Edward Kaufman

Mr. KAUFMAN

Mr. KAUFMAN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. KAUFMAN. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 5 minutes.

Mr. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, I rise once again to recognize the service of one of America's great Federal employees. In recent months, President Obama has spoken of his vision of a world free from the threat of nuclear weapons. While nuclear disarmament remains a long-term project, there are important steps already being taken right now toward that goal. The public servant I will speak about today has already distinguished herself as a top-notch negotiator on nuclear proliferation issues for the Department of Energy. When Nicole Nelson-Jean was just 28 years old, she led a delegation of Energy Department negotiators in an effort to secure Russian nuclear materials in Siberia. Based out of our Embassy in Tokyo, Nicole had to overcome the skepticism of her Russian counterparts, who were not accustomed to negotiating with someone her age. Remember, she was 28. But she quickly won their respect and developed a working relationship that enabled them to move forward on technical assistance and create a joint training and service center in the Russian Arctic for securing nuclear material. After this achievement, Nicole was made director of the Department of Energy's Asia Office. She distinguished herself in that position for 2 years, also serving concurrently as energy attache to our ambassador in Japan. In 2006, Nicole was tapped to head the Global Threat Reduction Initiative for North and South America which runs projects in over 90 countries to remove radiological material from nuclear reactors and reconfigures them from processing weapons-grade highly enriched uranium to those processing the type used for peaceful purposes. Following her success in that role, Nicole was appointed to serve as Director of the United States Mission to the International Organizations in Vienna, Austria. While there, she helped secure passage of the IAEA's Nuclear Security Resolution, which is now the central international statute used to prevent nuclear terrorism. When asked about her work as a public servant, Nicole said: ``Personally, I don't think that there's anything more important than the national security of our country,'' and that ``service is in my blood.'' Earlier this summer, Nicole returned to the United States to begin a 10-month program at the National Defense University as a counter- terrorism fellow. She is just one of countless Federal employees who, even though they are highly educated and experienced, continue to immerse themselves academically in their career fields. As I have stated before from this desk, our Federal employees combine great intellect and a passion for service. The result is a Federal workforce that excels. Without Nicole and those like her, our government could not carry out the policies, such as nuclear arms control, that keep the American people safe and free. I call on my fellow Senators to join me in thanking Nicole Nelson- Jean and all the outstanding men and women of the Department of Energy for their contribution to our Nation. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KAUFMAN

Mr. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, today I recognize the extraordinary contributions of a patriarch of the Italian-American community in my home State of Delaware, Father Roberto Balducelli. On Columbus Day, Father Balducelli will be honored by the Columbus Communion Breakfast Committee with its Outstanding Achievement Award. Father Balducelli's 96 years on this Earth, while a true gift to all he has served, reads like a novel. As a 9-year-old boy in the small town of Castelluccio, Italy, he decided that he wanted to pursue an ecclesiastical education in Rome. In 1929, at the age of 16, he joined the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales. After studying in France and Switzerland, he returned to Italy from September 1939 to March 1946. During World War II, Father Balducelli helped save Italian Jews from persecution. The young priest recovered the bodies of civilians killed in bombing raids, was injured in one of these attacks, and sheltered refugees from Nazi persecution. After receiving a passport to come to the United States, Father Balducelli crossed the Atlantic Ocean over the course of 29 days and arrived in New York on April 10, 1946. The young oblate arrived at St. Anthony's of Padua Church in Wilmington soon after and became the church's first Italian priest. In 1959, he became pastor of St. Anthony's. As a first-rate mason and a licensed contractor in the State of Delaware, Father Balducelli oversaw and helped undertake the renovation of an old public school to meet young Catholic students' educational needs, and he helped establish a new school, called Padua Academy, for girls, as well. His love of welding helped to build St. Anthony in the Hills in the 1960s, a popular summer retreat and sanctuary for children and their families near Hockessin, DE. On his watch, the parish opened a senior and day care center and expanded the regionally prominent Italian Festival in Delaware. He retired as the church's pastor in 1988. I am privileged to have known Father Balducelli for many years. I look forward to breaking bread with him at the Columbus Communion Breakfast in Wilmington's Little Italy on the day of his special recognition. I hope my colleagues will join me in celebrating Father Balducelli's significant accomplishments, which he achieved over the course of a lifetime dedicated to our community. Wilmington and our Italian- American community could not have woven such a fabric of family and strength if it were not for the commitment and foresight of Father Roberto Balducelli.

Mr. KAUFMAN

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

Mr. KAUFMAN

Mr. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, I rise once again to honor America's great Federal employees. When I began my great Federal employees initiative in May, I did so by sharing the stories of some outstanding public servants who in past years had won Service to America Medals. Last night, at its eighth annual awards gala, the Partnership for Public Service announced its 2009 Service to America Medal winners. These nine exemplary Federal employees represent a number of agencies and hail from diverse backgrounds. Together, they form a snapshot of the finest civil service in history. When I spoke in May about what makes our Federal workforce so excellent, I said there are several qualities our civil servants embody. First and foremost, they demonstrate great citizenship by choosing careers in the public sector. Second, they are industrious and hardworking in the face of often difficult and challenging tasks. Our Federal employees take risks both to their safety and to their careers. They persevere even when faced with setbacks or with the knowledge that the effects of their work may not be felt for years to come. Our public servants exhibit great intellect and bring to their jobs many advanced skills and specialized knowledge. I am glad--very glad--there are awards such as the Service to America Medals to recognize the unsung heroes who keep America moving ever forward. This is what I have tried to do each week by speaking about our great public servants. This year's Service to America medalists can well be described by the five attributes I just listed. Dr. Janet Kemp, who won this year's Federal Employee of the Year Medal, exemplified the value of outstanding citizenship when she organized a national suicide prevention hotline for veterans. As national director for the VA's Suicide Prevention Program, Janet oversaw the creation of the hotline to help combat veteran suicide, which has increased significantly in recent years. Since 2005, when she was asked to spearhead this program, Janet's initiative has rescued over 3,000 veterans and has assisted them in finding help. An important aspect of citizenship is a commitment to protecting one's community from harm. Ben Fisherow was awarded the 2009 Justice and Law Enforcement Medal for his work to prevent air pollution. As an experienced litigator with the Department of Justice's Environment and Natural Resources Division, Ben has spent over 20 years enforcing key provisions of the Clean Air Act and taking legal action against utilities that violate anti-pollution mandates. In one case alone, Ben secured a settlement that prevented the release of over 800,000 tons of air pollutants annually. Our federal employees are hard working, and this year's Citizens Services Medal winner proves it. Michael German, of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, has been working tirelessly to combat homelessness in America. The Interagency Council on Homelessness, which he leads, coordinates with over 850 State and local officials nationwide on efforts to help the homeless obtain medical care and permanent housing. Their work has led to a 30-percent reduction in the chronically homeless between 2005 and 2007. Another example of our civil servants' industriousness can be found in Allan Comp. Allan won the 2009 Environment Medal for his work at the Department of the Interior's Office of Surface Mining. He created the Appalachian Coal Country Watershed Team, a partnership between his office and VISTA volunteers who help local citizens and community groups organize clean-up projects and monitor water quality. His program was so successful that it was recently expanded to the American West. Today, joint Office of Surface-Mining and VISTA teams are at work protecting and empowering local communities in Colorado, New Mexico, and Montana. Clare Rowley is an economic analyst for the FDIC. She won the Call to Service Medal for helping to implement the FDIC's mortgage modification program, which helped thousands of families stay in their homes after the collapse of subprime mortgages. In February, Clare, who is only 25 years old, found herself sitting in a high-level meeting with regulators, bankers, and Obama administration officials on the foreclosure crisis. Despite feeling somewhat intimidated because of her age and junior position, Clare spoke up and offered important ideas that eventually made their way into the Treasury Department's mortgage crisis recovery plan. Now, Clare is one of those instrumental in carrying out the plan. A risk-taker, who won this year's National Security and International Affairs Medal, serves as the director of the USAID's Office of Economic Growth in Pakistan. In July, I spoke about a USAID employee who was gunned down by extremists while posted in the Sudan. For Amy Meyer, who performs similar work in Pakistan, the danger is very real. Nonetheless, she arrived in the country in 2006 and began working with local women to create dairy cooperatives. Starting with just a staff of two and little funding, Amy now oversees a $200 million budget and several successful economic empowerment programs. She even teaches yoga on Pakistani television and has spent much of her personal time dispensing advice to local women in their homes. The winner of the 2009 Career Achievement Medal knows the meaning of perseverance. Dr. Thomas Waldmann has been a medical researcher at the National Institutes of Health for over 50 years. Currently, Tom is chief of the NIH National Cancer Institute's Metabolism Branch, and the focus of his career has been researching disorders in which the body attacks its own cells. His work has led to treatments to once-fatal varieties of lymphoma, leukemia, and multiple sclerosis. Tom also co- discovered a type of molecule that may lead to advances in the fight against AIDS and cancer. But his successes did not happen overnight. His achievements were the work of a lifetime, and the full impact of Tom's discoveries will not be known for years. Similarly, Dr. Patricia Guerry has demonstrated great resolve while researching an elusive vaccine. Now serving as chief of the Naval Medical Research Center's Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Branch, she has spent nearly 30 years studying a microbe that causes food poisoning. Researchers discovered that the most common microbe involved in food-borne illnesses is Campylobacter. In the mid-1980s, after several years of unsuccessfully attempting to find a vaccine, many microbiologists turned their attention elsewhere. Patricia, however, never gave up. Today, she and her team of researchers are nearing their goal, and their vaccine is now in the testing phase. She persevered, and our troops stationed abroad as well as tens of millions in the developing world will likely soon benefit from a vaccine. This year's Homeland Security Medal was shared by a pair of CIA employees who showed great intellect in solving a critical problem. In 2005, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence gave Sean Dennehy and Don Burke the task of improving information-sharing across the intelligence community. Lack of communication between the intelligence agencies had been a serious impediment to preventing the September 11 attacks. To fix this, Sean and Don created an online system called ``Intellipedia,'' modeled after the popular Wikipedia Web site. Intellipedia enables analysts from different agencies to contribute information to subject pages and open cases. Today, Intellipedia has grown to nearly a million pages, and it has helped prevent threats to the Beijing Olympics, analyze IED patterns in Iraq, and study the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. All of these outstanding public servants display great humility. Even with such accomplishments, modesty is their common response. I want to congratulate the Partnership for Public Service on their work to award the Service to America Medals. The winners were selected by a blue ribbon panel of leaders from both the public and private sectors, of which our colleague from Mississippi, Senator Thad Cochran, is a member. I hope the rest of my colleagues will join me in congratulating all of this year's Service to America winners on receiving their medals. We thank them, and all Federal employees, for their service to our Nation. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. KAUFMAN

