Jeff Merkley

Mr. MERKLEY

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 I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. MERKLEY. I have in front of me the list of the number of times the application of a rule was changed from the precedent. It was done each time under a simple majority structure, and it was done 10 times since 1985. I pointed out earlier--I am not sure if my colleague was on the floor--that seven of these times this was done under Republican leadership. So seven times Republicans came to the floor and said: We are going to change the application of a rule under redirection of the precedent or overruling of the precedent. I want to ask if the Senator is familiar with that because the way he was speaking, it sounded as if this conversation is about something--a procedure that had never been done. Yet it was done seven times since 1985 by my Republican colleagues.

Mr. MERKLEY. Will my colleague yield for a question?

Mr. MERKLEY. I have been listening carefully to the debate that has been taking place here on the floor, and the esteemed minority leader had a couple of phrases that he used any number of times. One of those was that this debate is about whether to break the rules in order to change the rules, and the second phrase, also involving the word ``break,'' was to repeatedly say to the majority leader: You have broken your word. Those are very powerful words. My mother always told me that when people start saying things like that, it is because they are at a loss for a real argument, but I found them disturbing. I found both of those phrases disturbing. I found them disturbing because they are so at odds with what this conversation is really about. We are here in the midst of a constitutional crisis. Our Constitution was set up with a balance of powers between three coequal branches, with checks and balances. Never in their wildest dreams did the crafters of our Constitution envision that a minority of the Senate, a minority of one Chamber, would undermine the functioning of the other two branches. In fact, they were very deliberate--very, very deliberate--in their determination that there not be such a possibility. They laid out with clarity that advise and consent on treaties took a supermajority, but when it came to the other branches, the judicial branch and executive branch have a de facto simple majority standard in the Constitution. They are in exactly the same paragraph, so you can compare them, one to the other. Our Founders talked about this, and they talked about it because they had the experience with the Continental Congress in which a supermajority had caused all sorts of difficulties. So I thought I would remind us a little bit about the framework they laid out in the Constitution. Alexander Hamilton said on a supermajority it would lead to ``tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good.'' Alexander Hamilton felt so strongly that there should be a simple majority standard. He wasn't alone. We have Madison, who wrote that ``the fundamental principle of free government would be reversed'' if a supermajority was the functioning principle. So we have this system of coequal branches with simple majority votes on nominations as a check against extraordinarily ill-advised nominations by the executive branch. Indeed, that has been the tradition throughout our Nation's history--simple majority votes on a timely basis on nominations, interspersed by very, very occasional blockades put up by exercising the will to filibuster but very rare use of that until the last few years. Indeed, it was just a few years ago that our Republican colleagues were in charge, and they were upset by a small number of filibusters by the Democrats on judicial nominees, and they came to this floor and they said that is not acceptable. They reminded us of this constitutional history, of this constitutional framework, and they asked for a deal. The deal they asked for was they wouldn't change the rules if Democrats wouldn't filibuster the nominations, and that deal was struck. But now the tide has turned. The parties are reversed, and suddenly that deal is not holding because we see filibuster after filibuster after filibuster obstructing the ability of the executive branch--with a President reelected by the citizens of the United States--and with vacancies in the judicial branch, with judicial emergencies from hither to yon, with the largest number of judicial vacancies and the largest number of executive branch appointments piled up. Yet my colleagues on the other side are saying: The Senate is functioning just fine. Only about 8 percent of the American people think the Senate is functioning fine, and those 8 percent one would have to recognize are just not paying attention. This is not the Senate I knew as a young man, coming here as an intern and sitting up in the staff gallery for Senator Hatfield. I would come down to the floor to brief him on the amendments and the debate before each vote. At that time, we had simple up-or-down votes on nominations, with rare exception. Even if we turn the clock back to the time of Lyndon B. Johnson, in the 6 years when Lyndon B. Johnson was majority leader in this Chamber, only once in his 6 years did he need to file a motion in order to close debate, and that wasn't just on executive nominations but a combination of executive nominations, judicial nominations and legislation--just once in 6 years. Senator Reid, in his first 6 years as majority leader, had to file 391 motions. This cloture process is designed to take a long period of time, often up to 1 week, because it was envisioned it would be used rarely. So here we are with the minority in the Senate doing deep damage to the executive branch, deep damage to the judiciary by the abuse of the filibuster, creating an imbalance or creating unequal branches of government that is completely out of sync with the constitutional vision. Are we, as Members of this body--having taken a pledge to uphold the Constitution and having that responsibility--going to allow this deep abuse of the constitutional vision of equal branches? I don't think anyone who takes their pledge seriously can come to this floor and argue that a small group of the Senate should be able to do deep damage to the other branches. The Republican leader said the strategy is to break the rules in order to change the rules. I thought I would just remind him that--and I believe he came here in 1985--since the time he first arrived, there have been many times the Senate changed the precedent on the application of rules. Using a simple majority, the Senate changed the application of a rule. It was done once in December 1985, once