Sheldon Whitehouse

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I thank the Chair.

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on December 7, 2011, at 2:30 p.m. in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building. The Committee will hold a hearing entitled, ``Turning the Investigation on the Science of Forensics.''

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs' Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on December 7, 2011, at 2:00 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Enhanced Supervision: A New Regime for Regulating Large, Complex Financial Institutions.''

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs' Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia and the Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery and Intergovernmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on December 7, 2011, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a joint hearing entitled ``From Earthquakes to Terrorist Attacks: Is the National Capital Region Prepared for the Next Disaster?''

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on December 7, 2011, at 9:30 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Homegrown Terrorism: The Threat to Military Communities Inside the United States.''

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on December 7, 2011, at 10 a.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Drug Shortages: Why They Happen and What They Mean.''

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on December 7, 2011, at 10 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Reauthorizing the EB-5 Regional Center Program: Promoting Job Creation and Economic Development in American Communities.''

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President I come to the floor to speak in support of President Obama's nomination of Richard Cordray, from Ohio, to be the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He is a former attorney general, former solicitor general, and former State treasurer of Ohio. He is unquestionably well qualified to take on the position for which he has been nominated. Unfortunately, we are stuck in a Republican filibuster of Mr. Cordray's nomination. Sometimes there is a hidden ulterior motive around here. In this case, there is a stated ulterior motive: to weaken the new agency's power to protect consumers. Republican obstruction of Mr. Cordray's nomination has nothing to do with Mr. Cordray himself. Former Republican Senator and current Ohio attorney general Mike DeWine has called Mr. Cordray very well qualified for this job. Just last month, eight Republican attorneys general colleagues of his joined 29 Democratic attorneys general in writing to Leaders Reid and McConnell with their support for Mr. Cordray's nomination. Mr. Cordray has been endorsed by groups as varied as the AFL-CIO, the Credit Union National Association, the National Fraternal Order of Police, and the AARP. But notwithstanding widespread bipartisan support on Main Street, Senate Republicans are seeking to prevent Mr. Cordray from taking office as a service to Wall Street. As one Republican member of the Senate Banking Committee said: ``My colleagues and I stand by our pledge that no nominee to head the CFPB will be confirmed by the U.S. Senate regardless of party affiliation without basic changes to the Bureau's structure.'' What are these basic changes? The basic changes the Republicans have demanded include: making the agency subject to the budgetary influences of Congress, which given the way Congress is behaving is a way of allowing the influences of Wall Street to come through and control it, and also replacing the Director's position with a board that would ensure that Wall Street is represented. These are not constructive changes. These are an attempt to weaken a regulator designed to protect consumers. I hope my Republican colleagues will reevaluate their filibuster of Mr. Cordray's nomination. But in the event they do not, let's take a moment to review the consequences for the American people. As many of our constituents know, in Rhode Island and in Minnesota, we established the CFPB in the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act as a new agency to protect American consumers from misleading and potentially ruinous financial products. After the subprime mortgage catastrophe, the logic behind that is pretty clear. We designed this new agency to be for mortgages, credit cards, student loans, debt collection, credit reporting--what the Consumer Product Safety Commission is for toaster ovens, toys, baby strollers, batteries, and swimming pools. Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren first proposed such an agency, and I was very proud to cosponsor Senator Durbin's original Financial Product Safety Act of 2009, which was the first bill to bring Professor Warren's idea to the Senate. We designed the CFPB to investigate consumer financial products and gave it the power to make rules ensuring that financial products are transparent and fair, including, for the first time, providing Federal oversight of previously unregulated loans and financial services from nonbank financial institutions. Those institutions are often the ones that get regular Americans in deep and unexpected trouble because of tricks and traps in those contracts. When you look at the length and the amount of fine print in consumer contracts and when you look at the extent to which different traps and tricks get hidden in all that fine print in order to catch consumers in things they weren't aware of and would not accept if they had been aware of them, the reason for this oversight is obvious to most Americans. Indeed, it is my contention that Americans in today's society are the most bedeviled group of humans in history by fine print. Everywhere you go, you find fine print filled with tricks and traps that fool you, that kick up your interest rate or give away rights that you have. So what we want is a little bit of a fair shot and a straight deal for the American consumer. Under the temporary direction of the Treasure Secretary, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is actually already up and running. It is now regulating the largest banks in the country--those with over $10 billion in assets--as well as credit unions. Unfortunately, its authority to protect consumers from these other financial products will be unclear until there is a Director, which may be another motive for blocking a Director. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is already out there looking out for American consumers to make sure big banks and credit unions are playing by fair rules, but it has not yet been able to regulate the nonbank companies, such as mortgage services, the private student loan lenders, debt collectors, payday lenders, and credit reporting agencies. While the Senate Republicans filibuster this nominee--a very qualified nominee, an indisputably qualified nominee--some of the worst financial actors in the country remain unaccountable for their deceptive and harmful practices. Predatory lenders near military bases continue to charge our servicemembers effective interest rates of up to 800 percent. Private student lenders continue to withhold clear information about repayment terms from young students taking out these loans. Debt collectors continue to bully and harass those who are on the edge of bankruptcy. So-called payday lenders continue to dupe senior citizens into taking out loans bearing triple-digit interest rates. This is the status quo Senate Republicans are preserving by blocking Mr. Cordray's nomination. Consumer protection against these