Patrick Leahy

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I see nobody on either side who wishes to speak. I ask unanimous consent all time be yielded back on the two nominations.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, have the yeas and nays been ordered on the nominations?

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, when the first nomination is called up, I will ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in recess until 3 p.m. today.

Mr. LEAHY. Of course.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on November 15, 2011, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``The Fix Gun Checks Act: Better State and Federal Compliance, Smarter Enforcement.''

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on November 15, 2011, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Financial Security Issues Facing Older Americans.''

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on November 15, 2011 at 3:30 p.m.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet, during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Medical Devices: Protecting Patients and Promoting Innovation'' on November 15, 2011, at 2:30 p.m., in room G50 of the Dirksen Office Building.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on November 15, 2011, at 3:15 p.m.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on November 15, 2011, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on November 15, 2011, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on November 15, 2011 at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entititled ``Oversight of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.''

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on November 15, 2011, at 2:30 p.m. in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on November 15, 2011, at 10 a.m., in room 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on November 15, 2011, at 2:15 p.m.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. I thank the Chair. After decades of doing this, I should have remembered, of course, we have to notify the President. I recall one day, when we went into the beginning of the session and swore in new Senators, one was the new Senator from New York, Hillary Clinton. The President of the United States was sitting in the gallery. When we convened as a Senate, the usual notice was said to notify the President that the Senate has convened for that session, at which point several of my colleagues rather honorably pointed out the President: You do not have to notify him. He is sitting right up in the gallery.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. With that, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in recess until 3 p.m. today.

Mr. LEAHY

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

Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I have mentioned this to the distinguished Republican floor leader, and I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for a few minutes as in morning business.

Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, at some point we may bring up the State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee's appropriations bill. I understand that several Senators on the other side have refused to allow the Senate to debate and vote on this bill, for one reason or another. That is unfortunate, because it provides the funding for many programs that have critical importance to the Nation's security. Let me mention a few: It supports our counterterrorism strategy in South Asia, the Horn of Africa, and the Far East. It responds to the turbulent events in the Middle East and North Africa, and threats on the Mexican border. It combats transnational crime, piracy of intellectual property, and the denial of fundamental freedoms. It promotes access for U.S. companies to foreign markets. It provides the funds to operate and secure our embassies and consulates that serve millions of Americans while traveling, working and studying overseas. It preserves U.S. influence in key international organizations and alliances. And it responds to a massive famine in Somalia, floods, and other humanitarian disasters. We have to do this and much more with a budget allocation that is $6 billion below the President's request. I worry that ``foreign aid'' today is a term often maligned and misunderstood. It is viewed by many as a form of charity, or a luxury we can do without, or that it is a sizable part of the Federal budget. But it is none of those things, as that list I just mentioned illustrates. These have never been Democratic or Republican issues. The funds in this bill determine whether the United States will remain the global leader it has been since the Second World War. Six weeks ago, former President George W. Bush said: One of the lessons of September 11th is that what happens overseas matters here at home. . . . We face an enemy that can only recruit when they find hopeless people, and there is nothing more hopeless to a child who loses a mom or dad to AIDS [than] to watch the wealthy nations of the world sit back and do nothing. Former President Bush is right. In fact, his former Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, was equally blunt about the stakes involved. She said: We don't have an option to retire, to take a sabbatical from leadership in the international community and the world. If we do, one of 2 things will happen. There will be chaos, because without leadership there will be chaos in the international community, and that is dangerous. But it's quite possible, that if we don't lead, somebody else will. And perhaps it will be someone who does not share our values of compassion, the rights of the individual, of liberty, and freedom. I could not agree more, and I hope other Senators appreciate what is at stake. Just as past generations rallied to meet the formidable challenges of the Great Depression, the Nazis, and the Cold War, we will bear responsibility if we fail to meet the challenges of today. I wonder if, in my parents' generation, this country had not rallied behind President Truman and Secretary George Marshall, who had the Marshall plan, which to many people was very unpopular, whether we would have given aid to countries we had just been at war with. What a different world it would be today if we had not helped rebuild Europe or Japan. It is no wonder that other countries--our allies and our competitors--are spending more each year to project their influence around the world and to compete in the global marketplace. Great Britain's conservative government is on a path to increase its international development assistance to .7 percent of its national budget. You might say: Only .7 percent of its national budget? In the United States, it is .2 percent of our national budget. Our leadership is being challenged unlike at any time since the Cold War. In Latin America, which is a larger market for U.S. exports than any other region except the European Union, our share is shrinking while China's is growing. It is the same story everywhere. There is simply no substitute for U.S. global leadership. The world is changing profoundly, and we cannot afford to retrench or succumb to isolationism. The funding in the State, Foreign Operations bill enables us to engage with our allies, defeat our competitors, and deter our adversaries. It may be an attractive target for campaign speeches and bumper sticker politics, but without it we cannot meet the growing threats to our struggling economy and our national security. The bill that Senator Graham and I will, I hope, be able to bring to the floor of this body, was reported by the Appropriations Committee on a bipartisan vote of 28 to 2. It is $6 billion below the President's budget request. It scales back many Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development operations and programs. It is going to force significant reductions in planned expenditures. I wish it did not, but I also agree that we have to control spending. I doubt there is any Member of Congress from either party or either body who does not care if the United States becomes a second or third rate power. I think all of us in Congress expect the United States to lead, to build alliances, to help American companies compete successfully, and to protect the interests and security of our citizens. Yet there are unmistakable signs that our global influence is already waning. It is not preordained that the United States will remain the world's dominant power. As Former Secretary Rice said: If we don't lead, somebody else will. I think every one of us can imagine which countries that might be, and I shudder to think of some of them. You cannot have it both ways. We cannot expect others to follow if we do not lead. And we cannot lead if we do not pay our way. We need to stop acting as though these investments do not matter; that the State Department is not important; that we do not need the United Nations; that what happens in Brazil, Russia, the Philippines, Somalia, or other countries does not matter; and that the global threats to the environment, public health, and safety will somehow be solved by others. Think of this: The most deadly, contagious diseases in the world are only an airplane trip away from our shore. This year's State, Foreign Operations bill, which was drafted in a bipartisan manner, balances our priorities. Funding for these programs was requested by Republicans and Democrats. In fact, I the total number of requests we received from both parties dwarfed what Senator Graham and I had available to spend. There are no earmarks in this bill. Because of the budget cuts, Members on my side did not get close to everything they wanted, and neither did Members on Senator Graham's side. But to anyone who thinks the 1 percent of the Federal budget we spend on international diplomacy and development is too much, this bill will freeze most embassy and consular operations, curtail programs, and in some cases defer payments to international organizations that we are obligated by treaty to pay. This country is at a crossroads. We can retreat from the world, as some seem to want, while China and our other competitors continue to expand their influence, or we can remain a leader. This Senator hopes we will have the sense to choose the latter course. I was barely a child at the end of World War II, but I watched as our soldiers came home, and I saw America's influence grow. I saw it as a young student in college and in law school. I saw students who came to this country to learn what we did--why?