Jeff Merkley

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Thank you, Mr. President. I am saddened to hear that there is an objection in a context in which the majority leader has argued that he is going to have a robust and open amendment process. So why is there an objection to bringing an amendment forward to debate a core issue, which speech after speech after speech in support of this agreement--this fast-track to accelerate consideration of TPP--has referred to enforceable labor standards? Why not debate an amendment that would actually require enforceable labor standards? Why not? Well, because apparently that is not a serious goal. Let's turn to another piece of this. There is a part of this system referred to as ``dispute settlement,'' an international system of dispute settlement, ISDS. What this does is it sets up a tribunal not subject to American law. It is an international tribunal, has one person chosen by America and one chosen by a foreign investor and one chosen by the combination. This group, this ISDS, is empowered to apply a series of standards and say that an action by our country has damaged the interest of a foreign investor, and the foreign investor must be compensated or, if they are not compensated, that the law has to be changed. Well, really this whole concept was generated to protect American investments in countries that had weak judicial systems because that way, if you had an investment and the foreign country tried to expropriate it, change the law so you could not sell what you were making or something of that nature, there was a way to address that. One can understand why American businesses would want that sort of stability. You can also understand why countries with poor judicial systems would want to sign on to such a system in order to encourage investment in their country. They want the jobs. They want that foreign investment. But in the United States, we have a good judicial system. Why would we allow it to be displaced by an international tribunal--a tribunal that has not even been approved through the treaty process, mandated in the Constitution? Why would we give the power to three corporate lawyers who have conflicts of interest--there is no prohibition on conflicts of interest for the members who serve as judges--and allow them to rule on our consumer laws, allow them to rule on our public health laws, allow them to rule on our environmental laws? Quite frankly, that is giving away a significant piece of our sovereignty, carving a big hole out of our judicial system and handing it over to an international tribunal. If that doesn't constitute something that should qualify for treaty status--giving away a chunk of sovereignty out of our judicial system--I don't know what would qualify for a treaty. But this little slick game is underway of calling it an agreement in order to bypass our constitutional standard. And what does that mean? That means if a State says ``We no longer want to allow chemicals to be put into our carpets because those flame retardants are causing cancer in our children,'' a foreign investor who has set up a factory to make flame retardants can file suit against the United States and say they have been damaged as a foreign investor. The foreign investor gets rights that do not belong to in-country investors. Why should we give special rights to foreign investors that American investors do not have? Why should we proceed and have a labeling law on e-cigarettes--a new challenge, if you will? Let's say, for example, that we require mandatory caps, childproof caps on the bottles. Let's say we banned the flavorings on e-cigarettes. Those flavorings are things such as double chocolate delight or any other number of candy flavors, bubble gum--you name it. If it sounds like candy, there is a container of liquid nicotine with that name on it. So you take away the flavorings, you greatly diminish the sales targeted at our youth. Why would we control the flavorings? Well, we passed a law in 2009 that gave that power to the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration. The Food and Drug Administration has done an initial draft deeming regulation. Under this draft deeming regulation, they attempt to control or perhaps may control the flavorings. They would do so because cigarette companies--that is, tobacco companies--are targeting our children because they know that addiction occurs before the age of 21. You want to get our middle school and high school children puffing on e-cigarettes so that they will be addicted before they reach 21 because by then the brain has developed to the degree that people rarely get addicted. So we, in protection of the health of our children, have seriously considered--created a framework for regulating this candy-flavored attack on the health of our youth. That is why we do it, for the protection of our youth. But along comes a foreign investor who set up a factory to create liquid nicotine and says: I can't sell my product now because I invested in all this equipment to do all these candy flavors and you are banning it. You either have to change your law or I get to be compensated. So we should carve out of this ISDS settlement, if we have it at all--and I think it should be opt-in. A country that wants foreign investment because they know they have a shaky judicial system should opt into it. We would not opt in because we have a fair judicial system. But if it is going to exist, it should definitely carve out our public health, our consumer laws, and our environmental laws. And that is exactly why I have amendment No. 1401. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and amendment No. 1401 be called up.

Mr. MERKLEY. I will keep pushing for consideration of my amendments, which are being banned from consideration on this floor, because if we are going to have a ``robust and open amendment process,'' we should, in fact, have a robust and open amendment process and consider these serious issues before us. So let's turn to a third area, which is the fact that the Trans- Pacific Partnership--you hear robust labor protections that level the playing field. Well, a level playing field would involve roughly similar standards between countries. So is there anything that levels in any way the vast difference between the minimum wage in some of the prospective TPP countries and other countries? The answer is no, not a thing. The single most important labor differential between the nations is not addressed in any shape or form. So if we were to look at the minimum wages, we would find, as the Senator from California noted earlier, that Brunei and Singapore have no minimum wage at all. Mexico and Vietnam are under $1 in minimum wage. Malaysia, Peru, and Chile are under $2.50. So basically we have 7 countries out of this group of 12 that have a minimum wage that either doesn't exist or is under roughly $2.50. That is very different from the other five countries in this agreement. These are countries such as the United States, with a minimum wage at $7.25--it should be higher, but it is $7.25; Japan's is $8.17; Canada has a minimum wage of $9.75; New Zealand, $11.18; and Australia's is $16.87--more than double the United States, which was surprising to me. Well, if you have this vast difference and you have manufacturers in the United States, Japan, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, these manufacturers would like to play off China against Malaysia and Malaysia against Vietnam and Vietnam against Mexico because that way they can drive the lowest possible wages between these countries. Let me be quick to say that there are American companies--highly responsible American companies--that depend on overseas manufacturing that are very careful in monitoring their subcontractors and the conditions in which their subcontractors operate. These are often the brands that we know well, that are pillars in our community. But for every one of those, there are dozens of contractors and subcontractors that are seeking the lowest possible cost to make something, and that is why they want to play off these countries against each other. Oh, Malaysia, you are raising your minimum wage. Oh, you are enforcing your environmental standard. We are going to increase production in our Vietnamese factory. Oh, Vietnam, you now are saying you want to honor the ILO labor standard? Well, that is a problem. We are going to produce more in our Mexico factory. So this is opening a race to the bottom. If we are going to come to the floor--as many have--to say that there are fundamentally even labor standards between the countries in this agreement, shouldn't we have even standards? Shouldn't we have an even minimum wage standard or at a minimum at least require there to be a base minimum wage and then have that raised over time for participants so as to reduce the differential between the highest paid and the lowest paid? Because not only does this system set up an ability and an effort to play off Malaysia against Mexico, against Vietnam, but it also sets up a situation where the conversation is like this: Oh, so here in America we are going to raise our minimum wage. Well, that means we are going to have to shift another 1,000 jobs somewhere else-- maybe to Malaysia, maybe to Vietnam. Maybe we will use the WTO and go to China. It has a big impact on suppressing living wages in our country, and we have seen this impact. Since 1974, we have seen productivity soar in our country, but the actual return to workers, inflation adjusted, has been flat and then declining for the last 10 years. Families are having a terribly difficult time getting by. So not only do we have a stake in fairness not to create a race to the bottom between Malaysia, Vietnam, Mexico, and Peru, but we also have an incentive not to create a situation where U.S. living wages are constantly eviscerated under the threat of shipping those jobs overseas. Well, maybe we will assemble it here, but we will do more of our subcomponents in those countries. And once you set up an effective, efficient factory overseas, it makes it easier and easier to ship those. That is why I have an amendment that says: At a minimum, let's fill this gaping gap. Let's proceed to require there to be, as part of the negotiations, the negotiation of a minimum wage for entry and for that minimum wage to be gradually increased in order to diminish the disparities between the high-wage countries, of which there are five in this agreement, and the low-wage countries, of which there are seven. This would be good to end the play off of one low-wage country against another, and it would be good to diminish the comparative advantage of low-wage countries in terms of taking manufacturing out of the United States. That is why I drafted amendment No. 1409. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and for my amendment No. 1409 to be called up.

Mr. MERKLEY. I am zero for three now in terms of being able to get substantive amendments, serious amendments on this floor for debate, but I will try to on one more, and this one is anchored in recent news that we have seen the country-of-origin labeling--or COOL, as it is called--country-of-origin labeling standard knocked down just yesterday. What does this mean? This means it is going to be considered a trade violation for us to inform Americans on where their meat comes from. Isn't it a fundamental right in our country to know where our food comes from? Shouldn't we always have the right to know that? But we have engaged in a trade agreement--a previous trade agreement--and now the adjudicating body of that agreement says: No, no, no. That is unfair, to tell people where the meat comes from. Well, I think that is wrong, absolutely 100 percent wrong. Every American consumer should have the right to know where their meat comes from, and if I want to buy American-grown beef, I should have the right to do that, and I can't exercise that right unless I know--on the package--where it was grown. If there are human rights violations or labor violations in Colombia and I don't want to buy Colombia meat until they fix their labor negotiations, I should have the right to use my dollar to buy my meat from the United States of America and not meat grown in Colombia. But that has been struck down because we gave away previously a chunk of our sovereignty. That is the danger of giving away the sovereignty of the United States of America to an international group that strikes down fundamental rights that every one of us should have. So let's fix that. That is why I drafted amendment No. 1404 which would declare that the right to establish information for consumers about where their food comes from will not be violated by the agreement that is brought back to the Senate. I hope everyone will join me in unanimous consent in saying that absolutely we are going to defend the rights of Americans to know where their food comes from. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and that amendment No. 1404 be brought up in order that we should all be able to exercise our rights to not buy products from countries that we find in violation of fundamental human rights or other labor abuses or environmental errors.

