Barbara Mikulski

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. During that time, there was not one woman on the Judiciary Committee.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Thank you very much, Mr. President. Mr. President, what is the parliamentary situation?

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to extend the time on the Democratic side for 15 minutes.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Thank you very much. I want to thank my colleagues who have spoken on this amendment, particularly those who oppose the amendment. I come to the floor today with sadness in my heart. I come because over the weekend one of our Maryland National Guards was killed in Afghanistan. He was one of two men working in a building in which he was attacked by someone he trusted at the Interior Service, and it appears that he was assassinated. I talked to his widow. We are sad. We are sad that somebody who went to defend freedom was killed in such a terrible way. I am sad because last night I spoke to a dear friend of mine whose husband is very ill from the ravages of brain cancer, and we remembered so many good times we had together, but those good times don't seem possible in the future. I want so much for her to be with her husband and not think about the consequences of costs and so on. Last night we learned that our very dear friend and colleague, Senator Olympia Snowe, is going to retire not because she is tired but because she is sick and tired of the partisanship. Senator Snowe is not tired. She is sick and tired of the partisanship. And you know what. So am I. We have a highway bill here. We have an unemployment problem. We could solve America's problems and get it rolling again, and if we pass the highway bill--with the appropriate debate on amendments germane to the bill--we could do it. So I am really sad. I am sad that I have to come to the floor to debate an amendment that has no relevance to the highway bill. And I am sad because we are so tied up in partisan politics and scoring political points that we don't look at how we can get our troops out of Afghanistan. How can we make sure we have a budget that can fund the cure for cancer and at the same time make sure any family hit by that dreaded C word doesn't go bankrupt during care? I am devastated that a dear friend and extraordinary public servant is so fed up with how toxic we have become that she chooses not to run for office again. So I want to be serious, and therefore you need to know I am really sad about this, but I also am frustrated about this. So I want to talk about this Blunt amendment because we have heard nothing but mythology, smokescreens, and politics masquerading as morality all day long. Let me tell you what the Blunt amendment is not. It is not about religious organizations providing health care and the government saying what the benefits should be. It is not about affiliated religious organizations and the government saying what the service is to be. This amendment is about nonreligious insurance companies and nonreligious employers. It is about secular insurance companies and it is about secular employers. The Blunt amendment allows that any--any--health insurer or employer can deny coverage for any health service they choose based on something called religious beliefs and moral convictions. Now, there is a body of knowledge that defines religious beliefs, but what is a moral conviction? That is not doctrine. That is a person's personal opinion. A moral conviction, no matter how heartfelt, no matter how sincere, no matter how fully based upon ethical principles, is still a person's personal opinion. So we are going to allow the personal opinions of insurance companies and the personal opinions of employers to determine what health care a person gets. What happened to doctors? What happened to the definition of essential health care? So this is not about religious freedom; this is not about religious liberty because it is not even about religious institutions. So let's get real clear on this Blunt amendment. This amendment is politics masquerading as morality. Make no mistake. The politics is rooted in wanting to derail and dismember the Affordable Care Act and our preventive health care amendment. So what the Blunt amendment does, as I said, is allow any insurer or any employer to deny coverage based on religious beliefs or moral convictions. Well, what that essentially means is this: Let's look at examples. If an employer has a conviction, a personal opinion, against smoking, they can refuse to cover treatment for lung cancer or emphysema. If an employer has a personal opinion that they call a moral conviction that doesn't approve of drinking alcohol, they can refuse to cover any program for alcohol treatment or substance abuse. Let's say there is an employer who doesn't believe in divorce and they say: I will not cover health care for anybody who is divorced because I have a moral conviction against that. Suppose a person says-- there are some schools of thought that say: I have a moral conviction that a woman can only see a woman doctor, and I will not cover anything where she is seen by a male physician. Where are we heading? These are not ridiculous examples. It puts the personal opinion of employers and insurers over the practice of medicine. This is outrageous. This is vague. It is going to end up with all kinds of lawsuits--let's speak about lawsuits. While some have been pounding their chests talking about religious freedom and the Constitution, what is also in the Blunt amendment is this whole idea that gives employers access to Federal courts if they believe they can't exercise the amendment. This is a new lawyers full employment bill. I am shocked because the other party is always trashing lawyers. They are always trashing the trial lawyers associations. Now they have created a whole new right--or an opportunity--for Federal court action, clogging the courts on this particular issue. This is why Americans are so fed up. They want us to focus on health care. They want us to focus on how to lead better lives. Let me talk about how we got here in the first place. Do my colleagues remember why we had health reform legislation? I remember because it still exists: 42 million Americans are uninsured; 42 million Americans are uninsured for health care. This is the fifth anniversary of a little boy in Prince George's County who died because he could not have access to dental care. His infection was so bad, so severe, and there was nobody to see him. His mother was too poor to be able to pay for it. That little boy, in the shadow of the Capitol of the United States, died. Now, that is why we work for the Affordable Care Act. People can call it ObamaCare. I don't care what people call it. I call it an opportunity for the American people to get what a great democratic society should provide. Then, we not only looked at what was uninsured, we also looked at the issues around women. Senator Stabenow held a hearing, and I held a hearing, and guess what we found. Women pay more for their health insurance than men of equal age and equal health status. Nobody said that is a social justice issue. Well, I have a moral conviction about that. I have a really deeply felt moral conviction that if you are a woman, you shouldn't be discriminated against by your insurance company. We also found that women were denied health care because of preexisting conditions. We found that in eight States, if a person was a victim of domestic violence, they were doubly abused--not only by their spouse, but they couldn't get insurance coverage because they said the cost of physical and mental health care would be too much. Well, I had a moral conviction. I had a moral conviction that if you are a victim of domestic violence, you shouldn't be denied health care. I had a real strong moral conviction about that. Then, during my hearing, I heard a bone-chilling story. It wasn't just me; it was all who attended. There was a woman who testified that she had a medically mandated C-section. Then she was told by her insurance company, in writing, that she had to get sterilized in order to receive health insurance. The insurance company was mandating sterilization for her to get coverage. I nearly went off my chair. At that hearing there was a representative of the insurance company. They had no moral reaction to that. They had no moral reaction to that. I had a reaction. I had a really big one. That is why we got the amendments we did, where you could not deny health care on the basis of preexisting conditions. So I have a lot of moral convictions about this: that in the United States of America no child should die because of the absence of health care; no woman should be discriminated against in the health care system; and, at the same time, a person needs to be able to have the opportunity to get the services their doctor says they need. The other thing on our agenda was to not only save lives, but to save money, and we knew that prevention was the way to go. I came to the floor and offered the preventive health amendment. It was a great day. Many women spoke for it. It was primarily oriented toward women, but it was going to cover men as well. It was going to make sure that early detection and early screening would save lives. We spoke about the necessity for mammograms. We spoke about the necessity for screening for diabetes and heart disease and the kinds of things that, if detected early, could save lives. That bipartisan amendment passed. Then, after it was passed, and after the bill passed, the Secretary of Health and Human Services said: Preventive benefits should be defined not by politicians and not by a bureaucrat at HHS but by the medical community. So she requested the Institute of Medicine to define the preventive health care benefit. The preventive benefits we are talking about that Senator Blunt says an employer doesn't have to provide came from the Institute of Medicine. It didn't come from the Congress. It didn't come from bureaucracy at HHS. It came from a learned, prestigious society that we turn to--the Institute of Medicine. This is what they said are the essential preventive services that would save lives as well as save money. So this is where this came from. Now, some are on the floor saying: If you have a moral conviction against what the Institute of Medicine says is an essential benefit, you could go ahead and do it. Again, we are not talking about religious institutions who are employers; we are not talking about religious-affiliated institutions; we are talking about nonreligious institutions. Ordinarily I would call this amendment folly, but this is a masquerade. I think it is just one more excuse to opt out of the Affordable Care Act. It is one more excuse to opt out of ObamaCare. They want to opt out, but I think it is a cop-out, and we have to stop masquerading that this is about morality or the first amendment or someone's religious beliefs. So I hope we defeat this Blunt amendment. Most of all, I wish we could get back to talking about the serious issues affecting the American people. I am going to bring those troops home. I sure want to find that cure for cancer and help come up with the resources so we can do it. I am going to be sure that no little boy ever goes through what Deamonte Driver and his family had to suffer. Let's defeat the Blunt amendment. Let's get back to the highway bill. Let's get America rolling--and how about let's start functioning as an institution that focuses on civility and finding the sensible center that America has been known for in other years when we had the ability to govern. I yield the floor.

