S5880 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE August 1, 2012 

‘‘Secretary’’ each place it appears and inserting ‘‘Nuclear Waste Administrator’’. 

(d) REPORTS.—Section 508 of the Nuclear 

Waste Policy Act of 1982 (42 U.S.C. 10268) is 

amended in the first sentence by striking 

‘‘Congress and the Secretary’’ and inserting 

‘‘Congress, the Nuclear Waste Administrator, and the Nuclear Waste Oversight 

Board’’. 

(e) TERMINATION.—Section 510 of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (42 U.S.C. 

10270) is amended by striking ‘‘Secretary’’ 

and inserting ‘‘Nuclear Waste Administrator’’. 

SEC. 509. REPEAL OF VOLUME LIMITATION. 

Section 114(d) of the Nuclear Waste Policy 

Act of 1982 (42 U.S.C. 10134(d)) is amended by 

striking the second and third sentences. 

By Ms. LANDRIEU (for herself, 

Mr. GRASSLEY, Mr. BEGICH, Mr. 

BLUNT, Mrs. BOXER, Mr. 

FRANKEN, and Ms. KLOBUCHAR): 

S. 3472. A bill to amend the Family 

Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 

1974 to provide improvements to such 

Act; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. 

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I 

come to the floor to speak about a bill 

that I have the pleasure of helping to 

lead with several of my colleagues, particularly Senator GRASSLEY, who has 

been my long-standing partner and a 

wonderful cochair of the foster care 

caucus. There are any number of us, 

Republicans and Democrats, who have 

our eyes on and our hearts connected 

to the 500,000 children who are technically being raised by the government. 

The government does many things 

well, but raising children isn’t one of 

them. So it is our responsibility, when 

we enter into or respond to a case of 

abuse, gross abuse, neglect, or gross neglect, that we respond appropriately by 

removing children from homes who 

have, unfortunately, been tortured at 

times by their own parents. That, of 

course, is inconceivable to me and to 

many, but, unfortunately, it happens. 

So we remove children—hopefully 

temporarily—until the situation at 

home can be addressed with community services, faith-based services and 

support, where the children can be reunited with parents who have been 

healed, possibly, of their situation. 

That is not always the case, and we 

work as quickly as we can to find responsible and able relatives to take in 

the child—willing and able relatives, 

the law says, to take in the child with 

sibling groups intact. If that is not possible, then we seek to find a family in 

the community that will adopt these 

children. 

The thing I want to say about these 

wonderful children is that while their 

families may be broken—families may 

disintegrate for all sorts of reasons, including mental health, drug abuse, uncontrollable violence, criminal activity 

that disintegrates the family, and children are most certainly affected—these 

children, in many instances, aren’t broken. Their families are broken. The 

possibility of these children, from the 

ages of zero to 1 or 2 or 3 or 9 or 12 or 

15, being given an opportunity to be 

adopted into the loving arms of a stable family who will raise that child or 

children as their own or to be reunified 

with loving family members is ideal. 

As I said, governments do many 

things well, but raising children isn’t 

one of them. Human beings raise other 

human beings, and we need to do a better job of placing our children in quality, temporary foster homes, and then 

finding permanent, loving homes. 

We have this crazy notion in America 

and around the world that children are 

grown when they are 18, so we put all 

of their belongings in a plastic bag and 

we say goodbye to them, and we tell 

them: Please forget my cell phone 

number because you have aged out of 

the system. 

Several of us have been working for 

years, including former Senator 

Chafee, for one, to create more permanent opportunities for extended, independent living. While I support that—it 

is much better than putting their 

things in a bag, their few little items 

after 18 years, and sending them on 

their way—we now can extend that 

help until they are 21. However, what 

we really need to be doing is finding 

families for these children. 

I am 57 and I still need my family. I 

still talk to my mother and father almost every day. I was with my family 

this weekend. They will be with me and 

have been with me for every important 

moment of my life. When did somebody 

get a notion that children don’t need a 

family after they are 18? It is a silly 

notion, and it is not even true. We 

would not send our own children into 

the world alone by themselves. So our 

whole foster system needs great reform, and we are working on that. 