kinds of practices should not be a partisan issue. I really hope our colleagues across the aisle at least allow us to have an up-or-down vote on this nomination. The majority rules, so let's vote and let's go. Every day that Republicans continue their obstruction, Americans from all walks of life--from students, to senior citizens, to our men and women in uniform--will continue to be subjected to unchecked and unregulated deceptive financial products. They will continue to be prey for predatory loan instruments. Abusive lending practices that strip wealth from communities and purchasing power from consumers continue to hold back our struggling economy. Let's confirm Mr. Cordray so that he can begin the hard work of leveling the playing field for the American consumer and help ordinary Americans get a straight deal in our increasingly complex economy. I hope we will be able to do that. I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of the Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act of 2011, which I am introducing today with Senator Sessions, Senator Durbin, Senator Graham, Senator Leahy, Senator Feinstein, Senator Nelson of Florida, Senator Bennet, Senator McCaskill, and Senator Pryor. This bipartisan bill is an important step in protecting American consumers and businesses from injuries caused by defective products manufactured outside the United States. Those products hurt American consumers--they lead to serious injuries, and even death--and they hurt the American businesses that must deal with angry customers, product recalls, and unusable inventory. The list of recent examples of Americans injured by defective foreign products is shocking. Sadly, the situation is no better than when we first introduced this legislation in 2009. A recent rash of cases involving children's toys is particularly chilling because children are so susceptible to the effects of defective products, and because there is no worse nightmare as a parent than seeing harm befall your child, particularly when that harm is preventable. The following are just a few of the many examples of defective and dangerous toys and children's products that are being sold to unknowing parents: On October 27, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced a settlement with a foreign toy maker because a line of its craft kits contained beads that were, unbelievably, coated with the chemical GHB, also known as ``the date-rape drug.'' Children who swallowed the beads became comatose, developed respiratory depression, or had seizures. Over 4.2 million of these toys were sold. A week earlier, a line of wooden peg toys made by a foreign manufacturer were recalled for having small parts that could choke toddlers. Earlier this year, there was a recall of jewelry marketed to children 12 years old and under because it contained cadmium, which can cause cancer. The cadmium levels in these products were as high as 2,300 times the legal limit in California, where the jewelry was distributed. Foreign toys have been found to contain dangerous levels of lead. In 2007, a major toy company was forced to recall 18.6 million foreign- made toys for containing lead or dangerous magnets. The same year, another major company had to recall more than 1.6 million foreign-made toys for containing lead. In 2006, a foreign-made, lead-tainted charm bracelet claimed the life of a 4-year-old. The autopsy demonstrated that the charm was 99 percent lead, 1,650 times more than the 0.06 percent lead limit specified in enforcement guidelines for children's jewelry. However, it is not just toys and other children's products that pose risks. In 2008, a contaminated blood thinner from a foreign manufacturer caused severe medical reactions and contributed to numerous deaths. Imported food products from seafood to honey have been contaminated with unthinkable chemicals, including veterinary drugs banned in domestic production, potentially harmful antibiotics, and unapproved food additives. Tens of millions of packages of pet food contaminated with tainted wheat gluten have been recalled. Substandard tires have failed, leading to fatalities. Defective drywall imported from China has been found to contain excessively high levels of sulfur, causing houses to smell like rotten eggs, corroding copper wiring, making expensive appliances fail, causing respiratory an other health problems, and making homes unlivable. Thousands of homes have been affected. I am very pleased that tomorrow Senator Pryor will chair an important hearing of the Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance, focusing on this contaminated drywall, and its awful consequences. At a hearing that I chaired in 2009, the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts explored the legal hurdles facing consumers who are injured by defective foreign products and by businesses that find that their foreign partners refuse to honor their contracts. These hurdles allow foreign manufacturers to injure American businesses and consumers with impunity. They also put American manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage since they allow foreign manufacturers to offer cheaper products that do not comply with American safety requirements. Two major hurdles to proper accountability are the inability to serve process on the foreign manufacturer and the ability of that foreign manufacturer, even if served, to evade the jurisdiction of American courts. Legislation to address these issues is both necessary and appropriate. The Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act addresses both concerns. The first problem, the inability to serve process on a manufacturer, essentially means that it is difficult for an American to give a foreign manufacturer the legally required notice that it is the subject of a lawsuit. This sounds like a simple step, and it should be. Unfortunately, however, it is very hard to serve process on foreign companies abroad. Service abroad is complicated by the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extra Judicial Documents in Civil and Commercial Matters, to which the United States is a signatory. Under that convention, a complaint must be translated into the foreign language, transmitted to the Central Authority in the foreign country, and then delivered according to the rules of service in the home country of the defendant. This can cause months and even years of delay, not to mention great expense for Americans. The Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act will allow Americans to overcome that procedural hurdle by serving legal papers inside the United States on registered agents of foreign manufacturers. The bill requires the heads of Federal Government agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration to pass regulations requiring that foreign manufacturers of products regulated by their agencies register an agent who will accept service of process. It allows regulators to exclude manufacturers who only import a minimal amount of products into the United States. It imposes a minimal burden on foreign manufacturers, since they would only have to appoint one agent to accept service of process for all State and Federal regulatory and civil actions anywhere in the United States. The bill allows the manufacturer to choose any location for that agent with a ``substantial connection to the importation, distribution, or sale'' of their products. This clear and straightforward system will allow Americans to commence their lawsuits fairly and promptly, and ensure that foreign manufacturers have proper and fair notice of the proceedings brought against them. It will not conflict with American obligations under