[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 72 (Tuesday, May 13, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2935-S2947]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       HIRE MORE HEROES ACT OF 2014--MOTION TO PROCEED--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.


             Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1670 and S. 1696

  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I have a unanimous consent request that I 
will make in a moment to kind of set the stage for what I am asking the 
Senate to consider. We will be asking that we schedule a vote on two 
pieces of legislation: the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, S. 
1670, which is my legislation; and S. 1696, the Women's Health 
Protection Act, by Senator Blumenthal.
  Very briefly, what I am trying to do is to have an opportunity for 
the body to talk about two pieces of legislation that relate to the 
abortion issue, the role of the Federal Government. Very quickly, my 
legislation would ban abortion at the 20-week period--the fifth month 
of pregnancy--based on the theory that the child can feel pain at that 
point in the pregnancy and that the standard of care for the medical 
community is that you cannot operate on an unborn fetus at the 20-week 
period without administering anesthesia, and the reason for that is 
because the child can feel pain.
  There have been individuals born at the 20-week period who have 
survived. But the theory of the case is not based on the medical 
viability under Roe vs. Wade; it is a new theory that the State has a 
compelling interest in protecting an unborn child at this stage of 
pregnancy. The partial-birth abortion ban, which applies at 24 weeks, 
is backed up to 20 weeks.
  Here is what medical journals tell parents to do at 20 weeks: An 
unborn child can hear and respond to sounds. Talk or sing. The unborn 
child enjoys hearing your voice.
  It is a whole list of things about the unborn child in the 20-week 
period.
  We are one of seven countries that allow abortions at this stage in 
the pregnancy, along with China, North Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, 
Canada, and the Netherlands.
  So I would ask the body to consider having a debate on my legislation 
about whether we should limit elective abortions at the 20-week period 
and also a debate on Senator Blumenthal's legislation that basically 
would allow the courts to set aside several State restrictions on 
abortion. We are going to present a series of actions at the State 
level. I think his legislation would allow the courts to have a literal 
construction in terms of being able to strike down these provisions. I 
disagree with my good friend. We are good friends, although we have a 
different view. The Senator from Connecticut made a statement when he 
introduced the bill that every Senator should be on the record when it 
comes to this legislation. I agree. I hope every Senator would be on 
the record when it comes to my legislation.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at a time to be 
determined by the majority leader, in consultation with the Republican 
leader, the Senate proceed to consideration of S. 1670, the Pain-
Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, and S. 1696, the Women's Health 
Protection Act; that there be up to 8 hours of debate equally divided 
in the usual form, to run concurrently; that there be no amendments, 
points of order, or motions in order; that upon the use or yielding 
back of the time, the Senate proceed to vote on S. 1670; that following 
the disposition of S. 1670, the Senate proceed to vote on S. 1696; and 
that both bills be subject to a 60-vote affirmative threshold for 
passage.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Thank you, Mr. President.
  Reserving my right to object, and I will object, I respect my friend 
and colleague from South Carolina. We are friends, and we agree on a 
lot of issues.

[[Page S2936]]

On this issue we fundamentally disagree.
  I am here to remind the American people and my colleagues that this 
proposal to ban abortion after 20 weeks, in my view, is irresponsible 
and should not be before the Senate. But I am more than happy to cast a 
vote on it, along with the Women's Health Protection Act, and I hope 
they will be considered. This issue deserves to be before this body.
  Neither of these proposals has yet been considered in committee. The 
minority leader of this body has recently spoken about the need for ``a 
vigorous committee process'' in handling bills. This bill should not be 
considered in this way.
  This bill would prohibit the medical profession from performing an 
abortion when a fetus is older than 20 weeks and would do nothing, 
frankly, to help women protect their health and the health of their 
families as well as their right to have control over their health care 
needs. This bill leaves the vast majority of women who may need an 
abortion for health reasons after 20 weeks of pregnancy with no 
options, and it punishes doctors with up to 5 years in prison for 
providing a service that the doctor believes in his or her professional 
medical opinion is best for the woman and her family. Our 
constitutional right to privacy tells us unequivocally and emphatically 
that these choices should be between the doctor and her family or her 
advisers, including her clergy.
  The proponents of this bill would have us believe the bill would 
reduce the number of abortions in this country. In fact, the statistic 
that matters in this debate shows there are a mere 1.5 percent of 
abortions that occur 20 weeks after conception, and the majority of 
these medical procedures occur due to a health issue that would put the 
fetus or mother or both at risk.
  Take for example a young woman I am going to call Laura. She is a 
young mother from Connecticut. She became ill at 22 weeks into her 
first pregnancy with early onset of severe preeclampsia. Laura's blood 
pressure rose dangerously, her kidneys stopped, and she was at risk. 
Her pregnancy was wanted. She wanted a baby and she planned for it, but 
she needed to end it to protect her health. Her physician was able to 
provide her with a timely and safe abortion. Although Laura felt a 
future pregnancy would be too risky, she went on to adopt three 
children.
  Facing such severe medical risk, women such as Laura need the safest 
care modern medicine can offer. With all due respect, Senator Graham's 
bill ignores the health realities of women, the realities they face 
every day in Connecticut and around the country. Had this bill been 
law, a doctor would have had to wait for Laura to be facing death 
before protecting her with the abortion she needed.
  The Women's Health Protection Act would put women's rights first. The 
Women's Health Protection Act seeks full and thorough consideration of 
these issues, and I seek it through the regular order. Let's have 
hearings, let's consider these measures in committee, and let's bring 
them to the floor in a way that they can be debated insightfully and 
thoughtfully, not this way. The Women's Health Protection Act protects 
a woman's health and her ability to make her own decisions and her 
constitutional rights.
  I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. GRAHAM. We already have laws in this country banning elective 
abortions at the 24-week period. It is called the partial-birth 
abortion ban. It has been through the Supreme Court, it went through 
this body, it went through the House, and it got overwhelming support. 
That bill has exceptions for rape and incest and cases that involve the 
life of the mother; so would this. We are just backing it up 4 weeks, 
and the reason we are backing it up 4 weeks is because at 20 weeks 
people have been born and survived. I know twins who were born at 20 
weeks.
  But the theory of the case is that the government should have the 
right to protect an unborn child, and most of the abortions are so far 
along that the medical science requires anesthesia before you operate. 
The question is, If we are going to require a doctor to provide 
anesthesia to the baby before they operate to save its life, should we 
authorize abortions at that point?
  The Washington Post poll showed just a few months ago that by 56 to 
27 percent, people supported the 20-week pain-capable bill--60 percent 
women.
  At the end of the day I hope we can have a debate on this issue. The 
reason I brought it up today is because this is the anniversary of the 
Dr. Gosnell case, which was one of the most horrendous cases in 
American jurisprudence, where a doctor received life sentences for 
three counts of murder. He was an abortion doctor aborting babies at 
the latest stage of pregnancy. If the babies survived the abortion, he 
would cut the spinal cord. Three women died as a result of the care 
given by him. It was a chamber of horrors. It was a year ago today.
  I hope people will not forget what Dr. Gosnell did, and if we can 
prevent occurrences such as that, we should, and that is what this bill 
is designed to do--to make sure the unborn child at this stage of the 
pregnancy has a chance to continue on. There are only seven countries 
in the world that allow abortions at this stage, and I hope that when 
this debate is over, the United States will not be in the seven.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I respect the sincerity of my 
colleague from South Carolina. The fact of one instance of possible 
medical malpractice does not justify this kind of sweeping abrogation 
of women's reproductive rights or women's health care. The principle is 
the same whether it is 4 weeks back or 4 weeks forward. The principle 
is that a woman has constitutional rights to choose health care and has 
a constitutional right to privacy that would be negated by this 
measure. And we are siding with improving women's health care, 
enhancing and upgrading it, and giving women choices and protecting 
those choices, not cutting back by 4 weeks or in any way infringing on 
that fundamental right.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following my 
remarks, Senator Boxer be permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection.
  Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, today the senior Senator from South 
Carolina and his Republican colleagues have proposed a measure which 
amounts, in my opinion, to an attack on the freedom of American women 
to make their own personal health care decisions. Instead of focusing 
on improving access to health care for women, these Senators are 
pursuing divisive policies that jeopardize women's health and put 
politicians and government between a woman and her doctor.
  I object to this dangerous political game. Women's access to quality 
health care is not a political game for me and some of my colleagues 
who join me here today, nor is it a game for women and families across 
the country and in my home State of Wisconsin. Too many States have 
enacted record numbers of laws that restrict women's access to 
reproductive health services and the freedom to make their own health 
care decisions. These restrictions, such as the one we heard proposed 
earlier this afternoon, have real and serious consequences for American 
families.
  I recently heard from a mother in Middleton, WI, who at 20 weeks of 
pregnancy was devastated to find out that her baby would not survive 
delivery. She had to undergo an emergency termination. A clinic in 
Milwaukee, WI, was the only place that would do the procedure, but 
because our Republican Governor was preparing to sign a law imposing 
some incredible requirements and burdens on providers, this particular 
clinic was preparing to close its doors and they wouldn't schedule her 
for an appointment. She and her husband were forced to find childcare 
for their two sons and travel to another State in order to get the 
medical care she needed.
  The threat in Wisconsin and in States across the country is clear: 
When politicians play doctor, American families suffer. This is why my 
good friend from Connecticut Senator Blumenthal and I have introduced a 
serious proposal--the Women's Health

[[Page S2937]]