Ms. MIKULSKI. This is not new. The discrimination against women has been around a long time. I consider discrimination against women one of the great social justice issues, whether you are a secular humanist or you have core beliefs in an organized religion. I found not only the picture appalling, but I want to reiterate what we have been saying here: There is a systematic war against women. We do not get equal pay for equal work. We are often devalued in the workplace. We worry more about parking lot slots for our cars than childcare slots for our children. Then, when it comes to health care, what was so great about the preventive amendment was, first of all, we talked not only about family planning, where women could have the children they knew they could care for, but we talked about prenatal care. We talked about making sure our children had the opportunity for viability and survivability at birth. So, yes, it was both a picture of us not being included, but it shows we need to be able to fight to be heard. The issue is, women's voices are not being heard, and I am saying today the voices of women are being heard and the voices of good men who support us. I am telling you--not you, Senator Boxer, but I am saying out loud--if this Blunt amendment passes, I believe the voices of women will be heard. They will be heard on the Internet. They will be heard in streets and communities. Most of all, they will be heard in the voting booth.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I come to the floor today both volcanic and flabbergasted. I am volcanic that this bill is not fully paid for and that we are using permanent solutions to solve temporary problems. And, I am flabbergasted that Republicans are more willing to protect billionaires than keep our economy rolling and provide a safety net for those going through tough times. We are asked to make an impossible choice. I want to continue the payroll tax holiday. I want to continue unemployment insurance. And I want to stop a pay cut to doctors that care for the injured and infirm. But I will be darned if I agree to pay for it by cutting payments to hospitals that serve the poor and by asking civil servants to take it on the chin when billionaires do not have to contribute a dime. Republicans say they want to cut spending. They say they are serious about reducing the deficit. But the only thing they are serious about is protecting the pampered and prosperous. I will give you an example. Continuing the payroll tax holiday costs about $100 billion. I want to pay for it by cutting tax breaks for billionaires, tax breaks for oil companies, and tax breaks for big agriculture. But Republicans do not want to pay for it at all. The so-called party of fiscal discipline wants to add $100 billion to the deficit before asking billionaires to pay more. Some people might call that hypocrisy. I call it a sham. This bill would block a 27% pay cut to doctors that care for the injured and infirm. I support that but I would like to see a long-term fix to this payment problem and not just a 10-month patch. To pay for this temporary fix, the bill cuts $10 billion to hospitals that provide care to the poor and Medicare patients. We ask doctors and hospitals to care for the most vulnerable and then we say we would not pay the bill. The bill also cuts funds for health prevention activities. Republicans like to call it a ``slush fund.'' Since when did efforts to combat our Nation's highest cost disease and conditions like diabetes, Alzheimer's and heart disease become a ``slush fund''? The bill also cuts laboratory services that diagnose illness. We are cutting the ``good-guy'' institutions to protect the checkbooks of the wealthy. The bill also sticks it to civil servants who are already operating under a 2-year pay freeze. Congress has already balanced the budget on their backs and saved $60 billion over 10 years by freezing their pay. Instead of asking billionaires to sacrifice once it asks more than 2 million middle class civil servants to pay more again. It leaves the hedge fund managers alone and takes from the GS 5 earning $30,000 a year and the GS 7 earning $40,000. Across the country there are 2 million civil servants who work for 300 million Americans every day with honesty, integrity and competency. They keep our food safe, our environment clean, our communities protected and our democracy stable. They are at our borders and airports protecting our safety and at Social Security offices helping seniors get their benefits. They are Nobel Prize winners, they create private sector opportunities and they are the economic engine of Maryland. Despite all of this, civil servants have been the target of unending attacks. They have been downsized, furloughed and shut down. They are enduring pay freezes and broken promises on retirement security. Every great democracy needs a civil service. We have one but we can not keep it if we keep up this toxic environment for our civil servants. I support a payroll tax holiday. I support extending Unemployment Insurance and I support a long-term doc fix. But these items must be paid for. We cannot let corporations and the wealthy walk away again when the middle class gets stuck with the bill.

Ms. MIKULSKI

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

Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, now what is the pending business?

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I wish to claim 10 minutes to speak on behalf of a bill which I hope will return to the Senate today, which is the surface transportation reauthorization bill. I hope we take it up. I hope we actually vote on it, and I hope there are not a lot of extraneous amendments that are not relevant to getting America moving again, creating jobs that result in public safety, a better environment, and people actually working. What I like about the surface transportation reauthorization bill is that, in effect, this could be the only vehicle we have that is a version of the infrastructure bank, a topic on which I know the Presiding Officer has worked assiduously. We need an infrastructure bank. We need to have jobs in construction to build highways, byways, subways, and we can do it, but it looks as though it will be difficult to do. In the meantime, we have a regular order bill, the surface transportation reauthorization bill. This is the bill that Congress reauthorizes every couple of years to do construction on highways, byways, and beltways, and at the same time in the very important area of mass transit, something the gentlelady from New York knows is important since she has one of the busiest subways in America. We have a busy subway called the Metro, and I am going to talk about that in a minute. Right now we must pass this long-term transportation bill to put people back to work, repair our aging roads and bridges and tunnels, keep the public safe, and lower our carbon footprint. This is a bipartisan bill, and it is actually paid for and meets a sense of a frugal government but smart spending. It is time to show the American people that we can govern, that we can actually pass legislation in a regular order, conducting ourselves with civility as we debate our amendments. We have to keep America rolling. This is a jobs bill. One of the best ways to put people to work is through infrastructure projects. It builds America and builds our economy. This bill will contribute to saving over 1.8 million jobs and actually creates new jobs in construction, in the supply chain, and in design and engineering, and all the vendors it supports. In my own home State we estimate that 10,000 jobs will be created if we pass this bill. I cannot speak about this in a more firm and insistent way. When I met with the building trades guys, it was a bleak conversation with the unemployment rate in construction still sky-high. This bill will jump-start the economy. All the people who analyze this type of data say that for every dollar we spend on infrastructure construction, we get $2 in economic output back into our economy through the multiplier effect. Let's do an inventory of why this is a compelling need. We know we have a high unemployment rate and that we are running big debts and we are running deficits. One of the ways to reduce the debt and the deficit is to have people working where they are paying revenue in to the government. We also have an infrastructure deficit. Do you know that right now 700,000 bridges are structurally deficient? That is not a fact, that is a danger zone. Fifty percent of our roads are in need of serious repair. More than 4 million people travel over these bridges every day. This would address that kind of problem. Then there is this whole issue of, again, roads, highways, byways, and beltways. There is also the issue of mass transit. One of the parts of the bill I am most proud of is creating Federal safety standards for the metro systems nationwide. On June 22, 2009, there was a terrible accident in the national capital region. Nine people were killed and 50 more injured in a terrible metro transit accident when a red line train struck another train. The woman who was the conductor on that train tried valiantly to save her passengers. She died as a result. Well, we went to the funerals, we listened to the people, and we always say: We will never forget, but we do. Well, I didn't forget and the Maryland delegation didn't forget. Ben Cardin didn't forget, Chris Van Hollen didn't forget, and Donna Edwards didn't forget. We worked very hard in creating legislation. The first thing we did was listen to the National Transportation Safety Board that gave us recommendations and said there was not only a failure of Metro being fit for duty, but all of the transit systems in America face this kind of risk where there is a failure of technology, the failure of cars to be crash resistant, the failure to have exit doors, and the failure to have a black box. When you look at the Congress, we are the failure. Give us an F because we have safety standards for how you open a bottle cap but not how you open a subway car in a disaster. So it wasn't Senator Barb making up safety rules on her own; we went and listened to the National Transit Safety Board. I put in legislation to give the Federal Transit Administration the authority to establish and enforce national safety standards for Metro. We had aggressive oversight hearings. Metro leadership initially was dragging its axles, but I wouldn't take no for an answer. We shook up the management, we shook up the board, and now I want to shake up the Congress. I want to thank Senator Bob Menendez. He had a parallel bill. I want to thank Tim Johnson, the chair of the committee. They have taken my ideas and have actually done a version of their own, and working together we have come up with a great solution that has bipartisan support. This checklist for change that I insisted on would replace the oldest cars in the fleet. It would develop real-time automatic controls so that technology would have redundancy in it. It would develop a training and certificate program so that the personnel not only know how to operate their cars but what to do in the danger zones. Runaway cars make a great movie. Denzel Washington did that one, but I don't want