Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act--Continued--

Floor Speech

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. It was a clear, good vote for our new Commerce Secretary. We are very excited about that vote, 97 to 1. I am going to speak to that, but before I do, I yield to my colleague from the State of Louisiana, Senator Landrieu, for 2 minutes.

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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I first wish to thank the Gang of 8 and our Judiciary Committee for their work. As was discussed in the last few minutes, there has been an incredible amount of patience and hard work that has gone into this bill, and I am very hopeful we will be able to work out the remaining issues and amendments. I think the strong vote yesterday showed an incredible sense of momentum and bipartisan compromise.

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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Speaking of bipartisanship, I wish to address the recent vote, the 97-to-1 vote, for Ms. Penny Pritzker. This is a very positive development at a time when we are seeing a lot of nominations that have been stalled out. As a member of the Commerce Committee, I wish to spend a few minutes talking about her nomination.

I think we all know she is extremely well qualified. Over the course of her career, she has started and led a number of business ventures in a wide range of industries, such as finance, real estate, hospitality, and transportation. She has been an advocate for business and assisted companies in expanding into new markets. She is also a member of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board and is chairman of Skills for America's Future, helping to prepare workers for the 21st century.

When I met with Ms. Pritzker, I was impressed not only by her experienced command of what is going on right now with our economy, obviously, but also her understanding of the Department. As we know, the Department oversees the International Trade Administration, the Patent Office, the Economic Development Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and many others. But beyond that, we talked about the fact the Commerce Secretary can actually be an advocate for business today and for jobs today.

I think one thing long overdue is looking at our top exporting industries in America--whether it is farm machinery, agriculture, movies, all of our top exporting industries, medical devices--and seeing what we can do to help them expand in our country, not in other countries, so they are exporting to the world.

My State has been built on exports over the last few years. We have an unemployment rate of 5.3 percent. Certainly, the growth is due in part to the fact we have recovered now 93 percent of the jobs lost in the downturn in our State, but it is a lot about exports and it is also a lot about tourism, something with which Ms. Pritzker is well acquainted. I think this is literally the low-hanging fruit when it comes to exports. We lost 16 percent in international tourism since 9/11, and every point we add back is 161,000 jobs--161,000 jobs--right in this country.

We are starting to do that now. We are starting to do that now because we are finally advertising our country under Brand USA, something the Department of Commerce is greatly involved in overseas, but also because we are speeding up the wait time for visas, something the State Department and the Commerce Department have worked jointly on.

Every visa we get down to 2 to 3 days for a tourist visa means someone will choose to visit the Mall of America in Bloomington or choose to visit Las Vegas or choose to visit South Carolina instead of going to another country, instead of going to London or instead of going to Singapore. We want them to come to the United States of America.

I think this is a big part of the job the Commerce Secretary will need to do to continue the improvements we have seen with tourism, to make sure everyone knows they can have a great vacation in West Virginia and to keep that message going.

Another part of why I am excited about Ms. Pritzker in this job is because we are seeing more and more women in the workplace, as we know. We just did a report on that with the Joint Economic Committee. We need to see even more women in areas they haven't been involved in as much, such as manufacturing. The share of women workers in the manufacturing industry has been declining since 1990 and is now at 27 percent, the lowest level since 1971. At the same time, we have job openings in manufacturing, and we need people to be trained in the new skills for today's manufacturing. This is no longer your grandpa's factory floor. There are new skills needed in robotics, advanced degrees, and others to run the equipment, to make the equipment, and to repair the equipment.

On a more general matter with women--and this is something we discussed at our commerce hearing with

Ms. Pritzker--we just have 17 percent of board seats across manufacturing, 12 percent of executives, and 6 percent of CEOs. So there is a lot of work that can be done there.

I am very excited about this nomination and the work that is ahead for Ms. Pritzker, and I am glad to see such strong bipartisan support in the Senate.

NLRB NOMINATIONS

As we continue to negotiate the immigration bill, I would like to talk about one more issue that is vitally important to our country's middle class. I just focused on some of the business issues--whether it is reducing redtape for our businesses, making sure we bring our debt down in a reasonable

way or simply looking industry by industry at what we can do to make sure our market share increases--our global market share in America--but we also have the issue of America's workers.

While I am here, I wish to talk about something vitally important to our country's middle class; that is, moving forward with the President's nominations for the National Labor Relations Board so it can get back to work protecting the rights of working Americans and employers.

Over the course of the last few months, the President has nominated a full slate of five very qualified people to serve on the NLRB--three Democrats and two Republicans--all of whom have sterling credentials and a track record of focusing on results and working across the aisle.

