Debbie Stabenow

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, I wish to thank our dean of the Democratic women, Senator Barbara Mikulski, for once again being right on point and Senator Barbara Boxer for her leadership as it relates to protecting our environment and energy security. She and Senator Maria Cantwell have been our leaders as it relates to cutting gas prices and at the same time doing those things that allow us to protect our beautiful land and water and air. So I wish to thank my colleagues. Listening to the discussion about what is happening in terms of gas prices just brings me back to what is an essential part of our checklist for change; that is, making sure Americans have jobs. We are going to pay those high gas prices which are absolutely outrageous. Senator Mikulski is right, it takes a change in policy. Senator Boxer is right when she talks about the fact that there are a lot of places the oil companies could be drilling right now. That is the problem. Right now, instead of buying more corporate jets and putting more money into bonuses for themselves, if they were to reinvest in the land that is already there, that would address their concern about supply. We know what is really happening. Unfortunately, for the last 8 years, we have literally had two oilmen in the White House, and we have watched the price of gasoline go beyond our wildest expectations. I know people in Michigan never would have thought we would be at over $4 a gallon. To add insult to injury, during this same time when we are looking at foreclosure rates at the highest level in my lifetime, certainly, and gas prices at the highest levels, food prices going up, the cost of health care going up, what is going down--and what is frightening for families across America--is their incomes, their jobs, and their standard of living. Just since January, 324,000 good-paying American jobs have been lost--just since January of this year, 324,000 families without a job, yet paying those high gas prices, paying those high food prices, trying to figure out how to send the kids to college or to pay tuition if they are in college. How do I make ends meet? How do I have my piece of the American dream when I am losing my job or my income is going down? Our checklist for change is about the things Americans want to have happening in this country. It is frightening to see that since 2001, we have lost 3 million--3 million--think about this number--3 million manufacturing jobs in this country. Certainly, the people in Michigan have taken a big hit of that 3 million. But overall now, considering all of the policies and the lack of action, including the dollars being sent to a war in Iraq rather than being invested here at home, we now are in a situation where 8.5 million Americans are unemployed--8.5 million Americans. Our Republican colleagues would say: They should just go find a job. We don't want to extend unemployment benefits because that encourages people to stay home. That makes no sense if you are somebody who has been out of work trying to keep your house, trying to pay the food bill and the gas bill and everything else. But the reality is that we have about 4 million jobs in this country right now and 8.5 million people out of work--roughly 4 million available jobs and 8.5 million people unemployed. We also have what I call a race to the bottom in general economically where Americans are being told: In a global economy, if you will only work for less, we can be competitive. If you will only lose your pension, lose your health care, we can be competitive. We reject that. Our checklist for change rejects the notion of a race to the bottom and the loss of our American way of life. What we embrace are strategies that create good-paying jobs, middle- class jobs at home in America. What we embrace is a race to the top. We want to export our products--not our jobs--in a global economy. To do so means a level playing field on trade, enforcing our trade laws, as well as creating new trade agreements. We want to make sure people are not losing jobs because of the high cost of health care, the burdens on small and large businesses today. So we believe the race to the top means a change in the way we fund health care in this country. Finally, we understand it means investing like crazy in education, in innovation. That is the race to the top. That is what we embrace in our checklist for change. I am very proud of the fact that the Democratic Senate and House have put together a budget resolution for the next year that focuses on three major areas of job development--jobs and innovation through our green-collar jobs initiative: investing in the new advanced battery technology for the new vehicles; investing in conservation and energy efficiency through buildings and other kinds of efficiencies that are so important; job training in the new green- collar economy, investing not only in biofuels but making sure the pump is actually there, so when you drive your vehicle, you can get biofuel or biodiesel--you can actually find a pump. So green-collar jobs are an important piece of what we have put in place. Secondly, jobs in America. When we are rebuilding highways, bridges, and water and sewer systems, those are jobs that will not be exported overseas. Those are good-paying jobs in America. Our checklist for change, as well as our budget, believes change should be done, and we can invest in good-paying jobs at home. Finally, in our budget resolution we invest in job training and make a major investment in opportunity through education, from preschool all the way up to college. We know that serious changes need to be made in the priorities of this country. I had the opportunity a while ago to be on a television show following a Republican colleague--a woman in the House--who looked at our checklist and said: We Republicans can support all those things. In looking at that, I am scratching my head and going: We have had 6 years with President Bush and an entire Republican Congress, and they had control of every piece of the Government. They were not focusing on jobs, energy alternatives, fiscal accountability--as the occupant of the chair has talked about--or education or equal pay for equal work. They didn't fix that. They didn't address these issues that American families and businesses are asking us to do. In the last 2 years, instead of working with us on the changes we have initiated, we have been blocked over and over again on the floor of the Senate. All we get is filibuster, filibuster, filibuster. So we come to the floor and to the American people as Democratic women who have been fighting, along with our Democratic male colleagues, for real change that will send gas prices down, not up, and that will send health care costs down, not up, and make it more available, to bring food prices down and, most important, bring wages up. In the greatest country in the world, we can do better than losing 324,000 good-paying jobs just since this past January. I am proud to join my wonderful colleagues in putting together a checklist that speaks to the things we know American families want to see happening. We are going to do everything possible, both this year, and as we go to the changes that we hope will happen next year, to embrace and actually get results on our checklist for change. I yield the floor.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. I ask for a second reading and object to my own request.

Ms. STABENOW. I understand that S. 3118, introduced earlier today by Senator Grassley, is at the desk. I ask for its first reading.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, I rise today in support of S. 3101, the bipartisan effort introduced by our Senate Finance chairman, Senator Baucus, and the distinguished Senator from Maine, Senator Snowe, that will strengthen Medicare. This is a critically important bill that I hope we will have the support of the Senate on tomorrow to be able to proceed to and to pass. This important legislation not only prevents harmful cuts from jeopardizing patient care, but it also sets the stage for modernizing our health care system through information technology. This is a very exciting part of this bill for me, with Senator Snowe having worked on this issue, with many other colleagues now for some time, and it is a very important step forward. First and foremost, though, this legislation protects patients' access to their trusted physicians. If Congress does not act soon, Medicare payments to physicians and health care professionals will be cut by 10 percent--10 percent--as a result of the fatally flawed sustainable growth rate formula or, as we call it, the SGR. It is sad that we are once again going through this exercise. If I could, I would reform the flawed SGR formula once and for all. Personally, I wish to stop this process and create a new one that makes much more sense for physicians and for patients and the Medicare system. It makes no sense for us to go through this ordeal every 6 months or so and risk jeopardizing seniors' access to care when we know the kind of cuts facing physicians under Medicare would be devastating and would, in fact, directly impact access to care for those who rely on Medicare. Physicians are the foundation of the Medicare system and our Nation's health care system, and patients of all ages depend upon our physicians for their health care services, which they provide in an outstanding way every single day. Every aspect of our health care system, from hospitals to rural health clinics, relies upon the skills and services of physicians. When I introduced my bill, S. 2785, earlier this year on stopping the SGR cuts, I heard from countless seniors and physicians, medical group practices, and hospitals in my State, all expressing support for the effort to stop these cuts. For example, one orthopedic practice in southwest Michigan wrote me and said: Every year we have to wait until the last minute to see if the rates will be cut or fixed. It makes it impossible to budget and project for the next year. Especially for a practice like ours, with nearly 50 percent of our patients receiving Medicare. With the uncertainty and the increases that we do get not keeping up with the cost of living, we have to err on the side of caution, which leads to job cuts. That is certainly an ongoing issue all across my State. We certainly don't want to be seeing cuts as they relate to jobs or access under health care, compounding what is already happening in the health care system. A radiologist in southwest Michigan reported having to close three outpatient x-ray offices over the past 5 years, and they are looking to close another one this year. A surgery center told me it had to put off investing in an EMR and