[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 5 (Thursday, January 9, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S210-S219]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




NOMINATION OF ROBERT LEON WILKINS TO BE UNITED STATES CIRCUIT JUDGE FOR 
                    THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the nomination.
  The assistant bill clerk read the nomination of Robert Leon Wilkins, 
of the District of Columbia, to be United States Circuit Judge for the 
District of Columbia Circuit.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, as we begin 2014, I hope we can set aside 
our differences and do what is best for this country by confirming 
qualified nominees to fill critical vacancies facing our Federal 
judiciary. We can do this today by voting to end the filibuster of 
Judge Robert Wilkins, who has been nominated to serve on the U.S. Court 
of Appeals for the DC Circuit. Judge Wilkins was nominated last June, 
and it is time that he received an up-or-down vote on his nomination. 
Last month, before we adjourned the Senate, we were able to confirm two 
other exceptional nominees to this court--Patricia Millett and Nina 
Pillard. Once Judge Wilkins is confirmed, the DC Circuit, which is 
often considered to be the second most important court in the Nation, 
will finally be operating at full strength. The American people deserve 
no less.
  Judge Wilkins is an outstanding nominee. He was unanimously confirmed 
to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia less than 3 
years ago. He has presided over hundreds of cases and issued 
significant decisions in various areas of the law, including in the 
fields of administrative and constitutional law. Prior to serving on 
the bench, he was a partner for nearly 10 years in private practice and 
served more than 10 years as a public defender in the District of 
Columbia.
  During his time at the Public Defender Service, Judge Wilkins served 
as the lead plaintiff in a racial profiling case, which arose out of an 
incident in which he and three family members were stopped and detained 
while returning from a funeral in Chicago. This lawsuit led to landmark 
settlements that required systematic statewide compilation and 
publication of highway traffic stop-and-search data by race. These 
settlements inspired an Executive order by President Clinton, 
legislation in the House and Senate, and legislation in at least 28 
States prohibiting racial profiling or requiring data collection.
  Despite the progress made in the past several decades, the struggle 
to diversify our Federal bench continues. If confirmed, Judge Wilkins 
would be only the sixth African American to have ever served on the DC 
Circuit.
  Judge Wilkins earned the ABA's highest possible rating of unanimously 
``well qualified.'' He also has the support of the National Bar 
Association, the Nation's largest professional association of African 
American lawyers and judges, as well as several other prominent legal 
organizations. I ask unanimous consent to include a list of support in 
the Record.
  I urge my fellow senators to end the filibuster on this outstanding 
nominee. This Nation will be better off with Judge Robert Wilkins 
serving on the DC Circuit.
  I would also note that on December 31, 2013, before the new year, 
Chief Justice Roberts once again issued his annual year-end report on 
the Federal judiciary. In this report, he focused on the significant 
financial strain on our Federal courts. The cuts from sequestration 
have had a real impact for Americans seeking justice and pose real 
threats to the dedicated public servants who work in our Nation's 
Federal courts as well as to members of the public. I hope that we can 
return to regular order in our appropriations process and ensure that 
our courts have the resources they require. As the Chief noted, the 
Federal Judiciary's entire budget ``consumes only the tiniest sliver of 
Federal revenues, just two-tenths of 1 percent of the Federal 
government's total outlays.'' We receive the benefit of the greatest 
judicial system in the world for less than 1 percent of our entire 
Federal budget. It makes no sense to indiscriminately cut services from 
our independent Federal judiciary. There are better and smarter ways to 
save taxpayer dollars.
  Another threat facing our courts which is unaddressed in the Chief's 
year-end report are the continuing vacancies experienced by the Federal 
courts. Over the last year, the number of vacancies has hovered around 
90 because obstruction in Congress has led to filibuster after 
filibuster of qualified nominees. And the unfortunate action taken by 
Republicans at the end of the first session of this Congress will only 
mean further delay in filling these vacancies--Republicans, for the 
first time ever, refused to allow any currently pending judicial 
nominees to be held over so that they could be ready for immediate 
action this year. For purely political reasons, Senate Republicans are 
forcing us to duplicate work this year that we already completed in 
2013. In the jurisdiction of the Senate Judiciary Committee alone, more 
than 65 judicial and executive nominees were returned to the President 
and had to be renominated this week. It is a waste of taxpayer dollars 
and valuable resources that could be spent addressing the difficult 
issues facing our Nation. We must not take for granted that we have the 
greatest justice system in the world, and ensuring this continues 
requires the Senate to fulfill its constitutional duty of advice and 
consent.
  Fortunately, due to the procedural posture of the nomination from 
last year, we did not have to send the nomination of Robert Wilkins to 
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit back to the President for 
renomination. I thank the majority leader for prioritizing this 
nomination in the first week of the second session of this Congress. I 
hope my fellow Senators

[[Page S211]]

will join me today to end the filibuster of the nomination of this good 
man to serve on this important court.


                            Vote Explanation

  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I was unable to attend the roll 
call vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of Robert 
Wilkins to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the D.C. Circuit. Had I been 
present for this vote and the two related procedural votes, I would 
have voted aye.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
recognized to proceed as though in morning business for 15 minutes, but 
prior to that I be able to yield to Senator Reed of Rhode Island for 5 
minutes and that not be counted against my time; and that I then be 
recognized after he is done.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, the Senator from Michigan is recognized and yields 
to the Senator from Rhode Island.


                         Unemployment Insurance

  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I wish to thank the Senator from Michigan, 
my chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and I simply wish to make 
a few comments about this afternoon's proceedings with respect to 
unemployment insurance. The reason we were here, and we can't lose 
sight of that, is that 1.3 million Americans, as of December 28, lost 
their extended unemployment benefits. They are without the modest 
support of roughly $300 to $350 a week. Every week, 73,000 more 
Americans lose this support. We are going to see this number grow and 
grow and grow and grow while we talk and talk and talk and talk.
  Along with Senator Heller, we proposed a very straightforward 
mechanism: a 90 day extension and picking up retroactively those who 
had lost it, unpaid for, so we could work on some of the difficult 
issues my colleagues have all explored this afternoon.
  In listening to my colleagues, we made the determination there was a 
sincere concern and desire on the part of my Republican colleagues 
particularly that any extension of benefits be paid for. Most 
frequently, we don't pay for these benefits. We have on occasion, but 
most times we consider it emergency spending. We go ahead and authorize 
the payments and we don't offset it. But the concern was raised 
repeatedly and very strenuously that these benefits should be paid for. 
Also, there were several proposals to do that.
  So working closely with my colleagues, we considered the best 
approach for it was not simply to bring up the Reed-Heller bill, the 90 
day extension, but to respond as best we could to these concerns. So 
the provision we brought up today is fully offset, but it goes beyond 
90 days because the simple logic was that going through the travail of 
finding pay-fors is not something we want to do every 90 days. It is 
something we should do seriously but for as long as possible. So our 
provision would be able to carry these benefits through to the middle 
of November, and it required finding offsets.
  The other thing we have heard from our Republican colleagues is that 
we shouldn't use any revenue--no tax provisions. In the Democratic 
caucus we have seen this extension of extended unemployment insurance 
benefits come up so many times under Republican Presidents and 
Democratic Presidents completely unpaid for. But also in terms of 
seriously and thoughtfully balancing the way we pay for provisions, we 
have many times suggested, which I think is common sense, let's have a 
mix of revenue and other provisions--spending provisions. Let's do 
that; 50-50 or some fair combination. In fact, I think the American 
people would see that as the most sensible approach to doing the work 
of government. But once again we yielded to the perceptions and the 
demands, in some respects, that there be no revenue provisions in this 
bill.
  As a result, we had to look for a series of pay-fors that didn't 
involve revenues. That was a deliberate attempt to reach across and to 
say: We hear you. You want it fully paid for, you want no spending, and 
you want provisions that will not involve revenue. So we proposed a 
major provision--an extension of the mandatory sequestration--that was 
included in the budget agreement and that had overwhelming support in 
the Senate--for a bit over an additional year, which gained us, 
roughly--and these are rough figures--about $17 billion.
  Then we took one of the provisions that was offered by my colleague 
Senator Portman, who has been working very assiduously and very 
thoughtfully on these issues, with respect to the double collection of 
both SSDI benefits and unemployment compensation benefits and we tried 
to focus it and make it narrower, and that resulted in $1 billion, 
giving us sufficient funds to carry this program through--if we voted 
today, starting as soon as the House passed it--all the way to the 
middle of November. That is where we are today.
  We still are open to alternatives to try to deal with this issue. I 
know many of my colleagues on the Democratic side have a long list of 
revenue provisions. In fact, Chairman Levin has, through his work, a 
list of what many would call--many Americans--egregious loopholes that 
corporations enjoy. But certainly there are other ways to pay for this. 
But we are still trying to work through this.
  We are still trying to find a bipartisan approach to deal with the 
issue of the moment, the crisis of the moment, and that is 1.4 million 
Americans today--and that number is growing--who worked hard and 
through no fault of their own lost their job and who are now struggling 
to get by with a modest $300 or $350 a week.
  One final point. This is a crisis of the moment. I know some of my 
colleagues are talking about an issue--the issue of military pensions--
that doesn't become effective, as I understand it, until 2015. There 
are other ways to deal with it. But that is a fair position to advance 
at any time, and I have great sympathy for that position.
  I would hate to see other issues, systematic reform of our training 
programs--which takes time, effort, and focused attention by committees 
typically--essentially prevent a response to the immediate crisis of 
people who are without jobs, who are desperately looking, and now don't 
have very modest support to pay for their rent, pay for their heat, and 
provide some support for their families.
  We are still engaged. We will have a vote Monday. I hope we can 
succeed on that procedural vote. Regardless, we are going to come back 
and back, because this number of Americans--growing each week by 
approximately 70,000--needs our response, not just our comments on the 
floor of the Senate.
  I yield back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.


