Mary Landrieu

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, as National Small Business Week is coming to a close, I come to the floor today to make a strong commitment that the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship will not lose momentum on our relentless push to help America's small businesses grow, thrive, and excel. So today, along with the senior senator from Maine, I am introducing the Expanding Access to Capital for Entrepreneurial Leaders Act, or the EXCEL Act. This legislation will enhance the already successful Small Business Investment Company, SBIC, program at the Small Business Administration, SBA, that has helped over 100,000 small businesses. The best part of our bill is that the EXCEL Act should not cost the taxpayer anything. The SBA runs a venture capital program by guaranteeing money borrowed by qualified investment funds who invest in small businesses. The qualified funds, or Small Business Investment Companies, SBICs, are privately owned and operated, but licensed and regulated by the SBA. Using a combination of private investments and the loans guaranteed by the SBA, typically at a ratio of $2 in guaranteed funds for every $1 of private capital, SBICs make long-term investments in American small businesses. In order to participate in the program, funds pay licensing fees which serve to cover all SBIC program costs. As a result, the core SBIC program, Debenture SBICs, not only boasts a strong success rate, but also incurs no cost to the U.S. government. Since the program's inception, over $50 billion has been invested in over 100,000 small businesses. The Ranking Member of the Small Business Committee and I conducted a roundtable with 14 participants from the SBA, SBICs, investors in SBICs, and small businesses to elicit suggestions on enhancing the program. Out of that was born the EXCEL Act. The EXCEL Act is a bipartisan effort encompassing much-needed changes that will allow the SBIC program to meet growing demand and will make improvements so that more small businesses can access capital. The first thing the EXCEL Act does is raises the SBIC program authorization level from $3 billion to $4 billion and pegs it to inflation. This change is long overdue--the ceiling has been at $3 for some time, despite inflation and the impressive growth in the SBIC program. To illustrate: the program grew 50 percent in FY2011 alone. In order to meet demand, we need to give the program room to grow. Secondly, the EXCEL Act will encourage successful investors by raising the limit on ``families of funds.'' Family of funds refers to a team of SBIC fund managers who operate several funds. These are currently limited to $225 million of SBA-guaranteed debt. However, SBIC fund managers who manage more than one fund generally see better investment results. The EXCEL Act will encourage that kind of success by giving families of funds a higher limit of $350 million, which will be indexed to inflation. Next, the EXCEL Act improves transparency and accountability in the program. The legislation requires that the SBA make public how effective individual SBICs are in their small business investments, guaranteeing that SBA-backed money is being used responsibly. Finally, the EXCEL Act promotes outreach, thereby ensuring that the maximum possible number of small businesses can benefit from the SBIC program. The legislation encourages outreach to community banks and other lenders, states and municipalities, and asks the SBA to make their SBIC website more user-friendly. The EXCEL Act contains a number of common sense provisions supported across the aisle, and is sponsored by the Chair and Ranking Member of the Small Business Committee. It enhances a program with proven success in providing capital to small businesses, and does so with the expectation that it will not add a dime to the deficit. Let us get this bill passed. Let us help small businesses excel.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I come to the floor today during National Small Business Week to discuss a strong, widely-supported bill that I filed today with the help of Senators Lieberman, Kerry, and Harkin. Over the past several months, as Chair of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, I have held three roundtables focused on strengthening the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the United States. We heard from entrepreneurs, small business owners, academics, local and Federal officials, and regulators, and we built quite a long list of strong ideas that we can implement or facilitate legislatively. I have converted many of these ideas into legislative proposals that I will file this week and markup soon in my Committee. We have included several of such proposals in Today's Entrepreneurs are America's Mentors Act, or what I refer to as the TEAM Act. The TEAM Act addresses the domain of ``Mentorship'' in our entrepreneurial ecosystem. Its four provisions aim to nurture young Americans' innate entrepreneurial skills from the elementary school classroom through postgraduate business school and onward. We want to create jobs, and for posterity's sake we must begin with our young entrepreneurs. This bill will strengthen America's entrepreneurial ecosystem by empowering the Small Business Administration's, SBA, Office of Entrepreneurial Education, OEE, and invigorating students of all ages, entrepreneurs and mentors throughout the country. We want you to join the TEAM. President Bush created the SBA OEE administratively in 2008. Currently, the OEE receives $131,000 in annual funding. This OEE funding sustains its oversight of the successful SCORE nonprofit association, comprised of 11,500 volunteer business counselors throughout the United States. The TEAM Act will formally authorize the SBA OEE and create a program, aside from overseeing SCORE, to conduct entrepreneurial education outreach and mentorship in K 12 schools and will be required to work with existing groups in the entrepreneurial education space. These groups are not-for-profit organizations, for- profit companies, community civic organizations, and SBA resource partners. We do not want to reinvent the wheel or allow for some bureaucratic intrusion. We simply want the SBA OEE to act on what its title suggests and coordinate among these already successful groups and facilitate and sustain the great momentum they have built in entrepreneurial education. Second, the OEE will administer a scholarship program for MBA students to counsel local startup companies and small businesses. With a $1,500 scholarship, 100 MBA students from around the country could share what they are learning in business school with small business owners near the school. The selected applicants would offer free technical assistance, TA, financial planning, and sustainable business practices. This scholarship program would scale up on the national level a successful program pioneered by the Idea Village in New Orleans. We know something about innovative entrepreneurship in Louisiana: Forbes magazine named New Orleans the ``Biggest Brain Magnet'' of 2011 and the second ``Best City for Jobs;'' in 2010, the Brookings Institute reported that the entrepreneurial activity in New Orleans is 40 percent above the national average; and Inc. Magazine called New Orleans the ``Coolest Startup City in America.'' With all that said, I do not mind borrowing a few good ideas from the innovators in my hometown. Third, the OEE would, in consultation with the Secretary of Education, give Congress a report on a possible correlation between record high student debt and record high youth unemployment and whether or not student debt deters someone from starting a business. If the OEE does find a correlation, the study should provide Congress some recommendations for legislation to address it in a manner that assists entrepreneurship. Finally, the TEAM Act also requires the SBA to sponsor competitions, through its ten Regional Offices, in which local entrepreneurs, inventors, and small businesses compete to solve local public-private challenges. There would be a $50,000 grant for each region's winning idea. The idea for these ten competitions is modeled after both the ``Water Challenge'' sponsored by New Orleans's Idea Village and the national mobile app competition for college students run by the Department of Health and Human Services. Now that you understand the provisions in the TEAM Act, let me read out a long list of supporters. These organizations have been instrumental in providing my Committee with their ideas and perspectives on how best to help young entrepreneurs with this legislation. Most are national groups that have worked for decades on teaching young Americans entrepreneurship and the importance of financial literacy and good business practices. Others are local, but nationally recognized groups with a national impact on jobs creation. The TEAM Act has also received endorsements from Girl Scouts of America, Venture for America, and Mayor's Office, City of New Orleans. We urge all of my colleagues here in the Senate to join us on the TEAM to promote entrepreneurial education and nurture the entrepreneurial spirit inside all young Americans. The TEAM Act will help students, entrepreneurs, and small business owners in all 50 States. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text and letters of support be printed in the Record.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I come to the floor today during National Small Business Week to discuss a strong, widely-supported bill that I filed today with the help of Senators Lieberman, Kerry, and Harkin. Over the past several months, as Chair of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, I have held three roundtables focused on strengthening the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the United States. We heard from entrepreneurs, small business owners, academics, local and Federal officials, and regulators, and we built quite a long list of strong ideas that we can implement or facilitate legislatively. I have converted many of these ideas into legislative proposals that I will file this week and markup soon in my Committee. We have included several of such proposals in Today's Entrepreneurs are America's Mentors Act, or what I refer to as the TEAM Act. The TEAM Act addresses the domain of ``Mentorship'' in our entrepreneurial ecosystem. Its four provisions aim to nurture young Americans' innate entrepreneurial skills from the elementary school classroom through postgraduate business school and onward. We want to create jobs, and for posterity's sake we must begin with our young entrepreneurs. This bill will strengthen America's entrepreneurial ecosystem by empowering the Small Business Administration's, SBA, Office of Entrepreneurial Education, OEE, and invigorating students of all ages, entrepreneurs and mentors throughout the country. We want you to join the TEAM. President Bush created the SBA OEE administratively in 2008. Currently, the OEE receives $131,000 in annual funding. This OEE funding sustains its oversight of the successful SCORE nonprofit association, comprised of 11,500 volunteer business counselors throughout the United States. The TEAM Act will formally authorize the SBA OEE and create a program, aside from overseeing SCORE, to conduct entrepreneurial education outreach and mentorship in K 12 schools and will be required to work with existing groups in the entrepreneurial education space. These groups are not-for-profit organizations, for- profit companies, community civic organizations, and SBA resource partners. We do not want to reinvent the wheel or allow for some bureaucratic intrusion. We simply want the SBA OEE to act on what its title suggests and coordinate among these already successful groups and facilitate and sustain the great momentum they have built in entrepreneurial education. Second, the OEE will administer a scholarship program for MBA students to counsel local startup companies and small businesses. With a $1,500 scholarship, 100 MBA students from around the country could share what they are learning in business school with small business owners near the school. The selected applicants would offer free technical assistance, TA, financial planning, and sustainable business practices. This scholarship program would scale up on the national level a successful program pioneered by the Idea Village in New Orleans. We know something about innovative entrepreneurship in Louisiana: Forbes magazine named New Orleans the ``Biggest Brain Magnet'' of 2011 and the second ``Best City for Jobs;'' in 2010, the Brookings Institute reported that the entrepreneurial activity in New Orleans is 40 percent above the national average; and Inc. Magazine called New Orleans the ``Coolest Startup City in America.'' With all that said, I do not mind borrowing a few good ideas from the innovators in my hometown. Third, the OEE would, in consultation with the Secretary of Education, give Congress a report on a possible correlation between record high student debt and record high youth unemployment and whether or not student debt deters someone from starting a business. If the OEE does find a correlation, the study should provide Congress some recommendations for legislation to address it in a manner that assists entrepreneurship. Finally, the TEAM Act also requires the SBA to sponsor competitions, through its ten Regional Offices, in which local entrepreneurs, inventors, and small businesses compete to solve local public-private challenges. There would be a $50,000 grant for each region's winning idea. The idea for these ten competitions is modeled after both the ``Water Challenge'' sponsored by New Orleans's Idea Village and the national mobile app competition for college students run by the Department of Health and Human Services. Now that you understand the provisions in the TEAM Act, let me read out a long list of supporters. These organizations have been instrumental in providing my Committee with their ideas and perspectives on how best to help young entrepreneurs with this legislation. Most are national groups that have worked for decades on teaching young Americans entrepreneurship and the importance of financial literacy and good business practices. Others are local, but nationally recognized groups with a national impact on jobs creation. The TEAM Act has also received endorsements from Girl Scouts of America, Venture for America, and Mayor's Office, City of New Orleans. We urge all of my colleagues here in the Senate to join us on the TEAM to promote entrepreneurial education and nurture the entrepreneurial spirit inside all young Americans. The TEAM Act will help students, entrepreneurs, and small business owners in all 50 States. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text and letters of support be printed in the Record.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I was not here to hear all of my colleagues' remarks. I know there is a lot of concern about the end of the year and what might happen to try to balance our budget and give us a solid platform on which this economy could grow. But one of the things that is holding us up is the Republicans' refusal to put any new revenues on the table. They have been adamant and wrong and hardheaded and stubborn. They have been very obstructionist in this way--by not being willing to put a penny of new revenue on the table. As a result, we have come to a standstill because the income coming into the Federal Treasury to support this government is at the lowest level since President Eisenhower was President. So they can come to the floor all day long and criticize the President, criticize the Democrats, but in the last 2 years Democrats have put over $2 trillion of cuts and reductions to some very important programs on the table. Some of us have even been willing to say, yes; we know we have to reform Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. We have also been willing to speak those words which are not easy. Yet not one single Republican leader, not one on either side, the House or the Senate, not one has come to this floor in public. Now, I have heard them say it in private. I have been in meetings when they have said it. But not one has come to this floor to say: We are willing to put revenues on the table so we can match the cuts and move this country forward. So I am a little tired of hearing them beat up on either President Obama or the Democrats when they are more to blame for the situation we are in. The American people are getting tired of it too because they can understand it is not 100 percent President Obama's fault. In fact, when he took office, the Titanic had already hit the iceberg because they had run right smack into it with the economic philosophies and policies they had. The ship was already sinking. But all they want to do is--either Mitch McConnell or Jon Kyl, one day the Senator from Arizona or the Senator from Kentucky--every day come to the floor and talk about how it is the President's fault there is no way forward, there is no sure path forward, when they are the ones who have put boulders in the way every day. So I hope the people can see through it. I came to the floor to talk about something else, but I am getting a little tired of hearing it myself. So I am sure everyone else is as well. Again, Democrats have put $2 trillion of cuts before this body, and we have implemented some of them already. But we cannot run a government on 14 percent of the GDP. The average has been about 20 to 21 percent. So until they are willing to put some more revenues on the table, we are not going to get anywhere, and we are not going to be able to extend the tax cuts that cost people money. I hope we can do something so we can extend some tax cuts to small businesses, which I came to talk about--and you, Mr. President, know this well. Instead of giving some of the biggest tax breaks to companies that are the biggest in the world and put all of their jobs overseas, I wish the Republicans would start talking about tax relief to businesses right here at home on Main Street. That is what I want to talk about today. (The further remarks of Ms. Landrieu are printed in today's Record under ``Morning Business.'')

