September 20, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S6497 

is protected by less than a dozen feet of 

sand. The road provides access for 

emergency vehicles and it lies on top of 

the water main. These are not easy 

concerns for communities with limited 

resources and lives and livelihoods at 

risk. 

Geo-engineering solutions have been 

theorized to keep the temperature of 

the planet in check as a result of global 

climate change by blocking in various 

ways the heat of the Sun. These notions may seem somewhat farfetched, 

but even given that, they will not stop 

the chemical process of acidification of 

our oceans. Only curbing global carbon 

dioxide emissions can do that. 

Sadly, our government in Washington these days responds more to 

dollars than to truth, and the dirty energy dollars are on the march this campaign season. Over the weekend, the 

New York Times analyzed 138 energyrelated campaign ads aired on television. It estimated that over $153 million has been spent this year to promote coal, argue for more oil and gas 

drilling, and to attack clean energy. 

With nearly 7 weeks to go before this 

Presidential election, 2012 ads promoting fossil fuels are nearly 150 percent higher than 4 years ago, and that 

is with 7 weeks to go, the peak buying 

season. 

Other disturbing details emerged 

from the New York Times article. Governor Romney, his PAC, and the RNC 

have received at least $13 million in 

campaign contributions from fossil fuel 

industry executives or related groups. 

Governor Romney has accepted $3 million in contributions from Oxbow, a 

coal company controlled by William 

Koch, a brother of David Koch. 

Nature could not be giving us clearer 

warnings. Whatever higher power gave 

us our advanced human capacity for 

perception, calculation, analysis, deduction, and foresight has laid out before us more than enough information 

to make the right decisions. These 

God-given human capacities provide us 

everything we need to act responsibly 

if only we will. 

But the polluting special interests 

appear to rule here. The party of Theodore Roosevelt, the great conservationist; the party of President Nixon, 

who founded the EPA; the party of 

John Chafee of Rhode Island, who was 

instrumental in the passage of the 

Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act; 

and the party of Russell Train who, as 

I mentioned earlier, died this week at 

the age of 92 after a distinguished career in environmental protection in the 

Republican Party—that party has now 

become the servant and handmaiden— 

perhaps ‘‘paid consort’’ would be a better way to say it given the money involved—of polluting special interests. 

All of this money can alter how Congress behaves, and all of this money 

can influence the laws we pass, but the 

laws of nature are not subject to repeal 

no matter how much special interest 

money flows into campaign coffers. 

The laws of chemistry don’t care about 

the filibuster. The laws of physics don’t 

care how Senators vote. Nature will 

work its will and one day there will be 

an accounting. 

Madam President, I yield the floor, 

and I note the absence of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. 

MCCASKILL). The clerk will call the 

roll. 

The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. 

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 

order for the quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

f 

THE 47 PERCENT 

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Madam President, this week the leader of the Republican Party—their candidate for 

President—was seen in a video speaking at a fundraising meeting with 

wealthy campaign donors in Florida. In 

the privacy of the event, Mitt Romney 

spilled to the donors there what he 

really thinks about nearly half of the 

American people. That is almost 150 

million people. He disparagingly said 47 

percent of Americans support President Obama simply because they do 

not owe Federal income taxes or they 

are getting benefits from a government 

program. 

Just to make sure there is no misquote here, this is Mitt Romney’s 

statement. He said: 

There are 47 percent who are with him— 

‘‘Him’’ being President Obama 

who are dependent on government, who believe that they are victims. . . . my job— 

Mitt Romney says— 

is not to worry about those people. I’ll never 

convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. 

This is coming from the leader of the 

Republican Party, a man who is running to represent every American—all 

310 million—from the Nation’s highest 

office. These comments are disturbing 

coming from anybody, but coming from 

him they are a disgrace. In plain 

English, he says that if you do not pay 

Federal income tax or you receive a 

government benefit, then you do not 

take responsibility personally for your 

life. 

So who are these 47 percent for whom 

Mitt Romney and his Republican 

friends feel such contempt? They are 

parents who work hard every day to 

give their families a better future. 

They are seniors who helped build this 

country and now depend on Social Security to keep food on the table. They 

are veterans who risked their lives in 

Iraq or Afghanistan. As it says on this 

chart, ‘‘Who Mitt Romney Says 

Doesn’t ‘Take Personal Responsibility 

And Care For Their Lives.’’’ Working 

families with children, senior citizens, 

veterans. Mitt Romney seems to think 

they are a bunch of lazies just taking 

money from the wealthy. So today I 

want to take a closer look at some of 

these Americans who Mitt Romney 

says do not take personal responsibility and care for their lives. 

Let’s first look at working families. 

He says: 

I’ll never convince them that they should 

take personal responsibility and care for 

their lives. 