was forced to freeze any wage increases and possibly lay off staff. A medical group in mid-Michigan that staffs two emergency room departments determined that the scheduled reduction would reduce its Medicare payments by nearly $175,000 a year--$175,000 a year. If the reduction were to go into effect and this legislation is not passed, or similar legislation is not passed, the group wrote me it would be forced to reduce the workforce by either one full-time physician or two full-time physician assistants--cutting back on the availability of health care services for seniors and the disabled in my community. That is truly frightening when our emergency rooms are losing staff. I have, for too many years, heard from hospitals and others across Michigan about the difficulty in finding physicians who are able to take Medicaid patients because the rates are so low. This is the first year I have been hearing such great concern from hospitals, from hospital emergency rooms, about Medicare, the Medicare rates being so low--without these cuts--and the inability to find physicians who are able to take those patients. I am hopeful we can add language to S. 3101 similar to a bill I have introduced with Senator Specter to begin to address the crises facing our emergency rooms because we have a much broader issue we need to address there as well. I am very proud of the work that over 20,000 MDs and DOs do in Michigan every single day, providing more than 1.4 million seniors and people with disabilities, and over 90,000 TRICARE beneficiaries in Michigan with high quality medical services under the Medicare Program. If Senator Baucus's bipartisan legislation does not pass, physicians in Michigan will lose some $540 million for the care of seniors and people with disabilities over the next 18 months due to the 10-percent cut in payments for 2008 and the additional 5-percent cut for 2009. Madam President, $540 million of services, Medicare services, health care services that will not be rendered to the people in Michigan is not acceptable. Michigan physicians are looking at cuts of more than $10 billion by 2016; $10 billion in the next 8 years as a result of this flawed formula, and 9 years of cuts. We certainly can't expect that physicians can continue to provide the same level of care if their payments are cut $540 million over the next 18 months alone. These cuts will be devastating to our seniors and access to care. Second, the lack of a predictable and equitable Medicare payment system hinders our investment in information technology, which we all know we need to be investing in. We need physicians in hospitals and other providers to be investing in technology that not only allows people to communicate with one another--electronic medical records and e-prescribing--but allows the very latest technology so that we have the very highest quality, the ability to provide the most efficient processes of providing health care that is possibly available. Health IT is very important to that. This bipartisan legislation recognizes the need for investing in information technology, something, as I indicated before, that I am pleased to have worked on for the last several years with Senator Snowe. This bipartisan legislation would increase the list of those sites under telehealth that would include skilled nursing facilities and dialysis centers and community mental health centers that would be able to receive reimbursement for telehealth, which is so important. I thank Senator Conrad for his leadership. I am pleased to be joining with him and others on the whole question of expanding this part of the technology of telemedicine, telehealth. In addition to improving access to care and facilities, we will see significant cost savings achieved by avoiding transporting medically fragile patients from one place to another. I am so proud, among many other advances in Michigan around health IT, telehealth is something that we have been using in rural parts of northern Michigan and the upper peninsula now for years. We have great leadership that has been developed. I am pleased to have had an opportunity to participate and see what is done that allows people in remote parts of Michigan to be able to communicate directly with physicians, with nursing staff, and so on, to receive care they need without traveling long distances. There are wonderful ways this can happen. This legislation expands the ability for people to receive telehealth services. This is important. Additionally, this bipartisan bill moves us toward e-prescribing, a basic building block for greater adoption of health information technology. There are incentives for doctors who write prescriptions electronically, that improve both quality and efficiency. I thank Senator John Kerry and Senator John Ensign for working with me on the whole question of e-prescribing and being in a position to put this forward, and I thank Senator Baucus again for his leadership in strong support of this effort. Again, we in Michigan have been recognized as one of the top five States in e-prescribing. We have had huge success in a regional collaborative in southeastern Michigan called SEMI, the Southeastern Michigan ePrescribing Initiative that has brought together General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, the UAW, insurers, and providers to work with consumers to be able to electronically create e-prescribing so the physician can in fact communicate directly with the pharmacy in the most accurate way with the most accurate information. We have some 2,500 physicians in southeastern Michigan who are engaged in this. Last October, a patient safety analysis found that SEMI alerted doctors of potentially incorrect drug prescriptions that resulted in nearly 423,000 prescriptions being changed or canceled because of the information the doctor was able to receive. Possibly the physician was looking at a particular medication that had an adverse drug relationship with something else the patient was on, or maybe there were concerns about allergic reactions or other information that was helpful and gained through this process in the program through e- prescribing. SEMI also sent out more than 100,000 medication allergy alerts. When a formulary alert was presented, so physicians were alerted as to a problem with a particular drug they were thinking of prescribing, 39 percent of the time the physician changed the prescription. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 3 minutes.

Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, 39 percent of the time when the physician had more information they changed the prescription and therefore addressed safety concerns or saving the patient or the employer dollars. In February, a physician satisfaction survey found that 9 out of 10 physicians believed that e-prescribing met or exceeded expectations. This is only one region of Michigan where it has been extremely successful. We have incentives in this bill to be able to support physicians using e-prescribing and being able to have some assistance to be able to purchase the equipment they need. I believe there are a thousand reasons why that is a great idea and one of the reasons I enthusiastically support this bill. Third, this bill reauthorizes important rural provisions to ensure that all Americans, regardless of where they live, have access to health care. We have, in Michigan, again, many small- and mid-sized providers serving vast rural areas around our State. This is very important, to approve the payments for community health centers and ambulances and other providers who are hit by declining Medicare reimbursement--as well as high gas prices, I might add. Finally, let me say I am very pleased that an area of the bill addresses gathering more information on health disparities regarding gender or regarding race. It is taken from language in my HEART for Women Act, to be able to gather more information for providers as to gaps where we need to be focusing more on particular kinds of services. Many organizations such as the American Medical Association and the AARP have endorsed this bill and endorsed it strongly. I again thank Senator Baucus, as Finance chairman, for his leadership. I support fully his goal of providing this 18-month fix for physician payments as well as providing other very important incentives for the future. This bill is very much about the future with e-prescribing and with telehealth and other information gathering. I very much hope that we, on behalf of the 44 million people who rely on Medicare, will have a very strong vote to proceed to this bill and have a strong bipartisan vote to adopt it. I am very hopeful that with a strong vote the President will decide to support this bill and sign this initiative. It is critically important that we get this done. The physician cut is going to take place very shortly if we do not act. This bill does the right thing and moves us in the right direction as it relates to health care reform.

Ms. STABENOW. Excuse me, Madam President, if I might ask my friend, who has already been patient, to suspend for a moment. I have been asked to read a unanimous consent request.

Ms. STABENOW. Thank you ever so much. I am here talking about physicians and ``the physician'' is on the floor. Certainly I would not presume to know more about medicine than my colleague from Oklahoma. I appreciate very much his allowing me to do this.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. I ask unanimous consent that the following calendar items be indefinitely postponed en bloc: Calendar Nos. 35, 37, 42, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 143, 224, 227, 228, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 245, 248, 250, 251, 252, 254, 255, 256, 267, 285, 354, 360, 361, 362, 364, 367, 372, 373, 375, 377, 378, 379, 385, 424, 425, 436, 437, 546, 572, 639, 640, 643, 655, 658, 662, 663, 664, 665, 666, 667, 668, 669, 670, 671, 672, 673, 674, 675, 676, and 724.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 9:30 a.m. tomorrow, Thursday, June 12; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that the Senate resume the motion to proceed to S. 3101, the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act, as under the previous order.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, also under the previous order, the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to the Medicare bill will occur at approximately 3 p.m. tomorrow afternoon.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. I ask unanimous consent that following the remarks of Senator Coburn and Senator Inhofe, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to a period for morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for whatever time I may consume.

