Amy Klobuchar

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize a fellow Minnesotan, Mr. Michael Donohoe, as he nears the end of his term as the 107th chairman of the nation's largest insurance association, the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America, IIABA. Mike is principal of the James R. Weir Insurance Agency in Mankato, MN, and was installed as the association's chairman last September. Mike has contributed to the independent agency system in a variety of ways at the State and national level, including serving as the Minnesota Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers, MIIAB, president and as the organization's representative on the National Board of Directors. He is a former MIIAB Agent of the Year. In 2005, Mike received the Woodworth Memorial, the highest honor the Big ``I'' awards to an agent which is presented annually to the Big ``I'' member who best demonstrates outstanding service benefiting independent insurance agents and the entire insurance industry. He is the only Minnesotan ever to be awarded the Woodworth Memorial. Amongst his many other accomplishments at the Big ``I,'' he was instrumental to the success of the Big ``I'' Virtual University and served as the chair of the VU Oversight Task Force from 2001 to 2006. Donohoe grew up in Lake Forest, IL, and is a graduate of St. Mary's College, in Winona, MN. He has been married to his wife Mary for more than 30 years, and they have four children: Katie, Gina, Meghan, and Patrick. I would like to commend Mike's commitment to his profession, his community, and our State of Minnesota, and I wish him and his family all the best in their future endeavors.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, few states appreciate the importance of outdoor recreation the way we do in Minnesota--whether it is cross- country skiing, snowmobiling, fishing, hiking or off-roading, these activities are more than just hobbies for us--they are a way of life and they are woven into the fabric of our economy. That is why today I rise to commemorate the 1-year anniversary of the passage of the lead standard exemptions for youth all-terrain vehicles. Minnesota is home to many strong recreational product manufacturers that provide jobs and have helped move our economy forward during these difficult times. Our economy doesn't hinge on churning money around Wall Street, it hinges on building things and the motorcycle and all- terrain vehicle industry is a shining example of that. This industry is not just about recreation--it is about jobs, it is about manufacturing, and it is about preserving a key part of our culture and economy. I supported the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act when it passed in 2008 because it addressed serious safety concerns about lead in children's toys. But when we have legislation as detailed and sweeping as the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, certain adjustments and clarifications sometimes need to be made, as we saw with the lead limits for youth all-terrain vehicles. Simply put, children's off-road vehicles were never supposed to be subject to requirements in the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. The law was designed to protect our kids, but by banning youth-sized all-terrain vehicles children were put at risk because they started riding oversized adult vehicles that don't take the same considerations as a model meant to accommodate children. Once it became clear that the Consumer Product Safety Commission was going to hold youth all-terrain vehicles to the new lead requirements, I began working to find a solution to the problem. That is why I pushed to pass the amendments to the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act last year to exempt youth all-terrain vehicles from lead standards. August 12th will be the 1-year anniversary of enactment of these amendments to Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act into law. I would like to commemorate the 1-year anniversary of passage of these amendments to Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act that help protect our children and ensure they enjoy the outdoors for many years to come.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the exceptional leadership and dedication of my deputy chief of staff Tom Sullivan, who has been with me since my first days in the Senate and will soon be leaving to accept a senior adviser role at the U.S. State Department. To say that Tom will be missed would be an understatement. Over the last 6 years, he has distinguished himself as an invaluable member of my staff, rising through the ranks and filling many key roles along the way. He started out as a legislative assistant, but it wasn't long before he was serving as my deputy legislative director and, eventually, my deputy chief of staff. In many ways you could call Tom the nerve center of my office--the utility player who can step in and perform virtually any task that is asked of him, regardless of whether it is press strategy or scheduling or legislative analysis. No policy was ever too complex for him, no assignment too daunting, no challenge too thorny. Tom's versatility is especially apparent in his knowledge of policy, which spans the full spectrum of State and Federal issues. He came to my office with a background in foreign relations but quickly became an expert in everything from energy to technology to health care, mastering and remembering even the most minute of details without losing sight of the forest for the trees. That is a rare talent, and Tom has it in spades. Mr. President, as you know, Senate offices often become like their own little family units. In the last 6 years, Tom Sullivan has become an esteemed member of the Klobuchar family, and he will be sorely missed--not just for his skill and expertise but for his composure, kindness, and unflappable good nature. We wish Tom well in his new position at the State Department and know that we can expect to see great things from him as he begins a new and exciting journey in public service.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for the duration of my remarks.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I rise today to speak on the 5-year anniversary of the horrific collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, and to pay tribute to those who lost their lives on that tragic summer day. As I said the day after the bridge collapse, ``A bridge just should not fall down in the middle of America.'' Not a bridge that is a few blocks from my house. Not an eight-lane highway. Not a bridge that I drive over every day with my husband and my daughter. But that is what happened that sunny summer day in Minneapolis, MN. I can't even begin to count how many times I have thought about that bridge, and everyone in our State actually remembers where they were the day it collapsed. It was one of the most heavily traveled bridges in our State, and in all that day 13 people lost their lives and scores were injured. So many more could have been killed if not for the first responders, if not for the volunteers, who instead of running away from the disaster, when they had no idea what actually happened, ran toward it and rescued their fellow citizens. Everyone was shocked and horrified, but on that evening and in the days that followed, the whole world watched as our State came together, as they did in the minutes and hours after the collapse. I was proud to be a Minnesotan. The emergency response to the bridge collapse demonstrated an impressive level of preparedness and coordination that should be a model for the Nation. We saw true heroes in the face of unimaginable circumstances. We saw an off-duty Minneapolis firefighter named Shannon Hanson, who grabbed her lifejacket and was among the first at the scene. Tethered to a yellow life rope in the midst of broken concrete and tangled rebar, she swam from car to car searching for survivors up and down in that river. We saw that schoolbus perched precariously on the falling bridge deck. I called it the miracle bus. Inside there were dozens of kids from a very poor neighborhood, who had been on a swimming field trip. Their bus was crossing the bridge when it dropped. Thanks to the quick action of responsible adults and the children themselves, they all survived, they all got off that bus. Although you can never feel good about a tragedy like this one, I certainly felt good about our police officers, firefighters, paramedics, and all the medical personnel who literally saved dozens and dozens of lives. On this, the 5-year anniversary of the bridge collapse, we should again honor those heroes and the countless lives they saved. For a minute, I want to tell you a few examples. A woman named Pamela Louwagie, who writes for the Star Tribune, gathered some of their stories this weekend. Some of these people I know. Lindsey Patterson Walls was in a Volkswagen that went over the bridge; she kicked out the doors and windows and was able to get out and survive. She is putting the collapse to work in her career. She is a youth worker who counsels children and teens and she discovered that her trauma, as hard as it was, wasn't so different than that of her clients. She felt insecure in the world, wondering whether another bridge would collapse under her, and she realized that the homeless teens she counsels felt insecure, wondering where they would sleep at night. It is a lesson she takes with her every day in her job. Betsy Sathers is someone I have come to know. Her husband was 29 years old when he died in that bridge collapse. They had just gotten married and they planned on having a family. She decided to adopt children from Haiti. In the aftermath of that earthquake, she already knew the names of these children she was going to adopt. She would not let those kids just be left in that rubble. She contacted our office. We worked with her and brought Alyse and Ross back from Haiti, and she is their mother. I saw them this weekend with their big smiles and their mom. That is an inspirational story. The Coulter family was in their minivan--the kids, the mom, the dad. It was clear at the beginning that they were severely injured and the mom, Paula, they didn't think would survive. Also, after they learned that maybe she was going to make it--she had devastating injuries to her brain and her back--one time during one of the surgeries, they had to jolt her heart back to life. They had suggested that her family start looking for nursing home care. But she didn't give up--Paula and her family didn't give up. After 2 years, with the help of some great therapists, she could walk and move again and go back to her counseling job