What kind of contemptuous statement is that? We are talking about 

nearly 150 million people. 

Millions of parents across the country work long hours, struggling to put 

food on the table and clothes on their 

children’s back. A family of four making as much as $46,000 a year often will 

not owe any Federal income taxes. So 

these families would be part of the 47 

percent of Americans whom Mitt Romney accuses of being lazy and irresponsible. These families deserve our support, not our scorn. They did not ask 

anybody for a handout, and they certainly do not deserve Romney’s condemnation. 

Let’s now look at another group of 

Americans who by Mitt Romney’s definition are victims who do not take responsibility for their lives: senior citizens. 

More than half of those who do not 

pay Federal income or payroll taxes 

are senior citizens on fixed incomes. He 

says, ‘‘I will never convince them that 

they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.’’ People 

showing some age, they ought to take 

personal responsibility for their lives. 

Romney seems to think that because 

these seniors depend on Social Security 

they are not willing to take personal 

responsibility for their lives. Mitt 

Romney has no business lecturing 

these people, these Americans about 

personal responsibility. 

These seniors worked, paid taxes 

their whole lives, fought to defend our 

Nation’s freedom, and built the greatest middle class the world has ever 

known. It is Mitt Romney who needs a 

lesson from them about personal responsibility. 

Let’s look at another group of Americans that Romney has dismissed, 

troops and veterans. When we send our 

troops into harm’s way, their combat 

pay is not taxed. When veterans come 

back injured, physically and emotionally, we don’t ask them to pay taxes on 

their disability benefits. Should they 

pay taxes on these benefits in order to 

be honorable in Mitt Romney’s eyes? 

I believe they have already given 

their country more than their share. If 

you look at this picture, it tells you so 

much. In that hug a returning veteran 

gets, glad to see his family, they are 

glad to see him standing straight, able 

to communicate. Romney says, ‘‘I can 

never convince them that they should 

take personal responsibility and care 

for their lives.’’ Imagine that, for him 

to make statements such as that to include veterans. We give our veterans 

government benefits that they earn 

through their service. They get education benefits tax free under a new GI 

bill. Many receive health care from the 

VA and some get housing assistance. 


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S6498 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE September 20, 2012 

Never convince them that they should 

take personal responsibility and care 

for their lives? 

What would Mitt Romney say to veterans who do not owe Federal income 

taxes or receive a government benefit? 

We have seen the tape. He says: They 

are victims who could never be convinced to take personal responsibility 

for their lives. Mitt Romney must have 

known many who served in Vietnam 

during his period of maturity. Did he 

think of them who served in Vietnam 

as not doing their share, not taking 

personal responsibility? 

I am a veteran. I take offense at that. 

These men and women risked everything fighting for our freedoms and our 

rights, and we ought to do everything 

we can to support them. These heroes 

know a great deal more than Mitt 

Romney about personal responsibility 

and sacrifice. Mitt Romney was simply 

saying what many in today’s Republican Party truly believe. He has pulled 

back the curtain on their agenda. He 

has revealed the stark choice facing 

the American people. America deserves 

better than a Presidential candidate 

who dismisses the contribution that 

half—47 percent, to be more precise—of 

our fellow Americans make—they get 

derision and disrespect. That is hardly 

appropriate for a Presidential candidate to be saying. 

He, after all, seeks the job that puts 

him in charge of the whole 310 million 

people in America. And yet he has the 

audacity to say these people are not 

worthy of honor, worthy of thanks, 

worthy of their contribution to this 

country? All this time it was thought 

that Mitt Romney just did not get it. 

But it turns out worse than that. He 

just does not care. He knows what he is 

saying, and he says it deliberately. He 

just does not care. 

I yield the floor. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado. 

f 

THE FARM BILL 

Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I 

wanted to come to the floor today to 

speak on a different subject, which is 

to demonstrate my support for the 

Sportsmen’s package compiled by Senator TESTER from Montana. I know the 

bill was discussed on the floor last 

night and the request to pass this 

package of bipartisan bills was objected to, which is horribly unfortunate. I hope we are going to have the 

opportunity to vote on the measure before we leave town. 

Sportsmen and women are an essential part of the fabric of our country, 

the fabric of my home State of Colorado. This community supports millions of jobs and contributes billions of 

dollars annually to our economy, and 

they are often the drivers of our most 

important conservation initiatives 

across our rich landscape. 

While serving on the Senate Agriculture Committee, I have enjoyed 

working with sportsmen to craft a revamped conservation title in the farm 

bill. Some people forget that the farm 

bill conservation title is the largest 

single legislative vehicle for the programs and resources that help us conserve private land all across this country, all across the western United 

States. It enhances vital wildlife habitat across the country. Sportsmen have 

always played a vital role in crafting 

that bipartisan title. That was exactly 

the way they participated this time as 

well. 

