February 11, 2013/United States/U.S. Senate Congressional Record (raw)

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Call to order
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The Senate met at 2 p.m. and was called to order by the (.

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The majority leader is recognized.

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Mr. President, following leader remarks, the Senate will resume consideration of, the Violence Against Women Act. The time until 5:30 p.m. will be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees.

At 5:30 there will be several rollcall votes in relation to amendments to the bill. Right now there are up to seven rollcall votes remaining. We don't know if that, in fact, will take place. I have been advised that National Airport has been closed off and on during the day, or at least flights haven't been coming in because of some kind of a weather problem, low-hanging clouds. We have had a number of calls from Senators who are saying they may not be able to be here. I will keep in touch with the Republican leader and we will go from there.

The way things are scheduled now, we have up to seven rollcall votes starting at 5:30 today. We are going to complete work on the Violence Against Women Act, or hope we can do that, tonight. We are going to have the State of the Union tomorrow and we hope on Wednesday and/or Thursday we will be able to finish the Hagel nomination.

There has never in the history of the country been a filibuster on a Defense Secretary, and I am confident there won't be on this one. I am told the committee will report this matter out tomorrow, and we will move this to the Senate floor as quickly as possible.

We have a work period, and when we get back we will try to complete the National Security Director, Mr. Brennan, and we will move on to Mr. Lew, who will be the Secretary of the Treasury.

We have some votes, and we will line up this week what we are going to do when we get back after the work period we have at home for 5 days.

I look forward to a productive night. I hope we can complete these votes, because there are people working very hard on this, not the least of which has been the President pro tempore, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who has worked on this matter for a number of years. I hope we can complete this very quickly.

The Chair may announce the business of the day.

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Under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved.

Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013
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S. 47
Under the previous order, the Senate will resume consideration of, which the clerk will report.

Under the previous order, the time until 5:30 p.m. will be equally divided between the two leaders or their designees.

The Senator from Vermont.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. President, am I correct that we are on the Violence Against Women Act?

That is correct.

Mr. President,

I hope all Senators will join in adopting the trafficking victims protection amendment that is before us today. This is crucial to reauthorizing the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. We can make real progress in helping victims of human trafficking by adopting the amendment today and then proceeding to pass both the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act and the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act without delay.

One hundred and fifty years after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and long since ratification of the 13th amendment to our Constitution, slavery is illegal. What we are fighting now is human trafficking, which can amount to modern day slavery. This still occurs throughout the world--including in the United States of America. The Polaris Project estimates that there are more than 27 million victims of human trafficking worldwide today. To put that in perspective, that is more people than the population of Texas.

The amendment before the Senate today is drawn from our Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, a bipartisan bill that was written with the input of victims and service providers to make critical improvements to existing law. I have worked hard to try to address concerns expressed by Republican Senators and to ensure bipartisan support for this legislation, which Congress has reauthorized three times before. The result is that last year this legislation had 57 cosponsors, including 15 Republicans.

It is a parallel effort to our reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. I was preparing to move it separately but other Senators offered trafficking-related amendments to the VAWA bill. That is what led to this amendment being offered at this time. This is now our opportunity to pass the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act and take a giant stride forward to help trafficking victims.

Our effort is to stop human trafficking at its roots by supporting both domestic and international efforts to fight against trafficking and to punish its perpetrators. We provide critical resources to help support victims as they rebuild their lives.

This amendment includes new measures to ensure better partnership and coordination among Federal agencies, between law enforcement and victim service providers, and with foreign countries to better address every facet of this complicated problem.

It also strengthens criminal anti trafficking statutes to ensure that law enforcement agencies have the tools they need to effectively combat all forms of trafficking. It includes measures to encourage victims to cooperate with law enforcement, which leads to more prosecutions, and to identify victims and alert law enforcement.

We have included accountability measures to ensure that Federal funds are used for their intended purposes, and we have streamlined programs to focus scarce resources on the approaches that have been the most successful.

Last year, the Senate Judiciary Committee reported the measure and it was cleared for passage by every Democratic Senator. We worked closely with Chairman Kerry, now Secretary of State Kerry, and the members of the Foreign Affairs Committee. We have updated it with modifications cleared with the State Department and the new Foreign Affairs chairman, Senator Menendez, to the first title. I want to acknowledge Senator Rubio's efforts last year trying to help us clear this bill for Senate passage. Regrettably, this important legislation, like so many others, was held up last year by the objection of one anonymous Republican Senator. This is now our opportunity to pass it. Let us join together today to take this important step to help trafficking victims and prevent human trafficking.

The United States remains a beacon of hope for so many who face human rights abuses. We know that young women and girls, often just 11, 12, or 13 years old, are being bought and sold. We know that workers are being held and forced into labor against their will.

I urge all Senators to join in passing the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. People in this country and millions around the world are counting on us.

Mr. President, I ask that the time be equally divided, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The clerk will call the roll.

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

Without objection, it is so ordered.

The Republican leader is recognized.

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Fiscal Challenges
Mr. President, over the past few weeks I have come to the floor to urge the President and Senate Democrats to act on the huge fiscal challenges facing our Nation, starting with the Obama sequester. Unless Senate Democrats allow a reasonable spending cut alternative to pass this Chamber before March 1, the President's plan will go into effect. The House passed legislation to avert the Obama sequester months ago, but Senate Democrats have yet to pass an alternative bill that could actually go to conference. In fact, it took until this week for them to even say they would do an alternative, and the alternative they have come up with is clearly--clearly--designed to fail. Look, they knew this was coming more than a year ago. Yet they still haven't put forward a serious proposal of replacement spending cuts. What a colossal waste of time.

At the beginning of the year Democrats promised that things would be different. They promised to get their work done ahead of time instead of 5 minutes before the deadline, that legislation would get committee consideration and that we were going to go through the regular order.

Instead, we find ourselves in sad and familiar territory. It goes something like this: Republicans identify a challenge and propose a solution well in advance. Democrats sit on their hands until the last minute, and then they offer some gimmicky bill designed to fail. Then comes the final act: President Obama rides in to blame everyone else. Obviously, tomorrow's State of the Union Address will provide a perfect forum for that, so we will see if history repeats itself. But, frankly, this whole routine is getting quite old. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe the President and his Democratic friends are willing to break the cycle this time. If so, my party has said from the beginning that we would much prefer to replace the Obama sequester with smarter spending cuts and reforms.

Even though Republicans already passed legislation to solve the problem a long time ago, if the President wants a different solution he can call his own, that is fine. We are happy to give him the credit. But however we get it done, the time has come to finally take on Washington's spending problem in a bipartisan way, and that means the President will actually have to move beyond the gimmicks and the taxes and propose real spending reductions because I assure you that my constituents in Kentucky will not accept a tax hike in place of spending cuts already agreed to by both parties.

Remember, we agreed to reduce this amount of spending in October 2011 without raising taxes. We have already made this agreement. The question is, What are we going to do about it? I think Democrats' continued avoidance of their responsibility to deal with the huge threats to our economy and our future lies ahead.

As I said, I strongly suspect that instead of bipartisan action, the White House will subject us to yet another campaign blitz. Frankly, I could write the scripts myself. We will all be told that the President's hands are tied by the very sequester he himself proposed, signed, and now refuses to get rid of. We will be told he has no choice but to furlough civilians throughout the Defense Department, to cut off training for forces next to deploy, and to order a battle carrier to stay at home, which would diminish our presence in the Persian Gulf, when the reality is that he has responsibilities as Commander in Chief.

Let's be clear about something: If the President does choose to strike fear into the hearts of folks whom he should be reassuring, then that decision will be his alone. And that is why the next time the President delivers some over-the-top speech, flanked by some pollster-approved voter group, I hope someone on the stage taps him on the shoulder and asks, Mr. President, if you are truly worried about this issue, why aren't you working with the Congress we elected to prevent it?

It is a good question, and it is one only he can answer. We will welcome him to Capitol Hill tomorrow, and I hope he will provide an answer. Will the President lay out a serious plan to avert the Obama sequester or will he simply use this as another excuse to fire up the campaign machine? If it is the latter, he will have to live with the consequences of his choice.

Another issue we have been reading a lot about lately relates to the consequences of ObamaCare. I could stand here and tell you that Republicans warned about most of these things until we were hoarse, that we saw it all coming and said so--the higher costs, the higher premiums, the tax hikes, the lost jobs, and the potential for millions to lose their plans. The President dismissed all of that, and he got his legislative win. The question is, What is he going to do to help folks now that our predictions are all coming true? Will he be open and honest with the American people about the consequences of ObamaCare? Will he use tomorrow's speech as an opportunity to prepare them or will he simply ignore it and hope people simply don't notice?

These are just a couple of the issues Americans are worried about right now. I hope the President addresses both of them tomorrow. There is pretty broad agreement that the President spent most of his first term avoiding the issues Americans cared about most. What I am suggesting is that he not do the same thing this time around.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

The Senator from Oklahoma.

Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013
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S. 47
Mr. President, I wish to spend some time outlining some amendments I have to the Violence Against Women Act, but I also ask unanimous consent to use oversized charts, and even with the size I have, on the one chart, you can barely see it, in terms of the grant programs.

Without objection, it is so ordered.

I would also like to comment on the Trafficking Prevention Reauthorization Act of 2012, which is the Leahy amendment. When we first started working on this issue, it was 2001 and $31.8 million, with one or two Federal agencies involved. With this bill, we are going to create eight different agencies with responsibility for this. That is absolutely crazy, and it duplicates exactly what we have done in every other area of the Federal Government, which I will show here in a moment. It shows what we have done in the Justice Department in terms of grants.

Now, we spend $3.9 billion a year out of the Justice Department on 259 different grant programs, many of which--as a matter of fact, the majority of which overlap one another. We have found--and this is not my data, this is GAO data--that we have multiple entities making a claim for a grant in one area, and then they go over and make a claim for the same thing in another area. Guess what. The Justice Department doesn't know that. They have no idea what is going on with their grant programs. They do not do any followup, they do not put in any metrics, and so therefore the $3.9 billion or the $40 billion we have spent on these programs in the last 10 years has been highly ineffective.

These grants are well intended. I don't doubt that. The amendment of the Senator from Vermont, Mr. Leahy, on the Trafficking Victims Protection Act is very well intended. I am not disputing that. But we find that the vast majority of money in that amendment goes overseas for trafficking prevention and protection, not here in our country where it is coming across Interstate 35 and Interstate 40 through my State, coming from the west coast to east and from south to north.

When we find that the vast majority of money will be spent outside the country, especially in light of our present budgetary situation, we ought to reconsider this amendment. We ought to refine it down to one or two agencies, not eight. We ought to put line responsibility and transparency in it, and we ought to put in metrics to make sure the money we are spending is actually going to be measured so we will know whether we have been effective in spending the American taxpayers' dollars.

So I am opposed to the Leahy amendment because although well intended, it is a very wasteful throwing of the mud up against the board and hoping to hit something. It is not organized, it is not well thought out, and it is certainly not efficient in terms of the way the money will be expended.

Let me spend a moment on these three charts. I am going to have two more when GAO issues its release on April 1 of all the duplication in the Federal Government, but I want you to notice something here: the Department of Justice grants, 253 different programs not just run by the Department of Justice but 9 other agencies besides them, spending $3.9 billion a year. Now, one might say: Well, that is OK.

But let's look at the organization because we have this chart, which the Department of Justice doesn't have. So here they are, layer upon layer of administrative costs for all these programs--very well intended, all of them, but highly inefficient.

Now, what are we doing with this bill? We are going to add more to it. We are not going to add a lot of metrics to see if what we are doing actually works.

The other thing we are doing with this bill is we have an authorization that is far greater than the amount of money we are ever going to spend on it. Now, why would we do that? Is it political? Could it possibly be political, that we are going to authorize way above what we know is ever going to be spent? Yes, it is. We know we are not going to spend what is authorized in this bill.

Authorizations ought to be what we intend to be spent, not how we intend to soothe someone with what we say we are going to spend, yet knowing full well we will never spend the money. It is a very shameful sleight of hand because these are important issues. As a practicing physician, having delivered over 4,000 babies, I have seen violence against women in lots of ways. I have done a lot of counseling, spent a lot of time there. And any dollar we take from the American taxpayer, we ought to make sure it actually does something very positive.

I have several amendments to this bill. I didn't get all the amendments I wanted. One was denied, and I will explain to the American public what it was. It was to eliminate $200 million in expenditures for campaign conventions for the Democrats and Republicans. It passed here with 94 votes, but they wouldn't allow it to be voted on here. It passed the House. So here is a way to take $200 million and let the parties run their own conventions rather than the American taxpayers paying for the parties. But that wasn't allowed.

So we haven't moved forward yet in the Senate, where people can actually offer what they think will be good-government amendments that will save this government money and do what the vast majority of the American people want us to do.

Just look at this chart. And I want to add one other thing. There is only one agency of the Federal Government that, at the end of the year, if it doesn't spend its money, doesn't get to keep it. Guess what department that is. It is the Department of Justice.

We have set them aside. So even though we don't have good controls on the grants, we don't have oversight. We haven't eliminated the duplication which the GAO says is tremendous in terms of its goals. We had an opportunity to do that on this bill. We didn't do it. At the end of the year, whatever they don't spend they get to spend where they want to spend outside of the appropriations process of Congress. It is time we change that. It is time we know where every dollar is going.

Now, I admit this is a dizzying poster, but it equates well the lack of certainty, intelligence, and planning of Congress. Congress created that.

Think about that: 250-plus different grant programs, most of them overlapping and doing the same thing, with multiple grantees hitting multiple grants. Since we don't oversight them, and the agency doesn't oversight them, and they don't know whether the money has been spent on what it was supposed to be spent, we have no idea if we are accomplishing something good other than appropriating money to go to grants that go to the cities.

The other problem I have with this bill is that there is a federalism concern. One of the reasons we have been running trillion-dollar deficits, one of the reasons we are close to $17 trillion in debt, one of the reasons we have $86 trillion in unfunded liability--and if we used generally accepted accounting principles and measured our debt like every other country, we would be at about 120 percent of our GDP, and we would be in excess of $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities. And one of the reasons is because we step all over the enumerated powers of the Constitution.

If we were to take this act and look at it, 98 percent of it is for State violations of laws. Nobody will dispute that. Where in the Constitution does it give us the right to go down to the State level and direct and mandate how States are going to respond to their own tort and civil laws? Whether it is the Presiding Officer's Commonwealth of Virginia or the State of Oklahoma, what gives us that right?