Protection Act. It would put a stop to these attacks on women's 
freedom. Our bill creates Federal protections against restrictions such 
as the Republican proposal we were hearing about today, proposals that 
unduly limit access to reproductive health care, that do nothing to 
further women's health or safety, and that intrude upon personal 
decisionmaking. I look forward to working with my colleagues to advance 
this important legislation through the committee process and through 
regular order.
  We know today's spectacle is not meant to produce a serious debate 
about protecting women's reproductive health; it is about the narrow 
Republican agenda to take our country backward and to roll back 
important health benefits for American families.
  We have seen this with the numerous failed attempts by Republicans to 
repeal the Affordable Care Act that have empowered millions of women 
with more choices and stronger health care coverage. Today, women can 
finally rest assured that they will not be charged more for their 
coverage just because they are women, and someone's mother can get a 
lifesaving mammogram without the fear of high medical bills.
  Over 50 times congressional Republicans have tried to roll back this 
economic security for millions of American families. Republicans, it 
seems, would gladly go back to the days where being a woman was 
considered a preexisting condition and insurance companies could drop 
your coverage because you get sick, get older or have a baby. But we 
are not going to go back to those days just as we are not going to 
create a future where politicians in Washington take away the freedom 
of women to make their own personal health care decisions.
  I am committed to putting a stop to the relentless and ideological 
attacks on American families and will continue to fight to ensure that 
both men and women have the freedom to access the health care services 
they need. In the United States of America, health care should be a 
right guaranteed to all. That is why I and so many of us have fought 
and we will continue to fight as we move our country forward.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask to add 10 minutes to the 10 minutes 
I have already requested.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I listened carefully to Senator Lindsey 
Graham, who put forward a very dangerous bill for women and their 
families in this country. I will explain in a moment why I think it is 
dangerous, but what was interesting is that I believe he said he 
brought it forward today because it is the anniversary that Dr. Gosnell 
was convicted and sent to prison. This is a rogue doctor who committed 
despicable and illegal acts and is now serving life in prison without 
the possibility of parole for what he did--abusing the trust of being a 
reproductive health care doctor. Dr. Gosnell is away, as he should be.
  How does my friend from North Carolina commemorate this? By putting 
forward a bill that will drive more women to rogue doctors. If we make 
it illegal for a woman, regardless of her circumstance, she is going to 
find a way to save her health, her life, and her family.
  Women deserve to have protections. The bill that my friend proposed 
simply says that after a certain number of weeks, an abortion will not 
be allowed no matter what a woman's health situation is, and that is 
very dangerous.
  I ask--just rhetorically--how can a Senator say he is doing something 
right for women and their families when there is not a health 
exception? If a woman goes to the doctor and finds out she is facing 
cancer, kidney failure, blood clots or some other tragic complication, 
why should the government step into the middle of her family? Why 
should the government and U.S. Senators be allowed to step between the 
woman, her doctor, her God, and her family? It is a disgrace, 
especially from a party that is known for saying: Get Government off 
our backs.
  This is horrible. There is no exception for rape or incest victims 
who are unable to report those heinous crimes. Let's say initially they 
were too frightened and then suddenly they get their courage. Well, too 
bad. Have your rapist's child. This is not a government that cares 
about families. This is a government that steps into our business at 
the most tragic moments of our lives.
  The bill is so extreme that the American Congress of Obstetricians 
and Gynecologists, which represents thousands of OB/GYNs, said these 
restrictions are ``dangerous to patients' safety and health.'' Who do 
you think stands up for the health of the women in this country? U.S. 
Senators or doctors who know the women, the family, and the 
circumstances of her health?
  I have a letter from Christie, who lives in Central Virginia, and she 
said:

       My husband and I were confronted with two equally horrible 
     options--carry the pregnancy to term and watch our baby girl 
     suffocate to death upon birth, or terminate the pregnancy 
     early and say good-bye to our much-wanted and much-loved baby 
     girl.

  Why should a Senator tell her what to do? It is a war on women. When 
you tell a woman in that type of circumstance what to do and take away 
her right to use her mind, her brain, and the love she has for her 
family, her husband, and her children to make that decision, it is a 
war on women.
  Christie was pregnant with her second child when that happened. She 
wanted this baby, but it was not until a 20-week ultrasound that she 
found out her daughter would suffocate to death at birth. What U.S. 
Senator has a right to make her watch that baby child suffocate to 
death? I am sorry, but that is not life-affirming.
  Then there is Judy from Wisconsin. She says:

       I know what it is like to live without a mother. My mother 
     died when I was only 4 years old, and it changed my life 
     forever.

  Four months into her pregnancy, Judy developed a pregnancy-induced 
blood clot in her arm. The only guarantee she would not die and leave 
behind her 5-year-old son was for Judy to terminate the pregnancy. She 
and her husband made the very difficult decision to terminate that 
pregnancy.
  What right does a U.S. Senator--who doesn't know her, doesn't know 
her husband, doesn't know her family history and how she lost her 
mother when she was young--have to step into that world at that moment 
and tell her what she has to do. Do we think so little of the women of 
this Nation?
  We just had Mother's Day. We lauded our mothers. We are crying out 
for the girls who were taken by terrorists. If we all care, then why 
would we support legislation such as this?
  Then there is Bridget's story. At the time, she was a 25-year-old mom 
looking forward to the birth of her third child. She initially had a 
normal ultrasound at 13 weeks. Her second ultrasound showed a major, 
complex fetal cardiac malformation, a fatal problem. Because tests 
could only confirm this fatal defect later in the pregnancy, she could 
not make a decision until after the 20 weeks.
  What right does a U.S. Senator have to get in the middle of her most 
personal, most private, most difficult decisions? There is a place for 
government. It is to make life better for people. It is to say: We are 
with you. We have your back. We understand what you are going through. 
It is not to make life so difficult for people.
  In Missouri, Julie and her husband were told relatively early in her 
pregnancy that the baby they were expecting had multiple abnormalities 
and would not survive outside the womb, but it took her 3 weeks to 
locate an abortion provider because they had shut down so many 
providers. They found out, under Missouri's restrictive laws, she would 
have to travel 2 hours to a facility on two separate occasions to 
comply with the State's 24-hour waiting period. When they were finally 
able to get the care they needed, her pregnancy was just over 20 weeks.

  What right does any U.S. Senator have to step out there and tell the 
American people that we know better than their families know, that we 
know better than their doctors know, and that we know better than their 
clergy knows?
  This bill targets doctors who risk their lives to help women who are 
at risk for paralysis, infertility, have cancer, and whose lives would 
be in danger if they continued the pregnancy. This bill would throw 
those doctors in prison for 5 years just for providing needed health 
care to their patients.

[[Page S2938]]

  I don't know what kind of country people envision when we have the 
government policing the private health care decisions of women and 
their families. Why would we want to go back to the last century and 
open battles that have long been fought? Those battles were fought in 
1973 when Roe v. Wade was the decision of the Supreme Court, and do you 
know what that court said? They balanced all the rights--the rights of 
the fetus with the rights of the mother--and they said early in the 
pregnancy, a woman has the right to choose. It is her decision, but as 
she goes along with the pregnancy, then later, yes, there will be 
restrictions, and that is fine as long as the health and the life of 
the mother are in the forefront.
  This legislation that Senator Graham wants to vote on--before it goes 
to any committee as Senator Blumenthal was saying--it is not what is 
best for women and their families or our communities, it is about an 
extreme rightwing agenda that needs to stop. This is a moderate 
country. We work together. I don't get everything I want, you don't get 
everything you want, but we work it out.
  To come and offer legislation that is extremely dangerous to women 
is, in my opinion--I don't know what to call it. It is out of sync with 
what we ought to be doing. As Senator Baldwin said, we ought to be 
fighting, and she used that word ``fighting.'' We should be fighting 
for health care for women, fighting for the rights of our families, so 
they can have decent health care, and not putting rules in the books 
that are so onerous that a woman is desperate. I don't understand it.
  I believe the Republican Party has moved so far to the right, it is 
unrecognizable to me. When I started out in politics--which was a long 
time ago--Republicans and Democrats worked together on the environment. 
Now we can't get a vote from them so we can ensure that the Clean Air 
Act is protecting our people. We can't get them to address climate 
change. We cannot get a vote from them. Maybe once in a blue moon we 
get a vote from one or two. George Herbert Walker Bush was the 
President who worked hard at Planned Parenthood, and that is where 
Republicans used to be. We would come together on protecting a woman's 
right to choose. There were more Republicans in Planned Parenthood than 
Republicans when I got started in politics. Now the Republicans want to 
run Planned Parenthood out. They want to shut down their clinics and 
stop all the good they are doing to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
  I call it a war on women. We heard people say: Well, maybe there is 
such a thing as legitimate rape. Have you ever heard of anything so 
outrageous? We can't even get anyone to move forward on equal pay for 
equal work around here.
  I am sad to say that I think this bill is part of the war on women. 
Clearly, they are the ones who will suffer, along with their 
doctors. We don't put women in grave danger. We don't put up 
legislation without a health exception. We don't step in the middle of 
our families' most difficult decisions.

  Americans want us to focus on making life better for our families. 
They don't want us to create new health risks. God knows we have enough 
health stressors just breathing the air out there, getting the flu and 
everything else. We don't need legislation that restricts a woman's 
rights when she needs to have us at her back, helping her, making her 
safe. Let's not go back to the last century.
  If somebody has a bill such as this, I hope they will let it go 
through the whole committee process. We need these women who I quoted 
today to look Senators in the eye and say: Senator, please stay out of 
my life. These decisions are difficult enough, but I know I can handle 
them with my family, with my God, with my support system.
  Roe v. Wade is the law of the land. In the early stages, a woman has 
a pretty much unfettered right. As we go along, there are more 
restrictions. But we never, ever turn our back on a woman's health or 
her life. That is what Roe says.
  Frankly, I hope this bill and others like it will not see the light 
of day because it could only make life very difficult for many of our 
families.
  I thank the Chair. It is an honor to work with the Presiding Officer 
on this issue.
  I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from New Hampshire.