While it is not the reason I am here 

today—I want to talk about Senator 

TESTER’s bill—I do want to take the 

chance to say once again that in my 

view the House of Representatives 

ought to pass the 5-year farm bill. We 

passed a bipartisan bill out of this Senate with well over 70 votes, Democrats 

and Republicans. On the committee we 

worked together for over 2 years to create the only bipartisan deficit reduction that has happened in this Congress 

in either the House or the Senate. We 

got rid of direct payments for producers, which was an important reform. We strengthened the conservation title, as I was saying earlier. 

There is absolutely no reason the 

House should not pass this bill. 

Over the break, I traveled 2,500 miles 

around the State of Colorado, rural 

communities all over my State, and no 

one wanted to know what was going on 

in the Presidential election. No one 

wanted to talk about anything except 

why can’t the farm bill get passed? 

There has never been a time in modern 

history that a committee in the House, 

in this case the House Agriculture 

Committee, passed out a bill in a bipartisan way and it cannot even get to the 

floor for a vote. That has never happened before. Something is wrong over 

there. 

I can tell you that my farmers and 

ranchers in Colorado who are going 

through the worst drought in a generation want people to knock the politics 

off and pass this bill. Bipartisan, it is 

real deficit reduction, and it is a good 

bill. We are doing an incredible disservice, as I said to our farmers and 

ranchers, and also our sportsmen by 

failing to act on this bipartisan legislation. 

There was a time in my life when I 

had the chance to live in Montana for 

a brief time, Senator TESTER’s home 

State, and I thought of myself as a 

sportsman then. I used to fish a lot, 

chopped a lot of wood out there. These 

days I spend a lot more time on airplanes and chasing my three daughters 

to soccer games, but some day I will 

get back there. That brings me to the 

importance of the package, this package for our Nation’s sportswomen and 

men. The provisions in Senator 

TESTER’s bill represent some of the 

best bipartisan ideas out there to promote hunting, fishing, and recreational 

access, bills from both sides of the aisle 

that have been hanging around here for 

a long time and now need to get passed. 

The measure would require that 1.5 

percent of annual Land and Water Conservation Funds go to provide public 

access to lands for hunting and for fishing. I am a huge supporter of the Land 

and Water Conservation Fund. This 

provision builds on the fine legacy of 

that program. 

The bill also contains a provision 

that is homegrown from our sportsmen 

in Colorado. Section 103 provides certainty and parity for America’s bow 

hunters, that they can cross National 

Park Service land with their bows to 

legally hunt nearby lands outside the 

park boundaries. This access is provided to hunters with firearms but not 

to hunters with bows. 

I started working on this issue over 2 

years ago when a Colorado bow hunter 

encountered a problem. After 14 years 

of trying, this particular hunter had finally drawn a license to hunt elk in the 

premium game unit in northwest Colorado. He scouted the unit, found the 

area he wanted to hunt and he was all 

set to go until Federal officials told 

him he could not cross a narrow strip, 

a very narrow strip, of Park Service 

land to hunt the BLM land next to it. 

This is despite the fact that hunters 

with loaded firearms can cross Park 

Service land legally and without applying for a permit. 

The problem with this particular 

hunter is what brought this issue to 

my office. But the broader point of the 

provision is to provide access for our 

sportsmen and women. We know that 

we lose thousands of acres of land 

every day to development, some of it 

important wildlife habitat. We need to 

provide all Americans reasonable access to the land that we have set aside 

for preservation and wildlife habitat, 

bow hunters included. 

That is why I was pleased to increase 

funding for the Voluntary Public Access Program when we marked up the 

farm bill. That is why I am proud to 

have worked with Senator TESTER to 

include this provision in his package 

that I hope we will be voting on soon. 

The bow hunting provision was carefully tailored to ensure that hunting of 

wildlife within Park Service boundaries remains illegal. Yet the measure 

still provides reasonable access, which 

is so important to the sportsmen in 

Colorado and across the country. 

I have received a letter of support for 

the Bennet-Tester bow hunting from 

Colorado stakeholder groups across the 

spectrum, including the Colorado Wildlife Federation, the Rocky Mountain 

Bighorn Sheep Society, Pheasants Forever, and the Bull Moose Sportsmen’s 

Alliance, and the list goes on. I ask 

unanimous consent to have this letter 

printed in the RECORD. 

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the 

RECORD, as follows: 

DECEMBER 7, 2011. 

Hon. MICHAEL BENNET, 

Senator of Colorado, Russell Senate Office 

Building, Washington, DC. 

DEAR SENATOR BENNET: The Credit Card 

Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009, PL 111–24, permitted concealed carry in the National Parks System 


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