I am for fixing these problems, but there is a bigger problem about to swallow our country, and we continue to blindly follow our hearts rather than putting a measure of common sense with our desire to do well. So I have a couple of amendments.

AMENDMENT NO. 15
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up amendment No. 15.

Without objection, it is so ordered.

The clerk will report the amendment.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. President, one of the things the VAWA legislation fails to do is to address the duplication and overlap within the very grant programs and nongrant programs of VAWA operated by the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services. It doesn't address those.

At the beginning of every Congress, I send to each and every Senator information outlining the criteria that I would use--seven others joined me last year--in terms of determining legislation. Last Congress we sent this out, and what I will tell you is that this legislation significantly violates one of the principles that we have to do for us to get out of the hole; that is, to eliminate duplication and consolidate what is in front of us.

So this legislation does do some small consolidation. I will readily and freely admit it hasn't come close to eliminating all the duplication. There are several VAWA grant programs that are so broad that they duplicate one another, providing multiple opportunities, as I said before, to double-dip into Federal programs. They also duplicate significant programs with Health and Human Services. So you can get a grant at Health and Human Services and you can get a grant at the Justice Department. So the whole proposal of this amendment is to force the Department of Justice to make recommendations on what is duplicated, what is effective, and capture those savings to more quickly address the deficits we have in terms of DNA collection and identification.

We have hundreds of thousands of pieces of evidence that could significantly change both the cost and the time period in which we address both violent crime and nonviolent crime. According to the GAO, we wasted billions of dollars over the last 10 years in these grant programs. So what this amendment says is we are going to put it to the Justice Department--they know where they are--to come forward, save this money, and let's direct this money to clean up the CODIS system, the DNA backlog, and bring it forward and infuse that money into both technology and catch-up so we are timely.

Why is this important? It is important for a lot of reasons. Sitting in those hundreds of thousands of cases is the very clue to solving hundreds of thousands of cases and others that we don't even know may be connected.

The second reason it is important is there are people sitting in prison today who are innocent, and that data collection and DNA input could clear them of a wrongful conviction.

So what this is asking the Justice Department to do is to identify every program. By the way--and most people don't know--there is only one Federal agency that actually knows every program they have. That is the Department of Education. Go call anybody at the Justice Department and nobody over there can tell you. We know, because we have studied it, but they don't know. They can't even publish all their programs. They don't put it out.

Consolidate unnecessary duplication and apply the savings toward resolving rape cases and DNA data cases and with the remainder that is left over to go to reducing the debt. It is simple. Nobody in America except the Federal Government would run programs like this. Nobody would blindly create more programs rather than make the ones they have work now, except that is what we are doing.

So this is simple, straightforward math. I don't expect it to pass. We have only had one amendment pass in the Senate in the last 2 years trying to eliminate duplication, and therein lies the problem. We are afraid to do what is best because we would rather protect a constituency of one of these small grant programs than fix them all and still solve the general intent of why we put the money out there in the first place. We are conflicted.

So when GAO, at the end of March this year finishes the review of the Federal Government--which we had to mandate by an amendment that I put into law--we are going to see in excess of $200 billion a year in duplicative costs that shouldn't be there.

I want you to think for a minute. If you look at every one of these grant programs, every one has an administrator. Every one has a staff. Every one has grant approval people. Most of them have grant investigators--most don't. Some have fund managers--most don't. So each one of these has a bureaucracy. And when the vast majority is duplicating one another, we are saying we are well intended, but we are spending money on the process, not on the problem. The intent of this amendment is to strike that balance between truly getting to the solution to a problem and at the same time solving another problem, which is the CODIS and the rape backlog.

In the bill--and I am thankful that the Cornyn amendment is there. The grant system previous to the Cornyn amendment said the vast majority of the money had to be spent on why you can't get the DNA data up rather than working on the backlog. What this will do is force us to get caught up. This creates $600 million of savings over a period of time that will then be applied to solving this problem once and for all. But there is great savings to come from that because what it means is we are not going to double-pay for things that we intended to solve.

I get dizzy looking at these charts. I have one for every branch of the Federal Government now. We actually know what is going on. Actually, we know what is not going on because we know what Congress intended, and we also know what isn't happening with the dollars that are coming from that.

AMENDMENT NO. 13
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set the pending amendment aside and call up amendment No. 13.

Without objection, it is so ordered.

The clerk will report the amendment.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Without objection, it is so ordered.

This is an amendment that is critical to my home State of Oklahoma and every State that has Native American tribes.

Oklahoma now has the largest number of Native Americans of any State. I believe we are at 36 recognized Federal tribes in Oklahoma. Inside this bill is a direct violation of the Bill of Rights of American citizens who are not tribal members because what we have allowed is for tribal courts to try U.S. citizens in their courts--for very good reasons--in terms of sexual assault, assault, abuse, and other items. The reason we are doing that is because either U.S. attorneys or the U.S. Justice Department has not effectively carried out their charge to represent the Native American people in terms of prosecuting people who might have performed those acts.

What we have done with this solution is to trample on the Bill of Rights of every American who is not a Native American. I have no doubt--I am 100 percent certain--that this portion of the bill is going to be thrown out by the first Federal judge that hears it.

You cannot take away the rights of U.S. citizens under the Bill of Rights at any time, any place, any way domestically. What this bill does is totally eliminate the Bill of Rights for U.S. citizens in tribal courts. Most would not understand that most tribal courts don't recognize our Bill of Rights. Some do but the vast majority do not.

So are you guaranteed rights as a U.S. citizen? Are those rights enshrined in the Constitution and the statutes of this government and this Republic? Can we, as a Senate, forget about that and pass a law that says all of a sudden we are going to violate those rights because we are going to put people under the jurisdiction of a sovereign nation that does not recognize those rights?

This is simply an amendment to strike that section of the bill. I don't expect it to pass--which, again, tells us part of the disease that is in Washington: We pay lipservice to the Constitution rather than to believe its truths and rely on its guarantees of individual liberty and justice.

AMENDMENT NO. 16
Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk. I believe it is amendment No. 16.

Without objection, the clerk will report the amendment.

Mr. COBURN. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. President, this amendment is a perfecting amendment from the last Violence Against Women Act, which I coauthored with Senator Biden--then-Senator Biden--and Senator Specter.

When a woman is raped, right now in our country she gets raped two, three, four times through our justice system. Let me explain that to you. We have deadly diseases that are sexually transmitted--HIV, sometimes chlamydia. Now we have untreatable strains of gonorrhea. So a woman is raped and, under most State laws, she doesn't have any right, once an indictment has been placed against a defendant, to have them tested. By not having them tested what we do is we make the woman go through testing again and again and again, especially in light of HIV. So they are the ones who have to be tested because they cannot know that the accused perpetrator of their rape is not carrying HIV, is not carrying gonorrhea, is not carrying syphilis, is not carrying chlamydia, because they cannot be tested. What we do is we put them through that trauma once a month for months because the perpetrator, or at least the accused perpetrator, has the right not to be tested in this country.

We put a provision in the last bill that says you will lose 5 percent of your grant money if you do not institute these changes at a State level so that the woman who has been raped has at least an equal footing to know whether her health, other than her psychological, emotional, physical health, because of what occurred during the act, will continue to be deteriorating. Guess what. The vast majority of the States said we will do what we want and we will not take that additional 5 percent.

All this amendment does is it puts some real teeth in it. If you are going to say that somebody who has been indicted for rape has more of a right to not be tested than the woman who was raped, and she has to continually be tested to know whether she might have an outcome that is adverse for her long-term health, what this amendment says is it is going to be 20 percent.

I do not expect this amendment to pass either, because if we are really against violence against women, what we will do is start putting some of the consequences of that on the men who actually caused the violence. Being tested for HIV, gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphilis is not a hard test. It is what a prudent man would do.

Some people say don't worry about it, just treat them. They obviously are not aware of the side effects of all these medicines that we would use to blast this, the treatment for all these diseases. Not knowing and then sometimes covering up, what most people do not realize is that two or three of these diseases actually will affect the long-term fertility of the woman. But we have decided, at least the States have that are taking this grant money, that the rights of the indicted perpetrator are greater than those of the victim who has been raped.

It should not be. I have cared for those women. I have walked with them emotionally for years afterwards, wondering if the HIV infection was going to show up, never knowing for sure.

Here is the other thing that happens. We get all these plea deals of rapists and here is the plea that they cop: If you give me X lower sentence, I will submit to testing. So all of a sudden the person who perpetrated this ghastly, cowardly crime negotiates a much lighter sentence so that the woman can have some peace of mind and not have a question mark for the next 4 or 5 years. We need to fix that, and 5 percent obviously did not do it. Twenty percent will.

I got up very early this morning to get here today to be able to offer these amendments. I hope my colleagues are able to get in. I know the airplanes are backed up coming into Washington. But thinking about the real purpose, to stop violence against women--if you want to stop it, you have to make it effective. You have to spend every dollar as though it is the last dollar, and you have to measure every dollar. You have to quit having the waste in the Justice Department and the grants that are associated with them. You have to have every grantee know that if they get a grant from the Federal Government under one of these programs, they are going to be checked, they are going to be measured against performance, and if they do not perform they are going to send the money back.

We can do a lot better than we are doing with this bill. These are improving amendments. My hope is, my prayer is, that some of them will pass because they really will have a positive impact on both women and our freedom.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The clerk will call the roll.

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

Without objection, it is so ordered.

The Senator from Indiana.

State of the Union Address
Mr. President, article II, section 3 of the U.S. Constitution says that the President of the United States ``shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.''

Every President, dating all the way back from George Washington to our current President, has provided this to Congress on a yearly basis. So the State of the Union Address, which will be presented tomorrow by the President, is the continuation of a great tradition in our American government. But the State of the Union is more than just about the current state of our Union. It is about the future. It is about presenting to the American people a vision of what our country should look like and how we can get there. So before the President makes his case and sets out his priorities for the Nation, let's recognize where we are today.

What is the state of our great Nation today?

Today, America is nearly $16.5 trillion in debt--an increase of $6 trillion since the President took office in 2009.

Today, we are borrowing $40,000 per second. Just in the time I took to say that, we borrowed about $40,000. And every 10 seconds that goes by is another $400,000 that is being borrowed and, therefore, has to be repaid with interest.

Today, more than 12 million American people are looking for work, and that does not include the countless number of people who have given up looking.

And today, critical benefits and programs that our seniors and retirees need are on track to become unavailable.

Hovering around 8 percent unemployment for 49 months is a crisis that cannot be ignored. Sadly, it has, and it has become the new norm. We cannot allow that to happen.

Spending $1 trillion beyond our means each year is outrageous and unsustainable. And failing to address our massive national debt by careening from crisis to crisis in this body called Congress over now the last more than 2 years is a terrible way to run a country, to run a business, to run a family, to run anything.

So tomorrow night the President will tell the American people how he plans to lead, how he plans to turn this ship around and guide us to safer seas. We will not have the blame game and finger pointing. That does nothing to help us find solutions.

While jobs and economic recovery received barely a passing mention in the President's second inaugural address, I hope the President tomorrow evening will focus on the specific ways he will work with Congress to fix our Nation's fiscal house so we can strengthen our economy and help get Americans back to work.

There are four major topics I hope to hear from the President when he speaks to the American people tomorrow evening.

First, leadership. Time and time again, the President has refused to engage on meaningful action that would help us reduce the debt and spur economic growth. He continues to blame Congress for inaction but yet does not offer his own plans. Tomorrow night, the President needs to show the American people he is ready and fully willing to engage in the effort to lead us out of this malaise of economic uncertainty.

Second, recognition that spending is a problem. I hope the President will be honest with the American people about the extent of our spending problem and offer specific solutions. It is impossible to say with any credibility whatsoever that this gigantic bureaucracy cannot find waste, mismanagement, misuse of funds, duplication, egregious excess spending, and each agency of this government not commit to doing what is essential by trimming out the unessential.

This is a bureaucracy beyond description, and there is waste and plenty of money, as Senator Coburn and many others, including myself, have been down here talking about--clearly, spending on things the American people do not fully support, and if they knew the full extent of what the duplication was, they would demand changes. There is a real pot of funds to reach into in that regard, in order to deal with our crisis, in order to reduce and make our government more effective and more efficient.

The President keeps promising the American people that he will reduce the debt through a balanced approach. However, whenever he is asked for a plan, all we hear back is a call for more taxes. The President got what he wanted in the fiscal cliff--well over $600 billion of new taxes. And those will be added to taxes that will hit Americans as a result of the health care law. Included in ObamaCare is $1 trillion of new taxes--that has not been mentioned here, nor does the President mention it--$500 billion of which will directly affect the middle class.

So now it is time to look at the so-called other side of that balance. We need President Obama to offer a plan for serious spending reform. People whom I represent in Indiana and the American people will not support another tax increase. Spending, Mr. President--out-of-control wasteful spending by the Federal Government--is what must come next.

Third, reforming Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security.

I was pleased to hear the Senator from Michigan state that for 2 years he has been saying and committing to work to reform these programs. None of us here wants to see benefits that the American people, under Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, are entitled to--none of us wants to take those away. We want to try to save those programs. But we all understand those programs are careening toward insolvency, and without reforms those who rely on those benefits will not receive those full benefits; and those who have to pay into them to keep those programs solvent will see dramatic increases in their taxes.

Reform for mandatory spending, particularly for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, is something nobody wants to talk about. It is supposed to be the third rail of politics--touch it and you are gone. But this is the reality we face that we must address and have the will to take care of. And we need to address it now.

So I am hoping tomorrow evening the President will say he wants to lead a responsible bipartisan effort in terms of preserving these programs for not only those who are currently beneficiaries but for those future generations who will need funding to support their needs as they retire and grow older.

Fourth, progrowth policies. I hope the President will present specific ways to grow this economy and create jobs. We just heard some discussions here by the Senator from Rhode Island and the Senator from Michigan about closing loopholes and Tax Code reform. Once again, here is something on a bipartisan basis many of us have been talking about.

A Democrat from Oregon, Ron Wyden, and a conservative Republican from Indiana, Dan Coats, have joined together in putting forward a progrowth, competitive, comprehensive tax reform program. We agree closing egregious loopholes is very much a key to begin to present a more simple, a more fair, a more balanced Tax Code for our corporations and for the American taxpayer. What our plan does is not, though, taking the money gained from closing those loopholes and simply giving it to the government and saying spend more. We take it and use it to make that Tax Code more fair, to reduce rates so we can be more competitive, so we can spur economic growth and put people back to work.

