Mark Warner

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. I thank Senator Udall. I know our time is running out; just a final comment I wish to make. As many of my colleagues know, I had the honor of serving as Governor of Virginia before becoming a Senator. I think one of the differences between an executive and a legislator is, as a former executive I realize that passing the bill is just the first step. What happens is going to be in the implementation afterwards. The appeal I would make, particularly to my colleagues on the other side, is, I agree with some of their points that we don't go far enough on cost containment, but there are a lot of things in this bill where we grant the Secretary the ability to start experimental programs--on cost containment, on bundling of payments. How this bill is implemented is going to be where the rubber hits the road. I, for one, believe there is more we can do around this issue of cost containment, and I hope in the coming weeks and months, rather than being for repeal, they would join with us in finding that common ground to make this legislation even better. I yield the floor.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, as we approach the end of this long journey, at least the end of the first step of this long journey, I and a number of my colleagues are going to come one more time to the floor to engage in a conversation for a few moments about what this health care bill will mean to our constituents and to the people of the United States. We are going to talk about some of the causes of how we got here and some of the consequences of what would happen if we don't act. At the end, I will add some comments about how we make sure we implement this bill in the appropriate fashion. Recognizing that the hour is late and colleagues have other business, I first ask my good friend, the Senator from Illinois, Mr. Burris, if he would like to give a brief recap of why he has been such a firm supporter of this legislation and why he thinks this bill is so important, not only to the people of Illinois but to the people of the United States.

Mr. WARNER. I thank Senator Burris for his comments. I know how hard he fought for this legislation, since day one. This legislation is going to have wide-ranging effects for people from all across the Nation. I now know my colleague, the Senator from North Carolina, wishes to speak. North Carolina and Virginia are neighbors. We both share a number of small businesses. We have a vibrant entrepreneurial flavor in Virginia and North Carolina. I know Senator Hagan has been concerned not only on the overall aspects of health care but particularly how this health care bill is going to affect small business in her State. I wish to now ask Senator Hagan to tell us how this bill will affect people in North Carolina.

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I rise today to express my strong concerns over efforts to expand service at Washington-Reagan National Airport-- National. I would first like to remind my colleagues that this Congress passed legislation in 1986 to create the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority so that a professional group of aviation experts would manage both National and Dulles airports. The Airports Authority has done its job well: Dulles has blossomed as an international gateway to the region and National remains an efficiently run airport. I recognize the value of National Airport and the critical role it plays in serving our Nation's Capital. It is a key component of the transportation system in this region and it provides excellent access to the rest of the country for my colleagues. At the same time, the citizens of my State are the ones who are most directly affected by National's operations, and we must take a balanced approach in considering any changes at the airport. My constituents are the ones who have to deal with the consequences of any decision-- additional aircraft noise, growing traffic congestion, and airport emissions that will affect them on a daily basis. I appreciate that some of my colleagues want direct service from National to destinations in their State, but we must be even-handed in moving forward on this issue. We must avoid making wholesale changes that would have an impact on the important economic balance between National, Dulles and BWI. The airport authorities that manage these airports, and the airlines that fly to them, have made long-term investment decisions based on the current rules. Dramatic changes to the rules would have a negative financial and economic impact on those airports and the communities that depend on them for economic growth. In addition, any new capacity must be allowed through a fair process that does not favor any one airline or class of airlines. The limited new capacity needs to be allocated in an open and transparent process that benefits the most potential passengers, promotes competition and does not tip the scales for any airline or class of airlines. I believe strongly that the rules currently in place at National Airport serve my state and our region well. I also recognize and respect the interests of the sponsors of the Ensign amendment and will work with Chairman Rockefeller and Ranking Member Hutchison to try to address them in conference.