to see another movie where there is another transit system that went through the horrific accident here in the national capital region. In this checklist for change legislation, working again with Senator Menendez, my colleague Senator Cardin, whom I cannot give enough credit to, our new bill gives the Transportation Secretary, Mr. LaHood, authority to establish and enforce safety standards, and allows Federal funding for these safety improvements. I am pleased that this was inculcated. The story goes one step farther, and this is an example. Last year, through the appropriations, I was able to get funding, working with Senator Murray, to be able to replace the Metro cars, the ones that are old, dated, and cannot withstand all the problems I just enumerated. I am going to tell you the rest of the story as if Paul Harvey were on the floor. A couple of weeks ago during one of our work weeks when we were visiting our constituents, I went to a place called Knorr Brakes in Carroll County, which was once very rural. Knorr Brakes actually makes the brakes for these Metro cars and makes the brakes for Amtrak and makes the brakes for many transit systems in the United States of America. Because of the improvements at Metro, they have been able to hire more people. I wish you could have walked that factory floor with me. It is not your grandfather's factory floor, which was often dark and dangerous. It is clean, uses the best of engineering, a few robots, engineers, with skilled blue-collar workers who are machinists who are working on this very specialized equipment. These brakes have to work, and they are the best in the world. Workers in Maryland are the best in the world. Yes, they are part of a German holding company, so we are ready to be global, and at the same time they are fixing not only Washington's Metro but they are working on transit systems. My whole point is smart funding in the area of infrastructure and in transportation safety creates American jobs. Every time we modernize our transit fleet, we are building railroad cars in the United States of America. Many of those brakes that will go on that car will be made in Maryland by Maryland workers, competing with other American companies. And you know what. That is what it is all about. That is smart funding that creates safety and creates jobs. I want to thank the Banking Committee for including this, and I also want to thank all three committees: Banking, Environment, and Public Works, under the leadership of Senator Boxer and Senator Inhofe, Senator Baucus, Senator Grassley, Senator Tim Johnson, and my colleague from Alabama, Senator Shelby. This could be a great day. This could be a great day or a great week. But, yes, while we are working on the payroll tax and its temporary holiday, the real thing we could get done this week is to pass this legislation. America will be safer, our economy will grow, and it will be a win-win situation. Madam President, I want to thank you for your kind attention. I want to thank all my colleagues who worked on a bipartisan basis. We actually listened to each other. I had a set of ideas. Others had as well. Some had flashing lights about costs, we went back and forth, and that is the subject of negotiation, and we were able to do it. I think we have come up with a great bill for surface transportation. We have come up with a great bill for transit safety, and I am going to be happy to vote for it. Let's get Congress rolling so we can get our economy rolling. I yield the floor. I note the absence of a quorum.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I support a clean extension of the FAA bill. But I cannot support the conference report that's before the Senate today because it includes a radical provision to undermine our rail and airline workers' right to organize. The FAA bill is a jobs bill that keeps air safety employees and construction workers at airports on the job. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, every dollar spent on transportation isn't just an investment in concrete and steel, it is an investment in our workers that creates jobs. Reauthorizing this bill keeps thousands of Federal employees and tens of thousands of construction workers on the job and not worrying about whether they will receive a paycheck. A reauthorization of the FAA bill means 4 years of stability. It will modernize and upgrade our air traffic control system. And it will provide billions in investments to improve our airports with new runways, aprons, lighting, and land purchases. A clean FAA bill saves jobs, protects the flying public, and stimulates our economy. But this FAA bill comes with a poison pill labor provision that was added in Conference. I cannot vote for such a radical provision that makes it more difficult for rail and airline workers to organize and sets a dangerous precedent of opening the Railway Labor Act up for hostile anti-worker amendments on unrelated must-do transportation bills. This is just another example in a persistent pattern of attacking workers' rights. The Republicans have made it clear that the price of their support for a much-needed investment in our air infrastructure is to undermine our workers' right to organize and decide whether they want to be represented by a union. During the Senate's debate of the FAA bill last year, the Republicans tried to strip hardworking Transportation Security Administration workers of their collective bargaining rights. Last summer, the FAA shut down for 2 weeks because the House Republicans insisted on a provision to make it harder for rail and airline workers to form unions. Now, we are days away from the expiration of the latest of 23 short-term extensions to the FAA bill, and the conference report includes another attack on workers' rights. The Republicans need to get off of it with labor, and get on with the business of creating jobs. Unions play a vital role in ensuring safe and fair working conditions. We encourage the right to organize around the world. We need to encourage it on our own FAA bill. Our rail and airline workers are hard at work every day protecting Americans. They keep us safe and secure as we travel. In return, they deserve a decent wage and safe working conditions. They deserve to have their right to organize and negotiate protected. And they deserve our thanks and respect. I support a reauthorization of the FAA bill, but I am not prepared to trade away our workers' rights to get it done. I cannot support this conference report.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, what is the parliamentary situation?

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I claim 10 minutes of the Democratic majority time. I come to the floor to speak about women's health. I come to speak about the issue of prevention, and I want everybody to fundamentally remember what we debated and what we did in the health care bill. For the first time in a long time, our Nation is talking about women's health. Am I glad to hear that. It has mostly been happening on the morning talk shows and on the front pages of our newspapers. But, unfortunately, too much of the conversation isn't about women's health; it is politics disguised as women's health. What should we be talking about when it comes to women? We should be talking about the top killers of women: cancer--that dread ``C'' word-- including breast cancer, cervical cancer, lung cancer. They are the highest killers of women: lung cancer, cervical cancer, and breast cancer. Then there are the silent killers of women: undetected diabetes as well as the consequences of heart and vascular disease. What did we talk about in the health care bill to deal with these issues? We talked about the fact that we needed preventive services, that we believed in early detection, that we believed in screening for early detection so we could identify those consequences that would negatively impact women in terms of their health care. One of the things we know is that many women don't have health insurance at all. Seventeen million are uninsured. Women are most likely to neglect their treatment because of cost. Women of childbearing age are also even more at risk because they are performing jobs that tend to be starting out and they don't pay for health insurance. We tackled a lot of this in the health care bill. I am so proud that one of the first things we did was end general discrimination in health care--the punitive practices of insurance companies discriminating against women by charging more for women of the same age and the same health status as men. But we came together, united, and passed it as part of the affordable health care act, and we ended gender discrimination. Then we saw that simply being a woman meant being treated as a preexisting condition. I held a hearing about this that was bone- chilling, when we listened to how women were discriminated against and aspects that had happened to them were viewed as a preexisting condition. In eight States if a woman was a victim of domestic violence, she could not get health insurance. In another bone-chilling story, which was breathtaking, a woman testified at our hearing that because she had a C-Section, her insurance company told her they would drop her from their insurance plan unless she got sterilized. That was in the hearing. She had a letter from her insurance company. We were aghast on both sides of the aisle, regardless of how one feels about some of these reproductive issues. Nobody felt that should happen in America. So the people on the committee, led by myself, said: We can't have that. So we have ended discrimination against women getting health care on the basis of preexisting conditions. We wanted to go further, and one of the issues we looked at was that of prevention. This is a subject of great debate. The very first amendment on the Senate floor during the health care debate was one to add preventive health care benefits. I offered an amendment, and the Senator from Alaska, Ms. Murkowski, offered a counteramendment. Her amendment was terrific. She had every preventive service that I would have ever loved. CBO, though, scored it at something such as $50 million. The CBO's score sunk the Murkowski amendment, but the Mikulski amendment prevailed, in which we said we will leave it to the Institute of Medicine to determine what would be some of these amendments for women. So guess what we have. In our preventive health amendment, which is now the subject of such debate, such controversy and, unfortunately, such misinformation, our amendment said this: First of all, if a woman is over 50, she gets a free yearly mammogram, one of our highest risks. Second, if a woman is over 40, she gets an annual well woman preventive care visit. This then goes to the screenings that then go to the highest risk for the highest diseases we have. We have early detection and early screening. For young women who are pregnant, we guarantee they can be screened for diabetes, but also in our prevention amendment we provided for maternity services. We provide for maternity services so these women can get proper prenatal care. Working with their doctor, we can ensure the health of the mother and survivability and the ability to carry her pregnancy to term. We looked out for those