Ms. LANDRIEU. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs' Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 21, 2012, at 2:30 p.m. to conduct a hearing entitled, ``A National Security Crisis: Foreign Language Capabilities in the Federal Government.''

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. We have submitted a resolution, because it is Small Business Week, on behalf of myself and Senator Snowe, Senator Pryor, Senator Lieberman, Senator Enzi, Senator Kerry, Senator Brown, Senator Cantwell, Senator Ayotte, Senator Risch, Senator Cardin, and Senator Hagan, a very good representation of our Small Business Committee and others that submitted a resolution this week, again, as we have done every year since 1953. We have done so every year since 1953 to recognize this week, or 1 week in the year, as Small Business Week. So that is what our resolution, which was submitted earlier today, does. I hope Leaders McConnell and Reid will take up this resolution and pass it so we can honor the 28 million small businesses that exist today in America. We have been doing everything we can, and I am very proud, as the chairman of the Small Business Committee, that we have worked in a bipartisan fashion for the most part trying to give our businesses, first of all, the recognition that 9 out of 10 new jobs created were created by a small number, a very small number, of small businesses that are fast growing. They are the new job creators. These are the businesses that are going to be putting this recession behind us. These are the businesses that are innovating and adapting and changing and being more strategic and smarter, looking for those opportunities in all areas and in all geographic parts of our Nation. Over the past few months my committee has held three very special roundtables to explore strategies, tools, and methods to strengthen what I like to call the ecosystem of entrepreneurship. Much like a rain forest or desert or much like the ocean itself, that is an environment where many creatures or organisms have to live and interact. The same is true of our financial ecosystem, the political ecosystem. Society itself is an ecosystem where small businesses have to function. In order for them to be healthy, there have to be the right nutrients, if you will, present. So we have explored in our committee what--we know the United States does this well. We do it better than any country on Earth. That is one of the great strengths of America; we foster that entrepreneurship, free but fair markets, well regulated, not too lightly, not too heavily. Sometimes we go a little overboard and we need to pull back. Sometimes we do not regulate enough and we need to step up. But that is what we have been exploring. In fact, we have broken our roundtables into domains: Do our small businesses have enough access to capital? Do our small businesses truly have access to grow global markets? What did we learn this year? We learned that less than 12 percent of all small businesses in America export. With the market growing overseas and only the small percentage of the world market being now in the United States--we were at one time the biggest market, when China was closed, when communism was reigning in the Soviet Union, and the Arab world was in darkness. I mean the market was in the United States. But that is no longer the case, as these countries and areas have emerged and created markets and opportunities of their own. So one thing we learned is that the ecosystem needs to be stronger by helping small businesses to export. They do not have the back office or the expertise of 10 accountants and a Chinese specialist and a South American specialist. But we can, by being smart, help. Through the Commerce Department, the Small Business Administration, or maybe even through some of our research and development arms of some of our departments, we can be the back office for small businesses. We are excited about what is happening there. So access to capital, access to global markets, access to counseling, mentoring, technical assistance and education. I have had so many small businesses come before our committee and say: You know, Senator, getting the loan from the bank was the first step. But if so-and-so had not shown up in my office from the Score Chapter or if I could not have reached out to my local university or my small business center there, I would never have been able to make it because they told me what to do to save me from making a fatal mistake and got me on my way or helped me to rethink my market during the recession. How one lady put it before our committee, they helped her remarket her business so now it is growing faster than ever. I think also access to strategic partnerships is important. No man is an island. We do not accomplish anything by ourselves in the world. That is true of individuals, that is true of small businesses. So we asked ourselves: Who are the partners, strategic partners for small businesses? Cities are doing some creative things. Madam President, you were a county executive. You know the things you did as a county executive. Your reputation is well known in that regard. States can be strategic partners to their small businesses. We explored those opportunities. Access to government contracting--you know, the Federal Government, state governments, and local governments are some of the biggest spenders and biggest businesses--if they were businesses, which they are not; there are clear differences--but if we were a business, the Federal Government would be the largest business in the world. It buys more goods and services than others. We do not have to do all of that just with the big businesses such as IBM, GE, ExxonMobil. We can contract with small businesses. It takes a little more time, takes a little more energy, takes a little bit different approach, but we most certainly can buy some of the things we need from the small business right down the street. So we are shaping policies to do that. Senator Cardin from Maryland has been particularly aggressive when it comes to contracting with minority and women-owned businesses, which make up a significant and growing area. It is very exiting as more women enter not just the workforce but decide they want their flexibility. They want to set their own hours. They want to be their own bosses. They want to establish businesses that allow them to also raise children at home, to be there when their kids need them. So they find that small businesses operating out of their homes are the answer to that dilemma. We want to give them access to government contracting when, of course, they are capable and provide the right price. One of the big areas that we looked at is access to human capital. I think you probably heard, Madam President, many of our businesses saying: Why is it that we are bringing in some of the smartest people in the world, educating them at our universities, to where they are getting master's degrees and Ph.D.s in engineering, math, and science, and then we send them back to the country they came from so they can create businesses to compete against us? Why don't we extend visa privileges to these master's and Ph.D. candidates? That is a good question, and we have bills to answer that. We also want to develop a skilled workforce in America. Access to human capital is what small businesses need to grow and to expand. Finally, we need access to flexible regulation and smart tax policy. We are never going to live in a world where we do not pay taxes. It is just the nature of what we have to do to keep our government running and operating, with a government that serves the people--by the people, for the people. But our taxes should not be too heavy, too burdensome, and our regulatory regime should not be either too light or too onerous. It should be just right. But it is hard to get that just-right approach. We are working at it every day. Senator Snowe has been working on regulatory reform. Senator Warner has been working very hard on regulatory reform--and other Members of this body. The bottom line is that this is Small Business Week. We want to honor the small businesses that are helping us put this recession in the rearview mirror. I want to ask the leadership to pass this resolution-- a very straightforward, noncontroversial resolution by both Democrats and Republicans, recognizing this is Small Business Week. I also wanted to bring to the attention of the body the conclusion, basically, of the three roundtables we have held and thank the Members who attended. We had good attendance, and we gleaned some excellent ideas about the brackets I have outlined today, and have been in the process of filing over the last week, and throughout this week, individual bills that reflect what we have learned in these roundtables. We