Amy Klobuchar

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I rise to speak about H.R. 3999, which is the companion bill to the bill that Senator Durbin and I introduced in the Senate about bridges and bridge repair. Senator Boxer today asked that this bill be called up. It successfully was passed through our committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee. She asked that the bill be called up because, obviously, we are in the waning days of the session, and we believed this was an incredibly important bill for this country. Unfortunately, the other side blocked this bill; they would not allow this bill to be heard. I would like to make some comments about the objection from the other side to this bill. I do not understand it. I think everyone knows what happened in Minnesota. On August 1, our Nation was shocked to learn that this eight-lane highway in the middle of Minnesota, the I-35W bridge, collapsed. I have said many times after that terrible day that a bridge should not fall down in the middle of America, not a bridge that is an eight-lane freeway, not a bridge that is six blocks from my house, not a bridge that I drive my 13-year-old daughter over every day. Now, as you know, there has been great progress in rebuilding that bridge. In fact, we have a new bridge. That bridge opened about a week ago, and that new bridge spans the river. We are very proud of the workers who worked on that bridge. But it is also a spot of great sadness as we remember the 13 people who died, the 50-some people who were injured, the 100-some cars that went into the river, and all of the rescue workers who saved so many lives. We must still get to the bottom of why this enormous bridge fell into the middle of the Mississippi River. It did not happen because of an earthquake or a barge collision; something went terribly wrong. We need to get the answer. Evidence is accumulating that the bridge's condition had been deteriorating for years, and that it had been a subject of growing concern with the Minnesota Department of Transportation. This was not a bridge over troubled waters; this was a troubled bridge over waters. Still, as a former prosecutor, like the Presiding Officer, I know we must wait until all of the facts and evidence are in before we reach a verdict. We will need to be patient as the investigation continues. Mark Rosenker, the Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said last month that the NTSB investigation is nearing completion, that a final report should be ready for public release very soon. The chairman also said that photographs of the gusset plate, which were a half inch thick and warped, were stressed by the weight of the bridge and may have been a key indicator to the dangerous state of the I-35W bridge. Now we know that this was most likely a design defect in the bridge, but the Chairman has said recently that these photographs show that there were some visible problems. So we will await the report to see what the NTSB thinks about that. But clearly there was some indication that there were problems with this bridge. Finally, the bridge collapse in Minnesota has shown that America needs to come to grips with the broader question about our deteriorating infrastructure. The Minnesota bridge disaster shocked Americans into realizing how important it is to have a safe, sound infrastructure. Because we also have learned that another bridge in our State, and I think you have seen this across the country, had a similar design. We have actually looked at all of our bridges in Minnesota. We have another bridge that is also closed down in the middle of St. Cloud, MN, a midsized city. This bridge has been closed down. And we look all over the country and we have problems with our 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. Unfortunately, it took a disaster such as the bridge in our State to put the issue of infrastructure investment squarely on the national agenda. Of the 25 percent of the Nation's bridges that have been found to be in need of repair--the 600,000--74,000 come into the category of structurally deficient. In my home State, that means 1,579 bridges are considered structurally deficient. There is virtually no way to drive in or out of any State without going over one of these bridges. When the average age of a bridge in the country is 43 years and 25 percent of all American bridges are in need of repair or replacement, it is time to act. Recently, the Government Accountability Office released a study raising several issues regarding the Federal Highway Bridge Program. First, the program has expanded from improving deficient bridges to include funding criteria that make nearly all bridges eligible. Second, States are able to transfer bridge program funds to other transportation projects. Third, there are disincentives for States to reduce their inventories of deficient bridges since doing so would reduce their Federal bridge funds. Finally, GAO noted that the long- term trend is more bridges in need of repair and the cost of repair rising as well. In other words, the Highway Bridge Fund is not fiscally sustainable. A few weeks ago, Transportation Secretary Peters announced that the Federal highway trust fund would not be able to meet its obligations. We replenished that fund, but that is not enough. We all know that is not enough. That is why Senator Durbin and I introduced S. 3338, the National Highway Bridge Reconstruction and Inspection Act, which is a companion bill to H.R. 3999, the bill Congressman Oberstar successfully authored and moved through the House. In the House, there was much Republican support for the bill. It passed by a wide margin. The reason I care about it is, after we looked at what happened with our bridge in Minnesota, we found out that about 50 percent of the Highway Bridge Fund, Federal funds, had not been used for bridge maintenance. It had been used for other things. This was all across the country. We found out they were used for a construction project, used to plant flowers, all kinds of things. We think if we have a Highway Bridge Program, that money should be used for bridge maintenance and bridge reconstruction. At the hearing Chairman Boxer had on this topic, we actually had some interesting testimony from witnesses who talked about the fact that bridge maintenance is never a very sexy thing. People don't like to do that as much because it doesn't involve cutting ribbons and new projects. There are all kinds of actual reasons we have not been putting the money that we should into bridge maintenance. What our bill does is require the Federal Highway Administration and State transportation departments to develop plans to begin repairing and replacing bridges that pose the greatest risk to the public. This triages it and says: Let's look at the bridges that are most in need of repair and let's put our money there first. I cannot believe my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would object to that kind of idea, that we should actually make sure we are repairing the most seriously problematic bridges first. It would also require the Federal Highway Administration to develop new bridge inspection standards and procedures that use the best technology available. You wouldn't believe some of the old technology that is still being used. As time goes on, we have developed new and more advanced technology, and that technology is what should be used in order to examine bridges and figure out what is wrong with them and which ones should be repaired. As I mentioned, because some of the States have been transferring their bridge repairs to highway maintenance programs to use for wildflower plantings or road construction, this bill also ensures that Federal bridge funds can only be transferred when a State no longer has bridges on the national highway system that are eligible for replacement. Anyone out there, if they heard that bridge money was going to other things, it wouldn't make sense to them, when we have bridges falling in the middle of America. Finally, this bill authorizes an additional $1 billion for the reconstruction of structurally deficient bridges that are part of the national highway system. When you look at what we do here, we first improve the safety of these bridges. We do it by using a risk-based prioritization, a triage of reconstruction of deficient bridges. It has with it an independent review. It has with it a performance plan. It doesn't allow earmarking. It says: Let's look at where the most seriously deficient bridges are and go there first. Secondly, it strengthens bridge inspection standards and processes. It requires the immediate update of bridge inspection standards. We had a lot of testimony on this as to why it is important because we have new information and reasons we want to update the standards. Certainly, the bridge collapse in Minnesota showed we want increased scrutiny of inspection standards. We are going to await that report. We do know there may have been some problems with the inspection. It was a design defect initially, but there may have been problems with the inspection. That is why we want to upgrade. Third, we increase the investment for the reconstruction of structurally deficient bridges on the national highway system, $1 billion. If they are spending $10 billion a month in Iraq, it boggles my mind why the other side would block us from trying to spend $1 billion on bridges in America that are sorely in need of repair. That is our plan. That is what we are trying to do. It is a start. We all know there is a lot more work that needs to be done and that will be done in the Transportation bill that our committee will be considering next year. We know work has to be done with funding with an infrastructure bank, to look at other ways to fund our transportation system. We know we need to do better with the increasing cost of gasoline, with public transportation and other ways of travel. We also know we have a burgeoning energy economy, which is exciting for the rural areas of my State, with wind and solar and geothermal and biomass. As we know from projects across the country, we will need better transportation systems to transport energy to market. Yet we have failed to improve our transportation system. If we are going to move into the next century's economy, we cannot be stuck in the last century's transportation system. This bill will at least make sure our most seriously dangerous bridges are repaired and maintained. It is a start. That is why I am asking my colleagues on the other side of the aisle not to block this bill, not to add a bunch of amendments that have not gone through committee because we are in the waning days of the session. We only have the House bill now, because that is the easiest vehicle to use, even though the Senate bill was exactly the same. Then we don't have to have a conference committee. We just want to get this done. I am hopeful this will head us in the right direction toward action. As we learned that August 1 day in Minnesota, we cannot afford to wait. We have to get this done. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Oregon for his support for the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici mental health parity bill, something I am going to talk about in a minute. Madam President, as we focus on the very serious and urgent challenge facing our financial system, we must not lose sight of the equally serious challenge of building a solid foundation for America's economy in the long term. Today, we have the opportunity to vote on a bipartisan bill--the Energy Improvement and Extension Act--which will help America build that long-term foundation. I thank Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus for their work on this bill. The bill we vote on today provides an opportunity for the first step to move America forward. The way we have been handling these energy incentives has been like a game of red light, green light: on again, off again, on again, off again. While our country develops so much of the technology for wind and solar, we have now been leapfrogged by other countries that have more long-term policies in place that encourage investment in these areas. You can drive past hundreds of massive wind turbines along Buffalo Ridge in southwestern Minnesota. My State is the third leading producer of wind power, and that is because our State, on a bipartisan basis, has set some standards and put those incentives in place. On the Iron Range in northeastern Minnesota, a large mining company has just announced it will invest $15 million to build a facility to produce a renewable biofuel using a variety of sources, such as switchgrass, corn husks and stover, wood byproducts and oat hulls. This is about the future of energy. When I get questions about this and how we need to move with energy, I always remind people of the first start of the computer age when we had those big computers in those big rooms and they were inefficient, and over time they got more and more efficient, so those computers can fit in the palm of someone's hand. But to do that, as a country we are going to have to have that individual focus and that determination to invest and set those standards. Today is the first step. I think our energy challenge offers similar opportunities that we had when we put a man on the Moon. So we have to ask ourselves this: Will the United States be a leader in creating the clean energy technology jobs and industries of the future or are we just going to sit back and watch the opportunities pass us by with Japan and Europe and India leading the way? Today, with the bill before us, we have the opportunity to be that energy leader. Amendment No. 5635 We also have a chance to be a better leader in an area of health care where we have come up short for far too long. I am referring to the mental health parity bill that is included in this package. We have tried to pass this legislation through the Senate over and over again. These efforts predate my time in the Senate, and they continue to this day. My friend and our former colleague, the Senator from Minnesota, Paul Wellstone, fought for this law as a matter of justice and fairness. Senator Domenici, on the other side of the aisle, was right there with him and has continued to press for this legislation. Senator Kennedy has been a champion for this legislation, and Senator Durbin. In the House, there is Patrick Kennedy and one of my favorite Republican Congressmen, Jim Ramstad from Minnesota. He is stepping down this year, and he does not want to leave until this bill gets done. As Paul Wellstone always insisted: A mental health parity law is about equality and fairness. It is also about human dignity. Although much has changed over the years, people who suffer from a mental illness continue to suffer from a deep social stigma--something that can be just as challenging to live with as their illness. Their families suffer too. This legislation is not just about health insurance. It is also about eliminating the stigma and affirming the dignity of the Americans who suffer from a mental illness or an addiction. Paul knew about this and cared about this issue because of his brother Steven who had a mental illness. He was hospitalized. His family was thrown into debt. Paul would often talk about how, during those years, there was a darkness in their home. Paul's brother eventually got proper treatment and secured his dignity at great cost to their family. Paul did not want anyone else to go through what their family went through. He also cared about this bill because he always cared about the underdog, the person for whom it seemed as though there was nothing else there for them. That is what Paul Wellstone was about: putting those people first in the Halls of the Senate. Whenever I walk through the Senate and say I am a Senator from Minnesota, I hear stories from other Senators about Paul. But the stories I remember most are those I hear from the secretaries in the front offices or the tram drivers or the police officers who guard the front of the Capitol. They, too, tell me about Paul and how good he was to them and how he treated them with respect. That is what Paul brought to this job. That is why he cared so much about this legislation. In 1995, Minnesota enacted a mental health parity law that is among the strongest in the Nation. In the past 10 to 15 years, other States have enacted some version of mental health parity. The problem is that despite these State laws, 82 million Americans do not benefit because their employers' self-insurance plans come under the jurisdiction of the Federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA. It is time for them to receive the same protection as Americans whose insurance does not come under ERISA. I think about the legendary Supreme Court Justice, Justice Brandeis, who had a famous saying about States being the laboratories of democracy. He said: It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country. But Justice Brandeis did not mean that ``novel social and economic experiments'' must forever stay at the State level. If an experiment is successful at the State level--especially in many States--then it may very well be something that should be taken up on a larger national scale. Mental health parity has proven its value in State after State. Now it is time to take this well-tested innovation to the national level so our country has a uniform, equal standard of mental health parity that applies to self-insurance plans under the jurisdiction of ERISA. There are so many good reasons for our Nation to have a mental health parity law: economic reasons, health reasons, criminal justice reasons, and reasons of basic fairness and human dignity. For me, there is one special reason why we must pass this legislation. That reason is Paul Wellstone. This legislation is about everything he stood for--about fighting for people who do not have power and do not have a voice, people who would rather hide than speak up because of the stigma and the shame, people who needlessly suffered because of discrimination and prejudice. This bill is about Paul. It is about his brother Steven. It is about his family. And it is about his determination to help bring justice and dignity to millions of Americans who live in the shadow of mental illness. When Paul was alive, many people in this Chamber said they wanted to pass this bill, and when Paul died, they said they wanted to pass this bill. Well, the time has come to pass this bill. Senator Kennedy, home watching everything that goes on in this Chamber, wants to get this done. Before he retires, Jim Ramstad wants to get this done. And Paul Wellstone's sons have been here day after day walking the halls of the Capitol, knocking on doors, trying to do this for their father's memory. We have waited too long. We have the opportunity to finally get this bill into law. It is an opportunity to put aside all the excuses and, instead, to put front and center all of the many good reasons this law will serve our Nation well. I hope, when this vote comes up today, this bill will pass and it will pass by a large margin. It is a tribute to Paul and to all the people who have waited for so long to get their dignity. I thank the chair. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, first of all, I wish to thank the Senator from Illinois for his leadership. He has been an advocate for a long time for changing the way this administration has allowed these agencies to decay and to not be regulated--not just our financial market but our consumer market and the market for oil and other things. I thank the Senator from Illinois for his leadership and his farsightedness during these last few years.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 926, H.J. Res. 62; that the committee amendment be agreed to, the resolution be read the third time, passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table en bloc.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the relevant committees of jurisdiction be discharged and the Senate now proceed to the en bloc consideration of the following resolutions: S. Con. Res. 96, S. Res. 614, S. Res. 653, S. Res. 644, S. Res. 646, S. Res. 652, S. Res. 651, H. Con. Res. 163, S. Res. 648, S. Res. 502, S. Con. Res. 93, H. Con. Res. 296, S. Res. 634, and S. Res. 657. I further ask unanimous consent that the Senate then proceed to a number of resolutions submitted earlier today: S. Res. 670, S. Res. 671, S. Res. 672, S. Res. 673, S. Res. 674, S. Res. 675, and S. Res. 676, all en bloc.