Bill Nelson

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, we are down now to passing what we have tried to pass so many times, this small business assistance bill, which is going to create a $30 billion lending facility that will work through community banks. The small business lending fund will generate $300 billion of loans that will specifically be targeted to small businesses to help get our country moving again economically. This is huge. But right now we are stuck on this issue of whether businesses are going to have to file these 1099 forms anytime they make purchases of goods. The Senator from Nebraska wants to eliminate all of the new information reporting rules. That is a salutary result. But how does he propose to do it? He has to come up with a way to pay for it. The underling law raises about $17 billion, so he has to come up with a pay-for if he is going to repeal it. Where does he get it? He basically goes directly at the health care bill, the reform bill, and he starts to gut the health care reform bill. This Senator does not think that is a very good idea, particularly since what the Senator from Nebraska is gutting is the subsidies that allow people to purchase health insurance who presently are uninsured. The amendment of the Senator would reduce the number of people that purchase coverage through the health insurance exchange. These are uninsured people whom we want to have private health insurance, 2 million of them in this country who otherwise would go into their State health insurance exchange and be able to purchase health insurance with some assistance because of their income level. The amendment of the Senator involves a complicated formula. It actually gets at a provision in the current health reform law that says if your health premiums are going to be above 8 percent of your annual income, you do not have a responsibility to purchase health insurance. The Senator from Nebraska drops that to 5 percent, which means that 2 million people in this country are not going to go into these health insurance exchanges and purchase health insurance. By the way, what is going to happen? They are still going to get health care if they do not have health insurance. Where are they going to get it? They are going to get it at the most expensive place at the most expensive time; that is, when they get sick they are going to go to the emergency room. If they do not have health insurance, guess who is going to pay. All the rest of us are going to pay, which was part of the reason for the health reform bill in the first place. It was to get 32 million people in this country who are not insured into the health insurance system so that you spread that health risk over more people. That is 32 million people who are going to come into the health insurance system and pay for their care, instead of just those who currently have health insurance. The whole idea was to get more people into the system--more people paying insurance, more people with health insurance so they receive preventive care and so they do not wait around until the sniffles have turned into pneumonia and they have to go to the emergency room. If they don't have health insurance, everybody else pays for them. What the Senator from Nebraska is doing is he is driving a stake into the heart of the health insurance reform bill by taking 2 million people out of that pool, people who are uninsured, who otherwise would be getting health insurance. That is the essence of this; otherwise, the Senator from Nebraska and I agree. We want to stop this nonsense of the harassment of every time you make a purchase of a good, some equipment, et cetera, that you have to file a 1099 because the other guy on the other end who is selling you that good is not going to report the income. We would both prefer to eliminate all of that. The amendment of this Senator says, first of all, if you are a small business, if you are 25 employees or less, you are not going to have to worry about that requirement at all. Second, this Senator says that if you have 26 or more employees, you are not going to have to file that 1099 form when you purchase equipment unless it is over $5,000 of value. Third, if it is a credit or debit card transaction, no information reporting by the business would be required, period. Is that too much to ask in order to help get people to pay the income tax that they owe, people who are now getting out of it to the tune of $17 billion? If somebody is not paying their income tax, is that fair? No, it is not. So in tightening up the law we are going to get people to pay their income tax, but we are going to do it in a way that is not harassing any business, and particularly small businesses, because we are going to exempt them if there are 25 employees or less. The long and short of it is if the amendment of the Senator from Nebraska, which is going to be voted on first, is not agreed to, then we come to the amendment of this Senator. You may want to eliminate everything. But if his amendment----

Mr. NELSON of Florida. If it is OK with the chairman of the committee, we have a unanimous consent that has been agreed to on both sides. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendments, No. 4595 and No. 4596, be modified with the changes at the desk.