have taken those ideas and turned them into legislation. I am happy to say there is not going to be a big pricetag on this legislation. It is not just throwing money at the problem, but we do need additional resources. It is sharpening things, reforming some of our strategies, laws, rules, and regulations on the books, and encouraging, by granting some competitive grants, some of these strategic partnerships with counties, cities, and States. I look forward to seeing how this body responds to some of the new pieces of legislation we put out. I look forward to working with my colleagues through this week and the month of May, through the summer, and into the election, to keep focused on the No. 1 issue on the minds of the American people, which is jobs, economic hope, and economic opportunity for themselves and their families. Tom Friedman has been saying all over the world that when kids graduate from college, it is not a job they are looking for. They may not be able to find the job they are looking for. They need to create the job they want. They need to build a business, build a better mousetrap, think about a different way of delivering a product or a service or think about a business that is selling to a domestic market and taking it global. With technology and opportunities, many young people are doing just that. In conclusion, I had the wonderful opportunity on Friday to be involved and took the opportunity Saturday morning to stop in at the Cambridge Innovation Center, the granddaddy of all small business incubators. It is across the street from MIT, Microsoft, and Google. There were some young and exciting college students in the building. You could either rent a cubicle that looked like a kindergarten with your name on it to get in the building or you could rent a space such as a bullpen where you could work or rent your own cubicle or private office; and thousands, literally, of young people were moving into that building--actually people of all ages, even retired executives who decided, I have always wanted to try out my idea, so let's see if I can get my business started. Even on a Saturday--and it was very quiet--I could feel the energy in that building, although it was virtually empty. I have walked through incubators in New Orleans, and I hope the occupant of the chair did, and helped to create them in Delaware. That is what it is going to take, a strategic partnership between government and the private sector, letting the private sector do what they do best, but letting government do what it does best. That was a perfect example of what I saw in terms of taking research dollars that are spent at MIT, moving them out to the universities, and then on to these ideas, where they are literally being tested and commercialized to get out into the market to create wealth and opportunity for the United States and the world. I am happy to be chair of the Small Business Committee. For small business and economic growth, it is National Small Business Week. I thank all the groups helping us to celebrate this week and, most important, I thank the entrepreneurs who literally risk everything to create their dreams and bring economic prosperity not just to themselves and their family business but to a Nation that relies on them every day. We want to make that burden lighter. I want to help them in every way we can in our committee in Washington and throughout our States, counties, and cities, and be the partner they can rely on to get the job done. Madam President, I don't see anyone else on the floor. I urge my colleagues to adopt our resolution. I thank all of us who will be speaking today and this week on Small Business Week.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. I yield the floor.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I appreciate the eloquent statement our colleague from Iowa has put into the Record and his passionate advocacy on behalf of this special group of children in America. From his position as senior member on the Finance Committee, both serving as chair and as ranking member, his support has been essential to their well-being. In a committee that has a lot of important issues, from tax reform to international trade, the Senator from Iowa, Mr. Grassley, never fails to keep the needs of foster care children and their families and the support community on the front of that agenda. I could not have a better partner, and I am very grateful for his partnership on this issue and his friendship. I also want to recognize some of our colleagues from the House: Representative Karen Bass, Representative Tom Marino, Representative Michele Bachman, and Representative Jim McDermott, who worked very closely with Senator Grassley and myself. As you can see, this is across party lines, across geographic lines, and across different political philosophies. We want to say one thing very loud and clear to the country: Foster children are not criminals. They are not delinquents. They are children who are in desperate need of love and care and support. Our foster care system in many ways works beautifully and in some ways needs, of course, to be fixed, repaired, and strengthened. But overall the foster care system should, at all times, be temporary. It is a temporary place for children to go to be protected and healed and nurtured until they can be returned to their birth family or to their extended family with sibling groups intact or until they can be processed to a kinship adoption, which Senator Grassley has been a tremendous advocate for, or to a domestic adoption. I cannot add anything to the very excellent and comprehensive statement the Senator made. I would like to add just a few points. Because of the work many of us have done--and we do not hear good news around here that often, so I want to share that in the last 20 years, because of the work that our group has done, and others in the Congress, we have doubled the amount of children being adopted out of the foster care system. That is a tremendous victory because of the legislation that has been passed, the focus across party lines. In 1990 we only adopted 14,000 children out of foster care. In the last year of record, 2010, we adopted 53,000. It is a tripling of adoptions out of foster care. I do not have the numbers in front of me for reunifications, but Senator Grassley and I know that number has increased as well. We are making progress in the bills we are proposing and passing, the appropriations that we are investing. It has not been a lot more money over the last few years. It has just been a real strategic focus which I would like to believe our caucus and the adoption caucus as well, the foster care caucus, has helped to produce. We have had more adoptions out of foster care. We have had more reunifications out of foster care. We have shortened the time that children are in foster care. But we have, and in this month of May still have, many challenges. That is why Senator Grassley and I urge our colleagues to join us in this resolution, S. Res. 462. Be a cosponsor. Step up and say by your cosponsorship that you care about this issue, that you want to help us continue to make progress. I want to remember our former colleague, John Chafee, who, when he was in the Senate, was an extraordinary advocate for foster care children. We named the John Chafee Foster Care Independence Program in his honor. As Senator Grassley said, we are making progress with helping our children who age out when we failed to reunite them with their birth family, we failed to find them an adoptive home. They are aging out, but we are trying to give them more help and support. That is still a challenge. Some of our Members are working on foster children and school choice. If children are brought into the foster care system and they are separated from their families, it is quite traumatic. Of course it is for their own good. Sometimes their families are being abusive. Sometimes their families are being grossly negligent. Unfortunately, in this day and age sometimes their families are deported and they are in the home alone. We want to make sure the children get to stay at least in the school of their choice. It is one thing to be pulled from your family; it is another thing to have to lose your family 1 day and your school the next day and all of your teachers, all of your friends. There is legislation pending that would give foster children the opportunity to stay in the school they are in when they enter care, if that is their choice. That would be a great reform. We also want to continue to promote kinship adoption, reaching out to the extended family, trying to keep children placed in their extended families who are willing and responsible to raise them--but not placing children with kin if the kin or the relatives are not responsible