Congressional Record, Volume 160 Issue 95 (Wednesday, June 18, 2014)

[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 95 (Wednesday, June 18, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3776-S3805]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

COMMERCE, JUSTICE, SCIENCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT,
2015--MOTION TO PROCEED

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
Senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 4660.
The clerk will report the motion.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 428, H.R. 4660, a bill
making appropriations for the Departments of Commerce and
Justice, Science, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year
ending September 30, 2015, and for other purposes.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, we bring to the floor our fiscal year
2015 spending bill, but before the Republican leader leaves, as the
Senator from Maryland, I too would like to join with great respect in
condolences for Master Sergeant Torian's family. For all of us who are
Senators who have constituent families where people have died, we have
to be in this together.
These are times when we are not the Republican Party or the
Democratic Party. We are not red or blue. We have to be red, white, and
blue. From this side of the aisle to that side of the aisle, Godspeed
to his family, and I thank the Senator for bringing this wonderful
young man to the attention of the Senate. Those remarks were quite
poignant and moving.
We have to stand by those families--the widow, the children who will
need an education, and let's do it shoulder to shoulder.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Maryland for
her additional comments about this wonderful young man.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, today we bring to the floor on a
bipartisan basis the annual appropriation bills of the Commerce-
Justice-Science bill, the Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and
Urban Development, and also the Agriculture, Rural Development, and
Food and Drug Administration. I wish to thank all of the members of the
Appropriations Committee for their tremendous work on these bills.
First, I wish to say a special word about my vice chairman Richard
Shelby, who has done the hard work and the due diligence of helping
move the entire process but also moving, in particular, our bill that
funds the Commerce Department, Justice Department, and the science
programs, such as our space program.

In terms of transportation, we have the able leadership of Senator
Murray, with her vice chairman Senator Collins; and on agriculture,
chairman Mark Pryor and, again, his vice chairman Roy Blunt.
This process is about moving America forward. This legislation we are
putting before the Senate today puts America's middle-class families
first, creating opportunity by creating jobs today.
With investments in physical infrastructure in the transportation and
housing bill, we are building roads and bridges, repairing them, and
updating transit lines and rail lines, so we literally and figuratively
can keep America on the move. At the same time we are also meeting
America's compelling human needs with our investment in home ownership
as well as in housing and in urban and economic development.
We also create jobs tomorrow with investments in research and
discovery. What we do in these important science agencies is drive
innovation, leading to new products and new jobs. And guess what.
Science saves lives.
When we look at Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations, we see that
we fund the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration--a lot of
words with a lot of alphabet, synonyms and acronyms and so on.
At the end of the day, we fund the weather service. What does the
weather service do? They predict weather. They predict immediate
weather, such as is it going to rain this afternoon, and they predict
weather emergencies, whether we are going to have a tornado.
Our hearts go out, again, on the other side of the aisle, to the
people of Kansas, where they were hit by a double tornado--an
unprecedented weather event. They are calling it the twin sisters,
referring to what happened in Nebraska. They were the ugly sisters, but
they were made less ugly because of the way the weather service could
help alert the people in that community. That is what we fund.
We protect the American people by making sure we fight crime and
terrorism by funding Federal law enforcement; by making sure our
medicines and medical devices are safe by funding the Food and Drug
Administration; and we meet compelling human needs, whether we are
talking about affordable housing or affordable food.
While we do it, we are also reforming the agencies. Sure, people talk
about appropriators as spenders, but we have a sense in this committee
on both sides of the aisle--and I must say that Senator Shelby has
helped lead this--that we need to be a more frugal government. We need
to get value for our dollar, demonstrating that we need to be able to
save money or use money. We are going to spend very wisely.
It has been 3 years since we were able to bring an appropriations
bill to the floor. I am not going to go into all the reasons why.
``Why'' doesn't get the job done. What we need to do is return to
regular order. So what does that mean? Today we have these three bills
pending. It means we want to enact all of our appropriations bills by
October 1. We want to keep government operating not on autopilot, not
on shutdown, nor on lavish spending. We have to reduce our Federal
deficit, but we also have to reduce other deficits, particularly in the
area of deficits related to innovation as well as the fact that our
crime rates are on the rise in many cities and we need to reduce them.
The American people today want to make sure we have a government they
can count on. But they need to count on the fact that not only are we
open and doing business but that when we are, we are smarter about it.
Vice Chairman Shelby and I have been working on a bipartisan basis.
We have been working on a bicameral basis. That means hands across the
aisle, hands across the dome to restore regular order and civility in
this process.
I look forward to moving this bill. I would say to my colleagues who
are listening, many of my colleagues saw a few months ago the way
Senator Lamar Alexander, Senator Tom Harkin, Senator Richard Burr, and
I moved a bipartisan bill on the child care and development block
grant. That had not been reauthorized since 1996, but we showed we
could do it. We cleared 18 amendments. We actually had votes on
amendments. We had an open process where amendments could be offered,
discussed, debated, and at the end of the day voted on because we had a
process that worked. As Senators

[[Page S3777]]

who worked together, we were able to pass that bill.
Senator Shelby and I are providing leadership today to be able to do
that. So we ask our colleagues to support us in coming to an agreement
on the motion to proceed so that we can move ahead on this bill. We are
making progress. There are several bills we have already moved out of
the committee, and we will be moving more. But right now, today, we
want to move these three bills and do it in a way that we are proud of
what we do, we are proud of our process, we are proud of our conduct,
and we are proud that we did it in the right way, with debate,
discussion, and the votes that are required.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, this morning I wish to join my longtime
colleague and friend, the senior Senator from Maryland and chair of the
Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator Barbara Mikulski, in
supporting the consideration of three bills before us today. All three
bills received strong bipartisan support at the full Committee on
Appropriations level.
I am pleased we have begun to reestablish regular order in the
appropriations process. We started that last year, and we need to
continue it, and we are.
After the uncertainty of sequestration and last year's disagreement
over the Budget Control Act caps, this past December's Murray-Ryan
budget deal provided the clarity needed to move us toward a regular
budget and a regular appropriations process. The Murray-Ryan deal,
which became the Bipartisan Budget Act, provided a compromise solution
that ended the congressional deadlock over top-line discretionary
spending.
While I appreciate that the chairwoman was operating in a tight
fiscal environment, we did not ultimately agree everywhere on how to
allocate funds within the new caps. All 14 Republican members of the
Appropriations Committee wrote to the chair on May 21 of this year
expressing our concerns over the use of budgetary mechanisms in
subcommittee allocations. In that letter we also stated and we continue
to express our opposition to increasing the level of total CHIMPs in
the Federal discretionary budget beyond current levels.
While we continue to have concerns about how the majority reached
total 302(b) allocations, the bills before us today for the most part
reached their allocations by making tough choices; that is, shifting
resources from lower to higher priority programs.
The allocations for the CJS, transportation and housing, and
Agriculture bills conform to the intent of the Murray-Ryan deal. Both
the Commerce-Justice-Science bill and the Agriculture bill actually
decrease spending compared to the current enacted levels, while still
being sufficient to meet the needs of the agencies. I am pleased to
have worked with the chairwoman to ensure that the CJS bill
successfully balanced the important and competing interests of law
enforcement, scientific advancement, and U.S. competitiveness. The
Transportation, Housing and Urban Development bill has a moderate
increase of only 1.4 percent, after taking into account the
scorekeeping difference between OMB and CBO on FHA loan receipts.
I believe passing these funding measures will give Congress a voice
in government spending that it was constitutionally intended to have.
Instead of ceding spending discretion to the executive branch or simply
locking in place priorities that have become outdated--as a continuing
resolution would do--this bill includes hundreds of limits on how
taxpayer dollars can be spent. While I might not agree with every item
in each bill, I think we have found solid middle ground upon which both
sides of the aisle can comfortably stand.
Once again, I thank the chair, Senator Mikulski, for her willingness
to work together, and I encourage my colleagues to come to the floor
and offer their amendments so we can debate the merits of them.
Thank you. I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Maryland.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I thank the vice chairman for his
remarks. I think he makes excellent points. We had a tough top line to
meet. The CBO score--these budgets speak words that people are trying
to follow. The Congressional Budget Office actually says how much
things will cost, and when they took a look at what our FHA program and
certain mortgage rates would cost, they found out we overestimated
revenue by $4 billion. That is a lot of money even by Washington
standards. So we had to adjust accordingly, and it has not been easy.
I will tell my colleagues that we are now coming down to talk about
where we really are now--what are the agencies we want to fund, why we
want to fund them at the amount we do, and what problems they actually
solve for the American people. The American people have a right to ask
at the end of the day not ``did you spend money'' but ``what did you
spend it on and what did we get for it? Are we a stronger country? Do
we have a better economy? Do our children have a brighter future? Are
we meeting compelling human needs?'' I think in these three bills the
answer is yes.
When we look at Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations, we want to
tell our colleagues what we have done. It really funds several
different agencies, and it comes to a total of $51.2 billion. It is
consistent with the CJS allocation, and it is $398 million less--I want
to say this clearly. What we are doing in the Commerce-Justice-Science
bill, we are spending less money than we did last year, but we think we
are getting more value for the dollar. We are $398 million below what
we spent last year, but at the same time we have kept our communities
safe, we have promoted jobs, and we have promoted innovation.
We used our spending to guide Federal decisions from Federal law
enforcement to space exploration. The CJS bill provides $28 billion for
the Justice Department. This is $260 million more than 2014. We did
this because we believe the Justice Department is an agency that people
in local communities feel they need to be able to count on. It keeps
America safe from crime and terrorism. It protects communities at the
local level. It protects families against domestic violence and sexual
predators. And the job of the Justice Department is to administer
justice fairly.
This bill funds key law enforcement and prosecution agencies. What do
we mean by that? Federal law enforcement is made up of the FBI, the
Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the U.S.
attorneys who actually prosecute the bad guys or the bad gals for
everything from mortgage fraud, to cyber terrorism, to drug dealing and
drug cartels, so they can keep us safe from all of this, protecting us
against gangs, drug dealers. Why is it important? Federal law
enforcement goes after gang activity, fraudsters trying to be more
predatory.
What is the result in this funding? We have done a lot. In my own
home State of Maryland, over the last year our Federal law enforcement
has arrested 280 violent fugitives. Federal law enforcement brought
down child pornographers and traffickers, bank robbers, and took a big
whack at the heroin trafficking rings. I am really proud of them. I am
proud of what they do in Maryland, and I am proud of what they do
around the world.
Look at how our FBI, working with our special operations, brought to
heel and brought into our custody one of the men who killed our Embassy
personnel in Benghazi. Let's do a big hurrah for the FBI and special
ops, but let's do our hurrah not only with words but putting the money
in the Federal checkbook so they get to be able to continue to do the
job of keeping America safe.
There are many other aspects of this bill that are important. This is
why we look out for our State and local departments.
We have also put in an important investment in the Violence Against
Women Act. We are spending $430 million to give grants to prevent and
prosecute domestic violence and also to be able to deal and help with
rape victims.
This bill puts money in the Federal checkbook to put more police
officers on the beat. But I like the fact that we are actually
protecting them with more bulletproof vests and being able to do other
work.

[[Page S3778]]

This bill also addresses the backlog of sexual assaults, making sure
we test no matter where they are. We have seen time and time again that
evidence is gathered and that somehow or another it is in some box in
some lab or some police department. Rape victims cannot be dually
assaulted--one by the predator who attacked them and then by a
lackluster prosecutorial system. If you gather the evidence, test it
and use it to make sure we have the right predator. Prosecute the
predator. See if they are a serial predator. Let's not doubly assault
the victim by not only what happened to them on the street but also
what happens to them in the criminal justice system.
So we are doing a lot. I feel very strongly about this, but I also
feel very strongly about the need to create jobs. This bill provides
$8.6 billion for the Department of Commerce, which helps them protect
our patents, promotes trade and economic development. It helps our
coastal economies with sustainable fisheries and healthy oceans. It
exports American goods and services and supports more than 11 million
jobs.
This bill does a lot by putting our Commercial Service officers--
those who actually work in embassies--to work, with business to be able
to help them. And we make sure they are not only in Europe but they are
in Asia and Africa, where the new opportunities are.
Our dynamic Secretary of Commerce has focused on bringing foreign
investments to the United States, and we have seen what they have meant
to Maryland and what they have meant in Alabama and what they have
meant in America.
We also, through the Commerce Department, help with our weather
bureau. I am going to say more about it, but what I want to talk about
right now is the National Science Foundation--one of our other main
agencies--because it does the basic research in science, technology,
and engineering.
Then there is NASA. I am going to say more about NASA later. I know
we have others waiting to speak. For NASA, actually, we have done more
than what the President wanted to do because we wanted to have a
balanced space program. We have particularly emphasized human space
flight, a reliable transportation system, and space science.
We have here where we are creating jobs, we are protecting people in
their communities, and we are laying the groundwork for jobs of the
future. There are many other issues I will talk about as the bill
unfolds.
Senator Shelby and I have worked very closely with Senator Coburn.
Everybody knows Senator Coburn prides himself on being a watchdog on
Federal spending. And you know what. He has been. I love some of his
ideas; some give me a little pause. But we actually met. We actually
met to see what we could do to be able to reform our government so we
could get more value for the dollar. I am going to have a separate
speech just on that so the American people know, when they say ``Watch
what you spend, Barb,'' I really am doing it. So is Senator Shelby. So
are the members of our committee.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, again I rise today in support of,
specifically, the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill, where I
am the ranking member for the Republicans.
I appreciate the leadership, as I have said earlier, of the chair on
this particular bill. We have worked together for many years. I chaired
this subcommittee at one time, and I believe the bill being considered
today reflects a strong bipartisan effort.
The competing interests of the Commerce-Justice-Science
appropriations bill always prove challenging, but I believe this bill
strikes the appropriate balance.
The allocation for the CJS bill; that is, the Commerce-Justice-
Science bill; is $51.2 billion, which is just below the fiscal year
2014 enacted level--yes, below. Working within this allocation, we
sought to balance priorities, hold agencies accountable for their work,
and demand efficiencies to stretch limited Federal dollars. Ultimately,
these efforts ensure that Federal resources are spent efficiently and
effectively.
The bill before us provides robust funding for the Department of
Justice and law enforcement grant programs totaling $28 billion. It
focuses attention and resources on some of the most difficult issues
plaguing the Nation, including human trafficking, gang violence, child
predation, a growing heroin crisis, threats to cyber security, and
domestic terrorism.
Grant programs such as VALOR, Byrne, veterans courts, crime lab
improvements, violence against women, and the COPS Program will receive
funding to advance the important work being done at the State and local
level in our Nation.
Moreover, the bill ensures that the Department maintains its focus on
evidence-based programs and activities that have a proven record of
effectiveness. This requirement emphasizes the committee's commitment
to ensuring that Federal dollars are not just spent but are spent
wisely.
The bill also includes $8.6 billion for the Department of Commerce,
which is responsible for a range of issues, including weather
forecasting, economic development, trade promotion, and fisheries
conservation, among others.
The bill prioritizes resources to support NOAA's next generation of
weather satellites that will enable the National Weather Service to
continue to provide timely warnings for dangerous weather outbreaks
that we all experience. To ensure that these weather satellites stay on
budget and are delivered on time, the bill continues and expands
stringent oversight requirements involving the inspector general. I
believe our Nation cannot afford cost increases and schedule delays in
these programs, and we expect that these oversight requirements will
help avoid such a scenario. These satellites are essential to weather
forecasters across the country. Without them, forecasters would be
unable to provide important warnings about devastating storms, tornado
outbreaks, and hurricanes, putting the safety of the American people at
risk.
The bill also provides sufficient resources and direction to improve
the management of the Nation's fisheries, including new approaches to
manage red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico. These new approaches should
provide a more equitable system for commercial fishermen and increase
the number of fishing days for recreational anglers.
The bill also provides $18 billion for NASA, the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration. In order to preserve the planned launch
schedule in 2017 for the heavy lift launch vehicle, or SLS, the bill
includes $1.7 billion for SLS rocket development, which is very
crucial. It also maintains focus on these efforts by requiring NASA to
follow its own internal guidance regarding joint confidence levels in
future funding requests.
The bill also preserves important funding for ongoing activities of
the International Space Station and other vital science research
missions.
In addition, the bill safeguards the advancement of efforts underway
to develop a U.S. vehicle to transport our astronauts to the space
station. I believe those efforts must continue in a transparent way to
ensure that the government is not saddled with mounting bills and no
recourse.
I commend the chair for working with me to include language that
requires certified cost and pricing data for the crew vehicle
development contract. The goal of the language is not to up-end a
fixed-price contract; rather, the goal is to make certain that the
price NASA has agreed to pay for vehicle development matches actual
development expenditures. NASA and its contractors have a history of
cost overruns and schedule delays, whether the contract has a fixed
price or not. With no other U.S.-based options to get to the space
station, I believe we cannot find ourselves at the eleventh hour with
an overburdened program that requires a bailout to succeed.
Once again, these measures are included to ensure that the government
is not just spending taxpayer money, but that it is doing so in a cost-
effective manner.
I reiterate my belief that the bill reflects the Senate's priorities
and the needs of our Nation. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Heitkamp). The Senator from Washington.

[[Page S3779]]

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I am pleased the Senate is now
considering appropriations bills that fund important segments of our
Federal Government. Those include the agencies responsible for
scientific research, justice and nutrition programs, as well as the
Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development.
It has been some time since we have been able to fund the operations
of the government through regular order, so it is encouraging that
leaders on both sides of the aisle have been able to work together now
to pursue that goal.
As we are here today considering these bills, I think it is helpful
to remember where we were at this time last year. We were unable to
start a budget conference. There was a government shutdown looming just
a few months ahead, and businesses and families across the country had
absolutely no certainty about whether their government could even keep
the lights on.
Today we have more certainty thanks to the 2-year budget agreement,
and building on the bipartisan work we all did to reach that agreement,
the members of our committee, Senator Collins and I, have been able to
put together a transportation and housing bill that makes responsible
investments in infrastructure and community development and helps
protect the most vulnerable among us.
Less than 2 weeks ago the Appropriations Committee approved the
transportation and housing bill by a vote of 29 to 1--an extremely
strong show of bipartisan support. This bill received such remarkable
support because it helps families and communities, it gets workers back
on the job, and it lays down a strong foundation for long-term and
broad-based economic growth. It does this in a manner that is fiscally
responsible, with growth of just a little more than 1 percent over the
fiscal year 2014 level when looking at the program funding levels and
factoring in FHA receipts, which do vary from year to year. After
adjusting for inflation, the funding in this bill is actually 2.5
percent less than what it was in fiscal year 2008, as a result of the
spending cuts we have now applied to discretionary appropriations.
This bill is timely. It makes critical, targeted investments to
address concerns that have developed over the past year. In light of
the dramatic growth in domestic energy production, it includes new
resources to strengthen oversight of energy shipments by rail to keep
our communities safe, including funding for additional rail safety and
hazardous materials inspectors, training for first responders, more
track inspections, research into the volatility of crude oil, and
requirements for stronger tank car designs.
This bill includes $10 million to improve vehicle safety defects
analysis and investigation, to help ensure we do not see a repeat of
the Department of Transportation's failure to detect unsafe parts in
General Motors and other manufacturers' vehicles.
This bill provides an additional 10,000 vouchers to move us closer to
finally eliminating homelessness among our Nation's veterans. Due to
these investments, we have been able to reduce the number of homeless
vets on our Nation's streets by 24 percent since 2010. We are well on
our way to eliminating it altogether.
Our bill includes direction to help communities implement the
Violence Against Women Act in Federal housing programs as well as
resources to improve coordination between housing programs and domestic
violence survivors services. It makes it possible for HUD to support
youth aging out of foster care, giving them more time to find stability
and save money, thereby helping to reduce the elevated risk of
homelessness facing those vulnerable young people.
This bill invests in our communities. It provides $3 billion for
community development grants to State and local governments to help
communities fund projects that meet their unique needs and support
efforts to create jobs and $950 million for the HOME Program to help
create affordable housing.
It ensures the FAA has sufficient funding to continue rebuilding its
workforce after the disruptive effects of last year's sequestration. It
fully funds the FAA's airport grants and research programs as well as
the contract towers and Essential Air Service Program that so many of
our rural communities depend on.
It includes sufficient funding for HUD's house and homeless
assistance program, to preserve this vital piece of the Nation's safety
net. More than half of the 5.4 million very low-income households that
depend upon the housing assistance provided in this bill include
someone elderly, disabled, or both. Without these programs, many of
these individuals would be homeless.
The bill includes $90 million for Choice Neighborhoods. That is a
program that helps tear down and rebuild distressed public housing as
well as language making it possible for more local authorities to
access private capital through the Rental Assistance Demonstration to
renovate our aging housing stock. Notably, it includes reforms to make
the programs in this bill more accountable and more effective. These
include provisions to make it easier for public housing authorities to
manage their capital and operations needs as well as resources for HUD
to use the lessons it has learned since Hurricane Katrina to develop
templates that communities can quickly implement to speed recovery
effectively following a disaster.
The bill streamlines environmental reviews for Native American
housing. It works to ensure accountability for property owners who do
not maintain the quality of their HUD assisted housing. It increases
accountability in the CDBG Program.
That is our bill. We do make tough choices. To fund increases for
inflation and other uncontrollable costs, we made the very difficult
choice of trimming funding for programs that Members care about,
including the TIGER and HOME Program. In short, this bill is a good
bill.
I note that most of the transportation funding, a total of just over
$50 billion, comes from our highway trust fund. As we all know, right
now, the highway trust fund is headed toward a crisis. The Department
of Transportation expects the balances in this fund to reach critical
levels later this summer. To deal with this uncertainty, States now are
already bracing for the worst-case scenario. Some States such as
Arkansas have already put their projects on hold. This crisis could
also hurt workers in the construction industry who depend on jobs to
repair our roads and bridges.
If Congress does not act, a shortfall in the highway trust fund will
put at risk the funding we have included here in our THUD bill. We need
immediate action to solve that crisis well before October when the new
fiscal year starts. We need to work together to avoid that unnecessary
and preventable crisis. In the meantime, I am glad we are turning to
the transportation and housing bill and getting the work of the
Appropriations Committee done.
Together with the Senator from Maine, Susan Collins, I encourage
Members to bring their amendments to the floor and to work with us to
make it even better. This bill enjoys broad bipartisan support, because
it takes a practical approach to addressing the real needs we find in
the transportation and housing sectors.
The investments it makes would improve safety, increase efficiency,
and help our communities, and lay down a strong foundation for long-
term and broad-based economic growth and help position our country and
our economy to compete in winning the 21st century global economy. I
urge our colleagues to support our bipartisan bill. I hope we can move
rapidly to final passage.
Before I yield, I do want to thank Chairman Mikulski for her support
and leadership. As the former chair of the VA HUD subcommittee, she
appreciates the importance of the investments in our bill. This bill
includes priorities of Members on both sides of the aisle, reflecting
the Appropriations Committee's bipartisan tradition.
I thank our entire committee for their work. I especially want to
take a moment to express my thanks to my ranking member Senator Collins
and her staff for all of their hard work and cooperation throughout
this process. I am proud that together we have written a bill that
works for families and communities. Investing in families and
communities and long-term economic growth should not be a partisan
issue. I think the bipartisan work that went into this bill and the
strong support it received in committee proves it does not have to be.
I yield the floor.