the Hague convention, since that convention applies to service of process on foreign manufacturers in their home countries, not in the United States. The second hurdle, the inability to establish personal jurisdiction over foreign manufacturers, can end a lawsuit against a foreign manufacturer before it even begins. Think about how unfair this is. A foreign manufacturer sells its defective products in the United States, injures American consumers and businesses, and then argues that it is not subject to the courts in the state where the American was injured-- in legal parlance, that the courts do not have personal jurisdiction over it. Foreign manufacturers raise this technical legal defense to avoid liability even when serious injuries or even death have been caused by their products--their defective tires, fireworks, exercise equipment, bikes, and toys. The Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act will enable injured Americans to surmount this hurdle. It will make clear to foreign manufacturers that by importing their products into the United States and by registering an agent in the United States, they are consenting to the jurisdiction of the courts in the state where their agent is located. By consenting to jurisdiction, the manufacturers will be unable to engage in unnecessary and expensive legislation about technical legal issues and allow courts to settle the merits of disputes. This approach is fair to foreign manufacturers since all American manufacturers are subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of at least one state. This bill therefore complies with the trade principle that we should not subject foreign manufacturers to burdens not already imposed on domestic manufacturers. Indeed, the Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act is ultimately about fairness. We all know American manufacturers comply with regulations that ensure the safety of American consumers and businesses. When they fail to do so, they must answer to regulators and are held accountable through the American tort system. Unfortunately, foreign manufacturers are not being held to the same standards-- injuring American consumers and businesses, and putting American manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage. We must level the playing field for all manufacturers and provide justice for American consumers and businesses. The Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act will allow us to make a major step in that direction. It covers major product categories including consumer goods, drugs, cosmetics, and chemicals, and it requires relevant agencies to study workable approaches to ensure that foreign food producers also are brought within the ambit of the American legal system. Because of its benefits to consumers, this legislation has the support of several leading consumer groups, including Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America, U.S. PIRG, and the National Association of Consumer Advocates. Protecting Americans and holding foreign manufacturers accountable when their products harm American consumers and businesses is a bipartisan issue. Everyone agrees that we should do what we can to keep Americans safe from defective products. So too, I think, do we all agree that American companies should not be at a competitive disadvantage to their foreign counterparts. The Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act builds on those fundamental agreements. I am grateful to my colleague Senator Sessions, and the bill's other cosponsors, for their hard work on this bill. I know that they all feel the impacts of harmful, defective foreign products in their home states, just as we feel it in Rhode Island. I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to see this important legislation passed into law.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of the Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act of 2011, which I am introducing today with Senator Sessions, Senator Durbin, Senator Graham, Senator Leahy, Senator Feinstein, Senator Nelson of Florida, Senator Bennet, Senator McCaskill, and Senator Pryor. This bipartisan bill is an important step in protecting American consumers and businesses from injuries caused by defective products manufactured outside the United States. Those products hurt American consumers--they lead to serious injuries, and even death--and they hurt the American businesses that must deal with angry customers, product recalls, and unusable inventory. The list of recent examples of Americans injured by defective foreign products is shocking. Sadly, the situation is no better than when we first introduced this legislation in 2009. A recent rash of cases involving children's toys is particularly chilling because children are so susceptible to the effects of defective products, and because there is no worse nightmare as a parent than seeing harm befall your child, particularly when that harm is preventable. The following are just a few of the many examples of defective and dangerous toys and children's products that are being sold to unknowing parents: On October 27, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced a settlement with a foreign toy maker because a line of its craft kits contained beads that were, unbelievably, coated with the chemical GHB, also known as ``the date-rape drug.'' Children who swallowed the beads became comatose, developed respiratory depression, or had seizures. Over 4.2 million of these toys were sold. A week earlier, a line of wooden peg toys made by a foreign manufacturer were recalled for having small parts that could choke toddlers. Earlier this year, there was a recall of jewelry marketed to children 12 years old and under because it contained cadmium, which can cause cancer. The cadmium levels in these products were as high as 2,300 times the legal limit in California, where the jewelry was distributed. Foreign toys have been found to contain dangerous levels of lead. In 2007, a major toy company was forced to recall 18.6 million foreign- made toys for containing lead or dangerous magnets. The same year, another major company had to recall more than 1.6 million foreign-made toys for containing lead. In 2006, a foreign-made, lead-tainted charm bracelet claimed the life of a 4-year-old. The autopsy demonstrated that the charm was 99 percent lead, 1,650 times more than the 0.06 percent lead limit specified in enforcement guidelines for children's jewelry. However, it is not just toys and other children's products that pose risks. In 2008, a contaminated blood thinner from a foreign manufacturer caused severe medical reactions and contributed to numerous deaths. Imported food products from seafood to honey have been contaminated with unthinkable chemicals, including veterinary drugs banned in domestic production, potentially harmful antibiotics, and unapproved food additives. Tens of millions of packages of pet food contaminated with tainted wheat gluten have been recalled. Substandard tires have failed, leading to fatalities. Defective drywall imported from China has been found to contain excessively high levels of sulfur, causing houses to smell like rotten eggs, corroding copper wiring, making expensive appliances fail, causing respiratory an other health problems, and making homes unlivable. Thousands of homes have been affected. I am very pleased that tomorrow Senator Pryor will chair an important hearing of the Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance, focusing on this contaminated drywall, and its awful consequences. At a hearing that I chaired in 2009, the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts explored the legal