Amy Klobuchar

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I rise to speak about the importance of closing the pay gap for women. I am a cosponsor of the Paycheck Fairness Act--an important bill--and I am so honored to be here with my colleagues and the leader of the women in the Senate, Senator Mikulski. Today is Equal Pay Day, but it also marks the week where things are finally warming up in my State after a long deep-freeze. We look as though we are going to have 70 degrees. The snow will melt, the flowers will bloom, and the message we are all here to bring is it is time to stop freezing the women of America out of this economy. The women of America want to be treated fairly. Now all the work we are doing--whether it is the minimum wage bill or the unemployment compensation--is stuck somewhere in a deep freezer over in the House of Representatives, somewhere between the frozen peas and the chocolate ice cream, and it is time to thaw out the freezer in Washington, DC, and help the women of America. That is what this bill is about, that is what the minimum wage bill is about. People deserve a fair shot at the American dream. I thank again Senator Mikulski and I thank her for her leadership in the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. In 2009 we passed that bill to make sure that workers who face pay discrimination based on gender, race, age, religion, disability, or national origin have access to the courts. In doing so, we restored the original intent of the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Pay Act. Now it is time to prevent that pay discrimination from happening in the first place. We all know women have made great strides in this economy. We have made great strides in this body. We now have 20 women in the Senate but, of course, we are still only at 20 percent. The Fortune 500 now has 23 women CEOs, but I still think anyone who looks at this knows there are great strides that have been made but great progress ahead. Despite all this progress, women in this country still only earn close to 80 cents for every $1 made by men. This pay gap has real consequences for American families. Two-thirds of today's families rely on a mother's income either in part or in entirety, and in more than one-third of families the mother is the main breadwinner. As Senate chair of the Joint Economic Committee, we released a report this week that shows lower wages impact women all through their working lives. I think that is something people don't always think about, the fact that if women consistently make less money, and then you retire, and you are actually going to live longer than men, you have a lot less money to retire with in the first place. In fact, women who retire have about $11,000 less per year than men. That is very significant when you look at the age range where women will be in retirement. The other piece we don't always think about--unless you are in their position--is women in the sandwich generation, women who are taking care of aging parents at the same time they are taking care of children. That is happening every single day in this country as women are having to take leave from work or leave their job to take care of an aging parent while they are still struggling to afford to send their kids to college, to send their kids to daycare. This legislation will build on the promises of the Equal Pay Act and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. It will give women new tools and protections to guard against pay discrimination and will help reaffirm that basic principle that all women deserve equal pay for equal work. I am hopeful we can get this done for the people of this country. It was the late Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota who said: ``We all do better when we all do better.'' I still believe that is true, and so do my colleagues who join me today. We need to focus on this bill. We need to unfreeze some old beliefs, and we need to bring a little Spring into the Senate. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

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

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I rise today to urge the Drug Enforcement Administration to issue the final rule necessary to implement the Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act of 2010. I note that year--2010--because that is the year this bipartisan bill was passed. What it does is it provides consumers with safe and responsible ways to dispose of unused prescription medications and controlled substances. I thank Senator Cornyn, who was the lead cosponsor on the Republican side of this legislation, as well as Senator Grassley and Senator Brown, for working with me on the legislation. The important law expands safe disposal options for individuals and for long-item care facilities, and it promotes the development and expansion of prescription drug take-back programs. As the Presiding Officer knows, this simply means that when you get prescription drugs and you do not use all of them--or your doctor prescribes something else--you do not just leave them in your medicine cabinet, where someone else might be taking them. Instead, you find a safe place to dispose of them, so someone else does not start taking them and potentially get hooked on the drug. Why did I mention 2010? Well, 2010 was the year President Obama signed this bill into law. It has now been 4 years--4 years--as we have awaited the rules. I will describe why, but I think it is time to put this law into action. The DEA issued a proposed rule in December 2012. Unfortunately, that took 2 years. There were some comments then about making sure the rules worked for our long-term care facilities--you can imagine, there are a lot of prescription drugs at long-term facilities--and the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs. But these issues should be addressed in the final rule. It is time now to get this rule done so we have more options to easily and safely dispose of our prescription drugs. I know the final rule is now at the Office of Management and Budget for their approval. I have spoken to them about this rule. I am also aware they have only had the rule for 35 days. So they are not really the ones who have been holding this up. They have 90 days to get this out, and they have pledged that they hope to get that done. We need to get the rule done, and let me tell you why. As a former prosecutor, I have seen firsthand the devastating impact that drug addiction has on families and communities. During my 8 years as chief prosecutor in Hennepin County--the largest county in our State--drug cases made up about one-third of the caseload. Most Americans know that we have a problem with serious drugs. But what most Americans may not know is that one of our most serious drug problems is, in fact, drugs that are in the medicine cabinet--drugs that are prescribed legally. Within those cabinets are some of the most addictive prescription drugs out there--like pain killers and beta blockers. Prescription drugs such as these are some of the most commonly abused drugs--and people are surprised by this, but they are ahead of cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines in many States. Teenagers now abuse prescription drugs more than almost any other drug, and the majority of teens who abuse these drugs get them for free. They get them in that medicine cabinet or, more likely, a friend of theirs gets them from their mom's or dad's medicine cabinet--often without the knowledge of the person who has it. I think we all know that many leftover drugs are lying around. You go to see the dentist for surgery, and they prescribe you something for pain. You feel OK. You only take 1 or 2, and then you have 10 left, and they are just sitting in the medicine cabinet. We used to tell people to flush these drugs down the toilet. This is not a good idea for our water supply, and I think most people know that. Some people will tell you that the proper way to dispose of your drugs is to crush up your extra pills, then mix them with--and this is what they say--kitty litter or coffee grounds. We need to do all we can to keep these dangerous drugs out of the hands of teens, but I am just not sure--especially if someone does not have a cat--that kitty litter is a realistic solution. Not everyone these days makes their own coffee nor has coffee grounds. We are dealing here with a very serious problem, and all we are hearing about is kitty litter and coffee grounds. That is why we passed this bill. One option parents have is to dispose of leftover drugs at a National Take-Back Day. Listen to this. Over 3 million pounds of prescription medications have been removed from circulation through seven National Take-Back Days that have been held since 2010. I participated in one of those days in Brooklyn Park, MN, last fall. While these events have been incredibly successful, one-day events that are held a few times each year do not fully address the problem of how we are going to dispose of our drugs safely. For instance, let's say you heard about a Take-Back Day right after you had your dental surgery. Great, you can bring over those pills and safely dispose of them, but then you remember your kid has a soccer tournament, and you cannot make it that day to dispose of the drugs. It looks like those pills are going to stay sitting right where they are in the medicine cabinet. I doubt many people have the time right then and there to call and ask when the next Tack-Back Day might be and put it on their calendar in a red pen. We have to be realistic. These Take-Back Days are great. In my State, especially in the metropolitan area, under the leadership of our sheriff Rich Stanek we actually have some permanent facilities in places where they can be brought permanently--the drugs--in the libraries and places like that, but we really have gone the extra step. The reason our law enforcement is such a big fan of this law is they know we could take so many more drugs in if, for instance, long-term care facilities were able to simply bring the drugs to one location each and every day. If, for instance--and some of our drug stores have been open to this, some of these national chains--imagine how good this would be if they would just be willing to take these back and then they bring them somewhere. But to do that they need certain legal protections. They need protections about how they transport them. That is why we have been awaiting these rules. Given the Food and Drug Administration's recent approval of some very powerful drugs, I think it is even more important that we make sure when these drugs are out there that they are able to be disposed of. Offering more ways for people to dispose of their unneeded prescription drugs is also a crucial component of stopping the recent rise we have seen in heroin. Now, that might seem counterintuitive. You might say: Why would that help with heroin? That is not a prescription drug. How could that reduce the amount of heroin out there when we know we have seen huge increases in the amount of heroin. We have seen it in our State. The heroin epidemic in Minnesota and all across the country is deadly. In the first half of 2013, 91 people died of opiate-related overdoses in the Twin Cities--in Hennepin and Ramsey Counties--compared to 129 for all of 2012--just to give you a sense of 6 months compared to a year. Hospital emergency department visits for heroin nearly tripled from 2004 to 2011. In the 7,000-person community of St. Francis, MN, three young people have died of opiate overdoses since May. Another three young people have been hospitalized for heroin overdoses. One was only 15 years old. Experts blame this rise in heroin use to, first of all, some pure heroin coming from Mexico, but, secondly, an increased use of prescription drugs like OxyContin and Vicodin. That is because, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, as many as 4 out of 5 heroin users got their start by abusing prescription drugs. That is a pretty phenomenal number. I think people think of heroin like from the 1970s and people shooting up. Well, it is not like that anymore. They can take it by pills. They can take it different ways. What happens is, when they start with these prescription drugs, and they have access to them, they get hooked, they get addicted; and then, when they cannot get the prescription drugs--which does happen--then they turn to heroin, and heroin right now is much easier to obtain. So the answer here--because those drugs are similar in how they make them feel--the answer is to stop them from getting addicted in the first place. I think often times, when people just see a drug in the medicine cabinet or know that it is OK to take one of these types of drugs--OxyContin and other things for pain--they actually do not intend to get addicted. These are many of the people I just had a roundtable with at Hazelden, one of the Nation's premier drug treatment centers, talking about this. A lot of times the people who end up dying from a heroin overdose actually may even be casual heroin users. They are not doing it every single day. But that is because the heroin was a replacement for the prescription drugs they started getting addicted to when they got them out of a medicine cabinet or maybe they were prescribed them. We know this is not going to fix everything. But certainly making it easier and empowering people to dispose of these drugs will, No. 1, clearly cut down on the use of these prescription drugs, and then, we believe, lead to less heroin use in the long term. Americans all across the country--in cities, suburbs, and small towns--need options to get rid of leftover pills before they fuel addictions and claim the lives of their loved ones. The Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act provides these options. But we cannot take these crucial steps in the fight against drug abuse until the DEA issues its final rule. After 4 years, it is time to make these rules official--4 years that families and long-term facilities have lost out on safe and easy options to get rid of unused prescription drugs; 4 years that those plastic amber bottles have piled up in medicine cabinets across America; 4 years that dangerous pills have been left vulnerable to misuse, potentially falling into the hands of our loved ones fighting addiction or criminals or being accidentally consumed by an innocent child. We need the final rules. We must get them done right. But with so much at stake, we must get them done now. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I appreciate Senator Hoeven's work on the Ukraine issue. I know he went there recently, and I have also visited the great energy resources in his State as his guest and know they have a broad range of energy sources, as does Minnesota. I rise to talk about the importance of the Support for the Sovereignty, Integrity, Democracy, and Economic Stability of the Ukraine Act, and I urge the Senate to act as quickly as possible to get it done. As the past week has made clear, the crisis in Ukraine is not waiting for us. We witnessed Russia's blatantly illegal annexation of Crimea and its continued efforts to bully, intimidate, and weaken the new Ukrainian Government. It is critical we immediately demonstrate to the world, one, our support for Ukraine as it charts a new democratic future for itself; two, our abhorrence of the Russian Government's actions that violate Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity; and three, our commitment to continue leading the world through a tough and determined response to the crisis. This legislation, which was backed by our colleagues on the Foreign Relations Committee on a strong bipartisan vote, accomplishes these important goals. It provides badly needed assistance to Ukraine to help its new government stand on its own two feet. It also punishes those who contributed to the crisis by authorizing sanctions targeting Russia's officials, Crimea's self-appointed leaders, and the former leaders of Ukraine who lined their own pockets at their country's expense. It is unfortunate we have not passed this bill already, given that the vast majority of our colleagues agree on the basic framework of how we should respond to events in Ukraine. I understand some of our colleagues may want to add something else to this bill, but almost everyone agrees we should provide assistance, including loan guarantees to the new Ukrainian Government and impose sanctions on Russian leaders and key institutions. Now is the time for us to move forward. Together, the United States and our allies have taken important steps, such as barring Russia from the Group of Eight and imposing sanctions on key Russian officials. President Obama is in Europe this week working to convince our allies to take even stronger measures to help Ukraine and hold Russia accountable. We in the Senate must also act. I think it is important to step back to reflect on how we arrived at this point. This is not a crisis the United States sought. The situation in Ukraine became a crisis because the former President of Ukraine and Russian leaders sought to keep the Ukrainian people from pursuing their right to determine their own future. The Ukrainian people rose last November after their then-President turned his back on an association agreement with the European Union. This agreement would have helped bring Ukraine into the prosperous community of European nations while also compelling it to reduce corruption and enhance the rule of law. In short, it was a treaty that would have helped lift Ukraine to a better future with greater opportunity for its people. When the former President abandoned that treaty, the people of Ukraine did not go quietly. They demonstrated courageously for months in the face of severe repression by the regime, including snipers shooting at civilians in the streets of Kiev. In the face of all odds, they succeeded in forcing the regime to the negotiating table. The President fled the country, taking with him his ill-gotten wealth. It seemed the Ukrainian people would at least have the freedom they had worked so hard to achieve. The new government even signed--at long last--the association agreement with the European Union that the old regime had rejected. Unfortunately, President Putin has long sought to keep Ukraine from charting its own course, first through economic manipulation and now through brutal force. When it became clear that the people of Ukraine would not be denied, President Putin carried out a military intervention to cut off Crimea and stage a sham referendum before illegally annexing the territory in a flagrant breach of international law and Russia's own past commitments to Ukraine's sovereignty. Even though he claims Russia will seek no more territory from Ukraine, he continues to harass and undermine the new government by reneging on previous agreements to provide subsidies for gas and slowing deliveries, something my colleague from North Dakota has focused on. Russia's military continues to mass on Ukraine's borders. I find it interesting that just a few months ago President Putin wrote a New York Times op-ed on the subject of international law and the use of force. He declared: Under current international law, force is permitted only in self-defense or by the decision of the Security Council. Anything else is unacceptable under the United Nations charter and would constitute an act of aggression. In President Putin's view, force must be approved by the U.N. Security Council or it is an act of aggression, except when it comes to Ukraine. It should be clear by now that President Putin will use any means to advance his ends. He employs the language of ethnic nationalism while he tries to take apart Ukraine. His dissenters are sent to prison on trumped-up charges, children languish in state institutions as a result of the adoption ban, which is something we care so much about in Minnesota as one of the top States for adopting kids from Russia and across the world, and the Russian LGBT community lives under the constant threat of oppression. All the people of Ukraine want is a simple freedom to seek a brighter future for their country, to not be a pawn to President Putin's efforts to resurrect the Soviet Union. The whole world sees that. On March 15, 13 members of the U.N. Security Council voted for a resolution to condemn Russia for the very use of force that President Putin criticized last year. Only one country voted against it and that country was Russia. Now the world is watching us. They are watching to see whether the Congress of the United States will act. We have talked a lot about Ukraine over the past several weeks. I was proud to cosponsor a bipartisan resolution, led by Senators Durbin and Coats, that expressed support for Ukraine and criticized Russia's actions. That resolution passed unanimously 2 weeks ago. Now is the time to show we are actually doing something. Ukrainians need to know that the United States stands with them, not just in the very important speeches on the Senate floor but also with real assistance and real action. President Putin needs to know we will not meekly return to business as usual and allow him to bully Ukraine with impunity. Our allies and adversaries around the world need to know we will stand together to protect our vision of a world governed by democracy and law, where nations do not live under the threat of force by their neighbors. This is one of those times where the impact of our votes will be felt far beyond the walls of this Chamber. In Ukraine they are going to be watching this vote. In Russia they are going to be watching this vote. All over Europe they are going to be watching this vote and in those countries from the former Soviet Union. The world is watching. So other people, other countries that may choose to engage in this illegal breach of international law, that may choose to tread on this illegal ground will be watching, and that is why this vote is so important. I urge my colleagues, in the support of the people of Ukraine, to support this bill. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the bipartisan Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 2014. I thank Senator Mikulski for her great leadership, Senator Burr for his leadership, and Senators Harkin and Alexander. We have had a great afternoon. We also had a number of people confirmed today, which I am very pleased about, including the Ambassador to Canada. I think it is pretty important we have an ambassador to Canada because Canada is our biggest trading partner. We haven't had one now for months, and this is a very good outcome. But back to the bill. It has been almost 20 years since the Senate last reauthorized CCDBG. Since that time we have learned if we want strong communities, a robust workforce, and students who are ahead of the curve, we need to ensure that every child has access to high- quality childcare. As the country's primary Federal childcare program, CCDBG provides millions of families with the assistance they need to ensure working parents can keep their jobs or finish schooling knowing their children are safe and receiving quality care. We know that a child's early years are critical to building a strong foundation for their lives. Up to 90 percent of brain development happens before age 5. Just think about that: 90 percent of brain development happens before age 5. That is why it is so important to invest in quality care and education. When we do, it pays off for the rest of us by giving us better informed citizens and a more productive workforce. Investments in the Child Care and Development Block Grant Program also give parents the option of affordable childcare. Research indicates that higher childcare costs have a negative impact on a mother's employment because women are more likely to leave their jobs when childcare costs are high. That can have a lasting negative impact on families' finances and women's future earnings. As the Senate chair of the Joint Economic Committee, I released a report last year that looked at the critical role mothers play in the financial well-being of their families. My report found that lower income families are especially dependent on the money earned by mothers who work outside the home. In families in the lowest 10 percent of the income distribution, mothers account for over half of family income. The high price of childcare these days--it averages over $14,000 each year for two children--means the child care and development block grant assistance makes a big difference between families rising into the middle class or falling further behind. Working families across the country are counting on us to get this done. Since the child care and development block grant was last reauthorized in 1996, families have seen the cost of childcare increase while access to quality care has become more difficult to find. This bipartisan legislation would provide the opportunity for Congress to make critical improvements to the Child Care and Development Block Grant Program to ensure that children are safe and healthy in their childcare setting, that families have access to quality programs, and that States have a coordinated system of early care and education for children from birth to age 13. One of the primary updates in the 2014 reauthorization is the requirement that all childcare providers receiving this assistance must go through comprehensive background checks. It is unbelievable that currently only 13 States require comprehensive background checks for childcare providers. We have had a number of incidents in our State where children have had tragic injuries and tragic ends because of the lack of background checks. As a former prosecutor, I saw firsthand how abuse harmed young children, tore families apart, and challenged local law enforcement agencies, our court system, and our social service and health care providers. Our kids deserve better. We need to do everything we can to make sure people caring for our kids undergo comprehensive background checks before receiving child care and development block grants. The bill also requires States to conduct regular health and safety inspections of the childcare settings so we can make sure kids are learning and developing in safe environments. The legislation cuts redtape by giving families more flexibility around enrollment procedures. These changes will not only strengthen the program's integrity but also improve transparency so that the 1.5 million children being served through this program every month get the best care possible. Raising the next generation has always been a difficult job, and it has never been more expensive. The future of our Nation rests on making sure parents have the support they need to give their children a strong start. I urge the Senate to reauthorize this bipartisan bill and ensure children and working families get the quality care and education they need to thrive. It is the best investment we can make. I see the Senator from North Carolina Mr. Burr just came in. I thank him for his great work not only on this bill but also in allowing for this amendment process, which I believe is very important for the future of the Senate. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I appreciate the words of my colleague from Virginia, especially his focus on innovation and how it must be a major part of the solution to our climate change problem. As I look around the Chamber and see Senators from Vermont, Virginia, Hawaii, California, we may be 5,000 miles apart, but what unites us today--including the Presiding Officer's home State of Maine--is the focus on climate change and the recognition we are connected by the impact of global climate change. It is time for Congress to wake up and tackle this issue. This is why we are staying up all night tonight to make that major point. The consequences of climate change include rising seas and larger tidal surges for seaside communities, the devastating drought and water shortage we are seeing in California, extreme weather harming the habitat for native animals in Hawaii, but it also impacts the Midwest, which I don't think is the first area of the country people think about where we are seeing climate change problems. We have seen increased potential in my home State of Minnesota for extreme weather wreaking havoc on our local economies, particularly those anchored in forestry and farming. In Minnesota we export about one-third of our agricultural production which contributes significantly to our country's record high agricultural trade surplus of $38 billion. This is a major part of our economy and the second biggest industry in my State. The 2012 drought in Minnesota threatened our ability to produce the food needed to feed a growing world. Look at our lakes and our rivers. For many years our snowmobilers, the tourism industry, and ice fishers couldn't even get out. They had to cancel many activities because--not this year but many years before--we had issues with the heat in the middle of the winter. We certainly have issues with the heat in the summer. What is this industry? Every year nearly 2 million people fish in our lakes and streams, and close to 700,000 people hunt our fields and forests nationwide. The hunting and fishing industry is valued at $95.5 billion a year and brings in $14 billion in direct tax revenue. This is why, as a member of the farm bill conference committee, we worked very hard with conservation groups such as Ducks Unlimited and Pheasants Forever to make sure we had strong conservation protection in the bill and new ideas, such as the sod saver provision Senator Thune and I introduced and got signed into law. For the people of our State, the economic impact of climate change is about their livelihood. It is about a way of life. I mentioned the 2012 drought. It was the worst drought since 1956 and cost over $30 billion in damage nationwide. The drought was uneven in our State. For one farmer their crops were fine; in the next county crops would be devastated. At the same time, as some farmers were experiencing not enough rain, farmers in other parts of our State actually lost their crops due to flash floods. Research which looks at weather changes in Minnesota indicates that extreme weather events, which include heavy rainfall, are becoming more and more frequent. These are costs borne heavily by farmers, ranchers, and consumers. These production costs lose revenue, they lose supply, and they drive up costs at the grocery store for everyone. One of the things I don't think people always think about when they think about the economic connection with climate change--in the Midwest we think about our crops; we think about extreme weather, with tornadoes, flash floods, and extreme heat and drought. But it actually affects the transportation of goods to market. In 2012 Lake Superior was near its lowest level in the last 80 years, impacting our ability to transport cargo. It is simple: The heat was there, the water wasn't. The barges couldn't be filled all the way because the water was simply too shallow. Why is this happening? In the years when we don't have solid ice cover, the ice is melting more quickly so the water evaporates and you see lower water levels in places such as Lake Superior. This isn't just a problem for Lake Superior; it is also a critical issue impacting the shipping industry on the Mississippi River. The Mississippi moves hundreds of millions of tons of goods, such as corn, grain, coal, and petroleum. The Mississippi River starts in Minnesota. In Minnesota one can actually walk over the Mississippi at Itasca State Park. The 2012 drought led to low water conditions which made barge travel down the Mississippi very difficult. If shipping were completely cut off, as was possible, the economic repercussions would be severe. If barge traffic is disrupted, cargo valued at over $7 billion could experience shipping delays, including 300 million bushels of farm products, 3.8 million tons of coal, and 5 million barrels of domestically produced crude oil. A prolonged shipping delay would be devastating to the bottom lines of farmers, businesses, and common citizens. These are just a few examples of the economic costs of climate change. Global climate change is a challenge with so many dimensions, some moral, some economic, some scientific, and I will spend a few minutes talking about the science. My colleague from Virginia talked about Virginia being the home of science. I kind of wanted to break in and say we have the Mayo Clinic. Minnesota is truly a home of science. We are the home of great medical institutions. We helped launch the green revolution in agriculture with University of Minnesota alumni Norman Borlaug one-half century ago. We have brought the world everything from the pacemaker to the Post-it note. We believe in science. As we know, climate change doesn't mean every day we will have a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico or every day will be as hot and sticky as a 100-degree, humid Minnesota afternoon. But scientists say we are sure to see more days outside the range of normal, which includes extremes of all kinds. In fact, scientists at NASA found that at 2013, factoring all the cold temperatures Minnesotans bravely endured last year, the United States was still warmer by 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit than the mid-20th century average. The last time the United States had a below-average annual temperature was 1976. Climate change means simply, over time, the average temperature is getting warmer and weather patterns are changing and becoming less predictable. How many times have we heard in our States: This is the hottest summer I can remember. I can't believe it warmed up this quickly. I can't believe the ice is melting this quickly. The debate on whether climate change is happening should be over. The facts are in and the science is clear. The National Academy of Sciences finds climate change is occurring, is very likely caused primarily by the emission of greenhouse gases from human activities, and poses significant risk for a range of human and natural systems. We know certain kinds of gases, including carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, absorb or trap the Sun's heat as it bounces off the Earth's surface. This wouldn't be such a big problem except that carbon dioxide doesn't dissipate quickly. It stays in the atmosphere for five decades or more, causing Earth's temperatures to rise. This means most of the carbon dioxide produced in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s is still in the atmosphere. It means carbon dioxide produced today will still be in the atmosphere in 2050 and beyond. This carbon dioxide-trapping heat is in our atmosphere. Over time, it means global temperatures rise; in turn, sea levels rise, both because water expands and glaciers melt. The 2013 draft National Climate Assessment found human-induced climate change is projected to continue and accelerate significantly if emissions of these heat-trapping gases continue to increase. In short, there is robust scientific evidence that human climate change is occurring. Climate change is impacting our Nation's systems in significant ways, and that is likely to accelerate in the future. The result is ocean levels are rising, glaciers are melting, violent weather events are increasing, and certainly we have seen them in my State. When it comes to climate and environmental policy, I think we all know we have seen gridlock in this country, just as we have seen in so many ways--despite the Presiding Officer's good efforts as the Senator from Maine in trying to break through and mine as someone who came out of a background which wasn't at all partisan. I was involved early on in Kent Conrad's bipartisan energy group during my first few years in the Senate, where we were trying to forge some kind of a compromise on a policy approach to energy and the environment which brought people together. We were stymied in our effort. I served on the environmental committee for many years under Senator Boxer's leadership. We were again stymied in our efforts. As I look back at the moments where we could actually move on the issue, where the Nation was captivated, I think we blew it. We blew it when President Bush stood before the American people after 9/11; and if he had truly sold the Nation on energy independence from the countries involved in that tragic historic moment, if he had made the case for a new American energy agenda, I believe 80 percent of Americans then would have said sign me up. That didn't happen. The second moment we lost was during the summer of 2008. The Presiding Officer wasn't a Senator then; I was a brandnew Senator. We actually took action. We raised gas mileage standards for the first time since I was in junior high. We also made some energy efficiency improvements. I called them ``building a bridge to the next century.'' But we fell short of one important thing, and we didn't just fall short. We fell one vote short of beating the filibuster to get a national renewable electricity standard like we have in Minnesota. That was a lost moment by one vote. The third moment we lost was when President Obama first came into office. We had some new Senators. We were in the middle of a downturn. It was an incredibly tough time. But I still believe, as I have said many times, if we had moved forward on a renewable electricity standard at that time in those first 6 months with those new Senators, we would have passed it with the House of Representatives. We chose to do some other things with the environmental committees. We passed a bill, but we were, unfortunately, unable to get it done on the Senate floor. That is where we are. So when is the next opportunity? The next opportunity is now. We have the potential for leadership on energy. We have the potential because of the people in this country--the innovators Senator Kaine so eloquently talked about. I continue to be optimistic. I wouldn't be standing here late at night if I wasn't. This desk is the desk of Hubert Humphrey, who was known as the Happy Warrior. He was willing to tackle anything which came his way. Why am I optimistic? The first is the leadership of Gina McCarthy at the EPA. Her background working with Republican Governors, her reputation among business leaders as being tough but fair, and her experience navigating the ways of Washington make her well suited to look at the bigger picture issues. As someone who comes from an agricultural state, I understand full well how the EPA can sometimes get bogged down in minor issues from my perspective, taking on things that create a huge firestorm that actually do not solve the problem. I believe this Administrator, Gina McCarthy, is going to look at the larger mission of the EPA, especially when it comes to climate change. Secondly, I am optimistic because we still have some good happening here. There is some realism going on in Congress. The Washington Post ran an editorial last fall where the editorial board wrote: The overriding problem is that Congress hasn't faced up to the global warming threat. Instead of updating clean air rules and building a policy that addresses the unique challenge of greenhouse emissions, it has left the EPA and the courts with a strong but sometimes ambiguous law that applies imperfectly to greenhouse gas emissions. That is true, and that is why we have something to do here. Given the current mix right now, given what we are facing on this issue, I still believe. What can we do this year? This year we can be pragmatic. We can foster leadership. We passed the farm bill. It had good measures in it for conservation and