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

Mr. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, Wall Street has undergone a radical transformation in recent years. We saw the rise of high-frequency trading where buy and sell orders move in milliseconds. We saw the emergence of so-called dark pools which permit confidential trading in growing volumes to take place away from the public eye. We now see some trading firms' computer servers enjoying the advantage of onsite location, a practice known as colocation. We have seen the creation of flash orders which allow certain traders to see orders before anyone else. There have been new developments in payments for order flow, a practice that permits market centers to pay a broker to route a trade its way. These and myriad other practices, almost too complicated to describe, have fundamentally changed how our markets operate. We now have a high-tech, profit-driven arms race, which continues to escalate every day, that has transformed the ways and the places and the speeds in which stocks and other securities are traded. There are at least two questions that must be posed--questions we must look to the markets' regulators to answer. First, have these opaque, complex, increasingly sophisticated trading mechanisms been beneficial for retail investors, helping them to buy at the lowest possible price and sell at the highest price with the lowest possible transaction costs or have they left them as second-class investors, pushed aside by powerful trading companies able to take advantage of small but statistically and financially significant advantages? And second, do these high-tech practices and their ballooning daily volumes pose a systemic risk? To take just one example, is anyone examining the leverage these traders use in committing their capital in such huge daily volumes? What do we really know about the cumulative effect of all these changes on the stability of our capital markets? The proponents of these technological developments tell us this transformation has benefited all investors. But how can we know--truly, how can we know that--when so much of the market is opaque to the public and to the regulators? How can we be confident when the measurement and enforcement techniques used by regulators for ensuring best execution seem stuck in the past and when so many trade in milliseconds across fragmented markets to take advantage of so-called market latencies? And why should we assume it all operates in the public interest when these changes have not been fully analyzed, individually or collectively, to determine and protect the interests of long-term investors? That is why, on August 21, I wrote to SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro calling for ``a comprehensive, independent, `zero-based regulatory review' of a broad range of market structure issues, analyzing the current market structure from the ground up before piecemeal changes built on the current structure increase the potential for execution unfairness.'' I told her then that ``we need a thorough review . . . so that our laws and regulations can keep pace with market developments.'' In a written response to me on September 10, Chairman Schapiro announced that not only was the SEC reviewing dark pools and flash orders, studies it had begun earlier this year, but that it would broaden its review to include regulation ATS threshold levels, direct market access, high-frequency trading, and colocation, which I explained earlier. Adding action to these words, last week the SEC unanimously approved a proposal to ban the use of flash orders in our financial markets. Flash orders undermine the credibility of our markets by giving a select group of market participants a sneak peek at stock quotes. As Chairman Schapiro noted, ``Flash orders provide a momentary head start in the trading arena that can produce inequities in the market.'' I applaud the SEC for this action. The proposal must be put out for public comment which the SEC will review before making a final decision. I am hopeful that last week's action was a true beginning. Banning flash orders is only a small, though significant--very significant-- step in the review of recent market developments. Accordingly, I was also very pleased last week to hear Chairman Schapiro, the Commissioners, and the SEC staff voice their support not just for a flash order ban but also for the need for a comprehensive, ground-up review at the Commission of current market structure issues. Chairman Schapiro asserted last Thursday that ``other market practices may have . . . opaque features'' and that she expects the Commission to ``consider initiatives in the near future'' that address ``forms of dark trading that lack market transparency.'' James Brigagliano, Co-Acting Director, Division of Trading and Markets, added: I want to emphasize that today's recommended proposal is a first step in an ongoing review of market structure issues. The securities markets have experienced extraordinary changes over the last few years in trading technology and practices. Some of these changes have led to serious concerns about whether the regulatory structure remains up to date. The division is examining a wide range of market structure issues, including certain practices with respect to undisplayed or ``dark trading interests'' in addition to flash orders that are the subject of today's proposal. We anticipate making additional recommendations to the Commission in the coming months for proposals to address discreet issues, such as flash orders, that warrant prompt attention. There is also a spectrum of broader market issues and practices that affect the interests of investors and need to be examined closely. I cannot tell you how pleased I am to hear that the Commission is taking the review seriously. I say bravo to the SEC. The agency tasked with upholding the integrity of our markets should actively review the rapid technological developments of the past few years and analyze their costs and benefits to long-term investors. Eugene Ludwig, former Comptroller of the Currency, recently reminded us that each of the financial crises of the past 25 years--the collapse of the savings and loan industry, the Internet stock bust a decade later, and last year's credit market meltdown--was the result of inadequate regulation. Another former regulator, Brooksley Born, a former Chairman of the CFTC, warned us of the opaqueness of the derivatives markets at a time when they were becoming big enough to cause trouble. Earlier this year, she recalled her warnings: I was very concerned about the dark nature of these markets. And further: I didn't think we knew enough about them. I was concerned about the lack of transparency and the lack of any tools for enforcement and the lack of prohibitions against fraud and manipulation. Unfortunately, history proved Brooksley Born right--unchecked, unexamined innovation severely weakened our markets and, as we all know, ultimately led to our financial disaster. Sometimes small, apparently technical innovations in our vast and complicated financial system can generate great benefits for all, and other times they can generate disastrous unintended consequences. It is also fair to say that well-intentioned regulation in a complex market can also have unintended consequences. That is why we need regulators on the job, undertaking a thoughtful and reasoned analysis so we can have a clear view of where innovations may be taking us and whether wise regulations can help curb abuses. Regulators must keep pace with the latest market developments, and we in Congress must give regulators the tools they need to observe and stay abreast of the sophisticated financial players they are charged with regulating. I say that again. We in the Congress must give regulators the tools they need to observe and stay abreast of the sophisticated financial players they are charged with regulating. Three examples from the current debate are especially illustrative of this need: colocation of servers at the exchanges, flash orders, and direct market access. When the exchanges first began to permit traders to place computers onsite, giving these traders a few microseconds' advantage, the SEC did not insist on regulatory approval. The Commission simply let it occur. There was no active consideration then, as I have called for now, of the means by which fair access can be preserved. The same is true for flash orders. In May, the SEC permitted the NASDAQ and BATS exchanges to introduce flash-order offerings even though both admitted that the practice was of dubious value and that they simply were being driven to adopt it by the loss of market share to competitors. Both exchanges later reversed those decisions voluntarily, which is commendable, but let's not forget that this was a telling example of rote, piecemeal review by the SEC staff applying outdated floor-based precedents to electronic-age developments. Direct market access is another practice that deserves closer examination. Such agreements allow high-frequency traders to use their broker's market participant identification to interact directly with market centers. In order to maximize speed of execution, many sponsored access participants may neglect important pretrade credit and compliance checks that ensure faulty algorithms cannot send out erroneous trades. According to John Jacobs, chief operations officer at Lime Brokerage, this risk is quite significant. He says: At 1,000 shares per order and an average price of $20 per share, $2.4 billion of improper trades could be executed in this short timeframe . . . The next long term capital meltdown would happen in a five-minute time period. When did direct access begin, and has the SEC ever considered its ramifications from a comprehensive standpoint? Some are now saying that colocation and flash orders are very old- fashioned concepts and perhaps colocation, for its part, will ultimately be practiced better in the automated environment than it has been on the floors. I am sure some old hands can tell hair-raising stories about the old days and floor space out of the Chicago pits. But that is the point: Colocation and flash are two of many transformational changes this decade that have been considered piecemeal and only in the context of existing policies. Like direct access, these changes may have been found equal or even superior to their floor-based antecedents, but in an automated age these changes need to be subjected to a holistic analysis of their collective impact on the markets and our regulatory infrastructure. The same is true for high-frequency trading, dark pools, payment for order flow, liquidity rebates, and other market structure issues. The rapid rise of high-frequency trading and dark execution venues has quite simply left our regulatory agencies playing catch-up. High- frequency traders can execute over 1,000 trades in a single second. Let me say that again--1,000 trades in a single second. According to the TAB Group, these traders are now responsible for over 70 percent of all daily U.S. equity trades--70 percent; that is 7-0 percent. We are learning more about high-frequency trading every day. According to one industry expert: Most high-frequency shops have huge volumes but few transactions. About 95 to 97 percent of trades are orders sent and canceled. What does all this mean for the long-term investor? Trading is not only faster, it is also quickly becoming less transparent. Twelve percent of trades are now conducted in dark pools, compared to less than 1 percent 6 years ago, and substantial percentages of trades are internalized at broker- dealers, never reaching a public exchange. Maybe in the old days there were block trades happening in the dark too. I don't doubt it. But many commentators have raised concerns about whether the darkening trends today truly threaten to undermine public price discovery. The strength of a free market is in its public display of price quotes to all market participates. These recent developments quite simply need to be better understood. Yet still, after all the disasters, the billions of dollars lost, the homes foreclosed, the jobs lost--after all the pain that has been caused across this country--some on Wall Street reject even the notion of regulatory scrutiny. They become defensive about the politicization of the process when Congress asks basic questions. They say Congress and the media can never understand high-frequency trading. They point to the benefits of high-frequency trading--narrowed spreads, added liquidity, and faster executions--and ask everyone to trust there will be no side effects, no unintended consequences. Some still argue that the market operates best without any regulation; that changes in market structure are the natural consequence of the innovative and competition and there is nothing good to be gained from regulators or Congress studying possible sources of inequity. To their credit, not everyone on Wall Street has reacted this way. Others have said that now is the right time for a comprehensive review of market structure developments. These Wall Street leaders--true leaders--acknowledge there are indeed many valid questions being raised about dark pools, payment for order flow, other market innovations, and enforcement of best execution. Indeed, some high-frequency traders have said they welcome a regulatory examination of high-frequency trading because they are confident high-frequency trading will pass the test with flying colors. That is the correct attitude. We need a regulatory review with Wall Street's cooperation. It is in the nature of our financial markets to push the envelope, to take on more and more risk, and to exploit any crack in the wall when there are profits to be won. There is nothing wrong with this. But to have a full accounting, we also need to add up the costs to the long- term investor, to financial stability, to innocent bystanders of each new generation of innovation. In years past, without a sufficient regulatory presence, an aura of invincibility developed at many financial institutions. We failed to ask questions, we failed to ensure regulators were on the field with the tools they need to do their jobs, and the results are clear: Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, their homes, and their savings. We must not repeat that mistake. We must be sure that when financial markets push the envelope, take on more and more risk, and exploit any crack in the wall, they are monitored and regulated to assure it is in the public good. It is time for Congress and the regulators to ask questions and for Wall Street to step forward responsibly and answer them with the data to back up those answers. We cannot simply react to problems after they have occurred. We need the information and resources to identify problems before they arise and stop them in their tracks. Our goal is not to stop high-frequency trading. We don't want to slow it down. Liquidity, innovation, and competition are critical components of our financial markets. But at the same time, we cannot allow liquidity to trump fairness, and we cannot permit the need for speed to blind us to the potentially devastating risks inherent in effectively unregulated transactions. We cannot forget that fair and transparent markets are the cornerstones of our American system. As I have said before, fairness in the financial markets may be an elusive and ever-evolving concept, but it must be defined and then vigorously defended by our regulators. The credibility of the markets and investor confidence simply demand that regulators be ever watchful, sophisticated, and tough against those who would breach the rules. I am not demanding an immediate, wide-ranging regulatory overhaul. I will not place symbolic action over prudent investigation. That would be impulsive and irresponsible. But it is only prudent, given the risks of the past, that I will not allow potentially risky market practices to go on unexamined. I will ask questions and strive to improve my understanding of these opaque market practices and, if necessary, push appropriate reforms. I am very pleased the SEC has agreed to do the same. If we fail to learn from past mistakes, we can be sure history will repeat itself. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for up to 18 minutes.

