David Vitter

Mr. VITTER

Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I stand today to discuss and strongly support my bill, S. 101, the State and Local Government Bailout Prevention Act. I urge all of us to unite to pass this bill expeditiously. Let me briefly explain what it is about. I first introduced this bill in early 2011, February 2011, because two things were happening. First of all, several significant State and local entities were teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. At the same time, the Federal Government--things in Washington--was in a horrible state fiscally, such that we could clearly not afford to take on more spending, more debt, more responsibility. I wanted to pass legislation that would make it crystal clear that neither we, the Congress, nor the Treasury Department, nor the Federal Reserve, nor any other Federal entity was going to bail out State or local governments that had acted irresponsibly and tipped into bankruptcy. Things have not gotten better since then. In fact, in many ways things have gotten worse, and very recently, just in the last few weeks, the city of Detroit filed for bankruptcy--the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. Other large States and local communities are teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. Many States are in a horrible fiscal situation, such as California and Illinois. Meanwhile, we are not in a fundamentally more sound place here in Washington at the Federal level. Even if we stick to the Budget Control Act numbers--and that is very much up in the air, but even if we stick to those numbers, Congress will spend $967 billion in discretionary money this year, and that will result in a $810 billion deficit--almost a $1 trillion deficit this year. This Nation, total, is almost $17 trillion in debt. The balance sheet of the Federal Reserve has swollen from $800 billion in August of 2007 to over $3.5 trillion today. Now more than ever, S. 101, the State and Local Government Bailout Prevention Act, is appropriate, is needed. That is why I come to the floor today to urge expeditious passage of S. 101. This bill is very simple, basic, straightforward, but important. It would simply do four things: First, it would prohibit the use of Federal funds to bail out State and local government budgets. Second, it would prevent the Federal Reserve from providing assistance to or creating a facility to help, again, State and local governments in a bailout situation. Third, it would prevent Congress and the Treasury Department from bailing out State and local governments. Fourth, there is specific language so we do not create any confusion that this is not intended to stop or deter or interfere with appropriate assistance in declared disaster areas. That is the sum and substance of S. 101, the State and Local Government Bailout Prevention Act. When you look at situations such as Detroit--the largest ever municipal bankruptcy--and when you look at our fiscal situation in Washington at the Federal level, this clear bar of the Fed bailing out State and local governments is very much needed. I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Development be discharged from further consideration of S. 101 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration and that the bill be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I appreciate the two Senators from Michigan being the only ones on the floor right now objecting and saying this has nothing to do with Detroit, but, of course, it does. I am very sorry to hear this objection. There is no objection on the Republican side. Of course there would be an objection if, in fact, this legislation would bar normal Federal grants and normal Federal loans unrelated to a bailout of a State or a municipality in bankruptcy mode, but it doesn't do that. The legislation is very specific and very targeted. It is about a bailout of a State or locality in bankruptcy mode, and that is what it is about. It is not about normal routine Federal funding, and that is why there is no Republican objection. One of the distinguished Senators from Michigan makes the point that Detroit has not formally asked for a bailout. That is true so far. But when the mayor talked to the Wall Street Journal about this, he ``left the door open for a Federal bailout after the city's bankruptcy filing.'' When asked directly whether Detroit would seek a Federal bailout, Mayor Bing said, ``Not yet.'' Similarly, the Governor of Michigan Rick Snyder didn't support a bailout but said on CBS's ``Face the Nation:'' ``If the Federal Government wants to do that, that's their option.'' That is not exactly not opening the door and considering that opportunity. Again, I didn't file this bill in the last 2 weeks. I originally filed this bill in February of 2011. Unfortunately, Detroit isn't the only municipal or State bankruptcy on the maps. States can't formally file bankruptcy, but in laymen's terms they can essentially go bankrupt. Detroit is not the only issue on the map. Many States face a horrible fiscal situation as well, such as California and Illinois. There is a real danger of these States and localities seeking a Federal bailout. This bill is about that. It is not about normal Federal funding. It is not about the safe and secure rural schools program. It is not about any of that routine stuff. It is about a bailout of a State. It is about a bailout of the municipality or other local jurisdiction. Of course, Detroit, unfortunately, is the most obvious example after its historic bankruptcy filing very recently. Again, I am sorry to hear their objection. I am sorry the two Senators from Michigan are here on the floor about this. I don't think that is a coincidence because this is a bill about bailouts. I think we should pass it, and be very crystal clear at the Federal level that we are not going to take on that bailout role and responsibility. I yield the floor.

