Member of Congress

Ron Wyden

Role: Current Senator
State: OR
Party: Democrat

Speeches

ENERGY SAVINGS AND INDUSTRIAL COMPETITIVENESS ACT OF 20132013-09-11

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, we are not going to vote on this amendment at this time. But when we do, I hope colleagues will support it. I think it is a very fine amendment. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I intend to support the Inhofe-Carper amendment. In my view, this is really a commonsense clarification of existing law. I want colleagues to have a sense that this is the kind of bipartisan work that Senator Murkowski talked about earlier, that we have been trying to do to try to come to the Senate with ideas that really pass the smell test. I mean they are common sense, they are practical. In that context, this amendment modifies the existing definition of renewable energy to provide that thermal energy that is generated from--from renewable energy sources ought to be considered renewable energy for Federal energy purchase requirements. For example, if a Federal agency has access to thermal energy from groundwater to heat or cool its facilities, under the Inhofe-Carper amendment that thermal energy would be considered renewable energy produced just as if the buildings had solar or wind power to produce electricity. I hope colleagues, in this spirit, will bring us these kinds of suggestions and ideas. Senator Inhofe brought this to us early on. I know we are going to have some more discussion because of its connection to other matters, but I hope we will get a vote. It is common sense. It is practical. I intend to support it. I want the record to reflect that.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 1858.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, before he leaves the floor of the Senate, I wish to commend my colleague from Colorado, Senator Udall. This is a practical, commonsense amendment. There is no new expenditure of Federal funds. I am very pleased my colleague brought it to the floor. It is reflective of the approach we see in the Energy Committee in a host of areas where the Senator from Colorado consistently tries to find common ground and act in a bipartisan way. One of the reasons I wanted to speak for just a minute is now we are seeing these bipartisan amendments are starting to sort of pile up. That is because colleagues are listening to what folks at home are saying. They are saying to Senator Udall and Senator Shaheen and Senator Portman and myself--Senator Murkowski, they are saying when you all are back there in the fall: Try to find some ways to get things done. Get people to work together. I think we all understand how important energy is--and energy security. It is about jobs. It is about a cleaner environment. It about productivity. When I look at the specifics of this amendment Senator Udall and Senator Collins are pursuing, sometimes I think it is maybe too logical for the beltway. People say it makes too much sense. When schools do retrofits under the Collins-Udall amendment to become more energy efficient and use cleaner power, the kids come out winners, the environment comes out a winner, and the taxpayers come out winners. That is the whole reason the Federal Government provides assistance to schools for these types of projects in the first place. It is an opportunity for the Federal Government to save money and ensure that we maximize educational opportunities for the kids. The reality is that Federal school efficiency programs are now strewn, really, all over the Federal Government. They are scattered among more than six different agencies. The States have all these different programs and incentives. What Senator Collins and Senator Udall seek to do is to have a straightforward mechanism for improved Federal coordination. In the real world that means we are going to have more energy projects built, and it means more schools are going to save energy and money. I would also note--because my friend Senator Murkowski is here--that the Udall-Collins amendment pretty much tracks something we have been interested in. The committee has been looking at S. 1048, which was heard by the Energy Subcommittee on June 25. Again, no authorization. The minimal costs are covered by existing DOE funds. I wish to commend the Senator from Colorado for his good work and particularly the bipartisan focus he has put on this and everything else that has to do with his Senate business. I hope we will be able to vote on it. As this debate starts, I want colleagues to see that we are going to start stacking up good, commonsense, bipartisan amendments, and that is why there is so much value in energy efficiency. Before Senator Udall came to the floor, I said we all get worked up around here by saying we are for ``all of the above'' energy policy. It is almost obligatory for a Senator to say they are for ``all of the above'' three times every 10 or 15 minutes. A Senator can't be for an ``all of the above'' energy policy unless they are for energy efficiency, and Senator Udall is bringing some of that sensible thinking to the schools. I am looking forward to getting up this amendment so we can vote on it, and I commend Senator Udall for his good work. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I commend the Senator from Colorado on a fine amendment. I hope we are going to get a chance to vote on it. I think he mentioned that commercial buildings consume almost half of the energy used in the United States. What I think is important for the Senate to see is the bipartisan amendments are now piling up. We started off with a very good amendment, the Inhofe-Carper amendment in terms of thermal power, Senator Udall and Senator Collins talking about retrofitting schools, getting more for the kids and for a better environment without spending new Federal money, and now we have the Bennet-Ayotte proposal to deal with commercial buildings consuming almost half of the energy consumed in the United States. You have bipartisan amendments, I say to my colleagues, in effect, stacking up on the floor of the Senate. I think the reason that is the case is because Senators are coming back from the August break. They were home having community meetings and talking to folks, and people said--whether you are from Ohio, like the Presiding Officer, or Oregon or New Hampshire, different parts of the country--you go back there and find a way to deal with some real challenges, and do it in a bipartisan way. So that is what the underlying bill does. That is what the three amendments we seek to be able to vote on do. In the case of this particular amendment, the voluntary ENERGY STAR Program has created an incentive for commercial building owners to increase the efficiency of their buildings by recognizing the most efficient. So today there are over 20,000 commercial buildings in the country certified as highly efficient ENERGY STAR buildings. The challenge, however, is that about half of the energy used in commercial buildings is under the control of the tenants, not the owners. This amendment would promote efficiency in commercial buildings by establishing a Tenant Star program to recognize the energy efficiency achievements of building tenants, as ENERGY STAR does for the owners. We looked at this in the committee, particularly in the Energy Subcommittee on June 25. To me, again, trying to build on successful approaches is simply what the country wants us to be doing here in the Senate. It is the focus of the underlying bill. It is the focus of the amendments that are pending--each one of them supported in a bipartisan way. This amendment, as far as I can tell, has a real cross section of businesses interested, for obvious reasons. It constitutes almost half the buildings in the United States. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter of support we received be printed in the Record.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, before he leaves the floor, let me thank the leader for making sure we could have this opportunity to deal with one of the crucial issues of our time. Leader Reid has a long history in energy efficiency, in renewable energy. I thank him for his leadership and particularly the opportunity to be on the floor this afternoon. Mr. President and colleagues, today the Senate has the chance to put more points on the board for the creation of good-paying jobs, a more productive economy, and greater energy security. Before the August recess, the Congress put some initial points up by passing hydropower legislation. This legislation was called, by the New York Times: The first significant energy legislation to become law since 2009. Those hydropower bills might have been called small by some, but experts say they can generate a large amount of power. Hydropower is 60 percent of the renewable, clean power in America. And hydropower has the potential to add 60,000 more megawatts of capacity by 2025, according to the National Hydropower Association. That is enough energy to power more than 46 million homes. Hydro helps to make our economy less dependent on fossil fuels, and it does it in a way Democrats and Republicans can come together on. Today, as we look at another critical part of modernizing energy policy, I want to start by saying it has almost become obligatory for Members of Congress to say they are for an ``all of the above'' energy policy. It is almost as though a U.S. Senator has to say that on energy they are for ``all of the above'' three or four times every 15, 20 minutes or else it is not a real discussion about energy policy. But here is what is important and I think critical as we start the debate--where I see my friend from New Hampshire and my friend from Ohio--the reality is, you cannot have an ``all of the above'' energy policy in this country without energy efficiency. It is that simple. If you are serious about an ``all of the above'' energy policy--and we have essentially several Democrats and several Republicans on the floor now to demonstrate the seriousness of this issue--you cannot have an ``all of the above'' energy policy without energy efficiency. So this legislation is on the floor today thanks to the tireless bipartisan efforts of Senator Shaheen and Senator Portman. I am also very pleased the ranking minority member of the committee is here, Senator Murkowski of Alaska. She consistently meets me halfway in terms of trying to deal with these kinds of issues. As we begin this debate--which I would also mention to colleagues is essentially the first stand-alone energy bill to be debated on the floor of the Senate since 2007--it