American corporations pay the highest tax rate of any of the 36 countries in the world that are our direct competitors in terms of selling overseas. We have just moved into the last, the worst spot here, as one country reduced their tax rates significantly below what our corporate entities pay. So we want to lower those to make our companies more competitive, and that simply means that Americans have more jobs because we are exporting more goods to the rest of the world. By removing unnecessary regulatory burdens, we can also make it fair and more competitive, and we can usher in a new period of economic growth and bring new opportunity to many unemployed Americans.

I am looking for those four points. There may be more, but I think those are the four major issues that need to be addressed. I trust the President will come to this same conclusion. This is not an easy time for our country. We face many difficult challenges that demand bold solutions and demand real leadership. But, as I have said many times before on this Senate floor, these challenges, although great, are not insurmountable.

Republicans stand ready to work with our Democratic colleagues to address these critical and pressing issues. But, in reality, we cannot achieve the necessary solutions if the President continues to lead from behind and if he continues to say all that is needed is more tax revenue.

Now is the time to act on a long-term plan to address our dangerous debt and record high unemployment. Now is the time to rise above petty politics. Now is the time for gamesmanship to be taken off the floor. Now is the time to just get it done.

We owe it to every American still looking for work. We owe it to every college student hoping to use his or her skills in the workplace. We owe it to every child born today who will be saddled with $50,000 of national debt. And we owe it to previous generations who have sacrificed so much to provide us with the opportunities our generation has enjoyed.

I hope the President will show us tomorrow that he is ready to lead. After all, he is the leader elected by the American people.

We cannot solve our problems and enact a path to growth and prosperity without his engagement. This is the hope and change the American people are looking for tomorrow evening.

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

The clerk will call the roll.

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Without objection, it is so ordered.

Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013
Page: S571

S. 47
Mr. President, this Chamber has the rare opportunity to pass legislation that would improve public safety, help secure justice for rape victims, and help get dangerous criminals off the street. We could very easily pass this legislation with an overwhelming bipartisan majority, just as we have on two prior occasions. Unfortunately, some of my colleagues have decided to turn the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization into a partisan football, and I will explain that in a minute. As a result, not only are they dividing us when we ought to be united in the cause against violence against women, they are ultimately jeopardizing support for women's shelters, counseling programs, and legal services. They are also making it harder to do something I have committed to do for the last couple of years, and that is to reduce the rape kit backlog, which is a national scandal of the highest order.

Ever since it became law in 1994, the Violence Against Women Act has benefited from strong bipartisan support. As I have said, it has twice been reauthorized by a unanimous Senate vote. I never thought the day would come when this issue would become politicized, but I am afraid it has.

I believe it is very important, and all of us who care deeply about this issue and this legislation must understand that this should remain a bipartisan cause. Just ask Carol Bart, Lavinia Masters, Lennah Frost, or Mica Mosbacher, all of whom have courageously shared with me and all of us their personal stories in the hopes of helping other victims against sexual assault. It has been my tremendous honor to get to know these women, and I admire their courage and willingness to share what is a profoundly personal trauma in their effort to help other would-be victims. I am proud to say each of them has endorsed and supported the SAFER Act, which is the rape kit backlog element in the underlying bill we are considering. The SAFER Act would make it much easier for State and local law enforcement officials to reduce the rape kit backlog, which may be as large as 400,000 untested rape kits. These rape kits are composed of DNA evidence collected at a crime scene, which then can be compared against an FBI database to get a hit or identification of a sample from an unknown assailant against a known criminal whose name is on the FBI database. When you get a hit, that provides conclusive proof of identity of the assailant where they may not otherwise be known or captured.

This reform is not controversial. In a much less polarized environment, reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act would be a slam dunk. In today's polarized Washington, it seems that no issue is immune from political gamesmanship.

The problem with the underlying bill is simple: It denies constitutional rights to certain American citizens. I am stunned that some of my colleagues are okay with this. I am stunned that some self-proclaimed civil liberties organizations apparently have no objection to a flagrant violation of the U.S. Constitution. They believe somehow that Congress could legislate away constitutional rights. It cannot. The Constitution is the fundamental law of the land and no act of Congress can violate the Constitution and stand. Constitutional rights should not and are not negotiable. They are not bargaining chips in a Washington parlor game. They are permanent, and they are sacrosanct. Here is the good news. There is an obvious compromise that would resolve this dispute and guarantee bipartisan support for reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act.

Senator Leahy's bill, the underlying bill, would let certain U.S. citizens be prosecuted for domestic violence in Native American tribal courts without their full constitutional rights and without an ability to pursue an appeal in the Federal court system. Once again, we all understand this. Congress cannot legislate away constitutional rights. This bill, if passed in its current form, would purport to do that.

The solution is easy. I have cosponsored an amendment with Senator Crapo, who was the original cosponsor of the underlying bill, and Senator Alexander, that would let Native American tribal courts prosecute non-Indians for domestic violence, provided that all non-Indians were given their full constitutional protection, as provided by the Bill of Rights, and would be allowed appeals from a verdict in the Federal court system.

In other words, if you compare our amendment with the language in Senator Leahy's underlying bill, we would both give Native American officials the exact same authority to prosecute people who commit domestic violence on Indian reservations. The difference between our proposal and the underlying bill is ours would not violate the Constitution. It would not deny American citizens the protection of the Bill of Rights, but the underlying bill does that. It denies American citizens accused of crimes of domestic violence in tribal courts their constitutional rights.

Surely we all share the same goal of protecting victims of domestic violence, no matter who they are, but in this case they are people who are victims of domestic violence committed on tribal lands. We all want to do everything we can to protect Native American women from violent crime. We can do exactly what Indian leaders are asking us to do without violating the Constitution. It is just that simple. In the end, the choice is pretty basic: Either we will uphold the Constitution or we won't.

I urge my colleagues to extend bipartisan support for this bill and the message it sends to America and particularly to the victims of sexual assault. I would ask them to put that unified message ahead of their desire to divide us by denying, in the underlying bill, the constitutional rights to those accused of domestic violence on tribal lands who are not themselves members of the tribe.

I would remind all of us of the oath we have taken as U.S. Senators to uphold and defend the Constitution. I would urge them to remember everything they have said, we have all said, in the past about the importance of upholding civil liberties.

Finally, I wish to say a few words to you, victims advocacy groups that have worked so long and hard to pass the VAWA in 1994, and have worked so hard to see it reauthorized. My message to you is this: I am grateful for your efforts, and I share your desire to make this law even better and even stronger than it is today. Make no mistake, the Violence Against Women Act is being held hostage by constitutional language in the underlying bill, but we can fix it. All it takes is the will and desire of Senators in this Chamber to work together to fix it so that it becomes constitutional, so that it becomes effective.

I have done everything in my power to promote a reasonable constitutional compromise. Unfortunately, there are those who have chosen to put politics ahead of their desire to actually come to a solution on this issue. That is unfortunate, that is regrettable, but that is the state of play.

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

The clerk will call the roll.

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

Without objection, it is so ordered.

S. 47 - Coburn amendment
Madam President, I come to the floor this afternoon to speak against the amendment being offered by my colleague, Senator Coburn. I know he was on the Senate floor earlier today explaining his amendment, and I also know my colleague from Texas was just out here making general remarks about the Violence Against Women Act and its reauthorization. I am here to continue the debate and to make sure it is clear to my colleagues that, make no mistake, a vote for the Coburn amendment is a vote against Native American women. That is because the amendment would strip the bill of provisions that are intended to bring about better justice for women who have been the victims of domestic violence crimes on Indian reservations.

Many people who have been out here on the floor have been talking about the breakdown in our political system and that somehow this is about partisan politics. Well, I can assure my colleagues this is an issue where many women in the Senate have been scratching their heads and asking themselves: Why is it the Violence Against Women Act and the Trafficking Prevention Reauthorization Act have both been stymied by various Members in both the House and Senate? These are crimes that are mostly perpetrated against women. Why aren't these bills resolved and passed so we can give clarity to local officials and partners so they can provide a better justice system and help so many women in the United States of America?

Native American women are raped and assaulted at 2 1/2 times the national average. That means more than 1 in 3 Native American women will be raped in their lifetime and 3 in 5 will suffer from domestic assault. Murder is the third leading cause of death among Native American women. However, less than 50 percent of the domestic violence cases in Indian Country are prosecuted because of a gap in our legal system.

So this isn't about politics. This isn't a debate on what is a good way to win votes somewhere in America. This is about the life and death of women who need a better system to prosecute those who are committing serious crimes against them.

My colleagues can certainly take exception to the solution that has been provided here, but as many of my colleagues have said in the past, they can't own the facts. They can have their opinions, but I am here to say the underlying bill does protect the constitutional rights of non-Native Americans who commit these crimes on tribal reservations.

We are consulting with the Department of Justice, which did an elaborate study and analysis of exactly how to make sure the gap in the Federal system, which currently doesn't provide a prosecutor, doesn't provide a judge, which doesn't provide a court on every section of land in the United States of America, will be represented with a judicial partner that does guarantee the civil liberties of U.S. citizens, and guarantee that they are protected in both a fair trial and the ability to have habeas corpus review by a Federal court.

What we have here are two or three Republican administrations whose Solicitor Generals have basically said these rights remain with Native Americans and the Federal Government. The last Solicitor General said:

The policy of leaving Indians free from State jurisdiction and control is deeply rooted in our Nation's history.

But this is about a Federal partnership and making sure a Federal law is upheld. So if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to say we are going to provide a Federal prosecutor and a Federal Court system on every reservation or close to every reservation across America, OK, great. My point is if you think you are rooting out crime in America, while letting a sieve happen in Indian Country, you are not rooting out crime. You are sending a signal to people that this is an easy place to go. If you want to conduct sex trafficking of women, go to tribal reservations. If you want to escape the law and not worry about violent behavior, then go to tribal reservations. That is what you are saying to people. You are saying this is the place where you can escape the law.

We are trying to close that gap. So this is not something that has been done with sleight of hand. This is something where a great deal of thought has gone into it by the Department of Justice.

I will remind my colleagues it was one of our former colleagues, the Indian Civil Rights Act was crafted by Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina, to grant American Indians the same Bill of Rights in tribal courts as are afforded defendants in any other courts. Those rights included the Miranda right, a trial by jury, the right to counsel, the right to confront their accuser, and a right to habeas corpus. So all of these things are actually in the tribal system today. They are a part of what is called the Indian Civil Rights Act, and they affect Native Americans.

My colleague, Senator Cornyn, said these civil liberties provided to U.S. citizens are not included in this legislation. They are included. They are included in section 904 on page 182. Those same civil liberties are called out in this bill, S. 47, the reauthorization of the VAWA Act. They are called out specifically for nontribal U.S. citizens. So in that court system both tribal members and nontribal members are protected by the same civil liberties and are protected in their ability to have federal habeas corpus review in Federal Court.

I am not sure to what my colleagues are referring. If I am missing some point, I would love to hear about it. But these safeguards were built into this system because this is such an egregious problem that we have to fix. So we are asking Indian Country and tribal courts to meet these same criteria. If a tribal court can't provide legal counsel to a defendant, if they can't follow these same things, then no one is going to be tried under a tribal court system.

We are trying to address cases like the one mentioned in the New York Times today of a woman who was battered and beaten by a partner so many times, yet he was never arrested and tried because it happened on a tribal reservation. Only when he showed up at her worksite with a gun to kill her--and only because an employee pushed her out of the way is she here today--could something be done. We are trying to close that gap and protect everyone's civil liberties.

I want to be clear. The civil liberties that are protected under this Senate bill--the civil liberties protections of due process, for no unreasonable search or seizure, no double jeopardy, a right to counsel, not being compelled to testify against yourself, the ability to get a speedy trial, the right to trial by jury, the right to confront witnesses, the right of habeas corpus review in federal court--are all in S. 47 as it relates to non-Native Americans. Those are the rights that are going to be protected. That is what we are passing in this legislation.

So we shouldn't strip out this provision. We should move forward with what has been a discussion about how to partner and uphold Federal law in the most efficient, cost-effective manner possible, and in conjunction with what has been Federal law and determination about tribal sovereignty and issues by many Solicitor Generals, by many Supreme Courts, by many individuals who have looked at this situation.

Members can decide they don't trust Indian Country. They can say: I don't trust this tribe, or I don't trust that one. If that is the case, they should come to the Senate floor and say that. Say they don't believe they can bring about justice in their courts, if that is what they mean. But under this statute they will absolutely have to, and they absolutely have to today for every tribal member who comes before that court, and they will be required to uphold those same issues for non-Native Americans as well.

I would say to my colleagues that this is an epidemic. Believe me, I want to get the Violence Against Women Act passed. I want to get this human sex trafficking act out of the hands of the House of Representatives and passed. I know some of my colleagues are trying to attach some of that here, but I would say we should pass both of these. This is about an epidemic in America, and we are trying to put together some creative solutions. If I am wrong about the facts and the details about civil liberties, I would love to hear about it. Otherwise, I would like my colleagues to vote against the Coburn amendment, which strikes these provisions, and pass this legislation so we can move on and get a final bill that protects women all across America whether they are tribal members or not.

Clearly, we should not ignore the statistics and the gap that shows us that we need to do something very important to make sure all women, including Native American women, no longer suffer from these statistics that are just unbearable in the United States of America.

So, Madam President, I hope our colleagues will turn down the Coburn amendment and vote for final passage on this legislation.

With that, I yield the floor.

S. 47 - Coburn amendment
Madam President, I want to acknowledge the comments of my colleague from Washington. As the incoming chairman on the Indian Affairs Committee, she is obviously well aware of the challenges--oftentimes the horrific challenges--so many American Indians, Alaska Natives, and our indigenous people face when it comes to domestic violence and the inability to access the law.

I have been a member of the Indian Affairs Committee now since I came to the Senate some 10 years ago, and every year, without fail, we have some aspect of a hearing that focuses on domestic violence. We look to the statistics, and they are staggering. They are staggering and they are overwhelming when you put them into perspective in terms of how our Native women--particularly our Native women on reservations--deal with an epidemic when it comes to domestic violence issues that they face within their homes and so often have no place to turn. As to the law enforcement you and I would hope to be able to rely on in the event of a true tragedy, far too often women on our reservations are not able to avail themselves of those protections. It is something our committee has struggled with for far too long.

When we talk about VAWA and the importance of the Violence Against Women Act, I think we all recognize the universe we are speaking to is all women, but I think it is important to recognize that within this particular demographic, the statistics of those Native women, for whatever terrible, tragic reason, are even that much worse.

