August 1, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S5825 

who were stationed at Camp Lejeune, North 

Carolina, while the water was contaminated 

at Camp Lejeune, to improve the provision of 

housing assistance to veterans and their 

families, and for other purposes, the Clerk of 

the House of Representatives shall make the 

following correction: in section 201, strike 

‘‘Andrew Connelly’’ and insert ‘‘Andrew Connolly’’. 

f 

VETERANS JOBS CORPS ACT OF 

2012—MOTION TO PROCEED—Continued 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut. 

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I 

am honored and grateful to follow that 

very enlightening and energetic exchange between two of the most able 

and respected Members of this body on 

a range of issues. 

One of them I want to address now, 

and I want to particularly thank the 

Presiding Officer for his contribution, 

my distinguished friend from Minnesota, who has really addressed so instructively some of the privacy concerns in various proposals in an amendment I have joined. I think his work on 

that issue is really reflective of the approach that has been brought to this 

issue of cyber security—an issue that 

this entire body, in my view, has a historic opportunity and also a historic 

obligation to address this week, deal 

with it now authoritatively and effectively and in a way that the Nation expects us to do it. 

I thank not only the Presiding Officer but a bipartisan group of colleagues, beginning with Senators LIEBERMAN, COLLINS, ROCKEFELLER, FEINSTEIN, and CARPER, who deserve our appreciation for drafting this bill and 

bringing it to the floor, and a number 

of other colleagues, including, along 

with the Presiding Officer, Senators 

WHITEHOUSE, MIKULSKI, COONS, COATS, 

BLUNT, AKAKA, and KYL. I mention this 

number because I think it is an important fact about the process that has 

brought us to this point. It really reflects the kind of collegial approach 

that is so important to this legislation. 

This legislation has undergone very 

significant and substantial revisions to 

reflect suggestions made by myself and 

our colleagues, and this bill will give 

the government and private sector an 

opportunity to collaborate and share 

information so that they can confront 

the ongoing, present, urgent cyber 

threat directly and immediately. 

This bill is not a top-down approach; 

it is voluntary in its direction to the 

private sector. What it says to critical 

industries—industries that are critical 

to our infrastructure—is that you determine what the best practices are, 

you tell us what the standards should 

be, and then those standards will be 

shared throughout the industry and 

overseen by a council that the Departments of Commerce and Justice and 

Defense and Homeland Security will be 

involved in implementing. And if companies comply with those standards— 

voluntary standards—they receive benefits that will enlist them in the program, benefits that will form incentives in the form of limited immunity 

in the event of an attack. If companies 

decline to comply, if they are not provided with sufficient incentives, in 

their judgment, there is no compulsion, 

no legal mandate that they need to do 

so. To use an often overused imagery, 

what we are talking about here is a 

carrot, not a stick, in solving one of 

the most pressing and threatening 

challenges our country faces today. It 

is the challenge of this moment, the 

challenge of our time. 

I have been in briefings, as has been 

the Presiding Officer and other Members of this body, with members of the 

intelligence community and others 

who have, in stark and staggering 

terms, presented to us the potential 

consequences of failing to act. 

Just last week, GEN Keith Alexander, the chief of the U.S. Cyber Command and the Director of the National 

Security Agency, said that intrusions 

on our essential infrastructure have increased 17-fold between 2009 and 2011 

and that it is only a matter of time before physical damage will result. He 

has said that the loss of industrial information and intellectual property— 

putting aside the physical threat and 

taking only the economic damage—is 

‘‘the greatest transfer of wealth in history.’’ 

We are permitting with impunity the 

greatest transfer of wealth in history 

from the United States of America to 

adversaries abroad, companies based 

overseas, at a time when every Member 

of this body says our priority should be 

jobs and protecting the economy of 

this country. It is an economic issue, 

not just a national security issue. In 

fact, cyber security is national security. 

The United States is literally under 

attack every day. General Alexander 

described 200 attacks on critical infrastructure within the past year. He alluded to them without describing them 

in detail. And on a scale of 1 to 10, he 

said our preparedness for a large-scale 

cyber attack—shutting down the stock 

exchange or a blackout on the scale 

comparable to the one in India within 

the past few days—is around a 3 on a 

scale of 1 to 10. That situation is unacceptable. 

We are, in a certain way, in a period 

of time now that is comparable to 1993, 

after the first World Trade Center 

bombing. Remember, in 1993 the World 

Trade Center—1,336 pounds of explosives were placed in a critical area of 

the World Trade Center, killing 6 people, injuring 1,000, fortunately, at that 

point, failing to bring down the building, which was the objective. That first 

bombing was a warning as well as a 

tragedy. America, even more tragically, disregarded that warning in failing to act. We are in that period now, 

comparable to 1993 and before 9/11, 

when the country could have acted and 

neglected to do so. We cannot repeat 

that failure now. We cannot disregard 

the day-to-day attacks, the serious intrusions that are stealing our wealth 

and endangering our security, our critical grid, transportation, water treatment, electricity, and financial system. The scale of damage that could be 

done is horrific, comparable to what 9/ 

11 did. We have an obligation to act before that kind of damage is faced in reality by the country. 

We have been adequately and eloquently warned on the floor of this 

body, in private briefings available to 

Members of this body, and in the public 

press, to some extent. One of the frustrations I think many of us feel is that 

we cannot share some of the classified 

briefings we have received which would 

depict in even more graphic and dramatic terms what this Nation faces. 

Some of these attacks are launched by 

foreign countries that seek to do us 

harm. Some are launched by domestic 

criminals who simply want to steal 

money. Some are sophisticated and 

some are very crude. 

Former Deputy Secretary William 

Lynch has detailed just one attack in 

which a foreign computer hacker—or 

group of them—stole 24,000 U.S. military files in March of 2011. As others 

have noted on the floor as recently as 

a few minutes ago, in late 2011 the computers of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce were completely compromised 

for more than a year by hackers. Yet 

today the U.S. Chamber of Commerce 

has essentially opposed the voluntary 

standards-based plan to help secure our 

Nation against attack. In fact, how extraordinary it is that certain parts of 

this bill have actually combined a consensus among the business community, 

the privacy advocates, as well as public 

officials, the National Security Agency. That consensus on privacy, again, 

reflects a profound and extraordinary 

feature of this bill, which is that we 

are coming together as a nation to face 

a common problem in a way that is demanded by the times and threats we 

face. 

Shawn Henry, the Executive Assistant Director of the FBI, has said that 

‘‘the cyber threat is an existential one, 

meaning that a major cyber attack 

could potentially wipe out whole companies.’’ That is the reason the business community has been involved and 

should support these proposals. 

These attacks are not only ongoing, 

they have been occurring for years. 

These criminals are infiltrating our 

communications, accessing our secrets, 

and sapping our economic health 

through thefts of intellectual property. 

Finally, Secretary of Defense Leon 

Panetta, as has been frequently quoted, 

said: 

The next Pearl Harbor we confront could 

very well be a cyber attack that cripples our 

power system, our grid, our security systems, our financial systems, our government 

systems. 

The panoply of harm is staggering, 

and we cannot wait for that harm to be 

a reality to this country. The consequences comparable to 9/11 are tragic 

to contemplate. FBI Director Mueller 

has said the cyber threat, which 


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S5826 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE August 1, 2012 

cuts across all programs, will be the 

No. 1 threat to our country. 

FBI Director Mueller speaks the 

truth. We must make sure our government has the tools and authority they 

have asked for. The NSA, the Department of Defense, the Department of 

Homeland Security, our business community and privacy advocates are all 

united in feeling this threat must be 

confronted. We have the opportunity 

but we also have a historic obligation 

to make sure we move this bill and 

that it moves forward so we do not 

squander this opportunity. 

I thank the Presiding Officer and I 

yield the floor. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland. 

THANKING KATHARINE BEAMER

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, if I 

might, let me first thank Katharine 

Beamer for her service to the Senate 

and to the American people. She has 

been an incredibly valuable part of my 

staff, detailed from the Department of 

State to my Senate office. She has 

helped me deal with preparations for 

my responsibility, as the Presiding Officer knows, while serving on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as we 

deal with the confirmation of ambassadors. It is important to be adequately prepared to deal with the many 

foreign visitors who come to our office 

and to deal with foreign policy issues. 

I particularly want to thank her for 

her help in the so-called Magnitsky 

bill, a bill that passed out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and 

has been also supported in the Senate 

Finance Committee. She has been a 

critical part of our team in developing 

the necessary support so that bill could 

move forward. 

I want to thank her for her help on 

the Cardin-Lugar provisions that provide transparency among mineral companies so we can trace the resources of 

developing countries, allowing those 

resources to benefit the strength of a 

country’s economy rather than become 

a curse. 

And I want to thank Katharine 

Beamer for her help on a lot of human 

rights issues she has been involved 

with, including the issue of Alan Gross. 

Senator DURBIN has spoken on the 

floor and has brought to our attention 

the human rights violations of a Marylander who is today in a prison in 

Cuba. Alan Gross was providing help to 

a small Jewish community in Cuba. He 

wasn’t doing it in any secret manner. 

He was trying to provide them a better 

opportunity to communicate with the 

Internet. He was very open about what 

he was doing in Cuba and was doing it 

in order to advance the ability of a 

community to keep in touch around 

the world. 

As a result of that activity, Alan 

Gross, a Marylander, was arrested and 

imprisoned, tried and convicted, and 

sentenced to 15 years in prison. His appeal to the Cuban Supreme Court was 

denied in August of 2011. For the past 

21⁄2 years, since December 3, 2009, Alan 

Gross has been imprisoned in Cuba— 

over 21⁄2 years. 

Throughout my legislative career, I 

have worked hard to improve the relationship between Cuba and the United 

States, particularly among the people 

of Cuba and the people of the United 

States. I have worked on ways to ease 

certain restrictions so we can improve 

the climate between our two countries. 

But what the Cuban Government is 

doing today in continuing to imprison 

Alan Gross is absolutely outrageous. It 

violates international human rights 

standards and it is against any sense of 

humanity. 

I am going to continue to speak out 

about it and urge the Cuban authorities to do what is right. This has 

gained international attention and 

there have been efforts made by other 

dignitaries from other countries to try 

to get Alan Gross’s case heard in a 

proper manner. I particularly want to 

acknowledge Senator DURBIN’s extraordinary leadership on this issue. Senator DURBIN took the time, when he 

was in Cuba, to meet with Alan Gross. 

I have been with Senator DURBIN when 

we have met with Alan Gross’s family. 

I have been with Senator DURBIN when 

we have tried to engage other international diplomats to implore the 

Cuban authorities on a humanitarian 

basis to release Alan Gross. 

There was no reason for his arrest. 

There was no reason for his conviction. 

There is no reason for his being in prison today. But one doesn’t have to get 

too much involved in that issue to suggest that the Cuban authorities should 

release Alan Gross on a humanitarian 

basis. I say that because his health is 

in question. Alan’s health has steadily 

deteriorated during his imprisonment. 

He has lost over 100 pounds, suffers 

from a multitude of medical conditions, including gout, ulcers, and arthritis, that have worsened without 

adequate treatment. 

Of equal concern as his own health 

are the conditions of his beloved mother and daughter, both of whom are suffering from cancer. The Gross family 

should not have to suffer through another day of this desperate situation 

without Alan at home for support. 

So for all those reasons, we speak out 

today to once again urge the Cuban authorities to do the right thing as far as 

human rights and their legal system 

and release Alan Gross. They should do 

the right thing from a humanitarian 

point of view and let Alan Gross come 

home to his beloved family so he can be 

supportive of them during this difficult 

time in their lives. We urge them to do 

the right thing so we can have a better 

relationship between the people of 

Cuba and the people of the United 

States. They should release Alan Gross 

because it is the right thing to do. 

We are going to continue to speak 

out about this. I know many of us have 

looked for different ways in which to 

help the Gross family and we will continue to do that. But the simple, right 

thing for the Cuban authorities is to 

release Alan Gross today, and we urge 

them to do that. 

With that, Mr. President, I yield the 

floor. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. 

UDALL of New Mexico). The Senator 

from West Virginia. 

Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I ask 

unanimous consent to speak as in 

morning business for up to 12 minutes. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

FINANCIAL STRENGTH

Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I rise 

today to announce a rare opportunity 

for the people of my State, who care so 

much about the future of our country. 

When I travel all around my beautiful State of West Virginia, one of the 

biggest concerns I hear from the people 

is simply that our Nation’s finances 

are in such bad shape we could be the 

first generation that leaves this country and leaves our next generation in 

worse shape than we received it. 

I am determined to make sure that 

doesn’t happen, and I am sure the Presiding Officer is as well. I am determined to bring people together to fix 

our finances and put this country back 

on the right path. I am also determined 

that all our children and grandchildren 

will be able to live a more fulfilling 

and prosperous life than we do. 

But we are running out of easy options to put our country’s financial 

house in order. And every day we delay 

a big fix, the price will be higher, the 

changes will be more painful, and the 

choices will be more stark. With our 

country’s finances so far out of control, 

all of the priorities we all care about— 

whether it is creating jobs, maintaining the best military in the world, 

keeping the core of vital programs such 

as Social Security, or educating the 

next generation—are in jeopardy. 

If we care about rebuilding America—investing in our highways and our 

roads, our airports, our water and 

sewer systems—we cannot do it if we 

don’t pay for it. If we care about creating jobs and giving our businesses 

certainty, we can’t do that either if we 

can’t pay for it. And if we care about 

educating the next generation and preparing this generation with the skill 

sets they need for the jobs of today and 

tomorrow, we can’t do it if we can’t 

pay for it. 

If we care about having an energy 

policy that uses all of our domestic resources in the cleanest possible manner; if we care about developing technology for clean coal; if we care about 

finally ending our dependence on foreign oil from hostile countries, we 

can’t do it if we can’t pay for it. 

If we care about having the best military in the world, one that can defend 

the liberty of this great Nation at 

home and, where needed, abroad, we 

simply can’t do it if we can’t pay for it. 

If we care about helping the vulnerable, the sick, the weak, and keeping 

our vital core promises—such as Social 

Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and 

Head Start—we simply can’t do it if we 

can’t pay for it. 


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August 1, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S5827 

Any nation that wants to be a strong 

nation, that wants to invest in its priorities and wants to leave the country 

in better shape for the next generation 

cannot be shackled by crippling debt. If 

the Federal Government can’t get its 

financial houses in order, the hard 

truth is all these priorities I spoke 

about will be slashed—sooner than any 

of us would like to admit. 

Whether we consider ourselves a 

Democrat, a Republican, an Independent, or we have no affiliation at 

all; whether we consider ourselves a 

liberal, a conservative, or a centrist— 

wherever we fall in the spectrum—none 

of the priorities we care about on all 

those sides can happen unless we can 

pay for it. The old saying is as true 

today as it ever has been: You can’t 

help others if you’re not strong enough 

to help yourself. 

It is time to make America strong 

again. 

Let me give some troubling figures 

that illustrate how bad it has gotten: 

The debt hole we have dug for ourselves now equals the entire amount of 

goods this country produces; in other 

words, our gross domestic product. 

That hasn’t happened since 1947. 

Think of the next group of lawmakers who will be sitting where we 

sit in 2033, which is just around the corner. They are going to have to look 

Americans in the eye and tell them the 

Social Security check they are receiving will only be 75 percent of what is 

owed to them. They will have to say it 

is because the group who came before 

us didn’t do their job. 

Think of 10 years from now, truly 

around the corner, when every man, 

woman, and child in this country will 

owe more than $79,000 to pay off our national debt. Today it is about $50,700, 

which is way too high, but it is only 

going to get worse if we don’t do our 

job and fix it. 

There are 3 million jobs going 

unfulfilled in this country because they 

say the workforce doesn’t have the 

right skills in order to perform those 

jobs, and our unemployment rate has 

been the highest for the longest period 

of time. That is not acceptable. 

Who exactly is supposed to pay for 

all this debt? If we do the math, the 

picture isn’t pretty. We are not balancing our budget, we are not training 

people for the jobs of the future, and 

we are leaving our children and grandchildren a massive debt that, as of 

today, equals the entire economic production of this great Nation. 

To me, however we do the math— 

even if we use funny Washington accounting tricks—this situation adds up 

to a train wreck at best. I am determined to prevent this oncoming train 

wreck, and I will do all I can, working 

with my colleagues on both sides of the 

aisle. I have said people back home 

didn’t send me to Washington to put 

the next generation into more debt. 

They sent me to, hopefully, help get 

them out of debt. 

Putting this country back on the 

right path will hurt, but we have to be 

willing to come together across party 

lines. We have to determine our highest priorities and make tough choices. 

That is what the people of West Virginia sent me to do, not to cater to any 

one special interest group. 

There are plenty of politicians who 

will talk about fixing the problem, who 

will pay lip service to coming up with 

a plan, who will talk a good game— 

what we call talk the talk—but can’t 

walk the walk. But in the end, the 

problem will continue to fester if we 

don’t do something. 

I am not one of those politicians who 

can turn a blind eye to our debt and 

walk away from it. The people of West 

Virginia expect more. They expect me 

to make hard choices and work with 

both Democrats and Republicans to do 

the right thing for our State. No matter how hard it will be to fix our problems—and it is clear everyone will need 

to have a little skin in the game and 

share these sacrifices—I am determined to do it. 

But no Senator—no matter how committed they may be—can do it alone. 

That is why I am so pleased to announce that two of the Nation’s greatest financial leaders will be coming to 

West Virginia to hold an open forum 

with the people of our State about the 

future of our finances, and we call that 

‘‘Our Finances and Our Future.’’ 

Former Senator Alan Simpson, a Republican from Wyoming, and Mr. Erskine Bowles, a Democrat who is the 

former White House Chief of Staff 

under President Bill Clinton, are two of 

the toughest and smartest people in 

this country when it comes to our finances. 

Since I have been here, the most bipartisan effort to fix our finances has 

been led by Erskine Bowles and Alan 

Simpson. They were asked to head the 

President’s National Commission on 

Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. It 

was bipartisan when it began, it has 

stayed bipartisan all this time, and it 

has grown with the number of Senators 

from both sides of the aisle who understand we need a big fix that comes 

from both sides of the aisle in a bipartisan way. 

Bowles and Simpson paint a grim picture about the problems we are facing. 

In December of 2010, they laid out a serious blueprint for a solution—one that 

isn’t perfect but that has earned more 

support from members of both parties 

than anything else that has been proposed in Washington. 

Since then, too many of our leaders 

have put their heads in the sand about 

this proposal and the choices we face. 

But West Virginia is different from 

most of the States. We welcome the 

hard truth because we know we have to 

face the truth. Believe me, we can handle the truth in West Virginia. 

On September 10, West Virginians 

will have an opportunity to hear some 

truth telling. I am so proud that Alan 

Simpson and Erskine Bowles will hold 

a forum, ‘‘Our Finances and Our Future: A Bipartisan Conversation about 

the Facts,’’ at our magnificent cultural 

center. They will present the facts— 

and there is no doubt the facts are 

dire—and lay out the magnitude of the 

problem we face, and then we will talk 

about solutions. It is a rare opportunity to have a frank bipartisan conversation about the grave conditions of 

our Nation’s finances. 

I am inviting all West Virginians—be 

it business, labor, senior groups, the 

young people who are expected to pay 

off our debt, and anyone else with an 

interest in our future—to come and 

participate in this session. We will talk 

about what this framework will do, 

which is to find the balance between 

revenue and spending, fundamentally 

changing our Tax Code and cutting 

spending. In short, it will make our 

system more fair. 

Let’s look first at the Tax Code. 

There are some Americans who, because of their connections and ability 

to hire lobbyists, have manipulated our 

Tax Code so they get special tax 

breaks. That is not right. Too many 

corporations that depend on the 

strength of this great Nation—as has 

been noted, such as G.E.—are paying 

nothing or virtually nothing in taxes. 

That is wrong. It is not right. 

We need to make our tax system 

more fair and straightforward. The bipartisan Bowles-Simpson plan would 

end many of those loopholes and lower 

tax rates for everyone. When it comes 

to our spending, right now in this country we spend so much more than we 

can afford. I know so many Americans 

who tell me they would be more than 

happy to pay more—if we were using it 

in the right direction—to pay down our 

debt and to invest in infrastructure. 

But we are not spending well. I have 

always said public servants can do one 

or two things with public tax money: 

We can either spend it or invest it. 

Frankly, we have been doing too much 

spending and not enough investing. 

Our annual deficit—the amount we 

spend versus the amount we take in—is 

about $1.2 trillion this year alone. 

Looking into the future, if nothing 

changes, we will have deficits every 

year for the next decade. No one can 

tell me we can sustain that pace and 

still afford Social Security, Medicare, 

Medicaid, defending this Nation, and 

educating our children. The math 

doesn’t add up. The bipartisan BowlesSimpson framework addresses this by 

cutting more than $2 trillion for our 

spending over the next decade. 

After we address our spending and 

our Tax Code, guess what happens. Our 

interest payments—the amount we are 

spending every year just for the privilege of borrowing money from countries such as China to finance our dayto-day operations—will go down nearly 

$700 billion over the next 10 years. 

That is the bipartisan Bowles-Simpson framework. Yes, it will have some 

painful cuts, and, yes, everyone will 

have to share in the sacrifice. But because the pain is spread out, no one 

takes too deep a hit. That is why I believe this proposed blueprint is the 


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S5828 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE August 1, 2012 

only plan that has garnered any real 

show of bipartisan interest from the 

beginning of its inception to today. 

When I became Governor of the great 

State of West Virginia, our State finances were in a tough place. We had 

to make very hard choices about our 

priorities, and not everyone was happy 

with those decisions. Seven or eight 

years ago, people believed West Virginia was hopeless; that we would always be challenged; that our finances 

would always be on the brink; that we 

wouldn’t be able to invest in our priorities; that our economy would always 

be stagnant; that our credit ratings 

would always be miserably low; that 

we wouldn’t be able to turn any of that 

around. 

But I will tell you what. At the end 

of my term, we had lowered tax rates, 

reduced our food tax, ended our fiscal 

years with a budget surplus each and 

every year, and increased our credit 

rating three times in 3 years during the 

greatest recession because we put our 

priorities based on our values of what 

was important to West Virginia. Together, we weathered the recession better than 45 States. We are finally getting the last piece of our puzzle in 

place with a fix to the retirement system. 

I can tell you this: I am not talking 

about fixing our Nation’s finances from 

some ivory tower, from some rigid ideological position. I am talking about 

this country’s finances because I know 

how much it costs all of us to live in 

debt. I know the burden of high interest payments and the way it robs us of 

the opportunity to pay for more important priorities. I know how much 

stronger this country will be when we 

manage our debt. I know because we 

came together in West Virginia and improved the quality of life in our State, 

and I know we can do it together in 

this country. 

The truth is, Democrats don’t have a 

lock on good ideas and neither do Republicans. But with less than 100 days 

to go before the election, we are not 

going to hear many Democrats giving 

Republicans any credit and we won’t 

hear many Republicans acknowledging 

that Democrats have anything to bring 

to the table. 

That is a true shame. We will not fix 

our problems with a go-it-alone attitude because the only way America has 

ever solved our problems is to put partisanship aside and come together for 

the good of this great Nation. 

Put America first. The West Virginia 

fiscal summit is just one honest way 

we can take an important step toward, 

coming together to solve our problems 

and one more way for the people of 

West Virginia to show this great Nation that we can—and will—do the 

heavy lifting it will take to put this 

country back on the right track. 

I yield the floor. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa is recognized. 

RENEWABLE FUELS STANDARD

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the 

president and CEO of Smithfield Foods, 

Larry Pope, took to the opinion pages 

of the Wall Street Journal again to 

blame all that ails him on the renewable fuels standard for ethanol. 

Some may recall he did the same 

thing back in April 2010 when commodity prices were rising. At that 

time, he perpetuated a smear campaign 

and blamed ethanol in an attempt to 

deflect blame for rising food prices 

while boosting Smithfield’s profits. 

With this newspaper article, he is back 

at it again. 

I start by referring to Mr. Pope as 

Henny Penny from the children’s folktale ‘‘Chicken Little.’’ Every time 

Smithfield has to pay a little more to 

America’s corn farmers to feed his 

hogs, Mr. Pope starts with the same argument that the sky is falling, and it is 

all ethanol’s fault. 

Mr. Pope’s opinion piece in the Wall 

Street Journal might lead some to believe he is very knowledgeable about 

the ethanol industry. But there are 

many areas of ethanol he doesn’t know 

much about. 

He continues to perpetuate the myth 

that ethanol production consumes 40 

percent of the U.S. corn crop. Mr. Pope 

states: ‘‘Ethanol now consumes more 

corn than animal agriculture does.’’ 

Everyone with a basic understanding 

of a livestock farm—even a kernel of 

corn—or of an ethanol plant knows 

that is not a true statement. According 

to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 

37 percent of the corn crop is used in 

producing ethanol. But—and a very important but—the value of corn does not 

simply vanish when ethanol is produced. 

One-third of the corn—that is, 18 

pounds out of every 56-pound bushel— 

reenters the market as a high-value 

animal feed called dried distillers 

grain. I would imagine millions of hogs 

raised by our farms every year are fed 

a diet containing this ethanol coproduct. For sure it is a very big feed 

product for cattle. Of course, Mr. Pope 

appears to be unaware of its existence. 

When the distillers grains are 

factored in; that is, 18 pounds out of 

the 56 pounds that is left over after you 

make ethanol, 43 percent of the corn 

supply is available for animal feed. 

Only 28 percent is used for ethanol—unlike the 40 percent Mr. Pope says. This 

is the inconvenient truth of ethanol detractors. They prefer to live in a bubble 

where they believe ethanol is diverting 

corn from livestock use. That is just 

not the case. 

Mr. Pope also proclaims that ‘‘ironically, if the ethanol mandate did not 

exist, even this year’s drought-depleted 

corn crop would have been more than 

enough to meet the requirements for 

livestock feed and food production at 

decent prices.’’ 

I would like to ask Mr. Pope why he 

thinks that is the case. Why did farmers plant 96 million acres of corn this 

year when normally they would plant 

between 86 and 88 million acres of corn? 

Why have seed producers spent millions to develop better yielding and 

drought-resistant traits so we can 

produce more corn on less acres? The 

answer is simple: Because this gigantic 

industry of ethanol is there to consume 

more corn and more production on 

each acre. 

If not for ethanol, it is very clear 

farmers wouldn’t have planted 96 million acres of corn this year because 

those are more acres of corn than farmers have planted in this country since 

1938. Without ethanol, I doubt we would 

have seen investment in higher yielding and more drought-tolerant corn 

plants by our seed corn companies. 

I happen to think Mr. Pope is an intelligent man, but he is woefully uninformed on the issue of what the ethanol industry and the demand for corn 

has done for the size and genetic improvement of the corn crop. It is easy 

to understand Smithfield’s motives. 

They benefit from an abundant supply 

of corn, just not the competing demand 

for it. 

What is Smithfield’s primary problem? Again, the answer is simple: cost 

and profit. They still want to pay $2 for 

a bushel for corn. This is an important 

point that I hope people understand. 

For nearly 30 years, until about 2005, 

companies such as Smithfield had the 

luxury of buying corn below the cost of 

production. Corn prices remained for 

about 30 years between $1.50 a bushel 

and $3 a bushel. Farmers routinely lost 

money. The Federal Government then 

provided economic support for the 

farmers. Producers such as Smithfield 

had the best of both worlds. They were 

able to buy corn below the cost of production, and they were able to let the 

Federal Government subsidize their 

business by guaranteeing a cheap supply of corn. 

In the view of corporate livestock 

producers, subsidies are fine—if they 

allow them to buy corn below the cost 

of production. Anybody could look like 

a genius with that sort of a business 

model. 

Mr. Pope also continues to overstate 

the impact of corn prices on the consumer. Agriculture Secretary Vilsack 

recently stated that farmers receive 

about 14 cents of every dollar spent on 

food at the grocery store. Farmers get 

14 percent and everybody else gets 86 

percent, yet the farmers of America are 

the problem? It happens that that 14 

cents works out to be about 3 cents of 

that 14 cents is because of corn. 

A research economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently stated that a 50-percent increase in the 

price of corn will raise the total grocery shopping bill by about 1 percent. 

To put it in perspective, the value of 

corn in a $4 box of corn flakes is about 

10 cents. 

Mr. Pope also exaggerated the impact 

of ethanol on food prices in 2010, and he 

is doing it again. He is using the devastating drought that we now have— 

over 62 percent of the country and 

worse in the Midwest, of Iowa where I 

live—to once again undermine our Nation’s food, feed, and fuel producers, 


pwalker on DSK7TPTVN1PROD with SENATE
August 1, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S5829 

and he is doing it—why? To make more 

money. 

Repealing the renewable fuel standard will not bolster Smithfield’s profits. Because of the flexibility built into 

the renewable fuels mandate, a waiver 

will not significantly reduce corn 

prices. A recent study by Professor 

Bruce Babcock, Iowa State University, 

found that a complete waiver of the renewable fuel standard—that is what 

the mandate is called—might reduce 

the corn prices by only 4.6 percent. 

That report goes on to state: 

The desire by livestock groups to see the 

additional flexibility in ethanol mandates 

may not result in as large a drop in feed 

costs as hoped. 

They continue: 

. . . the flexibility built into the Renewable 

Fuels Standard allowing obligated parties to 

carry over blending credits from previous 

years, significantly lowers the economic impact of a short crop, because it introduces 

flexibility into that mandate. 

The drought is enormous in both 

scale and severity. But we will not 

know the true impact until September 

when harvest begins. The latest estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture indicate an average yield of 

146 bushels per acre. That would result 

in a harvest of 13 billion bushels. This 

would still be one of the largest corn 

harvests. 

I suggest those claiming that the sky 

is falling withhold their call for 

waiving or repealing the renewable fuel 

standard. It is a premature action that 

will not produce desired results and it 

would increase our dependence upon 

foreign oil and it would drive up prices 

at the pump for consumers. 

On another point with regard to 

taxes and the proposals around the Hill 

to increase taxes, I want to say that 

over the past few years my colleagues 

on the other side have come to the 

floor repeatedly to present a revisionist story regarding the fiscal history of the last two decades. On several 

occasions I have come to the floor to 

refute this history. Yet, again and 

again, the other side continues to 

present the same distorted facts, including lots of speeches last week. 

