Ed Markey

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. 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 October 31, 2013, at 10 a.m.

Mr. MARKEY. 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 October 31, 2013, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Housing Finance Reform: Essential Elements of a Government Guarantee for Mortgage-Backed Securities.''

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 31, 2013, at 10 a.m.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 31, 2013, at 10:15 a.m., to hold a hearing entitled ``Syria''.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 31, 2013, at 2:15 p.m.

Mr. MARKEY. 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 ``Attaining a Quality Degree: Innovations to Improve Student Success'' on October 31, 2013, at 10 a.m., in room SD-430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. MARKEY. 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 October 31, 2013, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``The Navy Yard Tragedy: Examining Government Clearances and Background Checks.''

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 31, 2013, at 10 a.m. SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct an executive business meeting.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 31, 2013, at 2 p.m.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. 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 October 9, 2013, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Housing Finance Reform: Essential Elements of the Multifamily Housing Finance System.''

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes.

Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, we need to bring this government shutdown to an end, and the way to do that is for the House of Representatives to pass the bill for a $986 billion budget to run the government for 1 year which John Boehner and the Republicans in the House of Representatives asked the Senate to pass. That is the number they wanted. That is not the number the Democrats in the Senate wanted. They wanted $986 billion to run the government for 1 year. That is the budget we sent over. They will not pass that budget. So now we have a situation where we should be negotiating over health care, over environmental issues, over other issues because the budget has been passed--but, no. They are going to hold the entire country hostage. Consider where our country stands right now. When George W. Bush left office, the Dow was at 7,900. It is now above 15,000. At the height of the great Bush recession, unemployment peaked at 10 percent. It is now at 7.3 percent. Our deficit has been cut in half. We are making progress. But we are not there yet. Many Americans continue to struggle. As our country climbs back from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the tea party Republicans are sending America into reverse. The tea party Republicans shut down the government. They are putting our economic recovery at risk. They are signaling to the world that America cannot perform the most fundamental job of government--passing a budget. In the alternative, the tea party Republican universe they have created here has the tea party demanding that we fund health care research while simultaneously trying to end health care coverage for millions of Americans; to pay for our troops but sideline the intelligence agents who keep us safe from terrorist attacks; and claim to defend the Constitution but shut down the building where it lives and breathes. This tea party Republican logic is tying our country in knots, and it makes no sense. Although the government shut down at midnight this past Monday, the seeds of the shutdown were sown years ago. This shutdown is the product of more than a decade of disdain for the democratic process waged by the tea party Republican party that is increasingly out of the mainstream. When the Republican Party started losing congressional seats, they redrew electoral maps in their favor and passed laws to suppress American voters they had alienated. And when a historic bill was signed into law to finally make health care a right for millions of low-income Americans, a law that was upheld by the Supreme Court, a law that opened for business on Tuesday, the response of the tea party Republicans was to shut down the entire government. At the core of this tea party Republican ideology is the idea that the democratic processes our country runs on can be dismissed, that they can be manipulated, that they can be contorted to cater to the privileged at the expense of the poor, the vulnerable, and the disenfranchised of our country. This isn't about the Republican Party versus the Democratic Party. This is about tea party Republicans versus democracy itself. The essence of American democracy has been our ability to govern by majority rule while respecting minority rights. Our system is inherently designed to enable compromise and avoid the divisiveness of ideological extremists. I know about these tea party extremists. I served in the House of Representatives with them. They live by the Republican tea party paradox: They hate the government so much that they have to run for office in order to make sure the government doesn't work. And now there is a new Republican tea party paradox: They want to pay Federal employees not to work while blocking the legislation that will put them back to work. The Democrats are fighting to open the government so Federal employees can return to work and can earn their pay, not pay them for not working. That is the new Republican paradox. The tea party Republicans have a three-step plan. No. 1: Deny democracy. Tea party Republicans ignore the fact that the Affordable Care Act passed the Congress, was signed by the President, and upheld by the Supreme Court. Tea party step No. 2: Manufacture a crisis. The tea party Republicans shut down the government and put our country on the brink of default, because they refuse to accept the fact that the Affordable Care Act is the law of the land and the American people reelected President Obama. Step No. 3: Turn out the lights. Just shut down the government. What is at stake if the Affordable Care Act is repealed? Without the Affordable Care Act, for women everywhere in America the agenda will go back to being a preexisting condition. They could be charged higher insurance rates because they are women. For families everywhere in America, the threat of personal bankruptcy will return, caps