Bill Nelson

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 617, S. 980.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I join today with Senators Martinez and Menendez, and other colleagues, to highlight the ongoing struggle for freedom being waged by a people oppressed by their own government, and to honor the struggle of one particular individual whose commitment to bringing that freedom has never wavered, even in the face of overwhelming oppression. Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet is a Cuban physician and human rights activist who has dedicated himself to the struggle to bring democracy, justice and freedom to Cuba. Dr. Biscet was unjustly sent to prison by a regime scared of the truth that his activities threatened to unveil--the truth that dissent in Cuba is regularly and brutally repressed; that political prisoners are regularly incarcerated in institutions that deprive them and their fellow inmates of basic life necessities; and most importantly, that the people of Cuba, like all people, long for liberty and the opportunity to take care of their families and loved ones free from repression by their own government. Dr. Biscet embodies the hopes and dreams of 11 million Cubans; we are here today to honor his efforts and his fellow Cubans' hopes and dreams by introducing this bill, which would award Dr. Biscet a Congressional Gold Medal for his tireless work on behalf of the Cuban people. It is our desire that this gesture will serve not only as a signal of hope to Dr. Biscet, who--charged with ``insulting symbols of the fatherland,'' ``public disorder'' and ``instigation to commit crimes''--sits today in the notorious `Cuba Si' prison as a symbol of the Cuban regime's oppression, but also as a signal to that government and those like it around the world that we are watching, and that liberty ultimately always prevails.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I point out that the Alexander amendment takes away the sensible moratorium, which Congress just adopted and the President signed 3 months ago, which prevents commercial oil shale leasing before the impacts of those technologies are known, with the R&D projects in Colorado and Utah. It further starts the process of drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf, which you just protected by adopting my amendment. By doing what Senator Alexander said, the camel's nose is under the tent to start drilling off of Virginia. I urge a ``no'' vote on Senator Alexander's side-by-side amendment.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, the Alexander amendment that is coming up unwisely attempts to override the moratorium we have which Congress adopted and the President signed 3 months ago to prevent commercial oil shale leasing, before the impacts of those proposed technologies are known and before the R&D projects in Colorado or Utah have produced any results. So my amendment takes that out. My amendment also takes out his portion, where he is going to allow oil and gas drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf. Senator Alexander is going to change that just to have gas drilling off Virginia. But I would argue, that is the proverbial camel's nose under the tent and what we fight about each year: Oil drilling off the coast.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 4329.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, 1 year ago yesterday, a man who had spent more than 28 years serving the United States of America, a dedicated husband and father and constituent of mine, disappeared from Kish Island, in the Persian Gulf. I rise today to remind this body of the plight of this missing person and the suffering of his family. On March 8, 2007, Bob Levinson, a retired veteran of both the FBI and DEA, arrived in Kish--an Iranian resort island that does not require a visa to visit. From what we know, he checked into his hotel, checked out on March 9th, got into a taxi, and then vanished. I have worked closely with the State Department and the Swiss Government to lodge a number of requests for information with the Iranian Government. Unfortunately, Iran claims it has no information on the welfare or whereabouts of Mr. Levinson. Last December, Bob's wife Christine traveled to Iran and visited Kish on a factfinding mission. Although she did not find any proof of his whereabouts, she came away with the strong belief that Bob is alive. Mr. President, I have worked closely with the administration to try to ascertain what exactly happened to Mr. Levinson. Today, just one day after the anniversary of his disappearance, I ask my colleagues to remember this American citizen, whose whereabouts are still unknown, and to urge the U.S. Government to do everything in its power to locate and bring him home.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, it has come to my attention that the Senator from Minnesota who sits in the chair right now was very kind in her comments a few minutes ago about one of the additions to this overall consumer products bill that this Senator had a little hand in. We are going to add another, because it is my understanding that we now have it accepted on both sides--it is in the managers' package--another major component of the bill to address the fact--and this is surprising. Last year, we had the largest crib recall in history--almost 1 million baby cribs--because three infant deaths were noted in the recall announcement. After the announcement, even more came to light. Most of us would be shocked to learn that most of the safety guidelines for durable infant and toddler products are not set by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, but they are only voluntary standards that are set by manufacturers making the products. So, for example, full-sized cribs, half-sized cribs, rattles, and bottles are the only infant and toddler products that have required safety standards. Well, it is time to change that. Happily, we are going to change that right here with this bill. Through the kind of comments made by the Presiding Officer, and thanks to the chairman of our subcommittee, the Senator from Arkansas, it has been included in the managers' package. What it requires is that all infant and toddler durable products be tested and certified according to mandatory safety standards before they are put out on the market. I thank Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine. She has come on as a cosponsor of this amendment. The minute she saw this, she said: I want to be a part of that. Because infant and durable products subject to this requirement include such a wide array of products such as cribs, toddler beds, high chairs, booster chairs, hook-on chairs, bath seats, gates, play yards, stationary activity centers, child carriers, strollers, walkers, swings, bassinets, cradles--all things that when we buy them, we assume they have been checked for safety. Yet it has been up to the manufacturers to check for the safety. What we are going to do in this bill when it becomes law, it is going to be as a result of safety guidelines that they are going to have to conform to independent testing. Standards would be established through a consensus process involving the Consumer Product Safety Commission, consumer groups, juvenile product manufacturers, and experts in the field. The standards will be promulgated on a rolling basis, with no less than two sets of durable product rules per year. This timeframe would allow for input by all of the interested parties. It is time to put a stop to these senseless deaths from unsafe products such as unsafe cribs. I am very grateful that the managers of this legislation have now included this as a part of the bill. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Christopher Day and Bill Couch, members of my staff, be granted floor privileges during the consideration of S. 2663, the CPSC Reform Act.