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, first of all, I want to agree with my colleagues, the ranking member, the Senator from Texas, the Senator from North Dakota, and the Senator from Arizona, on the very good work that has been done on this FAA reauthorization bill and the importance of this bill, not only in terms of at least starting us down the path of NextGen and starting to recognize the safety issues that are addressed. As a member of the committee, I wish to compliment the bipartisan approach that has been taken on this important piece of legislation. I, like my colleagues and I think most Americans, want to see us move forward on this important piece of legislation. I also appreciate the ranking member's comments about the long and challenging journey this has been, about the slots and the perimeter rule battles between National and Dulles. I appreciate her comments in terms of my role as a Virginia Senator to make sure the unique nature of National and Dulles is protected. She made the comment that Senator Warner has been a fighter for this. In this case, I am simply filling the shoes of my esteemed predecessor, Senator John Warner, who I know for 20 years probably has had this battle, and my colleagues have gone through some of the twists and turns. I want to make two or three comments and not take long today because I will have more to say on Monday. One is that while National and Dulles serve our Nation's Capital, they also are the local airports for people in Virginia, DC, and Maryland, and there have been a number of issues of a unique nature with National Airport in terms of sound concerns and in terms of traffic concerns and safety concerns regarding the inability to extend any runway. I would also say with regard to Dulles that those of us who have lived in this area for decades have seen Dulles grow from being somewhat of either a foresight or a white elephant, depending on your perspective, over the last 30 years to being an international hub and an airport that has enormous potential and opportunity and has, candidly, benefited from the maintenance of the perimeter rule--an airport this government has invested in heavily. I also have to recognize that technology has changed in terms of the nature of jets in and out of National. Technology improvements have allowed for much quieter aircraft coming in and out of National, which has mitigated some of the concerns of the neighbors around the airport. We have also seen Dulles make enormous strides not only as a long-haul airport but as a gateway airport, in many ways, for international flights. Senator Dorgan made mention of the fact that the House has already acted in terms of changing the status quo. So the status quo, at least from the House perspective, is going to change. What I look forward to, hopefully, after our colloquy and conversation, is a debate on Monday. I appreciate the fact that my colleagues will offer their amendment, and if we get to a vote, we will get to a vote. If we can resolve this through a conversation, I hope we can resolve it through a conversation. But I will have that opportunity to lay out some of the challenges that these airports serve to the traveling public, and particularly to my constituents, but also recognizing that the status quo of the last 20-odd years is going to change and we want to work in a way so that change can be dealt with in a way that accommodates the needs of the local community; that maintains National's incredibly important role; that doesn't cannibalize the great progress that has been made at Dulles; and that also recognizes the traveling needs of those Americans who live outside the perimeter, in a way that strikes that appropriate balance. I appreciate the support I have received from Chairman Rockefeller and Chairman Dorgan and a number of my colleagues. I also particularly appreciate as well the good-faith efforts Senator Hutchison and Senator Kyl have made in not only raising this discussion but raising it in a way that we can perhaps resolve it so that those folks who will be on the conference committee can represent a view of the Senate that reaches that kind of accommodation, and most importantly that we can go ahead and pass this very important piece of FAA reauthorization legislation Monday afternoon. So I look forward to that conversation, I look forward to that debate, and my hope is that we can get to a final vote on passage of the bill on Monday and the good work that so many of our colleagues have done can actually be put into action. With that, I yield the floor, Mr. President.

Mr. WARNER

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

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. I thank my colleague from Colorado.