--they were inspired by America and wanted to learn from our example. I saw members of my family and friends join the Peace Corps. And when I have traveled overseas since becoming a Senator, I hear people say: Thank goodness America helped us. I hope my children and my grandchildren do not hear a different story. The funding in this bill, which is strongly supported by the Department of Defense, is, along with the U.S. military, the best form of insurance the American people have. I want to thank Chairman Inouye and Senator Cochran for their support of the subcommittee's budget. And I want to thank Senator Graham, who is a highly informed and passionate advocate for U.S. global leadership. I appreciate his input and support, as I do the other members of the Appropriations Committee from both parties. It is easy for us to stand up and speak about how we want America to be No. 1. It is easy to sit on the sidelines and say you want to win the New York marathon but you do not want to train for it. If we want to be No. 1, we have to earn it. One thing that has united some of the great leaders of our country-- both Republicans and Democrats--is their desire to expand, in the most positive way, America's influence around the world, one, so we could help others, and two, because it protects us. If we get to this bill, I hope we will not find ourselves tangled in knots with sloganeering or special interest amendments, but, rather, debate it with only one interest in mind: that of the United States of America. Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, there was a time when strong bipartisan majorities in Congress sided with the interests and views of the American people about curbing pollution to safeguard the public's right to a clean and healthy environment. Citizens placed their trust in the government to act on their behalf, to set science-based health standards to protect the air we breathe. On both sides of the aisle, there was an understanding that a healthy environment was critical to our families, our livelihoods, our economy, and our Nation. To improve the Nation's air quality, Congress almost unanimously passed the Clean Air Act in 1970, under President Richard Nixon. Congress then passed the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, again with overwhelming majorities in both Chambers, under President George H.W. Bush. As part of the 1990 Amendments, Congress specifically required the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, to address emissions that interfere with another State's ability to protect public health through air quality requirements. Yet today we still lack the appropriate pollution limits necessary to protect each and every American from drifting smog and soot pollutants, and to protect States from bearing the health and economic costs of distant polluters who are far beyond their purview. With the cross-State air pollution rule, the EPA is doing exactly what we in Congress asked them to do. This is also exactly what the courts told them to do, and exactly what they should do to protect the American public from the hundreds of thousands of tons of pollutants emitted each year from coal-fired powerplants. These pollutants all too often reach unsafe levels, resulting in air quality alerts and dangerous health consequences--all the more so for young children, the elderly, and those who already have respiratory problems. My own wife Marcelle is a nurse, and she knows from experience how harmful air pollution can be in contributing to asthma, bronchitis, heart attacks, and even death. This cross-State rule will protect the American people from dangerous air pollution pumped into our air by the largest polluters. These are sensible, workable limits that would tangibly improve Americans' lives. These are improvements that would foster a better economy by annually preventing up to 34,000 premature deaths, 15,000 heart attacks, 19,000 emergency room visits, 400,000 aggravated asthma cases and 1.8 million sick days. By 2014, in Vermont alone, the health benefits will add up to $360 million each year from these improvements. These changes are literally a matter of life and death for many Americans. For example, studies show that in our state, curbing smog and soot pollution will allow 44 Vermonters to celebrate another birthday and live to see the next generation of children and grandchildren thrive. In States like Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, the cross-State rule will save as many as 1,400 to 3,200 lives each year. That is a lot of parents, children, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. However, S.J. Res. 27 would void the life-saving, health-promoting cross-State air pollution rule and prohibit any future attempt by the EPA to limit unsafe levels of air pollutants that drift across state boundaries--making it one of the all-time most harmful and egregious attacks on the Clean Air Act and on the health of the people we represent. If passed, this resolution would force the EPA to ignore dangerous, drifting emissions forever, compelling Americans to accept shorter lives, to accept the risk of heart attacks and strokes, to suffer with asthma and other serious illnesses, and to accept the degraded quality of the Nation's parks, waterways, and forests. Those are not things that I am willing to accept and no Member of the Senate should support. Powerful special interests and their allies who want to overturn the cross-State rule are asking Americans to suffer to save the economy, but their economic arguments fall flat in the face of the evidence. The truth is, nothing will sink the economy more than degrading our environment and poisoning our workforce. Pollution regulations help to lower health care costs, maintain worker productivity, and support local economies through recreational industries. The cross-State rule will have national benefits of up to $280 billion annually. This dwarfs the annual compliance costs of about $800 million in 2014, which helps explain why most Americans believe that health-based pollution standards