Volume 157, No. 130 covering the 1st Session of the 112th Congress (2011 - 2012) was published by the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“NO POLITICS ZONE” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the Senate section on pages S5329-S5331 on Sept. 6, 2011.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
NO POLITICS ZONE
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Ohio for highlighting what has to be our focal point as we return to the Senate, and that is the unemployment picture across America and the desperate situation many families are facing. As I visited my home State of Illinois, I found what the Senator did in Ohio, that many people have been desperately trying to find jobs for a long time and it is becoming increasingly difficult. The longer it goes on, the more difficult it becomes. It turns out the national statistics, which I read over the weekend, suggest that it is primarily males who are out of work--not exclusively, but 60 percent males, 40 percent females--and more and more not in minority populations. They are having a difficult time. I am glad the Senator from Ohio focused on getting us back on track as we should be on this issue.
I read with interest when Republican Leader McConnell wrote an opinion article in the Washington Post yesterday. One line in that article struck me particularly and I wish to read it. Senator McConnell said, ``Job creation should be a no-politics zone.''
I would like that to become our slogan for the month of September. I hope both parties will live by it. If we do, I think we can achieve some things and surprise the American people who have just about given up on us. Take a look at the numbers across the board. They say 12 or 13 percent of the American people think favorably of Congress. As I said on the ``Jon Stewart Daily Show,'' I don't think we have that many relatives so I question the number. I think it has reached the point that most people do not have a positive view of what we are doing here, and we need to change it. The only people who can change it are those of us who serve in this Chamber.
Unfortunately, the Republican leader came to the floor of the Senate today and said a little different thing, which I hope I am not overreading, but he said:
Mr. President, there is a much simpler reason for opposing your economic proposals that has nothing whatsoever to do with politics, and it's this: They don't work.
I think that could be read to suggest that whatever the President has to say, he is going to run into opposition. I hope the joint session of Congress is productive. I spoke to the President this afternoon. He called a number of Members. He didn't give me any inside story on what he is about to say, but my guess is he is going to make proposals and then say to the Republicans: Now come up with your proposals and let's sit down together and work them out between us. That is the right way to do it in a divided government and that is the way we should approach it.
I recall when President George W. Bush in 2008 felt we needed an economic stimulus. At that time unemployment was 4.8 percent. Senator McConnell supported an economic stimulus by President George W. Bush when our unemployment rate was 4.8 percent. He actually said on the floor today that, ``Businesses actually don't want shots in the arm or quick fixes.'' But when he was supporting President Bush's economic stimulus in 2008, it was called ``a booster shot for our economy.'' I think sometimes that kind of booster shot can make a difference.
I think there are two vital elements in our economy that challenge us. I don't know how much we can change them or how quickly we change them. As I visited in my home State with community bankers who actually loan mortgages in their communities, time and again they said to me the biggest single problem is we don't know where the bottom is. We don't know where fair market value is on real estate so as a result it is very tough to close a deal and very tough to get agencies such as Fannie and Freddie to go along with it because of disputes over appraisals.
The second issue was one highlighted this morning in today's Chicago Sun-Times and that is the spending and saving habits of the American family, and they are changing pretty substantially. The rate of savings is up from 1 percent to 5 percent. People have decided putting some money in the bank is not a bad idea and they are borrowing less on their credit cards and other things and making fewer purchases. That is the right thing for a family to do in an uncertain economy. It is not the best thing for an economic recession. In fact, just the opposite is true. But you can understand, people were burned in 2007; burned again in the stock market a few weeks ago. They don't want to see it happen again and they don't want to be victimized by it, so those two things haunt us.
More than anything, I hope in the month of September this does not become a month of confrontation on the floor of the Senate and the House. The American people are fed up with it. If we have a confrontation over extending the Federal Aviation Administration or extending the Federal highway bill, they will rightly be angry that we are back to our old tricks of staring one another down and not accomplishing what needs to be done for this Nation and this economy.
I urge my colleagues, I hope I can join in this, to look for what the Republican leader called job creation as a ``no-politics zone'' in the weeks ahead.
In August, the American economy added zero net new jobs. That was painful. The private sector added just 17,000 jobs. Unemployment is at 9.1 percent. Fourteen million Americans are unemployed and millions more are underemployed. GDP growth was just 1 percent in the second quarter of this year.
Year-over-year real GDP growth is now at 1.5 percent. Since 1948, every time the four-quarter change in GDP has fallen below 2 percent, the economy has entered a recession. These figures are stunning and worrying. Now is not the time for us to shrink from our responsibilities on a bipartisan basis. The President is going to lay out a job creation proposal this week. He will offer a plan that should have broad bipartisan support, as these initiatives have had in the past when suggested by other Presidents. I hope this President will call for investments in America, in physical, human, and intellectual capital to provide the seed money for long-term growth. Among other things, that means investing in our infrastructure.