the environment. Another example is the Shaheen-Portman energy efficiency bill which contains a range of policies that would reduce residential, commercial, and industrial use. Not every bill is supported with everyone from the Chamber and NAM to many environmental groups. This bill is. This leads to my third reason for hope. There are a lot of businesses out there that realize they cannot afford the pure cost of the old way of doing things. More and more businesses are seeing the good in going green, whether it is Walmart in its push toward energy efficiency or Apple which is working toward a goal of getting 100 percent of its energy from renewables. The fourth reason to be positive is because there are some current economic positives and market changes out there that are actually moving in the right direction. We have reduced our dependency on foreign oil in just the last 7 years from 60 percent to 40 percent. It is a combination of things. Yes, some of the natural gas and drilling in North Dakota is a major force, but we also have stronger vehicle gas mileage standards. We have biofuel. We have cleaner fuel. We are moving on a number of fronts. Look at the efforts on the State level ranging from the rules in Texas that are helping to encourage the construction of transmission lines bringing wind energy from the plains to the homes and businesses, to Colorado's strong renewable portfolio standard and the use of woody biomass for power. I would add my own State of Minnesota where we have a renewable electricity standard requiring 25 percent of electricity coming from renewable sources by 2025. Xcel Energy, our largest utility, is on its way to meet their even more ambitious standard. By law they will get 30 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. I have met with their CEO. They are more than on their way to meeting that standard. They believe in wind. They believe in renewable. The bill we passed in Minnesota, which could be a model for the Nation, has overwhelming bipartisan support. It had bipartisan support, and when it passed, nearly every legislator voted for it and it was signed into law by former Governor Tim Pawlenty. What does this mean? The investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency technology means that Xcel is actually on its path to reduce its greenhouse emissions by 31 percent. Xcel will cut its emissions a full 11 percentage points by 2020, more than the standards proposed by the passed cap-and-trade law that came out of the environment committee. Minnesota Power is another utility in our State that is working to meet the State's renewable portfolio standard by bringing more wind energy onto the grid. They are looking to keep costs low to their consumers by using Canadian hydropower to back up their wind resources. Because the wind doesn't always blow in Minnesota, the hydropower will act as a battery, storing energy when there is too much on the grid, and providing electricity when it is needed. By working together we can get more wind and solar energy on the grid in a way that provides reliable service and keeps prices low for our consumers. The Rural Electric Co-op also implemented another way to make better use of wind energy in Minnesota, to make our goal of 25 percent by 2025. They installed large capacity hot water heaters in people's basements. How can something as basic and boring as a hot water heater play a role in reducing energy consumption and climate change? The hot water heaters are only turned on at night when the wind blows the strongest and the demand for energy is the lowest. In the morning when people wake up and turn on their lights, the heater is already off. The wind energy is stored in the form of hot water that can be used throughout the day. Heating water is a major source of energy consumption and our co-op could find a way to provide an important service in a way that incentivizes wind development and saves consumers money. It was the Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis who said that ``the states are the laboratories of democracy.'' We are certainly seeing that right now with energy and environmental policy. I would like to see a major Federal policy back at those moments that I went through back when Bush was President and the tragedy of 9/11 occurred, back when we had that vote in the summer, when we missed the renewable electricity standard by just one vote. But I am hopeful that we are going to get back to a point where compromise is possible in Washington, and we will get there just as the American people have demanded. And when we get there, we know that the States are useful models for how to get this done. Before we can act on a comprehensive national blueprint for climate policy in this country, we need to bring together Americans who share these values and speak with a common voice. We are starting that discussion tonight. The message is to get Congress to wake up and get this job done. As I close, I think about this challenge and I recall a prayer from the Ojibwe people in Minnesota. Their philosophy told them that the decisions of great leaders are not made for today, not made for this generation, but leaders must make decisions for those who are seven generations from them. That would be an Ojibwe philosophy, that led them to take care of their land. This is now a part of our burden and our challenge as we approach this issue. I have always believed we should be stewards of the land. In the past, leaders from both parties--you know this so well from me--have worked to protect our land, keep our air and water clean. President Theodore Roosevelt took executive action to create the National Parks System which Ken Burns famously called ``America's best idea.'' Congress has come together to make great progress to protect our natural resources. The 1970 Clean Air Act passed in the Senate 73-0 and the House by a vote of 371-1. The Clean Water Act in the House, the final vote was over 10-1 in favor of this landmark legislation to protect our water. Global climate change is our generation's challenge to solve. It is our generation's challenge. I believe if we work together constructively, we can address this threat. We can be stewards of our world. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Brian Beall, James Chang, Jamie Lawrence, Mohsin Syed, and Timothy Torma, who are fellows from Senator Schatz's office, be given floor privileges for the remainder of this session of Congress.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise in support of Andrew Luger. I thank my colleagues for the work they have done to make sure Minnesota has a U.S. attorney in place. I want to particularly thank Leader Reid and Senator McConnell, the two leaders, for their work, as well as Senator Franken. The two of us put together a nonpartisan recommendation coming from the committee, and we are very glad the President took that recommendation and recommended Andrew Luger, with his vast criminal prosecution experience as well as his civil experience. I also thank Senator Grassley for his work as well as Senator Corker. Minnesota has gone 2\1/2\ years without a full-time U.S. attorney, as our U.S. attorney was doing the job as ATF Director at the same time, and the over 100 people who work at the U.S. attorney's office in Minnesota truly deserve a leader. I thank my colleagues for their support.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I rise again today to urge a vote in the Senate to confirm Andrew Luger to be Minnesota's U.S. attorney. For 2\1/2\ years--or 890 days--Minnesota has not had a full-time U.S. attorney. During those years, from August 2011 to August 2013, Todd Jones was responsible for doing two jobs--as the Minnesota U.S. attorney and then also as Acting Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Over the summer, the Senate confirmed Todd Jones as Director of the ATF, leaving the Minnesota U.S. attorney's position open. Even before the confirmation of Todd Jones this summer, Senator Franken and I--upon the recommendation of our bipartisan U.S. attorney advisory committee--had already recommended Andrew Luger, a respected litigator and former assistant U.S. attorney, to fill the position. This was 199 days ago. In November President Obama nominated Andrew Luger to become the new U.S. attorney, and the Judiciary Committee approved his nomination unanimously on January 9. It is time we do what is right by quickly confirming Andrew Luger to make sure Minnesota has its highest law enforcement officer in place. I also note that there is an opening in the Iowa U.S. Attorney's Office. The Judiciary Committee also unanimously approved the President's nomination for that position, and that person is also awaiting confirmation. In fact, I learned today he is in one city and his family is in another city in Iowa, and they would like to be united. That nomination is also pending. I thank Senator Grassley, who has supported our nominee, as I have supported his in Iowa. I think Senator Grassley is also aware of some of the issues with the Minnesota U.S. Attorney's Office due to the fact that we have not had a full-time attorney for 888 days. He has been supportive of our efforts to quickly move Mr. Luger's nomination. The position of U.S. attorney is a law enforcement post that the Founders regarded as so vital that they created it during the very first Congress in the Judiciary Act of 1789. This is the same act which created the Attorney General and the structure of the Supreme Court and lower courts. According to the act, each judicial district would be provided with ``a person learned in the law to act as attorney for the United States . . . whose duty it shall be to prosecute in each district all delinquents for crimes and offenses cognizable under the authority of the United States, and all civil actions in which the United States shall be concerned.'' The U.S. attorney is a position so necessary that President Zachary Taylor appointed Henry Moss--a name somewhat lost in history--to the post within 2 days of Minnesota becoming a State. Now Minnesota has been waiting for a full-time U.S. attorney for 2\1/2\ years. I know my colleagues understand the importance of their own U.S. attorneys. Some of my esteemed colleagues have a very deep understanding of the position, having served as U.S. attorneys prior to joining the Senate. Senator Sessions was appointed by President Reagan and served as U.S. attorney in Alabama for 12 years. Senator Whitehouse was U.S. attorney for Rhode Island, appointed by President Bill Clinton. And Senator Blumenthal was appointed to be U.S. attorney for Connecticut by President Carter. Other colleagues have been assistant U.S. attorneys, and my guess is that when they were assistant U.S. attorneys, they had a full-time U.S. attorney in their office. Assistant U.S. attorneys included in the Senate are Senator Lee of Utah and Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico. They know firsthand how crucial it is for these offices to have a U.S. attorney and other top leadership in place. I think they would agree with me that 890 days without a full time U.S. attorney in Minnesota is far too long. Since 1849 the District of Minnesota's 31 U.S. attorneys have upheld the rule of law, the Constitution, and the rights of our State's citizens, and tirelessly pursued justice on their behalf. Over the past 48 years, for the past half century, more than half of the U.S. attorneys for Minnesota, appointed by Republican and Democrats alike, were confirmed within a day of when they passed out of the Judiciary Committee. One-fourth were confirmed the very same day. During this timeframe, they were confirmed within an average of 28 days of being passed out of committee. It has now been 28 days since Mr. Luger was approved by the Judiciary Committee. Compare that to Thomas Heffelfinger, who was nominated by President George W. Bush to be U.S. attorney for Minnesota on September 4, 2001; he was confirmed on September 13. His entire confirmation process took only 11 days. Mr. Luger was nominated 77 days ago; that is seven times longer. In 1998 the Senate confirmed Todd Jones within 2 weeks of his nomination by President Clinton. The Senate has a history of filling this important position quickly. Nominees have not been used as pawns in some kind of a disagreement over issues. They have simply been confirmed. We have simply gotten it done. The quick action by President Taylor and the speed with which the Senate has confirmed the past U.S. attorneys for Minnesota show how much our government has historically valued this position, how much we have wanted to keep politics out of the way of this position. The over 100 employees who work for the U.S. attorney in Minnesota don't run as Democrats or Republicans. We don't even know what their political parties are. They deserve a boss in their office to take this position, which has been historically filled almost immediately after it gets through the Judiciary Committee. They deserve a boss in their office. With each day that passes we are doing an injustice not only to the Founding Fathers who emphasized the position's importance and the Presidents who have acted quickly to fill it but also to the more than 100 people who work in that office. The men and women in the Minnesota U.S. Attorneys Office exemplify the professionalism, high ethical standards, and unwavering commitment to the rule of law and public safety that we expect of prosecutors. They work to protect the public safety by focusing on offenders who harm our community--terrorists, the worst of the worst, violent criminals, drug traffickers, and major financial fraudsters. They also work closely with local law enforcement to ensure that local and Federal resources are used efficiently and effectively to prevent crime and lock up criminals. For example, the office recently won a conviction in a $3.65 billion Ponzi case--the second biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history. The biggest was the Madoff case. The second came out of the District of Minnesota, $3.65 billion. Of course, that case was initiated when we had a full-time U.S. attorney. That case was prosecuted mainly when we had a full-time U.S. attorney. What else does the office have? It has an ongoing terrorist investigation that has led to charges against 18 people for aiding the terrorist organization al-Shabaab. If you asked anyone over at the FBI--including the FBI Director who was recently quoted in a story in the Los Angeles Times about the importance of this investigation--they would tell you it would be pretty nice to have a full-time U.S. attorney in that office. Eight of the people who have already been charged have been convicted. Some received sentences up to 20 years in prison. Other major work from the office includes Operation Highlife, a major drug trafficking investigation involving more than 100 local, State, and Federal law enforcement officers, resulting in 26 indictments, 25 guilty pleas, and sentences up to 200 months in prison. I would note that right now we are experiencing--as they are in many places around the country--a heroin epidemic in Minnesota. Over 50 people in Hennepin County died last year from heroin overdoses. That is what we are talking about. We have a heroin epidemic, and then we have to go home and tell the people of our State that the Senate has not yet confirmed a U.S. attorney. He went through the committee unanimously--not one objection. The committee he was voted out of includes a very diverse group of Senators, including Senator Cruz, Senator Grassley, Senator Cornyn, and Senator Whitehouse. I recommended Andrew Luger to the President, and he was nominated. He has the support of our Republican Congressmen near the Twin Cities. Andrew Luger went through that committee without objection and deserves to be voted on by this Senate. Operation Brother's Keeper is another example of a successful investigation and prosecution of a RICO case involving a regional 200- member gang which took 22 dangerous criminals off the street. Operation Malverde received national attention and had a prosecution of 27 defendants associated with the Mexican drug cartel--including the apprehension of the cartel's regional leader--with sentences as high as 20 years in prison. The office also recently prosecuted a case involving a major synthetic drug seller in Duluth, MN. This head shop was a huge problem and a scourge in the community. They went after it, prosecuted the owner, and found $700,000 in plastic bags hidden in his bathroom, and they won that case. These are just a few of the major cases this office has worked on over the last few years. It has been 890 days since we had a full-time boss, which was due, in part, to the delay in filling the position of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. It took nearly 1 year for this body to act on that nomination because this body had not confirmed anyone for that full-time job for 7 years. After Operation Fast and Furious, and the disaster with that case, it was finally decided that we need a full-time, confirmed Director at the ATF. Our U.S. attorney agreed to work at both jobs for 2 years and was finally confirmed. We finally have a nominee, and that person is now waiting. That is how we get to 890 days without a full-time boss. The Senate has always served the people of Minnesota well in making sure that our State has a U.S. attorney. I think we need to continue that tradition and honor the value our Founding Fathers entrusted in this position. It is time we vote on Mr. Luger's nomination. He is a dedicated public servant whose breadth of experience and strength of character and commitment to justice makes him a well-qualified candidate. No one has questioned or shed any doubt on his qualifications; that is not the issue. Oftentimes that is an issue with nominees, but that is not the issue in this case. The issue is that we simply--as we have in the past--allowed a voice vote on these nominations. It has taken an average of 8 days after coming out of the committee for the District of Minnesota. The first U.S. attorney for Minnesota took 2 days. We have now waited 890 days. It is time to get this done. I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

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