would not be possible without the cooperation and the good counsel of the ranking minority member, Senator Murkowski. I want her to know how much I appreciate our partnership. We just got through our weekly session this morning as we look at various kinds of businesses. We hope to be able to bring to the Senate helium legislation, which we know a lot of Senators care about, very quickly as well. But there is a reason we are back to energy policy in the Senate, and that is, to a great extent, because of the cooperation Senator Murkowski has shown. This bill--and one of the reasons it is bipartisan--gives us a chance to cut waste in our energy system and create jobs. This bill would take the biggest step in years toward tapping the potential for energy policy. The legislation saves about 2.9 billion megawatt hours of electricity by 2030, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. I say to my colleagues, I thought I would start by translating that into something that becomes a little easier to put your arms around. To generate those kinds of savings in electricity--2.9 billion megawatt hours--the United States would have to build 10 new nuclear powerplants at a cost of billions of dollars each and run them for more than 20 years. The heart of this bill is updating voluntary building codes to make homes and businesses more efficient, and it is about installing new wires and pipes and machines and insulation. Here is what I want colleagues to know as we start this discussion: There is money to be made in those pipes and that installation. Businesses know that. That is why more than 250 companies and associations have endorsed this bill, including the Chamber of Commerce. When you look at those who have endorsed this piece of legislation, it is not a who's who of sort of bleeding-heart environmental folks. I was particularly struck by the headline in a Forbes article last month. They say: ``The Shaheen-Portman Energy Savings Act: It's The Economy, Stupid.'' They sure got that right. If the Congress passes this bill, it is going to immediately become a significant job creator, generating an estimated 136,000 new jobs by 2025. It will also make a significant difference in our country's energy productivity, and that means savings for families, building fewer powerplants, reducing greenhouse gas emissions. If we continue business as usual--people say: Oh, gee, we are not really going to pursue this now--the U.S. Energy Information Administration--that is really our statistical arm of the Energy Department--predicts that our country would use 30 percent more electricity by 2040. But there is an alternative, and that is harnessing the potential of efficiency technologies that actually reduce electricity from today's demand and reduce the use of energy even as our economy and population grows. The amount of new energy productivity we gain would be like doubling the number of houses in America and then powering all of them without ever adding a new powerplant to the grid. Choosing the more efficient path we are going to advocate for on the floor of the Senate would mean adding 1.3 million jobs by the middle of the century. Families could shave off one-third of their electricity bills, an average savings of about $600 per year, according to experts in the field, a big increase in productivity. So already we have talked about job creation, we have talked about productivity, two areas where I do not see some kind of artificial line between Democrats and Republicans here in the Senate. I see areas we all feel strongly about. On the other hand, meeting our country's projected electricity demand with today's energy mix and 40 percent coal requires building at least 100 new coal-fired powerplants over 25 years. We are also going to make the case during this debate that the Federal Government ought to be a leader in this. It is one thing to talk about how everybody in America ought to do something, and then say, oh, the Federal Government might get around to it someday. So we are saying, this is a chance for the Federal Government to save taxpayers money and to play a strong role, a strong leadership role, particularly by improving efficiency at the Federal data centers. As more and more businesses move to the cloud, reducing energy use there is extremely important. Again, the experts estimate these steps on data center efficiency would save about 35 million megawatt hours of electricity by 2030. We would save the same amount of energy by powering down 60 of the NSA's newest data centers for a year, but I am going to save that one for another day. There is obviously room for Federal agencies to do more. The government owns nearly 500,000 buildings. The Federal Government is the largest landlord in America. Agencies are directed to buy and use highly efficient equipment under two different executive orders. But according to staff at the Energy Department, less than half of commercial building equipment that agencies buy actually even complies with the government's own rules. So I am going to be offering an amendment to the bill that at least will provide some incentive to ensure that agencies actually follow the rules of the government. This bill, as I have indicated, is bipartisan. We have been able to pass 62 bills out of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, each one with bipartisan support. This is what Senators have said they care about, this is what the other body has said they care about. Congressman Kevin McCarthy, the third ranking House Republican, said earlier this year, ``All American energy independence means taking a hard look at energy production, distribution, reliability and efficiency.'' In the House there is a bipartisan companion to this. In other words, we have the good fortune of having Senator Shaheen and Senator Portman working in a bipartisan way. In the other body--and Senator Murkowski and I have met with the House Members interested in this issue--you have Congressman Peter Welch and Congressman Cory Gardner actually creating a bipartisan caucus to promote new financing tools that aid energy efficiency projects. Congressman Welch and Congressman McKinley have introduced companion legislation to the one we debate today. If anything, one of our challenges is there is a pent-up demand to debate energy issues in this Congress. If we voted for all of the amendments I hear people say they want to do, we would probably be here until New Year's Eve being fed intravenously trying to figure out how to process all of them. We may not have time to address each and every amendment, but I know of at least a dozen bipartisan amendments that colleagues plan to offer that will produce even more energy savings for businesses and consumers, produce more jobs for the U.S. economy. Nobody is going to be able to say this is part of a dumb Federal mandate or some kind of ``run from Washington, one size fits all'' approach. These are approaches that look to productivity, the private sector for leadership and fresh ideas. For example, Senator Bennet and Senator Ayotte have a better building amendment. It strikes me as a very sensible one. Senator Inhofe and Senator Carper have an amendment on thermal efficiency. Senator Klobuchar and Senator Hoeven have an amendment to help our nonprofits save energy. How can you make a logical case that we should not try to work that out? Our nonprofits are being stretched to the limit. I saw that when I was in Alaska with Senator Murkowski. We talked to some of the nonprofits. We see it in Oregon as well. We have a bipartisan amendment from Senators Hoeven and Klobuchar to try to help these nonprofits save energy. These are just a few of the good amendments, in my view, that build on the outstanding work done by Senators Shaheen and Portman lo these several years. These amendments and the bill are going to help homes and businesses use less energy, save money, create jobs, without mandates, without spending new Federal money. It got out of our committee by a 19-to-3 vote. I believe the reason it did is because people said this is a commonsense approach to cutting energy waste and showing folks across the land that there are things you can agree on in the Senate and come together. I am pleased to be here with Senator Murkowski. We have talked about this a long time, to get the Senate back in the business of a modern energy policy that creates jobs, that promotes energy security and productivity. We started that with the hydropower legislation that was signed into law right after we broke for the August recess. This is the next logical step. I will say to colleagues, I do not see how a Senator can say they are for an ``all of the above'' energy policy in America without supporting energy efficiency. This is the time. This is the bill. I look forward to working with our colleagues. I hope they bring us their various and sundry amendments. I yield the floor. I know Senator Murkowski has important comments to make.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am going to stay here to see if other colleagues would like to bring over their amendments. As I indicated in opening comments a couple hours ago, I think there are at least a dozen good amendments here--amendments that are going to be good for American productivity, they are going to create good-paying, high-skill jobs, and they are going to be winners for the environment. That is a trifecta of valuable concerns being addressed with one piece of legislation, being done in a bipartisan way. I know the popular wisdom is you cannot thread the needle on legislation and that even on something such as energy efficiency, these folks are going to try to see if they can get their bipartisan amendments passed, but at the end of the day, the forces who want to block legislation, because they care about a particular issue, are too strong. I hope Senators are going to see we are going to make sure people have a chance to have their issues heard. But we also want them to see that to lose the ability to have a key part of an ``all of the above'' energy policy--I have said you cannot have an ``all of the above'' energy policy if you are not for energy efficiency. To not advance this particular cause--and we passed the hydropower bill. It is a good bill. People said it was the first major energy bill since 2009. This is the next logical step. We ought to take it. I see the Senator from Ohio here, who has done so much good work, and I will yield at this time. I know he has a great interest in this topic. I hope, when we get a chance to vote on the Bennet-Ayotte amendment, Senators will support it. I yield back.