                   Remembering Officer Stephen Arkell

  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, it is with great sadness that I rise 
today to honor the memory of Brentwood Police Officer Stephen Arkell.
  Officer Arkell's life was tragically cut short yesterday while 
responding to the call of duty--the same call of duty he courageously 
answered countless times over the course of his career. A 15-year 
veteran of the Brentwood Police Department, Arkell served as a part-
time officer as well as an animal control officer for the town of 
Brentwood where he was born and raised. As is the case with all of our 
first responders, his commitment to protecting our communities was 
unparalleled. That commitment was integral to keeping our families, our 
children, and our community safe every day. That same commitment, and 
Officer Arkell's sacrifice, is something New Hampshire will never 
forget.
  Stephen Arkell's life and career epitomized the heroism of our first 
responders, and all of us, every day, will be forever grateful for 
that. Today my thoughts and prayers are with his family--his wife and 
his two teenage daughters, his loved ones, the Brentwood Police 
Department, and the entire Brentwood community, as well as New 
Hampshire's entire law enforcement community. I hope they can all take 
some solace in knowing that New Hampshire joins them in both mourning 
Officer Arkell's loss as well as celebrating his selfless sacrifice and 
his service on behalf of Brentwood and our beloved State.
  Thank you, Madam President. I note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Manchin). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                         Being in the Majority

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, shortly after I arrived in the Senate, in 
2002, Republicans--my political party--became the majority party, and I 
quickly learned a few important lessons. First of all, being in the 
majority is better than being in the minority. But part of the price of 
being in the majority is that sometimes you have to take some tough 
votes via the amendment process. In other words, when the Senate is 
operating the way it was originally intended--and which it always has 
until recently--any Senator has the right to seek recognition and offer 
an amendment on almost any topic on almost any bill. My colleagues told 
me at the time--they said: It has always been that way, and it is the 
way it always should be, if we are serious about protecting minority 
rights.
  So why should I care, being a Member of the majority, about 
protecting minority rights in the Senate? Well, in the intervening 
years, my political party has gone from being in the majority in the 
Senate to being in the minority. That is one reason to care. The other 
reason to care is because every Senator was elected by their 
constituents in their State to represent their State, and when any 
Senator--whether they are in the majority or the minority--is shut out 
of the process, their constituents are shut out of the process. That is 
not what the Constitution contemplates when it says that each State has 
a right to send two Senators to Washington. If you can tell one of 
those or both of those Senators to sit down and be quiet, you cannot 
offer any amendments, you cannot get any votes on your amendments, you 
are effectively shutting out, in my case, the 26 million people I 
represent in the State of Texas.
  So the message is this: If you do not want to take tough votes, you 
are in the wrong line of work--you are in the wrong line of work. The 
way the Senate should operate is that each of us is

[[Page S2939]]

accountable to our constituents, and when they disagree with us about a 
vote, then they have a right to tell us. That is called petitioning 
your government for the redress of grievances.
  Accountability, which is the way this Congress is supposed to work, 
can only work when we have an open process, where the minority gets to 
participate in the process and the majority gets to participate in the 
process. And guess what. If you are in the majority on a given subject, 
you are going to win. But that is no justification for shutting down 
the minority and saying: Sit down; shut up; forget about the fact that 
you have an election certificate from your secretary of State saying 
you were duly and regularly chosen by the voters in your State to 
represent them in what used to be the world's greatest deliberative 
body.
  Here is something else I learned when I came to the Senate--something 
that does not happen as much now--but what I learned is this place 
works best when individual bills are drafted by Senators and move 
through the committee process. That is because usually the committees 
that have jurisdiction over those pieces of legislation have some 
experience and some expertise in the subject matter, and sometimes the 
subject matter gets pretty complicated. And it is good for the Senate, 
it is good for the United States to have a committee look at the 
legislation. People will have a chance to offer amendments and have 
them voted up or down before they then come to the Senate floor. Then 
every Senator gets to participate whether they know very much about the 
topic. Hopefully, all of us get to be smart pretty quickly when a bill 
comes to the floor because that is our chance to have a say on behalf 
of our constituents, whether we are in the majority or whether we are 
in the minority. We do not have a right to win--the minority does not--
but we do have a right to a voice and a vote and to participate in the 
legislative process, which is what has been denied under the current 
majority leader.
  More than a decade after I came to the Senate, I hardly recognize it; 
it is so dramatically different. Indeed, in some ways it is 
diametrically opposite from what it was when I got here and, frankly, 
the way the Senate has operated for a couple hundred years since the 
founding of our country. Only in the last few years under the current 
majority leader has the Senate become completely dysfunctional, where 
the majority leader becomes, in essence, a dictator who says: No, 
Senator, your amendment cannot be considered, it cannot be voted on. In 
other words, it is not up to the Senator to offer an amendment to try 
to shape legislation on behalf of our constituents, to engage in robust 
debate; it is the majority leader who basically becomes the traffic cop 
who says who stops, who goes. Of course, that is one reason why the 
Senate has become so dysfunctional.
  Under the current majority leader, an unprecedented number of bills 
have come directly to the floor from his conference room, from his 
office, and bypassed the committee process. In fact, many of my 
colleagues, including many of my Democratic colleagues, have been left 
wondering: Why in the world have committees in the Senate if we are not 
going to use them, if we are not going to use the committees for the 
experience and the expertise those Members serving on those committees 
have before it comes to the Senate floor.
  In addition to bypassing the committee process in an unprecedented 
sort of way, once the Senate legislation comes to the Senate floor out 
of the majority leader's conference room--or wherever it is it comes 
from--Senators from both parties, representing hundreds of millions of 
American citizens, are routinely denied the opportunity to offer 
amendments and engage in meaningful debate. We just saw that yesterday 
as a direct result of the majority leader's denying anyone--the 
Presiding Officer, one of our Democratic colleagues, or anyone--an 
opportunity to offer amendments and to get votes on those amendments on 
an energy bill, which is the first time we have had an energy bill on 
the floor since 2007. The majority leader shuts down the process and 
says, in essence: Sit down; shut up; good luck.
  During the 109th Congress, when Republicans controlled this Chamber, 
Democrats were allowed to offer--that is the minority party was allowed 
to offer--1,043 separate amendments--1,043 separate amendments during 
the 109th Congress. Do you know how many amendments Republicans have 
been able to offer since July of last year in the Senate? Nine--nine 
Republican amendments in 10 months.

  Majority Leader Reid has filled the amendment tree--that is the 
technical jargon; someone has called it basically that it is the gag 
rule of the majority leader, but it is technically blocking the 
amendment process--more than twice as much as majority leaders Bill 
Frist, Tom Daschle, Trent Lott, Bob Dole, George Mitchell, and Robert 
Byrd combined; that is one, two, three, four, five, six--six previous 
majority leaders did not do it as much as the current majority leader, 
Senator Reid; that is, block out any amendments from the minority.
  I know because we have talked about this so much before most 
Americans really are not focused on Senate procedure and they think: 
Well, maybe this is just one Senator who is a little sore at being 
frozen out of the process and losing on a particular piece of 
legislation. But, again, this is not about the prerogatives of an 
individual U.S. Senator; this is about the people's prerogative, the 
people's right to participate in the process. The very legitimacy of 
our form of government depends upon consent of the governed. How can 
the people the Presiding Officer represents and I represent consent 
when they have been shut out? Is this what the Founding Fathers had in 
mind when they created our great system of government--to shut our 
fellow citizens out of the process, to trample on minority rights? 
Hardly.
  Before I conclude, I want to say a quick word about some of the 
majority leader's most recent comments when we have had a discussion 
about this problem.
  When Americans ponder the root causes of Washington dysfunction and 
gridlock, I hope they remember the majority leader of the Senate, who 
leads this great institution and has referred to the minority party in 
the Senate as ``greased pigs.'' He has accused us of wanting to 
suppress voting rights. He has claimed we have tried to ``dump on'' 
women and minorities. He describes Senators representing their 
constituents with amendments as ``screwing around,'' and he demonizes 
private citizens exercising their rights under the Constitution of the 
United States as ``un-American.'' I have to confess, I find these 
comments insulting, I find these comments disrespectful, and I find 
them embarrassing.
  How can we ever expect to reach compromise, which is the only way 
things happen here? Neither party can dictate on their own what the 
outcomes legislatively will be, so the only way we can do it is to try 
to find common ground and work together, without sacrificing our 
principles, of course. But how are we ever going to solve some of the 
most complex legislative challenges that confront us--such as tax 
reform?
  We have a bill on the floor where we are being asked to extend 55 
expiring temporary tax provisions. For how long? Well, through 2015. Is 
that a good way to do business? Well, no. What kind of uncertainty is 
there when we do not even know what the Tax Code is going to say for 
more than a year and a half?
  Then there is entitlement reform. I mentioned this before. We have 
these pages here who are serving in the Senate. They are in high 
school. Someday the $17 trillion the Federal Government owes to our 
creditors is going to have to be paid back--someday. When that happens, 
I daresay interest rates are not going to be at zero, which is what 
they are now thanks to the Federal Reserve because the Federal Reserve 
is trying to juice the economy, doing the best it can to get the 
economy back on track, although we do not have a lot to show for it. 
The economy grew at 0.1 percent last quarter.
  How are we going to fix our broken immigration system if the majority 
leader is going to routinely slander Members of this body and our 
constituents? How are we going to fix what is broken if the majority 
leader wants to trash talk folks on this side of the aisle and people 
he disagrees with. He even called them un-American. For what? For 
participating in the political process. Well, of course, he would like 
to