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

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, to review where too many families are today in our great country, we have 324,000 people--324,000 people--who have lost good-paying American jobs just since this January. Just this January, not last January, not the January before or the January before but just in the last few months, 324,000 more Americans--middle-class Americans, working hard every day and trying to keep up with the gas prices, trying to keep up with the mortgage payment, pay for food, send the kids to college, probably having a bigger health care bill--have lost their job and gone, probably, on unemployment compensation to be able to help their family to be able to continue. And, Mr. President, 72,000 of those individuals and families impacted come from my great State of Michigan, with 49,000 jobs having been lost since May, 17,000 of those lost in Michigan since April. At the same time, we all know gas prices are now at $4 and going up, foreclosures nationally are over 702,000 homes this year, with over 31,000 of those in Michigan. All of that is to say that we have a picture now of middle-class Americans, of those who believe in America, who are and who have been working hard every day, who want the American Dream for themselves and their families finding themselves being hit over and over again with one cost after another. Even those who have not lost their jobs are concerned that they may. Will the plant stay open? Will the employers keep the same number of people on when their costs are going up? Too many people have gone from $28 an hour to $14 an hour, or $30 an hour to $10 an hour. What we are seeing across the country is people who are desperately concerned about their ability to keep their standard of living and to remain in the middle class of this country. In many cases they are desperately concerned about simply being able to put food on the table, being able to get the money to put the gas in the gas tank so they can go look for the next job. With this backdrop--and with millions of Americans saying: What about me? What about my family? What about some kind of action that will help my family, and understand what we are going through right now? With all of that as a backdrop, what we have seen today, once again, is absolutely outrageous. It is absolutely outrageous. Two very important bills were brought forward where we simply asked to be able to proceed to discuss them, and once again the Republican minority has said no. They blocked everything, stopped everything. No. No. There is no sense of urgency, no sense of urgency about gas prices, no sense of urgency about getting off of foreign oil and energy independence. There is no sense of urgency about what is happening to families every single day. It is amazing to me, when we look at the numbers. We have in fact had so many Republican filibusters we have to Velcro the chart. In the interests of conservation, in the interests of not having to print up multiple charts a day and waste good old posterboard, we actually have had to Velcro the numbers because they change so much. Twice today--we have now well exceeded what was a 2-year high in previous Senates in the over 200-year history of our great country. We did that last year. What does that mean? This all sounds like insider process kinds of things--it is just folks talking about partisan politics. The reality is we are talking about whether the Senate is going to be able to move forward to debate issues and solve problems that people care desperately about. They do not care whether this is an election year or not an election year. They don't want excuses. They want us to get something done because they are trying to figure out how in the world they are going to be able to keep things going and make ends meet for their family in this great country we call America. We have seen 75 different times that there have been filibusters that have been blocking our ability to actually get something done. What was filibustered today? What efforts were made to block us today? First, a very important bill, the Consumer-First Energy Act, to take on what is happening on gas prices. I know, talking with my family, home this weekend--folks were looking at me, saying: What in the world is going on? What can be done? We have put together legislation multiple times to address it, short term and long term, as it relates to gas prices which are so outrageously high. But over and over again we are blocked. Why? Because the oil companies do not like it. That is what this is about. Unfortunately, the oil companies do not want to see us move in the direction of being able to tackle issues of whether there is, in fact, price gouging; whether there are in fact issues around speculation; whether we are going to have competition with alternatives to oil. They do not want us to do that. They do not want us to tackle the issue of the tax subsidies they receive. What we see instead of action, as we could have had today, we see this past week oil prices at $140 a barrel, almost twice the price from last year. It is almost twice the price from last year, and OPEC says it could be $200 this year. Think about that when you are trying to get to work, trying to maybe take the kids to camp for that week or maybe trying to go to the grocery store or go looking for work or maybe take mom or dad or the kids to the doctor. We are talking about a huge burden that is building up and up. Unfortunately, while gas prices now go over $4 a gallon, we are seeing an effort to, one more time, block commonsense efforts to do something about it for the families of America. Unfortunately, on the other side of the aisle, there has been a desire to make sure that we continue big oil tax breaks rather than addressing what our families need. Last year the big oil companies pocketed $124 billion in profits. It is fine to make a profit. We want companies to do well, to make a profit. But we also want to make sure when that is happening they are reinvesting in the economy, reinvesting in creating more supply. We want them to be reinvesting in new energy. Unfortunately, that is not happening. We also want to have tax policy that makes sense in terms of where we want to invest in new technologies. The oil companies are doing pretty well, I suggest, right now. I do not think my tax money or your tax money or the tax money of any of the folks here or any of the folks around the country needs to be used to incentivize big oil, which is exactly what is happening right now. They are doing pretty well. We have been trying and we have been blocked through Republican filibusters, to take away subsidies, taxpayer subsidies for oil companies and move them over to subsidize new, growing industries, green options, alternative energy--wind, solar, advanced battery technologies, consumer tax credits to buy the next generation of vehicles, the next generation of appliances. Those are the kinds of tax credits that encourage people to focus on energy efficiency and conservation in their homes, those things that will move us in the right direction. That is what we have been trying to do. And we have been blocked. The bill that was stopped also creates a permanent tax on windfall profits for the major oil companies. If they are not going to invest in America and invest in our future and buy the next airplane or put it into more big bonuses, then we need to have a windfall profits tax that will redirect those dollars back so we can take them and invest in the future. I see our distinguished leader on the floor and I am going to suspend for a moment, if I might. I know he has some important business he needs to do. I yield to our leader and ask that I later be recognized to continue my comments.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, before our leader leaves the floor, I thank him for his patience and tenacity to continue, despite objection after objection, as we try to govern on behalf of the people of this country--whether it be addressing issues of global warming, whether it be gas prices, whether it be what just happened, which is to bring forward a Medicare bill that will stop a large cut to physicians all around the country and affect our ability to have access to health care. It is a bill that includes the ability to focus on rural health care and telehealth and e-prescribing and a number of things that will increase access to health care. To emphasize what just happened one more time: There was an objection to moving ahead on something that is important to the American people: to expand, under Medicare, health care for communities and our seniors. This goes back to my original point now: 75 Republican filibusters and counting. It is going to continue and continue, unfortunately, because there is not the willingness to work together to get things done. Let me mention two other issues. I mentioned what is happening in terms of blocking our Consumer-First Energy Act, which focuses on a number of ways to go after price gouging. The bill would stop manipulation by greedy oil traders and give the Attorney General the power to stand up to OPEC nations that are price fixing--a number of different ways for us to immediately address what is happening to gas prices on behalf of the American people. That was blocked. The second thing that was blocked was the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008. This is about jobs. This is about jobs in my great State of Michigan, in New Jersey, all across this country, based on the new green economy--production tax credits to build those wind turbines and solar panels and new vehicles and, again, the consumer tax credits and investing in the ability for businesses that use the R&D tax credit to have that continue, to be able to invest in other economic development tax credits. That is what was blocked--jobs focused on alternative energy. So we went after the oil companies. No. We want to put forward a proposal that will invest in new jobs. No. That is what we are hearing every day. And every day that is happening, more and more people in my great State are finding themselves without a job, trying to keep the lights on, keep food on the table, trying to be able to put gas in their automobile. And they are looking and saying: What is going on here? Each month, tens of thousands of people across the country, not just in Michigan--I mean, we were hit the hardest first, but this is across the country--are losing their jobs. Hundreds of those are losing unemployment insurance benefits they paid into. There seems to be a notion that somehow, if someone is required to go on unemployment insurance benefits, they will not look for work. Well, that is about 40 percent of what the average wage is for an individual. You can barely keep things together. In many cases, you cannot keep things together. I would suggest that the unemployment insurance benefit is not a disincentive for folks to work. And obviously people in my State work hard. They work. They work very hard. Too many are working two jobs, three jobs, four jobs, trying to piece it together. But we have never had an economic situation like we have today under a Republican or Democratic President where there has not been a willingness in a difficult economic situation to extend unemployment benefits. Yet President Bush has threatened to veto an extension of unemployment insurance which we have already passed here in the Senate. As I indicated before, the numbers are high--324,000 good-paying American jobs have been lost since January of this year. We also know there are 8.5 million unemployed workers in America competing for 3.7 million jobs. That is why the bill that was blocked earlier that invests in new taxation and new technologies, production tax credits to build new plants, to create new processes, is so important, because right now we have more than twice as many people looking for work as there are jobs available. We as a Democratic majority understand that. We understand that so much of what is happening right now for families goes to the basic foundation of this economy, which is the ability to have a good-paying job and to be able to pay those costs that come at families day after day after day. In May, the number of Americans who have been out of work for at least 27 weeks--right now, unemployment goes to 26 weeks--rose to 1.6 million workers; 1.6 million middle-class workers as of May who saw their benefits exhausted and in most or many cases were not able to find a job. What happened? What happens to those families? In the past year, 2.75 million people who are unemployed have exhausted their benefits. American families are running out of time. They want us to take action. There needs to be a sense of urgency about what is going on for families in this country. It is not that we do not have the ability to act; there is not the will to act, not the will to join with us in a bipartisan effort to act. We as Democrats come to the floor every day, our leader comes to the floor every day, multiple