The general misguided argument is 

that all of the economic and fiscal success of the 1990s is thanks to big tax increases by the Clinton administration 

and the 2001 and 2003 bipartisan tax relief is responsible for all of our economic ills and fiscal problems. 

Neither of these claims is supported 

by facts or a basic understanding of economics. I will begin with the Clinton 

tax increase to which people are giving 

so much credit. Many on the other side 

of the aisle argue that the Clinton tax 

increases are proof that tax increases 

will not harm our economy today— 

when they have even heard their own 

President say otherwise several times, 

until recently, that you should not increase taxes when you have a depression. These people frequently ask, ‘‘If 

our economy grew in the 1990s with 

higher marginal tax rates, how can it 

be bad to raise marginal taxes to these 

former levels?’’ Engrained in this argument is the assertion that tax hikes 

can actually be good for our economy. 

This assertion fails to take into account numerous economic factors that 

occurred alongside the Clinton tax increases. The fact is that the economy 

grew not because of the 1993 tax increases but despite them. 

The economy of the mid-1990s is a result of economic conditions that we 

may never see again. It was a time of 

great economic expansion due in large 

part to the advent of the Internet economy. The Internet spawned new technologies and created efficiencies in our 

economy that have never been 

matched. In turn, these new technologies and efficiencies spurred startup businesses and new industries. Many 

seem to forget the huge Y2K fear that 

gripped the Nation, causing billions 

and billions in spending that helped 

prop up what became the infamous 

Internet bubble that blew up on all of 

us. Nevertheless, before the bubble 

burst these factors led to historically 

low unemployment and high workforce 

participation. Claiming that this was 

due to Clinton tax increases is equal to 

Vice President Gore claiming that he 

invented the Internet. 

My colleagues on the other side of 

the aisle would be hard-pressed to find 

many economic studies indicating tax 

increases are stimulative. The focus of 

economic research in this area is not 

about whether tax increases are harmful or beneficial to the economy. Rather, the focus seems to be on the degree 

to which tax increases are very harmful to the economy. Admittedly, there 

are wide variations in views of economists on the responsiveness of individuals and businesses to taxes. However, 

even studies by economists who can 

hardly be labeled as conservative have 

concluded that tax increases have a 

significant negative effect on the economy. 

For instance, a 2007 study by Christina Romer, President Obama’s former 

chief economist, found ‘‘tax increases 

are highly contractionary,’’ and ‘‘have 

very large effects on output.’’ 

In fact, this study found that a tax 

increase of 1 percent of gross domestic 

product could lower real GDP by at 

least 3 percent. 

Another likely contributor to the 

growth of the 1990s was a peace dividend we reaped from the end of the 

Cold War. We have Ronald Reagan’s 

staredown of the Soviet Union to 

thank for that phenomenon. The end of 

the Cold War allowed for a reduction of 

government spending as a percent of 

GDP. Coupled with priorities pushed by 

the Republican-led Congress to reach a 

balanced budget and to reform welfare, 

spending as a percentage of GDP 

dropped to its lowest point in 30 years. 

With the Government spending less of 

the people’s money, more was left in 

the hands of the private sector. This allowed the private sector to innovate, to 

invest, and eventually create jobs. The 

peace dividend is also the largest contributor to reining in deficits in the 

1990s. 

The biggest source of deficit reduction, 35 percent, came from the reduction of defense spending. The next biggest source of deficit reduction, 32 percent, came from other revenue because 

of a growing economy. Another 15 percent came from interest savings. 

Let’s get to the Clinton tax increase 

in reducing deficits. The Clinton tax 

increase, on the other hand, only accounted for 13 percent of the deficit reduction—only 13 percent. 

There are further factors that contributed to the economic growth of the 

1990s, including the expansion of free 

trade in the 1997 reduction in the capital gains tax rate. However, in the interest of time I am going to go on to 

other issues. One thing is clear, 

though, from this period of the 1990s. 

The economic growth of that time was 

not thanks to the Clinton tax increase 

nor was it a major player in bringing 

our deficit into balance. 

Today we cannot rely on the unique 

economic conditions we experienced 

during that decade of the 1990s, some of 

which were artificial, to buttress the 

negative effects of the tax increase. In 

fact, we are in the middle of one of the 

worst economic eras since the Great 

Depression. Unemployment has remained above 8 percent now for over 41 

straight months, almost 31⁄2 years, in 

other words. Economic growth has 

been anemic. 

Each passing day economic indicators are pointing more and more to the 

chance of a double-dip worldwide recession. Last Wednesday it was reported 

that Great Britain’s economy contracted at the rate of .7 percent. Then 

on Friday it was reported that our own 

economy is stalling. Real GDP grew at 

an annual rate of just 1.5 percent, continuing its downward trend for three 

straight quarters. In a recent blog post, 

Nobel Laureate economist Gary Becker 

addressed the question of whether raising taxes on high-income earners is a 

very good idea. In his post, Professor 

Becker entertained arguments—these 

were arguments by the supporters of 

the tax increases—by hypothesizing 

that there is a 50–50 chance that higher 

taxes on the so-called rich would damage the economy. 

Of course I believe, as does Professor 

Becker, that in reality this chance is 

much higher than 50–50. However, even 

granting the other side this generous 

assumption he concluded the benefit of 

raising taxes was outweighed by the 

potential damage they would cause. 

According to Professor Becker, even if 

richer individuals only slightly reduce 

their work hours and reduce their effort at work, the gain in tax revenue 

from these individuals would not be 

great. In contrast, ‘‘the costs to the 

economy in the chance that higher 

taxes greatly discourage their efforts is 

likely to be substantial in terms of 

fewer hours worked and less work effort by high-income individuals, reduced incentives to start businesses, 


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S5830 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE August 1, 2012 

less investment in their human capital, 

investing abroad rather than in [this 

country] . . . and even migration 

abroad.’’ 

Yet my colleagues on the other side 

of the aisle are pushing billions of dollars in tax increases. Last week they 

voted to increase taxes on nearly 1 million flowthrough businesses. Their vote 

to increase taxes on job creators came 

on the heels of an Ernst and Young 

study detailing its ramifications. This 

study concluded that these proposed 

tax hikes—on top of the 3.8-percent tax 

increase on dividends, interest, and 

capital gains that was added to pay for 

the health care reform bill—would reduce our economic output by 1.3 percent. The Ernst and Young study also 

found that real aftertax wages would 

fall by 1.8 percent as a result of President Obama’s policies. 

Even in the face of this information, 

my colleagues on the other side seem 

all too willing to gamble with the 

chance that our stalling economy can 

withstand such a hit. By doing this, 

they are playing Russian roulette with 

our economy. 

To my colleagues I ask: How certain 

are you that tax increases on job creators will not be damaging the economy? If you have any doubt, I suggest 

don’t pull the trigger. 

I wish to shift gears a little bit to address the record of the 2001 and 2003 tax 

relief. Just as a perfect storm of good 

economic conditions blew at the back 

of the Clinton administration, a perfect 

storm of bad economic conditions and 

unpredictable events blew in the face 

of the Bush administration. 

It is undisputed that at the end of the 

Clinton administration, the Congressional Budget Office was projecting a 

10-year budget surplus of $5.6 billion. 

Keep in mind, though, that CBO’s projection was based on assumptions that 

did not pan out. 

The CBO failed to predict the bursting of the tech bubble that was so beneficial in the previous years. CBO also 

did not predict the September 11, 2001 

tragedy that wreaked havoc on our 

economy. 

In reaction to the economic recession 

from these events, Congress enacted 

the bipartisan 2001 tax relief that cut 

tax rates across the board, providing 

tax relief to virtually all taxpayers. 

Then in 2003, Congress expedited this 

relief so the benefit of lower rates 

would take effect more quickly. This 

resulted in one of the shortest and 

shallowest economic recessions yet on 

record. The economy grew for 25 

straight quarters, making it the fourth 

longest period of economic expansion 

since 1930. Additionally, we had 47 

straight months of private sector job 

gain. 

Moreover, the expanding economy 

led to higher than expected revenues. 

That is a fact. Revenue actually rose in 

the years following the tax relief bill, 

peaking at 18.5 percent of GDP in 2007, 

well above the historical average of 

around 18 percent. 

In fact, the Congressional Budget Office projects that if we extended all the 

2001 and 2003 tax relief today, revenues 

would once again exceed the historical 

average. Under this scenario, the CBO 

projects that by 2022 revenues will 

reach 18.5 percent of GDP. 

From 2004 to 2007, the deficit also 

shrank from a high of $412 billion to a 

low of $160 billion. That means the 

budget deficit was cut by more than 

half in 3 years. Given the trillion dollar 

deficits we are experiencing under 

President Obama, a deficit below $200 

billion would be very welcome news. 

Yet CBO projects that even if all the 

tax increases in President Obama’s 

budget were enacted, deficits would 

never drop below $500 billion in the 10- 

year period from 2013 to 2022. 

I will give President Obama credit 

when he says he took office in very 

tough economic times. The bursting of 

the housing bubble and the resulting financial crisis gave him a very high hill 

to climb, but any assertion the 2001 and 

2003 tax relief is related to these events 

is without merit. There is plenty of 

blame to go around for the housing 

bubble. It was the culmination of housing policies spanning administrations 

of both parties. It was further fueled by 

the Federal Reserve providing historically low interest rates and cheap credit. 

However, the President’s policies 

have failed at getting us out of this 

mess. The President’s party passed the 

President’s nearly $1 trillion stimulus 

bill. He claimed this would keep the 

unemployment rate below 8 percent. 

However, the unemployment climbed 

to a high of 10.1 percent and has never 

dropped below 8 percent during his almost 4 years in office. 

The President’s party also passed the 

health care bill, which the President 

sold as a job creator, and the financial 

reform bill that was supposed to fix our 

financial system. However, both of 

these bills, which the President signed, 

have actually turned out to be costly 

to our economy and a hindrance to job 

creation. 

Now President Obama appears ready 

to gamble with the economy. He appears to go all in on raising taxes on 

our Nation’s job creators. In doing so, 

he is betting that raising taxes on the 

so-called wealthy will result in a political payoff exceeding the chance his actions will throw us back into recession. 

It is not so long ago that I remember 

the President saying what I have already referred to in this speech: ‘‘You 

don’t raise taxes in a recession.’’ The 

President’s statement is as true now it 

was then. 

Let’s end the political theater of 

holding votes for the purpose of campaign ads. Let’s instead actually do 

what the people sent us here to do. Let 

us not drive the American economy 

head long off the fiscal cliff. 

I yield the floor. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia. 

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask 

unanimous consent to speak for up to 

15 minutes on two subjects. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, first of 

all, I rise today to address the important legislation pending before this 

body, S. 3414, the Cybersecurity Act of 

2012. I followed this debate, and I want 

to particularly compliment Senator 

LIEBERMAN, Senator COLLINS, Senator 

ROCKEFELLER, Senator FEINSTEIN, and 

folks such as Senator KYL and Senator 

WHITEHOUSE who have been trying to 

find some common ground in this area. 

I hope at some point in the next day or 

so we will be able to proceed to this bill 

and have it fully debated. 

Many Senators bring different levels 

of expertise to this issue. As someone 

who spent 20 years in the technology 

field and in telecom in particular before entering government service, and 

has had the honor to serve for the last 

31⁄2 years on the Intelligence Committee, the Commerce Committee, and 

the Banking Committee, three of the 

committees that all immediately intersect with the challenges around cyber, 

I can add a bit of my perspective to 

this debate. 

Let me start with concerns that have 

been raised by some of the opponents 

to this legislation. In the area around 

cyber, we need to make sure we have 

appropriate information sharing. How 

do we set some standards? Who should 

enforce those standards? I think most 

all of us, and anyone who has looked 

into this area, would recognize it is not 

a question of when we are going to 

have a major cyber attack or if we are 

going to have a cyber attack, it is only 

a question of when. We have already— 

as has been reported in the press in a 

number of fashions—been attacked on 

a daily basis by foreign agents, criminal elements, hackers who are constantly probing our country’s cyber defenses on the public and private side. 

One of the reasons I think it is so important to move on this legislation 

soon is I have great fears that when we 

have a major cyber element or cyber 

attack, Congress may, as they have 

done so many times in the past, overreact because we didn’t take action on 

something we knew was imminent. 

I do think this piece of legislation— 

and, candidly, I could have supported 

an even stronger piece of legislation— 

is a great first step in this area. I am 

going to come back in a moment to 

some amendments I hope to offer to 

this legislation to deal with some of 

the concerns other Members and folks 

have raised on this issue. 

Let’s talk about why we need cyber 

legislation and why we need it now. Inaction is not a solution. Every national 

security expert—not just from the current administration but previous administrations, and most Members of 

Congress—agrees that the status quo is 

not sustainable. Over a 5-month period 

between October of 2011 and February 

of 2012, there were 50,000 cyber attacks 


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August 1, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S5831 

on private and government networks. 

We are told between 2009 and 2011 attacks on U.S. infrastructure increased 

by a factor of 17. 

As more and more nations and rogue 

actors get more sophisticated with 

computer and technological knowledge, these numbers are going to grow 

exponentially. As the FBI has said, 

cyber espionage, computer crime, attacks on critical infrastructure will 

surpass terrorism as the No. 1 threat 

facing the United States. Think how 

many things we have done appropriately in the previous administration 

and this administration in terms of 

homeland security to protect our Nation against the threat of terrorists. 

We now have the Director of the FBI 

saying the cyber threat will soon surpass terrorism in terms of a threat to 

our Nation. 

I know as a former businessman that 

we are already seeing manifestations of 

this threat in other areas. Intellectual 

property theft is one of the most insidious threats we face right now. A 

former FBI agent who specialized in 

counterintelligence and computer intrusion has said that in most cases 

companies don’t realize they have been 

burned until years later when a foreign 

competitor puts out the very same 

product, only making it 30 percent 

cheaper. We have lost our manufacturing base in many ways. By not putting appropriate cyber protections in 

place, are we really prepared to lose 

our R&D base as well? 

Some say cyber is different. Cyber is 

different in certain ways, but in many 

ways it is similar. Just as we would 

never have a nuclear facility without 

guards and a wall and a fence or—I see 

my good friend, the Senator from Louisiana—we would never have power facilities or levees without appropriate 

protections, how is it we would not 

have some level of standards and information sharing of threats that are 

coming in amongst not only our public 

sector entities but our private sector 

entities as well? 

As a matter of fact, as a former businessman, I have been surprised at some 

of the resistance from some business 

organizations that are saying this requirement of both information sharing 

and some minimum standards would 

actually be a burden on us. In many 

ways I actually think somewhat the 

opposite because there are a number of 

businesses right now that have taken 

the responsible step and put in place 

significant cyber protections while 

competitors in their industry, because 

they are not putting those same protections in place, are actually free riders on the system. Yet, not if but when 

we have a major cyber event, if one of 

those companies that has not put appropriate protections in place ends up 

causing dramatic harm to our economy 

or to that industry sector, all the industries and all the businesses in that 

sector will in one way or another end 

up paying the price. Again, this is one 

of the reasons why we need both this 

information sharing and some level of 

standards. 

I know to try to move forward in 

terms of actual or mandatory standards, we are not going to have them at 

this point. We have set up a measure— 

and again, I commend Senator KYL and 

Senator WHITEHOUSE for working 

through what I think is a pretty darn 

good compromise where there would be 

an industry group that would develop, 

in effect, best practices. It is hard with 

the government and bureaucracy moving so slowly to keep up with something like technology that would allow 

an industry group to come up with, in 

effect, best practices. Those companies 

that adhere to those best practices 

would actually receive legal and other 

protections so we could encourage 

folks to make sure we have in place the 

kind of protections that all industries 

and our country need. 

To make clear that we don’t have 

mandatory standards, we have put in 

place—I have been working with Senator SNOWE on a couple of amendments. I believe there are other Members who will join us on at least one of 

these amendments. The first amendment is very important and hopefully 

will go some distance in terms of clarifying one of the issues that seems to be 

a major subject of debate in this legislation, and that is to modify—again 

working with the chairs of the committee, we may even move beyond this 

modification to elimination—a key 

section of the bill, section 103. It will 

make clear that the standards set by 

this bill, the protection of infrastructure, are indeed voluntary. This 

amendment makes it clear that this 

bill does not in any way alter the authority of any Federal agency to regulate the security of critical infrastructure. Again, there were some concerns 

that there might have been a mistake 

in the earlier draft. This amendment 

makes clear that the standards that 

are developed by industry working 

groups will be voluntary and that nothing in this legislation will allow any 

Federal agency to regulate the security 

of critical infrastructure. 

I believe this amendment should alleviate the concerns of some that the 

bill might put in place mandatory 

standards for infrastructure protection—again, despite the very clear language that already exists in the bill 

that standards are voluntary. It is my 

understanding this amendment will be 

considered as part of a broader set of 

solutions negotiated by Senator LIEBERMAN, and whether our amendment 

comes forward or whether it is broadened into a managers’ package, I hope 

it will clarify this portion of the debate 

about mandatory versus voluntary. 

Voluntary is a good first step. The 

fact that this will be developed by industry working groups, the fact that 

this will not be subject to the lagging 

time of government bureaucracy or 

rulemaking, hopefully, will move us in 

the right direction. 

A second amendment, again, one I 

have been working on with Senator 

SNOWE, is a bit more technical, and 

particularly as to my colleagues on the 

Commerce Committee, I hope we will 

be able to gain some support from 

them. This amendment seeks to ensure 

that the authority provided to DHS to 

sole-source highly specialized products 

will result in the procurement of interoperable, standards-based products and 

services whenever possible. 

What does that mean in English? It 

means when government goes out, and 

particularly during sole-sourcing of a 

solution set, too often—and I have seen 

this in my old industry of telecom 

years in and years out—people will develop a particular product or solution 

that works for that company’s only set 

of standards, and when the government 

subsequently or other private sector 

entities go on and buy or replace or expand whatever particular system it is, 

if it is not interoperable with the rest 

of the telecommunications system or 

the rest of the network, then we are 

really not getting value for our dollar. 

Again, this is a small issue in the 

context of cyber security, but both 

Senator SNOWE and I believe it is important for the purpose of competition, 

and it should lower the overall cost of 

key technologies and services for the 

taxpayer. 

So as I close on my first comments, 

I hope we will be able to move forward 

before the break on the question of 

cyber security. I think great progress 

has been made in the negotiations. I 

know there are a lot of issues that remain to be resolved, but I would reinforce what so many other colleagues 

have already said. It is not a question 

of if we are hit by a cyber attack, it is 

only a question of when in terms of a 

major incident. Let’s get ahead of the 

game. 

TRIBUTE TO FEDERAL EMPLOYEES

DIANE BRAUNSTEIN

Let me take two more moments and 

rise on one other issue. As many of my 

colleagues and the floor staff know, I 

come down on a fairly regular basis to 

honor great Federal employees. With 

all of the challenges we face with the 

fiscal cliff—I see my good friend and 

partner here, the Senator from Oklahoma, and both he and I are always 

trying to look for ways we can get better value for the taxpayer. One of the 

things we need to do is find ways to reward and recognize the good work of so 

many Federal employees who share 

that goal of getting better value for 

the taxpayer. I know the Senator from 

Oklahoma has particularly worked 

with the GAO on a number of occasions 

to find and root out duplication and 

other issues of where we can save dollars. 

I come down on a regular basis to 

recognize Federal employees—because 

so many times they are under assault— 

when they do good things. Today I do 

that one more time, with recognition 

of another great Federal employee, in 

this case Diane Braunstein, who is the 

Associate Commissioner for the Office 

of International Programs for the Social Security Administration. She has 


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S5832 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE August 1, 2012 

overseen the creation of the Compassionate Allowance Program, which has 

allowed thousands of seriously ill 

Americans to gain quick approval for 

much needed Social Security benefits 

in a matter of days or weeks rather 

than months or years; although in this 

area of Social Security disability we 

need to make sure only the appropriate 

beneficiaries are receiving those funds. 

For years, the Social Security Disability Insurance Program has faced 

backlogs and delays in processing 

claims. In 2011 there were on average 

700,000 pending cases. We need to do a 

better job of evaluating and weeding 

out some of those cases. Couple this 

with what used to be a lack of caseworker knowledge on rare illnesses, 

and the result was a number of applications with rare illnesses being incorrectly denied Federal benefits. They 

then had to face an appeals process 

which took years to complete. 

Beginning in 2008, Ms. Braunstein 

partnered with patient advocacy 

groups and NIH to come up with a list 

of 25 cancers and 25 rare diseases that 

would automatically qualify an applicant to receive benefits. To further improve the speed and efficiency and cost 

effectiveness of this process, an easyto-use reference guide and training program was put together to aid caseworkers. 

According to Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue, when Ms. 

Braunstein began work on the compassionate allowances, some Americans 

were waiting 2 to 4 years for a decision. 

Now those with the most devastating 

disabilities get approved for benefits in 

a matter of days. In 2010, the program 

was able to assist an estimated 45,000 

people, and 65,000 people in 2011. 

I hope my colleagues will join me in 

honoring Ms. Braunstein for her innovation and excellent work she has done 

as well as her commitment to public 

service. 

Again, we have some hard choices to 

make beyond the question of cyber security, but as we approach this fiscal 

cliff there will be more asked of all 

Americans and there will be more 

asked of our Federal employees. We 

will have to continue to find ways to 

ratchet out those programs that are 

duplicative, those areas where we are 

not getting value for our dollar. 

Again, I know this is an issue of concern to the Senator from Louisiana and 

the Senator from Oklahoma. But when 

we find initiatives that work, and we 

find Federal employees who are helping 

us provide value, particularly for those 

in need at a good price, they deserve 

this recognition. 

With that, I yield the floor. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana. 

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, first, 

before I begin the topic I wish to speak 

about, I thank Mr. WARNER, the Senator from Virginia, for his leadership. 

He has many Federal employees, many 

defense contractors in Virginia. He, as 

a Senator from Virginia, recognizes the 

great threat to our Nation today in 

cyber security. The Senator knows 

very well that there are literally thousands of attacks taking place as we 

speak. That is why as we get ready to 

go back to our States for the August 

recess and visit with constituents, we 

are pressing very hard for a positive 

vote to move forward on the debate to 

fashion a cyber security bill for our Nation. So I thank the Senator for his 

leadership and, of course, the tremendous Federal employees who do get 

beat up all the time but, in fact, do remarkable work for our Nation and for 

the world. 

So I thank the Senator from Virginia. 

(The remarks of Senator LANDRIEU

pertaining to the introduction of S. 

3472 are printed in today’s RECORD

under ‘‘Statements on Introduced Bills 

and Joint Resolutions.’’) 

Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank Senator 

COBURN for letting me speak in advance of his time on the floor. 

I yield the floor. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. 

CARDIN). The Senator from Oklahoma. 

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask 

unanimous consent to speak as in 

morning business. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

The Senator is recognized. 

ARMY WEAPONRY

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, it is 

pretty unusual for me to come to the 

floor to say I want to spend money. But 

I have had a longstanding problem as I 

sign the letters of condolences to hundreds of families in Oklahoma who 

have lost their loved one by serving 

this country. 

I come to the floor to offer a critique 

on one of the most important things to 

the people who truly put their lives on 

the line for this country. It is a national security issue, but it is truly 

about our men and women in uniform 

and the most important deployed weapon system over the last 10 years of war; 

that is, the Army service rifle and 

their other small arms. 

There is nothing more important to a 

soldier than his rifle or her rifle. There 

is simply no excuse for not providing 

our soldiers with the best weapon, not 

just a weapon that is ‘‘good enough.’’ 

As I go through this, I am going to 

give a history of what the military has 

done—or, rather, basically what they 

have not done—in terms of having 

available for our soldiers a weapon that 

is capable of giving them the best possible chance when they serve our country. 

Over the last few years, we have 

spent $8,000 per soldier on new radios, 

but we still are using a weapon that is 

25 years old when it comes to their M4. 

I first got involved in this when I got 

e-mails. I gave many in the Oklahoma 

National Guard—who served multiple 

tours, with lots of life lost in Iraq and 

Afghanistan—I gave those soldiers my 

personal e-mail, and I said: If you are 

having a problem over there, e-mail 

me. 

I started hearing about the malfunction, the lack of effectiveness of the M4 

for the Oklahomans who were over 

there. It is the same weapon the career 

Army has. It is the same weapon everybody who is issued a standard rifle is 

given, except for our special forces and 

others in the world who have a better 

rifle than the U.S. soldier on the 

ground fighting on our behalf. 

I have noted before in the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD that I have lifted my 

objection to the nomination of Ms. 

Heidi Shyu to be the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisitions. It 

is an important position. She is in 

charge of $28 billion worth of expenditures. My objection was due to the 

Army’s continued lack of urgency in 

modernizing and fielding new rifles, 

carbines, pistols, light machine guns, 

and ammunition for our troops in combat. Ms. Shyu has been very responsive 

to me and has provided some information regarding the Army’s future plans 

for small arms and ammunition. 

So when I started getting the questions from our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, I started looking into what 

was happening. Most of our soldiers 

know exactly what to do and how to 

care for their rifle. They know how to 

take care of it. So we looked into the 

issue. What we found was that there 

were several studies that raised questions about the reliability of the M4 

rifle and whether there was a better 

weapon out there for our troops. 

For example, a special operations 

forces report in February 2001 said the 

M4’s short barrel and gas tube increased the risk that a round might 

not eject from the rifle properly after 

it is fired. In other words, they fire it 

and the round does not come out. That 

is called a jam—when you are having 

bullets coming at you and your rifle is 

jamming. 

What we did was we set up a test, and 

the Army would not do it. So I put a 

hold on the Secretary of the Army Pete 

Geren’s nomination. We talked, and he 

assured me we would have a new competition for a new rifle for our troops. 

That was in 2007. 

Here we are, 5 years later, and the 

Army is now telling us we are going to 

complete a new competition in 2014. 

But in the meantime, we had a test 

done against our soldiers’ rifle and others available in the world, in terms of 

a dust test, and we came in last. 

So we are sending our troops to defend us and fight for a cause that we 

have put blood, sweat, tears, and $1 

trillion into, and we are sending them 

with one that does not work the best. 

My question to the Army is, Why? I 

can tell you why. Because the guys who 

are responsible for making the decision 

on purchasing the rifles are not the 

guys who are out there on the line. Because if they were, we would have already had this competition and our 

service men and women would be getting new rifles. 

It is not that we cannot do it because 

what we learned—as we went back in 


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August 1, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S5833 

and reupped in Afghanistan—we determined that the MRAP was not suitable 

for the rocky terrain as compared to 

what we used it for in Iraq. 

In less than 16 months and after rapid 

testing and fielding, new MRAP AllTerrain Vehicles—that was designed 

specifically for Afghanistan; a complicated piece of vital equipment, costing $1⁄2 million each—started arriving 

in Afghanistan. 

So it is not that we cannot supply 

our soldiers with a new rifle. It is not 

that it cannot be done. It is that we 

refuse to do it. 

For $1,500, we can give every person 

on the line something equivalent to 

what our special forces have today. 

Let me show some history. 

The average age of our troops rifle is 

26 years. The average age of the German military rifle, small arms, is 12 

years. For the U.S. special operations 

forces, theirs is 8 years. Guess what. 

They have new technology. Our regular 

frontline guys, they do not get it. They 

cannot have it. It costs the same, but 

they cannot have it because it is not a 

priority for the leadership in the Army 

to give the most deployed piece of 

equipment our troops need—that defends them, protects them, and gives 

them the ability to come home alive— 

we will not give it to them. It is 

shameful. It is shameful. 

Let me give a history of what happened just once in Afghanistan. 

It was called the battle of Wanat. On 

July 13, 2008, in the battle of Wanat, in 

Afghanistan, 200 Taliban troops attacked U.S. troops at a remote outpost 

in eastern Afghanistan. The Taliban 

were able to break through our lines 

and entered the main base before eventually being repelled by artillery and 

aircraft. 

What is notable about the battle was 

the perceived performance of the soldiers’ small arms weapons in the initial 

part of the battle. 

Here are some quotes: 

My M4 quit firing and would no longer 

charge when I tried to correct the malfunction. 

I couldn’t charge my weapon and put another round in because it was too hot, so I 

got mad I threw my weapon down. 

It would be bad enough if this was 

the first time it happened. But it is not 

the first time it has happened. It has 

happened multiple times to our troops 

in our present conflicts. 

All we have to do is go back to what 

happened with the M16 when they were 

first used in Vietnam. There were instant reports of jamming and malfunctions. One tragic but indicative marine 

action report read: 

We left with 72 men in our platoon and 

came back with 19. Believe it or not, you 

know what killed most of us? Our own rifle. 

Practically every one of our dead was found 

with his M16 torn down next to him where he 

had been trying to fix it. 

That is occurring now, except it is 

not getting any press. Again, I would 

ask my colleagues in the Senate: Why 

would we not give our soldiers the capability that almost every other soldier has except ours? 

There is another aspect of this that I 

think needs to be shared; that is, the 

fact that it is all about acquisitions 

and culture rather than about doing 

the right thing. I do not like giving 

this talk critical of the leadership of 

the Army. But when it is going to take 

7 years to field a new rifle and in 18 

months we can build and design a completely new $500,000 piece of equipment, 

an MRAP, for Afghanistan or when we 

can spend $8,000 per troop to give them 

a new radio—which are all going to be 

replaced in the next 2 years with another $8,000—and we cannot give them 

a $1,500 H&K or something equivalent, 

there is something wrong with our system. Our priorities are out of whack. 

If the Department of Defense had 

spent just 15 percent less on radios, 

they could give every soldier in the 

military a new, capable, modern weapon, and it does not just apply to their 

rifle. 

One of the biggest complaints, after 

the M4, is the fact that the regular 

Army gets a 9-millimeter pistol that 

weighs over 2 pounds, but our special 

operations forces get a .45-caliber pistol that weighs less than 11⁄2 pounds. 