Mr. President, you know what is going on in China today. We have seen it. The infrastructure construction in China is mind boggling. They are preparing for the 21st century. America is not, and we need to change that. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates our country's infrastructure needs at least $1 trillion. Our infrastructure is rapidly aging, whether bridges falling down in Minnesota or planes being diverted from airports because they are not up to where they ought to be. This is what ought to challenge all of us. Dozens of bipartisan commissions have told us to invest in infrastructure. We also need to invest in human and intellectual capital. That means jobs for teachers and job trainers, and research jobs which will create good jobs across the whole economy.
Congress must invest now because the private sector remains skittish. Here is what Bill Gross, a Republican and chief investment officer of the giant bond fund PIMCO, said:
Capitalism in its raw form can't pull us out of this hole.
That is an important message from a man in the private sector, in the financial community. In the near term, the private sector is not uneasy because of high taxes or government debt or the Environmental Protection Agency or even health care reform or Wall Street reform. These things all exist. But corporations are doing better than ever. A recent report found that of the last year's 100 highest paid corporate executives in the United States, 25 of the 100 highest paid CEOs in America earned more in income than their company paid in taxes to the Federal Government. Corporate profits grew 8.3 percent year over year in the second quarter. That growth is far better than the overall growth of our economy in the same timeframe.
As of March 31, the blue-chip companies and Standard and Poor's 500 index are sitting on nearly $1 trillion in cash. It is not government debt, it is not the EPA, it is not health care reform, it is not Wall Street reform. No, the private sector in America is still on the sidelines because it is still recovering from the wounds of the deepest global crisis in over 75 years. While the private sector is licking its wounds, the government can promote job creation and reduce uncertainty. It is a false choice to say government can either create jobs or reduce debt. The truth is, creating jobs will reduce debt, and the argument can be made with 14 million Americans out of work you will never balance the budget. Creating jobs will bring more people into the tax base, increasing our revenues and take people off of the safety net programs such as unemployment insurance and food stamps. We need more jobs and less debt. One begets the other. It is possible. I know many pundits listening now will say: Impossible. We can't get bipartisan agreement on job measures now. But short-term spending coupled with long-term spending had bipartisan support less than a year ago. That is when I was a member of the Simpson-Bowles Commission, voted for their findings, and that is what they recommended. The Commission said: Don't cut back on spending for 2 years, until we get out of the recession, and then make a serious commitment to deficit reduction. I think they had it right then. They still do.
The Commission explicitly called for near-term spending, a payroll tax credit in concert with long-term deficit reduction. Mr. President, 11 of the 18 members of that Commission, myself included, voted for it: 5 Democrats, 5 Republicans, 1 Independent. By supporting progrowth policies and locking in deficit reduction in the outyears, we can turn this economy around, provide certainty in the marketplace, and create good-paying jobs right here in America.
One last point I would like to make. Illinois was largely spared from the disasters of the last several weeks. We had our problems with flooding earlier this year. But 2011 is shaping up to be a record year with regard to disasters. Hurricane Irene could cost us at least $1 billion, maybe $1.5 billion. People in Illinois have been recovering from two federally declared disasters over the long term--one, a blizzard in February, and the other, major flooding in the spring.
Out of the $130 billion provided in FEMA disaster funds in the past decade, some $110 billion has been provided as emergency funding. We cannot budget for these disasters.
At a hearing before we left--and I knew government experts would be suspect to some, so I brought in experts from the insurance industry, the people who write property and casualty insurance. They said: Be prepared--more disasters and higher costs in loss than ever before. That was before Hurricane Irene.
According to NOAA's National Climate Data Center, the United States has already experienced 10 natural disasters with damages totaling more than $1 billion. The previous record for weather-related disasters of this magnitude was nine in 1 year. We have already broken it, and there are more hurricanes to follow, I am afraid to say. The United States has sustained 109 weather-related disasters over the past 31 years in which overall damage or costs exceeded $1 billion. The total normalized losses for the 109 events exceeded $750 billion.
In 2011 alone, over $35 billion in damages has been caused by catastrophic events. I make that point because some Members of Congress--one, a Congressman from Virginia--suggest we can take the need for disaster funds out of the regular budget of the United States. I will tell you, it is virtually impossible, and we don't know what the final cost will be. At this point we expect it to be much more. We have to deal with these disasters and come to the aid of families and businesses, communities and States, as our State has been aided and almost every State has in the past.
A provision in the Budget Control Act allows Congress several billion dollars in emergency spending for additional FEMA aid without budget cuts elsewhere. We are going to have to get together on a bipartisan basis to deal with this. FEMA estimates that the request leaves the disaster fund short by $2 billion to $4.8 billion in the upcoming year. These figures do not take into account the most recent damage from Hurricane Irene, particularly in the State of Vermont and many other places. We need to work on a bipartisan basis to meet these needs for the disaster assistance all across America and put America back to work.
At this point I would like to yield the floor to my former remarks and engage in the closing script.
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