That is why I am a proud cosponsor of this bill. I think it will make real improvements in the services that are offered to victims of domestic violence. Even given the very difficult budget environment that we face, we look to those areas where we can make a difference. I think this legislation will make a difference.

As I start off my comments, I am talking about indigenous women everywhere and the violence and the statistics they face. In Alaska, unfortunately, our statistics stand out. They stand out in a way that makes none of us proud. They stand out in a way that requires us to turn inward and say, What are we doing wrong? What is happening that we are not able to make a difference in the lives of women and other victims of domestic violence?

According to the Alaska Victimization Survey, conducted back in 2010, 59 percent of Alaskan women have experienced intimate partner or sexual violence.

In the 10 years between 2001 and 2011, our Alaska State troopers responded to almost 50,000 domestic violence offenses, almost 5,500 sexual abuse of a minor offenses, and almost 4,500 sexual assault offenses. Seventy-four percent of the victims of sex crimes in Alaska were less than 18 years old. Think about what that does to you. You are a young child, a young woman, a victim at such an early age. You carry that with you throughout your life.

The average rate of reported forcible rape in Alaska was 2 1/2 times higher in Alaska than across the rest of the country. So as a woman in Alaska, you have a 2 1/2 times higher likelihood of being the victim of a forcible rape. This is a very personal issue for my State.

I have heard from people all over the State urging us here in the Senate, urging us here in the Congress: Pass this VAWA bill. You had a chance last Congress to pass it. You didn't make it happen. You have an opportunity now. Make it happen.

A mother in Anchorage wrote me:

A woman from Dutch Harbor wrote:

Think about it. This woman is writing from Dutch Harbor, AK, out at the end of the Aleutian channel, about 1,000 miles away from Anchorage, and an $800 airplane ticket. If you need to get away from your violent situation and you don't have $1,000, where do you go? How do we provide that help?

I received another letter from a woman in Fairbanks, who said:

These are the types of requests that I get from men and women all over my State.

Our Governor, Governor Parnell, has made a very personal effort in his 4 years as Governor to focus on domestic violence and child sexual assault. He has launched a campaign that he has dubbed Choose Respect; and every year across the State Alaskans gather in a very high-profile way to march. We have banners and there are young children and women and men and anybody you might imagine, all over the State.

This year, March 28, the Governor will again be encouraging us to choose respect. We want to make sure it is more than just overt demonstrations. We need to make this translate into real words that change these statistics, that change the dynamic, because Alaskans are right: Our statistics of domestic violence and sexual assault are absolutely staggering--2 1/2 times, again, more than the national average. We need to do everything we can to get a handle on these tragic statistics, because they are not statistics, they are lives, they are families, they are people and friends we know.

VAWA provides the tools to do so, including in the villages of rural Alaska, where victims of sexual assault and domestic violence face some pretty unique challenges. Many of these villages have no full-time law enforcement presence. They may have only a single community health aide who has to tend to every medical crisis in the community. Just being able to provide rape kits is a challenge.

I mentioned being in a small remote community where everybody knows everybody, and you are the victim of domestic violence and there may be no place to turn. There may be no way to get out of your village. Eighty percent of our communities are not attached by roads. It is not as though you can just hop in your car and get away. You have to be able to fly out. If you don't have the money, you can't get out. If the weather closes in, there are no planes even if you did have the cash for an airplane ticket. So how we can be there to be that support is crucial.

VAWA is a ray of hope to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault in our Alaska Native villages, whether you are in Ketchikan or whether you are in Kenai, from Anchorage to Dillingham. And this bill will help that States such as Alaska, with smaller populations and truly great need, are given the same access to grants for victims while providing services and support to all victims of domestic and sexual violence. I am pleased to be able to lend my support.

Amendment No. 11
Madam President, I want to take a moment to explain an amendment that is in order this afternoon. This is my amendment No. 11.

It was mentioned earlier by the Senator from Washington State that section 904 and section 905 of the bill would expand the jurisdiction of Indian tribes to address issues of domestic violence committed by non-Indians against tribal members. So within section 905(b) and 910, they provide that, within the State of Alaska, this expanded jurisdiction applies only to one Indian reservation in our State, and that happens to be the Metlakatla Indian Reservation in the southeast.

You might say why just Metlakatla. In Alaska, there is only one reservation and that is Metlakatla. We have 229 federally recognized tribes, but other than Metlakatla, none controls Indian country in the State under existing law. The U.S. Supreme Court held in the Venetie case that none of the lands conveyed under the Alaska law is Indian country.

So what we have in the amendment before us is nothing more than a technical clarification. Both the legislation and my amendment state that the tribes, other than Metlakatla, retain all of the authority they currently have to issue domestic violence protection orders, whether or not that authority is inherent or statutorily created, and none of this authority, to the extent it exists, is diminished by the legislation or by my amendment. In addition, we go on to clarify that none of the authority the State of Alaska has is diminished.

So the natural question then would be: What is the difference between the Alaska provisions that are contained in 905(b) and 910? And why then do we even need my amendment?

The only difference is that we are attempting to spell out in plain English, consolidated in one section of the bill, to make it more clear. It truly is a technical amendment in every respect. We had some who actually questioned whether the bill's language was clear enough, so we worked with Senator Leahy's folks, we worked with some of the Indian law scholars, to allay the confusion. We very simply state the rules for Alaska's unique situation.

I certainly hope that if we move to vote on this amendment, folks would understand that what we are talking about is mere clarification, and I would ask for their support.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

The Senator from Connecticut.

Thanking First Responders
Madam President, I want to first of all begin on this day when Connecticut, like other New England States, is digging out from an historic, truly an epic, snowstorm, to give my thanks to the first responders and to the men and women who have been working behind snowplows and payloaders for endless hours, literally almost without stop since the beginning of this snowstorm, and have risked their lives, given boundlessly of their energy and effort to make sure the people of Connecticut and also Massachusetts, our neighbor, and New York, have been made safer and more secure during this time of another monstrous storm.

I know much of America in the more temperate zones may not appreciate what a monstrous snowstorm, carrying 3 feet of snow to many parts of Connecticut, poses in the way of challenges and even threats to human life. And I would say without any disrespect--in fact, with great admiration to the Presiding Officer, who happens to be from Hawaii--that it is unlikely in her State that anything approaching this magnitude of snow ever will be approaching. But I know that Hawaii, like every other State, shares its need to confront weather crises, and I believe that as a Nation we have always come together, whether it is tornadoes, hurricanes, or floods, to address these common challenges and we rally together as a Nation. So I hope we will again.

The relief is necessary, and the President has issued a declaration of emergency for Connecticut. I thank him for that action, and I hope it will be followed by tangible aid that will be necessary in the wake of this monstrous storm.

I come to the floor to talk about the action and bill I hope will be approved later today or as soon as possible. The Senate is considering the Violence Against Women Act. I am a cosponsor and a strong supporter. I wish to particularly thank Chairman Leahy, who has demonstrated such patience and perseverance. If the definition of courage is grace under pressure, he certainly has shown tremendous grace under huge pressure. Again, we face the need, a pressing need to reauthorize this measure.

It was first passed 18 years ago and was permitted to expire during the last Congress. The Senate passed this measure during the last Congress by an overwhelming bipartisan vote. It was stalled and then stopped in the House of Representatives. I thank Chairman Leahy for his excellent work on this essential legislation. Partly, it was stalled over a measure that demands particular focus today. This legislation is critical to the 54,000 Connecticut women who became domestic violence victims in 2011. But it is particularly so to many of our Native Americans and to women who right now are, in effect, caught in a legal limbo when they seek prosecutorial action to vindicate their rights and to deter this cruel and unspeakable form of violence against them.

Native Americans' predicament is described very compellingly by a New York Times story this morning. The New York Times tells the story of Diane Millich, a Native American woman who was abused for years by her husband. She is one of 60 percent of Native American women who will experience domestic abuse. That number is 60 percent. One-third of Native American women are assaulted during their lifetime. Native American women are 2 1/2 times more likely to be raped than non-Native American women.

The provisions of this bill that apply to Native American women are meant to address literally an epidemic of domestic violence and sexual assault that right now the law fails to deter and prevent. By any measure, this epidemic is a tragedy. In human terms, the numbers are powerful, but they fail to give a face and a voice to this problem, as the Times did this morning with Diane Millich.

These statistics are the result of Federal law that prevents tribal courts from hearing cases against non-Native American abusers of Native American women. It is a limbo that is the result of a jurisdictional catch-22. If the abuser is a non-Native American, the tribal courts have no jurisdiction. But if the crime occurs on sovereign tribal land, Federal prosecutors face a variety of obstacles to effective enforcement. So this measure would protect Native American women who right now are so much the victims of abuse.

I know Senator Cornyn has just spoken about his amendment that would, he has said, protect the potential defendants, protect their constitutional rights under the Bill of Rights. His amendment is not before us. What is before us is Senator Coburn's amendment which would, in effect, eviscerate these protections for women against those defendants. I wish to respond, though, to Senator Cornyn, who has raised, thoughtfully and pertinently, some important questions about this legislation.

Let me answer in two very affirmative and unequivocal ways. First of all, this bill would protect all the rights currently guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Second, it would provide a right of appeal, first to the tribal courts in whatever process that is provided there but then by habeas corpus to Federal courts where actually the Bill of Rights would apply with full force, in my view, as I read this bill.

Senators should be clear when they vote on this measure that the Coburn amendment, in my view, would destroy, utterly undermine and eviscerate the purpose of this bill and provisions of this bill that are designed to protect Native Americans against domestic violence and assault, and it would fully guarantee protections under our Bill of Rights to defendants who are charged, civilly or criminally, in the tribal courts.

No woman should be left defenseless because of the identity of their abuser. Every woman deserves to know she is protected by the law of the land. Again, I thank and commend Senator Leahy for addressing this important issue in the legislation before us by giving all Native American women the protections of these tribal courts. I don't understand why this should be controversial. We are still facing efforts to strip this provision from the bill. I urge my colleagues to approve it.

I also commend Senator Leahy for offering an amendment that contains the bulk of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. I am a cosponsor of that measure and proudly of this amendment as well. He has been the leader in this body and in the Congress and the Nation against human trafficking. He has been a mentor to many of us on this issue. I am very proud to cosponsor this very important amendment.

Human trafficking remains a scourge in our world and in our country. It is not some distant abstract problem. It is here and now in the United States, the greatest Nation in the history of our world, and we have an obligation to counter and combat it as this very important amendment would do. It relies on partnerships between the States and Federal Government, between the public and private sectors, and between the United States and other countries. It allows one piece of the legislation to achieve a massive impact and global reach. Twenty-seven million human beings are bought and sold as property each year, more than at any time in our history. We must have a solution as broad and wide-ranging as the problem we face.

The Leahy amendment allows the Federal Government to leverage a small outlay of taxpayer dollars into a giant system of protections and services for victims of human trafficking, not to mention law enforcement actions to put the perpetrators of trafficking behind bars, put them in prison where they belong, and send a message of deterrence as well as punishment.

This landmark proposal also creates new grant programs to help our law enforcement agencies and service providers respond to sex trafficking of American children--American children who are victims of sex traffic. This amendment would help to protect them. These grant programs will help to ensure that child victims of sex trafficking have access to services they need and justice they deserve. They are children, but they are no less deserving of justice. That proposition ought to be so obvious as not to need stating in this Chamber. I know, for the purposes of this body, it need not be stated. But the Leahy amendment recognizes that the traffickers' most effective weapon is simply the ability to take the victims' identification documents. This measure would make that taking a crime, taking away identification documents.

The Leahy amendment also recognizes that the statute of limitations designed for other contexts is an unjustified impediment to effective private enforcement in the trafficking area. It extends the statute from 6 years to 10 years for civil suits involving violations of Federal trafficking laws. That statute of limitations may simply be an obstacle that cannot be overcome because the witnesses cannot be provided and because the children themselves may have to grow, in both maturity and physically, before they can effectively help prosecute a civil or criminal action.

I have also cosponsored an amendment with Senator Portman, and I am proud to have done so, to ensure that youth grants provided under section 302 of VAWA can be made available to child victims of sex trafficking. In this country, sex trafficking remains a problem, a serious problem. There are an estimated 293,000 children at risk for commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking. The U.S. Department of Justice reports that between 2008 and 2010, 83 percent of sex trafficking victims found in the United States were U.S. citizens and 40 percent of sex trafficking cases involved sexual exploitation of children.

The fact is a tragic one, an unacceptable and intolerable fact, that sex trafficking is a major source of child exploitation, a major source of damage to our children, and the voices and faces of those children should be before this body when it considers this amendment.

It is a bipartisan amendment cosponsored by Senators GILLIBRAND, BROWN, COLLINS, AYOTTE, RUBIO, and COCHRAN. I thank them for their leadership on this issue, most especially Senator Rob Portman, my partner in this effort, and I again thank Senator Leahy for his leadership, which has inspired us to bring our amendment forward. I encourage my colleagues to support the Leahy amendment as well as the one Senator Portman and I and others have brought before this body and the underlying VAWA legislation. We have an opportunity to make history. We have an obligation to pass this measure and make history. I hope we will do so by the same overwhelming bipartisan vote that we did in the last session of Congress so the House of Representatives hears our message, and it is a message from the country: Domestic violence will not be tolerated. We will come to the aid of Native American women and all women who are victims of this heinous crime.

Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013
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Amendment No. 13
Madam President, the Coburn amendment strikes the provisions of the underlying bill that expand the authority of Indian tribal courts to try nonIndians.

As I have stated, there are a number of constitutional questions that the Congressional Research Service has identified with the language that the Coburn amendment would strike. Some arise with respect to the expansion of tribal court jurisdiction. Others are associated with the constitutional rights that would be provided to nonIndian defendants who would face proceedings in Indian tribal courts.

It is not at all clear under the Constitution that Indian tribes possess any inherent authority that the bill purports to recognize. It is also not clear that Congress can constitutionally delegate to tribal courts the authority to try nonIndians. Additionally, tribal courts may not be able to secure basic constitutional rights to criminal defendants.

The jury pool is racially restricted and does not provide the defendant a jury of his peers. Unlike a State, a tribe is not a sovereign entity. Therefore, a tribal proceeding can violate double jeopardy if the Federal government, which would retain concurrent jurisdiction under the bill, also decided to pursue the case.

We recognize that rates of domestic violence are too high in Indian country. The Federal government has a responsibility to address these crimes, whether committed by Indians or by others. It does not follow that the approach taken in this bill is the right one.