That is a big difference when you are 

out there all day. But the most important thing is, a .45-caliber round is 

twice the size of a 9-millimeter round, 

so when you are shooting it and you hit 

somebody, it is going to take them 

down. A 9-millimeter does not. So we 

are giving them an inferior pistol 

throughout the military. 

Then, finally, here is what an M4 carbine looks like compared to an HK416, 

as shown on this chart. One other point 

I would make. This piece of equipment 

fires on automatic. This other piece of 

equipment—because the military wants 

to save some bullets—will not fire on 

automatic. So our soldiers are facing 

people who have automatic fire and 

they can fire in bursts of three and at 

half the rate of what they are facing. 

Why would we do that? The real 

question is, we are asking people to defend this country. For essentially the 

same amount of money, we can buy an 

old-style, 26-year-old M4 or we can buy 

a brandnew one that gives them everything they need and gives them the 

best weapon. Do they not deserve that? 

A lot of people do a lot of things for 

our country. But nobody does for our 

country what the soldier on the frontline does—nobody. This is a moral 

question, Mr. Secretary of the Army. 

This is a moral question. Get the rifle 

competition going. 

Members of Congress, members of the 

Senate Armed Services Committee, do 

not allow this to continue to happen. 

Do not allow this to continue to happen. There is no excuse for it. We 

should be embarrassed. We should be 

ashamed. Because what we are doing is 

sending our troops into harm’s way 

with less than the best that we can provide for them. 

As I have noted, I have lifted my objection to the nomination of Ms. Heidi 

Shyu to be the Assistant Secretary of 

the Army for Acquisitions. This is an 

extremely important position for an 

organization as large as the U.S. Army 

which spends $28 billion per year on acquisition of goods and services. My objection was due to the Army’s continued lack of urgency in modernizing and 

fielding new rifles, carbines, pistols, 

light machine guns, and ammunition 

to our troops in combat. Ms. Shyu has 

been responsive to me and provided 

some information regarding the 

Army’s future plans for small arms and 

ammunition. 

I first got involved in the Army small 

arms issue 6 years ago when Oklahoma 

National Guard soldiers told me that 

their issued weapon, the M4 carbine, 

was jamming in Iraq. These soldiers 

were told by their superiors that jamming resulted from poor weapons maintenance on their part and not from any 

fault of the rifle. While cleaning and 

proper maintenance of a weapon are extremely important, sand and dust in 

Iraq are a daily occurrence and any 

small arms weapon our troops use 

there should be able to fire reliably in 

spite of some sand and dust. 

Also, the National Guard soldiers 

from my State—as is the case for 

Guard soldiers from many if not all of 

our States—are somewhat more likely 

to hunt or serve as police officers or security guards in their civilian lives. In 

other words, National Guard soldiers in 

the infantry generally know better 

than most how to care for rifles. So my 

staff looked into this issue and found 

that there were studies that raise questions on the reliability of the M4 and 

whether there was a better weapon out 

there for our troops. For example, a 

special operations forces report in February 2001 said that the M4’s short barrel and gas tube increased risk that 

round might not eject from the rifle 

properly after firing. 

I also learned that in the early 1990s 

Colt received funding from the Army to 

produce the M4 carbine, which would 

be a shorter variant on the M16 rifle. 

This was not done through a competition and was considered merely an extension of Colt’s original M16 contract. 

This lack of competition would later 

greatly benefit Colt. In 1999 Colt 

charged the military less than $600 per 

M4 carbine. This would rise to more 

than $900 in 2002 and more than $1,200 

for a fully equipped carbine in 2010 

when the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan 

resulted in more M4s being bought. 

So in 2007 I raised these questions 

and even put a hold on the nomination 

of Secretary of the Army Pete Geren. 

To his credit, he ordered a full and 

open competition for a new carbine 

rifle no later than the end of 2009. 

It is now 2012 and the Army still has 

not completed a competition for a new 

carbine rifle, now scheduled for 2014. 

The window for the regular Army soldiers to battlefield test an improved 

rifle in a war we have been in for 12 

years is rapidly closing. This extended 

and lengthy process is for a weapon 


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S5834 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE August 1, 2012 

system that—while vital—costs less 

than $2,000 each. 

This 7-year effort differs greatly from 

their effort to field new armored combat vehicles in Afghanistan. According 

to the Government Accountability Office, in 2008 Army leaders determined 

that the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected, MRAP, vehicle was not suitable 

for the rocky terrain of Afghanistan. In 

less than 16 months and after rapid 

testing and fielding, new MRAP all-terrain vehicles, M–ATV, a complicated 

piece of vital equipment costing 

$500,000 each—started arriving in Afghanistan. 

In contrast, according to the Government Accountability Office, the Department of Defense spent more than 

$11 billion buying newer models of existing legacy radios from 2003 to 2011 

and is currently planning on spending 

billions more on even newer radios to 

replace the ones just purchased for Iraq 

and Afghanistan. There are only 1.4 

million troops on active duty so the 

Department of Defense has spent nearly $8,000 per troop on new radios. A 

brand new rifle—that soldiers don’t 

have—costs around $1,000 to $1,500. 

If the Department of Defense had just 

spent 15 percent less on the billions and 

billions they spent on newer models of 

legacy radios in the last 10 years, every 

soldier in the Army could have had a 

brandnew carbine rifle going to war. 

In addition to the rifle, there remains 

a great need for improvement of the 

Army’s service pistol. This pistol, usually given to officers but also as an additional weapon to some infantry soldiers, is the M9 Beretta. This pistol entered the Army in 1985, 27 years ago, 

and fires a 9mm round. The M9 pistol 

had the lowest satisfaction rate of any 

weapon surveyed by the military in 

2006 on troops returning from Iraq and 

Afghanistan with half feeling that the 

9mm ammunition is insufficient. 

Is the Army’s failure to modernize its 

rifles, pistols and machine guns a recent occurrence? Sadly no, the Army’s 

reluctance to field new weapons runs 

throughout its history. In far too many 

instances U.S. Army troops have entered battle with an inferior weapon to 

their adversaries and either during or 

after the war ended the Army was reluctant to change and adapt to the superior weapons. 

In 1776 colonial forces faced the British at the Battle of Brandywine where 

the British used a new breech loading 

weapon that loaded at the rear of the 

weapon rather than the muzzle or front 

of the weapon. As a result trained British soldiers could fire more than twice 

as fast as trained colonial American 

soldiers. The breech loading weapon 

was not used much in the Revolutionary War but where it was used, 

such as at the Battle of Brandywine, it 

was described as acting magnificently: 

93 British killed and 400 wounded compared to over 300 Americans that died, 

600 wounded, and 400 prisoners captured. 

However when Americans again 

fought the British in the War of 1812— 

36 years later—the Americans were 

still using the same muzzle loading 

weapon they fought with during the 

Battle of Brandywine. 

U.S. Army troops at war against 

Mexico in 1845 did not have breech 

loading rifles, but rather continued to 

carry muzzle-loading rifles when fighting against Mexico—nearly 80 years 

after the breech-loading rifle was invented. 

During the Civil War one Union officer in particular was unsatisfied with 

the Army’s standard muzzle-loaded 

rifle and decided to do something about 

it. Colonel Wilder, commander of the 

Union’s ‘‘Lightning Brigade’’ decided 

to go around the Army bureaucracy. 

His men spent $35 out of their paychecks to buy Spencer Repeating Rifles 

direct from the factory for his mounted 

cavalry. In one of the first battles 

using this new rifle Wilder’s ‘‘Lightning Brigade’’ of 1,000 soldiers defended 

the Union flank against over 8,000 Confederate troops that could not pass. At 

one point one company of Colonel 

Wilder’s men held off ten times as 

many Confederate troops using their 

repeating rifles for 5 hours. 

However, the Army did not widely 

adopt the repeating rifle after the Civil 

War. More than 30 years later in the 

Spanish-American War, 5,000 American 

soldiers armed with single shot rifles 

attacked fewer than 1,000 Spanish soldiers armed with a German ‘Mauser’ 

repeating rifle. While Americans won 

the battle by attrition (there were 

10,000 U.S. troops in reserve), the U.S. 

Army suffered over 1,400 casualties, 

with 205 killed, while the Spanish lost 

fewer than 250, with 58 killed, before 

surrendering. 

A telling American newspaper column title from 1898 aptly summarizes 

the problems: ‘‘The [U.S. Army] Gun: 

It is Inferior in Many Respects to the 

Mauser [rifle] used by the Spaniards.’’ 

The article states unequivocally that 

the ‘‘enemy’s [Spain’s] weapon is easier 

to load [and] can be fired more rapidly’’. 

The 20th Century would see a great 

deal of further modernization, improvement, and innovation in the area 

of small arms to include lighter fully 

automatic assault rifles capable of firing at a rate of more than 10 rounds per 

second rather than per minute. 

The United States entered World War 

I with a Springfield 1903 rifle, named 

for the Armory and the year it was produced, which was possibly the third 

best rifle in the world at that time. 

The British Enfield-Lee rifle held ten 

rounds instead of 5 and could fire upwards of 20 rounds per minute. The 

American rifle held only 5 rounds and 

fired 10 rounds per minute which was 

similar, but still inferior to the German rifle that was capable of firing 

more rounds per minute. 

The U.S. Army did enter World War 

II with one of the last great battle rifles, the M1 Garand, but its success 

during that conflict may have blinded 

the Army to a revolutionary development in small arms: the invention of 

the modern lightweight fully-automatic assault rifle. From 1942 to 1944 

Germany invented the world’s first assault rifles—rifles that could fire 550 to 

600 rounds per minute and held detachable 30 round magazines. However, it 

would be over two decades later before 

U.S. Army soldiers were permitted to 

have lightweight assault rifles. 

Shortly after World War II ended the 

Soviet Union invented the AK–47 fully 

automatic assault rifle. This rifle’s 

success is easily stated: over 90 million 

AK–47s or derivatives have been built. 

It is very likely a weapon that has inflicted more casualties than any other 

weapon on earth. Soviet troops had 

this rifle nearly 20 years before the 

United States Army would issue assault rifles to its soldiers. 

In 1958, an American inventor named 

Eugene Stoner developed the AR–15 

rifle in less than 9 months, which 

would eventually become the M16. This 

revolutionary rifle weighed six pounds 

and fired at a rate between 700 and 900 

shots per minute with little recoil and 

the lightweight but still deadly 5.56mm 

ammunition meant soldiers could 

carry more firepower than before. 

However, it took the then-Chief of 

Staff of the Air Force General Curtis 

LeMay to purchase 85,000 of them for 

use by Air Force base defense airmen 

before they got into the military at all. 

The U.S. Army was strongly opposed to 

the M16. Some of these weapons were 

used by Special Forces troops serving 

as advisers in Vietnam, increasing the 

pressure for the Army to adopt it. The 

Army initially refused the AR–15s stating the ‘‘lack of any military requirement.’’ 

At this point, it should be clarified 

that the Army has used the phrase 

‘‘lack of a requirement’’ for more than 

50 years to justify slowing down and 

not innovating in the area of small 

arms. I first encountered the phrase 

‘‘lack of a requirement’’ in 2006 when 

asking why the Army couldn’t field a 

better carbine rifle that didn’t jam in 

the desert. I am hearing the same 

phrase today when I ask why soldiers 

can’t have a better light machine gun 

or pistol. Soldiers have complained 

about these weapons but they can’t 

have a new one because there is no 

‘‘military requirement.’’ Congress is 

often frustrated by the term ‘‘military 

requirement’’ because it can be used to 

deflect responsibility from the person 

using it. It says the Army is fearful of 

offering its judgment on whether or 

not someone made a weapon that is 

better than what the Army has, so it 

instead says that the weapon is not 

needed. 

It took intervention by President 

Kennedy and Secretary of Defense 

McNamara to order the Army to adopt 

the M16 rifle—the military version of 

the AR–15. Then what happened in 

Vietnam was a tragic occurrence that 

took the direct involvement and investigation of Congress and deaths of 

thousands of soldiers to remedy. 


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August 1, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S5835 

When the M16s were first used in 

Vietnam there were nearly instant reports of jamming and malfunctions. 

One tragic but indicative Marine afteraction report read: 

We left with 72 men in our platoon and 

came back with 19. Believe it or not, you 

know what killed most of us? Our own rifle. 

Practically every one of our dead was found 

with his M16 torn down next to him where he 

had been trying to fix it. 

Before the necessary fixes could be 

made to the weapon which included 

switching back to the original type of 

ammunition propellant and issuing 

cleaning supplies in early 1967, nearly 

ten thousand American soldiers had 

been killed. Before the Army made the 

changes these soldiers were told—much 

as soldiers are told today—that problems with their weapons are their 

fault: a lack of care and cleaning or operator error. There is no formal process 

where soldiers are required to provide 

feedback to Army leadership on a 

jammed weapon in order to accurately 

note issues with reliability. 

There were six warnings from various 

arsenals and offices within the Department of Defense as to the problems 

with the M16. However, the Army Materiel Command and Army senior leaders would not listen. It took public 

pressure and a massive congressional 

investigation by the House Armed 

Services Committee to get to the bottom of the problems with the Army’s 

small arms in Vietnam. It was discovered that the Army was using a different ammunition propellant—procured from a sole-source contract— 

that caused the M16 to jam. After Congressional intervention, the original 

propellant was used and the problems 

with the M16 nearly disappeared. After 

Vietnam, the Army formally adopted 

the M16 as its service rifle and by 1968 

nearly all troops surveyed said they 

preferred the M16 to any other rifle. 

The post-Vietnam era saw changes 

for the M16 weapon, few of them positive. In 1980 the Army adopted a different, heavier 5.56mm round that required different rifling for the caliber 

which marginally improved penetration of armor and helmets but at the 

cost of greatly reducing. 

U.S. troops would find out in Iraq and 

Afghanistan that the enemy did not 

wear helmets or armor. As a result the 

rounds would penetrate through the 

enemy and exit the other side without 

causing enough damage to incapacitate 

him and he kept fighting. Soldiers have 

regularly reported having to fire multiple rounds into enemy combatants in 

Iraq and Afghanistan as a result. 

In 1982 the Army also altered the M16 

to prohibit soldiers from firing on full 

automatic. The current M16A2 rifle has 

a choice between semiautomatic and 

three-round burst. The M16A2 is now 

the only major assault rifle in the 

world fielded for military use that does 

have a full automatic capability. 

As I said the problems we see with 

small arms procurement may not be 

sinister, but they are serious and they 

are current. 

On July 13, 2008 in the Battle of 

Wanat in Afghanistan around 200 

Taliban attacked U.S. troops at a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan. 

The Taliban were able to break 

through U.S. lines and enter the main 

base before eventually being repelled 

by artillery and aircraft. What is notable about the battle was the perceived 

poor performance of the soldiers’ small 

arms weapons in the initial part of the 

battle. Some selected quotes from the 

report: 

My M4 quit firing and would no longer 

charge when I tried to correct the malfunction, 

I couldn’t charge my weapon and put another round in because it was too hot, so I 

got mad and threw my weapon down. 

Nine soldiers died and twenty-seven 

were wounded at the Battle of Wanat 

in Afghanistan. 

For too much of its history from the 

Revolutionary War to today the Army 

has shown a slowness and reluctance to 

adopt improved small arms weapons 

and ammunition developed by others. 

It has also been slow to recognize and 

fix problems with its small arms. The 

Army has repeatedly engaged in poor 

negotiating and contracting on behalf 

of the American people. Senior Army 

leaders continue to go work for incumbent small arms manufacturers after 

they retire. 

However, a major problem is also 

Congress. There have been far too few 

hearings and oversight on the topic of 

small arms. The House Armed Services 

Committee report in 1967 stands out as 

an exception that proves this point. 

Senior military leaders in uniform and 

civilians are regularly challenged and 

questioned—and in some cases chewed 

out—on all manner of programs and 

weapon systems here by Members of 

Congress including medical benefits, 

stealth fighter jets, missile defense, 

the size of the Army and Navy, and armored vehicles. 

However, for some reason Congress, 

for the most part, has seen fit to give 

the Army a pass on small arms. For 

some reason the oversight committees 

responsible do not aggressively and 

regularly question whether the Army’s 

rifle—the most deployed weapon system for the last ten years—is the best 

that American industry can offer our 

troops. There are many small arms experts that are independent of the industry that can inform Congress on 

this issue. I call on my colleagues to 

hold long overdue hearings on this 

topic with independent witnesses as 

soon as possible and will continue my 

efforts on this issue to raise awareness 

and push the Army to procure the best 

weapons and ammunition for our 

troops. 

I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The bill clerk proceeded to call the 

roll. 

Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I ask 

unanimous consent that the order for 

the quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I ask 

unanimous consent to speak as in 

morning business. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

THE DROUGHT

Mr. MORAN. Back home in Kansas, 

we are spending our time down on our 

knees and then looking up to the sky. 

We are praying and hoping for rain. 

Our State, along with much of the 

country, is in a very serious drought. 

Crops are dying. Cattle are hungry and 

are being sold off and water is in scarce 

supply. 

Every county in Kansas, all 105, have 

now been declared disaster communities. Half of the continental United 

States is in the worst drought since 

1956, and the situation is expected only 

to get worse. In this photograph, my 

friend Ken Grecian from Palco, KS—it 

is a little town in northwest Kansas—is 

pictured here with dry grass and hungry cattle. Over the past few weeks, 

Ken has had to reduce his herd at lower 

prices than before because there is not 

enough feed to feed the cattle. Ken is 

similar to many producers who have 

been diligently building their herds of 

cattle over many years and are now 

seeing those cattle sold due to the 

drought, undermining their efforts, 

year after year, to develop a herd. 

Paul and Tommie Westfahl from 

Haven, KS, just a little bit north and 

west of Wichita, and their two daughters Jenna and Raegan are pictured 

standing next to their failed crops. 

South central Kansas has been hard hit 

this year by the drought. The corn on 

the right never got above chest high 

and dried up months before it was time 

to harvest. 

Paul swathed and will soon bale his 

failed beans on the left of the photo 

and try to save some of that for feed 

for cattle this winter. Hard times are 

there and they are not over. 

The United States has a long history 

of drought and recovery. From the 

Dust Bowl to today, we have faced periods of drought. The thirties were often 

called the worst of hard times. Don 

Hartwell, a farmer on the Kansas and 

Nebraska border, captured how hard it 

was when he wrote this in his diary on 

May 21, 1936: 

15 years ago, the Republican River bottom 

was a vast expanse of alfa and corn fields. 

Now, it is practically a desert of wasted, 

shifting sand, washed-out ditches, cockle 

burs, and devastation. I doubt very much if 

it ever can be reclaimed. 

A few weeks later he wrote in his 

diary, ‘‘I wonder where we will be a 


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S5836 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE August 1, 2012 

year from now?’’ In the 1930s, folks 

were faced with severe drought which 

resulted in the Dust Bowl. People were 

forced to abandon their farms and 

ranches and give up the only way of 

life they knew. Crops, livestock, and 

livelihoods vanished with the dust. 

They were unimaginable times. Thankfully, those unimaginable times passed 

and the rains came and the Republican 

River bottom was reclaimed. 

This happened with the help of the 

good Lord and by individual efforts by 

those who refused to give in to those 

bad times, to give in to nature. If we 

look at the drought now and compare 

it to that of the 1930s, we will notice a 

huge difference. There is no Dust Bowl. 

The programs and conservation management tools that were used have 

worked. The forward-thinking American farmers and ranchers, the landowners who adopted new land and livestock management practices have 

made conservation the most effective 

drought mitigation effort available 

today. 

But conservation programs are in 

danger. While many conservation practices can be planned and executed by 

individual farmers and ranchers, certain programs administered by the Department of Agriculture deserve our 

attention so these important initiatives do not expire on September 30. In 

just about 60 days, farm programs will 

expire, and that means more uncertainty, compounding an already disastrous drought situation. 

Right now, farmers and ranchers are 

wondering the same thing Don 

Hartwell wondered in 1936: Where am I 

going to be 1 year from now? As Congress debates the future of domestic 

agricultural policy, it is critical risk 

mitigation tools are included for farmers and ranchers. Most important 

among these tools is crop insurance. 

With the absence of direct payments in 

both the House and Senate versions of 

a new farm bill, crop insurance is and 

will remain the last protective tool 

available to those producers. 

Viable crop insurance ensures that a 

farm operation can survive difficult 

times, when there is drought or hail or 

flood, in hopes that they can experience a successful yield the following 

year. Farmers always have hope: 

Tough times now? Come back next 

year. But crop insurance, as valuable 

as it is, does not cover all the problems 

agriculture producers face, and particularly livestock producers are not 

usually generally eligible for crop insurance coverage. 

These producers require risk mitigation and a safety net just like producers covered by crop insurance. Disaster programs for livestock, along 

with crop insurance for cultivation agriculture, give producers the security 

they need to plan and invest for the future. 

Currently, ranchers and cattlemen 

are left with few disaster programs. 

The 2008 farm bill disaster farm programs expired this year, leaving producers across our drought-stricken 

country with less protection from 

Mother Nature. These programs are an 

important safety net for farmers and 

ranchers. Farmers and ranchers such 

as Ken and Paul deserve to know what 

the future of these programs will be. 

We should not expect producers to 

plant crops or to buy and sell livestock 

if they do not know what the rules are. 

Putting these programs back in place 

and ensuring a sound safety net is vital 

for drought recovery, continued conservation work, and for the affordable 

food supply for the people of our country. Kansas farmers and ranchers 

should not have to keep guessing. It is 

too important to their families, their 

industry, and their Nation for more 

delay. 

We must give agricultural producers 

the long-term certainty and support 

they deserve. While we wait for Washington, we will continue to hope and 

pray. 

I yield the floor. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts. 

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, what is 

the parliamentary situation? 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. We are 

on the motion to proceed. 

CLIMATE CHANGE

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, a number 

of us have spoken with increasing concern—I think probably most Senators 

have come to the floor in the course of 

the last months to express their alarm 

about the politics that surround big 

issues in our country that demand action and not partisanship, not acrimony, but which we continue to simply 

find a way to avoid. We have been artists in the politics of avoidance here in 

Washington over the course of too long 

a period now. 

The debt and the fiscal cliff are obviously perfect examples of where, despite all of the warnings and all of the 

expert advice we get, Congress is fundamentally stuck in political cement 

of our own mixing. No one will credibly 

deny here the existence of the fiscal 

cliff, the crisis of our budget, the tax 

system, and so forth. So that, at least 

as an issue that is avoided, gets a credible amount of words being thrown at 

it. 

But there is another issue that, in 

many ways, is just as serious because 

of its implications for all that we do on 

this planet, but which doesn’t any 

longer elicit that kind of concern or expressions of alarm on both sides of the 

aisle, or from that many Senators. The 

two words that have described this particular issue over a long period of time 

now have actually become somewhat 

words of almost skepticism in many 

quarters in America, or a kind of 

shrug, where people say: I don’t know 

what I can do about it. It is not something I ought to worry about. Somebody else will take care of it, or maybe 

it is not real. Those words are ‘‘climate 

change.’’ 

Climate change, over the last few 

years, has regrettably lost credibility 

in the eyes and ears of the American 

people because of a concerted campaign 

of disinformation, a concerted campaign to brand the concept as somehow 

slightly outside of the mainstream of 

American political thinking. I have to 

say it has been a remarkably effective 

campaign. You can’t sit here and say it 

hasn’t worked. Every opportunity to 

cast a pall on facts with some kind of 

cockamamie theory has been taken advantage of, and a lot of money has been 

spent in this process of disinformation 

and discrediting. 

People used to joke years and years 

ago about those who argued that the 

Earth was flat. For a long period of 

time, people argued that the Earth was 

flat, even though the evidence of astronomers and explorers evidenced that 

it was in fact quite the opposite. So we 

have, in effect, with respect to climate 

change in America today what is fundamentally a ‘‘flat Earth caucus’’—a 

bunch of people, some in the U.S. Congress itself, who still argue against all 

of the science, all of the evidence, that 

somehow we don’t know enough about 

climate change or that the evidence 

isn’t sufficient or that it is a hoax. We 

have Members of the Senate who argue 

it is a hoax. But that is all they do. 

They make the argument it is a hoax, 

but they don’t present—and they 

can’t—any real, hard, scientific, peerreviewed evidence to the effect that it 

is in fact a hoax. The reason they can’t 

is there are 6,000-plus peer-reviewed 

studies, which is the way science has 

always been done in America. If you 

are a scientist and you are a researcher, you do your science and research, and then your analysis is put to 

the test by your peers in those particular disciplines. They pass on the 

methodology, the pedagogy by which 

you arrived at your conclusions. 

We have more than 6,000 of those 

kinds of properly peer-reviewed analyses of the science of climate change, 

and the other side of the ledger has not 

one—not one, zero—peer-reviewed analysis that says human beings aren’t 

doing this to the atmosphere and that 

humans are not contributing or the 

main cause of what is happening in 

terms of the warming of the surface of 

the Earth. 

What has happened is that in America we all know it. We are seeing it in 

campaigns because of Citizens United. 

You have these unfathomable amounts 

of money being thrown into the political system—millionaires and billionaires who plunk down millions of dollars—a $10 million or $20 million check 

at a whack—and then what is happening is people buy their facts. They 

create their facts out of whole cloth. 

As we all have been reminded so 

many times in the last year, certainly, 

because of this new debate we are having in America—as our colleague, with 

whom I was privileged to serve here, 

Pat Moynihan, reminded us again and 

again, everyone is entitled to their own 

opinion in America, but you are not entitled to your own facts. But in fact, in 


pwalker on DSK7TPTVN1PROD with SENATE
August 1, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S5837 

American politics today, that is not 

true. Apparently, you are, because you 

can go out and buy them. You can buy 

some scientist to whom you give some 

appropriate amount of funds, and he 

does a study with a particular conclusion that has to be found, and they 

produce a whole bunch of hurly-burly 

to surround it and suggest that those 

are, in fact, facts. 

The result of this is that over the 

last year and a half or 2 years, we have 

had this concerted assault on reason, 

an assault on science. This isn’t the 

first time in the history of humankind 

we have been through these things. 

Galileo was put on trial for his findings 

and, as we all know, there have been 

countless periods of time—that is why 

we went through an Age of Enlightenment, Age of Reason, as people challenged these old precepts that weren’t 

based on fact but were sort of raw belief and/or political interests in some 

cases, or religious interests in some 

cases. A handful of Senators here, including Senator BOXER, Senator WHITEHOUSE, Senator SANDERS, Senator LAUTENBERG, the occupant of the chair, 

and Senator FRANKEN have recently 

spoken out about this very process by 

which an incredibly important, legitimate issue of concern to all Americans—to everybody in the world—is 

being completely sidelined because of 

the status quo interests of powerful 

corporations and other interests in 

America that don’t want to change, or 

some of whom find political advantage 

in somehow buying into the theory discrediting it. 

This has not been an issue on which 

there is a profile of courage by some in 

the U.S. Congress who are prepared to 

stand up and say what they know is 

true, but what has become far more 

convenient to avoid. I believe the situation we face is as dangerous as any of 

the sort of real crises that we talk 

about. 

Today we had a hearing in the Foreign Relations Committee on the subject of Syria. We all know what is happening with respect to Iran and nuclear 

weapons, and even the possibility of a 

war. This issue actually is of as significant a level of importance because it 

affects life itself on the planet, because 

it affects ecosystems on which the 

oceans and land depend for the relationship of the warmth of our Earth 

and the amount of moisture there is 

and all of the interactions that occur 

as a consequence of our climate. It involves our health because of policies 

that we do or don’t choose to pursue 

with respect to pollution in the air. 

Pollution didn’t used to be a question 

mark in American politics. We fought 

that fight in the 1960s and 1970s. Rachel 

Carson started this enormous movement for reasonableness when she 

warned Americans they were living 

next to toxic wells and water that had 

been polluted by companies that put 

mercury or other poisons into the 

Earth, which went down into the water 

supply, and people got cancer and died. 

America decided in the early 1970s— 

with the first Earth Day in 1970 itself, 

and the actions that Congress took 

after that in response to the American 

people—everybody decided we didn’t 

want that pollution in the air. We actually passed legislation in 1972, 1973, 

and 1974 that created the EPA. 

America didn’t even have an Environmental Protection Agency until 

Americans said we want to be protected, and the people in Congress responded to that. We passed the Clean 

Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Marine Mammal Protection, Coastal Zone Management, 

and all of these came about because of 

an awareness among the American people because they wanted to make a different set of choices or have their politicians do so on their behalf. Now, suddenly, there is an assault on the EPA, 

the Clean Air Act and, all of a sudden, 

pollution doesn’t matter. That is what 

we are talking about. 

Greenhouse gases are, in fact, a pollutant. The particulates that come 

with that have the same effect on 

human beings in terms of their breathing, their lungs, the input in some of 

their food and water, which ultimately 

impacts cancer, emphysema, and other 

diseases that come as a consequence of 

the quality of air we breathe. Yet we 

have this whole notion now that somehow we have gone too far, that we have 

done enough, or that the job has been 

done and we can go home, when, in 

fact, it is exactly the opposite. With respect to pollution, there are choices, 

and with respect to health, the single 

greatest cause of young Americans 

going to the hospital in the summertime and costing billions of dollars to 

the American people is environmentally induced asthma. That environmentally induced asthma comes 

about as a consequence of the ingredients that go into the air. All of this is 

related. 

In addition, there is not one person 

in the Senate who doesn’t know that 

we are still more dependent than we 

want to be on foreign oil. We are better 

than we were, and we have made improvements, but we are still more dependent than we want to be on foreign 

oil. We could be doing better with respect to that if we pursued an intelligent energy policy. We still don’t 

have an energy policy after the years 

we have been talking about doing it in 

the Senate and elsewhere. 

Why is that important to climate 

change? Because energy policy is the 

solution to the problem of climate 

change. If you have an effective energy 

policy, then you are dealing not only 

with your independence issues, but 

with the sources of carbon and other 

greenhouse gases that are causing the 

problem today. Twenty years ago this 

year, I was privileged to go with the 

Senator from New Jersey, Senator 

LAUTENBERG, Senator John Chafee, 

Senator Al Gore, Senator Wirth, and 

others, down to Rio, where we took 

part in the first Earth Summit, which 

President George Herbert Walker Bush 

took seriously. To the great credit of 

George H. W. Bush, he not only sent a 

delegation, he personally went down 

there and spoke about the issue. He 

helped to embrace a forward-leaning 

idea. I think 160-some nations signed 

onto an agreement to try to restrain 

greenhouse gases. That was back in 

1992. It was incredible. 

Here we are, 20 years later, and we 

could not even get the time for the 

Senate to send a delegation down 

there, let alone enough people who 

thought it was important and of interest. The Earth summit, 20 years later, 

came and went without any major step 

forward or progress, and the procrastination continues. 

