Sheldon Whitehouse

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I wish to speak in favor of the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act, which I am proud to cosponsor. As attorney general of Rhode Island, I saw firsthand the good work that the Violence Against Women Act has done to protect victims of domestic violence, to provide crucial services to those who have been harmed, and to hold batterers accountable for their crimes. It is vital that we reauthorize this important law. In Rhode Island and across the country, the Violence Against Women Act continues to support essential tools for preventing and responding to domestic violence. The Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence reports, for example, that we now have 23 transitional housing units in our State, helping victims of violence become safe and self- sufficient as they escape a batterer. VAWA's law enforcement and legal assistance programs have also proven essential, especially in light of difficult State and local budgets. VAWA supports seven law enforcement advocates in Rhode Island, who work in local police departments to provide immediate assistance to victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking. These and other VAWA programs have improved the criminal justice response to violence against women and ensured victims and their families the services they need. The Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act builds on that record of success. It makes important updates to strengthen the law, while remaining cognizant of the challenging budget circumstances we face. The bill includes an increased focus on sexual assault prevention, enforcement, and services. It provides new measures to prevent homicides through programs to manage high-risk offenders. It also consolidates programs to reduce administrative costs and add efficiency. And it incorporates new accountability provisions to ensure that VAWA funds are used effectively and efficiently. Senators Leahy and Crapo led a fair and open process in crafting this bill. They have carefully studied these issues, consulted with a great number of experts and stakeholders, and as a result have achieved a bill with 60 cosponsors in this body. I would particularly like to thank Senators Leahy and Crapo for including in this bill a measure I authored to help prevent teen dating violence. Far too many teens suffer abuse at the hands of a dating partner. The Centers for Disease Control report that one in ten teenagers was hit or physically hurt on purpose by a boyfriend or girlfriend in the past year. The Saving Money and Reducing Tragedies through Prevention, or SMART Prevention Act, which I introduced last year and is included in this bill, will support innovative and effective programs to prevent this dangerous abuse. At a subcommittee field hearing I chaired last year on strategies for protecting teens from dating violence, each of the expert witnesses testified that prevention programs can help address this serious problem. Ann Burke, a leading national advocate, explained that school- based teen dating violence prevention programs have proven effective in changing behaviors. For example, in 2 years following the passage of Rhode Island's Lindsay Ann Burke Act, named in memory of Ann's daughter, a victim of dating violence, the number of teenagers physically abused by a dating partner in our State decreased from 14 percent to 10.8 percent. Prevention programs are most effective when part of a community approach. Kate Reilly, the executive director of the Start Strong Rhode Island Project, testified that effective prevention programming should ``meet kids where they live and play.'' That requires involving parents, coaches, mentors, and community leaders--men and women--as well as innovative uses of technology and social media. One group of children needs particular attention: those who have witnessed abuse in their home. Deborah DeBare, executive director of the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence, explained at our hearing that ``growing up in a violent home may lead to higher risks of repeating the cycle of abuse as teens and young adults.'' By supporting robust services for children exposed to domestic violence, we can help to lift the emotional burden on children who witness their parents' violence and break the intergenerational cycle of violence. The VAWA Reauthorization Act's SMART Prevention provisions build on Ann and Kate and Deb's insights. The bill supports educational programs warning young people about dating violence, as well as programs to train those with influence on youth. To save costs, the new program is consolidated with existing grant programs, including a program directed at children who have witnessed violence and abuse. Coordinating and focusing prevention resources will save money, and abuse that is prevented reduces the strain on our overburdened health, education, and criminal justice systems. I again congratulate Senators Leahy and Crapo for their strong bipartisan leadership in helping us extend our longstanding bipartisan commitment to preventing domestic violence. I urge all of my colleagues to support reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, so that we can keep working toward a country that is free of this scourge.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, it is an honor to follow my senior Senator, Jack Reed, who has been kind enough to preside now for me so that we may deliver these remarks together. The State of Rhode Island has lost two men in recent days, two men who came from far away to our State to dedicate themselves to its service and to the service of our country, one serving our country with honor and distinction in Afghanistan and the other serving our Ocean State's great capital city of Providence. U.S. Marine LCpl Abraham Tarwoe, of Providence, was a mortarman with Weapons Company, 2nd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment of the 2nd Marine Division out of Camp Lejeune, NC. He deployed with the Second Marine Expeditionary Force Forward, where he served as a dog handler in addition to his duties as a mortarman. Abraham was born in Liberia during a time of civil war. His mother and father sent him to America when he was only 7 years old to find a better life. He joined our Liberian community in Rhode Island, which is an important and valued part of our Rhode Island civic life. Abraham grew of age and joined the Marines in June of 2009 and was promoted to Lance Corporal in August of 2010. In December he deployed for a second tour of duty to Afghanistan. He had earned the Combat Action Ribbon, the Sea Service Deployment Ribbon, the Afghanistan Campaign Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, and the NATO Medal. He died Thursday, April 12, from wounds sustained from an improvised explosive device during a dismounted patrol in support of combat operations in the Marjah district of Helmand Province. He was 25 years old. His commanding officer, Captain Charles E. Anklam III, said Abraham had an understanding of suffering and sacrifice from his childhood and family ties to Liberia. ``He also knew about disproportionate service,'' Captain Anklam said. ``He held no birth obligation to America; in fact his citizenship was still being processed when he gave his life for his newly adopted country and his brothers-in-arms.'' Abraham leaves behind his wife, Juah Kelly, and their 18-month-old baby boy, Avant Kar, who Abraham would talk to by webcam almost every night. My prayers for comfort and solace go out to them, and to Abraham's mother Famatta Kar, his brother Randall Kar, and to his network of extended family and friends in the United States and Liberia. A memorial service will be held by Abraham's family and friends in Rhode Island this weekend. And then Abraham will be transported to Liberia, where a funeral will be held and he will be laid to rest. On Monday, in Afghanistan, the Marines and sailors of Weapons Company gathered around a makeshift battlefield cross for their own memorial service in Abraham's honor. As Abraham's comrades stepped forward one by one to pay their silent respect, Yeager, the black lab who had been Abraham's partner since July 2011, walked to the front and lay down before his handler's cross. The Marine's Prayer says, in part: ``Protect my family. Give me the will to do the work of a Marine.'' Abraham's wife Juah said that the Marine Corps was Abraham's other love, his second family. Abraham died doing the work of a Marine. And we pray in Abraham's memory for the protection of his brothers and sisters so bravely serving our country in the Marine Corps, and of his beloved family here at home. Like Lance Corporal Tarwoe, Providence Police Sergeant Maxwell Dorley was also born in Liberia, and came to America as a child. He and his mother settled in Providence and Max attended Mount Pleasant High School where he met his high school sweetheart and wife, Kou. Max worked four jobs to support their young family, and eventually became a Providence police officer, where he would serve the people of Rhode Island's capital city for 15 years. Max practiced community policing in the truest sense. He went by his first name when he was on patrol. His life experiences growing up in Providence public housing allowed him to relate to the kids in the neighborhoods on his beat. Max was dedicated to the Police Department, and to the men and women of the force. When a call for back-up came across the radio this past Thursday morning from two officers trying to break up a fight on River Avenue, Max leapt into his cruiser. As he rushed to the aid of his fellow officers, lights and sirens blaring, he swerved to avoid a collision with a car that crossed his path. He lost control and struck a utility pole. He was rushed to Rhode Island Hospital, but his injuries were too great. Maxwell Dorley died at age 41. He now joins a list of other Providence, Police Officers who have given their lives: Steven Shaw, Cornel Young, and James Allen. Max is remembered as a devoted husband and loving father, always seeking the best for his children, Amanda and Robert, and encouraging them to follow their dreams. ``Life has no limits,'' he would tell them. Today, on behalf of the people of Rhode Island and the U.S. Senate, I send my wholehearted condolences to Kou, Amanda, and Robert, to Max's mother, Miatta Dorley, and to the brave men and women of the Providence Police Force who have lost another colleague and friend. Max gave his life protecting the citizens of our community. And for that, we owe him a gratitude that we cannot repay. We mourn the loss of two good men. Two men with similar beginnings, and a common calling to serve and protect others. Abraham and Max helped make our neighborhoods, our country, our world a better and safer place to live. They gave their lives, making a real difference in the lives of so many others. We honor them today in the U.S. Senate. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I would like to first express my appreciation to the Senator from Ohio for his work on these education issues, particularly the importance of the Stafford loan and avoiding the interest rate jump that is scheduled to take place. And I would point out that had we passed the so-called Buffett rule bill so that Americans who earn well over $1 million a year would actually all pay a fair share of taxes, that would have created somewhere between $47 billion and $163 billion in revenues, and that would readily pay for keeping the student loan rate down. So I hope we can find another way to do it, but that would have been one good way. The reason I am on the floor this evening is because I was at Wickford Junction in Rhode Island earlier today, where a new commuter rail station has been built, largely through the energy and effort of my senior Senator, Jack Reed, over many years. Secretary LaHood, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation, came to be present at that event, and that reminded me, of course, of the highway bill, which is probably the biggest jobs bill we could pass here in Congress. We tend to talk a good game on jobs. Recently, we even referred to a bill as a JOBS bill. It had kind of a trick: It was actually called Jumpstart Our Business Startups, J-O-B-S. They made an acronym so that it sounded like a jobs bill when what it really did was to allow people to market stocks without the usual safeguards that protect investors and consumers. So we do a lot to try to convince people we are working on jobs here in Congress, but the one bill that indisputably is really going to be helpful to the American economy to provide jobs would be the highway bill that the Senate passed--2.9 billion jobs protected or created. In my State of Rhode Island, it is 9,000 jobs, and I promise you we could use those 9,000 jobs in Rhode Island right now. The bill passed the Senate with flying colors, with every kind of credit you could associate with a piece of legislation. It passed 74 to 22. A 75th Senator indicated that he would have supported it but he was called out of town for a funeral. And obviously, with a 74-to-22 lopsided vote, his vote was not necessary. But, in effect, 75 Senators are on record supporting that bill, which in this Senate, as everybody knows, is a considerable landslide of a majority. Now, 2.9 million jobs is a serious thing in this economy, with 9,000 in Rhode Island that we desperately need. And the bill left not only with the support of a unanimous Environment and Public Works committee, where it came from originally--and I commend both Senator Boxer and Senator Inhofe, the chair and the ranking member, for pulling that together. As people who watch the Senate know, Senator Boxer and Senator Inhofe come from rather different political persuasions, and yet they were able to agree on this and bring a bill out of committee unanimously. It then came to the floor and went forward. We had 5 weeks of floor debate. We added 40 amendments either by vote or agreement. It was very bipartisan, it was very transparent, and we ended up with that 75-to-22 expression of support by the Senate for that bill. There was a rather different story on the House side. They knew the March 31 deadline was approaching--it had been a matter of law for a long time--and they blew the deadline. They had no bill going into it. They tried several times to come up with something, and they couldn't do a thing. They had no bill at all. So without a bill, one would hope they could have passed the Senate bill. They certainly had the votes. All they had to do was call it up and pass it. Democrats and Republicans would have voted for it, and we would be getting those jobs out there right now. Instead, they had no bill, and they chose to pass an extension. The extension is actually pretty harmful. They actually passed two, and they are both harmful. The first short-term extension--I spoke to my DOT director in Rhode Island. He was at Wickford Junction as well, and we have done a couple of other events in the past week or so to try to bring attention to this. He has a list of roughly 95 or 96 projects they want to get done in Rhode Island in the summer building season, the highway construction season. He estimates that probably 40 of those jobs are going to fall off the list because they don't know what their long-term funding is, and they can't commit to those jobs until this gets settled. So these short-term extensions are very harmful. They cost jobs. They are job killers. Yet the House has passed two of them. To make it even more complicated, they threw on the last one--a requirement that the Keystone Pipeline be bulldozed through all the regulatory and environmental reviews that are necessary. Say what you want about the Keystone Pipeline, it is a completely contentious, controversial issue here in Congress. They did not make an effort to resolve it on the House side. This was not something where they brought people together, came to a resolution on the Keystone Pipeline, and then added it to the bill. No. They just took their Republican version of it without any effort to be bipartisan and stuffed it into the highway extension. So they have missed the chance to pass really good bipartisan legislation out of the Senate, they have passed a job-killing extension that is very harmful to folks doing highway work around the country, and they have complicated it further by throwing a controversial issue on top. If you are serious about jobs--and I know we talk a lot about it in the Senate--if you are serious about jobs, we should stop that nonsense and take up the Senate bill and pass it in the House and get everybody to work. In the absence of that, we need to make sure that we move to conference very quickly, that we appoint conferees, and that we get going. This is important to Rhode Island. As I said, we desperately need these highway jobs. So I am going to continue, along with many of my colleagues, coming to the Senate floor to put the pressure on to do something that is very simple: pass a highway bill. This is not complicated. We have been doing it since Eisenhower was President, and the fact that we can't do it now says a lot about the capacity for governance of the House of Representatives under this Speaker. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader for that courtesy. I will only take a moment to recognize and welcome Rev. Rebecca Spencer who shared with us the prayer that began the Senate session this morning. She has been the senior pastor of the Central Congregational Church in Providence, RI, since 1988. It was my congregation for the years that I lived in Providence. My wife and I renewed our vows under her care. She is a wonderful and thoughtful preacher from the pulpit. Her church has perhaps the best musical and choral program certainly anywhere in Rhode Island and probably for a good distance around. If you have not heard the ``Hallelujah Chorus'' sung at Easter at Central Congregational Church, you have missed an extraordinary experience. But her greatest contribution in a community that she has served now for 24 years has been pastoral work with the families who make Central Congregational their home and the home of their faith. From birth to baptisms and for kids coming up through the youth programs the church runs, through marriages and unfortunately sometimes divorces, and through illness and death, Reverend Spencer is a wonderful friend and a wonderful solace and a wonderful gift to all of the congregation that she serves. She is joined today by her sons Tom and Ezra. We welcome them as well, and are delighted that she has taken the time to come down from Providence, RI. I thank our Chaplain, Chaplain Black, for his courtesy in helping to facilitate this visit. I yield the floor. Recognition of the Majority Leader

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, to follow up briefly on the subject of leadership in Washington, perhaps the Speaker of the House could show some leadership on jobs by calling up the bipartisan--75 to 22-- jobs highway bill that passed this Senate, which is widely supported and its delay is actually costing us jobs because of the summer construction season wasting away as these extensions go on. There would be some leadership that would mean something for jobs in America. Madam President, I rise today to address the need we have in the Senate for comprehensive cybersecurity legislation. I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, our Nation's inadequate cybersecurity poses an ever-growing threat to our safety, our prosperity, and our privacy. Attackers go after our intellectual property, our national security, and our critical infrastructure. The McAfee Night Dragon Report, for example, concluded that foreign intruders had access to major oil, energy, and petrochemical companies' computer networks for at least 2 years and likely as many as 4 years. Government reports are equally sobering, though usually classified. One that is not classified is the Department of Homeland Security report recently that attacks on computer systems that control critical infrastructure, factories, and databases increased almost eightfold in just the last 12 months. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has warned that ``the next Pearl Harbor we confront could very well be a cyber attack.'' Majority Leader Reid has recognized the severity of this national and economic security threat and intends to bring cybersecurity legislation to the Senate floor soon. We recognize too the hard work of Chairman Lieberman and Ranking Member Collins of the Homeland Security Committee, as well as Chairman Feinstein of the Intelligence Committee, and Senator Rockefeller of the Commerce Committee. The Cybersecurity Act of 2012, which they introduced--and I am proud to cosponsor--is a good start toward addressing the many cybersecurity threats that face this Nation. The SECURE IT Act, introduced by Senator McCain and seven colleagues, seeks to improve the sharing of cybersecurity threat information; the Federal Information Security Management Act, or FISMA, which governs cybersecurity at Federal agencies; and our cyber research and development. There is considerable overlap between these bills, which signals that the Senate could legislate on cybersecurity in a bipartisan and serious manner. Support for cybersecurity legislation is also bicameral. The Cybersecurity Task Force constituted by House Republicans produced recommendations that share key points with our Cybersecurity Act of 2012. Numerous bills are working their way through the House on a bipartisan basis. Central to that work in the House are the contributions of Rhode Island Congressman Jim Langevin. His leadership is a major reason the House has come to recognize the dangerous vulnerabilities within our critical infrastructure and that we now stand on the verge of a breakthrough in improving the security of those networks. When a test at the Idaho National Labs showed hackers could blow up a power generator from thousands of miles away, Congressman Langevin brought the owners and operators of our electric grid before Congress and investigated their promise the issue was being addressed. When he found out that wasn't true, he called them out. His subsequent work as a cochair of the Center for Strategic and International Study Commission on Cybersecurity, along with other experts from within and outside of government, resulted in many of the recommendations reflected in our legislation. Then, in 2010, Congressman Langevin passed a landmark cybersecurity amendment in the House that provided a legislative template for setting standards for critical infrastructure. I thank Jim Langevin, my colleague from Rhode Island, for his relentless commitment to keeping America safe in cyberspace. I am here this morning to stress four points I believe we must keep in mind as we take up cybersecurity legislation. The first is that cybersecurity legislation should improve the public's limited awareness of current cybersecurity threats and the harm those threats present to our national security economy and privacy. The public, for years, has been kept in the dark, and that is wrong. The corporate sector systematically underreports cyber attacks for fear of scaring customers, for fear of encouraging competitors or for fear of triggering regulatory review. I was pleased the Securities and Exchange Commission, after prompting by Senator Rockefeller and myself and others, issued guidance for when registered companies must disclose breach information. The government itself systematically underreports cyber attacks because it overclassifies information about cyber attacks on government systems. Jim Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, for example, recently explained that cybersecurity has a unique problem in that some of the most reliable data is classified. It was a rare exception when a November 2011 report by the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive identified China and Russia as responsible for the systematic theft of American intellectual property through cyber espionage. The legislation that we pass must shed light on the scale and severity of the cyber threat to the American public. In that vein, I am pleased the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 includes provisions from the Cybersecurity Public Awareness Act, S. 813, which I introduced with Senator Kyl. These provisions will at least begin to improve the public's awareness of the current cyber threat environment we face. Second, we must recognize that inadequate awareness and inadequate protection against cyber risks is endemic among our largest corporations. Part of the problem is a gulf in cybersecurity awareness between corporate chief information officers and corporate CEOs. Carnegie Mellon's CyLab recently reported: Boards and senior management still are not exercising appropriate governance over the privacy and security of their digital assets . . . These findings are consistent with the complaints by CISO/CSOs that they cannot get the attention of their senior management and boards and their budgets are inadequate . . . There is still an apparent disconnect. Nor is this an area in which the market can be trusted to work. As former Bush Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff has explained: The marketplace is likely to fail in allocating the correct amount of investment to manage risk across the breadth of the networks on which our society relies. This is not an area where corporations manage adequately on their own. FBI Director Robert Mueller recently explained: There are only two types of companies: those that have been hacked and those that will be. Even more trenchant, the McAfee report on the ``Shady RAT'' attacks similarly stated it is possible to divide ``the entire set of Fortune Global 2,000 firms into two categories: those that know they've been compromised and those that don't yet know.'' Kevin Mandia of the leading security firm Mandiant has explained: [I]n over 90 percent of the cases we have responded to, government notification was required to alert the company that a security breach was underway. In our last 50 incidents, 48 of the victim companies learned they were breached from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Defense or some other third party. The National Cybersecurity Investigation Joint Task Force, led by the FBI, told me the same thing: more than 90 percent of the time the corporate victim had no idea. What we can conclude from this is that improved sharing of cybersecurity threat information is necessary but is not sufficient to protect our Nation's cybersecurity. Even a perfect information-sharing process will not prevent cyber attacks if the information being shared is incomplete. The blindness of most corporations to this threat limits the effectiveness of corporate-to-corporate information sharing. The NSA's Defense Industrial Base pilot--the so-called ``DIB'' pilot-- proved the government can share classified information with trusted corporations, but it revealed significant risks and limitations, particularly if the government were to share its most sensitive intelligence information with a broad set of private companies. The third point I want to make this morning, and perhaps the most important, is that this legislation on cybersecurity will have failed if it does not ensure that our American critical infrastructure has adequate cybersecurity. There must be a process for identifying critical infrastructure, establishing appropriate security standards, and ensuring that critical infrastructure companies meet the standard. If an attack comes, we must be sure that America's most capable defenses and countermeasures are pre-positioned to defend critical American infrastructure. We simply cannot wait until an attack is underway on basic needs and services on which we depend, such as our electric grid, our communications networks, and the servers that process our financial transactions. So there are two measures here: One is that we must have a way to define critical infrastructure so we know what it is and, just as important from a civil liberties perspective, we know what it isn't. When we identify critical infrastructure on which our safety and economic and national security depend, we are also defining what does not qualify and where privacy concerns can be much more important than national security concerns. Nobody wants government in our chat rooms, e-mails, or social media; everyone gets why government should protect the electric grids that bring power to our homes. The second is that once we identify our critical infrastructure, we need to find a way for our national security assets to protect that critical infrastructure. Our government has unique capabilities to protect those basics, such as our electric grid. As Kevin Mandia has explained: [t]he majority of threat intelligence is currently in the hands of the government. Some of this information can be disclosed, but some cannot be, in order to protect sensitive sources and methods. This requires us to find other ways for our most sophisticated government capabilities to protect our critical infrastructure. For example, we should think seriously about the concept of secure domains and how they can be deployed effectively while protecting civil liberties. I am glad section 804 of the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 takes on that task by requiring expert study of the advantages and disadvantages of establishing secure domains for critical infrastructure. If the business community can identify a workable alternative approach, such as a voluntary or opt-in regulatory system, I am willing to get to work, but we must not balk at taking on the hard question of how to secure our critical American infrastructure. The last point I want to make today is that Congress, in this bill, should consider the appropriate structure and resources for the cybersecurity and cyber crime mission of the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and law enforcement components of the Department of Homeland Security. We do not do enough to investigate, prosecute, and take other appropriate legal action against cyber crime, cyber espionage and other cyber threats. Last year's takedown by the Department of Justice of the Coreflood botnet should be a regular occurrence, not a special occurrence. But it will not be--it cannot be--with our current cyber crime resources. The technical, international, and legal aspects of these investigations are too complex. I spent 4 years as a United States attorney, I spent 4 years as our State's attorney general. These are astonishingly complicated and difficult cases. They are massively resource intensive. So it is time for a fundamental rethinking of cyber law enforcement resources: both the level of resources and the manner in which they are structured. We should be discussing whether cyber crime should have a dedicated investigatory agency akin to the DEA or ATF or whether existing task force models should be used. These are important questions the legislation has not addressed. Accordingly, I plan to offer a floor amendment that will require an expert study of our current cyber law enforcement resources that can recommend a proper level of funding and structure of forces going forward. Once again, I thank my colleagues for their hard work to date on cybersecurity issues. I urge that all of us join together to pass cybersecurity legislation into law as soon as possible. Two years ago, I said that because of cyber we in the United States are on the losing end of the largest transfer of wealth through theft and piracy in the history of the world. GEN Keith Alexander, who leads the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, has reached the same conclusion when saying recently that cyber theft is ``the greatest transfer of wealth in history.'' McAfee likewise has recently evaluated the theft of national secrets, source code, designs, and other documents, and concluded that what ``we have witnessed over the past 5 to 6 years has been nothing short of a historically unprecedented transfer of wealth.'' We are the losers in that transfer of wealth. We cannot afford to wait to address this enormous and ever-growing threat. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. First, I want to thank my colleague, Senator Cardin, and just recently Senator Brown of Ohio, for referencing the highway bill. The state of play on that at this point is that the House has just passed another extension. We passed an extension back at the end of March that extended the existing highway program to the end of June. What that bill did is cause significant job loss because not knowing for sure what the highway plan will be means that jobs will fall off the list of the departments of transportation around the country. So a further extension to September--which just passed the House 1 hour ago--just makes the situation even worse. The solution to that problem is to make sure the House and the Senate appoint their conferees so we can get to conference quickly on that bill and get out a lasting authorization. So I want to again thank Senator Cardin for spending some time on the floor this afternoon on that subject. We will keep the pressure on until we actually have a highway authorization as we go through these different procedural hurdles. Climate Change I came to speak on the floor about an issue that many in Washington would prefer to ignore; that is, climate changes that are being caused by our carbon pollution. Nature keeps sending us messages about what is happening out there, and in Washington we continue to ignore those messages. But they keep on coming. Every week for the past 15 months I have distributed in our caucus, as the Presiding Officer knows, a quick thumbnail summary of the week's Climate News. The stories from this week include that ``Temperature Variations''-- which relate to the extra energy put into the climate by the warming weather--``Could Lower Life Expectancies of the Chronically Ill.'' That is one story. Another is a new report from the NOAA that ``Coral Risks Extinction Due to Climate Change.'' More than 50 coral species in U.S. waters are likely to go extinct by the end of the century, and the experts cited human-driven releases of carbon dioxide as a key driver of the ocean's warming and acidification that is causing these extinctions. A third is, ``Tree Diseases Likely to Spread as Temperatures Rise.'' According to a new report by the U.S. Forest Service, forest diseases are expected to spread more quickly in the western U.S. as climate change warms the region's forests. The fourth is a recent study published in the journal Nature, which finds that rising carbon dioxide levels drove temperature increases at the end of the last Ice Age. At the end of the last Ice Age, atmospheric CO2 concentrations rose 80 parts per million. Over the past 100 years, CO2 concentrations have risen roughly 100 parts per million. So the effects are linked very closely to climate. Other news, as reported in the Providence Journal on March 30, said: The winter's warm air temperatures have helped drive up water temperatures in the Gulf of Maine, in line with a continuing trend, and the warm waters could result in lobsters molting their shells earlier than usual and ocean algae blooming ahead of schedule. Jeffrey Runge, a biological oceanographer at the University of Maine and a researcher at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland, told the paper that the Gulf of Maine water temperatures have been rising gradually since at least the 1870s, but the increase has been pronounced in the last decade or so. Moving from the North to the South, we have Professor Emeritus Orrin H. Pilkey, a professor of geology at Duke University, who wrote in the Charlotte Observer on March 25 that new peer-reviewed research demonstrates that sea level rise and storm-surge elevations could be greater along much of the U.S. coastline than has been predicted. His opinion piece went on to say that North Carolina, Washington, California, Louisiana, Florida, and Maine have convened sea level rise panels that estimate a sea level rise of 3 to 5 feet by the year 2100. A new study has come out from the Center for Biological Diversity confirming the link between massive oyster die-offs in the Pacific Northwest and ocean acidification caused by carbon dioxide emissions. The release reports that each day the oceans absorb 22 million tons of carbon dioxide pollution from cars and industry, setting off an unprecedented chemical reaction that since the Industrial Revolution has made the world's oceans 30 percent more acidic. Just this morning in the Senate, Senators Bingaman and Murkowski held a bipartisan hearing on the devastating effects of sea level rise on coastal communities. So it is good that some leaders on both sides of the aisle are starting to talk about the terrible consequences of climate change. However, the special interests who control so much of what goes on around here and who deny that carbon pollution causes global temperatures to increase and deny that melting ice caps will raise our seas to dangerous levels still have a stronghold. Dr. Pilkey, writing in the Charlotte Observer, warned that the deniers' influence is, tragically, starting to influence local planning decisions, despite what he calls ``new studies that predict higher than previously predicted sea level rise and storm-surge levels in coming decades.'' He concludes: Preservation of the status quo (including real estate prices) may prevail on our coasts, but in a democratic society such as ours, the state has no right to shield citizens from unpleasant environmental realities. In the face of so much evidence constantly, daily, of a changing climate, we have special interests working overtime in Washington to propagate a myth. This myth is that the jury is still out on climate change caused by carbon pollution. So with the jury still out, we don't need to worry about it or even take precautions. This is simply outright false. Virtually all of our most prestigious scientific and academic institutions have stated that climate change is happening and that human activities are the driving cause of this change. On October 21, 2009, I think all of us in the Senate received a letter from virtually every leading scientific organization in the country, stating: Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver. These conclusions are based on multiple independent lines of evidence, and contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science. Contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science. So the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Chemical Society, Geophysical Union, Institute of Biological Sciences, Meteorological Society, Society of Agronomy, Society of Plant Biologists, Botanical Society, and on and on it goes of the scientific community signed up for this. It is, of course, not just the scientific community that knows that the jury is not in fact still out; that knows that in fact the verdict is in and that it is time to act. The insurance industry is alarmed about our inaction and has started to take action, holding a press conference with myself and Senator Sanders not too long ago. Marsh & McLennan, one of the largest insurance brokers in the world, called climate change ``one of the most significant emerging risks facing the world today.'' The insurance giant AIG has established an Office of Environment and Climate Change to assess the risks to insurers in the years ahead. It is not just the insurance industry. It is our intelligence community, it is our military services, many of our electric utilities, some of our biggest capitalists and investors all recognize that the jury is not still out; that in fact a verdict is in, and we should act. Unfortunately, Governor Romney once wrote: I believe that climate change is occurring. I also believe that human activity is a contributing factor. Under the pressure of the Republican primary, he has changed his views and now claims: ``We don't know what's causing climate change on this planet.'' Well, that runs contrary to the evidence. More than 97 percent of the climate scientists most actively involved in publishing on this issue accept that the verdict is actually in on carbon pollution causing climate change and oceanic changes--97 percent. Think of that in terms of your own life if you were relying on expert opinion. If you had a child who was sick and you went to a doctor and they said: She is pretty sick and she needs treatment, you thought: Well, let's be prudent and let's get a second opinion. So on you went and got a third opinion and a fourth opinion. Let's say you were just a wildly determined parent, and you went and got 99 more second opinions so that you had 100 opinions of doctors, and 97 of those 100 doctors said: Yes, your child is ill and you need to do something about this. How foolish would you be if you did not pay attention to the 97 percent and you allowed the 3 percent to sway your judgment and not take action to protect your child. Well, it looks as if Governor Romney is with the 1 percent when it comes to the economy for the middle class, and he is with the 3 percent when it comes to the science of carbon pollution. This is not very debatable stuff. The basic principle that carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere and traps more of it as its concentration increases was determined in 1863, at the time of the American Civil War. There is nothing new about this. In the early 1900s it became clear that changes in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could account for significant increases and decreases in the Earth's annual average temperatures, and that