We should not engage in a political exercise over tribal sovereignty that has nothing to do with protecting Indian women. We also should not provide an illusion of a remedy that in the end could well be struck down by a court on constitutional grounds.

Instead, we should take clearly constitutional action that will enable the Federal government to better fulfill its responsibilities to women in Indian country given the practical issues that make that difficult currently.

I will support the Coburn amendment.

Amendment No. 13
Madam President, I come to the floor today in strong support of the Violence Against Women Act. The Violence Against Women Act is a strong, inclusive, and bipartisan bill supported by the vast majority of our colleagues here.

This bill has major, necessary improvements to programs that are vital to millions of women, children, and men in every State, and neighborhood in our country. The communities served by VAWA deserve to have these improvements. The issues are too important for partisan wrangling.

I stand here today to call on the entire Senate to enact on these critical issues in order to protect our families, protect public safety, and protect the communities we serve.

VAWA is crucial in all of our communities. Every day VAWA is providing vital services to families in desperate need. I hear from my constituents far too often about the challenges they are facing, often involving significant economic struggles only to be complicated by deep emotional pain and fear.

This is not about politics. Here are the statistics: one in four women will be victims of domestic violence. Sixteen million children are exposed to domestic violence every day. And over 2 million will be victims themselves of physical or sexual violence each year. Twenty thousand cases are in my own State of Maryland. Since we created the legislation in 1994, the national hotline has received millions of calls. Millions of women felt in danger and millions had the chance of being rescued.

In my own State of Maryland VAWA is making recovery possible for victims finding legal help to separate from their abusers. They are also getting vital services at rape crisis centers and navigating our immigration system to ensure protection.

I heard from one of my constituents, Jean, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Jean had been married to her husband for 10 years and shared two children. She benefited from VAWA's Legal Assistance for Victims Grant after being abused so brutally one evening. Jean called the hotline and got the legal assistance to file for a protective order, which she ultimately was awarded and is now living her life safely with her children.

I also heard from Danielle. Danielle was sexually assaulted at the age of 19 by an associate that she knew. She was aided by VAWA's Sexual Assault Services program when she made the connection with the rape crisis center a few days after her attack. Danielle got the support she needed at the crisis center. She received personalized safety planning and counseling and was provided a lawyer to help her get a peace order.

I also hear from law enforcement in Maryland who say VAWA is helping them make communities safer and how the reauthorization will strengthen this. The Lethality Assessment Program, pioneered in Maryland and now a model for the Nation, is strengthened in this bill. The program is used to identify high-risk situations at the outset and link up local police with domestic violence professionals, thereby providing wrap-around services and empowerment to get victims out of harm's way and reduce homicides. This was made possible because of VAWA which provided the Federal funding to make this a reality.

As chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee that funds the Justice Department, I fund the Violence Against Women Act programs. These programs ensure tougher penalties for abusers, coordinated assistance with community organizations, and court advocates for abused to boost reporting and prosecution.

In the fiscal year 2013 CJS spending bill, I provide a robust $421 million for Violence Against Women grants. I am fighting for historic funding levels even within the stringent budget reality. I also provide strong investments in core VAWA programs including $189 million for STOP formula grants, which coordinates community response to domestic violence and also trains police, prosecutors and judicial staff; $25 million for sexual assault services that direct services for victims of rape; $25 million for transitional housing grants so victims have safe and affordable housing after shelters; and $50 million for Grants to Encourage Arrests, which teaches police and prosecutors how to support victims and ensure offender accountability.

We know that VAWA works, so approving it should be a nobrainer. The Senate VAWA bill makes these improvements, and not just in the ways that get attention, but in ways which will make the difference in a victim's life.

I fund this bill, its improvements are measures that I fully support, and I put money in the Federal checkbook each year to make sure VAWA is available to those who need it. Maryland has done such a good job, and I won't let the United States Congress fail these families in need.

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

The clerk will call the roll.

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

Without objection, it is so ordered.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that at 5:30 p.m., the Senate proceed to a vote in relation to the Coburn amendment No. 13; further, that upon disposition of the amendment, the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each; that following leader remarks on Tuesday, February 12, the Senate resume consideration of S. 47; that the time until 11 a.m. be equally divided between the two leaders or their designees prior to votes in relation to the amendments included under the previous order and that those votes occur in the order listed; that all after the first vote be 10-minute votes; and finally, that all other provisions of the previous order remain in effect.

Without objection, it is so ordered.

I thank the distinguished Presiding Officer.

Amendment No. 13
Madam President, I join Chairwoman Cantwell, the chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, and the senior Senator from Alaska, Senator Murkowski, in opposing Senator Coburn's amendment. The amendment will remove essential protections for Native women from the bill.

Native women in this country experience domestic abuse at a shockingly high rate. A recent study found that nearly three in five American Indian women have been the victim of a domestic assault. This terrible trend has been perpetuated by a jurisdictional gap that allows many non-Indian perpetrators on tribal lands to go unpunished.

This problem is real: nearly half of Indian women are married to non-Indian men, and thousands more are in relationships with non-Indians. Tribal courts have no jurisdiction when these men commit domestic violence offenses, and federal and state officials are not in a position to prosecute in most cases. They are often hours away and lack the resources and local contacts to be able to effectively respond. These non-Indian men can essentially abuse Indian women with immunity from any consequences. That has to end.

The Leahy-Crapo bill addresses this glaring need by allowing tribes that can provide key rights to defendants to prosecute non-Indians for domestic violence offenses under limited circumstances. Our bill also clarifies that tribal courts have the authority to issue and enforce protection orders against non-Indians. These are essential tools in combatting domestic violence. Senator Coburn's amendment would eliminate these crucial provisions.

These provisions in the Leahy-Crapo bill are the product of careful deliberation by the Indian Affairs Committee and the Judiciary Committee, with input from legal experts. They are identical to the corresponding provision in last year's VAWA reauthorization which passed the Senate with 68 votes. Just this week I received a letter from the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women voicing their strong support for the tribal jurisdiction provision that is currently in the Leahy-Crapo bill and today I received their letter strongly opposing the changes proposed in Senator Coburn's amendment. I also received a letter from the National Congress of American Indians expressing their support for the current tribal provisions and unequivocal opposition to any efforts to alter them.

Senator Coburn's amendment would reverse the significant progress we made last year when the Senate passed these provisions with strong bipartisan support. It sends the message that Native women are not deserving of the same protections as other women. I urge my fellow Senators to vote against it.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that these letters and other letters opposing the amendment be pritned in the Record.

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

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent that the time be equally divided.

Without objection, it is so ordered.

The clerk will call the roll.

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

Without objection, it is so ordered.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to yield back all time on both sides.

Without objection, it is so ordered.

The question is on agreeing to Coburn amendment No. 13.

Madam President, the yeas and nays have not been requested, have they?

They have not.

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Is there a sufficient second?

There appears to be a sufficient second.

The clerk will call the roll.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. ALEXANDER), the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. COCHRAN), the Senator from Texas (Mr. CRUZ), the Senator from Nevada (Mr. HELLER), the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. JOHNSON), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. MORAN), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. ROBERTS), the Senator from Alabama (Mr. SHELBY), the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. VITTER), and the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. WICKER).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. ALEXANDER) would have voted ``yea.''

Are there any other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote?

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Under the previous order, the Senate will be in a period of with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

The Senator from North Carolina.

Tribute to Kirk Nobel Bloodsworth
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Mr. President, any one of us can only imagine what it would be like to be wrongly arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for a crime we did not commit. And whatever we imagined would pale by comparison to reality.

Kirk Nobel Bloodsworth, who I am privileged to call a friend, was the victim of such a horrific miscarriage of justice. He served 9 years for the rape and murder of a young girl he never met, based on the mistaken identification by one of Kirk's neighbors.

Eyewitness identifications, assumed to be among the best evidence, are notoriously unreliable. Case after case demonstrates this. Take the massive search currently underway for Christopher Dorner, the former Los Angeles police officer suspected in three killings. The police have been inundated with numerous false ``sightings.''

Kirk Bloodsworth is a free man today not because the justice system worked. For 9 years it failed miserably, and during that time the real killer was free. Rather, he had to prove his innocence thanks to DNA evidence, which is not available in most cases. One shudders to think of the number of factually innocent people who may be serving long sentences for whom exoneration through DNA testing isn't an option.

A February 5, 2013, article in the New York Times quotes Kirk: ``The adversarial system doesn't know who's guilty or who's innocent. The millstone doesn't know who's under it. That article, entitled ``A Death Penalty Fight Comes Home, is notable because it describes the campaign Kirk is helping to lead to abolish the death penalty in Maryland, the State where he was convicted and sent to death row.

Kirk is an example of someone who was subjected to the basest indignities and humiliation, and who then came back to inspire others to prevent future unjust convictions. It is the mark of a man of extraordinary character and courage, who deserves our praise and admiration. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the article be printed in the Record.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

Remembering Robert S. Tellalian
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Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to Robert Tellalian--an attorney, community advocate, and beloved family member and friend, who brought joy to many in Connecticut. He was a true community leader in a very timeless, enduring way--wisely guiding civic organizations, unstintingly contributing time and energy, and enthusiastically giving of his great spirit and good humor.

After helping the Goodwill of Western and Northern Connecticut to incorporate in 1951, Mr. Tellalian served on its board for many years. He also connected with Goodwill's clients and staff personally on the frontlines in quite another way. Donning a red suit and beard for the annual Goodwill Christmas party, he shared his good energy and holiday spirit with those who needed it the most--the poor and suffering and the Bridgeport employees who had seen it all. He was given Goodwill's Leadership Award in 2011. And, as if he had planned it, he passed away this past year on Christmas Day at age 91.

He earned a Soldier's Medal for Valor in World War II, fighting at the Battle of the Bulge in the Army's 10th Armored Division, but instead, chose to be remembered through seemingly minor but extremely meaningful gestures of kindness and personal connection.

Mr. Tellalian was born in New Haven and raised in Bridgeport. After attending Yale University and the University of Connecticut School of Law, he along with his brother, Judge Aram H. Tellalian, Jr., founded the firm, Tellalian & Tellalian. The Tellalian's firm was a fixture in Bridgeport, and Robert practiced family and estate law for his entire career. The firm later moved to Trumbull, where Mr. Tellalian continued his involvement. This fact and many others demonstrate his uncommon dedication to tradition, intense loyalty for his community and the practice of law, and strong, authentic relationship with his brother and countless loved ones.

Throughout his life, he was intensely involved in a number of charities and local organizations throughout Connecticut, especially in Bridgeport and Easton. In addition to the Goodwill of Western and Northern Connecticut, he was an active member of the Yale Club of Eastern Fairfield County, the Bridgeport Area Foundation, and the United Way. He also served as the secretary of the Easton Senior Center Board of Directors and the president of the Council of Churches of Greater Bridgeport.

Aside from his tremendous contributions to charity and community, Mr. Tellalian would most like to be remembered, I believe, for his love of music. He had great pride for the Greater Bridgeport Symphony and the joy it added to Connecticut. He was a man who, in his role of chairman of the board, would greet patrons in the lobby of the concert hall for decades. One time, when interviewed by the Connecticut Post, he commented that the opportunity to guest-conduct the Symphony was ``the biggest thrill of [his] life.'' Additionally, he was an avid acapella singer, and treasured the memories he made with his barbershop quartet--the Eastonaires--with whom he performed throughout the State and country, even on the White House lawn during a Fourth of July picnic hosted by President and Nancy Reagan. And, for more than 50 years, he sang in the church choir--most recently for the United Congregational Church in Bridgeport--where he and his wife, Jean, who died this past November, were longtime congregants and celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary.

Last month, the United Congregational Church hosted a musical memorial service for Mr. Tellalian. Almost 100 singers and instrumentalists gathered from around the region to volunteer their time in tribute to a man they loved.

Robert Tellalian was generous of spirit and filled with compassion, dedicating much of his life to the happiness of others. He loved life, and lifted others up.

Today, I invite my colleagues to honor the life of a man who will be deeply missed, but whose spirit of kinship will live on in all he touched.

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Congratulating Konner Robinson and Anthony Schrecengost
[Begin Insert]

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize two of Nevada's finest, Konner Robinson and Anthony Schrecengost, for being named Nevada's top two youth volunteers of 2013 by the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards. For 18 years, this nationwide award program has partnered with the National Association of Secondary School Principals to honor outstanding acts of volunteerism.

Konner is a junior at Sage Ridge School in Reno, NV. He created a fund to provide grants to local schools to enable them to offer technology-based learning tools to financially disadvantaged students. Konner was inspired to start this project when he discovered one of his classmates could not complete her physics homework because she could not afford to buy a graphing calculator. I commend his commitment to providing access to technology for all students. All Americans should follow Konnor's lead and work to ensure our schools have the resources they need to provide our children with the best education possible.

Anthony, an eighth grader at Sig Rogich Middle School in Las Vegas, NV, has been a committed volunteer for the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network, FAAN, for the past 3 years. He has been raising both money and awareness to help those who, like him, suffer from food allergies. Anthony's motivation to work on behalf of others who share his condition is inspiring.

On behalf of the residents of the Silver State, I am proud to recognize Konner and Anthony for their accomplishments and contributions to our State. As Nevada's top two youth volunteers of 2013, my hope is that Konner and Anthony will help serve as an example of the importance of volunteer work and service in our community. Today, I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating these two exceptional young Nevadans.

[End Insert]

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At 2:03 p.m., a message from the House of Representatives, delivered by Mr. Novotny, one of its reading clerks, announced that pursuant to section 643(c) of the American Taxpayer Relief Act (Public Law 112-240), the Speaker appoints the following individuals on the part of the House of Representatives to the Commission on Long-Term Care: Ms. Judy Brachman of Bexly, Ohio, Mr. Stephen Guillard of Chatham, Massachusetts, and Ms. Grace-Marie Turner of Alexandria, Virginia.

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The following communications were laid before the Senate, together with accompanying papers, reports, and documents, and were referred as indicated:

A communication from the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Global Strategic Affairs), transmitting, pursuant to law, a report entitled ``Report on Proposed Obligations for Cooperative Threat Reduction, February 2013''; to the Committee on Armed Services.

