Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we continue to see that special interest groups remain undaunted in their efforts to ram through an immigration bill that will do real damage to the wages and job prospects of working Americans. That is just a plain fact. Consider the economic situation we find ourselves in now. Inflation-adjusted wages--that is the way to compare wages correctly over time--are lower today than they were in 1999. This is a steady decline. Actually, new numbers indicate they are lower than they have been since 1995. Working Americans are not having their wages go up. Their wages are going down. Median household income is lower today--median income, which is the best way to account for how families are doing--than it has been every single year since 1989. The size of the workforce today has shrunk to a 35-year low. We have the lowest workplace participation since 1975, and a record number of Americans are on welfare, including almost one in six on food stamps. But we still have this determination, it seems, by our masters of the universe--people who know so much better--that what we really need in America is more workers. I would contend it is quite plain--with high unemployment and low job prospects, declining workplace participation, and declining wages--that what we have a shortage of is not workers, but we have a shortage of jobs, and we need to put our people in those jobs. That is a very simple concept, and I think it is undisputable. That is why I care about this issue, and I think we have to talk about it. What we are talking about, remember now, is not the end of immigration. We are not talking about anything like that. We are talking about maintaining the greatest immigration flow of any nation in the world--maybe in the history of the world--with 1.1 million a year, plus a very generous guest worker program, where people come in just to work. And we can support that, but this bill that passed the Senate would have doubled the number of guest workers and increased by at least 50 percent--over 1.5 million a year--those coming permanently, in addition to legalizing 11 million who entered unlawfully. I truly believe that cannot be sustained and that this is good for the vast majority of the American people. What we are seeing routinely is the one interest that is being omitted in all of the debate is the interest of the average working American--the average citizen of this country who goes to work every day. Everybody else has their interest represented. Everybody else is raising money, putting ads on the television, spinning this and spinning that, but the average guy is getting hammered by this. It just is so. Let me cite some of the things that are going on, and I will run through this because I think it is important for us to know. Here in Politico, September 17, it starts off saying: Nancy Pelosi is huddling with Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, top labor leaders and former AOL leader Steve Case in separate meetings this week as supporters of immigration reform try to revive the issue. After they got so badly hammered by the American people when it passed through the Senate, it is now dead on arrival in the House and they are trying to revive it. The article goes on to state: House Republicans bristled when a group of Senators met with outside groups supporting immigration reform and formulated a campaign-style strategy to target more than 100 House Republicans over the August recess. To try to pound them into submission, I guess. Despite the blowback, Schumer, the so-called leader of the Gang of Eight-- The leader of the Gang of 8, to be frank continued to work the phones over the August recess with a clear message: Please get active on immigration and back reform in the Republican-led House. The article says he reached out to all his allies to tell them to go forward. He said: We had a very good August. But I don't think it's dead by any stretch of the imagination. Well, I think he does not want it dead and I think he is working hard to keep it alive, but somebody needs to make it clear to the American people that it is not dead and it could be revived. There are special interests out there, traditional Republican allies as well as strong Democratic and liberal activists who are pushing for this legislation. Our friends say they want comprehensive immigration reform, but what does this phrase really mean? What does it really mean? Isn't that what we should ask? They want a large increase in future low-skilled immigration combined with immediate amnesty for those here illegally and a promise of enforcement in the future. And that promise was proven to be worthless. The first legislation, which stayed on the floor for weeks and went through the committee, would only have reduced the illegal flow by about 25 percent. They promised it was the toughest bill in history, but the Congressional Budget Office--our independent analysis--proved it would have only minor impact on the illegality while doubling the number of guest workers, increasing substantially the number in terms of annual flow of immigrants who want to be here permanently, plus amnesty for the 11 million. Instead of what we would normally expect to legalize over 10 years--10 million--we would legalize 30 million under this bill. That is what they proposed here in the Senate. Well, I don't think this is good for America, and I don't think the American people want that to happen. Notice that the one group not represented in all of this is U.S. citizens--the American people. In a recent interview, the President of the U.S. Chamber of Congress, Mr. Tom Donohue--a great American, and I know him and respect him--said this about what is going on, and people who are concerned about this issue need to pay attention because he is one of the driving forces. He is meeting with La Raza and meeting with the Democrats and Senator Schumer and meeting with others. He wants more workers, apparently. Reading from BusinessReport.com: An agreement between the national business lobby and the AFL-CIO was crucial to passing immigration reform in the Senate, says U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue, who spoke today at a breakfast by BRAC. Unions are looking for new members, Donahue says, while businesses need both laborers and highly skilled workers. This is a frank statement. I give Mr. Donahue credit. He lays it right out there. If you want to know the forces at work here, unions believe that if we legalize and bring in more people, they will have a better chance of adding union members. Unions are looking for new members, Donahue says-- That is their interest. They have forgotten the interests of their workers, the ones who were working and whose average wages have declined and who are being laid off-- while businesses need both laborers and highly skilled workers. We can bring in new workers under the current guest worker immigration program, and we can deal compassionately with people who have been here a long time. We can do that but not with the legislation that came out of the Senate. Listen to this: Donahue says the House doesn't need to pass a ``comprehensive reform,'' suggesting problems could be fixed with smaller bills. ``Take the whole thing, go to conference with the Senate, and we'll build a bill.'' Those of us who care about how legislation is crafted can feel the hair rise on the back of our necks when we hear this because this is exactly what they are trying to accomplish. They want the House to pass a bill or two to look like it is tough on enforcement, then go to conference and take the Senate bill, which is a total disaster, and build a bill that he likes, bring it back to the floor of both Chambers where no amendments can be offered, and ram it through, to some degree like the massive health care bill was rammed through. That is what they want to do. I think the House needs to be careful about this. Once you go to conference, once you start meeting with these special groups--the Democrats want votes, union members want members, businesses want cheap labor, immigrant groups want to bring more and more. Where are the American people in this? Who is paying for these ads they run on television? Not the average guy. I don't know any average guy sending them money to run these ads. It is people who have a special interest in it. Just a few days ago, a remarkable event happened. The human resource managers for some of the Nation's largest businesses groups--that is, the people in charge of hiring--sent a letter to House leaders claiming: Many of our companies continue to have difficulty finding sufficient American workers to fill certain lesser-skilled positions. Thus, in addition to addressing the need for more highly skilled immigrants, we strongly support efforts to bolster the availability of a workforce at all skill levels. . . . They originally tried to say this bill was designed to bring in more high-skilled workers and reduce the numbers of low-skilled workers because of our unemployment problems and other reasons, but they openly say they want all skills. The question is, Are these businesses really suffering from a labor shortage? Byron York, an excellent writer--writing, I believe, in the Washington Examiner--looked at that question. This is what he found: . . . at the same time the corporate officers seek higher numbers of immigrants, both low-skill and high-skill, many of their companies are laying off thousands of workers. Isn't that something? Could that be true? Well, let's look at his article. Pretty damning, it seems to me. Remember, this letter I just read saying that they have to have more low-skilled workers from the human resource officials was analyzed by Mr. Byron York. He finds this: The officials represent companies with a vast array of business interests: General Electric, The Walt Disney Company, Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, McDonald's Corporation, The Wendy's Company, Coca-Cola, The Cheesecake Factory, Johnson & Johnson, Verizon Communications, Hewlett-Packard, General Mills, and many more. All want to see increases in immigration levels for low-skill as well as high-skill workers, in addition to a path to citizenship for the millions of immigrants currently in the U.S. illegally. Well, what did Mr. York discover? Of course, the U.S. unemployment rate is at 7.3 percent, with millions of American workers at all skill levels out of work, and millions more so discouraged that they have left the work force altogether. In addition, at the same time the corporate officers seek higher numbers of immigrants, both low-skill and high-skill, many of their companies are laying off thousands of workers. They say they need more workers. How can it be they are laying off workers? For example, Hewlett-Packard, whose Executive Vice President for Human Resources Tracy Keogh signed the letter, laid off 29,000 employees in 2012. So they want more foreign workers and they just laid off 29,000 Americans? Oh, boy. That is a stunning number. It goes on. In August of this year, Cisco Systems, whose Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer Kathleen Weslock signed the letter, announced plans to lay off 4,000--in addition to the 8,000 cut in the last two years. So they have laid off 12,000 people, and now they can't find people willing to work. United Technologies, whose Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Organization Elizabeth B. Amato signed the letter, announced layoffs of 3,000 this year. American Express, whose Chief Human Resources Officer L. Kevin Cox signed the letter, cut 5,400 jobs this year. Maybe they ought to try to give some of those jobs to people they laid off, many of whom probably worked for them for 20 years or more. Proctor & Gamble, whose Chief Human Resources Officer Mark F. Biegger signed the letter, announced plans to cut 5,700 jobs in 2012. This is really offensive to me, as I think it should be to all Americans. This is the kind of leadership we have in corporate America. They come in here and say they have to have workers, totally ignoring the fact that they are laying them off by the thousands. Maybe