Mr. President, today I remember the 

debate when we came back from Kyoto, 

in 1998 or so, and we had a debate in the 

Senate about whether the United 

States should take part in the Kyoto 

Treaty. We all know now, as a matter 

of long history, that we didn’t because 

it was viewed as being too unilateral. 

In fact, everybody had the question of, 

what about China? We can’t possibly 

sign up for this because China will not 

do it, and they will go racing ahead of 

us and continue to grow their economy 

at the expense of the United States. 

Well, Mr. President, guess what. 

Today China is the leading clean energy producer in the world. China. The 

United States of America invented the 

technologies 50 years ago—of solar and 

wind, renewable energy technologies 

such as turbines, the transmission, and 

so forth, and photovoltaics. About 4 

years ago, China had about 9 percent of 

the market. That was 4 years ago. Two 

years ago, China had 40 percent of the 

market. Today China has over 70 percent of the global solar market, and 

the United States, which invented the 

technology, doesn’t have one company 

in the top 10 solar panel producers, 

solar energy producers in the world. 

You know what is happening. Ninetyfive percent of what China produces it 

exports to other countries, including 

the United States. So here we are, we 

give up our lead, and we don’t get the 

jobs. Everybody is screaming about 

jobs. The energy market is a $6 trillion 

market with about 6 billion users. Just 

to put that in perspective, the market 

that created the great wealth of the 

1990s in the United States was in fact a 

$1 trillion market with about 1 billion 

users. That was the technology market. We saw it with personal computers 

and with the rest of the telephone communications technology of the 1990s. 

We didn’t even have an Internet in the 

United States until about 1995 or 1996 

when that began to be commercialized. 

Yet in that short span of time we created more wealth in America than we 

had ever created at any time in America’s history. We created 23 million new 

jobs because we led in that new industry. 

Here we are today staring at the potential of this extraordinary industry— 

the energy market—and we are just 


pwalker on DSK7TPTVN1PROD with SENATE
S5838 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE August 1, 2012 

sitting on our hands while other countries take it and run with it and grow 

their economies. We are sitting around 

saying: Where are the jobs? 

It is an insult. It is an insult to our 

intelligence. It is an insult to every 

American’s aspirations about where 

they would like to see our country go. 

And the fact is it is not just China, but 

India, Mexico, Brazil, South Korea, and 

countless other countries have taken 

greater advantage of this than the 

United States. 

One of the principal reasons we have 

trouble getting that market moving is 

we refuse to put a real price on the 

price of carbon. Carbon has a price. Everything we are doing to our country 

and to our communities today as a result of pollution is a price we are going 

to pay. But that price is not subsumed 

into the price of products, the price of 

doing business or anything else because 

we just avoid it altogether. 

A lot of people here continue, unfortunately, to avoid the science and just 

not deal with the reality of what is 

happening. But 2 days ago, Mr. President, in the New York Times, there 

was a very important op-ed that appeared, written by a well-known climate skeptic Dr. Richard Muller, a professor of physics at the University of 

California at Berkeley. He has written 

many times about how he did not believe the science was adequate or had 

produced it. Let me read his words. 

This is Dr. Muller: 

Call me a converted skeptic. Three years 

ago I identified problems in the previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt 

on the very existence of global warming. 

Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded 

that global warming was real and that the 

prior estimates of the rate of warming were 

correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause. 

That is what this former climate 

skeptic has said. Bottom line: We need 

to be armed with the facts, not with 

empty rhetoric. That is exactly what 

Dr. Muller set out to do. Let me quote 

him again: 

We carefully studied issues raised by skeptics: biases from urban heating (we duplicated our results using rural data alone), 

from data collection selection (prior groups 

selected fewer than 20 percent of the available temperature stations; we used virtually 

100 percent), from poor station quality (we 

separately analyzed good stations and poor 

ones) and from human intervention and data 

adjustment (our work is completely automated and hands-off). In our papers we demonstrate that none of these potentially troublesome effects unduly biased our conclusions. 

Now, obviously, we all know the future has a hard way of humbling people 

who try to predict it too precisely, but 

I have to say, when the science is 

screaming pretty consistently over a 

period of 20 years—and not just 

screaming at us to say it is coming 

back correctly but that it is coming 

back with faster results in greater 

amounts than the scientists predicted—as a matter of human precaution that ought to be an alarm bell 

and people ought to take note. 

Here again is what Dr. Muller says: 

What about the future? As carbon dioxide 

emissions increase, the temperature should 

continue to rise. I expect the rate of warming to proceed at a steady pace, about one 

and a half degrees over land in the next 50 

years, less if the oceans are included. 

And then he says ominously: 

But if China continues its rapid economic 

growth— 

And I say, as a matter of parentheses, 

who doesn’t believe China isn’t going 

to do everything in its power to continue its growth path and do what it is 

doing? So he says: 

But if China continues its rapid economic 

growth (it has averaged 10 percent per year 

over the last 20 years) and its vast use of coal 

(it typically adds 1 new gigawatt per month), 

then that same warming could take place in 

less than 20 years. 

Less than 20 years, folks. In North 

Carolina recently State Senators actually voted not to do any planning for 

the potential of sea level rise, even 

though scientists today tell us the sea 

level is rising. Ask insurance companies about what they are thinking in 

terms of their potential exposure and 

liability as we look down the road with 

respect to the disasters that could 

come as a consequence of these 

changes. 

So the plain fact is we have all of the 

evidence—and I am not going to go 

through all of it right now, but it is 

there for colleagues to analyze—countless studies of what is happening in 

terms of the movement of forests—literally, movement—as it migrates, and 

species that have left Yellowstone National Park and migrated north. Talk 

to the park rangers. Talk to the folks 

in Canada and in Colorado and Montana and other places about the millions of acres of pine trees that have 

been destroyed by the pine bark beetle 

that now doesn’t die off because it 

doesn’t get as cold as it used to. Talk 

to people in Canada and in the Northern United States who used to skate on 

ponds that used to freeze over but that 

don’t freeze over anymore. 

There are hundreds of examples. Talk 

to the Audubon Society. Ask them 

about the reports from their members 

about certain plants and shrubs and 

trees that don’t grow in the same 

places they used to. There is a 100-mile 

swath in the United States now where 

there has been a migration of things 

that grow and don’t grow. This is going 

to have a profound impact on agriculture in our country as we go forward 

if it continues. And I would just share 

with my colleagues why that is true 

beyond any scientific doubt. 

The first scientist who actually 

wrote something about global climate 

change was a Swedish scientist by the 

name of Arrhenius, and he wrote 

around the turn of the 19th century— 

1890 or something, I don’t remember 

the year. But he is the guy who first 

said there was this relationship to the 

gases trapped in the atmosphere and 

this thing called the greenhouse effect. 

In fact, science has now determined to 

a certainty the reason we can breathe 

on Earth today, the reason it is warm 

enough for us to live, the reason life 

itself exists on Earth is because there 

is a greenhouse effect. And it is called 

a greenhouse effect because it behaves 

just like a greenhouse. 

The light comes down from the Sun 

at a very direct angle on many things 

on Earth and is reflected back from 

things such as the ice and snow and off 

roofs and parking lots and other 

things. But in the ocean and in certain 

other dark spots it is subsumed into 

that mass, and it goes back much more 

opaque than it comes down in its directness. The reason, therefore, for the 

greenhouse gas is that it doesn’t escape. It doesn’t break out of the thin 

veneer of the atmosphere that contains 

the gases that create the greenhouse 

effect, which actually creates an average temperature globally of about 57 

degrees Fahrenheit. 

That is why life can exist; we have a 

greenhouse effect. And it stands to absolute high school, if not elementarymiddle school logic, if a certain 

amount of gases are contained, and 

there has always been balance to some 

degree, and you add to that massively 

and thicken the amount that is there, 

less heat is going to escape and we 

wind up augmenting that effect of the 

greenhouse. 

Scientists tell us now—and I am not 

a scientist, but I learned how to listen 

to them and at least read the science 

and try to think about it—that in order 

to keep the temperature of the Earth 

somewhere near where it is today or 

within the permissible range of change, 

we have to keep our greenhouse gases 

at—originally, they said—450 parts per 

million. As they then noticed the damage and did more calculation, they 

came and said: No, 350 parts per million. 

Why is this important? Because 

today, as we are here assembled in the 

Senate, we are now at 397 parts per 

million. We are above where they say 

you have to hold it. And worse, without 

doing anything—and we are not doing 

anything—we are only adding amounts; 

we are moving at a rate that will take 

it up to 500 or 600 parts per million. If 

that happens, we will be at a tipping 

point with respect to the amount of 

temperature change—5 to 7 degrees— 

and nobody can predict with certainty 

what happens, except that we know the 

ice already melting in Greenland and 

in the Arctic will melt faster and disappear. As more water is exposed, that 

dark water subsumes more of the heat, 

and the heat creates greater, more 

rapid melting. And that is exactly 

what scientists are seeing in the Arctic 

and Antarctic today, where whole 

blocks of ice the size of the State of 

Rhode Island have broken off and 

dropped into the sea and floated south 

to melt. 

There are dozens of other examples of 

what is happening. I said I wouldn’t go 

into all of them today. I would just say 


pwalker on DSK7TPTVN1PROD with SENATE
August 1, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S5839 

to my colleagues, please read and challenge the science and talk to the people who are the peer reviewers of these 

analyses because we have a responsibility here, to future generations and 

to all of us, to try to get this right. 

And in the balance of right and wrong, 

I don’t understand the judgment some 

people are making. 

We know this is a $6 trillion market. 

We know that if we were to price carbon, the marketplace would move rapidly toward the kinds of technologies 

and new job creation that would respond to that pricing and the United 

States could become a seller of these 

technologies and a builder of these new 

energy capacities in various parts of 

the world. 

Astonishingly, the United States of 

America doesn’t even have an energy 

grid. The east coast has an energy grid, 

the west coast has an energy grid, 

Texas has its own energy grid, and 

from Chicago out to the Dakotas, there 

is sort of an energy grid. But the entire 

center of the United States is just a 

great big gaping hole where we don’t 

have any connected energy transmission capacity, and the result is that 

we can’t produce renewable energy 

down in the four corners of the Southwest—in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and so forth—and sell it to Minnesota in the wintertime or to New 

England, where we pay a very high 

price for energy. We can’t send energy 

from one part to the other in the 

United States of America. It is an insult. 

We need to build a national energy 

grid, and in the building of that grid, 

there are countless jobs to be created 

for Americans and countless technologies to be developed. For every $1 

billion we spend on infrastructure, we 

put 27,000 to 35,000 people to work. If we 

passed our infrastructure bank effort 

here in the Senate, for $10 billion of 

American taxpayer leverage, we could 

have $650 billion to $700 billion of infrastructure investment paid for by Chinese investment, by Arab Emirates investment. It wouldn’t cost the American taxpayers a dime to be building 

America and putting people to work. 

We are not doing it, and we are not 

even building the energy grid of our 

Nation. 

I must say to my colleagues, the 

avoidance here of responsibility for a 

whole host of choices we ought to be 

making—and obviously, yes, it begins 

with the deficit and the debt, and we 

can deal with those issues. There isn’t 

a person in the Senate who doesn’t understand what the magic formula is 

going to be to do that. But everybody 

wants to wait until the end of the election. I got it. But this issue has been 

waiting and waiting for 20 years now 

while other countries are stealing our 

opportunities to be able to be in the 

marketplace and winning. 

Nothing screams at us more than the 

need to have an energy policy for our 

country that begins to address the realities of climate change, and nothing 

screams at us more than to tell the 

truth to the American people about climate change, to stop having it be an 

unusable word in American politics and 

not to allow it to become a source of 

attack and ridicule with nonfacts and a 

bunch of cockamamie theories that 

have no foundation in science or in the 

kind of analysis that does this institution justice. 

I hope over the course of the next 

months we can have this fight because 

nothing less than our economic future—which is, in the end, our greatest 

strength for our military, for our security, for all of our objectives—that is 

what is at stake in this effort. I hope 

we will finally wind up doing what is 

right. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. 

MERKLEY). The Senator from New Jersey. 

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, 

before the senior Senator from Massachusetts leaves the floor, I wish to 

commend him for his constant leadership on matters of a better environment, more effective ways to get our 

energy without spoiling the environment and putting what amounts to 

toxins in the air. I congratulate him 

for his constant leadership in this area. 

SAFE CHEMICALS ACT

Mr. President, one thing Democrats 

and Republicans share is a desire to 

keep our children and grandchildren 

safe and healthy. Many of us remember 

the days when we simply counted to 

make sure our newborns had all of 

their fingers and toes and breathed a 

sigh of relief, but parents today face 

many more threats. As industrial 

chemicals have more common in consumer products, we have seen an increase in certain birth defects, childhood cancers, and behavioral disorders. 

That is why I have written legislation 

to reform our chemical management 

system and give parents peace of mind 

about chemicals in household products. 

My Safe Chemicals Act passed out of 

the Environment and Public Works 

Committee last week, and I hope we 

are going to see it on the floor of the 

Senate this fall. 

We think of the home as a place 

where our families are safe. We don’t 

expect the carpet in our bedrooms, the 

shampoo in our showers, or the detergent in our laundry to pose a threat to 

our family’s health. Many everyday 

products contain chemicals. Most 

Americans just assume those chemicals 

have been tested and proven safe. But 

for the vast majority of chemicals in 

products in our homes, safety testing is 

not required, and we look at the articles that suggest what kinds of things 

we are talking about. 

Every morning, millions of American 

kids wake up in beds that have been 

treated with chemicals, their breakfasts are cooked on pans coated with 

chemicals, and their plates are cleaned 

with chemicals. Today, EPA lists more 

than 80,000 chemicals in its inventory, 

many of which are in regular household 

products—products that our children 

are exposed to every day. 

We see here a child getting a bottle. 

It is made of plastic, and we don’t really know what is in it. I think we can 

all agree that a chemical that comes 

into contact with a child should be 

tested to see if it is safe. 

Many, if not most, chemicals in products are safe, but we know some are 

not. There have been too many cases of 

toxic chemicals showing up in our everyday lives that have horrible health 

effects, and we have found that out 

only after our families have been exposed. 

Recently, the Chicago Tribune exposed the latest example of untested 

chemicals wreaking havoc in our bodies. The Tribune reported that flame 

retardants are widespread in furniture, 

electronics, and other items throughout our homes. In fact, the average 

couch contains 2 pounds of chemical 

flame retardants. 

As we see here, a sofa like this looks 

as if it is all good and no harm could 

come, but there could be chemical materials in there that are releasing toxic 

fumes. Chemicals in products don’t always stay in products. Many of them 

find their way into our bodies. It is not 

clear that we are safe with any of these 

products because we don’t know just 

exactly what is in there. 

In fact, the Tribune tragically found 

that a typical American baby is born 

with the highest concentrations of 

flame retardants in the world. And 

many flame retardants are highly 

toxic. Children born with high concentrations of flame retardants can 

suffer devastating consequences for the 

rest of their lives. Flame-retardant 

chemicals have been linked to cancer, 

developmental problems, and other 

health risks. High levels of these 

chemicals put newborns at greater risk 

of low birthrates and birth defects, and 

then in childhood they face lower IQs 

and problems with fine motor skills. 

Even in adulthood, women who were 

born with flame retardants in their 

blood can have trouble becoming pregnant. Imagine, we are setting our children back from day one, before they 

have taken their first breath. 

Flame retardants are just one example of the problems with our chemical 

safety system. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Americans typically have 212 industrial chemicals—including 6 that 

cause cancer—coursing through their 

bodies. We know these chemicals can 

have serious health effects. We can see 

what kinds of health effects. Chemical 

exposure accounts for as much as 5 percent of childhood cancers, 10 percent of 

diabetes, 10 percent of Parkinson’s disease, and 30 percent of childhood asthma. That is not a very comforting idea. 

These chemicals are still around and 

untested because the 35-year-old law 

that is supposed to assess and protect 

against chemical health risks is broken. That law, called TSCA, is so severely flawed that the nonpartisan 

Government Accountability Office testified that it is ‘‘a high-risk area of the 


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S5840 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE August 1, 2012 

law.’’ I want to repeat that. The law 

called TSCA is so severely flawed that 

the Government Accountability Office 

testified that it is ‘‘a high-risk area of 

the law.’’ That is a credible government department saying this is a highrisk area of the law. 

Of the more than 80,000 chemicals on 

EPA’s inventory, TSCA has allowed 

testing of only around 200 chemicals 

and restrictions on only 5. That is 

more than 80,000 chemicals that are 

being used routinely, in EPA’s inventory, that might affect children or 

adults in a household. 

Until this law is fixed, toxic chemicals will continue to poison our bodies 

and threaten our health. This status 

quo is dangerous, and it is unacceptable. We have heard from parents 

across the country that we should not 

wait any longer for reform. We had a 

demonstration here in Washington just 

a few weeks ago with people asking for 

safer chemicals now. They are worried 

about it. They are parents. They don’t 

want their children exposed to chemicals that might injure their health. 

It is easy to do. These chemicals 

should be tested before they are made 

into products, and then we don’t have 

to worry about whether we are doing 

something that puts our kids at risk. 

We have already waited too long. Entire generations have grown up in 

homes filled with untested chemicals. 

Every year, more chemicals are introduced, more children get sick, and 

more lives are put at risk. 

I was proud when the Environment 

and Public Works Committee took an 

important step last week by passing 

the Safe Chemicals Act. We began 

working on TSCA reform in 2005. In the 

7 years since, we have explored the 

topic from many angles. We talked to 

scientists, workers, business leaders, 

State officials, firefighters, researchers, legal experts, and parents who are 

concerned about their children’s 

health. We also heard from Senators on 

both sides of the aisle. Throughout this 

process, we have listened and we have 

learned. 

The result is a commonsense bill that 

lays out a vision for strong but pragmatic regulation of chemicals. The bill 

requires the chemical manufacturers 

to demonstrate the safety of their 

products before they end up in our bodies. We already require this for pharmaceuticals and pesticides, so there is 

not any reason we should not require 

the same of industrial chemicals that 

are found in products in our bodies. 

The European Union, Canada, other 

countries require safety testing, but 

Americans remain unprotected. That is 

not acceptable. 

I have received letters in support of 

the Safe Chemicals Act signed by more 

than 300 public health organizations— 

businesses, environmental organizations, health care providers, labor 

unions and, again, concerned parents. 

Twenty-four Senators have cosponsored my Safe Chemicals Act and I believe the full Senate should now be 

given a chance to vote for or against 

the testing of these industrial chemicals. We want to debate it on the floor 

of the Senate. We want families to 

know what we are thinking about as we 

go through this process. They deserve 

to know that Congress cares more 

about their kids’ health than the concerns of the chemical industry lobbyists. 

I come to this conclusion: There is 

risk out there that we take unnecessarily. It is time to take action to clear 

this up. It would be a positive act for 

the chemical manufacturers so they 

would not have to worry about responding to challenges from laws in 50 

States but rather be under one guideline that takes care of them all. 

It is time to take action. The health 

of our children is at stake. I hope my 

colleagues across the Chamber will 

stand and say yes, you are right, it is 

time we challenge what we know is an 

exposure that should not exist. Simply 

done, it would move the process very 

quickly, letting us know that everything we have that has a chemical 

component to it is safe for our use. 

Mr. President, I yield the floor and I 

suggest the absence of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The assistant bill clerk proceeded to 

call the roll. 

Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I ask 

unanimous consent the order for the 

quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. The Senator 

from North Dakota. 

PROGROWTH TAX REFORM

Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I rise to 

speak on the need for progrowth tax reform. It is a subject I have been here on 

the Senate floor speaking about repeatedly over the course of the year and 

certainly over the course of the recent 

weeks. 

Last week the Senate voted on several tax measures. One of the measures 

was a measure we offered which would 

continue the current tax rates for a 

year, giving us an opportunity to engage in progrowth tax reform. That bill 

was defeated in the Senate. 

The other bill, a bill which I voted 

against, was a bill that would raise 

taxes on approximately 1 million small 

businesses in this country. In fact, that 

bill was passed. But the fact is that 

under the Constitution any tax measure has to start in the House of Representatives. In fact, that is what is 

going on today. They are voting on a 

measure that would extend the current 

tax rates for a year, giving us the opportunity to engage in progrowth tax 

reform which I believe would truly help 

galvanize our economy and raise revenue for our country, not through higher taxes but in fact through growth and 

through more revenue from economic 

growth. 

I believe that is exactly what we 

have to support in the Senate as well. 

The measure the administration favored, and that was earlier passed, as I 

say, will be blue-slipped so it will not 

take effect, but the problem with that 

measure is it would raise taxes on individuals and small businesses. Almost a 

million small businesses across this 

country would pay higher taxes and 

they are the generators of jobs for our 

economy. It also raises taxes on capital 

gains and it raises estate tax as well. 

Let me talk about the estate tax or 

the death tax provision for a minute. 

Right now the estate tax provides an 

exemption on the first $5 million and 

then amounts in an estate over that $5 

million threshold are taxed at 35 percent. However, reverting to the pre2001–2003 tax rates, which happens at 

the end of the year unless action is 

taken—unless action is taken by both 

the House and the Senate to extend the 

current rates—then we revert to the 

tax rates before the 2001–2003 tax reductions. That means instead of a $5 million exemption and a 35-percent tax 

rate on estate tax or the death tax, we 

go to a $1 million exemption with a 55- 

percent tax rate after that. 

Think about what that means to our 

farms and our small businesses across 

the country: 24 times more farms will 

then be in an estate tax situation and 

something like 14 times more businesses will be in an estate tax situation. What does that mean? What it 

means is when a family member dies 

and it is time to pass on that farm or 

pass on that business, they are going to 

have to borrow money to try to pay the 

estate tax. That farm or that business 

is going to have to generate enough 

revenue to pay that estate tax. If you 

cannot pay that estate tax at 55 percent of the value of what you are passing—if that business or that farm cannot service that level of debt, then you 

have to sell that farm or sell that 

small business, which may have been in 

the family for many generations. Remember that those farms, those 

ranches, those small businesses are the 

backbone of the American economy 

and here we are, at a time when we 

have 8.2 percent unemployment and we 

are trying to get this economy going 

and we are putting our small businesses across this country in that situation. 

That is why it is so important that 

we act. That is exactly what we have 

proposed. We have said rather than 

putting our economy in that situation 

right now, let’s set up a 1-year extension of current tax rates, let’s engage 

in progrowth tax reform where we actually lower rates but close loopholes, 

which will generate economic growth, 

and we will get revenue from economic 

growth rather than from higher taxes. 

That is vitally important. 

In fact, on a bipartisan basis 2 years 

ago that is what we did, we extended 

the current tax rates. I think we had 44 

Democratic votes to do that here in the 

Senate. Republicans voted for it. I 

think across the board we had 44 votes 

on the Democratic side. Also, it was a 

bipartisan measure. I argue that is exactly what we have to do again. Even 


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August 1, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S5841 

the President—who came out that he 

supported doing exactly what I laid out 

because, he said, we can’t raise taxes in 

a recession. He said raising taxes would 

hurt the economy and would hurt job 

creation. 

If you look at the statistics today, 

we are actually in a more difficult economic situation now than we were 

then. Unemployment is at 8.2 percent 

and has been over 8 percent for more 

than 41 straight months. There are 13 

million people who are out of work, 10 

million people are underemployed, 

which makes 23 million people either 

looking for work or looking for a better job. Middle-class income has declined from approximately $55,000 to 

about $50,000 since this administration 

took office. Food stamp usage has increased from 32 million recipients to 46 

million recipients, and as we have seen, 

economic growth is about 1.5 percent. 

As far as job creation, there were 

80,000 jobs gained during the month, 

but we need 150,000 jobs gained during 

the month just to keep up with population growth and not have our unemployment rate increase. So these are 

the facts, and the facts speak for themselves. We need to extend the current 

tax rates, we need progrowth tax reform on a bipartisan basis, and we need 

to get control of our spending. 

If we look at the latest numbers from 

CBO, CBO says without taking those 

steps we are looking at economic 

growth next year of maybe one-half 

percent for the entire year. If we take 

the steps to address the fiscal cliff, as 

I have described, and take those steps 

to undertake progrowth tax reform, 

CBO talks in terms of a 4.4-percent 

growth rate next year. Think what 

that means to 13 million unemployed 

people. It means the difference between 

getting a job and not getting a job. 

The uncertainty that our economy 

faces right now because of the expiration of the current tax rates at the end 

of the year, and businesses not knowing what is going to happen, is freezing 

investment capital on the sidelines and 

freezing business expansion. There is 

more private capital and investment 

capital sidelined now more than in the 

history of our country. We unleash it, 

and we get it going not by raising taxes 

but by providing the legal tax and regulatory certainty—the kind of 

progrowth tax reform with closing 

loopholes, as I have described—to get 

this economy going. 

The administration says: Well, everyone needs to pay their fair share. I 

think that is certainly true. We are 

saying exactly that. That is exactly 

what we do by engaging in progrowth 

tax reform and closing loopholes. Everyone is treated fairly, and everyone 

pays their fair share. 

In fact, just to give a sense of that 

whole concept, let’s look at who pays 

the income taxes right now according 

to the National Taxpayers Union. 

Today the top 5 percent of taxpayers 

pay almost 60 percent of the income 

tax in this country. The top 10 percent 

pay almost 70 percent of the income 

tax in this country. The top 25 percent 

pay almost 90 percent of the income 

tax in this country. The top 50 percent 

of taxpayers pay 98 percent of the income tax that is paid in the country. 

So the point is, let’s engage in 

progrowth tax reform that will get our 

economy growing rather than stagnant 

as it is today. It is that economic 

growth that puts our people back to 

work and truly generates the revenue, 

not higher tax rates which will hurt 

our growth. We can lower rates, close 

loopholes, come up with a fairer system that is simpler and will generate 

revenue through economic growth. 

That is the only way that economic 

growth, along with controlling and 

managing our spending, will get us on 

top of our debt and deficit and get 

Americans back to work. We need to do 

it in a bipartisan way. We can do it. We 

have done it before, and we absolutely 

need to get started, and get started 

now, for the good of the American people and the good of our country. 

If I may, I want to close on one short 

message; that is, as the House works on 

a tax measure—as I described today— 

to extend the current tax rates and put 

us in a situation where we can truly 

engage in progrowth tax reform, I also 

urge my colleagues in the House to 

make sure that at the same time they 

are acting on farm bill legislation and 

not just the drought legislation. 

We passed a farm bill in this Senate 

several weeks ago on a bipartisan 

basis. I hope they are able to do the 

same thing and pass a farm bill in the 

House on a bipartisan basis as well 

that we can go to conference with. I believe the bill we produced in the Senate 

and the bill they have produced in the 

Agriculture Committee can be brought 

together in a conference committee. 

We can pass a farm bill that will be 

cost effective, will save money, and 

help reduce the deficit. 

The bill we passed would generate $23 

billion in savings to help address the 

deficit. It would provide the right kind 

of safety net for our farmers and ranchers and ultimately this: Good farm policy benefits every single American because our farmers and ranchers 

produce the highest quality, lowest 

cost food supply in the world. That 

benefits every single one of us, not to 

mention creating a lot of great jobs 

throughout the country. 

So I call on the House to act on that 

farm bill as well as engage in the kind 

of progrowth tax reform that I know 

will truly benefit our country. 

With that, Mr. President, I note the 

absence of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. 

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask 

unanimous consent that the order for 

the quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. KLOBUCHAR). Without objection, it is so ordered. 

The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized. 

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Chair. 

(The remarks of Senator INHOFE pertaining to the introduction of S. 3473 

are printed in today’s RECORD under 

‘‘Statements on Introduced Bills and 

Joint Resolutions.’’) 

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I 

have a little bit of a problem in that I 

do not want to take time from the Senator who is in line to speak after me. 

But I would like to serve notice that 

there have been several things that 

were said on the floor today concerning 

this whole idea of global warming. We 

had a hearing this morning. It was 

kind of revealing because they have 

done everything they can to pass cap 

and trade, and it has not happened. 

I wish to correct some statements 

that were made by Members. When the 

time comes that I have about 20 minutes to do this, I will do that. It will 

probably have to be later today because of the clock that is running now. 

I yield the floor for my friend to take 

his turn. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado is recognized. 

Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Madam 

President, I rise this afternoon in support of the bipartisan Cybersecurity 

Act of 2012, and I wish to share my concerns about the very real cyber threat 

facing our country. Most importantly, 

I rise to urge all my colleagues to move 

forward to the passage of this pending 

cyber security bill for the good of our 

national security. Top experts and respected members of both political parties have told us that time is wasting; 

we must debate and pass this critically 

important piece of legislation. 

Cyber security policy is an issue with 

which I am deeply involved, given my 

seats on the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Senate Armed Services 

Committee. Moreover, Colorado’s military and defense communities play a 

prominent role in defending our country, the United States, against cyber 

attacks. 

The Air Force Space Command, located at Peterson Air Force Base in 

Colorado Springs, is responsible for 

protecting American space-based assets from network intrusions. The U.S. 

Northern Command, also located at 

Peterson Air Force Base, recently established a Joint Cyber Center to help 

provide on-demand cyber consequence 

response to civil authorities. 

Multiple defense and technology industry companies based in Colorado 

also contribute hardware, software, 

and expertise to the effort to keep our 

networks and infrastructure secure. 

Our Federal labs also conduct critical 

research into cyber security, most notably the National Institute of Standards and Technology, otherwise known 

as NIST, which is located in Boulder. 

They play a key role in helping establish cyber security standards. 

The threats posed by cyber attacks 

have long been recognized, but we in 

the Congress have yet to act upon 


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S5842 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE August 1, 2012 

these threats in a comprehensive way. 