on insurance benefits will be reemployed, and medical bills will once again lead to personal bankruptcies. For a young college graduate struggling to find a job, their parents' plan is no longer an option. For a low-income family who has spent years taking their kids to the emergency room instead of regular doctor appointments, it will mean more late nights in emergency waiting rooms. Who else will be harmed if the tea party Republicans continue to refuse to expand the Medicaid Program in their respective States, the expansion that is a key part of the Affordable Care Act? The answer is two-thirds of the country's poor, uninsured African-Americans and single mothers, and more than half of the low-wage workers in the 26 States where Governors have turned down Federal funds to expand Medicare. Let's take Texas, for example. Texas currently has the highest concentration of uninsured Americans in our country--6 million people. Many live in poverty. Under the Affordable Care Act, every State has a choice: It could give the poor and sickest and neediest of its citizens health care coverage through expanded Medicaid paid for entirely by the Federal Government or it could say, no, thanks, and leave these poor people, these uninsured people, in a state of uncertainty. Texas turned down cold more than $100 billion in Federal funding over the next decade, denying health care coverage for the 1.5 million Texas residents who live in poverty. That is what the tea party Republicans are fighting for--to not take the money to ensure that the poorest people get health insurance. That is what it is all about. That is what they are fighting for. They believe they have a right to say, no, we are not going to cover these poor people. No, we are not going to give them insurance. That is their right--they should have the freedom to deny all these people that health insurance. And 26 other States, all with Republican Governors, did the very same thing. Every State in the Deep South but Arkansas said no. There is an ancient Greek proverb that says the world will know true justice when those who have not been harmed are as angry as those who have been harmed. You can see all across America people are angry. People who have not been harmed are angry about those who are being harmed by what the Republican tea party is doing here in Congress. That is why everyone in America wants this shutdown ended. They know that eliminating the Affordable Care Act would gravely harm the poor in our country, the children, the working families. Not since the Great Depression have so many Americans suffered from such severe economic problems. There are 46 million Americans living in poverty today. That is $23,000 a year for a family of 4. The poverty rate for African Americans is 27 percent, for Hispanics it is at 23 percent. There are almost 50 million people in our country at risk of not having enough food. Sixteen million children live in poverty in the United States as we stand here today. There are more than 11 million Americans out of work, 13 percent unemployment for African Americans, 9.2 percent for Hispanics, and it is too high for Whites, for Asians, for Native Americans--for everyone in our country. Behind each of those numbers is a name, each of those statistics is a story, each of those figures is a face and a future that is at risk. Behind each furlough is a Federal worker who has a vital job not being done. Somewhere in Georgia in the midst of the flu season there is an employee of the Centers for Disease Control who is at home instead of stopping a flu outbreak at a local elementary school. Somewhere in Florida is an FDA employee who was shut out of his job inspecting fish imports for toxic contamination while a mother shops at the local grocery store picking up salmon for dinner. Somewhere in the gulf coast there is an oil rig safety officer catching up on their chores at home instead of stopping the next potential BP spill before it happens. Somewhere in Boston a doctor has now put on hold a clinical trial to bring a new treatment to children born with a rare form of heart disease while a mother in Milwaukee holds her sick newborn, wondering if a cure could ever be found. Somewhere in Massachusetts a civilian military employee tasked with developing the best in protective gear for our soldiers is barred from entering his military base while abroad a soldier takes fire on the front lines. And here at the Capitol there are police officers who threw their bodies in between the public and a threat just this week, doing so without even receiving a paycheck. This government shutdown is just a preview of coming attractions. If Republicans force us to default on our debt, millions of jobs could be destroyed. We could go from a shutdown of our government to a meltdown of our entire economy. We won't be blackmailed, we won't be threatened, we won't back down, we won't give up. We will stand and we will fight. We will fight for the families who have dreamed of the security of health care, we will fight for the Federal workers who deserve a paycheck, we will fight for the working families reaching for the American dream. Because--make no mistake--what is at stake here isn't just health care, it isn't just a functioning government, it isn't just the stability of our economy. What is at stake is the future of our democratic system. Because you can shut down the government, you can engage in revisionist history and revise the rules to fit your ideology, but the American people will rise up--and they are rising up--to say put America back to work. They will not let the tea party Republicans stop the progress of our country. They are going to demand justice. They are going to demand that the shutdown end and the spirit of the American people be recognized. What we need to do is to get the government back to work for the American people. The Senate has to send the House a bill that will end the shutdown. The House should schedule the vote for this bill immediately. It will pass. We should not be cutting the National Institutes of Health, which is working to find the cure for cancer, for Alzheimer's, for Parkinson's and other diseases that devastate. We should not be keeping our civilian defense workers off the job. We should be coming together to create jobs to build better futures for all Americans. We should make sure America pays its bills and does not default on its debts. We need to raise the debt ceiling. Now is the time. Let's get to work. I yield the floor.