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, during this trade debate, we have often heard a lot about the words ``enforcement'' or ``enforceable,'' particularly the phrase ``enforceable labor and environmental standards.'' But the fact is there are no enforceable labor and environmental standards. There is no new generation of treaty in the TPP that is going to create something we have not had before. What we have had before has simply failed us. Why is that? Well, we had side agreements on labor and the environment in NAFTA. Much is made of the fact that, well, we are not going to have side agreements anymore; we are actually going to put these standards right in the treaty itself. So somehow folks are arguing in support of this treaty that moving the print from over here to here somehow makes is it more effective. That is not the case. We had the same labor and environmental standards in the agreements we passed a few years ago, agreements I voted against--the agreement with Colombia, the agreement with Korea. But what have we seen over time? Have we ever seen any of these labor objectives and these environmental standards enforced? Let me give you a sense of what we are talking about. Under the International Labor Organization, ILO, they have a set of standards. They have lots of details. But there are things like freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining and elimination of forced labor or compulsory labor, as it is referred to, the abolition of child labor, the elimination of discrimination in the workplace. Certainly, at the heart of this--back to the right of collective bargaining--is the right of unions to organize, the right of workers to talk to each other and to bargain for a fair return for their efforts. But have we ever enforced a single ILO provision? No, we have not. In fact, we have only challenged the terrible labor practices in another nation once; that is, Guatemala. That went through years before we officially challenged it, and now it is still not resolved some 8 years after it was first challenged. Is there anything new that changes the process in the anticipated Trans-Pacific Partnership? No, it is the same process: put in the ILO standards and hope people will aspire to honor them--hope, the same hope that has failed us time and time again in treaty after treaty. So the next time someone comes to this floor and says there is an enforceable labor standard, no one should believe it because it is not there. We have not enforced one labor standard, not one. Guatemala is the only one we have challenged, and that one, after 8 years, we still have not resolved it. How about environmental standards? Have we filed challenges on environmental standards? What are these environmental standards? Well, basically it is a requirement to honor international treaties. No, these things are violated all over the place, but we have not challenged them a single time. Now, why is it that the United States does not challenge these violations? Well, first, it has to be a government-to-government action, when an issue is raised and folks are told: Hey, government, U.S. Government, you really should do something about trade unionists being murdered in Colombia. Well, no, if we object, it will create ripples in the relationship. So the U.S. Government does not want to take action. It does not want to create ripples in the relationship. But if pressed, folks come and say: You know, it really matters that you said you would enforce this, U.S. Government, but you are not. You should really do something. Well, you know, if we object to the way they are conducting themselves in regard to labor and environmental standards, there will be retaliatory actions against the United States. Then it will just be: We will challenge them, they will challenge us, and it will go on for years and years. It will disrupt the whole relationship. Why would we do that? If that is not enough, then if the government, our government, is really serious about enforcing something, then the companies that have invested in that nation, then they come forward and say: Wait. The whole goal of this trade agreement was to create a stable environment for investing. If you challenge and try to have them honor the labor and environmental provisions, ultimately, not only will it produce retaliatory actions that will be potentially harmful, but if you should win somewhere down the line, that means there may be tariffs on the products that we produce in that country and they will not be able to enter the United States. Please do not mess up our investment in that nation. So for these reasons, there has been no enforcement--none. Again, there was one effort in Guatemala never resolved. There is nothing new in this anticipated Trans-Pacific Partnership that would operate any differently. How about if we had snapback provisions? We have been talking quite a lot on the situation with Iran, that if we reach an agreement with them in June, Congress is going to want to make sure that if there are violations of the agreement, that the controls on Iranian trade that have been effective in bringing them to the negotiating table will snap back into place to make sure folks really respond in Iran to honoring the agreement. Is there any snapback provision anticipated, new strategy, this new tool to make sure the agreements are actually honored? No, there are not. So the old system has not worked. There is no new system. There has been no enforcement. Anyone who tells you there are enforceable labor and environmental standards is not telling you the truth because there are not. That is why we need to change the negotiations. Now, the goal of fast-track was to lay out a series of objectives for the U.S. Government to pursue in writing an agreement on trade with other nations. This is a little bit complicated now, because when you raise up an idea and say this should be addressed, the administration says, well, yes, but we have already negotiated this treaty. We cannot go back to the negotiating table and change it. We are 95 to 98 percent complete. So, for example, we have been raising the issue of currency manipulation. This is a fundamental--fundamental--provision of what should be in a trade agreement, because when you get rid of a tariff, you can create an effective tariff on your trading partner's products and a subsidy on your own through intervention in the currency markets. It is known as currency manipulation. It should be covered, but it is not. When you talk to the administration, the administration says we just cannot go back and talk about things that we have not already put on the table. So that would be unacceptable for us to take on this important provision now because we have already negotiated the agreement. Well, then, what is really the point of fast-track, if it is not to lay out the standards that are expected for an agreement? In that case, it is nothing but a rubberstamp for an already negotiated treaty that does not meet the things that folks in this room are saying are important to have. In that case, it just simply becomes a greased track for approving the treaty or the agreement, as it is referred to. It is not referred to as a treaty. Why not? When it creates an international body that can assess fines on the United States, does that not qualify as a treaty? No. Because the folks who are negotiating this do not want it to be subject to the supermajority that the Constitution requires for a treaty. So they say we will call it an agreement. That will fix that. Now it is only a simple majority vote, and we will get this fast- track under the argument that Congress is getting a chance to say what needs to be in the treaty--but not really because we refuse to take any item we haven't already put in the agreement. So that is really the state of affairs. That is why, instead of simply having negotiating objectives, we need to have negotiating standards that have to be met before an agreement is brought back to this body under the fast-track rule. Objectives are just wishful thinking, wishful thinking that you have some type of ``enforceable labor provisions,'' wishful thinking that there are some forms of enforceable environmental standards. Is that really enough? Is that all we are asking for is a little bit of wishful thinking, when we already know it is not going to be honored? So let's put in mandatory negotiating objectives in these two categories. That is why I have submitted amendment No. 1369. I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and that my amendment be brought up.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, a few moments ago, we heard an argument that this envisioned trade agreement will increase the number of products that are stamped ``Made in America,'' ``Made in the United States of America.'' Certainly that is the argument that has been put forward for trade agreement after trade agreement after trade agreement. The first step in the process is to say: Look at those markets. Wouldn't it be wonderful in that nation if we had direct access, improved access? Particularly, we have done a series of agreements with very low-wage, low-environmental standards, low-enforcement nations. Well, that is the first stage. Then the second stage becomes: Now that we have this broader connection, we are competing with products made in that country, so we better make sure we open a factory there as well. And then suddenly, instead of those products coming from the United States to a foreign nation, in fact, those products are being made in that foreign nation. Then comes stage three: Oh, now that we are making those products overseas at a much lower price because of the lower wages and lower environmental standards and lower enforcement, it does not make sense to make those products in the United States anymore. So that is how we lost 5 million manufacturing jobs in America. That is how we lost 50,000 factories in America. So for those who want to put forward the chimera, the illusion, the mirage that somehow this is going to increase American production, American citizens should know, in fact, that is a false promise--a false promise that has been put out time after time after time and shown to be wrong again and again and again. Let's think about this: Why would you pave a path to put the workers in your State directly in competition with workers earning 60 cents an hour? Tell me that is advantageous to making things in your nation, and I will tell you, you are wrong. So let's not go down a path in which we pave a highway to essentially destroy American manufacturing, to disrupt American manufacturing, to decrease the competitiveness of living wages here in the United States of America. Let's enhance and strengthen our position in the world, not undermine it. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I rise to address legislation before us, the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, which sets up a deliberate process for congressional review of a final nuclear agreement with Iran. The United States, our citizens, our President, and probably every Member of the Senate and House stand united in our commitment to prevent Iran from securing a nuclear weapon. Nuclear proliferation is a huge danger to human civilization on our planet. The more nations that possess nuclear weapons, the more opportunities there are for misunderstandings between nations to trigger first use of a nuclear weapon. The more nations that possess nuclear weapons, the more opportunities there are for failures in command and control to result in the unintended use of a weapon. The more nations that possess nuclear weapons, the more opportunities there are for terrorist groups to gain acquisition of a weapon. Certainly, the possibility of Iran possessing a nuclear weapon poses special security concerns. The Middle East is being torn asunder by longstanding conflicts and challenges. If Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, then other nations like Saudi Arabia are likely to also seek to secure a nuclear weapon. Moreover, in the fervent rivalry between Shia Islam and Sunni Islam, which brings powers into bloody and extensive conflict from Syria, to Yemen, to Iraq, there are abundant scenarios that could generate potential use of a nuclear weapon, either through misunderstandings or misguided perceptions of military advantage. None of us will ever forget that the Government of Iran has put forth a steady stream of invectives against our close ally Israel calling for her destruction. Iran's possession of a nuclear weapon would pose a very real threat to the existence of the State of Israel. For all of these reasons, Americans are united. Our 100 Senators are united in believing it is imperative that Iran does not secure a nuclear weapon, but the question we must debate and resolve is, Which strategy is most effective to achieve this outcome? There are three basic options: a negotiated dismantlement of Iran's nuclear weapons program with an intrusive inspection and verification regime to ensure Iran is keeping its word; second, a reliance on indefinite extension of tough multinational economic sanctions in hopes that will continue to dissuade Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapons program; third, a military option designed to destroy critical components of Iran's nuclear weapons infrastructure. Of these options, for reasons I will explain in due course, the first is the far superior option. To understand this set of possibilities, however, we have to understand the current situation. The United States has imposed sanctions against Iran since 1979. Many of the sanctions Iran faced in that time from 2008 were unilateral. These sanctions, however, were largely ineffective. Iran's trade with the United States was diminished, but sanctions had little overall effect because Iran was able to continue trading through other nations. President Obama, coming into office in 2009, saw this clearly. He recognized the importance of enforcing existing U.N. resolutions, passing stronger ones, and convincing our allies to go beyond those resolutions and truly tighten the web of restrictions on Iran's trade and finances. The result was coordinated with the P5+1--France, United Kingdom, Germany, United States, Russia, and China. These multilateral sanctions have come about in several phases. In 2010, Congress enacted a series of sanctions targeting Iran's banking and oil sectors. In 2011, section 1245 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 was passed. In 2012, we passed the Iran Threat Reduction Act and Syria Human Rights Act. In 2013, we passed the Iran Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act. Those sanctions--the American sanctions--and the multilateral sanctions have had an enormous impact on the economy of Iran. Their crude oil exports fell from around 2.5 million barrels per day in 2011 to about 1.1 million barrels per