                                  Iraq

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the current situation in Iraq is deeply 
disturbing. The violence there is a human tragedy, and the resurgence 
of Al Qaeda-affiliated forces in Fallujah and elsewhere represents a 
threat not just to the people of Iraq but to our own security and that 
of our friends and allies in the region. So I very much share in 
concerns many of us have expressed about recent developments in Iraq.
  The United States has announced it will expedite military assistance, 
including delivery of unmanned aerial vehicles and HELLFIRE missiles. 
That is appropriate. The administration has stepped up intelligence 
sharing to help Iraq security forces in their fight. That is 
appropriate. The administration is holding ongoing conversations with 
Iraq about other ways in which the United States might assist, and that 
is appropriate.
  One form that assistance might take is in the sale of weapons such as 
attack helicopters to Iraq. The issue is not whether such aircraft 
would help Iraq fight violent extremists; they would. The question is 
whether the Maliki government would use those aircraft, for instance, 
only against violent extremists, and whether we receive credible 
assurances that such weapons will be used to target Iraq's real enemies 
and not to further sectarian political objectives. With credible 
assurances, it would be appropriate to provide Iraq such assistance.
  What it is wrong to do is to blame the Obama administration for the 
political failures of Iraqi leaders. Blaming the administration for 
failures and decisions by the Iraqi Government ignores not only 
history, it also leads to policy approaches that would not be in our 
interest or in the interests of the Iraqi people.

[[Page S212]]

  For example, here is what Senator McCain and Senator Graham said 
recently:

       When President Obama withdrew all U.S. forces from Iraq in 
     2011, over the objections of our military leaders and 
     commanders on the ground, many of us predicted that the 
     vacuum would be filled by America's enemies and would emerge 
     as a threat to U.S. national security interests. Sadly, that 
     reality is now clearer than ever.

  That argument ignores some important history. First, it ignores the 
fact that the 2011 withdrawal date for U.S. forces in Iraq was not set 
by President Obama but by President Bush. In December of 2008, just 
before he left office, President Bush signed an agreement with the 
Iraqi Government that called for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraqi 
cities in 2009, and the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces by the end 
of 2011. President Bush himself, standing next to Prime Minister Maliki 
in Baghdad as they announced their agreement, said, ``The agreement 
lays out a framework for the withdrawal of American forces in Iraq.'' 
So the 2011 withdrawal date was set by President Bush, not by President 
Obama.
  As to whether our military commanders objected to our withdrawal from 
Iraq, here is what happened: While there was no mention from President 
Bush or Prime Minister Maliki when they announced their agreement of a 
U.S. troop presence after 2011, Secretary Gates and others discussed 
the possibility of some U.S. forces remaining in Iraq after 2011. Then, 
during 2011, the Obama administration entered into negotiations with 
the Iraqi Government with the goal of keeping some U.S. troops, in 
limited roles, in Iraq to assist Iraqi security forces after the 2011 
withdrawal date set by President Bush. I and many other Members of 
Congress supported the idea of continuing a smaller, specialized U.S. 
military assistance force. While there was disagreement in the 
administration over the size of a residual force, what decided the 
issue wasn't how many troops would remain; rather, it was the Iraqi 
Government's refusal to agree to legal protections for U.S. troops, 
whatever their number. In the absence of such protections, it was the 
opinion of the military leaders that no U.S. forces should remain in 
Iraq, regardless of whether the number was 3,500 or 20,000.
  At a November 2011 Armed Services Committee hearing, I asked General 
Dempsey, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about the 
importance of legal protections for our troops as part of any agreement 
to keep troops in Iraq after 2011. This is what the questions and 
answers were:

       Sen. Levin: Are you willing to have those forces remain 
     without an agreement relative to immunity for those troops?
       Gen. Dempsey: No, sir, I am not. . . . It was the 
     recommendation, advice and strong belief of the Joint Chiefs 
     that we should not leave service men and women there without 
     protections.
       Sen. Levin: And why is that?
       Gen. Dempsey: Because the--of the many institutions in Iraq 
     that are still evolving and immature. The Iraqi judicial 
     system is certainly among those. And we did not believe it 
     was--it was appropriate, prudent to leave service men and 
     women without judicial protections in a country that still 
     had the challenge, as we know it has, and a very immature 
     judicial system.

  Later in that same hearing, I asked General Dempsey if our commanders 
on the ground in Iraq shared that opinion. He responded:

       It was the topic of many secure video teleconferences and 
     engagements person to person. . . . I can state that they 
     also believed we needed the protections, both General Austin 
     and General Mattis, in order to leave our troops there.

  Before our committee in February of 2013, General Austin, our 
commander on the ground in Iraq during the 2011 negotiations, testified 
that there were extensive discussions with Iraq about a continuing U.S. 
troop presence. He testified:

       We worked with the Iraqi leadership all the way up until 
     the point in time when they decided they weren't going to be 
     able to give us the protections that we needed to keep our 
     troops there.