Mr. MARKEY

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

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I ask to be recognized for 6 minutes.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, what we have is the tea party Republicans' version of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's five stages of grief. More than 40 years ago, Dr. Kubler-Ross laid out the five different emotions experienced by people when they faced what they considered to be an awful, unacceptable fate: Making affordable health care available for millions of Americans is anathema to today's tea party Republicans. They cannot accept it. They shut down the government to try to stop it. The tea party Republicans cannot handle the fact that the Affordable Care Act will guarantee that millions more Americans are going to have access to quality, affordable health care coverage; that being a woman is no longer going to be a preexisting condition--women cannot be charged higher insurance rates just because of their gender; no one is going to go bankrupt just because they get sick. Before the Affordable Care Act, medical bills contributed to more than 60 percent of all personal bankruptcies in the United States. That all ends with ObamaCare, which lifts lifetime caps on insurance coverage. Mr. President, 6.6 million people on Medicare have already saved more than $7 billion on their prescription medicines. The tea party Republicans are in the grip of the political equivalent of the five stages of grief. It is the American people who are getting squeezed. The first stage, denial. The tea party Republicans refuse to accept the fact that the Affordable Care Act is the law. They have tried to repeal it more than 50 times. It has been ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court. They ignored last year's Presidential election in which the Republican candidate who promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act if he was elected was soundly defeated. The tea party Republicans deny the decision by the Supreme Court that found the Affordable Care Act constitutional. The second stage, anger. The tea party Republicans are enraged that the Affordable Care Act is going to work. We know it is going to work because we have 7 years of experience in Massachusetts, where now 97 percent of all adults and 99 percent of all children are covered. We have a poll conducted in April of this year by the Massachusetts Medical Society. It indicates that 84 percent of Massachusetts residents are satisfied with their health care. They like their health coverage under the Massachusetts system, which is the very model of President Obama's plan. The tea party Republicans cannot stand the fact that the Affordable Care Act will finally make health care a right and not a privilege in our country, in the words of the great Ted Kennedy. The tea party Republicans are so angry about ObamaCare that they closed down the Federal Government today, sending hundreds of thousands of Federal workers home without pay. The third stage, bargaining. The tea party Republicans are doing a lot of bargaining these days. They are using the entire Federal budget and soon the full faith and credit of the United States as leverage in their negotiation to try to gut ObamaCare. Bargaining rarely provides a sustainable solution, especially in this case. That is because the tea party Republicans do not want to negotiate. They want to eliminate the Affordable Care Act and the benefits it provides to millions of Americans. They say they want to bargain, but they don't. They say they want to negotiate, but they don't. They just want elimination of the health care program and that is not going to happen. The fourth stage, depression. The tea party Republicans are clearly depressed that they are getting blamed for shutting down the government, that public opinion is sharply turning against them and that many Republicans are repudiating their tactics and their extremism. Republicans are fighting amongst themselves, struggling to find a way out of the mess they have made for themselves. Finally, the fifth stage, acceptance. The tea party Republicans have not yet reached this final stage of acceptance. They still do not fully understand the backlash that they are facing from the public, which will justifiably blame them for the Republican tea party shutdown. The tea party Republicans do not yet regret their destructive ways. They certainly are nowhere near acceptance. So I say we are witnessing the tea party Republicans in the throes of their grief over losing the last election and losing the battle over health care reform, but it is the American people who are paying the price for this political psychodrama that is tearing the Republican Party apart and hurting our country and hurting the health of millions of Americans in our country. Now is the time for them to get over it. Now is the time for ObamaCare to be the law of the land. It is not going away. Now is the time to join together to ensure that it works for the American people. Now is the time to move forward to pass a budget that funds our government. Now is the time to get our economy back on track, create jobs, and build a bright future together for all Americans. Now is the time for the tea party Republicans to accept what the American people have voted to make the law of our land and the person whom they voted to make the President of our country. I yield the remainder of my time. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 5 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, we are just hours away from a government shutdown. I think tea party Republicans saw the ``Breaking Bad'' dramatic depiction of reckless behavior last night and thought they could put on an even better finale, create even more drama, and cook up even more toxic ideas. They thought they could break this government in every bad way possible. These tea party antics are the stuff of fairy tales. The way the GOP is writing this story at the stroke of midnight as we turn the calendar toward October, our government and potentially our economic recovery turn into a pumpkin. But it is the tea party GOP who are in fantasyland by thinking we will allow them to cut off ObamaCare, shut down government, and melt down our economy. Democrats are not going to allow them to do this. What do the American people want? Americans want our military to get paid on time. Americans want our seniors to get the benefits they have earned and depend on. Americans want to be able to respond to floods in Colorado or wildfires in the West. The American people don't want the government to shut down. Americans want a business plan that completes this recovery, creates jobs, and gets our economy back on track. They want us to work together to accomplish this goal. What are the effects