria no one seems to know where these girls are, and until this past weekend no one seemed inclined to do much about it. The most determined pursuit of the kidnappers had come not from the Nigerian military but from the families of the abducted girls. Some of the family members, armed only with bows and arrows to fight terrorists armed with assault rifles, rode into the forest on motorcycles to try to find their girls. That is the best the world could do so far and that is shameful. Now the situation is more desperate than ever. The girls are reportedly being married off or even sold for as little as $12 to be wives to Boko Haram militants. Just this morning a video surfaced featuring a man claiming to be a Boko Haram leader, taunting Nigeria and the world with this shameful statement claiming responsibility for the attack. He said this: I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah. There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell. He commands me to sell. I will sell women. I sell women. That Boko Haram would target these girls is actually not a surprise. The group's very name means ``Western education is sinful,'' and it systematically targets schools and kidnaps and kills children, especially girls, who are guilty of nothing more than seeking a better life for themselves through schooling. The Nigerian Government estimates the group has destroyed over 200 schools. In February, 59 students were shot and hacked to death at the Federal Government College in the nearby town of Buni Yadi. The government had actually closed the schools in the region in the face of these ruthless attacks. But these girls wanted to go to school. They wanted to get an education. Their school, which had been closed for 1 month, was reopened so they could just take their final exams--something my daughter is doing right now at college, something high school kids the age of these girls are doing all over the United States right now. They were just trying to take their exams. These are girls who should be the next generation of leaders in their community and their nation--not sold off to a band of thugs. Fortunately, after this weekend the world is finally paying attention, and I hope this Chamber pays attention. With the families reaching out through social media, using the Twitter hashtag #BringBackOurGirls, protests have spread across the world, calling for the Nigerian Government to take stronger action and for the international community to help. The United States should help lead that international effort. I was encouraged that Secretary Kerry said this weekend that ``we will do everything possible to support the Nigerian government to return these young women to their homes and hold the perpetrators to justice.'' But we need actions to back up those words, and I would like to suggest three actions we should take to help marshal a global response to this heinous crime. First, the United States should seek a resolution from the U.N. Security Council condemning this attack and calling for member countries to extend all appropriate assistance to Nigeria and neighboring countries to help locate the victims of Boko Haram's abductions and bring them home. Second, we should move as quickly as we can to provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets to contribute to the search for the missing girls. The countries of the region have limited resources, and American support with aerial and satellite surveillance, similar to what we have provided to the hunt for Joseph Kony and his so-called Lord's Resistance Army in Central Africa, could make a significant difference in their ability to liberate Boko Haram's hostages. Finally, we should work to strengthen the capabilities of local authorities in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, and other countries in the region to counter Boko Haram, protect children, particularly girls, in their education systems, and combat human trafficking. I led a delegation last month to Mexico focused on fighting human trafficking, and one of the lessons I took away from that was the critical importance of training local law enforcement, prosecutors, and judges to recognize trafficking when they see it. A sharp-eyed police officer in one of these countries can make all the difference in finding these girls. Make no mistake. How we respond to the abduction of the schoolgirls of Nigeria will send a message about our Nation's commitment to human rights and the fight against modern-day slavery. Human trafficking is a stain on the conscience of the world. It is one of the reasons I became involved in this issue, having been a prosecutor and seeing the devastation that prostitution and trafficking and sex trafficking wreaks on these girls. In the United States we have our own problems; 83 percent of our victims in the United States are from the United States. We have had several prosecutions in my own State. We have had prosecutions in North Dakota. It is one of the reasons I introduced a bill with Senator Cornyn. We have multiple authors who go after this crime to look at a smarter way to handle these cases, which is modeled after the safe harbor law, which Minnesota uses, as well as 12 other States. The idea is to treat these girls as victims. Their average age is 13 years old--not old enough to drive, not old enough to go to their high school prom. It takes that concept, puts it into a comprehensive sex- trafficking strategy, and goes after this in our own country. It is now the world's third largest criminal enterprise--human trafficking--right behind drugs and guns. So do not think this is just something that people are talking about. It is not. It is happening right now. Nicholas Kristof and his wife Sheryl WuDunn wrote a book called ``Half the Sky,'' named for the Chinese proverb ``women hold up half the sky.'' It is about human trafficking. It uses examples from all over the world. In it they argue that ``it is not hyperbole to say that millions of women and girls are actually enslaved today.'' They estimate that 2 million disappear each year. In fact, this book was written long