John McCain

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, today I rise to introduce the Postal Reform Act of 2011, which will restore the financial health and long- term viability of the United States Postal Service, USPS. This bill is the companion to the bill Representative Issa introduced in the House of Representatives in June of this year. I would like to thank him for his leadership on this important issue. According to the USPS, by 2020, they are expecting to face up to a $238 billion shortfall. Even with dramatic cost savings of $12 billion and workforce reduction of 110,000 postal employees in the past four years, the Postal Service is expected to end this fiscal year with a $10 billion loss. First-Class mail, which makes up more than half of the Postal Service revenues, continues to fall at alarming rates and shows no signs of ever recovering. This combined with 80 percent labor costs and labor contracts that contain ``no-layoff' clauses points to the fact that the Postal Service is broken. Congress can no longer enact temporary fixes that avert financial crisis for only a brief period. Congress, the Postal Service, labor unions, and the mailing community must be willing to lay everything on the table and make hard choices now to save the Postal Service for the future. I believe the Postal Reform Act of 2011 will do just that. Two key provisions in this bill alone would save the Postal Service billions of dollars annually. First, the bill would create a Postal Service Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Authority, which is modeled after the District of Columbia control board Congress created to address the fiscal crises the city was facing in the mid 1990s. This authority, triggered by a USPS default on its Federal obligations, would replace the Postal Board of Governors with mandates to cut costs, and put the USPS back on the path to financial solvency. The second key provision would create a Commission on Postal Reorganization that would use a BRAC like process to consolidate and close post offices and mail processing facilities. According to the Postal Service the ``current mail processing network has a capacity of over 250 billion pieces of mail per year when mail volume is now 160 billion pieces of mail. Right-sizing the network is vital to the future of the Postal Service and its customers.'' Congress, however, continues to put up political road blocks that prevent these closings and consolidations. This proposal will take the politics out of the process and allow the USPS to right-size its operations. Other provisions in the bill would require arbitrators to take into account the financial health of the Postal Service if labor contracts move to arbitration. It would also exempt USPS from the Davis-Bacon Act, the Service Contract Act, and other wage rules that increase USPS contracting costs. The bill would require certain types of mail that Postal Service loses money on to cover their cost. In Fiscal year 2010, USPS lost nearly $1.7 billion on these type of ``underwater'' postal products that failed to cover their costs. For example, the Periodicals class of mail, which includes newspapers and magazines, has not covered its costs for 14 consecutive years, generating total losses of $4.3 billion over that period. The bill also contains common sense language that would mandate that USPS employees pay the same health and life insurance premium percentage as other Federal workers. This is estimated to save the Postal Service $700 million annually. Finally, this bill will allow the Postal Service to move to 5-day delivery, at a savings of anywhere from $1.7 to $3.1 billion annually. We can no longer choose to support temporary fixes to the Postal Service. If we continue to act in this irresponsible way, the American taxpayer will be the one that ultimately suffers in the form of higher postage prices and taxpayer bailouts. We must make hard choices now so future generations of Americans will have a viable Postal Service.

Mr. McCAIN

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

Mr. McCAIN. I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate as in morning business.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss a fundamental problem of this body: the fact that Congress as an institution--and the Senate in particular--rarely engages in the process of authorizing prior to appropriating money for our government. As a result, a handful of senior appropriators and their unelected staffs dictate the spending of hundreds of billions of dollars, often in a manner that directly contravenes the will of those committees that still authorize spending. It is time this process be stopped. The solution is simple. We should not authorize on appropriations bills, and any funding proposed for unauthorized projects should be subject to the scrutiny and approval of the authorizing committees and reflect the will of their members. We are all to blame for this problem. The fact is that routine passage of authorizing legislation simply doesn't occur as it should. Far too often, even routine passage of appropriations legislation has devolved into passage of a single omnibus bill. This also must stop. A case in point is the appropriations bill to fund the Department of Defense that was reported out of the Appropriations Committee last week. That legislation should reflect the will of the Defense authorization bill but runs directly contrary to it in many areas. At a time when we face a $14.7 trillion national debt that is mortgaging the future of our children and grandchildren, the Senate Appropriations Committee is proposing a Defense spending bill that uses a budget gimmick totaling over $10 billion to mislead the American people about the savings the committee claims to achieve. While the Department of Defense is struggling to find more than $400 billion in cuts directed by the President, the Appropriations Committee is still conducting business as usual by rewarding special interests and funding pet projects that have little or nothing to do with our national defense. In the bill reported out last week that purports to cut over $26 billion from the President's request by changes to 580 different programs, somehow the Appropriations Committee still found money for over $2.3 billion in additional spending not requested by the Department of Defense and for items that are far from real defense requirements. I have here a list of the roughly 580 items changed by the Appropriations Committee which are differences from the bill adopted unanimously by the Senate Armed Services Committee in June in the Department of Defense authorization bill. This list is 45 pages long and represents $20 billion in changes. For example, it is incredible to me the Appropriations Committee put a priority on spending $33 million in operation and maintenance funds. That money is used to maintain the readiness and combat capability of our troops. The $33 million is going to purchase schoolbuses, to build a mental health substance abuse facility on Guam, and a repository for cultural artifacts. I am not making that up: $33 million for a repository--oh, phase one of a repository for cultural artifacts, funding for a mental health substance abuse facility, and the purchase of schoolbuses. All of this money, and $40 million more next year to complete these facilities, is, at least in theory, supposedly, to help promote Guam's cooperation as part of the plan to move 8,700 marines and 9,000 family members from their current bases on Okinawa to Guam. I know the marines will enjoy being on Guam. I am not sure it is absolutely necessary for them to have a repository for cultural artifacts. But the plan to move the marines, which will require spending between $18 billion and $23 billion on Guam to build up its capabilities as a permanent base, is so much in doubt that both the Armed Services Committee and the Military Construction and Veterans' Affairs Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee have stopped funding Guam military construction projects until the Department of Defense provides a master plan and considers alternatives that may provide the needed marine forward presence at much less expense. In fact, we simply cannot afford to carry out the plans as they were originally envisioned. In the face of all the doubt about the scope and timing of the eventual buildup, the Appropriations Committee put a premium on buying schoolbuses, an artifact repository, and a mental health clinic in Guam. That is not anybody's idea of defense priorities in the fiscal environment we face. In some cases, the Appropriations Committee was well aware that the Armed Services Committee had, on a unanimous vote, reported