Mr. VITTER

Mr. VITTER. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. VITTER

Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I rise to propose and support two amendments to the appropriations bill that is on the floor today and will continue into next week. They both have a common theme, and that theme is to keep faith with the American people; to not put ourselves here in Washington, here in Congress, in a different, higher class than middle-class Americans but to be one of them; to truly represent them; to truly fight for them here in Washington. The two amendments address this in different ways. One is to block a pay raise that would otherwise happen for Members of Congress even in the midst of this very sluggish economy, barely getting out of the recent recession. There is an automatic pay raise in the law. This was done years ago, really behind closed doors in a bit of a smoke-filled room, to put an automatic pay raise for Members of Congress in the law so that almost every year it just happens automatically. There is no inconvenience of having to propose it, actually having to come to the Senate floor and come to the floor of the House of Representatives and justify it and, God forbid, have to vote for it. It just happens. I disagree strongly with that system. I think that entire system and premise is offensive. For that reason, Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri and I have a bill, a proposal to undo that and require that any future pay raise has to be proposed, justified on the floor of the Senate and the floor of the House, and actually voted on. This amendment is not that entire bill. This amendment is focused on the here and now, to block the automatic pay raise that would happen this year if we do not act. You will hear from members of the committee, handlers of this appropriations bill, that this amendment is not relevant, is not germane to this bill. The folks who set up the automatic pay raise system several years ago were very clever. They figured out a way that an amendment such as this would not be germane to any appropriations bill, would not be germane to any bill. That is why we need to act on this bill--because this may be one of the few appropriations bills, spending bills we actually deal with on the floor of the Senate this year. To the credit of Congress, in the midst of the recent recession Congress denied itself these automatic pay raises, so they have not happened since 2009. But we are not into healthy growth. The American middle class is not doing just fine. Unemployment is still over 7.5 percent--7.6 percent, which is well above the 5 percent promised when Congress and President Obama passed a $1 trillion stimulus. In fact, we have had 53 straight months with unemployment above 7.5 percent. That is not a healthy economy. That is not recovery. As Americans continue to suffer, continue to look for work, continue to look for full-time work as part-time becomes more the norm, particularly in the era of ObamaCare, we need to relate to them and not set ourselves apart. We need to be a fighter for them, not a member of a higher, different class in Washington. One simple but important way to do that is to say no pay raise when we are in the midst of this very sluggish nonrecovery. Again, Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri has joined me in this effort. I appreciate her partnership on the broader bill, and I appreciate her partnership on this amendment, the Vitter amendment No. 1746. I urge all my colleagues, Democrats as well as Republicans, to adopt and support this commonsense amendment. This is an important message. This is an important statement. The question and the choice is simple: Are you going to be a true representative of the folks back home, relate to them, be one of them, or did you really come to Washington to put yourself in a different, higher class? The answer needs to be the first answer provided. We need to represent the folks back home, not put ourselves in a different, higher class. This pay raise amendment is one way to do that. Say no to any congressional pay raise in the midst of this horribly slow economy. My second amendment also continues this theme. It relates to our health care benefits, but it is really the same issue, the same theme. Are we one with the folks we were elected to represent or are we trying to set ourselves out as a different, higher class here in Washington? This amendment is Vitter amendment No. 1748. It would ensure that all Members of Congress, all congressional staff, and all executive appointees deal with ObamaCare in the same way ordinary Americans do. They have to go in the exchange; they have to deal with their health care that way. They do not get special treatment. In the midst of the ObamaCare debate, that issue came up. I brought up the issue. I brought an amendment to the floor. My Louisiana colleague John Fleming did the same thing in the House. Because of the attention we focused on that issue, there was a limited provision in the law that said Members of Congress and their direct staffs would be in the exchanges. However, very conveniently, some of the details were jiggered around so that Members of the leadership and their staffs and committee staffs would somehow be in a different, higher category and they would not be subject to the same ObamaCare rules. They would benefit from the very generous and very lucrative Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan that Congress has traditionally been under. I think we should undo that. I think we should be one of the American people, relate to the American people, and get the same treatment through the exchanges that the great majority of them will get under ObamaCare. The problem is that here on Capitol Hill, again behind closed doors, the effort is largely in the opposite direction. The Wall Street Journal unveiled this on April 25 of this year. It reported that Senator Reid and Congressman Steny Hoyer had initiated some behind-closed-doors secret discussions to actually fix the problem, as they saw it, and put all Members of Congress and all of our staffs back in that select category--not with the American people, not in the exchanges, but in that select higher category and be granted preferential treatment. Because that hit the press, because that word got out, I am hopeful that those secret negotiations have stopped. We need to make sure we do not move in that direction. ObamaCare is a train wreck. Implementation is causing dramatic problems for millions upon millions of Americans. But the solution is not to fix it selectively for us; the solution is to fix it for everybody, to fix it for average middle-class Americans. If we do that we would benefit as well. So this amendment not only blocks the effort by Senator Reid and Steny Hoyer and others to move Members of Congress and our staffs back into a select category and protect us from the train wreck of ObamaCare implementation, the solution is to broaden that pool and actually have that same treatment, along with ordinary Americans, for every Member of Congress, for all of our staffs, for leadership, for committee staffs, and also for President Obama's appointees. My amendment, Vitter amendment No. 1748, on which Dean Heller is a cosponsor, would do just that. It would ensure that all bureaucrats, all Obama appointees, all congressional staff, all Members, leadership and otherwise, all of our staffs, committee and otherwise, are subject to ObamaCare and are not put into a select higher class and offered preferential treatment--again, the common theme with my other amendment. That is how we relate to the folks we represent. That is how we are truly one of them. ObamaCare is a problem. Implementation is a train wreck. But the solution is not to put ourselves in a higher class, divorced from that problem; the solution is to live that problem ourselves, and hopefully that will promote us and motivate us to solve that problem for all of the American people. This is not a partisan amendment. This should not be a partisan fight. This is about are we truly part of the States we represent? Do we truly relate to those citizens who sent us to Washington or do we come here and put ourselves in a select, different class, give ourselves preferential treatment under law, after law, after law--in this case, ObamaCare? Again, this is Vitter amendment No. 1748. I urge all my colleagues-- Republicans, Democrats, Independents, everyone--to support it, to tell your constituents: No, I did not come here to put myself in a special class. I did not come here to get preferential treatment. I came here to fight for you. And, yes, ObamaCare has major issues, major problems. Implementation is, as one of my Democratic colleagues has forthrightly said, a train wreck. But the solution is not to fix it behind closed doors selectively for us; the solution is to fix it--which personally I think means delay or repeal it--for the American people. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. VITTER