  As Secretary Panetta put it before our committee, the key moment in 
the negotiations was ``once [the Iraqis] made the decision that they 
were not going to provide any immunities for any level of force that we 
would have there.''
  So our military leaders were very much unwilling to leave any U.S. 
forces on the ground in Iraq if they could be subjected to the 
vicissitudes of the Iraqi judicial system. It is therefore wrong to say 
that the withdrawal took place ``over the objections of our military 
leaders.'' It was Iraq's refusal to grant important legal protections 
to our troops that decided the matter.
  This criticism of the administration's Iraq policy also understates 
the importance of factors that have come to the forefront since the 
2011 withdrawal. Foremost among these has been an Iraqi Government that 
has repeatedly pursued a sectarian agenda, disenfranchised Sunni 
Iraqis, failed to address Kurdish concerns over the status of Kirkuk 
and the hydrocarbons law, and alienated moderate Shia Iraqis who seek a 
more democratic and inclusive government. Prime Minister Maliki's 
governance shortfalls has stoked the sectarian tensions on which Al 
Qaeda and other extremist groups try to capitalize.
  Many Members of Congress have made clear that it is extremely 
difficult to support more robust assistance to the Iraqi Government 
unless the Iraqi leadership places the good of their country ahead of 
sectarian politics and unless it produces a practical strategy for 
governing Iraq on a more inclusive and less sectarian basis.
  For example, last October, I joined five colleagues--Senators McCain, 
Menendez, Corker, Inhofe, and Graham--in writing to President Obama, 
expressing our concern about deteriorating conditions in Iraq.
  I ask unanimous consent that our October 29, 2013, letter 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, October 29, 2013.
     Hon. Barack Obama,
     President of the United States,
     The White House, Washington, DC.
       Dear President Obama: We are deeply concerned about the 
     deteriorating situation in Iraq. As Iraqi Prime Minister 
     Nouri al-Maliki visits Washington this week, we urge you to 
     press him to formulate a comprehensive political and security 
     strategy that can stabilize the country, enable Iraq to 
     realize its vast potential, and help to safeguard our 
     nation's enduring national security interests in Iraq.
       By nearly every indicator, security conditions in Iraq have 
     dramatically worsened over the past two years. Al-Qaeda in 
     Iraq has returned with a vengeance: It has regenerated the 
     manpower, terrorist infrastructure, resources, and safe 
     havens to sustain and increase the tempo and intensity of 
     attacks and to penetrate deeper into all parts of Iraq than 
     at any time in recent years. Indeed, an analysis this month 
     by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy found, ``In 
     2010, the low point for the al-Qaeda effort in Iraq, car 
     bombings declined to an average of 10 a month and multiple 
     location attacks occurred only two or three times a year. In 
     2013, so far there has been an average of 68 car bombings a 
     month and a multiple-location strike every 10 days.'' The 
     United Nations estimates that more than 7,000 civilians have 
     been killed in Iraq thus far this year--a level of violence 
     not seen since the worst days of 2008.
       What's worse, the deteriorating conflict in Syria has 
     enabled al-Qaeda in Iraq to transform into the larger and 
     more lethal Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), which 
     now has a major base for operations spanning both Iraq and 
     Syria. As the situation in both countries grows worse, and as 
     ISIS gathers strength, we are deeply concerned that Al-Qaeda 
     could use its new safe haven in Iraq and Syria to launch 
     attacks against U.S. interests and those of our friends and 
     allies.
       Unfortunately, Prime Minister Maliki's mismanagement of 
     Iraqi politics is contributing to the recent surge of 
     violence. By too often pursuing a sectarian and authoritarian 
     agenda, Prime Minister Maliki and his allies are 
     disenfranchising Sunni Iraqis, marginalizing Kurdish Iraqis, 
     and alienating the many Shia Iraqis who have a democratic, 
     inclusive, and pluralistic vision for their country. This 
     failure of governance is driving many Sunni Iraqis into the 
     arms of Al-Qaeda in Iraq and fueling the rise of violence, 
     which in turn is radicalizing Shia Iraqi communities and 
     leading many Shia militant groups to remobilize. These were 
     the same conditions that drove Iraq toward civil war during 
     the last decade, and we fear that fate could befall Iraq once 
     again.
       We therefore urge you to take the following steps as Prime 
     Minister Maliki visits Washington:
       First, we believe the Prime Minister's visit is an 
     important opportunity to reengage with the American people 
     about the continuing strategic importance of Iraq. Though the 
     war in Iraq is over, Americans need to understand that the 
     United States has an enduring national security interest in 
     the development of a sovereign, stable, and democratic Iraq 
     that can secure its own citizens

[[Page S213]]

     and territory, sustain its own economic growth, resolve its 
     own internal disputes through inclusive and pluralistic 
     politics, and cooperate as a strategic partner of the United 
     States--a vision of our relationship that was best expressed 
     in the 2008 Strategic Framework Agreement.
       Second, we urge you to make clear to Prime Minister Maliki 
     that the extent of Iran's malign influence in the Iraqi 
     government is a serious problem in our bilateral 
     relationship, especially for the Congress. Published reports 
     demonstrate that the Iranian regime uses Iraqi airspace to 
     transit military assistance into Syria to support Assad and 
     his forces. Furthermore, attacks against the residents of 
     Camp Ashraf in Iraq are reprehensible, especially because the 
     Iraqi government pledged to protect these people. Prime 
     Minister Maliki must understand that actions such as these 
     need to stop. Not only do they make it difficult for Iraq's 
     friends in the United States to build public support, 
     especially in the Congress, to enhance our strategic 
     partnership, but they also undermine Iraq's standing as a 
     responsible member of the international community.
       Third, we encourage you to step up our counterterrorism 
     support for Iraq. It is in our national security interest to 
     enhance the effectiveness of Iraq's security forces, 
     especially through greater intelligence sharing. However, in 
     addition to our aforementioned concerns, we must see more 
     evidence from Prime Minister Maliki that U.S. security 
     assistance and arms sales are part of a comprehensive Iraqi 
     strategy that addresses the political sources of the current 
     violence and seeks to bring lasting peace to the country.
       This leads us to the final and most important point that we 
     urge you to stress with Prime Minister Maliki: If he devises 
     and implements a real governance strategy for Iraq, the 
     United States is ready to provide the appropriate support to 
     help that strategy succeed. Iraq's challenges will never be 
     solved through security operations alone. Indeed, as the 
     United States learned through its own hard experience in 
     Iraq, applying security solutions to political problems will 
     only make those problems worse.
       It is essential that you urge Prime Minister Maliki to 
     adopt a strategy to address Iraq's serious problems of 
     governance. Such a strategy should unite Iraqis of every sect 
     and ethnicity in a reformed constitutional order, based on 
     the rule of law, which can give Iraqis a real stake in their 
     nation's progress, marginalize Al-Qaeda in Iraq and other 
     violent extremists, and bring lasting peace to the country. 
     To be effective, an Iraqi political strategy should involve 
     sharing greater national power and revenue with Sunni Iraqis, 
     reconciling with Sunni leaders, and ending de-Baathification 
     and other policies of blanket retribution. It should include 
     agreements with the Kurdistan Regional Government to share 
     hydrocarbon revenues and resolve territorial disputes. And it 
     requires a clear commitment that the elections scheduled for 
     next year will happen freely, fairly, and inclusively in all 
     parts of Iraq, and that the necessary preparations will be 
     taken.
       If Prime Minister Maliki were to take actions such as 
     these, he could cement his legacy as the leader who 
     safeguarded his country's sovereignty and laid the foundation 
     for the new Iraq. In this endeavor, Prime Minister Maliki and 
     our other Iraqi partners would have our support, including 
     appropriate security assistance, and we would encourage you 
     to provide U.S. diplomatic support at the highest levels to 
     help Iraqis reach the necessary political agreements before 
     the 2014 elections. However, if Prime Minister Maliki 
     continues to marginalize the Kurds, alienate many Shia, and 
     treat large numbers of Sunnis as terrorists, no amount of 
     security assistance will be able to bring stability and 
     security to Iraq. That is not a legacy we want for Prime 
     Minister Maliki, and that is not an outcome that would serve 
     America's national interests.
           Sincerely,
     Carl Levin.
     John McCain.
     Robert Menendez.
     Bob Corker.
     James M. Inhofe.
     Lindsey Graham.

  Mr. LEVIN. In our letter, written as Prime Minister Malaki was 
visiting Washington, we supported an increase in support for Iraq's 
counterterrorism efforts. But we made clear that the Iraqi Government 
must provide a practical plan for using such aid and provide assurances 
relative to whom advanced weapons would be used against. We wrote 
President Obama as follows:

       It is in our national security interest to enhance the 
     effectiveness of Iraq's security forces, especially through 
     greater intelligence sharing. However . . . we must see more 
     evidence from Prime Minister Maliki that U.S. security 
     assistance and arms sales are part of a comprehensive Iraqi 
     strategy that addresses the political sources of the current 
     violence and seeks to bring lasting peace to the country.

  We further wrote:

       This leads us to the final and most important point that we 
     urge you to stress with Prime Minister Maliki: If he devises 
     and implements a real governance strategy for Iraq, the 
     United States is ready to provide the appropriate support to 
     help that strategy succeed.