[[Page S2940]]

shut them up and make them sit down so he could do what he wants 
without any resistance or without anybody questioning his actions.
  Recently in Austin President Obama and others gathered for a historic 
celebration. It was the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Civil 
Rights Act. Do you know how many amendments were voted on by the Senate 
when the Civil Rights Act was passed? There were 117 amendments.
  Do you think this Congress and this Senate today, under this majority 
leader, would have any opportunity to pass historic legislation to heal 
the wounds of our country that date back to the very founding of this 
Nation, given the fact that the minority is shut out of the process, no 
amendments are allowed, and no votes on those amendments? There is no 
way. What a tragedy--the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act.
  Then for more mundane matters, when the Panama Canal treaties were 
debated in this body, there were 75 rollcall votes. That was a very 
controversial issue at the time. But there are nine rollcall votes in 
this body coming from the Republican side since July, with no prospect 
of allowing any amendments on the current tax bill that is on the 
floor.
  Just like the energy bill that we concluded yesterday, there is no 
prospect in sight for a better outcome and better behavior by the 
people who should know better. How can we expect to achieve comity in 
this Chamber when its most powerful Member has done so much to poison 
the atmosphere.
  The Senate of 2014 is certainly not the Senate that our Founding 
Fathers envisioned, nor is it the Senate that my former colleague, 
Senator Chris Dodd, described in his 2010 farewell speech. Let me quote 
just a small portion. Senator Dodd reminded us that:

       The Senate was designed to be different, not simply for the 
     sake of variety, but because the Framers believed the Senate 
     could and should be the venue in which statesmen would lift 
     America up to meet its unique challenges.

  Unfortunately, the Senate will never be able to play that unique role 
in American government and American history until the majority leader 
shows greater respect for the constituents we represent and for this 
institution.
  As I said, this debate is not about procedural niceties, it is not 
about the prerogatives of the Senator because they think they are so 
important. When Republicans offer amendments to pending legislation, we 
are trying to give our constituents the voice that they are guaranteed 
by the Constitution of the United States of America.
  When the majority leader refuses to let us vote on amendments and 
refuses to let us have a real discussion about America's biggest 
challenges, he is effectively gagging millions of Americans who don't 
share his particular views. That is why the Senate has become so 
dysfunctional, because of the majority leader and his conduct.
  I can only hope--indeed, I can only pray--that the majority leader 
will change his mind and act as the genuine leader the Senate deserves 
and less as an angry dictator.
  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.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. ISAKSON. I would ask unanimous consent that the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ISAKSON. At the outset, let me express my sympathy to the Senator 
from West Virginia on the tragedy that took place in his state. Our 
hearts and minds are with you and your citizens.


                       Remembering Clisby Clarke

  Mr. President, one of the sad occasions from time to time of a 
Senator is to rise to pay tribute to a friend and a citizen in one's 
State who passes away. It is now that occasion for me.
  This past week a great hero of Georgia--both the University of 
Georgia and the State of Georgia--Clisby Clarke passed away in his 
sleep in Highlands, NC. He will be laid to rest in Atlanta, GA, on this 
coming Thursday at a ceremony beginning at 11 a.m. at Peachtree Road 
United Methodist Church.
  Clisby was not just a citizen of my State, he was an extraordinary 
citizen of my State, a University of Georgia graduate who was the hit 
of the University of Georgia as one of the great songwriters on our 
campus. He wrote most of the fight songs that are played today for the 
University of Georgia football team and could tear up the piano by 
playing by ear like no one you have ever seen.
  He was a talented pitchman who could make things sound good at the 
drop of a hat, which is why he went to work for McCann-Erickson, one of 
the great public relations firms in the history of our city. He led 
that firm to unparalleled heights, and for a while, when I ran my 
company, I hired Clisby Clarke to do all the public relations for our 
company.
  He married Bunny. From our days at the University of Georgia I 
remember Bunny and Clisby at the SAE House many nights, Clisby sitting 
around playing the piano, entertaining us, my wife Dianne and I--who 
then wasn't my wife, but I was dating her--enjoying it, just enjoying 
our friendship and his great talent.
  Clisby, when he retired from McCann-Erickson, didn't quit working; he 
volunteered his time for others. In fact, when he passed away this week 
late at night in his sleep, it was after having a successful planning 
session for a dinner that is going to be held June 1 in Atlanta, GA, 
where over 750 people are coming to a black-tie event which will raise 
over half a million dollars for veterans who have been injured with 
traumatic brain injury or PTSD.
  Clisby never stopped working for those less fortunate or those who 
needed help. His commitment to that project is unparalleled in our 
city's history. When we all go to that dinner on this coming June 1, on 
that evening, and celebrate the victory from raising money for those 
with TBI and PTSD, we will also dedicate that evening to Clisby Clarke, 
a great Georgian and a great American who from the day he was born 
until the day he passed away was always paying tribute and doing his 
loving work for those who were less fortunate and in need.
  To his wife Bunny, to his family, and to his many friends, to all of 
us who were together fraternity brothers at the SAE House at the 
University of Georgia in Athens, we pay our tribute to Clisby Clarke, a 
great American. May God bless his soul.
  I yield back the time, Mr. President.
  I note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. AYOTTE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                   Remembering Officer Stephen Arkell

  Ms. AYOTTE. Mr. President, it is with a heavy heart that I rise today 
to honor the life and legacy of Officer Stephen Arkell, a member of the 
Brentwood Police Department who was tragically killed last night in the 
line of duty.
  Citizens across New Hampshire are mourning the loss of Officer 
Arkell, whose bravery and courage represented the very best of our 
State's law enforcement community. Our hearts go out to his grieving 
family, friends, and fellow officers, as well as the people of the town 
of Brentwood, where he served so well. We are holding them close to our 
hearts and keeping them all in our thoughts and prayers during this 
very difficult time for not only the Brentwood community but for the 
entire State of New Hampshire.
  Officer Arkell was an unsung hero. He went about his extraordinary 
work in a quiet, humble way, going above and beyond the call of duty to 
serve and protect the people of Brentwood and New Hampshire. During his 
15-year career as a police officer, he touched countless lives through 
his selfless service to the people of Brentwood--proudly carrying on a 
noble profession.
  First and foremost, Officer Arkell was devoted to his family. Our 
hearts are broken for his wife Heather and their two teenaged 
daughters. They are forced to cope with an unimaginable loss that no 
family should ever have to endure. We share in their sadness. We will 
be there to comfort them as they mourn--the entire State of New 
Hampshire--and we will always stand by their side.

[[Page S2941]]

  We are grateful to them for the sacrifice they have made for us to be 
safe and for everything they have done and for what they have endured. 
There is no way we can repay them for the sacrifice they have made for 
the State of New Hampshire to be safe. They lost a great dad.
  I especially want to recognize Officer Arkell for the selfless time 
he took to be a great coach. He coached lacrosse, teaching a new 
generation about teamwork and competition. He was exactly the kind of 
role model that any parent would want for their son or daughter.
  Officer Arkell was also someone whose friendship could be counted on. 
He has been described as a friend who would ``give you the shirt off 
his back''--a man who was ``kind'' and ``ethical'' and ``very caring.'' 
He was well liked and well respected in the community that he served.
  Sadly, this is not the first tragedy we have seen in Rockingham 
County. Just last year we added Greenland Police Chief Mike Maloney's 
name to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial here in 
Washington, DC. Our State continues to grieve for Chief Maloney.
  Unfortunately, Chief Maloney's death and the death last night of 
Officer Arkell remind us of the dangerous work our police officers do 
every single day on our behalf. When they go out at night, on weekends 
and holidays--and we are all safe at home with our families--they don't 
know whether that next stop or next response they have to make will be 
their last.
  We are grateful for the service of all of the police officers in New 
Hampshire and across this country who go out every day and serve our 
Nation and keep us safe. Officer Arkell certainly represented the very 
best of our law enforcement community, and we are so sad today as we 
mourn his loss.
  As we mourn the loss of Officer Arkell, I am reminded of a quote that 
can be found at the Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington. 
The quote really sums it up: ``It is not how these officers died that 
made them heroes, it is how they lived.'' That is certainly true of 
Officer Stephen Arkell. He was a special man who gave generously to his 
family, his friends, and his community. It is a tragedy that he was 
taken from us far too soon. This is a tragedy no family should have to 
endure.
  As we mourn his loss, we will pledge to forever honor his memory, his 
sacrifice, and the work he did every single day on behalf of the people 
of Brentwood and New Hampshire to keep us safe. We are grateful for his 
sacrifice. We can never repay the loss his family has endured nor can 
we ever repay the sacrifices that are our police officers make every 
single day on our behalf to keep this country safe.
  I thank the Presiding Officer and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                            Squarely Focused

