Barbara Mikulski

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I am here today to talk about the Drug Quality and Security Act. This legislation does two things. First, it improves the regulation of compounding pharmacies, and second, it strengthens the security of our drug supply chain. This legislation has been in the works for quite a while and I am so pleased that the HELP Committee came together on a bipartisan basis and put together legislation that will truly save lives--across the country and in my home State of Maryland. This bill has been through regular order. We had multiple hearings in the HELP committee, we had working groups, of which I was a member, and we held a bipartisan markup. Our counterparts in the House did the same. And here we are today. This bill has passed the House and it is my hope that it will pass the Senate and be signed into law by the President. Let me first talk about the Compounding Quality Title of the bill and why it is so important. Last year, our Nation was devastated by a meningitis outbreak that sickened 751 people and killed 64 people. In Maryland, 26 people fell ill and 3 people died. As the HELP Committee looked into this outbreak, we quickly learned two things. First, these illnesses and deaths were caused by contaminated compounded drugs from the New England Compounding Center, NECC, located in Massachusetts. And second, these illnesses and deaths were entirely preventable. Hospitals, doctors, and patients are increasingly relying upon compounded drugs, which are supposed to be made on an individual basis to respond to a patient's unique health needs. For instance, if a patient is allergic to a certain ingredient in a drug, a compounding pharmacy can make the drug without that ingredient. Or if a child needs a smaller dosage strength, a compounding pharmacy can do that. Today, 1 to 3 percent of the U.S. prescription drug market is made up of compounded drugs. But the problem we have is twofold. The first problem is that where there is need, there is greed. Compounded drugs are supposed to be made on an individual basis for an individual patient and provided only with a prescription from a doctor. What the HELP Committee learned was that certain compounding facilities were blatantly and flagrantly violating these rules. Not only was NECC mass producing drugs and dispensing them across State lines without prescriptions, NECC also knowingly disregarded sterility tests and prepared drugs in unsanitary conditions. And why? To make a profit. The second problem is that our existing regulatory framework is insufficient. NECC made drugs in unsanitary conditions, mass produced drugs, and provided medicines without prescriptions. And our regulatory framework was ill-designed to catch problems and prevent the outbreak. We cannot undo the tragedy caused by NECC's actions, but we can and must find a way to prevent this from happening again, and that is where this legislation comes into play. The bill before us makes two major changes, which will help prevent another NECC-like tragedy. First, it gives the FDA the authority to regulate large-scale compounding pharmacies. Compounders who wish to make large volumes of these drugs will be regulated by FDA, will be required to register with FDA, will be required to report adverse events to FDA, and will be subject to risk-based inspections by FDA. Smaller traditional compounding pharmacies will continue to be regulated by State boards of pharmacy. Second, this legislation will ensure that patients and providers have better information about compounded drugs. The FDA will post online a list of compounding facilities they regulate, detailed labeling will be required on compounded drugs, and false and misleading advertising will be prohibited. Let me now talk about the Drug Supply Chain Security Title of the bill. This deals with all drugs, not just compounded drugs. Today, we have a patchwork of 50 different State laws that govern drug distribution in our 50 different States. What this means is that if we become aware of a contaminated drug in our supply chain, there is no uniform way to track that drug back to its source and get it off the market quickly. This bill will improve patient safety by replacing today's patchwork of product tracing laws with a strong, uniform standard that will ultimately lead to an electronic, interoperable product tracing system for the entire country. This is commonsense legislation that has been long in the making. These issues are particularly important to me, not only because ensuring the safety of our Nation's drug supply is of the utmost importance but also because I have the distinct honor of representing Maryland, which is home to the FDA. The FDA is our Federal agency tasked with ensuring the safety of our Nation's drugs, through the more than 14,000 dedicated, talented, hardworking employees who work there. Fifty-five percent of FDA's employees were furloughed during the recent government shutdown. I would like to take this opportunity to remind my colleagues why the work that the FDA does is so important. If we want our drugs to be safe, if we want our food to be safe, if we want our medical devices to be safe, we cannot furlough our FDA staff and we cannot pursue cuts to FDA in coming years. This bill was done the right way. We had hearings, markups, and working groups in both the House and Senate and we had input from both Republicans and Democrats. I want to thank Chairman Harkin and Ranking Member Alexander for all of their work to get us here. I urge my colleagues to support this bill, which will improve drug safety and save lives.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, today the Senate is voting on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act--a bill that I am proud to cosponsor. Americans believe that hard-working people should be rewarded for their efforts and commended for their skills. Yet all throughout our Nation individuals are being held back at work or even fired--not because they are incompetent but because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. I firmly believe people should be judged based on their individual skills, competence, and unique talents and nothing else. Sexual orientation does not affect job performance, so it should not be a consideration, and the vast majority of Americans agree. In fact, an overwhelming 73 percent of Marylanders support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act would close a significant gap in our civil rights laws. It would ensure that people are judged on the quality of their work, not on sexual orientation or gender identity. Job discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, or religion has long been prohibited; however, it is still legal to hire and fire a person based on their sexual orientation. This is an outrageous practice for a country that prides itself on equal rights for all. Today, when I look back at the civil rights movement of the 1960s, I am shocked by how modest the demands of the African American community actually were. If we can pass this piece of legislation, in the future we will look back and think what a modest, obvious step it was and wonder why it took so long. This bill does not bestow special rights; it simply offers gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans the same protection against unfair discrimination in the workplace as other groups--no more, no less. Currently, 21 States and the District of Columbia have passed laws that prohibit job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. In addition, hundreds of companies have implemented nondiscrimination policies that include sexual orientation. Gay Americans are part of the American mosaic and are entitled to the same rights and freedoms as every other American citizen. Change in civil rights comes slowly, but we are long overdue in making sure they have protection against unfair discrimination in the workplace. My hope is that someday we will look back on this and wonder what took us so long. We all deserve to live in an environment where people are treated fairly and with the dignity they deserve, and today I urge my colleagues to vote for this important bill.

Ms. MIKULSKI

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

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, what is the pending business before the Senate?

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak 10 minutes as in morning business.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak about how we can avoid another shutdown of our government and also, even more important, avoid another shutdown or slowdown of our economy. That is how we in the Congress, both sides of the aisle, both sides of the dome, need to work to arrive at a budget agreement and then an appropriations agreement for the rest of the fiscal year. Earlier today on the floor we heard from the distinguished chair of the Budget Committee, the Senator from Washington State, Patty Murray, who talked about the budget and what was going on. I come here today to support her efforts and the work of the budget conferees as they work to reach an agreement on the funding levels that will invest in America's future--creating jobs, repairing infrastructure, keeping us safe in our communities and making sure our children are well educated for the 21st century. The budget conference is absolutely important to America's future because it is about how much we should invest in America's future: What should we do in terms of revenue? How do we close corporate loopholes and corporate welfare and also have them step up to their patriotic responsibility? Also, what is the best way to approach the funding for this government? There is no doubt we need to reduce public debt, but austerity alone is not the answer. We have seen it in Europe where, yes, they have reduced their public debt, but they have not been progrowth. The agenda I stand for--and I know the chair of the Budget Committee does and many of us on both sides of the aisle do--is we not only want to reduce public debt, we also want to reduce unemployment, and we also want to reduce statistics such as crime rates. We need to be able to work together. My goals for the conference committee that is meeting are simple and straightforward. I would like to see the Budget Committee come up with not only a 1-year framework but a 2-year framework, giving a top-line funding level for 2014 and 2015 and replacing the sequester policy for at least 2 years and do that with increased revenues and strategic cuts--a balanced approach. Let me say why this is important, because many people do not understand the difference between the Budget Committee and the Appropriations Committee. The Budget Committee looks at the entire budget of the government of the United States of America, money out and money in. It looks at money out in two categories. Discretionary spending, that is the Appropriations Committee; mandatory spending, that is Social Security, that is Medicare, that is veterans benefits. Then the other is revenue in, either through trust fund contributions or through fees or through taxes. The so-called top line is what discretionary spending is, what they allow for discretionary spending. In the budget it is under an act called section 302(a) of the budget. In order to do my job as the chair of the Appropriations Committee, I need the Budget Committee, with the concurrence of the Congress, to give my counterparts in the House-- Congressman Rogers and Nita Lowey--and myself and Senator Shelby, my vice chairman on the other side of the aisle, the so-called top line. Then we work through our 12 subcommittees. This is absolutely crucial because we cannot do discretionary spending for fiscal year 2014 until we hear from the Budget Committee. We do not want another CR. We do not want another shutdown. We do not want another slowdown. We are ready to go to work. We have already done our due diligence. We have already worked our way through the 12 subcommittees, looking at what public investments should be made and, by the way, how we can be more frugal, how do we get rid of what is dated, what is duplicative, and what is dysfunctional. As the chair of the subcommittee, again with Senator Shelby, the distinguished Senator from Alabama, my vice chairman, we asked the committee to look at what is it we need to spend and what is it we can get rid of. We have done a great job this year. I am very proud of them. By August 1 all of my subcommittees