before this happened in Nigeria, and one of the examples they use is a girl being abducted in Nigeria. One of the examples they use is girls being abducted in Moldova, one of the poorest countries in that region. Senator McCain just went to Moldova and came back. When he was there he asked: Where are all the young girls and women? The officials there told him: Many of them have been trafficked to other countries--trafficked to Russia. This is happening right now, and these girls in Nigeria need our help. The girls abducted and apparently sold into forced marriages in Nigeria are as young as 15 years old. They are being forced to endure what no one, let alone a young girl, should ever have to experience. Simply put, this is a barbaric practice that must be extinguished from the world. In the book Kristof and his wife wrote they liken the imperative of abolishing human trafficking today to what the British bravely did in the early 1800s when Britain abolished slavery. They note that what mattered most in turning the tide against slavery was the British public. It was not the abolitionists' passion and moral conviction, as important as that was, but instead what turned the tide was what they called the ``meticulously amassed evidence of barbarity''--the human beings packed into the hold of slave ships, the stink, the diseases, the corpses, the bloody manacles. We cannot close our eyes to the clear ``evidence of barbarity'' unfolding before us in Nigeria. This is one of those times when our action or inaction will be felt not just by those schoolgirls being held captive and their families waiting in agony, but by victims and perpetrators of trafficking around the world. Now is the time to act. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the importance of raising the minimum wage. People truly deserve a fair shot at the American dream, and it is time to come together to raise the minimum wage. Our State just raised the minimum wage. We actually had one of the lowest minimum wages in the country--$6.15 per hour--and we are now at $9.50 per hour. So that was a major jump up. It was something that was needed, and it had a lot of support in the State of Minnesota, a State that has a very strong economy, with an unemployment rate of only 4.8 percent. But even when they have jobs people still have found it very hard to afford basic things or to send their kids to college. We should follow Minnesota's example. We should raise the Federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour. I am a cosponsor of the Minimum Wage Fairness Act. I want to thank Senator Harkin for his leadership on this issue and his dedication to the working families of America. I also want to thank Senator Merkley and all of my colleagues who have worked tirelessly to raise the minimum wage. As the Senate chair of the Joint Economic Committee, I held a hearing on income inequality earlier this year with former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. His data showed--and this is a number I will never forget--that the top 400 people in this country--the top 400 people-- have the same amount of wealth as the bottom 50 percent of Americans. This means that half of Americans--of everyone in this country--have the same amount of wealth as the top 400 people. So how do we address this? We know there are a lot of things we need to do: training people who do not have the jobs and do not have the skills right now, increasing exports, immigration reform--there are all kinds of things we can do. But we know one major thing we can do to help an individual family have a fair shot is to increase the minimum wage. Like many of my colleagues who have spoken today, I worked my fair share of minimum-wage jobs. I started as a carhop at the A&W Root Beer stand in Wayzata, MN. I then graduated to being a waitress, for about 3 years, at Bakers Square pie shop, where I once spilled 12 iced teas on 1 customer. That is when I decided to go to law school. But I worked those jobs, and it gave me a sense of what it was like for some of the people I worked with--that this was their job, this was their job cutting pies, this was their job washing dishes. This was how they supported themselves. It gave me a sense of how important it is to look out for those people who are doing the work we depend on every single day. Think of how this affects women. Two-thirds of today's families rely on the mother's income in some way. Mothers are the primary breadwinners in more than one-third of families. Yet we also know that women make up nearly two-thirds of all the workers who earn the minimum wage or less. An example of this is a waitress named Tiffany from Houston, TX, who recently came to Washington. We did an event together and answered questions. Her story is the story of so many American women across this country. She is a single mom. She loves her daughter so much. She is working as a waitress, and many times, with the way the laws work down in Texas, she does not make many tips in one night. So what does she do? She fills in by working on holidays. She has worked many Christmas Eves. She has missed every single Halloween with her daughter because it was a good night to be working at the bar at the restaurant. She has missed all kinds of other holidays, and she went through them, as we stood there. You think to yourself: Sometimes, especially when you first start off, that happens. I have had it happen. But it should not keep happening after you have worked years and years at the same place. But it is just one example of what our minimum-wage workers have to do to try to make ends meet. They have to work another job. They have to work a holiday. They have to work another shift. That goes on every single day in America. A woman working full time in a minimum-wage job only makes about $15,000 per year, which is not enough for her to work her way out of poverty. It is not enough for her to send herself or her kids to college. A full-time job should not mean full-time poverty. Today, more than 15 million women in America are counting on us to help them get a fairer wage. Many