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

Mr. VITTER

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

Mr. VITTER. Madam President, I hope this is viewed universally as a commonsense, bipartisan amendment. I urge all of my colleagues to support this amendment through the rollcall vote which we will have. It is very simple, very basic, and I think very appropriate. It says that for the most serious crimes that exist--violent crimes, crimes against women and children, very serious crimes by anyone's definition--these will be disqualifiers for Federal housing assistance. I bring this amendment for two simple reasons. First, I think this should go hand in hand with committing those extremely serious crimes. Again, we are not talking about threshold crimes. We are not talking about first-time drug offenses. We are talking about aggravated sexual abuse, murder, sexual exploitation of children, violence against women. Those are the four big categories, very serious, very violent crimes. Usually, these are crimes focused on some of the most vulnerable in our society, such as children and abused women. I think it is very reasonable and common sense to say these crimes have very serious consequences. One of those--the most obvious is a stiff jail sentence, in some cases life. But one of those consequences is also going to be the Federal taxpayer is not going to give you housing or give you help for housing. There is a second equally, maybe more, important reason to support this commonsense disqualifier. It is to protect those other folks who need and use Federal housing assistance and help clean up what historically have been areas that actually congregate violent crime in some of our worst social problems, in Federal housing projects. I grew up in New Orleans. This has been a perennial problem in New Orleans. But I am happy and proud to say it is a problem that has been getting better, being solved bit by bit, particularly post-Katrina. Similar to most major American cities, in the 1950s and 1960s, huge housing projects began to be built and began to grow in New Orleans. They were, unfortunately, centers of some of the worst of some of our social ills, particularly violent crime and drug abuse. And that is because we had a policy which actually congregated--and I hope that wasn't the intent--the worst of those problems in these housing projects. Of course, that fed on itself and made many of these problems even worse and certainly subjected innocent folks trapped in those housing projects to some of the worst problems of our big cities. In New Orleans, since Katrina, we have taken significant steps to get away from that. We have instituted new policy. They are less dense-- these housing projects--and there are more mixed income; not 100 percent of the folks in these projects are subsidized. It is usually a mixed approach so that there are some market based, some partially subsidized, some heavily subsidized, but less dense environments. So we have taken specific steps to try to learn from the horrible mistakes we made in Federal housing projects particularly in the 1960s and early 1970s. This commonsense test fits in exactly with that approach, and it says we are not going to subject people in these centers of subsidized housing to the worst violence and the worst social problems we have. We are not going to congregate violent criminals, drug abusers, and others in these housing projects. So that is the second compelling reason to support the Vitter amendment. Keep in mind the innocent folks in those housing projects who get some subsidized housing help. They deserve better. They do not deserve to be subjected to the worst of the worst, these horrible social problems that in the past we have actually congregated in public housing projects. So, again, I hope this is viewed as it should be, as a commonsense amendment and one that deserves wide bipartisan support. I would also note it is extremely similar to an amendment that passed on the recent farm bill without controversy--the same basic rule with regard to the Food Stamp Program. So I urge all my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, to support this straightforward, reasonable amendment on the rollcall vote we will, hopefully, have soon. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. VITTER. Madam President, I now call up Vitter amendment No. 1744 to the appropriations bill currently before the Senate.

Mr. VITTER

Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I recognize St. Francis Medical Center on a special occasion. This week, St. Francis Medical Center celebrates its 100th anniversary. Founded in Monroe, LA, in 1913 by six Franciscan Sisters fulfilling a call to serve others through Jesus Christ's healing ministry, St. Francis Medical Center has grown from a humble 75- patient-bed facility to a 352-bed community hospital and the largest in Northeast Louisiana. In fulfilling the vision of St. Francis of Assisi that all life is a gift from God, the Sisters of Saint Francis have continued to serve others with compassion and care, without hesitation, to improve health and save lives to those most in need. The continued dedication of the Sisters, doctors, and staff has led to a superior level of health care in our State and has earned the facility 25 accreditations and awards. In 2012 and 2011, St. Francis Medical Center was honored as a Best Employer for Healthy Lifestyles by the National Business Group on Health's Institute on Innovation. Also, U.S. News and World Report rated St. Francis as one of the best hospitals in Louisiana. St. Francis Medical Center has been a cornerstone of the medical community of Northeast Louisiana, and it is my honor to recognize their 100th anniversary as they prepare to enter their second century of service.