But one piece of this system that 

needs reform is what we are trying to 

address today by introducing the Uninterrupted Scholars Act, which is a bill 

that Senator GRASSLEY and many others, including Senator BEGICH, Senator 

BLUNT, Senator BOXER, Senator 

FRANKEN, and Senator KLOBUCHAR have 

graciously agreed to cosponsor and provide their leadership. Congresswoman 

BASS is a U.S. Representative from 

California’s 33rd District. She, along 

with Congresswoman BACHMANN from 

Minnesota, Congressman MARINO from 

Pennsylvania, and Congressman 

MCDERMOTT from Washington State, 

has introduced the same bipartisan bill 

in the House. So we are very excited 

about the strong bipartisan support for 

this bill. 

All this bill says—and it makes such 

sense I can’t believe it is not in the law 

already—is that when a child comes 

into the care of the government, the 

government agency responsible for the 

care of this child—now it is not parents 

any longer because the parents’ rights 

either have been terminated or are in 

the process of being terminated—the 

government will have the right, or the 

agencies representing the government, 

to their academic records. 

What is happening now is foster children are getting lost not only in the 

system but lost in their schools because of the difficulty in getting access 

to education records under the guise 

that these records should be private, et 

cetera. 

What is happening is some of these 

privacy rules are not protecting the 

children, they are protecting the system that is broken, and that is the 

problem. We are doing everything we 

can to protect the privacy of the child, 

but what is happening is some of these 

privacy rules are putting up a screen so 

that we can’t find out that the school 

is not doing its job on behalf of the 

child, or the social workers are not 

doing their job on behalf of the child. 

So this simply streamlines the process of making sure academic records 

can be accessed by foster families—either adoptive families or guardians— 

without having to go through the 

courts for a long, extended timeframe. 

I think this is an important change. 

It is one of probably 100 changes to this 

system that need to be made. Of 

course, we can make these new laws in 

Washington. A lot of this has to be carried out with heart and compassion and 

common sense, which, unfortunately, 

we cannot legislate from Washington. 

But what we can do is try, when we see 

a problem—this problem was identified 

not by me or by my staff. It was actually identified by foster youth who 

came up here this summer to intern 

and brought to our attention the issue 

that some of their records are not accessible to their foster families who are 

trying their best to raise them and to 

help them, et cetera. So the young people themselves have asked for this 

change. We are happy to accommodate 

that request. 

Let me end by saying again, there 

are over 480,000—about 400,000 to 

500,000—children who are in our foster 

care system representing less than onehalf of 1 percent of all the children in 

America, which is about 100 million. 

But it is an important one-half of 1 percent because these are children whose 

families have failed them terribly. 

These are children who are vulnerable 

and need us to love them extra specially, to help them extra specially. 

That is what some of us spend a good 

bit of our time trying to do because 

they are willing and able to become 

great citizens of our Nation but need 

that extra special help. 

So this Uninterrupted Scholars Act 

will give access, appropriately with 

protections, to their academic records. 

Senator FRANKEN has a bill to give 

them choice in public schools to help 

give them stability in their public 

schools, so they can stay with their 

friends, their teachers, as they, unfortunately, have to move around in the 

system. 

Many people will benefit—most importantly, the youth involved. 

By Mr. INHOFE: 

S. 3473. A bill to replace automatic 

spending cuts with targeted reforms, 

and for other purposes; to the Committee on Finance. 


pwalker on DSK7TPTVN1PROD with SENATE
August 1, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S5881 

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I am 

waiting now for them to bring up a bill 

I have filed today and will have a number to go with it which I will announce 

in a moment. 

First of all, let me say that the talk 

of the whole country right now is on 

the sequestration problems we are having. I would only observe that I don’t 

know why it is so difficult for people to 

understand, but President Obama has 

written four budgets and these budgets 

have come before us, and if we add up 

all of the deficits in the four budgets, it 

comes to $5.3 trillion worth of deficits. 

I suggest that is more deficit than all 

Presidents in the history of this country for the past 200-plus years. 

So, people say, how did we get into 

this mess? Because when we have those 

kinds of deficits over a period of time, 

we wonder where it is coming from. Let 

me tell my colleagues where it didn’t 

come from, where it wasn’t spent, and 

that is military. 

I went over the first budget President 

Obama had. I went over to Afghanistan 

so I could make sure I could get the attention of the American people and let 

them know how this disarming of 

America by President Obama is going. 

Of course, if one of my colleagues was 

part of that first budget, they would 

know that it cut out our only fifth-generation fighter, the F–22; our lift capacity, the C–17; the future combat system; the ground based interceptor in 

Poland. That was just the first budget. 

Then it has gotten worse since that 

time. Since there isn’t time to go over 

that detail year by year, I can only say 

that the President has already cut in 

his budget over the next decade $487 

billion, roughly $500 billion, $1⁄2 trillion—from defense spending over the 

next 10 years. 