were marked up, but we need to have this agreement. So we say we need to have this agreement and we need to have it sooner rather than later. In the deal, the Budget Committee is to report out to the Congress, and therefore to the Appropriations Committee, by December 15. My committee and my counterparts in the House are to produce an appropriations omnibus by January 15. I do not want to get lost in words and the weeds. But essentially as it stands now, Congress will only be in session 8 days from December 15 to January 15 because of the holiday. Eight days--it is an awful lot to ask Barbara Mikulski and Richard Shelby and Harold Rogers and Nita Lowey and our wonderful subcommittees to produce a bill. We will do it if we have to. But we would prefer sooner rather than later. We believe so strongly about it that my House counterpart, Congressman Hal Rogers, a distinguished gentleman from Kentucky--and I say gentleman in the true sense of the word: civil, candid, straightforward, courteous. We have talked about issues, the differences in fiscal approach and so on. But we know how to get the job done. Where we differ we know how to resolve the conflicts and we are ready to go. We have sent a letter to the chair of the Budget Committee on both sides, to Senator Murray and to Paul Ryan, asking that they report to the Congress before the Thanksgiving recess--before the Thanksgiving recess. This was unprecedented. We didn't talk about dollars--that is the Budget Committee. We will take our pot of discretionary money, called the top line, and get it done. What both the House chairman and I are very worried about is that if we do not act, sequester kicks in January 15. What an awful way to do business in our government. You heard me say our subcommittee chairmen have worked to get rid of what is dated, what is duplicative, and what is dysfunctional. That is not just meant to be an alliterative, clever throwaway line. That was a governing policy, both sides of the aisle, scrutinizing. I am worried. When I look at defense, funding for defense would be $54 billion lower than the Senate's version in both defense and military construction. According to the military chiefs, the readiness of our force has been degraded under existing sequesters. Eighty-five percent of Army brigade combat teams will not be fully trained to deploy. The Navy and our Marine Corps will only have one carrier strike group and one amphibious ready group. They are always going to be semper fi, but we have to be semper fi too and always faithful to getting the job done. The Air Force will have to cut aircraft and possibly an entire fleet. This is a dangerous time in the world with numerous threats to our security. We cannot operate our military on the cheap. Just to give a sense of what furlough meant, over 650,000 national security employees were initially furloughed in defense and intelligence and in other security positions in key government agencies. This is unacceptable. We cannot protect the country and run the government like that. I chair the commerce, justice subcommittee. That is the committee that funds Federal law enforcement, FBI, drug enforcement, U.S. Marshals, the U.S. attorneys who actually move this, the bureau of alcohol and firearms that keeps us safe from terrorism, catches child predators, prosecutes drug dealers, and gangs. Think of how the FBI went after the Boston Marathon killers. The CJS bill adds $2.3 billion above sequester levels to allow Federal law enforcement to do their jobs. U.S. Marshals track down violent fugitives and sex offenders. DEA goes after not only drug dealers but international drug cartels, so it doesn't make it to the playground or to the school room. The new FBI Director recently announced that if sequester continued, the FBI will have to furlough people up to 10 days over the next year. This is not good. In the long term CR at the sequester level, a continuing resolution will fund--they will keep a hiring freeze of over 3,000 positions. We cannot have the kind of law enforcement we need at those levels. We have a big job to do. We have to do it sooner rather than later. I ask the support of the Congress for the Budget Committee for them to be able to bring a budget to the floor. Let's try to do it before the Thanksgiving break. Let's look at how we can look at a balanced approach between strategic cuts--and we on the Appropriations Committee are ready to keep on doing the job we started almost 7 years ago under Senator Byrd, our wonderful, most beloved leader of West Virginia, and Senator Inouye and Senator Stevens. We need to keep on doing that, but we need the Budget Committee to do their job. The impact on national security is significant. The impact on our domestic economy is significant. We need to step to the plate and not only avoid a crisis such as a shutdown, we also have to avoid the crisis of confidence that is occurring in our government: Can they govern? Can they get the job done? Are there significant pragmatists who will look at what is the must-do list we have around spending, of which I think security for our country is at the top of the list. I believe we can do it. I know the Presiding Officer was part of a bipartisan group during the shutdown to try to find a compromise. That group, I salute them. They changed the tone, showed civility, showed bipartisanship, and I think their initial effort was enough to stimulate and encourage coming to the final resolution that we did. That is the kind of spirit we need in this body. I would say to my colleagues, let's have the Budget Committee act sooner rather than later. Let's support them in a balanced approach to not only look at austerity but also growth, and that also means closing corporate loopholes. I welcome the Presiding Officer to the Chair. I think that concludes what I wanted to say today. As we get ready to approach the holidays, I want the American people to have confidence in their government. I want the American people to have confidence in those of us who have been elected. This is a big election day all over America. I recall this time last year--the reelection of President Obama and the election of the Senator from Massachusetts who is now the Presiding Officer. It was a big day. It was a big deal. Twenty women came to the Senate--a new Democratic woman and the distinguished Senator from the State of Nebraska. When they came, they were filled with excitement and passion to serve the Nation, represent the views of the people of their State, and to get something done, not only to do it with the lowest common denominator but also to be able to work together for the common good and worry about the next generation, not the next election. That is what we did. Let's recall how we felt this time last year. Let's get our act together and press on. Madam President, I yield the floor. I was so excited talking about my topic, I forgot to note the absence of a quorum, so I hereby note the absence of a quorum.

Ms. MIKULSKI

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

Ms. MIKULSKI. I ask unanimous consent to speak for such time as I consume.

Ms. MIKULSKI. I come to the floor today with both a great deal of energy and a sense of relief--relief that it appears we have reached a bipartisan agreement to reopen the government, pay America's bills, and give us a path forward to deal with the ability to negotiate on some of our long-term fiscal challenges. I come with a sense of energy because I think it shows that when there is a will, we find a way. This needs to be a sensible approach. I have a sense of optimism that this spirit of compromise that produced this new agreement will continue in the Senate as we work together. I am so relieved we are going to extend the debt limit, at least to February 7, 2014. During this entire debate over the last several days, I was so apprehensive that America would become a deadbeat nation. I was appalled, like so many Americans, that the families of four of our soldiers who had fallen in the line of duty were not going to get their death benefit. The wonderful Fisher family, who has been so kind and so generous to our veterans, paid that. This is the United States of America. We have a duty to our military. We have a duty to our military families. We were not going to be able to do that. That is just one example. I was concerned about our T-bills, our famous Treasury bills, that have been not only part of the fiscal underpinning of the global economy, but also have given confidence to modest and conservative investors: Well, I will invest in T-bills because nothing will ever happen to our government. I was concerned that our T-bills would go the way of junk bonds. So now, because we have extended the debt limit, we have agreed to pay the bills on debt we have already incurred. This is an excellent way of moving forward. I also am pleased we are going to have, as part of this agreement, the reopening of the entire government. This means our government will be on a continuing funding resolution until January 15, 2014. This will enable us to set the framework for what our funding will be for the rest of the fiscal year. Why are we in a shutdown of our Federal Government? The Presiding Officer is a member of the Appropriations Committee. I chair that committee. That is the committee that actually puts money in the Federal checkbook for the entire fiscal year. However, we are not wild spenders. We have a cap placed on us. That comes from the Budget Committee. The Budget Committee sets the budget for the entire Federal Government. It sets what the cap should be on discretionary spending, which is the Appropriations Committee, on mandatory spending, which are programs that must be funded, whether it is Social Security, Medicare, veterans' benefits, and others that no matter what, they are to be funded. Then they also set what revenue we should have and where we should get it. The Budget Committee is absolutely crucial for us to do our work. I am pleased there has been a commitment from the leaders to appoint conferees on the budget resolution so the Budget Committee can do its work and give back to we appropriators no later than December 16 what our cap is for spending for the entire fiscal year. If we can do that, we appropriators can do our job. I will say more about what appropriations are. This is going to be a very tight schedule. The Budget Committee has been unable to meet because six Senators used their parliamentary tools to block the Budget Committee meeting, even though the Senate passed a budget with over 70 votes on March 23. We have wasted 6 months and we don't want to waste the next 6 weeks. I am pleased there appears to be the ability for the Budget Committee to meet in conference with the House of Representatives. That means the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, Senator Patty Murray, and the ranking member or vice chairman, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, will meet with Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman in the House Budget Committee, and Chris Van Hollen, another Marylander and a very able ranking member. I wish them well because we need to know how much discretionary spending we are going to have, we need to be able to look at mandatory spending, and we need to look at revenues. If we can pass this agreement reached by our leadership on both sides of the aisle, Democratic leader Senator Reid, and Republican leader Senator McConnell, we can, within hours, reopen our government and pay our bills. These are our constitutional responsibilities. The American people deserve a government that works as hard as they do. We need to put our Federal Government and our Federal employees back to work. This agreement does that. It says to the American taxpayer and to the entire world, America is not a deadbeat nation. We can work together to enact bipartisan, fiscally responsible legislation to keep our government going. There is no doubt that we have significant fiscal challenges ahead of us. As we prepare to vote, I would encourage all of us to take stock of what has happened in the Senate the past several days. It is time we take stock of where we are and what it means. The crisis we have just lived through might be very good for TV ratings, but it is lousy for credit ratings. It is good for TV ratings because the Nation was gripped by what they saw. They couldn't believe it. I was in the Senate working, and I couldn't believe it either; that we could not in a straightforward