times a day, making motions to proceed to solve problems through legislation that is critical for our families. Time after time, all we hear is: I object. I object. I object. People in Michigan know what the pain of inaction is like and the effort to try to hold it together when help is not there. Over the last year, more than 150,000 people have exhausted their unemployment benefits, over 10,000 people a month now looking for work but do not have the support anymore to at least be able to keep things going a little bit. But you know it is not just Michigan anymore. Unfortunately, other States are now catching up. We heard as of last Friday that the national unemployment rate is now 5.5 percent. When we first started talking about this, it was 4.9. Now it is up to 5.5, and the experts tell us they expect it will reach 6.5 percent by January. Alaska, California, Rhode Island, Mississippi, Nevada, Missouri, Oregon, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Ohio all have unemployment rates at or above 5.5 percent. We need to act, not only because it is the right thing to do, the moral thing to do for our families, but we know that for every $1 that is spent on unemployment benefits in the economy, the dollars turn over and the economy is stimulated by $1.64. So there is an opportunity to not only do the right thing for Americans, which ought to be enough, but it is also an opportunity to stimulate the economy and one of the top ways we are told it can be stimulated. In other words, for every $1 we invest to help struggling American families, we get a 64-percent return on our investment. I would take that. That is a deal worth making. So I close by once again calling on the President to join with us at this critical time in American history where families are being hit in so many different ways and to say yes to extending unemployment benefits for those who are out of work but looking very hard to find a job and are counting on us to do the right thing. I would love it if we did not have to stand up and change this Velcro anymore. I would love it if we could just frame this right here--75 Republican filibusters--and stop. But that is not what is happening. We can do better than that. Certainly, the people in Michigan expect us to do better than that. I am going to do everything in my power--I know the Chair will as well--to be able to make good on what people are asking of us.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Thank you, Mr. President.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Thank you, Mr. President. I wish to, once again, thank Senator Conrad and all the conferees who have worked so hard. I know Senator Gregg and Senator Conrad may have a different view on the budget, but certainly I appreciate our ranking member's professionalism in working across the aisle on so many issues and working to place this budget resolution, the final resolution, in front of us. The chairman and the conferees are presenting the American people with a budget resolution that lays out the Nation's priorities and focuses on what we ought to be doing to improve our economy. We put together a budget, and as a member of the Budget Committee, I am very proud to have played a role in putting it together. I believe it gets it right. It is about our values and our priorities. It is about investing in our future as Americans. Today we are saying our Nation's budget, which lays out our values and priorities, will focus on the economy, on jobs, and on the future of the country. I come from the great State of Michigan, where the issue of jobs is very serious and very real. People in Michigan want us to act in a way that is going to allow people to have a good-paying job, to be able to work hard, to be able to pay the bills and pay for the outrageous gas prices and the soaring costs of health care and the cost of college and food and all the other things that are squeezing families on all sides. They want to know they have an opportunity to work. We work hard in Michigan. People across this country, middle- class families every day are working hard, and they want to know that our Federal priorities include creating opportunities for people to work, to be able to care for themselves and their families. Let me first indicate it gets pretty old. You know, it seems the old, tired refrain comes from colleagues on the other side of the aisle. When in doubt, when you can't say anything about the economy under this White House and 6 of the last 8 years under colleagues on the other side of the aisle, when you can't say anything about soaring deficits, when you can't say anything about the inaction and unwillingness of the White House to work with us in a manner that will quickly respond to the housing crisis; when you can't say anything about any of those things, what do you say about Democrats? Well, it is the tired, old refrain of tax and spend. I wish to remind my colleagues that this budget resolution is 1 percent higher than the President's budget resolution--1 percent higher--and it returns to a surplus. In other words, we balance the budget in 2012 and in 2013. It is a 1-percent difference. What does that mean? This is not about tax increases on low-income or middle- income families. This is not a budget that is focusing on adding costs to families. This is a budget that focuses on taking costs off families and valuing work and creating opportunity and investing in the future of our children with education, focusing on the things Americans want to see focused on. People in America are saying, what about us? We are seeing a war where we are spending $12 billion a month, unpaid for-- hundreds of millions of dollars that have gone into rebuilding roads and schools in Iraq, even though they have oil revenues and have not been contributing, as they should, to rebuilding their own country. People in America are saying, what about us, our roads, schools, and jobs in America? That is what this budget addresses. We focus on the future and on making sure American families have the confidence that we are putting them first. Last year, Congress began fixing the fiscal mess caused by the administration's 6 years of neglecting the homefront. This budget continues that effort by focusing on what is most important to American families. We have three priorities in this budget: jobs, jobs, and jobs. I am very proud of that. Today, we are bringing fiscal sanity back to our budget, while at the same time investing in a plan that will create good-paying American jobs, including rebuilding our Nation's aging infrastructure, our roads, bridges, and other infrastructure--in other words, rebuilding American jobs, rebuilding America, with jobs that cannot be outsourced overseas--good-paying jobs, middle-class jobs--investing in America. Promoting education and job training is so critically needed in this fast-paced, changing world we live in. There is also investment in the future of our energy economy. I am proud my green collar jobs initiative is a part of that. Let me speak to that for a moment. As part of our effort to create jobs and look to the future, I was very pleased that the Senate included my green collar jobs initiative, and that it is substantially intact as it comes out of the conference committee. We focused on 5 areas in the proposal that we put forward: energy efficiency, and conservation, jobs, weatherizing buildings, grants to State and local communities for energy efficiency, and conservation. We can immediately create thousands and thousands of jobs by doing the right thing on energy efficiency and conservation. Secondly, there is advanced battery technology. When you come from my great State, where we are proud to make automobiles, the buzz word these days is ``batteries.'' If we are going to compete and meet our mandate on fuel efficiency and move away from dependence on foreign oil, we have to be investing in advanced battery technology. Right now, China, Japan, and South Korea are ahead of us. When Ford Motor Company decided to make their first hybrid SUV--and I am proud they did that--they could not find a battery in America. They had to buy that from Japan. With all of the American ingenuity and the smart people we have, we have not been investing in advanced battery technology. Last year, the President's budget had something like $22 million in it versus the hundreds of million around the world. Our plan that we passed here in the Senate had $250 million in investment in advanced battery technology to make sure we can do the plug-ins, and that GM can quickly move on this technology, and Chrysler is investing in hybrids and other technology, so our companies can compete globally because America invests in our technology. Retooling older plants. We don't want to say come over and we will build you the plant. We want to keep the jobs in America. As to biofuel production and access, we know we have spent a lot of energy on biofuel production. Infrastructure and assets are very important. It is great to make the fuel. We want to grow it in Michigan--and we are--but if you cannot buy it at the pump, it doesn't do much good. This focuses on that as well. Finally, green job training programs, to create new opportunities. That is what this resolution is all about--value work and looking to the future. This budget provides, as well, $2.5 billion more than the President requested for transportation accounts for rebuilding America. It fully funds the highway and transit programs authorized by the highway bill and includes funding for airport improvement--all things that help us and our communities create safer ways to be able to move around, whether it is airports or roads or whether it is commerce or families going on a vacation or going back and forth to work. These are investments in America. It is about creating good-paying jobs. The Department of Transportation estimates that for every $1 billion in highway spending, you create 47,500 good-paying middle-class jobs. This budget recognizes that. It also creates $2 billion in economic activity for every $1 billion we invest in infrastructure. I am glad to see, for the benefit of our country and our families, that the conferees have also invested in other important areas related to education and job training for the future. This is absolutely critical for us. This budget resolution reflects the values and priorities of the American people. It makes sure we are rejecting the President's efforts to eliminate the COPS program. We want to keep our families safe in their communities, with our children being able to play in parks and on the streets, and know that we have community police officers available to help keep them safe. Then there are the Byrne grants to help our first responders, the firefighters and police officers. We also, I am proud to say, keep the promise we began last year to fully fund veterans health care as a major priority for our country. So there is a lot to celebrate in this budget. On top of the new investment and new priorities and changing the way things are done, these investments are paid for because we are following what is called the pay-go rules, which helped balance the budget back in the 1990s and brought us into surplus at the end of the last decade. We cannot mortgage our children's future, as the administration has done, with soaring deficits and record spending that is not paid for. Instead, we invest in our children's future, in our families, and we balance the budget by 2012. Again, I congratulate our chairman for his tenacity, his passion, and his commitment to doing the right thing, doing it in a fiscally responsible way. We have all worked so hard to lay out a vision of America that is about jobs, about the future, about investing in America. It is time we did that. The American people expect us to do no less. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about two items that are in the supplemental that has come from the House of Representatives. I find it difficult to speak about either one, but particularly the first one, without turning and looking behind me to see the great champion of the Senate, Senator Ted Kennedy, leading this debate and discussion. The first item I want to talk about is how we help middle-class families, working families who have lost their jobs, to be able to keep their home, their dignity, and put food on the table while they look for that next job. No one has been a greater champion--no one--in this body or anywhere in the country for working men and women, for folks who are working hard every day to meet the American dream, than our own Senator Ted Kennedy. So as I speak today, I want to send my wishes, as my colleagues have--all of my colleagues from both sides of the aisle and every part of this building and this city--to say to Ted that we miss you and we need you back and we are sending our love and our prayers to you and Vicki and the entire family because we need you. While we are very saddened about the news, we know--as you have championed and had such great courage in fighting for those who have needed a voice, who have needed a champion in the Senate--we know you will fight with the same vigor, and we will be right there with you to do everything we can to make sure you are back leading us, leading the charge. I have stood on this floor many times with the great leader, the great Senator from Massachusetts, to talk about what is happening to families all across America. I represent a State with the highest unemployment rate in the country. Those in Michigan who are seeing their unemployment benefits expire, who are valiantly looking for work every day, have been looking to us to help them extend that insurance benefit until they can find a job. We know there are 7.7 million people looking for work right now and competing for about 4 million jobs. So I am proud of the fact that our caucus, the Democratic caucus, has placed creating jobs at the top of the list of the budget resolution we will be discussing and voting on this week. But in the meantime we have to do everything we can to support those families. In the supplemental that has come over from the House, I am very pleased they have included a greatly needed extension of unemployment insurance benefits because the reality is we have lost, since January, 260,000 good-paying American jobs, 260,000 middle-class jobs--the jobs that pay the mortgage, put food on the table, send the kids to college, buy clothing, pay for gas--which continues to grow outrageously higher every day. Part of our responsibility is to make sure those families receive the insurance benefits they need while they pick up their lives, move in a new direction, find work, so they can continue to have the American dream. Some of those families have members who are in Iraq or Afghanistan or around the world serving us right now. Unfortunately, we have too many families where one person--while we are grateful--is serving us in our armed services and the other breadwinner in the family has, in fact, lost their job. So there is a direct relationship between what we are doing to support the unemployed to be able to continue to look for work and to be able to care for their families in the meantime and what we are doing on this supplemental. Mr. President, there is another incredibly important piece of supporting our troops that is in this legislation coming over from the House of Representatives. Again, I hear the voice of Senator Kennedy championing this as well in terms of making sure we are doing everything possible for our troops, both when they are in harm's way and when they are coming home, putting on a veterans cap and continuing to live their lives in America. I am very proud to have cosponsored the 21st century GI bill. Senator Webb has been our champion. This is bipartisan legislation. Today's veterans deserve the same opportunities and thanks that have been given to earlier generations. This bipartisan bill has overwhelming support in both the Senate and in the House. Veterans service organizations and millions of veterans and Active servicemembers have raised their voices in support of this legislation. I don't understand how anyone could fully support our troops by fully funding the needs of our troops and then oppose the GI bill. Full funding for our troops really does include the GI bill. That is what this is all about: making sure we are keeping our promises. The men and women who sign up, who are overseas now, who are in harm's way, who have lost limbs, who come home with post-traumatic stress syndrome, those who are willing to put their lives on the line for us expect us to keep our promises. I am proud of the fact that our Senate Democratic majority made fully funding veterans health care a top priority when we came into the majority last year. We kept that promise. This is the first year since this war started that we have met the numbers the veterans organizations say are needed to be able to provide health care. This is the second piece we are committed to achieving and making sure we have a 21st century GI bill fit for the brave women and men who are serving us today. Last week, as chair of our Steering and Outreach Committee, I was able to join 23 other members of our caucus, all of our leadership on the majority side, and we met with 21 members from veterans service organizations who were unanimous in supporting not only the GI bill that is included here, that has come from the House, that we so strongly support, but in saying this should not be a partisan issue, this should not be a political issue, this is the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do. It needs to be done for the right reasons. We owe it to our veterans to pass this. It is a critical part of what is in front of us. It is essential we make sure that when we leave here, we can hold our heads high and say we have provided full funding for our troops by funding the GI bill and including it in this legislation. This bill will pay for qualified veterans to attend any public university in the Nation. If a veteran chooses to attend a private school, the bill would also allow that to happen. It would pay tuition up to the amount of the most expensive public school in the State, so every choice would be available for our veterans. Under the bill, private contributions would be matched by the Federal Government. There would be sufficient funding for desperately needed books. The costs go up every year. I can attest to that, having put two children through college and seen the incredible expense for books alone, as well as living expenses. Those things would be covered as well. We need to do this because when our veterans get a good college education, all of society benefits. Their family benefits, the community benefits, the country benefits. Providing a college education for veterans is very important for our economy. World War II provided a great example of how the GI bill made it possible for our greatest generation to get an education, find good jobs, buy a home, contribute to the American economy, and raise their families. I can speak to that directly. My father was in World War II. He was in the Navy. He came home as a veteran. Because of the GI bill, he was able to get an education, to be a small business owner, to raise a family--which I was very proud to be a part of--to send his kids to college, and to make sure we had what we needed to be able to live our American dream. It was the GI bill after World War II that gave my dad a chance. And through him and through that commitment to my father and to our family, it gave me a chance to be here today as well. Today's veterans have served our country with the same honor and the same courage as those in World War II. They deserve the same benefits. They deserve the same opportunities, the same chance to shape their futures, the future of their communities, and the future of the American economy. I also support this bill because it treats our Active-Duty Guard and Reserve Forces the same way through their wartime service. This is especially important now, as we know, as the Guard and Reserve take on a greater and greater share of the combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is no less important that Guard and Reserve members often return home to communities that don't have the same resources as the Active-Duty servicemembers have on base. So making sure our Guard and Reserve can attend college, can get an education, the skills they need to be successful, will help ease their transition into civilian life. I stand with those who are supporting our brave men and women in the armed services and those who have served in the global war on terror. This bill is long overdue and should be enacted right now. That is what 21 veterans service organizations have said to us, and millions of veterans across the country. We have a duty to give our veterans what they deserve. They have offered the greatest sacrifice and should be given a chance for a solid education in these competitive times to become successful after their military service is done. So, like the rest of the supplemental, this is full funding for our troops. It is full funding for our troops. We need to make sure they have what they need, not just on the battlefield but when they return home. We have kept the promise on health care, and our Senate Democratic majority is committed to continue to do that every year. We have also been committed and are very pleased that the House sent to us a GI bill that we have been working on with leaders in our caucus, including Senator Webb and certainly our leader, Senator Reid, and many others, to make sure we keep the rest of the promise. We need a modern GI bill that fits what is happening for our veterans around the world, to make sure Guard and Reserve are treated with the same dignity and have the same opportunities as our Active-Duty personnel. As we debate this supplemental, I sincerely hope we will not leave this Chamber without making sure that full funding for our troops includes the passage of this greatly needed GI bill. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. It is my great pleasure to join my colleagues today to speak about a wonderful bipartisan effort that took a lot of time and effort, a lot of energy, but we all come to the floor tonight to celebrate a very important food policy, conservation policy, energy policy to the country. And certainly there are many people to thank. It is wonderful to see a member of the Agriculture Committee as Presiding Officer this evening. Mr. President, we thank you for your efforts. I certainly have to thank our chairman. We would not be here without our chairman and his passion and his patience in working through what has been an extremely challenging effort but one that--pardon the pun-- has borne fruit and vegetables. So we are very pleased. It was great. I know Senator Chambliss is not here, but what a wonderful partner in all of this as well. I know he is somewhere in the building. I wish to say to Senator Crapo before he leaves that it has been wonderful to work with him on issues related to specialty crops and conservation, and also his wonderful leadership on the endangered species legislation. There were 250 different organizations, from environmental organizations to businesses, that all came together. That alone is a feat. So I congratulate the Senator. Standing next to Senator Crapo, of course, is Senator Roberts, who comes with such passion and experience himself, having led farm bills. Despite his razzing me about cherries all of the time, and asparagus, we are going to get you healthy by giving you a lot more fruits and vegetables as a result of this wonderful bill. So there are a lot of people to thank--Senators Baucus and Grassley for their efforts on the Finance Committee, leading us. I am proud to serve on both committees, as is the distinguished Presiding Officer, who has been in a spot on both Finance and Agriculture to help bring this all together. Also, we would not be here without Senator Conrad and the incredible knowledge he and his staff have in crunching the numbers and being able to bring us to this point in so many ways. So thank you to him as well and, of course, our House colleagues, Chairman Peterson and Ranking Member Goodlatte and Chairman Rangel. I also wish to say a special thank-you to a gentleman I have come to call a friend, Congressman Cardoza, who was my partner on the issue of specialty crops in the House. I very much appreciate all of his efforts as well. Of course, I have to say thank you to Senator Reid. We would not be here if our leader had not focused on this and provided the kind of leadership at the right times to be able to bring people together and to once again provide us time on the floor, when time is a precious commodity here as there is so much to be done. So I wish to thank Senator Reid for always getting the priorities right in terms of what is in front of us. Then I finally, on a personal note, wish to thank two terrific, hard- working members of my staff: Chris Adamo, who has worked every part of this bill for months and months, and Oliver Kim, who did such terrific work on the nutrition title for me. So I wish to thank both of them. This was not, as I said before, an easy negotiation. But we are very proud. I am very proud--I know we all are--of the end result. We have created new opportunities for food and nutrition, significant new opportunities. We have new investments in renewable energies--certainly important to jobs in the great State of Michigan and around the country as well as creating energy independence. We strengthened our research efforts. I am proud to have led an effort that began with our research institutions, our land grant colleges proposing something called CREATE-21. We used that structure to be able to put in place a research structure to be able to focus more on the competitive research and other important changes in this bill as well. We also put in permanent disaster assistance. Due to some weather very recently in Michigan, unfortunately, we may be finding ourselves needing some of the disaster assistance