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I stand here today to highlight my grave concerns about our financial system and the American economy--a disaster that has been building for months and, in fact, years and last week quickly hit the breaking point. The latest crisis seemed to come so suddenly, it moved so fast, it spread so far, and went straight to the heart of the global financial system. There is no doubt we are seeing now the biggest financial challenge since the Great Depression, and we are also witnessing the most remarkable degree of Government involvement into our financial system since the 1930s. It is truly remarkable. Consider the list: Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and AIG. These names used to be confined to the business pages. Now they are at the top of the front pages. I have strong feelings about what happened here. During the past 8 years, the financial and economic policies of this administration have been off course. They have not managed or led the economy in a responsible manner. We have gone from a large budget surplus, left by the Clinton administration, to an even larger budget deficit. This administration has been reckless in how it managed Government's finances, and it has been reckless in how it managed its responsibility to ensure a strong, stable financial system. This administration acted as if the rules don't apply anymore. With loopholes here and there, they don't use the regulations. It permitted the large financial institutions to run amok, to turn the economy into a gambling hall, playing with funny money. Finally, in the 11th hour, the house managers, Bernanke and Paulson, have been asked to step in to shut down the game. It is hard to exaggerate the magnitude of what has happened. As financial journalist Steven Pearlstein observed last week: This is what a Category 4 financial crisis looks like. Giant blue-chip financial institutions swept away in a matter of days. Banks refusing to lend to other banks. Russia closing its stock market to stop the panicked selling. Gold soaring $70 in a single trading session. Developing countries' currencies in a free fall. Money-market funds warning they might not be able to return every dollar invested. Daily swings of three, four, five hundred points in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It's a painful reminder that, when you strip away all the complexity and trappings from the magnificent new global infrastructure, finance is still a confidence game--and once the confidence goes, there's no telling when the selling will stop. In some respects, it may look as if all the action is in New York or Washington or London or Tokyo. But we know the consequences are being felt everywhere. This is a broad-based financial crisis. Everyone is affected. If you are trying to buy or sell a home, you are affected. If you are trying to refinance your home, you are affected. If you are trying to get a student loan for tuition, you are affected. If you are a small business owner trying to extend your credit line, you are affected. If you are a farmer trying to buy a new tractor, you are affected. Maybe the only people in America not affected are those who kept their money in mattresses, and we know that is not the answer. Look at what has happened to the middle class in the last 8 years: wages down an average of $2,000 a year. Expenses up $4,400 a year. That is a net loss of $6,400 a year. That doesn't include people with babies, and childcare, and afterschool care, and the added expenses for college--$6,400 a year. We need solutions and we need them now. Secretary Paulson has presented his proposal, and I believe we need to change that proposal. I believe there is more we need to do. First, I believe, in the long term, we need a comprehensive plan, including both a short-term rescue strategy and a long-term approach for economic recovery and rebuilding. Secondly, we must minimize, as much as possible, the cost to American taxpayers. Private companies that get themselves into deep trouble should not get a free bailout on the backs of America's middle class. Third, this plan can't be limited to helping Wall Street. We must help the middle class. We must save Main Street from the mistakes of Wall Street, and we must address head on the underlying issue of the housing market and foreclosure crisis. That means providing protection and support to struggling homeowners and restoring confidence in the residential real estate market. Finally, if this plan proposes that the Federal Government come to the rescue of private financial institutions, then the Government must secure greater oversight of how these companies conduct their business going forward. For companies that receive assistance, there should be a limit placed on dividends. Key executives should have a look-back placed in their compensation package, and there should be a prohibiting of these golden parachutes. I cannot tell you how angry this makes me. Look at Lehman Brothers and their CEO, Richard Fuld. He earned about $45 million. This amounts to roughly $17,000 an hour--$17,000 an hour that he earned. Basically, their firm has been obliterated. Last year, CEOs of large public companies averaged 340 more times the pay of the average workers. As Warren Buffet once said--and this is from an article by Nicholas Christopher in the New York Times: In judging whether corporate America is serious about reforming itself, CEO pay remains the acid test. As he said in this article, it is a test that corporate America is failing. People can make their money, I suppose, but once we start, as taxpayers in the U.S. Government, buying their assets and backing up their assets and bearing the risk, asking taxpayers to do that, then we have something to say about this executive compensation, and we must say it in any type of a rescue plan. We also have to make sure going forward that the appropriate financial regulations are in place, that these loopholes are closed. There should be changes in corporate governments to improve the independence of corporate boards and reduce reckless behavior. There should be limits on speculative behavior. I know everybody is focused a lot on Wall Street. But I have to tell you what is happening on Main Street. In my State of Minnesota, the unemployment rate is at its highest in 22 years. Minnesota's second quarter growth in personal income is only 1 percent--the 49th lowest in the country. Even that 1-percent increase is more than wiped out by inflation. Home values in the Twin Cities area dropped nearly 14 percent in the second quarter of this year compared to last year. Heating costs this winter are expected to increase by double digits. The latest forecast shows that the cost of natural gas is expected to be 17 percent higher than it was last winter. Prices for fuel oil are expected to be 23 percent higher. The American people still have faith in our Nation. They know our country and our economy still have great potential. We have the talent, the resources, the know-how, the entrepreneurial spirit, and a passion for innovation. The public is still bullish on America, even though Merrill Lynch may not be. Although our immediate and urgent goal must be to stabilize the financial system and restore confidence, we also must spend this week asking those tough questions and making sure we have some answers and making sure the proposals that go through the Congress include those limits I talked about on executive pay. If we are going to be asking taxpayers in this country to bear any of this risk, they must include a long-term plan for better financial regulation of these companies. They must include a focus not just on Wall Street but also on Main Street. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, we have some startling new figures about how difficult it has become for the middle class to get by. We now have some new numbers, through the Joint Economic Committee and the work of Professor Elizabeth Warren, that in fact the average middle- class family has lost about $2,000 in wages, $2,000 per year, for the last 8 years, and the expenses have now gone up about $4,400 per year. That is a net loss of $6,400 per year. And with family childcare, you add an additional $1,500 per year. This is how much more expensive it was than 8 years ago. So we are seeing more and more families in debt, more and more families having trouble getting by due to the failed economic policies of this administration, and as we have seen from the events of the past week, the country is facing an enormous financial crisis, probably the largest we have seen since the Great Depression. Although the administration is still wary to admit this is a recession, we have seen time and time again over the last 8 months more and more jobs lost. Many institutions--some that have been on Wall Street for decades, some for a century--are finding themselves in the same position as many families were when their house was foreclosed on, with nowhere to go, and secretaries with nothing to their name. People had their retirement money in stock in the company. They were depending on that stock for their future but now have nothing to their name. This week we saw things take an even greater turn for the worse. When Chairman Bernanke was in front of the Joint Economic Committee back in April, days after the Bear Stearns buyout, there was some talk that maybe that would stabilize things. But Wall Street was simply in denial. When you look at this past decade, Mr. President, you can see it was a decade of greed, a decade of risk, and there wasn't much fear in how those deals were made--jumbo mortgages, securities with no backing. Too much, too much, too much. Look at IndyMac in California, and Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, AIG, and all of these firms that insisted they were solvent, until the eleventh hour. That practice put everyone's savings at risk. Next week, in our Joint Economic Committee, we are going to be hearing from Chairman Bernanke and discussing exactly where we go from here. I believe in this country. I believe we will move forward. But I can tell you lax regulation, decaying agencies, and some of the people who were put in charge of them have led us to where we are today. I saw it firsthand on the Commerce Committee with the Consumer Protection Agency, a shadow of its former self, with 50 percent fewer employees than it had during the Reagan era. Big surprise when these toxic toys started coming in from places such as China. There was no one there to mind the store. There was one guy named Bob in a back room. When you look at these mortgage instruments, there was no one watching over them, no one to enforce the rules. As a former prosecutor, I know you can have all the laws on the books, but if you don't have people enforcing them and people who are committed to the purpose of making sure that regular people are protected in this economy, it is not going to matter what laws are on the books. We also had rampant change in some of our regulations--the Enron loophole. We had the chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission before a joint meeting with our Agriculture Committee, and I asked him if he didn't want some more tools in his arsenal so he could maybe look at what is going on with these trades and the speculation going on with foreign countries. Even if you don't want to use them, I asked him: Don't you want those tools we can give to you? As a prosecutor, I figured I wouldn't use every law that was on the books, but I always wanted more tools to look at things. He said: No, we are fine the way we are. It was that attitude, Mr. President, that got us where we are today. So we are going to have to change things in this country. We are going to have to get some balance. I believe in vigorous entrepreneurship. My State is home to nine Fortune 500 companies and many thriving small businesses. We believe in entrepreneurship in our State, but we also believe there must be a balance and there must be fairness and somebody minding the store. And that has been lacking over the last 8 years. We do have an opportunity as we look at how we are going to get this economy moving. I mentioned there was so much greed and not enough fear in the last 8 years. Well, now we stand on the precipice of where we don't have too much fear, but we want to move forward as an economy, and there is one thing we know we can do immediately in the next few days. We can make sure the incentives are in place to keep moving forward with this new green economy to compete with other countries and have the right