day at the end of 2013. Trade between Europe and Iran plunged. It plunged from almost $32 billion in 2005 to about $9 billion today. Iran's economy has taken a huge hit. Iran's current President was elected on a platform of negotiating with the goal of alleviating the enormous economic impact created by the sanctions. The sanctions have accomplished their intended goal. They have brought Iran to the negotiating table in search of an agreement based on a simple, straightforward formulation. Iran will forgo a nuclear weapons program if the international coalition will, in return, lift its devastatingly effective sanctions. That is the background to the negotiations underway today between Iran and the P5+1. But when these negotiations got into full motion, they were not just about talking, they agreed on a set of conditions to free and, to some degree, reverse elements of Iran's domestic nuclear program, not waiting until the conclusion of the negotiations but as a condition of the negotiations. This Joint Plan of Action or JPA that Iran and the P5+1 agreed to has a substantial number of elements. I will mention a few. First, Iran has to refrain from any further advances of its activities at three critical nuclear facilities: at the Fordow underground uranium enrichment facility, at the Natanz underground commercial scale uranium enrichment facility, and further activity at the Arak heavy water reactor that could--that reactor could, when completed, produce plutonium that could be utilized in a bomb. Second, Iran, in this Joint Plan of Action, has agreed to provide the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, with additional information about its nuclear programs, as well as access to sensitive nuclear-related facilities, to which Iran's IAEA safeguards agreement does not require access. Third, and again as a condition of the negotiations, Iran agreed not to produce 20 percent enriched uranium. That is a form of uranium-- uranium hexafluoride or enriched uranium--in Iran's stockpile that has caused the most concern. Fourth, Iran has agreed to fully eliminate its existing stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium by diluting half of that stockpile to uranium hexafluoride, containing no more than 5 percent of uranium 235, and converting the rest of the material to a uranium compound unsuitable for further enrichment. These conditions, in effect as I speak on the floor of the Senate, have not only frozen Iran's nuclear program during the negotiations, they have also given the P5+1 coalition members enormously improved understanding of Iran's nuclear program. That understanding of Iran's program has increased the ability of the P5+1 to shape a framework for a final agreement designed to block all the possible pathways to a nuclear weapon. There are four Iranian pathways to a bomb. One pathway is to utilize fissile material from the Fordow underground uranium enrichment facility. This is the secret uranium facility--formerly secret uranium facility--built deep underground beneath a base of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, massively reinforced with concrete and steel to enable it to withstand most bombing assaults. The second pathway is to utilize fissile uranium made in the Natanz underground enrichment facility. The third pathway is to utilize, at some future point, plutonium processed from spent fuel at the Arak heavy water reactor. I say at some future point because this reactor is still under construction. The fourth pathway is to utilize covert operations to acquire or to make sufficient fissile material for a bomb. On April 2, last month, Iran and the P5+1 coalition announced a framework for a joint comprehensive plan of action on Iran's nuclear program intended to address and block all four of these pathways to a bomb. Now, as reported by the State Department, I am going to review a few of those details of this framework. These are essentially the bones of the agreement that have to be fleshed out in the weeks to follow. Let's talk first about the Fordow, this deep underground, massively reinforced, formerly secret uranium enrichment facility. Iran would repurpose Fordow for peaceful nuclear research. Iran would not retain any fissile material at this installation. They would not enrich uranium at this facility. Iran would remove approximately two-thirds of the centrifuges. The remaining centrifuges and related infrastructure would be placed under IAEA monitoring. Let's turn to Natanz. Here are a few of the restrictions to the second pathway--second possible pathway for an Iranian nuclear weapon. Iran would remove the 1,000 IR-2M centrifuges currently installed at Natanz and place them under IAEA monitoring for 10 years. Iran would engage in limited research and development with some of its advanced centrifuges according to a schedule and parameters agreed to by the P5+1. Iran would use only its less-efficient first-generation centrifuges to enrich uranium at Natanz, a process that would be closely monitored. Beyond 10 years, Iran would abide by its enrichment R&D plan submitted to the IAEA under the addition protocol, resulting in certain limitations on enrichment capacity. Let's turn to the third pathway. That is the possibility of plutonium secured from nuclear fuel used at this heavy water reactor. To block this pathway to a nuclear bomb, Iran would agree to ship all of its spent fuel out of the country and to not build a reprocessing facility for such nuclear fuel. Iran would redesign and rebuild its heavy water reactor in Arak based on a design that is agreed to by the P5+1. The original core of that reactor, which would enable the production of significant quantities of weapons-grade plutonium, would be destroyed or removed from the country, and Iran would not build any additional heavy water reactors. Finally, the framework provides major design--provides high confidence that Iran is not employing covert operations to develop a bomb. This is the fourth pathway, the covert pathway. Under the agreement, the IAEA would have regular access to all of Iran's nuclear facilities, including Natanz and Fordow. Inspectors would have access to the supply chains, starting with the uranium mines, the uranium milling. They would have continuous surveillance at the uranium mills. They would have continuous surveillance of Iran's centrifuges. In addition, all of the centrifuges and enrichment infrastructure removed from Fordow and Natanz would be placed under continuous monitoring by the IAEA. Iran and the P5+1 would establish a dedicated procurement channel for Iran's nuclear program to monitor and approve the supply, sale, or transfer to Iran of certain nuclear-related and dual-use materials and technology. Iran would be required to grant the IAEA access to investigate suspicious sites or allegations of a covert enrichment facility, conversion facility, centrifuge production facility, or yellowcake production facility anywhere in the country. Iran would implement an agreed set of measures to address IAEA's concerns regarding the possible military dimensions of its program. Many of the framework elements I have just described are to last 10 years. Some have a lifetime of 15, 20, or 25 years under this initial framework. So this framework, as many have pointed out, does not lock into place all of these elements for an eternity. But by building a deep cooperation, consultation, and coordination over a 10-year period, we create the best possible chance of forging a long-term enduring agreement that will preclude the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. The challenge now is to take this framework as articulated by the State Department and generate detailed agreement language. That will not be an easy task. Already, you can tell the complexities from just the elements I have mentioned on each of these four pathways. Earlier, I noted that while Senators are united in believing we must prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb, there is disagreement over the best strategy. I have laid out the main elements of the negotiated strategy, but in addition to the negotiated verified dismantling of Iran's nuclear program, there are two other options that are widely discussed. One option that has been articulated by Members of this Chamber and others would be simply to end negotiations and try to continue with an intensified, multilateral sanctions regime. It is important to note, however, that if you end negotiations, it means an end to the measures that are currently in place, measures in place today as I speak on this Senate floor. It would mean an end to the freeze on construction of the Arak reactor; an end to the negotiated elimination of stockpiles or the modification of the 20-percent enriched uranium; an end to the inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities and infrastructure, which has enabled us to learn so much about their activities. Moreover, without any interim agreement on inspections, Iran could decide to vastly expand its nuclear program--an outcome that is in direct contradiction of the security interests of the United States and our allies. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that if the United States ends negotiations, multilateral sanctions would survive. If our partners in the P5+1 believe the United States has deliberately undermined the success of the negotiations, the partners may very well be unwilling to maintain and enforce a strong, multilateral sanctions regime. And that is not just speculation. Representatives from Britain, France, and Germany have conveyed strong concerns that to undermine the negotiations to withdraw could fracture the international coalition that has made the sanctions effective. Where are we, then? Without effective multilateral sanctions, Iran would have achieved its top negotiating objectives. Its economy would improve, and the pressure to make concessions on nuclear activities and international monitoring would evaporate. In short, pursuing aggressive sanctions as an alternative to negotiations could have disastrous consequences, with our major objectives undermined, Iran's economy improved, and Iran's nuclear program unleashed--an outcome that would further degrade international security. The third option discussed in this Chamber is to destroy Iran's nuclear infrastructure through military force. Advocates for the use of force point to Israel's 1981 attack on Saddam Hussein's Osirak reactor in Iraq and Israel's 2007 destruction of a Syrian reactor. Advocates for this military option paint a picture in which a small group of American bombers conduct limited strikes using bunker buster bombs. Thus, they argue, the United States could easily break key links in a nuclear fuel cycle and set Iran's program back by 3 to 5 years. This simplistic analysis is way off the mark. Military experts paint a very different picture. I encourage all of my colleagues to read the analysis prepared by the Center For Strategic and International Studies entitled ``Analyzing the Impact of Preventive Strikes against Iran's Nuclear Facilities,'' revised September 10, 2012. This analysis recognizes that a competent campaign would involve many complicated offensive and defensive elements. Here are a few of them: an extensive strategy to diminish Iranian anti-aircraft radars, missiles, and batteries; an extensive strategy to destroy Iran's ballistic missiles and other weapons Iran could use in a retaliatory strike; an extensive strategy for the direct assault on Iran's nuclear facilities; extensive refueling and supply logistics; a rigorous strategy to prevent Iran from shutting down the Strait of Hormuz; extensive strategies to protect neighboring Gulf States and Israel from retaliatory fights; and a huge effort to defend against asymmetrical attacks on American assets throughout the world. That is just a modest list of the complexities of the military option. I again encourage folks to read the analyses by serious military analysts. Hopefully you get the picture. There is nothing quick, nothing easy about a military option. Moreover, retaliatory threats to the United States and our allies might come from sources other than Iran. Attacks by Shia groups or a nation sympathetic to Iran are a possibility. One thing is clear: The course of war is messy and unpredictable. What we can be sure of is that in the chaos and complexity of war, there will be significant detrimental developments. We know this because it is true of virtually every war ever fought. Our recent history provides more than enough evidence that, once unleashed, a military option that looks simple in the beginning can be very difficult to control and very costly. Ask yourself this question: Which American leaders thought that our efforts to eliminate terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and destabilize that nation's government would lead to a 14-year occupation, thousands of deaths, a huge number of life-debilitating injuries, and the loss of vast national treasure exceeding $1 trillion? Ask yourself this question: Which American leaders thought that attacking Iraq to eliminate phantom weapons of mass destruction would shatter that nation, strengthen Iran, and unleash ISIS? In addition, the military option has a substantial risk of increasing rather than decreasing Iran's determination to acquire a nuclear weapon. Iranian leaders, after attack, might well decide it is their top national priority to acquire nuclear weapons no matter the cost so that neither the United States nor any other nation would dare to attack Iran in such a fashion again. So if the United States chooses a military option, it is most likely committing to a cycle of war as Iran rebuilds a nuclear program in the future with more steel, more concrete, and more depth underground. So let's return to the three options before us. A negotiated and verifiable agreement for Iran to dismantle its nuclear program promises the possibility of achieving our core security objectives without a massive cost in terms of lives, injuries, and treasure. It addresses uranium, plutonium, and covert pathways to a bomb. Compare this to the second option: ending negotiations and resuming the toughest possible sanctions. Under this option, there is a substantial possibility that the multilateral coalition will fracture, ending multilateral sanctions, with the additional disadvantage that all the uranium nuclear programs that are frozen or diminished under the current negotiating process will be free to operate again. Let's turn to the third option. The third option will be extraordinarily expensive in blood and treasure. It could generate a cycle of warfare that would diminish rather than enhance the security of the United States and our allies. This is an option that could motivate Iran and other nations not to give up their nuclear programs but to redouble their efforts to secure a nuclear weapon. So the single-best option, if