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, I understand we are trying to divide the quorum calls, so until some other Senator comes and wants to speak, I will seek the appropriate parliamentary position. Florida Democratic Primary But I wish to take this opportunity to speak about the bill, the Consumer Product Safety Commission. I also wish to speak about another unrelated subject, but one in which we are having a potential train wreck coming on the American political scene if, in fact, the worst were to happen, and we did not have a nominee in the Democratic Party for President all the way down into late August, going into the convention in the State of the Presiding Officer--Denver, CO--where the Democratic National Convention will be. Because then the issue would be so raw as to whether to seat the Florida and the Michigan delegations at the convention. Now, the reason I am making these remarks is I have talked to a number of our colleagues, and what I am about to tell you our colleagues don't know about the State of Florida in this fracas that is going on. Because most people think it was the Florida Democratic Party that suddenly got all riled up and shifted the Democratic primary in Florida ahead of the permitted time of February 5 and shifted it a week earlier to January 29. Not so. It was the Republican Legislature of Florida passing a law that was signed into law by the Republican Governor that changed, by law, Florida's date from its previous date of a primary in March to January 29. At the time the legislature did this, a year ago, in the annual legislative session, in early 2007, the rules of the Democratic National Committee said any State moving ahead earlier than February 5 would be penalized with half of its delegates taken away. Interestingly, that is what the rules of the Republican National Committee said as well. But when the Florida Legislature moved the date--and by the way, here is another fact that my colleagues of the Senate are surprised about when I tell them. When the bill came forward, it was an election reform bill, an election machine reform bill that was clearly going to pass on final passage in the Florida Legislature. It had a provision put forth by the Republicans in the legislature of moving the primary date early, to January 29. The Democratic leader of the Florida Senate offered an amendment to put it back to comply with the rules of the Democratic National Committee to February 5. That amendment was defeated, and then the bill went on to final passage since the main part of the bill was election machine reform--something we are sensitive about in Florida, by the way--and the Governor signed it into law, thus making part of the bill January 29. But then, once it became the law--and nobody is going to change that in Florida; that is the law. That is the date of the election. That is the date around which all of the State election machinery would operate, and the State of Florida would, in fact, pay for that election. And indeed they did-- $18 million worth of paying for. Then an interesting thing happened on the way to this crisis. The Republican National Committee said: No, Florida, you moved your date early. You broke the rules. Our rules say we are going to take away half your delegates. That is exactly what the Republican National Committee did. The Republicans went on to have a primary election, realizing they were only going to get half their delegates. But that is not what the Democratic National Committee did. The Democratic National Committee rules said: We are going to take away half your delegates. But over the course of the summer, some on the Democratic National Committee got so riled up about Florida jumping ahead of South Carolina, which wanted the privilege of being the first Southern State to have a primary, that they convinced the Democratic National Committee to exact the full measure of punishment--not what the rules called for, to take away half the delegates--but instead take away all the delegates. Then, another interesting thing happened. Those who wanted to punish Florida decided to concoct a pledge that they would force all of the Presidential candidates to sign, and the pledge said they would not go into Florida to campaign. Campaigning was defined as having staff, having an office, using telephones, even holding a press conference. But, by the way, there was an exception. They could go into Florida and raise money. So my colleagues can see how this has created a highly distasteful bad taste in the collective mouths of four and a quarter million registered Democrats in Florida, almost half of whom turned out on election day, January 29, when they were being told: Your vote is not going to count. Well, it is pretty precious to us in Florida that our vote count, and our vote count as intended, and 1.75 million Florida Democrats turned out. That was far in excess of twice the number that had ever turned out in any Presidential primary held in the State of Florida before. The Democratic National Committee still says they are not going to allow Florida's votes to be counted. Well, all of this fracas is coming full circle. Now, by the way, it wasn't that a lot of us didn't try. A whole bunch of us in the Florida congressional delegation first tried to work a compromise. We tried to say if everyone would get in the order that they wanted, the first four original States could end up being the first anyway. But, no, they were not about to listen to a compromise. This is back in the summer. This is in August. This is in early September, before the final decision became effective in September from the DNC of cutting off all the delegates in Florida. Congressman Alcee Hastings and I even filed suit in Federal district court