Mr. KAUFMAN

Mr. KAUFMAN. I thank the Senator. I join my freshmen colleagues this morning to discuss the Nation's health care system and urge Congress to pass reform legislation this year. I think there are two major reasons we need to enact health reform this year, and they both require controlling health care costs. First, we need to pass health care reform because failure to do so could literally bankrupt the country. Just look at Medicare and Medicaid. One of the biggest driving forces behind our Federal deficit is the skyrocketing cost of Medicare as well as Medicaid. In 1966 Medicare and Medicaid accounted for only 1 percent; that is, 1 percent of all government expenditures. Today they account for 20 percent. If we do nothing to start bending the cost curve down for Medicare and Medicaid, we will eventually spend more on these two programs than all other Federal programs combined. Medicare spending is growing rapidly for the same reasons that private health care spending is growing rapidly: increases in the cost and utilization of medical care. Between 1970 and 2007, Medicare's spending for each enrollee rose by an average of 8.5 percent annually, while private health insurance increased by 9.7 percent per person per year. The Congressional Budget office estimates that Federal spending on Medicare and Medicaid was approximately 4 percent of the Nation's gross domestic product in 2008. If we fail to act--and we cannot fail to act--Federal spending on Medicare and Medicaid will rise to 7 percent of GDP by 2025. We must bend these cost curves down and slow the level of growth in Medicare and Medicaid programs if we are ever to get our budget situation under control. The second major reason we have to act is because failure to do so will drive more and more Americans into personal bankruptcy. Today bankruptcy involving medical bills accounts for more than 60 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies, a rate 1.5 times that of just 6 years ago. Keep in mind, more than 75 percent of families entering bankruptcy because of health care costs actually have health insurance. I think we have a popular idea that the people going bankrupt are people who cannot manage their money, who do not have health insurance. These are people who have health insurance. Again, two-thirds of all Americans filing for bankruptcy because of medical bills already have insurance. These are middle-class Americans who are well educated and own their own homes. They just cannot keep up with the alarming rise in costs associated with medical care. We have to act so that Americans no longer have to worry about how they are going to afford their medical bills. We need to pass health care reform and give Americans more stability in these rough economic times so they no longer have to choose between paying their medical bills or paying their home mortgages or their children's tuition payments. Controlling health care costs is a major reason we need to pass health care reform today.