Mr. WYDEN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

View in Record

ORDER OF PROCEDURE2013-09-11

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Twenty minutes.

View in Record

Unaminous Consent Request--S. 101 (Executive Session)2013-08-01

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I object.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I will be very clear. First, I say to my colleague from Louisiana, he and I have worked together often on a whole host of issues. He is on Environment and Public Works; I chair Energy. I want him to know I am happy to continue working with him on this and other issues. The reason I have to object at this time is that the language as it is written would deal a huge body blow to more than 700 rural and heavily forested counties across the country in more than 40 of our States. It, in effect, could prohibit payments under the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act. This legislation, which was a bipartisan bill--Senator Larry Craig and I authored this legislation--is a lifeline for these hard-hit rural communities that are walking on a tightrope. They are trying to balance, for example, how they are going to keep the schools open and how they are going to have law enforcement in their communities. Declining revenues from Federal forests spurred the creation of this program to compensate for the loss of receipts from the Federal forests. Suffice it to say that without this legislation we could have school perhaps 3 days a week in a big chunk of rural America. I mentioned law enforcement. The question of how you maintain 24-hour law enforcement in a lot of these areas has been drawn into question. I think that without this assistance we might have some counties facing bankruptcy. Given the fact that this language does not clarify the status of the Secure Rural Schools Program, I have to object. I am going to continue to object until the legislation does clarify that it will not prohibit payments under that legislation, which is a lifeline for rural America. We have had a number of recorded votes on that particular legislation here in the Senate. It has received overwhelming bipartisan support. It was authorized on a bipartisan basis. I am going to yield the floor. I know colleagues want to speak on this issue. I want it understood how concerned I am about the legislation in its present form. That is why I have to object at this time. I yield the floor.