[[Page S3780]]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, I am told the Senator from Washington
State has a very brief statement she would like to make. I ask
unanimous consent that she be allowed up to 3 minutes to make her
statement before I reclaim the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Maine. I will
explain to her later how Maine continues to play a very interesting
role in such an important issue.
(The further remarks of Ms. Cantwell are printed in today's Record
under ``Morning Business.'')
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, I am pleased to join with Chairman
Murray as we hope to begin floor consideration of the bipartisan fiscal
year 2015 appropriations bill for Transportation, Housing and Urban
Development, and Related Agencies.
As usual, it has been a great pleasure to work with Chairman Murray.
She is extremely fair-minded and bipartisan in the approach she has
taken to this bill. I also thank her staff for working closely with my
staff as we sought to craft a bill that I believe deserves the support
of all of our colleagues.
Let me also take this opportunity to thank Chairwoman Mikulski and
Vice Chairman Shelby for their extraordinary leadership in advancing
those three appropriations bills through what at times is turning out
to be a daunting process. It is my hope and expectation that we can
give Members of this body the opportunity to debate all three of these
bills, to offer amendments, and ultimately to pass them, and that we
have an open and transparent process.
I would encourage cooperation on both sides of the aisle. It is in
the best interests of this country for us to do our work in the regular
order, in the normal process, and to pass these bills, and then to hold
conferences with the House to iron out any differences.
Last week the House did approve its own version of the THUD
appropriations bill. This is an important step in the process which
will eventually allow the two Chambers to meet in conference and
produce a final bill to send to the President for his signature. I
commend the leaders of the Appropriations Committee and also the floor
leaders for making sure we have the time available to bring these bills
to the floor.
There is no reason we cannot pass each one of the appropriations
bills, have a conference with the House, and get them to the President
before the start of the fiscal year so we can avoid gigantic omnibus
bills that are a poor way to legislate or, even worse, continuing
resolutions that lock into law increased costs and priorities that may
no longer reflect today's needs.
The THUD bill before us today is essentially a jobs bill. It provides
$54.4 billion in responsible investments in transportation and housing
programs, and it includes input from Members on both sides of the
aisle. Every Senator has unmet transportation and housing needs in his
or her State, from crumbling roads and unsafe bridges to a growing
population of vulnerable low-income families, seniors, and disabled
individuals in need of housing assistance.
Chairman Murray and I worked very hard to accommodate the input from
many Members. This bill we bring before you received overwhelming
support in the full Appropriations Committee. In fact, as Chairman
Murray mentioned, the vote was 29 to 1 to report this bill to the full
Senate. It is essential to acknowledge that this year's THUD bill is
directly affected by nearly a $3 billion reduction in Federal Housing
Authority receipts for fiscal year 2015. As a result, we were faced
with making very difficult decisions to ensure that the Federal
investments in this bill were prioritized to meet the most critical
needs.
One of the most pressing issues this bill addresses has not received
a great deal of attention, so I want to spend a moment on it; that is,
the safe transportation of crude oil and other hazardous materials by
rail. I know the Presiding Officer is very familiar with this issue. I
am pleased to say our transportation bill strengthens three components
to help ensure the safe transportation of crude oil and other hazardous
materials. It focuses on prevention, mitigation, and response. If you
talk to any emergency responder, they will tell you those are the three
critical components.
We do so without adopting the President's poorly conceived proposal,
which would have created yet another level of bureaucracy in the
Secretary's office. Instead, we chose what I believe to be a wiser
course. We provided funding directly to the agencies to support
additional rail inspectors, advance research efforts, and to establish
cooperative training programs.
I know firsthand how horrific these disasters can be, because last
year there was a terrible derailment in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, 30 miles
from the border of Maine, that cost 47 lives and essentially destroyed
this picturesque village. I was very proud that 30 Maine firefighters
responded to the call for help from their Canadian counterparts.
Senator Murray and I held an oversight hearing to look at rail
safety, and the fire chief from Rangeley, ME, Tim Pellerin, testified
before our committee at our oversight hearing. He provided gripping
testimony about this extraordinarily dangerous experience, as well as
thoughtful recommendations about what should be done. I want to tell
the chief that we listened to him, and a lot of our recommendations in
the bill--particularly with regard to training--reflect the advice he
gave us as a first responder on that very dangerous scene.
Turning to another issue, this bill provides $550 million for the
TIGER Program, an effective initiative that helps advance
transportation infrastructure projects. We have seen firsthand how
TIGER projects create good jobs and support economic growth in our home
States.
Turning now to air travel, the aviation investments included in our
bill will continue to modernize our Nation's air traffic system. These
investments are creating safer skies and a more efficient air space to
move the flying public.
In addition to transportation programs, our bill provides sufficient
but not generous funding to keep pace with the rising cost of housing
vulnerable families. More than 4 million families will continue to
receive critical rental assistance for their housing. Without it, many
of these families would otherwise become homeless.
Chairman Murray and I continue to share a strong commitment--indeed,
a passion--to reducing homelessness in this country. For that reason we
have included more than $2 billion for homeless assistance grants.
Since 2010 we have reduced overall chronic homelessness by 16 percent
and veterans homelessness by 24 percent.
These programs are working, and we have the data to prove it. That is
why our bill builds on these successes and provides an additional
10,000 HUD-VASH vouchers to serve our Nation's veterans.
We have an obligation to our Nation's veterans. That has been very
much on our minds recently, and we can point with pride to the
reduction by 24 percent in homelessness among veterans, but we want to
complete the job. We don't want any veteran to be homeless, and we are
making progress through this well-conceived program.
While our bill helps families in need and our Nation's veterans, it
also invests in our communities. Boosting local economies is critical
to job creation and helping families obtain financial security. Our
legislation supports these local development efforts by providing more
than $3 billion for Community Development Block Grants.
I am sure the Presiding Officer has had the experience, as most
Members have, of talking to State and local officials about the
Community Development Block Grant Program. It is an extremely popular
program with States and communities because it allows them to tailor
the Federal funds to support locally driven economic and job-creation
projects. It isn't Washington telling them how this money should be
spent but, rather, providing the flexibility so that they can meet
local economic development needs and help to create new jobs.

[[Page S3781]]

The bill before us does not solve all of the problems in either the
Department of Transportation or in the Department of Housing and Urban
Development; we don't have the money to do that.
Most notably, the administration's budget does not come up with a
realistic way to address the urgent need to prevent the highway trust
fund from becoming insolvent in August.
There should be no doubt in the mind of any Member of this body, if
the administration and Congress do not take action before the August
recess, State departments of transportation will not be reimbursed for
work that has already been completed and new projects will likely grind
to a halt and jobs, good construction jobs, will be lost.
The administration must present an achievable plan to avoid this
disruption, these lost jobs, these stalled transportation projects, and
Congress must work in good faith to secure passage.
Transportation is the lifeline of our economy, supporting millions of
jobs and moving people and products. When coupled with the housing and
economic development projects, the fiscal year 2015 transportation and
housing appropriations bill will create jobs now when they are needed
most and will establish the foundation for future growth.
Just as important to our economic future, however, is reining in
excessive Federal spending and getting our national debt under control,
which must be a priority governmentwide.
We have met the budget allocations that have been provided to us. In
setting priorities for fiscal year 2015, I believe our T-HUD bill
strikes the right balance between thoughtful investment and the
necessary fiscal restraint.
I appreciate the opportunity to present this legislation to the
Members of this Chamber. As we continue the debate on these bills, I
urge my colleagues to consider how important it is that we complete our
work on time, and I hope they will support the efforts of the
Appropriations Committee.
I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Ms. MIKULSKI. I yield to the majority leader.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

NFL Football

Mr. REID. I appreciate the chairman of the Appropriations Committee
being so kind.
There are 27 tribes in the State of Nevada, Native Americans. The
issue regarding the name Redskins is very important to every one of
those tribes. Every time they hear this name, it is a sad reminder of a
long tradition of racism and bigotry.
A month or so ago, Daniel Snyder, the owner of the team, had some
people come to Nevada and agree to buy one of the Indian tribes a car
if they would say nice things about the Redskins. They refused.
This is extremely important to Native Americans all over the country,
that they no longer use this name. It is racist.
Daniel Snyder says it is about tradition. I ask: What tradition? The
tradition of racism, that is all this name leaves in its wake.
The writing is on the wall. The writing is on the wall in giant
blinking neon lights. This name will change and justice will be done
for the tribes in Nevada and across the Nation who care so deeply about
this issue.
The Patent and Trademark Office today took away all the trademarks.
The Redskins no longer have trademarks. They are gone.
So as I understand the law, if the Presiding Officer wants to use the
name Redskins and sell them shirts, she can do that. There is no
trademark anymore for the Redskins.
Daniel Snyder may be the last person in the world to realize this,
but it is only a matter of time before he is forced to do what is right
and change the name.
The leader on this issue is the junior Senator from the State of
Washington. Senator Cantwell has been tireless in showing the American
people how unfair it is for the Redskins' name to be used as it is. I
think she is one of the leading causes that the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office said it is no longer--no longer--a trademark. They did
that this morning.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I know Senator Collins and Senator
Murray are leaving to go to the DOD to meet with Secretary Hagel, and
we both look forward to their return this afternoon, but I want to
acknowledge the great role they played in putting together the
appropriations and transportation funding for the entire United States
of America, as well as the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
We are going to talk more about transportation because it literally
keeps America rolling, whether it is the kinds of problems we solved
with the issues around safety, congestion--they are absolutely crucial.
But also what they talked about in their bill is housing and urban
development and how--it is also the famous HUD bill--it does not only
do urban development.
I know the Presiding Officer is from the State of North Dakota, whose
terrain and challenges are very different than my State, a coastal
State. But the Presiding Officer would be interested to know--because
she has been hit by some bad weather--that when Hurricane Sandy hit, my
State was hit by two things: a hurricane--a hurricane on my Eastern
Shore, in which a whole town was underwater and literally people had to
be rescued by Zodiacs, by boats, and so on.
Then out in western Maryland, our mountain counties, people were hit
by a blizzard. It was so bad that regular snowplows, local government,
and the private sector weren't working. The Governor had to bring in
the National Guard--and God bless our State troopers and first
responders. They were bringing out senior citizens on snowmobiles and
things strapped to their chests to get them to safety because the free
zone was there.
I tell that poignant story because while we looked to FEMA to rescue,
it was really the Community Development Block Grant money that helped
local communities come back. FEMA was there for readiness, so we were
ready to respond. It was ready to respond. But the big job of
rehabilitation always comes through CDBG. I am going to talk about it
because it is a lot of letters--one more agency with a lot of letters--
but it is also a big impact. What we need to be able to focus on is
this is Federal spending with local decisionmaking. It is money that
comes to local communities to eliminate blight and to create jobs.
Blight can come from a natural disaster or communities that are aging
with that kind of impact.
We hope we have support for the bill, but, gee, they did a good job
and they did it with diligence, civility, collegiality and common
sense, as is characteristic.
I would point out we have tried to use common sense too. Working with
Senator Shelby, as I have said, I am going to emphasize the word
``frugality.'' How do we make sure we get value for the taxpayers'
dollar.
It is something in which I strongly believe. My colleague has been a
Federal watchdog. He, like I, believes in the funding of these
agencies. These watchdog agencies are absolutely crucial.
The Appropriations Committee, under my chairmanship but with the
strong concurrence of the vice chairman, believes in the inspectors
general.
Congress can hold an investigation and we can pound our chests and
put glasses on our noses and ask tough questions, but we need the kind
of truly drilling down to know what agencies are doing and are they
making sure we avoid boondoggles, waste, stupidity, and at the same
time terrible cost overruns.
Thanks to working on a bipartisan basis, we have insisted that
inspectors general be at every hearing. This has been a new innovation
of the leadership of Senator Shelby and me. We want the inspectors
general to be part of our official record so we know the top 10 issues
they brought to our attention to stand sentry, and we put money in the
Federal checkbook to fund them.
We funded the Commerce Department IG at $30.6 million, $600 million
above 2014 for Justice to make sure grant programs were well
administered for NASA, to avoid techno-boondoggles, and for the NSF, so
they too keep an eye on it.
We are going to talk more about the problems they identified and the
problems we solved, but I note on the floor

[[Page S3782]]

Senator Pryor from Arkansas, who has chaired the Subcommittee on
Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA, an important subcommittee that is
part of our overall bill today.
I yield the floor for Senator Pryor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
Mr. PRYOR. Madam President, I rise in support of the fiscal year 2015
Agriculture appropriations bill. I know Senator Blunt, the ranking
member, is on his way over. We were just in another subcommittee
hearing and we were asking questions.
Before I say anything else, I thank Senator Blunt because he has been
a great partner to work with. He has been outstanding. He knows this
stuff. He works hard. He knows how to work the system. He has been
great. He is one of those guys we can trust, and he is very bipartisan.
If we had more folks like Senator Blunt around here, we would get a lot
more done. He is doing great work for the country by doing what he is
doing.
This is a commonsense and bipartisan bill. It did pass unanimously
coming out of the full Appropriations Committee last month, and I am
confident my colleagues will support it. When they have a chance to see
it, they will like it. I heartily encourage everyone to take a good
look at it and support it for final passage.
Agriculture, as we know very well, is something America does better
than anybody else in the world. We are the envy of the world when it
comes to agriculture. We do it right. We are the gold standard. We are
what every other nation in the world wants to be. It is of course rural
America's No. 1 industry. So when we talk about agriculture and rural
America, it is doing something we can be extremely proud of in this
body and in this country because they do it better than anybody else.
I learned a lesson 1 or 2 years ago when Senator Stabenow took over
as chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. She told me
everybody thinks of Michigan and they think of automobile
manufacturing--heavy industry--as the No. 1 industry, and it is in
Michigan, but agriculture is No. 2.
If we were to go around a map of the United States, that is what we
would see pretty much in almost every State. Agriculture is either the
No. 1 industry or No. 2. In a few cases it is the No. 3 industry. I
could go around to all 50 States, but in Arkansas, as an example,
agriculture equals a full 25 percent of our State's economy. So 25
percent of our economy is agriculture or agra related.
Again, if we look around the country, we will see numbers similar to
that in many States. It contributes $17 billion in economic activity to
Arkansas. It also supports thousands and thousands of jobs--in fact,
about one in six jobs. We could put up a chart similar to this for any
State in the Union. The numbers may change from State to State, but
they will be generally the same.
The Agriculture appropriations bill we are talking about builds on
the strengths of our agricultural industry. It invests in the Farm
Service Agency. It prohibits the closure of FSA offices, which provide
vital services to our farmers and ranchers, and it provides funding for
farm ownership loans. It also invests in the Agricultural Research
Service and the Natural Resources Conservation Service so America can
continue to innovate and make our agricultural products more
efficiently.
This is another area America truly leads the world in, agricultural
innovation. Agriculture is actually very science-based and very
innovative. It doesn't always get credit for being high-tech, but it
actually is. So much of that basic research and the things that make a
difference out in the field happen in this legislation, but that is not
all the bill does. It also makes smart investments to help improve job
opportunities and quality of life for families in rural America.
One thing we don't want to see is the old ``Tale of Two Americas,''
where urban and suburban get all the money, get the latest and the
greatest and the best and the cutting edge and rural America is left
behind. That can happen and it does happen in Washington,
unfortunately, quite a bit--but not in this bill. This bill's primary
emphasis is on rural America. It is one of the few bills we talk about
in any given Congress that does focus on rural America. It makes smart
investments there.
It maintains funding for the Rural Development Water and Waste
Disposal Program to help many of our very small communities obtain
clean water and sanitary waste disposal systems. Here again, just
because one lives in smalltown America doesn't mean they shouldn't have
clean water. Everybody should have clean water. So this bill makes sure
that happens.
It increases funding for the Food and Drug Administration to ensure
that our food and our drug supply remains the safest and the most
reliable in the world. There again FDA is in this bill. Everybody in
the world wants to be like FDA. Everybody wants the integrity we have
in our system for our food and our drugs. We fund FDA here.
It provides funding for the Food Safety and Inspection Service to
keep our food supply safe, and it sustains the school meals equipment
grants so our schools can continue to provide healthy meals for kids.
We also included in this legislation money for disaster relief. Some
people have asked me: Why? Why should we do that? I have a photograph
recently taken in Arkansas. This is just one example of the devastating
effects of a tornado.
Here we look at what used to be someone's home. We have to remember
these people worked all their lives to have this house, and in about 45
seconds this is what was left of it. It may be hard to see on the
television, but right here is a motorcycle, a pickup truck, a power
line lying in the yard, a few appliances, a few people hugging, but one
thing we see is their pride in America, where they put up their flag.
Even in the most adverse circumstances they came together and pulled
together to make that happen.
So we put disaster money into this legislation because our country
needs disaster money. We need to make sure disasters are fully funded
and we have those resources when our neighbors need it the most.
In this storm lives were lost, homes were completely wiped out, and
many communities were left in ruins. Arkansas is not unique. I wish I
could say this didn't happen, but it does happen periodically around
the country. This bill provides funding to help States respond when
natural disaster strikes.
My view is that supporting this legislation is a no-brainer. It is
bipartisan. It is a good, commonsense, solid piece of legislation. It
sustains our agricultural producers, our communities and our families,
and it strengthens our economy and secures the future of our Nation.
Before I turn it over to my colleague from Missouri--and I know we
are all anxious to hear what he says--there has been a question, as I
have talked to many of my colleagues both on the Democratic and the
Republican side, about whether we will allow amendments. The answer is:
Absolutely, yes; we would like to see amendments.
I cannot speak for everyone in the Chamber, but from the members of
the Appropriations Committee who are involved in this legislation,
including the chairwoman and the ranking member, yes, we want to talk
to Senators about their amendments. It is a little bit like the Statue
of Liberty: ``Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses
yearning to breathe free.'' We want to see those amendments. We want to
talk about them.
We are hoping we will be able to put together managers' packages. We
are hoping we will be able to find common ground and make this bill
better as it goes through the process. Certainly we don't want a lot of
funny business on that. We want real amendments, good amendments,
amendments that are important to moving this forward.
I know many of my colleagues have been frustrated, but we would like
to talk to as many Members as possible about their amendments. I will
be on the floor on and off most of the day, either on the floor or near
the floor all day. So if anyone's office wants to talk to me about
amendments or any Member wants to talk about amendments, I will be glad
to do that.
I yield the floor for my colleague from Missouri.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I am pleased to join the Senator from
Arkansas in introducing this bill. He has been a great person to work
with.

[[Page S3783]]

I also fully associate myself with his comments about our colleagues'
ability to amend these bills. Senator Mikulski and Senator Shelby have
been real advocates for us getting back to the process the way it
essentially worked in the country for a couple hundred years. We got
out of the habit of bringing these bills to the floor, letting Members
come to the floor and offer better ways to spend this money or if they
want to propose not to spend it at all, that is one of the proposals
they can make.
The Senator from Arkansas and I have worked to make the tough
choices, but seldom is a bill so perfect that it can't be improved, and
there is nothing wrong with defending the decisions we have made.
I believe one of the real losses for the country and the Senate of
these bills not coming to the floor in recent years is that Members of
the Senate haven't had to hear the debate. Members who bring a bill to
the floor haven't had to defend the bill. Before we know it, if we
don't have to defend what we are for, we have a hard time remembering
why we are for what we are for.
This process makes sense if we do it the right way. Certainly,
Senator Pryor has wanted to approach this in that way, and maybe, more
importantly, from both our points of view, Senator Mikulski and Senator
Shelby have been advocating that we bring these bills to the floor and
we debate these priorities.
I am particularly pleased to join with Senator Pryor in introducing
this bill and bringing this bill to the floor, the fiscal year 2015
Agriculture appropriations bill, for agriculture, for rural
development, for the Food and Drug Administration, and the things that
relate to those agencies. The Senator made a good point already about
how important this industry is. In Missouri as in Arkansas, agriculture
is the No. 1 industry. In my State it is responsible for 16 percent of
the State's workforce. Frankly, as world food needs develop, I believe
the percentage of our workforce that will have jobs because of
agriculture--growing, producing, and processing it, figuring out how to
get it to markets around the world--will be an even higher percentage
in the future. I think agriculture is the No. 1 industry in most
States. If it is not the No. 1 industry, it is right there at the top.