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise to address two issues. The first is what is before us. That is the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension Act. The second is something that should be before us; that is, the confirmation of the U.S. attorney for Minnesota. This will be the third time in a few days that I have spoken on this issue, which I will continue to do so until this gets done. I rise in support of the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension Act. I know we are making progress on a proposal that extends Federal support for emergency unemployment compensation for 3 months and is fully offset. I have spoken about the need to extend Federal support for unemployment insurance, and I would like to thank Senator Jack Reed and Senator Dean Heller for their bipartisan leadership on this issue. Unemployment insurance provides a critical lifeline. Workers pay into the program so it will be there when they are looking for work. Unemployment insurance helps families pay the mortgage or rent and put gas in the tank. Federal support for unemployment insurance is crucial for those Americans who exhaust their State-funded benefits and are still looking for work. Throughout my time as the Senate chair of the Joint Economic Committee, I have focused on the continuing problem of long-term unemployment. Last month, I issued a Joint Economic Committee report that makes the clear economic case for extending Federal support for unemployment insurance, which keeps those Americans afloat, those Americans who are continuing to search for work. The long-term unemployment rate now stands at 2.5 percent, nearly twice as high as when these benefits expired during the last recession. We already know the consequences of allowing the Federal benefits to expire are not good. At the end of last year, 1.3 million workers lost all unemployment benefits, and another 3.6 million jobless workers could lose their benefits this year. In my home State, roughly 9,200 people lost benefits at the end of last year and about 65,000 workers could lose their unemployment insurance by the end of this year. Now is not the time for Congress to cut off extended unemployment insurance for those people who have been actively looking for work for more than 26 weeks. These are not the people, as you know, who benefited from the uptick in the stock market over the last few years. They do not have stock portfolios. They are not checking the stock rate. They have not noticed that it has gone down a little bit recently, and they have not noticed that it went up all last year. They are just trying to put food on their table and keep a roof over their head. They are people who live in our States and who are our neighbors. I have heard from countless Minnesotans who are sharing their stories with me about how unemployment insurance is a lifeline for their families and that ending Federal support for the long-term unemployed would be devastating. I am sharing some of these letters because they tell the stories of hard-working Americans who are doing their best to look for work and support their families. Linda from Little Falls wrote: Dear Amy, Please, please, please fight to extend the emergency unemployment past the end of the year. My husband and I are both still unemployed, by no fault of our own, and are both over 55. We are having a very difficult time finding employment, and to stop this program would be devastating for us and many others that we know. My husband was at his job for 37 years and they closed the doors, and I made more than some of the more junior people in my office, so I was let go first. Think of that: a couple, the man working at his job for 37 years, the woman more senior at her job saying she was let go because she made more money than others in the office. She ends by saying: Please help to get this extended. I feel like the people who are still left jobless are being forgotten! Thank you. . . . Second letter, Donna from Prior Lake. She says this: . . . Having worked for over 30 plus years of my life, I am currently unemployed. I have applied for over 300 positions during the last 6 months. I do not expect a handout but I was really disappointed when I found out that I could no longer receive unemployment insurance after the 28th of December. . . . It's not that I am not trying to work, or that I am not looking for a position, but I am 55 years old and my full time job right now is to find a job. I am looking for temporary, full time, part-time, contract work. I would like to know that my congress people are doing the same for me. Donna. Thirty-plus years of working. She is 55 years old. She has applied for over 300 positions. That is who we are talking about here. These are the people we are talking about when we talk about this kind of long-term extension of unemployment. It is something I hope my colleagues will keep in mind as we move forward and get this done and get this passed. Andrew Luger Nomination Now I would like to turn to another matter. The only thing these two have in common is they are both kind of victims of stalled-out situations of gridlock. The second one is about one person, but it is not really about one person, it is about a system of justice and it is about a decision on the part of the United States, part of our Founding Fathers, the part of our Congress that is going way back, that we would have a U.S. attorney in most States in this country, that we would have a U.S. attorney who would be charged with enforcing the Federal laws, that the Congress would have a role in deciding who that U.S. attorney would be, that the President would recommend, would appoint someone, and then the Congress has the job of simply deciding if that person is qualified or not for the job. But it is not even just about one person or one system of government, it is also about the people who work in the U.S. attorney's office, in the case of the district of Minnesota, over 100 people, over 50 people who are prosecutors working in the office who deserve to have a full- time leader in the U.S. attorney's job. For 2\1/2\ years, 888 days--I counted each day--Minnesota has not had a full-time U.S. attorney. It is a modern-day record. During those years, from August 2011 to August 2013, B. Todd Jones was responsible for doing two jobs. He was the Minnesota U.S. attorney, and as those of us involved in the long vote in this Chamber that lasted over 8 hours remember, he was also the Acting Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. They had not had a full-time confirmed Director for 7 years. So he went in after the mess with Fast and Furious and was willing to be the Acting Director. At the same time he was the U.S. attorney for Minnesota. As you can imagine, there was a lot of work and cleanup to do at the ATF. That was where he was focused for most of his time. Meanwhile, the U.S. attorney's office in Minnesota kept going. But at some point after 2\1/2\ years, you cannot keep going on your own. Over the summer, the Senate finally confirmed B. Todd Jones as Director of the ATF, leaving the Minnesota U.S. attorney's position finally open for good. Even before the confirmation of B. Todd Jones, Senator Franken and I, upon the recommendation of our bipartisan U.S. Attorney Advisory Committee, had already recommended Andy Luger, Assistant U.S. Attorney, to fill the position. That was 197 days ago. In November, President Obama nominated Andy Luger to become the new U.S. attorney. The Judiciary Committee approved his nomination unanimously on January 9. Our colleague from Texas, Senator Cruz, had no objection to this nomination. We had no objections on the committee, which is saying a lot, because we have a lot of different people from different backgrounds and different political views on the committee. Usually when people speak on nominations on the floor, it is because they are fighting to get someone through because there is an objection. This is not at all the case in the case of Andy Luger, who is trying to be the U.S. attorney for Minnesota. What has happened in past cases with U.S. attorneys? Over the past 20 years, 4 Minnesota nominees to be U.S. attorney, appointed by Republican and Democratic Presidents alike, were confirmed within a day of when they passed out of the committee. During this timeframe, all of the nominees were confirmed within an average of 9\1/2\ days of being voted out of committee. It has been 26 days since Mr. Luger was approved by the committee. It is time that we do the right thing by quickly confirming him to make sure that Minnesota has its highest law enforcement officer in place. I want to thank Senator Grassley for his help on this. He actually also has a U.S. attorney who is pending for the District of Iowa. Why is the U.S. attorney important? I thought our pages would be interested in this fact, because we are going to be talking a lot about the U.S. attorney over the next few weeks if this keeps going on. The position of U.S. attorney is a law enforcement post that the Founders regarded as so vital that they created it during the very first Congress in the Judiciary Act of 1789. This is the same act that created the Attorney General and the structure of the Supreme Court and the lower courts. According to the act, each judicial district would be provided with: a person learned in the law to act as attorney for the United States . . . whose duty it shall be to prosecute in each district all delinquents for crimes and offenses cognizable under the authority of the United States, and all civil actions in which the United States shall be concerned . . . The U.S. attorney is a position so necessary that President Zachary Taylor appointed Henry Moss--this is a name you may not have heard of before--to the post within 2 days of Minnesota becoming a State. So back then somehow they are able to get it done in 2 days. Now, we have been waiting 888 days. But in 2 days they were able to get a U.S. attorney in the job when Minnesota first became a State. Since 1849, the District of Minnesota's 31 U.S. attorneys have upheld the rule of law, the Constitution, and the rights of our State's citizens and tirelessly pursued justice on their behalf. This quick action by President Taylor and the speed with which the Senate has confirmed past U.S. attorneys for Minnesota shows how much our government has historically valued this position. These people have not been used as pawns in some kind of a fight over other issues, they have simply been confirmed. We have simply gotten it done. I think we can all agree, given what we have seen with the heroin cases that are on the rise all over the country in the last few months--this has certainly come to our attention in Minnesota. In Hennepin County alone, 60 opiate-related deaths in 1 county in our State in just 6 months of the year. So I think we can all agree that the importance of this position is no less important than it was in 1789 when this job was created. Since the founding of the country, we have recognized the great authority placed in the hands of U.S. attorneys to uphold the rule of law, to protect our freedoms, and to exercise their power responsibly and only for just ends. A 1935 Supreme Court decision called Berger v. United States has gained iconic status for Justice Sutherland's description of a prosecutor's duty to follow the rule of law, serve justice, and play by the rules. Justice Sutherland so aptly wrote: The United States Attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape nor innocence suffer. He-- And we could say he or she for the modern day. --may prosecute with earnestness and vigor--indeed, he should do so. But, while he my strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one. That is the kind of statement that rings as true today as it did nearly 80 years ago. The men and women in the Minnesota U.S. attorney's office exemplify the professionalism, high ethical standards, and unwavering commitments to the rule of law and public safety that we expect of prosecutors. They work to protect public safety by focusing on offenders who harm our communities: terrorists, the ``worst of the worst'' violent criminals and drug traffickers, and major financial fraudsters. They also work closely with local law enforcement to ensure local and Federal resources are used efficiently and effectively to prevent crime and lock up criminals. For example, the office won a conviction in a $3.65 billion Ponzi scheme case, the second biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history. Now this case was originated when, in fact, they had a full-time U.S. attorney. Most of the prosecution did take place when they had a full-time U.S. attorney in the office. Of course, with a major case like this, you would want a full-time U.S. attorney there to make critical decisions. Also the office has an ongoing terrorism investigation that has led to charges against 18 people for aiding the terrorist organization al- Shabaab--8 of whom have been convicted, some receiving sentences of up to 20 years in prison. So at some point, as that investigation continues, one wonders why the United States of America would want to have an office overseeing and prosecuting major terrorist cases without having a full-time U.S. attorney. I do wonder if this would ever happen in New York City or in the city of Chicago. I hope people keep this in mind as they look at the situation. Other major accomplishments of the office include Operation Highlife, a major drug trafficking investigation involving more than 100 local, State, and Federal law enforcement officers that resulted in 26 indictments, 25 guilty pleas, and sentences of up to 200 months in prison. Operation Brother's Keeper, a successful investigation and prosecution of a RICO case involving a regional 200-member gang, took 22 dangerous criminals off the streets. This does not sound like a case that should be handled by an office that does not deserve a full-time U.S. attorney. That would be the prosecution of a RICO case involving a regional 200-member gang. Or how about Operation Malverde, which received national attention, and was a prosecution of 27 defendants associated with a Mexican drug cartel, including the apprehension of the cartel's regional leader, and sentences as high as 20 years in prison. The office also recently played a key role in shutting down a major synthetic drug seller in Duluth. This head shop was a major problem. They went after this head shop. They prosecuted the owner. The owner was recently in his house and was found to have over $700,000 in plastic bags hidden in his bathroom. They won that case. These are just a few of the major cases that office has worked on in recent years. I will be telling you more in the days to come. After 888 days without a full-time boss, these hard-working people deserve a leader, and Mr. Luger is the right person for the job. Again, I am not up here speaking about this because anyone in the Senate objects to Mr. Luger for the job. It is time we vote on Mr. Luger's nomination. In the past, as we know, U.S. attorney nominations have simply gone through on voice votes, without much hurrah, within a few days after they go through the committee. Mr. Luger is a dedicated public servant and has the breadth of experience, strength of character, and commitment to justice that makes him a well- qualified candidate to serve as Minnesota's next U.S. attorney. I have no doubt that he will uphold the principles Justice Sutherland sought in that opinion in a U.S. attorney. I urge my colleagues to support Mr. Luger's confirmation and to finally give the Minnesota U.S. attorney's office and its hard-working prosecutor the full-time U.S. attorney they deserve. I yield the floor and I suggest of a quorum.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on two matters. The first is the farm bill and the second is the U.S. attorney situation in my State of Minnesota. Being a Senator from a State that is a leader in agricultural products and now the sixth biggest State in terms of agricultural exports, I can tell my colleagues that the agricultural sector of this country is strong and it has, in fact, been a jewel in this economy when we look over the last few years and we look at the industries that were hit so hard during the downturn. Our food supply remains strong. Part of why it remains strong is because we have believed in investing in agriculture and agricultural research and in the next wave of machinery and all kinds of things, and it has helped our country, it has been a positive for our country. We have 80,000 farms in Minnesota. We are an exporting State, and it is one of the major reasons our unemployment rate is down to 4.6. Because it is not just about the small farmers all over our State, it is also about the businesses and the employees, and it is also about the fact that we are a country that makes its own food and is not dependent on foreign food the way we are dependent on foreign oil. I fought hard to get on the agriculture committee when I came to the Senate. I was honored to serve on the farm bill conference committee under Senator Stabenow's leadership. We worked together, as the Presiding Officer knows, on a bipartisan basis to put together a farm bill that strengthens the safety net for our Nation's family farms, preserves critical food and nutrition programs, and brings down the deficit compared to the last farm bill to the tune of over $20 billion, which is one of the reasons we wanted to put this new farm bill in place. The bulk of the savings comes from the transition from those direct agricultural subsidies to a more risk-based management system of crop insurance. We also worked hard in the conservation area, which is very important in my State where hunting and fishing are a way of life. The conservation provisions are streamlined from 23 to 10 and we have the support of hundreds of environmental and conservation groups, including Pheasants Forever, which is based in Minnesota, as well as Ducks, Unlimited. We also worked hard in the energy area to finally fund that title, to acknowledge that we need many sources of energy in this country, including biofuels, wind, and solar. That is a big part of this bill as well. We kept the nutrition programs strong just by the fact that we were up against suggested cuts of $40 billion from the House of Representatives, and we found a way to make some changes that might not have been our top priority, but they were ways we were able to move on the farm bill and work with some of these States that were leveraging their heating assistance for food stamps. Most States were not affected. My State was not affected. We also provided permanent disaster relief for our Nation's livestock producers, something that is very important when we look at all the dead cows in South Dakota and everything that happened there. I believe the strength of this bill is a testament to the work and leadership of Chairman Stabenow and her tireless efforts. I thank Senator Cochran as well as Chairman Lucas, and Ranking Member Peterson from my State, and then also Congressman Tim Walz who served on the conference committee as well. This bill is important to the farmlands of our country, but it also is good for rural economies. I believe we do right by ourselves when we do right by our rural communities. I was listening to my colleague from Oklahoma, and I too have been on combines with farmers. I will say I wasn't driving that combine, which wouldn't have been good for the farm or the neighboring farms. I was a passenger. I heard a different story from my farmers in terms of the concern about bouncing from year to year and not knowing what the policies are, and how good it has been to have a 5-year policy in place for farm policy, how far we have come from those freedom-to-farm days when we were foreclosing on farms all over our State, and how we want to be able to continue to produce food in our State and to encourage young farmers and ranchers. That is why that amendment was part of my major focus, which was to give them some breaks on crop insurance and grazing their cattle on CRP land. I urge my colleagues to support this bill. U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Now I wish to turn to a very different topic, which is Minnesota's U.S. attorney. This is an appalling situation, as the Presiding Officer will hear by the numbers. For 887 days, Minnesota has not had a full- time, permanent U.S. attorney--887 days. During that time, from August 2011 to August 2013, Todd Jones was responsible for doing two jobs. He was responsible for being the U.S. attorney in Minnesota as well as being the Acting Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. As my colleagues can imagine, with the mess after Fast and Furious, he had a lot of work to do at the ATF and that was his major focus. Meanwhile, we kept going with some fine prosecutors, but we didn't have a full-time leader. Over the summer, thanks to my colleague from the State of Arizona, Senator McCain, we were able to finally confirm Todd Jones to that job. The ATF had been without a permanent director for 7 years. We got that done. Of course, then it officially left the Minnesota U.S. attorney's position open, even though it had already really been open for 2 years. Even before that decision was made by the Senate to confirm Todd Jones, Senator Franken and I had gathered together a bipartisan