part time, and two summers ago she and her trainer ran a 5K race. That is inspirational. Then there is the bridge itself. After it collapsed, it was so clear to us that we had to rebuild it and we had to rebuild it right away. In just 3 days, Senator Coleman and I worked together in the Senate to secure $250 million in emergency bridge reconstruction funding. Representative Jim Oberstar led the way in the House. Approval of the funding came with remarkable speed in this Chamber. It was bipartisan and we were able to get the funding. From the moment that bridge started construction to the end, it took less than a year to rebuild a bridge that is now a 10-lane highway. Today, the new I-35W bridge is a symbol of pride and the resilience of a community. This weekend, when I was at the Twin Cities heroes parade with our veterans, the organizer looked at me proudly and said: Tonight they are lighting up the 35W bridge red, white, and blue. So it literally has become a symbol of hope in our State. The new bridge is a hundred-year bridge with more lanes than before. It is also safer. The bridge includes state-of-the-art anti-icing technology, as well as shoulders, which the old bridge didn't have. Of course, bridge safety was on the minds of all Americans, especially those of us in Minnesota, following the bridge collapse. Immediately afterward, the Minnesota Department of Transportation inspected all 25 bridges in Minnesota with a similar design as the I- 35W bridge. This inspection led to the closing of the Highway 23 bridge in St. Cloud, where bulging of gusset plates was found. I remember seeing it. It accelerated its planned replacement of that bridge, which opened in 2009. But the reforms were not all structural. Since then, the department of transportation in our State has improved the way the inspections and maintenance functions of the department handle critical information and necessary repairs. Just as in Minnesota, bridge safety became a priority nationally as well. After the National Transportation Safety Board identified gusset plates as being heavily responsible for the collapse, a critical review of gusset plates was conducted on bridges across America, and there was new attention focused on deterioration of steel and weight added to bridges over the years through maintenance and resurfacing projects. The national organization that develops highway and bridge standards, the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials, updated bridge manuals that are used by State and county bridge engineers across the Nation. I will say that 5 years later we have still not made as much progress as I would have liked. The Federal Highway Administration estimates that over 25 percent of the Nation's 600,000 bridges are still either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave bridges in America a C grade in its 2009 Report Card for America's Infrastructure and a D for infrastructure overall. We did take a positive step forward with the recent bipartisan transportation bill that will help State departments of transportation fix bridges and improve infrastructure. For Minnesota, that bill means more than $700 million for Minnesota's roads, bridges, transit, congestion mitigation projects, and mobility improvements. The bill gives greater flexibility to State departments of transportation to direct Federal resources to address unique needs in each State. It also establishes benchmarks and national policy goals, including strengthening our Nation's bridges, and links those to Federal funds. It reduces project delivery time and accelerates processes that will reduce in half the amount of time to get projects under way. However, we all know more needs to be done. While other countries are moving full steam ahead with infrastructure investments, we seem to be simply treading water, and in an increasingly competitive global economy standing still is falling behind. China and India are spending, respectively, 9 and 5 percent of their GDP on infrastructure. We need to keep up. We need to build our infrastructure. That is why I authored the Rebuild America Jobs Act last fall, which would have invested in our Nation's infrastructure. It would have also created a national infrastructure bank--something the occupant of the chair is familiar with--to help facilitate public- private partnerships, so that projects could be built that would otherwise be too expensive for a city, a county, or even a State to accomplish on its own. We included a provision to set aside a certain amount of funding for road projects. Unfortunately, while we got a majority of the Senate voting to advance this bill, we were unable to break the filibuster. So 5 years to the day after the I-35W bridge fell into the Mississippi River, we know we have much to do to ensure our 21st century economy has the 21st century infrastructure we need. I know I am committed to move forward and work in a bipartisan way to address our Nation's critical bridge and infrastructure needs and prevent another tragedy like the collapse of the I-35W bridge. They didn't distinguish on that bridge on that day 5 years ago who was a Democrat or Republican. Certainly those first responders--the cops and firefighters--didn't ask what political party somebody belonged to. They simply did their job. That is what we need to do in the Senate. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for up to 15 minutes.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I am here to talk about two very different subjects, two very different bills. One is the farm bill, and one is the Violence Against Women Act. Both bills are stuck over in the House of Representatives, and both bills should pass. Both bills received significant bipartisan support in the Senate. I am simply asking my colleagues in the other body to get their job done and to get these bills passed. The Farm Bill I will start with the farm bill. Minnesota is fifth in the country for agriculture. It means a lot to our State, it means a lot to the rural areas, but it is also tied to our metropolitan area with our farm businesses, with our food producers, and it is clearly tied in with the rest of the country. This spring's talk of a bin-busting crop has burned away under the extreme summer heat. Farmers and ranchers across the country are experiencing what the U.S. Department of Agriculture is calling the most widespread drought we have seen in decades. With nearly 90 percent of the corn and soybean crops being grown in areas impacted by the drought, the crop losses are being felt not just by our grain farmers but also are driving up feed prices for our livestock, poultry, and dairy producers. As we well know, dairy producers have already come off some very difficult years. Higher feed costs for cattle, pork, poultry and dairy impact all Americans at the grocery store. Yesterday the USDA estimated that consumers could expect to pay 3 to 4 percent more for groceries next year at this point. While some people might think that food magically appears on their tables or in their grocery stores, in Minnesota we know food is produced every day by our farmers. Farmers stand behind each General Mills box of Cheerios or every Jennie-O turkey on the dinner table. That is why when I travel our State I am always reminded of the critical role farming plays in our State's economy and in our country's economy. It has, in fact, been one of the brightest spots. Minnesotans in rural communities and larger cities all benefit from a strong farm economy that provides jobs at farms, mills, processing plants, and equipment manufacturers. While Congress can't do anything about the lack of rain, we shouldn't make this disaster worse by delaying the passage of the farm bill, which gives farmers and ranchers the assistance they need to help weather this disaster and the certainty they need to make plans for next year and the year after and the year after that. The fact that the 2008 farm bill was a 5-year time period was key to the stability in the rural areas. It was key so farmers could plan ahead. It made a difference during the downturn. We need to do that same thing again. I think it is a mistake for the House leadership to delay further action on the farm bill. These bills are never easy, but in the Senate we were able to work through 70 amendments before passing the bipartisan farm bill with a strong 64-to-35 vote. Maybe they should do the same. As part of our responsibility to do more with fewer resources, this bill includes over $23 billion in cuts over the 2008 farm bill. We eliminated direct payments, further focused farm payments on our family farmers, and worked to eliminate fraud and waste through the farm bill to ensure these programs are efficient and targeted. President Eisenhower was famously quoted as saying this: Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from the corn field. I fear that some in Washington have taken that same position and are content with kicking the can down the road and leaving rural America in the lurch. Well, those of us in the Senate who supported this bill--Democrats and Republicans--were not content with putting our heads in the sand. We weren't content with just letting the crops burn out in the fields. We wanted to get something done. There are those in the House, such as Representative Collin Peterson of Minnesota, who are trying valiantly to get this farm bill through the House. We must let them do this. The Senate passed the 5-year farm bill because it is important. It is important because it strengthens the crop insurance program, it funds livestock disaster programs for this year, and continues the program through the end of the farm bill. It ensures that the programs farmers use to get help through tough times, such as the emergency financing credit program or disaster grazing authorities, will be continued with unbroken service. The farm bill also includes two of my amendments that will help farmers get through these tough times. The first amendment reduces the cost of accessing crop insurance by 10 percent for beginning farmers. This is critical because beginning farmers are less able to afford crop insurance protection and are under greater financial stress because of the drought. The second amendment eliminates the penalty for beginning farmers that graze livestock on CRP land. This will help beginning ranchers struggling with high feed prices and will also benefit all livestock producers by freeing up the corn to be fed to other animals. Secretary Vilsack is working at the USDA to help producers with this drought. Under his leadership, the USDA has streamlined the disaster declaration process, reducing the time it takes to start getting help for impacted