maternity benefits. IOM also said that as part of prevention we should add contraceptive coverage. That was a recommendation not of Senator Barb and not of Senator Jeanne Shaheen; this was a recommendation of the Institute of Medicine. Why do they say that? First of all, there are over 15 or 20 percent of women who need to take birth control in order to deal with the medical issues associated with their menstrual cycles. This isn't the place to go into the biology of being a woman, but for many this is where people long before--young women and adolescents who were not sexually active were experiencing some significant hormonal problems. So it is not always about being sexually active. So this whole thing about the preventive amendment being all about birth control is so exaggerated, so overblown, so out of context with what we wanted to do. I am shocked and--I am just shocked. We looked at our bill, in addition to my amendment, and we included preventive services for men and women, those services that affect both sexes, including colorectal screening for adults over 50. That also includes prostate screening for men. We have diabetes and high blood pressure screening. There is also the ability to do alcohol misuse screening which, in many instances, is an undetected and silent killer not only of lives but of families. So one of our major thrusts was prevention. We won maternity benefits so a mother can be safe and well herself and be able to carry her pregnancy to term in a way that ensures the health of both the mother and the child, when the child is born. The fact that we had these other screenings, including mammograms, prostate cancer, diabetes-- the things that are killers of us all--some of these will close the health disparity gap because so many African-American men face terrible problems with high blood pressure that leads to the terrible consequences of stroke. Diabetes is rampant in our country but particularly rampant among people of color. So that is what we were doing. I find it troubling that instead of focusing on our preventive health services, we are focusing on birth control. Birth control was never the focus of health care reform. It was a recommendation to be included in the benefit that came from the Institute of Medicine. There is another bit of confusion out there about mandating churches to do something against their will. I wish to draw a distinction between what the bill does and mandating the provision of service and providing insurance coverage. The bill does include insurance coverage. But there is no place in the bill that mandates a religious organization provide something against their principle in providing a service. So if you are St. Mary's Hospital, you do not have to give out birth control in your women's health clinic. If you are Notre Dame University or Georgetown University or a Catholic women's college, you do not have to give out birth control in your student health clinic. What the Obama-Sebelius regulations say is that there has to be insurance coverage available, particularly to those who are non- Catholic. For all of us who go to these wonderful institutes and have benefited from their services, they are nondiscriminatory. One does not have to be Catholic to teach at a Catholic college. One does not have to be Catholic to work at a Catholic hospital. One does not have to be Catholic. So these institutions hire people of a variety of religious preferences. I don't want to get into a debate on the first amendment, but I do welcome a debate on what the health care bill did and what it intended. The health care bill, I felt, was one of the greatest social justice initiatives I have participated in in the Senate. It was going to work and organize in an effective way to make sure we were on the road that every American had access to affordable care. Then we removed the barriers that were not only financial but often these discriminatory practices, these punitive practices that often were directed against women and preexisting conditions or in gender discrimination and the way they set their prices. The best care is preventive care, and one of the tools well known in the public health field is these screenings tests that we worked to provide, and we turned to the eminent and distinguished people in learned societies, in this case the Institute of Medicine, to tell us not based on politics but to tell us based on science what the benefits should be, and they added contraceptive coverage. That is the history. I hope it clears up the misinformation. But we did work to move our citizens to greater health care and remove the financial and other societal barriers to getting health care in our society, with a fantastic emphasis on prevention. We have gotten off to the wrong debate and the wrong discussion. Let's get back to talking about how we improve the health care of women and how we can keep moving on our preventive aspects that not only help women but help the men who so love us and support us, and we want to return the favor by making sure they get their screenings too. I yield the floor.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I am proud to introduce the Spending Reductions Through Innovations in Therapies Agenda Act with my good friends and colleagues, Senators Collins, Kerry, Blumenthal, and Warner. This is a bi-partisan and bi-cameral bill that I have worked on with Representatives Markey and Smith and community organizations and leaders such as George and Trish Vradenburg's U.S. Against Alzheimer's. This legislation will help us sprint to the finish line by getting innovative therapies from bench to bedside more quickly for chronic diseases like Alzheimer's. It spurs innovation in advanced research and drug, device, and diagnostics development for chronic health conditions that are leading causes of death as well as the most costly to taxpayers and families. The act puts the focus where it needs to be. It tackles the health problems we are challenged with today and will be faced with in the future if there is inaction. We must conquer these complex health conditions and plug the drain that draws money from our nation's economy and patients, families, and taxpayers checkbooks. It is been over 10 years since a new Alzheimer's drug entered the U.S. market. Eleven industry sponsored clinical trials have failed in recent years. It takes 10 to 15 years to develop a drug and get the FDA gold seal of approval. Each drug that successfully enters the market, costs over $1 billion to develop. This is because of the high failure rates in the ``Valley of Death.'' Currently, 5 million Americans have Alzheimer's and 15 million Americans are caring for a loved one with Alzheimer's. There are no drugs on the market today to delay-onset, prevent, or cure Alzheimer's. Medicare spending for Alzheimer's patients is 3 times higher than Medicare patients without Alzheimer's. Medicaid spending for Alzheimer's patients age 65 and older is 9 times higher. This is unsustainable. Families are left bewildered, bereft, and broke. I know what this is like. My own dear father was one of the 5 million Americans with Alzheimer's. I remember when I would go to visit him. It didn't matter that I was a United States Senator or the Senator who represents the National Institutes of Health. It didn't matter that I could get Nobel Prize winners on the phone. The information that would have made his life easier just wasn't there. My family and I knew about the long goodbye. We lived the 36-hour day. It was devastating for him, heart-breaking to my mother, and heart-wrenching for my sisters and me. What was difficult was not only the disease but that we also felt powerless. All we could do was make my father comfortable. There was no cure. There was no safety net for our family. I vowed to do everything I could. Not just to support research and development in Alzheimer's but also to create a safety net for families. I know it is gut-wrenching to wonder how you'll be able to care for a parent. I have always believed Honor thy mother and father' is a good commandment to live by and a good policy to govern by. We need innovative strategies like the SPRINT program to make sure your brain span lasts your life span. SPRINT speeds the development of drugs and therapies to combat the most deadly and costly chronic diseases. It compresses the product development timeline and increases the volume of drugs in the development pipeline so that priority is given to the most promising drugs. This bill expedites the Food and Drug Administration review process. It helps get more drugs out of the labs and into patient's hands more quickly. This act establishes a new program--the SPRINT Program. SPRINT will develop new therapies to reduce federal health care spending on chronic health conditions like Alzheimer's, diabetes, heart disease and cancer that are the leading causes of death identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In fact, some researchers are already working hard to see if diabetes or heart diseases are associated with Alzheimer's. I have seen first-hand that many Alzheimer's patients have multiple chronic conditions. SPRINT directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to work collaboratively with non-profit investors to identify public and private organizations with expertise in developing therapies for these conditions like a biotech company or an academic health center such as University of Maryland or Johns Hopkins. Prize payments, contracts, grants, or cooperative agreements will be awarded to accelerate development of therapies that have potential to prevent or diagnose, delay onset or cure, and aid recovery or improve health outcomes for Alzheimer's disease and other high-cost conditions. This bill is built on a public-private partnership. We will make a $50 million Federal investment and leverage private capital by raising $2 in private investment for every Federal dollar to combat this problem together. For this small investment we will get huge returns in lives saved and new cures. By making a small investment today we will save billions in future health care spending and long-term care costs. Alzheimer's Association estimates that Alzheimer's alone costs our federal health programs, Medicare and Medicaid, over $183 billion annually. SPRINT is a job creator. Manufacturers in Maryland and other states are on the frontier of discovering new drugs and biologics. By helping patients find new treatments we can also make targeted investments in our innovation economy. Biotech companies are an economic engine in Maryland's economy. SPRINT helps America remain number one in biomedical innovation and job creation. I have a saying, ``each of us can make a difference and together we can make change''. I will keep fighting for a cure for Alzheimer's. I will keep fighting to support our innovative industries in their quest for new therapies and treatments that will help patients globally and create jobs domestically. And I will keep fighting to help families living with Alzheimer's. We are working together because a Congress that works together works the best. We will get this done. Some people want to go to Mars but I want to be in the United States of America when they say ``we found a cure for Alzheimer's.''

