Amy Klobuchar

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, thank you very much. And I thank the manager of the bill. I would like to change my vote on rollcall vote No. 140. It was my intention to vote ``nay,'' and I voted ``yea.'' I voted ``yea'' when I was presiding. I ask unanimous consent that my vote be changed to reflect a ``nay'' vote.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

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 President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

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

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, today I am here to talk about health care reform. I would mention, first, that I was just with Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Congresswoman who last year battled with breast cancer and today was there, healthy, to introduce a bill. I am proud to be the Senate sponsor, to focus on increasing awareness among younger women about the risks of breast cancer. But we are here today to talk about something else and that is how to bring costs down in health care. As we look at how to expand health care, as we look at how to improve the quality of health care, there must be work done to contain the costs. I believe, based on what I have seen in my State, you can actually reduce costs and improve quality. A few weeks ago, President Obama convened a health care summit to bring together industry leaders, providers, and advocacy groups to discuss our opportunity to move forward with serious health care reform. That reform should begin with the Medicare system. Medicare is one of the most valued social welfare programs our country has produced in the last half century. Yet it is also a program in dire need of reform if it is to survive on sound financial footing and continue to provide the fine medical care our seniors have come to expect from it. Change is needed now. By 2011, the first baby boomers will enter the Medicare system and by 2016 the number of Medicare beneficiaries will increase by almost 5 percent. This past winter, I convened a health forum in Minnesota to discuss the various challenges affecting the Medicare system. The message is clear: without action, costs will continue to rise and waste will proliferate. Medicare is the single largest purchaser of health care and its policies directly affect nearly every health care provider. Medicare's payment system, coding, quality reporting, and recordkeeping are the industry standard. Spending for the Medicare Program is projected to increase 114 percent in the next 10 years. Twenty percent of Medicare beneficiaries suffer from one of five chronic diseases. Medicare spends 66 percent of its annual budget to treat this group. Two-thirds of Medicare spending only helps one-fifth of Medicare beneficiaries. If we are going to sustain Medicare as a healthy, high-quality program Americans deserve, we must do something to address these challenges. In short, we need to reform Medicare so it addresses efficient, high- quality care. As it happens, doctors and hospitals in many regions of the country, including my State of Minnesota, practice exactly this kind of high- quality, low-cost medicine and they should be rewarded for it. But Medicare does not reward them. Instead, it punishes them. In fact, at the health summit last week, President Obama actually asked the gathered group, ``Why should we punish Minnesota because other States are less efficient?'' The problem is, despite periodic efforts at reform, Medicare pays for quantity, not quality. More tests and more surgeries mean more money, even if the extra tests and operations do nothing to improve a patient's condition. States that have historically delivered excessive procedures are still rewarded for the wasteful practices of the past, while efficient States, such as Minnesota, are punished. If you look at this chart, you will see that the areas in dark blue are the ones that receive the lion's share of Medicare payments. The light blue area States, such as Minnesota, Montana, Iowa--I see Maine is looking good, as I see the Senator from Maine across the way--but a number of States, you can see, are in areas where Medicare spending is low but quality of care is high. It is as if there were a huge transfusion that basically takes taxpayer money from one region, one area of the country, and puts it in another. It is not to say people are not sick in other parts of the country-- they do deserve that help--but looking at the limited resources, we have to figure out what is working and how come areas of the country that tend to have the lowest health care costs also have the highest quality health care? It is not what you would think. You would think: Well, the highest cost must have the highest quality. That tends to happen sometimes, in clothing and other things. That is not what is going on in this country right now. Regions with more specialists and more hospital beds tend to provide more services and get more of the money. According to the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, high-cost regions in Medicare boast 32 percent more hospital beds, 31 percent more doctors, and 66 percent more medical specialists. In other words, supply is driving demand. The result is that Medicare pays much more in some parts of the country than it does in others for medical care that is no better. Medicare's own report shows that quality of care is higher in many of these low-cost States. In fact, Medicare spends more in places such as Florida and New Jersey than it spends in States such as Minnesota and Oregon. Let me give you one example: In Miami, FL, Medicare spent roughly $15,000 per patient per year in the year 2005. In Minneapolis, a Medicare patient received about $7,000 worth of care that year. To put it another way, Medicare will spend $50,000 more on a 65-year-old patient in Miami over the course of his or her lifetime than on a comparable patient in Minneapolis. Now, $50,000, that is a lot of money. At $2.4 trillion per year, health care spending represents close to 17 percent of the American economy, and it will exceed 20 percent by 2018 if the current trends continue. If you look at this internationally, you can see the United States spends far more than any other nation, without getting better care. We can and we must do better. A number of models are out there to provide direction for the future. The Mayo Clinic, based in my home State of Minnesota, is renowned for the effective care it provides at a reasonable cost. Now, think about this. There was a Dartmouth study that came out. It showed this: If the rest of the hospitals in the country used the same kind of high quality, with very high quality efficiency ratings from families, and high efficiency care as the Mayo Clinic now does, in the last 4 years of a patient's life, the country--the taxpayers of this country-- would save $50 billion over 5 years. That is $50 billion over 5 years by simply following the protocol of having a more organized, efficient delivery system with one primary doctor, with experts who work together, without duplicate tests. That is $50 billion every 4 years by following a set protocol with some of the highest quality ratings in the country. The Congressional Budget Office has also studied the problem and found the potential for huge savings. This chart reflects that Medicare spending would fall by 29 percent if spending in medium- and high-spending regions were the same as that in low-spending regions. That is the CBO. So how do we change the Medicare system in a way that will reduce these disparities and reward our doctors for doing what is right? Real reform will start when the system starts paying for quality. Here are the three priorities I plan to start working on immediately. First, we need to enhance Medicare incentives that reward quality care. For many illnesses and conditions, the medical profession has widely accepted practice guidelines that result in better health care outcomes, such as when to give aspirin to heart patients, and how often to perform cancer screening, but they are not always followed. A recent RAND Corporation study found that adults received recommended care only 55 percent of the time. Medicare needs to reward doctors and hospitals for doing the right thing and achieving improvement in care. These quality guidelines can be the basis for Medicare payments to providers. Second, we need to rethink the Medicare payment system. Right now, Medicare pays for tests, visits, and other procedures one by one, giving providers an incentive to order more and more services. We need to have better coordination of care, and less incentive to bill Medicare purely by volume. Increasing the bundling of services in Medicare's payment system has the potential to deliver savings and start rewarding value and not volume. Third, we need to address the shortage of the number of primary care physicians who are currently practicing across our country. Today, effective primary care is severely undervalued in our health care system. Yet, research suggests that improving access to primary care and reducing reliance on speciality care can improve the efficiency and the quality of health care delivery. To accommodate the needs of an aging population, we need to promote primary care and transition away from our specialty-intensive health care workforce. The health care system we have now needs major improvement. That means transforming the system to pay doctors for the quality of care they provide and to turn the current disconnected, reactive health care system into one that is integrated and concentrates on delivering the best care for patients. Again, I want to stress this, when we talk about saving costs, when we look at these studies, those States that are most efficient, those areas that are more efficient, have high quality care. I leave you with this figure: The Mayo Clinic, in the last 4 years of a patient's life, if those protocols were followed across the country, we would save $50 billion every 5 years in taxpayer money. That is an independent study, $50 billion. I know we can do better. At the same time as we reduce the cost, we can improve the quality of care that our Nation's seniors deserve. Working together, we can give them the system they deserve. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan.) The Senator from Maine is recognized.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

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