  And:

       If Prime Minister Maliki continues to marginalize the 
     Kurds, alienate many Shia, and treat large numbers of Sunnis 
     as terrorists, no amount of security assistance will be able 
     to bring stability and security to Iraq.

  It is a tragedy for the Iraqi people and a real security concern for 
the United States that Prime Minister Maliki has yet to produce a 
strategy for broadly based governance in Iraq. We should not forget the 
2011 withdrawal date for American troops from Iraq was negotiated by 
President Bush. We should not forget the decision to reject an ongoing 
U.S. troop presence after 2011 was Iraq's, because of Iraq's refusal to 
assure us that our troops would have protections from Iraqi courts and 
prosecution. We should not forget that our military leaders supported 
the decision not to leave our troops in Iraq without legal protections 
from Iraqi prosecution. We should not forget that while an ongoing 
relationship is in our interests, no amount of military equipment from 
us will protect the Iraqi people if their government continues to place 
sectarian goals ahead of sound governance.
  So we should use opportunities to assist Iraq in its struggle against 
violent extremism and for stability and security, but Iraq's fate 
ultimately rests with its people and their leaders.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Udall of Colorado). The Senator from 
Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when I 
conclude my remarks, Senator Murkowski of Alaska be recognized.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I have been honored to serve with 
Senator Levin on the Armed Services Committee. He does an excellent 
job. He has spent a lot of time and many hours working to try to help 
us be successful in Iraq and other areas of national defense.
  I think Generals Dempsey and Austin were right to say we could not 
keep our troops there unless they had immunity from local prosecutions. 
But as I recall the net feeling about the President's decision to 
withdraw from continued negotiations on this contentious issue, the 
military felt this was not wise--at least many of them did--and they 
believed that had we continued to pursue negotiations, we may have been 
able to reach the kind of agreement which would allow us to help the 
Iraqi Government be stable and successful. Pulling out as we did always 
seemed to me to be too rapid, too precipitous, and created dangers 
which could place at risk that which our soldiers fought and died 
for. I do believe that is what happened. It is a tragic thing.

  I was in Falluja, not long after that bitter battle. We had hundreds 
wounded and almost 100 killed. The Marines performed with such valor 
and courage. It was one of the great, courageous performances of the 
U.S. Marine Corps. It is sad, sad to me to see that today Al Qaeda is 
flying its flag in parts of that city. It is a tragedy. It did not 
maintain the faith that we ought to have maintained with those that we 
in Congress directed to go out and fight this war and to be successful. 
Maybe yet something can be done successfully to deal with this 
situation, which I feel deeply about.


                         unemployment insurance

  Mr. SESSIONS. I am here to share some thoughts about the remarks 
delivered today by President Obama on the growing problem of poverty 
and our chronic unemployment that has occurred during the 6 years of 
his Presidency, after he has declared that the recession is over and 
was over. Just this week the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, said 
that ``the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer 
and the middle class is under siege.''
  Wages are not doing well. Americans in large numbers are not doing 
well, and they are hurting. Washington Democrats, led by the President, 
are now proposing increased unemployment insurance and new wage-price 
controls, wage controls to mandate wages that have to be paid, to treat 
the consequences of a failed economy--a stagnant, slow-growth economy 
that is not creating jobs. These words and actions represent an 
admission that the

[[Page S214]]

White House economic agenda has been a disaster for poor and middle 
class people. It has not worked.
  I know he believed it would work. I know he has advocated these 
policies. I know he promised that they would work. But they are not 
working. Worst still, the President remains fully committed to the 
policy regime that he has been advocating, and that is not working. 
These policies have failed, not just for the last 5 years; they have 
failed for the last 50 years. They will never work. The President and 
Majority Leader Reid are correct, a nervous American business community 
is hoarding profits because they don't know what the future is going to 
be like. Those struggling to get by are feeling the results of 
corporate cost cutting and the policies that we are seeing executed by 
the government are impacting this situation negatively. They just are.
  I know the people proposing these solutions think they are caring 
about people who are hurting today. But if we care about them, we will 
use our heads as well as our hearts, and we will think through as to 
how to make growth occur in our economy, how to help jobs be created, 
how to have wages rise instead of stagnating or declining.
  Mr. President, $16 trillion has been spent fighting poverty since the 
war on poverty began 50 years ago, yet where do we stand today? Mr. 
President, 47 million Americans are on food stamps, 91.5 million are 
outside the labor force not working, and 46 million are living in 
poverty. In low-income communities the pain is especially severe. For 
example, in the city of Baltimore, 1 in 3 residents receives food 
stamps. In Chicago, 51 percent of the city's children live in a single-
parent family. In Detroit, almost 1 in 3 households had not had a 
single person working at any time throughout the year--almost 1 in 3 
households. The city's violent crime rate is among the worst in the 
country. More than half of all Detroit children live in poverty.
  The welfare bureaucracy that the left is determined to defend and 
expand is failing our fellow Americans. It is just not working. We can 
do better. We have to do better. No longer can we define compassion by 
how much money we spend on poverty but by how many people we lift out 
of poverty.
  The amount of money State and Federal governments spend on the 
welfare bureaucracy each year amounts to more than $1 trillion. That is 
a huge sum. It is twice the Defense Department budget. If all these 
funds were converted to cash and mailed to every household in poverty, 
it would equate to $60,000 per household. Yet as the President now 
admits, chronic poverty and a widening income gap is the new normal.
  We have huge bureaucracies, huge multiple conflicting programs, and 
programs that are not working and are not helping the people we are 
supposed to help. They just are not.
  Isn't it time that we broke from decades of policies that are proven 
not to work? Imagine how much better it would be if we combined dozens 
of overlapping welfare programs into a single credit with better 
oversight standards focused on the goal of helping people become 
financially self-sufficient. We need fresh approaches. We have to have 
fresh approaches. I believe it will happen. The sooner it happens the 
better off this country will be and the better off poor people will be.
  But all we get from the White House are the stale policies of 
yesterday. What is the agenda the President persists in pushing? 
Consider the cornerstones of the President's economic agenda, the 
things he has been pushing in the Senate and the Congress and 
advocating unilaterally through the powers of the executive President--
some beyond all law, it seems to me. These are the things he has 
consistently advocated for. He wants a government health care takeover, 
and that is proven to be a job killer. It is killing jobs and two-
thirds of the jobs this year that have been created were part-time and 
in large part that has been a reaction to the Affordable Care Act.
  What else? He has a hostility, a consistent hostility to the 
production of American energy, which makes the country more wealthy, to 
produce our own energy rather than transferring our wealth abroad, to 
buy energy from abroad. It creates jobs in America, high-paying jobs.
  We have proposals for more and more taxes and more and more 
regulations that make it more difficult for U.S. workers to compete in 
the global marketplace. It makes it harder for their companies to be 
able to export and therefore create more American jobs.
  We have a lawless immigration policy that undermines American workers 
and their wages. It just does. They can say whatever they want to say, 
but the bill that passed the Senate, the comprehensive immigration 
bill, would have doubled the number of guest workers. Some say: Well, 
Jeff, they are just going to be agricultural workers. That is not so. 
Only a small number are going to be agricultural workers. They are 
going to be a million-plus workers traveling around the country taking 
jobs all over America--twice as many lawfully as would be the case 
under current law. This is supposed to be immigration reform? This is 
supposed to help American workers find a job or have a pay raise?
  We have a weak trade policy. We have to stand up for the American 
workers on the world stage and make sure that our trading partners are 
accepting our products like we accept their products, and if they do 
not, we have to defend the interests of the American worker. That is 
the way to help them have more jobs and better pay.
  We have a welfare bureaucracy that penalizes work. The President is 
proposing more massive spending, creating more debt. He has had the 
greatest debt increases in the history in our country. That is 
destroying and weakening growth in America. It places a cloud over the 
American economy, as experts have told us.
  These policies have been the order of the day for 5 years. That is 
what we heard. We need to spend more, we need to invest more, and we 
need to tax more. We have had more regulations than we have ever had in 
American history. We have had trillion dollar deficits the likes of 
which we have never seen before, and people wonder why the economy is 
not doing well.
  We blocked oil production in the gulf for an inordinate period of 
time and are only slowly allowing that to occur. We blocked a Canadian 
pipeline that would create thousands of American jobs. We blocked 
energy production on Federal lands. We make it harder for energy 
production on private lands to occur, and we wonder why we cannot 
create sufficient jobs and growth. We need lower-cost energy, cheaper 
energy. That is good for the economy. Falling natural gas prices have 
been a help because of new techniques in the production of natural gas.
  These statist, leftist policies have been tried in America before, 
and they have been tried throughout the world for decades, and they 
will never work. Taxes, regulating, more government, and taking over 
the health care industry will not create prosperity and jobs in 
America. It just won't. If it would, we would be doing so much better.
  Since the President has entered office we have added an incredible $7 
trillion to the debt of the United States, and what do we have to show 
for that? Real wages are lower today than they were in 1999. Take-home 
pay has fallen for 5 consecutive years. Average household wealth is 60 
percent lower today than it was in 2007; 1.3 million fewer people are 
working today than in 2007. Have we had a recovery? We have fewer 
people working today than we had 6 years ago, and every month we add 
150,000 or more people, basically, to the age cohort of Americans that 
could be working, because the population is increasing that much. So 
you have to create real jobs to stay ahead of just normal population 
growth. There is 1.3 million fewer people working today, even though 
the population has grown by 14.5 million. There are 1.3 million fewer 
people who are working today than in 2007, even though the population 
has grown 14.5 million. That is not good.
  So the President is right to be worried about the health of the 
American middle class and lower-income workers in America. It sure has 
not been going well. I know he thought his statist ideas would work, 
and he pushed them steadfastly. He had a Senate that rubber stamped for 
2 years what he wanted, including a $800 billion stimulus bill that was 
supposed to create jobs and prosperity in America, every penny of that 
borrowed.
  If we continue down this road, I fear we are going to sentence an 
entire generation of young Americans to poverty,