they find some who work cheaper. Maybe that is what the interest is. Those are just a few of the layoffs at companies whose officials signed the letter. A few more: T-Mobile announced 2,250 layoffs in 2012. Archer-Daniels-Midland laid off 1,200. Texas Instruments, [laid off] nearly 2,000. Cigna, 1,300. Verizon sought to cut 1,700 jobs by buyouts and layoffs. Marriott announced ``hundreds'' of layoffs this year. International Paper has closed plants and laid off dozens. I will note parenthetically that last week it was announced in Alabama that International Paper was closing a plant, and 1,100 people who had worked there 25 and 30 years will be out of work. The plant shuttered. But they signed the bill saying they need more workers. And General Mills, in what the Minneapolis Star-Tribune called a ``rare mass layoff,'' laid off 850 people last year. There are more still. . . . According to a recent Reuters report, U.S. employers announced 50,462 layoffs in August, up 34 percent from the previous month and up 57 percent from August 2012. ``It is difficult to understand how these companies can feel justified in demanding'' that we ram through an immigration bill doubling the number of workers, increasing dramatically the number of people who would be permanent residents of the United States, claiming they need workers, while these very same companies all signed letters. We are laying off thousands of workers. We have to be realistic. Senator Schumer is meeting with business groups to pressure Republicans to join him in conference. But what do conservative thinkers have to say about Senator Schumer's plan? I will share a few comments--and there are many more--from intellectuals and writers, some conservative, some maybe not conservative. The National Review wrote this: By more than doubling the number of so-called guest workers admitted each year, the bill would help create a permanent underclass of foreign workers. . . . The creation of a large population of second-class workers is undesirable from the point of view of the American national interest, which should be our guiding force in this matter. . . . The United States is a nation with an economy, not an economy with a nation. Bill Kristol of Fox News, the editor of the Weekly Standard, joined with Rich Lowry, the editor of the National Review, in an unusual joint editorial and went on to lay out deep concerns about the passage of this. Passing any version of the Gang of Eight's bill would be worse public policy than passing nothing. House Republicans can do the country a service by putting a stake through its heart. Victor Davis Hanson, who has written a book on immigration, is an excellent columnist in California. The United States may be suffering the most persistent unemployment since the Great Depression. There may be an unemployment rate of over 15 percent in many small towns in the American Southwest. American businesses may be flush with record amounts of cash, and farm prices may be at record levels. But we are still lectured that without cheap labor from south of the border, businesses simply cannot profit. Peter Kirsanow, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights who has dealt with these issues for years and has had hearings on and tried to analyze the meaning and impact of these immigration flows, wrote this: Recent history shows that a grant of legal status to illegal immigrants results in a further influx of illegal immigrants who will crowd out low-skilled workers from the workforce. . . . Before the federal government grants legal status to illegal immigrants, serious deliberations must be given to the effect such grant will have on the employment and earnings prospects of low-skilled Americans. History shows that granting such legal status is not without profound and substantial costs to American workers. Does Congress care? Thomas Sowell, the great African-American writer, says this: ``Jobs that Americans will not do'' are in fact jobs at which not enough Americans will work at the current wage rate that some employers are offering. This is not an uncommon situation. That is why labor ``shortages'' lead to higher wage rates. . . . Virtually every kind of work Americans will not do is, in fact, work that Americans have done for generations. Look, salaries do make a difference. David Frum: The United States is entering its sixth year of extraordinarily high unemployment. Twelve million Americans who want work cannot find it. Millions more have quit searching. Slack labor markets have depressed wages throughout the economy. . . . Yet however little workers earn, there is always somebody who wishes they earned less. And for those somebodies, the solution is: Import more cheap labor. But not just any cheap labor--cheap labor that cannot quit, that cannot accept a better offer, that cannot complain. There is too much truth in that. I am concerned about it and I think Americans should be concerned about it. This is a bill that is antiworker. President Obama has said recently that Republicans want to accelerate the gap, the wealth gap between the rich and the poor. That is not so. But his own White House has been the central entity driving--behind the scenes as much as they possibly can be because they do not want their fingerprints on it or they do not want it to be identified with the White House--but they have been the central entity pushing the bill. It will have a direct impact on the wages and employment status of millions of Americans, particularly low-income Americans who are the ones who had their wages decline the most. Professor Borjas, at Harvard, himself a refugee, is the leading expert on wages. It has been documented. We have had a significant decline in wages over the last 30 years and a significant portion of that decline is directly related to the large flow of immigrant labor into America. Of course, it has been accelerated by the illegality that is occurring in our country. I think we could sustain something like the current legal flow, but we need to end the present illegality, and we should not pass legislation that doubles the number that will be coming in. Polls show overwhelmingly that the American people do not support a large increase in guest workers or low-skilled immigration. For instance, by a 3-to-1 margin, Americans earning under $30,000 support a decrease in legal immigration, not an increase, not a doubling of it. I am sure most do not have any idea that Congress is about to pass a law that would double the amount. But the one group that has not been represented in this conversation has been the hard-working people of this country. All Americans, immigrants, millions who have come to our country, and the native-born alike will be hurt by an immigration plan that is guaranteed to reduce wages and permits even more lawlessness in the future. What makes America unique is the special reverence we place in the rule of law and the special faith we place in the everyday citizen. Let's stay fast to those principles. Let's stand firm for those principles. Let me say one more time: The heart of the American people on the question of immigration is good and decent. They have been misportrayed as opposing all immigration and that is not so. But they are concerned about the lawlessness. They believe a great nation, their nation, should have a lawful system of immigration and people ought not, by the millions, violate those laws. Congress and the Presidents have failed to respond to their legitimate requests, year after year, decade after decade. It is time for that to end. We need a lawful system of immigration that serves our national interests that we can be proud of, that allows a number of people to come to this country, as many as we can. But we have to know they have a chance to get a good job, their children will have a chance to get a good job, and we are not displacing American workers who need jobs and a bit higher wage instead of a falling wage. That is what this country ought to be about. It was not part of the bill that passed this Senate that is now waiting to go to the House. The House needs to be very careful when they move forward, if they move forward, with any legislation, that they do not go to a secret conference committee and include all kinds of provisions driven by the AFL-CIO and by the chamber of commerce and by La Raza and by Democratic politicians who wanted votes. They have to be sure that is not who is writing this bill because that is who has been writing it so far. It ought not to happen. The openness with which the advocates of this bill have discussed what they are trying to do is rather remarkable. I hope it is a signal to our House Members to be alert, to do the right thing as they go forward in trying to move a bill that ends the illegality, that identifies what the right flow of immigrants into America is and creates a system that will actually work in a practical way in the future and will deal compassionately with people who have been here a long time and who have tried to otherwise be good citizens and do the right thing. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, today I wish to discuss the Sessions- Pryor Amendment No. 1879 to S. 1392, the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act. I would like to recognize the excellent work of my friend, the senior Senator from Arkansas, Mr. Pryor, who is an original co-sponsor of this amendment, and I would ask him for permission to engage in a brief colloquy concerning our amendment.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank my colleague for his willingness to discuss this amendment. I would ask my colleague, what is the purpose of our amendment?

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator from Arkansas. Our amendment is sound policy for at least three reasons. First, the amendment saves taxpayer dollars by reducing redundant testing of products when already covered by a comprehensive, voluntary third-party testing program. At a time of record debt and deficits, this government needs to consider every option for making government lean and fiscally responsible. We have been informed by the Congressional Budget Office that our amendment does not impact the deficit. Second, the amendment reduces regulatory burdens on American manufacturers. We need to do all we can to help make U.S. manufacturing more competitive on the world stage. Our amendment promotes domestic manufacturing and competiveness. Third, our amendment increases DOE's enforcement capabilities to ensure that a greater number of products are verified every year. This will help achieve the kinds of energy efficiency improvements the law was intended to achieve. So I think this amendment should garner the support of this body. I recently received a letter from Rheem Manufacturing Company, which has a large manufacturing facility in Montgomery, AL that employs over 1,000 people and manufactures heating and cooling products in Fort Smith, AR. The Rheem letter expresses support for our amendment and explains that it ``will enhance our ability to sustain American manufacturing jobs and competitiveness while conserving taxpayer resources and allowing federal agencies to focus enforcement on entities that do not voluntarily participate in rigorous industry-led efficiency certification programs.'' I would, in turn, ask Senator Pryor: who else is supportive of this amendment?

Mr. SESSIONS. I would ask Senator Pryor one additional question. One of the purposes of this amendment is to reduce the testing burden on manufacturers for a number of Federal government programs. For instance, manufacturers who utilize accredited, independent third parties for testing and certification should not be compelled to undertake duplicative testing to demonstrate compliance with other Federal programs so long as the test methods used for evaluating product performance are the same. Additionally, this amendment does not intend to limit competition between private sector testing and certification programs, provided that accreditation and other legitimate government requirements for recognizing such efforts are clearly defined. Would you agree?