For 150 years now the Federal Government, through what would become
the Department of Agriculture after a bill President Lincoln signed in
1862, has been doing many of the things we want to continue to do in
this bill. This is not a newfound obligation on the part of the Federal
Government. This is not something for which the Federal Government just
decided it needed to have some responsibility. This is something that
150 years ago the Federal Government said: You know, we don't need to
have--as the land grant universities were founded, the Federal
Government said: We need to help these universities manage the research
they are doing so that what they are doing can be shared throughout our
country, so it is not needlessly duplicated, so it is properly not only
allocated but funded.
So the activities in this bill include one of my priorities, which is
agricultural research. It includes conservation activities, housing and
business loans for rural communities, domestic and international
nutrition programs, and food and drug safety. Certainly all of those
have a top priority on the list of different individual Members of the
Senate. It would be hard to find a Senator who didn't have near the top
of their priority list one of the things this bill does.
The Senator from Arkansas and I have made difficult decisions in
drafting this bill. Aside from the disaster recovery efforts, the bill
is $90 million below last year's bill. I think it represents a
responsible approach to the funding of these priorities but at the same
time tightening our belts as we work to live within our means.
We have prioritized programs that protect public health and maintain
the strength of our Nation's agricultural economy. Agriculture is one
of the few sectors in our economy that consistently enjoy a trade
surplus. Last year was our strongest export year in ag products in the
history of the country. Recent information from the Department of
Agriculture indicates that 2014 is going to set a new record. We need
to continue to work through the U.S. Department of Agriculture to open
new markets, and we are doing that--particularly markets in Asia and
Europe that need to be more open to our products. Expanding
agricultural exports is vital. Every $1 billion in agricultural exports
supports an estimated 8,000 American jobs.
If we need to have a domestic priority in the Congress today, it is
more private sector jobs. One way to do that is to continue to do what
we are doing in this bill and to do it even better.
Opening export markets is only one piece of the puzzle that maintains
our agricultural economy. The American farmer is the best in the world
at producing products that are desired worldwide in the global
marketplace. Smart investment in ag research has helped us get to that
point. We have products with a quality, with a market sensitivity, and
with a health and nutrition value that people all over the world want.
This bill places significant emphasis on maintaining research at our
land grant universities and our non-land grant university systems that
have a commitment to agriculture and funding competitive research
beyond that in things such as the Agriculture and Food Research
Initiative.
These programs are critical to our increased production. Every dollar
spent in agricultural research results in around a $20 return to the
U.S. economy. By the way, that comes year after year. Once you create
that notch and work to try to improve it, it continues to come.
This bill will also provide our rural communities with even more
ability to compete both here and abroad.
In a bill where many items didn't get the funding that was requested,
we fully funded the Food and Drug Administration request. It is
important to the chairman, important to our committee, and important as
we look at the health and safety of the products for which the Food and
Drug Administration is responsible.
Again, I thank the Senator from Arkansas for his leadership. I thank
our chairman and ranking member of the full committee for working so
hard to see these bills debated on the floor. I look forward to working
with our colleagues as they come up with ways to improve this bill. It
is one of the three bills that are on the floor this week.
I hope we can return to a day very quickly where all the
appropriations bills are on the floor in as small a group as possible
and where they are all open to amendment. We have to get back into the
practice of remembering why we are for what we are for and why we have
decided to propose that the hard-earned dollars of American families
should be spent for these things as opposed to not spending them all or
spending them on something else. It is a process that will work if the
Senate shares the commitment of the chairman and Senator Shelby and I
think everybody on the Appropriations Committee to try to get back into
the business of doing this business publicly and openly and in the
right way.
Madam President, I will yield for Senator Pryor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
Mr. PRYOR. I have a few more comments after listening to my colleague
from Missouri. I did want to mention a few.
The first point is on exports. We all know we have a bad trade
deficit. We all know that. But it would be horrendous if it were not
for agriculture. Agriculture is really a huge net plus for us when it
comes to exporters. You may ask yourself why that is. It is because we
raise the safest, highest quality food in the world, and other people
want it. There is no question that when that food shows up on shelves
in foreign countries, if this says ``Made in the USA,'' sometimes they
can charge a premium because they know the USDA seal of approval is of
the highest quality you can find anywhere in the world. So exports are
very important.
We heard the President--not just this President but the previous
President as well--talk about exports and how many jobs exports create.
We need to get back in the exportation business, and agriculture is a
great way to do that.
Senator Blunt alluded to research. There are some tremendous numbers
in research. For every dollar of research, you get a $20 return to the
U.S. economy. That is a no-brainer. That is

[[Page S3784]]

smart policy. That is the right thing to do. It is good for the
economy.
But also we both had an experience a few weeks ago where Bill Gates,
who founded Microsoft, came in and talked to us about American
agricultural research and how important it is in feeding the world. One
aspect that struck me is here is a man--Bill Gates--who has been an
economic revolutionary. He has changed the world with Microsoft and the
digital revolution and the high-tech and all the efforts in which he
has been involved. He has been at the cutting edge of so much of that
change we have seen in our economy and the world's economy in the last
20-, 30-plus years. It is phenomenal. But here he is in the autumn of
his life, and what does he come back to? Agriculture--something that is
so basic that we take for granted, but because he has seen the work in
the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, he has seen the work around the
world, he has seen the abject poverty, and he has seen the starvation,
he knows that when they get their hands on American products such as
seed, fertilizer--all the things we take for granted--that would be a
life-changer for those people around the world.
I think it was Senator Blunt who said his experience is that when
people have been eating bad food all their lives, once they get a
chance to eat good food, they don't want to go back to bad food. That
is what Bill Gates is talking about, and that is where ag research
comes in. That is how this piece of the puzzle fits.
There is another point I want to make about rural America. Generally
in this legislation we have provisions for rural water, rural housing,
rural broadband, rural electricity. Again, we have to understand the
economics of that. If you wanted to add broadband somewhere, if you
wanted to do it, say, in suburban Washington, DC, obviously you have in
many cases relatively high income levels and you have population
density. You have what makes it economically feasible. But if you are
out in rural America, you want those people to have access to
broadband, but you get so many fewer customers per mile. That is why we
help. This is sort of the premise of the old Universal Service Fund we
have had for a long time in telephone to help expand that network to
every single home in America. Now, of course, we have a lot of wireless
technologies and whatnot. So we want to make that readily available to
rural America.
The last bit of substance I wanted to add to what Senator Blunt
mentioned is the funding for the Food and Drug Administration. I am not
sure there is an agency that is responsible for more innovation than
the FDA. We need to keep the FDA stable. We need to keep them well
funded. They need to be able to approve drugs and do the testing they
need to do.
One of the new frontiers they are dealing with is nanotechnology. We
are seeing nano products enter the marketplace all over this economy,
and there has been very little testing on that for human safety. So the
FDA is doing that. We need to continue to fund them so they can do the
job. We don't want them to be an obstacle to innovation; we want them
to be a partner in innovation. Let these companies that come in and
have these great products, whatever they are--cosmetics, food,
whatever--let them innovate and do that and again create American jobs
and enhance the marketplace. But in order for the FDA to do that, we
need to fund them.
Senator Blunt is right. We have the best system of government in the
world, bar none. And the U.S. Senate always has its moments where it
gets a few rough edges. This is democracy at its finest. People don't
always agree. They fuss and fight and things get balled up here and
there. But our system works, and it works great if we let it work.
I think what the chairwoman and the ranking member of the full
committee are saying is: We want the process to work. We want it to
work. We want to talk about amendments. We want to have amendments. We
want to have votes. We want to get back to regular order, whatever that
means in the Senate. But most of us know what that means. It means
getting back to where Senators can participate in the process, but it
is also done in good will and good faith.
With that, Madam President, I would yield the floor, but I would
encourage my colleagues to look closely at and support this
legislation.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I note that the distinguished Senator
from Arizona is on the floor, and we want to be sure he has an
opportunity to speak.
I do have a housekeeping matter to take care of and just a few
words--about three sentences--about ag, but I want the Senator from
Arizona to be heard.
Madam President, I wish to comment on the Agriculture bill, but I
will keep that for later on in the day. I will be on the floor along
with Senator Shelby trying to move this bill in a way that we could
complete the motion to proceed and that we could move to amendments.
Right now, I wish to compliment both the Senator from Arkansas and
the Senator from Missouri, Senators Pryor and Blunt, for the excellent
way they have moved the agriculture FDA bill. They have worked on a
bipartisan basis. They have met compelling human needs--in other words,
feed America first; see how we can feed others in need around the
world; look out for everyone from the family farm to also food safety
because now so much of our food is also imported. At the same time,
they have supported the Food and Drug Administration. That is an agency
located in Maryland that is responsible for oversight of the food
supply but also our pharmaceuticals, biotech, and medical devices.
My colleagues have spoken eloquently about exports, particularly with
food. I will speak later today about the exports of pharmaceuticals,
biotech, and medical devices because there are countries around the
world that want to look out for their own people, but they don't have
an FDA. So when we have products--life science products--that save
lives or improve lives and they have been stamped by the FDA as safe
and effective, then countries know they can buy them with confidence.
This means those areas of endeavor are not only good for jobs in this
country, great for improving the lives of people in our country, but
they are also a major source of the new American export economy.
I think they did a great job, and I will say more about it. But right
now, unless Senator Shelby has something to say, we can go to our
Senate colleague from Arizona.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to address the
Senate as if in morning business, and I wish to enter into a colloquy
with the Senator from South Carolina when he arrives.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Iraq

Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I come to the floor this morning with my
colleague, the Senator from South Carolina, to put to rest once and for
all the claim we hear so often today: President Obama wanted to leave a
residual force of U.S. troops in Iraq after 2011. He tried his hardest
to do so, but Iraqi leaders prevented that from happening because they
demanded that Iraq's parliament approve legislation to grant privileges
and immunities for U.S. troops that would remain in the country.
This is a very important item and aspect of the debate that is now
going on, and it is a claim that was made in growing desperation these
days as it becomes increasingly clear for all to see that the
President's mishandling of Iraq for the past 5 years and his consistent
inaction on Syria has now brought us to the verge of disaster.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria--a more ambitious, more violent,
and more radical offshoot of Al Qaeda--has now taken over a swath of
territory in Iraq and Syria that is the size of the State of Indiana.
It is the largest terrorist safe haven in history. The ISIS's offensive
is now reigniting sectarian conflict in Iraq and threatening to erase
the gains that nearly 4,500 brave young Americans gave their lives to
secure and was largely secured when the President took office in
January in 2009. In January 2009 the surge had succeeded. Iraq was not
violent. The surge had succeeded. We had won the war. In

[[Page S3785]]

the words of General Keane: We won the war and lost the peace. And that
is a fact.
The administration and its defenders are now scrambling to pin the
blame for this catastrophic failure on anyone but themselves. They are
trying to blame the Bush administration, and they are trying to blame
people like myself and the Senator from South Carolina for voting to
authorize the war while conveniently forgetting that Vice President
Biden, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, his
predecessor, Secretary Clinton, and many other Democrats still serving
in this body voted for the war in Iraq as well.
They also seem to have forgotten that the Senator from South Carolina
and I began criticizing the Bush administration as early as 2003 for
their mishandling of the war and calling for a change in strategy. In
fact, in 2006 I called for the firing of the Secretary of Defense,
Secretary Rumsfeld, because of the mishandling of the war. Indeed, the
very strategy that was finally adopted with enormous success was thanks
to a great leader named General David Petraeus and a great ambassador
by the name of Ryan Crocker.
Most of all, the administration and its defenders are trying to blame
the failures of Iraq on Iraq's leaders. To be sure, the lion's share of
the blame for Iraq's current problems lies squarely with Prime Minister
Maliki and other Iraqi leaders. But the administration cannot escape
its own responsibility for the current disaster. This is something that
the Senator from South Carolina and I saw firsthand, and we stated that
over and over. In order to set this debate to rest once and for all, we
would like to review the record.
We predicted that when all the troops were withdrawn there would be
the events that are taking place today--not as rapidly, but we
predicted that Iraq would fall into chaos if we withdrew all the troops
and did not leave a residual force behind as we have in South Korea,
Germany, Japan, Bosnia, and other countries after the conflict had
ended.
From its first day in office, the Obama administration signaled a
hands-off approach to Iraq. It immediately pushed for a faster drawdown
of U.S. forces than our commanders recommended. It appointed an
ambassador to Iraq, Christopher Hill, who had no experience working on
Iraq or serving anywhere in the Arab world. I think he is a fine man,
but he had no experience. It adopted a hands-off approach of shaping
Iraqi politics, which was demonstrated most vividly as it refused for
months and months to take a hands-on approach with Iraqi leaders and
help them broker the necessary compromises about the country's future
in the aftermath of the 2010 elections in Iraq.
Nowhere was the Obama administration's failure more pronounced than
during the debate over whether to maintain a limited number of U.S.
troops in Iraq beyond the 2011 expiration of the 2008 Status of Forces
Agreement or SOFA. The administration is quick to lay blame on others
for the fact that they tried and failed to keep a limited presence of
troops in Iraq. They blamed the Bush administration, of course, for
mandating the withdrawal in the 2008 SOFA. This does not ring true,
however, because as former Secretary of State Condolezza Rice has made
clear, the plan all along was to renegotiate the agreement to allow for
a continued presence of U.S. forces in Iraq. ``Everybody believed,''
she said in 2011, ``it would be better if there was some kind of
residual force.''
Most of all, the Obama administration blames Iraqis for failing to
grant the necessary privileges and immunities for a U.S. force presence
beyond 2011. This too is totally misleading because as we saw
firsthand--Senator Graham and I traveled to Baghdad and Erbil. We met
with Allawi and Maliki, and we met with Barzani. We met with all of the
leaders of the main political blocs, and we heard a common message
during all of these conversations: Iraqi leaders recognized that it was
in their country's interest to maintain a limited number of U.S. troops
to continue training and assisting Iraqi security forces beyond 2011.
But when we asked Ambassador Jim Jeffrey and the commander of U.S.
Forces in Iraq Lloyd Austin--in direct response to a question in a
meeting with Maliki--what tasks U.S. troops remaining in Iraq would
perform and what their missions were, the answer was they had still not
made a decision.
In Erbil, Barzani said he would fly to Baghdad. Allawi, the actual
winner of the election, said that he would agree, and then after that,
Prime Minister Maliki announced that if his partners agreed, which they
did, he would agree to a residual force in Iraq. Those are just facts.
Just days after the Senator from South Carolina and I left Baghdad,
Prime Minister Maliki, as I said, signaled his willingness--and it is a
matter of public record--to a residual presence of U.S. troops if 70
percent of Iraqis agreed. The Kurds agreed, the Sunnis agreed, and
Maliki himself signaled his support. Had the United States and our Iraq
partners used our influence then and there, we could have lined up the
remaining Shia support to enable Maliki to make this difficult
decision. Unfortunately, that did not happen.

Instead, months and months passed and the administration made no
decision on what missions and troop levels it would be willing to
maintain in Iraq. By August 2011 the leaders of Iraq's main political
blocs joined together and stated that they were prepared to enter
negotiations to keep some U.S. troops in Iraq.
Another entire month passed and still the White House made no
decision. During this long internal deliberation, as Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey later testified before the Senate
Armed Services Committee, the size of a potential U.S. force presence
kept ``cascading'' down from upwards of 16,000 to an eventual low of
less than 3,000. By that point, the force would be able to do little
more than protect itself, and Prime Minister Maliki, and other Iraq
leaders, realized that the political cost of accepting this proposal
was not worth the benefit. To blame this failure entirely on the Iraqis
is convenient, but it misses the real point. The reason to keep about
10,000 to 15,000 U.S. forces in Iraq was not for the sake of Iraq
alone. It was first and foremost in our national security interest to
continue training and advising Iraqi forces and to maintain greater
U.S. influence in Iraq. That core principle should have driven a very
different U.S. approach to the SOFA diplomacy. The Obama administration
should have recognized that after years of brutal conflict, Iraqi
leaders still lacked trust in one another, and a strong U.S. role was
required to help Iraqis broker their most politically sensitive
decisions. For this reason the administration should have determined
what tasks and troop numbers were in the national interest to maintain
in Iraq and done so with ample time to engage with Iraqis at the
highest level of the U.S. Government to shape political conditions in
Baghdad to achieve our goal. I focus on this failure not because U.S.
troops would have been engaging in unilateral large-scale combat
operations to this day. In fact, they had won the conflict, and there
was literally no further combat that the United States was engaged in.
By 2011 U.S. forces were no longer in Iraqi cities or engaged in
security operations. However, a residual U.S. troop presence could have
assisted Iraqi forces in their continued fight against Al Qaeda. They
could have provided a platform for greater diplomatic engagement and
intelligence cooperation with our Iraqi partners. It could have made
Iranian leaders think twice about using Iraqi airspace to transit
military assistance to Assad and his forces in Syria. And most
importantly, it could have maintained the significant diplomatic
influence that the United States still possessed in Iraq--influence
that had been and still was essential in guaranteeing Iraq's nascent
political system, reassuring Iraqi leaders that they could resolve
their differences peacefully and politically despite their mistrust of
one another and checking the authoritarian and sectarian tendencies of
Prime Minister Maliki.
There is a need for immediate action. Every day that goes by, there
is greater sectarian violence, and there is greater success by ISIS. I
do not believe they can take Baghdad. But look at the places they have
already taken. By the way, they are now threatening the major oil
refinery in Iraq. I can assure you that will affect the world price of
oil. There is a need because

[[Page S3786]]

there is more polarization of Iraq, there is a return of the Iraqi Shia
militias, there is wholesale killing and slaughter going on, and it
will get worse every single day.
Is there any good option now in Iraq? No, there is no good option.
The worst option is to do nothing, and apparently, according to the
Wall Street Journal this morning, that is basically the approach that
has been taken.
We need to recognize that taking military action now is difficult
because our intelligence has been so severely degraded since 2011
because ISIS is becoming so integrated with the Sunni tribes. We need
to be careful about striking targets, even convoys in the open. There
is a real risk of killing Sunni tribal elements and pushing the tribes
closer to ISIS.
We also have to recognize that political change in Baghdad has to
take place. But the question is: Do we wait for political change? Every
day we wait there is more and more Iranian influence. The chief--one of
the most evil people in the world--of the Iranian Quds Force has been
in Baghdad planning with Maliki. So what does Maliki do when he doesn't
see us giving him any real assistance? He turns to the Iranians. There
are published reports of Iranian combat troops now coming into Iraq as
more and more of the radical ISIS people are flowing from Syria into
Iraq.
As I said, I admit that I was surprised at the rapidity of the
success of the ISIS. But I also believe that the longer we wait to
carry out some airstrikes--as difficult as it is--that we can identify
with the few people we have on the ground--it sends a signal
psychologically over these people who are traveling long distances in
the desert--the ISIS--of an American aircraft flying overhead and
perhaps taking some of them out if we have sufficient information. That
is a psychological effect on any enemy. Air power alone does not win
conflicts, but air power can have a significant effect on the morale of
your people, on your capability, and of at least inflicting some damage
and changing the enemy's plans.
Obviously, political reconciliation is the key, and we must do
everything in our power to make sure that Maliki appoints a government
of reconciliation. But it can't be the prerequisite for U.S. military
action because the events and time are not on our side.

We also have to recognize this is not an Iraqi conflict. This is an
Iraqi-Syrian conflict now. The most, the largest, and the richest
center of terrorism in the history of the world is now in the Iraq-
Syria area. They have hundreds of millions of dollars from the banks in
Mosul, and, obviously, they acquired a whole lot of equipment during
their incredible progress across Iraq.
I urge my colleagues to have a look at the maps of Iraq and Syria and
look at the places that are now controlled by ISIS. As I say, I don't
believe they can roll into Baghdad in their vehicles with their guns
mounted on them, but they sure as heck can cause a lot of problems:
bombings, assassinations, the radicalization of these Shiite militias.
If one of these Shiite shrines is damaged by ISIS or by Sunni
militants, we are going to see a very bigger explosion which will bring
us back to the days of 2003, '4, '5, and '6, before the Anbar
awakening. The same Sunnis who were part of the Anbar awakening that
joined us in putting down Al Qaeda are now being polarized by Maliki.
The Shiites, as well as the chickens, are coming home to roost as far
as Maliki is concerned because of the continued marginalization and
persecution of Sunnis all over Iraq, much less in Anbar Province.
So we have to act. We have to act. We must act. I know there are
always people who will tell our leaders reasons why we can't, but I
know of no military expert who believes that doing nothing is a recipe
for anything but further chaos and eventually threats to the United
States of America. Our Secretary of Homeland Security has stated it and
our Director of National Intelligence has stated it: that people in
this part of Iraq and Syria will be planning attacks on the United
States of America. That is their view. It also is mine. But we can do
some effective air strikes. We can. And it is more difficult because of
our degraded intelligence. By the way, when we left Iraq, all of those
intelligence capabilities were shut down.
To make them more effective and mitigate the risks that could push
Sunnis deeper into the arms of ISIS, they have to be accompanied, as I
mentioned, with a limited presence of special forces on the ground.
These forces could gather intelligence to improve our targeting by ISIS
control, air strikes from the ground, and provide advice to Sunni
tribes.
I believe several other steps could be taken. No. 1, who are the most
respected people in Iraq today? Probably David Petraeus and Ryan
Crocker. Send them back. Send them back, those who worked so closely
with the Sunnis such as General MacFarland--then Colonel MacFarland--
the people who built up these long relationships with the Sunnis. Send
them back. Maliki will listen to David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker. Send
them back. Send back a planning team, a group of smart people who can
work with what is left of the Iraqi military leadership and identify
tactics and a strategy that can reverse this tide of the ISIS which is
about to engulf them.
Send some air power. Send some air power with targets we can
identify. I am fully aware of the risks associated with it. I wish to
repeat over and over and over: There are no good options. Also, we need
to make it very clear to Maliki that his time is up; that he must
arrange for a transition.
The Shia won the election, a majority of the votes--not a majority of
any of the parties but an overall majority of the vote. This new
government could be headed by a Shia, but it has to be a Shia who can
reach out to the Sunni and bring them together in a government of
national reconciliation.
All of my colleagues have seen the pictures of the young Shia who are
now joining up and are ready to die--the movement from Basra of the
Shia militia organizations which had been put down before that are now
rising from the ashes. We have seen the horrible pictures of the
executions that are taking place and the incredible displacement--
500,000 people from Mosul alone. The Kurds have now taken Kirkuk. That
is an ambition they have had for the last 50 years. We will see now a
drive for total Kurdish autonomy from the government in Baghdad, and
they will be making their own deals as far as oil is concerned, and the
Kurds will now be pursuing their centuries-old ambition for a Kurdish
state, which will cause the Turks to be very concerned.
I also wish to point out that if ISIS continues to succeed and they
move back and forth to Syria, they will now pose a direct threat, first
of all, to Jordan, and then to other gulf states, and finally,
eventually, Saudi Arabia, but those right next to Iraq will be most
under threat.
So I urge the President and I urge my colleagues to understand the
gravity and the seriousness of this situation; to understand that if
ISIS succeeds, even without taking Baghdad, and they are able to
establish what they call a caliphate in the Syria-Iraq area--larger
than the State of Indiana--and are able to train, equip, and export
terror not only throughout the region but throughout the world, it will
pose a direct threat to the security of this Nation.
Mr. GRAHAM. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. McCAIN. I wish to thank the Senator from South Carolina for
showing up.
Mr. GRAHAM. I am sorry I was late. Actually, I had an exchange with
General Dempsey about this very topic.
Does the Senator from Arizona see any scenario where ISIS is
militarily stopped and that the Iraqis can retake ground lost to ISIS
without U.S. air power being involved?
Mr. McCAIN. I know of no military expert who believes that without
the use of U.S. air power they will be able to at anytime soon regain
the lost territory, which is a sizable part of Iraq.
Mr. GRAHAM. Did my colleague hear President Obama say it is
unacceptable for Iraq or Islamists to have safe havens in Iraq and
Syria? Did my colleague hear him say that?
Mr. McCAIN. No, I did not, but I did hear him say on December 14,
2011: ``We are leaving behind a sovereign, stable, and self-reliant
Iraq with a representative government that was elected by its people,''
and other quotes throughout the campaign.