out a bill that denied funding for a program, but the appropriators funded the full amount anyway. This is the case with the Army's Medium Extended Air Defense System, or MEADS. The Armed Services Committee cut the entire budget request of $406 million for this program because Army leaders have told the Senate they do not intend to ever buy or deploy the system and because repeated technical reviews have determined that MEADS is behind schedule, over cost, and a high risk of technical failure. The Appropriations Committee ignored the Armed Services Committee's decision not to authorize further funding for MEADS and instead appropriated the full amount of $406 million--even in the face of the fact of the need to cut defense spending by eliminating troubled programs that are not effectively providing increased combat capability for the troops. Additionally, hundreds of millions of dollars in the fiscal year 2012 Defense appropriations bill have been allocated to things that were never requested by the Pentagon, never authorized by the Senate Armed Services Committee, and which are simply not core defense priorities. Example: There is $354 million added for medical research not requested by the Pentagon, including $120 million for breast cancer research, $10 million for ovarian cancer research, $64 million for prostate cancer research, and $50 million for other medical research for a laundry list of medical conditions. I am not questioning the merits of medical research, but they do not have anything to do with defending this Nation. They should be taken out of the appropriations of the Health and Human Services Subcommittee, not out of defense. Again, I am not questioning the merits of medical research and the important role the Federal Government can play. I am saying it is time for it to stop being taken out of national defense. The Appropriations Committee adds even more unrequested funding for programs such as $60 million for environmental conservation for ranges; $106 million for alternate energy research, whatever that means; $45 million for high-performance computing modernization--all of these, and a long list of them, may be good programs; they are not authorized; and the job of the Senate Armed Services Committee is to scrutinize these programs and select those that are in most need of funding--$5 million for the National Guard Youth Challenge Program; $4.5 million for the Civil Air Patrol. Programs have some merit, but we have to look at these with an eye to the fact that we have been tasked to cut $400 billion that the President has already ordered the Pentagon to undertake. Despite the Appropriations Committee's desire to find $26 billion in defense savings, they found money to add $240 million in unrequested funding--the Pentagon and the President did not ask for them--for a number of congressional special interest areas, such as advanced materials research, $10 million; Industrial Base Innovation Fund-- whatever that is--$30 million; Defense Rapid Innovation Fund, $200 million. In the procurement account, the Appropriations Committee added $675 million for items that were not requested by the Pentagon or authorized by the Armed Services Committee, including $120 million for advance procurement of 12 Air Force C-130Js, $47.4 million for improved radars for Air National Guard F-15s, $140 million for program increases to classified programs--the list goes on and on. Although the appropriators were looking for $26 billion in savings, they chose not to follow the Armed Services Committee in making cuts to some programs even when the justification for taking savings was clear. These examples include $150 million for the Army Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System; $495 million for Navy F/A-18E/F Hornets, which the Armed Services Committee pointed out were funded in the full-year Defense appropriations bill for the year 2011; $205 million for the Fleet Satellite Communications follow-on program, for which the Government Accountability Office and the Armed Services Committee noted that the funding for the requested booster was too early. In order to give the appearance of real savings to the taxpayer, the Appropriations Committee, again, incredibly, shifted over $10 billion in funding from the nonwar base defense funding budget to the ``off- budget/emergency spending.'' For the benefit of the record, the Overseas Contingency Operations Fund does not count as part of the budget, but it is for overseas contingencies, i.e., the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. So what did the Appropriations Committee do? They took money that is supposed to be for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they transferred over $3.2 billion to the account for overseas contingency operations, $550 million for predator drones, $228 million for counterfire radars, $192 million for Fire Scout unmanned aerial systems, $784 million for unmanned aerial systems. In the operations and maintenance accounts, the Appropriations Committee transferred over $6.2 billion for items that were requested in the base budget to the ``off-budget'' overseas contingency operations funding, including $3 billion for Army depot maintenance, $495 million for Navy depot maintenance--it goes on and on. In the miliary personnel accounts, another $529 million was transferred from the defense budget, where it was requested, to the overseas contingency operations budget so it would count as ``defense savings.'' This is pure budget gimmickry. It is about time we got serious about cutting spending. Using budget gimmicks to shift over $10 billion from the base defense budget to the emergency account we have set aside for support of overseas contingency operations is not saving the taxpayers a dime. Cutting $10 billion from the President's request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, shifting over $10 billion in nonwar expenses, and then claiming in a press release--they had the gall in a press release--that the President's request for the warfighting accounts is fully supported is not only a gimmick, it is dishonest with the American people. It is a disservice to the men and women of the military who depend on that funding for critical warfighting equipment and support. I have talked to many of our senior commanders in Iraq and members of the Iraqi Government during repeated trips to Iraq this year. All of them have recommended that the United States maintain at least 10,000 soldiers beyond December 31, 2011. There is no money in the warfighting accounts for, if we have, additional troops. So because of the administration's delay in any decision for any additional troops, understandably, that is not funded in these bills, which is required, obviously, by October 1, the end of the fiscal year. What will also put our troops, our national security, and our Nation at grave risk is the specter of even more drastic defense cuts should the recommendations of the joint select committee fail to gather enough congressional support. Secretary of Defense Panetta warned last week that the failure of lawmakers to agree on debt ceiling talks, which would trigger up to $600 billion in additional Pentagon budget cuts, could add 1 percentage point to the Nation's jobless rate. He also called the impact of cuts of that magnitude ``devastating'' to our Armed Forces. The citizens of my State--and nearly every other State in the Nation--have been struggling through record unemployment rates and unprecedented fiscal pressures. Now, more than ever, they need strong leadership to make tough decisions to restore fiscal discipline and responsibility in Federal spending. I am committed to using every power available to me to ensure the Defense bill for 2012 provides spending for only the most critical national security requirements, as proposed by the President and defense leadership. In this regard, the Defense appropriations bill that has been reported from the Appropriations Committee is sadly lacking. There is plenty of blame to go around. I do not fault just the appropriators. We have all failed to do our jobs. The answer to this problem is to fix it. We must stop authorizing on appropriations legislation without the agreement of the authorizing committee. The appropriations bills should reflect the will of the authorizing committees. I intend to work with my colleagues to remedy this problem so the will and wisdom of all Senators--not just a select few--is represented when we pass appropriations legislation. A solution to this problem is long overdue, and I intend to fight to see that it is solved. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk, No. 625. I ask unanimous consent that it be made the pending business.