[[Page S215]]

joblessness, and stagnant economic growth in our economy. Majority 
Leader Reid said this week that, ``We should realize that today there 
is only one job available for three people seeking a job. Think about 
it.''
  I agree that we absolutely must think about that. We should think 
seriously about it. My first thought is this. Since three people are 
looking for every one job that is open, then why has the President 
embraced an immigration bill that would double the flow of guest 
workers into America? They will take jobs that would be available for 
American workers. Why? That is what I think about.
  As David Cameron, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, said 
recently: Immigration cannot be a substitute for training our own 
workforce. Is there something wrong with him saying that? Isn't that an 
honest, correct statement, speaking for the interest of the average 
Briton?
  We need to help struggling Americans get off welfare, off 
unemployment, and into good-paying jobs.
  We have a loose labor market. We don't have a tight labor market. 
Byron York recently wrote an excellent column. He showed that the very 
same companies that signed letters to the President and the Congress 
demanding more guest workers are laying off American workers by the 
thousands. Big companies are signing letters that demand more workers, 
and they are laying off thousands of workers. It is a fact. He listed 
them. There were 10 or 15 companies. Some of them laid off thousands of 
people the very year they wrote to this Congress demanding more foreign 
workers. So now we have to extend unemployment benefits because people 
can't find jobs. We have to pass a law to set the wage so the wage can 
be higher because it is not going up through the natural free market as 
it should if we had a normal market for labor.
  Whom do we work for? I know who I work for, and that is the hard-
working people of Alabama and the United States. I don't work for the 
masters of the universe. They are demanding more workers from Congress 
when millions of Americans are unemployed.
  America is not an oligarchy. House Republicans need to firmly tell 
this President that we work for the American people. We reject any 
immigration plan that puts special interests or corporate interests 
before working Americans. They need to say: We are going to defend the 
working people of this country. They are not being defended in the 
Senate by the Democratic majority, that is for sure, with regard to the 
immigration policy.
  A small group of CEOs don't get to set immigration policy for the 
country, no matter how much money they have. How many ads do they buy? 
We are not going to enrich the political class at the expense of the 
middle class, and we will reject the immigration bill that passed the 
Senate.
  That is one of the things we could do to help improve job prospects 
for Americans. It wouldn't cost us a dime. We wouldn't have to borrow 
money. It would actually get people off welfare and food stamps. It 
would put them back into the workforce, and put us on a better path.
  If we want to reverse the middle-class decline, we need a new 
economic vision. We need concrete steps to restore opportunity to the 
American people without adding a penny to the national debt. We need 
policies that work to create prosperity without borrowing and creating 
more debt. We just have to do that.
  What are some of the things that we can do? Produce more American 
energy. We can turn the welfare office into a job-training center. We 
can do this. We are going to have to do this. We are going to have to 
move people from dependence to independence. We need to streamline the 
Tax Code and make it more growth oriented, which will help us to be 
more competitive worldwide. We need to eliminate every Washington 
regulation that is not needed. These are regulations that kill jobs and 
kill competitiveness.
  We need to enforce trade rules with our partners that defend the 
legitimate interest of U.S. workers. We need to enforce an immigration 
policy that serves the national interest--the people's interest--and 
protects jobs for Americans. We need to make our government leaner and 
more accountable. Our government needs to do more for less just like 
good businesses and good corporations and good companies are doing all 
over America. We need to do that with our government. That will help 
the economy.
  We need to balance the Federal budget, restore the confidence of the 
American people, the world financial community, the vitality and the 
future of America, and spare our children from a lifetime of debt.
  These are all positive steps that are true to our constitutional 
heritage and our legacy of freedom and opportunity. Those are the 
things we should be doing and we can do. They are all steps that will 
create more jobs and more growth without borrowing money, and these are 
all steps that will lift millions out of poverty, and help struggling 
Americans realize the dream of financial independence.
  I don't know what the President was thinking when he talked about a 
few little promise zones--is that what he called them--around the 
country. This is somehow going to deal with the unemployment problem in 
America?
  He announced this today. I haven't had a chance to study it yet, but 
these are just a few spots on the map of the country. This is not going 
to have any kind of systemic impact on our declining growth and the 
weak recovery we are seeing today. If the recovery doesn't exceed 2 
percent GDP growth per year, it will not create jobs faster than the 
population grows.
  I am afraid we are not in a good position there. We are not seeing 
the growth that we had, and experts are predicting slow growth in the 
years to come. We have to get off the path we are on and get on the 
path to growth, job creation, and prosperity. We have to make sure our 
American citizens are trained, skilled, and moved into good jobs so 
they can be independent and take care of their families without being 
dependent on the government of the United States.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.


                       unemployment compensation

  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, it has been a disappointing week here 
in the Senate. I started out the week feeling pretty good and 
optimistic. I had a major presentation before the Brookings 
Institution. I talked about the enormous potential in this country for 
energy production and the fact that we are at the highest level of 
energy production domestically than we have been in 20 years and what 
great prospects we have for that. When we talk about jobs and economic 
opportunity, it is really one of the bright spots out there.
  Of course, the debate this week has been over unemployment 
compensation and the extension, initially proposed by the President to 
be a 3-month extension--an emergency, temporary extension. I was one of 
six Republicans who came together and said: This is an important 
conversation for us to be having at this particular point in time.
  As we know, the long-term employment benefits expired on December 28, 
2013. It impacted over 1 million Americans around the country. In my 
home State of Alaska about 6,500 people lost long-term benefits at the 
end of the year, and it was one of these cold turkey things. Those who 
still had eligibility for certain benefits were cut off hard. There was 
no tapering down. This is hard.
  Back here in Washington, DC, we have been living with some pretty 
cold weather. It is cold weather all the time in Alaska at this time of 
the year. It is hard to be out of work. It is expensive to keep your 
homes heated. It is expensive to live there, and so I recognize that 
the safety nets we put in place are important. It is important for us 
to have discussions and debates so we can argue and compromise on the 
issue of long-term employment benefits. That is a conversation we 
should have. I wanted to have that debate.
  I wanted the opportunity for full-on amendments so we could bring up 
good ideas, such as, good ideas about reform and perhaps tying benefits 
to job training, retooling, giving people that opportunity to move 
forward, and debate about how we pay for it. There have been times when 
we extended long-term unemployment benefits with an offset, and then 
there have been times

