Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2011 -- Motion to Proceed
Floor Speech
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Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, first I thank my friend, the Senator from Massachusetts, for his kind words about me. It has been a pleasure to work with him. He has been a great and devoted member on our committee. He introduced, along with Senator Gillibrand, the two bills that became the anti-insider trading bill and worked as a ranking member on the subcommittee that Senator Carper chairs that has been working, focused on saving the United States Postal Service.
I appreciate his kind words and the stated intention, to name a post office for me. I hope he names one that is not then closed shortly thereafter. I also thank him for doing his part personally for the Post Office by continuing to write letters and sign them.
If we all personally--I am using e-mail as much as anyone else. I am going to wander a bit here in preparing for this my last year in the Senate and how you wind things down. They actually keep our e-mails on disks. They can be stored in libraries, as you would normal memos. We do reserve the right to edit somewhat. We are privileged in that way. But so much of the communication that goes on between people on e-mail is effectively lost in the ether of cyberspace.
When you think about the richness of history, how much of history comes from letters that were written or typed over time, I think--though the trend here is clear, more and more will be done on the Internet, on e-mail--I think people are going to still want to write and receive letters. That is just one of the reasons why the Post Office should stay what it is--not what it is now but remain a viable institution which is not only important for the slightly sentimental reasons I have mentioned but because millions of jobs in our society and our country depend on the Postal Service. Although e-mail and the Internet are changing the reality of communications in our world, there are some things, in addition to mail, that will always best be done through the services of the U.S. Postal Service and not through the Internet. Some of that is the catalogs and magazines we get through the mail, but some of it is the packages, medicine, products that people buy over the Internet, that have to be delivered. Most of that is actually delivered, the last mile, by the United States Postal Service.
I thank my friend from Massachusetts for responding to Senator McCain's statement. It described where we are simplistically on this. I know there are some people who believe the bipartisan bill that came out of our committee--Senator Collins, Senator Carper, Senator Brown, and I--does too much. It is too tough on the Post Office. So they are concerned about it.
Senator McCain is on the other side. He doesn't think--and I am sure there are others--that we have gone far enough quickly enough. I think we found the right spot. I think this is a balanced, middle-way proposal. But make no mistake about it, the substitute bill that has been filed is not a status quo bill. It authorizes and facilitates exactly the kind of significant change in the U.S. Postal Service that the reality of its declining business demands we propose.
So in most of the cases, with the exception of the 6- to 5-day delivery, which I will come back to, to change the 6- to 5-day delivery requires legislative authorization. I hope somebody puts an amendment in that would authorize the Post Office to go immediately from 6- to 5-day delivery because I wish to see what the sentiment is in the Senate. My guess is--for the reasons that the Senator from Massachusetts stated very eloquently--people are not ready for that precipitous change from 6 to 5 days; that if we do some of the things Senator McCain is proposing, it would make such rapid and dramatic changes in the Postal Service that it will have the contrary effect to what people intend and it will diminish its services so rapidly that it will accelerate its downfall by decreasing its revenues.
This perhaps is not the right parallel, but I remember years ago when I was in the State Senate in Connecticut we had a real problem with the publicly supported bus transportation running a deficit, and one of the inevitable proposals was to raise the cost of the bus fare. Well, of course, one of the logical and sensible reactions to that--which happened--is that fewer people rode the bus because it cost more and it got into more trouble, and that is exactly the kind of downward cycle that the sensible change we are facilitating in this bill will make possible. Post offices and mail processing facilities will be closed under this bill. A lot of employees will leave the Post Office. This will all be done according to standards and in a methodical way that I think ultimately will not only save a lot of money for the Post Office--and I expect we will have an official estimate in the next day or two on that savings derived from our bill from the U.S. Post Office--but it will do so in a way that doesn't break people away from the Postal Service and put it into a more rapid spiral downward.
As a matter of process, I want to say in response to my friend from Arizona, Senator McCain--first, I want to say that I appreciate what he said about the amendment from the Senator from Kentucky, it is not relevant to this bill. I am sure there will be another occasion that his proposal to terminate financial assistance to Egypt will be relevant and should be brought up, but it should not be brought up on this bill because it is not relevant and it is exactly those kinds of irrelevant amendments that often get the Senate into a gridlock situation which means we won't get our job done, and makes the public even more dissatisfied with us. So I thank Senator McCain for speaking to that.