way come to grips with the fact that we needed to reopen government, but we were being held back by those who wanted to defund ObamaCare. This crisis of the U.S. Government and the fear that the U.S. Government might not pay its bills has created a crisis of confidence. As we work on implementing the deal we are promoting, we also have to work to ensure that we rebuild the confidence of the American people and those who depend on and look to the U.S. Government, those that are treasured allies and emerging nations to whom we would say be a democracy and be like us. We have to use our time not only to get our fiscal act together, but we have to restore the confidence in our ability to govern. America is a middle-of-the-road nation. We need an environment where the middle speaks, where the middle class now speaks and says: Please represent me, meet our national security needs, make public investments in physical infrastructure and in human infrastructure such as education and access to higher education. Please make public investments in research and development that will create new ideas for the new jobs in the new economy of the 21st century. This is what they want us to be able to do. For those of us in this great institution called the Senate and the other side of the Capitol, the House of Representatives, we have to be middle-of-the-roaders. It is the middle, maybe a little to the center left or to the center right, but we have to be in the middle. Middle- of-the-roaders are the ones who helped bring us to this deal. I wish to thank those who put forth some other ideas during this debate, Senator Collins, Senator Klobuchar, and the so-called group of 12. They had some very interesting ideas. As we go forward on implementing the deal, we ought to consider some of them. They helped create a climate and a tone where people showed they wanted to be pragmatic and also wanted to be patriotic, which is to make sure that the esteem of the U.S. Government continues to take hold both among our own people and around the world. I wish to be sure we all work together. I fear the middle-of-the-road legislator could be an endangered species. I hope not. I hope the middle-of-the-roaders don't become roadkill. We can show now it is not only the deal that has been made, but we must vote on the bill, pass the bill, and then we need to implement it. America and its government cannot go from one crisis to another. We cannot govern by crisis. We cannot govern by one party or the other extorting it from the other--my way or I will shut it down. We have to show that we are a deliberative body. We have to show we are a nation of laws and rules, not of people, personalities, and pundits. We need to demonstrate that. I compliment those who have been voices of moderation and voices for creating the climate to bring us to this point. I also wish to thank our leadership for being willing to step to the plate and be leaders. I would also like to thank Senator Reid and Senator McConnell for the leadership and statesmanship they possess. We are on the brink of brinkmanship. We had enough of gamesmanship, and they stepped forward to show us what statesmanship is. I wish to thank them for what they did. I chair the Appropriations Committee. I am not a solo act. I have 12 wonderful subcommittee chairmen who are eager and itching to go to work. I have an outstanding Republican conservative as my vice chairman, Senator Shelby of Alabama. We want to work. We want to work together and we want to work with civility, mutual respect, and get the job done. I say to my friends on the other side of the dome, we want to govern. We want to govern wisely. We want to govern efficiently, and we want to govern respectfully. I say to my colleagues on my side who have elected me the chair of this committee, they may count on me to do my best. I say to those on the other side of the aisle, they may count on me to continue to run an inclusive committee of discussion, open debate, amendments, so we can move our process forward. Everybody feels included. Everybody has their say. Everybody has their day. At the end of the day though, we will vote. To my colleagues on the other side of the dome, let us work together. We have shown in the past we know how to talk to each other, we know how to listen to each other, and we can get the job done. I believe America wants us to get on with the job. Americans want to be able to have a government they can count on. Americans want to be able to have a government that works as hard as they do. They want to have a Congress that acts in the interests of the Nation, of the next generation, and not of the next election. I am ready to vote for the agreement reached by our leadership, go to work, and do everything I can to make sure we follow the middle of the road--that sensible center--and to make sure the American middle class has their day and their say. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Ms. MIKULSKI. What is the pending status of the Senate floor?

Ms. MIKULSKI. I rise to speak for approximately 10 minutes.

Ms. MIKULSKI. We are 33 hours away from the possible default of the United States of America on its debt obligations. We are 33 hours away from the possibility of the United States of America becoming a deadbeat nation, not paying its bills to its own people and other creditors. We are 33 hours away from our T-bills becoming a junk bond. It is unacceptable that our T-bills, our Treasury bills, should move to a junk-bond status. We have to get rid of that and we have to get rid of the junk talk that is going on around here. The Congress of the United States must have a sense of urgency and come together on a program that ensures the United States of America pays its bills and opens its government to serve its own people and to serve the role we play around the world. I say to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, let us pass the framework that was originally suggested yesterday by the Democratic leader Senator Reid and by Senator McConnell, our Republican leader. Maybe it is not something all of us would have written, but it is something we could all do. It means the President would sign it, the government would reopen, we could extend the debt ceiling, and we could be working on both our budget and our Senate appropriations. I say, as the chair of the Appropriations Committee, I am eager to go to work. I am eager to fashion that bipartisan compromise within the Senate in terms of what our spending should be, how we could make sure it is affordable, frugal, makes good investments in the American framework, makes sure we have national security physical infrastructure, meets compelling human need, and conducts research and development. We can do this. I spoke with my House counterparts. We are eager to go to work, but in order to negotiate we must have this agreement. I am very adamant that before we can get to appropriations and our budget, we have to raise the debt ceiling. If we fail or falter to address the crisis, the United States of America will irrevocably be affected. This is a manufactured crisis. It is a manufactured crisis because it is a self-inflicted crisis. This is not what our global competitors are doing to us. This is not what Russia is doing to us. This is not what China is doing to us. This is what the House of Representatives is doing to us. I thought we had an agreement arrived at by two mature leaders willing to do statesmanship rather than brinkmanship. That became the mantra of the day, statesmanship over gamesmanship. We felt very good about it last night when we went home. It was going to take give. Certainly, it was going to take give from we appropriators, but that is OK. That is the American way. Now we are on the verge of being a deadbeat nation. How humiliating is this, that the Federal Government, already shut down for 2 weeks, could be heading for default. The full faith and credit of the United States has always been the international standard for investment in the world and now it is a question mark. There is a lot of confusion about debt ceiling and what it means. Debt ceiling doesn't mean permission to acquire new spending, it means to acquire funds to pay bills we have acquired in the past. The debt ceiling determines how much the government can borrow to pay for the programs it has already enacted. I wish to repeat it allows the United States to pay the bills it has already incurred. Opponents of raising the debt ceiling say that by blocking an increase, it is going to save the United States money. That is simply not true. We don't save money by not paying our bills. Do you know what happens when someone doesn't pay their bills? They get a lousy credit rating. When someone gets a lousy credit rating, he or she has to pay more for what they want to buy if they have a terrible credit rating. It is as if we are moving into payday loans. This is the United States of America. We don't just erase the debt by not paying our bills. In fact, we end up owing more money, as I said, because our interest rates go up. The consequences of a default are significant and severe. For the House of Representatives to say no, to want to give up and say no to what we are working on in the Senate is the height of dangerous behavior. The Treasury Department warns that default could create a worse economic crisis than 2008 and could cause more damage that might last over more than a generation. A generation is 20 years. I don't want children who are now 6, 7, and 8 years old to grow up in a country that is viewed as an international deadbeat. I don't want to derail our economic recovery. Economists predict we could lose over 600,000 jobs and 401(k)s would be hit hard. The President would also have to decide who gets limited government money. We will operate only over existing limited government revenue. Should we pay our troops, continue Social Security checks? What should we do? This isn't only about let's squeeze government programs. This is going to put the squeeze on Medicare and Social Security. I went through this in the 1995 government shutdown. The consequences are very severe to Social Security. Each month Social Security pays about $70 billion in benefits to 63 million Americans. Most benefits are made to retirees and people with disabilities. October 16, tomorrow, we have a bill due of $13 billion. On October 23, the next round of Social Security checks go out, which is $13 billion. November 1 is another $27 billion with another $4 billion in SSI benefits. If we have default, we might have to delay benefits. They could be delayed until there is enough revenue in the Treasury to cover the payments due that day. Let me paint the picture. Within the next 4 weeks, we have $70 billion worth of benefits due in Social Security. Jack Lew, the Secretary of the Treasury, says that on October 17 it will be $30 billion. In Social Security alone, we have a $40 billion decline and a gap. The Bipartisan Policy Center estimates that not raising the debt ceiling could delay the November 1 payment by 2 weeks. We are talking about delaying Social Security. That is an earned benefit. I would like to say what it also means to Medicare. On Medicare, if the government fails to pay, Medicare payments would be delayed. Medicare pays providers and also covers the prescription drug benefit. Let us go to the prescription drug benefit, which means a lot to many people. If someone needs prescription drugs to control blood pressure, to control blood sugar, to take an anticoagulant to prevent heart attack or stroke, he or she needs Medicare. About $5.2 billion worth of Medicare payments to private insurance companies for the drug coverage is due on November 1. On November 1, the U.S. Government is supposed to pay its share to private insurance companies to cover the prescription drug benefit. If it doesn't do that, what is a private insurance company going to do? They are supposed to help administer this Medicare Part D benefit. Will the insurance companies continue to provide prescription drugs if they don't get paid by us? What happens to the seniors? I don't know. Let us go to providers. Medicare pays doctors and hospitals that treat Medicare patients. Under the law, they are supposed to be paid within 14 days. Every day, 5 million claims worth about $1 billion are paid to either hospitals or doctors. If we don't have money to pay that hospital or to repay that doctor for services rendered, will they continue to treat Medicare patients? Will