and not willing; that is not a solution. Finally, we want to promote quality foster families. This is a problem that is easily solvable. It seems like it is a lot, this number, 450-some-odd thousand children. But it represents only one-half of 1 percent of all children in America. This is not a big number. It sounds like it when we say 450,000, but the percentage, one-half of 1 percent--we calculated it 1 day on just the back of a napkin. If one family for every four churches in America would say yes to taking in a foster child or to adopt a child out of foster care, there would be no more orphans in our country. Again, if one family out of every four churches stepped up for the children available for adoption, we would have no more orphans in America. Then we could focus on recruiting quality foster families who can help these children to find their way--to find their way back to their biological families with their sibling groups intact or find their way to a new family who will love them and nurture them and protect them and support them forever. That is what families do. We do not support our children until they are 18 and let them go on their merry way. We are with them until the last breath. That is what parents do. We are with our children forever. Every child in this world deserves a forever family. Senator Grassley and I have come together. We work to strengthen our foster care system. We know it is broken in places. We know it can be fixed. We work on fixing it every day. I thank our colleagues who have joined us in just recognizing Foster Care Month. As Senator Grassley said in his conclusion, and I will say in mine, we want to thank everyone who helps on this every month of the year, not just May. We want to thank the teachers who reach out especially to the foster children they know are in their classrooms. We want to thank the judges who process their cases quickly. I particularly want to thank the CASA workers. I am a big believer in CASA, Court Appointed Special Advocates. I think it is a great organization for all the volunteers who worked to help make our foster care system in America better. Again, this is S. Res. 462. I would like to thank our counterparts in the House. It has been a real joy and pleasure to work with Senator Grassley these many years on helping to promote the very best practices in the country on reforming our foster care system in America and trying to help who we can around the world.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, today, young women from Louisiana, California, and the Washington area are my special guests for Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day. We were joined by over 100 young women and men here at the Capitol today with their parents, grandparents, and guardians to participate in work in the Senate. I want to acknowledge the Ms. Foundation that started the national Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day program over 20 years ago. I would like to particularly thank Leader Reid and Leader McConnell for opening the Senate floor today for these children. I ask unanimous consent that the young women's names, as well as the names of those family members or guardians joining them, be printed in the Record.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Please join me in welcoming my exceptional guests and their family members or guardians who have accompanied them to the U.S. Senate. So, again, I thank my Senate colleagues for giving me this opportunity.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 2072.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank the Chair. I rise in support of this amendment, offered on behalf of myself and my colleagues, Senators Snowe, Stabenow, and Shaheen. We are very concerned that the Postal Service has not looked carefully enough at the impact some of its decisions might have on small businesses that rely on their operations. So all this amendment says--and I understand there is no opposition, so we might be able to take it by voice vote--is that included in the studies the Postal Service is going to do to analyze their way forward, they must consider the impact on small businesses they serve. As you know, in some areas, particularly rural areas, this is an arm of the small business, and we can't have that arm chopped off. So that is the amendment. I don't believe there is any opposition, and if the managers would accept this by voice vote, we could save some time.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I add my strong voice to support the position of Senators Lieberman, Collins, Carper, and Brown, who has also been a great leader in this bipartisan effort to save the Postal Service and put it on a more sound financial footing, not at the expense of taxpayers generally but the users of the Postal Service. This is about rural towns in America. This is about small businesses everywhere that rely on the Postal Service to get basic business done. Don't vote wrong today. Give the Postal Service a chance to save itself. That is what we are doing. We are giving rural communities a chance to fight and to be part of a growing economy. We are giving small businesses the opportunity to stay in business. Don't cut them off today. Let this debate go forward because we are trying to do the right thing and go in the fiscally responsible direction. I see my colleague from Massachusetts who has been a very able leader in our effort.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to mark and celebrate the career of a Louisiana native who is a very dear friend of mine and someone who is admired by literally thousands if not millions of people in Texas and around the world. That gentleman is Dr. Kenneth Hall. Next week Dr. Hall will retire after almost two decades of leadership at Buckner International, which is one of the world's outstanding nonprofit organizations formed many years ago in Texas. Dr. Hall served as only the fifth president in over 120 years. After his retirement as president in 2010, he has continued to serve as CEO of this fine organization. Buckner, as it is known, is a global Christian ministry that does extraordinary work with vulnerable children and families throughout Texas and other places in the United States and recently expanded internationally. They helped run self-sufficiency programs, community transformation programs, education, job readiness training, and afterschool programs for vulnerable children. Remarkably, I have seen their work both in downtown Dallas, TX, as well as out in remote villages in Ethiopia, and the quality and expertise is identical and it is heartwarming. The causes of vulnerable children both here and overseas is something, of course, that is extremely close to my heart. I spent a good bit of time in the Senate working with my colleagues on issues that advance their welfare, and it has been my privilege and honor to know Dr. Hall over the past several years. He was born in Louisiana, earned his BA from the University of Texas at Tyler. He earned a master of divinity and doctor of ministry degrees from Southwest Baptist Theological Cemetery in Fort Worth. Before his career started at Buckner, he served as pastor of four churches in Texas. He has been married for many years and has a beautiful family--his wife Linda and their two married children and their grandchildren. I want to say a brief word about Buckner itself. It was founded over 135 years ago when a Baptist minister, R.C. Buckner, started an orphanage with an initial donation of $27. As the story goes, he literally took off his hat, put a dollar in it, and passed it around to the ministers present, and with $27 started the first orphanage west of the Mississippi to help the children who were coming on those orphan trains across our Nation. They took them off of those trains and gave them homes and families. The organization has grown since then, but under Dr. Hall's leadership Buckner expanded to include more than $200 million in capital improvements and an endowment of more than $200 million. As I said, he worked to expand Buckner's reach overseas. I had the pleasure of traveling with him to Ethiopia recently, and I witnessed firsthand the incredible work and his personal passion for helping families become more self-sufficient, maintaining children in their birth family groups, and helping to literally transform communities with this special Buckner touch. So it has been said before: To be who you are and become what you are capable of is the only goal worth living. It is my hope that Dr. Hall will continue to achieve his goal in this life. We will miss him, his selfless service, and his dedication. We honor him today in the Senate for over two decades of service to one of the Nation's best nonprofit faith-based organizations. I yield the floor.