[[Page S216]]

when we extended it on an emergency basis with no offset. But let's 
talk about it, let's debate it, and let's put up some amendments.
  I was part of that group that really thought we would not only be 
able to talk, but that we would actually be able to weigh in as Members 
representing our States, presenting our ideas, and speaking for our 
constituents on issues that are very important around the country. 
Usually in a body such as the Senate, actions don't happen unless there 
is an opportunity to vote on issues.
  So this afternoon when I listened to the majority leader's statement, 
he said very clearly that we weren't going to have any amendments on 
the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension Act. In fact, his 
words were: We get nowhere with doing amendments. I find that so 
disturbing.
  I have only been in the Senate for 10 years, but what I have seen in 
my 10 years is a change in the process--a change in an institution 
where we are no longer taking the good ideas from this side and the 
good ideas from the other side through an amendment process--or even 
from a committee process for that matter--and building better policy 
based on the good ideas that we all have.
  Why would we be afraid to vote on amendments? They may take us a 
little bit longer throughout the day to go through. It disrupts our 
schedules. My schedule is to work for the people of Alaska, and if that 
business isn't conducted here through debate and voting, then what is 
it? What is it?
  I was really quite discouraged after the exchange on the floor 
earlier. Colleagues have worked hard to come up with some good 
proposals. These are not ``gotcha'' amendments as was suggested by the 
majority leader.
  I think the proposal of the Senator from Ohio--a proposal that is 
actually contained in the President's budget proposal--was absolutely 
legitimate. So to suggest that it is an amendment without merit is not 
fair.
  At the end of the day, don't we judge the merit of an amendment, of 
an idea or of a proposal by presenting it to the body for a vote?
  If we truly are at that point where we are simply not going to amend 
bills, that we are simply going to vote straight up or down on a bill 
that has been presented to us--probably not even out of the committee 
process but more likely from the majority leader's chambers--that is a 
tough place for us to be as a body. That is not what this process is 
all about.
  The minority leader reminded us yesterday that we can do better. We 
can do better as an institution, but we sure didn't demonstrate that 
today.
  I want to work with my colleagues on the issue of unemployment 
compensation. I want to be able to recognize that compassion that we 
show for other Americans who are dealing with great difficulty right 
now. I want to try to move this country forward with policies that are 
good and strong and create those jobs.


                                 Energy

  When I started my comments, I talked about energy production being 
that bright light. Look at what is happening in the State of North 
Dakota where, boy, anybody who wants a job can get one. In fact, they 
can get two or three jobs.
  They are ground zero in this type of oil revolution. Their 
unemployment rate was 2.7 percent last October. There has been a lot of 
back-and-forth going on about Keystone and its potential for providing 
direct jobs, direct and indirect end use jobs around the country--
42,000 jobs around the country. Wouldn't that be helpful?
  When we talk about our opportunities in this country, we need to be 
putting in place policies that help advance jobs and job creation and 
the wealth then that comes with it. We can and must be doing more.
  One of the areas we need to address is where this administration, in 
my view, has seen some real policy failures; that is, in restricting 
access to Federal lands for resource development, blocking and slowing 
the permitting process. We need to be doing more. The President has 
touted the gains made in energy production. But I think it is important 
to recognize that most of those gains have been on private and State 
lands. The Presiding Officer and I know there are enormous resources on 
our Federal lands. Let's access them. Let's access them safely and in 
an environmentally responsible way but in a way that is going to help 
our economy, help the job situation in this country. I feel we can do 
so much more. I am hopeful again that we will, in this body, in this 
institution, be able to work together to solve some of the issues that 
confront us. But, again, I am disappointed.
  I did not come to the floor this evening to talk about the comments 
made earlier on where we are in the amendment process and not being 
able to advance an amendment process. But my colleagues can tell I care 
deeply about this institution. I care deeply about our responsibility 
to govern around here. I am not convinced we are governing to our 
ability. We need to make some changes, and it only comes when we 
acknowledge that those changes have to come and that cooperation has to 
come from both sides.


                        Emergency Connector Road

  Tonight I come to the floor to talk about a decision that came out of 
the Department of Interior the day before Christmas Eve. This is a 
decision that in my view is absolutely unconscionable, and it is a 
decision that was made by the Secretary of the Interior the afternoon 
of December 23, in which she rejected a medical emergency connector 
road between two very remote Alaskan communities, the community of King 
Cove and Cold Bay.
  I have thought long and hard about my public comments to my 
colleagues in the Senate because I have spoken out about this at home 
and I was very direct. I was very direct about my anger, my 
disappointment, and my frustration. I recognize I have to work with 
folks in this administration, and when we are talking about the 
Secretary of the Interior, I recognize she is effectively Alaska's 
landlord. I need to be able to figure out a way to get along with her. 
But I have to tell my colleagues that this was absolutely a heartless 
decision by Secretary Jewell. It was a decision that she alone made, 
and it will only serve to endanger the Alaskan Native village residents 
of King Cove.
  With the decision the Secretary made, she has put the interests of 
certain environmental groups and the alleged peace and comfort of the 
birds, the waterfowl in the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge above the 
lives of hundreds of Alaskans, because 950 Alaskans live in King Cove. 
By the Secretary's act of denying this short road needed to ensure the 
people of King Cove reliable and safe access to an all-weather airport 
in nearby Cold Bay, Secretary Jewell has effectively turned her back on 
the Aleut people of western Alaska. She has discarded her duty to 
uphold the trust responsibility the Federal Government owes to its 
Native peoples.
  The uncle of the Presiding Officer served as Secretary of the 
Interior. He knew full well that trust responsibility. It is a high 
trust and the Secretary has turned her back on the Native people out in 
King Cove.
  To add insult to what could very well be real injury or even death, 
Secretary Jewell did this on the day before Christmas Eve. On the day 
before Christmas Eve, I received a voice mail message from the 
Secretary telling me that she later in that afternoon was going to deny 
the road to King Cove. What was I doing? I was doing the exact same 
thing most of the people around me were doing--we were at the last 
minute getting ready for Christmas. I was in the parking lot of a Fred 
Meyer store going inside to get Scotch tape and wrapping paper.

  The decision made by the Secretary is one that goes beyond building a 
10-mile, one-lane, gravel, noncommercial-use road between King Cove and 
Cold Bay. This decision makes clear to us in Alaska that our lives--the 
lives of the people, the human beings who are there--just don't seem to 
matter to the Secretary. It is clear to me that either she does not 
understand or she does not care about the most basic needs of our 
remote residents, and it is quite clear that we have, once again, 
received unfair treatment at the hands of our Federal Government.
  Sometimes it just feels as though those on the outside, whether it is 
the Federal Government, back here, 4,000 miles away from home, that 
there is this sense that Alaskans need to be protected from themselves. 
Quite honestly, that is offensive. Quite frankly, I

