Amy Klobuchar

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. As I was saying, Mr. President, this country has done well not by saying no but by saying yes and by moving ahead and getting things done. We can't let this continue. We have to put these rules in place. Some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are, in good faith, negotiating; others are not. The American people will not allow this gamesmanship to continue. The game is over. Let's debate. Let's get some amendments. There are changes we can make to the bill, changes I support. But the only way we are going to get this done is by getting this bill on the floor and allowing for debate. The American people deserve nothing less. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I listened to the Senator from Colorado, and I was thinking about our two States. They both are beautiful States. OK, they have a few more mountains than we do, but we have 10,000 lakes. We both have open democracies--governments that work, governments that are open. There is no secrecy in our States. We have blue skies, open prairies, open lands. To me, it is no surprise that we would have Senators from these two States standing and saying this is ridiculous. I thought Senator Udall did a great job of going through all the numbers and the nominations that have been put on hold, but we all know what is at the root of this. It is a procedural game that allows this to happen--the secret hold. When I came to the Senate in 2007, my first priority was ethics reform. I was so pleased, and I thought we had gotten rid of the secret hold. That is what we said we did. The rule we adopted then--as soon as unanimous consent was made regarding a specific nominee--said that a Senator placing a hold has to submit to the majority leader a written note of intent that includes the reason for their objection. So they have to put in writing why they are objecting. Then it says that no later than 6 days after the submission, the hold is to be printed in the Congressional Record for everyone to see. So we thought this was a pretty good idea--sunshine being the best disinfectant. By making the hold public and forcing Senators to be accountable for their actions, we could have open debate. As I heard Senator Shaheen just say, we should be able to tell the world why we are putting on a hold. We may have a good idea. But that is not what has been happening. Instead, what has been happening is, Senators are playing games with the rules. They are following the letter but not the spirit of the reform. It is unbelievable to me. They are actually rotating holds. It is sort of like what we see in the Olympics, where they have a relay and they hand off the baton. This baton is going from one Senator to another so they can keep the hold going. One Senator has it for 6 days. Then it is passed off to another for 6 days. So I guess if delay was an Olympic sport, they would get the Gold Medal. What we have is a group of Senators from the other side of the aisle, for the most part, who are gaming the system. We have been spending a lot of time in the last few days talking about other people who game the system--people on Wall Street--so I don't think it should be happening in this very Chamber. I am very pleased Senator McCaskill, along with Senators Grassley and Wyden, have been working on this for so long and have taken a lead on it. I urge my colleagues to sign this letter to end the secret hold. There shouldn't be secrets from the public when it comes to nominations. This isn't a matter of top-secret national security or some strategy that we would use when we go to war. This is about nominations from the White House. This is about people who are going to be serving in public jobs. We should know who is holding them up, who doesn't want them to come up for a vote and why. Then we can make a decision and the public will have the knowledge of what is going on in this place. That is the only way we are going to be able to build trust again with this democracy. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Virginia. As a member of the Judiciary Committee, I have seen what is going on here. We get these nominations through our committee, and then they vanish into thin air. You can look at the numbers with what is going on here. You have a situation where President Bush had 100 circuit and district court confirmations during the first 2 years of his Presidency. To date, President Obama has only 18. There are literally dozens of nominees waiting. Why does this matter? We can spend the whole morning spouting numbers and talking about the times and differences between the months. Why does it matter? This is about a drug dealer who doesn't get prosecuted, someone who is running a drug ring, because there is not a judge to bring the case in front of. I was a prosecutor running an office of 400 people, and I saw what would happen if we didn't have judges. It is also about a felon in possession of a gun, and they can't bring up his case because they have a heavy docket of criminal, civil, and corporate cases, and because of this you cannot get criminals off the street. Or this is about complicated white-collar crimes such as the one with Bernie Madoff. In a recent case in Minnesota, there was a lengthy trial involving a guy who got a 50-year sentence. If we don't have the judges to handle these things, criminals will be out there committing crimes. That is what this is about. I will say this before I turn it over to my colleague, the Senator from New Hampshire. President Bush had 100 circuit and district court confirmations during the first 2 years of his Presidency. Today, President Obama has 18. If we are going to hit this hundred number and get 82 more judges confirmed, we are going to have to do nearly 3 per week. The new Members of the Senate are here to say let's get this done because justice delayed is justice denied. I turn this over to Senator Shaheen.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I rise today in support of the bill that is before us--the FAA reauthorization legislation, which is currently on the Senate floor. I thank Senator Dorgan, the neighboring State to Minnesota, for his leadership on the committee and on the subcommittee. I am proud to be a member of that subcommittee and to have worked on this bill. The air transportation system is important to all Americans and certainly to the people of my State. Minnesota is the childhood home of Charles Lindberg. Today, Minnesota is a major hub of Delta, which was previously Northwest Airlines. It flies people literally all over the world. We are also home to Cirrus Aircraft, which is one of the manufacturers of smaller planes up in Duluth. We have thousands of pilots and airline employees who fly each and every day, both for their enjoyment as well as for their livelihood. As anyone who has recently flown on an airplane knows, our airport transportation system is strained and it is subject to increased congestion and delay. Recent notable incidents have, in fact, called into question the safety of our commercial aircraft as well as the training of a few of the pilots who fly them. We know, for the most part, that we have a very good air system, but we also know there must be improvements, especially if we are going to compete on a global basis with other countries that are working to update their air traffic systems. As a member of the Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Aviation and someone who has worked hard to bring this legislation to the floor of the Senate, I know this bill will address many of the concerns of people around our country. First, this legislation incorporates important safety improvements. The tragedy of Colgan Air Flight No. 3407, which crashed outside of Buffalo in February of last year, brought the safety of our airlines back into the public eye and raised new questions about the safety of regional aircraft and the training and experience of the pilots who fly them. We have had many hearings, thanks to Senator Dorgan, on this tragedy. Every single time there were families of people who were killed in that crash in the hearing room to remind us of the changes that need to be made. Pilots for these regional carriers are, in some cases, not trained as well as for major carriers. They are overtired and underpaid. In fact, some regional pilots earn so little that they take second and sometimes third jobs. Many pilots live far away from their bases, leading to long commutes and even longer hours spent waiting in airports. The facts surrounding the Buffalo crash bear this out. The first officer, who earned around $20,000 a year, flew to Newark on a red-eye flight on the day of the accident. She arrived at 6:30 a.m. and reports indicate she spent the entire day in the Newark airport sending text messages to her friends before her shift began. The evidence also suggests the pilot was up for large parts of the night before the flight. Once on the plane, the pilot and the first officer broke FAA policy by engaging in nonessential banter and conversation during critical times of the flight. And the flight data recorder indicated the crew was inexperienced, poorly trained, and ill-prepared for the tough weather conditions that night. As the first officer told the pilot--and this is an exact quote--and I will never forget this because being from Minnesota, we have a lot of ice issues, and it is where, in fact, Senator Wellstone was killed in a crash, in part because of poor pilot training and icing issues. This is the quote of the first officer on that plane, before that plane went down in Buffalo: I've never seen icing conditions. I've never de-iced. I've never experienced any of that. Imagine the chilling effect of those words on the families of those who died in that crash. Many people in my State rely on regional jets to connect them to each other and to the world. As I have said before, a passenger should be as safe on a regional carrier going from Minneapolis to Duluth as they would be on a Boeing 767 flying from Los Angeles to New York. This legislation will help us do just that. In particular, the bill will require the FAA to adopt new rules on pilot fatigue, rules that have not been updated since the 1950s. And the bill will boost pilot training requiring that the pilots meet certain standards before being allowed in the cockpit so we will not have to hear those words again, Senator Dorgan, ``I've never seen icing conditions. I've never de-iced . . . I've never experienced any of that.'' In short, this legislation will help raise the safety standards for regional jets and pilots and ensure one level of safety for all commercial aircraft in