View in Record

Introductory Statement on S. 14192013-08-01

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, today Senator Murkowski and I are introducing legislation to promote a new form of hydropower, marine hydrokinetic renewable energy, or MHK. An MHK project generates energy from waves, currents, and tides in the ocean, an estuary or a tidal area as well as from the free-flowing water in a river, lake, or stream. Our bill will help commercialize MHK technologies through research and development and a more efficient and timely regulatory process for the siting of pilot projects intended to demonstrate the viability of these technologies. It is an ideal follow-up to a pair of bills, H.R. 267 and H.R. 678, to streamline the regulatory process for low-impact conventional hydropower that were reported by the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources by unanimous bipartisan votes a few months ago. Considered together, the two conventional hydropower bills approved by the Committee along with this MHK legislation are a major step forward in advancing carbon-free hydropower technologies. MHK has tremendous potential to generate a substantial amount of clean renewable energy in the United States and across the globe. It is poised to be a key participant in the transition to a low carbon economy. What distinguishes MHK from conventional hydropower is that it generates energy without the use of a dam or other impoundment. This gets MHK off on the right foot in terms of minimizing any adverse environmental impact. Investments to capture our nation's rich domestic marine energy resources can also play a major role in the creation of essential domestic engineering and manufacturing jobs. The energy contained in predictable waves, tidal flows and currents is the basis for worldwide investments in this emerging industry. Water is approximately 800 times denser than air, providing great potential power density along with predictability. These characteristics mean that MHK technologies could provide predictable base-load renewable power in the future. At the present time there are many different types of MHK technologies with multiple applications under development that are intended to capture the power contained in waves, tides and currents. Wave energy devices capture the heave and/or surge power of waves and convert them via hydraulic or geared direct drive systems into electricity. Some of these devices are moored to the ocean floor, some are floating on the surface, while others are attached to breakwaters near shore. By last count, there are over 100 wave energy devices under development worldwide. Tidal energy technologies capture the ebb and flow of tides. It is estimated that 60 different tidal energy technologies are under development worldwide. There are other technologies that include run-of-river systems and offshore ocean current technologies. Most of these technologies under development capture uni-directional water flows and look similar to the tidal devices. The United States has not been a world leader in the development of these cutting edge technologies to date. Instead, our country is seen as a huge potential market for our international competitors in this new industrial sector. The United States has significant wave, tidal, current and in-stream energy resources. The Electric Power Research Institute has estimated that the commercially available wave energy potential off the coast of the United States is roughly 252 million megawatt hours--equal to 6.5 percent of today's entire generating portfolio. This is approximately the amount of electricity presently being produced by the existing fleet of American conventional hydroelectric dams. The Department of Energy, DOE, has released two nationwide resource assessments that indicate the waves, tides, and ocean currents off the nation's coasts could contribute significantly to the United States' total annual electricity production. DOE is currently developing an aggressive strategy to support its vision of producing at least fifteen percent of our nation's electricity from water power, including conventional hydropower, by 2030. Our goal should be the establishment of a commercially viable U.S. MHK renewable energy industry, supported by a robust domestic supply chain for fabrication, installation, operations and maintenance of MHK devices. The development of a substantial marine hydrokinetic industry in the U.S. could drive billions of dollars of investment in heavy industrial and maritime sectors, as well as in advanced electrical systems and materials common to many renewable technologies. Federal investments would stimulate private funds and jobs in the construction, manufacturing, engineering, and environmental science sectors. I am very pleased that my home State of Oregon has made a strategic decision to be an international leader in the commercialization of the marine renewable energy industry. Led by the Oregon Wave Energy Trust, the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center co-located at Oregon State University, and several private companies that are part of the MHK supply chain, Oregon is positioning itself to be a leading force supporting this newly emerging industry. Unfortunately, the U.S. is falling behind in the race to capture the rich energy potential of our oceans and the jobs that will come with this new industry. The United Kingdom, Ireland, Portugal, Scotland, Australia, and other countries are committed to producing emission- free, renewable energy from MHK sources. Scotland has had a grid- connected, wave energy convertor unit in operation since 2001 and maintains a national goal of producing 2 GW of generation capacity from MHK renewable energy. The U.K. and Ireland have also set aggressive goals for MHK generation by 2020. The Ocean Renewable Energy Coalition, the industry's trade group here in Washington DC, calculates that more than $782 million has been spent by the UK government on wave energy R&D over the past 10 years. That total approaches $1 billion over the same period if you add in the commitments to ocean energy R&D from France, Portugal, Spain, Norway, and Denmark. Early funding support, along with development of full-scale device testing centers, demonstrates that the significant technological advances and the competitive advantages in this industry are trending in Europe's direction. As an example of the disparity in investments, Europe currently has several wave and tidal energy test facilities, led by the European Marine Energy Center in Scotland, that are helping technology developers commercialize their wave and tidal energy convertors. The United States clearly has a need for such infrastructure. I know that Oregon State University has a strong desire to compete for funding to help establish a testing center in the Pacific Northwest. Unfortunately, recent funding levels have not supported development of such offshore testing infrastructure in the U.S. to date. Given this internationally competitive situation, I believe that Congress must make targeted Federal investments to close the gap. Commercialization of technologies to harness marine renewable energy resources will require Federal funding to augment research and development efforts already underway in the private sector. Just as the wind and solar industries have received DOE funding support for over 3 decades, which has resulted in the rapid deployment of these technologies in recent years, the nascent marine energy industry seeks similar Federal assistance to develop promising technologies that are on the verge of commercial viability. Unfortunately, in addition to the limited private sector funding available to these startup companies, permitting and regulatory obstacles are tremendous disincentives to technology developers of marine energy projects in the United States. While other countries have adopted permitting and regulatory regimes that appear to be more efficient, the United States is still struggling with how to permit and regulate these technologies. I cannot overstate the seriousness of this problem. To give just one example, it took one MHK developer 5 years and $2 million to obtain a license from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for a 1.5 megawatt project. The regulatory situation is simply unacceptable and is greatly slowing progress in the MHK industry. Until companies get projects in the water, Congress and the public will not learn about the environmental impacts, engineering challenges or the true costs of offshore renewables. Capturing the benefits of our vast marine-based renewable resources will require a mix of new incentives, updated regulatory regimes and general outreach and education. However, the most important actions that can be taken by the Federal Government in the short term are to provide the necessary resources for research, development and demonstration of various marine renewable energy technology platforms and a workable and efficient regulatory process. Increased federal support will accelerate deployment of these technologies, create thousands of high paying jobs, give confidence to investors, and help attract private capital. The Marine and Hydrokinetic Renewable Energy Act of 2013 helps accomplish these goals in a number of ways. It reauthorizes the DOE's MHK research, development and demonstration 3 programs, including the National Marine Renewable Energy Research, Development, and Demonstration Centers. Increased resources for the DOE Water Power Program will enable the United States to leverage its technological superiority in shipbuilding and offshore oil and gas production. This will create jobs and diversify these maritime industries. In the absence of such funding, however, the United States will have to depend on foreign suppliers for ocean energy technologies, and will have missed a significant opportunity to expand our economic competiveness in this renewable energy sector. The regulatory component of the bill makes the regulatory process for MHK of not more than 10 MW more efficient and timely. It modifies and improves the FERC ``pilot license'' process in many ways. Improvements include a goal to complete the pilot license process in 12 months or less; a designation of FERC as the ``Lead Agency'' for the purpose of coordinating environmental review; a clarification that any shut down requirement be ``reasonable,'' and a clarification that an MHK project does not need to be removed when it is shut down if FERC deems leaving it in place is preferable for environmental and other reasons MHK is a clean, home-grown, emissions-free source of electricity that can improve the security and reliability of the electric grid. Investing in MHK research, development and demonstration today will pay great dividends in the future. MHK has tremendous potential to benefit the United States and the entire world. Now is the time to move forward on MHK and the Marine and Hydrokinetic Renewable Energy Act is the way to do it. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