The first two nominees were named in February--February--the month we celebrate Valentine's Day, and we are now headed to the Fourth of July. The remaining three were nominated at the beginning of April. Yet we still haven't had a vote. In May, the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held a hearing on the five nominees to the NLRB. This was an important first step, and I commend Chairman Harkin for moving forward on these nominations. However, until these nominees are confirmed and the NLRB is up and running, workers and businesses will continue to face uncertainty.

The NLRB rules impact people's daily lives and reflect our values as a country: child labor laws that prevent young kids from being exploited and forced to work instead of going to school, fair pay laws which ensure women get equal compensation for equal work, laws that mandate decent working conditions to protect people from being hurt or injured on the job, and laws that uphold the fundamental rights of workers to organize. The impact of the NLRB is critical to workers.

The Board is the only option available to employers and companies that become the victim of unfair labor actions or run into barriers during negotiations with labor unions. This is for both sides. It is there for employers and for workers. We have a responsibility to show some leadership and begin the process of vetting these nominees in the Senate so the NLRB can get back to work.

This is about providing stability and consistency to workers and businesses, but it is also about doing what is right for American families. My mom was a teacher. She taught public school until she was 70 years old, so I have seen firsthand how important it is for workers to have that right to organize, to have that right to make their case. This is why I have always believed we need a good NLRB, a fair NLRB.

We have a President who has put up five nominees, three Democrats, two Republicans. The last time I checked, this President won the election and he has the right to nominate people for this job.

America was built on a strong middle class, and the NLRB is a critical agency for keeping America moving forward, for ensuring every person can work a steady job, with good wages, provide for their families, and save a little for the future. So there is much at stake, and I urge my colleagues to put politics aside and allow the Senate to move forward with consideration of the full package of five nominees to the National Labor Relations Board.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, we are debating this historic comprehensive immigration reform, something that as a member of the Judiciary Committee I have worked long and hard on, and actually worked back in 2007 when I first got to the Senate. I can't tell you the difference it is doing this 5 years later than it was back in 2007. This time we have a coalition that is incredibly strong, that has withstood a lot of different questions and issues about this bill, that has been able to accommodate concerns raised within the Gang of 8 and then on the Judiciary Committee level, and now after last night's vote adding other requests and other things Members have. But I want to emphasize why this bill is so important from an economic standpoint.

When we were in the Judiciary Committee, we had hearings and we had a number of people testify about the bill and what this bill would do in terms of the debt--something I know the Presiding Officer cares about very much. We had a number of Republican economists come forward and talk about how this bill reduces the debt. There were some early figures out there. Then I held a hearing on the Joint Economic Committee and called Grover Norquist as a witness. I was the first Democratic Senator I know of to call Grover Norquist as my witness. But he came forward and talked about the effects this bill would have in terms of reducing the debt. Lo and behold, last week we got the true numbers from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office which showed that in fact this bill reduces the debt by $197 billion in 10 years. Then in response to a request from Senator Sessions, they also looked at the 20-year figure, and it showed it reduces the debt by $700 billion in 20 years. This is one example of what you are seeing with this bill.

We are going to see immigrant workers who have been in the shadows come out to get on a path to citizenship that will take 13 years, who will have to pay taxes, will have to pay fines, will have to learn English if they don't know English. They will have to show their records and make sure they don't have any significant criminal records in order to gain citizenship. But it also means they will be paying taxes that will contribute to the well-being of this country, and they will be paying into systems they haven't been paying into before that help other Americans.

The other point economically is the fact we are going to see a better legal immigration system. That is what our country was built on. Everyone came from another country, when you look at the history of our country. For me, it was Slovenian and Swiss immigrants. My grandfather worked 1,500 feet underground in mines and never even graduated from high school. He saved money in a coffee can to send my dad to college. My mom's side of the family came from Switzerland. My grandmother ran a cheese shop. So I am here standing on the floor of the Senate on the shoulders of immigrants, a grandfather who worked in the mines and another grandparent who worked in a cheese factory. Those are my immigrant roots. We all have them. We have to remember what this bill is about, and we have to remember that 90 of our Fortune 500 companies were actually formed by immigrants--200 formed by children of immigrants--and 30 percent of our U.S. Nobel laureates born in other countries.

So when we look at this, yes, we have to look at the enforcement side and enforcement of the border. That is incredibly important. But we also have to look at the economic engine of America that brought us to where we are and where we want to head and how we are going to compete internationally. We do that by welcoming in America's talent, which will be our talent--most of which is homegrown but some of which comes from other countries.

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