against Howard Dean and the Democratic National Committee on the constitutional arguments that due process and equal protection of the laws under the Bill of Rights in the Constitution was violated. The Federal judge who heard the case in December decided he bought the argument of the DNC, that a court case from the 1970s--a Wisconsin case, in fact--applied, and that the DNC could do whatever it wanted in the setting of its rules. So what we come to is an unfortunate turn of events where, if the race is close, and delegates pledge delegates and decisions of superdelegates going into the summer, and if Florida and Michigan, which have a different set of circumstances, which are both being denied, were to make the difference, and if they are not seated at the Democratic National Convention, it is finally dawning on the partisan party leaders that how are Florida and Michigan and the people of those States going to feel 2 months hence after the Democratic National Convention, when election day, November 4, comes around. That is starting to make some people very nervous. So I call on all the reasonable heads--as the Good Book says, come let us reason together--to honor the fact that almost 2 million Florida Democrats went and voted and they expect their vote to count and count as they intended it to count. I call on the reasonable leadership to come together for the sake of unity and allow us to go into a convention in a unified fashion so that we can have a very legitimate election process for the leader of our country for the next 4 years. I understand there are other Senators who wish to speak, so I will defer my comments about the Consumer Product Safety Commission bill, of which I am a cosponsor, until a later time. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I wish to speak as to why the Consumer Product Safety Commission Reform Act is so desperately needed. Most parents, and consumers for that matter, will not forget in the past--and it was as recent as this past summer--the huge amount of toy recalls. There were children's jewelry and toys that were covered in lead paint. There were toys with detachable magnets that can cause fatal intestinal obstructions. There were stuffed animals with small parts that can detach and become a choking hazard. There was a children's craft kit containing beads that when swallowed became ingested into the child's digestive system; and what came out of those beads was the same chemical compound, believe it or not, as GHB, which is the date rape drug. The Laugh & Learn Bunny became a choking hazard. This magnetized building set, as shown on this chart--over 4 million units were sold-- those magnets became ingested into the child's digestive track. Thomas the Train, over 1.5 million units were sold, and lo and behold those were painted with lead paint. And then the Barbie accessories--675,000 units of those were sold--had lead paint. And there were other toys. In fact, one of them was some kind of little doll where the nose came off. It was exactly the size that could get into a child's windpipe and cause them to choke to death. As a matter of fact, one of the children's hospitals in Florida I visited about this very thing gave me a plastic thimble of about the size they said they hand out to the children's parents because they want them to see the size of anything that could detach--if it did from a toy--that is a choking hazard for a child. So in visiting with this team of emergency room doctors, they showed all these things in real life to me and told me about the invasive surgery that then they had to do on children that was traumatic for a child who is 4 or 5 years old. Then, I had the very sad duty to visit with a momma and a daddy in Jacksonville, who left two of their children in a room with a disco ball toy. What happened? It became overheated because it was illuminated. It became overheated. It caught fire, and it emitted enough carbon monoxide to kill both the children. Now, these incidents simply should not be happening. Yet with this bill Senator Pryor is managing on the floor, we can better ensure American parents do not have to face another summer of recalls. So this act is going to do a number of things. It would increase the number of professional staff who work at the Consumer Product Safety Commission. It would ensure consumer access to information about these products. It would eliminate lead from children's products. It increases civil penalties for wrongdoers. And it protects employees from retribution who report violations of consumer product safety. This bill also requires the first mandatory standard for toy safety, and it requires third-party testing of toys and other children's products. What has come to the floor is a combination of different legislation. What this Senator had contributed was S. 1833, the Children's Products Safety Act, which would require third-party testing of products intended for children aged 7 and under. I am very pleased it has been included in this overall package. There are two provisions that are critical. First, the third-party testing provision ensures that all of those toys and products undergo testing by a third party prior to entering the stream of commerce. Any that did not have the third-party testing would be banned from importation. Now, why is this necessary? Because we were letting the Chinese industry police itself, and it wasn't doing it, and the Government of China wasn't doing the inspecting. So we had the substandard and indeed unsafe toys coming to the American consuming public. Second, this bill would set the first mandatory safety standards by adopting the ASTM--the international consumer safety specifications for toy safety. That is often referred to as standard F-963. ASTM