of the tea party Republican tactics? By forcing Congress to govern by going from crisis to crisis, tea party Republicans hope to chip away at the bedrock programs that run our country and help our people. First, the tea party did this with sequestration, which is a fancy word for mindless cuts in programs that help ordinary families in our country. Now they are going after the ObamaCare law. What is next are their enduring targets such as Social Security, Medicare, and the safety net programs that millions of Americans depend on. These are the same Republicans who want to privatize Social Security. They want to turn Medicare into a voucher program. Now they want to reverse the progress achieved by the legendary Ted Kennedy, who made it clear that in the United States of America health care is a right and not a privilege. The tea party Republicans are playing high-wire politics with our economy so they can take away the social safety net for millions of American families. This bill is just a preview of coming attractions. Two weeks from now we will be careening to the next crisis, this time over whether America will pay its debts. If we do not raise the debt ceiling, we will not be able to pay our bills starting on October 17. What is the harm of defaulting on our debts? Our Nation's stock and bond markets could go into a free fall that will damage the full faith and credit of our country, the bedrock of the entire American economy. What does that mean? The full faith and credit of the United States is in question. If you took out a mortgage, had a car loan, bought some furniture, and when the bill came due you said: I am not going to pay these bills, what do you think would happen? Your credit score would plummet. It would throw your financial life into chaos for years. No one would lend you money, or, at a minimum, you would be hit with sky-high interest payments because of the risk that you wouldn't pay the next time either. Americans ran up these bills. We promised these payments. We should pay what we promise, and then we need to stop lurching from one crisis to another, scrambling to stitch together last-minute deals that only last until the very next crisis. It is time to end these games. It is time to end the uncertainty. It is time to do what we were sent here to do--to get to work creating jobs for American families so they can have a mortgage and put their kids through school. That is what we should be talking about here, the prosperity of all Americans. This shutdown today is a preview of a debate over a meltdown of the American economy. If, in fact, we go to a debt ceiling and we haven't found a way of working together here on the Senate floor, Democrats and Republicans, along with Democrats and Republicans from the House of Representatives, those who are in the most jeopardy are those who are watching us with their mouths open, agape, wondering how their system of government can operate this way. I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, where is America now? We have an economy in recovery. The Dow was at 7,900 when George W. Bush left office. It is over 15,000 right now. Our deficit is heading downward. Unemployment is still high, but jobs are coming back. But, as we make this progress, people continue to struggle, and they expect us to put together a business plan for America, here on the Senate floor, and work with the President--work together as Democrats and Republicans--to put that plan together for every American family. What is the tea party Republican response? It is to shut down the government, to stamp out signs of our fragile economic recovery, to send the signal that America can't perform the most basic job of government--and that is to pass a budget. What is driving these tea party Republicans? I know all about these tea party extremists. I served in the House of Representatives with them. I served over there for years. They live by the Republican tea party paradox: They hate the government but, paradoxically, they have to run for office in order to make sure the government doesn't work, and that is where they are today. They sent us a bill from the House and they know it won't pass. This is a bill to nowhere, and nowhere is where the tea party Republicans want the government to go. The tea party Republicans want to repeal ObamaCare. I say to those who want to repeal ObamaCare, to those who do not like ObamaCare, and to those who like ObamaCare: We have had that debate. We debated here in Congress. The bill passed. It was signed by the President. It was held up by the Supreme Court of the United States. It is the law. It is time to stop playing games and to let the law work. But that is exactly what the tea party Republicans are afraid of--that the law will actually work. Shutting down the government for ObamaCare is like canceling the World Series because your team didn't make it. ObamaCare is the law. We can't cancel the government. We can't cancel the World Series. We have to accept the reality that it is the law. We had an election. But what we have here are the mad hatters of the Republican tea party in Congress who have decided that their approach to government--to the old, to the sick, to the needy, to every single principle of the United States of America that we stand for--it is off with their heads for all of those people who depend upon these programs in our country. We are living in an absurd ``Alice in Wonderland'' Republican tea party world here. This government has to work for the American people. Instead, what they are about to do, over this weekend, is send another Maalox-moment- for-the-marketplace signal to the credit markets of the world that the United States cannot be depended upon to operate a government, to pay its bills, to respond to the needs of the families within our own country, to meet its obligations not only here but around the world. And those families who are dependent upon a paycheck from the Defense Department? They are wondering, along with the families who are dependent upon a Federal helping hand, whether or not they are going to get that help over the next week, over the next two weeks, over the next month. I will just give my colleagues one final example. The National Institutes of Health budget--well, it is really the national institutes of hope. That is what we give to families who have somebody with Alzheimer's, with Parkinson's, with cancer, with heart disease--is being cut and cut and cut and cut. It is being cut at the same time that last year we spent $132 billion worth of taxpayers' money on Alzheimer's patients in our country. We can't cut the money for the cure and simultaneously say we want to cut the money for taking care of those who have the disease. We can't have it both ways. That is what this nihilistic tea party approach is bringing to our people.

