Nomination of Katherine Archuleta to be Director of the Office of Personnel Managment

Floor Speech

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Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Ohio for his tireless and engaged leadership on manufacturing, on fighting for access to foreign markets on fair terms, for fighting for skills and increasing the skills of our manufacturing workforce, and in this instance, in this strong bipartisan bill, for working with our colleague from Missouri on a national network of manufacturing innovation centers.

My own work of 8 years at a manufacturing company in Delaware in a materials-based science company that makes things helped make it clear to me how important research and development and continuous innovation are for manufacturers at all levels. I have seen this across the State of Delaware. Our Presiding Officer--long owner and leader of a manufacturing business in his home State of Indiana--knows this better than any of us: that if we don't innovate, if we don't invest in research and development, in improving the skills in the workforce and improving the productivity and the operating efficiency of any manufacturing company, we can't survive in the tough headwinds of the global marketplace today.

One of the programs I championed here in the Senate that has bipartisan support is the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. It is a long-established program that takes the latest cutting-edge research and development work at universities and moves it to the shop floor. I have visited companies up and down Delaware, from FMC in Newark to Speakman in New Castle, where they have taken those innovations from the university to the shop floor.

One of the things I am grateful to Senator Blunt for is his leadership in taking that insight that in order to have the most productive manufacturing workforce in the world, in order to continue to compete globally, we have to find ways to continue to invest in demonstrating the power of innovation and we have to find ways to do that in a bipartisan way.

I thank the Senator for being willing to work with Senator Brown and others here. This is exactly the sort of stuff I hear from Delawareans they want us to be doing. There is lots that divides us. This is something that unites us: working together to strengthen our manufacturing sector, to make it more competitive, to bring jobs back to the United States, and to grow this sector.

We have grown half a million jobs in the last 3 years in the manufacturing sector. These are good jobs, at high wages, high benefits, high skills. But we can and should do more, pulling together to sort of lift further this ongoing manufacturing revival.

If Senator Blunt would share some more with us about this specific bill and about his experience in what else we can and should be doing together to strengthen manufacturing in Missouri, I would be grateful.

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Mr. COONS. I thank Senator Blunt for his work on this bill with Senator Brown. There are other bills that I hope this body will take up and discuss and debate where I hope

we can find ideas that are out there, with progress that is being made and policy innovation that is being made, and that we can take them up, debate them, and find bipartisan sponsors who will carry them forward.

I absolutely agree with the Senator's point that we are seeing in manufacturing a revival in this country for a variety of reasons. One of them is less expensive energy. The shale gas revolution is reducing the feedstock costs for chemical manufacturing and reducing the energy costs broadly for manufacturing of all kinds.

We are also seeing that lots of American companies fear the loss of their inventions, their innovations, if they move offshore. So some of the attractiveness of operating in other countries has dimmed a bit, as they have recognized that the United States is one that has a rule of law that protects their inventions and innovations.

There is also less of a wage gap, frankly, as wages have come up in the developing world. In China, the wage gap is less. So that combination gives us a window, gives us a moment of opportunity. We lost millions of manufacturing jobs in the first years of this century, but in the last three we have been growing them and growing them steadily. If we can work in partnership across the aisle on manufacturing skills, on access to credit, on innovation, on a coordinated strategy, I cannot imagine a community in this country that would not rather have high-quality manufacturing jobs.

As Senator Blunt was mentioning, for every manufacturing job that is created, there is 1.6 new support jobs created. For every $1 spent in manufacturing, there is $1.34 spent in the local economy that moves around. It is the sector that has the most positive secondary impact in our communities.

I do think there is broadly in our country a sense that we have sort of lost our leading edge in manufacturing because of the large-scale layoffs and the large plant closings. But in my State, and I presume in the Senator's State and in the Presiding Officer's State of Indiana, and others, there are dozens and dozens of small and medium-sized manufacturers who have seized this moment, who are growing, and who simply want us to help facilitate their access to the market, their access to innovation and new research, their access to a skilled workforce.

If we can pull together, I think we can do great things for the United States going forward.

Also, before we close, I thank Senator Blunt for being a cosponsor with me of the startup innovation tax credit--something Senator Enzi and I and many others--Senator Rubio, Senator Schumer, Senator Stabenow, as well as Senator Moran--have cosponsored and introduced and discussed over time. It would help with access to capital for early stage startup manufacturers.

There are lots of good ideas we can and should discuss on the floor, in hearings, and going forward. But for today I am grateful to Senator Blunt for his leadership with Senator Brown on this bill that would help strengthen the National Network of Manufacturing Innovation centers. The Senator is a strong leader for manufacturing in his home State of Missouri, and I am grateful for a chance to spend some time with him on the floor today discussing that good bill and his good ideas.

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Mr. COONS. I thank Senator Blunt. I thank the Senator for his enthusiasm for manufacturing and for his enthusiasm for working together with me on the startup innovation credit bill, as the Senator referenced, and with Senator Brown on the national network of manufacturing innovation centers as he spoke about.

Manufacturing is the center, the beating heart of the middle class of America. Manufacturing jobs are good jobs. We do need to get back to being a country where inventing, growing, and making things is an area of bipartisan, sustained, purposeful focus. I know for the folks who watch us at home and for the folks here in this Chamber, nothing could meet the demands and the needs of our communities and our States more than for us to come together in a bipartisan, balanced, and responsible way to advocate for a stronger manufacturing sector in the United States.

I thank Senator Blunt very much.

With that, I yield the floor..