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, in the past few days, we have learned that the American International Group--known as AIG--has awarded $165 million in bonuses to its high-end employees--the employees of its Financial Products group. These are people responsible for the fancy wheeling and dealing that nearly destroyed the company and wreaked havoc on our entire financial system. The American public is outraged by the arrogance and the abuse of taxpayer funds, and so am I. I was just in my State, where there are people barely holding onto their homes, people who have had their hours cut, and who are just one step away from their home going into foreclosure or from losing their car, and now we learn this today. Last year, under desperate but necessary circumstances, the U.S. Government had to rescue AIG from total collapse. This was done not to rescue the company itself but to rescue our financial system. AIG would not even continue to exist today except for the infusion of $170 billion in taxpayer funds. The American people now own essentially 80 percent of the company, and AIG is supposed to be doing everything possible to right itself. Well, they haven't. There is no rational way to justify these bonuses to people who have caused untold damage to our economy. This is not pay for performance, it is pay for failure, which makes no sense at all. Why should they get the golden parachutes when their company and our financial system have been crashing to the ground? The bonuses these individuals are receiving for their failure is more than most Americans make in a lifetime. The American people simply should not be in the position of rewarding the failure of high-flying Wall Street bankers who brought their company and our economy crashing down. That is why I have joined today with Senator Schumer and other colleagues in writing to Edward Liddy, the chairman and CEO of AIG. We are telling him if these bonus contracts are not renegotiated immediately, we will offer legislation that will have the effect of making American taxpayers whole. AIG needs to step up and do the right thing. But if AIG doesn't take action on its own to correct this outrage, we stand ready to take the difficult but necessary step of enacting legislation that would allow the Government to recoup these bonus payments through the Tax Code. If we are forced to do this, we will impose a steep tax, possibly as high as 91 percent, that would, in effect, recover nearly all the bonus money. Now, I am like most Americans; I don't like to see taxes raised. But in this instance, I think all of us can make an exception. If they refuse to do the right thing, then it is only fair to impose this kind of tax against the people who have done such great harm to our financial system. They can't walk away with millions of dollars. They may be laughing all the way to the bank right now, but if AIG can't or won't fix this problem, these people will soon be crying all the way to the tax office. These people seem to think they can operate with a height of arrogance and irresponsibility. This is not just a business outrage, it is a moral outrage. I am also concerned that in addition to the bonuses already handed out, AIG has plans to spend an additional $450 million in bonuses over the next 2 years. Based on what we know now, can we trust that these bonus payments go to the people who deserve it--the people who fix the problems rather than people who just make the problems? AIG is set to go into the history books as a company that symbolizes the type of greed and recklessness that has weakened our economy. Where I come from, we reward those who work hard and play by the rules and we take responsibility when we screw up. I believe the administration and Congress should do everything in their power to block these payments and demand accountability. Now, we know this is also an insult to the many good, strong, healthy financial institutions across this country--the small banks such as those we have in Minnesota; healthy financial institutions that didn't engage in these high-flying dealings that shouldn't be punished. Their stockholders shouldn't be punished because of what companies such as AIG did. As a prosecutor for 8 years, I dealt with criminals all the time. I have to say the white-collar crooks were often the worst to deal with because they claimed their crimes were an honest mistake and that there weren't any victims. As far as I am concerned, it didn't matter if someone stole with a crowbar or a computer or that they committed their crimes in a nice office or out on the streets, they need to be held accountable under the law. Time will tell, and the Justice Department and other prosecutors and police will sort this financial wreck out to see when and where crimes were committed, but it is clear that what we need is accountability. If AIG's leadership won't demand it, we will. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I am here to speak in favor of David Ogden to be the next Deputy Attorney General of the United States. I have listened to my colleague and friend from Oklahoma, and I am not going to be able to respond to everything he said about every nominee, but I did want to talk today about Mr. Ogden. He is someone who I believe should be our next Deputy Attorney General, at a Department of Justice that is much in need of a Deputy Attorney General, and he is someone who will hit the ground running. He will beef up civil rights and antitrust enforcement. He will address white- collar crime and drug-related violence, as well as help to keep our country safe from terrorist attacks. We know the to-do list and the demands on the next Deputy Attorney General will be great. Part of why it will be so great is something that I saw in my own State. We had a gem of a U.S. Attorney General Office in Minnesota, and we still do, but there was a period of time where I saw its destruction and rot by putting one political appointee in charge of that office. It was a huge mistake. The office was in an uproar. They got away from their regular mission. Luckily, Attorney General Mukasey put in a career prosecutor, Frank McGill, who has put the office back on track, and I thank him for that. We have suggested-- recommended--a new name to the Attorney General and the President for the next U.S. Attorney in Minnesota. But I tell you that story for a reason, and that is justice is important and order is important and management is important in our criminal justice system. We went so far away from that when Alberto Gonzalez was the Attorney General. That is why it is so important to have David Ogden in there to work with Eric Holder. David Ogden has demonstrated intelligence and judgment, leadership and strength of character and, most importantly, a commitment to the Department of Justice. He has the experience and the integrity, I say to my colleagues, to serve as the next Deputy Attorney General. One of the most important roles of a Deputy Attorney General is to make sure that the day-to-day operations of the Department run smoothly and to provide effective and competent management guided by justice. I know David Ogden can do that. His experience both as Chief of Staff and counselor to former Attorney General Reno, as well as his experience as Assistant Attorney General for the Department's civil division under President Clinton proves that David Ogden has experience and the integrity to do the job. I have heard all these allegations made, including by my colleague. I want to tell you some of the people who are supporting David Ogden. His nomination is supported by a number of law enforcement and community groups, including among others, the Fraternal Order of Police--not exactly a radical organization. He is supported by the National District Attorneys Association, the Partnership for a Drug Free America, and the National Sheriffs' Association. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is a strong supporter. In fact, they sent a letter saying they gave David Ogden their enthusiastic support. In particular, they wrote: . . . during Mr. Ogden's tenure as Chief of Staff and Counsel to the Attorney General, we worked closely with the Attorney General in attacking the growing phenomenon of child sexual exploitation and child pornography. As counselor to the Attorney General, Mr. Ogden was intricately involved in helping to shape the way our group responded to child victimization challenges and delivered its services. It is seconded by the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, which also supports David Ogden's nomination. In addition to these law enforcement and child protective groups, David Ogden has received broad bipartisan support from a number of former Department officials, including Larry Thompson, a former Deputy Attorney General under President George W. Bush, and George Terwilliger, who served in the same role under President George H. W. Bush. There are so many things on the Justice Department's plate, and we need someone to be up and running. But I want to respond specifically to some of the things we have heard today. There was a statement by one of Senators that Mr. Ogden opposed a child pornography statute that we passed in 1998. That is simply not correct, and I hope my colleagues know that. In fact, as head of the Civil Division of the Department of Justice, he led the vigorous defense of the Child Online Protection Act of 1998 and the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996. There were also mischaracterizations, for political reasons, of Mr. Ogden's record. We have already talked about how he is supported by the major police organizations in this country. Well, in addition to that, he has a general business practice, and before that he served in government. His work at the WilmerHale law firm over the past 8 years, for example, hasn't centered on first amendment litigation. He has represented corporate clients, from Amtrak to the Fireman's Fund. They also said that somehow Mr. Ogden took some position taken by Mr. Ogden's clients, who were America's librarians and booksellers. Rather, the Senate rejected the Clinton administration's interpretation, and Mr. Ogden made clear to the Judiciary Committee that he disagreed with that interpretation. In his testimony, he made clear that he is comfortable with the ruling of the Court and agreed with the Senate resolution. You can go on and on about some of these misstatements about Mr. Ogden's record, but let us look at what is going on here. As I mentioned before, the child protection community supports Mr. Ogden based on his strong record of protecting children. Now, I tend to believe the people who deal every day with helping families with missing children more than I believe some statement that is made in a political context. I will be honest with you, I tend to believe the Fraternal Order of Police when they give an endorsement more than I believe some statement made in a political context. Let me tell you this. Why is this so important? Why can we not go back and forth and back and forth and have all these political partisan attacks? Well, we need a Deputy Attorney General now. We need a Deputy Attorney General right now. The Department of Justice has more than 100,000 employees and a budget exceeding $25 billion. Every single Federal law enforcement officer reports to the Deputy Attorney General, including the FBI, the DEA, the ATF, the Bureau of Prisons, and all 93 U.S. Attorney's Offices. The Attorney General needs the other members of his Justice Department leadership team in place. Look what we are dealing with: the Madoff case and billions of dollars stolen. We are dealing with childcare cases. We are dealing with administering this $800 billion in money and making sure people aren't ripped off. We are dealing with murders and street crimes across this country. Yet people are trying to stop the Justice Department from operating? That can't happen. I want to end by saying I was a prosecutor for 8 years, and always my guiding principle was that you put the law above politics. That is what I am asking my colleagues to do here. We need to get David Ogden in as a Deputy Attorney General. Now is the time. Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 7 minutes.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, they want action. They want the truth. We literally can't afford to wait any longer to pass something. As President Obama recently said, the time for talk is over. The time for action is now. If we don't act, a bad situation will become dramatically worse. This is our time. This is our opportunity. Let's get this passed today. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I am honored to be here to speak in favor of the economic recovery plan. Yesterday we celebrated Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday. As I sat there and listened to the historians talk about Abraham Lincoln's life, there was one thing that stood out to me and that is the importance of timing. They talked about when he was there in those very dark days of the Civil War, that he had to make a decision. He had to make a decision about whether he was going to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves. He thought about it for awhile. He knew if he did it at one time, it would be too early, and if he waited too long, it would be bad. Finally, he signed it. The Historian said yesterday it is very possible that if he had done it 6 months earlier, we would have lost a number of States that wouldn't have been with us; and if he had done it 6 months later, we would have lost the momentum that propelled us forward to win the Civil War. It reminded me again that timing is everything and that timing matters. This is a time to take action with our economic crisis. This is the time. With each passing day, we get more bad news: another round of layoffs, dropping consumer confidence, increasing debt. Last month, we learned the United States had lost 598,000 jobs in just 1 month--the month of January. As the President pointed out, that is basically equivalent to the total number of jobs in the State of Maine. That happened in 1 month in the United States of America. In my home State of Minnesota, the unemployment rate rose to 6.9 percent last month. That is the highest it has been in 20 years. The national unemployment rate is now at 7.6 percent. It is across the board. Great companies in my State such as Target and Best Buy and Ameriprise are trying everything to do the right thing, but they still are having to lay off employees. Behind all these numbers and statistics are real families. They are not just a number, such as 598,000; they are real families, people whom I have spoken to across our State; moms and dads who put their kids to sleep and then sit at the kitchen table with their heads in their hands thinking: How are we going to make it? A woman wrote me saying she got a little inheritance from her father. She was going to use it for her daughter's wedding and now she had to spend it on her own retirement because it got blown in the stock market. As we prepare to vote on this bill, it is important to remember how we got there. Our economic crisis is a result of bad decisions on Wall Street, a result of greed, as well as the result of a failed economic policy for 8 years. There is a diner that used to be down the street from me in Minnesota. It was a motorcycle diner called Betty's Bikes and Buns. There would always be a bunch of motorcycles parked in front. There was a sign in the window that said: ``Betty's Bikes and Buns: Where lies become legends.'' Look at the past 8 years. We were told by the past administration they would create jobs. Just last month--the last month of the past administration--we lost 8,000 jobs. They told us they would restore fiscal responsibility. Well, we went from the largest budget surplus left by the Clinton administration to a record-high budget deficit left by the Bush administration. They told us they would reduce that deficit. They didn't do it. ``Where lies become legends.'' The people of this country in this last election said they had enough of lies, they had enough of legends, and they wanted to see change. They wanted to put a President in who was going to tell them the truth and not sugarcoat it, not make a bunch of promises and not keep them. If we are going to get out of this crisis, we are not going to be able to rely on the ideas that got us here, as some on the other side have argued. We need a new direction and that is what this bill offers. It is not a perfect bill, but it is the first step to jolting this economy back in the right direction. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will jump-start our economy in the near term by creating jobs, but it is also going to give the people of this country something to show for their money. The legislation provides economic assistance aimed directly at Main Street. It provides economic relief to working families, small businesses, and seniors. It gives critical support to States and communities so they can ensure a safety net for families hurt by the economic downturn, and it will save or create 3.5 million jobs. In my State of Minnesota, the projections are that this bill will create 66,000 jobs. A recent analysis concluded that the economic recovery bill could create as many as 91,000 jobs in Minnesota by 2010. Additionally, it will provide a tax cut to 95 percent of working families and offer additional unemployment benefits to so many of the people in our State who have lost their jobs. This legislation will put Americans back to work building bridges, building roads, building schools. That is what this legislation is about. The legislation invests $116 billion in infrastructure, in science, roads, bridges, highways, and transit systems. The Federal Highway Administration estimates that for every $1 billion of highway spending, it creates nearly 35,000 jobs. We know a little bit about the need to invest in infrastructure in my State. We had a bridge that fell down right in the middle of the Mississippi River, 6 blocks from my house. As I said that day, a bridge shouldn't fall down in the middle of America. Not a six-lane highway, not a bridge 6 blocks from my house, not a bridge that my daughter travels as she rides with me and my husband every day when we go to work or go visit our friends. It shouldn't have happened. The Federal Highway Administration estimates that more than 25 percent of the Nation's 600,000 bridges are either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. That is the good thing about this bill. It gives us immediate short-term jobs, as well as giving us something to show for it, so that years later, when this economy is running again, we will have the bridges that will take the goods to market, the good highways, and the good rail. This plan will also create jobs by investing $43 billion in homegrown renewable energy, creating new energy jobs across the country. As I have traveled across my State, I have seen the possibilities. I have seen the little solar panel factories. I have seen the wind turbine farms. When we had the information technology revolution--the IT revolution--it created jobs. A lot of those jobs were for people who had graduate degrees and Ph.D.s and they had to be in certain parts of the country. That is what is great about this energy technology revolution--the ET revolution. We have had experts testify before our environmental committee, and they have told us the ET revolution will create not just those Ph.D. jobs and those graduate student jobs, they will create jobs for working people, building those wind turbines, working on those solar panels, putting in those lines for that electricity grid. It is jobs across the demographic spectrum of this country. It is green-helmet jobs, not just Ph.D. jobs. Finally, I wish to highlight the $7 billion this plan contains for broadband for Internet and for telecommunications infrastructure. When President Roosevelt, back in 1935, looked at this country, he knew there was a problem. Only 12 percent of American farms had electricity. There we were in the middle of the Depression and only 12 percent of American farms had electricity. Now, what did he do? Did he put his head in the sand and say: Well, times are bad, we are not going to do anything? No. He said: Let's invest in some jobs, and let's invest in making things better for people so we can get this economy moving again. You know what. Fifteen years later because of rural electrification, we had about 75 percent of the farms with electricity. We went from 12 percent to 75 percent in 15 years. That is what Government action will do when it is done right. Focusing now on the present day, in so many counties in my State we have Internet service, but it is either too slow or too expensive. This country has gone from fourth in the industrialized world for Internet service subscribership to 15th in just 8 years. How are we going to compete with countries such as Japan and India if we are going downhill, if we are nosediving when it comes to Internet service? This bill puts over $7 billion in infrastructure for Internet. In these tough economic times, broadband Internet deployment creates jobs, not only direct creation of jobs in the technology sector but also the creation of even more indirect employment opportunities by increasing access to the Internet. I want these jobs to go to Thief River Falls, MN, or to Lanesboro, MN, instead of over to India and to Japan. I want them to be in our country. This recovery plan offers an economic one-two punch, including tax cuts that will promote more consumer and business spending by providing relief to middle-class families, small businesses, and seniors. Second, Federal spending that will create jobs and strengthen the economy with investments in transportation, renewable energy, and high-speed Internet. The American people are tired of the lies and legends of the last 8 years.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 30 more seconds.