Mr. KAUFMAN

Mr. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, imagine a robot that could play ball. Imagine a robot that could actually pick up a ball from the ground, hold on to it, and then, when the time is right, successfully toss it to another robot. Finally, imagine that this robot was built by a group of high school students. I recently met an extraordinary group of students who turned this vision into reality. As part of Delaware's Miracle Workers robotics team, students designed and built this robot to compete in the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, for FIRST, national robotics competition. The FIRST Program was founded in 1989 by inventor Dean Kamen to inspire young people to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math, or STEM. Since that time, FIRST has grown significantly. In 2008, drawing from the support of thousands of volunteers and mentors, sponsorships from some of the world's largest and smallest companies, educational institutions, and the Federal Government, FIRST introduced nearly 160,000 students from all 50 States and 37 countries to the joys of problem solving and engineering. In Delaware, participating students spent an entire school year building their robot, which is taller than some humans, decorated in green and black, and even wearing a bow tie. The first half of the year the team was dedicated to learning the basics of engineering, programming, and project management. The remainder of the year was slated for designing, building, testing, and refining the robot for competition. Students worked in specific subteams, including electrical, programming, mechanical, fundraising, publicity, scouting, 3-D animation, Web team, and more. Students engaged with adult volunteers--many of them engineering professionals--who helped train and mentor the team. Incredibly, these types of programs are not just for those in high school. Delaware's First State Robotics organization oversees several other programs and provides engineering experience for students from prekindergarten through college. First State Robotics aims to inspire in young people, schools, and communities an appreciation for science, engineering, and technology. The results are remarkable. Ninety-seven percent of First State Robotics participants have attended college, with 82 percent pursuing degrees in science and engineering. Many have earned credits at a local community college for their participation in the program, and several have earned scholarships applicable toward higher education. Communities also benefit from these programs. Participating students take part in book drives, blood drives, and mentoring. They give robot demonstrations in local schools and community events to promote recruitment and education. It is clear that First State Robotics is having an incredible impact on students. Alumni of the program are more interested in pursuing careers in the sciences and engineering, and they are involved with their communities as volunteers. Many graduates say that participating in First State Robotics was the most positive and rewarding experience of their lives, and through these experiences they decided to pursue further study of engineering. We must continue to encourage today's students to become tomorrow's engineers by highlighting and promoting programs such as First State Robotics. It is through comprehensive programs such as these that students learn that engineering can be a path to making a difference. Through hands-on activities, students participating in First State Robotics are given the opportunity to learn that engineers, such as the Presiding Officer, are the world's problem solvers, do make a difference in people's lives and quality of life, and can help us reach the goal of clean water, lifesaving cures for cancer and disease, clean renewable energy, affordable health care, and environmental sustainability. The national FIRST Program shows how important it is that the American people, the Federal Government, and industries united to support STEM initiatives. These educational programs will lead us not only to new frontiers in health, energy, technology, and security but to new jobs and, ultimately, a sustainable economic recovery. I know that if given the opportunity, a new generation of engineers and scientists will lead us into the new frontiers, and many FIRST alumni have already done so. I commend the students of First State Robotics and dedicated mentors for their shining examples of the miracles of engineering. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KAUFMAN

Mr. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, I rise once again to recognize the service of one of America's great Federal employees. Last week I spoke about an outstanding public servant who refused to give up when she was faced with life-changing trauma. My friend Vice President Biden says America's greatest attribute is that when it gets knocked down, it gets right back up. Perseverance is one of our national strengths. It has seen us through the lean years and the times of war. It has also seen us through the setbacks of our march of science and discovery. In one such setback a few years ago, NASA experienced a string of failures to land an exploratory probe on Mars. After the inspirational voyages of Viking 1 and 2, which landed on the red planet of the 1970s, NASA did not send spacecraft to the surface of Mars for 20 years. After a brief but successful return in 1997 by the Mars Pathfinder, NASA prepared a series of missions aimed at exploring the Martian surface and laying the groundwork for a future astronaut mission. The enthusiasm at NASA and in our Nation's scientific community quickly turned to disappointment as two consecutive missions failed to reach their destination. Some of my colleagues may remember how frustrating it was to learn that one craft burned up in Mars' atmosphere because a contractor measured in English units instead of the metric system used by NASA. When Orlando Figueroa took charge of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover project in 2001, he set out to change the mood. Optimism and excitement had long been the driving force behind NASA's successes, and Orlando knew that despite recent setbacks, NASA could once again achieve and inspire. Less than 3 years later, under Orlando's leadership, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover project successfully landed some of the most advanced technology ever created onto the Martian surface. He pushed his team to look forward, not backward, and Orlando's leadership was critical as the team faced challenges in advance of a rapidly approaching launch date. The Mars Exploration Rovers--called Spirit and Opportunity-- successfully landed on opposite ends of Mars in January 2004 after a 6- month journey. Together, they traversed several miles of the planet's surface and captured over 100,000 high resolution photographs for use by scientists studying the Martian climate and soil. The tests conducted by Spirit and Opportunity have brought our researchers closer to finding evidence of water and possibly past life on our neighboring planet. The Mars Exploration Rover project also reignited the imaginations of countless students. I have spoken a number of times already about the importance of supporting education in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics or ``STEM.'' The success of Orlando and his team at NASA contributes greatly to our efforts to renew interest in space exploration and scientific discovery among our Nation's youth. It was this same enthusiasm that first led us to orbit the Earth and reach the Moon. Orlando exemplifies the kind of perseverance endemic to America's civil servants. He and his team demonstrated once again that our Nation, when we get knocked down, can get back up and accomplish any task we set for ourselves. It was for this reason that Orlando was awarded the Service to America--Federal Employee of the Year medal in 2005. I hope that all the members of this body will join me in recognizing the important contribution made by Orlando Figueroa and all of the hard-working employees of NASA. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KAUFMAN

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

Mr. KAUFMAN

Mr. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, I wish to honor Howard High School of Technology in Wilmington, which is celebrating its 140th anniversary this month. This institution was the only high school for African Americans in my home State of Delaware until the 1920s and played an important role in the historic Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education. Howard High School was founded in 1869 as a four-room elementary school, which eventually began to graduate high school students in 1893. Today, the school boasts 860 students in grades 9 through 12. Graduates earn both a high school diploma and a certificate of competency in one of 13 programs. Howard was a Blue Ribbon school in 1997 and 1999 as a result of its students' academic success. It has also been a National Service Learning Leader School since 2000, receiving grants to engage students in service activities linked to academic achievement and civic responsibility. In April 2005, Howard High School was designated as a national landmark because of its significance in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case, which struck down the ``separate but equal'' doctrine and ended the segregation of public schools. Howard graduate Louis Redding worked with a team of lawyers, led by Thurgood Marshall, to win the landmark ruling. Delaware's specific case, Belton v. Gebhart, challenged the inferior conditions of two schools designated for African-American children. In the suburb of Claymont, African-American children were prohibited from attending the area's local high school. Instead, they had to ride a school bus for nearly an hour to attend Howard High. I congratulate Howard High School of Technology on its anniversary and wish its students, teachers, and administrators much success as it continues to serve as one of Wilmington's pre-eminent schools, open to all and fostering achievement in a number of academic fields.