group, including the former U.S. attorney under President Bush, to advise us on a replacement for Mr. Jones--even before the time we confirmed Mr. Jones because of our concern over the problems in the office, many of which were on the front page of our newspaper. We were able to get a recommendation from our committee for a replacement, Mr. Andy Luger. He is a respected litigator, a former assistant U.S. attorney. It has now been 196 days since we made that recommendation to the President. It has been 187 days since Director Jones was confirmed with no full-time U.S. attorney again in the office. While the office has continued to provide the United States with the high-quality legal representation it deserves, Minnesota needs a full-time U.S. attorney. Mr. Luger sailed through the Judiciary Committee with no objections. He has passed all the tests necessary, including the FBI test. He has the support of law enforcement with whom I have spoken. He has the support of one of our Republican Congressmen in the area. I want to thank Senator Grassley, who also supports him and has raised issues with the Minnesota U.S. Attorney's Office because of the fact that we have not had a full-time attorney for 888 days, and he has been supportive of our efforts to quickly move Mr. Luger's nomination, not just through the committee but to the floor. Senator Grassley is in a similar situation because his U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Iowa was nominated on the same day and is also awaiting confirmation on the floor. Again, they have both come through the Judiciary Committee without any objection. So why is this important? Well, I ran a prosecutor's office with about 400 people for 8 years. We worked directly with the U.S. attorney's office. We were there during 9/11 when the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota was dealing with the Moussaoui case. As you remember, he was caught in Minnesota. They were dealing with terrorism issues. We worked hand in hand. We took a number of their white-collar cases. I have been able to witness firsthand how day in and day out you need a U.S. attorney to make very difficult decisions as to what cases to go forward on, and especially without a full-time U.S. attorney it is very difficult to decide where to put limited resources in terms of strategic decisions. We have not had that person in place for 888 days. Protecting our Nation from terrorists is a top concern for all of us. When you hear of the Minnesota U.S. Attorney's Office, you might not think: terrorism. But in fact, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota is renowned for its counterterrorism efforts and terrorism prosecutions, especially investigating the terrorist organization al- Shabaab. For years, authorities have been on alert for al-Shabaab in Minnesota. In Operation Rhino, the Minnesota U.S. Attorney's Office prosecuted Omer Abdi Mohamed, who recruited young Somali Americans to fight for terrorists in Somalia. Mohamed was indicted in November 2009 in Minnesota and pled guilty in July 2011 to conspiracy to murder, kidnap, and maim abroad. This operation is part of an ongoing terrorism investigation. As you know, there have been suicide bombings in Somalia--sadly, recruiting people out of our Somali community in Minnesota. We are proud of that community. They are an incredible part of our State. But this did happen. It has led to charges against 18 people for aiding al-Shabaab-- 8 of whom have been convicted, some receiving sentences of up to 20 years in prison. So I ask you, why would you pick an office like this not to have a leader for 888 days? But through a variety of circumstances--the fact that the ATF job was held up in terms of an appointment, and then the fact that this is being held up right now--we still do not have a leader. In addition to terrorism cases, the U.S. attorney's office is also responsible for prosecuting major drug crimes. Recently, the office won a major conviction and played a key role in shutting down a big synthetic drugstore in Duluth. And 2 weeks ago, the Minneapolis Star Tribune had a major news story about a growing and deadly heroin epidemic in Minnesota. As we have seen from the death this weekend of someone who was a celebrity, I think we all know there have also been heroin deaths all over this country, so Minnesota is not alone. But we are alone in that we have not had a chief leader in our U.S. attorney's office to come up with a strategy to deal with this case for 888 days. In the first half of 2013, 69 people died of opiate-related overdoses in Hennepin County, MN. That would be 69 people died. Some of these deaths were young kids. This is a situation that demands attention immediately, and Mr. Luger is eager to work with law enforcement on a strategy. Federal and State law enforcement also partnered to combat identity theft and white-collar crime. Minnesota had the second biggest white- collar conviction in terms of money--next to Madoff--in the country. Yet this is an office that we have chosen not to put a leader in for 888 days. The U.S. attorney's office won a conviction in a $3.65 billion-dollar Ponzi scheme case--as I mentioned, the second biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history. Currently, Minnesota's U.S. Attorney's Office is headed by an acting director. But an acting director simply cannot provide the same kind of leadership as a full-time U.S. attorney. I know that the local heads of the DEA, FBI, and other Federal and State law enforcement agencies are very anxious to get a U.S. attorney in full time. I would also note that we also do not have an administrative officer because we are awaiting putting in a U.S. attorney so that Mr. Luger can hire an administrative officer. This is not a small office. There are more than 100 people working there, including 54 lawyers. Again, they are without a full-time boss and a leader. I think these hard- working prosecutors and the people they work with deserve a leader in the office. When Minnesota was first made a State, President Zachary Taylor filled the position of U.S. attorney in 2 days for our young new State. Back then, they deserved a U.S. attorney. If they could get it done in 2 days, I think we should be able to get it done in 888 days. I urge my colleagues to support his swift confirmation and give this office and its hard-working prosecutors the full-time prosecutor they deserve. Thank you. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on National Security and International Trade and Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Monday, February 3, 2014, at 3:00 p.m., in order to conduct a hearing entitled ``Safeguarding Consumers' Financial Data.''

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I thank my colleague from Alabama for making his remarks a bit briefer, and I thank him as well for accompanying me to the State of the Union Address 2 nights ago. I rise today to urge a vote in the U.S. Senate to confirm the nominee to be Minnesota's next U.S. attorney. I see my colleague and friend from Iowa here, Senator Grassley, who has been working hard on his good nominee as well for Iowa, and we have been working on this together. When we look at the extraordinary circumstances under which the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota has been operating, it will be clear why a vote on this nomination and getting this done is so important. For 2\1/2\ years--883 days--Minnesota has not had a full-time U.S. attorney. During those years, from August 2011 to August 2013, Todd Jones was responsible for doing two jobs as the Minnesota U.S. attorney and as the Acting Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. I would note, as Senator Grassley has pointed out, it has been a difficult time in the office. While they continue to do good work, in part because the U.S. attorney's office in Minnesota has great prosecutors, they did not have a full-time manager during this time, pending the approval of the ATF job and during the appointment time. Over the summer, the Senate, as the Presiding Officer knows, confirmed Todd Jones as the Director of the ATF--the first permanent Director in 7 years--leaving the Minnesota U.S. attorney's position open. Senator Franken and I, in consultation with getting a recommendation from a bipartisan U.S. Attorney Advisory Committee, which included the former Republican-appointed U.S. attorney under both the first George Bush and the second George Bush, who served on our advisory board, we recommended Andy Luger, a respected litigator and former assistant U.S. attorney, to fill the position. We recommended him 191 days ago. It has now been about 6 months--183 days--since Director Jones left and we still do not have a permanent, full-time U.S. attorney. Minnesota needs a full-time U.S. attorney. It is a major jurisdiction. Andy Luger has the experience and know-how necessary to do this job well. From his days fighting white-collar crime as an assistant U.S. attorney to his work with Minnesota law enforcement to help improve their gang-fighting strategy, Andy has earned the respect of the legal and law enforcement communities. Throughout his career, he has proven to be a tireless advocate for the people of Minnesota. As an assistant U.S. attorney, he successfully prosecuted organized crime, drug and white-collar cases. This included the prosecution of a $150 million national real estate and investment fraud case, leading to the longest white-collar sentence in the United States at that time. In 2009, he was appointed by the Minnesota Commissioner of Public Safety to lead an investigation into the Metro Gang Strike Force and uncovered a series of problems with the unit. He recommended that the unit be disbanded and replaced by other law enforcement efforts and it was, in fact, abolished. In fact, a Star Tribune editorial said that Andy's review of the strike force made ``smart recommendations about The Twin Cities' next generation gang-fighting strategy'' and that his report included ``welcome measures to begin the long process of rebuilding the public's trust.'' Andy is well respected in the law enforcement community. I can tell my colleagues that after we made the recommendation to the President, I got nothing but positive words from police chiefs and others who are excited about him in this job. He is committed to building and maintaining strong working relationships and partnerships between Federal and local law enforcement. In addition to his many years as a Federal prosecutor, Andy has had a distinguished career in private practice. He is currently a partner at the Greene Espel law firm where he is well regarded as a highly skilled trial lawyer focused on business litigation, representing businesses and white-collar defense. He has been selected as one of Minnesota's Top 100 ``Super Lawyers'' for the past 10 years and as one of the ``Best Lawyers in America'' for the past 4 years. He clearly has the experience, character, and drive to lead such a premier law enforcement agency as the Minnesota U.S. attorney's office. The Minnesota U.S. attorney's office represents the United States with professionalism, high ethical standards, and an unwavering commitment to the safety of our community. These prosecutors work to protect public safety by focusing on the offenders who do the most harm to the community--terrorists, the ``worst of the worst'' violent criminals, drug traffickers, and major financial fraudsters. They also work closely with local law enforcement to ensure local and Federal resources are used efficiently and effectively. I personally know this after having served as the chief prosecutor for Minnesota's largest county, Hennepin County, for 8 years, and I worked daily with our U.S. attorney. We would discuss which office would handle cases. During the Moussaoui investigation, as people recall, we got in Minnesota the hijacker who survived, the guy who threatened to learn how to down a plane and was caught and imprisoned, and that came out of Minnesota immediately after 9/11. The office was very focused on the terrorism investigation and my office stepped in and took some major white-collar cases to help out. We have a tradition of working together throughout the years, and that is why this office is so important to me. Example: The office won a conviction in a $3.65 billion Ponzi scheme, the second biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history. It has an ongoing terrorism investigation that has led to charges against 18 people for aiding the terrorist organization Shabaad, 8 of whom have been convicted, some receiving sentences of up to 20 years in prison. If one can imagine this, they are conducting major terrorism investigations and prosecutions, and we need a full-time U.S. attorney to make decisions and to be in charge. Other major accomplishments include Operation Highlife, which was a major drug trafficking investigation involving more than 100 local, State, and Federal law enforcement officers and resulted in 26 indictments, 25 guilty pleas, and sentences up to 200 months in prison. Operation Brother's Keeper was a successful investigation and prosecution of a RICO case involving a regional 200-member gang, which took 22 dangerous criminals off the street. Operation Malverde received national attention with the prosecution of 27 defendants associated with a Mexican drug cartel, including the apprehension of the cartel regional leader, and sentences as high as 20 years in prison. The office also recently played a key role in shutting down a major synthetic drug seller in Duluth. This head shop was a huge problem. The perpetrator has been convicted and is awaiting sentencing. They literally found over $700,000 in his bathroom hidden in small plastic bags. They went after this head shop. They prosecuted that guy. They won that case. They deserve a leader. Andy Luger is the right person for this job. The Judiciary Committee agreed and reported out his nomination without objection on January 9. I appreciate the service of the Presiding Officer as well as Senator Grassley, who is here, on our Judiciary Committee, and I appreciate the support for his nomination. I also supported the nomination of the U.S. attorney from Iowa, and we know how important that job is as well. This position of U.S. attorney was regarded by the Founders as so vital that they created it during the very first Congress; a position so crucial that it was born in the same law as the structure of the U.S. court; a position so necessary that President Zachary Taylor filled it within 2 days of Minnesota becoming a State. In our case, for a variety of reasons--a variety of reasons--we have now gone 883 days without a full-time U.S. attorney. This is our moment. We need to move ahead on this nomination. Again, I appreciate Senator Grassley's help in moving these nominations forward. We have two U.S. attorneys, two Federal marshals. I can say that Andy is a dedicated public servant whose breadth of experience, strength of character, and commitment to justice make him a well-qualified candidate to serve as Minnesota's next U.S. attorney. I don't think there are any objections to his nomination, but I urge my colleagues to support his confirmation and give this office the leader it deserves, as well as the district of Iowa. Thank you very much, Madam President. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor of the Senate today to speak on the importance of passing the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act. I am a cosponsor of this legislation because without it millions of homeowners across the country will see significant increases in their flood insurance premiums. Homeowner insurance protects a family's investments from damages and losses that come as a result of accidents or tornadoes or burglaries, but that same homeowner policy, as we all know, does not cover damage resulting from floods. Sadly, too many Americans learn of this gap in their policy after it is too late. In recognition of this major gap in coverage, Congress created the National Flood Insurance Program in 1968 to give homeowners and businesses protection in the event of a flood, and this program has helped them to protect their property, their families, and their livelihoods. All regions of America are susceptible to flooding. We see it with seasonal rains, hurricanes, and thunderstorms, and it is a powerful force of nature we cannot escape. When you have flood insurance, you have the peace of mind that the tools to help you rebuild will be there for you. For Minnesotans who live in areas susceptible to flooding, the flood insurance program is absolutely vital. Each spring in northwestern Minnesota, we know the Red River of the North will top its banks and the flood waters will threaten Moorhead, MN, and Fargo, ND. Leading up to the flood event last spring, I visited the region twice to watch the flood preparations, to urge on our volunteers, and to ensure the residents were receiving the Federal assistance and cooperation they needed. Just as I have seen each and every year since 2007, I saw once again how hard friends and neighbors work to prepare for the potential flood. These people aren't idly sitting by. In fact, I would bet that if towns and other areas of the country saw the kind of floods these folks have faced in certain years of the last decade, I am not sure they would have been saved. In this case, the residents of Moorhead and Fargo incessantly would create sandbags. They have huge warehouses filled with volunteers. Everyone from teenagers to seniors to inmates would be stuffing those bags full of sand. Residents fought heroically to save not only their homes but their businesses and their families. Across the Red River, we always say the rising river doesn't divide the two States of Minnesota and North Dakota, it unites us. This is not the first time the Red River has risen, and it certainly won't be the last. As honorable, tireless, and commendable as these efforts are, homeowners can't do it alone, and they deserve our help. That is why we need a National Flood Insurance Program that offers affordable premiums for homeowners who are trying to do the right thing. I would say that on the Minnesota side, many homeowners have relocated--dozens and dozens. In fact, across our State, hundreds of houses have literally been moved or been destroyed because they are too close to flooded areas, but still the need for flood insurance remains. So what are these people seeing? FEMA is increasing premiums to levels that do not fairly reflect the risks associated with the flood coverage that is being provided, and the consequences of these increases can't be understated. There are 1.1 million homes and businesses across the country that were built before FEMA published a flood map of their community, and now they might not be able to sell their property. Another 2.9 million homes and business owners across the country who have followed the rules but were remapped into a higher-risk area are now seeing significant spikes in their premiums. Rate increases are not just numbers. They can have a substantial impact on real families and even price them out of their homes. Sharp increases in premiums are devastating for a place such as Roseau, MN, where 75 percent of the homes are located in the floodplain. One Roseau resident who recently wanted to purchase flood insurance for a home valued at $75,000, was shocked with the changes in the premiums. This individual's new annual policy would cost $3,726, not the $985 it had been previously. That is nearly four times as much, and that is sticker shock. When calculated for 30 years, the length of a typical home loan, the flood policy on that $75,000 home would cost more than $110,000-- more than the value of the home itself. Crookston, MN, residents are similarly seeing premiums they can't afford. One