I first want to commend your work leading this Committee and your efforts on an ongoing basis.

If their benefits are to be cut by 50 percent when their single provider dies, it is just inadequate to cover the costs of their care.

I really appreciate the panel's testimony. This is an issue, I think, that, no matter where you are from, no matter what part of the country, what party, what point of view, we all have a concern about it.

Let us give a bump-up to those, again, single women to prevent them from falling into poverty, which they are so close to even being on his Social Security retirement.

I ask unanimous consent all time be yielded back. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, all time is yielded back. The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the nomination of Joseph F. Leeson, Jr., of Pennsylvania, to be…

Thank you, Mr. President. I rise and ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Thank you, Mr. President. I rise this evening to talk about two of our judicial nominations who are before the Senate today. We have gotten through one vote, and we will be having several more on a number of judges. The two I will speak…

I would like to thank Chairman Harkin, Ranking Member Alexander, and sponsors Senator Mikulski and Senator Burr for their tremendous work to bring the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 2014 to passage. I thank all of my…

The role that the Board plays for the economy in promoting stable labor relations is absolutely critical.

It is the only entity that both sides can sometimes go to to make sure that they are heard.

I rise to speak about this nomination. This is the nomination of Wendy Beetlestone to be U.S. district court judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. She has great qualifications. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania…

The Board is the only recourse that they have to enforce their rights under the National Labor Relations Act.

I am always reminded, when we have hearings about the NLRB, about the foundational determinations that were made back in the 1930s.

It is encouraging that we have a bipartisan panel here.

How can we have a government that selects different benefits based on different storms in different parts of the country?

Even those who have been fortunate enough to get back up on their feet are filled with angst about what a future disaster may bring or grappling with the prospect that misguided government policies may finish the job Sandy started.

That is real life. We are grateful to you for telling us about that.

I am grateful to Senator Menendez and Congressman Graham who worked in a bipartisan fashion in both Houses to get flood protections done.

It was for me--and I know for a lot of us in the Senate--a learning experience that we do not want to repeat.

Now we have a reticence, it seems, to create the same type of relief that we extended to those fellow Americans for the challenges we are having on the east coast, and that is simply not acceptable.

We need to give more predictability to small businesses.

So we have to look at that as a final provision and as one of the provisions that I think, whether permanently or otherwise, needs to be dealt with.

Give me a sense, if you can--as we try to design policy around the questions of giving those individual investors the tools they need to deal with that basic change, the question of educating investors--what more can we do?

We did pass Medicare a couple years ago, in 1965. At that time, a third of elderly Americans lived below the poverty line.

One of the things that we know is so important about CHIP in this whole issue of 12-month continuous coverage is that the incentives are to make sure that the kids remain healthy.