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I am proud to introduce the Spending Reductions Through Innovations in Therapies Agenda Act with my good friends and colleagues, Senators Collins, Kerry, Blumenthal, and Warner. This is a bi-partisan and bi-cameral bill that I have worked on with Representatives Markey and Smith and community organizations and leaders such as George and Trish Vradenburg's U.S. Against Alzheimer's. This legislation will help us sprint to the finish line by getting innovative therapies from bench to bedside more quickly for chronic diseases like Alzheimer's. It spurs innovation in advanced research and drug, device, and diagnostics development for chronic health conditions that are leading causes of death as well as the most costly to taxpayers and families. The act puts the focus where it needs to be. It tackles the health problems we are challenged with today and will be faced with in the future if there is inaction. We must conquer these complex health conditions and plug the drain that draws money from our nation's economy and patients, families, and taxpayers checkbooks. It is been over 10 years since a new Alzheimer's drug entered the U.S. market. Eleven industry sponsored clinical trials have failed in recent years. It takes 10 to 15 years to develop a drug and get the FDA gold seal of approval. Each drug that successfully enters the market, costs over $1 billion to develop. This is because of the high failure rates in the ``Valley of Death.'' Currently, 5 million Americans have Alzheimer's and 15 million Americans are caring for a loved one with Alzheimer's. There are no drugs on the market today to delay-onset, prevent, or cure Alzheimer's. Medicare spending for Alzheimer's patients is 3 times higher than Medicare patients without Alzheimer's. Medicaid spending for Alzheimer's patients age 65 and older is 9 times higher. This is unsustainable. Families are left bewildered, bereft, and broke. I know what this is like. My own dear father was one of the 5 million Americans with Alzheimer's. I remember when I would go to visit him. It didn't matter that I was a United States Senator or the Senator who represents the National Institutes of Health. It didn't matter that I could get Nobel Prize winners on the phone. The information that would have made his life easier just wasn't there. My family and I knew about the long goodbye. We lived the 36-hour day. It was devastating for him, heart-breaking to my mother, and heart-wrenching for my sisters and me. What was difficult was not only the disease but that we also felt powerless. All we could do was make my father comfortable. There was no cure. There was no safety net for our family. I vowed to do everything I could. Not just to support research and development in Alzheimer's but also to create a safety net for families. I know it is gut-wrenching to wonder how you'll be able to care for a parent. I have always believed Honor thy mother and father' is a good commandment to live by and a good policy to govern by. We need innovative strategies like the SPRINT program to make sure your brain span lasts your life span. SPRINT speeds the development of drugs and therapies to combat the most deadly and costly chronic diseases. It compresses the product development timeline and increases the volume of drugs in the development pipeline so that priority is given to the most promising drugs. This bill expedites the Food and Drug Administration review process. It helps get more drugs out of the labs and into patient's hands more quickly. This act establishes a new program--the SPRINT Program. SPRINT will develop new therapies to reduce federal health care spending on chronic health conditions like Alzheimer's, diabetes, heart disease and cancer that are the leading causes of death identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In fact, some researchers are already working hard to see if diabetes or heart diseases are associated with Alzheimer's. I have seen first-hand that many Alzheimer's patients have multiple chronic conditions. SPRINT directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to work collaboratively with non-profit investors to identify public and private organizations with expertise in developing therapies for these conditions like a biotech company or an academic health center such as University of Maryland or Johns Hopkins. Prize payments, contracts, grants, or cooperative agreements will be awarded to accelerate development of therapies that have potential to prevent or diagnose, delay onset or cure, and aid recovery or improve health outcomes for Alzheimer's disease and other high-cost conditions. This bill is built on a public-private partnership. We will make a $50 million Federal investment and leverage private capital by raising $2 in private investment for every Federal dollar to combat this problem together. For this small investment we will get huge returns in lives saved and new cures. By making a small investment today we will save billions in future health care spending and long-term care costs. Alzheimer's Association estimates that Alzheimer's alone costs our federal health programs, Medicare and Medicaid, over $183 billion annually. SPRINT is a job creator. Manufacturers in Maryland and other states are on the frontier of discovering new drugs and biologics. By helping patients find new treatments we can also make targeted investments in our innovation economy. Biotech companies are an economic engine in Maryland's economy. SPRINT helps America remain number one in biomedical innovation and job creation. I have a saying, ``each of us can make a difference and together we can make change''. I will keep fighting for a cure for Alzheimer's. I will keep fighting to support our innovative industries in their quest for new therapies and treatments that will help patients globally and create jobs domestically. And I will keep fighting to help families living with Alzheimer's. We are working together because a Congress that works together works the best. We will get this done. Some people want to go to Mars but I want to be in the United States of America when they say ``we found a cure for Alzheimer's.''

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, Senator Kirk and I have introduced the Visa Waiver Program Enhanced Security and Reform Act. This is a piece of legislation near to my heart. For those who have known me, they have known I have fought long and hard for Poland to become free and independent. I think about the dark days of martial law in Poland, when we worked to support the solidarity movement in Poland and remove the yoke of communism. And after Poland emerged from the Iron Curtain, I worked with many of my colleagues to secure Polish democracy and bring them into NATO, securing their future in Western Institutions. This legislation would help provide Poland a path to entry into the visa waiver program. It would eliminate the need for Polish citizens to obtain a visa to travel to America. As the granddaughter of a woman who came to America from Poland over 100 years ago, it would warm my heart to know a grandmother from Gdansk would no longer need a visa to visit her grandchildren in Baltimore. This legislation does much more than just strengthen our relationship with Poland. It is a jobs bill. The visa waiver program makes America open for business for more tourists from allied countries. This can have a profound impact. South Korea entered the VWP in early 2009. In 2010, there was an increase of 49 percent in arrivals to the United States from South Korea, which created $789 million in new spending and supported 4,800 new jobs. If Poland becomes eligible for the visa waiver program and has a similar increase in visitors, it would create $181 million in new spending and 1,500 new jobs. It's good for business and good for the economy. Finally, it would strengthen America's national security by improving how we protect our borders. To participate in the visa waiver program, countries must agree to stronger passport controls, border security, and cooperation with American law enforcement--making it harder for terrorists to use these countries as entry points to the United States. This legislation reinforces the program as an important component of national security by placing member countries on probation if any of the VWP requirements are not met and requiring a country's removal if it does not fulfill its requirements within two years. The legislation also reinstates the Secretary of Homeland Security's Waiver Authority and a new cap on visa refusal rates will be set at no more than 10 percent, allowing the Secretary to recognize those nations that have met U.S. concerns on passport security, law enforcement cooperation, and border security. By admitting countries that have greater security standards for their travelers, the State Department can focus its limited consular resources on higher risk nations. Poland has long been a friend to the United States, sending two of its finest heroes, Kosciusko and Pulaski, to fight in the Revolutionary War for America's freedom. In recent years, Poland has stood besides the United States in the aftermath of September 11, sending troops to fight alongside Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. Poland has overcome a melancholy history to become a vibrant and growing democracy. This legislation helps cement that relationship while improving America's security and creating new jobs. I look forward to working with my colleagues to secure its passage.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I yield back all the time on the Republican side.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise to oppose the balanced budget amendment proposals before us today. I support a balanced budget. But I cannot support these proposals. All year, we have been discussing and debating how to have a more frugal government. But while we are trying to be frugal, how can we also meet our responsibilities to national defense and maintain our social contract? To achieve that we have to put politics and partisanship aside, and work together to find the sensible center. And the balanced budget amendment does not allow for that. I am for cuts. But our approach must be balanced like a three legged stool with responsible discretionary and military spending cuts; revenue; and reform that strengthens Medicare and Medicaid. The balanced budget amendment does not allow for that. Before we adopt a balanced budget amendment, we should know exactly what it is that we are doing. We need to know just how these programs are going to be affected. What cuts are going to be taken. How deep. What programs. And most importantly what the consequences will be to the health, safety, and security of the American people. How would a balanced budget amendment affect seniors? It attacks economic security for senior citizens through cuts to Social Security and Medicare. It breaks the social contract. Under the Republican plan, it cuts spending to 1965 levels before Medicare existed and when the average Social Security benefit was about $1,200 a year. That was 46 years ago, when making $8,000 a year was considered a fantastic salary. Would you want to go back and make $8,000 a year? I do not think so. I do not think we want to go back to that. Do we really want to go back to not having Medicare? Sure we need to reform and refresh Medicare, but do we want to end Medicare? I don't think so. How would a balanced budget amendment affect our ability to respond to natural disasters, when the 24-hour news coverage is over and people return to their regularly