counties by 40 percent. They reduced the interest rate for emergency loans, as well as reduced the penalty for producers grazing livestock on conservation reserve program acres from 25 down to 10 percent. While these are important steps, they in no way replace the help farmers in this country will get from this farm bill. We all know it is not just a farm bill, it is a food bill. Only 14 percent of this that we look at is farm programs. The rest are conservation programs. The rest are important school lunch programs. This is a farm bill for the country not just the rural areas. But we can see--anyone who drives through Wisconsin, anyone who drives through Indiana or Missouri or Iowa can see--firsthand why we need this safety net for our farmers, why we need this safety net for our country. We plead with the House to get this done, to follow the leadership of Collin Peterson and those of us in the Senate who, on a bipartisan basis, got this farm bill done. They need to take it to the floor. Violence Against Women Act Madam President, as I mentioned, there is a second bill that has also been hung up, a bipartisan bill that received significant support in the Senate--in fact, it got the support of every single woman Senator in this body, Democrat and Republican--and that is the Violence Against Women Act. Here in the Senate we passed that reauthorization bill in April on a bipartisan 68-to-31 vote. Getting to that point was a tough road. It was not always clear we were going to pass the bill. Just like the two reauthorizations from 2000 and 2006, our bill strengthens current law and provides solutions to problems we have learned more about since the Violence Against Women Act was first passed in 1994. Ever since then, this bill has been able to get through both Houses on a bipartisan basis without significant controversy. We do not want to go back in time. We do not want to go back to a time when we treated women who were victims of domestic violence like they were not really victims, like it was something they should just expect to happen. We do not want to turn back on the great strides we have made. One of the improvements in this current bill focuses on a particularly underserved community: women living in tribal areas. We have a number of reservations in Minnesota, and it is a heartbreaking reality that Native American women experience rates of domestic violence and sexual assault that are much higher than the national average. Our committee, the Judiciary Committee on which I serve, worked closely with the Indian Affairs Committee to come up with some commonsense solutions to the horrific levels of domestic violence and sexual assault in tribal areas. One of the problems on tribal lands is that currently tribal courts do not have jurisdiction over non-Indian defendants who abuse their Indian spouses on Indian lands, even though more than 50 percent of Native women are married to non-Indians. The bipartisan Senate bill addresses this problem by allowing tribal courts to prosecute non-Indians in a narrow set of cases that meet three specific criteria: the crime must have occurred in Indian Country; the crime must be a domestic violence offence, and the non- Indian defendant must live or work in Indian Country. That is the way we get these cases prosecuted. I do not think we believe the Federal courts are going to come in and handle all these domestic violence cases. This is the pragmatic solution that protects these Native American women. As we were considering the Violence Against Women Act on the Senate floor, many of us had to work very hard to get the message out there that VAWA was and always has been a bipartisan bill--one that law enforcement and State and local governments strongly support. Throughout this entire process, under the leadership of Senator Leahy and Republican Senator Crapo, who did this bill together from the beginning, I have found it very helpful that whenever I needed to tell people why we needed to pass a reauthorization bill, I could point to the great work that my State is doing to combat domestic violence. There is the legacy of Paul and Sheila Wellstone, who were there at the beginning ushering this bill through in 1994. Minnesota is the home to many nationally recognized programs. The Hennepin County Domestic Abuse Service Center that I was honored to be in charge of during my 8 years as county attorney in Hennepin County is a nationally recognized center. We opened one of the first shelters in the country in 1974, and the city of Duluth was the first city to require its police officers to make arrests in domestic violence cases. I have learned about a unique domestic violence court that Stearns County--that is the area around St. Cloud--has implemented using money from VAWA grants. The partnership, which involves trained people from all levels of the criminal justice system, has allowed 58 percent of the victim participants to separate from their abusers. Washington County relies on cutting-edge research to provide direction for officers to take appropriate action when responding to domestic violence calls. It is the only program of its kind in the entire country. These are the kinds of innovative initiatives from law enforcement that are especially critical to combating violence and are directly a result of the Domestic Violence Against Women Act that we have worked so hard to pass in past years in this Congress. I want to stress just how crucial it is that we get this bill signed into law. We have made a lot of progress over the years, and we have been able to work together across the aisle to build on VAWA's successes. But we should not just send any bill to the President. As you know, the House has passed its own reauthorization of VAWA, which, unfortunately, does not include many of the improvements the Senate bill includes, including the one I mentioned on tribal courts. It also rolls back some of the important improvements that have been made to VAWA in the past. I am hopeful we will be able to iron out these differences as we move forward, but I strongly believe the improvements that were included in the Senate bill should remain a part of the bill that gets sent to the President. I hope our colleagues in the House will follow suit with the Senate on this domestic violence bill, pass a bipartisan bill, get this done, and get it done soon. It simply is not that hard. Just look into the eyes of a domestic violence victim, look into the eyes of the children, and you know it is not that hard. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, on July 19, the Judiciary Committee considered legislation to reauthorize the title VII provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. These surveillance authorities are vital to our national security, and it is imperative that they be reauthorized before they expire at the end of this year. The reauthorization bill is narrow in scope, and many amendments were proposed at the committee markup that had little or nothing to do with the reauthorization of FISA. As I stated during the markup, I may have supported or been open to working out a compromise on several of the amendments in other contexts. However, I voted in opposition to all of the extraneous amendments offered because I felt their adoption would threaten the timely passage of the FISA reauthorization bill. That is not a risk I was willing to take. In particular, as for Senator Kyl's amendment to criminalize certain behavior that would reward past terrorist acts and Senator Grassley's amendment to impose the death penalty on terrorists who use weapons of mass destruction, I want to make clear that I strongly oppose the funding of terrorism and I believe that terrorists should be subject to the death penalty. I support the objectives of both of these amendments, but I was concerned that their adoption by the committee could delay or prevent passage of the FISA reauthorization bill. I am prepared to work with Senator Kyl and Senator Grassley to address these important issues at a more appropriate time going forward. I hope that these amendments and others are raised in the appropriate context so they can be adequately addressed.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the Middle Class Tax Relief Act. This afternoon, I voted for legislation that would have extended the middle-class tax cuts through 2013. In Minnesota, 2 million families and small businesses will see their Federal income taxes increase by an average of $1,600 unless the middle-class tax cuts are extended. Instead of waiting until the eleventh hour, this legislation would have provided certainty for families and small businesses that their already squeezed budgets won't have to be trimmed further in the coming year. I would like to make clear that extending the middle-class tax cuts is just the first step. There is a growing majority here that favors comprehensive tax reform that would simplify the Tax Code, broaden the base, and lower tax rates. Passing the middle-class tax cuts today would give us time to reach consensus on the details of reform that would streamline our Tax Code, pay down our debt, and ensure the United States remains competitive. We also must take action on the estate tax. If Congress does nothing, the exemption would drop to $1 million and the rate would rise to 55 percent. This is not an acceptable outcome and would hurt farmers and small businesses in Minnesota who have worked hard to build a legacy they can pass on to their children and grandchildren. In the past we have come together to pass compromise levels that don't harm farmers and small business owners, while still being mindful of our deficit. I will work to ensure it happens again.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I want to take this opportunity to highlight two bright, young scholars from my home State of Minnesota, David Koffa and Victoria Okuneye, who have received scholarships from the United Health Foundation's Diverse Scholars Initiative. David and Victoria are both hard-working and dedicated individuals who will undoubtedly be great members of the health care workforce. David, who is currently attending Dartmouth College, believes that we can improve the health care system by taking a holistic approach to patient care. As a member of the future health workforce, David plans to focus not only on the physical well-being of patients, but on the social and emotional aspects of patient health. Taking advantage of the skills and opportunities provided through the United Health Diverse Scholars Initiative, David intends to provide high-quality health care services to impoverished communities and third-world countries. Victoria, who is excelling at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, strives to make a difference by working to expand mental health research and services for disadvantaged/low resource communities, particularly among youth and adolescents. Through the United Health Diverse Scholars Initiative, Victoria has been able to take advantage of rewarding opportunities such as academic research internships and experiences in international public service. Both David and Victoria are examples of academic excellence and personal determination. And as scholars of the United Health Foundation's Diverse Scholars Initiative, they will be great representatives of a multicultural and diverse health care workforce. I want to congratulate them on their achievements and look forward to their promising futures.