Mr. VITTER

Mr. VITTER. Madam President, I rise to talk about the substance of the Gina McCarthy nomination. It is a very important nomination. It is a very important Agency that has been taking dramatic action in the last 4 years. Gina McCarthy is not some outsider coming to this anew. She has been at the center of that very dramatic, and in my opinion, draconian action, in a methodical march against affordable, reliable energy. The EPA has crafted and will continue to put forward multiple rules to stop the use of coal as part of our energy mix, to increase prices at the pump, to create energy scarcity at a time when energy independence is within our reach. This is a crucial debate. Because while the President says he is for all of the above, while he says he wants to pursue that strategy, the particular policies of EPA have done the opposite. It has not been all of the above. It has been a war on coal. It has not been energy security, it has been increasing prices at the pump. It has not been energy independence, it has been trying to muffle the progress we can make to produce good, reliable, affordable energy right here in our country. The EPA will play a pivotal role in the execution and implementation of the President's recently announced climate action plan. With this edict from the President, EPA is further emboldened and will strengthen its grip on the Nation's economy. EPA's significant rulemaking agenda is not only estimated to cost billions of dollars, but it suffers from inherently flawed foundations. In the recent past, this has necessitated the reconsideration or revision of multiple rules after they were promulgated--for instance, reconsideration and revisions to the mercury and air toxics rule, the boiler MACT rule, the cross-State air pollution rule, the oil and gas NSPS rule, and the Portland cement rule. So there alone you see the deep flaws in what they have been doing, because they have had to back up and clean up the mess. EPA needs to show the public the truth and the ultimate consequences of its actions. The extent of the economic harm of the rules put forward during the last 4 years and those they are talking about for the next 4 years must be known to the public not only through FOIA requests, not only through congressional inquiries, not only through more accessibility to information which we have won, but by being honest with the American people about their policies. Let me talk about a few areas where this is particularly important. First, greenhouse gas regulation. The regulation of greenhouse gases alone is expected to cost more than 300 to $400 billion a year, and it will raise energy costs across the board. EPA will continue to issue regulations industry by industry until virtually all aspects of the American economy are constrained by regulatory requirements and high energy prices. When the EPA IG investigated the basis upon which EPA moved forward with a greenhouse gas regulation endangerment finding, the IG found that EPA did not follow its own peer-review procedures to ensure that the science behind the decision was sound. This is a very important point, and we need more and different action from the EPA. Directly related to that are the so-called social costs of carbon. In order to justify this regulatory regime that I am talking about, put forward by the administration, including unilateral action to be undertaken as part of the climate action plan, for the second time in just a few years an interagency working group crafted, behind closed doors, a monetized estimate of the damages caused by emitting an additional ton of CO2 in 1 year. These estimates are referred to as the social cost of carbon. The problem is that the EPA completely jiggered the methodology behind that to obtain a certain result. In fact, OMB has guidance on how to go about this. They have specific guidance on what discount rates to use. And the IWG failed to use their normal recommended discount rate for a very simple reason: it wouldn't get them to the end goal, the objective they needed to get to. This is more evidence of the serious problems we have with EPA. Another important category is the ozone national ambient air quality standards. Beyond the regulation of greenhouse gases, EPA will propose revisions to the ozone national ambient air quality standards which, if set between 60 and 70 ppb, would cost potentially hundreds of billions of dollars annually. EPA itself estimates now that this would cost between 19 and $90 billion annually and would likely find 85 percent of U.S. counties designated ``nonattainment.'' This is a big deal. EPA needs to talk honestly with the American people about where it is pushing us. Overreach. In general, this Agency's overreach has been historic. For instance, in an attempt to smear the idea of hydraulic fracturing, EPA has carried out a campaign against that process in an attempt to justify unnecessary Federal regulations that would usurp the successful and traditional regulation of that process. The EPA, in three separate instances--Pavillion, WY; Dimock, PA; and Parker County, TX--came out with outlandish and unsubstantiated claims of contamination and ridiculous claims of dangers, such as houses exploding due to hydraulic fracture. In all three of those cases, EPA has been forced to walk away from their baseless claims and withdraw from their investigatory witch hunts. There is yet another example of improper action and complete overreach and mismanagement of existing programs--the renewable fuel standard. While that fuel standard, in my opinion, is inherently flawed and may be in need of outright repeal, EPA is in charge of its current implementation. It is not taking action while a crisis mounts under that current implementation. As renewable fuel mandates increase each year while demand for transportation fuels decreases, refiners are forced to blend more biofuels into a gasoline and diesel pool that is shrinking. We are hitting a blend wall. It is a mounting crisis. It is right before us. EPA is managing--or I should say mismanaging--this existing program. EPA has existing powers to do something about it so we don't hit the blend wall, so we don't cause unnecessary spikes in prices at the pump, and it is not happening. Those are the highlights--or I should say the low lights. Those are some of the obvious areas where this Obama EPA--with Gina McCarthy as a key player--has acted to the detriment of the American people, jobs, the economy, and our future. It is for those reasons that I continue to have profound concern with this direction at EPA. As I have said, the present nominee is not an outsider. She is not new. She does not have no element of involvement. She has been at the very heart of many of these matters as head of the clean air program. For those reasons, I not only express my strong reservations, I will vote against the nomination of Gina McCarthy. I urge my colleagues to look long and hard at the record of this EPA. It has been a job killer. It has slowed economic recovery, and it threatens to do even more damage. I urge a ``no'' vote. I yield back my time and invite others who would like to speak to come to the floor immediately. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. VITTER