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I thank Chairwoman Mikulski and the Senator from Vermont. As we work toward economic recovery, ensuring the safety of America's communities is a critical component to economic stability and growth. Local governments across the country are facing extraordinary budget shortfalls necessitating cutbacks in services, programs, and personnel. I have heard from police in my State how drastically the substantial decline in Federal funding for State and local law enforcement has affected them. The financial situation in our country is dire and requires us to do everything we can to help our struggling police forces so they can protect our neighborhoods and communities. Apart from the program's benefit to community safety, the COPS Hiring Program has obvious and important economic value. All of the funding goes directly to pay the salaries of officers hired to work in police departments across the country. Moreover, many neighborhoods in inner cities and rural towns throughout America that were once crime-ridden and depressed have flourished in the nineties and in this decade, creating businesses, increasing value, and powering local economies. Maintaining a strong community police presence can allow us to protect these economic gains. With the rising unemployment rate and the foreseeable increase in crime, we cannot afford the continuing depletion of the ranks of our State and local law enforcement officers, nor can we ask them to operate without the resources needed to do the job effectively. Waiving the match requirement, as the House has done, will ensure that all States and localities will be able to afford and accept the COPS funding which is so badly needed. No city or State has been spared from this recession. I know the chairwoman and the Senator from Vermont understand the importance of ensuring the COPS funding is as accessible as possible and have witnessed the need in their own States as well.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I am honored to be here to speak out in favor of the economic recovery plan. Anyone in Minnesota can tell you that when it is 20 below, as it has been the last month, and your battery is dead and you need to get to work, your No. 1 priority is to get a jump-start right away, not stand around talking about it and debating and using the old ideas from the past. That is what this economic recovery plan is about, a jump-start. Yesterday, we learned that the U.S. economy lost another 598,000 jobs and the unemployment rate jumped to 7.6 percent. We lost more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs last month--the largest 1-month decline in 26 years. Since January of 2007, we have lost a staggering 1 million jobs in the construction industry. Industries across the board, from retail, to transportation, to financial services are shedding jobs. In my home State of Minnesota, the unemployment rate rose to 6.9 percent last month--the highest it has been in over 20 years. With each passing day we get more bad news: rounds of layoffs, dropping consumer confidence, and increasing debt. Behind all the statistics and numbers are real families in Minnesota. They are families I have met across our State--families like the woman who wrote to us, saying she had inherited a little bit of money and she was going to use it for her daughter's wedding, but it was all lost in the stock market; families like the one I met in Litchfield, MN, in a cafe, who said she was now working three jobs to be able to get her kids Christmas presents; families like the man's who wrote and said that when they put their daughters to bed, he and his wife sit at the kitchen table and put their heads in their hands because they don't know how they are going to make ends meet. On Thursday, the President told us: The time for talk is over. The time for action is now, because we know that if we don't act, a bad situation will become dramatically worse. The President called on us to take immediate action. That is what this economic recovery plan is about--a bipartisan group of Senators-- and, Mr. President, you and I were involved--who got together and said we need to get this done. I thank Senators Nelson and Collins for their hard work. It is not a perfect bill, and I don't agree with everything in it and with everything that came out, but literally we cannot afford to wait any longer to get something passed. At the core of this bill is jobs. This bill is about jobs, jobs, jobs. It will put Americans to work by rebuilding our roads, highways, and bridges, which have been neglected far too long. The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that for every $1 billion of highway spending, it creates nearly 48,000 new jobs and generates more than $2 billion in economic activity. In Minnesota, we know a little bit about the need for spending on infrastructure. I live six blocks from that big bridge that fell that day in the middle of the Mississippi River. My 13-year-old daughter-- who is up in the gallery today--and I would drive over that bridge every day when she would go to visit friends. One day, that bridge fell down and 13 people were killed. Many more were injured, and cars were in the middle of the river. It shocked America into realizing the situation with our declining infrastructure. According to the Federal Highway Administration, more than 25 percent of the Nation's 600,000 bridges are either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. In his 1963 memoir, ``Mandate for Change,'' President Eisenhower famously said that more than any single action by the Government since the end of the war, the one that would change the face of America is this: transportation--its impact on the American economy, the jobs it would produce in manufacturing, construction, and the rural areas it would open up is beyond calculation. He was right. That is why this economic recovery plan contains significant investment in infrastructure and science--in fact, $114 billion in infrastructure and science. Another piece of the plan I want to highlight is the emphasis on energy jobs. I spent the last few months traveling around my State. I can tell you what I have seen. I have seen the little telephone company in Sebeca, MN, that needed a backup power structure because power was going out for their customers. They put together a packet with small wind and solar, and they sold it to the people in their area. They have been selling like hotcakes. The windmills in Pipestone, MN, became so popular that they opened up a bed and breakfast. You can go and stay overnight with your wife and wake up in the morning and look at the wind turbine. That is the package. The point of this is that the people in our State see the value of these new energy jobs, whether it is a little solar panel factory in Starbuck, MN, or a big wind turbine manufacturing factory up in the Moorhead area. They see the value of new energy jobs. This energy technology revolution--or ET--is different than the information technology resolution--IT. When I saw the IT revolution, as big as it was, jobs tended to be segmented in certain areas such as the Silicon Valley, and they tended to be for people with graduate degrees and PhDs. This energy technology revolution will spread jobs across the country, in manufacturing jobs, green helmet jobs, and many other jobs for the people of this country. As Van Jones said, a guy who has written a book called ``The Green- Collar Economy,'' when you think about the green economy, you don't think about Buck Rogers; you think about ``Joe Sixpack'' putting on a green hardhat; you think about ``Rosie the Riveter.'' Just think about Rosie the Riveter manufacturing solar panels and wind turbines. This is President Obama's plan: jobs, jobs, jobs. Finally, this plan contains money, significant money for broadband and telecommunications infrastructure--$7 billion. When President Roosevelt said he was going to put rural electrification in place in 1935, we only had 12 percent of American farms with electricity. About 15 years later, 75 percent of the farms had electricity. That is what Government action can do. Look at broadband. We have gone from fourth in the world to 15th. This is not the kind of progress that will keep our country moving and get us back on track. For broadband, there is $7 billion in this bill. I ask my colleagues to support this important legislation. It is about jobs, jobs, jobs. It is time to get America moving again. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I thank the chairman. I thank him for his good work on this legislation. I have come to the floor to ask that the pending amendment be set aside, and I ask for consideration of my amendment No. 201, which I have at the desk.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today in strong opposition to Senator Grassley's amendment, which removes the targeted assistance for the temporary increase in Federal Medicaid funding contained in this bill. It is well established that Medicaid enrollment increases in direct relation to unemployment growth. For every percentage increase in unemployment, States see an additional 1 million people seeking Medicaid assistance. I find it deeply troubling that at a point when health care is most needed, Minnesota and other States will not be given the assistance the situation demands. By eliminating the portion of assistance that is targeted based on States' unemployment rates, Senator Grassley's amendment would significantly reduce assistance for States facing the largest increases in their unemployment rates and the largest budget deficits. Instead of providing aid to those who need it most, his amendment provides relief for States that are, in some cases, even enjoying a budget surplus. Nineteen of the 20 States facing the smallest increase in unemployment would get more assistance under this amendment. Is that an effective use of Federal money? At a time when we should be focusing all our efforts on ways we can best spend taxpayer dollars, sending aid to States that have less need doesn't make sense. I ask my colleagues to consider this. This is about accountability to the people of this country. This is about targeted assistance. We have heard a lot about targeting spending, putting spending where we need it. This is also about targeted assistance to the States that need it most. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, despite the objection, I hope to have the opportunity later in the day to include this important amendment in the bill. This amendment is cosponsored by Senator Bennett, Senator Hatch, and Senator Kohl. I first note that my amendment doesn't cost anything. It doesn't add any money to this bill. In fact, it saves money in the long term. My amendment represents a bipartisan effort to strengthen an important part of the bill, which is the health information technology part of the bill. As we know, technology has transformed our country. I am encouraged that this legislation we are working on would develop a national health information technology system and create over 200,000 new jobs doing it. If implemented thoughtfully, health information technology has the potential to reduce waste, rein in costs, stimulate innovation, and improve quality. As you know, Mr. President, Minnesota is a leader in the health care community across this country, with the Mayo Clinic and countless other hospitals and clinics in our State. We have been recognized for the measured quality outcomes that have resulted from effective information technology implementation. So we know what we are doing in Minnesota. In this bill, there are, as I mentioned, very good provisions for the development of health information technology. There are also some privacy provisions, which are necessary and which I support. We recently had a hearing on these provisions in the Judiciary Committee. Out of that hearing came this amendment. One of the things we recognized was that one of the privacy provisions, which is well- meaning, would have the effect of making it hard to collect data to improve the quality of care, which is something Mayo Clinic does so well. One example: You will save $50 billion in 4 years in this country in taxpayer Medicare spending if every hospital used the protocol Mayo Clinic has used for the last 4 years for chronically ill patients. The reason they can do that is they collect data, so they know what the protocol should be. My amendment ensures that the quality assessment research necessary to improving our health care system is preserved. As the bill currently stands, all forms of health care operations are subject to regulations to be put forth by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. These regulations have the potential to impose varying levels of restriction on the ability of doctors and nurses to share information. While I support requiring authorization and the use of de- identifiable data in many areas of the health care system, subjecting quality assessment activities to these regulations has the potential to limit patient care and clinic research. That is the last thing we want to do now, as we are looking at collecting that information to spread these protocols across the country to get better assessments of what high-quality care means. That is why Senator Hatch and Senator Bennett are cosponsoring this amendment with me. I also note that this is supported by the American Hospital Association, as well as the Association of Medical Colleges. With the United States spending $2.3 trillion per year on health care, we must bring an end to the inefficiencies of the system. We need the information--well-intentioned in the bill--but we must make sure the work going on to share information continues. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I thank the Senator from Vermont. I rise today in support of Eric Holder to be the next Attorney General of the United States. The next Attorney General will need to hit the ground running, from beefing up civil rights and antitrust enforcement to addressing white- collar crime and drug-related violence, to helping keep our country safe from terrorist attacks. As I told the Judiciary Committee last week when I voted in favor of his nomination, Eric Holder is the right man to do the job. He is the right man to lead the Department of Justice at this critical time. And most importantly, coming from a State that had our own share of problems with a political appointee put in place as U.S. Attorney, he is the right man to get the Department back on course, to put the law first, when it comes to the Department of Justice. First, as I look at the reasons why I am supporting his confirmation, at a key time in our Nation's history, where we deal with terrorist acts not contemplated in simpler times--from cyber battlefields to sophisticated crimes, from market manipulation to financial fraud--Eric Holder has a clear command of the legal issues confronting our country. That was apparent in the discussions that took place during the nomination hearing. There were a number of Senators, particularly those on the other side of the aisle, who had some very good questions. When you listened to the discussion Eric Holder had with Senator Kyl regarding some of the ongoing foreign intelligence issues, from multipoint wiretap authority to lone-wolf surveillance authority, it was obvious that Eric Holder knew what he was talking about. He was convincing to Senator Kyl as they discussed this. The discussions he had with Senators Hatch and Feingold regarding executive power and congressional authority and the important back and forth with Senators Sessions, Graham, and Feinstein regarding terrorism cases, regarding the unique nature of those cases, regarding the issues facing our agents and soldiers in the field and the prosecution of detainees, despite what we recently heard from my colleague from Texas, it is no surprise to me that after hearing Eric Holder's command of the law and the issues facing the country, the vote on the committee was overwhelming. The vote was 17 to 2. So many of my Republican colleagues who earlier had expressed concerns about Eric Holder ended up supporting him and voting for him and asking that he be the next Attorney General. The second reason I am glad to support Eric Holder is he is committed to the bread-and-butter work of the Justice Department. As Chairman Leahy noted, before I came to the Senate I was a prosecutor for 8 years. I ran an office of 400 people. I had some sense of the importance of going after not only the big crimes but also the little crimes. Eric Holder was a pioneer in this area when he was U.S. attorney and established a community prosecution initiative. It is built on the idea of community policing. It goes back to the basics. The idea is instead of a prosecutor sitting in the office looking at a bunch of files, none with any relation to the neighborhood we are supposed to protect, the prosecutor is assigned to a certain area to work with the same police, to work with the same neighborhood groups. While there may be some crimes committed in the government centers in this country, for the most part they are not. This idea of community prosecution connects what goes on in those four walls of the government centers, in those four squares of the centers to the neighborhoods out in the field, to the people out in the field. When we did this in Hennepin County by assigning prosecutors by geographic area to work directly with a set group of police and neighborhood groups, we got better results for liveability crimes. We got stronger sentences, and we saw a 120-percent reduction in crime. Again, Eric Holder, when he was U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia, which involves not just doing U.S. attorney type prosecution but also the bread-and-butter work of prosecutions in the District because of its unique nature, he was one of the pioneers for community prosecution. It shows his command and explains why he has so much support from law enforcement. I remember actually during this time we had a visit--this is way back, years ago--from a Presidential candidate to one of our suburban areas. I said to one of the police officers: Do you want to meet this person? He said: Well, not really. I want to know if Terry Froling is here. She was our community prosecutor we had assigned to that suburb of Bloomington, MN, whom he had gotten to know and respect. It brought home to me again how important this program was. You can see the faith that law enforcement has put on Eric Holder by the number of bipartisan endorsements he has received. You also see the endorsements of Republican-appointed prosecutors such as my law school classmate Jim Comey. That means a lot to me, and it should mean a lot to Members of the Senate. Third, Eric Holder is a humble person who is willing to admit mistakes. From my brief 2 years here, we need a little bit more of that in Washington. As a former prosecutor, I am not a big fan of pardons. I told this to Mr. Holder. But anyone who has worked in the criminal justice system, whether as a police officer or prosecutor or a public defender or a judge, anyone who has worked in the system for any length of time knows that people make mistakes. For 8 years, when I managed our office, I saw the gut-wrenching decisions--and I had to make some myself--that the people have to make on the frontline. From the momentary decisions that police officers need to make at a fast-moving crime scene, whether to shoot, whether to knock down a door, to the decisions prosecutors need to make about whether to call a certain witness or whether to plea down a case when the case is falling apart and they know their own hope to get someone off the street they consider dangerous is to accept that plea--those are the tough decisions that may not make good television, but they are the true decisions that prosecutors need to make every day. If you want someone with experience for this job, they are going to have made some decisions you don't like or that I don't like. There is absolutely no doubt about it. People who are in this field have to make literally dozens of decisions a day. They are going to make some decisions you don't like. They will have made some mistakes. I am glad they were discussed and brought up at the nomination hearing and glad that so many of my committee colleagues actually took the time to listen to the nominee. He explained that one thing was a mistake, that he wouldn't have made that decision if he had more information. He admitted that, and we were able to question him at length. He explained some things that he still supported that they didn't agree with or that the times had changed and they had more information and there is reason they didn't agree with it now. Those discussions were had and he was candid. What we have learned from that committee hearing is that in the end, so many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle looked at this man as a whole, and they decided that as a whole his experience, while there may have been flaws in his experience, led them to support him for this job, which leads to my last reason. Eric Holder's background is, first, as a prosecutor in the field. But just as importantly, it is also as a sound, solid, competent manager who is guided by justice, someone who will lead quietly but firmly, someone who will work to build the morale of a department that has suffered for too long. As I mentioned, I saw it in my own State when one bad decision made up on high, when the Attorney General was Alberto Gonzales, putting an inexperienced political appointee into the top spot of a gem of a U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota, created absolute havoc in our State and in that office. I had worked with that office for years. I know the people who work there. I know how high quality they are. That one decision wreaked havoc in that office. Thanks to General Mukasey, that office is now steady. I appreciate how he consulted with me about the replacement for that job. I also appreciate how our State's acting U.S. Attorney Frank Magill has skillfully guided the office through a difficult time and restored morale. But that experience with the U.S. Attorney's Office in my State has brought home to me the importance of having an Attorney General who puts the law and not politics at the helm of the Department of Justice. As former Attorney General Dick Thornburg said, Attorney General for Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush: The next Attorney General will need to restore the image of the Department of Justice as a nonpartisan organization dedicated to the rule of law. I couldn't agree more. We need to put justice and the law at the helm. I support the Holder nomination to be Attorney General because I believe Eric Holder can steer this big ship and get it back on course and put justice at the helm. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I am proud to join with Senator Mikulski and so many others in calling for the Senate to take up and pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and to do it as soon as possible. Many here have told Lilly Ledbetter's story, so I am not going to go through it again. But I will tell you, sometimes when you get to know someone, as I have gotten to know Lilly Ledbetter as a person, it means more to you. It is like when someone is arguing against a change in the law, and they suddenly find it happens to their own wife or their own daughter, they start to feel a little differently about it. So that is why I believe it is very important to do this and to make this as simple as possible and as easy as possible in order to make sure there is not discrimination in the workplace, because it is a sad reality, that still, 88 years after the 19th amendment gave women equal voting power, and 45 years after the passage of the Equal Pay Act, it still takes women 16 months to earn what men can earn in 12 months. I have been listening to some of the arguments made today. I was picturing what would happen if, in fact, that Supreme Court decision stayed in place, which basically said that you are supposed to somehow figure out you are being discriminated against. It says it doesn't matter if you knew or not. If it happens, you have to sue right away. I was thinking how that would work in reality, how you are supposed to find out and how Lilly Ledbetter was supposed to find out. It would be as if Senator Menendez and I worked in the same company and we were doing the same job and both doing it well and he was paid more than I was. How would you know that, if you are an employee at a workplace? Are you supposed to start snooping through their paychecks and opening them and trying to figure out how much he is paid? I don't think a normal person would do that. Are you supposed to start getting to know the people who work around him to find out how much money he makes, see if he told anyone, start asking around about your fellow employee? This doesn't make sense in the real world workplace, and it certainly, as has been pointed out, is not consistent with 40 years of law in this area. Today we have before us the Hutchison amendment. I appreciate the work of Senator Hutchison in so many areas, how the women of the Senate work on a bipartisan basis, but I believe in the end this amendment is wrong. What this amendment basically says is you are not going to be able to bring any kind of claim of discrimination, even a valid one, without having to go through a bunch of hoops and dot a bunch of I's and cross a bunch of T's that is very hard to do. Again, if you want to make sure this discrimination doesn't take place, make it a clear rule, make it a bright-line rule, as we do in so many other employment cases. Under the Hutchison amendment, our workers are subject to that Supreme Court decision in Ledbetter, unless they can prove they had no reason to suspect that their employer was discriminating against them. Again, I believe this is done for good motives, in the spirit of some kind of compromise. But, again, I try to look at the real world and think: How would you be able to prove this? Maybe things happen in the real world, maybe one of your work colleagues--if Senator Menendez and I were working in the same factory and maybe someone else, maybe you, the Presiding Officer, also worked there and maybe sometime at a coffee break you said: You know, I think he is making more money than you are, and it goes away and nobody talks about it. Would that be enough? Would that be enough to show a suspicion that you thought you were being discriminated against, that he was making more money? What if he bought a new car, a nice new car. He is driving around in that nice car and people are starting to think: I wonder if he got a raise. Is that a suspicion that he is making more money? What if you just think he is making more money and you tell one person on the phone, but you don't know for sure? When you start thinking this through, you realize why this standard, this ``reasonable suspicion'' standard, doesn't appear in our employment statutes. It is because it is simply unworkable as a standard, despite the good motivation to try to come up with some understanding, some kind of compromise. It doesn't make any sense. It is based on rumor. I believe there are enough rumors around this place without starting to put them into law. A rumor starts somewhere. It changes someplace else. By the time it comes back to you, it is totally different, and I would rather not write rumors and suspicions into the law. I prefer a bright-line rule. As has also been mentioned by some of my colleagues, we have not seen this unfair rush of litigation under the existing law. In fact, under this, if you have suspicions, it would force you to try to rush to file your claim. I think a good argument could be made--we don't know for sure, but a good argument could be made it would actually lead to more claims. This idea that it would force a worker, put the burden on the worker to spend time and money trying to meet this complicated standard that does not appear anywhere else in the law deprives employers and employees of a clear bright-line rule for determining the timeliness of claims. I know from my work in the private sector for 13 years, people prefer bright-line rules. It makes it easier for everyone. One of the arguments made is that somehow this would allow some raving employee, some mad employee to go back--they would simply hide their case so no one would know about it so they could keep getting backpay. This argument defies the actual rules. What are the actual rules? It says you can go back for only 2 years. Look what happened in the Lilly Ledbetter case. She went to her trial. The jury awarded her a big amount, but then it had to be reduced because the law acknowledged this, the argument made of the difficulty, and said you can only go back for 2 years. The law also has caps on damages for major employers. I think it is something like $300,000. There are caps. There are look- back rules that get to the argument that was made here. You can see it right in the Ledbetter case, if you do not believe me. The money was reduced because of those rules that are in place. Why suddenly we would put in a standard that we do not have in the law today, when, in fact, we have that 2-year backpay rule to protect against exactly the arguments that were being made, and we have caps in place? The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is the only bill that gives employees the time to consider how they have been treated and try to work out solutions with their employers. That often happens. We encourage that. We would like that to happen. You don't want everyone running into court. It fulfills Congress's goals, creating incentives for employers to voluntarily correct any disparity in pay they find, and it ensures that employers do not benefit from continued discrimination. That is all it does. It is simple. Let me tell you a little story from the State of Minnesota to end here, why I care about this so much. That is that my grandpa was a miner up in northern Minnesota. He worked hard his whole life. He never graduated from high school, saved money in a coffee can to send my dad to college. He worked hard in those mines. It was a rough-and-tumble world up in the mines of northern Minnesota. In the mine next door to where my grandpa worked, there were a number of women--decades later, after my grandpa worked there--who started working in the mines. It was not an easy life. If anyone has seen the movie ``North Country,'' that was the basis of the movie. It happened in the mines. My relatives were right next door. The women there were discriminated against. I am not sure of all the details. Maybe some of it was pay, but some of it was just discriminatory treatment. It went on and on. It was an example, if you have seen that movie, of how difficult it was for them to get the gumption to stand and finally file suit because they liked these guys. They were their coworkers. They worked with them. They wanted to fit in and they tried so hard. Eventually, they brought a lawsuit, but it took time for them to be able, in that hard, rough-and-tumble world of those iron ore mines, to bring that lawsuit. They eventually did and they eventually won that suit at great personal sacrifice to them, as documented in that movie, ``North Country.'' Things changed as a result of that lawsuit at the mines. It was not a popular thing they did. It is not even popular right now. But things changed in those mines. When I ran for the Senate, the first endorsement I got was from the United Steelworkers. The guy who gave it to me was the guy who was the union steward, the same guy, Stan Daniels, at that mine at that time, that was the subject of the lawsuit. I got elected the first woman Senator from Minnesota. The world changes. That is why this bill is so important, to maintain that right of workers. I know in my State there is lots of the discriminatory treatment going. The world changes as people realize and understand the law and employers are educated on the law, but we still need that safety valve in place. We still need those protections in place so workers can get paid fair pay for what they do. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I am so honored to be here with my friend, Ken Salazar. When I think about Ken Salazar, I think about Ken Salazar in Colorado in his beautiful mountains, and I think of the idea of him going to be the head of the Department of the Interior is something that is a gift to this country. But I wish to tell one story about Ken. He and I were in Colorado together, out there for Barack Obama, and they had a big RV with the President-elect's picture on it. And Ken Salazar is the only Senator who would insist on driving the RV on his own. He did it in style, with his big cowboy hat on. There we were, in the middle of the mountains on this winding road, when all of a sudden we see flashing lights behind us. Sure enough, we were being pulled over. There were 20 people in this RV and a caravan of media behind us. Ken was as calm as he could be. He pulled over to the side of the road, the deputy comes up--with his big cowboy hat on--and Ken rolls down the window and says: Can I help you? Of course, we think he is getting a ticket for speeding, and he was ready to accept whatever this was. But the deputy says: Sir, your license tabs are in the wrong corner. And so Ken said: Oh, so sorry. And he gets out with this deputy looking on and with the caravan of media behind with all the cameras, and a press guy yelling: This is off the record. So Ken's picture is there in the Denver Post trying to change his license tabs around the corners. But it was Ken Salazar who wanted to have that moment and that freedom of driving through the mountains of Colorado at whatever the cost, and he will be a true tribute to his home State and to this country. I am taking over the Prayer Breakfast from Ken, and I have seen firsthand his great faith in God but also the faith he has in his family, whom I see here, and the people of this country. We are all very lucky to have him, though we will miss him as a mentor and friend in the Senate.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Thank you very much, Mr. President. I thank the Senator from Maryland for her great leadership and her tenacity with this bill from the very beginning. She is wearing red for a reason: That is the color to get this done. I will always remember this bill by Senator Mikulski taking to the floor the last time we came so close to passing it, when she said to the women of America: Suit up, square your shoulders, put your lipstick on. We are ready for a revolution. I also enjoyed hearing the comments from my colleague from Washington. I thought the analogy to the identity theft case was on point, where sometimes people have a wrong done to them--whether it is discrimination or whether it is identity theft--and it is literally impossible for them to know what happened until sometimes years later. That is what happened to Lilly Ledbetter. I am proud to join Senator Mikulski and my fellow women Senators and fellow Democrats and others who are here today to call for the Senate to take up and pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act. The timing of the vote on this legislation, which is tomorrow, could not be more appropriate. We all know our Nation is in the midst of a financial and economic crisis of historic proportions, with Americans facing record job losses and the largest loss of wealth since the Great Depression. We know working families and women are bearing the brunt of this crisis. Since 2000--these figures are actually before we had, literally, this meltdown in the last few months--but since 2000--even without those figures--the average family income in America has gone down $1,175 per year when adjusted for inflation. At the same time, the average family's expenses have gone up $4,500 per year. This includes higher mortgage payments, higher phone costs, higher gas prices, higher heating costs, and higher health insurance costs. So the bottom line is the average middle-class family has suffered a net annual income loss of something like $5,500 a year, and that is not even including all the losses to the 401(k) funds and the pension funds, all the losses because of the expenses of childcare, and everything that has been going on in the last few months. These are not just statistics. I saw this when I was home over December. I saw it in the eyes of a woman at a cafe near Litchfield, MN, who called me over to her table and said she was taking a break at her job being a waitress and she was now doing three jobs. She had just had her hours cut back at the third job, and that was the extra money she was going to use to buy her grandkids Christmas presents. We have received letters in our office, such as the one we received from parents who said they would put their three daughters to bed and then just go sit at the kitchen table and put their heads in their hands and think: How are we going to make it? There is the woman who wrote to us and said she had received a small amount of inheritance from her father, and she planned to use it for her daughter's wedding, but she was now using it to pay for her own retirement because her 401(k) and her retirement funds had decreased so dramatically. These are stories of women, real women, in Minnesota. No one has felt the impact of this economic downturn--the loss in income and the rising costs--more than the working women in America. It is often said that things have changed a lot for women in this country, and they have. It was not too long ago that we did not have the right to vote. It was not too long ago that my colleague from Maryland, Senator Mikulski, was the only woman in this Chamber. Now we have 17 of us. And it was not too long ago that I was kicked out of public fourth grade for wearing bellbottom pants to school by Mrs. Quady. I went home and changed and returned without missing much of my classes--a true story. It is a sad reality that--88 years after the 19th amendment gave women equal voting power, and 45 years after the passage of the Equal Pay Act--it still takes women 16 months to earn what men can earn in 12 months. When I travel around my State and talk to the women in my State, I find these women are not simply looking for a handout or preferential treatment. All they are asking for is a fair and equal chance to make a fair and decent living. That is why it is so important the Senate take up the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act on the Senate floor this week. This important legislation will reverse a 2007 Supreme Court ruling-- Ledbetter v. Goodyear--that significantly limited the rights of individuals to sue for gender-based discrimination. The facts that gave rise to Lilly Ledbetter's case have been told, but I think they should be told again. She was a hard worker. People can picture her right now. I have met her many times. She is a delightful person. She worked at Goodyear Tire as a manager for 20 years. When she started, all the employees at the manager level started at the same pay. She knew she was getting the same pay as the men doing the same job. But early in her tenure as manager, the company went to a ``merit-based'' pay system. Payment records were kept confidential, as they are in many companies, and Lilly did not think to ask what her male colleagues were making. She was happy to be a manager. She did not think to look at her pay raise and to ask if the men in the department were getting the same pay the day the paychecks came out. I do not think many people think about running around and asking their colleagues if they are getting the same amount of money for the same work. As the years passed by, the pay differential between what she made and what the male managers were making just kept getting bigger. It was only after getting an anonymous note from a coworker telling her she was not paid as much as the male managers that she finally realized what was happening. Soon after getting that note, she filed a legal complaint. But that was many years after the discrimination began. At trial, Lilly Ledbetter was easily able to prove discrimination. She could show what she did, she could show what the men did, and she could show the difference in pay. In fact, the jury found that sex discrimination accounted for a pay differential of as great as 25 percent between Lilly and her male counterparts. You can think about how that adds up over 20 years of working. However, Goodyear appealed the jury's ruling, and the Supreme Court, in a 5-to-4 decision, decided that Lilly filed her case too late. Essentially, they ruled she would have had to have filed within 180 days of Goodyear making its first discriminatory act. Now, you ask, how would she have known this unless she was nosey and going around trying to look at people's paychecks? But this, as absurd as it sounds, is what the Court said. Although the Court's decision completely ignores the realities of the workplace--that employee records are confidential and there is no reasonable way to know when discrimination starts--we now have an opportunity to bring the realities to light. We should pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and allow a claim to be filed as long as the paychecks reflecting discrimination continue to be issued. In doing so, we will restore the original intent of the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Pay Act. Women cannot be expected to challenge practices they do not know are happening. By passing this law, women will be able to take those 4 months back, those extra months it takes them to catch up with their male counterparts. This legislation is critical in the fight for equality for women in the workplace, but there is still a long way to go. I am honored to be the first woman elected to the Senate from the State of Minnesota. Today, I am humbled to work with my women colleagues in the Senate in this effort to advance equality for women across the country. Last week, we welcomed two new women to the Senate, and I see one of them in the Chamber--my colleague from New Hampshire, Senator Shaheen-- bringing our current total to 17, although our dear friend and champion on these issues, Senator Clinton, will soon be leaving us. Passing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act would be a fitting sendoff to Senator Clinton who has dedicated her life to working toward equality for women. It would also be a fitting tribute to Senator Mikulski in her cry to square up your shoulders, suit up, put your lipstick on, and get this bill passed. And it would be a great tribute to Senator Kennedy. If he were on the Senate floor with us at this moment, I know he, too, would be saying: Get this done, pass this legislation--in his booming voice. So I implore my colleagues--for Senator Clinton, for Senator Kennedy, for Senator Mikulski, but, most importantly, for the working women of America--that we pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I ask unanimous consent that John Branscome, a detailee in my office, be granted the privileges of the floor for the duration of today's session.