[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 23 (Wednesday, February 13, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S686-S690]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Sequestration

  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, Senator Collins and I are here because 
we agree we must take action in this body and in this Congress to avoid 
sequestration. Sequestration is a term we have all been throwing 
around, and it refers to the automatic cuts that are scheduled to take 
effect on March 1. Those cuts were designed to force Congress to make a 
tough decision and to take comprehensive action on our debt and 
deficits.
  I think we all agree there is no question we need a comprehensive and 
balanced plan to put us on a more sustainable fiscal path. I think that 
plan should look at all areas of spending. It should look at domestic, 
mandatory, and defense as well as comprehensive tax reform. I think 
there are many areas of bipartisan agreement on deficit reduction, 
including controlling the long-term cost of health care.
  Unfortunately, Congress has missed several opportunities to enact a 
long-term plan to get our debt and deficits under control. That is why 
we are again facing a deadline at the end of this month to address 
those automatic cuts. As a result of that, we are starting to see the 
very real and negative consequences of our inaction. We are seeing it 
on our national security, and we are seeing it on our economy as 
businesses and agencies alike begin to prepare for the automatic cuts 
under sequestration.
  Last week, Senator Collins and I wrote to the leadership in the 
Senate urging bipartisan action on sequestration and the need to find a 
better approach. In our letter, we talked about the impacts we are 
starting to see in New Hampshire and Maine, including the threat to 
jobs, our national security, and to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, 
which is critical not only to New Hampshire and Maine but also to this 
country's national security. We called attention to the drastic effects 
we face for our economy, for our jobs, and for our national security.
  Today we are here to reiterate the importance of addressing 
sequestration and doing it now.
  I wish to thank the senior Senator from Maine, my colleague, for 
joining me to talk about this important issue, and I am looking forward 
to hearing her remarks. I know it is something she cares about as much 
as I do and as much as I think most of the Members of this Chamber do.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, first, let me say, I am very pleased to 
join with my friend and colleague from New Hampshire to speak out 
against the indiscriminate meat-ax cuts known in Washington as 
sequestration that are scheduled to take effect in just 2 weeks' time. 
We simply must take action to avoid this self-inflicted harm to our 
economy and to our national security. But what I find inexplicable is a 
growing acceptance that sequestration is going to go into effect 
despite the fact that virtually everyone should concede that across-
the-board cuts

[[Page S687]]

where we don't set priorities do not make sense.
  There are good programs that deserve to be preserved, there are 
programs that have outlived their usefulness and should be eliminated, 
and then there are programs that could be cut and reduced. That is not 
the approach we are taking. We are not going through the budget in a 
careful way by identifying programs that could be eliminated or 
reduced, setting priorities, and making investments. No, we are 
allowing to go into effect across-the-board cuts that fall 
disproportionately on the Department of Defense.