is a nonprofit standard-setting organization. It is an independent organization that involves the CPSC--the Consumer Product Safety Commission--consumer groups, and the industry in toy standards and the development process. The standards contain 100 other toy safety specifications, including testing for shock points, flammability, toxicity, and noise. These standards, in their development process, also provide a fast, collaborative process to address these changing conditions. So when the detachable magnet issue arose last year, the ASTM standards development team recognized the seriousness of the issue. They came up with a new magnet safety standard 9 months after the problem was first reported. Well, under the provisions of the bill, the updates to the ASTM standard will automatically be incorporated into the Federal toy safety standard, unless for some reason the CPSC would determine that it wasn't going to improve the public safety. So as a result, the consumers are going to have the benefit of new toy safety standards immediately after the adoption of this legislation. Taken together, these provisions will ensure that toys will be tested by a rigorous third-party testing process that is constantly updated to address new and emerging hazards to our children. Third-party testing has been endorsed by a number of consumer groups and a number of the manufacturers that realize we have a problem here. So we need to build a consensus and get this legislation passed. Last year, over 46 million children's products were recalled--can my colleagues believe that, 46 million recalled--and almost a fifth of those were recalled after a child was seriously injured or killed. It is not enough just to recall these toys; we need to make sure they never enter the stream of commerce in the first place, and this bill provides that safety. I wish to say there is also something in here about generators, portable generators. If you live in a coastal State such as mine and you get hit by a big hurricane--and especially gasoline stations are learning they need them because people need to be able to drive their cars and they can't get gasoline--well, in any kind of natural disaster such as that, people really rely on these portable generators to provide electricity. Unfortunately, every year, a number of people are severely injured or killed by the carbon monoxide poisoning that results from improper generator use. They crank this thing up in an enclosed room, and they ultimately are harmed or killed as a result of carbon monoxide. Section 32 of the CPSC Reform Act requires the CPSC to complete a long-pending rulemaking on portable generator carbon monoxide poisoning within 18 months of the enactment. When this rule is finalized, it is going to require new technologies to stop these tragedies, and it will save lives. It is a wonder that the CPSC hadn't already done this when folks such as myself are articulating what has happened with the deaths in the aftermath of a hurricane and have asked them to do it. Now we are going to bring it to fruition because it is going to be required under this legislation. I again thank my colleague, Senator Pryor, who is shepherding this legislation through a tortuous legislative process. I hope all of our colleagues will join in supporting this critical legislation. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum, unless the Senator from Arkansas--it looks as if his eloquent self is rising to speak.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I thank the great Senator from Arkansas for his leadership on this issue and handling the whole package having to do with the Consumer Product Safety Commission. He is the chairman of that subcommittee in the Commerce Committee. He has done an excellent job. He has crafted together all the ideas. The one little idea this Senator contributed is the requirement of independent testing of the products when they come out of these foreign countries because of the experience we had with China in which they had all these tainted toys that were coming in and hurting our children because they did not have any independent testing. It was like the fox guarding the hen house. You cannot put a fox in there and know that the hens are going to be safe unless you have someone who is independent to see that those items that are coming from another country are, in fact, safe. I thank the Senator for the leadership he has given us and reaching out and melding a number of these ideas: the increased staff, the increased spending--which the CPSC Acting Chairman even said she did not want, of all things--and the independent testing, the standards. I express my appreciation to the Senator.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Alaska because he has been very much a part of this effort, along with Senator Inouye. As a result of several things they did, I now ask unanimous consent that the amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to, the committee-reported substitute, as amended, be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time, passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record, without intervening action or debate.