It is as if we see the danger in front of 

us, but yet we cannot find the courage 

to face it. But Congress cannot afford 

to wait for a 9/11-sized attack in order 

to act. Waiting for a catastrophic act— 

something military and intelligence 

leaders and a bipartisan collection of 

national security experts are warning 

us against—is the exact opposite of 

leadership and the exact opposite of 

what our constituents expect us to do. 

This debate, to me, has seemingly, 

unfortunately, unraveled into an antiquated argument about the public sector versus the private sector. We cannot let old ways of thinking bog us 

down. This is a threat that can only be 

addressed by both the public and private sectors working together. 

The private sector owns 85 percent of 

our Nation’s critical infrastructure, 

which is itself heavily dependent on 

computer networks. A successful attack on our critical infrastructure 

could result in disabled power grids, refineries, and nuclear plants, disrupted 

rail systems and air traffic control and 

telecommunications networks. A successful attack could bring commerce to 

a halt, our financial markets to their 

knees. It could also escalate into a war 

in cyber space or even a shooting war. 

To defend against these serious 

threats, particularly those that involve 

national security, there needs to be an 

exchange of information between the 

public and the private sectors. Of 

course, allowing the government and 

industry to share information must be 

done with sufficient safeguards, so any 

legislation authorizing such sharing 

needs to strike a balance between privacy and civil liberties protections. I 

believe the bill’s authors have achieved 

such a balance. 

I recognize it is often difficult to find 

consensus on how to defend our Nation 

from security threats. Sometimes that 

is because we cannot agree on the nature of our vulnerabilities and in what 

priority to address them. Unfortunately, sometimes Congress is too polarized to act until after a crisis occurs. 

But in the case of cyber security, we 

already know our Nation’s computer 

networks are increasingly vulnerable. 

There is widespread agreement about 

the severity of the threat. Just last 

month, Defense Secretary Panetta testified before Congress that cyber attacks could ‘‘virtually paralyze this 

country.’’ The threat is not impending, 

it is here. We already know many of 

the steps we need to take to mitigate 

or prevent these attacks. The only 

issue getting in the way is politics. 

Frankly, Coloradans are tired of this. 

They want us to reason together and 

solve our most vexing national challenges. 

The Cybersecurity Act of 2012 is not 

overly intrusive. It has been scaled 

back to a voluntary system of industry-driven security standards for critical infrastructure. The bill’s authors 

have offered a further amendment to 

address some of the remaining concerns of the bill’s opponents. As much 

as the bill’s authors have compromised 

and worked with groups and businesses 

from across the policy spectrum, one 

would think they would get more in return from the Republicans than a demand to vote on the repeal of health 

care reform. But that is where the debate stands, and it is not a proud moment for our Chamber. 

The cyber security bill before us may 

not be perfect. In fact, I have offered 

three amendments that I believe make 

this an even stronger bill. 

The first would require the administration to provide a detailed plan on 

how it would develop a highly trained, 

robust Federal cyber security workforce. A stronger Federal workforce 

will not only better protect government assets, but these individuals will 

go on to fill critical roles protecting 

cyber assets in the private sector. 

My second amendment would establish permanent faculty positions to 

train the next generation of military 

cyber leaders at the U.S. Air Force 

Academy. 

My third amendment would require 

the assessment of the costs and benefits of building a strategic stockpile of 

extra high voltage transformers. We do 

not produce these highly specialized 

pieces of equipment domestically, and 

it would take months to replace transformers damaged by a physical or 

cyber attack. 

I hope my colleagues will join me in 

passing these commonsense amendments aimed at improving our national 

security. 

This cyber security bill is over 3 

years in the making. I find it ironic 

some argue the process has been rushed 

and we need more time. But I believe 

this bill is long overdue and we simply 

cannot afford not to act. 

As the head of U.S. Cyber Command 

and the Director of the National Security Agency, General Alexander, wrote 

in a letter to Congress this week, ‘‘The 

cyber threat facing the Nation is real 

and demands immediate action.’’ 

This is coming from the national security official who knows more than 

anyone about the cyber threats facing 

our country. As a member of the Intelligence Committee, I take his cautions 

and advice very seriously. The rest of 

us should as well. 

As I close, I urge all of us, let’s put 

aside partisan ploys and partisan differences. Let’s work together to amend 

and pass this vitally important cyber 

security bill. 

I yield the floor. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma. 

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I understand the floor time is pretty much 

used up between now and 6:30. I have 

made inquiries. I understand I will 

have time at 6:30 for 25 minutes. I ask 

unanimous consent that I be recognized at 6:30 for 25 minutes. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

Mr. INHOFE. I understand the next 

speakers are in the cloakroom at this 

time. I suggest the absence of a 

quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The bill clerk proceeded to call the 

roll. 

Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I ask 

unanimous consent that the order for 

the quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN REAUTHORIZATION

ACT

Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, more 

than eight months ago, Senator CRAPO

and I, two Senators from very different 

parts of the country with very different 

political perspectives, joined together 

to introduce the Leahy-Crapo Violence 

Against Women Reauthorization Act of 

2011. We put aside our political differences, listened to the law enforcement and victim services professionals, 

and drafted a bill that put victims 

first. 

It has been more than 3 months since 

an overwhelming majority of the Senate joined us in our bipartisan effort to 

pass the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2011 with 68 votes, 

more than two-thirds of this body, including every woman Senator, Republican and Democratic. In doing so, the 

Senate sent a very clear message. We 

said stopping domestic and sexual violence is a national priority, and we are 

going to stand together, Republicans 

and Democrats alike, to protect all victims from these devastating crimes— 

all victims. It was very clear. If you 

are a victim of domestic and sexual violence, we are passing laws to help protect you, no matter who you are or 

where you live in this country. 

Having sent such a strong bipartisan 

message from this body, I was—I don’t 

know whether to say bewildered or 

shocked to see the House Republican 

leadership abandon the bipartisan approach that was so successful in the 

Senate. Instead of allowing a vote on 

the Senate-passed bipartisan bill that 

has the support of more than 1,000 national, state, and local victim service 

organizations, they insisted on crafting 

a new, partisan measure that intentionally stripped out protections for 

some of the most vulnerable victims 

and weakened existing protections for 

others. They refused to allow votes on 

amendments as we had done here in the 

Senate, choosing to stifle a full and 

honest debate about how to best meet 

the needs of victims. 

This overtly political approach was 

too much even for some in their own 

party. Nearly two dozen House Republicans, including the chair of the crime 

victims’ caucus, stood up and voted 

against the inadequate and harmful 

House bill. That opposition was not 

surprising since a similar provision offered during the Senate debate was rejected by 61 Senators, including nine 

Republicans. 

The House Speaker’s recent announcement naming as conferees only 


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August 1, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S5843 

Republicans who supported that misguided and deeply partisan effort is 

hardly a step forward. Instead, I wish 

the Republican House leadership would 

do what it should have done four 

months ago—take up, debate, and vote 

on the bipartisan Senate-passed bill. I 

have no doubt we could reauthorize 

this life-saving bill in short order if 

they would just allow their members a 

straightforward vote on the merits. 

Instead, Speaker BOEHNER continues 

to hide behind a procedural technicality, called a ‘‘blue slip,’’ as an excuse to avoid debating the bipartisan 

Senate bill. He acts as if he has no 

choice, but this is nonsense. The 

Speaker can waive the technicality and 

allow the House to vote on the Senate 

bill at any time. He is choosing to hold 

up this bill, and those efforts must 

stop. 

Since the Senate bill passed, I have 

been consistently calling for House action on the legislation. Earlier this 

summer, Senator MURKOWSKI and I 

wrote a bipartisan letter to Speaker 

BOEHNER, urging him to allow an up-ordown vote. Two weeks ago, five House 

Republicans followed suit, calling on 

Speaker BOEHNER and Majority Leader 

CANTOR to take up the Senate-passed 

bill to resolve the ‘‘blue slip’’ problem. 

And yesterday Republican Representatives BIGGERT and DOLD again urged 

the House to work with the Senate to 

get this vital legislation signed into 

law. 

But if the Speaker and the Republican leadership in the House insist on 

ignoring victims and the voices of the 

professionals in the field, and those in 

their own party, and continue to delay 

this crucial legislation on a technicality, a technicality which has been 

waived over and over and over again 

since I have been in the Senate, I think 

the Senate should once again lead by 

example. 

We can solve this problem tonight— 

tonight, within the next few hours. If 

the Senate Republican leadership 

wants to get VAWA, the Violence 

Against Women Act, done, it can be 

done. We could take up a House revenue bill, substitute the bipartisan 

Senate VAWA bill, and send it to the 

House immediately. 

To those who are watching and listening, this may sound like, what are 

these legislative moves? What they are 

is a simple thing I have seen done hundreds of times since I have been here. It 

would be our way of saying we want to 

stop violence against women. We have 

passed a bill that had Republicans and 

Democrats come together across the 

political spectrum. Now we are sending 

it to the other body, saying follow our 

example. 

Majority Leader REID proposed this 

path forward nearly 2 months ago, but 

he was blocked by the Republican side. 

There is no good reason for their objection. Just this year, Republican Senators unanimously agreed to a similar 

procedure in order to overcome blue 

slip issues with both the transportation bill and the FAA reauthorization bill. Let’s be clear about this— 

with just a little cooperation from Senate Republicans, we can move VAWA 

now. What I am saying is that just as 

68 of us, Republicans and Democrats, 

came together before to pass this bill, 

I would urge the Republican leadership 

to join us and stop blocking it from 

moving forward. 

We have only a precious few days left 

in this Congress to get this bill passed. 

The procedural excuses must stop. Partisan politicking must end, just as Senator CRAPO and I, two Senators of different political philosophies, came together when we started this process so 

many months ago, we came together to 

focus on the victims but also to make 

good on our promise to stop domestic 

and sexual violence in all its forms 

against all victims. 

I have said so many times on this 

floor, this matter is deeply personal. I 

went to a lot of these crime scenes as 

a young prosecutor, a young prosecutor 

with a young family. I would see a victim of violence, sometimes a bloodied 

and barely conscious victim being 

taken in an ambulance to the hospital—but sometimes seeing a bloody 

corpse on the floor and then we would 

find out, as we unraveled the case, that 

we could have intervened and stopped 

this death if we had only had the tools. 

Well, now those early detection and 

intervention tools exist and we can 

stop this violence. Those tools, critical 

resources to reduce domestic violence 

homicide, are in the Senate-passed 

VAWA bill but they will not become 

law unless we act to pass this legislation now. 

What I also learned is that the police 

officers who came to help investigate 

and help get the perpetrator, they 

never asked: Was this victim a Republican or Democrat, rich or poor, white 

or black, gay or straight, Native American or immigrant. They just said, as I 

have said so many times on the floor 

and the distinguished Presiding Officer, 

who herself was a prosecutor, has said: 

A victim is a victim is a victim. 

I do not want to just be able to arrest 

people after the victim is dead. I want 

programs to stop the person from being 

abused in the first place. I want to protect victims before they become victims. If there is anything in this country that should unite all of us, it 

should be this, just as it united us before. Let’s send it on to the other body. 

Let’s get it passed. Let’s get it on the 

President’s desk, and let’s hope we save 

the lives of people. 

Helping these victims—no matter 

who they are—must be our goal. Their 

lives depend on it, and they are waiting 

on us. 

I yield the floor. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut is recognized. 

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I am honored to follow the Senator from Vermont, who has been such 

an extraordinary leader in this area, 

and look forward to yielding shortly to 

the Senator from Washington, who has 

championed this bill and helped us all 

see the urgency of approving it. 

In the minutes that I will be talking, 

and they will be brief minutes, every 

minute, two to three women will become victims of domestic abuse. Every 

minute that I am standing here, every 

minute that we occupy with debate and 

delay on this measure, two to three 

people in the United States, the greatest country in the history of the world, 

will become victims of domestic violence. 

We cannot afford to wait. That is 

why I urge that my colleagues advance 

this critical piece of legislation and 

urge the House of Representatives to 

agree to the Senate version of this bill 

so we can make this bill more inclusive 

to include Native Americans and immigrants and others who would not be 

covered by the House version. 

We find ourselves at a crossroads. We 

can either strengthen VAWA or we can 

retreat and go back. I say let’s go forward with the philosophy that the Senator from Vermont has articulated so 

well as a prosecutor, not to mention 

knowing how our police work. We do 

not ask whether someone is an immigrant, what their sexual preference is, 

whether they are Native American. We 

protect them if they are victims of domestic abuse and violence. That should 

be our philosophy in the greatest country in the history of the world. 

There are two protections for battered immigrant women in VAWA that 

are particularly important. The first 

allows immigrant women married to an 

abusive U.S. citizen to apply for legal 

status independent of that spouse. The 

second, which is the U visa, provides 

temporary status to victims who cooperate with law enforcement to prosecute their abuser. 

The reauthorization of VAWA is currently stalled principally because of 

the U Visa provisions in the Senate 

bill, S. 1925. 

Let me illustrate the importance of 

this provision with one story. A woman 

who came to Connecticut from Guatemala fled her native country to escape 

her abuser and arrived in Connecticut 

in 2005. Her abuser followed her to Connecticut, where he continued to abuse 

her. He was eventually deported to 

Guatemala on criminal charges, but 

she found herself in another abusive relationship. Eventually, she was able to 

find shelter at a local domestic violence agency. She could not convince 

family to sponsor her so she could 

apply for legal status. She would have 

had nowhere to turn but for a transitional living program for domestic violence victims that connected her to a 

Connecticut legal aid attorney, who 

then enabled her to file for a new visa. 

I am happy to report that this constituent survivor received her new visa 

in May of 2012. Because of VAWA, she 

is now safe, and so is her son. 

This story is repeated countless 

times across Connecticut and the country by women who suffer in silence. 


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S5844 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE August 1, 2012 

Their undocumented status makes 

them particularly vulnerable and powerless to escape their abusive situations. My constituents tell me—and I 

want to listen to them—that we cannot 

afford to compromise those basic protections that are fundamental to 

human rights and dignity, and that is 

why I urge this body, and the Congress 

as a whole, to move forward, not backward. 

Again, every minute, two to three 

women become the victims of domestic 

violence. The consequences of this horrific problem are too high and the costs 

too dire to stay the course and simply 

repeat the inaction we have seen so far. 

Thousands of victims of domestic violence are entrusting us with their 

safety today. We have an obligation to 

them to avoid the gamesmanship, end 

the gridlock, and move forward with S. 

1925. 

I thank the Chair and yield the floor. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington is recognized. 

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I 

thank Senator LEAHY and Senator 

BLUMENTHAL and so many others who 

have come to the floor to speak on this 

critical issue. 

Today the women of the Senate and 

the men who support the Violence 

Against Women Act are on the Senate 

floor to give Speaker BOEHNER and the 

Republicans another chance to do what 

is right. It is another chance to stop 

the delay. It is another chance to provide peace of mind to 30 million women 

whose protections are at risk, and it is 

another chance to pass the inclusive, 

bipartisan Senate, Violence Against 

Women Act bill. 

The bipartisan Senate bill passed almost 100 days ago by a vote of 68 to 31. 

Fifteen of our Republican colleagues 

on the floor—I will repeat that—15 Republicans joined us that day, and they 

did so because they know the history of 

this bill. They know every time the Violence Against Women Act has been reauthorized, it has consistently included 

bipartisan provisions to address the 

women who have not been protected. 

They know domestic violence protections for all women should not be a 

Democratic or Republican issue. 

But here we are back on the Senate 

floor urging support today for a bill 

that should not be controversial. Just 

as we did last week, just as we are 

doing today, and just as we will do in 

the coming weeks, we will be making 

sure this message resonates loudly and 

clearly both in Washington, DC, and 

back home in our States because we 

are not going to back down—not while 

there are thousands of women in the 

country who are excluded from the current law. 

The numbers are staggering. One in 

three Native Americans will be raped 

in their lifetime. Two in five of them 

are victims of domestic violence, and 

they are killed at 10 times the rate of 

the national average. 

Those shocking statistics are not 

just isolated to one group of women; 25 

to 35 percent in the LGBT community 

experience domestic violence in their 

relationships. Three in four abused immigrant women never entered the process to obtain legal status, even though 

they are eligible. Why? Because their 

abuser husbands never filed their paperwork. 

This should make it perfectly clear 

to our colleagues in the other Chamber 

that their current inaction has a real 

impact on the lives of women across 

America affected by violence. Where a 

person lives, their immigration status, 

or who they love should not determine 

whether perpetrators of domestic violence are brought to justice. 

Last week, the New York Times ran 

an editorial on this bill that gets to the 

heart of where we are. It began by saying: 

House Republicans have to decide which is 

more important: protecting victims of domestic violence or advancing the harsh 

antigay and anti-immigrant sentiments of 

some of their party’s far right. At the moment, harshness is winning. 

The editorial also made the point 

that it doesn’t have to be this way. It 

pointed out: 

In May, fifteen Senate Republicans joined 

with the chamber’s Democratic majority to 

approve a strong reauthorization bill. 

It ended with what we all know it 

will take to move this bill forward: 

leadership from Congressman BOEHNER. 

The effort that was started in the Senate last week—an effort that will continue for as long as it takes—is a call 

for the very same—leadership. 

It is time for Speaker BOEHNER to 

look beyond ideology and partisan politics. It is time for him to look at the 

history of a bill that again and again 

has been supported and expanded by 

Republicans and Democrats and end 

the delay because, frankly, it is taking 

a toll. 

Every moment the House continues 

to delay is another moment that 30 

million vulnerable women are without 

the protections they deserve in this 

country. 

The women this bill protects have 

seen their lives destroyed by the cowardice of those who claimed to care for 

them. We have a chance now to stand 

for them where others have not. But 

the only way we can help protect these 

women is to prove that we as a nation 

have the courage to do so—the courage 

to show them that discrimination has 

no place in our domestic violence laws. 

To do that, we need to pass the Senate’s inclusive, bipartisan Violence 

Against Women Act. 

Mrs. BOXER. Will my friend yield for 

a question? 

Mrs. MURRAY. Yes. 

Mrs. BOXER. I have a question, and I 

want to make sure everyone listening 

to this debate gets what is about to 

happen. 

Is it not true that the Senate passed 

the bipartisan Leahy-Crapo Violence 

Against Women Act with well more 

than 60 votes? 

Mrs. MURRAY. Yes, the Senator 

from California is correct. 

Mrs. BOXER. Is it not correct that 

the House passed its version and left 

out 30 million Americans? 

Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from 

California is correct. In fact, those 30 

million Americans would be covered 

under the Senate bill. We made sure 

that Native American women are covered, and we put in important provisions to make sure campus violence is 

covered, and those provisions have 

been left out of the House bill. 

Mrs. BOXER. Yes. And the immigrant women, as the Senator has discussed, which Senator BLUMENTHAL

pointed out, are the most vulnerable 

because they are so afraid of their status, they are very scared to report that 

someone is raping them, beating them, 

or harming them every single day; is 

that correct? 

Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from 

California is absolutely correct. We 

cannot even imagine what it is like to 

have somebody hold that kind of power 

over you and use it to beat you day in 

and day out. We cover those women in 

this bill so that they have the protections they ought to have as human 

beings. 

Mrs. BOXER. Isn’t it fair to say that 

the 30 million people we cover—which 

the House leaves out—include college 

students, enhanced protections for 

them on campus; the LGBT community; Native American communities; 

and undocumented immigrants; is that 

correct? 

Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator is correct. 

Mrs. BOXER. As my friend pointed 

out, is it not true that when you look 

at rates of violence against these particular people in our communities, 

they are higher than the population at 

large? 

Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from 

California is correct. 

Mrs. BOXER. Isn’t it fair to say that 

the House bill—their version of the Violence Against Women Act left out the 

most vulnerable people who are the 

most susceptible to violence? 

Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from 

California is correct. That is why we 

have work to do, in a bipartisan fashion in the Senate, to make sure in this 

country, America, we do not discriminate against women when it comes to 

violence. 

Mrs. BOXER. I have two more points, 

and then I will yield to my friend so 

she can make the unanimous consent 

request. 

Isn’t it also true that the excuse 

Speaker BOEHNER is giving as to why 

he will not take up and pass the bipartisan Leahy-Crapo bill, isn’t it true 

that the excuse is that there is a technical problem, which he calls a blue 

slip, in the Senate bill? And isn’t it 

true that my friend today is going to 

ask unanimous consent to correct that 

problem so that we can send this inclusive bill over to Speaker BOEHNER? 

Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from 

California is correct. It seems to me 

such a simple procedure to do, which 


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we have done many times in the Senate, to just by unanimous consent send 

the Speaker back the bill so he can’t 

put a piece of blue paper in front of us 

and say that stands between women 

and the protections we are trying to 

pass for them today. 

Mrs. BOXER. Finally, I hope, when 

my friend makes the unanimous consent request, to take the very same 

text of the Violence Against Women 

Act, which passed this body with well 

over 60 votes, and put it into a bill that 

would overcome the technical problem 

and enable us to send it back to the 

House. It is my strong hope that the 

Republican leadership will not object. 

If they do, let the whole country understand what they are objecting to: a way 

to fix this technical problem so that 

Speaker BOEHNER and the Republicans 

can pass the Senate bipartisan Violence Against Women Act and include 

the 30 million people who have been 

left out. 

I thank my friend for yielding. 

Mrs. MURRAY. I thank the Senator 

from California and say that she is absolutely correct. What I am about to do 

is to ask consent to do what we have 

done on many pieces of legislation, including the jobs and Transportation 

bills the Senator from California was 

able to pass, and the Senate overcame 

that technicality through a motion on 

the floor. 

We have done it time and time again 

on bills like that. It seems to me that 

on a bill like this, which is affecting so 

many women and their right to protect 

themselves and the ability to get help 

in their communities, there should not 

be a technicality between them and our 

passing protections for them in this 

country. 

UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST—H.R. 9

Having said that, I ask unanimous 

consent that the Finance Committee 

be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 9 and the Senate proceed 

to its consideration; that all after the 

enacting clause be stricken, and the 

language of S. 1925, the Violence 

Against Women Act reauthorization, as 

passed in the Senate on April 26 by a 

vote of 68 to 31, be inserted in lieu 

thereof; that the bill, as amended, be 

read the third time and passed, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the 

table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements related 

to the bill be printed in the RECORD. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there 

objection? 

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, 

rather than doing the usual thing and 

reserving the right to object, I will object, and then I would appreciate the 

courtesy, before I offer a parallel UC, 

to make my remarks. 

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, 

has the Senator from Iowa objected to 

my request? 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection has been heard. The Senator from 

Iowa—— 

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, 

the Senator from Iowa has objected. I 

just have to say that it is stunning to 

me that the Senator has objected to a 

simple procedure that we have done 

many times on Transportation bills 

and FAA bills and, sadly, now there is 

an inability to provide protections for 

the women we have been talking about. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa. 

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I 

am going to make a unanimous consent request dealing with the same subject. 

Before I do that, I am astounded that 

it took 100 days for the majority to decide that the bill they wanted to send 

to the House would be blue-slipped because they kept saying it really wasn’t 

subject to a blue slip. Obviously, the 

Constitution gives the House of Representatives the power to make that 

decision, and they made the decision 

that the fee in this bill would keep it 

from being accepted by the House of 

Representatives. 

They have obviously overcome that 

problem. But they have not overcome 

some other problems with the legislation. My reason for objecting for people 

on my side who voted against this bill 

is because of some unconstitutional 

provisions that it contains, and issues 

that don’t have to be brought up to 

guarantee there is adequate legislation 

for fighting violence against women. 

By the way, I believe this act, which 

has been on the books for more than a 

decade and a half, is going to be carried 

on. So there is not going to be a situation where, whether or not we go 

through this process, there is not going 

to be legislation protecting women on 

the books. It is just a question whether 

it will be expanded in a way that was 

intended to make the bill controversial 

so, presumably, it could be made a political issue in an election year. 

What bothers me about this whole 

process—besides the fact it has taken 

100 days to get to the point of offering 

it for conference—is it fits into a pattern of doing things at the last minute. 

We are 2 days away from a recess, and 

this is brought up at this particular 

time. I have to ask why. Why not 

sometime during the last 100 days? 

I also see a pattern of this maneuver 

fitting into the maneuvers that have 

been going on ever since, I believe, the 

spring break we had in the Senate. 

Ever since then—as reported in an article published in the newspaper we 

know as Politico a couple of months 

ago about a strategy between the 

White House reelection effort and 

things that go on in the Senate—we 

seem to have a crisis every week. 

We came back from the spring break, 

and we had the Buffett tax rule. That 

was carried on for a week. Everybody 

knew that wasn’t going to pass, but we 

wasted a whole week on the Buffett tax 

rule. 

Then this issue was brought up before 

and passed about that time as part of a 

strategy of having a war on women 

come up as an issue. That ended in this 

legislation being passed through the 

Senate but in a way where everybody 

knew it wasn’t going to get through 

the House of Representatives. But it 

was a very convenient political issue. 

Later on, we had the equal wages for 

women legislation that came up for 

about a week. Once again, everybody 

knew that wasn’t going to go anyplace, 

but it was debated in this assembly, 

taking up time from a lot of important 

issues that ought to be dealt with—the 

economy and creating jobs. We spent a 

week on that. 

Then we spent a week on taxing the 

rich, and everybody knew that wasn’t 

going to go anywhere. 

I think we spent a month on interest 

rates on student loans. Everybody 

knew there was a bipartisan solution 

to that, but nobody wanted to go there 

until the President had a whole month 

of going to university campuses to 

blame Republicans for not passing a 

bill that would keep interest rates low 

on student loans. 

Then we spent last week on the DISCLOSE Act. Everybody knew that 

wasn’t going to go anyplace. 

So we have had a whole spring and 

summer in this body of accomplishing 

nothing because there is a strategy between the White House and the leadership of the Senate to help this President get reelected. And to keep away 

from issues the people of this country 

are concerned about, which are the 

economy and creating jobs and the fact 

that this White House and this Senate 

aren’t going to do anything to work 

through those issues. 

Here in the Senate it is an issue of 

politics and not an issue of process. I 

think the American people know the 

games being played, and they are sick 

and tired of it. 

So I ask unanimous consent that the 

Senate proceed to the consideration of 

Calendar No. 406, H.R. 4970, the Housepassed Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act; provided further that 

all after the enacting clause be stricken, the text of the Senate-passed violence against women bill, S. 1925, with 

a modification that strikes sections 805 

and 810 related to the immigration provisions; that the bill be read three 

times and passed, the Senate insist on 

its amendment, request a conference 

with the House, and the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees on the 

part of the Senate with a ratio agreed 

to by both leaders. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. 

WHITEHOUSE). Is there objection? 

The Senator from Washington. 

Mrs. MURRAY. I object. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard. 

The Senator from Washington. 

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I listened carefully to the passion of the 

Senator from Iowa on behalf of the Republican majority and Speaker BOEHNER, and, frankly, I have to say it is offensive to say that the issue of violence 

against women is about politics. This 

is about women who are abused, women 

who are powerless to fight back, and 


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S5846 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE August 1, 2012 

women being able to get the protection 

they need in this country that has provided protection for a very long time, 

to make sure women who are immigrants, women who live in a tribe, 

women who are gay and lesbian, 

women who are on college campuses 

get the protection this legislation supports. This is not about politics, this is 

about violence and this country standing up and saying we are going to protect them. 

Make no mistake about it, what the 

Republicans are saying is that they 

want to move this bill to conference so 

they can strip out those provisions. 

Well, they have crossed a line—a line 

that in the history of this nonpolitical, 

bipartisan bill has been so deeply important to so many of us. They made 

this bill about politics just now. I find 

that offensive. 

What they want is to take the Senate’s bipartisan-passed bill, supported 

by both Republicans and Democrats 

here, send it to conference, and then 

pick it apart. They want to take it to 

conference so they can have a discussion about which women in this country deserve protection and which do 

not. They want to pit one group of 

women against another. This is not a 

game. It is not politics. And it certainly is not a game I am going to 

play. The new protections in this bill 

have been supported by Republicans 

and Democrats, groups across this 

country, and millions of Americans. 

They are not bartering chips, and it is 

not about politics. 

The objection of the Senator on behalf of the Republicans raises issues 

that really are nothing more than a 

smokescreen. They do not want to be 

out in front saying they are willing to 

discriminate against certain women. 

They would rather hide behind these 

procedural objections. But I would remind all our colleagues that these procedural objections they are out here 

talking about—the politics—have been 

routinely overcome here in the Senate. 

Just as I said a few minutes ago, the 

transportation and jobs bill we passed 

a month ago, the blue slip issue was 

overcome. The FAA reauthorization 

last year funding our Nation’s airports—overcome. The Food Safety 

Act—overcome. The Travel Promotion 

Act. All those had blue slip issues, and 

all of them were overcome, and there 

was a reason why—leadership and the 

will to do the right thing. 

So let me make it abundantly clear. 

This is not about politics. It is about 

protecting women in this country. It is 

about making sure we do what is right 

for so many women who are looking to 

Congress to put in place the protections they deserve. 

So the ball is in the Speaker’s court 

now. He is going to have to talk to 

women across the country about why 

their protections are at risk because of 

politics. But I want everyone to be 

clear: We are not going to compromise 

on the issues that are so important to 

so many women and throw them under 

the bus. That is not what we have 

fought for year after year on bipartisan 

legislation when we passed the Violence Against Women Act before. It is 

inclusive, it is bipartisan, and it is 

above ideology and partisan games. It 

is a bill that makes sure that no matter who you are or where you live or 

whom you love, you are protected in 

this great country in which we live. 

Politics has no place in this. I would 

agree with the Senator from Iowa. Who 

is playing politics? We will leave it up 

for those who are watching. What I 

have asked is that the Senate do what 

we have done many times on many 

bills—move this bill to the House in a 

bipartisan way and pass it, and then 

politics won’t matter, women will be 

covered. 

I hope our Senate colleagues who 

have objected and the Speaker will reconsider. They can easily pass this bill 

today or next month, put it in place, 

and women in this country can say the 

leaders of this country are fighting for 

them. 

Mr. President, I yield the floor. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota. 