incentives in place. I am talking about the extenders for renewable energy that have really led to a boom in my State. We are third in the country with wind energy. Southwestern Minnesota is home to hundreds of large-scale wind turbines, helping to make us a leader in wind power. Along with biofuels, these wind energy farms have spurred a rural economic renaissance in that part of our State. Let me give a few examples of this and examples of hope for this economy as we go forward and how we can put incentives in place so we can keep going. I see my friend from Kansas across the aisle, and I know he has a picture of a wind turbine in his front office. We know there is a future for this country with development in this area. In 1995--and this is just an example from Minnesota--SMI & Hydraulics, Inc. began their business in Porter, MN, primarily as a welding and cylinder repair shop for the local farmers and businesses. Today, SMI & Hydraulics, which manufactures the bases for the wind towers we see all across this country, just recently expanded a facility to 100,000 square feet and created over 100 new jobs in just this little town. It is a barn with these big wind bases that actually come out of it. It is an amazing success story. Last year, the renewable electricity sector pumped more than $20 billion into the U.S. economy, generating tens of thousands of jobs in construction, transportation, and manufacturing. Throughout the country, renewable energy has led us down a path toward new jobs, lower energy bills, and enhanced economic development. We need to move this country forward. For me, and the State of Minnesota and so many other areas across this country, the protection tax credit is critical to realizing this goal. The protection tax credit, in combination with strong State renewable electricity standards, has been a major driver of wind power development in Minnesota. That is why I was so concerned we might actually lose it. All the studies show if you let it go, about 8 months before it is forecasted to go off, you have an enormous drop in investment, and that is exactly what we don't need now in this country. We need a plan to go forward. I personally would like to see it go into effect for 3, 4, or 5 years. I have a bill with Senators Snowe and Cantwell to put it in place for 5 years. But if all we can agree on today is to extend it for another 1 year for wind, solar, geothermal, and all kinds of renewable products and wasted energy, that is what we should be doing. But I will try. We are working on a bipartisan basis with a group of Senators to extend it for at least 3 years for renewable fuel sources. Because as we struggle with this economy we know, as we say in Minnesota, the approach is not just going to be a silver bullet, it is going to be silver buckshot. It is going to involve all kinds of energy production, increased energy production. But it is also going to involve looking at things in a new way. That has been lacking so much, this long-term look at our economy while other countries have leapfrogged us. While we developed the technology for wind and solar, we have been leapfrogged by other countries. Anyone who watched the Olympics in China knows what we are up against on the world stage for competition. They saw not only the athletes from all over the world but they saw the precision with which the Chinese were able to pull off that opening ceremony in those Olympics. We have to get our act together. We have to get our act together for our economy and be sensible and not look at 1-day solutions and 1-day spins. We have to have a plan for this economy, and this is a start, but we also have to have some balance in our regulatory system so our economy can function and our businesses can function as they were meant to. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I am here to talk about the need to replenish the funds in the highway trust fund. I have to tell you, I have visited our State, and you know that about a year ago a bridge just fell down in the middle of the Mississippi River. I was thinking as I listened to the Senator from Oklahoma talk about the promises that we make to our children, that we make to future generations. I think the people of this country think we made a promise to them that we are going to have safe roads and safe bridges. We didn't keep up that promise to the 13 people who died that day when they plummeted into the Mississippi River. We didn't keep the promise to the hundreds of people who were injured in all the cars that went crashing down on an eight-lane highway in the middle of the Mississippi River six blocks from my house. We need to keep that promise. When you look at the history of the highway trust fund, it was raided once before, many years before I came to Congress, by the exact amount of money. I believe it was something like $8 billion. It was raided of that money, and it was taken out of the fund and put into the general fund. What we are doing today, at the request of the Bush administration, is taking that money from the general fund and putting it back into the highway trust fund because we have a promise for public safety to the people of this country. My colleagues have been talking about priorities. I think there has been an issue of priorities. I would like to pay for some of the things that are going on in this country when we see that deficit. I can tell you how I would do it, how I would pay for that deficit. I would start bringing our troops home from Iraq. That is $10 billion a month. It is ironic--that figure--because Senator Inhofe was at the hearing we had in the Environment and Public Works Committee about bridges and about the expenditures on bridges and trying to keep bridges safe, with Congressman Oberstar and others. One of the witnesses told us that it would be about $10 billion a year to start bringing up our bridges to safety over the next few years. I thought that is exactly the amount of money we are spending per month in Iraq. So that is one way we can get the money if we really wanted to and if some of my friends on the other side would have the will to want to pay for this important infrastructure investment. Another is to close the loopholes that have allowed people to store money in the Cayman Islands and hide their money. Another is to change the capital gains rate. Another is to roll back tax cuts on the wealthiest people, couples making over $250,000 a year and individuals making over $200,000 a year. That would bring in between $50 billion and $60 billion a year. I don't have trouble trying too find money to pay for this. We have been unable to get our friends on the other side--whether it is the AMT fix or any other tax fixes for the middle class, we have been unable to get them to pay for this. We are left where we are now with a request from the administration to pay for this from the general fund so we don't have contractors or people out of work who are supposedly working on construction projects. This means something to me because I see it every day. That bridge is going up and it is going to be opening on Monday. It is kind of ironic to me that we are debating whether we are going to replenish our Nation's highways--when everybody is giving glorious speeches about the need to invest for infrastructure--on the anniversary of that bridge going up again. Some people are actually saying we should let this highway trust fund die on the vine and let these jobs die on the vine. I am going to use some examples for bridges. We learned today that fully one-quarter of America's 600,000 bridges have aged so much that their physical condition, or ability to withstand current traffic levels, is simply inadequate. One of the things we have seen on our roads and bridges in the last few years is that we are seeing something of a boon in our world economy, with the new energy economy. We are seeing wind turbines being transported on our roads and rails. We are seeing biofuels and more wear and tear on our roads and rails. As we move to the next century, economics with the next century energy, looking at more of our energy being produced from the workers and farmers of this country, we cannot be stuck in last century's transportation system. I am not going to pretend that replenishing the money into the highway trust fund is going to bring us to where we need to be with public transportation and where we truly need to go with infrastructure in this country to compete on the world stage. At least it will stop the bleed so we are going to be able to keep up with the ongoing projects we have right now. I am glad the administration is finally supporting doing something about this. It has been sad that we have gone to the other side three times to try to fund this important transit fund. As President Kennedy once said, building a road or highway isn't pretty, but it is something that our economy needs to have. We see that with that bridge in Minnesota, but we see it over and over again in the rural areas with the development of the wind farms and development of solar and ethanol. Just to give you a sense of what we are seeing in our State, for the first 6 months in 2007 ethanol production in the United States totaled nearly 3 billion gallons or 32 percent higher than the same period last year. Of course, we are going to move to cellulosic, but that will still meet transportation needs in rural areas. Currently, there are 128 ethanol plants nationwide, with total annual production capacity nearing 7 billion gallons, and an additional 85 plants are under construction. Total ethanol production is expected to exceed 13 billion gallons per year by early 2009. In terms of transportation, this means that an average square mile of land in southern Minnesota, which generates now the equivalent of 80 loaded semitrucks per year, could soon produce double that or 160 loads of grain per year. So we are seeing more wear and tear on our roads. It is a good thing. We want to produce wind and solar and biofuel and homegrown energy in this country. That will mean having a transportation system that can keep up with our growing economy. Mr. President, I will end with what I began with. We are going to be opening a new bridge in Minnesota. Every time I go by that bridge, which is six blocks from my house, I always think about that schoolbus with kids in it that was perched precariously and by some miracle it didn't go over the side. Every kid was saved. They called it the miracle bus. We have a promise to those kids that were on that bus that this isn't going to happen again. We will keep our roads and highways as a No. 1 goal of our Government--public safety. That means not just safety on our streets but safety in our streets. That means better roads, bridges, and a better transportation system. So that is why we would have liked to have done this in another way, but we are in a crisis situation with our transit funds, and we should support it and replenish the funds. With that, I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, how much time remains on our side?