  Indeed, we are already seeing the effects of these cuts on our 
military because each of the military services has begun planning for 
the likelihood of deep budget cuts. The Navy is preparing for a 
civilian hiring freeze and cutting workers at shipyards and base-
operated support facilities.
  I wish to be clear exactly who these employees are. These are the 
nuclear engineers, the welders, the metal trades workers repairing 
submarines and ships at the Navy's four public shipyards, including the 
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in my home State of Maine, which employs half 
of its workforce from my colleague's State of New Hampshire. I know the 
senior Senator from New Hampshire shares the concern about this 
particular installation on the border we share. But, of course, the 
damage of sequestration extends far beyond just one installation or two 
States.
  Just this morning I was over at the Pentagon, and I took advantage of 
the opportunity to sit down with the Navy's top shipbuilding official 
to discuss what the impact of sequestration would be for our naval 
fleet. Well, one example we have already seen. The Navy will keep the 
USS Abraham Lincoln, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, in port rather 
than repairing and deploying it. Across the fleet, the Navy is being 
forced to reduce deployments, maintenance, and overhauls for critical 
repairs. When we look at the shipbuilding budget, it is evident that 
sequestration and the continuation of a partial-year funding 
resolution, known as the continuing resolution, would be absolutely 
devastating for our Navy, for shipbuilding, and for our skilled 
industrial base. That includes Bath Iron Works in Maine, which I am so 
proud of, which builds the best destroyers in the world. This has 
consequences not only for our workforce, but also for our national 
security.
  It is important to note Secretary Panetta has made clear that 
allowing these sweeping cuts to go into effect would be 
``devastating,'' in his words, and would badly damage the readiness of 
the U.S. military.
  The fact is defense has already taken a huge reduction in future 
spending. The defense budget has been slated to be cut by $460 billion 
over 10 years, and that is before sequestration. When this number is 
added to the defense cuts scheduled to begin on March 1, we are looking 
at an enormous impact on our national security.
  Now, it is important to recognize we are not saying the national debt 
is not a problem. Certainly, when we have a $16.4 trillion debt, that 
is not sustainable, and the national debt is a security concern in its 
own right. Just last year, in 2012, the Federal Government spent $223 
billion in interest payments alone. That means we are spending more on 
interest on the national debt each month than we spent in an entire 
year on naval shipbuilding and the Coast Guard budget.
  Just think about that. The interest payment in one month exceeds the 
entire Coast Guard budget and the entire budget for shipbuilding in the 
Navy. The estimates are that by the middle of this decade--not some 
distant year--our interest payments to China, our largest foreign 
creditor at $1.2 trillion, will be covering the entire cost of that 
Communist country's military. Think of the horrific irony of that. At 
the same time America is bound by treaties to defend our allies in Asia 
against Chinese aggression, the American taxpayers are bankrolling the 
threat through the interest payments we are paying to the Chinese.
  Neither the Senator from New Hampshire nor I am saying the Pentagon 
should be exempt from budget scrutiny or even future cuts, but the 
disproportionate impact that sequestration would have on our troops and 
on our national security is dangerous and it must be averted. The 
Department cannot continue to operate on a continuing resolution that 
increases costs, prevents long-term planning, and makes it impossible 
for the Department to function effectively.
  I yield to my colleague from New Hampshire to expand on some of these 
points. Then we will talk further about the impact.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Maine for 
laying out what we are seeing in terms of the potential impact of those 
automatic cuts. The comments and the statistics the Senator from Maine 
had about China and what they are going to be able to do with the money 
we are paying is really eye-opening and scary.
  The Senator from Maine spoke about some of the impacts we are 
beginning to see at the ports of naval shipyards. As the Senator 
pointed out, it is something very important to both Maine and New 
Hampshire. It employs about 4,000 workers, almost evenly split between 
our two States. As a result of the sequester, starting March 1, one of 
their major projects, the repair of the USS Miami, which was damaged in 
a fire, is going to be halted immediately. Just stopped--16 days from 
now. The Navy is going to cut over 1,100 temporary civilian workers, 
mostly from shipyards such as Portsmouth. The needed maintenance and 
military construction will be postponed indefinitely. It is not just 
about those jobs at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard or at the shipyards 
across the country, but that has a ripple effect across our economy, 
and it affects the grocery stores and the restaurants and all of the 
small contractors and small businesses doing work at those shipyards.
  There will be ramifications for our national defense across the 
services. Yesterday, we had some harrowing testimony in front of the 
Armed Services Committee from all of the chiefs of the military 
outlining what they see coming as a result of the consequences of the 
sequester and the continuing resolution the Senator from Maine spoke 
about.
  DOD-wide--so across the Department--they expect to lay off a 
significant portion of the 46,000 temporary and term employees. All 
services and agencies will likely have to furlough most DOD civilian 
employees for up to 22 working days. Imagine that. That is a whole 
month of paychecks that those workers are not going to have to support 
their families, to be able to spend into the economy, and that is going 
to have a huge impact.
  It is possible that DOD might not have enough funds to pay for 
TRICARE, health care coverage for our veterans through the end of the 
fiscal year. As we saw on the front pages of the paper this week, the 
Department delayed the deployment of the USS Harry Truman, the carrier 
strike group that was headed to the Persian Gulf. If sequestration goes 
into full effect, the Navy will shrink by about 50 ships and at least 
two carrier groups.