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I just 

want to do one thing in terms of responding to Senator GRASSLEY, who is 

a friend. We enjoy a very good relationship on the Judiciary Committee, and 

we are just friends. But the idea that 

these new provisions in the VAWA bill 

are political just couldn’t be further 

from the truth. 

Let me talk about just one provision. 

It is about women on Indian reservations who get abused by a partner or a 

boyfriend or husband who isn’t Native. 

And this happens all the time. This 

provision gave jurisdiction to the 

tribes to prosecute these individuals. 

I am on the Indian Affairs Committee. I talk to tribal leaders all the 

time. I go to reservations all the time. 

My colleagues have no idea how grateful tribal leaders were and how important this was. One out of every three 

Indian women in this country is raped 

at some time in her life, and by far the 

largest majority of that is not by male 

Indians, it is by non-Indians. I can’t 

think of anything that is less political. 

I just can’t. And I ask my colleagues to 

think, to give a second of thought before they say stuff like that. 

It really is, as Senator MURRAY said, 

offensive to her. I actually found it 

more sad. I find it sad. 

THE MEDICARE DIABETES PREVENTION ACT OF

2012

Mr. President, I came to the floor to 

talk about diabetes. And the Presiding 

Officer has been such a champion in 

talking about the money that can be 

saved in our health care system by the 

prevention of chronic disease. 

The burden of chronic disease in our 

country is staggering. Chronic disease 

affects half of all American adults, and 

7 out of 10 deaths each year are due to 

chronic disease. If current trends continue, by the year 2020, 52 percent of 

American adults will either have type 2 

diabetes or elevated glucose levels, 

known as prediabetes, and diabetes can 

often lead to other chronic diseases, 

such as heart disease. 

But as grim as these statistics are for 

our country, we also have some of the 

best health care researchers in the 

world. A few years ago, the Centers for 

Disease Control and Prevention, the 

CDC, conducted a pilot program called 

the Diabetes Prevention Program in 

two cities: St. Paul, MN, and Indianapolis, IN. This program, which was administered by the YMCA, is a program 

focusing on 16 weeks of nutritional 

training, eating healthy, and physical 

activity. It costs about $300 per participant. The results of this pilot were extraordinary. Among adults with 

prediabetes—who are at the highest 

risk for developing type 2 diabetes—the 

program reduced chances that a participant would be diagnosed with diabetes 

by 58 percent. For adults over the age 

of 60, it reduced the likelihood of being 

diagnosed with type 2 diabetes by 71 

percent. 

That is why Senator LUGAR and I introduced legislation in 2009 to authorize the National Diabetes Prevention 

Program as a grant program through 

the CDC. This bill was passed as part of 

the health care law and is helping community-based organizations such as the 

YMCA administer the program across 

the country. No one can participate in 

this program if it is not available, 

which is why we needed the CDC to 

help expand the program and scale it 

up. Thanks to their work and to our 

provisions in the Affordable Care Act, 

the YMCA is now offering the Diabetes 

Prevention Program at more than 300 

sites in 30 States. 

But we also need health insurers to 

pay for the program to make sure everyone who needs it can get it. We 

know that when eligible adults participate in the program, it saves everyone 

money. In fact, the CEO of United 

Healthcare told me that they will 

cover this. Why? Because they save $4 

for every $1 they invest in the program 

because their beneficiaries are 

healthier. And the Urban Institute estimated that implementing community 

programs such as the Diabetes Prevention Program could save $191 billion 

nationally, with 75 percent of the savings—more than $142 billion—going to 

Medicare and Medicaid Programs. 

That is why the Federal Government 

should also invest in this cost-saving 

program for seniors. Nearly one-third 

of Medicare beneficiaries had diabetes 

in 2010. The Diabetes Prevention Program costs about $300 per participant, 

as compared to more than $6,000 a year 

in added health care costs for someone 

with type 2 diabetes. There is no question that by preventing diabetes, we 

can all save money while keeping our 

seniors healthier. 

That is why I introduced legislation 

yesterday with my friends, Senators 

LUGAR, ROCKEFELLER, COLLINS, and 

SHAHEEN, to allow Medicare to cover 

the National Diabetes Prevention Program. We are doing this to help our 


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seniors enjoy their golden years while 

staying as healthy as possible. We are 

also doing it because it is the fiscally 

responsible thing to do. That is why 

the American Diabetes Association, 

the American Heart Association, the 

American Public Health Association, 

and the American Council on Aging 

have all endorsed this legislation. The 

National Association of Chronic Disease Directors, the National Association of State Long-Term Care Ombudsman Programs, and the YMCA of the 

USA have also endorsed the bill, as 

have 79 State and local organizations. 

We know a really good way to prevent type 2 diabetes, and we know how 

to do it while saving the Federal Government billions of dollars. In fact, we 

know doing it will save the Federal 

Government billions of dollars. 

Let’s all here work together to prevent chronic disease in our country. I 

urge the Presiding Officer and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to 

join me in guaranteeing that every senior has access to the Diabetes Prevention Program when they need it. 

I–35W BRIDGE COLLAPSE

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I 

would like to take a moment to recognize that today is the fifth anniversary 

of a tragedy in my home State—the 

collapse of the I–35W bridge in Minneapolis. The collapse killed 13 people 

and injured 145 others. That collapse 

was a shock to Minnesotans and to the 

country. How could a bridge on our 

Interstate Highway System collapse? It 

underscores the importance, of course, 

of investing in our infrastructure. We 

did move quickly to replace the 

bridge—and it is a beautiful bridge— 

thanks to the leadership of Senator 

KLOBUCHAR and others. 

I wish to say a few words about the 

response by the people and the first responders in Minneapolis and the metropolitan area. It was amazing. All the 

first responders had interoperable radio 

signals. People in Minneapolis ran to 

the bridge to help. People did heroic 

things. I am very proud of Minnesota. I 

am proud of Mayor Rybak and the response of other first responders in the 

metropolitan area. I am so proud to 

represent Minnesota. 

My heart goes out to the families of 

those who perished that day and also to 

their loved ones and their friends and 

also to the survivors who are still recovering in so many different ways. 

I urge my colleagues not to forget 

that day. We need to invest in our infrastructure to make sure this doesn’t 

happen again. 

Mr. President, I yield the floor. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York. 

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I 

thank the Senator from Minnesota for 

his great remarks. He really does care 

about Minnesota. It is a nice State. 

IRAN SANCTIONS

Mr. President, in a few hours the Iran 

sanctions bill is likely to pass both the 

House and the Senate. That is very 

good news because when it comes to 

Iran, time’s a wastin’. We need to 

ratchet up the pressure. And this is a 

powerful package that will paralyze 

the Iranian economy. It tightens the 

screws tighter, tighter, tighter, so that 

the Iranians will have no choice but to 

see their economy basically in desperate shape if they continue to pursue 

obtaining a nuclear weapon. 

I thank my colleague, Chairman 

JOHNSON of the Banking Committee, 

who has put so much time and effort 

into the Iran sanctions bill and done 

such a great job. 

I thank Ranking Member SHELBY. We 

go to the gym in the Senate at about 

the same time early in the morning, 

and we have talked about this bill repeatedly. I know how much he cares 

about it. 

I thank my colleague from New Jersey, whom I have worked with on this 

issue long and hard and who has taken 

a great leadership role. Senator 

MENENDEZ has been relentless in pushing this bill, and the many of us who 

wish not to see a nuclear Iran owe Senator MENENDEZ a great deal of thanks. 

I thank my friend Senator KIRK, who, 

even though he is not physically 

present in the Chamber, has made this 

his highest priority. We have worked 

together on this issue a long time, and 

we continue to wish him a speedy recovery. 

I believe that when it comes to Iran, 

of course, we should never take the 

military option off the table, but I believe—as almost everyone in this 

Chamber believes, our President believes, Prime Minister Netanyahu believes, and most Israelis believe—that 

economic sanctions are the preferred 

way to choke Iran’s nuclear ambitions. 

If we can achieve sanctions and Iran 

truly backs off, not with a feint but in 

reality, by meeting the three standards 

that both President Obama and Prime 

Minister Netanyahu have set—turning 

over any 20-percent enriched uranium, 

stop producing any 20-percent enriched 

uranium, and destroying the new facility at Qom—then we will have achieved 

great victory. So we have to move forward. 

Earlier this year a group of bipartisan Senators—I was proud to be 

amongst them—led by Senator LIEBERMAN called on the European Union to 

exert more pressure on Iran by imposing an oil embargo on this rogue regime. Our European partners have done 

just that, and their oil boycott is working. That, too, is furthering to ratchet 

the pressure on Iran’s nuclear program. 

Last November the report on Iran’s 

nuclear program by the IAEA was its 

most alarming yet. It proved beyond a 

shadow of a doubt that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon. And according 

to published reports, they could have 

at least one workable weapon in less 

than a year and another in 6 months 

after that. So we don’t have much 

time, and ratcheting up the economic 

pressure is imperative. We cannot dawdle. We cannot sit around and say: 

Let’s wait 6 months and see if the existing sanctions are working. We have 

to ratchet up that pressure so that Iran 

sees that it is not in its interests economically, politically, militarily even, 

to pursue the path they have thus far 

chosen. The IAEA report details a 

highly organized program dedicated to 

acquiring the skills necessary to 

produce and test a nuclear bomb. And 

earlier this year DNI Director Clapper 

told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Iran’s leaders even seem 

prepared to attack U.S. interests overseas. So we know Iran is on the path to 

continued evil. 

Just last week a suspected suicide 

bomber killed 6 people and wounded 30 

aboard an Israeli tourist bus in a coastal town in Bulgaria. Israel believes— 

and I tend to agree with them—that 

Hezbollah and Iran are to blame. Many 

questions remain about the bomb, but 

many Western counterterrorist officials share the suspicions that Israel 

and I, frankly, both have. 

By giving our government the capability to impose even more crippling 

sanctions on Iran should they continue 

with their nuclear weapons program, 

the House and the Senate are putting 

forth a tough, smart plan to ratchet it 

up and prevent, hopefully, God willing, 

the very real threat Iran poses to the 

United States and our allies, particularly Israel. 

I am not going to go over what the 

bill does. That has been talked about. 

But I want to mention one other part 

of the bill before I sit down. I am really 

happy and grateful to Chairman JOHNSON that the measure before us will 

also include language adopted from the 

Syrian Human Rights Accountability 

Act. That is legislation I cointroduced 

this year with my friend and colleague 

from New York, Senator GILLIBRAND. 

The legislation would require the administration to identify violators of 

human rights in Syria, it would call for 

reform and protection of the prodemocracy demonstrators, and it would also 

block any financial aid and property 

transactions in the United States involving Syrian leaders involved in the 

crackdown on protesters. 

If the Syrian Government, which in 

many respects operates as a client 

state for the rogue Iranian regime, will 

not willingly change its brutal approach and continues to violate the 

human rights of those seeking to exercise their voices, then we have to do 

everything we can to send the strongest message possible to that nation’s 

leadership that this behavior is beyond 

the pale and not without consequences. 

In conclusion, I believe my colleagues Chairman JOHNSON, ranking 

member SHELBY, Senator MENENDEZ, 

and Senator KIRK, have done an excellent job crafting a comprehensive plan 

to arm the administration with the 

tools it needs to put a stop to Iran’s 

nuclear program. I urge my colleagues 

to unanimously support the Iran 

Threat Reduction and Syria Human 

Rights Act of 2012. 

I yield the floor. 


pwalker on DSK7TPTVN1PROD with SENATE
S5848 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE August 1, 2012 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio. 

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I 

ask unanimous consent to speak as in 

morning business for up to 10 minutes. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

SERVICEMEMBERS’ PROTECTION ACT

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I 

rise today because servicemembers who 

risk their lives protecting our Nation 

should not have to ever worry about 

predatory banking practices. They 

should not have to worry about whether they can vote absentee while serving 

abroad. While they are fighting our Nation’s foes, they should not have to 

worry about fighting a foreclosure. 

When they are serving our country, 

they should not have to worry if their 

civilian job, if they are Guard or Reserve, will be available when they return. 

Unfortunately, too many do worry 

about that. Last week I joined the Attorney General of the United States at 

Wright Patterson Air Force base near 

Dayton, OH, and spoke with men and 

women who serve our country, air men 

and air women. Also around that time 

I spoke to some Guard and Reserve, 

members of the Guard and Reserve who 

serve our country, about some of these 

fraudulent practices. When they are 

overseas, some of them do not know 

when they return if they are going to 

still have their job. They don’t know 

what happens to them when they go 

back to school if they are enrolled in a 

university, private or public, 2-year or 

4-year. They don’t know what happens 

sometimes with their families in foreclosure or facing financial fraud. 

We know that employment is critical 

for servicemembers and military families. So is housing. So is protecting 

their ability to cast a ballot. That is 

why I am sponsoring legislation, the 

Servicemembers’ Protection Act, 

which is so vital to those men and 

women in uniform. It would make critical changes to the Servicemembers 

Civil Relief Act that could improve the 

quality of life for members of the 

Armed Forces. 

My bill first would strengthen housing and lending rights for servicemembers. Right now, a bank cannot foreclose upon servicemembers while they 

are serving overseas until it gets a 

court order. Yet the bank has no real 

obligation to actually investigate 

whether a homeowner is on active duty 

overseas. My bill would require lenders 

who want to foreclose on a home to 

conduct a meaningful investigation 

into a borrower’s military status. It 

would increase civil penalties for violating a servicemember’s rights as a 

homeowner. 

The bill also would strengthen enforcement for the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, to 

make sure servicemembers’ votes are 

counted. It would create a nationwide 

standard for getting absentee ballots to 

overseas servicemembers in a timely 

fashion. 

Finally, it would make sure servicemembers can return to their jobs after 

they have completed their military 

service with the seniority and pay rate 

they would have earned if they remained continuously employed by the 

civilian employer. 

We know the Guard and Reserve who 

are called up leave their civilian jobs 

and too often come home to the uncertainty of, What happens when I arrive 

home? Members of the Guard should 

not have to worry about whether they 

will return home to the same job and 

the correct pay rate. 

As citizens of a grateful Nation, we 

have a responsibility to do something— 

more than something to protect servicemembers’ rights as they sacrifice to 

keep our country safe. That is why I 

urge my colleagues to stand up for our 

servicemembers. It is time we serve 

those who served us. 

Mr. President, I suggest the absence 

of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. 

BROWN of Ohio). The Senator from 

Alaska. 

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I 

ask unanimous consent that the proceedings under the quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

ALASKA INTERNS

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I 

am delighted to have a fine group of 

young Alaskans with me—not only 

here on the floor, but in my office for 

four weeks, and I thank them for their 

help in Washington and really for all of 

Alaska. They have been back here for a 

month and have done a great job. It is 

always a true delight to have good, 

high energy young people from back 

home to help me in the work we do 

here. I am so pleased they are with me. 

TSUNAMI DEBRIS

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss 

an issue that people back home are 

talking about a lot. We are discussing 

the Federal Government’s need to plan 

for the increasing level of marine debris that is hitting the Pacific coastline, whether it is out in Hawaii or all 

the way up north in Alaska. This debris 

is coming from the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan last March. 

This is a subject of great discussion 

and debate for folks who are out fishing or walking our beaches. 

We all know that tragic event 

claimed nearly 16,000 lives and destroyed community infrastructure, 

homes, and livelihoods. Our prayers 

continue for the ones we have lost and 

those who have lost their loved ones. 

As horrifying as these natural disasters were, the Earth only shook anywhere from 3 to 5 minutes, and the tsunami rushed to the shore and then receded. But the devastation to property 

and coastlines continues as debris has 

moved from the shores of Japan over a 

year and a half later and we begin to 

see the debris pile up on our shores 

over here. 

The Japanese Government has estimated that about 5 million tons of debris were carried into the ocean. We 

have assumed that the majority of that 

either sank or will sink. There is no 

concrete idea of how much is still 

floating or when the bulk of it will 

reach our beaches, but in Alaska we 

know it has been arriving. 

We saw the first evidence of it last 

winter, and it arrived ahead of the projected timelines. It is understandable 

that we were not able to anticipate exactly when the tsunami debris would 

start arriving, but now that we are 

starting to see it along the shoreline 

there is no doubt we need to respond. 

Last January, in trying to get ahead 

of the curve, if you will, I held a roundtable in Anchorage to find out what 

our State and Federal agencies were 

doing to prepare for the debris we knew 

would be coming to our shores, how the 

interagency work was being coordinated, and how individuals could report 

sightings and navigational issues. 

I think I have mentioned on this 

floor that I have two sons out on a fishing vessel in the Gulf of Alaska. As 

they cross the gulf, I wonder if they 

will encounter debris from the tsunami? 

We saw at one point in time a Japanese vessel that was literally a ghost 

ship, a relic from that tsunami. The 

Coast Guard took that vessel out of the 

navigation channels. Alaskans and people who live on the coast are very 

aware when there is stuff out in the 

water unchartered and unknown, and 

we want to understand and know a little bit more. 

This past June, I joined the U.S. 

Coast Guard to see for myself what was 

washing up on some of Alaska’s remote 

shorelines and our beaches. We flew out 

of Cordova, AK. We went to Kayak Island. Kayak sticks out from the coastline at an angle that allows it to collect an incredible amount of marine debris on just an average year. So the 

reason to go to Kayak was to see what 

might be there other than the typical 

marine debris, unusual things like 

nets, ropes, and buoys. We saw real evidence of what is coming our way from 

the tsunami. We saw colored buoys. We 

saw large Styrofoam blocks. There was 

a large container that had washed up 

very recently. 

We have a picture from NOAA that 

shows some of what we saw washed up 

there on Kayak Island. These are all 

the plastic buoys. The black ones, we 

were told, are what we see more of 

coming out of Japan. 

Now, you may wonder, have we been 

clearly able to identify whether these 

items came from Japan or if this was 

the usual marine debris? NOAA is 

working to sort all of that out, but 

there are signs that give us somewhat 

of an idea of whether what we saw out 

there on Kayak Island was typical marine debris or not. 


pwalker on DSK7TPTVN1PROD with SENATE
August 1, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S5849 

Many saw pictures of this huge dock 

that recently arrived on the coastline 

in Oregon. Just look at the size here 

and think: this concrete dock had flotations on either end and traveled all 

the way across the Pacific literally in 

one huge slab up onto the Oregon 

beach. I think when folks looked at 

that picture, their word was, Wow. 

Again, for those who are navigators 

and fishermen, if they run across something like this in the water it is real 

evidence of why we need to be concerned. 

This next photo is from somewhere in 

the Pacific. This shows the objects that 

are creating, again, a hazard to navigation. These same materials are going 

to end up somewhere on a shoreline, 

whether it is on our beaches or in our 

ports. Think about the impact this 

may have on sensitive habitats, making them unusable, possibly deadly for 

certain marine animals, such as shore 

birds and other species that may rely 

on them. 

I think what is important to recognize from these three pictures I have 

just shown is that we are seeing now 

the debris that is floating on top or at 

least partly on top of the water. We are 

seeing it coming to U.S. shorelines earlier than anticipated because in addition to being carried by the currents 

from the ocean, this debris is being 

moved along by the wind. 

What we are seeing in Alaska primarily are those buoys that sit up 

clear out of the water. You can also see 

fishing boats, building materials, and 

roofs in this photograph. Again, this is 

what we can see because it is above the 

water. 

So one of the real questions we need 

to ask is, What is below the water? 

What is just below the surface that we 

can’t see? 

A couple of weeks ago, I met with 

some representatives from the Yakutat 

Tlingit Tribe from Yakutat, AK. Yakutat is in the northern part of the Alaska panhandle, on the eastern side of 

the Gulf of Alaska. It is a very remote 

community. It is only accessible by air 

or by boat. The closest community is 

hundreds of miles away and, Yakutat is 

surrounded by National Park Service 

and Forest Service lands. 

So this community—the tribe, city, 

borough—is meeting weekly to assess 

the debris that is coming up on their 

beaches, and they are trying to put together a response. They have done 

some cleanup along 15 miles of area 

beaches. 

One beautiful beach is called Cannon 

Beach. It has black sand. It is absolutely gorgeous. I visited it in March, 

and now we are seeing the Styrofoam, 

housing foam, and buoys coming up on 

it and the other beaches near Yakutat. 

The community estimates that they 

have about 600 pounds of marine debris 

per mile. The borough has 1,074 miles of 

coastline, so this small village community is looking at the possibility of 

3,000 tons of debris. 

This next picture is actually from 

Yakutat. This details another problem 

that our coastal communities are facing. What do we do with this marine 

debris? Our landfills, particularly in 

southeastern Alaska, are maxed out or 

close to being maxed out. This landfill 

space that is already filling up could 

very quickly be overwhelmed by tsunami debris. And not only are my residents working to clean up beaches with 

limited landfills, often they are in very 

rugged and very remote locations, 

many with no road to access. Sometimes they can’t land a vessel or a boat 

on the shoreline because it is just too 

dangerous. So how do we access this 

debris? That is a challenge. 

It is also costly, and we are faced 

with the question of what do we do 

with the debris we have collected? 

Yakutat is exploring some pretty 

creative solutions and alternative disposal solutions. Yakutat is one of those 

communities that has extremely high 

energy costs. If my memory serves me, 

I believe they pay in excess of 50 cents 

a kilowatt hour for their energy. So 

when they are dealing with challenges 

and problems, they try to find solutions that help with their high cost of 

energy. 

What Yakutat is looking at now is 

whether there is the potential for any 

waste-to-energy technologies that 

could deal with two problems: clean up 

debris and support long-term efforts to 

deal with the high cost of energy. It is 

kind of a two-for-one. They are trying 

to figure out how they can turn this 

problem into an energy source, and in 

this way they can support long-term 

community marine debris cleanup efforts. This would be a creative solution 

for this small remote community, 

largely on their own and facing truckloads of debris. 

Now the State of Alaska has engaged 

in tsunami debris coordination, and I 

am told the Alaskan region representatives of various Federal agencies are as 

well, but headquarters of agencies 

across the Federal Government really 

need to be part of the plan and engage 

creatively to address this accumulating debris. 

I don’t have my typical Alaska map 

here that I usually use when I speak, 

but my State has an incredible coastline—more coastline than the rest of 

the country put together—and we depend on our marine sources for livelihood and recreation. We value a 

healthy coastline to support a resilient 

marine environment. Our fisheries, our 

tourism, and our coastal communities 

are so dependent on a strong and sustainable region. 

So, think about this from the tourism perspective. When somebody is 

paying thousands of dollars to come up 

to Alaska to visit remote, wild areas, 

they are certainly going to be disappointed if they are greeted by a 

beach full of Styrofoam or pass by the 

many debris fields that are accumulating. 

Communities up and down the coastline need assurance that the headquarters of various agencies are going 

to be part of the cleanup plan. In the 

aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, FEMA 

compiled a document denoting the debris removal authorities of Federal 

agencies. That document outlined that 

the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, 

and Transportation all had a role to 

play in debris removal. 

So for this reason—and using this 

federal memorandum as an example—I 

have asked the White House to establish and lead an interagency task force 

to plan for tsunami debris. We also 

need to engage the relevant States, 

tribes, local governments, and international partners by inviting them to 

participate in this task force. We all 

need to work together. We cannot leave 

a little community like Yakutat and 

say: Clean up your section of the coastline. 

I know private and government Japanese representatives have expressed interest in helping with the debris problem. The ability for Japan to offer experience and technology with waste-toenergy devices could provide a great 

opportunity for the U.S., Japan and 

public partnerships to come together 

and address the debris. 

There are many reasons we need to 

act now. It is a difficult time of year 

for many of us here in Washington, DC, 

to think about winter storms. We are 

enjoying some pretty warm weather 

here. But we need to recognize and 

think about what winter weather in 

Alaska will mean for accumulating debris. We have a lot of areas being impacted by tsunami debris that have already had huge tide swings. If we add 

that to a winter storm in areas with 

beaches, some of the debris we see will 

be buried deep by the sand, and will 

only be uncovered when snow melts. 

However even during the spring, accessing the coastline can be challenging due to breakup conditions. We 

have extreme tides and, of course, the 

weather will also move the debris up 

into the tree line, making access and 

removal even more difficult. 

This last picture will give my colleagues some indication of what I am 

talking about when we think about the 

Alaska coastline. This is in a part of 

the State called Montague Island. With 

good high tides and the weather we get, 

downed trees are part of the ocean accumulation on the shore. You can see 

tucked among the trees, kind of sprinkled like confetti, some of the 

Styrofoam that has washed up. Again, 

this is marine debris we are seeing. 

Think about how difficult it will be to 

access some of this after winter 

storms. 

Where debris lands on rough and 

rocky shorelines, wave action is expected to break it up. We know that 

happens, and I am concerned about our 

marine life, birds and animals consuming smaller plastic particles that 

have been broken down by this wave 

action. A piece of Styrofoam that is 

easy to pick up today because it is reasonably good-sized is going to be much 


pwalker on DSK7TPTVN1PROD with SENATE
S5850 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE August 1, 2012 

more difficult to clean up when it has 

been broken down by wave action. So, 

again, all of this argues for prompt action. 

Maybe the best we can do for now is 

pick up the debris and store it somewhere. But as we saw looking at the 

Yakutat picture, storing it in a landfill 

in most of these communities is probably not going to be feasible. Bailing 

technology could be available to Alaska communities for about $10,000, and 

these machines would at least support 

the voluntary cleanup efforts and provide a means to store the debris rather 

than force strained landfills to absorb 

the incoming debris. I throw this out 

because I think it is important that we 

get creative about this. We need to be 

exploring all available technologies to 

support the most efficient means to 

handle this tsunami debris and other 

marine debris for the long run. 

Every year I attend an annual alternative energy fair. It is held in the interior part of the State at Chena Hot 

Springs. We always learn something 

good and new at this energy fair. Last 

year, when I was there, I saw a device 

that is actually in production. It is onthe-shelf technology. It may help turn 

much of the debris that is hitting our 

coastline into fuel. The device—I called 

it a gizmo but I know there is a much 

more technical term for it—processes 

plastics into fuel with the capacity to 

produce as much as 2,400 gallons per 

day. With fuel at over $6 a gallon in 

Yakutat, people are looking at this and 

saying, We can actually take some of 

the waste, the garbage, the debris, the 

plastic, and turn that into fuel so we 

don’t have to pay 6 bucks a gallon to 

fill up a four-wheeler, truck, or boat. 

Given the tight budgets across the 

country, again, I think we need to be 

creative. We need to identify and deploy all available resources and share 

information. We need to leverage local 

knowledge and our coastal residents’ 

proximity to the debris, as well as 

their vested interest in the cleanup efforts. 

Our Federal agencies have regional 

staff and they have facility resources. 

Many run programs that are consistent 

with the objectives of tsunami debris 

response and mitigation. For those who 

would suggest, Well, if it has come up 

on your shore, it is your responsibility; 

there is no Federal role here; it is up to 

the States to figure this out, I would 

remind them that in my State, much of 

our land is owned by the Federal Government. This picture here is of Montague Island. Montague Island is entirely within the Chugach National 

Forest. And, in fact, over 60 percent of 

my State is owned by the Federal Government, so clearly the Federal Government has a role to play in cleaning 

up the debris. 

We also can’t forget about the private interests in cleanup. Many industries and private citizens are dependent 

on our navigable waterways and 

healthy ecosystems. We need good 

communication, leadership, and a plan 

to guide an interagency and public-private approach to solve this challenge 

during what we all acknowledge are 

difficult fiscal times. I commend the 

NOAA marine debris program for their 

coordination and response to this 

work, but the fact is they are a small 

and an overtasked program. They need 

the help of their Federal partners to 

address this as a national priority. 

I encourage my colleagues to join me 

in recognizing that marine debris is a 

national problem as well as a priority, 

and a comprehensive response to tsunami debris that we are seeing on our 

shoreline in Alaska and other Pacific 

States, in addition to Hawaii, is past 

due. 

With that, Mr. President, I yield the 

floor. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa. 

CYBER SECURITY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, over 

the last few days we have been lectured 

numerous times that we must protect 

cyber critical infrastructure; otherwise, our country is in jeopardy. Everybody agrees with that statement. Enhancing cyber security is important to 

our national security. I support efforts 

to strengthen our Nation against critical cyber attacks. 

However, I take issue with those who 

have come to the floor and argued that 

those who don’t support this bill are 

against strengthening our Nation’s 

cyber security. Disagreements over 

how to address policy matters 

shouldn’t evolve into accusations 

about a Member’s willingness to tackle 

tough issues. The debate over cyber security legislation has turned from a 

substantive analysis of the merits into 

a political blame game as to which side 

supports defending our Nation more. If 

we want to tackle big issues such as 

cyber security, we need to rise above 

disagreements and work in a constructive manner. Disagreements over policy should be openly and freely debated. 

Unfortunately, this isn’t how the debate on cyber security proceeded. Instead, before a real debate began, the 

majority leader cut that debate off. As 

the discussion of cyber security began 

on the floor this week, Senators stated 

that a failure to grant broad new powers to the Federal Government will 

lead to a cyber 9/11. I agree that if we 

fail to take action on cyber security, 

there could be a national security consequence. However, I don’t believe giving the Federal Government more regulatory authority over business and industry, as supporters of this bill propose, is the answer to strengthening 

cyber security. 

Chief among my concerns with the 

pending bill is the role played by the 

Department of Homeland Security. 

These concerns stem from oversight 

that I have conducted on the implementation of a law called the Chemical 

Facility Antiterrorism Standards Program. That acronym would be CFATS. 

CFATS was the Department’s first 

major foray into regulation of the 

chemical sector. 

The Department of Homeland Security spent nearly $1⁄2 billion on that 

program. Now, 5 years later, they have 

just begun to approve site security 

plans for the more than 4,000 facilities 

designated under the rule. 

I have continued to conduct oversight on this matter. Despite assurances from the Department of Homeland Security that they fixed all the 

problems with CFATS, I keep discovering more problems. So now I am baffled why we would take an agency that 

has proven problems with overseeing a 

critical infrastructure and give them 

chief responsibility for our country’s 

cyber security. 