achievable, is a negotiated, verifiable agreement for Iran to dismantle its nuclear program. Thus, we in Congress, we in the Senate Chamber, should do everything possible to increase the likelihood of this option succeeding. One valuable role of this Chamber and of the House is to articulate the need to have key elements of an agreement well designed. My colleague from New Jersey was raising a series of questions. These are the types of questions the State Department negotiations will be paying close attention to so that when an agreement is delivered for our consideration, there will be strong answers. We need ironclad assurances about the dismantlement, storage, and control of key materials and equipment; rigorous and enforceable boundaries on any ``research'' nuclear program; extensive and effective inspection protocols; and strong snapback provisions in the event Iran breaks its obligation. We need an orderly process in which to conduct this assessment of an agreement to confirm that it meets these standards. Such a coherent congressional process has several advantages. First, it strengthens our President's hand in negotiation. The President and his team must strive to get all key elements nailed down, knowing they will be reviewed by a sometimes skeptical Congress. Second, such a review strengthens the agreement as an enduring framework that will provide the transition to the next Presidency. This can contribute confidence that phased implementation will be honored by both sides and help generate the momentum necessary to hammer out the final agreement. Thus, I support the bill reported out in the Foreign Relations Committee unanimously on April 14 and currently under debate before the Senate. This bill gives Congress the right to review the agreement and classified and unclassified versions of a verification report Secretary Kerry must provide to Congress. It gives Congress the right to disapprove of the agreement. It requires the President to provide important information to Congress, including evidence of material breaches of the agreement, of Iran's involvement in acts of terrorism, Iran's violation of human rights, and advances in Iran's ballistic missile capabilities. In addition, the President must certify that Iran has not materially breached the agreement or, if they breached, they have cured that breach; that Iran has not taken any action that would advance its nuclear weapons program; that the suspension of sanctions is both appropriate and proportionate to Iran's efforts under the agreement and vital to the national security interests of the United States; and that the agreement does not compromise in any way our enduring commitment to Israel's security. Congress shaped the sanctions regime that put the pressure on Iran and forced them to the negotiating table. It is logical, therefore, that Congress should be involved in making sure the results of these negotiations fully serve the security interests of our Nation and our allies. What we must not do, however, is turn this bill, this structure, or appropriate and valuable congressional review into an instrument designed to undermine or poison the success of the negotiations in order to pave the path for war. I will oppose the adoption of any poison pill amendment designed to undermine the viability of the negotiations. What is at stake is much bigger than the ordinary day-to-day politics of this Chamber. The content of any final agreement with Iran is of profound significance to the national security of the United States, the national security of our allies, and to international peace and stability. I urge my colleagues to carry the weight of this responsibility, of this topic, of this process, this concern over nuclear proliferation-- and particularly, proliferation that could put a nuclear weapon in the hands of Iran--and to keep our eyes on the prize. I urge my colleagues to work together in partnership with our President to develop and implement a tough, verifiable end to Iran's quest for nuclear weapons. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the budget that is before the Senate, this combined House-Senate Republican budget. In evaluating this budget proposal, my core question has been this: Is this a budget that works for working America? Or is this a budget designed for powerful special interests and for those best off in our society? A budget is not just about the numbers; it is about the vision that it has for America. Over 70 years ago, President Franklin Roosevelt issued an economic bill of rights, proclaiming: In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident: the right to a useful and remunerative job; the right to earn enough to provide adequate food; the right of every family to a decent home; the right to adequate medical care; the right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment; and the right to a good education. He closed with these words: ``All of these rights spell security.'' Enacting a budget that advances these economic rights for all Americans is my top priority. That means the budget must create good- paying jobs, improve access to quality, affordable education, ensure retirement security for our seniors, and lower the tax burden on working families. The American people share these priorities. They want a plan, a budget, a vision for our Nation that builds a foundation for middle-class families to thrive. Two months ago, I stood on the Senate floor to review the budget proposed as the Senate Republican budget. In category after category, that budget earned a failing grade. Unfortunately, I am here today to say that the plan that has come out of the conference committee from the House and Senate Republicans is even worse. It constitutes an egregious assault on working Americans. It slashes investments in infrastructure and education, failing to close tax loopholes and attacking financial reform. It is fundamentally misaligned with the values of working Americans. It is poised to move our Nation in exactly the wrong direction--more tax breaks and corporate welfare for millionaires, billionaires, and large corporations that are already doing phenomenally well and more pain and suffering for the middle class, working families, and the most vulnerable. With this budget, the GOP is continuing to play games with Americans' health care coverage, claiming we can grow our economy by cutting health care for seniors and children and the poorest in our society. The Senate GOP budget wiped out coverage under the Affordable Care Act, and this budget continues to wreak havoc. It will immediately eliminate health insurance coverage for 16.4 million Americans and swell the ranks of the uninsured by 23 million individuals within a single year. It will deny millions of young adults the right to stay on their parents' health insurance plan until the age of 26. It will deprive 130 million Americans with preexisting conditions the right to purchase affordable health insurance if they lose their jobs or otherwise lose their health insurance. These numbers are appalling. It puts our seniors back at risk of bankruptcy from unaffordable prescriptions because it wipes out the ACA's effort to fill in the Medicare Part D doughnut hole. In 2014 alone, seniors saved $4.8 billion on prescription drugs, and 39 million seniors will be forced to pay more for preventative services under this budget. The GOP budget takes seniors back to the bad old days where the doughnut hole would force more than 9.4 million seniors and persons with disabilities to pay billions more out of pocket for prescription drugs. At a time when senior poverty is on the rise, shouldn't we be focused on helping our seniors retire with security and dignity? Instead, the new plan cuts Medicare deeply--$430 billion over 10 years. It cuts Medicaid by at least $400 billion, jeopardizing nursing home care for the most vulnerable senior Americans. It calls for ending Medicare as we know it by turning it into a voucher plan. Finally, it paves the way for a fast-track consideration of a way to repeal the Affordable Care Act through reconciliation. When you total up these factors, look at the assault on seniors. There is more for prescription drugs and less for nursing home care and Medicaid. Medicare will be cut by $430 billion, and it will be voucherized. Annual wellness checks and preventive services, such as mammograms and prostate cancer screening, will be wiped out. What this budget does is turn security into insecurity. What this budget does is turn dignity into indignity. This is an unacceptable assault on our seniors. It is also an assault on our children and on education. Both Democrats and Republicans agree that we want a chance for our children to get ahead and to pursue their dreams. Shouldn't the budget tell our children that education is a priority? The Republican plan makes new cuts to Head Start that would kick 400,000 children off the program over a 10-year period--400,000 empty Head Start chairs across America. This picture is from an event that I held at Oregon's Whitaker School. The cuts in the Senate Republican plan to Head Start would mean 15 empty chairs just at this one location. But now we are talking about a budget that wipes out an opportunity for 400,000 children from struggling families to get a head start through Head Start. The conference report doesn't just hit early childhood education; it also fails our children with regard to opening the doors of opportunity for higher education. College costs are soaring, so it makes sense to strengthen Pell grant funding. But this Republican budget slashes Pell grant funding by about one-third. Picture one out of every three of our children who use a Pell grant to get through the doors of college, the doors of opportunity, unfortunately having that opportunity taken away. This budget cuts the program by $90 billion over 10 years and will make college out of reach for so many when we should be going in the other direction. That is not all. It also increases student loan debt by an average of $4,000 for an estimated 30 million students, making the children from struggling families pay more for basic need- based student loans. I believe in opportunity. I believe in the American dream. I believe that higher education is one of the best pathways to the middle class. We cannot and must not adopt a budget designed to slam the doors of opportunity shut on millions of our children. There is more to be concerned about. One of the keys to prosperity is infrastructure. My colleague from Minnesota was just illuminating many of the problems in that area. Why shouldn't a budget prioritize improving our Nation's crumbling roads, bridges, dams, water systems, airports, and rail systems? We have a huge infrastructure deficit. Our highway trust fund is running out of money. Right now Europe is investing 5 percent of its GDP in infrastructure and the United States is investing less than 2 percent. We are vastly underinvesting, and this budget continues and aggravates that underinvestment, hurting the creation of good-paying jobs now and doing enormous damage to the economy of the future. Our parents did far better for us by putting a massive infusion of funds for infrastructure that strengthened the system and strengthened our economy today. Shouldn't we do the same for the next generation? And then we can turn to food security. Our country has 40 million hungry Americans. In the wealthiest Nation on Earth, shouldn't our budget make sure families can put food on the table? This Republican budget says no. It supports making massive cuts to programs that provide critical assistance to low-income families. This plan eliminates nutrition assistance for 1.2 million women, infants, and children who rely on the WIC Program through $10 billion in cuts to programs over the next decade. This budget would cut $660 billion over 10 years for programs that support low-income individuals and families, including massive unspecified cuts to food stamps. With this budget, my Republican colleagues are telling the parents of children and financially challenged families: Let them go hungry. And that is just wrong. Since this budget cuts food, Pell grants, infrastructure, and health care, and since it does so much damage to working families, shouldn't it ask for some small sacrifice from those who are best off? Apparently not. This Republican budget takes from the most vulnerable and gives it to the wealthiest families in America. This Republican budget provides a quarter of a trillion--and, yes, that is trillion with a T--dollar tax break for the wealthiest 0.2 percent of Americans while increasing taxes on 13 million working families with 25 million children by diminishing the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit, affecting families who earn just a modest amount with an average household income of just $22,000. I cannot conceive of any economic or moral argument that justifies taking money out of the pockets of struggling families--from Pell grants to Head Start to food on the table--and giving it away to the already wealthiest Americans. Perhaps one of my colleagues who is voting for this budget would like to explain why taking from the poor to give more to the wealthiest families in America is justified, because it is not justified. Despite the fact that our richest families already pay less in their marginal tax than working families pay, this Republican budget wants to give more away to them from the American Treasury and do it by taking food and education opportunities out of the reach of our struggling families. This budget removes two amendments that were originally adopted in the Senate budget. Senator Murray's amendment would have allowed Americans to earn paid sick leave. It was supported by 61 Senators, including 15 Republicans, but it was eviscerated in this budget. The second amendment was introduced by Senator Schatz. It would have ensured that all legally married same-sex spouses have equal access to Social Security and veterans' benefits they have earned. It was broadly supported but wiped out in this joint House-Senate Republican budget. This budget takes away from hard-working, middle-class Americans, from struggling Americans who are often working two to three minimum- wage jobs, and it gives away to the wealthy and well-connected, not asking them for one slim dime--not one egregious tax loophole closed-- and gives them preferred tax cuts, returning millions of dollars to the wealthiest families. Is this a budget that works for working Americans or is it a budget for the best off? I think it is clear from the topics I have covered that this is a budget for the best off at the expense of everyone else in America in every possible way that provides a foundation. If we return to the vision laid out by Franklin Roosevelt in 1944 of the self-evident economic truths, of a right to a good job, to earn enough for adequate food, to a decent home, to adequate medical care, and to protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment, this budget fails every test and should be defeated. I thank the Presiding Officer.