hospitals continue to admit them? I am sure they would do it in an emergency, but the whole idea of being able to see your doctor is to avoid an emergency. Doctors are already hesitant about Medicare because of the Spartan reimbursement, but now we are talking about maybe no reimbursement at all for weeks at a time. Why? Not because of a natural disaster but because of politics, politics, politics, politics. The other side, particularly the other side of the dome in the House, might not like ObamaCare. There are those on the other side of the aisle who don't like ObamaCare. I think everybody likes Medicare. No matter what one thinks about ObamaCare--and I do believe President Obama does care and that is a good thing to call that health care program--but I do believe everyone likes Medicare. I know no Senator, no Member of the House of Representatives, who would like to end the Medicare Program. If we default, we could be ending Medicare as we know it. We will shake the very confidence in the provider system. We will shake the very confidence that we have in a partnership between Medicare, private insurance, and the people who need health care. What is it that we are doing? Again, this is a self-inflicted manufactured crisis. I say to the House of Representatives, listen to the framework of the Senate bill. Let's not add a lot of other issues the House might like to bring up. Let us pass the framework that was discussed by Senators Reid and McConnell yesterday. There was a lot of give-and-take, that we would reopen government. By December 15, the Budget Committee will have met. By January 15 we would have produced our spending bill for 2014, and we would lift the debt ceiling until February 7. I think that would be a good way to go. One might say shouldn't the Budget Committee meet anyway? You betcha. Senator Murray passed her budget bill on May 23 by almost 70 votes in the Senate, but she could not go negotiate with Paul Ryan because six Senators on the other side of the aisle objected. Now we have to pass legislation mandating following the law. We are now passing a law to tell them to follow the law. I am willing to pass a law to tell them to follow the law, because in order for me as the chair of the committee, working with my vice chairman Senator Shelby, a really rock-ribbed fiscal conservative--we have a lot of negotiating back and forth, but we have an atmosphere of civility, candor, and an interest in the good of the country. We can get it done. We know we have to give and take. I know as a Democrat I have to, and I am willing to do it. I called him this morning and reaffirmed my commitment to work in the spirit of compromise. So let's get on with it. Thirty-three hours to go--now it is 32 hours and 45 minutes to go. The clock is ticking on the United States of America and its standing in the world. I urge us to come together, that the Senate be able to move the framework discussed by our leadership; that the House take it up, pass it, and we get on to doing the governance we were elected to do. I yield the floor, and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I am happy to yield and have the Senator from Delaware continue. He is the newest member of the Appropriations Committee. He has really articulated something everybody needs to understand. I am happy to wait my turn.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I have permission to speak for 15 minutes.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, there is a misguided myth out there--not all myths are misguided, but this myth is--by those who believe that the government shutdown is actually saving us money. I am not going to go into all those details about why that is not true, but I can tell everybody one area where government shutdown is absolutely being negatively impacted in protecting the taxpayer dollar and fulfilling the mission of the agency--particularly in Social Security, Medicare, veterans' benefits, and some others. The Presiding Officer was the attorney general and the U.S. attorney of the Ocean State, Rhode Island, so he knows about scammers and schemers and that where there is need, there is greed. Where there are large government programs, they are open to waste and particularly to fraud. I have been an adamant opponent of fraud, and often that is dismissed with comments such as: Oh, everybody says you are against fraud. But what are we doing about it? Let me say this: As the chairperson of the Appropriations Committee, I was insistent that at every one of my hearings there be an inspector general testifying. I have an inspector general who advises us appropriators, who actually put money in the Federal checkbook, about how we can stop fraud in our own government. I am the first chairman of that committee ever to institute that process where we take the watchdogs of our Federal spending very seriously. The watchdogs who protect taxpayers' funds are known as inspectors general. They are independently appointed, independently confirmed, and independently do their job. Look at the inspector general for the IRS who brought a national scandal to our attention. But guess what. In this shutdown the ability of inspectors general to root out fraud and abuse has been severely compromised. We are not catching criminals who are trying to get a quick buck off the back of taxpayers. I will give an example: The Social Security administration has furloughed 250 investigators and auditors in the Office of the Inspector General. This is crippling the inspector general's ability to investigate allegations of fraud and to detect improper payments in Social Security. Just recently headlines have made the news about fraud in West Virginia field offices in Social Security where judges and others who were administering the program--administrative judges--were taking kickbacks. Thanks to law enforcement, and the inspector general, we grabbed that. There were actually people in Federal prisons who used the Internet and created phony identities to get both taxpayer refunds and also Social Security checks. Thanks to inspectors general being on the job, we were able to nip that in the bud. Each year the Social Security inspector general receives 135,000 allegations of fraud and abuse. Last year the inspector general at the Social Security Administration saved the program $500 million--a half billion dollars was saved in fraud at the Social Security Administration. But instead of pinning medals on people, we have furloughed them. They are sitting at home waiting and itching to be back on the job because they are so proud of what they do. They believe that Social Security is a sacred trust, and anybody who tries to scheme or scam the system, they are going to come after. During the normal operations, the Social Security inspector general saves $9 for every $1 spent in oversight. Let's look at some of the other agencies, such as the Department of Agriculture. Every minute of this shutdown taxpayer dollars are being lost to fraud. When we look at the Department of Agriculture, we see that last year their inspector general investigated 331 possible frauds. They conducted 76 audits. Guess what it resulted in: 800 indictments resulting from people trying to scam various aspects of the Department of Agriculture, including food stamp fraud. Of the 800 indictments, they got 538 convictions. Guess what. They saved our Federal Government $1.5 billion. I said $1.5 billion, 800 indictments, and 540 convictions. The Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Agriculture is on furlough. A minimum number of investigators are on the job. All of the Department of Agriculture inspector general audit staff is furloughed. That is not a wise use of the taxpayer dollars. Let's go to the VA. The VA Inspector General's Office has furloughed 70 percent of its staff. The VA operates the largest integrated hospital system in the country, including 152 hospitals and 1,000 clinics. It also operates a mortgage program and an educational voucher program. It operates a disability claims and survivor benefit program. Their inspector general routinely audits this complex system. What do they look for? Possible criminal activity. They look for fraud. They make sure there is no misconduct by senior VA officials, and they are doing their job, but they have been furloughed. We also have the General Services Administration, which is essentially the real estate arm of the Federal Government. It plays a crucial role. Guess what. Last year they handled 450 cases. They got 3,000 hotline complaints about possible fraud. Their staff is on furlough. So they are not looking out for fraud in real estate, automobile leasing, technology, gaming the system, and furniture. Their cases range from bribery to embezzlement, to kickback schemes. Most--99 percent--of our GSA employees are honest. So are our contractors. But guess what. In just 6 months alone, from October 2012 to March of 2013, they were able to crack down and recover over $100 million in schemes and scams. Look at what I have outlined already: a couple billion dollars, including Social Security, Agriculture, GSA. They are on the job. I could go to agency after agency. Guess what. The very agency that involves us and advises us is the Government Accountability Office. That is Congress's watchdog. That is where we ask for studies on how we can do a better job and where they identify programs that are dated, duplicative or dysfunctional--dated, duplicative or dysfunctional. If they are dated, goodbye to them. If they are dysfunctional, reform or goodbye. Dysfunctional--dated, dysfunctional, and duplicative, that is our mantra on the Appropriations Committee. We are the guardians of the purse, but we need our tool. The Government Accountability Office, which we rely on, has furloughed 98 percent of its staff. I could elaborate on agency after agency, but what I wish to show is just this: The consequences of shutdown are affecting people. If they are not on the job, they are not doing the job. The job of our inspectors general offices--they are independent. They are supposed to come with incredible fiscal background. They are investigators. They are auditors. They are people who have to know how to find a problem, see if it is criminal or civil, whether we can get our money back, so we can make sure it doesn't happen again. Those people want to work. They love their job. It is a calling to them, and we need to call them and say: You are back to work. So let's reopen government. Let's find a way. Let's fund government at a level that makes sure it can function the way it should. Let's also pay our debts. I do not want our T-bills to become junk bonds. I do not want our T-bills to be so shaky in terms of our ability to pay them back that they arrive at junk bond status. So let's get rid of junk politics and junk talking points. Let's get those clunkers off the road. Let's get America rolling again, pay our bills, honor our T- bills. Let's get government working and let America be America again. I yield the floor.