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, we all know the American economy is in a challenged state. That is a nice way of putting it. I spent about a week in December traveling around my State visiting 22 counties, meeting with people who had been working three jobs, had their hours reduced, were afraid they weren't going to be able to buy their grandkids Christmas presents. Letters coming to my office included a woman who said she inherited a small amount of money from her dad. She thought that would go to her daughter's wedding, but instead it was used to pay for her retirement because she had lost so much money from her retirement funds. We heard stories of a man and his wife who would put their daughters to bed at night and gather at the kitchen table, shaking their heads and wondering how they were going to make it. Those were the comments I heard when I was home in Minnesota in December. I also saw some optimism and hope as I traveled the State and saw the growing energy economy and heard the enthusiasm for our new President- elect. Obviously, there was frustration with what has been going on with this administration for the past 8 years and how they have not had a forward-thinking plan for the economy. People have hope that is going to change. I can tell there is widespread interest in the economic stimulus package proposed by the new President. There is widespread interest in my State for infrastructure spending, for the energy jobs. One thing I believe we need to devote some specific time to in the next few weeks-- and I know the new President is interested in this--is the idea of looking not only at roads and bridges and infrastructure but to look at technological infrastructure, to figure out why we have had trouble competing with countries around the world. When one talks to people in Park Rapids, MN, who go maybe a mile out of town, they can't get on the Internet or it costs them $700 a month if they are going to do satellite, or they can be stuck with dial-up that is so slow they can hardly use it, you get to understand the need for better technological infrastructure. What I finally figured out, after this 22-county tour--I had been trying to figure out why some companies say they are offering Internet service. I finally figured out what the problem is. In many parts of my State, they may have Internet service, but it is either much too slow or much too expensive. As a country we have ensured that every American has access to telephone service and electricity regardless of economic status. We must now do the same for broadband Internet access. Broadband not only creates educational and health care opportunities, it can create opportunities for businesses and employment that would otherwise not exist in rural communities. In these tough economic times, broadband deployment creates jobs--not only the direct creation of jobs in the tech sector but also the creation of even more indirect employment opportunities by increasing access to broadband. After visiting 22 of Minnesota's counties, I convened a Broadband Roundtable in my State on December 29. I heard firsthand from people about the importance of making sure they have access to fast and affordable broadband. We have had success stories in our State, as well. One story I heard when I was out in a small town in Minnesota-- Sebeka--they began diversifying early into cutting-edge technologies, including fiber optic infrastructure, digital telephone switching, cable and satellite TV, broadband Internet service to 100 percent of their customers. They have a very high percentage--I think 70 to 80 percent--of people who are actually purchasing this high-speed Internet in a very small town in a remote area of Minnesota. The government of Carver County, MN, is leading a collaborative effort to interconnect county facilities with cities, school districts, townships, and other entities in the development of high-speed communications. Through a number of funding and technical assistance programs, Minnesota's Blandin Foundation's Broadband Initiative has worked in rural Minnesota communities to educate community leaders and to get these partnerships started. Despite these local success stories, however, much more needs to be done. The overall reality is America has become an international laggard on broadband. In 2000, the United States ranked 4th among 30 nations surveyed in broadband subscribership, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Today, the United States is 15th on the list. So in the last 8 years, we have gone from 4th in the world to 15th in the world. That is not the kind of progress that is going to keep this country moving and get us back on track. According to the International Telecommunications Union, the United States is now perched as 24th in the world in broadband penetration. Canada has a higher level of broadband penetration and digital opportunity than we do. Broadband adoption in the United States does continue to grow--from 47 percent of homes in March 2007 to 55 percent in April 2008. But the figure is significantly lower for those living in rural America: only 38 percent. Of course, we have to consider more than just access, as I noted earlier. We need to look at speed. We need to look at speed if we are going to compete with countries such as India and Japan. So we have work ahead of us. All of us understand broadband is a critical infrastructure for the 21st century. By one estimate--to give you a sense of what we are talking about, jobs--every 1 percentage point increase in broadband penetration per year would lead to the creation of nearly 300,000 new jobs. That is why it is essential that all communities, including our rural communities, have the opportunity to take advantage of the opportunities offered by this 21st-century infrastructure. I want these jobs in my State going to Thief River Falls or Lanesboro or Crookston instead of going off to other countries such as Japan and India. It is that simple. I want these jobs to stay in the United States. We have seen the challenge before to make sure our rural communities are not left behind as technology develops. For example, there are still many Americans who can remember growing up in homes with no electricity and no telephone service. In 1935, about 80 percent of all homes and towns and cities in the United States had electricity, but fewer than 12 percent of farms in America had electricity, and only about 25 percent had telephone service, which was often unreliable. In 1935, President Roosevelt created the Rural Electrification Administration, REA. The REA helped organize and support farmer-owned electric cooperatives to bring electricity to farms. By 1949--this was from 1935 to 1949--more than three-quarters of all farms in America had electricity. So with those standards that were put in place, it went from 12 percent to 75 percent. That is an amazing achievement during a time of crisis because people believed you could get this done. The penetration of telephone service actually took longer. In 1949, only 36 percent of America's farms had telephone service. That year, a telephone amendment was added to the Rural Electrification Act, which made loan funds available to finance rural telephone systems. In just a little more than a decade, nearly 80 percent of farms had telephone service. Even much of our modern transportation infrastructure--including paved roads and steel and concrete bridges--has come into existence only in the past 70 years, thanks to both the New Deal and President Eisenhower's Interstate Highway Program. Our broadband infrastructure presents us with the same challenge to make sure no one is left behind. President-elect Obama understands that broadband must now be considered a basic part of our national infrastructure. He also understands that investment in our broadband infrastructure is essential to our long-term prosperity. A few weeks ago, in a weekly address, President-elect Obama announced that a key part of his economic recovery plan would involve increasing broadband deployment and adoption, saying: It is unacceptable that the United States ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption. On Monday of this week, I sent a letter to the President-elect applauding his efforts to include investment in our Nation's information infrastructure as part of an economic stimulus package. I also asked that he consider these partnerships that we have seen work so well in our State, and that matching grants on the Federal level to work with the local communities would be one way to spur broadband development. I finally asked him to look at the fact that this is not just about communities that have no access, it is also about communities that have bad access or slow access or too expensive access. If we really want to get the broadband infrastructure in place, we have to make it work for everyone, just as what Dwight D. Eisenhower did with the highway system in the 1950s, and just as President Roosevelt did with rural electrification in the 1930s and 1940s. I believe any economic stimulus package must include mechanisms designed to bring affordable and fast broadband to this country. An economic stimulus package should fully fund the Broadband Data Improvement Act, which I cosponsored and which passed last Congress. Any economic stimulus package, as I mentioned, must also fund matching grants for community-level partnerships that demonstrate strong cooperation among local governments, businesses, schools, health care, and others. Finally, one aspect of the Nation's information infrastructure that may continue to elude us absent some type of Federal involvement is the creation of an advanced, interoperable communications network for public safety. I still remember hearing when one of our police officers was shot and killed in St. Paul, MN, how those who were trying to apprehend the person, the murderer in this case, were trying to communicate. When they were up in the helicopter, they literally had to have multiple walkie talkies and telephones, sometimes six or seven, to try to match up with all the phone systems that were in use across the area. Well, since then we have had improvements in the large metropolitan area of the Twin Cities in our interoperability, but we do not have that kind of matching and that kind of cooperation in the rural parts of our State, nor do we have it across the country. The first responsibility of government is to protect its citizens. The fact that our Nation's police, fire, and other first responders, including those in our rural areas, still do not have access to such a network more than 7 years after the tragic events of September 11 is simply unacceptable. I believe consideration of this issue in the context of broadband stimulus measures may present the best chance to address this continuing problem. I join the President-elect and so many in this Senate in calling for 21st-century technology to create jobs and help our economy be more robust and competitive in the long term. This is about creating immediate jobs, and we can get that with technological infrastructure. But it is also about creating jobs in a way that leaves us with something that will actually move this economy forward. This technological infrastructure, whether it be the electricity grid or whether it be the broadband I have spoken about today, is really our rural electrification. It is our interstate highway program. It is our generation's chance to build this infrastructure in a way that will fit the changing needs of this country and allow us to compete on the world stage. Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

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