this country. The thing I most remember is there is an argument, in fact, that regional flights are even more difficult than the big passenger planes. Why? They have to land and land and land, have shorter flights, and they actually are more tiring and they have a better chance of encountering difficult weather conditions, so we should have one level of safety for all commercial aircraft in this country. Recent safety incidents have not only highlighted concerns with regional airlines but with major carriers as well. In 2008 we learned that some major carriers had kept flying aircraft in need of necessary repairs and that the FAA may have actually known about it. The disclosure of these safety lapses led to thousands of flight cancellations, and these safety lapses and cancellations raised questions about the FAA's ability to enforce our safety laws and regulations. What we learned is troubling. The Department of Transportation's inspector general described an ``overly collaborative relationship'' between FAA management and the airlines they regulated. To help recalibrate the balance between the FAA and the carriers, Senator Snowe and I introduced the Aviation Safety Enhancement Act to ensure that the FAA does more than just trust that the airlines comply with all Federal safety regulations. In particular, the legislation, which has been incorporated into the FAA reauthorization bill we are now considering, puts a stop to the so-called revolving door between the FAA and the carriers by requiring a cooling-off period for FAA inspectors before they can work for the airlines and interact with the FAA. It also establishes a whistleblower office in the FAA and creates a roving ``National Review Board'' that will travel around to various FAA inspection offices to conduct safety reviews and unannounced audits. These unannounced safety audits are important. I tend to straighten up my house a bit before I know my mother-in-law is coming over and that is why I know that if you have an unannounced visit, you might have a different result than an announced visit. These unannounced safety audits will be very important to make sure things are in order, that facilities are in order, and help ensure that the carriers remain focused on safety and that the FAA remains true to its mission, to protect the American flying public. We also need to pass this FAA reauthorization bill because it would put a passenger bill of rights into law. The need for a passenger bill of rights was made clear to me and other Minnesotans last summer. Just ask Link Christin. On August 7, Link was aboard Continental Flight 2816, a flight from Houston Intercontinental Airport to Minneapolis-St. Paul when it was redirected to the Rochester airport in Rochester, MN due to severe weather. It landed in Rochester around midnight and the passengers were not allowed off the plane until 6 a.m. the next day, midnight to 6 am. The passengers aboard the flight described the experience as a ``nightmare,'' saying they were not given any food or drinks during the time waiting, things smelled, there were babies on the plane. It is as if common sense had flown out the window, but the windows were not open. No passengers should have to go through what Link and the other passengers aboard Continental Flight 2816 went through--forced to remain on the tarmac for 6 hours without food, in an increasingly uncomfortable cabin atmosphere, and denied the opportunity to deplane when the airport was only yards away. The FAA reauthorization bill we are considering today helps ensure we don't have any more stories such as Link Christin's. I appreciate Secretary LaHood's leadership on this already, but we should be putting this into law. In particular, the bill requires that airlines provide passengers with food, water, and adequate restrooms during a delay. The passenger bill of rights would also require airplanes to return to the gate once the plane has sat on the ground for 3 hours--or 3.5 hours if the pilot thinks the plane will take off before then. Finally, this bill helps upgrade our air traffic control system to the next generation, the NextGen system of air traffic control technology. We have focused a lot lately on roads and bridges which I know, coming from Minnesota where the bridge fell down in the middle of a summer day, are critically important parts of our Nation's infrastructure, but our national aviation infrastructure is just as important. The current air traffic control technology, developed in the 1950s and used by the FAA today, is based on outdated technology that relies on ground-based radar systems, voice communications, and fragmented weather forecasts. With NextGen, a system that uses satellites rather than ground-based radar, both pilots and controllers will have the benefit of virtual maps, up-to-date weather reports, and other real-time information. The result is a more efficient use of our airspace, safer skies, and less congested airports. That is something we should all be able to support. In this bill we make sure that NextGen is a national priority by giving it the resources and the attention it needs to get the program up and running. The aviation system is too crucial a part of our Nation's infrastructure and too important to our Nation's economy to let the problems go unaddressed. This bill modernizes our air traffic control system, our air transport system, it puts in that passenger bill of rights, it does something about pilot safety and training, and all the things we know need to get done here. It helps to ensure that our system is in fact the safest in the world. We have waited too long to pass this bill. But now is the time when the rubber meets the runway. It is time to pass the FAA reauthorization and I urge my colleagues to support this bill. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I serve on the Commerce Committee with Senator Dorgan. I thank him for his leadership. During the time we waited and dithered and didn't get this done--not you but others--have other countries modernized their air traffic control systems?

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I am proud to join my colleagues in the freshman and sophomore classes today to highlight a recurring problem in the Senate--the Republican holds on the confirmations of crucial executive branch nominees. These are not controversial people, as you will hear from what I am going to tell you from my part of the story today and what you have heard from some of my colleagues. As a former prosecutor and the manager of a prosecutor's office of more than 400 people, I know from personal experience how important it is to have a strong leadership team in place. Only with a strong leadership team can an executive implement his or her vision. In our current economy, a vision for increased trade and export promotion is particularly important, and the President has one. Earlier this year, he announced a plan, widely supported by CEOs of large and small corporations, to double American exports overseas in the next 5 years. Export promotion is a topic that is of special interest to me, as I chair the Subcommittee on Competitiveness, Innovation and Export Promotion. I truly believe if we are to move this economy again, we have a world of opportunity out there. Ninety-five percent of the world's customers are outside of our borders. This is a different world with growing buying power in countries such as India and China, where instead of just importing goods we can be making stuff again; we can be sending it out so that customers in these other countries can be buying it. Look at the numbers. A diversified base of customers helps a business weather the economic ups and downs. According to research, businesses that export grow 1.3 percent faster--and they are nearly 8.5 percent more likely to stay in business--than companies that don't export. These are the facts. So it is hard to believe, when we have a laser focus on the economy right now, when that is all I hear about from the people of my State, that my friends on the other side of the aisle are holding up the President's nominees for positions that promote American exports abroad. It makes absolutely no sense. Right now, Republican holds are blocking votes on the confirmations of Michael Punke, nominated to be Deputy U.S. Trade Representative, and ``Isi'' Siddiqui, nominated to be Chief Agricultural Negotiator. These nominees have five decades of experience in international trade between the two of them, including extensive private sector and government work. They work with Democrats and they work with Republicans. They just want to get this economy moving again. But our friends on the other side of the aisle are placing holds on them at the very time when we all know this is the direction in which we need to move. These are exactly the type of people who could help expand American agricultural and small business exports and grow our economy. These two nominees have been fully vetted and received strong bipartisan support in their Finance Committee hearings. They were recommended by the Finance Committee to the full Senate by a vote of 23 to 0--including the affirmative vote of the Senator who has since placed a hold on Mr. Punke. No one would believe this. The reason for the hold? The Senator in question wants Mr. Punke to commit to forcing Canada to repeal parts of an antismoking law passed by the Canadian Parliament. So we have people in Rhode Island, in Illinois, in Minnesota, in New Hampshire who are looking for jobs, and they know that a key part of this is to increase exports to be able to sell our goods to other countries. Yet these guys are placing a hold on the very people who can get this work done because they are concerned about a law passed by the Canadian Parliament. It is too good to be true but, sadly, it is true. Holding these nominees in limbo has dire consequences for our ability to promote American products abroad. Our international partners actually use the absence of Mr. Punke and Dr. Siddiqui as an excuse to stall progress on serious negotiations. You know what they say. They say: You don't have your guys in place. You don't have your people in place, so we are not negotiating with you, America. Blocking these nominees gives cover to other nations that want to keep the United States from getting fair market access in the global trading system for American agriculture, manufacturing, and services. A coalition of 42 food and agricultural groups wrote Senators Reid and McConnell in January to call for quick approval. They said: U.S. food and agricultural exports are under assault in many markets with trading partners erecting even more barriers in recent