Mr. KAUFMAN

Mr. KAUFMAN. Madam President, tomorrow is the first anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse, the largest bankruptcy in United States history. Lehman's failure sent shock waves throughout the entire country. The resulting financial meltdown plunged the American economy into the most severe recession since the 1950s. Credit markets froze, investor confidence collapsed, stock prices crashed, and millions of Americans lost their jobs, their homes, and their savings. Lehman brought about its own demise. Once the Nation's fourth-largest investment bank, Lehman allowed a culture of recklessness to engulf its firm. But the blame for this downward spiral and for the consequences to millions of Americans does not end with Lehman. At a time when banks were taking on unprecedented risk, our regulatory agencies were taking their referees off the field. The SEC, like other regulatory agencies, has made many mistakes in recent years: from failing to monitor the credit rating agencies and permitting the banks to increase their capital-leverage ratios to as much as 30- or 50-to-1 to buy up what turned out to be toxic assets, to removing the uptick rule without putting anything effective in its place and failing to put in place systems to monitor and adjust its regulations as the markets rapidly evolved. Our Nation has paid dearly for these mistakes. In response, we have vowed to shine a light on Wall Street, to enact financial regulatory reforms, to push for clearer and enforceable laws, to strengthen our oversight agencies--all in an effort to prevent history from repeating itself and to rebuild the credibility of and investor confidence in our markets. But our actions have not yet followed our words. President Obama has proposed a new financial regulation plan that would enforce stricter capital and liquidity requirements for investment banks, revamp the disjointed regulatory system, and impose higher standards for risky products like credit default swaps. I applaud President Obama's efforts to address the regulatory problems that devastated our economy and I look forward to working with my colleagues to create a systemic risk regulator, to regulate derivatives effectively, and to ensure consumer financial protections. But we cannot simply react to problems after they have occurred. We must also adopt a forward-looking approach to regulation that recognizes manipulation and wrongdoing while it is happening and stops it in its tracks. Because of the damage that was done to our economy by the prior financial scandals, the regulatory agencies and Congress need to catch up and redress prior mistakes--while at the same time focus on current questionable market practices before new problems arise. Since I became a Senator in January, I have been spending much of my time in Congress asking questions and promoting regulatory solutions to current questionable practices on Wall Street. And I have stressed repeatedly the need for the SEC to step forward as a strong and determined cop on the beat. I believe that democracy and fair markets are the foundation of our American society. They are both based on the notions of equality and fairness--the idea that all Americans have an equal opportunity to succeed. For markets to have credibility and investors to have confidence, Congress and the SEC must act urgently to restore a level playing field for investors. If investors don't believe the markets are fair, they won't invest in them. It is as simple as that. Fairness may be an ever-changing and elusive concept when it comes to the financial markets, but it must be defined and then defended by the regulators. Where abuses continue in our financial markets, those abuses must be addressed through clear rules with teeth and through tough enforcement. Otherwise, we will be left with two financial markets: One market for huge-volume, high-speed players, who can take advantage of every loophole for profit, and another market for retail investors, whose orders are seemingly filled as an afterthought without any special priority. For example, since March, I have worked with a bipartisan group of Senators to push the SEC to do more about abusive or so-called ``naked'' short selling. When Lehman Brothers began to go down, many believe naked short sellers drove it into its grave, profiting handsomely by manipulating the price of Lehman's stock down, down, down. The SEC will be holding a roundtable on September 30th to discuss pre-borrow requirements and centralized ``hard locate'' system solutions that I and other Senators have proposed. I strongly urge the Commission to propose new rules addressing these issues and to begin to elicit serious comments about their effectiveness. At the very least they should set up pilot programs to test how they might work. Otherwise, if the SEC does nothing, I am concerned that when the conditions for profitable naked short selling reoccur, there will be no enforceable rules to stop it, and the SEC will be unable to punish those who undertake it, just as the SEC has yet to punish anyone for the naked short selling events of last year. More recently, several questionable market structure issues have come to light, threatening market fairness in ways we are only beginning to understand. Wall Street has undergone a radical transformation in only the last few years. Only a few years ago, powerful trading organizations, like the New York Stock Exchange, handled over 80 percent of all transactions. Today, the market is currently heavily fragmented and dominated by high-frequency traders. According to research by the Tabb Group, there are now over 50 trading venues in the United States. Technologically advanced high- frequency trading firms now represent over 61 percent of the daily trading volume in stocks. Institutional investors prefer to trade in dark liquidity pools, which arguably violate the spirit of rules that require fair and non- discriminatory access to quotations. These innovations, from market fragmentation to high-speed electronic trading, have produced benefits, including increased liquidity, narrowed spreads, and lowered commissions for most investors. But while competition and innovation have flourished, the fundamental fairness of our markets cannot be taken for granted. Actions by the SEC over recent decades have had the unintended consequence of producing markets that now seem to favor the most technologically sophisticated traders, sometimes at the expense of ordinary retail investors. Moreover, competition for market trading volume among market centers now includes questionable practices such as liquidity rebates, flash order offerings, co-location of servers, and other inducement arrangements with broker-dealers and other market participants. Congress, the SEC, and the public they serve need to stand back and better understand what has happened. Even for the skilled insiders, it is all very complicated and opaque, and the challenge we face is to understand the benefits, costs, and risks of these developments to long-term investors, in a market environment very different from just 5 years ago. This is why I recently called on the SEC to undertake a comprehensive review of a broad range of market issues, analyzing the current market structure from the ground up before piecemeal changes built on the current structure add to the potential for execution unfairness. I am concerned that questionable practices threaten to further erode investor confidence in our financial markets and that our understanding and regulatory capability have not kept pace with those changes. To her credit, SEC Chairman Schapiro, for whom I have great respect as well as for the urgent tasks she confronts in this challenging era for the Commission, has begun such a review and has agreed to broaden it. In her letter responding to my concerns, she too recognizes the trade-offs between liquidity and fairness, as well as the importance of standing up for the interests of long-term investors. She wrote: ``If . . . the interests of long-term investors and professional short-term traders conflict, the Commission previously has emphasized that `its clear responsibility is to uphold the interests of long-term investors.' I firmly agree that the Commission's focus must be on the protection of long-term investors.'' Alan Greenspan, the former Fed Chairman, in commenting on the fixed income markets, learned this lesson too late: technological developments without effective regulation do not always lead to the best interests of investors. He wrote: ``All of the sophisticated mathematics and computer wizardry essentially rested on one central premise: that enlightened self interest of owners and managers of financial institutions would lead them to maintain a sufficient buffer against insolvency by actively monitoring and managing their firms' capital and risk positions.'' The premise failed in the summer of 2007, the former Fed Chairman said, leaving him ``deeply dismayed.'' We are all deeply dismayed, and we do not ever want to be so dismayed again. So while recent developments in the equity and options markets are very different from what happened in the fixed income markets, Congress must exercise its oversight capacity to lay out the issues and ask the tough questions about high-frequency trading and recent market structure issues. High-frequency traders have many tools at their disposal that give them significant advantages over regular investors. The first is speed. In order to receive information as quickly as possible, high-speed firms place their computer servers right next to the exchanges. Co-locating allows them to receive information a few milliseconds before the rest of the world. Because every millisecond is critical in the world of high-frequency trading, firms are willing to pay millions of dollars annually for this advantage. Information on price movement and market trends is routed directly to electronic algorithms, designed by top engineers to make trades automatically. These programs rely on the rapid acquisition of information in order to read the markets and execute trades instantaneously, sometimes as many as 1,000 times in a single second. To prevent abuse, the SEC must ensure ``fair access'' for co-located servers at the exchanges and a method of allocation that does not disadvantage retail orders. Another advantage for insiders in this new system, arises from what are known as market latency disparities. Market fragmentation appears to permit high-speed traders to use the disparities in time, place, speed, and price to advantage themselves over unsuspecting investors. Let me read from a recent article in The Economist magazine entitled ``Rise of the Machines.'' ``High-frequency traders attempt to uncover how much an investor is willing to pay--or sell for--by sending out a stream of probing quotes that are swiftly cancelled until they elicit a response. The traders then buy or short the targeted stock ahead of the investor, offering it to them a fraction of a second later for a tidy profit.'' While the cost to each individual might be slight, the Tabb Group estimates that high-speed stock traders banked about $8 billion in profits last year. Let me repeat: $8 billion with a ``b.'' How much of this profit came from legitimate practices that benefited all investors, and how much of it was a toll paid by the average investor? We all know the old adage, that it is easier to steal a penny or two from 100 million people than to steal a million dollars from one person. We need to know if high-speed traders are proving this to be true in our markets every day. Some market practices have also introduced potential conflicts of interest into the marketplace. For example, trading venues offer rebates to investors who post limit orders, which bring liquidity to their exchange, and charge for market orders, which take liquidity out of the exchange. Some broker-dealer firms direct a sizable majority of their order flow to the exchanges that offer the highest payments and lowest fees. In theory, best execution is always the first priority, as regulations clearly state that even if the customer's order is routed to a market that does not have the best price, it must be rerouted to the market center that does. I am concerned that regulators are outmatched by the rapid advances in high-speed trading. In a highly fragmented system where millions of trades take place in a microsecond, the ability to measure and enforce so-called ``best execution'' may be a vain hope. The so-called Rule 605 forms, which purport to measure execution quality, are woefully outdated. The first column for time for execution reads ``0-9 seconds.'' In a gap of 9 seconds, prices can change significantly. In a world of 50 market venues, with structural latency issues being targeted by an entire industry of high-frequency traders, millions of trades reaping millions of dollars can take place before retail investors and the regulators who protect their interests can comprehend what happened. We need to ask if regulators are looking through the wrong end of a telescope when they should be using a microscope. Average investors must now wonder if their orders are being routed to a venue because it offers the best execution quality for them, or because it leads to the most revenue or lowest transaction fees for their brokers. Liquidity rebates paid by the exchanges have increased trade volume and thereby provided added revenue for exchanges. Most of the traders who capitalize on rebates are high-frequency traders who execute millions of low-risk trades a day. These market participants are not investors. Rather, they step in between buy and sell orders, trade on both sides of a security, and cash in on double the rebate. Let me again read from The Economist: ``Another popular HFT [high- frequency trading] strategy is to collect rebates that exchanges offer to liquidity providers. High-frequency traders will quickly outbid investors before immediately selling the shares to the investor at the slightly higher purchase price, collecting a rebate of one-quarter of a cent on both trades.'' Some argue that such innovations add needed liquidity to the market. But high-speed traders mainly target the most frequently-traded stocks. Liquidity is light and spreads are wide on many lower-volume stocks. We must rigorously examine the degree to which rebates actually bring liquidity to the marketplace where it is needed and help the market function properly. I have discussed a variety of questionable practices that deserve and I hope will receive a searching examination by the SEC and by Congress. While some of these innovations have produced benefits, they have also created wide disparities between high-speed traders and average investors. We do not have a clear accounting of all the costs and benefits of these recent market structure changes. Under the current system, until empirical data shows up to dispel our concerns, we have little reason to believe average investors can compete with the high-speed traders they are up against. We must question whether certain broker-dealers are acting in the best interests of their customers, under cover of flawed regulation and antiquated enforcement techniques. At the same time, we have dark trading platforms that are insufficiently monitored by regulators and which undermine public price discovery. Moreover, unlike specialists and traditional market-makers that are regulated, some of these new high-frequency traders are unregulated, though they are acting in a market-maker capacity. They have no requirements to ``maintain a fair and orderly'' market. They trade when it benefits them. If we experience another shock to the financial system, will this new, and dominant, type of pseudo market maker act in the interest of the markets when we really need them? Will they step up and maintain a two-sided market, or will they simply shut off the machines and walk away? Even worse, will they seek even further profit and exacerbate the downside? Because our rules and regulations are so inapt, most of the practices I've mentioned today are still legal, but they are not fair. It used to be that steroids were not banned by Major League Baseball. In fact, they were great for business. The game's biggest sluggers hit home runs at an unprecedented rate, enthralling fans in the process. But the game was tainted, the competition was unfair, and the power was not genuine. Eventually, the game suffered a crisis of legitimacy. High-frequency trading, while not illegal, may operate in ways that undermine the legitimacy of our financial markets. In order to restore investor confidence, we must effectively regulate unfair performance- enhancers. We must shine a light on dark pools, conduct a searching examination of high-frequency trading strategies to ensure they are not manipulative, ban flash orders, and give regulators the tools they need to ensure that broker-dealers are acting in the best interests of their clients. I know as well as anyone the benefits of free markets. I know that technology, innovation, and competition are critical components of economic growth. But we must balance those interests, against the values of fairness and equal opportunity. We must bring back a level playing field, encourage long-term investment, and help our economy grow. I am not here today, to stand in the way of progress. I do not wish to return to a horse-and-buggy system. High frequency trading and the ``Rise of the Machines''--as The Economist called it--are here to stay. I don't want to ban them. I don't want to slow them down. Simply put, technological developments should not control our regulatory destiny; rather, our regulatory agencies should ensure that technological progress everywhere bring benefits to long-term investors. And where the interests of the two are in conflict, our regulators must stop the practices of professional short-term traders that harm the interests of long-term investors. The market structure rules themselves should not enshrine or permit illicit advantages that a careful review, a surgeon's scalpel, electronically constructed solutions, and effective enforcement can end. Neither should needed solutions that protect investor interests, like reinstatement of some form of the uptick or bid test--or the need for a ``hard locate'' requirement to end naked short selling once and for all--remain unused primarily in deference to the desires and convenience of high-frequency traders. For our part, we in Congress need to undertake a fundamental review of the oversight responsibilities we give to regulators, examining whether they have adequate tools to carry out these responsibilities. We have become complacent in thinking that continually updating our body of regulations is enough, when in reality we perhaps have failed to provide regulators with the necessary tools they need to observe these complex financial institutions. So on this anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse, I conclude by saying I look forward to working with my colleagues, not only to address the financial crises of the past, but also to scrutinize and begin to correct the financial abuses of the present, so we can avoid the problems of the future. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KAUFMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. KAUFMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 25 minutes.