Mr. WARNER. Madam President, there are many reasons why the Senate is known as one of the world's greatest deliberative bodies. This Chamber has seen some of the most important debates and votes since the beginning of our Republic. As a freshman Senator--I know my colleague, the Presiding Officer, is also a freshman Senator and soon we will be joined by a series of freshman Senators and my good friend, the Senator from Illinois, is here as well--I think we have all been struck by how much history has been made in this very Chamber. I am reminded, as we saw last evening some of the exchanges between the majority leader and the Republican leader, there is still an awful lot that I at least feel, as a newcomer, I have to learn. But one thing has become clear to me since being sworn in a little over a year ago. Some of the very safeguards that were created to make this a serious and responsible deliberative body have been abused in a way that damages this institution. In some instances, this abuse also runs contrary to our national interest. This became very clear to me several weeks ago during the nomination and voting on Justice Barbara Keenan. Senator Jim Webb, my colleague, and I had the honor of nominating Virginia Supreme Court Justice Barbara Milano Keenan to the Federal Appeals Court for the Fourth Circuit. She is one of the most highly regarded jurists in Virginia. She received a unanimously ``well qualified'' rating from the ABA. She was reported by the Judiciary Committee unanimously last October, and then her nomination ground to a halt, first for weeks and then for months. In fact, her nomination was filibustered, if you can call it that. I recall in school thinking the filibuster was something that was only going to be used on rare occasions of issues of national concern to make sure minority rights were protected. Justice Keenan was filibustered, in effect, because one Senator placed a hold on her. Consequently, cloture had to be filed. That was despite the strong endorsement Justice Keenan had received from our new Republican Governor, Governor McDonnell. I appreciate his support of Justice Keenan. A funny thing happened when we forced the vote both on cloture and the nomination: She was confirmed unanimously. Filibustering a nominee who gets a unanimous vote, something is not right with that. That is not the way this body is supposed to work. This experience was truly an eye-opener for me. I see dozens of executive branch nominees caught up in this web. My understanding is, right now, in the second week of March, literally the Obama administration has 64 nominees pending. These are nominees where, despite overwhelming committee votes, they have languished on the calendar for months, often because one Senator has a completely different gripe about a completely unrelated issue. The Presiding Officer knows, she and I were both Governors, we were both CEOs. I think it is incredibly important, whether you are a Governor, whether you are a CEO of a private company, and particularly if you are the President of this great country, you ought to be able to have your management team in place, clearly, 14 months after the inauguration of President Obama. I certainly do not believe the Senate should be a rubberstamp for nominees. Far from it. In cases where there is legitimate disagreement about qualifications of any particular nominee, I am all for having a debate and then a straight up-or-down vote. But that has not been the case. It has not been the case with Justice Keenan, and I am going to cite one other individual today, and I know my other colleagues are going to be citing others. The individual I wish to talk about is Michael Mundaca. He has been nominated by President Obama to be Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Tax Policy--a very important job in crafting tax and revenue policies. He is both highly qualified and well respected, having worked previously at high levels of the Treasury Department and in the international tax department of Ernst and Young. He has a law degree from UC Berkeley School of Law and was executive editor of the California Law Review. As I understand it, Mr. Mundaca's nomination was approved overwhelmingly, 19 to 4, in the Senate Finance Committee before Christmas. Since then, he has been denied a vote in this body, not over any substantive concerns. If there is a concern about Mr. Mundaca's qualifications, a Senator ought to come and make that case, and we ought to have a debate. No, that is not the reason. It is because one Senator or group of Senators has decided to try to leverage this nomination to some other end. To me, that is simply not fair. This morning--I see my colleagues starting to arrive--many Senators who are relatively new to the body will take to the floor. We are the new guys and gals, the freshmen and the sophomores. Maybe we do not understand all the rules and traditions. We basically spent our first year trying to learn those rules and traditions. But one of the issues that has united us in all coming here this morning is because the nomination process is broken, and we are asking all our colleagues--Republicans and Democrats--to come together, not as partisans but as Americans. In the last four Presidential terms, there have been two Democrats and two Republicans holding the White House. I am confident we would be here regardless of who occupies the White House because a President deserves his or her management team to be in place 14 months after inauguration. If there are problems with their nominees, they ought to be debated and brought to the floor and discussed, not simply left in limbo. We need to start doing our job and start voting up or down on these nominees who are languishing on the Senate calendar. I see my colleague who is much more experienced than this freshman, my good friend, the Senator from Rhode Island. I now yield 4 minutes to my friend, Senator Whitehouse.

Mr. WARNER. Madam President, I appreciate the comments of Senator Whitehouse and his pointing out one more example of a qualified nominee who needs to be voted on up or down. I now call upon my friend and colleague from Illinois, Senator Burris.

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. I thank my colleague from Colorado. I ask unanimous consent that 7 minutes of morning business be added to each side and at the end of that time, the Senate stand in recess as provided for under the previous order. I thank my colleagues on the other side for their courtesy.

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Scott Glick, a member of Senator Warner's staff, be granted the privilege of the floor during the pendency of morning business.

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2010, at 10 a.m.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2010, at 3 p.m. to hold an International Operations and Organizations, Democracy and Human Rights subcommittee hearing entitled ``The Future of U.S. Public Diplomacy.''

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2010, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Nominations.''

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2010, at 10 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``We the People? Corporate Spending in American Elections after Citizens United.''

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the subcommittee on Public lands and Forests be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2010, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD- 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the subcommittee on Science and Space of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2010, at 2:30 p.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2010, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. WARNER. 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 March 10, 2010, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``The Lessons and Implications of the Christmas Day Attack: Watchlisting and Pre-Screening.''

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2010, at 2 p.m. in the President's Room.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2010, at 9:30 a.m., to hold a hearing entitled ``Building on Success: New Directions in Global Health.''

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2010, at 9:30 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Personnel of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2010 at 10:30 a.m.