months. It has to stop. In the United States, we further export promotion policy through a variety of different executive agencies, and Republicans aren't just holding up USTR reps, they are also holding up Eric Hirschhorn, the nominee to head up the Bureau of Industry and Security at the Commerce Department. This is the division at Commerce that screens exports to make sure national security, economic security, cyber-security, and homeland security standards are upheld when we export sensitive technologies. The head of this bureau engages in strategic dialogues with high- level government officials from key transshipment countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the United Arab Emirates in order to prevent sensitive technologies from being diverted to China, Iran, and North Korea. Leaving this position unfilled sends a negative message to the domestic exporting community, to our allied governments, and it hurts our security. Why would we want to leave this position unfilled? Mr. Hirschhorn has spent more than 30 years involved in issues related to export control. As an author of numerous articles and ``The Export Control and Embargo Handbook,'' which is widely recognized as the leading text on the issue, Hirschhorn displays an unparalleled understanding of the importance of export control systems and work. These are a few examples of the pivotal positions being held up by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. If you are going to talk the talk about moving this economy, about exports, about trade, about getting our goods out there, building things again, then you should walk the walk. You should not be holding up Siddiqui and Punke and Hirschhorn. These are noncontroversial people. Nobody watching C-SPAN has ever heard of them before. They are not in the middle of some controversial mess. They are trying to get our country moving again. That is what this is about. For people who are trying to get jobs, trying to move this country, they need people in place in the government to help them. Take those holds off, get this moving, put these people in place. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

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

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak up to 10 minutes.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. We have been working and focused very much in the last few weeks on the economy with our tax extender bill as well as the jobs bill we passed, and I, for one, am glad. My State is glad, because that is what I have been hearing all around my State, especially from small businesspeople who have been troubled, are having trouble getting credit. Mr. President, as someone who has worked so much on this issue, you know how important that is to the strength of our economy, as 65 percent of our jobs have come from small businesses. Today, I would like to take a few minutes to discuss two bipartisan bills I recently introduced that I hope will do more to add to the creation of jobs, to innovation, to exports. The first one is called the Export Promotion Act of 2010, and the second is the Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2010. Export promotion is a topic of special interest to me. I chair the Subcommittee on Competitiveness, Innovation, and Export Promotion. The Export Promotion Act is cosponsored with my good friend on the subcommittee, the Republican ranking member, George LeMieux, and also by Senators Shaheen and Wyden, who have taken an active interest in export promotion. We have an important national interest in promoting exports. Access to new markets can make the difference between expansion and stagnation of a new and developing business. The President recognizes this, and that is why I am pleased he called for a doubling of exports in his State of the Union speech, a doubling in the next 5 years. One way to do this, to take this opportunity to open new markets, is going to be Cuba. A bipartisan bill I introduced with Senator Enzi, a second bill, would do just that. The bill makes it easier for American farmers to export agricultural products to Cuba--currently a closed market--by relaxing the restrictions on financial transactions between the two countries and by making it easier for American farmers to travel there to promote their products. The sponsor of the bill in the House is Minnesota Congressman and chair of the Agriculture Committee, Colin Peterson. Another way to promote American exports is to make sure businesses know about the potential export opportunities available to them. Currently, the United States derives the smallest percentage of its GDP from exports compared to all other major countries. America has always been ``the world's customer,'' buying our way and in effect buying our way to huge trade deficits. But it is clear that exports will be increasingly important to our economy as people in China, India, and other developing countries gain more purchasing power and they become our potential customers. Right now, more than 95 percent of the world's customers are outside our borders. Think of it; with the growing economic power of customers in these new developing nations--I was just in India a few months ago, and you see that mass of humanity, the potential, as that country builds itself up, of people who can buy our products from all over our country. More exports will mean more business, more jobs, and more growth for the American economy. Exports are also important for small businesses for several reasons. First and most obviously, exports allow a company to increase its sales and grow its business. Second, a diversified base of customers helps a business weather the economic ups and downs. So there is a world of opportunity out there. I can tell you, I have seen it in my own State. Mattracks, a company in Karlstad, MN--population 900, known as the Moose Capital of Minnesota--is a little company named after a little second-grade boy named Matt who came home and drew a picture of tank tracks on each wheel instead of going between the wheels. His dad, a mechanic, decided to build this product in his machine shop, and they now export to dozens and dozens of countries all over the world. They started with 5 employees and they are now up to 50. How did they do it? They went over to Fargo, ND, which covered this area of Minnesota, and talked to a woman named Heather at the Foreign Commercial Service Department. They went over there, and she matched them up, like a business match.com, with potential countries, from Kazakhstan to Turkey, that were interested in their product. That is how they grew their business in Karlstad, MN. Akkerman, down by Austin, MN, really in the middle of cornfields, is a longstanding family business--different from Mattracks--where they actually do trenchless digging. They put major steel pipes underground, and they have the machinery to push those pipes underground. They can dig major trenches underground without actually digging up the landscape, without digging up the ground. They have done it in Los Angeles, but they are doing it in India. Why? Highly populated areas like digging this way; they do not have to dig up over ground to do it. Again, as you look at these countries with the kind of infrastructure they need, Akkerman is now up to 77 employees--again, in the middle of the farmland in southern Minnesota. But for so many businesses, it is very difficult to do this because for them the world looks like one of those ancient maps that contain only the outlines of the continents and a few coastline features. But the rest of it is blank space, vast unknown and unexplored territory. They know there is something more, they know accessing these markets will help them expand their profits, open new facilities, and hire more people, but they do not really know how to find out about opportunities. Fortunately, there is help available. There are a number of Federal programs through the Small Business Administration, the Commerce Department, and the Export-Import Bank that assist U.S. companies in promoting their products abroad. The idea here is to give that kind of help to small and medium-sized businesses so they can vet a potential customer, so they can find out what is available. They don't have a full-time trade department or full-time person looking at each continent like a company such as 3M or Cargill--very successful businesses in my home State--would have. So they need this help. Another example: Epicurean in Duluth, a company that makes commercial and home-kitchen cutting surfaces. With 40 employees, it has customers in 45 countries. I invited Epicurean's owner, Dave Benson, to join me for this year's State of the Union Address, and he thinks we are right on track in focusing on the export market. What does our bill do? Our bill focuses on expanding the Commerce Department programs that help these companies get the word out. It does three major things: First, it expands the scope of existing Department of Commerce programs that help America's small and medium-sized businesses commercialize and manufacture new technologies that export abroad. Second, it increases the people at the Department of Commerce who are responsible for identifying new export opportunities abroad and matching these markets with American companies. For the past 2 years, the program that specializes in matching small business with potential export markets has not replaced retiring officials, losing roughly 200 people since 2004 even as demand for their assistance continues to increase. This bill would restore staffing levels in this program to their 2004 levels. I talked to Secretary Locke this morning. I know he is focused on this. He is doing reshuffling of people in his own department. That is the key to this. Finally, the legislation will expand the Commerce Department's Rural Export Initiative to ensure that small and medium-sized businesses located in rural areas know about all of the available export opportunities for them. Why is this cost-worthy? Well, look at this: a return of approximately $213 on each dollar--$213 on each dollar. That is what we are talking about here. What we are trying to do here, Senator LeMieux and I, with this bill and also with our bill regarding Cuba is to open these markets and say: You know what, if we can give our small and medium-sized businesses and our farmers a little help, either getting in the door, knowing whether a customer is real, letting them know where their product is hot, what countries are interested, they are going to do the work. These are private sector jobs. Our idea here is not to create the jobs ourselves but to help them to get into these markets, to make them on an even playing field with the big businesses that already have the resources to do it. The ability to envision creative new products and then develop them, commercialize them, and sell them has been part of the American dream as long as there has been an American dream. That spirit of innovation has gotten us everything in my State from the Post-it note to the pacemaker. Those companies--Medtronic started in a garage, and 3M started up in Two Harbors, MN, a tiny little town. Target started as a dry goods storefront on Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis, and they grew to what they were. But they can only do this now if they get that kind of help. It is no longer only America that is their market; it is India, it is Kazakhstan, it is Turkey, it is China. So it is not as easy now to build to the point that they need to build to. That is why Senator LeMieux and I are introducing this bill, to assist the Commerce Department to assist these small and medium-size businesses. As we continue to fight through this economic crisis, it is important to keep the end game in mind, an end game where the United States is again the world leader in job creation by virtue of developing and selling the world's most innovative products. This bill will help us get there. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I stand before the Senate today to call for the passage of the Temporary Extension Act of 2010. This legislation would extend a number of very important benefits that families across the Nation rely on to get them through difficult economic times. This bill includes an extension of unemployment benefits for millions of out-of-work families, including hundreds of thousands in the Midwest, an extension of COBRA benefits for those who lost their health care along with their jobs, and a number of important tax credits for businesses and individuals which are vital as we seek to generate economic activity. I cannot tell you how many times I heard about this when I went around our State and spoke with small businesses. However, there is one program--I know our colleagues have focused on how important it is to get this program done, how important it is that one person should not be allowed to hold up something that is so worthy and expected and necessary for the American people--but there is one thing that has not been discussed as much, and that is the National Flood Insurance Program that is also included in this bill. Homeowners insurance covers damage from various sources, but it does not cover damage that results from flooding. Sadly, in too many cases unknowing Americans learn of this hole in their policy only after it is too late. In recognition of this major gap in coverage, Congress created the National Flood Insurance Program in 1968 to give home and business owners the chance to financially protect themselves, their property, and their families. For over 40 years, this program has helped communities recover after devastating natural disasters. I have been in some of these disasters: The flood in Rushford, MN. No one will forget Grand Forks. No one will forget how close we got last year with Fargo, and the Minnesota city of Moorhead; the floods in Iowa in the last 2 years. These are real disasters. All regions of America are susceptible to flooding, whether it is torrential seasonal floods, rains, thunderstorms, or even the recent tsunami across the Pacific Ocean that struck after the tragic earthquake in Chile. We cannot escape the powerful forces of nature. Flooding by its nature is unpredictable. Families and businesses need to know if the worst happens they will have the tools needed to help them get back on their feet. In my State, the Flood Insurance Program is vital to those who live in any area susceptible to flooding. However, at this time of year our attention is focused on families living across the Red River Basin in northwestern Minnesota. Last spring, above-average rainfall compounded by an untimely melting of snow resulted in, as we all saw on TV, devastating floods along the Red River which hit the highest level ever recorded. I was there with the people. It was an extraordinary effort, as you watched grandmothers taking the frozen sandbags and putting them in place. You saw people who were up for 48 hours to protect their homes. As the waters receded, President Obama declared 15 counties as disaster areas, and communities throughout the region began the lengthy cleanup process and solemnly faced the devastation. This is not the first time the Red River has overflowed its banks, and it certainly will not be the last. We are working at this moment on a long-term plan so this doesn't happen in the future, but for now we are again facing a threat in the Red River. This winter's heavy snowpack has led to a gloomy outlook for flooding this spring, which does not bode well for these communities. Volunteers in Moorhead, MN, have already begun filling sandbags in preparation for this year's floods. Although the Red River runs between Moorhead, MN, and Fargo, ND, when it comes to this calamity, the area is one community. In a testament to the people of northwest Minnesota and eastern North Dakota, the river does not divide us; it unites us. As honorable, tireless, and commendable these efforts are, they cannot do it alone, and they need and deserve our help. Facing the heartbreaking loss of a home, the National Flood Insurance Program at least provides participants the peace of mind that their livelihoods will not be equally destroyed, and they will have the financial resources to start over. Sadly, the actions of one Member of this body have not only put in jeopardy this program but endanger all the communities and residents along the Red River, those who have not yet purchased their flood insurance--and believe me, there are still some people because they are calling our office. Cherie, a resident of Moorhead, MN, contacted my office trying to understand how this legislative paralysis caused by one Member of this body will impact her neighbors and her community. As of Monday, this program has come to a halt. Certain policy renewals may move forward, but those seeking a new policy to protect their homes may be left out in the cold. Because of this body's inability--because of one person's decision-- to extend the authorization of this vital program, residents in the Red River Valley do not know if they are going to be able to get flood insurance by the time the waters begin to rise in late March and early April. The intricacy of this program complicates matters more. New policyholders must wait 30 days before they take effect. There is no time to spare for Minnesotans seeking to protect their families from the upcoming floods. They may come at the end of the month. They may come at the beginning of April. We don't know. There are other parts of this country where flooding comes later, and those people will be interested in purchasing policies. They don't know if their business is going to be able to survive another flood season or whether they will lose everything with no second chance to start over. It is important to note that the National Flood Insurance Program saves taxpayer dollars. When communities implement flood plain management requirements and residents purchase flood insurance, the Federal Emergency Management Agency estimates that flood damage is reduced by $1 billion each year. In fact, FEMA estimates that the Federal Government saves between $3 and $4 for every $1 spent on flood mitigation in advance of a problem. The Flood Insurance Program also provides building standards which, when followed, leads to 80 percent less damage annually than those structures not built according to these standards. But this is not the only program being threatened by this stalemate. Because of Senator Bunning's objections yesterday, roughly 2,000 Department of Transportation staff were furloughed, largely at the Federal Highway Administration, which is responsible for highway, bridge, and road construction projects across our Nation. I know a little bit about those projects because I live six blocks from that bridge that fell down in the middle of the Mississippi River in the middle of a beautiful summer day--an eight-lane highway down the middle of the Mississippi River. We know how important these highway projects are to rebuilding safely, and we can just have one Member of the Senate who decides to stop these types of projects in their tracks? Highway projects are financed by State departments of transportation, and Federal funds reimburse the States for work on their projects. With furloughed staffs, these reimbursements will come to a halt which will force State departments of transportation across the Nation to halt work. The reimbursements amount to $190 million per day. In addition, Senator Bunning's actions will prevent the departments of transportation from making vital grant awards. I am a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, which deals with roads and bridges, and I found the stopping of these programs particularly troubling. Ironically, on Wednesday, the committee will hold a hearing on the importance of transportation investment in the national economy. If we are going to move forward to the next century's economy, we need to have the next century's transportation system. I respectfully request the Senator from Kentucky allow an up-or-down vote on his amendment; that he stop stalling; that he let us vote so the people of the Red River Valley who have not yet purchased flood insurance can buy that insurance; the people who want their bridges built and their highways built can go ahead and have those things done; the people waiting on their unemployment benefits can have that unemployment compensation. I request he stop stalling so the Senate can resume work and extend these programs for the stop-gap emergency basis on which so many programs and so many Americans depend. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

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