carbon dioxide released from what we call anthropogenic sources, manmade sources--primarily then the burning of coal--would contribute to these changes. This is well-established stuff, and the effects are measurable. Over the last 800,000 years, until very recently, the atmosphere stayed within a bandwidth of 170 to 300 parts per million of carbon dioxide, 170 to 300 parts per million. That is the bandwidth, and that is a measurement. That is not a theory. We know that. We can find ancient bubbles in ancient ice and measure, and there are different ways that scientists do this, but it is measurement. Since the Industrial Revolution, we have burned carbon-rich fuels, also in a measurable way. Now we know we burn up to 7 to 8 gigatons a year. That is the release. A gigaton, by the way, is a billion with a ``b'' metric tons. When you release that enormous amount of carbon into the atmosphere, it is predictable that it would have a result, and, indeed, it is having a result. We now measure carbon concentrations climbing in the Earth's atmosphere--again, a measurement, not a theory. The present concentration exceeds 390 parts per million. For 8,000 centuries we were in a bandwidth of between 170 and 300, and in recent years we have veered out that bandwidth. We are at 390 parts per million and climbing. The increase has a trajectory--there is nothing very new about plotting trajectories either. Children do that in school, soldiers do that in the field, corporations do that to plan their businesses, and scientists do that. We do that every day. If you follow the trajectory of our carbon pollution, it predicts 668 parts per million at the end of this century and 1,097 parts per million at the end of the next century. Those carbon concentrations are not just outside the bounds of 8,000 centuries but of millions of years. It is coming home to roost particularly in our oceans, which is a matter of real concern to me as a Senator from the Ocean State. In April of last year, a group of scientific experts came together at the University of Oxford to discuss the current state of our oceans. Their workshop report stated: Human actions have resulted in warming and acidification of the oceans and are now causing increased hypoxia. That is when there is not enough oxygen in the water to sustain life. Studies of the Earth's past indicate that these are the three symptoms . . . associated with each of the previous 5 mass extinctions on Earth. We experienced two mass ocean extinctions, 55 and 251 million years ago. Last year at Brown University in Providence, RI, paleobiologist Jessica Whiteside published a study demonstrating that after the earlier extinction 251 million years ago, it took 8 million years for plant and animal diversity to return to preextinction levels. We also know that in the lead-up to those extinctions, scientists have estimated that the Earth was emitting carbon into the atmosphere at the rate in the first one of 2.2 gigatons and 1 to 2 gigatons per year, respectively. You recall we are currently releasing at the rate of 7 to 8 gigatons per year. We are taking some very dangerous chances with our planet. We have very solid information that is the product of measurement and not theory about the changes that are already underway. It is a continuing disgrace that in this building and in this Chamber, we are unable to do anything about this issue because of the continuing power of a small group of special interests who are controlling the debate, who are interfering with progress, and who are putting us all at risk. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I very much appreciate the tenacity of the Senator from Louisiana on this subject. It is a characteristic of hers, but it is always a good thing to be her teammate and have that tenacity deployed on this side. I am delighted she is here. As Senator Landrieu said, she has bridges that are deficient. One in five Rhode Island bridges is deemed to be structurally deficient. One in five highways is in mediocre condition. This is work that needs to be done. The American Society of Engineers gives our infrastructure on average a D rating. That is the trouble we are in, and we can't sort this out. I intend to urge as many of my colleagues as I can to come to the floor, and I hope we get the floor covered by some of our colleagues on a literally daily basis until we get this resolved. We need to point out the places where jobs are falling off around the country because this wasn't done, where people are getting laid off around the country because this isn't getting done. There is a direct link between construction jobs not getting put on the list, funds not getting put out for those jobs and folks not getting employed. In this economy, we can't afford that, and we certainly can't afford it for internal insider Washington, DC, reasons. I thank the Presiding Officer and I yield the floor and I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am delighted to follow my colleague from Louisiana because I am rising this evening to talk about a bill she has put an enormous amount of effort into, and she has had a very significant role in the success of the bill that I am going to talk about. We have a bill in Congress that is perhaps the most significant jobs bill that will be able to pass in this session. It is described as producing 2.9 million jobs--nearly 3 million jobs. Rhode Island is a relatively small State, but it means 9,000 jobs in the State of Rhode Island. We have about 60,000 people out of work right now in Rhode Island; 9,000 would take a significant number of those folks and enable them to get to work. It is a serious jobs bill. It also went through a completely impeccable process in the Senate. It passed out of the Environment and Public Works Committee with the strong support of our chairman, Barbara Boxer, and the equally strong support of her ranking member, Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma. They come from quite different political persuasions, but they were together on this bill and it passed unanimously out of the Environment and Public Works Committee. It came to the floor. We had a completely open process on the floor. It spent 5 weeks on this floor being discussed, debated, and amended. It was quite thoroughly amended. There were more than 40 amendments that were either voted on or accepted while it was on the floor. So from a process point of view, it was exactly what everybody hopes for in a piece of legislation. It passed out of the Senate with 74 Senators voting for it; a 75th who would have voted for it but had to be away in his home State. So the final tally, in effect, would be 75 to 22--a landslide, bipartisan vote; a jobs bill that passed with an impeccable legislative process and produced a landslide bipartisan bill. What is that bill? It is the highway bill. It is a bill we have been working on now in Congress since the days of the Federal highway system under President Eisenhower. It is not complicated, everybody understands it, and 3 million jobs depend on its passage. Unfortunately, it is snarled up, for reasons that are hard to explain, over in the House of Representatives. The Speaker has not called up this bipartisan, very well regarded Senate bill. It has support outside this institution from everybody from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the Laborers' International Union. It has environmental support. This is a bill that is not being held up in the House because there is an important interest that was overlooked or that is an adversary to it. It is being held up for, I don't know, I would say Washington insider reasons having to do with the politics of the House of Representatives. So when there are 3 million jobs at stake, that is a real shame. It started to be noticed by, for instance, the ratings agencies. Standard & Poor's just published on April 2 a report entitled ``Increasingly Unpredictable Federal Funding Could Stall U.S. Transportation Infrastructure Projects.'' When we stall U.S. transportation infrastructure projects, we kill jobs. That is what is happening. Here is how they describe it: Currently, the surface transportation bill remains mired in uncertainty. Holdups in funding reauthorizations and/or significant cuts in infrastructure programs are delaying some projects and forcing others to be scaled back. Delaying some projects means taking away jobs. Forcing others to be scaled back means taking away jobs. Here is what happened, as they describe it: With the March 31 expiration of the highway trust fund looming, Congress passed on March 29--last minute--yet another extension to fund U.S. highway programs. This latest continuing resolution--the ninth--provides funding through June 30, 2012. As construction season begins in the northern half of the country, this continuing uncertainty in funding could force States to delay projects rather than risk funding changes or political gridlock come July. That is exactly what is happening in Rhode Island and in many other States. I was home over our recess and met with our very capable director of transportation Michael Lewis, who has served under Republican and Independent administrations. He said: Sheldon, I have a list of all the projects we want to get done this summer, in the summer highway construction season. We can't build highways in the winter in Rhode Island and in much of the country so the work has to be done in the summer construction season. He said: Here is my list if we have to live with this extension. If we don't find out until maybe July 4 what kind of money we actually have to build these projects, he said, I can't take chances. I have to start dropping projects off my list. Every one of the projects that falls off his list represents jobs. Every project that falls off his list is an unemployed Rhode Islander. He estimated there would be 1,000 unemployed Rhode Islanders because of this extension to June 30. So when people say: Oh, we have extended the highway program until June 30, don't buy it. That is not a neutral act. That is a harmful act. That costs 100,000 jobs just in Rhode Island. So if it is extended further, the problem gets even worse. We cannot tolerate these continued extensions. We have to get action on a long- term authorization. To go back to the Standard & Poor's report, here is what they said: Once a long-term reauthorization is approved, we believe it will provide an impetus for transportation agencies to reconsider high- priority projects that had been shelved because of lack of funding. Those high-priority projects that had been shelved because of lack of funding, when they get taken off the shelf and put into the street, that is jobs. That is why this is a 3-million jobs bill, nearly. But they say, if the authorization is extended by even more continuing resolutions, such high-priority projects will remain in limbo. I intend to come to the floor as often as I can. I know there are other colleagues who want to come to the floor. We want to come every day. We want to set up a daily drumbeat of attention to the fact that a 3-million jobs bill is being held hostage in the House of Representatives by the Republican Speaker for political Washington insider reasons that have nothing to do with the merits. This is a bill that everybody is for. We will continue to urge the Speaker to take up the bipartisan, fully paid for, widely supported, very well legislated Senate MAP 21 highway bill. Three million jobs depend on it. I am here to urge the Speaker to please do his job.