  By the end of the year, the Navy, if we do nothing, will lose about 
350 workers a week or 1,400 a month from our civilian industrial base. 
That will have a huge impact in New Hampshire, as I know it will in 
Maine as well.
  So there are real, significant impacts, as the Senator from Maine 
pointed out, on the defense industry, on this country's national 
security, and on the domestic side of the budget. It is already 
starting to have ramifications on our economy and job growth. We saw in 
the last quarter of 2012 that our economy contracted for the first time 
since 2009, and much of that decline was due to sharp reductions in 
government spending in anticipation of the sequester coming into 
effect.
  We saw it in New Hampshire, in some of our businesses that are 
dependent on government contracts, particularly in the defense 
industry. So our failure to act is not only irresponsible, but it is 
beginning to have a real impact in slowing down this economy.
  It is simply unacceptable that we are not addressing this issue. We 
need to act. If we let the sequester go into effect, we stand to lose, 
according to the Congressional Budget Office, up to 1.4 million jobs. A 
recent forecast from Macroeconomic Advisers suggests that sequestration 
would reduce our gross domestic product by .7 percentage points this 
year.

[[Page S688]]

  We can't risk putting our economic recovery in jeopardy with these 
indiscriminate cuts. They are going to have an impact on research and 
education vital to our ability to grow this economy and remain 
competitive.
  The National Institutes of Health would face a $2.5 billion cut. They 
would have to halt or curtail scientific research, including needed 
research in cancer and childhood diseases. The Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention would see a $464 million cut. States and local 
communities would lose billions of Federal education funding for title 
I, for special education grants, and for other programs.
  As many as 100,000 children will lose their places in Head Start, 
25,000 teachers could lose their jobs, and we will see those impacts 
immediately in Maine and in New Hampshire.
  I wish to turn back to the Senator from Maine to share what she is 
seeing in Maine.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, first I wish to commend the Senator from 
New Hampshire for broadening the debate and reminding all of us of the 
macroeconomic impact, as well as the impact on our two States.
  The estimate is that Maine's defense industry--which includes not 
just the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Bath Iron Works, and our Pratt & 
Whitney plant, but a lot of smaller contractors and suppliers--could 
lose as many as 4,000 jobs as a result of sequestration. Think about 
that. That means, as the Senator from New Hampshire pointed out, these 
are people who are supporting their families and who are supporting 
other businesses in the community. The impact, the ripple effect, is 
just devastating.
  That is why it does not surprise me that the Congressional Budget 
Office has pointed to sequestration as the primary cause for the slow 
growth we have seen already, and CBO projects as well; that our economy 
would grow at a faster rate--at 2 percent--if we averted sequestration. 
These aren't meaningless numbers. They affect real people. The 
estimates are that we would lose between 1.4 million and 2 million jobs 
if this is allowed to go into effect nationwide.
  It is also a failure on the part of Washington to make decisions. If 
we are going to allow these mindless, indiscriminate cuts to go into 
effect, why are we here? We might as well have computers or robots 
making decisions for us. Our job is to do the hard, painful work of 
setting priorities and making decisions. That is why I am so frustrated 
by the approach we appear to be on the verge of taking.
  The Senator from New Hampshire makes a very important point. While 
the Department of Defense would take a disproportionate impact from 
sequestration, and I am extremely concerned about that, there are other 
important programs that would be affected as well. The superintendents 
groups have met with me and talked about what it would mean for 
schoolchildren in Maine if halfway through the school year--more than 
halfway through the school year--all of a sudden they get a reduction 
in title I money that goes to low-income schools, to special education 
grants, to other important programs such as Head Start, and the TRIO 
Program, which helps low-income and first-generation students attend 
and excel in college.
  Think about the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, biomedical 
research that is so critical, cuts in the FAA workforce that could 
reduce air traffic control, disrupting air traffic during the busy 
summer months.
  The list goes on and on: essential education, health care, research, 
transportation programs that deserve support that do not deserve to all 
be treated the same.