Additionally, I am concerned with 

provisions that restrict the way information is shared. The restrictions imposed under title VII of the bill are a 

step backward from other informationsharing proposals. This includes the 

bill I have cosponsored, the SECURE 

IT bill. The bill before us places the Department of Homeland Security in the 

role of gatekeeper of cyber threat information. The bill calls for the Department of Homeland Security to 

share the information in ‘‘as close to 

real time as possible’’ with other agencies. However, this surely will create a 

bottleneck for information coming into 

the government. 

Further, title VII includes restrictions on what types of information can 

be shared, limiting the use of it for 

criminal prosecution, except those that 

cause imminent harm. 

This is exactly the type of restriction 

on information sharing that the 9/11 

Commission warned us about. In fact, 

the 9/11 Commission said, ‘‘the [wall] 

resulted in far less information sharing 

and coordination.’’ The 9/11 Commission further added, ‘‘the removal of the 

wall that existed before 9/11 between 

intelligence and law enforcement has 

opened up new opportunities for cooperative action.’’ 

Why would we even consider legislation that could rebuild these walls that 

threaten our national security? How 

much of a real debate have we had on 

those issues I have raised? The lack of 

a real process in the Senate on this 

very bill amplifies my substantive concerns. 

In fact, this is eerily reminiscent of 

the debate surrounding the health care 

reform bill. During that time, thenSpeaker of the House PELOSI declared, 

‘‘We have to pass the bill so that you 

can find out what is in it.’’ Well, we all 

know how well that worked out. Years 

of litigation later, the public is still 

learning what surprises the majority 

and President Obama had in store for 

the Nation’s health care system. 

Now here we are, once again, in the 

last week before our August summer 

break, tackling a serious problem that 

hasn’t been given full process. 

I do not want cyber security legislation to become another health care reform bill. If we are serious about our 


pwalker on DSK7TPTVN1PROD with SENATE
August 1, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S5851 

Nation’s security, then shouldn’t we 

treat it as serious as it really is? We all 

agree how serious it is. 

We are told that the Senate has been 

working on cyber security for 3 to 5 

years. However, we have not been 

working on this bill before us for that 

long. The bill before us was introduced 

13 days ago, and it was only pending on 

the floor for 4 days before the motion 

for cloture was filed. It did not go 

through the normal committee process. 

It was not debated or amended. Instead, it was brought straight to the 

floor, and we are being forced to consider it under a very rushed schedule. 

Talking about the danger of cyber attacks for years is not the same as discussing the impact of the actual text of 

the bill which could become law. The 

words on the 212 pages of the bill are 

what must be analyzed, and analyzed 

in detail. 

In fact, no one, except a handful of 

Senators, actually knows what the bill 

says or might say. And, of course, that 

is a process that debate in the U.S. 

Senate accomplishes or at least tries to 

accomplish. 

We need full process and, unfortunately, that has not happened, and it 

does not look as if it will happen. Why 

won’t it happen? Because the majority 

leader has limited debate. This week 

we were told that a group of Senators 

and their staff were working on a compromise. 

Again, that is something all of us as 

a body do not know much about. We 

need an open debate in order to process 

this, as opposed to huddled, backroom 

meetings. 

I do not think this is the way we are 

supposed to legislate. The people who 

elected us expect more. They expect 

transparency because they know when 

you get transparency, you have accountability. 

How many Senators are prepared to 

vote on something this important 

without knowing its impact because we 

have not followed regular order? Are 

we to once again pass a bill so that the 

American public can then, at that 

time, find out what is in it a la Speaker PELOSI’s statement on health care 

reform? 

These are questions that all Senators 

should consider. And our citizens 

should know in advance what we are 

actually considering. 

Yesterday, we heard claims that the 

amendments offered by Republicans 

were part of some obstructionist tactic. Why isn’t the same statement 

made about the 77 or so amendments 

filed by Democrats? Somehow, are they 

acceptable and not obstructionist? 

I had three amendments that addressed specific provisions in the bill, 

and I wanted to have a debate on them. 

For example, I have an amendment 

to strike the provision in the bill that 

creates a cause of action against the 

Federal Government. What does that 

cause of action do? That provision 

waives sovereign immunity, provides 

for automatic damages, and provides 

for an award of attorney’s fees. 

This provision is, obviously, a gift to 

the trial lawyers lobby, which American taxpayers should not have to pay 

for. And I do not think class action 

lawsuits against the government will 

help with cyber security. 

Another amendment of mine would 

have removed industry-specific carveouts from the bill. This is another example of how backroom deal making 

takes place so as to get support and 

build support for a bill. We saw this 

happen with the health care reform 

bill. You know the famous 

‘‘Cornhusker Kickback’’ that was 

agreed to in order to pass ObamaCare, 

and this process reminds me of that. 

Here, to get support from companies 

in the information technology industry, the bill clearly states those companies cannot be identified as critical 

cyber infrastructure. So to build support for this bill—but without people 

knowing what is in the bill—the authors carved out these companies from 

having to comply with the bill. 

For example, under this carve-out, 

say an information technology company builds a router that has a flaw 

that is exploited by hackers. That 

router is purchased by every sector of 

the critical infrastructure, including 

power, water, and probably a lot of others that I ought to be able to name. 

If that router flaw is exploited, and if 

that is attacked, the companies that 

bought the router are held responsible. 

However, the company that made the 

faulty router is not. 

It is obvious how absurd this is. It is 

obvious how much of a major giveaway 

to a key industry it is, just to give the 

appearance of private sector support. 

This is not how we should handle cyber 

security, and I have an amendment to 

strike this provision. We should openly 

debate this issue and discuss whether 

this is the right course of action to 

give a carve-out to a specific segment 

of industry. 

Again, the carve-out was a deal cut 

with one purpose: to limit opposition 

to the bill. Well, that was not good policy in 2009 on the ‘‘Cornhusker Kickback’’ in the health care reform debate, 

and we should learn from that lesson 

that it is, obviously, not good policy in 

2012. 

I also know that Senator RON JOHNSON of Wisconsin had an amendment 

that the Congressional Budget Office 

issued a score on the cost of the bill before it could take effect. 

Why were the supporters of the bill 

opposed to doing that? Do they believe 

they have a right to spend millions or 

billions of taxpayers’ dollars at will 

without making the amount public? 

Are the supporters of the bill really 

prepared to vote for this bill without 

revealing how much it will cost? 

But I will not get a chance to debate 

my amendments or Senator JOHNSON’s 

amendment before the cloture vote because that is how the majority leader 

runs the U.S. Senate. 

There are serious questions about 

this bill. It needs to be amended. We 

need to discuss changes. Unfortunately, it does not look as though that 

is going to happen. 

I know some will, again, say that 

this has been a long process. The only 

thing true about that statement is that 

the issue and problem has been discussed for a long time—but not discussed for a long time on this bill. 

If we are serious about addressing 

this problem, then let’s deal with it appropriately. Rushing something 

through that will impact the country 

in such a massive way is not the way 

the most deliberative body in the 

world, the U.S. Senate, should do its 

business. It is not good for the country, 

and it is, obviously, not good for the 

reputation of the U.S. Senate. 

I yield the floor. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey is recognized. 

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I understand my distinguished colleague 

from Oklahoma has asked consent to 

speak at 6:30 p.m. I will take about 10 

or 15 minutes, which would put us 

about 5 minutes past that time. So I 

ask unanimous consent to speak for 

about 15 minutes, if that is acceptable 

to the Senator. 

Mr. INHOFE. That is perfectly all 

right. And I ask unanimous consent 

that at the conclusion of the remarks 

of my friend from New Jersey I be recognized for 30 minutes. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there 

objection? 

Without objection, it is so ordered. 

The Senator from New Jersey is recognized. 

Mr. MENENDEZ. I thank the Presiding Officer and I thank my colleague 

for his courtesy. 

DEATH OF OSWALDO PAYA

Mr. President, while we are focused 

on issues here at home—and certainly 

we should be—there are incidents taking place around the world, and those 

of us who care about freedom and democracy and human rights, those of us 

like myself who sit on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also have 

our focus on what is happening in other 

places in the world. 

I come to the floor to talk about the 

violence and repression that continues 

in the country of Cuba—this time in a 

dramatic and brazen attempt to exercise power through fear and intimidation over those who want nothing more 

than to see the day when the people of 

Cuba are free—and against members of 

the international community. 

Once again, I am forced to come to 

the floor to put a spotlight on what is 

happening inside of Cuba and all those 

who put their lives on the line for freedom and human rights around the 

world. 

The information we are receiving 

from both public reports and other information from Cuba concerning the 

circumstances surrounding the death 

of Oswaldo Paya—the island’s most 

prominent and respected human rights 

advocate—is disturbing. It underscores 

the continued brutality and repression 


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of the Castro regime, and it demands a 

response from the international community, as well as from ourselves as 

part of that community. 

The facts as we know them are that 

50 prodemocracy activists were arrested and detained at the funeral—at 

the funeral—of Oswaldo Paya. At a funeral—they were not demonstrating, 

they were not marching or carrying 

signs, they were not engaged in acts of 

civil disobedience of any kind. They 

were not violating any laws. They were 

attending a funeral. 

Hundreds gathered peacefully. Family, friends, and those who want nothing more than a free and democratic 

Cuba were at a funeral mourning the 

death of their hero, Oswaldo Paya. 

But the arrest and detention of 50 

dissidents who were mourning the loss 

of a friend and loved one is not the 

whole story of how far this regime will 

go. 

The circumstances surrounding 

Oswaldo Paya’s death leave any reasonable person to wonder what may 

have really happened on that road in 

Cuba that ended in the tragic automobile accident that took the life of 

Oswaldo Paya. 

Paya’s daughter Rosa Maria Paya 

immediately challenged the regime’s 

version of events, stating that the family had received information from the 

survivors that their car was repeatedly 

rammed—rammed—by another vehicle. 

She said: 

So we think it’s not an accident. They 

wanted to do harm and then ended up killing 

my father. 

The family also said that Oswaldo 

Paya was targeted in a similar incident 

2 weeks earlier in Havana. The same 

thing: an effort as they were driving to 

ram them off the road. In retrospect, 

the family now sees that incident as a 

warning from the regime. 

What we know is the car, driven by a 

politician from Spain, Angel 

Carromero, a citizen of Spain, and 

Aron Modig, an activist in Sweden, was 

involved in the fatal automobile accident that killed Paya and his Cuban 

colleague Harold Cepero. 

Of course, we have no proof of that. 

But we do know Carromero and Modig 

survived the accident, and they obviously know exactly what happened 

that day. These are two individuals— 

one is a Spanish citizen, the other one 

is a Swedish citizen—who were involved in helping Paya promote, from 

an international perspective, the views 

of his civil society movement toward 

peaceful change in democracy and 

human rights. 

But instead of getting the two survivors’ real story, in a demonstration 

of the twisted nature of the Castro regime, the Cuban Ministry of Interior 

detained, without consular access, the 

two foreigners who survived the crash 

and then paraded Modig, the Swede, before a Ministry of Interior press conference, where he was clearly forced to 

apologize for working with Paya and 

‘‘illegally aiding the Cuban opposition.’’ 

The driver of the car, Carromero, the 

Spanish citizen, was less lucky than 

his Swedish colleague. It appears he 

will not be allowed to speak freely for 

years to come, courtesy of the Castro 

regime. They have formally charged 

him with vehicular manslaughter in 

the crash. 

Carromero, like Modig, was forced to 

offer a mea culpa, which was made 

available in a video presentation 

hosted by Castro’s nefarious Ministry 

of the Interior. 

The regime’s logic has to boggle the 

mind of any reasonable person who 

cares about the rule of law. 

It is also my understanding, according to reports from Cuba, that—in a 

move typical of the Castro regime— 

Spanish diplomats were prohibited 

from seeing or meeting with Carromero 

until yesterday. 

Meanwhile, the grieving widow of 

Oswaldo Paya has expressed outrage 

and has rejected Castro’s official report 

regarding the death of her husband and 

the circumstances surrounding the accident which has now blamed the accident on the actions of Angel 

Carromero, who was driving the car. 

Paya’s widow has said: ‘‘Until I’m 

able to speak with Angel or with Aron, 

the last two people who saw my husband alive, have access to the expert 

reports, and have the advice of people 

independent of the Cuban government, 

I can have no idea what really happened that day.’’ 

I cannot be certain that the regime 

killed Oswaldo Paya, but the circumstances of his death are highly suspicious. There is no question that the 

regime had no motive to kill Oswaldo 

Paya. Oswaldo Paya was most—one of 

the most prominent opponents of the 

Castro dictatorship, a Catholic activist 

who funded the Christian Liberation 

Movement in 1988. 

He is best known for the Varela 

Project, a petition drive he launched in 

2002 that called for free elections and 

other rights. That drive led the Cuban 

Government to adopt a constitutional 

amendment making the Communist 

system in Cuba irrevocable. It followed 

that with the 2003 Black Spring, which 

arrested 75 of the most prominent 

Cuban activists in that year. 

Paya had become the most known, 

most visible face of Cuba’s peaceful opposition movement. The European Parliament awarded him the Sakharov 

Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2002. 

That year, he was also nominated for a 

Nobel Peace Prize by hundreds of parliamentarians in a campaign led by his 

friend Vaclav Havel, the Czech Republic President. 

Paya was determined that Cuba and 

Cubans should enjoy the benefits of 

freedom and democracy and he committed his life to that cause and he 

may very well have lost his life to that 

cause. We cannot continue to turn our 

backs on those inside Cuba struggling 

in peaceful ways to promote democracy 

and human rights. We cannot allow the 

violence and the repression, the brutal 

detentions to continue without consequence. We cannot allow innocent 

members of the international community to be brutalized and victimized by 

the Castro brothers so they can hide 

the truth without the international 

community standing together and 

holding them accountable for their repressive and illegal actions. 

Will the Castro regime stop at nothing, nothing to repress the rights of its 

people? Can we turn our back on the 

rule of law on the Cuban people, on the 

facts of this case, on Mr. Carromero or 

can we once again have that wink and 

nod and say: Oh, well, you know, it has 

been over 50 years; things are changing 

for the better in Cuba, and we should 

let bygones be bygones, as people languish in jail, as people die at the hands 

of the regime, as we see the hunger 

strikers who give up their lives because 

of the brutality they are facing, to try 

to rivet the world’s attention in this 

regard. 

Some say we should permit Castro’s 

hooligans to parade across our Nation, 

which we seem to give visas to, spewing lies while American Alan Gross sits 

in a prison simply because he brought 

some communications equipment for 

the Jewish community in Havana to be 

able to collaborate and to inform each 

other. That was his crime. He has now 

been in prison, a U.S. citizen, for 2 

years, languishing in Castro’s jails, not 

to mention thousands of Cuban political prisoners who suffer in Cuban prisons. 

As I have said on this floor over and 

over, to me, the silence is so deafening 

from so many of our colleagues. They 

may have a different view than I do 

about how we promote democracy, but 

I do not hear them speak out about 

these human rights abuses, about the 

deaths in Castro’s prisons, about those 

who can get knocked off the side of a 

road and killed. The silence in that respect is deafening. 

So there are some of us who are committed to making sure that silence is 

broken. Today, I am asking my colleagues to join me in sending a letter 

to Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary General 

of the United Nations, demanding that 

the United Nations and the Human 

Rights Council immediately undertake 

a full and thorough investigation of the 

circumstances surrounding Oswaldo 

Paya’s tragic death and the detention 

of Angel Carromero. We must demand 

the truth about these tragic events 

that took the life of Cuba’s most devoted human rights advocate. 

I hope our colleagues will join us in 

that respect. We have supported democracy movements around the world. 

They have often made a big difference, 

from Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa, Soviet Jewry, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 

and so many others. When we side on 

behalf of those struggling against repressive regimes for democracy and 

human rights, it makes a difference. It 

can make a difference in this regard as 

well. 


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I am hoping our colleagues will join 

us in helping break the silence, on behalf of the memory of Oswaldo Paya 

and on behalf of all those who lose 

their lives every day or their liberty 

simply because they peacefully choose 

to try to change the nature of the 

country in which they live. It is something America should be a beacon of 

light for, something I hope we can 

shine very brightly, and in doing so, 

create a protective element to those 

who are peacefully trying to create 

change inside Cuba. We should do no 

less. 

ALAN GROSS

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, 32 

months almost 3 full years. That is 

how long Maryland native Alan Gross 

has been held by Cuba as a political 

prisoner. 

Alan Gross went to Cuba in 2009 on 

an USAID contract to help install wireless Internet. The Cuban government 

responded by putting him in jail. They 

declared him a spy, ran a sham trial 

and sentenced him to 15 years in prison. 

Alan Gross is from Potomac, MD, and 

like me, studied social work at the 

University of Maryland. I have met his 

wife on numerous occasions. Her focus 

and strength are truly inspiring. While 

her husband has been held in a Cuban 

prison, she has held down the fort and 

held the pressure on the Cuban government for its poor treatment of her husband. 

And Alan Gross has held strong in 

the face of his unfair imprisonment. To 

maintain his physical and mental 

strength, he would pace his room and 

do pull ups. Unfortunately, however his 

health has declined. He has lost more 

than 100 pounds, is having difficulty 

walking, and—most worryingly—has 

had a mass develop behind his shoulder. Rather than act humanely, the 

Cuban government has been reluctant 

to share information on Mr. Gross’s 

medical condition. 

At home, Mr. Gross’s mother is facing inoperable lung cancer and the 

family is concerned he will not have a 

chance to say goodbye. That is why the 

Gross family petitioned the Cuban government to allow him to come home 

for 2 weeks to see his mother for her 

90th birthday. 

This request was made following a 

U.S. Federal judge’s humane decision 

to allow a Cuban intelligence agent on 

probation in the United States to return home to see his ailing brother. 

Their plea was met with silence. 

Cuba has held Alan Gross as a political hostage, trying to leverage their 

possession of an American citizen for 

concessions from the United States. 

While Cuba might oppose U.S. policy, 

it has a responsibility to behave humanely to its people. 

I want to thank Senator Dodd for his 

continued focus on the detention of 

Alan Gross. The Senator has been one 

trying to improve relations between 

the United States and Cuba, but has 

put those efforts on hold because of 

their unwillingness to release Mr. 

Gross. I appreciate his decision and his 

unrelenting work to see Mr. Gross 

freed. 

And most importantly, I want to 

send my thoughts and prayers to Mr. 

Gross, his wife Judy and their family. I 

think about you every day and am 

hopeful your family will be reunited 

soon. The pain you face is unfair, but 

the strength you show is inspiring. I 

promise we will continue to work to 

bring Alan back to Maryland. 

I yield the floor. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. 

WHITEHOUSE). The Senator from Oklahoma. 

GLOBAL WARMING

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, when we 

came back to session this week, I was 

pleased to see a very good friend of 

mine on the floor, of a completely different philosophy from mine and a different background and a different 

State, talking about—being somewhat 

critical of my position on global warming, which everybody knows I have 

been involved in for some 12 years since 

the Koyoto treaty, which was never before us. 

Nonetheless, I appreciated the fact 

that we had a chance to resurrect that 

issue because, to my knowledge, nobody has uttered the term ‘‘global 

warming’’ since 2009. It has been completely refuted in most areas. But I was 

pleased to hear my good friend from 

Vermont talking about it because he 

and I have a very honest relationship 

with each other but a total disagreement. We are able to go over those 

things. 

Then again today two things happened. First of all, we had the senior 

Senator from Massachusetts come 

down to the floor and was somewhat 

quite critical of me and anyone who is 

a skeptic. I think it is important to realize that to understand—so you understand, when we are talking, what we 

are referring to. 

Those people who believe the world is 

coming to an end because of global 

warming and that is all due to manmade anthropogenic gases, we call 

those people alarmists. Those people 

such as myself who have looked at it 

very carefully and have come to the 

conclusion that is not happening and 

the fact or the assertion that global 

warming is occurring today and it is 

occurring because of the release of CO2

and anthropogenic gases, methane, and 

such as that, it is a hoax, which I said 

way back in 2003. This became quite a 

charge to a lot of people, a hoax that— 

the fact that all of this is happening is 

due to manmade gases. I believe it is 

the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on 

the American people. 

As a result of that, a lot of people are 

trying to do things to this country that 

are detrimental. By the way, we also 

had this morning—it was enjoyable. 

This is the first time since 2009 that 

the Environment and Public Works 

Committee has had a hearing on global 

warming, on the science or lack of 

science behind global warming. 

I was delighted to see all these things 

resurrected. I know it is not proper to 

talk about your own books on the 

floor, and I do not do it, except I have 

to do it because it was mentioned by 

some of my adversaries, my book 

which was called ‘‘The Greatest Hoax.’’ 

Things were taken out of this book so 

I had to defend them. Let me just mention, if I can in this fairly short period 

of time that I have, I think it is only 30 

minutes, some of the things that were 

stated, first of all, on the floor by the 

senior Senator from Massachusetts and 

then make some comments about the 

hearing this morning. 

In fact, I am glad it is coming to the 

surface again. First of all, I was referred to as a ‘‘skeptic.’’ I mentioned 

just now that skeptics are those who do 

not believe what I referred to as the 

hoax. He referred to us as ‘‘flat 

earthers.’’ I learned a long time ago 

that if they do not have logic on their 

side, they do not have the science on 

their side, they respond with name 

calling. I have been called a lot of 

names. Let me just name a few. This 

comes right out of the book and some 

of the things that were said this morning. The ‘‘noisiest climate skeptic,’’ 

‘‘the Senate’s resident denier bunny,’’ 

‘‘traitor,’’ ‘‘dumb,’’ ‘‘crazy man,’’ 

‘‘science abuser,’’ ‘‘Holocaust denier,’’ 

‘‘villain of the month,’’ ‘‘hate filled,’’ 

‘‘war mongering,’’ ‘‘Neanderthal,’’ 

‘‘Genghis Khan’’. It goes on and on. I 

will submit this for the RECORD. 

But quite often we hear these things, 

it is only because there is not logic or 

science on their side. So they do name 

calling, which is fine. To me, that gets 

attention, and it needs to have the attention. The second thing, one of the 

other things that came out this morning, the statement was made by the 

senior Senator from Massachusetts, 

and I am quoting now, I believe: There 

are 6,000 peer-reviewed studies that say 

that no one peer-reviewed study that 

proves it is not happening. 

There is not one, not one peer-reviewed study. A peer-reviewed study is 

a study that is published and then the 

peers review it. I think that is a process that is necessary. Consequently, 

that statement was made. That statement just flat is not right. In fact, let 

me go ahead and talk about some of 

these studies. If we look at the Harvard-Smithsonian study, that was a 

study which examined the results of 

more than 240 peer-reviewed papers 

published by thousands of researchers 

over the past four decades. 

The study covers a multitude of geophysical and biological climate indicators. They came to the conclusion— 

this is a Harvard-Smithsonian peer-reviewed study. They came to the conclusion that climate change is not real, 

that the science is not accurate. 

Dr. Fred Seitz. Dr. Fred Seitz is a 

former president of the National Academy of Science. He said: ‘‘There is no 

convincing scientific evidence that 

human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will in the foreseeable future 


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S5854 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE August 1, 2012 

cause catastrophic heating of the 

earth’s atmosphere and disruption of 

the earth’s climate.’’ 

I would like to pause at this moment, 

because I see the majority leader on 

the floor of the Senate, and inquire if 

they care to have some leadership 

time. I would be very glad to yield to 

them that time. Apparently, that is 

not the case. 

Thirdly, this is something that happened very recently. One of the universities, George Mason University, surveyed 430 weathercasters and found 

that only 19 percent of the 

weathercasters felt catastrophic global 

warming is taking place and is a result 

of human activity. 

That is quite a change from what it 

used to be. That means 81 percent of 

those weathercasters that we all see 

every night are saying that is not true. 

Dr. Robert Laughlin, a Nobel Prizewinning Stanford University physicist, 

said: 

Please remain calm. The earth will heal 

itself. Climate is beyond our power to control. The earth doesn’t care about government and legislation. Climate change is a 

matter of geologic time, something the earth 

does on its own without asking anyone’s permission or explaining itself. 

I think the statement is certainly 

not an accurate statement that was 

made this morning. By the way, in 

terms of the climate change, I would 

like to suggest there is a Web site 

called Climate Depot by Marc Morano. 

In this, we can find multitudes of peerreviewed studies. There is not time to 

go over them all, but we certainly can 

find them on that particular Web site. 

Another statement made by the senior Senator from Massachusetts this 

morning was when they were talking 

about a former climate skeptic, Richard Muller, M-u-l-l-e-r. He changed his 

mind through extensive research, implying he at one time was a skeptic and 

he is now an alarmist. Let me tell you 

about Richard Muller. In 2008 Richard 

Muller said that the bottom line is 

that there is a consensus. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 

Change—we will talk about that later. 

The President needs to know what the 

IPCC says. Second, they say that most 

of the warming of the last 50 years is 

probably due to humans. You need to 

know that this is from carbon dioxide 

and that you need to know the understanding of the technology. 

Mr. President, I was talking about 

and responding to the speech made on 

the floor this morning by the senior 

Senator from Massachusetts. 

I think the main thing I got across at 

that time was the assertion that was 

made that there are 6,000 peer-reviewed 

studies that say not one peer-reviewed 

study proves that global warming is 

not happening and that anthropogenic 

gases would be the cause of it. I know 

it wasn’t the intention of the senior 

Senator from Massachusetts to say 

something that was factually wrong, 

but I did read several peer-reviewed 

studies and referred to the Web site 

climatedepot.com, if anyone is interested in that. 

Second is the fact that the Senator 

from Massachusetts—and then again in 

the hearing this morning, Richard 

Muller was referred to several times as 

being a former skeptic who converted 

over to an alarmist. I suggested—and I 

read something to show that, in my 

opinion, he never was a skeptic. I 

would like to make some comments 

about Richard Muller. 

If you go to my Web site, you will 

find about 1,000 scientists who have 

come around and said: No, this assertion that we are having catastrophic 

global warming due to anthropogenic, 

manmade gases is not correct. Muller 

is not on that list. However, when they 

say that he is the one and made such a 

big issue, I will quote a couple people 

about their expressing themselves on 

the credibility of Richard Muller. 

Professor Judith Curry, a climatologist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, stated ‘‘way over-simplistic 

and not at all convincing, in my opinion.’’ She was talking about the comments by Muller. She also said, ‘‘I 

don’t see that their paper adds anything to our understanding of the 

causes of the recent warming.’’ That is 

on the paper submitted by Richard 

Muller. 

Roger Peilke, Jr., said that the ‘‘bigger issue is how the New York Times 

let itself be conned into running [Muller’s] op-ed.’’ 

Michael Mann is the guy who started 

this whole thing at the U.N., putting it 

together. He had the hockey stick 

thing that has been totally discredited. 

He said: 

It seems, in the end—quite sadly—that this 

is all really about Richard Muller’s self-aggrandizement. 

So much for the statements that 

were made to give credibility to their 

side by Richard Muller. 

I think another thing that was stated 

this morning was we have evidence of 

climate change all around—wildfires, 

drought and vegetation, and all that 

type. Then they talked about glaciers. 

Well, let me just share the facts about 

that, which I think are very significant, as far as the droughts and all 

that are concerned. Again, this is a 

statement made by the senior Senator 

from Massachusetts this morning, 

talking about all these things that are 

happening as a result of global warming. 

Well, hurricanes, according to NOAA, 

have been on the decline in the United 

States since the beginning of records in 

the 19th century. The worst decade for 

major—category 3, 4, and 5—hurricanes 

was in the 1940s. 

To quote the Geophysical Research 

Letters: 

Since 2006, global tropical cyclone energy 

has decreased dramatically . . . to the lowest 

levels since the late 1970s. Global frequency 

of tropical cyclones has reached a historic 

low. 

So just the opposite. 

On tornadoes, NOAA scientists reject 

a global warming link to tornadoes. To 

quote them: 

No scientific consensus or connection between global warming or tornado activity. 

Droughts. The Senator talked about 

droughts this morning. Reading from 

this article, the headline is ‘‘Scientist 

disagrees with Obama on cause of 

Texas drought:’’ and to quote Dr. Robert Hoerling, a NOAA research meteorologist, ‘‘This is not a climate 

change drought.’’ 

They further said severe drought in 

1934 covered 80 percent of the country 

compared to only 25 percent in 2011. 

The statements that were made 

about the Arctic and about Greenland 

this morning, if you look at a November 2007 peer-reviewed—and I stress 

peer-reviewed—study, conducted by a 

team of NASA and university experts, 

it found cyclical changes in ocean currents impacting the Arctic. The excerpt from this peer-reviewed study by 

NASA says: 

Our study confirms that many changes 

seen in upper Arctic Ocean circulation in the 

1990s were mostly decadal in nature, rather 

than trends caused by global warming. 

And 2011 sees 9,000 Manhattans of 

Arctic ice recovery since the low point 

in 2007. 

Let me explain what that means. 

When we talk about the Manhattan 

Arctic recovery, they use Manhattan 

because that is something people can 

identify with, and then they relate 

that to the recovery of ice. In this 

case—this is, again, from NASA. In 

2011, there were 9,000 Manhattans of 

Arctic ice recovery since the low point 

in 2007. Now, this study was 2011. So 

that means the low point was actually 

below that, and it has been decreasing 

since that time. 

Now, that was the Arctic. In the Antarctic there is a 2008 peer-reviewed 

paper in the American Geophysical 

Union, and it found a doubling in snow 

accumulation in the western Antarctic 

Peninsula since 1850. In a paper published in the October Journal of Climate Examples, the trend of sea ice extends along the east Antarctic coast 

from 2000 to 2008 and finds a significant 

increase of 1.43 percent per year. 

Let’s talk about Greenland. And I 

will always remember when I had occasion—well, one of the things I have 

been interested in is aviation. I have 

been an active pilot for, I guess, 60 

years now. The occupier of the chair is 

fully aware of this because he and I together were able to pass the pilots’ bill 

of rights, so for the first time an accused pilot has access to the judicial 

system. But as the occupier of the 

chair is fully aware, I had occasion to 

fly an airplane around the world one 

time, emulating the flight of Wiley 

Post when he went around the world. It 

is an exciting thing, but it is one of 

those things where you feel you are 

glad you did it, but you never want to 

do it again. It was kind of miserable at 

times. 