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I think one of the things we ought to be observing, here at least, is courteous rules among ourselves. This is meant to be the greatest deliberative body in the world. If we follow the rules, follow the regular order, follow the committee process, and follow the ways through the committee processes for resolving disagreements and disputes, I think we can get through this. I believe on both sides of the aisle there are pragmatic people devoted to this country who want to solve the two major problems we have facing us right this minute; that is, to reopen government, because we are now in the 10th day of a shutdown; and, No. 2, to meet the debt obligations of the United States of America as mandated in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. I call upon my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and on both sides of the dome: Let's reopen government. Let's pay our bills. And let's get through the regular committee processes to solve our problems. There are those on the other side of the dome in the House of Representatives that are proposing a new supercommittee. We have been there, and we have done that. After the 2011 crisis, when we faced our debt limit, there was a process put in place called a supercommittee. It went nowhere. This new idea will go nowhere as well. It is a new process that will only result in more delay. I think we have two supercommittees. I call them supercommittees because they are great committees. They are wonderful committees. That is the Budget Committee chaired by Senator Patty Murray and her ranking member Senator Jeff sessions, himself a distinguished judge from Alabama, so he knows about conflict resolution. There is the Appropriations Committee that deals with discretionary spending, chaired by me and my vice chairman Senator Richard Shelby, again a seasoned fiscal conservative who knows how to concentrate on the bottom line so we can be a more frugal government but also be an effective government. Let that committee do its job. There is also the Finance Committee chaired by Senator Max Baucus. I know the ranking member Senator Grassley from Iowa is on the floor. He has an incredible history of being a compassionate conservative and he knows the Tax Code and knows the values of Iowa--which is, let's put country above party. Instead of inventing new committees and new processes, free us up to do our job. Free us up to be able to do what the committee process is meant to be able to do. For me and the Appropriations Committee, we moved all of our appropriations bills. We are ready to come to the floor. We are ready to go to conference if called up, if we have a method for being able to move. We are ready to do it. Senator Murray on the Budget Committee is ready to go to conference with the House. But 21 times she was blocked by 6 naysayers primarily representing a tea party, small faction within the Republican Party. The Republican Party, the Grand Old Party, has traditionally understood that you maintain the values of the country, that you are fiscally conservative, but you follow the rules that were established. The rules of the Budget Committee passed by the Senate in the Budget Control Act say they were supposed to have their job done on April 15. Well, we moved the budget on March 23, over 200 days ago, and over 20 requests to go to conference with me, with Congressman Paul Ryan, and with his House counterparts to work out what our discretionary spending should be. What should our revenues be? What should we evaluate in terms of our mandatory spending where we can take a look at it but not shrink those earned benefits like Social Security and VA benefits that people count on and work their whole life for and even put their life on the line? We have to be able to do our job. I will tell you what has been the latest situation that has so shocked me. We are on the verge of being a deadbeat nation. We are on the verge of being a global deadbeat nation. What is a deadbeat? A deadbeat is someone who does not meet their financial obligations. Over the last 3 days, we have heard about how the families of the men and women who died in the line of duty serving their country and are entitled to a death benefit were not going to get it because of the government shutdown. The Fisher family--well known for serving military families, well known and so deeply cherished--offered to step forward to pay that. The philanthropy of the United States, instead of the public responsibility of the United States. I want to thank the Fisher family for stepping forward. But, my gosh, what humiliation. We are the United States of America, with the strongest and best military in the world, and to honor its obligation to its own, the United States has to borrow money for a death benefit. That is deadbeat. I think it is humiliating. I think it is despicable. It shows just how low we have sunk. We can get it back. It is in our power because this isn't being inflicted on us. This is what is being inflicted on us by other Americans sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America. When they took that obligation, they didn't take that obligation to just uphold the Amendments they like--like the second one--but they took that obligation to uphold all of the Amendments. Let's start with the 14th, which says that the debt of the United States of America should not be called into question. That is clearly in the Constitution. No matter what, America will pay its bills. The reliability of the United States of America to meet its debt obligations is the financial glue that helps to hold the global economy together. I am not going to go into doomsday or Armageddon or whatever. But if you actually read what the ambassadors of China and Japan--one a great ally and the other a formidable competitor--say: We are holding your debt. Pay your bills, or a fiscal crisis will begin to unravel in your country and around the world. We cannot be a deadbeat nation. If we are a superpower, we must first of all show our power by meeting our financial obligations. How we get our public house in order by reducing our public debt is the subject again of the Appropriations Committee, the Budget Committee, and the Finance Committee. We have the capability to do it. I am really calling upon my friends on the other side of the aisle--and there are many. And it is not that we are pals. It is because we have come together out of mutual respect to solve mutual problems, being of help to each other mutually, that we have been able to keep the government functioning and doing it in a way that is smart and affordable. So I say, please, let's reopen government. I am calling upon the House to pass the Senate continuing fiscal funding resolution that would reopen government on November 15 and that process to lay the groundwork for resolving our appropriations bills and canceling sequester. I call upon those six that are blocking us--meaning the Senate--from going to the Budget Committee to do this. Those are two simple acts within our power to do. I hope that we can do it. I intended today to speak about how the shutdown is affecting Maryland. We are really being hard hit. Maryland and Virginia have the largest concentration of Federal agencies, both civilian and military, in America. And, gee, we are proud of that. We are so proud of the fact that we have the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which works with our private sector that enables us to sell products around the world. We are so proud of the fact that we have the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, to make sure that we are looking out for large and small, whether it is to make sure that our mattresses are not flammable or that our cribs and swimming pools are safe for our children. I am proud of those agencies. I am sorry that my Federal employees are not working. It is having a terrible impact on the Maryland economy. Both our comptroller and our Governor are talking about the significant amount of lost revenue that we are having because people aren't working and they aren't buying. If you talk to small businesses where these agencies are located, it is just terrible. I just want to tell one story. The Social Security Administration is headquartered in Maryland in a community called Woodlawn, a wonderful community with a vibrant, civic engagement. It is just great. Across the street from the Social Security Administration is a small business called the Salsa Grill. It is usually crowded with lunch hour people, early morning coffee, those little baby showers that we women like to have or a birthday party the guys are throwing for one of their pals at lunchtime. The Salsa Grill last Friday, instead of 30 customers, had 3. The owner was quoted as saying if the shutdown goes on much longer, he won't be able to hang on any longer. This is what makes our economy great. I talked to one of the largest automobile dealers in Maryland. The showrooms were empty in the Baltimore-Washington corridor last weekend, even though they had wonderful cars, new cars. They were ready to do deals for the old 2013 models they wanted to move out--empty; empty. This ripples through our economy. This is not just, ``Oh, we are going to contain government.'' We are hurting ourselves. The fight about ObamaCare is over. Let's say goodbye to that fight. Let's get on to the fiscal issues of the United States of America. I say here, as the chair of the Appropriations Committee, I am ready to negotiate. I am ready to meet, to compromise, to see how we can have our domestic and defense discretionary spending done in a way that begins to reduce our public debt but will also have a progrowth way of public investments, making sure our country is safe, that we are building roads, building the superinformation highway, educating our young people, and doing research and development. I know my time is up, but I believe very strongly that we have to solve our problems. I am ready to say to the other side of the aisle that I am ready to work together. That is because I have done it in the past. We actually like doing it, for us pragmatists to get into a room, solve problems, give and take, and actually learn from each other. I could give many examples of that. Right now we need to set the example for the world that we are the greatest deliberative body. We have to get back to deliberating instead of delaying. Please, for the House, pass the continuing funding resolution. For the Senate, limit your objection to the Budget Committee going into conference. Let's reopen the government, let's pay our bills, and sit down and negotiate in a way worthy of a great country, and let's honor the Constitution of the United States.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I rise to speak as the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, who would like to reopen government and have our committee get back to regular order to be able to move our appropriations bills, to be able to debate them on the floor, amend them on the floor, and go to conference to resolve either fiscal or other issues we might have with the House. But we can't do it because we are in lockdown politics. There is much about where we find ourselves that is very frustrating to me. One of the main ones is the fact that the tea party Republicans are out there saying things that simply are not accurate. Tea party Republicans say President Obama won't negotiate. That is not true. Tea party Republicans are saying Democrats in the Senate won't negotiate. That is not true. Tea party Republicans say the Senate has not moved appropriations bills. That is not true. The Appropriation Committee has. Tea party Republicans say the House doesn't have the votes to reopen the government. That is not true. And tea party Republicans say the debt limit is not a big deal. That is not true. So let me elaborate on these point by point. Tea party Republicans say President Obama won't negotiate. The President has negotiated time and time again. He had a framework for a grand bargain in his 2014 budget. Read it. Let the print speak for itself. He had $1.8 trillion of deficit reduction over 10 years, including $400 billion in health care savings, $200 billion in savings from mandatory programs, $200 billion in further discretionary cuts in strategic funding and discretionary spending. And, yes, he would even change the cost-of-living calculation for Social Security. But the Republicans couldn't take yes for an answer. Here was Obama, here was his budget, here is what he was offering--to reduce debt, to take on mandatory spending, to take on discretionary spending. They couldn't take yes for an answer. It included items in there I didn't agree with, but they were to be negotiated, to be discussed. Since he became President, the deficit has gone down by 50 percent, from $1.4 trillion in 2009 to an estimated $700 billion in 2013. High? Yes. But cut in half. Now let's go to this President who they say won't negotiate. He negotiated in December of 2012 on a fiscal cliff deal. He wanted a 2- year delay in sequester, but we got 2 months. He wanted tax cuts for the wealthy to be eliminated above $250,000. He agreed to an estate tax exemption. He wanted a $3.5 million exemption, the Republicans wanted $5 million. He said OK. The 2-percent Social Security payroll tax was ending without offsetting stimulus provisions. He gave and we supported him. Now they say he won't negotiate. Speaker Boehner says, we just want to have a conversation. That is what the President did. What were those summits at Andrews Air Force Base? I thought that was going to be kumbaya. The President has had private one-on-one meetings, and nothing has come from that. Then he did a larger charm offensive--he had dinner with Republicans both at the White House and at different restaurants around town. Nobody seems to be able to take yes for an answer. This is the President who has invited people