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I thank Senator Dorgan for his great leadership. For so long, he has been working on this. I have a feeling this is finally going to get done. It is true and we invite the Presiding Officer to visit North Dakota and Minnesota. I think he thinks the State of New Mexico is pretty cool, but he has never been to Teddy Roosevelt Park in North Dakota. So often marketing campaigns for our country are done by specific cities such as Las Vegas and New York, which is important. But when you look at this country, marketing our country as a whole is going to mean something. We are competing against countries the world over that do this all the time. That is why we have seen a 20-percent decrease in international visitors. When I held a hearing on this issue, along with former Senator Martinez, this past year, there was a story in the Washington Post, in good humor, about all the Senators hawking their own States and the deals you could get--whether it was Senator Begich's $99 cruise in Alaska or the stuff I talked about with Duluth, MN. We were doing that because people need to know about the opportunities in America. Doing it at a Commerce Committee hearing is not going to be anything compared to what France, Indonesia, and other countries are doing. They are bringing in visitors. They spend thousands and thousands of dollars. We are doing this jobs bill this week, and an important part of that is the travel industry because it employs one out of eight Americans. What will this bill do? One, as Senator Dorgan mentioned, it will give us the ability to market our country. Second, it will give us the funds we need to better process the visas because it is expected to bring in--and this is the estimate of the nonpartisan organization--1.6 million new international visitors each year. They spend $4,500 on average when they come here. You can do the math--1.6 million new visitors times $4,500 every single year. There is some expectation that the bill could generate $4 billion in new spending and $321 million in Federal tax revenue. In addition, the bill is estimated to create 41,000 new jobs. What is the cost to the taxpayer? I have been pushing on deficit reduction, but what is the cost to the taxpayer? Zero. I think that is a great thing about this bill. We are doing something to create jobs. We are doing it at zero cost. As you know, there is a small fee on foreign visitors to our country, like other countries do to our people when they visit--with Canada exempted. What I found out is that the people who care about this bill are not just in the Halls of Congress and in our major cities. When I was in Grand Marais, International Falls, Bemidji, and the Brainerd Lakes area--home of the statue of Paul Bunion and Babe the Blue Ox--they were excited about this because they have seen a decrease in visitors from Canada. They want to be able to market our country. We have gotten so far behind. A lot of people living in, say, France are deciding where to go on their summer vacation. They are thinking: Am I going to go to America, where maybe it will take months to process my visa, or am I going to spend my vacation in England, just across the channel or maybe I will go to Mexico. That is what is happening. That is where we have lost 20 percent of the overseas travel. Look at this chart. There were 48 million more global overseas travelers in 2008 than in 2000. More people are traveling. We have seen the marketing power across this world. There were 633,000 fewer who have visited the United States than in 2000. So world travel is going up. You can see the big increase globally. But the number of people coming to the United States has gone down. That means less jobs in this country. Mr. President, I believe we need to be on an equal playing field with the rest of the world. If we want to compete in our goods that we want to produce and send overseas, we also have to compete in the tourism market. In Duluth, MN, it was hard times in the 1980s. It was so bad that they put up a billboard that said: Will the last person to leave turn off the lights. They rebuilt because they were smart; the businesses were smart about tourism. They have beautiful Lake Superior right there. When we did a tourism hearing--a field hearing there--they were talking about, obviously, how in many areas of the country, with the recession, business in convention centers had gone down nationally, and someone whispered, ``Ours has gone up.'' People are looking for different things, and maybe we will have our convention in Duluth, which is a little less expensive. They can look at Lake Superior instead of looking at the Pacific Ocean. We are proud of this country, and we want other people to visit. We want them to spend their money in America and help create 41,000 new jobs. That is what this bill is about. I am very hopeful that we are going to finally get this bill passed and support the tourism part of our economy, which employs one in eight Americans. Let's keep it strong and going. I see that Senator Dorgan is back. I thank him so much for his tremendous leadership. I am proud that I got the opportunity to take over the subcommittee that deals with tourism. A lot of the work had been done on this bill. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. No, I am not. Thank you.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of amendment No. 3302, the bipartisan task force for responsible fiscal action, offered by my colleagues Senator Conrad and Senator Gregg. I was an early sponsor of this amendment from the beginning, from when I first came to the Senate. I wish to thank them for their leadership on this issue. Under the previous administration, we saw the debt of the United States double. They were handed a budget surplus, and they turned it into an enormous budget deficit. Over the next 8 years, sadly, with no work, if we do nothing, it is projected to double again. Long-term projections vary, but it is clear this course is not the course we wish to take. Despite years of talk from both parties, little progress has been made, which is why I believe that to ensure the Nation's future economic security, we need to establish a budget commission dedicated to examining this problem in detail and coming up with recommendations to address the long-term fiscal challenges of the country. I don't want to have just a study that sits on a shelf. The American people deserve better than that. That is why I believe it is important to have a statutory commission with an up-or-down vote on the recommendations of the commission. It has worked before for Social Security. I believe it will work here. I appreciate the administration's work on this. The proposal they have made to have a Presidential-appointed commission obviously is a viable alternative. But I think the better alternative is this one, and that is why I urge my colleagues to vote for it. We can no longer afford to hide our heads in the sand, hoping the fiscal outlook will correct itself. We need to make changes, and we need to act now in order to keep our debt from spiraling permanently out of control. Difficult fiscal decisions have been put off for too long. We need to make tough decisions now because we are spending too much, and the path we are on is unsustainable. This was, of course, made more difficult by the economic crisis we faced last fall. On a bipartisan basis we had to do something to make sure we shored up the credit markets to make sure we ensured financial stability for our country. We had to invest in America and invest in jobs with targeted investments. But now we cannot keep going on this course. Gross debt is likely to exceed 100 percent of GDP within the next few years, nearing levels not seen since the end of World War II. Each citizen's share of today's debt is more than $38,000. The prior administration, as I noted, ran up the Federal debt to the point where today we are forced to spend over 8 percent of our budget simply to pay interest on the Federal debt. In 2008, American taxpayers paid more than $250 billion to our creditors in interest payments alone. That is money we are sending to other countries instead of spending it in the United States. The more we spend to service our debts, the less we have for infrastructure investments, health care, energy innovation, and other priorities that are so important to the American people. The threat our debt poses to the economic security of the United States cannot be ignored. As this economic crisis has shown, credit can dry up overnight. With almost 70 percent of our Nation's debt financed by foreign countries and investors, our government literally could not pay its bills without the help of China, our biggest creditor. If faith in the American economy were to falter and foreign countries stopped extending credit, we would be faced with a host of bad choices. Even without another crisis, many of these programs are on the path to insolvency, and economic growth cannot make up the difference. These are issues that must be addressed. That is why it is so important we step back and look at the long term, focus on this debt, at the same time knowing we have to have a safety net for the people of this country. If we look at the health care bill, we will see what we will come up with now as we look at changes to that bill. It actually saved--the Senate bill--$130 billion on the deficit in the first 10 years, $1.3 trillion over the next 10 years. That clearly has to be a piece of this reform as we look at the cost to the American people--how we can deliver health care more efficiently. I believe it is time to change the way Washington works when it comes to our long-term fiscal outlook. It is not about being a Democrat; it is not about being a Republican; it is not about being an Independent; it is about guaranteeing we get something done for the people of this country. This bipartisan fiscal task force provides a path to restoring our financial stability by creating a bipartisan commission to study our spending and make recommendations to effectively reduce that spending. When I first heard about this idea, I was at one of our bipartisan breakfasts. I had just arrived in Washington, and I thought: Why would we need a commission to do this? Why can't the people in this body just do this? I have realized a few things over the years. One, we have not seen that kind of improvement. Two, we have not been able to get that kind of bipartisan work going that I have seen. Three, we have this idea of a commission that has worked in the past. So after being here for about a year, I decided: Do you know what. This is not a bad idea. You can have experts work on this. You can come up with some ideas on a bipartisan basis for reducing spending, for bringing down our deficit, for bringing down the debt. I have decided this is the way to go because right now there is no movement on this matter at all in this body or in the House. This is how this task force would work. First, it would be comprised of 18 members from both political parties, 10 Democrats and 8 Republicans. Fourteen of the eighteen task force members would have to agree to report the recommendations to ensure that the recommendations the task force makes to Congress have bipartisan support. In order to fast-track the