Anyway, I remember coming across 

Greenland, following Wiley Post, and 

starting in the United States, going up 

to Canada, then Greenland, to Iceland, 


pwalker on DSK7TPTVN1PROD with SENATE
August 1, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S5855 

back to western Europe, and then 

across Siberia. But in Greenland they 

are still talking up there about what it 

used to be like in Greenland. They had 

gone through this melting period where 

everyone up there was growing things. 

They were ecstatic up there, talking 

about the great old times. Then, of 

course, the cold spell came along, and 

it got much colder and it was much 

worse. 

Now, the IPCC, in 2001, covered this. 

They said that to melt the Greenland 

ice sheet would require temperatures 

to rise by 51⁄2 degrees Celsius and remain for 1,000 years. The ice sheet is 

growing 2 inches a year. So that is 

Greenland, and they were just talking 

about Greenland this morning. In fact, 

they talked about it during this hearing too. 

Let me mention this IPCC and remind everyone of something that people tend to forget. The IPCC is the 

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 

Change. It was put together by the 

United Nations a long time ago. It all 

started in 1992 down in Rio de Janeiro. 

They had their big gathering down 

there to try to encourage everyone to 

pass the Kyoto Treaty. The treaty was 

never even submitted by the ClintonGore administration, although Gore 

went to this big meeting in Rio de Janeiro. They had a wonderful time down 

there. At that time they were all saying the world is coming to an end so we 

have to pass the Kyoto Treaty to stop 

all that. Well, that is the IPCC that I 

have been very critical of because that 

is the science on which all of these 

things are based that we are dealing 

with today. 

So much for these things that were 

stated in terms of the disasters and the 

droughts and all of these problems. The 

next thing he talked about—and I have 

already talked about Greenland—is he 

talked about it is going to be necessary 

to have carbon caps. I think we talked 

about that this morning. Right now, 

there are those people who are advocating cap and trade—a very complex, 

difficult thing to explain—which is essentially requiring a cap on carbon 

emissions and then trading these emissions back and forth. That is something they do not talk about anymore 

because that has been completely discredited. Now they are talking about a 

carbon tax, and I think that was mentioned this morning. 

Quoting the Senator from Massachusetts this morning once again: 

The avoidance of responsibility has to 

stop. We have been waiting for 20 years now 

while other countries, including China, are 

stealing our opportunities. 

Let’s put up that chart. Let’s talk a 

little about China. You know China is 

the great beneficiary of anything we do 

here to put caps on carbon because 

they are the ones that are doing it. So 

they say China is making great strides 

in reducing their carbon emissions. 

Well, look at this. The green line there 

is China. This is in emissions—billions 

of tons of emissions. It starts down at 

2, a little over 2, which was in 1990, and 

it was fairly low until 2002. 

Look at what has happened. It has 

doubled in tons of emissions. China has 

actually doubled in that period of time, 

from 2002 to 2012—a 10-year period. 

At the same time, we have actually 

reduced our emissions—both the 

United States and the European Union. 

To suggest that China is sitting back 

there waiting for us to provide the 

leadership for them to destroy their 

economy is pretty outrageous. 

By the way, the other statement that 

has been made in the past, not just by 

the Senator to whom I have referred 

but several others, is that we are not 

going to be able to solve the problem 

and to do something about our reliance 

upon the Middle East just by developing our own resources. That is 

wrong. 

There is a guy named Harold Hamm, 

who is now the authority, and he has 

actually had more successful production in tight formations. He happens to 

be from my State of Oklahoma. I called 

him up before a speech or a debate I 

was involved in probably 6 months ago, 

and I said to Harold Hamm: You know, 

if we were to open up the United 

States—now, granted, there has been a 

surge in the production in this country, in the recovery, but that is all in 

private lands; none in public lands because we have had a reduction in public 

lands. 

The Obama administration has said 

over and over and over—and I guess if 

you say something wrong enough times 

people will believe it—that even if we 

open these public lands it would take 

10 years before that would arrive at the 

pumps. 

So I asked Harold Hamm, and I said: 

You are going to have to give me something you can document, but if we were 

to set up in New Mexico, for example, 

where you are precluded on public 

lands from drilling, and you put up 

your operation, how long would it take 

you to bring up the oil and actually go 

through the whole refinery process and 

get it to the pump to get the supply 

there so we can bring down the price of 

oil, of gas, at the pumps? He said: Seventy days. He didn’t hesitate. 

I said: Seventy days? They said it 

would take 10 years. 

He said: No. He said: It would take 30 

days to go down and lift it up—60 days 

before you hit the surface, and in preparation of sending it to a refinery, then 

in 10 days you get it to the refinery and 

to the pumps. 

Well, I am just saying there is this 

whole idea we have to rely on some 

kind of green energy that has not even 

been developed yet in terms of technology and ration what we have in this 

country. I mean, this Obama administration has had a war on fossil fuels 

since before he was elected President of 

the United States. He wants to kill fossil fuels. We all know that. And I am 

not going to quote all the people in his 

administration who say we are going to 

have to raise the price at the pumps to 

be comparable to Central Europe before people will be weaned off of fossil 

fuel because I think people know that 

now. 

This morning was kind of interesting. We had a hearing this morning, 

and one of the witnesses was a Dr. 

Christopher Field. He was a witness for 

the other side, and he made a lot of 

statements. It was kind of interesting 

because there is an article that was 

sent out, written by Roger Pielke, Jr., 

who is from the University of Colorado 

at Boulder, and he was actually on the 

IPCC at one time. But he is one of the 

authorities who disagrees with me, and 

he talked about how wrong Dr. Field 

was. 

Now, this is what Field said, first of 

all: 

As the U.S. copes with the aftermath of 

last year’s record-breaking series of $14 billion climate-related disasters and this year’s 

massive wildfires and storms, it is critical to 

understand that the link between climate 

change and the kinds of extremes that lead 

to disasters is clear. 

Well, what did Roger Pielke say this 

morning? He said: 

Field’s assertion that the link between climate change and disaster ‘‘is clear,’’ which 

he supported with reference to U.S. ‘‘billion 

dollar’’ economic losses, is in reality scientifically unsupported by the IPCC. Period. 

That was the response to the assertion made this morning. 

Another assertion made this morning 

by Field was: 

The report identified some areas where 

droughts have become longer and more intense (including southern Europe and west 

Africa), but others where droughts have become less frequent, less intent or shorter. 

This is what was said in response to 

that. Again, this is Dr. Roger Pielke, 

Jr., just today. This is in today’s paper 

he published. 

Field conveniently neglected in his testimony to mention that one place where 

droughts have gotten less frequent, less intense or shorter is . . . the United States. 

Why did he fail to mention this region, surely of interest to U.S. Senators. . . . 

Myself included—that were on the 

panel? 

The third thing he mentioned on 

NOAA’s billion-dollar disasters; Field 

said: 

The U.S. experienced 14 billion-dollar disasters in 2011, a record that far surpasses the 

previous maximum of 9. 

Field says nothing about the serious 

issues with NOAA’s tabulation. The 

billion-dollar disaster memo is a PR 

train wreck, not peer-reviewed, and is 

counter to the actual science summarized in the IPCC. Again, this is Dr. 

Pielke, Jr., who disagrees with me on 

this, but he said he is tired of people 

saying things that are not true. 

I ask unanimous consent to include 

his entire statement in the RECORD because he goes over point after point 

and discredits everything that was said 

by this witness—whose name is Christopher Field—this morning. 

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the 

RECORD, as follows: 


pwalker on DSK7TPTVN1PROD with SENATE
S5856 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE August 1, 2012 

ROGER PIELKE JR IPCC LEAD AUTHOR

MISLEADS US CONGRESS

The politicization of climate science is so 

complete that the lead author of the IPCC’s 

Working Group II on climate impacts feels 

comfortable presenting testimony to the US 

Congress that fundamentally misrepresents 

what the IPCC has concluded. I am referring 

to testimony given today by Christopher 

Field, a professor at Stanford, to the US Senate. 

This is not a particularly nuanced or complex issue. What Field says the IPCC says is 

blantantly wrong, often 180 degrees wrong. It 

is one thing to disagree about scientific 

questions, but it is altogether different to 

fundamentally misrepresent an IPCC report 

to the US Congress. Below are five instances 

in which Field’s testimony today completely 

and unambiguously misrepresented IPCC 

findings to the Senate. 

1. On the economic costs of disasters: 

Field: ‘‘As the US copes with the aftermath of last year’s record-breaking series of 

14 billion-dollar climate-related disasters 

and this year’s massive wildfires and storms, 

it is critical to understand that the link between climate change and the kinds of extremes that lead to disasters is clear.’’ 

Field’s assertion that the link between climate change and disasters ‘‘is clear,’’ which 

he supported with reference to US ‘‘billion 

dollar’’ economic losses, is in reality scientifically unsupported by the IPCC. Period. 

There is good reason for this—it is what the 

science says. Why fail to report to Congress 

the IPCC’s most fundamental finding and indicate something quite the opposite? 

2. On US droughts: 

Field: ‘‘The report identified some areas 

where droughts have become longer and 

more intense (including southern Europe and 

West Africa), but others where droughts have 

become less frequent, less intense, or shorter.’’ 

What the IPCC actually said: . . . in some 

regions droughts have become less frequent, 

less intense, or shorter, for example, central 

North America. . .’’ 

Field conveniently neglected in his testimony to mention that one place where 

droughts have gotten less frequent, less intense or shorter is . . . the United States. 

Why did he fail to mention this region, surely of interest to US Senators, but did include 

Europe and West Africa? 

3. On NOAA’s billion dollar disasters:, 

Field: ‘‘The US experienced 14 billion-dollar disasters in 2011, a record that far surpasses the previous maximum of 9.’’ 

What NOAA actually says about its series 

of ‘‘billion dollar’’ disasters: ‘‘Caution should 

be used in interpreting any trends based on 

this [data] for a variety of reasons’’ 

Field says nothing about the serious issues 

with NOAA’s tabulation. The billion dollar 

disaster meme is a PR train wreck, not peer 

reviewed and is counter to the actual science 

summarized in the IPCC. So why mention it? 

4. On attributing billion dollar disasters to 

climate change, case of hurricanes and tornadoes: 

Field: ‘‘For several of these categories of 

disasters, the strength of any linkage to climate change, if there is one, is not known. 

Specifically, the IPCC (IPCC 2012) did not 

identify a trend or express confidence in projections concerning tornadoes and other 

small-area events. The evidence on hurricanes is mixed.’’ 

What the IPCC actually said: ‘‘The statement about the absence of trends in impacts 

attributable to natural or anthropogenic climate change holds for tropical and 

extratropical storms and tornados’’ 

Hurricanes are, of course, tropical cyclones. Far from evidence being ‘‘mixed’’ the 

IPCC was unable to attribute any trend in 

tropical cyclone disasters to climate change 

(anywhere in the world and globally overall). 

In fact, there has been no trend in US hurricane frequency or intensity over a century 

or more, and the US is currently experiencing the longest period with no intense 

hurricane landfalls ever seen. Field fails to 

report any this and invents something different. Why present testimony so easily refuted? (He did get tornadoes right!) 

5. On attributing billion dollar disasters to 

climate change, case of floods and droughts: 

Field: ‘‘For other categories of climate and 

weather extremes, the pattern is increasingly clear. Climate change is shifting the 

risk of hitting an extreme. The IPCC (IPCC 

2012) concludes that climate change increases the risk of heat waves (90% or greater probability), heavy precipitation (66% or 

greater probability), and droughts (medium 

confidence) for most land areas.’’ 

What the IPCC actually says: ‘‘The absence 

of an attributable climate change signal in 

losses also holds for flood losses’’ and (from 

above): ‘‘in some regions droughts have become less frequent, less intense, or shorter, 

for example, central North America’’ 

Field fails to explain that no linkage between flood disasters and climate change has 

been established. Increasing precipitation is 

not the same thing as increasing streamflow, 

floods or disasters. In fact, floods may be decreasing worldwide and are not increasing 

the US. The fact that drought has declined 

in the US means that there is no trend of rising impacts that can be attributed to climate change. Yet he implies exactly the opposite. Again, why include such obvious misrepresentations when they are so easily refuted? 

Field is certainly entitled to his (wrong) 

opinion on the science of climate change and 

disasters. However, it utterly irresponsible 

to fundamentally misrepresent the conclusions of the IPCC before the US Congress. He 

might have explained why he thought the 

IPCC was wrong in its conclusions, but it is 

foolish to pretend that the body said something other than what it actually reported. 

Just like the inconvenient fact that people 

are influencing the climate and carbon dioxide is a main culprit, the science says what 

the science says. 

Field can present such nonsense before 

Congress because the politics of climate 

change are so poisonous that he will be applauded for his misrepresentations by many, 

including some scientists. Undoubtedly, I 

will be attacked for pointing out his obvious 

misrepresentations. Neither response 

changes the basic facts here. Such is the 

sorry state of climate science today. 

Mr. INHOFE. It is important to talk 

about the IPCC because if we stop and 

think about it, everything that has 

been happening comes from the science 

that was investigated and formulated 

by the IPCC—Intergovernmental Panel 

on Climate Change—that is, the United 

Nations. In my book I talk a little bit 

about that, but I don’t believe it would 

be appropriate to mention it at this 

time. But at today’s hearing, we talked 

about the IPCC. 

When they were unable, through 

about five or six different bills, to get 

cap and trade through—keep in mind, 

cap and trade through legislation 

would cost the American people between $300 billion and $400 billion a 

year. But when that failed, we had 

something happen in December 2009. 

The United Nations has this big 

party every year, and they invite countries from around the world to testify 

that global warming is happening and 

they are going to do something about 

it. One time in Milan, Italy, I saw one 

of my friends from West Africa. I said, 

What in the world are you doing here? 

You know better than this—in terms of 

global warming. He said, This is the 

biggest party of the year. Besides that, 

if we agree to go along with this, we in 

West Africa are going to get billions of 

dollars from the United Nations, from 

those countries in the developed nations. 

Another big party was coming up in 

Copenhagen in 2009. I think Senator 

KERRY had gone over; Hillary Clinton 

had gone over. I don’t believe Barack 

Obama was there. NANCY PELOSI was 

there and several others were there. 

They were telling all these countries: 

Don’t you worry about it because we in 

the United States of America are going 

to pass cap-and-trade legislation this 

year. So I said I was going to go over as 

a one-man truth squad to let them 

know the truth, and I did. I went over 

and told the 191 other countries there: 

We are not going to pass cap and trade. 

It is dead. It is gone. They can’t get 

one-third of the Senate to support it. 

Before I left, one of my favorite liberals, Lisa Jackson—I really like her. 

She is Obama’s appointee and is now 

the Director of the Environmental Protection Agency. Right before I went to 

Copenhagen, we had a hearing and she 

was a witness. 

I said: Madam Administrator, I have 

a feeling that once I leave and go to 

Copenhagen, you are going to come out 

with an endangerment finding that will 

give you justification to start doing 

what they couldn’t do by legislation 

through regulations. And I could see a 

smile on her face. 

I said: When you do this, it has to be 

based on science. What science are you 

going to base this on? 

She said: Well, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change would 

be the major thing. And, sure enough, 

that is exactly what happened. 

I could not have planned it, but she 

made this declaration that we now are 

going to be able to do through regulation what we couldn’t do through legislation because the people of America 

had spoken through their elected representatives in the House and the Senate and had denied the opportunity to 

do cap and trade, so they decided to do 

it on an endangerment finding. 

What happened after that is what I 

call poetic justice. Climategate occurred. I had nothing to do with it 

when it happened, but all the speeches 

I had made in the previous 10 years on 

the floor of this Senate were speeches 

saying exactly the same thing: that 

they were cooking the science and 

what they were saying was not real. 

I read several of the editorials that 

came out after climategate. The New 

York Times has always been on the 

other side of this issue. They said: 

Given the stakes, the IPCC cannot allow 

more missteps and, at the very least, must 


pwalker on DSK7TPTVN1PROD with SENATE
August 1, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S5857 

tighten procedures and make its deliberation 

more transparent. The panel’s chairman . . . 

is under fire for taking consulting fees from 

business interests. . . . 

The Washington Post, which has also 

been on the other side of this issue, 

said: 

Recent revelations about flaws in that 

seminal IPCC report, ranging from typos in 

key dates to sloppy sourcing, are undermining confidence not only in the panel’s 

work but also in projections about climate 

change. 

Newsweek: 

Some of the IPCC’s most-quoted data and 

recommendations were taken straight out of 

unchecked activist brochures, newspaper articles. . . . 

Christopher Booker of the UK Telegraph said of climategate, ‘‘ . . . the 

worst scientific scandal of our generation.’’ 

Clive Crook of the Financial Times 

said: ‘‘The stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering.’’ 

A prominent physicist from the IPCC 

said: ‘‘Climategate was a fraud on the 

scale I have never seen.’’ 

Another UN Scientist, bails: 

UN IPCC Coordinating author Dr. Philip 

Lloyd calls out IPCC ‘fraud’—the result is 

not scientific. 

Newsweek: 

Once celebrated climate researchers feeling like used car salesmen. Some of IPCC’s 

most-quoted data and recommendations were 

taken straight out of unchecked activist brochures. 

Clive Cook of the Atlantic Magazine, 

speaking of the IPCC, responds: 

I had hoped, not very confidently, that the 

various Climategate inquiries would be severe. This would have been a first step towards restoring confidence in the scientific 

consensus. 

So everyone is in agreement that this 

is what climategate was all about. And 

why I am spending so much time on 

this is because this is the science of all 

of these things that started since 

Kyoto. 

By the way, the Senator, this morning on the floor, commented about the 

Kyoto Treaty. Let’s keep in mind, the 

Kyoto Treaty was back during the 

Clinton-Gore administration. They 

were strongly in support of it. Vice 

President Gore went down to the summit they were having in Rio de Janeiro 

and signed the treaty, but they never 

submitted it to the Senate. 

To become a part of a treaty, it has 

to be ratified by the United States. It 

never was, and people need to understand that there is a reason it never 

was submitted. 

I would suggest a couple of other 

things in the remainder of the time 

that I have that I think are significant 

and worthy of bringing up. One would 

be the one-weather event. The thing 

that we are hearing more about than 

anything else is that it has been a very 

hot summer. On Monday, my wife 

called me up and said: In Tulsa it is 109 

degrees today. 

I was joking around with my good 

friend from Vermont—we disagree with 

each other, but he is a good friend. 

Sure, it is hot. But it is so important 

that people understand, weather is not 

climate. 

Roger Pielke, Jr., a professor of environmental studies at University of Colorado, said: 

Over the long term, there is no evidence 

that disasters are getting worse because of 

climate change. 

Judith Curry, chair of the Georgia 

Institute of Technology’s School of 

Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, has 

said: 

I have been completely unconvinced by any 

of the arguments . . . that attribute a single 

extreme weather event, a cluster of extreme 

weather events, or statistics of extreme 

weather events to anthropogenic forcing. 

Myles Allen at the University of Oxford’s Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Planetary Physics Department: 

When Al Gore said . . . that scientists now 

have clear proof that climate change is directly responsible for the extreme and devastating floods, storms and droughts . . . my 

heart sank. 

I consider Rachel Maddow of MSNBC 

to be one of the outstanding liberals, 

and she is one of my four favorite liberals. I have been on her program, and 

I have enjoyed it. Bill Nye, the Science 

Guy, agrees that some of these weather 

events have nothing to do with global 

warming. 

The other thing I made a note of that 

came up this morning was that they 

said there is no evidence on cooling. I 

think it is important to talk about 

that a little bit because a prominent 

Russian scientist said: 

We should fear a deep temperature drop— 

not catastrophic global. . . . Warming had a 

natural origin . . . CO2 is not guilty. 

U.N. Fears (More) Global Cooling 

Cometh! An IPCC scientist warns the 

U.N.: 

We may be about to enter one or even two 

decades during which temps cool. 

I ask unanimous consent all of these 

be placed in the RECORD showing that a 

single weather event has nothing to do 

with climate. 

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the 

RECORD, as follows: 

GLOBAL COOLING PREDICTIONS

3. Paleoclimate scientist Dr. Bob Carter, 

James Cook University in Austraila, who has 

testified before the U.S. Senate Committee 

on EPW, noted on June 18, 2007, ‘‘The accepted global average temperature statistics 

used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) show that no groundbased warming has occurred since 1998. 

Oddly, this 8-year-long temperature stability 

as occurred despite an increase over the 

same period of 15 parts per million (or 4%) in 

atmospheric CO2. 

(ANDREW REVKIN)

4. Just months before Copenhagen, on September 23, 2009, the New York Times acknowledged, ‘‘The world leaders who met at 

the United Nations to discuss climate change 

. . . are faced with an intricate challenge: 

building momentum for an international climate treaty at a time when global temperatures have been relatively stable for a decade 

and may even drop in the next few years.’’ 

Mr. INHOFE. I do think it is important to bring this up because this is 

happening right now, after 3 years, and 

not one mention of global warming, 

and all of a sudden it is global warming. 

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to extend my time by 5 minutes. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. 

BEGICH). Without objection, it is so ordered. 

Mr. INHOFE. This morning I showed 

a picture of an igloo. I have 20 kids and 

grandkids. My daughter Molly and her 

husband have four children. One of 

those is adopted from Africa, a little 

girl. She was brought over here when 

she was a little baby. She is now 12 

years old, reading at a college level. 

She is an outstanding little girl. I 

sponsor the African dinner every February, and she, for the last 3 years, has 

been kind of a keynote speaker, and everybody loves her. 

They were up here 2 years ago, and 

they couldn’t leave because all the airports were closed because of the ice 

storm. What do you do with a family of 

six when they are stuck someplace? 

They built an igloo. That was fun—a 

real igloo that will sleep four people. 

This became quite an issue, and we had 

articles from France and Great Britain 

and all criticizing my family. In fact, 

my cute little family was declared by 

Keith Olbermann of MSNBC to be the 

worst family in America because of 

this. 

The point they were trying to make 

is, no one ever asserted that because it 

was the coldest winter in several decades up here that somehow that refuted global warming. I said: No, that 

isn’t true. Now those same people are 

saying that it is. 

So you can fool the American people 

part of the time and you can talk 

about all the hysteria and all the 

things that are taking place, but the 

people of America have caught on. 

In March 2010, in a Gallup poll, Americans ranked global warming dead last, 

No. 8 out of eight environmental 

issues. They had a vote, and this was 

dead last. 

A March Rasmussen poll: 72 percent 

of American voters don’t believe global 

warming is a serious problem. 

An alarmist, Robert Socolow, laments: 

We are losing the argument with the general public big time . . . I think the climate 

change activists—myself included—have lost 

the American middle. 

So as much money as they have 

spent and the efforts they have made, 

and moveon.org and George Soros and 

Michael Moore and the United Nations 

and the Gore people and the elitists out 

in California in Hollywood, they have 

lost this battle. Now they are trying to 

resurrect it. They would love nothing 

more than to pass this $300 billion tax 

increase. It is not going to happen. 

But I am glad that we are talking 

about it again, and I applaud my 

friend. Senator SANDERS from Vermont 

is a real sincere activist on the other 

side. We agree on hardly anything—except infrastructure, I would have to 


pwalker on DSK7TPTVN1PROD with SENATE
S5858 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE August 1, 2012 

say—and yet we respect each other. 

That is what this body is all about. We 

should have people who are on both 

sides of all these controversial issues 

talking about it. There has been a silence for 3 years. Now we are talking 

about it again. 

So welcome back to the discussion of 

global warming. I look forward to future discussions about this. 

Mr. President, I yield the floor. 

UNANIMOUS CONSENT AGREEMENT S. 3326

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader. 

Mr. REID. Mr. President, we are 

about to do something really important in the Senate. It would increase 

U.S. textile exports to Central American countries, it would promote development and economic stability by creating jobs in, of course, African countries, and it would extend U.S. import 

sanctions with Burma, which the Republican leader will speak more about. 

This bill would help maintain about 

2,000 jobs in North Carolina and South 

Carolina alone. It is a very good bill. It 

is fully paid for. It is an important 

piece of legislation. 

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at a time to be determined by 

the majority leader, after consultation 

with the Republican leader, the Senate 

proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 459, S. 3326; that the only 

amendment in order be a Coburn 

amendment, the text of which is at the 

desk; that there be 30 minutes for debate equally divided and controlled in 

the usual form; that upon the use or 

yielding back of that time, the Senate 

proceed to vote in relation to the 

amendment; that if the amendment is 

not agreed to, the bill be read the third 

time and passed without further action 

or debate; that when the Senate receives H.R. 5986 and if its text is identical to S. 3326, the Senate proceed to 

the immediate consideration of H.R. 

5986, the bill be read the third time and 

passed without further debate, with no 

amendments in order prior to passage; 

further, that if the Coburn amendment 

is agreed to, the Finance Committee be 

discharged from further consideration 

of H.R. 9 and the Senate proceed to its 

immediate consideration; that all after 

the enacting clause be stricken and the 

text of S. 3326, as amended, be inserted 

in lieu thereof, the bill be read the 

third time and passed without further 

debate; that when the Senate receives 

H.R. 5986, the Senate proceed to it 

forthwith and all after the enacting 

clause be stricken and the text of sections 2 and 3 of S. 3326, as reported, by 

inserted in lieu thereof, the bill be read 

the third time and passed, without further debate, as amended, and S. 3326 be 

returned to the Calendar of Business; 

finally, that no motions be in order 

other than motions to waive or motions to table and that motions to reconsider be made and laid on the table 

with no intervening action or debate. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there 

objection? 

Mr. MCCONNELL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I will 

not be objecting, let me echo the remarks of the majority leader. This is 

an important piece of legislation. 

The part I have the most interest in 

renews Burma’s sanctions—something 

we have done on an annual basis for 10 

years. We are renewing the sanctions 

in spite of the fact that much progress 

has been made in Burma in the last 

year and a half. Secretary Clinton will, 

of course, recommend to the President 

that these sanctions be waived in recognition of the significant progress 

that has been made in the last year and 

a half in that country, which is trying 

to move from a rather thuggish military dictatorship to a genuine democracy. There is still a long way to go. 

This is an important step in the right 

direction. America speaks with one 

voice regarding Burma. My views are 

the same as the views of the Obama administration as expressed by Secretary 

Clinton. 

I thank the chairman of the Finance 

Committee also for helping us work 

through the process, and particularly 

Senator COBURN, who had some reservations about the non-Burma parts 

of this bill. I think we have worked 

those out and are moving forward. It is 

an important step in the right direction. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the 

quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

f 

IRAN THREAT REDUCTION AND 

SYRIA HUMAN RIGHTS ACT OF 2012 

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask the 

Chair to lay before the Senate a message from the House with respect to 

H.R. 1950. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will report. 

The legislative clerk read as follows: 

Resolved, that the House agree to the 

amendment of the Senate to the bill (H.R. 

1905) entitled ‘‘An Act to strengthen Iran 

sanctions laws for the purpose of compelling 

Iran to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons and other threatening activities, and for 

other purposes’’, with an amendment. 

Mr. JOHNSON of South Dakota. Mr. 

President, I rise in strong support of 

the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria 

Human Rights Act, our legislation 

which embodies a bipartisan, bicameral 

agreement to reconcile the current 

Senate and House-passed versions of 

Iran sanctions legislation. Once implemented, this comprehensive new set of 

sanctions will help dramatically to increase the pressure on Iranian government leaders to abandon their illicit 

nuclear activities and support for terrorism. This bill passed the House of 

Representatives by an overwhelming 

bipartisan vote of 421 to 6 earlier this 

evening. I hope all of my colleagues 

will join me in supporting it so that it 

can be adopted by the Senate and 

signed into law by the President as 

soon as possible. 

So far, in the sputtering P5+1 negotiations, Iran has shown no clear signs 

of a willingness to work with the international community to engage in a serious way on nuclear issues. It remains 

to be seen whether Iran will ultimately 

be willing to work towards progress on 

the central issues at upcoming negotiating sessions, or whether the meetings 

will simply be another in a series of 

stalling actions to buy time to enrich 

additional uranium and further fortify 

their nuclear program. That is why I 

think it necessary to intensify the 

pressure, and move forward quickly 

now on this new package that leaves no 

doubts about U.S. resolve on this issue. 

As we all recognize, economic sanctions are not an end: they are a means 

to an end. That end is to apply enough 

pressure to secure agreement from 

Iran’s leaders to fully, completely and 

verifiably abandon their illicit nuclear 

activities. 

Isolated diplomatically, economically, and otherwise, Iran must understand that the patience of the international community is fast running 

out. With these new sanctions, including those targeted at the I-R-G-C, we 

are pressing Iran’s military and political leaders to make a clear choice. 

They can end the suppression of their 

people, come clean on their nuclear 

program, suspend enrichment, and stop 

supporting terrorist activities around 

the globe. Or they can continue to face 

sustained multilateral economic and 

diplomatic pressure, and deepen their 

international isolation. 

This legislation is based on the Senate bill which passed with unanimous 

support in May. It incorporates new 

measures from Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate. The 

sanctions contained in this bill reach 

more deeply into Iran’s energy sector 

than ever before, and build on the 

sweeping banking sanctions Congress 

enacted 2 years ago to reach to insurance, shipping, trade, finance and other 

sectors, targeting those who help to 

bolster Iranian government revenues 

which support their illicit nuclear activities. 

As I have said before, the prospect of 

a nuclear-armed Iran is the most pressing foreign policy challenge we face, 

and we must continue to do all we 

can—politically, economically, and 

diplomatically—to avoid that result. In 

recent months, we have seen increased 

signs that the Iranian regime is feeling 

the pressure of existing sanctions. 

Their currency has plummeted, their 

trade revenues have been sharply curtailed, and they are under increasing 

pressure from the oil sanctions regime 

currently in place. With passage of this 

bill, we are taking another significant 

step to block the remaining avenues 

for the Iranians to fund their illicit behavior and evade sanctions. The bill 

also requires sanctions on those who 

purchase new Iranian sovereign debt, 

thereby further limiting the regime’s 

ability to finance its illicit activities. 

In addition, there are substantial 

new sanctions for anyone who engages 


pwalker on DSK7TPTVN1PROD with SENATE