hurdles facing consumers who are injured by defective foreign products and by businesses that find that their foreign partners refuse to honor their contracts. These hurdles allow foreign manufacturers to injure American businesses and consumers with impunity. They also put American manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage since they allow foreign manufacturers to offer cheaper products that do not comply with American safety requirements. Two major hurdles to proper accountability are the inability to serve process on the foreign manufacturer and the ability of that foreign manufacturer, even if served, to evade the jurisdiction of American courts. Legislation to address these issues is both necessary and appropriate. The Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act addresses both concerns. The first problem, the inability to serve process on a manufacturer, essentially means that it is difficult for an American to give a foreign manufacturer the legally required notice that it is the subject of a lawsuit. This sounds like a simple step, and it should be. Unfortunately, however, it is very hard to serve process on foreign companies abroad. Service abroad is complicated by the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extra Judicial Documents in Civil and Commercial Matters, to which the United States is a signatory. Under that convention, a complaint must be translated into the foreign language, transmitted to the Central Authority in the foreign country, and then delivered according to the rules of service in the home country of the defendant. This can cause months and even years of delay, not to mention great expense for Americans. The Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act will allow Americans to overcome that procedural hurdle by serving legal papers inside the United States on registered agents of foreign manufacturers. The bill requires the heads of Federal Government agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration to pass regulations requiring that foreign manufacturers of products regulated by their agencies register an agent who will accept service of process. It allows regulators to exclude manufacturers who only import a minimal amount of products into the United States. It imposes a minimal burden on foreign manufacturers, since they would only have to appoint one agent to accept service of process for all State and Federal regulatory and civil actions anywhere in the United States. The bill allows the manufacturer to choose any location for that agent with a ``substantial connection to the importation, distribution, or sale'' of their products. This clear and straightforward system will allow Americans to commence their lawsuits fairly and promptly, and ensure that foreign manufacturers have proper and fair notice of the proceedings brought against them. It will not conflict with American obligations under the Hague convention, since that convention applies to service of process on foreign manufacturers in their home countries, not in the United States. The second hurdle, the inability to establish personal jurisdiction over foreign manufacturers, can end a lawsuit against a foreign manufacturer before it even begins. Think about how unfair this is. A foreign manufacturer sells its defective products in the United States, injures American consumers and businesses, and then argues that it is not subject to the courts in the state where the American was injured-- in legal parlance, that the courts do not have personal jurisdiction over it. Foreign manufacturers raise this technical legal defense to avoid liability even when serious injuries or even death have been caused by their products--their defective tires, fireworks, exercise equipment, bikes, and toys. The Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act will enable injured Americans to surmount this hurdle. It will make clear to foreign manufacturers that by importing their products into the United States and by registering an agent in the United States, they are consenting to the jurisdiction of the courts in the state where their agent is located. By consenting to jurisdiction, the manufacturers will be unable to engage in unnecessary and expensive legislation about technical legal issues and allow courts to settle the merits of disputes. This approach is fair to foreign manufacturers since all American manufacturers are subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of at least one state. This bill therefore complies with the trade principle that we should not subject foreign manufacturers to burdens not already imposed on domestic manufacturers. Indeed, the Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act is ultimately about fairness. We all know American manufacturers comply with regulations that ensure the safety of American consumers and businesses. When they fail to do so, they must answer to regulators and are held accountable through the American tort system. Unfortunately, foreign manufacturers are not being held to the same standards-- injuring American consumers and businesses, and putting American manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage. We must level the playing field for all manufacturers and provide justice for American consumers and businesses. The Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act will allow us to make a major step in that direction. It covers major product categories including consumer goods, drugs, cosmetics, and chemicals, and it requires relevant agencies to study workable approaches to ensure that foreign food producers also are brought within the ambit of the American legal system. Because of its benefits to consumers, this legislation has the support of several leading consumer groups, including Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America, U.S. PIRG, and the National Association of Consumer Advocates. Protecting Americans and holding foreign manufacturers accountable when their products harm American consumers and businesses is a bipartisan issue. Everyone agrees that we should do what we can to keep Americans safe from defective products. So too, I think, do we all agree that American companies should not be at a competitive disadvantage to their foreign counterparts. The Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act builds on those fundamental agreements. I am grateful to my colleague Senator Sessions, and the bill's other cosponsors, for their hard work on this bill. I know that they all feel the impacts of harmful, defective foreign products in their home states, just as we feel it in Rhode Island. I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to see this important legislation passed into law.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I thank the chairman and the ranking member.