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, one would think, now more than ever, our 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle would recognize the American 
people really want us focused squarely on jobs and the economy. It is 
what every poll says. It is what the vast majority of all of our 
constituents say, and it is absolutely what is needed at a time when 
families, especially working women, continue to struggle to make ends 
meet. But instead of working with us across the aisle to give every 
American a fair shot, it seems as though Republicans are focused on 
something else entirely: Politics.
  Today, the senior Senator from South Carolina came to the floor and 
attempted to pass a bill that not only undermines women's access to 
their doctors but restricts their rights to access reproductive health 
services. I am not sure what our colleagues think has changed since 
they last introduced this bill in November, but just as it was back 
then, this extreme, unconstitutional abortion ban is an absolute 
nonstarter. It is not going anywhere in the Senate and, as they know, 
it is a cheap political ploy. I would like to think that over the last 
41 years, since the historic decision of Roe v. Wade, we have moved on 
from debating this issue. I would like to think that after four 
decades, many of those who want to make women's health care decisions 
for them have come to grips with the fact that Roe v. Wade is settled 
law. After all, many of the signs of progress are all around us.
  In this Congress there is a record 20 women serving in this body. In 
2012 women's power and voice at the ballot box was heard pretty loudly 
and clearly. In fact, when Republican candidates for office thought 
that rape was a political talking point, that idea and their 
candidacies were swiftly rejected, thanks in large part to the voices 
of women.
  So sometimes it is tempting to think that times indeed have changed 
and that maybe, just maybe, politicians have finally realized that 
getting between a woman and her doctor is not their job, that it is 
possible rightwing legislators have a newfound respect for women. But 
the truth is that the drumbeat of politically-driven, extreme, and 
unconstitutional laws continues to get louder.
  In 2013 our Nation saw yet another record-breaking year of State 
legislatures passing restrictive legislation barring women's access to 
abortion services. In fact, in the past 3 years, more of these 
restrictions have been enacted across this country than in the previous 
10 years combined. And anti-choice lawmakers here in our Nation's 
capital have filed 50 legislative attacks on reproductive rights in 
this Congress alone.
  By the way, these haven't just been attacks on a woman's right to 
choose, they have been an all-out assault on everything from shaming 
pregnant women to drafting politically-driven legislation intended to 
create geographical roadblocks for low-income and racial minorities 
wishing to access safe reproductive services.
  Not surprisingly, these States that have enacted some of the most 
extreme and archaic restrictions are also the same States that fail to 
achieve even mediocre standards when it comes to critical issues such 
as education and the economy. But despite these shortcomings, some 
Members of this body refuse to work with us to address those critical 
issues and instead want to distract the American public with these 
purely political bills until the small pocket of their extreme audience 
is satisfied.
  In fact, according to the Senator from South Carolina, debating a 
woman's access to her own doctor is a ``debate worthy of a great 
democracy.'' The fact is it is a debate we have already had. This is a 
directed attack on Roe v. Wade, and it is attack on what is already 
settled law.
  I wish to remind my colleagues today that real women's lives and the 
most difficult health care decisions they could ever possibly make are 
at stake.
  Let me share with my colleagues the story of Judy Nicastro. She is 
from my home State of Washington. She bravely shared her story publicly 
in the New York Times. I have told her story before, but it bears 
repeating now because we are under attack again. In an op-ed she wrote, 
just days before the House passed a bill that was virtually identical 
to the one that was introduced today, Judy talked about being faced 
with every pregnant woman's worst nightmare.
  In describing the news that one of the twins she was carrying was 
facing a condition where only one lung chamber had formed and that it 
was only 20 percent complete, Judy captured the anguish countless other 
women in similar positions have faced. ``My world stopped,'' she wrote.

       I loved being pregnant with twins and trying to figure out 
     which one was where in my uterus. Sometimes it felt like a 
     party in there, with eight limbs moving. The thought of 
     losing one child was unbearable.

  She went on to say:

       The MRI at Seattle Children's Hospital confirmed our worst 
     fears: The organs were pushed up into our boy's chest and not 
     developing properly. We were in the 22nd week.

  Under the bill proposed today, the decision Judy ultimately made, 
through very painful conversations with her family and with 
consultation with her

[[Page S2942]]

doctors, would be illegal. The decision to make sure, as she put it, 
that ``our son was not born only to suffer'' would be taken from her 
and given to politicians.
  I am here today to provide a simple reality check. We are not going 
back. We are not going back on settled law such as Roe v. Wade or the 
Affordable Care Act. We are not going to take away a woman's ability to 
make her own decisions about her own health care and her own body.
  Just as with the many attempts before this bill, there are those who 
would like the American public to believe that all of these efforts are 
anything but an attack on women's health care. They try to say it is a 
debate about freedom, except, of course, the freedom for women to 
access care.
  It is no different than when we were told attacks on abortion rights 
are not an infringement on a woman's right to choose; they are about 
religion or States rights. Or when we are told that restricting 
emergency contraception isn't about limiting women's ability to make 
their own family planning decisions, but it is somehow about protecting 
pharmacists. Or as demonstrated last month when a Republican State 
lawmaker in Missouri introduced legislation to triple the State's 
mandatory waiting period for abortion services, claiming it would give 
women more time to do their ``research.''
  Not that we should be surprised, he went on then to compare this 
deeply personal and difficult choice to that of purchasing an 
automobile saying: ``In making a decision to buy a car, I put research 
in there to find out what to do.''
  The truth is this is an attempt to limit a woman's ability to access 
care. This is about women. Instead of playing a game of political 
football with women and their health, Republicans should instead 
consider joining with us in working on what women truly want.
  Women today want to have a fair shot at success. First and foremost, 
that means not rolling back the clock or eroding the gains we have 
made. We took a very good step forward with the Affordable Care Act, 
which now prevents insurance companies from charging women more than 
men for coverage, ensuring preventive services such as mammograms and 
contraception coverage is covered and increasing access to 
comprehensive health coverage, thanks to the Medicaid expansion and the 
exchanges. There is no doubt we need to make sure women have access in 
this country to opportunities such as getting equal pay for equal work 
or giving the millions of women earning the minimum wage a raise, which 
would go a long way towards that effort. We need to update our Tax Code 
so that mothers who are returning to the workforce do not face a 
marriage penalty.
  There is much more we could be doing to address the issues of 
concerned women. Those are the issues we ought to be focused on--how to 
move our country forward, not backward.
  So if it wasn't clear the last time the senior Senator from South 
Carolina made this attempt, it ought to be clear now. Senators such as 
myself are not going anywhere. Advocates and doctors who treat those 
women every day and know their health must be protected are not going 
anywhere. And women who continue to believe their health care decisions 
are theirs and theirs alone are not going to go anywhere. By the way, 
the Constitution is not going to go anywhere. Therefore, this extreme 
bill that was offered today is not going anywhere.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor and suggest the absence 
of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MANCHIN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The Senator from West Virginia.


                       Boone County Mine Tragedy

  Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, on Monday night a tragic mining incident 
occurred in my home State of West Virginia where the lives of two 
dedicated and courageous miners were lost at the Brody No. 1 mine in 
Boone County.
  My greatest and deepest thoughts and prayers are with the loved ones 
of the miners impacted by this tragedy. Gayle and I join them and all 
West Virginians in mourning the loss of these heroic men. We grieve for 
the entire community as they bear this most heartbreaking and sorrowful 
hardship.
  Our hearts especially go out to the families of the following miners: 
Eric Legg of Twilight and Gary Hensley of Chapmanville.
  These men will be remembered forever as heroes to their community, 
their State, and their Nation for their unparalleled courage and 
unsurpassable sacrifice. They will live on forever in our hearts.
  As families and friends struggle to deal with the tragedy that took 
place, we are reminded as a country that we must consistently search 
for ways to improve safety conditions because our miners' safety is of 
the utmost importance and remains our No. 1 priority. We say in West 
Virginia: If it can't be mined safely, don't mine it.
  Our coal miners are some of the hardest working people in America, 
and the loss of even one miner's life is one life too many. We need to 
continue to improve mine safety efforts so that our miners' lives are 
never in jeopardy. We owe this to the families of the victims and to 
all of our loyal mining families across our country. It is our 
responsibility to be absolutely and totally committed to the safety of 
every worker, which means that every worker should be able to get up in 
the morning and expect to come home safely to their loved ones at 
night. This is their right, not a privilege.
  My staff and I will do everything humanly possible to assist the 
families through this difficult time. Again, we extend our deepest 
sympathy and most profound condolences to the families and loved ones, 
and we pray for their peace and comfort.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                         Smarter Sentencing Act

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, there are new reports that the majority 
leader is considering bringing to the floor the so-called Smarter 
Sentencing Act, and to bring it to finality.
  I rise again today to express my strong opposition to this bill and 
to argue against taking up the Senate's time to consider it. I will 
list several reasons.
  This country has experienced a tremendous drop in crime over the past 
30 years. We have achieved hard-won gains in reducing victimization. 
More effective police tactics played a very significant role.
  Congress assisted with funds for law enforcement and mandatory 
sentencing guidelines to make dangerous offenders serve longer 
sentences. But after the Supreme Court applied novel constitutional 
theory, those mandatory guidelines were made advisory only. Federal 
judges then used their discretion to sentence defendants more leniently 
than the guidelines had called for.
  Today, the only tool Congress has to make sure Federal judges do not 
abuse their discretion in sentencing too leniently is mandatory minimum 
sentences. So bringing this bill would cut a wide range of mandatory 
minimum sentences by half or more. Those sentences include people 
convicted of manufacture, sale, possession with intent to distribute, 
and importation of a wide range of drugs, including heroin, cocaine, 
PCP, LSD, ecstasy, and methamphetamines.
  When supporters of this bill discuss how it increases discretion for 
judges and keeps current maximum sentences, what they really mean is 
that judges will gain discretion only to be more lenient. The bill does 
not increase discretion for judges to be more punitive.
  When supporters of this bill say that the bill only applies to 
nonviolent offenders, don't be misled into thinking it applies to 
people in Federal prison for simple possession of marijuana. It 
doesn't. The offenses covered in this bill are violent.
  Importing cocaine is violent. The whole operation turns on violence.