[[Page S217]]

have a very hard time believing that if this same situation occurred 
somewhere in the lower 48, the decision would be the same. The fact is 
we are out of sight, we are out of mind. There are only 720,000 people 
in Alaska. There are only 950 people, or thereabouts, in King Cove. Who 
is going to be upset? Well, I am upset. I am upset. Not only have the 
people of King Cove been wronged, but the people of Alaska have been 
wronged. This is not a decision that is going to just go away because 
we all got caught up in the Christmas holidays. This is not going to be 
something the people of Alaska or this Senator will forget, because we 
are not done.
  I have been to this floor many times--many times--in fact, I think 
the Presiding Officer has been in the chair on previous occasions--when 
I have come to call attention to this lifesaving road and the land 
exchange that was approved by Congress, signed into law by the 
President. I feel as though I have told this story so many times I 
don't need to remind folks, but I am going to provide a brief 
refresher.
  The recent story of King Cove actually started pretty well. Congress 
came together almost 5 years ago to give the Interior Secretary reason 
and authority to act in the public interest when it comes to providing 
access. But as is so often the case, this has become yet another 
terrible example of the interests of our people put at risk by their 
own Federal Government. So back in 2009 we passed--I introduced 
legislation--we passed legislation that proposed to add more than 
56,000 acres of State and tribal land to the Izembek Refuge in exchange 
for a 206-acre road corridor through a corner of the refuge. Again, I 
wish to repeat the numbers because some people say I must have 
forgotten a zero: In exchange for 56,000 acres of State and tribal 
land, a 206-acre road corridor. In addition to the fact that this is 
basically a 300-to-1 exchange that was offered, there was agreement 
that this road would be so limited--so limited as to have an 
infinitesimally small impact on the refuge. The people of King Cove are 
not insensitive to the fact that this is a very rich ecosystem out 
there. This is a very rich area. This is where the birds come through. 
They have no interest in harming or damaging the refuge.
  So the agreement was for a one-lane, between 10 and 11 miles long, 
gravel road, severely restricted by law--restricted by law; not just an 
agreement where the mayor says, oh, during my tenure, we are not going 
to use it for commercial purposes. This is in law: noncommercial 
purposes, one-lane, 11-mile-long gravel road. In addition, there were 
going to be roping corridors so that if a vehicle is on the road, it 
wouldn't be able to go off the road and onto the refuge and lay tire 
marks or impact the refuge at all.
  The Department of Interior EIS clearly showed that the actual acreage 
inside the refuge to be impacted by fill material was just around 2.7 
acres. Again, think about the exchange. They are giving up 56,000 acres 
in exchange for a 206-acre road corridor and, of that, the impact by 
fill material is just about 2.7 acres. So consider also that the 
exchange would have added 2,300 acres of eelgrass beds to the refuge.
  This is prime habitat and feed for the black brant, and this was 
something that clearly Secretary Jewell felt was very valuable because 
she chose to place higher value on those black brants than she did on 
human and wildlife values. That 2,300 acres, then, is about 20 times 
more than the eelgrass that the EIS said might have been impacted by 
erosion as a result of the road. So the rejection of this exchange just 
dumbfounds me. I don't understand it.
  The State of Alaska and the local tribal groups were willing to give 
up 56,000 acres of land. Keep in mind, these are lands that were given 
to them under the Native Land Claims Settlement Act. These lands 
represent who they are, and they are willing to give up 56,000 acres of 
it for a lousy one-lane, 11-mile gravel, noncommercial-use road. That 
is how much this road meant to them, because it was more than a road. 
It was a lifesaving connector. It was a way for them to get to an all-
weather airport, the second longest runway in the State of Alaska that 
was built during World War II; an amazing runway, actually, that isn't 
encumbered by the topography and the weather as the King Cove Airport 
is.
  So you have a people who are desperate for a solution, so desperate 
for their solution that they are willing to give up their lands. The 
most prized thing the Native people have in our State are the lands 
around them, and they are willing to exchange them for a small road 
corridor--a 300 to 1 exchange--and the proposed land that would have 
been provided to the Federal Government is pristine land that is 
valuable for the waterfowl, for the wildlife, certainly would enhance 
and benefit the refuge.
  But Secretary Jewell said no to this. She said no to this 300 to 1 
exchange--an exchange that would enhance the habitat for the birds she 
wants to protect. It really makes you wonder: Has there ever been such 
a lopsided land exchange that has been rejected by the Federal 
Government?
  The former head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Dale Hall, was 
the one who largely picked the lands and had approved of this exchange 
back in 2006--long before this legislation was ever introduced. So the 
Federal agencies, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the head of the 
Fish and Wildlife Service had looked at all this and said: OK, in order 
to get this corridor, there is going to have to be some exchange, so 
let's figure out what it is going to be. He gave his blessing to that 
back in 2006.
  But what this does speak to is how strongly Alaskans feel about 
protecting the health and safety of our residents, and rightly so. I 
would submit to you, Mr. President, if Secretary Jewell and the U.S. 
Fish and Wildlife Service truly had--truly had--the best interests of 
both the human residents and the birds of the Izembek Refuge in mind, 
they would have recognized that adding 56,000 acres, while taking out 
just 206 acres--and, then again, of that, the amount that would have 
actually been impacted by fill is 2.7 acres--I think they would provide 
far greater benefit to the refuge than any small, single-lane, gravel, 
noncommercial road ever possibly could subtract.
  The legislation directed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to 
conduct an EIS for the road. So the 2009 legislation that passed the 
House, that passed the Senate, that was signed into law by the 
President, directed Fish and Wildlife to conduct an EIS. That agency 
prepared a faulty EIS. They failed to adhere to the underlying law, 
choosing a ``no action'' alternative and failing to adequately account 
for health and human safety when selecting the preferred alternative. 
This is more evidence of systematic disregard for the well-being of the 
Aleut who have lived in this region for thousands of years.
  I also want to touch very briefly upon Interior's trust 
responsibility to Alaska Native peoples. The Assistant Secretary for 
Indian Affairs, Kevin Washburn, went to King Cove. He visited. He 
actually spent 2 days there. In fact, they actually had some pretty 
stinky weather when he was there, and I think he saw firsthand what the 
residents of King Cove deal with in getting in and out. The Assistant 
Secretary wrote a report for Secretary Jewell. It was not made public 
until after the Secretary announced her decision, which I think was 
unfortunate. But again, back to the trust responsibility--the 
responsibility that the Federal Government has to protect the health 
and safety of Native Americans.
  But here you have the Fish and Wildlife Service, you have Assistant 
Secretary Washburn, and now, finally, Secretary Jewell, who had the 
opportunity to encourage or actually make a decision that would improve 
the lives of the residents of King Cove. They turned their backs on 
these people, and they diminished the hopes of these first peoples.
  The EIS, which recommended no action--no action--to help the people 
of King Cove has a clear negative impact on the health and safety of 
Alaska Natives who live in that village. The official report that was 
prepared by Mr. Washburn regarding his visit to King Cove, I believe, 
was inadequate--wholly inadequate--and, quite frankly, very weak.
  He, the Assistant Secretary, is viewed as a leading legal scholar on 
Native trust responsibility. I truly have high hopes for him because I 
believe that his heart clearly is in that right place. But his report 
falls woefully short of his duty to the Aleut people, and I expected 
more of him--truly

[[Page S218]]

I did--and I know the people of King Cove deserve better.
  The health and safety of the people of King Cove is not some 
speculative issue. We are not just talking about, oh, the weather is 
bad there or somebody might get hurt. The fact of the matter is that 
since 1980, 18 people have died, and they have died because of medevac 
delays or because of the dangers connected with the medevac flights out 
of the fishing village.
  It is not easy to get in and out of King Cove. They have an airstrip, 
yes, they do, but they are surrounded on three sides by mountains, and 
a valley on one and the ocean on another. The Coast Guard describes 
medevacs into King Cove as one of the more frightening, more 
challenging operations that the Coast Guard is tasked to do. You might 
say, why is the Coast Guard doing medevacs? Well, because medevac 
flights from Anchorage--some 600 miles away--cannot get in. They say: 
The risk to us to fly in for somebody who is in the midst of a 
difficult labor and needs to get out to the nearest hospital--which is 
Anchorage, 600 miles away--is too great or we are not willing to risk 
our lives. So whom do you call? You call the Coast Guard.
  In 2012, the Coast Guard was called in, I believe, five times, at a 
cost of up to $210,000 to the taxpayers per trip, to bring in a crew to 
medevac that individual out. So if you can fly in--if the Coast Guard 
is able to do it, they will be there. But, in the meantime, you have 
had people die, and you have had planes crash.
  If you cannot get out, the alternative is--because there is no road; 
there is no 10-mile, one-lane, gravel, noncommercial-use connector 
road--you can go across the water. Think about it. If the weather is 
bad enough up in the air, think about what it is doing down in that 
ocean. It is pretty tough.
  So you can come across the water for hours in 15-, 20-foot seas, but 
then, once you get over to Cold Bay, it is not like they can just load 
you into a nice airplane on the runway there. You have to get docked, 
and up off the dock to get to the airport.
  The fact of the matter is King Cove and Cold Bay--it is a little bit 
rustic out there. What is in this picture I have in the Chamber is 
probably a little difficult to see. This is the top of the dock at 
night. This is about a 20-foot drop to the ocean here. You have metal 
ladders that you climb up, if you are able. But if you are able, you 
probably do not need to be medevaced out. A person with a heart 
condition, how is he climbing up this metal ladder--as the waves are 
crashing against him in the dark and in the wind? What you are seeing 
here is basically a sled that has been hoisted up on a crane, swinging 
around in the wind in the dark.