I would suggest to my colleagues 

that the American people—this is 

something that is very frustrating, because they assume that when we send 

our kids into battle, they have the best 

of equipment, and this just flat isn’t 

true. The British have an AS90, a Howitzer that is better than ours. The Russians have the 2S19 that is better than 

ours. Even South Africa has a system 

that is a better nonline-of-sight cannon 

than we have in our arsenal. The Chinese have a J–10 that is better than 

ours. In fact, they are now cranking 

them out to where they rival our F–15s, 

F–16s, and F/A18s. 

So the point I am making here is 

there has been no emphasis. If we go 

out and borrow and increase the deficit 

by $5.3 trillion as this President is 

doing, one would think we would be in 

a position to have a lot more robust 

military, but the military has been 

consistently cut over that period of 

time. 

In the event the Obama sequestration 

as it is designed right now goes 

through, that will be another $1⁄2 trillion that will come out of the military. 

Even the President’s own Secretary of 

Defense, Secretary Panetta, has said if 

these cuts take place—talking about 

the Obama sequestration cuts—in addition to what he has already cut, it 

would be ‘‘devastating to the military.’’ That means we would have the 

smallest ground fleet since the 1940s, 

we would have the smallest fleet of 

ships since 1915, and the smallest tactical fighter capability or force in the 

history of the Air Force. 

So if we want the United States to 

continue providing the type of global 

leadership our people have come to expect and meet the expectations of the 

American people—when we talk to the 

American people, they are shocked 

when they find out other countries 

have things that are better than we 

have. 

If we want to beat this, then we are 

going to have to do something about, 

No. 1, what is happening to the military; and No. 2, the sequestration. 

I have it all in one bill. In a minute 

we will get a number for that bill. Anyway, it is called the Sequestration Prevention Act of 2012. It replaces the sequestration cuts with some smart reforms, and I am going to go over those 

in a minute to show my colleagues 

what they are. It replaces the $1.2 trillion and then has a lot of money left 

over. 

Let me just kind of go over what this 

bill would do. People keep saying: We 

cannot do anything about it. We cannot do anything about the sequestration, the cuts. 

We had this great committee that 

was supposed to be out there finding 

$1.2 trillion over a 10-year period and 

yet we have a President who was able 

to give us deficits of five times that 

much over just a 4-year period. 

What it does, first of all, to come up 

with this $1.2 trillion, plus rebuilding 

the military—we want to rebuild the 

military, in my estimation, up to 4 percent of GDP. For the last 100 years, 

prior to 1990—for 100 years—the average defense spending constituted 5.7 

percent of GDP. That was the average, 

in times of war and in times of peace. 

Now it is all the way down, after his sequestration, to below 3 percent; in 

other words, about half of that. 

What I wish to do with additional 

funds that come from this bill I am introducing today is put that back into 

the military and bring us up to 4 percent of GDP—still considerably less 

than where we have been over the last 

100 years. 

The first thing it does is completely 

repeal ObamaCare and adopts PAUL

RYAN’s approach to block granting the 

Medicaid Program so States have complete control over the dollars they use 

to reach their low-income populations 

with health care assistance. Together, 

these two changes will reduce spending 

by $1.1 trillion over 10 years. 

Secondly, it returns nondefense discretionary spending to the 2006 levels. 

When this President came in, the 

amount of the nondefense discretionary spending surged. This would 

have a savings over that period of time 

of $952 billion. 

The third thing it does is it block 

grants the Food Stamp Program and 

converts it into a discretionary program so States have complete control 

over the design of their nutrition assistance programs to best meet the 

needs of their low-income populations. 

This provision reverses the massive expansion we have seen of the Food 

Stamp Program under the Obama administration, which has literally doubled in size, up to 100 percent, since he 

took office. 

On President Obama’s inauguration 

day, just under 32 million people were 

on food stamps. Today, it is more than 

46 million people, and they receive 

these benefits. It is going to have to 

stop. It will continue to go up if we do 

not do something about it. This provision saves $285 billion. 

By the way, I think it is important to 

know, when we look at the farm program, the farm program is a welfare 

program because they increase all 

these provisions and call it part of the 

farm bill. But that is a different subject, and I will talk about it later, not 

today but later. 

The fourth thing the legislation does 

is it reduces the Federal workforce by 

10 percent through attrition. Nobody 

out there is going to be fired. There are 

not going to be any cuts. In fact, it 

would continue to have some modest 

increases in payment for those who are 

there. Through attrition, the savings 

would be about $144 billion over 10 

years. 