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I appreciate the courtesy of the Senator from New Hampshire. I will not speak long. I know she is here waiting to speak, as we go back and forth across the aisle in sequence. I want to begin by thanking Chairman Levin and his ranking member, Senator McCain, for the work they have done on this detention issue. I think they have made a lot of progress, and I look forward to continuing to work on the Senate floor to try to conclude what I hope will be a successful agreement for everyone. Amendment No. 1092 But I am here to speak about amendment No. 1092 to the National Defense Authorization Act, which is the piece that has been put in that responds to the serious and ever-growing problem of counterfeit parts that appear in our military supply chain. Our Nation asks a lot of our troops. We send them far away. We send them into danger. We ask them to suffer prolonged separation from their families. We ask them to put their life and limb in peril. In return, we have a high obligation to give them the best possible equipment to fulfill their vital missions and come home safely. In order to assure the proper performance of our weapons systems, of our body armor, of our aircraft parts, and of countless other mission critical parts, we have to make sure they are legitimate and not counterfeit parts. That was why I introduced the Combating Military Counterfeits Act, which was reported without objection by the Judiciary Committee on July 21 of this year. It is cosponsored by my colleague, Senator Graham, whom I see on the floor; by the ranking member, Senator McCain--again, my appreciation to him--Senator Coons; the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy; Senator Kyl; Senator Schumer; Senator Hatch; Senator Blumenthal; and Senator Klobuchar. I thank all of those cosponsors for their support and leadership on this important issue. I particularly want to thank Chairman Levin and Ranking Member McCain for including this legislation in their amendment No. 1092, which was offered earlier today. Senator Levin and Senator McCain led an in-depth investigation in the Armed Services Committee into this problem of military counterfeits, and they have drawn on that investigation in making these important reforms that will protect military procurement from counterfeit parts. I am very glad they believe, as I do, the enhanced criminal penalties in my bill would provide a useful complement to those important changes. Prosecutors have an important role to play in the fight against military counterfeiters. The criminals who sell counterfeit military products should not get off with light sentences. They knowingly sell the military, for instance, counterfeit body armor that could fail in combat, a counterfeit missile control system that could short-circuit at launch, or a counterfeit GPS that could fail under battlefield conditions. The Combatting Military Counterfeits Act of 2011 makes sure appropriate criminal sanctions attach to such reprehensible criminal activity, first, by doubling the maximum statutory penalty for an individual who trafficks in counterfeits and knows the counterfeit product either is intended for military use or is identified as meeting military standards; and, second, by directing the Sentencing Commission to update the sentencing guidelines as appropriate to reflect our congressional intent that trafficking in counterfeit military items be punished seriously, sufficiently to deter this kind of reckless endangering of our servicemembers. The administration has called for these increased sentences for trafficking in counterfeit military products. In the private sector, this legislation is supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Semiconductor Industry Association, DuPont, the International Trademark Association, and the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition. I thank all of them for their work and leadership on this issue. One semiconductor manufacturer, ON Semiconductor, which has a development center in East Greenwich, in my home State of Rhode Island, has written a letter of support explaining that military counterfeits are a particular problem since ``[m]ilitary grade products are attractive to counterfeiters because their higher prices reflect the added costs to test the products to military specifications, specifications that include the full military temperature range.'' So it is a target area for counterfeiters. I will say, without going on at any great length, the examples are shocking. The Defense Department, for instance, has found out in testing that what it thought was Kevlar body armor was, in fact, nothing of the sort and could not protect our troops the way proper Kevlar can. In another example, a supplier sold the Defense Department a part that it falsely claimed was a $7,000 circuit that met the specifications of a missile guidance system. A January 2010 study by the Commerce Department quoted a Defense Department official as estimating that counterfeit aircraft parts were ``leading to a 5 to 15 percent annual decrease in weapons systems reliability.'' The investigation, led by Chairman Levin and Ranking Member McCain, revealed countless other grave and sobering examples. I am glad we are responding to the serious and ever-growing threat posed by counterfeit military parts. Again, I thank Chairman Levin and Ranking Member McCain for their great work to eliminate counterfeit parts from the military supply chain, and I hope all my colleagues will support their amendment No. 1092. I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table en bloc with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements related to the resolutions be printed in the Record.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am not going to speak very long tonight, and I am not going to speak very formally either. But I did want to come back to the Senate floor and make a point again that I have made repeatedly here on the Senate floor before; that is, there is a path to reform of our health care system that will improve the quality of care for patients, will improve the experience of care for patients, will improve the outcomes of care for patients and for our Nation, and will lower costs for our country. The reason I come to raise that point again is that the Senate is now awash with rumors that the 12 Members of Congress--Senators and Congressmen--who have been tasked with trying to create a solution to our deficit problem are going to cut Medicare benefits by hundreds of millions of dollars. That is, as best I can tell, only a rumor. I certainly cannot vouch for it being true. Indeed, I hope it is not true. The time I wish to spend this evening is to remind my colleagues it is a very unfortunate and mistaken path to take to follow the road of benefit cuts at a time when the road to reform is so promising in terms of the win-win of better care at lower cost. It is not just me saying this. The President's Council of Economic Advisers has said the annual savings that could be accomplished with health care delivery system reform, without reducing anybody's quality of care or access to care--indeed, I would hypothesize actually improving quality of care--is $700 billion a year in the American health care system. The President's Council of Economic Advisers is not alone in that opinion. The Institute of Medicine has just said it is around $770 billion a year. A few years back, the New England Healthcare Institute said it was $850 billion a year. And the Lewin Group, which is a fairly well respected health care consultancy here in Washington, as well as George Bush's Treasury Secretary, Secretary O'Neill, have both agreed annual savings could be $1 trillion a year--all by improving the quality of care and the coordination of care. I do not know if it is exactly going to be $700 billion or $1 trillion, but my point is, there is a big savings target out there that everyone from President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, to George Bush's Treasury Secretary, to a lot of very well thought of groups in between, including our National Institute of Medicine, all agree on. So I think that makes it a very important target to pursue in this discussion. It is not just me in believing, at this potential split in the road, we should work and fight very hard to make sure we are taking the right path and we do not go down the easy-to-score but unnecessary and unhelpful path of benefit cuts, which singles out seniors in Medicare and does