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for yielding. I hope the tea party Republicans come to their senses.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, I would like to pay tribute to a little boy named Joey O'Donnell. Joey was a great kid. Full of energy. Full of imagination. Smart as a whip. Joey suffered from a rare pediatric disease called cystic fibrosis. The disease attacks early and it affects the lungs, pancreas and several other critical systems of the body. It is in honor of Joey that I started the Congressional Cystic Fibrosis Caucus in the House of Representatives. Joey died in 1986 as a result of his worsening condition. Back then we didn't have the amazing life-changing therapies we have now. Today, we have a novel and life- saving therapy known as Kalydeco that gives those suffering from cystic fibrosis and their families hope. It was developed by Vertex, headquartered in my home State of Massachusetts. It is the first and only FDA approved medication to treat a particular mutation associated with cystic fibrosis. It is in that spirit of hope that I wish to acknowledge the extraordinary efforts happening today in Belmont, MA to once again honor Joey. Hundreds of Vertex employees are volunteering their time along with hundreds of others to rebuild the original ``Joey's Park'' in Belmont. I congratulate and thank those hundreds of volunteers for building this fantastic playground, which will inspire hope and imagination in all kids. It will serve as an important place in the community and is a fitting way to honor Joey and his spirit.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Oregon. This bill is something that shows we can work across the lines of politics in this institution. I began this bill with Doc Hastings, a Republican from Washington State, in the House of Representatives a year ago. It passed over there. Now it is over here in the Senate, and the same kind of bipartisanship is working to pass this critical bill which is central for companies like Siemens, Philips, and GE just in Massachusetts that support thousands of jobs in the high-tech sector. There was a shutdown that was looming, but it was a shutdown in the helium industry. This is one shutdown that we are going to make sure does not happen. I thank the chairman for making this possible because it took a lot of leadership to make sure that House bill, the Hastings- Markey bill, is now over here, and it has been solved in a way that every Member should feel very comfortable voting yes for because it really is going to solve a big problem that was going to hit our high- tech industry in the United States.