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about a bipartisan, commonsense amendment that Members of this body endorsed yesterday by unanimous consent. I wish to thank Chairman Baucus for his work and the work of his staff in managing this important job creation package on which we took a step yesterday. I wish to thank Senator Crapo for cosponsoring this bipartisan amendment and Senator Coburn for his ideas and support. My amendment is simple. It amends the Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009--what I think most folks refer to commonly as the stimulus--to correct gaps in oversight and transparency. It provides much needed additional accountability for these public investments, again, that have come about through the stimulus package. I voted for the stimulus package. It was one of the first and toughest votes I cast as a Member of this body. I have worked hard to make sure my State, the Commonwealth of Virginia, has had opportunities to compete for its fair share of this funding. The Recovery Act was not perfect, and reasonable people can debate whether it was necessary or whether it was ambitious enough. But I do think it is fair to say that the majority of the economists of all political stripes across most of the ideological spectrum now agree a year later that while imperfect, the stimulus package prevented our battered economy from sliding over a cliff last spring into what I think could have been a full-scale economic depression. Almost a year ago, I remember coming to this floor for one of my first presentations, and I stood on the Senate floor and spoke of my concerns about the potential challenges of implementing a piece of legislation as big as the Recovery Act. At that time, I said we needed to come up with a common set of definitions, performance metrics, that would allow us to honestly measure our progress as these stimulus dollars were pumped into our economy. I know that metrics, performance indicators, and other things--many Members' eyes start to glaze over when you go into these kinds of discussions, but if we are going to be truly responsible to the people of this country, it is our job to make sure we put in place, particularly when we start new programs, those kinds of performance metrics. As the Chair knows, prior to being Senator, I had the opportunity to be Governor. The hallmark of my administration was, that which gets measured gets done. My sense was that as we started down the ambitious path around the Recovery Act, we needed to have those same kinds of metrics in place. I suggested a year ago requiring specific timelines and checkpoints so we could better track the outcome of programs funded by stimulus dollars. I discussed at that time steps we could take to hold Recovery Act recipients more accountable. I actually recommended delaying or deferring stimulus payments if progress was not adequately demonstrated or appropriately reported. Here we are a year later, and while I do believe the macro level of a lot of the stimulus activities has accomplished its goals, it appears that requirements for program reporting and disclosure of spending plans have gone missing or just have not been reported and that the notion of putting in place, in effect, a business plan for some of the new programs of this legislation has never fully been vetted. In the amendment this body adopted yesterday--this bipartisan amendment--we have successfully included fixes to make sure that on a going-forward basis, we will not have this problem. When we passed the Recovery Act 1 year ago, we required recipients to report quarterly, we required agencies to post reports, and we established an oversight board to tackle issues of waste, fraud, and abuse--the Recovery Accountability Board. We required the Congressional Budget Office, various inspectors general, and the Government Accountability Office to provide oversight. One would think, with all this reporting and oversight, that we would have it totally covered, that we would have thought through all of the ramifications. Unfortunately, a year later we have found that is not the case. Not that anyone here needs a recap, but I think it is fair to once again explain--and I do not think particularly those of us who are supporting the Recovery Act and the administration ever did a very good job of actually explaining to the American people what was in the Recovery Act. It is not a long recap, but I do think it is important for viewers and my colleagues to recall what it was. Literally more than one-third of the stimulus act was tax cuts, $288 billion of tax cuts. I believe it was, in effect, the third largest tax cut in American history. As I travel Virginia--and the Presiding Officer, I know, travels the great State of Illinois--I very rarely find a constituent who realizes the stimulus had a huge amount of tax cuts. We have only paid out less than half of those dollars, but a third of the stimulus was tax cuts. A second third was direct assistance to State and local governments. I can tell you, in the Commonwealth of Virginia, I sometimes run into the legislators there, some folks from the other side, who oftentimes will say to me: Senator, we are going to keep kicking you in the tail about the stimulus, but keep sending those checks because otherwise we would be right down the tubes at the State level. Oftentimes, these dollars have gone to prevent what would have been otherwise catastrophic layoffs in our schools, in our highway departments, providing health care. Many State governments that are working on biennial budgets are finding, in the second year of the budget when the stimulus dollars run out, the enormous budget shortfalls they are going to face. Again, for many of our constituents, because these dollars did not necessarily create new jobs but prevented massive additional layoffs, I am not sure we conveyed that to folks adequately. The third part of the stimulus package and the category I am primarily concerned with today and the focus of my amendment included significant new investments in our Nation's economic infrastructure. These are areas this body and policymakers have talked about for years, but we never really put our moneys where our mouth was until the stimulus. These areas include such policy