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Oh, goodness. I will conclude by saying if his amendment does not pass, then you have a viable alternative with the Nelson amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, last weekend, a Web page called WikiLeaks posted what they titled the ``Afghan War Diary.'' It involved the collection of 91,000 operational and intelligence documents about information that was collected in Afghanistan, and it was, they said, stolen from U.S. military networks. These documents contain sensitive information on military tactics, techniques and procedures and it revealed the names of critical intelligence sources. Very sensitive information is now in the hands of adversaries, and I wish to express my outrage over this incident. I am sad to say, this is what is breaking right now in Newsweek: ``Taliban Seeks Vengeance in Wake of WikiLeaks. Leaked U.S. Intel documents listed the names and villages of Afghan collaborators--and the Taliban is starting to retaliate.'' That is the headline in Newsweek that has just broken. I have the privilege of serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee. I can tell you what has happened is very disturbing, and I agree with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who has stated that the release of these documents has endangered lives--both the lives of our American service men and women and the lives of Afghan people who happen to give us important information to help us protect our Americans. It has been just over a week since the release of these classified documents, and the media reports indicate, as that Newsweek article indicates that has just been published, that the retaliation has begun. Last week, when the New York Times reported on this subject, they said a search of the leaked documents ``gave the names or other identifying features of dozens of Afghan informants, potential defectors and others who were cooperating with American and NATO troops.'' That is the New York Times article. Also, last week, in response to the listing of these names, a Taliban spokesman stated this: We are studying the report. . . .We will investigate through our own secret service whether the people mentioned are really spies working for the US. If they are . . . spies, then we know how to punish them. Well, we have the indications that the Taliban is following through with their plan to punish, so-called punish. According to this Newsweek article, death threats have begun arriving at the homes of key tribal leaders in southern Afghanistan, and over the past weekend one tribal leader was taken from his home and executed. One of these death threats was shared with a reporter, and this is what the death threat states: We have made a decision for your death. You have five days to leave Afghan soil. If you don't, you don't have the right to complain. Obviously, something very serious has happened, and there are a bunch of us who are extremely concerned about the damage this incident has caused to our operations in Afghanistan and to our national security as a whole. There are a bunch of questions we have to answer. How could we have allowed the names of those who cooperate with us to be posted on an open-source Web page or was this surreptitiously taken away? Another question: What kind of impact will this leak have on our ability to gain the trust of local populations in the future? This security breach is absolutely astonishing, and it represents a systematic breakdown in our national security procedures. I simply find it hard to believe that somebody could have downloaded tens of thousands of documents from our classified military networks without them being detected. So it brings us back to suspecting they have been leaked, and if it had never appeared, would we have known they were stolen from our classified networks? Another question: How many people were actually involved in this incident? Do we have a way to determine whether additional documents have been or are being stolen in the same manner? These are serious questions that I am sure the Department of Defense is examining as we speak. I applaud Secretary Gates for taking swift action to aggressively investigate who was responsible. But it is just as important to find out how our security practices failed to prevent the leak and to identify what must be done to prevent another security breach of this magnitude. The investigation is underway. We need to know the scope of the investigation. We need to be informed on what immediate steps have to be taken to address the network security breach. When you start dealing with people's lives, you simply cannot fool around with this kind of laxity or someone betraying the country, and we have to get to the bottom of it. Small Businesses Mr. President, I know this week we are going to be voting on the small business bill. My colleague from Louisiana is here, with whom I have had a number of colloquies on the floor. It is inexplicable to me how, because of procedure, Members on the other side of the aisle can keep voting no, not to bring up this small business assistance that so many political allies and political opponents all unanimously embrace. Once we get through with this bill--and I hope we get it passed and do not have to wait around until September to do it--there are other things we can do. I filed a bill to give our businesses all along the gulf an amendment to the IRS Code that would allow them to take their losses and to carry back those losses 5 years instead of the standard practice of a 2-year carryback. In essence, that would allow them in this particular year to take the losses, which are going to be severe to so many businesses, especially small businesses along the gulf, and to carry back and amend previous tax returns where they had an income tax consequence because they had income. Therefore, they could deduct those losses going back 5 years instead of just 2 years. The interesting thing about it is, the revenue consequence over 10 years is $119 million. This is not the huge amounts we have been talking about in dealing with this gulf crisis of billions and billions of dollars. So in comparative terms, the revenue consequence is minor. Therefore, it is something else we can do for the people who have suffered so much, especially the small businesses along the gulf. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

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