in September of 1986, then twice in 1987, once in 1995, twice in 1996, once in 1999, and once in the year 2000 and in the year 2011. That is 10 times during the time the Republican leader has been a Member of this Senate. The minority leader described this as a nuclear option. So using his reasoning, there have been 10 nuclear option bombs exploded in this Chamber during the time he has served here. Yet I didn't hear that mentioned in the presentation he put forward. It might interest the Republican leader to recall that of these instances, where under the standard of a simple majority the application of a rule was changed during the time he has served here, that seven of those times were under Republican leadership. It has occurred three times under Democratic leadership. So seven times under Republican leadership the type of action we are discussing--of reorienting the application of a rule in order to make the Senate work better--and three times under Democratic leadership. All of these instances occurred during the time he has served in this Chamber. So to come to the floor and talk about breaking the rules in order to change the rules, the Republican leader would have to go back and talk about those 10 times and explain how 7 of them happened under Republican leadership, but somehow that doesn't qualify as being the same standard. I think it is important to get away from the overinflation of the rhetoric that has been put forward. The second piece that bothered me in this debate was saying the majority leader broke his word. I think everyone who is party to a deal understands there are two parties to a deal and those two parties need to uphold their half. So I would remind folks about what the Republican leader's half of that deal was. I put on this chart, ``The January Pledge.'' This is the pledge made by the Republican leader on the floor of this Chamber. He said: ``Senate Republicans will continue to work with the majority to process nominations, consistent with the norms and traditions of the Senate.'' What are those norms and traditions? Those norms and traditions are that nominations are able to be voted on in a modest period of time with up-or-down votes. If we should have any doubt about what the minority leader meant about norms and traditions, we can go to the Republican policy document from 2005. Here we have the last major debate over the abuse of the filibuster--Democrats in the minority, Republicans in the majority--and this is what the Republican policy argument said: This breakdown in Senate norms is profound. There is now a risk that the Senate is creating a new 60-vote confirmation standard. The Constitution plainly requires no more than a majority vote to confirm any executive nomination, but some Senators have shown that they are determined to override this constitutional standard. I will stop quoting there for a minute and just note this was a very clear delineation of the constitutional standard during the time the Republican leader was in this Chamber, in 2005--not so many years ago. The document goes on to say: Thus, if the Senate does not act . . . to restore the Constitution's simple majority standard, it could be plausibly argued that a precedent has been set by the Senate's acquiescence in a 60-vote threshold for nominations. The document goes on to talk about the role of the Constitution in advise and consent: One way that Senators can restore the Senate's traditional understanding of its advice and consent responsibility is to employ the ``constitutional option''--an exercise of a Senate majority's power under the Constitution to define Senate practices and procedures. . . . Exercising the constitutional option in response to judicial nomination filibusters would restore the Senate to its longstanding norms and practices. So if we want to know what norms and traditions meant in this pledge made in January, it is all laid out in extensive detail in the Republican policy document, and it is laid out in the history of the United States. It means a modest amount of time to have a vote after a nomination comes out of committee, with a simple up-or-down vote, with rare exception. But that is not what we have had. So I would ask the Republican leader to engage in a discussion about our constitutional role, much like the debate the Republicans led in 2005. Because otherwise we are just casting aspersions, and the citizens looking in wonder at what happened to that great deliberative institution--the Senate. This standard of processing nominations according to the norms and traditions of the Senate did not materialize after January. Within days, there was the first ever--first ever in U.S. history--filibuster of a nominee for Defense Secretary. Ironically, that nominee was former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel. Within a short period of time after that, we had a letter from 44 Senators saying they would not allow a vote on any nominee for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Any nominee? That is the advice and consent role embodied in the Constitution that calls for a simple up-or-down vote? They are going to use the filibuster to oppose any nominee, regardless of the person's qualifications? That is actually using the filibuster in a whole new way to basically say we don't have the votes to undo the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau--which, by the way, is charged with stopping predatory practices that undermine the success of families--so instead of trying to get rid of this institution that protects families--and I am not sure where family values fits in there--we are, instead, going to prevent anyone from exercising leadership authority and sitting in the Director's chair at the CFPB. I see my colleague is here and waiting to speak, so I will conclude with this. Let's recognize that the deal laid out in January just didn't work. It didn't work. It doesn't make sense to keep saying who didn't make it work. Certainly, from my perspective on this side of the aisle, this issue of continuing to work to process nominations consistent with norms and traditions didn't work. My colleagues across the aisle have a different concept of why it didn't work. But at the heart of it, as they argued in 2005, there is a constitutional vision for the use of advice and consent, and that constitutional vision is in deep trouble. It is not permission for one coequal branch to undermine the other two branches. That is why the Members of this body need to have this debate. It is why I am on the floor now, and it is why we need to wrestle with restoring the role of this Senate, the proper role in the nomination process. I yield the floor.