goals as smart grid; investing in high-speed rail; making sure we have the power of information technology to transform our health care industry to make it more productive and cost-effective, so we have significant dollars in health care IT; and an area I am particularly interested in: deployment of broadband across our rural communities. As you can see in this third category, as of mid-February we have only paid out about $80 billion of a total of $275 billion. And it has now become clear that many of the programs in this third category are what I would term ``high risk.'' That means they include Federal programs that sought enormous increases in funding and new responsibilities. Some of these programs barely existed a year and a half ago. They had relatively modest priorities before. But now with broadband, we have seen a 100-fold increase, and dramatic increases in health care IT. These programs have had a year to gear up, but we have to make sure they actually have business plans that can be vetted. In some cases, these stimulus funds were actually designated for brand-new priorities and new programs. Now many of these programs are just now a year later getting their stimulus funds out the door. Here is the challenge my amendment will address: We simply do not know a year in and with $80 billion being spent out very much about how these high-risk programs are actually doing in terms of delivering broadband, health care IT, and smart grid. For example--let me turn to the next chart--on the Web site recovery.gov, you learn that the Energy Department has paid out about $2.5 billion in stimulus money so far. Close to another $24 billion remains to be spent out. If we look even further, we find that the Energy Department complied with OMB requirements last year to come up with an implementation plan for its Weatherization Assistance Program. The Energy Department plan set a clear and reasonable goal. It said it would use stimulus dollars to weatherize 50,000 homes across the country in 2009. Weatherization programs are geared to low-income homes. They help the homeowners. They decrease energy costs and decrease our commitment on foreign oil. There is a lot of good in this program. But a report from the Energy Department just 3 weeks ago showed that these funds actually paid to weatherize only 30,000 or so homes in 2009. That means the programs missed the goal by 20,000 homes. That is a score of 60 percent. When I was in school, 60 percent was not a passing grade. We should be concerned that almost every dollar of the $5 billion program for weatherization has already been awarded. We have to make sure we are getting the results we were promised. How can we have confidence these grants already in the pipeline for this year are going to be properly managed? We must have more transparency and accountability from the Energy Department about how they are managing this program and overseeing the spending of these funds. There are the same kinds of challenges around the smart grid program. I am not just picking on the Department of Energy. If we look at the other areas--health care IT and rail--we find similar challenges. There is no information, beyond once these funds are distributed, how this fund distribution fits into the overall management of these new programs. That information should be easily accessible and available to taxpayers, and it should be reported on a regular basis to those of us in Congress who have this oversight responsibility. If these agencies are not meeting their milestones or deadlines and if stimulus programs are not producing measurable results, we need to know about them. If there are problems of potential barriers to distributing these stimulus funds, we in the Congress and the administration could do more to support reasonable solutions. We should be able to work together to fix the management barriers that have slowed down this work. It is not too late. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the government spent only about 18 percent of the stimulus funds in fiscal year 2009. By the end of this fiscal year--that means October of this year, 2010--that number grows to about 54 percent. But that still means over half of the dollars will be spent out after October of this year. That means much of the stimulus funding remains in the pipeline, and that means we have an opportunity now to correct any management and transparency gaps. Our amendment this body adopted will do that in three important ways: First, it requires agencies to update and refine their implementation plans they developed last year for these high-risk programs. We define ``high risk'' as any program that received more than $2 billion or any program that saw a funding increase of 150 percent or more from the previous year's funding. These are the programs that went from quite small to ramping up to huge amounts. It also includes brand-new programs. Under our amendment, these programs will be required to update their stimulus implementation and oversight plans by July 1. As a former business guy, what that means in legislative speak is they have to show us their business plan in a way that is intelligible and understandable to the taxpayers and to Congress by July 1. Second, our amendment would require these high-risk programs to report their outcomes to Congress and taxpayers every quarter beginning September 30. We cannot wait for a year to go by to see if these programs that are spending billions of dollars are actually achieving their goals. These reports must include relevant information on spending and outcomes that clearly measures whether these programs are working and meeting the goals defined basically in the business plans they would have submitted by July 1. Finally, our amendment adds an enforcement mechanism to make sure that Federal agencies, Members of Congress, and the public have access to the information they deserve to evaluate whether these stimulus investments are actually working. One of the things we found is that close to 1,000 recipients of stimulus funding in this last quarter never even filed the required reports so that we know and the taxpayers know how these dollars are being spent. The amendment will impose civil and financial penalties on stimulus grant recipients