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

Ms. LANDRIEU. Did the Senator have an opportunity today--because I had a group from Louisiana in my office on the same subject, and I appreciate the Senator's leadership. The group was the American Engineering Society that was in Washington today. I don't know if the Senator had an opportunity to meet with such a group, but have other groups come by the Senator's office to express, as this group did, their utter frustration with Congress's inability to get such a basic piece of legislation through? Did they tell the Senator the same thing they told me, which is: Senator, when engineers are not working in America, no one is working. We are the ones who are designing the projects to be built. If we are not designing them, they are not going to be built. If we don't get this Transportation bill passed for a longer period of time, we will not be going back to work. Is that the Senator's understanding when he meets with groups in his office?

Ms. LANDRIEU. As the Senator from Rhode Island said, he had 9,000 jobs at risk in Rhode Island. We have 26,700 jobs at risk in Louisiana. This is a very significant deal and challenge for all our States. We don't have the trouble of the winter and the summer but, unfortunately, Louisiana does have one of the largest percentages of bridges that are deficient in the Nation. We also, because we have to build on such soft and unsettling lands, need to have repair money readily available so people can evacuate in times of hurricanes and natural disasters. We have been working--and the Senator may be familiar with the area because he has friends and relatives in our State--on the I 49 south and I 49 north but particularly I 49 south that connects New Orleans to Lafayette in a loop around south Louisiana, which is America's energy coast that is so important for not only saving those wetlands and that great industry of fisheries but also supporting oil and gas production. That highway is yet to be built in a nation that depends on the resources we send to the Senator's State and to other parts of the Nation. So I feel the same as the Senator from Rhode Island. I can't, for the life of me, figure out why the House will not move with more quick action to pass a longer term bill. Maybe if they can get just anything out of the House, we could get to conference and start negotiating some things that might be better than a 3-month short-term authorization which I hear nothing but complaints about from everyone. I hear complaints from the left, the environmental movement, to the right, the business community. They say: Senator, we can't live with these short-term authorizations. We need 2 years. We need 3 years. We need 5 years. We need something we can build on, count on, budget for, and depend on; otherwise, it is too expensive. It starts and stops projects. We have to lay off a crew and hire them the next day or we can't place our orders in an efficient fashion. The Senator from Rhode Island knows we just raise the cost of all the projects. So why would the House claim to want to be so fiscally conservative but act in such a way that is the opposite, that is making all these projects more expensive? I think the Senator from Rhode Island is absolutely correct. I will join him on the floor, and I hope our colleagues will come to this floor every night and say it is time to pass this Transportation bill. It is time to help Colorado, New Mexico, Louisiana, and Rhode Island to get people back to work and to fix this crumbling infrastructure. Nine is enough. The cat has nine lives. This cat has run out of opportunities. This is the ninth short-term authorization. We have to move to a more long-term, sustainable infrastructure plan for America. This is truly an embarrassment, I have to say to my friend. I wish to thank the Senator from Rhode Island for his leadership, and I will join him in subsequent evenings on the floor to raise this issue and explain to the American public not the inside baseball or the inside politics but to explain what is the most important thing about this, which is we need the jobs and we need them now.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I am going to speak for about 10 minutes. If someone else comes to the floor, I will be happy to shorten that, but I had to come to the floor to support the leadership of Senator Barbara Boxer and Senator Inhofe from Oklahoma, who have worked for over a year to bring a very balanced and fundamentally important and essential infrastructure bill to the floor of the House. We have many arguments on this floor. We have been arguing about judges. I heard Senator Grassley give a pretty tough speech voicing his opinion of some of our Supreme Court Justices. I do not agree with much of what he said, but he is entitled to his opinion. We have those debates. There are good people on both sides. We are debating oil taxes and whether the oil industry is paying too much or too little. You could have arguments about that. But even our children in kindergarten and even our citizens who do not pay attention to some more difficult arguments understand roads, bridges, and mass transit. They understand hardhat jobs. They see people every day laying bricks, pouring concrete, going to work at steel mills and factories that produce the materials that build our infrastructure. They drive over potholes all day long. They ride down the interstates with 18-wheelers whizzing by them in smaller cars because they are trying to be more fuel efficient, with their heart in their chest, with their children in the backseat, and they look up to Congress, to the House of Representatives, and say: Where is our Transportation bill? This Transportation bill was not written by one Senator and voted on by a slim majority. This Transportation bill that the House refuses to even consider was built by one of the more progressive and one of the most conservative Members of this body. It was voted on almost unanimously out of committee, brought to the floor of the Senate just a couple of weeks ago, and received over 75 votes in a body that cannot decide about our judges, really, we can't decide about the post office, we can't decide about oil and gas taxes. But 75 of us said that we are tired of running our highways and our transit on 90-day, 30-day, 60-day extensions. I think this is the 26th short-term extension since 2009. What way is this to run a government? For the other side of this building that talks about putting business practices to work, let's be more efficient in the way we operate, and let's operate more like a business, do you know, Mr. President, any business in America, large or small, that operates with a 30-day vision? Do you know one? I don't know one. I understand businesses have 6-month plans, a year, but they always have that 5-year long range. They might have 6-month goals. I don't know one business in America that operates on a 30-day plan. Here we are at the ninth