  Again, I want to emphasize that we recognize spending must be cut and 
the debt, at $16.4 trillion, is way out of control. That amounts to 
something like $52,000 for each man, woman, and child in this country.
  We are committed to seeking pragmatic solutions through compromise 
and to avoiding this devastation of our economy and our national 
security. We recognize we have to look at all areas of spending and 
that we need to overhaul our Tax Code and make it more pro-growth, 
simpler, and fairer. If ever there were a moment when Members of 
Congress and the President should put aside their politics for the 
greater good of the Nation, now is the time.
  So I, for one, want to thank the Senator from New Hampshire for 
caring so much about this issue. We have agreed to work together--and 
continue to work together--to address this. These automatic cuts were 
never supposed to take effect. I remember being told: Do not worry. It 
is never going to happen. It is too unpalatable. It will just never 
occur.
  Well, they were supposed to force us to make the difficult decisions 
necessary to put our economy on a sound footing and to deal with our 
unsustainable debt. Our Nation's leaders--the President, Democrats and 
Republicans alike--have denounced sequestration for the most part, and 
yet here we are.
  So I hope we can work together to avoid this fiscal cliff which will 
have such damaging effects for the people of this Nation.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Collins very much for 
her kind words. I know we both care a great deal about this situation 
we are in, as I think most of the Members of the body do. What is so 
frustrating is that it is avoidable. This is not something that has to 
happen because we are facing a crisis. This is happening because of 
what we have done in our actions. So we can undo these actions, as the 
Senator points out.
  I share the Senator's belief that we need a comprehensive solution. 
We have to look at all aspects of the budget. We need to look at 
domestic, defense spending, mandatory programs, and we need to look at 
revenues. Comprehensive tax reform--that is a way we can address that.
  There are areas of bipartisan agreement that we ought to be able to 
take action on right away. We have had a number of GAO reports that 
make recommendations on duplicative programs within government. We are 
already working to control the long-term costs of health care, to close 
tax loopholes, and on defense spending, we all know there are still 
reforms that can be done, as the Senator pointed out. We can get better 
physical controls. We can end some of the fraud and abuse in 
contracting. That is just the beginning of a list that, I am sure, if 
we all dedicated ourselves to coming up with a compromise on how we 
avoid the sequester, we could do.
  We should not delay because our failure to resolve this issue is 
having damaging effects on our economy, and it is only going to get 
worse if we do not find the solution.
  So, again, I thank Senator Collins for her commitment to address this 
challenge we face, for her willingness to come down and engage with me, 
and for us to work together, along with our colleagues, to try to get a 
resolution so we do not have these devastating cuts going into effect.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I wonder if the Senator would yield for one 
moment, without losing his right to the floor.
  Mr. INHOFE. Yes, I will.
  Mr. LEVIN. Before the Senators from New Hampshire and Maine leave the 
floor, I just want to commend them for their statements, for their 
conversation. It is so critically important we avoid sequester. The 
more Senators and the more Members of the House who look for ways on a 
bipartisan basis to avoid it, the better. We only have 2 weeks left to 
go. With the kind of energy and creativity that these two Senators 
bring to this body, it makes me a little bit more hopeful that we are 
going to be able to avoid this unbelievably bad outcome.
  So I just want to thank both Senators and thank my friend from 
Oklahoma for yielding for a moment.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, let me, first of all, respond to the 
chairman of the Armed Services Committee. I agree. We have talked about 
the anguish.
  We had a hearing yesterday where the service chiefs discussed the 
disaster facing our armed forces if we go through sequestration. I do 
not think most Members of this body fully understand what it means, not 
just to the defense of our country as a whole, but to each of the 
individual States.
  In my State of Oklahoma, I am very concerned about Tinker Air Force 
Base

[[Page S689]]

and its 16,000 civilian employees. What is going to happen there?
  Anyway, let me just wind up this part by saying I have been ranked as 
the most conservative Member for many years. But I have always said: I 
am a big supporter of using our resources in two areas: One is national 
defense and the other is transportation and infrastructure.