Mr. MERKLEY. Are there any rules currently on how long one may speak?

Mr. MERKLEY. I will be happy to do that. I have that in front of me. Let's start on December 11, 1985: The Senate allows a conference report on the basis that everything included is ``relevant,'' even though multiple provisions have been ruled to violate the scope of the conference committee's authority. The ruling of the Chair changing the precedent was reversed. This happened again in September-- Mr. SESSIONS. Was there a vote on that?

Mr. MERKLEY. I will get the Senator a personal copy.

Mr. MERKLEY. Absolutely.

Mr. MERKLEY. Yes. I can assure my colleague that each and every one of these involved an actual vote, and each and every one of these 10 occasions did reverse the previous precedent. That happens in two fashions.

Mr. MERKLEY. Yes.

Mr. MERKLEY

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

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, this morning a significant debate began on the floor of the Senate as to how to make the Senate function within the framework of the Constitution and within the norms and traditions of the Senate. Indeed, the Constitution envisioned three coequal branches of government, and it provided checks and balances. One of those was that when the President nominates individuals for executive branch positions, Congress could serve as a check. Specifically, the Senate was given that power, to review the qualifications and make sure there was not something outrageous about the nomination, as a check on the Executive. This principle was embedded as a simple majority review. Indeed, in the Constitution, it is in the same paragraph that lays out a supermajority standard for treaties, but retains a simple majority standard for reviewing executive branch nominations. The Senate in recent times has started, however, to use the privilege of having your say; that is, everyone should be heard before a decision was made, as a way to change that fundamental principle in the Constitution from a simple majority to a supermajority. We can't close debate here in the Senate without a supermajority. Even though no one has anything else to say, that power has been used to prevent a simple up-or-down vote. Under this theory of three coequal branches of government, no one could envision that a minority of one Chamber of the legislature could, in fact, completely undermine either the executive branch or the judicial branch. That certainly was never anticipated. Indeed, the reason it was left as a simple majority is that our Founding Fathers who were writing the Constitution had experienced the challenge of what a supermajority would do. Madison said, regarding the supermajority, ``The fundamental principle of free government would be reversed.'' He said in Federalist Paper No. 22, speaking from the painful experience as a New York representative to the Congress that created the Articles of Confederation, that supermajority rule results in ``tedious delays; continual negotiation, and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good.'' Madison was not the only one to observe the deadly nature of paralysis to a Congress. In Federalist Paper No. 76, Alexander Hamilton lays out the nomination process in great detail. Indeed, he says he has kept the nomination power with the President and not the legislative branch to avoid the ``party likings and dislikes, partialities and antipathies, attachments and animosities, which are felt by those who compose the assembly.'' He then went on to argue the Senate is necessary to vet nominees for the ``intrinsic merit of the candidate'' and continued, ``the advancement of the public service.'' Hamilton states that he expects nominees would be rejected only when there were, and I quote, ``special and strong reasons for the refusal.'' This principle of oversight to make sure that something that is outside the bounds of reason is done by the executive branch has now reached a point of deep abuse. Our majority leader came to the floor earlier today, and he laid out the history of how the nomination process has been bent