hour again. We have a bill. We produced a bill. If the House had a bill--I am a centrist--if the House had a bill, I would be working with the middle of the road over there, trying to say: This is what your bill does. This is what our bill does. We can't have our way completely here in the Senate, although I would like to have our way more of the time, but I understand. They do not have a bill. They do not have a bill to negotiate because they cannot even get a bill together among the three committees of jurisdiction over there. Again, if they had a bill, I know Senator Boxer and Senator Inhofe would be happy to negotiate. Maybe they want a 4-year bill, we want a 2, maybe we negotiate a 3. They don't like the mass-transit portion; we like the mass-transit portion; we could come to some terms. They don't like the way the formula works; we like the general way the formula works; we could come to terms. I understand that. But what I do not understand, what no one in the country understands--what the mayors are having a hard time understanding, what the Governors are having a hard time understanding and the businesses that operate in my State, represented by the chamber of commerce, the NFIB, and the Main Street Alliance of small businesses from the left to the center to the right--what they do not understand is how you do not have a bill at all and you have not been able to put one together. We have now been in this Congress for a year and a half. You have had 1\1/ 2\ years to put a bill together, and you have not come up with one. We put one together that looks pretty good. No one that I know of from any group has said anything really bad about our bill. It is pretty plain in one sense. It is not changing the course of Western civilization; it is just trying to fund roads, bridges, and transit, which is fundamental to the operations not only of our government but our economy and, frankly, the economy of the world because without highways it is hard to import or export products. This bill has impacts way beyond America. For the life of me, I cannot understand how the House of Representatives is going to leave and go on vacation and think they have done their job by giving us another 90-day extension. I do not know what the leadership is going to do, but I want my vote recorded as no. I am not going to hold up everybody here over the holidays, but I want to say that I want my vote recorded as no. I am not going to continue to support 30-day, 60-day, 90-day extensions to a transportation bill that really, in the scheme of things, should not be that complicated to pass. There are other much more controversial things about which we could be having very serious debates. Building highways and roads and transit should not be one of them. We are hurting jobs. We heard the Republicans--I cannot blame the Republicans in the Senate. I think they have been for the most part really terrific, actually, working with Senator Boxer. They have even given a majority of the votes. So I guess my focus is really on the Republicans in the House. I don't think they have taken the time to really look at the Senate bill to see how balanced it is, and one part I wish they would read, which is the part I want to talk about for the next 5 minutes--and I know other Senators are here to speak--I hope the gulf coast Members from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida--and together that is a pretty big coalition; I don't know the total number, but I think there have to be over 75 Members from Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida--I hope they read the section of the Transportation bill that talks about the RESTORE Act. I have spent a great deal of time over here with my good friend and wonderful leader, Senator Shelby, with Senator Boxer, with over 300 organizations, for over a year, to build a bill that is now part of the Transportation bill that, in addition to building highways in Florida and transit and roads in Alabama and Mississippi, will also for the first time in the history of our country--the first time--direct a significant portion of penalty money paid by a polluter, BP, that polluted the gulf coast--a good company in some ways but really messed up that well, though, and they just spilled gallons and gallons and millions of barrels of oil. We have shrimp that are coming in our nets with no eyes. We have turtles that are washing up on our shores dead. We have research needs in the gulf coast that--there has been no time in our history where we have needed that money more. My question is to the gulf coast Republican Members and Democratic Members. What is it about this bill that is driving you so crazy that you can't accept $10 billion that the Federal Government is trying to give you? Because that is what the RESTORE Act could potentially send to the gulf coast, a portion of the fine. We don't know whether that fine is going to be $5 billion or $10 billion or $20 billion, but we do know it is going to be substantial because under current law they have to pay $1,000 for every barrel spilled or $4,200 if it was gross negligence. In the Senate Transportation bill, this body showed rare bipartisan support and concern for the gulf coast, America's energy coast. We showed an understanding of the great erosion that is taking place in the delta of Louisiana, which drains 40 percent of the continent. We showed understanding that so much of our shipping and seafood industry relies on this coast--not that the other coasts are not vitally important--and we showed we understand the underinvestment that has been made. So 75 percent of the Senate basically stood and said: OK. Let's redirect this penalty money to where the injury is. That is the RESTORE Act, and that is in the Senate bill we sent over to the House, which they have absolutely just rejected. I don't know what magic there is about the next 90 days, but I know what I am going to do. I am going to register my vote as no, and I am going to go home and work harder in Louisiana and along the gulf coast to explain to the people of our region how much is at stake by getting a longer term Transportation bill. Maybe 2 years is not as long as we would like to have, but it is better than 30 days, it is better than 60 days, and it is better than 90 days. I will ask and explain that not only is the Transportation bill vital for Louisiana's projects but for approving the RESTORE Act, which I know the House has indicated their support for. They have indicated a support for the concept of the RESTORE Act, but the act itself is in the Transportation bill. So I am going to wrap-up. There are other Members on the floor who will speak. I thank the leader, Barbara Boxer, who is here. But for 90 days let's get back to work and go for a long-term Transportation bill that is a real jobs bill that will help the whole country but particularly the gulf coast with the RESTORE Act.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Reserving the right to object.