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader for his leadership. I am not surprised that the Transportation Secretary for the Bush administration would call the majority leader and ask this be done. She came to us today. She stood over that bridge the day after it happened. When I was listening to my friend from New Hampshire talk about the fact that we need to continue funding our soldiers, of course, we need to do that. But for me, this is an issue of priorities. Why this administration would decide to spend $10 billion a month in Iraq month after month after month, so that this war has gone on longer than World War II, while we have bridges collapsing, while we have levees falling apart, defies reality. When I heard the Senator from New Hampshire talk about soldiers on the frontline, which this Congress has been more supportive of than any other Congress for continuing that funding, for those people on the bridge that day in Minnesota, they were on the frontline. Those people who plummeted into that cold water that day were on the frontline. People died at that bridge. The NTSB has not concluded its investigation of the cause for the bridge collapse, but what we do know is, if it had been fixed earlier, if there had been appropriate funds all over this country for bridge and levee repairs, we may not have experienced some of the disasters we have seen. I view this not only as fixing a bridge that, by the way, is six blocks from my house--I drive over it every day with my daughter in the back seat, an eight-lane bridge that fell into the Mississippi River--it is also about going into the next century's transportation system. If we are going to move to the next century in this economy, if we are going to start talking about transportation and wind and solar and doing things with biofuels and building our own energy future, we cannot be stuck in the last century's transportation system. As we face difficult economic times and look at the number in terms of what we can generate in jobs with transportation funding, it is a winner. I want to have an infrastructure plan and a stimulus package that lasts long after the rebate checks are cashed, that is looking to the future with infrastructure funding. When Dwight D. Eisenhower created the interstate highway system, when President Roosevelt did the rural electrification system, they saw it as not only moving the economy forward, they saw it as a way to generate jobs. That is what this is about. It is shortsighted, indeed, and shows a lack of understanding of the country's priorities to say that we should let transportation funding go down the pot while we are constructing bridges in Iraq and as bridges in Minnesota are falling apart. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I wish to congratulate the city of Plymouth, MN, for being named the ``Best City in America'' by the staff and writers of Money Magazine. Because of this recognition, the country now knows what the residents of Plymouth, MN, have already known: that Plymouth is an exceptional place to live and grow, rich in culture and character. The median household costs of single family homes in Plymouth allow families to responsibly purchase homes that are appropriate to their needs. When looking for educational or entertainment opportunities though, residents of Plymouth have access to a wide array of events at the Hilde Performance Center and other entertainment venues, as well as 40 public parks, 100 miles of trails, and half a dozen large lakes to swim, fish, and run around. With over 104 libraries within 15 miles, it is no surprise that the Plymouth public school system is ranked among the top three districts in a State renowned for education leadership. There are also 27 colleges, universities, and professional schools within a few miles of the city, exemplifying why 83 percent of Plymouth's citizens attended college. Plymouth is not only the best city in America because of its proximity to arts, education, and the outdoors, it is also home to a healthy and thriving economy and active local government. The 50,000 jobs created in the city of Plymouth aids in independent business development, low crime rates, and allows for greater access to heath care options, so critical to Plymouth's low rates of diabetes and hypertension. Plymouth's local government recently led an effort to have a ``green roof'' and rain gardens installed when City Hall was expanded, thereby reducing greenhouse gases and mitigating the impact of pollution through water runoff. Acknowledging this city's many successes, today I encourage other communities to follow the lead of Plymouth, MN, and encourage business leadership, civic investment, and community cohesiveness through its commerce, government, schools, entertainment, and health care initiatives.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, tomorrow at 6:05 p.m. Minnesota time, it will be exactly 1 year since the horrific collapse of the I-35W bridge. It is a day and a moment when all Minnesotans will always remember where they were. They will remember what they were doing, they will remember what they heard, and they will remember the pictures. Minnesotans will even remember the weather and what it was like that day because as if to symbolize what was to come, that warm summer day started with clear skies, but by late afternoon, dark and ominous storm clouds had begun forming on the horizon, with thunder rumbling in the distance. Then after the bridge collapsed, as if to provide relief for the rescuers, the storms retreated. I know many people across America will also remember that day, and they will think about those who died and those who survived, miraculously, on that bridge. I know my colleagues in the Senate will also remember. I thank each and every one of them for their tremendous sympathy and concern for the people of my State following the bridge collapse. On behalf of all Minnesotans, I wish to say how grateful we are for the bipartisan support in the days after that bridge collapse, the immediate funding for emergency relief, and then the funding for the bridge so that bridge could be built again. This support from the Senate and the Congress helped lay the groundwork for the fast and efficient reconstruction of the bridge. In fact, a new bridge already spans the river. It is expected that by the end of the year, possibly within the next month or two, cars and trucks will again be crossing over the Mississippi River on the newly constructed 35W bridge. My home is only 6 blocks away. So my family and I look forward to, once again, driving across the 35W bridge. Not only in Congress but across the Nation, the catastrophic failure of this bridge provoked deep concern that it might not be an isolated incident, that there might be a broader problem with bridges across the country. That is because a bridge should not fall down in the middle of America on the 1st day of August in 2007, especially not an eight-lane interstate highway, especially not one of the most heavily traveled bridges in the State, especially not during rush hour, in the heart of a major metropolitan area. But on August 1 of last year, the 35W bridge in Minneapolis fell down. So tomorrow, 1 year later, we remember the 13 people who lost their lives on that bridge, and we remember the 145 people who were injured, many of them now living with serious and permanent injuries. Tomorrow we also remember the many people--the police officers, the firefighters, the paramedics, the citizen bystanders who risked their lives by running toward that catastrophe and not away from it. When I watched what unfolded that night, I was shocked and horrified. But as the evening wore on and the days went by, the entire world watched our State come together, and I was proud to be a Minnesotan. We saw the heroes. We saw them in the face of unimaginable circumstances. We saw the off-duty Minnesota firefighter, Shanna Hanson, who grabbed her lifejacket. She was off duty, but she was among the first on the scene. She was tethered to a yellow life rope and she was in the midst of broken concrete and shards as she swam from car to car, in and out, in and out of that river searching for survivors. We saw a school bus perched precariously on the falling bridge deck. I like to call it the ``Miracle Bus,'' perched on that falling bridge deck, on the side, ready to fall in. Inside were dozens of kids from a Minneapolis neighborhood who had been on a swimming field trip. Their bus was crossing the bridge when it collapsed. Thanks to the quick action of responsible adults and the kids themselves, they all survived. Now, with the perspective of a year, what can we learn from this catastrophe? Well, first, the emergency response to the bridge collapse demonstrated an impressive level of preparedness that should be a model for the Nation. You can never feel good about a tragedy such as this, but I do feel good about our police officers, our firefighters, our paramedics, and our first responders. Look at the scene they came upon, this enormous eight-lane highway in the middle of the water, a storm above them, and they dove into that water and literally saved hundreds of people. This week, the Hennepin County Medical Center, located only blocks from the bridge, was honored with a national award for extraordinary response to this crisis. As the Hennepin County attorney for 8 years, I remember meeting with the sheriff, the police chief, and other officials as we planned and practiced for disaster relief drills after 9/11. Even though no one imagined a major bridge would collapse, the result of all that planning and the preparation was evident on the night of August 1 when our survivors were quickly rushed to the hospital. Second, we saw how important it was to move forward and build a new, safe bridge, and I will show you the bridge as it stands 1 year later. Again, it is 6 blocks from my house, so I have been able to watch its progress. You can see this bridge now. The last piece actually was just added, and it is spanning this huge river, the Mississippi River. It is an eight-lane highway. So what happened in Washington? In 3 days, the Senate voted to provide $250 million in emergency bridge construction funding. Representative Jim Oberstar led the way in the House, and it was a bipartisan effort in the Senate as Senator Coleman and I worked together on the relief. I personally thank Senator Durbin and Senator Patty Murray for assisting me with this. I still remember the day the Senate voted for a billion dollars for bridge reconstruction across the country, but it didn't include the funding for our bridge. I came in early, and I sat at my desk, and I said I wasn't going to leave until we got our amendment to fund the construction on our bridge. The pages and the chaplain came in, and the Senate was starting, and Senator Durbin came and sat next to me and he said: Somehow I think you are here to do more than pray. He helped me, and we got that amendment through and we got it passed. Approval of this funding came with remarkable speed and bipartisanship. Capitol Hill veterans tell us it was a rare feat to get it done so quickly. What else can we learn from this bridge? Third, we must still get to the bottom of why this enormous bridge fell into the middle of the Mississippi River. It didn't happen because of a barge or some kind of electrical storm or tornado. It just fell down. Evidence is accumulating that the bridge's condition had been deteriorating for years and that it had been the subject of growing concern within the Minnesota Department of Transportation. This wasn't a bridge over troubled waters, this was a troubled bridge over waters. Still, as a former prosecutor, I know we must wait until all the facts and evidence are in before we reach a verdict. We will need to be patient as the investigation continues. Mark Rosenker, the Chairman of the NTSB, the National Transportation Safety Board, said the other day that the NTSB investigation is nearing completion and that a final report should be ready for public release within 100 days. Already, the NTSB has publicly released a number of documents, photographs, diagrams, and other evidence that are part of their investigation. We know this bridge had problems, and we look forward to the NTSB report to give us definitive answers. Finally, the bridge collapse in Minnesota has shown us that America needs to come to grips with the broader questions about our deteriorating infrastructure. The Minnesota bridge disaster shocked Americans into a realization of how important it is to invest in safe, strong, and sound infrastructure. As if we didn't know already, Minnesotans got a reminder a few months after the 35W bridge collapsed, because we learned another bridge of a similar design was inspected and found to be in serious trouble. That bridge is in St. Cloud, MN, a major regional city in central Minnesota, which is now closed with plans to replace it. Unfortunately, it took a disaster to put this issue of infrastructure squarely on the agenda of this Congress. According to the Federal Highway Administration, more than 25 percent of the Nation's 600,000 bridges are either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. That is more than 150,000 bridges. When 25 percent of all American bridges are in need of serious repair or replacement, it is time to act. When we don't have enough money to build new bridges or repair the ones we already have, there is clearly a problem with our priorities. And when the American people question the integrity of the bridges they cross every day, we must act. Putting it all together with the bridge collapse in Minnesota, this should be a national call to action on infrastructure. Senator Durbin and I recently introduced the National Bridge Reconstruction and Inspection Act. This legislation has already passed the House and we hope it will move quickly in the Senate. This is only a start, but it is a good start, if the Senate will pass it and the President will sign it. I am hopeful it will get us headed in the right direction. In closing, I note one final lesson. What happened a year ago in Minnesota reminds us that disasters can bring out the worst or the best in people. They can divide us or they can unite us. I believe the catastrophe, the collapse of the I-35W bridge, brought out the very best in Minnesotans and it united us. We joined together for the rescue, we joined together for the recovery, and we joined together for the rebuilding. I hope that going forward the ultimate legacy of the 35W bridge collapse can be something positive for our Nation. I hope it can bring out the best in all Americans and unite us as we address the pressing infrastructure issues facing our country. Tomorrow, as we remember and as we grieve for the bridge victims and their families, let us also look ahead and move forward and take the action necessary to make sure that no bridge ever again falls down in the middle of America. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

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

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I know this is the Republican portion of the time, but until a Republican arrives, I will briefly say for 1 minute that I am very pleased the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 is going to be coming through the Senate. We saw over 28 million toys recalled in 2007. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is a shadow of its former self. This legislation is long overdue. It was a bipartisan effort. Many of us worked on this very hard, including the Presiding Officer. I am pleased we are able to get an agreement on what the Wall Street Journal has called the most significant consumer product legislation in 16 years. It is particularly important to my State where we had a 4-year-old boy die when swallowing a lead charm. It was the 99-percent lead, made in China. It should never have been in his hands. The lead in that charm went into his bloodstream over a period of time, in fact over a period of days. I was very proud that our staff, Kate Nilan and Tamara Fucile, was able to work on that provision and work with the committee. That is now the first provision in the bill. I thank the conference committee, under the leadership of Senators Inouye and Pryor, and all the conferees who worked on this in the House and Senate. I yield the floor.