View in Record

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS2013-08-01

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, today I rise to introduce a bill that will give Oregon State University the flexibility to continue its important agricultural work in Hermiston, Oregon. I am pleased to be joined on this bill with my colleague from Oregon, Senator Merkely. I look forward to working with Senator Merkley, other colleagues, and supporters of the bill to update the federal interests in the land to match current needs and conditions. The Hermiston Agricultural Research & Extension Center, HAREC, provides support to one of the most unique and important agricultural areas in the world: the Columbia Basin region of Oregon and Washington. As one of Oregon State University's, OSU, 12 Agricultural Experiment Stations, HAREC concentrates on the discovery and implementation of agricultural opportunities while also providing solutions to production issues for regional growers and beyond. Research at HAREC emphasizes identification of new crop opportunities, improved production practices that save money while reducing inputs, plant breeding and varietal evaluation of cereals and potatoes. Through this work it has developed new lines with higher nutritional value, integrated pest management of insects and insect- transmitted diseases, and provided information related to environmental issues and salmon restoration. In recent years the center provided leadership, research, and new knowledge essential to allow growers to diversify production and convert 30,000 acres of commodity crops to high-value crops. The station has led efforts to cultivate value-added agriculture in Morrow and Umatilla counties, resulting in over $50,000,000 in annual economic return. The history of HAREC and a Umatilla agricultural research center spans more than a century. The Federal Government paved the way in the development of farming and ranching in the Umatilla Basin. In 1954, the Bureau of Land Management granted land to the State of Oregon on the condition that the land is used for cooperative agricultural experimental work. Over the past nearly 60 years, OSU has developed a center with state-of-the-art laboratories, irrigation technology abilities, greenhouses, screenhouses and research and extension faculty. HAREC now supports nearly 500,000 acres of irrigated agriculture. Just as agriculture in the Columbia Basin has grown by leaps and bounds since 1954, so has the community of Hermiston. This bill removes the reversionary clause from the original land grant while conditioning that any consideration gained by OSU from the sale, lease, or other use of the land be put back into agricultural experimental and research work. It gives OSU the flexibility to adapt to the population growth and city expansion that will ultimately necessitate the relocation of HAREC from inside the urban growth boundary to a more rural location. Without this bill, moving the station would mean triggering the federal reversionary clause and losing HAREC land and all the buildings and improvements over nearly six decades to the Federal Government. I'm sponsoring this bill to ensure HAREC can continue for another hundred years. Regional leaders and Oregon State University support removing the barriers to the continued operation of the center. I express my gratitude for their work with me on this legislation. I also look forward to working with Senator Merkley to advance this bill and support the agricultural heart of the regional economy. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President. I am honored to join my colleague from Georgia, Senator Johnny Isakson, in introducing a bill essential to expanding health care options for rural hospitals and beneficiaries living in rural areas, the Medicare Access to Rural Anesthesiology Act. As it stands today, low Medicare Part B anesthesia payments and low patient volume in rural areas makes it difficult for rural hospitals to attract and retain anesthesiologists. Our legislation would take an important step towards leveling the playing field between urban and rural health care by ensuring that rural Medicare beneficiaries have similar access to anesthesia services. Generally, Medicare pays for anesthesia services under the Medicare Part B fee schedule, but in order to attract anesthesia providers to rural areas, a statutory exception was created in the 1980s that allows eligible rural hospital to use Part A funds to employ or contract with non-physician anesthesiologist assistants, AA, or certified registered nurse anesthetists, CRNA. This policy however, does not permit eligible hospitals to use pass-through funds to pay anesthesiologists. Leaving anesthesiologists out also prevents AAs from receiving pass through payment because AAs must have an anesthesiologist on premises in order to practice. As a result, many folks in rural areas only have access to one type of anesthesia provider compared to folks in urban areas who can easily visit an anesthesiologist, CRNA, or an AA. Our legislation would allow eligible rural hospitals to use ``pass- through'' Part A funds to employ CRNAs, AAs, and anesthesiologists. This common sense change would give eligible rural hospitals the power to choose the anesthesia providers that best suit the medical needs of their patients, and would provide these hospitals with another tool to recruit and retain anesthesiology professionals as well as expand the availability of anesthesiology care in medically underserved areas. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed In the Record.