scheduled programs? States that are hit by disasters are just beginning the recovery process and depend on their Federal partners. Times of disaster are not for making choices between one State or another. Government must be there. We are all in this together. Just one snowstorm, wildfire, or devastating flood away from our own crisis. But the balanced budget amendment would force these terrible choices. What about funding for America's veterans in order to be able to meet their acute care, provide primary care connected to service-connected disabilities, and long-term care for those who bear the permanent wounds of war? What about funding for disability pensions for veterans? The balanced budget amendment makes funding for American's veterans with service-connected disabilities vulnerable to mandatory budget cuts. How will a balanced budget amendment affect the next generation? It denies educational opportunity to young people and an opportunity structure to working families. The balanced budget amendment puts funding for Head Start, Pell Grants, and funding that helps schools comply with Title IX funding for job training on the chopping block. I believe we must keep the doors of opportunity open, not slam them shut. How will a balanced budget amendment affect our Federal workers and everyone who depends on their work? The State of Maryland is home to some of the flagship agencies of the Federal Government and 130,000 hardworking Federal employees live in Maryland. Agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation work to protect our safety. Employees at the Social Security Administration provide actuarial information on how to keep it solvent and make sure the checks are out there on time. At NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, they are scanning the universe for the secrets to life here on Earth. The mandatory budget cuts of the balanced budget amendment will require arbitrary cuts to the Federal workforce without certainty that the agencies will be capable of doing their job. These kinds of cuts are dangerous and harmful to the public. The Founders did not include a provision requiring a balanced budget at all times. They did not include a provision limiting the size of government to an arbitrary percent of the size of our economy. Instead, in our Constitution, the Founders said that Congress would have the power to borrow on the credit of the United States and the responsibility to provide for the general welfare of the country. Providing for the general welfare of the country means keeping the promise of our social contract to our seniors and our veterans. It means keeping the ladder of opportunity available to the next generation. And it means responding to natural disasters and maintaining a safe and secure homeland. Make no mistake. We must balance the budget. But we must do it based on principles that preserve economic security for senior citizens, that provide opportunity for young people, and that ensure opportunity for working families. I cannot and will not support any legislation that abandons these principles. Therefore, I will vote against this legislation.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, Mr. Gross has worked with Cuban communities for many years. In 2009, he was working with USAID to assist Cuba's Jewish community by improving their access to the Internet. As a former social worker who has worked for 25 years in international development, he has a long record of helping people around the world to improve their lives. He was arrested and held without charge for 14 months and later sentenced to 15 years for crimes against the state. Mr. Gross is in failing health. He has lost 100 pounds and suffers from arthritis. He is being held in harsh conditions on trumped-up charges. His family in Maryland has had very limited contact with him. They, too, have faced health challenges and are facing significant financial hardships. I was hopeful that America and Cuba could move closer together--in trade, in community connections, and for individual families who have been separated. I thought these links would help open up Cuba, improve human rights, and enable their country to move toward democracy. Yet the case of Mr. Gross shows that Cuba is not serious about moving forward--for its own people or for its relations with the United States. If Cuba wants to improve relations with the United States, they need to release Mr. Gross now. I will not support easing restrictions or sanctions on Cuba until Mr. Gross is allowed to come home to Maryland. I thank my colleagues for joining me in standing up for Alan Gross and urge the Government of Cuba to release him immediately. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise to speak on behalf of the conference committee. I rise as the chair of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science, one of the three subcommittees in the conference report. The other is agriculture. Senator Kohl will be coming to the floor to speak on behalf of his bill that is part of the conference, and others will speak. I wish to speak on the Commerce-Justice bill. I am pleased the Senate is considering the conference agreement on fiscal year 2012. As I said, I am CJS. Senator Kohl will speak on agriculture. Senator Patty Murray managed the bill on transportation and housing. She is the chair, and I am sure either she or her designee will speak about a subcommittee we affectionally call THUD. But let me talk about the CJS conference agreement. This is a great agreement. It is the product of bipartisan and bicameral compromise and cooperation. I wish to thank my ranking member, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and her excellent staff. We worked hand in hand on this bill. I wish to talk about our colleagues in the House. Much is made about the prickly situation sometimes between the House and the Senate. But I wish to thank Chairman Frank Wolf and ranking member Chaka Fattah for their bipartisan support. There was give and take; sometimes stormy exchanges. But at the end of the day, we worked cooperatively and collegially. So as we look at the process, what I wish to say is that the conference agreement itself is a good one. Our bill, the CJS bill, totals $52.7 billion in discretionary spending. We were frugal. It is $600 million below the 2011 level, and it is $5 billion below the President's request. The purpose of this bill is to help create American jobs, make our streets and our neighborhoods safe from violent crime and terrorism, and to support innovation and technology so America can continue to be an exceptional Nation. It also promotes trade. We do this through our Federal agencies: the Commerce Department, through its Economic Development Administration, Patent Office, International Trade Administration, and the Census Bureau. It also has important agencies related to innovation: the National Institutes of Standards and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Our bill also has in it the Department of Justice, NASA, and the National Science Foundation. It has a lot of important things in it. It is also a bill that promotes justice, including the Commission on Civil Rights, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Legal Services Corporation. Within shrinking funding levels, the CJS conference agreement prioritizes activities that focused on creating jobs, saving lives, protecting communities, and looking out for the future of our country. The subcommittee faced two very pressing problems that are critical to life and safety. One, our weather satellites. We had to come up with a substantial chunk of money to make sure we had those important new weather satellites that tell us about hurricanes, tornadoes, and other things that are coming. Also, we had a real challenge in providing adequate funding for America's prison population. These activities are not considered mandatory for budget purposes, but they are not truly discretionary. We had an obligation to fund them. We also had an obligation to provide security funding to the two conventions, to help them underwrite their security concerns. Together, the bare minimum needed for the new JPSS satellite and prison expenses is nearly $800 million--$350 million for prisons--and we were able to meet that obligation. We also looked out for our law enforcement, for our State and local police departments. This bill provides $2.2 billion to support our Blue Line to keep our police safe, to protect them with the equipment they need, such as bulletproof vests, so they can protect us with modern tools relating to crime scene analysis, forensic science, and enough cops on the beat. We funded Byrne grants at $370 million, a main Federal tool for State and local police operations. In terms of Federal law enforcement, we met obligations to the FBI and funded them at $8 billion; our Drug Enforcement Agency at $2 billion; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and the Marshals Service, each at $1.2 billion. Our marshals no longer necessarily ride the planes, but what they are out there doing is serving the warrants that go after sexual predators and also make sure they fulfill their responsibility to protect our Federal judiciary at the courthouses. Those Federal law enforcement actions are at our borders, in our streets, in our communities, and in important task forces protecting our communities. In terms of science and innovation, I am proud of what we did with NASA--from the space shuttle legacy to our new vehicles for space exploration. We also funded the James Webb Space Telescope, which will be the successor to the Hubble. It is 100 times more powerful and will assure America's place as a leader in astronomy for the next 30 years. Our conference agreement was $17.8 billion. It is a balanced space program. It ensures the continuity or continuation of human space flight, does important work in space science, and also bold research in aeronautics, so we can be at the cutting edge. We also funded the National Science Foundation, which continues to do that groundbreaking innovative work that the private sector works off of. This year, three Americans shared the Nobel Prize for physics. One was Dr. Adam Riess at Johns-Hopkins. He used the Hubble space telescope to look out for dark energy, to look at decaying supernovas, and found out that the expansion of the universe was speeding up. The 2011 Nobel Prize in chemistry winner, Dr. Dan Shechtman, was working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology--which this bill also funds--when he discovered new subatomic particles. Both discoveries were considered unexpected and even game changers. These Nobel Prize winners were those wonderful Americans who make use of whether it was the Hubble telescope or the kind of work that goes on in our chemistry labs. So we are out there winning the Nobel Prizes, but our bill lays the groundwork for winning the markets. On the floor is the chairman of the full committee, Senator Inouye, and also Senator Kohl, who managed the bill and will speak for Agriculture. There are many things I could say about what we did in the bill, but I think I have summarized the basic themes. I will be available to answer any questions from colleagues. I also want the chairman of the full committee to have an opportunity to speak and certainly Senator Kohl and Senator Blunt. I want to say to Senator Blunt, when Senator Kohl had to be temporarily off the floor, I thank him for working with me. We moved this bill and showed we knew how to govern and move legislation. If we work this way, we will get America moving again. I yield the floor.