resident, who recently purchased a home for around $100,000, was stunned to learn his annual flood insurance program would be $5,800, not the $800 he had anticipated based on the past. This isn't the way the National Flood Insurance Program is supposed to work. Our National Flood Insurance Program should provide peace of mind, but, instead, these changes create a disincentive for families and businesses in flood-prone areas to do the right thing. Roseau recovered from a flood in 2002 that caused widespread damage and is working on permanent flood protection to reduce the flood stages in the city. Once complete, the project will include a restriction structure to the city from the 100-year regulatory flood plain and reduce future flood damages by nearly 86 percent. It makes no sense that FEMA would be pushing these premium increases on consumers before the congressionally required study on affordability has even begun. The bill the Senate is considering today, and which I support, supports these priorities. It stops the proposed rate increases until the affordability study is done and the flood maps being used are verified as being accurate. Only after all of this critical information is reviewed should FEMA move forward and consider the cost of premiums that encourage participation in the flood insurance program while ensuring its long-term stability. The National Flood Insurance Program has given protection to homeowners and businesses from catastrophic flood losses for more than 45 years. We shouldn't hit them now with an outrageous premium increase. I commend Senators Menendez, Isakson, and Landrieu on their great work on this legislation and urge my colleagues to support it. The Farm Bill Now, Mr. President, I would like to discuss another critical priority for my home State of Minnesota, and that is the farm bill. I rise today to speak in support of the farm bill conference agreement. I was a member of the conference committee. This bill is good for farmers, it is good for rural economies, and it is good for taxpayers, which the House recognized earlier today when they voted to pass the farm bill by a strong vote of 251 to 166. Now it is the Senate's turn to pass this critical legislation and get it to the President's desk as soon as possible. I thank Chairwoman Stabenow for her determination to get us to this point. She has been tireless in her advocacy for America's farmers and ranchers and has made it a priority to work in a bipartisan way with Ranking Member Cochran to put together a farm bill that strengthens the safety net for our Nation's family farmers, ranchers, and preserves critical food and nutrition programs and brings down the deficit. Senator Stabenow couldn't have been a better partner in this effort, and the same goes for Senator Cochran. I greatly appreciate the expertise they both bring to agricultural policy, and I thank them for their leadership. I thank the ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, Collin Peterson. No one knows more about agriculture than Collin Peterson, who serves as a representative from my State. He has the longest district in the United States of America, stretching literally from the Canadian border nearly down to the Iowa border. I guess that is why he flies his own plane when he visits the towns. There is no other way to visit many places in one day. It has been a privilege for me to work with Congressman Peterson on this issue. It is the second farm bill we have worked on together. I also want to thank my other Congressman Tim Walz for his service on the conference committee. We worked hard to make sure this bill is strong for our country, for our State, and for the people of America. Farmers, ranchers, and rural communities in Minnesota have been waiting for this farm bill for more than 2 years. It is a good bill for our State, and it is a good bill for the country. It provides the certainty family farmers need to succeed and thrive, and that is why it has the strong support of both the National Farmers Union and the American Farm Bureau. That is not to say everyone got everything they wanted in this bill. Some concerns remain about potentially retaliatory actions regarding exports. As the Senator from the State that is first in turkey, second in pork, and sixth in agricultural exports, I will continue to work with the administration and producers to ensure our agricultural policies are implemented in a manner that avoids potential disruptions and ensures agricultural exports remain an American success story. As a member of the conference committee, I worked with colleagues on both sides of the aisle in the House and the Senate to build on the strong farm bill the Senate passed last year. In the conference report, we first of all eliminated direct payments and transitioned to crop insurance to help manage risk. We provided $880 million in mandatory funding to promote homegrown energy. We maintained the successful sugar program that is so important to the sugar beet producers in the Red River Valley. We reduced the deficit by $23 billion, making this an important bill for all Americans. We kept nutrition programs strong for Minnesota families. We provided permanent disaster relief for our Nation's livestock producers. We streamlined the conservation programs and still managed to come out with a proconservation bill that is supported by environmental and conservation groups across the country. I wanted to focus on the disaster provisions of the bill. The disaster provisions are all the more critical when we consider just how much our farmers and ranchers have been through recently--the worst drought since 1956, a devastating blizzard that killed thousands of cattle in my neighboring State of South Dakota, and a wet spring that led to a shortage of alfalfa that hurt beef and dairy producers in Minnesota. In this farm bill, we ensure that permanent disaster relief will be there for livestock producers that were left stranded when the farm bill expired last September. This assistance will be there for producers when they face the next disaster. The farm bill also includes an amendment that I led with Senators Hoeven and Heitkamp that addresses critical priorities by providing an additional $300 million. This came out of our committee in the Senate before we passed it in the Senate. This $300 million will boost agricultural research, address the backlog of water and wastewater projects, and support energy projects in rural areas. The amendment also supported funding for conservation projects that can help reduce flooding while protecting wildlife habitat. The farm bill authorizes a joint study by the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Transportation to examine rural transportation issues, including captive shipping, something I pushed for--seeing what I am seeing with some of our producers, with our agricultural producers, with our manufacturers that are at the end of the line and are finding they don't have a lot of choice over what rail rates are for that last leg. They many times are being charged outrageously high rates, which makes it difficult for them to produce goods. Today families and farmers are facing a severe propane shortage in my State. I believe it is more important than ever that we understand the vulnerabilities and shortcomings of our transportation infrastructure so we can ensure that the fuels we need to keep our homes and barns warm are available and affordable. I fought to include each of these provisions because I believe that if we want to recruit a new generation of farmers and ranchers, then we must take action to improve the quality of life in rural communities. That is why I authored a number of the provisions specifically to recruit beginning farmers and ranchers. The first would reduce the cost of crop insurance for beginning farmers by 10 percent. The second would make it easier for beginning producers to graze livestock on Conservation Reserve Program acres. In this bill we put in place a new dairy program that helps dairy farmers in Minnesota and across the country who have struggled with low milk prices and high feed costs. We have probably seen that sector of the agriculture community hit harder than any other. Crops have had their droughts. We have seen wet springs that have hurt many of our farmers. We have seen the blizzard I mentioned in South Dakota which killed our cattle. We have seen trade barriers put up in other countries which shut down the markets. But I would still say the hardest hit of any sector of our agricultural economy in the last few years has been our dairy producers, specifically our small dairy producers. Anyone who has driven through the backroads of Minnesota or Wisconsin understands how important that is to our economy and our way of life. While this compromise wasn't exactly the deal we had reached in the Senate, it is still a strong deal. It still contains new protections for dairy farmers. I specifically thank Collin Peterson for his leadership in being the architect of this change, as well as the work in the Senate by specifically Senator Leahy and Senator Stabenow. The farm bill also streamlines conservation programs from 23 to 13, including the provisions I worked on to help communities in the Red River Valley address flooding. It extends conservation compliance rules to the Crop Insurance Program--something that came out of the Senate bill--and also includes the sodsaver provision that I worked on with Senator Thune in South Dakota for five or six States--really, the Prairie Pothole States. It protects native lands, native prairie, and helps to preserve our conservation efforts for hunting and for our way of life, particularly in the upper Midwest. These critical provisions, with the conservation compliance and our sodsaver amendment, are the reason the bill is supported by wildlife organizations including Ducks Unlimited and Pheasants Forever, and environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council and The Nature Conservancy. I believe we do right by ourselves when we work to strengthen the farms and rural communities which sustain us every day. Our prosperity depends on it, and this farm bill helps us to do just that. I urge my colleagues to support this very bipartisan farm bill. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I am introducing this bill today with Senator Hoeven, who has been a true leader on this issue. When he was Governor, he worked to pass a similar law in North Dakota. As Senator Hoeven just described, the Driver Privacy Act will strengthen safety and protect consumer privacy. I think the bipartisan support Senator Hoeven has gathered for this bill--seven Republicans, seven Democrats, and people all over the country from Hawaii to Georgia to Oregon to Alaska, not to mention the two of us from the middle of the country--demonstrates the strong support and the concerns people have about emerging technology. We want this technology, but I figure our laws have to be as sophisticated as the technology we have out there. Right now our laws are lagging and this information is not protected. There is no roadmap on how it should be protected, and that is why we are introducing this bill. I have long supported improving safety on the roadways. Too many people die on our highways, and we need to do something about it. In 2010, there were more than 30,000 fatal crashes and more than 1.5 million crashes that resulted in injuries. This is unacceptable. Rural road safety is a critical issue for my State, as well as for Senator Hoeven's State. Only 23 percent of the country's population lives in rural areas, and yet 57 percent of all traffic fatalities occur in rural America. As a Member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, I have worked to advance efforts to improve safety for all drivers, especially on rural roads, and we have made some progress. The transportation bill, MAP-21, ensured strong funding for safety improvements at rail-highway grade crossings, and the allocation of Federal funding was improved to put resources into roadways that need attention the most. My amendment in MAP-21, with Senator Sessions, required the Federal Highway Administration to work with State and local transportation officials to collect the best practices from around the country that are also cost-effective ways to increase safety on high-risk rural roads. The report was just released, and I am now looking for opportunities for how we can best address some of the challenges addressed in the study, but it is clear we have more work to do. Vehicle technologies that assist drivers and prevent crashes have grown tremendously in recent years. From new sensors that identify unsafe conditions, to driverless cars, these emerging technologies could dramatically increase safety for drivers and passengers. Event data recorders, which are the subject of our discussion today, hold similar promise in improving safety on our roadways. An EDR, as Senator Hoeven described, is a device that records data on a loop it receives from vehicle sensors and safety systems. The data is constantly being replaced and it only records 5 seconds of technical safety information when a crash occurs, although I am sure that could change when the technology changes. EDRs can be the only resource available to determine the cause of a crash by providing information about what a driver was doing in the seconds leading up to a crash, such as how fast the vehicle was going, whether the brake was activated in the seconds before the crash, if airbags were deployed, and whether the driver and passengers were wearing seatbelts. As a former prosecutor, I know how useful this data can be. It can be very useful for investigators to put the pieces back together to more easily determine the cause of a crash for safety reasons and also determine who caused the crash. The proven benefits to driving safety that EDRs provide are not new. In the summer of 2012, the Senate included in its version of the Transportation bill, MAP-21, a requirement that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, NHTSA, initiate a rulemaking to require passenger vehicles and light-duty trucks to include EDRs. At the same time, there were many legitimate questions regarding what impact expanding EDRs to all passenger vehicles would have on consumer privacy. Who owns the data? Who can access the data? It became clear that an effective EDR provision would need to strengthen driver and vehicle safety while protecting consumer privacy, and the EDR provision was removed from the final transportation bill. Over the past 2 years, NHTSA has continued to work with law enforcement safety groups and the automobile manufacturers to ensure the safety benefits of EDRs, which could reach the most consumers. The auto manufacturers had already begun expanding the inclusion of EDR technology in more new vehicles each year. EDRs became so commonplace that 96 percent of 2013 cars and trucks had the EDR built in, and NHTSA and the industry it regulates, the automakers, were able to agree that all new cars and trucks should have an EDR in place in September 2014. I am not sure everyone who goes out and buys a car is aware of this, but by 2014 every single car and truck will have this capability. However, NHTSA does not have the authority to address the consumer privacy concerns related to EDRs that have remained outstanding for 2 entire years. We have seen an enormous increase in new cars and trucks containing the EDRs, and that is where Senator Hoeven comes in. Congress does have the authority to clarify ownership of EDR data, and that is why we are introducing the Driver Privacy Act, along with 12 other Senators. Our bill makes crystal clear that the owner of the vehicle is the rightful owner of the data collected by that vehicle's EDR, and it may not be retrieved unless a court authorizes retrieval of the data, the vehicle owner or lessee consents to the data retrieval, the information is retrieved to determine the need for emergency medical response following a crash, or the information is retrieved for traffic safety research, in which case personally identifiable information is not disclosed. So that is where you have it. We have worked hard with safety groups and law enforcement to make sure this would work for them. You would need a court authorization or you would need a consent or you would need a determination that it is needed to determine the cause of a crash or it is needed for research, and in that case, no identifiable data. This was really important for me, as a former prosecutor, that we made this work for law enforcement and our safety groups, but, most importantly, our goal was to make it work for the individual consumers, the citizens of the United States of America. We realize while all of this was done for good intentions, no one had taken the broom behind and made sure the American people were protected. Having just left a judiciary hearing this afternoon about NSA and data collection and privacy and civil liberties, it was very timely that I came over here. While this may not quite have the huge ramifications of that hearing, I do think to myself that maybe if people thought ahead a little bit, we wouldn't have been sitting in that hearing. That is what we are trying to do with this bill. We are trying to think ahead so we can keep up with the technology so it doesn't beat us out and it doesn't beat our constitutional rights out. I have seen firsthand the devastating effects automobile crashes can have on families as they are forced to say goodbye to a loved one much too early. Oftentimes families just want answers. They want to know what happened and why. EDRs can help provide those answers. Our bill accounts for those needs of law enforcement and these families. You don't have to take my word for it. The International Association of Chiefs of Police has concluded that the Data Privacy Act will not cause any additional burden to law enforcement agencies in accessing the data they need. Advancements in technology oftentimes force us to take a look at related laws to ensure they remain in sync. Senator Hoeven and I are introducing the Driver Privacy Act to do just that. Our bill strikes that balance between strengthening consumer privacy protections while recognizing that EDR data will be required to aid law enforcement, advance vehicle safety objectives, or to determine the need for emergency medical response following a crash. I thank Senator Hoeven for his leadership. He is a true bipartisan leader. We have worked together on many bills. When we work together, I always say the Red River may technically divide our States, but it actually brings us together, whether it is about flood protection measures or important bills such as this. I appreciate the opportunity to work with him on this bill. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I am introducing this bill today with Senator Hoeven, who has been a true leader on this issue. When he was Governor, he worked to pass a similar law in North Dakota. As Senator Hoeven just described, the Driver Privacy Act will strengthen safety and protect consumer privacy. I think the bipartisan support Senator Hoeven has gathered for this bill--seven Republicans, seven Democrats, and people all over the country from Hawaii to Georgia to Oregon to Alaska, not to mention the two of us from the middle of the country--demonstrates the strong support and the concerns people have about emerging technology. We want this technology, but I figure our laws have to be as sophisticated as the technology we have out there. Right now our laws are lagging and this information is not protected. There is no roadmap on how it should be protected, and that is why we are introducing this bill. I have long supported improving safety on the roadways. Too many people die on our highways, and we need to do something about it. In 2010, there were more than 30,000 fatal crashes and more than 1.5 million crashes that resulted in injuries. This is unacceptable. Rural road safety is a critical issue for my State, as well as for Senator Hoeven's State. Only 23 percent of the country's population lives in rural areas, and yet 57 percent of all traffic fatalities occur in rural America. As a Member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, I have worked to advance efforts to improve safety for all drivers, especially on rural roads, and we have made some progress. The transportation bill, MAP-21, ensured strong funding for safety improvements at rail-highway grade crossings, and the allocation of Federal funding was improved to put resources into roadways that need attention the most. My amendment in MAP-21, with Senator Sessions, required the Federal Highway Administration to work with State and local transportation officials to collect the best practices from around the country that are also cost-effective ways to increase safety on high-risk rural roads. The report was just released, and I am now looking for opportunities for how we can best address some of the challenges addressed in the study, but it is clear we have more work to do. Vehicle technologies that assist drivers and prevent crashes have grown tremendously in recent years. From new sensors that identify unsafe conditions, to driverless cars, these emerging technologies could dramatically increase safety for drivers and passengers. Event data recorders, which are the subject of our discussion today, hold similar promise in improving safety on our roadways. An EDR, as Senator Hoeven described, is a device that records data on a loop it receives from vehicle sensors and safety systems. The data is constantly being replaced and it only records 5 seconds of technical safety information when a crash occurs, although I am sure that could change when the technology changes. EDRs can be the only resource available to determine the cause of a crash by providing information about what a driver was doing in the seconds leading up to a crash, such as how fast the vehicle was going, whether the brake was activated in the seconds before the crash, if airbags were deployed, and whether the driver and passengers were wearing seatbelts. As a former prosecutor, I know how useful this data can be. It can be very useful for investigators to put the pieces back together to more easily determine the cause of a crash for safety reasons and also determine who caused the crash. The proven benefits to driving safety that EDRs provide are not new. In the summer of 2012, the Senate included in its version of the Transportation bill, MAP-21, a requirement that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, NHTSA, initiate a rulemaking to require passenger vehicles and light-duty trucks to include EDRs. At the same time, there were many legitimate questions regarding what impact expanding EDRs to all passenger vehicles would have on consumer privacy. Who owns the data? Who can access the data? It became clear that an effective EDR provision would need to strengthen driver and vehicle safety while protecting consumer privacy, and the EDR provision was removed from the final transportation bill. Over the past 2 years, NHTSA has continued to work with law enforcement safety groups and the automobile manufacturers to ensure the safety benefits of EDRs, which could reach the most consumers. The auto manufacturers had already begun expanding the inclusion of EDR technology in more new vehicles each year. EDRs became so commonplace that 96 percent of 2013 cars and trucks had the EDR built in, and NHTSA and the industry it regulates, the automakers, were able to agree that all new cars and trucks should have an EDR in place in September 2014. I am not sure everyone who goes out and buys a car is aware of this, but by 2014 every single car and truck will have this capability. However, NHTSA does not have the authority to address the consumer privacy concerns related to EDRs that have remained outstanding for 2 entire years. We have seen an enormous increase in new cars and trucks containing the EDRs, and that is where Senator Hoeven comes in. Congress does have the authority to clarify ownership of EDR data, and that is why we are introducing the Driver Privacy Act, along with 12 other Senators. Our bill makes crystal clear that the owner of the vehicle is the rightful owner of the data collected by that vehicle's EDR, and it may not be retrieved unless a court authorizes retrieval of the data, the vehicle owner or lessee consents to the data retrieval, the information is retrieved to determine the need for emergency medical response following a crash, or the information is retrieved for traffic safety research, in which case personally identifiable information is not disclosed. So that is where you have it. We have worked hard with safety groups and law enforcement to make sure this would work for them. You would need a court authorization or you would need a consent or you would need a determination that it is needed to determine the cause of a crash or it is needed for research, and in that case, no identifiable data. This was really important for me, as a former prosecutor, that we made this work for law enforcement and our safety groups, but, most importantly, our goal was to make it work for the individual consumers, the citizens of the United States of America. We realize while all of this was done for good intentions, no one had taken the broom behind and made sure the American people were protected. Having just left a judiciary hearing this afternoon about NSA and data collection and privacy and civil liberties, it was very timely that I came over here. While this may not quite have the huge ramifications of that hearing, I do think to myself that maybe if people thought ahead a little bit, we wouldn't have been sitting in that hearing. That is what we are trying to do with this bill. We are trying to think ahead so we can keep up with the technology so it doesn't beat us out and it doesn't beat our constitutional rights out. I have seen firsthand the devastating effects automobile crashes can have on families as they are forced to say goodbye to a loved one much too early. Oftentimes families just want answers. They want to know what happened and why. EDRs can help provide those answers. Our bill accounts for those needs of law enforcement and these families. You don't have to take my word for it. The International Association of Chiefs of Police has concluded that the Data Privacy Act will not cause any additional burden to law enforcement agencies in accessing the data they need. Advancements in technology oftentimes force us to take a look at related laws to ensure they remain in sync. Senator Hoeven and I are introducing the Driver Privacy Act to do just that. Our bill strikes that balance between strengthening consumer privacy protections while recognizing that EDR data will be required to aid law enforcement, advance vehicle safety objectives, or to determine the need for emergency medical response following a crash. I thank Senator Hoeven for his leadership. He is a true bipartisan leader. We have worked together on many bills. When we work together, I always say the Red River may technically divide our States, but it actually brings us together, whether it is about flood protection measures or important bills such as this. I appreciate the opportunity to work with him on this bill. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

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

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension Act. That would be S. 1845. This is legislation that will continue to be a critical safety net for workers who have fallen on tough times through no fault of their own. Just a few short hours ago, as you know, the Senate sent a strong message by voting to move forward on this vital legislation to restore unemployment insurance for the more than 1 million Americans whose benefits expired on December 28. I wish to thank Senator Jack Reed and Senator Heller for their bipartisan leadership on this issue. This is a very important step in providing economic security for the millions of Americans who lost their unemployment benefits at the end of the year or who will lose them this year if Congress does not act. By helping people to stay on their feet after an unexpected job loss, unemployment insurance has kept millions of Americans out of poverty. Rather than removing the safety net these people rely on, we should be focused on policies that help the long-term unemployed get back to work, including the help that will allow them to pay their rent and fill their gas tanks while they are searching for jobs. Yesterday I released the Joint Economic Committee report making the economic case for extending the Federal support for our unemployment insurance, designed to keep long-term unemployed Americans above water as they search for work. Approximately 1.3 million workers, as we know, lost their unemployment benefits on December 28. Barring Congressional action, benefits will expire for an additional 3.6 million over the next year. In my home State of Minnesota, roughly 8,500 people lost benefits at the end of last year and about 65,000 Minnesotans will lose benefits by the end of December of 2014. These are people who may have had a plant close in their town. Maybe their position was eliminated and no one is hiring. Either way, these are people who have been paying into the system for their working lives and we need to see them through to their next job. This is especially important at a time of stubbornly high long-term unemployment. For most Americans, State-funded unemployment insurance lasts 26 weeks. Yet the average unemployment spell lasts 10 weeks longer. In 2008, as our country went into the worst downturn since the Great Depression, Congress authorized Federal support for extended unemployment benefits for those who were out of work for more than 26 weeks. For people struggling to find work during those dark days, the extension was a lifeline. For the millions of Americans still searching for work as our economy recovers, it is a critical safety net. Our economy, as we know, has come a long way since the downturn began, with the national unemployment rate now lower than it has been in 5 years. In my home State of Minnesota we are doing even better. The unemployment rate is more than two points below the national average. We are proud of that for our businesses. We are proud of that for our workers. But there is a problem that remains. While the overall workforce is growing stronger every day, we are still facing significant challenges with long-term unemployment. At 2.6 percent, that is people long-term unemployed more than 6 months, it is more than twice what it was when Congress last allowed Federal unemployment insurance to expire after the recessions of 1990-1991 and 2001. In fact, in our report we have a graph that shows that literally this unemployment rate we are facing now for the long-term unemployed is twice what it has been in any other year when we faced a decision in Congress and decided in fact to terminate those benefits. Literally, that long-term unemployment rate is now twice what it was in those other years. That is why there is so much concern about stopping the benefits at this point. In Minnesota, our long-term unemployment rate is 1.4 percent, much better than it is in many States in the country, but too many Minnesota communities are still hurting, with unemployment rates reaching as high as 9.5 percent in Clearwater County in Minnesota. Given the numbers, Federal support for unemployment insurance is more important than ever for the long-term unemployed. Extending this critical safety net is fair. American families, struggling against long-term unemployment, are working hard to find a job, to put food on the table, to pay their bills. They are not exactly the ones who have seen the upturn from the stock market that many people have seen in the last years. They are not the ones who have seen their stocks rise. They don't have stocks. They are just trying to put food on the table for their families. They are not faceless, nameless charity cases. They are our neighbors, they are our family members, and they are our friends. In fact, nearly one out of every five Americans has either received or is living with someone who has received Federal unemployment benefits since 2008. That is 69 million people. Almost 24 million long-term unemployed workers have directly benefited and another 45 million Americans, including nearly 17 million children, are living with someone who is receiving unemployment insurance. These benefits help carry families through long unemployment spells, pay the mortgage, rent, utilities. While the average unemployment insurance benefit of $300 per week only replaces about one-third of an individual's average weekly wage, unemployment insurance benefits have kept 11 million Americans out of poverty; 2.5 million in 2012 alone. That is 2.5 million Americans kept out of poverty because of this program. In 13 States, over 40 percent of those who are unemployed have been out of work for more than 26 weeks and have exhausted their State- funded benefits. Nationally nearly 38 percent of unemployed workers are long-term unemployed. These are the workers, the 4.9 million Americans who will lose their unemployment insurance if we fail to pass this bill. These benefits help them to keep looking for work, support their children and families, and contribute to the economy. The longer a person is unemployed, the more difficult it is for that person to find a job. Skills atrophy and professional networks dry up. But you can't go on a job interview if you cannot even fill up your car with gas, so we also need to make sure the long-term unemployed are not left high and dry after State-funded unemployment benefits run out. Addressing long-term unemployment is a problem that calls for an all- of-the-above solution. We need to do more to support American workers. This is the right thing to do. We also know it is better for the economy. The CBO has found that each dollar of unemployment insurance increases the GDP by as much as $1.90, and extending the Federal unemployment benefits through 2014 would boost GDP by a .2 percentage point and increase employment by 200,000 jobs. Failing to extend Federal unemployment benefits will cost the economy 240,000 jobs, according to the Council of Economic Advisors. Those are the numbers with which we are dealing. We also know if we look at the suggestions of the debt commission-- something that I think is a very important body of work and has some very good ideas in it--their idea is trying to get about $4 trillion in debt reduction. We are something above $2.6 trillion of the way there with more to do, but the point is there are ways to get there. One of my favorite ways is to pass the immigration bill. CBO has found that in the second 10 years that will actually save $700 billion on the debt by making people pay taxes, by bringing them out of the shadows so they pay fines. That is what we are dealing with. If we want to look at ways to reduce our debt, I don't think we should be doing it on the backs of the most vulnerable, those kids, those people who are long-term unemployed who still have not been able to find a job. In many States it is still a very difficult economy. Especially for the long-term unemployed, this is the right thing to do. We shouldn't leave these Americans in the lurch. We need to restore this critical safety net and focus on getting Americans back to work. I urge my colleagues to support the bill. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I thank my colleague Senator Collins for her great leadership for so long on this issue. We have together authored this resolution, and she has been a true champion for those suffering from this debilitating disease. Our resolution builds on the legacy of work and research that has been done in America. It declares the prevention and effective treatment of Alzheimer's by 2025 an urgent national priority and calls for enhanced resources necessary to achieve this goal. There is no better time than now to discuss this critical issue and draw attention to this disease because, as my colleague from Maine noted, November is Alzheimer's Disease Awareness and Family Caregivers Month. President Reagan made this designation back in 1983 to raise awareness about the devastating impacts of Alzheimer's disease on patients and their caregivers. Alzheimer's presents one of the toughest medical, economic, and social challenges of this country. We all know we are seeing a doubling of the senior population in this country--some call it a silver tsunami, and, of course, it is a positive. More and more people are living long and longer. But we also know we are seeing more and more people who are living with very difficult diseases, and one of them, in fact the leading one, is Alzheimer's. This disease takes an incredibly enormous toll, both on patients as well as those who must sit helplessly by and watch as the disease progresses and slowly takes away a loved one. Right now close to 5.2 million Americans are living with this disease, including nearly 100,000 people in my home State of Minnesota. These numbers will grow dramatically. If we continue on the same trajectory we are on now, by 2050 an estimated 16 million Americans will be living with this disease. That is an increase of almost 320 percent over what we see today--320 percent over what we see today. The financial cost of providing care for people afflicted by the disease is staggering for families, for our health care system, and of course for the Federal budget. In 2013 we will spend $203 billion caring for individuals with Alzheimer's. Medicare and Medicaid will bear about 70 percent of these costs. By 2050 we will be paying more than $1.2 trillion to care for people with Alzheimer's. We also know it is tough on caregivers. They suffer an emotional and physical toll that results in a higher incidence of chronic conditions for themselves. In 2012 more than 15 million family members, spouses, children, and friends in the United States provided care to an adult with Alzheimer's. The unpaid care is valued at more than $216 billion. So many of the people, friends of mine, who are involved in this care also have their own children. That is why we call them the sandwiched generation. They are literally sandwiched in between caring for their aging parents and caring for a child. Just as the country addressed the needs of working moms and dads in the 1970s, we must now address the needs of working sons and daughters. This is a critical piece of the puzzle in taking on the Alzheimer's challenge. Most important, our resolution is about the lives that could be improved with better treatments and cures. Earlier this year I met with 30 Minnesotans who were here in Washington, DC, each having been touched by Alzheimer's. I have been at rallies. I have seen those purple shirts in our State. Thousands and thousands of people gathered to say: We want a cure. We want better treatments. We do not want to lose our loved ones like this. One way we can help stem the tide of this devastating disease is through research. As my colleague from Maine mentioned, the Mayo Clinic does fine research in this area. They have found ways to identify Alzheimer's earlier through testing. At first you might say: How does that help to get a cure? How are we ever going to know what treatments work best and what a cure is if we cannot first identify it at early stages so we can then see improvements? Because if we identify it too late, you are never able to test to see if treatments work. The University of Minnesota is also doing outstanding research on mice-- prize-winning research. Here is the fact of any of these numbers. We all remember this is not just about the numbers; it is about the people. But if there is any number to remember, it is this: If we were able to delay the onset of Alzheimer's by just 5 years--5 years--we would be able to cut the government spending on Alzheimer's care by almost half in 2050--almost half. I see Mr. Durbin, also a leader in this area, the Senator from Illinois, out on the floor. He knows what we are talking about with the budget, the kind of money we are going to need to help our kids to make our country a better place. Just think of what we could do with that money if we could reduce the spending on this debilitating disease by half by 2050. The answers on Alzheimer's will not just drop from the sky. It will take dedicated scientists, advanced research initiatives, and skilled doctors to conduct the trials and care for as many patients as possible until we finally put an end to the disease. That is what this is about. A friend of mine is in town today, commissioner Mike Opat from Hennepin County. Hennepin County has the biggest public hospital in Minnesota, and as county attorney I used to represent that hospital. I know what this means for their budget every single day, as people who could have been cured or people who could have had the onset of the disease be delayed have suffered and have been in the hospital and have been on the taxpayer dime. Of course we are going to take care of them, but there are so many other things this money could be used for. The Advisory Council on Alzheimer's Research, Care, and Services-- which is led by Dr. Ronald Petersen, a Minnesotan and a leading researcher on Alzheimer's--has acknowledged that in order to reach the goal of effectively treating Alzheimer's disease by 2025, our country must invest $2 billion per year. It sounds like a lot of money but not with these other figures I just put out there; that $1.2 trillion in treatment, the doubling of the number of seniors whom we are seeing by 2030--$2 billion per year. That is why Senator Collins and I have joined together to submit this resolution which resolves that the Senate will strive to double the funding the United States spends on Alzheimer's research in 2015 and develop a plan to meet the target of $2 billion a year over the next 5 years. Today we spend approximately $500 million per year on Alzheimer's, as noted by my colleague. So we have a long way to go to meet this goal. It is not easy. But in the long term, it will save us money, it will save lives, and it will make for a better world for literally millions of people in this country and around the world. I urge my colleagues to join Senator Collins and me in supporting this important resolution.