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Gladly.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Yes, exactly. I have met with the Rhode Island road builders who are concerned about where the work is going to be and how much of it is going to get done. As I said in my earlier remarks, I met with the State director of transportation. I have met with the mayor of our capital city, which has a very significant highway construction project that needs to get done in that city that would provide an enormous number of jobs in that city at a time when Rhode Island still has over 10 percent unemployment. So we need these jobs. That project needs to be done. That infrastructure is crumbling. It is a land bridge that goes through the city above other roads. It is I 95. It is our main artery for the entire Northeast, and it is in such poor shape that they have had to put planks across, between the I-beams that hold up the roadway and the planks are there so that the pieces of roadway that are falling in don't land on the cars driving by on the roads underneath. Amtrak, the main rail artery for the Northeast, goes right under the same highway, the same deal. They have the planks up overhead to keep the roadway from falling on the trains below. So this is an urgent matter. It certainly involves the road construction industry, but it is everybody who wants jobs and economic development that is around this infrastructure. It is the mayors who are concerned about it and, frankly, it is the people who drive over these highways and want to know--these roads are 50 years old. It is time to rebuild. Let's get on with it. This shouldn't be complicated.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, many Americans sat down last week to prepare their taxes, knowing from Warren Buffett and others that the highest income Americans very often are paying a lower tax rate than they have to. The 400 highest income Americans, the most recent data shows, paid an all-in tax rate of 18.2 percent, on average. Some paid a lot less. One year Warren Buffett paid an 11-percent tax rate. Reuters reported today that about 65 percent of taxpayers who earn more than $1 million face a lower tax rate than the median tax rate for moderate-income earners making $100,000 or less a year. This bill will raise between $47 and $162 billion that could go for deficit reduction or hundreds of thousands of infrastructure jobs or to keep student interest rates at 3.4 percent and end the absurd inequity in our Tax Code that lets a hedge fund billionaire pay a lower tax rate than a Rhode Island truckdriver. I hope my colleagues will vote yes.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. It is my understanding there are no further speakers on the Republican side. If somebody comes, I will, of course, yield the 4 minutes. The latest report is that there are no further speakers until we move on to the judicial nomination. I wished to use the time remaining to respond to two of the points that have been made. Before I do that, let me just say that as I have kept track during the debate, the minority party has discussed debt, bureaucracy, Presidential appointments, punishment of success, ObamaCare, jobs, fuel prices, picking winners and losers, campaign contributions, out-of-control spending, equal opportunity, and massive new tax increases. The subject at hand is actually much smaller than this; that is, the indisputable fact that at the very high end of the American income spectrum, people are paying lower tax rates than regular American families--whether it is Warren Buffett's self-proclaimed example of paying only 11 percent in total taxes or the average of all the 400 highest income earners in the country being only 18.2 percent. These are people earning--in the case of the 400--over one-quarter of a billion dollars each in 1 year and paying the rate equivalent to what a single Rhode Island truckdriver pays. That is the issue. We should have a progressive Tax Code. One of the speakers said we do have a progressive Tax Code and that the income tax generates 31.2 percent of the total income tax revenue from high-income folks versus 14.2 percent from the middle as their rate. But it is worth focusing on the fact that when my Republican colleagues talk about taxes and they focus on income taxes, they leave out the payroll taxes, which virtually every American pays or a great number of Americans--more pay payroll taxes than income tax, I believe. If we look at all those taxes and put them together, we find that the top 1 percent of Americans do indeed pay 28.3 percent of the taxes. One percent pays 28.3 percent of the taxes. That sounds pretty progressive, until we realize the top 1 percent in America controls more than one- third of the Nation's wealth; the top 1 percent holds more than one- third of the Nation's wealth but pays only 28 percent of the taxes. That is not progressive, if we are measuring in what we are usually taxing, which is income and wealth, not just the existence of a human being on the planet. If we go to 5 percent, then the top 5 percent pays 44.7 percent of all our taxes, which again is a lot. It is progressive but not when we consider that 5 percent owns or controls more than 60 percent of the Nation's wealth. We are a country in which more than half the wealth of the country--more than 60 percent of it is concentrated in the hands of one-twentieth of the population, the top 5 percent. So for them to pay a higher rate makes a lot of logical sense. What we find is that they actually pay a lower rate all too often. The other point I wish to address is the argument that this will take money from the pockets of small businesses. If we look at the Office of Taxation and Treasury's definition of a small business and look at how many would be affected by this bill, it would be 3.3 percent; nearly 97 percent of small businesses would have zero effect from this bill. Of the 3.3 percent that would be affected, it is hard to know how many of those are high-income individuals who incorporated themselves for tax purposes but don't fit the ordinary definition of a small business. When we look at the fact that Americans across the country have spent the last week sitting down going through their receipts, filing their tax returns, sitting at the kitchen table trying to make sense of it all and get it filed on time, for a great number of those folks, what they know from Warren Buffett and others is that the people making one- quarter of a billion dollars a year are paying lower rates than they are, and it is not right. It is not just me saying that is not right; it is Ronald Reagan saying that is not right. He said it was ``crazy''--his word--that a millionaire should pay a lower tax rate than a busdriver pays.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, it is interesting that my Republican colleagues tend to refer to this as a tax gimmick. It was referred to as tax gimmick week because we are considering having people earning a quarter of a billion dollars pay a rate equal to what a truckdriver pays. That doesn't sound very gimmicky to me. That sounds like pretty Main Street fairness to me. But the bottom line is there is a gimmick at stake. It is the gimmick in the Tax Code that allows for that to take place, that allows for a hedge fund billionaire to claim a lower rate than a truckdriver. So if there is a gimmick here, it is the gimmick we are trying to remove. It is not a gimmick that we are trying to pursue. It has been said this is a tax on investment, a tax on job creation. It isn't. It is a tax on income, when it is declared as income. And if our purpose should be how to add back the jobs lost in the recession, we just passed a highway bill with 75 Senators supporting it, only 22 opposed--which, as we know around here in this partisan environment, is a landslide. It came out of the Environment and Public Works Committee unanimously. It had 40 amendments accepted, and now 3 million jobs are bottled up on the other end of this hallway in the House of Representatives because the Republican Speaker doesn't want to use Democratic votes. If you want to do something about jobs, tell the Republican Speaker to pass the Senate highway bill. It is as simple as that, 3 million jobs, bipartisan. So when we talk about jobs, I have a good recommendation: Pass the big highway jobs bill that is being kept bottled up here. The other point I wanted to make on the question of whether the tax system is progressive, the IRS and the Federal Reserve point out that the top 1 percent in America in terms of wealth controls 33.8 percent of the Nation's wealth, but the top 1 percent in taxes pays only 28.3 percent of the taxes when all taxes are taken into consideration. The top 5 percent controls 60 percent of the Nation's wealth, but the top 5 percent in taxes only pays 44.7 percent. So if you want to take numbers sort of without context, you can make it look as if it is very progressive, but when you measure against the wealth inequality in this country and the income inequality in this country, it is hard to say we actually are running a progressive tax system. And that is why, as Reuters reported, about 65 percent of taxpayers who earn more than $1 million face a lower tax rate than the median tax rate for moderate- income earners making $100,000 or less a year, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, on a late spring day 