[[Page S2943]]

Dealing heroin also involves violence or threats of violence, and the 
offense for which the offender is sentenced may have even been violent. 
The defendant's codefendant might have used a gun.
  While the bill does not apply to a drug crime for which the defendant 
used violence, it does apply to criminals where the defendant has a 
history of committing violent crimes. Supporters have failed to 
recognize that it would apply to drug dealers with a history of violent 
crimes.
  Supporters of the bill also raise the argument of prison 
overcrowding. But prison populations in this country are decreasing and 
have been in fact decreasing for several years. States have been able 
to reduce prison construction and sentencing as crime has thus fallen.
  Charles Lane wrote in the Washington Post that one reason States 
could do this is the reduction in the fear of crime that has 
accompanied falling crime rates.
  The rate of increase in Federal prison populations has fallen a great 
deal. In recent years, the number of new Federal prisoners receiving 
prison sentences has declined. New policies the Department has adopted 
with respect to clemency and its unwillingness to charge defendants for 
the crimes they have committed will only further reduce overcrowding 
and prison expenses.
  It is also important to recognize that drug offenders are an 
increasingly small proportion of the new offenders who are being 
sentenced to Federal prison as Federal law enforcement shifts more 
resources away from drugs and toward immigration and weapons offenses.
  The reduction in prison populations is not really so much about the 
cost saving as cost shifting from prison budgets to victim suffering. 
This is happening as the number of State and Federal prisoners has 
dropped.
  In 2012, the last year for which statistics are available, the FBI's 
Uniform Crime Report recorded an increase in the number of violent 
crimes for the first time in many years. Now, it is only 1 year and the 
increase was less than 1 percent, but it represents a dramatic change 
in the past downward trend of crime, and it bears a vigilant watch, not 
support for a reckless, wholesale, and arbitrary reduction in mandatory 
minimum sentences.
  The bill represents a particularly misguided effort in light of 
current conditions concerning drug use. We are in the midst of a heroin 
epidemic right now. Deaths from heroin overdoses in Pennsylvania are 
way up. The Governor of Vermont devoted the entirety of his State of 
the State address this year to the heroin problem.
  Marijuana decriminalization is leading to the greater availability of 
marijuana at a lower price. This is causing Mexican growers who 
formerly produced marijuana to grow opium for heroin importation into 
this country instead of marijuana.
  The Obama administration says it is concerned about the heroin 
epidemic, but it supports a bill that cuts penalties for heroin 
importation and dealing.
  The administration says it wants to fight sexual assaults on 
campuses--and I think that is the right thing to do and I applaud them 
for doing that. But they are also supporting this bill, which cuts in 
half the mandatory minimum sentence for dealing in ecstasy, the ``date 
rape'' drug.
  The administration's support for this bill, then, makes no sense, and 
at least some administration officials understand that.
  We had the privilege of having the Director of the Drug Enforcement 
Agency before our committee a little while ago. Michelle Leonhart said:

       Having been in law enforcement as an agent for 33 years, 
     [and] a Baltimore City police officer before that, I can tell 
     you that for me and for the agents that work for DEA, 
     mandatory minimums have been very important to our 
     investigations. . . . We depend on those as a way to ensure 
     that the right sentences are going to the . . . level of 
     violator we are going after.

  Current mandatory minimum sentences play a vital role in reducing 
crime. They do more than keep serious offenders in jail so that they 
cannot prey upon innocent citizens. They also induce lower-level drug 
offenders to avoid receiving mandatory minimum sentences by implicating 
higher-ups in the drug trade.
  As FBI Director Comey recently stated:

       I know from my experience . . . that the mandatory minimums 
     are an important tool in developing cooperators.

  Recently, a bipartisan group of former Justice Department officials 
wrote to Leaders Reid and McConnell. Their letter expressed strong 
opposition to cutting mandatory minimums for drug trafficking by half 
or more. They warned:

       We are deeply concerned about the impact of sentencing 
     reductions of this magnitude on public safety.
       We believe the American people will be ill-served by the 
     significant reduction of sentences for federal drug 
     trafficking crimes that involve the sale and distribution of 
     dangerous drugs like heroin, methamphetamines, and PCP.
       We are aware of little public support for lowering the 
     minimum required sentences for these extremely dangerous and 
     sometimes lethal drugs.

  We are all going to be supporting National Police Week. Officers from 
all over the country have traveled to Washington to make their concerns 
known. We salute them for the work that they do and the dangers they 
face. If we really respect these law enforcement people and want to 
support them, then we ought to listen to what they have to say.
  The National Narcotics Officers' Association has written:

       As the men and women in law enforcement who confront 
     considerable risks daily to stand between poisoned sellers 
     and their victims, we cannot find a single good reason to 
     weaken federal consequences for the worst offenders who are 
     directly responsible for an egregious amount of political 
     despair, community decay, family destruction, and the 
     expenditure of vast amounts of taxpayer dollars to clean up 
     the messes they create.

  The Federal Law Enforcement Officers' Association has also come out 
against the bill. They have stated:

       It is with great concern that FLEOA views any action or 
     attempt . . . that would alter or eliminate the current 
     federal sentencing policy regarding mandatory minimum 
     sentence sentencing.
       The mandatory minimum sentencing standard currently in 
     place is essential to public safety and that of our 
     membership.

  Many of us will rightfully praise our law enforcement officers as 
they are in town for National Police Week. But what we really ought to 
do is listen to them. They are telling us that taking up this bill 
would be a slap in the face of all our brave police officers who 
protect us from harm every day. They deserve better than that.
  Citizens who are finally less likely to become crime victims deserve 
it. The respect that is due those on the front line against wrongdoers 
demands that the Senate neither take up nor pass the mislabeled so-
called Smarter Sentencing Act.
  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.
  (Disturbance in the Visitors' Galleries.)
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sergeant at Arms will restore order in the 
gallery.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded and I be allowed to speak as if in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Mr. Chambliss pertaining to the introduction of S. 
2330 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Senate Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.


                            Time to Wake Up

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here for the 67th time to urge my 
colleagues to wake up to the growing threat of climate change, and 
today I am joined by my friend and colleague Senator Nelson of Florida, 
who is a true leader in this fight.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we be able to engage in a 
colloquy for the next 25 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Florida is about 1,000 miles from Rhode Island, and 
it is slightly larger than my home State, but Florida and Rhode Island 
have a great deal in common, such as a beautiful coastline, an economy 
and a way

[[Page S2944]]

of life that is tied to the sea, and as a result risk from the ocean in 
a changing climate.
  On my recent trip down the southeast coast, I spent 2 days in Florida 
and heard firsthand about the unprecedented changes taking place there. 
Like the folks I met in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, 
Floridians are worried about the coastal communities they love. They 
are getting serious about protecting their homes and their livelihoods, 
and they want their representatives in Congress to get serious.
  Senator Nelson hears them. He recently took the Senate commerce 
committee to the Miami Beach townhall to examine the dangers posed by 
rising seas. Here is what the Miami Herald said about his effort:

       South Florida owes Senator Nelson its thanks for shining a 
     bright light on this issue. Everyone from local residents to 
     elected officials should follow his lead, turning awareness 
     of this major environmental issue into action. It is critical 
     to saving our region.