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I first want to thank the Senator from New Hampshire for his great leadership on this issue and all the Senators who have been involved. I am a cosponsor of the DISCLOSE Act, and I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will strongly reconsider that vote today so we can actually go to a vote and actually debate this bill. This filibuster is basically putting a stop to the debate on an issue that is so important. We get calls from people all across Minnesota. Yesterday people asked me in two parades: What is going on? What are these ads that we are seeing on TV? They have a right to know what these groups are called, no matter what their names are, who is paying for those groups, who is paying for these ads, and that isn't happening today. I am here to focus on the public's distrust of our political process and our need to ensure that the American people have a government that is responsive to their concerns. Free and fair elections in which every American has a right to make their voice heard at the voting booth are the cornerstone of our democracy. Yet in the wake of the Citizens United decision, a flood of special interest spending has undermined the faith of the people in our elections. By loosening the rules on campaign spending, Citizens United has led to a torrent of negative ads funded not by concerned citizens participating in democracy but by unlimited special interest money. I don't think we thought we would see the day with all of the reforms that had been made where one billionaire can write a $10 million check or $20 million check. Under the system, candidates have to report every contribution that is $200 and over, and we have to painstakingly do our reports so the world, our constituents, and reporters can see them online. We have literally hundreds of millions of dollars that are being spent where we cannot tell where that money came from. That is not right. This type of campaign spending moves the focus of our elections away from the real issues facing American families but, worse, this unprecedented involvement of special interests in our political process has convinced the American people there is something wrong with how we conduct elections--and there is. Americans can see the increased role that special interests and even individual billionaires are playing in politics, heightening their suspicions that Washington works only for the powerful. I constantly hear from the people of my State who justifiably believe the more money outside groups spend--secret money they are spending on these campaigns--the less their voices are heard. We cannot continue to allow faith in our democratic process to be eroded by the secretive influence of outside money. That is why I am a cosponsor of the DISCLOSE Act. The DISCLOSE Act heeds the wisdom of Justice Louis Brandeis that sunlight is the best disinfectant and will bring accountability and transparency to the special interest money that is inundating our elections and inundating the airwaves. The act requires that certain organizations, including corporations, unions, section 527 political groups, and so-called super PACs declare their campaign spending above a certain dollar amount. The act will ensure that Americans can find out the sources of funding for advertising they seek. Most importantly, they will prevent special interests from hiding behind the curtain as they attempt to influence our elections. By setting the reporting threshold at $10,000, this carefully crafted act we just voted to go ahead with--and, unfortunately, is blocked by a filibuster--ensures that small businesses and other organizations will not be unduly burdened and that only significant political players will have to report their spending. I know some people oppose the DISCLOSE Act on what they call first amendment grounds, but this bill doesn't limit free speech in any way. I don't agree with the notion that contribution limits and other restrictions on campaign spending are a threat to free speech. But even if we were to accept that argument, this bill does nothing to impact free speech. It does not contain any limits on contributions or spending or make any changes to our campaign finance system, as much as I think we need to do that. In fact, I think the best way to do that is a constitutional amendment. But that is not what we are talking about today. We are talking about a simple bill called the DISCLOSE Act, which will ensure more transparency so we know what billionaire is spending how much money in each State on the ads we are seeing on TV. In reality it is a modest bill in comparison to the size of the problem, but it is a first step toward bringing some sensibleness back to the elections. This bill simply ensures the public has access to information about the funding behind television ads and other election materials. In fact, even the majority opinion in Citizens United discussed the constitutionality and important benefits of disclosure. The opinion itself in Citizens United said this: The first amendment protects political speech; and disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a proper way. This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages. The Supreme Court actually anticipated that Congress--in this decision that I don't agree with--might put some disclosure rules in place, but today we were blocked from doing that. Our campaign finance laws already require that many individual contributions, as I noted, be made public. I see no harm in holding outside groups and outside individuals to the same level of accountability. Finally, this should not be a partisan issue. Senators in both parties have been leaders on campaign finance reform. As everyone knows, Senators McCain and Feingold championed the most significant reforms in many years, and this bill is much less dramatic than those reforms. I ask my colleagues to reconsider their vote. Our democracy literally depends on this. We have to know who is spending money so we can figure out why they are spending the money so people will understand the true intent behind these ads. They can't do it if they don't have the information, if someone is just pulling a curtain over their heads so they cannot see anything except the noise on the screen. They need to know what is behind it. Thank you, Madam President. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, today I wish to pay tribute to a truly remarkable couple from my home State of Minnesota, a husband and wife who have gone above and beyond in their dedication to the causes of justice, equality and opportunity. Over the years, Gary and Marsha Tankenoff have poured their time and energy into a wide range of community-oriented causes, from religious organizations to educational institutions. The strength of their commitment to Tzedakah is matched only by the depth of their devotion to one another. Through the Tankenoff Families Foundation, Gary and Marsha have touched the lives of countless Minnesotans. They are a shining example of the way we in Minnesota have always come together to lift up our neighbors in need. As a family of strong Jewish faith, the Tankenoffs have been a driving force behind the Minneapolis Jewish Federation, the Jewish Community Relations Council and Herzl Camp. They are active members of Minnesota's Jewish community and tireless advocates for the core causes and values of their faith. Minnesota is a more decent, inclusive, and forward thinking State because of people like Gary and Marsha Tankenoff.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan amendment. Senator Hoeven of North Dakota is a cosponsor, and this helps address the transportation needs of rural America. This amendment simply calls for a study on rural transportation and takes a close look at the issue of captive shippers. Farmers, energy producers, and manufacturers who depend on freight rail service find themselves trapped today in a back-to-the-future world, struggling with a problem that has resurfaced from a century ago. Many of these end users--these captive customers--have only one railroad to serve them. Three decades ago there were 63 class I railroads and today only 7 remain. This amendment simply looks at the effect this situation has on transportation in rural areas. It is supported by nearly 40 national and regional agricultural and energy organizations. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I ask for a voice vote.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I call up my amendment No. 2299.