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

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 3370, introduced earlier today by Senators Biden, Lugar, Lautenberg, Warner, Leahy, and Levin.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read three times and passed; that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate; and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today because I am proud to see the Senate pass two strong, bipartisan bills that will provide much needed relief to families across the country; the College Opportunities and Affordability Act of 2008 and the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008. Congress first passed the Higher Education Act more than 40 years ago, guided by the principle that no qualified student should be denied the opportunity to attend college because of the cost. Today, the cost of college has more than tripled. Tuition at 4-year public colleges in Minnesota has increased 100 percent in just the past 10 years. I believe that investing in higher education pays extraordinary dividends, I am proud to provide real help for students and their families to make college more affordable. By passing this legislation we continue our fight to gain stronger Federal support for higher education opportunities--because our future success as a State and a nation depends on making sure that quality education is accessible and affordable. I am also so happy to see Congress pass comprehensive product safety legislation. Inspired by the story of Jarnell Brown--a 4-year-old boy in Minnesota who died after ingesting a charm that was 99 percent lead--I have worked for the past year on authoring and promoting the lead provision of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008. In the past year and a half, over 13 million toys have been recalled because they contained harmful lead, and I am proud to say that this bill finally gets that substance out of children's toys. As one of the conferees of this legislation, I signed the final conference report that was sent to the floor today, and I have been a strong supporter of this legislation since the beginning. This legislation is the most sweeping consumer product safety reform in decades, and I am glad that we have finally voted this evening to protect our children and protect our public. On August 1, 2007, the Minneapolis I-35W bridge spanning the Mississippi River collapsed. The 1-year anniversary of this tragedy will be recognized across my State tomorrow. I am traveling home to honor the victims and their families, and to recognize our heroic first responders. By returning to Minnesota, I will not be in Washington, DC, to vote on the adoption of either the College Opportunities and Affordability Act of 2008 or the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 conference reports. Had I not returned to Minnesota, I would have voted in favor of both of these important pieces of legislation.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, this afternoon I spoke about how important it was to pass that extender bill, how important it was for my State and for the rest of the country to promote green jobs, to look at this new energy future, to stop spending $600,000 a minute on foreign oil. I said this afternoon we only got four Republicans to vote with us on a bill that was paid for, a bill that was the right way to go--only four Republicans. There was something else in that bill that is just as important to me and to my State of Minnesota and to the millions of people living in the shadow of mental illness, and that is the Paul Wellstone mental health parity bill that is included in that package. We have tried to pass this through the Senate over and over again. Senator Domenici on the other side of the aisle has been one of the biggest supporters and sponsors of this bill. Senator Kennedy has worked on it. Senator Durbin has worked on it. There are many people in the House, including Patrick Kennedy, and one of my favorite Republican Congressman, Jim Ramstad, who is retiring this year, and he doesn't want to leave the House until that bill gets done. For me, the Paul Wellstone mental health parity bill is about Paul Wellstone. It is about everything he stood for. It is about fighting for the people who don't have a voice. It is about all the people who have come up to me in the Capitol, not the Senators but the secretaries and the tram drivers who remember Paul and remember how kind he was to them. This bill is about his brother Stephen who struggled with mental illness his whole life. Paul would always talk about how the house they grew up in was always dark because of Stephen's mental illness and how, after Stephen got better and went on to teach, what a difference it made in the family, but it was a lifelong struggle for him. So this bill is for Paul. When Paul was alive, our friends on the other side of the aisle said they wanted to pass this bill. And when Paul died, they said they wanted to pass this bill. This is the time, and it was a part of that package. Senator Kennedy is at home watching everything that goes on in this Chamber, and he wants to get that done. Paul's son, David, has been here, day after day, walking the halls of the Capitol, knocking on doors to get this done in his father's memory. I implore my friends on the other side to get this done.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Yes.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor today with much dismay over the fact that we were not able to pass the energy extenders, the tax extenders, the package of important provisions for our country's economy because of this obstructionism on the other side. Let me tell my colleagues why this was so important to me. We only got four Republican votes for this package. I think it is outrageous when you look at what we are dealing with. This week we are going to be memorializing the tragic, tragic, tragic fall of the bridge in the middle of Minnesota. I am going to speak to that tomorrow and do a fitting tribute, along with Senator Coleman, to the victims of that bridge collapse and to the first responders who saved so many lives, and to the reconstruction work that has gone on thanks to the help of this Senate. I live six blocks from that bridge, so it means a lot to me. I said the week the bridge fell down that in America, a bridge shouldn't fall down in the middle of the Mississippi River, especially not on an eight-lane highway, especially not on one of the most heavily traveled bridges in the State, especially not at rush hour in the heart of a major metropolitan area. Unfortunately, however, it took that disaster to put the issue of infrastructure funding squarely on the national agenda, and it is long overdue. That is why I was so disappointed that in this important bill was $8 billion to replenish the highway trust fund of this country, to replenish that fund. Mr. President, 400,000 jobs in this country are at stake in that bill that was voted down by the other side. Look what is happening in this country with our infrastructure. Let's take the issue of bridges. Nationwide, bridges are deteriorating far faster than we can repair or replace them. About 78,000 bridges across the Nation are structurally deficient. What does structurally deficient mean? When inspectors evaluate a bridge, they examine the bridge's deck, superstructure, and substructure. Each of these components is ranked on a scale of 0 to 9, with 0 being failed and 9 being excellent. If the deck, superstructure, or substructure is given a 4 or less, the bridge is classified as structurally deficient. In June of 2006, the I-35W bridge's superstructure--meaning the physical conditions of all structural members--was rated at a 4. The bridge's deck was rated at a 5, and the substructure, comprised of the piers, the footings, and other components, was rated as a 6. A bridge is shut down if any of its parts are rated at a 2. Then we have another 80,000 bridges across the Nation which are functionally obsolete. What does functionally obsolete mean? That means they don't meet today's design standards, they don't conform to today's safety standards, and they are handling traffic far beyond their design. Fully one-quarter of America's 600,000 bridges have aged so much that their physical condition or their ability to withstand current traffic levels is simply inadequate. These bridges require immediate attention. I can tell you since our bridge fell on that summer day on August 1, we have had a number of bridges shut down, close down in our State, including one that handled a lot of traffic in St. Cloud, MN. There was one in Winona, MN, that was actually on the Federal stamp from our State that was temporarily closed down and is going to have to be rebuilt. We are seeing this across the country. We are seeing a need for infrastructure funding. At a time when our economy is facing such difficult times, I see this as an investment, not only in the long-term viability for our country's transportation system but also in jobs. That is why I am so disappointed that the other side was willing to turn their backs on 400,000 existing jobs, much less add new ones, by turning down that $8 billion replenishment of the highway trust fund. It was President Kennedy who once said that building a road or highway isn't pretty, but it is something our economy needs to have. I can tell you beyond the bridges in metropolitan areas, nowhere is that truer than in rural America. We are seeing a rejuvenation because of the energy economy right now in rural Minnesota as we are in so much of rural America. Senator Tester from Montana talked about this. We are seeing biofuels, whether it is biodiesel, ethanol, moving to cellulosic ethanol; whether it is wind or solar. We are third in the country in Minnesota with wind energy--third in the country. I have seen jobs such as in Starbuck, MN, where a group of 10 people decided to quit their jobs and go work for a solar panel factory. They were so proud of their work they had me jump up and down on those solar panels to show that they can withstand hail damage, and they did. I can tell you this: We are seeing these jobs and we need courage in Washington that matches the courage of these employees in Starbuck, MN, or in Pipestone--the courage of these employees who are willing to see a better energy future, while this body on the other side is willing to shoot it down by shooting down those tax