A communication from the General Counsel, Department of Housing and Urban Development, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report relative to a vacancy in the Department in the position of Assistant Secretary for Housing/Federal Housing Commissioner, received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

A communication from the Chief Counsel, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Final Flood Elevation Determinations'' ((44 CFR Part 67) (Docket No. FEMA-2013-0002)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 1, 2013; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

A communication from the Chief Counsel, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Final Flood Elevation Determinations'' ((44 CFR Part 67) (Docket No. FEMA-2013-0002)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 1, 2013; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

A communication from the Chairman and President of the Export-Import Bank, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report relative to transactions involving U.S. exports to Turkey; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

A communication from the Chairman and President of the Export-Import Bank, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report relative to transactions involving U.S. exports to Luxembourg; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

A communication from the Attorney, Legal Division, Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``High-Cost Mortgage and Homeownership Counseling Amendments to the Truth in Lending Act (Regulation Z) and Homeownership Counseling Amendments to the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (Regulation X)'' ((RIN3170-AA12) (Docket No. CFPB-2012-0029)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 1, 2013; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

A communication from the Director, Office of Regulations, Social Security Administration, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revised Medical Criteria for Evaluating Congenital Disorders That Affect Multiple Body Systems'' (RIN0960-AH04) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 30, 2013; to the Committee on Finance.

A communication from the Assistant Legal Adviser for Treaty Affairs, Department of State, transmitting, pursuant to the Case-Zablocki Act, 1 U.S.C. 112b, as amended, the report of the texts and background statements of international agreements, other than treaties (List 2013-0007--2013-0013); to the Committee on Foreign Relations.

A communication from the Chief of the Policy Division, International Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``In the Matter of International Settlements Policy Reform; Joint Petition for Rulemaking of AT and T Inc., Sprint Nextel Corporation and Verizon; Modifying the Commission's Process to Avert Harm to U.S. Competition and U.S. Customers Caused by Anticompetitive Conduct'' (FCC 12-145) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 1, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Deputy Chief of the Policy Division, International Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revisions to Parts 2 and 25 of the Commission's Rules to Govern the Use of Earth Stations Aboard Aircraft Communicating with Fixed-Satellite Service Geostationary-Orbit Space Stations Operating in the 10.95-11.2 GHz, 11.45-11.7 GHz, 11.7-12.2 GHz and 14.0-14.5 GHz Frequency Bands'' (FCC 12-161) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 1, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Deputy Chief of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Misuse of Internet Protocol (IP) Captioned Telephone Service; Telecommunications Relay Services and Speech-to-Speech Services for Individuals with Hearing and Speech Disabilities, Order and Notice of Proposed Rulemaking'' (FCC 13-13) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 1, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Security Zone; On the Waters in Kailua Bay, Oahu, HI'' ((RIN1625-AA87) (Docket No. USCG-2012-1038)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Security Zone; 25th Annual North American International Auto Show'' ((RIN1625-AA87) (Docket No. USCG-2012-1077)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Safety Zone; Grain-Shipment Vessels, Columbia and Willamette Rivers'' ((RIN1625-AA00) (Docket No. USCG-2012-1028)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Safety Zone for Recovery Operations for East Jefferson Street Train Derailment, Mantua Creek; Paulsboro, NJ'' ((RIN1625-AA00) (Docket No. USCG-2012-1060)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Safety Zones; New Year's Eve Fireworks Displays within the Captain of the Port Miami Zone, FL'' ((RIN1625-AA00) (Docket No. USCG-2012-1041)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Safety Zone; Bone Island Triathlon, Atlantic Ocean; Key West, FL'' ((RIN1625-AA00) (Docket No. USCG-2012-0956)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Safety Zones; TEMCO Grain Facilities; Columbia and Willamette Rivers'' ((RIN1625-AA00) (Docket No. USCG-2012-1068)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Safety Zone; Hampton Harbor Channel Obstruction, Hampton Harbor; Hampton, NH'' ((RIN1625-AA00) (Docket No. USCG-2012-1055)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Safety Zone; Upper Mississippi River MM 35.0 to MM 55.0; Thebes, IL and Cape Girardeau, MO, and MM 75.0 to MM 85.0; Grand Tower, IL'' ((RIN1625-AA00) (Docket No. USCG-2012-0998)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Safety Zone; Bay Bridge Construction, San Francisco Bay, San Francisco, CA'' ((RIN1625-AA00) (Docket No. USCG-2012-0945)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Safety Zone; Gilmerton Bridge Center Span Float-in, Elizabeth River; Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Chesapeake, VA'' ((RIN1625-AA00) (Docket No. USCG-2012-0642)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Safety Zone; Bridge Demolition Project; Indiana Harbor Canal, East Chicago, Indiana'' ((RIN1625-AA00) (Docket No. USCG-2012-1053)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Safety Zone; Overhead Cable Replacement, Maumee River, Toledo, OH'' ((RIN1625-AA00) (Docket No. USCG-2012-0971)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Safety Zones; Columbia Grain and United Grain Corporation Facilities; Columbia and Willamette Rivers'' ((RIN1625-AA00) (Docket No. USCG-2012-1027)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Safety Zones; Grain-Shipment Assistance Vessels; Columbia and Willamette Rivers'' ((RIN1625-AA00) (Docket No. USCG-2012-1029)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Reconsideration of Letters of Recommendation for Waterfront Facilities Handling LNG and LHG'' ((RIN1625-AB67) (Docket No. USCG-2011-0277)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Adding International Energy Efficiency (IEE) Certificate to List of Certificates a Recognized Classification Society May Issue'' ((RIN1625-AB90) (Docket No. USCG-2012-0861)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Special Local Regulations; 2013 Orange Bowl Paddle Championship, Biscayne Bay, Miami, FL'' ((RIN1625-AA08) (Docket No. USCG-2012-1020)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Special Local Regulations; 2012 Holiday Boat Parades, Captain of the Port Miami Zone, FL'' ((RIN1625-AA08) (Docket No. USCG-2012-0898)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Sacramento River, CA'' ((RIN1625-AA09) (Docket No. USCG-2011-1138)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Apalachicola River, FL'' ((RIN1625-AA09) (Docket No. USCG-2012-0470)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Regulated Navigation Area; S99 Alford Street Bridge Rehabilitation Project, Mystic River, MA'' ((RIN1625-AA11) (Docket No. USCG-2011-1125)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Regulated Navigation Area; Reporting Requirements for Barges Loaded With Certain Dangerous Cargoes, Inland Rivers, Eighth Coast Guard District; Extension of Stay (Suspension)'' ((RIN1625-AA11) (Docket No. USCG-2012-1074)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Regulated Navigation Area; Upper Mississippi River MM 0.0 to MM 185.0; Cairo, IL to St. Louis, MO'' ((RIN1625-AA11) (Docket No. USCG-2012-1044)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

A communication from the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Special Local Regulations; Kelley's Island Swim, Lake Erie; Kelley's Island, Lakeside, OH'' ((RIN1625-AA08) (Docket No. USCG-20120386-)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on February 6, 2013; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

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The following bills and joint resolutions were introduced, read the first and second times by unanimous consent, and referred as indicated:

By (for himself,, , , , , , , , and ):

A bill to prevent, deter, and eliminate illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing through port State measures; to the.

By (for himself and ):

A bill to reduce the deficit and protect important programs by ending tax loopholes; to the.

By (for himself,, , , , , , , , and ):

A bill to establish uniform administrative and enforcement authorities for the enforcement of the High Seas Driftnet Fishing Moratorium Protection Act and similar statutes, and for other purposes; to the.

By :

A bill to amend the State Department Basic Authorities Act of 1956 to establish a United States Ambassador at Large for Arctic Affairs; to the.

By :

A bill to improve Arctic health; to the.

By :

A bill to promote research, monitoring, and observation of the Arctic and for other purposes; to the.

By (for herself,, , and ):

A bill to modify the definition of fiduciary under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 to exclude appraisers of employee stock ownership plans; to the.

By :

A bill to strengthen nutrition education for elementary school and secondary school students to promote healthy eating choices through developmentally appropriate lessons and activities integrated into the school day; to the.

By (for himself and ):

A bill to reinstate and extend the deadline for commencement of construction of a hydroelectric project involving the Little Wood River Ranch; to the.

By (for himself and ):

A bill to reinstate and extend the deadline for commencement of construction of a hydroelectric project involving the American Falls Reservoir; to the.

By (for himself,, , and ):

A bill to replace the Budget Control Act sequester by eliminating tax loopholes, and for other purposes; to the.

By (for himself,, , , and ):

A bill to replace the Budget Control Act sequester for fiscal year 2013 by eliminating tax loopholes; to the.

By (for himself,, , , , , , and ):

A bill to promote the development of renewable energy on public land, and for other purposes; to the.

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The following concurrent resolutions and Senate resolutions were read, and referred (or acted upon), as indicated:

By :

A resolution to provide sufficient time for legislation to be read; to the.

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At the request of, the name of the Senator from New York was added as a cosponsor of S. 116, a bill to revise and extend provisions under the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act.

At the request of, the name of the Senator from California was added as a cosponsor of S. 174, a bill to appropriately restrict sales of ammunition.

At the request of, the names of the Senator from Oklahoma and the Senator from Iowa  were added as cosponsors of S. 183, a bill to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide for fairness in hospital payments under the Medicare program.

At the request of, the name of the Senator from Missouri was added as a cosponsor of S. 192, a bill to enhance the energy security of United States allies, and for other purposes.

At the request of, the name of the Senator from Maine was added as a cosponsor of S. 209, a bill to require a full audit of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal reserve banks by the Comptroller General of the United States, and for other purposes.

At the request of, the names of the Senator from North Dakota and the Senator from Alaska  were added as cosponsors of S. 232, a bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to repeal the excise tax on medical devices.

At the request of, the names of the Senator from Rhode Island , the Senator from Hawaii and the Senator from Arkansas  were added as cosponsors of S. 234, a bill to amend title 10, United States Code, to permit certain retired members of the uniformed services who have a service-connected disability to receive both disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs for their disability and either retired pay by reason of their years of military service or Combat-Related Special Compensation, and for other purposes.

At the request of, the names of the Senator from Rhode Island , the Senator from Washington and the Senator from South Dakota  were added as cosponsors of S. 240, a bill to amend title 10, United States Code, to modify the per-fiscal year calculation of days of certain active duty or active service used to reduce the minimum age at which a member of a reserve component of the uniformed services may retire for non-regular service.

At the request of, the names of the Senator from Massachusetts and the Senator from Colorado  were added as cosponsors of S. 242, a bill to reauthorize certain programs under the Public Health Service Act and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act with respect to public health security and all-hazards preparedness and response, and for other purposes.

At the request of, the names of the Senator from Hawaii and the Senator from Iowa  were added as cosponsors of S. 249, a bill to provide for the expansion of affordable refinancing of mortgages held by the Federal National Mortgage Association and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation.

At the request of, the name of the Senator from Delaware was added as a cosponsor of S. 252, a bill to reduce preterm labor and delivery and the risk of pregnancy-related deaths and complications due to pregnancy, and to reduce infant mortality caused by prematurity.

At the request of, the name of the Senator from Indiana was added as a cosponsor of S. Res. 26, a resolution recognizing that access to hospitals and other health care providers for patients in rural areas of the United States is essential to the survival and success of communities in the United States.

At the request of, the names of the Senator from Ohio , the Senator from New York and the Senator from Tennessee  were added as cosponsors of amendment No. 10 intended to be proposed to S. 47, a bill to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act of 1994.

At the request of, his name was added as a cosponsor of amendment No. 15 proposed to S. 47, a bill to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act of 1994.

At the request of, the names of the Senator from Tennessee and the Senator from North Dakota  were added as cosponsors of amendment No. 19 intended to be proposed to S. 47, a bill to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act of 1994.

At the request of, the names of the Senator from Connecticut , the Senator from Ohio , the Senator from New York , the Senator from Delaware and the Senator from Oregon  were added as cosponsors of amendment No. 21 intended to be proposed to S. 47, a bill to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act of 1994.

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By (for himself and ):

A bill to reduce the deficit and protect important programs by ending tax loopholes; to the Committee on Finance.

Mr. President, I am going to be joined fairly soon by the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Levin, to discuss the upcoming sequester and the impact the sequester will have on this country if it is allowed to go forward. Chairman Levin has been pretty clear about this, as have our national security officials on the defense side. It is equally harsh on the nondefense side. But most important, it will be a real blow to the economy. The economists now are saying if we let the sequester kick in as scheduled, it will cost us 1 million jobs. One million Americans will lose their jobs because we let the sequester hit.

Other things--cuts to education; 70,000 young children kicked off of Head Start; 10,000 teacher jobs at risk; funding for up to 7,200 special education teachers and aides and staff could be cut. Food safety--2,100 fewer food inspectors. Research--several thousands of our researchers who are doing cutting-edge research in all sorts of areas from electronics to finding cures for diseases could lose their jobs. Up to 373,000 seriously mentally ill adults and seriously emotionally disturbed children could go untreated at a time when we are talking about the need for more treatment in the wake of the terrible tragedy in Newtown, CT. In law enforcement we could see a lowering of capacity equivalent to more than 1,000 Federal agents. Nutrition assistance--600,000 women and children would be dropped from the Department of Agriculture's nutrition programs. More than 100,000 formerly homeless people, including veterans, would be removed from their current housing and emergency shelter programs because they would no longer be funded under these cuts.

It is a deadly serious thing, the sequester that is coming at us. There are much better alternatives. What I am doing today is filing two pieces of legislation that would completely eliminate the sequester and pay for the elimination of the sequester, not by running up the debt or the deficit, but by repealing tax giveaways, giveaways in the Tax Code. One of the bills would put in enough tax giveaways that we could get rid of the sequester for about a year, which would allow the budget process we are embarked on now to conclude and then we would be ready to go with the new budget and go forward in the regular order that way, letting the budget process drive the decision.

The other way is simply to get rid of the sequester for the full 10 years, just get rid of it for once and for all; do it now and the other bill I proposed would do that. Both bills do this without raising taxes, by going after tax giveaways, and by avoiding these kinds of Draconian defense and nondefense cuts that have been now--I guess ``estimated'' is probably the right word but I think they are pretty confident would cost America a million jobs. A million American families would lose their paychecks because we did this.

The first point I want to make as I go about this is these tax expenditures are no small thing. Here is what we collect through the income tax every year from individuals: $1.09 trillion; round numbers, $1 trillion. Here is what we give away in tax deductions, loopholes, different expenditures and deductions: $1.02 trillion. So on the individual side what we pass through the Tax Code and back to people is almost as big as what we actually collect.

When you look at the corporate income tax revenue, the corporate income tax revenue is $181 billion in 2011. Here is what went back through to corporations in tax expenditures: $157 billion.