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank Senator Pryor for his work on this issue.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I would like to share some remarks about the economic condition of American workers, the immigration bill that passed here recently, and in general about where we are as a Nation and the difficulties we are facing. I think there is a growing acceptance by most experts that we have, indeed, seen a decline in the wages of the middle-class and working Americans relative to inflation since maybe as long ago as 1999--a steady erosion of their income relative to the price of products they buy. That is not a healthy trend. President Obama talked about it, our Democratic colleagues talked about it a lot when President Bush was President. But it has continued. I thought maybe it was an aberration, but I do not think so anymore. I think a lot of things are happening with robotics, ObamaCare, other things that are happening, that are making it more difficult for workers to find jobs--unemployment remains exceedingly high--and to have wage increases. One of the things I noticed this week from the Republican side of the aisle is that Congress received two letters--one from Republican donors, according to some, and another from CEOs--urging that Congress act on immigration. This is primarily to the House Members. Nearly 100 top Republican donors, they called themselves, and Bush administration officials sent a letter to the House Republicans on Tuesday urging lawmakers to pass a bill that legalizes illegal immigrants. The donor letter came the same day the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and 400 other businesses and umbrella groups fired off another letter to the House leaders of both parties urging them to pass something. One word was not mentioned in either one of those letters: Wages. Nor was any discussion of jobs and unemployment raised in those letters. Mr. Karl Rove--a man I know and like and a long-time friend--and these groups would have us believe this legislation is about the providing of amnesty to people who have been here a long time. That certainly is a large part of it. Businesses know that legalizing illegal workers will, indeed, expand the available labor pool for industries with the effect, I suggest, of bringing down wages, particularly in the areas where illegal workers might have previously not had access. So of the 11 million people, perhaps half, we understand, do not have fake documents, are not able to work in the labor force, effectively, and they take marginal jobs. If this bill were to pass, all would immediately be given Social Security Numbers, and they could apply to any job in America. That is both a good thing and a difficult thing. It is good that they would be able to work. It is not so good if you wanted one of the jobs that would be taken. But there is a phrase in the letter which has gotten too little attention and which explains what this is all about. Mr. Rove and the donors say, the legislation must ``provide a legal way for U.S.-based companies to hire the workers they need.'' So we are supposed to pass a law that guarantees American companies the right to hire whoever they need, whoever they say they need, whoever they believe is best for them. That means the best worker at the lowest price. That is what free markets are all about. That is what the law of supply and demand is all about. It has not been repealed, by the way, the law of supply and demand. First and foremost, that cannot be the goal of an immigration policy of the United States of America. It cannot be the overriding policy of our system to provide and to make sure that whatever workers our companies want at whatever price, apparently, they are willing to pay or want to pay--that we allow workers to come in from abroad and take those jobs, regardless of the unemployment rate in America, regardless of the number of people who are on welfare, on unemployment compensation, who have not had a good paycheck in a number of years, perhaps. Our responsibility and our goal is to serve the people of this country and to try to create a climate, an economic agenda that allows them to prosper and to actually find jobs and actually get pay raises, not pay reductions. Of course, there is already a legal way for U.S.-based companies to hire workers they need. They can hire the people living here today who are unemployed. Or they can hire some of the million-plus immigrants whom we lawfully admit each year. We have a very generous immigration policy. No one is talking about ending that and not allowing immigration to continue. We allow about 1.1 million immigrants a year come to America lawfully, plus guest workers who come specifically to work. That is very generous. But this bill would double the number of guest workers and increase substantially the number of people who come through immigration to become permanent residents in our country, at a time of high unemployment--much higher unemployment than we had in 2007. That bill would have allowed much fewer people to come into the country, and it was rejected by the American people. No one is saying these programs cannot and should not exist, and that they should not be improved. But I am afraid the businesses want the choicest pick of labor at the lowest cost they can get it. That is what businesses do. That is what businesses want every day. When they go out and interview people, they want the best person they can get at the least cost. That is what their stockholders demand. So they believe the immigration policy for the entire Nation should exist to create an abundance of low-cost labor. I do not agree with that. They, in their bubble they live in, think lower wages are good. You hear about it: There are concerns over rising wages. It might drive up prices, you hear the Wall Street Journal say. Well, maybe some politicians think that way too. They are not concerned with how the plan impacts workers, the immigrants themselves, public resources, the education system, or taxpayer dollars. They are not focused on the broader economic and social concerns that happen when someone is not able to get a job for years at a decent wage. The focus tends to be on the reduction of the cost of labor. But America has a larger concern. That concern is unemployment. It is workplace participation. It is wages. And it is the cost of social services to those in need. We all agree we must make America more competitive globally. Workers must be productive and competitive. But how do we close the income gap? How do we deal with that? The best way to do that is not to reduce our wages and workers' quality of life. The way to do that is with a less burdensome Tax Code, a less intrusive regulatory system, and a tougher, smarter, fair trade policy. These policies would make us more competitive and help wages and working conditions improve. So when these business voices and establishment figures say the GOP needs to support a comprehensive immigration bill, what they are really saying is the GOP and the Congress of both parties--which in the Senate, of course, a minority of Republicans voted for the bill, and every single Democrat voted for the bill. They would have done the things I am concerned about. Now they are worried about the Republican House and they are trying to put the pressure on them. What they are saying is, we need to increase low-skill immigration, when we do not have enough jobs now. The Senate bill, based on CBO analysis, would provide legal status to 46 million people--mostly lower skilled immigrants--by 2033--46 million. Here is what the National Review editorialized on the subject: By more than doubling the number of so-called guest workers admitted each year, the bill would help create a permanent underclass of foreign workers. The 2007 Bush-Kennedy proposal was rejected in part because it would have added 125,000 new guest workers. The Gang of Eight bill--The one we just passed in the Senate--would add 1.6 million in the first year, and about 600,000 a year after that and that is on top of a 50 percent or more increase in the total level of legal immigration. The creation of a large population of second- class workers is undesirable from the point of view of the American national interest, which should be our guiding force in this matter. The United States is a nation with an economy, not an economy with a nation. This Nation owes certain things to its citizens, the people who are here now. We have a lot--300 million--and many of them are hurting. We owe them the best opportunity--owe them the best opportunity--to be successful and have a decent job with increasing wages, not declining. Here is what conservative writer Yuval Levin wrote in a recent op-ed. I am saying this because these are conservative writers. The Left's economic policies (and the legacy of decades of right-wing confusion about the difference between being pro- market and being pro-business too) are making the American economy less and less like the vision of capitalism that conservatives should want to defend. They should consider what now would be best for the cause of growth and prosperity--the cause of free markets and free people. Capitalism is fundamentally democratic, after all--we today might say fundamentally populist and recovering this understanding of conservative economics would help today's Republicans see an enormous public need, and an enormous political opportunity, they tend to miss, and to which conservatism could be very usefully applied. It would point to a conservative agenda to help working families better afford life in the middle class, and to give more Americans a chance to rise. So this is, I guess, directed--too late now to deal with the Senate. It passed the Senate, but not too late to deal with in the House, which does have a Republican majority. If Members of Congress want to broaden their appeal, the answer lies in speaking to the real and legitimate concerns of millions of hurting Americans whose wages have declined and whose job prospects have diminished. The New York Times talked about this in 2000. They forgot about all of this now. But in 2000, they editorialized against an amnesty bill, what they called a ``hasty call for amnesty'' and warned that ``between about 1980 and 1995 the gap between wages of high school dropouts and all other workers widened substantially.'' That is what the New York Times said then. It remains true. Professor George Borjas, himself an immigrant to America as a young man from Cuba, now at Harvard, perhaps the most effective and knowledgeable and respected scholar of wages and immigration in the world, certainly in the United States, estimates--get this--that 40 percent, almost half, of the trend downward in wages today can be traced to immigration from unskilled workers. Businesses do not have to bid up salaries to get good workers if you constantly have a flow of people come in. That data he reported has been updated. High levels of low-skilled immigration between 1980 and 2000--and those levels would be greatly increased if this bill that passed the Senate were to become law--have already reduced wages of native workers without a high school diploma by 8 percent, according to Professor Borjas. He has analyzed Labor Department statistics, census data, and all kinds of data, according to the highest academic standards. Professor Borjas said their wages have fallen from 1980 to 2000 by 8 percent in real dollars as a result of the current flow of immigration. So that is about $250 a month. You think that does not make a difference to working Americans and their families, to lose $250 a month? Oh, we do not want to talk about that. That is not a problem. The immigration bill will increase wages, we are told. Professor Borjas said it has already reduced wages enough to be very painful to people who are trying to take care of their families today. Wages continue to fall. This is not only an economic problem, but it is a social problem. The idea that dramatically increasing the number of foreign workers to take a limited number of American jobs will reduce unemployment and raise wages is so ridiculous it is hard to think it worth discussing. The very idea of this is beyond my comprehension. Yet we have the President out there today sending out documents claiming just the opposite--the President of the United States. The law of supply and demand has not been eliminated. Wages today are lower than in 1999. Median household income has declined 8 percent in that time. Some 47 million of our residents are on food stamps today, including 1 in 3 households in Detroit. According to the Associated Press, four out of five U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near poverty, or reliance on welfare. There is no shortage of labor in the United States. There is a shortage of jobs in the United States. Our goal must be to help our struggling Americans move from dependency to being independent, to help them find steady jobs and rising pay, not declining pay. Our policy cannot be to simply relegate more and more of our citizens to dependence on the government while importing a steady stream of foreign workers to take the available jobs. That is not in the interest of our country or the people of this country. Some contend our unemployed do not have the needed skills. Well, let's train them. We now spend over $750 billion a year on means-tested welfare-assistance type programs. That is the largest item in the budget, bigger than Social Security, bigger than defense, bigger than Medicare. Of that amount, for every $100 we spend on those programs, we only spend $1 on job training. So we need to wake up here. We need to quit paying people not to work, quit delivering money that creates dependence, and shift our policies in a way that puts people to work and gets them trained to take the jobs that are here today. As we leave for recess, my message to my colleagues in the House is this: Do the right thing. Make your priority restoring the rule of law, defending working Americans, and helping those struggling, immigrant and native born. People who immigrate here lawfully want to go to work here and see their wages rise too. Their wages are being pulled down if the flow of immigration is too large. It is amazing to me how the coalition has been put together. Some of the comments about it kind of take my breath away. Here is what the President said today in his paper, claiming that everything is going to be great with this huge increase of immigration that was in the bill he wants to see passed in the House. This is their report. The broader leisure and hospitality industry, one of the fastest growing sectors in the U.S. economy, also stands to benefit significantly from commonsense immigration reform. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the leisure and hospitality industry has consistently added jobs over the last 3 years. These sectors remain a source of robust economic activity and continue to exceed expectations. Leaders of these industries have been long-time proponents of legislation that would legalize workers in the United States and facilitate the lawful employment of future foreign-born workers. The head of the American Hotel and Lodging Association this year applauded the Senate--I bet he did--on behalf of the lodging industry for its bipartisan commitment to immigration reform that ``creates jobs, boosts travel and tourism, preserves hoteliers' access to a strong seasonal workforce, and stimulates economic growth.'' Well, sure. He would rather be able to have a large flow of workers from abroad take the jobs. What happens to the Americans who are not getting jobs? Are they on the food stamp rolls, the assistance rolls? Are they on unemployment compensation? Are they otherwise struggling to get by with government assistance? Would it not be better for our Americans to have those jobs? I mean, think about it, the President of the United States out here celebrating special interests, hotel magnates, casino magnates who want cheap foreign labor so they do not have to hire American workers who are unemployed. That is what we are talking about. I think it is time for the Republicans to stand up to the Republican 100 donors writing that letter. Give me a break. We need to reject their advice and the premise of their letter that the public policy of the United States should be based on giving U.S. companies a legal basis for hiring all the low-cost foreign workers they say they need. They are not entitled to demand that. We are supposed to set national policy here. We are supposed to set policy that serves the national interest. We do not work for those donors and special interests. So the national interest is to reduce unemployment, certainly, and to create rising wages. That is our responsibility in this body. Let's get on with it. I want to say how great it is to see my friend Senator Enzi. I am taking up his time. I hope I have not kept him too late. He works late anyway. But he has been a great principled supporter of immigration reform and is opposed to the bill that came before us. I thank the Senator for his work on so many of these issues but immigration reform is on my mind today. It is great to see the Senator. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I rise today to express my support for the Hydropower Regulatory Efficiency Act of 2013, H.R. 267. This important legislation will encourage and facilitate the development of clean and renewable hydropower capacity in the United States. Hydropower has played a key role in the economic and industrial development of the State of Alabama over the last 100 years. In fact, according to the National Hydropower Association, Alabama ranks among the top ten States in hydropower generation, with over 8,700,000 megawatt-hours of conventional hydrogeneration. I believe hydropower will continue to make important contributions to meet Alabama's energy needs well into the future. For that reason, I believe the Hydropower Regulatory Efficiency Act of 2013 is an important piece of legislation that merits this body's full support. I would like to recognize the excellent work of the Senate Energy Committee, including the chairman and ranking member, on this legislation. At this time, I wish to ask the ranking member for permission to engage her in a brief colloquy concerning her understanding of Section 6 of this legislation.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank my colleague for her willingness to discuss this legislation. Section 6 of the Hydropower Regulatory Efficiency Act of 2013 promotes hydropower development by directing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC, to investigate the feasibility of a more streamlined licensing process for certain hydro projects that should not be subjected to the lengthy and expensive licensing process that was designed for projects with many more complicated issues and stakeholder interests. Under H.R. 267, two types of projects would be eligible for the 2- year licensing process: new hydro developments at existing nonpowered dams and closed-loop pumped storage hydro. It is my understanding that adding generation capacity at existing nonpowered dams would tap into an important and substantial renewable energy resource at projects where the impacts of dam construction have already been realized. For hydropower developers to take full advantage of any streamlined licensing process that FERC may develop as contemplated in Section 6 of the act, I believe there needs to be a good understanding of what types of pumped storage projects would be considered ``closed-loop pumped storage projects.'' This term is not defined in the act, and I am not aware of any generally accepted engineering or industry definition for that term. In order that I might have a better understanding of the types of hydropower projects that would be eligible for a streamlined licensing process that FERC may develop in accordance with Section 6 of the act, would the ranking member kindly provide a description of the types of pumped storage projects that she would consider to be ``closed-loop pumped storage''?