from an unrecognizable process that neither Madison nor Hamilton nor any of our other Founders could have envisioned, a process that allows this Senate to utilize the privilege of having your say on the floor and turn it into a weapon of destruction against the legislative branch and the judicial branch. We can take a look at how long it has taken folks to be able from the announcements and their waiting time to get a vote, such as Richard Cordray, 724 days and counting; Alan Estevez, 292 days; Jack Lew, 169; and so on and so forth. The traditional norm of the Senate, a timely up-or-down vote with rare exceptions, is certainly missing today. The executive branch is headed by the President, who was elected by the citizens of the United States. In this case President Obama was not elected once, he was elected twice. He was elected with a vision, and people expect, the citizens expect, that the President will operate the Presidency consistent with implementing that vision and carry out the responsibilities of an executive branch. This cannot be done if the folks necessary to lead different agencies or sit on different boards cannot get through the nomination process in this Senate. For those who are passionate about believing in the vision we have, the constitutional vision, the balance of power, the coequal branches of government, we must act to remedy the deep abuses we are experiencing today. Let me first emphasize the extensive delays. Executive nominees who are ready to be confirmed by the Senate have been pending an average of 258 days, the better balance of a complete year, more than 8 months since they were first nominated--258 days. This hardly meets the norm or the tradition of the Senate of timely consideration. This has been a prime cause of the difficulty filling executive branch slots. Not only does it make the vacancies extend for a long period of time and, therefore, dysfunction in executing the responsibilities of government, but it certainly makes it more difficult to recruit qualified folks who don't want to be held in limbo and procedurally tortured by a minority of the Senate in this fashion. This is not new. This did not start this year, but it keeps getting worse. In that context, let's go back to January. In January, there were a series of bipartisan modest changes in the rules, and they were accompanied by a promise of comity. That is c-o-m-i-t-y, comity. Specifically, the pledge by the Republican leader was this: Senate Republicans will continue to work with the majority to process nominations, consistent with the norms and traditions of the Senate. What are those norms and traditions? Those are timely consideration, up-or-down votes, with rare exception. Let's take a look and see if what has happened over the last 6 months is consistent with the norms and traditions of the Senate and let's start first with looking at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Only weeks after the January pledge, 44 Republican Senators sent a letter that said: ``We will not support the consideration of any nominee, regardless of party affiliation, to be the CFPB director''-- February 1, 2013, just days after the Republican leader pledged a return to the norms and traditions of the Senate. This is not within the norms and traditions of the Senate, even going back to our Founders, who pointed out that they were worried about partisan, party-affiliated differences and animosities permeating the system. They laid out a simple nomination-confirmation process about the qualifications of the individual, not about the legitimacy, if you will, of the agency. It is a policy decision. It is a policy that has been passed in this Senate saying the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a valuable addition to end practices that are predatory financial practices. We had a consumer safety group that looks at things such as keeping lead out of the paint on children's toys. That is very important, and it goes on to monitor the safety of toys and many other aspects.

Mr. MERKLEY. I ask unanimous consent to speak for an additional 10 minutes.