Ms. MIKULSKI. I ask unanimous consent that committee report be considered as read.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I wish to address one of the most important issues facing the supercommittee; that is: Where does Social Security fit into their plans? The Chair knows because she is very close to the people of New Hampshire, she knows all over her great State, and mine in Maryland, people are getting ready for Thanksgiving. As they get ready, they first of all give gratitude for living in the United States of America, the land of the free and the brave. But they are also wondering what kind of country are we living in right now because the Chair and I know they are worried about paying their bills. As they get ready for their holiday dinner and the family gathering and all the wonderful traditions that go into this very special holiday they are saying: Where are we? Have we lost our way? Are we so mired in partisanship we cannot seem to find a path forward? They think we are the turkeys. They want us to stuff it. They want us to get on and start worrying about the table, worry about their kitchen table, and bring everybody to the table here and begin to solve national problems and to do it in a way that brings the country together. What do they want us to do? While maybe at the kitchen table the children will argue over who gets the wishbone, they want us to have backbone to make the tough decisions that these times call for but not to be tough on one another. As I think about this, I think about Social Security. We say everything should be on the table. I think everything should be on the table that caused our deficit. I think everything should be on the table that caused our debt. Social Security did not cause our deficit. Social Security did not cause our debt. Do we need to take a look at Social Security to ensure its safety and solvency for the rest of the century--or certainly well beyond 2050 or 2070? Absolutely. But I say this: While the supercommittee is charged with looking at a more frugal government, we must maintain the social contract. The social contract in the United States of America is the contract that the U.S. Government made with its people. It said, if a person went by the rules and they paid their dues, al la the payroll tax, there will be a benefit for them. It will be a defined benefit. It is called Social Security. It will be undeniable, it will be reliable, and it will be inflation-proof. Every President has agreed there is a social contract. Every President has taken a look at how to provide for that. Some ways we have agreed with, some we have disagreed with. Where we agreed was the great, wonderful way we worked in the 1980s when Social Security was facing challenges and President Reagan reached out to Tip O'Neil, Bob Dole, Bob Byrd, Howard Baker, and we made Social Security solvent for 30 or 40 years. We did the same under President Bill Clinton. President George Bush, the No. 2 Bush, ``W,'' wanted to privatize Social Security. We stopped that. We do not believe in the privatization of Social Security. We did not want to turn Social Security over to Wall Street. We believed Wall Street got enough, they didn't have to get Social Security. If a person were older or sick, we didn't want them to rely on the bull of political promises or the bear of a market. Social Security affects so many people. There are 50 million Americans who rely on Social Security: retired workers, their spouses, people with disabilities. For two-thirds of the people on Social Security, their benefit is between $14,000 and $15,000 a year. It makes up all or more than half their income. In my own State, 500,000 workers are on Social Security, so protecting the social contract is clearly in our national interest. What brings me to the floor today? Two things. No. 1, I don't think Social Security should be in the debate about how to reduce our debt or our deficit. I do think Social Security should be discussed in a rational, calm, nonpartisan way to ensure safety and solvency and reliability. The other issue that brings me to the floor is how do we put our arms around the cost-of-living problem? It is indeed vexing. How do we meet the needs of the people but not exacerbate the drawdown in the trust fund? These are valid conversations. Wise people should talk about it. But one thing I am opposed to is called the chained CPI--isn't that a terrible word, ``chained'' CPI? In our country, the very word ``chains'' has such a negative connotation. What I worry about is that its Draconian effect will have a chain reaction on seniors that will cause a tremendous crash. I am concerned we are about to shred the social contract. Let me tell you what the chained CPI is. It would actually cut Social Security by over $100 billion over the next 10 years. It does it by changing the cost of living as calculated. It is based on a theory. It is based on social engineering, some kind of abstract concepts about human behavior, that invisible hand that Adam Smith talks about. I worry that this invisible hand will actually pinch Social Security. It assumes consumers will substitute lower cost items for what they normally purchase; that is, if the price of apples increases, they will go buy oranges. I am afraid what we are doing is we are going to buy lemons. The chained CPI is inappropriate because actually seniors have a fixed market basket. They not only have a fixed income, but they have a fixed market basket. Their primary expenditure is health care, over which they have little control. The cost of health care continues to rise. Their next one is energy, then food, and then housing. For seniors, this is not like giving up opera tickets for movie tickets. It is not like giving up a latte for Dunkin' Donuts. For them, it is not giving up Whole Foods, it is having no food. We have to get real about the market basket of seniors. I wish to make three points about the myths. No. 1, the chained CPI is not a technical fix. Despite popular notions, op-eds, editorial boards, it is not just a technical corrective. It would actually fundamentally restructure Social Security. It could very well have a chain reaction, pushing old people into poverty. Under the way the CPI is calculated, if a person is now getting $15,000 a year when they are 65, when they are 75, they will have $5,000 less, and if they live to 85, it will be reduced by $1,000. I have this in this chart. The numbers I am giving do not come from Barb Mikulski. They don't come from some wonky, lefty think tank, this comes from the Social Security Actuary, the keeper of the books and the projections for Social Security. For a single woman on Social Security under the chained CPI, from the time she is 65 until the time she is 80, she could lose as much as $6,000. In other words, the older we get, the worse it will get. Remember, under chained CPI, the older we get, the less we will get; the older we get, the worse it will get. Myth No. 2 is, this is not an immediate cut. Oh, it is going to go into future beneficiaries. Oh, it is a long way off. Whomever it hits, it will hit hard. Remember the chain reaction. But it is a myth. According to the Social Security Actuary, the chained CPI will affect everyone, and if we pass it as part of the supercommittee, it will go into effect December 2012. It will go into effect immediately, December 2012. That is a pretty big deal. The third myth is, this change would mirror people's behavior, but it doesn't take into account health care costs, the cost of prescription drugs, copays, and premiums. Remember, one way or the other we are going to change Medicare. What I want to do at this time is sound the alert. I want to ring the bell. I am at my battle station. I am at my duty station. I want every Senator, when they vote on this, to have informed consent. I want people to read about it and know about it and make up their own minds. I oppose the chained CPI. I oppose Social Security being in the supercommittee. I am not drawing a line in the sand today. I want to say for the supercommittee, God bless them in their work, they are truly pursuing this in a duly diligent way, and we hope we can come to a great resolution where we can reduce our debt, reduce our deficit, and do it in a way that is a balanced approach but does not balance all this on the backs of senior citizens. FDR signed this bill 75 years ago. Every President, regardless of party, said we will keep the social contract, pay your dues through this payroll tax, Social Security is going to be there for you. We want Social Security to be there for the seniors, and we need to be there for the Social Security Program. I hope my colleagues put due diligence into understanding this policy. I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. How many years has the Senator been on the committee?