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. First of all, I don't want the Senator to be rushed because I came over here so that I could hear the Senator. The Senator from Louisiana is so articulate and so passionate. She has laid the case out with the bare facts that if there is any embracing, as there seems to be, of support for small business, including a lending facility of $30 billion to try to get money through the community banks into small businesses, which are desperate--and my State of Florida has a lot of small business--if there is this unanimity of feeling, then why are we playing these parliamentary games of adding on, insisting on the other side of the aisle's position that they want amendments that have nothing to do with small business and, therefore, cluttering up, as the Senator from Louisiana says? Is the world coming to an end? Is the Senate coming to an end where we are in such perpetual gridlock that something that is so commonsense as this legislation to help small business--to help that family at the breakfast table the Senator so eloquently described--are we at the point that the Senate is incapable of functioning because one side says it has to have its way of having amendments that it wants that has nothing to do with small business? Have we come to the point of complete gridlock?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, if the Senator would further yield, why do we have to mess up this bill with message amendments? These are political message amendments. For example, there are some amendments that on their own might be desirable amendments. There is an amendment--the fourth amendment of the four the Senator from Louisiana just mentioned--is one having to do with spending caps. That might be a desirable thing, but it is controversial. So why is the Republican side insisting on an amendment that is going to be controversial which lessens the chance for us to get 60 votes to cut off debate?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I will say this in conclusion, if the Senator will yield further, every one of us has small businesses in our States. The economic engine of Florida is small business. It is those very people who have come forth in this recession and have said they are having difficulty and, in many cases, cannot make financial ends meet because they cannot get the banks to lend to them. The big banks will lend to big customers. They are not fulfilling the obligation of lending to the entire community. The community banks wish to make those loans to small business and, yet, they say they are harassed by regulators. Here we have provided an avenue of money to flow through community banks to small business to help them make their financial ends meet. It is unconscionable that people in a parliamentary and partisan fashion would hold up this legislation. That is what I wanted to say, in conclusion, to the Senator from Louisiana.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, if the Senator will further yield--and I will be very brief because the Senator's patience has been extraordinary, and she has been at this going hard, full throttle all day--I would ask the Senator, in light of the extremely descriptive word picture that she painted of the family at the breakfast table and the mom and the dad don't want the teenagers to see that folks on Wall Street are getting all of these bonuses while they cannot even go down and have a weekend vacation because the money is not there, all of this is just exacerbated in the Senator's gulf coast State, as is my gulf coast State, because of the loss of income, the loss of business as a result of the gulf oilspill. Now we find that BP indeed wants to lessen their Federal tax liability by $10 billion by writing off all of the expenses attendant to this gulf oilspill. When you lessen your tax revenue, that means that you are asking for the taxpayers to make up the difference. Is it any wonder the mom and dad at the breakfast table don't want their children to know what in reality is going on here?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Before the Senator yields the floor, would the Senator entertain a question?

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, before the Senator from Louisiana leaves the floor, I just want to say that this issue is very simply characterized as Main Street versus Wall Street. It is a question of whether we are serious about reviving this economy and getting money into the hands of small business through community banks. Anybody voting no on a motion to invoke cloture to go to a bill that is ready to be embraced is inexcusable. This legislation is critical to getting small businesses back on their feet. That is certainly the case in my State of Florida. It gets the credit flowing again on Main Street through the community banks. The statistics about small business and jobs is all too familiar. Small businesses create most of the jobs in this country. In the last 15 years, they have created 12 million jobs or two-thirds of the American jobs that have been created. When the economy falters, guess who takes it on the chin the hardest? Small business does. Over the past couple of years, small firms have accounted for between 64 and 80 percent of net job losses. So it is time for us to step up and help them. For example, in Florida, small businesses play an even bigger role in the local economy. According to the Small Business Administration, small business employers account for 99 percent of the State's employers and provides for nearly half of the State's private sector jobs. Just when it looked as though things could not get worse for small businesses--and especially so in our State--along came the tragic explosion of the Deepwater Horizon platform, and our seasonally adjusted unemployment was 12 percent, representing in our State 1.1 million people out of work in a labor force of 9 million. We have not yet gauged the full impact of that oil spill on Florida's economy, but there is ample evidence that it is