[[Page S3787]]

Mr. GRAHAM. My point is, does my colleague agree he is right? It is
not acceptable for our national security interests for ISIS to have a
safe haven in Syria and Iraq that could run from Aleppo to Baghdad;
that that is not a good thing for us?
Mr. McCAIN. I totally agree.
Mr. GRAHAM. Well, if it is not a good thing for us, how do we change
it? Give me a scenario where we put these folks on the run in Syria and
in Iraq without American air power. Give me a scenario of political
reconciliation in Baghdad where that has a snowball's chance in hell of
succeeding as long as they are losing on the battlefield. Give me a
scenario where the battlefield turns our way without U.S. air power.
I can give my colleagues a scenario where it begins to turn on the
battlefield: Iran comes in with great numbers. The most likely scenario
to stop ISIS is Iranians getting involved with Shia militia. Does that
bother the Senator from Arizona?
Mr. McCAIN. I would also like to point out what the Senator from
South Carolina knows and I know: The air power has a psychological
effect. When an aircraft flies over the enemy, they are going to do
things differently if they fear they are going to be hit from the air,
as we all know. Air power does not determine the outcome of conflicts,
but it sure is important in the battlefield equation.
Mr. GRAHAM. Is it fair to say the Air Force in Iraq is grounded for
all practical purposes?
Mr. McCAIN. Not only grounded but a lot of the air assets, I am to
understand, such as Apache helicopters, are in the hands of ISIS.
Mr. GRAHAM. So, to the President: We agree with you that Iraq
matters. We agree with you that it is not in our national security
interests to have ISIS occupy territory from Aleppo to Baghdad. But
here is what is a mystery to me: How do we turn this around unless we
stop their advance inside of Iraq and we go after them in Syria?
As to political reconciliation, I completely agree that is the
ultimate change that needs to occur, that air strikes alone will not
get us to where we want to go, but it is a chicken-and-egg concept for
me. Can my colleague from Arizona imagine a scenario where we can get
all the parties together when ISIS is winning on the battlefield?
Mr. McCAIN. That is why I was amused by various commentators who have
been consistently wrong, including one in the New York Times today: All
we need to do is have everybody sit down together--a total misreading
of the situation.
Mr. GRAHAM. Here is the problem with that: To go to a meeting in
Baghdad, you are likely to get killed trying to get there. Who is going
to sit down in Baghdad when everybody is getting killed based on
sectarian differences? So my advice would be to use American air power
before it is too late as part of a coordinated, diplomatic effort. That
American air power is part of diplomacy. That may sound
counterintuitive, but it makes perfect sense to me. Diplomacy cannot
succeed unless we change momentum on the battlefield. But when you drop
a bomb, you need to have a game plan beyond the bomb falling, and that
would be a regional conversation.
Can my colleague see how Maliki can put Humpty Dumpty back together
again?
Mr. McCAIN. I cannot. That is why he has to agree to a transition.
Mr. GRAHAM. I would not send $1 to Iraq. I would not send one soldier
to Iraq, one airman to Iraq until we understand that over the arc of
time Maliki has to go. I have been there more times than I can count.
Maliki did some good things on his watch, but he has become a political
leader who cannot bring the country together. But that, to me, is a
concern that is addressed after we stop the momentum on the
battlefield.
Does the Senator from Arizona believe it is still possible that the
Kurds, the Sunnis, and the Shias, that we know fairly well, can regroup
and reconcile with themselves if we act decisively?
Mr. McCAIN. I am totally confident that they can. That is how the
country was held together for long periods of time.
Could I ask my colleague--I began before the Senator from South
Carolina arrived talking about this business of the allegations that
somehow it is the Iraqis' fault that we didn't leave a residual force
in Iraq. I went through our meetings with Maliki, with Barzani, with
Allawi, how they were all committed to maintaining residual force.
Could the Senator from South Carolina for the Record recount the
Senate Armed Services Committee hearing where he directly questioned
General Dempsey about this entire issue, after we had withdrawn?
Mr. GRAHAM. Yes, I will be glad to. And to put it in context, in 2008
we signed a strategic framework agreement. It was envisioned that we
would negotiate a follow-on force with advisers and some special forces
units to secure our Nation as well as to protect our gains. In the
process of trying to get the Iraqis on board, Hillary Clinton called me
to ask if my colleague, the Senator from Arizona, and I think Senator
Lieberman--maybe he didn't go; I can't remember--would go over there
and talk to Barzani, Allawi, and Maliki, and we said, Sure, we would be
glad to.
Here is what I found. I found in the meeting with Prime Minister
Maliki, who was very openminded about a follow-on force--Barzani said,
I will take 250,000 Americans; that was never in doubt about where the
Kurds were--Allawi understood, the Sunnis understood the need for a
follow-on force. It really was about the Shia politics.
After we got back, Maliki said, If the other groups will do it, I
will do it. But he says, What kind of force are you talking about,
Senator Graham?
Mr. McCAIN. This was in a meeting in Baghdad?
Mr. GRAHAM. This was in a meeting in his office. He asked me, What
kind of force are you talking about? I turned to General Austin and
Ambassador Jeffries and I asked them, What is the number? Answer the
Prime Minister's question. They said, We are still working on that. The
Prime Minister looked at me and said something to the effect, Well, I
don't know what I am supposed to be agreeing to.

We come back to Washington. We go to the Vice President's house. We
talk to Mr. Donilin, saying they need a number--sometime--and they said
they would get back to us about the number. I am still waiting on that
phone call.
During my questioning of General Dempsey about the follow-on force, I
asked him--General Austin recommended somewhere in the 18,000 to 20,000
range, the Pentagon got down to 10,000, and below that they felt very
uncomfortable. I asked him directly, Did the number cascade down or did
the number go down because the Iraqis said, That is too many Americans;
we don't want that many Americans on our soil. He said, No, sir; the
numbers kept cascading down because the White House kept changing the
number.
So I want the record to reflect that in a meeting with the Prime
Minister of Iraq, when he asked me how many troops we are talking
about, we could not give him an answer. I want the record to reflect
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said the numbers went down and down
and down not because the Iraqis were saying no but because the White
House kept lowering the number--to the point that it got to be absurd,
and we will prove that over time.
Mr. McCAIN. Finally, could I--I see our colleague from Florida is
waiting. I think I would like to have the Senator from South Carolina
summarize. The cost of inaction, of doing nothing, is the greatest cost
we can incur. The situation on the battlefield is not only terrible,
but the polarization of the different groups in Iraq is growing worse
by the hour. We are seeing the resurgence of the old Shia militias
that, thanks to David Petraeus, we had put down before. Iraq is largely
under control, thanks to David Petraeus, Ryan Crocker, and the surge in
2011. If we had left--and it is a fact--if we had left that residual
force behind, history would be very different.
I would add one other comment. We cannot ignore Syria in this
situation. We have to understand Syria is now part of this huge area,
the size of the State of Indiana, which is governed by ISIS.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). The Senator from Florida.

[[Page S3788]]

Mr. NELSON. Madam President, I find there are a number of things I
agree with the Senator from Arizona on. One of the things I agree with
the senior Senator from Arizona on is that Maliki needs to go.
Otherwise, I think Iraq is going to blow apart, and it is going to end
up in three parts, just like the Vice President, when he was a Member
of the Senate, as the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said
was going to happen.
I will address this subject later on.
I came to thank Senator Shelby, who is here, and Senator Mikulski,
who I hope is within earshot of my remarks, for the bill they have come
forth with and specifically with regard to the part that has to do with
a little agency that I have some familiarity with and to which I have a
great deal of emotional attachment; that is, NASA.
What they have done is continue to flush out in Appropriations the
direction that was laid out--when there was no direction--4 years ago
in the 2010 NASA authorization bill, for which I constantly give credit
to our former colleague, Kay Bailey Hutchison from Texas. I had the
opportunity to help draw up a balanced plan for the space program--
balanced in all aspects: human, nonhuman space exploration,
aeronautics, science, education, the whole works.
Earlier this month the National Academies came out with a report that
was required by that act 4 years ago that reaffirmed the need for a
robust U.S. space program aimed at the goal. The goal is way down the
line. We are going on a human mission to Mars. The Academies' study was
cochaired by a former Republican Governor, a former head of the Office
of Management and Budget, Gov. Mitch Daniels. What they concluded was
that human space exploration remains vital to the national interest but
it is only going to succeed if it is properly funded.
So the increase in funding provided in this bill for human
exploration is going to keep us on track in the coming year. We know
that the Space Launch System and its spacecraft, a capsule called
Orion--which is being built as we speak, assembled at the O&C building
at the Kennedy Space Center--we know these are critical to human
exploration. NASA has a very boring term for that. They call it
``foundational capabilities.'' That is the capability of putting humans
into deep space and eventually on Mars. While other countries are
talking about a heavy lift rocket, we are actually building it, and it
is being built today with its spacecraft.
Now we are going to look to the first test of this spacecraft. It is
going to come in just a few months. It is the Orion spacecraft on top
of another rocket to do the deep space penetration and high-velocity
reentry, pulling lots of Gs, to see how the instrumented spacecraft
performs. It is on track and the space launch system is on track.
However, the funding increases are going to have to be maintained in
future years. If we go back to this, shall I say--I have other
adjectives for it, but shall I say not the best idea of taking a meat
ax to the budget called the sequester--if we go back to the sequester
levels, NASA is not going to be able to achieve its exploration goals.
So this funding bill that Senators Mikulski and Shelby have produced
also reiterates the need to engage our international partners in
science and exploration. It supports the international collaboration
that is so important in our space program.
There is another new NASA partnership with the German space agency
for astronomy research. This same bill also continues the investment in
NASA's Commercial Crew Program. It would allow the largest NASA
investment in the program to date.
The President requested $849 million to do a competition to make
these rockets that are already proven to be safe for humans--put in all
the redundancies and the escape systems. The President requested $849
million. That was NASA's request. This bill gets it close. It gets it
to $805 million.
But we are going to need to work, to continue to work, with Senator
Shelby and Senator Mikulski, as the bill goes to the conference
committee, to make sure we have the right mix of oversight and
innovation in how NASA contracts for this competition with the
competitors--the private industry--as we are letting commercial
companies provide this service not only of cargo to and from the
International Space Station, but now we are going to provide this
service of crew going to and from the ISS.
I cannot overstate the importance of the commercial crew in the long-
term viability of the space station because, look, we are going to
extend the ISS; that is, the International Space Station, to 2024. It
ought to be extended beyond that. Certainly there is all the research
that is being produced. We spent $100 billion putting it up there. We
ought to keep it to the end of the decade of the 2020s at least, and we
need to make sure there is sufficient funding to support the research
on this orbiting outpost.
It is a fantastic asset in low-Earth orbit. It is not only for
research to improve life on Earth, but it is also a technology test bed
and a stepping-stone for exploration.
There is another reason. Because we have had the aggressiveness of
Mr. Putin, and suddenly all the reverberations coming out of Ukraine,
it is just another reminder that we want American rockets for Americans
to fly on to get to our own space station. The commercial crew, if we
can pour the juice into it, as to their target of 2017, they can
actually move it back to 2016. So we have a geopolitical reason to keep
this going.
It is interesting that as of this day, with this bill on the floor of
the Senate, scientists and engineers have gathered in Chicago for the
third annual International Space Station Research and Development
Conference. Research investments will help ensure the maximum
scientific return for this one-of-a-kind laboratory. By the way,
because of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, it is designated as a national
laboratory--a part of the ISS.
I thank Senator Shelby and Senator Mikulski for their hard work in
supporting the Nation's space program. I look forward to continuing to
collaborate with them. At the end of the day, what we want to do is to
get this bill out of conference and to the President's desk for
signature.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SHELBY. Madam President, first of all, I thank the Senator from
Florida for his remarks, especially in the area of NASA, the funding of
NASA, the importance of NASA, which he knows very well. We have worked
together a long time and of course some of us--the Presiding Officer
might not remember--but he was an astronaut himself in another part of
his life. We go back a long time to our House days. We came to the
House at the same time. But we have worked together on NASA because we
believe in science, we believe in space, we believe that it is great
for America in many ways.
I point out again that we have a bipartisan effort on the floor right
now. We have three bills: the agriculture appropriations bill, which
came out of the Appropriations Committee 30 to 0, with Republican and
Democratic support; the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill--
where I serve as the ranking member of the subcommittee and Senator
Mikulski serves as the chair of the subcommittee--which came out 30 to
0; and the transportation, housing bill, which came out 29 to 1.
We are talking about working together. We are working under the
Murray-Ryan numbers. That is what we are trying to stay within. I would
like to see us move these three bills. If we can do this, we are going
to regular order, which we need. I think it shows--when we have this
kind of bipartisan effort coming out of the Appropriations Committee to
the floor--we are saying to our colleagues on both sides of the aisle:
Look, we believe these are fair bills, we believe it is a bipartisan
effort, and we want to fund these agencies because they are important
to this country and also there is some certainty out there. We do not
need to go back to uncertainty in this body or in this government.
I thank Senator Nelson for his remarks.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.

[[Page S3789]]

Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BARRASSO. Thank you, Madam President.
This morning the Energy and Natural Resources Committee passed
legislation approving the Keystone XL Pipeline. I believe that Congress
should do all it can to push the Obama administration to approve this
project. This will, of course, help create American jobs; they will
come along with the Keystone XL Pipeline.
To me, this morning's committee vote was nothing more than a show
vote. It is going to do nothing to advance the Keystone XL Pipeline. It
will put no pressure on the White House. It will not put a single
shovel in the ground building the pipeline because the Democratic
majority leader has absolutely no intention of allowing this bill to
get to a vote right here on the Senate floor. The majority leader knows
that if Senators got the chance to vote on this bill, there is a very
high likelihood it would pass. President Obama cannot afford that, and
the majority leader will not do anything the President does not want.
The majority leader will not do anything to anger the extremists who
fund the Democratic Party and who oppose an ``all of the above'' energy
strategy in a plan that includes oil.
I know the last thing Americans and the people in the gallery want to
hear about is Senate process and Senate procedures, but here is why it
matters: There are issues that are important to this country, issues
such as jobs, energy, and controlling government spending. There are
problems we need to solve in this country, and they are not being voted
on here in the Senate because the majority leader continues to block
votes. He has blocked votes, he has blocked amendments, and he has even
blocked debate on one issue after another.
I believe the majority leader has abused every power at his disposal
and even broken the rules of the Senate--rules that have been in place
for over a century. He has done this to give himself new powers. Over
the past 6\1/2\ years the majority leader has taken an unprecedented
stand against action in the Senate. He has used tactics such as the so-
called filling the amendment tree on bills. That means he stops anyone
else from offering amendments other than himself. He has used what is
called rule XIV of the Standing Rules to bypass committees, so we are
only able to talk about what he wants to talk about, not what our
constituents want to talk about, what we hear about from home, or what
other committee members want to talk about. These kinds of tactics may
make it easier for Senator Reid to get what he wants, but they shut
Senators--Republicans and Democrats--out of legislating and they shut
out the American people whom all of us represent, Democrats as well as
Republicans.
Senator Reid has filled the amendment tree at least 85 times since he
became majority leader. That is more than twice as many times as the
previous six majority leaders combined.
Between July 2013 and May of this year, Republicans in the Senate
filed 810 amendments, but we only got a total of 9 votes--810 different
ideas brought forward by Republicans, and Senator Reid has blocked vote
after vote, to the point where we have gotten only 9 votes on 810
amendments, and this is almost in a full year.
If you want a comparison, take a look at the House of
Representatives, where the Republicans are in the majority but the
minority party, the Democrats, have an opportunity to offer amendments
and have votes. Over that same time period in the House of
Representatives, the Democrats have gotten 132 votes on their
amendments. The Democratic minority on the House side has had 132
votes, while the Republican minority on the Senate side has gotten a
total of 9.
In the Senate, it is not just the Republicans who are not getting
their votes. The majority leader is blocking the Democrats as well.
During that same time, from July of 2013 to May of 2014, Democrats
introduced 676 amendments on legislation on the floor, and there were
only 7 rollcall votes on 676 amendments. I guess it is not surprising
that Republicans cannot get votes on their amendments, but it is very
surprising that the Democrats cannot get votes because only the
majority leader gets a vote.
It is the same story on appropriations bills, and that is why I am
here at this time--because we are dealing with appropriations bills.
They are some of the most important bills we are supposed to consider
in Congress. These are the bills which determine how much Washington
spends every year on all the discretionary programs. We started
debating the first of these yesterday, and we may do so over the next
few weeks.
It used to be that the Senate would take up these bills one by one,
and Senators would get a chance to offer amendments and to represent
the people who elected them to office. Not anymore. Under this
Democratic majority leader, the amendment process on appropriations
bills has been almost completely shut down. In the past 2 years
Republicans have gotten just six amendments to appropriations bills.
Senate Democrats only got one amendment during that same period. The
Senate approved trillions--trillions--of dollars in Washington
spending, but Harry Reid allowed action on just seven amendments total.
In the 8 years before Senator Reid became majority leader, the Senate
processed an average of almost 300 amendments to appropriations bills
every year--every year almost 300 amendments to appropriations bills.
Senators from both parties have been shut out of the process, and the
people we represent have been shut out of the process as well--all by
Senator Reid. It is the same kind of power grab we saw last September
when the majority leader used the so-called nuclear option to stop
debate in the Senate. He radically changed the rules of the Senate to
strip the rights of the minority party. Originally, it had to do with
eliminating the filibuster on nominations, but it is the same effect.
The majority leader grabbed more power for himself and took away the
right of anyone else in the Senate to represent their constituents.
This is not how it is supposed to be. The Senate was designed to be a
place where we debate these issues and where political minorities get
fair representation. The father of our Constitution James Madison
explained that the Senate's role was ``first to protect the people
against the rulers.'' James Madison, the father of the Constitution,
stated that the Senate's role is ``first to protect the people against
the rulers.'' That was the point of this body. That is why over its
history the Senate has adopted rules that provide strong protections
for political minorities. Well, the way the Senate has been run by
Majority Leader Reid, it has been embarrassing, it has been unfair, and
it has been insulting to the American people.
Again, I know this isn't the most exciting topic of discussion for
people to hear, but the damage that is being done by the Senate's
failure to act is very real. Congress has important legislation to
debate, such as approving the Keystone XL Pipeline, but the majority
leader won't even allow a vote on the bill. Our Nation has a total debt
of $17.5 trillion, but the majority leader of the Senate blocks
amendments that could improve the appropriations bills and maybe start
to control Washington's wasteful spending. We should have an open
amendment process on these appropriations bills this year, as we should
have had in previous years, and we should be starting with the bill
that is on the floor today.
It is time for Democrats to stop the show votes and allow real votes
on issues important to American families.
Thank you, Madam President.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the role.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded, and that I be recognized to speak as
if in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Iraq

Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, I appreciate the opportunity to come to
the Senate to speak about the situation in Iraq. A moment ago I was

[[Page S3790]]

joined by some very close friends from South Florida, including the
former mayor of West Miami, and now the chair of the county commission
in Miami-Dade County, Rebecca Sosa. She actually got me started in
politics.
When she was mayor of West Miami, I told her I was interested in
public service. We walked door to door in the small city called West
Miami which has 5,000 residents. She taught me how to campaign one on
one with real people and their real lives.
Now I return home every weekend--when we are done here and with my
work throughout the State--to the same community that I still live in,
and increasingly people there are asking me about the situation in
Iraq. The question I get from many people is--and I want to be blunt
about how they say it--I understand this is a problem, but why is it
our business? Why do we care about what is happening in another country
when it seems to be a fight among themselves?
That is a very legitimate question. I know Americans are watching the
issues that are happening abroad, and they ask themselves: Why does
America need to be the world's policeman?
I want to take a few moments to explain why this matters--why it
matters to people not just in the Middle East but even people in the
small city of West Miami where I still live. The situation in Iraq is,
to some extent, a civil war between Sunni and Shia, as we see in other
conflicts such as Syria and other places. That is a real aspect of it.
I would say the current government of Iraq has contributed greatly to
it--by the way, spurred on by Iranian influence--to further exacerbate
that divide between Sunni and Shia.

While it is fair to say that much of what is happening in Iraq is a
civil war between two sects, it is not fair to say that is all it is,
because what is happening in Iraq has a direct bearing on the future
security of every American, even those Americans who live in the small
city of West Miami where I live. Here is why.
Imagine for a moment if we could go back in time to the year 1997 or
1996 or 1998 or 1999 and had known about Al Qaeda then what we knew by
September of 2001. We would have realized this is a dangerous group
that had the capacity and the deep willingness to attack and kill
Americans in order to terrorize so that we would leave the Middle East
and turn it over to people such as them. If we had known that and taken
that seriously--and I would say some did know this--if we had done
something about it, it is fair to say that eventually there would have
been some sort of terrorist attack, but maybe there wouldn't have been
one on September 11, 2001. If we had actually targeted this group and
degraded their capabilities while they were still in their safe haven
in Afghanistan--or even before that--we potentially could have saved
the lives of thousands of Americans and, more importantly, avoided the
rise of Al Qaeda in the region and in the world. But we did not. While
this is not a time to point fingers or throw blame around, I certainly
think it is a time to learn the lessons of that history and apply them
to the challenges of our time.
What is happening today in Iraq and in portions of Syria is in many
ways the exact same thing: A radical group--ISIL--which, by the way,
rose through the ranks of Al Qaeda until they now have a split from Al
Qaeda, believe it or not, because Al Qaeda thinks that ISIL is too
brutal to their fellow Muslims. This group has been growing in strength
ever since the United States left Iraq. This group has been fed and its
strength has been given to them by foreign fighters who have spilled
into the conflict in Syria where they have established a foothold and
have used it as a staging and operational ground to take their brand of
ruthlessness now into Iraq.
We saw over the weekend images and photographs and videos of the mass
assassinations, executions of Shia members of the Iraqi military. They
have grown in strength over this time and they have begun to grow in
their influence in Iraq. Their goal is simple: They want to establish
the premier Islamic caliphate in all the world--the premier Sunni
Islamic caliphate in the region. Caliphate basically means Islamic
kingdom. They don't care about existing borders. The kingdom they
envision is a vast safe haven that encompasses portions of Syria they
already have under their control and portions of Iraq they are now
gaining control of.
What is their goal for this place they are trying to set up? Their
first goal is to institute Sharia law, and they have a particularly
brutal brand of Sharia they have forced upon people both in Syria and
now increasingly in Iraq.
Their second goal is to establish an Islamic caliphate state--a safe
haven from where they can plan and train and ultimately carry out
terrorist attacks against the United States and other countries,
including attacks here in our homeland.
We must learn the lessons of before 2001, and we must say to
ourselves: Under no circumstances will we ever again allow a safe haven
or for this kind of terrorist group to ever gain a safe haven anywhere
in the world. We will never allow this to happen again.
That is why it is so critical for us to be engaged here. The reason
why we should care about this issue is not because we want to force
upon Iraq democracy or force upon Iraq the type of government we think
they need. The reason why we care is because we cannot allow a safe
haven to develop there, that can be used to carry out attacks that can
kill Americans, including here in our homeland. This is why we should
care. This is why it is so important that the Commander in Chief of the
United States--the President--come as quickly as possible before the
American people and before this Congress with a plan to address this
risk.
I know the President likes to go around saying the war is over, but
no one told ISIL that. No one told Al Qaeda that. No one has told these
terrorists that. They don't think the war is over. In fact, in their
minds, this war will go on for hundreds of years. The only person who
can rally this country behind a plan to address this is not a U.S.
Senator or a Member of Congress, not the majority leader or the Speaker
of the House, not the countless people who write very well-informed
opinion pieces in our newspapers. The only person in this country who
can rally us around a plan to address this is the President himself.
So while I understand he doesn't want us engaged in another conflict,
and neither do most Americans, he knows--he must know--that we are
going to have to do something about this. That is not the issue before
us. The issue before us is whether we do something about it now or we
do something about this later when the problem will be much harder and
more costly to address.
I hope the President does bring us together to solve this problem.
This doesn't need to be--and it should not be--a partisan issue. The
national security of the United States should never be a partisan
issue, for if terrorists carry out an attack on our homeland they will
not attack Democratic sites but Republican sites; they will not target
conservatives but leave liberals alone; they will target Americans.
Americans from every political persuasion died on 9/11. I fear that may
happen at some point again. So we should all care about this.