Ms. LANDRIEU. And I might object, because I think this is a very serious matter. I am reserving the right to object because, as the majority leader well knows, if we would follow Senator Boxer's leadership, sending the Senate bill back to the House, we would not only not lose any jobs, we would create 1.9 million jobs, and for the Restore Act, which is very important to the gulf coast, it would create another 300,000 jobs. The only action that is going to cause job loss is the action we are basically being forced to accept right now, sent over by a partisan House of Representatives, to go to another short-term extension. This country doesn't need short-term extensions, it needs long-term answers, and it needs jobs they can count on. Every business in America relies on this Transportation bill. We have now been going to short-term extensions for 3 years. It is time to stop. I want my leader, who is on the Senate floor, to know I may object in the next few minutes, but I absolutely will object to any other short- term resolution on this bill for as long as this Congress is in session. This is enough. Now, had this bill gotten out of here with just Democrats on it, I would say we don't have a leg to stand on because we don't have a balanced bill, and we can't jam this through on the other side. But this bill got out of here with 75 or 76 votes. Now, 2 years is not 5 years, but it is better than 3 months. It is a bill we could pass and build on. It is a bill that assures people can go to sleep tonight knowing they have a job tomorrow. So I object to the minority leader's comments about this bill, that our action is going to lose jobs. No, we have been here working hard to save jobs. I hope when the Republicans go home they will hear from the business community, from the right, the middle, and the left; I hope they will hear from environmental groups: What are you guys doing? The final comment I want to make as I am objecting is, if the House had a bill, then this would be a negotiation between two bills. The problem is they don't even have a bill. How do we negotiate with a group that doesn't have a bill? They have ideas, they have philosophies, they have platforms, and they have speeches, but they don't have a bill. We couldn't negotiate with them if we wanted to. There is no bill. This is why we are telling the country: Look, we don't know what their problem is--they have many--but we have a bill. So if they can't get their bill together, take the one we put together. But, no, that is too simple for them. So I am reserving the right to object. I am going to listen to what my leader has to say, and I might object. I know everybody wants to go home. I know we want to have this unanimous consent agreement. But my State not only has its transportation money wrapped up in this, it has its hope for the future wrapped up because the Restore Act is in that bill. For the first time, this Senate stood up since I have been here and said: You are right, gulf coast. You do a lot. You have been injured a lot, and we are going to help you. So that bill is in there too, which is why I am hard-pressed to say I will vote for a 90-day extension. So reserving the right to object, I ask unanimous consent the request be modified so an amendment, which is at the desk, the text of S. 1813, the surface transportation bill, passed by the Senate on March 14, 2012, by a large bipartisan majority of 74 to 22 be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed; and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I know Senator Inhofe was on the floor, and if I could ask unanimous consent that after I speak, he would be next to speak, and then the good Senator, Mr. Lee, from Utah.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Thank you, Mr. President. It is my distinct privilege to come to the floor this afternoon to voice my full support for Susie Morgan's confirmation as an article III judge on the U.S. Eastern District Court of Louisiana. I have known Susie for many years. She is a good friend and, more importantly, she is an excellent and outstanding attorney. Ms. Morgan comes to this position equipped with decades of litigation experience in Federal court as an advocate for both plaintiffs and defendants. She brings a thorough understanding of Federal law and an unquestionably fair and evenhanded temperament. It is unfortunate that such a talented individual such as Susie Morgan has been waiting nearly a year since President Obama nominated her in July of 2011, and almost 5 months since she was voted out of committee unanimously. Despite what the good Senator from Iowa--my good friend and wonderful partner in so many important issues here--has said, the fact is there are 17 judicial nominees on this calendar. There are 19 judicial nominees in committee. The facts are that the nominees for President Obama have taken nearly five times longer to receive a vote on this floor. We know there are some vacancies that have not yet received nominations. But there is no reason to deny these 17 who are still on the calendar their day on this floor. Ms. Morgan has waited more than her turn, and I apologize for that. She understands this has been caught up in bigger politics. It has nothing to do with her nomination specifically or her outstanding qualifications. But I do think we have to be honest about these delays and see what we can do to move people who are qualified, such as this nominee, so much more quickly because the courts need their help. Ms. Morgan earned an advanced degree from the University of Louisiana at Monroe. She graduated from there, earning both her undergraduate and master's degrees. Then she earned a law degree on top of that, graduating in the top 5 percent of her class at Louisiana State University's Paul Hebert Law Center. Immediately after earning her JD, Susie served as a law clerk for one of Louisiana's most respected legal minds, Judge Henry Politz of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. At the conclusion of that Federal clerkship, she began practicing in Shreveport, LA, for one of our most respected firms, Wiener, Weiss & Madison. For the next 25 years, she honed her skills. She was one of the most capable civil defense attorneys in both Federal and State court. After years of successful practice in Shreveport, Susie was recruited by one of the most prestigious law firms in Louisiana, Phelps Dunbar, and has since served as a partner for the firm where she specializes in commercial litigation. She served in a variety of posts, as many of our wonderful nominees have--serving without much fanfare but with great impact on many committees of the Louisiana bar, the Federal bar, et cetera. One of the most important that I want to mention here is that for 14 years she chaired a rules committee. It is not the sexiest kind of committee, not something known to the public, but it is so important to the practice of law for the thousands of attorneys who practice in Louisiana. She spent years behind the scenes improving Louisiana's State court proceedings. For almost 14 years, as I said, she chaired the rules committee and Louisiana Bar Association. Thanks to her leadership, the Louisiana Supreme Court agreed to replace an old and antiquated system where each judicial district in Louisiana adhered to its own set of idiosyncratic set rules, and now we have a uniform set of rules for the entire State. I think that is a special tribute to her tenacity, to her willingness to serve and do the hard work behind the scenes without a lot of public credit. I am also impressed with the legal protection services she has offered to the homeless at St. Joseph's, the Harry Thompson Center in New Orleans, and the multiple community works she has done pre- and post-Katrina in our community. She has had a career that has demonstrated her willingness to work hard and to stay at the job, get the job done, to be fair, curious, and respectful and, of course, she is most knowledgeable of the law, which she has so well served. I am so proud to support her nomination. I am proud that President Obama accepted my suggestion and nominated her. I am very pleased. She should receive a full and strong vote in the Senate. She has the support of myself and the other Senator, my partner from Louisiana, Senator Vitter. I am very pleased to speak on her behalf today. I yield the floor.