  I do not have the picture here of the elder who had suffered a heart 
condition and could not make it up the steps. They could not hoist him 
up. They put him in a crab pot and hauled him up by crane on to the top 
of the dock so that they could then take him to the airport, where he 
was safely evacuated out and made it to Anchorage.
  As I say, when we are talking about the health and safety of the 
people of King Cove, it is not speculative. People are dying. People 
have died. People are afraid to fly. The testimony that the Secretary 
heard, that my colleagues have heard--as the people of King Cove have 
come back, they have said: Enough.
  The Secretary, in her visit to King Cove in August, stood before the 
schoolchildren there at an assembly--and she is very good with 
children, and it was good to watch the exchange--but those children 
spoke up to her and told her why they needed a road out of King Cove. 
To hear a child say: We need a road so that I am not afraid to fly and 
because I don't want anyone to die. This is an issue, again, where the 
stories we have heard, the Secretary has heard--because I was there 
with her; we heard the stories together--they are heartwrenching. They 
bring tears to your eyes. The people, the families who have lived with 
this have been devastated. The Secretary heard all this, and yet it 
seems that she has just chosen to ignore the voices of those children, 
the stories of those elders, the pictures of an elder being hauled up 
in a crab pot so he can make a medevac to Anchorage.
  I want my colleagues to know here in the Senate, as well as the 
administration, that I am not going to let this issue die. There is a 
simple reason why. Because I am not willing to let anyone in King Cove 
suffer or die because they do not have emergency access out of their 
village.
  This decision rested squarely on the shoulders of Secretary Jewell, 
who then announced this devastating news only hours before Christmas 
Eve--a heartless decision delivered at a heartless time. The Secretary 
said to me that there is no good time to deliver bad news, and I would 
agree. But the timing of this decision was solely hers. There was no 
deadline within which she had to act. She chose to announce it on 
Monday afternoon, at 3 p.m., Washington, DC time, knowing that everyone 
was going to be skating out of here for the holidays, hoping that 
everyone was going to be distracted with their family events, hoping 
that no one was going to be watching. She knew that the people of King 
Cove would be upset. She knew that I would be upset--but less than a 
thousand people, she thinks. That is not how you do things. It is not 
how you do things.
  The people of King Cove are without hope right now for one reason; 
and that is because of this decision from the Secretary. I have come 
here to tell the Senate what happened to them in what was supposed to 
be--what was supposed to be--a season of joy and celebration. I 
truthfully cannot use strong enough words to show the depth of my anger 
for this decision.
  I cannot fathom why she came to it, why she was willing to sign her 
name to it. But I, for one, never thought that we would see a day 
where, under the guise of making a public interest determination, a 
Cabinet Secretary would so blatantly disregard the public's health and 
safety. But we have.
  So the question now is, does it stand? Are we going to do what we 
know is right and make sure that those who live in King Cove are 
protected? I have my answer. I am going to stand in solidarity with the 
people of King Cove and others in Alaska and across the country whose 
well-being is put at risk by misguided government decisions, devoid of 
proper balance between human and wildlife considerations.
  I have not yet identified every opportunity I may have to draw 
attention to, resist, and seek redress from Secretary Jewell's bad 
decision.
  An obvious and perhaps an easy step would be to introduce yet another 
bill. But I am not willing to concede that the last word has been 
spoken on the law, the law we enacted in 2009. That law passed after a 
great deal of effort. There was debate. There was significant 
compromise as I have outlined. But that was a law we had all 
negotiated. I do not believe that law has been properly implemented. 
Who knows how and whether the courts may address that injustice.
  A messaging bill might get some attention. But I am concerned that 
its immediate consequence may be to legitimize in the eyes of many a 
bad decision we should be fighting rather than accepting. I think the 
people of King Cove deserve better.
  The Department of Interior needs more balance. The U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service needs better direction. I am not ruling out any 
possible remedy. In this case, Alaskans have been made the victim. But 
I think that all Americans are at risk from this kind of unbalanced 
decisionmaking. I pledge to my colleagues and my constituents that I am 
going to keep fighting for what is right, both morally and legally.
  This fight is not over. Again, the attention is drawn to the 
residents of King Cove and a small connector road in a very remote part 
of our country. But I do think it is emblematic of the bigger struggle, 
the bigger fight we are seeing as a State with our own agencies, with 
our own Federal Government.
  I have taken a great deal of time this evening. I appreciate the 
Presiding Officer's attention as I have made my case. I am certain the 
administration is listening to my words as well. As I indicated at the 
outset, in Alaska we have no choice but to figure out how we deal with 
our agencies because they consume, they occupy so much of how we are 
even able to move forward as a State. I will continue to do what I can 
to work with this administration in a manner that is going to benefit 
the people whom I work for. But I will always put the health and safety 
and best interests of Alaskans first.

[[Page S219]]

  I yield the floor and 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. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                         unemployment insurance

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, today has been an eventful day on the 
unemployment compensation front. We began the day working with 
Republican colleagues to put together what we thought was an amendment 
they would join us in pushing forward. But surprisingly and 
disappointingly to me, those whom we worked with were unable to join on 
the amendment.
  I am disappointed for a number of reasons, not the least of which is 
we gave the Republicans what they wanted. It is entirely paid for. The 
amendment made structural reforms in the unemployment compensation 
bill, which is something they said they wanted. The amendment includes 
a proposal, much like that advocated by Senator Portman, that would 
prevent people from collecting both unemployment insurance and 
disability insurance at the same time.
  Our amendment includes an offset that is Paul Ryan's offset. It was 
the same thing we used in the Murray-Ryan budget agreement this body 
supported a few weeks ago.
  So it is totally paid for with something Paul Ryan suggested and we 
adopted a short period of time ago. It makes structural reforms they 
said they wanted--maybe not all of them, but it made structural 
reforms. It is hard to understand why they cannot take yes for an 
answer. Maybe it is because they do not want the legislation passed. It 
is possible.
  But I have not given up. I have discussions with a number of 
Republican colleagues this evening. They said they are going to try to 
come up with something else. I certainly hope that is the case. We need 
to understand that there are 1.4 million Americans hurting. It is hard 
for me to comprehend why something that meets the outlines of what we 
understood they wanted is not good enough.
  Maybe they do not like it because it does not give them an 
opportunity to--I withdraw that. I think we have had enough talk here 
today. I am not going to add to that. All I wish to close the Senate 
with tonight is it is very unfortunate for a lot of people who are 
truly hurting.
  It is paid for with something that is certainly standard around here. 
We won't be able to use that anymore. States won't be able to use the 
same money anymore, but it doesn't affect the budget in any way. It 
doesn't raise the deficit one penny. It sounds as if it is a very good 
deal to help 1.4 million people.
  Explain to somebody who is on long-term unemployment in the State of 
Colorado, State of Illinois, State of anyplace, and they will say they 
didn't vote for this because they didn't get to offer unlimited 
amendments, even though there was a proposal that wouldn't run up the 
deficit one penny. It was all paid for. It is hard for me to comprehend 
that. We could explain it to someone, but it is their job to explain 
it, not mine. My explanation is that it is something the American 
people want, need, and should have.

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