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I rise to draw attention to the dangers of new and insidious tobacco products that are ensnaring our youth and to urge the FDA to take long overdue action to protect our children from these products. First, I thank the Senators for coming to the floor today to join in making this critically important point. Senator Boxer is present, and she will be speaking next. Other Senators are planning to join us. So I appreciate their lifting their voices on this important issue. Dr. Richard Wender, the chief cancer control officer for the American Cancer Society, said last year, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the landmark Surgeon General report on smoking and health, that ``the single greatest threat to the future control of tobacco is complacency.'' We are here today to call attention to a dangerous complacency that threatens the lives of our children, a complacency in completing rules that are essential to protecting our children from a lifetime of nicotine addiction. We are on the floor of the Senate today because this week marks the 1-year anniversary of the Food and Drug Administration's proposed ``deeming regulations'' on tobacco. Deeming regulations essentially say the FDA has the power to do what the law gave them to do in 2009 when we passed the act. These critical regulations have yet to be finalized, and it appears that there are not going to be finalized regulations this month or next or the month after despite the fact that we are now 6 years into this rulemaking regulation process. Six years is a very long time. In 6 years, a lot of young Americans have become addicted to nicotine products. In 6 years, the industry has made huge strides in inventing new products designed to attract our children. In 6 years, a lot could have been done, and nothing has been done. These critical regulations have not been completed, and it is time for the FDA and the administration to make getting this done a priority. This is one of the things that can truly impact the health of the next generation. The tobacco industry is, as Judge Kessler said in United States v. Philip Morris, ``an industry . . . that survives, and profits, from selling a highly addictive product which causes diseases that lead to a staggering number of deaths per year, an immeasurable amount of human suffering and economic loss, and a profound burden on our national health care system.'' That is why, when it comes to tobacco and public health, the best way to save lives 20 or 30 or 40 years down the line is to prevent young Americans from becoming addicted to tobacco products today. But Big Tobacco knows this as well. They know that the best way to create a lifelong, reliable customer for their deadly product is to get our children hooked as young as possible. Now the industry refers to our children as ``replacement smokers'' to replace those who are dying. That is why they are working day and night to come up with new strategies and new products to keep kids in the pipeline, to keep new replacement smokers coming forward. They use cigars, cigarillos, tobacco candy, and snus. Now they have the real winner--e-cigarettes. These products, such as flavored cigars, cost as little as 99 cents and are sold in colorful or cool packaging and come in flavors such as bubble gum, cotton candy, wild cherry, grape, candy apple, blueberry, chocolate, peach, and gummy bear e-cigarettes. Many of these products are cheaper and more accessible than cigarettes, and the candy-flavored versions are preferred overwhelmingly by young people. This is a chart which shows the bottles of liquid nicotine that fuel these e-cigarettes. We have everything here from cotton candy to coffee. You name it, it is there. These are not flavors designed to appeal to adults; this is all about forming addiction in our children. A new study released by the CDC this month found, alarmingly, that e- cigarette use had tripled among middle and high school students in just 1 year. In 2011, 1.5 percent; it doubled in the course of a year to 2.8 percent. It increased substantially in the year 2012 and 2013, and then we see it soared. E-cigarettes and vape shops have exploded across the county, and that has profound consequences for our children. Nearly one in seven high school students has used an e-cigarette in the last 30 years. That is 2 million teenagers nationwide, 2 million of our children responding to this very deliberate targeting by this demonic industry. We have the power to do something about this. The FDA has power to do something about this because we, the legislature, gave it to them in 2009. It is true that the long-term health effects of smoking e-cigarettes are yet to be fully calculated because it is a newer product, but there are some troubling studies we should pay attention to. What we know today is that nicotine is highly poisonous and that this vast, unregulated market of nicotine liquids threatens public health immediately. Since 2011, poison calls related to e-cigarettes have skyrocketed-- 271 in 2011 to 3,808 poison calls in 2014, again showing the exploding use of this product. This industry doesn't even put this liquid nicotine into childproof containers. One brand called JJuice looks like little bottles of juice. It says ``juice'' on it. Yet, it is deadly if a child takes off that cap and drinks it. There were 14 times more poisonings in 2014 than in 2011, and yes, people die. A toddler died of nicotine poisoning just last December, and there were lots of close calls. But tobacco companies see opportunities in these unregulated markets. They see opportunities to appeal to kids directly, market to kids more easily, and to sell to kids with fewer barriers. There is no Federal law in place about the age at which children can buy e-cigarettes or the liquids that go into them. So it has been up to local communities to try to fill in those gaps, and they have been trying to do so, trying to catch up with the problem. The industry of e-cigarettes has exploited these opportunities. This is where we are. Time is ticking. E-cigarette use is rising. And the rising numbers on this chart aren't just numbers, they represent our children, kids who every day, when we don't act, are more at risk for a lifetime of dangerous addiction. This is 100 percent unequivocally unacceptable. So to the FDA, to Health and Human Services, and to the Obama administration, it is time to quit stalling. Children are getting addicted, children are dying, and children will die more from nicotine diseases in the decades ahead. It is unacceptable. No more complacency. Let's get it done, have it be the top item you wake up to fix every day. We expect more. I urge the administration to act quickly. Let's get these rules done. It is a pleasure to yield the floor to my colleague from California, who has been a tremendous champion on this topic and will provide her insights. I am so delighted that she is on the floor.

Mr. MERKLEY

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

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has returned $5 million to American citizens victimized by predatory scams and unscrupulous practices. If you support ending victimization of our citizens, support this bill. If you support creditors, then vote against it. I yield to my colleague from Delaware.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I can utilize a felt pen during my presentation.

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, today I rise to discuss the budget blueprint we are debating here in this Chamber and that we will be voting on here on the floor of the Senate shortly. In evaluating this budget, this budget produced by my Republican colleagues, I am asking the question: Is this a budget designed to work for working Americans? That is just a simple core question. If your vision of America is that you want families to thrive, then you are going to design a budget for those working families to thrive. So that is a key question as we discuss this blueprint. It is certainly clear that a budget designed to work for working Americans means jobs. It means quality, affordable education. It means retirement security. It means financial fairness for consumers. It means fixing a Tax Code that is stuffed full of favors for the wealthy and well-connected and instead directing resources to establish a foundation for working families to do well and provide us all the foundation for raising their children so they can get a good start in life. I thought we should go through and evaluate how this budget performs on basic items related to the success of working families. We have here a little scorecard so we can keep track. The middle-class budget report card, Senate GOP budget. How does it do? Well, let's start at looking at investment in infrastructure. Europe is spending 5 percent of its gross domestic product on infrastructure. China is spending 10 percent. In America, only 2 percent. We are vastly underbuilding our infrastructure, which means we are failing to create good-paying jobs now, which is a foundation for the success of working families, and we are imperiling the success of our future economy by failing to make this investment. Indeed, we have a huge infrastructure deficit. There is no effort to address this deficit in this budget. Oh, the budget does have symbolic language that recognizes theoretically the need to invest in infrastructure but does not direct resources to that effect. So in committee and on the floor, we have offered amendments to say: Let's make a real investment in this effort, not just happy words. Well, in committee, it was rejected on a party-line vote, 10 to 12. Then yesterday on the floor Senator Sanders offered an amendment that would take and direct a substantial investment to taking--closing egregious tax loopholes--and directing those resources to building the infrastructure in America. It would create 9 million jobs across this country. And what happened? The Republicans resoundingly rejected it. Why is that the case? Why do they not see the need to invest in infrastructure in America--voting, as we have, 45 Democrats saying yes, let's invest in infrastructure, let's create jobs, and 52 of my colleagues across the aisle saying, No way, no how, we are not going to do the important work to address the deficit in infrastructure? So, unfortunately, this budget gets an F when it comes to infrastructure. Surely, as we turn to education, we will find this budget does a somewhat better job. We all understand that early childhood education has an incredible return, so surely this budget invests in Head Start to give our children of challenged families the ability to start on a path to success. We know we have a world knowledge economy in which education is essential. So, surely, this budget provides for more eligible children to participate in the Head Start Program. But if that was your assumption, you will be sorely disappointed, because this budget makes cuts to Head Start that would kick 110,000 children off the program over a 10-year period. It is direct damage to the success of 110,000 children, and that is before you combine it with sequestration cuts. At that point the estimate is it would cut 620,000 American children out of Head Start over this coming decade. That is just wrong. Let's turn to higher education. One of the biggest stresses for American families is the galloping inflation in tuition and the declining ability of Pell grants to cover a small portion of that tuition for our most financially challenged families. So, surely, this budget invests in Pell grants. I certainly would have expected it to. But, indeed, we find it cuts $101 billion over 10 years out of Pell grants. In other words, this budget is designed to continue to close the doors of opportunity for our students from financially challenged families across this country. I believe in opportunity. I believe in the American dream. But this budget, the Republican budget, believes in closing the doors on opportunity in this Nation. That is just wrong. Well, Pell grants aren't the only component of higher education that helps make college affordable. Another piece is low-interest loans. Most families are going to have to borrow to help finance higher education. In fact, of those students who have college debt, the average debt today, coming out of college, is about $26,000. That is the average. Many of our children have debts at $50,000 or $75,000 or $100,000 coming out of a 4-year college. That kind of feels like the size of a home mortgage as a millstone around their neck. So surely this budget lowers interest rates on our students' loans so they can refinance their loans to take advantage of the current low interest rates. Wouldn't that be a wonderful thing to do, to create opportunity? We had a vote on this floor for an amendment to do just that, to enable our students to refinance, to take advantage of the current lower interest rates--and my Republican colleagues defeated that amendment 53 to 46. Not only that, but their budget has a provision that gets rid of the no-interest period when a student on a Stafford loan is in college and gets rid of the 6-month grace period--no-interest rate period--when a student graduates from college. This is estimated, for a student who is starting college in 2015, to increase the cost of their interest payments by about $5,000 to $7,000 as they repay their loan. So, Head Start, savaged in this budget--just simply wrong. Pell grants, savaged in this budget--just simply wrong. Interest accruing increased--and that is just wrong. It is clear there is no commitment to education in this budget, the foundation for opportunity. This budget, no question about it, that is an F on education. Let's turn to another area. Hopefully we can get a better grade. Food security. Food security for American families. A lot of families are having a very tough time putting food on the table. But what do we find? We find this budget has a $660 billion reduction over 10 years in programs that support low-income Americans, explicitly including the SNAP program--the SNAP program, the name we now use for food stamps. There is a quote attributed to Queen Marie Antoinette, who was the wife of Louis XVI. During the French Revolution, she was reported to have said, when told that the citizens were protesting the high price of bread because they were spending 50 percent of their income just on bread: ``Let them eat cake.'' That has become a symbol of a ruler completely out of touch with the challenges faced by ordinary citizens. So what do we have in this budget? We have in this budget provisions that say to hungry children across America, to children of challenged families across America: Let them go hungry. So