Mr. MERKLEY. We indeed in this case are talking about an agency that will protect our families from predatory financial practices. We all know what those are. They are hidden charges on prepaid credit cards. They are exploding interest rates on mortgages, where there is a teaser rate for 2 years and then the mortgage zooms up from 4 percent to 9 percent, driving defaults. In fact, that was a major factor, not only in the loss of homes of millions of families but also a major factor in the meltdown of our economy. What is good for the family, building successful families, is also good for building a successful economy. We had that debate, and we as a Senate approved creating this organization. Now we have 44 Senators who say they are going to destroy this agency by blocking a Director from ever being appointed. This is 100 percent outside the norms and tradition of the Senate. Of course, that restoration of the norms and traditions was the promise made on this floor by the Republican leader just days before this letter was sent. According to the Senate Historian, this is the first time in history a political party has blocked a nomination of someone because they didn't like the construction of the agency. Let me repeat that. This is the first time in history. A few weeks later we had another first, the first ever filibuster of a Defense Secretary nominee. The New York Times wrote: ``The first time in history that the Senate has required that a nominee for Secretary of Defense clear the 60-vote hurdle.'' This is the first time in history. The irony, of course, is that the nominee was a former Republican colleague of this Chamber, Chuck Hagel. Certainly this was out of sync for the norms and traditions of the Senate. Then we come to this spring, again, unprecedented delay tactics. A Republican former House Member called the boycotting of Gina McCarthy ``an unprecedented attempt to slow down the confirmation process and undermine the agency.'' Is that consistent with the norms and traditions that were promised in January? It is not. In fact, I sit on the committee that voted Gina McCarthy out. When we tried to have the vote, we were faced with the boycott; that is, a quorum was denied because our colleague, Senator Lautenberg, was extremely sick and could not attend. Taking advantage of his illness, Republicans decided not to show up and therefore block that nomination from coming out of the committee. Only when Senator Lautenberg came in, in the midst of an extreme illness, did the Republican members attend the committee. This is part of this ongoing process of unprecedented obstruction. Real delays involve real hurt. It is not an academic debate. This obstruction is having a real impact on people's lives. Let's turn to the National Labor Relations Board. In a few weeks in August, there will no longer be a quorum of the NLRB. This means for the first time in 78 years there will be no referee in place between the rules for the conduct of employers and employees. That referee makes sure that illegal practices by workers don't occur and illegal practices by employers don't occur. We lose that referee in a few weeks and that, as Members of this Senate have expressed, is their goal. Again, this is unprecedented--not putting forward a policy debate over eliminating the National Labor Relations Board but instead undermining it by blocking the ability to hold up-or-down votes on the nominees. Workers are deeply affected by whether this referee is in place. Kathleen Von Eitzen, a Panera baker who tried to organize her fellow bakers, came to Washington, DC, to talk about how they have been unable to get to a final contract and how, in the process, their members have been cut, in some cases their hours have been cut, and a whole host of other retaliatory measures. These are the things you need a referee for--to say that is not acceptable or to judge the evidence as both sides present it. That is why we need the NLRB. How about Marcus Hedger, who was fired for taking a friend through the shop floor. It just so happened Marcus was a union leader in his shop. He asked permission to escort a friend through the floor and it was granted. Then the employer said: Aha, we got you. We can fire you because you know you are not allowed, under the rules, to escort a friend through the shop floor. The NLRB ruled quickly, saying this was an extraordinarily flimsy pretext for firing someone because he happened to be a shop steward, and it was during the timeframe of a labor negotiation. The company was trying to send a message. They were trying to say: If you support workers organizing to fight for living wages, you may get fired, and here we have just set an example. It is the NLRB that is the referee that says those sorts of unacceptable tactics cannot occur. Back to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It has refunded Americans $425 million in savings by getting rid of credit card tricks and traps. I think it is important we fight for the success of our families. These are family values. We should not measure the success of our Nation by the size of the gross domestic product. We should measure it by the success of our families, and eliminating predatory tactics is an incredibly important piece of that puzzle that touches millions. What we have seen is this: The pledge made on this floor by our Republican leader in January--the pledge that said we will return to the norms and traditions of the Senate for nominations--has not occurred. The Republican leader may indeed have had every good will in making that pledge, but it requires the cooperation of the entire caucus and that certainly has not occurred and we haven't heard a strong effort to abide by that pledge made in January. So it is time to restore the norms and traditions in the Senate, where the Senate provides a check on outrageous nominations, but it is a check, not a form of paralysis. It is advise and consent, not paralyze or veto. For those who love democracy, it has been sad to see this Chamber, once considered the premier deliberative body in the world, fall into such a State of paralysis and dysfunction. It is up to us, as Members of this body, to come forward and say that is absolutely unacceptable. That is the debate that was started today. I applaud the majority leader who in January of 2011 strived to resolve this dysfunction through a gentleman's agreement, but within weeks that gentleman's agreement was in tatters. I applaud the majority leader for his instinct in January when he sought modest bipartisan rule changes with the promise of comity and a pledge from the Republican leader to return to the customs and traditions of the Senate. His instinct was right. We should be able to accomplish these things by restoring the social contract. The leader, Harry Reid, has gone the extra mile and then another extra mile in seeking to adopt the social contract that held this body together, but now what we see is it has not been reciprocated. The pledges made, the promise of comity, the gentleman's agreement has not resulted in material changes in tactics employed on the floor of the Senate. So now we have to work to restore the vision of our Founders, the vision of simple majority, with timely up-or-down votes on nominations. We owe this to the executive branch, and we certainly owe it to our citizens who reelected President Obama. I wish to address one last point; that is, it has been argued what the majority leader is proposing--that we, if necessary, change the rule or change the application of the rule in order to make this place work again--is unprecedented.