who deliberately or consistently fail to comply with quarterly reporting requirements. The amendment provides sufficient discretion for the Attorney General and the courts to set these penalties and to make sure there is consideration of whether the recipient is a nonprofit organization or State and local government or a small business. Again, we are not trying to unduly penalize, but we want to put some teeth in the fact that these organizations that are recipients of Federal funds document what they are doing with those funds. This is basic accountability. Once again, I applaud my colleagues for stepping up in a responsible and bipartisan way to correct obvious gaps in management, accountability, and transparency of the Recovery Act programs. With so much of the stimulus funding still in the pipeline, this amendment will allow us to dramatically improve the way we measure and report outcomes and demonstrate accurate, verifiable results for the taxpayers. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I rise today, and while I am speaking as in morning business, it is actually speaking in support of the legislation the chairman of the Finance Committee talked about, just taking it in a slightly different direction. We spend a lot of time talking in this body about the necessity for us to focus on jobs and how Americans feel about that search for jobs. We read about unemployment numbers at 9.7 percent. While we say, with some relief, the numbers did not pop up during February, those numbers are still way too high. I had a personal experience--I was not planning on speaking on the Senate floor, but I wanted to share with my colleagues and others an event that happened--actually is still happening--about 45 minutes south of this Chamber. My office had decided to sponsor a jobs fair, where we would bring together more than 30 Federal agencies. We located this jobs fair down 45 minutes, as I mentioned, south of here at the University of Mary Washington at their Stafford campus. For those who do not follow all of the ins and outs of Northern Virginia, we are blessed in Northern Virginia and Virginia overall with actually a rather low unemployment rate. Statewide our unemployment is about 7 percent, and in Northern Virginia our numbers are even much lower. As I mentioned, we put together this jobs fair, not unlike what the Chair has done or other Senators have done. We were well represented with over 30 Federal agencies--from TSA to the Peace Corps to the Fish and Wildlife Service. We put out the word, not knowing exactly what kind of response we would get. This is the first jobs fair I have hosted as a U.S. Senator. At first we were a little worried. Last week, last Wednesday we only had about 75 RSVPs for this jobs fair on a college campus south of Washington. But by that Friday night we had almost 3,000 folks signed up. By yesterday afternoon, we realized, oh, my gosh, our numbers were topping out about 5,000, and we were warning people that perhaps all of the accommodations we put in place were not ready to handle this many folks. We extended the hours of the jobs fair from noon to 12 to actually 4 o'clock today. When my staff started showing up this morning about 6:30 or 7, there were 500 people waiting in cars, many of whom had been sleeping there for hours. By 9 o'clock, when the jobs fair was supposed to start, 3,000 people were in line. I showed up there about 9:30, and, regrettably, before noon, we had topped out over 5,000, probably closer to 7,000 folks clogging the roads trying to come to this jobs fair in Stafford County, VA. Unfortunately, we had to cut it off at that point and put out the word that we would try to have another jobs fair with these Federal agencies and some private sector partners within the next few weeks. The response was overwhelming. As I mentioned earlier, I spent an hour simply going up and down the line of folks who were waiting. Many of these folks were people who had graduate degrees; almost all of them had college degrees. They looked like any of the kind of workforce we would see crossing any parts of our Nation's Capital today. I heard story after story of folks who had never ever expected to show up at a Federal jobs fair, folks who had never ever expected to see their lives turned topsy-turvy by unemployment, or by folks who were still unable to change jobs because of their constraints on health care. None of these folks were looking for a handout. They were just looking for that opportunity to talk with some of the 35-plus representatives from Federal agencies about the possibilities of getting a job. All they wanted to do was try to do a better job for themselves and their families. So as we return to the debate on the so-called tax extenders bill, and when we work, as I know I have with the Presiding Officer, on efforts to kind of free up credit for small business owners or when we talk about how we can provide other kinds of incentives with the private sector to jumpstart the economy, while it was great to provide the possibility of these jobs in the public sector, the vast majority of jobs will and should be created in the private sector. As we think about this piece of legislation right now, to make sure our Tax Code is supportive enough of those private sector efforts, I saw the reason for those efforts this morning in the thousands in one of the most prosperous parts of our country, in Northern Virginia. I came back more charged up than ever that what we do here is terribly important and that the folks there in that line didn't understand rules about filibusters or holds or all the other procedural back and forth that sometimes seems to dominate the floor. What they did want us to do was to put that aside, put our partisanship aside and get the job done of trying to create more and more jobs all across the country. It is my hope in the coming weeks, when we have the next jobs fair, we will have the same kind of response. I look forward to the day, hopefully in the not too distant future, when we have a jobs fair, whether it be in Virginia or in Minnesota, that we get a few folks but that we don't get overwhelmed with the kind of literally unprecedented number of the 7,000 folks we saw today. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.