nothing about the underlying costs of the system and makes it the wrong road to follow when we have a well illuminated path that can move us toward a better, more efficient delivery system that provides better quality health care, better outcomes, fewer hospital-acquired infections, better coordinated care, stronger electronic health records--all of the things that will support a truly modern health care system that can be the envy of the world. That is the choice we have. I think it would be a terrible mistake to go the benefit cuts route instead of the reform route, and it is not just me who says that. George Halvorson is the chief executive officer, the CEO, of Kaiser Permanente. Kaiser Permanente is one of the biggest health care systems in the country. It provides health care in many States, and George Halvorson is a very serious individual who knows his stuff in health care. He would not be the CEO of that big company if he did not. Here is what he said the other day: There are people right now who want to cut benefits and ration care and have that be the avenue to cost reduction in this country. And that's wrong. It's so wrong, it's almost criminal. It's an inept way of thinking about health care. That is not me. That is the CEO of Kaiser Permanente. There are people right now who want to cut benefits and ration care and have that be the avenue to cost reduction in this country and that's wrong. It's so wrong, it's almost criminal. It's an inept way of thinking about health care. Yet that is the direction that it looks like we may be taking, the inept direction. I had a hearing in the HELP Committee--the Presiding Officer, Senator Bennet of Colorado, is a member of that HELP Committee--and we had some very interesting witnesses. Because the path toward savings through reform is not just a HELP Committee path, this is not something that some academic has constructed and maybe if you take that path things will work, this is a path that major corporations, major health systems, major hospitals in this country are already walking. They are already walking down that path. Kaiser is one of them. Blue Shield of California is another. Intermountain out in the West is a third. Mayo, Geisinger, Gundersen Lutheran--there are a number along the East Coast. These are companies that have determined this is the right path, and they are walking that path. Two folks were there from such companies. One was Dr. Gary Kaplan, who is at the Virginia Mason health system in Seattle, WA. Despite its name, Virginia Mason, it is actually in Seattle, WA, on the other coast. He pointed out that they went through a quality management transformation in their hospital with a cultural transformation, with a process transformation. As a result, they have made significant improvements. Just in one back pain reform process they did with 2,000 patients, they calculated they have already saved $1.7 million on 2,000 back pain patients, and those patients are happier with the new regime, the less-expensive regime, than before because they are getting better quality care. He testified they saved $11 million in planned capital investment, reduced inventory costs by $2 million through supply chain expense reductions, reduced staff walking distance by 60 miles per day, reduced labor expenses and overtime and temporary labor by half a million dollars in just 1 year, reduced professional liability insurance premiums by 56 percent, reduced their self-insured retention fund by 70 percent, reduced the time it takes to report lab tests by more than 85 percent, and improved their medication distribution, reducing errors, reducing the time when a patient first calls Virginia Mason's breast clinic with a concern to the time they receive a diagnosis from 21 days to 3 days, and many patients receive their results on the same day. These are the kind of improvements that have put Virginia Mason at the front end and make them, according to the Leapfrog Group, one of the top hospitals in the country. They are walking the walk of improving the quality of their operations, improving the quality of care and saving money by doing so. The other witness was Greg Poulsen from Intermountain. He described two examples. One was a sepsis program for people who are admitted to the hospital suffering from sepsis throughout their system. Sepsis is a dangerous condition. Sepsis, on average, has a 40-percent mortality rate. So 4 out of 10 people with sepsis die of it. They have reduced the 40-percent mortality rate from sepsis to 5 percent--from 4 in 10 dying to 1 in 20 dying. Did it cost a lot of money to do that? Was that a big investment they had to make? Did it cost the taxpayers a lot to save those lives? No. What they found is they saved $10 million with that improvement. Similarly, they have a diabetes program that has been described by the former CEO of the Mayo Clinic as the diabetes program he would go to if he were sick with diabetes that has ``the best outcomes and lowest costs in the country.'' They saved $5 million a year on diabetes treatment by going to better health care providing. There is a problem, as he pointed out. That $10 million they saved is actually a revenue loss. Because when they saved money by not having unnecessary care, by not having complications, by having things be more efficient and streamlined, what they did was they reduced their billing to the insurance companies, and it is actually the insurance companies, it is the payers who saved the $10 million. What the providers spend is a revenue loss. So we have our system upside down in that respect, and that is one of the ways we need to reform our system. A third witness who was there was a Rhode Islander. His name is Chris Koller. We have a unique office in Rhode Island, an office of health insurance commissioner. He is the only health commissioner in the country. Also, I tease him that he is the tallest insurance commissioner because he is unusually tall, but that is easy because he is the only one. But he has done a very good job of bringing our hospitals and insurance companies together to try to focus on the ways we can deliver care better. One way is through prevention and primary care. It turned out that in Rhode Island, the amount of every health care dollar that was spent on primary care was 5.9 percent. So every $1 spent on health care in Rhode Island, less than 6 cents, went to primary care, went to your regular family doctor and the basic health care providers. Less than 6 cents out of every $1. The insurance companies have more overhead than that, administering the system. The costs of administration of the health care system is more than the primary care providers get out of the system. That is another sign that the system is upside down. He is encouraging them, and they have agreed, to step up the spending on primary care by 1 percent a year for 5 years. We believe that is going to make a very substantial cost savings because there is so much that a primary care provider can handle without having to go to a specialist, without having to go to the emergency room, without the condition getting worse because they could not find you, by simply making primary care more accessible and more available. So the additional expense for primary care should bring down system costs overall and having it designed more intelligently. I will close with a few words from the witness, Dr. Kaplan, who said that through the work they have been doing on reform and efficiency, he said: ``We have demonstrated that the path to higher quality, safer care is the same path to lower costs.'' He actually said that if we could get more transparency to the system about who is doing a better job