Mr. MERKLEY. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 1 more minute.

Mr. MERKLEY. I have in my hands a document entitled ``The Senate's Power to Make Procedural Rules by Majority Vote,'' and this lays out a whole host of viewpoints expressed in 2005 that I think would be interesting reading for my colleagues across the aisle because it was their document. I also have a long list of cases where every other year, on average, we have changed the application of a rule in order to make the Senate function in a different way, a better way. So this is far from unprecedented. It is time for us, together as Senators, to live up to our responsibility and restore the power to the executive branch to put their folks in place, operating under our advise and consent in the way envisioned in the Constitution. I yield the floor.

Mr. MERKLEY

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

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I thank my colleagues from Connecticut and Maryland and Rhode Island who are down here sharing their stories and their concerns about carbon pollution and its impact on climate around the world. Indeed, it was just last October that I was engaged in a triathlon. In the first stage, the swimming was in the ocean in North Carolina. I had been told to expect temperatures of 62 to 65 degrees. As I went down to the water with the first group of participants getting off the transport bus, the first in front of me stepped in the water and said: Hey, folks, this water is really warm. Come on in. The temperature was not 62 degrees or 65 degrees, the temperature of the ocean was 72 degrees. A week later Hurricane Sandy struck the Northeast with incredibly devastating consequences, powered by this much warmer ocean water. That is one of the many effects we are seeing of increased carbon in the atmosphere, trapping the Earth's heat. Perhaps the most important number we should all be aware of is the number 400. I put the number 400 on a chart so we could ponder it--400 parts per million. What that represents is a roughly 50-percent increase in carbon dioxide as it is represented in the broader atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution, going from 270 to 400. That is a lot of heat-trapping gases added to the atmosphere. Indeed, when we were at 350, scientists started to say, before we hit 400, we need to dramatically reduce the burning of fossil fuels so we will never hit 400 and the number will come back down and stabilize around 350. If we were being graded as human civilization on this planet on our effectiveness in decreasing the burning of fossil fuels and keeping the concentration from increasing, we would be getting an F. We would be failing because not only did we soar from 350 to 400, but the rate of carbon pollution has doubled in the last 30 years. Thirty years ago the rate was, on average, one part per million per year. Now the average rate is two parts per million per year. So not only have we not decreased and leveled out, but the steepest of the curve has doubled, which means that 5 years from now we will be at 410 and 10 years from now we will be at 420. What this represents is a very bleak future for humans on this planet. By various estimates, it has been somewhere between 3 million and 10 million years since our atmosphere had this level of carbon concentration. That means that in the time humans have been on this planet, which is less than 200,000 years, humans have never witnessed-- have never lived in an atmosphere of this concentration. We have never left footprints in the sand when the atmosphere has this level of heat- trapping gases. Now we see it everywhere. We see it in Oregon in terms of our cascade glaciers are getting smaller and our cascade snowpacks are getting smaller. Our pine beetle infestations--normally knocked down by cold winters--are getting larger. Our fires are getting larger, fed by drought and dead trees from the pine needles. Indeed, we have had three record-setting droughts in the Klamath Basin in the last 30 years--the worst ever droughts three times in the last 13 years. We are even seeing it in our Pacific Ocean oysters. Those oysters, when they are tiny, are very sensitive to the acidity of the water. The acidity has gone up because carbon dioxide in the water has gone up. We have many examples just in my home State. If we look across the rest of the United States, if we look across the globe, there are huge impacts everywhere, with multiples of impact at the poles, where the temperature change is faster. I applaud the President for saying we must have a bold strategy to take on climate change. There are three big areas of carbon dioxide generation, and those are electricity generation, transportation, and buildings. His plan lays out strategies in all three areas, and that is good. That is a starting point for a much broader discussion on how we end our fossil fuel addiction. Addictions are hard to kick, but they are particularly hard to kick if we have someone who is trying to keep us hooked, and those who benefit from the profits of burning fossil fuels are very much trying to keep us hooked. So we have to recognize that requires an extra degree of dedication and effort on all of our parts. I will wrap up and turn this over to my colleague from Maryland, who has been a terrific champion on this topic and who has seen firsthand in Maryland many of the effects of global warming.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Let me take you back in time to 2009 and 2010. The housing market had collapsed, sawmills had shut down across our Nation, and thousands of loggers and sawmill workers were out of work. You can imagine how outraged those unemployed loggers were when they found out that government contracts had been let for logging but the contracts were going to go to employees from Mexico. That is the type of bypass that completely disturbs the fabric of our immigration system. It undercut the success of thousands of rural families across this Nation. This amendment has a simple fix. It says that jobs have to be appropriately advertised so that our loggers will know how to apply. That is it. It will work for rural America. It will work for the forest industry. It will work for our loggers. Mr. President, I understand that we are able to dispose of this amendment with a voice vote. I ask unanimous consent that the 60-vote affirmative threshold be waived under the Merkley amendment, as modified.