Mr. MARKEY

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

Mr. MARKEY. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 15 minutes.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, today I am here to give my first speech on the floor of the Senate. I do so with deep respect and reverence for the history of this Chamber and for the giants of the Senate who have served before us. From Massachusetts, our recent roster of Senators reads like a history textbook: President John F. Kennedy, who inspired a Nation--President Kennedy's desk is right here, and it is so appropriate that my extraordinary partner from Massachusetts, Senator Warren, occupies it today--the legendary Ted Kennedy--he had the vision to make health care a right and not a privilege; Ed Brooke, the first African-American popularly elected to the Senate; Paul Tsongas, a model of independence; for 28 years John Kerry was a champion for the people of Massachusetts. Now he is our chief diplomat to the world, his skill already shown in his ability to bring Russia and Syria to the negotiating table. America is the greatest country on Earth. My father drove a truck for the Hood Milk Company. He graduated from the vocational program at Lawrence High School. My mother was going to be senior class president in high school, but her mother died when she was a junior. She had to abandon her college dreams to stay home and take care of her younger sisters. That was before the New Deal, before Social Security, and before Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In those days the only social safety net for families was that one of the girls had to stay home. I was the first in my family to go to college. I drove an ice cream truck to work my way through Boston College as a commuter. I did the same for law school. I took out Federal student loans, like so many millions of American students have to do today. Thanks to the people of our State, this son of a milkman is now serving the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate. I am a son of Malden, but I do not come just to occupy a seat in the Senate. I come here to stand and to speak for all those families, to seek change that uplifts those families and their future. To everyone here I say: That will be how I conduct myself here in the Senate. I come here today to discuss my perspective, formed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, guided by its people, practiced in the House of Representatives for more than 36 years, and open to new knowledge, new ideas, and innovative ways to move our country forward. From its inception, Massachusetts has thrived because it is a wellspring for the advancement of humanity's ideas and ideals. Nearly 400 years ago the pilgrims braved an uncertain passage to Plymouth as religious innovators, but the pilgrims would likely not have survived the new world's harsh environment without learning new ways from the native Wampanoag Indians--the ``people of the dawn,'' as their tribal name translates. So our bearings were set early in the Bay State. In a sense, we in Massachusetts are all people of the dawn, looking over the horizon toward a new frontier, striving to forge a better tomorrow. It is no surprise that when America moved from farms to factories it began in Massachusetts. Massachusetts has survived and it has thrived because of our tradition of innovation and imagination. We invent the materials that power our economy. We initiate the moral discussions that advance a Nation. We are never satisfied with what we have accomplished, instead, always pushing for progress and embracing the promise of the rising sun. We know from experience that when we invest in the future we create jobs here and now in our country. During the last few decades, the pursuit of the possible that is hard wired into our Massachusetts DNA has helped us weather tough economies and rough international competition better than many other States. We have become a high-tech, clean-tech, biotech hub for America and for the world. At places such as MIT and at companies such as Bolt, Beranek and Newman in Boston, the underlying architecture of the Internet was envisioned and set in motion. Earlier in my career, Congress passed three telecommunications bills on a bipartisan basis that I helped author. They removed barriers for innovation and unlocked opportunity for entrepreneurs, creating jobs in Massachusetts and across the Nation by unleashing more than $1 trillion of private sector investment in this emerging technology area. Now the future of telecom is mobile. Massachusetts has several hundred mobile companies. We have the strongest robotics centers in the Nation. We have the burgeoning digital games industry centered in our State. We are ready for the next generation of technology jobs because we spent decades building our digital foundation. Massachusetts was once the Nation's leading power producer, when Melville wrote ``Moby Dick'' by the light of a whale oil lamp. Now we are at the forefront of the most recent energy revolution. Our electricity is getting cleaner, we are using it smarter, and it is getting cheaper. Massachusetts is now the No. 1 State in the country when it comes to energy efficiency. Just yesterday Boston was named America's most energy-efficient city. Our shores will host the first offshore wind energy farm in the Nation. The same winds that brought the pilgrims to Plymouth Rock will now power a new generation of jobs in Massachusetts. Massachusetts is seventh in the Nation in solar installed per person, even in a State more known for the perfect storm than for perfect sunny days. In Massachusetts alone, clean energy now employs 80,000 people across 5,000 businesses in our State. If we continue our commitments to clean energy, we will put steelworkers, iron workers, welders, and electricians to work building a new backbone for a new energy economy in the United States and around the world. Massachusetts is the hub for biotech on the entire planet. We are No. 1 in per-capita dollars awarded by the National Institutes of Health, supporting 35,000 jobs Statewide. Health is our first wealth, but in Massachusetts it is also one of the best job creators. We are an idea factory pumping out new concepts, creating new companies that produce new jobs and discover cures for deadly diseases. In Massachusetts, we recognize