here, too, only one grade is earned by this budget in food security, and that is an F for failing our children on food. Let's turn from our children to our seniors on Medicare, for example. This budget recreates the Medicare doughnut hole. This is the doughnut hole seniors fall into when they get no coverage to help them buy drugs after an initial period in which they got some subsidies, and then they fall off a cliff into the doughnut hole. Well, 53,000 seniors would pay more for their drugs in just my State next year. That is about 5 million seniors across the course of this country who are now going to be ensnared in this doughnut hole. Moreover, this budget cuts $430 billion out of Medicare. So whether it is getting rid of key provisions designed to help our seniors, such as eliminating the doughnut hole or simply solid investment in our health care program for seniors, this budget too gets a failing grade. That is an F for failing our seniors on Medicare. How about consumer protection? We have made a lot of progress in consumer protection. We used to have consumer protection split between a whole series of agencies. Of course, the key agency in all of it was the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve has monetary personnel in the penthouse--that was really what they were paying most attention to--and folks kept coming to the Federal Reserve and saying: Hey, there are these new predatory home mortgages that are going to do enormous damage to families across the country, and the Federal Reserve had no response to this. They did not act. In fact, they had consumer protection locked in the basement of the Federal Reserve, and they threw away the key. They were simply totally uninterested. So back in 2009 and 2010, we said: Let's consolidate these programs that have responsibility for consumer protection to one agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and let's make sure this agency has the funding, like every other financial regulator, so that it can't be essentially starved to death by those legislators who, on behalf of powerful special interests, don't believe in consumer protection. The CFPB, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has returned $5 billion back to consumers who were cheated, and it has prevented billions more from being stripped away through other predatory practices. So you would think that all 100 Members of this Senate would stand and say: We want a budget that strengthens the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau because it does so much that is right in America in ending cheating, ending predatory practices against working Americans. But, no, what we have in this budget is an effort to eliminate the financial independence of the CFPB. If you can think about it as oxygen to a scuba diver--folks want to be able to step on that air hose or constrict that air hose, starve that agency to death. So this budget gets an F on consumer protection. Well, certainly, since this budget does so much to cut food, cut Head Start, cut Pell grants, increase interest rates, fails to invest in infrastructure, and it does so much damage to our seniors on Medicare, certainly it is asking for some sacrifice from our richest Americans, some bit of sacrifice from the corporate fat cats who are getting egregious tax loophole benefits. In particular, one loophole that I think drives every American citizen nuts is a loophole that subsidizes the shipment of our jobs overseas. Can't we all agree to shut down that loophole? Well, you would think so. But we had a vote on shutting down this loophole in committee, and a party-line vote said: No, we are going to leave this loophole in place. So in terms of protecting American jobs by shutting down a loophole that funds our adversaries overseas or our competitors overseas, this budget gets an F. How about tax fairness for the middle class? I have heard a lot of happy words about fighting for the middle class. Is there something in this budget that proceeds to say the best off are going to pay their fair share so that middle-class Americans get a better break? In 1995, the richest Americans paid about 30 percent of their adjusted gross income in taxes. But by 2012, that rate had dropped to 17 percent. So does this budget rectify that? Does this budget say folks at the top end should pay their fair share? No, it doesn't, not one slim dime extracted on behalf of fairness from the best off in our society. So what we have here, attack the middle class, no tax fairness, so there is an F grade on tax fairness. Attack the middle class in every possible way. Attack the children, attack food security, fail on infrastructure, fail on consumer protection, and proceed to protect all the egregious provisions for the very best off in our society. It is unfortunate to see such a dramatically terrible budget put before this body. I think the American citizens can only be deeply disappointed to see a budget put forward intended to accelerate and increase inequality in our Nation, destroy our jobs, ship them overseas, underfund food security, failure on investment for our infrastructure, a failing grade all around. We can do much better.

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment to call up en bloc amendments Nos. 842, 843, 952, and 953.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my intern, Robert Kollenberg, be granted the privileges of the floor for the balance of the day.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I wholeheartedly echo the passionate and cogent presentation that my colleague from New Jersey has just given, that this body can be well served--very well served--for us to go immediately to the confirmation of Loretta Lynch. The delay in this critical position is unacceptable, does a disservice to the individual, a disservice to the office, a disservice to the executive branch, and a disservice to justice in America. Let's have that vote.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my intern, Sirvat Tokatlian, be allowed privileges of the floor throughout the day.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I rise today on the 50th anniversary of the Selma marches and to call on Congress to come together to protect all Americans' sacred right to vote. In March of 1965, thousands of Americans came together in Alabama to march the 54-mile highway from Selma to the State capital of Montgomery. They marched in defiance of the segregationist repression in the Jim Crow South. They marched to demand that Black American citizens be allowed to exercise their constitutional right to vote. On March 7, 1965, 50 years ago this week, some 600 civil rights marchers headed east of Selma on U.S. Route 80. That day, March 7, would go down in history as Bloody Sunday. They got as far as the Edmund Pettus Bridge, 6 blocks away, where State and local law enforcement attacked them with billy clubs and tear gas and drove them back into Selma. This photo reflects the scene on the bridge where John Lewis and others were being struck down with batons. Images of peaceful marchers brutally attacked by uniformed State troopers were broadcast worldwide. Seeing how peaceful activists who sought to ensure the franchise were treated by the very law enforcement officers sworn to uphold the law in Selma shocked the conscience of Americans everywhere and began an awakening that would ultimately lead to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Two days later, on March 9, Martin Luther King, Jr., led a symbolic march to the same bridge where they were confronted by State troopers. Still awaiting requested Federal protection, and seeking to minimize the risk of additional violence, Dr. King turned the marchers around and led them back to the church where they had started. Dr. King knew the threat of Jim Crow had to be stopped by the law, so he sought Federal court protection for a third full-scale march from Selma to the State capital in Montgomery. Ruling in favor of the demonstrators, Federal District Court Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr., wrote: The law is clear that the right to petition one's government for the redress of grievances may be exercised in large groups . . . and these rights may be exercised by marching, even along public highways. On Sunday, March 21, 2 weeks after Bloody Sunday, approximately 3,200 marchers set out for Montgomery, walking 12 miles a day and sleeping in fields. By the time they reached the capital on Thursday, March 25, they were 25,000 strong. As Dr. King said standing in front of the capital that day: Selma, Alabama became a shining moment in the conscience of man. If the worst in American life lurked in its dark streets, the best of American instincts arose passionately from across the nation to overcome it. Less than 5 months after the last of the three marches, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965--landmark legislation that fundamentally transformed voting rights in the United States, particularly in the Jim Crow South. As Americans, we all owe a debt of gratitude to those who marched, those who bled, and in some cases those who died, to transform the Voting Rights Act from a bill into a reality. This past weekend a group of Republican and Democratic lawmakers traveled to Selma, AL, to join President Obama and former President Bush in honoring those brave Americans who worked tirelessly and at great personal cost to secure equal rights for all citizens regardless of their race. As our Nation thinks about their tremendous patriotism and sacrifice this month, it is a particularly appropriate time to talk about the role Congress can play in safeguarding the hard-won rights of minority voters by working to restore the integrity of the Voting Rights Act. The oath of office that each of us takes when we become a Senator is to ``support and defend the Constitution''--and that means supporting and defending voting rights, which are explicitly enumerated in our U.S. Constitution. In her dissent in 2013, the Shelby County case, Justice Ginsberg highlighted the legislature's heightened responsibility where the protection of citizens' access to polls is a concern, writing that when it is confronting ``the most constitutionally invidious form of discrimination, and the most fundamental right in our democratic system, Congress's power to act is at its height.'' Well, over the past 50 years Congress has indeed acted. We have worked on a bipartisan basis to ensure that our citizens do not face discrimination at the polls. In 1965, in response to a slew of violent attacks against civil rights activists, culminating in the attack on peaceful marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, we passed the Voting Rights Act, a bill that aimed to ``remedy 95 years of pervasive discrimination in voting rights, which [had] resulted in the almost complete disenfranchisement of minorities in certain areas of the country.'' That act has been rightfully cited as a ``crown jewel'' of America's civil rights laws, and for the past 50 years it has expanded minority participation in elections by removing first-generation barriers to ballot access, such as literacy tests and poll taxes. Moreover, the law also helped to tackle so-called second-generation barriers to voting, such as voter ID requirements, elimination or curtailment of early voting, voter registration restrictions, and residency restrictions. Since the act was passed in 1965, Congress has again and again reaffirmed its commitment to equality in Federal elections by reauthorizing the law in 1970, 1975, 1982, and most recently in 2006 when we voted to extend it for another 25 years. That 2006 vote was not a close one. The bill enjoyed what the press described as ``overwhelming bipartisan backing,'' passing the House by a vote of 390 to 33 and by a Senate vote of 98 to 0. That is pretty persuasive bipartisan backing for taking on the most invidious form of discrimination--discrimination in the right to vote. That vote represented a strong affirmation that equality is not a partisan issue. We can and we have worked together to ensure that all Americans are able to participate in our democracy by exercising their right to vote. Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down key provisions of the Voting Rights Act 2 years ago in 2013. So now it is once again Congress's duty--our duty--to work together to reform the Voting Rights Act. To anyone who doubts the continued need for a robust Voting Rights Act, I submit the following: In 2006, while sections 4 and 5 were still in effect, the House Judiciary Committee found that the Voting Rights Act was still a critical tool for countering discrimination. The committee observed that ``discrimination today is more subtle than the visible methods used in 1965. However, the effect and results are the same, namely a diminishing of the minority community's ability to fully participate in the electoral process and to elect their preferred candidates of choice.'' That report further found that ``despite the substantial progress that has been made'' since the Voting Rights Act was first passed in 1965, ``the evidence [of discrimination] before the Committee resemble[d] the evidence before Congress in 1965, and the evidence that was present again in 1970, 1975, 1982 and 1992.'' The behavior of various States in the aftermath of the 2013 Shelby County ruling highlighted the critical role that sections 4 and 5 played in protecting minority voters. For example, as the Brennan Center for Justice noted on the same day the Supreme Court issued its decision, Texas officials announced it would implement a draconian photo ID law which had been blocked by section 5 because of its racial impact. Initial estimates suggested that it would impact 600,000 to 800,000 registered voters in Texas who did not have a government-issued photo ID. Texas was not alone. North Carolina quickly enacted a series of laws that drastically restricted voters' access to the polls by imposing a strict photo ID requirement, significantly reducing early voting and limiting the timeframe for voter registration--so three different measures. It is particularly telling that North Carolina legislators deliberately waited for the Supreme Court to strike down the preclearance requirements of section 5 to propose the legislation, understanding that laws with such a discriminatory effect would likely not pass muster under the Voting Rights Act. In North Carolina, more than 300,000 registered voters lacked a DMV- issued ID. Of those, one-third were African American. In 2008, the vast majority of African Americans--70 percent--who voted in North Carolina voted during the early voting period. So North Carolina's significant reduction in early voting was cynically calculated to reduce the turnout of African Americans at the polls. These States are not alone. The Brennan Center for Justice found that in the aftermath of the Shelby County case, ``at least 10 of the 15 states that had been covered in whole or in part by section 5 introduced new restrictive legislation that would make it harder for minority voters to cast a ballot.'' Simply put, these States' behavior shows that access to our fundamental right--the right of every citizen to be heard through elections--is suffering in the wake of the Shelby County decision. We cannot let our civil rights laws return to once again being, as Dr. King said before the passage of the Voting Rights Act, mere ``dignity without strength.'' We owe it to those who sacrificed before us, who sacrificed to form a more perfect Union, to work together on a bipartisan basis to restore the Voting Rights Act. I stand ready to work with any of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in this esteemed body to make that happen. I hope every Senator feels the same and understands that access to the polls--the right to vote--is the throbbing heart of a democracy, and without that the democracy is deeply damaged. Fifty years ago this month, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said at the foot of the Montgomery capitol: ``The battle is in our hands.'' Today, in Congress, in the U.S. Senate, the battle is in our hands. It is our responsibility to debate and pass such legislation to protect and defend the right to vote for every American. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MERKLEY