Another way to look at it is there is $2.1 trillion of tax liability in this country. One trillion dollars of it comes back to the government in the form of actual revenues and another trillion of it gets distributed through the gimmicks and loopholes and deductions and tricks and so forth in the Tax Code. On the corporate side there is a total of $338 billion in tax liability, of which only $181 billion actually appears as revenue to the government, and the other $157 billion gets distributed again because of tricks and gimmicks and loopholes and provisions in the Tax Code.

What some of our colleagues want us to do is say: Well, we raised tax rates once--just now. We raised them on only the wealthiest families in America. We only raised them back to where they were under President Clinton when the economy was booming, but we did that and we should look no further.

The problem with that analysis is that only looks at the revenue that is actually collected. It doesn't look at the loopholes. It doesn't look at the tax expenditures either on the individual side or on the corporate side.

It is also worth noting that if we add these two up and we get $2.1 trillion or, more likely on the corporate side, if we add these up and we get $338 billion, there is more money out there which that doesn't count. That is the money that never shows up for taxation in the first place because it has been hidden in offshore tax refuges. People have pretended their income is in funds in the Cayman Islands, and they have pretended their intellectual property is in a five-person office in Ireland. There are a lot of gimmicks by which a lot of the money never even gets into this calculation. When we look at the pain the sequester is going to cause, it makes a lot of sense to look at the tax expenditures, which amount to a total of $1.17 trillion, and use that to offset.

Another thing worth looking at, just to remember where we are, is that in the last 2 years on this question of reducing the deficit, we have reduced the deficit by $2.4 trillion, and $1.7 trillion of that came in spending cuts and $700 billion came in the form of new revenues. In terms of a balanced approach to deficit reduction that looks at both spending cuts and revenues, we are not balanced yet. We are nearly $1 trillion ahead on the spending cut side. So when Republicans say we are only going to look at spending cuts going forward, they are not just saying that all those goodies in the Tax Code that go to wealthy individuals and corporations as tax deductions, loopholes, and expenditures are off limits, they are also saying that we are going to make it even more unbalanced than it is now.

By the way, the way I get to $1.7 trillion is by taking $1.46 trillion, which is the actual cuts, and then adding the interest savings that are associated with it. And I take the same interest savings on the revenue side, so it is even, the way we have allocated the interest.

I see Chairman Levin is here, so I am going to yield to him when he returns.

Let's look at one more graph while we are here. As we saw here, a lot of this is corporate tax expenditures. Every year there is $157 billion in corporate tax expenditures, which calls to mind, how are we doing in terms of a fair balance between individuals and corporations in the American tax system? Well, we have done some research, and it turns out that corporations are providing less and less of our revenues.

When we go back to 1935, this chart shows that for every $1 of revenue the U.S. Government got from an individual, it got $1 from corporations. It was 1 to 1--individuals $1, corporations $1. By 1948 it became 2 to 1. For every $1 that a corporation contributed to our Nation's revenues, individuals had to kick in $2. In 1971 we had 3 to 1--$1 from corporate America, $3 from individuals, regular Americans. By 1984 that was up to 4 to 1--$1 from corporate, $4 from individuals. The ratio as of 2011 is 6 to 1, which means the amount of tax burden individuals in this country bear has climbed sixfold compared to corporations meeting their responsibilities. One of the reasons is that so many American corporations are hiding money offshore and away from the taxman. Now, whether these are the kinds of accounts we heard about during the Presidential campaign, such as in the Cayman Islands and so forth, or whether it is locating intellectual property in some faraway country and using internal transactions to move revenue to avoid the taxman over and over, Chairman Levin and his committee on investigations have looked into this and over and over again, and they have shown this is a really strong area in which an enormous amount of money can be raised.

The problem with doing it the other way--going after Americans again and asking them to kick in even more in spending cuts rather than going after the corporate high jinks in the Tax Code--is that leads us down this path of austerity that Republicans have championed. The problem with that austerity path is that when we get into a recession--as we have been in--we should try to cut our way out of it. The problem with that is it has not worked. We argued against that theory from the beginning because it seems wrong, it doesn't make logical sense, and it runs against a lot of principles of economics.

Over and over again, our colleagues said: No, no, no. We just need to cut our way out of this, and that will be our solution. When we get in trouble with the economy, we cut spending.

That has proven to be a disaster. Where they have gone to austerity in Spain, the unemployment rate is 26.6 percent, and GDP growth is negative. Their economy is actually shrinking. Greece has an unemployment rate of 26.8 percent, and their GDP growth is negative 6 percent. Their economy is shrinking even more rapidly. In Portugal, the unemployment rate is 16.3 percent, and the GDP growth is negative 3 percent. By comparison, the United States, although things are not right yet, is doing much better.

I see that the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee is here on the Senate floor, so I will yield at this point.

The Senator from Michigan.

I thank my good friend from Rhode Island, who has done good work in trying to increase revenues, to close some of the egregious loopholes which have allowed the draining of revenues to the Treasury.

A few moments ago, the Senator made reference to the offshore tax havens as a way to avoid paying taxes. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal--I don't know if my friend saw this article--about pharmaceutical companies that were transferring intellectual property to Ireland to avoid paying taxes.

There was an earnings call by the chairman or the CEO of the Gilead company. He was telling investors and stockholders that there is a significant reduction in their tax liability because they had transferred the intellectual property rights to a compound to deal with hepatitis C. He announced that the rights of the hepatitis C compound are now domiciled in Ireland. It is not that his company is domiciled in Ireland, it is that the intellectual property has been transferred to a company they own in Ireland. The intellectual property they used to own--it is still owned by them, of course, and is now a wholly owned subsidiary, but the hepatitis C compound is now domiciled in Ireland. So intellectual property is now shipped around the world to various domiciles.

We have had hearings in our Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on the way in which tax revenue is lost to the Treasury and tax responsibility is avoided by these transfers of intellectual property to those wholly owned shell companies that perform no economic function except tax avoidance. We have to end it, and we can end it. If we do end it, it will provide a significant amount of revenues for our Treasury.

Today, with Senator Whitehouse, I am introducing the Cut Unjustified Tax Loopholes Act, or CUT Loopholes Act, which is S. 268. This bill outlines what I believe is a crucial element to the solution to our fiscal problems. It would raise revenues to reduce our deficits and preserve critical programs by cutting loopholes in our Tax Code that allow multinational corporations and wealthy individuals to avoid paying their fair share of the tax burden.

Now, we are just a few weeks away from sequestration, and the Presiding Officer has spoken very eloquently about what would happen if sequestration hits. This collection of mindless, across-the-board cuts is going to severely hurt our economy, it is going to undermine our national security, and it is going to threaten programs vital to seniors, children, middle-class families, workers, and businesses. These cuts, if they occur, will hurt every single American.

I have said repeatedly for more than 2 years that any deficit reduction effort must pass the test of balance. Balanced deficit reduction requires three elements: cuts to discretionary spending, additional revenues, and entitlement reforms. As the Senator from Rhode Island has pointed out, we have enacted $2.4 trillion in deficit reductions. The vast majority of the deficit reduction achieved so far--more than $1.7 trillion--has come from spending cuts. So while further cuts may be necessary, we must renew our focus on the other two categories: additional revenues and entitlement reforms. The CUT Loopholes Act can help us produce the required revenue. According to estimates in the Joint Committee on Taxation, this legislation would yield at least $189 billion in deficit relief.

I hope no Member of this body doubts the damage sequestration would do to our Nation and to our people. The Congressional Budget Office warned us just last month that the enactment of these cuts would likely reduce GDP growth by 1.25 percent. George Mason University economist Stephen Fuller has estimated that these cuts in this year alone would reduce GDP by $215 billion and cost the jobs of over 2 million American workers.

Tomorrow the Armed Services Committee is going to meet to hear from Defense Department officials and members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the potential effects of sequestration on our national security. Just last week, in his final appearance before our committee as Secretary of Defense, Secretary Panetta warned us of a ``readiness crisis'' that would impair our forces' ability to respond to crises. Sequestration will also prevent investments needed to protect us in emerging areas of concern, such as cyber security. It will threaten our ability to keep faith with the most important national security asset we possess: the men and women of our military and their families.

Secretary Panetta has pointed out that sequestration's ills will not be limited to defense. In a speech last week, he said:

It is not just defense, it's education, loss of teachers, it's child care ..... It's about health care, 700,000 women and children will no longer receive nutritional assistance. It's about food safety, it's about law enforcement, it's about airport safety.

Today we are introducing the CUT Loopholes Act to protect those and other important priorities.

Over the last 50 years, Federal revenues have averaged approximately 18 percent of GDP. Over that time, our budget has been balanced only a handful of years. Each of those years that had a balanced budget, revenues exceeded 19.5 percent of GDP, but in recent years revenues have fallen off to about 15 percent of GDP.

One significant factor in our revenue shortfall is a massive plunge in the share of the stocks burden borne by corporations. Corporate tax revenue amounted to as much as 7 percent of GDP in the 1950s, 2.7 percent of GDP just 7 years ago, and in 2012 it amounted to just 1.2 percent of GDP. Corporations today pay an average tax rate--a real effective tax rate--of 12 percent. How is that possible when the statutory tax rate on corporations is 35 percent? Through loopholes in the Tax Code is how it is possible.

One of the key abuses is when companies use these various gimmicks and tax loopholes to shift their assets offshore. The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which I chair, has spent more than a decade investigating offshore tax loopholes. We have shown how companies such as Enron used offshore schemes to avoid billions of dollars in taxes. Just last year we showed how companies such as Microsoft and Hewlett Packard used tax rules to avoid taxes on billions of dollars in income. These gimmicks cost us that much income even on products developed in the United States and sold in the United States to U.S. customers. They often do this by transferring intellectual property rights and other intangible property developed in the United States to wholly owned subsidiaries and tax havens, thereby avoiding U.S. tax.

How big is the problem? According to the Congressional Research Service, American multinationals in 2008 claimed to have earned profits in Bermuda amounting to 1,000 percent of Bermuda's GDP. Multinationals reported earning more than 40 percent of their offshore profits in five tax haven countries, despite the fact that just 4 percent of their overseas workforces and 7 percent of offshore investments were located in those five tax havens.

The CUT Loopholes Act will end abuse of so-called ``transfer pricing'' agreements. It will allow companies to transfer revenue for products developed in the United States to tax haven countries. It would strengthen enforcement tools so our tax authorities can investigate and rectify tax avoidance offshore. It would end the taxpayer-funded subsidy to corporations for expenses in moving jobs and operating facilities overseas.

It would stop corporations from manipulating rules on foreign tax credits to avoid taxes. It would end the ``check the box'' loophole that allows multinationals, by a stroke of a pen, to cloak offshore income from taxation.

Here at home, the CUT Loopholes Act would eliminate a loophole that allows large corporations to exploit what is in effect a Federal subsidy that helps pay for the compensation awarded to their executives. When companies award stock options to their top executives, they are allowed under law to record that expense in two totally different ways--one for their books and one for tax purposes. They report one amount to their investors on their annual financial reports, but they can report a much larger expense--often orders of magnitude larger--to the IRS and claim a tax deduction for that much larger claimed expense.

One company, Facebook, used this loophole as part of its initial public offering last year. Facebook will use this loophole to claim a $16 billion tax deduction. It would then seek a $ 1/2 billion tax refund for taxes paid in past years, and then avoid taxes for up to as many years into the future. That is just one company. The amount it showed in its books for that same cost for executive compensation was about 5 percent of what it told Uncle Sam the cost was, and then it was able to deduct a much larger cost--20 times as much of its income taxes. So this legislation would end that. By the way, that was just one company.

This legislation would also end two Wall Street tax loopholes. It would end the derivatives blended rate loophole, which gives preferential tax treatment in the form of long-term capital gains rate for speculative trades in certain derivatives--derivatives sometimes bought and sold in fractions of a second.

Now, we have to understand the amazing part of that is these derivatives that are sometimes sold in one-millionth of a second--bought and sold in one-millionth of a second--are given long-term capital gains treatment. We can imagine the amount of money that is involved in that and the loss to the Treasury.

Another loophole the CUT Loopholes Act would address is in the energy sector. Because of a three-decade-old IRS decision, oil produced from tar sands, as opposed to traditional oil extraction, is not subject to the tax that funds the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. If spilled into the environment, oil produced from tar sands is just as damaging as oil produced by other means, as residents along the Kalamazoo River in Michigan learned in 2010. Cleanup of that oil spill is still underway nearly 3 years later. Surely producers of oil from tar sands should help contribute to the costs of cleaning up these spills--ust like producers of other oil must do.

The CUT Loopholes Act also would tighten rules that combat tax-shelter promoters, stiffen penalties on those who aid companies or individuals who seek to shirk their fair share of the tax burden, strengthen our ability to collect taxes from tax avoiders when we catch them, and modernize the IRS tax lien process.

I know these issues can be complicated. But the American people are seeing through that complexity.

Americans support these reforms not just because of the great fiscal challenges before us. People recognize that these loopholes are not fair. They are wrong in every sense that a policy can be wrong--wrong fiscally, wrong economically, wrong ethically.

Even if one disagrees with the American people, and sees these egregious loopholes as somehow justified, how can one argue that preserving them is more important than avoiding the damage of sequestration? How are these loopholes more important than preventing a recession caused not by the ups and downs of the economic cycle or by the reckless behavior of financial speculators, but by sequestration?

I offer these ideas in the genuine belief that they can help bridge the gap, and in the urgent belief that we cannot leave that gap unbridged. I urge my colleagues to adopt them for the good of the millions of Americans whose prospects will dim if we cannot reach agreement.

I will close with this: There was a survey completed last month which shows that two-thirds of Americans believe corporations need to bear a larger share of the tax burden. Eight in ten say closing corporate tax loopholes should be an important priority for Congress. Seventy-three percent approves of efforts to stop corporations and individuals from avoiding taxes by shifting income offshore.

So this is what the survey shows:

Do you approve or disapprove of the following policies? Prevent corporations from avoiding taxes when they award executives millions in stock options: That is 73 percent. In terms of closing loopholes, allowing corporations or the wealthy to avoid U.S. taxes by shifting income overseas: That is 63 percent.

By the way, that percentage applies across the board. Americans of all political persuasions agree with these points. Mr. President, 8 out of 10 Republicans--8 out of 10 Republicans--agree the amount of revenue which will be saved by ending these kinds of loopholes should go to either deficit reduction or to public investments, and only 11 percent believe the revenue should be used to reduce tax rates on corporations.