Mr. McCAIN. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, the amendment would authorize the continuation of trade adjustment assistance or TAA for 2 additional years at the level of funding the program maintained prior to the 2009 stimulus package addition. Prior to the stimulus, passed by this body in 2009, the TAA Program cost taxpayers about $1 billion per year. The passage of the stimulus package, which was advertised to be a temporary injection into the economy--a temporary injection--the stimulus was increased and expanded to the program at a cost of about $2 billion in 2010; according to the Department of Labor estimates, $2.4 billion in 2011, if the stimulus expansions were allowed to remain in place. I would remind my colleagues that with the stimulus package, these were a one-time deal, and once the money was spent, then those programs lapsed. Apparently not so with the TAA Program. We do not yet have a cost score for the Reid substitute before us, but estimates indicate the TAA agreement may lock in at least 65 percent of the 2009 stimulus expansions for the next several years. That is approximately, in my calculation, at least a $600 million additional cost per year to the taxpayers for maintaining 65 percent of the stimulus level of TAA. Architects of the agreement will say these provisions sunset at the end of 2014. But we all know sunsets can be fiction. So we are talking about 2012, 2013, and 2014. That is about, roughly, a minimum of $1.2 billion of additional spending on the dubious--at least in my mind dubious--benefits of the TAA Program. My friends on the other side of the aisle have long insisted that the price of passing trade agreements in Congress is passing TAA and other programs similar to it, domestic spending legislation geared to assist U.S. workers who have been adversely affected by foreign trade. For this reason, in 2002, Congress passed the TAA legislation that provided short-term temporary support for worker retraining and other assistance. Many Republicans, including myself, were skeptical about whether this program and others like it achieved their goals. But we went along for the sake of our national interests and expanding free trade. In 2009, without any action taken on our three pending trade agreements, the stimulus package dramatically increased the TAA Program as part of the stimulus bill and increased spending on this program annually by approximately $1 billion. In essence, a program that was designed to assist workers who had been adversely affected by free trade was transformed into a domestic spending program for reasons that had nothing at all to do with expanding free trade. What is worse, after repeatedly claiming it supports the free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and Korea, the White House earlier this year announced that the cost of its support was reauthorization of the new TAA with funding set not at the original 2002 level but the 2009 stimulus level. So we had a program that had been expanded from its original cost under the dubious guise of a temporary economic stimulus, and then we were told this temporary funding increase, which was designed to expire along with the stimulus, should, in effect, be turned into a permanent domestic spending program. After much discussion and debate, there now appears to be a proposal to reauthorize TAA and fund it somewhere between the prestimulus and poststimulus levels. This proposal is contained in the substitute amendment offered by the majority leader. Some would say this is a good deal and Republicans should accept it. Others say trade adjustment assistance is ineffective and unproven and Congress should kill it altogether. I am very dubious about the benefits of TAA. But I understand also what is doable around here and what is not. So I am offering this amendment as a matter of principle. As I have said many times on the floor of this body, I am not opposed to TAA nor do I seek to kill it. I read the same media reports as my colleagues, which suggest that the White House is holding hostage the trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama until Congress passes TAA. Many of us do not like this. Many of us think this is contrary to our national and economic interests. But it is a fact. So I recognize, as in the past, that Congress should reauthorize TAA. The question is, How much of the taxpayers' money should we spend to do it? That is why I am offering this amendment. I believe Congress should reauthorize it because we are being compelled to do so, but I also believe we should reauthorize this program at its prestimulus funding levels. Let me explain why. The following are the temporary expansions to TAA that were included in the stimulus, which cost about $2 billion in 2010, and, according to the Department of Labor, was estimated to cost approximately $2.4 billion in 2011 if the 2009 stimulus expansions had stayed in place. The stimulus expanded TAA to cover workers whose employers shifted production to any foreign country, not just those--as under prior law-- whose jobs were outsourced to countries with which the United States has a free-trade agreement. It expanded TAA coverage to the service sector and government employees who lose their jobs because of trade. It increased the tax credit available to cover private health insurance premiums from 65 percent to 80. It increased the appropriations cap for training from $220 million to $575 million, a 160-percent increase over the previous cap. It created the Community TAA Program, which authorizes $230 million for trade-affected communities to assist in strategic planning grants up to $5 million, sector partnership grants up to $3 million over a 3- year period, and community college and career training grants up to $1 million. It gave $17.5 million to States for employment and case management. It lengthened the amount of time workers could receive trade readjustment allowance assistance by 26 weeks. Finally, it revived the TAA for farmers and the wage insurance program, estimated by CBO to total about $100 million for 2 years. So we had a program that had been expanded from its original intent, with benefits going to government employees, service sector employees, TAA benefits going to communities, TAA benefits going to farms, TAA benefits going to firms, under the dubious guise of a temporary economic stimulus. This is what the White House and the other side in Congress were telling us had to be reauthorized in order to pass the free-trade agreements. My amendment also addresses the claim made by some that the agreement in the majority leader's substitute amendment not only reduces TAA from stimulus levels but also much lower in several years. However, according to a recent Heritage Foundation analysis, this may not be accurate. This is important, so let me read this analysis at length. This is from the Heritage Foundation report: Instead of cutting TAA back to pre-stimulus levels, the proposal restores and solidifies the most alarming aspects of the stimulus expansion at a yet unknown cost. It keeps the 2009 stimulus expansion for service sector workers. TAA was originally intended to provide income maintenance and job training to workers from the manufacturing sector. The stimulus bill expanded eligibility to include workers from the service and public sectors. This expansion expired in February, but the proposal restores TAA eligibility for service sector workers. It restores stimulus expansion of benefits for job losses unrelated to FTAs. The proposal retains the stimulus expansion of providing TAA benefits to any workers who lost their jobs to overseas production, not just TAA-certified jobs that were lost to FTAs. It reinstates the stimulus's 161 percent increase in TAA for workers' job training spending. The proposal cements the stimulus spending expansion of TAA for workers' job training at $575 million per year from $220 million--an increase of $355 million per year. It continues the stimulus's creation of a new and duplicative job training program. The proposal keeps the TAA Community College and Career Training Program, which has appropriations authorizations of $500 billion per year from fiscal years 2011 through 2014. This new job-training program is just one of the 47 employment and training programs operated across nine agencies by the federal government. Let me repeat that. This is another proposal that spends $500 million for job training, even though we already have 47 employment and training programs operated across 9 agencies by the Federal Government. It partially reinstates the stimulus increase in Health Coverage Tax Credit. . . . It solidifies the wage subsidies for older workers as a permanent program. The pre-stimulus Alternative TAA was a temporary five-year demonstration program that paid 50 percent of the difference between new and old wages of displaced older workers. It subsidized the wages of older workers earning less than $50,000 per year for up to $10,000 over two years. After changing the program's name to Reemployment TAA, the stimulus expansion increased the wage subsidy to $12,000 over two years for displaced older workers earning less than $55,000 and made the program permanent. While the proposal reduces the wage subsidies to pre-stimulus levels, it also cements into law the permanency of the wage subsidy program. It retains the stimulus expansion of the union VEBA handout. Despite having nothing to do with international trade, the stimulus expansion of TAA extended the HCTC to Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Associations (VEBA). A bankruptcy court can allocate a portion of an out-of-business employer's assets to a VEBA, which assumes responsibly for retirees' health coverage. This expansion primarily benefits unions. Under the proposal, the federal government would cover 72.5 percent of the cost of retiree health benefits at bankrupt companies. This coverage occurs regardless of whether the bankruptcies are related to free trade. Let's look at an example of excess created in the ``temporary'' stimulus expansion of the TAA Program that taxpayers are still on the hook for. According to a February 2011 study by Senator Coburn, entitled ``Help Wanted: How Federal Job Training Programs are Failing Workers'': Taxpayers may have a case of indigestion when they learn, nearly two years after the stimulus was enacted, their money is paying lobstermen, shrimpers and blueberry farmers $12,000 each to attend job training sessions on jobs they are already trained to do. The stimulus reauthorized the Trade Adjustment Assistance for Farmers program administered by the USDA, a program that provides subsidies to producers of raw agricultural commodities and fishermen so they can adjust to import competition. Under the stimulus, TAA benefits were enhanced to focus more on employment re-training. While the Reid substitute includes a compromise to ``pare back'' some of the expansions in the ``temporary'' stimulus spending legislation of 2009, it still expands TAA benefits and eligibility beyond the prestimulus levels--by approximately, by my calculations, at least $600 million a year. I acknowledge that expanding trade temporarily puts some of our workers at a disadvantage. I remember being roundly criticized during the 2008 Presidential campaign when I had the audacity to tell Michigan workers the truth--that many of the jobs that had left their State for cheaper labor markets overseas were never coming back. So I understand that trade can create difficulties for some American workers. I am not opposed, in principle, to supporting those workers temporarily so they can develop new skills and find new jobs. That said, let's look closer at how the Federal Government has been going about programs such as this. Earlier this year, the GAO released a study entitled ``Multiple Training and Employment Programs: Providing Information on Collocating Services and Consolidating Administrative Structures Could Promote Efficiencies.'' Here is what the GAO reported on Federal employment and retraining programs, including the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program: Based on our survey of agency officials, we determined that only 5 of the 47 programs have had impact studies that assess whether the program is responsible for improved employment outcomes. The five impact studies generally found that the effects of participation were not consistent across programs, with only some demonstrating positive impacts that tended to be small, inconclusive, or restricted to short-term impacts. So not only are many of these worker employment and training programs duplicative, the GAO has found very little empirical evidence to support whether these programs are even accomplishing their intended goals--and what empirical evidence they have they found is, I repeat, `` . . . small inconclusive, or restricted to short term impacts.'' TAA is among these programs. This is bad enough, but what is worse, we have not even been told how much this expansion of TAA will cost the taxpayers. We are told the legislation includes ``offsets,'' but we know they are not real. Offsets allegedly include: rates for merchandise processing fees, changes to the ``time for remitting certain merchandise processing fees,'' unemployment compensation program integrity provisions to create a ``mandatory penalty assessment on fraud claims, prohibition on non-charging due to employer fault, reporting of rehired employees to the directory of new hires.'' That is supposed to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars. I cannot say what most of these mean, but I can say they are not real. Even while extending the TAA prestimulus program, we need to analyze whether the TAA Program is doing what it was intended to do. The following are some of the questions and concerns we must consider: Does the TAA Program provide overly generous benefits to a narrow population? According to analysis from the Heritage Foundation, based on statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the third quarter of fiscal year 2009, only 1 percent of mass layoffs were a result of import competition of overseas relocation. Is there evidence that TAA benefits and training help increase participants' earnings? An analysis by Professor Kara M. Reynolds of American University found ``little evidence that it (TAA) helps displaced workers find new, well-paying employment opportunities.'' In fact, TAA participants experienced a wage loss of 10 percent. The same study found that in fiscal year 2007, the Federal Government appropriated $855.1 million to TAA Programs. Of this amount, funding for training programs accounted for only 25 percent. In 2007, the Office of Management and Budget rated the TAA Program as ``ineffective.'' The OMB found that the TAA Program failed to use tax dollars effectively because, among other reasons, the program has failed to demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of achieving its goals. Let me close by reminding my colleagues how we got to our current predicament. It is mid-September of 2011, 2\1/2\ years since President Obama took office, and we still have not received these important trade agreements that were finalized half a decade ago--all because of the White House's insistence on making a ``temporary'' stimulus program-- the dubious extension of TAA--into a permanent domestic spending program. This is how George Will summed it up, writing in the Washington Post on June 8, 2011. The piece is as appropriate now as it was then: President Obama is sacrificing economic growth and job creation in order to placate organized labor. And as the crisis of the welfare state deepens, he is trying to enlarge the entitlement system and exacerbate the entitlement mentality. . . . On May 4, the administration announced that, at last, it was ready to proceed with congressional ratification of the agreements. On May 16, however, it announced they would not send them until Congress expands an entitlement program favored by unions. Since 1974, Trade Adjustment Assistance has provided 104, and then 156, weeks of myriad financial aid, partly concurrent with the 99 weeks of unemployment compensation to people, including farmers and government workers, and firms, even whole communities, that can more or less plausibly claim to have lost their jobs or been otherwise injured because of foreign competition. Even if the injury is just the loss of unfair advantages conferred, at the expense of other Americans, by government protectionism. This process should be appalling to the average American who is looking for an improving economy, not special favors to certain special interest groups. At a time when our national debt has reached unsustainable levels, at a time when Congress and the American people face some truly painful choices about how to cut our Federal budget, at a time when some are even considering enormous and dangerous cuts to our defense spending as a way to get our fiscal house in order, this is no time to throw more money than we did before the stimulus at a Federal program that, as the GAO points out, is duplicative and possibly ineffective. I am prepared to reluctantly support TAA if it were funded at the prestimulus level, as a recognition of reality that some form of this program is required in order to pass our existing trade agreements. But we should authorize it at prestimulus levels and not one dollar more. That is what this amendment would do. I urge my colleagues to support it. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, the stimulus passed in 2009 was purported to be temporary. As part of that massive piece of legislation, we made a significant expansion and added at least $600 million a year to the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program. This amendment would cut back to the prestimulus number of the TAA. It is pretty simple. It would save at least $600 million per year on questionable programs of questionable effectiveness. But the point is, the stimulus was supposed to be a temporary increase in spending and not a permanent one. The Reid package makes most of it--at least 65 percent of it--permanent. The least we can do is cut it back to prestimulus levels, which is supported by the National Taxpayers Union. I know that will be very persuasive to my friends on the other side of the aisle.