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank Ranking Member Murkowski for her explanation. Again, I applaud her for her work on the Hydropower Regulatory Efficiency Act of 2013 and for her leadership in this body.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS. I ask that I be allowed to speak for 5 minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS. I wish to thank my colleague Senator Toomey for raising this matter and asking to recommit the legislation so the Senate committee, the appropriate committee, would produce a THUD plan for spending that complies with the Budget Control Act, which is a law of the land. Senator Toomey is one of our most knowledgeable Members on finance in the Senate. He is a member of the Budget Committee. He fully understands the significance of this matter. If this legislation passes at the level it is moving forward today, then we are eviscerating the promises we made to the American public in August of 2011. In August of 2011, everyone should remember quite well, that we said we would raise the debt ceiling by $2.1 trillion. We will reach that by the end of this year. We will have used up and borrowed another $2.1 trillion before the end of the year, but we said that we would reduce spending by $2.1 trillion over 10 years to make it easy on ourselves and to spread out the spending cuts. This was passed into law with bipartisan support and signed by President Obama. This is not some law that was made up out of thin air. It was a law that was debated and passed in both Houses of Congress. Republicans and Democrats agreed to it, and it improved our spending a little bit. We were then spending at the rate of $37 trillion over 10 years. We were projected to increase spending to $47 trillion over 10 years. This bill reduced it to $45 trillion. Under the current spending limits we now have, as Senator Toomey has so ably pointed out, we are going to increase spending over next 10 years. We are going to increase it from $37 trillion to $45 trillion at a time when we have been running the largest deficits the Nation has ever seen, bar none. An absolutely irresponsible level of debt has been added to our country. Even this modest proposal agreed to by the President, voted on by the majority party in the Senate, supported in a bipartisan way--is set to be demolished before 2 years is up: Oh, it is too tough. We can't reduce the growth of spending from $47 trillion to $45 trillion. Oh, this is going to destroy America. Well, why don't we look for ways to spread out the cuts and distribute some to the departments and agencies that got zero reductions in spending, such as Medicaid and food stamps zero reduction. No, we can't touch those. They are sacrosanct, and other programs too. We have some reductions in spending on the discretionary accounts that we can sustain, and it will be tough. That is what we are paid to do. The bill should properly go back to the committee, and a vote in favor of the Toomey motion would instruct the committee to produce a bill that is consistent with the Budget Control Act. May I inquire how much time remains?

Mr. SESSIONS. Essentially, the majority leader has already said that he intends to bring up the defense bill last, national security last. Why is he going to do that? He is going to do that because he is going to let all these other bills go over the budget limit, and then he is going to produce the defense bill and say: Oh, colleagues, we have to add more money to the defense bill, putting us over the BCA limits that were agreed to and passed into law. We have to waive that and spend more. This is how a Nation goes broke. This is how we lose credibility with the American people. We looked them in the eye in August 2 years ago and we said we were going to reduce the growth of spending a little bit, $2.1 trillion, in exchange for raising the debt ceiling $2.1 trillion. The majority party here is blithely walking in, pretending that never happened and saying: Oh, we didn't intend to pass a limit. Why did you vote for it then, if you didn't intend to pass it? We did intend to pass it. We promised the American people $2.1 trillion in reducing the growth of spending not a reduction in spending, just a reduction in the growth of spending.

Mr. SESSIONS. We need to honor that promise. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING Officer. The Senator from Maryland.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, Senator Durbin is such an eloquent champion for righting injustice, and I am always impressed with him, and I do agree that the American people are good and decent people. They want the right thing. They want the right thing on immigration. Part of that is a lawful system of immigration that serves the national interests of our country. We disagree on how to get there sometimes, but you cannot dispute the passion of Senator Durbin.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I want to share some thoughts about the President's tour today and the last couple of days talking about jobs. Well, I have to say, first and foremost, this country is not doing well economically. It is just not. You hear the stock market is up, and people try to translate that into substantial progress in the economy. But it is just not there, particularly with jobs. The fourth quarter of last year, our GDP growth was .4 percent. By the time the first half of this year concludes, we are not going to have 2 percent growth over that period. You are not going to create jobs unless you have economic growth. We are not seeing it. Wages are down. Wages have declined since 1999 for working Americans by virtually any calculation. Wages have been declining. Unemployment is up. The number of people working today is 2.1 million fewer than in 2007. We have 2.1 million fewer people working today than in 2007. This is the slowest economic recovery since the Great Depression, there is no doubt about that. But we have done all kinds of extraordinary things. We had the biggest stimulus--all borrowed--spent. They are going to stimulate the economy and create growth. Has it produced real growth or is it just a sugar high, as one of the Wall Street gurus referred to it? It appears quite clear that it is a sugar- type high. We have more and more plans from our leadership here in the Senate. It is basically tax and spend. The American people are hurting. Their wages are falling and so forth. They have unemployment problems. So we promise to tax more and we are going to spread more money around and borrow more. And this is somehow going to put us on a sound path to prosperity, job growth, and wage increases, which is what we need. Please note these facts. I do not mind the President talking about the issue. I know he is using the words ``middle class.'' Well, he should. Middle-class working Americans, struggling Americans--someone needs to be thinking about them. But you also have to have policies. A speech is not a policy. A speech is not tangible, something that creates growth, jobs, prosperity, and increased wages. GDP growth last quarter was only 1.8 percent and has averaged at or under 2 percent since the end of the recession in 2009. There is a major corporation, a CEO--which is common throughout the business--he just said quite frankly: We are not hiring anybody if the GDP growth in America is not over 3 percent. Well, we haven't had 3 percent growth--hardly had it--since 2009. He actually is not filling vacancies still even though we are having modest growth and people possibly are trying to oversell that. I am just saying that the economy is struggling. It is not growing rapidly enough to create jobs. We have record unemployment. The Wall Street Journal panel of economic experts expects slow growth for the rest of this year at 2 percent or less. They have revised their forecast down. The President and Congressional Budget Office a year or so ago were predicting higher numbers than this. They are not coming in. Now they are revising downward what they expect the economy to do in the second half of the year. We need more than a speech, in my opinion. After 6 years since the beginning of the recession, we still have not created as many jobs as existed in December of 2007. Americans are working 5 billion less hours than in 2007. Think about that--5 billion less hours than in 2007. Some say: Well, our immigration plan--my colleague recalled my attention to it--is somehow going to fix that. We will bring in more workers, and everyone is going to get pay raises, and unemployment is going to be reduced. But that is not what the Congressional Budget Office told us. At a time when we are struggling to find jobs for American workers, many of the unemployed are immigrants to the country, African Americans, poor people struggling to get by, and you continue to bring in a larger flow of labor than the country can absorb. As Mr. Peter Kirsanow from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights said, we do not have a shortage of workers in America, we have an excess of workers in America. We have more workers than we have jobs. The fastest growing type of work today is part-time employment. Over 320,000 part-time jobs were created last month compared to 95,000 full- time jobs. They are counting these part-time employment jobs as employment. Well it is better than nothing, I suppose. We are having a surge of part-time employment, driven in large measure by the President's health care policies. It just is. Everybody knows that. New unemployment claims, which came out this week, are up. In other words, the number of people who are filing for unemployment insurance has gone up, I hate to say. There were 7,000 more in July, to 343,000. The average net worth of American households is down. Someone said recently that net worth was back to nearly what it was prior to the recession. That was something we heard based on, I guess, the stock market primarily. But another analysis looked at it and said: Well, what about the share of the debt of Americans? That has increased dramatically since 2007. Once you calculate the debt all of us owe as American citizens to the total debt of America, household net worth is 60 percent lower than it was in 2007. It is time for this Nation to begin a serious discussion about what it is that is causing our economy to slide and what we can do realistically to create jobs, increase growth, get higher wages, and so forth. One of the things we should not do is bring in more labor than we have jobs for. That is pretty simple to me. One of the things we should do is try to bring down the cost of energy, not increase the cost of energy. One of the things we should do is eliminate the unnecessary regulations that drive up costs and produce nothing but a burden in exchange. We need a tax system that favors growth. We need to defend on the world stage the legitimate interests of America and our working people. We have not effectively fought back against unfair trade. We can do a better job of that. There are a lot of things we can do that do not revolve around taxing more, borrowing more, and spending more. That is what the policies are here. We have a bill on the floor right now that busts the budget wide open. We agreed to these limits 2 years ago. Senator Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, stood firm for the agreement levels we agreed to. It was not easy, but we agreed to it. Oh, no, the majority has to spend more than the amount that currently is limited by law. So I guess what I would say is that President Obama is correct to at least talk about this issue, but we need to do more than talk. About all we are hearing when the President talks is plans to invest more, to spend more, to tax more, and to borrow more. That will not change the debt course of America. We need real policies to put us on a path to prosperity that protects the American worker from unfair foreign competition, from excessive labor brought into the country, and from too high energy costs. There are a lot of other things we can do that would promote prosperity in the country. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I wish to speak for a few minutes about the loan program and concerns I have about it, particularly the scoring conventions used by the Congressional Budget Office in its cost analysis of these student loans. It is something I have looked at for some time as the ranking member of the Budget Committee. We have asked CBO to analyze these issues and have offered the honest Budget Act, which deals with all kinds of loans, and the improper way CBO scores them--not that they do it on their own, but because we require them to score it that way. In sum, I would say the loans that have been referred to today do not make money for the government. They just do not. They are going to cost money. It is simply--and that would be a subsidy to the borrower. We are talking about 2.05 percent above the 10-year Treasury note, and that is a good way to figure what the interest rates are. When they rise, the cost of money rises. It rises for the U.S. Treasury as well as for the people who borrow from the U.S. Treasury. But the Federal Credit Reform Act, or FCRA, requires CBO to score these loans in a way that gives the impression that they do, in fact, make money. In a recent report on student loans, the CBO wrote to us that FCRA--this is the law that tells them how they analyze the cost: FCRA accounting does not consider some costs borne by the government. In particular, it omits risks taxpayers face because federal receipts from interest and principal payments on student loans tend to be low when economic and financial conditions are poor and resources therefore are more valuable. Fair-value accounting methods account for such risk. . . . Fair value accounting methods aren't being used with these loans. In fact, CBO utilized a fair value accounting system--please get this, colleagues: They used that system to analyze these loans in addition to the system required by law, and that would show that student loans actually lose money for the American taxpayer. So often around here we have scores that indicate one thing, and Senators advocate that they say one thing, when the truth is it costs us money. As the Senate moves forward in this debate, it is important that it consider the real costs associated with the Federal student loan program. The budgetary costs of the Federal Direct Student Loan Program are determined based on accounting rules specified by the Federal Credit Reform Act. Under the guidelines set forth there, the cost of Federal loans are recorded in the year in which the loans are made. The net cost of a student loan includes the estimated future repayment of principal and interest--the estimate of what would be repaid. The value of these future repayments are adjusted to reflect certain risks--the risk of default and the risk of inflation. CBO cannot, however, include an adjustment for market risk, such as if the country has a bad financial crisis, which periodically happens. Examples of market risk include the current fiscal situation: Our Nation's current unemployment rate is 7.6 percent with 11.8 million people unemployed. Some want to continue to bring in millions of people to take those jobs from abroad while we have 11 million people unemployed, and it is time for us to reevaluate that policy, in my opinion. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, June 2013 figures, the unemployment rate among college students shows about 1.9 million unemployed college students. All of these factors lead to lower loan repayment rates and higher collection costs for the government. With an interest rate well over 7 percent and college students struggling to find work, default rates are going to increase. Because the FCRA method of accounting for student loans does not take into account all of the risks that are associated with making a loan, the government should require that CBO adopt the fair-value accounting method. As I said, unrelated specifically to this legislation, I offered legislation 2 years ago to do just that because the American people need to know what the cost to the Treasury will be when we make loans, and we know, and CBO acknowledges, that this method they are using required by law is not accurate. According to a June 2013 CBO report made for the Senate Budget Committee entitled ``Options to Change Interest Rates and Other Terms on Student Loans'' that I requested in my capacity as ranking member of the Budget Committee, CBO admitted and acknowledged that its current scoring rules failed to adequately account for the cost of these loans. That is just a fact. I wish it were not so. I wish we could cut these rates even lower than they are. But I have to say, it is not accurate to say the Federal Government is going to make a bunch of money off of it. It goes on to say: [U]sing fair-value methodology represents a broader measure of cost that includes the cost of market risk. So CBO has explicitly stated it would be better to use the fair-value methodology and not the other. Well, does that make a difference? Does it change what the score and the analysis would be? They have their official analysis based on the requirements that Congress gave them, but they acknowledge the market risk is a better analysis. What did they say that would do? The methodological difference between FCRA--the current system--and the fair-value accounting system produces alarmingly different results--alarmingly different. Under the FCRA, CBO estimates that the student loan program will reduce the deficit by $37 billion in fiscal year 2013 and save $184 billion over 10 years. With those results, of course, the program looks good. But under the fair-value accounting procedure that CBO says is preferable, CBO estimates that direct student loans issued between 2013 and 2023 would cost the government $95 billion--cost the government $95 billion. Suddenly, the student loan program, when adjusted more accurately for market risk, is a deficit creator rather than an income producer. As I say, I wish that were not so. I hate to report that. But we have been looking at these numbers for some time. I urge my colleagues. I know we need to do something about student loans. We need to get it done now. I am not here to try to say we should not pass anything. But what I am saying is, colleagues, we have to end this fooling ourselves system. We have to go to an honest system that the private markets utilize and the Federal Government should be utilizing. I am going to continue to push for that. We will continue to work on this issue. I know we have a situation that is very painful for students, many of whom have overborrowed. They did not understand the significance of what they were doing and they ran up more debt than they should have. As a result, they are in a painful circumstance, for sure. But when we do our policy for the future, and we analyze what it costs to make a loan program--what it costs the taxpayers--we need to have accurate accounting. If the matter is accurately accounted, using best accounting procedures, this bill, as now presented, would actually cost the taxpayers money rather than make them money. I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the chairman and join her in commending Mr. Sammartino for his many years of dedicated and distinguished service to CBO, the Congress, and the American people. We wish him and his family well in his retirement from Federal service. We hope our colleagues will join us in thanking Mr. Sammartino--and really all of the hard-working employees at the Congressional Budget Office--for his and their service. energy subcommittee assignments

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that after my remarks, Senator Reed be recognized for up to 15 minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I would like to talk about the nomination of Gina McCarthy to serve as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. I had the pleasure of meeting with her earlier in the confirmation process and talking with her at length about many important issues. She is experienced. I believe she is a good person. She has given her assurance that EPA would become more responsive--at least my interpretation of her response would be that-- and her management has been encouraging. However, the Environmental Protection Agency appointment is no small matter. The job of EPA Administrator has the potential to impact the life of every American in both positive and negative ways. For example, in the 1970s, Congress passed the Clean Air Act. It focused on pollutants. We were talking about NOX and SOX, sulphur oxide, nitrogen oxide, particulates, things that adversely affect the health of Americans. At that point in time, we had no dream in our mind of a problem-- global warming--that might arise and become a big issue in the future, nor did Congress have any inclination that carbon dioxide, plant food, that product in the atmosphere that plants take in and breathe out oxygen--we breathe in oxygen and out CO2--would be declared a pollutant. By a 5-to-4 decision, the Supreme Court seemed to declare that, although it was not absolutely mandatory, EPA could regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act. EPA has seized that authority. They say that, for example, CO2 is a pollutant. Congress has never voted to declare CO2 a pollutant. I believe it is a stretch and an abuse of the Supreme Court's authority to interpret the law we passed in the 1970s as including that. If CO2 is a pollutant, as the EPA now assumes and asserts it is, every backyard barbecue, every lawnmower as well as every factory and plant in America is subject to their control because they are required to limit and control pollutants. This is how things happen in America. So we have an unelected bureaucracy, the Environmental Protection Agency, virtually unaccountable to the public, often refusing steadfastly to produce reasonable answers to inquiries put to them by the Congress. They dictate matters that impact every person in America. It is an awesome power. It is something too little discussed in America. I am going to talk about another subject briefly. I understand Ms. McCarthy and her experience. She is going to be elevated now from EPA's Air Office, where they have been hammering coal, hammering natural gas, and other fuels, carbon fuels, in their regulations to a degree that it is driving up the cost for every American to obtain energy, their electricity, their automobiles, and the heating in their homes. I wish to focus for a few minutes on a central problem at the EPA: its disregard for Congress, the law as written, and the use of unlawful agency guidance. Agency guidance. These are documents they issue to effectively rewrite the law in a way that favors the administration's policies and political agenda. That is what we are seeing too much of. People say: Oh, they just do not like the EPA. All of these complaints from farmers and businesses, it is all just overreaction. Those are guys who want to pollute the atmosphere and the farmlands and do all of these things. They are not reasonable people. Most Americans are not dealing face-to-face with the guidance, the regulations of the EPA officials who attempt to dictate so much of what they do. There is perhaps no better illustration of the dynamic than in the context of the administration's effort to grasp control over every ditch, stream and creek and pond in the country. We actually had a vote on this issue in May during the debate on the Water Resources Development Act. I joined with my colleague Senator Barrasso in introducing an amendment, the Barrasso-Sessions amendment No. 868 to the Water Resources Development Act. A clear majority of the Senate, 52 Members, voted for our amendment that would stop EPA from implementing an agency guidance document that would vastly expand the Agency's jurisdiction over the Clean Water Act. So they issue a guidance, direct it to all of their subordinates, and tell them how the law is to be enforced. So actually it becomes a new law; it becomes the effect of an actual statute. First, the problem with what they have been doing is it is contrary to the plain reading of the statute, the Clean Water Act. This law, enacted in 1972, requires a Federal permit for activities impacting navigable waters--navigable waters. That is what is in the statute, which Congress has defined as waters of the United States. EPA's guidance document broadly interprets this term--broadly interprets it and would give Agency employees throughout the country the authority to make case-by-case determinations with virtually no jurisdictional limits whatsoever. I recently asked Ms. McCarthy about this issue. She did not detail her views. She would not answer specific questions. The Supreme Court has ruled several times on the meaning of this jurisdictional term, most recently in its 2006 decision, just a few years ago, Rapanos v. United States. That 4-1-4 decision--which, I think the Chair did not often see in her State when she was attorney general, not often did I see that, a 4-1-4 decision. The Supreme Court held that the Army Corps of Engineers overreached by asserting jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act over nonnavigable wetlands in that case. On behalf of the four-member plurality comprised of Justices Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, Justice Scalia wrote that ``waters of the United States'' include nonnavigable wetlands only if there is an ``adjacent channel [that] contains a . . . relatively permanent body of water connected to traditional interstate navigable waters.'' That is stretching it pretty far, is it not? So at least there is a stream that is supposed to be connected to some navigable water. Further, Justice Scalia concluded ``the wetland has a continuous surface connection with that water . . . '' So there is at least some continuous connection to the water. It does not just dry up for most of the year and only have water in it when it rains heavily. The opinion of Justice Scalia is, to me, in line with the Clean Water Act's original meaning of the term ``navigable waters.'' The key swing vote was provided by Justice Kennedy, who joined Justice Alito, making five votes and remanding the Army Corp's decision in that case but under a different interpretation of ``waters of the United States.'' With Justice Kennedy's concurrence, five of the nine Justices rejected the idea that the EPA and the Army Corps have unlimited jurisdiction over anything wet in the United States. As a result, in 2008, EPA, under the Bush administration, issued a guidance document explaining the Agency interpretation of ``waters of the United States'' in light of the Supreme Court decision. That document did not seek to expand the Agency's decision or change existing regulations. Rather, in that guidance document, the Agency adopted a reasonable view that recognizes the need for a significant nexus to traditional navigable water, so a connection at least to navigable water. We call them branches in Alabama. Sometimes they dry up. They are not a navigable stream. However, soon after entering office, the Obama administration sought to replace that 2008 guidance document, expanding their power with a guidance document, even though there had been no intervening Supreme Court case. They submitted a guidance document that would vastly expand the Agency's