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

Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the Gina McCarthy nomination to head the EPA and in particular efforts I have led with my Republican colleagues on the Environment and Public Works Committee to bring a whole lot more sunshine and transparency to EPA--something that has been sorely, sorely lacking for a long time and has been a particular problem, really reached new depths in terms of a problem in the last 4 years. When this important nomination first came up, I focused specifically on these important transparency, openness issues. I have disagreed with the Obama administration EPA on all sorts of substantive issues, including, for instance, to take the most obvious, their war on coal. I disagree with both the past Administrator and this nominee, Gina McCarthy, on all of those key substantive issues, such as this war on coal, but I specifically chose not to focus on that in the nomination. I knew President Obama won the election. I knew he had a fundamentally different view than I do on those key environmental and economic issues. What I focused on with other Republican members of our committee was something that should be beyond dispute, beyond partisanship, really beyond debate--the need for openness and transparency with regard to what EPA does and why they do it. This has been a battle I have been waging for a long time, including on the EPW Committee. I think this is a crucial issue. For a long time, EPA, under multiple administrations, has lost the confidence of Congress and the American people. It used to be, including when EPA was first founded, in the first decade of its existence, that it was viewed as a nonideological group of experts. It was viewed as being led by real scientists and real science--peer- reviewed expert science--not by ideology, not by political agendas, not by partisanship. Unfortunately, I think EPA--and a lot of Federal agencies, but EPA is perhaps the worst example--has gotten far afield from that, and it is viewed by most Americans, myself included, as led by ideology, motivated by partisanship and a political agenda, not sober, sound science. That is why we need to get back to complete openness and transparency so that we see what EPA is doing, why they are doing it, and try to hold them accountable so their decisions are based on objective science, not cherry-picking science, not partisan science, not what I would call New York Times or tabloid science. Again, those are what all of my key requests of EPA and the nominee over this Gina McCarthy nomination went to. Over many, many weeks--in fact, months--I went back and forth with Ms. McCarthy and EPA over these very basic, sound, reasonable requests. The good news is, although it took a lot of back and forth, in each of the five key categories I identified on behalf of all of the Republican members of EPW, we were able to secure real, meaningful, and substantial commitments in terms of moving the ball forward in at least four of those categories, and we are going to move the ball across the goal line in the fifth category as well. So let me briefly outline those five important categories that all relate to openness and transparency and where we are getting with regard to our agreements with the EPA over the last several weeks. Request No. 1 had to do with FOIA, the Freedom of Information Act. As anybody knows who has followed it in the news, EPA has really dragged its feet and frustrated a lot of legitimate FOIA requests by private citizens, by States affected, by other stakeholders. The Freedom of Information Act was designed to put sunshine on the Federal Government, to allow everyday citizens--anyone--the ability to get basic, important information from any Federal agency. Yet, as news releases and certain incidents have illustrated over the last several years, EPA has really tried to frustrate that process. In fact, in certain documents we were able to obtain, we even got an e-mail from within the General Counsel's Office at EPA instructing all of the satellite offices of EPA around the country on how to frustrate legitimate FOIA requests--how to delay, how to frustrate, how to obfuscate. It was not about a particular FOIA request that they may have thought was out of bounds or inappropriate, it was just about how to frustrate in general. That is completely inappropriate. That is beyond the bounds of the law. So we talked in great detail to EPA about how they have to change that, and this basically summarizes the agreements we reached: First, EPA agreed to mandate the retraining of all of their workforce--17,000-plus people--to tell them not how to frustrate FOIA requests but what FOIA is about, how to live by the law, how to honor FOIA requests in an open and timely way. Secondly, EPA committed to issuing new guidance on records maintenance and the use of personal e-mail accounts. One way a lot of folks said EPA clearly was frustrating FOIA requests is they would do official business on personal e-mail accounts. So when a FOIA request was made, their EPA e-mails were produced, but lo and behold, the really important stuff, the stuff they wanted to hide, was on their personal accounts. That is clearly a pattern that has been used at EPA and other Federal agencies to frustrate openness and transparency and FOIA. So EPA is specifically going to issue new guidance to say that is absolutely illegal, that is absolutely off limits, and, most importantly, trust but verify, and here is the verify: The independent EPA inspector general will complete an audit about all of this stuff. So we are going to put an end to FOIA abuse, and we are going to make sure every American has FOIA as a legitimate tool for information, for openness, and for transparency, as was intended when Congress passed that law. The second category I focused on in my discussions with EPA was e- mails and communications--exactly what I was talking about before. There has been a pattern--and several high-ranking officials were involved, including Lisa Jackson, the former Administrator--there has been a pattern of using personal e-mail accounts and also fake e-mail names, to, in my opinion, hide important information from the public. The clearest example is what I said a minute ago. If you do the really important business on your personal account and somebody sends in a FOIA request and then the agency produces your official e-mails, guess what. The really important stuff is not produced. It is hidden. That has to stop. So we demanded a lot of things in this category. First of all, the nominee herself--we asked her to review her personal e-mail accounts and report back that she had not used it for agency-related matters. She did that. She confirmed that. Secondly, EPW continues to coordinate with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to obtain further information. We do not have--and let me be crystal clear about this--Republicans on the EPW Committee have not obtained everything we have asked for or everything we deserve with regard to e-mails and communications. So we are working with the House committee with subpoena power, and we are working closely with them, and we are going to get, even if it takes using their subpoena power, what we deserve. And then both committees recently put the EPA on notice that they are considering issuing subpoenas with regard to just that. So this is the category where we have gotten the least from the EPA with regard to our discussions regarding the Gina McCarthy nomination, but I want to make very clear, so no one is surprised, that we are going to get what we deserve, including through House subpoenas if it takes that. The third category I focused on in my discussions with Gina McCarthy and the EPA is underlying research data. EPA has done a lot of really important rules, rulemaking in the last several years. In each of those cases they based that rulemaking on specific research. One big problem is that the world, the public, even including Members of Congress, has not had availability of that research data so we can simply sort of compare notes and enlist outside experts to say: Look, does this data really lead to that rule? Does it really lead to that conclusion? Well, this has been an ongoing argument for a long time. Finally, in the midst of these discussions related to the Gina McCarthy nomination, we have scored a breakthrough. EPA has absolutely, categorically committed to obtaining the requested scientific information--that data from the researchers, from the institutions that did the research. They will absolutely request that and follow up on that. Secondly, EPA has already reached out to relevant institutions for information on how to de-identify and code personally identifying information that may be in the data. None of us want personally identifying information. None of us want versions of the data that make it clear who the individuals involved in the studies were. We do not care about that. We want the overall data. So EPA is already talking to the institutions about how to scrub the data so they do not give us what we were never interested in--personal identifying information. Third, for the first time we should be able to determine if there is any way of independently reanalyzing the science and benefits claims for these major regulations, which are mostly the major air regulations on which the nominee Gina McCarthy led the way. So this really is a breakthrough because it is a path forward to get the underlying data so we can examine--independently examine--have experts look at the data and ask: Does it really lead to this regulation? Does it really justify this regulation? The fourth category I focused on in terms of my discussions with the EPA over the Gina McCarthy nomination is economic analysis. By law, EPA, like other Federal agencies, is supposed to do a cost-benefit analysis before they do a big rulemaking. So part of their rulemaking is supposed to be a cost-benefit analysis to see if the rule is justified. In my opinion, that cost-benefit analysis is done in such a way as to be laughable in some cases, to be ludicrous. It is designed to reach a particular result, not designed to be an objective cost-benefit analysis. So we wanted EPA to go back to the drawing board, do a fair and open-ended cost-benefit analysis, not designed to reach a particular conclusion but just designed to truly, objectively compare cost and benefits. As a result of our discussion, EPA has committed to convene an independent panel of economic experts with experience in whole economy modeling at the macro and micro level. They are going to review EPA's modeling and the agency's ability to measure full regulatory impacts. That is sort of a bunch of gobbledygook, particularly with whole economy modeling. But that is where we need to do a true cost-benefit analysis, to look at all of the macro impacts, all of the impacts of a rule on the whole economy, not very narrowly defined--the analysis--in order to get to a certain conclusion. A good example is when they are doing rulemaking, we need to understand the impact on energy prices throughout the entire economy. That is often a huge impact of their rulemaking, particularly in their recent air rulemaking in the so-called war on coal. We need to see how many jobs that really cost us in the whole economy; otherwise, this idea of cost-benefit is not meaningful. So they have committed to convene this independent panel. This panel will be tasked with making recommendations to the agency so that the EPA does it right; so that it is a significant, objective, meaningful cost-benefit analysis, not just an exercise they have to go through and that they have designed to reach a certain result. The fifth and final category on which I focused in terms of my discussions with the EPA over the Gina McCarthy nomination was the so- called sue and settle. Sue and settle is a tool the environmental left and their allies at EPA have used with increasing frequency in the last several years--the last 5 years in particular. When the environmental left wants to reach an objective, what they often do is sue the EPA under environmental legislation and environmental statutes. So they are the plaintiff; the Obama EPA is the defendant. They have a lawsuit. Then after a few months they agree to settle the lawsuit. The judge signs off on it. Usually the judge is more than willing to do that because it gets a big and time-consuming and complicated case out of his hands, off his docket. What is the matter with that? Well, what is the matter with that is essentially the environmental left and the EPA are on the same side of the issue. They usually agree on the fundamentals of the issue. The folks truly on the other side, who often include stakeholders, landowners, businesses, State and local government, they never have a seat at the table with regard to the settlement. So this is a behind-closed-doors negotiation, which is one-sided and does not include anyone on the true other side of the issue. It does not include landowners. It does not include other stakeholders. It does not include State and local governments, which are often directly affected, which often have their role in some of these matters taken away. So we need to make that sue-and-settle process more fair. We need to take the abuse out of it because we discussed this with EPA, and we got the following important concession. First, to help resolve some of the challenges with lack of public input in closed-door settlement agreements, otherwise referred to as sue and settle, EPA will publish on two Web sites the notices of intent to sue and petitions for rulemaking upon receipt, so at least the world out there will know what is going on at the front end. At least the stakeholders, the landowners, State and local governments, other affected parties will know what is going on. Secondly, the Web address for the petitions for rulemaking are that, and the web address for the notices of intent to sue is that. It is very important to know this with regard to potential sue-and-settle agreements so that affected parties can begin to have input. They cannot possibly have input if they do not even know there is a discussion going on, and they do not find that out until the final result is announced. Those are the results of our discussions with EPA. As I said at the beginning, I do not agree with Barack Obama or Gina McCarthy's positions on most of the big issues at EPA, including the war on coal. I do not agree with their actions that are costing millions of jobs around the country, that are increasing significantly the price of American energy. But I am not going to be able to fix that given the last election. President Obama was reelected. What we attempted to do is talk to EPA about things that we should be able to agree on, things that should be beyond dispute, beyond ideology, beyond argument. That is giving the American people, including their representatives in Congress, full and adequate information about what is going on, having people get the information they deserve, having that give-and-take which is supposed to be there and assured, cleaning up abuses in FOIA, cleaning up abuses in private and hidden and fake e-mail accounts. Those are abuses that have gone on at EPA for a long time and have been particularly problematic in the last 5 years. Those are the sort of things we are going to fix through these agreements. I think that will get us down the road to having a real discussion about the true facts behind proposed EPA regulations--the true science, the true cost and benefits, and not allowing EPA to do so much that is so important behind closed doors without that full and open discussion of the true facts. I think it is an important step forward. That is why I agreed, as I promised to at the beginning of the process, to vote for cloture on the Gina McCarthy nomination if we made this important progress. I set that metric. I made that commitment at the beginning of the process. I did not think we would get nearly as far as we did in terms of commitments out of EPA. But since we did, since we made all of that substantive progress, I am certainly going to honor that commitment with regard to the cloture vote. I yield the floor.