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for his leadership in bringing us all together. We have to get this transportation bill done. This is a bill that passed the Senate with 74 votes. So we are here today to say to our colleagues over in the House and to ask our colleagues on the Republican side in the Senate to ask the Republicans in the House to get this bill done. Cold-weather States, such as Minnesota, it is sometimes said, have two seasons: the winter season and the construction season. This kind of delay can be crippling. We have a much smaller window of time to get these projects done. We have people waiting in traffic. We ask the House, why are we making them wait? We look at the cost when we delay construction projects--the cost to taxpayers. Everybody knows if you wait too long to work on a project, and you are doing something on your house and you wait years to get it done, the costs go up. We ask our friends in the House, why are they allowing this to happen and making this delay? Look at contractors, construction workers, and engineering firms. They need consistency. Why is the House making them wait? Look at Caterpillar, a business that employs 750 people in my State. They make road paving equipment and have a manufacturing facility. I was there addressing the employees. They gave me a pink hat. There are people working all over that company. They want more jobs, and they want to make things in America, and they want to export to the world. We are not going to be able to do that if we don't have the roads and bridges that can take our goods to market. We ask the House of Representatives, why are we making these private employers wait? The bill makes critical reforms to our transportation policy. Last week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report announcing that 58 percent of high school seniors said they had texted or e-mailed while driving in the previous month, and 43 percent of high school juniors said they do the same thing. This bill includes provisions to help prevent texting while driving, and incentives--the two of us together, Madam President, worked on the graduated driver's license standards in this bill. Why are we making the parents of America wait while their kids are texting while driving? It makes reforms in the bill to transportation policy, reduces the number of highway programs from over 100 to about 30. So the Republicans in the House--how can they explain that they are making America wait to reform and make these programs less duplicative? It defines clear national goals for transportation policy, and it streamlines environmental permitting. Why would you make America wait? That is what we are asking the House of Representatives today. Nobody knows better than Minnesota what happens if you neglect roads and bridges: The 35 W bridge crashed down in the middle of a river 6 blocks from my house. So we ask the House of Representatives, why are you making the people of America wait? I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today in opposition to an amendment that would eliminate the Sugar Program, and I urge my colleagues to table it at this time. As we continue our work on the farm bill, as we debate these amendments, I think my colleagues should keep in mind at every moment that this proposal contains $23 billion in cuts that we have brought together on a bipartisan basis, and two-thirds of those cuts--$16 billion--is on only 14 percent of the bill; that is, the farm programs. Two-thirds of the cuts: $16 billion on the farm program. This bill is supported by 630 conservation groups, nutrition groups-- a number of them. Obviously, they would like to see changes. People want to make things better. But if we do not get this bill done, you can imagine what is going to happen to school hot lunches and the like. Unfortunately, eliminating the Sugar Program would actually hurt jobs in America. I know Senator Conrad was here earlier putting the facts out, but people need to know the facts. This is a zero-cost program that supports 142,000 jobs and generates nearly $20 billion in economic activity. This is the kind of value we are looking for. I believe we need to be doing everything we can to maintain programs that are working for our farmers in an efficient way--programs that are supporting jobs and putting dollars into our economy, especially those programs that do not cost money. Most of us can appreciate the value of a strong farm safety net. During our discussions in the Agriculture Committee, I worked with Chairwoman Stabenow and other members of the committee to make sure the bill provided for that safety net so the livelihoods of our farmers cannot be swept away in the blink of an eye by natural disasters and market failures and because, you know what, we as a country do not want to be dependent on foreign food like we are dependent on foreign oil. The Sugar Program has played its own key role in shielding farmers from risk--albeit it is a different and more predictable kind of risk they face. I am talking about the risk of competing against heavily subsidized sugar from foreign countries. Let's put it this way: If you do not like being dependent on foreign oil, you are not going to love being dependent on foreign sugar. Past U.S. trade agreements have already opened our domestic market to foreign sugar. Over the last 3 years, the United States, on average, has been the world's largest sugar importer, supplying nearly one-third of our total sugar needs. Since 1985 we have had 54 sugar factories close due to sustained low prices. Once these jobs are gone, they are gone forever. This is why we need to continue the Sugar Program in the 2012 farm bill--one that supports American sugar beet and sugar cane producers while ensuring an abundant supply of sugar for consumers and manufacturers. We must continue this program. Look at what has happened. The average global retail price for sugar is 14 percent higher than it is in the United States. In other developed countries, the average price is 24 percent higher than it is in the United States. Some people have blamed farmers for the high cost of sugar foods in the grocery store. But look at the numbers. For example, a $1 candy bar has about 2 cents' worth of sugar in it. A $3.50 carton of ice cream has about 10 cents' worth of sugar. So ending the Sugar Program is not the solution that will keep food prices competitive. It is the opposite. This is an important program for our country. If changes are to be made to it, the answer should not be to eliminate it. That is why I ask my colleagues to join me in tabling this amendment as we work together in the future to make sure we preserve American jobs. The sugar industry supplies American jobs. Just ask the people in the Red River Valley in Minnesota and North Dakota. Thank you very much, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise to stress the critical infrastructure needs across our Nation and to urge the House of Representatives to act quickly and to pass a meaningful transportation bill. On March 14, the Senate passed the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act by a strong bipartisan vote of 74 to 22. Later that month, I came to the floor of the Senate to highlight the importance of the passage of our surface transportation bill. Since then, the American people have been waiting for the House of Representatives to act on their version of a transportation bill. Three months to the week after the Senate passed our Transportation bill on a 74-to-22 bipartisan vote, with the Nation continuing to wait for action and the June 30 deadline to renew or extend the transportation program coming closer and closer, the leaders of the House of Representatives have announced not a short-term extension but they have announced their interest in a longer term extension to the end of 2012. I suppose the good news is that means we have some interest in moving forward with transportation. But that is not good enough for the people of this country. In Minnesota, as you know, the construction season has begun, and because of our cold winters, we do not always have a long construction season. This kind of delay, where we have a very good bipartisan bill which includes $700 million in construction projects for our State of Minnesota, this kind of delay can be crippling. We have a much smaller window of time in which we can complete much needed projects for easing congestion and improving safety. These projects will help get commuters out of traffic and moving in the Twin Cities; projects to help ensure that farmers and food producers across greater Minnesota can transport their supplies at the right time to the right place to ensure that we continue to have a safe and reliable food supply. Think about the projects in Minnesota that need to be completed: Highway 52 in Rochester. Highway 52, a long-time problem in terms of deaths, in terms of traffic accidents, still an area where people get killed; U.S. Highway 14 in southern Minnesota, continuing to wait for that to be completed; 101 in the western metropolitan area, a little girl was just killed walking her bike, getting on her bike going across that Highway 101--killed; Highway 94 out by Rogers, a bottleneck all the time. I have been in it several times myself; 23 in Marshall needs to get done. There is a major company out there, Schwan's, but we have a highway that is not able to carry the food and the goods to market that it should because that construction has not been done; roads from Moorhead to the Iron Range, to Duluth, all that needs to be completed. That is why it is not good enough to hear the House of Representatives talk about a simple extension when we have a strong bipartisan transportation bill that came out of the Senate. We also need to be aware of the costs incurred by each additional day of delay. The longer it takes for the Congress to pass a transportation bill, the longer it takes projects to be completed, the more expensive they become to taxpayers. That stands to reason. Anyone who has built an addition on their house understands that--delay, delay, delay. That is a waste of taxpayers' money. That is why we have to get this bill done. State Departments of Transportation, contractors, construction workers, engineering firms, and other industries need certainty to move forward with the bill. These are private sector jobs, private sector jobs that await the passage of this bill. They should not have to wait any longer for the House of Representatives to act. Take, for example, Caterpillar. That might not be the first company we would think of when we think about the Transportation bill. Everyone sees the Caterpillar tractors, Caterpillar trucks throughout the rural areas. This business employs 750 people at its road-paving equipment manufacturing facility in Minnesota. I have been there. They gave me a pink Caterpillar hat. I spoke to all their employees. They are people on the frontlines of American industry helping to create the real ``Made in America'' product that keeps jobs in our country and puts dollars in our economy. They are ready to get to work. They are ready to get to work improving our Nation's roads, our bridges, our tunnels, and our highways. I ask the House of Representatives: Why are we making these workers wait? They are ready to get these paving projects done. They are ready to help the commuters in our State to get to work faster. They want to get going. There is no reason to delay getting this bill done. For decades, passing a transportation bill was considered one of the most basic noncontroversial duties of the Congress, and we have an opportunity to come together to find commonsense solutions to move America forward. We cannot afford to keep the engine of our economy idling by limiting our talk to yet another extension of the surface transportation program. The Senate Transportation bill is fully paid for and will allow States to move forward to make the critical infrastructure investments in our Nation's roads and our bridges and in our transit systems. In addition, the bill makes