process, there is a set timeframe under which the task force would make recommendations and a set timeframe for ensuring that Congress would give them an up-or-down vote. This task force would not be used to force legislation through Congress. It would just force Congress to come to the table and make a decision. Let me address one final point. Some are arguing that projections for the near term are so bleak that any talk of deficit and debt reduction should be sidelined. I disagree. Everyone knows that when times are good, it becomes much harder to tighten the purse strings. This crisis has brought the issue of the deficit to the forefront. The people of this country know it. They know they have to watch their own checkbook, They know they have to balance their own checkbook, and they want to see Washington working on this issue. They understand we have had an economic crisis. They did not cause this crisis. People on Wall Street making bad decisions, people in government allowing some things like subprime mortgages to go through-- there are a lot of people who can be blamed. But they understand we not only have to work on the short-term issue of investment in our country, and transportation, and that we had to do something to shore up the financial crisis so that our whole financial system would not go down the tube--it is hard to swallow; when people think about it, they get that--but they also want to know the people who represent them are working on this debt for the long term, that we have a plan, that we are doing something to chisel away at this deficit to bring it down. That is what they expect from us. They do not want to send all this money in interest to China. They want to be spending it in the United States of America on roads and bridges, on their kids, on their families, on their kids' education, on their houses. That is where they want to be spending this money, not on interest over in China. So I urge my colleagues to vote for this bill. I understand it will most likely coming up next week. I think it is a very important effort going forward. I commend the White House, the economic team, for the work they have done with the group of us who has been working on this bill and trying to get this through. I think it is very important, not just for this year but for the generations to come. It is time to look past the next election to the next generation. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to call attention to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Haiti and to the plight of the many Haitian children who have been adopted by American families and are still waiting to be brought from the disaster to loving homes, to families who are waiting to welcome them. Many have been waiting for a year, 2 years. Many of the families in my State have actually gone to Haiti, and they have met these children. In the days immediately following the earthquake, the United States, the United Nations, other nations, and organizations have moved swiftly to provide food and water, medicine and clothing, as well as international aid workers to assist in these disaster areas. The people of this country, the people all over the world, have been extraordinarily generous. Currently, thousands of American civilians, as well as members of our Federal agencies and Armed Forces, are in Haiti lending their hands to help the Haitian people. Unfortunately, though the United States is doing much to save lives in Haiti, lives continue to be lost. And unfortunately, some of the most helpless of Haiti's people--its children--are among those in most need of our help. I am focusing on this issue, this small but important piece of our aid relief, because I have had so many families come to me from my State who are clutching photos of children they are waiting to bring home. Minnesota has one of the highest rates of international adoptions in the country. Part of that is because we have had a strong tradition of aid, of bringing people from Somalia, the Hmong community, to our State. We have also had a strong tradition of reaching out for decades and adopting children from other countries. Many of the families I met with over the weekend have been able to confirm that their children are safe, and for that they are so grateful. But they have also heard reports of orphanages that are not in the best shape--not enough food, not enough water. They know these children because so many of them have seen them before. They knew even before this in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere that these children were not always getting adequate diets. On January 15, I wrote to Secretaries Clinton and Napolitano, urging them to use their authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act to grant humanitarian parole to all U.S. families applying for entry to the United States on behalf of their prospective children during this period of emergency. I also spoke with Secretary Clinton. She was amazingly generous with her time, and sympathetic and working on this issue. I am thankful that on Monday, January 18, Secretary Napolitano announced her authorization of the use of humanitarian parole for orphans who are eligible for adoption in the United States. Humanitarian parole is typically used sparingly in cases of compelling emergency. But as I noted in my letter, the magnitude of this disaster clearly warrants broader application of this policy. There are details, and the details are important. How are these kids going to get to the United States so the paperwork can be processed? There has been talk of a safe haven set up, but we have not seen that happen. Meanwhile, our families in Minnesota are getting more desperate as they hear about the second quake today, as they hear about the problems from the people who are running the orphanages. This is what I am talking about. Betsy Sathers, a Minnesota resident, was widowed when her husband of 10 months was killed in the tragic I-35W Minneapolis bridge collapse on his way home from work. They talked about having children. So Betsy Sathers decided to adopt some children. She signed up to adopt kids in Haiti. She recently returned from celebrating their second birthday-- twins. That is who I am talking about when I talk about someone who is awaiting the arrival of these children in her home. This is another family--I have their picture here--I met over the weekend. Ginger and Dale Reynolds are adopting two kids, Roselene and Rodeley. They were in the final stages and hoping to bring their kids home. They were told they were in the next batch of adoptions when they last visited before the earthquake hit. What is striking about this family is that Ginger still signs all of her e-mails with blessings, and they are still incredibly positive despite having their kids in this orphanage. They are also stressing how they want us to help all families, not just theirs. When I met with them, another family was there who was not quite as far along in the process. They spent most of their time talking about how this other family should be helped as well. Finally, Dawn and Lee Sheldon--I have their photo as well. This is when they were in Haiti. These are the two children they want to adopt who are not with them yet. They are adopting two children. The conditions have been very bad for the particular orphanage where their two kids have been staying. This family has been glued to CNN, which has filmed at the orphanage, looking to see these children's faces. While we talk legalities, understandably, orphans in Haiti are continuing to suffer from lack of water, lack of food, lack of shelter. Many orphanages have been partially or entirely destroyed in the shocks from this quake. In others, the bodies of deceased personnel still lie near the children, for aid agencies are unable to take away all of the dead. The hardship and the horror that these orphans face is extreme, and we must act now to bring them out from the unsanitary and potentially traumatizing situation in which they find themselves. I am grateful for the quick work of Secretary Napolitano and Secretary Clinton. They are on the scene. They are doing the work. But we have to do everything we can to bring these children home. These orphanages, the ones that have not been damaged and are still functioning, need the beds, sadly, for other children. These children have homes to go home to--homes that are welcoming them, homes that consider them their children. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

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

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I ask unanimous consent to yield myself 10 minutes.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, late last night, as my colleagues are aware, the Senate took the important step to move forward on health care reform. After all the work, the debate that has gone on for this entire year, we owe the American people a vote on this issue. We can't afford to ignore this situation anymore. I know some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have been talking about a lack of debate. I think anyone who has turned on C-SPAN for the last few months will tell you there has been a lot of debate-- not only that, a number of Republican amendments were actually included in the original bill, the HELP Committee bill. When it came out, I believe it was something like 130 amendments that were included that came from their side--and the Finance Committee as well. I remember the first bipartisan meeting we had on health care reform was something called Ready to Launch that the Finance Committee put together. I remember Senator Whitehouse and I were there. It was literally a year and a half ago. So many of the ideas that are now incorporated in this bill that Senator Bennet from Colorado just so eloquently went through are in this bill, so many of the bipartisan ideas to kick off cost reform, to start rewarding high-quality care, to start bringing down those costs in a way that gives us the high-quality care. We all know that rising costs are not sustainable. If we don't act, these costs are going to continue to skyrocket. So what was the vote about last night? The vote last night was to say we are not going to put our heads in the sand anymore. We are not going to keep letting these costs go up. Ten years ago, the average family was paying $6,000 a year for their health insurance. Now they are paying $12,000 a year. Well, 10 years from now, if we don't do anything about this, they are going to be paying $24,000 to $36,000 a year for their health insurance. Just look at these numbers. Look at where we are. In 1999, a single person was paying about $2,100 for their