The fifth thing the bill does is it repeals the authority of the Federal Government to spend taxpayer dollars on 

climate change or global warming. 

This is kind of interesting because very 

few people know that—even though 

they remember that every time there 

has been a bill on cap and trade, there 

is a cost to the American people of 

somewhere between $300 billion and 

$400 billion a year, and people’s heads 

start spinning when we talk about 

these large amounts. Sometimes in my 

State of Oklahoma, what I have done is 

take the total number of families who 

file Federal tax returns and then I 

apply this to it. This would be about 

$3,000 per family in my State of Oklahoma. Yet even the Director of the 

EPA admits that if we did this, it 

would not reduce CO2 emissions worldwide. That is the Director of the EPA, 

Lisa Jackson, and that is on the 

record. I appreciate her honesty in that 

respect. 

If we do this right now—what people 

do not know is this President has spent 

$68.4 billion since he has been President 

on all this global warming stuff. That 

is without authority because we have 

clearly defeated all those bills. What 

he has done through regulations is 

what he could not do through legislation. But nobody knows about it, until 

now. Now they know about it. 

Anyway, if we stop doing that over 

the next 10 years, that will save an additional $83 billion. 

Finally, the legislation includes comprehensive medical malpractice and 


pwalker on DSK7TPTVN1PROD with SENATE
S5882 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE August 1, 2012 

tort reform. That is the same thing 

that was passed by the House of Representatives and that would save $74 

billion over 10 years. 

All told, all the savings generated 

would be $2.6 trillion—not $1.2 trillion—$2.6 trillion over 10 years. So do 

not let anyone tell you, we cannot get 

there from here. Clearly, we can get 

there from here. 

We use the remaining amount to beef 

up the military to get back to our 4- 

percent level. I believe if we were to 

talk to the average American, they 

would say: Yes, let’s go ahead and do 

this. Why aren’t we doing it now? 

Let me mention one other thing before I conclude; that is, we have something called the WARN Act. What that 

does is require the employers—who 

know because of sequestration there 

are going to be layoffs—to give pink 

slips at least 60 days prior to the time 

that will happen. Under sequestration, 

if they do not adopt my act, if they do 

that, then those pink slips would have 

to be out there by the 2nd of November. 

The President does not want that to 

happen. He does not want the Obama 

sequestration to be pointed out and 

identified as to what is causing them 

to lose their jobs, so he is trying to get 

companies not to comply with the 

WARN Act. 

Clearly, the WARN Act says ‘‘an employer shall not order a plant closing 

or mass layoff until the end of a 60-day 

period after the employer serves written notice of such an order.’’ 

The WARN Act states—this is very 

significant because if there are companies out there that are listening to the 

President when he is asking them not 

to issue the pink slips, this is what 

would happen to them—it states that 

‘‘any employer who orders a plant closing or mass layoff in violation of Section 3 . . . shall be liable to each aggrieved employee who suffers an employment loss as a result of such closing or layoff.’’ 

In other words, if they do not do it, 

then that opens the doors for all the 

trial lawyers to come in. Just imagine 

the cases. At Lockheed Martin, they 

say they are going to have to let go of 

some 120,000 people. If they had a class 

action suit, each one who was let go 

would receive something like $1,000. 

That would be $120 million that company would have to pay. I cannot imagine the board of directors of any company anywhere in America not complying with this legal act called the 

WARN Act. 

By Mrs. BOXER (for herself, Mrs. 

HUTCHISON, Mr. CASEY, Ms. 

SNOWE, Mrs. SHAHEEN, Mrs. 

GILLIBRAND, and Mr. BROWN of 

Massachusetts): 

S. 3477. A bill to ensure that the 

United States promotes women’s meaningful inclusion and participation in 

mediation and negotiation processes 

undertaken in order to prevent, mitigate, or resolve violent conflict and 

implements the United States National 

Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security; to the Committee on Foreign 

Relations. 

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I rise 

today to introduce the Women, Peace, 

and Security Act of 2012 with Senators 

HUTCHISON, CASEY, SNOWE, SHAHEEN, 

GILLIBRAND and SCOTT BROWN. A companion bill was also introduced in the 

House of Representatives today by 

Representatives CARNAHAN, BERMAN

and SCHAKOWSKY. 