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

Mr. MERKLEY

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

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I rise today to address the motion to override the President's veto of S. 1, which would force approval of the construction of the Keystone Pipeline to transport tar sands heavy oil from Canada to the gulf coast. We will be having that vote in just a while from now. My key consideration today is this. What would the impact of this bill be on global warming? The reason that is the core question I am raising is that already we are seeing extensive damage to our rural resources around the world from our warming planet. We are seeing this in Oregon, and we are seeing, therefore, an impact on our future economic prospects. To put it very simply, the burning of fossil fuels is damaging our forests, our farming, and our fishing. By many estimates, to contain 2 degrees Celsius, which is almost 4 degrees Fahrenheit, we must transition aggressively and rapidly from burning conventional fossil fuels for energy toward the use of nonfossil renewable energy. Now, this shift is well within our power. It is well within our technology. But do we have the political will to make this happen? And that test is before us in the vote we are taking today. Building the Keystone Pipeline opens the faucet to rapid exploitation of massive, new, unconventional reserves called tar sands, and it takes us in exactly the opposite direction from where we need to go. Indeed, the pipeline locks us into utilizing the dirtiest fossil fuels on the planet for a generation, and it accelerates human civilization down the road towards catastrophic climate change. Thus, building this pipeline is a mistake, and there is a lot to be concerned about. Now, global warming isn't some imaginary scenario 50 years from now about some computer model predicting something bad will happen. No, it is about facts on the ground right now. The warmest 10 years on record for global average surface temperature have occurred in the last 12 years. And 2014, the calendar year we just passed, was the single warmest year on record. While some Senators may come to this floor and say that it is just an anomaly here or an anomaly there, it is not. The facts are in. When we have 10 of the warmest years on record within the last 12 years, we know something dramatically is happening to the globe. The average forest fire season is getting longer. Since the 1980s the season has grown 60 to 80 days longer than it was before. That means that with each year passing the fire season is growing by an average of about 2 days, and the number of acres consumed annually by wildfires has doubled to more than 7 million acres. This is an enormous impact, and those fires themselves put additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. So we start to see a feedback mechanism that is accelerating us down this road to catastrophic change. The snowpack is decreasing in our Oregon mountains, the Cascade Mountains, which means smaller and warmer streams, which are certainly not good for trout. But it also means less water for irrigation. We have right now virtually no snow in the Cascades. At this point we should have a substantial snowpack. So the possibility of yet another major drought faces us this coming summer. We had the worst-ever drought in the Klamath Basin, a large agricultural basin in southern Oregon, in 2001. We had another devastating drought in 2010--a near worst-ever drought--and another devastating drought in 2013. And here we are this year, with virtually no snowpack to provide irrigation water during the summer. That is a very big deal. It isn't just farming and forestry. It is also fishing. The carbon dioxide that we are pumping into the air is absorbed through wave action. It becomes carbonic acid. We can envision mankind pouring vast vats of carbonic acids into the ocean, because that is essentially the effect of what we are doing. If you think putting all that acid into the ocean wouldn't be a good idea and would have bad effects, you are right. The ocean has become 30 percent more acidic than it was before the industrial revolution--before we started burning coal and other fossil fuels as a major source of energy--and we can start to see the impact. At the Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery on the Oregon coast, we have a big problem. The big problem is that the baby oysters are having trouble pulling enough carbon out of the water in order to create their shells because the water is too acidic. That is a little bit like the canary in the coal mine. If the oysters are having trouble, what other shellfish are being affected by the increasing level of acidity? As humans on our planet, we have the moral responsibility to exercise wise stewardship of our resources--a responsibility to this generation but a profound responsibility to the generations to come. Now, our youth tend to have a better understanding of this than do the lawmakers who come to the floor of the Senate. Our youth widely rank global warming as a major concern, a major issue they want to see us take on. They will face the challenges that we will leave behind. But here is the problem: If we wait to tackle global warming until--we have pages on the floor--our 15- and 16-year-old pages are in office, when they are in their forties and their fifties, then it will be almost impossible to address this issue because of the feedback loops that are occurring. I was watching yesterday a time-lapsed series of ice in the Arctic, and I can tell you that essentially, as viewed from North America, there was a swirling mass of ice--and this was over several decades-- and that swirling mass became less with every passing year, to where we are halfway to starting to be ice-free in the summer. That is a massive change happening within a single human lifetime which is but a blink in time when you think about the age and course of this planet. So big changes are occurring, and when those changes occur, we do have additional problems arise. All of that open water in the Arctic absorbs more sunlight. That is what makes the water blue and it becomes warmer; whereas, the ice reflects the sunlight and keeps the water cooler. Therefore, we have a magnification of the effect of global warming at the poles. This is not a good thing. So whether we are looking at the impact on our farming or the impact on our forests which are burning or the impact on our oceans and our fisheries which are becoming too acidic, we have a responsibility to address those issues. That means we are going to have to not burn all the fossil fuel that we have been clever enough to find in the crust of the Earth. It is estimated that we would have to leave four-fifths of the fossil fuels we already have identified that are in the ground. We have to leave it in the ground rather than burn it if we are not going to exceed 2 degrees centigrade in global warming. That is a huge challenge. That means we cannot proceed to build infrastructure designed to accelerate the extraction of these fossil fuels. The pipeline is exactly that kind of infrastructure. Now, have no doubt, I love the idea of jobs and construction. That is why I am a huge supporter of the Partnership to Build America Act. The Partnership to Build America Act would create hundreds of thousands of construction jobs over the course of a number of years in America. That is the type of investment in jobs and construction and infrastructure we should make, but we shouldn't be investing infrastructure that is going to do profound damage to our planet. That does not honor the moral responsibility we have to the stewardship of this beautiful blue- green orb that we live on known as this planet Earth. Let's honor our responsibility and let's not override the veto the President has put on this bill. Thank you, Mr. President. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my intern Jackman Wilson be allowed privileges of the floor for the balance of the day.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Thank you, Mr. President. I appreciate the points that have been made by my colleagues from Ohio and Pennsylvania and the remarks yet to be made by my colleague from Rhode Island. We are here on the floor together to raise fundamental issues that should be part of the discussion about a proposed trade deal or a fast track to a trade deal. I love the concept of trade, the idea that our particular economy, based on our natural resources and based on our skills, can do certain things very well, and we would like to be able to sell those products to the world. Other nations do other things very well, and we can benefit from their expertise and their products. That is a win-win on a level playing field between nations that have roughly the same structure of environmental laws, roughly the same structure of labor laws, and roughly the same level of wages. That is a win-win for nations involved in agreements. Indeed, our trade agreements after World War II were very much along those lines as we expanded to the economies of Europe. We saw substantial prosperity that affected people throughout our economy. My parents couldn't believe the difference between their experience as children and their experience during the 1950s and 1960s as they started to raise children in terms of going from extraordinarily humble means--lack of electricity, running water, insulation, and all the things that became a part of the basic housing structure in post-World War II when they were raising their children. That prosperity came from a nation producing things and sharing the wealth throughout its economy. My father was a working man, a blue-collar mechanic. He brought those mechanical skills to the mill and became a millwright. He loved that job keeping the machinery in the mill running and loved other jobs. He was able to live the American dream. Our recent trade deals have created something quite different. They have been based on an unequal relationship. They have been based on a relationship between our Nation with strong environmental and labor laws and good wages and high enforcement and countries with the exact opposite--such as China, for example. Indeed, the result in the period since NAFTA--and my colleagues spoke to it, but let me reemphasize it-- there has been a loss of 50,000 factories, a loss of 5 million manufacturing jobs. That is logical. If you are a manufacturing company making products, you will move that manufacturing to the places where it is cheapest to make them. This is how the vision works out. There is a conversation about reducing barriers, and companies say: Look at all the additional products we can sell to that emerging economy in China. We can make a lot more in the United States and sell to China. That is stage one. Stage two: Hey, now we can move our manufacturing overseas and produce things at a much lower price and not only sell them to the foreign nation but also sell them back to the customers in the United States. That is exactly what we have seen, and that is why we have lost these 5 million jobs. So the initial publicity campaign is all about creating jobs through increasing American manufacturing, but the reality in an unequal relationship is the opposite. Let's make sure we create a standard for the consideration of future trade deals, a standard that will evaluate whether this deal will create good-paying jobs here in America, will expand prosperity to the middle class in America or will do the opposite. This is the standard we should apply. I would like to evaluate the provisions of the proposed deal in that light, but I can't because the negotiations are secret. The draft text is secret. We need to demand that there not be secrecy about something as important as creating jobs or destroying jobs in America--my standard for evaluating what is to come. Let's talk for a minute about these eroding promises of enforcement. A couple of years ago a group of 10 U.S. Senators took a trip to China to meet with the Ambassador. We asked how the Ambassador felt about enforcement against China and their currency manipulation. He basically said: Here is the deal. We have broad strategic concerns that involve China, and we don't want to put ripples in the water. So can you really have a level playing field in a situation where you are not willing to enforce even the provisions that are on the books? Can you really have a fair deal for America? During the conversations a couple years ago, I proposed legislation that would require China to actually honor what it was responsible for doing under the WTO. Under the WTO, it was to notify Americans about all the subsidies it provided for items of export, deductions and credits. But China had not honored that responsibility. So I proposed that we exercise another part of WTO, which was counter-notifications by our Trade Representative. Within 2 weeks of putting this idea forward, guess what. Our Trade Representative put forward a list of 200 subsidies through the counter-notification process. Looking at those notifications carefully revealed a vast strategy in renewable energy to subsidize exports--not allowed under the WTO; to subsidize paper--not allowed to subsidize exports of paper under the WTO. The result is that paper plants are going out of business in the United States of America. The Blue Heron plant most recently has gone out of business on the Willamette River at a place where paper has been made for a very long period of time. In fact, the energy from the water wheel that was first there provided some of the first electricity in America. Longtime industrial production, but those jobs are gone. So that is a real concern. My colleague mentioned the interstate dispute settlement and the fact that it gives a foreign investor rights that a domestic investor does not have. It puts constraints on consumer protections that can be overrun--consumer protections done by a State can be overrun by an investor from a foreign nation. For example, you have a bill in America to stop producing toxic flame retardants and putting them into our carpet. Well, the foreign investor says: We built a plant to produce that chemical. Sorry, you can't have that consumer protection even though the result would be a lot more cancer for American citizens. That is an example of the concerns about handing over the sovereignty of our Nation, of our consumer law, our environmental law, to an independent board that operates outside of our constitutional framework. That is a legitimate concern which needs to be addressed in this conversation. So on issues of enforcement and issues of secrecy, issues of whether we are creating jobs or destroying jobs, I encourage Americans to become as familiar as possible with the provisions that have been leaked about the Trans-Pacific Partnership and to think carefully and give concerns to us here in Congress that we will work to address. When we have the legitimate text before us, then we can engage in a more detailed debate. But right now we need to push to end this secrecy on an issue that is so important to the future prosperity of our Nation and of our families. Thank you, Mr. President. It is my pleasure to yield the floor in anticipation of remarks from my colleague.