Mr. VITTER

Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I am here to speak about an amendment I have filed on this immigration bill that I have been working hard to get a vote on. It is certainly not the only amendment I filed, but it is a top priority. My amendment is the violence against women and children amendment, amendment No. 1330. We have heard a lot of promises and a lot of rhetoric on this issue from many people, including the Gang of 8. What I have found distressing, as I have actually gotten to read the bill--and let's always remember one of the great lessons of ObamaCare was to read the bill before we vote--is that the details and exact language does not match a lot of the rhetoric. One of the earliest and most important promises by the Gang of 8 was that in this amnesty process folks who were guilty of serious crimes would not be eligible for citizenship; in fact, they would be deported. That is why the bipartisan framework for comprehensive immigration reform that the Gang of 8 released in January of this year said: Individuals with a serious criminal background or others who pose a threat to our national security will be ineligible for legal status and subject to deportation. Illegal immigrants who have committed serious crimes face immediate deportation. We can all agree with that. The problem is the details in the text of the bill do not agree with that because it does not include several serious offenses, particularly against women and children. My amendment is simple. It is to beef up and strengthen this part of the bill by including the Violence Against Women Act offenses as crimes, which would disqualify someone from being granted amnesty and would trigger immediate deportation. These include serious, violent crimes such as sexual assault, stalking, domestic violence, sex trafficking, dating violence, child abuse and neglect, as well as elder abuse. It is specifically Violence Against Women Act offenses. These are serious, violent crimes against some of the most vulnerable people in our society. In my opinion those offenses should clearly be disqualifiers. So that is what the amendment would do. Now, VAWA, which we debated and voted on a few months ago, has widespread bipartisan support. More than 200 national organizations and more than 500 State and local organizations expressed support for that bill. A great majority of Senators voted for it. I voted for it. So we should certainly follow up on that rhetoric and that vote by making sure these serious offenses in the Violence Against Women Act are disqualifiers to amnesty in the immigration bill. This is not my only amendment, and not getting a vote for this amendment so far is a frustration. It is a frustration for a lot of us with regard to a lot of amendments. This immigration debate is enormously important. This bill is enormously long. It is well over 1,000 pages. So far we have had 10 rollcall votes on amendments--10, period. That is one amendment per--I don't know--120, 130 pages. That is ludicrous, and that is not the full, robust amendment process we were promised for months and months by both the majority leader and the Gang of 8. I hope I can get a vote on this amendment, and I also want and expect a vote on the other amendments I filed. I have many amendments, but I have narrowed that list down. So, with that, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my Violence Against Women and Children amendment No. 1330 be made pending and eligible for a vote.