Mr. KAUFMAN

Mr. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, I rise to join the chorus of those celebrating the life of our dear friend and colleague, Senator Edward M. Kennedy. So much has already been said about him, his life, and his contribution to our Nation, but I would like to take a few minutes to reflect upon the legacy he left as a warm individual and an exemplary statesman. His life was, to borrow the words of Robert Frost, ``a gift outright.'' Ted Kennedy was ours before we were his. As a young man and a young Senator, history bequeathed to him weighty expectations. He became the accidental shepherd not only to a flock of nephews and nieces but also to a storied legacy. An ordinary person would have been daunted by such expectations. But Ted Kennedy was extraordinary. He confounded them and, in the process, defined his life not by what others had left him to complete but by the goals he set for himself. For all of the rhetoric recently about Kennedy as the Senate's lion, we can never forget that he was also a deeply caring man with a gentle spirit. It was this dual nature of his to fight passionately and to befriend heartily that transformed adversaries into admirers and endeared him forever to his friends. In February of 1988, I was serving as chief of staff to then-Senator Joe Biden when he suffered a serious brain aneurysm. After two precarious surgeries, the doctors said that Senator Biden would need to avoid work completely for a few months while in that first stage of recovery or risk another aneurysm. When President Reagan called to check up on him, we knew that if he took that call, Senator Biden would be obliged to take all the calls that would follow. It would have been too much for him, so his family made the decision that he would not take any calls, even from the President. Ted Kennedy kept calling to check on his friend, but our office wouldn't put him through. One Sunday, while Senator Biden was resting at home in Wilmington, Jill heard a knock on their back door. To her surprise, Kennedy was standing there, holding a framed etching of an Irish stag. He had personally taken it upon himself to bring the gift in order to lift Senator Biden's spirits. He also had with him a bathing suit, ready to relax with his friend and keep him company without discussing Senate business. We shouldn't have been surprised, though. That was classic Ted Kennedy. With him there was always a personal touch, especially with those he represented. In the words of one of his constituents, ``Teddy was Massachusetts.'' But his constituency was always larger than just the residents of the Bay State. He felt that it was his responsibility to speak for those who could not. Kennedy was, first and foremost, a representative of the poor, the young, the silenced, and the oppressed. He fought tirelessly for the rights of the disabled and those suffering discrimination. Throughout decades of public service, he proved to be their faithful champion at every turn. For 47 years, Ted Kennedy was the Senate's steady compass through uncertain waters. When others coasted along, satisfied with the status quo or set uneasy by the prospect of change, he trimmed his sails and pushed forward. He pushed forward by building strong, meaningful relationships with his colleagues on both sides of the aisle. He was committed to civility in politics. That he so genuinely befriended those who debated vigorously against him on this floor testifies to Kennedy's greatest gift to his colleagues. As his son Teddy Jr. said so eloquently at his father's funeral mass, Kennedy taught us all that all of us who serve in government, regardless of party, love this country dearly--that we share a common bond of responsibility and commitment to public service. My hope is that the lessons Ted Kennedy taught his colleagues about bipartisanship will guide the Senate today and in the future. Just outside this chamber is the Senate Reception Room, ornately decorated by the 19th century immigrant and master painter of the Capitol, Constantino Brumidi. He adorned the ceiling with four allegorical scenes depicting what today we would call Justice, Security, Peace, and Prosperity--four virtues a great Senator should promote. It was decided that portraits of the greatest Senators ever to serve would cover its walls. In the 1950s, the Senate established a panel to choose the first five to be so honored. Chaired by a young, energetic senator from Massachusetts, who had authored a Pulitzer Prize winning book on political courage, this ``Kennedy Commission'' selected five Senators whose portraits now grace those walls. The commission chose to recognize Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, Robert La Follette, and Robert Taft. A few years ago, the Senate voted to extend this honor as well to Arthur Vandenberg and Robert F. Wagner. All seven earned their place in this pantheon by placing the good of the Nation above political interest. All but one ran unsuccessfully for President, distinguishing themselves not as commanders-in-chief, but as brilliant legislators and versatile statesmen. Each exemplified a commitment to the four virtues depicted by Brumidi on the reception room's ceiling. Ted Kennedy was a champion of all four of these virtues; indeed, he set a new standard by which future Senators will be judged. Whether it was leading the charge for the Civil Rights Act, enfranchising young people of military age, or promoting human rights around the world, Kennedy pursued justice without relent. Ted Kennedy was committed to ensuring our Nation's security by advocating for nuclear disarmament, leading the way on energy conservation, and supporting legislation to punish sponsors of terrorism. He worked tirelessly to bring peace to troubled regions, including Northern Ireland. Throughout his career in the Senate, Ted Kennedy did all he could to open the doors of prosperity to millions of Americans seeking fair wages, health insurance, or job opportunities. Furthermore, he fought to expand education access, fund scholarships, and promote community involvement. Kennedy's efforts have helped invest America in a bright future in fields such as science, technology, business, and the arts. Even with the seven distinguished senators now immortalized, the walls of the Senate Reception Room remain mostly bare. They await future Senate commissions, following in the tradition of John F. Kennedy's panel, to honor those serving from our generation or from generations yet to come. I am certain that, if I could cast my vote today for the next to be so honored, I would proudly and unhesitatingly choose Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

Mr. KAUFMAN

Mr. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, there is not a quorum call, is there?