27 years ago, President Ronald Reagan addressed a group of high school students in Atlanta, GA. Many of the students in that audience that day were about to join the workforce, and President Reagan spoke about the ``strange''--to use his word--tax system that would soon claim a portion of their paychecks. In his speech President Reagan pledged: We're going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that have allowed some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share. He went on to note that under the country's complex tax rules, it was ``possible for millionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver [pays] 10 percent of his salary.'' President Reagan called this inequity with millionaires paying lower rates than bus drivers--to use his word-- ``crazy.'' He said, ``It's time we stopped it.'' One year later, President Reagan signed into law bipartisan tax reform that closed many of the loopholes and ensured that the highest earning Americans paid a fair share. The 1986 tax reform deal set the tax rate on investment income--overwhelmingly earned by those at the very top of the income ladder--at the same rate as regular wage income. Unfortunately, in the years that followed, lobbyists have been all over Congress, and Congress has restored many of the loopholes President Reagan cut. It has repeatedly reduced tax rates on investment income. The capital gains tax rate has gone from 28 percent in the bipartisan Reagan tax reform to 15 percent today. Once again, those at the very top of the income spectrum have opportunities to cut their tax bills that are not available to regular middle-class families. Let's look at where we are today, a quarter century after the last major overhaul of our tax system. In this photo is a building that has stories to tell. This is the Helmsley Building on Park Avenue in New York City. Because this building is large enough to have its own ZIP Code, we know from public IRS information gathered by ZIP Code that the very wealthy and successful individuals and corporations that call this building home-- with an average adjusted gross income of $1.2 million each--paid, on average, a 14.7-percent total Federal tax rate in the last available year for which we have information. A 14.7-percent total Federal tax rate is less than the rate the average New York City janitor, the average New York City doorman, or the average New York City security guard pays. The system is upside down. It is not just in the Helmsley Building. Each year, the IRS publishes a report detailing the taxes paid by the highest earning 400 Americans. Last May, the IRS published the most recent data on the top 400 taxpayers--for the year 2008. They had an average income of $270 million each. That is not bad. In fact, that is wonderful. That is part of what makes America great. But here is the ``crazy'' part--to quote President Reagan. On average, these 400 extremely high earning Americans--making $270 million in 1 year--actually paid an average Federal tax rate of just 18.2 percent on adjusted gross income. We have spent a fair amount of time in the Senate debating whether the top income tax rate should be 35 percent or something else--for example, 39.6 percent, as it was in the Clinton boom years. But the ultra rich get around this top rate through a variety of tax gimmicks. We looked at what level of income a single filer would have to make to start paying 18.2 percent or more in Federal taxes. It is $39,350. If we look at the Department of Labor levels, that is about what a truckdriver, on average, earns in Rhode Island. Mr. President, $40,200 is what an average truckdriver, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, earns in Rhode Island--more than the $39,350--which means they are probably paying a higher tax rate as a single truckdriver in Providence, RI, than a millionaire who made $270 million in the last year. That is just not fair, not right, and that is not the progressive tax system we have always had. I recently heard from one such truckdriver in Rhode Island. Mike Nunes, who is a member of Teamsters Local 251, joined me for a roundtable discussion on tax fairness in Cranston, RI. Mike said: I've been a middle-class worker here in Rhode Island since I was in my early twenties. My wife and I pay our taxes, and it's frustrating to hear that multi-millionaires are getting special treatment to pay a lower rate. Mike is right. I hear the same as I travel around my State. I know my colleagues hear the same as they meet with their constituents across the country. They all agree with President Reagan that a tax system that allows many of the highest income earners among us to pay less than a truckdriver must be fixed. The problem goes beyond the top 400 income earners in the country. The Congressional Research Service confirms that roughly one-quarter of $1 million-plus earners--about 94,500 taxpayers--pay a lower effective tax rate than over 10 million moderate-income taxpayers. Reuters reported this: Taxpayers earning more than $1 million a year pay an average U.S. income tax rate of nearly 19 percent. The story goes on: About 65 percent of taxpayers who earn more than $1 million face a lower tax rate than the median tax rate for moderate income earners making $100,000 or less a year. Let me read that again: About 65 percent of taxpayers who earn more than $1 million face a lower tax rate than the median tax rate for moderate income earners making $100,000 or less a year. Our tax system is supposed to be progressive. The more one earns, the higher the rate one pays. That is not class warfare; that is tax policy. It has been that way for decades, if not even generations. We undermine that principle when we allow the highest income Americans to pay a lower tax rate than a truckdriver pays. It is no wonder that so many of the Rhode Islanders with whom I have spoken have lost confidence that our tax system gives them a straight deal. With the top 1 percent of Americans earning 23 percent of our Nation's income and controlling 34 percent of our Nation's wealth--more than one-third--it would be difficult to argue that our system is too progressive. Let's look at this other graphic. Of all of our Nation's wealth, the top 5 percent of Americans own over 60 percent of it. Of all of our Nation's wealth, the top 5 percent own more than 60 percent of all the wealth in the country. The top 1 percent control over one-third of it. The 400 families at the very top--the 400 I talked about earlier--own almost 3 percent of all America's wealth just among those 400 families. These are proportions we have not seen since the Roaring Twenties, and they are getting steadily worse. We are not going to overhaul the Nation's tax laws this evening, but in a few hours we will have a chance to advance legislation to restore some fairness into our tax system. This long overdue bill--the Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012--would implement the so-called Buffett rule, after Warren Buffett, who has famously lamented that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. To correct this glaring tax inequity, this bill would ensure that those at the very top pay at least the tax rates faced by middle-class families. I thank Senators Akaka, Begich, Leahy, Harkin, Blumenthal, Sanders, Schumer, Reed of Rhode Island, Rockefeller, Boxer, Durbin, and Levin for cosponsoring this measure. I ask unanimous consent to add Senator Lautenberg as a cosponsor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. The structure of our bill is simple: If your total income--capital gains included--is over $2 million, you calculate your taxes under the regular system. If your effective rate turns out to be greater than 30 percent, you pay that rate--the same rate you would pay without the bill. If, on the other hand, your effective tax rate is below 30 percent-- like the 11 percent tax rate Warren Buffett paid in 2010--then you would pay the fair share tax of 30 percent instead. Taxpayers earning less than $1 million--which is more than 99.8 percent of Americans--would not be affected by this bill at all. For taxpayers earning between $1 million and $2 million, the fair share tax gets phased in. Ultimately, when you earn over $2 million, you are subject to the full 30-percent minimum rate. The one exception the bill makes to the 30 percent minimum is to maintain the incentive for charitable giving. Under the bill, taxpayers are permitted to subtract the same amount of contributions allowed under the regular income tax from their taxable income. The reason for this one exception should be self-evident: charity benefits others and taxpayers should be encouraged to give. Some say, given our fragile economic recovery, now is the wrong time to raise taxes on anyone. While middle-class families continue to struggle through the recovery, it seems the boom times have already returned for those at the very top. According to a recent analysis by University of California at Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez, 93 percent of the income growth in 2010 went to the top 1 percent of income earners. Even more astounding, 37 percent of the income growth in that year went to the few thousand taxpayers in the top 0.01 percent. With so much income growth at the very top and with looming budget deficits, it is hard to argue that people with 7-, 8-, 9-, or even 10-figure incomes can't afford to pay a reasonable tax rate. To be clear, it has been said on this floor this is a tax on investment and this is a tax on job creation. That is wrong. This is a tax on one thing: income. Republicans have criticized the amount of revenue that would be generated by the bill. The ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee called the $47 billion the Joint Committee on Taxation has estimated a meager sum. Well, in Rhode Island, we don't consider $47 billion to be a meager sum. It is enough money, for instance, to permanently keep subsidized student loan interest rates from jumping from the current 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent in July, which they will do unless we act. If we could use this bill to offset the cost of keeping student loan interest rates low, then there are millions of students out there who would call that benefit something other than meager. We could use the $47 billion on badly needed infrastructure projects and create 611,000 jobs nationwide. In Rhode Island, we have 11 percent unemployment and a long backlog of