the small businesses that are the ones that have been hurt the worst and the ones who have had to lay off the jobs as a result of that oil spill. There was a study done by Dun & Bradstreet that found that the impact of the spill on Florida tourism, boating, and fishing industries--these businesses located along the gulf coast--is going to affect 46,000 businesses, with almost 300,000 employees and $14 billion in sales volume. One of the key features of this legislation and another main reason why we need to pass it is that Small Business Lending Fund. It sets up the voluntary capital investment program, under which the Treasury Department can purchase up to $30 billion in equity from small banks, those whose total assets fall under $10 billion. Although the fund is set at $30 billion, conservative estimates indicate it will lead to $300 billion in new small business lending. This is the economic shot in the arm that so many States need, including ours. I cosponsored the amendment that was added to this overall small business bill that put the lending facility back in the bill. It is an overlooked feature of the legislation that it actually provides $56 billion in tax relief for small businesses over the next couple years. Upfront tax relief comes in the form of early tax writeoffs for investments in new equipment, new machinery, and new construction. That is all a part of this small business bill. Together with the tax breaks, the targeted tax incentives, and the lending fund, we have a package that is exactly the type of relief small businesses need today. We need to jump-start them and that is what this bill accomplishes. Obviously, as the Senator from Louisiana has already said, this bill has very wide support. I underscore the Independent Community Bankers of America, and 29 State community banking associations have urged approval of this plan. So does the American Bankers Association, the National Small Business Association, the National Association for the Self-Employed, the Small Business Majority, the National Bankers Association, and the Conference of State Bank Supervisors. I have heard from many constituents--including small business owners, bankers, chambers, entrepreneurs--who believe this legislation is needed. I am proud to cosponsor it. I ask unanimous consent to join as a cosponsor of the Baucus-Landrieu substitute amendment because I think it is the right thing to do and the right thing for our State.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. It is my hope we can pass this substitute amendment without further opposition as we are continuing to see. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I ask the question to underscore what the Senator from Louisiana has just said, which is that small business, which is the mainstay of the economic engine in so many of our States-- certainly, that is true with Florida, as a matter of fact--the technological ingenuity of America often comes out of small business firms. How many times have we heard in our townhall meetings or in meetings with elected officials back in our States, the people who are being starved to death are the small businesses, because the banks won't lend? The big banks don't give them a break, and they are going out of business. They could have hired or doubled their employment. The community bankers want to lend, but they feel that the regulators have clamped down on them and this program--if it can multiply to $300 billion of lending for small business over the next 10 years, at a minimum, isn't that the kind of jumpstart we need to provide jobs and get this economy moving again?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Will the Senator yield for another question?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Including the Florida Bankers Association, including the Community Bankers Association--because they know what it is. They got dissed on the big TARP--which some of us voted against-- even when we tried to carve out little portions for small business, and it never worked because the banks would not lend the money; and now we are going to create a program specifically targeted to help small business through community banks.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Would the Senator also agree that when you look at the list of all the institutions that support this lending facility, they are some of what we would think of as the most conservative organizations, and they are very much in favor of this?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I would like the Senator from Louisiana to underscore the fact that the $30 billion put into this lending program, which will inure to the benefit of small business, is going to end up multiplying like the fishes and the loaves; it will end up being worth, over that 10-year period, $300 billion.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. NELSON of Florida

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

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, what is our parliamentary position?