So I think we have to act to avoid sequestration. Senator Whitehouse's bill is directly aimed at that. Our bill, if we can get this passed and get some of these loopholes closed, will clearly help to avoid sequestration. There is some overlap between the bills, but the point is the same.

These loopholes are draining our Treasury. This is not like increasing tax rates, to say we ought to close these kinds of egregious loopholes. These loopholes shouldn't be there. If we had a surplus, we ought to close these loopholes. These loopholes have helped to shift the burden in this country to middle-income families from corporations, and these corporations that avoid these taxes, in many cases, are extremely profitable corporations. It is an absurdity that we allow money to be drained from our Treasury to go to these offshore tax havens where no or little taxes are paid.

We can end it. We can end that kind of loophole. We can close it, and we can do a lot of good for our country, both in terms of avoiding sequestration in the short term, as well as to help reduce our deficits in the long term.

I wish to thank Senator Whitehouse again for the leadership he has shown and continues to show in this area. Some of these issues are extremely complex. We know that. One of the reasons they are difficult to end is that these loopholes are very difficult to explain. So we just hope our colleagues will follow the instincts of the American people who know these tax havens are wrong.

We should put them out of business in terms of their drain on the American Treasury, and we can do so. In fact, then-Senator Obama was a cosponsor of much of this legislation when he was in the Senate.

So I am going to close here, but I will again thank the Senator from Rhode Island for the leadership he is showing for his bill, which I am proud to cosponsor.

The Senator from Rhode Island.

Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Michigan. I appreciate very much that he has signed on as a cosponsor of both my 1-year and full 10-year--9 now--sequestration alternatives that avoid a calamity for our economy, the potential crash of 1 million jobs, by looking exactly where Senator Levin suggests--at the tax loopholes.

As I showed a moment ago, it used to be, back in 1935, a ratio of 1 to 1 of dollars paid by individual Americans in taxes compared to dollars paid by corporations in taxes. Now it is 6 to 1--$6 out of a family's pocket for every $1. What has allowed America's corporate world to lower their tax liability by so much--down to one-sixth of what it used to be relative to what regular Americans pay? Well, the biggest chunk of it is all the money that flows out through the Tax Code. We have virtually the same amount flowing out through the Tax Code as we actually keep our hands on as revenue. So for $2 trillion in tax eligibility, half of that goes right back, on the personal side, and out here, it is $338 billion, and $157 billion that goes back. It never sees the tax man. It goes straight back through the Tax Code.

Lobbyists have been here for years working on those loopholes and making sure different industries and interests get those benefits. That is where it all goes. That is why we are in a situation in which we have what the distinguished Senator from Michigan has talked about--all of these disgraceful loopholes.

I echo his point of view. Now is an important time to do this because the alternative, which is more spending cuts, pushes us down the austerity path that has failed in Europe and that is projected by the Bipartisan Policy Center to cost us 1 million jobs. There is an alternative: to go after all of these tax loopholes which, as the chairman said--as Senator Levin said--we should be going after those anyway. They are just plain wrong on their own.

If we had a balanced budget, we should be going after them. It is simply not fair. These are relics of power and lobbying and special influence and special pleading in the Tax Code, and we need to be rid of them. Now is a very good time to be rid of them to avoid pitching the economy into recession.

I know my two pieces of legislation are not going to pass. We are not going to pass a bill that has the sequester 100 percent paid for by new revenues from closing tax loopholes. I wish we would, but I know we are not going to. My point in filing the legislation is to prove that it could be done. It could readily be done. It could be done with pieces of legislation that Senators in this body have supported over and over and over again. So it is not necessary to walk into the fiscal band saw of sequestration: to have our national defense take the hit it is going to take; to have regular American families take the hit they are going to take; to have the economy, with 1 million jobs lost, take the hit it is going to take, all for what? To protect the big oil companies so they can keep getting subsidies from the American people? Is that the choice we want to make? So that a billionaire who puts his name on a museum gets more charitable tax bang for his charitable buck than a regular family when they just give money to their church every week? Is that the stuff we want to protect at that cost?

That is the question we will have to answer. I am very grateful to the chairman, Senator Levin. He has been working on this for years. His Subcommittee on Investigations has been looking into this in detail. His legislation is a part of what I am proposing as one of the pay-fors. I look forward to continuing to work with him.

The American people have our back on this one. This is a starker contrast between where the American people want to go and how to protect them and our economy versus special interest politics in this town that has carved out all of these loopholes that allow corporations to effectively cheat on their taxes. Effectively. It is not technically cheating because they have gotten the law written so it allows that practice. But if a person is a regular American who doesn't have a lobbyist to get them that same sort of treatment, it looks an awful lot like cheating.

Let me close by saying if we go the other path--if we follow this austerity route we have seen to be so calamitous in Europe--here are some quotes:

If the full sequester takes place as scheduled, 1 million jobs may be lost.

That is the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Paraphrasing: Growth in real GDP would be about 1 1/4 percentage points different, depending on which path we choose.

We lose 1.25 percentage points GDP growth by hitting this sequester. That is from the Congressional Budget Office.

If we look at the American Enterprise Institute, hardly a leftwing group:

An abrupt spending sequester at a rate of about $110 billion per year--

Which is what we are looking at--

scheduled to begin March 1 could cause a U.S. recession.

Robert Frank, a very well regarded economics professor at Cornell, has said:

The cuts scheduled are not a way to run a rational government. Cuts of any kind at this time are not a good idea. It is recessionary. It would slow growth for sure and put people out of work.

Another organization not known for its leftwing views, the Wall Street Journal, says this austerity method ``threatens to create a vicious cycle, as mass layoffs to meet budget targets spark a deeper contraction, reducing tax revenue and increasing welfare costs as well as damping consumption.''

That is exactly what has happened in other places.

Look at what they say in England where they have done this. The conservative Daily Telegraph's Jeremy Warner describes what is going on over there. ``This is a truly desperate state of affairs. ..... We seem to have the worst of all possible worlds, with nil growth, some very obvious cuts in the quantity and quality of public services, but pretty much zero progress in getting on top of the country's debts.''

That is not the way we want to go. That is the wrong way to go. There is another way, and it is to look at that vast part of the Tax Code both for corporations and, primarily, for wealthy individuals that allows literally nearly half of what would be tax revenue to flow back through the loopholes. That is where we should be doing our work. That is where we should be looking. I applaud and appreciate Senator Levin for his long and expert leadership in this area.

With that, I yield the floor.

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Senate Resolution 28 — To Provide Sufficient Time for Legislation to Be Read
submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the :

Resolved, That (a) it shall not be in order for the Senate to consider any bill, resolution, message, conference report, amendment, treaty, or any other measure or matter until 1 session day has passed since introduction for every 20 pages included in the measure or matter in the usual form plus 1 session day for any number of remaining pages less than 20 in the usual form.

(b)(1) Any Senator may raise a point of order that consideration of any bill, resolution, message, conference report, amendment, treaty, or any other measure or matter is not in order under subsection (a). No motion to table the point of order shall be in order.

(2) Any Senator may move to waive a point of order raised under paragraph (1) by an affirmative yea and nay vote of two-thirds of the Senators duly chosen and sworn. All motions to waive under this paragraph shall be debatable collectively for not to exceed 3 hours equally divided between the Senator raising the point for order and the Senator moving to waive the point of order or their designees. A motion to waive the point of order shall not be amendable.

(3) This resolution is enacted pursuant to the power granted to each House of Congress to determine the Rules of its Proceedings in clause 2 of section 5 of Article I of the Constitution of the United States.

Page: S594

COMMITTEE ON RULES AND ADMINISTRATION

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Rules and Administration will meet on Wednesday, February 13, 2013, at 10:00 a.m., to conduct its organizational meeting for the 113th Congress.

For further information regarding this meeting, please contact Lynden Armstrong at the Rules and Administration Committee on (202) 224-6352.

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in executive session on Wednesday, February 13, 2013, at 10:00 a.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to mark up the Committee Funding Resolution for the 113th Congress; the Adoption of Committee Rules for the 113th Congress; the Adoption of Committee Rules for the 113th Congress; H.R. 307, the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act of 2013; and the Prematurity Research Expansion and Education for Mothers who deliver Infants Early (PREEMIE) Act.

For further information regarding this meeting, please contact the Committee on (202) 224-5375.

Page: S594

Mr. President, as a preliminary matter, I ask unanimous consent that Michael Lotus, a fellow on Senator Grassley's staff, and Angela Sheldon, a fellow on the staff of Senator Hatch, be allowed privileges of the floor during debate and votes while the Senate considers S. 47.

Without objection, it is so ordered.

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The Chair, on behalf of the Republican leader, pursuant to Public Law 112-240, appoints the following as members of the Commission on Long-Term Care: Bruce D. Greenstein of Louisiana, Neil L. Pruitt of Georgia, and Mark J. Warshawsky of Maryland.

Orders for Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Page: S595

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m. on Tuesday, February 12, 2013; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that following any leader remarks, the Senate resume consideration of S. 47, the Violence Against Women Act, under the previous order; further, that the Senate recess following disposition of S. 47 until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly caucus meetings.

Without objection, it is so ordered.

Page: S595

There will be up to six rollcall votes beginning tomorrow at 11 a.m. in order to complete action on the Violence Against Women Act.

The State of the Union will be tomorrow evening. Senators will gather at 8:20 p.m. in the Chamber to proceed together as a body.

Page: S595

If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent it adjourn under the previous order, following the remarks of Senator Cornyn.

Without objection, it is so ordered.

The Senator from Texas.

Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act
Page: S595

Mr. President, I come to the floor to respond to some of the debate on the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization, which I believe misstates the law and the content of the underlying bill specifically as it relates to tribal court jurisdiction.

First of all, I start from the premise that tribal courts should be able to prosecute domestic violence cases that occur on tribal lands involving tribal members. The question is, Under what procedure--what practice--is it appropriate for them to attain jurisdiction over nontribal members who commit these acts of domestic violence whom they wish to prosecute in tribal courts? I am not here to question the integrity of the tribal court system for tribe members. The only question on the table is whether tribal courts, under the law that applies to these tribal courts, is required to protect the constitutional rights of nontribe members whom they seek to assert jurisdiction over.

In order to protect constitutional rights, the Constitution as interpreted by the Federal courts must be applied, and there must be an opportunity given to individuals who are prosecuted in these tribal courts who are not tribal members to appeal to a Federal court if, in fact, they are convicted.

First of all, the distinguished Senator from Washington, Ms. Cantwell, has said there is a right of removal to Federal court in the underlying bill, and that is incorrect. There is no right of removal to Federal court in the underlying bill. However, in the amendment which I had contemplated offering--which the distinguished bill manager, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said is not acceptable to him--would include a right of removal to Federal court under some circumstances. So I want to correct the record: There is no right of removal in the underlying bill to the Federal court that might otherwise correct an unconstitutional provision.

Under the tribal court jurisdiction they operate under the Indian Civil Rights Act, which is, by definition, a statute and not the Constitution. So the rights provided to tribe members and nontribe members under the Indian Civil Rights Act are not constitutional rights. They don't incorporate the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution which would be applicable to any American citizen tried in any State or Federal court. Since Indian or tribal courts claim to be sovereign and don't incorporate those constitutional rights, then American citizens who are not tribal members who would be tried in those tribal courts under the underlying bill would be unconstitutionally deprived of the protections of the Bill of Rights which they have by virtue of the U.S. Constitution.

Secondly, the distinguished Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Blumenthal, argues that habeas corpus protections are sufficient to vindicate the constitutional rights of nontribal members, but that is not the case. Habeas corpus is a remedy which cannot be accessed until direct appeals are exhausted by definition. Since that is the case, under the underlying bill, the maximum length of sentence an individual can be given under the Leahy bill is 1 year. So what would happen is an American citizen, nontribe member, would be tried in a tribal court and would wrongfully be deprived of their constitutional rights under the Bill of Rights. Yet they could not vindicate those rights until such time as they exhausted all direct appeals, and then habeas corpus would be potentially available to them.

The only problem with that is it is very unlikely that would happen before they would have already served their sentence under the underlying bill, which is a maximum of 1 year; thus, the habeas corpus remedy is illusory and is not real.

I hope that helps clarify some of the misunderstandings under the bill and my concerns about it. We start from the premise that domestic violence on tribal lands is a serious problem. With the current situation, these crimes are not deemed sufficiently serious for U.S. attorneys to typically prosecute these cases. They are serious cases. They deserve to be prosecuted but only consistently with the U.S. Constitution. If the tribal courts wish to assert jurisdiction over nontribe members, the only way they should be allowed to do so is if they incorporate the protections of the Bill of Rights. That is something I have proposed to the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which he has rejected.

We also have to have a means for an appeal to a Federal court if a nontribe member is convicted in a tribal court. That is not in the underlying bill. It strikes me as somewhat bizarre to have a remedy which is in the form of my amendment which would confer on tribal courts the requirement that they incorporate the provisions of the Bill of Rights when a nontribe member is being tried in a tribal court and that a right to an appeal to a Federal court also be included. That would remove the constitutional objection to the assertion of tribal court jurisdiction over nontribe members, but this has been rejected for some reason that escapes me.

Our only remedy is to go to the House of Representatives once this bill passes the Senate--and it will. Ironically, this is a bill that historically has passed with unanimous agreement--Democrats, Republicans alike. It has not been a political bill. Apparently, in a desire to make it a political statement and to somehow suggest that some people don't believe we ought to prosecute violence against women in tribal courts, an erroneous argument has been made by two Senators, whom I mentioned here, which I hope my statement has corrected. We don't need to go there. There is a commonsense solution, but unfortunately it has been rejected by the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Our only recourse is to take the Senate bill and reconcile it with a bill that will be passed by the House of Representatives, which I hope will fix this provision and have it resolved in conference in a way that protects victims of domestic violence on tribal lands when perpetrated by nontribe members and when those nontribe members are tried in tribal courts.

I know that sounds a little convoluted, but it is an important constitutional right we are talking about, and I am amazed that such a simple solution, which is right at hand, is being rejected in favor of trying to make some kind of political statement that some Members don't care as much as others do about vindicating the rights of victims of domestic violence on tribal lands.

With that, I yield the floor.

Adjournment until Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Under the previous order, the Senate stands adjourned until 10 a.m. on Tuesday, February 12, 2013.

Thereupon, the Senate, at 6:39 p.m., adjourned until Tuesday, February 12, 2013, at 10 a.m.

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