of them, as I noted, are working in demanding retail and hospitality jobs--as waitresses, store clerks, hotel maids--where they are on their feet and they are running all day. They may not be able to come here today and sit in the gallery and say: Hey, I need a raise. So we have to be their voices. We have to talk for them today. Despite their hard work, they have an almost impossible time making ends met. They struggle to afford the basics--a decent place to live or food for their family, never mind being able to save for a rainy day or for college or for their own retirement. I released a Joint Economic Committee report on Earnings, Income and Retirement Security for Women. One striking thing we saw in this report is that a woman's lower lifetime earnings means lower retirement security. So this is more than about today's wages. This is about an entire lifespan. Women live longer. If they are making less, if their minimum wage does not allow them to save for retirement, it is even tougher for them in their golden years. There is also a strong economic case for raising the minimum wage today. Low-wage workers would see their earnings increase by $31 billion if we raise the minimum wage. And we know what they are going to do with this. They are going to try to save a little of it, but they are going to spend it. They are going to spend it in Washington State. They are going to spend it in West Virginia. They are going to spend it on clothes for their kids, on food for their families, and filling up their gas tanks. They are going to help keep the economy going. I once saw a documentary that Robert Reich did where he talked to a major CEO with tons of money. He took him into his room, and he said: OK. I only have three pairs of jeans. How can you really have more than three pairs of jeans? Maybe you could have four, but you really don't need more than that. His point was this: If we want to have an economy that works, we cannot have all of the profits and money sucked up by the people who run things. We want them to be rewarded for their work, but they can only buy so many jeans. If you have that money go fairly across the spectrum, then everyone gets to buy their pair of jeans. What we are doing is literally cutting down our markets by not making sure--in a consumer-driven economy, where 70 percent of our economy is consumer driven, we are putting ourselves in a situation where people are not able to buy things. We also know that raising the minimum wage is good for business. We know that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour could help approximately 28 million workers, with almost half of the benefits going to households with incomes below $35,000 per year. We know that more than 15 million women would receive a raise. We know that $31 billion would be added to our economy. We know that seven Nobel laureates in economics, along with over 600 economists, support raising the minimum wage to restore the value that has been lost to inflation over the years. The minimum wage is now a third of the value of what it was in 1968. It was the beloved late Paul Wellstone of my State who famously said: ``We all do better when we all do better.'' If he were here today, that is what he would be saying. I know it is still true, and so do my colleagues who join me today. We need to be focused on doing better so we all do better. With this in mind, I urge my colleagues to join me in fighting for working families, and especially the working women of this country, to give them a fair shot and pass a long overdue minimum-wage increase. Thank you. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to pass the Stopping Tax Offenders and Prosecuting Identity Theft Act of 2013. With tax day coming upon us on Tuesday, the time is now to pass this bipartisan legislation. I worked on the STOP Identity Theft Act to address the growing problems of tax identity theft and to protect taxpayers against fraud. From the beginning this bill has been bipartisan. Senator Sessions is the lead Republican on this bill, and in fact recently this bill passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on a vote of 18-0. Given the number of members on the committee with very different views on issues, that is an accomplishment and shows what a pressing problem this is. I think people will be pretty shocked, as you will be, Mr. President, when you hear these numbers. Criminals are increasingly filing false tax returns using stolen identity information in order to claim victims' refunds. You might think that would be a rare incident, but as a former law enforcement person, as the attorney general for the State of New Mexico, I think you know anything can happen. This is a problem where more than anything is happening. In 2012 alone, identity thieves filed 1.8 million fraudulent tax returns, almost double the number confirmed in 2011. The numbers and the documents in these cases may be forged, but the dollars behind them are real, because in 2012 there was another 1.1 million fraudulent tax returns that slipped through the cracks, and our U.S. Treasury paid out $3.6 billion in the fraudulent returns--$3.6 billion. That is the number coming from the IRS. That is your taxpayer dollars going down the drain to people who are actually stealing taxpayers' identities, putting them on returns, filing returns, and getting back the money. When criminals file these tax returns, it is not just the Treasury that loses out. Everyday people are the real victims here, because when someone else uses your identity, when someone else fakes your identity, people are then forced to wait months and sometimes even years before receiving their actual refund. So what is going on? Well, we are having double refunds, right? First they go to the thief. This is happening millions of times. Then the real taxpayer says: Wait a minute, where is my refund, and files a return. The government has to check this out and figure out the first one and they then pay twice. This is what is happening in the United States of America. In 2012, Alan Stender, a retired businessman from the 