assertion of jurisdiction and power. A second problem with EPA's approach is that their approach is contrary to the principle of cooperative federalism, which was foundational to the enactment of the Clean Water Act from the beginning. That principle recognizes that there must be a strong partnership between the Federal Government and the States if we are to address environmental challenges. One way the law recognizes this approach is through giving a limited role for the Environmental Protection Agency. The States have the primary responsibility for protecting water quality, not the EPA. Water is primarily to be protected by the States. This was contemplated in the Clean Water Act. But EPA's guidance document would seek to involve EPA in a wide range of permitting actions that should otherwise be left to the States. I believe this guidance is based on a false premise that water quality is protected only by EPA--only they can be trusted, not the people who live in the States where the water is. So, finally, EPA is circumventing Congress by using a guidance document to rewrite the law. For those reasons, I will be continuing to work on this issue. It is very important in our EPW Committee. I would urge the Senate to act to stop the power grab by EPA. As I noted, a majority of the Senate has voted for that but did not receive the 60 votes required for passage. I am disappointed, to date, that Ms. McCarthy has not agreed to push back and back down from the aggressive bureaucratic power grab that has come to define this administration's use of EPA. There are many more problems within the Environmental Protection Agency. They are unelected. They have used powers Congress has never explicitly given them to regulate virtually every aspect of the American economy. I hope Ms. McCarthy will do a good job if she is given this position, but she serves at the pleasure of the President. She will take her lead from him. It is quite clear he has no intention of constricting the expansion of EPA power but indeed is behind expanding it to the fullest extent he can achieve. That is very troubling. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, earlier today my colleague Senator Rubio came to the floor to talk about the very serious matter of the nomination of Thomas Perez that will be before us. Senator Rubio specifically addressed Mr. Perez's refusal to comply with a bipartisan congressional subpoena into the investigation of his orchestration of a controversial quid pro quo with the City of St. Paul in a very important legal matter. Senator Rubio talked about that ably and eloquently, and it is a very serious matter. I was in the Department of Justice for a number of years. I am very uneasy about the way that matter was done. I don't believe that is normal business at all. In the course of his tenure, Mr. Perez has identified approximately 1,200 personal e-mails that were related to his official duties and are responsive to the subpoena from the House, some of which reportedly disclosed nonpublic information about publicly traded companies. Yet he still refuses to turn them over to Congress despite what appears to be a clear obligation to do so. The failure to comply with a subpoena is a very serious matter. First, he wants to go for the Department of Justice, which issues subpoenas all the time and demands that people comply with them. It doesn't matter if the subpoena is issued to a poor person or small business, they are expected to comply with the subpoena. Congress has the ability to issue subpoenas. A member of the Department of Justice ought to respond to those subpoenas. In my opinion, he has a high duty to respond to them. I believe the Senate was incorrect in allowing his nomination to go forward to a full vote when we have not gotten the information. The failure to vote for cloture and moving to a vote on a nomination is not a rejection of a nomination. Fundamentally, it is a statement to say we are not ready to vote on it yet. We are not ready to have this matter before us because we need more information. He is not answering a subpoena issued to him by the House of Representatives. I will not talk about that anymore, but I think it is a big deal. This is not the first problem Mr. Perez has had in abusing the legal process. Frankly, I wish to share some thoughts about other issues. I hate to do this. I was concerned about the nomination when he came forward. Senator Tom Coburn and I met with Mr. Perez at some length, and I came away uneasy about it. I had a feeling his ideological political agenda was so strong and his legal commitment was not strong enough. I was concerned he would use this position in the Department of Justice to advance an agenda rather than enforce the law. I am afraid that is what has happened. Many of my colleagues will recall that on election day in 2008 three members of the New Black Panther Party stood at the entrance of a polling station in Philadelphia brandishing nightsticks and threatening voters. What more intimidation can you have than that at the voting place? They wore military-style uniforms, combat boots, battle dress pants, military-style insignia, and used racial slurs and insults to scare away would-be voters. One of the men was Jerry Jackson, a member of Philadelphia's 14th Ward Democratic Committee and credentialed poll watcher for the Democratic Party on election day. This is not acceptable. This is clearly voter intimidation, dramatic voter intimidation. A video of the incident was widely distributed on the Internet, made national news and headlines. The Justice Department, under the Bush administration, secured an affidavit from Bartle Bull, a long-time civil rights activist and a former aide to Robert F. Kennedy in his 1968 Presidential campaign. Mr. Bull called the conduct ``an outrageous affront to American democracy and the rights of voters to participate in an election without fear.'' None of the defendants in the case even filed a response to the complaint against him or appeared in the Federal district court in Philadelphia to answer the lawsuit. Maybe they didn't feel like they had a defense. It appeared almost certain that the Justice Department would have prevailed in their case. According to a May 2009 article in the Washington Times, the Justice Department had been working on the case for months and had already secured a default judgment against the defendants by April 20, 2009--3 months after President Obama took office. However, President Obama's political appointee, Mr. Thomas Perrelli, then acting head of the Civil Rights Division, overruled career prosecutors and voluntarily dismissed the charges against two of the men with no penalty. He obtained an order against the third member that merely prohibited him from bringing a weapon to the polling place in future elections, which was already against the law. What a sad end of that case, and to me it is unthinkable. In a 2009 memo, career Appellate Chief Diana K. Flynn wrote that the Justice Department could have made a ``reasonable argument in favor of default relief against all defendants, and probably should.'' That is what the career attorney said about the matter. The Justice Department's highly unusual dismissal of the case of dramatic voter intimidation was the subject of a year-long investigation by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. This is an independent commission that is set up by our government and has appointees from both parties and they are focused on ensuring that civil rights are protected. They were trying to examine how it was this case was handled in this fashion. On April 1, 2010, Chairman Gerald Reynolds sent a letter to Attorney General Holder asking whether the Department of Justice would fully cooperate with the Civil Rights Commission's investigation and allow two Department attorneys to testify in their investigation. The letter also pointed out that the Department failed to turn over requested documents. The Commission asked for requested documents. They have a right to do that. According to Civil Rights Commissioner Peter Kirsanow, in total, the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice refused to answer 18 separate interrogatories, refused to provide witness statements for 12 key witnesses, refused to respond to 22 requests for production of documents, and refused to produce a privilege log. This happened in spite of the fact that the Justice Department has a statutory obligation to fully comply with the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and their investigations. Does the Department of Justice think they are above the law? I spent 15 years in the Department of Justice. I loved the Department of Justice. I never saw some of the things that have happened in recent years. I believe the public needs to know more about it. I will try not to be too critical of Attorney General Holder, but I am concerned about this. Later, two attorneys from the Department of Justice defied the Department and actually agreed to testify against the Department's recommendation before the Commission on Civil Rights at considerable risk to their careers--J. Christian Adams and Christopher Coates. Mr. Coates was the former chief of the voting rights section. Mr. Adams and Mr. Coates stated that political appointees declined to prosecute the New Black Panther case because they were interested only in civil rights cases that involved equality for racial and ethnic minorities and would not prosecute civil rights cases in a race-neutral way. Adams called the actions in the New Black Panther case--this is what the attorney at the Department of Justice said about the case--``the simplest and most obvious violation of federal law'' that he had ever seen in his career at the Justice Department. He resigned as a result of the dismissal of the obviously justified case. In his sworn testimony before the Commission, Mr. Perez unequivocally denied the allegations. Commissioner Peter Kirsanow asked him: Was there any political leadership involved in the decision not to pursue this particular case any further than it was? The answer by Mr. Perez: No. The decisions were made by [Justice Department career attorneys] Loretta King in consultation with Steve Rosenbaum who is the acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General. In a recent letter to Members of the Senate regarding Mr. Perez's nomination, Commissioner Kirsanow stated Mr. Perez's testimony ``should be a tremendous concern to all Senators regardless of party.'' Indeed it should. In fact, it was not until a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch that the Justice Department finally produced a privileged log identifying more than 50 e-mails between high-level Justice Department political appointees and career attorneys regarding the government's ``decision-making process'' in this case, all around the time the Department's otherwise bewildering decision to drop a case it had already won by default. Judge Reggie Walton, an African-American Federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia stated in his opinion that the internal documents ``appear to contradict Assistant Attorney General Perez's testimony that political leadership was not involved.'' Let me repeat that. This is a Federal judge in the District of Columbia who said the internal documents ``appear to contradict Assistant Attorney General Perez's testimony that political leadership was not involved.'' Indeed it does. We have a Federal judge finding this in his opinion. Judge Walton further said, ``Surely the public has an interest in documents that cast doubt on the accuracy of government officials.'' He was referring to the fact that they weren't producing documents and that they ought to--the public was entitled to have documents that cast doubt on the accuracy of the testimony of government officials, and, he says, ``representations regarding the possible politicalization of the agency decision-making.'' Mr. Walton himself at one time was in the Department of Justice. I am sure he had to have an opinion of the Department of Justice. He is not trying to abuse them. He is just saying Department of Justice officials have an obligation to tell the truth, and if they don't, they ought to be found out. The handling of the case was so extraordinary that the Justice Department's inspector general, appointed by President Obama, initiated an investigation of the matter. The inspector general's report confirmed testimony of Mr. Adams and Mr. Coates and, importantly, it concluded this: Perez's testimony did not reflect the entire story regarding the involvement of political appointees in the [New Black Panther Party] decisionmaking. In particular, Perez's characterizations omitted that [political appointees] Associate Attorney General Perrelli and Deputy Associate Attorney General Hirsch were involved in consultations about the decision as shown in testimony and contemporaneous e- mails. Specifically, they set clear outer limits on what [career attorneys] could decide on the . . . matter, (including prohibiting them from dismissing a case in its entirety) without seeking additional approval from the Office of the Associate Attorney General. So the Department's own inspector general looked at the matter and concluded Mr. Perez's testimony that the political appointees didn't have anything to do with it--it was all career attorneys who decided on the merits not to prosecute this case--was not accurate. And he went on to explain why. This isn't a House committee having a hearing on it; this is the inspector general of the Department of Justice, the inspector general basically appointed by President Obama and selected by the Attorney General himself. Basically, the political