Tom Harkin

I hope the Republicans will talk among themselves. I hope they will listen to the students and their families who don't want to be hung out there this week and next week and on and on and on not knowing whether they are going to have to…

Here we are with an empty Senate Chamber, while families across the country are wondering whether they are going to have to come up with more money to pay higher interest rates on student loans beginning July 1. It is going to happen…

I always enjoy engaging in good debate with my friend from Tennessee. He is a very thoughtful Senator, a very thoughtful member of our Committee too, and a good friend. Having been a former Secretary of Education, he has a depth and…

In a little over a half an hour we will have a vote on whether we are even going to proceed to the bill that will keep interest rates on our subsidized Stafford loans at 3.4 percent for the next year or whether they will go up double on…

I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in open session on Thursday, May 10, 2012, at 10 a.m. in SD 430 Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ``Beyond Mother's Day…

Well, I think that is where this came from. I don't know. I would also say to my friend from Wyoming, because I was listening to him, I think it is fair, if we are going to have a vote on ours, that we ought to have a vote on yours. I…

I say to my good friend from Wyoming--and he is my good friend, and we do a lot of good work together--I wish we could have this bill in our committee. I think we could work it out. But the fact is, to raise the money, it has to come from…

I thank the Chair. Mr. President, after listening to the previous three speakers, it is hard to know where to begin to correct the record with all the misstatements. Maybe I will kind of work backward. My good friend, the Senator from…

Am I correct the time for debate under this bill will expire at 4 p.m.? The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. At 4:30.

I don't know that I can make it any more clear than the New York Times editorial, and there is not the time to mention all of the ways this fund is already making Americans healthier. But I want to mention several representative…

I can't emphasize strongly enough the importance and the urgency of the legislation before us--the Stop the Student Loan Interest Rate Hike Act of 2012--which the majority leader spoke about. On July 1, unless Congress intervenes, the…

I will, obviously, yield to my good friend, Senator Enzi, for his closing remarks, but I again just want to point out that this ruling by the NLRB is imminently reasonable. They went through rulemaking, as I have said before, one of the…

Over the past 2 days my Republican colleagues have raised several arguments about what the NLRB rule will do. I now want to respond to their points and to clarify once again: this is a modest rule that simplifies preelection litigation in…

There are just a couple of things I wish to bring up in response to some of the statements that have been made on the floor. First of all, I wish to make it very clear that the NLRB has scrupulously followed all legal and procedural…

A couple things. I keep hearing it stated that: ambush elections. I want to point out, there is no timetable set in these rules--none whatsoever. I keep hearing: 10 days and 7 days and all that. That is not set. There are no timetables at…

We are going to have a lot of time to flush out some of these arguments again tomorrow when the vote gets near, but I thought I might pick up on a couple of things here that my good friend from Wyoming said. We do a lot of work together…

I thank the Chair. Mr. President, this Congressional Review Act challenge is the latest chapter in an unprecedented Republican assault on unions. The amount of time this Congress has wasted scrutinizing and bullying the National Labor…

I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in executive session on Wednesday, April 25, 2012 at 10 a.m. in SD 106 to mark-up S. ____, the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation…

I just had a very wonderful phone call from a young Matt Rutherford, a 31-year-old man. I have spoken about him on the floor on a couple of occasions. He just made it safely home on his boat, the St. Brendan. He just crossed the finish…

The premise underlying this criticism is that this inability to issue more standards has somehow meant employees are less safe.

I thank Senators Hagan, Isakson, Murkowski, and Burr for their support.

Instead, we should be talking about expanding VPP to smaller employers and making it even more effective.

I agree with the Chairman that we can and must do better.

I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in open session on Thursday, April 19, 2012 at 10 a.m., in SD 430 Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled Time Takes Its Toll…

I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in open session on Wednesday, April 18, 2012 at 10 a.m., in SD 430 Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled Effective Strategies…