5,000-person town of Circle Pines, MN, was working to file his taxes on time just as people are doing right now. After completing all the forms and sending in his tax returns, Alan heard from the IRS that there was a major problem. So he gets it done on time and files the return and finds out from the IRS there is a problem. Someone had stolen his identity and used his personal information to fraudulently file his taxes and steal his tax return. Just last week 25 people were arrested in Florida for using thousands of stolen identities to claim $36 million in fraudulent tax refunds. This included the arrest of a middle school food service worker who sold the identities of more than 400 students, if you can believe it. Those victims are just kids, and criminals are stealing their identities to file fake returns. Are you ready for this one? Attorney General Eric Holder recently revealed that he was a victim of tax return identity theft. This came out this week. Two young adults used his name, his date of birth, and Social Security number to file a fraudulent tax return. They got caught. They were prosecuted. But if you can imagine that this can happen to the Attorney General of the United States--at least we got action there--think about some guy in Circle Pines, MN, who has it happen. As I said, it is happening over a million times every year, from a retired man in Minnesota to middle school students in Florida, to the Attorney General of the United States. It is clear that identity theft can happen to anyone. We also know this crime can victimize our most vulnerable citizens, victims such as seniors living on fixed incomes or people with disabilities who depend on tax returns to make ends meet and cannot financially manage having their tax returns stolen. There is a lot at stake here and action is needed. That is why I put forward the bipartisan legislation a few years back with Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, to take on this problem and crack down on the criminals committing this crime. There was also significant bipartisan work in the House last year. A very similar bill was passed in the House that did the same thing, passed bipartisan bills in the House of Representatives. It happened. And the Senate now, as we know, passed it 18-0 out of the Judiciary Committee. This critical legislation will take important steps to streamline law enforcement resources and strengthen penalties for tax identity theft. The STOP Identity Theft Act will direct the Justice Department to dedicate additional resources to address tax identity theft. It also directs the Department to focus on parts of the country with especially high rates of tax return identity theft and to boost protections for vulnerable populations such as seniors, minors, and veterans. We also urge the Justice Department to cooperate fully and coordinate investigations with State and local law enforcement organizations. Identity thieves have become more creative and have expanded from stealing identities of individuals to stealing that of businesses and organizations. My bill recognizes this change and broadens the definitions of tax identity theft to include businesses, nonprofits, and other similar organizations. This is important because once a company or an organization's tax information is stolen, it can be used to create fraudulent tax returns and claim false refunds. Finally, we need to crack down on the criminals committing this crime. This bill would strengthen tax identity theft penalties by raising the maximum jail sentences from 15 to 20 years. I believe this bill goes a long way in helping law enforcement use their resources more efficiently and effectively and it is time to bring it to the floor. In recent weeks we have made significant progress, as I said, by passing the bill out of the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously on an 18-0 vote. It doesn't happen often. I thank all of my colleagues on the committee and all of my friends across the aisle for joining with us to vote for this bill. After a long discussion we had amendments. We got this bill. Every single member of the Judiciary Committee voted for this bill, including Senator Cruz, Senator Schumer, Senator Feinstein, and Senator Hatch. It was a unanimous 18-0 vote. Now I want to bring this bill to the full Senate. I would love to get this done before tax day. I know there is a holdup on the other side of the aisle, and it is time for people to understand that this is a bill that passed the House of Representatives, it passed on an 18-0 vote out of Judiciary, and we simply need to get this done. When the Attorney General of the United States of America is having his identity stolen and his identity is used to file fake tax returns, we have a problem. We have a problem that involves a lot of money. We have a problem that involves 1.8 million fraudulent tax returns in 2012 alone, double the number in 2011. We have a problem that also involves a lot of money. We have a problem that involves $3.6 billion in 1 year alone in 2012, paid out by the U.S. Government. What do you think taxpayers think when they hear that, that $3.6 billion went to thieves and we have a bill that passed out of the Judiciary Committee 18-0? I would want someone explaining why they are holding up this bill. It is time to get this bill done. I would love to see it happen before we go back to our home State so I can explain it to my constituents, and I hope our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will work with us. Because with tax season upon us, it is time to pass this bipartisan legislation, to crack down on identity thieves and protect the hard-earned tax dollars of innocent Americans. The time to do it is now. I again thank Senator Jeff Sessions for being the Republican on this bill, and I thank all my colleagues for passing it through the committee. I thank the House for getting it done over there. It is now the time to pass it in the Senate. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor. I note the absence of a quorum.

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