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I wish to compliment a lot of Senators on both sides of the aisle for the extraordinary bipartisanship--no, the extraordinary nonpartisanship that occurred in coming together unanimously to pass the NASA authorization bill out of the full Commerce Committee last week. The budget for NASA was about to be blown apart by centrifugal force--having different elements, different interests all going off in different directions. Everybody seemed to have their own agenda. Geographical circumstances came into it as to whose States were being affected. The companies were at war with each other. There was a lack of cooperation that was going on between the legislative branch and the executive branch. All I can say is hallelujah, it all came together, and we passed the NASA bill out of the Commerce Committee last week unanimously, with all the Senators who spoke singing its praises. I am going to outline it in just a minute, but let me make note of another fact. We had unprecedented cooperation between the authorizers; that is, the authorizing committee, and the appropriators. As we speak, the Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, State, Justice, which includes the NASA appropriations--are preparing the markup. We will find out the result tomorrow afternoon. But I can tell you the cooperation was extensive and so was the communication, the likes of which we have not seen around here this year, particularly in this year when there is so much gridlock and we have so much difficulty getting anything done. That has not been the case with the NASA bill. There are a host of Senators, they all know who they are, to whom this Senator wants to express his appreciation for their coming together. As the Good Book says: ``Come, let us reason together,'' and it happened. As I said at the time we passed it, I think it was a near miracle, but I believe in miracles. Indeed, it happened. Let me tell you what is in the bill. A good part of what the President requested is there. That is why we had the verbal and the written support of the President of this consensus that developed, which we passed. We had the President's recommendations on the top line of the spending for NASA, about $19 billion for this next fiscal year starting in October. The President recommended the extension of the International Space Station to 2020, which was originally supposed to expire in 2015, which was absolutely ridiculous. We are just now getting it built and it is about a $100 billion investment. The President wants to start a commercial rocket industry, already under contract with NASA--two companies, SpaceX and Orbital Sciences--to deliver cargo to the International Space Station. Those contracts are already underway and the testing is beginning. We put in the President's recommendation on that commercial cargo in this bill, which was a recommendation for $300 million. We agreed with the President to start the process of human-rating commercial rockets for the purpose of being, in effect, a taxi service to and from the International Space Station. Human rating of a rocket is no small measure, because when you strap in to a rocket, there has to be all kinds of redundancies in order to protect human life. Safety is one of our major watchwords. That was authorized as well--at a different level from what the President had originally recommended and over 6 years as opposed to 5 years that the President had recommended, but nevertheless it gets the project started. The main thing we did differently from the President's recommendation is this. When the President came to the Kennedy Space Center a few months ago and said he wanted to develop a new heavy-lift rocket that will ultimately take us out into the cosmos, the President set the goal--and I gave him great credit for this because you have to have a goal when you are developing cutting-edge technology--he set that goal of going to Mars by a flexible path. The first way station he pointed to, with a date 2025, is an asteroid. He said he wanted that heavy-lift rocket to start to be developed by 2015. That is a 5-year wait. Our committee did not want to wait that long. We want to get started now. In the authorization bill, in a congressional committee, we cannot design a rocket. But we can set policy guidelines to the executive branch of government and to the agency, in this case NASA, as to using shuttle-derived technology and building on that, making it, in the parlance of the space community, evolvable, and that is what we did in the authorization bill. We want to start it now instead of waiting until 2011. We also did another thing differently. Although the White House was contemplating this, by them embracing the consensus that we built, now they have supported it; that is, to fly an extra flight of the space shuttle. This is not a space shuttle that we have to go out and build the parts for. It is a space shuttle, a stack with the external tank and the two solid boosters as well as the orbiter we already have and ready to be on the pad as a rescue shuttle for the remaining two flights, one of which will come this November, the other next February. We wish to fly that third flight. It is likely to be the orbiter Atlantis. That would come a year from now, probably next June. There is a lot more stuff to take up to the space station. There is a lot more equipment, supplies, and, interestingly and importantly, there is a lot of stuff up there that you need the big volume of that cargo bay of the orbiter to be able to bring back to Earth. That third flight will supply that. We continue the President's recommendations on all the other parts of NASA--on the science part, on the aeronautics part, and on the acceleration of research and development for new technologies. We continue that. We focus some of that development of technologies in our authorization bill toward the building, the designing, and ultimately the flying of this heavy-lift vehicle, complete with a crew compartment, which more than likely will be in the form of what we thought of in the old days as the capsule. Therefore, at the beginning of the new fiscal year, which comes this October, assuming that we have the authorization in place--if that is the decision of the Appropriations Committee as well, and we can get that appropriation passed and signed into law by the President--then, come October 1, they will start on the development of that new heavy- lift vehicle. This has been met with wide consensus. The research and development on new technologies will continue. They will be more focused and directed. They will be more immediate. The capability of having the commercial rockets be human rated, to be the trip to and from the space station, will be there, and it will start immediately. All this