transportation infrastructure projects. At the top of that list is the viaduct bridge on Interstate 95 through Providence. This critical link along the northeast corridor running up through Rhode Island has wooden boards inserted between the I-beams underneath to prevent the concrete in the roadway from falling in on the traffic below. Also, where the Amtrak rails go underneath, there are wood planks to keep the roadway from falling in on the trains as they pass below. I don't think repair of this bridge and others would be meager at $47 billion worth, particularly if we put it into an infrastructure bank and leverage it for even more jobs. It is worth noting this legislation would generate far more revenue than the $47 billion the Republicans complain of if the Republicans were to succeed in their quest to extend the very high-end Bush tax cuts. If the Bush tax cuts for people in this bracket continue, the revenue from the bill jumps from $47 billion to $162 billion over a 10- year budget horizon. Operating as a backstop, the Buffett rule can ensure those at the top pay a fair share no matter what loopholes, no matter what special treatments Congress adds to the Tax Code in the future. Finally, the Senate Republican leader has described the bill as yet another proposal from the White House that won't create a single job or lower the price at the pump by a penny. Well, the minority leader is absolutely right. The aim of this bill is not to lower the unemployment rate or the price of gasoline. However, if you put the $47 billion into infrastructure, you could create 611,000 infrastructure jobs and a lot of good infrastructure as well. And if you put the $47 billion into LIHEAP, you could help millions of Americans pay their energy bills. But let me add an additional point. The Republicans are claiming this bill, which is a tax fairness bill, not a job-creating bill, will not create a single job. Of course, if you spent the revenue, it would, but that is a separate discussion. At the same time they are making that point, the Republicans in Washington are sitting on our highway bill which creates 3 million jobs and they won't call it up on the House side because they do not want to rely on Democratic votes. Three million jobs are awaiting action in the House on the bipartisan Senate highway bill that had 75 Senators supporting it, and they won't call it up--the Republicans won't call it up--because they do not want to use Democratic votes. What kind of Washington insider logic is that? People across this country who will go to work on those roads and bridges don't think that makes any sense. For Republicans now to be talking about jobs on this bill, while they have a jobs bill that creates 3 million jobs they are blockading in the House, the word ``jobs'' should turn to ashes in their mouths. There are plenty of things this narrow tax fairness bill won't do. It will not bring world peace, it won't save endangered whales from extension, it won't cure the common cold. It will do none of that. It will restore the confidence of middle-class Americans in our tax system by assuring those at the very top of the income spectrum are not paying lower rates than regular families do. In addition to restoring fairness to the Tax Code, the bill will generate considerable revenue to cut the deficit or invest in job creation and critical programs. I happen to think that tax fairness and tens of billions of dollars in revenue or deficit reduction are reasons enough to pass the bill. And if the Republican leader wishes to work with us on taxing other issues, I am wide open to that. But today's vote is about tax fairness. It is about undoing a gimmick in the Tax Code that allows people earning over $\1/4\ billion a year to pay lower tax rates than truckdrivers. Unfortunately, this has become a partisan issue, which is surprising, because the principle of a progressive Tax Code has always been a basic American tax policy principle. The arguments we are making today about paying a fair share were made exactly by Ronald Reagan. But things have changed and so there is this squabble. Even business owners support this bill. A recent poll conducted by the American Sustainable Business Council, the Main Street Alliance, and the Small Business Majority found that 58 percent of business owners said those making over $1 million a year are not paying their fair share in taxes and 57 percent supported increasing taxes for those at the top. That is out of the small business community. These business owners know it is simply fair for the most fortunate and successful Americans to pay a larger share of their income in taxes than less successful families do. That is what a progressive tax system is supposed to do. That is what it has always done. Sadly, over the past few decades, as income has soared at the very top, the effective tax rates have plummeted. This chart, prepared by Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad, shows the effective Federal income tax rate for the top 400 income earners since 1992. As you can see, there has been a dramatic drop from 1995 to 2008. These rates are for Federal income tax. If you add in the small amount of payroll taxes paid by those at the very top--which is a separate discussion, but they fall 100 percent on the income of middle- income families but only on a small portion of the income of super- high-end income families--the total Federal tax rate for 2008 goes up to 18.2 percent, counting in that withholding. That is, again, the effective Federal tax rate of that truckdriver in Providence. The trend in falling tax rates for those making seven figures in income or more has eroded the confidence of ordinary Americans who do pay their fair share. I will conclude with one more quote. This is another quote from President Reagan's 1985 speech on tax fairness. This is President Reagan, the man whom so many conservative Republicans revere. He said: What we're trying to move against is institutionalized unfairness. We want to see that everyone pays their fair share, and no one gets a free ride. Our reasons? It's good for society when we all know that no one is manipulating the system to their advantage because they're rich and powerful. That was President Reagan in 1985. Today, his party is defending that manipulation. In the 27 years since that speech, the American playing field has been skewed ever more toward the rich and powerful. From bankruptcy reform, which favors big corporations over people, to the Citizens United decision, which has allowed corporations and billionaires to spend unlimited cash to influence American elections, to this lower tax rate for ultra-high income earners, the American people have simply not been getting a straight deal from Washington. Many are calling the vote we will have on the Buffett rule bill today a test vote, because it is on a procedural motion, and the pundits don't expect it to pass. I agree. This is a test vote. But it is a test of a different sort. This is a test of Washington, DC, to do something that is simple, to do something that is right, and to do something that is fair for the middle class. If we proceed to and pass this bill, it will show the American people that Congress is capable of standing by their side, that Congress is capable of being on their side, that Congress is capable of saying no to a powerful and well-funded special interest. If we fail, it will indicate exactly what President Reagan feared--that the rich and powerful are able to manipulate the system to their advantage and we in Congress will do nothing about it. One of the things America stands for in this world is that we are fair with each other; we get a straight deal and we give each other a straight deal. That is one of the ways in which America stands as an example to the rest of the world. There are plenty of countries where the internal political and economic systems amount to a racket--a racket that is rigged for the benefit of the rich and powerful and against farmers and workers and small businesses and ordinary families. Some of those countries are so bad we call them kleptocracies. But that has never been America. That is not the America of the Founding Fathers. It is not the America of Ronald Reagan. It is not the America that shines its light into the four corners of the world as an example to the rest of the world. That is not the America we are here to serve. We must be vigilant in protecting the ideals that make this country what it is. I urge my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans alike, to heed the words of President Reagan and to support this legislation, which will ensure that a favored segment of the highest earning Americans once again do something as simple as pay their fair share in taxes. Let us show the American people that our Nation does stand apart as an exemplar of fairness and of equal opportunity and of equal responsibility under the law. I thank the Chair. I see colleagues in the Chamber, and I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am advised to inform my colleagues that the first vote tomorrow will be at approximately 11:10 a.m. on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 1789.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, the Senate adjourn until Tuesday, April 17, at 10 a.m.; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of Proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that following any leader remarks, the Senate be in a period of morning business until 11 a.m., with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the Republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the final half; that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 1789, the postal reform bill, under the previous order; and that the Senate recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m., to allow for the weekly caucus meetings.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following morning business on Tuesday, April 17, the motion to proceed to the motion to reconsider the vote by which cloture was not invoked on the motion to proceed to S. 1789, be agreed to; that the motion to reconsider be agreed to and that there be up to 10 minutes of debate, equally divided between the two leaders or their designees, on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 1789; that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to S. 1789, upon reconsideration.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.