that education is a ladder of opportunity that allows every child to maximize their God-given abilities. The first public school in America was established in Massachusetts. Today, Massachusetts students are No. 1 in the Nation in math, in reading, and tied for No. 1 with New York in science. For students in Massachusetts and around the country, we should never let the big dreams of attending college be thwarted by the small print of overly burdensome loans. As children learn in an online environment, we need to make sure they can grow, develop, and make mistakes that won't derail a promising future. That is why I will soon introduce my do not track kids legislation on a bipartisan basis to protect the privacy of children online. The value of our economy grows because it is imbued with our American values. What unites us is the unshakable belief that no matter where you come from, no matter what your circumstances, you can achieve the American dream. We believe everyone should get a fair shot. No one should be left behind. It is time to get back to the values that made Massachusetts and this country great. It is time to make real progress, creating an economy that works for everyone. It is time to protect a woman's right to choose. It is time to deliver to the LGBT community all of the protections and rights under the Constitution. It is time that we put real gun control measures on the books. The horrific mass shooting at the Navy yard is the latest deadly reminder that we need to do more to stem the tide of gun violence in this country. Newtown, Aurora--these tragedies are not inevitable, they are preventable. This senseless carnage must end. We need a ban on assault weapons, and we need a ban on high-capacity magazines. We need universal background checks combined with comprehensive care for our mentally ill. We need to put an end to the partisan gridlock that prevents even the most basic of gun control measures from becoming law. In the next few weeks we will see our seventh fight over our debt and deficit in the last couple of years. We need to break down this rampant ideology that threatens to turn a government that works for the people into a government that simply shuts down. We must also end the mindless across-the-board cuts from sequestration. Cutting programs such as Head Start will leave a generation of kids lagging behind. Slashing investments in science means the breakthroughs that create jobs and cure deadly diseases could go undiscovered. Cutting defense spending mindlessly can undermine our security. We need a new transportation bill that puts union workers back out there working, rebuilding our roads and our bridges. While many economists have labeled the recent downturn a recession, for our working families and low-wage earners it has become an economic depression. Economic inequality tears at the fabric that makes our country great. It turns ``E pluribus unum'' into ``everyone for themselves.'' We must raise the minimum wage for the people who are struggling to make it into the middle class. We need to create an end to the era of climate denial. Climate change is irrefutable. It is raising sea levels. It is giving storms more power. The planet is running a fever. There are no emergency rooms for planets. We must put in place the preventive care of unleashing a renewable energy revolution in wind and solar, in biomass and geothermal, and in energy efficiency to avoid the worst, most catastrophic impact of climate change on this planet. We are seeing it on an ongoing basis not just here in our country but across the planet. Our moral duty to future generations calls for us to address climate change, but it also is an economic opportunity to create new jobs here in our country. I will soon introduce legislation that will call for America, by 2025, to reach a 25-percent target of clean energy and energy efficiency improvements. This bill will create jobs as it cuts pollution. And I will continue to work to pass climate legislation, as I did in the House of Representatives. I will also introduce legislation to fix our aging natural gas system in Massachusetts and across the country, making it cleaner and more efficient. We can use affordable natural gas and clean energy, built and delivered through the work of union hands, to power new American manufacturing centers. That is a job-creation triple play--generate new energy, build new infrastructure, and manufacture new American products. We must not massively export our natural gas abroad or I fear we will continue to export our young men and women to dangerous places all over the world and lose opportunities to lower electricity rates here and to increase the manufacturing jobs here in the United States. Fifty years ago President Kennedy announced the ambitious goal of sending an American safely to the Moon. He told us that we would need a giant rocket made of new metal alloys, some of which had not yet been invented. It would have to be fitted together with precision better than the finest watch. It would have to be able to be returned to Earth safely at speeds never before approximated by humanity. And it would all have to be done in less than 8 years. President Kennedy urged us to be bold. I say to this Chamber, it is time for us to be bold. In this era of innovation, there are jobs that are not yet imagined in fields that haven't been created with industries that don't yet exist. We should be bold. America watched with pride as Neil Armstrong stepped onto the Moon and an American flag was planted as a symbol of our success. In this Capitol Building, there is a flag that was brought back from the Moon. It testifies to the returns we receive when we invest in American ingenuity, when we seek the dawn of discovery, when we invest in our people and in our industries, and when we follow the universal American values of justice and tolerance and liberty and equality. We can use our talents and our tools to help all people everywhere build a more peaceful, prosperous future. I look forward to working with every Senator in the months and years ahead to make the 21st century more educated, more healthy, more prosperous, and more fair than the 20th century was. That is our challenge. That is our opportunity. But we must do it together. I yield the floor.

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the Senator.