The only person who can bring us together to do something about it is
the President, and so far he has failed to do it. I don't know if it is
because it runs counter to his political narrative that the war is over
and he got us out of Iraq. I don't know why it is, but so far he has
not done that, and he must.
Mr. President: On this issue, you must lead. You must put aside all
of these domestic, political debates that are going on in your office
about how this is going to poll or whether this runs contrary to what
you said on the campaign trail. This is too important, it is too vital,
it is too serious, and it is too dangerous.
I have my own ideas, as do others, about what that plan should look
like, but we want there to be a plan. We are not asking the President
to come forward with a plan to go looking for something to attack. We
want him to come forward with a plan because only he can, and he must.
In my opinion, that plan has to be we must do whatever we can and
everything we can to prevent this group, ISIL, from gaining operational
long-term control of these territories in Iraq. To me, that means going
after their command-and-control structure, which involves their ability
to transit fighters and weapons and fuel and food and ammunition from

[[Page S3791]]

their safe havens in Syria to their increasingly new spaces they have
now carved out for themselves in Iraq.
I think all of us in this Chamber, when it comes to issues of
national security, understand we should not be a part of the back-and-
forth of partisan politics.
I guess my plea here today on the Senate floor is this: Mr.
President, you must lead on this issue. You must come forward with a
plan that we can rally this Congress and our people behind, because if
we fail to do so, I fear our Nation will pay a terrible price down the
road. Never again can we allow an Al Qaeda-style group to establish a
safe haven where they can plot against us anywhere on this planet. The
choice before you, Mr. President, is you either deal with it now or
some future President and future Congresses and future Americans will
deal with it later. I hope you will deal with it now. I hope we will
remember the lessons of our recent history. The only one who can lead
us in that direction is you, Mr. President. I hope you will, because
the consequences of failing to do so would be dramatic and, in my
opinion, will be condemned by history.
I hope over the next few hours, the next few days, we will have the
opportunity to come to this floor and advocate on behalf of a concrete
plan of action that most, if not all, of us can support, so we can
ensure we can say that during our time here we did everything we needed
to do to keep America safe.
Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Immigration Reform

Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I rise today to talk about the House's
tragic and disconcerting failure to do anything to fix our broken
immigration system, even though an entire year has passed since the
Senate passed bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform with 68
votes--an impressive bipartisan vote total in this increasingly
partisan climate.
The House Republicans' lack of action on immigration is almost
completely inexplicable if you compare the most recent Republican Party
platform to what the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office had to say
about the Senate immigration reform bill.
When you take the time to look at both of these documents, you
realize that no other bill that we could pass during this or any other
Congress would accomplish as many of the Republican Party's stated
legislative objectives as passing immigration reform.
Just so that everyone understands this, I want to take you through a
step-by-step process where we look at the Republican Party platform and
compare it to the CBO report.
The first substantive sentence of the Republican Party platform says:

The best jobs program is economic growth. Republicans will
pursue free market policies that are the surest way to boost
employment and create job growth and economic prosperity for
all.

Well, what does the CBO report have to say about what the immigration
bill does for economic growth, job growth, and economic prosperity?
Page 3 of the CBO report says that ``the bill would increase real . .
. GDP relative to the amount CBO projects under current law by 3.3
percent in 2023 and by 5.4 percent in 2033. . . .''
Think about what that means in a $16 trillion economy. If we pass
this bill, we will be adding over $500 billion of annual economic
growth to our economy than we otherwise would. This is a staggering
number.
Well, what does the immigration bill do for job growth? Page 4 of the
CBO report says that the bill will increase the number of jobs in the
U.S. economy by about 6 million.
What about economic prosperity? On this front, page 3 of the CBO
report says ``the rate of return on capital would be higher under the
legislation than under current law. . . .'' That means Americans would
have more savings and a more secure safety net.
This means that passing immigration reform would accomplish the
Republican Party's top priority far better than any piece of
legislation the Republicans currently have before Congress.
What about the second stated priority of the Republican platform?
That priority says that ``small businesses are the leaders in the
world's advances in technology and innovation, and we pledge to
strengthen that role and foster small business entrepreneurship.''
Do you know what the best way to foster small business
entrepreneurship is? Immigration reform.
According to a study from the Kauffman Foundation, immigrants were
almost twice as likely to start small businesses in 2012 as native-born
Americans. Madam President, 27.1 percent of new entrepreneurs in 2012
were immigrants. That is up from 13.7 percent in 1996.
More than 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by
immigrants--90 companies--or by their children--an additional 114
companies--because a lot of these small businesses become big
businesses. The immigration bill has an entrepreneurship visa where
immigrants who have raised money from legitimate investors will be
given a green card to come here, open companies, and hire Americans.
Why will this happen? Because immigrants have always provided the
enthusiasm, hard work, and determination to reenergize America. They
perform very important jobs at the lower end of the economic spectrum
without complaint to make a better life for their families and they
provide innovation and new ideas at the higher end of the economy to
create the latest big inventions that fuel our growth.
But that is only scratching the surface of what this immigration bill
does. The next priority on page 3 of the Republican platform is
``balancing the budget.'' What is the bill that Congress can pass this
year that best balances the budget? Immigration reform.
According to CBO, passing immigration reform would ``reduce budget
deficits by $197 billion over the 2014-2023 period and by about $700
billion over the 2024-2033 period.'' That is $1 trillion in savings
that we can achieve by passing immigration reform.
Finally, with regard to immigration itself, the Republican Party
platform says ``our highest priority is to secure the rule of law at
both our borders and at ports of entry.''
Under the Senate immigration bill, anyone who wants to try and cross
the border illegally will have to figure out a way to get over an 18-
foot steel pedestrian fence, get past the border agents standing every
1,000 feet apart from Brownsville to San Diego 24 hours a day, and then
evade the sensors, cameras, and drones that will track the crosser
until they are caught by a border agent or local police.
That is an amendment proposed by our Republican colleagues but we put
into the bill. If you try to overstay your visa, your name will be
placed on a list given to immigration enforcement officials to find
you, detain you, and deport you. If you try to work here illegally, you
will never be able to get a job because you will not have a name, a
Social Security number, and a matching picture that will pop up on our
new E-Verify system when you apply for a job. Future waves of illegal
immigration will be prevented if this bill is passed.
So for all of the railing from the hard right about stopping illegal
immigration, no one--no one--can deny there have been huge improvements
over current law.
Let's take an inventory of what this bill does: Stimulate the
economy. Check. Create jobs. Check. Help small businesses. Check.
Reduce the debt. Check. Secure the border. Check. End visa overstays.
Check. End illegal employment. Check.
These are all of the things Republicans claim they want to do, all in
one bill. So why is it that all of these positive benefits to passing
reform and all of the costs we pay for doing nothing, why is it that
with that the House of Representatives, and the House Republicans in
particular, refuse to do anything to fix our broken immigration system?
Why do House Republicans not pass our bill to fix our broken
immigration system, not change it, not pass a good law? This question
can be answered with one simple word: Fear. One simple word. Fear.

[[Page S3792]]

Fear is what often causes people to do what is counter to their self-
interest. Fear makes people succumb to their basest instincts instead
of rising to their noblest ambitions. Fear paralyzes us during times
when we need to be taking action. House Republicans are afraid of
immigration. They are not only afraid of voting on an immigration bill,
they are even afraid of introducing legislation on immigration.
Let me give you some examples. June 2013, Congressman Joe Heck says
he was going to introduce immigration reform that would address our
broken system. In December of 2013, Republican Congressman Heck
announced he would not be introducing any immigration bill of any kind.
April 2014. Congressman Joe Barton said he was going to introduce
major immigration legislation. The bill was never introduced. Eric
Cantor, who just this week claimed that his position on immigration
never wavered, said last year he was going to introduce legislation to
``deal with the kids who did not break any laws and themselves came
into this country in many cases unbeknownst to them.'' This legislation
was also never introduced.
Finally, House Republican leadership has repeatedly announced they
``think we finally have the policy right on immigration.'' But again,
we have seen no bill even introduced, much less voted on. House
Republicans are so afraid of immigration that they have handed the
policy and leadership gavel to Steve King, who compares immigrants to
dogs and livestock and who claims immigration is a slow-motion
holocaust.
Eric Cantor is actually right that his position on immigration reform
never wavered. His rhetoric was often proreform, but his legislative
and voting record was always antireform. Cantor never introduced or
voted for a single immigration bill that would help a single immigrant.
But he loved to vaguely reference the need for immigration reform when
asked about it. That has been the real Republican Party position on
immigration: pretending to be pro-immigration reform rhetorically, but
never, never permit a Republican to actually introduce immigration
reform legislation and definitely never allow immigration reform
legislation to come to a vote. This is because House Republicans may
claim to disagree with Steve King's words, but they certainly do not
seem to disagree with Steve King's policy objectives. They do not want
immigration reform that will rationalize our legal immigration system
and create a path to legality for those who are already here. Instead,
they support the failed and tragic policies of self-deportation for the
people who are already here, and they want to reduce legal immigration
to a trickle for the people who wish to come here and contribute to our
society.
Two nights ago, when I watched our gritty U.S. soccer team win an
amazing game against Ghana, I saw an amazing team effort coached by an
energetic German immigrant whose tactics and decisions helped the
United States prevail in the final stages of an incredible, compelling
game.
Did Republicans watch the same game and ask: Why is an immigrant
coaching our team? These last 2 weeks, I watched the San Antonio Spurs
play some of the greatest team basketball anyone has ever seen with
players from France, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, Italy, Canada, and,
of course, the United States. Did Republicans watch those same games
and ask: Who cares about the quality of the basketball being played?
Why are immigrants allowed in the NBA?
This is the problem the Republicans face. Republicans have a very
important choice to make the next few days. If they continue on the
same path they are on now, where they feign sympathy for immigration in
their rhetoric but do not vote on or even introduce legislation to fix
our broken system, it will be impossible for the average voters to
distinguish between any Republican and Steve King. Republican words of
sympathy will not matter to people whose families are suffering, whose
businesses cannot find the workers they need or whose churches are
seeing their members deported. They will know that Republicans are to
blame for doing nothing on immigration reform. Even worse, Republicans
will get the worst of both worlds in this scenario. Their most strident
rightwing voters will actually punish them for their Machiavellian
efforts to feign sympathy for immigration reform.
So what is the real answer for Republicans? Well, Lindsey Graham
showed us the way by being a man of principle. This weekend he said it
best. He said:

I don't think Eric got beat because of his stand on
immigration, I think he got beat because of his lack of
defining himself on immigration. Republicans nationally will
accept an earned pathway to citizenship if you secure the
border. For our party to let the 35 percent tell us how to
engage on immigration, we will lose a natural ally in the
Hispanic community.

That is from Senator Graham who just won his election with 59 percent
of the vote, while defending back at home in a conservative Republican
State, South Carolina, immigration reform.
In conclusion, to Speaker Boehner, Majority Whip McCarthy, and others
in the new House leadership, the choice is yours. Join with us, the
evangelical community, the Catholic Church, American farmers, American
police chiefs, America's business community, and 65 percent of American
voters in supporting tough, fair, practical immigration reform
legislation or, alternatively, you can ignore the benefits of
immigration reform and continue to fail to address our broken
immigration system because of your fear, and you can eventually watch
your party go into the dustbin of history. Those are your two choices,
Republicans.
There is no doubt that at the moment Steve King is winning.
Republicans are implementing his policy objective of inaction to
perfection because they are so fearful. But hopefully, just like the
U.S. team, House Republicans can overcome their fears, appeal to their
more noble aspirations, and we can pull victory from the jaws of defeat
at the very end here and pass the immigration reform legislation our
country so desperately needs.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coons.) The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. MIKULSKI. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum
call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, we have been on the motion to proceed to
our three appropriations bills since 10 a.m. this morning. It has
almost been 4 hours, and it is true, under the cloture, there is 30
hours of debate. We could let this go on until 11 p.m. tonight--we
could. Actually, Members have had an interesting day speaking about
issues related to Iraq and to immigration, but we would like to focus
on the bills beforehand: agriculture, FDA--how do we feed people in our
own country, save the family farm, and be able to export food.
We would like to bring up a bill that funds FDA, the Food and Drug
Administration, that looks out for food safety, but also the safety and
efficacy of life-science products such as medical devices, biotech
products, and pharmaceuticals, which I know are important to the State
of the Presiding Officer.
We want to be able to bring up Transportation, Housing, and Urban
Development. The highway trust fund is going to run out.
In my own home State we need the transportation money. We need it for
the formula funding that will be important to roads, but we also need
the money in there that looks out for small airports, such as the
Hagerstown airport, the Frederick airport, which the President's plane
needs to get to Camp David.
Right up the road is the Hagerstown airport, for which there is a
growing manufacturing hub, of which there is small manufacturing
employing 300 to 400 people. Some make trucks, some make the heavy-duty
equipment to be sold, that are also export products. One company
actually puts in the avionics to the airplanes guarding our border.
If we put all that together, it is close to 900 to 1,200 jobs. Hello,
this is what we are talking about--public investment that creates
private sector jobs and does public safety.
So we are saying to those who are considering how we could move
ahead, we encourage them now. I suggest we follow the model when we
were on the floor 3 years ago. That was the last time we had these
appropriations on the floor. We had an amendment process.

[[Page S3793]]

The managers of the bill, such as my vice chairman Senator Shelby and
I, worked with Members on a defined list, some we could actually take.
There were some excellent ideas where Members wanted to improve on what
we had done.
For those who have concern about spending, they can actually come and
offer cuts or they can offer replacements. This is the place where if
you want government to work your way, it is your day and you do it
through the amendment process.
Most Americans don't understand that in order to debate a bill on the
Senate floor, you have to first file a motion to proceed. That is
asking permission to come to the floor to take up the bill. So we had
to have a cloture vote on it. OK, it passed 95 to 3. I think it is the
will of the Senate to get it going, and let's get these amendments--get
it on with the amendments.
Are there anxieties on both sides about the nature of those
amendments? Sure. But that is what amendments are. Some we can take,
some we need to debate.
We are the greatest deliberative body in the world. We have to start
deliberating.
I say to my friends who are pondering how to proceed, the best way to
proceed is look at the agreement we had in 2011 that allowed for
amendments, a regular order, a methodical process for considering those
amendments, and then we would be able to get on them, be able to debate
them. My suggestion would be that we would alternate sides, a
Democratic amendment, a Republican amendment--hey, maybe even a
bipartisan amendment.
I hope we do not spin our wheels and spin the clock for 8\1/2\ more
hours, because the American people know that after all is said and
done, more gets said than gets done.
I am suggesting--really--let's follow the regular order. The process
I am recommending is not new. There are no surprises, there are no
stunts. It is a process we have followed in the past. I am suggesting,
along with Senator Shelby, the exact model we used 3 years ago, the
last time appropriations were on the floor.
There are those who say in this country we have a spending problem.
If you think we have a spending problem, this is the time to come to
the floor and debate. If you think we have a spending problem and we
are spending too much on the Justice Department--if you think it is too
much money on bulletproof vests for cops or shelters for battered
women, come on. If you think there is too much money in the space
program, you don't like this rocket ship or that satellite, this is the
place to come. Offer amendments. We are ready to debate.
I speak for my two other subcommittee chairs, Senator Murray on
Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies, and
Senator Pryor on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug
Administration, and Related Agencies. We are already in consultation
with the other side of the aisle. Senator Collins on transportation and
Senator Blunt on agriculture are also ready to debate.
I would hope we could move forward, have a method for moving forward
that promotes regular order. If we do that, I think Members who haven't
experienced too much--because of our gridlock and deadlock and the lock
on amendments that we actually--I think they are going to like it
because they like democracy. If you like the Constitution, if you like
democracy, this is the place where we can put it into place today.
Before I yield the floor, I note that the leadership from the
Republican side is in conference with Senator Shelby. I hope that is
good news.
Then for those on both sides of the aisle watching the process on the
floor, if you have amendments, start to gear up and get ready to bring
them over. Senator Shelby and I are here. We are ready to receive them.
We are ready to get ready to do them, we are ready to talk about them,
and set the stage for hearing them.
I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Udall of New Mexico). 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. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Immigration

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, with what is happening in Iraq, what is
happening with the claim of lost IRS emails from Lois Lerner, what is
happening in the developments of the Benghazi investigation, what is
happening in Ukraine, and what could happen in Afghanistan, it is
easy--perhaps too easy--to overlook a crisis occurring right here in
America on our southern border. That crisis is easily described as a
wave of humanity coming across our southern border from Central
America.
Tragically, tens of thousands of the people coming across our borders
seeking refuge in the United States are children--unaccompanied
minors--from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. The question we
should ask ourselves is, Why are we seeing this unprecedented increase
in the number of unaccompanied minors coming across our southwestern
border?
As we can see, in 2011 there were 6,560 detained. But that number has
grown steadily, from 2012, 2013, and now 2014. So far 47,000 minors--
unaccompanied children--have been detained coming across our border,
primarily from Central America. It is estimated that this 60,000 number
will likely double next year unless something is done.
These children--and their parents are enabling this--are crossing the
border because of a widespread perception that they will be allowed to
stay here. The reason for that perception is a series of events--a
series of stated changes in policy--which have given the impression
that President Obama does not have a commitment to enforce our
immigration laws.
None of us denies that Central America's Northern Triangle is plagued
by drug cartels, street gangs, rampant violence, and deeply entrenched
poverty. There is no doubt about it. The fact is that the majority of
people coming across the southwestern border these days are not from
Mexico; they are from Central America. They are coming through a 500-
mile strip of border between Guatemala and Mexico, making their way up
the Mexican coast in areas largely controlled by the Zetas--a criminal
organization, a drug cartel which has basically figured this is another
way to make money. In other words, they not only traffic in drugs, they
traffic in people, and now, quite honestly, they are trafficking in
tens of thousands of children.
The massive spike in unaccompanied minors, of course, seemed to start
to take off when President Obama announced in 2012 his so-called
deferred action plan. To be clear and to be fair, this deferred action
announcement where the President said he would not deport certain
categories or classes of children would not apply to the children
coming across the border today. So we might wonder, why in the world do
they keep coming?
Well, that was not an isolated event in 2012. Just to remind my
colleagues, this deferred action announcement came 2 years after John
Morton, who was the Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or
ICE, circulated a memo declaring that the enforcement of U.S.
immigration laws against most illegal aliens was now a lower priority.
That memo went out in June of 2010.
A few months later several colleagues and I sent a letter to then-
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano expressing
our concern that the administration's selective enforcement of our
immigration statutes was jeopardizing public safety and breeding
contempt for the rule of law. That letter read, in part:

Numerous criminal aliens are being released into society
and are having proceedings terminated simply because ICE has
decided that such cases do not fit within the Department's
chosen enforcement priorities. It appears that ICE is
enforcing the law based on criteria it arbitrarily chose with
complete disregard for the enforcement laws created by
Congress.

Then, in the second Morton memo the following June, then-Director
Morton sent around another memo which further advised U.S. immigration
authorities to systemically reconsider hundreds of thousands of
immigration cases and to make them low priorities to enforce
immigration laws against millions of people illegally present in the
United States. That second Morton

[[Page S3794]]

memo went even further than the first in looking at everyone--all the
undocumented population here in the United States--and saying: We are
going to reconsider our priorities in terms of repatriation of those
individuals should they be detained by ICE. That June 2011 memo laid
the groundwork for the deferred action program the President announced
a year later, which was 2012, and these programs were extended earlier
this month.
The average was about 6,500; then it doubled in 2012; and then it
doubled again in 2013; and then it is scheduled to double again in
2014.
The administration has continued to treat the vast majority of
illegal immigrants as low-priority offenders, thereby creating perverse
incentives for people to cross the border. If people don't believe
there is any consequence associated with entering the country in
violation of our immigration laws, they are going to continue to do it.
As the distinguished Presiding Officer knows, law enforcement has more
than just what I would call a goal-line defense priority. In other
words, deterrence is very important. Obviously, people are not being
deterred.
Perversely, people are being encouraged by this series of events to
show up at the border--and, of course, in huge numbers--overwhelming
Border Patrol, which is now no longer looking uniformly at drug dealers
and human smuggling operations. Now they are trying to take care of
children and trying to get them to a safe place to live and to take
care of them.
John Sandweg, who served as the ICE Director from 2013 to 2014,
recently told the Los Angeles Times:

If you are a run-of-the-mill immigrant here illegally, your
odds of getting deported are close to zero.

It is just unlikely to happen. That message has obviously gotten
through to folks in Central America, who, admittedly, are living in a
very tough neighborhood, and it has encouraged many of them to risk
their lives and their children's lives on an extremely dangerous
journey through this region of Mexico covered by the drug cartels.
Actually, it is part of the business model of the drug cartels to
encourage this flow of illegal migration from Central America through
Mexico because they effectively get paid a tax by the coyotes and human
smugglers who smuggle people through this dangerous region. One of the
ways they come is on the top of one of these trains.
This is a shot of a train they call The Beast. It has been well
documented and written about by a Salvadoran journalist, Oscar
Martinez, in a book he wrote in 2013 which is chilling, but it
describes the journey from Central America through Mexico on the top of
one of these trains and the risk of accident, the likelihood of sexual
assault--6 to 8 out of 10 migrant women are sexually assaulted--people
who are kidnapped for ransom, and people who are killed who don't
comply with the dictates of the drug cartels.
Don't take just my word for it.
Last week the Washington Post confirmed that the influx of
unaccompanied minors:

. . . is being driven in large part by the perception that
they will be allowed to stay under the Obama administration's
immigration policies.

The New York Times recently told the story of a 13-year-old Honduran
boy who was detained in Mexico while trying to reach the United States.
Like so many others across Central America, the Times reported this boy

. . . said his mother believed that the Obama
administration had quietly changed its policy regarding
unaccompanied minors and that if he made it across he would
have a better shot at staying.