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

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in favor of Ms. Patricia Millett's nomination to the DC Circuit Court. As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I have the opportunity to closely examine each of the judicial candidates nominated by our President. I did so with Ms. Millett, attending her nomination hearing and speaking to a wide range of the practitioners and colleagues who have direct knowledge of her professionalism and experience. Without exception, at every stage of her career and with every personal and professional colleague with whom she has had work experience, Patty--Ms. Millett--has distinguished herself as a person of integrity, intelligence, and dedication. She is a person whose capability and devotion to a family is an inspiration to those around her. She is unanimously recommended by former living Solicitors General, and received the ABA's highest rating.

Some of my colleagues here have argued that President Obama is trying to ``pack the court'' by nominating Ms. Millett and two other nominees to fill three current vacancies on the DC Circuit Court. These charges of court packing strike me, frankly, as without foundation. Court packing is an historical term used to describe when politicians try to change the size of a court, expand a court, in order to control its expected outcome. That was the cause of the objection to President Roosevelt's plan to add up to six Justices to the U.S. Supreme Court back in 1937.

In fact, a current legislative proposal to strip the President's ability to fill three vacant seats on the DC Circuit could better be called court stripping. In this particular case, making nominations to vacant judicial positions is not court packing, it is a President doing his job. Confirming highly qualified nominees to serve on this circuit in this vacancy would be this body doing its job.

The charges of court packing are absurd on their face. They are even more absurd when put in context.

Ms. Millett has been nominated to the ninth seat of the 11 authorized on this court. There are currently three vacancies on this vital circuit court.

I held a hearing earlier this year on judicial staffing levels in my role as the chair of the Subcommittee on Bankruptcy and the Courts of the Judiciary Committee. I invited the chair of the Judicial Conference Committee on Judicial Resources, Judge Tymkovich, to come testify. For those who ascribe significance to such things, Judge Tymkovich was nominated by President George W. Bush to sit on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Judge Tymkovich testified--convincingly, in my opinion--that the Federal judiciary needs more judges, not fewer. Every other year, the Judicial Conference submits to Congress a report on recommendations on judgeships. That report did not conclude that any judgeships should be removed or remain unfilled on the DC Circuit.

Judge Tymkovich also explained why the caseload statistics used by some of our colleagues to argue that the DC Circuit has a low caseload--and thus need not have its vacancies filled--are, in fact, unconvincing. The DC Circuit hears a unique caseload, with four times the number of complex administrative appeals than other circuit courts around the country.

The DC Circuit is the circuit from which all the Federal agencies' actions are repealed. More than any other court in the country, its caseload is made up of very complex, very difficult cases with far-reaching consequences and that require a great deal of time. Simply looking at the raw number of cases filed, opened, and closed is not an accurate predictor of whether a vacant seat on the DC Circuit should, in fact, be filled. The DC Circuit's caseload has remained steady over the past 10 years, so the Judicial Conference has seen no reason to recommend any alteration in its staffing level.

The court packing argument made by some is also at odds with history, especially when one considers that caseloads lower than they are now on the DC Circuit were sufficient when all Republican Members then in office voted to confirm then Judge Roberts to the 9th seat, Janice Rogers Brown to the 10th seat, Thomas Griffith to the 11th seat, and Brett Kavanaugh to the 10th seat when it became vacant. When Ms. Millett is confirmed, the DC Circuit will still have more pending appeals per active judge than after the confirmations of any of those four earlier Bush nominees I just referenced. The caseload on the DC Circuit would also remain above that of the current 6th Circuit and 10th Circuit, to which courts the Senate has confirmed Republican supported judicial nominees this year.

A filibuster of Ms. Millett on caseload grounds would bring the Senate to an unprecedented and regrettable place. It would destroy comity and trust at a time when our Nation needs it most, when we need to demonstrate to the people of the United States that this Congress can function and that this Senate can fulfill its constitutional role.

It would not only facilitate the administration of justice by our courts, but also allow us to tackle other issues if we could move past endless and needless filibusters on issues such as this. It would allow us to move forward to the broader issues of the day, tackling long-term debt and deficit challenges, the fight against global terrorism, reinvesting in our future, and working together to invest in manufacturing and grow our economy. There are so many other issues that call for the time of this body.

With that, I wish to urge my colleagues to look at Ms. Millett's nomination on its merits and to not be distracted by what I think are groundless arguments that this is an instance of so-called court packing by this President.

This President is doing his job. He is nominating supremely qualified candidates to serve in the highest courts of this land, and this body should do its job and confirm those qualified nominees.

NATIONAL TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION DAY

If I might, I simply wanted to comment to this body that something passed with little notice here yesterday. October 29, 2013, was National Technological Innovation Day. This was recognizing the role that technological innovation plays in the United States economy.

We know that innovation is absolutely essential to developing new medicines, treatments, and cures to help us live longer and more healthy lives. Innovation is essential to strengthen the manufacturing sector of the American economy and make us more competitive. Innovation is essential to allow us to take advantage of new materials and new opportunities in the world and to access new export markets overseas. Innovation overall is what has brought all that is best about modern life and the modern world.

Yesterday, in a bipartisan way, we recognized that on October 29, many years ago, was the very first day that DARPAnet was able to exchange communications from one computer to another. It was literally the dawning of the modern Internet age. This was made possible in part by Federal investment and innovation.

I am grateful that Senator Moran, Senator Isakson, Senator Heinrich, and Senator Kirk joined me in recognizing the unique and important role that technological innovation has played in America's past, America's present, and America's future.

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

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