for some of our specialty crops. I am hopeful we will not but, weather being what it is, having a permanent disaster assistance program is very important. I think it is important to have it paid for and have it part of our policy. So I am pleased we have that as well. There is also an incredible conservation title that is in this bill, as well as rural development and, of course, our support for our Nation's farmers, while at the same time we achieve significant reforms. When you put it all together, it is an incredible picture of many pieces coming together to create the right kind of values and priorities and the right kind of policy. I hope we will pass this conference report as we passed the original Senate farm bill and as the House has passed the conference report with an overwhelming majority. We will then send a very strong message to the White House that we have incredibly strong bipartisan support, and we are hopeful, in fact, that we will see the same support in the end from the White House. Even though we have certainly received comments to the contrary, we hope we will send a very strong message and that they will come together and join with us and the overwhelming number of Members who have worked so hard and supported this policy. We have agreed on a monetary framework that has been talked about before that is $10 billion above the baseline, above the last farm bill. We actually started with fewer dollars, $58 billion less than last time because of commodity prices and so on. So there has been a lot of work on the financial side to have a way for us to be able to create some new investments. And it is significant that those investments were done not by raising revenue or raising taxes but by making reforms, by making changes within farm policy. That is very significant. I think it is also a credit to everyone involved that the $10 billion in new spending all goes to food and nutrition programs--all of it; in fact, a little bit more than that, $10.35 billion. That is extremely significant in terms of where our values and priorities are. It is important as well to indicate, as colleagues have, that 73 percent of the farm bill goes to food and nutrition programs for America's families, primarily through the Food Stamp Program but through other critical programs as well. I can tell you, coming from Michigan, where we have been hard hit as it relates to the economy and what has happened in the global economy to manufacturing and so on, we have a lot of folks who never thought they would need help, a lot of folks who have worked hard their whole lives and have lost their jobs and now find themselves in a situation that, in order to feed their families, they need some help. They paid taxes their whole lives, and now they are in a situation where they need to have some assistance. In fact, we have one out of eight people--one out of eight--in Michigan today who is eligible for food stamps because of the recession and the economy. I am proud we have recognized the fact that we need to make sure in America that food assistance is available at times of hardship when families need it. We have also talked about other programs. In the nutrition title, the school snack program is also critical in terms of supporting our fruit and vegetables growers. We are talking about expanding a program so that children in schools all across Michigan and all across the country will have the ability, rather than going to the vending machines, to be able to have a fresh apple, fresh blueberries, fresh strawberries, plums, asparagus, celery, be able to eat fresh fruits and vegetables, which we know is so important for their own health and growth as well as a way to support our growers. With this program, 81,000 Michigan students will be able to receive fresh fruits and vegetables as a result of the policies we have set up. There are also emergency food programs, community food banks, seniors' farmers markets to be able to allow senior citizens to have coupons to buy fresh fruit and vegetables. This is very significant. I wish to also mention and say a special personal thank-you to a member of my family who has advocated so strongly for these food programs, my daughter Michelle, who works for the Capital Area Community Services office in Lansing, MI. She works with low-income families and seniors every day. On more than one occasion, I have been e-mailed while we were working on the farm bill, with my daughter expressing great concern about the small number of items available for senior citizens when they come in once a month for food. She is giving me lists of two potatoes, dried milk, rice, small little lists, and then she says, ``Mom, these are seniors. Can't we do better than this?'' Well, I am proud to say that with what we are doing here now, we are going to be able to do better than that. I think personally there is something wrong when we have these senior programs and they can't get fresh milk or bread, which is not part of those programs. So I wish to thank Michelle for pushing and pushing me to remember what it is like for people who are having to live under the funding and the policies we put forward. There are many titles of the farm bill. Every title is significant. Every title affects Michigan. I come from a State that everybody thinks of as automobiles. And we are proud of our auto heritage, our manufacturing heritage, but our No. 2 industry is agriculture. We have more diversity of crops than any other State but California, and we are very proud of that as well. And while our specialty crops--our fruit and vegetable growers--are over half of what we grow, we also have corn and soybeans and sugar beets and livestock and milk as major components of Michigan agriculture. I am proud to have helped author this bill, which maintains a strong safety net and improves policies for all of our farmers and our ranchers. Michigan is rural in many ways. Around Michigan, up north, the Upper Peninsula, all of Michigan, we benefit greatly by the rural development title. I do not think there is a community in Michigan that has not, in some way, benefited by the rural development title. I am very excited about the energy title and what we have been able to do. The energy title really is not only about supporting growers but about creating economic opportunities, jobs, and also addressing the issue of gas prices and dependence on foreign oil. With billions of dollars in new money for both titles, I know we can help grow jobs as well as grow sources of energy--both incredibly important. One of the most significant energy policies is the new cellulosic ethanol tax credits. I know that our Presiding Officer has been a very strong proponent of this as well. This tax incentive will build upon corn ethanol, with new cellulosic-based fuels that can be made with a variety of organic sources such as wood, with the great woods of the Upper Peninsula in Michigan, to switchgrass or agricultural waste. These new sources of ethanol will also alleviate the burden on corn and food prices, as we know. Furthermore, in Michigan, this new tax credit will provide certainty and an incentive for investors like Mascoma, which is a partner with General Motors on a cellulosic ethanol project; New Page, which is in the Upper Peninsula and is partnering now to create commercially produced cellulosic ethanol and, again, jobs in Michigan. The farm bill also has one of our Federal Government's strongest environmental investments, something that I know, among many passions, has been the passion of our chairman, and we would not have the conservation title we have if it were not for our chairman. This is significant for natural resources across the Nation, but in Michigan it is really crucial, not only to our farmers who use the conservation title, but we have any number of ways, whether it is preserving wetlands or whether it is focusing on water quality or wildlife in the Great Lakes. This is extremely important to us, protecting land and open spaces. Overall, the $4 billion in new spending for conservation is vital for us in wetlands, grasslands, forests, and maintaining some of our best stewards of the land, our farmers and our ranchers. I am extremely pleased to have included language that makes it clear that we can use dollars from the conservation title to focus on soil erosion, runoff, and other issues that address the challenges of our Great Lakes, a very important national resource. Of course I am especially proud of the new farm bill specialty crop title. I think my colleagues have gotten tired of me talking about specialty crops, but I am very grateful for the fact that half of the growers in the country, half of our cash receipts in the country come from what are called specialty crops, fruits and vegetable growers, other specialty items, and they have not had a place in other farm bills in our history. So I thank the chairman again for working with me to create the specialty crop title. These are growers who have not asked for direct payments, but they do ask that we recognize and support them to be successful in a number of areas. They have unique and significant challenges with pests and disease, with trade barriers, with marketing, disaster relief, the need for research. We know there are important things we can do to support fruit and vegetable growers. We have all together, counting disaster assistance, a little over $3 billion that will go toward the area of specialty crops. I have to say that when we started this process, we put together a bipartisan letter with 36 Members of the Senate asking, in fact, that we invest $3.3 billion in specialty crops. We pretty much hit that number at the end of the process. I am very grateful to all colleagues who joined together in that effort. These new funds will help the Nation and Michigan. For example, Michigan orchards will benefit from competitive research grants that will provide much needed support for efforts to research alternative pesticides and solutions for new diseases. This is incredibly important because the FDA zero tolerance policy for insect and larva in fruit is something our growers have to address. Alternative pesticides have to be found by 2012 to allow cherries and apples to continue to be marketed in the United States. This is a very real challenge, and this bill will help them address that. The cherry industry has invested millions of its own dollars in partnering with my alma mater, Michigan State University. This partnership will be in a very competitive position to tap into these new dollars for specialty crop research. USDA's ability to aid growers in times of surplus has been strengthened significantly by this title. The addition of value-added products to section 32, our commodity purchase program, will be of great help to Michigan growers. Our cherry growers, for example, in fact had a surplus year and a promised $8.1 million purchase is coming soon. It is helpful to know in the future this program will be stronger and even better. Finally, let me stress the fruit and vegetable snack program. Michigan's dried cherries are the single most popular dried fruit served in the program, according to the USDA's own 2004 evaluation. This new market expanding the fresh fruits and vegetables program is something they are very excited about. There is no question this will focus on and contribute to the health and welfare of our children. There is much in this specialty crop package for both growers and consumers. I am grateful for colleagues supporting this effort. Again, this is a bill that has reforms. It speaks to the future. I would say when we look at not only the safety net that is important for our growers, our ranchers, but when we look at new energy opportunities, food and nutrition support for our families, particularly now in challenging times, a major effort in conservation to protect our land and water, and to provide the ability to protect forests and lands for the future, rural development research, on and on, this is a bill that touches every family, not only those in rural America. We specifically included some items such as community gardens to help those in cities who live in areas that unfortunately have been now dubbed food deserts, where the local store doesn't have fresh fruits and vegetables. It is not something they are able to get. But being able to support community groups to have community gardens so, again, fresh fruits and vegetables are available, is something that is part of this bill. In every way, this is a bill deserving of a strong bipartisan vote. It is an example of a complicated process that people came together to work very hard on. I am very proud of Senate colleagues. We stuck together. We pushed very hard for what we believed was the right set of values and priorities. We were able to achieve it. I encourage and urge colleagues tomorrow to join with us in support of this very important bill. I yield the floor.