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on the National Defense Authorization Act and how the Senate, and particularly the women of the Senate, are working to address the crisis of military sexual assault. I thank Senators Mikulski and Collins for organizing and bringing us together this morning. I thank Senators Levin and Inhofe for their leadership, and I thank Senators McCaskill and Gillibrand for working on this critical legislation over the course of the past year. Of course, I thank all of the women of the Senate. We have heard from many of them this morning and will hear from more because this is an incredible year--a year that I hope will be remembered as a decisive one in the effort to eradicate military sexual assault once and for all. We are all too well aware that sexual assault continues to plague our Armed Forces. We have all seen the horrifying numbers. In 2012, the Department of Defense received 3,374 reports of sexual assault in the military. But by the DOD's own estimates, 26,000 incidents of unwanted sexual contact actually took place during that period. That means that only 12.9 percent--a small fraction--of all incidents were actually reported. Of the 3,374 reported offenses in 2012, only 880 faced command action for sex crimes. Of those 880, 594 faced court-martial, and 302 of those courts-martial resulted in convictions. So all in all, we have a situation in which 880 people faced any kind of discipline for a sex crime out of the universe of 26,000 potential incidents. That is only 3.4 percent of total of incidents in which someone was held accountable, and only 302 or 1.1 percent were actually convicted of a crime. That is not a good set of numbers, and it sums up why this problem has been festering and why we need action this year. But I think we also know that we are not all here because of the statistics. We are here because of real people and because each and every one of the numbers is a personal story of grief, and we know them all too well. Whether it was the sexual assault scandal last year at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas where a dozen or more basic training instructors were accused of sexually assaulting female trainees or the more recent case at the air base in Italy, where an Air Force general decided to reinstate a pilot, without explanation, despite the fact that this pilot had been convicted of sexual assault charges in a court-martial by a jury of his peers. I think of Kimberley Wellnitz from Mora, MN. She served with the Marines in Iraq. In 2005, she was handcuffed to a bed and assaulted by a fellow Marine--her supervisor. She reported him. The end result? He was demoted in rank. It is clear we have so much more to do in addressing this problem. It doesn't just hurt our men and women in uniform. It undermines the integrity of our Armed Forces and the integrity of our country, and that is why we can't let it continue. I know everyone in the Senate--and none more than the women of the Senate--wants action to change this intolerable situation. And action is what we are going to get. This year's National Defense Authorization Act contains more than two dozen unprecedented reforms which will increase reporting of these crimes, provide support to victims, and help rebuild trust in the military's handling of sexual assaults. As a former prosecutor who ran an office of 400 people, I learned over time that the outcomes are incredibly important. But just as important is how people feel about how they are treated in the system. Every year we did a survey of our victims of domestic abuse and of sexual assault, and one of the aspects that became clear over time: Just as important as how many months someone got in prison was whether or not the crime was explained to them, whether or not the process was explained to the victims, and whether or not the outcome was explained. We actually had people come back and say: I know this case had to be dropped; or I know you couldn't bring charges in this case, but I felt that you treated me with respect, and I understood that my case would still remain so that if another case came forward my record would be there, my report would be there. If the facts were better or if there was more evidence, you could go forward with it. That led me to get involved way before this past year in the issues of record retention in the military on sexual assault reports. When I first got involved, we learned the shocking fact that many branches of the military were destroying the records sometimes in 1 year, sometimes in 5 years. That is why Senator Olympia Snowe and I got together and proposed changes to that system. We actually changed it so records would be kept for decades. But the problem is that still in the law, despite two changes we have made over the years on this exact authorization act, the victim actually has to sign something and say they want the records retained. That would not happen in a civil court. Current law only requires retention of restricted reports--and that is when a servicemember chooses not to take legal action--at the request of the affected servicemember. This might seem innocuous, but it is not. It is a loophole allowing for the continued destruction of records, making it harder for service men and women who have been sexually assaulted to get VA benefits for the assault or to seek justice in the future. I did an event with a former marine whose case couldn't be brought. Because she was a marine, the records at the time were kept for 5 years. So when the perpetrator got out and raped two kids in California, that prosecutor in California was at least able to look at the records. Whether he could use them or not is somewhat immaterial. It simply helps to look at the records to know what happened and if there was a similar modus operandi. A servicemember who has been through an assault should not be forced to reach a far-reaching decision whether his or her report on such a crime will be retained or not, as is what is happening right now. This bill gets rid of the double standard between restricted and unrestricted reports, ensuring all reports are stored in a secure and private manner for at least 50 years. It also contains a provision from my bill requiring the disposition of substantiated sexual-related offenses be noted in personnel records. This will help ensure that commanders are aware of potential repeat offenders. And it contains the language from my Military Sexual Assault Prevention Act--and I thank Senator Murkowski for her support--which expresses the sense of the Senate that charges of rape, sexual assault or attempts to commit these offenses should be disposed of by court-martial rather than by nonjudicial punishment or administrative action. We want offenders to be convicted and punished, not just given a slap on the wrist by commanders or allowed to slink away without a discharge. This year's NDAA also includes legislation which I introduced with Senator McCaskill to add sexual assault and related charges to the list of protected communications that can be investigated by the DOD inspector general. This is expanded whistleblower protection which will help ensure that servicemembers are able to report sexual assault crimes without facing retaliation. These are just a few of the provisions addressing sexual assault in this bill. We also know this bill does so much focused on victims' rights and treating our victims with the respect that they deserve. Our country is fortunate that we have so many selfless service men and women who volunteer to serve their country. When they raise their hands to serve, we take on the responsibility to provide them the means to accomplish their mission and to ensure they don't have to worry about what is going on behind the front line. Sexual assault in the military betrays that responsibility. If in the course of their service our service men and women experience an assault that our military failed to prevent, then we owe them the basic decency of justice. I look forward to working on and passing this bill with my colleagues so that we can protect our servicemembers once and for all. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I think there are two interesting facts that Senator Cantwell brought up that I didn't know. The first was the percentage of women in the Federal district courts--in the 30- percent range, 32-percent range. The second was Justice Roberts' belief that, in fact, we should have judges to fill these seats. It is interesting that Justice Roberts actually was on the DC Circuit. I remember looking at the numbers. When he was confirmed to serve on the DC Circuit, there were actually fewer pending cases per judge than there are now--even if these vacancies were filled. I keep bringing that up because it is the one and the only argument we keep hearing against these three women we talk about today. Caitlin Halligan was already filibustered, stopped in her tracks despite trying three or four times and never giving up--1 year, the next year, putting in her name, having to go through a nomination process. We just saw Patty Millett, eminently qualified, filibustered, stopped at the door. I have never seen so many tweets about a judicial nominee. They are not always that well known, but in her case she is a hero of military spouses across the country who cannot believe my colleagues across the aisle are denying her that right to serve on our courts. Now we have a new nominee before us, Cornelia Pillard, someone, as we noted, who has been unanimously suggested for this job by the nonpartisan American Bar Association. She is someone eminently qualified, with nine Supreme Court arguments, and someone who has so much respect from those she mentors, from her colleagues both Democratic and Republican. I see the Senator from Connecticut is here, another member of the Judiciary Committee. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I come to the floor because there are three extremely talented, well-qualified women nominees who are ready to get to work on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. It is time they are confirmed. I will be joined this afternoon by several of our colleagues: Senators Hirono, Cantwell, Kaine, and Blumenthal, because we all know it is time for the Senate to stop the needless blocking of these women. Enough is enough. I thank Chairman Leahy for his persistence and the fact that we are not giving up on these three qualified women for the bench. Our courts need judges in order for the third branch of our government to function. The Senate should not be shutting down another branch of government. Some of my colleagues in the Senate will not even allow an up-or-down vote on these nominees. I don't know if they have even met these nominees, but if they had met them, I don't know how they could come to this floor and not allow an up-or-down vote. President George W. Bush's candidates to the DC Circuit were confirmed so the DC Circuit could keep running, and our current President's nominees should be considered in the same manner. You can't have justice with an empty courtroom. It is time to stop making excuses. It is time to put judges in their courtrooms, and it is time to get these women on the bench. One of the very well-qualified nominees is Nina Pillard. Nina Pillard is a talented lawyer and professor. She is the kind of sensible, well- respected person whom we need to fill one of those empty seats in that courtroom. Actually, it is Professor Pillard because she has been a law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center for the last 15 years. She graduated magna cum laude from Yale College in 1983 and earned her J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1987, again graduating with honors. In addition to her academic career, Ms. Pillard served in government. From 1998 to 2000, she was the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. Prior to that she served as an assistant to the Solicitor General, a position held by some of our country's most talented lawyers. It should be no surprise Ms. Pillard is one of the most accomplished Supreme Court advocates in the Nation. She has argued nine cases before our Nation's highest Court and has briefed 25 cases. Outside the courtroom, she has spent her time teaching and mentoring young lawyers, serving as the faculty director for Georgetown Law School's Supreme Court Institute. When the current Supreme Court Justice Alito was nominated by President Bush to fill an open seat on the Supreme Court, Ms. Pillard also donated her time to the committee to help review his writings and make a recommendation on his qualifications. Why? She was the chair of the American Bar Association's Reading Committee at Georgetown Law Center, which found Justice Alito ``well qualified'' to sit on the Supreme Court. People across the aisle think Ms. Pillard is well qualified too. The head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy under President Bush said that Ms. Pillard is ``a patient and unbiased listener . . . a lawyer of great judgment and unquestioned integrity.'' The deans of 25 law schools, including the University of New Hampshire, the University of Arizona, and the University of Maine, wrote that Ms. Pillard ``has shown an appreciation of nuance and respect for opposing viewpoints, grounded in a profound commitment to fair process and fidelity to the law.'' Twenty-five more former Federal prosecutors and law enforcement officials said Ms. Pillard ``is unquestionably eminently qualified, and is a sensible and fair-minded lawyer.'' The nonpartisan American Bar Association's--this is no surprise--committee that reviews every Federal judicial nominee unanimously gave Ms. Pillard its highest possible rating. Fairminded, unquestionably qualified, unquestioned integrity--these are the qualities the Senate should be looking for in a person we entrust to decide cases in our Federal courts. Next week the Senate should give Ms. Pillard an up-or-down vote. My hope for progress next week is in contrast to the reality we saw just 1 week ago when the Senate voted to block another eminently qualified woman to an up-or-down vote. As I stated last week on the floor, Patty Millett would also be an excellent person to fill one of the vacancies on the DC court. My colleagues have discussed the qualifications of Ms. Millett at length. She is a talented lawyer with extensive appellate experience-- 32 cases in front of the Supreme Court. I do not understand how anyone in good faith could vote to block an up-or-down vote of someone who has argued 32 cases in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, who has served as an Assistant Solicitor General, and who spent 15 years as an attorney on the appellate staff of the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Division under both Democratic and Republican administrations. With all this experience, Ms. Millett is also one of the most experienced Supreme Court advocates in the Nation. Just as Ms. Pillard did, Ms. Millett also received the highest possible rating from the nonpartisan American Bar Association committee that reviews every Federal judicial nominee. She has done all of this, as we have all learned, while raising a family, with a spouse serving in the military overseas. She has been raising two children while her husband was serving our country overseas and while donating her time to help kids learn how to read and volunteering for the homeless. How can anyone not allow a vote on this nominee? This is another woman of unquestioned ability. Instead of confirming Ms. Millett last week, sadly, she was filibustered--another woman filibustered, stopped in her tracks. I see some of my colleagues have gotten to the floor, and so before I talk about Caitlin Halligan I will give them an opportunity to speak. But Caitlin Halligan is yet another woman stopped in her tracks. This has to end. We have been making so much progress for women in the judicial system and for women in the Senate. We are now 20 of 100 Senators. No one filibustered us. We got an up-or-down vote when we came before the American people, win or lose. That is how it should work for judges. They should get an up-or-down vote--and that is what these women deserve. With that, I will yield the floor for Senator Hirono from the State of Hawaii, who is also a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, we have also been joined by Senator Kaine of Virginia, who knows a little bit about one of these nominees and is also a strong advocate for more women in the legal profession. That is one of the cases we are making; that this is about the DC Circuit, this is about the repeated gridlock we are seeing in Washington that the people of this country have said they have had enough of, but it is also about the fact our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have now blocked not one, not two but three incredibly qualified women. So we are starting small on a Thursday afternoon--and maybe there are not a lot of people in the gallery--but this is just the beginning. We are not going to let this go.