The distinguished Senator from Maryland is here.
Not only is this affecting States such as Texas, but these children,
1,000 of them, are being effectively warehoused in Lackland Air Force
base in San Antonio, TX, some are being shipped to Arizona and
California, and some are being sent--or at least the plan is to send
them--to Virginia and Maryland, because these 47,000 children who have
been detained since October of last year are overwhelming the capacity
of local communities and State and Federal authorities to deal with
them. As I said, The Beast, which transports people 1,000 miles or so
on a trip from southern Mexico up to the southern border of Texas, is a
horrific way to transit that huge expanse.
Migrant women are preyed upon by drug cartels such as the Zetas.
Officials from the mayor's office in Ciudad Hidalgo told Oscar
Martinez, the author of the book ``The Beast,'' in Ciudad Hidalgo the
Zetas control all trafficking, sending men to recruit women in Central
America, and sometimes even kidnapping migrant women riding the buses.
They sell the women to truckdrivers for a night, and then throw them
away like unwanted scraps.
My point is, there is nothing humane about encouraging people to
travel through cartel-dominated smuggling routes in the hopes of
reaching the United States. Yet that has been the effect of the
perception that the President and his administration are not committed
to enforcing our immigration laws. I know that wasn't their intention
but that has been the consequence. Even before the ongoing border
crisis erupted, people were taking notice of the President's disregard
for the rule of law.
Last December, for example, a Federal district court judge in
Brownsville, TX, absolutely excoriated the Obama administration for
making a mockery of enforcement, noting that the President's policies
were incentivizing human traffickers and endangering the lives of
children. Here is what Federal Judge Andrew Hanen said:

By fostering an atmosphere whereby illegal aliens are
encouraged to pay human smugglers for further services, the
government is not only allowing them to fund the illegal and
evil activities of these cartels, but is also inspiring them
to do so.

That is a Federal district judge in Brownsville, TX.
One final point. Some of my friends across the aisle have argued that
if only Congress would pass President Obama's preferred immigration
reforms, the current border crisis would never have happened. That
ignores the fact that none of these children qualify for any of the
deferred action policies either ordered in 2012 or any of the others I
mentioned. But there is the perception caused by the first Morton memo,
the second Morton memo, then the deferred action announcement, and now
the widely publicized news that the President has instructed Jeh
Johnson, the Secretary of Homeland Security, to reconsider the entire
repatriation and deportation policy, and it is clear this is related to
the upcoming midterm election and the President's desire to try to make
a point.
The problem is his point is backfiring. It is victimizing the very
same people the President believes, I think, that he is trying to help.
That is what happens when the rule of law is no longer your priority--
unintended consequences. As I explained today, the President's actions
have helped cause this humanitarian crisis.
I know the Finance Committee has in subcommittee appropriated I think
roughly $2 billion to help the Federal authorities to deal with this
humanitarian crisis. Unfortunately, unless we are able to process
appropriations bills across the floor of the Senate, I don't know when
that money is going to be available, and that is another problem.
But the most fundamental problem is the American people's confidence
that the Federal Government will enforce the laws, until such time as
those laws are changed, has been undermined. Passing new legislation
will do nothing to fix that unless the President is willing to enforce
laws that have already been passed by Congress. This isn't a problem of
passing some more laws; this is a problem of the President and his
administration effectively conveying the message that they are not
going to enforce the laws they don't want to enforce. Unless we send a
clear, unambiguous message that our border is secure and our
immigration laws are being enforced, we can expect more and more
Central American migrants to embark on the harrowing journey from
Central America up through Mexico, which means more of them will be
robbed, kidnapped, raped, and killed. We don't know how many start out
on this journey. All we know is how many show up on the border. We
ought to be concerned about that.
To be clear, I remain personally committed to fixing all aspects of
our broken immigration system, but I cannot and will not support any
policy that effectively empowers human traffickers and endangers the
lives of these children.

[[Page S3795]]

Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, before the Senator from Texas leaves--
and I know we have other matters to discuss--first I want to make a
comment and then I have a question.
I want to thank the Senator from Texas for that very compelling
presentation. I might not agree with every sentence, but I think the
Senator painted a picture of what is happening at the border. We do
have a humanitarian crisis.
As chair of the Appropriations Committee, I was made aware of this
last year by Secretary Sebelius when they asked for more money to help.
I said, yes, more money to help, but we needed to plan. What were we
going to do with this? So now these numbers have surged, and what it
has become is these children effectively function as refugees.
This portrait the Senator has portrayed--the horrific sense of The
Beast, and human beings, women and children, and boys, as well, being
sold as if they were commodities? Commodities. It gives you goosebumps.
The Senator has painted a very compassionate and compelling picture.
My question, though, is we have to deal with the immediate crisis
now. But as the Senator talks about the enforcement on the border, what
would the Senator recommend we do?
In other words, the pictures I have seen--and I hope I will go down
and see this for myself--is the children come up to the border control
guy, some as young as 4 and 5 years old and some go up to the early
teens. Some teens carry their younger siblings. Is the Senator saying
we should turn them away? These are not provocative questions. We have
to work across the aisle to deal with this issue constructively,
humanely, and effectively.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, if I may respond to the distinguished
Senator's question.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection.
Mr. CORNYN. I appreciate the Senator's leadership and big heart. This
is not a political issue. The first and most important thing we need to
do is to pursue the best interests of these children, but we cannot
simply deal with our immigration problem, illegal immigration problem,
at the border. It has to start back in Central America. That is one
reason I am glad Vice President Joe Biden is traveling to Guatemala, as
I know Jeh Johnson, the Secretary of Homeland Security has, to try to
see what they can do.
We then need to try to persuade our friends in Mexico to commit more
resources. Perhaps we can persuade them to deal with the 500-mile
southern border that is basically controlled by the cartels. But the
cartels are making money. So this is a governance issue in Central
America and Mexico as well.
I might point out that perhaps with the same reservations the
distinguished Senator from Maryland made about not agreeing with
everything I said, but much of what I said, what I have said has I
think pretty much been echoed by my friend Representative Henry Cuellar
from Laredo, TX, who obviously by virtue of where he lives and was
raised is very knowledgeable about the border around Laredo and Mexico
and Central America.
I saw an interview with our former First Lady Hillary Clinton, that
unless we send a very clear and loud message to people in Central
America that you should not come, you should not risk your children
making this long, harrowing journey because they will not be able to
stay, then they are going to keep coming, because right now when these
children come here, as the Senator knows, our capacity to deal with
them is overwhelmed at the local level, at the State level, and at the
Federal level, and they are essentially being treated like refugees and
warehoused in places such as Lackland Air Force Base and other places
around the country.
You can imagine the impact in the long run not only on the health
care system, on education, and other services that would be required to
take care of these children until they can be repatriated. But I would
align myself with what former Senator Clinton, the former Secretary of
State, said: The President and the administration need to send a very
clear and loud message that anyone who comes to the United States will
be returned to their country of origin once a safe family member can be
identified to repatriate these children. But right now the system is so
overwhelmed that we don't even know who these children are being placed
with in America. They may be some claimed family member, but I am not
sure whether there are background checks being done for criminal
history or perhaps sex offense.
This is overwhelming the whole system. I am sure working together we
can come up with an improvement over where we are now, and I would
point out this is not a partisan issue, but it is a very harsh reality
and my concern is it is being overwhelmed by the news out of the Middle
East and other concerns here in Washington when it is very much front
and center back home in Texas.
Ms. MIKULSKI. I thank the senior Senator from Texas, a former
attorney general, as I recall. The Senator knows the law, he knows the
border, and he knows what is going on.
This Senator looks at this too as not only the chair of the
Appropriations Committee but as a social worker. The care of the
children even in our own country gives me pause.
They were originally looking at a closed Social Security building to
house these children, with no bathrooms except down the hall, putting
them in little office cubicles. So we have a very serious problem.
I want the Senator from Texas to know I agree with the holding that
we need to have the strong and clear message in Central America, first
of all, that these rumors are false.
Today is not the day to do this. I thank the Senator for his
compelling comments. I would like to work with the Senator from Texas
and also continue to work with the administration to focus on this. But
the message does have to go to Central America. I think we are fair
game in Central America. From what I have heard, there are all these
radio ads and so on that are truly exploiting this. There is violence,
there is ghoulish, grim violence against children in Central America.
Desperate mothers and grandmothers are trying to look for a way out.
They are being exploited. I am going to work with the Senator in any
way I can to stem the flow, deal with the humanitarian crisis, and get
a long-range solution. I appreciate this conversation going forward.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator and look forward to
that.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana is recognized.
Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, I rise today not only as a Senator from
Montana, but as a veteran of the long and difficult war in Iraq. Like
most Americans, the increasing instability in Iraq and the
disintegration of the country along sectarian boundaries has me deeply
concerned. This past weekend when I was home in Montana and talking to
Montanans, they were very concerned about what was going on in Iraq;
they express their interest to me about Iraq on a regular basis.
The heinous advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, their
systematic execution of Iraqi soldiers, and the murder of innocent
civilians gives pause to people everywhere.
I stand here today as a veteran and as a father whose son has been
deployed multiple times. I wish to recognize my son today, who is with
me today. I ask that my son Michael stand and be recognized.
We fought in the war that Washington began based on false
information--a war that ended and from which we must move on.
I led an infantry battalion--the 1st Battalion, 163rd Infantry--into
combat, which was made up of more than 100 of Montana's finest. Our
area of operation was from just north of Tikrit--from Baiji--to Kirkuk,
which is the very same area being fought over today.
It was late 2004 and the country had fallen into a bitter sectarian
conflict--a conflict that unfolded after the dismantling of the
Baathist-led army and fueled by ancient divides between the Shias and
Sunnis. Those same disputes are again boiling over in Iraq today.
From the end of 2004 to late 2005, my unit fought to hold ground,
secure roads, and build infrastructure. We worked with local sheiks and
key leaders to forge a path to peace. We helped return Iraq's
government to its people. While there we oversaw two successful
elections and watched with hope and

[[Page S3796]]

great satisfaction as the Iraqis ratified their constitution. It was
during this time that I also dispatched a team from the battalion to
focus solely on training and assisting members of the newly formed
Iraqi army.
During our unit's entire deployment in Iraq while fighting the
insurgency, we faced rocket attacks, snipers, and improvised explosive
devices on a daily basis. Four of my men were killed in action, and
there is not a day that goes by that I don't think of those men and
their families: MSG Robbie D. McNary of Lewistown, MT, died on March
31, 2005; SSG Kevin Davis of Lebanon, OR, died on April 8, 2005; SGT
Timothy Kiser of Tehama, CA, died on April 28, 2005; and SGT Travis
Arndt, died on September 21, 2005. Travis was from Bozeman, MT. Scores
of other soldiers were injured.
One of my soldiers died by suicide after returning home to Montana.
He was a victim of the invisible wounds of war.
Nearly 4,500 Americans have been killed in Iraq, among them 28
Montana heroes. Some 32,000 Americans have been wounded. The war cost
us more than $2 trillion--I say more than $2 trillion--most of which
Congress put on a credit card so our grandchildren can pay the debt.
Because this Nation has failed to prepare for new veterans returning
home, we now have a crisis of care within our VA health care system--a
system that is overwhelmed after more than a decade of war.
Today we are seeing 22 veterans die by suicide each and every single
day across this country. These are the true costs of war. Montanans
understand this, and Americans understand this.
Because I work for Montanans, and I am listening to them, I call on
President Obama to use extreme caution when considering options to deal
with the sectarian violence that we are seeing take place in Iraq
today. America cannot afford another Iraq financially or the human
costs that are associated with war. We did our job there, and we did it
with honor and integrity. Our men and women should be very proud of
their success, and the citizens of this country should be proud of the
accomplishments of the men and women who served in our armed forces.
Today some are suggesting we make an open-ended commitment to Iraq
and keep American troops on the ground indefinitely. Sending thousands
of America's young men and women back into Iraq to step into the middle
of a civil war is not a solution.
To my fellow Members of Congress, I urge temperance as we navigate
this difficult terrain because I know that foreign policy failures made
in Washington fall disproportionately on the backs of young men and
women from the small towns across Montana and the country.
I have seen war up close and, like too many American families, I have
seen the cost of war up close on families and on communities all across
this country.
I believe it is now time for the Iraqis to secure and defend their
own nation. The embrace of their own self-determination is the only
path to a true and everlasting peace in Iraq.
I wish to remind the American people of the costs that have been
associated with the war in Iraq. We are dealing with a crisis within
the VA health care system. At one time over a year ago, we had over
450,000 men and women on a backlog list trying to get in to see a
health care provider.
Today that backlog has been significantly reduced, but we still have
a problem within the VA health care system. We put over 2 million
American veterans into that health care system without making sure that
the system was ready for them when they came home. Can you imagine
sending over 2 million American servicemembers into Iraq or
Afghanistan--or anywhere else in the world--whom we didn't train,
equip, or provide the resources for them to go into Iraq?
When people talk to me about the cost of war, I think this is a cost
that we sometimes overlook because when our men and women return from
Iraq, the war is not over. We will be dealing with this cost for many
years.
As we talk about the men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan and
contemplating our extension of deployment in Afghanistan, a figure has
been thrown around as to the costs. Today it costs approximately $1.2
million for a soldier in Afghanistan. When we reduce the number of
soldiers in Afghanistan from 32,000 to less than 10,000, that cost goes
up to $2.3 million. Again, we are planning to put that cost on the
credit card.
We have a responsibility, and that responsibility lies on the
citizens of this Nation and on the citizens of Montana. We must
continue to look out for these people.
I don't want to be an isolationist. I understand there are problems
in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we have to take care of our problems here
in Washington, DC.
As I travel back to Montana and talk to Montanans, they are concerned
about our debt. They know we have a spending problem, and we have to
take care of that spending problem. But sending our soldiers to Iraq or
extending their stay in Afghanistan is not going to solve the problems
we are dealing with there.
Again, America cannot afford another Iraq financially or the human
costs that are associated with Iraq. We owe it to the citizens of this
Nation.
The Members of the Senate need to ask themselves: If it were my son
or daughter who was going to be sent into Iraq to fight in a sectarian
conflict, would I be as willing to do that as I am today without having
someone I care for sent over there?
We hear about suggestions on a daily basis about what we should be
doing in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I know we are dealing with a
difficult situation there, but we have to make the right decision. We
have to look out for the United States of America and what is happening
here in America.
I think that too many of my fellow Members of Congress are too abrupt
and think too quickly about what we should do in Iraq. I believe they
need to take a step back and think about the impacts--the second and
third order of effects of continuing to send our men and women back
over to Iraq.
As I said, I know that foreign policy failures made in Washington
will fall disproportionately on the backs of smalltown America--towns
like Culbertson, MT, Livingston, MT, and Boulder, MT. It is not the
large cities that will bear the burden of sending men and women back
into Iraq.
I have also mentioned I have seen war up close. I still recall the
ramp ceremonies we held shortly after the deaths of the men and women
in Iraq. We had to have those men and women out of there within a 12-
hour period. Those were very difficult times to deal with not only for
me but for the other 700-plus men and women who were deployed with me
to Iraq.
Again, I cannot overemphasize how important I think it is that we
really step back, take a look at what is happening in Iraq and
determine if this is really the best thing for the United States of
America. Is it the best thing for our military to have to deal with?
We have been at war for over 13 years in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our
military will do whatever we ask of it, but we also have to think about
the families of our service men and women, the impacts that the wars of
Iraq and Afghanistan have had on them with the number of divorces,
broken marriages, and broken families. Those are also the costs of war
we are having to deal with.
There are no easy answers to what is happening in Iraq, and I know we
will come together and come up with a solution, and I hope it is the
right solution because these are very important times. Who knows what
will happen next? Will it happen in the Middle East? Will it happen in
Europe? I don't think that anyone knows, and we have to be prepared.
Again, I have said it once and I wish to emphasize this point again:
I believe it is time for the Iraqis to secure and defend their own
nation. We heard they have over 17 divisions. Think about the size of
those divisions. A division of the United States is nearly 20,000
soldiers, and I am sure that an Iraqi division is somewhere in that
same capacity. They have 17 divisions--4 of which we hear have dropped
their weapons and fallen back, but that still leaves 13 divisions they
would have to fight, and so they can make a stance to protect their
country.
I am calling on the Members of this Senate to ask the Iraqi people to
stand up and fight for their country.
I thank the Chair.

[[Page S3797]]

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

Climate Change

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I come to the floor to make an
objection, if necessary, to an effort to submarine the President's
climate change initiative, which two-thirds of all Americans support
and which a huge number of major name-brand American corporations
supported and which is supported by those whom we trust to lead our
national defense and our national security interests. But something
about this building, something about this place makes it a place where
the polluting interests have wildly disproportionate sway, so we keep
seeing these attacks on environmental regulations. So it is actually
kind of fortunate timing that I am here because it gives me a chance,
for the 71st time, to try to wake this body up to the harm carbon
pollution is causing to our oceans, to our economy, to our wildlife,
and to our health.
I traveled recently to New Hampshire. I have been traveling around
the country, going to States that are facing the carbon predicament and
seeing how they are doing it.
I can tell my colleagues that Granite Staters are facing up to the
daunting challenges of climate change. Rhode Islanders understand that
New Hampshire's challenges are like our own. We see similar threats in
our own State. At the Newport, RI, tide gauge, right at our naval
station, sea level is up almost 10 inches since the 1930s. In the
winter, we are three to four degrees warmer in Narragansett Bay. The
recent ``National Climate Assessment'' report concludes that Rhode
Island will see even more rising sea level, warmer temperatures, and
extreme weather.
New Hampshire showed that there is plenty of Yankee good sense up
there as well. The people of New Hampshire get it, and they are taking
steps to tackle climate change. Let me first say that no one pretended
it isn't real. The first line of defense on the other side of the aisle
is that climate change isn't real. No one I spoke to in New Hampshire
is pretending it isn't real.
University of New Hampshire expert Cameron Wake told me that New
Hampshire is ``getting wetter and getting warmer,'' and they pointed
out that it is happening fast. The ``National Climate Assessment''
shows that due to climate change, the Northeast already has seen 70
percent more extreme precipitation in recent years--dramatic downpours
that increase the risk of flooding. This University of New Hampshire
data shows an even more severe problem for New Hampshire. Dr. Wake told
me that he and his University of New Hampshire colleagues have
collected data from southern New Hampshire on what they call ``extreme
precipitation events''--what we might call a rain burst, where over 4
inches of rain falls in just 48 hours. The data show these rain bursts
have increased 4 to 10 times since 1960, and they will only grow more
frequent through the rest of the century, Wake and his University of
New Hampshire colleagues report.
That brings us to the warmer part of the wetter-and-warmer equation.
The University of New Hampshire's recent studies show the State's
temperature has increased by twice the global average, happening in
large part due to what Dr. Wake calls ``snow dynamics'': Warmer
temperatures during New Hampshire's winter mean less snow. Less snow
exposes more dark ground underneath. The dark ground absorbs more heat,
and it warms faster than if it were covered in reflective snow--what
scientists call high albedo snow. So the ground then warms the air--and
on goes the cycle.
At Plymouth State University, the Appalachian Mountain Club has data
which show temperature increases in Pinkham Notch in New Hampshire's
White Mountains. The average increase in temperature has climbed over
75 years. Then, if we look at the average over 50 years, we see that
the line has steepened and it is accelerating, and if we look at the
line for the last 25 years, it has steepened again and the increase is
accelerating further. So New Hampshire's temperatures aren't just
rising, they are rising faster.
What do these temperatures mean for Granite Staters? Well, big
changes to their winter industries, such as skiing. Six years ago Ben
Wilcox, who is the general manager of the ski resort Mount Cranmore in
North Conway, NH, was using 40 to 50 snow guns to cover his ski
mountain. Now he is using 150. In the last 5 years, Wilcox reports, ski
mountains in his region have invested in over 1,700 new top-of-the-line
snow guns, capable of making three to four times the amount of snow of
previous models, so they can offset the snowpack loss from the shorter
winters. That makes them lucky. But when people down the mountain don't
see snow, they don't think about skiing, so they don't go.
Stefan Hausmann is the owner of Zimmermann's Ski and Snowboard Shop
in Nashua, NH. He told me his business sees this in fewer new skiers
and snowboarders buying their equipment at his store. He is still
selling the higher end skis to established skiers at a pretty good
clip, but he is selling less equipment to beginners. Those lower end
customers just aren't coming in the door, says Hausmann.
Of course, New Hampshire's winter tourism industry goes far beyond
skiing. The New Hampshire Department of Travel and Economic Development
says 34 million visitors travel to the Granite State and spend roughly
$4.6 billion. This makes tourism the State's second largest industry,
and climate change hits a lot of it.
For instance, snowmobilers and Nordic skiers come to New Hampshire's
backcountry for more than 7,000 miles of trails. If you are a ski
mountain, you can crank snow out onto your busy ski slopes. It is not
so easy when you are talking about snowmobile trails or Nordic skiing
trails. So the ski business of trail skiing and the snowmobile business
is taking a hit.
The Hubbard Brook Research Foundation, based in North Woodstock, NH,
has found that snow cover has decreased by 22 days since I was born in
1955, and the frozen lakes included in those trail systems that
snowmobilers and Nordic skiers use are covered in ice less of the
year--33 less days on Mirror Lake just since 1967, for example. As one
Granite Stater told me, this hit not just the trails but the hotels,
restaurants, snowmobile shops, and outdoor outfitters who depend on
that market.
Of course, it is not just sports. Jamey French of Portsmouth, the CEO
and president of Northland Forest Products, told me how climate change
is affecting two of New Hampshire's most valuable hardwoods--the sugar
maple and the yellow birch.
Sugar maples, of course, support New Hampshire's maple sugar
industry, but they also draw leaf peepers who travel to view the
spectacular foliage that blankets the New Hampshire landscape in the
autumn. As New Hampshire and neighboring States get warmer, the trees'
geographic range moves north. Scientists predict that future warming
will exacerbate this trend, meaning more production of maple syrup in
Canada and less in the United States--bad news for New Hampshire's
maple sugar houses.
As for the yellow Birch, Mr. French points out that in the 1940s and
1950s, most of the furniture in New England was made out of yellow
birch, and yellow birch remains a valuable hardwood, drawing good
prices for New Hampshire's timber business.
French fears the consequences for his industry if yellow birch and
sugar maples are pushed northwards and out by warmer-weather trees.
``Will there be a wood product industry?'' he asks. ``Will there be a
maple sugar industry in a climate-changed New England? There is going
to be a lot less of one,'' he concludes.
New Hampshire biologist Eric Orrf is witnessing one of the most
dramatic changes. He studies the moose--an animal that is bred to
survive harsh northern winters. But what Orrf sees is a catastrophic
decline in moose population mostly due to the success of moose ticks.
This is going to get a little bit gross, so forgive me. Moose ticks
breed more easily and they survive longer in milder winters. Orrf
explains--these are his words:

What happens when we have an early spring, when winter
ticks fall off on bare

[[Page S3798]]

ground, is they thrive. They lay their eggs. They are
successful at reproducing. Then, in the fall, in November,
when the baby moose ticks are hanging together, if there is
no snow, then by the thousands, tens of thousands, they get
on the calves. Now for these calves, they'd literally have to
resupply their blood supply two times over to survive the
winter. They suck them dry.

I think one tick is pretty revolting. The idea of tens of thousands
of ticks on a moose calf, sucking the blood out of the calf so fast
that it can't keep up, is a truly grisly thought. They literally ``suck
them dry,'' according to Orrf.
Jim O'Brien of the New Hampshire Audubon Society told me how climate
change is affecting the State's bird. New Hampshire's State bird is the
purple finch. It is the official bird of New Hampshire. It is a cold-
weather bird with a range up to Canada. He said this:

The purple finch is at the southern end of its range, and,
in all likelihood, our state bird isn't going to be found in
the State of New Hampshire anymore.