View in Record

Introductory Statement on S. 14372013-08-01

Mr. WYDEN

View in Record

Introductory Statement on S. 14442013-08-01

Mr. WYDEN

View in Record

Introductory Statement on S. 14142013-07-31

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, today I rise to introduce two bills that are aimed at righting past wrongs and fostering the self-sufficiency of proud nations. The Canyon Mountain Land Conveyance Act of 2013 and the Oregon Coastal Land Conveyance Act will provide homelands for the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians and the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians, respectively--two tribes that are currently without a land base or that have only a nominal land base. I am pleased to be joined in this effort by my friend and colleague, Senator Merkley. Our country's official policies toward its native peoples have changed over time since the founding of the United States. When European settlers came to American shores, they recognized that the lands on which our Nation now sits were occupied by millions of people organized by hundreds of governments, and these European colonial powers respected these governments as fellow sovereigns. In the late 1700's, when our great Nation was born, it followed suit, making treaties with the governments of the various tribes and aiming to get along with them to ensure peace and prosperity for all. As our Nation became more powerful, its policies toward Native peoples and governments shifted with the political tides of those times. If you examine history books, some of the darkest episodes in our history can be found in the chapters written about our federal government's treatment of the first Americans. Our Nation's past is littered with failed policies toward its first peoples, and one of those failed policies--that to which scholars refer to as, ``Termination''--had a profoundly negative impact on my State. During the 1950's, the federal government was not in the business of honoring the treaties it made with the Indian tribes nor was it interested in living up to its trust responsibility toward its first peoples. Importantly, and as an aside, the tribes had bargained for these rights in exchange for the millions of acres of lands ceded to the United States to enable our westward expansion. At that time, our official Federal stance was focused on terminating the government-to- government relationships between tribal governments and the United States. In my own State of Oregon, several tribes west of the Cascade Mountains were terminated, including the two that are the subjects of the bills I am introducing today. The Termination Era had tragic effects on those tribes that lost Federal recognition. Members of terminated tribes struggled to retain their cultural and religious identities and to survive in a new landscape in which federal programs for their health, education, and housing did not exist. The Termination Era was such a disaster that the Federal Government formally rebuked it a mere twenty years later when Presidents Johnson an Nixon ushered in the Self-Determination Era. Now, our Federal stance toward tribes is one that respects tribal sovereignty and supports a tribe's right to determine its own destiny while at the same time, fulfilling our duty as trustee to the various tribes. Our Federal policy of self-determination has been lauded by scholars as being the only Federal Indian policy that has succeeded in benefitting our native peoples. Self-Determination Era policies have resulted in an economic boom all over Indian Country as tribes have used Federal assistance to create jobs for Indians and non-Indians alike all across the Nation, much of the time in rural areas where economic opportunities would otherwise not exist. Many of the tribes in my State, for instance, have been able to build their economies, become more self-sufficient and provide valuable goods and services as well as jobs to surrounding community members. For a tribe to fully exercise its governmental powers--to protect and nurture its members, to retain its cultural and religious heritage, and to grow its economy--it needs a land base. Even though the Cow Creek and Coos tribes were restored to Federal recognition in the 1980's, they still have not been given back any of their former land from which they can exercise their inherent authority as sovereigns. My bills would provide home bases for these tribes from which they can flourish. The bills I am introducing today convey 17,826 and 14,804 acres of land that is now managed by the Bureau of Land Management, to the Secretary of the Interior to hold in trust for the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians and the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians, respectively. The bills specify that commercial forestry activities taking place on the land must be done pursuant to all applicable federal laws, and because both of the tribes already own casinos, they specify that the land cannot be used for gaming purposes. Lastly, to address the concerns of counties over lost timber revenues from the Oregon and California Railroad lands within the conveyances, the bills contain provisions ensuring there will be no net loss of O&C lands to the counties. I want to thank the tribes, counties, and other stakeholders for working together to find the common ground which made these bills a reality. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bills be printed in the Record.