This important legislation will help 

codify the United States National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security, which was released by the Obama 

administration in December, 2011, to 

help further ongoing U.S. initiatives 

regarding women, peace, and security 

and the objectives of United Nations 

Security Council Resolution 1325, 

UNSCR 1325. 

UNSCR 1325 calls on all countries to 

establish national action plans aimed 

at promoting the inclusion of women in 

conflict resolution efforts and peacebuilding institutions, such as police 

services. 

This is essential because women and 

girls are disproportionately impacted 

by violence and armed conflict. But at 

the same time, we know that women 

are critical to helping prevent violence 

before it occurs and resolving crises 

once they begin. Furthermore, evidence shows that integrating women 

into peace-building processes helps promote democracy and ensure the likelihood of a peace process succeeding. 

With the National Action Plan on 

Women, Peace, and Security, the U.S. 

joins the more than 37 other countries 

who have released similar National Action Plans recognizing women’s contributions to peace building and committing to support women’s inclusion 

in all aspects of peace processes. 

As Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on International 

Operations and Organizations, Human 

Rights, Democracy, and Global Women’s Issues, I am proud of the Obama 

Administration for undertaking this 

important initiative, and remain committed to continuing to promote the 

full inclusion of women in all aspects 

of peace-building efforts. 

I look forward to working with my 

colleagues to pass this important 

legislation. 

f 

SUBMITTED RESOLUTIONS 

SENATE RESOLUTION 535—RECOGNIZING THE GOALS AND IDEALS 

OF THE MOVEMENT IS LIFE CAUCUS 

Ms. KLOBUCHAR (for herself and Mr. 

CHAMBLISS) submitted the following 

resolution; which was referred to the 

Committee on Health, Education, 

Labor, and Pensions: 

S. RES. 535 

Whereas arthritis is the number one cause 

of disability in the United States, according 

to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, affecting 50,000,000 Americans, and 

among the leading reasons for doctors’ visits 

and missed work; 

Whereas the Centers for Disease Control 

and Prevention finds that in 2003 arthritis 

cost the United States economy 

$128,000,000,000 annually in medical costs and 

lost wages; 

Whereas 27,000,000 Americans suffer from 

osteoarthritis (the most common form of arthritis) and almost 80 percent have some degree of movement limitation; 

Whereas the onset of chronic joint pain 

and osteoarthritis can lead to disability and 

a loss of personal independence; 

Whereas, women along with African Americans and Latinos, the two largest racial and 

ethnic minority groups in the United States, 

face more severe osteoarthritis and disability, yet receive less than optimal access 

to diagnostic, medical, and surgical intervention than do other groups; 

Whereas women and minorities experiencing chronic diseases (such as diabetes, 

obesity, and heart disease (all medical conditions positively impacted by physical activity)) struggle disproportionately with 

undiagnosed and diagnosed osteoarthritis; 

Whereas there is a lack of awareness about 

the connection between musculoskeletal 

health disparities, increasing physical inactivity levels and disparities in diabetes, obesity, and heart disease among women, African-Americans and Latinos, which have a 

significant impact on increasing health care 

costs and workforce productivity; 

Whereas the first Movement is Life National Summit in September 2010 facilitated 

a national dialogue among stakeholders engaged in the continuum of care of women, 

African Americans, and Latinos, about musculoskeletal health disparities; 

Whereas the National Movement is Life 

Work Group Caucus has been established and 

the third annual meeting will be held this 

September 16-18, 2012 in Washington, D.C.; 

Whereas the National Movement is Life 

Work Group Caucus will facilitate the development of action plans to help reduce musculoskeletal health disparities; and 

Whereas the National Movement is Life 

Work Group Caucus seeks to promote early 

intervention, slow musculoskeletal disease 

progression, reduce disability, and encourage 

physical activity and daily movement in 

order to improve the health of those currently disadvantaged as well as the overall 

health of the nation: Now, therefore, be it 

Resolved, That the Senate— 

(1) recognizes the musculoskeletal health 

disparities present among women, African 

Americans, and Latinos; 

(2) acknowledges the dangers posed to 

these populations, from rising inactivity levels and the impact on increased risk of 

chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, 

and heart disease; 

(3) seeks to raise public awareness in these 

communities about osteoarthritis and the 

importance of early intervention; 

(4) encourages physical activity and daily 

movement, in order to limit the exasperation of related chronic diseases and loss of 

independence; and 

(5) commends the Movement is Life National Caucus for its efforts in creating a 

dialogue which draws attention to these 

health disparities which continue to impact 

our national economy and many lives around 

the country. 


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