dissonance and argument and criticism, it all came together and it passed unanimously. I await very expectantly and very hopefully for the Appropriations Committee--they are acting as we speak--on seeing the results of their work. Let me say in conclusion, I could name a dozen Senators. They all know who they are. I have said it in press conferences, and so forth, singing their high praises. Somewhere down the line, if this Chamber is still in gridlock on so many other issues that we have and if we get to the point we are not able to pass appropriations bills and if we, in fact, have to go back in order to fund the government starting October 1 on what is called a continuing resolution, which usually is a continuance of the previous year's funding--hopefully, we will have passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee their bill that is very similar to the authorization bill I have just described. In that case, if we are in gridlock, it would be my hope, it would be the hope of some dozen of us Senators that we would be able, then, to take that Appropriations Committee bill, passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee, if we have to go to a continuing resolution, and put that NASA appropriations bill in the continuing resolution. The alternative would be disaster. It would be appropriating on the basis of last year's bill that would completely blow apart the consensus I have just described. It would have the manned space program dead in its tracks by the funding at last year's levels without the policy direction. But, despite gridlock, I am an optimist. I believe what I have laid out is the mere expression of support of so many of our Senators on both sides of the aisle so that when it comes to this little $19 billion agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the agency that carries the hopes and dreams of a lot of Americans, it is my hope that under those circumstances, as we get on into the fall, that that is how we can fund NASA with an appropriations bill, if we cannot pass the overall CJS appropriations bill in its entirety. I come as someone who 2 weeks ago didn't know where in the world we were going or how we were going to get the votes. But Senators came together, and I, for one, this Senator, hope for the sake of all those young people out there whose hearts beat a little bit faster when they see that rocket as it climbs into the heavens, who had the dreams of understanding what is out there in that universe that we are exploring--for the sake of all those young people, for the sake of this country and its technological prowess, for the sake of this country and its people, for the technological spin-offs that come out of the research and development of the space program that absolutely pervades our everyday life to make our quality of life better, for the sake of the future of this country, that we stay on the cutting edge, inspiring our young people into math and science and technology and engineering so we can stay as the leader in this global marketplace, because we have the ingenuity, the creativity, the inventiveness. A lot of that inspiration comes out of our space program, both manned and unmanned. It is our destiny as a people to explore. It is our heritage as a people that we have explored. We have always had a frontier. When we developed this country, we expanded westward on the frontier. Now that frontier is upward. We can do no less than to continue the quest. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I would like to speak about fishing, a very important special pastime and industry for the Nation. Fishing in Florida is a way of life for many. The small bait and tackle shops, the hotels, the restaurants, the charter boat captains, and the parents who want to see their children marvel when they pull a fish out of the ocean for the first time rely on being able to access the water. In fact, just last week, a Washington Post article traced the path of fish caught in the Florida Keys and off of Florida's East Coast to a Whole Foods market here in the DC area. And sadly, the Deepwater Horizon has shown us how much healthy, high-quality seafood comes out of the Gulf of Mexico every year. In 2007, the Congress reauthorized the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. The Magnuson Act has certainly done some good things to ensure the long-term viability of our Nation's fishery resources. But some of the provisions of the law have had major unintended consequences in Florida. I have spoken before about the need for robust science on the status of our oceans and our fishery stocks. In fact, most recently, I worked with Gulf Coast Senators to get funding in the Supplemental Appropriations bill for fisheries science in the Gulf of Mexico. But despite the potential influx of dollars, fisheries data for the Southeast in particular, is still sparse. This lack of data has lead to a crisis in confidence amongst many in the fishing community. Here is why. The 2007 Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization contained a 2010 deadline to end overfishing. But the justification for that deadline rested on two assumptions. First, that there would be recent and accurate stock assessments. Second, that there would be improved catch data. I think the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is doing the best they can with available resources to gather this data. However, for years good data from recreational anglers has been a challenge but because of the changes to Magnuson-Stevens, regulations are coming out faster than the data used to support them. Having that hard and fast 2010 deadline created a situation where the resource managers are left without options. This has led to closures of large geographic areas to all fishing with no end on the horizon. These closures have devastated small businesses that rely on fishing and left many frustrated that they cannot