View in Record

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS2013-07-31

Mr. WYDEN

View in Record

ENDING BULK COLLECTION OF PHONE RECORDS2013-07-30

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, before he leaves the floor, I want to tell Senator Udall how much I have appreciated having him in that intelligence room, because he has been a strong advocate for making sure our country can have security and liberty in those classified meetings, just as he has done tonight. It is great to have him on the committee and to have him as a partner in these efforts. He is so right when he stated tonight that this is a debate that should have begun long ago. It is a debate that should have been started by elected officials and not by a government contractor. I very much appreciate the Senator's remarks. I think he made it clear that we are going to stay at this until we get it fixed, and I very much appreciate his leadership. As Senator Udall has made clear, these issues are about as important as it gets. When you are talking about how you can secure these bedrock American values--security and liberty--this is right at the heart of what Americans care about most. For too long, my view is the American people have essentially been presented with false choices. Americans have been told they can have one or the other: They can have security or they can have liberty, but they cannot have both. Suffice it to say, in the last 8 weeks, as this debate has evolved, I think Americans have come to understand that this set of false choices is not what this debate is all about, and they deserve better. As this debate has unfolded, whether you are in a lunchroom at work or a senior citizens center or you are looking at a political opinion poll, the polls have changed something like 20 points just in the last few weeks, with Americans saying, particularly, that the bulk phone records collection program is an intrusion on the rights of law-abiding Americans. Whether it is what citizens say at townhall meetings or what they say in the company lunchroom or in senior citizens centers, Americans have come to understand that these false choices are not what the discussion is all about. Americans have come to figure it out. Frankly, a big part of the problem in the past--and I documented it last week--is leaders in the intelligence community have made misleading statements, repeatedly. It is not just a question of keeping the American people in the dark--which was true--but the American people were actively misled on a number of occasions. Senator Udall and I have been walking everyone through that. The bulk phone records collection program is often compared to a grand jury subpoena approach. That is about as far-fetched as it gets. Even national security lawyers have made fun of that kind of argument in publications such as the Wall Street Journal. Very often when I talk to lawyers--the distinguished Presiding Officer is, of course, a particularly illustrious lawyer and has taught in the field. I often say when I am visiting with lawyers, or I ask for a show of hands: Does anybody know of a grand jury subpoena where you can have the bulk collection of millions of phone records of law- abiding Americans? Come on up to me and tell me after the meeting is over. I do not exactly get swarmed. The reason is there are not any. One of the reasons I wanted to touch on these misleading statements is that, just in the last few days--Senator Udall touched on this-- there has been an effort to commingle the two programs. One of them is called the FISA 702 Program, the PRISM Program, which targets foreigners and has useful value. We have made that clear. It can be improved. I came to that conclusion when I was finally able to get declassified a finding from the FISA Court that on at least one occasion the Fourth Amendment had been violated in connection with the use of the 702 Program. But even with that, I am of the view that provides useful value. But what a number of the leaders of the intelligence community have done is essentially commingled their advocacy of these programs so that 702 and the bulk collection program essentially ride together, when in reality, 702--which Senator Udall and I have supported--I think we can improve it with these privacy reforms--in effect, 702 does all the work. The bulk collection program, which does intrude on the rights of millions of law-abiding Americans, is essentially along for the ride. But you would not know that when you hear these statements from a number of the leaders in the intelligence community, when they just say ``these programs,'' of course, are what keeps us safe. In addition, I thought it was important to briefly start this evening by mentioning that over the last few days there have been a number of comments about whether the PATRIOT Act has violated the rights of Americans with respect to this bulk collection program. A number of commentators and others have said: ``Where are the violations? I haven't seen any violations.'' The Director of National Intelligence said last Friday, in a letter to you and me and Senator Udall and 23 other of our colleagues: Yes, there have been violations of the PATRIOT Act--when he said specifically that the Government had violated court orders on the bulk collection of those phone records. I am not allowed to discuss the classified nature of that, but I want to make sure those who are following this debate know that from my vantage point, reading those documents that are classified, these violations are more serious than have been stated by the intelligence community, and in my view that is very troubling. So I do hope Senators will go to the Intelligence Committee and ask to see those classified documents because I think when they read them--I think they will come to the conclusion to which I have come that, not only is what was stated by the Director of National Intelligence in that letter that was sent to you and me and Senator Udall and 23 other Senators--not only was that correct, but I think Senators who read those classified documents will also come to the conclusion that the violations are more serious than they thought--than the intelligence community portrayed. Let me, if I might, talk a little bit more about why we spent several years examining this bulk phone records program. First, I think it is important for citizens to know that the ability to conduct this secret surveillance that lays bare the personal lives of millions of law- abiding Americans, coupled with the ability to conjure up these legal theories as to why this is acceptable, and then have such limited oversight through this one-sided adversarial FISA Court, in my view, is an opportunity for unprecedented control over the private lives of Americans. That is why Senator Udall and I have spent all this time focused on this issue. I thought also tonight, and having done this before, I will provide a little more history as to how we got to this particular place. When I came to the Senate early on I had a chance to work with a number of colleagues who saw the extent of these problems--early on. One of them was our former colleague, Senator Russ Feingold. Senator Feingold saw the problems that the PATRIOT Act posed before they were apparent to many Senators. He and his staff took the responsibility to protect both American security and American liberties very seriously. In 2007, the two of us came to understand that the PATRIOT Act was being secretly interpreted to justify the bulk collection of Americans' records, and we made it clear that we thought, first of all, that was something very different from what Americans thought was going on. We thought it was very different, for example, from the plain reading of section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, and we thought that the language of the PATRIOT Act had been stretched beyond recognition because the language in the PATRIOT Act spoke to relevance and a sense that it was relevant to suspected terror activity, rather than something that created this enormous leap from what was in the statute that called for relevance to collecting millions and millions of records on law-abiding people. So Senator Feingold and I dutifully set about to write classified letters to senior officials urging them to make their official interpretation of the PATRIOT Act public. We said at the time that for intelligence activities to be sustainable and effective, they have to be based on publicly understood laws and be consistent with Americans' understanding of their own privacy rights. This, in our view, was clearly not the case with the bulk records collection because, of course, the government's official interpretation of the PATRIOT Act was a tightly guarded secret. Back then in those early days we were rebuffed when we made repeated requests that the intelligence community inform the public what the government had secretly decided the law actually meant. In fact, there was a secret court opinion that authorized massive dragnet domestic surveillance, and the American people, by that point, were essentially in the dark about what their government was doing with respect to interpreting an important law. In 2009, as the expiration of the date for the PATRIOT Act approached, Senator Feingold and I began to caution our colleagues and the public that our people were not getting the full story about the PATRIOT Act. At that time, we'd had the good fortune of having our colleague, Senator Durbin, on the committee, and we all wrote public letters. We authored various articles. We wrote editorial pages for the newspapers and made statements for the Congressional Record. We raised issues about this to the extent we could at public hearings. But, of course, the Senate rules regarding the protection of classified information limited what we could say. One point I have tried to make clear is the intelligence rules--the classification rules don't let a member of the committee tap the truth out in Morse Code. We have to comply with the rules, and they are very laborious. If we don't comply with the rules, we cannot serve on the Intelligence Committee and be a watchdog for some of these efforts that we think goes right to the heart of protecting American security and American liberty. So we decided--a small group of us who shared these views--if we wanted to have the opportunity to play that watchdog rule, we needed to work within the rules. So we did everything we could--recognizing that we can't tap out classified information in Morse Code--to alert the public about what was going on. After a series of short-term extensions, the PATRIOT Act came up for a long-term reauthorization in the spring of 2011. By that time, Senator Feingold had been replaced on the committee by Senator Udall. He, as my colleagues know, shares these concerns about the bulk collection of phone records on millions of law-abiding Americans, and we are lucky he has been a prominent leader in the cause of protecting, security, and liberty. During the 2011 reauthorization, Senator Udall and I spoke to colleagues. We invited colleagues to secure settings so we could lay