  Senator Nelson and I also held a press conference at Jacksonville's 
Friendship Fountain with Representative Corrine Brown to highlight 
these serious implications of climate change. So I am grateful for 
Senator Nelson's bringing his passion and expertise to the floor today.
  Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I thank my dear personal friend the 
Senator from Rhode Island for his kind comments, but I especially thank 
him for his passion and his leadership on this issue. There are parts 
of America where it is time to wake up, and especially one part of that 
is the State of Florida.
  Because of the nature of our State being a peninsula that sticks down 
into water surrounding it on most sides, you would not be surprised 
that we have by far the longest coastline of any State, save for 
Alaska.
  When it comes to beaches, the State of Florida by far has more 
beaches than any other State, but because we have so much exposure to 
the oceans--the Atlantic on the east and the Gulf of Mexico on the 
west--we are particularly subject to climate change and the fact that 
the Earth is heating up.
  Why is the Earth heating up? Well, there is the effect known as the 
greenhouse effect. If you put certain gasses into the atmosphere that 
are a result of manmade efforts--when we burn things such as oil and 
coal and we don't scrub out a lot of the stuff, it goes into the 
atmosphere. Well, one of the things that goes into the atmosphere is 
carbon dioxide. What carbon dioxide does is go into the upper 
atmosphere and it forms this greenhouse effect by creating an invisible 
shield, and when the Sun's rays come and strike the Earth at daylight, 
those rays then reflect off the Earth's surface. Under normal 
circumstances, those rays bounce back out and radiate back into space 
but not if you have a lot of gasses up at the very beginning of space, 
at the top of the atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide.
  When the Earth's surface radiates the Sun's heat, it goes back up as 
if it wants to go out into space, and it is trapped. What happens is 
the entire atmosphere of the Earth then contains that heat, and slowly 
over time it builds up the temperature.
  When you look at a globe, what do you mostly see? You don't see land; 
you see water. So what happens is that most of that heating of the 
Earth's atmosphere is absorbed into the temperature of the ocean. 
Because of the rise of the ocean temperature and the temperature of the 
air, what starts to happen? What is happening up toward the northern 
climes as well as the southern climes? Have you heard the report that 
came out a couple of days ago about how big chunks of Antarctica are 
now falling off? Have you heard about how all of the glaciers on top of 
Greenland, which used to be nothing but one big glacier, are now 
falling off into the sea, thus causing the sea rise?
  I will flip it back to the Senator from Rhode Island with this 
comment: In the hearing we had of the commerce subcommittee in Miami 
Beach--why did I choose Miami Beach? Because it is ground zero. At high 
tide they are already having flooding in the streets of Miami Beach. At 
a seasonally high tide that they expect coming up in October of this 
year, they expect constant flooding. As a result, we had the mayor of 
Miami Beach tell us about the effort of them trying to redo the 
infrastructure to get rid of the water when the high tides come in.
  We also had a scientist at NASA testify. He is a fellow who is a 
four-time space flier. He left the astronaut office, and now he is back 
at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. He is a scientist. What 
he testified to us was not a forecast, not a projection; he testified 
as to the measurements of sea level rise over the last 50 years. And 
for Florida, the sea level rise, as measured by NASA--these are 
indisputable measurements--is 5 to 8 inches. In another 20 to 30 years, 
he projects that the sea level rise will be a foot, 12 inches more, and 
by the end of the decade, it will rise 2 to 3 feet.
  I hasten to add that 75 percent of Florida's population of 20 million 
people lives on the coast. Can you imagine what a 2- to 3-foot sea 
level rise on Florida would be? It would inundate unbelievable amounts 
of the urban community of our State of Florida. So the question is, Are 
we going to do something about it?
  I will flip it back to the Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. On my trip through Senator Nelson's State, the Army 
Corps of Engineers officials in Jacksonville gave me some pretty dire 
warnings about what the sea level rise portends for Florida, both the 
punch from storms that will bring the higher seas ashore and the steady 
encroachment of saltwater.
  This is a scene from western Boynton Beach after Tropical Storm Isaac 
in 2012. I don't know if you can see it on the screen, but this sign 
says ``no wake zone.'' The family put up a ``no wake zone'' sign in 
their front yard because the cars going by would cause wakes and more 
damage.
  The Corps also showed me what 2 feet of sea level rise would do to 
the Everglades National Park. I went down to the Everglades later on 
during my visit. This is what it would look like. You can see the green 
in the Everglades here and all the development up here. Basically, if 
you add 60 centimeters of sea level rise, or 2 feet, and that is all 
ocean again, that is a pretty serious change.
  The Southeast Florida Regional Compact, which is a bipartisan 
coalition of four South Florida counties, predicts that the water 
around southeast Florida could surge up to 2 feet in less than 50 
years.
  So that is a preview of the coming attractions ``Everglades Under 
Water.''
  What was interesting was that the local officials, both Republicans 
and Democrats, were working together. The division that exists in this 
body doesn't exist down there. Mayor Silva Murphy of Monroe County is a 
Republican and former Mayor Kristin Jacobs of Broward County is a 
Democrat. They both know that flooding and access to drinking water are 
not partisan issues in the way that it divides us here.
  Here are a couple more examples from my visit. This is Castillo San 
Marcos, which Senator Nelson will recognize as being in St. Augustine. 
It is a famous and very beautiful ancient fort. It sits along the water 
there. If you add 3 feet of sea level rise, it turns from being part of 
the coast to being its own tiny little peninsula surrounded by 
flooding. It is the oldest masonry fort in the United States.
  This is what Fort Matanzas would look like. This is a little fort 
built by Spanish colonists in 1742. It is right here on this inlet. If 
you add 3 feet of sea level rise, suddenly it is in the water. It has 
nothing to stand on. As it is, they have built a wall to protect it 
from the sea level rise that has already happened, and from time to 
time the high tides lap over that wall.
  The Senator said there is the potential for an enormous amount of 
harm here that could happen to people. One of the scientists I met in 
Florida said that if we don't do something about this, ``people are 
going to get hurt and it's going to cost a lot of money.'' That is 
true.
  One topic I would like to discuss is how the seawater will affect the 
freshwater supply of Florida. Senator Nelson is an expert on the 
geology of Florida and why it is different from my rocky New England 
coast.
  I will yield back to Senator Nelson so he can discuss the limestone 
bedrock problem.
  Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, one would naturally ask the question,

[[Page S2945]]

could we solve this problem in the United States the way the Dutch have 
solved a lot of the coastal areas of the Netherlands by building dikes? 
A lot of their land is actually below sea level.
  You can't do that in a place such as Florida because the substrate 
underneath the surface soil is a porous limestone, much like Swiss 
cheese. So that if you try to put up a dike, it is not going to hold 
any water back because the pressure of the water as it rises is merely 
going to go underneath the dike into the porous limestone, which is the 
source under the surface of a lot of Florida's drinking water because 
that water in that honeycomb limestone is fresh.
  What happens as a result of the sea level rise? More water and higher 
water will create more pressure. The pressure then starts to push 
underneath the surface as well as over the surface of the land, and 
that causes the intrusion of saltwater into the fresh drinking water.
  Because Florida is so low--believe it or not, our highest point is 
right near the Alabama-Florida line, which is actually 356 feet high. 
But when you get into portions of South Florida, it is very low. 
Obviously, sea level rise is going to cover a lot of land, but another 
consequence is that a lot of flood control is now regulated by gravity. 
You go from a higher position of flood and you flow by gravity through 
canals to a lower position of the sea level. When the sea level rises, 
the water during floods--hurricane, rainstorm, whatever--can't flow. 
The only way to correct that is to install very expensive pumping 
equipment.
  Finally, in this segment of the exchange with the Senator from Rhode 
Island, I ask what is another consequence of the temperature of the 
ocean's rising? Remember the greenhouse effect? Most of that heat is 
absorbed in the oceans.
  What is the fuel for a hurricane in the Northern Hemisphere? What is 
the fuel for it? It is the temperature of the water. Hurricanes in the 
Northern Hemisphere go counterclockwise. Hurricanes in the Southern 
Hemisphere go clockwise. What happens to the intensity of the 
hurricane? It goes up as the waters get hotter. That is why usually, as 
the hurricanes are forming into these massive storms over the South 
Atlantic and the Caribbean, they start going north. They start to 
dissipate because the waters are cooler. It doesn't provide the fuel 
for the ferocity of the hurricane. Likewise, higher water temperatures, 
more frequency of hurricanes.

  In our State, we live on a peninsula that sticks down into the middle 
of ``Hurricane Highway.'' It is a way of life. We understand that, and 
we have handled it pretty well, especially after the disaster of 1992, 
the monster hurricane, Hurricane Andrew. Our building codes are up and 
so forth, but we can't withstand a lot of Hurricane Andrews. Part of 
that hurricane was considered to be a category 5--something in excess 
of 160 mile-per-hour winds. We know what 160 mile-an-hour tornadoes do 
within a small, confined, tight-knit cyclone-type activity. Imagine 
what those wind speeds do in a massive hurricane covering hundreds of 
miles.
  We start to see then the effects. The insurance industry cannot 
withstand insuring structures that are going to sustain that kind of 
damage. What is going to happen to the cost of insurance? It is going 
to go through the roof. What is going to happen to the cost of flood 
insurance? In the Senate, we agonized over the Federal Flood Insurance 
Program--what is going to happen to the actual structures and the 
people who not only are subject to being flooded because of the rise of 
sea level but of having their whole dwellings and city torn up, as 
Hurricane Andrew did to downtown Homestead, a relatively small 
population of Florida and it absolutely tore it up. That is what we are 
facing unless we do something about climate change.
  The first thing we have to do is we have to stop this denial that 
this is not real. The scientists are telling us it is real. The NASA 
astronaut scientists say it is measurements. They have flooding in 
Miami Beach. The local governments have banded together in southeastern 
Florida to try to get ahead of it.
  Why can't we get some of the Senators here, who because it is not 
politically correct in their politics, to recognize what the truth is 
so we can start planning for this--not as a protection but to plan for 
the protection of planet Earth, and see if we can stop some of the 
causes of the climate change. Then, once we do it in the Nation that 
stands as the role model to the rest of the countries, we are going to 
have to get them to do it too; otherwise, we are going to see what has 
just happened over the last couple of days: Large chunks of Antarctica 
are beyond saving, and the consequences are grave.
  I appreciate the leadership of my friend from Rhode Island and 
Senator Boxer of California. They have been the ones who have been at 
the point of the spear. I thank them very much.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, it is a pleasure to be here with the 
Senator from Florida, and his leadership is truly remarkable.
  Here is another example on this picture from my tour. This is Broward 
County. People say it is not real. Ask the owner of this house with the 
for sale sign. Good luck selling that house with the ocean running 
through it. That was in 2010.
  Another Broward County photograph. Commissioner Kristin Jacobs, who 
was the mayor at that time, gave me these pictures. Again, this is 
tide. Look at the sky. It is a beautiful day. This isn't rain. This is 
the tide flooding in, showing what it does to the cars. It is a mess.
  As Senator Nelson described, because Florida is this limestone, kind 
of hard sponge, what keeps the saltwater out is the pressure of the 
freshwater holding it at bay. There is no wall. There is no structure 
that keeps the water, salt, and fresh balance. It is a hydraulic 
system. They have built a very complex system of canals, where they 
have raised the water so they have pressure, so they can push it back. 
As the sea level comes up, they are losing that fight. So here is a 
line through Broward County of how far the saltwater has already 
intruded into the water supply. If we drilled wells on this side of the 
red line, the water is no good, and all of these wells, the little 
green spots, all of these water areas are in the way because this line 
is moving.
  As one Army Corps engineer in Jacksonville said, Florida is in a box, 
because as the sea level rises, the way we keep the freshwater 
available to people is by raising the fresh water, and that keeps what 
the engineers call the hydraulic head that pushes the sea water back 
and allows us to maintain freshwater for drinking water purposes, for 
agriculture, for Florida oranges and grapefruits and all the things we 
count on. If what we are worried about is flooding, we could only raise 
the freshwater so far, because if we raise it enough, we have 
freshwater flooding. There is no way out of that conundrum. There is no 
way out of that conundrum in Florida. He said, whether it happens in 
100 years or whether it happens after the next bad hurricane, that is 
what is going to happen. That is a terrible predicament. It is not 
going to get better by pretending it is not real. It is not going to 
get better by denying it.
  If we go offshore, we get to the problem of acidification, which 
happens from the carbon. This is not a theory. People say climate 
change is a theory. No. The acidification of the ocean from the type of 
carbon dioxide is something we can do in a lab. It is a scientific 
fact. It is a law of chemistry. So it happens, and it is starting to 
hit the reefs and the fisheries as the ocean warms and turns more acid.
  Mayor Murphy is the mayor of Monroe County. I met her in Key Largo, 
which is one of the famous world destinations. I said: What is the 
acidification of the warm air? What does that do to your reefs?
  She said: Well, the reefs are still beautiful unless you had been out 
to see them 10, 15 years ago. The reefs are still beautiful unless you 
had been out to see them 10 or 15 years ago. People see the change.
  I met with the Snook and Gamefish Foundation in Florida and the 
marine industry folks, and they are concerned about what is happening 
there. In fact, the problem goes all the way up the coast. When I came 
down from North Carolina and South Carolina, the fishermen there told 
me they are starting to catch snook off the Carolinas. It is one thing 
when we are catching grouper and tarpon up in Rhode Island, but what 
they are seeing on the South Atlantic coast is the same thing that a