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, today I pay tribute to a truly remarkable person. Sander Lurie came to my office as legislative director in 2001, and was an integral member of my staff for 7 years, including serving as my chief of staff. Sander was pivotal in getting my office up and running as I made the transition from the U.S. House of Representatives to the U.S. Senate in 2001. I could not have asked for a better person to direct my legislative efforts; with his support I was able to hit the ground running and work for the great people of the State of Michigan from the very start. Prior to joining my staff in 2001, Sander spent 10 years working for the honorable Senator from the State of New Jersey, Mr. Frank Lautenberg, including serving as his chief of staff prior to Senator Lautenberg's retirement in 2000. When I asked Senator Lautenberg about Sander and his contributions to his office, Senator Lautenberg told me, ``Sander was an integral part of my team for many years and played a large role in our successes during that time. He is a smart, natural leader with a real dedication to public service.'' I could not agree more. For the 7 years he spent on my staff no one was more tireless, more hardworking, or more dedicated to helping the citizens of Michigan and the citizens of the United States. He was a constant source of motivation and inspiration. Sander has always been the kind of person whose first priority is to improve the lives of those around him. This was clearly evident during his time in Senator Lautenberg's office. He was instrumental in assisting Senator Lautenberg's push for major reforms in tobacco and was very helpful to the state attorneys general who took on the tobacco industry. Sander played a key role in the Senator's successful battle to reduce drunken driving deaths by making the .08 blood alcohol level the law of the land. Amidst all this, Sander was able to work with Senator Lautenberg and help craft the historic 1997 Balanced Budget Agreement that helped to produce the budget surpluses of the late 1990s. As he made his way to my office, Sander used his experience with the balanced budget agreement to become the go-to person on my staff regarding the budget, and all of us here in the Senate can attest to the complexity that comes along with it. Sander always prided himself in knowing the ins and outs of the budget process and he never ceased to amaze me with his ability to recall rules and regulations at will. His work and knowledge was a pivotal part of my ability to be a leader and contributor to the budget committee, and I cannot thank him enough. Sander was born in Warwick, RI, and raised for most of his early life in Milwaukee, WI. He earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and following that he earned his master's degree in public administration from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin. Sander's priority of working for the people in his community and his commitment to public service began at a young age before he ever made his way to Washington. He spent time working for both the Wisconsin State Assembly and the Texas Employment Commission, making sure to give back to the States that he called home. This selflessness followed him to Washington as he spent the last 17 years of his life serving the citizens of Michigan and New Jersey. Sander has now begun a new chapter in his life. And though everyone in my office and those that know him best were saddened to see him leave, we are all incredibly proud of the work he has done and are deeply grateful for the positive impact he has had on all of our lives. Today, Sander resides in Washington, DC, with his wonderful wife Dorian Friedman, and their beautiful daughter Mara. As Sander continues on in what will certainly be an illustrious career, I wish him well. He is sorely missed, but I, and everyone around him, know that the same selflessness that brought him to public service will follow him to whatever path he chooses, and he will undoubtedly continue to improve the lives of those around him. I am honored to have had Sander serve as my chief of staff, and I wish him only the best in the years ahead.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. I thank our distinguished assistant majority leader for allowing me to do this. It is very important. I thank my colleague and friend, the champion from Massachusetts, for all of his efforts as they relate to the efforts to make sure college loans are available. Also I want to speak to the fact that we are working together to extend unemployment insurance benefits, and I greatly appreciate his leadership. I want to specifically today speak to that piece of the effort we are working on together. Because since my colleagues across the aisle blocked extending critical unemployment benefits from the part of our first stimulus package, frankly, the situation has only gotten worse for families in Michigan and all across the country. National unemployment is on the rise, with our Nation losing 80,000 jobs in March. It is stunning to me when we look at what is happening across the country. I have to say, these are not new kinds of numbers for us in Michigan. We have been seeing these kinds of numbers now for a number of years but we see nationally, in this last January, 76,000 jobs were lost; in February, 76,000 jobs were lost; in March, the highest number, 80,000 jobs were lost; 232,000 jobs cut in the past 3 months. I remember coming to the floor and having colleagues say: Well, overall unemployment is not high. We do not have a problem. It is below 5 percent. Well, now it has crept up above 5 percent, and we are being told by Goldman Sachs and the Bureau of Labor Statistics that by January, this coming January, the national unemployment rate will be 6.5 percent. We in Michigan would actually consider that a decrease, because ours is at 7.2 percent. But nationally when we look at that kind of steep increase in those people who are out of work, we need to be paying attention to this. Families, middle-class families, who have worked hard all their lives are finding themselves in a situation, due to no fault of their own, where they are looking for work, trying to keep their family together and, in fact, are looking for us to do what we have always done in times such as these, which is to extend unemployment benefits across the country for families, and particularly for those States that are hardest hit. We have 10,000 people right now in Michigan every month who are losing unemployment benefits. That for us relates to the fact that we are one of the highest States in mortgage foreclosures, why people cannot afford to pay for their mortgage. So the ripple effect throughout the economy is staggering when we look at the fact that on top of what is happening to people who are losing their jobs and cannot afford their mortgage, their gas, when we look at what is happening with gas prices. We in the majority have been coming to this floor and have been doing everything we can in putting forward proposals to deal with the high gas prices. We have not been able to get support from colleagues to truly address this, what needs to be addressed, and even putting food on people's tables and health insurance. Everything is going up in the wrong direction, including the fact that people are now losing their unemployment benefits. We have been suffering in Michigan through several years of high unemployment, as I mentioned. We have 7.2 percent unemployment right now. In the first half of this year, over 72,000 people exhausted their unemployment benefits. But we are not alone. This is not only a Michigan problem anymore. Alaska, California, Rhode Island, Mississippi, Nevada, Missouri, Oregon, South Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio, all have unemployment rates at or above 5.7 percent. Across the country, millions of Americans are losing what are insurance benefits. We are not talking about public assistance, we are talking about an insurance system that they paid into, that employees come into for these circumstances. We have not seen the President's willingness, up to this point, to support extending unemployment benefits and, subsequently, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. This makes absolutely no sense. Frankly, from an economic standpoint, it makes no sense. Moody's economy.com chief economist Mark Zandi estimates for every $1 spent on unemployment benefits, the economy is stimulated by $1.4. We knew that when we passed the original stimulus package. Rather than a rebate, many of us were arguing that the best way, the fastest way to stimulate the economy was to give dollars directly to people out of work, struggling to make their payments, who on average make 40 percent of their wage from this unemployment insurance system. The people would have to turn right around and go to the grocery store, buy clothes for their children, spend the dollars they receive in unemployment benefits in order to be able to keep going. What we have heard over and over again from colleagues on the other side of the aisle is: We should wait; we should wait; it is not that bad; it is not bad enough. I do not know how many times we have heard the President say, up until recently, ``Well, the underlying fundamentals of the economy are good'' or ``Things really are not as bad as people think.'' Well, they are. They are. The American people know that when they are being hit on all sides with rising costs and lower wages. So I am here today to urge my colleagues to come together to understand what American families are going through, and to support, strongly support, an extension of unemployment compensation. Let me say in conclusion that this unfortunately is a pattern we have seen over and over again when it comes to blocking those programs that are critically important for American families. Over and over again we see colleagues filibustering issues, stopping us from moving forward on what makes a real difference in people's lives. It is not only extending unemployment insurance for families and workers in Michigan and across the country, but it is part of a pattern of blocking and obstructing what is important to families in this very difficult economy. Last year my colleagues on the other side of the aisle blocked an energy tax bill that would have increased the production of renewable fuels and helped bring more advanced technology vehicles to the marketplace to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and begin to address what is happening on the gas price side of things. But, unfortunately again, these efforts were blocked time and time again when we brought forward proposals that relate to energy and pricing and accountability for the industry. Moving tax breaks from oil companies to alternative fuels or to consumers, we have been blocked. I have to say also in conclusion today that once again, a critical issue to this safety of the American public has been blocked, and that is the question of whether we are going to modernize air service in this country; whether we are going to truly have a passenger's bill of rights; whether we are going to update a system that is clearly overloaded, clearly in crisis. We have been trying all week to bring to the floor critical changes to upgrade the American airline system, and once again these efforts have been blocked and blocked and blocked. We have a whole range of needs in this country that are urgent for the safety of those of us who are flying with our families and are counting on the fact that everything that is being done to make sure that system is the best in the country and it is safe. We see that families are struggling with gas prices. We see in my home State again 10,000 people a month losing unemployment insurance who are trying to figure out how to make ends meet while we see blocking after blocking, filibuster after filibuster, here in the Senate stopping us from moving forward on important legislation. I urge my colleagues to listen to the folks at home and what they are going through, and to join us to extend unemployment insurance, to address what are outrageous gas prices, and also make sure we are being serious and responsible about important issues such as airline safety. I yield the floor.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague, Senator Olympia Snowe, in introducing the Medicare Access to Complex Rehabilitation and Assistive Technology Act. This legislation will ensure Medicare beneficiaries who need complex rehabilitation and assistive technology will continue to receive the highest level of service and support necessary to maintain their independence. I am also pleased to be joined by my good friend, Senator Tim Johnson, in this effort. Competitive bidding, while well-intentioned, does not work well for items that must be customized for individuals with complex and specialized needs. Unlike some of the items being considered by CMS for competitive bidding, complex rehab technologies are not the sort of products that are easily interchangeable. For example, individuals with neuromuscular diseases--such as multiple sclerosis, ALS, cerebral palsy, or Parkinson's disease--or conditions such as spinal cord injuries may require specialized services because of the profound and sometimes progressive nature of these conditions. Patients' access to assistive technology products for their unique needs could be in jeopardy. I am pleased that our legislation has the support of numerous patient advocacy organizations. As co-chair of the Senate Parkinson's Caucus, I have seen firsthand how assistive technology can make a difference in helping a loved one achieve independence over a disease or disability. The legislation we are introducing today will ensure that the wonders of medical technology will continue to be available to the Medicare beneficiaries who need them the most.