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I thank the Senate. This has been 2 years coming because 2 years ago, a young mother in Deltona, FL, which is north of Orlando in Volusia County, watched her baby die as she tried in vain to reach emergency 911. She had a telephone that she did not realize, because it was voice over the Internet, there was no provision for emergency 911 services. Following that tragedy of the death of that child, where a 911 emergency response team never arrived because they did not receive the call, we introduced this bipartisan legislation that requires all VOIP providers to offer the emergency 911 service, and this legislation gives them the tools they need in order to do that. We have been working on this legislation a long time. It passed the Commerce Committee unanimously in 2005. It was also added to a Senate port security bill in 2006, and then the conference committee stripped it out. Since the bill was first introduced, to the credit of the Federal Communications Commission, they took some action to require that VOIP customers have full access to the emergency 911. We appreciate that very much. But there are holes in those regulations. Those holes need to be filled, and this legislation we passed tonight--and is very similar to a House bill that passed a couple of months ago--will fill those legislative holes. This legislation will resolve any remaining questions regarding the Federal Communications Commission jurisdiction over VOIP services by requiring full access to 911 service by the VOIP customers. This bill also resolves any issues relating to the potential liability of the VOIP providers that offer access to 911 services. The legislation also requires the national E-911 Implementation Coordination Office to work with industry to oversee the next generation of emergency 911 network. This network is going to be resilient and redundant. It is going to allow 911 calls to automatically be routed to a functional 911 call center in the event of a disaster. Think about what happened down in New Orleans during Katrina. We had a certain way these 911 calls had to go to get to the emergency call center. Some of those lines were out of service, and so those calls never got there. This new system is going to send these little packets of information in any route it can to get to that call center. It is going to be redundant, it is going to be resilient so we will not have a repeat of people desperately down in New Orleans making 911 calls and not getting a response. This is a chart that pretty well depicts that every day thousands of Americans rely on these call centers so they can reach responders, and every day we have to wait to upgrade the network and those lives are at risk. We have gone all the way from just the rotary service telephones to the future, where we have something like these iPhones we have today that have so many different services on them. We need a system that can get this emergency service through these new kinds of mechanisms. That is what we are going to do. Going back to this terrible tragedy that happened a couple years ago in my State, this is just one newspaper headline that said trying to get that 911 call, it couldn't go because there was not a provision in VOIP. Lives have been lost. Lives were at risk. They are still at risk until we can get this legislation signed into law. I am extremely grateful to the Senate for having passed this legislation tonight.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I have a unanimous consent request that has been cleared on both sides. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 327, S. 428.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, there is an objection. I object.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 435, H.R. 1254, the Presidential Library Donation Reform Act of 2007; that the committee-reported amendments be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be read a third time, passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record, as if read, without further intervening action or debate.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I want to make sure I have in the Record why I had opposed the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to the Feingold bill, S. 2633. This Senator is certainly for a gradual withdrawal from Iraq. But the Feingold bill has a considerable pitfall because it starts the withdrawal within a certain period of time and cuts off the funding with the exception of allowing funding, for example--I am going to read--for ``Conducting targeted operations, limited in duration and scope, against members of al Qaeda and affiliated international terrorist organizations.'' In other words, the Feingold bill would allow funding to continue to conduct operations against al-Qaida, but only ``limited in duration and scope.'' I do not think we ought to limit the ability of the U.S. Government to go after al-Qaida in Iraq. Furthermore, this clause in the Feingold bill would allow funding to go not only against al-Qaida, ``limited in duration and scope,'' but also against ``affiliated international terrorist organizations.'' The word ``affiliated'' means affiliated to al-Qaida. There are a bunch of other terrorist organizations in the world we want to go after, and this limitation of funding would be only for those affiliated with al-Qaida. I do not want the Government of the United States limited in its ability to go after al-Qaida and then only those other terrorist organizations affiliated with al-Qaida. I have voted against the motion to invoke cloture. There seemed to be only about a dozen of us who voted against that motion to invoke cloture. As we proceed, I will certainly, if we get to the bill, try to amend that portion; otherwise, I will certainly be constrained to have to vote against this bill. Mr. President, I have another matter I will bring up at another time. I will let the debate proceed on this Feingold bill, so I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, that is about the best admonition this Senator could have. E pluribus unum--out of many, one. I am grateful to the Senator from West Virginia for reminding not only me but the whole Senate of that duty, that responsibility, that obligation we all have.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.