[[Page S2946]]

Rhode Islander fisherman said to me about the fishing off our coast. He 
said: It is getting weird out there. We are catching fish our fathers 
never saw in their nets in their lives. So when a snook comes up on the 
line off the Carolinas, that is a sign that something is dramatically 
changing, and these reefs are changing as well.

  Last story: Mike Shirley works at the Guana Tolomato Matanzas 
National Estuarine Research Reserve on the south side of St. Augustine. 
He moved up there from South Florida. He moved there 7 years ago. When 
he got there, he said there was one thing noticeable: There were no 
mangroves. South Florida is covered in mangroves, but there weren't any 
here. Now, 7 years later, the place is covered in mangroves. All that 
habitat migrating northward as the oceans and the water warms and it is 
changing things.
  He said one other thing. He said: Do you know what we ought to look 
out for? There is going to be another migration north. It is going to 
be the people leaving flooded South Florida who can't get freshwater, 
whose homes are flooded, who can't deal with their car going hubcap 
deep in saltwater every high tide. They are going to be moving up. It 
is not just the people from the cold North coming to Florida now, it is 
people coming from the flooding South who are going to be coming North 
again.
  I will say one last thing. The mayors were terrific. Sylvia Murphy, 
the mayor of Monroe County, is putting climate and energy policy at the 
very forefront of her 20-year growth plan for the county. Mayor Philip 
Levine of Miami Beach is hard at work. He says:

       Sea-level rise is our reality in Miami Beach. We are past 
     the point of debating the existence of climate change. We are 
     now focusing on adapting to current and future threats.

  Mayor Levine is pushing a $400 million plan to try to make the city's 
drainage system more resilient in the face of rising tides.
  From Mayor Joe Riley in Charleston to Mayor Edna Jackson in Savannah, 
to Mayor Alvin Brown in Jacksonville, to the mayors in South Florida I 
mentioned, council members, mayors from Pinecrest, South Miami, 
Surfside, Miami Shores, Cutler Bay, Palmetto Bay, the Seminole Tribe, 
the local officials, they are all serious about tackling climate 
change. It is real. They see it in their neighborhoods. They see it in 
their districts. They see it in their towns. They are away from this 
poisonous place where the polluters control what people are allowed to 
think and see and do something about.
  We have to start listening to the American people. We have to start 
listening to the mayors who inhabit real life and not the political 
fantasy in this Senate. We have to start dealing with this.
  Lee Thomas worked for President Ronald Reagan. He was a member of the 
Reagan Cabinet. He ran the Environmental Protection Agency for Ronald 
Reagan. Last week he wrote an op-ed--and I know the Senator from 
Florida saw it--in the Tampa Bay Times urging Florida's leaders to wake 
up to the changes taking place in the Sunshine State. Here is what he 
said: ``Whether Democrat or Republican, Florida residents cannot afford 
to ignore the evidence of climate change.'' That is a Reagan official 
saying those words.
  Come on, Republican mayors, Reagan officials. At some point we have 
to wake up. This is real.
  Just last year, Thomas joined all the other former Republican EPA 
heads--four of them--and they wrote this:

       The costs of inaction are undeniable. The lines of 
     scientific evidence grow only stronger and more numerous, and 
     the window of time remaining to act is growing smaller: delay 
     could mean that warming becomes locked in. A market-based 
     approach, like a carbon tax, would be the best path to 
     reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

  Bob Samuelson just said the same thing in his editorial over the 
weekend.
  I will say that the citizens of Florida and the people of the United 
States are very fortunate to have a Senator such as Bill Nelson, who is 
aware of this problem, who is fighting hard to solve it, who is 
listening to his mayors, Republican and Democratic alike, who are 
telling him what is happening in their home State, and who was willing 
to bring the Commerce Committee of the U.S. Senate down to a Miami 
Beach townhall to make sure everybody understands what is going on. He 
helped bring that message back to Washington and it was a terrific 
thing.
  So we will continue working together to get this body to wake up out 
of its polluter-induced slumber and face the realities that people all 
across this country are seeing in their daily lives. It is indeed time 
to wake up.
  I yield the floor for any final comments the Senator from Florida may 
wish to make.
  Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, the Senator from Rhode Island has stated 
in one of the more eloquent fashions details about my State of Florida 
because he was so passionate about the subject and so unselfish that he 
wanted to start in other States--North Carolina, South Carolina, 
Georgia--and several places on the east coast of Florida. It is 
extraordinary.

  I will leave you with this thought: Every time I hear a Senator such 
as Senator Whitehouse speak about this subject, and every time I look 
at a picture of the planet as he has on the poster that says ``Time To 
Wake Up,'' my mind's eye goes back 28 years ago to the window of our 
spacecraft on the 24th flight of the space shuttle 203 nautical miles 
above the Earth, circumnavigating the Earth at 17,500 miles an hour, 
with a complete revolution of the Earth in 90 minutes.
  You look back at our planet--which is so beautiful, so colorful, so 
alive, so creative--and yet when you look at the rim of the Earth, as 
it falls off into the deep blackness of space, there is a thin, little 
blue band, and upon closer examination out the window, you can actually 
see the thin film of what sustains all of our life, the atmosphere.
  Then, with the naked eye, you can see points on the Earth where we 
are messing it up. You can see the color contrast of the destruction of 
the trees in the Amazon, upriver in the Amazon. You can see the result 
of cutting down all the trees on an island nation such as Madagascar, 
which fortunately has started planting trees in the last quarter 
century. Therefore, the result of that tree cutting, in this hemisphere 
as well, in the island nation of Haiti, is that when the rains come, 
there are no trees to hold the topsoil and it all flows down the rivers 
and out the mouths of the rivers and you can see it from space in the 
discoloration of the water. That is for miles and miles out into the 
brilliant blues of the ocean.
  If we do not do what people like Senators Boxer and Whitehouse are 
saying and wake up to the reality of climate change and try to get 
ahead of it by changing policies that will stop the greenhouse effect 
or at least slow it down, then what we are going to have for future 
space fliers is that they are going to look back at the planet and the 
coastline of those States Senator Whitehouse visited--all being in the 
Southeastern United States--that coastline is not going to look the 
same. It is not going to be as distinct a coastline, with a white beach 
along it that outlines it from the blue waters of the Atlantic. It is 
going to be much different and to the great detriment of the people who 
live there and call that home.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The 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.


                           Order Of Procedure

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding 
rule XXII, tomorrow, Wednesday, May 14, 2014, at 11:15 a.m., the Senate 
proceed to vote on cloture on Calendar No. 664, Logan; Calendar No. 
665, Tuchi; Calendar No. 666, Humetewa; then proceed to consideration 
and vote on confirmation of Calendar No. 650, Williams, and Calendar 
No. 539, Moreno; further, that if cloture is invoked on Calendar Nos. 
664, 665 or 666, the time until 5:15 p.m. be equally divided between 
the two leaders or their designees and at 5:15 p.m. the Senate proceed 
to vote on confirmation of the nominations in the order listed; 
further, that there be 2 minutes for debate prior to each vote, equally 
divided in the usual form; that any rollcall votes

[[Page S2947]]

following the first in each series be 10 minutes in length; further, 
that if confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and 
laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate; that no 
further motions be in order to the nominations; that any statements 
related to the nominations be printed in the Record; that the President 
be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate then 
resume legislative session and proceed to vote on the motion to proceed 
to H.R. 3474.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________