  A short while ago, the majority leader was kind enough to call my 
office and tell me I would be objecting to the consideration of the 
nomination of former Senator Hagel to be Secretary of Defense.
  However, this is not a filibuster. I keep getting stopped by people 
out in the hall: Oh, we are going to filibuster. Who is going to 
filibuster?
  What we are doing is not a filibuster. We are seeking a 60 vote 
threshold for a controversial nomination. If the majority really wanted 
to move forward quickly, all they have to do is agree to a 60-vote 
margin, like they did with the Sebelius and Bryson nominations.
  In addition, as ranking member of the Senate Armed Services 
Committee, I am obligated to assist the members of the committee.
  First of all, the vote in the committee was a 100-percent partisan 
vote. Every Republican there voted against moving the Hagel nomination 
out of committee. Well, there has to be a reason for that.
  One of the reasons--the major reason, I would say--and if you do not 
believe this, go back and look at the tape of the meeting yesterday 
where many of our members said: Why is it we are rushing to confirm 
Chuck Hagel to be Secretary of Defense when he has not given us the 
information we have requested? One such Member is the junior Senator 
from Texas, who is in the Chamber with me right now.
  But let me first clarify there is nothing unusual about requesting a 
60-vote threshold. This happens all the time. I can remember when the 
majority leader agreed to a 60-vote threshold in the 2009 nomination of 
Kathleen Sebelius. She was confirmed.
  There is nothing unusual about a 60-vote threshold.
  John Bryson was nominated to be the Secretary of Commerce. Several of 
us had concerns about this nomination. Ultimately, he was confirmed. 
But once again the entire Senate agreed to a confirmation vote by a 60-
vote margin.
  I can remember when the majority leader--let me say this about the 
majority leader. He has been exceptionally good to me on things I have 
been involved in. I have two major bills that were my bills. One was in 
concert with Barbara Boxer--the highway bill. Frankly, I could not have 
gotten it passed without them. Another was my pilots' bill of rights. I 
could not get a hearing on it in committee. I tried for a year. He 
stepped in and helped me. I have said in national publications I could 
not have gotten it passed without Leader Harry Reid. So we have a very 
good relationship, and one which will continue.
  However, Senator Reid, on numerous occasions, was concerned about 
Republican nominations. During the Bush Presidency, Stephen Johnson--
who, incidentally, was a Democrat--was nominated to be EPA 
Administrator. I thought he would be good Administrator. There were 
several Democrats who thought he would not be good Administrator. So 
Harry Reid did what he is supposed to do, and he interceded on behalf 
of the Democrats who opposed him. As result, cloture was filed and, 
therefore, the nomination needed 60 votes to proceed. Well, the 
Administrator got 61 votes.
  Another example was Dirk Kempthorne. He was nominated to be Secretary 
of the Interior. My colleagues will remember he is a former Senator 
from Idaho. Some objected to his confirmation. Of course, this was 
during the Bush administration. Senator Kempthorne was nominated, and 
he went ahead and was confirmed. It was a 60-vote margin. There is 
nothing unusual about this.
  Getting back to Stephen Johnson, this is even more analogous to what 
we have right now because he was a Democrat who was nominated by a 
Republican President. Unfortunately, once again we were forced by the 
Democrats to have a cloture vote which requires 60 votes.
  Stephen Johnson was a Democrat. So here we had the Republicans 
wanting Stephen Johnson and the Democrats not wanting Stephen Johnson. 
It is very analogous to what we have today. Today, we have former 
Senator Chuck Hagel, who is a Republican.
  But in this case, we have a situation where cloture has been filed by 
the majority leader. I have no objection to voting. I do not want to 
wait. I do not want to string this out. I have other places to go other 
than hanging around here. I would vote tonight if we could just get the 
information that has been requested by the Republican members of the 
Senate Armed Services Committee.
  Keep in mind, the Hagel nomination was reported out of committee by a 
100-percent partisan vote. All Republicans voted against sending him 
out. Why did they do it? They did it because we have not gotten the 
information we want.
  I have a letter. This is a letter that is signed by 25 Republicans 
stating that we have not received the information necessary for a 
proper vetting of the Hagel nomination.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent it be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:


                                                  U.S. Senate,

                                 Washington, DC, February 6, 2013.
     The Hon. Chuck Hagel,
     Distinguished Professor in the Practice of National 
         Government, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, 
         Gerorgetown University, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Hagel, On January 29, two days before your 
     confirmation hearing, you received a request, via email, from 
     several Senators on the Senate Armed Services Committee for 
     additional information necessary to fairly assess your 
     nomination to be Secretary of Defense. The written copy of 
     the letter (delivered the next day) was signed by six 
     Senators, including the Ranking Member of the Committee. The 
     letter requested that you respond to the request before the 
     hearing, so that you could then answer questions concerning 
     your responses.
       You declined to respond to the request for additional 
     financial disclosure.
       At the hearing, you were told by Members of the Committee 
     that a response to our request for information would be 
     necessary before the Committee could vote on your nomination. 
     The Chairman of the Committee expressly asked you to submit 
     your response by Monday, February 4.
       Monday came and went, and you still did not respond.
       At the end of the day on Tuesday, February 5, you submitted 
     a short ``response'' to our request. In that response, you 
     explicitly declined to answer many of the questions asked of 
     you.
       You were asked to disclose all compensation over $5,000 
     that you have received over the past five years. You declined 
     to do so.
       You were asked to disclose if--and to what specific 
     extent--the Atlantic Council has received foreign funding in 
     the past five years. You declined to do so.
       You were asked to disclose if--and to what specific 
     extent--McCarthy Capital has received foreign funding in the 
     past ten years. You declined to do so.
       You were asked to disclose if--and to what specific 
     extent--Corsair Capital has received foreign funding in the 
     past ten years. You declined to do so.
       You were asked to disclose if--and to what specific 
     extent--Wolfensohn and Company has received foreign funding 
     in the past ten years. You declined to do so.
       You were asked to disclose if--and to what specific 
     extent--M.I.C. Industries has received foreign funding in the 
     past ten years. You declined to do so.
       You were asked to disclose if--and to what specific 
     extent--the National Interest Security Company has received 
     foreign funding in the ten years. You declined to do so.
       You were asked to disclose if--and to what specific 
     extent--Elite Training and Security, LLC has received foreign 
     funding in the past ten years. You declined to do so.
       You were asked to disclose if--and to what specific 
     extent--Kaseman, LLC has received foreign funding in the past 
     ten years. You declined to do so.
       Your own financial records are entirely within your own 
     control, and you have flatly refused to comply with the 
     Committee Members' request for supplemental information.
       The records from the other firms--more than one of which, 
     you have disclosed, paid you $100,000 or more--are highly 
     relevant to the proper consideration of your nomination. Your 
     letter discloses no affirmative efforts on your part to 
     obtain the needed disclosure, and your lack of effort to 
     provide a substantive response on this issue is deeply 
     troubling.
       If it is the case that you personally have received 
     substantial financial remuneration--either directly or 
     indirectly--from foreign governments, sovereign wealth funds,

[[Page S690]]

     lobbyists, corporations, or individuals, that information is 
     at the very minimum relevant to this Committee's assessment 
     of your nomination. Such remuneration may be entirely 
     appropriate, but that determination cannot be made without 
     disclosure.
       If you have not received remuneration--directly or 
     indirectly--from foreign sources, then proper disclosure will 
     easily demonstrate that fact.
       Your refusal to respond to this reasonable request suggests 
     either a lack of respect for the Senate's responsibility to 
     advise and consent or that you are for some reason unwilling 
     to allow this financial disclosure to come to light.
       This Committee, and the American people, have a right to 
     know if a nominee for Secretary of Defense has received 
     compensation, directly or indirectly, from foreign sources. 
     Until the Committee receives full and complete answers, it 
     cannot in good faith determine whether you should be 
     confirmed as Secretary of Defense.
       Therefore, in the judgment of the undersigned, a Committee 
     vote on your nomination should not occur unless and until you 
     provide the requested information.
           Sincerely,
       (Signed by 26 Senators).