appointees put a fence around the case and said you can't take any real action on it until we get our approval. Continuing to quote: In his . . . interview, Perez said he did not believe that these incidents constituted political appointees being ``involved'' in the decision. Give me a break. We believe these facts evidence ``involvement'' in-- Well, let me go back and get this precisely correct. This was the inspector general's report. The inspector general found: In his interview . . . Perez said he did not believe that these incidents constituted political appointees being ``involved'' in the decision. We believe these facts evidence ``involvement'' in the decision by political appointees within the ordinary meaning of that word, and that Perez's acknowledgment, in his statements on behalf of the Department, that political appointees were briefed on and could have overruled this decision did not capture the full extent of that involvement. That is what the inspector general said. To me, that sounds like a bureaucratic way of saying Mr. Perez did not tell the truth to the inspector general during the course of an official investigation of his conduct. So now we are going to promote him. Apparently, that is what goes on around here. True, the original decision to dismiss the case predated Mr. Perez's appointment to the Civil Rights Division. He was not there at that time. That is true. But instead of reinstating the case--which would have been the correct decision--he became directly involved in and managed--according to the inspector general--what was, in fact, a coverup of the processes that occurred. That in and of itself should disqualify him for this position. This is not good, to be found by your own inspector general in the U.S. Department of Justice to not respond truthfully; to have a Federal judge find that; to have their own inspector general find that. We are far too blase about high officials in this government not telling the truth. He should not be rewarded with a promotion for his work protecting political appointees in the Department of Justice. The inspector general's report also confirmed Mr. Perez has overseen most of the unprecedented racial polarization and politicalization of the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. There has been a lot of turmoil there over the disagreement about what is the right thing to do. There has been a consistent theme of his, which is to advance certain political and ideological agendas, it seems to me. I will explain what I mean. I want to be fair to him, but I am not--I have been around a lot of litigation for a long time and I am not comfortable with his actions. He has sued States for implementing voter identification laws--sued the States for that which has been rejected by Federal courts--to intimidate them and stop them from saying you have to have an identification of some kind before you are allowed to waltz in and say you are John Jones and you are entitled to vote. What if you are not John Jones? States have passed laws such as that and the Federal court has rejected his view, including a three-judge panel on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in Washington, including Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who was a Clinton appointee. Mr. Perez's arguments have been rebuked by courts in Arkansas about the Civil Rights for Institutionalized Persons Act; in New York in an education case, U.S. v. Brennan; in a Florida case where Perez's team was abusively prosecuting peaceful pro-life protesters; and in a major loss in court in Florida when he was trying to force the State not to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls. Apparently, Florida, in his mind, was violating civil rights by saying nonvoters--noncitizens-- shouldn't be on the voting rolls. Is this who is running the Department of Justice? Is this the philosophy they are having in Washington? The Department has filed and is considering lawsuits against a growing list of States that have enacted immigration legislation, including Alabama, Arizona, Utah, Indiana, Georgia, and South Carolina. Although Mr. Perez was not involved in the Department's lawsuit against Alabama--my State--he has issued threats and engaged in intimidating tactics against Alabama law enforcement officials who reported to me shock at the nature of those events. For example, he took the unprecedented action of creating a toll-free hotline for people to report allegations of discrimination due to Alabama's immigration law, although the Attorney General of Alabama said he will prosecute anybody who violates people's right to vote. Also, Mr. Strange said, tell me who has made complaints, that you say have made complaints, about not being treated fairly and I will investigate it. Mr. Perez said there were bullying and harassment complaints out there, but when asked to produce some of them he refused to provide the information. Alabama officials have been questioned whether reports of complaints were, in fact, true. They won't say what they are. In October of 2011, Mr. Perez sent a letter to the superintendent of every school district in Alabama requesting the names of all students who had withdrawn from school and the date, without any apparent authority to do so. He just wanted to snoop into that, I guess. In December of 2011, he sent a letter to all Alabama sheriffs and police departments that receive Federal funds--many of them through the Department of Justice where he was--warning them, I think without basis, not to infringe on constitutional rights in enforcing Alabama's immigration law. There is no proof anybody had violated constitutional rights in enforcing that law. Mr. Perez actually threatened to withdraw Federal funding from any of the 156 offices that implement ``the law in a manner that has the purpose or effect of discriminating against Latino or any other community.'' He also warned that the Civil Rights Division is ``loosely monitoring the impact of [the law].'' On January 20, Mr. Perez met in Tuscaloosa with Tuscaloosa County Sheriff Ted Sexton and other high public safety officers in the Federal Government in Washington, and several other sheriffs around the country. Sheriff Sexton told Mr. Perez that he perceived his letter as a threat in asking whether he should expect any lawsuits against him or any other law enforcement officials. Mr. Perez wouldn't comment. Sheriff Sexton also pressed for examples of reports of discrimination in Alabama that Mr. Perez had purportedly received, but he again refused to comment or provide evidence. According to Sheriff Sexton, a sheriff from Georgia was present and asked another Justice Department representative who was present with Mr. Perez whether States such as Alabama and Georgia were ``being penalized for the sins of our grandfathers'' and the official reportedly responded, ``More than likely.'' I received a letter from Sheriff Huey Mack of Baldwin County, a fine sheriff who responded after 9/11 in New York and did forensic work there, and Sheriff Mack states in opposition to this nomination: Following the issuance of this letter, several law enforcement officers met with Mr. Perez in Mobile, Alabama . . . During this meeting, Mr. Perez made several false allegations relating to law enforcement's handling of Alabama's Immigration Law. This continued for a short period of time during which it became evident Mr. Perez was not interested in the truth, but wanted to rely strictly upon his biased and preconceived notions regarding the State of Alabama. Mr. Perez should not be confirmed to any cabinet level post. In my opinion, Mr. Perez should be relieved of all of his duties as it relates to the U.S. Federal Government and seek employment outside of serving the citizens of this Nation. Well, I wasn't there, but I know Sheriff Mack and something was wrong for him to write such a strong letter. Sheriff Sexton was in another meeting that he was referring to, a very able sheriff. When Mr. Perez was nominated to lead the Civil Rights Division, I had serious concerns about whether he would work to protect the civil rights of all Americans regardless of race, and whether he would ensure that the division remained free from partisanship and not be used as a tool to further an agenda or some ideology. These concerns had a basis in fact from looking at his prior record. That was the concern I had. When he ran for the Montgomery County, MD, council, he responded to a question asking ``What would you like the voters to know about?'' with: ``I am a progressive Democrat and always was and always will be.'' Well, that is OK. But when you get to be in the Department of Justice, you have to put that aside. So I asked him about that in our meetings. In an April 3, 2005, Washington Post article, he was described as ``about as liberal as Democrats get.'' Well, there is nothing wrong with that. But you have to be able to put it aside if you are going to serve in the U.S. Department of Justice. As a councilman, he expressed disdain for Republicans, at one point giving ``a 5-minute speech about how some conservative Republicans do not care about the poor.'' Well, that is his opinion, but it should not affect his duties as an official in the Department of Justice. From 1995 to 2002, while employed as an attorney in the Civil Rights Division, he served on the board of CASA de Maryland. He later became president of that organization. CASA--which is actually an acronym for Central American Solidarity Association--is an advocacy organization with some extreme views, funded in part by George Soros, that opposes enforcement of immigration laws. They are just flat out there active about it. In the Department of Justice, you need somebody who favors enforcing the law, not not enforcing the law. What are the prosecutors supposed to do in the Department of Justice? Undermine law or enforce law? When I was in the Department of Justice, we understood our job was to enforce the law, not make it. For example, this CASA de Maryland group issued a pamphlet encouraging illegal aliens not to speak to police officers or immigration agents. It promoted day labor sites. That is where illegal workers go out and get jobs. So they promoted that. It fought restrictions on illegal immigrants receiving driver's licenses. And it supported in-State tuition for illegal immigrants. This is the organization he was president of. I talked to him about that, and I was not convinced that he could set that aside when he became an official in the Department of Justice who would be required to enforce those kinds of laws passed by the Congress and the States. Mr. Perez has spoken in favor of measures that would assist illegal aliens in skirting immigration laws. While a councilman in 2003, he supported the use of the matricula consular ID cards issued by Mexico and Guatemala as a valid form of identification for local residents who worked and used government services, without having any U.S.-issued documents to prove they are lawfully here. Notably, no major bank in Mexico accepts these identification documents. They are not a valid identification document. Unfortunately, my initial concerns about Mr. Perez's nomination have been confirmed, I hate to say. I do not feel like--and I have to say I do not doubt--that he will continue, if confirmed as the Secretary of Labor, to do all that he can within his power to hamstring the enforcement of immigration laws and to advance his political agenda. That is what his background is, that is what he has done, as I have documented here. His misleading testimony before the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, as Mr. Kirsanow pointed out--the veracity of which was questioned by a U.S. Federal judge here in the District of Columbia--his false statements to the inspector general of the Department of Justice--who wrote about it in his analysis and report on the incident--his refusal to comply with a congressional subpoena by the House of Representatives, and, really, his abysmal record at the Department of Justice disqualifies him, in my view, for this position. Frankly, we should not have closed debate on his nomination and moved it forward until we got the information that is out there. What if this information is produced next month and it is very incriminating or unacceptable? Are we then going to ask him to quit? That is not the way you should do business here. We have hearings. We ask questions of nominees. If they do not answer questions, normally they do not move to the floor for confirmation. I think this is a legitimate concern that the American people ought to know about. I believe the American people have a right to know all the information about Mr. Perez's tenure in office, the criticisms of a very serious nature that he has received, and the fact that he seems to have a strong bent toward allowing his own ideological and political views to affect his decisionmaking process--all of which is unacceptable for a high position in this government of the United States of America. I appreciate the Chair's indulgence and yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we are in an unpleasant time, indeed, in the Senate. I hate to see it happen. This is a robust body. We are at each other. We defend the interests of our constituents and try to advocate for the values we share, and it is a contentious place at times, but we usually work our way through that. I would just say there is no reason we should be at this point today. I do believe the majority leader has been abusing the powers of his office. I remain dreadfully concerned and firmly believe this consistent practice of using the tactics of refusing to consider certain bills and filling the tree to keep Members of