Mr. McCAIN. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, the original Jackson-Vanik amendment was offered to the Trade Act of 1974, and it was led in this body by the great Democratic Senator of Washington, Henry ``Scoop'' Jackson. That amendment prohibited the United States from entering into Permanent Normal Trade Relations with any country that placed restrictions on the freedom of emigration and other human rights of its people. This law was later expanded to cover countries with non-market economies. The major impact of the Jackson-Vanik restriction was that it prevented the United States from granting ``most-favored nation'' trading status to the Soviet Union, which at the time was placing awful restrictions on the ability of its Jewish citizens to emigrate and flee the persecution they experienced behind the Iron Curtain. Jackson-Vanik applied to Moldova when it was part of the Soviet Union, and it remained in place following Moldova's independence 20 years ago. This made sense at the time, because the country continued to be ruled by communist governments, which ensured an unfortunate continuity with Moldova's Soviet past at a time when the country's neighbors were reaping the benefits of liberation. But Mr. President, the situation in Moldova is now fundamentally changed. In August 2009, a coalition of democratic and reformist parties managed to win power in what international organizations deemed a free and fair election. For the first time in two decades, Moldova had a noncommunist government, and with it, the potential for real reform. The goal of this coalition is reflected in the name that they have given themselves: the Alliance for European Integration. Their platform is to deepen Moldova's democratic institutions, pursue free market reforms, fight corruption, and work on integrating Moldova into Euro-Atlantic institutions. This is a new generation of leaders, and they represent the great hopes of their citizens. I visited Moldova in June. I met at length with their Prime Minister and other senior leaders, and I can tell you firsthand this government is committed to leading Moldova toward a future of political and economic freedom. Yes, major challenges remain to the realization of this vision, but for the first time in Moldova's history as an independent nation, its current government is on the right track. They are pursuing the right goals and policies. Their intentions are good and admirable. In the face of continued opposition from elements in Moldova that want to drag the country back to its troubled past, the current government is trying to move the country forward. They are taking on the hard challenges. When I asked how we in the United States could best support their efforts, all they asked of me--all they asked of us in Congress--is one thing: It is not additional foreign assistance. It is not more of our taxpayers' dollars, although that assistance is important too. It is the repeal of Jackson-Vanik, so Moldovans can develop their own country, grow their own economy, and deepen their own free market reforms through normal trading relations with the United States. Nothing we could do would provide greater moral and material support for Moldova's reformers. I wish to thank Senator Baucus for his continued support of the people and the country of Moldova. I understand that any amendment to the legislation that is pending would be harmful to the progress of the trade agreements, and I appreciate that fact and hope the chairman can perhaps--hopefully before the end of the year--take up the repeal of Jackson-Vanik as it applies to the country of Moldova, a country that is very much in need of it. I want to read a statement made by Vice President Biden during his visit to Moldova this year. He said: We will work with the Congress and with your government to lift the Jackson-Vanik amendment and establish permanent trade relations. We believe that will be good for Moldova and for the United States. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter from the National Council on Soviet Jewry concerning Moldova.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask the majority leader--I need about 2 minutes for the chairman and I to have a colloquy.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I wanted to inform the majority leader, I was going to have a brief colloquy with the chairman who, I think, will be back in a few minutes. In the meantime, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to engage in a brief colloquy with the distinguished chairman.

Mr. McCAIN. I again thank the chairman for his consideration and for his continued support for the people of Moldova.

Mr. McCAIN. I thank the chairman. I know he has an incredibly heavy schedule, with the legislation before us today and other matters before the committee, but I also know he knows--and I want to assure him--when the people of Moldova hear of his commitment, this will be a happy day in Moldova. I thank the chairman.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, when poor children in low performing schools need help, what options are available to their parents to give them a chance to improve their learning achievement? Sadly, very few options exist to give children in low performing schools a chance. I am pleased to introduce legislation that will protect and enhance the right of parents to have final say in their children's education. In order to create better outcomes for our nation's youth, we must restore power to parents. We must ensure that parents have real choices to raise their child's achievement level when schools fail to do so. The Tutoring for Students Act, furthers this critical goal by establishing a state-level grant program to give low-income parents the ability to provide their children high quality academic tutoring. Low-income parents should have the same opportunities to help their children achieve as families with greater economic means. Tutoring is as much a part of education in America as the yellow school bus or the neighborhood school building. If your child is struggling academically, and you have the financial means to do so, you get your child a tutor. Tutoring is time proven and common sense. Equally, while there are many ideas about how to improve education in America, one thing upon which everyone agrees plays a critical role in any child's education: the active involvement of their parents. The Tutoring for Students Act encourages the active engagement of parents by giving them a say in helping their child's education. Parents can drive schools to apply for tutoring grants. Parents choose to enroll their children. Parents pick which tutoring provider they send their child to. Parents receive progress updates on their child. For too long in this country the debate about education has been more about the institutions--the institution of powerful unions, the institution of the school bureaucracies. Make no mistake about it, strong leadership in the classroom and in school administration is important. However, education is not about protecting and preserving union contracts and the jobs of bureaucrats. Education is about our children. If they aren't getting what they need in the classroom, we need to work with schools to help them improve. At the same time, we must provide students in struggling schools with the help they need to ensure they receive a quality education. The foundation for success in education is setting high expectations for our schools and holding them accountable to develop our most precious resource--our children. Every child, no matter what their economics, deserves not only a chance, but has an absolute right, to a good education. If students can't get what they deserve in the classroom, then we must empower parents with educational support tools and the ability to make meaningful choices about what is best for their children. When Congress passed No Child Left Behind, embedded in that landmark legislation were certain programs specifically designed to recognize the importance of parental empowerment and parental participation. Supplemental Education Services is a program specifically designed to give low-income families the ability to access educational support opportunities just like families with more financial freedom, to shop for the best tutoring services for their child. Thoughtful education reform means building upon successes and lessons learned. We have learned a great deal since passage of No Child Left Behind. That includes our experience in providing tutoring services to low-income children. One of the most important lessons we learned is that tutoring works. In March, the U.S. Department of Education released a study stating that the tutoring program led to significant gains in math and reading student achievement. Studies by respected organizations like the Rand Corporation and school districts like the Chicago Public schools have come to similar conclusions. Another important lesson from NCLB is the cynical lengths to which some low performing schools districts are willing to go in order to avoid accountability and deny parents the opportunity to access tutoring services for their children. Far too often these districts