health care. They were paying for a family, $5,790 for their health care. Where are we now? Last year, in 2008, a single person was paying $4,700 for their health care and then a family was paying $12,680. Especially during this difficult economic time when wages haven't been going up, people have been losing their jobs, cutting back on their hours, and look what their health care costs have been. It has been a higher and higher percentage of their family budget, a higher and higher percentage. At the same time, health care expenditures are going up and up and up. In 1995, we were spending something like $12 billion and now it is way up to $2.5 trillion. This is the kind of money we are talking about when we look at why we have to do something to bend the cost curve. When people at home hear this term ``cost curve'' and they don't know what it means--well, this is exactly what it is: The cost curve has been going up and up and up for health care in America. So $1 out of every $6 spent in our economy is on health care. Over 20 percent of our economy, by 2018, we believe, will be spent on health care. American families can no longer afford it. Who has been taking it the worst? Small businesses. They are paying 20 percent more than large businesses for their health care. In a recent survey, nearly three-quarters of small businesses that did not offer benefits cited high premiums as the reason. These are little companies such as Granite Gear up in northern Minnesota and Two Harbors. I went up there and visited them. They are a thriving little company. They now have 15 employees. They are making backpacks for our Nation's soldiers because they make such high-quality backpacks. Do you know what the man who started that company told me? That if he had known how much his health care would cost with his family of four--he did not have kids when he started the business--he would not have started it today. He is paying $24,000 in Two Harbors, MN, for a family of four. This is what it really means when you look at the numbers. Inflation usually raises the cost of most goods and services between 2 and 3 percent a year. What have health care premiums been doing? Health care premiums have been going up close to 8 percent a year, and that is an increase Americans simply cannot afford. What does this bill do? I was listening to some of the commentary and taking part in it myself over the weekend. There seems to have been a lot of talk about these delayed benefits. Why don't we talk about the benefits that are taking place right when the President signs this bill, within the first year of this bill? The first thing is, if your kid loses their coverage because something goes wrong--if they get diabetes or if they have some childhood disease--guess what. They are going to be able to get health care. There is no longer a ban on preexisting conditions immediately, and then in later years that applies for adults as well but immediately for kids. Immediately, by 2011, within the first year of the bill, our seniors are going to be covered in that doughnut hole for their prescription drugs. So many of them for so long--I know my own mother would complain about this doughnut hole where they fall off a cliff and are not able to pay for their drugs because they do not have enough money. That will be covered. A number of the small business tax credits take effect by 2011. These are real benefits for the people of this country--real benefits. The thing I care most about in this bill which Senator Bennet discussed is this idea of getting our money's worth for our health care dollars. What does this bill do? This new bill--we have taken a lot of the good from the original bill and made things even better: $132 billion off the deficit in the first 10 years and in the next 10 years, $1.3 trillion off the deficit. That was the most important thing to people in my State when I went around. They said: We want to get rid of these preexisting conditions, we want to make things better so we have better health care, but we want to make sure we do something about the deficit, start doing something about costs. As you know, Mr. President, Minnesota is a mecca for health care. We have one of the high-quality, cost-efficient, low-cost States in the country. In fact, when we look at some of the numbers, one of my favorite ones--and maybe this will be the last time I will say this before the end of the year--is Mayo Clinic. They did a study out of Dartmouth, and they looked at what Mayo did with chronically ill patients. What they found was this: If other hospitals in the country simply use the same high- quality care Mayo uses--bring the family in, talk to them about what the care should be for the patient--they talk to the patient and then figure out what is the best course. They work as a team, like a quarterback with a team working with that quarterback. They do not have 20 specialists falling all over each other; they work as a team. What this study showed was this kind of health care for that subset of chronically ill patients in the last 4 years of their lives, the quality ratings were sky high for the Mayo Clinic. The families felt good about how their loved ones were treated. What Dartmouth found is if all the hospitals in the country followed the same protocol, we would save, for this subset alone, $50 billion every 5 years in taxpayer money, giving patients that Mayo health care, giving them high-quality health care. It is counterintuitive to people. If you go to a hotel and you pay the most, you are going to get the best room with the best view. That has not been the same in American health care. In fact, there is an inverse relationship. I see my friend from Ohio. Ohio has the Cleveland Clinic, and there is Geisinger. Those places that offer high-quality care also tend to have some of the lowest costs. Those are the incentives we are putting in this bill--incentives for accountable care organizations, incentives for that integrated care I talked about instead of people running around with x rays to 20 specialists, getting charged every single time, but then one specialist does not know what the other specialist is doing. They don't know what kind of drugs you are allergic to when you go in for surgery. This is because there is no communication. This bill promotes that integrated care where you put the patient in the driver's seat so they have their pick of a doctor. That is what we want--bundling of payment so you start rewarding outcomes instead of the number of tests and procedures. My favorite example of this came out of the Geisinger Clinic in Pennsylvania, where they said: We are not that happy with how we are treating diabetes patients. So instead of having everyone wait to see an endocrinologist, a doctor, we are going to have some of the routine cases see nurses, and the nurses will report to the doctors, and the patients will be happier because they will be able to see a nurse more often. The most difficult cases will be treated by endocrinologists. They did that for about a year and looked to see what the results were. Guess what. The patients were much happier because they were able to communicate one-on-one with the nurse. The doctors were able to handle the most difficult cases and monitor the other cases. They saved $200 a month per patient with this kind of system. Higher quality care and better patient outcomes. What does our system do when they see this kind of smart, cost- effective result for the doctors and for the system and for the taxpayers? They actually are told: You get punished for this under our system. You are going to get a lot less money if you do something like this. That is what I am talking about. On hospital readmissions, we could save $18 billion a year. If you go in the hospital and you are treated, you want to go home. You don't want to go back into the hospital because someone made a mistake or they gave you an infection. Let's provide incentives--that is what this bill does--so that we reduce those hospital readmissions, make life better for the patient and at the same time reduce taxpayer money. That is what this bill is about. Right now, fraud is $60 billion. I don't think anyone would believe this. A senior who just depends on Medicare, right--we have to tell our seniors today that $60 billion a year is wasted on Medicare fraud, going to con men, going to people who set up storefronts and they get fake checks and they are not even real. That is where the money is going right now--down the tube, siphoned off by fraudsters. What this bill does is give the tools to improve that situation so that will not happen anymore. That is what we are doing with this bill. It is about reducing costs, it is about raising quality, and it is about saving Medicare so it does not go in the red by 2017, giving it 10 more years and beyond because of the delivery system changes. I am proud to support this bill. We continue to work for reform. As you know, this is not just an end, this is a beginning. There will be more work to do in the future, but we cannot put our heads in the sand. We have to vote on this bill. We have to get this done. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Hampshire for mentioning the Mayo Clinic, along with several other great facilities in this country that have done things a little differently. They have done it by focusing on the patient, by saying what is best for the patient is best for all of us. When you do what is best for the patient, you get higher quality care. When you get higher quality care, you actually get lower costs. I think of people when they go in to pay for a hotel room and they say: If I pay more, I will get a better view and a bigger room. That is usually true. Not in health care. If you look at trends across the country, the States, the metropolitan areas that have the least efficient health care tend to cost the most. That is what we need to change if we want true cost reform. It is good in States such as Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin. Why? Because we tend to have higher quality care at lower costs. We are rewarded for that. It is also good for the States that need to get their quality of care up, so that we don't see massive readmissions to hospitals. Who, when they go to a hospital and are sick, wants to go back in because they get sick in the hospital? Who wants to have something go wrong in the hospital so they have to go back? Who wants to go to an area where they have massive fraud, so all this money gets drained in the amount of $62 billion a year in Medicare fraud? That is what happens. That is why, on delivery system reform, the courageous thing is to step back and say: How do we do this better? How do we do it so we are rewarding quality and not just quantity, so that we are putting the patients first? That is what this bill is about. Why does this matter? I think anybody who has a checkbook understands what this means. At $2.4 trillion a year, health care spending represents close to 17 percent of the American economy, and it will exceed 20 percent by 2018 if the current trend continues. Hospitals and clinics in every part of the country are providing an estimated $56 billion in uncompensated care. That is taxpayer money going down the tubes--$2.4 trillion per year. That is where we are now. Everybody knows it is costing them and making it very difficult for big businesses to compete against businesses from other countries that have more efficient health care systems. It is making it impossible for small businesses to keep all of their employees on health care. Why? Well, their costs are 20 percent more than big businesses. The small businesses have created 64 percent of the jobs in the last decades in this country. We have to allow them to continue to thrive, not with these health care costs that are a drag on these small businesses. I always tell people to remember three numbers: 6, 12, and 24. Ten years ago, the average American family was paying about $6,000 in premiums. Now they are paying $12,000. That is average. We have a lot of small business owners all over our State paying $20,000 a year, $23,000 a year. If we do not do anything, if we do not do anything at all, 10 years from now it is going to cost between $24,000 and $36,000 average in this country for individual families to buy health care-- $24,000 to $36,000 average per family. That is why we must act. We know inaction is not an option. If we do not act, costs will continue to skyrocket, and 14,000 Americans will continue to lose their health insurance every single day. What does this bill do? First, it gives coverage to 31 million people who do not have coverage now. People are saying: Wow, where are they getting health care now? I will tell you where: the emergency room, such as in the hospital I used to represent when I was the county attorney for the biggest county in Minnesota. That was paid for by the taxpayers. When someone does not have insurance, when they don't have a doctor, they have diabetes, they are supposed to be doing their insulin and watching their diet and they wait and wait and they end up in the emergency room and they get their leg cut off and have big costs for all taxpayers, not to mention the disastrous quality of life for the person involved. That is going on in this country. Last year, I was down in one of our smaller towns in southern Minnesota. I heard how one science hospital had three people come in with stomach problems, appendicitis attacks. Their appendixes burst. This was over a period of several months. They asked: How come you didn't come in earlier? Two of them said: We work at a small business; we didn't want the premiums to go up. It would hurt everyone at the small business. Another said: I had such high premiums I would have to pay I didn't want to come in and have it checked out. If you do not have that kind of safety net in place for people, you get more expenses on the far end. That is what this bill does. It changes the delivery system, insuring 31 million more people. What else does it do? It helps to reduce the deficit. That is what I said from the beginning. I do not want to support a bill that adds to the deficit. Actually, this bill we are talking about--some changes are being made--reduces the deficit by billions and billions of dollars. A third thing: What does this bill have? Insurance reforms. What does that mean? It means if you have a sick kid, you no longer are going to lose your insurance. You cannot be pushed off, put off in the deep end all by yourself if your kid gets sick. It means if you have a kid going to college, you can keep them on your insurance until they are 26 years old. That is what the bill does. It gives a safety net, consumer protections that people in this country have demanded. Finally, with Medicare, it adds 9 years onto the life of Medicare. Right now, Medicare is scheduled to go into the red by 2017. No one wants to talk about it. We need to talk about it. What this bill does is keep it solvent for 9 more years. I can tell you, my mom, who is 82, wants to stay on Medicare until she is way into her nineties. People in their fifties who want to get on Medicare at 65 want to make sure it is there for them, that it is solvent. What this bill does with the reforms that are in it, with the promotion of high quality, closing that doughnut hole, which is difficult for seniors, it helps our seniors. This is an idea, someone said today--I was listening to other Members--whose time has come. This bill is not going to be perfect for everyone. I think about the people I heard from, such as the woman who wrote to me from northern Minnesota. She wrote this heartfelt letter about how she had gotten a call from her daughter whose husband worked at a small business. She said that husband, her son-in-law, had just found out they were not going to have insurance anymore at his small business. The woman who wrote, the mom, said she couldn't even understand her daughter. The daughter was sobbing, sobbing: What is wrong? What is wrong? What happened? I lost my insurance. Do you know why this mattered so much for her family? Her daughter has cystic fibrosis. Her daughter needs this insurance every moment of her life. When that small business yanked that insurance coverage because they probably had to--I am sure they didn't want to, but they just couldn't afford it anymore--that daughter has to go on the open market now which, if you have a preexisting condition, is not an easy thing to do. She may not get insurance. That is what we are talking about when we talk about this bill. At the end of the letter, the mom said: I need you to be my daughter's voice. She is not going to be able to go to Washington, DC, and lobby for this like all the companies that have come over here and lobbied for this thing and that thing. She needs us to be her voice, and that is what this is about. The good thing here is that, as we look at some of the things in the bill, I didn't get everything I wanted to reduce costs, I can tell you that right now. But there are some great provisions in this bill. Look at this. According to researchers at Dartmouth Medical School, nearly $700 billion per year is wasted on unnecessary or ineffective health care. That is 30 percent of total health care spending. To rein in costs, we introduced a value index. I introduced a bill-- Senator Cantwell, Senator Gregg are coauthors of this bill. Senator Cantwell got it on the Finance Committee bill and it is still in the merged bill today. What that does is it says, when you look at the Medicare fees, evaluate them on a lot of things but make sure you evaluate them on value. This indexing will help reduce unnecessary procedures because those who produce more volume will need to also improve care or the increased volume will negatively impact their fees. Doctors will have a financial incentive to maximize quality and value of their services instead of quantity. My doctors in the State of Minnesota support this. They have supported this bill. They have endorsed this bill. They understand that if we want to get that high- quality care like we see in Minnesota in places such as the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, Intermountain, Kaiser--all over the country--you have to have those kinds of incentives in place. This bill also focuses on bundling and integrated care. I was thinking, as I watched the Vikings game this weekend--I do not know if you noticed, but the Vikings won again; Brett Favre is quarterback--we are talking about a primary care provider who works with a team. We do not have 15 wide receivers running into each other. We have one person in charge--a quarterback in football, a primary care doctor in medicine--working with a team, with a wide receiver, with a tight end, with all the team they have working together, whether it is a cardiologist, whether it is a urologist, whether it is any kind of a doctor they want to work with as a team, depending on what the illness is. That is what integrated care is. You work as a team, share medical records. Patients do not get lost in the shuffle. They do not get sent to one specialist and another specialist without anyone watching over their care. That is what integrated care is about, a quarterback with a team. The other thing about this bill is, we start to focus much more, as I mentioned, on reducing readmissions, on rewarding places such as Health Partners or St. Mary's in Duluth, places that work to have this integrated care, places that make sure we have less readmissions in the hospitals. Finally--and I am pleased we got this in the freshman package that is coming out--there is a much bigger focus on fraud in the system. Mr. President, $60 billion a year is going down the tubes, going to fraudsters, to con men, siphoning off the system by storefronts that are not doctors' clinics that claim they should get some of the reimbursements that should be going to our seniors. That is $60 billion in Medicare fraud alone every single year. There are increased penalties with tools to make sure we are better enforcing the law. We can reclaim some of that money and give it to the American taxpayers, give it to our seniors. Those are a few things. I will be talking more about this, this week, when we focus on and talk about cost control in this bill. Thank you for allowing me to share some of my thoughts on cost. Again, remember 6, 12, 24. Ten years ago, the average American family was paying $6,000 for their premiums. Now what are they spending? They are spending $12,000. What are they going to spend 10 years from now if we don't do anything? They will spend $24,000 to $36,000 a year. We know this is not going to be easy to bend this cost curve. We know there are going to be bumps in the road. We know it is not going to automatically turn itself around. To do nothing, to put our heads in the sand at this moment in history is just plain wrong. The American people deserve to have better health care. They deserve to have that high-quality, low-cost care, and this bill is the beginning. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 375, which was submitted earlier today.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent it adjourn until 10 a.m. tomorrow.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, Senators should expect a series of four rollcall votes to begin around 6 p.m. tomorrow.