to the White House, invited leadership to play golf with him to build relationships, he has had dinner there. But instead of having lunch with the President, they want to have his lunch--over and over again. The President has expressed a willingness continually to negotiate. And where are we now? We need to reopen the government. The House needs to pass the Senate clean short-term CR and raise the debt limit. Once it is open for business, we can talk about other matters. Now let's go to tea party Republicans saying Democrats won't negotiate. Senate Democrats have tried to negotiate on the budget since we passed it on March 23. We were here for a marathon session led by Senator Murray--vote after vote, amendment after amendment--and we passed a budget resolution. The rules of engagement and the rules for dispute resolution in the Congress are, take what one body passes, like the Senate, and meet with the House in a conference. Senator Murray was ready to go. She asked permission--which she has to do under the rules of the Senate--to have her budget conference to hammer out the budget with Paul Ryan and other House Members. Nineteen times since March 23 Senator Murray has stood on this floor and asked for the ability to negotiate with the House. Nineteen times she was blocked by six tea party Republicans. Nineteen times, using the rules to protect the voice of the minority--which I understand they used not only their voice but what was used to protect them to prohibit the Senate from meeting with their House counterparts. So Senate Democrats want to negotiate. There is Paul Ryan. There is Patty Murray. Let's have the budget conference and hammer it out. The Democrats have been ready to negotiate on a budget since March 23, 2013. Let's have a conversation? We have been trying to have that conversation since March. Who has stopped us? Harry Reid didn't stop Patty Murray. Chuck Schumer didn't stop the Budget Committee. Barbara Mikulski is not stopping it. Six tea party Republicans have stopped the ability of the Senate from going to the House to negotiate a budget. Free the Budget Committee. Why is that so important? Because they not only come up with an overall budget in discretionary spending, mandatory spending, and revenues, but they put a cap on us appropriators. One of the outcomes of a budget agreement is they set the total amount of money the Appropriations Committee can spend on discretionary spending. To the shock of everybody, there is actually a cap on discretionary spending established by the Budget Committee. That has been the rule of the Budget Act going back to the 1970s. I would accept a cap agreed upon in a duly constituted process established by the rules of the House and the Senate--which is, we pass a budget, we meet in conference, we come back and give the appropriators what they call the 302(a)--the total cap we can spend--we take a look at it, and we meet and we follow the law. It also says what revenue should be and then total mandatory spending. So when we hear Democrats won't negotiate--the Democrats have negotiated. Going to this situation where we know the fiscal year expires October 1, the Senate put forth a bill. It came out of the Appropriations Committee. It was really, as the Chair, at my suggestion we would have a short-term funding resolution so we could deal with issues such as debt limit, canceling sequester for 2 years, and what our funding as a cap should be for 2014--short term, no new money, but a goal of getting us to canceling the sequester, following what the Budget Committee would set as the cap on us. In order to get there, I was willing to compromise. I didn't want to. I felt it was too harsh, too rough on important discretionary spending. But sometimes you have to negotiate and compromise. So I was willing to compromise in order to get to negotiations. What was the compromise? The House has a level of $986 billion. It follows fiscal 2013 at the sequester level, meaning reduced by over $100 billion. I thought that $986 billion was too low. The Senate bill was $1.058 trillion. That is over a $70 billion difference. But that is what a conference is. That is what negotiation is. So in order to get us across the dome into negotiations, I was willing to compromise, particularly on very important domestic spending. The liberals who want to fund Head Start, who want to fund NIH--well, maybe we are not liberals. Maybe we are just Americans and, I believe, friends on the other side of the aisle--we were ready to go. So in my mind, as an appropriator, I have already compromised just to get us into the room. But they won't even take up that bill. They won't take up the bill that Speaker Boehner said he would pass if we agreed to their number--$986 billion--to get us into the room to talk. If you tell the Senate: If you agree with us on this, just to get a short-term negotiation going, we will pass it, and then you don't, why should we believe it will be any different? But as the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, I am ready to negotiate. I am ready to compromise. I have reached out to my House counterpart, the chair of Appropriations. We have a marvelous, civil, candid relationship. We are ready to go to work. We differ on money. There is no doubt. The chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Congressman Hal Rogers, is a wonderful gentleman, but I will tell you he is a rock-ribbed, no-nonsense fiscal conservative. But that is OK by Senator Barb because that is what compromise is. That is doing what Colin Powell asked us to do: Let's talk things over. Let's find some sensible center. Let's make sure we run the U.S. Government in a smart, frugal, effective way. That is what it would take. We are ready to do it, but we need--I need Speaker Boehner to pass the short-term CR so we can even get into the room to do this. So when you say Senate Democrats will not negotiate or will not compromise, it is not true. Also, I heard the junior Senator from Kentucky say that the Senate has not approved appropriations bills. The Appropriations Committee, despite being hamstrung by not having a budget, reported 11 appropriations bills. Eight of them were supported by Republicans. By August 1, our Appropriations Committee had marked up every single bill except one, Interior. We had marked them up with bipartisan support. Eight of them had bipartisan support; three did not: Labor-HHS, Financial Services, and Legislative Branch. Why did we not get that? Because the Labor-HHS bill and Financial Services play a role in funding ObamaCare. There we go again. Don't do anything that would fund ObamaCare. There we go again. I am so fed up with those riders, those poison-pen riders. We could have done that to them. We chose not to. I would like to see the comprehensive immigration bill passed. I didn't put any riders on the appropriations bills coming out of the Senate. I would have liked to have seen a farm bill. That has been worked on so hard by Senator Stabenow, the Senator from Michigan, and Senator Roberts, the Senator from Kansas--they worked wonderfully on a bipartisan farm bill. It was something to be proud of in the Senate. I would have liked to have attached that to the continuing. But we decided no riders, nothing cute, nothing clever, no earmarks, nothing like that--straightforward money bills ready to go to conference. We could not get it, but they are passed. They are passed in the Appropriations Committee and we are waiting to get to work. The Republicans, the tea party Republicans say they do not have the votes in the House to reopen government. Give it a chance. Put the vote to the floor. If we win, government is reopened. If we lose, at least we offered a suggestion and we can go back to the drawing board. But the solution to reopening the government lies on Speaker Boehner's desk. He says he wants to have a conversation. We say pick it up, have the vote. That puts the conversation to work for a short-term funding resolution. We say to our six Republican Senators who have blocked the Budget Committee, let the Budget Committee go to conference. Let Senator Patty Murray and Congressman Paul Ryan meet to resolve these issues. Let's follow the regular order. Let's get back to the way this government and this country should function. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise to respectfully say that we in the Senate and we in the Congress have to do what our constituents elected us to do and what the Constitution requires us to do: keep the United States Government open and make sure the United States of America pays its bills. To do that, we are open to negotiation and examining a variety of ideas, but the main idea is to go through the regular order in the committee process. We can keep the government open and we can meet our responsibility on the public debt if we embark upon two solutions and they are in the hands of the other party. We call upon the House to pass the Senate continuing funding resolution that would reopen government and keep it going until November 15. It is not a long-term solution. If we get to it right now, we will fund it at 2013 levels, acknowledging the sequester level. That was a big compromise. I compromised, as the chair of the Appropriations Committee, to move that continuing funding resolution. It was $70 billion less than what I wanted, but in order to get us in a room and get the conversation going and the negotiations going, I was willing to compromise. I call upon the House to pass that. I call upon the Senate Republicans who have objected to going to the Budget Committee to lift their objection so we can take the Senate-passed budget and go to conference so we can get a budget. Why is this important? For those who say we have to control spending, there is nobody who disputes that, but the way we control spending is to go through the regular budget process. I say to many of my colleagues who might not understand the Budget Control Act and I say to the American people who are listening, the way to control discretionary spending is to pass a budget that sets a cap on what the appropriators can spend in domestic spending. I heard the wonderful Senator and distinguished war hero from Arizona John McCain ask us to get to it today. I agree. Let's get to it today and lift the objection for Senator Murray, the chair of the Budget Committee, to take appointed conferees so they can negotiate on the budget. I say to my colleagues--again, to explain the Budget Control Act--we appropriators are not wild spenders. We appropriators can't go rogue in terms of wild runaway spending. We have a budget cap imposed upon us through a budget process and something called a 302(a), but we can't get the cap on spending unless the Budget Committee is able to move. This is very serious. I have the high honor of representing the State of Maryland, and I see my colleague from Maryland, Senator Cardin, on the floor. We represent 5\1/2\ million people and a lot of civilian agencies. I note also on the floor are the distinguished Senators from Virginia, both of whom are former Governors of Virginia. Between the four of us, we represent the largest concentration of Federal employees in the world. We represent Federal employees from the Department of Defense to the National Institutes of Health, to the National Institute of Standards and Technology. There is a rollcall of honor in service and duty that makes the United States a stronger country, a stronger economy, and so on. When we speak about government, we know what we are talking about, and we know what is going on. Many have spoken about opening NIH. I want to open NIH. NIH, which is a clinical hospital, is not accepting new patients. This week 200 people have been turned away. Children in the United States of America were turned away. It is not just Barb Mikulski talking, the Washington Post reported on a lady who has cancer and wants to come to NIH, but she can't get into a clinical trial because it is closed down. They say: Senator Barb, open NIH. But we have to open the rest of the government. Right now the Centers for Disease Control has a substantial number of its workforce furloughed. Having the CDC closed constitutes a danger to public health. Right this minute in 18 States, 278 people have been sickened by salmonella. Thank God there have been no deaths, but it is making people very sick. We don't have CDC on the job to track diseases and alert the public health departments around the United States of America so they can stand