and who is not, what the outcomes are for different hospitals, that basically where we are right now in the delivery system reform provisions that were in the Accountable Care Act, he described them as one of the last chances of a market-based system. This is somebody who is in this business all the time and is actually running a hospital that is actually producing results. This is a person who is steeped in the reality of health care, and contrary to what we hear in the cartoon version that infects Washington, where ObamaCare is socialized medicine and is a step away from market-based care, this practitioner says the potential of the Accountable Care Act, as I see it, is one of the last chances of a market-based system. It could actually lead to a market, whether it was Medicare and Medicare Advantage as parts of Medicare or the commercial sector, that we would actually be able to understand what we are buying and what we are paying for. That is the kind of commonsense transformation we need. You remember, Dr. Kaplan said: We have demonstrated the path to higher quality, safer care is the same path to lower costs. Gary Paulsen, Intermountain, and other organizations have shown that improving quality is compatible with lowering costs. Indeed, high- quality care is generally less expensive than substandard care, and the primary challenge for us and the main reason more organizations do not adopt the high-value model discussed in the hearing that we held is the underlying fee-for-service payment system which predominates, of course, in the United States. We pay doctors for doing more, not for doing better. We pay doctors for doing more things to you rather than getting you well. Because we do that, we have the results we have. When you look at that mess, you can say, OK, we are going to leave all that alone. We are not going to follow the path that Intermountain, that Gundersen, Lutheran, that Virginia Mason has proven, that Kaiser has argued for and proven, that so many systems around the country are doing, you can say, we are going to forget all that. We are going to leave it in place. We are going to leave it a mess, and we are just going to cut benefits away from seniors, from our elderly, from the people who need care the most, from the people who paid into the system, from the people who do not have a chance to recover, very often from people who are not in a position to direct their own care and make effective choices if they are the very elderly on Medicare or worse, the Medicare-Medicaid dual eligibles. We are going to go after those people. We are going to cut their benefits, and we are not going to take the trouble to follow the path the professionals who are doing this are already showing is a path that leads to saving, is a path that leads to a better health care system, is a path that leads us out of the difficult position of being the only country in the world that spends 18 percent of our GDP on health care, of being the most inefficient country in the world in health care by a 50-percent margin. The next closest country in terms of inefficiency in health care is about 12 percent of GDP. We are at 18. Why is it necessary that America has to be the most inefficient health care provider in the world of all the countries we compete with by a factor of nearly 50 percent? That is half again worse than the most inefficient competitor we face. It makes no sense to be in that position. There is enormous room for improvement. The path to that improvement is clear. It is already being walked by serious and responsible institutions that have set this as their corporate goal. That is where we should go. I will close again by repeating George Halvorson's exhortation. He is one of the great health care leaders in this country. He is a savvy corporate manager. He runs an enormous health care corporation. This is not an idle opinion of his. There are people right now who want to cut benefits and ration care and have that be the avenue to cost reduction in this country and that's wrong. It's so wrong, it's almost criminal. It's an inept way of thinking about health care. Those are CEO George Halvorson's words, not mine. I hope that they ring through this body and we don't make the mistaken decision to go after Medicare benefits and instead take the positive path of reform and improvement. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. We have just passed through a very significant landmark in this country which is that student debt, the burden of college loan debt Americans have to carry, broke through $1 trillion. That is $1 trillion in debt. And because of the laws that have been set up to favor the banks, in particular in this Congress, the debt is not dischargeable in bankruptcy. That is a $1 trillion burden on folks who required loans to get through college that they can never shake off that is going to stay with them for their lives, for as long as it takes to pay it down even when things don't work out for them. So it is a very significant milestone when it hits $1 trillion of this particular kind of very onerous debt. One of the responses to it is the Pell grant. The Pell grant helps people who can't afford college have the chance to go to college. It helps them pay their way through college, and it does so without leaving that burden of debt behind. It is named after Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island, a Senator and a man who was very important to me in my life and in my development as a political figure in Rhode Island. He was a very dear friend and went almost inexplicably out of his way for me on many different occasions. I am deeply indebted to him. But I am also extremely proud to represent Rhode Island in the Senate and to represent a State that produced Senator Claiborne Pell and, particularly as we face this massive burden of debt, to come to the floor to participate in this colloquy in support of the Pell grant. I will turn to my colleague, Senator Tester, in one moment. First, I wish to say how important this is to individual people who wouldn't have the chance otherwise. I was at the University of Rhode Island just a few weeks ago. I met a woman named Amber, who is 29 years old. She is not the standard ``come out of high school and go on to college'' student. She is actually a mom. She has two kids. She works full time and she goes to school full time and she is the mother of two kids. This is a very busy person and a very energetic and capable person. The only way she can make things work in her life and enable her to be a full-time mom, a full-time employee, and a full-time student is because the Pell grant that she gets bridges the gap between what she can earn, what she can borrow, what she has to pay, and gives her the chance to move into the college-educated status. As we know from looking at this recession we are in right now, there are two economies in America. There is an economy for college-educated people--an economy in which the top unemployment rate is below 5 percent--and then there is the economy for people who have not had the benefit and the good fortune of a college education, for whom unemployment is nearly twice as high and for whom the suffering brought on by the Wall Street meltdown and the subsequent recession has been much more acute. I will turn now to Senator Tester. I appreciate so much that he has come to join us today to help our colleagues, I hope, come to the realization that cutting Pell grants as we face our debt and our deficit problem would be a wild mistake, a terrible mistake, would undercut the progress we are trying to make, and would be one of the worst places to go for spending cuts. Even though I admit we need to make them, the Pell grant is the wrong place to look. I yield to my distinguished colleague, Senator Tester.