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I thought I would take a few moments to share the contents of this amendment and why it is an important addition to the bill we are considering currently. This is related to a very critical part of Oregon's economy; that is, timber and forest jobs. Forest jobs have long been a pillar of our rural economy in my State. In fact, my father worked as a millwright when he first came to Oregon. He worked as a mechanic, which was basically to keep the sawmill operating. When the sawmill shut down, he pursued other jobs as a mechanic. We traveled with the timber economy, as so many families in Oregon did. Many of our rural towns are mill towns--towns closely related to the production of lumber from our national forests and from private forests. Over the past several decades, times have been pretty tough in the timber economy, and we have many forest workers who have suffered through these tough times. Their families have gone with the ups and downs of the timber economy. Certainly, the recession added insult to injury, and the unemployment rates in many of our timber counties soared and have been stuck at over 15 percent. That is why in 2009 I and others fought to get funding in the recovery bill to expand thinning and wildfire prevention. The concept was that we have millions of acres of overgrown second-growth forests which is not ideal for ecosystems, and it is not ideal for producing timber. What it is ideal for is forest fires and disease. So thinning these forests made a lot of sense, and we can put a lot of folks to work. We did get funding for forest health, but in 2010 we had a little shock. One of our newspapers in Oregon, the Bend Bulletin, started reporting about how the forest service contracts intended to put Americans to work--and for the Oregon forests, Oregonians to work--were instead awarded to contractors who were bringing in foreign workers under the H-2B visa program. These contractors, using cheap labor, were underbidding the local companies that were employing Oregonians from these rural communities--communities deeply steeped in the tradition of forest jobs. In 2011, we found out from a Department of Labor audit of some of these contracts--more than $7 million worth--that not one Oregonian was hired. In fact, the audit concluded that it was likely Oregonians didn't even know the jobs existed. Now, why is that? Because the contractor--seeking to underbid the contractors who would hire Americans--proceeded to advertise in California for jobs in Oregon. They proceeded to advertise well in advance of the jobs; there was a disconnect in time. They proceeded to imply in the advertisements that a second language was required. When applications were received by the few Oregonians who found out about those jobs, they round-filed those applications, put them through the shredder, rather than using our tax money to thin our forests to prevent forest fires and disease and didn't hire Americans for those jobs. The information provided to my office showed that in 2010 and 2011 in Oregon and Washington more than one-third of the contracts being awarded by the Forest Service were going to companies that self- attested that they could not find a single American worker who wanted to do these jobs. Now these companies are operating in rural communities with very high unemployment rates in the middle of a terrible recession. We have thousands of Oregonians who have signed up on a job seeker database saying they want to work in our forests. In Oregon that list involves more than 5,000 individuals who are on a State list wanting to work in the woods, and the contractors said they could not find anyone who wanted one of these jobs. This is exactly the type of abuse that undermines the entire program. This is the type of abuse that must not be allowed. As I go from county to county doing townhalls, as I do in each county every year, folks say time and time again: We need more jobs in the woods. Well, those jobs that we do have in the woods, we need to make sure they know about those jobs. When our taxpayer dollars are funding the work, we need to make sure the money goes to create jobs where they are needed. That is why I am proposing a narrowly tailored amendment to address this problem with three simple changes to the H-2B program for forestry jobs. First, enhanced recruitment. Employers, before submitting a petition to hire H-2B workers, would be