sentry to protect people against salmonella. Open the CDC. Open the whole government. Just this week, in our own metropolitan area, a worker was killed trying to service the Metro. This should be under investigation. There was one death and several injuries. There was a bus crash in Tennessee, but right this very minute the National Transportation Safety Board has the majority of their people furloughed. They can't investigate the Metro accident, and they can't investigate the bus crash in Tennessee. A few weeks ago Senator Cardin and I were informed that a person had a terrible accident on the Bay Bridge in which a car went over the side of the bridge. We asked for an investigation to make sure our bridge is safe. That was under way, but now it is going to be delayed. Let's take our FBI. Our FBI agents are on the job. They are being paid with IOUs. A group of FBI agents, called Voices from the Field, said to us, their U.S. Government: Guess what. We don't have gas for our cars. The FBI does not have gas for its cars. The agents' gas allowance is limited to 200 miles per week, and they can't even buy gas out of their own pocket. Not only is the FBI running out of gas, I think we are running out of gas here. The way we fuel our tanks and get America running and rolling again is to reopen government. The way we reopen government is for Mr. Boehner, the Speaker of the House, in his job as Speaker, to bring up the vote on reopening the government and vote on the Senate-passed resolution. We say to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to lift their objection to the Budget Committee going to conference so the Budget Committee can come up with a budget with their caps on domestic discretionary spending. We will cap all discretionary spending. We appropriators will abide by the cap. We will not have runaway spending, and we will not go rogue. We will follow the rules, but I think we all need to follow the rules. Under the statutory requirement of the Budget Control Act, they were supposed to bring the budget back April 15. We passed one on March 23 and we have been waiting and waiting. I wish to join with my colleague from Arizona. Let's get to it. Let's get the job done. Let's reopen government. Let's pay our bills. I am willing to negotiate. I am willing to compromise. I yield the floor.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I ask that the Senate stand in recess until 2:15.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Levin be the next Democratic speaker following Senator Schumer's remarks.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Before I go into my commends, I want to express my thanks to the Capitol Police, to the Secret Service, and to all who responded to yesterday's pretty scary and dramatic incident. I also want to express my hope that the injured Capitol Police officer quickly and fully recovers, and to the little girl who has now been left without her mother--I hope that as this great tragedy unfolds, we give support to the people who have suffered. My colleague from Texas has laid out a vision of how he would like to see the day end. He would like to see the day end with funding for VA, NIH, and with the Park Service open, and I think there was one more item, but I will stick with those three--NIH, FDA and VA. He would like to see them open for business at the end of the day. I have a different vision for the end of the day. At the end of the day today, I would like to see the House of Representatives consider and vote on the Senate-passed continuing funding resolution that would reopen the entire Federal Government and keep it open--not for a long term because we have fiscal issues through November 15--at fiscal year 2013 levels. At the end of the day, if they took up the Senate-passed resolution and actually voted on it, the Federal Government would be open. At the end of the day, people would actually be back on the job, getting paid for the job they signed up to do, and we would have the Government of the United States of America working the way it should. At the end of the day, it means the Capitol Hill police officers who were at their duty stations would get their pay. Now they are working without pay. Under my vision of America, if we open the entire U.S. Government, it means FBI agents who are currently working and doing their job protecting America would be paid. Right now, FBI agents and other Federal law enforcement are working for IOUs. Those very FBI agents we count on are using their own money to put gas in the cars they need to use to go after the bad guys or the bad girls. So under the Mikulski recommendation that was passed by the Senate, at the end of the day, FBI agents would be paid and they wouldn't have to use their own money to put gas in their cars. That is what my vision of the end of the day is. We have to reopen government. The cynical strategy of the other side, given with ruffles and flourishes and pomp--self-righteously standing up for our veterans, opening our national parks, and funding NIH--really is hollow. It would be great if they actually understood how government works. Let's take the VA disability claim process. In order to get your disability benefits, your eligibility is determined not only by the VA but with information you get from the civilian workforce at DOD, from the Social Security Administration headquartered in Woodlawn, MD--where 9,000 Federal employees are furloughed--or you would get it from the Internal Revenue Service--also headquartered in Maryland, where 5,000 Federal employees are furloughed. So if we reopened the government, at the end of the day, yes, veterans would get their benefits, but they will get them because not only is the VA open but so is Social Security, and the civilian workforce will be working at DOD and the people who work at the Internal Revenue Service will be there making sure all the paperwork is done in the way it should be. That is what the end of the day should look like. My colleague from Texas talks about how he would like to reopen NIH. Oh, boy, so would I. Seventy-one percent of the people at NIH right this minute are furloughed. He wants to, at the end of the day, open NIH. So do I. But I also know that after they do their research and they have engaged in all of that, our private sector comes in and begins to develop the products, and they need to take those great ideas--the great ideas that turn into the new products that will save lives and create jobs in the United States--to the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration. So at the end of the day, we want to help NIH stay open, to find the cures for the diseases we want them to find, but we also want the private sector inventing the products to be able to take those great ideas and turn them into what can save lives here and to be able to sell them around the world because they have been certified as safe and effective. So at the end of the day, I would like to open the FDA. But I don't want to do it one agency at a time. I want to reopen the entire Federal Government. It seems that whenever we now shame them with regard to the reality of the closing of a particular agency, they then decide that agency is important and the House then passes a bill. I don't want shame, I don't want blame, and I don't want political games. I want the Government of the United States of America to be open. Now let's go to another agency. They haven't even talked about some of these other agencies. Let's take the weather service. Right now storm clouds are gathering not only here in Washington, DC, over politics, but they are gathering in the Southeast. A hurricane is on its way. The weather service is also in Maryland. Eight hundred people are supposed to be on their job. I was there during another hurricane, just a few months ago. Last October, I was there while they were at their duty station for Hurricane Sandy. We watched this hurricane come. It was devastating. We all recall how devastating it was. In my own State, my mountain counties were hit by a blizzard, and down over on the eastern shore, they were hit by the hurricane, wiping out whole communities and neighborhoods, some people owning family homes and farms that go back generations. Those very weather service people are furloughed. They are absolutely furloughed. The weather service is calling them back, but they are going to be working without pay. Let me put a human face on what I am talking about. Yesterday I spoke to Amy Fritz. She works at the weather service. She has two master's degrees, one in meteorology and the other as a physical oceanographer. Her job is to predict storm surges coming from the hurricane. Her work helps to predict how walls of water will come ashore and knowing where that is going to happen, what is going to happen, and how we can begin to protect ourselves so that while we try to save property we can definitely provide protection for lives. Amy is the primary breadwinner in her family. She is now not getting paid. She has $130,000 in student loans so she could get that great education. And she wanted that great education because she thought: I can serve America. I can be a good scientist and a great American. Well, at the end of the day, I want the weather service open. At the end of the day, I want Amy getting paid. At the end of the day, I want the entire Federal Government open, not just whatever agency emerges as part of their strategy. Every part of the Federal Government somewhere is playing an essential part in the lives of people in this country and to the communities which they serve. Last night there was something called the ``Sammie'' Awards. These are awards given to Federal employees because of their outstanding service. They have either saved lives or they have saved money. Well, let me tell you, there was one Federal employee at the National Institutes of Standards. He has a new way of being able to protect us against fires. Another Federal employee, who has also been furloughed, has come up with how to save $1 billion. Employee after employee. I say to all the Federal employees who might be watching: At the end of the day, I think you are important. At the end of the day, whatever job you do, I want you to do it well. I want you to strive for competence and excellence. But I want to do my job well. I extend my hand to the other side of the aisle, as I have done repeatedly during the year I have chaired this Committee on Appropriations. I have negotiated, I have compromised, and I will continue to do the same, because at the end of the day I want the Federal Government open doing the job those people were trained to do and that we hired them to do. I want the Federal employees to be able to be at their job, doing the duty they signed up for. Every job has an important mission, whether you are a meat inspector, a poultry inspector, or you work at the weather service. So we can continue to do this, where they send over to us one program at a time. My gosh. Once again, we are wasting time. And where is our standing in the world? At the end of the day, I want us to be respected. I want us to be respected. What do they think about us around the world? In hearing after hearing, there is a lot of hand- wringing and chest-pounding over what we need to do about China, but China isn't doing this to us. We are doing it to ourselves. There is no foreign predator attacking our Federal Government, we are just defunding it. That is what a shutdown is. We are not funding the Federal Government. This is not the way the United States of America should be operating. I know the calls I am getting from the over 100,000 Federal employees I represent, and they want to be on their job. It is not only they want to get paid, they actually want to work. And you know, they are prohibited from taking anything home where they could be working. This is terrible. So at the end of the day, let us find a new way. At the end of the day, let us find a new way to keep the government open. At the end of the day, let us be proud of ourselves and let the Federal Government be reopened. I once again conclude my remarks by saying to the House of Representatives: Please, take up the Senate's continuing funding resolution that would reopen the Federal Government right away and get us at the desk so that we could negotiate further fiscal compromises. That is the way I would like to see the day end. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise to speak in morning business. How much time remains?