So while we dawdle and delay in Congress thanks to the influence of
big polluters, there is work to be done out there. Thankfully, States
across the country, knowing the risks of doing nothing and knowing the
costs of doing nothing, are starting to act.
I have been to the Southeast coast. I have been to the Midwest. I
have seen wind parks in Iowa with 500 wind turbines generating more
than a quarter of the State's electricity. I went South. I saw
Republican mayors and county officials in the Southeast putting climate
and energy policy at the center of their government's plans.
I saw it again in New Hampshire, Granite Staters who understand the
risks all too well. The University of New Hampshire recently released
two--not one but two--comprehensive reports about climate change, one
for northern New Hampshire and one for southern New Hampshire. I have
them with me. New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan has played a pivotal
role in making sure this work gets done and in developing and operating
New England's Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which we call
``Reggi,'' which is already at work reducing our region's carbon
pollution and providing a model for how other States can succeed under
the powerplant regulations.
We are already seeing our States--our laboratories of democracy--
taking sensible steps down the path to reducing carbon emissions. The
EPA rule for carbon pollution from powerplants will encourage that
State role. Just this morning the Wall Street Journal and NBC News
released polling saying two-thirds of Americans support President
Obama's new climate rule, and more than half say the United States
should go for it and deal with global warming even if it means higher
electricity bills for them. People in America get it. It is only this
building that is isolated by polluter influence.
It is time for Congress to wake up, and we will if the American
people will give us a good shake. It is time to wake up.
I yield the floor, and 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.
Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown). Without objection, it is so
ordered.

Tribute to Brianna Vance

Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I rise to recognize a remarkably brave,
very young West Virginian, 10-year-old Brianna Vance, who helped save
her father's life just last week--truly amazing. It was on Twitter, all
over the pages.
On June 10, as a severe storm--and with all of the severe storms we
have been having all over the country--tore through her neighborhood in
Henlawson, WV, Brianna's father Gregory and two of his friends were
sitting on the porch when lightning struck a nearby very large tree
that crashed down on top of them and their home.
Brianna tried to use her phone to call for help, but the storm had
knocked out all of the cell services. She had nothing. She could not do
a thing. Remarkably, she was still able to access the Internet and
quickly logged onto Facebook--just by a miracle.
In an extraordinary demonstration of courage and resourcefulness,
Brianna posted a video, and I have seen this video. If you haven't,
please go to Brianna's Facebook page, ``Brianna Vance,'' and look at
it. She asked anyone who had cell phone service or access to a phone to
please call 911 and send an ambulance to her yellow house to save her
daddy.
She thought, had enough presence about her during this very trying
and emotional time. When people see the video, I think it will explain
and speak for itself.
Thankfully, someone saw her post and a rescue team was able to save
the three victims, including her father, because of that Facebook post.
When all other options failed, Brianna did not give up. She still had
the presence of thought and her desire to help her father and his
friends.
Because of her sharp wit and resourcefulness, her father is alive and
recovering today--just in time to celebrate Father's Day together, as
we just finished up this past weekend.
I am so proud of Brianna, and I know her family and community are as
well, as can be expected when we have situations not just in West
Virginia but in the Presiding Officer's own State of Ohio and all over
this great country, where we have family bonds such as this and we have
family stories that have good outcomes that we do not hear enough of.
I thank Brianna for her heroism that helped save the lives of her
father and his friends. She should be recognized for her bravery.
So I say, Brianna, on behalf of the grateful State of West Virginia,
thank you for what you have done for your father and his friends and
showing the courage you have as a young West Virginian.
I thank the Chair.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon because
this week the Senate has a chance to take another crucial step away
from the political cliffs and manufactured crises of previous years and
to get back to the regular order--to get back to the considered,
measured, orderly process on this floor that for so long was
characteristic of this body, in the past considered the greatest
deliberative body on Earth, but in recent years it has ground to a
halt.
It is critical that we return to regular order and that we return to
the steady consideration of appropriations bills in a way that will
move not just the Senate and this Congress but this country forward.
I thank the chair and ranking member of the Appropriations Committee,
Senators Mikulski and Shelby, for their leadership and their steadfast
determination to work in a bipartisan manner and bring us back to
regular order.
We are considering today a collection--or what is called today a
``minibus'' instead of an omnibus--of three appropriations bills:
Agriculture, Rural Development, and Food and Drug Administration;
Commerce, Justice, and Science; and Transportation and Housing and
Urban Development--an unbelievable scope across these three
appropriations bills that could in combination make a real and
significant difference for our communities, our States, and our
country. This is an opportunity for this Congress to carry out its
duties to provide oversight and direction and to help all the different
agencies I just named move forward and address some of our most
important priorities.
As a member myself of the Appropriations Committee, I have advocated
for some of what are our Nation's top priorities embedded in these
three important bills. So I wish to speak for a few minutes about how
these bills will, first, help my home State of Delaware; second, help
our country; and then, third, the important obligation we have as
Senators to return to regular order and to use the appropriations
process for oversight and for management of this whole Federal project.

[[Page S3799]]

For Delaware, these three bills invest in a number of areas. I could
talk about literally dozens of matters critical to my home State, but
let me focus on two--public safety and infrastructure.
When we think about it at the local level--where I served for a
decade in county government--these are the foundation of what
government does and does well: Keep our people, homes, communities, and
families safe, and provide for the sewer water, drinking water, and the
highways and tollways and bridges and ports that are critical to moving
commerce and our country forward.
This bill extends children's advocacy centers. Let me talk for a few
minutes about what children's advocacy centers are and why it is so
vital to public safety.
Children's advocacy centers allow communities to bring child abusers
to justice without retraumatizing their victims. Children's advocacy
centers are unique because it is a model that brings together, under
one roof in one place, law enforcement, prosecutors, counselors, and
child service professionals--all focusing on how to best care for and
move forward with a child who has been a victim of abuse.
In Delaware we have three centers--one in each of our three counties.
And although I wish we didn't need them, the fact is they are
indispensable. In my experience in a decade of local government, I was
exposed over and over to the critical role they play in helping law
enforcement secure critical evidence and move forward to conviction
against the monsters who commit abuse against our children.
Since the creation of these centers, they have transformed our
Nation's response to child abuse, giving families hope and guidance in
their darkest moments and delivering justice to those who have endured
the worst.
As we work together to continue to try our best to keep our children
safe, this bill allows us to continue to fund child advocacy centers so
we can have a more efficient, more effective, more federally sponsored
and coordinated way to deliver at a very modest cost this vital
resource for our children.
Second, as we work to keep our children safe, this bill also allows
us to protect those who protect us. Every day more than 1 million law
enforcement officers across this country accept risks to their personal
safety. As they leave their families at dawn and head off to their
jobs, they know that what they accept as part of their mission is the
risk they may not come home that night. That is why it is so important
this bill also funds the bulletproof vest partnership.
In Delaware we know its value all too well. Last February at the New
Castle County Courthouse in my hometown of Wilmington, DE, a gunman
unleashed a hail of bullets into a courthouse lobby, tragically killing
two. On what was a difficult morning in Wilmington, two lives were also
saved--those of Sergeant Michael Manley and Corporal Steve Rinehart--
members of the Delaware Capitol Police--officers who were wearing
bulletproof vests funded by the Federal Bulletproof Vest Partnership.
This is a partnership launched by my predecessor, now-Vice President
Biden. It has been sustained on a bipartisan basis for many years, but
without this appropriation, this vital Federal-State-law enforcement
partnership would grind to a halt.
Vests work. They save lives. They save officers' lives, and with this
bill we will be able to ensure even more officers all across this
country have lifesaving bulletproof vests.
Those are two areas where in law enforcement and public safety this
bill continues critical investments in partnership from the Federal
Government to State and local governments.
In recent weeks in Delaware we have also been reminded of just how
critical our infrastructure is--our bridges, our roads, and highways.
There is a bridge on I-495 that goes across the Christina River. This
is a vital highway for Wilmington and for the whole mid-Atlantic
region. It carries 90,000 drivers a day, but 2 weeks ago it was closed
indefinitely when workers nearby noticed four of its pillars were off
plumb, were slanted, and then upon further investigation discovered
there were cracks in the very foundation holding this bridge 50 feet in
the air. Its closure is hurting families, businesses, and commuters,
and it is just one in a string of recent emergencies all across our
country that demonstrate the need for investment in fixing America's
roads and bridges.
The funding we are considering this week in this bill recognizes that
and takes steps to address some of our most urgent needs across this
country. It continues to invest in two innovative funding vehicles: One
called TIGER grants and another called TIFIA loans. These are acronyms,
but they are inventive ways to mobilize private capital in partnership
with States and the Federal Government, to get us moving again in
repairing and upgrading the roads and bridges of America. They help
State and local governments pay for new highways and bridges, public
transit projects, railways, and ports.
In Delaware, the Port of Wilmington--a critical economic engine for
our State and region--secured a $10 million TIGER grant last year to
renovate facilities built in 1922. On U.S. 301, a little south and west
of Wilmington but still in Delaware, TIFIA grants are helping us to do
critical work to relieve congestion.
In southernmost Delaware at Georgetown, at the Sussex County Airport,
we have also seen the vital role and the value of Federal investment.
Since 2012, the Sussex County Airport has received $4 million in
airport improvement grants to expand its runway and improve safety and
to help grow manufacturing jobs at that Georgetown Airport. With this
week's bill, we will be able to continue making these kinds of critical
improvements at airports in Delaware and across our country.
I relatively rarely get to fly, but I commute virtually every day
back and forth from Wilmington, DE, to Washington, and I ride on Amtrak
when I do so. Today, ridership levels are at a record high, and
Delaware's region in the Northeast corridor brings in $300 million in
profits alone. So it is good this bill maintains Amtrak's national
operations and investments in its capital needs, but I believe we need
to do more. We need to step up and do more federally to invest if we
want to keep these results, not just in the Northeast but across the
country.
We have a more than $6 billion backlog to reach a state of good
repair for Amtrak. As our bridges, tunnels, and rail lines get older
and older, fixing them will only become more expensive. That is why I
intend to offer an amendment to this bill to further increase our
investment in the capital needs of Amtrak. This is critical. It is
something we need, and we need to start chipping away at this long
overdue debt we have, this unaddressed infrastructure debt, if we are
going to continue to serve our communities.
There are many other great provisions in these incredibly broad bills
that are of national and international importance. Let me just briefly
reference a few.
At home manufacturing continues to be critical to our economy and our
future, and biomanufacturing plays an increasingly important role; the
manufacturing of products and materials from renewable sources, from
plant-based sources rather than petrochemicals. For the first time,
through this bill, we will dedicate $15 million to the National Science
Foundation's budget for new biomanufacturing initiatives that will
allow us to deploy in the marketplace new inventions and innovations.
Our competitors aren't holding back on doing so. Countries from the
United Kingdom to China are ramping up their investments in new
biomanufacturing. In my view it is time for the United States to
refocus our research, to reprioritize our investments, and to stay
competitive in this vital field.
Finally, I am proud these appropriations bills also support in the
housing area funding for Community Development Block Grant--CDBG--
Programs. We used them when I was in county government in Delaware to
help rehabilitate homes, to help provide for affordable homes, and to
help strengthen and sustain jobs in our communities.
In 2013, so-called CDBG, or Community Development Block Grants,
helped 225 families. Some in this body have tried to cut CDBG, but I am
thrilled we have been able to successfully move forward and sustain its
support in this bill.
While we invest at home, these appropriations bills also make
important

[[Page S3800]]

investments abroad. One I would like to briefly highlight is in our
international food aid program, where we feed millions but can do more.
This bill provides for flexibility of our food aid that will allow it
to be delivered more efficiently, more quickly, and to feed more who
hunger around the world.
As businesses also look abroad from the United States, we are doing
more to open new markets for them. One of the investments I most value
that is in this bill in this regard is the expansion of the Foreign
Commercial Service at the Department of Commerce--in particular, its
expansion in Africa, where 7 out of 10 of the fastest growing economies
in the world are currently growing but where the United States isn't
doing enough to take advantage of these burgeoning export markets for
our products.
As chair of the African Affairs Subcommittee, I have had a chance to
see up close the great opportunities for growth and partnership that
Africa offers. There will be four new Foreign Commercial Service
offices in Angola, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Mozambique, as well as
expansion in Kenya, Ghana, Morocco, and Libya. Now we can make
investments in them jointly so our growing partnerships in the Sub-
Saharan countries I listed can thrive.
As I close, I also make one brief point about why this whole process
is important--why we need to pass these appropriations bills rather
than just continuing resolutions, which go on from year after year,
that sustain funding but do not engage the minds and skills of the
Members of this body in doing oversight of the Federal Government.
As the Federal Government changes, as our Nation's needs change, we
need to be able to ensure that our spending and our focus adapts as
well. A great example from this particular minibus bill that is on the
floor today is the Crude By Rail Safety Initiative. Within the last
year there have been a number of accidents on our rail networks that
demand our action. America is moving more and more oil and hazardous
products by rail every year, so we are putting in place an approach to
do it safely.

The Department of Transportation and Transportation Secretary Foxx
have done a great job responding with the resources and tools they
have, but Congress needs to do more. That is why this bill adds 20 new
rail and hazardous materials inspectors, adds $3 million to ensure that
oil routes are safe and sound, creates a new short-line safety
institute, improves classifications, and extends training for first
responders.
Without this appropriations bill and regular order, new and timely
investments such as these that are responsive to conditions of the
world wouldn't happen. Thus, if I might say in closing, while our
economy changes, we need to change, and we need regular order and
regular appropriations bills to be able to do that.
I again thank the chair and vice chair of the Appropriations
Committee, Senators Mikulski and Shelby, for their leadership and their
efforts to shepherd a bipartisan process forward. It is critical to our
country, our economy, and our future.
Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah is recognized.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted
to deliver my remarks in full.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
distinguished Senator Brown be permitted to speak immediately following
my remarks for 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HATCH. Thank you, Mr. President.

Guantanamo Releases

I rise today out of serious concern about the release of the five
senior Taliban commanders detained at Guantanamo and the way in which
the Obama administration has accomplished it.
These individuals that the Taliban successfully demanded the release
of in exchange for SGT Bowe Bergdahl were some of the most dangerous
terrorists in our custody. Some had close operational ties to Al Qaeda.
Others perpetrated horrifying war crimes. All were senior leaders in
the Taliban--a group with whom we remain at war.
These former detainees, the Taliban five, are only subject to a 1-
year international travel ban. It seems shockingly unrealistic to
expect that they will not seek to undo everything our brave men and
women in uniform have fought and died for in Afghanistan.
However foolish, the prospect that we might release the most
dangerous Guantanamo detainees has been a matter of national debate for
some time. President Obama and his subordinates have long espoused a
singular devotion to closing the detention facility at Guantanamo. Many
of us in Congress have remained decidedly less sanguine about this
longtime leftwing fantasy. We are wary of the dangers,
inappropriateness, and oftentimes the impossibility of prosecuting
battle-hardened terrorists in civilian court as if they were common
criminals. We are frustrated by the procedural roadblocks to pursuing
justice through military commissions. Above all else we are alarmed by
the more than one in four released detainees who have apparently
rejoined the fight. And unlike the administration, we have long been
disabused of the notion that our enemies and perennial critics would
somehow fall in love with America if we simply close Guantanamo.
With these concerns in mind, we exercised our rightful legislative
authority under the Constitution to prevent the transfer of any further
detainees out of Guantanamo. Nevertheless, the Obama administration
bitterly opposed any release restrictions. Facing incessant and intense
pressure from the administration to repeal our ban, Congress acted on a
bipartisan basis to reach a compromise--a compromise that was
extraordinarily generous to the administration's position.
Under the new law in effect--section 1035 of last year's National
Defense Authorization Act--Congress must be notified 30 days before any
detainee transfer. The notification must contain a detailed statement
of the basis of transfer, an explanation of why the transfer is in the
national security interests of the United States, and a description of
the actions taken to mitigate the risks of detainees returning to the
fight. Our subsequent funding legislation also banned the Obama
administration from using any of the appropriated money to transfer
detainees except in accordance with these agreed-upon procedures.
Despite this good-faith effort on the part of Congress to find common
ground with the President, he chose to simply disregard his statutory
obligations to inform Congress of this highly controversial release of
the Taliban five. While we should celebrate the return of any American
from Taliban captivity, the President's actions carry very troubling
consequences.
When a lawmaker animatedly denounces the President's violation of a
technical provision so wonky and seemingly unimportant as a statutory
notification requirement, many Americans might understandably dismiss
such a concern as a petty turf war--if their eyes don't glaze over
first. Although perhaps intuitive, such an impression couldn't be more
wrong.
First, notification requirements such as this one have proven
critically beneficial to national security decisionmaking, particularly
in the national security context. The most prominent example is our
oversight of the intelligence community. For more than 30 years, prior
congressional consultation has been a key foundation of ensuring
effective policymaking on intelligence-gathering activities and covert
operations.
On these incredibly sensitive and weighty issues, the executive
branch is required to brief certain members of the legislative branch
on all such proposed activities before they happen. The discussion of
such highly classified information necessitates a strict observance of
secrecy, which Congress has a long tradition of respecting. Discussions
behind these closed doors provide the benefits of deliberation outside
of the fishbowl of the ordinary policy process. In this setting concern
about national security and the wisdom of the contemplated action
dominate. Politics takes a back seat. The administration can modify or
cancel proposed actions without the costs that attach to public policy
pronouncements. And by assuaging our concerns before execution, the
administration

[[Page S3801]]

gets the congressional buy-in that is so necessary when these sorts of
difficult decisions are taken.
Although the system certainly has its critics on all sides, I remain
a passionate believer in its overall effectiveness. I should know: I
served on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence longer than any
other Republican ever has. For years I was intimately involved in this
process and witnessed up close just how well it works to produce good
policy. In the context of national security--an area in which our
Nation regularly faces so many critical and difficult decisions--we
need a well-functioning congressional oversight process to ensure our
safety and security, now more than ever.

But even beyond improving an administration's national security
decisionmaking, we should genuinely concern ourselves as a nation that
formal restraints on power be observed by the coordinate branches of
our government. Whether the administration agrees with the restrictions
on its power to release Guantanamo detainees, those restrictions remain
enshrined in a duly-enacted Federal statute, and the President remains
obligated to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.
To ignore the law and the President's constitutional obligation to
see that the law is enforced may seem enticing in an instance of
apparent pressing need, but our Constitution provides no such
authority.
Consider the wisdom of Justice Jackson in his seminal concurrence in
the Steel Seizure case:

The appeal . . . that we declare the existence of inherent
powers [out of necessity] to meet an emergency asks us to do
what many think would be wise, although it is something the
forefathers omitted. They knew what emergencies were. . . .
[T]hey made no express provision for exercise of
extraordinary authority because of a crisis. I do not think
we rightfully may so amend their work, and, if we could, I am
not convinced it would be wise to do so. . . .

Indeed, the central organizing principle of the Federal Government is
the division of powers and authorities between the different branches.
As a 21st-century American, it is far too easy to treat the separation
of powers as a cliche confined to the civics classroom rather than a
meaningful cornerstone of our liberty. But we should recall Madison's
warning in Federalist 47 that ``[t]he accumulation of all powers,
legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of
one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or
elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.''
To disregard these central precepts of constitutional government is
to vitiate the barriers protecting us from arbitrary government action
and to undermine the rule of law.
We in the Congress should make no apology for zealously guarding the
legal prerogatives of the body in which we serve, for, as Madison also
warned in Federalist 51, ``[T]he great security against a gradual
concentration of the several powers in the same department consists in
giving to those who administer each department the necessary
constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of
the others.''
Nevertheless, out of respect for a coordinate branch of government,
the Obama administration's arguments excusing its action in releasing
these five dangerous Taliban detainees merits thoughtful consideration
and analysis. I have never been shy about defending the powers of the
President when exercised lawfully, no matter how unpopular.
Nevertheless, such an examination of the Obama administration's
explanations reveals not only the ridiculousness of its arguments but
also demonstrates deeply concerning attitudes and priorities that
guided the administration's action.
The Obama administration has advanced multiple distinct arguments
about the legality of its move to release these senior Taliban leaders.
Advancing multiple, sometimes contradictory arguments does not exactly
instill confidence in the administration's commitment to its legal
obligations. Some have been patently absurd, such as the suggestion
from the White House Press Secretary that briefing Members of Congress
more than 2 years ago about the potential for the detainee exchange
constituted sufficient compliance with the detailed statutory
notification requirements for an actual decision to transfer.
I want to examine the two more sophisticated rationales advanced by
the administration because it is in the details of these arguments that
my gravest concerns arise.
First, I want to consider the National Security Council spokeswoman's
written statement to the press asserting that ``Congress did not intend
that the Administration would be barred from taking the action it did
in these circumstances.''
Trying to read Congress's mind when interpreting the law, as the
administration purports to do, has always struck me as absolutely
absurd. Article I of our Constitution creates a legislative process
that today includes 536 different individuals. To assume the existence
of a single intent among so many different minds--all with different
interests, different purposes, different philosophies, and different
methods--runs counter to basic logic, not to mention the theory of
representative government at the foundation of our Constitution. This
notion that we should be governed by easily manipulated arguments about
what Congress supposedly would have wanted long justified the hijacking
of the law to undermine the clear meaning of the text.
Fighting this abuse of the law and the Constitution has animated so
much of my work over the past 38 years. We have made enormous progress
in reestablishing the bedrock principle that we are governed not by
vague claims about intent but, rather, by the words themselves--words
that have a fixed and discernible meaning, with the power to bind us
all--including the President. I will continue to fight for this
principle as long as I have the honor to serve our people in this
country.
In this light, a proper reading of the detainee transfer and release
notification requirements includes no such exception that the Obama
administration imagines exists. We should always be skeptical of
arguments assuming unwritten exceptions to laws, and here the relevant
factors counsel strongly against assuming such an exception into
existence.
The statute uses strong universally applicable language: ``the
Secretary of Defense shall notify''; ``each notification shall include,
at a minimum''; ``the Secretary of Defense may transfer . . . only if''
and the like.
The text of the provision is particularly detailed. This detail,
especially when read in conjunction with the numerous other incredibly
detailed provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act and its
many predecessors--many of which contained detailed exceptions--
demonstrates that Congress is quite capable of creating exceptions to a
provision like this one but instead actively chose not to include one
here.
Finally, as had been clearly established, lawmakers were aware of the
administration's desire to conduct exactly this sort of a transaction
before the beginning of the legislative process. To assume such an
exception, when the Congress was aware of the administration's desire
and proffered need for such a provision but chose not to provide one,
would completely undermine the notion that Congress has the power to
choose its preferred policies by legislation.
Put another way, how could Congress have been clearer that no
detainee transfers could be accomplished outside its established
process? If Congress's bright-line rule can be wished away by the Obama
administration in this case, when can the Congress act to establish a
policy to which the administration cannot carve out exceptions--
exceptions that destroy the very core of the law?
In advancing this rather ridiculous attempt to misconstrue the
transfer and release notification requirements, the Obama
administration is simply avoiding making their more controversial
argument explicit. The administration's Pentagon General Counsel
admitted as much last week.
This argument centers on the President's contention that ``in certain
circumstances'' the transfer and release notification requirements
``would violate constitutional separation of powers principles.''