Mr. VITTER. In closing, I find that very disheartening. This is a big subject. I agree with the proponents of the bill when they say this is a big problem that needs fixing. It has been on the Senate floor for 3 weeks. The bill is well over 1,000 pages long, and we need more opportunity for serious debate and amendments than we have gotten. As soon as a path to passage was identified late last week--as soon as that happened, the amendment process was basically shut down. It continues to be shut down today. The important amendment I have brought to the floor that has been denied a vote is an example of that. I find it very regrettable. I yield the floor.

Mr. VITTER. I thank the Senator from Alabama for yielding, and I want to echo these concerns. I, for one, have been filing amendments and trying to get votes on important amendments for weeks, since the very beginning of this process. I started the first day of this debate, and I haven't let up. The Senator from Alabama is exactly correct. A slow, halting amendment process at the beginning was completely shut down by the proponents of this bill as soon as they identified a path to pass the bill. As soon as they put together the major elements of the Corker- Hoeven amendment, then the amendment process was shut down. Now they are trying to resurrect a little bitsy piece of it at the tail end of the entire debate. For what reason? For the purely cynical reason that they can get a few amendments they want up to try to grow and maximize their vote. Well, that is a purely cynical, one-sided process, and I, for one, won't stand for it. I have been here urging my amendments from the beginning and consistently. The Senator from New York was on the floor a few minutes ago saying this was some last-minute plea. It hasn't been last-minute on my part. I started on day one, and I continued on day two and continued on day three, all through the process. I was ready with my amendments early on. Friday, I organized a letter expressing this very concern about the shutdown of the amendment process and organized signatures and sent that letter on Monday to the distinguished majority leader. So my plea for votes on significant amendments didn't start today. It didn't start yesterday. It has been part of the entire floor process, but that process has been completely controlled and manipulated in a one-sided way by the proponents of this bill, and now they just want a few amendments at the end. Why? No. 1, so they are not embarrassed by the complete shutdown they have orchestrated; and No. 2, so they can try to buy a few more votes for the bill on cloture. Well, that is not an open process, that is not a fair process, nor is it fair to be picking and choosing what amendment votes I get. All of the amendments by myself and others are germane. This is not reasonable in any way. So I proudly join the Senator from Iowa in objecting to that offer, which was completely cynical and one- sided. I thank the Senator for yielding.

Mr. VITTER. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. VITTER

Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, let me now talk briefly about my budget point of order. I made one specific budget point of order, perhaps the most serious, which is that this bill, as it came out of committee, increases the deficit, pure and simple--the thing we constantly rail against, the thing we constantly promise we will not do any more of. It increases the deficit. However, that is not the only budget point of order. There are at least 11 budget points of order against this bill--the Senate pay-go point of order, which I just explained. In addition, there is new direct spending authorized by the bill that would exceed the Judiciary Committee's authorization levels for a 5- year period. In addition, there is new direct spending exceeding those authorization levels for the 10-year period. There are four points of order pursuant to section 403(e)(1) that lie against the emergency designations in the bill. We say we are for budget discipline. The problem is that whenever we want to bust the caps, bust the numbers, we just call certain spending an emergency. This is clearly not emergency spending. This is an important problem, but it is not an unexpected emergency, such as a natural disaster or an attack by a foreign government. There are also four similar emergency designations made under section 4(g)(3) of the Statutory PAYGO Act of 2010. So, again, there are at least 11 separate, distinct budget points of order that lie against the bill. That is a big deal, particularly when we are running record deficits and have record debt, particularly when all of us from both sides of the aisle have come to the floor regularly and said: This is a huge challenge, and we are doing something about it. We are going to pass a bill that breaks those rules, that busts those caps, 11 different ways. Technically, my budget points of order that I just enumerated are about the underlying bill, but most of these also apply to the Corker- Hoeven substitute--the Leahy substitute incorporating the Corker-Hoeven language. So they have the same budget problems, the same fundamental problems under that version. This is very simple. It is about, are we serious in reining in deficits and debt or not? Are we serious or not? There is a bit of good news. In the last several months, say, since September of last year, this body has raised this same sort of budget point of order seven different times--seven different times--saying that important bills bust the caps, increase the deficit, claim spending is an emergency when it is not. And seven different times since last September, we sustained those budget points of order. We as a body said: You are right. We should not do that. We should get serious about spending. Seven times, by the way, on my side of the aisle virtually everyone supported that budget point of order, and we did that in many cases where it was difficult politically to do it--when veterans' benefits were at issue, when other important matters, such as Hurricane Sandy relief, were at issue. So we have shown some amount of discipline through these budget points of order seven out of seven times since September. The question now is, Are we going to do it again or are we going to cave? Now, this pay-go point of order is perhaps the most serious because it is about increasing the deficit. That is what the point of order is about--actually increasing the deficit over the next 10 years. We have to stop violating this rule if we are serious about deficit and debt. Pay-go originally banned counting Social Security revenues to mask the deficit. Spending in this bill is offset by $211 billion in Social Security revenue. So once again we are going to rob Social Security to claim we are moving toward balancing the budget. We need to get serious on all of these budget issues. We need to maintain the record we have had here in the Senate since September. We need to sustain this important budget point of order when we vote tomorrow. With that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, the pending measure, S. 744, as reported by the Judiciary Committee, would violate the Senate pay-go rule and increase the deficit. Therefore, I raise a point of order against that measure pursuant to section 201(a) of S. Con. Res. 21, the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2008.

Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, related to that unanimous consent agreement, I wish to make a budget point of order, which I will do in just a second. But I also ask unanimous consent that after I make the point of order and after the Senator from Vermont moves to waive it, I be recognized for up to 12 minutes to explain my budget point of order.

Mr. VITTER

Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I rise to also address this most recent backroom gang agreement--the Schumer-Corker-Hoeven amendment we will be voting on in just a little while. This amendment is clearly filled with lots of sort of nice shiny objects to try to attract Republican votes. It is clearly supposed to be about border security. But my fundamental concern is simple. I believe this amendment is designed to pass the bill. I do not believe it is designed to truly fix the bill. In that sense, I am concerned this is a figleaf border security amendment--again, all about passing the bill, not truly fixing it. I say that for two simple reasons, the two basic flaws in the underlying bill that this amendment does nothing to address. First of all, the amendment, as the bill, is amnesty now, enforcement later, maybe. Secondly, on the enforcement piece--which the authors of this amendment are arguing for so strenuously--there is no metric about actual effect, actual achievement. The only metric is spending money. We all know the U.S. Government, the Federal Government, is great at spending money. It has never been better at spending money than under this current administration. But if that were all that mattered, then we would have a rip-roaring economy with unprecedented growth. If that were all that mattered, then we would have the best educational system on the planet. If that were all that mattered, we would have solved problems such as violent crime and many others. But the metric cannot be spending money. The metric has to be achieving security, achieving some reasonable level of border and workplace security. I am also very concerned about the backroom deal and the process that got us here. I think it is important for the American people to know exactly what happened in the last few weeks and, in particular, at the end of last week. About 350 amendments were filed to this bill. They covered all sorts of topics--certainly including every important enforcement matter. Many of these amendments struck to the very core of the Gang of 8 compromise bill. As Ranking Member Grassley has noted, the Judiciary markup was an open process in which nearly all amendments were considered in a fair, decent manner. However, as Senator Grassley also noted earlier today, on the floor, it is a very different atmosphere and the fix apparently is in. We are seeing that on the floor. The fix seems to be in--another closed-door agreement, loaded with ideas that have been accepted for ``yes'' votes to ensure the support of particular Members. The amendment is 1,100 pages long--longer, I believe, than the original bill--and because of this development, the full and fair floor amendment process has come to a grinding halt. That is exactly what is broken with the Senate. Rather than doing the people's business out in the open--with floor amendments, with debate-- instead, so-called masters of the universe have huddled together, again, behind closed doors, to hammer out a secret agreement, again, virtually cutting off floor amendments and trying to pass the bill. In 2007--the last time a major immigration bill came to the floor--we had 46 rollcall votes on amendments. This time around we have had only 9, and now we have the prospect of cutting off the amendment process--9 out of 350 amendments filed, 2.5 percent of the filed amendments. Again, this is what is wrong, in the eyes of the American people, with Congress, with the Senate. This is one of the things I came to change. I came to the Senate to work--developing and introducing legislation, working hard in the appropriate committees, voting, offering floor amendments, voting on those. But these gang deals, negotiated behind closed doors, particularly when they cut off and muffle the amendment process, are not that sort of work. Again, the masters of the universe have conspired among themselves. They have allowed certain Members into that back negotiating room, undoubtedly for the price of a ``yes'' vote. Worst of all, this threatens to completely shut off the open, fair amendment process. That is why this morning I coauthored a letter to Senate Majority Leader Reid, with 13 of my colleagues, addressing this very problem. In the letter we state clearly: We believe that there should be, AT A MINIMUM, this same number of roll call votes-- That is as in the 2007 debate-- on serious, contested floor amendments on the Gang of Eight's immigration bill. This can clearly be accomplished this week with a little leadership and coordination through one or more compact series of 10-minute votes with senators seated at their desks. Continuing with the letter, we say: Further, we will give our consent to any reasonable consent request if this is assured. This would specifically include replacing the one or two cloture votes and one final passage vote on the bill with one final passage vote with a 60-vote threshold late Thursday, as well as clearing all truly non- controversial amendments. I hope all Members of this body look carefully at this bill we are going to vote on in about an hour regarding cloture. I hope all of us look hard at the details and recognize it does not change the core fundamental flaws of the underlying bill. Still, as in the underlying bill, the amnesty is first, virtually immediately, the enforcement is later, maybe. As in the underlying bill, there is no true metric of effectiveness, of enforcement bearing fruit. There is simply the metric of spending money, which the Federal Government can do very effectively. Surely, any Federal Government, particularly under the Obama administration, will pass that test with flying colors. The American people do not want amnesty first. They want enforcement first. The American people do not have as a test of enforcement spending money. They have the same tests they have for important issues and challenges around their kitchen table and at their place of small business--results, actual results. We should use those same tests. We should use that same approach. The American people get it. Why can't we? The American people also get the very closed backroom deal nature of the process that is going on. They want us to work. They want us to debate. They want us to propose. They want us to vote out in the open, not certain masters of the universe coming up with gang deals outside of here and then shutting down a full, open, free amendment process. It is not too late. It is not too late to look clearly at this amendment and vote no. It is not too late to have an open amendment process on the floor this week. I urge all of my colleagues--Democrats and Republicans--to do just that. With that, I yield back the floor.

Mr. VITTER

Mr. VITTER. Great, Madam President. Amendment No. 1507 to Amendment No. 1183 At this point, I would send a second-degree amendment to the desk to make that pending.

Mr. VITTER. I would ask to go to regular order to the Leahy amendment.

Mr. VITTER. I would ask unanimous consent to vitiate the quorum call.

Mr. VITTER

Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. VITTER

Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, may I inquire how much time is remaining?