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I rise tonight to urge Congress to quit playing political games with our national security. It is time to have a clean Homeland Security funding bill on the floor of the Senate to be debated. We are only days away from a potential shutdown of the Homeland Security Department, and it is very clear that the reason is that Members of the House on Capitol Hill have decided they want to make a clear statement about certain policy statements. They want to have a policy rider that says young children who came to this country and know no other country need to be prioritized for deportation. Why? Well, I think that is just wrong. But if Members of this body want to put that into a bill and want to put that on the floor of the House and want to put it on the floor of the Senate, I am quite ready to have that debate. Yet another policy rider says that the President must no longer prioritize the deportation of those with criminal backgrounds. Now, I happen to think we should prioritize deportation of any individuals who have conducted criminal acts. If some of my colleagues want to have that policy debate, I am fine with that. Put it in a bill, bring it to the floor of the Senate, and let us have that debate. A vote will then be very clearly on that specific policy and people can have some accountability. The American people will have some transparency about what is being voted on. But do not put these policy riders into the middle of the funding bill and work to shut down Homeland Security. That is no way to run a country. We live in a dangerous world. We lack for many things, but one thing we don't lack is security threats. It was less than 2 years ago that terrorists attacked us at the Boston Marathon. It was just weeks ago that we saw a horrific series of terrorist attacks on our friends in Paris. ISIL is a fierce and growing threat determined to wreak havoc. It is exactly at a time such as this that we should be working together on a bipartisan basis to fund and strengthen Homeland Security, not playing political games with the Nation's security, but here we are. Is it more important, I ask my colleagues, to have a debate about deporting DREAMers than it is to protect Americans against terrorist threats? If someone feels it is more important, not only do I feel they are wrong, but I invite them to have that debate. Put that into a separate policy bill and have the courage to put it on the floor of the Senate as a separate policy bill. Do not compromise our national security by trying to shut down Homeland Security. This is a misguided strategy, and the resulting fallout isn't just to national security. There are FEMA grants to disaster-stricken areas that will be stopped, local fire departments will be hampered, and thousands of essential public servants from Homeland Security to FEMA, to our terrific men and women in the Coast Guard will be forced to work without pay. Just last week I visited a Coast Guard installation in Newport, OR. It is an installation that has advanced rescue helicopters. They have five helicopters that work in rotation to make sure one is in the Newport area and a second ready to back it up if it has troubles. This is a port that has so much sea traffic. It is a deepwater port. It has commercial fishing, it has sports fishing, it has tourists who play on the rocks of the beach and get trapped by the tide, and it has recreational swimmers who get swept out by riptides. There is every kind of possible ocean-front disaster one could look for and so that rescue helicopter is very important. One of the young men I was speaking to is a rescue swimmer, an extraordinary individual who does some of the scariest, most courageous work in the world. These folks are not paid very much. They have bills to meet, similar to all the rest of us. Is this any way to run a country, to say you have to keep coming to work, but we are not going to send you a paycheck? To say to the thousands and thousands of young Americans who are working for our country in national security, ``you are so important that you have to come to work whether or not we pay you,'' is just wrong--wrong that we should be so disorganized, so partisan as to compromise our national security. Our folks who work in national security will be asked to continue working. They work in dangerous conditions that many of us could hardly imagine. They make sure our safety is improved. At a minimum, can't we just have a debate on the funding bill without these political games? They do their work and they feel a sense of duty. Let's have a sense of duty in doing our work. Let's put the Homeland Security appropriations bill on this floor and let's do so without partisan political riders. That game does no honor to our Nation nor to this institution. The public's opinion of this Chamber has fallen due to exactly these types of games. So let's end them. There is bipartisan support for ending these types of political theatrics. One of my colleagues from Arizona said, ``To attempt to use a spending bill in order to poke a finger in the President's eye is not a good move in my view.'' My colleague from Illinois, who serves across the aisle in this Chamber, said: The American people are pretty alarmed, as they should be, about security . . . the way to go forward is just fund the DHS. We ought to strip the bill of extraneous issues and make it about homeland security. That is a sentiment I think virtually every citizen feels at this moment. Let's make it about homeland security. Let's make it about us having the honor to do our duty. Our job on this floor is to consider this appropriations bill and not to load it down with favorite policy riders and political theatrics. Every day that goes by puts us closer to this shutdown. There is no logic in careening from crisis to crisis, but some crises come about due to uncontrollable factors. This one is entirely under our control. This one is entirely under the control of the leadership of the House and the leadership of the Senate. Earlier this evening I was on a phone call with many folks back home who serve in police departments and fire departments, in rural departments, rural emergency departments, and they were relaying the different types of grants they get that are so important to their communities. Some of them are search and rescue, some of them are disaster preparation, some are grants to fund the fire departments, and some for funding personnel. Nobody on the phone could understand why this Chamber is afraid to have a simple budget debate and an appropriations debate, a spending debate. They see no reason to load it down with politics that can be debated in separate policy bills. So I say to the leadership of this Chamber: Let's get our act together. Put policy into policy bills and let's put the spending bill before this body in a clean fashion and proceed to protect our Nation's security, as we are charged to do. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I rise today to urge our colleagues to come together quickly to pass a clean Homeland Security bill. We are now just 16 days away from a Homeland Security shutdown. The clock is ticking. A shutdown would be wholly unnecessary and, quite frankly, completely dangerous. We know we do not lack for security threats. It was less than 2 years ago that terrorists attacked the Boston Marathon. It was just weeks ago that we witnessed a horrific series of terror attacks on our friends in Paris. We know the brutal destabilizing force known as the Islamic State, or ISIL, is determined to hurt our Nation and our citizens. The world is a dangerous place. At a time like this, we should be working together on a bipartisan basis to fund and strengthen Homeland Security, but instead we are facing insecurity, instability, and uncertainty because some want to hold the funding for the Department of Homeland Security hostage-- hostage to a partisan political debate. Is it really more important to hold a fight over deporting children who came to the United States and know no country other than the United States, came here through no fault of their own? Is it more important to hold this fight over deporting those children than it is to protect America against terrorist threats? Although protecting against these threats is reason enough to oppose this misguided strategy, the resulting fallout would not just be limited to national security. This bill includes FEMA grants to disaster-stricken areas. This bill includes funding for grants to local fire departments--grants that would not occur. Thousands of essential public servants--from Homeland Security, to FEMA, to our terrific men and women in the Coast Guard--would be asked to keep on working even though we are not paying them. This is not the way to run a nation. This is certainly not the way to address national security threats that face us. I think it is telling when a strategy is being criticized from Members on both sides of the aisle. This is a foolhardy game being played with our national security. A colleague from Arizona said on this floor just yesterday--a colleague from across the aisle--that ``to attempt to use a spending bill in order to poke a finger in the President's eye is not a good move.'' Another colleague from across the aisle, from Illinois, said, ``The American people are pretty alarmed, as they should be, about security . . . the way to go forward is just fund DHS,'' the Department of Homeland Security. He continued, ``We ought to strip the bill of extraneous issues and make it about homeland security.'' That is the path forward, to have a funding bill for Homeland Security, stripped of political riders designed to take on one issue or another when those issues can be addressed in separate bills. If someone really wants to prioritize the deportation of children who came here through no fault of their own and know no country other than the United States, our DREAMers, then they should write that bill, put it through committee, and then the majority should bring the debate to the floor of this Chamber. I can tell you that I would be voting against that bill, but we would have the debate on that issue separate from the conversation about funding Homeland Security. I found it interesting to read the Wall Street Journal the other day. It refers to immigration restrictionists who want a larger brawl and have browbeat GOP leaders into adding needless policy amendments. That is coming from the Wall Street Journal. They proceed to say in regard to the fight over prioritizing the deportation of folks who are here without legal credentials and who have criminal backgrounds, that the President is ``prioritizing'' those deportations of those with criminal backgrounds. The Wall Street Journal says: That is legitimate prosecutorial discretion, and in opposing it Republicans are undermining their crime-fighting credentials. So if some of my colleagues want to argue that the President should not prioritize deporting individuals with criminal backgrounds, which I think should be prioritized, have that debate, but do not hold the Homeland Security bill hostage to that particular fight. In this morning's paper, there was an article about the funding of the Department of Homeland Security. This is in the Washington Post. It refers to the Grand Old Party at impasse as a measure stalls in the Senate. It quotes the Speaker of the House, Mr. Boehner. Speaker Boehner says, ``It is time for the Senate to do their work,'' and he proceeds to give a little lecture to Senators. He says, ``You know, in the gift shop out here, they've got these little booklets on how a bill becomes a law.'' Well, I encourage Speaker Boehner to actually read that book because what that book says is that in order to pass through the Senate, it has to get on the floor and it has to have support to be approved by this Chamber. So, Speaker Boehner, I encourage you to actually read the pamphlet you recommended because sending over funding for Homeland Security laden with unrelated policy riders is going to make sure that bill dies here in the Senate. Don't take my word for it, take the Senate's version or expression on this. It has come up for three votes in the Senate. We have voted three times to kill this House bill, giving clear instruction to the House: Send us the actual Department of Homeland Security bill free of these political riders, and we will put it on the floor, and we will have that debate, and we will undoubtedly pass that bill. But if you want to play political games rather than looking out for the security of the United States of America, don't expect the Senate to rubberstamp your political games, Speaker Boehner. So that is where we are now. I do encourage the Speaker to go right down the gift shop--I will be happy to buy him a copy of this, and I will be happy to read the phrases to the Speaker on exactly how a bill becomes law. It is deeply disturbing to the American people to see these types of political games being played with our Nation's security. We live in a dangerous world, and we need to take seriously our responsibility to fund this Department. I suggest the absence of a quorum.