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I thank the Senator. As my colleague knows, we have a very distinguished colleague from the Senate who has now gone on to be the Secretary of the Interior of the United States, Ken Salazar. I see former attorney general and now Senator Blumenthal from Connecticut has joined us for this colloquy, and he knows Ken Salazar was the attorney general of Colorado, an attorney general with both of us. Ken grew up on a farm in Colorado that, until his generation, didn't have running water and didn't have electricity. His generation was the first generation to go to college. When I got here, he was a Senator and his brother was a Congressman. It never would have happened if it hadn't been for the Pell grant. It was the Pell grant that allowed those boys, from a faraway corner of Colorado, who were eighth-generation Americans, to be the first generation that got their foothold in college and were able to propel themselves from that to remarkable leadership of our country. It shows what ordinary Americans are capable of when the Pell grant gives them that launching pad. I appreciate that the Senator from Montana brought up the effects on Indian Country as well. I know Senator Blumenthal wishes to say a few words.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I say to Senator Blumenthal, one of the things that has taken place is that the value to the individual student of the Pell grant has actually declined quite a lot over the years since it was first initiated. When the first Pell grants came out, they paid for nearly three- quarters of the typical 4-year public college tuition; 72 percent of that tuition. Now they are down to 32 percent; less than one-third. So there is a lot of room to increase what we can spend on Pell grants. I think it is pretty clear from what the Senator has said and from what Senator Tester has said that once someone is college educated, they step into a different economy with a top unemployment rate through this awful recession of below 5 percent, they step into a whole new set of opportunities, and they step into opportunities that have a higher income potential for them, all of which redounds back to the benefit of our country in higher revenues, in a stronger economy, and in more innovation and economic development. So we are going in the wrong direction is the way I would respond, and it is time, instead of doing what the Republicans in the House have suggested, which is to go even further in the wrong direction, even potentially eliminating this grant, calling it welfare, for Pete's sake--remember Amber. This is a woman with two children, working full time and going to school and what enables her to tie that together--the last piece, the keystone in the arch--is the Pell grant. You call that welfare? This is a welfare recipient? I do not think so. But that is the kind of attack these things are under, and it is not just institutions like Connecticut is famous for and Rhode Island is famous for--super high-end institutions that are internationally renowned--but it is also basic community colleges and technical colleges, places where people can get a solid career. I know Senator Tester wants to say a few words about that and then Senator Landrieu.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Yes. That is a great point, I say to the Senator. One of the unfortunate aspects of the current condition we have in Washington, DC, is that a party that has long supported Pell grants--it has long enjoyed bipartisan support--has suddenly, after--what has it been, 30 years of support for the Pell grant--has suddenly walked away from it, has suddenly decided: No, we have a new agenda. Helping people who cannot otherwise afford college to have a chance to go to college, without carrying that trillion-dollar burden of debt and to be able to move up into the college-educated economy and into the opportunities and potential that creates, that is not what we are interested in any longer. We are interested in other things. Clearly, they are interested in protecting the tax breaks for people making over $1 million. We tried to get jobs legislation through here. It was paid for with a tiny tax only on the dollars over $1 million that people earning over $1 million earn. On the first million dollars, there is no difference. The second million dollars is where it started to kick in. No, no. We stopped jobs legislation over that. But when it comes to a kid who cannot afford college, that is a program they suddenly want to take a whack at. I think it is regrettable because there is a long history of very honorable, sincere, and enthusiastic Republican support for the Pell grant. Frankly, there is nothing Democratic or Republican about an American young person having the chance to begin to climb the ladder of success. That is a common American dream. That is common to both parties. Yet now, in this strange environment we now have to inhabit in Washington, this other party has decided: No, we are walking away from that. In the House, they tried to knock more than $1,750 out of the average grant. They would have put nearly 5,800 students in Rhode Island off the Pell grant. When we hear from people such as Amber, who would not be able to do it but for that--this group I spoke with at URI was so impressive. We had regular students who were right in line. We had the nontraditional students, such as Amber, who had their kids. We had faculty who years ago had gotten their Pell grants and now they are teaching others. They have made a career in academia as a result of that first foothold they got in higher education through the Pell grants. How one would want to cut it at that point by that much, when we have these people--it is just enough to make it possible for them. When we cut it by over $1,750 for a lot of those kids, for a lot of those working moms, it means: No, we are pulling, as the Senator said, the rug out from under them. They do not get that chance. We all win when young Americans step forward. Everybody in America wins when young Americans reach their full potential and create industries and do a great job and save lives as surgeons or nurses or EMTs and pay revenues through their taxes through their successes to support our great country.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I will yield the floor with appreciation to my colleagues, Senator Landrieu, Senator Tester, and Senator Blumenthal, for coming together to urge our colleagues to support the Pell grant.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I wish to ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Montana, Mr. Tester, the Senator from Louisiana, Ms. Landrieu, and the Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Blumenthal, and I have unanimous consent to engage during majority morning business time in a colloquy.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, the Senate stand adjourned until 10 a.m. on Thursday, November 17, 2011; 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 for 1 hour, 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; and that following morning business, the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. 1867, the Department of Defense Authorization Act, under the previous order.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to; the Nelson amendment to the preamble, which is at the desk, be agreed to; the preamble, as amended, be agreed to; the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; and that any statements related to the resolution be printed in the Record.