critical reforms to transportation policy. Just last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report announcing that 58 percent of high school seniors had texted or e-mailed while driving in the previous month--58 percent of kids out there on the road while we are all driving--we have to remember that 58 percent--nearly 60 percent of the kids out on the road are doing a text, are doing an e-mail while they are driving. That is not acceptable. The bipartisan Transportation bill includes provisions that I worked on to help prevent texting while driving and implement graduated license standards. The bill gives State departments of transportation increased flexibility so they can address these unique needs. The Senate-passed surface transportation bill also reduces the number of highway programs from over 100 down to 30. By saying they are not going to pass this bill in the House, they stop us from getting rid of those kinds of duplication. It defines clear national goals for our transportation policy. It streamlines environmental permitting. Why would they want to stop that? Why would they want to stop us from streamlining environmental permitting? But that is what they are doing by saying they want a simple extension. The bill expands the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Program. The Minnesota Department of Transportation has successfully used the program in the past and it will continue to be a key element of our State's and other State's transportation networks in the future. The fact is, we have neglected the roads and bridges that millions of Americans rely on for too long. No one knows that better than we know it in our State where that I 35W bridge tragically collapsed in the middle of a summer day, something no one could ever expect would have happened. It is not just a bridge. It is an eight-lane highway 6 blocks from my house. If that can happen there, it can happen anywhere in America. We simply cannot wait and delay any longer when we have a bipartisan bill with 74 Senators who voted for it. There is absolutely no excuse for the House of Representatives not taking this up. If we want to know if there are other bridges with problems, look at this. The number from the Federal Highway Administration shows that over 25 percent of the Nation's 600,000 bridges are either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. For further proof, we need look no further than the 2009 Report Card for America's Infrastructure, released by the American Society of Civil Engineers. It gave our Nation's Infrastructure a near failing grade. But crumbling infrastructure does not just threaten public safety; it also weakens our economy. Congestion and inefficiencies in our transportation network limit our ability to get goods to market. They exacerbate the divide between urban and rural America, they constrain economic development and competitiveness, and they reduce productivity as workers idle in traffic. Americans spend a collective 4.2 billion hours a year stuck in traffic--4.2 billion hours a year, at the cost to the economy of $78.2 billion or $710 per motorist. So I ask the House of Representatives: How can you look at those numbers and decide not to move forward with a bill that streamlines our programs, that actually makes some smart decisions in terms of reform, and that actually puts the money out there that we need to build our bridges and build our roads? It is simply time to act. I yield the floor.

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

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

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

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I am here today to talk about the 2012 farm bill and the importance of moving forward with this important legislation. First, I wish to acknowledge the incredibly hard work of Chairwoman Stabenow and Ranking Member Roberts and their commitment to producing a bipartisan bill that cleared the Agriculture Committee this April with a strong bipartisan vote. The Agriculture Committee is a successful model of how we can work across the aisle on tough problems to get work done. It always has been. This cooperative effort was not on a small or merely symbolic issue but on a major piece of legislation that impacts every single American. Throughout the process, this committee has faced unprecedented budget challenges, as has our country, but under Chairwoman Stabenow's leadership, the committee has worked together on a bill that makes tough choices, works within a budget to provide $23 billion in deficit reduction, and preserves the core programs that are important for Minnesota and other States across the country. I believe this carefully crafted bill finds a good balance between a number of priorities, and I urge Members of the Senate to continue to work together in the same spirit that was exemplified in the Agriculture Committee to complete work on this bill as quickly as possible. I have spent the last year going all around our State; I have talked to farmers and businesses across Minnesota. No matter where I go, I am always reminded of the critical role farming plays in our State's economy. We are 21st in the country for population, but we are 6th in the country for agriculture. It is our State's leading export, accounting for $75 billion in economic activity and supporting more than 300,000 jobs. It is one of the major reasons our unemployment rate is at 5.6 percent--significantly better than the national average--and that is because we have had consistent farm policy coming out of this Chamber, out of Washington, DC--and you can't say that in every area of industry--consistent policy coming from the government over the last decade. That must continue because it doesn't just help our farmers on the front line, it feeds into many industries, and it certainly feeds into agricultural exports. Our State is No. 1 in turkeys in the United States of America--a fact you might not have known. We are No. 1 for green peas and sugar beets. We are also home to Jennie-O turkey and Del Monte vegetable processing facilities, just to name a few. We are No. 1 in spring wheat and also home to a rich tradition of milling. We are No. 3 in hogs and soybeans and also home to pork processors and biodiesel plants. We are No. 4 in the country for corn and also home to 21 ethanol plants that produce over 1 billion gallons of ethanol every single year, and that is one of the major reasons our country has reduced our dependency on foreign oil from something like 60 percent 5 years ago to the mid-40s now. That is an incredible record. It has to do with oil drilling in North Dakota, it has to do with better gas mileage in our cars and trucks, but it also has to do with biofuels. Minnesotans in rural communities and larger cities all benefit from a strong farm economy that provides jobs on the farms, in mills, and processing plants, equipment manufacturers--another key export for the United States of America--and a diverse range of high-tech jobs in today's modern agriculture. That is why there is so much at stake in this 2012 farm bill and why it is so important for us to finish with a strong and effective bill that gets the job done for America's farmers and for our rural economy. It is no secret that during each step of the process, we have been working within a tough budget climate, but that doesn't mean the goal of maintaining a strong farm safety net or a safe, nutritious, and abundant food supply is any less critical. The last thing we want to do is be dependent on foreign food the way we are dependent on foreign oil--even though we have seen improvement. We do not want that to happen with foreign food. How have we done this to get $23 billion in cuts? The first thing that is important for people to understand who are not from rural areas, who are from metro areas--my State has both--or States that are more urban focused is that only 14 percent of this farm bill is farm programs. It could have had a different name, but a lot of people call it the farm bill. It is only 14 percent. The rest is conservation, nutrition programs, school lunches--you name it. While only 14 percent of the farm bill is farm programs, nearly two-thirds of the cuts over last year are on that 14 percent. Nearly two-thirds of the $23 billion in cuts--nearly $16 billion--is cut from farm programs, which are only 14 percent of the farm bill. I heard from many producers in Minnesota as we dealt with how we are going to get rid of direct payments I have long advocated. We had huge floor fights last time on some reform to the farm payment system. I thought we needed to make some changes there and get that number down in terms of the money that can be spent in the income, but now we have actually eliminated direct payments. So that is why the crop insurance part of this bill becomes even more important. The bill also continues the Sugar Program, which is important to our country--tens of thousands of jobs across the country, tens of thousands of jobs in the Red River Valley in Minnesota and North Dakota--and also helps to ensure that we have a strong domestic sugar industry. The bill also simplifies the commodity programs by eliminating a number of programs and replacing them with the Agriculture Risk Coverage Program which complements crop insurance by providing protection against multiyear price declines. The bill also protects the conservation programs we need. It helps our agricultural producers keep our soil healthy and our water clean. Our State is No. 5 in the Conservation Reserve Program, No. 3 in the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, and No. 1 in the Conservation Stewardship Program. Specifically, I have worked to ensure that local communities also have the tools they need to address conservation challenges. Conservation groups, from Ducks Unlimited to Pheasants Forever, know how important the farm bill is, and that is why over 640 conservation groups are supporting the committee's work on the farm bill. The committee-passed farm bill also preserves the essential nutrition programs that millions of families and children rely on every day. Importantly, this bill avoids the radical cuts to nutrition programs and school lunches that would have been proposed in other budgets. This bill also includes a number of amendments that I authored, including an amendment that will help beginning farmers and ranchers better manage their risk and access land as they get a start in agriculture. We need to make sure that we have a next generation of farmers and ranchers, that it just does not end here. Beginning farmers face big obstacles, including limited access to credit and technical assistance