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise today in a twofold role. No. 1, I am here under my constitutionally designated responsibility as the Senator from Maryland, duly elected and duly certified. I love representing Maryland. We have 5\1/2\ million of the most wonderful, patriotic, hard-working, philanthropic, community-oriented people you can have. I also love representing Maryland because in my State we have one of the largest concentrations of civilian agencies in America. They have wonderful names such as the National Institutes of Health, and the National Institutes of Standards and Technology that helps to set the standards that enable the private sector to be able to develop the products they can sell around the world. We are home to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. We are home to the Consumer Product Safety Commission that looks at a variety of things from children's toys to the safety of our mattresses to make sure they are not flammable. I could go on listing those agencies: the Census Bureau, the National Weather Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, which helps to keep the seafood industry safe and operational. I have a lot of Federal employees, and they are asking me: What are they doing? What I am telling them is that the other side--one faction in one party in one House of government--is prohibiting a reopening of our government because of their failure to take up the Senate continuing funding resolution, which would reopen government for 6 weeks while we work out our fiscal problems. Their solution is to do this piecemeal. Piecemeal does not work. We cannot do this one agency at a time. Weren't we proud of our World War II veterans and how plucky and spunky they were when they essentially broke the line to be able to see a memorial in their honor? Absolutely. When the National Park Service put that ban up around it, they were operating under the orders of what a shutdown is. Now, unofficially, that World War II museum is open. But while we say, aren't we proud of our veterans--Yes. Don't blame the National Park Service for closing the World War II memorial. Blame the others for shutting down government. Our veterans--who wanted to see the memorial which salutes them, the greatest generation who fought World War II--should not have to worry about their own government. Then the other side says: Well, we are going to fund veterans' benefits. We cannot fund veterans' benefits without reopening Social Security and the IRS. I have looked and investigated and worked with my committee on why the veterans had a backlog for disability benefits. One of the ways claims are processed is they not only have to get what the veteran says, but they have to get paperwork from the Social Security Administration and from the Internal Revenue Service to be able to process the claim. They can beat the drum, raise the flag, sound the bugle all that they want, to say they want to fund veterans' benefits, but unless the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service are reopened, they are still placing our veterans at a disadvantage. We need to reopen the whole government. While they are doing their piecemeal approach, they are so busy showing off and trying to show their pro-defending America stance--they passed a bill to make sure the military gets paid. Sure, what American would not want our troops in harm's way to get paid? We are for that. But they were so fast and so facile and so showbiz, they forgot the National Guard. Now they are coming up with a piecemeal approach to add the National Guard. I love the National Guard. We are the home of the fighting 29th. They were heroes in World War II, and they have been heroes in every war since then. I want to see the National Guard helped, but they are kind of Johnny-come-latelies to the piecemeal approach because in their fast-track, showbiz, showoff approach, they forgot the National Guard. Oh, wasn't that a cool thing to do. I support what Senator Reid just did on each and every one of those piecemeal bills, to add the continuing funding resolution to open all of government. Over the last few days we have shamed them into thinking about the National Institutes of Health. I love the National Institutes of Health. It is in my State. Every day people go to work there to find cures for the dread diseases, such as Alzheimer's and autism, not only for the American people here but also around the world. In a few weeks we will be racing for the cure. Let's race to open government. In their disdain for civilian agencies, NIH was closed down, but now they are coming up with a piecemeal approach to reopen NIH. Do I want NIH open? Absolutely. Over 70 percent of the people who work there have been laid off. Last year NIH announced--because of its research and work with wonderful academic centers and our private sector to develop biotech and pharmaceutical products--that cancer rates in the United States were reduced by 15 percent. With all of that work, they have now been furloughed. Some might say: Senator Barb, do the piecemeal. I would love to. But if NIH workers were here, they would say: If you reopen us, it is a hollow opportunity unless you open the FDA. We do the basic research at our institutes, but somebody has to take that research and make use of it in other medical devices, biotech products, or pharmaceuticals. They then go through clinical trials because in this country we want to be sure that whatever you put on your body or in your mouth to help you is safe and effective. The Food and Drug Administration does that. We can do lots of research, and have brilliant ideas that could lead to new and credible solutions for people in pain, agony, and suffering, but unless we can put it into clinical trials and have it go to the FDA, it is a hollow opportunity. If we're going to reopen NIH, we have to reopen the FDA. And guess what. The Food and Drug Administration is furloughed. We pay a good part of the FDA through fees, such as pharmaceutical fees and medical device fees. But guess what. During the shutdown, the government is prohibited from collecting the fees that it is owed. What is this? This is showbiz politics. This is not pragmatic solutions. We need to reopen government--reopen the entire government--so it can do the job we have authorized them to do, and have the men and women who do that job be able to come back to work. That is why Senator Reid has--instead of cherry-picking individual items--offered the comprehensive solution that would reopen our government. This is not only affecting government workers because government workers actually affect the economy. Right this very minute, the President has been in Rockville, MD. I would have loved to have joined him this morning, but I wanted to be here at my duty station. The President was at Rockville Pike, which is a road in Montgomery County that has some of the greatest civilian agencies in the world clustered around it. He was going to visit the Luis family. They are a minority, woman- owned asphalt contractor. They are a wonderful family and an American success story. They came to this country with just a little money in their pocket but with big dreams in their hearts to have freedom and the opportunity to open a business. They opened an asphalt contracting business which gets most of its business from local, State, and the government for roads. They are the infrastructure people. Not coming up with a way to keep our government open, cancel sequester, and move legislation to fund our physical infrastructure is dramatically affecting them. Around Rockville Pike, there are several agencies, and I have already said their names: The National Institutes of Standards and Technology, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. That is affecting businesses up and down Rockville Pike. People aren't buying their groceries, they are not buying gas. I am going to say more about that in a little while. Remember that Social Security agency I talked about? It is in a neighborhood called Woodlawn in Baltimore. Nine thousand--nine thousand--Social Security workers in Baltimore and around the country have been furloughed. Right near them is the CMS agency which also looks out for our Medicare. A few blocks from Social Security is the FBI field office. Those FBI agents are on the job--on the job--but they are being paid with IOUs. Do my colleagues know that because of what we have had to do with our budget they don't even have gas for the FBI cars? In a recent book called ``Voices From The Field,'' the FBI agents have spoken out about what is happening to them; that when they get in their car to chase a bad guy or gal, they have to pay for their own gas. What kind of government is this, with all that pomp and strut, the ridicule of our Federal employees? Now this shutdown is humiliating our country and humiliating the people who work for our government, and so on. Across this Nation and in my own State, because of thousands of Federal employees being furloughed or paid in IOUs, businesses are hurting. I am the daughter of a small business owner. My father owned a small grocery store. I am the granddaughter of a woman entrepreneur--a wonderful woman of Polish heritage who opened a Polish bakery to be able to help her family. Every day they said, ``Good morning, can I help you?'' I know what it is like to be in the retail food business, and I understand what it is like when your customers are facing the fact that they are unemployed. All of these, mom-and-pop stores to the larger agencies, are being affected. The government shutdown threatens our progress. We know in 1995 and in 1996, it cut our gross domestic product. The shutdown can cost our economy as much as $10 billion a week. Every week the Small Business Administration, because it is shut down, can't process loans or give technical assistance to small businesses. The International Trade Association, which helps our people sell products around the world--and what is left of our manufacturing sector in Maryland has told me how important our foreign commercial service officers are--is shut down. The Department of Labor processes applications for visas, for farms, for seafood processors as in my own State. Businesses typically file for visas 2 or 3 months in advance. Because of the shutdown, it is going to affect everybody from citrus farmers in the South to those people who have New England ski resorts. People might say, Oh, that is a Gucci job. A Gucci job in a New England ski resort? I don't think so. It is very important to Vermont and New Hampshire and the citrus farmers down South. We have to reopen the government. The way we reopen the government is not by a piecemeal approach but by the House taking up the Senate resolution. I have a lot more to say, and I will say it during the day today. I know my colleague from Rhode Island, Senator Reed, is on the floor. He is a member of the Appropriations Committee and a member of the Defense authorization committee. He is a staunch defender of people. He has been so outspoken on the need for student loans. He has also been so outspoken on the need for energy assistance for poor people with the coming winter. He is a defender of America, a graduate of West Point, and he has been a defender of the little guy and the little gal who should have a government on their side. I want to make sure he has a chance to speak, and I will be back later on to speak on the floor again.