gamed the enrollment process for tutoring services, making it difficult, if not impossible for parents to exercise their right to take advantage of the SES program and get their children the educational support services--tutoring--they desperately needed. Similarly, due to poor oversight, there have been cases where tutors failed to meet their responsibility to provide high quality tutoring. These problems are addressed in this legislation by establishing a state-administered grant program. Any school can elect to participate, allowing low-income parents with children attending participating schools to take advantage of high quality tutoring services. The Tutoring for Students Act requires strict oversight of tutoring service providers, from certification to evaluation, in order to ensure that parents can rely upon qualified tutoring service providers to help their children. I do not favor more Federal control over education. That is why the Tutoring for Students Act is not a Federal mandate. Rather, it is a guarantee that parents will have the right to stand up for their children and give them the opportunity for a better education and a better life. Empowering parents with the ability to positively impact their child's education is not a mandate. It is common sense. Freedom is not a Federal mandate. It is an individual right. The best use of Federal dollars in education is to make them more accessible to parents, empowering them to look out for the needs of their children. High quality tutoring is a commonsense, academic lifeline. In my home State of Arizona, organizations like the Education Breakthrough Network to Literacy Volunteers of Tucson and the Arizona Chapter of Campfire USA have voiced their strong support. Nationwide, organizations such as the United Farm Workers of America, the National Urban League, the Commonwealth Foundation and the John Locke Institute continue to stand up for the rights of parents to have more tools and choices to help their children achieve. There is strong support for this program among communities across America, particularly among the parents who so often do not have a voice representing their needs and interests here in Washington. I look forward to working with Senator Enzi, Senator Harkin, and the rest of my colleagues to secure passage of meaningful education reform that includes protecting and strengthening the ability of parents to make educational choices for their children, choices that include high quality tutoring.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, when poor children in low performing schools need help, what options are available to their parents to give them a chance to improve their learning achievement? Sadly, very few options exist to give children in low performing schools a chance. I am pleased to introduce legislation that will protect and enhance the right of parents to have final say in their children's education. In order to create better outcomes for our nation's youth, we must restore power to parents. We must ensure that parents have real choices to raise their child's achievement level when schools fail to do so. The Tutoring for Students Act, furthers this critical goal by establishing a state-level grant program to give low-income parents the ability to provide their children high quality academic tutoring. Low-income parents should have the same opportunities to help their children achieve as families with greater economic means. Tutoring is as much a part of education in America as the yellow school bus or the neighborhood school building. If your child is struggling academically, and you have the financial means to do so, you get your child a tutor. Tutoring is time proven and common sense. Equally, while there are many ideas about how to improve education in America, one thing upon which everyone agrees plays a critical role in any child's education: the active involvement of their parents. The Tutoring for Students Act encourages the active engagement of parents by giving them a say in helping their child's education. Parents can drive schools to apply for tutoring grants. Parents choose to enroll their children. Parents pick which tutoring provider they send their child to. Parents receive progress updates on their child. For too long in this country the debate about education has been more about the institutions--the institution of powerful unions, the institution of the school bureaucracies. Make no mistake about it, strong leadership in the classroom and in school administration is important. However, education is not about protecting and preserving union contracts and the jobs of bureaucrats. Education is about our children. If they aren't getting what they need in the classroom, we need to work with schools to help them improve. At the same time, we must provide students in struggling schools with the help they need to ensure they receive a quality education. The foundation for success in education is setting high expectations for our schools and holding them accountable to develop our most precious resource--our children. Every child, no matter what their economics, deserves not only a chance, but has an absolute right, to a good education. If students can't get what they deserve in the classroom, then we must empower parents with educational support tools and the ability to make meaningful choices about what is best for their children. When Congress passed No Child Left Behind, embedded in that landmark legislation were certain programs specifically designed to recognize the importance of parental empowerment and parental participation. Supplemental Education Services is a program specifically designed to give low-income families the ability to access educational support opportunities just like families with more financial freedom, to shop for the best tutoring services for their child. Thoughtful education reform means building upon successes and lessons learned. We have learned a great deal since passage of No Child Left Behind. That includes our experience in providing tutoring services to low-income children. One of the most important lessons we learned is that tutoring works. In March, the U.S. Department of Education released a study stating that the tutoring program led to significant gains in math and reading student achievement. Studies by respected organizations like the Rand Corporation and school districts like the Chicago Public schools have come to similar conclusions. Another important lesson from NCLB is the cynical lengths to which some low performing schools districts are willing to go in order to avoid accountability and deny parents the opportunity to access tutoring services for their children. Far too often these districts gamed the enrollment process for tutoring services, making it difficult, if not impossible for parents to exercise their right to take advantage of the SES program and get their children the educational support services--tutoring--they desperately needed. Similarly, due to poor oversight, there have been cases where tutors failed to meet their responsibility to provide high quality tutoring. These problems are addressed in this legislation by establishing a state-administered grant program. Any school can elect to participate, allowing low-income parents with children attending participating schools to take advantage of high quality tutoring services. The Tutoring for Students Act requires strict oversight of tutoring service providers, from certification to evaluation, in order to ensure that parents can rely upon qualified tutoring service providers to help their children. I do not favor more Federal control over education. That is why the Tutoring for Students Act is not a Federal mandate. Rather, it is a guarantee that parents will have the right to stand up for their children and give them the opportunity for a better education and a better life. Empowering parents with the ability to positively impact their child's education is not a mandate. It is common sense. Freedom is not a Federal mandate. It is an individual right. The best use of Federal dollars in education is to make them more accessible to parents, empowering them to look out for the needs of their children. High quality tutoring is a commonsense, academic lifeline. In my home State of Arizona, organizations like the Education Breakthrough Network to Literacy Volunteers of Tucson and the Arizona Chapter of Campfire USA have voiced their strong support. Nationwide, organizations such as the United Farm Workers of America, the National Urban League, the Commonwealth Foundation and the John Locke Institute continue to stand up for the rights of parents to have more tools and choices to help their children achieve. There is strong support for this program among communities across America, particularly among the parents who so often do not have a voice representing their needs and interests here in Washington. I look forward to working with Senator Enzi, Senator Harkin, and the rest of my colleagues to secure passage of meaningful education reform that includes protecting and strengthening the ability of parents to make educational choices for their children, choices that include high quality tutoring.