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague, Senator Olympia Snowe, in introducing the Medicare Access to Complex Rehabilitation and Assistive Technology Act. This legislation will ensure Medicare beneficiaries who need complex rehabilitation and assistive technology will continue to receive the highest level of service and support necessary to maintain their independence. I am also pleased to be joined by my good friend, Senator Tim Johnson, in this effort. Competitive bidding, while well-intentioned, does not work well for items that must be customized for individuals with complex and specialized needs. Unlike some of the items being considered by CMS for competitive bidding, complex rehab technologies are not the sort of products that are easily interchangeable. For example, individuals with neuromuscular diseases--such as multiple sclerosis, ALS, cerebral palsy, or Parkinson's disease--or conditions such as spinal cord injuries may require specialized services because of the profound and sometimes progressive nature of these conditions. Patients' access to assistive technology products for their unique needs could be in jeopardy. I am pleased that our legislation has the support of numerous patient advocacy organizations. As co-chair of the Senate Parkinson's Caucus, I have seen firsthand how assistive technology can make a difference in helping a loved one achieve independence over a disease or disability. The legislation we are introducing today will ensure that the wonders of medical technology will continue to be available to the Medicare beneficiaries who need them the most.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I rise to express my deep disappointment and concern about last night's vote on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Unfortunately, colleagues across the aisle voted to block us from considering what is an important bill that relates to fairness, fair pay, equality, and recognition of the hard work of women all across this country. We weren't even allowed to bring this to the floor of the Senate to begin the debate. It wasn't only about pay discrimination; it was about fundamental fairness for working families, as so many of those working families are headed by women. The vote last night sends the wrong message to families who are struggling to stretch their paychecks to pay for higher gas prices, groceries, health care costs, all of the things they need to survive and care for their families, childcare costs, on and on and on. Voting to block this bill from even coming up for consideration says to these women and their families that this body does not understand and is not on their side when they have been treated unfairly or taken advantage of on the job. I am proud of the fact that Senator Reid, our majority leader, saw fit to bring this bill forward as a priority in the crush of time we have to consider legislation in the Senate. I am proud of Senator Kennedy for his passion and leadership in bringing this bill out of committee and fighting so vigorously, and all of my women colleagues who came to the floor to stand up for women across America. Unfortunately, we were stopped from even proceeding to the bill. I am hopeful at some point we can come back and colleagues on the other side of the aisle will decide, rather than turning their backs on millions of women across the country, that they will join us in doing what is right to guarantee that if a woman is working hard every day, putting in the same amount of hours, lifting the same boxes and doing the same kind of work, she will know she is protected and feel confident the law is on her side that she will receive equal pay. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated vote. This has been a pattern. We have spoken many times about what has been happening in the last year and a half. We now have seen 68 Republican filibusters. We had a filibuster that stopped us from proceeding. We have a fancy title for it, called a cloture vote on a motion to proceed. But the reality is, Republican colleagues on the other side of the aisle have filibustered our ability to move forward on equal pay for women in the workplace. This is one of 68 different times in the last year and a half that we have brought forward something critically important to families, from extending unemployment insurance to addressing health care, education, and economic issues, focusing on those things that directly affect families every day. We know around here the way the rules work. You can filibuster and you can stop something if you don't have 60 votes. Unfortunately, we don't at this time have 60 votes to stop filibusters. There have been so many that we have put this on a board with Velcro so we can change it. We have to change it way too many times, because this number goes up every week. We are now at 68. This is an historic record in the Senate that we would see this many filibusters to block moving forward an agenda for change that the American people are desperately asking for. We will continue to bring these issues forward that are absolutely critical. We will continue to bring forward areas of investment in the future and creating jobs and tackling health care costs and access and children's health insurance and quality education and tax fairness and all of these other things that are so critical for the American people--fair trade, so that we are exporting products and not jobs. We are going to continue to bring this forward. But we are going to continue--unfortunately--to see this number go up. It is important the American people understand what is happening. Now, we also, earlier today, saw something else happen--it did not quite come to the point of blocking in terms of a motion to proceed but efforts of delay, waiting, obstructing, over and over again. Earlier today, we passed a bill to help our Nation's veterans by almost a unanimous vote. We should be proud of having done that on a bipartisan basis. But this bill was reported out of committee last year. It was blocked for 7 months--7 months--by colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Then we had to spend a week trying to get this bill done. There was the procedural motion, again, to force us to vote on whether to even consider the bill, and then that vote was unanimous--unanimous. Yet that vote was forced so the time would run so we would slow-walk a bill we have been waiting to take up for veterans and their families for 7 months. People expect better from us. I am very hopeful we will come together and begin to see the change the American people want to have happen and be the focus of this body. Mr. President, I will speak for a moment about the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act because this issue of equal pay, of fairness in the workplace, is not going to go away. We are going to come back and we are going to come back until we get this Court decision fixed. Lilly Ledbetter was one of the few female supervisors in a Goodyear tire plant in Gadsen, AL. She got up early in the morning. She sweated throughout long shifts, which often stretched to 18 hours or more when another supervisor was absent, just like her male counterparts. For years she endured insults from her male bosses because she was a woman in a traditionally male job. Late in her career with the company, Lilly discovered that Goodyear paid her male counterparts 20 percent to 40 percent more than what she earned for doing the very same job for all of those years. She filed a lawsuit, just as she should have, and the jury awarded her full damages. She was right. This was against the law. This was unfair. We need to value work and value equal work. The court sided with her. However, the Roberts Supreme Court overruled the jury, stating that Ms. Ledbetter was not entitled to anything because she waited too long to file her claim. The Supreme Court ruled that victims of discrimination have only 180 days of the last discriminatory raise to file a lawsuit for discrimination--even if they did not know about it, even if they knew nothing about it. So in Lilly Ledbetter's case, it did not matter that her employer discriminated against her for years and that she had been, for years, paid less than her male counterparts. Instead, the Roberts Supreme Court reversed decades--decades--of precedent and the intent of the law. It also overturned the policy of the EEOC under both Democratic and Republican administrations. After the Ledbetter case--until we fix this--workers are powerless to hold their employers accountable for unlawful, unjust, unfair, unequal conduct. It creates an incentive for employers to discriminate against workers because now if they can hide the discrimination for just 180 days, then they are home free and the worker can do nothing about it. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act will fix this injustice and put Federal law in the same place it was the day before the Court decision. This has been American law. It has been American law about fairness and equal pay. All we are trying to do is reverse this extreme decision of the Supreme Court and put it back in current law. The economic impact of unfair pay practices on working families is staggering. Today, women still make 77 cents for every $1 men make. In Michigan, it is even lower: 70 cents for every $1. The current job climate has been particularly hard on women and people of color all across America. The unemployment rate for women has risen sharply, and their wages are falling faster than men's. For people of color, the unemployment rate is even higher. African Americans' unemployment rate is almost twice the national average. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act would help correct this unfairness, this disparity. Just as important as upholding the rights of women, the Fair Pay Act is needed because the Ledbetter case would affect all kinds of discrimination cases. At the end of the day, it simply puts the law back where it was and creates the opportunity for fairness and equality. Let me say that when a woman goes to the store in Michigan, she does not pay less for milk. When she goes to the gas station, she does not pay less for gas. She does not pay less for the food or the electric bill. She does not pay less in any area. Yet until we fix this outrageous Supreme Court decision, she can be paid less for the very same job. Mr. President, let me also say a few words about the bill we passed earlier today for veterans. That bill was almost unanimously passed, despite being held up for 7 months. For too many of our servicemembers, that last day on Active Duty is just the first day of a difficult transition back to civilian life. Our veterans deserve every benefit they get, and more. But too often our veterans return home to find out their insurance is inadequate or it is very hard to figure out their educational benefits because they are spread out over numerous different agencies. Perhaps most important, under current law, our permanently disabled veterans who are recovering from injuries cannot even count on the Federal Government to help them finance necessities such as wheelchairs or wheelchair ramps for their homes. When the men and women of our Armed Services put on the uniform, they are making a promise to defend America. In return, we promise them that a grateful nation will be there for them when they come home. What they do need--and what we owe them--is a system that works for them, not against them. That is why the Veterans' Benefits Enhancement Act that was just passed today is so critically important. It addresses many of the problems that plague this difficult transition to stateside life and provides necessary improvements to education and health care and insurance programs. This bill would expand the number of individuals qualifying for retroactive benefits for traumatic injury protection coverage. This is important for all of our veterans because we are now learning that this kind of injury is happening more often than we thought, and it can have a devastating impact. Just last week, a new veterans center was opened in Saginaw, MI. This center will not only assist our veterans returning from combat but will also serve our veterans from as far back as World War II--the war my father fought in. These veterans should also be eligible for benefits if they are victims of traumatic brain injury.