extenders for energy. This is the wave of the future. This is the way we are going to be investing in homegrown energy and in the farmers and the workers of the Midwest instead of the oil cartels in the Mideast. So it is about the energy extenders for me in my State and across the country, but it is also about the transportation funding that came in replenishing that highway trust fund. When you start building this energy economy, with the wind turbines and with the biofuels in the trucks going across these roads, you are going to put more stress on the roads and the rail in rural America. If we are going to move to the next century's economic system, we can't be stuck in the last century's transportation system. I will give some examples. The ethanol plant in Bentsen, MN, now has over 525 fully loaded semis hauling the ethanol from their plant every week. This is a 45-million gallon facility. Their production falls about in the middle of our biodiesel facilities in Minnesota. SMI Hydraulics is a company in rural southwestern Minnesota that manufactures the bases for the wind towers you see all across our country. This is a company that started as a barn. The wind towers they manufacture actually come out of the side of the barn as they are employing dozens of people right in this little town. The heavy trucks that bring the steel to the company put a heavy burden on the road as they travel and are putting durability to a test. This truck travel and the need for more rail travel is part of our transportation future, but when the other side shoots down our ability to even replenish the highway trust fund, we are not going to be moving in the right direction for our economy. We are not going to help these rural people to develop the true energy economy they need to develop. In his 1963 ``Memoir for Change,'' President Eisenhower famously said: More than any single action by the government since the end of the war, this one would change the face of America. He was talking about the interstate highway system. Its impact on the American economy, the jobs it would produce in manufacturing and construction, the rural areas it would open up were beyond calculation. Well, he was right. Just as he was right back in 1963, we know he is still right in 2008. So the gall to turn down the replenishment of that highway trust fund and to stop America as we try to head to the new energy future--other countries are leapfrogging us because they have government policies in place that mandate these green jobs and move in the right direction--is plain wrong. The one last thing I wish to say is there is one way--as we look to jump-starting the economy right now, as we look at solving our oil crisis and our dependency on foreign oil and our spending of $600,000 a minute on foreign oil--and that is the President. He doesn't need the Congress. He can complain about Congress all he wants, but the President of the United States can actually release barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. He can do it right now. He could do it in the next hour. We can look at what has happened in the past: 1990 to 1991, 11 million barrels were released; 1996 to 1997, 28 million barrels were released to reduce the Federal debt. In 2005, 21 million barrels were released after Katrina. We can look at how full the petroleum reserve has been. In 1993, 79 percent full; in 2001, it was 74 percent full. Well, right now, in 2008, it is 97 percent full. So this President, on his own, could simply release the barrels of oil from that Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We are the home of Northwest Airlines in Minnesota. The CEO there, Doug Steenland, has spoken with me many times. Tens of thousands of customers have sent e-mails saying we want to stop this speculation and we want to do something about helping Americans and helping these companies with oil prices. One way to do this immediately is to release some of the barrels of oil, 97 percent full, from that Strategic Petroleum Reserve. If you even go down to 90 percent, you could inject $6 billion into the American economy and help to bring those oil prices down. This is up to the President. He could do it with one signature on one document. He doesn't need us passing a bill to have to deal with these guys and their filibuster. He could do it himself. So in addition to passing these tax extenders, to getting our green energy economy going and doing something about that highway trust fund so another bridge doesn't fall down in the middle of America, this President, himself, without even one vote from Congress, could release barrels of oil into the American economy and help not only customers but also help the businesses in this country who are finding it harder and harder to compete as we see the price of oil escalate. Thank you very much, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I thank the Senator so much for that question. I know from his family, those he left behind, who miss him so much, this is what he wanted to get done. I actually remember, I say to the Senator from Illinois, the last time I saw Paul Wellstone before he went down in that tragic plane crash. It was at an event for new citizens. Sheila, his wife, was supposed to be there, and the two of us were talking about our immigrant families, where they came from and how they pulled themselves up and funny stories about our families in Appalachia. There were about 30 new citizens there and no press, no cameras. All of a sudden, by surprise, in walked Paul. You know, it was 3 or 4 weeks before one of the biggest elections in the country, and he was in that room with the new citizens. I knew there were two reasons: One, he loved Sheila and he wanted to surprise her. Second was he embraced this idea that no matter where you came from, no matter what you have gone through in your life, you could pull yourself up in this country. That is part of why this mental health parity bill was so important to him. He had seen in his family how his brother struggled and was able to pull himself up. There was a horrible financial situation for their family. He didn't want that to happen to someone else. He felt that if you can cover physical illnesses, you should also cover mental illnesses. This bill is what Paul wanted to get done. I know the majority leader and others have said the other side said they would pass it when he was alive and then when he died. This is their chance. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor today with outrage over what some of the pharmaceutical companies have been doing with pricing for important medications affecting the lives of people in this country. I know that you, the Presiding Officer from the State of Rhode Island, have been a leader in this health care area and share many of the concerns I have and in fact are working on this issue as well. Yesterday I chaired a hearing of the Joint Economic Committee to discuss the phenomenon of dramatic price increases of these medications. These are drugs that, because of aggressive pricing practices, have seen dramatic increases in cost. Oftentimes because of a limited market or other factors, the drug's price goes up to an astronomical level. I first became aware of this issue when I received word from Children's Hospital in Minneapolis, one of the leading children's hospitals in the country, that the price for a drug called Indocin--it is also known as indomethacin--has increased substantially. It is a medication used to treat little babies with patent ductus arteriosis, PDA, and it is a disorder that prevents holes from healing in the hearts of premature infants. This drug has been around since the 1970s and it is the commonly used method of treating this condition. It is a great drug because it allows doctors to prescribe medication instead of resorting to surgery. We had an event in Minnesota a few months ago with the head of Children's Hospital and a number of doctors who are specialists in this area and a family named the Bensons, whose little child survived because of the help of this drug. To see this little baby and then to think of what this drug company had done when they jacked up the price of this drug--you cannot even imagine why they would have done such a thing. I will go into the facts. This drug has been around since the 1970s. Merck had the drug, this drug called Indocin. Two years ago Ovation Pharmaceuticals acquired the rights to the drug from Merck. The company quickly increased the price by more than 18 times--from $100 a dose to $1,800 a dose. Was there research? No. Were there more changes to the drug? No. It was the very same drug and they increased the price, because they could, from $100 to $1,800 a dose, for three 1-milligram units of the drug. Even though it is an American company, and this is what gets outrageous--even though it is an American company, the price Ovation charges for this lifesaving drug for babies is now 44 times higher in the United States than what they sell it for in Canada. It is 44 times higher in the United States than they sell the same drug for in Canada. Nothing can justify this kind of price disparity except that this company wants to bring in more money to their coffers. As it happens, there is only one other drug approved by the FDA for this heart problem, a formulation of intravenous ibuprofen. Ovation, interestingly enough, the same company that bought the drug from Merck when the drug was selling at $100 and now it's up to $1,800, is the sole source of the other drug in the United States. Not surprisingly, the price it charges for this medicine is nearly identical to what it charges for Indocin. A number of other Ovation products have seen similar drastic price increases, drugs that, like Indocin, have been around for a long time and are the premier treatments for a number of diseases. In a recent article in the medical journal Pediatrics, Dr. Alan H. Jobe of Cincinnati Childrens' Hospital, described Ovation's pricing of its two drugs for the premature babies' heart condition as ``quite extraordinary.'' He didn't mean extraordinary in a good way. He wrote: Words such as ``unconscionable,'' ``unethical,'' and ``socially irresponsible'' come to mind. The issue we have is that an upstart company purchases a number of drugs from another company and, even though these drugs have been on the market for years, the upstart company increases the prices drastically. But Ovation is not the only company engaged