Mr. McCAIN

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

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to address the Senate as in morning business.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, last night we gathered in the House Chamber for a joint session to listen to President Obama speak about our Nation's dire need to get our economy growing more strongly, to create jobs, and to get millions of Americans back to work. All Americans share this goal, even as we may have some disagreements over the best way to do it. I think one way to create jobs most of us would agree on is opening new markets overseas to American workers, products and trade. U.S. products are the finest in the world, and we must lower barriers that impede free trade. To that end, we heard the President repeat, as he has previously on numerous occasions in speaking to Congress and the American people, that we must lower barriers that impede free trade. To that end, we heard the President say last night that he wants Congress to pass the three free-trade agreements, with Korea, Colombia, and Panama, that were concluded many years ago. I could not agree more. Indeed, the International Trade Commission estimates that passing these three trade agreements could increase U.S. exports by $13 billion, creating approximately 250,000 new jobs. So Republicans in Congress and many Democrats are ready to pass these trade agreements. I believe if we had a vote on the merits of those agreements they would pass with strong bipartisan support just as previous trade agreements have. The problem is, they continue to sit on the President's desk where they have been since the day he took office. Until he sends those agreements to Congress, there is nothing we can do to pass them. Why does the President continue to urge Congress to pass agreements that we cannot pass until they are submitted to Congress? Considering that the President wants these agreements passed, and considering that Congress has the votes to pass them, and considering the overwhelming benefits that each of these free-trade agreements would bring to our workers and our economy, the obvious question, then, is, Why hasn't the President chosen to send these agreements to Congress for final approval? The answer, I am afraid, has much to do with electoral politics. My friends on the other side of the aisle have long insisted that the price of getting trade agreements through Congress is passage of domestic spending bills geared to assist U.S. workers who have been adversely affected by foreign trade. For this reason, in 2002, Congress passed the trade adjusted assistance legislation that provided short- term support for worker retraining and other assistance. Many Republicans were skeptical about whether this program and others like it achieved their goals. But we went along for the sake of our national interest in expanding free trade. However, in 2009, without any action taken on our three pending trade agreements, my friends on the other side of the aisle dramatically increased the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program as part of the stimulus bill, raising spending on this program annually by more than $\1/2\ billion. I might add that the stimulus bill was supposed to be a temporary stimulus. Now my friends and colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to make that increase permanent. In essence, a program that was designed to assist workers who had been adversely affected by free trade was transformed into a domestic slush fund for reasons that had nothing at all to do with expanding free trade. What is worse, after repeatedly claiming it supports the free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and Korea, earlier this year the White House announced that the cost of its support was reauthorization of the new trade adjustment assistance, with funding not set at the original 2002 level but the 2009 stimulus level. So here we had a program that had been expanded from its original cost under the dubious guise of a temporary economic stimulus, and then we were told this temporary funding increase, which was designed to expire along with the stimulus, should, in fact, be turned into a permanent domestic spending program. My friends, this is why Americans are so angry with Washington and with Congress. It is this mentality that has led to the explosion of government spending and national debt in this country, and it is unsustainable. I acknowledge that expanding trade does temporarily put some of our workers at a disadvantage. I remember being roundly criticized during the 2008 Presidential campaign when I had the audacity to tell Michigan workers the truth--that many of the jobs that had left their State for cheaper labor markets overseas were never coming back. So I understand that trade can create difficulties for some American workers. I am not opposed in principle to supporting those workers temporarily so they can develop new skills, find new jobs. I don't oppose, nor do I seek to kill, trade adjustment assistance--just to restore it to its original 2002 levels. That said, for a minute let's look closer at how the Federal Government has been going about employment and worker training programs such as this. Earlier this year, the Government Accountability Office released a study entitled ``Multiple Training and Employment Programs: Providing Information on Co-Locating Services and Consolidating Administrative Structures Could Promote Efficiencies.'' A translation from the bureaucrats is, How is the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program working out? Here is what the GAO reported on Federal employment and retraining programs, including trade adjustment assistance: The number of employment and training programs and their funding have increased since our 2003 report when we last reported on them. For fiscal year 2009, we identified 47 employment and training programs administered across nine agencies. Together, these programs spent approximately $18 billion on employment and training services in fiscal year 2009, according to our survey data. This is an increase of 3 programs and about $5 billion from our 2003 report. Adjusting for inflation, the amount of the increase is about $2 billion. They went on to say: We estimate, based on survey responses, that this increase is likely due to temporary funding from the Recovery Act for 14 of the 47 programs we identified. In addition to increasing funding for existing programs, the Recovery Act [the stimulus package] also created 3 new programs and modified several existing programs' target population groups and eligibility requirements, according to agency officials. For example, the Recovery Act modified the Trade Adjustment Assistance program by expanding group eligibility to include certain dislocated service workers who were impacted by foreign trade. So, according to the GAO, many of our multiplying employment and training programs are duplicative of other such programs funded by the Federal Government. But that is not all. The GAO continues: Based on our survey of agency officials, we determined that only 5 of the 47 programs have had impact studies that assess whether the program is responsible for improved employment outcomes. The five impact studies generally found that the effects of participation were not consistent across programs, with only some demonstrating positive impacts that tended to be small, inconclusive, or restricted to short-term impacts. I will repeat that last sentence: The five impact studies generally found that the effects of participation were not consistent across programs, with only some demonstrating positive impacts that tended to be small, inconclusive, or restricted to short-term impacts. Not only are many of these employment and training programs duplicative, the GAO has found very little empirical evidence to support whether these programs are even accomplishing their intended goals, and what empirical evidence they have found is, I repeat, ``small, inconclusive, or restricted to short-term impacts.'' Trade adjustment assistance is among these programs. So my question is simple: At this time of crushing Federal debt and increasing fiscal austerity, why should we increase spending on a program that is likely duplicated by other Federal efforts and of which we cannot even say for sure it is working? The real tragedy is, because our trade agenda has ground to a halt over this disagreement, the people who are suffering most are our workers and America's international economic leadership. The United States may not be doing much to advance free trade, but that is definitely not the case with other countries which are vigorously competing to get their workers and businesses into new overseas markets, often to the detriment of the United States of America. While we stand still, the world is moving past us. In the 5 years we have failed to ratify the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, U.S. companies have paid more than $3.2 billion in Colombian import tariffs. That would disappear under the free-trade agreement. Since 2008 the United States has lost more than $800 million in agricultural exports to countries that trade freely with Colombia. Although less stark, the same story is true with Panama. The people most disadvantaged by our failure to