required to use appropriate recruitment strategies to find or notify Americans who are interested in these jobs. This could be advertising at job fairs, with local and State workforce agencies and nonprofits, or advertising on reputable Internet job search sites or radio. The key is they must work with the State workforce agency to advertise in the places where local residents are likely to hear about the jobs. That is exactly what did not happen in Oregon in 2009 and 2010. The second provision of this amendment is that the Secretary of Labor could grant a temporary labor certification to an employer to hire H-2B forest workers. In order to do that, the director of the State workforce agency would have to certify that the employer has complied with the recruitment requirements, and the director of the State workforce agency would have to make a determination that local workers were not qualified or available to fill the jobs. That way we connect the contractor who is responsible to make sure that folks know about these jobs with the workforce agency that has the expertise in finding people who want to know about these jobs. If there is a situation where a contractor simply says, well, we advertised, but we cannot find anyone, the workforce agency would know whether that was a legitimate and valid conclusion. The third point is that if an employer seeks to be certified for a work itinerary that covers multiple States, and if the work outside the primary State lasts 7 days or longer, then the employer needs to contact the agency in each State. That way they don't simply have someone starting work in California for a day or two and shifting to Oregon, shifting to Washington, or shifting to Idaho--perhaps for a month in each place--but never advertising in the State where the work is being done. These are three simple changes to our H-2B program for forest workers that could make a real difference for individuals struggling to find work in the woods. Now, we cannot go back and fix the contracts that have already been issued and abused in the past, but we can fix the problems we know about now so that those forest workers do get the jobs in the future-- those Oregonians, those Americans who want to work in the woods. In places like Myrtle Creek, where I was born, or Roseburg, where I went to first grade, when you are born in these timber communities, you are practically born with a chainsaw in your hand. Timber is the heart of the local economy. To have folks--who are unemployed, trying to support their families and desperate for jobs in the woods--find out that our tax money that was supposed to go to put them to work has been put to work hiring people from outside our country is outrageous and unacceptable. This amendment will address it in a responsible manner. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I thank the Presiding Officer for the time. I yield the floor.

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, under the prior unanimous consent agreement, I call up my amendment numbered 1237, as modified.

Mr. MERKLEY

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

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, again, I thank the chair for her leadership. I know how much she looks forward to the conclusion of this process as we try to enable folks to have various amendments which are appropriate for the farm bill debated on the floor. I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to enter into a colloquy with Senator Stabenow.

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I thank Senator Stabenow. I deeply appreciate the commitment of my colleague to ensure that the Monsanto Protection Act is not tucked into subsequent legislation in a manner that bypasses full committee examination and Senate debate. The farm bill is extremely important to our Nation. The Senator from Michigan has worked with me to incorporate a number of provisions that are important to the farmers in Oregon, including disaster programs, responding to forest fires, specialty crop research programs, improvements in insurance for organic farmers, and low-cost loans offered through rural electrical co-ops for energy-saving home and business renovations. It has been a real pleasure to work with Senator Stabenow on those provisions and, again, I thank the Senator for her support for them and for advocating responsible legislative examination of measures such as the Monsanto Protection Act.