in this disturbing trend. Look at this chart. It shows why this is a timely issue as we approach the major health care debate we are going to be going into next year. Look at why this is such a timely issue. These are what we call, using the doctor's language, extraordinary price increases. What this chart shows is they are becoming more and more common. What this measures is the number of branded drug products whose prices have more than doubled in a single price increase. We are used to going to the drugstore, sadly, these days, and seeing a 1-percent increase or 5 percent increases going up. Then we see other markets, such as the oil market, where things are completely volatile. Here you have it in the drug market. Look at these drug products where the prices have more than doubled in one single price increase. Back in 1988 it only happened five times. Back in 1994 it happened zero times. Then you see this gradual trend up where to we are now, in the year 2008: It has happened 64 times. This is a full-year projection, based on 6 months of data. This is a projection of 64 times. Then, in 2007 you see it was at 47 times. Questcor Pharmaceuticals--this is an example--was once losing money at the rate of $1 million a month. The company's fortunes turned around after they purchased HP Acthar from Aventis. This drug was approved in the 1970s, similar situation, a drug approved years and years ago to treat multiple sclerosis, but it is now primarily the gold standard for treating infantile spasms, a disorder that affects about 2000 families in the United States. We were privileged to have one of the families from Rhode Island, the home of the Presiding Officer, there with us at the hearing. Danielle Foltz was the mother who testified--I will never forget her story about how her little baby is sick in the hospital, suddenly having spasms. These could actually have affected his brain. His name is Trevor. He is in the hospital and she tries to get the drug that helps with this, this Acthar. She found out it is about $1,700 per vial at the initial stages. That is what they thought it was going to be. Then what happens? Once it was sold to Questcor, when her little baby needed this drug, the price of the drug skyrocketed to $23,000 per vial--that is a 14-fold increase. This mom and dad are in the hospital with their little baby Trevor and this drug has gone up to $23,000 per vial. What do you think is going to happen? Do you think the insurance company, when they used to pay for it when it was $1,700, was going to say: Oh, no problem. They had to negotiate for 5 days with the insurance companies, they had to get their neurologist involved, and she had to write a letter saying that this is going to affect this baby's life, the baby could be mentally retarded if he doesn't get the drug. It is actually a short-term treatment. I think the baby had the drug for a matter of months and then went off the drug--talk about short-sighted. Eventually, after 5 days, she was able to get the drug approved. These people were missionaries in Africa. They had worked in Africa. They didn't have the money, they didn't have the house to mortgage, but they were able to save their little baby's life because finally they fought hard enough to get it covered. From the data we heard yesterday we are hitting only the tip of the iceberg because the problem is not isolated to drugs that benefit a small number of patients. Abbott Pharmaceuticals increased the price of Norvir, a drug used to treat AIDS. The drug was often used as an ingredient in their drug therapies. In 2003, Abbott jacked up the price for Norvir by 500 percent. This was done at the same time they began marketing their new product, Kaletra, another AIDS product that included Norvir, and served as a replacement for the competition's drug therapy. The result forced patients and providers to turn to Abbott's Kaletra instead of the formerly cost-effective alternative that used Norvir and competitors' drugs. Previously undisclosed documents and e- mails reviewed by the Wall Street Journal in 2007 show that Abbott's leadership actively considered ways to promote Kaletra over Norvir. As you can see from this bar graph of the price increase of Norvir, you see before the change was made, $257.18 and then up to $1,285.89. This is an egregious increase. Another example. The next chart shows only a few examples of enormous price increases that we have seen. Mustargen, which is used to treat rare cancers, had a 1,000-percent increase. You see Cosmegen, which treats kidney disease--that had a 3,500-percent increase. You can see the names of the companies here: Abbott, Questcor, Ovation, Sigma-Tau. You can see what the prices were before. Here is Cosmegen, $16.79. It goes up after the sale to $593.75, a 3,436-percent increase in the drug price. Look at what we have seen with Matulane. Matulane goes nearly off the charts. Look at this. This is used to treat rare Hodgkin's lymphoma and you see an increase of 7,999 percent. That is an 8,00-percent increase. What is this? I am not an economist. To me this looks like simple price gouging. It not only hurts the hospitals that have to purchase these expensive drugs, but also the patients who rely on them. An elderly woman from Park Rapids, MN, who suffers from cutaneous T- cell lymphoma was forced to pay over $8,000 in out-of-pocket expenses for Mustargen, the drug I discussed which was sold by Ovation, whose single dose price increased from around $50 to nearly $550 after the company acquired the rights to the drug. What is the solution? In America, we have a serious problem with health care inflation and runaway costs. That is not a surprise to anyone. It is no wonder, when we have pharmaceutical companies such as Ovation or Questcor increasing prices to astronomical price levels because of the lack of competition in the market. Their actions are able to exploit an extremely vulnerable and captive market. It is not as though the pharmaceutical industry is withering on the vine. You can see pharmaceutical companies earn higher profits than other Fortune 500 companies. Here you have the profits for other Fortune 500 companies. These are huge companies. Then you look at pharmaceutical profits. What have we seen over time? They are always significantly ahead of other Fortune 500 companies. I want to mention the Orphan Drug Act because this is timely for what we are talking about, the treatment of these rare diseases. The Orphan Drug Act was passed in 1983 to provide incentives to drug companies to develop innovative drugs for rare diseases because, without incentives, drug companies may never be able to recoup research and development costs in niche markets. What we have seen, however, is that at least a handful of drug companies have used the status of orphan drugs to keep increasing costs well beyond the cost of research, development, and manufacturing. These staggeringly high prices in turn threaten the financial security of middle-class families relying on these drugs. Where generic drugs have helped lower the cost of many prescription drugs on the market, generic competition is also less likely to occur for orphan drugs. According to a study published in the RAND Journal of Economics, the market size for a drug has to be about $32 million--that is 2007 dollars adjusted for inflation--to justify the entry of a generic into the market. When we are talking about indomethacin to treat populations of only a few thousand, there is often not enough of an incentive for the generic drug to enter the market. Beyond hospitals and patients, a dramatic, unforeseeable increase in price for one of these drugs has a significant impact on the Federal Government--Medicare, Medicaid. Look at what is going on. I know Representative Waxman in the House held a hearing showing what is going on with the pricing of these pharmaceuticals across the board. I have asked the Federal Trade Commission to initiate an investigation into any potential anticompetitive conduct or consequences arising out of Ovation's market actions and dominance in the area of nonsurgical treatment for PDA. We need to ensure that the FTC continues to conduct these crucial investigations to guarantee competition; keeping costs low for consumers and encouraging innovation. That is one drug that is coming out of my State, the State of Minnesota, because some doctors had the foresight to see that this was outrageous and figured out that one company owned both of the drugs that were competing with each other. It is disturbing that our providers, hospitals, and patients are being blindsided by these exorbitant price increases. Our Federal Government should be able to track these trends in pharmaceutical pricing. If we start to monitor the data, there is more of a paper trail, giving us enhanced ability to do something about these companies' practices. You know, I am a supporter of reimportation of drugs from Canada; I favor negotiating under Medicare Part D to save our seniors some money. All these things must be on the table as we approach health care reform in the next year. When provided with the right information on drug prices, especially in smaller markets, doctors can be alerted of big price increases, potentially spurring generic alternatives to expensive drugs and giving the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid the tools and the information to better track pricing in this market. To start looking at this information, I am in the process of working with the GAO to look into the issue of drug pricing and these enormous increases. Finally, I intend to investigate whether the FDA can fast-track approval for generic drugs, that that would be just as safe and effective but much less expensive, creating competition in markets with dramatic price increases. I understand we have a market-based economy. It is fine for companies to make money on the products they sell. They should. But when we are dealing with the well-being of sick patients, babies and the elderly and everyone in between, we know something is wrong. These companies cannot be allowed to make money off the backs of little babies who have holes in their hearts. I hope yesterday's hearing was a starting point for addressing problems that accompany such enormous price increases, problems that have been plaguing our doctors, our insurance companies, our Medicare and Medicaid Programs, and most importantly, our patients for far too long. I yield the floor.