ratify these trade agreements are U.S. workers. What is more, Colombia, Panama, and Korea are not waiting on us. Our allies are not dependent upon us. They are confidently pursuing their own interests--with us if possible but without us if necessary. Colombia and Panama and many other Latin American countries are concluding their own trade agreements often at our expense. Since 2006 U.S. exporters lost 10 percent of their market share in Panama. From 2008 to 2009, our main agricultural exports to Colombia declined by more than 60 percent. These jobs are going to Europe, Canada, and China, but not because their workers are outcompeting ours but because Washington is forcing our exporters to compete with one hand tied behind their backs. Indeed, Colombia recently began implementing its trade agreement with Canada, further disadvantaging our workers and what should be a natural market for us. Just this summer, South Korea's free-trade agreement with the European Union took effect. We are losing ground and we need to get moving on trade immediately. I recognize the cost of doing so again will be Republicans' acquiescence to a vote to reauthorize Trade Adjustment Assistance. The Senate minority leader has repeatedly said he will support holding such a vote. So there is literally no reason why the White House should not send our trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and Korea to Congress for an immediate vote. But as the Republican leader, Senator McConnell, has correctly insisted, these trade agreements should not be linked to a reauthorization of Trade Adjustment Assistance at their artificially inflated stimulus funding level. I would remind my colleagues that in the first speech the President gave to Congress in early 2009, he advocated the passage of free-trade agreements. Again, last night, he mentioned the importance of the passage of free-trade agreements and called on Congress to pass these agreements. Our message back is: Mr. President, send us those agreements. Let us have open and honest debate. Let us have amendments. Let us have votes. But let us move forward. I am confident we can pass these free-trade agreements, but they have to be submitted to Congress. It seems fairly simple. Please, then, Mr. President, don't call on Congress again to pass these agreements unless you send them over to the Congress so we can ratify these agreements. It is terrible what has happened in Colombia--losing billions of dollars we have had to pay in import tariffs for our goods going into Colombia, which should not have happened. By the way, Colombian goods come into the United States free of tariff because of the Andean trade preference agreements. So we are now at a disadvantage, where we pay tariffs on American goods going into Colombia but no tariff on Colombian goods coming into the United States. It makes no sense. South Korea--I believe it was last July--ratified a free-trade agreement with Europe. We are losing market share, and we are losing billions of dollars and thousands and thousands of jobs because we have not ratified these agreements. The only way we can ratify them is for the President to send them over. Send them over, Mr. President. Send them over. Last night, he said: Pass these bills now. I am saying: Send the free-trade agreements over now. I will be glad to debate, amend--with time limits--and pass these free-trade agreements. I am confident there will be an overwhelming majority of bipartisan support for these agreements. We can work out the Trade Adjustment Assistance issue. We can debate and vote on it. But we have to have the agreements before us so we can move forward on it. The people in my State are hurting. People all over America are hurting, as the President acknowledged at the beginning of his remarks last night. We can act. This is one area where I am confident we could move forward. So let us have those agreements sent over, and let us take them up as our first and most important priority in the coming weeks. I yield the floor.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Sessions amendment which seeks to remove an egregious example of corporate welfare and blatant earmarking, to benefit a single interest, in the otherwise worthwhile patent reform bill before the Senate. Needed reform of our patent laws should not be diminished nor impaired by inclusion of the shameless special interest provision, dubbed ``The Dog Ate My Homework Act'' that benefits a single drug manufacturer, Medicines & Company, to excuse their failure to follow the drug patent laws on the books for over 20 years. The President tonight will deliver another speech to tell us that unemployment is too high and that we need to get America back to work to turn around our near stagnant economy. While it may end up being more of the same policies that have not worked for the last 2\1/2\ years, I look forward to hearing what he has to say. But, look at what is going on here today, just a couple hours before the President tells us how he proposes to fix the economy, there are 14 million Americans out of work and a full day of the Senate's time is being spent debating a bailout of a prominent law firm and a drug manufacturer. I think the American people would be justified in wondering if they were in some parallel universe. Patent holders who wish to file an extension of their patent have a 60-day window to make the routine application. There is no ambiguity in this timeframe. In fact, there is no reason to wait until the last day. A patent holder can file an extension application any time within the 60-day period. Indeed, hundreds and hundreds of drug patent extension applications have been filed since the law was enacted. Four have been late. Four! Why is this provision in the patent reform bill? One reason: special interest lobbying to convince Congress to relieve the company and its law firm from their mistakes. Millions of dollars in branded drug profits are at stake for a single company who will face generic competition much earlier than if a patent extension would have been filed on time. Let me read from the Wall Street Journal Editorial page today: As blunders go, this was big. The loss of patent rights means that generic versions of Angiomax might have been able to hit pharmacies since 2010, costing the Medicines Co. between $500 million and $1 billion in profits. If only the story ended there. Instead, the Medicines Co. has mounted a lobbying offensive to get Congress to end run the judicial system. Since 2006, the Medicines Co. has wrangled bill after bill onto the floor of Congress that would change the rules retroactively or give the Patent Office director discretion to accept late filings. One version was so overtly drawn as an earmark that it specified a $65 million penalty for late filing for ``a patent term extension . . . for a drug intended for use in humans that is in the anticoagulant class of drugs.'' . . . no one would pretend the impetus for this measure isn't an insider favor to save $214 million for a Washington law firm and perhaps more for the Medicines Co. There was never a problem to fix here. In a 2006 House Judiciary hearing, the Patent Office noted that of 700 patent applications since 1984, only four had missed the 60-day deadline. No wonder critics are calling it the Dog Ate My Homework Act. The stakes are also high for patients in our health care system. Let me read an excerpt from the Generic Pharmaceutical Association letter dated July 20, 2011: The Medicines Company amendment adopted during House consideration of H.R. 1249 modifies the calculation of the 60-day period to apply for a patent term extension and applies that new definition to ongoing litigation. We are deeply concerned about the precedent of changing the rules of the patent extension process retroactively, which appears to benefit only one company--The Medicines Company, which missed the filing deadline for a patent extension for its patent on the drug Angiomax. If enacted into law, this provision would change the rules to benefit one company that, by choice, waited until the last minute to file a simple form that hundreds of other companies have filed in a timely manner since the enactment of the Hatch-Waxman Act in 1984. In doing so, the amendment would ultimately cost consumers and the government hundreds of millions of dollars by delaying the entry of safe, affordable generic medications. . . . The rules and regulations that govern patents and exclusivity pertaining to both generic and brand drugs are important public policy. While it is Congress's prerogative to change or clarify statutory filing deadlines, we strongly urge you to do so in a manner that does not benefit one company's litigating position. GPhA urges you to strike section 37 from H.R. 1249. Passing the Sessions amendment and removing the provision from the bill is not detrimental to passing the patent reform bill. The bailout provision was not included in the Senate-passed patent bill earlier this year. It was added in the House. The provision can and should be stripped in this vote today. The House can easily re-pass the bill without the bailout provision and send it to the President. Support the Sessions amendment and send a loud signal to the American public, who are watching what we do, that laws matter and that this kind of business has no place in Congress.