Mr. KAUFMAN

Mr. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, I rise once again to speak about one of our Nation's great Federal employees. All of us here, along with our colleagues in the House, have returned from a busy work period. I know we, like all Americans, appreciate the extra day off we had on Monday to rest and recharge, to spend time with family, and to enjoy a barbecue. It is important, though, not to lose sight of what Labor Day represents. America was founded on the belief that if you work hard, you can achieve your dream. When American workers set themselves to a task, no challenge is too great. Since the 19th century, Labor Day has served as an opportunity to appreciate those who have made our economy the strongest in the world. Even with the challenges we face on Wall Street and on Main Street, I remain confident in our economy precisely because of our great workers. American workers built the canals and railroads that fueled the westward expansion of our early years. They labored in those first industrial factories, weaving textiles, smelting iron, and manufacturing new products. Our workers electrified America's cities and made possible our soaring skylines. Whenever they were called upon to serve, they laid down their tools and took up arms to defend liberty at home and overseas. Today, our workers produce microchips, complex machine parts, and quality products sold in markets worldwide. I know that American workers will continue to excel as we transition to a green economy. The history of labor in our country can be told through the stories of Americans who have worked hard because they dream of providing a decent life for themselves and their families. The great labor leader Samuel Gompers, when asked what motivated American workers to organize for better pay and conditions, said: We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; . . . in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures. It took American workers many decades to win fair wages and safe working conditions. Today, the dedicated employees of the Department of Labor continue to ensure that American workers are safe, treated fairly, and have access to employment opportunities. This also includes a commitment to protecting workers' hard-won benefits. The men and women of the Department's Plan Benefits Security Division engage in legal proceedings to make certain that employees' rights under retirement income security legislation are upheld. It is a busy office, and its attorneys and staff work on behalf of our Nation's labor force and retirees. On July 4, 2006, Christine Spicer, who had worked as a secretary in the division for 25 years, suffered a debilitating stroke. It left her hearing and sight impaired and unable to walk. Unable to perform the office tasks she had done for a quarter of a century, Christine could have chosen to retire on disability. However, she was determined to return to work and keep serving the public. Christine engaged in a difficult course of physical, speech, and occupational therapy. She returned to work in 2007, and now serves as the lead secretary for the division chief--a job entailing great responsibility. Despite lingering problems with speech and difficulty walking, Christine oversees the division's payroll system, personnel paperwork, and a number of special assignments in addition to her secretarial role. She has been cited by her colleagues as disciplined and cheerful, and she is truly one of the Labor Department's unsung heroes. The employees of the Department of Labor continually serve American workers by safeguarding their right to a living wage and providing what our dear friend, the late Senator Ted Kennedy, called ``hope that the price of their employment'' is not ``an unsafe workplace and a death at an earlier age.'' I call on my colleagues and on all Americans to join me in honoring Christine Spicer and all of the outstanding public servants at our Department of Labor. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KAUFMAN

Mr. KAUFMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the time between now and 10 o'clock be distributed as follows: 5 minutes for Senator Alexander and then the rest of the time be equally divided between Senator Durbin and myself.

Mr. KAUFMAN

Mr. KAUFMAN. Madam President, the White House, the Congress, and the American people are engaged in a stark debate over our Nation's health care insurance system. A lot is at stake. We will make a choice in 2009, and that choice will determine the health care system we have in our Nation for a long time to come. Fifteen years have passed since we last attempted to pass health care reform. What we do now will be consequential for decades to come. It will be a long time before the people of this country and their leaders will return to this complex and contentious issue. So let us carefully review the potential plans. We have a plan being developed by the House of Representatives, we have a plan from the Senate HELP Committee, and a plan from the Finance Committee, we have the bipartisan Wyden-Bennett plan, and then we have a plan I am going to spend a lot of time talking about, and that is the PHS plan. In listening to my colleagues speak on the floor of the Senate, on television, talk radio, in newspapers, and in private meetings, one thing is clear: They think the plan we end up with will be the PHS plan. They think a combination of those who want no health care reform and those who like none of the proposed plans will combine to kill all other plans. So what is the PHS plan? Our present health care system. Let's look at what will happen to average Americans if we keep our present health care system. First, Americans' health care insurance costs will explode--and that is not an overstatement--explode. The average family in America can look forward to premium costs for their health insurance of more than $24,000 a year by 2016. That is an 83-percent increase over the cost in 2008. In my home State of Delaware, the costs will be even higher, with the average premium for family coverage approaching $29,000. At that amount, more than half of Delaware families would each have to spend half of their income on health insurance. This means families will be forced to either go without insurance or to buy less coverage and put their life savings at risk. Second, personal bankruptcies for medical costs will soar. Today, bankruptcies involving medical bills account for more than 60 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies, a rate 1\1/2\ times that of just 6 years ago. Going forward under PHS, we can expect more families in bankruptcy. Third, insured Americans will keep paying a hidden tax to help pay for care for the uninsured. Under the PHS plan, doctors and hospitals will charge insurers even greater amounts to recoup the costs to provide services to the uninsured. Today, this hidden tax is estimated to be $1,100 per family per year. Under the PHS plan, it will most assuredly go up, raising the cost of health care for all Americans. Fourth, Americans will continue to be denied coverage if they have preexisting conditions. Several weeks ago, I talked about four Delawareans who, because of preexisting conditions, could not find insurance coverage. Others who could get coverage have to pay exorbitant premiums to cover conditions such as high cholesterol, hypertension, diabetes, and cancer. Unfortunately, those who get sick may have their coverage dropped altogether. These problems, which threaten the security of all families, will continue under the PHS plan. Fifth, for too many workers, health insurance portability will still be beyond reach. Too many Americans lose their insurance when they lose their jobs. Some can't afford their COBRA coverage, and others can't get another policy due to preexisting conditions. Even when they can find a new policy, they often discover they can no longer see the same doctor or use the same hospital. As a result, too many Americans are stuck in their jobs, forgoing career advancement, just to keep their existing health plans. Now let's look at what will happen to the American economy if we keep our present health care system. First, our present health care system is bankrupting the Federal Government. The biggest driving force behind our Federal deficit is the skyrocketing cost of Medicare and Medicaid. In 2008, government spending on Medicare and Medicaid took up more than one dollar out of every five in our Federal budget. The more we spend on health care, the less we have for other investments--for education, for our veterans, and for job-creating technologies, to name a few. To pay those higher Federal health care bills, we will have to pay more taxes or borrow more from China and other nations. Controlling health care costs is the key to controlling our financial future. But under the PHS, health care costs continue to spiral out of control. Second, health care spending will crowd out our national savings and lower our standard of living. Health care cost as a percent of gross domestic product will grow from 18 percent today to 28 percent in the year 2030--and even 34 percent in 2040. Those dollars out of every family's budget going to health care cannot go for housing, food, or transportation. American consumers, over two-thirds of our economy, will have fewer dollars left for any other priorities. That means less spending at the mall, at our car dealers, and at the grocery store. Controlling health care costs will put money back in families' budgets and therefore back into the rest of our economy. Third, the present health care system is killing U.S. economic competitiveness. Today, U.S. manufacturing firms pay almost $5,000 per worker per year in health costs. That's more than twice the average cost for firms located in our major trading partners such as Europe and Japan, where a firm pays less than $2,000 per worker each year. In a global economy, our workers and corporations face competitors who can beat them on price every time, just because of our broken health care system. Controlling health care costs will help to level that playing field. In a fair fight, our workers and our businesses can win. Finally, more firms will stop offering health insurance for their employees. The PHS will continue the slow erosion of employer-sponsored insurance. This is especially true for small businesses. In the 2008 Employer Health Benefits Survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, only 63 percent of companies of all sizes offered health insurance to their employees, down from 69 percent in 2000. But these numbers are even lower when looking just at small businesses, with the National Small Business Association reporting that that only 38 percent of small businesses provided coverage last year, compared to 61 percent in 1993. Under the PHS plan, this decline in coverage will continue, with an estimated 10 percent of small businesses eliminating coverage in the next year and nearly 20 percent in the next 3 to 5 years. Under the PHS plan, that would mean an additional 13 million added to the rolls of the uninsured in the next 5 years. So that is what America will get if we decide to choose the PHS plan. Again, that is the present health care system. If we choose the PHS plan, consumers will pay higher and higher premiums, including the hidden tax to help pay for all of our fellow Americans without insurance. We will continue to see a rise in personal bankruptcies due to high medical costs. Americans will continue to face insurance coverage rejections based on preexisting conditions or have insurers drop their policies once they do get sick. And they won't have portable insurance that they can take from job to job. If we choose the PHS plan, health care spending will continue to threaten the bottom line of our Federal budget, eating away higher percentages of our GDP. Our businesses will face more competitive disadvantages to their foreign competitors, paying more for health care insurance for their employees, or dropping it altogether. The present health care system mistreats Americans as individuals and serves the country badly as a whole. We cannot continue in the present health care system. I hope my colleagues will return in September committed to replacing our present health care system. I hope they will spend August searching for the best of the alternative plans that they want to support. I hope we will turn our backs on the bankrupt present health care system and instead give the American people a health care system they can all be proud of--a health care system that will sustain them into the future. We can do no less. They deserve no less. I yield the floor.