  Mr. INHOFE. This letter is signed by several Senators, but it was 
promoted, more than by anyone else, by the Senator from Texas. The 
Senator has repeatedly requested this information. I have personally 
heard Senator Cruz request this information, just yesterday, and on 
several previous occasions.
  In a previous letter, he said: We express our concern--several 
Senators also signed this letter--on the unnecessary rush to force 
through a vote on Chuck Hagel's nomination before he has been able to 
respond adequately to multiple requests from members of the Armed 
Services Committee for additional information.
  I'm reading now from the letter: Those requests have included a 
request to Chuck Hagel for the disclosure of his personal compensation 
he has received over the past 5 years.
  We are talking about Chuck Hagel.
  This is information which he controls. He can provide this 
information. It is there.
  The letter also requests the disclosure of foreign funds he may have 
received indirectly. This is important because some have raised 
questions of a potential conflict of interest.
  Why does he not want to disclose this? Somehow he would like to be 
confirmed without disclosing this information.
  As Senators we have a responsibility here. I do not care if you are a 
Democrat or Republican. If a member of the Armed Services Committee 
requests this information and the information is available and he is 
able to obtain it and does not provide it, we have a process problem.
  Mr. President, my primary objection to Chuck Hagel's confirmation is 
for policy reasons. That is why I think he is not qualified for that 
job. Others do not agree with that. That is fine. But they have to 
agree on the process.
  In fact, I cannot remember--and I have been on the Armed Services 
Committee in both the House and Senate for 25 years. I do not remember 
one time when information that was requested, which was perfectly 
within the purview of the committee was not provided. This has not 
happened. This is unprecedented.
  I heard some people say: you are filibustering a Cabinet appointee. 
That is not what we are doing. What we are trying to prevent is an 
unprecedented event where committee members do not receive information 
which is important for Members to have in order to consider a 
nomination.
  So I will continue to read the letter.
  The letter includes a request for a complete list of his prior public 
speeches, notably, multiple additional speeches on controversial topics 
that have been made public by the press.
  For example, I understand FOX News is going to run a story tomorrow 
regarding some speeches made by former Senator Hagel. If so, these 
speeches would certainly give rise to a lot of interest because, I have 
been informed, we are talking about speeches which were made and paid 
for by foreign governments. I have also been told, some of these 
foreign governments may not be friendly to us.
  Therefore, I believe Senators are entitled to review this 
information. Are we entitled to that? Yes; we are entitled to that.
  So this letter includes a request for a complete list of his prior 
public speeches, notably, additional speeches on controversial topics 
that have been made public in the press, despite those speeches having 
been omitted from his own disclosure.
  I remember in the early stages of the confirmation process, requests 
were made of Senator Hagel about information we knew existed because 
the press had written about it in the past. Some may argue that 
Senators are not entitled to review these speeches. I disagree. A 
member of the Armed Services Committee has a responsibility to review 
that information.
  The letter also makes the critical request from the administration 
for additional information on their precise actions during and 
immediately following the tragic murder of four Americans in Benghazi, 
Libya on September 11, 2012.
  Regardless, if the administration has answered these questions, the 
Senate is entitled to review speeches that have been made by the person 
who is up for confirmation to be Secretary of Defense.
  I would say to the majority leader, the request for a 60 vote 
threshold is based on precedent. It is what the majority leader agreed 
to on the John Bryson and Kathleen Sebelius nominations. It is what he 
insisted upon when the Democrats forced cloture to be filed on the Dirk 
Kempthorne and Stephen Johnson nominations. There are several others. 
Michael Leavitt was one. John Bolton went through this twice. We all 
remember Miguel Estrada. We remember Robert Portman, now one of our 
fellow Senators.
  So there is nothing unusual about this. But there is a problem with 
the process we are entering now. That process is, we have made 
requests--I am talking about Members such as Senator Cruz from Texas 
and other members of the Senate Armed Services Committee who have made 
perfectly reasonable requests for information. In this case, it is on 
speeches reportedly made to foreign audiences. However, these concerns 
can be clarified in a matter of minutes.
  That is why we should not rush. If this information is provided we 
could resolve this matter tonight. The information is out there. I have 
personally talked to Senator Cruz. He said: Look, if they will just 
give us that information we have been requesting now for weeks, we can 
have the vote tonight.
  That is our reasonable request. We are not talking about merits. We 
are not talking about substance. We are talking about a process. Never 
before in my memory has a Senate Armed Services member's reasonable 
request been denied before someone has come up for a confirmation. It 
is a simple request. It has been done on a regular basis. A 60-vote 
margin is not a filibuster. We are merely saying the Senate is entitled 
to this information. Hopefully, this will jar some of the information 
loose. Maybe we can get it now. I hope we do.
  I want to move this on and move it as rapidly as possible.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. 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. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business for up to 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.