and, of course, the high price of land. During committee markup, I introduced an amendment with Senator Baucus that helps beginning farmers purchase crop insurance by increasing their help 10 percent for the first 5 years. I believe that people who grow our food deserve to know their livelihoods cannot be swept away in the blink of an eye, either by market failures or by natural disaster. That is why strengthening crop insurance for our beginning farmers is a priority. I also worked to include an amendment--with Senators Johanns, Baucus, and Hoeven--to allow beginning producers to use CRP acres for grazing without a penalty. I believe this will go a long way, again, in building the next generation of farmers. As an original cosponsor of the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Opportunity Act, which was introduced by Senator Harkin, I also fought for the mentoring and outreach provisions for new farmers and training in business planning and credit-building--the skills they need to succeed and stay on the land. Homegrown renewable fuels have helped us reduce our share of dependence on liquid fuels. I believe we can continue this trend. As I mentioned, we have seen an enormous shift in our dependence on foreign oil. Much of that has to do with biofuels, now 10 percent of our fuel supply in this country, as we work to make it more and more fuel efficient, use less water, transition to cellulosic. What we do know is that we should be focusing on the workers and the farmers of the Midwest and not the cartels of the Mideast. That is what helped reduce our foreign oil dependency in the last few years, as well as the drilling I mentioned before. I also cosponsored the amendment introduced by Senators Conrad and Lugar to provide funding for the energy title. This is key in this farm bill. I know we have all heard from farmers and ranchers in our States about the importance of passing a 5-year farm bill. Think about the work that is done in Congress. Every business says: We need a longer time period, we need consistency for our tax credits, and we need to know what is happening. This is one area where we have actually done it. We have done this with the farm bill over the last decade. The last two farm bills with 5-year windows have been fairly consistent. We have an opportunity to do it again and still save $23 billion on the budget, still make sure those nutrition programs are there for our kids, still make sure the most vulnerable among us can be fed and not go hungry, and still make sure those vital conservation programs are there for this country. There is a reason agriculture has been able to keep its head above water in these difficult times. A lot of it has to do with consistent policies. That is one of my main messages to my colleagues. We have one of the stars in terms of exports coming out of this farm bill. That is one of the main reasons it is so important, because we not only are growing food for the people of this country, we are feeding the world, and we are keeping the jobs in America. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Chris Avery, a fellow in Senator Coons' office, be granted the privilege of the floor for the remainder of the 112th Congress.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the importance of passing the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act, more commonly known as the user fee reauthorization bill. This bipartisan legislation would reauthorize the user fee program for the medical device industry, incredible important in my home State of Minnesota, as well as the pharmaceutical industry. This bill represents over 1 year of negotiations between the FDA, Congress, and the industry. I believe we have achieved a good balance in terms of the improved performance, incentives through increased accountability, more meaningful goals, important process improvements, better metrics, and additional resources. Not only does this legislation include the user fee agreements negotiated between the industry and the FDA, it also includes several reforms that will benefit the entire health care system and improve public health. The bill will make medicines safer for children. It will protect the global drug supply chain. It will improve access to safe, innovative medical devices and treatments, and it will tackle the drug shortage crisis that is spreading across the country. On Monday I talked about the work I did leading the effort on drug shortages. I am so pleased that Senator Harkin and Senator Enzi included this provision in this bill. But I also believe it is important to talk about the guts of the bill; that is, the improvements with the FDA and the work that needs to be done. I commend the HELP Committee, on which the Presiding Officer serves, and specifically Chairman Harkin and Ranking Member Enzi for being dedicated to ensuring that this process was open, transparent, and bipartisan. At a time when Congress has been deeply divided, this legislation shows we can still overcome our differences and address the needs of the country through strong bipartisan cooperation. For the State of Minnesota, passing this bill is vital to our continued economic growth and strength. With strong institutions such as the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota and innovative companies such as 3M and Boston Scientific and Medtronic and St. Jude's, Minnesota's job numbers have fared better than the national average, with our unemployment rate now more than 2\1/2\ points below the national average; that is, 5.6 percent compared to 8.1 percent. That is also attributed to the fact that Minnesota has one of the largest and most dynamic pockets of medical device companies in the country. I mentioned a few of the big ones, but there are also many small thriving companies. Many of our biggest innovations have come from the small companies, adding up to about 400 firms employing over 35,000 people across our State. We cannot forget that it was Minnesota that brought the world one of the biggest innovations in the country. I am not talking about the Post-It note, although it is true that did come from our State. I am talking about the pacemaker, which we give thanks to a company called Micronic that started out in a garage in Minneapolis. So our roots run deep in this industry. But medical technology is just not important to Minnesota, it is important to our country, putting billions of dollars in our economy each year. It is important to the world. The devices we make in the United States do not just save lives locally, they save lives globally. As we look at potential exports and how we are going to reach the President's goal of doubling our exports in 5 years, and how we are going to get out of the economic rut we have been in, a lot has to do with exports, new markets, and a rising middle class in countries such as China and India where people are finally going to the hospital, will use our medical devices, and will bring jobs to the United States. But that only works if these medical devices get approved and if we are able to make them, have the skilled workers to make them, and can beat our competition, basically, of companies in other countries that may be growing unless we make sure we have a proper approval process here that keeps things safe but also moves smoothly and quickly. The kind of meaningful, innovative work that our country needs more of is this kind of work. It is high-tech manufacturing, and that is what we need more of in this country. As cochair of the bipartisan Med-Tech Caucus in the Senate, I have had several conversations with FDA about ways to improve this regulatory environment. I have introduced bills, as has the Presiding Officer, and looked at the importance of putting in things that guarantee safety but also make sure we improve the process so we get more innovation and more jobs in this country. If we are not careful, as we know, continents such as Europe--if they move faster than us, as they have in some instances, then we have a problem because then the venture capital money goes to Europe. With China requiring country-of-origin approval, we can have a situation where companies decide they can get things done quicker if they move their business to a place such as Europe and then get the approvals in place so they can sell in China. We do not want that to happen. The FDA will now be responsible for total review time goals. That is an important part of this bill. This measures the time from submission of a new application to the time the technology is available to patients. Putting the FDA on the hook for this measure will streamline the approval process and help get innovative and lifesaving devices and treatments to patients. In addition to improved review times and performance standards, the one aspect I hear about the most from our medical device companies, both small and large, is they need better communication between the FDA and industry. This agreement takes significant steps to address this issue by opening clear lines of discussion before a submission is made. This helps provide companies with clear direction and requires the FDA to stick to their commitments. It also requires interaction between the FDA and the applicant during the review process to keep everyone on the same page and avoid miscommunication and costly delays. The agreement also requires the FDA to work with companies to find the best path forward if goals are not met. Most importantly, this legislation will give the FDA the tools necessary to meet these goals. This agreement provides for $595 million in user fees over the next 5 years. This is meant to provide for additional reviewers, enhanced training, and increased efficiencies to help improve FDA performance and help patients get access to the most innovative and safest products available. But a positive user fee agreement does not guarantee success. We must also focus on the execution and administration of these new resources and new guidelines. That is why I introduced a bipartisan bill with Richard Burr of North Carolina, a Republican, and Michael Bennet of Colorado, a Democrat, that would significantly improve the regulatory process. It would tackle three important things related to the approval process: First, it would increase efficiency by strengthening the agency's least burdensome principle, which has been continuously overlooked by FDA's reviewers. The average time to approve an application has increased 43 percent from the 2003-to-2007 time period to 2010. This simply is unacceptable. Second, it would improve conflict-of-interest provisions making it easier for the FDA to recruit top-line experts to take part in the review process. This would allow the