[[Page S3802]]

Other senior administration officials have made statements, albeit
hesitantly, invoking the President's authority under the Constitution
to disregard the statute. Although the administration attempts to cloak
it in the complex obscurity of statutory construction, this is the real
issue at hand.
As a threshold matter, the rule of law and the separation of powers
both depend on the longstanding notion that an unconstitutional statute
is no law at all. We should take the Obama administration's arguments
about the constitutionality of the notification requirement as applied
to the Taliban five trade very seriously.
When appropriate, I have defended the President's authority to act in
contravention of certain statutes. And I absolutely stand by the
positions I have taken before--no matter how unpopular they have
sometimes been.
I feel it is incumbent upon me to lay out my case of why I am so
disturbed by the administration's actions here not to deflect any
charge of hypocrisy for personal benefit but because I feel so
passionately about the Obama administration's overreach in this and so
many other cases. To risk having these arguments dismissed without
serious consideration of their merits would be unbearable. I feel
compelled to lay out my case in some detail.
Here, the Obama administration's arguments fail on the
administration's own terms and in so doing demonstrate some disturbing
trends at work within this administration.
Now, the Obama administration has not advanced the notion that the
transfer and release notification requirements are always
unconstitutional. Instead, the administration has been very careful to
suggest that the notification requirements unconstitutionally
encumbered the executive branch because of the specific circumstances
at issue in the Taliban five trade. The general terms of the Obama
administration's rationale initially seemed potentially reasonable:
that it feared Sergeant Bergdahl would be endangered unless the
administration moved swiftly and secretly to make the trade, and
compliance with the notification requirement would have prevented the
President from exercising his lawful authority to order the detainee
swap.
However, the logic of the administration's rationale falls apart
under closer inspection of the two key factors that were cited as
creating the specific circumstances in disregarding the statute: the
need for swiftness and the need for secrecy.
First, the need for swift action. The Obama administration has--at
various times--suggested that Sergeant Bergdahl's health was in rapid
and accelerating decline to the point of necessitating immediate
rescue, and that the Taliban would refuse to agree to Bergdahl's
release unless the administration executed the trade quickly. After
examining what evidence the administration provided us, a number of my
colleagues from both parties, including the senior Senator from
California, the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,
have expressed significant doubt about these claims.
But even if we accept the Obama administration's claims that there
existed a need for swift action, that when faced with this realization,
compliance with the 30-day notification requirement would have
endangered the potential for recovering Sergeant Bergdahl, and that
these are the sort of circumstances where the Constitution authorizes
the executive branch to act in defiance of a notification requirement--
even if we accept everything the administration suggests, their
argument doesn't totally nullify the administration's obligations under
the statutory notification requirement.
Under the administration's own logic that the notification
requirement is not unconstitutional per se but, rather, only under
certain circumstances, the executive branch still has a duty to take
care that the laws be faithfully executed. Thus, even if it is
authorized to order a transfer or release of detainees in less than the
30 days mandated by the statute, the President remains obligated to
comply as substantially and faithfully as possible, mitigating any
anticipated breach by keeping Congress abreast of negotiations and
complying with the notification requirements as soon as any transfer
decision is made or undertaken.
But that clearly is not the case here. Instead, we know from the
statements of senior administration officials that the administration
deliberately withheld notification from Congress until after the trade
occurred--months after negotiations to make this trade resumed and
intensified, weeks after the detainee transfer agreement with Qatar was
signed, and days after the final decision itself was taken. Given that
the administration accepts the constitutionality of the legality of the
notification requirement generally, its actions represent a direct
effort to undermine the obvious core purpose of the law: giving
Congress the opportunity to raise its objections and lobby against an
ill-advised release or transfer before it happens.
This is not maximally faithful compliance. This is outright flouting
of the statute.
The administration, though, has also claimed a need for secrecy--
specifically, that informing Congress would endanger the prospects for
Sergeant Bergdahl's safe return. I take this concern for secrecy
extraordinarily seriously, and I know that every one of my colleagues
does as well. Preserving secrecy as not to endanger ongoing operations
remains an absolutely vital cornerstone of congressional oversight of
national security issues, and my long service on the intelligence
committee engendered in me a particular appreciation for how necessary
it is.
But administrations have for decades briefed Congress on
extraordinarily sensitive matters. Take the Bin Laden raid. It is hard
to think of an operation more sensitive than that. In both the Taliban
five swap and the Bin Laden operation, the mission objectives as well
as the safety of our troops would have both been completely
unattainable if details leaked. Yet, even before the Bin Laden
operation, the administration kept Congress regularly briefed as
required by law, which is, to me, testament to the extraordinary
resiliency of our oversight structure.

Even those of us who have long defended robust executive powers in
the national security context have long asserted that:

The constitutional basis for withholding notification can
only be invoked credibly, by its own terms, in very rare
circumstances. A generalized fear that Congress might leak
would not by itself suffice, because the same fear could be
invoked equally from all [secret operations].

In the case at hand, the Obama administration accepts the
constitutionality of congressional notification requirements in most
circumstances. Yet it has also failed to articulate any particular
reason why notifying Congress would impose a particular problem when
compared to other sensitive operations. But the implication that it did
not notify Congress just because of a generalized fear of leaks not
only disregards decades of successful congressional oversight of
intelligence collection and covert operations but also makes an
exceedingly radical argument that would give the President essentially
arbitrary power to ignore what he acknowledges is a valid law.
In this case, though, the administration's actions wholly undermine
the notion that there was an unusual secrecy concern at issue here.
First, consider that the administration itself estimated that between
80 and 90 executive branch officials were told of the decision to
release the Taliban five ahead of time--in an administration that leaks
sensitive national security information like a sieve, but zero--zero--
Members of Congress were informed.
The Secretary of Defense and his General Counsel even admitted that
Justice Department lawyers were told of the upcoming trade for the very
purpose of keeping even a few key Members of Congress in the dark. In
light of the statutory requirement to notify just a key handful of
Members of Congress, this situation appears flatly absurd and certainly
inconsistent with maximally faithful compliance with the statute.
Furthermore, the administration had already discussed with Congress
the potential for such a deal. They ran into bipartisan opposition, as
expressed in the bipartisan letter of early 2012 signed by the top
Democrat and top Republican on both the House and Senate intelligence
committees. In response to that letter, media reports indicate that the
then-Secretary of State

[[Page S3803]]

and former Senator from New York promised the administration would
pursue further congressional consultations before making the exchange.
And in 2013 the White House Press Secretary responded to a question
about trading Sergeant Bergdahl for Taliban detainees in stark terms
promising: ``We would not make any decisions about transfer of any
detainees without consulting Congress.''
So why the more than 2 years of radio silence from the Obama
administration? Why the disregard of the Federal statute when the
administration's arguments for doing so in this case are so
disturbingly unconvincing? Why wait until after the decision could not
be challenged before telling Congress?
After reviewing these events, the answer seems obvious. President
Obama and his subordinates illegitimately chose not to inform Congress
until after the decision was irrevocable because they knew that
Congress would object. Two administration officials told Bloomberg News
as much: The failure to notify key Members of Congress in advance was a
deliberate move to skirt opposition to releasing the five Taliban
prisoners.
While the vigor of the Obama administration's defense of the deal has
shocked many, it has not shocked me. To this President, this deal
represents the apex of responsible winding down of the conflict in
Afghanistan--not only in returning Sergeant Bergdahl but also in
releasing the Taliban five, whom the administration has eagerly sought
to release so often before.
Just take it from the majority leader who said he was ``glad to get
rid of these five people.'' And for a President and an administration
that have demonstrated endless reservoirs of faith in the goodwill of
hostile forces abroad, there is also surely hope--no matter how
ridiculous--that giving into the Taliban's demands will somehow inspire
a renewed interest on the part of the Taliban in peace talks, as if
that did anything but demonstrate how the Taliban's current tactics
will get them concessions from the Obama administration.
President Obama has on many occasions annunciated very clear beliefs
of our detention operations at Guantanamo, articulating a nearly
religious conviction that detention of Taliban, Al Qaeda, and
associated forces under the law of armed conflict is a beacon of this
nation's evils to the world. And although the administration has faced
immense political pressure to reconsider from many of us, I have
absolutely no doubt President Obama intends on following through with
his long-time, recently repeated promise to make every effort to close
Guantanamo during his remaining time in office.
Many of my colleagues and I share a diametrically opposed view from
the President's--one that is more focused on securing the stability of
the Afghan Government that our men and women in uniform fought so hard
to establish. But in our honest disagreements, President Obama only
sees reflexive intransigence. On Guantanamo and on so many other
matters, President Obama has proven himself unable to accept good-faith
differences with those of us elected to a coordinate and coequal branch
of government. This frustration has motivated the President to enact
his agenda unilaterally. In doing so, he not only poisons the well of
congressional oversight of sensitive national security matters, as
troubling as that is, but also by arrogating power with casual
disregard for the structural restraints of the Constitution, he
stretches our longstanding laws and norms past the breaking point.

My allegiance to constitutional government and the rule of law
compels me to stand up to this overreach by President Obama and the
executive branch. I will continue to speak out against what I strongly
believe are serious instances of overreach by this administration--as I
have already done on immigration, sentencing, education, Benghazi, and,
of course, ObamaCare. I urge all of my colleagues to join me, for what
is at stake is not just our rightful authority to get done what our
constituents sent us here to do but also the very precepts at the core
of our Constitution.
That is why I have joined my colleague, the junior Senator from Ohio,
to cosponsor a resolution declaring that the Obama administration
violated the statute and calling for an investigation into the matter.
With all that is at stake, registering our objection in this way could
not be more important.
Additionally, in light of these troubling events--which also involve
the Justice Department, which should hold the separation of powers in
the highest regard--I should note I found myself now unable to support
the nomination of Peter Kadzik to be Assistant Attorney General for
Legislative Affairs. My deference to the administration's choice of
appointees can only go so far, and I cannot support a nominee who has
so persistently refused to share the Department's memos on the release
of the Taliban five. Absent a real commitment from Mr. Kadzik and the
Justice Department to respect Congress's role under the Constitution, I
felt compelled to oppose his nomination.
On their own terms, the Obama administration violated the law by
releasing the Taliban five--dangerous men who are sure to return to the
fight. In doing so, he not only endangered the lives of our men and
women in uniform but also jeopardized everything they fought and died
for in Afghanistan. My commitment is to them and to the Constitution's
division of powers and authorities amongst the coordinate and coequal
branches of government which they fight to protect. These loyalties are
what have compelled me to stand up to the Obama administration.
I urge all of my colleagues, regardless of party, to join me in this
fight. Too much is at stake to let petty partisan concerns and blind
political loyalty to the President take precedence over the weighty
matters of national security and constitutional authority that are at
stake, and especially when one considers how much this branch of
government is being ignored on almost a daily basis by this out-of-
control White House.
Democrats and Republicans have to put a stop to this, and they have
to start standing up on these issues or we are in danger of losing the
Constitution itself.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coons). The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, yesterday I chaired, along with Congressman
Smith, a Republican from New Jersey, the Congressional-Executive
Committee on China. At this hearing, Terry Sefranek, a Clevelander
actually from Brooklyn Heights, OH, a suburb of my city, submitted
written testimony. The hearing was to address the concerns that
American consumers, pet owners, farmers, and parents have about the
safety of pet food, pet treats, processed chicken, and animal feed from
China. Ms. Sefranek joined me then today on a call with some national
press to talk about this issue. I wish to share briefly the actual
words of Ms. Sefranek's testimony. She said:

In December of 2011, my little Sampson, a healthy, lively
and hilarious fox terrier mutt was showing signs that he was
not well. He seemed withdrawn, and his appetite was
decreasing, and all he wanted was to drink water and urinate.
His health rapidly decreased.
We took him to the veterinarian 3 times in the next two
weeks. Finally, blood tests revealed horrible results.
Sampson was in acute renal failure.
The Doc gave him intravenous fluids for six long,
tormenting days. And then, the agonizing decision, the
hardest, most heartbreaking decision. With my husband and
children around us, I held my little buddy in my arms for the
last time, as he was euthanized.

Ms. Sefranek continues:

One day during this time, I saw a local family on the news,
holding up a bag of Waggin' Train Chicken Jerky Treats. Their
dog had eaten them and died of renal failure a few weeks
earlier. Their new little puppy was fed leftovers from the
same bag--and became ill right away. As soon as they stopped
the treats, he recovered.
I was floored. It was the exact same treat that Sampson had
eaten; it has been his new favorite, and I was giving him
them as a treat for about a month. I'm sure that was the only
major change in his diet.

Sixty-two million households in this country have a pet. Americans
raise 83 million dogs and 96 million cats whom, as is the case with my
wife's and my dog Franklin, we treat, in many ways, as members of the
family. That is why it is alarming that since 2007, the FDA has been
aware of the deaths and illnesses of thousands of pets, but we still
don't know what is causing it.
Last month the FDA said that reports of illnesses had increased to
5,600

[[Page S3804]]

pets, including 1,000 dog deaths, and now three human illnesses.
Pet owners shouldn't have to worry about the safety of the food they
give their pets. When we go to a pet store, go to a grocery store and
buy pet food, we shouldn't have to worry that pet food could actually
endanger that dog's, that cat's health.
While no cause has been identified, the illnesses many think are
linked to pet treats from China, which raises questions. If something
says it is made in China, can we be assured that it is safe? If it says
``made in the USA,'' what exactly does that mean? Is everything being
done to keep these pet treats safe?
Last year the USDA declared that China can export processed, cooked
chicken into the United States. This paves the way for chicken sourced
in the United States to be shipped to China for processing and then
sold back to American consumers. While no such chicken has yet entered
our shores, it is possible that very soon this processed chicken could
end up on our dinner tables and in our school lunchrooms.
Researchers are exploring a possible link also between animal feed
from China and the PEDv that has wiped out 10 percent of piglets--10
percent of our young pig population. It has been a year already and no
definitive cause has been identified.
Americans want and require better answers. We want and require
clearer labels and the peace of mind that the foods we import from the
People's Republic of China are safe.
This is why I am introducing an amendment to the agriculture
appropriations bill to ask the Food and Drug Administration and the
U.S. Department of Agriculture about the status of inspectors' visas to
China and how many are currently inspecting there.
We heard in testimony yesterday an uncertainty from FDA and USDA
about our ability to get the number of inspectors we need into China to
inspect the processing of chickens in China. I urged the FDA to
investigate and determine the cause of these pet illnesses and PEDv,
and the companies to ensure the highest safety standards.
When we buy something that says ``made in the United States of
America,'' whether it is food for human consumption or whether it is
processed food for human consumption or whether it is processed food
for our pets, we should be confident that food is actually made,
processed, and put together in the United States of America. In our
testimony yesterday, we couldn't quite be 100 percent sure that is the
case.
A couple of things need to go on there. One, the packaging and the
labeling needs to be believable and credible and it needs to be true.
Second, those companies that import--it used to be that companies would
produce in the United States with food safety rules we have in the
United States--drug safety, food safety--customers, buyers, and
supermarkets that buy this food with ``made in the USA'' labels knew
that because we have a good FDA, because we have a good U.S. Department
of Agriculture, because we have good food safety rules in our country--
we knew that ``made in the USA'' was a label we could trust.
Then companies in this country began to do something in the last 20
years--especially since Congress passed Permanent Normal Trade
Relations with China. Companies began to shut down production in places
such as Rocky River and Maple Heights and Garfield Heights and Brooklyn
Heights, OH, and move that production to Wahan or Shihan or Beijing, or
Shanghai, China, and then sell those products back to the United
States. If companies are going to do that, costing our communities jobs
in far too many cases, hurting families and workers who lose those
jobs--if companies are going to do that, they need to be responsible in
the production in those countries. They need to be responsible when
pharmaceuticals are made in China by U.S. companies and then shipped
back to the United States. Those pharmaceuticals need to be safe.
We know in the case of a drug called Heparin which people in Toledo,
OH, took, and a number of people died from it. All over the country
they took this drug. It was a blood thinner made in China by a company
that, frankly, didn't know--couldn't reach back and determine and find
out where all the ingredients for these drugs were made.
So there are a couple of points. One is whether it is dog treats,
whether it is food that humans consume in our country or whether it is
pharmaceuticals, our regulatory structure needs to make sure these are
safe. If they are made in the United States, we are much more confident
they are safe, because government rules and regulations in the United
States--despite what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle
always like to say about government regulation--we know our food supply
is pretty darn good. But if companies are going to outsource that
production, move it to China and then sell it back to the United
States, we need these rules in place. We need these companies to be
reliable and liable ultimately in what they are doing. So if a company
is going to bring a drug into the United States--an American company
producing in China and bringing it back to the United States--they are
responsible for the contents, and they are responsible for the safety
of those drugs. Their executives, those companies, should be liable if
they are producing that food. Whether it is for human consumption or
whether it is for pets or whether it is pharmaceuticals, all of that
matters.
Americans, again, should not be worried about the safety of the food
they put on the dinner table nor the safety of the pet food they give
to their dogs and cats.
Mr. President, I note the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Blumenthal). The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Children's Health Insurance

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise to speak about children's health
insurance, an issue we hear about periodically but not nearly enough
and an issue that will fast become a critically important question
before both bodies, the Senate especially, because of what could happen
to the Children's Health Insurance Program, which we call at the State
level the CHIP program, known more commonly in Washington as S-CHIP,
one of the great advancements in health care in recent American
history.
We can go back 25 or 50 years, and other than Medicare and Medicaid
and maybe a few other examples, VA health care, children's health care
has been a great success and I would say forthrightly a bipartisan
success, but we need to keep it that way. I have a particular interest
in this program because of the experience we have in Pennsylvania, as
tens of thousands of families have benefited from the Children's Health
Insurance Program that was signed into law and advocated strongly by my
father when he served as the Governor of Pennsylvania. At the time
Pennsylvania was a model for the country. This was the early 1990s I am
talking about.
When he signed that bill into law, Pennsylvania became one of the
largest States with a new Children's Health Insurance Program which
then became a model for the Nation. Here is how that happened. In 1997,
Congress passed the bipartisan Children's Health Insurance Program
signed into law in August of 1997 by President Clinton. The original
bill was cosponsored by the late Senator Ted Kennedy, from
Massachusetts of course, and the Senator from Utah, still serving, Mr.
Hatch.
They worked together, along with many others in a bipartisan fashion
to produce important legislation for our children. Since that time this
program has worked as a remarkable public-private partnership to
deliver critical health care to children. So in addition to being
bipartisan, it was public and private together.
Care such as well child visits, immunizations, physical and
occupational therapy, home health care and medical equipment and more
were all available for the first time for many families. So it helps
children not only have health insurance and health coverage, but it
helps them be well and to stay well

[[Page S3805]]

over a long period of time, providing them with care they need and
giving their parents something government does not do enough; it
provides a measure of peace of mind to parents and to families.
In 2009, the President signed into law a bipartisan reauthorization
of the Children's Health Insurance Program. The most recent year of
data indicates that CHIP covered over 8.1 million children over the
course of a year. Consider that. With this program more than 8.1
million children have health care that would not have it any other way
in the absence of this program.
Even with the progress we have made in providing new health insurance
options in the last couple of years as a result of the Affordable Care
Act, the rate of uninsured Americans overall is still over 13 percent.
That is the lowest rate since 2008 but still too high. The rate of
uninsured children is 9 percent, a much lower rate obviously than the
overall rate but still too high.
CHIP has played an important role in increasing access to insurance
for children. The Web site for the Pennsylvania program, which is
www.chipcoverspakids.com, discusses several stories from Pennsylvania
parents about how this Children's Health Insurance Program in the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has helped one particular family, in this
case, and many others. As you read the stories--here is one story. I
will sum it up briefly. The CHIP program has been great.
So said one family member:

We know that this is quality insurance and we are finally
able to sleep at night knowing that our kids can be seen by
excellent pediatricians. I do not know what we would have
done without CHIP. Now my children can play sports and go
away to camp like other kids and if they get hurt, CHIP is
there for them.

So said a parent. That is probably the best summation or the best
recitation of all of the reasons it is so important to make sure we
preserve the Children's Health Insurance Program and preserve the
funding for it and preserve any strategy that will ensure that children
have the health care they need.
So CHIP is always going to be there for those kids. That is what we
need to make sure that we hold on to. I, similar to so many here and
many in both parties, have consistently advocated for the Children's
Health Insurance Program. I am pleased it has been authorized through
fiscal year 2019. However--this is why I am standing here today.
However, we were able only to secure funding through 2015. So the
program is reauthorized to 2019 but funded only through fiscal year
2015.
That deadline is approaching. Now is the time to act, again in the
right bipartisan way, to preserve the Children's Health Insurance
Program. It is time to make sure we ensure that CHIP will continue to
be funded through the authorization, at a minimum, through fiscal year
2019.
Senator Rockefeller, one of the great champions of this program over
many years now, decades literally, introduced legislation last week
that I wholeheartedly support. That is an understatement. There is not
a Senator in this Chamber who should not support his legislation, the
CHIP Extension Act of 2014, S. 2461.
The legislation extends funding for CHIP through fiscal year 2019,
bringing the funding in line with the authorization. I cannot stress
enough the need to pass this legislation this year, pass this 2014
legislation that deals with this 2015 problem. State budget cycles are
such that if we wait until next year, when the funding is about to
expire, we will be jeopardizing health insurance for millions of
American children.
States need time to plan their budgets and cannot operate under the
uncertainty of a funding threat to such an important program. I thank
Senator Rockefeller for his tireless commitment to the Children's
Health Insurance Program over many years--as I said, over several
decades. I thank him for his work in introducing this legislation.
I urge all of my colleagues in both parties to support Senator
Rockefeller's legislation, the CHIP Extension Act of 2014, S. 2461, to
make sure children's health insurance will always be there for the
children who are covered by that program.
In conclusion, this is very simple. We have people in both parties
who have spent a lot of their careers saying how much they care about
children. They give speeches, they campaign, they talk about kids. We
all talk about kids in very positive ways. That is wonderful. But the
test is how we act and what actions we take. That usually means how we
vote. So if someone votes for this bill, they can stand and say they
have taken a substantial step in the direction of ensuring that
children will have the health care they need. If they do not, and they
vote against it, I do not think they can say that.
If someone votes against it, I think they have to have a substitute
for it, some measure that will provide the same coverage for the same
number of children by a different method. If they cannot come up with
that, they cannot stand and say they are for kids. They cannot stand
and say they care about our children and their future.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

____________________