the Senate from having a vote is an abuse maybe even larger than the issue we are dealing with today. In fact, it is larger. For example, we have been debating the question of interest rates going up on student loans and how to fix that. There are two different bills, two different ideas. One of those bills the majority leader supports. He has brought it up and he wants to vote on it, but he doesn't want to vote on anything else. But there are a number of Senators on this side, along with Democratic Senators who agree with them in a bipartisan way, who have come up with a better bill--I think it is better--and we want to vote on it. But, the majority leader refused to allow us to vote on that alternative. Time and time again, he prevents us from voting on legislation and from engaging in a full and open amendment process. So in the Senate, on an important issue, on an extremely well- thought-out alternative plan that would fix the student loan interest rate issue, the majority leader basically says: No, you don't get a vote. This is a change in the history of the Senate, and it goes on every day. Senators have to plead with the majority leader to get a vote on an amendment. This is not the way the Senate should be. It is a very big deal, it goes on every day, and it is time to stop it. So now we have this idea that nominations have to be moved through at the pace the majority leader would like them to be. Many of these are, frankly, very controversial for very significant reasons. In my opinion, the President's nominations in his second term have been less capable than those from his first. Many of them have serious weaknesses that need to be examined, and many of them should never be approved. Let me talk about one now that is about to come to the floor. We ought to debate that one. The Constitution provides the Senate should advise and consent on nominations. We have to consent to a nomination. That is the question we are dealing with in many ways here. We come down to the big issue, though. In essence, it takes two- thirds--67 votes--to change the rules of the Senate. Because of a fight over three nominations that were illegally appointed, as determined by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and the President wants to continue to have them serve--which Senator McConnell and many on this side oppose and don't think they should be confirmed--what the majority leader is proposing to do is to say, in essence, you can't block a vote on those nominations and require 60 votes; there only has to be 51. He will propose that, and what will happen? The Parliamentarian of the Senate will rule that Senator McConnell is correct, that the nomination is not prepared to be voted on because 60 votes weren't obtained, and the majority leader loses. Then what does he intend to do? He intends to look to the Chair and say, I appeal the ruling of the Chair, and expects all his Members to presumably line up behind him and vote to overrule the rules of the Senate, overrule the independent Parliamentarian of the Senate. That is what he is talking about doing. So when Senator McConnell says he wants to break the rules to change the rules, that is exactly what he means. That is exactly what we are talking about. Stability in the Senate requires us not to change the rules willy- nilly when we have a tempest in a teapot, as these nominations are. There will no doubt be times when things get so intense over big issues that actions get taken, and history will record whether they are wise. But we don't need to be changing the rules of the Senate every time it becomes inconvenient for the majority leader. He has already done this once. He changed the rules of the Senate when Senator DeMint was making a motion to get a vote, after he was denied the right to have a vote. The majority leader filled the tree, wouldn't allow votes, and he used the postcloture technique to force at least a vote relevant to that issue. The majority leader got tired of it, appealed it; the Chair ruled for Senator DeMint, and so he asked his colleagues to join him in overruling the Chair and changing the rules of the Senate. They backed him on that and that was done. This gets to be a habit around here, and our side is not happy with the power grab from the top, from the majority leader, and how it is impacting everyday life in the Senate, and we are not going to go quietly on this one. It is a big deal and the Senate should avoid it. I am pleased that at least we will have a conference Monday in which we can talk about the issue openly amongst ourselves and see if we can avoid what could be a serious constitutional crisis. I believe we need to cool our heads down a bit and understand that the nature of the Senate is the majority does not get everything it wants. I was here, and I remember how the judges' situation developed. Judges have traditionally not been filibustered. There have been a few efforts at delaying votes and people were held up, but systematic filibusters were not at all part of the tradition of the Senate. After President Bush was elected in 2000, the Democrats went to conference at a retreat somewhere. They had Marcia Greenberger, Laurence Tribe, and Cass Sunstein, three well-known liberal lawyers and professors. They came out, and then announced, We are changing the ground rules of confirmation. The vast majority of President Bush's early nominees to the Court of Appeals were blocked. Highly qualified nominees, with great skill and ability, there was no basis to oppose them on merit. It went on for over 2 years, and others were being blocked. As a result, then-Leader Frist threatened this kind of event. At the end, cooler heads prevailed, a compromise was reached, and the agreement was that we would not filibuster Federal judges unless extraordinary circumstances existed. Normally, we would give an up-or-down vote to Federal judges. That is the way that was settled. I would say with regard to the nominations we are looking at now, these three illegally appointed nominees present a pretty extraordinary circumstance. We shouldn't sit here and go quietly when the President of the United States--without any legal basis, in my opinion--makes a recess appointment to avoid the confirmation process, and now we object to these people being confirmed after they were in office. After they were in office, after the court ruled they were illegally appointed, they continued to sit and continued to vote on issues important to Americans. They should not have done that. They should have followed the court's order, even if they previously thought they were legally appointed--which they weren't, pretty clearly, from the beginning--it was never close to being a legitimate recess appointment. I am worried about this. Hopefully cool heads will come together and work this out. With regard to the traditional norms of the Senate that Senator McConnell talked about, I have been in the Senate long before holds have been put on nominations. You don't move the nominations until you get questions answered relative to their appointment. Nominations don't just go smoothly and get voted the next week. There are a lot of reasons for that process. This was raised at the beginning of the year. These issues were discussed and an agreement was reached. As part of the agreement, Senator Reid said he wouldn't use the nuclear option if the Republicans agreed to certain things, and an agreement was reached. Senators Lamar Alexander and John McCain and others were in on the agreement and an agreement was reached. Senator Merkley openly says now, Well, the agreement didn't work. Well, there is an agreement out there, it was agreed to, and Senator Reid is now changing that agreement--changing the commitment he made in exchange for getting concessions from this side. This isn't the breaking of a word like, You elect me majority leader and everything is going to be sweet and nice. This was a negotiated agreement of great intensity. Senator Merkley and several other Senators were involved in the discussions, and an agreement was reached. The essence of it was concessions were made by the Republican side, and the Democratic leader accepted those concessions and promised he wouldn't use the nuclear option. Now he is threatening to use the nuclear option. The nomination of Mr. Jones, to be Director of the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, a highly important agency is supposed to happen today. Maybe in committee they determined to move it through. I was a U.S. attorney for 12 years. The closest agency you deal with is the FBI, and you have to deal with them on a regular basis. They know how well you do your job, they know whether you are functioning well, and there is normally a good relationship and you try not to be critical of one another. This is what Mr. Oswald, former Special Agent in Charge of the FBI, wrote about Mr. Jones: As a retired FBI senior executive, I am one of the few voices able to publicly express our complete discontent with Mr. Jones' ineffective leadership and poor service provided to federal law enforcement community without fear of retaliation or retribution from him. Because he is no longer in office, he doesn't have any fear. He is telling the truth. He says he felt ``morally compelled to make [the] committee aware of Mr. Jones' atrocious professional reputation within the federal law enforcement community in Minnesota's Twin Cities area.'' This is the guy they want to promote to the head of the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. The letter describes the frustration with Mr. Jones' ``ineffective leadership and his lack of concern about matters and issues brought to his attention by each of us.'' Each of us, being the other Federal agencies, like the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Secret Service, or the IRS. Our common dissatisfaction with Jones' poor leadership, pathetic interaction, and insufficient prosecution support was the theme of many discussion during my tenure. . . . He consistently reacted defensively and often spoke to us disrespectfully, and occasionally with disdain. Then he went on to note that after he became the U.S. Attorney in Minnesota, they prosecuted significantly less cases of every type. Forty percent fewer defendants were charged in 2012, when Mr. Jones was the U.S. attorney, than the previous year because he wouldn't prosecute the cases, and the Federal investigative agencies were up in arms about it. This retired SAC tells the truth. I think he should be listened to. But President Obama is determined to make him the head of the ATF, involving leadership of gun enforcement, firearms, and weapons charges all over America. We have already had the Fast and Furious scandal. So shouldn't the Senate ask questions about this? Should we rubberstamp this? They are rushing it through committee, trying to do it right now: Move him on. Get him confirmed. And anybody who stands in the way? Tough luck. The majority leader is going to drive it through. He gets to decide who gets confirmed around here. He gets to decide what the rules are in the Senate. They are forgetting the effort they led in the last part of President Bush's term when they blocked John Bolton to be Ambassador to the United Nations. He was blocked by full filibuster by the Democratic Members of the Senate. The rules weren't changed then, and the rules are not to be changed now. We have a conference coming up Monday. Let's see if we can't work through it. Let's see if we can't work in a way that restores the Senate. The Senate is that saucer that is supposed to provide a cooling opportunity to slow down a rush to judgment. Should the Senate be compelled to confirm three members to lower official appointments in the Federal Government who were illegally appointed and continued to serve in their offices after they were so found? I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think that dispute is such that it would lead the majority leader to break the rules of the Senate, to override the plain rules of the Senate through a procedure, which is not proper and very dangerous, to get his way on this matter. There are other things that could go wrong if this goes forward. My impression from talking to my colleagues is that there are very deep feelings about this and people have had about enough of this. There have been all kinds of abuses here about how we conduct our business. We are not going to keep accepting that because when you accept that, the loyal opposition is eroded over a period of time consistently in its ability to exercise the little powers it has, and then the Senate is weakened. Then the Senate's role as the body that slows down problems, that stands up to ATF nominations, that stands up to NLRB illegal appointments, is eroded. We do not need to do that. I know there is a lot of feeling here. I see my colleague Senator Hatch. He has been through this for a long time and has seen these disputes. I have seen a few myself in my 16 years--not nearly as long as Senator Hatch, who chaired the Judiciary Committee and has been ranking member on that committee. But what I will say is that this situation does not justify the nuclear option. It does not. It is a dangerous thing, and it can be addictive for the majority leader--every time he is confronted by someone legitimately using the rules of the Senate to raise questions about the majority's agenda, that they are overruled and the rule is changed so the majority leader can advance his agenda. That is what the issue is about. I ask my Democratic colleagues, let's slow down, let's not go this way. Maybe this conference Monday will help us reach an accord and avoid a very dangerous event for the history of the Senate.