are essential in safeguarding our families and our economy. For decades, evidence has shown that pollution limits fuel spending and create jobs in producing, installing and monitoring control technology and emissions. In fact, utilities have already spent $1.6 billion installing pollution controls to meet current air quality requirements and anticipated requirements under the cross-State rule. Furthermore, powerplants have already achieved more than two-thirds of the pollution reductions necessary to comply with the cross-State standards that go into full effect in 2014. Studies already show that the EPA's proposed air toxics rule and cross-State rule combined will create almost 1.5 million jobs over the next 5 years. Undoing this rule now will nullify, or potentially even reverse, these important pollution reductions. It will also harm the many businesses that have made investments in clean air technologies, while perversely rewarding those plants that refused to make the sensible, long-term investments required by a rule that is nearly a decade in the making. Vermont has no coal-fired powerplants, but we do have people suffering with asthma and other respiratory illnesses, and we do have an economy that depends on the health of our environment. In Vermont, we have made, and continue to make, decisions to invest in clean fuels and technologies. We do this because we value good health and family, friends, and the outdoors. We do this to preserve the quality of life a healthy environment provides us. We do this so that future generations have access to clean air and all the benefits that come with healthy, vibrant communities. But without the cross-State rule, we are powerless to fully protect our Green Mountain State. Reckless decisions regarding public health policy, especially in such a broad manner as this resolution, should not be fast-tracked through the Congressional Review Act process. This resolution goes much too far, putting people permanently at risk by rolling back decades of progress to make the air we breathe safer for each and every American, especially for our children and seniors. The Clean Air Act has a proven record of improving public health, the environment, and our economy. The cross-State air pollution rule is in keeping with that impressive record: These standards are conservatively estimated to produce net benefits exceeding $100 billion a year. With today's spiraling health care costs, this is a cost-effective way to help control harmful pollution, save lives and foster a healthy environment and economy for future generations. I oppose S.J. Res. 27 and encourage my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, a bedrock principle of the Internet is that consumers should be able to access the lawful Internet content of their choice without service providers discriminating based on the source of the content. This has allowed the online marketplace to evolve into the vibrant and competitive system that we are all accustomed to today. Last December, the Federal Communications Commission took action to promulgate ``network neutrality'' rules, which are set to go into effect later this month. These are rules that will create transparency and foster competition. I oppose the resolution being considered by the Senate today that disapproves of the Commission's actions in this area. Many Americans have either no choice or a limited choice of broadband service providers. This is particularly true in rural areas like Vermont. This lack of competition in the market raises the threat of providers discriminating against certain lawful Web sites and Internet content. Net neutrality rules are crucial in ensuring that the Internet remains the ultimate free marketplace of ideas, where better products or services succeed on their own merits and not based on special financial relationships with providers. Congress and the executive branch must take steps to ensure that competition on the Internet is vibrant. This has taken on new importance as the Internet has become increasingly central to our lives. The online marketplace is going to be a key driver of the 21st century economy, and implementing net neutrality rules now, while it is still growing, will ensure that the online marketplace will continue to be dynamic well into the future. The Judiciary Committee held hearings on this issue several years ago, and it is an issue in which I have been interested. I was an original cosponsor of the Internet Freedom Preservation Act in both the 109th and 110th Congresses. That bill would have gone even further to preserve an open Internet than the actions taken by the FCC last year. I will remain a strong supporter of strong and responsible net neutrality regulations in the Senate, and I oppose the resolution being considered today.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to pay tribute to MG Raymond Carpenter, the acting director of the Army National Guard, for his ongoing, selfless dedication and service to our country. After enlisting in the South Dakota National Guard in 1967, Major General Carpenter joined the Navy and deployed to South Vietnam. After returning to the Guard as a Vietnam veteran, General Carpenter became a commissioned officer in 1974 and has since commanded at all levels. His efforts have transformed the Army National Guard from a strategic reserve into an operational reserve force, and the Army National Guard is now at its highest level of readiness in its 375 year history. In our most recent conflicts, and through these tough economic times, General Carpenter has been credited for driving cost efficiencies that have saved millions of taxpayer dollars. General Carpenter led the Army National Guard through the drawdown in Iraq and oversaw a critical component of the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, the implementation and expansion of the Guard's Agribusiness Development Teams. General Carpenter's service to our Nation has come with considerable personal sacrifice from himself and his family. Rather than fill the role of the adjutant general of the South Dakota Guard and return home to live with his family, General Carpenter answered the call of duty, accepted the job of the director of the Army National Guard at the National Guard Bureau, and uncomplainingly shouldered a three star workload for his two star pay. General Carpenter put his and his family's life on hold for over 2 years and lived at the mercy of the nomination process, never knowing when he might be replaced by a full director of the Army Guard. I call on my colleagues in the Senate to join me in honoring MG Raymond Carpenter, and I hope his successor will be confirmed in the near future. I know that the entire Senate joins me in expressing my appreciation for General Carpenter's service to our grateful Nation.