Senator McCain has introduced an amendment, which I oppose, but it is relevant and it ought to be debated. I know the majority leader is very open to working out a process by which amendments from both caucuses will be introduced and introduced in a timely way. There are several colleagues on the Democratic side who have amendments they want to offer as well. So I hope Senator Collins, Senator Reid, Senator McConnell, and I can work together to begin to reach a bipartisan agreement where we can take up amendments that are relevant--Senator McCain's is one of them--and we can debate them and get something done here. Too often the public is so frustrated and angry with us because we leave problems unsolved because we get stuck in partisan, ideological, or procedural gridlock. This is a real problem.
The Post Office lost more than $13 billion in the last 2 years. It would have been $5 billion more if we had not waived a payment responsibility the Post Office had to the retirees' health benefit plan. It cannot go on this way. And if we don't act, it is not as if nothing will happen; something will happen. The Post Office will continue to spiral downward and the Postmaster will inevitably have to impose dramatic cuts in services and personnel. So I think it is our responsibility to create a set of rules and procedures here that acknowledges the need for change in the Postal Service, create a process--well, actually authorizes the Post Office to do some things it has not been able to do until now to raise more money--and create a process for changing the business model of the U.S. Postal Service so it can survive in a very different age, the age of e-mail, and also flourish because so many people in our country depend on it for doing so.
Madam President, 563 million pieces of mail get delivered by the U.S. Postal Service every day, so this is not some kind of irrelevant and antiquated relic somewhere. This is a beating, functioning, critically important element of our life, our commerce, and our culture, and a lot of people depend on it, so we have a responsibility to change it and to keep it alive.
I yield the floor.
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Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I wish to thank my dear friend and colleague from Maine, not my ranking member but really sort of cochair partner of our committee, for her excellent statement. I share her frustration about the procedural moment we are at in the Senate. I hope and I believe this is temporary. I believe Senator Reid's intention is to do exactly what Senator Collins has said she would like to see happen, which is that we negotiate an agreement, hopefully--it would have to be adopted by consent, but it would have to be amendment by amendment, where we would go back and forth and consider amendments from each side of the aisle.
I know Senator Reid has filled the tree. It is not as if there are not amendments that the Senate Democratic caucus wants to offer to the bill. There are. There are several of them. I know there are several on the Republican side. We worked very hard on this bill, as Senator Collins has said. The meetings did seem endless. I would say sometimes they seemed excessively endless. But, nonetheless, we reached across the aisle and compromised.
This is not a perfect piece of work. It is an important subject, so it deserves to be considered, debated, and amendments need to be offered. I am confident in saying that is exactly the direction in which the majority leader wants to go, and the sooner the better.
Having said that, and seeing no one else on the Senate floor, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
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Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank my friend, the Senator from Delaware, for his excellent statement on the bill and where we are in regard to the U.S. Postal Service. I thank him for what he has done over the last several years to try to save the U.S. Postal Service in a changing environment and to lead the change.
No one in the Senate--I believe no one in the Congress--has worked harder over the last decade to reform the U.S. Postal Service than Senator Tom Carper. There is a way in which he has engaged in the kinds of problems that others try to get far away from. He sees an institution like the U.S. Postal Service and how important it is, he is challenged by it, and he goes at it with all of his considerable capabilities and persistence until he gets it right. I cannot thank him enough for doing that.
This is not the kind of issue on which one gains a lot of political advantage. Again, it is a test of our government, a test of our capacity to maintain public services that people depend upon in a changing world. We all know--and he has been a leader--that e-mail is affecting the volume of mail. The post office has to change to stay not only viable but strong. I think we are going to do it in this Congress, and nobody will deserve more credit for that than Senator Tom Carper. I am glad I had the chance to spontaneously offer that much deserved gratitude and praise to Senator Carper.
I say to my colleagues and staff who may be watching or listening--to pick up a theme of Senator Carper and try to bring it home--there are some amendments on both sides that ought to be aired out. I believe Senator Reid wants to do that and wants to create a process where relevant amendments from both sides--not without limit but a good number of them--get to be debated on the Senate floor.
It is my understanding that both caucuses now are hotlining a request to Senate offices that if Senators have an amendment they want to introduce on this postal reform bill, to let their respective cloakrooms know so that we can see what the universe is and then we can see if we can work on an agreement where we alternate submitting amendments and begin to get into the substance of the bill and move it to a point where we can actually adopt something.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
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