FDA to protect the integrity of the review from undue conflicts of interest but also take advantage of available expertise. Third, it would require the FDA to use an independent consulting organization to assess the management processes at the Center on Devices. This would encourage the agency to consider the impact of its decisions on innovation, while also considering the balance between the risk and benefits of the new devices. I am thankful that, in working with Senators Harkin and Enzi, we were able to include these improvements in this bipartisan legislation. Equally as important to improving the regulatory process at the FDA, this legislation also includes my provision on drug shortages. I have come to the floor several times in the past year to talk about the crisis as it has impacted individuals all across our country. There is the story of a little 4-year-old boy who was going to get treatment for his leukemia, and his parents were put in a panic. He was a little bald boy with a smile on his face. They found out that the drug he needed, Cytarabine, was missing in action; it was not in the hospital, not in the pharmacy. They were actually looking into booking flights to Canada so that he could get the drug treatment he needed. At the last minute someone located the drug. Sadly, that doesn't happen in many cases across the country, where we have had people come forward and talk about missing breast cancer treatments and people who have died because drugs were not available. The fact that physicians, nurses, and pharmacists are spending hours and hours of their time, which should be spent with patients, looking for pharmaceuticals is an outrage. We know there are many reasons for this. We are glad the industry was willing to work with us to come up with at least a short-term patch here, where the FDA will be alerted as a result of the provisions in this bill when the pharmaceutical companies believe there is going to be a shortage. Right now, they are only required to do it for orphan drugs. Now they will be required to do it for all drugs. These can be shortages as a result of raw materials that are not there, as a result of mergers in the pharmaceutical industry, or shortages as a result of a decision not to produce a drug because it may not be as profitable or shortages because of all kinds of things that could happen in the course of commerce. The key point here is that when the FDA finds out early, they have been able to avert drug crises. They can find another manufacturer in our country or abroad, and they get the drugs in; they have done it over 200 times in 2 years. This will give them more tools to be able to avert what is an escalating crisis in this country where we are seeing more and more shortages of drugs on a weekly basis. As I said, I am glad this bipartisan provision--and Senator Casey introduced it originally with me, and we have had support from Senator Collins and others, and our working group worked out an agreement to get this provision in the Senate bill, with good prospects in the House under the leadership of Congresswoman DeGette from Colorado. I thank my colleagues for their work for two reasons. One, this is important for medical devices and pharmaceuticals in terms of getting fast approval, and that is better for patients and for jobs in America as we become a country again that makes products and invests in goods that we export to the world. To do that, you need the regulatory process working. Second, this bill is good because it contains a drug shortage provision to finally get at something that is long overdue, and that is the escalating crisis of drugs that have gone missing, which should be in the hands of patients across this country. Now we put them in a much better position in terms of being able to find alternative drugs in either our country or others, so we don't have these shortages we are seeing every day. That is why I think it is very important that we get this bill done soon. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, this bill means so much to my State. I spoke earlier today about the need to improve the approval process at the FDA, and this bill will speed that up with the agreement reached between industry and the FDA on the fees. I thank the Senator for his leadership on that issue. We have literally tens of thousands of employees in our State who have incredibly good jobs in the high-tech industry. This is a huge potential export. It is already an export, but even more could come if we do this right as we look at the growing middle class in countries such as China and India who are going to the hospital and using medical devices. So this bill is speeding up that process but still keeping the very important safety standards in place, which couldn't be more important--as well as for patients who have been waiting for lifesaving treatment. So I thank the Senator for that. I also thank the Senator for including, as Senator Bennet referenced, my drug shortage provision. We worked on that for 2 years. We gathered support as the years went on. I thank Senator Harkin for the hearing we had on that bill and for the work of his staff in bringing people together. We got Senator Casey's and Senator Collins' provisions in this bill. We all know what has been going on. As several Senators have mentioned, we are talking about 4-year-old boys with leukemia whose parents find out they have no cancer treatment drug and literally are put into a panic, so they book flights to Canada so this little child can complete his treatment, or the woman with breast cancer who has to call around for Prudoxin and is then faced with the ethical dilemma that she explained to us that she knew she was taking it away from another patient. That should not happen in the United States of America, and this early notification of the FDA, as we have seen, has been very positive. Over 200 drug shortages have been averted because of the early notification with orphan drugs in the last few years, so this provision will truly make a difference. I thank the Senator for including that. I am here to talk about another matter the two Senators have been involved in negotiating. These are bills that Senator Schumer, Senator Grassley, and I have been working on. We each had one of the three bills that covered different synthetic drugs. My drug bill covered 2C-E, which is a synthetic hallucinogen, which, sadly, is something a young man died from taking in Minnesota. There was actually a murder prosecution because of it, and, again, we have seen it go like wildfire through our State with these synthetic drugs. Senator Portman and myself and Senator Grassley will be offering this amendment, and I thank the Senator for his work on it. I also encourage my colleagues to support this amendment, and I hope it will pass overwhelmingly. As members of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Grassley, Senator Schumer, and I have been working on this, as I mentioned, for years. There have been reports from every State in the country of people acting violently while under the influence of these drugs, which leads to death or injuries to themselves and others. While taking these drugs, people can experience elevated heart rates and blood pressure, hallucinations, seizures, and extreme agitation, which is dangerous, but they are also dangerous to themselves. Up in Moorhead, MN, with the Fargo sheriff, we did a forum. A group of people were sitting in the front row. I actually thought they were there to object to our provisions. They were there to support them because they had lost a loved one who thought he was taking what he considered to be synthetic marijuana, and it turned out to be very different from any marijuana. It turned out to be much stronger, and he ended up hitting a tree and killing himself. They were sobbing while telling their story. Until 2006, I was a Hennepin County attorney. During my time there we just didn't have this as an issue. We can see how quickly it has changed. Listen to these numbers. In 2011 poison control centers across America received more than 13,000 calls about synthetic drugs. How many calls did they get in 2010? They only got 3,200. Look at that--3,200 to 13,000 in just 1 year. In Minnesota there were a total of 392 calls to poison control relating to synthetic drugs in 2011 compared to 107 in 2010--a tripling of calls about this problem in just 1 year. This all hit home, as I mentioned in my State, with the tragic death of a 19-year-old man, Trevor Robinson, in Blaine, MN, when he overdosed on 2C-E. It is a synthetic hallucinogen. Another young man was thought to have shot himself in Minnesota while under the influence of synthetic drugs. We can imagine the pain of these families, and that is why I introduced a bill to add 2C-E and similar drugs to the substance list so they will be treated in the same manner as other banned drugs they claim to represent. I am also a cosponsor of the two bills authored by Senators Grassley and Schumer. All three of these bills are contained in the amendment we are offering with Senator Portman. These drugs can kill, and if we don't take action, they are going to become more and more prevalent. They are available on the Internet. The Federal Government has to make clear that they are illegal. That is what is going on today because people literally buy these drugs that have numbers like 2C-E. They don't really know what they are. They get them, and they turn out to be deadly. That is what happened in Blaine, MN. I am hopeful that we vote to ban these drugs as part of the debate on this bill. We have seen what happened in Minnesota. We know the DEA has been taking action on its own, and they temporarily banned some of these drugs, but most of the substances covered in our three bills have not been banned, including all of the substances in my bill. That is why, in fact, we are offering this amendment. On the State level, roughly 40 States have banned some synthetic drugs, including my State, where a major law regarding synthetic drugs took effect in July. We need a Federal law. This crosses State lines. A lot of it is done on the Internet. We cannot simply have this State by State, and passing a Federal law will help create the partnership we need to send a strong message that we need to eradicate these substances. I am pleased this amendment is being offered. We need to get it done now, ban these drugs, and make a clear statement that these drugs are illegal. I again thank Senator Harkin and Senator Enzi for working it out so we can offer this amendment, and also my colleagues, Senators Portman, Schumer, and Grassley, for their hard work. I know we are committed to getting this done. I yield the floor.