Mr. KAUFMAN

Mr. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the majority leader be authorized to sign any duly enrolled bills and joint resolutions through Friday, August 7, 2009.

Mr. KAUFMAN

Mr. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, I rise once again to speak about one of our great Federal employees. Whenever I enter this Chamber, I cannot help but admire the inspirational works of art that adorn it. Above the main entrances rest marble reliefs depicting the three virtues of Courage, Wisdom, and Patriotism. Our Federal employees embody all three of these qualities, though my focus today will be on patriotism. The marble relief representing patriotism, which sits atop the lintel of the door to my right, shows a man setting aside his plow to take up the sword. This image recalls the parallel stories of Lucius Cincinnatus and George Washington, two farmer citizens who set aside their daily work in order to defend the people's liberty. In the history of democracy, the sword and plow have come to symbolize this dichotomy. Traditionally, the sword features most prominently as the metaphor for patriotism. However, I would argue that the plow is just as much a symbol of patriotism as the sword. The plow represents a citizen's daily contribution to society over the course of many years. The highlight of the Cincinnatus story, from which our revolutionary forebears drew inspiration, is that he returned without fanfare to his plow when the war was finished. The great statesman Adlai Stevenson once said: Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime. I think it is fitting to speak about patriotism as symbolized by a plow, because the Federal employee I wish to recognize this week has worked in the Department of Agriculture for over 35 years. Pearlie Reed was raised on a farm in the rural town of Heth, AR, where he was the ninth of eighteen children. He worked hard to attend the State University of Pine Bluff, which was especially challenging for an African-American man in the South during the struggles of the Civil Rights movement. Nonetheless, Pearlie received his degree, and he joined the USDA in 1968 as a student intern for the Soil Conservation Service. In the years that followed, Pearlie rose steadily in the Soil Conservation Service from an entry-level soil conservator to district conservationist, to deputy state conservationist, and he was eventually appointed as the state conservationist for Maryland in 1985. He served in that position for 4 years, after which he became the state conservationist for California. As his career advanced, Pearlie also received a master's degree in public administration from American University. The Soil and Conservation Service was eventually transformed into the Natural Resources Conservation Service or NRCS. From 1994 to 1998, Pearlie served as associate chief, and his last year on the job also served as Acting Assistant Secretary of Agriculture for Administration. In 1998, Pearlie was promoted to chief of the NRCS, and he held the position until 2002 when he was named Regional Conservationist for the Western United States. In that role, Pearlie was in charge of all natural resource conservation efforts by the Federal Government in 10 States and the Pacific Basin area. Pearlie has said that one of his proudest moments in his career came when he was asked to lead the Agriculture Department's task force on civil rights in the 1990s. He led a team that issued a report containing 37 recommendations on how to ensure that the Department is a welcoming place for minorities. Pearlie briefed President Clinton personally, and the President issued an order that all 37 of his recommendations be implemented. Pearlie retired from the USDA in 2003, but just this year Secretary Vilsack called him out of retirement and asked President Obama to appoint him as Assistant Secretary of Administration, the position he briefly held in an acting capacity 10 years ago. Pearlie was confirmed by the Senate on May 12, and he is now back at work for the farmers and ranchers of America. One of his former colleagues said once that: If you look up the term ``public service'' in the dictionary, you'd likely see a picture of Pearlie Reed right next to it. Over the course of his long career, Pearlie has received the Distinguished Presidential Rank Award, the George Washington Carver Public Service Hall of Fame Award, and the USDA's Civil Plow Honor Award, among others. Pearlie exemplifies the kind of patriotism Stevenson spoke about--the patriotism of steady work and perseverance represented by Cincinnatus's plow. I hope my colleagues will join me in honoring Pearlie Reed's distinguished service and that of all Federal employees working in agricultural development, resource conservation, and rural advancement. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. KAUFMAN

Mr. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, we have embarked on a new course in Afghanistan. The plan has 21,000 troops and trainers engaged primarily in clearing the Taliban in Kandahar and Helmand provinces. We know from counterinsurgency doctrine that we must now hold the areas that have been cleared. I speak today on the need for expanding the Afghan National Army and Police. They must do the holding of those areas taken by our forces so that we can build a capable, accountable, and effective Afghan Government. The August 20 elections will be a crucial milestone in Afghanistan's democratic development, and the international community stands with the Afghan people as they exercise their freedom to cast votes at more than 7,000 polling stations. Safeguarding the election is a test for the Afghan security forces, which are leading efforts to secure the polling stations per the plans of the Afghanistan Elections Commission. At the same time, the United States and other international partners will continue to support Afghan forces. We have increased troop levels this summer, in part, to help the Afghan National Army and Police prepare for the election. As we send an additional 21,000 troops and trainers and hundreds of civilians into Afghanistan, we must do everything in our power to protect these brave men and women in a hostile environment. We must be effective and efficient in clearing and holding against insurgents. And we must ensure we have the necessary civilian resources to build a secure and stable environment, in which Afghans can sustain rule of law and promote good governance. These goals are critical to our shared counterinsurgency mission. Success will not be easy or without a great cost or burden. It will continue to require patience, determination, and an enduring American commitment. As GEN Stanley McChrystal affirmed when he assumed command of American and International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, troops in Afghanistan, ``the Afghan people are at the center of our mission. In reality, they are the mission. We must protect them from violence, whatever its nature.'' The Afghan people are at the heart of our operations, and the first principle of protecting the population in counterinsurgency is building a strong indigenous security force that can assume control and take the lead. Our military, civilian, and political leadership agree that enhancing the capacity and capability of the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police is key to an eventual U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Before we move in this direction, however, we must consider what additional resources are required to help the ANA and ANP become self- sufficient. Current estimates indicate the Afghan Army is one fourth of the size of the Iraqi Army, where the ongoing insurgency now pales in comparison to Taliban-led violence in Afghanistan. This is woefully inadequate if we hope to meet Afghanistan's short-term and long-term security requirements. The same can be said for the Afghan police, which provides the essential services of border security, law enforcement, coordinating counternarcotics, and serving as a paramilitary force. The Afghan National Army and Police must work in tandem on counterinsurgency--one cannot succeed without the other--with the army ``clearing'' the land of insurgents, and the police ``holding'' to ensure stability. Progress in ``building'' economic development and governance cannot be sustained until the security forces succeed in their mission. Current plans to expand the Afghan National Army to 135,000 and the Afghan National Police to 80,000 by 2011 represent a positive step in the right direction but still fall short of the necessary requirements. These numbers are insufficient for the Afghans to independently maintain security and establish rule of law in the long-run, and therefore should be considered critical milestones, but not ceilings, for the training mission. According to the Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Manual drafted by General Petraeus in 2006, the requisite number of security forces should not be defined by the number of insurgents. Rather, the size of host nation security forces should be commensurate with the size of the population. This closely parallels the methodology used to calculate the adequate size for peacekeeping operations, which are determined by the number of inhabitants. Counterinsurgency doctrine, as delineated by General Petraeus, recommends a minimum target ratio of 20 counterinsurgents for every 1,000 residents. According to this ratio, in order to secure Afghanistan--a country of more than 33 million--a minimum of 600,000 security forces are needed, which includes the army and police. Current targets for the ANA and ANP barely reach 40 percent of this minimum requirement. It is clear that these numbers should be increased, and this is why I support doubling the target number for the ANA from 135,000 to 250,000, and increasing the ANP from 80,000 to 150,000. As Secretary Gates has outlined, we must better prepare to fight the wars we are in, and recognize that that irregular warfare is not just a short-term challenge. Rather, it is a long-term reality that requires a realignment of both military strategy and spending. And as we continue to engage in counterinsurgency, we must recognize those elements of our strategy which are essential to our mission. Chief among them remains building the indigenous capacity of the host nation security forces. It is in this regard that I strongly urge my colleagues to join me in supporting an increase in the size of the Afghan national security forces. While this may require additional trainers, troops, and resources in the short run, it is the only way to ensure the long-run stability of Afghanistan.