access the same waters that they always could. Being a native Floridian, I know that many people develop a love for the ocean and a desire to protect it after they truly experience it by swimming, fishing off their boat, or listening to the waves. This access is a necessary component of conservation because the public gains a sense of ownership and this leads to a sense of responsibility. That is why I am filing the Fishery Conservation Transition Act today. The bill will enable individuals, businesses, and communities to make a smooth transition while the science catches up by creating a phase-in period for Federal fishing regulations and requiring enhanced data collection in the interim. It also allows for economic assistance for those who are negatively impacted by management measures. Others have proposed different solutions to this problem, but I believe that my bill is a targeted solution that gives resource managers options to allow access to the water in a way that will also achieve conservation goals. There are provisions in the bill that require fishery managers to use the transition time wisely and research creative solutions to complex management issues, like how to manage multispecies fisheries in a way that protects the vulnerable stocks but still allows for access. This bill is also about jobs. Small businesses that rely on the fishing industry can ride out these difficult economic times without sacrificing the resource their businesses rely on. I hope that my colleagues in the Senate will support this effort to provide a smooth transition to sustainable fisheries, healthy economic prospects for small businesses, access to the oceans and natural resources, and robust science. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I would like to speak about fishing, a very important special pastime and industry for the Nation. Fishing in Florida is a way of life for many. The small bait and tackle shops, the hotels, the restaurants, the charter boat captains, and the parents who want to see their children marvel when they pull a fish out of the ocean for the first time rely on being able to access the water. In fact, just last week, a Washington Post article traced the path of fish caught in the Florida Keys and off of Florida's East Coast to a Whole Foods market here in the DC area. And sadly, the Deepwater Horizon has shown us how much healthy, high-quality seafood comes out of the Gulf of Mexico every year. In 2007, the Congress reauthorized the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. The Magnuson Act has certainly done some good things to ensure the long-term viability of our Nation's fishery resources. But some of the provisions of the law have had major unintended consequences in Florida. I have spoken before about the need for robust science on the status of our oceans and our fishery stocks. In fact, most recently, I worked with Gulf Coast Senators to get funding in the Supplemental Appropriations bill for fisheries science in the Gulf of Mexico. But despite the potential influx of dollars, fisheries data for the Southeast in particular, is still sparse. This lack of data has lead to a crisis in confidence amongst many in the fishing community. Here is why. The 2007 Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization contained a 2010 deadline to end overfishing. But the justification for that deadline rested on two assumptions. First, that there would be recent and accurate stock assessments. Second, that there would be improved catch data. I think the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is doing the best they can with available resources to gather this data. However, for years good data from recreational anglers has been a challenge but because of the changes to Magnuson-Stevens, regulations are coming out faster than the data used to support them. Having that hard and fast 2010 deadline created a situation where the resource managers are left without options. This has led to closures of large geographic areas to all fishing with no end on the horizon. These closures have devastated small businesses that rely on fishing and left many frustrated that they cannot access the same waters that they always could. Being a native Floridian, I know that many people develop a love for the ocean and a desire to protect it after they truly experience it by swimming, fishing off their boat, or listening to the waves. This access is a necessary component of conservation because the public gains a sense of ownership and this leads to a sense of responsibility. That is why I am filing the Fishery Conservation Transition Act today. The bill will enable individuals, businesses, and communities to make a smooth transition while the science catches up by creating a phase-in period for Federal fishing regulations and requiring enhanced data collection in the interim. It also allows for economic assistance for those who are negatively impacted by management measures. Others have proposed different solutions to this problem, but I believe that my bill is a targeted solution that gives resource managers options to allow access to the water in a way that will also achieve conservation goals. There are provisions in the bill that require fishery managers to use the transition time wisely and research creative solutions to complex management issues, like how to manage multispecies fisheries in a way that protects the vulnerable stocks but still allows for access. This bill is also about jobs. Small businesses that rely on the fishing industry can ride out these difficult economic times without sacrificing the resource their businesses rely on. I hope that my colleagues in the Senate will support this effort to provide a smooth transition to sustainable fisheries, healthy economic prospects for small businesses, access to the oceans and natural resources, and robust science. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.