Ms. MIKULSKI. In those 2 years, this has not come up. I have another question about the Finance Committee, which also has jurisdiction over health care. Is it the Senator's understanding that both in the supercommittee and other reforms, Congress's intent is to raise premiums and copayments and a variety of other things on seniors? Is that one of those things out there in the ether?

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

Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I rise today to address one of the most important issues facing the supercommittee; that is, where does Social Security fit into their plans? I know the supercommittee is doing a great job. They are working in a steady way to see how we can be a more frugal government, but while we are trying to be frugal, how we also meet our responsibilities for the national defense and also how we maintain our social contract. To me, one of the most essential programs in the social contract; that is, the contract between the U.S. Government and its people, is Social Security. For more than 75 years, under every President, we have worked in a bipartisan way to ensure the security and the solvency and the safety of Social Security. Every President has agreed that Social Security should be undeniable, available to everybody, reliable, that it is there when you need it, and inflation proof--inflation proof. I was in the House when we were teetering on a collapse of Social Security. Ronald Reagan was in the White House. Tip O'Neill was the Speaker of the House. Bob Dole and Bob Byrd were in the Senate. We went to work and made sure Social Security was solvent for all of 30 or 40 years. Under Bill Clinton, we also took positive forward steps. Under President Bush he wanted to privatize it. That is the way he saw entailing its future solvency. We fought that. But we still had money in the trust fund. Now where are we? Well, there are those who say we have got to reduce the debt. Hey, I know we have to reduce the debt. I say to the Presiding Officer, we have had extensive conversations. The Presiding Officer has some very meaty ideas worthy of consideration. But let's make it clear, Social Security should not be on the table. When they say all options are on the table, let's put all options on the table for those programs that created the debt, that created the deficit. Social Security did not create our debt. Why it is part of the supercommittee conversation, debate, and even hit list, I do not know. That casts no aspersions against any member of the committee. I am talking about somehow or other editorial boards that know everything about everything all the time have said you have to do something about Social Security. We know we have to reform Social Security to modernize it for a 21st century economy and a 21st century demography. We get that. But it does not belong in the supercommittee up against the wall with impossible deadlines, up against the wall with impossible mandates. So while they are looking at revenue, discretionary spending, military spending, Social Security does not belong there. The reform of Social Security belongs in another environment. So that is position No. 1. Position No. 2 is, what are we doing on Social Security? Well, I am concerned we are about to shred this social contract, and we are going to do it by doing something called the ``chained CPI.'' Isn't that a terrible word: ``chained CPI''? Wow. I am afraid we are going to chain seniors to poverty. Let me tell you what a chained CPI is. When you read all of the books we get, policy books, chained CPI would cut Social Security by $112 billion over 10 years. They do it by changing the way the cost of living is calculated. It is based on kind of this ``theory.'' It is based on a ``theory of human behavior,'' one of those ``social engineering schemes.'' What it says is this: It assumes that a consumer will substitute lower cost items when the cost of what they normally purchase goes up. Well, that means, again, ``in theory,'' if the price of apples goes up, you are going to buy an orange. It sounds good. But for the debate on Social Security, it is inappropriate because the market basket approaches by senior citizens, validated by every economic and marketing group, say their largest expenditure is health care, and the reason they do it on health care is because they need it to keep alive. This is not trading a latte for Dunkin' Donuts. This is not going from arugula to big lettuce. This is life. This is life on the line when we are about to cut the seniors' bottom line. We have to get real and talk about what is the way seniors live, what is it they need to do to stay alive, and what is their purchasing power. So this is not Barb Mikulski. The Social Security people themselves say there is something called the market basket for elderly, CPI-E. It means they spend their money on health care, on food, and on energy, and in many cases housing. They cannot reduce those costs. Those are fixed costs for which they have no choice and no negotiating power. Our citizens, our senior citizens, cannot negotiate on their heat, they cannot negotiate much on their prescription drugs. Oh, they might go from a brandname to a generic. But if their cost of living is being squeezed down, they will not be able to do it. You cannot substitute your medication, your insulin, and substitute it for apricot juice. If the cost of prescription drugs goes up, so does medication. I am concerned that this chained CPI--human behavior, untested, untried social engineering scheme--is going to become the basis by which we calculate the cost of living. Let me go to some facts. By the way, this is not Senator Barb Mikulski talking, this is the Social Security Actuary, the Actuary actually giving accurate facts. Let's go to the A word. The Actuary actually giving accurate facts. First of all, they say this is a technical fix and does not mean a whole lot to seniors. Actually, the chained CPI will fundamentally restructure Social Security. If we do it, we will be complicit and complacent in creating a structurally induced poverty for old people. What do we mean? Well, if you look at this chart--and this comes from the Actuary--if you go to the chained CPI and the purchasing power they talk of, first of all, it will go into immediate effect. Then it actually cuts--it is not like--you know how the seniors were upset they did not get a cost of living 2 years in a row? They will actually get a reduced benefit. And under the way this will be calculated, hypothetically if you are now getting $15,132 in Social Security, if you are getting it when you are 65 now, 10 years from now your benefit will be reduced. Not only will you not get your cost of living, but your benefit will be reduced to $14,572. If you continue to live, and you are 85, it will be reduced to $14,148. It compounds itself. So God forbid you even make it another 30 years. Because under what the chained CPI would do is you would essentially lose over close to $1,600 in benefits. I cannot believe this. I cannot believe we are even talking about it. Because if we are talking about going with the true market basket, what you should do is actually have this increase. I will not go through all of the numbers, but they are significant and they are severe. There is another thing going around here on the floor: Oh, Senator Mikulski, why are you so upset? It will hurt future beneficiaries. Well, I am upset because no matter what time it affects a beneficiary, it affects a beneficiary. But what everyone fails to grasp is this will be an immediate--underline the word immediate--cut, according to the Social Security's Chief Actuary. If we pass this this year, this chained CPI begins December of 2012. So 1 year from this December, it would go into effect. That means if you are 65 years old, your benefit will be reduced that year. By the time 10 years later, your benefit will have been reduced five times as much. And if you make it to 85, your benefit will actually be reduced by 10 times as much. This is, to me, a horrific idea. The current CPI-W, which is what we call the cost of living, was used in 1972. It was the only measure we had at the time. It was viewed as an advanced thing for an inflation- proof benefit. Now when we look at it, what we know is that we know the purchasing power--not the purchasing power, what is the market basket that seniors use. Chained CPI might be fine in other areas or other categories. I am not going to debate this here today. But what I do want to do this time, this place, I want to sound the alert. I am going to ring the bell. I am going to be at my battle station saying to every member of our caucus, and every member of the people on the other side of the aisle, please, read up on this. Know what we are doing. If you are going to vote, I do not want to hear buyer's remorse a year from now. I do not want to hear buyer's remorse 2 years from now. I do not want to hear from the seniors in my home State of Maryland say: Where were you, Barbara? Did you say anything? Did you do anything? So I am saying here today, get out our policy books and for God's sake read them. Read them. And do not read what this think tank or that editorial board says, read the Social Security Actuary. Because I am telling you, we are about to do something that is irrevocable. I believe in old-fashioned values, and one of the great ones is honor thy father and thy mother. It is not just a great commandment to live by, it is sure a great public policy to govern by. The American people every day particularly who work hard now and live by the rules, go by the rules, pay into Social Security over a lifetime, we said to them: If you do that, your Social Security will be a guaranteed benefit. It will be a lifetime benefit. It will be reliable and undeniable. And it will be inflation proof. FDR signed the bill that created that contract. Every President regardless of the party has kept that promise. And it is up to this Congress not to shred the social contract with the seniors of the United States of America. I want to yield the floor to someone from the Finance Committee who has done so much work on this, such great work, such due diligence, and has a grasp of both the policy and the impact that it has on people. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken.) The Senator from Washington.