out what was actually happening, and many of those colleagues joined us on the floor to oppose the extension of the PATRIOT Act for 4 more years. During that debate, I came to the floor and said: When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the PATRIOT Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry. That week the Senate voted to extend the PATRIOT Act until 2015, but those of us who opposed the extension continued the fight in the months that followed. At that time the NSA was also conducting a bulk e-mail records program in addition to the bulk phone records program that is ongoing today. Senator Udall and I were concerned about this program's impact on our liberties and our privacy rights, and back in the Intelligence Committee, we spent a big chunk of 2011 pressing intelligence officials to provide evidence of its effectiveness. It turned out that the intelligence community was unable to provide any such evidence. Intelligence agencies have made statements to both Congress and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that--they had significantly exaggerated the effectiveness of the bulk e-mail program. When Senator Udall and I pressed them to back up these statements, they couldn't do it. The bulk e-mail records program was shut down that year. Our experience with the bulk e-mail records program showed us that the Intelligence Agency's assessments about the usefulness of a number of these particular programs, even big ones, are not always accurate. Now, that doesn't mean that intelligence officials were deliberately lying. In a number of instances--as far as I could tell--they believed their claims that the bulk e-mail surveillance program was effective, even though it was actually close to worthless. This was an important reminder that even if intelligence officials are well intentioned, they can be dead wrong, and that any policymaker who simply defers to intelligence officials' conclusions without asking to see their evidence is making a mistake. As we looked at that evidence, Senator Udall and I found that the claims about the effectiveness of the bulk phone records program also did not seem well supported by the facts. So in March of 2012, we wrote to the Attorney General expressly with this concern. In our letter we said: In recent months we have grown increasingly skeptical about the actual value of [this] ``intelligence collection operation.'' And we added: This has come as a surprise to us, as we were initially inclined to take the executive branch's assertions about the importance of this ``operation'' at face value. The Department of Justice, unfortunately, decided not to respond to our letter, but we continued our efforts to educate the public and to call out senior officials from intelligence agencies and the Department of Justice as they repeatedly made misleading statements about domestic surveillance. In June of this year, disclosures by the Washington Post and the Guardian newspaper revealed the fact of bulk collection to the American people. This sparked the debate that is now ongoing about whether offering up the personal records of ordinary Americans is the best way to protect our security and our liberty. This debate--as I indicated when Senator Udall was on the floor--should have started a long time ago, but I am sure glad it is finally happening now. The fact is that Americans' phone records can reveal a lot of private information. If you know, for example, that somebody called a psychiatrist three times in a week and twice after midnight, you know a lot about that person. If you are vacuuming up information on whom Americans call, when they call, and how long they talked, you are collecting an astounding amount of information about a huge number of law-abiding Americans. The intelligence agencies try to emphasize that they have rules about who can look at these bulk phone records and when. There has been a lot said on cable by the talking heads on TV, and I want to emphasize, none of these rules require the NSA to go back to a court to look at Americans' phone records. None of these rules erase the privacy impact of scooping up all of these records in the first place. On top of that, as I indicated in the beginning, there have been a number of serious violations of those rules. The Senators who got the letter last Friday know that, and I want to tell all the other Senators on both sides of the aisle that the violations--as I have touched on tonight--were a lot more serious than the public has been told. I believe the American people deserve to know more details about these violations that were described last Friday by Director Clapper. I am going to keep pressing to make more of these details public. It is my view that the information about the details of the violations of the court orders with respect to the bulk phone record collection program--the admission that the court orders have been violated--has not been, I think, fully fleshed out by the intelligence community. I think a considerable amount of additional information can be offered without in any way compromising our national security. If the impact on America's liberties wasn't bad enough, it is made even worse by the fact that this program--when we asked and asked--does not seem to have any unique value. I will explain briefly what it means. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 7 additional minutes.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I will see if I can beat the clock because I know colleagues are waiting. In fact, Senator Baldwin has been a great advocate for liberties and showing that liberty and security are compatible, both when she was a Member of the other body and here when she was part of our group, and I thank her for it. Intelligence officials can only point to two cases where this program--the bulk phone records collection program--actually provided useful information about an individual involved in terrorist activity. In both of these cases, the government had all the information it needed to go to the phone company and get an individual court order and emergency authorization for the phone records they needed. In both of these cases, the individuals who were identified using these phone records were arrested months or years after they were first identified, but if government agents believed that the situation was urgent, they could have used emergency authorizations to obtain their phone records more quickly. I am glad both of these cases resolved the way they did. I am proud that our intelligence agencies and law enforcement individuals were able to identify and arrest those who were involved in terrorist acts. In one case four men in California were arrested for sending money to a militant group in Somalia. In the other case they arrested a co- conspirator of Mr. Zazi a few months after Zazi's plot was disrupted. These men committed serious crimes. They are now being punished with the full weight of the justice system. What I don't see, however, is any evidence that the U.S. Government needed to operate a giant domestic phone records surveillance program in order to catch these individuals. I have seen no evidence--none-- that this dragnet phone records program has provided any actual unique value for the American people. In every instance in which the NSA has searched through these bulk phone records, it had enough evidence to get a court order for the information it was searching for. Getting a few hundred additional court orders every year would clearly not overwhelm the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The intelligence agencies may argue that collecting Americans' phone records in bulk is more convenient than getting individual court orders, but convenience alone does not justify the massive intrusion on the privacy of ordinary Americans. I believe it is vitally important to protect the safety and liberty of our people. I don't see any evidence that this program helps protect either. That ought to be the standard of any domestic surveillance program. If the bulk collection program doesn't protect privacy or security, then it ought to end--plain and simple. The executive branch simply has not shown anything close to an adequate justification for this massive dragnet surveillance that has compromised the civil liberties of millions of Americans. I am not sure they ever could, but I am confident that I have not seen it as yet. Now, let me close by way of saying that over the last few weeks we have seen extraordinary support for reform. Last week over 200 Members of the other body voted to end the bulk phone records collection program, and a number of the Members who voted against ending it at that time made it clear they have serious concerns they want to address. So there are going to be more votes. Make no mistake about it, there are going to be more votes on whether to end the bulk collection of phone records on law-abiding Americans in the 113th Congress. And there are going to be efforts to reform how the entire U.S. surveillance system works. One of the most important reforms will be to make the significant rulings of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court public, which is a goal I have been pursuing for several years. Additionally, I believe Congress needs to reform the process for arguing cases before the court. Right now the government lawyers walk in with an argument for why the government should be allowed to do something, and there is no one to argue the other side. That is not unusual if the court is considering a routine warrant request, but it is very unusual when a court is doing major legal or constitutional analysis. I believe Congress needs to create a way to advocate for the public-- a public advocate to argue cases before the court, because making this court more transparent and more adversarial is a way to ensure that Americans can have security and liberty. Of course, the relevant provisions of the PATRIOT Act itself will be expiring in 2015. I don't think there is any reason for the administration to wait for Congress to act. The executive branch can take action right now. They can and should continue to obtain the records of anyone suspected of connections to terror or other nefarious activity, and at the same time they can restore protections for Americans' Fourth Amendment rights. I am very interested in working with the administration on these issues, but they can move of their own volition. One way or another, we are going to stay at this until, at this unique time in our constitutional history, we have revised our surveillance laws so we can have security and liberty. Colleagues are coming to this cause. Senator Blumenthal has particularly recommended a number of constructive FISA Court changes over the last few months. I hope colleagues will support that, and I hope they will see this unique time in our history when it is critically important that these surveillance laws that I and Senator Udall have talked about tonight can be reformed and we do it so as to protect the bedrock of American values, both security and liberty. With that, I yield the floor.

View in Record